94 replies to this topic

[Malleus011]

This is a difficult and complex question; and hindsight is always 20/20. If we could go back to 2011 and start over, however:

Keep the scope of the game small. Sticking with the 3025 time period, as has been said many times in this thread, would've done that. Later tech levels and Clans could've been rolled out in later years after the initial game was tested and stable - and successful.

Deliver all five pillars of the game, in a small, manageable style. For example - Information Warfare should've been part of initial 'mech design. The Jenner should've always been a more capable scout than the Hunchback, until the Commando came out, and showed how much better a smaller, more dedicated recon platform could be. There never should've been game 'modes' that weren't part of fighting the Succession Wars. Things like economy, salvage, and Mechwarrior skills should've always been part of a the game.

And by 'small scope' I mean keep everything small until you have it working right. 3025 provides a lot of the limitations you'd need. But, for example, CW could start as simply two factions fighting over a single world in closed beta. Once you manage and perfect the mechanism for conquering one planet, then you can begin scaling that mechanism to cover an entire front. Once you can manage a front, you can scale up until you have whole great houses fighting. *Then* add (and monetize) mercenary units!

Same with infowar. Start out with simple systems like active/passive or detection ranges, and slowly add more nuance to infowar as you grow (again, 3025 simplifies everything). Boost Infowar with map objectives, NPC spotter Boomerangs, etc; get basic infowar working and slowly expand.

*edit* And every drop should've had a role built in for every weight class. Require scouting and reward it. Require skirmishing and reward it. Over time, expand the roles, so that multiple types of scouting/scanning exist (scan multiple map points on some missions, scan every 'mech on others, etc) or skirmish objects, etc.

The game needed some kind of working economy, and not just grinding C-Bills and buying more 'mechs. It needs salvage, and repairs, and improvements, like hiring better techs and a bigger Dropship and other fun things. Again, start very small - just hiring a tech to stand around in your 'mech bay - and build slowly, once initial features are in and balanced.

The applications of 3025/small scope to weapons should be obvious. Tech 1 has SHS and just a handful of balanced systems. Get a reasonable version of TT working, and balanced, with all weight classes and roles working, and then you can experiment with Tech 2.

Map design - every map should've been themed off a famous world or battle site in the Battletech universe. Galtor III. Hesperus II. Quentin. Kittery. Wing. Twycross. Tukayyid. Make maps that Battletech players *recognize*. And make them realistic; so you feel like you are in a real location, riding a 10 meter war machine.

That's not even getting into bad choices of monetization and high costs for 'free to play'. Adding more character to MWO - actual Mechwarriors with portraits, uniforms, skill trees, decals, etc - could've also developed slowly and allowed for true micro-transactions; 1$ decals, 5$ AFFS uniform pack, etc.

Capping the number of 'mechs owned by a single pilot (probably ONE) could've allowed for more micro transactions for more character slots. Character slots could've allowed for a single player to support multiple factions as necessary ... plus spending more $ in micro transactions for more stuff to customize characters ...

Finally, and most important - the question 'Does it feel like Battletech' should've been kept first and foremost in development. MWO, as it stands, doesn't feel much like Battletech at all; yes, the 'mechs look good and have the right names, but the game modes, weapons interaction, heat scale, and 97% of the lore and points of interest of the Battletech universe are missing. If you are going to make a Battletech game, make a Battletech game, not a giant robot shooter with Battletech names.

Edited by Malleus011, 25 April 2016 - 10:53 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

If You Were Pgi In 2011, What Would You Do Different?

Id do nothing differently. Because PGI didnt screw up that badly in 2011. This game was way more fun back then compared to now.

2013 and after is when MWO went completely downhill; after they removed knockdowns, added clan tech and tried to sell gold mechs, and added 12v12 and modules/quirks that have contributed to reducing TTK to a fraction of what it once was.

2013 is when PGI made the bad decisions that led us to where we are now, not 2011.

Edited by Khobai, 25 April 2016 - 10:55 AM.

[Mister Blastman]

First decision: Not use Cryengine!

Second decision: Blend the TT themes with a modern approach.


And by that, in the second decision, I mean...

TT is about long, drawn-out fights with lots of nail biting, so consider the tt system designed for... tt and dice... and thus make the MWO system either use modified values or tt values with modified mechanics such as a huge increase to the number of armor hitboxes, etc., to reward skill and accuracy and help spread damage.

That's just a start.

Third decision: Allow users to host the servers.
Fourth decision: Allow users to create custom content.
Fifth decision: NOT FREE TO PLAY. One purchase, one product. Occasional expansion packs made of full single-player campaigns, maps and robits.

Which one is most important? That is hard to say--probably all of them but getting rid of free to play is a big one.

Bishop Steiner, on 23 April 2016 - 12:11 PM, said:

Stuff like "not use cryengine" when the financial realities of said choice were explained long ago.

Not using cryengine is a legitimate point. It is a difficult to swallow one, but it is a valid one.

[Bishop Steiner]

Mister Blastman, on 25 April 2016 - 11:00 AM, said:

First decision: Not use Cryengine!

Second decision: Blend the TT themes with a modern approach.


And by that, in the second decision, I mean...

TT is about long, drawn-out fights with lots of nail biting, so consider the tt system designed for... tt and dice... and thus make the MWO system either use modified values or tt values with modified mechanics such as a huge increase to the number of armor hitboxes, etc., to reward skill and accuracy and help spread damage.

That's just a start.

Third decision: Allow users to host the servers.
Fourth decision: Allow users to create custom content.
Fifth decision: NOT FREE TO PLAY. One purchase, one product. Occasional expansion packs made of full single-player campaigns, maps and robits.

Which one is most important? That is hard to say--probably all of them but getting rid of free to play is a big one.



Not using cryengine is a legitimate point. It is a difficult to swallow one, but it is a valid one.

When it appears it was use Cryengine or game not happens at all, well then, no it's not a valid point. Because love it or hate it, before MWO and all their screw ups, MW was a dead IP, and as such, the only reason we are even able to have this Convo is "Cryengine".

In a perfect rose tinted world I would prefer a different engine too.

Also funnily enough the Sainted Chris Roberts seems fine with using Cryengine.... huh. I mean he can do no wrong...that Wingcommander 2020 (or whenever they are claiming it will be a "real" game these days) thingy is making great use of it, right?

[Cy Mitchell]

Alistair Winter, on 23 April 2016 - 12:06 PM, said:

Personally, I think this would have been my approach.

Spoiler

• Abandon CW all together. Never promise CW. Never develop it. Battletech is too much of a niche game, and CW is such a huuuge project for such a small company.
  
• Make 2 different experiences for MWO. The first is Solaris PVP. Leaderboards, crazy customization, min-maxing, esports, all that. The second is single-player PVE campaigns with mission packs and DLC you can buy.

I think that's the biggest thing I would have done differently. Because I feel like a lot of people wanted CW because they felt that was closer to the Mechwarrior PVE experience, with objectives and planets to conquer and lore and faction vs faction. And a lot of people wanted CW because they wanted to create a unit and get famous and smash noobs and win the internet. And I feel like those groups would have been happier with single-player campaigns (ala the Battletech game) or Solaris, respectively.

For the most part I agree with you except that I think that the present QP PvP is good as it is and satisfies the needs of most players for a competitive environment.

Solaris is definitely the venue that should have been developed for eSports. How that is not obvious to PGI is beyond my comprehension.

The major thing that I would have done was to keep MWOnline unique and different from other FPS games. Lets face it there are other FPS out there that are far superior in squad based gameplay than MWO and a small company like PGI will never be able to compete with them. Therefore, I would have taken the BT/MW IP and enhanced the things that make it unique in itself and run with it. There would be almost no Alphas, TTK would be longer, maps would be bigger on average, objectives and game modes would be more diverse, more Mechs would be viable because there would be more niches and roles to fill that would be vital to the outcome of the match.

This would probably be a turn off for the crossover FPS shooter fans who want insta kills and fast grinding for rewards but in the long run it would have been much more interesting and would provide an alternative to the CoD and CS games of today.

I am still trying to be optimistic that something like this can still happen with MWO.

[Kyrie]

1. Divided development into two distinct and clear phases, with clear funding campaigns for each element of the game. Phase 1, FPS development, much as we have had to date. Timeline: 3025.

2. Funding campaign for an implementation of full MPBT 3025 House on House role-playing-shell, updating concepts developed back in 1992 and in the EA reboot that failed in 2001 or so. Timeline: 3025 again. Complexity of this development ranging all the way from a "light" highly abstracted version as Faction Play 3 is at present, to a full-on BT nerd-gasm level of development based on funding levels achieved in the campaign. What the community wants is what the community gets.

[Mister Blastman]

Bishop Steiner, on 25 April 2016 - 11:16 AM, said:

When it appears it was use Cryengine or game not happens at all, well then, no it's not a valid point. Because love it or hate it, before MWO and all their screw ups, MW was a dead IP, and as such, the only reason we are even able to have this Convo is "Cryengine".

In a perfect rose tinted world I would prefer a different engine too.

Also funnily enough the Sainted Chris Roberts seems fine with using Cryengine.... huh. I mean he can do no wrong...that Wingcommander 2020 (or whenever they are claiming it will be a "real" game these days) thingy is making great use of it, right?

MW wasn't dead. We had MW:LL and it was awesome. It was a performance hog and I couldn't play it until 2012 but... it was awesome. The Warhead paywall sucked, too. But that's gone.

And then PGI killed MW:LL.

:-|

And Star Citizen is a mess. It has so much potential but the clowns running it are trying to make it into a twitch shooter instead of a proper space sim that they promised us in the Kickstarter.

[Kyrie]

To clarify a bit further, one of the main issues that delayed development of CW well beyond the promises made in the initial funding campaign was that there was no clear metric to indicate demand for the CW product, and IGP dug its heels in and said No to funding it. Setting aside the failures of IGP and its lack of vision, in my mind the clearest path to getting CW funding from the beginning would have been to have it as a separate funding campaign entirely. The numbers derived from this campaign would have proven unequivocally that there was market demand for CW, and regardless of IGP's position, its viability could be demonstrated in an objective way.

No matter if PGI went with IGP as the publisher or went with a form of self-publishing, I would have employed this strategy to reduce the risk of overreach, letting the community decide what they wanted in the game. I know what I wanted, it is in my signature and has been for years. I posted obsessively about it in 2012. But I am fully cognizant of the business realities... not everyone is a BT nerd nor is everyone interested in a hard core RTS/RPG.

[Thorqemada]

Making MWO not a MOBA but an Tactical Action RPG Mech Sim with Military/Mercenary Careers and Pilot Leveling instead of Mechleveling.

Starting with Standard Mechs and as you climb your Career Ladder opening more and more Customization Features starging with Field Kits as known from the Manuals to full customiozation when you become finally a "Hero" in your Career..

Customized Mechs have Pilot based R&R expenses depending on the grade of customization.
Mercenarys have full R&R Unitwise aynway.

Pilot and Techcrew Management.

Different Theatres of War for different skill and techlevels.

Solaris b4 CW.

Never do ECM that way.

Bossmobevents with 1 time use Salvage (Items R&R expensive - gone when destroyed).

Never intorduce Clans that way.

And many things more...

Edited by Thorqemada, 25 April 2016 - 12:03 PM.

[Triordinant]

Mister Blastman, on 25 April 2016 - 11:40 AM, said:

And Star Citizen is a mess. It has so much potential but the clowns running it are trying to make it into a twitch shooter instead of a proper space sim that they promised us in the Kickstarter.

Why does that sound so familiar...?

[Mister Blastman]

Triordinant, on 25 April 2016 - 12:06 PM, said:

Why does that sound so familiar...?

Gee, I don't know? O_O

Not all kickstarters are bad... Underworld Ascendant is shaping up okay and it was kickstarted. Elite Dangerous is all right, too, but... alas, not perfect. But it is fun. Elite developers are the opposite of MWO's--they overlistened to the community and overcompensated which has created problems of their own.

Edited by Mister Blastman, 25 April 2016 - 12:17 PM.

[Lugh]

I would have them learn math. Why you say?

So that something that happens 2.9% of the time happens 2.9% of the time.
So that weapons that are firing at 3-5 times the rate of the TT equivalent are hitting 3-5 times the armor of the TT equivalent.
So that HeatScaling matters. So that Convergence works (Geometry is another basic math skill they were apparently lacking)
With MATH they might have been able to figure out the knockdown code to make sense.

With Math they never would have had to give up repair and rearm, they could have done an equation to give them the number that needed to be set as the average earning.

With Math they could have properly developed a skill tree with skills impacting everything from Yaw, to Twist, arm torsion, leg angles and oh so much more so that pilots with more well developed skill trees climb a hill they do it better, etc.

Edited by Lugh, 25 April 2016 - 12:19 PM.

[C E Dwyer]

Mister Blastman, on 25 April 2016 - 11:40 AM, said:

MW wasn't dead. We had MW:LL and it was awesome. It was a performance hog and I couldn't play it until 2012 but... it was awesome. The Warhead paywall sucked, too. But that's gone.

And then PGI killed MW:LL.

:-|

And Star Citizen is a mess. It has so much potential but the clowns running it are trying to make it into a twitch shooter instead of a proper space sim that they promised us in the Kickstarter.

So the diety Chris Roberts isn't in fact as god like as people claimed when they threw their money at him, claiming his new project would make other games redundant ?

[Mister Blastman]

Cathy, on 25 April 2016 - 12:18 PM, said:

So the diety Chris Roberts isn't in fact as god like as people claimed when they threw their money at him, claiming his new project would make other games redundant ?

Hehe. I paid 55 bucks in the kickstarter but still had reservations from how he screwed us over in Freelancer with that AWFUL mouse interface (instead of a proper joystick game). I saw his movie twice, too (I admit to my failings), and was leery after, that, also.

But, no, he is not the panacea for the space genre.

[Cy Mitchell]

Mister Blastman, on 25 April 2016 - 12:15 PM, said:

Elite developers are the opposite of MWO's--they overlistened to the community and overcompensated which has created problems of their own.

Oh, I think that MWO listens to the community. Maybe they even over-listen. The problem, as I see it, is that they are listening to the wrong, very vocal voices in the community.

[Bishop Steiner]

Mister Blastman, on 25 April 2016 - 11:40 AM, said:

MW wasn't dead. We had MW:LL and it was awesome. It was a performance hog and I couldn't play it until 2012 but... it was awesome. The Warhead paywall sucked, too. But that's gone.

And then PGI killed MW:LL.

:-|

And Star Citizen is a mess. It has so much potential but the clowns running it are trying to make it into a twitch shooter instead of a proper space sim that they promised us in the Kickstarter.

MW:LL was AWESOME?

Wow. It was OK. And barely had any player population most times. I get the hyperbole from Ghogiel, he was one of the Mods or something, but dang.

[Mister Blastman]

Bishop Steiner, on 25 April 2016 - 12:35 PM, said:

MW:LL was AWESOME?

Wow. It was OK. And barely had any player population most times. I get the hyperbole from Ghogiel, he was one of the Mods or something, but dang.

It was awesome. I played it. And I enjoyed MWO when it came out--it had a lot of promise. But... then it fell apart.

It had a small player population due to the Crysis paywall and then, after you got over that, they betrayed everyone when they switched to Warhead which was yet another paywall. I myself stayed out of MW:LL for a couple of years due to Warhead alone. When I did get Warhead on sale, I found MW:LL was awesome and had evolved into something fantastic.

It is hard to get folks to pay for a game they don't care about just to play a mod of that game, no matter how good the mod is.

[Scout Derek]

Bishop Steiner, on 25 April 2016 - 12:35 PM, said:

MW:LL was AWESOME?

Wow. It was OK. And barely had any player population most times. I get the hyperbole from Ghogiel, he was one of the Mods or something, but dang.

I agree, MWLL was alright, reason being? It wasn't an official game, it was a fan made one as a mod for another game.

I've played a bit of it as well too, pops are small because I think people don't know enough about it.

[Helsbane]

Let's see. Having a grasp on what the other MW titles that came before did RIGHT, then try to emulate that success with a modern touch.

Working WITH the guys that did MW:LL instead of killing their efforts off, because those guy had a clue.

Actually understanding that the MW universe is a vast entity, not limited to just mechs.

...

Basically tiny little PGI misunderstood what it was they were getting themselves into, and are still attempting to chew that first bite they took years ago. MW is something that a large, well organized game studio should take on, and even then only after doing extensive planning. PGI is just too small for something the size of MW and it shows through in each and every patch.

[Dawnstealer]

Personally, I would have used a different engine than Cryengine. Don't get me wrong, Cryengine is a GORGEOUS engine and can do some beautiful renders, but it's really aimed at a much different kind of game. I think PGI would have had more luck with a different engine or, given the amount of tweaks they've had to do to get things to work, just make their own.