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I would like to support you guys again.
When I heard PGI had disentangled themselves from their publisher, I was cautiously optimistic. When I heard community warfare had come out, I thought; "Hey, maybe it's time to give MWO another chance!"
So the first thing I did was start watching the "Town Halls" on youtube to see what would be changing. The second thing was to patch and play MWO.
A while ago, I was one of the people who said;"You broke the trust, I am out." In the September Townhall you seemed sincere in wanting to address the concerns of players like me who had quit, so here is some feedback if you want it:
1) Real world money *cannot* be allowed to purchase combat advantages. Specifically consumables, hard point configurations, and advantageous Hit Box proportioning. I feel very uncomfortable with the idea of supporting a "pay-to-win" paradigm, even if it is relatively subtle and oft denied.
Somehow, games like TF2 and Starcraft have managed to endure without requiring real-world currency for players to remain competitive. I am sure you can find a way too. Players in all games have traditionally supported cosmetic in-game purchases and real world knick-knacks. I suggest you look more in that direction for income.
2) Ghost Heat/Heat Scaling needs to be replaced with a more rational solution.
You maintain that players don't like high-burst damage. I disagree, but regardless you can more appropriately control burst damage with any and all of the following:
a. Reticle jitter
b. Micro second(s) delay between weapons fire even on alpha strikes (combined with a robust recoil mechanic.)
c. Implement movement, accuracy, and ammo explosion penalties for increasing heat levels (which is how table top managed this problem for the last 30+ years)
3) Reduce the number of mouse-clicks and unneccessary delays outside of combat.
The ready button and the timed delay before matches needs to go away. The UI needs to be reverted to what we had in beta, or at least streamlined to reduce the seemingly excessive number of mouse clicks required to navigate from one section to another.
4) Be Honest.
The people who play Battletech mostly have degrees in things like Accounting, Chemistry, and Engineering. We jigger numbers, analyze other guys' jiggered numbers, and predict trends from questionable data for a living. We're not dumb.
It's ok to tell us you moved into "maintenance mode" shortly after the beta went public. It's ok to have made an insane profit on a half-complete project. It's ok for you to buy a nice boat, or a plane. It's even ok to admit you are using our money to support your other projects. That's *your* money, we gave it to you in exchange for a product you have (mostly) provided. Whether it was a good investment or not is a matter of karma for everyone involved.
...However, and this is something EA still hasn't grasped yet:
If you want customers to continue to support your ability to acquire boats, planes, and new projects, you need to treat them with respect and provide the product they want.
A F2P model makes you particularly vulnerable to customer dissatisfaction - no one is going to give you money if they don't like what you are doing to what was a pretty nice game in beta.
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A widespread desire to implement the four "fixes" listed above has overwhelmingly (and stridently) been documented in your own forums and on reddit. Especially by the men who pay your bills.
Implementing those fixes is a non-negotiable requirement if you wish to have our continued support... in this game, or in any other you might ever produce.
Edited by Jack Jumper, 14 January 2015 - 06:53 AM.
might be a bit high, since that would be 2/3rds of the cost of premium time right there. But maybe a color or a camo a month, or something similar. Heck, even a weapon module would be nice. Give people a reason to run premium time even if they know it's going to be a light month as far as game play time.
