Veteran Game Hate
#41
Posted 16 December 2015 - 11:28 AM
Yes, sometimes it is hard to stay optimistic. Well, nothing worthy of doing was ever easy.
Don't compare MWO to some ideal(and not existing) BT game (sure, it will suck). Compare it to previous MW games. Somewhere MWO is weaker, but it is so much stronger elsewhere. And it will get better.
P.S. My only grudge with game was UI 2.0, first edition (oh... *infinite hate*). But how it changed. I like UI we have now (mostly).
#42
Posted 16 December 2015 - 11:32 AM
Bishop Steiner, on 16 December 2015 - 10:49 AM, said:
I have both but I never seem to be able to woo the ladies. Now THAT is a thread we ned in off-topic lol
I
#44
Posted 16 December 2015 - 12:01 PM
ComradeHavoc, on 16 December 2015 - 06:39 AM, said:
I'm talking about the veterans that play with premade teams with extreme meta builds and yet whine and piss how bad the game is and give it bad reviews on steam and downvote positive reviews without commentating.
It's like a fastfood restaurant that's been in business for years keeping a simple menu and slowing adding things has a grand-reopening which brings in potentially new customers and a new demographic, whilst some half-naked old customer is pissing on the building yelling at everyone new trying to enter.
So explain to me, because I don't really understand what's so fractured about the game that the old vets as a community would smear feces on it to keep new players away?
This post is basically a long list of assumptions. I somehow doubt you're going to get an answer, but then again, you probably don't want an answer so much as for the hug chamber to give you your well deserved slaps on the back for your remarkably unclever rejoinders built upon a strawman.
let me ask you a question that's not rhetorical, what do you get out of posting a thread like this? All you're proving is that you're just as full of piss and vinnegar as the people you railing against. But yes, let us keeping complaining about the complaining because clearly that is not at all counter-productive.
Everyone wants their five minutes to ***** and moan. Give it to them and they'll piss off way quicker than they will if you sit there and tell them they're wrong. These guys are a drop in the bucket in the larger picture of the community, their undeserved 0's are already offset by the undeserved 10's. So while we're sitting here getitng hysterical about reviews for a free to play game, we're just wasting time rather than discussing topics that are actually worth while, bogging down the front page with threads that have ltierally no use but to whine about whining -- The only bigger waste of time than complaining for the sake of complaining.
Edited by Cappy, 16 December 2015 - 12:09 PM.
#45
Posted 16 December 2015 - 01:30 PM
ComradeHavoc, on 16 December 2015 - 08:36 AM, said:
I mean if we're going with a Dune reference, the vets really need to stop ******** on the worms, and organize.
Hahaha
Jun Watarase, on 16 December 2015 - 09:34 AM, said:
FALSE!!!!
Proof: SUMMONER/Missed Lynx
#47
Posted 16 December 2015 - 02:33 PM
#49
Posted 16 December 2015 - 03:09 PM
Minimal Viable Pilot, on 16 December 2015 - 02:33 PM, said:
The game is very complicated, and General Discussion is an awful place to ask questions about it. The Training Grounds sections don’t require clearing your Cadet bonus to post in, and is also populated with much more helpful sorts than the shrieking neckbeards that lurk in GD. The Academy’s a good place to get the basics, but for everything else…well, there’s not enough time in a match to explain something like Ghost Heat to a rookie pilot without getting your *** blown off for typing instead of driving.
Here, we have the time. So, since the thread seems to be derailing nicely otherwise – what would you like to know?
#50
Posted 16 December 2015 - 03:11 PM
While ghost heat still exists its a much more minor issue. The real problem is to find a way to limit boating of any weapon without ghost heat or find a better ballance that means people dont feel the need to boat the most heavily optimised weapon for the slot.
#51
Posted 16 December 2015 - 03:12 PM
Sigmar Sich, on 16 December 2015 - 03:06 PM, said:
But i'm familiar with right and wrong. PGi still aren't that wrong.
it's not the picture (which refers to a TV show) but rather the words and the person behind them.
Edited by Mystere, 16 December 2015 - 03:13 PM.
#52
Posted 16 December 2015 - 03:43 PM
Cappy, on 16 December 2015 - 12:01 PM, said:
This post is basically a long list of assumptions. I somehow doubt you're going to get an answer, but then again, you probably don't want an answer so much as for the hug chamber to give you your well deserved slaps on the back for your remarkably unclever rejoinders built upon a strawman.
let me ask you a question that's not rhetorical, what do you get out of posting a thread like this? All you're proving is that you're just as full of piss and vinnegar as the people you railing against. But yes, let us keeping complaining about the complaining because clearly that is not at all counter-productive.
Everyone wants their five minutes to ***** and moan. Give it to them and they'll piss off way quicker than they will if you sit there and tell them they're wrong. These guys are a drop in the bucket in the larger picture of the community, their undeserved 0's are already offset by the undeserved 10's. So while we're sitting here getitng hysterical about reviews for a free to play game, we're just wasting time rather than discussing topics that are actually worth while, bogging down the front page with threads that have ltierally no use but to whine about whining -- The only bigger waste of time than complaining for the sake of complaining.
vinegar* getting* literally*
Kind of funny how despite you saying that I don't want an answer the replies have been constructive. What do I get out of this thread? Well for one the community tells me a generalization of why the "bittervets" exist.
This thread is actually quite a good use because so far I've learned about ghost heat, and boating balance builds, but as I said I'm getting a constructive picture of why some of the most loyal of players are bashing the game so hard.
Then there's you, complaining about my complaining. "The only bigger waste of time than complaining for the sake of complaining." So why did you have the need to create a negative reply with "...ltierally no use but to whine about whining"?
#53
Posted 16 December 2015 - 04:00 PM
1453 R, on 16 December 2015 - 03:09 PM, said:
Here, we have the time. So, since the thread seems to be derailing nicely otherwise – what would you like to know?
Let me list a few things:
- Flamers, why do they exist? And please don't say "Because Paul"
- What's the point of the 1 to 1 timeline anymore?
- How come there's a lot of missing weapons/mechs for the timeline?
- Quirks? (indepth please)
- What does the "lower hand actuator" do exactly?
- What's the point of Command and Lance command etc?
- I keep hearing about hard counters are bad, elaborate?
- Why did the output screens turn into disco-dubstep balls?
- What is all the gobbledygook UI in CW when in a match lobby?
- Why do some mechs have arms?
- Why do lasers dominate?
- Why isn't the paper doll customized per mech?
- Convergence?
- Consumables?
- How is matchmaking balanced?
- What's the point of streak missiles?
- Why does thermal and night vision limit your view to something like 300 meters?
- Why are some mechs just plain worse than other mechs?
- How does CW create matches?
#54
Posted 16 December 2015 - 04:21 PM
ComradeHavoc, on 16 December 2015 - 04:00 PM, said:
- Flamers, why do they exist? And please don't say "Because Paul"
They exsist because some stock builds have them. As we do not have soft targets in MWO the flamer beeing an anti infantry weapon is pretty useless. So PGI made it a crit seeking weapon to at least give it a niche as weapon for people beeing crazy enough to field a flamer into armored combat. If you are sane don't use them until infantry and other soft targets get implemented. =)
#55
Posted 16 December 2015 - 04:32 PM
ComradeHavoc, on 16 December 2015 - 07:27 AM, said:
I haven't played MWO nearly as long as some of the players here and to me it seems pretty solid. I didn't even know that ghost heat was a thing until today.
I guess I'm trying to make a useless point so that some players can take a step back and attempt to suggest and fix issues about MWO (once again) instead of scaring away new players.
I'm surprised that there's isn't a central suggestion list or a google doc or something considering all the community videos and weekly updates.
Because with steam you don't have the censor {Godwin's Law}'s or the time out babies . You can say what you like and not get banned
when you think someone is being a no talent *ss clown
#56
Posted 16 December 2015 - 05:30 PM
ComradeHavoc, on 16 December 2015 - 04:00 PM, said:
Let me list a few things:
- Flamers, why do they exist? And please don't say "Because Paul"
- What's the point of the 1 to 1 timeline anymore?
- How come there's a lot of missing weapons/mechs for the timeline?
- Quirks? (indepth please)
- What does the "lower hand actuator" do exactly?
- What's the point of Command and Lance command etc?
- I keep hearing about hard counters are bad, elaborate?
- Why did the output screens turn into disco-dubstep balls?
- What is all the gobbledygook UI in CW when in a match lobby?
- Why do some mechs have arms?
- Why do lasers dominate?
- Why isn't the paper doll customized per mech?
- Convergence?
- Consumables?
- How is matchmaking balanced?
- What's the point of streak missiles?
- Why does thermal and night vision limit your view to something like 300 meters?
- Why are some mechs just plain worse than other mechs?
- How does CW create matches?
Hoo boy. This is why they don’t explain things in mid-match, this one’s gonna take me a while. All righty then…
1.) The Flamer is a BattleTech tabletop weapon which is meant to be used against armor (tanks, Jeeps, stuff like that), infantry, and also shrubbery (the tabletop game has rules for setting hexes on fire). In MWO, it exists because it’s a basic weapon type they can’t not put in a MechWarrior game, but Piranha doesn’t really know what to do with it. They’ve considered it a nonissue next to all the other, more glaring issues in the game, and so it continues to be pants. C’est la vie.
2.) None, really. I doubt they’re really following it, the timeline has become more of a loose guide than a hard fact. Remember, the 1-to-1 timeline was something Piranha laid out to Founders, a plan they discovered later they were not equipped to live up to. The studio has bitten off a significant chunk more than it’s comfortably able to chew with MWO, they’ve had to scramble ever since open beta. I would argue that only in the last year-ish have they really started to get a proper handle on the game.
3.) Because there’s hundreds of ‘Mechs, and because a number of weapons are either awkward to implement or are so niche that they just don’t turn up. This game uses the same general equipment list as every other MechWarrior game set in/near the same time period; they’ve never had Blazers or ‘Mech rifles or such in a MW game before, and Piranha has gone on record was wanting to balance the gear that’s already in the game before introducing (more) completely new elements. As for ‘Mechs…they’re releasing them faster than most people are comfortable with buying them as it is. We’ve got a great stable so far, and they’re making good progress on the Unseens now that Catalyst has slain Harmony Gold’s legal Jabberwocky.
4.) I’m not actually sure what you’re asking here? The quirks system is, unfortunately, something players asked Piranha to implement for forever, except not at all the way most players wanted it. In the original tabletop game, ‘quirks’ were special rules modifiers that were given to certain ‘Mechs to represent certain design perks/flaws of that particular machine. Things like Hard To Pilot (a quirk that negatively impacted piloting rolls) or Improved Targeting [range] (which added a boost to a ‘Mech’s to-hit rolls against targets in a certain range bracket). They’re supposed to help add character and personality to ‘Mechs, and would have theoretically been used to offset the bad weapons/hardpoints/geometry of underperforming ‘Mechs as well.
What we got? Well, nobody really wanted it, but we’re kinda stuck with it now. Same as Ghost Heat. If that’s not what you needed, I’m afraid you’ll have to be a bit more specific.
5.) In the tabletop game, hand actuators allowed a ‘Mech to do things you’d need hands to do, such as pick stuff up, throw it, or punch the enemy in their blast panel. They add a lot of utility and versatility to a ‘Mech in TT. In MWO, I believe hand actuators are supposed to give you slightly more radius to your arm reticle movement, but in reality they’re largely useless. One of the game’s many holdovers from the original tabletop rules, which will hopefully gain a useful function someday.
6.) Company commanders can set company-wide objective markers via the battlegrid interface, and can also rearrange ‘Mechs into different lances (this doesn’t move the ‘Mech, just re-orders who shows up as ‘Alpha Lance’ or what-have-you). Lance commanders can set lance-specific objective markers via same. I’m not entirely certain how this works, I’ve never bothered claiming command. Most of the time (in the solo queue anyways, which is my bailiwick), the command system is most useful for indicating precisely which player on your team you should ignore. If someone Takes Command™, sets a bunch of markers, and starts barking orders over VoIP…well, follow them if they make sense, but unfortunately that individual is likely an idiot.
7.) ‘Hard counters’ refer to systems which 100% defeat other systems. An example is that ECM, currently, prevents one from obtaining a missile weapon lock against the carrying unit and any other unit within 90m of the ECM carrier. You can not lock and fire lock-on missiles against ECM; ECM is thus considered a hard counter to lock-on missiles. The Beagle Active Probe, on the other hand, automatically overrides and shuts out any single enemy ECM system within its effective range. Again, a hard counter – the Beagle does not degrade, mitigate, or reduce the effect of ECM, it completely and utterly eliminates it. You can not operate ECM when within the range of a Beagle user.
Players don’t like hard counters because they reduce play options in the game. LRM machines are junk in large part because heavy ECM presence on the enemy team renders them pretty much dead weight. Conversely, multiple Beagle units eliminate most any benefit one can derive from ECM. Players would prefer soft counters, akin to the AMS system. AMS provides partial defense against missiles and weakens enemy missile players, but it’s not a 100% screw-you-buddy to missile users. The missile guy can try and work around/bull through the AMS system, and the AMS guy has to be aware of his missile defense’s weaknesses and can’t Faceroll McDerperp his way to victory against any/all missile machines.
8.) Because “NO SIGNAL” is boring as hell and immersion-breaking for many. I much prefer the new screens; they add some life and color to my cockpits, and even if they’re a bunch of pointless **** they at least look like they’re trying to tell me something useful. “NO SIGNAL” was idiotic.
9.) I have no idea. I don’t play Commodity Warfare, as I am a dirty filthy solo player and as every CW vet out there will tell you, “No unit? GTFO of CW, f’kin’ scrub.”
10.) Nature of the beast. Remember, this game is heavily based on a thirty+ year old property, and most of that property’s assets were never designed with online gaming in mind. In MWO? ‘Mechs with fully-articulated humanoid arms (upper and lower arm actuators) get wider play with their arm-mounted weapons, but ‘Mechs with cannon arms usually have much higher gun mounts in those arms and can thus fire over cover and other obstructions easier. It’s something of a classic debate around here, honestly – high-mounted hillhumping bazooka arms locked to center vs knuckle-dragging gorilla arms with wide horizontal firing arcs. The former are preferred by snipers, while the latter are typically preferred by short-range brawlers.
11.) Okay. This is a hot-button issue in the forums right now, but in short, and to cut most of the snarling rabble-rousing hullaballoo out of it: lasers are very weight-efficient. When the Clans were released, the game was suddenly faced with a slew of very fast ‘Mechs that did not die as quickly as fast ‘Mechs tended to before the Clan release. Players found themselves needing bigger engines to try and keep up with the maneuver game Clan ‘Mechs could play, which cut into available weight for weaponry. Combined with a series of pretty savage nerfs to PPCs and less-savage-but-still-painful nerf to ballistics (both of which used to drastically outperform lasers, to the point where most considered pre-Clan release Sphere lasers to be essentially worthless), and the fact that Clan lasers were amazeballs and could produce then-unprecedented alpha strike numbers, the metagame shifted over to laser-dominant machines with scads of compact Clan double heat sinks.
There it has stayed despite everything Piranha could do; we are, at this point, just about full-circle. Most everything has had its time as the incredibly dominant, super-overpowered weapon, and Piranha is trying to avoid bringing back old plagues like the Evil Poptart Meta (which was infinitely more infurating and unfun to play than Big Engine Laser ‘Mech meta). Supposedly quirks were going to fix this, but we all know how that ended up.
12.) Tabletop holdover. The paperdoll has always been a singular common image for all ‘Mechs, regardless of size, weight, or shape, in all BattleTech board games and also all MechWarrior titles. It also helps players better familiarize themselves with new ‘Mechs, since they can easily recognize what they’re taking fire on, and also the entire BattleTech-inspired locational damage system breaks like an egg in a meteor shower if all ‘Mechs don’t have a basic framework in common to use as a fundamental anchor point for the game’s design.
13.) UUUUUUUGH.
Okay. In the tabletop game, damage was allocated via random/semi-random dice roll; it was almost impossible to focus all of one’s weapons onto the same specific, targeted component of an enemy machine. As such, multiple-weapon attacks tended to ‘scattergun’ all over an enemy – fire four medium lasers mounted in your arms at an enemy, and those lasers would hit the center torso, right torso, left leg, and miss altogether, with no rhyme or reason. This was one of the lynchpins that underscored tabletop balance and a primary factor in the very slow pace of tabletop battles.
People around here want Piranha to remove weapon convergence (i.e. the ability of the weapons on your ‘Mech to fire at wherever the crosshair is pointing, regardless of their location on your ‘Mech) and replace it with one of OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAND(!!!!!) player-developed ideas. It is the (erroneous) assumption of a great many players that Fixing Convergence™ will cure all of MWO’s balance problems forever, eliminate the need for Ghost Heat, bring the BattleTech back into this BattleTech Game, and also cure cancer, feed all the hungry orphans in the world, and usher in world peace.
It’s an old, old, old, VERY OLD Classic ForumWarrior Argument, it crops up in five or ten new threads every week, and I despise talking about it because being unable to hit what you aim at in a first-person shooting game is a fundamental failure on the part of the game designers.
Anyways. NEXT.
14.) Something Piranha had been planning on for a while before it got implemented, sorta-kinna their sad, sad attempt to bring some faint echo of the tabletop’s rich combined-arms experience into MWO, and more their attempt to create a repeatable C-Bill sink/minor income stream. You equip consumable modules in your ‘Consumable’ slots in the Modules tab of the ‘Mechbay, then use your choice of a few different keybinds to place the consumable at wherever your crosshairs are pointing in a match.
Artillery Strikes are a circular bombardment of explosions, Airstrikes are a linear carpet bomb (with a random line orientation, SO USEFUL), and the UAV is a hovering spydrone that marks enemies on your minimap whether you can see/target them or not. The UAV also hard-counters ECM, though this is somewhat more acceptable as the UAV can be shot down, costs money to use, and is temporary anyways. Some players claim that not using all of your consumable slots in every match is equivalent to deliberately sandbagging, some players (such as myself) hate the entire system as a grindy mess that is deliberately antagonistic towards new players and have never once equipped a consumable.
15.) *Sigh*
If you’re looking for the algorithms behind it, Piranha refuses to release those. If you’re snarking off, shame on you. If you’re wondering how, in general, it works…players are assigned into one of five Tiers, based on a hidden formula that tabulates their end-of-match performance and uses it to adjust a hidden value supposedly equivalent to that player’s Skill*. Players are put into matches according to their Tiers, until/unless something happens to force the matchmaker to blow a release valve in its coding to avoid players waiting for a match for an hour.
Much like convergence, it’s one of those Ancient ForumWarrior nonsense arguments – some players insist the matchmaker is horribly, horribly broken and there is no skill balancing, while other, saner players acknowledge that MWO is a very complicated game, and also one which is by design very prone to snowballing. One nasty mistake at the beginning of a match by one player can force that player’s entire team to fight from a disadvantage for the rest of the game – there is no way to account for that sort of variance in a one-life resource-based game like MWO, as opposed to a constant-respawns arena schmup like Call of Duty.
Long story short: the matchmaker is as solid as Piranha and the laws of reality can make it. Ignore the idjits who say otherwise.
16.) Streaks require a lock-on, but if you can get that lock-on and fire, you’re guaranteed to hit the enemy (provided, of course, there’s nothing between you and the enemy and that you’re within the Streak launcher’s range). They use a special targeting algorithm which randomly distributes each missile to one of the ‘Mech’s bones (i.e. bits of their animation rigging), which generally correspond to in-game hitboxes. As such, they’re guaranteed to hit but impossible to aim. They’re guaranteed to spread their damage across most of the enemy ‘Mech, making them very inefficient for scoring kills (but excellent for farming damage for C-bills!).
The usual use for Streak missiles is as a counter to light ‘Mechs – Streaks are one of the most reliable methods in the game of delivering damage to twitchy, sometimes laggy lights, and light ‘Mechs don’t have enough armor to withstand heavy Streak volleys. A ‘Mech with a large number of Streak missiles is an absolute terror for lights but is not very good against heavier units, since they have the armor to shrug off a few Streak missile-showers and the focused, amiable firepower to punch the Streak platform in the nose and make it wish it hadn’t brought missiles to a gunfight.
17.) At a time deep in the distant past of MWO, Thermal vision was essentially Predator vision. It cut through the visual cover/clutter/Fog of War on maps and was an enormous benefit to snipers. Many players never actually turned thermal vision off; it was held to be strictly, 100% superior to ordinary vision. Piranha decided to remix the alternate vision modes to try and make their use a tactical, in-the-moment choice – Thermal for picking up ‘Mechs in a tight, low-visibility scrum (but being bad at seeing terrain and at a distance), NV for navigating in low-light conditions (but being bad at targeting enemy ‘Mechs and also seeing at a distance) and normal vision for distance shots in well-lit conditions.
The system is overall better balanced this way, but occasionally you do still get people pining for the old boom-headshot Predator Vision thermal imaging.
18.) Try introducing approaching two hundred different machines which all use the same pool of 70-ish components and have some of them not be lemons. It’s just the way game design works, man. Also TableTop – as has been mentioned at least a dozen times, this game is based on an old, celebrated tabletop gaming property for which Great Balance was not a primary concern. Some ‘Mechs were specifically and deliberately intended to suck. Like UrbanMechs.
19.) Again, I have no idea. I do know that CW does not use any skill-based matchmaking whatsoever – it’s a shark tank, by the specific request of the people who fought to get it implemented. Prepare your butt any time you step into CW, and be aware that CW is, in fact, an optional game mode you don’t need to deal with.
ALL RIGHTY THEN. Does that help clear things up, man?
#57
Posted 16 December 2015 - 06:00 PM
Minimal Viable Pilot, on 16 December 2015 - 02:33 PM, said:
Ghost heat, bruh...figure it out.
#58
Posted 16 December 2015 - 06:37 PM
Rhaythe, on 16 December 2015 - 07:09 AM, said:
What, you mean the slower pace and longer TTK that was mostly due to absolutely piss poor optimization of both netcode and graphics?
The fundamental game from closed beta hasn't changed much. In fact, I'd say really the only substantial change that dramatically altered the game was the removal of R&R. Everything else has been simply the addition of mechs and weapons that PGI said they would include from the beginning, including the Clans that started the whole power creep that necessitated quirks, and so on...
Everybody says they want to go back to this:
I DON'T. You see all those missed AC20 shots? Yeah, that was because of a hiccup in the netcode each and every time I fired, so I had to lead based off some random pause that varied in how long it would be (aka: near impossible to aim). You can also see my FPS in the 20s (now it's in the 90s-120s), a Commando warping like there's no tomorrow, poor hit registration, dropped sounds, etc.
*Side note: I killed Paul
#59
Posted 16 December 2015 - 07:30 PM
Skoll, on 16 December 2015 - 07:01 AM, said:
There is a lot to be angry about but PGI is seemingly getting better appears.
Is there a writeup on a wiki or something where I can read all this? It sounds amazing.
#60
Posted 16 December 2015 - 07:31 PM
Jun Watarase, on 16 December 2015 - 10:58 AM, said:
You are forgetting that was acceptable in closed beta precisely because it was closed beta and gameplay was expected to evolve beyond an arcade shooter. The fact that it hasnt despite closed beta being 3+ years ago is quite dissapointing..
Really? The game play (now or in closed beta) is what makes the game fun. What was and still is generally lacking is the metagame that gets built around the fun core ... the role warfare ... the REASONS beyond just another match to keep playing the game ... community warfare or whatever else PGI could design to offer some meaning or significance to the next fight and the one after that.
However, I have to admit that I never expected the basic flavour and feel of mech combat with a variety of customizable loadouts and weapons systems to change. If you expected the game to evolve away from that basic aspect of game play I am not surprised you are disappointed since that basic game play IS the reason the game still exists and has a loyal fanbase. (The entire mech combat aspect is very similar to the previous mech warrior video games except the balance is generally better ... single player PVE doesn't need to be balanced ).
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