26 replies to this topic

[Alistair Winter]

Too many loose threads, too many threads about individual issues. Going to try to write my own full review of the patch, because I am narcissistic.

• Decals. Look good. Prices are fine, given that you unlock each decal for all your mechs. They got this right, I think. I also like that you can put decals over the cockpit, honestly. (Yeah, yeah, I know, headshots.)
  
• Supply cache. Couldn't care less. This is about 3 years too late for me to care.
  
• Viper. Looks good. I like the design, I like the quirks, I like everything about it.
  
• Viridian Bog Update. I'm going to reserve the right to change my mind here, but it sounds like... they started a feedback thread, got lots and lots of great ideas about how to make the map more balanced and interesting, instead of forcing action around the same two hills in every.... god... damned... match. And then they ignored all the feedback, except they added some stairs to one of the hills and made some cosmetic changes. I could be wrong, but Viridian Bog 2 sounds like the most underwhelming map update since Caustic Valley. Not going to waste my time giving PGI feedback again, if Viridian Bog 2 is basically just the same as original with some better destructible terrain.
  
• Chat fix. Good. Too late, but good.
  
• Faction play changes. Don't care, nobody plays FP anymore.
  
• Quirk adjustments. Light mechs are still underpowered. The rest of the changes to light mechs, heavy mechs and assault mechs are either random (nerfing the CN9-AL? Really?) or way overdue (yay, +6 structure points to the PXH arms) and I don't really care about them.
  
• Improvements to saving system. Good. I know people are excited about this, but I look at this as a fix to a pretty fundamental bug. That's not something I get really excited about, but I'm relieved save times are better now.
  
• Quickplay Leaderboard system. Are.... you... kidding me? We're just counting up total wins? How is that a leaderboard? Why not just count up the total number of times people have fired their guns, or popped a UAV? Meaningless leaderboard is meaningless. Can't facepalm hard enough.
  
• Various fixes. Good, but I honestly don't care.

Overall... very underwhelming. I wasn't expecting a lot, but I was at least hoping for some kind of tiny change in the right direction for balancing light mechs and fixing the leaderboard. And breathing some new life into Viridian Bog, maybe? Instead of having us fight on the same 2 hills over and over and over?

Meh. I give this patch 5/10 hula girls.

[meteorol]

Alistair Winter, on 16 July 2016 - 06:46 AM, said:

• Quickplay Leaderboard system. Are.... you... kidding me? We're just counting up total wins? How is that a leaderboard? Why not just count up the total number of times people have fired their guns, or popped a UAV? Meaningless leaderboard is meaningless. Can't facepalm hard enough.

That is actually one of the most embarrassing things PGI has done in the recent history, in my eyes. Instead of fixing it, they are just changing default view to "hide" all the 1 match accounts at the end of the leaderboard, desperatly hoping people will forget about it once they aren't everywhere on page 1 anymore. It's nothing short of pathetic. Cringeworthy stuff.

Edited by meteorol, 16 July 2016 - 09:39 AM.

[C E Dwyer]

Nicely put.

My thoughts on this patch are.

We've made some improvements that should have been in ages ago 2 second mechbay. etc etc

We added a mech, which frankly does look nice.

We added decals that like camo will look good until you take damage.

We added little boxes that you can buy, we hope that you buy keys for these, and the above because we are running out of customers that will pay for stuffs and some are asking for refunds because of.

Bait and switch quirks which clearly display a complete lack of understanding, on what needs to be changed, what should stay, so we just swing the bat and hope.

[cazidin]

You could say that this patch... ...is Mediocre™?

[Cy Mitchell]

Interesting that people can review a patch before it has even been launched or they have had a chance to play it to see the effects of the changes.

Wouldn't this be a speculative preview instead or a review?

[Alistair Winter]

Rampage, on 16 July 2016 - 07:15 AM, said:

Interesting that people can review a patch before it has even been launched or they have had a chance to play it to see the effects of the changes.
Wouldn't this be a speculative preview instead or a review?

I like to imagine that I have some capacity for deductive reasoning.

For example, if light mechs are already underpowered, and the patch is nerfing the 2 remaining "popular" light mechs (accepting that light mechs have long been the most unpopular class in MWO), then I will deduce that light mechs will be in a worse state than before.

Furthermore, if Viridian Bog currently takes place around 2 hills due to the general structure of the map (essentially a curved strip of space with 2 hills that are equidistant from both spawns) and due to the fact that most of the map is severely lacking in positions that are worth holding and defending, then I will deduce that simply adding a set of stairs to one of the hills will not fundamentally change the dynamic on this map.

As for all the stuff about Leaderboards, Supply Cache, etc, no speculation or experience is required. PGI has said what they're going to do, so I don't have to actually experience the new "Leaderboard" first hand to tell you that it's terrible.

So... it's elementary, my dear Rampage.

[Bishop Steiner]

cazidin, on 16 July 2016 - 07:05 AM, said:

You could say that this patch... ...is


?

FTFY (GOSH!)

[Bishop Steiner]

Rampage, on 16 July 2016 - 07:15 AM, said:

Interesting that people can review a patch before it has even been launched or they have had a chance to play it to see the effects of the changes.

Wouldn't this be a speculative preview instead or a review?

Not really.

Some things are pretty easy to figure out by reading. For instance, I can figure out that holding a lit stick of dynamite is bad BEFORE having done it. Or petting a wild tiger. Kissing a great white shark. Don't bneed to try it to know I don't want scorpions in my drawers.

Taking Mechs that are KNOWN to be decent to good, for example, like the Marauder or Blackjack.... I don't exactly need to play them to know that nerfing them makes them weaker....cuz that's what nerfs DO. And making non Meta Mechs weaker, would only make sense if they were making an across the board effort to tone down ALL mechs.

Which a competent company would actually tell it's playerbase is the plan, to head off pitchforks and torches.

Kind of funny how that works.

[Felbombling]

I am looking forward to the Bog changes, but mostly just to see the new weather effects in action. Will rain be depicted on our cockpit glass? Will we hear the Thunder in the distance? Sound has always been a really neglected environmental aspect of this game, so I hope they step their efforts up a bit.

[Aresye]

Alistair Winter, on 16 July 2016 - 06:46 AM, said:

Quickplay Leaderboard system. Are.... you... kidding me? We're just counting up total wins? How is that a leaderboard? Why not just count up the total number of times people have fired their guns, or popped a UAV? Meaningless leaderboard is meaningless. Can't facepalm hard enough.

I'm absolutely livid about this.

Average match score is a great metric to rank players by. The ONLY problem is the lack of a qualifier, such as, "You need X amount of games to place on the leaderboard."

All they needed to do was require a minimum number of games so a solid average could be calculated. This update completely misses the point.

[meteorol]

Aresye, on 16 July 2016 - 09:28 AM, said:

This update completely misses the point.

It wasn't even meant to hit the point. They knew this was utterly pointless. Literally all they wanted to do is hide all the 1 game accounts at the end of the leaderboard, so people don't see them when opening the boards.
It was simply "yeah we won't fix this for now, lets just somewhat hide it and hope they stop bitching about it".

It's embarrassing.

Edited by meteorol, 16 July 2016 - 09:38 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

meteorol, on 16 July 2016 - 09:37 AM, said:

It wasn't even meant to hit the point. They knew this was utterly pointless. Literally all they wanted to do is hide all the 1 game accounts at the end of the leaderboard, so people don't see them when opening the boards.
It was simply "yeah we won't fix this for now, lets just somewhat hide it and hope they stop bitching about it".

It's embarrassing.

I don't know anything about coding. Someone who knows about coding, please tell me that inserting a criteria about minimum number of matches played is much, much more difficult than the planned change, by several orders of magnitude.

[meteorol]

Alistair Winter, on 16 July 2016 - 10:50 AM, said:

I don't know anything about coding. Someone who knows about coding, please tell me that inserting a criteria about minimum number of matches played is much, much more difficult than the planned change, by several orders of magnitude.

I surely do hope so aswell. Lets be honest, what i'm doing here are bold accusations with zero prove or factual basis. But i'm struggeling to think of any other reason why they would ever change the default display to number of wins and not adress the issue by adding minimum number of matches.

I basically refuse to believe (even) PGI is incompetent enough to think the solution they chose is the best or even a adequate one. I want to believe they did this in the way i described, knowing that it is dogsh*t. I don't want to get used to the thought they actually thought that would be a good fix.

Edited by meteorol, 16 July 2016 - 11:04 AM.

[Johnny Z]

Its another 10/10 update. This game has improved more this year, than maybe the 3 years before combined. *cheers*

What this game needs is an expansion though.

[Johnny Z]

cazidin, on 16 July 2016 - 07:05 AM, said:

You could say that this patch... ...is Mediocre™?

It really isn't mediocre though. This is a big one and the assault update next month is huge to.

The static mechbay and Galaxy map being the only off field game play is the worste though. Even with Galaxy map logistics, it would only be a slight improvement all things considered. Galaxy map logistics shoud be awesome, but in context it wont be.

Same with new mechs. Players don't see them in first person to scale so half the fun is sucked right out of their mechs for players.

This game needs scale like no tomorrow.

Edited by Johnny Z, 16 July 2016 - 11:48 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

Personally, I really enjoy Caustic Valley. I think Forest Colony 2 was the lamest make-over, but the recent changes to it have improved the experience considerably.

'Mech quirk changes are just...puzzling. Plenty of threads on these already.

I'm pretty indifferent to the rest.

[ScarecrowES]

Alistair Winter, on 16 July 2016 - 07:42 AM, said:

For example, if light mechs are already underpowered, and the patch is nerfing the 2 remaining "popular" light mechs (accepting that light mechs have long been the most unpopular class in MWO), then I will deduce that light mechs will be in a worse state than before.

Just to clarify here... are we talking about the Arctic Cheetah and Locust? Because if I recall, even in this very last week, people were complaining about how the Arctic Cheetah, untouched by the rescale and having had no quirks adjusted during that process, was still far-and-away the best light mech in the game... to the degree there was little point in running anything else.

And the Locust... a mech that was reduced by a little over 12% during the rescale (3rd only to the Catapult and Nova), and one that has become the poster-child for mechs buffed by a change in size alone - from one of the most difficult-to-use mechs in the game to de facto 2nd best light.

I just want to be clear if that's what we're talking about here. Cuz if so, I'm calling bull****.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Johnny Z, on 16 July 2016 - 11:42 AM, said:

Its another 10/10 update. This game has improved more this year, than maybe the 3 years before combined. *cheers*

What this game needs is an expansion though.

10/10 for the sarcasm, i almost bought it.

[Mcgral18]

Alistair Winter, on 16 July 2016 - 10:50 AM, said:

I don't know anything about coding. Someone who knows about coding, please tell me that inserting a criteria about minimum number of matches played is much, much more difficult than the planned change, by several orders of magnitude.

Would I be wrong in assuming it's an additional SQL query parameter when searching the database?
whichever search parameter WHERE numMatch>=50



Of course, irrelevant if they're using another method, but that's one option that I'm aware of

Edited by Mcgral18, 16 July 2016 - 12:42 PM.

[dario03]

ScarecrowES, on 16 July 2016 - 12:04 PM, said:

Just to clarify here... are we talking about the Arctic Cheetah and Locust? Because if I recall, even in this very last week, people were complaining about how the Arctic Cheetah, untouched by the rescale and having had no quirks adjusted during that process, was still far-and-away the best light mech in the game... to the degree there was little point in running anything else.

And the Locust... a mech that was reduced by a little over 12% during the rescale (3rd only to the Catapult and Nova), and one that has become the poster-child for mechs buffed by a change in size alone - from one of the most difficult-to-use mechs in the game to de facto 2nd best light.

I just want to be clear if that's what we're talking about here. Cuz if so, I'm calling bull****.

If we were talking about comparing the arctic cheetah to other lights then sure. But we are talking about lights vs every other mech. And even if a mech is the best light mech that doesn't necessarily mean it is as good as top heavy or assault mechs.
The Cheetah and Locust didn't need nerfed, the other lights needed buffed.