374 replies to this topic

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Neato, someone actually getting through to Russ about buffing stuff and bringing back fun like I've been asking about for the past year. Thanks.

[Wolfy36]

It baffles my mind that you had people legitimately willing to throw stupid amounts of money at a game and yet, actively tried so hard to sink things. I love this game, but man, I'd like to see the passion PGI states they have for this game.

I remember graduating college and rewarding myself with that sweet sweet $240 preorder pack and man, I think I use a total of 3 mechs from it now because a lot of them just are not viable anymore (and that's not just because I'm a Davion loyalist). Sure I can take some of the mechs into QP, but whoops, accidentally ran into one of the god tier meta builds.

Game modes like Incursion and Escort could be fun... if they actually put time and effort into that. It's not just about getting stomped by a top 8-12 man group.... It's just that the game modes are boring and not fun, but they have so much darn potential to be fun. When siege came out, it was a blast. The entire attack/defend concept and it works and it was something different from the standard 48 mech slaughter. It added new strats and builds into the mix for a while.

I just feel like there is so much they would need to go back and revisit and I doubt they will be willing to do so. If they give it a honest shot, I'll keep supporting them and they will see more money from me.

Honestly the ball is in their court and has been for a long time. If they want to let this game die, it's just a missed and wasted opportunity by them.

[Water Bear]

What do I always post? The video makes it sound like the sky is falling. Rescaling may or may not have been done right / well, but I just don't care that much.

[M R T]

I like the idea of the skill tree, but I feel it was poorly implemented. My biggest issue with it is that it's a flat skill system showed into a tree structure, and it just doesn't fit. Like others have already mentioned, a tree structure is better suited for perks/quirks, where you need to unlock one perk to get access to another. When you just jam a skill system into a tree structure like this without changing the entire system itself, you get silly things like 1% of range is dependent on the next 1% of range, etc.

I actually prefer skills over perks, as it will give more diversity and is easier to expand on. The easiest solution for them would probably be to just revert the tree to a flat structure, like most other games that use skills. It will be a lot easier to navigate and understand than the current clutter that is the skill tree.

I would also rename the whole system from skills to quirks (or additional quirks if you will), because that is what it really is. A continuation of a system that is already in place for the mechs, but one the player can control. They can put hard caps on max allowed values on a mech by mech basis, or by weight classes. Armor/structure should reflect they way quirks are, and be actual values, not percentages. And there could be differences between the weight classes, like lights getting 1 armor per point, while assaults get something like 4 armor per point, etc.

Edited by Morte Nilsum, 29 January 2018 - 12:25 PM.

[Prof RJ Gumby]

For me, the only boring part of the game is the vomit meta, the most boring meta of all. I only returned to the game last week because it finally got at least a slap of a wrist of a nerf (clan heatgen).
I could also agree with sluggishness being the anti-fun factor, but I do not want heavies (maybe 60 tonners) and assaults to be more mobile. It's the mediums and (many) lights, that need to get faster and more nimble. Bigger ones - nope, with the exception of a few UP mechs that are unfortunate to have terrible hardpoints/geometry. More agility is a way of making those abominations excel at something and be fun to use.

Fortunately, in that second respect, the PGi slowly goes that way, speeding up underdogs like the Panther or Cicada. These got way more pleasant to drive lately, but it's still not enough. Hopefully, we'll see more buffs like that. Like one to the Vindicator. Why do Vindicators have to always suck?

Edited by Prof RJ Gumby, 29 January 2018 - 01:39 PM.

[ROSS-128]

Because it's a 45t Inner Sphere mech that is big for its weight, has a low hardpoint count, and said hardpoints are mostly in a low-slung arm mount with a hand actuator.

The Panther basically has the same problem, but 10t lighter and has "ballistics based light" thrown in for good measure.

Barring some extreme uber quirks, for it to be fixed it would have to be attacked by a pack of engineers who tear it apart and reassemble it into something more efficient.

Though the Vindicator 1AA's 20% reduced PPC heat almost qualifies as an uber quirk. A pair of heavy PPCs is a little difficult to cram into a 45t mech though, a pair of standard PPCs with capacitors might work out better since it'll be four tons lighter. Capacitors would likely crater its short term DPS, but otherwise the reduced rate of fire probably wouldn't be too much of a problem since you'd be waiting for heat to dissipate anyway.

Panther pretty much needs RACs to somehow become good. Or Light ACs, those might help.

[Leone]

Jiang Wei, on 29 January 2018 - 03:20 AM, said:

I havent gotten any criticisms to react to. Only a couple responses to trolling stat ******.

My Sincerest apologies, I did not mean to make you feel left out.

Jiang Wei, on 29 January 2018 - 03:20 AM, said:

Im sure PGI is aware of some of those mistakes in listening to only a select few people, but they wont go backwards now. They will just be sitting back, taking what profits they can until the game dies, and developing other games.

Expect you seem to forget that PGI is a company, and a company's goal is to generate money. How many Piranhas have you see running around in games? Oh, sorry, with that sort of attitude you may not be playing anymore, fair, maybe you've not seen. How many new threads've been made about all these piranhas in game? Plenty. which means preorders, so there's still a revenue stream here for the company, which means, it's in the company best interest to maintain that revenue. Which means tweaking the game when it gets enough feedback that people are losing interest. Which, guess what, this thread is about.

Will it fold some day? Everything dies eventually. Will that day be soon? I seriously doubt it.

~Leone.

Edited by Leone, 29 January 2018 - 04:08 PM.

[Prof RJ Gumby]

ROSS-128, on 29 January 2018 - 02:54 PM, said:

Because it's a 45t Inner Sphere mech that is big for its weight, has a low hardpoint count, and said hardpoints are mostly in a low-slung arm mount with a hand actuator.

The Panther basically has the same problem, but 10t lighter and has "ballistics based light" thrown in for good measure.

Barring some extreme uber quirks, for it to be fixed it would have to be attacked by a pack of engineers who tear it apart and reassemble it into something more efficient.

Though the Vindicator 1AA's 20% reduced PPC heat almost qualifies as an uber quirk. A pair of heavy PPCs is a little difficult to cram into a 45t mech though, a pair of standard PPCs with capacitors might work out better since it'll be four tons lighter. Capacitors would likely crater its short term DPS, but otherwise the reduced rate of fire probably wouldn't be too much of a problem since you'd be waiting for heat to dissipate anyway.

Panther pretty much needs RACs to somehow become good. Or Light ACs, those might help.

1AA and 1R would be ok if they werent so damn slow. They were both manageable before the desync (with insane agility quirks), and fun to play for me. 1AA was a funny mech as it was agile enough to allow you jumping between covers instead of just going up-down (with those looow hardpoints they're not really fit for even that.)

Now they're just too slow to avoid those laser alphas at all.


EDIT:
Oh, hey a 1000th post

Edited by Prof RJ Gumby, 29 January 2018 - 04:45 PM.

[Tahawus]

It's also worth noting that HSR probably contributes to the power of alpha laser builds. Unless you're already twisting, the attacker likely gets somewhere around the sum of your pings to hold on target before your reaction time even kicks in to get your torso twisting away. For many laser weapons that's a sizable portion of their total burn time. While this does apply to all weapon types, laser vomit is the one that benefits the most due to the high single point of focus alpha.

[HauptmanT]

What makes MWO "unfun", is that it's just a shooter.

Shooters are fun for a bit, then it just gets stale. That's the nature of it. You can only point and click for so long before it's just lame. So in order to stay alive, it needs a constant influx of new blood to keep it going... and at this, MWO has done very well Same as War Thunder. I mean hell these games are 5 years old and still going!

But compare that to an MMO, where EQ is almost 20 years old, and still alive. Because in an MMO, it's about the builds. and grinding to the next plateau. You can play an MMO for a decade and it wont get old like a shooter will.

I am a newb here, started like what... a year ago? Took a 6 month break or so, and came back for a couple more, took a 2 month break and here I am again. It's the nature of the beast.

The way I see things... it's all pretty damn OK. Nothing special, nothing horrible. Faction warfare is dead, sure, that's a shame I like the idea, but I aint gonna sit in that queue for 40 mins (or longer) for a 20 min game and not get any sizable reward beyond a mechbay, which I coulda spent 20 mins crushing cans for 10 times more reward. So that leaves QP for me, and that just gets old fast. So when my days run out, I'll toss some eagles at War Thunder and go back there for a month or two, rinse, repeat.

War Thunder is toying with some "world war mode" which, if made like a persistant MMO world, could be ******* awsome... but the stuff I've seen so far looks ****. It'll flop.

If MWO wants to live on as something more, revamp FW into a persistent 'world' with "raids" akin to WoW/EQ with some sort of "charachter build" aspect and you might be onto something. Otherwise, you'll all continue to get bored, because JUST A SHOOTER.

[4rcs1ne]

I played this game religiously since joining back in 2014. At the very beginning of 2014, PGI seemed like they had lost their way, but things became interesting and seemed to turn around with the advent of the Clan release later that year. Four years later, I find myself struggling to find reasons to play this game other than the sheer spectacle of stompy robot action. TBH, we are now at a crossroads once again where PGI can either choose to make the game fun again, or risk losing this player base and possibly MW5 players.

[General Solo]

Tahawus, on 29 January 2018 - 05:38 PM, said:

It's also worth noting that HSR probably contributes to the power of alpha laser builds. Unless you're already twisting, the attacker likely gets somewhere around the sum of your pings to hold on target before your reaction time even kicks in to get your torso twisting away. For many laser weapons that's a sizable portion of their total burn time. While this does apply to all weapon types, laser vomit is the one that benefits the most due to the high single point of focus alpha.

I prefer facing the laser vomit meta better than the FLPPD, you can shake off alot of damage by twisting and movement.
The other meta you were just dead, cause FLPPD is all or nothing, no partial damage. Just Dead.

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 30 January 2018 - 01:01 AM.

[Mystere]

HauptmanT, on 29 January 2018 - 09:26 PM, said:

What makes MWO "unfun", is that it's just a shooter.

Shooters are fun for a bit, then it just gets stale. That's the nature of it. You can only point and click for so long before it's just lame.

No argument there ...

HauptmanT, on 29 January 2018 - 09:26 PM, said:

So in order to stay alive, it needs a constant influx of new blood to keep it going... and at this, MWO has done very well Same as War Thunder...

You're kidding, right?

War Thunder has around 30,000 concurrent players on a slow day. That's MWO's player numbers for an entire month.

[Racerxintegra2k]

I heard that Chris quit .... can anyone confirm ?

[Y E O N N E]

Racerxintegra2k, on 30 January 2018 - 08:37 AM, said:

I heard that Chris quit .... can anyone confirm ?

That was just a Reddit ship toast and, IMHO, a very tasteless one.

[Sigmar Sich]

Racerxintegra2k, on 30 January 2018 - 08:37 AM, said:

I heard that Chris quit ...

UPD Glad it's not true.

Edited by Sigmar Sich, 30 January 2018 - 07:11 PM.

[FireStoat]

Racerxintegra2k, on 30 January 2018 - 08:37 AM, said:

I heard that Chris quit .... can anyone confirm ?

I'm glad it's just a rumor. I was extra salty when he claimed on the podcast that the Timber Wolf was not only the best 75 ton mech, but that it was also the best for its weight class and that the metrics backed it up. It proved that they balance by potato instead of going with the input and numbers that competitive players crank out.
I've mostly calmed down and realized that the dude inherited a messy game with a LOT of mechs & variants and that he's probably being strict with the hours he puts in, and walking away at the end of a workday. He's probably overworked to hell with past, current, and future content. It would also be difficult to take competitive player input at face value and run with it, because every player has an agenda.

I don't expect much to come of this. It would be really nice if some moderate steps were taken in moving the game in a more fun direction, like the video pointed out with times of diverse weapon loadouts actually happening in competitive play, as opposed to laser vomit and/or laser+gauss vomit. And seriously, the deal of nerfing SRM grouping + the Artemis nerf still leaves me perplexed. All it accomplished was a shift to more lasers and machine guns, weight of the mech depending.

[The Lighthouse]

At this point, I don't think Chris quitting the job makes any changes on current direction.

The key issue is that, just like typical small businesses, PGI does not want to hear its customers, one guy who has not listening to community quitting won't make any difference when top two persons are also the ones who do not like to hear criticisms.

You rather want Microsoft to do something rather than having meaningless hope.

[JediPanther]

The Lighthouse, on 30 January 2018 - 03:45 PM, said:

At this point, I don't think Chris quitting the job makes any changes on current direction.

The key issue is that, just like typical small businesses, PGI does not want to hear its customers, one guy who has not listening to community quitting won't make any difference when top two persons are also the ones who do not like to hear criticisms.

You rather want Microsoft to do something rather than having meaningless hope.

About the only time things get changed for the better are when microsoft does indeed step in behind the scenes when people cancel a lot of pre orders and microsoft notices their share of profits getting smaller.

[Jarl Dane]

I wouldn't blame Chris so much as PGI not playing their own game. Many other studios require that their developers play x amount of their game every day. So that they don't lose touch with whats going on and the player experience.

Something it feels like PGI has never had a good handle on. How many Long Toms do you figure fell upon Russ before the community FORCED him to remove them?