289 replies to this topic

[dervishx5]

RestosIII, on 11 August 2016 - 01:27 AM, said:

Anyways, I certainly didn't help at all but I'll continue being a hypocrite and mention that we should probably get this thread back on the rails.

Once a certain person sees the thread it's going to get pruned or locked.

[Imperius]

[dervishx5]

Imperius, on 11 August 2016 - 01:34 AM, said:

[kesmai]

65 mph.
I made it from Constance to Stuttgart in 49 minutes yesterday...

[Alistair Winter]

So... you guys decided you want my thread moved to K-town?

Ok.

[Ultimax]

I'm at a point where I mostly don't even post anymore.

Many recent decisions by PGI have been some of the worst in terms of displaying just how completely out of touch they are with the current meta, out of touch with their own game, out of touch with what the community is talking about beyond the non-sycophants on twitter who praise literally everything from good changes to sharts.


We're not the only ones who need information, PGI needs information because its clear they have very little of the type of information they really need.

Edited by Ultimax, 11 August 2016 - 04:35 AM.

[Davers]

Maybe the mods can divide this into 3 threads, "state of the community", "no, you stop touching me",and "traffic law enforcement".

[carl kerensky]

Pilotasso, on 08 August 2016 - 01:20 PM, said:

This is like a pyramid scheme, eventually it bursts out in the face of those who invest the latest.
And I have feeling most have left already so, this is a bad time to invest.

PGI catered to COD likes who apparently represent the largest market share, but they were not he ones who were going to carry this game to he future. Wrong move PGI.

^^^ This a thousand times. If PGI had stuck to there original vision and plan this game would be flourishing. But if you cater to those twitch happy players who really couldnt give a crap if they were piloting a battlemech or a gundam as long as they could one shot with impunity you have a created a a game with no substance. All flash thats it.

[Bishop Steiner]

Peter2k, on 11 August 2016 - 12:26 AM, said:

HBS said in the promo video of the pre Alpha that they actually have melee in
But it was still too buggy and deactivated it in the pre alpha

I didn't say they weren't. I said since there is no melee here, I MWO, that unless HBS stats making their own mech models we won't get the hatcherman

ThomasMarik, on 10 August 2016 - 11:49 PM, said:

What? I'm sorry. What isn't HBS going to have?



https://m.reddit.com..._battletech_by/

Melee combat isn't a modeling question. The models can already move like that. Hell I rember a few years ago someone had a dragon doing a dance routine in a video he put together.

Um. Not whay I said? Yes, HBS had or we'll have melee. MWO does not. Never will. Too lazy not I esport demand. Therefore, the people who are making the mech models for HBS? Ain't going to make a hatchetman or axman

[Alistair Winter]

Ultimax, on 11 August 2016 - 04:34 AM, said:

I'm at a point where I mostly don't even post anymore.
Many recent decisions by PGI have been some of the worst in terms of displaying just how completely out of touch they are with the current meta, out of touch with their own game, out of touch with what the community is talking about beyond the non-sycophants on twitter who praise literally everything from good changes to sharts.
We're not the only ones who need information, PGI needs information because its clear they have very little of the type of information they really need.

What decisions have displayed how out of touch they are, in your opinion?

Bishop Steiner, on 11 August 2016 - 05:15 AM, said:

I didn't say they weren't. I said since there is no melee here, I MWO, that unless HBS stats making their own mech models we won't get the hatcherman

I thought the use of MWO models was just temporary or for certain mechs, and HBS would eventually design all their own mech models. So Alex' designs will actually be in the final Battletech game?

[Mudhutwarrior]

carl kerensky, on 11 August 2016 - 04:55 AM, said:

^^^ This a thousand times. If PGI had stuck to there original vision and plan this game would be flourishing. But if you cater to those twitch happy players who really couldnt give a crap if they were piloting a battlemech or a gundam as long as they could one shot with impunity you have a created a a game with no substance. All flash thats it.

This... I think from the beginning Russ had e-sports in mind so he left the founders in the dirt and moved in line with the tryhards who think e-sports is the cats behind. If you look at it from the start till today you can clearly see this angle repeating again and again.

Russ killed the game himself. We the players, his staff, the media had no part in it. He is the captain of this Titanic except he will not go down with it. He will slither away and scam another group fixated on another game.

It all boils down to character. There is none here.

[Ultimax]

Alistair Winter, on 11 August 2016 - 05:33 AM, said:

What decisions have displayed how out of touch they are, in your opinion?

1) The entire planning and scheduling disaster that is MWOWC. They have a large pool of experienced tournament organizers who after years of trial and error know what does and what does not work well in a MWO tournament. They either didn't consult them or didn't listen - likely out of hubris.

2) The travesty that was the re-design and release of the minimap. Once again, they either listened to the wrong crowd (likely sycophantic "testers" who tell them everything is awesome) - or they didn't think this required feedback from the playerbase (again, hubris). The true comedy was how Russ told us they wouldn't roll it back or change it right away and...we had an emergency patch within a week because it was really that truly and utterly awful.

3) The re-scaling. How long has it been now since they basically hammer-nerfed a bunch of mechs for no good reason? Where are those buffs they said they'd do once they saw mechs were negatively affected by this? How can you, as a developer, continually state you dislike the current speed of TTK and then make a drastic change to nearly all mechs that reduces their survivability and then not even follow through with buffs to off-set it? What's worse THEY REDUCED structure buffs without even seeing how it would play out.

4) The FW changes, and lack of changes. I don't even play this mode, and even I can see it has been terribly managed from the get-go. If I managed a single project of this importance, this badly, over the course of nearly two years I would have lost my job. Not PGI, they just keep on trucking and let the designer(s) of this mode continue to prove their inability to make it fun and rewarding.



The next bomb will likely be "Energy Draw", which is basically code for "Making the game safer for the lowest common denominator". (along with making everything bigger by the way, now those scary evil lights are easier to hit, all mechs are even easier to hit - which is saying something for an FPS where targets are already big, and slow - less damage & bigger targets > guess who these changes are for?)

Edited by Ultimax, 11 August 2016 - 06:01 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

Mudhutwarrior, on 11 August 2016 - 05:39 AM, said:

This... I think from the beginning Russ had e-sports in mind so he left the founders in the dirt and moved in line with the tryhards who think e-sports is the cats behind. If you look at it from the start till today you can clearly see this angle repeating again and again.
Russ killed the game himself. We the players, his staff, the media had no part in it. He is the captain of this Titanic except he will not go down with it. He will slither away and scam another group fixated on another game.
It all boils down to character. There is none here.

To be honest, a lot of us called for Solaris very early on, including myself. Because MWO was always one step away from being an arena shooter anyway, and it would probably have been better to divide the playerbase into competitive esport players and Battletech fans. But ironically, the divide between FP and QP really blurred the lines and left neither side with a clear place to go, because a lot of the competitive players drifted over to FP in order to make a name for themselves and enjoy competing with rival factions, whereas a lot of the Battletech fans drifted over to QP because neither place had any kind of deep, lore-related, objective-based gameplay they were looking for anyway, and at least QP didn't involve hours of waiting for opponents, dropping against turrets, etc. At least in QP you can turn off VOIP, turn on the MW2 soundtrack, squint a little and pretend you're playing a Battletech game.

If PGI had made a clear decision in 2013 to separate the "are you even comp, bro" Solaris arena shooter from the Battletech Experience ™, I think it would have been easier to please these major sub-groups of MWO players.

Also, keep in mind that Russ specifically designed the Invasion game mode so that everyone could "just brawl inside the base", presumably in an attempt to make things fun for the casual players. But this disaster could have been averted if FP wasn't aimed at the casual player. Maybe if the casual player was drawn to Solaris quick matches, then faction play could have had some real depth.

In my opinion, PGI's implementation of CW / FP is the single greatest mistake they made with this game (not counting technical factors like game engine or economical decisions like teaming up with IGP or whatever)

[Alistair Winter]

Ultimax, on 11 August 2016 - 05:55 AM, said:

1) The entire planning and scheduling disaster that is MWOWC. They have a large pool of experienced tournament organizers who after years of trial and error know what does and what does not work well in a tournament. They either didn't consult them or didn't listen - likely out of hubris.

I haven't looked into it, but this sounds plausible.

Ultimax, on 11 August 2016 - 05:55 AM, said:

2) The travesty that was the re-design and release of the minimap. Once again, they either listened to the wrong crowd (likely sycophantic "testers" who tell them everything is awesome) - or they didn't think this required feedback from the playerbase (again, hubris). The true comedy was how Russ told us they wouldn't roll it back or change it right away and...we had an emergency patch within a week because it was really that truly and utterly awful.

I'm not upset about this, because the crisis was averted within a week. They usually let things sit for a month or two before responding. UI 2.0 comes to mind.

Ultimax, on 11 August 2016 - 05:55 AM, said:

3) The re-scaling. How long has it been now since they basically hammer-nerfed a bunch of mechs for no good reason? Where are those buffs they said they'd do once they saw mechs were negatively affected by this? How can you, as a developer, continually state you dislike the current speed of TTK and then make a drastic change to nearly all mechs that reduces their survivability and then not even follow through with buffs to off-set it? What's worse THEY REDUCED structure buffs without even seeing how it would play out.

Yeah, while I don't have a problem with the re-scaling, the lack of compensating buffs for light mechs was bad. For the first time in MWO history, there's actually kind of a consensus on the forum that light mechs need help. The "lights are OP" debate has gone on for 3 years, but now even the assault bros are starting to see the madness.

Ultimax, on 11 August 2016 - 05:55 AM, said:

4) The FW changes, and lack of changes. I don't even play this mode, and even I can see it has been terribly managed from the get-go. If I managed a single project of this importance, this badly, over the course of nearly two years I would have lost my job. Not PGI, they just keep on trucking and let the designer(s) of this mode continue to prove their inability to make it fun and rewarding.

Yeah, the roundtable happened 3 years too late. Not only has PGI been throwing good money after bad, they've also created the Herculean task of trying to create interest in a dead feature. Which most likely means they will throw even more good money after bad.

It's possible that FP will become popular again, but it's certainly not likely. But PGI is determined to make that money back, somehow. Seems like a bad call. On the other hand, I'm sure a whole bunch of players would quit over night if they just abandoned FP all together.

Ultimax, on 11 August 2016 - 05:55 AM, said:

The next bomb will likely be "Energy Draw", which is basically code for "Making the game safer for the lowest common denominator".

I actually support the general idea behind this, which is to make alpha strikes a less common tactic, because it was never that common in the lore. This is one of the few times PGI actually tries to base gameplay around TT and lore (if only they did the same with heat scale penalties), so I appreciate that.

It remains to be seen how they actually implement this though.

[Antares102]

Alistair Winter, on 11 August 2016 - 05:33 AM, said:

What decisions have displayed how out of touch they are, in your opinion?

• Minimap change aka Minimapocalypse
  
• Long Tom
  
• Mech packs as content
  
• No new maps
  
• KDK-3 release with quirks combined with UAC10 ghost heat issue
  
• Supply Caches not being random at all but predetermined
  
• Ghost Heat 2.0 planned to cap damage at 30 without mentioning sustained DPS issue
  
• FW roundtable at the core being "we keep Long Tom and reduce buckets"
  
• Tournament setup with 12 man teams no subsitute allowed (and the initially non-existant rules)
  
• Reducing mobility of many mechs therefore reducing ability to torso-twist which in turn reduced TTK

Edited by Antares102, 11 August 2016 - 06:13 AM.

[Antares102]

Ultimax, on 11 August 2016 - 05:55 AM, said:

The next bomb will likely be "Energy Draw", which is basically code for "Making the game safer for the lowest common denominator". (along with making everything bigger by the way, now those scary evil lights are easier to hit, all mechs are even easier to hit - which is saying something for an FPS where targets are already big, and slow - less damage & bigger targets > guess who these changes are for?)

100% ACC
Energy Draw will be another attempt to increase TTK which will end up in a Auto-Cannon festival after it is "stable"
because sustained DPS with alpha of 30 (if it stays that way) will be the new meta.
After this has settled in they will then nerf ACs because of the outcry of all those hardcore BT fan whales which STILL cannot stand in a group of mechs with their Atlas for 5 minutes without dying.

Edited by Antares102, 11 August 2016 - 06:11 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

Antares102, on 11 August 2016 - 06:05 AM, said:

• Minimap change aka Minimapocalypse

It was just bad for a week, it's fine now, so I think it's ok. Obviously a big mistake in the first place though.

Antares102, on 11 August 2016 - 06:05 AM, said:

• Long Tom

That was bad, but I hope they don't remove it from the game without trying to find solutions. They keep removing features instead of balancing them properly.

Antares102, on 11 August 2016 - 06:05 AM, said:

• Mech packs as content

Yeah, the front page is just showing new mech packs 90% of the time, which sucks. Nothing else to talk about these days.

Antares102, on 11 August 2016 - 06:05 AM, said:

• No new maps

Agreed. The "one new map every month!" promise didn't last too long.

Antares102, on 11 August 2016 - 06:05 AM, said:

• KDK-3 release with quirks and UAC10 ghost heat issue

That was bad!

Antares102, on 11 August 2016 - 06:05 AM, said:

• Supply Caches not being random at all but predetermined

Also bad, but some people are apparently spending money on it. <shrugs>

Antares102, on 11 August 2016 - 06:05 AM, said:

• Ghost Heat 2.0 planned to cap damage at 30 without mentioning sustained DPS issue

Remains to be seen how this plays out.

Antares102, on 11 August 2016 - 06:05 AM, said:

• FW roundtable at the core being "we keep Long Tom and reduce buckets"

Apparently it was just the first of many roundtables, and they're going to have the next one soon. We'll see if that turns out to be true.

Antares102, on 11 August 2016 - 06:05 AM, said:

• Tournament setup with 12 man teams no subsitute allowed (and the initially non-existant rules)

Didn't look into this, but like you said, it's bad if they didn't consult community members with experience.

Antares102, on 11 August 2016 - 06:05 AM, said:

• Reducing mobility of many mechs therefore reducing ability to torso-twist which in turn reduced TTK

For the heavy mechs, this is not a problem, in my opinion. Heavy mechs are, as a rule of thumb, the best mechs in MWO. Removing quirks from them is the right move, in my book. However, PGI isn't consistent in how they apply quirks, so they often miss the mark. The last round of quirks was really weird. Nerfing light mechs and the Centurion AL-variant. I don't even.

[Peter2k]

Bishop Steiner, on 11 August 2016 - 05:15 AM, said:

I didn't say they weren't. I said since there is no melee here, I MWO, that unless HBS stats making their own mech models we won't get the hatcherman



Um. Not whay I said? Yes, HBS had or we'll have melee. MWO does not. Never will. Too lazy not I esport demand. Therefore, the people who are making the mech models for HBS? Ain't going to make a hatchetman or axman

Ahh now I get what you wanted to say
Not about melee at all
No Hatchetman because HBS gets they're mech models from PGI

mmm
I don't know if HBS would go on a shopping spree to get more mech models we don't have in MWO
(getting them modelled from PGI)

There might be a chance depending how BT is doing/making money for HBS
I know I would continue to buy more add ons or whatever for BT
Compared to MWO also reasonably priced
50 bucks is like nothing in MWO compared to a whole game plus beta access in BT
Or what was it; 20/25 for lowest entry?

Something tells me Alex or the guys doing the mech modelling wouldn't go without a job for long if something happens ;-)

[Peter2k]

Alistair Winter, on 11 August 2016 - 06:18 AM, said:

[/list] It was just bad for a week, it's fine now, so I think it's ok. Obviously a big mistake in the first place though.

It even reduces trust in PGI's abilities, for me at least
Makes you wonder if there are actually people in quality control (which supposedly there are)
Or if someone even bothered to try out the patch before making it go live

It's like the first thing you'll noticed after dropping

makes me think someone dabbled with it for fun n trying it out (or maybe to see how it is), but forgot to take it out again

And again
Small issue really, but so obvious

[Robot Kenshiro]

Robot Kenshiro will be dead in MWO come May2017. And restarting his mech career in Battletech.

MWO. Great game. Great mechs. Total rubbish for content. Sell us mission packs PGI. Co op mission packs that start in the year 3025. I'm sure ppl would love it.