40 replies to this topic

[bishop]

Hey

So when this game was announced of course I was ecstatic about it, being a mechwarrior/mecha fan I was thrilled to hear that there will finally be a new mechwarrior game.

What puts me off is "online".

Why?

Because, with any game out there, online means competitive, high barrier to entry and inconvenience in a lot of cases.

So I ask, please include bot matches, if not on launch then post-release.

Why are bot matches important?

Well look at other games that are multiplayer only/focused.Like League of legends has bot matches, they aren't the most dynamic and thrilling types of matches you can play, but they offer up some experience and points to buy new champions, WITHOUT the hassle of playing against other players who may simply stomp you into the dirt. It's also a great way to allow new players who 'are' into multiplayer to ease their way into the game instead of running head first into player who have been playing for months/years.

Chromehounds. This game had a single player component yes, but it was mostly an online game, similar to what MWO is doing, chromehounds had a persistent online world where you joined a squadron and then fought for a nation to control various territories all the while supporting your government and voting in new leaders. It also had bot matches, me and my friends made a squad and spent about 250-300 hours each playing chromehounds just against bots! Player matches were certainly more exciting and gave you more rewards but bot matches were low impact, relaxing ways to have fun with friends.

So please, include bot matches, make them matter but just decrease the amount of rewards you get for doing them versus playing against players. I don't think I'll play this game for very long if bot matches aren't a possibility.

Edited by bishop, 25 March 2012 - 12:42 PM.

[Black Sunder]

I had a whole reply to this and lost it. Needless to say this game will be a pvp only game.

[palebear]

I agree that it shouldn't get you XP or MXP - or if it does it just counts as 'sim-time' and is reduced by an order of magnitude and has a hard-cap based on real-world time.

[bishop]

Aegis that would partly defeat the purpose of doing it. If you make it entirely separate from online then nobody will ever bother, the whole point is to allow players, especially new players to ease into the game, get some abilities or weapons or whatever it is that the game allows you to unlock from XP so that they have a leg up when they finally dive into PVP.

As an example in League of legends, if they didn't have bot matches I wouldn't have gotten 10 matches in before I gave up and uninstalled the game. The barrier to entry when jumping into ANY online game is massive and if you're not willing to ram your head up against a wall for potentially hundreds of matches before you begin to get good and have fun then it can be a very big turn off to the whole game.

Also, consider that MWO is coming out in competition with Hawken, which game do you think is more accessible to new players? The flashy shooter with a mech skin or the slow moving tactical romp? I think MWO needs it.

Edited by bishop, 25 March 2012 - 01:09 PM.

[bishop]

Why are you against bots giving a lesser amount of experience? How does that harm you or any other PVP player in any way?

[Damocles]

It does, bot farming servers for +exp.

See Red Orchestra 2 and their catering-to-casual-fail. Now all the servers are like 1-3 players and 30 bots so ppl can just level up guns and classes.

[bishop]

Does RO2 offer the same amount of experience from bots as players? Also MWO isn't going to be running off of a respawn based dedicated server deal, it's going to be a really long and tedious process for anyone who would want to grind bots if they were included the way I mention.

[Damocles]

Personally I would like bots to be included (no exp) in a practice mode.
It would be good for practicing vanilla tactics with your unit.

But given that it's not planned or been talked about by the Devs I'd say it's a longshot as AI takes a lot of work.

[bishop]

Well I look forward to seeing how long this game lasts then. While Hawken isn't a competitor for mechwarrior fans it is for all of the people you'll need to keep this game supported long-term.

[wwiiogre]

bots included in training area only and for no xp,

AI included for non mech npc enemies such as turrets, tanks, infantry (want to have something to shoot my flamers at), aero, vtols, ships, etc.
I want my combined arms battles. Mechs are the king of the battlefield, but if every person in a 12 on 12 is a king, then we might as well all be pawns. Mechs are the best at what they do but to show that, you need the other things to compare them to.

I am willing to start out as mech vs mech only as they build up the game, but hopefully once they have it right, they will be able to add other things.

I also believe that PGI will have failed if there is no way to test drive mechs and weapon setups. I would even pay in game money for it. Want to test drive that new Atlas, just a few cbills down and you get ten minutes with her. Want to see how that new shiny gauss rifle works, well pony up for the ammo and pay the energy bill and you too can step on to the range and whistle some depleted slugs down range.

chris

[Alaskan Viking]

Adding bots could also lead to the larger factions crushing the smaller ones with pure weight of numbers. as it is now factions with more players will wait longer in queue, because every match is 12 vs 12, but if those people can kill bots and give their side a little bit of faction control points, like you could in Chromehounds, then factions with more players will just steamroll everything.

[VarietyOfCells]

I was going to write a long post about how AI programing is hard and this isn't going to happen, but after reading your whole post I kind of wish it would. It would be nice to be able to fight against bots and hone your skills. But I agree with the other that you shouldn't get xp or c-bills from it. Have it be like VR training. But again, it's not going to happen till way after launch.

[MaddMaxx]

bishop, on 25 March 2012 - 02:07 PM, said:

Does RO2 offer the same amount of experience from bots as players? Also MWO isn't going to be running off of a respawn based dedicated server deal, it's going to be a really long and tedious process for anyone who would want to grind bots if they were included the way I mention.

And why would anyone find a really long and tedious process to gain a few XP points FUN?

[autogyro]

Bots would be low on the priority list for getting MW:O out the door.

I'd wager that we would see the Clan invasion before we see AI scripting. It's just too resource and time demanding on the developers to make realistic AI, there's plenty of other stuff the developers can add (and people pay money for) over having AI.

We have to stop thinking of MW:O like the previous MW games. This game is wholly multiplayer centric, and will be for quite some time I would imagine.

[bishop]

This has nothing to do with yearning for a single player focused MW game, yes I would like a single player mechwarrior game because that's what I enjoy about mechwarrior is killing bots. But this is for casual players, players who are new and need to ease into the game without getting beat to **** by veteran players, people who want to just hop online and play quick low impact match before work/school/sleep whatever or just testing out configurations.

It's useful in league of legends for getting new players into the game, it's also useful in league of legends for getting down the basics and practicing the things that are just a mess to worry about in a high speed pvp game.

I don't like multiplayer in anything but battlefield, that's kind of just the way I am, I like coop, I like playing against bots and AI with friends and in shooters I'm just kind of naturally good at them so I don't mind playing them in PVP. But with a game like Mechwarrior, it's a bit like a flight sim in that you'll have people who dedicate hundreds of hours to playing, they play in a squad with a bunch of their friends on comms and that sucks when you're not someone that wants to dedicate 100% of their game time to a single game. So bots would also help alleviate that problem.

And like I said, if not on launch, post launch would at least be nice.

[Helmer]

If its Waaaaaay down the list, then sure, why not. Post Launch.

There will probably be many other things to implement in this Team centered, online game first, But again, if it gets more people into the actualy ONLINE game, then so be it.
Gives new players a little bit of personal experience and knowledge going in.




Cheers

Edited by Helmer, 25 March 2012 - 06:58 PM.

[Kaemon]

IMO waste of time beyond brief tutorial, play MWI-IV if you want single player mode.

[Shai tan]

I like a Bot matchup if only to test Mech configs. Really hate taking an untried Mech into the pub arena.

[Halfinax]

bishop, on 25 March 2012 - 06:00 PM, said:

This has nothing to do with yearning for a single player focused MW game, yes I would like a single player mechwarrior game because that's what I enjoy about mechwarrior is killing bots. But this is for casual players, players who are new and need to ease into the game without getting beat to **** by veteran players, people who want to just hop online and play quick low impact match before work/school/sleep whatever or just testing out configurations.

It's useful in league of legends for getting new players into the game, it's also useful in league of legends for getting down the basics and practicing the things that are just a mess to worry about in a high speed pvp game.

I don't like multiplayer in anything but battlefield, that's kind of just the way I am, I like coop, I like playing against bots and AI with friends and in shooters I'm just kind of naturally good at them so I don't mind playing them in PVP. But with a game like Mechwarrior, it's a bit like a flight sim in that you'll have people who dedicate hundreds of hours to playing, they play in a squad with a bunch of their friends on comms and that sucks when you're not someone that wants to dedicate 100% of their game time to a single game. So bots would also help alleviate that problem.

And like I said, if not on launch, post launch would at least be nice.

To start off with: I don't have an issue with bot matches, and I don't mind if they are like LoL where you get 1/10th the rewards you would normally get for a PVP match. It let's you practice gives you a little something in return, but in no way encourages you to use it as a means to power level because the rewards are so minuscule that it would quickly become tedious and boring.

On the other hand. You seem biased against MP PVP games, and are therefore assuming most casual gamers are the same. I think most modern casual gamers are actually more PVP centric than you believe them to be. I also don't think that Hawken is a direct competitor/threat to MW:O and seems really a completely separate debate from what you are bringing up in your OP. People that like Hawken and only will choose one game will go with Hawken, and people that like MW:O and can only play one game will go with MW:O, but I highly doubt that there will be as little crossover as you seem to want to pretend there is going to be.

They are very different flavors of mech games. Hawken is going to be a fast paced adrenaline shooter, and MW:O is going to be a tactical team based game with an emphasis on deliberate action. One isn't necessarily going to take the audience from the other as they are appealing to fairly different styles of gameplay and are going to attract players looking for that style.

I also don't believe that most casual players feel like they need to be "eased" into PVP, so that whole side of the argument just falls apart. Unless you have some evidence (beyond your personal anecdotes) that disproves that, as for my evidence I'll point to the fact that the most popular and longest lived games have popular PVP elements, or are PVP centric.

[bishop]

Well let's take a look at some of the big popular titles out there that are PVP focused.

Call of duty - A very low barrier to entry, you can give a 12 year old the controller and as long as they've played a game at some point they'll probably have fun. The mechanics are very simple and to the point.

Counter strike - Another very easy to get into game, point and shot is the name of the game with CS.

Battlefield - Still another shooter, direct, simple, action oriented crazy nonsense.

The reason I say people may want to ease their way into PVP for MWO is that MWO isn't as simple as your call of duties and your counter strikes. Heat management, loadout customization, a plethora of different types of weapons with different effects and downsides to them. Generally more going on than your typical game. This is why I bring up League of legends, League players generally encourage new players to play around in bot matches to learn the controls, practice how the game works and basic strategy and then once they've adapted to things they can start playing pvp; but at not point do they feel like they're wasting their time by playing bots because as you said they still get rewarded a little.

Another example, Rise of Flight, a flight sim that I enjoy. There is a group of people that run a server specifically made to introduce new players to the game without having them get thrashed around on the "big boy servers", they turn on assists and have trainers in the game to answer questions and give pointers. If this server didn't exist, I imagine that a lot of players would join a server, get destroyed repeatedly and call it quits; and we see this in the ROF forum all the time, people start and join the wrong server and then come back to complain about how challenging and impossible it is to succeed.

As for me being biased against PVP games, my concern is that this game is going to be out of my league because I don't intend to dedicate a majority share of my time to playing it. I like to enjoy a vast majority of games over a long time frame and when something like Mechwarrior asks me to practice, learn and develop my skills in this one game, I personally am more inclined to just pass on it. I love mechwarrior but I don't know that this game is going to be accessible to me because mechwarrior multiplayer has never been fun to me.