144 replies to this topic

[UnofficialOperator]

1. Eliminate the skill tree grind. Every new mech gets 91 points to customize upon purchase. Currently it requires +- 30 matches to max 1 mech. Basically a new player is playing a crippled mech and getting farmed through no fault of his. This perceived or otherwise real unfairness is just an unnecessary barrier of entry to new players.

It is time to stop using the skill tree grind as an excuse for not designing a real immersion/emotional investment/hook in the game.

2. Sell each mech individually at a lower price. It is absurd how much you have to pay per mech pack when you can easily get AAA games for the same. Sell cosmetics at an even lower/negligible price.

3. Gift new players a set of 4 mechs which come with 91 skill points. This will at least keep f2p players coming in for the churn. No one wants to pay a crippled mech or be farmed from the get go. At least give them a chance to fight back. (Those who will never pay for a game, will almost never ever pay for a game anyway so this isn't a loss imo)

4. Replace Solo QP with Solo Faction QP where it is still only solo queuers (where you won't face groups) but at least the matches they play will have an effect on the map. This will at least build a bit of immersion rather than Solo QP in its current form, which really is just a lobby shooter.

5. Get advice from community leaders who actually play the game well rather than listening to scrubs in the bottom 30% of the scoreboard.

[IIXxXII]

Wil McCullough, on 21 August 2018 - 02:30 AM, said:

I'm from the agency side of things so whether a client can, or is successful in putting ad costs as tax deductible, i have no idea. I'm actually skeptical that macdonalds can argue "goodwill" by pushing out a clever ad that suggests people exercise though. Seems awfully abusable. Don't quote me on that though.

Advertising is a necessity because word of mouth only gets so far. What your basic ad does is an attempt to create brand awareness. It basically tells the audience your brand exists. A memorable ad serves to influence brand recall, which means people remember your brand. These two things are what get people to try your product when they see it on the shelves or on the rotating homepage banner on steam. Then, it's up to the product to retain the customer. A good product can sell well with a low marketing budget precisely because they have loyal customers. And loyal customers react to good products. That's why coke is a giant. And why nike is losing huge amounts of market share to under armor. Cos for all its marketing efforts, nike products are ****.

I think you're correct in terms of youth demographics. Most young people probably wouldnt be interested in the format of this game. The new player grind is too time consuming and wasteful to appeal to our culture of instant gratification.

The age bracket MWO would appeal to would likely be older. It would be fans of the mechwarrior and mech commander franchise who are unaware this game exists. In playing this game I see tons of references to the 1980s and 1990s.

Those are the types of people who might be worth reaching out to on a marketing basis imo.

[Wil McCullough]

IIXxXII, on 21 August 2018 - 02:59 AM, said:

I think you're correct in terms of youth demographics. Most young people probably wouldnt be interested in the format of this game. The new player grind is too time consuming and wasteful to appeal to our culture of instant gratification.

The age bracket MWO would appeal to would likely be older. It would be fans of the mechwarrior and mech commander franchise who are unaware this game exists. In playing this game I see tons of references to the 1980s and 1990s.

Those are the types of people who might be worth reaching out to on a marketing basis imo.

I don't think i mentioned the age demographic earlier but yes, mwo's playerbase is markedly more mature compared to other games. But the age demographic is actually fascinating because it straddles two generations. Teenagers who discovered mechwarrior 2 have the possibility of having families and teenage kids of their own now. And if they've introduced the awesomeness of battletech to their kids, that's a +1 for pgi.

The more mature demographic (age-wise) also means a player base which has significantly more disposable income to spend. Most are professionals in their fields who can drop more money on the game as a hobby than games like dota. This is the age group that have hobbies like cars and golf after all. Personally, i've paid pgi close to a thousand in in-game asset purchases. If i had to hazard a guess, the unique demographic is what is actually keeping mwo afloat. Mwo has a disproportionately large segment of whales that are extremely keen to buy mech packs even though they're very expensive in comparison to other games. Packs go at like $40 and up. You could buy entire games for that amount, not just three mechs.

There's lots of things pgi could do for marketing. In-universe manufacturer websites fot example that sell their new mechs. Wouldn't it be cool if luthien industries had a webpage where you could see an "exploded" dissection of the different parts that went into their jenner mechs? There's a lot of cool things you could do with parallax scrolling. You could even spin that off into launch announcement video spots for social media and youtube prerolls. Would be super cool for new mech announcements.

Also, not sure if pgi has license for actual memorabilia but if they did, actual unit patches would be a good introduction as well. Good for mechwarrior cosplay or just slapping onto military themed jackets, backpacks and the like. That's one way to increase players' emotional stake in the game and its lore.

But pgi is pgi.

edit: Also, why hasn't there been a music collaboration with jeehun hwang, who composed the mechwarrior 2 soundtrack? or duane decker who did mechwarrior 4's music? man, that would have been so good.

Edited by Wil McCullough, 21 August 2018 - 04:00 AM.

[Mystere]

XX Sulla XX, on 20 August 2018 - 10:22 AM, said:

What is the very least PGI has to get right to start getting players back in decent numbers?

[A21B]

how many people do you think stopped playing since the lrm buff? and with todays patch nerfing streaks and atms i think game pop will go down again, why? as a streak user it is very hard to lock a small mech now after today it will be impossible leaving your team vulnerable.

chis lowery needs to admit he made a mistake with the skill tree and get rid of it for something else, i could come up with a better system then the one we have now whitch is not new player friendly in any game if a new player joins and gets wiped out instantly they will quit it takes way to many matches just to get your mech playable.

if i get a new mech i play and do poorly till i get on a winning team to carry me get my 2x xp bonus park it till the xp bonus resets. how about with a new mech you get 3x xp for the first 25 matches? stackable with the 2x once per day.

[Karl Streiger]

Refund all customers, ok I don't care about all, but I would gladly accept a check of 50% of the money I have thrown at PGI.

More seriously? There is nothing left that PGI can do.... they striped the wooden planks of the ship to make fire and now they wonder why it sinks. Cash & Burn.... good luck with MW5 you will need it

Edited by Karl Streiger, 21 August 2018 - 04:53 AM.

[Thorqemada]

This game has had its run - there is nothing they can do or be able to change.

Solaris had to be released pre CW when the Playerbase is still big enough and the Prestige from leading the Ranks would have attracted the competitve crowd.
CW should have been released in a Scenario way instead of galactic scale Warfare.
Mechs should have sized hardpoints etc.
Pilot Avatars would offer more microtransaction oportunity and personalized skilltrees - to get Access to certain Mechs you would need a Pilot of that certain oriign etc.
etc...

[Tonberry Knife]

I'm not sure why everyone is saying this game is dead though. I almost never have to wait to play a match at any given time of the day. But some issues friends have expressed about getting into the game:

1. Optimization (they feel bad their super PCs can't get high FPS)

2. Entry level grind (Starting off with garbage mechs and too broke to experience the mech bay)

3. Faction play seems like its too hard to get into in the beginning.

4. Lack of in-game community options. (A lobby might be nice? Player avatar?)


Sure, balance is important, but new players generally don't care. I personally came back after 6 years after I enjoyed the new Battletech turn-based strategy game.

I think success with Mechwarrior 5 could breathe new life into this game, assuming their plan isn't to replace this with some multiplayer mode in MW5. That might be a real waste and missed opportunity.

Edited by Tonberry Knife, 21 August 2018 - 07:11 AM.

[Bud Crue]

Tonberry Knife, on 21 August 2018 - 06:43 AM, said:

I'm not sure why everyone is saying this game is dead though.

https://leaderboard.isengrim.org/stats

That ought to illustrate why many folks are starting to yap about the game being dead.
Add to that drop in players, the balance passes of late that have driven some popular streamers away and you have a vibe of doom (if you will) that is spreading.

Whatever. All I know is that my Quickies are getting a buff after 2 years of nerfs, so I am at least momentarily content...until tomorrow night and I play them only to find out that in classic PGI tradition, their asserted “moderate” agility buffs turn out to be barely noticeable. Then I will rejoin in the chorus of DOOM!!!

[kapusta11]

I don't think the "very least" will cut it. Matchmaker and PSR system need a complete overhaul. Garbage game modes need to go. Focus on 2 game modes for quick play, and 2 for FP, make them good. Quality > quantity. Making all tech useful is also important. It's been more than a year and Light Gauss is still a total garbage, MRMs are bad, small/micro lasers are bad, except maybe for heavy small. RACs are underwhelming. U/ACs are too hot. PGI pretty much forces people to use Heavy/clan gauss + laser vomit.

Edited by kapusta11, 21 August 2018 - 08:22 AM.

[Big Tin Man]

'Very Least' level of activity to bring people back?

Eliminate Solaris divisions entirely and give a SSR rank for each and every mech you drive in there. One Solaris queue for 1v1. Pro pilots in urbies can fight noobs in annies and it could be a fair fight based on SSR.

Edited by Big Tin Man, 21 August 2018 - 04:09 PM.

[Prototelis]

1. Add depth
2. Stop listening to the vocal minority of crybabies
3. Mo maps
4. Stop trying to please everyone, it pleases no one.

Edited by Prototelis, 21 August 2018 - 04:30 PM.

[PocketYoda]

Less grind, more money, remove PSR and skill trees..


Or at least stop psr from pushing customers up or down due to teams and not themselves.. Skill trees lower in prices would help immensely.. to even out the new customers and the whale veterans...

Edited by Samial, 21 August 2018 - 09:22 PM.

[Kynesis]

The minimum required to save the game is to make it viable for casual players to enjoy.
This specifically does not answer any other issues or interests of existing players. There are too few existing players and fewer every day.

People who are not already invested in the game need to be able to join in and warm up to it, separated from people like me who audibly grind our teeth with frustration at their incompetence (not to say that I'm great, I'm very middle-of-the-pack based on experience in many other games).

• Strip down the investment required (both in terms of time and money) to explore the game's core features and be at least somewhat competitive, with enough mechs to have a variety of play style options. I'd even suggest pre-populating an account specifically to that end, with documentation explaining that and what you hope players might work toward. Make many mechs and equipment available for free for tier 5 players (only).
  
• Let players decide the level of challenge they want to take on. Reward players for improving and taking on greater challenges and introduce extra challenges into higher difficulty tiers.
  
• Set up a mode hosting matches that are simple to join and don't require any special knowledge of how to build mechs or that use the more advanced weapon systems or more challenging mechs.
  
• Fix the chat, friends and clan systems. Reliable, functional communication that enables people playing as friends or would-be friends, to find friends and form groups is absolutely critical.

Beyond the level of 'minimum viable product', I'd make a long-lasting game mode with a variety of NPC opponents, that people can join and leave as they please (somewhat the old Alterac Valley PvP of vanilla WoW). Minimal rewards, minimal commitment - just a bunch of people in big stompy robots blowing stuff up and engaging in duels & skirmishes all over the place with objectives that spawn a group of NPC allies - tanks, planes, whatever, with minimal AI, that can help but for all real purposes are just there to spread out engagements & offer support (moral support as much as anything) for pushes & counter-pushes.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

Quote

Beyond the level of 'minimum viable product', I'd make a long-lasting game mode with a variety of NPC opponents, that people can join and leave as they please (somewhat the old Alterac Valley PvP of vanilla WoW).

thats say Paul innouye is not each Goal for PGI ...Paul say -PGI has nothing AI for mWO and will not write a AI in the next

Quote

I can say with 99% certainty, PVE will not be in MWO anytime soon.
About my statement about PvE... we do not have an AI system in MWO. That system would have to be built from scratch in order to have any resemblance of an AI opponent fighting you. Hence, something like this IS off the table for this discussion.

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 22 August 2018 - 07:08 AM.

[Mystere]

Helicopters!

Oops! Wrong game.

[C E Dwyer]

Bringing back torso twist ( being/been tested)

Add Quirks to give Mechs different flavours.

Make Ultra Canon less unreliable.

[TLBFestus]

They will not get many players to come back to the game. Some of us are just so burned out/disappointed from years of play and [Redacted] of the game that we are done. I barely visit these forums anymore except on the odd day like today when I've exhausted all my other choices of websites to visit I finally get to the level of desperation that says, "well, time to check out MWO forums, that or poke a stick into my eye".

Can they attract new players? Again, they've pretty much bungled that over the years as well, but have stumbled and bumbled along. Over the years have seen approximately 0.01% effort in advertising for new players. About the only time there was anything approaching an advertising campaign was when it launched on STEAM, but even then [Redacted] didn't try to get any momentum on that platform.

I love Mechwarrior. I loved the idea behind it when they kickstarted this themselves. I was enthralled in early beta even though there were only 6 mechs and fewer maps.

They never lived up to their hype. [Redacted]

I'm hoping it will be good. I'm hoping that the SP is great. That said, will wait for it to be out for awhile before giving these PGI [Redacted] my money. Fool me once.....

Edited by draiocht, 27 August 2018 - 09:03 AM.
staff abuse, unconstructive

[R5D4]

My 2 cents, based on nothing but my own speculation, PGI already considers MWO a wash and is milking whatever they can get from it before they switch the servers off. All your a likely to see at this point is PGI releasing MW5 and closing down MWO to stop the financial bleeding. Maybe they decide to try a MWO2 using the Unreal Engine and MW5 assets while also hopefully learning from their past mistakes but at this point it's a long shot.

Can PGI do anything in the meantime to at least stem the bleeding before they switch off the servers? Sure, people keep raising these things over and over:
-Rejigger the Player Skill Rating algorithm to something that isn't just a progress bar for experience
-Fix the match maker to balance teams AFTER it has selected 24 "similar" players to better distribute players onto both teams
-Reset everyone back to skill level 5 and let the PSR and matchmaker changes take effect
-BUFF under performing weapons (e.g. SPL/CSPL) and Mech Chassis aka. TOO MUCH NERF
-Rejigger the skill tree

And my own suggestions:
-Reduce/Merge the "buckets" of game modes to consolidate your player base (Integrating QP into the FP map would be a start as someone here already mentioned)
-Revert the 30/35 ton light re-scale changes and BUFF their mobility back to where it was pre-meganerf
-Let players Eject in QP mode when the game is a stomp (e.g. 11 vs. 2) give people a sense of control and get them out of QP matches faster

But I don't see any of this happening. It's no longer in their interest to do so (from their perspective) especially with MWO using a hacked together mutant version of CryEngine 3.x.x which is at least 6 years out of date by now.

Edited by R5D4, 22 August 2018 - 09:40 AM.

[Rafe Yomin]

MechaBattler, on 20 August 2018 - 10:42 AM, said:

I think what they could do to improve MWO. Is expand the mechwarrior academy to include mech builds and equipment descriptions. MWO has a steep learning curve. It's one of the few games where you can build your mech bad enough to be near worthless. It's not enough to learn the controls and learn tactics. You have to know how all the equipment works. Even now people have some misconceptions about pieces of equipment.

Can't really blame people for that. Information found online goes across the years, and finding the most recent one can be a challenge, if you can find it at all without really diving deep. Try searching for MWO ECM and see which official information you find. The first link is a link to the MWO Gamepedia 2 years ago, before skills were introduced. Most links are to the forum, where people try to explain, but again you need to find a pretty recent post because compared to a year ago, a lot has changed.

If you need to do that kinda stuff just to get basic info on a basic equipment ..., most will just say: screw this, i'll go to another game where i can just go to the wiki and see what everything does with crosslinks and all, to relevant information (such as: affected by x,y,z, skills, affected by equipment a, b and c, in the following ways) and patch notes.