164 replies to this topic

[Kedma]

Wyzak, on 24 April 2012 - 03:30 PM, said:

Well, for it to stay free to try, it would help if we didn't bog the admins and programmers down in nitpicky feature requests. Since the community is hoping to get some additional propulsion from the gaming community at large spending their entertainment dollars here, it may not make sense to invest a lot of effort in a complicated feature that only a few well-versed players will see as a benefit.

Also as it being free.. it needs to draw as many people to it as possible.. yes us diehard fans will be lining up, but they have to get all those other people out there to play it.. even pay for a few things they are selling, in order for this project to move ahead.. If 60,000 people played the game.. and only 5000 people bought some of the stuff they offered, cause of lack of choices, or lack of content in the game.. its a failure..

For comparison..

Battlefield 3.. Over 50 different weapons.. with 3 interchangable parts per weapon.. with multiple parts for each slot.. so you can customize your weapon for your style of game play.. look and feel.. also skins.. everything in this game has multiple tiers.. even different ammo for some weapons, to add to the diversity of the game..

If the only choices for this game were..

Pulse Lazer - Lazer - ER Lazer - PPC - AC - Gause Rifle - Missles.. 3 types each.. make your selections and move along.. this game will have taken a back seat to the newest, and hottest games out there.. I know its free to play.. but for a simulated run and gun game with no content, and no places to explore.. I just run the mods for other games that I did buy.. cuase thats free too..

Edited by Kedma, 24 April 2012 - 07:20 PM.

[Dalfsson]

this whole thread is taking it a bit to far into munchkinism. anything past level 2 tech is going too far.

i would hate to see munchmechs in this game.

a link that expalins what i'm talking about:
http://www.sarna.net.../fpart/all/vc/1

Edited by Dalfsson, 25 April 2012 - 03:14 AM.

[LordDeathStrike]

Motionless, on 16 April 2012 - 07:12 PM, said:

I got this ER PPC on home-shopping-interstellar-Television for only 20 payments of 19.99 C-bills!

*it explodes on first use*

thats what you get for being a cheapass!

[Scarlett Avignon]

I don't think I'd like to see weapons with wildly varying stats based on manufacturer, but I think it would be awesome if certain manufacturers gave small improvements in performance. For instance, in the 3025 TRO, the Lord's Light PPC from the Draconis Combine is supposed to be a superior weapon system. Perhaps give it anywhere from a 2-5% buff in some stat to reflect this, and make it a more expensive PPC to purchase. There are many mentions of superior weapons in many of the TROs and other sourcebooks. Would make for some great fluff and would be a neat addition to the game.

[DocBach]

Exactly - nothing that makes something insanely more powerful than any other system, just something that makes it different.

There shouldn't be any medium lasers that do as much damage as large lasers, but a certain IS medium laser might have a bit more punch than a run of the mill medium laser, but the recharge rate might be much longer and the effective range is cut to balance things out.

They say variety is the spice of life, and it certainly is the spice of keeping away from the same-old, same-old that plagues a lot of other games. Like I said before, players want "rewards" for playing games, one of the biggest ones MMOs offer is varying loot, or in our case with MWO, salvage.

[Jazz30]

Getting too granular at that point. For an arcade style online game, tweaks like this are simply unrealistic for overall implementation. Besides, that's opening up a whole new can of worms with manufacturers of different fusion plants, myomer fibers, electronic systems, what have you. Hardcore fans will be annoyed that they miss some obscure manufacturer detail, and casuals will be peeved that they have to do this extra layer of research just to play the game.

Basically, KISS

[Sassori]

Cash shop items will not have an impact balance wise (So they claim). Any alteration to the stats of a weapon /WILL/ have impact balance wise, it's that simple.

I want to see chassis, paint jobs, customizations, stuff like that on the cash shop. I don't want to see Gold Bullets. Quit pushing for pay to win.

[Pht]

DocBach, on 24 April 2012 - 02:16 PM, said:

Not worth what? This game is free.

The opportunities lost for the developers to do other things of higher value because they would have to sort out all of the conseqences of every little tweak ... or if they didn't, the consequences that the game play would suffer from the inevitable munchkinism that it would enable without some hardcore going over to quash unintiended consequences.

If it gets done, I'd rather see it be a post-release thing, after it's been well tested.

DocBach, on 24 April 2012 - 05:50 PM, said:

All weapons are standardized in the board game because a turn lasts 30 seconds -

10 seconds, actually.

Kedma, on 24 April 2012 - 07:13 PM, said:

If the only choices for this game were..

Pulse Lazer - Lazer - ER Lazer - PPC - AC - Gause Rifle - Missles.. 3 types each.. make your selections and move along.. this game will have taken a back seat to the newest, and hottest games out there..

How do you know this?

[Sassori]

Autocannons: 2, 5, 10, 20
Short Range Missiles: 2, 4, 6
Long Range Missiles: 5, 10, 15, 20
Lasers (There's no 'z' by the way): Small, Medium, Large.
Particle Projector Cannons
Machine Guns
Flamers

With Lostech we have:
ER Lasers of every type
Pulse Lasers of every type
Ultra-Autocannons


When you add that in to the variety of mech weights (20), and the hard points each individual mech has, and multiply that by chassis variants... well I think there's PLENTY of options out there without needing to invent new weapons!

[CeeKay Boques]

Christopher Dayson, on 25 April 2012 - 02:34 PM, said:

Autocannons: 2, 5, 10, 20
Short Range Missiles: 2, 4, 6
Long Range Missiles: 5, 10, 15, 20
Lasers (There's no 'z' by the way): Small, Medium, Large.
Particle Projector Cannons
Machine Guns
Flamers

With Lostech we have:
ER Lasers of every type
Pulse Lasers of every type
Ultra-Autocannons


When you add that in to the variety of mech weights (20), and the hard points each individual mech has, and multiply that by chassis variants... well I think there's PLENTY of options out there without needing to invent new weapons!

Just to clarify, this is thread is not about adding new weapons but using the existing fluff to differentiate between different manufactuers of say an Medium Laser.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Medium_Laser


See all the different manufactures? Sometimes in fluff it might say the each kind of lasers misfire, or are too hot, or are really good in some way. So, adding those differences to MechWarrior Online, probably for money. All that said, somewhere the dev's said they weren't doing that right now.

[Sassori]

Technoviking, on 25 April 2012 - 02:43 PM, said:

Just to clarify, this is thread is not about adding new weapons but using the existing fluff to differentiate between different manufactuers of say an Medium Laser.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Medium_Laser


See all the different manufactures? Sometimes in fluff it might say the each kind of lasers misfire, or are too hot, or are really good in some way. So, adding those differences to MechWarrior Online, probably for money. All that said, somewhere the dev's said they weren't doing that right now.

I know what it's about. I stand by my point, we do NOT need weapons with different firing ratios, damage ratio's, and heat ratios throwing everything out of wack and out of balance. Cuz it will. Heat mechanics alone would most likely be /slaughtered/ with such changes.

In the end a medium laser is a medium laser. It does 5 damage for 3 heat and takes up 1 crit spot for 1 ton of weight. It doesn't need to do 2 damage for 1.66 heat or whatever and cycle 2.5 times faster or whatever. The weapons are balanced in certain fashion and changing that /won't/ lead to good things. Just like every mech being an omni-mech in MW3 didn't lead to good things either. Got so sick and tired of seeing nothing but madcats and shadowcats...

Edited by Christopher Dayson, 25 April 2012 - 02:49 PM.

[DocBach]

Having different weapon systems with different statistics would actually help against boating as if you were relying on salvage and didn't salvage the same type of weapons your systems wouldn't have the same recycle rate, range profile, ect.

Biggest plus for it, though, is it makes the salvage system and player economy much more in depth.

[Wyzak]

I do like the idea of finding rare weapons with tweaked stats on the battlefield after certain missions, but I don't think they are going to go down that path based on what we've been told about salvage. I know if I was on the dev team, I wouldn't want to have to administer a database of weapons that has three to five variants each on top of the 110 base weapons we are already expecting them to introduce.
Can it be done? Of course it can! I played in a text based RPG that had thousands of different weapons. Most of them were just crappy props of course.

[A11eycat]

Something along the line of providing different looks par manufacturer, say Adeptus Mechanicus makes a square barreled laser w/ wires while small time inc. make a simple round laser barrel. I do NOT, however, support customizing the different manufacturer weapon stats, this is a free game, and as such the devs are all ready giving us so much look at other free2play games? Graphics .
This is an amazng game that has been provided for us, we should keep it as such!
Thanks,
Hayden

Edited by A11eycat, 25 April 2012 - 05:38 PM.

[Kedma]

If its the exact same setup as Mech 1,2,3 and 4.. thens its rather bland.. whats the point of leveling? is its just a run and gun.. and we get to make a ladder forum.. and have different ladders to compete in..? rather boring if you ask me.. with the complexity of the game that are out there, MWO needs to push the envelope or get left behind.. just my opinion.. I could be wrong.. I hope that I am not.. but the fact still remains.. why level at all.. C bill to buy mechs..?? when I can just put down $20 or 40$ USD, and get it.. I guess.. I might have to buy it.. but other than that.. no motivation givin from the game to level..

[Sassori]

Two Day Necro!

The whole concept of salvage? Not happening in any shape other than C-Bills. Why? Because if your mech gets blown to high heaven, it doesn't actually /lose/ anything permanently. Everything can be repaired.

The only thing that makes 'special' weapons 'special' is if they're rare. They wouldn't be. If you have a super sekrit prototype ppc on your right arm and it gets blown off when you lose your right torso... guess what! You get to keep your super sekrit prototype ppc on your right arm, even if you lose the match, even if your mech gets completely obliterated.

Salvage is pointless in this environment. I wish it weren't, but it is.

[Pvt Dancer]

No.

90% of the companies listed talk about how their system doesn't work right because of using targeting system X and coolant lines Y. No one will take a weapon that gives you a flaw with /NO BENIFIT/. Likewise if you have 10 different companies that make Medium lasers, besides the free flaws for most of them, how do you make all of them different yet balanced against what would be considered 'stock' without giving some an advantage to be better than 'stock'? That is an unbalancing factor.

This is a poor idea and really not well thought through game balance wise.

[DocBach]

Christopher Dayson, on 27 April 2012 - 01:56 PM, said:

Two Day Necro!

The whole concept of salvage? Not happening in any shape other than C-Bills. Why? Because if your mech gets blown to high heaven, it doesn't actually /lose/ anything permanently. Everything can be repaired.

The only thing that makes 'special' weapons 'special' is if they're rare. They wouldn't be. If you have a super sekrit prototype ppc on your right arm and it gets blown off when you lose your right torso... guess what! You get to keep your super sekrit prototype ppc on your right arm, even if you lose the match, even if your mech gets completely obliterated.

Salvage is pointless in this environment. I wish it weren't, but it is.

Its not like we're playing for pink slips -- if you get blown up and someone salvages a medium laser, you could still be able to repair it. They just get a bit of a reward for winning. This idea has been talked about from the beginning of this forum, and its been well thought out and discussed.

Each weapon system has various stats - recharge times, damage, range brackets, accuracy, heat, even physical appearance such as what color it looks like or what kind of animation effect plays. Different manufacturered weapon systems could have subtly different stats or wild extremes as long as there was a negative stat to balance it out. Game balance isn't hard to accomplish when you realize that every other MMO has various tiers of weapons/loot -- which is usually the driving force motivating players to play. People like to be rewarded for playing video games now be it by achievements, loot, ect.

Edited by DocBach, 27 April 2012 - 11:17 PM.

[Moosehead]

I am in support of weapons being varied per manufacturers, by no more than 10-15%

I am also for not knowing the exact stats, except by the manufacturers PR sheets.

So some might actually be worse than claimed.

Like in 1944, US Tankers were told that the new 76mm in the M4A3 could defeat any Nazi tank they would run across.

Whoops.

Not only did it not live up to it tank-killing PR, though was better than the older 75mm(109mm vs 69mm penetration) and more accurate, its HE round was also not as effective as the older 75mm, and carried 33 fewer reloads. Result, sad Tankers.

Now some lucky UK Tankers had the Firefly Sherman, that lived up to the PR hype, even though no HE, slower loading and fewer rounds, had Happy Tankers.

So how that work in BT land?

While the Defiance B3M is made on different planets by different companies, the Hesperus made one might cycle slower and do more damage, the Red Devil version might do less damage but cycle a bit faster, and have a cool purple beam.

Both are listed as 'The Hardest hitting M-Laser your C-Bills can buy'

Pilots(players) only find out on the Battlefield how they actually work, then others learn from the boasting/******** on the forums

[Youngblood]

I'd love for the appearance and SOUND of different manufacturers' weapons to be distinct from each other, but their stats and physics should all be the same for the sake of simplicity and balance. I'd rather not have to listen to people munchkin-ing out with a straight face on some dream combination of in-universe companies' armament loadouts, especially when said combination would never be possible in canon.