200 replies to this topic

[Strajen Marez]

Aedensin, on 08 January 2013 - 11:32 PM, said:

I just wish it was actually used that way.

So far I've only seen it used as a way to win in under three minutes while griefing both teams.

MY subjective viewpoint is the exact opposite of yours. I always see matches play out in the way you say you wish they do. Our two subjective experiences average out to a nice balance I think.
Since we are going on factless gut reaction experiencial assertions here, I might assume that PGI's statistics reflect a relative balance between how the games (globally, that is between the expanded population of the game) play out.
While it might be more trouble than one might prefer to go through before taking the proverbial pen to a forum post on a fictional computer game, applying the mighty scientific method before asserting subjective views as relative fact would go a long way in upping the general IQ of these forums. If you're interested in such things, that is.

[Lynette Steffeld]

Frequent disconnects have been disrupting my play ever since approximately two patches ago. While in-game lag is now more or less not there (or rather, has evolved into teleporting light mechs), I frequently, and randomly get dropped at the start, in the middle, or sometimes even at the end of a game.

Ain't that a b*tch?

That's heavy, man.

Let's see. Another up-and-coming fad is also apparently disconnecting before you die. Apparently boating 6PPCs on a stalker in caustic and alphaing non stop is a good idea, but quitting the match just before the person who's been wailing on you for the last minute or so gets no kill credit, and hence no EXP?

Even better idea.

Searches into the forums have more or less shown that these points have been brought up from time to time, but all I see are silly copy/paste responses telling me to "use an ethernet cable" or "have your ISP not suck".

Granted, I can't say they're wrong, but those factors aren't really what's causing the problem. While i don't expect an Australian server to appear anytime soon, I really wish something can be done about "HURRDURR MY KDR WILL DROP BETTER PRESS THAT ESC BUTAN" players.

I don't roll out in my Ilya all the time... and sometimes even when I do, people hit ESC faster than my UAC5 unjams itself.

My two Cent(urion)s.

[Inertiaman]

RogueSpear, on 08 January 2013 - 02:57 PM, said:

Launching international servers is a sound move for any MP game of any type that does not allow independent hosting. I must agree with the Space Pope, it is absolutely, 100%, the fault of PGI that PGI has not bought overseas servers.
That being said, servers on the scale they'd need are bloody expensive. I'm quite happy for the money to continue to go into building the game. Because, let's be honest, it's a long way from perfect (It is an Open Beta that's only matched about half of the launch requirements they gave a year ago). Once the game is working as intended and they go to full release, then as a UK player, I will get pissy a f*ck if they don't have the EU servers they promised during the Founder's Programs. On principle alone though, since I'll probably still play American servers, but we'll have to cross that bridge when it comes to it.

TL;DR: PGI has not purchased EU servers. This is their decision, thus their fault. It's a beta, there are much bigger issues. Get over it.

The majority of your well stated post is entirely opinion and you're firmly welcome to it. On cost though - it's simply not thatexpensive. Hosting is a commodity business these days that only sees better value at scale. Assuming resources run something akin to say - battlefield 3 (and they're probably far less) then you can have a fair stab at costing the resources required to maintain the peak of instances required at any time. What muddies it slightly is that we can't see player numbers any more so let's assume it's the same (likely given new starters and leaving betas). I think Europe would currently need 4 large dedi boxes max, each capable of 16 or so instances at a time. That's 512 concurrent players. Asiapac - same again? You're still probably getting change out of £2000USD per month for covering the rest of the world. Add on cost of sale around managing them of course - it's still not silly money unless there is something about static maps on crytek3 that I am unaware of.

Unknown Worlds managed to get 60 odd regional servers up for launch - they costed it into their plan, went to Multiplay and made global servers happen. They're a fraction of the size of PGI but they recognised that ping is king and spent the money. You can cost your own dedi boxes on multiplay btw - please do.

If and when volume increases - if PGI are doing it right - so does revenue and it increasingly funds itself. If the're not seeing the conversion required then perhaps it's because medium hero mechs cost 30USD and virtual christmas lights cost more than real ones....

[Reno Blade]

Imagine 10 DEVs,
4 people searching for 4fps bug and working on it,
2 people working on fps increase (this patch)
1 person working on new mechs
1 person working on new map
1 person working on balance
1 person working on the rest

There are still 60% of the people working on other stuff and giving us something nice every patch!
Don't blame them for not working on a bug/problem/feature if you have no idea who is working on what!
As long as the bug is not fixed, you just wont see anything (not if they work on it, nor if its fixed, or anything).

Disclaimer: All numbers are made up!

[POWR]

I wonder if everyone who asks these questions are either unemployed or have never worked a job, or work in a strange, insular environment where everyone does the exact same job, with no contact whatsoever to anyone with a different job.

[Inertiaman]

Strajen Marez, on 08 January 2013 - 11:51 PM, said:

While it might be more trouble than one might prefer to go through before taking the proverbial pen to a forum post on a fictional computer game, applying the mighty scientific method before asserting subjective views as relative fact would go a long way in upping the general IQ of these forums. If you're interested in such things, that is.

Hard to apply scientific method without measuring a control group within a different environment isn't it. Pompous fool.

[Jetfire]

Some things take longer and progress is progress. You don't just drop everything and put the entire game development on hold to hunt leaks. Could you imagine the complaints that a patch is being delayed due to leak hunting. I mean I could usually play 15-20 rounds before I see a 4FPS bug... I can live with that for now and it seems after patch it is better.

[Jetfire]

Salacious Sparrow, on 08 January 2013 - 08:50 PM, said:

- no insentive to cap. look, it makes sense to me that if we get nothing for a cap, then there shouldnt be a cap. but there is one. and of course, 7/10 times you get some tard in a light mech going to cap. trying to save up for a larger mech on 25k a round if ******* awful. 13 mill? forget it. i know you want us to spend money on the game, but honestly this isnt the way. just takes the cap out of the assault modes and make it give you more of a bonus in conquest.

The incentive to cap is that you win despite not succeeding on the battlefield and get to make off with the salvage and higher XP. The downside is that if you just base rush... you will be making a lot less money. This seems to be a very good balance.

Conquest has seen the resources to CB conversion buffed and faster accrual of resources. This makes holding point more relevant.

[Remarius]

Jetfire, on 09 January 2013 - 03:32 AM, said:

Some things take longer and progress is progress. You don't just drop everything and put the entire game development on hold to hunt leaks. Could you imagine the complaints that a patch is being delayed due to leak hunting. I mean I could usually play 15-20 rounds before I see a 4FPS bug... I can live with that for now and it seems after patch it is better.

Sums up my feeling - I've probably had the 4 FPS bug 6 times in 600 matches and every time after I've played a lot of matches or been really pushing my computer all day then logged in for a series of battles before bed. I don;t like it but I can live with it

[RogueSpear]

Fair warning, what I'm about to say next is all hearsay and my impressions, I have no idea how accurate this is.
I'm studying games programming at the University of Abertay Dundee, which if you've ever heard of you'll know our teaching staff for the course is made nearly without exception of industry vets for big companies and we have industry workers just wandering in for a look around and a chat with the top percentile of the upper years. While I've not chased this in any kind of detail, the distinct impression I got was that setting up servers requires all kinds of paperwork, costs an inordinate price as soon as the hoster realizes you're a proper company, largely because of the amount of failsafes and *** covering that needs to be done. But that's just my impressions, I can't give 100% on that.With over 5 million in the bank from the founder's program alone, I think the main reason they haven't set up international servers is due to the time it would take, rather than the cost.

As for the stuff we pay for...50 MC translates to 20 cent. If you can find Christmas lights for that kind of cost, I really wouldn't advise plugging them in! But paying $4 for each instance of an Urbanmech with a Top Hat and a Cigar kind of stung. The $20-30 tag on mechs though was the main community response back around Oct-Nov of 2011 as I recall though, so while a lot of the decisions they've made for making money (Like the paint schemes) just don't make any kind of sense to me, that one was just following feedback.

[Slanski]

ECM is easy to fix:
Just permit one counter ECM to switch off all ECM within its range, not require numerical superiority. So one raven/D-DC could neutralize all enemy ECM in the slugfest and brawl. The current setup requires you to have more ECM, this proposition would just require having at least one durable ECM to counter.

[Frostbeast]

Next time when you put accidently something into the changelog that is not in yet, dont erase it. Mark it with big signs and give us the info you made a little misttake and that it will come next time.
Less chaos and conspiracy will come from the playersite.

[Black Templar]

Dear Niko,
Dear Moderators of this forum,

it is quite shocking to see that you have deleted my topic about several "new old bugs" that persist with this new patch. Are you worried about people flooding the forum with identical threads? Reminder: It is your damn job to monitor and MERGE them. Please try to be more mindful next time and give me, as a beta tester, at least a slight chance of letting you know what got messed up in your game.

Here's to the bugs:

- On "Frozen City": Missiles and Laser weapons can again shoot through rocks and buildings. This happened to me with buildings on the far edge of the downed dropship (map center)
- AMS seems to fire at missiles it actually can't shoot down, while the AMS bullets are not able to pass through rocks and buildings.
- Heat vision is producing a ghosting effect on my screen. there is blue "smear" of mechparts everywhere when i use it.
- the yellow screen of death on match startup is still there.

[Inertiaman]

RogueSpear, on 09 January 2013 - 05:05 AM, said:

Fair warning, what I'm about to say next is all hearsay and my impressions, I have no idea how accurate this is.
I'm studying games programming at the University of Abertay Dundee, which if you've ever heard of you'll know our teaching staff for the course is made nearly without exception of industry vets for big companies and we have industry workers just wandering in for a look around and a chat with the top percentile of the upper years. While I've not chased this in any kind of detail, the distinct impression I got was that setting up servers requires all kinds of paperwork, costs an inordinate price as soon as the hoster realizes you're a proper company, largely because of the amount of failsafes and *** covering that needs to be done. But that's just my impressions, I can't give 100% on that.With over 5 million in the bank from the founder's program alone, I think the main reason they haven't set up international servers is due to the time it would take, rather than the cost.

In this context, not necessarilyl. That would certainly be the case if you go with someone like rackspace and need to design the whole topology right out from servers to routing, firewalls and wan connectivity but for these purposes it's just not necessary. There are several near-global GSP's now who specialise in this kind of deployment and deliver as a commodity. Yes there's a consulting/testing cost and certainly some work to do to get there - but if they have a platform up and running in the US then most of those hard yards have already been covered once and should make the second deployment far easier.

If there's anything in the way other than expense - I can only assume it's the development of the backend and FE UI required to add regional server pools to the mix in the game itself. But for me that's on the increasingly long "list of things that should have happened before Open Beta and I wish were getting some attention now".

Edited by Inertiaman, 09 January 2013 - 06:26 AM.

[Old Mechdonald]

I noticed the second I got in the game...WAAAY smoother. It plays so much better now. wow, I can't wait till I can get back into the game. Great JOB absolutely wonderful. Going to buy more MC's just for the new joy. THANKS!!

NEW patch is great! See previous post by me. Nice job.

[Badicus Geist O Shea]

Last Patch 1.2.172

Faction Icon (Known Issue)
· Changing your website faction icon may not be accurately reflected in the game interface.

does not work because davion = marik , marik = Rasalhague , steiner = Rasalhague etc.

[Tesunie]

Badicus Geist O Shea, on 09 January 2013 - 07:47 AM, said:

Last Patch 1.2.172

Faction Icon (Known Issue)
· Changing your website faction icon may not be accurately reflected in the game interface.

does not work because davion = marik , marik = Rasalhague , steiner = Rasalhague etc.

Um... they know. Guess why it says the icon might NOT accurately reflect in the game. You are still of the correct faction, just the little emblem is messed up right now.

No idea why you posted this to be honest...

[MasterGoa]

Yeah, I understand game development has MANY moving parts.

However, you guys are very lucky that you only get the 4FPS bug.
When I get it, I ALT+TAB out and back in and it's ok.

What I have, however, is "Could not write memory block x726635" and bang.
Happens every 4-5 matches. Using the GFX monitor, I assume that it's
because I have a pair of 1GB cards.

But yeah, really buzzkill to be set for a match with a couple of friends
that know how to play and boom...

[sycocys]

Okay you may have found the solution to your own problem - have you tested pulling one of those cards?

[ltwally]

Salacious Sparrow, on 08 January 2013 - 08:50 PM, said:

- Cheeseboats. No idea how you could fix that other than restricting weapons, which isnt in the games spirit at the moment (hey i like my sillybuilds too) i just see too much dominant strategy going on (you know, people will inherently use the best option to win). maybe limit the number of ECM per team? matchmaking could either do that or match you to an equal number of ecms

A "Battle Value"-esque system would be a Good Thing. That said, the fix for ECM isn't limiting the amount of ECM --- it's fixing ECM so it's no longer a 1.5-tonne plan for victory.

http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__1709146

Quote

- no insentive to cap. look, it makes sense to me that if we get nothing for a cap, then there shouldnt be a cap. but there is one. and of course, 7/10 times you get some tard in a light mech going to cap.

So, the light mech that uses his mech in a way that his mech excels at, instead of trying to brawl it up with the heavies, is a "tard" ??

That's cute.

Quote

trying to save up for a larger mech on 25k a round if ******* awful. 13 mill? forget it. i know you want us to spend money on the game, but honestly this isnt the way. just takes the cap out of the assault modes and make it give you more of a bonus in conquest.

The reward vs repair/rearm system of the past was not good. It led to players that built stronger, better mechs earning less from matches. That is antithetical to real life, common sense and more importantly: fun. Sure, it costs more to repair an expensive mech -- but the driver for an expensive mech adjusts for that by charging more for his services.

So, that was bad.

And then they went and replaced it with a system where now all mechs earn a pittance -- unless you brawl it up. High damage and kills are now the only way to get scratch a good reward.

Combine that with ECM and the lack of any repair bills, and MW:O has quickly devolved into little more than the same old brawl every single match.

Does this make the game better? Not in my opinion.

What you propose -- removing capture entirely -- is hardly even necessary. This game has already devolved into a shadow of its former self.

I feel, rather strongly, that the reward for capturing should be on par with doing lots of damage and getting a couple kills. Because if it isn't, then there isn't any incentive to capture. And we're back to nothing but the same boring brawl every match. Which is where we're at now.

Edited by ltwally, 09 January 2013 - 08:43 AM.