42 replies to this topic

[Zigmund Freud]

Please look at this 1 minute video i stumbled across on youtube
https://youtu.be/zWZBLA-Y8zg

How come, that in closed beta we had all the nice thing, and now the game became more shallow and plastic? (I played since open beta. I didn't see most of this stuff, so I'm not being nostalgic.)

So,

Knockdowns.
It's the difference between a mech and a regular tank with arms. Knockdowns give the feeling of actually piloting a giant robot. And make you watch where you're going. And stop those stupid leghumpers. Ok, people already kind of explained to me that it was messy, glitchy and abused. And Piggy simply decided that it's too complicated so they will not make it properly, and just cross out all accomplishment in this direction. Enjoy your walking boxes that can ram each other and leghump without slightest risk of falling.

Missiles.
Marvelous animation, swirling stream of missiles that leaves behind clouds of smoke and nice jet fire on the back of a rocket. Just look at these beautiful streaks and LRMs on the video (or any other closed beta video). How comes that now missiles look like giant d*ldoes that fly only straight, hardly leaving any smoke or fire?

Explosions.
Explosions of missiles that missed their target and hit the ground, explosions of mechs and components. Why in the love of gods it looked so much better and is so lame now?

Sound. I may be subjective on this one, but don't you think that sound of engine, rotating your torso, steps were way better? (maybe they were similar to sound in one of previous MW games?) Same goes for weapons, lasers and especially machine guns sound.

Edit: reading and watching old stuff I feel like adding more points
Inverse kinematics. Aligning legs with terrain they walk on, instead of going through or hanging in the air.

Representation of damages on the mech. quoting Bandito here

One would expect some progress in 4 bloody years, and yes, we did get some progress. But what's with unnecessary changes (sounds) and obvious degradation and dumbing down (everything else mentioned above)? Why did it happened, I really don't understand.

Edited by Zigmund Freud, 02 May 2017 - 09:09 AM.

[Coolant]

Only thing I see in that video that I like better are the knockdowns. Knockdowns would instantly bring OP lights into balance.

Other than that, I don't see any better graphics or effects that you don't see on Very High settings. If you mean the gritty look, that was removed because people complained about the grain.

[Bud Crue]

Knockdowns were removed because the mechanism was easily abused (see infamous Goons Heart Paul video).

Everything else you mention regarding graphics, etc. were toned down to make MWO more palatable to lower end rigs, and specifically lap tops. If interested you can google all this stuff and find the forum posts about all of it.

[Satan n stuff]

Coolant, on 02 May 2017 - 07:59 AM, said:

Only thing I see in that video that I like better are the knockdowns. Knockdowns would instantly bring OP lights into balance.

"OP lights" lol.

[Zigmund Freud]

Coolant, on 02 May 2017 - 07:59 AM, said:

Only thing I see in that video that I like better are the knockdowns. Knockdowns would instantly bring OP lights into balance.

Other than that, I don't see any better graphics or effects that you don't see on Very High settings. If you mean the gritty look, that was removed because people complained about the grain.

Misiles, explosions ets are very different, I play on high, checked youtube video with max settings, also different.

Lights are in no way OP. But yes, leghumping is stupid, and it would stop it without effecting any other parts of lights gameplay.

[Zigmund Freud]

Bud Crue, on 02 May 2017 - 08:00 AM, said:

Everything else you mention regarding graphics, etc. were toned down to make MWO more palatable to lower end rigs, and specifically lap tops. If interested you can google all this stuff and find the forum posts about all of it.

I kind of suspected it, but why could't they just make it changable in setting? laptop guys would play it like today, while people with PC could enjoy this glorious graphics. (ok, i'm heading to read 4 years old forum pages)

[El Bandito]

One thing the beta had better than now was how a mech's damage was shown outside. It really looked like mech inflicted damage. The barnacles PGI implemented instead later on, due to "technical limitations", was a big turnoff. Not to mention those barnacle effects too easily ruined any camo the mech might be sporting. There is simply no reason to have flashy camo nowadays, when a strafe from small laser can mess it up.

Edited by El Bandito, 02 May 2017 - 08:49 AM.

[Zigmund Freud]

Didn't find anything on the forum, but reddit got one topic
https://www.reddit.c...so_much_better/
There was some answears, but not all

I actually feel sad now. All this awesomeness was removed 3 bloody years ago. It means there is no hope of getting any of it back ever again. We're stuck with this lazyly made piece of guano, a mere shadow of game it used to be. Oh well.

Quote

In MWO most of the changes were due to optimization... The easy way.
The game used to look gorgeous, but it also ran like an ***. It still runs worse than it should on new high end components, but it used to run like 30 FPS on my (back then) quite beefy computer (i5-2500k and GTX 570). After a lot of optimization and removing all the cool eye candy, the game actually ran at 40-50 FPS with the same hardware. Still pretty bad but a lot better.

But there was that one patch in particular that changed the whole visual style of the game almost. I think that patch changed the version of the cryengine that they used AND it changed the lighting at the same time quite a lot. That's when the sort of sunny forest colony changed to the drab rainy one.

To add, there were a lot of things I absolutely loved in "old" MWO, and some things I wish would come back. Like legs aligning with the terrain, Ballistic weapons having a really cool tracer effect, missiles swirling a bit (although that was probably a bit overdone).


There's never been consensus about this sort of thing though, it's a valid opinion to hold that they always made the wrong decision about choosing to lower the effects. Yes, we know what the circumstances were, but it's still possible to mourn the loss.

There are also a lot of things that aren't explained by that too. Inverse kinematics (making mech feet align to terrain instead of floating above/clipping through it) didn't make it hard to see, but got the axe.

The sound effect, particle effect, and first and third person animations for internal ammo explosions got the axe for no well-explained reason and that wasn't a gameplay problem.

And for that matter, saying that the new effects are universally better isn't really true either. You can see in the older videos that LRMs didn't have any kind of real screen stun effect while still looking gorgeous, but now the default way to play LRMs is to chain groups of 5s and go for the stun.

[Ghogiel]

I just want to note that this is no HSR when lights emerged as the KDK3 of the era. KDK3, but a lot more powerful. You could 2 v 1 in the open against AS7s with no skill just chaining SSRMs

SSRMs were "garbage" because they mostly autohit and were CT seeking. They ended up being one of the few go to weapons until HSR dropped because gglol lag shield was so bad just doing any dmg was better than nothing, especially when that dmg was mostly CT.

skilltubes are kinda bad anyway.

Edited by Ghogiel, 02 May 2017 - 10:10 AM.

[MechaBattler]

I wish they would switch unreal4.

[Monkey Lover]

I love how the streaks were working. I really dont like now how they hit 100% of the time.
Smug on river city was nice too. Be cool to get this back every so often.

[Alistair Winter]

• River City looked better.
  
• Knockdowns added some much needed realism to this game.
  
• Collision damage, ditto.
  
• Good looking missile effects, explosions and sounds.
  
• Streaks didn't auto-hit.
  
• HUD was cleaner and simpler.
  
• RIP old minimaps.
  
• Baby playing in the background

[Zigmund Freud]

Ah, and of course in mech screens that were actually informative.

[Roughneck45]

The answer to pretty much all of those is optimization for crap computers.

Knockdowns were a big balance issue.

Inverse kinetics should be coming back at some point. Its been on their list for a while now.

Edited by Roughneck45, 02 May 2017 - 12:28 PM.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

I just don't see optimizations for bad computers as a proper excuse when they have multiple graphics levels.

[Karl Streiger]

usually i need to giggle when it comes to the point "optimisation" for crappie computers.

i play mwo on the same laptop then and now.... and believe it or not , the game had better performance then.

when i need to point out the "breaking" point i would suspect the HSR mechanic. instead of regional servers this mechanic was created.
Don't get me wrong this mechanic is overwhelming and i respect PGI for trying such an eager project.

[ocular tb]

Looks fun. I wish I had discovered this game sooner so I could have been a founder and been able to play during closed beta.

[ScrapIron Prime]

ocular tb, on 02 May 2017 - 12:59 PM, said:

Looks fun. I wish I had discovered this game sooner so I could have been a founder and been able to play during closed beta.

It was a hoot. we'd run in lances of Hunchbacks and Centurions and try not to trip over each other. Called it Stooge mechs. =)

[RedDragon]

ocular tb, on 02 May 2017 - 12:59 PM, said:

Looks fun. I wish I had discovered this game sooner so I could have been a founder and been able to play during closed beta.

Then you shouldn't watch this video from Closed Beta, or you might weep a bit (I do everytime, at least inside).

[Xetelian]

Knock downs are impossible to balance. No one likes to go prone and unable to fire back, just like stun mechanics in a anything, it becomes a cancer that makes for a not fun experience.

Missiles used to look very cool, on High settings they are still pretty, the way they launched before was awesome compared to now.

Inverse Kinematics are supposed to be coming.


Explosions that cover the screen in particle effects are a cancer, you'd know this if you ever tried to fight against a 6 UAC2 DWF that is macro firing. You are stun locked, you can't see anything. This is a bad thing and shouldn't happen. Parts of mechs exploding off when they are finished would be nice to have.