287 replies to this topic

[CyclonerM]

Alexander Steel, on 14 January 2015 - 05:20 AM, said:

Nope, it's the lore guys. The Battletech writers couldn't care less about how this game acts. Of course that ignores the entire point that the game already doesn't follow the Lore.

But it is the Battletech writers and designers who created the 'Mech's construction rules and the characteristics of the OmniMechs, the 'Mechs themselves, the weapons, the factions, basically everything this game is based on.

And if this game does not do justice to the BTU, that is just one more reason to express my displeasure to help change that. We can have a better Battletech game (which is written just below "Mechwarrior Online".. ).

Mao of DC, on 12 January 2015 - 02:52 PM, said:

Did it every occur to the RPing wolves that the merc unit CI is in it's own way RPing? You're think that's BS, not really You see I am a founding member of The Comstar Irregulars. I wrote our history and helped set up our internal structure so I know what CI is really about. We have been accused of acting disloyal. Disloyal, I ask to whom? Every member of the unit is loyal to the Unit. Who is the unit loyal to? Now there is a good question, I give you a hint COMSTAR Irregulars. If you don't think we are acting in a manner consistent with Comstar you don't know your Lore. Comstar played both sides until Terra was directly threatened.

Well, that proves again my point. Why would anyone who knows anything about ComStar trust it?

Edited by CyclonerM, 14 January 2015 - 06:14 AM.

[Alexander Steel]

Quote

But it is the Battletech writers and designers who created the 'Mech's construction rules and the characteristics of the OmniMechs, the 'Mechs themselves, the weapons, the factions, basically everything this game is based on.

They don't care though. I don't see any Battletech Writer here complaining about the lack of a real FedCom or the fact that the St Ives doesn't exist, or that Clan Mechs aren't any where near like they are on the table top, or the Quirkening, or the fact that after you select a battle it doesn't take you nearly a week before you get to the planet before you can fight, or any of the countless other lore things that the game doesn't follow. Honestly the lore of battletech has a huge number of things that just make for a poor first shooter action game.

Hint: The Lore only matters in a game when it helps make the game more fun, because the game isn't trying to duplicate Battletech Lore. If you want to RP a certain way, fine. Stop trying to make everybody else play the game the same way you want to.

Trying to justify anything because of "the lore, man... the lore" is silly. Justify why it would make the game more fun. CW's problem is there aren't enough people to make for matches to spawn quickly like the "Play Now" button does. More barriers to entry is the absolute wrong way to go about things. Another big problem is the lack of maps.

Edited by Alexander Steel, 14 January 2015 - 06:31 AM.

[CyclonerM]

Well, the writers have not been contracted to work on MWO, so..

Hint: fun is subjective. I think that i have more fun when i feel immersed in the Battletech universe.

[Alexander Steel]

CyclonerM, on 14 January 2015 - 06:37 AM, said:

Well, the writers have not been contracted to work on MWO, so..

Hint: fun is subjective. I think that i have more fun when i feel immersed in the Battletech universe.

Then this is clearly not the game for you. It's related to B-Tech, but clearly massively different. Instead of trying to make it something it's not, enjoy it for what it is. Of course if the majority of people playing the game wanted it to be more to the Lore, the Dev's would probably shift that way... but Lore Nerds are a pretty small percentage of the current player base and catering to them over the rest of the base is not a viable strat.

[CyclonerM]

Alexander Steel, on 14 January 2015 - 06:44 AM, said:

Then this is clearly not the game for you. It's related to B-Tech, but clearly massively different. Instead of trying to make it something it's not, enjoy it for what it is. Of course if the majority of people playing the game wanted it to be more to the Lore, the Dev's would probably shift that way... but Lore Nerds are a pretty small percentage of the current player base and catering to them over the rest of the base is not a viable strat.

There is no other viable MW game aside from MW:LL, which sadly has too few players.
Well, most of the founders were probably fans of the franchise who wanted such a game, but for some reason something went wrong. So i am doing anything i can to enjoy the game in the way i think it is meant to be played - Trials, roleplay, being part of a lore-based unit.

[Alexander Steel]

CyclonerM, on 14 January 2015 - 06:49 AM, said:

There is no other viable MW game aside from MW:LL, which sadly has too few players.
Well, most of the founders were probably fans of the franchise who wanted such a game, but for some reason something went wrong. So i am doing anything i can to enjoy the game in the way i think it is meant to be played - Trials, roleplay, being part of a lore-based unit.

Hey that's cool, and I fully support you finding other players who want to play as an RP unit and follow the lore.

As for what happened, I think PGI realized that while the lore was a good starting point, it made for a bad FPS game. The table top rules worked for table top and the lore was fine to a point, however it had issues with it that just made sense to break from. There also weren't enough lore fanatics to support a mech warrior game.

Edited by Alexander Steel, 14 January 2015 - 07:28 AM.

[Kain Demos]

Alexander Steel, on 14 January 2015 - 07:26 AM, said:

Hey that's cool, and I fully support you finding other players who want to play as an RP unit and follow the lore.

As for what happened, I think PGI realized that while the lore was a good starting point, it made for a bad FPS game. The table top rules worked for table top and the lore was fine to a point, however it had issues with it that just made sense to break from. There also weren't enough lore fanatics to support a mech warrior game.

This is still not an FPS. Sure, its more FPS than Sim than previous iterations of MW but it still has enough to separate it from the brain-dead FPS games out there that are so popular these days.

If it wasn't for the battletech IP you apparently hold in such low regard this game would not exist, no one would have bought in.

Edited by Kain Thul, 14 January 2015 - 09:12 AM.

[Alexander Steel]

I like the B-Tech lore, but the rules and how things were set up were for a Table Top game. Now if the game was very much like the table top, I'd be much more in favor of keeping with the Lore. Or if CW was closer to the lore in how it was presented from the start, FedCom, St Ives, Tons of other things to make trying to tie the lore and the game together even remotely possible... ((like how am I able to fight on Marik/Davion Border one battle, 30 minutes later I can fight on the Steiner/Jade Falcon Border... then 30 minutes later back to the Davion Kurita border... and the very next match I'm fighting under Kurita's banner against the Smoke Jags.

The game clearly is only tied to the lore in the most loose of ways possible. That's fine with me.

[CyclonerM]

Alexander Steel, on 14 January 2015 - 07:26 AM, said:

Hey that's cool, and I fully support you finding other players who want to play as an RP unit and follow the lore.

As for what happened, I think PGI realized that while the lore was a good starting point, it made for a bad FPS game. The table top rules worked for table top and the lore was fine to a point, however it had issues with it that just made sense to break from. There also weren't enough lore fanatics to support a mech warrior game.

I think quite differently, indeed i find that a lot of game issues could be resolved with more or less complex solutions from the lore.

And sadly, this game is far from my ideal MW game, which would be Star Citizen with 'Mechs, Elementals, fighters, DropShips, Jumpships & Warships

[TKSax]

I think the Merc issues could be solver real easy with out changing any of the contract lengths. When owning planets means something (more money in the coffers, cheaper Jumpship rates or whater ever economy PGI comes up with ) if you leave the faction you lose ownership of that planet, tags and all. This will allow smaller units to move around and chase bigger contracts, because a smaller unit very rarely seems to get their tag on a planet. It would also provide incentive for those larger unit to stay with one faction.

[Alexander Steel]

I really like this idea because it solves 2 issues. Giving people a reason to stick with a faction AND making the dots on the map mean something.

[CyclonerM]

Sure, i agree, but you still have to avoid that a faction has too many big merc units and that they have such a big impact on CW as a whole.

[Gyrok]

TKSax, on 14 January 2015 - 01:44 PM, said:

I think the Merc issues could be solver real easy with out changing any of the contract lengths. When owning planets means something (more money in the coffers, cheaper Jumpship rates or whater ever economy PGI comes up with ) if you leave the faction you lose ownership of that planet, tags and all. This will allow smaller units to move around and chase bigger contracts, because a smaller unit very rarely seems to get their tag on a planet. It would also provide incentive for those larger unit to stay with one faction.

Better yet...when you leave a faction, if you have less than Level 20 in loyalty rewards...you lose all rewards for that faction permanently until you return. At which point you start over from the beginning and since you already earned the rewards once, you do not get any rewards until you achieve the rank higher than you held before.

That would encourage units to at least grind out to level 20 LP rewards before jumping ship.

EDIT: Though I am also not opposed to making clan contracts permanent only with significantly stiffer penalties for breaking contract. Perhaps 10 mil cbills per member who breaches a clan contract...?

Edited by Gyrok, 15 January 2015 - 06:50 AM.

[Tank Boy Ken]

CyclonerM, on 15 January 2015 - 06:18 AM, said:

Sure, i agree, but you still have to avoid that a faction has too many big merc units and that they have such a big impact on CW as a whole.

All Units are currently "merc" units. Since all units can change their contracts. Even permanent contracts can be dropped. Every Unit in this game does work like a "merc" unit.

[CyclonerM]

Ken Kabrinski, on 15 January 2015 - 11:38 AM, said:

All Units are currently "merc" units. Since all units can change their contracts. Even permanent contracts can be dropped. Every Unit in this game does work like a "merc" unit.

How they "work" is not how we make them work. If an unit on a permanent contract stays with the same faction for all MWO's lifetime, i guess i can call it a "regular" or "loyalist" unit. As Naglinator said, a player is a merc or not based on how he behaves. If i stay with my faction until i stop play the game forever i am not a merc i would say

Btw, the lack of an official distinction between merc and regular unit quite bothers me.

[RustyBolts]

Ken Kabrinski, on 15 January 2015 - 11:38 AM, said:

All Units are currently "merc" units. Since all units can change their contracts. Even permanent contracts can be dropped. Every Unit in this game does work like a "merc" unit.

I agree. You would think permanent would mean permanent. It has gotten so bad on the Wolf side that I spent over 20 minutes in the que the other day waiting for a match to defend a wolf planet. Finally jumped into the que for Jag defense and got a match in less than 2 minutes. So as a wolf my options appear to be fight for another clan or go public que. Lol.

[Gyrok]

RustyBolts, on 15 January 2015 - 02:37 PM, said:

I agree. You would think permanent would mean permanent. It has gotten so bad on the Wolf side that I spent over 20 minutes in the que the other day waiting for a match to defend a wolf planet. Finally jumped into the que for Jag defense and got a match in less than 2 minutes. So as a wolf my options appear to be fight for another clan or go public que. Lol.

Or...you know...attack...

[RustyBolts]

Gyrok, on 15 January 2015 - 03:35 PM, said:

Or...you know...attack...

Or... you know... not sit in an attack que for over 20 mins and not get a match....

I play this game to PLAY, not sit and stare at a screen with a timer.

[Davers]

Gyrok, on 15 January 2015 - 06:48 AM, said:

Better yet...when you leave a faction, if you have less than Level 20 in loyalty rewards...you lose all rewards for that faction permanently until you return. At which point you start over from the beginning and since you already earned the rewards once, you do not get any rewards until you achieve the rank higher than you held before.

That would encourage units to at least grind out to level 20 LP rewards before jumping ship.

EDIT: Though I am also not opposed to making clan contracts permanent only with significantly stiffer penalties for breaking contract. Perhaps 10 mil cbills per member who breaches a clan contract...?

So more permanent than permanent? It's far better to create a nice community to play in than hope PGI punishes people who want to try something else.

[Alexander Steel]

Town Hall Meeting Tonight and the topic of Mercs working for the Clans was brought up.

Q39 (why mercs working for clans?):

Basically because people wanted to use both clan and IS mechs, but Russ didn't want to allow mix-tech teams. So, only real way to do it would either to have CW seasons with resets so people could play as clan once and IS the next (which was a very unpopular idea), or the current system was the only other real way to make it work. Might tweak these to make it fit a bit better with lore, but the system pretty much has to stay.

Also...

Q12 (penalties for people/units constantly cancelling contracts in CW?):

Possibly increasing cbill penalty for breaking or otherwise making it harder to flip-flop, but want to wait until they see what impact the loyalty point changes has on player behavior before making any further changes.

And

Q7 (plans to add more depth to base gameplay, help average players feel more invested in their faction?):

First step feb 3 - loyalty points system, MC/bays/etc/titles. Titles will actually display in-game! Still want to go beyond that to add more value for being part of a faction, but expect even that will significantly reduce the amount of hopping. Will keep going, ideas like planet control affecting prices etc, want to work on it but no concrete plans.


http://www.reddit.co...n_hall_summary/