73 replies to this topic

[Moadebe]

Edited: I saw the comment. Updated to MW Next or MWNext? The future of PvP Mechwarrior combat.

Ok so. Came across this overnight.



Its going to get around eventually so figured Id toss it out there. Is it happening? No idea. Will it happen? No idea.

I will say this to PGI though...



Personally. There are a few things that would be cool to see.

MWO into Unreal 5 engine

Destructible terrain/buildings (dunno how possible this one is considering it could be draining on a machine)

Possibly have each side have npc vehicles to spice things up? (perhaps once dead someone could spectate said vehicles....or control them? How much of a slippery slope of bs could arise from such an implementation?)

Dynamically generated maps. (I still dont buy the static map argument in a pvp setting. Choose the biome of the map and let it fly imo. Would require actual thought and planning on the fly instead of go to X and shoot at Y cause this position strong. Still need convincing here on this one and its just a thought.)

What kinda monetization would we be looking at? All cosmetics? Perhaps even sound packs that change weapon and bitchin betty sounds? I know we would be looking at an updated and more modern monetization model. Just curiosity is all.

(and before anyone says it...probably never gonna see a transfer of your current stuff in MWO over to a new one. New one has to make money somehow and we gotta be realistic.)

What about game modes? What would be decent ones?

This is all just speculation and I felt that I would share this here to again spur on some conversation and get the community hyped.

Mostly...KEEP IT CIVIL. Got no need to resort to bsery when it should be a light hearted discussion about a potential successor to this game we are passionate about.



That all being said. What would you like to see in the future in a PVP mechwarrior game?

Edited by Moadebe, 16 February 2024 - 02:25 PM.

[JediPanther]

With pgi in charge of it I won't be interested in it at all. They had way too many chances with mwo,tons of feed back, people willing to work for free on making assets and code and they still messed up. They don't even have a team on the game;they gave it to their elite chosen lucky cauldron. The only thing a new mech warior pvp game I'd be interested in is a new developer.

[Duke Falcon]

The problem PGI would need to really - mean REALLY - need to work on that.
Because those whom played MWO 1.XY would basicly - and rightfully - assume that v2.XZ contains everything from MWO1 as a start. All the mechs, weapons, stuffs.
Some may even await a certain degree of "carry of items from old to new game" after grind years and bought stuffs.
And MWO vWhatever would suffer the same basic problem: BTverse is so huge and rich that convert it to an online game (where a pre-set story not limits the availability of equipments) means you need to include always new and new content because players and fans would want and ask (even pay sometimes) for their favourite mechs.
Just consider how many things missing in current MWO? Like IS omnis, Jihad-tech and other things. Lots of things.
The only way to do it more-or-less properly is to limit the timeframe. MWO basicly failed with the Clans and still struggle to balance two sides what meant seriously unbalanced... But if MWO2 would say: Hey, only up to 4.th Succession War's end! Well, maybe... Otherwise...
I myself long since want to see two eras of BT-port to PC: Star League's unification war and the early clan history (literally the first century of the Clans). Limited, well-designated boundaries of technology and equipments. Not a mess what just grows and floods your backyard like <**********>. Yeah, kinda...

[AnAnachronismAlive]

When it comes to content-progression / availability in a potential MWO2, there might be a somewhat simple solution: Tie available content (mechs, weapons, technology) to seasons that (somewhat) correspond to the lore-timeline.

So with each season (beneficial / reasonable timeframes for a season need to be discussed in that regard) there will be more mechs, variants, weapons and tech to toy with.

As long as PGI is able to deliver meaningful / interesting game-modes to keep folks occupied (especially a decent unit-system), it would kick me enough to be honest.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

• Specific pilot personalities associated to each mech, to give each mech more "personality". Can add some random comms chatter like Overwatch had, replace the comm rose with the unique pilot voices. Can add taunts similar to warhorns on kills or something.
  
• Encyclopedia to replace the wiki, ideally to keep track of historical patches (I love the idea of being able to track the changes across the years), especially if there are notes/tidbits about the meta during those times.
  
• Simplified mechlab, currently has a lot of complexity that has no impact on gameplay, but also limits the gimmicks that can be employed. The beauty of the MW4 mechlab was that hardpoints were arbitrary, want a heavy gauss in the CT of a mech? No problem. Special sections to help mechs with odd hitboxes? No problem. XL engines dying on side torso, hah, no more. Sized hardpoints to limit how many high mounts are abusable with large weapons? EZ
  
• I'd like to see the tonnage system revamped from TT as well, no more pseudo lights/mediums/etc. Those mechs either become what they were meant to be or are shifted to be more like their weight class. Shrink the gap between the mechs too, lights like the locust should not be so small, but should also have more firepower/armor as a trade off while some assaults should probably get shrunk down a bit to reduce how easy it is to isolate sections but also increase the minimum maneuverability of them to increase the pacing of rotations (which are painfully slow in this game).
  
• Cosmetics are the only thing paywalled, no more heroes or mech packs where new mechs are paywalled for 6 months.
  
• Better map design

More interesting idea is how you make mechs more interesting as you steadily add them to the game. A problem a lot of hero shooters have. My initial thought is to group mechs into factions and pull a Magic the Gathering where each season is focused on 2-4 factions that are allowed in ranked/competitive and your team must pick a faction. This way you can introduce potentially "redundant" mechs with different styles by tying them to different factions and comp/ranked with the faction rotations can stay somewhat new each season. No more tech bases, just factions.

[East Indy]

Get the basics right from the start, and even deathmatch will be endlessly fun.

Use lessons learned from MWO's balance and gameplay struggles. Think about why gamers would pick this game over an FPS or tank sim. Don't just port BT rules again and call it a day.

Compensate for geometry. Implement diminishing returns in a manner more intuitive and less loopholed than Heat Scale. Get players out into the open more, valuing endurance and consistency over twitch. Make this game hard to solve, so players have more than a powercreep purchasable to draw them back every week.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

East Indy, on 11 February 2024 - 09:59 AM, said:

Get players out into the open more, valuing endurance and consistency over twitch.

This game isn't about twitch in the first place. What you are talking about is making cover less impactful meaning the game becomes more about mindlessly W keying into the enemy and brawling than actually tactical.

In other words the difference between R6:Siege and Counterstrike vs Call of Duty or other more generic arena shooters.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 11 February 2024 - 10:10 AM.

[East Indy]

Quicksilver Aberration, on 11 February 2024 - 10:05 AM, said:

.

A thread like this is going to be of way more value to PGI as feedback/sentiment than Quicksilver Aberration's debating points on every, little thing he disagrees with

[Quicksilver Aberration]

East Indy, on 11 February 2024 - 10:10 AM, said:

A thread like this is going to be of way more value to PGI as feedback/sentiment

No it isn't because these forums don't even represent the population's sentiment anyway. Nor does it represent potentially target markets that don't even play this game.

PGI never really cared about these forums (Russ listened to twitter more than these forums), I don't think them making an MWO2 is going to change that.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 11 February 2024 - 10:12 AM.

[feeWAIVER]

repair and rearm.

[torsie]

Lasers pointing backwards!

[Void Angel]

Salt Miners incoming! They haven't found the thread yet, but they'll be here. Thus, I shall greet them!

First, we should notice that Daeron didn't say they were working on MWO2. He said "PvP Mechwarrior game," which can mean a number of things, including a single-player game with PvP modes, or a PvP expansion to an existing franchise. But assuming that they're talking about something that's at least basically like MWO2, there's a few reasons that grabbing our torches and pitchforks to sally forth from the Salt Mines is premature...

There's an adage that you can define insanity as "doing the same thing, in the same way, under the same circumstances, over and over - fully expecting a different result this time." Which is neat and all, but that's not what's under speculation here. An MWO2 would be trying the same thing under significantly changed parameters:

• Different game engine. This one is huge; there is no way the netcode should have taken as long to fix as it did - it shouldn't have been broken in the first place for a major game engine, and they should have gotten better support from Crytek. The ability to chose a decent engine is literally a game-changer.
  
• Different publisher. It's... interesting that people who will cry forever, and be inconsolably angry about this or that feature removal, will simply forget the unmitigated, goat-roping monkey circus that was Infinite Games Publishing, who focused on their "Mechwarrior Tactics" gacha game at MWO's expense. IGP can't simply be blamed for all of MWO's problems, but their influence affected development, and EG7 will, too.
  
• Different people. Sure, [insert whichever person(s) you're still angry at] is still at PGI, but there's been a lot of turnover over the years - this is normal for businesses; it's called "churn." No matter what armchair quarterbacking we care to do, the fact is that the team is different now, so the odds of success are not the same.

So what I'd really, really like to see from a Mechwarrior Online 2 are:

• Hire a board game designer to design the faction warfare overgame, and use a season system. It basically is a giant board game we're all playing (mostly by substituting for dice rolls,) and I think their experience would both be fungible to MWO and lend uniqueness to the mode. Things like catchup mechanics and asymmetric victory conditions would make the overgame more fun. And for the love of Blake, limit unit sizes this time. =]
  
• potentially some increases in game depth; for example, it may not be possible to make it work well (for the same reasons it was taken out of MWO,) but I like the idea of delayed convergence. It just makes the game more thoughtful, and that's neat.
  
• General freaking social options. It's both odd and inhibiting to not have a general chat where people can shoot the breeze between matches (let us talk while loading, by the way,) and it relegates community to the forums and Discord.

PS: repair and rearm is a terrible mechanic in quickplay. It could work well in faction warfare, however, and I'd love to see it there.

[Tarl Cabot]

Void Angel, on 11 February 2024 - 11:22 AM, said:

Salt Miners incoming! They haven't found the thread yet, but they'll be here. Thus, I shall greet them!

First, we should notice that Daeron didn't say they were working on MWO2. He said "PvP Mechwarrior game," which can mean a number of things, including a single-player game with PvP modes, or a PvP expansion to an existing franchise. But assuming that they're talking about something that's at least basically like MWO2, there's a few reasons that grabbing our torches and pitchforks to sally forth from the Salt Mines is premature...

snip

This part. The real question would be, why make a MWO2 with its overhead (servers, etc) when there is the potential of adding add PVP to the MW5 series? And I can see them definitely going that route when it comes time to close down MWO servers. And no, I am not looking forward to that, but I will take my enjoyment where I can, while I can.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 11 February 2024 - 12:55 PM.

[Sjorpha]

I hope they do and have learned a lot from the mistakes with MWO.

I think carrying over complete accounts is unreasonable, especially because there is going to be a lot of MWO mechs missing at launch. However I do think it would be a good idea to give former MWO players a starting bonus based on their purchases in MWO, in order to motivate the community to switch over to the new game and reward old players for returning. This I would say is one area where PGI has done very good in MWO, they are generous with bonuses, loyalty rewards and so on.

I have a few wishes.

1. That PGI resists any form of P2W monetisation, there should be no in game competitive advantage from paying real money. I think MWO has been ok on that front for the most part, hero mechs are for the most part balanced to the same standards as other mechs. But there has been a few problems, most serious was the original consumables where the MC ones were more powerful than the c-bill ones.

2. That scaling is done properly from the start this time with a set algorithm. It's reasonable to assume a little higher density for lighter mechs, but then make that a linear curve that we can understand rather than the arbitrarily big and small variants we have now. Also make the environment mostly human scale both in terms of buildings and trees etc, allow the mechs to feel as big as they are.

3. Variable gravity with most maps being close to earth gravity. Even MW2 had different gravity for different planets, and when you were on missions in space like the ice asteroid you even had to be careful not to jumpjet too high. This also contributes to the sense of scale. One of the reasons MWO mechs don't feel big is because they don't have the inertia that such a huge machine would have on earth. It's also a missed opportunity for tactical diversity since different mechs and jumpjets would have different advantages in different gravity settings.

3. Launch the game with functioning solo, group and competitive team options from the start. Definitely don't launch it with only solo deathmatch like MWO was.

4. Community warfare. IF you do something like this, establish very clearly that it is the mode directed towards the part of the community that wants to build units, roleplay space politics, organise large teams and generally invest more into the game than just grinding solo.

Also this time start simple and expand the features over time, don't do it like MWO where you started with an overreach and grand promises and then gradually gave up and reduced the game mode into fewer and fewer features.

This time don't treat large units, engaged community initiatives and invested players as enemies the way you did in MWO CW. Also don't treat successful macrogaming as a problem, let one faction defeat another and leave reviving it to the players. Let us shape the galaxy. Don't do resets, the constant resets of the map in MWO phase 2 and 3 was super demoralising for the CW community and only harmed the player retention.

If you DON'T do community warfare, make sure to give the players good private lobby tools to create a variety of scenarios and team setups and so forth.

5. Don't change what people like about MWO. There is a lot of good things about MWO that you should keep. The general feel and flow of combat, the controls, the "smurfy" style mechlab, the mech designs, the 1 life per mech (you could introduce dropdecks to more game modes though) and some other things.

6. Add lore based descriptions to everything. One big problem with MWO is that there is nothing to read or find out about the battletech world through the game. You should be able to read the backstory of a mech or weapon in the game, as well as planets on the map and so forth.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Void Angel, on 11 February 2024 - 11:22 AM, said:

• Hire a board game designer to design the faction warfare overgame, and use a season system. It basically is a giant board game we're all playing (mostly by substituting for dice rolls,) and I think their experience would both be fungible to MWO and lend uniqueness to the mode. Things like catchup mechanics and asymmetric victory conditions would make the overgame more fun. And for the love of Blake, limit unit sizes this time. =]

Sjorpha, on 11 February 2024 - 01:02 PM, said:

4. Community warfare. IF you do something like this, establish very clearly that it is the mode directed towards the part of the community that wants to build units, roleplay space politics, organise large teams and generally invest more into the game than just grinding solo.

Also this time start simple and expand the features over time, don't do it like MWO where you started with an overreach and grand promises and then gradually gave up and reduced the game mode into fewer and fewer features.

This time don't treat large units, engaged community initiatives and invested players as enemies the way you did in MWO CW. Also don't treat successful macrogaming as a problem, let one faction defeat another and leave reviving it to the players. Let us shape the galaxy. Don't do resets, the constant resets of the map in MWO phase 2 and 3 was super demoralising for the CW community and only harmed the player retention.

If you DON'T do community warfare, make sure to give the players good private lobby tools to create a variety of scenarios and team setups and so forth.

I can only hope they don't try to do CW/FW/FP again. Like I said in either another thread or discord, AAA studios can't even do persistent universes well what makes anyone think PGI can?
Not to mention the most successful persistent universe is probably EvE, and that game's community was literally excited for excel integration.....is that what we really think will draw players in? IMO, the answer is no. It's better to just do like Sjorpha mentions and give us solid private match capability so third party leagues can fill that niche where needed.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 11 February 2024 - 01:14 PM.

[Void Angel]

We're not talking about a persistent universe; we're talking about Alterac Valley, writ large. Use a season system, and set up victory conditions. You could vary the conditions by season, and experiment with giving different factions their own conditions or subconditions. There's a lot of permutations we could conjecture about, but the core take-away is this: board games aren't a persistent universe - you can play them over and over, possibly trying different things, and a well-made game will still be fun. That's doable.

Private match capability? Excellent! We should do that too, so it's easier for things like Run Hot or Die to be run completely by the player base if people want to do it.

[Novakaine]

I think they already have it with MW5.
Just need the netcode for massive multi-player.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Void Angel, on 11 February 2024 - 01:42 PM, said:

We're not talking about a persistent universe; we're talking about Alterac Valley, writ large. Use a season system, and set up victory conditions. You could vary the conditions by season, and experiment with giving different factions their own conditions or subconditions.

I mean you can spin it in different ways, whether the universe is reset "seasonally" or not, but you are talking about the existence of state beyond a leaderboard. There are so many factors at play it just seems better to avoid it entirely and just have very simple events like Tukayyid where it's just two sides against each other and you pick a side and go into a queue. Pretty much something like the current event queue could solve. The event queue was what FP/CW/Solaris/etc should've been all along.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 11 February 2024 - 02:23 PM.

[Bud Crue]

Given the history of PGI's interactions with the community (aside: the fact that I have had to explain that my signature quote from Russ is used with the most extreme snark and sarcasm and not some sort of testament to Russ being all about the community, suggests that at least some forum goers are not aware of that history) it is pointless to express your hopes and dreams for the next, as of now, still very much theoretical next iteration of this game. The decision making devs traditionally avoided the forums whenever possible, and when they did pay some attention here it was rarely to get any sort of constructive input on content or features.

Anyway, we are not even at the fake video mock-up phase or the misleading PowerPoint presentation phase. We're not even at the this could actually happen phase.

For all we know we are only at the Daeron heard from some dude with EG7 connections about the possibility of renewing the license, and he thought "if that happened wouldn't it be cool if they went forward with MWO2.0? I'm gonna call Paul and Russ and see if they heard anything about this!" phase. Seriously, until we know significantly more, its pointless to get your hopes up.

Russ once made it clear that community input is not something they want, and when they are willing to pretend to care what you want, they will host a round table or two where you can share your thoughts and desires, which will be promptly and completely ignored.

Now then, with all that negativity being expressed, I hope this is real, that they are serious about making a MWO 2, and that if it becomes a reality, it is a good game worthy of all your hopes.

Edited by Bud Crue, 11 February 2024 - 02:24 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Yeah, if we were being honest with ourselves, if they wanted feedback they would do something akin to what DnD did and it didn't involve forums: https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/ua