51 replies to this topic

[Pika]

I've been playing Battletech in some form from the beginning. And every other week the game\setting is dying or dead. First it was the 4th Succession War stories, then it was the clan balance, then it was dark age (Which was admittedly pretty boring). Yet we just got IlKhan released and it's damned good.

My point is: You're not the first and you won't be the last to shout about how the sky is falling.

Greed has very little to do with it. We're almost a decade old. How many other games have you played for almost a decade with the kind of intensity most of the community has? We're on our 8th year and by all accounts have, if the rumours are true, about 4 left. So how have you been here for 11 years?

We're almost done. It's been a hell of a ride and I really, really hope PGI stick with the franchise. But if they don't the best we can hope for is MWO 2.0 or for MW6 to have a PvP mode. But I promise you this: Battletech won't be going anywhere, and sooner or later, MW7 will show up. Eventually.

[Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie]

I had a lots of complaints about PGI, and still do - greed is not one of them, though.

I think most things in this game are priced fairly. The big problem is: whenever they take (some of) that money and make something for the game, they always pick the worst idea possible, and implement it in a way that even the die-hard 'I want that'-people don't touch it.
looking at you, Sol7. So much potential, so much investment - so much fail.

Edited by Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie, 19 October 2021 - 07:41 AM.

[B1zmark]

Pretty much everyone who bought a founders pack knows the current situation the game is in:

• Bad decision to use Cry-Engine: hard to support/develop on and poor performance Vs Unreal or other options.
  
• Bad design choices: tying weapon statistics per map, meaning weapon balance needed entire maps to be rebuilt and deployed.
  
• Bad Business Strategy: All founders money directly funnelled into making a mobile strategy game that utterly failed and never saw the light of day
  
• Several years of overpriced, underwhelming Mech packs. Cash no reinvested into MWO.
  
• Massive Clan invasion scam pricing debacle, including "The Golden Mechs"
  
• IGP bail and PGI take over the games development directly. More community Engagement attempted.
  
• Awful Steam launch when game isn't ready.
  
• New players scared off by the new player experience. Not enough bonus Cbills + 3 mech system + Overpriced Mech Packs. People play it for an hour and realise that they have no chance of catching up with the hundreds of dollars spent by people in beta
  
• Community Warfare not friendly to new players, dominated by small number of players.
  
• Community Warfare, in general, just bland and totally unrewarding to play.
  
• Skills/Interface rework makes the process of fitting and skilling a mech indecipherable without third party tools.
  
• New interface slower than old one, harder to use, and offers no fixes to common complaints ("Why can't I fit mechs while sitting in the queue?" P.s. we still can't do that today which is utterly, utterly heinous game design)
  
• PGI eventually bails and we're left with this MWO which makes enough cash to keep the servers alive and pay a few guys wages.
  
• It will continue like this until the age 30-50 player base stops buying mech packs

The absolute irony is that this topic is correctly titled. But greed won nearly 10 years ago - MWO has been on life-support it's entire life-cycle and is held together by die-hard fans of the IP who are older with more disposable income than most average game playerbases' . There's no competition in the Stompy Mech genre to steal these players.

MWO could have been great. It could have been popular. But it's been mis-managed from the beginning and the core game balance is entirely fubar because everything boils down to team deathmatch in every game mode.

[w0qj]

Founder player here, been back since summer'2020, and having a great time

And thank you MWO for the Stryker, Warden, & Hunter Booster Packs!!

(Just ordered the Predator Booster Pack also--wish that the BAS-E(S) has ECM in CT to make it the first Blood Asp to have both ECM & +30% CBills bonus, but I digress...)

Edited by w0qj, 20 October 2021 - 06:15 PM.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

B1zmark, on 20 October 2021 - 03:59 PM, said:

Pretty much everyone who bought a founders pack knows the current situation the game is in:

• Bad decision to use Cry-Engine: hard to support/develop on and poor performance Vs Unreal or other options.
  
• Bad design choices: tying weapon statistics per map, meaning weapon balance needed entire maps to be rebuilt and deployed.
  
• Bad Business Strategy: All founders money directly funnelled into making a mobile strategy game that utterly failed and never saw the light of day
  
• Several years of overpriced, underwhelming Mech packs. Cash no reinvested into MWO.
  
• Massive Clan invasion scam pricing debacle, including "The Golden Mechs"
  
• IGP bail and PGI take over the games development directly. More community Engagement attempted.
  
• Awful Steam launch when game isn't ready.
  
• New players scared off by the new player experience. Not enough bonus Cbills + 3 mech system + Overpriced Mech Packs. People play it for an hour and realise that they have no chance of catching up with the hundreds of dollars spent by people in beta
  
• Community Warfare not friendly to new players, dominated by small number of players.
  
• Community Warfare, in general, just bland and totally unrewarding to play.
  
• Skills/Interface rework makes the process of fitting and skilling a mech indecipherable without third party tools.
  
• New interface slower than old one, harder to use, and offers no fixes to common complaints ("Why can't I fit mechs while sitting in the queue?" P.s. we still can't do that today which is utterly, utterly heinous game design)
  
• PGI eventually bails and we're left with this MWO which makes enough cash to keep the servers alive and pay a few guys wages.
  
• It will continue like this until the age 30-50 player base stops buying mech packs

The absolute irony is that this topic is correctly titled. But greed won nearly 10 years ago - MWO has been on life-support it's entire life-cycle and is held together by die-hard fans of the IP who are older with more disposable income than most average game playerbases' . There's no competition in the Stompy Mech genre to steal these players.


MWO could have been great. It could have been popular. But it's been mis-managed from the beginning and the core game balance is entirely fubar because everything boils down to team deathmatch in every game mode.

you forget the Transverse Disaster , the Reddit Ban ,and the internal Wars and the Exodus after all of Senior and Main engineers and programmers ...and now EG 7(same Holder of Bigpoint -Battlestar galactica Online) is the Holder of MWO,and the way in all Companys is the same, from paradox Games, over EA to Disney...make more money with the thumbest gamers

Hi Katrina fine you seeing back again

Edited by MW Waldorf Statler, 20 October 2021 - 06:43 PM.

[Andrewlik]

... You might be right to some degree.
But quite honestly, MWO/PGI isn't nearly as greedy as many other arena vehicle shooters (Looking at you World of Tanks)
they're not gouging you for money at every corner, its just "Hey new mech pack!" once every four months and that's about it.

[pbiggz]

PGI of the last few years has not behaved like 60-90 days PGI, or Transverse PGI, or Clan Pack PGI.

There are plenty of critiques to be had here. Lets focus on the ones that are real.

[Bud Crue]

pbiggz, on 22 October 2021 - 08:29 AM, said:

PGI of the last few years...

PMM-PGI? (Post Maintenance Mode)

[LordNothing]

pbiggz, on 22 October 2021 - 08:29 AM, said:

PGI of the last few years has not behaved like 60-90 days PGI, or Transverse PGI, or Clan Pack PGI.

There are plenty of critiques to be had here. Lets focus on the ones that are real.

or divert all resources into mw5 and let your cash cow die pgi.

im so glad they passed that. so far the beard-cauldron pgi has been great. i hope to see more of that pgi in the future.

they still need to either put more work into mwo or come up with a successor product. most of us will pay into either one of those. what they are doing now is good and all, but without new mechs, new maps, maybe a timeline advancement and a tech update, or even some spit and polish qol features, i think the game may fall back into stagnation and start hemorrhaging players. i think they may very well finally be in a financial situation to do something bigger and better, but its entirely possible those funds might get invested elsewhere.

Edited by LordNothing, 22 October 2021 - 01:42 PM.

[pbiggz]

imo a successor product would be best.

If Mechwarrior 6 is to happen, it should include pvp multiplayer in the offering. Maybe offer some special content and discounts to MWO vets as an olive branch (that's all I can realistically see happening), but this game just has so much baggage now that there isn't much of a way to truly save it without spending an amount of development time that would essentially build you a whole new game anyway.

The primary concern I see with this is that people who have invested heavily in the game will basically have to start from scratch. idk, kinda sucks at this point but either we stay stuck with an imperfect and virtually impossible to fix game with no real development team, or we start fresh, but some whales lose their investment. I certainly think one of these options is less bad than the other, but I don't get to decide.

[ScrapIron Prime]

If they make MW 6, they won't have to give the whales much free stuff, if anything. It'd be nice of course, but it won't hurt their bottom line.

[Jun Watarase]

Quote

Devs, you will never be able to satify everyone, stop trying and make the game how you, The Devs, intend for it to be played.

This is a horrible idea and the industry is full of spectacular failures because the devs insisted on making a game THEY wanted to play rather than their customers. That co-op red alert games to mind, the devs admitted they knew the fans wanted another base building game, but they wanted to do something different. End result, the game bombed and im pretty sure some people lost their jobs.

MWO was never intended to be more than a minimal viable product in the first place and it was really clear when faction warfare was left in a mess and they diverted resources from MWO to making MW5. Not to mention they tried to make a kickstarter for some space game which bombed utterly, resulting in the idea being scrapped.

MWO's has a long, long history of wasted potential and broken promises. Too bad EA's MPBT 3025 was scrapped in open beta, the batltetech community hasnt had a decent faction warfare game since then.