94 replies to this topic

[Alistair Winter]

This thread could quickly go to K-town, so let's set some ground rules:

• I'm looking for serious discussion. Please avoid clever, sardonic one-line replies to farm internet points.
  
• Please don't make this personal. Don't say "I would fire John Smith, head of marketing". I'm not so much interested in the individuals as the overall strategies. E.g. "I would do marketing like this."

With that out of the way, I was thinking about this today and I'm not really sure what I would do if I had a time machine and go back in time to, say, become major stockholder of PGI and insert myself as the president in 2011. What would I have done different?

There are many small things I would have done differently. Things that bug me, ghost heat, consumables, jump jets, etc. But would I have avoided Community Warfare and gone straight to Solaris? Would I have focused more on Community Warfare and focused less on something else? Would I have replaced huge mech packs with more micro-transactions?

Anyway, what would you have done differently, starting in 2011?

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.

[Juodas Varnas]

I'd add quads.

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

• I'm looking for serious discussion. Please avoid clever, sardonic one-line replies to farm internet points.

*Sigh* fine.
Gimme a few minutes to gather my thoughts.

Alright. The very main thing i would've changed is the whole timeline nonsense.

I would've ignored the Clan invasion completely. At least for a few extra years, because the Clans, the way we have them now, were obviously rushed out the door with very little thought.
All they brought with them are balance issues upon balance issues. Heck! If it was my choice, i would've kept the game in 3025! No DHS, no endo, no ferro, no nothing!
It was the most balanced era and in my opinion the most fun one.
That's the main thing, in my opinion.

Other things are:
the skill system (which i'd scrap COMPLETELY, it's nothing but inflated, grindy progression system that adds nothing valuable to the game) along with the 3 mechs to master nonsense. Because it's dumb, nonsensical and grindy. I hate grindy. I don't want to play the game just to "grind another mech out", i want to play the game because "IT'S A FUN GAME"
consumables (again, i'd scrap COMPLETELY, or at least merge them with the module system, maybe even in-game equipment, for example UAVs could be reworked to be part of the Remote sensor Dispenser of the Cataphract-0X, while airstrikes, artillery strikes could be worked into the Command Console).

Also minor things:
I'd definitely try to keep the Inverse kinematics (i feel it's a very important feature for the proper feeling of big stompy mechs) instead of dumping it, like we did.
I'd probably wouldn't focus on Hero mechs as monetization, but focus on more camos (an actual color wheel instead of the mess we have now, where half the colours are the same and other colours are missing) and maybe try to get customizable mech geometry, like we had suggested many times on the forums, you know? Different Atlas skulls, different pauldrons, bike-racks or whatnot. (nothing over-the-top)
When it comes to cockpit items, i'd avoid lore-breaking, silly goofy items, because i'm not a fun guy.

Edited by Juodas Varnas, 23 April 2016 - 12:20 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

you do realize most of your answers will be pointless right?

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

I like the premise, but have even less faith in the butthurt forum QQ than I do in Paul's ability to balance stuff.

[wanderer]

Never even start on Transverse.

[Noxcuse]

would close the company and never get the mechwarrior license...if i know my company is to small and amateur for this BIG projekt..if you look into the PGI history and the games pgi worked on....

[RoboPatton]

I would have made the games more like Planetside, where the entire game was CW, and you battled across epic battlescapes, selecting where your Unit would drop, on the world below, from the deck of your Dropship.

Once you dropped you an your unit would march across desolate landscapes to engage other units.

I would have included vehicles (tanks, choppers, hovercraft) as AI fodder to fill the empty space of the planet.

I would have made the entire interaction with the mech far more immersive, with animations for getting in and out of the cockpits (even if simple fading to black) and a FPS element for walking around the Drop deck or tense moments where you have to exit your escape pod, plodding across no-man-lands to a designated rescue area.

I would have given some basic melee functionality.

I would have made arm mounted weapons more useful, by allowing you to raise them to shoulder level.

Edited by RoboPatton, 23 April 2016 - 12:16 PM.

[DaZur]

Fire anyone who decided to take the red pill and take MWO down the eSport path...

[4rcs1ne]

Here is what I wish PGI would have done right out of the gate:

1. Info warfare such as implementing active vs passive radar. (Every other mechwarrior game had this.)

2. Add higher penalties for staying at a high heat threshold (>80%) other than ghost heat. (i.e. loss of agility, SLIGHT damage to internals, etc.). This would curb a lot of the high PPFLD alpha-strike meta that has been so prevalent.

3. Ability to walk around the mechlab and glance up at the size and magnificence of huge war-machines known as battlemechs. (We've gotten a glimpse of how cool this would be with the new(er) Mechwarrior Academy)

4. More lore dispersed throughout the game. (Maybe something like a pop-down menu mech description stating the historical significance of a particular mech.)

I could keep going on and on, but these are the four things that I wish would have been added right at the beginning when PGI had the original, talented coders and designers that constructed the core game.

[Deathlike]

"Add and refine."

Instead of trying to add some feature to have an excuse to add a checkbox for marketing, I would rework a feature until it was reasonably acceptable by the community (aka not just "minimally viable").

This wouldn't be limited to "pebbles of steel", "DX11 support", VOIP that is not totally limited (as in, not using crappy codecs), etc.

Edited by Deathlike, 23 April 2016 - 12:31 PM.

[Triordinant]

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

Anyway, what would you have done differently, starting in 2011?

What's mind-boggling is they already had the answer in 2009 and it was called Mechwarrior 5. It followed the same pattern as all the successful Mechwarrior games that came before it and there's every reason to expect it would've done just as well, if not better. Unfortunately they were short on funds and crowdfunding back then wasn't what it is now. Maybe if they'd waited a few years Mechwarrior 5 could have been a reality in the same way HBS made BattleTech happen, but (if the scuttlebutt is true) IGP came along and lured them with "Moar Money Nao!" into making MWO instead.

[Metus regem]

Honestly I'd go for more of an EVEonline feel, a massive open universe, where the players could start Merc units, join house units, Star or join corperations. I'd have all mech types, that means traditional, quads and LAMs.

[Triordinant]

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

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.

They might eventually do that anyway if Phase 3 doesn't bring in the hordes of casuals they were hoping for.

[Coolant]

nothing, because I don't own a studio, have the resources, money, employees, hardware and software and art to do anything different. Neither do you.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

Many things.... but top 3

1. I'd use an engine with built in support for server authenticated net code. Thus saving PGI 2 years of wasted time.

2. Finished designing faction warfare as a stock mech mode with it set in the succession wars era and force people to either join a faction with a mech provided for you or be a merc with higher earnings but repair and rearm costs and you get to purchase a mech of your choice.

3. To make the small but vocal minority (at the time) of herp a derp I only wanna shoot mech types happy I'd have introduced solaris mode as a separate queue and then made quick play part of faction warfare and create a bunch of cool new objective based modes for quick play (supply raid, VIP missions, target destruction, etc)

Other things in no particular order..

Account wide camo unlocks (front loaded earnings are important, and people are more likely to invest if they get the pattern for all mechs they ever buy) and release new camos fairly frequently

Have a pink in the store from the beginning of the game

Have decals in the store allowing you to put stripes, dots, etc wherever you want on the map

Used integrated VOIP from the beginning

Voice command wheel for most common commands (help, attack this, move to XXX, etc)

Pilot customization

Made cockpit items cheap enough that people will buy them on a whim for every mech they own

Built the game with polar highlands sized maps

Used a random terrain generator to make unique worlds for each attackable CW world and then add important things like bases, cities, and the like manually. Early on CW might be limited to 2 factions at a time fighting over one world with objectives having some kind of point system. Defenders start with X points and invaders start with 0. Then whoever has the most points at the end of the month wins.

Made SRM cone of fire decrease as you acquire a lock/targeting solution

Made LRMs do damage in groups of 5, require an individual lock for each launcher to encourage use of larger launchers.

Use a power draw system to balance energy weapons + Gauss

Have reticle sway from movement and recoil from ballistic weaponry

Made arms able to raise and lower making actuators a bigger advantage but affecting mobility when they're raised

Added an info warfare system

Made lights somewhat larger

[Metus regem]

Coolant, on 23 April 2016 - 12:50 PM, said:

nothing, because I don't own a studio, have the resources, money, employees, hardware and software and art to do anything different. Neither do you.

I think you missed the point of "what if..."

[cazidin]

Honestly? The biggest changes would be in quirks and weapon balance. I'd had tried to find, and maybe even succeeded at that. Maybe a few UI changes? My goals are modest.

[Mechwarrior1441491]

Save the game by selling it to another Development company.

[Mcgral18]

Don't get rid of ATD
Maybe adjust the format, as questions would start repeating frequently after a time, but keep something along those lines going. Community interaction

Keep up that communication with the Players.

While Twitter occasionally gets something said, it's no place for communication. You can't use proper sentence structure, or even full words, to communicate an idea or question.

The Stream has gotten some IM questions and answers
I got Paul himself to get the new Long Tom stats (both for the patch and the hotfix), so I guess if you go searching, you can get some answers.



And a personal pet peeve:
Balance process
How the hell is it decided? What robot to get which quirks, things like the Cheetah launch, or the current state of the Cute Fox/Myth Lynx (or Commando for that matter)

Overperformers as well, but I'd rather focus on the bad.

Of course, that can also fall under Communication. What process is used to determine under and over performers...and why does it miss the mark so often?
Community interaction may be able to identify it better, with a larger pool to draw from (but, again, so many voices and so many...wrong...opinions)


I guess that's not very significant...I would have changed a great many things, such as a closer to 1 to 1 TT to MWO damage (not 3 to 1), along with armour, with adjustments as required. Some things are outright terrible. I haven't put much thought into that lately, though.
Just what to do with the current state of things.

[DaZur]

DaZur, on 23 April 2016 - 12:26 PM, said:

Fire anyone who decided to take the red pill and take MWO down the eSport path..

Oh, and point any remaining PGI employees to the "original" pillars

[Dale Grible]

Continue developing pvp as CW and simply add maps, modes (powering up dropship attack/defend). Casual players could have single solo queue, then lance, then unit queus. MM would then create matches based upon that. Mixing pugs with tourney level units would not happen. Simply more efficient resource use is what im lookin for ie not seperate maps for pvp and CW but all maps for both just seperate assets as needed.

That way Pvp would have been one big concentrated area and the other project could be pve starting 3025 with so much lore campaign stories to tell, the pay for mission packs would roll out for years to come

2 projects...CW and PVE vs Pvp, cw, pve