As a founder and old player, here' why I fell out of the game, what i think is BS, unmodernized, and out of touch - and sometimes hostile to the player.
Step 1: Money and grind. All the prices are 'ducked' and PGI has to get with the state of MICROtransactions in 2021. This is the #1 reason, but I'll get back to it.
MAP VOTING. Its frustrating and redoing the map vote screen to BOTH be 'blind' and 'click once lock in' was bad. It needs:
Keep 'one click lock in'
Undo 'blind voting' so you can see where the vote is at BEFORE you click.
Add a 'pass' option to the right or bottom (6 total) that just gives you +1 stack without spending it.
add a vote AGAINST' a certain map that spends half your stacks to directly tank one map's votes.(it can still be overpowered by other players).
Tldr: Half-undo the map vote change and make it better.
HOT MAPS AND CBILL BONUSES.
Make hot maps have a global c-bill/xp bonus (similiar toa hero mech or loyalty items) as an incentive to try it out and play there.
The reasoning is that the major way you get xp, progression, cbills and kills is by doing damage and hot maps get in the way of doing so.
This offsets that fact.
IE, If you fire 20% less guns and do 20% less damage, give that map a 20% reward boost for playing there.
JUMPJETS
Jump jets on anything bigger than a light have seriously anemic issues. 3 jumps on a heavy or assault spend 2/3 your bar and can't get up a step on a hill much less the hill itself.
JJ Base stats need to be reverted to their old pre-nerf/skill tree patch stats.
Skill tree needs to be consolidated by about half. NOT worth it; should be a 'minor' tree.
Add a 'safe fall' skill early on/node 1(like adv zoom) that says 'as long as you have at least one jump jet equipped, you never take fall damage ver'.
Buff heavy and assault JJ's a bit.
Introduce improved jump jets already, but because they'll have better performance, just make it so you can't fire weapons at ALL while using them (instead of/as well as) the crosshair jiggle.
Tldr: old jumpjet stats + new tree and fix the tree to be less opportunity cost.
ASSAULT MOBILITY
There's no point in playing fatties because of the engine decoupling. It screwed the entire class up and they're not fun. It needs to be undone a little bit. Heavies are fine, mostly.
Spirit bear is complete hot garbage and the masc doesn't even do anything.
SKILL TREE
My issue with the tree is as follows:
Its grindy AF and all cbill costs associated need to go away forever. buying, respeccing, etc.
It tripled or more the time investment.
Can't backwards-climb out of a tree. It dumb to me I can't go down the right side and come up the left.
3-connection nodes all the time. Make all nodes connect to their neighbors.
VOLUMETRIC SCALING WAS LAME AND BAD
Overall the volumetric scalin was kinda BS for a lot of mechs and ruined their usability/hitboxes. We get it was done for model export to HBStech but now that that's over, please, for the love of god, put it back.
The locust didn't need to be smaller
Any light-mediums and up that got bigger should be put back
Fat mechs need to be better able to look down to shoot smaller things - pitch mobility nodes were overnerfed. (atlas vs flea/locust is stupid/imposible withouth skils)
MONETIZE YOUR OLD CONTENT FOR A MODERN AGE.
Exclusive buy-now-or-FOMO stuff needs to go away forever. You have a gold mine of opportunity here and a massive chance to cash in on MICRO transactions! Adjust your expectations and take a que from TF2: The lower the bar of entry, the more people spend. Specifically....
STANDARDIZATION OF ALL OLD CONTENT: PRICE TIERS, PACKS, TIMED EXCLUSIVES, RESISTANCE PACKS, FACTION PACKS, WAVE PACKS, HERO PACKS, PREMIUM PACKAGES, EVERYTHING.
Unify your store front ACROSS THE BOARD for modern pricing. **** the old packs and bring them up to speed.
Drop the prices across the board. People NEED To be able to get in the game for a good price, and everyone's both choosier than before(pandemic economy) and willing to spend on things that keep them entertained at stay at home lockdowns(if the price is worth it). CAPITALIZE ON IT AND YOU WILL GO FAR.
Unlock all 'preorder' bonuses forever and slash prices. New purchasers get it, existing purchasers get it if they didnt have it, existing preorderers get a little MC.
Unify prices: Hero mech - 5$, any chassis any weight class, if its lame, 10$ if its good, standalone. Drop the whole 'fat = pricier' thing, balance mechs individually. make sure ALL heroes are available this way: I wanted to get a rainbow crow hero for example, but couldn't find it outside of in-game MC.'any six hero' for 20$ all the time special. maybe add a cooldown?
Specific callout example: Spider Anansi. Its lame, does nothing other variants do, and should really have the 2CT missile(jenner style, you choose between srm6 or 2srm4) and 2 ballistic each arm (4mg like the
Unify MC and real money prices. Don't change the conversion ratios, just make sure that new across-the-board deals are a balanced against each other.
5-10$ mech packs. hero addons 5$. Drop top-tier to 50-55. Introduce all extra-bonuses like fation packs as standalones in the store.
Clan hero i-ii are a step in the right direction but don't include old content - give wave 1-3 heroes their own store page like that. Slash prices.
All big packs need some amount of spending MC for color and accessories (see below). Resistance packs are guilty of this - no MC no mechbays. Likewise, some MC/starter pack bundles are guilty of ONLY mc/premium - throw some goodies there. make sure any pack ha some goodies from all types.
Wave 1-3 are the worst offenders.
Mastery Packs in the webstore have always actually been pretty great! Make their prices lower and the new baseline!
EMBRACE CYCLICAL CONTENT RETURNS
Exclusives are never forever exclusives. Do the warframe thing and bring em back occaisonally. YOu've got a ton of content built up from years of active development, use it, but fairly and evenly across the board.
COSMETICS:
Colors to $0.50 or $1
Skins to a quarter or third of price.
Option to unlock a skin for ALL available chassis, forever, for the current price. (you like Phranken so much you want it on everything? Sure!)
Keep one time and adjust price. (Edit: downwards! not upwards!)
Once-per-week 'try a skin' button. It sets one mech's paint job as if a one-time, but removes it when the week is up and you can choose another.
Warhorns and cockpit cosmetics need to come down in price a lot as well.
progression-boosting items need to be added for a flat MC value instead of locked into bundle packs or loyalty rewards.
Add a rotating 'exclusive/event' cosmetic store that puts up random assortment of event/rare/cosmetics (dawn, nvidia warhorns, etc) for a modest/fair mc or cbill price and refreshes monthly/weekly.
NECESSITIES
Mechbays to 150 MC or free, forever. Eliminate this bar and just let people buy what they want without surcharging.
Premium time: Activate partial needs to be added to the INGAME button.
Also, warframe has figured out how to unify their forum and ingame login - if you click any 'link in their news section' to launc the steam browser you are just signed in automatically/it uses the credentials its got already. PGI should look into this because its easy, and a button to manage an account in game/browser that doesn't ask you to log in again makes so many seamless/integrated account management possibilities apt
CHAMPION MECHS:
Champion mechs have always been the mostly-garbage black sheep of the family, and little reason to use them aside unless you got a good one from an event or something. Breaking own the barrier between championand hero mechs.
Give all hero's the champion's XP bonus in addition to CBILL bonus.
Give all Champions a lesser CBILL bonus while keeping the xp bonus.
Do not futher monetize them/raise prices; keep them as they are: a nice bonus for combo deals.
Add a 'hero token' for 5$ to the store that lets you promote any mech in your arsenal to recieve a hero-grade cbill bonus. Essentially, its a 'make your own' loyalty/hero/boosted mech.
REGULAR ROTATING SALES
Games like your survive by having regular sales and discounts. Take a hint from MOBA-LIKES and make sure that any chassis that is up as a Trial Mech is up for an ingame c-bill sale, in addition to any other price adjustments.
Don't be afraid it put up lame cosmetics, bolt-ons, or colors for c-bills! Having neat ones to experiment with only makes people want the fun/good ones more!
Dropship deals all the time.
STEAM STARTER PACKS.
Return all 'lost' mwo mechs packs (light, medium, heavy, assault 1-2) to the steam store and modernize (read, lower). Introduce all of those mechs to the in-game store.
Its dumb there's not 'okay' and' good' versions of some mechs available, such as the cbill bonused arctic cheetah that's no longer available:
This is work that's already done and fills a gap that doesn't exist.
Introduce the 'steam' mechs to the ingame store so you can buy them as standalone.
OMNIMECHS WISHLISH:
'set of 8' bonuses become 'set of 7' or 'set of 6': Their bonuses are way less than other mehs typically, and is sorta stupid that the mechs made for changing easily are punished for deviating SLIGHTLY. Basically, this is an acknowledgement that the head or legs (rarely/doesn't) matter.
'half the jump jet' part options: Hardlocked equipment is the absolute WORST. Introduce some specific parts for jumpjet equipped mechs that simply have half and none of the jets typically. (Summoner in particular is bad). These also need to not penalize the set of 8, or be universally counted.
Make an 'upengine' or 'de-engine' by 1 MP option for omnis. Not true engine swaps, but the ability for specific frames to swap the engine up or down a tier in the similiar way artemis is applied.
Hero Mech Omnipods for MC in omnipod menu IF YOU OWN THAT ONE already. Its totally dumb I have to get a viper or whatever for 15$ to get 1x. If i get the mech, i should be able to get spares. Sometimes there's one hero part I want to backport to a favorite mech but also use the hero, and i'm not gonna buy 2 hero's for that purpose. Pop the cork for cheap spares and don't look back.
Overall wishlist: Turn MWO from a grindy gacha-tier lamefest to a beer and pretzels casual game, remove all the dumb pricing and slash costs, then relaunch on steam: You need players to get the matchmaker, you don't keep players charging 7$ for a color, 20$ for a mech, and a ton of exclusive reward stuff.
LAUNCHER POLLS
Built a launcher poll that allows players to have some say in things. Example:
Choose bonus trial mechs when its time to cycle trial mechs. Mix of curated AND community picked. Under this unified system, those would be mechs that both become trials and go on sale because they are trials.
Mostly its a way for the entire player base to directly shout and tell paul and russ how wrong they are beause, dang those too are responsible for holding MWO back from being a classic hit in so many ways. If you want to commercially succeed, you NEED a way to have your decision makers swallow their pride and give the community what they've been asking for for years.
SUBSCRIPTION:
Add a low-cost subscription tier (2-5$ a month) that:
Ensures premium time is always on without using banked time.
Maybe a bonus sale/sale OPTION doubler when sales go on - or a chance for subscribers to get small freebies monthly, like a faction color pack, a ton of lootboxes, or a choice of event rewards. Tournament support packs are a good one!
other small perks. Maybe a low tier amount of MC injections to spend? Have this esalate for longer subscriptions/veterancy. 3 free mechbays per month? Easy.
This is an acknowledgement that its okay to support a game and keep the lights on for when you want to play, but also that you don't -have to-. No pressure or fear of missing out.
Core issues:
Mechs need to not be frustrating to play for a new player (assault mechs aren't awesome! they're slow and suck!)
Fixing matchmaking tier issues means you need more players and to keep them.
Prices must be steam compettitive and microtransaction/dolphin friendly(instead of whale only diet). I would buy the hell out of 5$ robots, but asking 7$ for a color is - I get full games on steam for that price. I get multiple triple a titles over christmas for the price of ONE big booster.
2021-ify all your prices and relaunch the game.
don't make everything good - make sure nothing sucks.
This is your chance to turn the game around and
all you 'have' to do is convince senior management not turn their ship around and not hunt whales with it; and there's a better way.
Thats it.
Edited by udoshi, 11 November 2020 - 10:39 AM.