21 replies to this topic

[Corbantu]

Okay maybe my title is super hyperbolic, but I gotta get this lamentation off my chest. The game is so unsatisfying, it just feels so hollow. It's hard for me to quantify.

It feels like an arcade shooter, like the game is something you put a roll of quarters into. The customizing, managing, etc feels almost like a after thought. A layer that was added ontop of the core game to stretch it out a bit. During battles it doesn't feel like there is really any way or reason for tactical maneuvering. Theres no flanking, misleading, or ambushing. The battles feel linear, wave base, and unimaginative.

Whenever I play mw5 I just feel like, this is it. There's nothing to add to this game. It belongs on an video arcade machine.

The sad thing is, I can't even explain what I want. I just know this ain't it.

[crazytimes]

It's been out for a couple of years, reviewed, and discarded by the makers. If you just bought it and are surprised by the gameplay, it's hard to blame anyone else.

[LordNothing]

no im pretty sure it sucks. the vr mod made me go back for awhile, but then the game was updated and they broke everything. its probibly fixed now, but that was a pita to set up. the lack of descent multiplayer is what kills it for me.

[Heavy Money]

The base game is quite empty, yes. But the mod community is great. Pick up Yet Another Mechlab and Coyotes missions and TTai and things change up a lot.

[Corbantu]

crazytimes, on 25 March 2022 - 01:40 PM, said:

It's been out for a couple of years, reviewed, and discarded by the makers. If you just bought it and are surprised by the gameplay, it's hard to blame anyone else.

*crying emoji*

[DaZur]

Corbantu, on 25 March 2022 - 01:02 PM, said:

Okay maybe my title is super hyperbolic, but I gotta get this lamentation off my chest. The game is so unsatisfying, it just feels so hollow. It's hard for me to quantify.

It feels like an arcade shooter, like the game is something you put a roll of quarters into. The customizing, managing, etc feels almost like a after thought. A layer that was added ontop of the core game to stretch it out a bit. During battles it doesn't feel like there is really any way or reason for tactical maneuvering. Theres no flanking, misleading, or ambushing. The battles feel linear, wave base, and unimaginative.
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First time playing a PGI game?

[ScrapIron Prime]

Yeah, wave based endless spawns with nothing in the way of tactics. Fine for SOME missions to be like that, but other than walking from point A to point B or choosing whether to walk to point B or point C first, everything is the same arcade style slog.

And it drives me nuts on the missions that do have story to them that you get all your info dump on the story WHILE you're busy shooting at things instead of in a mission briefing or debriefing. I'm not saying the NPCs should never talk, I'm just saying that I'm not taking notes on Inner Sphere house politics while trying to target an AC/10 gunship in flight...

The game engine is great, but the mission design and layout... but as Heavy Money said, thank goodness for modders.

[Lumovanis]

There was a mod that rebalanced vehicles, returning them to tabletop stats (buffing essentially), but also greatly reduced the wave count. It's one of the things that really irked me; the endless waves of vehicles. Like, the farmers fielding dozens of PPC tanks. "We are poor farmers and the greedy houses want to steal our stuff!" *Proceeds to field an armored division that would made the SLDF blush*

But this mod stopped receiving updates and a new expansion is about to break everything again anyways.

[KodiakGW]

Heavy Money, on 25 March 2022 - 01:53 PM, said:

The base game is quite empty, yes. But the mod community is great. Pick up Yet Another Mechlab and Coyotes missions and TTai and things change up a lot.

OP - So much this. Been playing it with YAML as my only mech fix right now. Finding and using quirked hero mechs is loads of fun. Spent a number of hours tinkering in the Mechlab. Also add in the Savage Wolf, Timber Wolf, Mad Dog, and Hatchetman mods. for some additional fun toys. Been playing with all four with no glitches.

[Thorqemada]

Lumovanis, on 30 March 2022 - 12:16 AM, said:

There was a mod that rebalanced vehicles, returning them to tabletop stats (buffing essentially), but also greatly reduced the wave count. It's one of the things that really irked me; the endless waves of vehicles. Like, the farmers fielding dozens of PPC tanks. "We are poor farmers and the greedy houses want to steal our stuff!" *Proceeds to field an armored division that would made the SLDF blush*

But this mod stopped receiving updates and a new expansion is about to break everything again anyways.

Merctech makes Vehicles much more durable if you want.
And did Coyotes Mission balance the vehicle trash waves away?

[Trystan Thorne]

I don't want to be mean towards PGI, but for PGI standards MW5 rocks.

I am not sure what people expected out of MW5 but it surpased what I thought PGI was capable off doing.
It's a PGI game, so it has great Mech design and the core gameplay is awesome, but it fails in refinement.
I mean MWO is pretty much the same really, only that not many expect more out of MWO than some quick multiplayer action.
But MWO would have potential to be so much more.

MW5 got better with DLC and Mods at least.

Saying all this, PGI is a small studio and they kept the franchise alive when no one cared for it (really no big studio still cares for it).

[SomersetStriker]

So few games I ever play (aka like enough) for 80 hours. MW5 and MWO are two rare ones. MWO is probably the longest played game I ever played though.

Seems great to me lol. It does have its issues though for the campaign. Just different strokes for different folks.

Edited MW6 out since it doesn't exist lol.

Edited by SomersetStriker, 12 April 2022 - 05:40 PM.

[IronWatch]

Mechwarrior V is an embarrassing effort given what Piranha Games managed years and years earlier with MWO
Even down to audio engineering, it's a noticeable step backwards and I don't understand why

[SomersetStriker]

IronWatch, on 13 April 2022 - 06:26 AM, said:

Mechwarrior V is an embarrassing effort given what Piranha Games managed years and years earlier with MWO
Even down to audio engineering, it's a noticeable step backwards and I don't understand why

Just my assumption, there could be different reasons, but I remember they said that they had a very difficult time with the procedural mission generator. MWO had only custom created missions, not the ton that MW5 has. Its very probable that killed a lot of time that they could have spent on other things. However, there's no way to know what their original plans were and if they changed because of technical difficulties or what.

Maybe some around here might have a better understanding. I don't know. Its just a little thing that makes sense to me. When something takes much longer than expected, it will have a negative effect. More time, more effect. Something has to change just to get it done.

[TheMundaneYesYes]

I have to agree. With more then a few statements in this thread. There are mods out there to fix pretty much every issue the game has but a released game CAN NOT rely on the end users to fix every issue with the game. The game as it stand from release , even with the DLC, is pretty shallow, empty and hallow. The AI is as simple as it gets, walk forward and shoot, no tactics , not thought. I can see where they get a good portion of the mech lab ideas from a few games that were drastically different. MW4 and Battletech. MW5 tries to take what they thought was good about MW4 and a little of Battletech and make their own game with it but fails.

As it stands MW5 is a good STARTING point for a game. I will say this. I don`t blame the dev team but I do blame their leaders.

[Kynesis]

Allow me to help then.
Let me first preface this by saying that I'm sure the devs who worked on MW5 did their best with the time and resources allowed.

The AI is the cornerstone of the game and it's absolutely abysmal. It frequently either ignores of fails to follow through on orders. Companion AI will frequently get stuck, walk into walls, walk through stuff we need to protect (enough to fail defense missions on their own), wander off, show their backs, do nothing at all, blunder about in the line of fire, shoot the player or one another, wander around without using their weapons or just randomly walk into a bunch of enemies to suicide.
The order selection options for AI are shamefully inadequate and poorly considered.
Graphic fidelity is well below even the most generous expectations.
Mechs themselves have comparatively poor customisation options.
The UI, along with audio and visual effects are barely adequate, uninspired, uninteresting and sometimes downright annoying.
The pace of the game in every aspect of the game is painfully ponderous and tedious.
Maps are deliberately and quite specifically designed to waste our time.

I would allow though that they at least made an initial attempt to support mods with some documentation.

[The6thMessenger]

I find it acceptable, as I just want to play and romp as a stompy robot. Mods make the gameplay much more bearable than vanilla.

It's grindy, but I'm used to the grind, coming from Monster Hunter.

[ThreeStooges]

Yep. Mods to the rescue. At least I got the game half off. No dlcs. It's good for when you get tired of the mwo drones in qp.

[PyreLlght]

No it doesn't, it's an amazing Mechwarrior experience and it's probably the best one in terms of pure features and gameplay loop. And I've been playing them all since 1994.

[ColourfulConfetti]

I think it's fun enough, though my biggest issue is with how predictable and bad the AI is. With repetitive maps being a close second. It has flaws, but, it's not bad, really.