61 replies to this topic

[Bud Crue]

LordNothing, on 25 June 2017 - 12:13 PM, said:

none of these things are enough to make me open my wallet, i will apparently open it for blinkenlights.

i think this is the wrong approach. getting people to buy things is easy. getting people to buy things and feel like they haven't wasted their money, thats hard. maybe if the game was awesomer and the devs would stop chasing the low hanging fruit. actually do something that wows me. make the best game ever and stop playing to the lowest common denominator. when i bought a mech pack, waited four months for it, and end up wishing i had just bought beer instead. if i didnt feel that way, maybe id want to buy another.

That about sums it up for me too. I wish this game gave me as much satisfaction for a $20 purchase as I get from a 4-6 pack of a really good Russian Imperial Ale or a really nasty Stout. But I am more than happy to throw money at my local brewers as they at least to pretend to be interested in my critiques and suggestions. They seem genuinely excited when they manage to provide me with a product that I enjoy (yes, that I enjoy...not them...me. They make the product for ME). They are always open to try new things. Etc. And for those reasons I am happy to throw a $50-$80 bucks at them...weekly. They have excitement and want to share that excitement and are only happy if their customers are happy and excited about their products. PGI on the other hand treats me and my fellows as if we are nothing more than a burden to be overcome. Its hard to get excited about spending money on their product when they exhibit an attitude of near hostility toward their customers and utter indifference to developing their product beyond the video game equivalent of a weak pilsner.

Still...the flashing lights sure help; not to mention good looking camo patterns.

[Aeron the Titan]

I think the big problem is the lack of purpose to purchase more mechs. Sure, you buy a mech, you skill it out and then what? Play more quick play and rinse and repeat to earn more C Bills to do the same thing again. Yes, you have Faction Play (or whatever it's called these days), but that's been a fiasco and consigned to minority organised groups. Its not going anywhere. The big attraction to MWO is the ability to get on, have a quick game and a blast when the opportunity presents itself. People have lives off the computer and not tied to it 24 7.

For me, it really is a lack of the end game. I have 108 full mech bays, each mech with 91 skill points. Do I really need more mechs? Outside of organising my life around FP, do these mechs serve any other purpose than to make more C Bills to buy more mechs? Will the timeline advance change anything? Nope, probably not. Cynically, I just see it a marketing opportunity to sell more mechs with bigger weapons and bigger explosions. Just more and more meta mech builds. But overall, the game is still the same, if not worse.

Did PGI miss an opportunity? Hell yes. They should have used the Battletech lore to create an environment where every participant plays a part in it. All they had to do, was divide the single play matches along Inner Sphere and Clan factional lines and feed the match results into that neat galaxy map they have for FP. Do the same thing for group play, giving those participants much greater rewards, ability to choose planets as in FP and a say in the direction of their factions campaign. Could also work out some minor impact on the map (outside the main faction territory) for those players not aligned with any faction.

Sadly none of this will ever come to pass. The developers don't read the forums. They communicate on Twitter and the "minimal viable product plan" is set in concrete. I'd also rate the fabled MW5 at zero. If they can't get MWO beyond what we see after five years, then they have buckley's chance of getting it right in anything else related to Battletech.

[Athom83]

Ruar, on 24 June 2017 - 09:08 AM, said:

1. Make maps feel fresh. I don't mean add new maps immediately. I mean change spawn points, get rid of voting for maps and have a hard coded rotation, change some boundary lines on the big maps to make smaller maps (like using just the west side of Polar instead of the whole thing), and introduce some kind of player competition for map design (even if it's just 2d maps to build upon).

They have been doing that. Didn't you notice the change to HPG and the touchups of many maps this last update?

Ruar, on 24 June 2017 - 09:08 AM, said:

2. Fixing the quirk system has to be the priority. If a mech is released with quirks then it needs to keep similar quirks throughout it's life. The ST should not cause quirks to be removed, just reduced. Do a comprehensive pass on all mechs and all quirks and fix them. Then leave them alone as much as possible. Quirks are part of the selling point for mechs and you can't just treat them as easy to adjust balance points.

Balance always shifts. A small change to a base value can make a currently OK quirk possibly OP. You are misunderstanding the purpose of quirks.

Ruar, on 24 June 2017 - 09:08 AM, said:

3. The Skill Tree design has to be changed. This should be the baseline starting point and adjustments made once it looks like this.

No. Flat out no. I've seen that proposal many times and I've stated my problems with it months ago.

Ruar, on 24 June 2017 - 09:08 AM, said:

4. Change how mechs are sold. Sell mechs individually with a small discount for buying three and a bigger discount for buying five. Camo packs, decal packs, color packs, cockpit item packs, etc. to stop forcing MC as the only option and put some deals up for cash. Early adopters should get premium time, unique camo/decal. Late adopters just get some premium time. Post release you just get the mechs.

Actually, you are paying a discount when buying in the 3 pack currently. Not only do you also get additional free items, but they are more expensive when buying all of them with MC when they are released.

Ruar, on 24 June 2017 - 09:08 AM, said:

5. Start using the forums to communicate with the players and listen to their feedback. Twitter and Twitch can not be the primary means of communication. Get on the forums, ask questions, talk about planned changes, run some polls. Be freaking active on your own freaking forums.

They have been. The recent Townhall stream was answering a ****ton of questions from the forums, and staff do regularly visit here. Just because they don't post doesn't mean they aren't here.

[Brain Cancer]

MWO at this point would qualify as a "fixer upper", given it's ever increasing coding issues that apparently are beyond the ability of PGI to amend.

I don't think PGI would sell until the game collapses completely, however. And they are very good at staving that off.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

By PGI you buy a Lot of great Cars ,and have only the Villagestreet to driving

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 26 June 2017 - 06:16 AM.

[Metus regem]

El Bandito, on 24 June 2017 - 03:17 PM, said:

Giving every planet its lore based description in CW would go some way of opening my wallet.

Making CW meaningful and actually fun to play would go a long way with me....

[Athom83]

FatDaddyIQuit, on 26 June 2017 - 10:58 AM, said:

The skill tree killed it for me. All the time I spent earning the upgrades to my mechs went poof and all I got was a bunch of different kinds of SP and an absolute cluster of hexagons that make tiny percentage changes to choices I already made; in some cases years ago. They threw away all the choices I had already made and threw the time, cbills, and MC into an SP garbage compacter. It's a ridiculous implementation of a crappy UI and lousy tree that players provided plenty of constructive feedback on that was ignored like so much other feedback over the years.

Choices such as; In what order to get the exact same skills for every mech? Buy Radar Derp or Seismic first? What weapon to boat? Yes... quite "fun".

FatDaddyIQuit, on 26 June 2017 - 10:58 AM, said:

Click your stupid hexagons and pilot your gimped robots. If you're having fun I'm happy for you. It's not fun for me with the skill tree boondoggle. Give me my progress back and I'll spend enough MC to change my name back and play the game again. Any change other than that and not another dime.

The thing you aren't realizing is, your progress for your mechs are saved. In fact, you get more effect to work with than the old system. You can literally skill your mechs with 50-60 nodes to have the exact same effect as the previous system, with 30-40 more nodes to have additional effect.

[Mechwarrior4670152]

Athom83, on 26 June 2017 - 06:58 PM, said:

The thing you aren't realizing is, your progress for your mechs are saved. In fact, you get more effect to work with than the old system. You can literally skill your mechs with 50-60 nodes to have the exact same effect as the previous system, with 30-40 more nodes to have additional effect.

SHHH!

You cannot TELL them that!
That means they actually have to THINK!
That means they cannot just WHINE!

[Ruar]

Athom83, on 26 June 2017 - 06:58 PM, said:

Choices such as; In what order to get the exact same skills for every mech? Buy Radar Derp or Seismic first? What weapon to boat? Yes... quite "fun".

The thing you aren't realizing is, your progress for your mechs are saved. In fact, you get more effect to work with than the old system. You can literally skill your mechs with 50-60 nodes to have the exact same effect as the previous system, with 30-40 more nodes to have additional effect.

Actually, you can't achieve what you had previously. Heat alone is less efficient even if you get all of the firepower and operations nodes.

However, in the main you can get back most of what we once had, and I honestly prefer having the choices over hunting for my modules. They just made a massive mistake by creating such an inefficient, convoluted, and painful to use tree design.

[Dingo Battler]

Instead of getting constantly reamed by PGI, and waiting for months for changes that come out in the exact way you hate it, praying for changes, just try other games.

I just bought overwatch for $40. Was every single thing I wanted in a game. Thinking, excitement and skill, without the long matchup times, and the super large maps with 5 minutes of NASCAR before engagement.

I tried warthunder after MWO, and its more of the same, but different, all the newest stuff being the best, old stuff nerfed to the ground, lots of misbalancing in an attempt to maximise sales while being fair, lots of developer arrogance.

Overwatch blew my mind. Keep in mind this is the biggest game developer from what is widely considered the oldest and best studio in the world, and they still humbly listen to their fans, and regularly reverse buffs and nerfs. Meanwhile, MWO has the arrogance to balance everything randomly and insults its playerbase for complaining.

Last week, I was still waiting for the skill maze to be reversed, while I sulked and unhappily grinded in warthunder. Then I bought overwatch and it was like a veil lifted from my eyes - the F2P model doesn't work. I wasted more than $250 on this game, but that will be the last $250 I'll ever spent in any F2P game.

[GenghisJr]

Advertise to get new players with new wallets. Selling new stuff to the same player base is a declining sales model, try selling the old stuff to new players - much better business model.

[SQW]

Sell the MWO IP to HBS first then we can talk about my wallet.

[MrMadguy]

In my case, only 3 steps are needed:
1) Fix matchmaker. If I get red down arrow in every single match - my rating HAS TO DROP and rapidly. Bias towards increasing causes really bad thing: if you want to have stable rating - you have to lose more, than win. And if you want to drop your rating - you should just go AFK in every single match. It's nonsense, sorry.
2) Fix maps/modes. Cover - is essential part of this game. You can't counter snipers and LRM boats without cover. Maps without cover - is easy mode for them. Fair 50/50 rotation would be great compromise, but we have exact 4 maps in every single voting - Polar, Frozen, City and just one more or less playable, but still crappy map, like Crimson or Plexus. It's nonsense too.
3) Fix balance. Assaults should be tanks, that aren't that easy to destroy. Heavies should be damage dealers. Mobility should be key to success for Mediums - not firepower. And Lights should be scouts, as intended. And what we have now? Assaults are useless pieces of crap. Heavies are so-so. Mediums have endurance of Assaults, firepower of Heavies and speed of Lights. And Lights are best brawlers in game due to being almost invulnerable, while having firepower of Mediums. This is nonsense, sorry. If you have some advantage, like speed, you have to sacrifice another, like armor or firepower. Having both - is being OP, sorry. And Clans have overall higher speed, range and firepower, than IS. This should be fixed too (some changes are already made, such as engine decoupling, that removed one of bigger engine advantages from Clans).

Edited by MrMadguy, 27 June 2017 - 12:01 AM.

[Kiiyor]

MrMadguy, on 26 June 2017 - 10:45 PM, said:

1) Fix matchmaker. If I get red down arrow in every single match - my rating HAS TO DROP and rapidly. Bias towards increasing causes really bad thing: if you want to have stable rating - you have to lose more, than win. And if you want to drop your rating - you should just go AFK in every single match. It's nonsense, sorry.

I agree. It's way to easy to maintain a high PSR simply through playing normally, and if you play enough games, your rating is pretty much guaranteed to increase, even if you're only breaking even with w/l. Getting to high tiers should feel like an achievement, not a guarantee.

MrMadguy, on 26 June 2017 - 10:45 PM, said:

And Lights should be scouts, as intended.

I would never play a light if it was just a scout, and I think you'd find that the already low population of lights would dwindle to nothing if that's the role they were shoehorned into (except for the battletech roleplaying purists that can handle being one shot 2 minutes into a match and then spectating for the rest of it). Mediums can do the job of any scout just as well, if not better. So can heavies.

Despite all the claims of lights being OP, they are really only OP when you compare them to their intended role in battletech lore. In MWO, they're high risk, high work, not always high reward. You can't turn your brain off like you can in a heavy or assault.

Lights have to be competitive, and a worthwhile addition to a team - and that means being able to do damage and justify their slot in a company. All the scouting in the world is useless if you can't actually kill the enemy - and if lights were indeed scouts, i'd be disappointed each time I saw one drop on my team, because it would mean that everyone else would have to work harder to kill the enemy.

Edited by Kiiyor, 26 June 2017 - 11:17 PM.

[Alan Davion]

GenghisJr, on 26 June 2017 - 09:50 PM, said:

Advertise to get new players with new wallets. Selling new stuff to the same player base is a declining sales model, try selling the old stuff to new players - much better business model.

Except all the old stuff is available to new players, problem is the new players, the few that we get, are unlikely to drop $240 to get all the Clan mechs from Wave 1, and a subsequent $240 on Waves 2 and 3.

And the last time PGI did try to sell some slightly older stuff to new players, i.e. the Project Phoenix mechs, was one of the few times the community really managed to cow PGI into backing down by screaming "MUH EXCLUSIVITY~!", as well as raging against some relatively minor nerfs to the Stormcrow and Timber Wolf at the time.

So unless PGI grows a nice fat pair between their legs and dares to sell the Phoenix mechs again, which risks alienating a section of their player base... But then they've never had much trouble alienating their players... You're on an island... You're cheapskates... Any of a dozen other insults... Then all they're going to sell is what's currently in the store.

[MrMadguy]

Kiiyor, on 26 June 2017 - 11:16 PM, said:

I would never play a light if it was just a scout, and I think you'd find that the already low population of lights would dwindle to nothing if that's the role they were shoehorned into (except for the battletech roleplaying purists that can handle being one shot 2 minutes into a match and then spectating for the rest of it). Mediums can do the job of any scout just as well, if not better. So can heavies.

Despite all the claims of lights being OP, they are really only OP when you compare them to their intended role in battletech lore. In MWO, they're high risk, high work, not always high reward. You can't turn your brain off like you can in a heavy or assault.

Lights have to be competitive, and a worthwhile addition to a team - and that means being able to do damage and justify their slot in a company. All the scouting in the world is useless if you can't actually kill the enemy - and if lights were indeed scouts, i'd be disappointed each time I saw one drop on my team, because it would mean that everyone else would have to work harder to kill the enemy.

I don't want to say, that they should be scouts only. But their ability to avoid damage should be balanced somehow. They aren't that fragile, as Light pilots claim. If they can live under fire of Assault 'Mech for, let's say, two minutes - they shouldn't be able to drill Assault's armor via just 3 shots. Lights aren't that hard to play, as Light pilots claim. They in fact have lowest skill cap in this game. Currently recipe of fun in Light 'Mechs is way too simple in comparison with other 'Mech classes - just pick something, that has ECM and JJs. Run around other 'Mech, spam JJs, do pew-pew - and you're ok, cuz broken convergence, when you're in air, and turn ranges of other 'Mech - are your best friends. Or boat ER lasers and play PokeWarrior Online, cuz enemies won't be able to either close distance or manage to hit you from such long range. You don't have to care about many things, like positioning, situational awareness, cover, range, routing, aiming and many other things. You just run around and pew-pew. And for other 'Mech classes things are much more complex and depend on many factors.

P.S. Light population is low? Lol. That's why two days ago at midnight both teams had half of 'Mechs being Lights, while one could have expected completely opposite situation at such late hours.

Edited by MrMadguy, 26 June 2017 - 11:44 PM.

[Vellron2005]

My wallet opens maaaaybe once a month, only to buy the cheapest MC pack.. and I use said MC only for Mech Bays and decals, and a few paints on sale now and then..

The most expensive thing I've ever bought was a 3rd invasion dropdeck for Tukk3 and the Pirate's Bane hero when it was on sale..

I never buy mech packs cose' they cost like AAA videogames, and that's the equivalent of a week's worth of lunch for me..

[Kiiyor]

MrMadguy, on 26 June 2017 - 11:37 PM, said:

I don't want to say, that they should be scouts only. But their ability to avoid damage should be balanced somehow. They aren't that fragile, as Light pilots claim. If they can live under fire of Assault 'Mech for, let's say, two minutes - they shouldn't be able to drill Assault's armor via just 3 shots. Lights aren't that hard to play, as Light pilots claim. They in fact have lowest skill cap in this game. Currently recipe of fun in Light 'Mechs is way too simple in comparison with other 'Mech classes - just pick something, that has ECM and JJs. Run around other 'Mech, spam JJs, do pew-pew - and you're ok, cuz broken convergence, when you're in air, and turn ranges of other 'Mech - are your best friends. Or boat ER lasers and play PokeWarrior Online, cuz enemies won't be able to either close distance or manage to hit you from such long range. You don't have to care about many things, like positioning, situational awareness, cover, range, routing, aiming and many other things. You just run around and pew-pew. And for other 'Mech classes things are much more complex and depend on many factors.

P.S. Light population is low? Lol. That's why two days ago at midnight both teams had half of 'Mechs being Lights, while one could have expected completely opposite situation at such late hours.

The light population is only high due to the event. I've been running science on it for a while now.

The event... man, the event. It's been a blast. It's really showing the divide between dedicated light pilots, and people who had no idea how lights played and received rude awakenings. I've annihilated scores of new light players in this challenge (just look for the ones standing still), and i've been ripped apart by wolf packs too.

From this season's data, before the light event:

Lights were and are by far the lowest represented weight class.

I'm not the most dedicated light pilot (though I used to main Jenners way back), and i'm rusty, but I did dust off a few of my favorites for this challenge and managed to crack the top 300 in the leaderboards for match score, so I do sort have an idea of how they play - and i'm yet to see or approach the invincibility you mention.

Light viability also decreases dramatically at higher level play. One volley from a NightGyr who knows how to aim, and you're out of the fight, if not dead outright. Do you regularly run lights? I'm not having a go, I just couldn't find you on the leader boards.

Every now and again you'll see a commando in the water on river city that can tank ridiculous damage, but generally, when people complain about lights being invincible, they're running laser vomit builds and not understanding just how easy it is to miss and spread damage. or firing LRM's, not realizing that you can fit 2 whole arctic cheetahs in the beaten zone for an ALRM20 and still not have them catch all the missiles.

I wonder how many people that have never piloted lights will still be claiming they're overpowered - now, with a little experience, I bet there will be a whole lot less people using "I don't do well because i'm just not a light pilot" as a reason to try and claim they are qualified to talk about light balance.

[DGTLDaemon]

TBH, the one major step that would make me at least consider opening my wallet would be regional pricing. Right now the prices in this game are clearly targeted at the North American/Western European population, leaving people from other, less affluent regions of the world no choice but to use the F2P model and grind their way through the game. As an illustration, according to our government statistics, the average monthly income in my country for April 2017 was equivalent to ~$256 (for you Americans - that's 3,072 bucks a year, as I know you like thinking in terms of annual income ). So even a single basic mechpack represents a significant portion of monthly earnings for someone from my part of the world. I think regional pricing would go a long way towards attracting new paying customers outside the North America and Western Europe, although I realize that some people may consider it unfair.

[Mechwarrior4670152]

FatDaddyIQuit, on 27 June 2017 - 05:48 AM, said:

I suggest you use your condescension to check your prostate.

i would suggest you actually start looking around you and using what little brain-cells you have shown yourself to posses.

But that would be rude, so instead I suggest you take a close look at the fact that your statement (by the very fact that you USED it) applies just as much to yourself as it does to me

And yes, I am condescending, but it is rather overly easy to be so when dealing with people screaming to the world about how proud they are that they still require diapers.