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The business model, the constant backtracking and breaking of promises. The constant patchwork fixes on balance that only break more stuff. Tons of stuff really.

 Lynata wrote:
I mean, isn't this just like the higher tiers of some kickstarter campaign? Someone explain why this is bad please!

I have no problem with their business model. I am more than happy to pay for the game via hero mechs, and have in fact paid for some, like Misery. I also am a Founder and greatly enjoyed my Founder's Catapult, for a while.

Unfortunately they steadily eroded my goodwill over time by doing things... you know, there is actually a pretty good article here that sums it up quite well. One other thing that annoyed me that was not mentioned was that I feel they have done too much tinkering with basic game mechanics that should be left alone. One week, LRM's are super overpowered. The next, LRM's do almost no damage, and gauss rifles can one shot people. So on, and so forth, bungled "balance fix" after bungled balance fix. I do not know if it remains that way, and hope it doesn't, but that is how it was when I gave up on it.

I still have a decent amount of goodwill towards the game as it runs quite well technically, looks pretty solid, and so on. Unfortunately I am also deeply concerned with the possibility that the overt green PGI has displayed with this constant revenue generation is them taking what they can before the game sinks.

Dunno, I'm just going by what I've heard.
I think the price for the mechs is pretty outrageous.
Might have been UI2.0?

I only got my desktop that could run MWO back in October, so only playing in spare time since then.

There's a lot of vitriol about though. (And not all of it seems unjustified)

Is fun though, which is why I keep playing it... but yeah.

For a F2P game, the business model is extremely forgiving. No idea what people are expecting there. Though I have to say, I believe they could actually make more money if they'd lower the prices on some things.

On the article, I don't find myself agreeing. Call me a fan (though I too have been very vocal about some stuff I dislike, such as ECM), but it sounds like one of those typical exaggerated rants from people who are angry that their exact expectations were not met, and how dare the developer not create the game exactly how this one player wants! Ghost Heat, for example, is something I feel has improved the game considerably. Gone are the days where you'd get roflpwned by 50 dmg alphas, in favour of a traditional "brawling" experience where an encounter between two or more opposing 'Mechs actually takes longer than 5 seconds. So as far as I'm concerned, all the people who were complaining about that can suck it and learn how to play the game in a way that's fun for everyone involved - it certainly increased the viability of countless 'Mech builds that just used to be less impressive due to their reliance on damage over time compared to pinpoint high damage attacks. And whilst I feel that 3PV should get its own queue or whatever, it's accepted by now that it really didn't change the game. Likewise, next to no-one is using Cool Shot because other modules are just flat-out more useful.

There have been phases when I flat-out refused to play the game due to the balancing changes you mentioned, but all I can say here is that my last break was a very long time ago and it feels quite "right" at the present state.

Ovion wrote:Dunno, I'm just going by what I've heard.
I think the price for the mechs is pretty outrageous.

Maybe, but ... so what? Just don't buy one?

This is really just like complaining that Alpha access for Elite Dangerous costs 200 bucks. How dare they!

The vitriol is, in my opinion, for the most part extremely unjustified, and actually something you can witness in just about every other online game out there. Check the WoW forums or CoD or whatever and you'll see that the problem here are not the devs, but rather entitled gamers.
The latter is a development I have witnessed for the past 10 years or so. Things did not use to be this bad, but I guess it's a reflection of our cultural values and an increase in personal pressure from the "elbow society" causing people to just pass on their frustration to their surrounding environment. Also, it's the internets.

You're really dismissing out of hand their track record of broken promises a little too easily I think. I mean, I personally don't care at all about 3rd party camera, but I had a friend who was utterly livid and and I understood how he felt to a degree since they promised they would not implement that many times. And so on.

Yeah.

It's a (mostly) free game ( though if the prices of the paid things were 1/10th it is, I'd have probably bought all the things, rather than the bare minimum needed to get a few Mech Bays and some half price paint, and I'm sure I'm not the only one ) and it generally works.

But you do sort of question what they've actually been doing in the last 9+ months, and why (from what I've been told) they made no changes between the last UI2.0 beta 2 months ago.

Well, Community Warfare was promised over 2 years ago.

http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/2247-dev-blog-1-community-warfare/

In that time, they've put out many of these expensive vanity mechs, and have not delivered on the role warfare or territory battles which were so pivotal to their design at the time.

I still very much enjoy it, but I'm a casual player.

Ouze wrote:You're really dismissing out of hand their track record of broken promises a little too easily I think.

Well - I'm dismissing it because it doesn't actually affect the game. I can understand if someone boycotts PGI based on personal principles, but that doesn't really change anything about the product itself - and at the end of the day, it's a fact that Cool Shot and 3PV are so useless that they could just as well remove them again.
I still don't like both of these features myself, but why should I get angry about something that doesn't change my game?

Gitzbitah wrote:Well, Community Warfare was promised over 2 years ago.

Without a release date. And they're still working on it.

I'm impatient myself - CW is the one thing I just can't wait to experience - but as long as the game is fun, I will play it, CW or no CW.

Without a release date.

Back in Beta they said it would be ready for release, and when the game 'released' they said six months. Granted broken promises mean dip to me and its not why I stopped playing.

 Lynata wrote:
I still don't like both of these features myself, but why should I get angry about something that doesn't change my game?

You shouldn't, just as I'm not. But I'm also not extrapolating out my stance and dismissing those issues as meaningless non-problems no one really cares about. When combined with the other issues, I find it reasonable for people to be unhappy.

The lack of CW does, in fact, affect my game personally, because it also was getting quite boring at the end there. Deatchmatch after deathmatch with no variety of any kind got tedious, whereas with CW it would feel less meaningless.

Heh, finally got a reply on my support ticket.

Took em a while to respond, but they just credited 1.8million C-Bills to my account.

Irritating it happened, but, that's suitably fixed the problem I think.

Ouze wrote:You shouldn't, just as I'm not. But I'm also not extrapolating out my stance and dismissing those issues as meaningless non-problems no one really cares about.

I didn't, either. All I am saying is that disappointment with a company's communication does not somehow make the game itself "worse" overnight - this is a psychological thing where people apply their feelings from one issue to another and allow it to warp their perception. You can witness the same behaviour in politics. Yes, it's human nature, but I think it's bad habit, considering the effects.

With the lack of Community Warfare you make a much better case, but this is a matter of the game becoming boring/stale, and again, not "worse".
What I find helps on this end is just not playing as much - needless to say, this isn't a true solution, but in my case it has kept the game "fresh" for almost 3 years (with a 3-months-break during those ECM cRaven shenanigans).

Ovion: Glad to hear it!

Ok, let's take a few design decisions that did make the game worse.

Removing repair and rearm cost removed much of the mercenary aspect of immersion.

Default setting arm lock and throttle decay made sure new players would not get a mech simulator but a slow FPS game.

The Clans I can excuse, their development will hugely improve the variety in the game. But choosing to market, research and create the Phoenix and Sabre Packs while neither CW or role warfare is in the game in any meaningful fashion was a very bad choice. That product was aimed squarely at the old tabletop players, the ones who are most in it for Houses, Merc units, and the background that community warfare would have unlocked. Instead, they got more mechs.Even just allowing loyalty points to accumulate and posting a leaderboard for each faction would have added an element of long term competition.

It feels as though when presented with long term value and short term, this team always chooses short.This lack of perspective is an issue that will limit the game to casual players and new players unless it is corrected.

Well, the people who are making the 'Mechs are in no-way affiliated with the engineers tasked with crafting Community Warfare and other systems, so neither the Phoenix packs, nor the Clan stuff, nor all the other 'Mechs that were or will be released would have any effect on how fast or slowly CW is deployed. The largest of their programming team seems to have been working on the total UI revamp, as it was supposedly what kept other systems from being implemented, with UI 1.5 being described as a bottleneck.

Personally, I do have a feeling that they messed up a lot on their timetable - I'm not sure why, maybe they've got trouble finding more employees to fill up their team, or they had to backtrack and waste a lot of already existing work because earlier development moved them into some sort of corner. At least this is what I recall from their thread regarding the reasons behind all those delays.

Whilst I liked Repair and Rearm, the vocal majority hated it. PGI removing this feature is simply following the players' wishes.

The one thing I agree on is making Arm Lock, Throttle Decay and 3PV the default setting being a mistake, but the devs seem adamant about this being good for new players. I have no idea what sort of metrics they are using, though from watching other people play I don't think that nearly as many people are using these features as PGI believes, or says they believe. I don't have a problem with those "features" myself, but they really should not be the default setting. They end up gimping the user, and given how unintuitive the game can be at times, it might even turn people off simply because they don't know how to disable it (you see someone asking how to switch into 1PV again and again, for example).

All in all, the problem with MWO seems to be that they had to scrap a whole lot of work they put into the game during the first 1 to 2 years and start from scratch on a number of systems. We'll see if things will go faster now.

 Lynata wrote:
Whilst I liked Repair and Rearm, the vocal majority hated it. PGI removing this feature is simply following the players' wishes.

I also liked Repair & Rearm. It wasn't a huge deal to me either way though but it felt like a nice nod back to previous games.

I haven't played any of the earlier MechWarrior games and came to Battletech only after playing MWO - but I liked R&R simply because it added a layer of immersion.
Seeing a battle-damaged 'Mech in the garage, having to manually arrange rearmament and the repair of damaged parts ... I feel it added to the atmosphere.

Plus, it led to the interesting development that people would have "Grind 'Mechs" (cheap to fix) and "Fancy 'Mechs" (with Artemis etc), using the former for the majority of battles, but the latter when their c-bill account would enable them to afford deployment of a fully kitted-out BattleMech, especially during guild matches and events or on weekends. As a side effect, you'd see less of these high-tier 'Mechs on the battlefield, closing the gap to the Trials and new players.

So sad it's gone.

Then again, I recall one of the reasons for it being taken out that a lot of people would abuse it, such as people dropping into a match with 40% armour, or even just joining and then going afk because they just wanted to farm...



I'd much rather they would have found some way to stop and deal with those people instead of taking this feature away from all the "honest" players.

See, I payed like 10 bucks at the beginning for mechbays and the occasional impulse purchase (got the Death's Knell when it was on %50 a bit ago) and haven't spent a cent since. I just hop on once in a while when I wanna stomp around in a big death machine and shoot pew pew lazers at people. I don't grind towards things- I just play the options that happen to work towards unlocks- like the Awesomes, for example. And I haven't gotten tired of it.

This is why I like Free To Play games- I don't feel obligated to play all the time, every day, or even each week. Whereas with a game like, say ESO (which will be my first subscription MMO, because Elder Scrolls) I'll feel like I'm wasting my money if I don't do a little playing all the time.

Anyone worked out how to sell your old mechs with the new UI?

 helgrenze wrote:
Anyone worked out how to sell your old mechs with the new UI?

Go to the Inventory menu from the Home screen, then Mechs.

Remember to strip everything from the mech first, as you don't get C-Bills for any armour or gear on it, and I'm not sure if it auto strips for you.

What's this like compared to Hawken or Armored Core?

Not played Hawken.

Very different to Armoured Core.

FAR slower, a lot more... 'realistic', no melee.

You're plodding along in walking tanks, with lots of guns.

Even the fastest lights only hit about 150-160kp/h in MWO (and I think about 200 in tabletop/others).
Your average 'mechs speed isn't going to break 100kph. (I remember my light in ACFA hitting speeds of 4-5000kph)

But, you get fantastic shots of these behemoths striding across the battlefield in unison, missiles arc overhead, then lasers and cannons open fire.

Then it devolves into a big mess of hiding and dying, but for at least 20-30 seconds it looks awesome. xD

It is good fun though.

It's much, much Bigger than pretty much any other Mech game, except perhaps ChromeHounds.

BattleMechs range from about 20 Tons at lightest, to 100 Tons and up for the heaviest Assaults.


Thing is, it's very much from the 80s, and wears its anime influences on its sleeve, in a way. There's a lot of similarity to some of the original Giant Robot genre, like Gunbuster and Tetsujin- but it was significantly 'slowed down' for Western audiences (I think). It's an odd combination of plodding robots and speed of light weapons- lots of pew pew.

One of the things that sets it apart the most is the sheer amount of tankyness everything has. Even the lightest of mechs can last most single hits- there's maybe two or three "One Hit Kill" builds, and those are incredibly specialized (slow, cumbersome, less armour than optimal). In normal firefights even the humble Locust (lightest current option) can take a beating, and an Atlas can last almost a minute of sustained fire, depending on the types of weapons being shot.

But currently, it's just essentially deathmatch, with the occasional addon like cap the base or collect resources as optional alternative ways to win.

I'll argue that a little.

A Locust dies to a mean look.

My Locust has been one shotted by an AC/2 before. that shouldn't actually be possible.

I must say that the new weapon modules are a great improvement to the game. I hope they release damage or rate of fire modules next! The MG especially is a no-brainer if you have the module room for it. Free range and no drawbacks.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
I must say that the new weapon modules are a great improvement to the game. I hope they release damage or rate of fire modules next! The MG especially is a no-brainer if you have the module room for it. Free range and no drawbacks.

You are the only one I've seen to say that.

At 3mil, I don't think I would bother.
At 1, maybe, but not 3.

Ovion wrote:You're plodding along in walking tanks, with lots of guns. Even the fastest lights only hit about 150-160kp/h in MWO (and I think about 200 in tabletop/others). Your average 'mechs speed isn't going to break 100kph. (I remember my light in ACFA hitting speeds of 4-5000kph)
But, you get fantastic shots of these behemoths striding across the battlefield in unison, missiles arc overhead, then lasers and cannons open fire.
Then it devolves into a big mess of hiding and dying, but for at least 20-30 seconds it looks awesome. xD

I really like this description.

Allow me to add some visual inspiration:

Anvildude wrote:Thing is, it's very much from the 80s, and wears its anime influences on its sleeve, in a way. There's a lot of similarity to some of the original Giant Robot genre, like Gunbuster and Tetsujin- but it was significantly 'slowed down' for Western audiences (I think). It's an odd combination of plodding robots and speed of light weapons- lots of pew pew.

Well, Battletech does love the 80s.

I actually think that the preservation of this "80s sci-fi" visual style (obviously brought up to contemporary quality standards), in combination with a setting that's all about human hubris, political intrigue, technological recession and an almost purist absence of usually common factors such as sentient aliens or artificial gravity etc, Battletech becomes a refreshingly unique world in a sea of bland generic science-fiction worlds. Yes, I'm wearing my fan glasses here, but the more I read about Battletech after having started to play MWO ...

Ovion wrote:

Gitzbitah wrote:I must say that the new weapon modules are a great improvement to the game. I hope they release damage or rate of fire modules next! The MG especially is a no-brainer if you have the module room for it. Free range and no drawbacks.

You are the only one I've seen to say that.
At 3mil, I don't think I would bother. At 1, maybe, but not 3.

Maybe he has loads of c-bills, but no general xp? The first tier is fairly cheap at only 500 gxp. Otherwise, I would not bother with them not because of how much they cost in terms of c-bills, but because there's many more useful modules to be found compared to these sidegrades (for the most part - a few like the MG or AMS ones do not actually have drawbacks, aside from the comparatively high cost factor).

Once they start to add weapon module slots to the 'Mechs, however, I'll probably get one for my BattleMaster's ER PPC.

That's me, Lynata. High on cbills, low on gxp. I only run 7 mechbays, and they've all been occupied for some time. I also adore MGs as free dmg and decent anti-light side arm weapons.

Most of the range increases are pretty marginal, but the MG gets over 10% of a range boost with no heat deterrent.

Makes perfect sense. And I even run MGs on my Battlemaster - though I keep joking I want a flip-switch for them.

I'd still recommend getting a better module once you've gathered a couple thousand gxp. What sort of 'Mech are you running, again? There's loads of useful stuff available!

I got this module for my Hunchback 4g. It is pretty standards, AC20, 2MGs, 3 MLs. I tend to use LRMS for range, so my GXP has been used to get the Sensor Range and Target Lock Modules for my Catapults.

I haven't seen any brawling modules that really appealed to me besides the weapons tweaks.

Uh, not bad. Definitively a viable brawler build. Never piloted a Hunchie myself, but I do appreciate their design.

Useful modules that spring to mind here might be the Improved Gyro (depending on how fast you are / how often you get hit with ballistic weaponry) and maybe Seismic Sensors - but Artillery and Air Strikes (one use, 40,000 c-bills each) are always useful. You can equip them without spending gxp, but they are upgradeable to make them equal to the MC version.