21 replies to this topic

[Tex1013]

So, I've spent 2 days trying out Mechwarrior Online open beta so far. I'm aware that this is *not* a finished product, and I'm also very aware that long-term impressions are far better than short term impressions

Nevertheless, as this *is* an open beta, and I *assume* that the reason the game as it exists now is being made to the public *for the purpose of being critiqued and improved*, I'd like to post my first impressions, and my questions/confusions, so that members of the community, and possibly developers, can take those impressions/confusions into account while they continue working on the game

First, so you know where I'm coming from - I've played just about every form of Battletech there is - I've played all the mechwarrior titles, the mechcommander titles, tabletop Btech and mechwarrior (although I haven't played the most recent rules version, I'll admit), even the oft forgotten "Crescent Hawk" games, which I enjoyed back in the day. I've missed a couple of the console versions of mechwarrior, although I did briefly play the x-box one

Still, point is, I'm familiar with both Btech lore and previous video games, although I'll grant there are still friends of mine far more engrossed in the lore/history than I am.

As far as gaming goes, I generally prefer team-based playstyle, with Battlefield being my favorite franchise (right up until EA screwed it in the *** with Origin), and I'm currently enjoying Planetside 2 (anyone that thinks the MWO forum community is bad, should check out the BF3 or PS2 communities...trust me, here, it's not that bad comparatively)

my intro got longer than I expected...first impressions, 1st reply...

[Fergrim]

tl;dr





No, I did read it actually. And screw you for not putting the whole post in one entry!

[Tex1013]

So, first impressions

#1 - instructions, anyone? So, I futzed my way through most of the options on the opening menu. Took me what I would consider to be an unreasonable amount of time trying to sort out what everything was, but, as the game is unfinished, I can only hope that someone somewhere is writing up an instruction manual of some sort (honestly - games should still come with manuals explaining basic menu functions, really - so few of them seem to rely on people hovering over menu options reading pop-up tooltips)

honestly, Mech design is a very important part of any mechwarrior game - I honestly feel that designing mechs, and starting to understand the difference between trial mechs and owned mechs, the difference between gxp (*general* xp I assume?) and chassis-type xp, being able to design a mech *without* having to buy the components to test weight, space ratios and such...

I honestly hope you have a much more friendly mechlab than you do currently

Also, there's almost NO instruction as to how xp works anywhere - I found myself accumulating xp that didn't at all match the only "xp" box I could see (the gxp box) - finally, I found my *missing* xp values from the matches tied to my particular chassis that I happened to be piloting at the time - that finally led me to checking out the xp trees...etc...etc...point being, XP should probably have...well, better instructions

#2 - basic matches - again, there's not a lot of instruction to be had, but I've played mechwarrior, and I checked out the keybinds, so I knew how to accellerate, torso twist, jump jet, etc.

Honestly, I was enjoying the matches early on - they were quick, fairly straightforward - I got killed fairly thoroughly, but that was to be expected, and truth be told, I wasn't getting killed quite as fast as I was worried - eventually, this led to some...problems, problems I'm still having - I'm having a hard time gauging how much damage I *should* be doing. I feel like I'm not doing nearly enough, although I tend to laser a lot, and the basic mechanics of lasers in MWO seem to limit the effective damage you do - more on that later

I've read a lot of the forum chatter over the last week, which is why I wanted to try out MWO in part - I'm becoming quickly familiar with the "lag shields" of light mechs, and I'm not finding ECM to be nearly as problematic as people on the forums seem to find it (although again, I never really *liked* missiles in Mechwarrior anyway, so it's entirely possible that I'm not getting screwed nearly as badly as missile jockeys are)

but, I'm finding myself quickly getting bored - every mechwarrior game I've ever played has to strike a delicate balance between environment and mech combat cabability. Make environments too open and flat-ish, and every engagement is a relatively boring circle-of-death - make them too cluttered, and manuevering becomes unnecessarily clunky and annoying - make the maps too open and missile boats dominate, make them too close and missile boats become mostly irrelevant

Again, from the perspective of a primarily direct-fire mid-close range mechwarrior, I find the maps to be reasonably sized, but environmental terrain seems unusually...something. It's hard to say - I find the urban environments to be pretty well laid out, and I rather like the snow map, but the desert map and the forest map seem to have too much clutter in some areas, followed by not nearly enough in others - tight fight areas with too much clutter that you keep getting caught on, followed by one big LOS blocking mountain with nothing but empty space on either side

more following...

[Tex1013]

#3 - match "objectives" - hrm. Assault (that's the one with 1-base for each side, right?) - this is just too...simple, for my tastes. At least currently. For one thing, my *base* is pitiful. I dunno what it is, but it doesn't look important, it doesn't *feel* important, and defending it seems like a glaring tactical liability (as in, standing close enough to defend it feels like a liability, not the actual act of keeping someone else from capping it)

also, given varying mech speeds, size of the map, and the length of time it takes to "cap" it, in most cases, if you've overextended your team even mildly, it feels mostly impossible to recover by falling back and protecting. I have a variety of ideas that *I* would find making Assault more enjoyable, but I know my *personal* tastes may be different than other folks - I'll simply settle for asking developers to consider making base assault a more...dedicated effort. Make enemy mechs actually spend fire attempting to destroy the target, thereby making light mech "backcapping" relatively useless alone - or make it take longer to cap, make the capping area larger, and increase the variety of terrain around the area to make a *base* a vital battlefield

Conquest - better, or at least in my mind, more interesting, but Conquest modes like this (BF franchise has a mode like this that I've always enjoyed up to a point) tend to lend themselves to more active, more mobile combats, which I enjoy, and think is a good thing for Mechwarrior. But the actual capture points are still fairly...boring. The mechwarrior universe has it's own unique flavor, and I'd like to think we could instill some of that flavor into making the maps a little less...generically pvpmmo-ish.

So, most match objectives are *OBJECTIVE*...or, if you can't handle *OBJECTIVE*, then KILL ALL MECHS...pretty straightforward. I'm really hoping, of course, that as the game develops, we'll find more complicated game modes - ESCAPE! - extended length map with one set mech that has to be destroyed or successfully make it to other side of map, or some such (with damage mechanics in MWO, though, that could be hard to balance) - CTF (Mechs have to occupy star-league cache, download data, then return it to base, or some such) and so on

#4 match "balancing" - I'm finding the total lack of tonnage balancing curious - I would have thought it would be a bigger problem, but it turns out so far that all my matches have felt *reasonably* balanced regardless of what tonnage people bring in. Oh, sure, some of my teams have gotten MAULED, and some have MAULED...and some have been reasonably close, but so far, it's been *reasonably* clear that most of our massive losses/wins have been more due to player ability (or lack thereof, myself included) than the tonnage we came in with

still, I can see some larger scale efforts made to balance the teams by Tonnage limits or totals or at least some *balancing* factor (like improved xp/cash for massive tonnage differences), although THAT kind of balance will have to depend heavily on how much of an advantage tonnage really creates, which is hard for me to really evaluate this early in.

[Tex1013]

lastly, some questions...

I tend to prefer lasers. I always have. And PPC's...PPC's have always been awesomesauce (hehe...pun intended). But I'm tending to find lasers relatively...unrewarding, and here's why, and this isn't the first time - Mechwarrior...3, I think, and possibly 4, redesigned lasers as long-fire rate direct fire weapons. What this means, is that the weapon fires for about 1.5, maybe 2 seconds, delivering damage that entire time (earlier versions had them be straight instant shot instant hit instant damage weapons, which for twitch shooters made them vastly superior to most AC's and SRM's and such, which is probably why the method changed)

the problem I've *always* had with this method, is it ends up distributing your damage over multiple locations, and often wasting a certain amount of damage that may miss during the fire period. That in and of itself wouldn't bother me, but as far as I know, the amount of heat the weapon generates during firing is fixed. Which means, I fire my large laser - according to Btech rules, it should do 8 damage for 8 heat - but, according to MWO online mechanics, my LL is now doing between 2-8 damage, for 8 heat. Also, instead of doing 8 damage to "Arm" or "Leg", I could very easily be doing 2 dmg r-arm, 2 dmg r-torso, 2-dmg ct, 2 dmg to that tree that got in the way while I was firing.

This isn't really a *complaint* with the system, just one of those annoying alterations to mechanics that...bother me *personally* - I think the part I dislike the most is the "fixed heat" issue - I don't mind doing less damage or damage spread, but having to pay the fixed amount of heat for the variable damage spread across multiple areas bothers me somewhat.

Now, anyone that knows Btech will tell me that this is exactly the way srm's and lrm's work...fixed heat, variable damage, variable hit location (in groups of 5 or less, or in the case of SRM's, 1-by-1) - but iirc, the TT balance for variable damage weapons was significantly less heat vs maximum damage potential. AC's payed for fixed damage low heat with massive tonnage, generally.

so, my question is - Does anyone know - have they adjusted the top damage for lasers to account for fixed heat and variable location? like, does my med laser do 8 points of damage over 2 seconds, instead of 5, perhaps? I don't think so (the firepower rating on my mech which only makes partial sense seems to fix the good 'ol ML at 5 dmg), but it's entirely possible I've missed some little detail.

2nd and last question - being a Beta, I'm *assuming* that I'm meant to provide feedback (bugs, gameplay experience, etc) to devs for review - I'm also assuming theres a semi-official method/system for doing so - but I haven't come across mention of it yet - can anyone tell me where I'm supposed to post, and *what* i'm supposed to post (like, ONLY bugs, or do they want gameplay preferences and experiences also, etc?) or do I just post on the forums whatever comes into my fool head and let the devs sort it out?

All in all, I'm enjoying MWO, and am perfectly happing working under the understanding that this is a Beta, so, we'll see how it progresses

anyone that read this far - give yourself a cookie - you deserve it!

[c0d3x]

There are lots of hidden things in this game that just aren't easily found(i.e. backspace turning on chain fire). What a heat rating actually means, and tons of other things. Thus far most things are slowly figured out, by luck, or constant button mashing.

I don't know what you are looking for in terms of a game, i.e. a solo player vs. the world feel, or a teamwork/strategy game. But I can say, that joining the TeamSpeak free comstar severs and playing with other people has made this game shine for me. Teamspeak is a free download, the servers are free(the info for them is at: http://mwomercs.com/...then-look-here/) and it takes less than 5 minutes to set up, that is faster then one drop. I highly recommend it.

I think you are looking at the heat generated by lasers in a.... odd way. Shooting a laser should generate the same heat if you hit your target or not. If I understand your logic correctly, it would be the same as saying, my AC20 missed, so I want the projectile back. That said, energy weapons have some heat issues(PPC's, pulse lasers and ER large) that I believe are getting address in this upcoming patch, but I could be wrong on that as, well, only the DEVs know the final date on that. But, coming soon(ish).

[MuonNeutrino]

As far as weapon stats go, you'll find that most of the weapons are 'close' to their tabletop stats, apart from things like firerate that didn't exist there. There are up+down tweaks here and there, but an ac20 still does 20 damage per shot, etc. So yes, medium lasers are still 5 damage, though larges got bumped to 9. Most everything isn't documented in game yet, but there's several good sources maintained by the community. I personally use this one - it has basically everything, including an in-browser mechlab for testing builds: http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/

Specifically about lasers, it's true that your medium laser is often going to end up doing 2 damage to one torso, 2 to another, and 1 to an arm, or whatnot. Keep in mind, though, that in this game all of your lasers are hitting the same spot. I believe that this is partially why lasers work the way they do - *one* laser might not mimic its tabletop behavior, but if you're firing 3, then suddenly you're doing 6 damage to two different torsos and 3 to an arm, which is much more like what might happen if you shot 3 lasers with the tabletop's random hit locations.

For PPCs, they're slightly underpowered at the moment, but should be getting better. One part of it is that the netcode is still unfinished, so projectile weapons like PPCs and autocannons often suffer from wonky hit detection depending on the relative internet performance of you and your target. This is being worked on heavily (last ETA I heard was next month sometime, if I recall correctly), so PPCs will become somewhat more reliable as the netcode improves. Additionally, the devs have stated that they're reviewing the heat generation of several of the larger energy weapons (PPCs, ER PPCs, and large pulses, I think), so there's another buff slated to come down the line there. There's also been persistent rumors that PPCs will be getting some sort of hud disruption or emp type effect on the targets, so overall they ought to be in a pretty good place eventually. I enjoy them even now, and they're hardly unusable, but they'll be becoming more fearsome as the game goes along.

[Deamhan]

I remember what it was like starting out and I agree with pretty much everything you said. If they at all want to increase the number of new people and expect them to stay, they need an in game tutorial/tool tip. They stats on the weapons are very lacking. You see slots, tonnage and cost. You have to equip it to see the effects on heat and damage.

Speed, dmg, and armor are pretty straight forward. I still don't know what the heat score is all about.

[Tex1013]

DAY 3

First of all, thank you for the kindly responses.

#1 - My gameplay experience is...diminishing. First of all, out of my last 15 matches I've had roughly 1 win. It's a little disheartening. My own performance has been what I mostly expect - moderately competent for a 6-ML jenner except for a handful of unlucky moments where I effectively get one shotted

now, I'm frequently in a dual-lance setup (I've heard there are 4-man and 2-man team setups, but I haven't found them yet in the matchup screen, although I'll admit I haven't looked all that hard), and while I certainly wouldn't hold myself up as the team leader in damage or kills, 1:15 win/loss ratio becomes hard to justify as myself being the single factor that fails my team every time. It's not impossible, but I wonder if I'm just getting terrifically unlucky string of matchups, or if there's some hidden match-making que that seems to be queing me with all the guys that are as inexperienced as I am

Now, I've been watching the forums for awhile, so I understand the inevitable difficulties with pugs/pre-mades, but I had *imagined* that there were still a sufficient quantity of other pugs out there, that I'd be getting mostly matched up with pugs, and therefore might have an equal distribution of fail - that doesn't seem to be the case

I *do* understand basic principles of teamwork - stay with teammembers, try not to get over-extended, focus fire (although this game doesn't make coordinating fire between multiple lance-mates particularly easy) - but my *teams* are clearly failing, and usually failing HARD, over and over and over again.

#2 - Also, the mission rewards have tanked significantly, although not entirely unexpectedly. For awhile, I was getting a "cadet bonus" in c-bills during my matches, win or lose - it was pretty significant, and gave the promise of me being able to access some of the more expensive chassis in fairly short order so I could begin testing THEM out - which is why I felt comfortable buying a jenner, and trying out one of the smaller chassis.

Now, I stopped getting the cadet bonus - as it was a *bonus*, I imagined I might stop getting it at some point, but there was no indication of when or why that would be. Did I clear an xp boundary? or a game-time played boundary? a matches played boundary? Dunno - whatever it was, it's gone now - and my miserable lack-of-win record is making progressing to the larger chassis mechs...dissapointingly out of reach

#3 - Lastly, I'm having a very hard time, and more than a little frustration, gauging damage output in this game. Most Dramatic case-in-point. In a recent match, I managed to get behind a catapult - we had a guy capping their base, so the Cat was making his way back to base. I'm in a Jenner with 6-medium lasers. I've got a perfect back shot on this guy - I manage to pull off about 4 volleys in about 60 seconds...visually, every one of my lasers hit each volley, spreading mostly across rear rt, ct, lt

mathematically, that's at least 120 damage across 3 rear armor sections in about 60 seconds - guy doesn't even turn around

why? because he doesn't need to - 4 6-ml volleys into his rear armor, and the guy isn't particularly affected - he makes it back to base with several of his cronies, they re-capture from the guy they had there, and all 4 of them turn on me and the raven that was with me...chaos ensues, I manage to get a few more lasers on the guy, but by end of match, we're all dead, and THIS GUY IS STILL STANDING.

Now, I don't mind getting killed by 4:1 firepower...in fact, at some level, I'm impressed I stayed alive as long as I did. But clearly, my damage output isn't significant, despite my best possible positioning. I'm getting frustrated with not being able to gauge how much damage my weaponry *should* be doing.

And, to be fair, I know it's not the weaponry's fault, cuz it's clearly effective at killing me. I'm hard to hit, and my mech takes a LOT more damage than I would have personally expected...but I still can't seem to do the damage other guys are doing to me, with roughly similar mechs and gear (although many of them seem to be loaded with Streak srms, which I hear are the current flavor of the month)

and it's not an issue of hitting particularly - I'm a pretty good shot - even with lasers, I'm getting at least half hits from almost all of my volleys (half meaning for at least half the time my laser is firing, it's hitting some portion of the enemy mech)

Also, whoever posted the free teamspeak server, thank you - I'm gonna check that out - I prefer in game voice, but it *sounded* like that option was reserved for c3 units, which seemed assinine, as anyone with a vent/TS server could *steal* that particular ability - although I'll admit the description may have been misleading, and it works differently.

In short, if anyone has had to make a similar adjustment, either in coordinating better with teams, or gauging what makes a lousy team vs a good one (honestly, 15:1 losses and in most cases, I couldn't tell you what we did wrong - we stuck together for the most part, had good position - then something happens and half my team is dead, 1 of the other guys is dead, and I'm getting triple teamed), or in trying to figure out how weapons deliver their damage and what's reasonable firepower expectations, I'd appreciate any input

Edited by Tex1013, 19 January 2013 - 02:17 PM.

[One Medic Army]

What's your Ping?
Lagshield goes both ways at times, if you're in a light mech with a high ping.

I've run into the same as well on occasion in my Dragon, even. Line up a perfect volley of 2x SRM4+LB10+2x Medium Lasers into an atlas' deep red rear CT. No effect upon a clear hit.

Are you using R to target your enemy and see how much/where damage is being done to him? (paperdoll mech status in the upper right of the screen).

[Carrioncrows]

What?

Backspace turns on chainfire?

SOB

[Anudiz]

I know how you feel, i started playing a few weeks ago.
At first i also felt pretty bad and i had extreme problems judging my own performance.
Shots seemed to do nothing at all to my enemies, they just shrugged it off and ripped me
seemingly easy to pieces.
I had a hard time getting any kills at all and got some coordination problems when fighting lights,
ie dont knowing where my feet are actually pointing and where my Upper Torso is pointing.

However it got much much much better after some time.
Im exclusively pugging and im finding myself topping the scoreboard fairly often.
Im almost always one of the 3 biggest dmgDealers in the matches and i do kill stuff now.

My W/L Ratio is still only like 48% Win 52% Lose.
No matter how good i fight and even if i take 3 enemies out alone.
I often find myself getting swarmed to death by 3+ enemies and when i press TAB i see im the last one standing... again.
And thats not because i stay far behind and snipe or something, i exclusively play Brawler types and i do get in there and deal the dmg, but thats just not enough to turn the tables when your pug teammates are dieing like flies.

However i enjoy the game, screw W/L

[Tex1013]

minor update - USING THE MWO TEAMSPEAK SERVER MAKES A *HUGE* DIFFERENCE...

and oddly enough, it really *shouldn't*...and here's why. I found some people on the teamspeak server to team up with - truth be told, with one exception, we actually didn't do much *talking* - honestly, I didn't really see our collective tactics change *much* (it changed a *little* bit - first round, someone was at least calling out focus-fire targets, and in other rounds we had people occasionally calling out map locations and enemies) but overall, there wasn't much going on in the teamspeak server that I'm not doing already in totally silent pugs

but I came out victorious 4 out of 5 matches in about an hour

I don't know - maybe just that couple of moments of speech, or, I'm thinking more likely, just the fact that the mindset required to seek out the teamspeak server and USE it speaks to a mindset that's more inherently able to use/take advantage of teamwork

I can't say for sure what it was, but it feels like using the MWO teamspeak server went a long way towards directing me towards more competent players (although there are other factors, like the time I was playing - late night vs middle of the afternoon - that *could* be responsible as well)

for some of the above comments - I'm not *particularly* worried about my w/l ratio until it becomes DRASTICALLY in favor of fail - I just find that...unappealing.

as for my ping, good question, but I'm usually at 100 or under, which is generally more than acceptable for any online gaming I've done so far

I am also using the detail target view, and I'm starting to pay more attention to the % health bar - even though I can figure out the general paper-doll, it doesn't change significantly enough for me to get a good idea of how much damage any one weapon, or even volley, does

Also, I'll be the first person to admit I'm running a very distinctly sub-par mech at the moment - the only non-trial mech I currently have access to is a Jenner that I bought and tricked out to try and figure out how the mech customization system works. While it's passable now (6 med las, 6/9 move + jj's, limited to 5 jj's and I'm not *entirely* sure why, and *assuming* that means 6/9/5 move, near-full armor, and 11 double heatsinks) people playing longer than I have have told me that I've managed to pick just about the worst possible combination of weapons/chassis currently available in the game

WOOHOO!!

still, I prefer direct fire energy mechs, and I can't really fit a PPC on a jenner, so this is what I've got so far (well, I *can*, but in the end I'm not sure I should)

[Valder]

Getting on teamspeak will make you learn a LOT faster and will also keep you playing a LOT longer than you would solo.

There's a giant MWO Comstar Public Teamspeak server at na1.mech-connect.net (password: WordofBlake ). Get on there and hop in some random groups, there's usually 100-200+ players on.

[Grumbling Coot]

Tex1013, on 18 January 2013 - 07:16 PM, said:

2nd and last question - being a Beta, I'm *assuming* that I'm meant to provide feedback (bugs, gameplay experience, etc) to devs for review - I'm also assuming theres a semi-official method/system for doing so - but I haven't come across mention of it yet - can anyone tell me where I'm supposed to post, and *what* i'm supposed to post (like, ONLY bugs, or do they want gameplay preferences and experiences also, etc?) or do I just post on the forums whatever comes into my fool head and let the devs sort it out?

There are a few different forum areas for feedback. If you click on the "Forums" button at the top of the page you can scroll through them. I'll go through a few of the ones that I've found to be useful:

The forum section for the current patch is at the top, and is where you would post about new bugs or issues you have with the current game balance. There is also a known issues section there where you can see all the bugs that the devs are aware of and working to fix (we hope anyway ).

Below that there is also a section of forums for new players. You can find some decent guides there that are the closest thing we have to actual instructions for new players.

In the MWO section there are a lot of posts and blogs by devs about features and fixes that are in the works. There's also a biweekly Q&A with the devs there where you can post questions you have about new features. Finally, there's a suggestions section there where you can post any random ideas for the game that pop into your head.

Anyway, welcome to the game and I'm glad you're enjoying yourself so far.

[and zero]

If you would like to you can send me a friend request/message and we can play some games. My clan members and i are always happy to help someone learn the ropes. Also, we usually win

[Colin Thrase]

Enjoyed your review thus far.

I'm sure there will be disagreement, but be careful when using the 'stick together' strategy. If you're all clustered and a light mech (commando or spider) is running amok in your group, you're going to have some problems:

1. You can't hit it, because you don't want to hit your allies as it wanders in and out of your group
2. You're getting hit by your allies that don't have the same compunction
3. If you stand still, you'll get hit by enemies firing at range
4. If you move around, you'll find yourself running into your allies.

If I see one of my allies is alone, I'll usually buddy up with him so we can cover each other. If there are 4 or more friendlies already grouped together, I try to hang back so as to avoid the above problems. I find sniping to be satisfying anyway.

Just fyi - I saw you said you liked energy weapons. The listed range is actually under-rated. I frequently hit targets much farther than the weapon range (mediums seem to hit out to 500 or so. Standard PPCs can shoot to about 900m, maybe 1000m. I'm sure the others are the same. You're probably going to get grief from other players in chat.. "he's out of range" and things like that. But if you watch your reticle, it changes red to indicate a hit. And the target (upper right) will blink the location you hit. Same goes for minimum on the PPCs. I think they're less likely to hit (the reticle doesn't always turn red at point blank range), but it does connect often enough to make it worth trying.

Regarding lasers. It may not be immediately apparent, but you do need to lead the target a little (I know this doesn't make sense, since lasers should be instant). For a fast light mech at 100 to 150m distance, I try to aim about a half-inch to an inch in front of the target. You'll need to adjust based on your monitor size, of course.

CT

[Kamikaze Viking]

another great link for helping you find out about weapons, engines, chassis etc is Ohmwrecker's quick reference guide

http://mwomercs.com/...s-excel-inside/

it shows you the real weapon ranges, laser beam times, weapon heat, tonnage and recycle times etc.

just re-check it after patches as it gets updated.

[Tex1013]

DAY 6...I think

the 3-day weekend is making time blur for me, but my experience has expanded

#1 - again, thank you all for advice and responses, and the several very useful links - I've already found some friendly, encouraging, experienced people on the Comstar public server (makes a HUUGGGEEE difference - look it up and make it work!) and beyond, and while I'm now running 3 different 3rd party communication tools, which I find slightly annoying, being able to connect with competent and friendly people has created a HUGE difference in my gameplay experience, almost entirely positive!

#2 - so, I'm pretty sure I'm at day 6 now, and here are some of my continuing observations about gameplay - first of all, the 4ps bug - I've gotten it a couple of times now, so I know what people are talking about. I'm counting on it, like any major game bugs, to be fixed at some point

#3 - the lag shield, the netcode, and the eventual role of light mechs once the previous two items are "fixed". I like light mechs. I think it's important that all mech weight classes have their utility. Battletech, old-school, was really quite odd, in that, mechs weren't really ton-for-ton balanced with each other. Many of the mechs were designed with very specific, lore-based designs. I still remember one of my favorites, the Urbanmech - basically r2-d2 with an ac10. Poor little thing was useless - 3/5 move in...i can't remember if it was a 20 or 30 tonner, but it's whole lore-stated purpose was to patrol the streets of cities, which it did excellently, as it only really needed a 3/5 move to get in between buildings, and the ac10 was a sufficiently power weapon to deter other light mechs. It was a *terrible* mech in ANY other environment, and, ton-for-ton, would be outgunned violently by any other mech, because while lore-wise it made sense to have a heavy, slow, dumpy mini-mech for patrolling streets, the actual mechanics of the game didn't really punish larger mechs for moving around in city environment (not on their size, at least), and so almost no one ever put it in any tournament style game.

It was *designed* using game mechanics, but with it's design meant to replicate it's RP purpose, and as such, it was NOT balanced at all.

In BTech, mechanically, lights were generally at a disadvantage in any dedicated combat role - speed, counted, but only for so much, and all it took was one good solid hit from a much, much larger mech to take them out of the game. Fortunately, by 3050, there were enough really interesting "tactical" enhancements (beagle, ecm, tag, c3) that lights once again had a very useful position as overall strategic support.

in current MWO, lights are combat capable, and some might argue combat BEASTS, thanks to some coding issues. I suppose, if MWO wants lights to remain damage dealing viable AND fix the coding issues that are making them hard to hit, they're either going to have to find some *other* way of adding survivability to lights, or they're going to have to make the STRATEGIC role of lights far more effective and appealing.

for my own part, I'd *REALLY* like to see the more strategic side of MWO expand, which brings me to...

#4 - objectives for gameplay are still very simplistic in my mind - that part hasn't changed. I'm enjoying MWO so far as a "I can pop in and play this for an hour, with 10 minute matches - that's nice" things move very quickly, in, bang, out, next match.

but I actually prefer complexity, and this right now this is a very simplistic TDM game for the most part, with objectives taking a very distant second priority in the vast majority of the matches I've played. It also undercuts the utility of advanced strategic devices that we can put in mechs as part of our team-designed layouts. I'd really like to see more complex objective systems, accompanied by more advanced strategic features/modules/devices that can be used in mechs.

#5 - I know the pre-game user interface, the mechlab, the grouping/social tools, are all works in progress - but just so it's said from *my* perspective, yes, we still need a great many features added to this tool.

#6 - "METAGAME"...doom doom doom!!! This word gets thrown around a lot lately (I'm especially and painfully familiar with it as it shows up just about 1 in every 3 posts on Planetside 2, which I play and am loving) - One of my favorite parts of mechwarrior games, and one of the key features that set it aside from other mech-blasting games, is the "metagame" of salvage, balancing military objectives with logistical objectives, managing finances for your "company", building up your mechforce, and all the other details with building up your "stable" of mechs over the course of your campaign.

Now, some of this is just going to be impossible in a match-based competitive MMO, or so I would imagine. But, I'd still like to see it, and I think it's *especially* important for Mechwarrior online. Trust me when I tell you, one of the key features that sets all Mechwarrior games apart from any other mech-blaster game I've heard of or played, is the logistics of managing your battlemech company, and I really hope that PGI spends some serious effort trying to incorporate that particular flavor of Battletech into this game as well.

think I'll stop there for the time being - looking forward to my Awesome trial mech - everyone hates on the awesome right now, but back in the way back times, the Awesome was just about my 2nd favorite mech - I love my PPC's, and it was the only mech at the time that had 3 of them...3 times the electric love!

BRING BACK THE BATTLEMASTER!!! and I'd like to see hatchetman/axeman - in fact, any of the banzai designs - I loved that guy!

[Cole Allard]

Tex1013, on 18 January 2013 - 06:34 PM, said:

So, I've spent 2 days trying out Mechwarrior Online open beta so far. I'm aware that this is *not* a finished product, and I'm also very aware that long-term impressions are far better than short term impressions

Nevertheless, as this *is* an open beta, and I *assume* that the reason the game as it exists now is being made to the public *for the purpose of being critiqued and improved*, I'd like to post my first impressions, and my questions/confusions, so that members of the community, and possibly developers, can take those impressions/confusions into account while they continue working on the game

First, so you know where I'm coming from - I've played just about every form of Battletech there is - I've played all the mechwarrior titles, the mechcommander titles, tabletop Btech and mechwarrior (although I haven't played the most recent rules version, I'll admit), even the oft forgotten "Crescent Hawk" games, which I enjoyed back in the day. I've missed a couple of the console versions of mechwarrior, although I did briefly play the x-box one

Still, point is, I'm familiar with both Btech lore and previous video games, although I'll grant there are still friends of mine far more engrossed in the lore/history than I am.

As far as gaming goes, I generally prefer team-based playstyle, with Battlefield being my favorite franchise (right up until EA screwed it in the *** with Origin), and I'm currently enjoying Planetside 2 (anyone that thinks the MWO forum community is bad, should check out the BF3 or PS2 communities...trust me, here, it's not that bad comparatively)

my intro got longer than I expected...first impressions, 1st reply...

Welcome Tex!

Thank you for you post. My tip to you if your a native english-speaker (or good with it) is to join the No--Guts-No-Galaxy free TS chanel...just join a dropship and say "hello".