544 replies to this topic

[RRAMIREZ]

The6thMessenger, on 22 October 2020 - 03:29 AM, said:

It's still a good approach considering that you need less players to drop, and our population is quite low.

RRAMIREZ, on 21 October 2020 - 02:04 PM, said:

The best solution for a stagnating population, you may be pragmatically right.
Maybe I have to convince myself to stop dreaming of a MWO "future"...
But I'm not ready to "buy" it for now... wait and see phase starts for me.

[Threat Doc]

Okay, since those of you quickplay bunnies refuse to understand what it is I'm saying and, since I understand your points completely, I'm just going to leave this conversation. But, let me sum up...

Those of you who think QP is the ONLY way to revive this game, take a look at your game over the past three-plus years, look at your population over the past three-plus years, then pull the wax out of your ears and the scales from your eyes, re-read what I wrote, above, compare it with what I'm about to say, ruminate on it for a while rather than opening your fingers and typing various styles of stinging rebukes right away, and understand.

1) the bottom - Ghosts will be allowed to participate in any game that comes up on their monitor screen, it will NOT be automatic, it will be a choice of where they want to fight and they can choose from the 'Mech weight limits available to them for the fight. Each fight will start at the end of a five-minute time-frame, whether the slots for the fight are full or not, or it will start a one-minute countdown once all the slots are filled, reverting to the remainder of the previous five-minute countdown should someone decide to bounce due to computer failure. Once you've joined a match, unless your computer fails or something catastrophic is taking place that is measurable by the game, you're locked in there and you cannot get into a different match, if you somehow fool the game, until the entirety of the match you were locked into is finished, whether that be five minutes or two hours. The only automatic drops there will be are non-training simulator matches, which non-training simulator matches will act like QP.

Force Commanders will set up all other matches and those matches WILL PLAY, whether it is 3 v 7 or 12 v 12. This 8 v 8 nonsense is for the birds and will go away.

That's it, I've had it with being dissed-understood, so I'm gone.

[AnAnachronismAlive]

Seems like a first "DropYerPantsPoint" for PGI is getting closer ... since there still ain't no scope of potential changes openly communicated (dunno if reading between the lines of the NGNGtv-Podcasts helps much), discussions somehow feel like gettin' outta hand and fragment all over the places more 'n more.

Harder to keep track and save some momentum day by day tbh ...

Edited by AnAnachronismAlive, 22 October 2020 - 07:20 AM.

[Horseman]

Threat Doc, on 22 October 2020 - 06:38 AM, said:

Okay, since those of you quickplay bunnies refuse to understand what it is I'm saying and, since I understand your points completely, I'm just going to leave this conversation.

We understand your points perfectly. You just refuse to acknowledge the reality of what MWO has become and still believe it can do a sudden 180* course-correction and magically have the entire former player base return thanks to it.
That's not how reality works.

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Those of you who think QP is the ONLY way to revive this game, take a look at your game over the past three-plus years, look at your population over the past three-plus years, then pull the wax out of your ears and the scales from your eyes, re-read what I wrote, above, compare it with what I'm about to say, ruminate on it for a while rather than opening your fingers and typing various styles of stinging rebukes right away, and understand.

Take a look at your beloved FP and realize that in some time zones it doesn't have the population to create matches on any regular basis.
You are again demanding PGI to push away a larger base of players - yes, including paying ones - in order to cater to a small, eternally dissatisfied, minority.

Quote

1) the bottom - Ghosts will be allowed to participate in any game that comes up on their monitor screen, it will NOT be automatic, it will be a choice of where they want to fight and they can choose from the 'Mech weight limits available to them for the fight.

Given the frequency of FP games that are getting formed? They won't have much of a choice.

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or something catastrophic is taking place that is measurable by the game,

Let me stop you there: neither the game nor the server would be able to distinguish pulling out your network cable from equipment failure.

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Force Commanders will set up all other matches and those matches WILL PLAY, whether it is 3 v 7 or 12 v 12. This 8 v 8 nonsense is for the birds and will go away.

Congratulations, if you give them that power then there will be degenerates who will consistently set up 8v1 matches to favour "their guys".

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That's it, I've had it with being dissed-understood, so I'm gone.

And nothing of value was lost.

To put it bluntly, I do not support your premise annihilating the game's playerbase just because you think your particular demands must be catered to. And, as it happens, I am one of the enthusiasts who pay PGI's bills - just slightly more in touch with the realities of the situation than you are.
Now excuse me, I need to spend some time deciding which final two Collector packs to get to qualify for the Ultimate reward tier for the fourth year running.

Edited by Horseman, 22 October 2020 - 07:56 AM.

[C337Skymaster]

Horseman, on 22 October 2020 - 07:44 AM, said:

We understand your points perfectly. You just refuse to acknowledge the reality of what MWO has become and still believe it can do a sudden 180* course-correction and magically have the entire former player base return thanks to it.
That's not how reality works.
Take a look at your beloved FP and realize that in some time zones it doesn't have the population to create matches on any regular basis.
You are again demanding PGI to push away a larger base of players - yes, including paying ones - in order to cater to a small, eternally dissatisfied, minority.
Given the frequency of FP games that are getting formed? They won't have much of a choice.
Let me stop you there: neither the game nor the server would be able to distinguish pulling out your network cable from equipment failure.
Congratulations, if you give them that power then there will be degenerates who will consistently set up 8v1 matches to favour "their guys".
And nothing of value was lost.

To put it bluntly, I do not support your premise annihilating the game's playerbase just because you think your particular demands must be catered to. And, as it happens, I am one of the enthusiasts who pay PGI's bills - just slightly more in touch with the realities of the situation than you are.
Now excuse me, I need to spend some time deciding which final two Collector packs to get to qualify for the Ultimate reward tier for the fourth year running.

As someone who already qualified for 4 years worth of Ultimate Rewards, and is opting to pass up a 5th year, let me say that I agree much more with Threat Doc than with you or any of your ilk.

What this game is missing is a point. A story. A campaign. A purpose. From what I hear of MW5, that's not something we can trust PGI with even in the slightest, but it's still what's missing. Literally the ONLY reason I play this game is because I played MW2, 3, and 4 ad nauseum (and still was, right up to 2015 when I bought a new computer specifically for MWLL and MWO), had the story fresh in my mind, and hadn't heard the retractions, yet, on the concept of progressing MWO day-for-day, with one day in-universe corresponding to one day out-of-universe (thus setting them up for 20 or 30 years' worth of story to play out in real time).

I started a new account in May. I'm already done with it. I've got 22 'mech bays, 18 'mechs, all of them mastered, and I'm starting to accumulate more CB than I can spend. If I were purchasing 'mechs with hard cash instead of CB on this second account, that situation would be even worse. Beyond leveling 'mechs, and affording more, there's no "point" to this game, and it gets very old and repetitive very quickly. I stick around because I'm a stubborn addict, but even that's not been enough to keep me playing 5 hours a day, 7 days a week, like I used to.

My first introduction to Halo? Just like this: two guys who play the game were dueling with endless respawns: one would kill the other, the other would respawn and kill the one, back and forth, with no point, no purpose, no objective other than endless, mindless combat. I swore off Halo after about 10 minutes. 10 years later, I'm told it actually has a rich and compelling back story that I'd probably be really interested in.

Now take MWO: if your ONLY exposure to Battletech is through MWO, what's the point? You go kill that guy, he kills you, at the end of the match you've got some money that you're not sure what to spend on except to do the same thing slightly differently, and you go do the same thing all over again. There's no purpose. There's no point. Anyone picking up MWO without any history of the franchise will drop it again in a matter of months. The ONLY people who still play this game are those who remember the other, better ones that came before it, that established that sense of purpose, and that gave everything its objective, and explains WHY Clan Technology is so much better than Inner Sphere tech. (The balance for that is uneven teams, not endless nerfs and buffs, by the way).

What Threat Doc wants is the same thing I want, and the ONLY thing that's going to keep a new player around if they have zero other knowledge, history, or exposure to Battletech: a purpose for the fighting. A campaign to progress through. A context that this game is SORELY lacking. Hell, even Call of Duty, or War Thunder, or World of Tanks or Warships, have context, even with this exact same combat mechanic, and the exact same level of in-game story telling: Everybody learns about WWII in school. Everybody knows who the sides were, what their objectives were, and even what some of their equipment was, and which equipment was better and worse. Nobody expects a P-40 to be able to survive a turning fight with a Zero, and nobody expects a Zero to survive a hit. Everyone has the context, already.

The reason FP population has declined to the point that it has? The game has no point. FP matches are poorly designed, and have no objective purpose. Every time PGI listens to a request to fix a broken game mechanic, they screw up two other things in the process (they added a token "story" that's hard to read and has no follow-through beyond the next one or two combat phases, and simultaneously removed units being able to attach their tags to planets and earn MC, as well as removing any point and purpose to pledged Loyalty. They added the Loyalty bit back, but only after most of the loyalists quit).

FP would honestly have more interest if it were a unique set of perpetuating scenarios on one planet where the outcome of one match would have a direct impact on the next match. Nearly impossible to do, that's fair, but it would still have more interest if it was dynamic like that, instead of the same static match on the same stale maps.

Age of Empires II has lasted for DECADES, with a much larger continuous player base than either the original Age of Empires, or Age of Empires III. Why? AoE II is the only one of the three to include dynamic map generation. You can select a map based on a particular theme, but the actual layout and design of the map is randomly generated by the game when the match starts, and you cannot know what the map looks like until the game is launched and you've begun to explore it. Also with the context: people are familiar with the factions involved, approximately where they originate in the world, and approximately what they are famous for, and can make up why they might be fighting if it isn't blatantly obvious like Britons vs Franks. They know all this because they learned it in History Class in school (whether they wanted to or not).

To put it bluntly, Threat Doc's proposal will hardly annihilate the player base, but continued focus on balancing QP and sucking money out of players for 15 minutes of broken-record repetition most assuredly will.

Edited by C337Skymaster, 22 October 2020 - 08:47 AM.

[Lith Dael]

The6thMessenger, on 22 October 2020 - 03:29 AM, said:

It's still a good approach considering that you need less players to drop, and our population is quite low.

Plus, the "added impact" for an inexperienced player is somewhat mitigated by the fact that you have potentially 4 less alpha builds pointed at you at any given time. Generally this should enhance the staying power of all mechs, which is better for those still learning and making mistakes, charging in open space etc.
Just my 2 eurocents.

Just kidding, I am not getting paid in serious currency ;-)

Threat Doc, on 22 October 2020 - 06:38 AM, said:

That's it, I've had it with being dissed-understood, so I'm gone.

Your actual points may be missed, but certainly not your abrasive writing style.

[Alreech]

C337Skymaster, on 22 October 2020 - 08:46 AM, said:

What Threat Doc wants is the same thing I want, and the ONLY thing that's going to keep a new player around if they have zero other knowledge, history, or exposure to Battletech: a purpose for the fighting. A campaign to progress through. A context that this game is SORELY lacking.

A campaign isn't realy needed for a multiplayer game with factions and guilds.
Fighting with your guilds for your faction gives a player a purpose to play.
Things like earning faction ranks and factions specific rewards can improve that.

That would work in Mechwarrior online too, but PGI didn't even try to encourage that.

MWO started with quickplay as "placeholder gamemode" without considering faction during matchmaking.
PGI payed a lot of money for the strong lore of the Battletech/Mechwarrior franchise and decided to not use the part that was ideal for a multiplayer shooter: the factions.

Not matching the teams in quickplay by faction and allowing players without faction killed faction play before it even started.
It prevented the formation of player units from solo players.
It enabeld a "faction don't matter mindset".
Most players have had a pretty diverse friends list with players from all factions (or no faction), so for faction play a large parts of thier friend list can't play with them.

Quote

The reason FP population has declined to the point that it has? The game has no point. FP matches are poorly designed, and have no objective purpose.

Well, that's no difference to the gameplay of quickplay.

Quickplay is team deathmatch without respawns and randomized teams.

Typical for deathmatch is the lack of objectives on the map.
In objective driven game modes the objectives work as focus points , preventing the teams from splitting up over the whole map.
Classic team death match shooters like Quake, Unreal Tournament ect don't have that problem due the small maps, fast movement and the respawns.
MWO has lare maps, slow movement and no respawns in quickplay.

Domination is one of the few modes in MWO there objectives work as intended.
All other modes can be played by "kill the enemy first, than capture", making it more or less a matter of informal consent of the team were to fight.
That informal consent works if all players of a team know the map and know the usuall choke points, but that also means what every game is played like the other games before...

And if only a small faction of the team don't play by this informal consent about how to play that map the team gets splitted and stomped by the other team.
We all know that situation when some players try to cap the enemy base solo in Assault or stay back to prototect the own base while the rest of the team moves out...
And MWOs matchmaking active prevents team cohesion by disolving the team after each match and creating a new team with random players. With each new match you get new team mates you don't know, so achiving that informal consent in the team is more or less luck.

Let's take a look how other video games avoid this problem, using the old Call of Duty united offense & Battlefield 2 as examples.
First thing: clear attacker and defender roles for clear objectives. The teams have either to attack or defend, not trying to do both at the same time.
Objective placement to set focus points, sometimes objectives have to be captured in a specific order (Battlefields Frontline & Rush modes). Imagine conquest, but you can only attack the control point near the enemy starting zone after capturing one CP in the middle.
Variable placement of objectives: CoDs Headquarters were the placement of the radio station switches between different places after each map. Imagine big maps like Tourmaline, Alpine Peaks, but with variants in the placement of spawnpoints & objectives for Assault, Domination, Conquest...

Also PGI did a bad thing by not naming the objectives. Objective Alpha sounds lame, objective "Dropship Wreck", "Fuel Storage Area", "Comstar Station", "old Battlefield" or "Space Port" ect adds flavor to the game.

One of the few things MWO did right was the approaching dropship in Faction play Scouting or Escort, and the Mechhangars in Solaris, and it's a shame PGI didn't use that stuff to spice up quickplay.
Like landing dropships on the end of the round, or spawning one team in Solaris style mechhangars instead of dropping both teams with Dropships.

Quote

FP would honestly have more interest if it were a unique set of perpetuating scenarios on one planet where the outcome of one match would have a direct impact on the next match. Nearly impossible to do, that's fair, but it would still have more interest if it was dynamic like that, instead of the same static match on the same stale maps.

Direct impacts for the next match are IMHO a no-go, remember the long tom fiasco.

Unique scenarios could be done as events.
For example a set of maps could get the same skybox by a patch prior the event and those events took place on that maps, d.h. "on the same planet".

Indirect impacts of the event could be price changes or changed aviability for certain Mechs for the victorious faction.
But that would need stuff like faction price modifiers for faction specific Mechs or even faction exclusive Mechs like the Grand Dragon for Kurita or the Enfield for Davion not yet in the store.

[C337Skymaster]

Alreech, on 22 October 2020 - 10:36 AM, said:

A campaign isn't really needed for a multiplayer game with factions and guilds.
Fighting with your guilds for your faction gives a player a purpose to play.
Things like earning faction ranks and factions specific rewards can improve that.

That would work in Mechwarrior online too, but PGI didn't even try to encourage that.

There still needs to be something for the Faction or Guild to work towards. Previously, that was getting their unit tag on as many planets as possible to earn MC which they could distribute back to their members. That objective has been taken away, and consequently, we've seen a steep decline in groups playing that game mode.

Alreech, on 22 October 2020 - 10:36 AM, said:

MWO started with quickplay as "placeholder gamemode" without considering faction during matchmaking.
PGI paid a lot of money for the strong lore of the Battletech/Mechwarrior franchise and decided to not use the part that was ideal for a multiplayer shooter: the factions.

Not matching the teams in quickplay by faction and allowing players without faction killed faction play before it even started.
It prevented the formation of player units from solo players.
It enabeld a "faction don't matter mindset".
Most players have had a pretty diverse friends list with players from all factions (or no faction), so for faction play a large parts of their friend list can't play with them.

This makes a lot of sense, and leans into something I've proposed further back in this thread: rather than custom-built Champion 'mechs for trial 'mechs, which get out-dated, ALL the 'mechs in-game should be available as trial 'mechs, divided up by associated Faction (AS7-D is universal, but AS7-K is only available to the DCMS, etc). New players have to pick a faction, and then pick a 'mech from that faction to be "issued" as an enlisted 'mechwarrior in that faction's military. They need to purchase the 'mech to skill it or change the loadout or camo pattern. Perhaps a basic 30 or 40 skills could be added (such that the ECM nodes are equipped on all ECM trial 'mechs).

Alreech, on 22 October 2020 - 10:36 AM, said:

C337Skymaster, on 22 October 2020 - 08:46 AM, said:

The reason FP population has declined to the point that it has? The game has no point. FP matches are poorly designed, and have no objective purpose.

Well, that's no difference to the gameplay of quickplay.

That's been everybody's point all along. That stale repetitiveness exists in both modes, and is killing all parts of this game, equally.

Alreech, on 22 October 2020 - 10:36 AM, said:

Quickplay is team deathmatch without respawns and randomized teams.

Typical for deathmatch is the lack of objectives on the map.
In objective driven game modes the objectives work as focus points , preventing the teams from splitting up over the whole map.
Classic team death match shooters like Quake, Unreal Tournament ect don't have that problem due the small maps, fast movement and the respawns.
MWO has large maps, slow movement and no respawns in quickplay.

Domination is one of the few modes in MWO there objectives work as intended.
All other modes can be played by "kill the enemy first, then capture", making it more or less a matter of informal consent of the team where to fight.
That informal consent works if all players of a team know the map and know the usual choke points, but that also means that every game is played like the other games before...

And if only a small fraction of the team don't play by this informal consent about how to play that map, the team gets split and stomped by the other team.
We all know that situation when some players try to cap the enemy base solo in Assault or stay back to protect their own base while the rest of the team moves out...
And MWOs matchmaking actively prevents team cohesion by dissolving the team after each match and creating a new team with random players. With each new match you get new team mates you don't know, so achieving that informal consent in the team is more or less luck.

Let's take a look how other video games avoid this problem, using the old Call of Duty united offense & Battlefield 2 as examples.
First thing: clear attacker and defender roles for clear objectives. The teams have either to attack or defend, not trying to do both at the same time.
Objective placement to set focus points, sometimes objectives have to be captured in a specific order (Battlefields Frontline & Rush modes). Imagine conquest, but you can only attack the control point near the enemy starting zone after capturing one CP in the middle.
Variable placement of objectives: CoDs Headquarters were the placement of the radio station switches between different places after each map. Imagine big maps like Tourmaline, Alpine Peaks, but with variants in the placement of spawnpoints & objectives for Assault, Domination, Conquest...

Also PGI did a bad thing by not naming the objectives. Objective Alpha sounds lame, objective "Dropship Wreck", "Fuel Storage Area", "Comstar Station", "old Battlefield" or "Space Port" ect adds flavor to the game.

I see your point, and I see theirs. The whole "objective code-name" bit is a real military tactic, to minimize the damage in the event of compromised communications. If you're after "objective dog" (or Delta, since shortly after WWII), and the enemy has no idea what "objective dog" is, then they can't use that information against you, whereas "objective crashed dropship" tells them exactly where you're going and where to defend against you.

Intercepted Comms isn't a thing in MWO, and even if it were, the objectives are named the exact same thing to both teams so each team would know what you're talking about, anyway, but trying to simulate that was the original intent...

I can also see the mixed match-making intent: if you get 12 people randomly matched together who are really good and absolutely trounce the other team, they might change 'mechs for the next drop, or they might just work exceptionally well together and start handing out losses to EVERY other player in MWO, which would sour a lot of other players' experiences and cause them to quit.

I know I called an earlier comment of yours toxic, but a TRUE and indisputable example of toxicity was an old Ghost Bear unit that I dropped with a couple of times called "Bad News Bears [BNB]". They were a Faction unit, but they were exactly the type that was guilty of dunking the objective without fighting the enemy, and their leader even said straight up at the start of one match "let's make them not want to play, anymore [by beating them so badly and so quickly]".

If you wind up with a QP unit doing that.... my understanding is that's why group and solo queues were originally separated in the first place. So PGI makes sure to split up the losing team and the winning team after every match, hoping to pit the two best players in every 24-player matchup against each other.

The non-stop search for the almighty "balance"...

Alreech, on 22 October 2020 - 10:36 AM, said:

One of the few things MWO did right was the approaching dropship in Faction play Scouting or Escort, and the Mechhangars in Solaris, and it's a shame PGI didn't use that stuff to spice up quickplay.
Like landing dropships on the end of the round, or spawning one team in Solaris style mechhangars instead of dropping both teams with Dropships.


Direct impacts for the next match are IMHO a no-go, remember the long tom fiasco.

Fiasco?! I loved the Long Tom!! I never had so much fun in Scouting as when the Long Tom was the end-result. Scouting actually meant something, and had a real purpose, and something to fight for. They were also tough, scrappy fights, too. Yes, I played a classic streak crow, and I'll say I was even better than a lot of other streak crows, but you run up against SRM Griffins, or Assassins, and we got about as good as we gave. Add stealth armor to that mix, (they got rid of the Long Tom before stealth armor arrived), and you've got a real doozy of a cat-and-mouse game, with definite real-world consequences on the ongoing Faction matches.

It depresses me to see the Scouting objective indicators at the top of Faction matches, these days, with no chance of ever lighting them up again...

Alreech, on 22 October 2020 - 10:36 AM, said:

Unique scenarios could be done as events.
For example a set of maps could get the same skybox by a patch prior the event and those events took place on that maps, d.h. "on the same planet".

Indirect impacts of the event could be price changes or changed availability for certain Mechs for the victorious faction.
But that would need stuff like faction price modifiers for faction specific Mechs or even faction exclusive Mechs like the Grand Dragon for Kurita or the Enfield for Davion not yet in the store.

I love this idea. I just wish PGI had coders that could make it happen.... See my above idea about splitting the different 'mechs and equipment up by tech tree (MRMs, Heavy, Light, and Snub-nosed PPCs, are all Kuritan equipment. RAC's are Davion, Heavy Gauss is Steiner. Stealth Armor is Capellan. Light Gauss is Marik. Poor Rasalhague is lucky to have 'mechs and planets...).

Edited by C337Skymaster, 22 October 2020 - 11:33 AM.

[Alreech]

C337Skymaster, on 22 October 2020 - 11:32 AM, said:

There still needs to be something for the Faction or Guild to work towards. Previously, that was getting their unit tag on as many planets as possible to earn MC which they could distribute back to their members. That objective has been taken away, and consequently, we've seen a steep decline in groups playing that game mode.

Giving out premium currency to encourage playing a specific game mode is the lowest form of reward, and also leads to farming.

Same with the mechbays as reward in faction play.
If one of the most common tips for new players is "play faction play to farm mechbays, change factions to maximise that farming" you don't encourage faction play, you encourage farming.

It also applies to "PGI is greeedy, they have to give out moar rewards for playing, moar daily missions, more free MCs, free Mechbays, free Mechs..."
Playing a game only to farm free stuff can kill motivation real fast. Especially if like in MWO framing works best in Quickplay.

Quote

This makes a lot of sense, and leans into something I've proposed further back in this thread: rather than custom-built Champion 'mechs for trial 'mechs, which get out-dated, ALL the 'mechs in-game should be available as trial 'mechs, divided up by associated Faction (AS7-D is universal, but AS7-K is only available to the DCMS, etc). New players have to pick a faction, and then pick a 'mech from that faction to be "issued" as an enlisted 'mechwarrior in that faction's military. They need to purchase the 'mech to skill it or change the loadout or camo pattern. Perhaps a basic 30 or 40 skills could be added (such that the ECM nodes are equipped on all ECM trial 'mechs).

MWO started with 4 Mechs, so that wasn't possible in the beginning.
Mechwarrior 5 has now more than 50 Mechs in game, and faction variants could be done in a Mechwarrior 5 multiplayer mode with factions.

Quote

I see your point, and I see theirs. The whole "objective code-name" bit is a real military tactic, to minimize the damage in the event of compromised communications. If you're after "objective dog" (or Delta, since shortly after WWII), and the enemy has no idea what "objective dog" is, then they can't use that information against you, whereas "objective crashed dropship" tells them exactly where you're going and where to defend against you.

Intercepted Comms isn't a thing in MWO, and even if it were, the objectives are named the exact same thing to both teams so each team would know what you're talking about, anyway, but trying to simulate that was the original intent...

I think they have been just to lazy to come up with names.
The thing is that stuff like "crashed dropship" is already in the game as object on the map. Many multiplayer games - here is Battlefield also a good example - place unique objects on the map and use them as objective to make that map more unique.

Giving a code name to the objective can still be done, especially if a map contains more such unique objects as potential objectives and the matchmaker can use different layouts (spawnpoints & objectives).
It would be also possible to add flavor text or audio at the start of the match, like:
"Objective Alpha" + "Crashed dropship, secure it so we can salvage it's cargo"
"Objective Bravo" + "Space port, hold it so we can land reeinforcements"
"Objective Charlie" + "Old battlesite, one of the mech wrecks contain critical information, secure it"

Objects now in MWO that can be used for that:
Crashed dropship = dropship wrecks (Tourmaline, Frozen city,...)
wrecked Mechs = old battlesite
Large Tanks = Fuel Tank Area (River City)
wrecked Cargoship =... (Frozen City, Forrest Colony)

[Alreech]

C337Skymaster, on 22 October 2020 - 11:32 AM, said:

I can also see the mixed match-making intent: if you get 12 people randomly matched together who are really good and absolutely trounce the other team, they might change 'mechs for the next drop, or they might just work exceptionally well together and start handing out losses to EVERY other player in MWO, which would sour a lot of other players' experiences and cause them to quit.
...
If you wind up with a QP unit doing that.... my understanding is that's why group and solo queues were originally separated in the first place.

The split between Solo & Group in Quickplay was done in the early days of MWO with 8 vs 8 matches.
Search for PUGs vs Premades in the archive.

The problem is that a group of players (=premade) has advantages in coordination over players that drop without group (PUG). Especially if the premade group is big (8 players, 12 players)
The obvious solution to that problems would be:

• nerf the groups somewhat by limiting it's size, for example to 4 (the size of a Lance)
  
• make it easier for Solo players to group up by adding a "Looking for Group" Lobby with build in VOIP

You will find such suggestions in the old PUG vs Premade threads.

Quote

So PGI makes sure to split up the losing team and the winning team after every match, hoping to pit the two best players in every 24-player matchup against each other.

Honestly i don't think PGI planned that far.
Remember, quickplay was a placeholder game mode until the famous "dropship mode" is ready.
PGI didn't bother to set up the CryEngines Server with things like maplists or autobalance (things the CryEngine support out of the box) to keep the teams together and balanced.

Also most players used Solo Quickplay to grind up XPs for Mechs (and later to farm Events) That was faster in Solo because you are able to leave the match and start the next with a new Mech.

Edited by Alreech, 23 October 2020 - 02:29 AM.

[AnAnachronismAlive]

C337Skymaster, on 22 October 2020 - 08:46 AM, said:

As someone who already qualified for 4 years worth of Ultimate Rewards, and is opting to pass up a 5th year, let me say that I agree much more with Threat Doc than with you or any of your ilk.

What this game is missing is a point. A story. A campaign. A purpose. From what I hear of MW5, that's not something we can trust PGI with even in the slightest, but it's still what's missing. Literally the ONLY reason I play this game is because I played MW2, 3, and 4 ad nauseum (and still was, right up to 2015 when I bought a new computer specifically for MWLL and MWO), had the story fresh in my mind, and hadn't heard the retractions, yet, on the concept of progressing MWO day-for-day, with one day in-universe corresponding to one day out-of-universe (thus setting them up for 20 or 30 years' worth of story to play out in real time).

[...]

To put it bluntly, Threat Doc's proposal will hardly annihilate the player base, but continued focus on balancing QP and sucking money out of players for 15 minutes of broken-record repetition most assuredly will.

To be honest I don't see what we are arguing about here. While Horseman's reply towards ThreatDoc might have been a little rough, I assume it was some kind of reaction caused by his somewhat dismissive kind of wording used. All this clucker ain't and can't be about the desires of ONE target / audience group only and Horseman usually tends to show very sophisticated argumentation on topics. We are all sitting in the same boat here, the difference between us lying in our opinion on what part of the boat is in need of repairs first with the assumed ressources at hand for now. We don't wanna make this game into some sort of stupid quickplay-mill (even though quickplay has a place in it) and we don't want this game to be some sort of 45 minutes minimal high strategy game only (even tough it has a place in it). We are asking ourselves and wanna discuss WHAT short-term measures may help to stabilize and bolster the existing playerbase so PGI can create revenue ... and we try to do that while keeping in mind PGI has not shown the ability and/or has the ressources to create some grand overhaul of central game mechanics over a couple of weeks and being in need for revenue to potentially hire the experts for it.

So while we totally appreciate the several, massive and well-thought-off proposals being made in terms of how to improve faction play and the implementation of meta-objectives (lore, unit-management etc.) a lot, we do not believe this will create the short time / low effort / high reward revenue stream that seems to be in need of to set bigger changes in motion.

That is why we - beside minor gameplay-tweaks - are asking for stuff like new hero packs etc. for now / as a first step, since we believe (albeit do not know) such measures are comparably easier to implement, offer some revenue stream and can be ONE stepping stone for further implementations from a business perspective to build on-going overhaul steps on.

That is no guarantee for nothing! And I can totally agree if that is not enough for most of us, since we have been ****-fanned (year of faction-play etc.pp.) kinda often over the last couple of years. But we simply don't see your totally legit proposals as something PGI is able to deliver currently / at this point.

So pretty prettly please let us not make this into some kind of audience-clash again ... but let us ask ourselves, what realistic content can PGI produce short-term we are willing to spend money on. If there ain't nothing they can do short-term to make ye play again/more often/spend money on = fair n square, no offense taken. But please do not make us into some advocatus diaboli promoting things we actually don't.

Again: it is not the result we have different opinions on, since we all want an engaging, immersive and fun game as close to our wildest BT-dreams as possible! That is for sure! But our assumption of the most practical way to go there from here is a different one.

O7

Edited by AnAnachronismAlive, 23 October 2020 - 03:30 AM.

[Lith Dael]

AnAnachronismAlive, on 23 October 2020 - 02:36 AM, said:

Again: it is not the result we have different opinions on, since we all want an engaging, immersive and fun game as close to our wildest BT-dreams as possible! That is for sure! But our assumption of the most practical way to go there from here is a different one.

O7

Anachronism, your positivity and attitute stand out as a beacon on these forums. This is exactly what this game needs.

[AnAnachronismAlive]

Lith Dael, on 23 October 2020 - 06:59 AM, said:

Anachronism, your positivity and attitute stand out as a beacon on these forums. This is exactly what this game needs.

Thank you, though my ex-wife would tell ye otherwise. Does not matter anyhow, since all the quality-feedback/concepts provided by players of ALL sorts here and elsewhere is of much bigger importance than my cheap words.

Anyhow: I can full-scale identify with a lot of people having invested much more time, effort and heart-blood into this game and its community being fed off regarding what happened / or not happened during the last years. The defeatism PGI experiences in this forum is somewhat well deserved (though not very helpful), despite having delivered an extremely solid bt-sim-experience being the small studio they are. Thank you for that! I really mean it.

But what people makes so sad n bitter is all the lost potential ...

So lemme make one thing clear: foremost it is PGI that has to deliver a honest and transparent scope of possible short-, mid- and long-term changes as soon as possible now. Their communications is - and I know what I am talkin about PR-wise - a mess, even though one has to admit that communication with gaming communities is one of the **** tasks ye can be confronted with. Still there ain't a main and well administered channel of communication with customers. There is (and has been for years) so much feedback (high quality even so) all over the places (forum, reddit, discord, bilateral messages, e-mails, streams n podcasts) it seems impossible already to melt it into a structured and transparent conjunction.

The balloon of expectations is bulging again ... and since a lot of other balloons have been bulging before with nothing but some gum-fart coming out in the end, anticipated disappointment is the status quo a lot of people feel about MWO/PGI announcements.

So please ... PGI ... give us a scope of potential short term changes for now, so we can - together and step by step - work on short-term-solutions satisfying the playerbase in general and you as a company alike FOR NOW! Every new journey starts with a first step ... it should be well placed though if ye found yerself being off the path.

O7 - make this override version of MWO happen!

Edited by AnAnachronismAlive, 23 October 2020 - 07:45 AM.

[C337Skymaster]

Alreech, on 23 October 2020 - 02:04 AM, said:

Giving out premium currency to encourage playing a specific game mode is the lowest form of reward, and also leads to farming.

Same with the mechbays as reward in faction play.
If one of the most common tips for new players is "play faction play to farm mechbays, change factions to maximize that farming" you don't encourage faction play, you encourage farming.

It also applies to "PGI is greeedy, they have to give out moar rewards for playing, moar daily missions, more free MCs, free Mechbays, free Mechs..."
Playing a game only to farm free stuff can kill motivation real fast. Especially if like in MWO farming works best in Quickplay.

You know, now that you put it in writing, I'm kinda confronted with it: The only reason I play, anymore, is the free stuff. If it weren't for farming 'mech bays in Faction, I wouldn't even bother with the mode, and I've cut back on QP to just farming the events. Were it not for any of that, I'd have been able to go back to MW2, MW3, and MW4 with a clear mind two or three years ago. This is what I mean about needing an objective, or a purpose. Winning free stuff seems to be the only reason to play, anymore. At least for me. And there are a LOT of players for whom even that wasn't enough.

Alreech, on 23 October 2020 - 02:04 AM, said:

MWO started with 4 Mechs, so that wasn't possible in the beginning.

Okay, that's fair enough. They've got a helluva lot more than 4 'mechs, now, though, and have had for quite some time. My proposal would have been viable around the time Origins IIC came out, as there were then enough faction-specific 'mechs in the game to make the faction-tree division work.

Alreech, on 23 October 2020 - 02:04 AM, said:

I think they have been just to lazy to come up with names.
The thing is that stuff like "crashed dropship" is already in the game as object on the map. Many multiplayer games - here is Battlefield also a good example - place unique objects on the map and use them as objective to make that map more unique.

Giving a code name to the objective can still be done, especially if a map contains more such unique objects as potential objectives and the matchmaker can use different layouts (spawnpoints & objectives).
It would be also possible to add flavor text or audio at the start of the match, like:
"Objective Alpha" + "Crashed dropship, secure it so we can salvage it's cargo"
"Objective Bravo" + "Space port, hold it so we can land reeinforcements"
"Objective Charlie" + "Old battlesite, one of the mech wrecks contain critical information, secure it"

Objects now in MWO that can be used for that:
Crashed dropship = dropship wrecks (Tourmaline, Frozen city,...)
wrecked Mechs = old battlesite
Large Tanks = Fuel Tank Area (River City)
wrecked Cargoship =... (Frozen City, Forrest Colony)

Yeah, can't argue with "lazy" on the part of PGI...

[C337Skymaster]

AnAnachronismAlive, on 23 October 2020 - 02:36 AM, said:

To be honest I don't see what we are arguing about here. While Horseman's reply towards ThreatDoc might have been a little rough, I assume it was some kind of reaction caused by his somewhat dismissive kind of wording used. All this clucker ain't and can't be about the desires of ONE target / audience group only and Horseman usually tends to show very sophisticated argumentation on topics. We are all sitting in the same boat here, the difference between us lying in our opinion on what part of the boat is in need of repairs first with the assumed resources at hand for now. We don't wanna make this game into some sort of stupid quickplay-mill (even though quickplay has a place in it) and we don't want this game to be some sort of 45 minutes minimal high strategy game only (even tough it has a place in it). We are asking ourselves and wanna discuss WHAT short-term measures may help to stabilize and bolster the existing playerbase so PGI can create revenue ... and we try to do that while keeping in mind PGI has not shown the ability and/or has the resources to create some grand overhaul of central game mechanics over a couple of weeks and being in need for revenue to potentially hire the experts for it.

So while we totally appreciate the several, massive and well-thought-off proposals being made in terms of how to improve faction play and the implementation of meta-objectives (lore, unit-management etc.) a lot, we do not believe this will create the short time / low effort / high reward revenue stream that seems to be in need of to set bigger changes in motion.

You say you appreciate the proposals, but the argument was that those proposals aren't feeling very appreciated at all, and are rather feeling quickly dismissed as "old sod's whose gamemode already failed, and so isn't worth looking at".

The unfortunate truth of the matter is that there's no such thing as a "low effort/high reward" anything. Either a high effort must be made to achieve a high reward, or low effort will result in very low, if any, reward. The other problem is PGI's track record, and I'm starting to feel like it's time for the community to give up on PGI, start hacking the source code, and take over MWO kinda like what happened when MWLL was abandoned.

AnAnachronismAlive, on 23 October 2020 - 02:36 AM, said:

That is why we - beside minor gameplay-tweaks - are asking for stuff like new hero packs etc. for now / as a first step, since we believe (albeit do not know) such measures are comparably easier to implement, offer some revenue stream and can be ONE stepping stone for further implementations from a business perspective to build on-going overhaul steps on.

That is no guarantee for nothing! And I can totally agree if that is not enough for most of us, since we have been ****-fanned (year of faction-play etc.pp.) kinda often over the last couple of years. But we simply don't see your totally legit proposals as something PGI is able to deliver currently / at this point.

Do we see ANYTHING as something PGI is able to deliver, currently? Maybe we, as a community, should start there: what do we actually trust PGI to follow through with? Where is our faith and hope level with regards to PGI right now? Because it's starting to sound like it's at or below zero. Yeah, I know "we're a company. We need to make money". But begging your customers for money isn't how you make money, and if you're incapable of producing a worthwhile product, then you go bankrupt. I REALLY would like to see the MWLL team take over MWO, and see what they can do with it...

AnAnachronismAlive, on 23 October 2020 - 02:36 AM, said:

So pretty pretty please let us not make this into some kind of audience-clash again ... but let us ask ourselves, what realistic content can PGI produce short-term we are willing to spend money on. If there ain't nothing they can do short-term to make ye play again/more often/spend money on = fair n square, no offense taken. But please do not make us into some advocatus diaboli promoting things we actually don't.

Again: it is not the result we have different opinions on, since we all want an engaging, immersive and fun game as close to our wildest BT-dreams as possible! That is for sure! But our assumption of the most practical way to go there from here is a different one.

O7

Something my Driver's Ed instructor taught us: you keep your eyes on the end of the visible part of the road, and you will naturally follow your gaze. If the road is turning, look at where it goes to, and you'll naturally follow behind your gaze. If you just look at the road straight in front of the car, you'll be all over the place and have no idea where you're going, or what's ahead of you.

I feel like too much focus on the short-term blinds us to the long-term goals, and only the long-term goals will save the game. New 'mech packs has been done. It was Modus Operandi for six years. New maps has been done, albeit not nearly often enough. Interest usually only piques for about a month, then starts to drop off again. New game modes has been done. Domination is the only one that people actually seem to like, because it prevents anyone from taking advantage of the large maps.

All these short-term solutions have been tried, already, and they've all either failed, or been botched by PGI incompetence, so I feel like trying them again is a waste of everyone's time and effort...

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Ohhhhhkay, so this is gonna be a bit long, probably somewhat rambly, and I may choose words badly here and there, so please bear with. There's a lot I want to comment on.


Preface

Spoiler

A few things I want to get out of the way here.

• I am not an excellent player. My interest in 'mech building is more to building 'mechs with purposes that seem interesting or that I like the feel of how they function, while still being decently effective.
  
• My 'twitch skills' (read: reflexes and fine coordination at speed) are poor, though with time to aim I can still shoot pretty well, and I'm really good at maneuvering and reading terrain.
  
• I am good at timing and at reading movement, I am not good at predicting player choices.
  
• I I operate on the basis of my perceptions and on reasoned arguments from others (other players in this case), as well as data that is provided.
  
• I pilot almost exclusively Inner Sphere 'mechs, though I do pay attention to what Clan 'mechs around me are doing.

I will be approaching this as a player, talking about things that fall into two categories: Things that I think would improve the game experience, and things that I think would improve the overall health of the game.



I'd also like to highlight that I believe in 'equal imbalance'- that is, that elements of the game, such as 'mechs or weapons, should be equally valuable in the overall sense by having different tradeoffs in strengths and weaknesses in exchange.

I also don't believe in the use of megaquirks such as the old 50% cooldown the AC/5 Dragon used to have, nor the use of the nerf bat.

Definitions (Because sometimes people use words to mean different things than each other)

Spoiler

Buff: To improve to a modest degree.
Chassis: A 'mech type- Blackjack, Timber Wolf, Kodiak, Jenner.
Murder Ball: The situation when all or most of the active players on the team group up closely and shoot generally the same targets.
Nascar: The strange tendency in a game that contains more than a few 'mechs whose valuable components are on the left side to devolve into two teams running in a circle around an obstacle or point on the map while making left turns trying to catch each other from behind.
Nerf: To degrade into uselessness.
Opfor: Short for 'opposed force' or 'opposition force', the opposing team in a match. I use this term because I don't consider other players 'enemies', which is a term I prefer to use sparingly.
Peek-and-poke: A playstyle that involves staying in cover most of the time, stepping out far enough to alpha strike once, and then returning to cover to wait for cooldown or heat dissipation.
Rule of Three: The situation with the original Skill setup where advancing fully in one variant of a chassis required advancing in two other variants.
Variant: A specific model of a chassis- BJ-1X, Timber Wolf C, Kodiak D, Jenner Oxide.
Weaken: To reduce the strength of.

Concerning Champion 'Mechs

Spoiler

Back when the first set of polls regarding the loadouts of champion 'mechs were being prepared, I messaged Tina Benoit on this board because of four concerns:

• It looked like nothing beyond the first few pages was getting 'liked' to vote for it to appear on the poll.
  
• It looked like many people were voting on the basis of who posted the loadout rather than on what the loadout contained.
  
• I suspected that PGI was not going to vet the selections that got the most 'likes' to ensure they were worth considering (for instance, to avoid meme builds).
  
• I was worried that the lack of vetting would also result in Champion builds that were not going to be friendly to new players in various ways.

The response I got was that, first of all, Tina was going to ensure that it was a contest between the top three builds by 'likes', and second of all, that PGI was going to vet the builds to avoid 'meta builds' and other outliers.




The former happened, the latter absolutely did not.

There are a lot of aspects that make the Champion builds unfriendly to new players, and the fact that they were often 'flavor of the month' builds based on the quirks and metagame of the time is only one of them.

As a major highlight, many of them have absolutely abysmal back armor, which means that new players are definitely not getting the chance to learn from their mistakes of positioning and movement nearly often enough, especially with the predominance of lights like the Piranha.

Additionally, they tend to be built for either peek-and-poke fighting that a new player is not going to have the developed sense of timing to handle properly.

On top of this, many of them- even with the quirks that were in place at the time- are heat management nightmares that are going to make early play excessively rough on a new player, who is liable to spend a lot of time shut down in the face of the enemy.

Even worse, many of them have only a single Jump Jet- which is a bad decision for many reasons. One Jump Jet is not going to get you any real height change, nor any real lift speed- it's mostly useful for sliding up a slope without losing too much movement speed. This contributes to the illusion that Jump Jets don't do anything at all, and is exacerbated in various ways by many jump jet tweaks and alterations over the years. Give a new player no Jump Jets, or four+. One is the wrong quantity for this situation.

Finally, many people hate (and hated) bracket builds with a passion. While it's understandable to combine weapons with similar ranges, many of the Champion builds have only one or two types of weapon on them. The lack of even slight variation in weapons systems or weapons ranges on many of the Champion builds (and generally across Champion builds) makes them poor learning experiences for new players, who should be learning multiple weapons systems.

The Champion builds absolutely need to be revised to make them more new-player-friendly, less hyperspecialized, and less built for advanced players. Additionally, it would help if more of the Champion builds focused on highlighting what that particular chassis can do that other chassis of similar tonnages can't do as well- right now many of the Champion builds do the same thing as other Champion builds or even just outright ignore most of the hardpoints and capabilities of the chassis/variant they're built from.

Given what happened last time, I'd like to recommend against opening it up to the community as a whole, and instead suggest either an in-house team, or a team specifically vetted from the community for the express purpose of building new-player-friendly Champion loadouts.

Concerning Ghost Heat

Spoiler

Eugh, what can I say that hasn't already been said?

In the short term: Ghost heat needs to be made more clear to players in general and new players in specific. The little alert that pops up in the 'mechlab is poorly worded, doesn't explain fully enough, and doesn't give enough specifics on how many of what you're limited to, especially for cross-weapons-system groups (SRMs and MRMs together, for instance). I don't know what could be done here exactly, but fixing this in some way immediately would make a huge difference for inexperienced 'mech customizers.

In the long term: The potential to remove ghost heat, either in favor of a different system or in favor of a lower heat cap with higher dissipation rates, needs to be revisited. Even with tooltips the system is arcane and mystifying, and doesn't serve the purpose it's intended for nearly well enough. Even just seeing evidence that alternatives are being reconsidered would be enough, at this point.

Concerning 'Mech Balance (including quirks)

Spoiler

PGI has a history of applying changes in general by pouring a bucket on and then scooping half of it away in some cases (ERPPCBolt, ThunderWub, Huginn), and in others of either coming at an issue sideways or applying a patch for one issue to a completely different issue (Jump Jet shake and Ghost Heat grouping PPCs with Gauss as methods to blunt the primacy of pop-tarting, for instance, or that time energy weapon nerfs were applied during Lasvom, but only to the Timber Wolf and Stormcrow despite the fact that that's definitely not why they were so predominant).

When tweaking values and adjusting things, it will be much better both in the short and long run to make small changes first, and then increase the degree of change until the result fits. You won't be nerfing anything, you won't be giving people shiny fun things that you then take away later. That's going to result in fewer upset players and less screaming in general. I've been saying this for literal years.

Further, when looking at 'mech balance, I stand by what I said in the pursuant discussion on the TWolf/SCrow thread: Bring the outliers in to the middle, and then adjust the whole group up or down as needed. Please try to do this, it'll be healthier in the long run for the game.

Finally, as far as quirk application on OmniMechs goes, I want to bring up my suggestion here for farming out the bonuses that benefit some hardpoints in an omnipod set to other parts of that same omnipod set, especially for 'mechs that tend to have 'blank' omnipods in them.

Concerning New Mechs

Spoiler

Granted, there are plenty of new 'mechs to look at and choose from, but I really want to hilight here- the tech level has advanced enough to allow Inner Sphere Omnimechs, but none have appeared yet, despite plentiful Clan non-Omni 'mechs. Put some very strong consideration on that when thinking about new 'mechs.

Additionally, the Rule of Three was abolished some time ago, so cast an eye on some of the more interesting one- or two-variant machines, like the Gunslinger, Bandersnatch, or Sentinel.

I would love to see Quad 'mechs appear too, but I understand that that's extremely unlikely, and won't complain if it doesn't happen.

Concerning the Non-'Mechlab UI (very important)

Spoiler

I'll be frank. While the aesthetics of the UI in the launcher are very pretty and slick, the resulting effect on the actual user interface experience is frequently abominable, and that's speaking as someone who's accustomed to it. Buttons are frequently tiny, vertically excessively narrow, or tucked into obscure locations, some of the navigation is hilariously wonky, there are a lot of places with too many or too few confirmations, and it's just overall not great.

Some highlights:

• Many of the dropdown/popup bits on the front screen and other such places are manipulated through orange triangles that don't automatically register as buttons.
  
• The Special Events, News, news tape, Chat, LFG, Friends, and Settings buttons on the bottom of the screen are excessively small, visually indistinct as dark-gray-on-black, and just generally hard to notice or pay attention to- I still forget that some of them are there to begin with.
  
• Select 'Mech, counterintuitively, does not serve as a channel for access to the 'Mechlab, while the 'Mechlab allows you to select your 'mech as a part of its inherent function.
  
• The Store page is daunting and unintuitive, providing mostly walls of images or walls of text listings with no real structure and very little guidance.
  
• The Title/Badge menus similarly provide a list wall with no context or guidance.
  
• The Testing Grounds goes straight to a Select Map menu with no explanation of what it is or does, despite having the entire rest of the screen to do so with.
  
• The Chat Window is so simple as to be borderline useless

In general, lots of things are relegated to vertically very small plain-text blue buttons that tend to blend into each other, get lost, or be easy to miss, and a lot of times a small window will pop up over the center of the screen, graying everything else out while both not using the rest of the screen space and containing only insufficient or poorly-laid-out text.



Everything here is doubly relevant to the new player experience, because it makes actually doing things harder, more obtuse, and more unpleasant than it needs to be. This needs to be a significant focus. Again- the UI is pretty and slick, but it's difficult enough to use or adjust to and enough important things get lost or go unexplained that the fact that it's pretty and slick just doesn't matter.

Concerning the 'Mechlab UI and Visual Customization (Also very important, but distinct from the previous)

Spoiler

There's a lot of info here, and some of it is presented very poorly, or is functionally irrelevant.

First off, I'm going to make the complaints I always make here, because they're still problems and I still believe they need to be changed.

Point One: Heat Management is useless. It's rated as /2, but two what? Nobody has ever actually explained how this decimal number is reached, why it's a decimal, or what it's actually measuring. It goes up and down based on potential heat generation and dissipation and heat capacity, but nowhere is it ever explained what it is or how it works.

First this needs to be explained more to the community/players, and then it needs to be justified. As it is right now, this number is functionally meaningless to a new player, and extremely vague to an experienced player.

Point Two: Firepower is terrible. This number is the sum of all the damage that the 'mech deals if it

• Alpha Strikes
  
• Hits with absolutely every projectile and absolutely every tick of beam
  
• Does not hit a limb or head with a Clan ERPPC
  
• Hits at optimal range with every weapon.

Even if we're going to pretend that no 'mech ever shoots at a target outside its optimal range and that no 'mech ever has to contend with minimum range or use weapons that don't always deal damage at all the exact same ranges, the presumption that absolutely every missile from a volley or submunition from an LB-X shell or shell from a burst-fire autocannon will hit is ludicrous. That's not even getting into the nonviability of alpha strikes with some builds, or the issues with theoretically-infinite-tick weapons like the Flamer or Machine Gun, or the effects of critical hits on damage to structure, or target skills on damage received, or damage transference from destroyed components....



Given all that this number is deceptive at best and harmful at worst.

The presence of Heat Management and Firepower as stats implies their utility, and they flat-out do not have that utility.

These data entries in 'Mech Stats need to either be changed into something more representative or just go away completely.


Moving on to things that I haven't griped about for literally almost a decade now....

The + numbers indicating added Armor and Structure are in a poor font and not very obvious. While the color contrast (green on dark gray) is good, the brightness, value, and thin lines of the font they are in makes it inordinately difficult to notice their very important presence.

The button for expanding the 'Mech Stats screen looks like a decoration, not a button. Something needs to be done to make this more obvious.

Speaking of the expanded 'Mech Stats screen, the Enhancements section needs to be split up. It's too difficult to parse out what is a quirk and what it a skill-based bonus, and there's no reason I can come up with why they aren't separated from one another.

The skills menu is especially poor. The skill tree display wants you to click and drag side to side like you're swiping on a phone, but that movement isn't nearly as instinctive nor easy with a mouse, especially when you can zoom in and out so far. The skill trees should be paginated instead, either like a window cascade in Windows, or in such a way that you can see the other skill trees waiting to either side of whichever one you're currently looking at. I posted a picture of the kind of thing I'm talking about some time ago, just a quick pencil sketch, I'm sure I can find it again, or redraw it.
It definitely shouldn't be possible to zoom out so far that you can't click the nodes anymore, or at least not with such a small distinction between 'close enough' and 'not close enough'.

The Current 'Mech Enhancements window in the Skills screen contains a lot of wasted space to the left of the Allocated ticker and the Apply Changes button, and it only contains a pair of tiny blue buttons. Why? The Allocated ticker won't count high enough to intrude on that space, so why is that space there?

The same goes for the top of the Current 'Mech Enhancements window and the space between the 'Add SP' and 'View Ledger' buttons and the Available XP counters. That much space is unnecessary. Why not use it by making the buttons bigger, more visible, and more distinct so it's less likely to click the wrong one?

Similarly, the four Skill Tree Profile buttons in the bottom-right are far smaller and less distinct than they need to be. I don't know who decided that they loved buttons that specific shape in that specific shade of blue, but someone should have argued with them for the sake of variety at least.

All of the menus in the Camo Spec screen suffer from a lack of sorting and sifting options and poor distinction with the sole exception of the color palette. Please put someone on that, it's one of your revenue/customizability elements and it's just not fun to use.

Tips and Tricks (wait, this gets a whole spoiler to itself?)

Spoiler

The Tips and Tricks on the loading screens are abysmal. Many of them are out of date, more of them are inaccurate or misleading, and some of the ones that are out of date were inaccurate or misleading even when they were (supposedly) up to date.

I posted an extensive list somewhere. I could recreate it if strictly necessary, but suffice to say, these Tips are just the absolute worst. It's readily apparent that once a Tip was put into the list, nobody ever revisited it to make sure it accounted for changes to the game.

Either remove the Tips or have someone fix them. Hell, I'd do it for free* at this point just so that I no longer have to play a game that is literally lying to me about itself.


*disclaimer: I mean I would rewrite the list so they're useful and accurate, I am not a programmer

Regarding 'Mech Purchases

Spoiler

I'm in agreement with a lot of other people. These things are too expensive. My financial situation has wandered up and down pretty far during the time I've played MWO, and there were a lot of 'mechs I ground my face into the game without any fun involved to get by C-bills when I was poorer that I would much rather have been able to actually give PGI money for putting into the game- but at the price per 'mech, there's just no way. This really needs to be reduced.

That's all, just a small note here.

Concerning Game Modes and Maps

Spoiler

Oh boy, this is a loaded one.

There's really two sides to this for me- the personal side and the impersonal side.

Personally, I really like variation in game mode and would very much like it if the game didn't devolve to Murder Ball Nascar so much (especially since some 'mechs are left-predicated and handle nascar really poorly). I like to see an objective win, and I would like to see more modes with objectives that aren't just 'kill all the enemy' but might involve 'do this while surviving the enemy by killing, cowing, or outlasting them'.

I don't have a problem with the Skirmish-Domination game mode type, outside of the fact that every game mode gets played like that most of the time.

Impersonally I understand how we got here, except for this strange predilection with left turns (seriously, there are a decent number of 'mechs that shoot more with their left than their right side, I don't know what's up with this.)

First of all, 'kill all the enemy' is a completely viable solution to every game mode, except very occasionally Conquest.

Second of all, outside of Conquest, it's also about the most efficient winning solution to the game modes. It's the only solution in Skirmish, the surest solution in Domination and Assault, and the safest solution in Incursion.

• It's literally how you win Skirmish.
  
• You can theoretically cap in Assault, but if your team is not specifically supporting your bid to capture, the best you can hope for is to pull a couple of the opfor off the fight for however long it takes them to murder you.
  
• If you're shot while in the circle on Domination, you stop capping, even if someone else on your team is also in the circle. So if you don't kill all the enemies, they can sit back at range and peck you until you get fed up, you die, or time runs out. This is boring at best.
  
• The Incursion turrets are completely undangerous right up until someone from the opfor returns to the base and you have to fight them while taking hyper-accurate turret fire instead of destroying the turrets from shelter or from outside their range.
  
• If a fight of any real size happens in Conquest, the side that loses less 'mechs (or legs, if the loss of 'mechs is even) has a considerable advantage on capture unless the game has been severely dragged out or the fight happened at one extreme of a very large map.

There are a lot of factors that contribute here, and I'm sure to miss some if I try to list them, so I'll try a more... holistic, I guess?.... way of describing the problem.


On a small map, everything of interest is within range of most of the map, except when the point of interest is in a corner, where it's still in range of the center of the map. That makes the center and any lanes observing the center highly valuable, so a fight's going to break out over them anyways. If you go into a fight with a lesser force, you lose that force and often fail to do significant damage to the opfor, leading to an eventual loss. Given that, you might as well just all roll together to get the biggest numbers advantage possible.

Also, fifteen minutes is such a long time on a small map that it's virtually impossible to run out of time to complete your objectives, so there's no punishment for getting into a fight.

On a large map, it takes forever to get anywhere for all but the fastest 'mechs. That means that there's very little point going to anywhere you're not sure opposition will be, given that there's really nothing of note on most of the map, and certainly nothing interesting to interact with. Since the map is so spread out, the best place to be for the sake of being able to actually respond to something is the center of the map- and if you go to the center of the map and the opfor is there, you'd better have more people there than they do, or you're just going to be losing 'mechs that could theoretically pursue objectives after the fight finishes.

Also, the large maps have spawns and objectives spread out so far in most cases that it takes forever just to get to the point of initial engagement (either with the opfor or with an objective) so you might as well make sure you have something to do worth doing once you get there.


Essentially, we have two large elements that give the various game modes issues.

First is interactivity. The objectives in modes other than Incursion are not interactive at all, and in Incursion, they're extremely simple- objects to shoot, a few turrets, and a wall. The only really interesting things on the map ever are the opfor, and the only meaningful way to engage with them is combat. There's nothing wrong with combat, mind, it's just that that the player's choices are 'combat opfor' and 'not combat objective' and that's it (except Skirmish, which doesn't even have that decision).

The absent Escort mode is an excellent example of poorly executed interactivity. It had a lot of potential- ECM nodes, a dropship point, a VIP to escort- but it was all done rather haphazardly and badly. The VIP moves like it's mired in tar, it does not shoot at anything, it's an extremely large and obvious 'mech, nobody on the supposed escort team has any idea where it's going or how it intends to get there, it's very rigidly bound to a very specific path to the point that if it leaves that path for any reason it tries to return to where it left the path instead of rejoining the nearest point on that path, and the ECM node placement seemed random at best.

Occasionally you could get an interesting game in Escort where the opfor found the VIP but because of various capabilities on the defender 'mechs couldn't freely bombard it to death, but that was by far the exception rather than the rule. The interactivity of the whole thing was poor, and poorly conveyed, so it didn't engage anyone. And then, instead of being improved, it was dropped entirely.

Second is goals. All the goals in the game except the node capture in Conquest are best served by eliminating the entire opfor as soon as possible, and unless the opfor is especially organized that holds true for Conquest as well.

Furthermore, the only penalty (as far as win conditions go) for blindly engaging in combat whenever it presents itself is death. There's nothing wrong with combat or guiding your players to combat, but outside of the difficulty of capturing Nodes with a missing leg and the danger of getting killed by an Incursion turret if you're near-death and don't remember the turret locations, there's absolutely no penalty to completing your objective with a barely-functional pile of scrap under you.

Just to make it worse, Incursion, the mode most likely to encourage one team to set up at their base and wait to ambush the opfor (a tactic that actually varies from standard murderball) has a built in disincentive to do so in the form of the ability to plant your dropship midair over the enemy base to shoot 'mechs.


Even if we look at Community Warfare or Faction Warfare or whatever we're calling it this year, you're in a similar situation- there's no sneaky way, there's no subtle way, just variations of 'charge in and shoot them all', and the occasional light 'mech rush meant to get the game over with one way or the other in a hurry.


Given all of that, I would say that of the existing game modes, the three to look most seriously at for changes are Domination, Conquest, and Incursion. I'll make some suggestions that I think could stand to be tested- except regarding Domination.

Domination should probably be removed. As things stand, this game mode is just Skirmish with a designated combat area, and that designated combat area is, excepting Alpine Peaks, just the part of the map that the fight inevitably happens in anyways.

Conquest needs to be adjusted, depending on the map. I've seen suggestions that the resource count required to win needs to be higher, but I'm pretty sure that all this would do is take away the occasional 'we're all dead but we lasted just long enough to keep the last two opfor members from flipping all the points back' win.

I think changing the number of resource nodes and their location- possibly even randomizing them- would probably help a lot, and then basing the victory resource count on the number of nodes.

An option for smaller maps would be to have the game result in a loss for both teams if neither team collects enough resources, then place the nodes towards one side of the map and the spawns towards the other side, so that there's something of a race to get to the nodes in the first place.

On larger maps, adding more nodes and clustering them more towards the middle, so that there's more chances for cross-interference on captures (including by long-range weapons on 'mechs on one node shooting at 'mechs on another node) and/or more options for where to fight.

Or even having the nodes not appear for a team until (or unless) target locked, so nobody knows where to go, but everyone knows that somewhere out there is a win condition, and it might even be really close by.

Incursion needs more work, badly. The base is flat-out not dangerous to opfor 'mechs in and of itself, the Air Support option for the batteries effectively nullifies the main interesting strategic choice (when it's not being ignored because unless the opfor makes that choice it's a waste of batteries), and there's largely no reason to not just smash the entire opfor and walk your crippled, exhausted machines into the opfor base so you can kick a building once to win.

Irrespective anything else, the Air Support option in the base needs to go. Depending on which way you tilt your head, it either invalidates an entire strategy, or is useless because nobody uses that strategy.

Placing the bases within firing range of each other for long-range weapons would be interesting, and the walls would prevent LRM indirect fire from becoming completely overwhelming in such a situation.

Having one side have a single cohesive base and the other have three small, separate bases in distinct locations would make for an interesting asymmetrical version, especially if all three small bases have to be damaged/destroyed (pending testing) to achieve victory.

Improving the AI defenses is pretty much a must if you want the game mode to do anything other than degenerate into a murderball, though. Replacing or supplementing the sparse medium laser turrets with some SRM and small-rating autocannon turrets- especially if they're still ground-mounted and unable to shoot things outside the base walls- would go a long way towards prompting teams to actually try and keep ahold of enough firepower to bring the base down without completely preventing light 'mechs from jumping on the base while everyone's distracted.


Moving on, Escort would be a great thing to bring back if and only if it gets adjusted and improved in addition to returning.

Since PGI has some experience with AI now, making the VIP more responsive and equipping it to actually defend itself is absolutely vital here both from a realism and gameplay perspective, and equally mandatory for the mode is letting the defenders at bare minimum know where the pick-up point the VIP is moving towards is, if not the outright intended path. It's fine if the VIP is dumb, it's not okay if the VIP is incapable of anything but slowly slogging along and taking whatever shots are fired at it.

Additional options to enhance the mode could include a destructible starport at the goal location that the defense also has to consider protecting, starting the match with the aggressors nearer to the VIP so the defenders have to balance rushing to defend the VIP with trying not to fall into an ambush, or designating a defending-team Assault as the VIP who needs to survive and reach the goal location by a set time instead of spawning an NPC.


As far as additional game modes go, I think two main things need to be on the table.

Asymmetrical game modes would make matches where one side may not want to just ball up and fight much more likely.

Respawn-inclusive game modes would make for fun, good longer matches so that the downtime between games is smaller compared to the amount of play time, and would let players use a larger variety of 'mechs from their stables.


Regarding maps, I want to make two suggestions:

• Use more of Alpine Peaks. Most of the game modes available on that map happen exclusively at the downhill end of the map, and even back when the whole map was used there was still the hilly area across the mountain pass from the main peak that went almost completely unused ever. Add an Incursion mode on the uphill side or move the resource nodes so that Conquest uses the pass/hills side of the slope or something. There's a lot of interesting and complex terrain work going unused there.
  
• Make new maps, but make sure to make more varied terrain within a given map. Part of what makes Grim Plexus good is that there's the low area around the frozen lake, the two central hills a quarter way around the lake from each other, the passes behind the heliplatforms, and the hills and ridges around the sides. Rubellite has the contrast between the shattered platforms, the broad low hill in the center, the passages under the platforms, and the craggy crystal obstacles in the outlying areas. Yet, Polar Highlands is, in its entirety, low-lying rolling hills. It's nice that there's a map with long lines of sight and subtle cover, but it's on the whole a boring map with very little variation (especially since it's all snowy and thus one color), and that fact exacerbates any problem that anyone has with playing on the map. Where you engage on a map should matter just as much as which map you're on.

....I think that covers all my thoughts. Took me a while, but I've been busy.

Hope this comes in useful.

Edited by Quickdraw Crobat, 23 October 2020 - 12:19 PM.

[Akillius]

BuckleUp, on 24 October 2020 - 07:20 AM, said:

Quick idea regarding lessening the skill tree grind and monetization: what if the XP-boosting cockpit items were available for purchase with MC? There's surely a larger discussion to be had on skill tree, but maybe this could be a quick & easy way to help in the meantime?

No, for 3 reasons.

1. I & others bought Ultimate mech packs to get all the Hanging and Standing cockpit buffs (also as a way to support PGI).
Now its the Only reason to buy any of those ultimate packs: Civil War(IS+Clan), Civil War Escalation(IS+Clan), Evolution(IS)

2. You will hate PGI for those cockpit items because you will buy a 2nd one after loosing the first on one of your +400 mechs.
Remember: IS buff only for IS mechs while clan is for clan (I know shocking).
Plus can't buy enough cockpit buff items for entire drop deck (FP).
If switching mechs often you must remove from mech to install into another mech which is bad QoL-gaming.

3. They make all other cockpit items useless dust collectors.
That's if you want to get all the "value" you perceive out of these cockpit buffs.

PGI has been asked time and again but doesn't want to improve quality of life for gamers who Bought and Own those cockpit buffs by simply putting the buffs across all owned mechs.
IMO if a player owns 3 IS +5% XBill cockpit buffs then give 15% buff for all IS mechs to let us use any other cockpit items again.


PGI wants ideas to revitalize well there's one.

All this topic did so far was rehash what's already been discussed in far greater details with far more ideas by a much larger playerbase on these same forums in the past.

I've not logged in for almost 1 year, Hey nothing new to buy or try anyways...
However its blatantly obvious that a revitalization of MWO won't be fast or easy, but I'll bet that's all Russ wants.

[Garran Tana]

I was listening to the podcast, Daeron asked for ideas for store upgrades. One thing I don't like in MWO is lack of mech looking like the fit in the environment. You get a snow map and drop in a desert camo etc. Few simple ideas that could improve this:
Create a system where the basic paint job (skin + colors) is the default one, but you can unclock (with MC, or for a tiny amount of real money for all of them at once in a pack for a mech or all mechs) slots corresponding to the specific maps where you can pick a paint job and colors that will be used if you drop on that map. And you can unlock it for every map if you wish.
Another thing is a similar idea for Unit paint job - if a Unit wants to buy a special camo slot for a chunk of MC, every unit member can choose that skin for free.

Also Daeron please take a look below at my signature for game modes ideas.

Edited by Garran Tana, 26 October 2020 - 02:18 PM.

[Lith Dael]

Garran Tana, on 25 October 2020 - 06:28 AM, said:

I was listening to the podcast, Daeron asked for ideas for store upgrades.

Also, every promotion/sale is a huge mess in the in-game store. I mean, look at it now. Nine pages. Nine. Pages. Of dozens of mech icons.
It's completely unreadable.

[T e c h 4 9]

To guys like Skymaster, Horseman, and others discussing CW (Community Warfare, Faction Play, whatever you like to call it) - I can see valid points on both sides of this equation. It can't be disputed that PGI promised CW as one thing, and then did not deliver on said promise. I wasn't actually around the game at that time, so I'm not going to crucify them for it. Looking at the past helps to determine possible courses for the future without making similar mistakes, but we shouldn't dwell on it either.

Personally, I'd like to have a game that is similar to my experience in NBT circa 2017; a BT simulation where units manage resources to exercise a campaign to recapture the Inner Sphere, and MWO was used as the vehicle to determine individual battles on planets. It wasn't perfect, but I liked it better than what CW offered. Of course, this may not appeal to everyone, as everyone has a slightly different take on what CW should be. Can the community as a whole come together and give PGI a workable target to aim for and a proposed roadmap to get there? That is what we should be doing, not arguing about it and getting nowhere. Should CW be the first thing they tackle? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

PGI needs to focus on the easy stuff first, requested by a majority of the playerbase that is willing to chime in. Players that left the game and aren't involved in this discussion are of no relevance as far as I'm concerned. This also means PGI needs to get the word out - some advertising would certainly help in this regard, and maybe get more of the "old" playerbase to get back into the "fight". This community has the capability to improve this game if PGI and the community can work together, and the way we do that as a community is to support Daeron and PGI by working with them and each other, not against.

The playerbase of this game is extremely varied; different people want different experiences from this franchise. Maybe it can come from what we have, maybe not. The bottom line is this: NO DEVELOPER will invest in giving us any of it unless they can make a profit from it, and that is fair and there is nothing wrong with it. So ask yourself, "what am I willing to do to get the experience I want?". I know what I want, and I'm willing to pay for it. I've given my thoughts, and will continue to do so, directly to PGI.