544 replies to this topic

[The6thMessenger]

Here's hoping you didn't come back for nothing.

[Big-G]

I for one would love all mech chassis to become available on MWO... but alas... I know reality is a cruel mistress...

Edited by Big-G, 05 October 2020 - 10:30 PM.

[AnAnachronismAlive]

Dear Bombadil,
dear PGI-staff,

while somewhat happy to have a mech-enthusiast (back) to act as some sort of bottleneck-intermediary between the MWO-provider- and consumer-side, I gotta admit that this - in the light of past events - still feels just like another PR-stunt, so a lot of us - no matter what full-bodied mouthwork will come up over the next couple of weeks/months - won't believe otherwise until there is a transparent and comprehensive roadmap with meaningful perspectives (in-time results would be a big plus) for the game we all (have) love(d) so much.

While a lot of us may have not respected and still not respect the valiant efforts of some PGI-members enough to stay in touch with the community and keep the boat afloat by patching some holes in the hull (at least in comparison to ressources available/administered - so honest Kudos to Matt and the other folks) and/or to provide us with events so players can at least have the feeling of doing something "progressive", most passengers left the party-ship for reasons well known.

So a lot of us feel kinda unsure at best, if a new community manager playing and evaluating the stagnant status quo of MWO can provide the added value to make this game a better experience after all. There is (and has been for years) a lot of feedback provided / can be processed via multiple open sources to identify the multitude of shortcomings this game has for several audience groups. Sadly I do not believe you have not been able to identify em by now, but I fear you simply have not been able or in keepsake of the needed ressources to make them happen.

While it can be hard to keep focus while navigating through the cacophony of individual desires and vocally loud minorities as a game developer (much much bigger enterprises have failed in this endeavour before), the most central quintessence is about providing and sustaining a fun "core game" and constantly pepper it up with rewarding side-systems once the flavour becomes too dull. That is why we see a lot of your competitors diversing their core game play via "seasons" that - sometimes for good, sometimes for bad - keep the gameplay experience fresh with concepts providing addictive/rewarding side-systems around the core game play. But still ... I am kinda sure you know that anyhow and even much better than most of us.

There is a saying that patchin' holes on trousers with meaningless badges does not heal the broken leg within ... so until there ain't the potential of reworking some central gameplay- and community-elements from the core or re-do them in a more state-of-the-art engine / appearance, more players will be pushed away than pulled towards.

So Mr. Katz, I hope you and all other members of PGI will be able to ignite the needed momentum to bring our weary myomers into motion again. If you are in need of help, there are still a lot of people willing to walk this way with ye ... but - since our fusion engines are low on fuel - only with a clear aim in sight and not via a dangling carrot on a stick anymore.

Yours
AAA

InnerSphereNews, on 05 October 2020 - 10:59 AM, said:

[...], and if practical, build on the resources available for continued development over the coming years.

Unsure if I wanna share what this usually means in our departments PR-language ... presumption of innocence granted though.

Edited by AnAnachronismAlive, 06 October 2020 - 02:41 AM.

[S t P a u l y]

hey temp

[RRAMIREZ]

I'll take the fact that someone is here to give us info and that "development" is something on the table as a really good news...
But I need a vision at least... And not in one year.

Welcome Bombadil

[Blackster Leroux]

Congratulations PGI and Daeron, this is the right move and this will be amazing! A rebirth is at hand!

eB

[Knight Captain Morgan]

InnerSphereNews, on 05 October 2020 - 10:59 AM, said:

.

“working directly with the community and Piranha Games, and to reestablish those lines of communication” -Russ Bullock, President of Piranha Games

The need to reestablish lines of communication with the community suggests that the forums were never considered a line of communication with the community. Not really suprised

[Mochyn Pupur]

An understanding and passion for the game as a whole for 35 years AND someone who is going to work at marketing the product and hopefully invigorate the experience and numbers . . . it's rare for me to say it, but I'm quietly impressed.

Welcome back.

[C337Skymaster]

Lockheed_, on 05 October 2020 - 07:34 PM, said:

Khalcruth, on 05 October 2020 - 06:59 PM, said:

Matt Newman, on 05 October 2020 - 11:26 AM, said:

"determine a development path for MWO". ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? What the heck have you people been doing the last YEAR???????? Seriously, you are just now discovering that maybe you need a plan of some kind?

"What do players want to see in future" Again, ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? How do you not know this already?

My dude, calm down.

Nah, his exasperation is actually well warranted. Honestly, I'd have probably even increased the font size. This isn't solely a response to the tweet, though, but is built up over the past 8 years of similar treatment from PGI.

Anyone else ever get the impression Russ is constantly surprised to learn he has customers he's supposed to be taking care of?

Edited by C337Skymaster, 06 October 2020 - 03:25 AM.

[C337Skymaster]

Hydraden, on 05 October 2020 - 06:07 PM, said:

For MWO,

I would really like to see a major overhaul of this title starting with the engine. MWO and even MW5 suffer a lot from frame drops, invisible terrain, jarring streaming assets and strange ragdoll effects. As for gameplay I suggest the following.

Gameplay:

Remove the Quick Play and Faction Play buttons and replace them with a simple "Launch" or "Deploy" button. Run the Quick Play style gameplay full time and run the Faction Play style gameplay for events. For both versions of play I would love to see cycling maps and game modes that change let's say every hour, this would come in the form of a large widget attached to the "launch/deploy" button. This would give players the much needed info to select a mech appropriate for the match. As for the Faction Play, the matchmaker should randomly assign a faction to the player and have it assign teams based on PSR, this way you don't have the overwhelming major of players picking one faction and leaving the other dry or having all high level players on one side (I don't know how to handle groups). Trial mechs need updating so new players or players that lean to a Mech Technology (IS or Clan) have a healthy choice of competitive mechs for their drop deck that they wouldn't otherwise have.

Quality of Life:

1. Add premade skill tree templates
2. Right click functions like "Strip mech" from select screen
3. Add colour customization for HUD
4. Add AMS icon for friendly mechs that have it
5. Add an area where a new player can post a loadout publicly and have a player copy/save it. I think this would benefit new/returning players. In addition, adding the functionality to purchase necessary parts for the loadout including the chassis.
6. New Maps
7. New Modes (like a mobo style maybe)

So I see a few problems with this, as much as I agree with it (maybe together we can hammer out the details and ensure it's something PGI can implement).

With regards to Faction Play, generally, that's where all of the role-players hang out, declaring themselves for their particular faction, or as a Mercenary company, and hopping around supporting their allies and attacking their enemies. Anyone coming from TT who has a character, or set of characters, that's loyal to a particular faction, then being "assigned" a faction normally opposed to their favorite (say wanting to be Davion and being made Kuritan, or worse, a Cappellan), will drive those players away from the game mode.

More specific of an issue, however, is the current drop-deck nature of Faction Play, and needing 4 'mechs of the same tech tree (Clan or IS), in order to drop into a Faction match. If you've spent the last week or two saving up to buy four Clan Omnimechs, and then getting assigned to Liao, that's going to be a MUCH bigger kick in the pants.

EDIT: In my particular case, I farm 'mech bays, so it's useful to be able to stick with a particular faction until I get to that next level.

And not knowing how to handle groups is a BIG problem, because Faction is one place where groups still hang out, and reign supreme. There are one or two major Faction Units left who play almost exclusively Faction Play, and are very good at it, and anything you come up with will have to be able to deal with them. (Also, there's no PSR in Faction Play. If you'll notice at the end of a match, there's no little green or red arrows, or equal sign, so it has nothing to use to rate players in the first place).

To your QoL improvements:
1. You can create those templates, yourself, by filling out a skill tree the way you typically like to, then saving that as "template". You can then use that to skill all of your remaining 'mechs.
2. This would be AMAZING!!! Yes please!! It's literally the reason I prefer a PC over a MAC: right-click is so much more natural and intuitive.
3. No opinion. At the moment, HUD colors distinguish between Clan and IS, but there could probably be ways to have Clan-only and IS-only color pools.
4. Fair enough. This would definitely help new players know where their umbrella is.
5. This can be done already, as well: build out your 'mech, click "export", then go to whichever chat window you're typing in (in-game or out-of-game) and click "Ctrl + V", and the code will paste into the text window. From there, whoever they're sharing with simply needs to highlight that and copy it ("Ctrl + C"), go to their 'mechlab (it doesn't actually matter what 'mech they have selected if they only want to look at the build), click "import", and paste the code into the text window. The game will bring up a preview of the 'mech and the build saved on it. From there, if you want it for yourself, you can go to the 'mech saved in the code, "import" the code again, and save.
6. Yes!!!!
7. Yes!!!! (I don't even know what a "mobo" mode is, but I don't care. We need "new" everything, all the time, even if it's procedurally generated).

Edited by C337Skymaster, 06 October 2020 - 03:54 AM.

[N A S C A R]

Bad players always have so many ideas - about FP (but they dont play this gamemode), about IS/Clan balance, etc... Maybe you will try to play little bit better BEFORE you writing all this s h i t ?

[w0qj]

Gee... a BIG thanks!
Had no idea... and now for the grinding for the free Mech Bays

(I'm one of those "newer" players returning back to MWO after many years).

C337Skymaster, on 05 October 2020 - 03:26 PM, said:

Just a piece of advice for newer players (which goes against ALL of the advice given by the "professional" and "tryhard" players in the "git gud" crowd): You get one 'mech bay after your first four Faction matches (depending how well you do) for each faction you pledge loyalty to. This totals 14 easy-to-reach 'mech bays that you can reasonably accumulate over a couple of weeks of Faction Play. In the mean time, you can learn the ropes of the game mode, figure out which 'mechs and builds you see most often, and decide if you want to play that mode full-time. While there are technically 55 'mech bays available from all 14 playable factions, it'll take about 12 months per faction, and 13 years, total, at 4 matches x 500 LP per day, so it's only good to get you to about 20 'mech bays (rank 2 on all 14 factions, and rank 6 on two more factions).

Edited by w0qj, 06 October 2020 - 04:04 AM.

[AnAnachronismAlive]

And again this thread derails into a mixtum compositum of wishlist-bragging about details, dismissive wiseacrin' towards other player (groups) and content-less one-liners within a couple of hours ...

Shouldn't our focus be on building a consensus about certain key elements in need of improvement / that could make playing this game a (more) joyful experience for a multitude of interest groups without necessarily becoming a jack-of-all-trades? We can not allow to lose ourselves in minor details aforehand again and again, but gotta keep an open mind on what makes this game unique / fun and start from there ... higher levels of abstraction pretty pretty please!

Edited by AnAnachronismAlive, 06 October 2020 - 04:30 AM.

[C337Skymaster]

AnAnachronismAlive, on 06 October 2020 - 04:26 AM, said:

And again this thread derails into a mixtum compositum of wishlist-bragging about details, dismissive wiseacrin' towards other player (groups) and content-less one-liners within a couple of hours ...

Shouldn't our focus be on building a consensus about certain key elements in need of improvement / that could make playing this game a (more) joyful experience for a multitude of interest groups without necessarily becoming a jack-of-all-trades? We can not allow to lose ourselves in minor details aforehand again and again, but gotta keep an open mind on what makes this game unique / fun and start from there ... higher levels of abstraction pretty pretty please!

Yes, our focus should most certainly be on building a consensus about certain key elements (and actually, I feel like most of the proposition rants posted so far touch on a lot of similar issues and present similar updates, to where they could be examined for similar components and condensed into a solid plan for the future).

The trouble we have (and have always had) is that everyone wants different things, based on their different experiences. For example: people who like to pilot 20 tonners want Streaks nerfed, while people who pilot 90 tonners want streaks buffed, etc. (The ability for them to do well against other players).

Tell me if I'm wrong, but I'll summarize the problems that I think we all agree on:
1. Not enough mobility
2. Too many invisible walls
3. Too much of the "same old". We want new things on a frequent basis.

I can't actually think of a 4th problem that the entire community agrees on. At this point we start getting into "buff my weapon system and nerf their counter to it".

Where we start to disagree is on the specific solutions to these problems. Especially difficult is the "new things all the time", because that's the most expensive problem for PGI to fix: requiring lots of man hours, working on lots of different projects all being released on a frequent schedule. That's what they've already told us is not economically viable for them, anymore.

Invisible walls is a problem with Cryengine. I saw one of their interviews, once, where they explained that the underlying mesh that creates the physical map only has a fixed number of nodes that can be used to create elevations, and the bigger the map, the more spread out those nodes become, which deviates more and more from the visual textures that they apply to make the map look appealing. Thus, a map like Polar Highlands has many more "invisible wall" issues than any of the "classic" maps, and that's not something they're capable of fixing on the current engine. That'll require a port to Unreal, which goes against the contract they signed with Crytech.

Mobility is something that should be an easy fix, but currently it's set where it is for "balance", so we'll see what happens...

To quote the movie "My Fellow Americans": "Voice of the people?! There is no such thing! You've got three hundred million people all screaming for something different! The only thing you can agree on is you don't want higher taxes!"

Edited by C337Skymaster, 06 October 2020 - 05:23 AM.

[Kodan Black]

Welcome back! I've certainly enjoyed your content over the years.

If I could suggest 1 small change with a high quality-of-life improvement for those of us overriders -- could we please make it a preference to have it on or off by default? I always run it which means at the start of every match I have to remember to hit O. That would be nice. Thanks.

[C337Skymaster]

Kodan Black, on 06 October 2020 - 04:57 AM, said:

Welcome back! I've certainly enjoyed your content over the years.

If I could suggest 1 small change with a high quality-of-life improvement for those of us overriders -- could we please make it a preference to have it on or off by default? I always run it which means at the start of every match I have to remember to hit O. That would be nice. Thanks.

That's funny, because I always wished for it in a completely different direction: I preferred it go back to the MW2/3/4 days, where you get a warning that the 'mech is shutting down, and you have a few seconds to react by hitting "override", rather than the instant surprise shutdown we get in MWO unless we think of it before hand. That also gives you the option of having a shorter and shorter window in which to hit Override the higher you get above max heat, up to a point where you DO still have an instant-shutdown (kinda like with the TT rules, where you have a harder and harder time rolling to avoid shutdown until you hit 30 heat over the limit, at which point you're forced to shut down with no option to override). That gives us who don't turn it on right away a chance to say "oh ****" and fix our screw-up before we get totally hosed. And that'll still force a shutdown on those high-ghost-heat builds like the Dire Star.

[DAEDALOS513]

C337Skymaster, on 06 October 2020 - 05:08 AM, said:

That's funny, because I always wished for it in a completely different direction: I preferred it go back to the MW2/3/4 days, where you get a warning that the 'mech is shutting down, and you have a few seconds to react by hitting "override", rather than the instant surprise shutdown we get in MWO unless we think of it before hand. That also gives you the option of having a shorter and shorter window in which to hit Override the higher you get above max heat, up to a point where you DO still have an instant-shutdown (kinda like with the TT rules, where you have a harder and harder time rolling to avoid shutdown until you hit 30 heat over the limit, at which point you're forced to shut down with no option to override). That gives us who don't turn it on right away a chance to say "oh ****" and fix our screw-up before we get totally hosed. And that'll still force a shutdown on those high-ghost-heat builds like the Dire Star.

You do get a warning before you overheat.. how many warnings do you need? Instead of making it as complicated as all that.. they really need to just make override a toggable option..

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 06 October 2020 - 05:30 AM.

[C337Skymaster]

DAEDALOS513, on 06 October 2020 - 05:15 AM, said:

You do get a warning before you overheat.. how many warnings do you need?

Not always, actually. There are several 'mechs, especially unskilled, where you go straight to shutdown from 60% heat, and the warning only sounds at the 80% threshhold.

[MarsThunder]

I am glad to know that PGI does not consider MWO as a dead project (despite of losing 2/3 of player base).
But WHAT ERRORS were made in this project (as PGI supposes now) and which of them will be mitigated in the near future?

[DAEDALOS513]

Easy to implement change: add KMD(s) in final score screen. This is an important contribution stat (just as important as kills if not more so) that should be public at end of match.