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New Players: The Real Problem With Mwo; Why Nerfing Lasers Won't Work


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#1 Pumpkin Spice Templar

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Posted 09 July 2018 - 03:55 AM

Note: I'm new to the game. Only about 300 hours. Also, this is my personal response to the Clan Laser Crisis.

So the biggest problem MWO has, from my perspective, is the original learning curve when you first start playing. The beauty of the game is also its biggest challenge: the massive amount of choice for the customization of your battle mechs and finding the balance in the current state of Clan vs inner sphere. Now I am about 40 mechs into this game, 5 Clan and 35 inner sphere. I find that I play Inner sphere more often, because quite frankly, Clan mechs are just harder to play. They are a lot softer and resemble glass Cannon / Caster types from other games. Conversely, inner sphere mechs are like the warrior / Barbarian classes. Inner sphere mechs have a lower damage output in general but they have a higher durability and they are more forgiving for mistakes / poor movement and maneuver choices. Only now am I starting to get the hang of certain Clan mechs for very limited roles for me, and I find that at least in my experience, for the Clans you really have to know exactly what you are doing have a really fine tuned build. I'm not saying that inner sphere mechs are super easy, but as a new player they have been much more forgiving and easier to learn. This is especially true because of how many ways you could build them. Conversely, with the Clans, once again I would like to point out that there are very limited ways to make them effective and viable during a match. Because of my own a learning curve experience, I am just now beginning to play some Clan mechs effectively. In my personal opinion, the balance is almost perfect as it is, and needs no change.

If anything, PGI would do well to try and make the game more user-friendly for new players, and to do a better job of explaining how the Metal Works and the roles of each Mech and faction in the grand scheme of things. It seems to me like they believe that the issue with player retention is that the game is unbalanced, but the reality is that the game is simply incredibly hard to learn and I find that most of my friends to whom I try to introduce the game end up quitting due to the difficulty of learning. The reason I have not quit personally, is because the series what is very near and dear to my heart as I played MechWarrior4 as a small child, and I am very grateful that somebody is keeping the series alive.

Now I understand that PGI needs to make money to keep the game running. I understand that they might feel that making the Clans, who, when played correctly, can be devastating on the battlefield; making them weaker might seem necessary to take and retain more new players. But this is the wrong way to approach the problem.
My personal recommendation is for them to focus harder on making the game more accessible. I know I'm going out on a limb here and I'm starting to get away from the current issue at hand, but I would highly suggest an app on the Google Play store or the Apple Store. I'm thinking an app that will help introduce new players to the mechanics of the game, something like that time based RPG like most other mobile games, and a game that would have passive benefits to their mwo account, like Supply caches. Or occasionally let them play one of those spin wheel games and some of the prizes can be a new small mechs, or hanger slots, or MC. I highly recommend doing something of this sort, as PGI needs to focus more on injecting new players and New Life blood into the game, rather than doing what they are doing now: alienating their loyal fan base, that is quite literally keeping them alive.

I personally have spent roughly $350 on this game. I don't make much, but to me it was worth it to support the team keeping my childhood game alive.

And finally, the last thing I want to ask the community in generally is, is there any way for the free market to fix this problem? And by that I mean other than simply letting this game die because they've alienated their entire player base, which is what they are risking right now. I mean, is PGI the only company that is allowed to use the MechWarrior brand? I know that BattleTech is run by a different Studio, so I guess that answers my question already, but I what I really am asking is if there is some sort of competitor mechanism that might force either this came to get his stuff together, or allow for a new company to take over at do a better job?

#2 Tetatae Squawkins

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Posted 09 July 2018 - 08:26 AM

Microsoft still holds to rights to all Mechwarrior/Mechcommander/Battletech etc video games.

I have no idea if PGI's license prevents Microsoft from selling a license to a competing company to make Mechwarrior games on Windows platforms.

#3 Tarl Cabot

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Posted 09 July 2018 - 04:39 PM

And even if they could/would, who would take that gamble, and what would the game be like? PGI has the upcoming PVE MW5, would another developer go that route, or go PVP as in MWO and HOW would that be created?

Have you seen the other games PGI had made? They had nothing to lose and everything to gain with the crowd-funding (did not use Kickstarter), and that Paul/Russ were fans of the Mechwarrior games (though not really competitive........).

#4 SilentFenris

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Posted 10 July 2018 - 03:26 PM

View PostXanzikron, on 09 July 2018 - 03:55 AM, said:

...
So the biggest problem MWO has, from my perspective, is the original learning curve when you first start playing. The beauty of the game is also its biggest challenge: the massive amount of choice for the customization of your battle mechs and finding the balance in the current state of Clan vs inner sphere.
...
If anything, PGI would do well to try and make the game more user-friendly for new players, and to do a better job of explaining how the Metal Works and the roles of each Mech and faction in the grand scheme of things.
...
My personal recommendation is for them to focus harder on making the game more accessible. I know I'm going out on a limb here and I'm starting to get away from the current issue at hand, but I would highly suggest an app on the Google Play store or the Apple Store. I'm thinking an app that will help introduce new players to the mechanics of the game, something like that time based RPG like most other mobile games, and a game that would have passive benefits to their mwo account, like Supply caches. Or occasionally let them play one of those spin wheel games and some of the prizes can be a new small mechs, or hanger slots, or MC.
...
And finally, the last thing I want to ask the community in generally is, is there any way for the free market to fix this problem? And by that I mean other than simply letting this game die because they've alienated their entire player base, which is what they are risking right now. I mean, is PGI the only company that is allowed to use the MechWarrior brand? I know that BattleTech is run by a different Studio, so I guess that answers my question already, but I what I really am asking is if there is some sort of competitor mechanism that might force either this came to get his stuff together, or allow for a new company to take over at do a better job?


Trimmed your post a bit.... Yes, MWO does have a huge learning curve.

1) As you mentioned, you can build mechs numerous ways, but very few builds are effective. PGI saw this and started selling the Champion (C) versions of mechs, which were customized with community input to be effective rather than the default loadout from the source Battletech.

2) Roles are defined by how you the player equip and play a mech, not by the mech itself. There are roles a mech will be horrible at no matter what equipment you put on: Scout-Atlas, Hillhugging-Cataphract, Tank-Locust. Again, the Champion Builds usually focus a mech into a role rather than the "generalist"/jack-of-all-trades the default loadouts tend toward.

3) Mobile games are unlikely. As others said, PGI merely borrowed the Mechwarrior title from Microsoft for videogame rights. Mobile games might not even fall under that license, instead going to the source Battletech which I believe is held by Topps and currently used by Catalyst Game Labs.

4) PGI took the Mechwarrior franchise and made a sucessful game. Mecbwarrior 4 was released in 2000, that a decade and a half of non-use. Could a larger studio do more than PGI? Maybe. But Microsoft had the license and decided to let PGI develop the game instead. Even with PGI and HairBrainedSchemes developing, Battletech/Mechwarrior are a very niche market which probably makes the rights not attractive to the big boys of game development. If anyone else took over it would be another small group like PGI and likely have similar issues.

#5 Dago Red

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Posted 22 August 2018 - 01:51 AM

In what world does 300 hours count as new to a game?

#6 Apocal43

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Posted 11 September 2018 - 08:53 AM

View PostDago Red, on 22 August 2018 - 01:51 AM, said:

In what world does 300 hours count as new to a game?


In the world of six year old online shooters.

#7 Koniving

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Posted 11 September 2018 - 06:34 PM

....why is this in the Battletech thread and not the mwo threads?





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