31 replies to this topic

[The Ratfink]

Aye that's my fear, I honestly believe a successful steam release will be required for the game to grow in any meaningful way.

[Sir Wulfrick]

The Ratfink, on 02 May 2015 - 03:20 AM, said:

These are all ideas I like that have been mentioned before in discussions: 1. Fix heat scale. Lower the heat thresh hold and increase dissipation. Separate double and single heat sinks by making double heat sinks increase dissipation and singles increase capacity. This will separate DPS and alpha builds. 2. Encourage role warfare via the skill tree. Make the skill tree different for each weight class. Lights would focus on speed/sensors, Medium agility/heat , Heavies damage/heat , Assaults Tanking. As part of this I would lower the sensor range as you go up the classes to encourage lights and mediums for scouting. 3. Fix Upgrades, make ferro be an upgrade to your armour 10-15%, endo lowers structure 15-25%, this would give a reason to take standard structure and fero to go tanky, endo to free up more weight for more DPS. This would also balance out current Mechs that use both as they gain armour but lose structure. Would also allow building for dps/tanking. 4. Lower the cost of modules, I would support them being upgrades instead of items. So you would pay 500k - 1 mil for each. 5. Allow 2 man groups into the solo queue, This allows people to play with a single friend without being ROFL stomped in group queue. 6. Make the nuub period longer, maybe 50 games, have an achievements panel where new players unlock maybe a basic Mech of each weight class for playing x games as that weight. Grant them some simple rewards including a little premium like our events. Have them where possible drop with other nuubs. Interactive tutorials against first turrets and tanks, then AI mechs. Have them reward the user with a choice of a mech if you do them all. As a wise drug dealer once said: Give them the first Rock for free and they will be hooked for life. 7. Introduce 4v4 and 8v8 on the smaller maps with increased rewards within the nuub period to allow for a higher TTK while they learn the game. 8. Add an increase in rewards if you play the weight class currently at the lowest percentage. I bet this would even the queue out massively. 9. Lower the costs for some older mechs, in other games like LOL you can buy starter packs with most of the classics in them. There has to be items at an attractive price for non whales. Even if its just the other variants of the ones you earn in tutorials. This would help people not get killed off by the grind of buying and leveling their first couple of Mechs. 10. Overhaul the consumables, Introduce more, allow it to be a specialization in skills/upgrades. Be able to summon turret, tank, air support, Artillery maybe even infantry, they would just be another type of turret TBH. What do you think?

I agree with pretty much all of this except point 9. The danger of doing that would be to essentially acknowledge obsolescence as time marches on. I agree with the idea of selling bundles of the classic mechs, but I'd rather have older chassis made effective than to acknowledge their inferiority in some way, which is what I fear would happen. One need look no further than the poor old Atlas: the S and possibly the DDC are barely viable in PuGs, all the other variants are wasted tonnage at this point. As a dedicated, hard-core Atlas lover I never thought I'd say that, but sadly it's reality.

Edited to add: WTF happened to the formatting in the quoted post??? Weird...
Other than that, some excellent ideas.

Edited by Sir Wulfrick, 02 May 2015 - 09:13 AM.

[Rebas Kradd]

Everyone in this thread, including the OP, has left out the factor that will truly make this game disappointing on Steam: lack of interesting game modes. The game is stale and repetitive. People just won't stick around.

MWO needs new game modes to keep people interested before coming out on Steam, and I don't mean the stand-in-a-square placeholders we have now.

[Sir Wulfrick]

Rebas Kradd, on 02 May 2015 - 09:33 AM, said:

Everyone in this thread, including the OP, has left out the factor that will truly make this game disappointing on Steam: lack of interesting game modes. The game is stale and repetitive. People just won't stick around.

MWO needs new game modes to keep people interested before coming out on Steam, and I don't mean the stand-in-a-square placeholders we have now.

I agree. MWO has (or had) the potential to be a truly innovative and immersive experience. I'd dearly love to have strategic campaigns, for there to be a simulation of actual 3052-style warfare on all levels from the grand strategic to the battlefield-tactical. I'd love to see actual PVP missions with multiple objectives on huge maps. But no. After 3 years we have a TDM-with-robots game that happens to be set in the Battletech universe.

I'm prepared to cautiously say that since the departure of IG Publishing PGI have been going in a better direction with MWO, but this game could be so much more than it is now...

Edited by Sir Wulfrick, 02 May 2015 - 09:39 AM.

[The Ratfink]

More modes would be good especially Solaris but the population isn't high enough to support another game mode IMHO. To me they need to polish what we have before adding anything major.

[Burktross]

I agree completely, but endo shouldn't be nerfed outright, just buff ferro.

[Shabahh Kerensky]

Sir Wulfrick, on 02 May 2015 - 09:38 AM, said:

I agree. MWO has (or had) the potential to be a truly innovative and immersive experience. I'd dearly love to have strategic campaigns, for there to be a simulation of actual 3052-style warfare on all levels from the grand strategic to the battlefield-tactical. I'd love to see actual PVP missions with multiple objectives on huge maps. But no. After 3 years we have a TDM-with-robots game that happens to be set in the Battletech universe.

I'm prepared to cautiously say that since the departure of IG Publishing PGI have been going in a better direction with MWO, but this game could be so much more than it is now...

The problem with that is the whole one life per game/no respawn decision since this game started. There's no point in accomplishing objectives when you can just kill the enemy team and be done with it. As nice as the idea is, it limits the possibilities a lot. It's also why maps aren't bigger. People don't want to move around a lot only to die and start over in another game.

Maybe if every mode had dropships?

Edited by Shabahh Kerensky, 02 May 2015 - 11:51 AM.

[Sir Wulfrick]

Shabahh Kerensky, on 02 May 2015 - 11:50 AM, said:

The problem with that is the whole one life per game/no respawn decision since this game started. There's no point in accomplishing objectives when you can just kill the enemy team and be done with it. As nice as the idea is, it limits the possibilities a lot. It's also why maps aren't bigger. People don't want to move around a lot only to die and start over in another game.

Maybe if every mode had dropships?

Yes, good point. I would imagine that a simulation of a proper large-scale battle would necessitate the ability to call in dropship support, but that could also be made a tactical decision for the ground commander. Captured a strategic location? Great, call in a dropship for reinforcements, the reinforcements in question being the players who's mechs died in the battle for that strategic location. Essentially I think it would be really awesome if we could have something on the scale of Planetside 2 but set in the Battletech universe. Armour support, infantry, aerospace fighters, no reason it couldn't all be added in for extra immersion.

Edited by Sir Wulfrick, 02 May 2015 - 01:21 PM.

[Xetelian]

Make the mechlab a lot more user friendly and give us real statistics that we can work with on heat, total firepower/alpha, DPS est. and then we'll talk steam and all the rest of everything.

[verybad]

1. The Mechlab is the worst of any game in the series, and amongst the worst of any game that allows unit design that I've played, fix it. Seriously, it's shite. Don't modify the current one, throw it away and have someone else make a new one, fire whoever designed the current one,

2. Give the game some sort of classes for newbies.

3. Reduce the cost of everything in the game, it's far, far overpriced. I've stopped buying anything for it myself because the cost is more than I expect to enjoy from buying stuff. I'm not rich, but I'm not poor either, and many people would agree with that view I think.

4. Definitely expand the types of games that can be played, and please introduce some sort of AI to fill out games so you don't have to wait as long. Waiting room times are just ridiculous some times, and people that don't already have a hard-on for everything battletech/mechwarrior aren't going to stand for it. If making an AI for a game that's been in "development" for what, 5 years? Is too difficult, well then either hire somebody that can, or get out of game development. Other companies can do it for the same engine, so it's not impossible.

5. Fix the balances and make the Clans and Inner Sphere rewarded in game differently so they play differently and actually feel different (eg, no clan bonuses for assists, but more for kills)

6. Bring back knockdowns and collisions. Bring in destroyable objects, a 70 ton mech should not be stopped from proceeding because a car is in front of it, it should step on the damned car and make a nice little explosion.. This is 2015, even Mechwarrior 4 way back in 2000 had SOME destroyable objects.

7. Finish the game. I understand that you have to keep the money rolling, so new mechpacks is the common theme, but the game feels like the designers walked away from it halfway done.

8. To me, it feels like the designers have lost their love for the game due to the wear and tear of working on it, doesn't feel excited, doesn't feel...fun. They all should take a good 2 week vacation, then get back seriously to the game.

[Gut]

1. Lower price and grind requirement to get things finished
2. Add more play modes to keep people interested for a long time
3. Fix netcode
4. ... profit?

[Nothing Whatsoever]

The Ratfink, on 02 May 2015 - 03:20 AM, said:

These are all ideas I like that have been mentioned before in discussions:

1. Fix heat scale. Lower the heat thresh hold and increase dissipation. Separate double and single heat sinks by making double heat sinks increase dissipation and singles increase capacity. This will separate DPS and alpha builds.

2. Encourage role warfare via the skill tree. Make the skill tree different for each weight class. Lights would focus on speed/sensors, Medium agility/heat , Heavies damage/heat , Assaults Tanking. As part of this I would lower the sensor range as you go up the classes to encourage lights and mediums for scouting.

3. Fix Upgrades, make ferro be an upgrade to your armour 10-15%, endo lowers structure 15-25%, this would give a reason to take standard structure and fero to go tanky, endo to free up more weight for more DPS. This would also balance out current Mechs that use both as they gain armour but lose structure. Would also allow building for dps/tanking.

6. Make the [brand new player] period longer, maybe 50 games, have an achievements panel where new players unlock maybe a basic Mech of each weight class for playing x games as that weight. Grant them some simple rewards including a little premium like our events. Have them where possible drop with other [brand new players]. Interactive tutorials against first turrets and tanks, then AI mechs. Have them reward the user with a choice of a mech if you do them all. As a wise drug dealer once said: Give them the first Rock for free and they will be hooked for life.

7. Introduce 4v4 and 8v8 on the smaller maps with increased rewards within the [brand new player] period to allow for a higher TTK while they learn the game.

8. Add an increase in rewards if you play the weight class currently at the lowest percentage. I bet this would even the queue out massively.

10. Overhaul the consumables, Introduce more, allow it to be a specialization in skills/upgrades. Be able to summon turret, tank, air support, Artillery maybe even infantry, they would just be another type of turret TBH.

These, I can easily support these.

Quote

4. Lower the cost of modules, I would support them being upgrades instead of items. So you would pay 500k - 1 mil for each.

5. Allow 2 man groups into the solo queue, This allows people to play with a single friend without being ROFL stomped in group queue.

9. Lower the costs for some older mechs, in other games like LOL you can buy starter packs with most of the classics in them. There has to be items at an attractive price for non whales. Even if its just the other variants of the ones you earn in tutorials. This would help people not get killed off by the grind of buying and leveling their first couple of Mechs.

4.) With modules, I understand that the devs need a money sink, so I'd have the first modules at their current prices and then have extra modules at reduced prices.

5.) I'd have the opposite, have one as Solo only queue where maps dictate team sizes so small maps can be the 4v4, 8v8 and so on and we cannot check/uncheck game modes; with the group queue where you can jump in solo up to 12, with plausibly keeping maps determining team sizes in exchange for selecting/unselecting modes to help match maker.

This would also have at least separate sets of Elo scores tracked for Solo and Group.

9.) I'd rather explore increasing what we can earn with C-Bills, and provide opportunities for more income streams for the devs than just lower prices here.