22 replies to this topic

[Horatio Blakeney]

MW4 is my primary MechWarrior experience. I never played MW3 and I was too young to fully appreciate MW2. I have seen a number of throw-away comments about how MechWarrior 4 has problems and how Microsoft screwed things up. From those comments I have gathered the following points, though perhaps I am wrong and I welcome correction.


A.) The mechlab was different in MW4 from earlier games. MW4 had weapon type specific slots (energy, ballistic, missle, omni), while previous versions simply had slots of various sizes.

B.) some mechs had default configurations or even slot configurations that were not or could not support canonical weapon loadouts

C.) The clan mechs were not so overpoweringly better than the IS mechs

D.) The designers invented new mechs instead of using similar canonical mechs


I think there are many more, but I do not know what they are. Please help me understand the loathing for MW4.

[Opus]

IMHO - it had a MS label, for starters....

yeah it was fun, I still play Meknet Mercs .. .. ..

A: mechlab on MW$ was about one of its best,,, and worst features, balanced in layout, but annoyingly repetitive in nature. If stop and look at it, the lab created just as many problems as it solved, aka armor dumping to load out single shot kill weapons groups...

b: which is natural, you really can't load out mechs with what ever you wanted. it just is unnatural...

c:remember that MW4 takes place in 3067, the clan technology had been caught up to with omni IS mechs

d: yeah Hence the term Franken Mechs.,., as much as I like a Behemoth_IIC it is just a freak of nature

Edited by Opus, 16 February 2012 - 05:41 PM.

[Artifice]

It was at least a mostly proper Mechwarrior game. I have a couple of gripes about the story they throw at you, and sometimes the voice actors don't appear to understand the script they're reading. And the Mechbay - those pods are just annoying.

It did have a few nice features - well rounded missions, relevant salvage, pretty maps. But there were also a bunch of really mediocre things that brought the whole level down. Ah well, I still play the Mektek : Mercenaries but I don't enjoy it as much as firing up MW2 : Mercenaries and legging some clanners.

The real travesty began with Mech Commander. Your pilots are just so stupid, and they didn't even try with the Mechbay. Then came Mech Assault. I actually got this for the XBox, played for half an hour then returned it - it was that lame. And now they're planning on bringing out Mech Assault 3 this year? Good luck! It's an uninspired series with an oversimplified game engine. Thumbs DOWN!

[Trogusaur]

It's funny, the instant armor stripping only became a problem when people started boating and poptarting. Had the MS devs realized the imbalance earlier on, this game would be worlds apart from what it became. As much as I appreciated Mektek bringing the favorite designs and mechs, I feel as if the mekpaks were too centered around assault mech play (30+ new ones out of the 70 or so mechs they added), and insta-lock missles like the Artemis LRM and Tbolts pretty much decided the outcome of a fight because they were so imbalanced.

Although they didn't explicitly add any ballistics or energy weapons that worsened the already growing epidemic of poptarting, Mektek did add many "enabler" mechs, like the Behemoth, Canis, and Warlord (correct me if I am wrong, but I do not recall a single alt variant of the Atlas that included Jump Jets?? As I am not a canonhead, I am unfamiliar) that completely warped the online servers into 1-shot slugfests. I think the biggest gripe people have is the imbalances in weapons, and what appeared to be a step backward in combat simulation (ie: arms move with torso twist, not independent, or no C3 computer).

Personally, I thought it was a great game and enjoyed it to the fullest. There is still a sizeable community that plays the game, and the majority of players on Gameranger are able to host their own servers as a means of escape from the glaring flaws, trading for good, ol fashioned mech brawling. I still consider this game to be one of the greatest I have ever played, despite the drawbacks.

Edited by Lord Trogus, 16 February 2012 - 07:55 PM.

[buttonmasher]

As much as I like MW4, the pilots were dumb as hell. Even if you get the best ones like Mustang, Hannibal, Bullseye, etc., they still play like crap regardless of the difficulty you're on. I find myself having to babysit them during combat, ordering them all to attack one target over and over. When I'd order them to go to the next nav point, once they got there they'd just sit there taking fire without shooting back.

There was also the issue that the numbers just didn't work. I did some math and found that the heat sinks dissipated a different amount of heat for each mech. Even the damage and cooldown times for some of the weapons weren't accurate. I had set up what I call a "punching bag" (an Uziel with no weapons, heat sinks, or electronics, only armor and minimal speed), giving each part of the mech 18-20 damage points worth of armor. I then fired 6 ER medium lasers at one of the parts. This should've caused 18 damage and instantly destroyed the part I hit, but it didn't even put it into the yellow.

I was also pretty disappointed with the scouting missions. Maybe I just suck at scouting, but I couldn't finish the steiner mission that had you scanning the buildings for 20 seconds. At some point I got frustrated and went in with an Annihilator with four Clan LBX AC20's and massacred them all to finish the mission. Other than that I think there are only two other missions that involved scouting. I sincerely hope there will be a greater focus on that part of the gameplay.

Unfortunately my experience has been entirely with the single player campaign, as I could never get my multiplayer to work correctly.

Edited by buttonmasher, 16 February 2012 - 07:29 PM.

[Hayden]

Honestly, if it wasn't a Mechwarrior game, I would probably have enjoyed it a lot more.

It just represents a huge step to the side. The graphics were cartoony, the story wasn't all bad but the actors were... not to mention the extensive redesigns of just about everything... which basically goes hand-in-hand with the cartoony feel.

MW1, MW2 and MW2M were all limited by technology, but really set a good precedent. Mechwarrior 3* was pretty nearly the pinnacle of capturing the "feel" of such a massive war machine, the thing really felt heavy, the weapons were generally well modeled (AC aside, but that's personal preference) then we had MW4. The feeling was gone. And on top of that they dumbed down the look of everything and threw in 'mechs that had to be ret-conned in later (grumble grumble).

*I was not a pirate's moon fan, but that's for another post.

[Steel Raven]

I find most people over critical of MW4 and forget some of MW3 flaws (many copies had bugs that would cause lag or the game to freeze, delay in weapons fire) I was hopping for a while that the next MW game would combine the best aspects of MW3 and MW4, instead we got MechAssault...yeah. The only real problem I had with 4 was the only way the Devs could think of making each level more difficult was by tossing more mechs at you which became very annoying very fast ('how many Atlas' could they have in this Park!?') but that went hand to hand with mediocre AI, they couldn't give us smarter villains so they just threw more dumb ones at us. Liked the story in Black Knight better though it still just threw waves of battlemechs at you at the end. Mercs was the game they should have gave us to begin with, it wasn't the next evolution of MW3, didn't fix the rough spots as much as just smooth them out a little more but it's the game I enjoyed all the same, multiplayer being it's big saving grace.

[Sug]

AI is....not the greatest. On the missions where you have to destroy dropships i'd have to order my lancemates to shut down out of range and finish it off myself or everyone would die.

Voice acting is meh. That duncan fisher guy is alright but some of those minor characters clearly didn't understand what they were saying.
It was like the scripts had no punctuation.

Steel Raven, on 16 February 2012 - 07:48 PM, said:

they couldn't give us smarter villains so they just threw more dumb ones at us.

That always bothered me. Some of those missions like Overload, or the supply depot assault, and the Templar factory assault would pit your 2 lances against almost a light battalion. What happened to attackers needing 3 times the force of the defenders?

I was never able to play the Steiner ending with my copy, corrupted file. Recently i downloaded the game from mektek and was finally able to do the last 3 steiner missions. Anyone else notice that Zel Vickers starts as a man and ends as a woman?

Edited by Sug, 16 February 2012 - 08:03 PM.

[nubnub]

I rate MW4 no. 1 purely because of multiplayer - single player never really makes the mark for me. The lobby for MW4 was *great* (this is generally overlooked in games) and there was *always* action. I'm hoping MWO is like this too.

MW3 did feel more realistic and was probably better made game overall, but you couldn't play it endlessly like MW4 online. Graphics were slightly better in MW4 but yes cartoonish.

[FETTY WAP]

Looking back at MW3, I don't like the environment and physics of MW4 as much.
The ballistic weapons don't seem as hard-hitting - the animations aren't as good.
I didn't like the new laser sounds.
The new PPC looks bad imo.
[more small reasons]

[Exilyth]

I liked the moments when AI lancemates randomly ran into your firing line without warning the best.



No, wait, I didn't.

Anyway, considering the game hasn't aged well, the biggest problem was the pinpoint weapon accuracy, turning the game more into a point-and-click adventure (at least when you were playing with a mouse).

[ShaunBearU]

With MW4, the guys from NGNG and nubnub said it the best. It was very "cartoonish". I do give MS some props as they were still moving their minds from MechAssault. MW4 Mercs did not have anywhere close to the freedom and responsibility of MW2 Mercs when it came to economy. With MW2 Mercs I felt that every personnel, every round fired, every time I "tripped" against a building and scratched a building I paid $$$ for every scratch. I felt I made or broke my unit with every carefully chosen mission I made.

Compared to MW3, I shoot out too NGNG in saying it had a very dark feel. It was a long journey to one of the darkest most threating part of the universe. But with Hyden and WTFClock, MW3 was amazing with the physics. I felt the difference in the size and maneuverability even between the 45 ton Shadow Cat and the 55 ton Bushwacker had a completely different feel but still a moving mountain! Oh yeah, and there was infantry that could explode when shot.

We were promised crowds of people in MW4!? Nice way to drop the ball MS. Not saying I am that sadistic but this was happening at this timeline often. We saw this activity from the novels, sourcebooks, and MW2M news feeds. Love to see this in MWO, people will get too distracted chasing down harmless civilans then watching their backs. And we can hold the ELH and other units to protecting the civilians at any cost.

[Moorecroft]

MW4 was optimised for multiplayer. Its very obvious that everything was basically tweaked to use the minimum amount of data so that Multiplayer was smoother and more accessible. They were very successful in that regard, particularly since so many people still play it. The single player wasnt bad, it just wasnt amazing. It's a very fun game online, even if it does frustrate people sometimes. The tweaks that MekTek made have improved it to a point, though jumpsniping is still a little too effective for my taste.

MW3 was a much better single player game.

Edited by Moorecroft, 16 February 2012 - 10:17 PM.

[SquareSphere]

for me MW4 was a step back in atmosphere, story telling, animations, and mech textures. That being said MW4 wasn't as horrific as lets say mech assault.

Where the complete feel of mechs and game play was drastically changed.

[Yeach]

I was thinking of posting a topic "In defence of MW4"
But some people are too fixated on TT rules and less on gameplay.
As mentioned before MW4 was a multiplayer game first and a single player second.

MW4 had
-more types of game modes (CTF, King of the Hill) rather than the boring MW2/MW3 of just destruction.
-lag shooting was kept at a minimal; you hit at what you shot at (unlike the lag-shooting fest of MW2/MW3)
-no advantage of having a mouse/keyboard over a joystick
-different types of armor against different weapons

[Name140704]

Hayden, on 16 February 2012 - 07:45 PM, said:

Honestly, if it wasn't a Mechwarrior game, I would probably have enjoyed it a lot more.

It just represents a huge step to the side. The graphics were cartoony, the story wasn't all bad but the actors were... not to mention the extensive redesigns of just about everything... which basically goes hand-in-hand with the cartoony feel.

MW1, MW2 and MW2M were all limited by technology, but really set a good precedent. Mechwarrior 3* was pretty nearly the pinnacle of capturing the "feel" of such a massive war machine, the thing really felt heavy, the weapons were generally well modeled (AC aside, but that's personal preference) then we had MW4. The feeling was gone. And on top of that they dumbed down the look of everything and threw in 'mechs that had to be ret-conned in later (grumble grumble).

*I was not a pirate's moon fan, but that's for another post.

^ Big time

From the studio that brought you quotes in 'Mech Assault like, "The Puma is a variant of the Cougar that I developed for anti-infantry operations" to the 100 ton Mad Cat with it's variant, the Timber Wolf. Fasa Studio sucked. I was very dissapointed with MW4, especially with the jump that MW3 took from MW2. Hardpoints in the 'mech lab made most of the variants impossible.

How can you make a game where the Atlas is just a big target, and call it Mechwarrior?


Yuck.

[Seth]

I like MW4 the best out of the series so far. Graphics wise, the mechs in MW3 looked better, but the variation in terrain in MW4 blew MW3 out of the water. I remember when I first dropped into a MW4 game and was blown away by the map Timberline. There was nothing in MW3 that could compare. MW3 had a true canonical mech lab, but the result in multiplayer was a game dominated by Shadow Cats and Striders boating small and medium lasers. But the thing that cinched it for me, and the reason none of the other MechWarrior games will rank as high in my book is the multiplayer experience. I actually damaged what I shot at. I didn't have to shoot one or two mech lengths ahead of my target, I simply shot my target. I never looked back to MW3 after that.

Edited by Seth, 18 February 2012 - 12:16 AM.

[Brakkyn]

MechWarrior 4 was a step backwards. There was no immersiveness. Some features, such as the MechLab, were different, and depending upon who you ask, it was either an improvement or a downgrade.

The poster above me made some points I'd like to touch on, such as MechWarrior 3 boating and lag shooting. Boating is a result of a fully customizable MechLab. "Every 'Mech is an OmniMech" describes it best. Lag shooting as I see it was just a fluke in the game engine or people's Internet connections, which was never really addressed.

I find MechWarrior 3's single-player campaign the best of the entire MechWarrior series. It only outclasses MechWarrior 2 and its expansions simply because of the game engine.

MechWarrior 4 was like a foreign knockoff of a quality product. There were times playing through the campaigns it seemed like there was so much more that they could have done, and didn't. Graphics seemed outdated even when the game was new. Every map you played on was accesible if you mounted jump jets. Didn't matter how high or low something was, you could get there with no effort (jump-jetting to ascend cliff faces and auto-walking up sheer surfaces). Weapon effects and dynamics were appalling. The edges of maps would fall off into nothingness. Then there's the "piloting a toy robot" effect.

I could probably go and make a comprehensive list, but I have a headache.

[Petroff Northrup]

It was fun, but it was not really Battltech. it is a good way to get into BT, but you should not really put too much into it.

[Arnold Carns]

Horatio Blakeney, on 16 February 2012 - 05:17 PM, said:

A.) The mechlab was different in MW4 from earlier games. MW4 had weapon type specific slots (energy, ballistic, missle, omni), while previous versions simply had slots of various sizes.

B.) some mechs had default configurations or even slot configurations that were not or could not support canonical weapon loadouts

C.) The clan mechs were not so overpoweringly better than the IS mechs

D.) The designers invented new mechs instead of using similar canonical mechs

THIS and:

E. Missing LRM's turned around more than once until they finally stroke their target.

F. Devs tuned some of the weapons extremely down while boosting others (M-Lasers did only did 80% while L-Lasers were boosted to 187,5% damage compared to boargame values. That way Light and Medium Mechs which design relied upon thoose weapons, were merely useless and too less dangerous than they should have been!). And then used lame excuses why they did it!

G. Senseless mixing of Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 Tech. LAMS, Reactive and Reflective Armor... urgh!

H. Cartoonish deaths of limping Mechs which all went critical when shot down... *shudder*

MW 4 was soo much less settled in the BT-Universe and more a FPS, that some still refer to it as MechQuake, QuakeWarrior or MurksWarrior 1™ (that's german for CrapWarrior 1). The immersion of piloting a Huge Robotc War Machine was almost nonexistent.