197 replies to this topic

[Malorish]

So we all know that Steam players are jumping ship on MWO. IMO, the biggest reason isn't balance (better, but not great . . . too many underperforming mechs), community warfare (getting better), or lack of new maps.

The problem is that the game doesn't deliver on it's advertisement. I mean, look at this awesome looking game in the Steam Advertisement below. The one where mechs battle at close, intense ranges in exciting combat!



Does this look like MWO? Not even remotely.

Mostly we sit under cover, come out for a split second, alpha strike the living crap out of some poor noob who made a tiny positioning mistake, duck back under cover, rinse and repeat. Oh sure, towards the end of matches there's a rush once one side has the numbers. And we all can recount that 10% of the time that a real brawl decides the game (rather than being a mopping up action).

But this game is nowhere to be found in Alpha Strike Warrior. Our mechs do far too much damage, from far too great a range, in far too bursty a window.

So people get tired of building brawlers, only to get wiped out before they even reach weapons range. They get tired of being obliterated when they make small mistakes in positioning or cover.

We all laugh at them and call them noobs, while we "smart" players stay hunkered down. Meanwhile MWO continues to hemorrhage "noobs" who are trying to play the game in the trailer above, but keep getting wiped out.

But really, wouldn't we all rather be playing the game in the trailer?

I would. . . .

Edited by Malorish, 23 April 2016 - 09:54 PM.

[Malachy Karrde]

Well thought out post. I've always thought that weapons in mwo do too much damage. Mechs in the books were tough. Mechs in the previous games were tough. It should take a minute or two of pounding on someone to take them down. Maps are too big, and being able to alpha someone down in one or two shots is just ridiculous.

[Ex Atlas Overlord]

Yeah, this all started b/c they just made mechs too fast....Everyone just face humped each other and shot until someone died.

1) Then people complained b/c there was too much face humping....so they added more firepower....then people died to fast so they added more speed.....then there was more face humping....so they added more firepower.....

2) Then everyone complained b/c maps were too small. It was too easy to get from one side to the other. So PGI wasted a bunch of time making the maps bigger....so we could all do the exact same things....b/c it wasn't the maps.

3) Then everyone complained b/c there was nothing for scouts to do. Spoiler Alert: If mechs actually took time to reposition....scouting might actually matter. So PGI just designed every new "scout" to have insane firepower so they could run around and help in the zoom zoom death match.

Lights = 90-110kph
Mediums = 70-80 kph
Heavies = 55-60 kph
Assaults = 40-50kph

Most of those problems solved.

Edited by Ex Atlas Overlord, 23 April 2016 - 10:18 PM.

[ChapeL]

I wouldn't say the weapons do too much damage. It's that every weapon on your mech, in its hands, arms, waist, shoudlers ( anywhere! ) can converge on a tiny quarter sized area on a mech 10 to 800 meters away.

[Scout Derek]

Ex Atlas Overlord, on 23 April 2016 - 10:07 PM, said:

Yeah, this all started b/c they just made mechs too fast....Everyone just face humped each other and shot until someone died.

Then people complained b/c there was too much face humping....so they added more firepower....then people died to fast so they added more speed.....then there was more face humping....so they added more firepower.....

Then all of a sudden, then flipped the book, and gave some mechs more defensive and agility quirks, and cut back on the skill tree.

I'm still wondering if we'll ever get unique quirks such as Ammo or Jump Jet velocity bonus quirks soon.

[Mister Blastman]

Malorish, on 23 April 2016 - 09:45 PM, said:

But really, wouldn't we all rather be playing the game in the trailer?

I would. . . .

I would too... but some designer somewhere decided pinpoint convergence that does not belong in Battletech works fine with an old, antiquated three torso section armor system designed for tabletop rules based around dice roll accuracy.

And folks wonder why this game is broken? ...

[Malorish]

If it was up to me, we'd cut all weapon damage in half (or double armor and structure values, whatever floats your boat).

Then we'd shorten a lot of weapon ranges (maybe everything except machine guns). Finally, we'd need to double the ammo/ton to make sure missile and ballistic systems keep pace with energy weapons. (I'd also standardize ammo around a damage/ton number, but that's another topic and another post).

Mister Blastman, on 23 April 2016 - 10:21 PM, said:

I would too... but some designer somewhere decided pinpoint convergence that does not belong in Battletech works fine with an old, antiquated three torso section armor system designed for tabletop rules based around dice roll accuracy.

And folks wonder why this game is broken? ...

I don't know how you get rid of pinpoint convergence that translates into fun gameplay. I've seen the proposed systems in the forums, and they're terribly unintuitive or complex, IMO. I think we could live with pinpoint convergence (which people expect in a FPS style game) as long as you can't unleash ungodly amounts of damage with a push of a button.

[Mister Blastman]

Malorish, on 23 April 2016 - 10:26 PM, said:

I don't know how you get rid of pinpoint convergence that translates into fun gameplay. I've seen the proposed systems in the forums, and they're terribly unintuitive or complex, IMO. I think we could live with pinpoint convergence (which people expect in a FPS style game) as long as you can't unleash ungodly amounts of damage with a push of a button.

We can't get rid of it--so we must change the armor system to something that makes it a hell of a lot harder to poke through it in a single spot.

I've made posts about this before and am too tired to explain but essentially you take the left torso for instance, and turn it into six or nine separate armor boxes, each with full value and if you want to poke through to torso, you must melt them all or aim well enough to take out one of those nine and then unload all firepower through that small hole to do damage to internals.

Of course... assaults might get nine boxes, heavies might get six, mediums might get four and lights might get two to balance things out.

It'd work.

[Paigan]

Malorish, on 23 April 2016 - 09:45 PM, said:

[... advertisement whining ...]

You know that this is the very basic principle of how advertisement works, right?
Hardly any game lives up to it's trailer.

Take EVE-Online, for example:
Trailers: Awesome story-packed epicly huge space battle
Reality: clicking icons while zoomed out for 99% of your time like in a browser game. And 1% ultra giga mega lag.
That is ALL there is to EVE.

Or Mass Effect 3:

Breath-takingly movie-like graphics, epic battles.
Reality: Yeah, well, it's a nice RPG. But the trailer has NOTHING to do with it.

Or take any other game.

Or take movie trailers.
There's a Star Wars - Episode 1 Trailer that has scenes rearranged to convey a COMPLETELY different story and tone. It's indeed better than the movie itself.

That's how advertisment works.

It's childish to complain about it.

Edited by Paigan, 23 April 2016 - 10:59 PM.

[STEF_]

Malorish, on 23 April 2016 - 09:45 PM, said:

So we all know that Steam players are jumping ship on MWO. IMO, the biggest reason isn't balance (better, but not great . . . too many underperforming mechs), community warfare (getting better), or lack of new maps.

The problem is that the game doesn't deliver on it's advertisement. I mean, look at this awesome looking game in the Steam Advertisement below. The one where mechs battle at close, intense ranges in exciting combat!



We all laugh at them and call them noobs, while we "smart" players stay hunkered down. Meanwhile MWO continues to hemorrhage "noobs" who are trying to play the game in the trailer above, but keep getting wiped out.

But really, wouldn't we all rather be playing the game in the trailer?

I would. . . .

And me too.... and I'm playing it!
The problem maybe is that noobs (and maybe u too) do not watch closely at that trailer.

I'm a brawler and have a good team. Brawling action succedes when all the team does a coordinate brawling push.
That's the way I like to play and it requires experience and good teamates.

But sadly noobs wants to succed inmediately:
-using bad mechs
-never torso twisting
-going rambo
I see this in noob-ish players..and that's why they are instagibbed.
And then qquing here in forum, or unistalling the game they didn't learn how to play.

[Kassatsu]

I'm seeing lots of poorly-timed shots, lasers that move on/off their target before their duration is even up and just in general, misses in that trailer. I'm thinking those brawls happen due to poor accuracy at range.

I would be curious to see the following if we truly want brawling to be a thing again:

For lasers: Damage per shot, duration, cooldown and heat generation of all lasers reduced by 75%. Make them fire four times as fast, keeping their total DPS the same, but requiring more exposure time to deal that damage.

For ACs (excluding 2s): Make IS ACs fire at the rate of an AC2, with damage changed such that their total DPS remains the same, or such that they deal their AC# rating in damage over a period of X seconds (X being some arbitrary number that sounds 'fair', changed during testing to be 'balanced'), while keeping the AC2 fire rate. Ammo count is increased accordingly. UACs would have a limited ammo count, but fire at twice the same rate. If you go over this limit without allowing the ammo to 'recharge' (perhaps 'reload' is a better term), the jam chance would apply to the first shot until the 'reload' cycle completes and you are back to your regular one. This would effectively double the DPS of UACs if the pilot so chooses, offer better burst damage potential with the drawback being the jam chance, exactly like they work now.

For LRMs: Leave them as they are, if anything reduce ammo counts and increase damage per shot. Or give them a slightly less severe laser treatment, increasing fire rates while reducing damage across the board.

SRMs: Ripple-fire, about as fast (if not faster than) clan LRMs currently do. Add soft locks for SSRMs and allow them to be dumb-fired.

These are such huge changes that I would find it hard to believe something on this scale happening in a game that's 'released' and not in beta, if not alpha testing. Plus it'd be a lot of XML editing or its equivalent.

EDIT: PPCs, gauss and ER PPCs can stay as they are, unless testing finds they're worthless or 'OP' because people can't simply push up into range of the sniper(s).

Edited by Kassatsu, 23 April 2016 - 10:39 PM.

[Navid A1]

Scout Derek, on 23 April 2016 - 10:12 PM, said:

Then all of a sudden, then flipped the book, and gave some mechs more defensive and agility quirks, and cut back on the skill tree.

I'm still wondering if we'll ever get unique quirks such as Ammo or Jump Jet velocity bonus quirks soon.

Actually there are unused jump jet mech skill entries in the game files... they have at some point considered it.

[meteorol]

It's f2p. People installed it, didn't like it, uninstalled again.

Many f2p titles lose a lot of players after the first initial release spike. It's neither unusual nor suprising.

[Ex Atlas Overlord]

Navid A1, on 23 April 2016 - 10:40 PM, said:

Actually there are unused jump jet mech skill entries in the game files... they have at some point considered it.

But they're not interested in using sized hardpoints...

So if they do, it'll just be Jump Jet Warrior round 2.

[ChapeL]

Malorish, on 23 April 2016 - 10:26 PM, said:

I don't know how you get rid of pinpoint convergence that translates into fun gameplay. I've seen the proposed systems in the forums, and they're terribly unintuitive or complex, IMO. I think we could live with pinpoint convergence (which people expect in a FPS style game) as long as you can't unleash ungodly amounts of damage with a push of a button.

Every weapon in your arms can converge with those on the other arm. ( Stock Timberwolf prime shooting all its ARM POD weapons at the CT of an immobile Atlas leaves two burn marks, one over , one under ) Everything else shoots straight ahead. LRMs and SRMS behave as they do now. Seems fairly simple and gives a reason to mount some weapons in the vulnerable arms as a bonus.

By the same token, the Stormcrow with 6 Energy hardpoints in its right arm, shooting at a speeding Commando might well hit it from top to bottom. ( 2 at the head, 2 at the ST/arm, two in the leg )

[El Bandito]

Malorish, on 23 April 2016 - 10:26 PM, said:

I don't know how you get rid of pinpoint convergence that translates into fun gameplay. I've seen the proposed systems in the forums, and they're terribly unintuitive or complex, IMO. I think we could live with pinpoint convergence (which people expect in a FPS style game) as long as you can't unleash ungodly amounts of damage with a push of a button.

Nope. Most popular FPS games do have convergence. Just take a look at TF2, where only few weapons out of hundreds have pin point accuracy with instant hit and those are usually sniper weapons. Since MWO mechs have individual hit locations rather than overall HP like Armored Core, pin point convergence becomes a big issue.

Edited by El Bandito, 23 April 2016 - 10:53 PM.

[5th Fedcom Rat]

Folks, this isn't rocket science.

The reason that peek-a-boo alpha strike style fighting is the preferred way to play is it is by far the most effective way to play.

Why is it effective? Because terrain can absorb damage with no penalty.

Why can the terrain features do that? Because they're 1) mostly INDESTRUCTIBLE, 2) simply GIGANTIC and 3) found EVERYWHERE. The ubiquity of giant mech size terrain features in MWO allows our walking robot game to be played like any other first person man sized cover shooter.

For example, why do the trees on forest colony need to be the size of the Empire States building, exactly? Why are most of the rock formations the size of Ayers rock in Australia? Why are we fighting in basically the Grand Canyon half the time?

Imagine how glorious a match would be if it took place on a completely, totally flat field with both sides spawning within a few hundreds meters of each other at the beginning. Either landing by dropship or coming out of a dense fog etc. Some mechs would charge straight into the brawl. Others would pull back to get into optimum LRM/gauss range. There would be movement and dispersal rather than death blobbing and hiding.

.

Edited by 5th Fedcom Rat, 23 April 2016 - 11:02 PM.

[Johnny Z]

Malorish, on 23 April 2016 - 09:45 PM, said:

So we all know that Steam players are jumping ship on MWO. IMO, the biggest reason isn't balance (better, but not great . . . too many underperforming mechs), community warfare (getting better), or lack of new maps.

The problem is that the game doesn't deliver on it's advertisement. I mean, look at this awesome looking game in the Steam Advertisement below. The one where mechs battle at close, intense ranges in exciting combat!



Does this look like MWO? Not even remotely.

Mostly we sit under cover, come out for a split second, alpha strike the living crap out of some poor noob who made a tiny positioning mistake, duck back under cover, rinse and repeat. Oh sure, towards the end of matches there's a rush once one side has the numbers. And we all can recount that 10% of the time that a real brawl decides the game (rather than being a mopping up action).

But this game is nowhere to be found in Alpha Strike Warrior. Our mechs do far too much damage, from far too great a range, in far too bursty a window.

So people get tired of building brawlers, only to get wiped out before they even reach weapons range. They get tired of being obliterated when they make small mistakes in positioning or cover.

We all laugh at them and call them noobs, while we "smart" players stay hunkered down. Meanwhile MWO continues to hemorrhage "noobs" who are trying to play the game in the trailer above, but keep getting wiped out.

But really, wouldn't we all rather be playing the game in the trailer?

I would. . . .

I agree with the sentiment a bit but this entire reasoning is wrong. There is plenty of good game play. Also plenty of trolls and plenty of half done features and plenty of missing features.

A lot is under construction quite obviously. I hear another big update is coming in June.

[Johnny Z]

Paigan, on 23 April 2016 - 10:36 PM, said:

You know that this is the very basic principle of how advertisement works, right?
Hardly any game lives up to it's trailer.

Take EVE-Online, for example:
Trailers: Awesome story-packed epicly huge space battle
Reality: clicking icons while zoomed out for 99% of your time like in a browser game. And 1% ultra giga mega lag.
That is ALL there is to EVE.

Or Mass Effect 3:

Breath-takingly movie-like graphics, epic battles.
Reality: Yeah, well, it's a nice RPG. But the trailer has NOTHING to do with it.

Or take any other game.

Or take movie trailers.
There's a Star Wars - Episode 1 Trailer that has scenes rearranged to convey a COMPLETELY different story and tone. It's indeed better than the movie itself.

That's how advertisment works.

It's childish to complain about it.

Your right. In fact MechWarrior Online has the most accurate trailers of any game ever maybe. Yet it gets trolled about inaccuracy, so funny.

BTW I love awesome trailers. I got to share this.





Also BTW theres a good chance MechWarrior may be one of the best games ever, or very near the best. Eventually. Sure feels slow in being built.

[Death Proof]

I think there are a variety of factors at play here, with the biggest one being that most Steam players simply do not give any f*cks about the BT universe or what it's about; they just want stompy robot arcade shooter action.

I personally think players SHOULD be punished for stupid mistakes. This game should not be about mindlessly going full Leeroy into the enemy and expecting there not to be a price for that indiscretion.

While that can be fun, it's not what this game is about. This game is about tactics and playing smart, even if that means having "boring" lulls in action hiding behind cover and finding optimal positioning.