20 replies to this topic

[TheForce]

In D&D Online, you get two character slots for free, and you can buy more if you want. When you create your character, you choose it's race and class.

How about something similar for MWO - you choose your weight class and a mech within that weight class, then your character is stuck with that mech. Maybe have the opportunity to salvage/buy diff mechs within that weight class?

Now when it comes to lance battles, restrict them by tonnage. So when my friends and I play online we can decide who takes their heavy/light mech characters. If I want to jump into a pickup lance game, I can choose my assault character and start up a room for people to join, or I can take my light and join buddy's room that's setup with an assault and heavy already. Something like this anyways...

Edited by theforce, 01 November 2011 - 07:21 PM.

[TheForce]

Aligment in DDO could be the house you choose to join in MWO.

Edited by theforce, 02 November 2011 - 06:03 AM.

[omegaclawe]

I don't like having a pilot be restricted to only one weight class. It makes it a pain in the *** to try new things, which means things like recon aren't going to get much love. The classes should all be necessary and viable, but frankly, 90% of the people are going to go for a gun/armor heavy mech as their first if they can, and if it isn't easy to switch, that's all we'll have.

[Dmitri Valenov]

Why don't we just have skills associated with piloting the different weight classes of Mechs. Everyone would start with Light, then just allow players to purchase the higher weight classes with in-game currency. Either that or use a point based Mechwarrior creation system that makes it so you can just jump in to an assault Mech first thing, but you would have to pass over specialty bonuses for the lighter chassis to get them. Not sure exactly how this would be implemented since, from what I've gathered, it's going to be personal skill alone that wins you fights.

Maybe adding specialties like increased laser damage or range, better top speed when piloting a specific weight class. I don't know. Just spit ballin'

[Hallstatt]

Thinking about the F2P mechanic, I would like to make some suggestions:
Only one character slot for frees, and you can buy more. You can take any class of 'mech, the only difference between the charslots would be the allegiance you choose at the beginning.

Off course, if we're going xp, each pilot may specialize in a different type of 'mech.

[omegaclawe]

Single Charslot per account would encourage some players to just make multiple accounts to get more characters... how, exactly, do you propose we handle that?

I'm asking because it's a real concern I personally have yet to find a good answer to. :/

[TheForce]

I kinda like the idea of a character being stuck with a mech for good...like in btech lore.

[Mchawkeye]

omegaclawe, on 02 November 2011 - 09:51 AM, said:

Single Charslot per account would encourage some players to just make multiple accounts to get more characters... how, exactly, do you propose we handle that?

I'm asking because it's a real concern I personally have yet to find a good answer to. :/

What if the XP was credited to the account as opposed to the character? That way, no matter what character you played, you earn xp\cbills or what ever, which you could spend on any of your characters.
thus it would be in someone's best interest to maintain one account with multiple characters.

[UncleKulikov]

I like World of Tank's model, where you can have multiple tanks, but damaged ones aren't available. 1 mech per account doesn't strike me as good.

[TheForce]

UncleKulikov, on 02 November 2011 - 10:02 AM, said:

1 mech per account doesn't strike me as good.

My suggestion was 1 mech per character not account. You login with an account, join battle, select your character/mech. Done.

[Elucid Ward]

theforce, on 02 November 2011 - 01:52 PM, said:

My suggestion was 1 mech per character not account. You login with an account, join battle, select your character/mech. Done.

Doesn't work with persistence, and doesn't mesh with the concept of mercs. Mercs constantly swapped mech assignments within their specialisations.

[TheForce]

Elucid Ward, on 02 November 2011 - 02:22 PM, said:

Doesn't work with persistence, and doesn't mesh with the concept of mercs. Mercs constantly swapped mech assignments within their specialisations.

I remember in btech lore how mechs were rare, and handed down from generation to generation. Then there's the good old line "Life is cheap, but Battlemechs aren't."

What merc unit has 36 mechs sitting in their overloard and only a company of pilots who decide "oh i think i'll take that shiney atlas that's been collecting dust for this mission.

Sure there will be opportunities for a pilot to change mechs throughout career, but how often? Maybe I'm promoted to Lance commander and my house offers me an upgrade. If i choose to take it my skills are gonna go down and i'm going to have to train to get better at it...something like that.

Maybe I'm too hard core but if this is gonna have MMO stuff and go to roots of btech, maybe not.

Edited by theforce, 02 November 2011 - 02:31 PM.

[Elucid Ward]

theforce, on 02 November 2011 - 02:30 PM, said:

I remember in btech lore how mechs were rare, and handed down from generation to generation. Then there's the good old line "Life is cheap, but Battlemechs aren't."

What merc unit has 36 mechs sitting in their overloard and only a company of pilots who decide "oh i think i'll take that shiney atlas that's been collecting dust for this mission.

Sure there will be opportunities for a pilot to change mechs throughout career, but how often? Maybe I'm promoted to Lance commander and my house offers me an upgrade. If i choose to take it my skills are gonna go down and i'm going to have to train to get better at it...something like that.

Maybe I'm too hard core but if this is gonna have MMO stuff and go to roots of btech, maybe not.

Touche, but this takes place in 3048 (currently, at launch will be 3049), and this is as manufacturering begins to ramp up due to the Clan invasion. The old values of 'mech production mean sweet fk all when you are in total war mode. Output goes through the roof, and costs of production drop considerably.

I've already suggested a mechanic of skill being 'mech/weight class dependant in another thread, and I fully agree with you there.

Edited by Elucid Ward, 02 November 2011 - 02:35 PM.

[TheForce]

Elucid Ward, on 02 November 2011 - 02:34 PM, said:

Touche, but this takes place in 3048 (currently, at launch will be 3049), and this is as manufacturering begins to ramp up due to the Clan invasion. The old values of 'mech production mean sweet fk all when you are in total war mode. Output goes through the roof, and costs of production drop considerably.

I've already suggested a mechanic of skill being 'mech/weight class dependant in another thread, and I fully agree with you there.

**** i really wanted to be in 3015

[Elucid Ward]

Originally it was, but now it's not due to the long winded story the devs have handed out. Publishers be damned, it's why we have MWO and not what was shown a couple years ago.

[Elucid Ward]

theforce, on 02 November 2011 - 02:38 PM, said:

**** i really wanted to be in 3015

PS - here's the cross post from the other thread:

Elucid Ward, on 02 November 2011 - 02:14 PM, said:

I'm going to suggest that 'leveling' be more class and 'mech specific.

Meaning that you can't just jump straight from a light 'mech elite in to an Atlas and then start running around like your cockpit was your womb.

It also hangs within the bounds of canon, in that many pilots are exceptionally attached to their 'mechs, and beyond that, their weight class. Rarely will a light/scout pilot actually choose to fill a completely different role - as it is simply not what they know.

So, the longer you stay in a 'mech, the more able you are with that 'mech, with a little onflow in to the 'mechs class (raising your pilot ability in the class to a slightly higher baseline). However, if you jump into a completely different weight class, you're as green as the next ****.

The above is another counter to 'arms' racing. If through experience, you're more effective in a light or medium, why would you go for the assaults?

[TheVengeant]

I think players should get a set amount of starting cash that is assumed to be your current Body of Work in your young career thus far, with your House alignment influencing a roll that determines a pick list of 5 or so low-quality 'Mech to choose from as your starter machine.

It can be laid out for the player at the outset that this is either a hand-me-down or your prized clunker that you've been doing well to score at all since this is the Inner Sphere, where life is cheap but BattleMechs are priceless. Leave the specifics of this detail ambiguous when handing out the initial bit of lore in the game UI to help us swallow what would otherwise be a very large pill in an immersion/suspense of disbelief sort of way (ie, not everyone is here from the same cliche -- parents died, inherited family 'Mech, etc). Better to have us use our imaginations on this point, so our backstories can be suitably varied.

As for leveling, please make sure that it reflects canon; life as a merc should not be padded with a plethora of cushy choices where we can easily access our choice Mech after 5 days of playing. The Inner Sphere is a hard and unforgiving place, especially for mercenaries. It is a general human truth that loyalty comes often when we become attached to things in our life for which we have shed tears and spilled blood -- our children and old trucks for example. I believe this maxim should be applied here as well -- players should scrape, scratch, and claw their way from mission to mission such that they are doing good to remain operation and solvent, with the smart ones putting away a little extra cash each time.

The idea here is that you work it out with what you have, just as people do with their own vehicles in the real world. Perhaps you can slap the equivalent of some NOS stickers on your Whitworth, or one of those cheap-sounding import exhausts, or possibly even give the cockpit a mirror tint job along the way to personalize your precious clunker. If you are able to score a new 'Mech, make sure it reflects established BT lore: salvage and collect the parts for one over time, steal one, or (if you are a successful saver) you buy one, so long as you can find someone who is selling.

The point is that players will fall in love with what they have, or they'll work hard to earn what they dream to have. And probably both at the same time. There is no reason to give us CushyTech where 'Mechs are like ice cream flavors. It is my fervent hope that the game feels like the hard knocks lore of the Inner Sphere. If it doesn't, I'm probably going to be out.

Edited by Jaren Ward, 07 November 2011 - 10:29 AM.

[Kaemon]

I don't mind specializing a pilot for a 'line' of mechs.

I do, however, hate with a passion the current WoT setup of 'cash for training' and the P2W Gold 'train to max now' Bowie they offer.

I also dislike the fact you have to spend ingame $ every time you change vehicles, it's a ploy designed to drain in game cash so you want to refill with IRL $.

If we're going to do progression for pilots, I'd like to see something simple (novice/vet/ace) although I'd also be mean about it and if they die, they go down a level (they won't though).

Beyond that it's kinda of waste, the game focus should be mechs, not pilots.

[itchies]

All the houses had specific Academy's and there's even some Merc Training Facilities. Picking your "House" is your Race. Picking the different academies and training types available (Commander, Scout, Tactical, Strategic) is your Class. Resources available are your Stats. The stats you increase and decrease would be comparable. (C-Bills vs Equipment vs Skills vs Talents for example).

[Azureus]

I would like to see the ability to buy tech upgrades in the form of omnitechnology being applied to a mech chassis to lower the cost of adding or removing weapons. I would also like to see the ability to buy clan tech based weapons that were persistent meaning they couldn't be completely destroyed you just pay c-bills to repair them since the clan tech items woulf have been purchased with real world currency.

Edited by Azureus, 25 July 2012 - 03:37 AM.