66 replies to this topic

[Joseph Mallan]

Trial Mechs suck cause the MMO DEVs deviated from the "move, shoot once, cool" Turn. By increasing Cyclic rate but leaving heat alone they broke what are "good" Mechs.

[elsie]

Inviticus, on 10 December 2012 - 02:39 PM, said:

If you sell a product based on certain features (MechLab is 1/2 the game according to the devs), then you want new players to experience them. A single free mech isn't going to impact profits in any worse way than the trial mechs already do. In fact, if you allow new players to experience the cusomization portion of the game right off the bat, you are more likely to reduce the new player frustration and reduce the "time to fun" situation by putting more power into their hands by way of customizing their loadouts. Games like this don't have a lot of time to hook newbies. If their first 2 days are frustration filled slogs with constant overheating due to poor efficiency of the trial mechs, do you think a lot of those players will bother sticking around and supporting the game with MC purchases? I doubt it. This is why 1 or 2 free mechs with full customization is a much better solution than trial mechs or some other system where the player doesn't actually "own" their mech.

Most games sell on features that you have to work to get to eventually. MMOs and their endgame raid content, uber armor/weapons/skills, etc. Those sorts of experiences don't currently have an equivalent in MWO, so having the MechLab as something you work up to is not really a withholding of features.

Giving a new player a customizable mech will just redirect their ire from "[trial] mechs are garbage" to "this mech is garbage cause I can't make any profit". You won't change the player. They will do the same thing with the free mech that they do with trials mechs - rush in so they can pew-pew and get their posterior handed to them. The main difference is that they will have to pay for R&R and, unless they stop to figure out why they do so badly, eventually run out of funds to R&R.

It seems that the players currently coming into MWO now have little to no experience with the way BT works; movement, weapons, firing groups, heat management, and all that goes with running a mech. And there is currently no decent tutorial or explanation besides trolling the web site and forums to find some, but not all, information. Good luck with that - for most of them it's TL;DR. I generally play with folks I know from work. Some of them have zero experience with BT. But we hold their hand and walk them through a lot of the stuff, as well as push them to read the web site info, all while in a trial mech. It doesn't hurt as much when one of those go kerblewie. Not everyone has that option. They read about it off a web site or some game forum or see an ad somewhere, come in, download, jump into a game and get blown up in 2 minutes or less. If they have played any of the earlier (non-multiplayer) MW games then they presume the game or mech is bad because it doesn't match that PvE experience. Those rare individuals that come onto the forums to QQ after a few of those games are not likely to be looking to gain information or find a team, just to let folks know how bad the game is. None of this will change until there is a good in-game tutorial as well as a high-quality portal for new player information.

The only way a free mech and cbills as a start makes sense is if MWO was pay to start, ie buy the game then play for free. Then you'd get what would basically be a founders mech and some starter MC. But that wouldn't really change the problem because, just as before, they would spend it all, run out, and get it blown up.


elsie

[MouseNo4]

[Perrucho]

I don't want this to be Armored Core, if that's what some people gathered from my posts.

I only said I miss the ammount of customization you have at your disposal. I know there are constraints in this game because of lore; and even then, if I wanted more of that animesque Japmech action I would pop Armored Core into my PS3.

But it was necessary to provide the context in wich MWO comes off as archaic when compared to more recent products (AC is like 15 years old too now I think, first game was on the PSone).

The comparative comes from the fact in AC you also start with a CRAPPY mech you have to grind your *** off in the Arena in order to be able to afford the good stuff; and some things you have to unlock through single player or by actually finding the pieces during missions.

Yet you can actually advance quite a good portion of the game with just your starter mech, no customizations needed.

Trial mechs here are not only not optimized, they are horrible to play with; if you are a new player like me, who likes mech stuff, you are going to stick out well past what is healthy just to try stuff out; but a new player, who might be playing mech games for their first time have nothing to rely on to know what works and what not.

Bet your *** a newbie is not going to go look to the parts store for heatsinks; I was surprised here it's actually a piece you can stock on instead of having to mix and match the generator with a radiator (Apparently here the engine doesn't generate heat of its own, or at least not yet, so it only affects max speed) and the radiators only help dissipate excess heat; so there is some sort of cooling already in place.

So in a sense, MWO is a lot simpler than AC since I don't have to worry about the legs being unable to support the whole frame; here my mech weighs up to a maximum and I can fit whatever I want (but also means I can't go overweight and then drop, let's say, the empty ammo box)

But none of this is INTUITIVE if this is your first game.

[Hauser]

Joseph Mallan, on 10 December 2012 - 03:39 PM, said:

Trial Mechs suck cause the MMO DEVs deviated from the "move, shoot once, cool" Turn. By increasing Cyclic rate but leaving heat alone they broke what are "good" Mechs.

As I understood it, we're using the Solaris rules which do have a cyclic rate.

[Lefty Lucy]

Perrucho, on 10 December 2012 - 04:25 PM, said:

I don't want this to be Armored Core, if that's what some people gathered from my posts.

You never said that you wanted it to be Armored Core. It was just a ridiculous straw man argument, the like of which is frustratingly common on these forums.

[Voidbringer]

Having played a few previous games I showed up expecting to have some custom mech FPS action. After jumping through the appropriate hoops, watching the tutorials to find that everything is normal, and doing some matches, I've found that 5 hours into the game and I still am not being allowed to play mech warrior. You see, in mech warrior, you own mechs, you customize them, and you bring these tweaked toys into battle such that fit your play style like a glove, and then you battle it out.
I do not own a mech yet. I am not allowed to make any changes to the hunks of junk I've been given. They fit my styles like a sack of rocks tied to my nuts in a swimming contest.
I've played korean mmos that were less of a grindfest.
Looking for the uninstall option now, and it's taking too long. I want my hard drive space back so I can install something entertaining.

[MustrumRidcully]

Amro One, on 10 December 2012 - 01:23 PM, said:

Last I checked I was playing MechWarrior, a Sim, not a Arcadic FPS.

Trial Mechs are fine, it makes you learn the basic of mech piloting, situaion awareness and heat management.
Trial mechs are to force you to collect C-bills and get a owned Mech.

Just remember, the best way to teach your kid to swim is throwing it in a river and wait at least 30 minutes before you listen to its cries.

[Joseph Mallan]

Hauser, on 10 December 2012 - 04:45 PM, said:

As I understood it, we're using the Solaris rules which do have a cyclic rate.

Solaris rules are a mostly unwanted step child that the majority of TT players hate. I know hundreds of TT Players from around the world and maybe 1 in 20 like the Solaris rules. Rules that make Small Lasers king over PPCs have the wargame backwards.

[MustrumRidcully]

You don't even need to give them customziation. Or free mechs. Or super-optimized mechs that would take you 50,000,000 C-Bills to make.

Give them underpowered mechs. That is okay. But don't give them mechs that do something that players always hates the most - losing control over the game. Every time you shut down, you lose control. Every time you stop firing to avoid that shutdown, you are a bit out of control. That doesn't mean shutdowns are bad per se - but your Awesome 9M shouldn't shut you down after 2 salvos. Give the player 10 or so.

If the heat system was fixed to table top standards (and no, that doesn't ean you need to fire only every 10 seconds. That's what the current system already does in MW:O.). Say, we set all weapon recycle times to 5 seconds, and have heat sinks dissipate 1 heat (or 2 for DHS) every 5 seconds. Fast rate of fire, not too slow. Still Double Armour. Stock mechs would play pretty much like they would in the tabl etop, except they'd gain heat twice as fast. So heat management is still a concern, it isn't removed to something that only matters in 40 seconds. It remains crucial.

But these mechs would work a lot better. You will need to "work" to overheat.

And if you're a min/maxer and can build your custom mech, you will probably make your mech a bit hotter. Because it's no good being able to fire for 60 seconds without overheating if your enemies are dead after 30 seconds. Better design the mech to overheat in 30 seconds and add so much damage that the enemy is dead after 20 seconds instead.

That means the really skilled players will optimize their mech to require heat management, because they know that this will allow them to kill enemies that don't do that more quickly.

[MustrumRidcully]

Hauser, on 10 December 2012 - 04:45 PM, said:

As I understood it, we're using the Solaris rules which do have a cyclic rate.

RAM (an ex-moderator I believe) is always bringing up the Solaris rules, but MW:O rules have nothing to do with Solaris rules. Aside from the fact that Solaris rules are broken in their own way and imbalancing weapons, the cyclic rates in this game do not resemble Solaris rules in any way. (And even RAM has remarked the same... He just disagrees with me on the quality of the Solaris ruleset.). For example - PPCs in Solaris can only fire every 4th round, giving them a rate of fire of 10 seconds effectively. PPCs in MW:O fire even faster than Medium Lasers (PPCs fire every 3 seconds, Medium Lasers every 4 - though 1 second of that is spend on the beam duration.)

[Ricama]

I'm more in favour of having a design contest, tech 1 gear only. Best designs for each chassis get rotated around for trial mechs instead of the stock ovens variants.

[kilgor]

I've forgotten, but were the weapons set to group fire or single fire? If it is set to group fire, then single fire should be what they are set at by default.

[Syllogy]

Mech Merc, on 10 December 2012 - 12:35 PM, said:

I decided to test out the selection of trial mechs last night and man do they suck compared to the owned mechs.

Owned mechs are stuffed to the gills and trials are TT setups - I was lucky if I broke over 100 points in damage and was constantly overheating even with a sensible firing pace.

These are the first mech new users are going to experience and they are not going to even scratch the paint of most of the other (owned) mech they'll encounter and they'll die fast and will probably not come back for more.

Why not either beef up trial mechs or make a newbie version of the game with trial mech only?

Because Trial Mechs are what PGI threw in the face of TableToppers that keep quoting Canon and TT rules to SHOW THEM THAT TT RULES DO NOT WORK IN MWO. They'll get fixed as soon as the TableToppers decide to quit ranting about how the TT game works.

[nom de guerre]

With a semi competent pilot the trial mechs even the 9m awesome can be pretty effective in 4vpugs.

[DaZur]

As I see it there is a resounding cry for PGI to provide a "free" Mech as well as provide "some" access to customization. Problem is IMHO, doing either disincentivize a casual player from potentially investing into the game monetarily. Obviously the argument that doing so would build a new players interest in the game and the end result would be the same... That said, I think there is an underestimation of exactly how committed a lot of people would be to milking as much from the game without investing in it... That said, as it stands one has to be pretty bound and determined to grind their way into the game or resign to investing in MC to gain access to what amounts to the product that is actually fun to play. (Mechs and Mech lab)

It's a perfect example of a no-win situation... PGI can't risk allowing easy-access for fear creating an environment where many may see no need to commit financially. Conversely, the existing environment is too caustic for casual players...

What would I suggest? If I were PGI, I'd break canon and "create" and entry level Mech of their own design. A Mech that would amount to the "best average Mech"... Enough speed and tonnage and heat profile to survive, a weapon config that is useful, yet underwhelming and access to enough bits of the Mech lab to allow one to "tinker" but not enough access to re-fit the Mech into anything they would want to keep long-term. Lastly... allow them, with this entry-level Mech to begin collecting C-Bills and GXP.

This would create a scenario where new players can experience all the aspects of MW:O that is addictive, fun and exciting... and would create the scenario where they would "want more", thus creating motivation and opportunity to invest in the game.

It's pretty simple really... That said, both the community and PGI would have to accept breaking canon, fabricate this fictitious "entry-level" Mech and allowing it on the playing field with canon Mechs.

This is a "win-win"...

PGI draws a player into the the game and all that is good in it... Player "has fun" and wants more and invests in to larger game.

[Clay Pigeon]

Paul managed to steal a kill with a trial c1's LRMs during the piranha hunt a few days before ECM made LRMs almost useless, therefore trial mechs are fine.

[Taryys]

Trial mech fixes in my thread-which-shall-not-be-named (in my sig below).

[nom de guerre]

Taryys, on 11 December 2012 - 08:23 AM, said:

Trial mech fixes in my thread-which-shall-not-be-named (in my sig below).

Not that again...

[Joseph Mallan]

Syllogy, on 11 December 2012 - 08:02 AM, said:

Because Trial Mechs are what PGI threw in the face of TableToppers that keep quoting Canon and TT rules to SHOW THEM THAT TT RULES DO NOT WORK IN MWO. They'll get fixed as soon as the TableToppers decide to quit ranting about how the TT game works.

You need a nap.
If this about TT not working then they should actually follow a TT combat turn. Se while you are moving you fire your weapons and while they recycle, your sinks vent the heat they can. Wash rinse repeat. The TT game does not fire weapons more than once in a turn. Adjust the sinks to vent while the weapons recycle and you have the TT Mechanics working as intended in the MMO.
K THX.