104 replies to this topic

[MechWarrior5152251]

When did Trial Mechs become available?

[Zolaz]

I make more now than I did under R&R and I was one of those guys who gamed the system. Always ran with the free 70% ammo and wouldnt repair armor or structure in the arms, legs and side torsos. You think you are scared of Atlantes now wait till one rolled up on you and gave you a repair bill that cost more than you made in the match.

[Zerberus]

It didn´t. At least not in any way that was even remotely productive or immersive in a multiplayer game, and it could be (and was often) heavily gamed and expaoited... can´t stand someone becasue of something they said on the forums? HEY BRO!!, say hello to your massive repair bill that will take you a week to earn back.

It also turned any form of upgrade, esp XL engines, into a slow financial suicide, because they obviously had to be reapaired or replaced as well... at a higher cost, of course.

And it actively promoted crappy gameplay... Why torso twost and spread damage, it only costs me more in repair costs ? Why try to cap and win, better to run and hide for the next 12 minutes, or my XL engine will cost me another few 100k in rep costs not to mention whatever the enemy may blow off........

Lugh, on 31 March 2016 - 04:52 AM, said:

The complaint was (and it wasn't really legitimate) from Froobs (free players) who felt they could never progress to buying new mechs. This was patently false and anyone with even a modest amount of skill could earn enough to buy a couple few mechs a week which was faster than other similar games (like Warthunder and World of Tanks).

The argument boiled down to what about the poor froobs...

Yes, it was so completely and utterly false that I can´t at all remember the day during closed Beta when 4 of my friends quit outright after 3 months of complaining about R+R... Yes, they may not have been awesome players out of the gate, but if it takes you 5 months to earn your first mech because any plus you make is going to be slashed in half by people in teh next match that either can´t hit the broad side of a barn or are stripping armor intentionally, then that is a MAJOR issue.

Especially if you finally get it, kit it outr, play one match, and get to watch it collect rust for another week while you prepare it.

And that was EVERYTHING that closed Beta Was, in every way.... Every "Yes , Awesome " Moment is immediately met with a "Hey, reality check, **** YOU AND THE MECH YOU RODE IN ON!!!"... yeah, what awesome fun that was for everyone involved

And all it took was some goons having fun by stripping ther mechs as far as possible to eventually put them each at -250k+.. meaning they could not repair or rearm, and after playing another hour in Trials trying to get back to a level where they could rearm and repair, unsuccessfully, they said "**** this" and have not been seen since, specifically because the dev position at the time was "this will never go away". They tried Hawken a few years back for a month or so ("Damn arcade BS, I want component destruction!"), and long story short now work for Harebrained Schemes.

That same day is the reason this is not my original MWO account, either. I wasn´t in the red, but my original character died with the MW3+4 Clan that MWO ´s CB R+R effectively killed.

Bottom line: You can be an elitist (insert insult of choice here) and complain about "Froobs" all you like..

But the real fact of the matter is that the system was absolutely devastating to the New player experience, especially to those without prior shooter and /or MW experience.

And what a lot of you elitist tryhards love to forget is that without Froobs there will never EVER be someone around to eventually become a "whale". Nobody I know in teh ohistory of online gaminiug ever paid money first and only then installed a free to play game.... Or did you (or anyone you know for that matter?) purchase a founders pack first and only then proceed to actually play? Sounds like a lot of pot on kettle black brush action to me.... Especially since while CB was originally invite only, that changed in early 2012 after a small "email error" that I´m sure many of you remember quite well (in no small part because it opened the floodgates for anyone with an IP address to join CB)....

It´s the exact same entitled, elitist ******** as WOW "pro raiders" complaining about casuals... you can complain about them all you want, but if they weren´t there you wouldn´t have a game to play, period. Some people need to stop *********** to their own stats and open a window for a taste of the real world every so often....

Ditching R+R was by far the most intelligent design choice anyone at PGI has ever made in any game.

PvE /Sp: SURE, there it makes sense.... but in MP, with no appropriate lore actively tied in to it, no way to circumvent it, no way to prevent it from effectively "locking" player`s accounts out of the game... hell no...

Just think man, if I pay 25 bucks for a damn virtual battlemech then I better ******* be able to fly it antime of any day I ******* well please, or that´s the last money you´ll ever see from me. End of discussion. Any PGI thankfully realized that a lot earlier than many of the tryhards that still want it back at all costs...

Edited by Zerberus, 31 March 2016 - 07:55 AM.

[FupDup]

MechWarrior5152251, on 31 March 2016 - 07:40 AM, said:

When did Trial Mechs become available?

They're called "Champions" these days, there are several of them available on rotation for each faction.

However, most of them are either mediocre or outright trash. The Raven with no leg armor and the Commando with a STD engine are some examples of the sheer stupidity of the builds they frequently use.

I guess they're better than the 3025 SHS garbage bin relics, but they still suck balls against virtually any sensible custom build. Even customized mechs that are normally sub-par can mop the floor with some of the trials, which is sad in and of itself.

There are a few that can be considered actually viable, but they don't make up for all of the other terribad trials.

Edited by FupDup, 31 March 2016 - 07:58 AM.

[Mystere]

Pockets, on 31 March 2016 - 05:06 AM, said:

Ammunition worked similarly to consumables now.
Repairs were calculated based on the damage received and I seem to remember them being handled automatically, causing reductions of about 50k c-bills on your game income (in addition to ammunition-based loadouts getting through a similar amount of ammo).

The problem was that it made everyone too cautious to do anything when they launched XL engines, the increased cost of repairs meant that it wasn't too uncommon to have repair&rearm costs that nudged into 6-figures. In terms of overall progression, if you played 'efficiently' (lasers and no XL) it was okay - use anything ammo based or even slightly expensive and it became a waste of time. When they removed it the game improved dramatically (for a little while, until they nerfed the income to 'balance' it).

Please do not speak for me. I was not part of that "everyone". Money does not stop a suicidal maniac.

[Mystere]

Malleus011, on 31 March 2016 - 07:04 AM, said:

Gee, wouldn't it be nice to have an economy that adds depth to our repetitive arena deathmatch?

Depth? What is that word?

[Jetfire]

R&R was terribly implemented, it belongs in CW as a part of logistics, IE invading and defending should be a bit of a resources battle not just by match wins with some planets granting more income than others making decisions as to where to push the advance more strategic.

In PUG matches it just meant run premium, be elite or run sub par builds to game the R&R system. Not quite golden ammo... but close enough to be counter productive.

The rewards used to be higher, but they were going to come down with or without R&R.

[Livewyr]

Mystere, on 31 March 2016 - 08:21 AM, said:

Depth? What is that word?

Dpth is a four letter word requiring thought in the mechlab and actions, as opposed to Halo: Robots.

Please do not speak of this heresy.

[CDLord HHGD]

Lugh, on 31 March 2016 - 04:52 AM, said:

Essentially damage to the Mech had to be repaired (which had a cost).

Also ammunition used had to be bought (re-arm) and broken weapons repaired(re-arm).

The complaint was (and it wasn't really legitimate) from Froobs (free players) who felt they could never progress to buying new mechs. This was patently false and anyone with even a modest amount of skill could earn enough to buy a couple few mechs a week which was faster than other similar games (like Warthunder and World of Tanks).

The argument boiled down to what about the poor froobs...

They catered to that outcry, those froobs are LOOOONG gone, and the income you would have earned being a good pilot is gone along with them (because the income in the game got cut in half when they took out repair and rearm). ..

Oh and the end result? You didn't earn new mechs any faster. Clueless FROOBS continue to not do well, not earn fast coin and leave the game before having even a single Chassis mastered.


False statement. The economy WITH repair and rearm was at ~ 2x the earnings it is today.

If you had a clue you could make WAY more money playing under that system than the one today.

This ^.

[Coralld]

R&R when it first came out was really bad, but as time went on it actually got a lot better and more balanced, which is something people here poo pooing it fail to mention.
At one point it was very reasonable, all PGI needed to do was increase the cost of replacing damaged energy wepons a bit as well as reduce the repair cost of Heavies and Assaults and it would have actually been spot on.

Unfortunately PGI decided to derp hard by going full "Paul" and reduced the earnings by a substantial amount because he thought we were having it too good which screwed every one.
People raged about this, on top of the faty pilots who were complaining the entire time from the start about how they shouldn't be punished for piloting faty hordes.

So PGI gave in and removed R&R which led to Assault mechs, Assault mechs EVERY WHERE!!!! And thus the Hell that was the Assault-mech-aggedion was born.

Edited by Coralld, 31 March 2016 - 07:13 PM.

[xTrident]

Curccu, on 31 March 2016 - 04:46 AM, said:

Because it was useless. Would you like to earn 30-40% less? Or have everyone play super cautiously so their mech won't get damaged/destroyed or chase that last light mech last 10 minutes of the game because he doesn't want to pay repairbill
oh yes energy weapons only because no ammo (not that it would be that different from current meta but...)

Oh, so it was implemented ******* terribly... If that isn't a common theme...

[Goose]

Lugh, on 31 March 2016 - 04:52 AM, said:

The complaint was (and it wasn't really legitimate) from Froobs (free players) who felt they could never progress to buying new mechs. This was patently false and anyone with even a modest amount of skill could earn enough to buy a couple few mechs a week which was faster than other similar games (like Warthunder and World of Tanks).

The argument boiled down to what about the poor froobs...

They catered to that outcry, those froobs are LOOOONG gone, and the income you would have earned being a good pilot is gone along with them (because the income in the game got cut in half when they took out repair and rearm). ..

Oh and the end result? You didn't earn new mechs any faster. Clueless FROOBS continue to not do well, not earn fast coin and leave the game before having even a single Chassis mastered.


False statement. The economy WITH repair and rearm was at ~ 2x the earnings it is today.

If you had a clue you could make WAY more money playing under that system than the one today.

This post is made of Damn Lies© …

[Barkem Squirrel]

old video, but spot on.

[Barkem Squirrel]

[Parnage Winters]

Heh, people advocating for the Repair Rearm.

It was pointless, gamed and had no positive impact on the game whatsoever. Nothing about it was bad enough to stop someone from running a mech entirely. As a freeplayer it was annoying but easily gamed. As a premium it didn't matter at all and was something you didn't pay attention to.

It was a c-bill sink and a poorly done one at that. This also ignores the negative impact on actual gameplay which is funny considering it had no positive impact on it. Mechs shutting down hiding, people facetanking damage because it's cheaper to repair a blown out CT then your mech being taken apart due to torso twisting damage. And it also made people overload on ammo simply to game the system.

So yeah it was pretty stupid. Maybe if CW had gone a different route or the game itself it could of been a real impacting mechanic but it wasn't and the best modern take would be look at the 3rd person camera. It's in the game, you occasionally use it but it doesn't do anything but alert you that either a madman or a new player is in that mech if you see the camera drone. IE: Utterly pointless.

[invernomuto]

Barkem Squirrel, on 31 March 2016 - 09:47 AM, said:

old video, but spot on.

Thanks for the videos.
Ps
Impressive how the changed the gameplay from 2012. Lrm are sooooooo slow in that video . Mechs seems more "resistant" compared to nowadays.

[TLBFestus]

It was a great idea in theory but it didn't work out in practice.

The risk/reward ratio was (surprise!!!!) unbalanced to the point where costs dictated to players how to play. So typically, we have another example of how good PGI can be at "unbalance".

[Blue Boutique]

The reason it was removed and the 70% free R&R was that farmers were deliberately sending in damaged and severely stripped mechs and abandoning the match to get most of the 250K. It was annoying playing the game when farmers are out of the game to capitalize on your efforts.

[nimdabew]

Two posts above, did anyone notice that centurion tanking like a bauce? Where is that game? Where are my mechs that take a beating and still continue to fight? The game now feels like counter strike: get shot three times and you die :/

[Coralld]

nimdabew, on 31 March 2016 - 10:49 AM, said:

Two posts above, did anyone notice that centurion tanking like a bauce? Where is that game? Where are my mechs that take a beating and still continue to fight? The game now feels like counter strike: get shot three times and you die :/

That's because ES and DHS were not in game yet If I remember correctly. Oh, and hit detection was sh*te.

Edited by Coralld, 31 March 2016 - 07:19 PM.