When I feel like stomping around in a battletech robot, I might boot up MWO every now and then while imagining what it would be like if it were an actual game.
If I take a break from this game for any period of time, I end up having a skill tree reset because the game is always developing... sometimes frustratingly so. Just loaded it up and, for some strange reason, some balance change they did ended up making my gear over-leveled for my character, so I'm in a spot of the game where I'm trying to level so I can use my gear (but without my gear...).
It's been under continual development.
Rift has been under considerable development while being free to play.
There are a lot of very active free to play games in terms of development.
Unless you're talking about mobile phone games. Those generally see only a little bit of development here and there. That said, there's usually not much to develop further on many of them. There's only so much development Candy Crush can undergo outside of its social networks of people bugging each other on Facebook.
Ok well the last point I made not so well, but as to if this games prices are good or not depends on the development and the pace of developement. Just saying its to expensive is completely wrong with out the development debate, and saying the grind is to much is flat out wrong any way anyone wants to look at it. A player can get a mech with relative ease and a few mechs relatively easily also, and have some mastered just as easily.
This game is going to great lengths to make ALL mechs viable so the grind to a viable mech, even for top lvl play, will be what a couple hours? Read that again very slowly those that are complaining about the F2P grind.
Now has development been to slow considering what players have paid? Most would agree that they would like to see the pace improve and that it was at a near stand still for a while a couple years ago, from appearances anyway. This is something worth debating.
Other free to play games? Well many are in static development or have a scope much more limited than Mechwarrior Online.
The free to play grind may be worth looking at although its not problem once it has been looked at even quickly. Trying to bring the pay to play discussion into the free to play realm is stupid or vice versa.
Will players pay top dollar to get a game worth playing and that they want to play and isnt lacking features? Yes.
Should Mechwarrior Online start leeching their players and charge a monthly fee? No.
Should Mechwarrior make the grind worse to encourage players to spend real money? No.
Should the in game prices be condusive to making a good sim? Yes.
Should Mechwarrior offer quality expansions that doesnt make current content obsolete that players can buy with real money or MC? Thats an affirmative.
I mean this game doesnt even have a cheap linear lvl grind that makes half the content obsolete and is nothing more than a time sink, and there are F2P grind complaints? Lets get real here.
Other free to play games? Well many are in static development or have a scope much more limited than Mechwarrior Online.
What is "MechWarrior: Online?"
What's its 'scope?' What is it aiming to be?
The clever deception within the "Town Halls" is that we get to ask about features we'd like to see implemented, but aren't really told what the goal of the game is in the first place. Many things are said to be a 'low priority,' but 'priority' subjects are often very vague and, in many cases, completely contrary to what has been asked.
Right now, we have a game oriented around team deathmatch. This is a single-elimination style of tournament play. That's really our only avenue through which to experience MWO. There's Community Warfare - but that's still a death match with limited respawns.
Even the 'new scouting missions' are just a variation on this theme.
Games like Planet Side 2 have been under active development and have been changing.
Space Engineers, which isn't a 'free to play' game nor is it a subscription game has released its source code to the community and continues to release weekly updates that incorporate bug fixes or expanded functions.
Even if PGI is honestly pursuing a better game, at this point (as they've kind of burned most of their bridges that lead away from MWO), the fact that there's no clear direction of what constitutes progress toward a goal (from our perspective, or, seemingly, the developers), it becomes difficult to feel like the game is moving anywhere.
It's the difference between a train moving along a track and a puddle spreading across the ground.
The clever deception within the "Town Halls" is that we get to ask about features we'd like to see implemented, but aren't really told what the goal of the game is in the first place. Many things are said to be a 'low priority,' but 'priority' subjects are often very vague and, in many cases, completely contrary to what has been asked.
Right now, we have a game oriented around team deathmatch. This is a single-elimination style of tournament play. That's really our only avenue through which to experience MWO. There's Community Warfare - but that's still a death match with limited respawns.
Even the 'new scouting missions' are just a variation on this theme.
Games like Planet Side 2 have been under active development and have been changing.
Space Engineers, which isn't a 'free to play' game nor is it a subscription game has released its source code to the community and continues to release weekly updates that incorporate bug fixes or expanded functions.
Even if PGI is honestly pursuing a better game, at this point (as they've kind of burned most of their bridges that lead away from MWO), the fact that there's no clear direction of what constitutes progress toward a goal (from our perspective, or, seemingly, the developers), it becomes difficult to feel like the game is moving anywhere.
It's the difference between a train moving along a track and a puddle spreading across the ground.
You have a point about what Mechwarrior is heading for long term. Its not clear.
About the Galaxy map 4 v 4 and other comments you made, I think they are needlesly negative and not fair at all. 4 v 4 will add the lance level combat alot of players have been hoping for as well as scouting and even stealth/tactics/surprise(cheat detection will be important here). 4 v 4 will be an entirely different pace of combat. That its linked to scouting for the capture of planets on a multi faction galactic war map is even more awsome.
I guess it's a good a time as any to say my piece.
MWO as a FTP option is atrocious, as it does little to nothing for the new player.
While the new player gets a "cadet bonus", they would "feel" as if this was the norm.. until the values come to normal and reality sets in.
There's no real method of finding out which mech or more specifically a particular variant is good for you. You'd have to make an "expensive" experiment and make mistakes along the way to find out.. and often times that in itself is a turnoff when you royally screw up.
Even if you have friends telling you "this is the best mech/build", does it always mean it is the best for you? It's not always the case.
Furthermore, you'd have a power gap naturally designed by the 3 variant system... just to get past basic. So, that'll mean that you'll eventually spend 3x total worth in C-bills to get a set of mechs to get past the gap.
Before you mention "trial mechs", I don't even recall whether the voted builds are in yet, or reasonably optimized (that doesn't necessarily mean it's the optimal build), but to date a vast majority of those builds that PGI put together were terribad.
Now, that doesn't even begin to express the grind part. If you're going to learn the game, you'll have to take many losses... and you'll probably have to have a friend... which may just mean you'll end up in the group queue, playing with the big boys and hardcore players all in the same boat. Not everyone's going to like that experience.
Furthermore, if you decide to get "competitive" enough to just win @ a 50-50 clip, you'll have to be far more conservative on a C-Bill level... just to fight against the poor rewards you'll be getting when you're not as capable at "farming". This starts to get you wondering whether Premium Time is worth it. For me, it really isn't.
Buying Packs (or MC for Hero Mechs - which is another unfortunate paywall) ends up being more of a P2SL ("pay to suffer less") as that affects your ability to grind to a degree. Many packs aren't really worth the money due to the mediocrity of the some of mechs being sold, and if you bother to go "Al La Carte", the price is honestly not worth what you're getting.
Now, CW is where you generally want to get all the free mechbays and such, but you don't really learn much from a foundational standpoint if you're playing solo (especially if you're not doing 50-50 on the W-L ratio).. as your "reward" is to be cannon fodder for reasonably organized groups.
If you can actually avoid/minimize all of this (which is the vast minority compared to other franchises), then... this game isn't so bad. However, there's too many problems from the top to bottom, and we're still playing 4 versions of deathmatch. The price-proposition is pretty bad unless you like constant repetition. It would also be considered something along the lines of "insanity"... but hey... it is what it is.
Other F2P games are more enjoyable for the money put into it, so it's hard to feel guilty when other F2P games are that guilty pleasure.
To be clear, I have bought Clan Wave 1-3, Resistance Packs 1+2, and playing a different F2P game for at least a week (going on two weeks) due to burnout having gloriously spent $30 on it w/o thinking too much about it (although, what is being sold and the prices are crazy for the true hardcores). I'll have 14 days or so wasted of the 30-day premium time that was activated prior to the last unit event (used 7-days worth effectively).
MWO is truly P2SL, and I had no problems before grinding mechs w/o Premium. Premium makes the pain a little less, but it's still painful nonetheless.
I tried Planetside 2 and like I said before, they brought a great thing to players beyond TDM. I lost interest the moment I realized that the battles were perpetual and didnt mean a thing. Territory won or lost was regained to easily and there was no real victory or defeat in that game.
Also the Factions dont measure up against Mechwarrior factions, or the story. Although none of that is in Mechwarrior Online yet really.
Yes many F2P games have so called development, but not feature addtions or game play additions and in the end they are lacking many critical features. Mechwarrior Online also, but lets hope they fix that.
One thing good about MWO is I don't feel it is pay to win. I know some people would disagree that they let you buy the packs and then hit you with nerfs, but nerfing to balance new content is common, no matter how the income generation is structured.
My problem is I don't feel I get value from lots of the stuff offered. Camos and Mechbays are way over priced. Cbill time should only tick when you are online. If the standard price for mechs were the sale prices that they run, that would be reasonable. The majority of my disposable hobby income goes to gaming and I am more than willing to spend.
Between all games I have played(discounting single titles) whether it be subscriptions,expansions, p2p, you name it, I have spent less money on MWO for the above stated reason.
Personally as business owner, it doesn't make sense to me. There is no ongoing product cost. Once you design a mech, whatever it costs to do is the final cost, regardless of how many you sell. Why not place things at a price that feels like nickles and dimes to the playerbase and makes content more accessible to people with lower incomes. People are more satisfied with the product, feel they are getting a better value, and in the end wind up spending more money in the end.
Premium time is a perfect example, I have purchased 30 days premium time once, and had it for 30 days once as part of the one mastery pack I purchased. If it only ticked when I am online, I would always be running premium time.
You have a point about what Mechwarrior is heading for long term. Its not clear.
The problem is that this leads to a "lost in the woods" scenario.
Even way back when I was designing mods for games I never finished, even as a high school student, I understood that you needed to have a clear idea of what you wanted to create before you set out creating it - outside of purely abstract and amorphous "jams." But those are frequently done simply for the journey and not for the end result (though the end result can still be quite interesting).
Take, for example, the concept of the machine gun.
The -reason- the autocannon series of weapons exist is to more effectively defeat the types of armor carried by tanks and battlemechs. It has been included in MechWarrior throughout history for a number of different reasons, but it wasn't often treated as much more than a niche weapon by the community, particularly during online play. The fact of the matter is that most of what the player finds him or herself up against is just not countered all that effectively with a machine gun - or even a dozen machine guns. And those all had tanks and hovercraft to deal with in the past - still, they weren't very effective particularly when you consider the other weaponry that could occupy the space and tonnage.
You hardly ever saw the machine gun in online play outside of strict role playing scenarios or something like that, simply because it's not an effective weapon to counter the only threat people were encountering - players in other 'mechs.
This brings up a question of design focus. Obviously, many people want to pilot a 'mech as the focus of the game, but many of the weapons that exist within lore are not well suited to defeating said 'mechs, nor are all of the platforms. Hovercraft aren't necessarily meant to be a threat to 'mechs, but they are meant to be a threat to the assets that support 'mechs. The Locust isn't supposed to be a very effective 'mech when it comes to taking on other players in 'mechs. It's meant to be an agile recon-in-force and harassment 'mech... and given the tonnage available, you're not really going to change that in the 'mech lab.
So, it would stand to reason that a game where all of the players are in 'mechs, and all of the competition is in 'mechs, that people will gravitate toward the platforms that are most effective for defeating 'mechs. The more focused the game becomes on the fight between players in 'mechs, the more important it is that your 'mech pack enough punch to down an enemy, enough armor to survive a surprise, and enough speed to hunt.
This means most players will gravitate toward heavy and assault 'mechs as there's really no point in worrying about bringing 'mechs that just have difficulty arming for the mission of destroying 'mechs.
If we want to include a game where the light mechs have the opportunity to express their role, we have to completely re-define what the challenge is. The challenge needs to shift away from destroying opposing players to more abstract things like securing territory and interrupting supply lines.
The problem is that development persisted well ahead of any such features and everyone has done a "to the winds" with their ideas about what needs to be done about "weapon balance" or "role warfare" or what have you - often times failing to see the complete picture (there's no need to scout for enemy 'mechs, especially not in a map that is no more than 3x3 kilometers; and there's no way even a Jenner is supposed to fight on par with an Atlas). Even if you get into the situation where people are balanced in what amount of damage they can put out during a match, a Jenner can't command territory like a DireWolf can.
This makes it difficult to come out with a clear picture of where things should go, especially with a small community that is often very divided in its opinions.
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About the Galaxy map 4 v 4 and other comments you made, I think they are needlesly negative and not fair at all.
It's very difficult to be needlessly negative about PGI when you know their history. A lot of people put a lot of money into MechWarrior: Tactics. You realize that the company contracted to develop that game had the development contract expire in 2013 and they didn't touch it after that... yet the website was still selling founders packages well into August of 2014?
Frankly, I'm impressed they haven't closed their doors on MWO and split - though they are in a bit of a bind, as they used PGI (created back in 2000/2001) to launch this game. So they are kind of stuck with owning it - unlike how they let MW:T remain the property of IGP until IGP declared bankruptcy in October of 2014 after negotiating the purchase of the MechWarrior IP to PGI in September.
I'm curious to see how they will end up playing this. Bryan failed to get the response he was looking for to crowd fund Transverse in 2014 - so they don't have another game to run to.
Part of me kind of hopes they straighten up and produce a real game. By almost all objective marks, MWO is the most serious they seem to have been about any game they've ever made, though whether that is because they have burned too many bridges to run anywhere else or because they actually developed a sense of purpose in the game, I'm not sure.
The way the story goes, Russ was a fan of the MechWarrior series and sought out the former FASA lead who founded Smith&Tinker. Given some of the changes that happened after the whole explosion over the Transverse incident, it may be that Russ has enough passion for MechWarrior to actually try and do something to salvage it from PGI's shell game tactics.
I might actually have to listen to the next town-hall whatever he does to see if that sits as one of the potentials, or if it's just wishful thinking.
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4 v 4 will add the lance level combat alot of players have been hoping for as well as scouting and even stealth/tactics/surprise(cheat detection will be important here). 4 v 4 will be an entirely different pace of combat. That its linked to scouting for the capture of planets on a multi faction galactic war map is even more awsome.
I'm not quite as enthusiastic.
There are a couple problems with this idea. While it may represent an 'expansion' and 'improvement' to the current game play, it still must be an effectively enjoyable and solid form of gameplay that will aid in player retention.
What I see, from a 'developer standpoint' is the following logical flow path:
- Light Mechs are unable to compete with heavy mechs effectively and the maps are too small for the effective development of role warfare. Objectives also too limited for development of role warfare.
Solution: Split off light mech combat into 4v4 on standard maps. Avoid conflict with heavier 'mechs, avoid complexity of developing more objectives in standard matches.
- No incentive to play in smaller queue. More enemies = more damage = more destruction = fewer drops to grind.
Solution: Integrate into planetary system and base subsequent mission parameters on outcome of light 'mech combat.
The end result is rather vague, but it basically amounts to cutting light 'mechs off into their own queue to make them potentially worth playing.
Though, again, the central conflict is a single-elimination peer-versus-peer deathmatch involving battlemechs. This will, in all likelihood, simply be a faster paced version of the murder-ball we already see. Even if capture points are noted, on the maps, it will generally be more effective to first patrol as a full lance to be able to quickly focus down a target and put the enemy team down one chassis as quickly as possible.
The other problem is signified by the results of the Tukayyid competition. The clans won and made it to Terra. ... Now what?
There's a massive amount lacking from community warfare to make it really worth getting involved in.
Personally - they are overthinking the community warfare aspect and going with the fundamentally wrong platform.
Consider:
Note how the main conflict is the destruction and preservation of the base - everything else is simply a means to that end, including the life of your characters. The team must work together to organize defense, keep buildings repaired, keep each other repaired and/or covered from hostile fire.
There's no need for complex conditional statements in the map, for complicated AI routines, etc. It's all very simple and the players largely direct themselves against the enemy base and the opposing team's attempt to destroy their base. The game simply creates a sandbox with enough tools for the teams to work around with.
The thing to keep in mind here is that it's not single-elimination deathmatch. It's a game of economic attrition and resource/asset denial. Shooting, strategy, and tactics are simply the means to that end.
Slap a few faction bases down on a 50 square kilometer map with some assets to guard and, perhaps, scripted convoys (say trucks from a mine or something) to protect - and you've got everything you need for community warfare provided you can implement a server that can handle a 12v12v12v12v12 or so game. Make them persistent servers where players populate into their faction's team to replace players who leave... and you eliminate wait times.
Of course, there are other things to consider (such as a victory condition, rather than just a never-ending slug-fest).
Anyway, the point is that gameplay that is engaging and worth talking with your friends about is what is necessary to really make the game 'stick.' It doesn't need to just be 'new' to MWO, it needs to be compelling for people who are coming from other backgrounds and be capable of recovering some of the battletech fans who have left the game because it simply isn't compelling.
Steam is a very different animal. My prediction for launch is an overall "Mixed reviews" standing within Steam after the first three weeks. It's not likely to be all that well received when it is going to be standing in the line-up against other free to play games and a market where a single hero mech can buy me three games during a Steam sale.
It's one thing to drum up money from people who are familiar with and passionate about MechWarrior.
It's a completely different challenge to convince people who have never heard of it to give it more than a passing glance.
I find Planetside 2 and warframe has better priced items.
Warframe does it right. They also have great monetization of cosmetics like the little doodads. I'd put batman nipples on my spider in about 2 seconds. And warframes doodads cost like $2-3 with is the right price point. Plus they bundle them for a discount.
Even if PGI is honestly pursuing a better game, at this point (as they've kind of burned most of their bridges that lead away from MWO), the fact that there's no clear direction of what constitutes progress toward a goal (from our perspective, or, seemingly, the developers), it becomes difficult to feel like the game is moving anywhere.
PGI can get a second opportunity to branch out if they are very successful with Steam. If they make a lot of new incoming players happy they can make another pitch.
My point that players are willing to pay top dollar for a feature complete game with excellent and deep game play, with atmopshere and a good story, stands.
Sim ftw.
Can Mechwarrior be that game? Well that goes back to the whole development discussion.
That so many other games are unwilling or unable to capitalize on the market, which is absolutely massive is another topic all together.
I do think how ever that Mechwarrior may have been the most under valued title of all time. That or some smart peeps kept it under wraps on purpose.
PGI can get a second opportunity to branch out if they are very successful with Steam. If they make a lot of new incoming players happy they can make another pitch.
Pretend I am one of your friends.
Invite me to play MWO. Talk up the game and what is great about it - why I absolutely need to install it and come play it.
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Aim64C, on 16 July 2015 - 12:43 PM, said:
