121 replies to this topic

[cSand]

I would say the mechs are fine it is the legions of meta-hump tryhards that I find lacking soul

[Apnu]

TheCharlatan, on 12 May 2015 - 12:45 AM, said:

Hello Mechwarriors,

Let's forget balance for a moment and talk about "character".

When I look at my IS mechs, what I see are dirty, ancient machines full of grit and awesomeness.

Just look at the Hunchie: it's just lusting for a fight.

They look like WW2 tanks, gods of war made metal.

Even the way they play, they feel like they have a character (and I'm not talking about quirks), strenghts and weaknesses that a pilot has to use to do well in them.

Now let's look at clan mechs. With a few exceptions, they just feel... empty. Soulless.

Yeah, they are beautiful, sleek, polished, like a modern jet fighter.

But... i don't know, they just don't feel YOURS.

My Stormcrow is way better then my Shadowhawk, but i still prefer the latter, just because i feel better in that cramped cockpit, with those mean weapons jutting out and obscuring my view. Sitting in a clan mech feels like you are in a sterile office, no matter how much clutter you put in there.

The timber might be the best heavy in the game, but i look at my Jester and think "that's my mech". And I'm going to drive my mech. Same goes for the Mad Dog.

I just can't bring myself to buy more clan mechs, I just can't make a connection with them.

Anybody else feel the same?

Yes, the only difference between Clans and IS is the color of the HUD.

Clans should play like an alien race and have a totally different everything with them.

Players should have two characters to start. One for "clans" one for "IS" and keep their earnings seperated and mechs seperated. Clan "pilots" earn clan economy and buy and upgrade clan mechs. IS the same. Then you have different rewards for each "race"

Clans should get big payout bonuses (in c-bill, MXP and LP) for solo kills and other battlefield actions that reflect Zellbrigen. They should also get payout bonuses for batchall actions, like dropping under tonned. Say they can pick a mech type slot: light, medium, heavy, assault, and if they pick a mech that's not in that category (say they pick "heavy" but take a SCR), then they're "bidding low" and should get perks for that.

They should also be in stars of 5, with two stars of clan players per match, so a total of 10. Forget the tonnage thing. If they want to drop in a binary of Direwolves, fine but they'll get a pittance of a pay out.

As for IS, well stick with 3x4 lances, and payouts as they are. Give IS perks for helping other mechs (scouting, TAG/NARC, UAV....) Basically what we have now.

Do these things and then clans will feel like they have a soul.

[Brody319]

I think the "Bad" clan mechs have lots of personality and soul.
I personally loved my Gargoyle since day one and never felt it was soulless. However I feel my King Crab is pretty soulless.

Think it has to do with how good the mech is, low tier mechs always felt better than higher tier ones.

[LordMelvin]

Navid A1, on 12 May 2015 - 01:25 AM, said:

This has (had) soul... more than anything... i call it lost potential.




But... this has only DERP!




Its sad that modelers can not give us what alex intended.

Gosh, I never realized how inflated that CT really was.


I feel like a total badass when I roll around in my Mad Cat. Especially if I get into a good circle-of-death brawl and just lean on the machine gun trigger. If the clan mechs feel soulless I'd say that's very intentional. They don't have the rough-and-tumble air of the IS mechs since they're designed to be a scalpel, not a sledgehammer.

[Poisoner]

Alistair Winter, on 12 May 2015 - 12:59 AM, said:

The Stormcrow is absolutely beautiful, and if it wasn't so OP I would buy one.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

Some of them have quite a lot of personality. The lights simply defy categorization. They make good snipers and ambushers, but can't brawl and harass the way the IS lights do. The Uller offers some of the most helpful support configs in the game; the Puma is a crazy, fire-breathing, purring weirdo; the Koshi is the itty-bittiest cute little ERPPC poptart...

Then there's the Fenris, the medium that might as well be a light, in all its fridge-on-legs glory; the Blackhawk, which wants and gets ALL THE LAZOOOORZ; the Vulture with that epic beak of a nose that just makes you want to hand it some kleenex; the Thor, with its endearing asymmetrical derpiness; the Man 'o War, a plucky fat kid trying to be a track star; and the Masakari, which can't quite do what it was built to do as well as its more popular big brother...

Then there's the Loki, which is about the closest thing the Clans have to "average." It boasts no unique aesthetic, no outrageous departures from convention... it's damn good, but very hard to hate for it because even when it kicks your ass, it doesn't look particularly good doing it. It inspires no powerful emotions at all. It's just... there.

...and then there are the 'Mech Mary Sues. The ones that are jacks of all trades and masters of all of them. The irritating tryhard kids who aren't happy until their gold stars have gold stars on them, and then whine that life is haaaaard for beautiful people who are talented at everything. They wear a thin veneer of nostalgia for old favorites over bodies of soulless tripe.

Edited by PS WrathOfDeadguy, 12 May 2015 - 12:54 PM.

[Water Bear]

PS WrathOfDeadguy, on 12 May 2015 - 12:54 PM, said:

the Blackhawk, which wants and gets ALL THE LAZOOOORZ

If you don't have at least one ac/20 black jack you're missing out. God I love that mildly crappy thing.

Edit: Oh, you said black HAWK. Fail...

Edited by Water Bear, 12 May 2015 - 12:59 PM.

[Novakaine]

Like so many politicians Clankers have no souls.
"My term for Clanners."
Just so much tubewash dumped in a bucket.
Why would you expect their mechs to be any different

Edited by Novakaine, 12 May 2015 - 01:09 PM.

[KuroNyra]

While I do love my Founders mech and some other IS mech...
It's pretty much the same for my Clans Mech...

In the Inner Sphere, you had one mech and that's it... Most of the time he is yours (especially with the Mercs).

But with the Clans, it's different, it's one you use because it's the oe available....
And I just can't feel at home in my Dire Wolf...

[Ultimax]

Bishop Steiner, on 12 May 2015 - 08:23 AM, said:

sounds awful boring.

To you maybe.

I play the game for the game & for the other people I get to play it with.


You might love it, but I find this game's detailed "story" items to be pretty 2 dimensional, poorly thought out and barely adolescent in it's outlook.


The overall theme and macro view is interesting though, but that still doesn't mean one mech has "more soul" than another.

[Bishop Steiner]

Ultimatum X, on 12 May 2015 - 01:27 PM, said:

To you maybe.

I play the game for the game & for the other people I get to play it with.


You might love it, but I find this game's detailed "story" items to be pretty 2 dimensional, poorly thought out and barely adolescent in it's outlook.


The overall theme and macro view is interesting though, but that still doesn't mean one mech has "more soul" than another.

Cool story. Someday we may all be as enlightened as you.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Clan Mechs should have soul, Clan Warriors are not sterile killing machines made of flesh and blood after all, they are still human and have emotions and all the other garbage that goes with being a human, just read the novels and the lore.

Clan Mechs are missing the little touches that give them soul, the Rememberance passages that the pilot has personally painted on them because they mean something to that pilot. The little things that we don't get in MWO, things IS Mechs should also have, the things that give them something that makes them appear as something more than tons of death and destruction.

I love my Founder's Atlas, the skin on it is awesome, it looks old, beat up, war weary yet still ready to once again dear friends, step into that breach. We need that for all of the Mechs, something to make them more than just another walking piece of destruction that could just as easily be any other walking piece of destruction.

[bad arcade kitty]

>Clan Mechs are missing the little touches that give them soul, the Rememberance passages that the pilot has personally painted on them because they mean something to that pilot.

reading the remembrance... i found a line which i would paint!

"The snow raven wastes nothing. A scavenger par excellence, it makes use of materials abandoned by others."

it could explain them why i have such a mess in the cockpit of my mech. and yes, i need all those things i keep there! (:

[Novakaine]

Kristov Kerensky, on 12 May 2015 - 02:23 PM, said:

Clan Mechs should have soul, Clan Warriors are not sterile killing machines made of flesh and blood after all, they are still human and have emotions and all the other garbage that goes with being a human, just read the novels and the lore.

Clan Mechs are missing the little touches that give them soul, the Rememberance passages that the pilot has personally painted on them because they mean something to that pilot. The little things that we don't get in MWO, things IS Mechs should also have, the things that give them something that makes them appear as something more than tons of death and destruction.

I love my Founder's Atlas, the skin on it is awesome, it looks old, beat up, war weary yet still ready to once again dear friends, step into that breach. We need that for all of the Mechs, something to make them more than just another walking piece of destruction that could just as easily be any other walking piece of destruction.

Nope just a bunch of assorted sterile DNA in a big vat o goo

[Navid A1]

This had soul:



This does not:

[Bishop Steiner]

Navid A1, on 12 May 2015 - 05:50 PM, said:

This had soul:



This does not:

disagree with you on that. The actual model is a pretty solid translation in this case, especially sand the Circus Sideshow meets Road Construction paint job.

I'd say the Gargs, Summoner and Nova are amongst the only ones with "soul", IMO.

[bad arcade kitty]

>I'd say the Gargs, Summoner and Nova are amongst the only ones with "soul", IMO.

it seems you link having soul to being an underdog
were summoner top tier and timber a bad mech you would probably claim that summoner is soulless and timber is full of soul

imo the best feature of the boringly humanoid summoner it's his asymmetric cockpit

[Brody319]

Bishop Steiner, on 12 May 2015 - 06:07 PM, said:

disagree with you on that. The actual model is a pretty solid translation in this case, especially sand the Circus Sideshow meets Road Construction paint job.

I'd say the Gargs, Summoner and Nova are amongst the only ones with "soul", IMO.

I agree with you but I would also include the Adder

[Bishop Steiner]

bad arcade kitty, on 12 May 2015 - 06:14 PM, said:

>I'd say the Gargs, Summoner and Nova are amongst the only ones with "soul", IMO.

it seems you link having soul to being an underdog
were summoner top tier and timber a bad mech you would probably claim that summoner is soulless and timber is full of soul

imo the best feature of the boringly humanoid summoner it's his asymmetric cockpit

Nope. Just happens in this instance the ones that are interesting also are bad. Summoner is my favorite Heavy, has been since MW2 and the old Virtual World Tesla pods. And it's been that because it's always been a quirky design compared to the others.

But there is something to Wabi-sabi, in truth. Flaws do tend to make things more interesting. But flaws don't need be as egregious as the Summoner and Gargs.

[Moldur]

2 words: Christmas lights.