2 replies to this topic

[FinalSonicX]

Hi guys, I just wanted to start off by saying thank you to the devs for keeping mechwarrior alive in gaming.

I've been a mechwarrior fan since MW4, and I came into this game from that perspective. It has also been some time since I have played it so forgive me if I am mistaken in my memory about the game and its features. I understand that the game is a beta and as such is a WIP. That said, I think there are some serious issues that would need to be addressed before this game could truly hold my attention and warrant any kind of investment from me. I offer these observations and suggestions in the hopes of making the game better and I hope that they are appreciated.

the front end UI in general needs some work - it's alternatively cluttered and sparse. It's difficult to read and could use some sort of visual organization. I don't know where to look to find the information or functions I'm trying to find - the UI doesn't help direct my actions. In particular, the grouping dialog is quite bad. It's very sparse and when clicking on group options it changes the button to "leave group" rather than actually presenting multiple options as implied in the label. I may be mistaken but it also appears that I cannot hit the Ready button while in this grouping dialog.

another major issue with the main menu interface is that the "ready" and "not ready" buttons when grouped are ambiguous as to their function. Normally, one would expect a button to perform the action listed on the button when clicked rather than indicate the current state - that's something more resembling the functionality of a checkbox. So it is confusing to me without checking the group dialog whether or not I am ready simply by glancing at the button. Either adding a checkbox for readying in the group dialog or perhaps introducing some color coding and icons to indicate current status would be greatly appreciated.

It would be great if I could actually rebind keys or change settings in the middle of a game. Most of the time when I want to rebind keys I do it in game and test it out. For that matter, it would be great if there was a "test range" where I could launch into with my chosen mech and fiddle with controls, do basic target practice, gauge speeds, etc. I feel like this would be very beneficial for onboarding new players.

As for the game itself, it is fairly fun. I have played a few games and I am enjoying myself. The game's UI is very atmospheric. I found a number of things that bugged me, however. Damage indicators on enemy mechs and my own mech appear to be based on the "paper doll" UI for showing systems and showing damage scales through color. Is it possible to switch to a bar graph for our systems, like in MW4? this feature was very useful in that game for getting a better idea of how much damage you are taking or giving which helps tune your mech builds.

Another issue with this is that when a system is damaged, it appears to flash the color it would if it were critical. It seems like this flash lasts longer than it needs to, and it is easy to misjudge the visual cues and think that a mech is actually critically damaged when in fact it was just hit. I may be mistaken on my observations here but generally it would be good to keep damage indicators clear and brief.

I think the visual effects on the missiles are great, though I wish there was more smoke and also if they had a bit more cohesion to them - in MW4 it was very easy to judge the trajectory of your missiles to determine if they were going to hit an obstacle or not. It seems that many of the maps in this game have more cover than many MW4 maps so it is more important now to be able to see these sorts of things.

I dont like how mechs are controlled via WASD and a "throttle" system now - I would like to be able to set my speed as a percentage of my max speed using the number keys and I would also like to be able to not only full stop but also kick my mech into reverse so if I was going 50 kph forward I would decelerate to 0 then accelerate to -50 kph. This allows my hands to wander elsewhere on the keyboard to manage weapon groups and mech systems which also assists the illusion of piloting a mech.

In general, the throttle system seems to be too twitchy and it's hard to have precise control. It feels rather clunky to me and in the middle of a firefight it's hard to decelerate without accidentally kicking it into reverse or coming to a stop. while the throttle system may work for some, I really pine for the ability to control speed via percentages like I did in MW4.

Mechs take too long to turn around in my opinion, and arguably also to rotate. If hit from behind, it becomes difficult to respond compared to MW4 which is probably by design though it definitely feels like my mech's joints are smothered in molasses sometimes, especially compared to MW4.

I don't know if it can be done but it would be nice to be able to lock my legs to the movement of my torso via some kind of binding - the setting could be enabled and disabled. This would help movement I feel because I could let my torso rotate in firefights while I could lock my torso while navigating around obstacles.

Something I really think would contribute to the teamwork of the game is the ability to form actualy lances and communicate via voice commands (not just VOIP but shortcuts to preprogrammed commands like in MW4 - "form up on me" "hold position" etc.) That way, we could better monitor the status of allies via some kind of lance HUD and also better communicate without using voice or having to type.

I don't know if the environments affect heat dissipation like they did in MW4, but if they do, then it would really be nice to be able to choose my mech after seeing the map rather than making that decision before hand (I'd rather use a poorly cooled mech on a snow map rather than on a desert-type map). Different environment effects like heat dissipation and speed modifiers really help increase the immersion and also increase the level of consideration you put into building your mech and playing the game.

On the subject of heat, I am sad that we can no longer flush coolant like in MW4. The alternative appears to be the override shutdown feature (I do not believe it was in MW4 but I forget). It makes sense and is very cool, but having to manage coolant is also something that is actually quite fun to me and can be intense in the middle of battle. I don't know if there are any plans to increase the complexity of heat management in the game but if there are, I'd like to see coolant make a come back.

While it's awesome that there is the option to modify weapon groups on the fly in the middle of battle, the small UI control on the HUD seems overly complex and unclear compared to MW 4. In most cases, I want to quickly switch forward and backward through weapon groups or hop to a specific group - It should be more obvious which weapon group is selected so I know what I am going to do when I fire. As it is, it's kind of like a 2-dimensional array that I can navigate using arrow keys which is confusing to manage in the middle of combat. I primarily think this is just an issue of making the UI more obvious - make the selected weapon group larger than the others perhaps? This is also probably an issue of me not getting used to the controls and default bindings.

It would be nice if the objectives for game modes was more clear - when the automated system lets me know our base is being captured, it would be cool if the HUD could pop up a visible waypoint and distance marker. Perhaps something similar already exists and I am just unfamiliar with the UI and such.

I don't know if repair bays are still in the game, but I thought they were really cool in MW4 and it would be cool if they were kept in as destructible structures, even if it was only in specific game modes or maps.

During the countdown portion at the beginning of a match, I'd like to be able to not only chat but to modify weapon groups and freelook - that would be great.

This is more of a set of dream features but one thing I loved about MW4:Mercenaries was the management of your lance, stable of mechs, and overall operations. I loved getting tangible salvage, having to pay for fuel, salaries, towing, and drops. I also liked having to put my mech in for repairs so I had a few mechs I would cycle through - having a short term outage for critically damaged or destroyed mechs might be cool, even if it's just in its own gametype. It would also be nice to receive actual weapons or chassis infrequently when you perform a particularly clean kill. I know these features lend themselves more to a single player game or mode, but I think it would be nifty to incorporate some of the ideas in, even if they were heavily modified to fit into the multiplayer model with frequent games and such.

Sorry if some of my suggestions are repeats of older suggestions but I figured I'd share my thoughts on some of the issues in the game and a few potential remedies. I haven't fiddled with the mech lab yet or any of that portion of the game so I might post more feedback once I do. Thanks for your patience and I look forward to watching and playing the game as it develops!

Edited by FinalSonicX, 03 January 2013 - 01:54 AM.

[juxstapo]

The Dev's initial gist of this game was to make it "Not Like Vengeance"

However, with each successive patch, it gets more and more like MechWarrior 4. Weapon knock was a no-no, made it too noob unfriendly, lo and behold, lol.
Initially PPCs made this absurd looking "plasma splash". Now they're appropriately electric and produce HUD static (just a little, but it wasn't there to begin with). Lots of little things.

+1 on the salvage

[Theevenger]

I happen to know FinalSonicX pretty well in real life. He is a pretty level-headed guy, and about the biggest MechWarrior fan I know. I agree with many of his points, disagree with others, and there are a few places where I think some explanations would help him enjoy the game better. Here goes.

What I agree with:

I 100% agree with everything FinalSonicX said regarding the UI, especially the Social section. He and I had a much harder time than was necessary trying to play a game together.

Rebinding keys mid game would be wonderful. Ditto to being able to look at the map or change my weapons around during the initial waiting period.

I think that the damage indication could be improved. He is right that it is impossible to know for a little bit whether it was a glancing blow or a major hit, other than if your screen starts rocking from explosions everywhere of course . I happen to like that the area hit flashes a little bit to indicate that it was hit though.

I think that being able to select our Mech after we find out what map would be cool, but I would rather have it be implemented that way than just giving us a "I want to play this map only" option. It adds to the immersion if you get to choose your equipment only after learning the mission rather than choosing your equipment and then choosing the mission.

I think that the old coolant paradigm would be more fun than the way override is handled now. I think it would be a more fun mechanic. I also think that you could have both. Flush coolant mechanic to improve things, but it only makes sense to have the ability to override a shutdown. If both were implemented I don't think it would even be necessary to change the rate of damaging yourself with an override, as flushing coolant would significantly decrease your heat efficiency anyway. Having both options would not be overpowered.

I agree with most of what OP said about salvage and such. I really liked the immersion we got for having to pay for our repairs and stuff.

Explanations that might help:

I think that his request for bar graphs would be best as part of the cockpit, viewable by free-looking (L-Ctl).

Regarding throttle, I think it might be useful to have the option to specify a percentage as could be done in older MW titles, as it is definitely somewhat tricky to control a speed other than max consistently. Similar to mouse movement, anything like that means it requires concentration and it cannot be easily muscle memoried, whereas keystrokes are fire and forget, and can be executed by muscle memory. However, I think that the OP could find most of his functionality in place if he bound his All Stop button to something like L-Alt. Hit that and then press S and you will start going backwards. You will not have to throttle all the way back down from the top; you will start from 0, and it will take almost no time at all to concentrate and remember to hold the key down. I do agree with him that the throttle seems a little bit twitchy, but I cannot think of a way to improve that since we are setting it up/down via keystroke. It's kind of a binary on/off thing, not like a gas pedal where you can have degrees of pressure.

As for locking torso or legs, I think that locking our legs to our torso direction (and I guess thus controlling our direction of movement with the mouse) would be unnecessary and not very useful. You would then only be able to turn very slowly (at the rate of turn). However, I do think it would be very useful to have a button that would make our legs rotate onto our torso, sort of the opposite of the Center Torso command. That might make navigation a lot easier.

Regarding Lance commands, they are there, go into the battle grid and Take Command.

Environments already seem to affect our heat.

Regaring weapon groups, I haven't talked to the OP about it specifically, but I suspect that he is thinking of the weapon groups in a different way than they are implemented. There is a binding for firing the selected weapon group, but these weapon groups are designed to be bound to keys/buttons/whatever so that that group will fire when the button is pressed. Thus, most of the time you should not actually be changing anything in that matrix. I thought the matrix was clunky at first, but I kind of loved it because it's a visually complicated scheme but quite powerful once you get past the learning curve. Too many games opt for simple rather than powerful. I really liked the current scheme. HOWEVER, I really wish that we could set key combinations in our binding. I personally would like to be able to hold down SHIFT to modify whatever group I'm firing to make it chain fire while held down, without changing the group's normal setting, for example.






Things I disagree with:

I think the LRM effects are lovely as they are, though maybe the smoke could hang around for a little longer. But I think their movement is beautiful, mysterious, and captivating. They almost seem alive, like a kind of aerial school of fish. I wouldn't want it to be changed. They are quite literally my favorite part of the game. I think that it is easy to predict a hit or not; I think his experience will improve with experience and a better computer (at the moment he can only run things on minimum).

Mech turning, I disagree regarding them taking too long to turn. I think that it makes sense, both in universe and as a game. Some mechs can turn around extremely quickly, and I think the existing system for that is fine.

Overall I like the Mouse+Keyboard control scheme. I think it is very intuitive. It basically runs sort of like the tanks did in Halo 2, and the turning aspect runs exactly like the tanks did while I was in the army. The only thing I wish we had was the ability to stabilize our position so that you could rotate the body and hold the torso on target without having to do so manually. I think people would probably claim that was OP, even though that's what a tank does in real life.