70 replies to this topic

[MustrumRidcully]

Stop believing that a different engine suddenly makes problems disappear. It's a completely unfounded hope.

Any time spend on adapting a game to a different engine could be more effectively spend on adapting the existing engine to the needs of the game.

[Koniving]

arcana75, on 14 September 2017 - 06:51 PM, said:

Would you support it? Say moving to UE4. Personally I don't think PGI currently has the extra resources to put into porting, so the kickstarter funds would go into hiring a separate team dedicated to building the new engine from scratch while the current team continues with their current tasks.

If they do that... they might as well just take the work they put into MW5 Mercs... and then modify that into the new Mechwarrior Online. It'd mainly be porting inventories, building a new UI, and rebuilding all the maps from scratch.

Any work done to this engine from that point on would be wasted resources.

As to answer the question... I might support it.

Lets be honest... This lame pre-alpha gameplay is already boatloads better than MWO.

[jjm1]

MWO has game design problems that are not engine specific.

Sometimes its just the idea that is wrong. Take River City for example, open design + large water body + small scale detailing + particle effects + dynamic time of day + dynamic lights + auto-generated lods + 24 distinct mechs = poor performance. Trying to cram all that into a UE4 map would give the same result IMO.

If your going to do scenes like that you have to take note of how pros that work at Bethesda/Crytech/RockStar/Epic etc would tackle detailed open world scenes.

[Randall Flagg]

arcana75, on 14 September 2017 - 06:51 PM, said:

Would you support it? Say moving to UE4. Personally I don't think PGI currently has the extra resources to put into porting, so the kickstarter funds would go into hiring a separate team dedicated to building the new engine from scratch while the current team continues with their current tasks.

they did its called Mechwarrior 5.

[Koniving]

jjm1, on 16 September 2017 - 08:32 AM, said:

MWO has game design problems that are not engine specific.

Sometimes its just the idea that is wrong. Take River City for example, open design + large water body + small scale detailing + particle effects + dynamic time of day + dynamic lights + auto-generated lods + 24 distinct mechs = poor performance. Trying to cram all that into a UE4 map would give the same result IMO.

If your going to do scenes like that you have to take note of how pros that work at Bethesda/Crytech/RockStar/Epic etc would tackle detailed open world scenes.

Rockstar has many areas with all of those details (and then some). But one thing rockstar does is it doesn't have it all shown at once. Just what is relevant. For example if you go under water, all that stuff shows... but if you go above water, you'll barely see any of it. The vice-versa is true too, you'll get a very limited view range of what's above the water when you're near the surface and when you do surface then you can see a whole lot more. What you can't see isn't rendered at that given second unless it's within a certain proximity. Meanwhile here it's rendered constantly so when you have the entire map in your view there's a noticeable performance hit.

This said, you can very easily gain an extra 5 to 20 FPS (in MWO) with two buttons.
Right Shift. (Hold)
F11. (Press.)

Tada!
A HUGE burden on your frame rate is the Scaleform HUD. The UI itself stopped using scaleform. The HUD still does. And scaleform as PGI has admitted to discovering, is a ******* resource hog and a half!

Scaleform can be used on Unreal Engine as well. It's not an efficient scripting language in terms of resources.

That's a huge part of the problem. But without it, PGI would have to make a different version of the HUD for every single resolution (which is why many older games have limited resolution settings). Or at least that is what PGI believes.

(Also interesting; you can get a more subtle performance increase, with or without the HUD, by going into third person perspective. Particularly when running on the highest settings. I suspect this has to do with the way cockpits are made.)

Edited by Koniving, 17 September 2017 - 04:47 AM.

[Mechteric]

What if there were a Kickstarter to start a stupid thread about Kickstarting something that makes no sense to use Kickstarter for?

[Kylere]

If a game with visuals like MWO with an actual economy, shifting world control, knockdowns, mech melee, arty, infantry, armor, etc appeared tomorrow I would play it and likely drop 250 on a kickstarter.

I have been waiting since BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception and though my options have become prettier, the game play has not improved.

[jjm1]

Kylere, on 17 September 2017 - 05:20 AM, said:

If a game with visuals like MWO with an actual economy, shifting world control, knockdowns, mech melee, arty, infantry, armor, etc appeared tomorrow I would play it and likely drop 250 on a kickstarter.

I have been waiting since BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception and though my options have become prettier, the game play has not improved.

If a MMO like Star Citizen appeared where you can start anywhere in the BattleTech universe and do what you want, like micro-manage a budding merc company, or fight your way up through the ranks of a clan sibko from a 100% first person perspective, I would sell my spleen.

[KingCobra]

As I think and look back on posts and topics from this forum from almost DAY1 of this game a engine change would be cool but MWO has so many other issues that a core basic game design update would need to be done along with the engine change.

Many of us old guard tried to help PGI long ago and over 500,000 of them left in disgust because MWO was just a WOT clone it was not a true Battletech or MechWarrior game like past PC IP games were. Thousands of great ideas were thrown at Russ ,Brian and PGI and only a few were ever implemented into the game then removed to placate the unseen majority on there own island.

Some of those ideas were great I will list a few below.
#1 Players could have a true character in the Battletech universe(using a character creator)which crying had from day 1.
#2 Player made characters could play in open battles or play in a mech.
#3 Players could have had a huge Social lobby system for more community activity's.
#4 Players could have had free private lobby's from day 1.
#5 Players needed more tactical game modes.
#6 Players needed more maps and the ability to help make maps for inclusion into MWO.
#7 Players NEW needed to have there own battle grounds to learn and have fun get rewards first before bin thrown to the wolfs.
#8 Players needed tougher mechs with real armor that worked.
#9 PGI needed to remove the pinpoint Alpha strike and make it a cycle based firing system with a slower weapon group cycle time.
#10 Players needed a Battletech free market system for items for player characters and mechs. (Think EVE Market system)

I could go on with past ideas for MWO for pages from so many good MWO players but PGI would not listen they only want to make MWO some kind of E-sport wannabe game no one ever wanted from day 1.So unless a huge core change was done to the game along with a engine and assurances that was really going to happen I have to say NO WAY!!! and I spent a lot on MWO in the begging trusting them but not no more.

Edited by KingCobra, 17 September 2017 - 06:40 AM.

[KingCobra]

[Bombast]

Uh... whats going on in here now?

[Jay Leon Hart]

Bombast, on 17 September 2017 - 06:48 AM, said:

Uh... whats going on in here now?

Someone found DeviantArt for the first time?

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Jun Watarase, on 15 September 2017 - 02:58 AM, said:

Still waiting for the founders promises to be delivered...

Jun, what promises?
At top tier founders you got:
Your name in the credits.
4 mechs with unique paint/geometry.
MC
Forum badges
ingame badges

that is what you paid for, that is what you got.

I'm a gold founder, I know EXACTLY what i paid for, and PGI delivered on that.

Edited by CMDR Sunset Shimmer, 17 September 2017 - 07:04 AM.

[Exilyth]

Koniving, on 17 September 2017 - 04:44 AM, said:

This said, you can very easily gain an extra 5 to 20 FPS (in MWO) with two buttons.
Right Shift. (Hold)
F11. (Press.)

Tada!
A HUGE burden on your frame rate is the Scaleform HUD. The UI itself stopped using scaleform. The HUD still does. And scaleform as PGI has admitted to discovering, is a ******* resource hog and a half!

Wow. That is really usefull to know.

[Unnatural Growth]

I would fund a kickstarter for HBS to buy out the full IP rights from PGI and build a proper 1st person mech sim game from scratch.

But PGI doesn't get another penny of my money unless the full released version of MW5 is just ballz-deep amazing to play. Which, being PGI, isn't very likely.

Even IF PGI ported the game over to a new engine, it would still be coded like a bag full of cats.

[dwwolf]

I wonder how MWO would behave in the War Thunders engine.
It allows for much larger maps.

If PGI wants more role based playstyles in MWO they also have to provide a need for said roles.
Scouting and info warfare presumes the need to scout, currently most of the maps are quite micro in scale.

I really want a more strategic backlayer to MWO, with an economy. Repair and supply, even if abstracted. That would require a mission generation system, (tile based ) map generation. Etc etc.

The potential is there , just look at what EVE does.





K

[Bombast]

dwwolf, on 17 September 2017 - 10:17 AM, said:

The potential is there , just look at what EVE does.

Look, I like EVE. It's a special game that does some pretty neat things. But its a TERRIBLE goal to set for any game.

[dwwolf]

Why ?
It wasn't build in one day. It expanded from a fairly basic structure.

I named it more as an example of what a basic set of rules and let the players have at it can inspire as far as game play goes.

Personally I think a mecha sim would have to be build from the ground up, BT doesnt really work with sim style precision (ie aimed fire ), and the lore hounds will rip anything to shreds that doesn't adhere to BT specs. Furthermore, at a basic level, once the clans come in all balance goes out of whack in board BT as well.

The source game mechanics don't lend itself to a sim style MMO, IMHO.

[Koniving]

Exilyth, on 17 September 2017 - 07:12 AM, said:

Wow. That is really usefull to know.

Keep in mind, it literally turns off your HUD completely.
So you'll be playing like this.

[Koniving]

dwwolf, on 17 September 2017 - 10:17 AM, said:

I wonder how MWO would behave in the War Thunders engine.
It allows for much larger maps.

If PGI wants more role based playstyles in MWO they also have to provide a need for said roles.
Scouting and info warfare presumes the need to scout, currently most of the maps are quite micro in scale.

I really want a more strategic backlayer to MWO, with an economy. Repair and supply, even if abstracted. That would require a mission generation system, (tile based ) map generation. Etc etc.

The potential is there , just look at what EVE does.

Okay.

2012's closed beta had a need for scouting even on the tiny maps.

How so?
Watch the minimap.
Notice how it uh...doesn't update in real time?

There's a bunch of little things but that tiny thing there was a HUGE deal.
Ignore how bad I play, mute the sound. Just watch the HUD.


Here, the HUD allowed me to escape by jumping off of a cliff, where I stopped showing up entirely and as such he wandered off to do other stuff.