95 replies to this topic

[farout]

Hi

I am a silent lurker of this forum but the recently announced changes just did it for me to finally break my silence.

MWO is the only game I play. I used to love it and it was perfekt for when the kids were finally asleep to play a couple of hours. I dont feel the same anymore at all.

I really think that the devs are completely disconnected with the people who actually play this game. Everything they introduced or changed in the recent past made the game less fun to play.

Energy Draw and Info Warfare were just means to force you to fire less weapons or do less damage. Thank God it never made it to the life servers.
Engine decoupling invalidated a lot of mechs.
The Skill Tree forces you to spend SP on useless stuff, doesnt really have any real effect or enables you to armor up like crazy on certain mechs.

It seams like the devs want a game where you can stand out in the open and shrug of chain fired medium lasers for 10 minutes and not die.

They make the mechs slower and the weapons do less damage. Who exacly complained about dying to fast ? Instead of studying some stats they should play their own game more often. Instead of fixing ancient shortcomings of the game they open 10 cans of worms by adding a bunch of new weapon systems.

The new game modes are lame too. At least you can vote for skirmish or conquest but we cannot vote for the devs.

We can only vote with our wallets and sadly this is what i am gonna do.

Edited by farout, 20 June 2017 - 01:35 AM.

[Ced Riggs]

1,) As is demanded by all that is right and holy: Can I have your stuff?
2,) Yes. You are correct. Developers that don't grind out the game like players do are disconnected. Which is why developers should council with players. I am certain, the top teams would gladly provide feedback.
3,) Yes. Fun is getting curbed. What PGI seemingly does not understand is that mobility is equal to enjoyment. They are, from a cold and logical standpoint, nerfing mobility, but they don't seem to take into account that they are also reducing comfort.
4,) Survivability isn't a problem, it can be high - but only if you let people relocate to circumvent it. If you make even lore-known agile mechs slouches, if you take the main weaponry away from striker builds, you are slowing down the pace of the game - again, less fun.

So, all in all: Have a good one, mate. And I really wish PGI would start to consider what their nerfs do to the fun factor of their game. Why not buff the weaker mechs, why not fix the broken weapons, why not come around the corner and bring a buff to people?

I'd still take your stuff.

[Paigan]

That complaint is completely subjective.
The former "skills" were a pre-alpha placeholder at best. The actual skilltree might need some tweaking (what doesn't?), but it finally offers some more depth, choice and cutomization/optimization potential (in the sense of "more personally fitting", not just "better").
IS-Clan balance is still not pretty good, but not worse, either. The actual problem is that PGI tries to balance an asymmetrical system in a symmetrical fashion. Can not and never will work.

We're getting new equipment. New modes. More Mechs (even too much). Maps are lacking a bit. Population (= marketing) could be higher.
But all in all, it's at least the same fun, even more, to play.

Maybe you're just infected and manipulated from all the spite.
My advice: just play the game. Don't nag about the one damage value being lower or higher or not as you wanted it to be. I play a lot of ERLLs and now their cooldown will get significantly longer. But their durations also gets shorter and overall, the sustained damage (damage per heat) counts and that remains the same. So I'm still happy and make the best out of it.

Or don't play. But it remains just a subjective thing. Nothing substantial.

Edited by Paigan, 20 June 2017 - 05:41 AM.

[Scyther]

I hear your frustration OP and to some extent agree with the overall intent, if not the details.

Many people have posted that the skill tree has added fun back in to the game for them. Certainly I personally find it interesting to tinker with if not exactly 'fun'. If you are having trouble finding a way to make the skill tree 'have any real effect' there is a great thread by Bud Crue on how to set up skill trees for many different play styles:
https://mwomercs.com...t-with-winners/

Engine de-sync is more of a mixed bag IMO, there were some clear winners and losers, and the general idea is good (balancing mechs by adjusting their base stats). It seems to be more on the 'balance' side than the 'fun' side though.

Your survivability point is clear exaggeration. They are trying to make it, IMO, so you can survive a bad positioning error or a surprise encounter with enemy mechs for more than a second before getting cored. That's not quite 'shrugging off chain fire for 10 minutes'. Mechs still die fast to focused fire, and anyone beefing up their armor is sacrificing a significant chunk of points elsewhere to do so.

That said, I do think PGI needs to keep in mind the 'entertainment factor' when making large changes. MWO isn't a duty we have to show up for, it isn't the only game out there (for most of us), and while it's bread-and-butter for the devs, it is 'optional leisure time' for us.

If the entertainment value isn't there then those entertainment hours and entertainment dollars will be spent elsewhere.

[JC Daxion]

farout, on 20 June 2017 - 01:34 AM, said:

It seams like the devs want a game where you can stand out in the open and shrug of chain fired medium lasers for 10 minutes and not die.

It's almost as if they wan't brawling to be an option..

[PhoenixFire55]

farout, on 20 June 2017 - 01:34 AM, said:

Who exacly complained about dying to fast ?

Clueless bads did. And since clueless bads are PGI's target audience you come to a clear understanding why certain things are as they are.

[Ced Riggs]

PhoenixFire55, on 20 June 2017 - 02:34 AM, said:

Clueless bads did. And since clueless bads are PGI's target audience you come to a clear understanding why certain things are as they are.

Game needs to be balanced from the top. But, the tears about those consequences would be considerable.

[Shifty McSwift]

I think one of the major points of balancing comes down to the kinds of damage you can deal at varying ranges. The longer range your builds focus, the more trouble you will get into at close range versus builds focused on closer ranged weapons. Whether through dealing less direct damage or less DPS or wildly over spending heat to get your damage through.

Alpha damage and DPS have to be considered kind of separately here, as much like trying to fire long ranged weapons at close range is "wasteful", similarly high alpha damage bursts tend to severely overheat. DPS and TTK are inextricably linked like this, if you want DPS to have value you need decent TTK, and it needs to have value over just mass alpha spewing like that.

Not all weapons come down in damage at all either during a nerf, they may have their DPS reduced while retaining their alpha strike strength etc too, which, depending on the weapons capabilities, again, makes sense. Lasers took a direct damage hit mostly on the clan side, because they were so strangely highly set to begin with. Rather than buffing IS lasers to match and making new tech extremely high strength, they went with scaling back these already high numbers. That I have no complaints about, and I run an 11 energy 1 ballistic build as my main, so my bias is TOWARD laser vomit builds.

[PhoenixFire55]

Ced Riggs, on 20 June 2017 - 02:41 AM, said:

Game needs to be balanced from the top. But, the tears about those consequences would be considerable.

No, a game needs to be balanced, period. I.e. when "the top" uses all mechs and builds equally, and "the bottom" does the same.

That given you even want your game to be balanced. BT was always balanced by having an assymetric balance between IS and clans (i.e. 12 spheroids vs 5 clanners etc.). And mechs weren't born equal and weren't ever supposed to be equal, some were cheap but bad, others were good but expensive.

^That is how I think game should be balanced.
But then again, who cares about making "A BattleTech Game" when you have "A BattleTech Game" in your logo. Ain't nobody got time for dat.

Edited by PhoenixFire55, 20 June 2017 - 02:52 AM.

[xVLFBERHxT]

farout, on 20 June 2017 - 01:34 AM, said:

It seams like the devs want a game where you can stand out in the open and shrug of chain fired medium lasers for 10 minutes and not die.

That's exactly what I expect from a mech to mech battle. A time consuming, armor destroying fight!

Edited by xVLFBERHxT, 20 June 2017 - 02:52 AM.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Too many people on the forums complained about time to kill being too short for too long and this is where we are now, weapon damages reduced, UACs that jam all the time, SRMs and LRMs that spread all over, AMS further reducing missile damage, lasers with longer durations, gauss and ppcs with pitiful DPS, armor levels of mechs buffed to even higher amounts ontop of the already doubled values, twist speeds reduced to a crawl, slower speeds across the board.

It used to be that it took some skill to go and brawl with a mech, you'd have decent speeds but the enemy would have good firepower and durations and you'd try to twist the damage all over while he tries his best to hold the beam in place or to make his shots count. Now twist speeds are slow, armor is buffed, lasers are weaker for the most part, mechs move even slower, extreme range has been buffed while short and mid range have been nerfed, its lead to people seeing no point in going for a brawl when the superior option is to sit back at 700m lobbing ordinance at their opponent and occasionally wiggling the torso a little.

People don't even have to worry about lights coming up and flanking their long range builds now with small lasers made worthless while ERLLs got duration decreases, as if lights weren't already only good against things that had builds incapable of self defense.


Oh well, the game itself was getting less fun over time from me just being around too long anyway, too many comparisons from the good old days to the current. If anything maybe new tech will bring the time to kill levels back down again and lead to a time again where good positioning, good torso twisting, and a bit of sneaking can be the big game changers rather than 2 decent medium mech pilots dealing 500 damage each before one of them dies.

I guess the bads are finally able to survive a decent amount of time, but once you find people who know what they are doing its outrageous.

[PhoenixFire55]

xVLFBERHxT, on 20 June 2017 - 02:51 AM, said:

That's exactly what I expect from a mech to mech battle. A time consuming, armor destroying fight!

Thing is BT/MW ins't just some randome mech to mech battle. I always give a MW4 into video as an example ... take a note how long the MadDog survies under fire from 4 enemy mechs. Fully fresh prior, he is all but disabled 8 seconds after they started firing and destroyed 7 seconds later. Thats it, 15 seconds of a glorious fight.

[xVLFBERHxT]

PhoenixFire55, on 20 June 2017 - 02:58 AM, said:

Thing is BT/MW ins't just some randome mech to mech battle. I always give a MW4 into video as an example ... take a note how long the MadDog survies under fire from 4 enemy mechs. Fully fresh prior, he is all but disabled 8 seconds after they started firing and destroyed 7 seconds later. Thats it, 15 seconds of a glorious fight.

That´s... not what i expect from a mech to mech battle...

[Scyther]

Good luck surviving 15 seconds of focused fire in MWO.

Plus, intro videos aren't really the sort of thing you want to balance a shooter around.

[PhoenixFire55]

MadBadger, on 20 June 2017 - 03:04 AM, said:

Plus, intro videos aren't really the sort of thing you want to balance a shooter around.

You can have your random shooter balanced in whatever way you want. But if you claim you are making a game within an already established franchise then you simply have to follow the trend established by said franchise.

If this game was called PiranhaWarrior:Online "A RandomTech Game" we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

MadBadger, on 20 June 2017 - 03:04 AM, said:

Good luck surviving 15 seconds of focused fire in MWO.

MWO has pinpoint convergence. BT does not.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

PhoenixFire55, on 20 June 2017 - 02:58 AM, said:

Thing is BT/MW ins't just some randome mech to mech battle. I always give a MW4 into video as an example ... take a note how long the MadDog survies under fire from 4 enemy mechs. Fully fresh prior, he is all but disabled 8 seconds after they started firing and destroyed 7 seconds later. Thats it, 15 seconds of a glorious fight.

Too many people seem to forget that in battletech the mechs are really lightly armored weapons platforms for the most part. They carry huge and heavy weaponry, in many cases a single AC20 alone is heavier than the entire armor weight of most mechs. Many mechs carry more weight in guns than some lighter mechs weigh total. Most mechs consist mostly of guns strapped to a huge fusion reactor lightly coated with armor and are quite capable of destroying the other entirely in a couple volleys if the damage doesn't spread all over or miss.

[PhoenixFire55]

Dakota1000, on 20 June 2017 - 03:12 AM, said:

Too many people seem to forget that in battletech the mechs are really lightly armored weapons platforms for the most part. They carry huge and heavy weaponry, in many cases a single AC20 alone is heavier than the entire armor weight of most mechs. Many mechs carry more weight in guns than some lighter mechs weigh total. Most mechs consist mostly of guns strapped to a huge fusion reactor lightly coated with armor and are quite capable of destroying the other entirely in a couple volleys if the damage doesn't spread all over or miss.

Some but not all. And while MadDog is rather "some", it is easily compensated by lack of pinpoint convergence we have in MWO. If those Uziels and NovaCats had both pinpoint convergence from MWO and insta-damage from their ERLL from BT they'd simply one-shot CT that MadDog and move along ...

[Baulven]

Easy way to increase TTK would have been to double structure, double armor again, and then triple ammo. It would take considerable effort and focus to drop an enemy mech, which would make fights much more interesting.

[Shifty McSwift]

Baulven, on 20 June 2017 - 03:31 AM, said:

Easy way to increase TTK would have been to double structure, double armor again, and then triple ammo. It would take considerable effort and focus to drop an enemy mech, which would make fights much more interesting.

That is like the starting line to the powercreep national anthem >.<

[Alienized]

easy way to increase TTK is learn to play.



thats 17% of a XL med.
learn to torso twist, learn to move properly and use cover.

in fact, learn to survive and stop staring down mechs face first. i see that so many times and if i could, i would b**chslap them mechs with mine.