54 replies to this topic

[Zordicron]

I stumbled across this game right after it went into open beta as I searched google on a whim to see if Smith and Tinker had done anything with the franchise in the last 10 months.

I downloaded and played the next day. I expected: MW4 mercs, but with no mission play at the time as the game looked to be still working on making assets. I thought it was odd to start with a multiplayer only version, but as it was Mechwarrior ONLINE, I just figured it was logical they would start there as it too less AI code etc. Didnt take me long to realize that 8 vs 8 was what we were getting.

This game has the potential to be amazing. I have no idea about the finances or logistics to make it that way, only PGI knows that right now.

I DO know, that as basically a FPS CoD with robots and lasers, it has failed in the most basic thing: HSR. people can talk about skill all they want, at the end of the day you don't know if you are better then the other guy or just got lucky with HSR and he didnt.

I logged out and came here just now out of a couple matches. I ran my Zeus 6T, ERPPC in the left arm. When I fired it, for the last two matches, the projectile was originating from some place behind and above me, at an impossible trajectory- like it was coming out off the top of my head from where I was standing .5 seconds earlier. then it would "miss", by which i mean, because the trajectory was borked already, and origin similarily borked, the projectile would duff into rocks and such to the sides or sail WELL over the top of where I actually had my crosshair, like towards the sky well above.

The HSR code, it isnt even that it is bad at hitting your targets, it can't even figure out where YOU were when you shot the weapon, much less figure out if it is going to hit or not.

IMO, the biggest issue with running this ONLINE game, is the ONLINE part. If you are going to run a multiplayer FPS type game with no other content, YOU BEST HAVE SOME SOLID HARDWARE TO RUN IT ON.

Add to that the "revelation" that, surprise surprise, there are cheaters in the ranks, and the game can be downright frustrating at times. It is no wonder the growth rate of the player base has floundered so badly over the years. Gameplay had best be SO STRONK if you are going to run a game on spotty netcode that results in an uneven playing field and then lump vets and cadets into matches together in the hopes some magic ELO number will average out.

Like others have said, I think a lot of people expected work towards a battletech game that resembled at least somthing of past titles. Lately, with the alphagank powercreep going on, I suppose it does kinda resemble MW4 multiplayer game play. Bring that 50 point alpha(or more) or go home.

[Johnny Z]

Eldagore, on 07 June 2015 - 01:31 PM, said:

I stumbled across this game right after it went into open beta as I searched google on a whim to see if Smith and Tinker had done anything with the franchise in the last 10 months.

I downloaded and played the next day. I expected: MW4 mercs, but with no mission play at the time as the game looked to be still working on making assets. I thought it was odd to start with a multiplayer only version, but as it was Mechwarrior ONLINE, I just figured it was logical they would start there as it too less AI code etc. Didnt take me long to realize that 8 vs 8 was what we were getting.

This game has the potential to be amazing. I have no idea about the finances or logistics to make it that way, only PGI knows that right now.

I DO know, that as basically a FPS CoD with robots and lasers, it has failed in the most basic thing: HSR. people can talk about skill all they want, at the end of the day you don't know if you are better then the other guy or just got lucky with HSR and he didnt.

I logged out and came here just now out of a couple matches. I ran my Zeus 6T, ERPPC in the left arm. When I fired it, for the last two matches, the projectile was originating from some place behind and above me, at an impossible trajectory- like it was coming out off the top of my head from where I was standing .5 seconds earlier. then it would "miss", by which i mean, because the trajectory was borked already, and origin similarily borked, the projectile would duff into rocks and such to the sides or sail WELL over the top of where I actually had my crosshair, like towards the sky well above.

The HSR code, it isnt even that it is bad at hitting your targets, it can't even figure out where YOU were when you shot the weapon, much less figure out if it is going to hit or not.

IMO, the biggest issue with running this ONLINE game, is the ONLINE part. If you are going to run a multiplayer FPS type game with no other content, YOU BEST HAVE SOME SOLID HARDWARE TO RUN IT ON.

Add to that the "revelation" that, surprise surprise, there are cheaters in the ranks, and the game can be downright frustrating at times. It is no wonder the growth rate of the player base has floundered so badly over the years. Gameplay had best be SO STRONK if you are going to run a game on spotty netcode that results in an uneven playing field and then lump vets and cadets into matches together in the hopes some magic ELO number will average out.

Like others have said, I think a lot of people expected work towards a battletech game that resembled at least somthing of past titles. Lately, with the alphagank powercreep going on, I suppose it does kinda resemble MW4 multiplayer game play. Bring that 50 point alpha(or more) or go home.

All good points. All "known issues"

Mechwarrior hasnt been trying to get new players. The players that are here are almost backers in a game in development. They hope to be ready to try and get new players some time this year during the Steam launch and have a game that is worth making a splash about and will have high player retention.

My opinion and I could be totally wrong, but I think they are taking their time to get it right and go the distance. not even lack of funds making it slow but rather making an awsome triple A game which Mechwarrior has been said to become.

The guys making Cyberpunk 2077 say its going to be a bigger and more successfull project than Witcher 3. Its going to take like 4 years for them to do and they have basically unlimited rescources. Fallout 4 is coming out this year most likely and it took them 7 years.

Both those games will make 100's of real life millions, its worth the investment to not screw it up. This is on estimation of how much Fallout 3 made after releasing 2 full games and 6 expansion packs on that base game. Which would total to somewhere around 240 $ per player that got it all, and which is still selling well to this day, although at a discount of course.

Side note they could have made witcher 3 alot better and more successfull relatively easily but they pulled their punches. They were crafting a story and making money wasnt really the objective. Im into sc-fi and likely wont even play witcher 3 because its not my thing, just saying. I do hope Cyberpunk 2077 has character customization and a excellent multi companion system though, things that Fallout 4 most certainly will have.

Again its all quiet for long term goals for Mechwarrior Online but I am guessing this game hasnt even started to get rolling.

Edited by Johnny Z, 07 June 2015 - 02:11 PM.

[ColdHeat]

Some people possibly outlandish hoped for a Star Citizen just with Mechs instead of Spaceships and maximum immersion. Bars and Bases to hang out and chat with your comrades, Mechbays where you can see your techs at work, real (military/clan/freelancer) careers, believeable sized mechs, an arena and missions that go beyond simple ultra fast paced "12 vs 12 deathmatch" as well as ultimatively the ability to somewhat shape an universe with your faction/clan. Well I certainly would have liked that too but never expected anything more than Counterstrike/World of Tanks with Mechs in the first place.

Yet it's weird how empty and unrewarding it still currently feels to me. Possibly because wait times have increased (due to few players, the 1 minute wait time and the horrible mech bay menu to just switch between mechs) while income was decreased so much that even with hero mechs you feel like you're doing no real progress at all. I have dozens of mechs I could theoretically play with and invested more into MWO than multiple AAA titles but since even the hero mechs all come with trash equipment I can't even afford the engines and builds I'd want for 90% of my mechs, resulting that playing this game often rather feels like a grind than fun.

Imho PGI should just as much as give the game more depth/fascination adress more to the players who ain't potential premium-purchasers in an attempt to attract and keep more players generally and thus solve the problem of the felt time waste. Also a hardcore mode would be most welcome to me, where all mechs are realistically sized and weapons do way more damage (cockpit shots anyone?) just like according to the universe we could read about in the novels.

Edited by ColdHeat, 08 June 2015 - 11:30 AM.

[AlphaToaster]

I didn't expect it to turn out as arcady as it is currently.

Repair and Rearm w/ functioning salvage system (took damage, that'll take a certain amount of time to repair, oh wait, but you have to buy a new AC/20, the one you had got destroyed. Better have several of your favorite mech in your mechbay if you want to keep dropping in the same robot, otherwise what's the point to having a bunch of the same?)

Economy (Faction Marketplace to buy/sell salvage) (Your Ac/20 got destroyed in the last match but you did loot a Clan Gauss, and a clan BAP, put those bad boys up on the Marketplace or keep them in inventory for later)

Logistics (PVE element here where players can attack/defend supply lines, keep supply lines open to expand the front, with supply lines down, no new attack lanes can open up)

Faction Rep (like how Wing Commander privateer did it, factions have allies and enemies. I should not be able to reach rank X in Steiner, cancel the contract, then 3 days later I'm a Jade Falcon. There should be something other than a Cbill penalty in play for jumping around to add more depth)

Pilots as characters (I was surprised that we are just the one pilot and that's it. No characters in play. I don't have a way to have several pilots that specialize with their own pilot perks and quirks. No hardcore mode where my pilot can be killed... /sadface)

[masCh]

I want a "thinking man's shooter".

Strategies instead of 12v12 staredowns.

[Vlaitor]

I expected a slow pace power death machine tactical brawling. I got what I want.

Aside the map design. This game is good.

Compared to a lot of F2P "simulator" war games, this one is by far the most interesting to play.

[Lugh]

Johnny Z, on 06 June 2015 - 09:19 PM, said:

By years end players will know the direction of this game without a doubt. I think the game is in early development still.

-This is stuff everyone knows they have nearly complete or at least in by end of year.

Decals
4 v 4
Galaxy map logistics
Tutorial
More new maps
Map overhauls
Mechs
Steam Launch
UI updates


-Stuff they should add by end of year that nothing or very little has been said about

Pilot character
Pilot character development
Solaris
Mech collisions
New title screen (current one always sucked in my opinion.)
Repair and rearm
start up intro
eject animation



-This should be in game but isnt

Pilot quarters for a proper place to check ranks and everything about the pilot character as opposed to everything about the mechs which is the mechbay.

Game is called Mechwarrior and all thats in the game is Mech. (Which sounds funny but its really not.)


-Stuff I and maybe others want in game but isnt

Aerotech
Lostech
Mechbay mechanics to level up. (I think they are called Astech's?)
PVE
Jumpships and other ships (Which falls under Aerotech but still )
NPC lance mates like in the other Mechwarrior titles
Cap ship with NPC crew. (Big dream)
Missions and quests
Exploration
Lots and lots of other stuff

In his best Lee Ermy voice "YOU FORGOT THE GODDAMN COLLISIONS SON. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!!?

-nice job by the way on the rest

[Maxx Blue]

I started playing not too long after closed beta ended, so I'm not a founder, but I've been here a while. I didn't know exactly what to expect when I found out about this game, but I was hoping for some of this stuff:

• Slower combat than most FPS's. Less twitch, headshot type play running around at breakneck speed.
  
• Torso twisting. It sounds silly, but turning your weapons/aim in a different direction has always been a core 'feel' thing for mechwarrior games.
  
• The feeling of durability. No one-shot-and-you-are-dead stuff. The ability to stand face-to-face and beat on each other for a while as our mechs slowly fall to pieces around us.
  
• A Mechlab. Despite it being the cause of so very many problems, playing lego-mech just appeals to the engineer/nerd side of me.
  
• Different 'roles' for mechs. Basically, something to keep me from running a 100T assault all the time.

So, in general, I mostly got what I expected. Maybe not to the extent or in the way I had imagined, but this game still ticked most of the basic boxes for me. The combat might still be a little faster than I would like and the feeling of durability a little lacking, but that has as much to do with the reality of human beings aiming rather than a dice roll as it does anything else. The roles aren't exactly what I imagined either, but I don't play 100T assaults all the time so I can't say they didn't at least make the weight classes operate differently.

Honestly, I never expected much from the team aspect of the game. I figured clans/groups would coordinate, but this was an MMO, and you always have tons of folks derping around doing whatever they want. The lack of easy communication early on, and the startling effectiveness of the death-ball did nothing to make me expect anything different either.

I feel like this game gets a bit of a bad rap with regard to tactical play. Tactics really do matter, and along with aiming skill and cover tend to decide most matches. It's just that the tactics aren't often coordinated and decided upon in PUG matches, they just sort of happen. Sometimes you have a light run and draw off 3 or 4 mechs at just the right time to allow the rest of the team to push, or you end up folding back just the right way in Frozen City to let the enemy run into a kill box single-file, or you get a spotter out by the ship in forest colony who gets a lock on an assault long enough to get it LRM'd to death or forced out of position. I have seen plenty of tactically effective manuvers in this game that won or lost the match...they just weren't planned so much as they happened spontaneously or organically. Tactics matter in this game, we just don't have very good control of which tactics are used in the average PUG match.

[DAYLEET]

I joined when Phoenix Pack was announced, they had a vid telling us about CW(i know i know) and it got me pumped. My wildest dream was that each planet would be like Planet Side, where there is huge land to walk on or get dropped on and that you moved from captured point to captured point until that planet was yours. The problem with that is the same PlanetSide have which is you feel like you never make any progress because it's 24hours around the clock and what you won the night before was lost while you slept/worked. Still wish it was bigger and seamless rather than the Timer Warfare we have now. With PS game mode you could have rearm/repair and what not.

[Ryoken]

I agree that the maps are much to small and feel much to narrow.
Also the color palette and immersion is a bit to arcadeish.

So we need bigger maps and a more military simulation MWO for those who want to play in units and CW.

The pugging part of the players still should get their narrow more arena like maps and let them have all the racecar parade patterns, honking horns and blinking lights they want on their mechs.

But please please PGI understand that Battlemechs used by regular units in the open fields of spacious territorial engagements do fight a totally different way than Battlemechs used by SolarisVII Mechjockeys in battlearenas in front of an audience - yet MWO can offer both if CW and SolarisVII get implemented accordingly.

Edited by Ryoken, 08 June 2015 - 03:21 PM.

[Rampancy]

Ryoken, on 08 June 2015 - 03:20 PM, said:

But please please PGI understand that Battlemechs used by regular units in the open fields of spacious territorial engagements do fight a totally different way than Battlemechs used by SolarisVII Mechjockeys in battlearenas in front of an audience - yet MWO can offer both if CW and SolarisVII get implemented accordingly.

This is already the case. A lot of great CW mechs are terrible arena mechs and vice versa. Specialization towards lower ammo counts etc. in Solaris will make the contrast even more stark. The HBK 4G, for example, will run great with 2xMPL, AC20 w/ 2 tons ammo, and a SL.

[HoundOfCullan]

Bobzilla, on 06 June 2015 - 07:59 PM, said:

HoundOfCullan, why so buthurt?

Butthurt? Not at all. Just bored of people complaining about a free game. I'm a game designer. Not a pretend game designer, but actually someone with several triple A titles completed in my career. When I read posts like this on the forums it just makes me laugh. And I laugh even harder when a kid suggests he's going to build a game better than this after his semester ends.

People today expect so much without paying or working for it. They feel this entitlement, that the world owes them something. It's just mindblowing.

[Napoleon_Blownapart]

they probably can't change things because of the game engine, but i would like variable gravity where my atlas can do 90 kph or 20 kphdepending on the planet and the drop points are just rinse and repeat by now...

[0rionsbane]

ill be honest my first pc ran this at 11 fps, so i had to wait almost a year to play it and i expected a cash cow shooter.
what I hoped for from this title was that they would continue to develop it in to at least a balanced cash cow shooter with a cw system that has some immersion. i can see that coming along maybe in 2 or 3 years i might have that.
Personally i also hoped the title would get some attention due to its high profits and be bough up by a company that is A. bigger and B. interested in developing the game with more immersion and single player aspects.

Right now the big thing is with the business model we can expect little to no immersion. that to me is sad as battle tech in all previous titles really set the bar high for immersion compared to other titles of the same era and thats what brought me into the battletech universe and got me interested. but i could see mabye more faction specific rewards, repiar/rearm, mabye even a in game economy of some kind with the current model. i cant see salvage (c bill grind is necessary to sell prem time) i dont think we will see factory's unit ownership of planets etc that actually means anything. and mabye just maybe we will have more pilot focused things like new skill trees that dont require 3 mechs, simulation like the aforementioned walkable mech bay, or even some space oreinted simulation like actual ownership of dropship/jumpships that both limit the amount of people/tonnage able to drop on a location and add to immersion. balance wise i wish it had more economical balance, what i mean is battletech is balanced by weapons/heat but also by cost of said weapon. if a mech costs less to produce it should have a benefit from that even with sub par performance compared to a more costly machine. repiar and rearm solves most of that.

[Shiroi Tsuki]

HoundOfCullan, on 08 June 2015 - 04:14 PM, said:

Butthurt? Not at all. Just bored of people complaining about a free game. I'm a game designer. Not a pretend game designer, but actually someone with several triple A titles completed in my career. When I read posts like this on the forums it just makes me laugh. And I laugh even harder when a kid suggests he's going to build a game better than this after his semester ends.

People today expect so much without paying or working for it. They feel this entitlement, that the world owes them something. It's just mindblowing.

I wasn't complaining. I was just simply sharing my expectations (more like speculations, if I know my words correctly) before I started playing, and what I see now.

I don't feel any entitlement. I'm happy with what I have and I'm not asking for more, but I do feel like that this game can be improved even more.