246 replies to this topic

[TheRulesLawyer]

Scar, on 05 March 2012 - 11:17 AM, said:

Did you even read about the Random and clan matches? It's only your problem - if you're so naive to believe in well coordinated Random, where firepower and armor doesn'r rule the battle.

Sorry, but naively. There is just no place for income in your model. The chassis of any class/power from the start and for free?! Yeah, sure.

Because in P2P the whole player-base pays for itself. I think you need read something about F2P business model - it will answer many of your questions and dispel some naive beliefs.

Loyalty points never repalce the REAL money. Especially if not forget that not every players and merc-corps. will be affiliated to the Houses.

Clearly you think everything in the interviews etc is a bunch of hogwash. I can't help you.

[Scar]

LackofCertainty, on 05 March 2012 - 11:06 AM, said:

I actually play artillery as my primary in WoT.

I only play random in WoT, and to repeat, I play artillery.

And? You didn't answer the main question. I'm a Field Commander of my clan with game experience since the Closed Beta, positive K/D and acurracy of 74% - and i know it for sure, if i'm not acting like an *****, my HT10 dying pretty rarely from artillery. And i'm sure - you know that too.

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If demand for one class outweighs all the others by a drastic margin, then you can implement incentives to get people to play other classes. See the LFG stuff in WoW. Actually the WoW comparison is almost perfect, because certain classes are overrepresented. Since they need more of certain classes (generally tanks) to fill out parties that are waiting, those classes get benefits to encourage people to play them.

It's all fine in PvE - in PvP the ABSOLUTELY most of parties sucks in aspect of coordination. And finally - MWO isn't RPG, see the WoT if you need the closest example.

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If battlefield info is a fantasy, then the whole balance of the game goes out the window. I think that it's doable provided that there is a clear and obvious advantage to having non-assault mechs even in random queues.

I repeat it again - IT'S A FANTASY IN RANDOM.

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I'll go back to my standby of league of legends. Once you get out of the noob ELO (their terminology for matchmaking rating) you start to see people filling every role needed, simply because there are obvious team benefits to doing so. Whenever I hop on LoL, I see random matchmaking groups with: 1 tank, 1 brusier/jungler, 1 mage carry, 1 physical carry, and 1 support. (granted I often am the person doing support since that's the least popular class, but my point remains valid)

Again - MWO isn't RPG.

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See my above response. If the roles have obvious benefits then the game's meta filters down into even the densest players over time.

If you doesn't have a good team and coordination - all your 'benefits' will be ruined by dozen of Assaults.

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You're a humbug, my good man.

LOL - is that your last argument? You're naive.

Edited by Scar, 05 March 2012 - 11:36 AM.

[RecklessFable]

Late to the game here (First post!) but I've seen a lot of World of Tanks references and needed to throw in a comment or two about how this game won't be like WoT from what I've read.

I don't see any references to Teired matches in this game, so no "matchmaker" will be leveling the game based on quality of chassis.

Role based play theoretically works more like other MMO warzones (Healer, DPS, Tank, CC, etc) rather than purely weight class. In WoT Clan Wars there is some role-based play (scouts, rapid response, arty and main battle tanks) but needs are usually based more on terrain. This will be interesting to see. I'm sure in random matchups the folks who play "roles" other than assault will be frustrated often by trying to herd cats...

Premium Mechs? Well, an above poster nailed it in that rather than make specific chassis premium, they can easily just provide premium upgrades, skins, variants. These can have in-game benefits like having an extra ton of capacity, more heat sinks, different mounts, etc. This would be a nice change to the "ZOMG the T-59 is so broken!" arguments in WoT.

For those that don't know, in WoT a premium tank differs from "earned" tanks in that they are not upgradable but earn nice bonuses to XP, Credit earnings and nerfed matchmaking. The latter makes them overpowered for their Tier since even though they aren't better than a fully-upgraded tank of their tier, they get matched into easier battles.

[TwitchTv Morkani]

ScrewCityChris, on 05 March 2012 - 11:30 AM, said:

I don't suppose you would be willing to let us know how much a hindrance the slow speed, twist, etc, of an Assault is in a city type environment would you? How do those battles play out?

+1
I am also interested in this, the skills/mech xp system, doesn't seem to me to be able to apply that big of an advantage, ie: if you go head to head, both the same mech, one mech has 0 skills/modules in it, and the other mech has all the skills/modules, It seems like it would still be a pretty fair fight, either side could win.

If this is the case, and if all mechs that are introduced are available without having to unlock them, then where's the carrot?

Edited by Morkani, 05 March 2012 - 11:51 AM.

[Scar]

TheRulesLawyer, on 05 March 2012 - 11:35 AM, said:

Clearly you think everything in the interviews etc is a bunch of hogwash. I can't help you.

Is this a first dev's interview that you ever read in the life? Seems so. They're telling truth, but you should understand that it's true only if people playing WELL COORDINATED. Do you really hope that any dev on the planet can invent the battle system which can't be ruined by the "human factor"? You guys really naive.

The Holy Ideal Balance for all Classes, from the Start, in Random and FOR FREE. Cool story, bro's.

[Sears]

I think all mechs should be available to choose from the start. Then once you get your mech it takes a while to be able to purchase another one. And the introduction of more mechs in every weight catagory will be added after launch and can be purchased with in game currency and for the impatient real currency. That way from day one you can have varied teams.

Also my i am interested by the Hunchback, i like the design,but i haven't been able to find much information on it other then on the battletech wiki. But it's difficult to translate what it would be like in this game or one of the previous Mechwarrior games. Being a medium weight battlemech does that make it a jack of all trades?

[RecklessFable]

Addendum to my above ramble about MMO Warzones: It would seem to me that if folks form premade lances with certain roles, they will be able to dominate, much like a 3-4 player group in SWTOR dominates warzones.

Morkani, on 05 March 2012 - 11:43 AM, said:

+1 I am also interested in this, the skills/mech xp system, doesn't seem to me to be able to apply that big of an advantage, ie: if you go head to head, both the same mech, one mech has 0 skills/modules in it, and the other mech has all the skills/modules, It seems like it would still be a pretty fair fight, either side could win. If this is the case, and if all mechs that are introduced are available without having to unlock them, then where's the carrot?

Why would anyone pay money if that was the case? Any Freemium game must provide sufficient advantage to paying customers to make them want to pay. or realy, feel like the NEED to pay.

[LackofCertainty]

Scar, on 05 March 2012 - 11:36 AM, said:

And? You didn't answer the main question. I'm a Field Commander of my clan with game experience since the Closed Beta, positive K/D and acurracy of 74% - and i know it for sure, if i'm not acting like an *****, my HT10 dying pretty rarely from artillery. And i'm sure - you know that too.

It's all fine in PvE - in PvP the ABSOLUTELY most of parties sucks in aspect of coordination. And finally - MWO isn't RPG, see the WoT if you need the closest example.

I repeat it again - IT'S A FANTASY IN RANDOM.

Again - MWO isn't RPG.


If you doesn't have a good team and coordination - all your 'benefits' will be ruined by dozen of Assaults.

LOL - is that your last argument? You're naive.

You have no sense of humor, ya durned humbug.

Don't dismiss League of legends as an appropriate parallel. It has 5 well defined roles, each of which have their place in fights. MWO has 4 well defined roles that (according to the devs) each play an important role in a fight. If your theory were true, then every game of LoL would be 5 bruisers. It's not, because after playing a decent amount of LoL you realize that you need the specialties of the different roles. If you don't have the support that buys wards all game (equivalent of a scout) then your team is blind and you end up losing a lot of fights/missing out on taking important objectives.

I think until I have some real data to go on, I'll stick with the info the devs give me. Granted, maybe this is all a big cover-up, and the game is a total assault-filled garbage bin in anything other than high end guild battles, but I'm hopeful that it isn't as doom and gloom as you predict. As long as there is an obvious advantage to having light/medium mechs then players will use them, even in random, because people want to win.

Also, I hope that the games are setup like a lol game and -not- like WoT, in that I want to enter matchmaking and get put into a lobby for a game, and then choose my mech. If you throw 12 people into a lobby and let them talk strategy in chat for 1-2 minutes while they choose mechs, you'll definitely see a lot more variety in the teams. If everyone selects their assault mech and then queues and can't change... well that's stupid. You can't make a balanced random team if you don't get to see what other people are selecting before the game starts. (unless they use the balanced party thing where the teams are pieced together with 3 of each mech category)

I have never played high end WoT clan stuff, so I can't talk about that. I am not in a top tier tank, so maybe it changes up there too. All I know is that as far as I've played I see a good balance of tanks. Granted, I don't blow up a heavy tank every game I play, but I get a crazy amount of satisfaction when I clip one and see it's health tick down 20%. (even better when you get the critical with it and see the thing sit dead in the water while your own heavy tanks finish it off)


Edit: Actually, I think LoL is a better comparison than WoT. In every match of LoL all characters start off on equal footing. In any random match of WoT you have to deal with the different tiers of tanks which are not balanced at all. Yeah, a tier 4 heavy tank will basically kill infinite amounts of tier 2 scout tanks, but that's not really an appropriate comparison to MWO.

Edited by LackofCertainty, 05 March 2012 - 12:05 PM.

[TheRulesLawyer]

RecklessFable, on 05 March 2012 - 11:54 AM, said:

Why would anyone pay money if that was the case? Any Freemium game must provide sufficient advantage to paying customers to make them want to pay. or realy, feel like the NEED to pay.

Well, they've said that they won't be selling power- As you you won't be able to buy things with in game advantage that you can't get free. LoL seems to do just fine with that model.

[Scar]

Garth Erlam, on 05 March 2012 - 11:21 AM, said:

To be clear, simply having an Assault 'Mech does not make you win. Picture a bunch of Atlas' going 54 km/h, being tracked by a scout, who is spotting for a bunch of Catapults. Hilarity ensues.

How about 12 Atlas'?

Edited by Scar, 05 March 2012 - 12:00 PM.

[Scar]

LackofCertainty, on 05 March 2012 - 11:57 AM, said:

You have no sense of humor, ya durned humbug.

Don't dismiss League of legends as an appropriate parallel. It has 5 well defined roles, each of which have their place in fights. MWO has 4 well defined roles that (according to the devs) each play an important role in a fight. If your theory were true, then every game of LoL would be 5 bruisers. It's not, because after playing a decent amount of LoL you realize that you need the specialties of the different roles. If you don't have the support that buys wards all game (equivalent of a scout) then your team is blind and you end up losing a lot of fights/missing out on taking important objectives.


I think until I have some real data to go on, I'll stick with the info the devs give me. Granted, maybe this is all a big cover-up, and the game is a total assault-filled garbage bin in anything other than high end guild battles, but I'm hopeful that it isn't as doom and gloom as you predict. As long as there is an obvious advantage to having light/medium mechs then players will use them, even in random, because people want to win.

Also, I hope that the games are setup like a lol game and -not- like WoT, in that I want to enter matchmaking and get put into a lobby for a game, and then choose my mech. If you throw 12 people into a lobby and let them talk strategy in chat for 1-2 minutes while they choose mechs, you'll definitely see a lot more variety in the teams. If everyone selects their assault mech and then queues and can't change... well that's stupid. You can't make a balanced random team if you don't get to see what other people are selecting before the game starts. (unless they use the balanced party thing where the teams are pieced together with 3 of each mech category)

I have never played high end WoT clan stuff, so I can't talk about that. I am not in a top tier tank, so maybe it changes up there too. All I know is that as far as I've played I see a good balance of tanks. Granted, I don't blow up a heavy tank every game I play, but I get a crazy amount of satisfaction when I clip one and see it's health tick down 20%. (even better when you get the critical with it and see the thing sit dead in the water while your own heavy tanks finish it off)

How many times should i repeat that MWO isn't RPG? I understand why you don't compare MWO with WoT - because you know that in WoT, which is MUCH closer to MWO than any RPG - you'll be ****ed by the company of HT10 in random, with all your artillery and scouts. Not because the balance sucks - in clan wars scouts and atrillery are working pretty well. You'll be ***ed just because it's a Random - where firepower and armor always rule the battle, and coordination - sucks.

Edited by Scar, 05 March 2012 - 12:15 PM.

[Damocles]

btw MWO is not WoT

[Halfinax]

I would like to seem them go the League of Legends route, not an rpg btw Scar, with a rotating stable of free 'Mechs to use, and all the others are purchasable with either in-game currency or real money. So say 4 'Mechs available to play for free, one from each weight category, and this selection rotates on a bi-weekly basis. You also have your personal stable of 'Mechs to choose from.

It's a nice balance. Let's people try out new 'Mechs without any added risk, and gives new players something to putt around in without being forced to make a decision on what chassis and role they want to take before having any idea what they might enjoy.

[Kanil]

Yes, and no.

Yes, because a game should have good gameplay to keep a player playing, rather than a carrot at the end of a long road of pointless grind.

No, because this is a free to play game, and the money comes from people not wanting to walk the long road of pointless grind.

[Scar]

Damocles, on 05 March 2012 - 12:12 PM, said:

btw MWO is not WoT

Nobody said it is. What i wrote is that being a shooter too WoT is much closer to MWO than any RPG. I really don't understand how the people can seriously compare shooter with RPG.

Edited by Scar, 05 March 2012 - 12:29 PM.

[LackofCertainty]

In WoT if you don't have a gun big enough to get through armor, you do 0 damage. Thus a scout can never kill a heavy tank. Artilleries can, but they a decent number of solid hits. In addition, the map is small enough that a solid team of heavy tanks could just roll over to the enemy base, blowing any enemy that tried to get around them until they won.

In MWO any weapon can damage any vehicle, so an assault won't be the same sort of nigh-invincible juggernaut that heavy tanks are in WoT.

I know you're super hot about WoT, Scar, but MWO is not going to be WoT2. It's going to be MWO. Now, really, both of us are speculating about a game we've never played, so there's a chance that the game will end up as you say. Every random game will be 24 assaults charging eachother and slugging it out until one side can't slug no more. However, I hope it ends up more like what the devs say it will be, where any mech can play a part in the fight. And I really hope that they take steps to make sure randoms function along that same balance. (a la: putting people in a lobby so they can strategize b4 the mission in chat, or if all else fails, having preset amounts of different mechs per fight 3/3/3/3 style)

Also, you have fully confirmed yourself as a humbug, Scar. Enjoy living on the pessimistic side of life and don't rain on my optimistic side.

[Thomas Hogarth]

I'd like to see canonically rare 'Mechs cost a lot of real-world cash. I.e. Annihilator, Imp, Marauder-II and the like. I think $100 for one of those wouldn't be out of line, and would make them a rare sight indeed.

$5 for an Atlas would be acceptable. Atlases aren't the rarest things ever, but they aren't nearly as common as Zeuses or the like.

Of course, advanced technology (ER, Gauss, Pulse) is also rare, and assigning a dollar cost to variants that mount such technology might keep it somewhat under wraps.

Clanners are far less common than IS pilots. I think the Clan tree should also be a cash unlock, but I would hesitate to put a dollar amount of ALL Clan 'Mechs. A one-time "get in the door" cost would be fine.

[LackofCertainty]

Halfinax, on 05 March 2012 - 12:20 PM, said:

I would like to seem them go the League of Legends route, not an rpg btw Scar, with a rotating stable of free 'Mechs to use, and all the others are purchasable with either in-game currency or real money. So say 4 'Mechs available to play for free, one from each weight category, and this selection rotates on a bi-weekly basis. You also have your personal stable of 'Mechs to choose from.

It's a nice balance. Let's people try out new 'Mechs without any added risk, and gives new players something to putt around in without being forced to make a decision on what chassis and role they want to take before having any idea what they might enjoy.

As much as I like the LoL model, I don't think the rotating mech chasis idea would work, because you earn xp for individual mechs. I do, however, hope they copy the rest of LoL's model, because it's one of the few F2P games that is really F2P.

edit: Man, but mechwarrior has some crazy fans. 100$ should buy you a helluva lot more than one mech.

In lol, you pay something like 4-8 dollars to unlock champions (all of which can be grinded for in in-game currency) and then skins for champions range between 2-15$ (with the 15$ ones being Legendary skins with all new audio, effects etc.)

Do you guys really think that a single mech in MWO is worth 1.5 full games? Insanity.


Edit2: From a business standpoint 100$ mechs are fine if you can get people to buy them, but all they would mean for me is that I wouldn't buy anything from the store. For LoL, I enjoyed the game a lot, so I threw 20$ into the game. I don't ever intend to pay more than that. (infact I still have about 10$ left that I'm saving for when they make another skin I like) If you make the stuff I want in the store be more than 20$, I'm not going to break the bank to buy your stuff, I just won't buy it. (and if you make premium P2W mechs/modules, I won't put any money into the game, just out of spite)

Edit3: (I promise I'm done after this one) Making super expensive content doesn't encourage people to buy more from you. If you set the bar too high, then people who can't afford it won't pay. If the devs want to make money on MWO they will nickel and dime us to death. It's a lot easier to trick a person into paying a lot of money on your game when they say, "Well, this is the 8th variant I bought for [insert mech] but it's -only- two dollars! How could I not buy it?

Edited by LackofCertainty, 05 March 2012 - 12:46 PM.

[Thomas Hogarth]

I didn't say all 'Mechs, just the extremely rare ones. I'll get quickly disillusioned with MWO if every other 'Mech is a super special limited production snowflake.

So, no. I don't think a single 'Mech is worth $100. But someone out there will, and those someones are much rarer than everyday players who are fine with a Steiner-model Banshee or any other comparable 'Mech.

[Scar]

LackofCertainty, on 05 March 2012 - 12:27 PM, said:

In WoT if you don't have a gun big enough to get through armor, you do 0 damage. Thus a scout can never kill a heavy tank. Artilleries can, but they a decent number of solid hits. In addition, the map is small enough that a solid team of heavy tanks could just roll over to the enemy base, blowing any enemy that tried to get around them until they won.
In MWO any weapon can damage any vehicle, so an assault won't be the same sort of nigh-invincible juggernaut that heavy tanks are in WoT.

It changes nothing - 12 average Atlas' will waste 12 Commandos in every day. So, you 'argument' means nothing.

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I know you're super hot about WoT, Scar, but MWO is not going to be WoT2.

It's as idiotic sentence as i'd say you're hot about LoL or any other mentioned game. WoT is just closer to MWO than any other MMO(RPG especially). Do you have the problems with that fact? It's only yours.

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It's going to be MWO.

And? In random 12 Commandos will never be stronger than 12 Atlas'. That's why i'm against cheap Assaults.

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Also, you have fully confirmed yourself as a humbug, Scar. Enjoy living on the pessimistic side of life and don't rain on my optimistic side.

And you have fully confirmed that you're a little naive school-girl. But you forget about the main - realistic side. And i'm pretty optimistic in that part, because i know that dev's aren't fools and understand that every statement has a particular conditions to be the truth, and they won't let the game to be ruined by cheap or even free Assaults from the start. Period.

Edited by Scar, 05 March 2012 - 01:00 PM.