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Mwo Why Is It Not Great?


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#1 Greyhart

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Posted 13 February 2019 - 05:11 AM

I've come back to the game after about a year off. Not a great deal of difference.

The thing is the core game is good. Shooty shooty robots. So why isn't it a great game?

The problems is some core design decisions IMHO. So in no particular order:

1. Hard points. They are the right idea, but the fact that 1 laser hard point can take a Large Laser or a small laser makes the smaller laser redundant as an option. The sized hard points in MW4 would've been a better long term choice to ensure that mechs didn't become all too similar.

2. Team based shooter. Yes this is the core of MWO, but the failure to have an ability to do a drop in drop out game mode limits the fun. Every game mode must have a team and those teams have to be balanced on skill and weight. This also creates a rather stilted play environment in that every mode (even attempting to take over a planet) becomes a calculation of win/loss statistics. It also makes kill all the enemy team the only real objective.

NB this is not to say that group/team play should be removed. Just that the requirement to create a team before starting limits the game play options.

3. The adherence to table top mechanics. The table top game should be taken as a starting point and then changed to better facilitate game play. Turned based games don't make good real time games. They should've identified weapons systems from the TT and then applied roles (advantages/ disadvantages) to the weapons. a small laser currently has no advantages over a large laser except that it weighs less. If you have a choice of large vs small you go large as it has longer range better damage output and takes up the same hard point.

They could've put a minimum range on large lasers that would've made them a real trade off with small. Again going with sized hard points would make a difference in this area. They could've made pulse lasers like machine guns rather than faster cycling lasers etc

4. The Heat system. following on from 3 we have the heat system that attempts to recreate TT rules but ignoring all the penalties that apply before shut down. This system basically ends up with high alphas being the end goal. We have ghost heat that is attempting to paper over this fundamental design flaw.

5. Pin point accuracy. If a cone of fire had been in the game from the start (like almost every other shooter) no one would be requesting pin point accuracy. I know they started with convergence but found it problematic. However combining this with the heat system and the way weapons have been implemented again drives the game to large alpha strikes and the poking game play. It also defeats the purpose of the armour system.

6. The lack of a pilot. There is no pilot in the game, there is no mechwarrior there is only the mech. A customizable pilot in a customizable mech makes for more options and a long term hook and better RPG elements.

7. Lack of consequences/ management. it's all just a grind upward, there is no real risk or loss. It is just buy mech bay, buy mech, grind mech repeat. This again causes problems with the game modes, if there was a real risk involved in them (that being recognized and bug outs being available) then they wouldn't all be a do or die game mode. Management of the mechs maintenance and mech bays could've made all the difference in modes like faction play.

8. Lack of an economy. X will always cost X no matter what and there is an infinite amount of X. There is no rarity value. This does not mean player trades; look at elite dangerous they model commodity prices per system based on the trade between all the systems. If a real economy was in place then you could get actual salvage from games and sell it or use it. This then all feeds into meaningful game play.

I look forward to MW5 as I hope it will deal with some of these issues.

I enjoy the core game and grinding a mech has a level of satisfaction, but once a mech is maxed out what is the point in playing it again?


I hope that when MWO gets ported to the new MW5 engine they spend some time on sorting out the underlying problems preventing the game achieving greatness.

#2 Bud Crue

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Posted 13 February 2019 - 05:25 AM

Because the NPE is awful and there have never been any in game resources to help make it better.
Which leads to a pointless grind for the uninitiated.
Which is made worse when PGI constantly changes in game mechanics and negatively impact the effectiveness of the build and the progress of what the new player is working on.
Which leads to the game never being able to branch out from its core original population, while consistently driving even that population away with ill advised changes that even expert players find annoying.

Oh, that, and buckets.

#3 Burke IV

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Posted 13 February 2019 - 05:30 AM

No mention of the skill tree anywhere. Have they taken it away yet?

#4 Potatomasher69

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Posted 13 February 2019 - 05:39 AM

View PostGreyhart, on 13 February 2019 - 05:11 AM, said:


The problems is some core design decisions IMHO. So in no particular order:

1. Hard points. They are the right idea, but the fact that 1 laser hard point can take a Large Laser or a small laser makes the smaller laser redundant as an option. The sized hard points in MW4 would've been a better long term choice to ensure that mechs didn't become all too similar.



I can think of a few things SL is better for than a LL. In fact, I don't understand why you would compare them. Also, instead of 'sized hardpoints' this game has a slot system and LL's simply just take up more slots to help balance that aspect of the game. I personally enjoy it more than what was in MW4.

#5 Greyhart

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Posted 13 February 2019 - 05:40 AM

View PostBurke IV, on 13 February 2019 - 05:30 AM, said:

No mention of the skill tree anywhere. Have they taken it away yet?



Given that the skill tree is newish I would say you could make it easier to use but the idea is not fundamentally flawed. I see they've added templates too so that might save time.

#6 Greyhart

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Posted 13 February 2019 - 05:46 AM

View PostPotatomasher69, on 13 February 2019 - 05:39 AM, said:


I can think of a few things SL is better for than a LL. In fact, I don't understand why you would compare them. Also, instead of 'sized hardpoints' this game has a slot system and LL's simply just take up more slots to help balance that aspect of the game. I personally enjoy it more than what was in MW4.


The hard point is a resource of the mech. If you had a mech with 1 laser hard point and nothing else then you would put the largest laser you could into that hard point. You would not sit there and think - whilst I can get the large laser in I would want a small laser instead. The large laser is simply better than the small laser you simply take the largest thing you can take in the mech.

if a hard point could take 4 small laser or one large laser then that might be heading towards more interesting decisions. That is all I am on about.

Then you could have variations of hardpoint sizes on variants of mechs. I recall some mechs are almost identical to each other.

#7 Burke IV

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Posted 13 February 2019 - 05:46 AM

View PostGreyhart, on 13 February 2019 - 05:40 AM, said:



Given that the skill tree is newish I would say you could make it easier to use but the idea is not fundamentally flawed. I see they've added templates too so that might save time.



wow.. i thought years had gone past sinse it dropped. Anyway dont mind me i wont turn this into a skill tree debate. If they had taken it away i might have dipped my toe again, but alas Posted Image

Edited by Burke IV, 13 February 2019 - 05:47 AM.


#8 Potatomasher69

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Posted 13 February 2019 - 05:58 AM

View PostGreyhart, on 13 February 2019 - 05:46 AM, said:


The hard point is a resource of the mech. If you had a mech with 1 laser hard point and nothing else then you would put the largest laser you could into that hard point. You would not sit there and think - whilst I can get the large laser in I would want a small laser instead. The large laser is simply better than the small laser you simply take the largest thing you can take in the mech.


There is no mech like that at all and this paragraph is junk.

Quote

if a hard point could take 4 small laser or one large laser then that might be heading towards more interesting decisions. That is all I am on about.

Then you could have variations of hardpoint sizes on variants of mechs. I recall some mechs are almost identical to each other.


It terms of ideas, yes this sounds kinda fun. If they could let you stack (like heat sinks in an engine) up to four small lasers into that one slot on that one hardpoint yeah I could appreciate that level of mechlab. It is my opinion that you are making close range brawling weapons too good, which are already entirely too efficient versus a long range weapon in brawling range in the first place. Also, what this would do to mechs with numerous hardpoints would be gross. You'd also have to do this for thing like machine gunz and I hope nobody wants to be in that meta either.

#9 El Bandito

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Posted 13 February 2019 - 06:06 AM

All good points, OP. It is a shame how much potential this game had and how much of that PGI has squandered.

#10 Greyhart

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Posted 13 February 2019 - 06:16 AM

View PostPotatomasher69, on 13 February 2019 - 05:58 AM, said:


There is no mech like that at all and this paragraph is junk.




The point is that it is a thought experiment.

Also there is a mech that is very close to it https://mwo.smurfy-n...ab#i=51&l=stock

only 2 laser slots and nothing else.

#11 Maddermax

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Posted 13 February 2019 - 06:31 AM

Large lasers take up more weight per damage, use more heat per damage and have longer burn times than small lasers. Large lasers also have ghost heat when firing over 3. The idea that small lasers are useless is... well, completely incorrect. Many builds incorporate small lasers, though it depends on the mech you’re using.

View PostBurke IV, on 13 February 2019 - 05:46 AM, said:

wow.. i thought years had gone past sinse it dropped. Anyway dont mind me i wont turn this into a skill tree debate. If they had taken it away i might have dipped my toe again, but alas Posted Image


As someone who came after the skill tree, I always wonder why people hate it so much. It’s interesting, works fairly well for allowing you to customise your mech, and is less grindy and expensive than the old system that made you buy and level 3 mechs of the same chassis. Yet there are people who literally refuse to play because they have to spend 5 minutes filling in a skill tree..l always seemed odd to me.

#12 Greyhart

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Posted 13 February 2019 - 06:41 AM

View PostMaddermax, on 13 February 2019 - 06:31 AM, said:

Large lasers take up more weight per damage, use more heat per damage and have longer burn times than small lasers. Large lasers also have ghost heat when firing over 3. The idea that small lasers are useless is... well, completely incorrect. Many builds incorporate small lasers, though it depends on the mech you’re using.




all this is true and I exaggerate for effect. However, heat is not a major problem if you are able to hide for a time. Weight and slots are only an issue at build time and do not effect cooldown, damage, range or heat in the game.

The thought experiment is about understanding if one is better than the other if you take out other factors. Each is worth 1 hardpoint what is the most effective use of that 1 hard point?

Small lasers work where they are boated. but if you have maybe 2 energy hardpoints and you're using a laser as a primary (not a throw away back up) then using 2 small lasers over 2 medium lasers would not cross your mind. If you could get 2 large lasers in you would probably do that.

There is a comparison to ballistics where the large the damage burst the shorter the range. with lasers the large the damage burst the longer the range. does no one see the problem with that?

#13 thievingmagpi

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Posted 13 February 2019 - 06:48 AM

zero NPE.


zero marketing.

a popular twitch streamer just started streaming mwo a while ago and regularly gets 2x the viewers than the most popular resident mwo streamers and more views than top MRBC and World Championship streams. Not a peep from PGI's "community managers".

Continued fumbling of existent systems. Lack of player engagement. All but insulting the playerbase. All of this leading to driving current players off.

Lack of new content.

Huge barrier to entry. Wanna just jump in and run around in a mech? Yeah right. Gonna need to choose a good mech, skill it up right etc and then understand all the invisible, poorly documented mechanics. Want to run that mech in Solaris? Gonna need a different skill tree and build.


Wanna buy a mechpack?

Edited by thievingmagpi, 13 February 2019 - 07:07 AM.


#14 Burke IV

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Posted 13 February 2019 - 06:48 AM

View PostMaddermax, on 13 February 2019 - 06:31 AM, said:

As someone who came after the skill tree, I always wonder why people hate it so much. It’s interesting, works fairly well for allowing you to customise your mech, and is less grindy and expensive than the old system that made you buy and level 3 mechs of the same chassis. Yet there are people who literally refuse to play because they have to spend 5 minutes filling in a skill tree..l always seemed odd to me.



Well i think its all be done to death by now, but its not less grindy imo. The game chugged along just fine without it for along time, i personally got very acustomed to how the game felt. Then suddenly the tree arrives and you can no longer tell the difference between a bs player and an armour stacked mech. Its more than that anyway, the game changed radically in the time the tree arrived. It was a first person shooter before, i dont know what it was meant to be after but it wasnt the fun game i used to know anymore. I played for a bit and i realised that my own personal build had been pretty much edited out of the game (see you set me off now its all coming back) and the tree itself is biased against both jump mechs and missile mechs. I hated it and quit soon after it dropped. :D

#15 Maddermax

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Posted 13 February 2019 - 06:53 AM

View PostGreyhart, on 13 February 2019 - 06:41 AM, said:


all this is true and I exaggerate for effect. However, heat is not a major problem if you are able to hide for a time. Weight and slots are only an issue at build time and do not effect cooldown, damage, range or heat in the game.

The thought experiment is about understanding if one is better than the other if you take out other factors. Each is worth 1 hardpoint what is the most effective use of that 1 hard point?

Small lasers work where they are boated. but if you have maybe 2 energy hardpoints and you're using a laser as a primary (not a throw away back up) then using 2 small lasers over 2 medium lasers would not cross your mind. If you could get 2 large lasers in you would probably do that.

There is a comparison to ballistics where the large the damage burst the shorter the range. with lasers the large the damage burst the longer the range. does no one see the problem with that?


So, small lasers boated are more powerful, unless you have limited slots, where you’d put in a heavier laser? Unless you wanted small lasers or no lasers and to fill out other equipment/slot types. So... it depends on the mech, and your plan for it. Large, small and medium lasers all have their uses.

Lasers increase range with power, ballistics decrease range with power, missiles and PPCs retain the same range. It’s part of what provides variety, rather than the same weapons with different skins.

Edited by Maddermax, 13 February 2019 - 06:55 AM.


#16 Bombast

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Posted 13 February 2019 - 06:59 AM

View PostGreyhart, on 13 February 2019 - 06:16 AM, said:


The point is that it is a thought experiment.

Also there is a mech that is very close to it https://mwo.smurfy-n...ab#i=51&l=stock

only 2 laser slots and nothing else.


That mech has fundamental problems unrelated to hardpoint balancing and you know it.

#17 Maddermax

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Posted 13 February 2019 - 07:05 AM

View PostBurke IV, on 13 February 2019 - 06:48 AM, said:



Well i think its all be done to death by now, but its not less grindy imo. The game chugged along just fine without it for along time, i personally got very acustomed to how the game felt. Then suddenly the tree arrives and you can no longer tell the difference between a bs player and an armour stacked mech. Its more than that anyway, the game changed radically in the time the tree arrived. It was a first person shooter before, i dont know what it was meant to be after but it wasnt the fun game i used to know anymore. I played for a bit and i realised that my own personal build had been pretty much edited out of the game (see you set me off now its all coming back) and the tree itself is biased against both jump mechs and missile mechs. I hated it and quit soon after it dropped. Posted Image


Obviously it was important for you, but..l well, there’s not much of an actual reason in there, beyond it was what you were used to, and you had to change your builds. I’d probably hate it if they changed it back, and I couldn’t customise my skills and had to buy 2 more of every chassis and change my builds... but the core game would be the same, it wouldn’t actually change much of the actual game at the end of it. Anyway, as you say this is probably the wrong thread for it. I just, as mentioned, always found it a bit odd.

Edited by Maddermax, 13 February 2019 - 07:07 AM.


#18 thievingmagpi

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Posted 13 February 2019 - 07:12 AM

View PostMaddermax, on 13 February 2019 - 06:31 AM, said:

As someone who came after the skill tree, I always wonder why people hate it so much. It’s interesting, works fairly well for allowing you to customise your mech, and is less grindy and expensive than the old system that made you buy and level 3 mechs of the same chassis. Yet there are people who literally refuse to play because they have to spend 5 minutes filling in a skill tree..l always seemed odd to me.


The old system wasn't great, that's for sure.

But ST is a huge barrier for new players. It's costly, it's difficult to navigate, all just to play 5 min team deathmatch. This isn't an rpg. It's not Path of Exile where you really build up your character over time. It's a team fps. Jump in, blow stuff up, next.

I'm glad that when ST dropped I had a ton of cbills/hxp/gxp to fiddle around a bit. I sure as hell wouldn't enjoy it starting from scratch. Some mechs are usable unskilled, many aren't. I've bought mechs that I've never bothered to drop in because I don't want to play a bunch of matches in an unskilled POS. So instead, I stick to the same 3-4 mechs out of the 150 I own.

I don't hate the idea of being able to fiddle with some stats. A bit more armour here, a bit more cooldown there, better sensors, drop some range for twisting ability. Etc. Theorycrafting is great fun, but it's too expensive- and I'm space rich (millions of cbills to spare, plenty of GXP etc).


Skill Nodes should be at least half their current XP cost.

#19 B0oN

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Posted 13 February 2019 - 07:13 AM

Why is MW:O not great, you ask ?

I´m not playing it anymore .

#for those that don´t get it
/irony+sarcasm off

#20 Burke IV

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Posted 13 February 2019 - 07:17 AM

It was more than just the tree anyway. The game had a change of direction. Heavier mechs whined about loss of agility, lighter mechs whined about nerfs to boatable small weapons. Builds died over night. It could be argued that the core game was no longer the same. Yeah its all coming back now, i went and played world of warships and had alot of fun without putting any money in at all and while i played, slowly coasting over the water and angling my hull to take dmg, i think i started to understand what they were trying to to. Unfortunately it was completely wrong for this game, imo.


Edit: world of warships. Steam had some kind of brainfart around the new year and i got 3 ship packs for some odd figure like £5.16. The deal vanished a few hours later Posted Image I think the game earned that much off me anyway

Edited by Burke IV, 13 February 2019 - 07:20 AM.






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