16 replies to this topic

[Alistair Winter]

Here's what I like about the MWO decals:

• There are a lot of lore-based decals, like Kell Hounds and Comstar and St. Ives Compact. For the most part, these look awesome and as PGI keeps adding more and more of these, I have a feeling a lot of old MW / BT fans will be happy.
  
• There are some cool MWO-specific decals, like the iconic Atlas skull, the Mercenary decal, the Missile Lock and the paper doll! Great stuff. Would be nice to see more of this.
  
• Decals are thematically grouped, which is cool.

Here's what I don't like:

• Many of them, particularly in the latest batch, have absolutely terrible readability. Readability basically means how easy a viewer can understand what he's looking at and make out the details, if there are any. A lot of the decals look like HD clipart that simply was never intended for this purpose. The details are too fine, it just looks noisy and messy, even in the Mechlab. From more than 100 meters away, you can't really tell what it's supposed to be. This is a huge problem for a lot of the decals.
  
  
  
  
  
  Sometimes you can't see what it's supposed to be at all. Sometimes you can sort of guess it by the silhouette, but the actual details just register as noise instead of being easy to read.
  
• We're missing the most obvious, simple elements to create unit decals. Just simple symbols like axes, swords, skulls, eyes, angel wings, horse heads, diamonds, hearts, clubs and spades, fully colored shields, fully coloured squares, fully colored circles.
  
  
  
  I know we have 3 different skull decals, but none of them are really the standard skull most people use as a symbol. We've got like 10 different high res, super fancy swords, but none of them are the typical iconic longsword with good readability. We've got 2 different eyes, but they're all high res clipart with veins and stuff. Why not keep it simple? It seems like the programmers let us put decals on top of each other, partially for the purpose of combining different decals to create unit badges. And then we got a bunch of clipart decals that aren't helpful for that at all. Give us some thing like this.
  
  
• We don't have any badges. Why wouldn't you let people buy these badges to put on their mechs? People would love them. I'd do at least Founder and Phoenix badges, and then maybe Resistance badges.
  
  
  
  
  
• We don't have any Project Phoenix decals. Why not?
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  We don't have letters and numbers. Now, dear PGI, if you're worried that someone would write v4gin4 on their mech and destroy the minds of children around the globe, just give us a little toggle in the menu, right next to the place where we can disable team chat and all chat. Let us disable decals. Then parents can protect their children from offensive words and decal decorations that resemble genitals and everyone is happy.
  
  Let us have letters and numbers on our mechs, please.

Edited by Alistair Winter, 24 August 2016 - 02:04 PM.

[JC Daxion]

With ya about the badges and such...


Not so much about the letters, I already get to see the creative names people call themselves, and what they name the mech.. I don't see any need for more "creative lettering" But maybe that is just me..


Numbers, sounds good though

[Alistair Winter]

JC Daxion, on 24 August 2016 - 01:52 PM, said:

With ya about the badges and such...


Not so much about the letters, I already get to see the creative names people call themselves, and what they name the mech.. I don't see any need for more "creative lettering" But maybe that is just me..


Numbers, sounds good though

What if someone uses the numbers to write 80085?

Spoiler

Edited by Alistair Winter, 24 August 2016 - 02:03 PM.

[Big Tin Man]

Alistair Winter, on 24 August 2016 - 01:55 PM, said:

What if someone uses the letters to write 80085?

Spoiler

I think some well placed pink eyeballs will harm a 11 year old boy's psyche more.

[Idealsuspect]

me i did buy only a smilet ( for hide some ugly stuffs on some mechs ), a outlined star ( inversed for being doom/666-friendly ) and maybe one triangle tips later ( for do some predator reticule )

But for 90% of decals well i dont like them coze what you did said and 95% of new decals i don't like them either.

[MoonUnitBeta]

+100 for the badges.
Forum Badges should be in the form of decals.. If you unlock a badge, you unlock the decal as well.

I'd be down for military badges of different ranks, in different themes for units to use.

[MATRAKA14]

Can we have the front horse skull of the Kell Hounds please?
Also maybe decals should not apply in the cockpit areas.

[jonfett]

Alistair Winter, on 24 August 2016 - 01:55 PM, said:

What if someone uses the numbers to write 80085?

Spoiler

Thanks for bringing a memory from my childhood back!

[El Bandito]

The 50 types of sword decals were definitely not needed, IMO. Most of the time they are too thin to make out whatever the heck they are suppose to be.

[AnTi90d]

I am happy that my Atlas looks like he drank way too much coffee..

El Bandito, on 24 August 2016 - 06:20 PM, said:

The 50 types of sword decals were definitely not needed, IMO. Most of the time they are too thin to make out whatever the heck they are suppose to be.

I'm pissed that they added all of these damn swords.. but they didn't add the burning sword needed for the most famous Kuritan paint scheme, the Sword of Light.

(Like 3/4 of all Kuritan armies you'll see, in tabletop BT, run SOL paint scheme.. if they're all red, they have a burning sword on their right leg and one on their back.. and a specifically colored Kuritan emblem on their left arm to signify which SOL squad they're with.. and the current Kuritan emblem is out-of-timeline for the SOL mechs.. we also need red/gold or red/silver or red/grey to be timeline accurate.. /rant.)

Edited by AnTi90d, 24 August 2016 - 06:28 PM.

[Mechwarrior1441491]

Also surprised why we don't have our banners as decals. Probably because we'd want them for free and they can't justify doing something like that.

[627]

Those swords made me scratch my head, too. Or some of the pets like the rats. Basically you have to apply those deckles with the max size to see what it is, but most mechs don't even have such big flat spots.

On top there's this little problem with the colorable decals. Those are high res and have 2 layers but you can only apply one color. For example the girl heads will get a slightly darker hair color but that looks only good with like 5 colors. There you'd need a second color channel for one decal but I doubt that will come soon.

Hoped for a good eye, too to be true, maybe like the one from the jester camo. That would be enough, the big eye is a bit... creepy.
On the other side, if you make that eye pink, you have your boobs, just find a round surface.

And for the children aspect... I don't think we need a toggle for decals. First you can report offensive mechs and second, if you train your little child to slay other people with gruesome weapons I doubt a little atlas dong will make it crazy. Or more crazy.

[Vellron2005]

If you ask me, I'm not really satisfied when it comes to decals. They could have been done sooooo much better and allowed for so much more creativity.. but no. PGI had to make them one-shot sticker pictures that cost as much MC as a descent warhorn. If you wanna get any more creative than a single sticker type, you have to spend enough MC to buy a mech, maybe even two.

Its ridiculous.

And even then, the choices are mostly pre-made sticker pictures. One can't get creative at all, even though all the tools are there.

If you wanna see some creative "sticker layering" take a look at any newer Need For Speed game after saaay, Underground 1 (Early 2000's I think). Especially the newer games like carbon, shift and newer.

You can play with basic shapes and color the entire surface model, and then stack layer upon layer, and could, theoretically, and in the MWO context, create your own cammo... But nooooo... Instead, give PGI 500 MC for an atlas face sticker that doesn't even fit on the atlas's face...

What a waste of potential..

[Juodas Varnas]

I've not logged on yet after the patch (only able to do that on weekends), but from what i've seen, the new decals (apart from the faction ones) aren't that great (to be honest, they either look too busy or just daft in general).

I'm quite disappointed to be honest. I think PGI instead should've gone with very simple geometrical shapes, that could be layered on top of each other to create your own crests and symbols. Also numbers and letters are definitely missing.

[NeoCodex]

Minimally viable product.

Russ to texture artist: we need more decals in the next patch.
Textrue guy: okay, I'll find some clipart and copy it into game, we'll have about 90 new decals next patch.
Russ: Great, players are going to love this!

Edited by NeoCodex, 25 August 2016 - 02:18 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

Vellron2005, on 25 August 2016 - 01:57 AM, said:

If you ask me, I'm not really satisfied when it comes to decals. They could have been done sooooo much better and allowed for so much more creativity.. but no. PGI had to make them one-shot sticker pictures that cost as much MC as a descent warhorn. If you wanna get any more creative than a single sticker type, you have to spend enough MC to buy a mech, maybe even two.
Its ridiculous.
And even then, the choices are mostly pre-made sticker pictures. One can't get creative at all, even though all the tools are there.

I imagine someone is going to say "You guys are too negative! It's impossible to please everyone!" but I actually feel this was a case of PGI picking a really weird direction for the decals.

http://mwomercs.com/media/concept

Look at Alex' old concept art. Basically all the decals on those mechs can be categorized into something the players would love:

• Stock phrases like "Assault Recon", "Lord's Light" or "Taste the Pain", that you can put anywhere. Even some mech specific stuff like "Death by Oriony" and "Hopping Mad" for the Orion and Grasshopper.
  
• Some non-English language, written with Japanese, Chinese or Arabic alphabets (whatever they're called)
  
• Lots of decals using very simple, standard symbols, like the classic skull and bones, checker patterns, basic geometric shapes, lightning bolts, etc.
  
• Letters and numbers, so you can assign a designation for every mech in your hangar, for example. Or a unit leader can assign designations to players in his unit. "Bob, you are B04. Carl, you are B02. Jonathan, you're A55."
  
• Some pre-made stickers, but notice the great readability on them. On this Zeus, you can see that tiger in the grass from a mile away, because of its clean design.
  http://mwomercs.com/...224-zeus-plated
  
• Some faction-specific decals. The samurai designs on this Kintaro are awesome. The samurai with mask and helmet in particular would almost make me switch factions just to put it on my mech.
  http://mwomercs.com/...ept/159-kintaro

[Paigan]

source



Too bad I only play clans.
But if I did play lostech, i'd use that.
Ah, good memories ...

Edited by Paigan, 25 August 2016 - 04:37 AM.