3696 replies to this topic

[Cache]

Off the topic a bit, I am impressed with the number of voters in this poll. I don't think I've seen a poll with half as many votes cast.

Edited by cache, 14 November 2012 - 04:06 PM.

[Digs]

Give people a training mode so you can teach new players how to play, don't inflict a 3rd person view on the rest of us just cause it's hard for you to implement a tutorial. I really like the restrictive view you get from the cockpits, it makes every mech feel different and I'm still waiting for TrackIR support for that extra imersion factor.

Adding a 3rd person view would be the worst thing that could happen to this game, you might make it easier for a few but many will just leave treating this as one dumbing down too far.

[Atheros]

the problem with a 3rd person view is twofold.

one, by having a third person view you have permanently made information warfare easy button. by that i mean this.

a light mech runs out to do his scouting. and instead of edging around corners unsure as to what is coming. you end up with a mech finding a corner to hide next to and panning around and relaying enemy positions in complete and utter safety with no danger to oneself.

the other is this, you have a single mech or team of mechs charging tword the objective sure that they will take it. only to crest over a hill or ramp and come face to face with an atlas or team of mechs waiting for them. this would never happen because the team rushing in would see them and either play a game of peek and shoot or turn around all together thereby ruining the well placed ambush.

in closing, by adding a 3rd person view you have successfully taken the sim/strategy part of the game and instead turned it into a slow paced 3rd person shooter no better then counterstrike or tribes (not hating just using as an example). i for one don't play those type of games because they are so fast paced and lacking in strategy. to implement this would cause, i believe, a large number of core players would leave causing this game to not fail, but certainly lose creditability to its fans.

thank you and i hope all this feedback will lead you to the right conclusion.

[Impossible Wasabi]

The Space Pope and the Space Vatican are strongly against the implementation of first person views.

[skullman86]

Full 3rd person- Please DON'T

3rd person camera/UAV via module or some other device (time limited+cool down when used in-game)- OK

--------------------

If the concern is new players, I think the first step would be to explain this stuff in a tutorial (in-game, not just some video on the website). As far as changing the game goes, making the UI a little easier to understand may be worth trying before you add a view angle that the majority of the playerbase abhors.

-The arrows on the sliding compass could be made to stand out a little more. Part of the problem may be that users don't actually know what they are for. You only realize what everything is after playing around with the controls a bit, but if you aren't looking up there you will never get to see the link between movement and the guide arrows.

-You could add an animated icon to the HUD that shows the position of the upper torso in relation to the feet. BF3 had this for tanks and I could see something like it being pretty useful for everyone. You could put it directly under the timer since players are going to be looking in that general area during combat, the bottom left hand corner, or maybe even on a screen in the cockpit itself.

-You could work on minimap readability. Maybe incorporate the previous suggestion into it somehow. I know we have the view cone and the dotted line with the arrow head, but maybe there is some way it can be improved, or maybe make the grid toggleable (off by default?) so that it's easier to see your marker.

Edited by skullman86, 14 November 2012 - 04:13 PM.

[Throat Punch]

This game has been marketed as a tactical simulation game based (your own "about" page says exactly that!) on the Battletech/Mechwarrior universe, not a action game. A 3rd person view does not add anything to the game play or feel of the game as it was meant to be played. It wholly degrades it in the same way a 3rd person view changes the entire feel of a combat (or even normal) flight simulator. You would go from playing something like Falcon 4.0 to playing Afterburner in regards to strategy and overall game play. Both feature combat, but the way you go about that combat is completely different. Battletech has always been ground in its own realism of putting you in the pilot seat, even in table top games. While certainly there you used miniatures and weren't actually in the cockpit, the rules of the game were such that they made you think and act as if you were (double blind, smoke and fire, los etc). I think that MWO does a great job holding on to that same feel and allowing a 3rd person view would destroy all the feel of this being a simulation of armored mech combat and turn it into something radically different like Mech Assault. If players are having a hard time grasping the controls the answer isn't to spend time, man power, and resources on developing an entirely new method of playing the game, essentially 2 separate game experiences splitting your community and actually making it shrink rather then grow. It would be better to educate the player base on how to play the game you advertised it to be via a better HUD, in game tutorials/walk thru's or tool tips. You have potentially created the single best Mech sim game ever, please don't ruin all the work you have put into it, and disappoint legions of fans, by changing your vision midstream and changing this game to an action shooter.

Edited by Morsdraco, 14 November 2012 - 04:15 PM.

[Dihm]

I couldn't work through 34 pages, but I thought I'd give my, hopefully constructive, feedback. I see several issues with this plan.

First, there are problems with third person view giving an advantage in view angle that you can't get in first person. First person restricts the player's view due to the nature of the cockpit. There are no restrictions like this in third person. By its nature, it gives an advantage.

Second, you have to do development work on cockpits and cockpit effects that have no impact on a portion of your population. People in third person view don't see cockpits. They don't see bobbleheads. They don't see hangers. They don't see any cockpit customization you put in. They don't see all the work that is putting in to making functional screens. This splits your priorities in development as a portion of your population now will never/rarely see the work that is done.

Third, the splitting of the playerbase. I know for sure I would only ever play Forced First Person matches. I would never bother with game queues for mixed or third person only. I know I'm not alone in this feeling. Now, this could be a phantom problem. If you feel that you have enough of a population to overcome this challenge, then have at it. I know I'd be pretty upset if there WASN'T a way to separate those who want first person only from those who play in third.

What I think would be a better option is a tutorial in game, showing the mechs moving around and explaining how it works. Having it in the game itself would allow people to find it easier instead of having to go to an external website that they may never visit (may people don't go to game sites or forums).

Edited by Dihm, 14 November 2012 - 04:14 PM.

[Asgeir]

I will throw my vote under the no column.

To Russ and the Devs:

I love you guys, I really do. I defend you on the forums when I can, and I often shake my head at the nonsense that occurs on here. But when you created the game you did so under the auspice of a 'first person sim' style of gameplay. That is why I am here. Now you have my money, and I will never take that back. I will, however, reconsider buying more if 3rd person comes out. I love this game. I play it with my friends. I have not even booted up another game since I bought into the beta. I am a TT player of old, and have played the games since MW2. I want to get into CW so bad I can taste it.

So please no third person. If the new folk require practice, give them a training map and some PvE targets to shoot. I am all for bringing the players up, rather than dropping everyone down. I go out of my way to help new players where I can, but 3rd person is not the way.

Thanks.

[Soy]

DeathofSelf, on 14 November 2012 - 03:55 PM, said:

Yeah, wow, just wow indeed. You compared the changing of views, you are looking at this in a vacuum. There are huge differences between these games, so saying something like "changing the views in Madden doesn't matter, why should it matter in MWO?" is in fact ridiculous.

You obviously do not understand what I was attempting to convey.

I said changing views matters because it gives players a choice - options to find the sense of perspective that works best for them or gives them the most satisfaction. This can pontentially be achieved regardless of the limitations that a "game view" tries to force upon you, as I alluded to in the Tetris comment. This example was just highlighting the simple concept that some players like to play differently than you, perhaps even differently than the ways a creator of a game assumes it "was meant" to be played. Different people see things differently.

Thusly...

These are issues that everyone will have to deal with when the game is being played, you can't potentially know everything about how it will play out before hand. This is why balance is the one and only concern I have, not the actual feature of simply using a different perspective to view the damn game with.

Regardless of the 'standards' that players take or how much perspective the creator of a game can impose on the appearance of a game, players are still free to think, feel, and play inside OR outside of the box if it helps them play better or enjoy themselves more. The question is whether or not this gives players who utilize this feature an unfair advantage.

[NovaFury]

There's a fairly simple reason. You promised it.

Third person viewpoints have distinctive advantages that are toxic to long-range, direct-fire play, and closerange brawling play where cover is present that first-person users cannot emulate. Essentially, the ability to look over hills or around walls while being 100% concealed. This is the primary reason for the abandonment of competitive mechwarrior 2, 3, and 4 PVP multiplayer matches and will likely lead to the failure of mechwarrior online as well.

Please, do not implement third person viewpoints. You promised your founders that, and while I am not among them, I am invested in your game all the same. Knowing the history of the mechwarrior franchise, you simply do not have a choice in this matter, you must not pursue this course further if you wish your game to survive.

If you want to attract new players, look to your new player experience. It is not acceptable for a game in this day and age to not have a hands-on tutorial that guides the player through the basic operation of their craft. New players should also be introduced to the mechlab, and how to customize their mech, and be given a free light or medium chassis to begin with. Trial mechs are great for getting the feel of how a cockpit is set up and how a stock design handles without efficiencies, but they are terrible designs and disenfranchise the new blood, who are the last people you want to alienate.

Players spend money on games they enjoy. They do not spend money to enjoy their games.

Edited by NovaFury, 14 November 2012 - 04:21 PM.

[DeathofSelf]

Soy, on 14 November 2012 - 04:13 PM, said:

You obviously do not understand what I was attempting to convey.

I said changing views matters because it gives players a choice - options to find the sense of perspective that works best for them or gives them the most satisfaction. This can pontentially be achieved regardless of the limitations that a "game view" tries to force upon you, as I alluded to in the Tetris comment. This example was just highlighting the simple concept that some players like to play differently than you, perhaps even differently than the ways a creator of a game assumes it "was meant" to be played. Different people see things differently.

Thusly...

These are issues that everyone will have to deal with when the game is being played, you can't potentially know everything about how it will play out before hand. This is why balance is the one and only concern I have, not the actual feature of simply using a different perspective to view the damn game with.

Regardless of the 'standards' that players take or how much perspective the creator of a game can impose on the appearance of a game, players are still free to think, feel, and play inside OR outside of the box if it helps them play better or enjoy themselves more. The question is whether or not this gives players who utilize this feature an unfair advantage.

Do you not understand that 3rd person views will allow you to look around corners and over hills/buildings without exposing yourself?

I don;t have a problem with choices, I have a problem with unfair advantages and degraded gameplay

[shadowfax21]

you can simply add button that oriant the legs to torso, it will help all the new players and you don't need the 3pv.

[von Pilsner]

DeathofSelf, on 14 November 2012 - 04:19 PM, said:

Do you not understand that 3rd person views will allow you to look around corners and over hills/buildings without exposing yourself?

I don;t have a problem with choices, I have a problem with unfair advantages and degraded gameplay

I would guess he never played MW4...

[Brien]

If you give them third person give us an option for a refund, I would never have been a founder if third person view was on the table. If I wanted third person I could go play Hawken, oh wait that is why I do not want too.

[Know]

Make it a Pay2Win third person mech so that way people will finely have something to gripe about. It should also run faster than a Jenner but weigh as much as an atlas with 6 machinegun hard points that shoot golden bullets that cause other mechs to spontaneously fall apart like they are made out of something weak… like papier-mâché.

[FactorlanP]

cache, on 14 November 2012 - 04:06 PM, said:

Off the topic a bit, I am impressed with the number of voters in this poll. I don't think I've seen a poll with half as many votes cast.

And in a relatively short amount of time as well.

[CateranEnforcer]

I don't like the idea of a 3rd person camera either, but I think Russ is pretty aware of the issues it could cause. He does mention that he knows people are worried that you could use such a system to look around corners. The best suggestion I have seen on this front is to limit 3rd person view to a training mode and not allow it in player vs player.

I also think it is a terrible idea to divide the community and matchmaker into groups who use 3rd person and those who don't. If they can make a 3rd person view that somehow doesn't offer vision advantages, then I could live with it.

[Soy]

DeathofSelf, on 14 November 2012 - 04:19 PM, said:

Do you not understand that 3rd person views will allow you to look around corners and over hills/buildings without exposing yourself?

I don;t have a problem with choices, I have a problem with unfair advantages and degraded gameplay

What if it didn't. Then what.

[FactorlanP]

Brien, on 14 November 2012 - 04:22 PM, said:

If you give them third person give us an option for a refund, I would never have been a founder if third person view was on the table. If I wanted third person I could go play Hawken, oh wait that is why I do not want too.

Agreed

[Squid von Torgar]

I dont think i have ever seen such a conclusive poll anywhere. You might as well asked "Would you like some free money"

I really hope PGI take note