1392 replies to this topic

[dilluminati]

Darkblood, on 07 November 2012 - 07:20 AM, said:

I didn´t vote because the pool is way skewed towards your point.

Please explain how this series of Yes/No questions is skewed towards my point.

[Darkblood]

Zyllos, on 07 November 2012 - 07:27 AM, said:

But, there are a few bright spots. Another Centurion mech and another peice of gear to use, Artemis.

Don't forget the new map. People cried forever for one, and now it seems it is nothing.

[Z0MBIE Y0SHI]

I strongly question the presence of testers.

I don't see how any reasonably thinking person could think the changes(Specifically LRM changes) in this patch were a good idea after testing.

Yes it's beta, and I'm generally not part of the rage crowd, but this is ridiculous. It should have been safe to assume that if your going to make one of the most powerful weapons ingame more accurate and easy to use, you should probably lessen it's damage output (The whole armor bug isn't helping either, and if there are testers, how the hell was that one over looked)

[ronin]

Agree with Pro's and Con's above. It's concise and to the point. Just to re-emphasize the biggest pro and con to this patch.

Pros:
The matches are closer now and new tactics, especially lance tactics, will come into play now. I like the new challenge this presents for a small group to work together.

Cons:
The LRM trajectory is one of the biggest gameplay concerns now to myself and others I've talked to on VOIP. Without the ability to get to cover I fear this will become MissleBoat Online. Please change the trajectory to allow for mechs to use cover again.

[Mawai]

Hi All,

When we went to open beta PGI stated that they would be adjusting repair and rearm costs. I never saw this happen ... maybe I missed it ... however, repair and re-arm costs are still exorbitant.

This situation should be obvious if they do any internal testing at all.

Anything using ammo has trouble making reasonable cbills. Anything with a lot of armor has trouble making reasonable cbills (by reasonable I refer to more than a trial mech which doesn't require repairs and has an 80% multiplier on earnings). This means that repair and rearm costs are typically more than 20% of earnings in many cases when bonus cbill multipliers from premium or mechs are left out.

Here are some numbers ..

Atlas (founders) ... 2LL, 2MPL, 1 Gauss, std engine ... typical repair/rearm costs about 70k
Catapult K2 ... 2 Gauss, XL engine ... typical repair costs about 75k
Catapult K2 ... 2 Gauss, Std engine ... typical repair costs about 50k
Jenner ... 4ML, XL engine ... 10 to 50k depending on whether engine is damaged
Jenner ... 2ML, 1MPL, SSRM2, FF ... 30k to 70k ... FF and SSRM ammo cost more

In the Jenners there is an occasional match with very low repair costs ... this doesn't happen so often with the heavier mechs which tend to become bigger targets.

A good win will net a reward of about 140k cbills before bonus ... A typical loss is 80 to 100k.

What does that mean for the cases cited above?

Atlas ... net income ... win ... 140k-70k = 70k .... trial = 112k
Atlas ... net income ... loss ... 100k-70k = 30k ... trial = 80k

Cat K2 XL ... net income ... win ... 140k - 75k = 65k ... trial = 112k
Cat K2 XL ... net income ... loss ... 100k - 75k = 25k ... trial = 80k

Cat K2 Std ... net ,,, win 140k-50k = 90k
Cat K2 Std ... net ... loss 100k-50k = 50k

Jenner 1 ... net ... win ... 140k - 30k = 110k
Jenner 1 ... net ... loss ... 100k - 30k = 70k

Jenner 2 ... net ... win ... 140k-50k = 90k
Jenner 2 ... net ... loss ... 100k -50k = 50k

On average TRIAL mechs will always make more unless you are in a pre-made group playing against unorganized groups ... which will affect both the number of wins and the total damage you take in a match.

In addition, the bigger mechs make so little without premium (especially in the case of a loss) that I am unsure what would motivate F2P players to keep playing. Maybe the design is intentional to force everyone into either buying premium or only playing with trial mechs ... but personally, I think I would find it so frustrating I would just quit.

I think the economy is the reason we see so many light and medium mechs on the field at the moment ... especially ones equipped with energy weapons ... they are just that much more efficient to operate from an economic perspective. Maybe that is the goal? The issue I am concerned with is that the economy is so unrewarding that folks who try the game and might be motivated to spend real money will instead quit when faced with the situation of essentially being forced to spend money on premium and/or cbill bonus mechs in order to use owned mechs in a remotely profitable way. At the moment, owned mechs (especially the heavier classes) will only out earn trial mechs if you have premium or drop in organized groups that change the odds.

[Wizace]

"Wow, you guys really outdid yourselves. 75% of our merc unit is now not playing, including myself. You have succeeded in making this game boring beyond belief."

boring ? you must mean more difficult ?
now 75% more pugs have a chance ?
Its Bata, get over your selfs.

Wiz

[Voridan Atreides]

Everything is broken right now.

[Zyllos]

Darkblood, on 07 November 2012 - 07:30 AM, said:

Don't forget the new map. People cried forever for one, and now it seems it is nothing.

Yes, I forgot about the map.

Another problem I missed, SSRMs missing their targets. Should never be happening "normally". Yes, they can miss due to turn radius but should never be missing slow/standing still targets.

[Scarlett Avignon]

Forest Colony Snow is cool and disappointing at the same time. Visually, it looks great, but I'm let down that the map is exactly the same. I thought we'd be playing on a different map in the same setting, and got the exact opposite.

Forest Colony (original) it totally borked. My framerate on those maps makes it unplayable to the point where I just drop out of the match, despite the penalties. Hearing that from a lot of people.

Artemis is cool. I like your implementation of it, however, it seems you get no payout from artemis equipped missiles.

Missile firing arcs need to be readjusted back to their original paths. Cover is almost impossible to find from a determined enemy, now.

CN9-D is nice to have, but has the wrong picture in the purchase screen.

Heat sinks (and double heat sinks in particular) seem to be working great now.

The fixes to the small and pulse lasers seems to be working out. Happy to see small lasers not be quite as useful as their larger brethren now.

Matchmaker changes, while curbing my pub-stomping, has likely benefited the vast majority of players and made the game more enjoyable for them. I'm excited about future phases of your plans for it.


Overall, I'd say you put out a good patch, but your testers need to step up their game.

Edited by Franklen Avignon, 07 November 2012 - 07:48 AM.

[Yanlowen Cage]

Just a thought. If LRMs are not so uber and you can still get cover from them, and you can still play other chassises.. etc. Why are there so many light/lrm boat matches now? empirical evidence, anyone?

[Xendojo]

I agree that overall it was a good patch.

I think that most of the QQ comes from the broken LRM flight arc.

[rythex]

One unfortunate thing is that some games I'm unable to participate in, because literally the other team loses 2-4 players about a minute after being scouted to LRM fire. I watched an Atlas go from 100% to cored in about 5 seconds of LRM fire..


He went from 100 > 70 > 50% then popped..

When there are less LRM boats on both sides the games are somewhat enjoyable again.

I am still an advocate of moving the UFO's closer together to reduce teams staying at spawn waiting for rushers.

[Darkblood]

dilluminati, on 07 November 2012 - 07:28 AM, said:

Please explain how this series of Yes/No questions is skewed towards my point.

There´s no combination of answers for saying: "the patch has improved the game, but there are problems (and not Artemis)." or the opposite of that.

Dropping the Artemis question for a final question in the lines of: "If you think the patch has improved (worsened) the game, do you see major bad (good) points in it?" would make the pool way more neutral and useful. The way it is it will only be answered by people who have a problem with Artemis, and the outcome is predictable.

[Karl Streiger]

Nice writing

kind and objective +1

[WarMonkey14]

StORmTrAin, on 06 November 2012 - 09:13 PM, said:

The old game beeped at you when missile lock was detected. Also, the old game's missiles blew up when they hit a mountain, buildings or even trees I think. There was alot less missile usage in the old game. Missiles had their place but not many people used LRM's. In this game, every drop has someone shooting LRM's. LRM's should not be relied upon so heavily. They have been too powerful and have performed wrong from the start. You can still play the old MW4 for free, whoever is in charge of the LRM department needs to download MW4 and learn how the mechanics of LRM's are supposed to function in a mech environment. They have not been right from the very beginning.

[Yanlowen Cage]

Ok open beta. Isn't like WOW,EQ,EQ2,COH and a mulittude of other MMO's technically still in open beta? They have bug threads and patch too. They take feedback and such. So in a way all games that are constantly updating and evolving are long term open beta. Maybe ???

[DocBach]

this is a lead in to everyone packing ECM. Just like the opened the spread of SRMs - so the Artemis could tighten them back up

[Scarlett Avignon]

Xendojo, on 07 November 2012 - 07:43 AM, said:

I think that most of the QQ comes from the broken LRM flight arc.

I agree with you. I just wish people would format their replies in a more constructive manner, rather than spam the forums with drivel about quitting and going to other games.

[BommelB]

everything was fine before the patch came, but the dynamic space does'nt make sence, the double heat sinks are underpowered, the laser heat is to high, the lrms are more overpowered than before the patch, especially with artemis, the only good thing in the patch is the ssrm precision and the bog-fixing, all in all, you can kill a atlas with 1 hit and light mechs are useless now ,for example i tried half an hour to install 2 lrm 10s in my cammander, without the dynamic space and double heat sink patch it was only possible, when i reduced my shields to 6 and include only 1 lrm ammo, my jenner has 6 lasers and overheated after 2 salves, but now I can only fire them once, i'll stop playing, until this problem gets fixed

[Slanski]

Put into place management processes to control and document what you do. This game will very quickly get out of control as it grows in size. The past few patch experiences have led me to believe that time and again old or already discarded iterations of code get compiled into the patches. Problems that have been solved resurface at random times. This is a problem of process design and documentation of the work you do.

This problem will get exponentially worse as the game and your staff grows if you achieve the success you envision. I do not doubt the devs vision of the game and its balance, I doubt their internal process and work/QA organization.