Posted 01 December 2012 - 09:59 AM
Somewhat of a biased poll, at least for me because there are parts of the game I really like, however the parts I don't like and the parts that are buggy are major core feature's.
Things that I really like are:
The feel of the mechs. They definitely made it feel like you are piloting a mech.
The art and design is pretty good except for an extreme use of over the top filters and post processing effects. The mechs are very well done for the most part with minor issue's here and there.
The combat has a good feel to it though I feel the pacing to be just a tad too fast. The pacing though has more to do with map size, map design and layout, Game mode and objectives though.
The things I don't like however far outweigh the things I do like, such as:
Map size and layout is extremely small and cramped. It's like trying to play Battlefield or Planetside type gameplay on CoD sized maps. Also the limited amount of maps leads to a very repetitive feel after about 5-10 matches.
Netcode is laggy and very unpredictable. Getting good hit registry is a crapshoot even with 60ms ping.
Game mode is very basic and honestly very boring. Honestly you are very limited when you have a mechanic such as 1 life per round, as far as what type of game modes you can realistically implement. Something along the lines of a rolling battlefield with players queueing up and being placed into matches already ongoing, therefor alieviating the deathmatch aspect of the game and putting a focus on capping as well as defending, could easily make the current game mode more interesting. It could also work for objective based game modes like multiple cap and defend points.
A lack of a meta game or anything to tie us into why we are fighting on the map we are fighting on. Something to give us some backstory or a purpose rather than a mindless deathmatch/flag cap type feeling over and over and over again.
Bugs Bugs Bugs and more Bugs. I know it's Open Beta, I heard the same excuses during Closed Beta. The problem I have with that excuse is that, generally along the developmental timeline of a game, the core code and foundation gets better, not worse. The problem is that we are experiencing problems that were prevalent during CB and were known issue's yet they are persisting into Open Beta and are getting worse as time goes on. Things like performance issue's, netcode issue's, CTD's, UI bugs, HUD bugs, Map glitches and bugs. If these issue's and bugs were little things that didn't affect the performance or the operation of the game to such a large degree, they would be much easier to overlook. Instead though they are game breaking issue's for a very large portion of the playerbase.
The new user experience, going into Open Beta I experienced it myself and quite frankly the fact that just getting to a medium mech AND customizing it so it isn't total crap, I was looking at over 100-200 matches easily. Say I just wanted a commando. Sure it's only 40-50 matches for me to get a commando, but then customizing it is another 40-60 matches. Assuming that I actually want to get the most bang for my buck and since my commando is bone stock so it's pretty much a trial mech wannabe in hiding, I might as well run trial mechs because I make a lot more. So for a good 100-120 matches or so, I'm sitting in terrible terrible trial mechs.
Here's the problem people don't understand about the new user experience. When I start playing a game, I don't start throwing down large amounts in micro transactions BEFORE I've had a chance to experience the game. Afterall the whole point of a F2P game is to show off what it is and hook people into buying because they like it. Instead, in MW:O, You are basically pushed into buying or suffering from the get go. I've seen this happen in Planetside 2 with a large portion of my multi-gaming clan. We all started playing Planetside 2, and after about 2 nights most of the guys on TS were saying " Oh dude this is great, it's like BF3 on crack, I'm signing up for premium for a month and giving this a good go!". Can you honestly say that experience right there is in MW:O currently for the current value of MC?
MW:O could easily be a very good and very popular game, if they can add more to the game than simple game modes and combat, fix the multitude of bugs that are plaguing the game, fix the netcode and add a much better new user experience so people are actually enticed rather than forced to purchase. The problem is that if you look at MW:O now versus July or August, You see the exact same game with a couple new mechs and new variants of existing maps and a lot more problems. That is just a really hard thing to think about and still say that I have faith that PGI can do this or pull it off.