Elaxter, on 15 November 2014 - 05:08 PM, said:
I like the general direction, the positive attitude, the transparency and the amount of work being done. However on a subtle level I think the game is less fun to play and is getting worse ever so slowly, despite all the positive changes. Overall the game is less fun to play then it ever was since the beta, yes there were certain periods that were much worse, but like I said overall now its just not fun.
I play solo and I play PUGs, I do not know how the group queue plays, this will be an assessment of the solo queue.
The decisions made over the years really affected gameplay in a way that I perceive as negative. The dynamics of these games have gotten stale and boring. I know people attack this opinion and some share it, but this is, as far as I'm concerned, as objective an observation as possible.
The damage outputs, and the constant dangers in general have gotten so severe that surviving has become the central focus of this game. And while this was so all the time there is
one key difference between the past and now.
Never, ever in the history of MWO
did mechs die as fast as they do now no matter what tactic they employ. Players are instantly punished in this game and not even if they make mistakes. Everyone realizes, if not consciously, at least instinctively that if they expose themselves for literally more then 1 second they can simply die or take more or less fatal damage.
I need to stress again,
no matter what they do. If they peek they can lose to duall gauss. If they relocate, even if they strictly adhere to cover, they can be the target of insane amounts of LRM if they're out in the open even for 2 seconds. When they brawl a high alpha build it can kill them in literally one strike.
All of this added together
has made people play extremely carefully, extremely defensively, extremely slowly and forced them to adhere to builds that will prevent such deaths...which are LRMs, high FLD at any distance and high alpha. Which in turn creates a vicious cycle.
Russ said the average match length increased by only 15 seconds, what he does not realize is that, yes the match length increased by very little, but effective gameplay decreased by a lot. While most of the match before was spent maneuvering, sniping or brawling, now most of the match is spent hiding and trying to survive with short bursts of action in between.
This is the critical problem of this game and its just getting worse. I don't know how to remedy the problem on a technical level, but this game needs to change in such a way that 1 mistake or rather any form of gameplay other then extremely defensive tactics does not punish the player so severely.
Yes there are rushes, yes I've seen all out brawls too (which are insanely fun by the way, constant action, enemies to the left to the right, things getting blown up), but literally 80% of the games are the complete opposite and are spent with people trying desperately to stay alive, cowering behind cover resulting in completely stale gameplay.
This is long, but I hope someone reads this as this is a huge problem with this game.
I love MWO, I've stuck with it for long, but the frustration is getting strong and playing for those 2 fun games out of 10 is becoming a grind. I'm 33, I used to play all day, now I can't anymore and I want to spend quality time on a game, not frustratingly waiting for that one shining example of a fun round for 2 hours.
Reminds me of Project Reality mod for BF2, it was a brilliant mod, but unless the planets were aligned and all things fell perfectly into place the game was completely unplayable, stale and frustrating for solo players.
Edited by Louis Brofist, 16 November 2014 - 04:16 AM.
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