503 replies to this topic

[Tru3insanity]

It is possible for an small indie studio to be wildly successful building a hugely ambitious game in a niche market.

Look at Path of Exile VS MWO.
- Both are niche games

- Both are free to play but the marketing schemes are true polar opposites. Path of Exile makes pretty much everything even premium content available for free (they have regular events where they give heaps of stuff out, like the end of season one month leagues for prizes) Its really interesting to see that when a company is NOT dedicated to swindling its costumers out of every drop of money and they build an awesome game instead people actually do shovel money at them just to support the devs,

- PoE is not even remotely intended for a casual audience and the learning curve over there is like mount everest compared to MWOs small hill yet tons of people still try it and many stay for a very long time.

- Both games have a rabidly loyal core fanbase that spend many years and thousands of dollars on the game. Over there these people are quite happy and are still spending hundreds or thousands of hours and tons of money. Over here even the most fanatic players are getting seriously unhappy and are thinking of deserting.

Even tho they are distinctly different genres there are enough similarities in the audiences, company size and manpower and such to make comparisons in the evolutions of these games.

Fact is you dont have to be some titanic corporate empire with massive resources to be crazy successful in a niche market. Indie devs can do it too but you have to be dedicated to your consumers, have a strong vision of what you want and avidly pursue it even in the face of criticism. You CANNOT throw your customers under the bus in an attempt to make some quick short term cash. Every company that does this fails in the end. This purgatory that pgi is in is entirely on them. Yes the players can be toxic but players are rarely toxic towards the devs unless they have reasons to be.

And I completely agree with putting out some tools so that the player base can make some assets like maps and such at least. Some of the most successful games of all time are those that open up the doors for modding because history has shown that people who love the game or lore will fall all over themselves to improve the game at no cost at all. Even games that are often an apocalypse at launch can be redeemed into gaming heaven when the fans are dedicated enough. Just look at egosofts X games (excluding rebirth) every one was a buggy mess at launch but this tiny company and its rabidly loyal fanbase would stick by them and patiently fix them over the years until they were flat out beautiful to play.

[Andi Nagasia]

PGI needs certain (Quality of Life) things done in MWO,
once they have those things
1) Rescale,
2) Requirk,
3) Weapon Rebalance,
4) Rewards Readjusements(more Reward Type(AMS Assist),
5) PSR Ratings Adjustments(perhaps T6 for Cadets),
6) Better Player Retention,

then they need to Advertise again, if its fun to play people will play,
more people playing = more potential those people have for spending money,

[Helsbane]

Andi Nagasia, on 07 June 2016 - 03:33 PM, said:

PGI needs certain (Quality of Life) things done in MWO,
once they have those things
1) Rescale,
2) Requirk,
3) Weapon Rebalance,
4) Rewards Readjusements(more Reward Type(AMS Assist),
5) PSR Ratings Adjustments(perhaps T6 for Cadets),
6) Better Player Retention,

then they need to Advertise again, if its fun to play people will play,
more people playing = more potential those people have for spending money,

Andi, they've had four years and failed repeatedly at every aspect you listed. All they have managed to do successfully is run about like headless poultry and make promises they can't keep. If it weren't an IP we all love, it would be hilarious, but because we have zero other alternatives for a MW game, it just ends up being sad and pathetic.

[Andi Nagasia]

Helsbane, on 07 June 2016 - 03:38 PM, said:

Andi, they've had four years and failed repeatedly at every aspect you listed. All they have managed to do successfully is run about like headless poultry and make promises they can't keep. If it weren't an IP we all love, it would be hilarious, but because we have zero other alternatives for a MW game, it just ends up being sad and pathetic.

they havent Failed at everything,
in not white knighting here but listen,

IS MWO FUN TO PLAY?
even in short Bursts is it fun to play?

fun to play with Friends? fun to play solo?
yes they have failed on alot of what they promised, but also they did diliver on alot as well,
this is still the Most balanced MW title to date, its also the most Beautiful MW title to Date,

it isnt what the Initial Vision was supposed to be, what we all thought it was going to be,
but its defiantly not nothing, and i do believe PGI is working to right the wrongs of the past,
its a slow process but working non the less,

(no Helsbane im not saying you ever said they gave us nothing)
(im just talking in General, its not my intention to pick a fight with anyone)


as to the Bishops OP, no i dont think they are going Fortress PGI,

Andi Nagasia, on 07 June 2016 - 03:40 PM, said:

its very Possable that Russ is you know Working!
remember his Twitter isnt just MWO but his Personal Twitter,
and he hasnt Posted anything from Space-X ether, which he follows Vigerisly,

i think hes just swamped with things and getting ready for Patch release thats it,
remember he said people would get side by sides of every mech and how smaller they have gotten,
the full rescaling line up, the Command wheel tutorial, Frozen City rework and Expansion Comparisons,
as well as a Requirking of many of the rescaled Chassis, and some tagged on weapon balances,

Quoting as to save time,

[Deathlike]

Bud Crue, on 07 June 2016 - 11:59 AM, said:

As indicated previously, Steven Hicks has posted a request for feed back in the map thread
http://mwomercs.com/...k-and-thoughts/

So at least someone is out here.

There's always some notable PGI employees that try to go above and beyond what Russ, Bryan, or Paul has ever done in all the time they've been on the forums.

The thing is, it's easier to remember the screwups, but the guys that are more interactive at the guys that are NOT at the top.

It tells you what's actually wrong (hint: it's those at the top).

The most interaction I've ever had with PGI (outside of support) is with the guy doing the installer/MWO Repair Tool (Krist Smith), and back in the older beta days, he went to PM me just to get the damn thing working better. Something like this goes unnoticed in MWO, but I remember this fondly (he's also been fixing the MWO Installer for the tourney too, just FYI).

Again, it's not the guys working harder than their bosses that are at fault.

Edited by Deathlike, 07 June 2016 - 04:13 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Deathlike, on 07 June 2016 - 04:11 PM, said:

There's always some notable PGI employees that try to go above and beyond what Russ, Bryan, or Paul has ever done in all the time they've been on the forums.

The thing is, it's easier to remember the screwups, but the guys that are more interactive at the guys that are NOT at the top.

It tells you what's actually wrong (hint: it's those at the top).

technically, how often do those at the top of most companies deign to communicate with the peasants?

[Deathlike]

Bishop Steiner, on 07 June 2016 - 04:13 PM, said:

technically, how often do those at the top of most companies deign to communicate with the peasants?

Usually through some form of Q&A, like when we had Ask the Devs back in the day.

The problem is that it was phased out in other forms of communication (Dev vlogs, which ironically was also phased out).

A community manager is still largely responsible for this, and I see this happening in many other very successful F2P games (as long as the questions are relevant, which people who pick them out should have a clue on which to answer).

[CK16]

Honestly the best way to try to talk to the Devs is to sit in when they do their almost daily live streams. It gets more answers either in PM's on twitch or in direct chat questions.

https://www.twitch.tv/piranhagames

[Idealsuspect]

Andi Nagasia, on 07 June 2016 - 03:33 PM, said:

PGI needs certain (Quality of Life) things done in MWO,
once they have those things
1) Rescale,
2) Requirk,
3) Weapon Rebalance,
4) Rewards Readjusements(more Reward Type(AMS Assist),
5) PSR Ratings Adjustments(perhaps T6 for Cadets),
6) Better Player Retention,

then they need to Advertise again, if its fun to play people will play,
more people playing = more potential those people have for spending money,

1) Late,
2) They did tried many times they did failed many time +1 ( their first try ),
3) They can't balance a game they don't know how play,
4) They can't balance rewards cause >> 3),
5) Too obvious if you know how game work on battlefield, well they don't know how it work,
6) Cause all fails above and many more not listed but not unknown they can't retain news players more than 2 months,

It's simple.. this game isn't very fun, people are still there cause for some of them they like/love IP BT franchise and this game is the only lone choice we have and for some others they are addicts cause F2P mechanics after spend many hours or money into.

Without battletech skin on this game nobody will be still there or only for use mechlab as screen saver cause of awesome alex design work on mechs.

[Lyoto Machida]

Kin3ticX, on 06 June 2016 - 06:27 PM, said:

Mercstar ruined phase 3, lets be real here guys and gals

Srs though, I was thinking that Russ wised up and finally stopped using the blasted twitter as some kind of internal long planned company strategy shift...

but sadly.....

then I realized it wasn't mastermind strategery its really just likely PGI hiding because they botched a major patch, a townhall, and some tournament stuff.

so there you go.

PGI Fortress is building walls, not bridges

Wanna still buy a mechpack though?

When did PGI hand over the CW design reins to Mercstar? I'm not sure how MS ruined phase 3 if they weren't the ones that designed the CW format in the first place.

The honor system doesn't work.

[Mechwarrior1441491]

Why are so many people asking for weapon rebalance? It's the most balanced it has EVER been. They don't need to waste time on it. Let them move on to other things instead of treading water on that crap.

[Idealsuspect]

Lyoto Machida, on 07 June 2016 - 04:55 PM, said:

When did PGI hand over the CW design reins to Mercstar?

They didnt..
PGI did just nothing for regulate or balance CW population specially with bigs units non-loyalists ( also mercstar as first place ) and thoses units did exploit it for farm CW system easy.

GGClose but isn't theirs faults .. they are like kids isn't their fault if they commit suicide with daddy weapon, they didn't know that's all.

[Mcgral18]

Mechwarrior1441491, on 07 June 2016 - 05:57 PM, said:

Why are so many people asking for weapon rebalance? It's the most balanced it has EVER been. They don't need to waste time on it. Let them move on to other things instead of treading water on that crap.

Yeah....let's ignore one of the most fundamental parts of the game

What a novel idea

[Andi Nagasia]

Mcgral18, on 07 June 2016 - 06:48 PM, said:

Yeah....let's ignore one of the most fundamental parts of the game

What a novel idea

Just as Mcgral says, we cant ignore it,
yes it may be the best its ever been, but some weapons do need alot of help,
weapons like MGs, LBXs, LRMs, PPCs, also things like a Tag Toggle,
and Faction(IS to Clan) Laser Balance, could use some work still,

its ok, but until all weapons are Viable we will only see Gauss + Lasers,
power draw limiting alphas perhaps will help balance things as well, but thats another topic,

[50 50]

At the moment, the MWOWC needs to go well and that should rightfully be taking up most of their efforts. that's why we had a three month road map spelling out what is being worked on and what we can expect.
Personally I feel the tournament might have been a little too soon and trying out for the big leagues before we had a decent amateur circuit going. All respect to the MRBC and other player run competitions, but they were player run competitions and not an internally promoted and structured event.
So, we see the first few stumbling steps being made to achieve this and there are a few bumps and turns on the way but it's moving forward. We have to expect that trying to run a competition where over 100 teams have signed up for your first attempt at running the comp has got to be both met with both excitement and 'wtf have we got ourselves into'. So... I expect they are pretty damn busy and worried about making this thing work more than providing a few updates and posts around the internet at the moment.

If I were to suggest a different approach for the tournament then it would be:

• Make Solaris 7.
  
• Make it Innersphere only.
  
• Finish the 4 trial arena maps to use with it.
  
• Add in more maps taking inspiration from the boxed set for settings and atmosphere.
  
• Build it with a lobby system allowing players to organise their own matches.
  
• Have a leaderboard for the players as 1v1, 2v2 and 4v4.
  
• Have it run as a monthly comp.
  
• Let the leaderboard from the monthly comp act as the qualifiers so it deals with itself in game with no need for PGI to manage it.
  
• Then run a world cup once a year with just these qualifying players and teams which is then the PGI eSport event.
  
• If it works well enough, then it could be broken into tiers.

As for Faction Play... there has been a hell of a lot of effort put into this but I feel it is a far bigger beast that what they expected. At the moment it has more of a quick play feel with some movement of borders. I would be quite happy if they left it for now and said: "This was a good start, we have some great elements in the mode but it is not hitting the mark. We are going to revisit many of the aspects and look at making some changes."
To me, Faction Play is our story.
It need to be thought of in grander terms and have a vastly different structure to quick play.
There are plenty of requests for a single player game, PvE, mission and so on.
This is what needs to be done in Faction Play.

There is a lot of work ahead and I hope we see it.

[White Bear 84]

Bishop Steiner, on 05 June 2016 - 03:11 PM, said:

Just my 2ct as a former white knight, and "concerned citizen".

I made the call something is up as Russ has been absent on twitter since the 28th May - no updates on events, happenings or response to players. Now unless he is remarkably sick or on vacation something going down... ...@MechWarriorF2P have been tweeting business as usual (NGNG streams, recent announcements) but no reply on Russ being absent.

[RussianWolf]

Bishop Steiner, on 07 June 2016 - 04:13 PM, said:

technically, how often do those at the top of most companies deign to communicate with the peasants?

If you are Coca-Cola, you can afford not to talk to paying customers as there are millions if not billions of them every day.

If you are an airline with hundred of thousands of passangers every day, you may think you can no speak with them, but its harder to ignore them.

When you get down to thousand of customers on a given day, somethimes hundreds.... you basically can't ignore them if you want to stay in business.

[Anjian]

Felio, on 07 June 2016 - 11:12 AM, said:

When I canceled my Kodiak preorder, they asked me why. Among my reasons were two things Russ had said on Twitter and in the Town Hall. Not to overestimate my importance, but since all we can do is speculate I thought I'd throw it out there. Maybe I wasn't the only one, and he decided silence is better than giving us any more specific reasons to get mad.

The things I cited were:

1) The "it is what it is" about removing the solo queue from FW. Things he could have done and still could do have been discussed at length. It totally smashed any hope I had that he was on our side and FW match quality would ever improve. It's dead to me.

2) He said PvE co-op was going to be "standalone." I've asked him to elaborate on Twitter and been ignored. He refused to even say whether we'll be able to use already purchased mechs in the mode. So I told them I'm not buying any more mechs until I know their value going forward.

So if him talking undermines our confidence in the game, it makes sense for him to shut up and just let us find out about the BS after we've spent more money.

He could try not saying things that suck, but I doubt it occurred to him that these things do, in fact suck. That's it's not just a "damned if you do, damned if you don't, everyone finds fault with something" thing.

When I canceled my Kodiak preorder they also asked me why.

I told them the list of reasons are far too great to put into email, and then I basically told him that their developers and creative directors needs to shove it right up and through their collective arses.

[Shard Phoenix]

50 50, on 07 June 2016 - 07:37 PM, said:

As for Faction Play... there has been a hell of a lot of effort put into this but I feel it is a far bigger beast that what they expected. At the moment it has more of a quick play feel with some movement of borders. I would be quite happy if they left it for now and said: "This was a good start, we have some great elements in the mode but it is not hitting the mark. We are going to revisit many of the aspects and look at making some changes."

To me, Faction Play is our story.
It need to be thought of in grander terms and have a vastly different structure to quick play.
There are plenty of requests for a single player game, PvE, mission and so on.
This is what needs to be done in Faction Play.

There is a lot of work ahead and I hope we see it.

I don't know about a lot "effort" put into Faction Play.

The maps aren't that great. The choke point funnel design severely hinders strategic play. It's all about picking a gate to push through and slugging it out near Omega. Speaking of Omega, it only matters on Attack/Defense and because of the half baked objective positioning GenRushing is a thing.

There's still no real incentive to play FW other than "it's not Quick Play".
There's no immersion to it at all.

The Faction/Merc Ranks are just grind goals.

Scout Mode is so/so, but it suffers from "you didn't think that all the way through, did you" syndrome as well. Example: Smoke diving in the last five seconds of the game. The Long Tom is... well... that's a debate all its own.

It's possible to keep going, but for the sake of not writing a massive wall of text I'll finish off with this:

I cannot possibly be convinced that the content of Faction Warfare is in anyway commensurate with the amount of development time it's had at this point. PGI has ignored a LOT of good ideas put forth by the community which could have made the mode better.

Not so different from the rest of MW:O, unfortunately.

Don't get me entirely wrong here, I enjoy MW:O for what it is. That said, do carry a small pouch of salt in my pocket to scatter when it comes to the one game mode I looked forward to the most (going all the way to when I played during beta) being such a flop.

[9thDeathscream]

Its summertime over there right. Running on skeleton staff maybe????