8 replies to this topic

[Helbrecht]

I've seen alot of suggestions and concerns that range from legit to complete paranoia.
So in a effort to simplfy something's lets think about it. lets dive right in.

First off mechs.

Ok the king question asked over and over again " What Will be In"
well if you stop and think about it you have to realize that PGI Has to make money. so if we follow that line of thought you realize the more mechs they put in the better, BUT!!! they have to make money, So one can reason that they would put in probly the base variants such as Mad 3R WHM 6R, with the specialized variants most likly being sold as upgrade packs and given the sheer amount of chassis available for them to bundle and sell.

So that Moves us right along to customization.

Again stop and think. if they allowed full fledged Customization how will they make money, you wont need to buy thier mech paks since you can just recreate the variant, so thus they would be potentionally out millions of dollars. to be honest thier are things you could upgrade it really jusy depends on what they want to do, but to be honest i wouldnt be surprised if it wasnt in.


Next pilot skills

Welp as im sure the rest of you have read the dev blogs 337 million times as i have you probly rember the quote nothing you buy shall grant you a tactical advatage. Ok so what classifies as a tactical advatage on the game, somthing that makes you able to kill far more efficently than an opposing player is the way i interpret it. so those of you that are fantasing about the specialized weapons skill from mechcommander, good chance yer gonna be dissappointed. BUT!!! again they have to provide something for lvling other than " hey im lvl 57 even though it means absalutly nothing other than ive played a whole lot" So let think about it.

Welp its a mech warrior game so obviously as you lvl you will be able to get the ability to pilot heavier chassis how they decide to do it is up in the air. You could bundle the chassis togather into thier respective classes or you could lvl up by tonnage. they would probly make more money going by simple tonnage since than thier mech paks might be more appealing, but again they could go either way and both would work fine.

Purchasable pilot skills


Ahh the pay to win fears!! lets try and ease them. Again revert to the quote nothing you buy will be able to grant a tactical advatage" Ok so what could they sell that we would want but wouldnt break the game. answers? its so obvious its kinda sad. Money, the ways the could do it are a few i doubt they would sell just straight cash infusions but say you get an extra 25% salavage at the end of a mission for a certain time. experience accelerators as well would probly sell like hotcakes. anywayz thats the way i see that

Merc Corps


My God some of the stranges assumptions and ideas i have seen so far pertain to these again logic time.
A merc Corp is a Guild period. Now the way guilds are have changed recently with pretty much all mmos'.
This is called a living guild system, basicly its your guild also lvls. and as it lvls it gains abilities which are usualy passive but it gives the players somthing to shoot for. The things that could be implemented are numerous and ill allow you all to throw ideas at that.


Respawn No Respawn discussion.


i really wouldnt be surprised if respawn found its way into solaris arens at some point but given the fact that they made mention of the game lengths,teams based tactics, and information warfare, id give it a 75% chance that the main battles will be no-respawn.


Cryeng 3


Ohh yeah the big fear, allow me to get technical. if you have a geforce 400 series video card or its equivilent at 512 or 1 meg and at least 2 gigs of ram. you can play. you will not be at full video awesomeness eyecandy. but you can play obviously the higher you go the better. these cards run about 80 bucks and can run of a 300watt powersupply. obviously dual and quad core processors and more ram will allow you to play the game on higher settings.

[Rhinehart]

One failing point to your logic.

The Devs have stated again and again that advancement isn't going to be about a race to get into the next heavier chassis. There will be important roles for all weight classes of mechs in the game and all will be needed at some point. So I don't think that advancement will be simply tied in to unlocking the 65 ton bracket vs the 55 ton bracket. Rather I think advancement will be tied to abilities and equipment upgrades and many of these, such as scouting drones will be items we haven't seen in a MW sim before now. Information warfare is supposed to have a much more prominent role in MWO and this will likely be tied into advancement.

[Helbrecht]

maybe but they have been so vague in this area that making any assumption is really reaching into the dark. however if you were in thier shoes and you were tring to think up pilot skills that woukldnt grant you a great tactical advantage over your opponent. what would you give, rember they said they dont want the guy who plays 5 hours a day to have more than the guy who plays 5 hours a week. if you really delve into it, how much can information warfare really alter the game, you still have to find and kill the opponents. when i think information warfare i think scouting, i think of maybe of a scout being able to spot for indirect lrms fired by your teammates. they have to be able to give the guy piloting that light mech a role that will help in eliminating the opposing team. just finding them is'nt rewarding enough imo.

[Kudzu]

Helbrecht, on 30 November 2011 - 09:27 PM, said:

maybe but they have been so vague in this area that making any assumption is really reaching into the dark. however if you were in thier shoes and you were tring to think up pilot skills that woukldnt grant you a great tactical advantage over your opponent. what would you give, rember they said they dont want the guy who plays 5 hours a day to have more than the guy who plays 5 hours a week. if you really delve into it, how much can information warfare really alter the game, you still have to find and kill the opponents. when i think information warfare i think scouting, i think of maybe of a scout being able to spot for indirect lrms fired by your teammates. they have to be able to give the guy piloting that light mech a role that will help in eliminating the opposing team. just finding them is'nt rewarding enough imo.

And what good is that scout if his targeting info can't be passed along to his lancemates due to ecm? Or his sensor range is too short to detect his enemies before they drop him in an ambush? How about if his communications are jammed too? What about falsified info (Just a scout lance on your sensors... but assaults when you get a visual)?

There's plenty of room to expand the concept of IW that has barely been touched in any of the MW games.

Edited by Kudzu, 30 November 2011 - 09:49 PM.

[Iron Horse]

There may be bonuses for playing longer, such as more accurate shots (assuming we don't get pinpoint targeting). Maybe the ability to use and/or purchase Targeting Computer/C3/ECM/CASE/etc. after reaching a certain level (for each one). Quicker torso-turning (but this would almost certainly unlevel the playing field), charge a bunch of in-game money for custom paint schemes.

As a matter of fact, the one thing that almost all F2Ps have in common with each other is that it takes forever and a day to earn enough money just for one upgrade (cosmetic or otherwise). Unfortunately, I would say expect to grind it out for that cool paintjob, or be ready to drop a couple bucks. This is most likely the type of cash incentives we'll be seeing. Probably not much to do with gameplay. In fact, the less to do with core gameplay the better, IMO.

[jojobear]

Okay, here's my completely unbiased and reasonable prediction on things:

-You can buy aesthetic stuff ala TF2 and other F2P games. Nothing new here.

-You can buy weapons, mech chassis, and equipment with money. This is an alternative to salvage and c-bills. This kind of system is also being implemented in WoW and Diablo 3 will have with fully integrated. I don't like it at all, but whatever.

-You won't permanently lose your mech, weapons, etc if you die. This would cause players to ragequit and cause a veritable poo-storm with paying players.

-You will not have to wait real-time for repairs to occur. Why have something in the game that keeps people from playing?

-MercCorps are just clans with btech flavor and some MW:Mercs-style functionality.

-You will not have clans and clan-tech starting out. Clans will gradually be hinted at and introduced over the course of a year ending with a full-scale invasion.

-Your pilot will have a level-up system similar to Call of Duty because this is seen as popular with modern age gamers.

-Clan tech will not be cash-store exclusive when it arrives. You will be able to buy it with c-bills or salvage it.

-Being Clan will be functionally the same as fighting for a House. There will not be a border to entry for choosing Clan. To do this would impose extra complication, cost, and resources. It would also be a slap in the face to half the btech population and would propagate a negative atmosphere of elitism not seen since Star Wars Galaxies (sorry ex-Jedi players).

-Clan tech will be balanced in one of two ways (maybe both). The stat sheets will be tweaked to balance them against IS and to hell with btech canon, or they will implement a Battle Value system of match making.

-There will be a matchmaking service which will probably be based on Battle Value or something similar.

-Joystick support with force feedback.

-Multiple monitor support like in MW4 Mercs.

-No single-player and no AI to start. We might get some Co-op missions against Clan AI near the end of the first year to help set up the clan invasion.

-Unseens will come if Alex Iglesias redesigns them sufficiently.

-Customization will be limited in that, unlike MW2 & 3, mechs are not treated as always being an omni mech.

-Customization will cost c-bills like it did in MW2 Mercs.

-Roleplay rules like zelbrigen will not be enforced in any way shape or form. People will be allowed to play the game how they want to play so long as they do not break the standard-issue terms of service.

-Premium mechs and weapons will not be available unless they can also be bought/salvaged with c-bills. This would kill the competitive community.

-World of Tanks is bad and you should feel bad. It is an example of what not to do with respect to its pay-or-grind business model. (Edit: I'll admit I'm biased on this one)

Edited by jojobear, 01 December 2011 - 03:12 PM.

[Adridos]

Helbrecht, on 30 November 2011 - 06:51 PM, said:

Again stop and think. if they allowed full fledged Customization how will they make money, you wont need to buy thier mech paks since you can just recreate the variant, so thus they would be potentionally out millions of dollars. to be honest thier are things you could upgrade it really jusy depends on what they want to do, but to be honest i wouldnt be surprised if it wasnt in.

Well only thing that LoL sells is faster progression, more money and unique models and they make a truck of money.
AoE:O, on the other hand, restricts lots of its functions to get much money from it, but it is getting dead faster than sinking ship.

Giving customized versions only to paying players will force people to think it is P2W and they will leave + tell everyone not to play that game (as I and thousands of others are doing with AoE:O right now).

Edited by Adridos, 01 December 2011 - 03:39 AM.

[Haeso]

Make every 'Mech require a license to buy them + 'Mech loss using a proper salvage system, do not use a tiered system. All it does is make the grind faster, doesn't interact with the economy.

[Kudzu]

jojobear, on 01 December 2011 - 03:16 AM, said:

-World of Tanks is bad and you should feel bad. It is an example of what not to do with respect to its pay-or-grind business model.

I fully agree with everything you said except for this point that I only mostly agree on. WoT has a lot of bad points but it also has some good ones. If they take the good and learn from the bad they'll make a great game.