1063 replies to this topic

[Pht]

MustrumRidcully, on 01 July 2013 - 04:32 AM, said:

Strength in numbers, you mean like 3PV and ECM?

PGI has top marketing people. They know what's good for the game. We don't.

The primary concern of marketing people is not what's good for the MW genre. Their primary concern is getting the most people into MWO as they possibly can.

Those two concerns are not the same thing.

It seems there is some force somewhere in PGI that truly believes the ignorant and wrong idea that if they make the 'mech's ability to handle their weapons matter in a game about 'mechs and their ability to handle their weapons ... people will run away from the game.

I guess they don't realize that having people hang around for a LONG time playing a game is also a way to have high profit margins.

Edited by Pht, 02 July 2013 - 07:50 AM.

[Enigmos]

Marketing will factor player retention.

[Pht]

OriginalTibs, on 02 July 2013 - 07:52 AM, said:

Marketing will factor player retention.

I highly doubt they are knowledgeable enough about the BT setting to realize that making the 'mechs weapons handling matter will equal more depth of gameplay without frustrating the playerbase.

[EchoMike]

Pht, on 02 July 2013 - 05:40 PM, said:

I highly doubt they are knowledgeable enough about the BT setting to realize that making the 'mechs weapons handling matter will equal more depth of gameplay without frustrating the playerbase.

Agreed. I played 6 thousand matches of WoT before playing MW:O. It was weeks (perhaps even months) before I grasped all the physics that are in play when making a shot at an enemy tank: the angle of trajectory, the slope of the enemy tanks armour, the thickness of armour on separate locations, where all the vulnerable spots are on the tank (the drivers view port) etc. You could say these are all complicated factors for new players, especially since at the time this info. was only available in a non-in-game wiki. TALK ABOUT NON-NEW PLAYER FRIENDLY. And yet, the last time I looked WoT has 15k-20k players online at any given time on the North American server ALONE. Theoretically, PGI COULD implement some sort of reactive reticle/accuracy penalty for Alpha striking etc. without chasing away the newbies. It adds more depth to the game experience IMO. Now they most likely will not for the following reasons: the company is too small and doesn`t have the man-power to implement such a system quickly, their man power is being utilized for UI 2.0, CW, DX 11, and all the other tid-bits that are still to be added to the game.

Edited by EchoMike, 06 July 2013 - 07:07 AM.

[Pht]

EchoMike, on 06 July 2013 - 07:06 AM, said:

Agreed. I played 6 thousand matches of WoT before playing MW:O. It was weeks (perhaps even months) before I grasped all the physics that are in play when making a shot at an enemy tank: the angle of trajectory, the slope of the enemy tanks armour, the thickness of armour on separate locations, where all the vulnerable spots are on the tank (the drivers view port) etc. You could say these are all complicated factors for new players, especially since at the time this info. was only available in a non-in-game wiki. TALK ABOUT NON-NEW PLAYER FRIENDLY.

What's really ironic is that a MW video game that really simuated in depth what it's like, in the fictional setting, to pilot a battlemech in combat ... wouldn't be player unfriendly.

The mechs are designed in that setting on the "keep it simple stupid" theory.

The beginning level of the video game would involve control of a mouse and maybe five or ten keys ... with a joystick, less keys. the complexity only arises when trying to pull off crazy stuff and when using a LOT of different systems, that you simply ... don't need to do basic level BT mech combat.

Quote

Now they most likely will not for the following reasons: the company is too small and doesn`t have the man-power to implement such a system quickly, their man power is being utilized for UI 2.0, CW, DX 11, and all the other tid-bits that are still to be added to the game.

Bah. If this is the reason given ... if they pick up the combat mechanic and the weapons/armor values from the TT system, they will have LESS work.

In fact, about 70% of it would just be getting the stuff into the database correctly. (see my left most sig link for an example).

Edited by Pht, 06 July 2013 - 05:36 PM.

[Pht]

Double post ... deleted repeat post.

Edited by Pht, 06 July 2013 - 05:36 PM.

[Dexion]

Anyone else think its kinda Epic that a post made back in closed beta prophesied the problems we are having to this day.. I'm not sure if I should be impressed, sad or confused. lol

[Pht]

Dexion, on 06 July 2013 - 06:21 PM, said:

Anyone else think its kinda Epic that a post made back in closed beta prophesied the problems we are having to this day.. I'm not sure if I should be impressed, sad or confused. lol

It's not even really epic.

Once the first gameplay vids were released and we realized that all weapons of like velocity fired at the same time will hit the same exact point ... it became obvious these problems would crop up.

This is simply the concept of "necessary consequence" working it's way into gameplay.

In math terms, NC = 1+1 must always = 2. It's simply unavoidable.

[JokerVictor]

I'm glad someone brought this back from the dead.

Shame this isn't in the balance forum, this needs to be rubbed in some faces.

Edited by JokerVictor, 09 July 2013 - 05:11 AM.

[Skinflowers]

*rub*

[Meridian]

Dexion, on 06 July 2013 - 06:21 PM, said:

Anyone else think its kinda Epic that a post made back in closed beta prophesied the problems we are having to this day.. I'm not sure if I should be impressed, sad or confused. lol

Not really. When the people who need to fix a problem choose to ignore a problem...the result is going to be a continuing problem.

[Pht]

... and we are getting another symptom fix:

http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__2563472

let's fix the disease... than ALL of the symptoms will go away.

[HRR Insanity]

EchoMike, on 01 July 2013 - 04:07 AM, said:

This thread should be amalgamated in to Homeless Bill's thread. Same idea, although Bill's is more thorough and articulate. Only in strength of numbers shall we convince PGI to start re thinking it's convergence mechanic.

Yeah.. except this thread preceded Homeless's thread by more than a year. They're both different ideas and they're both better than what we have now.

Edited by HRR Insanity, 16 July 2013 - 10:51 PM.

[HRR Insanity]

Dexion, on 06 July 2013 - 06:21 PM, said:

Anyone else think its kinda Epic that a post made back in closed beta prophesied the problems we are having to this day.. I'm not sure if I should be impressed, sad or confused. lol

The Devs can fix this anytime. I, and others, have explained how. They choose to continue the march of death... and the game suffers.

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -George Santayana

[Thunder Child]

EchoMike, on 06 July 2013 - 07:06 AM, said:

Agreed. I played 6 thousand matches of WoT before playing MW:O. It was weeks (perhaps even months) before I grasped all the physics that are in play when making a shot at an enemy tank: the angle of trajectory, the slope of the enemy tanks armour, the thickness of armour on separate locations, where all the vulnerable spots are on the tank (the drivers view port) etc. You could say these are all complicated factors for new players, especially since at the time this info. was only available in a non-in-game wiki. TALK ABOUT NON-NEW PLAYER FRIENDLY. And yet, the last time I looked WoT has 15k-20k players online at any given time on the North American server ALONE. Theoretically, PGI COULD implement some sort of reactive reticle/accuracy penalty for Alpha striking etc. without chasing away the newbies. It adds more depth to the game experience IMO. Now they most likely will not for the following reasons: the company is too small and doesn`t have the man-power to implement such a system quickly, their man power is being utilized for UI 2.0, CW, DX 11, and all the other tid-bits that are still to be added to the game.

Wait. World of Tanks uses the Mechanics that MWO should have had from the beginning?..... Brb.... gonna go check out this WoT game.

[Thunder Child]

Actually. I just realised what would fix all the complaints I have with MWO. A Lobby. Then, I'd be able to get the traditional BT Feel to my Mechwarrior Games by running around in a Stock Chassis with all my other Traditional BT friends.... I'm sure there might be one or two. But seriously. Lobbies. Or at least the ability to make our own Matches and invite people to them. Would end so much grief.

[Roland]

I didn't see exactly eye to eye with insanity on this, but at this point the reality of the prophesized destruction seems undeniable.

Simple focused damage would have damaged game balance, just as it has is prior titles, but that alone would not have doomed this game.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined the travesty which is the most recent craziness by pgi to try and address those issues. Ghost heat? Intentional firing delay on weapons?

This game is going to be literally unplayable by new users. And third person view actually gives experienced players an even greater advantage over new players, just like arm lock, despite being a training aid. They are features which have significant downsides for new players, but whose downsides can be trivially sidestepped by good players.

Simple alpha strikes would not have doomed this game. But these new design decisions, if you can even call them that, most certainly will.

Whatever. This got moved into the mech Loadout forum long ago, to try and bury it, like tons of other threads.

[GANKSRUS]

I agree (mostly) with OP. I see this all the time, Im in a Cat K2 with 2xERPPCs and an AC2 but any hunchback that catches me in range rips me apart in two hits with 5xML and a LL or whatever.

Definitely SOME kind of COF or convergence penalty when firing in groups. Even just groups of MORE than 2, say 1 and 2 groups have no penalty but 3 or more do and its an increasing penalty, 10% convergence penalty for 3, 20% for 4, 30% for 5, etc, and I would even say as well as a heat penalty for firing in groups, same thing, no penalty for up to 2, 5% for 3, 10% for 4, 20% for 5, etc.

And for those who say this wont be the death of MWO, just look at WoW. I watched that game self destruct for 3 years because they REFUSED to properly balance classes. Instead they did just like OP says, whack-a-mole style flavor of the month balancing, and every new patch, the OP of the month class/build would start dominating until the next patch. It completely killed the game. The new build of the month would be horrendously OP, everyone but them would cry nerf, and then when it came, those who were using it cried no fair and everyone else would start complaining about the NEW OP build. All it did was create hatred between every classes followers.

[Pht]

Roland, on 24 August 2013 - 02:20 AM, said:

I didn't see exactly eye to eye with insanity on this, but at this point the reality of the prophesized destruction seems undeniable.

Simple focused damage would have damaged game balance, just as it has is prior titles, but that alone would not have doomed this game.

In and of itself (it's a huge thing, IMO - but regardless) it should be viewed at least as the acorn seed from which this balance-tweaking oak tree is growing.

Had this "focused damage" not been in the game, and instead we had been given simulation of the 'mech, this particular stream we are in would never have happened.

focused damage - double armor and internals - weapons rate of fire tweaks - ... and on down the rabbit hole from there.

The "balance" tweaks are pretty much ALWAYS band-aid s to try and fix the unintended consequences of the previous balance tweaks. That's just the basic nature of these things.

Quote

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined the travesty which is the most recent craziness by pgi to try and address those issues. Ghost heat? Intentional firing delay on weapons?

It was impossible to predict the exact things they would do, but it was entirely possible to predict that, if they were committed to fixing what they saw as problems, they WOULD continue tweaking things, patch by patch by patch.

It's called necessary conseqence.

When you add 1+1, you will always get 2. It's unavoidable if you carry out the addition.

Edited by Pht, 25 August 2013 - 08:29 AM.

[HRR Mary]

Dexion, on 06 July 2013 - 06:21 PM, said:

Anyone else think its kinda Epic that a post made back in closed beta prophesied the problems we are having to this day.. I'm not sure if I should be impressed, sad or confused. lol

Nothing to be impressed about, Players that actually have spent countless hours training, analysing, and winning, in previous games, and have played a large panel of game, have all that ability.

What is impressive is that PGI left this thread (and others) without even replying to it. That alone speaks in volumes.