- Legendary mechs - while certainly being a somewhat logical progression beyond "Hero mechs" are a bit of a concern to me on several levels:
- Some of the existing "Hero mechs" - regardless of their strength within the "meta" of this game - are actually what should have been "Legendary mechs" in the first place: St. Ives Blue (to a lesser degree), Yen-Lo-Wang (the most legendary mech in the entire lore), Bounty Hunter, Dragon Slayer (debatable) and Heavy Metal. In turn the name Widowmaker should have been a legendary version for the Dire Wolf not a Warhammer (Natasha Kerensky's Warhammer IIRC did not ever carry that name).
- While I can generally apprechiate the idea of the mini battle passes not expiring they also seem to put some form of limitation on those legendary mechs being made available via MC at a later time. Additionally C-Bill purchase for the legendary version is definitely out of the question just like with normal heros but ultimately you'll have to consider C-Bill availabe variants with the same hardpoint layouts as those Legendary mechs or you'll invite "pay 2 win" and "oppressive monetization tactics on a 'dead' game" accusations.
- While you guys managed quite well to avoid actual "pay 2 win" with all the heros so far I'm not too sure about the "outlier quirks" not opening that path as well.
- While I certainly do respect the work that the Cauldron puts into the game I also have mixed feelings about them being responsible for setting those Legendary mechs up because no matter how much they try to be "unbiased" as much as possible they still are shaping the current meta of this game and it's a good bet to expect that those Legendary mechs will either be shaped directly around said meta or turn out as "useless" as some of the existing Hero mechs by being even weaker than current non-meta mechs just to compensate for their "outlier quirk".
- Some of the existing "Hero mechs" - regardless of their strength within the "meta" of this game - are actually what should have been "Legendary mechs" in the first place: St. Ives Blue (to a lesser degree), Yen-Lo-Wang (the most legendary mech in the entire lore), Bounty Hunter, Dragon Slayer (debatable) and Heavy Metal. In turn the name Widowmaker should have been a legendary version for the Dire Wolf not a Warhammer (Natasha Kerensky's Warhammer IIRC did not ever carry that name).
- Sorry Matt, but the subtitle "Legends" doesn't give me any feeling of the game experiencing progression / going forward and reverting to just "Mechwarrior online" wouldn't give me the feeling of a regression. I also perceive it as an attempt to further delegitamize "Mechwarrior: Living Legends" without going after the project directly. Since you also intend to bring new weapon systems to the table I'd suggest looking for a new subtitle that reflects on that rather than those Legendary mechs. Maybe a reference to the BT timeline where those new weapons came into play?
Mwo 2023 Plans Devlog
#41
Posted 14 January 2023 - 07:22 AM
#42
Posted 14 January 2023 - 07:23 AM
C337Skymaster, on 14 January 2023 - 06:18 AM, said:
Edited by KursedVixen, 14 January 2023 - 07:24 AM.
#43
Posted 14 January 2023 - 07:52 AM
Will this be a single battle? or the 6 battle robin you que for? Hoping it can be single battle.
Will there be an option for single drop deck FP...event or otherwise?
I am a live in carer so anything longer than 15min can be a challenge/risk...and apologise for the times I have to go afk. Hopefully this helps others who might have similar circumstances.
I have not done FP yet because I do not want to risk wrecking a potential 2hr game for others, and bailed on starting Solaris when I realised you had to be in que for 6 battles for the same reasons.
At least there is always QP.
Loved the event fun, look forward to more.
Concerned that the Legends battle format sounds expensive?...or is this going to be something like an optional $5 per month subscription style? and the specials are won as rewards?...or every month an expensive pack to buy?
#44
Posted 14 January 2023 - 08:00 AM
C337Skymaster, on 14 January 2023 - 06:10 AM, said:
Yep Living Legends was 1st thing that came into my mind after seeing this on video.
#45
Posted 14 January 2023 - 08:23 AM
Edited by Iridium Fallout, 14 January 2023 - 08:43 AM.
#46
Posted 14 January 2023 - 08:40 AM
MechB Kotare, on 14 January 2023 - 06:41 AM, said:
Yes i know. Been here from the start. Doesnt change the fact that its a bad design and needs to be redesigned, if not completely removed. Forcing 24 players to fight for a choke point is bad. Having a high wall, with only limited possibilities to fire above is bad, having only two accessible paths (without JJs) is bad. Theres absolutely no wonder why FP's lost interest, ''original'' design was flawed, and thats why they added quick play assets with respawns to it. It was just too late. Siege idea failed once, should not be expanded on.
I won't deny that some of the Siege maps need to be redesigned, but to completely remove them and leave only the select QP maps. Might as well just can the whole FP at that point. I know a lot of guys who left FP back in the day had the same viewpoint as Skymaster (no real point or incentive to play the mode). Yes maps became stale...especially due to the fact that 2 or 3 of the Siege maps came up the vast majority of the time. Before some of the QP maps came into the mode, I would play Siege for a few hours (about 50% solo/50 grouped). The vast majority of the games I would get Boreal Vault, or Helebore. Which are probably the two worst Siege maps based on the chokepoint complaints. I think the 2 best Siege maps were Emerald & Vitric (choke points weren't nearly as bad) but those rarely were the maps played, and usually only if you had a good amount of players active in FP that day. I'm actually surprised Skymaster didn't bring Boreal up for his choice for reworked chokepoints. Most guys would not play faction attack if they knew they were getting Boreal, and back when it was those zone circles you pretty much could tell what map was coming up in the next drop.
As I mentioned in my earlier post, what killed faction for me, was just getting the same map over and over. It's my same complaint for QP, when sometimes the same map selection of 4 comes up 3x in a row. People tend to vote for the same maps. I think any game mode gets boring & stale getting the same map 3, 4 times in a row.
Getting rid of Siege maps/mode...honestly that would kill FP for me. Especially since you don't get all the QP maps in that mode, I believe PGI said some of the QP maps were too small to incorporate in FP. So we really only get the big QP maps, and the radomization of the QP FP maps tends to drop you into the same maps time after time if you play consecutive matches. 3x Respawn on Polar, Alpine, Terra, Forest, Frozen, and HPG the thought makes me want to slit my wrists.
In response to MechB Kotare, if you don't want to play Siege mode...if I'm not mistaken after a few hours (maybe it's 1/2 way) into the 8 hour FP windows, you are pushed into the non-siege modes (if FP has been active enough), at that point you have no chance of playing a Siege map(except if the other Faction wins enough to push it back into Siege, but once it's moved that far into QP maps it's pretty much done for that window). You could try a FP QP drop without having to worry about playing Siege. At the very least you are able to click on the FP tab in game and see the mode it's in. So if Siege is your biggest hangup with FP, you can find FP drops, that you know will be a QP map for sure before you are committed to the drop. As long as you happen to be online during those points in the FP windows.
Edited by Crashburn, 14 January 2023 - 08:44 AM.
#47
Posted 14 January 2023 - 08:41 AM
Iridium Fallout, on 14 January 2023 - 08:23 AM, said:
I don't think they can, because of technical limitations. Honestly melee would be great in a PvP game like this, I just don't think they can actually do it in this engine.
#48
Posted 14 January 2023 - 08:46 AM
I agree with an earlier sentiment that the balance of the game is the best it has ever been. Though I wish that brawling wasn't punished by the sniper meta, especially on weekends/holiday when I generally have more time to play. I believe that rewarding multiple play styles might be the hardest to balance...
I am happy to continue to support this game, but honestly I have not been too terribly interested in purchasing the Platinum packs. $20 to buy four mechs that I already own with a new paint job and an event --- just doesn't seem to be a good value for me. If it were less expensive, perhaps, but still maybe not. Meh. However, what if instead of purchasing a "battle pass" to get a completely new variant of a chassis (that might coincidentally break the balance of the game or not work at all or be viewed as P2W), you give the player some "agency" to designate an existing variant of a given chassis as "Legendary"? This could grant them the ability to get a specialized paint job or pattern, cockpit items, decals, (limited) unique quirks or extra nodes in the skill tree, plus a C-bill and XP bonus. I say "grant them the ability" because they wouldn't necessarily get that all up front - but instead would open up the opportunity for them to obtain these items (and perhaps additional rewards like MC, etc.) in an event. That would be value, both to the player who is getting these items but also to MWO because it is incentivizing players to play the game. Please just don't make the battle pass cost prohibitive. If it is the right price for the value, you will see broader support from the community.
On the idea of a MWO2, sign me up! Keep in mind that any successor to MWO has big shoes to fill. There is no game like it. The successor shouldn't just be a cosmetic upgrade - though that will be huge. Please don't take away the mech lab or the skill tree but please do address some of these "opportunities" for improvement like scale, hit boxes, hard points, match maker, game modes (objectives should matter too), etc. Simplifying things such as XP or GSP and making the game easier for players unfamiliar to the Battletech Universe would also be important. How about a "simple mode/advanced mode option (like some cell phones)? In simple mode the player gets a fully equipped (one or two weapon system) mech and as they gain XP it automatically assigns skill nodes. In advanced mode, the player gets the ability to customize all that. It might help newer players introduction to the game and will still satisfy long-time players.
In the meantime, thank you for the occasional new chassis, new map / map upgrades, events, etc. These are helping MWO to stay somewhat fresh. Thank you also for taking the time to communicate with us and for considering all of this input. Have fun weeding through it all! I for one am optimistic about 2023 and the future of Mechwarrior PvP.
Edited by BigSpam, 14 January 2023 - 08:50 AM.
#49
Posted 14 January 2023 - 08:55 AM
Curccu, on 14 January 2023 - 03:26 AM, said:
MM isn't just working well right now for example Yesterday dropped with two friends of mine, we are all high T1 players and MM added other group of two with high T1 players to our side, I recognized zero formidable players in opposing side....from seeing that screen I already knew ot was going to be bad stomp and it was 12-0. Moving those two really good players to other side there might have been a battle instead of slaughter.
I agree, this happens a lot. I'm a tier 1 player that plays solo QP a lot...and this happens all the time, one side has 6 or 7 known players and the other side not so much. It's laughable, when I can look at the names on each team before every drop and correctly predict which team will win and when/if it's going to be a 12-2 (12-1, 12-0) roll.
My guess is the MM looks at groups as 1 entity instead of the individual players within the group. So MM probably looked at the 2 groups as 2 Tier 1's instead of 4, and then maybe the other team in your drop did have 2 solo tier 1 players, just names you didn't recognize. Still you have the disparity because in actuality your team has 4 Tier 1's because you have 2 groups and the other sides Tier 1's were solo's perhaps.
Edited by Crashburn, 14 January 2023 - 08:56 AM.
#50
Posted 14 January 2023 - 09:07 AM
C337Skymaster, on 14 January 2023 - 06:10 AM, said:
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Also, according to Ash, only two members of Cauldron knew anything about it so PGI's claim that they discussed the mechs with the Cauldron is at best disingenuous.
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FWIW, I'd expect the Standard versions of these variants to come with the lore loadout.
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#51
Posted 14 January 2023 - 09:11 AM
#52
Posted 14 January 2023 - 09:24 AM
I honestly don't see much in MWO's future. The only way people are going to want to spend more money is if they never spent much on this game yet, aka, new players. And I don't know what you'd need to do to bring in new players. You need to find the biggest friction points and then address them. And advertise. I can't tell you how obnoxiously I see ads for Hero Wars. Those ads are everywhere. But this game is complicated if you're not familiar with BT. I don't think you can really simply it for them without just making a new game and designing that in to begin with.
#53
Posted 14 January 2023 - 09:29 AM
MechWarrior itself does have a future, I'd say. Even before all the meta/MMO stuff, though, it has to refocus against challenges of PVP games and how they impact expectation and reality -- especially for new players/markets. It'll take back-to-basics questions of "What is BattleTech/MechWarrior?" Slow pace? Fast pace? Long range? Grand melees most of the time? Unless the goal is to bring back the same tiny crowd, it'll be worth rejecting the premise of "it's always been this way."
Edited by East Indy, 14 January 2023 - 09:29 AM.
#54
Posted 14 January 2023 - 09:39 AM
Wraith 1, on 13 January 2023 - 07:52 PM, said:
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I'm not convinced allowing players to join matches that are already in progress is possible with PGI's current tech.
C337Skymaster, on 14 January 2023 - 05:31 AM, said:
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TheCaptainJZ, on 14 January 2023 - 09:24 AM, said:
Edited by Horseman, 14 January 2023 - 09:43 AM.
#55
Posted 14 January 2023 - 10:02 AM
i think you need to figure out how to market content to those who have never bought a mech pack before rather than relying on the whales. if legendary mechs were to allow new players to grind mc and unlock all the other content with some grind, that might be more conductive to turn f2p players into contributors. for the whales set it up so that every time you buy content in the web store, you get a permanent discount towards future web store purchases on the same account. this would be cumulative the more you buy (though with a minimum so you still have to pay for stuff). the value proposition goes down the more stuff you have.
market the battle passes as an alternative to individual purchases. you should be able to grind all in-game currencies with them, and make them stack with premium time, if its not going to be a full replacement of it. premium time has never really had much value to me as an in store purchase.
that said if you add new weapons, it will bring me back to the game in a significantly more involved way. and if its tied to a specific pack i will probibly make a purchase to show my gratitude. i kind of wish the weapon model system was more dynamic though, rather than based on static submodels as part of the mechs. would make it a lot easier to add new ones, make possible the sale of premium weapons with *** for tat tweaks, faction-specific variants, or different effects/colors. and you can make distinct models for every gun, laser, and missile. if thats not possible, make it a request for mwo2.
i would also prefer to put the f2p model to bed in future mw games. even if i was able to port all my purchases i still wouldn't want the f2p baggage. id rather have sequels coming out every couple years than ongoing purchases on a stale game that sees no real core updates. you could have a common core built on an engine with long term upgrade path. thus each sequel could share code assets and still get the upgrades that come with the most recent engine version. this will give the game a more polished look and might attract more new players than a game that frankly looks like it was made in 2009. mw5 is of course a good starting point for this. build something that is both upgradable and easy to maintain. seeing the trouble mwo has had with its code base.
#56
Posted 14 January 2023 - 10:09 AM
#57
Posted 14 January 2023 - 10:13 AM
MechWarrior Online Legends ==> propose change to: MechWarrior: The Remembrance Trials
MechWarrior: Living Legends
==========================
Above two titles are far too close, may well result in a lawsuit that EG7/Piranha/MWO may well lose (especially since MechWarrior: Living Legends is already a registered trademark).
==========================
Propose: MechWarrior: The Remembrance Trials
Edited by w0qj, 14 January 2023 - 06:13 PM.
#58
Posted 14 January 2023 - 11:11 AM
#59
Posted 14 January 2023 - 11:52 AM
C337Skymaster, on 14 January 2023 - 06:10 AM, said:
Wait, these "legend" 'mechs are built by the Cauldron?! Hell no!!! Firstly, you've seen how the Champion mechs that were built around the meta of the time have aged over the years. Secondly, this game has been faithful to the record sheets and the lore over the years, and this is no time to break with that tradition. I have very little faith or trust in this "Cauldron" to be true to the spirit of MechWarrior, as they have demonstrated repeatedly since they took control.
Gonna speak out in defense of Cauldron here, but translating the Lore and TT origins of Battletech to a Competitive online game is going to require "sacrificing the spirit of Mechwarrior" to achieve balance.
Otherwise Direwolves would just annihilate every other mech in the game, and nobody would play light mechs because they'd be destroyed by a single gauss hit. In this regard, Cauldron has done wonders for preserving balance, whether you agree with their changes or not. Cauldron's "Top Down" approach to balance can be tricky to understand to players not within the top 1%, but despite most players not being able to comprehend why the Ice Ferret hasn't giga buffed to all hell, the changes have mostly been healthy for game.
Regardless of whether you like the Cauldron or not, they've done more good for MWO than they've done wrong. Without them, we wouldn't have new weapons and mechs incoming. So unless peak MWO for you was maintenance mode, you mght wanna weigh in on their contributions.
#60
Posted 14 January 2023 - 11:58 AM
1) Legends will work. Why? Simply because the name is shortened to Legends, not Living Legends.
2) The new classification of the next `Mech variant should be Legendary, not just Legend.
3) Lastly, the new `Mech chassis is none other than then Phoenix Hawk IIC.
As to what I'd like to see in the new MWO:
1) Ticket system, just like the old MechWarrior 4 system.
2) Revamp the faction maps. Some are in dire need of a remake/re-imagination.
3) We still lack skins for Diamond Shark, Nova Cat, and Steel Viper. For crying out loud!!! Give us the damn skins already!!
Other than the above, I'd love to see a better que system, and a PVP type challenge system like the one used by MechWarrior 3 did. Boy, those were days! Whereas teams can challenge each other for ladder battles, not just for Faction play, either. I miss the Star Lance League, and how teams would simply challenge each other for resources and prestige, etc. We definitely need a ladder system in MWO. It'd be nice to see that in the game and be used to improve gameplay, and it'll give new players a chance to improve themselves as well. A revamp Solaris would definitely benefit from a ladder system. Just saying.
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