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Is This Game A Classic Hit?


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#21 CFC Conky

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Posted 12 January 2020 - 10:24 AM

View PostReposter, on 11 January 2020 - 06:48 AM, said:

Hi guys, just wondering for experienced players and long time gamers, do you consider this game well developed and a Multiplayer PVP Classic game?


'Classic' is debatable, but for a F2P game, it's not bad at all in my opinion. A player can build a stable of mechs that are effective in every mode of the game (by that I mean QP, FP and Solaris), without shelling out any money.

Have those of us who have put money into the game been cheated? Again, that's debatable imo. I try to appreciate the game for what it is.

Good hunting,
CFC Conky

#22 JediPanther

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Posted 12 January 2020 - 03:29 PM

Critical failure from a C developer that loves shovelware and mvps to screw people over with. Play it if you find it fun and move on to newer and better when you get bored of it.

#23 Mawai

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Posted 13 January 2020 - 05:37 PM

Is MWO a classic hit? I can't say so in a general sense. It is a niche classic .. and is good at what it does well.

MWO IS multiplayer online MechWarrior. For the fans of first person mech shooter games where you have to plan and build your loadout and then fight with it, MWO delivers on that aspect and unfortunately perhaps on very little else.

MWO has gone through MANY technical, gameplay and mechanical enhancements since closed beta. Most of which aren't that visible. Host state rewind, hit registration, reduced or eliminated issues with lag aiming, weapon balance iterations to try to make a range of builds both fun and effective etc. It wasn't and isn't an easy process and there is probably no way the game with the wide range of mechs and weapons can ever really be balanced.

This is even more true when trying to create a balanced multiplayer experience with both clan and IS mechs in the same game. In the lore clan tech >> IS tech. In Battletech clans vs IS were usually balanced by giving the IS more tonnage. These types of options don't really exist in MWO where clan and IS mechs can drop in the same matches (which is necessary to avoid massive queue times for one side or another). So "balance" becomes an exercise in which clan and IS tech converge with different numbers but roughly the same effectiveness. Greater damage but longer burn times and more heat ... etc.

When MWO came out of closed beta, many of the beta testers felt it needed more work. The 8v8 game was fun but prone to stomps. Organized 8 mans could drop against 8 randoms leading to some very short matches. It was still a GREAT MechWarrior game after so long without but it was nothing more than 8v8 quick play.

It was massively fun to play, but folks posted to the beta boards that the game provided very little motivation to play besides the fun of just dropping into matches. Players suggested that the game needed features to keep folks playing - with a variety of motivations.

- organizations - clans and merc companies for the social aspect
- factional warfare or something like it so that dropping into a match might mean something - perhaps with some sort of bonus or reward related to factional membership without penalizing those who didn't want to join a faction
- leaderboards and pvp competitions - 1v1, 2v2, 4v4, 8v8 - some folks are really motivated by PVP of different scales
- better matchmaking (they never did get this one right .. though the developer who worked on it was excellent before they left for Amazon).

The game needed reasons to want to play the next match beyond just playing the next match because it was fun. PGI was very slow to implement these. Russ even promised the player base that factional warfare would be in "90 days after the end of beta". That comment among others caused a lot of angst on the forums and a general and very negative collection of feelings against PGI due to a general inability to communicate clearly and well with their player base. It was really unfortunate and could have been handled much better. PGI eventually almost abandoned the forums and appeared to consider the player base almost as an enemy rather than an ally in the development of the game.

In the end, it took years for PGI to implement some version of most of these features (and sometimes a few years more to iterate on them) and in many cases there were design issues (some related to the overall game constraints) with each feature that made them less effective than they ideally could be at satisfying the needs of the community in terms of giving them more reasons to just keep playing the game.

---

That said, MWO is still an amazing mech game. The graphics, driving stompy mechs from Locust to Atlas and almost everything in between is just plain fun. Jumping in my Jenner JR7-D and managing to get behind a few assaults and cause them some problems is both fun and satisfying, even on the rare occasion when a wingman comes along to spoil the fun. Punching holes in things with my quad AC5 Jagermech. Burning holes in things with my Jester. Even tactical support LRMing in my MAD with Artemis and TAG, it can be very effective at suppressing several mechs at 700m just by hitting them with missiles ... so many folks duck for cover when LRMed :).

I think I've played 2 or 3 games in the last two years, usually around Christmas, since MWO started I've played about 4500 matches, have 102 mechs and still have 5,242 hours of banked premium time from occasional purchases and events (LOL!) :). I bought into MWO as a Legendary Founder and participated in the closed beta. As far as I am concerned, I received my money's worth and more out of the game. I hope that PGI can keep the lights on and the servers running for years to come. I'd love to see a revised engine drop based on MW5 and a proper implementation of some of the features that the game needed and continues to need but I won't hold my breath.

Anyway, MWO is a niche classic game for fans of MechWarrior and BattleTech. Could it have been better? Maybe, there is no way to know. The game and its developer have always had significant financial and design constraints.

Cryengine was unsuited to multiplayer online play and required a lot of work. The whole IGP/PGI debacle and the complete failure of other games that were published by IGP. The licensing issues with Microsoft. (PGI didn't even start work on some features they claimed were in development until after receiving a renewal of the license from Microsoft - another lack of clear communication issue - I think PGI might have been afraid folks would leave or not spend money if there were questions about the license renewal and they might have been correct - we'll never know).

In the end, in my opinion, MWO is a good game that could have been a great game.

#24 Black Ivan

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Posted 14 January 2020 - 06:10 AM

After many years I must say defintily no hit and no classic. So much wasted potential and broken promises,

#25 Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie

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Posted 14 January 2020 - 06:30 AM

View PostBlack Ivan, on 14 January 2020 - 06:10 AM, said:

After many years I must say defintily no hit and no classic. So much wasted potential and broken promises,


^
that.


normally, I'm of the opinion that it 'takes two', the devs and the playerbase, to screw up things.
but PGI has really gone the extra mile to get rid of PAYING customers. and without going into details - Russ B., pls get yourself a PR-person to speak for you. and get a Community-manager who links the devs and playerbase with each other.

at least for future games. you burned this one down, and for mw5 .. yeah well. *sigh*


thank god we have hbs' battletech and catalyst for our daily mechneeds, though.

#26 martian

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Posted 14 January 2020 - 06:55 AM

View PostTeenage Mutant Ninja Urbie, on 14 January 2020 - 06:30 AM, said:

normally, I'm of the opinion that it 'takes two', the devs and the playerbase, to screw up things.
but PGI has really gone the extra mile to get rid of PAYING customers. and without going into details - Russ B., pls get yourself a PR-person to speak for you.

Russ Bullock did exactly that.

Since you are new to the forums, you have probably newer heard one name: Garth Erlam

He was the first Community Manager and "unofficially" acted as Russ Bullock's spokesman.

Sadly, he was fired by Russ Bullock even if it was not his fault. It's a sad story - you can hardly defend your boss whe he says something to the fans while actually doing something completely different.

View PostTeenage Mutant Ninja Urbie, on 14 January 2020 - 06:30 AM, said:

and get a Community-manager who links the devs and playerbase with each other.


But MWO has its Community Manager. Really. Her name is Tina Benoit. But she is not especially active on the forum.

View PostTeenage Mutant Ninja Urbie, on 14 January 2020 - 06:30 AM, said:

thank god we have hbs' battletech and catalyst for our daily mechneeds, though.

You mean HBS': "Yes, you were supposed to fight enemy lance similar to yours. Enemy Assault 'Mechs reinforcements have dropped on your head in turn 1? No, it was not our error. Surely not. No, we are not going to change anything."

And as for Catalyst ... CGL is just PGI of BattleTech, nothing else.

#27 Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie

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Posted 14 January 2020 - 08:34 AM

.. lol.Posted Image

#28 Kodyn

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Posted 14 January 2020 - 09:47 PM

It's really only successful because it fills a niche, and there's not much in the way of competition. The development has been utterly inept, sometimes predatory, and frequently left a sour taste in the mouths of those who have financially supported it.

I've done my share of complaining about PGI, but I'll likely still play MWO from time to time when the mood strikes until it's offline. It's simply fun sometimes to build out a mech and go shoot other mechs, and there's not a lot of games out there to choose from. As someone who grew up knowing about Battletech, but not really being a TT player or having read the books- I have no special connection to the IP, though I do enjoy the little bit of lore that is in game,the overall style and flavor of the mechs/story etc. If some other, better dev team were to put out a similar game, but properly implemented, with any IP or storyline involving big shooty robots, I'd probably be playing that. I have a feeling there's a lot of us here like that.

#29 Jackal Noble

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Posted 15 January 2020 - 12:55 AM

View PostMawai, on 13 January 2020 - 05:37 PM, said:

Is MWO a classic hit? I can't say so in a general sense. It is a niche classic .. and is good at what it does well.

MWO IS multiplayer online MechWarrior. For the fans of first person mech shooter games where you have to plan and build your loadout and then fight with it, MWO delivers on that aspect and unfortunately perhaps on very little else.

MWO has gone through MANY technical, gameplay and mechanical enhancements since closed beta. Most of which aren't that visible. Host state rewind, hit registration, reduced or eliminated issues with lag aiming, weapon balance iterations to try to make a range of builds both fun and effective etc. It wasn't and isn't an easy process and there is probably no way the game with the wide range of mechs and weapons can ever really be balanced.

This is even more true when trying to create a balanced multiplayer experience with both clan and IS mechs in the same game. In the lore clan tech >> IS tech. In Battletech clans vs IS were usually balanced by giving the IS more tonnage. These types of options don't really exist in MWO where clan and IS mechs can drop in the same matches (which is necessary to avoid massive queue times for one side or another). So "balance" becomes an exercise in which clan and IS tech converge with different numbers but roughly the same effectiveness. Greater damage but longer burn times and more heat ... etc.

When MWO came out of closed beta, many of the beta testers felt it needed more work. The 8v8 game was fun but prone to stomps. Organized 8 mans could drop against 8 randoms leading to some very short matches. It was still a GREAT MechWarrior game after so long without but it was nothing more than 8v8 quick play.

It was massively fun to play, but folks posted to the beta boards that the game provided very little motivation to play besides the fun of just dropping into matches. Players suggested that the game needed features to keep folks playing - with a variety of motivations.

- organizations - clans and merc companies for the social aspect
- factional warfare or something like it so that dropping into a match might mean something - perhaps with some sort of bonus or reward related to factional membership without penalizing those who didn't want to join a faction
- leaderboards and pvp competitions - 1v1, 2v2, 4v4, 8v8 - some folks are really motivated by PVP of different scales
- better matchmaking (they never did get this one right .. though the developer who worked on it was excellent before they left for Amazon).

The game needed reasons to want to play the next match beyond just playing the next match because it was fun. PGI was very slow to implement these. Russ even promised the player base that factional warfare would be in "90 days after the end of beta". That comment among others caused a lot of angst on the forums and a general and very negative collection of feelings against PGI due to a general inability to communicate clearly and well with their player base. It was really unfortunate and could have been handled much better. PGI eventually almost abandoned the forums and appeared to consider the player base almost as an enemy rather than an ally in the development of the game.

In the end, it took years for PGI to implement some version of most of these features (and sometimes a few years more to iterate on them) and in many cases there were design issues (some related to the overall game constraints) with each feature that made them less effective than they ideally could be at satisfying the needs of the community in terms of giving them more reasons to just keep playing the game.

---

That said, MWO is still an amazing mech game. The graphics, driving stompy mechs from Locust to Atlas and almost everything in between is just plain fun. Jumping in my Jenner JR7-D and managing to get behind a few assaults and cause them some problems is both fun and satisfying, even on the rare occasion when a wingman comes along to spoil the fun. Punching holes in things with my quad AC5 Jagermech. Burning holes in things with my Jester. Even tactical support LRMing in my MAD with Artemis and TAG, it can be very effective at suppressing several mechs at 700m just by hitting them with missiles ... so many folks duck for cover when LRMed Posted Image.

I think I've played 2 or 3 games in the last two years, usually around Christmas, since MWO started I've played about 4500 matches, have 102 mechs and still have 5,242 hours of banked premium time from occasional purchases and events (LOL!) Posted Image. I bought into MWO as a Legendary Founder and participated in the closed beta. As far as I am concerned, I received my money's worth and more out of the game. I hope that PGI can keep the lights on and the servers running for years to come. I'd love to see a revised engine drop based on MW5 and a proper implementation of some of the features that the game needed and continues to need but I won't hold my breath.

Anyway, MWO is a niche classic game for fans of MechWarrior and BattleTech. Could it have been better? Maybe, there is no way to know. The game and its developer have always had significant financial and design constraints.

Cryengine was unsuited to multiplayer online play and required a lot of work. The whole IGP/PGI debacle and the complete failure of other games that were published by IGP. The licensing issues with Microsoft. (PGI didn't even start work on some features they claimed were in development until after receiving a renewal of the license from Microsoft - another lack of clear communication issue - I think PGI might have been afraid folks would leave or not spend money if there were questions about the license renewal and they might have been correct - we'll never know).

In the end, in my opinion, MWO is a good game that could have been a great game.

This is a pretty reasonable assessment, coming from a medium sodium higher level paying player. The game itself has provided countless hours of entertainment for myself and many others that I know, more than I ever could have fathomed. In ways, the flaws (both imagined and actual) have lent to the game's extended life-span. Weird way to look at it, but it's true.
For the record, I would say yes the game at this point can be classified over all as a successful franchise

Edited by Jackal Noble, 15 January 2020 - 12:58 AM.


#30 Belorion

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Posted 15 January 2020 - 06:55 AM

Having come back to the game after a long hiatus which had nothing to do with the game, I would say it is still enjoyable to play.

I hope it has a strong community for some time to come. My son really wants to play (he is a fanatical player of Mechwarrior 5), and it will be fun to play it with him in the future.

#31 Anjian

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Posted 18 January 2020 - 08:14 PM

Someday, even today, there are going to be courses in video game development where they study business cases of games that rose, then fell. The Rise and Fall of [namegame]... This is to ensure with future developers that their games are not going to fall into the same trap.

This game is worthy of such a case.

#32 Brom96

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Posted 19 January 2020 - 08:07 AM

Not hit. Not classic, since it will be gone when they pull the servers down.

#33 Khobai

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Posted 19 January 2020 - 12:53 PM

MWO is a classic example of what not to do if you want your game to be a hit.

#34 Suko

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Posted 21 January 2020 - 12:45 PM

I enjoyed the time I spent on mwo. Playing with my 2 friends is what I enjoyed most. However, we all drifted away from this game about 2 years back when group queue was nothing but 12 man teams squashing small teams of pugs. The challenge was fun at first, but night after night of trying to drop as a 3 man team was rough. It would usually be a 12 man on the opposition side and 4 pug teams on ours. We ALWAYS had to 'try hard' or risk suffering loss after loss. We weren't able to goof around as much or try out different builds without risk of screwing over the other people on our team.

This 'try hard or die' aspect of group queue is what made most of us leave MWO.

P. S. Did PGI ever adjust the tier system? I noticed I'm still listed as, t1 even though I haven't played in years. That's not good. Even if I wanted to hop back into the game, it's not going to be fair to me or my team to throw me into a bunch of t1 matches right from the start.

Then again, maybe the population is so low that it just doesn't matter anymore.

#35 Willard Phule

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Posted 22 January 2020 - 10:30 AM

Honestly, it falls short of "classic" as it is entirely server based, downloadable content. One of the factors of the previous Mechwarrior titles is that the medium they were distributed on allowed a truly loyal fanbase to contiue their adventures, if only in single player mode. Once MWO is no longer supported and the servers go down, it will be gone forever. Instead of classic, it will be a memory. Good or bad varies by individual.

As for a "hit," I suppose that it qualifies by definition. Granted, having the license to a title that the diehard fans were just begging for a sequel doesn't hurt. Considering the amount of salt generated by lack of development, siphoning of funds for other projects and outright lies by Russ, if there had been any other titles in the genre that were similar in popularity, they'd have siphoned off a lot of what keeps PGI alive. Easy to be a hit if you're the only competitor.

#36 Tyman4

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Posted 22 January 2020 - 07:40 PM

Bought a played MW5 merc. Same issues as this game. AI is literally ********. This has been developed on a dime for max profits. It's a complete waste of time. MWO is the same. I can only be so nostalgic.

Perfect example...don't use LRMS in MW5, literally nothing in the game spawns (and I mean visually appears out of nothing) far enough away from you to use it. Take the smallest group of highest tier pilots you can get because the RNG will force them to miss even with lock on weapons. Like 6 or 7 game modes...all of which are destroy this base, defend this base, find and kill this target at 1 of many bases. Duplicate over a map of IS, game complete.





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