287 replies to this topic

[Helsbane]

Why is WoT a successful game and MWO so small by comparison? Simple. Russ and Paul are incompetent in every way imaginable. I'm surprised neither of them has lost an eye in a tragic fork incident while attempting to feed themselves. But, this is their 'vision' of the MW universe. Limited in scope and horrible in execution. Buy a mechpack!

[Accused]

Battletech fans and people who love fighting robots have already played this game. PGI already shot themselves in the foot.

[wanderer]

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Russ and Paul are incompetent in every way imaginable

Paul's vision for the game is based on Nexon's.

This is Nexon's idea of games.

[Parnage Winters]

One of them is riding on the coattails of an IP and keeps promising content while selling packs.

The other is a fully functional game.

Geeze, I wonder why people avoid mwo.

[Alan Davion]

LordKnightFandragon, on 31 May 2016 - 01:47 PM, said:

Well, I wanted to get American Battleships, but yeah, just not into WG games anymore, so I didnt have the desire to L2P that game or stick with it long. I was hoping PVE was more then a 200 credit joke of a mode....but alas...it was.



From just listening and watching Bismarck shows, it sounds like the Bismarck just got a really lucky hit on the Hood, meanwhile, the Bismarck got hammered for several hours before being done in. I think the same was the case with the Yamato, ofc, that I think died in a tsunami in Japan. It even sounds like the little ships like the Johnston are rather durable, and not done in with 1 hit.

dervishx5, on 31 May 2016 - 01:54 PM, said:

The Hood was a battlecruiser built on the All or Nothing concept of protecting the most vital part of the ship. Yeah the Bismarck got a lucky plunging hit on her, but the Hood was a Battlecruiser designed to hunt down smaller ships, not armored behemoths like the Bismarck. The Hood could dish out the damage but couldn't take it. It's likely the Battle of Denmark Strait would have gone poorly for the British regardless of the critical hit to the Hood's magazine. There were many factors in the battle going against the British other than luck.

Go and read about the naval battles of WW1 and 2 sometime (a personal hobby of mine). A lot of ships died in just a few hits. And others took a lot more shells before they sunk. Warships all had their weak points. Hence the randomness of WoW. Wargaming takes a lot into account about the design of each ship to make them as historically accurate as possible. That's why some ships like the Pensacola have a large citadel but make up for it with huge guns for a tier VII cruiser (Washington naval treaty ftw). Others like the much-despised Cleveland are really well laid out but have tiny guns that can't really hurt anything bigger than them.

And the Yamato was sunk by massive amounts of American aircraft in a stupid, desperate attempt to reinforce Okinawa. But by that point the IJN had long since ceased being a credible threat to the American and British Pacific navies. In WoW Japan gets to live out a different scenario.

I actually just recently read up on how the Yamato was sunk.

What records of the battle that could be found count the Yamato being hit by 12 bombs and 4 to 6 torpedoes. These are the confirmed hits. Supposedly another 4 bombs and 2 to 4 torpedoes also hit, these are unconfirmed hits, but not impossible to imagine.

It really was a suicide run. There's no doubt about that.

[AnimeFreak40K]

Mystere, on 30 May 2016 - 08:30 PM, said:

Considering that awful movie Pacific Rim reportedly earned over 400 million USD worldwide, I think there is an untapped market for giant robits.

While I certainly agree with you (and I loved Pacific Rim!), the fact of the matter is that Pacific Rim tapped into the Giant Robot market *and* the Kaiju market, while not necessarily mutually exclusive, they are 2 different markets entirely. That said, yes, there is an untapped market for giant robots.

Unfortunately for BattleTech/MechWarrior, giant robots are still a niche genre (untapped, but still niche). Further, within the giant robot market, BattleTech/MechWarrior is even *more* niche. As folks have already pointed out, BattleTech always was a niche genre with a very small population...and MechWarrior can expect to be pretty much the exact same thing.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Alan Davion, on 31 May 2016 - 09:47 AM, said:

Just to satisfy my personal curiosity, were you playing against other players or the AI?

Cause Tier 2 you really shouldn't be having a whole lot of trouble in, since you only have access to a cruiser and maybe a destroyer at that level.

Tier 3 you can finally get into the battleships, which due to their slower overall movement speed actually give you a lot more time to look around and get a feel for how the game goes.

Cruisers are the middle road, faster than BBs, not as fast as DDs. More armor than DDs, less armor than BBs. Their guns can vary pretty wildly in terms of the number, but usually have a pretty decent firing rate. Especially the low tier Russian and German cruisers, they spit lead like they just forge it right there on the ship.

You have to start out against the AI before ever going against players. Every new ship I get I fight the AI first to save up XP, research upgrades, save up credits, equip all the upgrades and then take it against the AI a couple more times to get a feel for it before I even think about going against other players.

Or, in the case of the Premium ships, you can make a killing, so to speak, facing either the AI or the Players, because they don't have upgrades you have to research and purchase. They are what they are, but they act as though you have premium time going all the time. And if you actually have premium time going, you get even more money and exp.

Only PVE, I honestly wasnt giving it a true effort, I really was just driving forward and shooting. I wanted to get that North Carolina, but the PVE pay is useless.

[RedDragon]

Well, they have an actual game for starters, not just a glorified arena shooting demo.

Really, would anyone be here (and stay) if it wasn't a Battletech game (at least going by the name)? Nope. This game would be long dead by now if it wasn't the only viable Mechwarrior game out there. The only thing that keeps it afloat are the BT enthusiasts that shell out ridiculous sums for overpriced mech packs. (No insult intended, as long as you're having fun, more power to you guys)
People who don't have interest in the franchise won't touch this game or they try it and go away after some days, because as a game, MWO just sucks. Matchmaker doesn't really work, there is no endgame content, everything is way too overpriced, balance sucks, there are countless bugs, the Devs don't care for or interact with the player base ... The only remarkable thing about MWO is the art department because of Alex' work. And even that they manage to butcher with ugly models, laughable animations and *drumroll* dynamic weapon geometry.
If they butchered the tanks over at WOT the same way as is done here with mech models, they would have a hughe decrease in players.

[wanderer]

Quote

Unfortunately for BattleTech/MechWarrior, giant robots are still a niche genre

Given PGI's abysmal development pace, they drove it so far down into the niche that many players are only here because literally nothing else exists in the same space.

[LordKnightFandragon]

dervishx5, on 31 May 2016 - 01:54 PM, said:

The Hood was a battlecruiser built on the All or Nothing concept of protecting the most vital part of the ship. Yeah the Bismarck got a lucky plunging hit on her, but the Hood was a Battlecruiser designed to hunt down smaller ships, not armored behemoths like the Bismarck. The Hood could dish out the damage but couldn't take it. It's likely the Battle of Denmark Strait would have gone poorly for the British regardless of the critical hit to the Hood's magazine. There were many factors in the battle going against the British other than luck.

Do tell. I only saw some of it on AHC and Military Channel, one was that Dogfights show, and some other show. What else was going against the British? THe Bismarck was a better ship outright, better RoF, more range, better crew, more armor. The British did have like the Prince of Wales, Dogfights said something about the Prince of Wales was having issues with the new 4 gun turrets it mounted. The Wales got ***** once the Hood went down. Bismarck also had that Prinz Eugen? ship along as escort as well right?

[oldradagast]

Several reasons:

- Tanks are easier to relate to than giant humanoid robots. While both are appealing to generic gamers, there are probably far more folks with some historic interest in tanks playing that game vs. die-hard Battletech fans playing this game.

- Better advertising. World of Tanks (and my preferred game, World of Warships) both have ads on TV and around the internet. MWO has ads exactly... nowhere

- Better new user experience. While the MWO academy has helped, for many players the damage has been done and they aren't going to come back and try MWO again now that it has a decent tutorial. While I can't speak to World of Tanks when it launched, I downloaded WoWS the day it was in Open Beta, and it was FAR easier to get into than MWO ever was.

- Less punishing of bad decisions: Not sure how true this is of WoT gameplay, but it requires effort to mess up your tank loadout in that game. Meanwhile, in MWO, we have hordes of new players bumbling around in nearly stock mechs with no clue how to build something playable and no support in-game to get them there. It's laughable.

- Possibly fewer broken promises: Internet gaming forums are saltier than the Dead Sea, and if you believed the nonsense you read there you'd conclude that every video game made is the worst ever. That being said, if WoT has not suffered the various failures of: Community Warfare (phases 1 through 1 billion) and so forth, it is probably doing better for the lack of salt.

[dervishx5]

LordKnightFandragon, on 31 May 2016 - 03:09 PM, said:

Do tell. I only saw some of it on AHC and Military Channel, one was that Dogfights show, and some other show. What else was going against the British? THe Bismarck was a better ship outright, better RoF, more range, better crew, more armor. The British did have like the Prince of Wales, Dogfights said something about the Prince of Wales was having issues with the new 4 gun turrets it mounted. The Wales got ***** once the Hood went down. Bismarck also had that Prinz Eugen? ship along as escort as well right?

https://en.wikipedia..._Denmark_Strait

It's a good write up for a Wikipedia that lays out everything that went wrong but basically:

1. The British were too eager to engage and only attacked with half their force
2. Vice Admiral Holland placed the Hood at the front of the firing line, exposing it to more fire whereas putting the Prince of Wales first would have been the much safer choice (more armor, more modern)
3. The British sailed straight at the Germans, thus preventing their rear turrets from firing until right before the Hood sunk. This was an attempt to reduce the distance because Admiral Holland knew the Hood's weakness to plunging fire.
4. The British commander did not allow for independent movement of the Prince of Wales, thus preventing tactical flexibility.
5. The British sailed into the wind and fouled up their rangefinders.

With all that in mind, they did hit the Bismarck in manners that helped lead to her doom such as flooding her (slowing her down) and opening a leak in her fuel reserves (allowing the British torpedo planes that eventually crippled her to follow the oil slick). But had the British allowed the Norfolk and Suffolk to catch up and outnumber the Germans per standard doctrine at the time, we might be speaking a different story today.

Edited by dervishx5, 31 May 2016 - 03:28 PM.

[Jaeger Gonzo]

oldradagast, on 31 May 2016 - 03:21 PM, said:

Several reasons:

- Better new user experience. While the MWO academy has helped, for many players the damage has been done and they aren't going to come back and try MWO again now that it has a decent tutorial. While I can't speak to World of Tanks when it launched, I downloaded WoWS the day it was in Open Beta, and it was FAR easier to get into than MWO ever was.

- Less punishing of bad decisions: Not sure how true this is of WoT gameplay, but it requires effort to mess up your tank loadout in that game. Meanwhile, in MWO, we have hordes of new players bumbling around in nearly stock mechs with no clue how to build something playable and no support in-game to get them there. It's laughable.

That`s why we need Stock Mode as well.
Mechlab is really something that repel new user. Even I was first time confounded by it and dropped game for a year before comeback and I`m hard core TT player.

[wanderer]

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That`s why we need Stock Mode as well.

That's the last reason we need Stock Mode. TT stock designs are abominable for MWO combat.

An actual functional tiering system that kept people out of the T3+ shark tank would help far more and only take a bit of shuffling on how PSR works.

[Dee Eight]

The funny thing is... if there's a market for players who LOVE mecha...its Japan... which means better oceanic servers folks !!! Every other successful anime franchise in japan involves robots, transforming vehicles, or power suits. Some involve them all. That's the market you need to get into mechwarrior heavily.

Also the people who write reviews at gaming magazines, DO so because the game companies send them product to test... you want free advertising... PGI needs to submit the product for testing.

Edited by Dee Eight, 31 May 2016 - 03:41 PM.

[oldradagast]

wanderer, on 31 May 2016 - 03:38 PM, said:

That's the last reason we need Stock Mode. TT stock designs are abominable for MWO combat.

People tend to forget that stock mechs were all built with often obvious strengths and weaknesses to be used as part of specially designed armies (which could exploit strengths and cover weaknesses) of units, where a unit's point value varied - not all units were comparable - as did the number of units a person could bring per match (provided they were within the point limit.)

While there is a romanticized aspect to stock mechs because of the game's history and Lore, the reality is that in a game like MWO, playing a stock mech would be like each player playing one random chess piece, with teams composed of random chess pieces. It just wouldn't work.

[AnimeFreak40K]

RedDragon, on 31 May 2016 - 03:07 PM, said:

Well, they have an actual game for starters, not just a glorified arena shooting demo.

At its core, MWO is a straight up shooter, no different than say CoD or TF2. It *feels* different because it's built on Cry Engine's vehicle code, which allows for the customization, hit locations and the like (and, by extension, removes the ability to do melee...and why convergence is an issue and why TTK is so low). It's not neither glorified nor a demo... it's an Arena Shooter. It has some nice window-dressing on it to make it look and feel different, but when you peel back the curtain, you have an Arena Shooter built on the Cry Engine.

RedDragon, on 31 May 2016 - 03:07 PM, said:

Really, would anyone be here (and stay) if it wasn't a Battletech game (at least going by the name)?

Yes, I am one such person. I never cared for BattleTech or MechWarrior...I always wanted to because I like giant robots, but the artwork and designs were always so terrible that I just couldn't. I'm here because I like giant stompy robots and these giant stompy robots look great and are fun to play.

RedDragon, on 31 May 2016 - 03:07 PM, said:

Matchmaker doesn't really work,

The matchmaker works, and it works well. The reason why people are having problems is because the population is very low. This has always been the problem with MWO.

RedDragon, on 31 May 2016 - 03:07 PM, said:

there is no endgame content

Technically, Faction Warfare is supposed to be endgame content, as you really aren't supposed to jump in there until you've got yourself a drop deck of 4 mechs all have the Elite Tier completed at minimum...and accomplishing such can take quite a bit of time and effort as you will need to purchase and basic-out 12 different mechs. That people can circumvent this by going in with any mech that they own (skill trees are not required) and even use Trails to cover down on what they're missing...or even just drop a bunch of GXP to get the mechs at the tier level they want doesn't change the fact that it's endgame content.

...but let's face facts here, in games like this, there is no real endgame. There is just stuff for people to buy with their space-bucks.

RedDragon, on 31 May 2016 - 03:07 PM, said:

everything is way too overpriced,

C-Bill prices are based on prices for the items from the tabletop game. There is some adjustments here and there (especially on the Clan side, as they should be WAY more expensive than they actually are), but they mostly follow the lore costs. And MC values are in turn based on a C-Bill to MC ratio in that 1 MC is worth X C-Bills. I don't know what that actual ratio is, but my understanding it's fairly consistent.

RedDragon, on 31 May 2016 - 03:07 PM, said:

balance sucks, there are countless bugs,

Yeah, you're going to have that in any game like this. That PGI is a small team that can only do so much in regards to development and maintenance.

RedDragon, on 31 May 2016 - 03:07 PM, said:

the Devs don't care for or interact with the player base

...dude, have you actually spent any time in these forums? I mean really, REALLY spent time here? Because given some of the salt that is thrown around here on a regular basis, if I were a Dev, I wouldn't come anywhere NEAR the player base that hangs out here or on Reddit.

Yes, PGI brought some of this pain upon themselves, but the sheer venom and vitriol that has been sent their way has pretty much made sure that the devs don't want to spend any more time than they have to here. In other words, the player base is just as much to blame for the devs staying away as the devs are being recluses in the first place.

wanderer, on 31 May 2016 - 03:09 PM, said:

Given PGI's abysmal development pace, they drove it so far down into the niche that many players are only here because literally nothing else exists in the same space.

That's why I'm still here. There aren't any other games around where I get to really customize and play a giant stompy robot and shoot up other giant stompy robots.

Seriously, if there was a PC-version of Armored Core (or anything remotely like it), I would have seen my way out long ago.

[oldradagast]

LordKnightFandragon, on 31 May 2016 - 05:10 AM, said:

WOWS is stupid as ****. Your Battleship that has 72,000 health can be 1 shot just cuz a single shot finds a single spot on the ship, and othertimes you just fire and fire and fire and fire and fire and fire and fire and fire and fire and fire and fire and fire and fire and fire and fire and fire and fire and fire and fire and fire and fire, as I once did at T2 and do absolutely nothing. WOWS is probably one of the most ******** games I have played........Ofc, in general, i just hate WG and their games, but WOWS, wow, it really takes the cake. Then the RNG on the guns, I once fired like 8 salvoes at a single stationary ship and my guns hit 0 times cuz RNG said LolNO! Then the AI finally drew a bead on me and I was dead inside of 15 seconds.

While everyone is entitled to an opinion, certain facts need to be set straight after this post, IMHO. WoWS is a good game for what it is, and while that may not be for everyone (which is fine) certain things said here are just not correct:

- No battleship ever has been one-shot by anything in the game. That is literally impossible. It IS possible for a ship to suffer major damage if a huge number of citadel hits are scored against it, or a huge number of torpedo hits, but for that to happen to a battleship is extremely rare and usually requires a massive amount of bad luck and failure to understand the game (such as sailing into a wall of torpedoes or failing to angle armor against attacks.)

- As for the gun accuracy, with practice you can get your shots to generally land on target. If I can do it - and I'm no video game god - anyone with practice can do it. Yes, if you're sniping at very long range with guns with high dispersion, you will hit rarely, but that is user error, not the game's fault. Also, inaccuracy is part of the game's simulation of naval combat of that era; it would be unrealistic and silly if shells flew with near perfect accuracy. The hit rate of even a mediocre player in World of Warships is much higher than comparable hit rates of the actual weapons simulated.

https://en.wikipedia...ttle_of_Jutland

Those hit rates are laughable (no nation even got to 5% in the Battle of Jutland) and far lower than in WoWS. Obviously, they made the hit rates higher to keep the game moving and interesting, but it is important to understand the genre before complaining about low hit rates. Complaining about inaccurate guns in a WW1 and WW2 naval simulator is not unlike complaining that our mechs can't fly or shoot missiles hundreds of miles away; the genre may not be for you, and that's fine, but it still must be internally consistent.

Edited by oldradagast, 31 May 2016 - 04:00 PM.

[hoxxie1156]

WOT is fun, best way I can describe it. I have fun playing it, and I want to spend money on it, to have more fun.

Two rounds of MWO makes me want to log off for the night, and not play for a few weeks. Don't even want to spend a dime on MWO. It's just not a fun game.

I am a huge Mechwarrior fan too.

[oldradagast]

Jon Gotham, on 31 May 2016 - 06:26 AM, said:

No they don't, not by a long way. It produces horrifically one sided stomps. VERY frequently. Out of every ten games, I'm bottom tier at least six if them with enemy team being statistically superior around seven out of that ten.
But there is significantly less cowardice in the pug queue.

Based on my experiences in WoWS (up to tier 6 ships), one-sided stomps are actually unusual and typically require a major screw-up to achieve, such as battleships sailing away from the fleet into obvious torpedo attacks, one or more disconnected ships on the losing side, etc. MWO tends to have far more one-sided matches, mostly because mechs die horribly fast compared to ships in WoWS, at least on average. It is also easier to bring mass fire to bear on a target in MWO, which magnifies the issue.

This may not apply to World of Tanks - I never played that game since it seems to involve a lot of camping, and I have MWO for that - and I am not trying to discount your experiences while adding my own.

Edited by oldradagast, 31 May 2016 - 03:59 PM.