29 replies to this topic

[Onmyoudo]

Firstly, the roadmaps are helpful for seeing what's coming and the new weekly updates are also nice for sneak previews, but do not really offer much information. For most things, the player base is still largely in the dark.

For this week's April roadmap, could you please also discuss PGI's current stance (and upcoming plans) on some of the most frequently raised community concerns?

These include, with some overlap:

• New player experience (i.e. tutorials, guides, matching algorithm, grind)
  
• The economy / rate of earnings
  
• Matchmaker (any further improvements planned? Is it okay as it is?)
  
• Explicit view on Clan / IS balance
  
• Power of mercs in CW / incentives to be loyalist
  
• Winning / losing CW planets being entirely due to number of people on a side
  
• PuGs vs units in CW (regardless of my views/reader views, this is the most frequent topic of complaint in the CW forums so deserves a spot here)
  
• ECM
  
• LRM mechanics
  
• Heat / ghost heat
  
• Hitboxes / scaling / lag shield

We know your current views on quirks, but how often you plan to iterate on these would be useful to know.


If I have forgotten any common issues, let me know and I will edit.

Edit:

• Is destructible terrain being worked on?
  
• Is it truly pointless to ask questions / post on the forums, as most people seem to believe?

Edited title due to unintentional (though hilarious) confusion.

WarHippy, on 30 March 2015 - 12:03 PM, said:

I am unsure why they would talk about any of these during the roadmap for April unless some of these actually are planned to be addressed during April.

Given the roadmap is the only "guaranteed" infodump we get on any kind of regular basis, I figured it was best to ask for this to be included there. The Town Halls are filtered necessarily due to the amount of questions and Russ doesn't always have time to sit and plan his answers out; a structured post to address these concerns - as Agent 0 Fortune points out, some of which have been controversial for a long time - would be a better medium to spell out PGI's plans for addressing them.

Edited by Onmyoudo, 30 March 2015 - 01:00 PM.

[Xeraphale]

I second pretty much all of these points and it's nice that they are coming from a (currently) rampaging Kuritan!

I especially agree with the points regarding merc influence on CW and the weight of numbers dictating who wins a planet. Right now, I think it's those two things which adversely affect CW the most.

[L3mming2]

me to

[Wrathful Scythe]

You better write him that per twitter because the devs don't bother reading the forum.

[Weeny Machine]

A good April's fool joke should be put on the list as well!

[Molossian Dog]

I thought "we will fix Viridian Bog´s terrain" was a pretty good one.

[Shredhead]

That's what they're discussing in the townhall meetings. I would never expect Russ to write such a short novel.

[Johnny Z]

I am really interested in the new player experience that is said to be worked on, what form will it take etc. I think this maybe the first step towards quest like objectives or PVE, NPC's or some kind of new features. Interested what direction they are taking with it.

Question - When are NPC's being added to Mechwarrior Online? In what way?

Edited by Johnny Z, 30 March 2015 - 05:02 AM.

[Aethon]

Johnny Z, on 30 March 2015 - 05:01 AM, said:

I am really interested in the new player experience that is said to be worked on, what form will it take etc. I think this maybe the first step towards quest like objectives or PVE, NPC's or some kind of new features. Interested what direction they are taking with it.

Question - When are NPC's being added to Mechwarrior Online? In what way?

Personally, I would like to see them get the existing community members involved; create a 'buddy system'. Allow current players to sign up for it, and give them a slight C-Bill boost for each match spent with the new pilot, or something.

The upside is, even if fairly bad players help new players, they will still be a leg-up on the learning process, and know how to navigate the crappy UI, and have someone they can ask questions. Even bad players will probably be able to provide them links to places like Smurfy, with the wealth of information (and better mechlab) to be found there.

The downside is, it would have to be moderated somehow, to prevent the new players from being trolled, and I am pretty sure PGI does not want to/cannot spare the manpower for it right now.

[Agent 0 Fortune]

Did they buff the number of days in April? that is a helluva list.
Some of that stuff has been hot-button for years, you can safely assume that PGI is unwilling or incapable of fixing those.

Edited by Agent 0 Fortune, 30 March 2015 - 07:23 AM.

[Appogee]

Several people seem to believe destructible terrain is being worked on.

I think they're dreaming, but I'd love to know one way or another.

[Darwins Dog]

Be sure to post this (or a link to your post) on twitter. It seems like a much better way to get Russ's attention and responses. FWIW I would like to know the same things too.

[LordMelvin]

Heat / Ghost Heat: I'd like to see ghost heat removed entirely. In addition, I'd like to see the heat cap lowered considerably and heat dissipation rates increased (along with TrueDubs^TM). The theory here is that putting emphasis on faster cooling will allow people to shoot longer if they pace themselves rather than piling as many large energy weapons as possible on a mech and alpha striking. Penalties for high heat levels (slower speed, less agility/turning, etc). The downside is that ballistics would return to the meta so some weapon rebalancing might be necessary.


Scaling: I'd love to see the Catapult get it old arms back (old C1 pods, old K2 PPCs). I'd also like to see mech rescaling, although unlikely, since the Catapult is basically the same size as a Stalker despite being several tons lighter.

[BARBAR0SSA]

Seriously change your damn title, I clicked this thinking Russ has posted the April road map.

[MechaBattler]

The monthly road map is about what's happening that month. What you want is best left for Town Hall meetings.

Also your title seems like click bait for people who think it's a legitimate road map update.

Edited by MechaBattler, 30 March 2015 - 08:04 AM.

[Tarogato]

shad0w4life, on 30 March 2015 - 08:03 AM, said:

Seriously change your damn title, I clicked this thinking Russ has posted the April road map.

This, please. Very misleading.

Also, ... don't try to ask Russ questions here on the forums... he and almost everybody else at PGI don't read the forums - they're too cluttered with garbage to be worth reading, it's not really worth their time. In the meantime, since I found this to be a very well laid request, I did try forwarding it to some staff including Russ. Perhaps it'll get covered this time.

Edited by Tarogato, 30 March 2015 - 08:18 AM.

[KraftySOT]

*facepalm*

Edited by KraftySOT, 30 March 2015 - 08:52 AM.

[JaxRiot]

Thats a really good list. Pretty much nailed.

Although it should probably be posted on Twitter. They only seem to read twitter

And yes, the title is misleading. I clicked it thinking it was the actual road map

Cheers

Jax

[Soy]

**** this thread

[KraftySOT]

I just realized...


**** this thread.