173 replies to this topic

[stjobe]

I've bought every IS 'mech pack so far.

I have a Legendary Founder pack
I have the full Phoenix pack with the Sabre reinforcements.
I have the full Resistance pack.
I have the full Urbie pack.

I probably won't buy this new pack.

Why? I don't like where they're going with this game any more. They're focusing on CW, which would have been great if CW wasn't 12-man or GTFO. I'm a solo player (all my friends quit long ago over various PGI- or IGP-related issues), so nothing they do for CW makes the game an iota better for me. And CW is all they do, except 'mech packs.

[Shredhead]

Alistair Winter, on 18 April 2015 - 07:40 AM, said:

I didn't play Warthunder very long, but I did play Star Conflict quite a lot. And it is one example I often bring up when I demonstrate simple things that MWO should do, but isn't doing. I won't get into it here, but Star Conflict is made by the same people as Warthunder. When it comes to lore, immersion, new player experience, player polls in the UI, community warfare, daily events and quests. and many, many other things, Star Conflict just makes MWO look extremely primitive.

MWO does have more fun gameplay than Star Conflict though, so I've now gone back to MWO. But that doesn't mean MWO is better in every aspect. And playing Star Conflict for free is infinitely more fun than playing MWO for free. MWO is a brutal experience unless you pay money, but Star Conflict is pretty fun regardless.

I was just comparing these very aspects (monetization, matchmaking, balance). Yes, Warthunder has a better UI, way better NPE and a dozen other things it does right.
And I think your points you brought up in the op are mostly legitimate. I simply don't weigh them as heavily enough to not pay for stuff I want and as a payback for my enjoyment of this game.
The point still stands, just take a look at these successful games from time to time and compare them to MWO, you'll see we don't have it that bad.
The NPE will have to be tackled by PGI before they go live on steam, new UI is in the works, and I hope they can fix at least some of the graphical stuff on the way.

stjobe, on 18 April 2015 - 07:43 AM, said:

I've bought every IS 'mech pack so far.

I have a Legendary Founder pack
I have the full Phoenix pack with the Sabre reinforcements.
I have the full Resistance pack.
I have the full Urbie pack.

I probably won't buy this new pack.

Why? I don't like where they're going with this game any more. They're focusing on CW, which would have been great if CW wasn't 12-man or GTFO. I'm a solo player (all my friends quit long ago over various PGI- or IGP-related issues), so nothing they do for CW makes the game an iota better for me. And CW is all they do, except 'mech packs.

That's not true, at all. Go listen to the town hall, or read a summary.

Wow, they now combine posts when the last post in the thread is yours as well? Nice.

[Rampancy]

stjobe, on 18 April 2015 - 07:43 AM, said:

I've bought every IS 'mech pack so far.

I have a Legendary Founder pack
I have the full Phoenix pack with the Sabre reinforcements.
I have the full Resistance pack.
I have the full Urbie pack.

I probably won't buy this new pack.

Why? I don't like where they're going with this game any more. They're focusing on CW, which would have been great if CW wasn't 12-man or GTFO. I'm a solo player (all my friends quit long ago over various PGI- or IGP-related issues), so nothing they do for CW makes the game an iota better for me. And CW is all they do, except 'mech packs.

I play CW as a solo player, and have a blast. Make a more active effort to communicate/coordinate with your team and things improve dramatically.

[EgoSlayer]

Alistair Winter, on 18 April 2015 - 07:40 AM, said:

I personally think that's a false dichotomy, but it all depends on how you view PGI's economical position, their willingness to change their course, etc.

I may very well bump this thread in a year's time, and I'll be very pleasantly surprised if PGI stops to make a big effort to fix the issues mentioned in the OP (graphics and sound). But I think it's fairly unlikely that they will, because it seems to be well beyond their means, given their current rate of progress and all the things they're working on.
<snip>

I here is where I think you are mistaking the problem and the cause. The problem isn't that PGi is incapable of fixing/improving the graphics. The problem is the players machines can't handle it. We had better graphics in closed beta. It was done. It had to be down graded to support the craptastic machines that players in open beta and the rest of the world use in real life.

Just look at the steam hardware surveys:
http://store.steampo...d.com/hwsurvey/

Look at the DirextX results. The total amount of DX10 and DX11 capable machines in the entire Steam player base is less than 30%. And even within that DX11 of that the most used cards are Intel integrated graphics. ~70% are using hardware that only supports DX9 - an 11 year old standard. DX 11 is 7 years old and yet only 30% of the market supports it and most of them with crappy integrated video cards.
If you want to blame someone for bad graphics, blame THE PLAYERS. They are the ones bringing laptops and 10 year old standards to play the game and expecting good performance. PGI can't even upgrade the crytech engine code anymore because the newest crytek drops don't support DX9 according to Russ on the town hall.
Are there some things that can be done to scale the graphics for better systems? Sure. And 4K textures is one of those things that could be done and might happen, Russ wasn't opposed to in it the town hall but even still, I'd rather they spend time fixing other game issues than adding 4K textures to support less than 30% of the players; and I am part of that 30%. But most of the other things in your list are game breakers for 70% of the player base assuming PGIs player numbers mirror Steam users - which at some point later this year it will.

If you're voting with your wallet that's fine - but choosing graphics as your rally point is really misguided. There are plenty of other issues in the game modes and game mechanics that I feel should have far higher priority than the graphics. But not spending money doesn't say - "fix your graphics" or "Remove ghost heat". It says "I don't like your game and I won't spend money on it" when the end of month revenue report comes out. If you want your message to get across it really seems like Twitter and the Town Halls are the true forum (pun intended) for that.

[AssaultPig]

there are plenty of problems with the game, and I have posted myself that packs are kind of a silly/bad payment model. I think that some type of 'we're not buying stuff until XYZ get fixed' effort could be effective.

but

OP's issues are so laughably minor that they kind of throw shade on the whole premise. Yes, it's dumb that the cockpit screens don't display anything. But so what

[Alistair Winter]

EgoSlayer, on 18 April 2015 - 10:31 AM, said:

I here is where I think you are mistaking the problem and the cause. The problem isn't that PGi is incapable of fixing/improving the graphics. The problem is the players machines can't handle it. We had better graphics in closed beta. It was done. It had to be down graded to support the craptastic machines that players in open beta and the rest of the world use in real life.

And I dare say it's you who have it backwards.

PGI is responsible for lowering or raising the bar, they decide their own target audience. They could lower the bar further and make MWO run smoothly on a Nintendo Wii or they could raise the bar and make it as hard to run as Star Citizen. I'm not going to blame other players for having so good computers that Chris Roberts made Star Citizen with graphics that are too much for my computer to handle. That's absurd. He chose his target audience, namely people who can afford the best computers on the market.

Besides. Close Beta was almost 3 years ago. Since then, I imagine quite a few players have done something about their hardware. PGI's choice to cater to the lowest denominator, people on 10 year old laptops, is not something anyone can influence.

EgoSlayer, on 18 April 2015 - 10:31 AM, said:

If you're voting with your wallet that's fine - but choosing graphics as your rally point is really misguided. There are plenty of other issues in the game modes and game mechanics that I feel should have far higher priority than the graphics.

Oh, I covered that in the OP. It's under "You may agree with those issues, or you may be more concerned about other things entirely."

This thread is more about encouraging people to vote with their wallet and raising awareness of our power as consumers, rather than discussing whether ghost heat or ECM needs to be looked at first. And frankly, I don't even mind if you think the game is 100% spot-on perfect.

If someone thinks I'm misguided, I can live with that. As I assume you live with it too

AssaultPig, on 18 April 2015 - 10:42 AM, said:

there are plenty of problems with the game, and I have posted myself that packs are kind of a silly/bad payment model. I think that some type of 'we're not buying stuff until XYZ get fixed' effort could be effective.
but
OP's issues are so laughably minor that they kind of throw shade on the whole premise. Yes, it's dumb that the cockpit screens don't display anything. But so what

See above.

[EgoSlayer]

Alistair Winter, on 18 April 2015 - 11:41 AM, said:

And I dare say it's you who have it backwards.

PGI is responsible for lowering or raising the bar, they decide their own target audience. They could lower the bar further and make MWO run smoothly on a Nintendo Wii or they could raise the bar and make it as hard to run as Star Citizen. I'm not going to blame other players for having so good computers that Chris Roberts made Star Citizen with graphics that are too much for my computer to handle. That's absurd. He chose his target audience, namely people who can afford the best computers on the market.

Besides. Close Beta was almost 3 years ago. Since then, I imagine quite a few players have done something about their hardware. PGI's choice to cater to the lowest denominator, people on 10 year old laptops, is not something anyone can influence.


Oh, I covered that in the OP. It's under "You may agree with those issues, or you may be more concerned about other things entirely."

This thread is more about encouraging people to vote with their wallet and raising awareness of our power as consumers, rather than discussing whether ghost heat or ECM needs to be looked at first. And frankly, I don't even mind if you think the game is 100% spot-on perfect.

If someone thinks I'm misguided, I can live with that. As I assume you live with it too

Sure, PGI can code their game for top end systems. And by doing that eliminate 70% of the players in the game because they don't have the hardware to support it. How does removing 70% of the players help *anyone*? This is why I think it's misguided as a rally point.

So while you're correct that PGi is in control of their code, they also have to cater to the largest demographic possible to have even the number of players we have now. BattleTech/MechWarrior are not Wing Commander/Star Citizen, never have been and never will be. More power to Chris Roberts, he has some of my money there too. But the fact is high end systems are the minority. Those Steam numbers are not some wild guess as to the PC player base, it's arguably the largest most accurate representation of PC gamer equipment in the world.

And for the record - every day is time to vote with your wallet. Nothing about a Mech pack release changes that.

Edited by EgoSlayer, 18 April 2015 - 12:21 PM.

[Deathlike]

Let me know when they decide to fix the gamma sliders option in MWO.

Since the introduction of DX11, those sliders suddenly became Lostech... because of a bug that solely affected DX11 and not DX9... but was disabled for BOTH (for no logical reason).

So... good luck with that.

Edited by Deathlike, 18 April 2015 - 12:02 PM.

[Bill Lumbar]

EgoSlayer, on 18 April 2015 - 11:58 AM, said:

Sure, PGI can code their game for top end systems. And by doing that eliminate 70% of the players in the game because they don't have the hardware to support it. How does removing 70% of the players help *anyone*?

So while you're correct that PGi is in control of their code, they also have to cater to the largest demographic possible to have even the number of players we have now. BattleTech/MechWarrior are not Wing Commander/Star Citizen, never have been and never will be. More power to Chris Roberts, he has some of my money there too. But the fact is high end systems are the minority. Those Steam numbers are not some wild guess as to the PC player base, it's arguably the largest most accurate representation of PC gamer equipment in the world.

And for the record - every day is time to vote with your wallet. Nothing about a Mech pack release changes that.

While going by the official steam numbers for users system specs are great and all.... That is a assumption for sure. Who is to say what number of MWO players have systems that "mid-higher end" or really low end? I for one had what I would consider a mid to high end system a month or so ago, Amd FX-8350 OC @ 5ghz and water cooled with a custom built loop, and a ATI 7970 XFX DD 3gb card. Since then, I upgraded to a I74790K build OC @ 4.8 ghz, and running the same 7970 3gb for right now.

I am sure there are many players running low-mid end systems in this game, I am also pretty sure there are just as many running higher end systems in this game. Steam has so many players, and so many "low spec" games that run on much lower hardware requirements, that I simply don't believe it would be a good reference to base "what ifs" on regarding design choices by PGI and all the eye candy they allow in this game. I for one feel kinda jipped because I missed out on those days of "better graphics, effects" in this game that some of you post screens of and speak of. Do I want this game to run stable for all players... YES I sure do, do I want this game to be watered down for all players who have invested in much higher end systems, NO I don't. Surely a happy medium can be reached to cater to both crowds.

[EgoSlayer]

Bill Lumbar, on 18 April 2015 - 12:27 PM, said:

While going by the official steam numbers for users system specs are great and all.... That is a assumption for sure. Who is to say what number of MWO players have systems that "mid-higher end" or really low end?
<snip>

Russ/PGI says. Russ said they can't take any more crytek engine updates because they eliminate DX9. That tells me that a substantial portion of the player base is still using DX9. Some portion of them may be DX11 capable and just not using it, but PGI has the system information to tell that difference as well. And MWO is going on Steam later this year so it's going to be the Steam player base being added; making it very relevant information.

Edited by EgoSlayer, 18 April 2015 - 12:32 PM.

[LordNothing]

i already have given them more money than i feel the game is worth. i would consider it foolish to keep giving them more. the choice is to either to spend an outrageous amount of time playing the game to earn all the things you want, or to spend an outrageous amount of cash to get them instantly, i dont think either makes a whole lot of sense. then when you have them, find out that the game has no real depth to it.

i knew this was coming long ago, when games stopped being innovative and turned to marketing schemes (scams), i knew gaming was dead. i figured id at least give f2p a chance before writing it off as a horrible idea. suspicions confirmed.

but yea, if you havent given pgi the amount of money you figure an arena shooter is worth, then go ahead, buy it. otherwise let it rust.

[RedDragon]

Mister Blastman, on 18 April 2015 - 07:35 AM, said:

Doesn't it make you angry when you realize just how brown, hazy and impossible to see without thermal/night vision the maps have become?

It's not even the murkiness but the overall decline in graphical quality. Just look at all those details that aren't there anymore. No wonder there is no sense of scale. Look at the mechs in the left pic, they actually look huge against the small trees. On the right it's just a barren landscape.

[Tastian]

stjobe, on 18 April 2015 - 07:43 AM, said:

I've bought every IS 'mech pack so far.

I have a Legendary Founder pack
I have the full Phoenix pack with the Sabre reinforcements.
I have the full Resistance pack.
I have the full Urbie pack.

I probably won't buy this new pack.

Why? I don't like where they're going with this game any more. They're focusing on CW, which would have been great if CW wasn't 12-man or GTFO. I'm a solo player (all my friends quit long ago over various PGI- or IGP-related issues), so nothing they do for CW makes the game an iota better for me. And CW is all they do, except 'mech packs.

I have to agree with this. I've spent nearly $600 on this game and I think it's in a great spot right now as far as mech warfare goes. I've already purchased Clan Wave 3 but I'm done putting money into the game. Why?

1) As mentioned above, CW is the focus right now which leaves solo and small group players out to dry.
2) Because of the way PGI has built omni mechs and IS mechs, new mechs are merely a hardpoint copy of mechs already in the game.

[aniviron]

Go ahead and watch these:





You know there's something to the original post when the game looked better two and a half years ago than it does now. What happened?

And to those of you who say graphics don't matter: that's crap and you know it. If nobody cared what the game looked like, we'd just be playing MW4. The fact that we're here and not there says a lot about the importance of graphical fidelity and art direction.

[Appogee]

I already decided not to buy any more Mech packs until we get Oceanic and European servers.

I have achieved all I can do with a 240 ping. Now I just want a fair chance of playing at the same ping enjoyed by US players.

[Torgun]

aniviron, on 18 April 2015 - 01:03 PM, said:

Totally OT, but that guy almost had me screaming "Target the mechs FFS!"

[Alistair Winter]

aniviron, on 18 April 2015 - 01:03 PM, said:

Go ahead and watch these:

You know there's something to the original post when the game looked better two and a half years ago than it does now. What happened?
And to those of you who say graphics don't matter: that's crap and you know it. If nobody cared what the game looked like, we'd just be playing MW4. The fact that we're here and not there says a lot about the importance of graphical fidelity and art direction.

God, I wish I could play that game! Not just the graphics, which were amazing. It's been some time since I saw a CB video in HD. I forgot how good it looked. And by the way, I also completely forgot how much more beautiful PPCs looked back in the day.

And not just the 8 v 8 gameplay, although I really miss that too.

But look at the TTK in those videos. Look at how much punishment that Atlas takes in the cave before it's finally put down. That was indeed epic, as the guy in the video said. With the current gameplay, if you overheat and power down one time, it's almost always game over. By the time you power up again, your mech is usually almost dead. That guy overheated, what, five times? Granted, there was some poor shooting on both sides, but there's still a pretty huge difference in TTK.

Oh well.

[MoonfireSpam]

Rwar

[krash27]

Geist Null, on 17 April 2015 - 04:00 PM, said:

Your list is of very minor issues that you would put before the continuation of the game itself. Sure I want certain problems fixed and new modes in place, but telling the others not to support pgi is akin to killing 1 dev to make 2 others work harder. All that practice will do is bring them down faster. Its f2p, ante up if u love btech cause this is the end of the line for the IP. If success is longlasting, theres hope down the road, if the players collapse it, its on you. As always I'm willing to donate at the low level, i owe the devs that much for my 10hrs a week.

I love Btech but I will not ante up just because Btech.
If the game dies it speaks to mistakes made by the devs. Don't pin that on the players.
As the saying goes, don't hate the players, hate the game.

Edited by krash27, 18 April 2015 - 01:36 PM.

[Rampancy]

Alistair Winter, on 18 April 2015 - 01:18 PM, said:

God, I wish I could play that game! Not just the graphics, which were amazing. It's been some time since I saw a CB video in HD. I forgot how good it looked. And by the way, I also completely forgot how much more beautiful PPCs looked back in the day.

And not just the 8 v 8 gameplay, although I really miss that too.

But look at the TTK in those videos. Look at how much punishment that Atlas takes in the cave before it's finally put down. That was indeed epic, as the guy in the video said. With the current gameplay, if you overheat and power down one time, it's almost always game over. By the time you power up again, your mech is usually almost dead. That guy overheated, what, five times? Granted, there was some poor shooting on both sides, but there's still a pretty huge difference in TTK.

Oh well.

It's 2 mechs shooting at it (a combined total of 130 tons) and a ton of wasted/missed shots that keep it alive that long. And all of the power-downs happened behind partial cover, and the enemy mechs were too cautious to press up and take advantage.

I said it in another thread and I'll say it again here: a lot of the wistfulness stems from the poor play of players back in CB. Before the game was figured out and people knew how much they could and couldn't get away with, battles lasted longer, more builds were viable, etc. You see the same thing with SC2 with people posting old pro VODs from the first year or so of play saying "OMG I MISS WHEN GAMEPLAY WAS LIKE THIS," when looking at the games any Masters-level player would wipe the floor with them.

Games are more forgiving, and the pace slower, when people are bad at them.