115 replies to this topic

[Kargush]

Nema Nabojiv, on 17 February 2018 - 02:15 AM, said:

Anyway, If PGI starts to include quirk info in the announcements chances are they'd sell more.

If they did, they'd suddenly be in a bind when they later in the cycle decide (pre-shipping date) to nerf something.

[CycKath]

Samial, on 17 February 2018 - 03:41 AM, said:

I wonder why they only added one clan mech.. Yes i'm not a fan of Clan overpower but i am a fan of equal for all.. should their have been 50/50 on the mechs..

Again, they are all 'Mechs and configurations mentioned in lore. Clan 'Mechs, Clan tech and Clan warriors are super exceedingly rare on Solaris in lore.The Vulture from this pack is Garrett's, Clan Smoke Jaguar character from Illusions of Victory, thus need for lurms and lasers and the battered shell paint style, and pretty much the only Clan warrior in the arenas to appear in any of the novels.

[Hit the Deck]

The real sellers should be those custom geo if PGI does it right.

[Papaspud]

They all look like...meh, cheap price for a bunch of hero mechs you will never play. Solaris .....meh. Just the newest version of FW, will add nothing for 90% of the players.

[Qdeu]

Another issue is that a lot of chassis are ones that got hit terribly by the rescale, engine desync and mobility nerf -atlas, banshee, firestarter and somewhat the griffin are so big andsluggish, that there is little reason to play them.The only positive side of the pack is the value it is a great but for a player starting MWO, at lower tiers the problems of each chassis are not that pronounced

Edited by Qdeu, 17 February 2018 - 04:43 AM.

[Bud Crue]

Agree with the OP.

What I heard from lots of others both last night in game and eleswhere in the forums (I'm paraphrasing):
"But, but, but....its a great value! So many mechs! So many mech bays!! Additional fluff!!! And all for just $30!!!!"

I truly am glad that PGI still gets this sort of commercial enthusiasm from folks. Maybe they'll get MW5 made yet.

[Lupis Volk]

Bud Crue, on 17 February 2018 - 04:54 AM, said:

Agree with the OP.

What I heard from lots of others both last night in game and eleswhere in the forums (I'm paraphrasing):
"But, but, but....its a great value! So many mechs! So many mech bays!! Additional fluff!!! And all for just $30!!!!"

I truly am glad that PGI still gets this sort of commercial enthusiasm from folks. Maybe they'll get MW5 made yet.

I mean someones got to carry the financial burden when everyone else is holding PGI's funding hostage over a myriad of reasons that all get in the way of each other in a rather bipolar way.

[Sjorpha]

I'm fine with them not being super good, heroes shouldn't be the best variants.

[Khobai]

its true, heroes shouldnt be the best variants

but these arnt even interesting variants... they add nothing to the game at all.

[Bud Crue]

Lupis Volk, on 17 February 2018 - 04:57 AM, said:

I mean someones got to carry the financial burden when everyone else is holding PGI's funding hostage over a myriad of reasons that all get in the way of each other in a rather bipolar way.

Yup. My bi-polar trigger happened when the new c-bill sink transitioned from forcing us to build three mechs to one where they would just break as many mechs as they could every month to get folks to rebuild and reskill constantly. Fairly sick of it to be honest. I don't begrudge them the need for a sink, I just hate the one the decided on and I hate even more the gleeful way they lie about it (I don't believe for a second that their metrics show or suggest that more than about 10% of the monthly "balance" passes are actually warranted by "data"). Alas, I went from spending thousands per year to nothing. Bi-polar indeed.

Edited by Bud Crue, 17 February 2018 - 05:18 AM.

[El Bandito]

Sjorpha, on 17 February 2018 - 05:05 AM, said:

I'm fine with them not being super good, heroes shouldn't be the best variants.

Sure, but Heroes should at least offer decent variety, in order to be attractive. Many of those in the bundle are too identical to existing variants. The Hero Firestarter have the exact same hardpoints as the Ember, except arm and torsi are swapped. That's borderline insulting.

[Scyther]

I'm not a Solaris fan, I'm not a lorehound, not a stathound, and I don't have any favorite chassis or anything, so to me it looks like a value-oriented bundle of BattleTech Universe lore-friendly mechs to launch a new game mode with. CBills are always needed and picking up a bundle of cheap Heros in one pack seems like it would suit a lot of players.

Agreed that PGI could have done semi-sidegrades that were still interesting (1B per torso side being the example mentioned), but the lore/canon aspect was probably the design decider here.

It's also curious that people will complain about how PGI is so lax about continuous power creep and not addressing it, but when they release a non-power-creep pack the reaction is "Meh, No thanks!".

Power creep opens wallets. PGI is a business. Online games aren't cheap to run. If power creep is the primary thing that sells, then PGI has to sell power creep and then find justifiable ways to dial it back later.

Which probably explains why half the complaint threads on this forum exist.

Edit: reading another thread, I like WrathOfDeadGuy suggestion about moving a laser point to the Atlas eye (more than the 1B in each torso)... but again, probably lore reasons. Still, it shows creativity and 'rule of cool' without power creep, so kudos WrathOfDeadGuy!

Edited by MadBadger, 17 February 2018 - 05:31 AM.

[Bombast]

I'd say both the Urbanmech and the Vulture are ok. The Vulture has some genuinely good stuff, and the Urbanmech, with it's engine cap, is certainly novel enough for consideration.

Besides that, these mechs aren't great. Kind of negates the value of the pack when most of them are borderline unusable.

The camos are pretty good though. I really like where they got their inspiration from.

Edited by Bombast, 17 February 2018 - 05:27 AM.

[Khobai]

So how would we make the variants more interesting? heres my list...


Atlas: -1E, -1M, +1B in opposite torso so its 4E, 1M, 2B (1B in each torso)

Firestarter: -4E, +4B, give it 8B instead of just being an Ember on opposite day, IS needs their own machine gun spam light

Banshee: +2E maybe? so its 6E, 2B, 1M

Griffin: +2B so its 4E, 2M, 2B

Urbanmech: trading a hardpoint for a higher speed cap seems fair. Maybe +1E -1B though? 4E 1B is probably better

Rifleman: seems fine compared to the other variants

Mad Dog: fine as is

Edited by Khobai, 17 February 2018 - 05:30 AM.

[Bud Crue]

MadBadger, on 17 February 2018 - 05:19 AM, said:

It's also curious that people will complain about how PGI is so lax about continuous power creep and not addressing it, but when they release a non-power-creep pack the reaction is "Meh, No thanks!".

Power creep opens wallets. PGI is a business. Online games aren't cheap to run. If power creep is the primary thing that sells, then PGI has to sell power creep and then find justifiable ways to dial it back later.

Which probably explains why half the complaint threads on this forum exist.

Because they haven't addressed power creep in the gaming environment at all, and here we have a bunch of mechs that will be subject to that same gaming environment. So yeah "meh".

Them selling mostly non-power creep mechs in a bundle doesn't help or hinder the existing power creep. But if they want folks to be excited about new mech, they need to give them something unique or different other than just a camo. I mean consider that Firestarter...its a scrambled Ember but its still just an Ember. The Atlas -with a 300XL engine-. Run through the lot and you are left with the Maddog and the Urby offering something fairly new. Are they power creepingly new? I don't think so, but 2 mechs for $30 bucks puts them in the same realm as most other (many better) heroes so yeah..."meh".

Edit: Also don't forget that PGI is repeatedly on record as saying Quirks are the cause of unacceptable power creep. Mechs that are bigger, better, more powerful are not a problem...according to PGI anyway.

Edited by Bud Crue, 17 February 2018 - 05:36 AM.

[Der Geisterbaer]

Khobai, on 17 February 2018 - 05:29 AM, said:

Firestarter:  -4E, +4B, give it 8B instead of just being an Ember on opposite day, IS needs their own machine gun spam light

I'd rather go with -2E +2B in conjuncition with the Ember's RoF quirk of 25%. Having a 6 (effective 7.5) machine gun mech with two energy weapons for initial armor penetration as well as backup weaponry should it run out of ammo would certainly be more desirable in terms of balance and viability than just 8 machine guns.

[Scyther]

@Bud Crue:

(Side-topic to thread, apologies)

Bud, I have to call you out on one thing. Over the past 6 months I've seen you highlight one point over and over again: that "PGI is repeatedly on record as saying Quirks are the cause of unacceptable power creep".

I would like to point out this post, the text in the spoiler and your own first reply to that post:
https://mwomercs.com...l-months-later/

I am not sure what other 'repeated' references from PGI may be available, as I don't really follow them all that closely. Still, it appears to me that you are perhaps propagating/exaggerating an issue beyond what is realistic.

Saying quirks are a part of power creep, or 'add a level' of powercreep, has been not only historically accurate but raised a number of times by knowledgeable and relatively unbiased players (even more so by the biased ones, of course). That they needed to be addressed in some way was obvious. That PGI has not addressed them properly is a valid point.

To imply that PGI thinks quirks are the be-all and end-all of power creep to the exclusion of anything else, is disingenuous at best. Evidenced by what they did to 'solve' the power creep of bigger, better, more powerful mechs - see Kodiak and Night Gyr, as two examples.

Edited by MadBadger, 17 February 2018 - 05:58 AM.

[frumpylumps]

Be careful what you wish for. When you complain that cash exclusive options aren't better than the ones you can earn in-game, then you are asking for more pay2win.

Edited by frumpylumps, 17 February 2018 - 06:06 AM.

[Xenoid]

Disappointed they didn't use Solaris mechs from lore, or at least one or two. I suppose it was too much to ask for those new chassis to be included when using pre-existing in game chassis is easier than making an effort.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Onslaught
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Longshot
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Cudgel
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Koto
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Tsunami
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Morpheus

Edited by Xenoid, 17 February 2018 - 06:39 AM.

[Bud Crue]

MadBadger, on 17 February 2018 - 05:58 AM, said:

@Bud Crue:

(Side-topic to thread, apologies)

Bud, I have to call you out on one thing. Over the past 6 months I've seen you highlight one point over and over again: that "PGI is repeatedly on record as saying Quirks are the cause of unacceptable power creep".

No worries. It all goes back to the skills tree PTS, then the Skills tree Q@A with Chris and Paul, conversation I had with Chis directly on Reddit and other threads as well. Most recently Paul's statement in the podcat about "we can't keep buffing" mechs (how often do they do that?!).

The thread and my post that you cited was my attempt at trying to understand as reasonably as possible the PGI perspective here. But then they continue with these repeated assertions. Consider what you just referenced the Kodiak. What they SHOULD HAVE DONE is do what they did with the Timber. Give the truly over performing one some negative quirks or give other competing mechs offsetting quirks. But because of their insane fixation with quirks what did they do:
Broad brush changes that first killed ballistics. Then other changes that affected lots of mechs -far more that just the Kodiak 3. Then its movement profile. etc. When a couple of well applied quirks could have solved the problem of the OP terror that was the Kodiak. But nope to PGI, that's power creep. To me trashing at least two weapons systems (three if you coaunt gauss/PPC) and making not just an entire chassis but dozens of mechs crap all because of 1 variant and your fear of applying quirks (negative) to it and possibly others (positive) that's just stupid. But I don't want to get into it further. Feel free to PM me for citations if you would like but its all out there far beyond the single thread you cited.