Very personal opinion incoming.
I am still here because of a great community and some great online friends I have met over the last few years while playing this game. Add to that the nostalgia from MW4 days (similar situation peoplewise) and the time I played the very first MW video games, and I wont leave just yet.
But I came close to departing a few times now. And I might when the current course is held true.
I've seen some weird moves by the people developing this game. And thats after coming fairly late. When I started playing the poptart era had already ended or was about to, I think tourmaline just came out. A buddy of mine tried to get me into MWO at the time but I knew from experience a game like this would eat away my life. (MW4). eventually I let him sucker me in. He quit shortly afterwards because of weird decisions by the developers ( I think it was the lrm arcing thing). I have no regrets staying, Its been a great ride. But its a bittersweet one currently. Again because of weird decisions by the developers.
I think the core of the game is fantastic. Building your own machines of death and then piloting them against other people that also build their deathmachine, is just great. When I first played MWO I loved the sounds and the "feel' I was really piloting a giant crude death machine that needed my input to kill the other deathmachines. slow, strong, cumbersome, destructive. piloting mechs is just fantastic and PGI did a great job getting MWO of the ground initially. And thats coming from a guy thats not a fan of the battletech universe, and never read any of the books.
But its been a slow proces, as with everything with PGI it seems. Lots of tweaking, not much content added. The new maps come out painfully slow. Whats worse is that they remove maps from the game as they add other ones. Every feeling of "yay new content" is overshadowed by 'but I liked this map!"
Community warfare was announced and introduced as a major feature. Maybe THE feature of this game. It turned out to be an unimaginative, stale gamemode. Its chokepoint warfare on maps that make very little sence. Gates open when you cut power to them, and those power generators are exposed above the gates. Wut? Video game logic I suppose. It never stopped bothering me though. Add to this: a giant map thats way to big for its playerbase, rigid contract systems that prevent people from switching quikly and finding a match that way and a ghost drop mechanic (that was in place for ages and only recently got taken out) that sucked the life out of you after waiting for 10 minutes.For a non battletech dude like me I was often in a state of WTF when playing the gamemode. After adding a mechanic that drops giant bombs on the players in what was supposed to be the "final phase" of CW, I tuned out of this mode. I might return for an event or a reward if i care enough, but only that, (well and playing with friends,) will be the reason I play CW. Resetting the map didnt help either for some people I know. They poured hours into conquering planets and making lines move across a map. Resetting this casually, a few times, seems to hit some lore-guys pretty hard.
Something snapped in me a few days ago when the minimap, arguably the most important tool in the game, got taken out and replaced by.....something in august?
The fact the game developers didnt realize that taking out this particular information-tool would result in disgruntled players really finally struck me as something really silly. They created a fantastic game and dont seem to understand why its so great or even how to play it properly.
How can people that develop this game consider this a valid move? the fact they are working on things that get implemented at a later date, should never result in important features being removed NOW and then worked on or replaced "later". Implement it at the time of removing a feature, or dont remove the feature at all.
My trust got damaged to the point where I think the current development team cannot take this game into an area that will make me enjoy it more then I do today or have in the past. Instead of adding lots of new content they seem to want to change the current content, which I love.
here is the pickle (for me)
By continually changing things the developers will always please some , while upsetting others. The upset ones will leave, the pleased ones will stay. But at this point, where will you find replacement for those that left?
Continue along this path and eventually enough core players will have left, not enough new people will have come in (I think every battletech fan that is in existence knows about this game by now) and the game population will slowly dwindle. I think that point is reached.
By making giant changes to game mechanics at this point , the game will die, not grow.
The developers need to focus on maps, game modes, CW, solaris, basically just NEW STUFF.
I get that mechs count as new stuff, and that they are the bread and butter of the franchise in terms of creating revenue, but right now this game can only be saved by making sure people that are currently playing it, will keep playing it. and spending money on it.
PGi has been lucky. and smart.
they dived into a franchise (battletech) that is underrepresented in every way, and it consists of a lot of 25-60+ aged peoples that have jobs and money, PGI sure got our money. They got our feedback. They got our trust. They got our patience.
Its about time we got our content.
Stop tweaking old stuff. Stop inventing weird gamemechanics to fix stuff you consider problems. Start adding some really new content to this game.
Untill that happens, my wallet is closed.
I wanna thank the developers though. I managed to surround myself with great people that I met only through playing this game. Thx for creating that oppertunity.
/ end personal opinion.
Edited by BattleBunny, 01 July 2016 - 04:13 AM.