10 replies to this topic

[sycocys]

1. Attack side objectives are massively easier to complete than defending objectives.

Zerg rush the base gens/omega is pretty easy for either side (IS/Clan) to accomplish no matter what is fielded on the other side. Chances are if the attacking team is going solely for the W, there's almost no way you are going to stop it - 4 waves vs 3 gens and omega, you don't need to light rush, just push on right through the ranks sacrificing whoever drops on the way to that goal.

Counter attack mode is the same - you essentially have one goal on the attack side (hold) - get more kills, while the defender side needs to get more kills and an objective point. And this is why we've seen a lot of the clan teams pushing out immediately to the spawns on several maps, it is very easy to get a kill lead by catching just 1 or 2 guys trying to recover to the tactic and drop back in.

2. A 5+ minute wait to drop in a 12 man group when you need 40-50 matches for the challenges is ridiculous. A better alternative should have been devised right at the start. Complete waste of time for the small groups/pugs that had 30+ minute waits getting constantly bumped to the back of the queue.

3. An event where 2.5 of the 3 days are absolutely meaningless to determine the "winner" of the event is terrible design. Moving that out to 5.5 of 6 days only made that design worse.

4. While CW can be monotonous and single minded - standard drops are vastly worse in the level of play. Standard maps are better, standard play is much worse.

5. After dropping back and forth and being stuck without matches for stretches, it really starts to show how very thin the game play aspects of this game are. There's simply nothing engaging in the actual game play that really makes you want to wait in line for more - its the same match after the same match after the same match no matter what map or mode you drop into.

6. Outnumbering your opponent 30 to 1 and they are still beating you by a fair margin is not only unrealistic but it is going to skew the F out of your exit event results. Even if they are all godlike players, those kind of numbers aren't going to play into their favor. Don't get my wrong, I don't like the zerg a planet for ghost drops thing either, but something's just wrong with the current implementation of mode select/node control to let this happen.

7. Every event being based on time played versus how well you play is MF'ing boring!!! Seriously sick to death of this 1 point per match simply for having a bottom scraping score nonsense, and I can pretty well guarantee that most of your long term/higher elo players are as well.

Setting the goals high isn't an issue at all, but having the required play time set at some ridiculous number like 25-40+ hours (which is what this event was depending on your side, most are on the 20 hour mark lately) is just plain boring.

Let the performers earn their rewards and set some high marks for silly rewards for them to chase, and let the low performers grind it out if they don't want to take advantage of teamwork or increasing their skill level - there's a lot of things to reward points for in a match so why every event is stuck at 1 or 0 is unfathomable.

8. I found out that I only purchase things when I'm enjoying and playing the game. Really great sale this weekend and I have spare money budgeted for gaming, but the it was such a bore-fest that not only did I not purchase anything but I just walked away and found something else to do entirely for most of the time I would have generally been playing.

This one is more personal, but I am willing to bet that it is also something that extends across much of the player population in terms of getting players to spend money, players will spend more money with a game they are having fun playing - or actually playing and not sitting in a queue downloading another game.

9. This game is no where near ready to be opened up to the Steam community. You'll get access to more players, but in its current state the terrible reviews it will get will probably crush it right out of the gate. At the very best it will end up being a wash out with money/time invested into making it steam compatible and how much revenue it will generate to recoup that - versus how much additional bad press the game will receive for being a nearly 3 year old game stuck in beta state.

10. I'm sure I covered this earlier, but it can't be stated enough - this game doesn't have anything in it but assault mode. There's simply nothing anywhere in the game beyond the mechlab that's designed to engage players the way MW titles engage players. The 'objectives' are minimal and at best are only a sub-objective to blob assault, this desperately needs to be improved - this game is far to far along in its age to still be running on a one mode/one objective system.

Outside of some core mechanics problems, this is where ALMOST ALL of your game balance problems reside. There's simply nothing to do but blob assault.

--
Sorry if it got a bit ranty, but here's to hoping someone on the PGI staff will happen upon this and maybe use it to wake up the leadership a little bit. It's just really starting to grind on me that this game hasn't made any actual forward progress since beta other than bug fixes.

Even CW really isn't anything new but a stupid map overlay that they spent way too much time dinking around with when they could have been developing an actual game to play here.

Edited by sycocys, 27 April 2015 - 06:08 AM.

[Tigerwolf]

All good, valid points. You can also add that the learning curve has remained very steep and will continue to drive off new players. The release to Steam will probably be a net loss money wise for PGI, hopefully the game will survive with us niche players who just want to smash mechs.

[AlexEss]

Meh... I´ve been a MMO Raiderparty member for years... This is nothing compared to some of those experiences.

Not saying the mode does not need to improve, but it is clear that it is more a cultural thing than anything else as far as the tolerance goes.

[sycocys]

Yeah, I really have no clue why they didn't just copy the tutorial from like MW3. No ai needed and it walked you through nearly all of the mechanics. But now they want to "challenge" themselves with a tutorial with ai when they clearly aren't capable of programming that kind of logic.

Keep the tutorial simple because it doesn't need to be some big complex thing, and put some effort into actually developing a game for people to play.

[Helaton]

I don't know.

If the AI in the tutorial includes for example, target tanks that are able to move and follow a decent AI (for a tank), I'd suggest to be more lenient on it. It would be a start to new types of features and maybe new stuff in CW/Pug warfare.

I'm willing to wait and see how the AI comes out if it means new features that change it more from mech vs mech into more of a battlefield.

[sycocys]

I wouldn't have any issue with them messing with ai -IF- they could/would show they were competent enough programmers to handle the game we already have. As it is the guys they have working in that department can't read code well enough to go back and fix/update old mechanics to move the game further ahead, so programming ai is going to be a bit above their potential.

The absolute most I can see them being capable of is what's already in the game - running npcs on rails and making them target ct of the closest enemy.

And I know people don't want to hear someone getting down on the programming squad, but they and the two leaders NEED to hear it. So either they step up to the plate and start putting in the work or they get replaced with people who can.

Edited by sycocys, 27 April 2015 - 07:03 AM.

[Allen Ward]

sycocys, on 27 April 2015 - 06:01 AM, said:

1. Attack side objectives are massively easier to complete than defending objectives.

Zerg rush the base gens/omega is pretty easy for either side (IS/Clan) to accomplish no matter what is fielded on the other side. Chances are if the attacking team is going solely for the W, there's almost no way you are going to stop it - 4 waves vs 3 gens and omega, you don't need to light rush, just push on right through the ranks sacrificing whoever drops on the way to that goal.

Counter attack mode is the same - you essentially have one goal on the attack side (hold) - get more kills, while the defender side needs to get more kills and an objective point. And this is why we've seen a lot of the clan teams pushing out immediately to the spawns on several maps, it is very easy to get a kill lead by catching just 1 or 2 guys trying to recover to the tactic and drop back in.

2. A 5+ minute wait to drop in a 12 man group when you need 40-50 matches for the challenges is ridiculous. A better alternative should have been devised right at the start. Complete waste of time for the small groups/pugs that had 30+ minute waits getting constantly bumped to the back of the queue.

3. An event where 2.5 of the 3 days are absolutely meaningless to determine the "winner" of the event is terrible design. Moving that out to 5.5 of 6 days only made that design worse.

4. While CW can be monotonous and single minded - standard drops are vastly worse in the level of play. Standard maps are better, standard play is much worse.

5. After dropping back and forth and being stuck without matches for stretches, it really starts to show how very thin the game play aspects of this game are. There's simply nothing engaging in the actual game play that really makes you want to wait in line for more - its the same match after the same match after the same match no matter what map or mode you drop into.

6. Outnumbering your opponent 30 to 1 and they are still beating you by a fair margin is not only unrealistic but it is going to skew the F out of your exit event results. Even if they are all godlike players, those kind of numbers aren't going to play into their favor. Don't get my wrong, I don't like the zerg a planet for ghost drops thing either, but something's just wrong with the current implementation of mode select/node control to let this happen.

7. Every event being based on time played versus how well you play is MF'ing boring!!! Seriously sick to death of this 1 point per match simply for having a bottom scraping score nonsense, and I can pretty well guarantee that most of your long term/higher elo players are as well.

Setting the goals high isn't an issue at all, but having the required play time set at some ridiculous number like 25-40+ hours (which is what this event was depending on your side, most are on the 20 hour mark lately) is just plain boring.

Let the performers earn their rewards and set some high marks for silly rewards for them to chase, and let the low performers grind it out if they don't want to take advantage of teamwork or increasing their skill level - there's a lot of things to reward points for in a match so why every event is stuck at 1 or 0 is unfathomable.

8. I found out that I only purchase things when I'm enjoying and playing the game. Really great sale this weekend and I have spare money budgeted for gaming, but the it was such a bore-fest that not only did I not purchase anything but I just walked away and found something else to do entirely for most of the time I would have generally been playing.

This one is more personal, but I am willing to bet that it is also something that extends across much of the player population in terms of getting players to spend money, players will spend more money with a game they are having fun playing - or actually playing and not sitting in a queue downloading another game.

9. This game is no where near ready to be opened up to the Steam community. You'll get access to more players, but in its current state the terrible reviews it will get will probably crush it right out of the gate. At the very best it will end up being a wash out with money/time invested into making it steam compatible and how much revenue it will generate to recoup that - versus how much additional bad press the game will receive for being a nearly 3 year old game stuck in beta state.

10. I'm sure I covered this earlier, but it can't be stated enough - this game doesn't have anything in it but assault mode. There's simply nothing anywhere in the game beyond the mechlab that's designed to engage players the way MW titles engage players. The 'objectives' are minimal and at best are only a sub-objective to blob assault, this desperately needs to be improved - this game is far to far along in its age to still be running on a one mode/one objective system.

Outside of some core mechanics problems, this is where ALMOST ALL of your game balance problems reside. There's simply nothing to do but blob assault.

--
Sorry if it got a bit ranty, but here's to hoping someone on the PGI staff will happen upon this and maybe use it to wake up the leadership a little bit. It's just really starting to grind on me that this game hasn't made any actual forward progress since beta other than bug fixes.

Even CW really isn't anything new but a stupid map overlay that they spent way too much time dinking around with when they could have been developing an actual game to play here.

I am afraid that I must agree on all points.

[Saint Atlas and the Commando Elf]

sycocys, on 27 April 2015 - 06:01 AM, said:

Even CW really isn't anything new but a stupid map overlay that they spent way too much time dinking around with when they could have been developing an actual game to play here.

But they did use the time to develop an actual game.

And then they called it Transverse.
And then they dumped it.

[Telmasa]

Well-established roleplaying and storyline elements are deeply, sorely needed, I think, before a steam launch should be treated as a serious objective.

That's on top of all the balancing, map redesign, mech aesthetics, and so on that needs work too.

Maybe ask players to volunteer and help create the game we want, I dunno?

[Kell Commander]

I think the OP did a pretty good job explaining everything wrong with CW in its current form.

[sycocys]

Sthtopokeon, on 27 April 2015 - 02:45 PM, said:

But they did use the time to develop an actual game.

And then they called it Transverse.
And then they dumped it.

Hadn't heard about Transverse, but was a good laugh to read about just now, have to say that I'm not really surprised at their results - they are having a hard time producing basic content for a game that's a 20+ year old IP with a ton of lore, objectives and mechanics they could pull from, starting a new one would have been a train wreck.