544 replies to this topic

[Raining Fire]

I hardly post on the MWO forums but I do think that these ideas are worth mentioning if nobody has mentioned them yet:

• Like in MW5, allow the ability to mix both single and double heatsinks. Just take away the 1.5million c-bill upgrade fee and let us put whatever heatsinks we want on the mech. Secondary benefits I can see with this are that the new player experience is better since they have less to learn, and for all players they don't have to spend as much time in the mechlab or worrying whether it's worth the 1.5million c-bill fee just to find out that they want to switch back to single heatsinks a few games later.
  
• If you consider adding new mechs, you could consider IS omnis. Urbie IIC might be a profitable mech-pack if you had to be very selective about it.

Finally, there's one major and significant change that comes to my mind that seems very manageable while also having the potential to draw a significant playerbase back due to interest:

Mixing IS and Clan tech.

• Coupled with a balance pass, this change has huge potential for MWO.
  
• It fits the timeline for loreheads since MWO is far enough passed the Clan invasion.
  
• Quickplay and Faction Play would be much more balanced, significantly reducing the amount of balancing that needs to be done for the game as a whole.
  
• Faction Play would seem much more fair and worthwhile to play for everyone since it's not a boring stomp for the Clans and the IS knows they won't necessarily be crushed simply for playing IS.
  
• The matchmaking system/algorithm itself would be much easier to balance and games would inherently be more fair. For example, 4-man groups of Clan mechs would not be as much of an advantage for the side that they're put on in quickplay.
  
• Another benefit to this is that adding new weapons would be much easier as a development choice. Without being able to mix IS and Clan weapons, x-pulse lasers or any weapon developed on one side according to lore would be difficult to add. By mixing weapons you no longer need to consider this and you can just add whatever weapons you want, focusing only on balancing heat, damage, etc. and not on whether one side (Clan or IS) is gaining an advantage with this new weapon set.
  
• Choosing which mechs to add to the game would also be easier since you would no longer be truly choosing whether to add a Clan or IS mech. Any mech added to the game would be freely available to use any tech.
  
• With regards to revenue generation, this change may induce existing players to buy old mechs and mech-packs that they previously may not have if they were being loyal to the Clans or IS.
  
• Again regarding revenue, new mech-packs would be more profitable since consumers would be less likely to avoid a pack due to a mech being restricted to Clan or IS tech.
  
• Another useful point is that this change would also make it easier to gain new players since there would be less for them to fret over. They would not be as stressed out about which mechs to buy first, whether one side is better than the other, or what weapons are restricted to a certain side.
  
• One last benefit is that, compared to developing new modes, maps, or mechs, this change seems like it would be one of the easier ones to accomplish with much less development. You can test it in multiple Public Tests to see if IS vs Clan becomes much more fair and see how positive the reaction is once people play.

That's all that has come to my mind for now, but I sincerely hope that Daeron, other members of the PGI team, and even the community give some serious thought to this idea.

I think it's one of the few ideas that can actually induce the type of change that Russ and his team mentioned in the podcast, which can bring back a significant number of players, and opens up old and potentially new revenue generation methods.

Edit: Formatting.

Edit 2: One last point I thought of is that, if you allow mixing tech, then it would be up to PGI whether to keep Faction Play restricted so that you have to use only Clan or IS mechs, but if you want to make balancing super easy and streamline the mode simply so that it's more fun to play, then you could allow both sides to use both Clan and IS mechs. Faction play would be more accessible, easier to balance, and the population would likely increase due to those factors.

Edited by Raining Fire, 06 October 2020 - 09:39 PM.

[Navid A1]

In the podcast Russ also wanted to focus on things that can generate revenue.

First off, let's make one thing clear, MWO is in its 8th year now. So far the monetization model was based on a collect'em all approach with mechs.

It has been a long grind. For most it has been years. But we need to focus on new players that come in.

Right now a new player that is coming in gets to have 4 mechbays only. The usual approach is that the player will go through the cadet phase and often blows the cbills from that on a completely useless chassis with a bad build which struggles to perform in matches.

The ones who do not quit at the moment face a choice... to buy a mechpack or not.
And sadly this is where the current MWO store fails, as it has no option to allow a paying new player to hit the ground running or save on grind time.
The entire mechpack options offer three almost identical mechs for 20$ (btw, three variant model is based on a skill system that is no longer in the game). With $20 you can get major AAA games 8 years after their release, while in MWO it gives you practically NOTHING!
No sane person would spend that money to get something that can be bought in the game after a few days of playing.


In order to revitalize your store, you need to think about how the game dynamics and content releases has changed. I cut the BS and go right to the point.

You want money?

Then consider this:

- Make a starter pack for $20.
- Include 8 good mechs in it (2 good mechs per class, clan and IS.).
- Make sure 2 of those 8 mechs are hero mechs.
- include enough GSP to instantly master 2 mechs
- include a bunch of Cbills to fully deck 2 mechs
- Include at least 10 colors covering a wide spectrum
- include 2 camo patterns for the mechs in the pack.


THAT will sell.

You can even have higher Tier starter packs for $30 and $40 with bigger gains.

In a game that is in its 8th year you should be thinking about how to bring a new account up to a point to look like how a one year account would look like.
All the mech collectors have collected all the mechs and their wallets dried up... think wider... think more open.




Of course... it would be more challenging to find something a MWO veteran player would spend money on.
On that regard, I would refer to myself.
I have almost 500 mechs, most of them are fully mastered. I have about 100k MC, more than 3.5 Billion Cbills. almost all the colors.
And I really find it hard to think of something... perhaps some brainstorming would be needed on this front.

Edited by Navid A1, 06 October 2020 - 09:58 PM.

[Voice of Kerensky]

Raining Fire, on 06 October 2020 - 09:30 PM, said:

Mixing IS and Clan tech.

Yeah. And much more armored IS-mechs will receive a range of clan weapons. And cardboard Clan-mechs will be able to use IS-weapons with a lower range.
It is difficult to think of anything more effective to break the existing IS/Clan balance.
I like this guy!
My applause.
Bravo!

[Raining Fire]

Voice of Kerensky, on 06 October 2020 - 10:18 PM, said:

Yeah. And much more armored IS-mechs will receive a range of clan weapons. And cardboard Clan-mechs will be able to use IS-weapons with a lower range.
It is difficult to think of anything more effective to break the existing IS/Clan balance.
I like this guy!
My applause.
Bravo!

While I appreciate your point here, I think it's made in bad faith and doesn't do anything to address how you would solve those downsides you mention. I think it's quite clearly obvious that by mixing IS and Clan tech you would obviously reduce/remove armor quirks on mechs so that there is parity between the two sides.

Edit: To expand slightly more for the benefit of anyone else who reads this, I'll mention that I see a clear benefit to clans being that they no longer have so many negative quirks, the benefit to IS being that they aren't at a disadvantage in the first place, and that the rest is a benefit to the game as a whole instead of a single side. You benefit everyone by making matches fair, making Faction Play more fun, and making it easier for new players to join.

Edited by Raining Fire, 06 October 2020 - 10:24 PM.

[Navid A1]

Raining Fire, on 06 October 2020 - 10:21 PM, said:

While I appreciate your point here, I think it's made in bad faith and doesn't do anything to address how you would solve those downsides you mention. I think it's quite clearly obvious that by mixing IS and Clan tech you would obviously reduce/remove armor quirks on mechs so that there is parity between the two sides.

Edit: To expand slightly more for the benefit of anyone else who reads this, I'll mention that I see a clear benefit to clans being that they no longer have so many negative quirks, the benefit to IS being that they aren't at a disadvantage in the first place, and that the rest is a benefit to the game as a whole instead of a single side. You benefit everyone by making matches fair, making Faction Play more fun, and making it easier for new players to join.

Mixing IS and Clan tech on a mech will break more things than it fixes at the moment.

It's not even the source of the problem behind "unbalanced matches" as much as level design and spawn points are.
You are assuming IS or Clan mechs are at a disadvantage to begin with?

[dario03]

If they need something to make money, a quick and easy way would be easily made, lower price mech packs. Which can easily be done with any IS mech that is already in the game, doesn't have a iic version in this game, but does have iic versions of about the same weight in lore.
There are a few mechs that fit that, with of course the best option being the Urbie IIC.
The plan is simple, take IS model, give it a different paint job maybe slight geometry changes, give it clan tech and different quirks, and sell it as the IIC mech pack at a lower price.
I'm sure people would buy at least the base packs if they were only like $10-15 to start and maxed at ~$40. Yeah its not as much money per pack, but its very little investment needed to make it happen.
They could also do some new variants of existing mechs and sell them individually for cheap with the cbill release coming later.
I would probably also just lower the regular mc price of all non special mechs. Make impulse buying more of a thing for newer players by having microtransactions actually be micro instead of having them sit there like "well if I just wait for this sale, and buy this pack, and align all of this up at the right time".

Edited by dario03, 06 October 2020 - 10:41 PM.

[Raining Fire]

Navid A1, on 06 October 2020 - 10:30 PM, said:

Mixing IS and Clan tech on a mech will break more things than it fixes at the moment.

It's not even the source of the problem behind "unbalanced matches" as much as level design and spawn points are.
You are assuming IS or Clan mechs are at a disadvantage to begin with?

The most important requirement for their potential updates is to make something interesting that can draw players back and bring new players if possible. Tons of people have mentioned maps, or a few new mechs, fixing spawn locations, and adjusting game modes. Those are great and I don't think I have too much to add to that other than what's been said. What I can offer is the idea that mixing tech would be a significant change, with many benefits (accessibility, balance, all the points in my post). Your point that it will break things at the moment is a reason that the first bullet point mentions that it should be coupled with a balance pass. Off the top of my head that balance pass could include removing quirks, changing base armor levels (since some mechs have base armor buffs even before quirks), equalizing the values in skill trees, or could even include a slight re-scale like what you mention.

Regarding your question of whether IS or Clans are at a disadvantage, my view is that Clans clearly have the advantage. That's why they have negative quirks and IS has positive ones. That already addresses the issue (a debatable claim for many people since it causes other issues), but I think that a much simpler and elegant solution would be to simply mix tech and re-balance. There are benefits in that there will be fewer and less confusing quirks and it will be easier to new players to join the game. We all know that nobody wants to sift through 100 mechs that have different quirks, try to remember which variant has which quirk in a competitive match, or anything like that. The game could be simplified greatly and maintain nearly everything positive it has. I encourage people to put a little thought into how great the benefits would be compared to what I think are minor downsides (if any at all really - in my opinion).

Edit: Furthermore, one benefit that I think people may overlook is that it would also simply be more fun for the average player. Why shouldn't I be able to put ATMs on my Catapult? Or MRMs on an Archer? In my opinion the game would very plainly be more fun, and that's something that it needs to keep some of the existing players around, bring them back, and definitely to draw in new players.

Edited by Raining Fire, 06 October 2020 - 10:47 PM.

[Voice of Kerensky]

Raining Fire, on 06 October 2020 - 10:21 PM, said:

While I appreciate your point here, I think it's made in bad faith and doesn't do anything to address how you would solve those downsides you mention. I think it's quite clearly obvious that by mixing IS and Clan tech you would obviously reduce/remove armor quirks on mechs so that there is parity between the two sides.

And what do you get in this case? A profuse whining of Spheroids, whose mechs begin to die unusually quickly without armor- and structure-quirks? Whining Claners, whose Mechs will begin to die from an unusually long distance in fight against the' Mechs of the Spheroids? And this can provoke another outflow of players from the game, do you think?

These words are already addressed to the developers. Please be very careful about the ideas of Clans/IS rebalancing. I believe that you pushed a very significant part of the old players away with the endless rebalancing of weapons/equipment/ characteristics of mechs/ quirks. But at one time this seemed to you not enough, and you also introduced anti-quirks (!) for Clan-mechs.
Once again, I ask you to be very careful and scrupulous about the ideas of rebalancing IS/Clans technologies.

But I can only welcome new weapons and technologies for both factions.

Edited by Voice of Kerensky, 06 October 2020 - 11:02 PM.

[Navid A1]

Raining Fire, on 06 October 2020 - 10:43 PM, said:

Regarding your question of whether IS or Clans are at a disadvantage, my view is that Clans clearly have the advantage. That's why they have negative quirks and IS has positive ones.

Well, in my experience IS Mechs are the most dominant mechs on the battlefield. in competitive matches, Faction and solo play. ERPPCs are the only thing Clan mechs have left and those that can't pack those with enough cooling and mobility are struggling.

Also Clan mechs do not have negative quirks.

Edited by Navid A1, 06 October 2020 - 10:59 PM.

[Raining Fire]

Voice of Kerensky, on 06 October 2020 - 10:54 PM, said:

And what do you get in this case? A profuse whining of Spheroids, whose mechs begin to die unusually quickly without armor- and structure-quirks? Whining Clanmens, whose Mechs will begin to die from an unusually long distance in fight against the' Mechs of the Spheroids? And this can provoke another outflow of players from the game, do you think?

These words are already addressed to the developers. Please be very careful about the ideas of Clans/IS rebalancing. I believe that you pushed a very significant part of the old players away with the endless rebalancing of weapons/equipment/ characteristics of mechs/ quirks. But at one time this seemed to you not enough, and you also introduced anti-quirks (!) for Clan-mechs.
Once again, I ask you to be very careful and scrupulous about the ideas of rebalancing IS/Clans technologies.

But I can only welcome new weapons and technologies for both factions.

The short reply is "so what?" If Clan mechs get picked off from a distance at the same rate that IS mechs do isn't that a good thing? It's balanced. If IS mechs die just as quick as Clan mechs do in a brawl? So what? That's literally balanced. For the people that don't solely play a single type of mech, gameplay would be almost exactly the same as before. But now, a mech is just a chassis. Clan vs IS chassis has little to no effect on how it performs in game. It would look different and if that's the mech you want to play then you play it. You're not restricted in what weapons you can put on. It's fun, balanced, and easy for new players.

Again, I encourage people to give more thought to the benefits rather than just jumping on downsides, exaggerating them, and tossing them out.

[Raining Fire]

Navid A1, on 06 October 2020 - 10:58 PM, said:

Well, in my experience IS Mechs are the most dominant mechs on the battlefield. in competitive matches, Faction and solo play. ERPPCs are the only thing Clan mechs have left and those that can't pack those with enough cooling and mobility are struggling.

Also Clan mechs do not have negative quirks.

That's fair enough since it's your opinion. My initial thoughts are that IS mechs might have an advantage right now due to quirks, the way they're sized, the weapon types (single shot AC vs spread burst for example, which was intentionally designed to nerf the Clan weapons), and other factors. Even if balance isn't an issue, there are all of the other benefits I mentioned, and if things had to be adjusted slightly (such as reducing positive quirks on IS mechs) then that seems totally fine to me - the whole point is for PGI to alter something significant about the core game. They mentioned melee and knockdowns, but at the end of the day those ideas probably have greater downsides than something like mixing tech.

In the podcast they mention the negative armor/structure quirks on the Direwolf. Assuming you're right, then maybe those have been removed and they forgot or something. The point is that I think it's obvious that, barebones before design changes, the Clan mechs are better. The game has been modified here and there in many ways to make IS and Clan more fair, but at the end of the day the most consistent way would be to treat each mech (Clan and IS) as simply the body and being able to put either tech on it.

Edited by Raining Fire, 06 October 2020 - 11:14 PM.

[AnAnachronismAlive]

Fellow Mechwarriors,

I can only beg you not to wear down (y)ourselves with too detailed/expert discussions at this point. Please focus your energy / thoughts on how to make general aspect of the game feel better and make it more accessible so that all audience groups can see/feel benefits to a certain degree.

IMHO IS/Clan balance - if unbalanced at all - discussions ain't very productive for now.

Navid A1, on 06 October 2020 - 03:06 PM, said:

@Daeron
One thing that will greatly help with feedback is to identify with the developers about their scope as in what aspects are open for discussion?

Of utmost importance!

Edited by AnAnachronismAlive, 07 October 2020 - 02:25 AM.

[The6thMessenger]

Personally, I'd rather they work their asses off to rebuild and optimize the game at UE4, seriously I have higher FPS with Doom ******* Eternal, but I think the solution the team wanted is mostly about monetization.

The collectathon only go so far when we already have lots of mechs, even EA recognizes this that is why they keep on rereleasing FIFA, so that people will have to go buy to collected ALL OVER AGAIN.

WIthout treading the shady monetization, all I can see is basic subscription model, or just buy the damn game. You can also make Bolt-Ons and decals better, and affordable, the decals as definitely one-shot so they keep buying.

Another idea, but an annoying monetization is that Mechs could be "repaired" every after battle and locked out in real-time, incentivizing buying multiple mechs for a continuous gameplay.

Navid A1, on 06 October 2020 - 10:58 PM, said:

Well, in my experience IS Mechs are the most dominant mechs on the battlefield. in competitive matches, Faction and solo play. ERPPCs are the only thing Clan mechs have left and those that can't pack those with enough cooling and mobility are struggling.

Eh, well if IS didn't have quirks, they surely would lag behind. But my concern about it is mostly tech availability, Clan-Tech is just rather broken, they got better CXL, better ERML to be honest, and they can pull off builds on lighter platforms due to generally lighter ****.

Seriously I ******* ran 2x UAC5 + 2x UAC10 on a Rifleman IIC, a 65 Tonner. Seipnir and Fafnir struggles with that because Standard Engine is needed. Only the Anni is the right contender, and even then it runs hotter versus MCIIB.

Well yes it's hot and fragile in most serious capacity, also very slow, but consider that in the context of FP, you basically have a more-fragile MCII-B that if left live you could possibly have the same damage potential for a 25-ton lighter mech, and it's quite perfect in something like Siege Defense where you barely have to move a lot. Hell, if your team got your slow-*** back, chances are it'll actually work the entire time.

Pakhet can build 6x SRM6 with decent speed, the Hunchback IIC can pull of 2x UAC20; Cougar, Kitfox, Incubus can bring a UAC20 with decent ammo even though sub 100 KPH speed whereas the Urbanmech could only run AC20s mostly as a joke. Hell, the Urbanmech even struggles to run a single UAC10, or an AC10 unless you make it run as slow or even slower than the cougar and most IS heavies.

Statwise, we can screw Clan all we want that the 2x C-UAC5 + 2x C-UAC10 is instead comparable to 4x IS-UAC5, but there, the builds, the techbase is where Clans are truly broken.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 07 October 2020 - 02:15 AM.

[Horseman]

The6thMessenger, on 07 October 2020 - 01:24 AM, said:

WIthout treading the shady monetization, all I can see is basic subscription model, or just buy the damn game.

The season pass models are popular lately.

[rascje]

Just one thing: thanks for making mwo live

[AnAnachronismAlive]

Sean Lang, on 06 October 2020 - 06:15 PM, said:

Audio Version: Soundcloud

Please check out the NGNT.tv podcast on the issue if you can spare the time to adjust (y)our scope. Details / some sort of summary can be found here.

Edited by AnAnachronismAlive, 07 October 2020 - 05:14 AM.

[DAEDALOS513]

Brauer, on 06 October 2020 - 11:37 AM, said:

I've done plenty well in streak mechs in QP, and that doesn't mean anything. Streaks take very little skill to use effectively. BTW any time you poptart you are exposing yourself, that makes it easy for any heavy or assault to simply blast your streak mech. They don't even have to be terribly accurate given how long it takes streaks to kill anything big. I'd much rather test myself by taking a UAC10 Summoner with very limited ammo and armor to QP. With that I actually have to aim for myself rather than letting PGI do all the work for me.

There’s a reason why you hardly see any streak boats anymore on the field.. It’s tough to do consistently well in them with ams and ecm being so prevalent... saying streaks takes little skill is a damn fallacy.. contrary to your opinion pgi does NOT do all the work for you.. pgi doesn’t put you in the right position to not get focused.. pig doesn’t prioritise targets on mechs without ams.. Or get you close enough to counter ecm.. pgi doesn’t tell you when to pop tart or attack so you can win the trade.. uac10’s allow you to power camp and pop tart/poke at a safe range.. your specialty.. how can you even begin to compare the two builds as being equal in the skill required to play them? again your arguments fall flat as a pancake..

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 07 October 2020 - 05:52 AM.

[DeadWeight18]

Navid A1, on 06 October 2020 - 09:51 PM, said:

...
You want money?

Then consider this:

- Make a starter pack for $20.
- Include 8 good mechs in it (2 good mechs per class, clan and IS.).
- Make sure 2 of those 8 mechs are hero mechs.
- include enough GSP to instantly master 2 mechs
- include a bunch of Cbills to fully deck 2 mechs
- Include at least 10 colors covering a wide spectrum
- include 2 camo patterns for the mechs in the pack.
...

To build on this with having PGI's revenue goals in mind - another possibility would be to sell Faction Packs like the Solaris 7 pack build of :
- a Light, Medium, Heavy and Assault mech typical according canon for the faction
- one Faction patterns and colours as found in the Resistance / Origins IIC packs
- 100 GSP
- 4 Mech Bays
- 3 Cockpit Items
- 30 days Premium time
- 3 Millions CBills

or

Standard Packs
- Medium, Heavy and Assault mech typical according canon for the faction
- one Faction patterns and colours as found in the Resistance / Origins IIC packs
- 4 Mech Bays
- 3 Cockpit Items
- 30 days Premium time

Collector Pack
- Light Special variant mech typical according canon for the faction
- one Faction patterns and colours as found in the Resistance / Origins IIC packs
- 100 GSP
- 1 Mech Bays
- 9 Cockpit Items
- 30 days Premium time
- 1 Drop deck

[Paul Meyers DEST]

Navid A1, on 06 October 2020 - 09:51 PM, said:

In the podcast Russ also wanted to focus on things that can generate revenue.

First off, let's make one thing clear, MWO is in its 8th year now. So far the monetization model was based on a collect'em all approach with mechs.

It has been a long grind. For most it has been years. But we need to focus on new players that come in.

Right now a new player that is coming in gets to have 4 mechbays only. The usual approach is that the player will go through the cadet phase and often blows the cbills from that on a completely useless chassis with a bad build which struggles to perform in matches.

The ones who do not quit at the moment face a choice... to buy a mechpack or not.
And sadly this is where the current MWO store fails, as it has no option to allow a paying new player to hit the ground running or save on grind time.
The entire mechpack options offer three almost identical mechs for 20$ (btw, three variant model is based on a skill system that is no longer in the game). With $20 you can get major AAA games 8 years after their release, while in MWO it gives you practically NOTHING!
No sane person would spend that money to get something that can be bought in the game after a few days of playing.


In order to revitalize your store, you need to think about how the game dynamics and content releases has changed. I cut the BS and go right to the point.

You want money?

Then consider this:

- Make a starter pack for $20.
- Include 8 good mechs in it (2 good mechs per class, clan and IS.).
- Make sure 2 of those 8 mechs are hero mechs.
- include enough GSP to instantly master 2 mechs
- include a bunch of Cbills to fully deck 2 mechs
- Include at least 10 colors covering a wide spectrum
- include 2 camo patterns for the mechs in the pack.


THAT will sell.

You can even have higher Tier starter packs for $30 and $40 with bigger gains.

In a game that is in its 8th year you should be thinking about how to bring a new account up to a point to look like how a one year account would look like.
All the mech collectors have collected all the mechs and their wallets dried up... think wider... think more open.




Of course... it would be more challenging to find something a MWO veteran player would spend money on.
On that regard, I would refer to myself.
I have almost 500 mechs, most of them are fully mastered. I have about 100k MC, more than 3.5 Billion Cbills. almost all the colors.
And I really find it hard to think of something... perhaps some brainstorming would be needed on this front.

- make QP 8vs8 with a 60 seconds timer to make sure there are enough players in the specific skillrange
- put Cadets into Tier 4-5.
- make FP worth playing

[Jungle Plague]

I wonder if a monetization model could look similar to the Call of Duty/Destiny 2 season model (since someone mentioned seasons).

(This is all assuming that MWO re-boots in the MW5 engine).

Game starts with a smaller amount of Mech chassis/variants.

As seasons come along - new mechs/chassis are introduced in the season pass. You CAN physically buy a season pass - giving you tier skips to unlock mechs more quickly - or just play the game to unlock them. Once the season expires, the mechs still can be unlocked by players for free - they just have to be unlocked via challenges in game.

I think there is a lot of potential for things to go right. And I am going to be super hopeful for things to go right!!