2
So after having a 6 month break from MWO, I have returned after the Civil War update to hopefully find a new immersive game, unfortunately the below is actually what I have observed since by return.
Where appropriate I have made a few quick suggestions on how to fix/resolve some of the glaring issues. Please remember that these are my observations and are subject to my point of view. You can disagree with all or some of the below which is fine.
A little bit of background before I continue, this is so the readers / PGI know what these views are based on. I have played MWO since beta, with a few periods of absence. I have spent well over £1000 on this game in that time, I'm not a whale but I have spent a considerable about of money on this game. I have played in many of the top teams for RHoD and MRBC. I play both Quick Play and Faction Play. My favorite 'mech types are medium and heavy, I dislike both the light and assault 'mechs for either lack of firepower or lack of survive-ability. Therefore all but a handful of my 'mechs are within the 40 > 75 tonne weight limits. This is true of both Clan and IS. I have a total of 38 hero/special mechs with a +30% C-bill bonus.
Balance:
Balance is not bad at the moment on a tonne-for-tonne basis, of course there are some out liers both on Clan and IS, in all weight categories but overall it's not too bad. The issue is now that IS has 265 tonnes vs 240 tonnes on Clan for FW, even up the tonnage and see what happens, which according to Russ's Twitter is going to be happening at least to an extent. *Cough* 2 years of Clan OP, vs 2 weeks of IS OP *Cough*
TTK:
Time-to-kill seems to have gone up (takes longer to kill) probably due to the new skill trees allowing mechs to get an additional 20% armor and 30% structure (approximately). This in my mind is a good thing as getting insta-killed in any game is boring.
PPFLD vs Brawl:
It's nice to see that PPFLD has been significantly reduced, likely due to the PPC/Gauss heat scaling penalty. This brings with it a much more mixed up game play at least in QP and FW (I have not played any competitive since my return).
Modules:
Before my absence, I was expecting 800+ million in refunded C-bills for my modules as the developers had stated
Quote
You will receive a full C-Bill refund for all Modules present in your inventory at the time of the February patch
So I, like many other purchased several hundred million C-bills worth of modules just to find on my return I have not received a refund I have actually been granted these additional skill points. So well done PGI for strait up lying to your customers, this is not good and immediately gave me a less than exited feel to returning to your game. If these were not digital goods and in fact goods purchased with real money you would have been issuing an observed amount of refunds.
Skill Points:
This leads nicely onto Skill Points, or more specifically 'General Skill Points' that I now have 13000, what am I going to do with these? I already have 91 HSP on every mech I own, so what are GSP for? the only think I can see is that I can use the to skill up new 'mechs other than that their useless. On top of this mess, I also have 880,000 GXP what is the point in these? yes I can convert them to 'Skill Points' at the cost of C-Bills, but as I have 13,000 GSP these seem completely worthless. Then there is HSP, as with the GXP what is the point in these? Another worthless currency for a long term player. The UI is so bad at converting and explaining all these various different SP/HSP/GSP/XP/GXP/HXP, hell that's 6 soft currencies for a single game, talk about overly confusing, not even including the C-bills and MC, a whopping 8 types of currency!
Skill Tree:
While I disliked the original skill tree for it's lack of any kind of diversity, I feel the new skill tree is in the same boat. Yes there seems like their are choices at first glance, but I also find myself with the same skill points allowance on all my laser mechs, or the same skills for my ballistic mechs with very few amendments (e.g AC over UAC). Not really a choice I feel.
The ability to actually allocate points is also rather clunky, half the time actually clicking on a 'node' does not even acknowledge that I have actually clicked that node, and when re-skilling a 'mech if I accidentally go over my current XP for that 'mech I cannot save my changes and there is no way of the UI telling me which new nodes I have selected to pay for with XP, so I then have to 'Revert Changes' and start all over again.
C-Bills:
With the refund of the modules I had purchased prior to the false announcement that all my modules would be credited, I still had 200+ million worth of modules refunded to me, this has now granted me with a rather reasonable sum of c-bills. This is great I can now spend this money on civil war tech, or can I? Looking at any mech that had an XL engine, most can either be converted to a LFE, where I can sell the XL and that basically covers the cost of the LFE, or they stay as a XL (looking at your Bushwacker) yes I can purchase some ERML to replace some ML if I have the heat available, or I can change a few weapons and or FF/LFF but these later changes really don't cost that much.
'Mechs that had Standard engines can be converted to LFE (crit space allowing) but as these engines are relatively inexpensive (when you take into account the sale value of the Standard Engine). I have found my self rebuilding over 30 of my IS 'mechs and I still a considerable amount of C-bills left, more than enough to change my entire Clan 'mechs (no new engines required) and still have tens of millions to spare.
'Mech Bays:
With the new skill tree, there was at least 1 good part, this is the ability to not have to purchase 3 'mechs just to elite one, this is great, I can stop worrying about leveling up the rubbish variants (of which there are several), and just concentrate on the 1 or 2 good variants per mech chassis.
So what does this mean for 'mech bays? well it means that due to my 6 month absence I needed a few new 'mechs as stated above I now have hundreds of millions of C-bills, so I can now instantly purchase any 'mech that I want, I can instantly skill it up using GSP and load it out as I want. This is great, but it also means that I don't need 'mech bays any more, currently sitting at 124/146. So no need to buy any more of these again then?
Keep in mind that that 124 'mechs that I currently own I still have a lot of rubbish that can simply be sold realistically I could be somewhere in the region of 90/146. Wooohoot I now have 56 free 'mech bays for 56 new/additional variants.
New 'Mechs:
So as outlined above I play the Medium and Heavy lines of 'mechs, I have every tonnage covered from 40 > 75 on both factions multiple times. I have all the good variants, and every unique style mech (e.g the laser, ballistic and missile variant of each chassis). I have all the 'mechs with the high torso mounted weapons, so I ask you PGI why would I want to purchase any new chassis? They are all the same, a high mounted torso laser is the same on a Thunderbolt as it is on the newer Roughneck, so why purchase the Roughneck? So not only do I no longer need 'mech bays, I also no longer need new 'mechs.
'Mech Packs:
With the removal of the "required 3 to master rule" and every weight covered on both sides of the war, along with having hundreds of millions of C-bills, why would I now purchase any of your packs? If a 'mech looks good, it's still not going to be something different to what is already in the game, therefor I can simply wait for the C-bill release as it's the 'same old' and as I don't have to purchase 3 'mechs and need no longer need an additional 3 'mech bays the value of your over priced 'mech packs is even further reduced. Any new 'mech will likely cost about me about 9 million C-bills to purchase and a few million to equip, which is either 1 or 2 nights of game play will cover these costs.
Premium Time:
I have several months worth of banked premium time, in the past I was an avid supported of 'always play with premium time' as the C-bill return was needed. Again with hundreds of millions of C-bills and 13000 GSP why would I ever need premium time again? I have not even bothered to activate my saved time as there is literally no point. A quick calculation you have managed to save me about £7-8 per month or £84-£96 per year. This also plays into the 'mech packs statement above, not needing premium time again further decreases the preserved value of any new 'mech pack.
- Resolution: Unknown, PGI you have taken every reason to monetize this game away from me, and this should make you sleep badly at night, as no money from players like me will defiantly hurt your bottom line. PGI you need to give me a reason to pay for your game otherwise I'm going to be a F2P player until I get bored, and as a F2P that boredom threshold will come a lot quicker than previously.
Incursion: This plays like Assault 2.0 or Skirmish 2.0, why even introduce yet another mode that plays the same? When the game mode choice in QP comes available incursion is rarely picked over skirmish/assault (which play the same in my experience).
Escort: This game mode was released a few weeks before I stopped playing, yet again it's Skirmish, this mode is literally never picked with good reason.
- Resolution: I can't see how to fix flawed game modes on flawed maps, either redesign the modes, or fix the maps.
Invasion Attack/Defend: This must be the worst mode in any game. As a defender your odds are stacked so heavily in your favor as you have the defensible position, as well as the defense turrets (not that these do much), this makes the assaulting team have a huge disadvantage, that the only reasonable way to win as an attacker is to ignore the defenders, run strait past them and kill the generators and Omega. This is NOT enticing game play as the attackers are literally running to kill an inanimate object (p.s I can do this in the training grounds). Add to this that on many of the maps it literally takes 5 minutes plus to actually get to the opposition it's just a horrendous play style and very boring, if I could drop from these game mode in FW and choose another I would every time.
- Resolution: I personally think this game mode should ether be completely re-designed or perhaps just scrapped entirely.
So I have all 4 available drop decks which is fine, but does not give a very broad style of play.
- Resolution: Why can we not have different drop weights in each match (or perhaps each attack phase) within a limit from say 220 > 265 tonnes (a total of 10 different drop weights)? along with this you would be granted your allocated number of drop decks (4 in my case) per available drop weight (in this example 40 drop decks).
- You are then automatically given a choice of your pre-defined or auto-generated drop decks for the appropriate drop weight and forcing players to play the exact weight (no under tonnage). This would at least make each drop feel a little different than the same ballistic deck that you run on all hot maps or ERLL/ERPPC deck on large cold maps, and allows you to dust off some additional 'mechs.
- Perhaps limiting each individual 'mech to 1 drop deck. Forcing you to own more 'mechs and 'mech bays (in this example 4 drop decks, for 10 drop weights, and 4 mechs per drop deck forces people to own up o 160 mechs per faction).
- Resolution: Objective style game play will never really work without re spawns, as killing 12 'mechs is almost always superior to map objectives, kill 1st and map objective 2nd. So enable re spawns by allowing the player to constantly select any mech from their drop deck for the role that you need at the re spawn timer and have the re spawns closer to objectives as they are capped (please see Arathi Basin in WoW for how conquest works and how objective game play trumps just killing)
So no new maps, and almost every 'mech has the wrong graphics for the new CW tech, what has your art team been doing since the announcement of Civil War? Poor showing considering the amount of time it has taken you to actually advance the time line.
- Resolution: Make an AC20 or a UAC20 just that at AC20 or UAC20 and for these weapons be identical irreverent of the 'mech they are mounted on, then have the hard-points on the 'mechs be able to accept this weapon. (e.g every large ballistic hard-point should be the same) This way new weapons can easily be added with a single graphic this would also helps with immersion as it's silly that the same PPC on 2 different mechs look so different as barrel length and bore size as directly proportional to the range and speed of the projectile. If you were to limit some hard-points to weapon sizes (as per MW4) this could also help with the same of new 'mechs as hard-point sizes would be different therefor making different 'mechs actually feel different.
- Although this is likely to be an impossible task now, but probably something worth considering for MWO2, some modifications may be needed for missile tube counts but a limited number of geometry hard-points would help you no end.
