7 replies to this topic

[Pinkiee]

When I last played MWO, a forth map had just been introduced (a city).

Match making system had been changed (for the worse) and a 'fix' to LRMS basically made using a smaller mech like a Jennar a complete waste of time.

I imagine that all these issues have now been fixed, and im considering playing again, but I am also wondering what else has changed other then; more maps, more mechs and 'trinkets in your cockpit'?

It seems like a quite a bit but its also rather confusing, a quick start guide would be great.

So, what have been the big changes (good and bad) to MWO over the last 18 months?

Also, any idea where my founder image has gone?

[Creag]

First off we now have Clan Mechs and the promise of Community Warfare is here. Different type of Quirks have been given to Mechs some are good and some are bad. Oh and Welcome Back to the Fold.

[Rogue Jedi]

Clan Mechs have been introduced, they are fairly close to IS Mechs in terms of power, and have fixed engines, as well as structure type, armor type and heatsink type and on some Mechs other equipment. however they can swop "omnipods" which contain the hardpoint for each body part allowing for some extreme configurations.
Clan weapons are balanced through heat and duration, e.g. Clan Lasers have a longer burn time, Clan ACs fire a burst for there total damage, Clan LRMs fire in a stream rather than all at once

most Mechs now have quirks, in the case of IS Mechs they generaly take the form of weapon enhancements for a specific weapon e.g. the HBKs each got weapon quirks to make there "stock" main weapon more effectave, some MEchs got armor/structure inprovements to help them survive more damage, others like the Timber Wolf and stormcrow got negitave quirks for laser beam duration (those 2 Mechs were dominating the game using builds with lots of lasers so now they get a 3% laser duration increase for each energy hardpoint)

the UI has been completely changed

PGI split from IGP

most Mechs are now released in preorder packs, and about 2-3 months later released for cbills

CW invasion game mode is in

we have a lot more than 4 maps now and River City (I would guess that is the city map you mentioned) is being reworked to make it larger

new players get boosted earnings for there first 25 matches

LRMs are the weakest weapon system except Flamers, however they can still be effective if you get the correct map or players who do not understand how to counter them (cover, break line of sight, ECM, lots of AMS.

while there are definitely some Mechs which are better than others (Stormcrow and Timber Wolf, even after the recent "nerf" are still the best Mechs available) any Mech can kill any other, the pilot is far more significant than the Mech in determining who wins

[Nightshade24]

Pinkiee, on 27 May 2015 - 01:15 AM, said:

When I last played MWO, a forth map had just been introduced (a city).

Match making system had been changed (for the worse) and a 'fix' to LRMS basically made using a smaller mech like a Jennar a complete waste of time.

I imagine that all these issues have now been fixed, and im considering playing again, but I am also wondering what else has changed other then; more maps, more mechs and 'trinkets in your cockpit'?

It seems like a quite a bit but its also rather confusing, a quick start guide would be great.

So, what have been the big changes (good and bad) to MWO over the last 18 months?

Also, any idea where my founder image has gone?

I will say this short and sweet but in detailed enough to go on...

-ahem-

1) LOTS of maps added since you last played. I could describe them all, however in short bullet points we have...

• Maps so large that it's impossible to damage anyone from 1 end to another, maybe not even from the middle to the sides either (alpine peaks iconicly)
  
• Enviromental damage (Lava causing heat and later damages your legs)
  
• Maps with tunnels, passages, cover, etc. creating a wide range of maps where some builds may be better then other. (for eg alpine peak is great for snipers, especially Energy ones, as well as missile boats, maps like Viridian bog and such provides a nice map for JJ capable mechs as well as brawlers, etc)
  
• Maps made for enviroments like... snowy deserts, sandy hot deserts, low/no atmosphere/ void, volcanic valleys, cities (minor ones), bogs and swamps, canyon networks, valleys, etc.

So yea, however another feature is soon they will be re-doing the old maps to the new ones that will increase there size as well as add more details and things to provide a more ballanced, unique, or improved gameplay, as well as minor destructable enviroment like able to knock down trees or street lights, this may evolve into setting trees on fire and such as well which will provide interesting area of denial attacks. ie

This will happen soon fyi.


2) Another change is the game is 12 vs 12 now instead of 8 vs 8, reward changes reflect this

3) Quirks have been introduced to increase the playability between chassis, this can include but not limited to...

Fire rate/ cooldown/ Rate of fire, the spread, the range, the beam durration, the jam chance, the spread, etc, of a weapon, rather that be specific, the weapon type, or the weapon group.

Specific weapon for eg:
"Large laser +15% range"

Weapon group for eg:
"lasers having reduced beam durration"

"Energy weapons +15% range"


Specific = only 1 weapon affected by this quirk

Weapon group = not all weapons of that weapon grouped effected for obvious reasons, ie you can't reduce the Jam chance of a wepaon that can't jam like a gauss rifle. Or decrease beam durration of a pinpoint weapon like a ER PPC.

Group = All weapons of that group applicable is quirked, this can stack with the specific weapon quirk, for eg with the large laser I said above, a large laser on this made up mech has 30% increased range, but a medium laser for eg or a large pulse is still stuck at 15.
This quirk applies even if you got multiples, ie if you got 1 large laser or 6.


Another group of quirks is armour and structure quirks, this applies only in the location applicable.

ie "Right arm + 5 armour" will only affect right arm.
"Left torso +5 structure" will only affect the left torso.

and things like turn rate, speed, angle, acceleration,. deceleration, etc.

4) Nearly every mech has a hero mech, most heros are designed of simular mechs
(Ie Jenner "Oxide" hero is based on the clan Jenner IIC 1, The Jagermech "Firebrand" is based of the Rifleman, a simular lighter mech that's unseen, etc)

or a future variant (for eg lore wise a stalker doesn't have a ballistic slot till much later, but the Stalker "Misery" hero is in MW: O with a single ballistic slot, or the Hunchback "Grid Iron", having a missile and ballistic on the same chassis, also the stock build often reflects those mechs)

Or a legitimate build from lore that existed, like the Centurion "Yen Lo Wang", the Atlas "boars head" (rename and changed weapons of an existing atlas with identical unique hardpoints), the

Some are completely made up with loose ties to the above.

5) Champion mechs are mechs that only be bought via MC or won in a challange, these things have 30% increase EXP and there stock build is an 'upgraded' modifide build. HOWEVER this is the same variants as in game, for eg the "catapult A1" stock has 2 LRM 15's with a standard engine and and standard heatsinks, while the "A1 (C)" has 2 x LRM 15 , 4 x SSRM 2, and other improvements but identical hardpoints and looks. These mechs are the new "trails". YOu can use them for free but without EXP increase

6) Clan mechs introduced, as well as omnipods.

Lets say you got a Stormcrow.
The prime has 5E hardpoints, 1 in the head, 2 in each arm.
lets say you want smaller energy weapons but with a missile, you can take the side torso of the Stormcrow D and swap it with the Stormcrow prime, so now you got a missile hardpoint to say put Streak SRM 6 in or what ever.

Clans quirks is a WIP as well as heros and champions.

research more about this outside of this post.


7) LRM's are no longer extremely agile, this is what most people say the most ballanced they are BUT the meta "MLG" competetive croud continously boast how Missiles in general suck due to being team dependent (LRMs), situational (SSRM's), or spread damage (all)

8) ai turrets added, they may cheat a little bit, but they are nearly harmless if not ignored. THey are common in point 9 bellow as well as Assault mode where they defend the base.

9) Community warfare out. The objective is to take out 3 generators to open the main generator behind the Anti Orbital gauss rifle turret, to do this you need to open a few gates that have a generator behind them in a place you can hit them but the enemy can hit you. You need to open the gates to go inside the enemys side of the map as an attacker and to take out the generator (kills does not make a win, however it can help a win, you can win by killing 0 people and just going for gens).

you also havel lots of turrets firing at you on there side of the map as well as the fact both teams can spawn in 4 preselected mechs up to 240 tons , game is 30 minutes long here.


Counter attack is simular but no turrets, open gates, and only 1 'base, however that base doesn't equal a win if destroyed, your team needs more kills.
Go look for more details elswhere.

10) Ammo explosions can only be caused by over heating above 100% very badly, or being critted, both are more rare then they were nearly 2 years ago.


11) currently no repair and rearm, may come soon but not as 'harsh' as before. So go nuts with Double heatsinks, Endo steel, etc.

12) Pre ordering mechs in tiers is common now.

Comes with 1 premium variant (same C-bill bonus as heros) with cosmetic differences especially with the patturn on them and some added geometry, each mech has 2 normal standard mechs making a total of 3.

The packs also comes wiht extra like cockpit items, premium time, possible extra mech, skins, colours, etc...

They come in tiers.

"first" tier = light mech
"second" tier = light and medium mech
"third tier" = light, medium, and heavy mech.
"fourth tier" = light, med, heavy, and assault mech.

each tier is more worht the money. Go here for more details and to purchase them, this is the latest clan and IS packages, go look at the above tab for more packages and stuff still out:

https://mwomercs.com/wavethree
https://mwomercs.com/resistancetwo

Keep in mind, these mechs and variants will be out for c-bills nad MC a few months after being pre ordered into the game, release date stated in FAQ for pre order, MC, and C-bills.
Unique geometry ones will not be in MC or C-bills but standard versions will. same hardpoints and all.

13) You can gift and buy single variants of mechs being newly added into the game, as well as premium time gifts, packages, etc
You can find them here: . https://mwomercs.com/gifts


14) new cockpit item: "warhorn", they produce a 3-6 second sound if the person who has it equiped on there mech kills someone sometimes. only from MC and packages.


15) PGI is doing events, sales, and challanges more often now! you can get mech bays, MC, GXP, C-bills, Mechs, Champion mechs, warhorn, cockpit items, etc from these events and challanges. check the website regularly for these notices or the launchers news. Sometimes it's a sequence of events, recently there was 4 events in a row and 1 is expected next week!

16) IGP is now gone from PGI, most 'horrors" that IGP has put down is reverted or in the process, but I think you 'left' before these features hurted the game.

17) achievents are in the game now, the ycan give you c-bills, mc, gxp, or titles.

18) Gauss rifle now has a 'charge' mechanic to prevent it easily being fired with PPC's.

19) Ghost heat is added awhile ago, this is to prevent builds with spammed weapons, ie 6 PPC stalkers. These things is painful but it is for the best, some people still use these builds and to alpha them reguardless of heat, the purpose of this build is to instantaniously kill someone or nearly kill them in 1 alpha and do it again a few more times until you die from over heating, ie the "Direstar" . a dorewolf with 8+ Clan ER PPC's, can go up to 15 max with 0 armour and stuff...


20) Devs talking to us more often as well as a nice community manager as well and a whole lot of other stuff, this is a huge plus for us and we now get 'town hall 'meetings that's basicly a QnA kinda stuff.




Last but not least... some equipment now has a worth or is introduced or soon.... This includes

Command console
Targeting computer
MASC

Etc.

Also Jumpjets got a 'nerf' however now if you got more, the better you peform, before you can havel ike 1 jumpjet and do anything a 12 jump jet mech can do.

[Nightshade24]

Rogue Jedi, on 27 May 2015 - 02:47 AM, said:

-snip-

LRMs are the weakest weapon system except Flamers, however they can still be effective if you get the correct map or players who do not understand how to counter them (cover, break line of sight, ECM, lots of AMS.

while there are definitely some Mechs which are better than others (Stormcrow and Timber Wolf, even after the recent "nerf" are still the best Mechs available) any Mech can kill any other, the pilot is far more significant than the Mech in determining who wins

This is a personal opinion here. in my OP I attempted to keep it rather simple, sweet, and "grey on grey" for eg.
But anyway this person brought out a point:

This community (and maybe you can;) be rather devided on matters like what's good nad bad.


As this player says, LRM's are "the weakest weapon in game" beside flamer, this is what I broguht up earlier about the meta crowd dismissing missiles as usefull, however a skilled LRM user can be just as effective as a skilled enemy.

However there can be a bit of a "rock paper scissors" motion in MW: O, There is a counter to LRM's as there is for every weapon, people who struggle with this often end up with huge "OP/ UP" statements of a weapon.

There are as many people out there who cry that LRM's are OP as there are people who cry they are UP.

Personally there is no weapon really that bad besides the flamer. Even then it does rather nice as a 'knife fighting" utility weapon to help blind the enemy or to slightly mess up there plans as some forumers have been infamous for. However flamers may get a buff very soon, Russ stated improvements will be made...



off the topic of weapons and into the mechs.

People earlier debated rather or not the Stormcrow and Timberwolf (clan medium and heavy mech), are OP, these mechs are obviously on par with the IS "meta" or OP mechs, but people debated if it's right in the middle, the best mech, or simply "good" for a clan mech.

These mechs has recieved massive nerfs recently and now the clan population outside of the event is practically all but existent. However some people still debate how effective these mechs are.

personally I do not see any "clan" mech currently being the top dog and would not be surprised to see "Good" quirks for these mechs soon are a minor revert in these as if you got more then 4 Energy hardpoints you start to see medium pulse lasers with the same duration as a non-nerfed Medium laser. or more then 7E hardpoints you start to see laser durations so long you can count the seconds they last for.

There is a bit of a thing going around that PGI is biased for Pro Inner sphere, which may be true as it's known all of them play IS mechs heavily. However views on what is an advantage or what isn't is also obscured.

For instance: clan XL engines.

They are slightly smaller then the IS counterpart. and they also can survive a Side torso destruction while IS XL engines is a instant death for ST destruction, however the Clan mech now has a heat penalty if a ST is gone.

You can go compare something like this;
"IS XL 300 = 12 slots, dies to ST. Clan XL 300 = 10 slots, doesn't die to first ST. clans are superior!"
However yo ucan also look at this: "IS ST 300 = 6 slots, more heavier, but doesn't die to both ST being destroyed!".

So this is 1 way how durability of these mechs are often debated heavily.

Another thing is that clan equipment is often hardwired, not all, but some, this includes all engines.

So you can also look at it like this.

"Slightly more durrable clan light mech going 90 kph, or more 'fragile' IS light mech going 160+ kph". Sure, Clans may be on paper more durable, but it's much harder to hit something going nearly double the speed especially at those extreme speeds.
And also with a well placed aim it's easy to kill a clan light reguardless of it's side torso advantage. even then many clan light mechs are basicly crippled after a ST destruction as they do not have the heat effeciency or firepower to continue or the chance to escape.


you can also look at IS mechs like catpault, who hitbox wise is very hard to hit the ST and thus is superior in "Durability" and XL-safeness. While you got mechs like thunderbolt quirked so that ST will rarely pop off to easily.


personally I run XL's quite often on IS mechs nad 1 issue with this debate is this.

example meta player here; "This mech can not run a XL engine, it's side torsos are equal or larger then the centre torso! easy killing".
"This mech is useless, it has a larger CT then ST and thus much more easier to kill due to CT size!".


From what I quickly noticed: people dislike XL engines for IS for these reasons that contradict each other.

however I do not have a problem armour rolling and doing my buisness with an XL engine on most mechs ie catapult, thunderbolt, battlemaster, etc. The increase in speed can help a support/ range/ light mech run away from the enemy and thus get to saftey or better possition and do more damage thus less incoming damage due to more dead enemies.

or an XL engine provides more weight to work with and thus more firepower meaning you can kill an enemy sooner then he can kill you reguardless of ST or not.

That's what is in my mind, ofc Standard engines do have a solid place and such.

[Rogue Jedi]

Nightshade24, on 27 May 2015 - 03:24 AM, said:

This community (and maybe you can;) be rather devided on matters like what's good nad bad.


As this player says, LRM's are "the weakest weapon in game" beside flamer, this is what I broguht up earlier about the meta crowd dismissing missiles as usefull, however a skilled LRM user can be just as effective as a skilled enemy.

However there can be a bit of a "rock paper scissors" motion in MW: O, There is a counter to LRM's as there is for every weapon, people who struggle with this often end up with huge "OP/ UP" statements of a weapon.

There are as many people out there who cry that LRM's are OP as there are people who cry they are UP.

Personally there is no weapon really that bad besides the flamer. Even then it does rather nice as a 'knife fighting" utility weapon to help blind the enemy or to slightly mess up there plans as some forumers have been infamous for. However flamers may get a buff very soon, Russ stated improvements will be made...

agreed, I said the weakest except a flamer, I did not say they are useless, and I did not intend to imply this, I even explained situations where they can still be very effective.
Even on maps where LRMs are less useful if you can get a lock and fire you can convince enemys to hide behind cover giving your team an advantage (the big incoming missile warning seems to make many people take evasive action, it is just a case of they are easier to counter than most other weapons, you get the warning, which combined with LRMs having a relatively low velocity compared to other weapons often gives the enemy time to get behind cover or under ECM

Quote

off the topic of weapons and into the mechs.

People earlier debated rather or not the Stormcrow and Timberwolf (clan medium and heavy mech), are OP, these mechs are obviously on par with the IS "meta" or OP mechs, but people debated if it's right in the middle, the best mech, or simply "good" for a clan mech.

These mechs has recieved massive nerfs recently and now the clan population outside of the event is practically all but existent. However some people still debate how effective these mechs are.

personally I do not see any "clan" mech currently being the top dog and would not be surprised to see "Good" quirks for these mechs soon are a minor revert in these as if you got more then 4 Energy hardpoints you start to see medium pulse lasers with the same duration as a non-nerfed Medium laser. or more then 7E hardpoints you start to see laser durations so long you can count the seconds they last for.

There is a bit of a thing going around that PGI is biased for Pro Inner sphere, which may be true as it's known all of them play IS mechs heavily. However views on what is an advantage or what isn't is also obscured.

on the whole I agree that Clan Mechs are roughly equal just different, however I believe the Timber Wolf and Stormcrow are exceptions

you are correct in that the quality of any Mech is subjective, for example the SDR-5K was considered one of the worst Mechs in the game, however it was one of my best performing Mechs before quirks went in (and I had about 100 Mechs at that time)

During the Clan event I was doing just as well in the Timber Wolf (4 MPL, 3 MG, 2 LRM15s) and Stormcrow (4 ERML and 2 LRM15) as I would have before the nerfs, I have always used balanced loadouts on them, and running LRMs on those Mechs seems to work great for me. I have never run an all energy loadout onnether of those, I got 12% longer duration for 4 lasers, the Stormcrow was usualy outperforming my the Hellbringer and Kit Fox combined, and the Timber Wolf was generally outperforming the Stormcrow, so as far as I can tell they are still the best Clan Mechs and do not seem to have taken much of a hit from the nerfs, but as you said this is all personal opinion and not fact.

in the opinion of the majority of players I have spoken to since the nerfs the Timby and Crow took a minor hit with the nerfs and are now still the 2 best Mechs but by a smaller margin than before the nerfs, you clearly do not agree and that is fine, as now Pinkiee has heard both sides of the debate

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 27 May 2015 - 06:40 AM.

[990Dreams]

Clans- If you've ever played BT/MW, 'nuff said. If not, they own superior Mechs and weapons, and can swap out their arms, torsos, legs, etc. for other variants of these "omnipods." PGI has done a fairly good job balancing them though. They're still slightly superior to justify the extra you spend, but not unbeatable.

Quirks- Quirks are applied per Mech/Omnipod. They boost/degrade certain aspects of the weapons/Mechs, such as torso turn speed, arm yaw, weapon cooldown, weapon heat generation, weapon range, etc. It is not super important that you pay attention to them, but they can help you decide how to build a chassis. A quirk list can be found here.

Community Warfare- You can now conquer planets, although they aren't worth anything. You can equip four Mechs (within tonnage restrictions) and then drop with those to attack, defend, or counter attack orbital guns. Taking all of or the majority of the zones conquers the planet. A good pre-drop queue info guide can be found here.

Gift Store- Certain variants such as the DWF-W can only be bought here. You can also see any and all Mech packages available for purchase here.

Looking for Group Queue- A lesser used function that allows you to add a group to this queue and pick up players looking for a group.

Edited by DavidHurricane, 27 May 2015 - 06:47 AM.

[Koniving]

Pinkiee, on 27 May 2015 - 01:15 AM, said:

Also, any idea where my founder image has gone?

Inside the game, click on Home.
Badges.
You can enable your Founder's Tag here. Choose it as your badge. For the words "(Rank) Founder" you must choose it as your title.