272 replies to this topic

[HoundOfCullan]

They could set it up so that only 1 lance from a given unit will drop together. Not sure if that will solve the problem.

I found my pug team (made up of 12 people on TS from many different units) often stomped the premades...so I'm not complaining.

[Mystere]

Caustic Canid, on 05 May 2015 - 02:28 PM, said:

No, I get it. Development resources are limited. You are saying that players should have put up with a flawed game so that the developers could focus on putting out more content and game modes rather than trying to make the base game mechanics functional and fun.

And you missed again, this time by two miles ... I guess it's spoonfeeding time ...

Priority should have been given to building the basic game mechanics, including CW's, over prematurely spending significant time, effort, and resources balancing Mechs, weapons, and other equipment. It was a fool's errand to prematurely do so.

People warned about it during closed beta. People again warned about it in open beta. But no, "XXX killed me! Nerf XXX NAO!" was significantly more important to many than building the missing major pieces. The "unrest" was apparently significant enough for PGI to give in.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

How sad.

[Crockdaddy]

Caustic Canid, on 03 May 2015 - 11:31 PM, said:

"These days" means I'm talking about right now. As in the trolls that exist at present are sad and ineffective compared to the ones we had in beta.

I think you misunderstood my post.

And yeah, I remember the forum being "reorganized" as well as all the butt-rage it spawned.

My bad. I took it as a wasn't so bad in my day post. Yes the forums are honestly nice for the most part now compared to 2013 and NKVA troll posts are mostly humorous.

[Caustic Canid]

Mystere, on 05 May 2015 - 04:23 PM, said:

And you missed again, this time by two miles ... I guess it's spoonfeeding time ...

Priority should have been given to building the basic game mechanics, including CW's, over prematurely spending significant time, effort, and resources balancing Mechs, weapons, and other equipment. It was a fool's errand to prematurely do so.

People warned about it during closed beta. People again warned about it in open beta. But no, "XXX killed me! Nerf XXX NAO!" was significantly more important to many than building the missing major pieces. The "unrest" was apparently significant enough for PGI to give in.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

How sad.

I'm glad that you could come up with an appropriately condescending response, in keeping with the general tone of the forums.

You seem to be mistakenly construing disagreement as misunderstanding.

I understand what you're saying. I just don't agree.

I believe that game balance is part of core functionality. It forms the foundation of a good game.

If the game in it's simplest form is losing players due to lack of balance, it doesn't really matter what bells and whistles you tack on to it, people aren't going to play it.

Say I make a game called "Gun vs. Sword" with only one level, and two characters; "Guy with gun" and "Guy with sword". If every game ended with Sword guy getting shot 2 seconds into it, everyone would say "Why even play as sword guy? This game is dumb!" It really wouldn't matter if I made a dozen more levels, or a tournament, or a back story or an interactive universe based around Gun guy and Sword guy and their bitter rivalry. People would just stop playing because the game is just some guy with a sword getting shot in various different settings.

Edited by Caustic Canid, 05 May 2015 - 05:43 PM.

[Mycrus]

Taemien, on 04 May 2015 - 01:35 PM, said:

Seems to be a common theme here. Instead of taking personal responsibility. Players are still blaming the devs for everything.

In the days of previous MechWarrior and MechCommander games we had to rely on third parties to give us a planetary assault style of play. And you know what was required in those days? And do you know what you got?

1. A fully staffed unit. If you didn't have 4, 8, or 12 people to be able to drop on a semi daily basis, you couldn't play. If you ran with a 2-4 man unit, you were forced to play as a Merc and had to wait for a unit to allow you to drop with them. Most didn't use mercs for that purpose and instead hired mercs who could field a full load to do assaults and raids for them. You didn't have the luxury of letting PUGs fight an occasional sector. If you didn't show up, you were kicked from the league.

Imagine that, if a defense or offense alert happens and you don't answer it, you can't play CW anymore. You're done as well as the rest of your unit. Yeah its much better now.

2. Automation was NOT integrated with the game. You had to login to a website and when attacks or defenses happened, you used the current MechWarrior game as a proxy. Make sure you take screenshots when you win or when the opponent does something fishy. Couldn't rely on the system to enforce the rules of the league. Oh and when you were done, you logged back onto the website and put in the results, had to wait for the opponent to confirm.. and have another tab open ready to deploy again before he clicked his. You do wish to be on the offensive again. Not defense.

3. No rewards. You had dots that represented the InnerSphere. When you won you got another dot in your faction's color. That's it. And you know what? That's all we needed. We played competitively for the sake of playing competitively. What happened? You all are blaming the devs, but what kind of POS units are you all in that you have to rely on rewards to get your members to show up? This isn't the dev's faults. Its your members' fault and your leaders' fault. They're little zerglings that are only here to see a Cbill number go up. They are not competitive players, but entitled little millennials that need achievements to help them get to the next room in modern games.

Don't blame the dev's for people not showing up. Look at yourselves, your units' members, and your units' leadership.

The nature of "fun" and "entertainment" has progressed by leaps and bounds... devs expecting players to put that level of effort in the age of facebook and xbox live will stagnate.

[Rejarial Galatan]

i really do not see why wanting to play CW as a solo artist is such a horrifically bad thing. at least that is what i see being construed here. Look, cut the reqs for it being 12 on 12 down to needing only 4 ppl PERIOD to start a match and be done with it. Let more ppl join a fight as its going on if we do the need only 4 to start. If this sounds familiar to you, congratulations fellow Battlefield 3, Battlefield 4 player, you see what I am point at. Reduce the number to start the match and BAM you increase playability and expand the style of play needed. just sayin.

[VXJaeger]

PPL don't like CB's even when CW is the place to rake them in.

[N0MAD]

Mystere, on 05 May 2015 - 04:23 PM, said:

And you missed again, this time by two miles ... I guess it's spoonfeeding time ...

Priority should have been given to building the basic game mechanics, including CW's, over prematurely spending significant time, effort, and resources balancing Mechs, weapons, and other equipment. It was a fool's errand to prematurely do so.

People warned about it during closed beta. People again warned about it in open beta. But no, "XXX killed me! Nerf XXX NAO!" was significantly more important to many than building the missing major pieces. The "unrest" was apparently significant enough for PGI to give in.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

How sad.

Dont give me this BS about the unrest being significant, you, PGI and i know that the Vocal forum population is a SMALL % of the player base, so at no time was there a significant vocal majority involved in anything.
Things were changed and i stress changed because there were obvious problems, these problems keep reoccurring because they were not able to fix the problems and they merely band aided them because as stated they were not capable.
That this snow balled into the major problems you have today is not in the least unexpected.
If and i say if you are correct and they acted in contradiction to their own beliefs that they were right and gave into a small % of a very small % (forum users) then they even more incompetent/fools for doing so.
Dont blame the players for the problems in development, that is entirely the developers fault.
Also...
This BS excuse i keep reading about the small dev team is just that BS, any business owner worth his salt will tell you that if you dont have the man power to deliver your product you hire more staff if you want to stay in bizz or you get out, saying to the customer " sorry we cant deliver on time or quality because we are small" will send you out of bizz pretty quick. This also impacts on your Reputation and again any business owner will tell you your future depends greatly on your reputation, well unless youre a groups of people that changes your company name as you burn the last one.
Steam to grow population? really? when was this meant to go on steam? i personally dont believe it will goto steam in the near future if at all, can you really imagine the reception this game will get on there in its current form? the reviews it will get (even if its only from current players and past players, ohh my) PGI wont be able to control the user comments there....and the comments will be able to be seen by a very large player community there unlike the very very small forum community here.
Where did every one go? most of us know the answer to that, just log into any other game and ask "who has played MWO"

[Mystere]

N0MAD, on 06 May 2015 - 03:24 AM, said:

Dont give me this BS about the unrest being significant, you, PGI and i know that the Vocal forum population is a SMALL % of the player base, so at no time was there a significant vocal majority involved in anything.
Things were changed and i stress changed because there were obvious problems, these problems keep reoccurring because they were not able to fix the problems and they merely band aided them because as stated they were not capable.
That this snow balled into the major problems you have today is not in the least unexpected.
If and i say if you are correct and they acted in contradiction to their own beliefs that they were right and gave into a small % of a very small % (forum users) then they even more incompetent/fools for doing so.
Dont blame the players for the problems in development, that is entirely the developers fault.

So what if the vocal forum population is just a small percentage of the player base? People who do not want to speak up will never be heard. Only those who choose to do so are heard. That is why elections in which less than 50% of the voting population actually vote are still considered valid. The same principle applies here.

Do you remember the brouhaha with regard to the Mass Effect 3 ending? Do you really believe Bioware made the changes because a majority of the player base actually protested against it? Or was that the doing of a very vocal minority, which included game reviewers/bloggers?

Now for an example related to MWO, the loud and incessant crying on the forums over PPCs during the lifetime of this game is why they were subjected to nerf/buff cycles that went full circle. And as added bonus ( ) we got Ghost Heat. Are you saying PGI would have done those same nerf/buff cycles anyway if no one actually cried about it? Really?

The same can arguably be said about poptarts, spawn camping, and light rushes (yes, I am going in there).

So yes, players can and do cause developers to change course, whether for good or bad.

Having said all that, remember my original point. Priority should have been given to building the still-missing critical pieces instead of prematurely creating endless nerf/buff cycles that consumed a lot of limited resources just because a vocal minority demanded those nerfs/buffs.

N0MAD, on 06 May 2015 - 03:24 AM, said:

Also...
This BS excuse i keep reading about the small dev team is just that BS, any business owner worth his salt will tell you that if you dont have the man power to deliver your product you hire more staff if you want to stay in bizz or you get out, saying to the customer " sorry we cant deliver on time or quality because we are small" will send you out of bizz pretty quick. This also impacts on your Reputation and again any business owner will tell you your future depends greatly on your reputation, well unless youre a groups of people that changes your company name as you burn the last one.
Steam to grow population? really? when was this meant to go on steam? i personally dont believe it will goto steam in the near future if at all, can you really imagine the reception this game will get on there in its current form? the reviews it will get (even if its only from current players and past players, ohh my) PGI wont be able to control the user comments there....and the comments will be able to be seen by a very large player community there unlike the very very small forum community here.
Where did every one go? most of us know the answer to that, just log into any other game and ask "who has played MWO"

Businesses indeed do die out and close down when they fail to deliver products the market is willing to buy. You're not getting any argument from me on that point. Some just take longer to die than others, though.

Edited by Mystere, 06 May 2015 - 07:10 AM.

[Mystere]

Mycrus, on 05 May 2015 - 08:16 PM, said:

The nature of "fun" and "entertainment" has progressed by leaps and bounds... devs expecting players to put that level of effort in the age of facebook and xbox live will stagnate.

I don't know about "progressed" ...

Yes, by all accounts so far, The Avengers: Age of Ultron is a huge financial blockbuster. But as a cinematic achievement worthy of praise, I quote:

• "... at close to two and half hours, I could not wait for this thing to end."
  
• "More does not necessarily equal better; here, more is just … meh."
  
• "... its fairly simple story is overloaded with pointless convolutions ..."
  
• "... mostly registers as yet another Marvel punchplosion."
  
• "... leaves us with the nagging feeling that we've been here too many times before."

Edited by Mystere, 06 May 2015 - 08:54 AM.

[102_devill]

Whatever happens behind the scenes, I would say that a DEV team who makes these kind of nerf/buff cycles is not a very competent team. If you want to make a game, and you listen to what people are saying on the forum, this only means that you as a DEV do not have a clear idea of what you want nor the competence to make it work by yourself.

10+ years ago you would buy a game - a finished game - and you would try it and either like it and play it or you would not. End of story. But today, these half witted devs are in the business of making money by cloning other people's ideas and concepts. Since they are copying and not starting from their own original idea, chances are they are not good enough. If you were good enough you would have your own idea.

Since these games are "free to play" the DEVs have no real solid obligation to furnish a finished product. Therefore you have this BS of playing and PAYING for a game which is still a BETA. Then people who payed for an unfinished product start to complain because 2 years after it is still a BETA, the DEVs want to keep the population in so they start to cater to the public and you have entered a vicious circle from which I have yet to see a game exit.

After playing WoT and MWO I told myself I would never again get into a free to play multiplayer game. I gave up on WoT and will probably give up on MWO in the near future. Compared to this, I have played IL2 for 15 years now and that mostly in multi-player. This kind of a rewarding experience from one game will never come from this free to play ********.

[Apnu]

Mystere, on 05 May 2015 - 04:23 PM, said:

And you missed again, this time by two miles ... I guess it's spoonfeeding time ...

Priority should have been given to building the basic game mechanics, including CW's, over prematurely spending significant time, effort, and resources balancing Mechs, weapons, and other equipment. It was a fool's errand to prematurely do so.

People warned about it during closed beta. People again warned about it in open beta. But no, "XXX killed me! Nerf XXX NAO!" was significantly more important to many than building the missing major pieces. The "unrest" was apparently significant enough for PGI to give in.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

How sad.

Honestly there was so many conflicting voices from the community about what PGI should do at that time, we still have that problem. But back then I clearly remember hearing a lot of players begging for game fixes, and just as many begging for new mechs, and just as many begging for new maps/modes.

I think PGI got distracted from all that noise and sort of threw the plan out the window and did whatever they could to silence the shrill QQ'ing going on.

IGP, we know, pushed for mech releases because mechs = revenue. Core mechanic fixes, new maps and modes are money sinks. I don't think IGP, being new to the business, had any idea what the cost of making a game is. Especially in the Freemium world we now live in.

[Mystere]

Apnu, on 06 May 2015 - 08:48 AM, said:

Honestly there was so many conflicting voices from the community about what PGI should do at that time, we still have that problem. But back then I clearly remember hearing a lot of players begging for game fixes, and just as many begging for new mechs, and just as many begging for new maps/modes.

I think PGI got distracted from all that noise and sort of threw the plan out the window and did whatever they could to silence the shrill QQ'ing going on.

IGP, we know, pushed for mech releases because mechs = revenue. Core mechanic fixes, new maps and modes are money sinks. I don't think IGP, being new to the business, had any idea what the cost of making a game is. Especially in the Freemium world we now live in.

This, a thousand this.

Of course, this assumes they actually had a concrete plan to stick to.

Edited by Mystere, 06 May 2015 - 08:56 AM.

[Apnu]

Mystere, on 06 May 2015 - 08:53 AM, said:

This, a thousand this.

Of course, this assumes they actually had a concrete plan to stick to.

I genuinely think they did. Going back to Eckman's statements in CB and OB he sounded like he had a real plan.

[Grynos]

Apnu, on 06 May 2015 - 08:48 AM, said:

IGP, we know, pushed for mech releases because mechs = revenue. Core mechanic fixes, new maps and modes are money sinks. I don't think IGP, being new to the business, had any idea what the cost of making a game is. Especially in the Freemium world we now live in.

This has changed how???

[Taemien]

Tywren, on 05 May 2015 - 12:47 PM, said:

So what you're saying is that the game you want to play already exists? Then maybe the solution is for PGI to tell you, and everyone who thinks like you to piss off; that way you can go back to playing the moldy oldies you enjoy so much, and PGI can focus on making this game into something the majority of their player base wants to actualy play.

By PGI's own admition, only 13% of the game's pop play CW, yet it's the major focus of development. There is only one word for that, suicidal; you can't build what is looking like atleast 50% of your game around 13% of your player base, and they've pushed CW too hard to backtrack now. That leaves one option, changing devlopment focus to expand the enjoyment of the 87%, even if that means loosing a large chunk of that smaller 13% such as yourself.

I do play the game I like. I like how CW works. So you can not only piss off, but stick your head down a toilet and keep flushing till the world goes black. I don't give a damn what you want. You're the one who is coming all the way down to the CW section of the forums and whining about a game mode you're not able to solo in.

You don't see me in the general forums clamoring how the general queues need to be like CW. That game is done, people like their deathmatch, they like their shiny new toys. That part of the game is satisfied.

You might say 13% is a small number. But how much of that 13% is paying more than their fair share? Competitive players pay extraordinary amounts to stay competitive. So sorry -that- argument isn't holding any weight. But like I said, head off to the bathroom and do us all a favor.

[Pezzer]

Zoid, on 03 May 2015 - 04:23 AM, said:

People in the big units keep screaming about how PUGs should stay away from CW, so I am.

Yep. The system's extremely flawed right now too, so I'm just waiting it out until CW becomes Community Warfare, not Clan Wars. Right now it's one big competitive group against a few other big competitive groups.

The game isn't dying, nothing crazy like that is happening. CW is just untouched because the UI is meh, the incentive to play is meh, the maps use the same objectives, and the map design is still unbalanced. Imo CW feels like an alpha, which is fine, just don't expect a lot of people to be playing an alpha.

[Apnu]

Grynos, on 06 May 2015 - 11:04 AM, said:

This has changed how???

Clan release. Which blew up the community. That was all IGP. Russ and PGI knew the game wasn't ready, but IGP wanted a big cash grab and twisted arms to get it. Then they died. This is also at the time when there was little to no game changes being made but buckets of heroes being churned out.

The Heroes have slowed to a trickle, yes we get more Clan packs and IS packs, but we're also getting new game elements and game fixes at a descent clip along side with mechs.

so what changed? PGI is making progress while selling mechs. Under IGP they weren't doing squat and selling mechs. That's what pissed everybody off over the inital clan announcement.

[mania3c]

Apnu, on 06 May 2015 - 12:57 PM, said:

Clan release. Which blew up the community. That was all IGP. Russ and PGI knew the game wasn't ready, but IGP wanted a big cash grab and twisted arms to get it. Then they died. This is also at the time when there was little to no game changes being made but buckets of heroes being churned out.

The Heroes have slowed to a trickle, yes we get more Clan packs and IS packs, but we're also getting new game elements and game fixes at a descent clip along side with mechs.

so what changed? PGI is making progress while selling mechs. Under IGP they weren't doing squat and selling mechs. That's what pissed everybody off over the inital clan announcement.

What prgoress? there was no progress since CW was released some fixes and simple changes..but it's same thing over and over again..yes..they don't sell heroes..they are selling whole packs..because it's more profitable..and? what else? quirks rebalancing? that's the progress? Or maps? Map quality went to hell long time ago..new maps are just bad..and they were saying they want make more quality maps, when assets will be ready..

To me..it seems that ship is sinking..not that something is getting better...here..just few quotes from glassdoor site.

Quote

Pros
They had a good idea to start another Mechwarrior game, but poor execution.
Cons
Their main game, Mechwarrior Online, is failing and they know it. They will milk it for as much revenue as they can, but leaving was the best option because it is clear that they will soon close shop. They launched it early because they needed money, but it's clear it sunk the game and they cannot make it profitable in the long term.


Pros
I work at Piranha Games full-time
Small studio, growing smaller. Friendly employees (what's left.)
Cons
Bigoted, back thinking, Management with what seems no concept of what needs doing.
CEO, is as incompetent as made out to be. Terrible reputation within AFC.
NO opportunities for varied projects. (Wasting Finances)
Poor salary grade for positions.

Pros
A great group of people to work with and free soda and sugary products. The extended health package is pretty good and transit is paid for.
Cons
The management treat employees as disposable tools, and under value them. The compensation is well below standards and management has expectations of their staff that they themselves are not willing to live up to.

There is zero thought to career development at this company. You will get pigeon holed into a position until they have no further use for you, at which point they will try to rip you off andnot pay your legally earned severance.

I am not saying what is on this site has to be true..but for me..it is at least indication something is wrong and MWO wont see much growth anymore...I really hope I am wrong..but for now, I am staying skeptical ..

[That Dawg]

Just checked, 7PM EST, 113 players.....

come back to pugs, we are a friendly group who will welcome you to the fold, not chide you for being solo and we promise, a match every couple minutes, 24/7