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Mw5 Head Scratching Moments.

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#1 Sir Wulfrick

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Posted 12 December 2019 - 04:44 PM

So after abandoning MWO a couple of years ago I decided to give PGI another chance and dove head first in to MW5 Mercs. Hmm.

There's certainly potential here. Moving to the UT4 engine is a very welcome thing. Performance is far superior to the abomination that was the DX-9 locked crye engine. As was true in MWO the mech art, texture work, battle damage is superb - the best I've seen in any Mechwarrior game. I also really like the music. It's somewhat generic but really fits the genre. Nice.

Now lets get on to some things that maybe need looking at again from a design perspective.

1. Enemy spawning. Enemy mechs literally materialising 100-200m in front or behind my team is nothing short of idiotic and lazy design. If we can't go as far as having enemy mechs being dropped in then at the very least have them spawn as a group at some defined point on the map, rather than deliberately spawning them on top of my team. Engagement ranges are always short, to the point where long range weapons are nearly pointless. This also severely limits tactical options: approaching an objective from the rear or from the side is utterly pointless because whatever defenders are present will simply spawn on top of your team.

2. Magical healing. Legging an enemy mech appears to cripple it for about 5-10 seconds after which the destroyed leg magically repairs itself and the enemy mech is away again at full speed. Can I have that please for my team? No? Well it's a stupid and unrealistic game mechanic then.

3. War zone missions. After the contracted 17 kills hanging around to take on further waves simply isn't economically viable, not even in armour repair costs. The payout for destroying further enemy units needs to be at least 5x what it currently is.

4. Walking around my dropship is nice - it's really immersive to be able to visually see the state of repairs of my mechs. That being said, my ops officer and mech tech are obviously the strong & silent types because following the tutorial neither of them has said a single word to me.

5. The vehicle mega-swarms. Obviously vehicle support for mech forces is more "realistic" than only facing enemy mechs, but it's pretty obvious that the only purpose for the vehicle mega-swarms that once again magically materialise within a few hundred metres of my team is to buff repair costs and limit progression speed.

6. The quality of voice acting varies between 'dead rotting tree' and 'merely horribly wooden.'

I am having fun playing through the various missions, of which the mission variety is nice, but the game has some head scratchingly insane design decisions, the worst of which is the utterly inane enemy spawn mechanic. Overall opinion so far: just like MWO - amateur game mechanic design decisions and wasted potential. Minimum viable product here we are again Posted Image

Edited by Sir Wulfrick, 12 December 2019 - 05:12 PM.


#2 Odanan

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Posted 12 December 2019 - 04:56 PM

View PostSir Wulfrick, on 12 December 2019 - 04:44 PM, said:

So after abandoning MWO a couple of years ago I decided to give PGI another chance and dove head first in to MW5 Mercs. Hmm.

There's certainly potential here. Moving to the UT4 engine is a very welcome thing. Performance is far superior to the abomination that was the DX-9 locked crye engine. As was true in MWO the mech art, texture work, battle damage is superb - the best I've seen in any Mechwarrior game.

Now lets get on to some things that maybe need looking at again from a design perspective.

1. Enemy spawning. Enemy mechs literally materialising 100-200m in front or behind my team is nothing short of idiotic and lazy design. If we can't go as far as having enemy mechs being dropped in then at the very least have them spawn as a group at some defined point on the map, rather than deliberately spawning them on top of my team. Engagement ranges are always short, to the point where long range weapons are nearly pointless. This also severely limits tactical options: approaching an objective from the rear or from the side is utterly pointless because whatever defenders are present will simply spawn on top of your team.

2. Magical healing. Legging an enemy mech appears to cripple it for about 5-10 seconds after which the destroyed leg magically repairs itself and the enemy mech is away again at full speed. Can I have that please for my team? No? Well it's a stupid and unrealistic game mechanic then.

3. War zone missions. After the contracted 17 kills hanging around to take on further waves simply isn't economically viable, not even in armour repair costs. The payout for destroying further enemy units needs to be at least 5x what it currently is.

4. Walking around my dropship is nice - it's really immersive to be able to visually see the state of repairs of my mechs. That being said, my ops officer and mech tech are obviously the strong & silent types because following the tutorial neither of them has said a single word to me.

5. The vehicle mega-swarms. Obviously vehicle support for mech forces is more "realistic" than only facing enemy mechs, but it's pretty obvious that the only purpose for the vehicle mega-swarms that once again magically materialise within a few hundred metres of my team is to buff repair costs and limit progression speed.

I am having fun playing through the various missions, of which the mission variety is nice, but the game has some head scratchingly insane design decisions, the worst of which is the utterly inane enemy spawn mechanic. Overall opinion so far: just like MWO - amateur game mechanic design decisions and wasted potential. Posted Image

Great review! I agree with 99% of your points.

#3 Koniving

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Posted 12 December 2019 - 06:23 PM

View PostSir Wulfrick, on 12 December 2019 - 04:44 PM, said:

So after abandoning MWO a couple of years ago I decided to give PGI another chance and dove head first in to MW5 Mercs. Hmm.

There's certainly potential here. Moving to the UT4 engine is a very welcome thing. Performance is far superior to the abomination that was the DX-9 locked crye engine. As was true in MWO the mech art, texture work, battle damage is superb - the best I've seen in any Mechwarrior game. I also really like the music. It's somewhat generic but really fits the genre. Nice.

Now lets get on to some things that maybe need looking at again from a design perspective.

1. Enemy spawning. Enemy mechs literally materialising 100-200m in front or behind my team is nothing short of idiotic and lazy design. If we can't go as far as having enemy mechs being dropped in then at the very least have them spawn as a group at some defined point on the map, rather than deliberately spawning them on top of my team. Engagement ranges are always short, to the point where long range weapons are nearly pointless. This also severely limits tactical options: approaching an objective from the rear or from the side is utterly pointless because whatever defenders are present will simply spawn on top of your team.


Technically, they try to spawn when you're within 900 meters on the huge handcrafted maps.
But it's set that if you're looking at the spawn points, they won't spawn until the instant you look away.

You can get a better long-range experience by "looking away" from where you are going periodically. I think they expected you to be paranoid and checking corners. It is, admittedly, poorly designed as with handcrafted maps they could easily have crafted roads out of immediate sight when approaching the area that the vehicles could spawn on, as well as put in a clause that if the pilot is able to see the spawn for too long or gets too close to the point, to instead summon a vehicle dropship.

Quote

2. Magical healing. Legging an enemy mech appears to cripple it for about 5-10 seconds after which the destroyed leg magically repairs itself and the enemy mech is away again at full speed. Can I have that please for my team? No? Well it's a stupid and unrealistic game mechanic then.

You have this for your team too. Speed is reduced a bit, but after a few seconds you can move again. I used this to defeat a Griffin with a Javelin. In a way it is unrealistic, but the same is true with MWO's version... but imagine how much it'd suck if you got legged and just fell over.

Quote

3. War zone missions. After the contracted 17 kills hanging around to take on further waves simply isn't economically viable, not even in armour repair costs. The payout for destroying further enemy units needs to be at least 5x what it currently is.

Haven't got an opinion here, haven't lingered on one yet.

Quote

4. Walking around my dropship is nice - it's really immersive to be able to visually see the state of repairs of my mechs. That being said, my ops officer and mech tech are obviously the strong & silent types because following the tutorial neither of them has said a single word to me.

I confess, if they went around and did more I'd believe Fahad actually did amazing work because at the moment he says how busy he is going to be with my Centurion and then...never moves.

Quote

5. The vehicle mega-swarms. Obviously vehicle support for mech forces is more "realistic" than only facing enemy mechs, but it's pretty obvious that the only purpose for the vehicle mega-swarms that once again magically materialise within a few hundred metres of my team is to buff repair costs and limit progression speed.

When they get too plentiful, for some reason walking through them is far more effective than shooting them. 35 ton mech versus an 80 ton tank that's smaller than a 20 ton mech...stomp stomp. Totally makes sense.
My wife tells me I'm a bully for doing this to the cute little tanks.

Quote

6. The quality of voice acting varies between 'dead rotting tree' and 'merely horribly wooden.'

My favorite line is the woman calmly telling me that they're being murdered by raiders, and how urgent it is that I help because there are women and children there.
....and the entire place is devoid of any human life and nobody cared that I leveled the place after the HP bar went away.

Quote

I am having fun playing through the various missions, of which the mission variety is nice, but the game has some head scratchingly insane design decisions, the worst of which is the utterly inane enemy spawn mechanic. Overall opinion so far: just like MWO - amateur game mechanic design decisions and wasted potential. Minimum viable product here we are again Posted Image


I agree for the most part, some of the issues are from lack of putting in polish, animations, etc. related to people (startup of the TUTORIAL's Centurion... activate by pressing the air followed by tapping the dashboard far away from the buttons, mech turns on... The TUTORIAL mech didn't get polish, are you serious? Also in the 2018 Mech Con trailer, the King Crab that kills father Mason opens its claw to do the kill. In the released game the claws don't function.)

The spawn mechanic is a lack of foresight. It works perfectly if you're "paranoid" and frequently looking around. But if you're just moving to the goal marker, you're staring at the spawn points and so you're on top or past them when you look away for the millisecond it takes for the game to decide you're not looking, time to spawn finally.

Edited by Koniving, 12 December 2019 - 06:30 PM.


#4 Sir Wulfrick

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Posted 12 December 2019 - 07:14 PM

Interesting, thanks for expanding on the spawn mechanic. Could be workable in co-op: send in a scout to activate the spawn, scout retreats to the "main force" (all 3 other mechs) then attack.

Weird, janky, doesn't really work that well... Welcome to PGI land.

#5 FRAGTAST1C

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Posted 12 December 2019 - 07:26 PM

View PostSir Wulfrick, on 12 December 2019 - 04:44 PM, said:

So after abandoning MWO a couple of years ago I decided to give PGI another chance and dove head first in to MW5 Mercs. Hmm.

There's certainly potential here. Moving to the UT4 engine is a very welcome thing. Performance is far superior to the abomination that was the DX-9 locked crye engine. As was true in MWO the mech art, texture work, battle damage is superb - the best I've seen in any Mechwarrior game. I also really like the music. It's somewhat generic but really fits the genre. Nice.

Now lets get on to some things that maybe need looking at again from a design perspective.

1. Enemy spawning. Enemy mechs literally materialising 100-200m in front or behind my team is nothing short of idiotic and lazy design. If we can't go as far as having enemy mechs being dropped in then at the very least have them spawn as a group at some defined point on the map, rather than deliberately spawning them on top of my team. Engagement ranges are always short, to the point where long range weapons are nearly pointless. This also severely limits tactical options: approaching an objective from the rear or from the side is utterly pointless because whatever defenders are present will simply spawn on top of your team.

2. Magical healing. Legging an enemy mech appears to cripple it for about 5-10 seconds after which the destroyed leg magically repairs itself and the enemy mech is away again at full speed. Can I have that please for my team? No? Well it's a stupid and unrealistic game mechanic then.

3. War zone missions. After the contracted 17 kills hanging around to take on further waves simply isn't economically viable, not even in armour repair costs. The payout for destroying further enemy units needs to be at least 5x what it currently is.

4. Walking around my dropship is nice - it's really immersive to be able to visually see the state of repairs of my mechs. That being said, my ops officer and mech tech are obviously the strong & silent types because following the tutorial neither of them has said a single word to me.

5. The vehicle mega-swarms. Obviously vehicle support for mech forces is more "realistic" than only facing enemy mechs, but it's pretty obvious that the only purpose for the vehicle mega-swarms that once again magically materialise within a few hundred metres of my team is to buff repair costs and limit progression speed.

6. The quality of voice acting varies between 'dead rotting tree' and 'merely horribly wooden.'


1. The maps are stitched together, I think and therefore, the spawns are based on where you are at the moment. If you look away and turn back, the enemies would've spawned on you. In the demo, I have set up around 500-700m away in a PPC mech to snipe happily at enemies. Sometimes they closed in on me rapidly forcing me to reposition and use my lance-mates effectively. The early game engagements are short ranged 'cause the only long-range capable mech that I have is the Centurion.

2. Legging the enemy will slow them down. Initially, they appear to be crippled and unable to move properly but then, a few seconds later, they start moving again but this time, it's at a lower speed. They don't move at top speed anymore. This is to do, probably, with the fact that if you are legged and need to get to the EVAC zone, moving at 30kph is a painful experience.

3. The extra kills in a Warzone Contract is more or less, I feel, for training your pilots. The bonus payout could be modded in to match the initial reward but I think the devs didn't want players to hit the Warzone contracts purely to grind C-bills AND EXP at the same time.

4. I don't think it's mentioned either but hitting "TAB" brings up the Home screen in the mech bay without needing you to interact with any of the consoles. Yeah, a better tutorial would've been nice.

5. Vehicle swarms are one way to create a target-rich environment without completely overwhelming the player. It's usually best to order your lance-mates to go after enemy mechs while you quickly dispatch the vehicles.

6. I personally think it'd have been better to have the voice actor for the Mech-Tech be for the XO and vice-versa 'cause he's trying to be Jason Statham and having Jason Statham providing me the intel works for me Posted Image

#6 Zervziel

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Posted 12 December 2019 - 07:37 PM

Merc company: Looking for able pilots. Must have some situational awareness. Circling strafing into a swarm of vehicles is punishable by being strapped to DropShip Engine before take off.

Also is it me or is this game super ******* stingy with money. Even using my points, I've gotten to where if my idiot lancemates take too much damage, I'm basically screwed because I barely make more than these idiots just cost me and then I have to worry about their wages and of course travel.

And one of my bigges bugbears, why the ever lasting **** do you have to be in-system to look at mission details. I don't want to pay 100-200,000 cbills on a trip that turns out to be too dangerous or pay too little to be worth it.

#7 FRAGTAST1C

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Posted 12 December 2019 - 07:41 PM

Mission difficulty is tied to your Renown, I guess. Just like HBS's Battletech's main campaign until the community changed it and it became "Official". Guess it's the same roadmap here for MW5.

#8 LordNothing

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Posted 12 December 2019 - 07:47 PM

with regards to 3, don't repair mechs in a conflict zone. it is significantly cheaper to make a couple jumps than it is to pay the highly inflated repair costs. once you own 3 lances worth of mechs you can clear 3 or 4 drops before you need to repair something. so do a bunch of drops, and then jump somewhere (say an industrial hub) for refit. do that and an extra half million makes sense.

Edited by LordNothing, 12 December 2019 - 07:51 PM.


#9 RacerX

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Posted 12 December 2019 - 08:31 PM

I agree with everything said above. I really am enjoying the game. However, I am getting really tired an entire unit spawning directly behind me. I clear wave one out of an are and then BAM! My back armor is a mess, sparks are flying around the cockpit, and I'm surrounded tanks, helicopters, and mechs! The tougher the missions get the more serious of an issue this is creating. If I had to pick one annoying thing to fix it is this.

However, while you are fixing things, I would like to see a more generous salvage system, better pay, and a tighter single player story. It's been so long that I'm not sure I care why the "bad guys" took out Pops. I was hoping for something closer to MW3 or 4 campaign style. This is just too loose for a revenge story. Hopefully the modding tools will allow us to inject story and missions into the main Inner Sphere map.

#10 Jackal Noble

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Posted 12 December 2019 - 08:57 PM

This thread has me scratching my head.

Get real.

#11 FRAGTAST1C

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Posted 12 December 2019 - 09:26 PM

View PostRacerX, on 12 December 2019 - 08:31 PM, said:

However, while you are fixing things, I would like to see a more generous salvage system, better pay, and a tighter single player story. It's been so long that I'm not sure I care why the "bad guys" took out Pops. I was hoping for something closer to MW3 or 4 campaign style. This is just too loose for a revenge story. Hopefully the modding tools will allow us to inject story and missions into the main Inner Sphere map.


You can get better salvage by increasing your reputation with the employers. For e.g., Davions will start giving you higher shares on salvage as you increase your renown with them. You can use that to claim more salvage as mentioned, or just go for a higher payout.

If you go for higher salvage shares, you can claim mechs as a reward. I, initially went with 6 salvage shares and more payout and as a result, I couldn't pick a Spider which was set at 7 salvage shares. If I had more renown, I could've set my salvage share to 7 and still could've got a higher payout.

Regarding the story, in games like this one, it'll mostly take a backseat. It's the same in TES games and also in HBS's Battletech. If we want to have The Witcher level story, we need a better goal than just "Revenge" but if that is the goal, then there shouldn't be any "free-roam" aspects at all if they don't keep leading us closer and closer to the revenge target. Again, I could be wrong as I'm very early into the game.

#12 Vellron2005

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Posted 13 December 2019 - 12:40 AM

Considering a bug error is preventing me from even launching MW5, and support seems to be scratching their heads with it, I have to agree about poor design choices at launch.

The game should have been more polished at launch. More debugged.

A professional game developer company should not have game-breaking bugs at launch of their most important product. It's just sloppy.

#13 Xaat Xuun

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Posted 13 December 2019 - 01:06 AM

War Zones are good for leveling up your hired pilots skills, and longer you stay, more salvage to pick from.

you wouldn't want to stick around in the multi 3-part contract, if it's first part starts with war zone, unless you have a full hanger of mechs to select for the next mission part

#14 MW Waldorf Statler

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Posted 13 December 2019 - 03:13 AM

View PostVellron2005, on 13 December 2019 - 12:40 AM, said:

Considering a bug error is preventing me from even launching MW5, and support seems to be scratching their heads with it, I have to agree about poor design choices at launch.

The game should have been more polished at launch. More debugged.

A professional game developer company should not have game-breaking bugs at launch of their most important product. It's just sloppy.

when the D3D LowLevel Fatal error , its not PGIs Fail ,its a very common Bug in many UE Games from ARK to Fortnite since many Years

Edited by MW Waldorf Statler, 13 December 2019 - 03:13 AM.


#15 Vellron2005

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Posted 13 December 2019 - 03:22 AM

View PostMW Waldorf Statler, on 13 December 2019 - 03:13 AM, said:

when the D3D LowLevel Fatal error , its not PGIs Fail ,its a very common Bug in many UE Games from ARK to Fortnite since many Years


Ok, but then you should, as a developer, be aware of this, counter it, or at least have a fix ready.

Not have your customers not be able to play at all..

BTW, I'm getting a Fatal error, not a D3D LowLevel Fatal Error, I don't think they are the same error.. But yes, apparently, both are common UE4 errors..

Edited by Vellron2005, 13 December 2019 - 03:23 AM.


#16 Aidan Crenshaw

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Posted 13 December 2019 - 03:54 AM

I may have missed it, but did you unplug your USB headset?

#17 Thorqemada

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Posted 13 December 2019 - 07:33 AM

I scratch my Head, when i hear time and time again in the Twitchstreams:

"Oh, MW5 is not Multiplayer, it is CoOp!"

You Guys understand that "CoOp is a certain way of Multiplayer" gaming?!

In the past we played Diablo in CoOp-Mode and nobody would have argued that was not multiplayer… Posted Image

And btw. i find it natural that you dont get campaign progression on your game when you be a Merc Pilot in another Merc Commanders game - that looks and feels completely natural/reasonable to me...and offers the opportunity for several playthroughs with different Merc Commanders...

Dont see anything wrong with that.


Imho they delivered a pretty well done foundation that can be build upon - i feel no disapointment so far other than i have to wait til it is no more exclusive...

Edited by Thorqemada, 13 December 2019 - 07:33 AM.


#18 Prototelis

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Posted 13 December 2019 - 08:12 AM

View PostMW Waldorf Statler, on 13 December 2019 - 03:13 AM, said:

when the D3D LowLevel Fatal error , its not PGIs Fail ,its a very common Bug in many UE Games from ARK to Fortnite since many Years


lol, something isn't a "common bug" because you can google it and get a handful of results.

#19 Jeff The Animal

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Posted 13 December 2019 - 08:43 AM

View PostMW Waldorf Statler, on 13 December 2019 - 03:13 AM, said:

when the D3D LowLevel Fatal error , its not PGIs Fail ,its a very common Bug in many UE Games from ARK to Fortnite since many Years


Thanks for this info, im getting this error sometimes when the mission is finished, problem is the game doesnt save until you get your salvage share, so i need to replay the mission when it happens :( ...

#20 Toothless

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Posted 13 December 2019 - 08:51 AM

Can anyone confirm/deny that you arent even able to save your color scheme for your mechs and have to put in hex codes to select exact colors?





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