12 replies to this topic

[CtrlAltWheee]

Bolt-ons were a good idea. I like them.

PGI, please make more straight sci-fi items. My favorite bolt-ons right now are the reactors. They're available on the atlas, the blackjack, and a few others. But I'd like to see them on everything.

Please shift efforts to make bolt-ons more about embellishing the existing sci-fi style.

If I had my choice, I wish you'd sell them more like warframe's attachable armor. Thematic sets, purchaseable as pieces or as a set, one-time purchase and usable on every mech. The business model is there, but the way MWO does it is not quite right.

The idea of bolt-ons is exactly what I want: a way to enhance the mechs I already have.

The execution is a little off in the pricing, the needing to purchase each piece for each mech, it adds tedious inventory management, it somehow disincentivizes me to change the art often, and the heavy metal style vs scifi.

It's okay to charge me $15 for a cool scifi set, and then let me use it wherever. Buying each individual piece for the current prices sucks the fun out a bit. It has lots of strange counter-synergies like the way camo patterns are priced.

It's been said by others, but some cool directions to go with style:
-Reactors like you already have
-Mon Cal cruiser style. Rounded, amphibious.
-Bike racks like on the phoenix mech geometry
-Rounded like the original clan primes
-Alternate universe like the HBS Battletech shadowhawk head or the founder heads
-Gundam aesthetic like the incubus

[FupDup]

Tank tread shoulder pads

[FRAGTAST1C]

Ducks on a conveyor belt mounted on the mech's Head.

[Vellron2005]

In my opinion, Bolt-ons were mostly, a huge missed opportunity.

When I and a few others suggested them years ago, the idea was to make mech geometry look different. Not make it look absurd.

Take the Atlas for example.

The Idea was to make, saaaay, the head, look differently. Have glowing eyes. Only the left eye, only the right, a more pronounced "scull" shape.

What we got was an Atlas with a giant half-car strapped to it's shoulder, a submarine on it's back, horns on it's head and chain saws on it's arms.. it looks like a bad circus freak.. it's ridiculous..

Such wasted potential..

[Cyanogene]

Bolt-ons are an easy way of making your average ugly as **** mech even more repulsive. The fact that PGI are wasting their time to create these atrocious, over-the-top "cosmetics" is reprehensible. I'd rather them putting their time into more premium paint jobs or shaders. There's nothing more horrifying than witnessing something like a Piranha with those giant *** wings on her back.

Edited by Cyanogene, 11 April 2019 - 03:59 AM.

[LordNothing]

most boltons are just ugly at best, tactically unwise at worst. like those big flags give away your position, ive gotten the jump on people because of them.

[Karl Streiger]

So one or two Bolt-Ons or DOS-Decals are adequate (Fins for the Zeus)

[Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie]

I too would like to see more 'in-universe' stuff.

do it with style; we're all here for the 'battletech-experience'. while something from outside can be fun from time to time, it should still be the exception, not the rule.
example: fins on the zeus = yay. bombs strapped to urbies = maybe (cause fun). helmets and clubs on kodiaks.. yuk.

[Nesutizale]

Some bolt-ons that are different geo would be nice, like different heads for the Atlas. Round or square shoulders. Maybe some extra armorplatings like on the Corsair or Griffen shoulder plates.

Don't know how you feel about fake weapons? Like in WW2 where they faked guns to make the tanks look more troublesome.
I could imagne an AC5 that looks like an AC20? What about an extra LRM launcher that dosn't do anything?

[Karl Streiger]

Nesutizale, on 11 April 2019 - 05:17 AM, said:

Don't know how you feel about fake weapons? Like in WW2 where they faked guns to make the tanks look more troublesome.
I could imagne an AC5 that looks like an AC20? What about an extra LRM launcher that dosn't do anything?

Didn't they faked the gun to look less troublesome?
And about weapon visuals - nobody really looks at a Mech to get the loadout (i know some argue that they do - maybe they have better rigs and better eyes and don't know how to hit the bloody letter R)
Even this slow game is to fast to see the difference between an AC 20 and a AC 10 - ok AC 2 vs AC20 might be visual but that's it. There was a time where you were able to see the difference between a CN9-AL or AH but the new shiny bad weapon visuals killed that distinction.

[Nesutizale]

I am not certain on the WW2 part, could be the other way around.

Anyway I concider the bold-ons just "for your viewing pleasure" anyway so it dosn't matter if the enemy can ID it or not but at least haveing some fake weapons or armor would make at least some sense lore wise.

Same goes for colors on mechs. Normaly you would paint em in colors fitting the mission at hand and not in some bright shiny colors or parade colors. Its just that targeting computers who mark your targets make camo patterns pretty useless.
Also even if you could spot weapons on an enemy, the target comp will tell you what he has, that is if you take the time to look at it.

Camo and fake weapons, bold-ons in general are mostly just for your amusement and do very little to confuse people...in most cases.

[Karl Streiger]

Nesutizale, on 11 April 2019 - 06:35 AM, said:

Camo and fake weapons, bold-ons in general are mostly just for your amusement and do very little to confuse people...in most cases.

Camo is irrelevant (was not all the time) usually you see a black batch of pixels - sometimes they blend into the surrounding most of the time they don't.
At closer range, the color or the bolt-ons have only the issue that you point out of the masses.
The best camo in this game is Noob-Green.

[Nesutizale]

I run noob-green mostly because IIRC it was the color of choice by the SLDF