15 replies to this topic

[Violent Nick]

I bought some Shadowhawks earlier as they were on offer. This was nice PGI, thankyou..

However, I think someone from PGI needs to play in some completely un-upgraded mechs for a day, just to get a taste. It is total BULL***T.

We've had tremendous performance inflation over the past year with Clans, Modules, Quirks etc... and yet you seriously put new guys in these mechs. As far as I'm aware you're not handing out 50K GXP and 750K Cbills per match so.... maybe PGI should look at this first thing tomorrow morning?

To be honest, I probably won't buy any new mechs for a while now. It's torture.
Yeah, a bit of grind is fine and it's nice to have a sense of achievement but really, what the hell are you trying to do? I took a new player under my wing today, or tried to.. He got minced every match because he was so uncompetitive. Fair enough that's the group queue, but it's happening in Solo too and it is actually ruining games regularly due to the total imbalance amongst a given team.

Just my 2 Pennies... I'm about to start up a food business; If I ran it like PGI it would be 'Welcome folks, just wanna let you know it's a 3hr wait for a table, you'll need to bring your own cutlery and service charge is 100%.. and I'm really poor.. can I have some money??'

That's the offering for newbies in a nutshell in my opinion. What do you guys think?
Am I exaggerating here? Coz I just thought after 1hr... 'F**K TH*S!!'


([color=#959595]Playing MWO should feel like being Jean Claude Van Damme in Universal Soldier, not Edward Norton in the American History X s3x scene.. The prison shower part, just in case there's another scene I don't remember. [/color] [color=#959595] )[/color]

Edited by Nick86, 24 October 2014 - 09:39 AM.

[Trevor Belmont]

Thanks for sharing.

[Bishop Steiner]

Trevor Belmont, on 24 October 2014 - 09:01 AM, said:

Thanks for sharing.

personally, starting to agree with Koniving, they should remove the "skill" unlocks from mechs entirely. Go back to the lumbering feel that they wanted in CB. Find different things for the "Skill Tree" to affect.

[Violent Nick]

Yeah, no worries, sharing is caring...

But what do you think:

A) about the state of un-upgraded mechs and general purchase/grind.
about how new players would react to this mountain of grind? Is that fair or smart from PGI?

I just think that, if I find it this demoralising as an experienced player... you know.

[Thorn Hallis]

Bishop Steiner, on 24 October 2014 - 09:03 AM, said:

personally, starting to agree with Koniving, they should remove the "skill" unlocks from mechs entirely. Go back to the lumbering feel that they wanted in CB. Find different things for the "Skill Tree" to affect.

While I agree with Koniving, I don't think that "unskilled" 'Mechs have such a tremendous disadvantage as the OP suggests. Upgrade wise...well, we all had to start once.

Edited by Thorn Hallis, 24 October 2014 - 09:07 AM.

[Violent Nick]

Bishop Steiner, on 24 October 2014 - 09:03 AM, said:

personally, starting to agree with Koniving, they should remove the "skill" unlocks from mechs entirely. Go back to the lumbering feel that they wanted in CB. Find different things for the "Skill Tree" to affect.

Personally, I would put all mechs in a state of 'Master'. What the Skill Tier system provides PGI in MC, it's gotta at least lose them more in terms of new players. Just sucks the fun out of it.

Playing MWO should feel like being Jean Claude Van Damme in Universal Soldier, not Edward Norton in the American History X s3x scene.. (The prison shower part, just in case there's another scene I don't remember. )

[Ph30nix]

There are plenty of mech Models that are geared towards new players choosing to spend MC.

They are called Champions. You can also use a hero as well but those while they usually come with upgrades aren't optimized.
there is also the Starter packs which i think each comes with a champ right? if not booo

But after that one part of the game is BUILDING UP YOUR MECH!!! yes it can be annoying and tedious at times but its part of the progression.

Getting upgrades and differnt equipment is basically your leveling time if you want to skip that then spend your MC on champs.

Oh and you dont need a bunch of upgrades to be viable in a mech now true STOCK will usually get stomped in a game VS customized mechs. That doesn't mean it takes a lot of $$$ to get them to a useful point especially if your smart about it.

Dont try to buy an XL for each variant of a mech at first, get one and shuffle it between the mechs if you dont want any down time then buy 2.
Don't be afraid to strip a mech you arent planning on using and using those parts on a mech you are using.

In the end as long as you customize your mech some upgrades are just a bonus. With few exceptions you will not see a big difference with/without them. Take a truly skilled player and take away all his modules, mech skills upgrades and he will probably perform at about the same level.

Edited by Ph30nix, 24 October 2014 - 09:10 AM.

[Hoax415]

I don't agree with the OP at all but there is no doubt that compared to the way back days when we all started in stock mechs and modules didn't exist to now...

Stock mechs are way way way worse versus the field than they used to be.

And yes, that creates situations where oblivious newbies buy a new mech, then hit drop in their new mech, then have less than zero fun because without endo+DHS+skills+modules that mech is gutter trash worthless and just a cbill pinata for the other side.

Its one of the huge problems of the NPE, new players aren't taught to not buy mechs until they can afford to kit them out, they aren't taught how to kit them out (can you imagine trying to build a mech not knowing how it works using UI2.0 mechlab? The horror). They aren't even given enough cadet cash to make a mistake or two and correct it.

But why the OP, who is a vet of the game, is crying that stock mechs suck? I'm as lost as anyone. Yeah they suck bro. Yeah the first few games when you don't yet even have anchor turn or the two heat skills basic'd can be pretty rough depending on the mech. So what is your point?

Edited by Hoax415, 24 October 2014 - 09:13 AM.

[Riverboat Sam]

I totally agree that the process of leveling up a mech takes two to three times longer under the new rewards system. It used to be semi-brutal under the old system. Now it's unbearable. I have no idea why PGI punished people trying to level up their mechs so harshly. That's the new guys for the most part.

To be clear, I'm NOT talking about C-Bill rewards, so please don't post about how your C-Bill earnings are still OK. I'm talking specifically about earning enough XP to level up three variants of a chassis. It has become brutal beyond reason.

[STEF_]

To be totally honest, I love to grind to unlock skills.
It's part of the game, I like it.
You as a pilot have a new mech and t must get used to it, know it better, learn your new chassis, etc.
Guess what chassis I liked more to grow up?

SHD.

[Tezcatli]

Someone else suggested in a different thread the idea of cheaper modules that new players could get easier to fill in for the, oh so expensive, modules like Radar Dep which is the go to flame whenever someone complains about LRMs.

As for the skills. Unless they get rid of them. How can we bridge the gap for new players?

Edited by Tezcatli, 24 October 2014 - 09:16 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Thorn Hallis, on 24 October 2014 - 09:06 AM, said:

While I agree with Koniving, I don't think that "unskilled" 'Mechs have such a tremendous disadvantage as the OP suggests. Upgrade wise...well, we all had to start once.

Seems hit and miss. SOme mechs, never really noticed that much. Others, like the SHD in question? It is pretty noticeable. Pre-Nerf VTRs, too. Just as two examples. But some,. like my Vindicators? Felt pretty nimble before the Skill increases.

*Shrugs*

Nick86, on 24 October 2014 - 09:09 AM, said:

Personally, I would put all mechs in a state of 'Master'. What the Skill Tier system provides PGI in MC, it's gotta at least lose them more in terms of new players. Just sucks the fun out of it.

Playing MWO should feel like being Jean Claude Van Damme in Universal Soldier, not Edward Norton in the American History X s3x scene.. (The prison shower part, just in case there's another scene I don't remember. )

See, where Kon is coming from, and I am starting to agree is this: The Issue is TTK, which almost everyone seems to feel is too fast. Making Mechs more agile, tends to lower TTK, not improve it, as with few exceptions, the mobility doesn't help enough to avoid fire. But it can be huge in ones ability to rack fast enough to hit a faster unit.

Mind you, it would have to be looked at, because we don't want the Spider for instance, just coring out fat Atlases willy nilly, but in general, mechs get TOO agile.

[Violent Nick]

Ph30nix, on 24 October 2014 - 09:09 AM, said:

In the end as long as you customize your mech some upgrades are just a bonus. With few exceptions you will not see a big difference with/without them. Take a truly skilled player and take away all his modules, mech skills upgrades and he will probably perform at about the same level.

Yeah, I get everything else in this post and most of it is common sense but I'm not new.. I got literally over 200m cbills worth of junk just at a guess.. The crux of what I'm saying is actually, take away your upgrades, skills, modules and you're toast. (Or Edward Norton in my above reply..) Even being experienced and dare I say it, good, I would not want to go up against an upgraded guy in a new un-tiered mech. Now, this does invariably happen in games and even when you take the fact that we have ELO blah blah into account, the new guys are gonna be turning away in droves. This game has a lot going for it.. why is it not a massive game? Various reasons obviously, like everything for the past 2 yrs.. At the core of that, is that PGI don't seem to have a 'FEEL' for their game. Noticed the Nerf sagas??? Why does that happen? Why do we get 2 second Clan laser burn times, then have everyone go nuts and stop using them? How does that come about? It comes about because PGI don't 'feel' their game. (Relatively speaking of course, and to be honest, I'm not actually blaming them..) BUT...this has to stop surely if we're gonna get a bigger, better game. Most of you must through your experiences, see what I'm getting at?

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I just think that the grind-fest is a negative experience, exacerbated by the steep learning curve for noobs, to the point of being damaging for PGI and for us all.

[Metus regem]

Bishop Steiner, on 24 October 2014 - 09:18 AM, said:

Seems hit and miss. SOme mechs, never really noticed that much. Others, like the SHD in question? It is pretty noticeable. Pre-Nerf VTRs, too. Just as two examples. But some,. like my Vindicators? Felt pretty nimble before the Skill increases.

*Shrugs*

For Clan side, I have un-upgraded Summoners and they actually feel more nimble than Elited Timber Wolves, it's very odd... I mean both have the same speed, just Summoners feel like they are floating...

[Bishop Steiner]

...................and welcome to K-town?

Little surprised as this wasn't really a whine thread. Huh.

[Violent Nick]

Hoax415, on 24 October 2014 - 09:11 AM, said:

I don't agree with the OP at all but there is no doubt that compared to the way back days when we all started in stock mechs and modules didn't exist to now...

Stock mechs are way way way worse versus the field than they used to be.

And yes, that creates situations where oblivious newbies buy a new mech, then hit drop in their new mech, then have less than zero fun because without endo+DHS+skills+modules that mech is gutter trash worthless and just a cbill pinata for the other side.

Its one of the huge problems of the NPE, new players aren't taught to not buy mechs until they can afford to kit them out, they aren't taught how to kit them out (can you imagine trying to build a mech not knowing how it works using UI2.0 mechlab? The horror). They aren't even given enough cadet cash to make a mistake or two and correct it.

But why the OP, who is a vet of the game, is crying that stock mechs suck? I'm as lost as anyone. Yeah they suck bro. Yeah the first few games when you don't yet even have anchor turn or the two heat skills basic'd can be pretty rough depending on the mech. So what is your point?

You kinda answered your own question in response to asking me why I'm 'crying that stock mechs suck'. It's not that they suck.. it's that they suck so much harder now and in my opinion are what's called in economics 'a barrier to entry.' This is not good. Also, I got 42 mechs.. The experience of grinding them is in direct competition to the experience of playing my other mechs, fair enough, but the scales tilt too far now..

There you go..