35 replies to this topic

[razenWing]

It's kinda the age old debate of "stick as close to the source material" vs "just making a fun game."

MWO focused WAY too much on the concept of offense vs defense, sword vs shield... your tank vs assassin. And that's because of the source material...

Which in itself is limiting. The fact is, people love slower games. CoD can't retain audience for more than 2 months. People play fast and go 24-0 and ruin the fun for everyone else. That's why there are always limiter like "crouch match only," which often draw higher crowd than the base game.

So the market for a "slow" FPS is out there. A big robot FPS is not a niche. But the simplicity of the game to focus so much on the concept of tank vs assassin with nothing else, I think is the primary reason why this game doesn't have a bigger crowd than it is.

Look at Overwatch and other team base FPS games out there. Almost every one of those games don't just center gameplay solely on tank vs assassin, but the full spectrum of MMORPG formula...

Tank vs Assassin vs Healer vs Magic

It's how you create the circle of diversity. When you have 2 things, it's one or the other. And when you have 2 of something, it's OP and people start crying about P2W. With 4 elements? That horizon broadens.

The problem with BTech lore is that there are only tanks or assassins. There are absolutely nothing else in between. It's why the original lore attract niche fans for its 80s style grunge heavy metal feel. But it's also limiting for modern gaming.

So at some point before MWO2, one really has to choose. Do you want to continue this niche formula to appease to only hardcore game? Or expand the horizon, deviate from the lore, and just focus on making a freaking fun game?

Imagne if mechs with hands can act as healers. They can do battlefield salvage of parts to replace actuators, carry however many tons of "spray on armor ammo." Imagine if mechs can deploy smoke screen, introduce elements that either reduce damage or increase damage dealt (your magic)

How diverse would that game be? And it is something that's entirely absent in the gaming market. So it's just whether someone want to grab it or not.

So really, the question comes down to... continue making the game for lore fans? Or just make a fun game?

Edited by razenWing, 13 June 2018 - 03:13 PM.

[Stinger554]

Good game > lore game

/thread

[Grus]

Lore game best game.

[Prototelis]

You're trolling right?

Healing hands.... lol

[Mobster]

I'd rather they go 'closer' to the lore style, I'm fed up of events in the game which irk me because they make little sense (but currently fit and work in the game style)

I want to feel like my big robot of death means something, getting practically one-shot CT in heavies and assault mechs boasting max armour is utterly silly. I feel the only real way to address this is tone down the ROF of all weapons, to add into this I want my AC20 shot to FEEL important If I hit happy days, but a miss should make me reevaluate my life... not just; wait a tiny, tiny reload time and fire again, but about 'hitting'.. let me address that head-on:

I know most people will hate me/downvote/block/report to me admin for this, but in Table Top, there are SO many things which make actually hitting a target very hard, but here in 'twitchy-shooter-FUN-land' we get weapon loadouts that fire pinpoint on target. In turn, this means that a fight in which 60% of shots would never contact in the tabletop game is instead reduced by an amount of time representative of the massive increase of accuracy we as players get in the video game.

The 'lore' tells us that running makes it harder to fire, jumping? yup that'll be more difficult to hit, weapon convergance over range, yup that makes it harder... But here I am in my assault mech at full speed landing perfect PPC snipe shots at a target over 1km away...

TL:DR - Tabletop player fed up of mech's lasting less than 2 seconds when engaged. /salt /rant

[Mystere]

razenWing, on 13 June 2018 - 03:11 PM, said:

It's kinda the age old debate of "stick as close to the source material" vs "just making a fun game."

MWO focused WAY too much on the concept of offense vs defense, sword vs shield... your tank vs assassin. And that's because of the source material...

Which in itself is limiting. The fact is, people love slower games. CoD can't retain audience for more than 2 months. People play fast and go 24-0 and ruin the fun for everyone else. That's why there are always limiter like "crouch match only," which often draw higher crowd than the base game.

So the market for a "slow" FPS is out there. A big robot FPS is not a niche. But the simplicity of the game to focus so much on the concept of tank vs assassin with nothing else, I think is the primary reason why this game doesn't have a bigger crowd than it is.

Look at Overwatch and other team base FPS games out there. Almost every one of those games don't just center gameplay solely on tank vs assassin, but the full spectrum of MMORPG formula...

Tank vs Assassin vs Healer vs Magic

It's how you create the circle of diversity. When you have 2 things, it's one or the other. And when you have 2 of something, it's OP and people start crying about P2W. With 4 elements? That horizon broadens.

The problem with BTech lore is that there are only tanks or assassins. There are absolutely nothing else in between. It's why the original lore attract niche fans for its 80s style grunge heavy metal feel. But it's also limiting for modern gaming.

So at some point before MWO2, one really has to choose. Do you want to continue this niche formula to appease to only hardcore game? Or expand the horizon, deviate from the lore, and just focus on making a freaking fun game?

Imagne if mechs with hands can act as healers. They can do battlefield salvage of parts to replace actuators, carry however many tons of "spray on armor ammo." Imagine if mechs can deploy smoke screen, introduce elements that either reduce damage or increase damage dealt (your magic)

How diverse would that game be? And it is something that's entirely absent in the gaming market. So it's just whether someone want to grab it or not.

So really, the question comes down to... continue making the game for lore fans? Or just make a fun game?

eSports.

FTFY.

And "healing hands"? What's next, magic spells?

Edited by Mystere, 13 June 2018 - 04:30 PM.

[Vonbach]

Mobster, on 13 June 2018 - 04:17 PM, said:

I'd rather they go 'closer' to the lore style, I'm fed up of events in the game which irk me because they make little sense (but currently fit and work in the game style)

I want to feel like my big robot of death means something, getting practically one-shot CT in heavies and assault mechs boasting max armour is utterly silly. I feel the only real way to address this is tone down the ROF of all weapons, to add into this I want my AC20 shot to FEEL important If I hit happy days, but a miss should make me reevaluate my life... not just; wait a tiny, tiny reload time and fire again, but about 'hitting'.. let me address that head-on:

I know most people will hate me/downvote/block/report to me admin for this, but in Table Top, there are SO many things which make actually hitting a target very hard, but here in 'twitchy-shooter-FUN-land' we get weapon loadouts that fire pinpoint on target. In turn, this means that a fight in which 60% of shots would never contact in the tabletop game is instead reduced by an amount of time representative of the massive increase of accuracy we as players get in the video game.

The 'lore' tells us that running makes it harder to fire, jumping? yup that'll be more difficult to hit, weapon convergance over range, yup that makes it harder... But here I am in my assault mech at full speed landing perfect PPC snipe shots at a target over 1km away...

TL:DR - Tabletop player fed up of mech's lasting less than 2 seconds when engaged. /salt /rant

The game was never designed for pinpoint fire. So the armor is actually much less than it should be.

[Korz]

Actually if they went by the lore. We would have repair areas. Were ammo and armor would be repaired and reloaded. Lost parts would not be replaced. Then instead of a drop list we might have repair areas to defend and rearm in and having weapons in various parts of the mech would be important.

[dario03]

Instead of healing hands we should just continue with the offense/defense base and give mechs with hands the shining fingers ability. However you can only activate it by yelling the entire sword quote over voip

[Dragonporn]

I don't even know where to start dismissing OPs suggestions... TF2 and Overwatch should stay where they are, there are some people who are literally sick of these games (even in concept), also sick of twitchy arcady shooters like CoD or what Battlefield series turned into, and there's safe heaven for people like that called MWO, and possibly MW5 or MWO2 in the future.

There are plenty ways to "broaden horizon" in MW games, like introduce melee combat (at least simple one), let mechs change stances, like knee stand for better stability, knockdown mechanics, more weapon choices and more tech. I'd say also let pilot leave the mech and roam free, but I'm afraid it would be pretty awkward and useless for the format of this game, although some AI tanks/infantry/air combat vehicles might spice up things in MP (maybe in special gamemode), etc, etc.

All in all, make game more into simulation than arcade. I mean it's niche already, current pop and others who retired, as well as general BT fanbase would be very positive about it, I'm sure, and that's where you draw your playerbase from, not from entirely different projects. There are lots of things that can be done to improve game drastically, but they are far from what games like OW, any MMOs or other shooters have to offer.

[El Bandito]

It is best to ignore TT values if one wishes for better balance. As for giving mechs more roles, PGI could have done that by making more meaningful objectives.

Also, I find it sad that while MW:LL has tanks and aerospace fighters on top of mechs, MWO does not.

[50 50]

It might be hard to give more value to different roles in Quick Play as it really is just meant to be 'quick play'.
It is something that could be done to Faction Play as it could be a completely different style of play to what it currently is.

Role based warfare was something that MWO tried to edge towards but didn't quite make it and I will agree with you that the speed of the game, the duration of the matches is what limits the game in this regard.
Ie. Scouting as a role.
Another problem with the roles is they have a limited duration in the match.
We scout early, but there is no value in it mid to late game.

While a role will suit certain mechs better than others it is an action that we design for.
It may not be practical to scout in an Atlas, but we can do it.

These are not roles restricted by range or mode, but roles defined by the part we want to play in the match and therefore the mech and build we select and we could no doubt make an endless list so it's a little pointless to try and define them but I'll suggest it's something like:
Brawler
Support
Scout
Striker

The Skill Tree has enough variety in the nodes and different sections to make the roles more relevant, what the game lacks is the time and variety in match to elevate the importance of the different roles and Faction Play would be the only mode we have in game that could be changed to make it more relevant.

For example:
As a scout you get out there and find the enemy to then help direct your team to an advantageous location or where they can at least intercept them.
But once that is done, your role is then to also engage in the fight.
With multiple waves in Faction Play, there is the potential to return or continue scouting but overall it's pretty limited.
However.
IF the game had a fog of war, some random options for objective locations and drop zones or the ability to change drop zones or hot drop in at different locations then a role like scouting suddenly has a lot more purpose.
Right at the moment, we know where everything is on the map so other than finding where the enemy is going there is nothing else to do.
BUT IF we didn't know where the conquest points were, didn't know where the domination radar is, don't know where the Incursion base/towers are we would have to go and find them.
IF the drop zones could change it means the direction of the attack changes which means the scout needs to go out there again and relocate the enemy force.

It's a question of How can we keep the roles relevant for the duration of the match?

There are certainly some changes that could be made that would go a long way to making this come true, it just means a lot of work.

[Lanzman]

There are some things in this game that should work more like the lore says. The heat scale, the ridiculous charge mechanic on gauss rifles that shouldn't be there, movement having more effect on weapon accuracy, and the simple fact that mechs are supposed to be able to move their arms so that instead of Low Slung Arm Syndrome, you can lift your arms to shoot from shoulder level. Like that.

Then there are things from lore that won't really work in this type of game. Damage vs armor, for example, which if we used tabletop values would make for really, really short games. Like everything else, it's a balance.

[MTier Slayed Up]

With any game, you have a target audience/demograph in mind. With BattleTech, that's a limited audience but a loyal fan base, so the retention is going to be there for those hardcore BT fans. It's not really a fair comparison to CoD, where it's all fast based, die by a knife or whatever vs big stompy robots. Root of the FPS concept is there, but the games themselves are vastly different.
BT is not drawing in droves of new people continuously, we don't see a lot of people downloading MWO on a regular. Mostly because words already been out, the game is already old by game standards and marketing it wouldn't do much. I think the biggest mistake was not turning this cross platform.

At any rate, any game made should be fun. Games are a form of entertainment. Whether you like Rain for it's compelling story, or you like Call of Duty because you like to kill stuff quick, fast and in hurry, the core fundamental is if you're having fun or not. Making a lore based game that is also fun should be hand in hand.

[Karl Streiger]

Well MWO was fun until they brought ECM and invented HSR... from there it went downwards.

For a FPS the tabletop values are idiotic... plain and simple, as stupid as novel authors sticking to table top values such as 750m shot or melting half a ton of armor. Another failure of FASA are the speeds in the TRO (for what it is worth) - and PGI simple copy pasted them too.

lore <> table top values <> round based computer game <> RTS <> FPS

Sure when the NASA ignores the measurement just stick with the number and ignore if its metric or imperial then PGI is within the best circles... copy values form a game designed to be played by dice neatly mixed with hitboxes based on the Gaussian 2d6 Curve within a 10sec time frame.

(Also its seems that the current developer did not take a closer look at successful MW games of the past)
MW4 - keept the tabletop values but did port them for the needs of a FPS and added some extra hitboxes.
MWLL - did have hit points per location based on the size of that location

Edited by Karl Streiger, 14 June 2018 - 01:32 AM.

[Daggett]

razenWing, on 13 June 2018 - 03:11 PM, said:

So really, the question comes down to... continue making the game for lore fans? Or just make a fun game?

The answer is to do both equally.

If you use an IP like Battletech you can't ditch too much of the lore, otherwise it simply makes no sense to use the IP and you are better off by creating your own IP.

The trick is to use those parts of the lore that engages fans the most like the iconic mech designs and varied equipment, but ditch the lore aspects that won't suit your gameplay vision.

Your proposed changes however would destroy the lore and with it the look&feel of the game to a point where it can't be called a Battletech/Mechwarrior game anymore. So such a game needs it's own IP. If you try this within the Battletech IP, it is doomed.

For example would you like an official Batman or James Bond movie where the Hero would cast spells instead of relying on tech gadgets? Or Gandalf carrying a shotgun (ok i must admit, this one could indeed be funny. But not as an official LOTR movie! )?

What PGI can do however is to ditch some smaller lore aspects like TT-values for tonnage and slots. This could help a lot without destroying the game's identity as a Battletech game. But mechs acting as healers or mages would go way too far so this is not gonna happen.

And while more than two roles could be interesting, that's not a fundamental problem of the game. Not every competitive game needs to follow the Tank-Assassin-Support formula established by MMORPGs and MOBAs. In fact many gamers including me got tired of seeing the same system over and over and would love to see something different.

TLDR: If someone makes a game with stompy robots that can repair and (de)buff others i would give it a try. If they'd name it Battletech however i would doubt the dev's sanity.

[MTier Slayed Up]

Karl Streiger, on 14 June 2018 - 01:30 AM, said:

Well MWO was fun until they brought ECM and invented HSR... from there it went downwards.

Well, at this stage, if you're no longer having fun with the game, why play it?

I still have fun playing the game, with a group or solo, despite my negative nancy complaints about some aspects.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

Karl Streiger doesn't. At least not QP, which the Leaderboards references, i think.

Edited by Aidan Crenshaw, 14 June 2018 - 03:41 AM.

[Asym]

Oh-Kay..... MWO is based on decades of lore? Of course, PGI hadn't a clue what that "really meant" and look where we are.

Where do you think a majority of the players come from? Not from other games.......they came here because they played a MW or TT game or read the novels about this Universe...... Think, dedicated small niche market..... And, lore does not equal balance in any way shape or form and the quest for balance screwed up established standards based on history and look where we are now.......a mess... PGI took a short cut when they took over: got caught well into the gravity well of lore; and, are now locked into status quo at a minimum level and attempting to revert back to a small part of that history to save themselves....Solaris and, a single player new game..... Yes, they've gone full circle.

[MTier Slayed Up]

We're going to have to be realistic here and understand that converting a tabletop game into a video game are going to have some key differences from one another. For all intents and purposes, MWO is a BattleTech game. I don't think any MechWarrior game has stayed completely tried and true (and I mean completely) to the tabletop version. Even lore wise, weapons are going to be vastly superior to one another, just look at the Clan Invasion and a series of nerfs that followed, that should speak volume that PGI at least tries to balance the game out to the best of their abilities.

It's easy to bash a company when you're not the one trying to offer any sort of solution. Like...I don't understand why folks come to the forum for a game they don't play just to complain about it, surely your time can be better spent? Acting like some crazy ex girlfriend isn't healthy.

Edited by DrtyDshSoap, 14 June 2018 - 05:02 AM.