66 replies to this topic

[Anjian]

Someone put a picture of a tank, and someone criticized PGI for making the game like WoT with mechs, all in the same thread.

[Davers]

Anjian, on 15 June 2020 - 05:24 AM, said:

Someone put a picture of a tank, and someone criticized PGI for making the game like WoT with mechs, all in the same thread.

That's an apt description of the fanbase.

[LordNothing]

slide, on 14 June 2020 - 11:06 PM, said:

BTW I am less that impressed with MW5 too. Too Arcade like IMO, but I have only played a couple of hours so it might have changed.

dont expect too much. the number of missions that played differently from the procedurally generated missions can be counted on one hand. and only one of those were good. the final mission was pure tedium.

[kalashnikity]

I tried to recruit a friend to play last year, you know what killed it for him? We couldn't join with each other in a group in QP.

Keeping groups in QP will go a long way to help recruit new members.

I've been playing with EYRI recently, and I see them consistently bringing new players to the game, it REALLY helps to be able to bring newbs in with a small group and coach them in real time.

It helps smooth out the learning curve quite a bit, and I'm sure leads to more players sticking around, rather than getting frustrated and leaving.

[Anomalocaris]

kalashnikity, on 15 June 2020 - 09:07 PM, said:

I tried to recruit a friend to play last year, you know what killed it for him? We couldn't join with each other in a group in QP.

Keeping groups in QP will go a long way to help recruit new members.

I've been playing with EYRI recently, and I see them consistently bringing new players to the game, it REALLY helps to be able to bring newbs in with a small group and coach them in real time.

It helps smooth out the learning curve quite a bit, and I'm sure leads to more players sticking around, rather than getting frustrated and leaving.

https://steamcharts.com/app/342200

[skyfetcher]

I believe making event rewards, current prices, earnings, etc more lax would help people's motivation. At least for some.

[Knight Captain Morgan]

PGI should feed all new players into some sort of combined queue such that when they solo drop, these new solo players are matched up against competitive premade teams that absolutely mop the floor with the newbies in fast and humiliating fashion. Such roflstomps will be so enjoyable for the new comers that they will not only continue playing for years to come but also want to invite all their friends to come and be stomped as well.

[Anomalocaris]

Knight Captain Morgan, on 16 June 2020 - 08:59 AM, said:

PGI should feed all new players into some sort of combined queue such that when they solo drop, these new solo players are matched up against competitive premade teams that absolutely mop the floor with the newbies in fast and humiliating fashion. Such roflstomps will be so enjoyable for the new comers that they will not only continue playing for years to come but also want to invite all their friends to come and be stomped as well.

You win the forums for the day good sir

[R Valentine]

kalashnikity, on 15 June 2020 - 09:07 PM, said:

I tried to recruit a friend to play last year, you know what killed it for him? We couldn't join with each other in a group in QP.

Keeping groups in QP will go a long way to help recruit new members.

I've been playing with EYRI recently, and I see them consistently bringing new players to the game, it REALLY helps to be able to bring newbs in with a small group and coach them in real time.

It helps smooth out the learning curve quite a bit, and I'm sure leads to more players sticking around, rather than getting frustrated and leaving.

It's really the exact opposite. Now you have newbies going into games vs premade 1-2%ers who crush them 12-0. Anyone who thinks premades were for the newbs is smoking crack. In reality, premades only ever helps the top tier. Even 1 top level player can sway a match. 4 can virtually assure the outcome. They know more about the maps than you do. They shoot better than you do. The concentrate fire better than you do. The pinpoint components better than you do. You might have been able to sell "duo queue" like LOL does, but 4 man premades crush the queue. If the majority of players play solo, would why you want to make them miserable? All you do is teach new players that you have to play in a premade or don't bother. Most choose the latter.

[Taffer]

The skill tree turned my friend away.

Just sayin.

Not sure if it may have turned others away too

Edited by Taffer, 17 June 2020 - 01:19 AM.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

good questions for the Community Manager , the lovely Tina ...sadley she leaves the Company

Edited by MW Waldorf Statler, 17 June 2020 - 02:05 AM.

[LordNothing]

kalashnikity, on 15 June 2020 - 09:07 PM, said:

I tried to recruit a friend to play last year, you know what killed it for him? We couldn't join with each other in a group in QP.

Keeping groups in QP will go a long way to help recruit new members.

I've been playing with EYRI recently, and I see them consistently bringing new players to the game, it REALLY helps to be able to bring newbs in with a small group and coach them in real time.

It helps smooth out the learning curve quite a bit, and I'm sure leads to more players sticking around, rather than getting frustrated and leaving.

too little too late. seems to be the case with everything pgi does.

[LordNothing]

Kiran Yagami, on 16 June 2020 - 11:45 AM, said:

It's really the exact opposite. Now you have newbies going into games vs premade 1-2%ers who crush them 12-0. Anyone who thinks premades were for the newbs is smoking crack. In reality, premades only ever helps the top tier. Even 1 top level player can sway a match. 4 can virtually assure the outcome. They know more about the maps than you do. They shoot better than you do. The concentrate fire better than you do. The pinpoint components better than you do. You might have been able to sell "duo queue" like LOL does, but 4 man premades crush the queue. If the majority of players play solo, would why you want to make them miserable? All you do is teach new players that you have to play in a premade or don't bother. Most choose the latter.

im just not seeing very many good 4-mans. what i am seeing on the other hand is lots of bad 4-mans. this is not the epic massacre that was fp. that was like tyrannosaurs stomping on puppies. most of the time its just kittens stomping on puppies. people dont want qp to end up the way fp went and i totally understand that. but its not happening anywhere but in the minds of protaters.

Edited by LordNothing, 17 June 2020 - 02:21 AM.

[Knight Captain Morgan]

Metalgod69, on 16 June 2020 - 10:26 PM, said:

Dont be so negative, there is no better gaming experience, then dropping as cadet against a team consisting of eons emp etc.....

Who’s being negative? I did say it would be enjoyable enough to make the newbies want to continue playing for years to come, lol

[skyfetcher]

Taffer, on 17 June 2020 - 01:18 AM, said:

The skill tree turned my friend away.

Just sayin.

Not sure if it may have turned others away too

It actually did turn away a friend of mine who'd played for years. I call it part of the UI problem, but that's definitely one of the worst.

[GARION26]

skyfetcher, on 17 June 2020 - 06:33 AM, said:

It actually did turn away a friend of mine who'd played for years. I call it part of the UI problem, but that's definitely one of the worst.

I think UI is challenging but honestly the amount of outdated information here on the forum or on the web made it very hard for me to get started as a new player (three months into my career now.)

At a bare minimum if someone could unpin outdated threads and if necessary replace with updated threads that would help.

But again I think the biggest driver isn't keeping people who try it out - it's getting new people to try the game out. Find ways to improve the visibility of the game to the gaming public. Some people will really like the multiple intricacies involved in balalncing battletechs mix of weapon range/damage/heat/tonnage/slots/pinpoint vs spread and mech speed/armor/heat management. It's fairly unique amongst the typical FPS game range and I think makes it really rewarding when you play a good match with a mech you designed well to fit your playstyle and skills.


The grind might drive away the uncommitted player who isn't sure they like the game after a week or so, but the grind is also the way a FTP game actually makes money. People drop cash to get a leg up on the grind.

Events for me have made C Bills not a serious problem - play enough it takes care of itself. Buy mechs when they are on sale otherwise hold off. My son hasn't figured that out mind you but he is literally a kid.

MC I bought to allow me more hangars and I don't regret it at all.

Edited by GARION26, 17 June 2020 - 09:24 AM.

[Angelwolf]

Some of my friends left because development stopped. No new mechs (they pre-ordered every time) and no new maps.

I always thought the asking price for many mechs was a bit excessive. I did buy some to support the game but I would have appreciated more variety. For example, a mech pack that includes 1x light, 1x med, 1x heavy. Whether those mechs were pre-determined or RNG'd it would be nice.

I noticed that most DLC disappeared from the Steam store (with the exception of the Solaris pack?). Given Solaris isn't the game's strong point, DLC should be re-introduced to Steam and go on sale during the larger Steam sales. This would grab the attention of the large number of Steam users there are - many of who probably don't even realize that MWO is a game.

Skill tree is... okay, I guess. But having to grind XP and C-Bills to use them is a pain. I'd understand having to use C-Bills for GXP but not for normal mech XP.

I also think it would be nice to allow players to transfer mechs to other players within their unit - even if the transferring player had to pay a C-Bill courier fee.

Solo play is good, but the most fun is within units. Perhaps some kind of incentive to start or join a unit would be good. Perhaps a 3% increase in XP or something when you queue as a group.

[Taffer]

I was new once, and I had 2 friends that were hopeless with the game without me trying to teach them how it works and pointing them to mech builds online. Honestly the real answer is that the game needs to be dumbed down, it's way too complicated and alienating for just about anybody.

It starts with the mechlab. This is actually a big hurdle for people. The base problem was that they would take one look at the mech lab, and ask me what they should do. If it wasn't for people sharing builds online, they would have NEVER bothered with it. They would basically go browsing for builds that sounded fun, interesting, or just plain meta - so they wouldn't have their mechlab ignorance to blame for a poor performance.

They also saw the cbill grind as a reason to just hop on to a meta build. Nothing to tweak, no 'oops I just realized a different engine would make way more sense', but it's like 'i'd have to play for a lonnnnnnnnnnnng time to afford a new engine'. That was a thing we hated big time, the engines were just ludicrously priced. You better be damn sure what engine you need for your build. Experimentation was a no go, it was a huge waste of time. Better to play tried and tested builds to save big on time and cbills. This regret over engine choice and lack of funds to try anything different after umpteen games would lead to many long breaks in the game for one of them. They would just get bored of playing the same exact build while being teased with all these other mechs and weapons and stuff.

It's pretty lame, because I do think experimentation is the whole point of the mech lab, but there you go, you can make people feel like experimenting is a huge waste of time when it takes so many matches to get the cbills to try something different. Earlier on, we would make alts, get the cadet bonus, and deck out a new mech. Wanted to try something else? We'd make another alt and do that again. Because it was way faster than saving to buy new mechs or engines.

The grind was too real. I don't know if maybe the f2p model is just not appropriate for Mechwarrior; a full on game with full featured multiplayer and dedicated servers would probably be wayyyyy better.

Anyway, I think sized hard points might simplify things a good bit. Getting rid of that skill maze would help A LOT too. They hated it, and yea I hated it too, but I stuck with it, and they quit over it. They just could not be bothered to learn it, and I think the metamechs site disappeared and they were just 'man I don't know what to do' and I still didn't understand it either so I didn't know what to tell them.

I remember that day, they just quit right on the spot, no patience. I tried to point them to other places to look at builds too, but they just weren't interested enough. I don't know if it's a 'last straw' kind of situation, but that skill maze killed it for them.

I often hear about how apparently the controls are hard for people to understand. They did add that arrow that shows which way your mech is travelling, supposedly that helps people. Personally I can't imagine it being too difficult to control, and my friends had no problems whatsoever with actually controlling and playing the game. So I think it really comes down to that alienating mechlab more than anything, just based on my own anecdotes/observations.

Edited by Taffer, 17 June 2020 - 04:01 PM.

[Sunstruck]

PGI made a lot of decisions that in the end didn't really help the game, I mean its basic things that were overlooked that are still problems today to the playerbase.

1. The engine is CPU bound and as PGI added more graphics (beautification) less people were able to play it on slower PCs and laptops.

2. The skilltree and current grind were unnessisary, that was a lot of development time that went nowhere. They should have focused on maps, new spawn locations and more in depth faction play. The whole lootcrate thing was pretty pointless too. Long tom was more wasted time.

3. Bugs, when ever they introduced a new feature it was like one step back for every two steps forward. Even today theres a bug where you can't even change the server selection after the initial change after you boot MWO, its rediculous.

I don't understand how you release a new game like Mechwarrior 5 in this day and age and not have any kind of pvp multiplayer.

Its these basic kind of decisions that have made so many players loose interest in PGIs games.

[Angelwolf]

Taffer, on 17 June 2020 - 03:56 PM, said:

They also saw the cbill grind as a reason to just hop on to a meta build. Nothing to tweak, no 'oops I just realized a different engine would make way more sense', but it's like 'i'd have to play for a lonnnnnnnnnnnng time to afford a new engine'. That was a thing we hated big time, the engines were just ludicrously priced. You better be damn sure what engine you need for your build. Experimentation was a no go, it was a huge waste of time. Better to play tried and tested builds to save big on time and cbills. This regret over engine choice and lack of funds to try anything different after umpteen games would lead to many long breaks in the game for one of them. They would just get bored of playing the same exact build while being teased with all these other mechs and weapons and stuff.

It's pretty lame, because I do think experimentation is the whole point of the mech lab, but there you go, you can make people feel like experimenting is a huge waste of time when it takes so many matches to get the cbills to try something different. Earlier on, we would make alts, get the cadet bonus, and deck out a new mech. Wanted to try something else? We'd make another alt and do that again. Because it was way faster than saving to buy new mechs or engines.

I think this could be overcome with a way to test builds before committing to purchase. So you put a mech together and can quickly test it in the training grounds before clicking the purchase button. I think something like this would be welcomed.

Players having the ability to use some kind of mech-building sandbox and test their builds in the training grounds would be great fun. Allowing them to save a template and then being able to apply it to their mechs in the mechbay would be nice since they then know which components they need to save money for and they get a sense of achievement when they save enough. Having templates also means that users with more than one build for a particular chassis can swap between them without the manual component dragging and armor tweaking.