81 replies to this topic

[IraqiWalker]

Welcome to MWO. You're in good hands here, and though the learning curve is almost a flat vertical line, if you stick with this game, it's only gonna improve for you.

If you're liking the Griffins, and end up thinking this is a good enough game to sink some money into, I recommend checking out the Griffin Hero "Sparky".

Hero mechs are lore-friendly custom builds (mostly copy pasted from actual lore-accurate custom builds), they have unique hardpoint setups, and come with a nice 30% C-Bill income boost. Which can help you with the grind (Once you are done with your first 25 matches, you income will drop)

[Outcast1six]

Welcome to the grind.

[MechWarrior3671771]

I noticed you mentioned you spend time on the Training Grounds, and that others told you map familiarity helps. Yes, its good to practice on the Training Grounds whenever you can, but for map familiarity you will learn maps quicker by dropping in games.

Reason is most battles tend to take place in key parts of the maps, so there is no need to learn the entire map, at least starting out. So don't go too heavy on map exploration in the Training Grounds until after you have dropped enough to recognize what the key terrain is.

Will save you much time and shorten your learning curve.

Edited by Fenrisulvyn, 20 June 2015 - 12:12 PM.

[juxstapo]

Fen why do you have a growly bear as your AUGH!

Thuhell??? I've been gone a minute haven't I?... This is Taint's doing isn't it?



Yea, welcome Lanz, dig the positive attitude, always great to see. If you'd ever like a wingman for a few fun one's drop me a line mate.

...Fen, I have got to get you a Corsair's sig, you look like a little orphan child no one has claimed..,.. metaphorically

Edited by juxstapo, 20 June 2015 - 12:37 PM.

[TercieI]

Outcast16, on 20 June 2015 - 12:03 PM, said:

Welcome to the grind.

I have 160+ mastered mechs. I have never felt the grind. If you're enjoying the game, there's no grind.

[800]

Lanzman, on 16 June 2015 - 03:26 PM, said:

Yeah, the learning curve is steep

No, it isn't steep. It's vertical.

[Lanzman]

Terciel1976, on 20 June 2015 - 12:47 PM, said:

I have 160+ mastered mechs. I have never felt the grind. If you're enjoying the game, there's no grind.

Right now I'm enjoying the game. Just crossed ten million c-bills and starting to actually survive a match here and there. Open terrain maps seem to favor me more than city maps. Viridian Bog is so-so. Unlocking the arms really helped as well, tho I find it curious that mechs don't seem to be able to raise their arms to shoulder level to shoot over stuff.

[IraqiWalker]

Lanzman, on 20 June 2015 - 08:02 PM, said:

Right now I'm enjoying the game. Just crossed ten million c-bills and starting to actually survive a match here and there. Open terrain maps seem to favor me more than city maps. Viridian Bog is so-so. Unlocking the arms really helped as well, tho I find it curious that mechs don't seem to be able to raise their arms to shoulder level to shoot over stuff.

You do use LRMs, most effective in open terrain. As for arms not rising that much. There are many reasons for it, we could blame PGI for that, but I like to think of it as a balance mechanism. That way mechs with ears, or jagermech-like arms have a place where they can excel. If everyone could shoot at cockpit level, then there's no sense in taking a mech that has no horizontal traverse on it's arms.

[Lanzman]

Sort of off topic, but mech arms is one of the things that annoyed me a little in the table top game's technical readouts. The 3025 mechs had a bunch with "humanoid" arms with actual hands on them. As newer mechs entered the game, that seemed to go away and you wound up with mechs that only had gun barrels or missile launchers for arms. Hard to see how such a mech could punch in the physical combat phase.

[juxstapo]

By including a bit of patchwork fluff about having reinforced barrels surrounding such and such a weapon to protect it from the rigors of physical combat...

..and don't misconstrue my snarky tone, I love my TRO collection.

[Ano]

Lanzman: first up, welcome!

The mech arms thing is (I think) part balance and part flavour. Some mechs have much-prized high weapon mounts (from mechs like the battlemasters, which have a bunch of energy mounts on their shoulders, to more obvious high-armed mechs like the Jagers and the Catapult K2). While the knuckledragging mechs are sometimes frustrating, in my personal opinions it's one of those things beyond the visual that differentiates different mechs.

Have fun.

[Lanzman]

So does the game ever bleed over into real life for you? For example, you play for a couple hours and then go out to run some errands or whatever. You get in your car, start it up, and feel vaguely uneasy because no reassuring voice told you that your reactor, sensors, and weapons were now online.

[Koniving]

Lanzman, on 08 July 2015 - 05:40 PM, said:

So does the game ever bleed over into real life for you? For example, you play for a couple hours and then go out to run some errands or whatever. You get in your car, start it up, and feel vaguely uneasy because no reassuring voice told you that your reactor, sensors, and weapons were now online.

I did... then...

Spoiler

Not really, but... Would be nice.

I'd like this one though. Customized to local time and real world temperature.

[Void Angel]

Lanzman, on 16 June 2015 - 03:26 PM, said:

Yeah, the learning curve is steep and I've not been a computer gamer - avoided it as the timesink it is - but I've been a BattleTech fan since the late 80s and after watching a bunch of the Youtube videos I just couldn't resist.

Anyway, just joined and loving it. Thanks.

O Hai! Don't let the Professionally Dissatisfied turn you off to the game. It's a ton of fun, and well worth the time, even with its flaws.

I of course recommend the links in my signature (because I wrote them! Shameless plug!) and also that you keep Arm Lock on, instead using a key to activate (or toggle; it's in the keybindings, you'll see) arm lock. I also advocate using Throttle Decay - both of these are features I used to turn off, but I've changed my mind recently. Throttle decay is required to get the most out of your Light (and most Medium) Battlemechs' mobility, while putting all of your alpha onto the same spot in a zero-deflection shot is a preferable default to waiting for your arms to align.

Of course, you'll work out your own best practices - just feel free to come here and ask us anything!

[Void Angel]

Terciel1976, on 20 June 2015 - 12:47 PM, said:

I have 160+ mastered mechs. I have never felt the grind. If you're enjoying the game, there's no grind.

It depends - if you're playing with friends for the fun of playing with them, you typically don't notice. But when you decide that you want a new 'mech, and start trying to save up for it, it gets long. In short, the c-bill reward system is a failure in my book; the gain is too slow to act as an effective reward/incentive system since it depends on social factors to make it bearable. It's one of the few things about the game that I actively dislike. To that end, I recommend that people play with friends or join a unit that fits their needs and level of time commitment.

[IraqiWalker]

Lanzman, on 08 July 2015 - 05:40 PM, said:

So does the game ever bleed over into real life for you? For example, you play for a couple hours and then go out to run some errands or whatever. You get in your car, start it up, and feel vaguely uneasy because no reassuring voice told you that your reactor, sensors, and weapons were now online.

You should read this entire thread

http://mwomercs.com/...chwarrior-when/

[Lanzman]

Curse you! Ever since I read that stuff I hear mech footfalls when I walk. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!

[dragnier1]

Void Angel, on 08 July 2015 - 06:20 PM, said:

It depends - if you're playing with friends for the fun of playing with them, you typically don't notice. But when you decide that you want a new 'mech, and start trying to save up for it, it gets long. In short, the c-bill reward system is a failure in my book; the gain is too slow to act as an effective reward/incentive system since it depends on social factors to make it bearable. It's one of the few things about the game that I actively dislike. To that end, I recommend that people play with friends or join a unit that fits their needs and level of time commitment.

That's funny...i don't recall needing to save cbills ever since the kit fox released for cbills...

[Void Angel]

Hey, if you're having enough fun with a chassis, it flies by - I love playing my Shadow Hawk, and I don't really notice the c-bill grind when I'm doing it. But if I'm trying (as I recently did do) to grind out c-bills in order to set up a basic Clan drop deck for CW, or kit all my drop 'mechs out with modules... trust me; you notice.

[DivineEvil]

Void Angel, on 11 July 2015 - 10:54 AM, said:

Hey, if you're having enough fun with a chassis, it flies by - I love playing my Shadow Hawk, and I don't really notice the c-bill grind when I'm doing it. But if I'm trying (as I recently did do) to grind out c-bills in order to set up a basic Clan drop deck for CW, or kit all my drop 'mechs out with modules... trust me; you notice.

If you're focus on this, no wonder you're noticing. If you'd count for each 100k C-Bills you've earned, that is your mistake. You should instead bother with getting better instead. Set an alternative goal and don't look onto the C-Bills much. Play as much as you're willing to and don't think about minor stuff. Increase your KDR, see what maps or mechs you're bad with and try to fix it, go for the achievements. Spend some money for premium time, it's not that big of a deal, if you compare MWO to books, movies and other games you might've spent money on before. If you limit yourself to the single numerical value, it will never be a fun progression, the same way as work does.

Finally, get social. MWO is a team game. You might be timid, but there's plenty of misconceptions about playing in a unit, but for me joining TCAF was the most major social interaction in games ever. There's so many people to know and try to work together with, and so much depth to the loyalist gameplay and tactics arising, and yet nobody is going to demand anything from you without your concent. In a real team, grind is not that relevant and comes naturally.