71 replies to this topic

[Bishop Steiner]

Dr Hobo, on 20 February 2017 - 10:52 AM, said:

That and far too many mechs that could be good can't do anything.

Want to do a build on your Raven 3L that isn't ECM ERLL sniping? Good luck.
Want to do something in your King Crab L that isn't boating UAC5s? Good luck.
Want to do something with the clans that isn't laser missile puke? Good luck.

It honestly feels like MWO has gotten too fast for it's own good.

I do admit,I still miss my slow as hell Doom Raven. The Huggin just doesn't scratch that itch.

actually, most of my builds are exactly the ones you say "good luck" to. I tried the Lightsaber Raven, got real bored and went back to super stock, and NARCing stuff with it. All of my KGC have AC20s in the arms, and I LOVE the UAC10, and my 3 favorite clan builds, (and my 2 most efficient/best) use UACs and LBX.

In fact, my top performing clan mechs are a 2xUAC10/1xUAC20 KDK3, and a UAC20/2xERPPC Warhawk. I also get a lot of mielage out of my stock Summoner Prime (no lasers, and only an LRM15 for missiles) and a Superstock Gargoyle Prime with 2xLB5x/2xSRM4.

Never going to mech the cover of "MetaMechs monthly" ( unless it's the how NOT to do things issue), but overall, seems to have worked out pretty well for me, at least.

[Dr Hobo]

Bishop Steiner, on 20 February 2017 - 10:53 AM, said:

Sure. Point is.... those same things those have been said...for almost 4 years, in these forums. And truth is.... while players do leave, we seem to keep a relatively constant level playing. Not a level to write home about, and honestly, stagnation is just slow death, but it's not like MWO has suffered a femoral laceration of players, since around early 2014, with Transverse, and even then, I think most of the bulk exodus had already occurred.

I'm by no means saying everything is great and wonderful. MWO needs to do SOMETHING to stay even semi relevant, which I suppose they hope MW5 will help with, and that the Skill Tree and New Tech expansions will tide things over... but both have every bit as much potential to blow up in their face, as to help the game.

I honestly haven't rested any hopes on MWO in over a year. My disconnect started end of 2015 when a hurricane ate my computer... and then became real in March 2016 with the lackadaisical attitude Russ and crew seemed to have ever since coming back from winter break. The last money I personally spent on this game was buying someone a PXH pack, back in April? of last year.

I got a little re-interested with the MechCOn announcements... but honestly, for me, the PTS and New Tech launches are largely make or break time... because I will have HBS's game to spend my time with if PGI does screw it up.


Maybe, at least long enough to decide if it's broke as heck or not.

But if it is, aside from maybe some Potato Farmers, I expect it to be a short return.

We had one exodus. I suspect that with the new changes that wont change anything(and especially if Russ is still against the free respec) I suspect that this very well may be the next Starseige Tribes.

Everything feels the same now. Mechs,maps,play styles,it's all the same every match,every time. MWO doesn't stand out anymore. Even Armored Core 4 was better. Heck,I would even rate ChromeHounds better than MWO right now(before it all went to BOAT ALL THE BIGGEST ARTY CANNONS)


I'm not holding my breath for MWO making something of itself to be good. I honestly gave up that hope when I saw how garbage the CW Beta 1/2 were. Sure I buy mechs that hit my nostalgia nerve,or something that looks fun. But now? I think the wallet is closed for good for MWO.

There's lots of games on the market,and lots of other publishers who are trying. PGI isn't one of them. Even with MechWarrior 5 Mercs I can see it's just gonna be single player MWO with bots.

[Dr Hobo]

Gas Guzzler, on 20 February 2017 - 10:57 AM, said:

Aside from the fact that you can also run Dual Gauss dual PPC on the King Crab, and Clans can basically do laser-missile puke, pure missile, pure laser, laser plus gauss, ER PPC plus Gauss, ER PPC plus UACs, pure ER PPC, pure UAC, and SRM + big LB extremely well, yeah you can only do one thing well per mech...

Honestly, yes its true that the Raven's niche in general is mid-long range poke, but isn't that what folks want? "Role" warfare? Ravens, aside from the Huginn, typically assume mid-long range trading roles. That's just what their combination of hardpoints, front profile, and side profile tend to promote.

I'd like for C3 to be a thing,to have command consoles be useful other than extremely minor buffs. I was just using the Raven as an example. A shame it can't boom raven anymore. Role warfare and garage battles could be fun(think of more like battlefield,or like the old mechwarrior titles where you could adjust fits in the match if you were dead)

Bishop Steiner, on 20 February 2017 - 10:58 AM, said:

actually, most of my builds are exactly the ones you say "good luck" to. I tried the Lightsaber Raven, got real bored and went back to super stock, and NARCing stuff with it. All of my KGC have AC20s in the arms, and I LOVE the UAC10, and my 3 favorite clan builds, (and my 2 most efficient/best) use UACs and LBX.

In fact, my top performing clan mechs are a 2xUAC10/1xUAC20 KDK3, and a UAC20/2xERPPC Warhawk. I also get a lot of mielage out of my stock Summoner Prime (no lasers, and only an LRM15 for missiles) and a Superstock Gargoyle Prime with 2xLB5x/2xSRM4.

Never going to mech the cover of "MetaMechs monthly" ( unless it's the how NOT to do things issue), but overall, seems to have worked out pretty well for me, at least.

I've been having a blast in my quad UAC 2 Hunchy,and my octo Ultra Violent. Even just the Champion Vindi is a ton of fun(it's fast enough to get out of trouble and has enough JJ to be mobile and it's one of my best avg mechs that isn't LRM puke)

I just turned the Cinder into a Prime because let's face it,the Adder is squishy. Picked up the Warrant for giggles because I had a friend who plays occasionally and all he runs is the Timby. I just can't find a build I like on it yet. The Triple ERPPC Hellby is fun. I hated my Warhammers. Too big,too slow,too quick to die(unless it was quad AC'd Widow)

The double barrel Shadowhawk is fun,but it's too slow,and it seems punishing to be stuck doing super stock speeds.

I rarely ever take out my Ravens and at one point I was known to run the Doom Raven. I thought the Urbs could fill that niche,but then,it just became spamming MGs and PLAS of various sizes(tho I did get 3rd in top damage a long time ago when I ran my UAC 5 MLAs build)

I still dredge out the old Founders Mechs.

I think I've seen maybe two or three Founders and one was a Hunchy that wasn't me the other two were Catapults. Kinda sad when you don't see those classics around anymore.

[Bishop Steiner]

Dr Hobo, on 20 February 2017 - 11:06 AM, said:

I'd like for C3 to be a thing,to have command consoles be useful other than extremely minor buffs. I was just using the Raven as an example. A shame it can't boom raven anymore. Role warfare and garage battles could be fun(think of more like battlefield,or like the old mechwarrior titles where you could adjust fits in the match if you were dead)




I've been having a blast in my quad UAC 2 Hunchy,and my octo Ultra Violent. Even just the Champion Vindi is a ton of fun(it's fast enough to get out of trouble and has enough JJ to be mobile and it's one of my best avg mechs that isn't LRM puke)

I just turned the Cinder into a Prime because let's face it,the Adder is squishy. Picked up the Warrant for giggles because I had a friend who plays occasionally and all he runs is the Timby. I just can't find a build I like on it yet. The Triple ERPPC Hellby is fun. I hated my Warhammers. Too big,too slow,too quick to die(unless it was quad AC'd Widow)

The double barrel Shadowhawk is fun,but it's too slow,and it seems punishing to be stuck doing super stock speeds.

I rarely ever take out my Ravens and at one point I was known to run the Doom Raven. I thought the Urbs could fill that niche,but then,it just became spamming MGs and PLAS of various sizes(tho I did get 3rd in top damage a long time ago when I ran my UAC 5 MLAs build)

I still dredge out the old Founders Mechs.

I think I've seen maybe two or three Founders and one was a Hunchy that wasn't me the other two were Catapults. Kinda sad when you don't see those classics around anymore.

My favorite VND (doesn't get run as much anymore, sadly) is still my 1AA. Set up to run about 11kph, 3-4 JJs, and armed with a simple 4 Mlasers and a aLRM15. Shouldn't work, and has it's share of weaknesses. Dusted it off and ran a handful of matches with it, and found it was still no real feat to break 500 dmg, 2-3 kills, if the team didn't just fall apart. Just a really irritating harasser build that seems to work pretty well for me.

[Dr Hobo]

Bishop Steiner, on 20 February 2017 - 11:11 AM, said:

My favorite VND (doesn't get run as much anymore, sadly) is still my 1AA. Set up to run about 11kph, 3-4 JJs, and armed with a simple 4 Mlasers and a aLRM15. Shouldn't work, and has it's share of weaknesses. Dusted it off and ran a handful of matches with it, and found it was still no real feat to break 500 dmg, 2-3 kills, if the team didn't just fall apart. Just a really irritating harasser build that seems to work pretty well for me.

I still run my Saint Ive's Blues. And I haven't seen one of those in ages. It's kinda funny when I take it out. It's one of those rare mechs that just never gets played anymore(kinda like the Cataphract is now,even MASC can't save it from the meta) The SIB is set up to be an SRM MPLAS brawler that is jolly good fun to chase scouts around with. A shame I can't get working police lights on the head. Would be great.

[Bishop Steiner]

Dr Hobo, on 20 February 2017 - 11:15 AM, said:

I still run my Saint Ive's Blues. And I haven't seen one of those in ages. It's kinda funny when I take it out. It's one of those rare mechs that just never gets played anymore(kinda like the Cataphract is now,even MASC can't save it from the meta) The SIB is set up to be an SRM MPLAS brawler that is jolly good fun to chase scouts around with. A shame I can't get working police lights on the head. Would be great.

Yup, my SIB still gets the occasional play. Heck, I have even seen some Trebuchets of late. Next thing you know, we'll be seeing Dodos, Tasmanian TIgers and Wooly Mammoths again.

[Dr Hobo]

Bishop Steiner, on 20 February 2017 - 11:17 AM, said:

Yup, my SIB still gets the occasional play. Heck, I have even seen some Trebuchets of late. Next thing you know, we'll be seeing Dodos, Tasmanian TIgers and Wooly Mammoths again.

I saw a Dragon the other day. First time in ages I had seen one. Made me want to get one again. Then I remembered the shoddy hit boxes on the shoulders and went nope.

Then I saw a coupe Founders. Even a bloody Wolverine was out! I thought the Founders had all but gone extinct.

I don't take out many of my formerly favorite mechs. Locusts aren't fun anymore,Ravens aren't fun,Urbanmechs even while they weren't a good mech(but a damn cheap one! and great on city defense in TT)they lost their fun too.

Guess it's back to the Hunchback. AC20 at 68 kph is good right? Hey wait up fatties! You're my armor!

[Bishop Steiner]

Dr Hobo, on 20 February 2017 - 11:23 AM, said:

I saw a Dragon the other day. First time in ages I had seen one. Made me want to get one again. Then I remembered the shoddy hit boxes on the shoulders and went nope.

Then I saw a coupe Founders. Even a bloody Wolverine was out! I thought the Founders had all but gone extinct.

I don't take out many of my formerly favorite mechs. Locusts aren't fun anymore,Ravens aren't fun,Urbanmechs even while they weren't a good mech(but a damn cheap one! and great on city defense in TT)they lost their fun too.

Guess it's back to the Hunchback. AC20 at 68 kph is good right? Hey wait up fatties! You're my armor!

I still play the HBK-4G(F) as my main mech. 225std, ac20, 3 MLasers. G2G. Also been using my (F) Cat a fair bit, with a std engine and doing pretty solid...not spectacular, but solid.

[Gas Guzzler]

Bishop Steiner, on 20 February 2017 - 11:11 AM, said:

Set up to run about 11kph, 3-4 JJs, and armed with a simple 4 Mlasers and a aLRM15.

I don't mean to go all "meta" on you or tell you how to build your mechs, but you should really consider going a little bit faster than 11 kph...

[Dr Hobo]

I play my 4GF as a super stock build. Just DHS,extra ammo,ams and tossing the right arm laser into the head. Works pretty good. I don't like fast hunchys unless it's a swayback. The microwave is pretty fun(6 MPLAS+3 MLAS and all the heatsinks). The Grid Iron was fun when the gauss rifle was faster,but it's collecting dust.

I run an almost super stock Cat F. Just Artemis,CC,ammo,AMS,DHS and a few other tid bits(dropped to 1 JJ).

[Gas Guzzler]

Dr Hobo, on 20 February 2017 - 11:06 AM, said:

I'd like for C3 to be a thing,to have command consoles be useful other than extremely minor buffs. I was just using the Raven as an example. A shame it can't boom raven anymore. Role warfare and garage battles could be fun(think of more like battlefield,or like the old mechwarrior titles where you could adjust fits in the match if you were dead)

Not really sure what function C3 would hold in this game... don't we essentially already have it for free?

Command console I agree, for 3 tons it would be great if it did something real useful. They had planned to buff it what 12 months ago? But it was delayed to put in some new functionality. Hmm...

[Dr Hobo]

Gas Guzzler, on 20 February 2017 - 11:29 AM, said:

Not really sure what function C3 would hold in this game... don't we essentially already have it for free?

Command console I agree, for 3 tons it would be great if it did something real useful. They had planned to buff it what 12 months ago? But it was delayed to put in some new functionality. Hmm...

Taking up 3 tons in my Cat F that I could use for more ammo? I guess. Or a bigger engine. Or a spare laser. I dunno.

C3 for free I honestly think isn't a great idea. Because then you have stuff like Crabs that were your cheapo command mechs(or Ravens) that lost what made them different from taking a Centurion or Hunchback.

Now they're just fast pulse boats.

[Dudeman3k]

Well, Using one of Russ's old statements on NGNG as my source - "Our steam users are about exactly 50% of the player base."

Currently, MWO is at a consistent, stagnate, 1,800 players via steam. if we multiply that by 2 (cause using the verbatim statement) that means MWO has a pretty predictable (active) player base of 3,600. which sounds about right.

Now, it's safe to say these 3,600 players are also the players that shell-out cash at any opportunity. so well say $40 for every mech pack. that is now 40*3,600 = $144,000, every mech pack period (we'll say at least 1 pack per quarter) so $144,00*4 = $576,000 a year.

$576k a year is a doable number for a small studio. The fact that they can keep the overhead cost under-control, and have already bought off IGP, means their survival-ability is actually pretty good.... but that is ultimately up to the players + competition.

As of now, the 3,600 active players have nowhere else to go... so it's pretty safe, until competition arrives. It will hit PGI hard to lose even 100 paying players, so as of a verdict, I will say PGI has a floating ship until another ship comes along.

[Bishop Steiner]

Gas Guzzler, on 20 February 2017 - 11:28 AM, said:

I don't mean to go all "meta" on you or tell you how to build your mechs, but you should really consider going a little bit faster than 11 kph...

Urbanmech has taught me that speed is a lie, and a crutch.

[Dr Hobo]

Bishop Steiner, on 20 February 2017 - 11:52 AM, said:

Urbanmech has taught me that speed is a lie, and a crutch.

Nobody expects the Doom Urbie to ***** slap them into the next week with a single AC20 shot to the nads.

[Bishop Steiner]

Dr Hobo, on 20 February 2017 - 11:29 AM, said:

I play my 4GF as a super stock build. Just DHS,extra ammo,ams and tossing the right arm laser into the head. Works pretty good. I don't like fast hunchys unless it's a swayback. The microwave is pretty fun(6 MPLAS+3 MLAS and all the heatsinks). The Grid Iron was fun when the gauss rifle was faster,but it's collecting dust.

I run an almost super stock Cat F. Just Artemis,CC,ammo,AMS,DHS and a few other tid bits(dropped to 1 JJ).

Well, I figure even though I like ammo more than most, I don't really need more than 5 tons, so any beyond that is wasted.
HBK-4G
been running it like that for 2+ years now, and can[t say I got any complaints.

Can't say I agree with the 250 builds... you just give up too much, for negligible gains in speed. I know some people only pack 3 tons of ammo... which is fine with significant secondary weapons... but when almost a third of your mass in tied up in one gun? FEED THE DANG THING! (mind you, 3 is fine for scouting). Seriously...that's....21 shots? 420 dmg max out of your main gun, then the rest is pew pew?

[Dr Hobo]

HBK-4G

Been so long since I linked to Smurfy,hopefully that works. But my build. Pretty basic tbh. I haven't changed it much.

VND-1AA

Pretty much what I've run on my AA for well,ever.

UM-R63

Probably my most enjoyable Trashcan build. Follow a slow fattie and cover him. Then again,since the Urbz is rare,they tend to get primaried first so that sucks too now I guess.

ULTRA VIOLENT

Probably my most fun build,same thing on the Clan Hunchy,just half the autocannons.

Edited by Dr Hobo, 20 February 2017 - 12:22 PM.

[Mystere]

cazidin, on 20 February 2017 - 07:42 AM, said:

Greetings MechWarriors. Today I have a simple question. Is MechWarrior Online actually losing players and if so, at what rate? Many anti-PGI ForumWarriors would loudly claim that we're hemorrhaging players but what system can we use to objectively calculate how many active accounts we've had in the game's history up to now?

Bring back the player counter.

War Thunder had over 75,000 playing concurrently Saturday night! Does MWO even reach 1/10th of that? I most certainly never saw it go 7500 when the counter still displayed.

[Bishop Steiner]

Dr Hobo, on 20 February 2017 - 12:17 PM, said:

HBK-4G

Been so long since I linked to Smurfy,hopefully that works. But my build. Pretty basic tbh. I haven't changed it much.

VND-1AA

Pretty much what I've run on my AA for well,ever.

UM-R63

Probably my most enjoyable Trashcan build. Follow a slow fattie and cover him. Then again,since the Urbz is rare,they tend to get primaried first so that sucks too now I guess.

ULTRA VIOLENT

Probably my most fun build,same thing on the Clan Hunchy,just half the autocannons.

Yeah, I generally don't get a lot of mileage out of AMS, tend to be more about being sneaky sneaky and using cover to flank.... and then getting where I can drop AC20 bombs unseen from behind. Works real well when I leg stuff, since they have no clue most of the time where the shot came from, if you time it to when they are taking return fire.

I like my HBK because it absolutely is like being a baseball pitcher.. a mental chess match between you and the other guy.... to see who really is the hunter. My favorite match for that was one with MeiSooHaityoo on I believe the OpFor... and I snuck off to flank (playing solo) ..we were on Canyon, and the Opfor set up on Theta and the Ramp, and my team was largely on the opposing ridge. I climbed up near the satellite tower behind, and popped a few nice ones. At one point a DWF noticed and broke off to hunt me down. I dropped down into the gully, hung a hard right, found a depression in the rock and made myself as flat as possible. The DWF dropped down looked about and decided I went right toward my own lines. SO once he committed I popped out and dropped a few more ac20s into his back. Being a typical tryhard build, no back armor to speak of, pop goes the ST....guy tries to turn around and I just drill out his CT with hot, sweet ac20 love.

Dude spent the rest of the match screaming and cussing me as a cowardly cheat over the chat box, and apparently in VOIP, while I return to my previous location, snipe some more, and then realizing my team was decimated went full rambo and cleaned up the rest of the OpFor. End of the match, I had half a mech, no right side, 700ish damage, about 6 kills, and a victory.

Whereas if I had camped with my team, the range would have made me totally useless the whole match.

As for Urbies, while my 4MG/1LPL/!ML Deputy UMR-60 is my primary, probably my favorite is this one
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...c719a4da001fdc3
Which stays true to the spirit of URbielightenment.

Had a fabulous match, even though it ended with a loss, where even after my team died, I got to solo kill 3 Assault mechs in Mining Colony, while skirting rooftops and avoiding detection, and jsut popping ac10 shots into backs until I ran out of ammo.

and this is still my favorite VND
VND-1AA

One of the few times I went totally counter to the role and quirks, etc.... (My 1R is my dual 2xPPC/3xML poptart)

Was bored, looking for something to do, and it jsut clicked. I combined it with my SIB to take I believe 3rd on the VND Leaderboards, in only 8 hours of play.

Though my best VND match was in my SIB, on Frozen. Got cored out early, due to zigging when I should have zagged... and was running around, I believe with 2xLPL/1xMPL/2xSRM4...... taking potshots.... and... the team just folds. It's literally me, and 6 opfor spread out on (old) frozen. My teammates start bitching that if I had a real mech maybe we could win, and that I should just run out and die, and a few even started given away my location. I stayed mobile, used cover, spread them out, and picked them off, coming out with the win and 6 kills, 700ish damage.... and a lot of suddenly very quiet teammates.
(This was during the tourney).

So yeah.. I tend to think that the VND gets a bad rap. It's not a great robot... but if you understand it, it can be a very situationally good robot. What it can't do, is stand up to a concerted overrun. It tends to run too hot for that.

[Clanner Scum]

I'm sure that once the new tech is released along with the new mechpack business model more people will come rolling in. My brother and many of our friends who've played mechwarrior over the years aren't playing, not because the game is bad, but because it's too expensive. That's what my gaming buddies say about the game. They love the game, and think it's awesome, but won't play because it's too expensive.