287 replies to this topic

[MechWarrior319348]

Prof RJ Gumby, on 01 June 2016 - 07:03 AM, said:

WoT has a large population because:

2. It's casual enough for anybody to jump in, basically an arcade game

5. Hands vehicles generously at first, delays the actual grind until you're engaged in the game

About these two points that were brought up in his post.

I started a new account the other day and logged in. I was first greeted by this screen.



You are not aloud to jump into the game without taking the tutorial. I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

And about the grind; well after about 1 hour of going through the tutorial, jumping in 1 mech from every class, and racking up most of the cadet bonuses, I had earned about 15 million cbills. and I had 0 to begin with. So this game is very generous to new players in terms of buying your first mech.

The only drawback is they offer little advise on what mech should be your first choice. It could be very easy to buy a disappointment and be stuck with it.

They may also with to give players a free medium mech to begin with, Something for them to play around with until they get the feel for customization. Perhaps a hunchback.

Edited by Delta 62, 01 June 2016 - 12:04 PM.

[Mavairo]

Delta 62, on 01 June 2016 - 12:01 PM, said:

About these two points that were brought up in his post.

I started a new account the other day and logged in. I was first greeted by this screen.



You are not aloud to jump into the game without taking the tutorial. I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

And about the grind; well after about 1 hour of going through the tutorial, jumping in 1 mech from every class, and racking up most of the cadet bonuses, I had earned about 15 million cbills. and I had 0 to begin with. So this game is very generous to new players in terms of buying your first mech.

The only drawback is they offer little advise on what mech should be your first choice. It could be very easy to buy a disappointment and be stuck with it.

15 mill.... good for the first mech. But still need 30 mill for the next 2...

thing is, World of warships, is much more generous with starting out. The early tier ships are cheap, cheap cheap. Just a handful of matches up to about Tier 5, and you're golden.

[MechWarrior319348]

I also had about 3 mil more to earn in cadet bonuses, not to mention the other quick achievements

all in all, I would say we are looking at around 15-20 mil for the first mech.

And then there is faction play, If they jump in there, they could be earning some loyalty money. Im not sure how I would feel about new players trying to jump in there though.

I think they need to make a second, separate tutorial for faction warfare.

There is also the potential to quickly farm cadet bonuses. There are a number of light trial mechs for you to pick from. What you would do is: pick one, jump into a match, run straight into the enemy team and fire some shots, die, then jump in another trial light and repeat. Very quick way to get the cadet bonuses.

Edited by Delta 62, 01 June 2016 - 12:12 PM.

[Prof RJ Gumby]

RedDragon, on 01 June 2016 - 10:56 AM, said:

I'd really like to have a source on this.

Can't find it now, I read it a long time ago on one of numerous theads about "sparking"* (while you pummel the enemy plane with constant stream of fire that should logically kill it about 5 times, but it's still flying, despite clearly indicating hits by sparks and damage particles). All I can say go and test it, if they didn't change it since early 2015, you'll be as efficient with short bursts as you would with soaking the enemy with bullets. I know I was.

EDIT: also known as "sparkling"

Edited by Prof RJ Gumby, 01 June 2016 - 01:29 PM.

[Jaeger Gonzo]

dervishx5, on 01 June 2016 - 09:51 AM, said:

Why do you think battle value was designed?

Things get more complicated with new tech, obviously tech lv 1 is not on pair with new tech ton by ton, so if you want to have more less fair fight with mixed tech settings they needed to invent BV.
Like first 10 years of my TT, I never heard about BV, there is no word about it in introductory box. First time I really seen BV was in time of internet and megamek. Even now there are some tasks on Dominion megamek server where you balance fight just by tons.

Edited by Jaeger Gonzo, 01 June 2016 - 02:08 PM.

[Jackal Noble]

I get that this was started off with a World of Tanks comparison, and then went on to throw World of Warships and War Thunder into the mix.
Why, pray tell why would you use world of war tanks as you r comparison, when war thunder is leaps and bounds better by a long shot, in overall scope, has a f2p single player scenarios,. WoT blows donkey balls and has since day 1.
The only relative likeness between mwo and wot is that both have very VERY unbalanced pay modes. One could almost say that those very pay models were largely responsible for a good portion of that contingent of the non-fanatical player base not sticking around. Who knows.
And yeah 4 years (or 1 1/2) is ample time to adjust to a more acceptable general pay model, and not talking about just mech packs. Sigh

[MadcatX]

Probably because MW:O and World of Tanks share both similar monetization models and have quite very similar progression mechanics. Just swap tank crew for pilot skill tree, tanks for mechs, having most new mechs (IS anyways) bought as "stock" requiring further upgrades, XP systems that can be converted from mech/tank to general XP.

War Thunder is a really good game but World of tanks/warships/etc. seems to have MUCH more money in it's Marketing dept.

[AnimeFreak40K]

Stefka Kerensky, on 01 June 2016 - 02:09 AM, said:

So you are basicly saying that you are the perfect kind of player PGI loves, because they could and still can deliver only a bunch of nice polygons and selling each of them for a full game price.... in a beta game still without any content. Unless for u a 5 minutes skirmish, drop and repeat,...is a content... LOLOL

Hah, no.

There's a reason why I jumped in on Hawken and left it... despite it having a lot of fundamental similarities (players drive giant stompy robots and shoot other giant stompy robots, it's a FPS/Sim, weapon/equipment customization). It got really boring really quick, because there were only 3 maps (desert, high-tech space-city and modern-ish city) and 3 game modes (king of the hill, point-cap and TDM. There was also FFA DM, but that's not much of a different mode IMHO).

...I also didn't care for how the robots looked...

Stefka Kerensky, on 01 June 2016 - 02:09 AM, said:

So yes, we cannot have nice things because of you and ppl like you that NEVER CARED ABOUT BT or MW. But still here.

Why does my care about BattleTech or MechWarrior mean anything? Seriously, why should I care about *anything* in BattleTech or MechWarrior when all I'm after is a game that let's me customize giant stompy robots and go out and shoot up other giant stompy robots?

Frankly, with an attitude like yours, I could make an argument that you're the reason why we can't have nice things; people who play this game must have a degree of care/concern for the lore and can't just enjoy the game for what it is. This means that the game is not going to attract new people, because it can't reach out to and attempt to bring in new people, because people like you slap the hand away.

[Dirkdaring]

Sex sells.

Bring on the BIKI-N1 mech

[Nik Reaper]

The comparison makes sense as WoT is an Esport.. that thing gets views , sponsor money and all that jazz.. witch seems is what Russ wants for MWO , also even if WT is a better game WoT has more players ( for now ) and is an established brand ....
It's kinda like many pro players say that DotA is a better more in depth moba but LoL blows it out of the water with being less in depth but a much better spectator sport and a more easily accessible game.

Edited by Nik Reaper, 01 June 2016 - 05:01 PM.

[Ace Selin]

WHY DOES WORLD OF TANKS HAVE A BIGGER POPULATION?

Because in RL there are more Tanks in this world than Mechs,

Edited by Ace Selin, 01 June 2016 - 05:11 PM.

[oldradagast]

Delta 62, on 01 June 2016 - 12:01 PM, said:

The only drawback is they offer little advise on what mech should be your first choice. It could be very easy to buy a disappointment and be stuck with it.

And that, right there, is MWO Achilles heel when it comes to player retention.

Now that there - finally! - is a tutorial, it starts out decently enough. They teach you the basics, you get a bit of immersion, and you're given a seemingly huge pile of money.

Then, you blow it all on a stupid "false choice" junk mech that has a cool name and get your face erased by some pinpoint alpha boating fully leveled mech game after game. And then you quit and go back to playing WoT or whatever.

Oh, and did we mention that you need THREE mechs of each type to fully level ONE of them? Hey, wait - why are you all leaving! Really this game is great! *sound of door slamming as new player leaves for good.*

Seriously, the 3 of a kind rule needs to die, or at least offer a heavy discount or something when buying the additional mechs. More importantly, the utter lack of any clear starting point for a new player when faced with dozens of mechs with thousands of possible builds is overwhelming and, most likely, leads to them squandering their once-only cadet bonus on unplayable junk... and then they quit the game.

[MechWarrior319348]

oldradagast, on 01 June 2016 - 05:11 PM, said:

And that, right there, is MWO Achilles heel when it comes to player retention.

Now that there - finally! - is a tutorial, it starts out decently enough. They teach you the basics, you get a bit of immersion, and you're given a seemingly huge pile of money.

Then, you blow it all on a stupid "false choice" junk mech that has a cool name and get your face erased by some pinpoint alpha boating fully leveled mech game after game. And then you quit and go back to playing WoT or whatever.

Oh, and did we mention that you need THREE mechs of each type to fully level ONE of them? Hey, wait - why are you all leaving! Really this game is great! *sound of door slamming as new player leaves for good.*

Seriously, the 3 of a kind rule needs to die, or at least offer a heavy discount or something when buying the additional mechs. More importantly, the utter lack of any clear starting point for a new player when faced with dozens of mechs with thousands of possible builds is overwhelming and, most likely, leads to them squandering their once-only cadet bonus on unplayable junk... and then they quit the game.

What if Mech XP was shared between all the variants(of one mech). You would still need to level 3 variants, but you wouldn't have to buy them all.

Edited by Delta 62, 01 June 2016 - 05:18 PM.

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

Delta 62, on 30 May 2016 - 07:25 PM, said:

Tell me if there is more to add.

I'mma be real blatant about it there, bud.

The real reason is simple. MW:O is absolute shlt and based on an obscure 80's Table Top game, while WoT is kinda shlt but is based on Tanks from WWII.


I'll let you do the math on that one.

(Even if MWO was good, I doubt it would EVER be able to put up numbers like DOTA or CS:GO does, with 500K+ players online at once.)

Edited by 80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie, 01 June 2016 - 06:06 PM.

[oldradagast]

80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie, on 01 June 2016 - 06:05 PM, said:

(Even if MWO was good, I doubt it would EVER be able to put up numbers like DOTA or CS:GO does, with 500K+ players online at once.)

Maybe, but consider that some very successful online games are based on purely fictional IP, such as EVE and World of Warcraft. Admittedly, both are more than just PvP arena shooters, but MWO could be much more than it is. While the nature of the IP is somewhat of a limitation, I honestly don't feel that it's the biggest one the game faces.

[Johnny Z]

Delta 62, on 01 June 2016 - 12:06 PM, said:

I also had about 3 mil more to earn in cadet bonuses, not to mention the other quick achievements

all in all, I would say we are looking at around 15-20 mil for the first mech.

And then there is faction play, If they jump in there, they could be earning some loyalty money. Im not sure how I would feel about new players trying to jump in there though.

I think they need to make a second, separate tutorial for faction warfare.

There is also the potential to quickly farm cadet bonuses. There are a number of light trial mechs for you to pick from. What you would do is: pick one, jump into a match, run straight into the enemy team and fire some shots, die, then jump in another trial light and repeat. Very quick way to get the cadet bonuses.

Yep forget PVE. Add immersive tutorials. 1st person mechbay, pilot quarters. Off field content. Then it would be a MechWarrior game instead of Mech game.

Pve would be great but there is tons of Mech content as is.

Edited by Johnny Z, 01 June 2016 - 06:35 PM.

[Johnny Z]

oldradagast, on 01 June 2016 - 06:16 PM, said:

Maybe, but consider that some very successful online games are based on purely fictional IP, such as EVE and World of Warcraft. Admittedly, both are more than just PvP arena shooters, but MWO could be much more than it is. While the nature of the IP is somewhat of a limitation, I honestly don't feel that it's the biggest one the game faces.

MechWarrior Online has every advantage going for it when it comes to the fiction. That this game started on the ground makes going into space a cake walk for one. The factions are another allowing for really dynamic game play there. Even the cyberpunk story of the Clans and the fallen Houses fighting it out is epic. Theres more to.

Edited by Johnny Z, 01 June 2016 - 06:43 PM.

[Johnny Z]

AnimeFreak40K, on 01 June 2016 - 04:55 PM, said:

Hah, no.

There's a reason why I jumped in on Hawken and left it... despite it having a lot of fundamental similarities (players drive giant stompy robots and shoot other giant stompy robots, it's a FPS/Sim, weapon/equipment customization). It got really boring really quick, because there were only 3 maps (desert, high-tech space-city and modern-ish city) and 3 game modes (king of the hill, point-cap and TDM. There was also FFA DM, but that's not much of a different mode IMHO).

...I also didn't care for how the robots looked...


Why does my care about BattleTech or MechWarrior mean anything? Seriously, why should I care about *anything* in BattleTech or MechWarrior when all I'm after is a game that let's me customize giant stompy robots and go out and shoot up other giant stompy robots?

Frankly, with an attitude like yours, I could make an argument that you're the reason why we can't have nice things; people who play this game must have a degree of care/concern for the lore and can't just enjoy the game for what it is. This means that the game is not going to attract new people, because it can't reach out to and attempt to bring in new people, because people like you slap the hand away.

Your first point is right on. I tried and left Hawken also. The tutorial and few things are better even than MechWarrior online, but this game has achieved magic when it comes to the on field game play. Everything else is really lacking though. But scope is growing by leaps and bounds with the faction play additions and the late game content. How ever unfinished it is at the moment.

[Alan Davion]

oldradagast, on 01 June 2016 - 05:11 PM, said:

Seriously, the 3 of a kind rule needs to die, or at least offer a heavy discount or something when buying the additional mechs. More importantly, the utter lack of any clear starting point for a new player when faced with dozens of mechs with thousands of possible builds is overwhelming and, most likely, leads to them squandering their once-only cadet bonus on unplayable junk... and then they quit the game.

This. Right here.

I literally just got to the Tier 6 New Mexico battleship in WoWs cause they had a ship sale going, half price on US ships.

The grind on MWO is far and away longer compared to WoWs module system. Generally speaking the only really "required" upgrades are to the hull itself, giving you more armor to defend against shells more effectively, and more HP to let you last longer in a fight.

Another required upgrade would probably be the engines, but not all ships have access to those, generally only the battleships require upgrades because of how painfully slow they are.

Upgrades to the guns or the torpedoes can be hit or miss depending on the ship, and are not "required" to help you use the ship effectively.

Some ships like the Tier 6 Cruiser USS Cleveland, its upgraded guns speed up the reload time between shots, but slow down the turning speed of the turrets. Other ships gun upgrades affect their accuracy, like the Japanese Battleships. They give you great range, but you get absolutely shafted when it comes to accuracy.

I've leveled through ships way faster in WoWs than I have mechs in MWO simply because I'm constantly having to change mechs, and therefore change tactics between "tiers" of skills. All in all the time required to skill up a single mech is about the same as to kit out a ship in WoWs, but it's artificially inflated or slowed down depending on how you want to look at it by the fact you have to switch between mechs all the time to fill out the "Basic/Elite/Master" skill trees.

Skilling up your captains in WoWs, though, now that's a different story because that can take a real long time.

[Airwind]

oldradagast, on 01 June 2016 - 05:11 PM, said:

And that, right there, is MWO Achilles heel when it comes to player retention.

Now that there - finally! - is a tutorial, it starts out decently enough. They teach you the basics, you get a bit of immersion, and you're given a seemingly huge pile of money.

Then, you blow it all on a stupid "false choice" junk mech that has a cool name and get your face erased by some pinpoint alpha boating fully leveled mech game after game. And then you quit and go back to playing WoT or whatever.

Oh, and did we mention that you need THREE mechs of each type to fully level ONE of them? Hey, wait - why are you all leaving! Really this game is great! *sound of door slamming as new player leaves for good.*

Seriously, the 3 of a kind rule needs to die, or at least offer a heavy discount or something when buying the additional mechs. More importantly, the utter lack of any clear starting point for a new player when faced with dozens of mechs with thousands of possible builds is overwhelming and, most likely, leads to them squandering their once-only cadet bonus on unplayable junk... and then they quit the game.

Have no idea who came up with the 3 mechs idea. since we have PSR, why not have a MSR (mech skill rating). the higher you go the more you unlock for that mech and its variants. This would make it more realistic.

Having tier skills unlock does not mean all the variant will automatically have it. they will still need the Mech XP to activate the skill unlocked by their (MSR)