45 replies to this topic

[Cest7]

I've supported this game since closed beta, back when there was only 4 mechs. I've watched it go from a decent core product to a flatulent cash cow. The design direction changed from meat & potatoes gameplay to monetization of assets. This is why we got 1 map in a year and like 10 mechs. PGI has missed it's goals. Information and Role Warfare are complete failures, These building blocks of rich and deep gameplay were just abandoned. I still remember the first 3 Dev posts boasting about the building blocks of Information/Role/Community Warfare. I remember the fluff posts, the promise of a 1:1 timeline evolving the game. All Scrapped. I feel betrayed.

Performance has been an uphill climb, making me question whether or not choosing CryEngine (Originally a Single Player Engine) was the right idea. Many interesting and flavourful features were removed along the development path. I feel these gravely affected the gameplay, making it less interesting and bland. Repair & Re-arm was the first addition that made the game play different. People would be way of rushing in headlong and dying because their actions had Consequences. Yes it had its issued, Ammo costs were completely wrong (100,000c-bills in LRM ammo a mach?) but it stuck to the battletech THEME and could have been fixed and tweaked instead of just scrapped.

Another HUGE mistake was removing Collisions. There is currently no penalty for driving like a drunken fool (except minor leg damage...) This was the first of a change from simulation to arcade gameplay. Yes it had its issues, but why not FIX them instead of outright removing them? Perhaps the developer that made the core game left the company before release?

All hell broke loose with the introduction of Third Person. The community loudly expressed their distaste for this feature, yet you said screw it, Put it in anyway. Then later ate your words and apologized. This is where I started to lose faith in PGI as a whole.

It was all a downhill slide after that. Brawling went out the window with ECM, which is not guardian ECM but some sort of angel stealth ecm on roids. -> http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Ecm

Then they put in Ghost heat as a terrible way to balance builds that weren't really that big of an issue. Weapons were made nearly useless by this update (AC/2 anyone?) and the degeneration of the metagame started. Everyone boating PPCs and Gauss and then trying to curb this loadout by adding More and more penalties to players instead of just fixing the route problem. Ghost heat killed your metagame and now you are running a carousel of balance fixes.

The travesty of UI2.fail. Oh man where do I start. From inception, you were warned about the terrible workflow of your UI. Given alternatives, rich feedback and proposition of how your userbase WANTED to interact with your game. Hell, look at smurfy, a function prodigy of what you should have done in the first place. It seems this feedback was ignored and the UI2.0 we have now was force fed down our throats. But hey, thanks for putting in a "Disable Menu Sounds" tickbox even though the SINGLE sound we wanted removed was the beep of mouseing over an icon. I mean cmon, really?

I've tried to get back into the game, but the paywall behind clan mechs just turned me off. Yes, they'll be out for c-bills eventually. The direwolf costing 17million c-bills (more than the atlas, which I grinded for in closed beta) and with the recent c-bill rewards nerf could take well over 170 matches to acquire one single chassis. I don't want to dedicate 3x that amount of time to pilot a direwolf, nor do I want to give you money to attempt it.

This post has been a long time in the making. I stopped playing regularly sometime in august. I've since moved to planetside 2 and haven't looked back. I had great faith in PGI's abilities 2 years ago, so much that I even tried to apply for a job with the company. The events listed above have soiled my view of the company and their leaders. I hope the clan waves made enough to fund your next project, because after that this game is going to dry up.

PGI, you have failed me. As a result my wallet will remain closed to you. Good day.

[Tuefel Hunden]

They lost me today.

[Hoffenstein]

I would recommend taking the time to listen to the Town Hall meetings, much of what you've mentioned above was discussed with Russ Bullock, it adds a lot of insight as to the reasoning of the decisions. While you may be having a bad time with it now, keep in mind that it is Free to Play. You can always come back at a later date (no cost to you!) to see if it has changed enough that it fits your specific envisioning of how the game should be.

[All Nine]

Tuefel Hunden, on 21 October 2014 - 06:51 PM, said:

They lost me today.

Yeah, but they already got you for over $200.

[Christof Romulus]

Oh man, I can't wait to buy the Inner Sphere package tomorrow!

Sorry, what was this thread about?

[Tuefel Hunden]

All Nine, on 21 October 2014 - 07:02 PM, said:

Yeah, but they already got you for over $200.

Yup, they did. Wouldn't they like more?

Edited by Tuefel Hunden, 21 October 2014 - 07:11 PM.

[Troutmonkey]

1. Blame IGP. PGI have made great gains recently without them. Outside of that the game has to make money somehow.

2. Cryengine was a bad idea, but now we're stuck with it.

3. Repair and Re-arm just added more grind, something you ironically complain about.

4. Collisions were buggy and unfun. Players like me with 250ms+ would be completely unable to play due to running into things/teleporting with lag, then spending most of the game lying down.

5. 3rd person, really? People are still upset over that? Waste of resources sure, but it's had no impact on game play outside of confusing newbs.

6. ECM - needs work

7. Ghost heat - yep, terrible idea. Homeless Bill's suggestions made much more sense, but would have required more work

8. UI2.0 is awful.

9. I thought you liked grinding?

[Rebas Kradd]

OP represents a minor and disposable slice of MWO's playerbase. Snort all you want, it's true. Nothing in this game's history suggests financial crisis or devastating player dropoff, and efforts to manufacture that evidence are usually laughably strained. Judging a developer over optional features and abstract design decisions is not something that 98% of this game's players do.

Additionally, OP is ignorant of the game's development story. Early technical challenges, lack of manpower, publisher decisions, and prioritization of new players were what changed the priorities. PGI could not afford to focus on hardcore gameplay philosophy at the expense of the major features that were actually funding the game.

Your post is not accurate, either. It's ironic that you cite the popular outcry over 3PV and ignore the fact that most people also wanted Repair and Rearm gone. You misrepresent brawling as dead when it's not. I am also starting to wonder if anyone in the community has any idea how to implement role/information warfare in a way that is actually relevant, meaningful, and fun, instead of being merely complicated to satisfy the hardcores. On a related note, it is extra ironic that just today, a rewards system designed to promote role warfare comes online and you completely ignore it. Did you read the patch notes?

Sorry, I'm having trouble taking this seriously, despite your attempts to look sophisticated ("good day", LOL). You obviously haven't paid any attention to PGI's discussions of the development story over this last year, nor did you seem to notice today's patch notes, so I'm not impressed.

Edited by Rebas Kradd, 21 October 2014 - 07:24 PM.

[Mad Strike]

All Nine, on 21 October 2014 - 07:02 PM, said:

Yeah, but they already got you for over $200.

Boom !!!! lol

[Kiiyor]

Hoffenstein, on 21 October 2014 - 07:01 PM, said:

I would recommend taking the time to listen to the Town Hall meetings, much of what you've mentioned above was discussed with Russ Bullock, it adds a lot of insight as to the reasoning of the decisions. While you may be having a bad time with it now, keep in mind that it is Free to Play. You can always come back at a later date (no cost to you!) to see if it has changed enough that it fits your specific envisioning of how the game should be.

Don't you go bringin' your fancy logic and reason here, mister! This high horse ain't gonna ride itself!

While I usually love a good storm-off, I can't get on board with this one.

[Tezcatli]

Well a lot of that has been addressed. And some of that is still on the table to potentially be changed. The ECM thing in particular. Though I don't share your opinion about Ghost Heat. And collisions didn't work very well, but hopefully can be fixed and added again.

But it's not like they're not making an effort to communicate with us. Look at the quirks thing. They listened to people and came to a compromise. Hopefully after they get enough feedback, the rewards thing will get an adjustment.

[Kavoh]

Eh, I wouldn't mind having the old collisions back at some points during matches. At the moment I think the *run into the light mech that came roaring around the corner and getting stuck for 3 seconds only to be sling shot 100 meters out into the open in front of 5 mechs* is 10x worse.

[Moonlander]

Why do people think posting threads about how they're "quitting" and "never coming back" because this game is waaaaaaaaah... ya, no one cares.

Cya.

[Kavoh]

Moonlander, on 21 October 2014 - 08:21 PM, said:

Why do people think posting threads about how they're "quitting" and "never coming back" because this game is waaaaaaaaah... ya, no one cares.

Cya.

Because as stupid as a lot of them sound/are typed, its feedback of a sort. Remember, third person was implemented because despite 90% disapproval on the forums, even more new players who couldn't figure out torso twisting apparently were adept enough to fish around the websites to find their email to directly ask them for it. So even one or two posts can get PGI to jump at something.

[Blakkstar]

I love how we always get the sanctimonious rant followed by the declaration that the game will be dead as soon as they walk out the door.

I can't imagine why PGI didn't hire him.

[Lord de Seis]

I don't see how anyone who has been part of the first two townhalls and paid attention since the IGP break away could be unhappy with the change in direction with the game. My suggestion to you is to listen to them with an open mind and try to give the game a clean slate.

6 months ago I couldn't say anything nice about MWO but I have really been turned around in the last couple months. I am even excited about the new IS Pack and most likely going to buy it tomorrow, I haven't given MWO a dime since the Phoenix Package.

Take a step back, realize the game has changed since PGI and IGP split and realize not everything PGI is going to do is going to be perfect but they are listening and responding to the community now and Russ is very involved personally. If you aren't willing to give them a clean slate then your opinion will never change because of how poorly things were handled in the past.

Edited by Lord de Seis, 21 October 2014 - 09:03 PM.

[ReD3y3]

I was in a clan of pilots 40+ strong back in closed beta. NONE and i mean NONE of them play anymore.

These guys and myself paid. $400+ at the time. With that kind of investment. You can only imagine how disappointed someone must have become to bail on a game.

It is not like 2 or 3 of them are still around. They gone man. Disappeared. My friendslist is a dark graveyard that gives me a sad reminder of all the wonderful personalities I will never play MWO with again.

This game had such potential and a very large window to catch people and keep them. I log on and patch once every 6 months or so in hopes of being pleasantly surprised. Then I can contact the friends I know and let them know MWO has been fixed and is now what we hoped it would be.

But instead I am disappointed that it is easier to build mechs on smurfy than it is in game. The convoluted consumables and modules system is so un user friendly. It seems as if it was just thrown into the game because it could be.

Brawling is dead sniping is dead jump sniping is dead scouting in packs is dead. Games consist of running around with 11 other mechs, asault or heavy, together, death blobbing up the middle and throwing up on eachother with a hodge podge of un specialized loadouts

Building a mech is not specializing it...i know the arguments about boating lasers ppc srms etc..but those mechs had a niche
and it counted for rock paper scissor gameplay right now everyone is paper i.e. gameplay has no depth
It is very un strategic and stale.

Clan mechs are awesome. In concept. I had MC left over from a year ago and spent it. The mech is the same as anyother...just more expensive. It is not unique. I can not carry more or less weaponry and have it still be effective. Ghost heat has assured me that all mechs will be able to carry 4 lasers that can not be shot together and some type of auto cannon. I may mix in some LRMs if I feel like being lazy. thats it...thats all the customization you get for all of the mechs stray form this and you get penalized by ghost heat

I came back again and patched I will come back again and again

But I am certain, if things dont change, the load times for games will get longer and longer each time I come back and patch....i will see the same ppl in every third game or so once I do load...and I will know... I am seeing the same thing the general user base is and I am reacting in kind the way they are....and I will be sad

[CocoaJin]

[Darth Futuza]

You're just now saying all of this? Today seems like an odd day.

[Thorn Hallis]

Those who truely want to leave do so in silence.