544 replies to this topic

[C337Skymaster]

One thing that I think would be a lot of fun to see in MWO is Union Class Dropships (because face it: we group up before we fight, anyway, or else we lose), and the dynamically created maps that MW5 allegedly has.

[Mighty Spike]

awaiting big things^^

Edit: but good Luck Daeron

Edited by Mighty Spike, 06 October 2020 - 02:27 AM.

[Zephrym]

Congrats Daeron on your new position and good luck with future endeavours. Can we assume that 'maintenance mode' is officially over?

Now, dance the light fantastic with an Urbie IIC and wasp/stinger bundle!

All the best.

Z.

[leony]

New mechs and new weapons are welcome, but to revive the MWO community again we need new content we have never seen before. Also we need to find the way to eliminate nascar fight mode... maybe like having maps that are impossible to go around in circles.

[Jungle Plague]

Hey Daeron! Glad to have you back!

This is definitely a good feeling for me! I have been an on-and-off player for years - and it has been a tough thing to see the game stagnate like it has. It is understandable - especially with PGI being a smaller company - but still has been a bummer.

I think the game could use the following (take with a grain of salt please):

-Port to Unreal - MWO 2.0 - Start with a limited number of Mechs (to ensure that the task size is manageable to start with) - but as time progresses, more mechs unlock - and customers who previously paid for them automatically get them unlocked fo'free. I think it would be excellent for MWO 2.0 to re-boot the competetive scene - so that we did not have ultra-clan-alpha blasts from day one - but had the janky old POS 3025 tech slogging it out for a while. But keep us on our toes about when we will see new stuff.

-Map clean up (dem invisible walls doe)
-Alternatively - are randomly generated maps possible? Might suck - but would keep things "new"...

-I think we need new game modes - more objective based - where winning without killing the entire enemy team happens more often than not.

-*Unpopular opinion inbound* - I think we should tone DOWN customization (I SAID IT AND I MEANT IT) to be more like MW5, so that different chassis are actually different... not just the same load-out and speed and armor in a different shape.

Community Warfare Wild Ideas Below:

-We need more of a faction/community warfare feel. Heck - I think this could be implemented in QP - everyone pledges X faction - jumps into quick play and goes to town. Over time, players accumulate points that go towards faction scores - and faction scores unlock Mech variants, or upgraded weapons for said faction.

-Players of differing factions can - upon landing the killing blow against a mech - get a salvage piece of whatever tech the enemy they killed had. Say a Marik player in QP lands a killing blow on a Davion player who is piloting a gucci Victor variant (that has only been unlocked by the Davion Faction (via points accumulated in QP)) - he/she can salvage a "part" of said victor. Once accumulating X pieces of salvage - he/she unlocks the variant for him/herself to use.

-Players who swap allegiances must accumulate/contribute certain amounts of points to the faction they join before unlocking the rewards the faction has unlocked - so hot swapping is not a thing.

-QP ques are not sorted by faction - Davions, Kuritans, Mariks - errybody can be on the same team - but a Davion players match score goes towards Davion, Kuritan to Kurita - etc etc.

[Altered Beast]

Couldn't have asked for a better Community Manager welcome back Daeron! Here's to another 5 years of fun in MWO and MW5:M, I hope it ends up being a successful venture for you and PGI.

[Big Tin Man]

Welcome Daeron! Finally in the role that you were unofficially doing since what, 2012? 2013?

I don't know what MWO needs anymore. Frankly my $0.02 is that it was officially put out to pasture at Mechcon 2018. I don't know what will bring the players back. You might see a spike in player counts for a little while if you can turn back the clock to CW 2.0 - the quirkening edition complete with the engine effecting twist and turn rates again. Maybe that's something within Matt's and your power (and budget) as it's just a ton of xml edits and not heavy coding work.

Why The Quirkening? The Quirkening was the only time in the game when each mech variant truly felt unique. There was a reason to own many variants other than the (not great) rule of 3 for mastery. So many mechs were quick, maneuverable, glass cannons with hitboxes that worked, tanky unstoppable juggernauts, or that pesky super manuverable light that you just can't bring down. Boreal Vault was actually defendable as IS and a deck of PPC packing thunderbolts. A lance of Dragon 1N's could hold back 12 clanners with AC5 spam on any hot map. Dire Wolf's and Kodiaks were terrifying. Timmies were unstoppable. Atlas's could torso twist quickly enough to protect the AC20. It's the best the game ever felt and it never returned to it. So many mechs were relevant to any given fight. That is missing these days. Not that a mech isn't viable as most of them are these days. Mechs just feel like they're all vanilla.

It's going to take a big change to get a lot of us old vets back at this point, and player counts are the true problem. Maybe there's a path for MW5 to turn into MWO2 and see a complete rebirth, but that's not coming anytime soon. I know you love the franchise, I got that from the townhalls you hosted over the years and from the couple times we talked at mechcon. I know you have played everything repeatedly and have your favorites. I'm hoping there is something left that can be done to bring some of the magic back here. Player counts are way down which hurts matchmaking, which drives people away and further hurts player counts. I personally don't need more events. I have more c-bills, mc and GXP than I know what to do with. I'm a not comp tier tryhard, I'm a better than average mechdad that played daily for the better part of 4 years. I sure had a great time playing this game, spent a lot of money on it, went to two mechcons, but the thrill is gone.

There has been so much talk over the years of what it would take to fully realize the CW/FW dream. Scouting making a difference, Long Tom fixes, logistics and supply lines for captured planets, what to do with unit coffers and so on. All of this is beyond what can be done for a game in maintenance mode. I do hope you can talk Paul and Russ into injecting some kind of life back into the game. I'd like to come back, but there just hasn't been a reason.

[Big-G]

Congrats and welcome... now... gimme more chassis!

Please

[Lance McRaven]

Okay Bombadil, you have my attention, now get "In Game!!!"

[Punkarelli]

So paying devs to work on content isn't profitable, but we can pay this guy to tell us how great it is that we are never going to get anything new = sound business decision.

[VonBruinwald]

Do I hear Quads coming?

[Krovakon]

If you're looking for a bit of current feedback, I started playing 4 or 5 months ago and I can safely say that the new player experience is absolute garbage. Not just on a gameplay tutorial level but on a management and arsenal level. New players get 4 mechbay slots and enough C-BILLS to buy 1 heavy omni-mech of their choice. and gaining those Mechbay Slots in a reasonable timeframe demands you to spend money because over these past months I've been playing, I've earned enough MC from events to purchase less than 15 slots. So you're going to have an absolute garbage experience unless you know to never buy mechbays until there's a sale going on for them, and to never buy mechs unless there's a sale going on for them. Which most newcomers don't know.

I'd also like to mention that having month long events that new players can't partake in and F2P players can't progress with is an abysmal idea and the reason I uninstalled 3 days ago after having not played for the past month and a half (hasn't been any events I can participate in and no sales to buy anything from). Everything is way too expensive to buy unless there's a sale or you're running a premium booster.

[Mikros04]

Congrats papa bear!!!

[KH Slaine]

Good for you Daeron. Now, please make progress. You and Phil fleshed out much of what this game needed for years. Do not leave us in the dark for months on end. Talk to us frequently and substantially about what is happening in development and community growth. I snared a dozen new players to MWO in the past 5 months. Appeal to them as well as us veteran mech jocks.
Thanks!

[C337Skymaster]

Jungle Plague, on 05 October 2020 - 01:11 PM, said:

Hey Daeron! Glad to have you back!

This is definitely a good feeling for me! I have been an on-and-off player for years - and it has been a tough thing to see the game stagnate like it has. It is understandable - especially with PGI being a smaller company - but still has been a bummer.

I think the game could use the following (take with a grain of salt please):

-Port to Unreal - MWO 2.0 - Start with a limited number of Mechs (to ensure that the task size is manageable to start with) - but as time progresses, more mechs unlock - and customers who previously paid for them automatically get them unlocked fo'free. I think it would be excellent for MWO 2.0 to re-boot the competetive scene - so that we did not have ultra-clan-alpha blasts from day one - but had the janky old POS 3025 tech slogging it out for a while. But keep us on our toes about when we will see new stuff.

-Map clean up (dem invisible walls doe)
-Alternatively - are randomly generated maps possible? Might suck - but would keep things "new"...

-I think we need new game modes - more objective based - where winning without killing the entire enemy team happens more often than not.

-*Unpopular opinion inbound* - I think we should tone DOWN customization (I SAID IT AND I MEANT IT) to be more like MW5, so that different chassis are actually different... not just the same load-out and speed and armor in a different shape.

Community Warfare Wild Ideas Below:

-We need more of a faction/community warfare feel. Heck - I think this could be implemented in QP - everyone pledges X faction - jumps into quick play and goes to town. Over time, players accumulate points that go towards faction scores - and faction scores unlock Mech variants, or upgraded weapons for said faction.

-Players of differing factions can - upon landing the killing blow against a mech - get a salvage piece of whatever tech the enemy they killed had. Say a Marik player in QP lands a killing blow on a Davion player who is piloting a gucci Victor variant (that has only been unlocked by the Davion Faction (via points accumulated in QP)) - he/she can salvage a "part" of said victor. Once accumulating X pieces of salvage - he/she unlocks the variant for him/herself to use.

-Players who swap allegiances must accumulate/contribute certain amounts of points to the faction they join before unlocking the rewards the faction has unlocked - so hot swapping is not a thing.

-QP ques are not sorted by faction - Davions, Kuritans, Mariks - errybody can be on the same team - but a Davion players match score goes towards Davion, Kuritan to Kurita - etc etc.

Hey!! Someone else has a similar idea to what I've been thinking!! In my case, I've been annoyed by out-of-date Champion builds, and miss the days when they used certain stock loadouts for trial 'mechs (EBJ-C, for one, WAY back in the day).

My thought was this: as a new player, you pledge loyalty to a particular faction. As a loyal member of that faction, you "enlist" in that faction's military, and pick a 'mech from their armed forces (Kinda like getting assigned a 'mech by the quartermaster, from MW4: Black Knight, but giving you the option of every 'mech in that faction's lineup). If a 'mech was "common", then it shows up in every faction (ie: Atlas-D, Archer-2R, etc). If a 'mech only showed up in a particular faction, then you can only run it if you're loyal to that faction (Atlas-K = Kurita, Archer-5S = Steiner, etc). In order to modify or skill up a 'mech, you need to purchase it (as normal). If everyone wants, we could even auto-equip "trial" 'mechs with the faction pattern of the selected loyalty, which would still need to be unlocked on owned 'mechs, as normal.

That gives more meaning to being loyal to Marik vs Liao, as opposed to simply Clan vs IS. New players can then get a feel for how the 'mechs are "supposed" to be equipped, but now that we have all kinds of 3067 "upgraded" builds, they do have options for better performing 'mechs. That, or 'mechs like that could be added for that purpose (Panther 10K2 has the double heat sinks, for example, but is otherwise very similar to the Panther 10K and can be built on that chassis, thus isn't a specific variant available in the store).

This basically also allows new players to try EVERY chassis, and decide what they like before they buy it. This will actually help if a pay-to-repair system is re-implemented. I've been wishing for consumable ammo, and then ALL the different types of ammo (Artemis, NARC-guided, Thunder mines, smoke, incendiary, etc). Wouldn't that add some strategy if you could deploy minefields?

Big Tin Man, on 05 October 2020 - 01:40 PM, said:

Welcome Daeron! Finally in the role that you were unofficially doing since what, 2012? 2013?

I don't know what MWO needs anymore. Frankly my $0.02 is that it was officially put out to pasture at Mechcon 2018. I don't know what will bring the players back. You might see a spike in player counts for a little while if you can turn back the clock to CW 2.0 - the quirkening edition complete with the engine effecting twist and turn rates again. Maybe that's something within Matt's and your power (and budget) as it's just a ton of xml edits and not heavy coding work.

Why The Quirkening? The Quirkening was the only time in the game when each mech variant truly felt unique. There was a reason to own many variants other than the (not great) rule of 3 for mastery. So many mechs were quick, maneuverable, glass cannons with hitboxes that worked, tanky unstoppable juggernauts, or that pesky super manuverable light that you just can't bring down. Boreal Vault was actually defendable as IS and a deck of PPC packing thunderbolts. A lance of Dragon 1N's could hold back 12 clanners with AC5 spam on any hot map. Dire Wolf's and Kodiaks were terrifying. Timmies were unstoppable. Atlas's could torso twist quickly enough to protect the AC20. It's the best the game ever felt and it never returned to it. So many mechs were relevant to any given fight. That is missing these days. Not that a mech isn't viable as most of them are these days. Mechs just feel like they're all vanilla.

It's going to take a big change to get a lot of us old vets back at this point, and player counts are the true problem. Maybe there's a path for MW5 to turn into MWO2 and see a complete rebirth, but that's not coming anytime soon. I know you love the franchise, I got that from the townhalls you hosted over the years and from the couple times we talked at mechcon. I know you have played everything repeatedly and have your favorites. I'm hoping there is something left that can be done to bring some of the magic back here. Player counts are way down which hurts matchmaking, which drives people away and further hurts player counts. I personally don't need more events. I have more c-bills, mc and GXP than I know what to do with. I'm a not comp tier tryhard, I'm a better than average mechdad that played daily for the better part of 4 years. I sure had a great time playing this game, spent a lot of money on it, went to two mechcons, but the thrill is gone.

There has been so much talk over the years of what it would take to fully realize the CW/FW dream. Scouting making a difference, Long Tom fixes, logistics and supply lines for captured planets, what to do with unit coffers and so on. All of this is beyond what can be done for a game in maintenance mode. I do hope you can talk Paul and Russ into injecting some kind of life back into the game. I'd like to come back, but there just hasn't been a reason.

This!! I feel like Engine Desync ruined everything. Suddenly everything became sluggish and static, nothing can fight Lights anymore, Piranhas are omnipotent until they run out of ammo, 100 tonners have become a liability unless they're a LRM boat that can provide enough fire support to be worth their weight before a light catches up to them and circles them to death. 100 ton brawlers typically only do about 200 damage (2-3 alpha strikes, because they get ripped apart before they can fire a 4th time).

Kodiak and Timber Wolf were KNOWN for their maneuverability, and for them to be as sluggish as 'mechs 10-tons heavier is the complete antithesis of their whole personality.

Krovakon, on 05 October 2020 - 02:11 PM, said:

If you're looking for a bit of current feedback, I started playing 4 or 5 months ago and I can safely say that the new player experience is absolute garbage. Not just on a gameplay tutorial level but on a management and arsenal level. New players get 4 mechbay slots and enough C-BILLS to buy 1 heavy omni-mech of their choice. and gaining those Mechbay Slots in a reasonable timeframe demands you to spend money because over these past months I've been playing, I've earned enough MC from events to purchase less than 15 slots. So you're going to have an absolute garbage experience unless you know to never buy mechbays until there's a sale going on for them, and to never buy mechs unless there's a sale going on for them. Which most newcomers don't know.

I'd also like to mention that having month long events that new players can't partake in and F2P players can't progress with is an abysmal idea and the reason I uninstalled 3 days ago after having not played for the past month and a half (hasn't been any events I can participate in and no sales to buy anything from). Everything is way too expensive to buy unless there's a sale or you're running a premium booster.

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 70 '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 C337Skymaster, 06 October 2020 - 04:37 AM.

[Joshua McEvedy]

Uh, Daeron, you're about 3 years too late for the job.

[Stonefalcon]

**** Yeah, Grats Brother. Keep the dream alive.

[dario03]

Dear Mr. Beard,

Please get us the Urbie IIC.
Also rework streaks. Buff vs bigs, nerf vs smalls if possible. If not then lower damage.

Thanks, congrats, good luck.

[CyanEyd]

Glad to have you back Bombadil!

[DanMechMan]

Tweets from back in early September to hype a HR change. GG PGI

Edited by DanMechMan, 05 October 2020 - 04:32 PM.