197 replies to this topic

[Mister Blastman]

2fast2stompy, on 25 April 2016 - 05:54 AM, said:

Nice arguments, clearly I am emotionally shaken at your clever statements.

And yes, it is hyperbole. By definition.

I'm too jaded to care. Feel free to search my thousands of posts for my arguments over the last few years--I've made a ton of very solid ones.

[KingCobra]

Well OP in a universe far far away we called =( MWO CLOSED BETA) a lot of us old guard tried to tell Russ and Brian to make the mechs in MWO tougher like 6-10 times what they are now but I don't think many understood Russ and Brains MWO mentality and what they thought this game should be like and all those 300,000 + old players that have left still don't want to come back.


Russ and Brian used to play MechWarrior4Mercinaries with the Mektek MOD on Mektek servers and they played what we called NHUA =(75-100 ton mechs with NO HEAT UNLIMITED AMMO) basically 1-2 shot killing machines them and there cronies buddies would play this game mode over and over and over on mostly cold ice maps.

Now you know why RUSS and Brian wanted MWO to be basically a clone of this game type NHUA and E-sport garbage.

[Aresye]

jozkhan, on 25 April 2016 - 05:03 AM, said:

Something was very wrong from the start when really hardcore Battletech and mechwarrior players took one look and noped right out. I know people who are huge pc gamers and huge battletech fans and they just will not touch MWO at all and this goes back to the 'good ole days' of open beta!

A good portion (I'd even say majority) of the super tryhard, "I wanna play esports," crowd are still huge BT fans.

I myself physically own between 20-30 paperback novels and have played virtually every MW game and mod since MW2, including MWLL and Assault Tech 1: BattleTech (don't think it ever got finished IIRC).

I can understand those who refuse to play MWO because they wanted the original MechWarrior reboot that was teased, or those who still hold grudges from MWO's early days under IGP, but there are many hardcore BT and MW fans that like MWO exactly how it is.

[Johnny Z]

RussianWolf, on 25 April 2016 - 05:56 AM, said:

Took a brawler Mauler out last night. 2 AC20s and 2 SRM6s. We drew Canyon and got the north side.

Teams started trading long range over the center. I can't do anything there, so I move to the left flank and watch for a flank through the kappa corner. Sure enough, here comes a lance. They found out the hard way that I was set up for the up close and personal fight. I died to the 4th, but took the other 3 out and gave my team enough time to deal with the rest.

Nice. A short range assault is tough to pilot but it can be devastating. Its matches like described that make the unlucky matches a worthwhile learning lesson.

[KingCobra]

Arsye (but there are many hardcore BT and MW fans that like MWO exactly how it is. )


I have to laugh at this what Arsye all 1000 of you that's left playing MWO out of 300,000 plus old players that have left MWO because they knew it was not a good MechWarrior or Battletech game?

Plus the facts as the OP states new and steam players are leaving in droves every day why? Because the players want to play good battles and want tough mechs and be able to learn the game not just blown away match after match until they get frustrated and uninstall.

Another factor is there is NO!!!!!!!! Social factor in this game as in a huge chat lobby for new players to interact with older players it is barren of any good social activities. You cant blame new players for leaving it is not there fault it is the Devs and PGI staffs decisions that turn them away because they make terrible game design choices.

Edited by KingCobra, 25 April 2016 - 09:07 AM.

[Endimra]

Cathy, on 25 April 2016 - 12:41 AM, said:

It's very simple the average steam player doesn't want a difficult game.

I don't know why you people keep saying that.

People came in large numbers to try a new game, and many left after deciding they didn't like it. That's all.

[Thorqemada]

I play rarely lately and most of the time i hate it.

The fun times were when there was no ECM, no Wallhack (Seismic), Mechs had different characteritics.

I loved the CN9-A for its Weapondiversity and Durability - my battles were to try to make best use of the weapon synergies and ranges and use the durability to outlast the Opponent.
So, the Hunchback-Pilot on the oposite was a one-trick-Pony and if he could play out his trick he won, if not i won.
Battles were fought medium to close range when the Teams had approached each other - real brawling occured.

That was a heck of a fun!

Today i enter my outdated underpowered IS-Heavy (i dont own a quirk Monster and i have no Motivation to buy one), stay in cover to not get blasted away from a mile, let fly some Lurms to have at least some sort of Action and wait out if the Team wins the battle for me and i can sweep up some kills.

That is the ultimate boredom.

Entering up a Stormcrow that is unbasiced and 3 times as successfull as my fully mastered, quirked IS-Mediums (around that time when i used it) with no effort at all is ultimately boring and frustrating the same time.

If it was not Mechwarrior i would have jumped ship a whole lot of time ago...

No - its not a ******* good game - its Mechwarrior what keeps me looking at it again and again hoping PGI will do a wonderpatch some day.

Edited by Thorqemada, 25 April 2016 - 10:13 AM.

[Bud Crue]

For the most part, I believe that the average steam player willing to give MWO a shot is not some old BT or MW fan. If they were they would have likely been aware of MWO and already have been playing it well before the steam release.
Thus, the steam player is mostly going to be a casual game player who saw the trailer or heard of the big stompy robot game and wanted to give it a go. Unfortunately, MWO lacks a lot of features that a casual gamer is going to take for granted. A few:

-There is is no leveling in MWO...no new features/skills associated with discernible personal accomplishments, that every other game out there has. The skills tree is mech specific -not player specific- so it does not feel like leveling in the traditional sense. FP ranks are similar, there are rewards sure, but nothing that reflects on the player.
- There is no end game. A battle, is a QP battle, is a FP battle, etc. There is no goal or achievement to be sought.
- There is no background theme or narrative. If you buy my casual player assumption above, such a player is largely ignorant of BT "lore". With that in mind, other than the brief descriptions of the factions what is there via in game content that even suggests any sort of flavor or aspects of the universe that MWO takes place in? There isn't any. The game has so little flavor in it that for the unfamiliar MWO could be occuring in the star wars or halo universes for all we know. This is killer. Even the worst games at least have a background story that is told in the game. Where is it told in MWO?

I could go on, but just looking at the three things above, it comes down to: if I wasn't a BT fan there is no way I would be bothering with this game. Thus, it isn't surprising to me that people, who are presumably unfamiliar with BT, are not interested in it either.

[Podex]

Later, Steambirth. Don't let the door hit you in the back (although I wish it would smack your foul, abusive mouth).

Others have already said it, this game is not your typical Steamesque game. It's based on the BT universe, which isn't exactly cool or modern (before you flip out, I'm a BT fan). It's not a twitch shooter and is lumbering 90% of the time. For the most part, quick reflexes aren't required, but a brain is helpful. Without turning this into some lame Call of Duty meets Pacific Rim junk, it won't really be relevant to most players.

[Thorqemada]

But bcs it is different it has a niche to grow in that is uncontested and could lead to a grow of the niche itself to a very successful game if it is done supremely well.

[Koniving]

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.

You could modify this system.

However the real problem isn't Pinpoint.

Battletech suffers from Front Loaded Pinpoint Damage per weapon with each weapon's damage being represented in a 10 second time slice. Two AC/20s do 40 damage in 10 seconds split between 2 locations of 20 damage to 4 locations of 10 damage (depending on if you use the split fire options).

MWO suffers from Front Loaded Pinpoint Damage Per MECH, with each weapon represented in a 4 second or less time slice.
Two AC/20s do 120 damage in 8 seconds OR LESS, split between 3 locations of 40 damage or 6 locations of 20 damage.

See the problem isn't pinpoint, it's 3x or greater Front Loaded Damage.

If our AC/20s fired say 3 times in 8 seconds but that total amount of fire came out to 20 damage total instead of 60 damage total... we wouldn't be in this boat.
If our heat generated was say 7 units for that 8 seconds instead of 6 + 6 + 6 = 18 units of heat per firing, we wouldn't "NEED" to have double heatsinks to function.
Then, we could have a 30 threshold, limiting the deadlier set of two of the three intended FLD weapons, Missiles, PPCs and Gauss. (So it'd limit Missiles and PPCs). With the max heat locked, we could vastly simplify both balancing, alpha strike limitations, and what having 15 heatsinks would actually mean.
Next, simply limit Gauss to 1 weapon per firing.
Finally, due to drastically increased survivability, use only 1x armor/structure.

It can be done.

Edited by Koniving, 25 April 2016 - 12:30 PM.

[Bluttrunken]

I'm all for making MWO more tactical and slower. A round in my EBJ(Laser Vomit loadout) after grinding out my exp bonus on mechs i still have sitting in the bays with mastery feels like easy mode. Really simple to do good in it, high burst on comparatively low duration.

TTK did increase *alot* since I started the game, the clan's are to blame(nothing against clans but their introduction started the ongoing nerf-quirk-dequirk-denerf cycle). Laser and Ballistic Boats are too blame. If we nerf one or the other too much, we'll just have a game of SRM brawlers, which I'd like as a novelty, but which would turn stale after some time again.

I have to hear one single good idea about what to do against it, though.

I wonder how Paul's idea(which landed on the PTS some time ago) would have worked out. Forcing longer lock-on times to do max damage, incentivizing scouting/target acquistion at the same time, boosting info warfare etc.. It was a nice idea, players just weren't ready for it? It sounded like a great way to give the game a new meta-layer.

[Podex]

Bluttrunken, on 25 April 2016 - 10:34 AM, said:

I wonder how Paul's idea(which landed on the PTS some time ago) would have worked out. Forcing longer lock-on times to do max damage, incentivizing scouting/target acquistion at the same time, boosting info warfare etc.. It was a nice idea, players just weren't ready for it? It sounded like a great way to give the game a new meta-layer.

If someone could find a way to randomize map textures, the game would change. For instance, use the hex structure like BT, but have a random terrain features -- this hex has a mountain, the next has a forest, etc...

The problem is that it's always the same maps. Everyone goes to the same place, everyone does the same thing, everyone uses the same mech...a meta is born. If nobody knew what was coming, scouting would be priority since the enemy could literally spawn right around the corner. Boating would be a gamble, so mixed loadouts would start having purpose. Is a plain coming? An urban layout? canyons?

[Bluttrunken]

Podex, on 25 April 2016 - 10:44 AM, said:

If someone could find a way to randomize map textures, the game would change. For instance, use the hex structure like BT, but have a random terrain features -- this hex has a mountain, the next has a forest, etc...

The problem is that it's always the same maps. Everyone goes to the same place, everyone does the same thing, everyone uses the same mech...a meta is born. If nobody knew what was coming, scouting would be priority since the enemy could literally spawn right around the corner. Boating would be a gamble, so mixed loadouts would start having purpose. Is a plain coming? An urban layout? canyons?

I don't think seeding procedural maps in a mp game is trivial to do. If you want a 10min match start up time, yeah, hf with that. Not to speak of the people with download caps which would need to download a new map every match. I understand your idea, but I don't think it's so easy to do in a mp game.

[Saint Scarlett Johan]

El Bandito, on 24 April 2016 - 08:01 PM, said:

1. The UI leaves things to be desired but it is not that bad.

It does leave things to be desired. And in the realm of F2P games it's actually pretty damned good. But there are definitely some annoyances that make it obnoxious that other popular F2Ps don't have like WoT or AW.

Quote

2. MWO Community is leagues above other popular F2P game community. I'm shocked that a Founder actually says such things.

You're right that in compared, this is a pretty open community. I can't fly Princess Luna in most of the other games I play without people telling me to die in a fire and try to teamkill me or some other trolling attempt to get me to quit.

But that isn't why I rate this community poorly. There two people types that cause me to rate it poorly:
-the guys that quit playing but hang around still and look for every opportunity to tell every one why this game is bad because it's not the the "One True Game" they wanted.
-the guy that looks for every moment to say how this isn't Battletech or Mechwarrior because reasons x, y, z. And then proceed to litter the forums, the reddits, and the in game chat with that drivel. Regardless of if their drivel is "it's not TT enough" or "it's not Esports enough."

Almost no other F2P has either of those two types of people.

Quote

3. The grind is there, yes. And I did point that out in multiple threads. For experienced players, the grind is just fine, but for newbies, it is an issue. Especially since some newbies are unlucky enough to be catapulted into T3, after a few lucky games due to the PSR system.

You and I both understand as elite founders who've been through the ups and downs of the income system from when it was LOLMONEY to when it was 'please sir... may I have another CBill' on how to make money, how to look at mechs and go "this is worth CBills and will make me money" and "this isn't worth CBills and I won't make money."

And you're right, Tiers 4 and 5 are WAY too easy to get out of. On my third alt I was in Tier 3 before my Cadet Bonus was up, didn't even have enough CBills to buy and kit a mech out but was seeing players like you and Soy in solo queue while rocking a trial mech still. That's ****** up and needs to be fixed.

The grind isn't long because the income is poor. It's bad because you need three identical mechs to get any mileage out of your mech. It's bad because players see that they need to buy three of the same mech in order to really move on.

In AW if I had to buy my T72A three times and fully level all three, I'd quit AW and not go back until they changed that.

That level of stupid is also pretty poorly documented while MWOs competition is pretty straight forward and easy to understand and well documented.

Hell, I'd even go so far too say they don't even put comments in their coding.

[Podex]

Bluttrunken, on 25 April 2016 - 10:48 AM, said:

I don't think seeding procedural maps in a mp game is trivial to do. If you want a 10min match start up time, yeah, hf with that. Not to speak of the people with download caps which would need to download a new map every match. I understand your idea, but I don't think it's so easy to do in a mp game.

Implementation is pretty far beyond what anyone has seen. It's a good idea, though. PGI would definitely be trend setters if they could pull it off efficiently.

[Remillard]

Procedurally generated maps would be a fantastic achievement. And it's definitely non-trivial, but I don't know that it necessarily would involve downloading maps every time. If I were going to attempt something like that, with minimal client-side setup, it'd have to involve interchangeable hex tile sets (not necessarily all 1 hex, could have some city core multi hex blocks with flexible suburb hexes, or a mountain range that took up 4), a way of laying these out and smoothing the interstitials between. The art department would probably hate me, but it would definitely be a challenge to find a way to create elevation modifiable boundaries, some rules on generating dropship starting locations, and away we go.

Might be a total disaster but it's doable I believe. Just a non-trivial pursuit. But it would be a glorious addition to fixed asset maps. Always felt the biggest detriment to the new X-Com game was the lack of procedurally generated maps. Nothing like alien hunting when you really didn't know what was out there in the black.

[Odanan]

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

Does this look like MWO? Not even remotely.

That's the game I'm playing.

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

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.

Dude... Were do I start?

This is a harsh game, yes. It takes real skill to master - skill that the player should probably be training for many years before MWO.

If your small mistakes are getting you killed, do better decisions.

If you are dying too fast, be smarter.

If your team is hiding in cover, waiting to get butchered, join a decent unit. Top tier play is a lot more dynamic.

This is no casual game and not meant to be in the list of the most popular games around. And that's mostly the fault of the players, not the game itself. There are lots of more forgiving and easy games out there, that depend more of random, money or simply time invested in the game instead of true skill.

[Mechwarrior1441491]

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.

Jump jet fuel capacity....HELLO PGI!!! Highlander could use that.

[Lugh]

Ex Atlas Overlord, on 23 April 2016 - 10:45 PM, said:

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

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

This from the perspective of a FAILED AA gunner?

Pop tart apocalypse was wonderful. People were so totally predictable most of the time. No variation in their routine.

clay pigeon PULL. FIRE. Dead. Next.

Edited by Lugh, 25 April 2016 - 12:13 PM.