93 replies to this topic

[Haipyng]

There are two big issues:

1) The many long term issues in MWO that have never been tackled, be it hit reg, terrain issues, Match Maker, queues, learning curve, etc. Either they can't tackle those (or have on a limited basis) because of staffing, engine limitations, or whatever. For many fans, they grew frustrated and moved on to other things. MWO has had it's bite of the fan base.

2) PGI has spent lots of political capital and has disappointed many right from the alpha and seeking backers. We had many fans wanting many things, from a mech combat sim in the vein of MW/MW2 to melee, to quadruped mechs, to a game beyond team deathmatch. We have had balancing issues and some pretty big nerfs to mechs purchased for MC. The relaunch of MWO with Solaris (a mode no one seemed to want).Then there was the launch of MW5 on Epic only and several other stumbles on the way. This made MW5's launch pretty mediocre. PGI alienated many fans, that just don't want to come back.

I have to agree with others, It needs to be MWO2 with a fresh engine and tackling the many issues outstanding. Even then I'd likely wait for the masses to try it out before buying into it, if PGI does it.

[ScrapIron Prime]

Novakaine, on 12 January 2023 - 07:34 PM, said:

Just saying........

So far, developing this game is a tankless job.

[Blood Rose]

Oooooh boy, this is a big can of beans to open.
Back when MWO first came out I was a poor student and despite wanting to spend money, had none to spare. These days I have the money but I question the need to spend it on MWO, and not because I have plenty of stuff already. MWo has some pretty major problems that I will try to touch on.
Firstly, what has actually changed? since beta we have had a few new maps, and mechs, but thats it. And the maps have often felt like copy-paste jobs, and have severe scaling issues - judging by the size of lorries in River City and Crimson Straight many mechs are bigger than the old RX-78 Gundam, which as anyone who knows the lore will know is vastly oversized - the tallest mech is about 6 metres shorter than old Granddaddy 40. Besides that, the old terrain issues are still present over a decade later - despite being one of the oldest maps in the game I still see my shots caught on invisible walls in Obsidian, which is an issue that should have been solved in the first month, and the amount of times I have lined up a shot in close fighting only to see my fire impact on an invisible wall that extends from the visible terrain are beyond counting. This is not an advanced issue, it is pretty basic.
Destructible terrain would be nice too, but apart from some trees we can knock down and some lampposts that fall over, all terrain here is immortal. I can slug 200 AC20 shells into a hovel and it remains standing, but this is really a limitation of the game engine.
Secondly is the push towards the longrange meta, to the point that all bar one of the city maps have a wide open no mechs land between the two sides, and other maps are literal sniper fishbowls with some token minimal terrain in the middle and sniping spots all around them. If you want to do city maps then look at Warthunder, where the city maps manage to capture the claustrophobic feel of urban combat.
Let a mix of combat happen. Sure, have long range maps, but have others that reward being a brawler, and have all flavours in between.
Thirdly, maps again, the design of the maps is bad. Most of them feel like corridor maps that funnel you towards the one big engagement point. Others, whilst nice and big, automatically focus the fighting around one point. And the maps themselves feel unrealistic. Look at real terrain and copy that. Hell, use city maps and topdown terrain shots from google maps if needed.
And whilst your there, copy warthunder. Have cap points that are spread out. Look at the gamemodes there, you force the enemy to lose tickets when your team holds a cap point, the more you hold the faster the enemy loses them. or you could have a game mode that requires a series of points to be capped. Force mobility and force teams to use the map.
Fourthly, and this brings me on to game modes. Currently there is one game mode in MWO with a series of subflavours. You have: Team Death match, TDM but with a distraction to defend, TDM but you have to blow up the opponents base at the end, TDM but you have to spend the first few minutes capping some distractions, and TDM but its a giant moshpit in the centre. Branch out, and again, look to other games for inspiration if needed.
Fifthly, dropdecks. Dont lock a player into one mech. Let each player have a 'dropdeck' of 4 mechs from each class. When they drop they select the class they want to play in and when the map is voted for they can then pick one mech from that class to drop in. That way you avoid nonsense like a brawler being dropped into Alpine Peaks, or a hot mech into Terra Therma. Sure, you still only get one spawn, but now you have a chance.
Sixthly, IS omnis. Please let us have them.
Seventhly, IDK at this point. Just do not leave the game as it is now, barely unchanged from how it was 11 years back, and expect it to do as well as it did then.

[crazytimes]

I spend about $10 a year, for no real reason other than. I don't want to be a total freeloader. I don't really get anything for that.

MWOs problem moneywise for me is that there is almost nothing purchaseable that has any actual utility. I don't care for cosmetics and I have picked up most non-potato heros either in give-aways or using in game earnt gold..

The store packs are mostly ridiculously over priced. Why buy a 5-6 variant pack for $50 or whatever they are when 3 of the variants are potato, I have the hero, and the other 2 I can easily buy for credits if I ever wanted them? Premium time is meaningless as well- I can't get below half a billion credits and I still have like 1200 GSP, grinding an unskilled mech is the only progress left really anyhow.


I don't want cosmetics, I don't want pay2win, so what has worth? I kind of like the sale packs of hero mechs they've been doing
Maybe expand that to other assortments, like the "sort of unseen" pack, with the 4 least used variants in the game for $5, with a u ique pattern for the cosmetic fans, or being able to mix and match a few random variants into a cheap pack.

Or... IS omnis. Blackhawk-KU. I'd pay money for that.

[Meep Meep]

They don't seem to understand opportunity cost either. Set the initial high price to rake in the whales who gotta have it now then gradually reduce the price over time till every group has a chance of buying it at a cost they feel comfortable with. Steam is notorious for this policy and its made them billions.

[Nightbird]

Meep Meep, on 13 January 2023 - 02:44 PM, said:

They don't seem to understand opportunity cost either. Set the initial high price to rake in the whales who gotta have it now then gradually reduce the price over time till every group has a chance of buying it at a cost they feel comfortable with. Steam is notorious for this policy and its made them billions.

That's called the price demand curve.

[Meep Meep]

Nightbird, on 13 January 2023 - 03:09 PM, said:

That's called the price demand curve.

Yeah I thought I had the term wrong but was too lazy to search it. But its still something they don't seem to grasp.

[sycocys]

Meep Meep, on 13 January 2023 - 03:14 PM, said:

Yeah I thought I had the term wrong but was too lazy to search it. But its still something they don't seem to grasp.

I didn't buy MW5 until it was on a platform I didn't mind using and on sale for a price I could tolerate - would have bought it on GoG instead of steam but they have no cares at all for making their sales page read as to what you are buying in bundles.

They have the exact same issue with their MWO mechpack bundles available through steam, just zero cares that they see low sales there because no one can tell what they are getting with the purchase.

[Vorpal Puppy]

Someone with plenty of time on their hands should build a list of all the things folks want -- not pie in the sky things like MWO2, but realistic things like the Urbie IIC. Then, hold a vote to find the most popular items. When thats done, pull together a group to present to PGI. This group would be to enhancements what the cauldron is to balance. PGI puts a price on the items. Once we know the cost, then we can figure out how realistic what we want is or isn't.
To fund it, PGI could create 'supporter' badges in the store for things like "Melee mode', for example. If the goal isnt reached at the end of say 90 days, it turns into an MC purchase that still benefits the game.

Edited by Vorpal Puppy, 13 January 2023 - 06:32 PM.

[TheCaptainJZ]

An6ryMan69, on 12 January 2023 - 08:20 AM, said:

I actually suspect that the per-player money spent on this game is quite high.

Russ said it was, and it was an average of $90 per paying customer I believe he said, in it's earlier heyday (first 5 years?)

[TheCaptainJZ]

Meep Meep, on 13 January 2023 - 02:44 PM, said:

They don't seem to understand opportunity cost either. Set the initial high price to rake in the whales who gotta have it now then gradually reduce the price over time till every group has a chance of buying it at a cost they feel comfortable with. Steam is notorious for this policy and its made them billions.

They sorta have done that...I mean 10 years later, the prices are effectively lower just because of the falling purchase price of the dollar. On the other hand, they rarely had big sales in the earlier years, now they are not afraid to throw everything 50% off. So although they haven't changed prices, there are certainly opportunities to buy them at lower price points. Not crazy discounts like steam of course but still.

[LordNothing]

TheCaptainJZ, on 13 January 2023 - 07:02 PM, said:

Russ said it was, and it was an average of $90 per paying customer I believe he said, in it's earlier heyday (first 5 years?)

ive spent many times that. i wouldnt say im a whale, but im definitely a porpoise.

this is why im no fan of overpriced mechpacks, subscriptions, or ungrindable content. at some point its just too damn much.

Edited by LordNothing, 14 January 2023 - 10:55 AM.

[LordNothing]

Col Jaime Wolf, on 11 January 2023 - 10:56 AM, said:

give new players 5-10 good mechs for free to get people into the game without grinding...

or perhaps skill the trial mechs. they are locked like the loadout, but i think its kind of harsh to drop new players in unmastered mechs against veterans with meta and mastery.

[Throe]

[content removed by user]

Edited by Throe, 05 October 2023 - 09:19 AM.

[CFC Conky]

Col Jaime Wolf, on 11 January 2023 - 10:56 AM, said:

give new players 5-10 good mechs for free to get people into the game without grinding

...

The current cadet bonuses are pretty generous but perhaps a bigger c-bill payout and some extra mech bays would allow for the same thing as you suggest but give the player more choice.

As another post suggested, the trial mechs should be skilled up and there should probably be more of them available to give new players a better feel for what's available.

And while not directly related to the price of mechs/mechpacks/MC/GSP, improvements to the tutorials and better overall information on game mechanics could go some way to encourage new players to stick with the game longer which might translate into increased sales.

Good hunting,
CFC Conky

Edited by CFC Conky, 14 January 2023 - 02:24 PM.

[LordNothing]

maybe mech bays and mc should start showing up in supply caches again. in the rare/ultrarare categories anyway. i did get 500 mc on the new system once, but i figure that was set up to be a one time thing or is very rare. also improve the weapons variety so i dont end up with 300 srm2s again. also merge in the old solaris loot so that we can win bolt ons again.

premium time, battle passes and legendary mechs should accelerate supply cache progress, all of which should stack.

[Meep Meep]

TheCaptainJZ, on 13 January 2023 - 07:02 PM, said:

Russ said it was, and it was an average of $90 per paying customer I believe he said, in it's earlier heyday (first 5 years?)

Several hundred for me over the years since beta. A few mech packs and on sale heroes for the main and the smallest mc pack for any new alts for some colors and a warhorn.

LordNothing, on 14 January 2023 - 10:37 AM, said:

or perhaps skill the trial mechs. they are locked like the loadout, but i think its kind of harsh to drop new players in unmastered mechs against veterans with meta and mastery.

This is actually a ~great~ idea. It would be simple for cauldron to whip up some baseline skill tree presets they could apply to the trial mechs. The existing tutorial is good enough as I have played through it a few times with alts to get the nice pile of cbills and the 25 cadet missions heap lots more cbills and some crucial skill points on you with some cosmetics too.

[Blood Rose]

Let me consolidate my above rambling
>MWO has not actually developed significantly since beta, 11 years back
>No, ahandful of new maps and some new mechs (not even any IS omnis, really PGI?) do not count
>Bugs that were present in Beta are still present to this day
>Scaling is awful and needs looking at
>so-called "city" maps are awful and need looking at, see Warthunder
>Game modes all boil down to "TDM but with varying flavours"
>There is little incentive, 99% of the time, to use most of the map
>Gameplay is heavily biased towards one playstyle to the point that maps you would think would be close in affairs have open no mechs land inbetween the spawns
>None of the terrain is destructible. Warthunder managed this, and went further to allow for bombs dropped by players or artillery called in or high calibre HE to form craters in the land in less time
>Maps could be a LOT more realistic and would benefit (with correct Mech scaling) from it
>Things the community has, as a whole, asked for since the early days have never been implemented
>
>
>TL;DR PGI is wondering why player spending is down despite having done the bare minimal to develop the game in 11 years. In the same time Warthunder has gone from being a ww2 fighter simulator to being a detailed and realistic simulator for vehicles military vehicles from the 1920's through to the cold war with 3 vehicle types across 3 game modes with numerous scenarios, interactive modes and a ton of scenarios as well as countless, varied, maps.
Meanwhile PGI shat out 4 new maps and rehashed some old ones, ignored the community, and then wonder why people are losing faith in them.

[Meep Meep]

Blood Rose, on 14 January 2023 - 03:21 PM, said:

>TL;DR PGI is wondering why player spending is down despite having done the bare minimal to develop the game in 11 years. In the same time Warthunder has gone from being a ww2 fighter simulator to being a detailed and realistic simulator for vehicles military vehicles from the 1920's through to the cold war with 3 vehicle types across 3 game modes with numerous scenarios, interactive modes and a ton of scenarios as well as countless, varied, maps.
Meanwhile PGI shat out 4 new maps and rehashed some old ones, ignored the community, and then wonder why people are losing faith in them.

Not even remotely fair to compare a game that has millions of players and billions in revenue to a niche mech based arena shooter that even at its peak of popularity didn't have but a fraction of the active paying player base.

[Blood Rose]

Meep Meep, on 14 January 2023 - 03:29 PM, said:

Not even remotely fair to compare a game that has millions of players and billions in revenue to a niche mech based arena shooter that even at its peak of popularity didn't have but a fraction of the active paying player base.

Yee, tis true. The difference is WT has had development and has a dev base that understands giving the players the bare minimal is not a good recipe for long term success. Meanwhile, MWO suffers from having a dev team that can not even really be described as skeletal any more.
It is one thing to be small and niche, it is another entirely to still have known bugs that were around in the beta phase of your product.