7 replies to this topic

[The6thMessenger]

I haven't played it, I will not be part of Epic Games' horrible attempt of straightening the game-industry out, while being the last nail in the coffin for Kickstarted Games.

But from the videos I had been watching, like Baradul and TTB, the other reviews, while it is gorgeous as hell in the combat, there's a lot left to be desired with their execution. One of it is this:



Writing isn't exactly stellar, NPC are kind of, well, meh. Dang NPCs really sound like they are reading from a script, and the lack of realistic facial expressions didn't helped. Should've gone for the cell-shaded cartoon-ish version with VN-styled conversations than this ****, at least we get to look at anime girls. It's 2019, but they pulled it off like it's 2012.

And why do we have a default character "Mason"? Even HBS Battletech nailed that down by being at least able to customize your character avatar. Like FO4, adding lines by this character Mason just throws off the immersion.

AI is kind of ****, i mean I didn't like the peekaboo-cover stuff that worked for MWO, but its not like we could not strike a balance between competent cover use, and playing as stompy robots. But again take my thoughts with a grain of salt, i haven't really seen the combat at it's fullest, so maybe its not totally just circle strafing?

Also, why the hell is the map not on the bottom center, and on the upper left? Seriously that is rather intuitive, especially from MWO where we are used with.

Customization, as expected, is kind of lack-luster compared to MWO i guess. I do like my XL170 from my Urbie, but at least engine bump to 120 would be great, although I do realize that the Locust would be running just shy from a 100 KPH, and the rest are slow as hell like the Hunchback and Centurion at 68 KPH which really slows things down, the engines don't have to be crazily high or fine-tuned. And man the Endo-Steel, I really won't get used with that.

Also what is up with fixed starting battlemechs? Sure you have quick-play, but still, a little more flexibility won't hurt. Why does it have to be a Centurion? Couldn't we pick and-or randomize from a pool of competent mechs in the same class? Would have been cool if we could at least pick a Shadow-Hawk, Griffin, a Hunchback.

When the Centurion gets damaged for repairs, why just a javelin? Can we not get at least other mechs to pick from? Like give us fat stacks of cash so we can at least be tutorial-ed on how to buy mechs from stores? Urbie was supposed to be cheap stop-gap replacement like the M3 Grease-Gun to the Thompson, why not make those widely available?

As for the repairs, while I respect the need for military-sim and sandbox stuff, I think there should be an option to have configurable starting resource, mechs, and difficulty, like cheaper and faster Jumps from system to system, specific ones like repaired for a totaled-mech could range from 10/30/50/90 days. I would argue that restricted starting resources and mech is contrary to the idea of sandbox, that you are supposed to do whatever you want, because you will always be forced to certain situations -- case and point, forced on specific mechs.

If it costs too much, while we're living paycheck from paycheck, it could cease to be kind of fun, like you won't want to bring out your best mech fearing that it will be just be ruined and you need to pay a lot for it as a result. Never did liked that part from HBS Battletech, luckily it could be modded away -- but this can't, at least not till next December.

And what the hell did the Epic Deal even did for MW5? Can I assume it was wasted on refunds? Might as well just released it this September on Steam with the mod capability, and let the modding-community handle it.

Bethesda releases Skyrim, FO3 and FO4 full of bugs, but being moddable it has a special place in the heart of the community that will at least curtail their gripes because of the community fixing it for them. I mean take the modding out from Fallout and leave the fixing in the hands of the devs (with poor decisions), you got FO76.

I'm not saying its not worth to buy, I'm just saying that its not worth the Epic Deal, and hopefully worth the wait.

Now with the negative stuffs out of the way, I will tell you what I did liked:
- Mech Piloting seems a blast, and it does feel like a stompy-robot like Doom is power-fantasy
- King Crab is the King
- Guns feel good, SFX is awesome
- UAC5 is basically a machine-gun, best for Urbie
- Min-Maxing isn't necessarily the norm
- LRMs aren't that useless, with SFX looks waaay better.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 18 December 2019 - 05:47 PM.

[Nesutizale]

The6thMessenger, on 18 December 2019 - 04:41 PM, said:

I haven't played it, I will not be part of Epic Games' horrible attempt of straightening the game-industry out, while being the last nail in the coffin for Kickstarted Games.

How is Epic the death of Kickstarter?
Kickstarter games can go to any publishing platform they like. When the game is good enough Epic might even give them money for the one year exclusive deal that could help the dev to either stay alive or finance a new game or be able to keep their project running at all. I allready know of one small dev I talked to that benefited very well from that deal.
I am not certain about PGI but I guess that they also took the deal for pretty much that reason, to stay alive and finish the game.
Also Epic giveing back a bigger share of the income means a small dev has even a higher chance of a return of their investment.

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Story is mheeeee......

I haven't played through yet but so far, it is. Also I head it gets better later on but I don't hold my hopes high.
From what I heard yesterday from the Dev Talk, Russ admits that story and presentation isn't their strength and something that was added in late in development. He is kinda happy that they got it to this degree at all and sees it more like a "first try".

Personaly when I started playing or even before that, I set my aspectations to pretty much that. I see the entire game as a "frist try" at something new. Except for combat, I like MWOs combat and aspected them to be at least at the same level.
Everything else I allready counted as a bonus. Low aspectations but they are kinda confirmed so far but I also see a good basis for more.
Get in better writers, get some better animators, etc and you can tell pretty much every story you want to.

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Customization, as expected, is kind of lack-luster compared to MWO i guess.
I do like my XL170 from my Urbie and man the Endo-Steel......

I see this point quite different. I like the challange it presents to me. I started to play mechs that I would never touch in MWO and worked out a way on how to use them, just to find another mech to try out and I am starting to find my playstyle.

I also see it as a good balanceing point with the AI that is using stock mechs only. Unlike MWO where people start or are forced to start min/max ing their mechs to do anything meaningfull, in MW5 you can be much more flexible and try out stuff without falling behind. You can realy play your style instead of beeing forced to META.

Only thing I would like to see is that you would have the option to go to industrial planets, leave your mech there for a certain amount of time and lots of money and be able to change hardpoints and reactors and come back later to pick it up again.
That way people could have their changes but it would be more in line with the universe and a good endgame goal.
It would basicly be like you are creating your own hero mech.

As for XL, Endo and stuff....take a look at the timeline.

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Mhhheee I want my uber starting mech

You will be able to buy whatever you like pretty early on. It also makes it rewarding if you are finaly able to get the mech you want. Beside that I dragged the Centurion alonge with me for quite a while. It works pretty well.

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I would argue that restricted starting resources and mech is contrary to the idea of sandbox, that you are supposed to do whatever you want, because you will always be forced to certain situations -- case and point, forced on specific mechs.

If it costs too much, while we're living paycheck from paycheck, it could cease to be kind of fun, like you won't want to bring out your best mech fearing that it will be just be ruined and you need to pay a lot for it as a result. Never did liked that part from HBS Battletech, luckily it could be modded away -- but this can't, at least not till next December.

Loosing stuff, not allways haveing it easy, takeing the next best job and manageing the resources you are given is the core of the Mercaneries life.
Haveing a GGEZ mode like you discribe is the oposite of what I would want from my Merc game. Sure its bad if you loose precious components or have a your favorite mech so heavly damaged that it will take forever to repair but that is part of what makes the game interesting. Plan for these things to happen. Have a spare mech, pilot and stock up on equipment. Have a balance between a bigger paycheck and payment.

Beside that, the game is easy enough that this hardly is a burden. I only had it once that I had a realy hard time but that was my own fault for overspending money on new mechs instead of takeing a more reasonable approach.

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And what the hell did the Epic Deal even did for MW5? Can I assume it was wasted on refunds? Might as well just released it this September on Steam with the mod capability, and let the modding-community handle it.

From what was said, financed 3 more month of development, allowed for more staff to be hired to fix stuff the others couldn't, hired another writer (guess Randal for the short stories) and made advertising a possibility.

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Bethesda releases Skyrim, FO3 and FO4 full of bugs, but being moddable it has a special place in the heart of the community that will at least curtail their gripes because of the community fixing it for them. I mean take the modding out from Fallout and leave the fixing in the hands of the devs (with poor decisions), you got FO76.

As far as I know PGI is still working on the tools to be released for modding. So modding isn't from the table yet and I realy hope that PGI will release not only some good tools but also open up some of the files so they can be easly modded.
I completly agree that modding will most likely increase the interested, quality and longlivity of the game.

[The6thMessenger]

Nesutizale, on 19 December 2019 - 03:04 AM, said:

How is Epic the death of Kickstarter?

Kickstarter games can go to any publishing platform they like. When the game is good enough Epic might even give them money for the one year exclusive deal that could help the dev to either stay alive or finance a new game or be able to keep their project running at all. I allready know of one small dev I talked to that benefited very well from that deal.

I am not certain about PGI but I guess that they also took the deal for pretty much that reason, to stay alive and finish the game.
Also Epic giveing back a bigger share of the income means a small dev has even a higher chance of a return of their investment.

Please, don't even. Do you think people E-Beg if they can sustain their projects well? What would the Indie Devs be without their backers?

The reality is that, the Backers are paying for the development fee, and once it is promising, Epic is just going to swoop in to take the game without ever risking to pay for actually developing the game. That is what the money is for, the refunds for the backers that were going to be railroaded that would like their money back, and that is unfair. It wasn't even about the money, these backers are invested to the game both financially and emotionally, and are entitled to get it as advertised to them.

As for how is that the death of kickstarted games, well kickstarted games are already dying due to poor over all outcome, and it is only the promising ones that make the cut like hat in time, promising ones that are taking the Epic Deal and railroading their backers, which would result in backers not wanting to back other games due to the fear of their investment being for nothing.

And as for the actual trust withered, you need trust for people to flock for your products, actively screwing your people works contrary with this.

Is less selection within a store good? Is more storefront time good? Arguably, but considering the actual trend of exposure right now -- as in the free ones from lets-plays, even with tough competition people who liked the game will still find the game through the search function.

Is the higher cut for the revenue good? Sure, but consider what withering the trust of your customers do, for a lack-luster store, its not going to matter that much if the sales are tanking so much. If you can get 60$ sales/piece, and sold 500,000 units from steam, and take home 65% (30% Steam + 5% Epic royalty), which is at 19,500,000 $, how is the deal better just because it's at 88% when the units sold is at 400,000 and price/unit is at 40$, which results to 14,080,000 $, how is that good? Because of the sales drop, you are down 5,420,000$.

And you know what, guess what, that is just one other store. Epic Exclusivity also prevents the other sales that you can get from other stores, so guess what, those missed sales pile-up into one massive ****-up.

Guess what, with the current holiday sale, that PGI just subscribed to: https://mwomercs.com...-5-mercenaries/ Tells me that the Epic-Deal isn't really going well, lol. You know PGI ****** up.

Guess what, I ain't paying full price after being blue-balled for a year either. See you at next-year's steam-sale.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 22 December 2019 - 12:09 AM.

[MadcatX]

The6thMessenger, on 20 December 2019 - 05:53 AM, said:

As for how is that the death of kickstarted games, well kickstarted games are already dying due to poor over all outcome, and it is only the promising ones that make the cut like hat in time, promising ones that are taking the Epic Deal and railroading their backers, which would result in backers not wanting to back other games due to the fear of their investment being for nothing.

And as for the actual trust withered, you need trust for people to flock for your products, actively screwing your people works contrary with this.

Not a fan of the Epic myself, mainly because I find the storefront lacking. However, I will never blame Epic for an Indie title going Epic exclusive. Indie devs need to be held accountable for their choices as well as their repercussions, Epic does present a sweet offer but isn't holding a gun to anyone's head.

I view a healthy dose of fear and skepticism in this day and age of kickstarted games as a good thing. The indie scene is here to stay, a kick in the current indie scene's complacency would do them some good.

[Suko]

Holy crap. The 6th's post reads like some crazy guys conspiracy theory Manifesto. Are you sure you don't want to throw in the Illuminati and Aliens into it just to make sure you cover all your bases?

[Nesutizale]

The6thMessenger, on 20 December 2019 - 05:53 AM, said:

Is the higher cut for the revenue good? Sure, but consider what withering the trust of your customers do, for a lack-luster store, its not going to matter that much if the sales are tanking so much. If you can get 60$ sales/piece, and sold 500,000 units from steam, and take home 65% (30% Steam + 5% Epic royalty), which is at 19,500,000 $, how is the deal better just because it's at 88% when the units sold is at 400,000 and price/unit is at 40$, which results to 14,080,000 $, how is that good? Because of the sales drop, you are down 5,420,000$.

And you know what, guess what, that is just one other store. Epic Exclusivity also prevents the other sales that you can get from other stores, so guess what, those missed sales pile-up into one massive ****-up.

Lots of theorie crafting here. Without numbers to compare, that we don't have, that is all just hot air.
Steam could have sold better, steam could have sold worse...we don't know. Saying that it would have can also just be wishfull thinking as well as wishing it didn't.

Also I think you overestimate the "gamer" community. My guess is that we hear about the 10% of people who are firm in the matter of what the Epic store means, what they did and so on or how to even compare the pros and cons of those stores.
The other 90% just buys the game they think is fun and hardly care about anything else beside the price tag on the game.

[Leone]

The6thMessenger, on 20 December 2019 - 05:53 AM, said:

Guess what, I ain't paying full price after being blue-balled for a year either. See you at next-year's steam-sale.

So.... your not unhappy MW5 went Exclusive, you're just unhappy they didn't go exclusive to your preferred company... Right...

That's kinda petty.

~Leone.

[The6thMessenger]

Leone, on 07 January 2020 - 04:43 PM, said:

So.... your not unhappy MW5 went Exclusive, you're just unhappy they didn't go exclusive to your preferred company... Right...

That's kinda petty.

~Leone.

Sure, but it's my money.