213 replies to this topic

[LordNothing]

Quicksilver Aberration, on 19 July 2025 - 02:23 PM, said:

I think this is what keeps people around these days for better or worse and it's certainly better than a year or two with basically nothing in patches.

nothing will kill the game faster than skipping the regular patch cycle. even if its a little sparse, it still shows that someone behind the scene is still pushing bits around.

that one patch that was a month late was kind of a death scare and started all this talk of game death. dont do that.

Edited by LordNothing, 19 July 2025 - 02:31 PM.

[MechMaster059]

Quicksilver Aberration, on 19 July 2025 - 02:16 PM, said:

...

Again, by the time the cauldron took over the player base had already gone down to half of what it was at steam launch with the maintenance era being the worst of times. Maintenance era lacking any content or serious changes clearly showed what can hurt a game but the stream of content was still only slowing the bleeding, not growing.

No one is talking about getting the player count back up to where it was at game launch. That's totally unrealistic for such and old game and therefor a strawman argument.

The subject of this thread is how to stop the game from DYING. The point of my post was existing balance issues have caused some weapons/components to become de facto junk and that when these kinds of issues aren't fixed, it's an ominous sign of a game's decay.

Now you can sit there and deny the obvious, as you always do, or say "Why bother?" but this isn't actually helpful. You're not contributing to any kind of solution, as usual.

[a 5 year old with an Uzi]

I am genuinely impressed with the look of the SHD IIC and it's kind of amazing that someone is there slapping together bits to make things like the Bane and SHD IIC (which looks remarkably distinct from its IS twin) given all the other factors. The Gauntlet and Black Hawk KU may have been more on the easy asset swap side but the SHD looks distinct from its progenitor chassis and slick

If MWO is really on death's doorstep it feels like someone is investing enough money to pay a very competent modeler/rigger to animate a corpse, no?

[Meep Meep]

1453 R, on 19 July 2025 - 06:46 AM, said:

Ignoring the deeply transmisiac undertones of the rest of that...why not?

Why can't it be "just because"?

Why do LGBTQ+ people need an extra special reason to exist within the fiction? Why can't they just, y'know...exist. Because they do.

We're not some mutant, radioactive aberration that needs a long-winded backstory to explain. We exist.

Nor is any of this relevant to Pride. As Quicksilver has said, trying to sever all ties with reality so as to avoid offending a single soul is a pointless fool's errand. BattleTech is fundamentally dirty, messy and offendable - you've got insane honor-before-everything weeaboo pseudosamurai, craven cowardly Yeller People whose entire identity is being sneaky backstabbing jerks, a whole Successor State of Hans, Frans, Jans, und Schmidtt too dumb to know everyone else is making fun of them, whatever the bleedin' 'ells is going on with the Free Worlds League, and a nation that spent twenty IRL years and most of a century in-'verse being the written embodiment of 'MURICA F*** YEAH. Not to mention the warmongering cult weirdoes from Beyond The Stars and their various forms of jihadi nonsense. Either you're all in on the schlock and able to laugh at the stereotypes or this ain't the IP for you.

What does transmisiac mean? I'm assuming its some sort of negative but all a search turns up is 'did you mean transmission?' and I ain't going to make that joke..

In reply to 'just because' yes there has to be a reason to include anything? You want to amend a script or ip etc the ones running the show are immediately going to ask 'why' and 'what is the entry vector to include it' every single time. Thats how you do things in entertainment media be it shows or movies or games etc. No manager or director is going to go okie dokie if your entire reasoning is just because.

As to the rest eat a snickers and chill. No one here has posted a single sentence or word that says you don't exist or have the right to exist in real life. However because you exist in real life doesn't mean you automatically exist in fake made up sci fi life? You understand the difference right? Also how would you portray a gay or trans in bt universe? Sexual orientation I don't think ever comes up along with romance etc? It's all grand conspiracy and inter house intrigue and pew pew mechs. How would anyone tell that the pilot of a mech was gay or trans? Does being that grant some special mech power straights don't have? There has to be a reason to highlight a persons sexual orientation in an ip and I just don't see sex at all in the bt ip?

As to the ~rest~ of the rest of your post then make a pitch on how gays and trans would be included? They get their own world or are they part of a specific houses population or is it everywhere even in the clans? Sell the idea!

edit: Here is an example.

https://www.goodread...-spartan-planet

I read this a long time ago and its basically a story about a lost planet of gay men. It's seriously written(well as serious as 60's pulp sci fi gets) and uses logic and reasoning to explain how a lost planet of gay men could flourish and grow. Good read.

a 5 year old with an Uzi, on 19 July 2025 - 02:45 PM, said:

I am genuinely impressed with the look of the SHD IIC and it's kind of amazing that someone is there slapping together bits to make things like the Bane and SHD IIC (which looks remarkably distinct from its IS twin) given all the other factors. The Gauntlet and Black Hawk KU may have been more on the easy asset swap side but the SHD looks distinct from its progenitor chassis and slick

If MWO is really on death's doorstep it feels like someone is investing enough money to pay a very competent modeler/rigger to animate a corpse, no?

I don't think the game is on deaths doorstep but its certainly in its late autumn years heading into winter. Server upkeep for the small amount of daily active players isn't expensive especially when taking into consideration the 30hz tick which is very low impact. They probably have several game instances per server reducing cost even more. Cauldron is basically free so no cost for balance updates other than what time it takes to translate their changes into the games code and patch it in. The biggest outlying cost are the new mechs and even that isn't too expensive and small amount of sales will recoop that. EG7 also is a specialized company that nurses along small pop but still active games as as long as mwo is in the black and making some measure of profit then its will stick around. Plus we haven't even got to the point they open the floodgates and allow all tiers to see each other. At the moment its really only t1 that is having any low pop issues with waits with the rest of the tiers still getting reasonably fast matching.

Edited by Meep Meep, 19 July 2025 - 05:35 PM.

[LordNothing]

MechMaster059, on 19 July 2025 - 02:33 PM, said:

No one is talking about getting the player count back up to where it was at game launch. That's totally unrealistic for such and old game and therefor a strawman argument.

The subject of this thread is how to stop the game from DYING. The point of my post was existing balance issues have caused some weapons/components to become de facto junk and that when these kinds of issues aren't fixed, it's an ominous sign of a game's decay.

Now you can sit there and deny the obvious, as you always do, or say "Why bother?" but this isn't actually helpful. You're not contributing to any kind of solution, as usual.

you cant reverse entropy. best we can do is delay the inevitable.

[a 5 year old with an Uzi]

Re: new weapons and weapon balance, XPulse does not seem like the biggest offender at all to me. I am far from an extremely competent player, and XPulse seem to be nasty in the right hands in the right chassis but

BLCs seem like they have relegated Large Lasers to edge case unless I am missing something. They have worse DPH and longer duration but the ton and E hardpoint saved seems like a REALLY GOOD trade for whole hog laser vomit approach whereas Large Laser sits in that "I want a LL HSL specifically" or "I cannot afford the exposure required for that full burn" area. Maybe I'm missing something critical here.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

MechMaster059, on 19 July 2025 - 02:33 PM, said:

The subject of this thread is how to stop the game from DYING.

So delaying the inevitable? Yeah, that's pretty much content that's doing that, if they had never come back from maintenance mode, this game would in fact be dead. The mechs/weapons being added at a somewhat decent pace combined with the balance passes help keep this game from feeling like a ghost town.

As for balance and it's impact to the game's "health". You're making some pretty large presumptions:

• The thing causing player churn is game balance
  
• The thing turning away new players we do get is game balance
  
• Fixing game balance will stop players leaving regardless of newness or not

These are all pretty huge assumptions considering again, balance is often a scapegoat for other problems (like just not learning how to play the game) and you didn't even touch on any of the ones that people most vocally complain about: light mechs.

a 5 year old with an Uzi, on 20 July 2025 - 07:43 AM, said:

Re: new weapons and weapon balance, XPulse does not seem like the biggest offender at all to me. I am far from an extremely competent player, and XPulse seem to be nasty in the right hands in the right chassis but

Well too be fair x-pulse and beams aren't AS good in QP as they are in comp, but they are hardly awful. Though both LXPL/Beam nerfs did hurt their usage a bit but I definitely still use beams for certain mechs/situations (Incubus/Shadow Cat are still dangerous with beams). Regardless, it's a red herring (not that they would know what's most effective anyway).

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 20 July 2025 - 09:04 AM.

[MechMaster059]

a 5 year old with an Uzi, on 20 July 2025 - 07:43 AM, said:

... XPulse does not seem like the biggest offender at all to me.

In terms of lack of play usage, you're wrong, X-Pulse Lasers are a MAJOR offender. They're rarely seen. While playing last night, I saw 1 light mech equipped with 2xMedium X-Pulse Lasers in all my games, that's it.

a 5 year old with an Uzi, on 20 July 2025 - 07:43 AM, said:

...XPulse seem to be nasty in the right hands in the right chassis

There's a Thunderbolt variant with very good quirks for X-Pulse lasers and some other mechs with quirks for them but that's about it. They're extremely niche weapons. This discussion isn't about whether X-Pulse Lasers are a little under-powered or a lot under-powered. The point is they're rarely used and NOTHING IS BEING DONE ABOUT IT.

a 5 year old with an Uzi, on 20 July 2025 - 07:43 AM, said:

BLCs seem like they have relegated Large Lasers to edge case unless I am missing something. They have worse DPH and longer duration but the ton and E hardpoint saved seems like a REALLY GOOD trade for whole hog laser vomit approach whereas Large Laser sits in that "I want a LL HSL specifically" or "I cannot afford the exposure required for that full burn" area. Maybe I'm missing something critical here.

BLC vs 2xLL is in a decent place now. If you only have 2 energy hardpoints, 2xLL is generally better. You mentioned the lower duration (0.3sec shorter is a big difference), but lower duration also means higher DPS, and they do it for 1.2 less heat. 2xLL can also be chain-fired, so if you're shooting at a Light Mech zipping around it's painful to miss with the BLC whereas with 2xLL you can chain-fire and perhaps get a 2nd shot in that hits.


=====

Quicksilver Aberration, on 20 July 2025 - 08:44 AM, said:

So delaying the inevitable? Yeah, that's pretty much content that's doing that, if they had never come back from maintenance mode, this game would in fact be dead. The mechs/weapons being added at a somewhat decent pace combined with the balance passes help keep this game from feeling like a ghost town.

Thank you for acknowledging the importance of continued support and additions to the game to prevent it from dying.

Quicksilver Aberration, on 20 July 2025 - 08:44 AM, said:

As for balance and it's impact to the game's "health". You're making some pretty large presumptions:

The thing causing player churn is game balance
The thing turning away new players we do get is game balance
Fixing game balance will stop players leaving regardless of newness or not

These are all pretty huge assumptions considering again, balance is often a scapegoat for other problems (like just not learning how to play the game) and you didn't even touch on any of the ones that people most vocally complain about: light mechs.

Doing here what you always do:
- make broad generalizations about what the other guy said that go well beyond what they actually said, i.e. strawman arguments.
- diligently avoid being specific about anything, no numbers, nothing to say about any of the individual weapons/components I mentioned, i.e. never getting into the meat of the discussion so as to avoid acknowledging the merits of the other guy's post and making it more difficult for you to be overtly contradicted.
- dilute and bog down the discussion with walls of irrelevant verbiage.
- miss/twist the point the other guy was making.
- absolutely, positively, under no circumstances ever do you offer any counter-solutions. You only ever try to contradict the other guy and stop there.

You missed the point of my post. Weapon balance not being good enough was NOT my point. Balance will always be a moving target that's hard to reach. The point was NOTHING WAS BEING DONE to fix obvious issues. This lack of action indicates NEGLECT on the part of the devs and this NEGLECT is an OMINOUS SIGN for the future of the game.

My point was a lack of action from the devs, not any particular balance issue per se.

Quicksilver Aberration, on 20 July 2025 - 08:44 AM, said:

Well too be fair x-pulse and beams aren't AS good in QP as they are in comp, but they are hardly awful. Though both LXPL/Beam nerfs did hurt their usage a bit but I definitely still use beams for certain mechs/situations (Incubus/Shadow Cat are still dangerous with beams). Regardless, it's a red herring (not that they would know what's most effective anyway).

Here you are conflating X-Pulse Lasers with Beam Lasers and implying I said they're both "awful". WRONG. They're completely different from each other. Yes, I think X-Pulse Lasers are AWFUL, they're wayyyyy too hot. On the other hand, I consider Beam Lasers to be THE BEST BALANCED weapon in the game. They're merely being held back by the fact that they don't have their own weapon group making them cumbersome to combine with other weapons so the don't actually see much play as a result.


Do you have anything to say about the Advanced Sensor Package QA or do you just want to ignore talking about it because doing so would instantly validate what I'm saying?

[Quicksilver Aberration]

MechMaster059, on 20 July 2025 - 10:16 AM, said:

- absolutely, positively, under no circumstances ever do you offer any counter-solutions. You only ever try to contradict the other guy and stop there.

I'll avoid all the other garbage because I can sum this up here. I'm not providing counter-solutions or counter-arguments to your specifics because the thing you think is helping "kill" the game is inconsequential because balance (or lack thereof) isn't what is hurting the game, especially your issues with it. There are much more glaring issues with the current state of balance than x-pulse or the ASP being not good enough.

MechMaster059, on 20 July 2025 - 10:16 AM, said:

The point was NOTHING WAS BEING DONE to fix obvious issues. This lack of action indicates NEGLECT on the part of the devs and this NEGLECT is an OMINOUS SIGN for the future of the game.

You thinking something is so obvious does not mean neglect. Just because you don't agree with the changes has not and never will mean it is a sign of neglect. What a stupid comment. This isn't maintenance mode and it hasn't been for 4-5 years.

MechMaster059, on 20 July 2025 - 10:16 AM, said:

Here you are conflating X-Pulse Lasers with Beam Lasers and implying I said they're both "awful". WRONG. They're completely different from each other.

They are slightly different in that x-pulse are inconsistent in damage application compared to beams due to having a cooldown period, but their role and use-cases are the exact same. Beams don't need to be ungrouped, you want more damage past two beams do what the rest of us do, run LMGs/ERMLs just like you would with any other weapon in the large laser ghost heat group.

Regardless, almost no one is leaving because of these "obvious" things about balance, and the same would stay because they are fixed. People leave because they perceive lights to be too OP or think the matchmaker sucks more than your gripes. TBH you are just using this thread as a way to get on your "balance" soapbox. You want to argue so bad about what you think are obvious issues, join the cauldron feedback discord.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 20 July 2025 - 11:21 AM.

[VeeOt Dragon]

we just need to bring in more people, thats all. the only way to bring more players to a game is for those players to know the game exists in the first place.

advertising in one way or another would likely be the least amount of time input/cost for getting the game back on its feet. you get ore players coming in nd you get more people willing to pay for stuff (well that and lower the price on the old mech packs.). most of the suggestions i have read so far here have been way out of the available means for PGI seeing as there is only a bare minimum maintenance crew on board with craptastic cauldron taking care of balancing changes.

we need player numbers more than anything else right now. then once we have a positive influx of players instead of a net loss we can look at other changes.

[MechMaster059]

Quicksilver Aberration, on 20 July 2025 - 11:17 AM, said:

...I'm not providing counter-solutions or counter-arguments to your specifics...

You're not providing any counter-solutions to anyone in this thread at all, let alone me. Here is your first reply in this thread:

Quicksilver Aberration, on 12 July 2025 - 12:36 PM, said:

Not only that, but there's not really anything "to do". Games die, and this one has had a life. All we can hope is that something else will come along and fill the gap left by it.

You speak of MWO in the past tense, as if it's already dead and you hope it gets a better replacement. This viewpoint is defeatist and unhelpful to the discussion. (As usual)

I've reviewed all your replies so far and they're pretty much all the same: contradicting some other poster, telling them they don't know what they're talking about or their suggestion is bad. Your favorite trick seems to be telling people problem X doesn't need to be fixed because there's some other more important problem but you never specify what that bigger problem is... LOL.

Quicksilver Aberration, on 20 July 2025 - 11:17 AM, said:

because the thing you think is helping "kill" the game is inconsequential because balance (or lack thereof) isn't what is hurting the game, especially your issues with it. There are much more glaring issues with the current state of balance than x-pulse or the ASP being not good enough.

Once again, you're wrong and you missed the point of my post. You didn't "get it". You keep fixating on balance but that's not my point. The Advanced Sensor Package being worthless junk or X-Pulse Lasers sucking isn't hurting the game because they simply get little or no use. Once again, the problem is they're not helping the game either. These things have become "holes" in the game. A void neither hurting but also not helping. By not helping the game, boredome more quickly sets in among the player base and people move on.

I consider the removal of spread from HAGs to be the stupidest, most destructive balance change ever, yet I didn't even mention it until now. They got that probelm somewhat under control by increasing weapon cooldown and jacking the heat way up (which is totally inconsistent with Gauss weapons being low heat weapons). I didn't mention it because they've taken action to mitigate it and the point of my post is their lack of action.

That they won't act on easy, low-hanging fruit like TAGs lowering lock-on time or buffing the ASP is the point. This sort of neglect is an INDICATOR, a RED FLAG. I've seen it in other games and I know how things end.

Quicksilver Aberration, on 20 July 2025 - 11:17 AM, said:

You thinking something is so obvious does not mean neglect. Just because you don't agree with the changes has not and never will mean it is a sign of neglect. What a stupid comment. This isn't maintenance mode and it hasn't been for 4-5 years.

How long was the ASP a worthless 3 ton **** of an item? Over a decade? Only recently did they rework it. They made a good effort to fix it but unfortunately it wasn't enough. Does PGI have usage statistics of various weapons/components? I bet less than half a perecent of mechs are equipped with and ASP. Its usage may literally be near zero and nothing is being done about it.

Doing nothing to fix problems is the definition of NEGLECT. You fail at English.
(Notice how QA refuses to express an opinion of the ASP folks. He just ignores it because it's such an obvious example of neglect.)

Quicksilver Aberration, on 20 July 2025 - 11:17 AM, said:

They are slightly different in that x-pulse are inconsistent in damage application compared to beams due to having a cooldown period, but their role and use-cases are the exact same. Beams don't need to be ungrouped, you want more damage past two beams do what the rest of us do, run LMGs/ERMLs just like you would with any other weapon in the large laser ghost heat group.

A typically glib contradiction of my point about Beams from you that fails to acknowlege how limiting your proposed solution is to varous builds. Beams and Large Pulse Lasers compliment each other very well. The LPLs give some nice alpha, the Beams give DPS and are even more dangerous to Light Mechs than LPLs are. I have Supernova and Direwolf builds with this combo. I have to be SUPER careful about firing the LPLs so they don't cross the Beams (Ghost Busters!) or the mechs can nearly blow up from the heat spike. I also lose DPS by stopping the Beams for 0.5-1.0sec so I can fire the LPLs. It's not worth the hassle so I stopped playing those builds.

If the main purpose of ghost heat is to lower alpha damage, what purpose is being served by making Beams this cumbersome to use? Why do RACs get their own weapon group but not Beams? (Notice how QA never addresses any detailed questions like this folks, he just ignores them.)

Not a big deal. Not the end of the world, but I won't be experiencing any good moments from those builds because I no longer play them.

(Now that I think about it, X-Pulse Lasers should probably be given their own weapon groups as well...)

Quicksilver Aberration, on 20 July 2025 - 11:17 AM, said:

Regardless, almost no one is leaving because of these "obvious" things about balance, and the same would stay because they are fixed. People leave because they perceive lights to be too OP or think the matchmaker sucks more than your gripes. TBH you are just using this thread as a way to get on your "balance" soapbox. You want to argue so bad about what you think are obvious issues, join the cauldron feedback discord.

It's good to see you finally put out a hypothesis as to why players leave QA. Lights and the matchmaker? Of course you have no more proof to justify your hypothesis than I do for mine and you don't offer any solutions either. (As usual)

I'm not using this thread as a soap box for balance issues or I would have gone all out attacking what an incredibly stupid and destructive change removing spread from HAGs was. At this point, I'm merely looking for very easy changes that can make the game more enjoyable, and by making the game more enjoyable help retain the player-base.

Edited by MechMaster059, 20 July 2025 - 01:46 PM.

[nanashi0110]

Davegt27, on 11 July 2025 - 06:53 PM, said:

any ideas to pump some life back into MWO

seems like everyday player numbers are lower

As a Japanese person, the first thing I would like to do is to make it Japanese. That is seriously 90% of the reason why Japanese players quit.

Next... I wish the screen and UI size would be decent. It's too small to read.

Also, I think it would be better if they hold events frequently and distribute 2~3 free mechs per month.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

MechMaster059, on 20 July 2025 - 01:16 PM, said:

It's good to see you finally put out a hypothesis as to why players leave QA. Lights and the matchmaker? Of course you have no more proof to justify your hypothesis than I do for mine and you don't offer any solutions either. (As usual)

TO BE CLEAR, I'm saying those things have more likelihood than your items, but I never said those were even close to the biggest reasons but hey, keep cherry picking. As for the "no proof", double edged sword because you have absolutely ZERO proof either so kind of a moot point?

MechMaster059, on 20 July 2025 - 01:16 PM, said:

You're not providing any counter-solutions to anyone in this thread at all, let alone me. Here is your first reply in this thread:

You speak of MWO in the past tense, as if it's already dead and you hope it gets a better replacement. This viewpoint is defeatist and unhelpful to the discussion. (As usual)

Again, LET ME BE CLEAR, this game isn't going to suddenly grow. Point blank, not without an absurd surge in investment from EG7 that has a 1% chance of ever happening. Russ and PGI have made it clear why MWO is kept around and that MWO is NOT it's flagship product. You say it's defeatist but it's just realistic absent absolutely unhinged delusions from people like yourself that somehow you can make MWO return from the grave, you may be able to prolong it's death by a few months with zero engineering, but you aren't stopping the bleeding.

There's also the fact that many of the reasons MWO can't grow are due to foundational issues that are more easily attained by building something new from the ground up rather than ever trying to do a migration (it's also partially why Russ doesn't want an MWO2).

MechMaster059, on 20 July 2025 - 01:16 PM, said:

I've reviewed all your replies so far and they're pretty much all the same

Rent-free

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 20 July 2025 - 02:10 PM.

[GreyNovember]

Re: Topic

Just faster matches.

Not being able to get into a match in 5~ minutes when I feel like playing pew pew robot game means I just nope out for the day.

Don't care how that gets done. Just let me drop faster.

[MechMaster059]

Quicksilver Aberration, on 20 July 2025 - 02:07 PM, said:

TO BE CLEAR, I'm saying those things have more likelihood than your items, but I never said those were even close to the biggest reasons...

My mistake. The closest you've come to specifying what you think the "foundational issues" of the game are is in this reply here:

Quicksilver Aberration, on 13 July 2025 - 09:01 AM, said:

...

My brother in christ, foundational issues like the monetization scheme and the fact we had mechs added for nostalgia bait with no idea of what role they should have in the game or whether they were competing for roles in the first place have nothing to do with engine upgrades.

The "monetization scheme" and adding mechs for "nostalgia bait" w/o considering their "role" in the game? You never specify the problem with the monetization scheme or why that would drive players away. (I personally consider the monetization scheme of the game to be slightly too lenient. Players can buy a lot of content with credits won in combat.)

Why would adding new mechs drive players away? Are they over-powered and unfair to fight against? Are they under-powered and boring? Are there combat "roles" not being adequately filled by the current pool of mechs? Never any specifics from you, just proclamations stated as indisputable fact.

Quicksilver Aberration, on 13 July 2025 - 09:01 AM, said:

They also aren't easy fixes. There are numerous issues with the game that would be better off them hitting the reset button on because it's easier to do than either doing a migration (remember how the skill maze dropped? that's an example of a migration gone wrong) especially when people feel entitled to content they purchased.

"Numerous issues" that need a "reset"...

Quicksilver Aberration, on 13 July 2025 - 09:01 AM, said:

I don't know if you know, but they constant mech packs and even things like skill maze and the civil war tech update didn't fix the bleeding, so what makes you think it will now all the sudden. The game has larger issues than "lack of content".

"Larger issues"... is this it? Is this all you've got? Some nebulous bigger fish that needs to be fried so why bother fixing anything?

=====

Quicksilver Aberration, on 20 July 2025 - 02:07 PM, said:

Again, LET ME BE CLEAR, this game isn't going to suddenly grow. Point blank, not without an absurd surge in investment from EG7 that has a 1% chance of ever happening. Russ and PGI have made it clear why MWO is kept around and that MWO is NOT it's flagship product. You say it's defeatist but it's just realistic absent absolutely unhinged delusions from people like yourself that somehow you can make MWO return from the grave, you may be able to prolong it's death by a few months with zero engineering, but you aren't stopping the bleeding.

This idea that people here are advocating for some kind of spike in new players is a strawman argument. This discussion is about preventing the game's death. That's it. Obviously ways to encourage growth are part of the solution but the main point is PREVENTING FURTHER LOSS of population, not encouraging growth. No one is talking about keeping the game around forever either. Yes, prolonging it is the point. If you're too pessimistic to accept that then just say that an leave it at that. Don't be a **** dumping on and contradicting as many other posts as possible in a pathetic attempt to appear like the smartest guy in the room.

Quicksilver Aberration, on 20 July 2025 - 02:07 PM, said:

There's also the fact that many of the reasons MWO can't grow are due to foundational issues that are more easily attained by building something new from the ground up rather than ever trying to do a migration (it's also partially why Russ doesn't want an MWO2).

I didn't advocate for a "migration". I advocated for simple changes that would make the game more enjoyable so as to retain players. There are other valid suggestions in here like events and advertising that are part of the solution.

If you think MWO 2 is the only solution, then just say that and leave the thread.

(Congratulations on avoiding talking about:

- the ASP
- the contradiction between RACs having their own weapon group but not Beam Lasers
- what a brain-dead easy change allowing TAGs to reduce lock time would be (in the past they were able to)
- Rockets being a gimicky weapon that almost no one ever uses
- the usage rate of X-Pulse Lasers

More dodging from you.)

[Lollerisms]

Meep Meep, on 18 July 2025 - 09:23 PM, said:

Ok. But. WHY should it be included and WHAT is its entry vector. You are not answering the basic question. Was there a dimensional shift and suddenly a portion of the bt universe population go gay and trans? An undiscovered fringe world(s) were it was common practice outside of the general IS/Clan cultures etc? If you were required to make a story outline to insert pride ideology what would be the pitch? It can't be 'just because'.

Incidentally, it's not "a dimensional shift," the Clans practice free love albeit with extreme restrictions on reproduction, with the logical conclusion that presumably yeah there were gay and lesbian folks in there too, as you would expect for humans. This has been canon since at least 2001 with the MechWarrior's Guide to the Clans.

Also LMAO at "how would you represent a gay person in BT" because apparently you've never read any of the fiction in setting that has romance in it. The marriage of Hanse Davion and Melissa Steiner was completely irrelevant to the setting and it had no consequence at all whatsoever, clearly.

Next time you want to justify your bigotry with lore, I recommend actually knowing the lore.

P.S. As far as "I just dont see sex at all in the bt ip," I highly recommend reading literally any of the lore material that discusses clan social mores or like, the concept of having children outside of the clan test tubes.

Edited by Lollerisms, 20 July 2025 - 04:19 PM.

[KursedVixen]

Lollerisms, on 20 July 2025 - 04:10 PM, said:

. The marriage of Hanse Davion and Melissa Steiner was completely irrelevant to the setting and it had no consequence at all whatsoever, clearly.

setting of what that was a huge marriage even if it was a forced marriage like in the middle ages, but it formed the Federated commonwealth a merging of two great houses hardly an irrelevnet factor...

[Lollerisms]

KursedVixen, on 20 July 2025 - 04:34 PM, said:

setting of what that was a huge marriage even if it was a forced marriage like in the middle ages, but it formed the Federated commonwealth a merging of two great houses hardly an irrelevnet factor...

I was being sarcastic.

[Meep Meep]

Lollerisms, on 20 July 2025 - 04:10 PM, said:

Incidentally, it's not "a dimensional shift," the Clans practice free love albeit with extreme restrictions on reproduction, with the logical conclusion that presumably yeah there were gay and lesbian folks in there too, as you would expect for humans. This has been canon since at least 2001 with the MechWarrior's Guide to the Clans.

Also LMAO at "how would you represent a gay person in BT" because apparently you've never read any of the fiction in setting that has romance in it. The marriage of Hanse Davion and Melissa Steiner was completely irrelevant to the setting and it had no consequence at all whatsoever, clearly.

Next time you want to justify your bigotry with lore, I recommend actually knowing the lore.

P.S. As far as "I just dont see sex at all in the bt ip," I highly recommend reading literally any of the lore material that discusses clan social mores or like, the concept of having children outside of the clan test tubes.

Bigotry? Where? I have stated multiple times I don't give a flying **** how you identify nor who you sleep with. That is entirely ~your~ personal choice as an adult and you are welcome to choose both orientation and partner as you wish as an adult. As to your examples thats backstory not an ongoing character or something that has any plotline at all. I'm assuming inclusion means direct representation via a character not just that multiple sexual orientations exist in a novel. Also mwo isn't bt. What is the vector to include it in mwo? There is only pew pew mechs with no story at all past the quick intro when you first log into the game and thats purely pew pew oriented. So since you insist pride groups be inserted on every level into a fake reality simply because they exist in real reality can southern baptists also get the same representation in game? Fair is fair right?

[Quicksilver Aberration]

MechMaster059, on 20 July 2025 - 02:56 PM, said:

I advocated for simple changes that would make the game more enjoyable so as to retain players.

Half of your "simple" solutions can't be done without engineering time (ASP, TAG), one of which was already investigated (rockets). I'm not dodging, I just don't care enough to get in a giant quote war (which is really what you seem to want) because you don't know what you're talking about half the time.

There's constraints that limit what is possible/plausible, just like how this game isn't getting any advertising. They barely advertise MW5 Clans, their flagship product, and you think you are gonna get it for MWO?

They already do events, in the aptly named event queue and the periodic event for loot bags which typically draws in people. Anything special outside of that likely coding effort that isn't going to happen.