Joseph Mallan, on 27 April 2015 - 03:59 AM, said:
Cause as a CO you don't put the new guy in the Baddest thing on the field. The most likely to die isn't the one you trust the good stuff to. That goes to teh guys who earned their stripes already. In most games I play, I have to earn the swag I have. I don't begin with Gold ammo and Armor of Invulnerability.
The thing is that things like gold ammo and armor of invulnerability (which obviously don't literally exist here) are stupid in a purely PvP game like this, and crap like that never existed before certain F2P games came along because every other game saw why giving people a competitive advantage simply for paying money or playing longer was dumb.
The only reason to justify such metagame crap is to line the publisher's wallet with money and absolutely nothing to do with it being good for the game, so if you say "well yeah obviously new players should get slaughtered by those who paid money or played longer, duh" then I'm going to say "enjoy playing your dead piece of crap game while I go play something else."
Kristov Kerensky, on 27 April 2015 - 09:34 AM, said:
My first question for Xoco is a simple one, what other online MMO style games have you played?
I ask that because they all tend to start off like MWO does, you start off with nothing and have to go and play to earn anything you want. You do quests, you kill stuff, whatever the game's theme is, you end up doing things that let you earn coin and/or xp so you can get better stuff and become more powerful.
If you aren't any good at the game's mechanics, then it will probably be a frustrating and long experience trying to get anything of any value ingame. Most MMO style games this typically means you need to be able to point and click, there's no real skills involved outside of knowing what to click when. And most MMOs of that type will have loads of online tutorials, charts, graphs, and even 3rd party tools that allow you to 'master' the game without actually learning anything.
MWO, you actually are required to have some skills in order to do well due to the FPS nature of the game's mechanics. Some people discover that they really don't have the skills necessary and blame the game for that lack. Others realize they don't have the skills and work to acquire them, they understand that the GAME isn't the problem, they are.
The new player experience in MWO is, sadly, lacking a lot, but PGI is working on that. Starting off with nothing and having to earn what you want, well, that's EVERY MMO style game out there, from WoW to PlanetSide2. Hell, even Battlefield and Call of Duty require one to 'grind' to earn stuff to use ingame, it's not given to you right off the bat for simply logging into the game.
Mastery of a Mech chassis IS supposed to be end game material in MWO, and since I can buy 3 variants of a single chassis I haven't ever used before and get Mastery in all 3 of variants in less than 20 hours ingame and without upgrading any of them, simply replacing weapons to fit MY style of playing I don't consider it much of a grind. Not when I compare what it takes to complete end game material in other MMO style games, not even close to a grind.
The
significant difference with MWO and other MMOs is that MWO is extremely lacking in content, and in particular there's no PvE content whatsoever, so shoving in a crappy artificial grind becomes a lot harder to justify. At least in other MMOs when you're doing quests and exploring and gaining levels (which could be considered "grinding") you're experiencing a variety of content, but here all you experience is getting blown to bits by other players in their mechs that aren't death traps because they grinded more or paid more than you in a purely PvP game.
RogueLdr, on 27 April 2015 - 11:53 AM, said:
First off, they do need a better and more in depth player tutorial. (though they say they are working on it)
That being said, while eliting a mech does help it's not the end all be all. Skill and knowledge of game machanics are by far much more vital. As someone said earlier you take a seasoned player and put them in a brand new mech, they will still pull 400+ dmg in all likelihood.
The problem is that there are plenty of builds that rely on those doubled basics and elites (and possibly even the master module slot) to be decent, in particular brawling builds, because there are so many important bonuses tied to the mech tree that mechs are ultimately balanced around, and until they grind that crap up the mechs are significantly less effective.
I can stand that sort of grinding crap to an extent, despite my immense displeasure for it that regularly reminds me why I don't spend more money than the very small amount I spent in the past, but MWO takes it too far and it ruins the game.
Edited by Pjwned, 27 April 2015 - 08:56 PM.