136 replies to this topic

[Alistair Winter]

Wintersdark, on 02 November 2015 - 09:35 PM, said:

To be fair - and certainly not in defense of them here - one of the biggest problems of "role warfare" is shared with a lot of issues here: it means different things to different people.

Different people have different view about the specifics, but the general principle is that you have different 'classes' which strengthen each other and create synergy when working together. This is also the general principle behind lots of MMORPGs, RPG FPS games, coop dungeon crawlers, space sims, war sims, etc. You either create different 'classes' with the idea that they're all equal, but different, or with the idea that they need to work together for maximum effect, or both.

MWO falls between two chairs and has neither. Our mechs are not all equal, and winning the match does not really depend on multiple roles working together in synergy. If there were no limitations on tonnage or weight classes, this would be extremely evident.

Wintersdark, on 02 November 2015 - 09:35 PM, said:

I'd argue that the problem isn't that they don't want role warfare. I'm sure they do. But they (like us) lack a coherent vision of what that means. But that's just another symptom of the overall problem, in the first part of your quote.

They did have a coherent vision. 4 different roles, 4 different skill trees with various unique abilities. That was what they called role warfare. It's nothing unique, you see the same thing in other games. And everybody loved their idea, because it was a tried and tested model that had already worked in countless other FPS games.

Then they implemented a placeholder skill tree instead, and then lots of expensive modules to encourage sale of MC (for GXP) and Premium time (for C-bills) and called that role warfare. What a joke.

The latest attempt at redesigning Infotech is a step in the right direction, but as always, PGI is determined to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work. It would have been so much easier and cheaper to stick with their original vision, no matter if it's unoriginal. It works.

[SnafuSnafu]

Map design, Mech/weapon balance probably a close second currently, but Mech/Weapon balance IMO are a lot more fixable (and quite more "easily" at that as the values of how they work/interact are easily changed), whereas their map team IMO are inherently bad.

There are only a handful of maps, IMO, that are 'acceptable' in MWO and those are HPG, Tourmaline and Forest Colony, some are flawed such a River City and Caustic Valley, the rest to put mildly are terrible.

One major complaint I have is the ludonarrative dissonance one experience with the current MWO maps, which are more akin to that of a tight spaced FPS shooter such Unreal, Quake and even COD. In theory, you would not use/bring such heavy vehicle/mech system on these type of terrain. MechWarrior historically is and will always be a vehicular combat game (albeit in mech form), which have histrionically sported wide open maps where it is logical to use such heavy weapon systems on. The current maps we have in MWO play, feel and quite honestly are FPS shooter maps, not vehicular combat maps that one expects in such a game, thus IMO why they are inherently bad (not accounting for the other major issues of MWO's maps).

Other major complaints in regards to the maps:
- Scale
- Interactivity (for the most part non-interactive)
- Horrible textures and assets (the assets look horrible)
- Getting stuck on clutter
- Absolutely Horrible layouts

Thus why I feel the maps are the weakest part of PGI's game.

Also, INB4 'but LRMs, thus why the maps are what they are', non-sense as then logically LRMs are the ones that need to be modified rather than having your many maps be terrible.

Edited by SnafuSnafu, 02 November 2015 - 11:11 PM.

[sneeking]

I agree about the map areas they are arena scale not battlefield scale.

It should take a t least 3 scouts to fan out and find the main forces to report back ( if they can ) if they get the chance...

Lights don't have a real roll so they got quirked into mighty mouse brawlers to compensate.

[Thorqemada]

That PGI did not find a good way to translate Tabletop into 3D First Person Real Time gameplay and ignored obvious flaws in the beginning that become expensive over time, also they released Clans two years to early.

[Homeskilit]

I feel like all the weapon balance in the world will not help the game if the mechs themselves are not balanced first. Locked equipment or not, cXL being able to survive a ST loss is a huge advantage for Clan Mechs. I find this ironic because using an XL should be the equivalent of going Glass Cannon (sacrificing survivability for damage) like it is for isXLs.

[Khobai]

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You have to spend money to make money.

no you dont.

indie game developers dont pay millions of dollars for licenses. they use engines that offer royalty options instead like unreal or cryengine.

friggin minecraft which is like the most successful game ever was made using lol javascript... they didnt pay for an engine they made their own using a hilariously antiquated programming language. which is why minecraft has so many performance issues but they made hundreds of millions of dollars off it anyway.

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That PGI did not find a good way to translate Tabletop into 3D First Person Real Time gameplay and ignored obvious flaws in the beginning that become expensive over time, also they released Clans two years to early.

why they tried to translate anything from tabletop in the first place is beyond me. it makes no sense.

they shouldve based MWO off previous mechwarrior games. not tabletop.

Edited by Khobai, 02 November 2015 - 11:23 PM.

[Homeskilit]

Khobai, on 02 November 2015 - 11:20 PM, said:

no you dont.

indie game developers dont pay millions of dollars for licenses. they use engines that offer royalty options instead like unreal or cryengine.

friggin minecraft which is like the most successful game ever was made using lol javascript... they didnt pay for an engine they made their own using a hilariously antiquated programming language. which is why minecraft has so many performance issues but they made hundreds of millions of dollars off it anyway.



why they tried to translate anything from tabletop in the first place is beyond me. it makes no sense.

they shouldve based MWO off previous mechwarrior games. not tabletop.

An employer pays an employee with the intent of turning a profit from the product the employee creates/services provided. Therefore the company is spending money in order to make money. Some companies will cut corners in order to maximize profits but if you cut the wrong corners you doom your company.

If they chose Cryengine because it offered everything they thought they needed then they had poor foresight and a poor vision for this game (I say this because the phrase "the engine cannot support [insert feature here] comes up way too often). If they chose it simply for financial reasons then that was probably the worst decision they could have made.

Also, I think using the TT as a starting point was a great idea because it gives you a place to start. You just need to move on from there. You cannot expect the same rules for an 80-90s dice game to work for a 2010s MMO.

Edited by Homeskilit, 02 November 2015 - 11:58 PM.

[Khobai]

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An employer pays an employee with the intent of turning a profit from the product

but the fact remains you dont have to spend money to make money. when I go to my job it doesnt cost me any money to earn a paycheck.

indie game developers often produce games with no or very small initial investments. theres a bunch of successful indie games on steam that were made with budgets of like $2000 or less.

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If they chose Cryengine because it offered everything they thought they needed

they chose it because it was the best engine available at the time that didnt cost millions of dollars for a license. what other engines were available at the time that were free or offered royalty only options? The only other option they had really was a proprietary engine which wouldve meant double the startup costs and twice as long to launch the game... so yeah youre wrong. it was cryengine or nothing at all.

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Also, I think using the TT as a starting point was a great idea because it gives you a starting point.

MW2 gives you a better starting point. Considering that it has much more in common with MWO than battletech and the fact that MW2 was a game that made hundreds of millions of dollars. MWO shouldve taken everything good out of MW2 mercenaries and made it an online game. But not just MW2, they shouldve looked at all the past games in the franchise (MW2, MW3, MW4, mechcommander, etc...) and copied the gameplay elements that made them successful.

For example we couldve had MW2 mercenaries' logistical aspects, MW3s amazingly simple and superior mechlab, MW4s active/passive sensor system, and a command interface similar to how mechcommander is played.

Edited by Khobai, 03 November 2015 - 12:04 AM.

[monk]

MWO?: Flawed design and broken mechanics that don't properly connect together creating numerous issues.

PGI?: Inability to focus and finish things.

Don't get me wrong, I like MWO, and I don't think it would take much to move it from fun to a really solid game that appeals to more than the small niche of players we have right now. That said, I don't see it happening. There is too strong a history of incomplete ideas and moving on before the last issue is resolved to assume that things will change. Sure, the game is evolving in fits and starts, but there remain core issues that haven't been properly dealt with in ages, and it's becoming hard to believe they ever will. Maybe this is because the community itself is so fragmented on what it wants, but it seems to be more than that.

I mean, just name a feature and then name what is not finished with it. It's not very hard; it's almost everything. Maybe they just continue to bite off more than they can chew, and all the voices clamoring at them are too hard to silence so they continue trying to appease everyone and by doing so please nobody. As it stands, the game feels like it has had 10 cooks and each had their own recipe.

But I still like it. =) I mean, there are times when it's an awesome evening. That said, I can't convince any of my friends to play anymore. And I'm sure you can all guess the reasons why pretty quickly. It's not like we haven't heard them a billion times now.

[rollermint]

While I'm not a regular player in this game so I can't specifically comment on any specific gameplay mechanics and its troubles, I enjoyed the game thus far every single time I played it in short phases (a few days/weeks/a month or two at a time). Its Battlemechs!

At the same time, I'm sort of also taken back that the number of maps and gameplay content are much lesser than I expected for a game that is 3 years old to have. Its quite barebones, tbh. Particularly by the state of CW, which IIRC was one of the MAIN selling point of the game when it first began.

The number of mechs however is pretty nice. I actually like to see more mechs ....AMONGST OTHER MORE IMPORTANT THINGS, like maps and more fleshed out CW of course.

Just reading through the forums for a few days I think it is clear that alot of players, if not the majority, have misgivings and dont particularly favor the current management.
Basing from the vibe I'm feeling from the more vocal playerbase, I think PGI needs a shake up of the top people. IMHO they may have been at the top for a bit too long, their vision for the game have brought a number of good things certainly but I think they are overstaying their welcome and its becoming more and more detrimental to the game as a whole.

So yeah, imho the biggest problem with MWO is their top management. They need fresh blood and new people.

[wolf74]

Flaw is the same Flaw ALL Mechwarrior games have had from Version 1 back in 1989
Perfect Automatic convergence.

I would loved to Test a Manual Convergence system. LRMs would have to get a Debuffed for this system If it were to come and if it is anywhere close to what I see in my Head Happening. But I have done many post in the pass on convergence; and I think the changes would be too big of a system shock for most current Players sadly to be put in.

[sneeking]

Yes i think they should hijack the mouse wheel for convergence and not allow it to be reassigned, you should know distance to intended target and the wheel should have a range counter that scrolls on hud as you spin it.

I suggested such a thing once but nobody cared.

[Black Ivan]

Greatest flaws IMO:

broken hit reg
meaningfull content (not Mechs, there are enough of them)
broken heat system
Weapons and equipment balance

[Homeskilit]

Khobai, on 02 November 2015 - 11:55 PM, said:

but the fact remains you dont have to spend money to make money. when I go to my job it doesnt cost me any money to earn a paycheck.

You need to get to work somehow though (and walking still has costs involved). You also need to feed yourself to acquire the energy to perform your tasks at work.

Khobai, on 02 November 2015 - 11:55 PM, said:

indie game developers often produce games with no or very small initial investments. theres a bunch of successful indie games on steam that were made with budgets of like $2000 or less.

I think you are comparing apples and oranges. An indie game is not in the same league as an MMO with eSports aspirations.

Khobai, on 02 November 2015 - 11:55 PM, said:

they chose it because it was the best engine available at the time that didnt cost millions of dollars for a license. what other engines were available at the time that were free or offered royalty only options? The only other option they had really was a proprietary engine which wouldve meant double the startup costs and twice as long to launch the game... so yeah youre wrong. it was cryengine or nothing at all.

I do not know much about game engines so I cannot reply with any authority on the subject but I find it hard to believe there were no other options that were within reach.

[sneeking]

The beauty of such a convergence system would be in setting convergence short of target range while timing your advance and weapon cooldowns plus heat thresholds against shutdown or possible overide for that killer alpha, going balls deep and pulling it off would ad much to combat.

[Homeskilit]

I am on the fence with convergence. On the one hand I think it is an issue being able to concentrate all your firepower on one point. On the other hand I am pretty sure our weapons now, in 2015, converge on a target (provided multiple weapons are fired from the same vehicle). I would fully expect my 1000 year in the future battlemech to be capable of something similar if not greater.

I think first you balance the mechs, then you balance the weapons, then you can look at things like convergence.

Edited by Homeskilit, 03 November 2015 - 12:48 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

El Bandito, on 02 November 2015 - 07:35 PM, said:

If PGI devs were a bit smarter and active,

QFT

Quirks anyone?

Its ok to increase the range
Its ok to increase the RoF
Its ok to reduce the heat

But its not ok to use any of this in the same chassis for the same weapon, the meaning of quirks is to give a Mech some flavor.
A increase in RoF - will automatically increase the heat burden - but to keep it in check you may reduce range or damage
A increase in range - have to reduce damage or RoF - or increase the heat
A heat reduction have to reduce damage

So as said you may have positive quirks for heat and RoF but you need to have negative quirks for damage and range

Heck i would bet that when they did present the quirk system for the HBK-4G for the first time.

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[color=#E69138]AC/20 Range +12.5%[/color]
[color=#E69138]Ballistic Weapon Range +12.5%[/color]
[color=#E69138]AC/20 Cooldown +12.5%[/color]
[color=#E69138]Ballistic Weapon Cooldown +12.5%[/color]
[color=#E69138]AC/20 Velocity +12.5%[/color]
[color=#E69138]Ballistic Weapon Velocity +12.5%[/color]
[color=#E69138]

[/color]

The cooldown should have been a nerf - (more range and more velocity) - for slower reloads.
Would have been logical - but not to have a faster firing gun that has more range

[Vellron2005]

In my opinion, the biggest flaw of this game is the original setup..

Instead of a lore and immersion rich approach to game design, that should be reflected into every single detail of the game, the original design is a basic skeleton, mechanics driven, and only a shell of what it could be..

Yes, the game has issues. Balance, hitreg, matchmaker, content... but that all is something that can be fixed, and that gets worked on often..

The immersive feel (or lack thereof) never got addressed, and it wont anytime soon.

In my humble opinion, MWO has from the beginning been a game in which a player gets to shoot giant robots.

What it SHOULD HAVE BEEN is a game in which a player gets to experience a universe in which giant robots get shot.

[DivineEvil]

Bad design management and quality control.
Minor issues are fixed, major are standing.
It takes too much time to come up with the solution.
When solution comes, it is often of a scale different from the scale of a problem.
This leads to the uprising of new issues in interlocked game systems and features.
Solutions are often enough too unconstructive, convoluted or/and overboarding, while obvious, much simpler solutions based on common logic and awareness of dependencies, are unrecognized.

[Weeny Machine]

Hitreg