65 replies to this topic

[InnerSphereNews]

MATT AND DAERON ON NGNG PODCAST #229

[w0qj]

Looking foward to details for the 2022 Annual (Loyalty) Rewards, especially the reward mechs!

There's a (high) chance that I may already qualify for these!

[martian]

Could anybody post a text version? Thanks.

[Gas Guzzler]

I noticed the TBD pre-orders have been removed from the Roadmap. Bummer.

[Gas Guzzler]

Well that's more optimistic than I was expecting after reading the other thread. I guess those two were over worked....

[Locked Bolt]

For EQ please do more chassis specific events, as they give use to have multiple of the same chassis and not just have all of the same variants of the chassis. For example the Rifleman, Rifleman IIC and Black jack one that happened 2 months ago (I think).

[Tiger Dad]

Sorry Francois left?

[TheCaptainJZ]

Tiger Dad, on 12 August 2022 - 01:37 PM, said:

Sorry Francois left?

Yeah :'(
Think they said he wanted to work with current game technology. CryEngine is so old now. Good career move.

[FrontlineAssembly]

Like how Phil did mention moving the tech base forward, and they failed to say anything after that. And of course still no discussion of rescale. But other than that it was an ok discussion.

[Bowelhacker]

Lockheed_, on 12 August 2022 - 12:42 PM, said:

• Mark left -> no new mechs until they hire a replacement
• François left -> no new maps until they hire a replacement
• They are hiring -> hand in a resume if you qualify

Time for all those bigmouthed ************* full of ideas to step up then.

[katoult]

Lockheed_, on 12 August 2022 - 12:42 PM, said:

• They are hiring -> hand in a resume if you qualify

They may want to actually put a job ad on the website then. Cuz i only see Intermediate Level Designer jobs for Unreal 4 on there with requirements that sound like they were written back around the time when they ewre bought by EG7.

[13Tradesman]

Thanks for the fun video, I almost felt warm and fuzzy inside afterwards...almost. =)

Now back to the usual business.e...here is a fine list of suggestions and grivances to address.

Please add respawn game modes to QP, please add a free for all game mode for QP, focus on 'simple new maps' nothing convoluted....(literally could repurpose/modify solaris maps for this) just add symmetrical cover.

Add Group Training Scenarios...think mazes/maps with basic training AI mechs that can fire back....this will add meaning to LFG button...most people would want a chance to train together before they feel like forming a group...right?

Game balance needs to focus on on engaging combat- > Absolute Max range regardless of quirks or skills = 1200 meters...most long range weapons should max between 800M-1000M...think back to MW4....Raise the optimal range for weapons but lower the max range for the usual suspects (ER PPC, ER Lasers, Gauss, LRMS etc.) We don't need folks sitting in the backfield for half the match...it is time for them to get some real skin in the game. LRMS...lower their arcs so viability will require something a bit closer to line of sight to hit targets. This game does NOT need artillery mechs that can shoot over multiple mountains because of narcs or targeting lasers or long range targeting aquisition assists. You can add mobility quirks to those LRM boats mechs to make them viable for other things....Night Gyrs...Novacats...etc.

Light mechs need to play by the same rules as other mechs...if they get hit they need to have a proper gyro jarring effect...if they try to climb up ridiculously steep hills they need to be impeded/stopped...or allow assaults and heavies to climb the same slopes...either solution would be fine.

Queue: Not enough heads up on Event Queue in-game, no truly 'unique' rewards for participation (decals, skins, colors, anything? Random supply cache? Cmon.)

BTW wait times for Assault mechs are still pretty bad....especially in the 90-100 ton range...before even addressing groups in the soup, find a way to allow folks to play their favorite mechs without excessively long wait times. I can't tell you how many times I just up and quit the game after a few matches because of this.

In-game guide for beginners on what to spend on generally...and what to wait on buying. You really don't want people just starting the game wasting money refitting (and buying) a bunch of engines for their 'new' urbie when they could be buying whole new mechs at a discount in the store. You have a training area for the in-game portion...so where is the training section for the mechlab or store? Don't 'outsource' guidance to youtubers, don't expect folks to sift the forums, it needs to be in-game. Period.

I still see many signs the game sets up people to fail while working in the mechlab. At least give a choice when buying ANY given variant of a mech between canon loadouts and optimized loudouts. Bad default loadouts waste time, c-bills, and patience for reconfiguration: XL engines in innersphere mechs with large hitboxes for maximum UNsurvivability, Non-maxed default armor points applied to mechs for paper arms, Ammo stored generously in the torsos (sometimes without even case) for maximum critical explosion potential, standard armor as the default, the list goes on....please set people up for success if you want them to play.

Whatever short term monetary benefit there may be in having beginners have those failures/mistakes and buying MC later to try and course correct will be totally negated by people simply leaving the game.

Progression: Add individual player ranks separate from faction play....warrior -> star colonel ->galaxy commander etc.

Add more (and regular) intervals of achievements/titles/rewards...achievements take an inordinate amount of time and don't have much pay-off after the early spurt.

Well, thanks for reading.

P.S. Wish Francois all the best on his future endeavors, thanks for trying.

[Buenaventura]

So with Francois gone, we (AMD GPU users) just have to live with the purple vitric forge? Or are you going to fix that?
(Yes, I know I can just quit the match and rejoin to have it correct, but I shouldn't have to do that.)

[mytilus edulis]

Disappointed with the direction things seem to be headed internally given how much myself and others spent in the last year

[w0qj]

There's talk of a patch for this pink/purple Vitric Station bug on/about 23-Aug-2022.

MrVaad, a fellow user, seem to have found the problem, and MWO staff has a preliminary solution for this.
https://mwomercs.com...11#entry6468211
https://mwomercs.com...15#entry6464115
MrVaad said, "...In short, It's two missing cubemap textures. I've tested the fix with AMD/NVIDIA users.
François [before François left PGI] regenerated the missing textures on his side so it should be in the next patch."

Buenaventura, on 13 August 2022 - 03:22 AM, said:

So with Francois gone, we (AMD GPU users) just have to live with the purple vitric forge? Or are you going to fix that?
(Yes, I know I can just quit the match and rejoin to have it correct, but I shouldn't have to do that.)

[D V Devnull]

InnerSphereNews, on 12 August 2022 - 11:33 AM, said:

<<< image from https://static.mwomercs.com/img/news/media/a8885e2b7bc29638d6e877d3f91b0ef3.jpg >>>

MATT AND DAERON ON NGNG PODCAST #229

<<< video from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wimH3u4oUKk >>>

@ PGI's MWO Team --

Hello there... While it happens that I can understand most of the sentiments in the video, you rubbed me the wrong way on one point. Please avoid removal of the "Incursion" Game Mode from the MWO game's playable options. Unlike whoever you have been getting data from, it happens that I personally like that Mode and will attempt to Vote for it whenever I can. (The only current exception to that is when I'm running a pure Streak SRM Boat build, and you'll find some thoughts on that down in how to fix things below... That particular fix would cause me to then Vote for it 100% of the time when appearing as an option.) And yes, I do notice when it fails to come up for long periods! As far as I can recall, I have also posted previously on having a positive desire & want for the "Incursion" Game Mode and am left with the rather ugly (perhaps even potentially painful) feeling that it never got read. I can even provide some Questions & Thoughts (and have certainly done so here) on how one can analyze & improve the situation with the "Incursion" Game Mode, and therefore make it somewhat more reasonable and better for everyone to enjoy.


Which reminds me... I'm going to apologize in advance for any/all of my wording sounding anything like a harsh attack is contained within on anyone who reads this posting. (I'm probably not typing/thinking my absolute best due to some neighbors IRL making it impossible to sleep.) There is explicitly no intent for that, and you have my personal apology in advance here... Sorry!!!


First off... I'm left to ask for the following numbers being publicly posted within this thread (possibly as a reply to my post) by those of you at PGI regarding the "Incursion" Game Mode being used...

• Total number of Matches Played in the last 30/60 Days (this is necessary for overall scope)
  
• Total number of times that the "Incursion" Game Mode was actually made an option in the last 30/60 Days by the MatchMaker for players to select from
  
• Total number of times that the "Incursion" Game Mode won the Vote in the last 30/60 Days even with so few Maps that have the functions present
  
• Total number of played "Incursion" Game Mode Matches in the last 30/60 Days where anyone used any of the Mode-Specific Functions during the Match at all
  
• Total number of times that the "Incursion" Game Mode was completed in the last 30/60 Days via doing the Objective contained within

...because my mind has this sneaking hunch there's some unexpected bias going on due to the lack of Maps which can even do the "Incursion" Game Mode at all, thereby causing loss of the knowledge necessary to enjoying playing, and creating the unjust bias against it which should not have been there. That, and there are further biases from too many people being inappropriately discriminatory by trying to take away Objective-based gameplay from other people, which really hurts MWO's game experience overall. After all, how does one play something which the MatchMaker's randomization systems fail to provide as an option due to not enough Maps qualifying for the option to come up, and how also does one play it when there are too many people with an evilly rude mindset trying to force Skirmish-style play down other people's throats all the time?


As it stands, there are then four things hurting that game mode which can be easily seen, and therefore more-or-less reasonably handled with a little effort...

• Lack of availability on most Maps in the game, preventing the MatchMaker from providing it as an option during the Voting Phase prior to a Match being played. More of the Maps need to have the functions to be capable of playing it, or the MatchMaker can not provide the option for playing it at all. How can you reasonably get proper data as to whether people really like it or not when it does not come up as an option for play anywhere near often enough?
  
• Win Conditions of the "Incursion" Game Mode allowing for the 12th Enemy Death blocking the Base Raid... At that point, the game should stop and declare a Tie (not a Victory since the Objective was never really completed) with some kind of flavorful audio clip being played as to what has blown the mission, but done in a manner that does not directly berate the players. Perhaps one could even do a Map Nuke Animation and suggest that the opposition was unwilling to accept the result, so they blasted the area from orbit. (Obviously, that Nuke happening should not affect Player Stats in order to avoid the blowback of people upset by wrongful deaths! And yes, I am making some kind of reference here, which I'm sure some people will get!)
  
• The various parts of the Opposing Force's Base (including the bundle of little Turrets scattered across the area) in the "Incursion" Game Mode are all needlessly & wrongfully 100% auto-protected from all Lock-On Systems in the game. This needs to change to allow TAG/NARC to affect those items, particularly due to how the current situation completely disables Streak SRMs in an anti-constructive manner — even though they REQUIRE an explicit Line-Of-Sight situation to use them — from being a viable choice beyond the combat portion of any gameplay, even when other Lock-On Weapons can still be dumb-fired on the targets. That way, either the player has stuck a NARC on the Targeted Base Part and it's temporarily capable of being attacked by Lock-On Weapons for a short period, or there's a TAG being held on the Targeted Base Part and it can be attacked for all the time during which the TAG's Beam is held on the target. This has been one of the few issues which unjustly segregates & blocks a whole chunk of the available Weapons catalog, and also splits the Player Base which actively play in MWO's current environment. People do not like being essentially told certain options are not valid to use after they drop into battle through finding out the hard way, and the very meaning of TeamWork is being inappropriately shunned by not allowing TAG/NARC to affect the Enemy's Base in any way.
  
• Players being unaware of the various Bonuses which can be earned by playing the Objectives which are provided. If you put out a more recent News Post about this with a video showing off these various Bonuses which the player can pick up, there is a high possibility of causing revival of desire for the "Incursion" Game Mode simply on the want of players to earn more from a single Match being played. (You can even include information about the "Assault" Game Mode in order to boost interest for more than one Game Mode within the same video's material.)

...and fixing as many of those that you can would save "Incursion" Game Mode from some of the biggest trouble it's been currently having. Please don't trash this rather nice option to play before you've really tried to repair it, as it's been unfortunate enough to receive literally no real care/changes/improvements in the several years during which it has been available, and has only received a number of noticeably unjust damages during development.


Heck... Look at it this way... If you get rid of the "Incursion" Game Mode as an option, then all that's really being done is helping & aiding those with the hellishly destructive "Only Skirmish All The Time And You Can Not Have Anything Else Which Pays Better" mindset to shove their mentality in other people's faces and down their throats constantly. That in and of itself is ugly, evil, rude, and wrong... and the only thing that could balance tossing the "Incursion" Game Mode would be to completely get rid of the "Skirmish" Game Mode along with it as the cost paid for losing an Objective-based Game Mode that part of your Player Base actually enjoyed having. (It would basically be the only way to tell the Skirmish-Only people that their continued evil mindset must stop.) It happens that I'm one of those who personally hate how little that the "Skirmish" Game Mode pays out anyway, also hate how it's simply basic combat only which forces an absolute wipeout of the opposition in general without exception, and would prefer that the "Skirmish" Game Mode got tossed before any other!


And as I sign off, I will leave the note that I'm likely not the only person with sentiments like these, as at least many of us out there really find the devolution into sad little Skirmish whirlpool situations all the time to be rather disappointing. I therefore hope those of you in PGI's MWO Team will be willing to take the small leap in healing the "Incursion" Game Mode so that it can become an option enjoyed by everyone in the future!


~D. V. "Maybe I'm a mere anomalous radical, but I feel 'Incursion' Game Mode should be kept & improved!" Devnull



(p.s.: I'm posting this with avoidance of any Edits afterward since I've been working on this for around two-and-a-half hours or more, feel somewhat overloaded, and don't want to overthink this to death... Sorry for any Formatting Issues even though I tried to foresee whatever I could, and packed as much thinking into this post as possible!)

[D V Devnull]

Fainting Goat, on 13 August 2022 - 05:59 AM, said:

<<< snip >>>

Not a word about FP?

Not enough people/resources to work with right now, and it's a very touchy subject due to past massive errors by the previous people who had primary major control of MWO's stuff before. (I don't want to be harsh, but they really blew it hardcore!) It's basically been knocked off the table until Matt & Daeron get what is needed to fix a whole lot of other higher-priority items in the immediate that would make it more easy to fix Faction-based content. Sorry!

~D. V. "gets how you feel about wanting Faction stuff fixed, but knows nothing can be done currently" Devnull

[Voice of Kerensky]

Francois no longer cooperates with PGI? It's a pity. I liked his last two maps.
Well. I wish him success in his new business or in a new place.

[Lepestok]

Maps in the training ground. Make a list of them alphabetically.

Edited by Lepestok, 13 August 2022 - 07:43 AM.

[Vellron2005]

Was hoping for MWO2, but I guess they're not done milking MWO yet..