Mechwarrior Online

[Cykeisme]

I've been playing it for a bit, but not much (long enough to have bought my first robit with in-game moneys, I have no interest in expending actual real moneys on this).

It's pretty fun after getting past the initial learning hump, but it's quite obviously still a work in progress. Game balance is mostly ok at the lower matchmaking skill levels I'm at ("ELO ranking" or something), but apparently the balance has issues that are especially apparent in the matches where the players with good win:loss ratios get assigned to.

Not sure how long it'll hold interest (the developers seem more interested in turning out little cosmetic real-money trinkets than really moving the game along) but since there's no monetary cost for me, I'm cool with it.

Anyone else playing this?

[Stark]

I've been in the beta for ages and its just comical how they don't seem to know what they're doing. They're married to concepts like 'for nerds' and 'complexity just because' and yet the flow is not really like old MW at all... so those concessions to old fans that hurt the game were worthless. It's bizarre, but that's branding.

[Fiji_Fury]

I'm playing and enjoying it, but have not played Mechwarrior games before. Which concessions are you referring to Stark?

[Stark]

Heaps of Btech legacy stuff like attributes, weapons, the mechlab, etc. They had to make changes to make the game not suck, so I think they should have just made the game from whole cloth instead. At least they fixed the fucking control system. :V

[Venator]

A lot of my friends are old-school Btech fanatics, but I'm from the crop who'd never played a MW game before this. I'm thoroughly enjoying it thus far, particularly now that the latest patch added a "practice" mode so you don't have to jump straight into a real game without a good idea of how your new setup manages heat etc.

For those of you who haven't already found it, this is a must-have resource: http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab

[Cykeisme]

Heaps of Btech legacy stuff like attributes, weapons, the mechlab, etc. They had to make changes to make the game not suck, so I think they should have just made the game from whole cloth instead. At least they fixed the fucking control system. :V

I disagree, I think they changed stuff to inexplicably make the game suck. Any additional Double Heat Sinks that you install on robit dissipate 1.4x the heat of a normal Heat Sink instead of 2x, for example.
They've also remained true to Btech weapon damage values for most weapons (although cycle times are adjusted for real-time gameplay). However, a good move is that all armor values (per ton of armor, and maximum a chassis can mount) are precisely 2x of tabletop Btech values, to make sure robits don't all kill each other in one alpha strike.
The hardpoint system is also good, differentiating chassis/variants of the same weight, and preventing really cheesy builds that were possible in MW2 and MW3.

Anyone here use TeamSpeak or Skype or something to play?

I'm "Cyke" in the game, add me plzZz ^^

[Darksider]

How does the pace of combat in MWO compare to say, Mechwarrior 4? I loved playing through those games back in the day.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

How does the pace of combat in MWO compare to say, Mechwarrior 4? I loved playing through those games back in the day.

For lack of a better short descriptor, "better." Once the teams make contact with each other, things can get pretty frantic. MW4 by comparison could get a little tedious in trading laser blasts back and forth sometimes. I think they've done a pretty good job of balancing stompy laser robits blowing each other up and almost-lazy helicopter gunship lock-on-and-shoot.

So far I've been sticking to lights and mediums, so maybe that feels a little different at the higher weights.

That's not to say there aren't issues, of course, but I'm going to spend more time with the game before digging into that.

[Stark]

It would have been hard to be slower or clunkier, especially since they use the mouse better.

And Cykeisme's post is the best example of why they shouldn't even have tried to reach the old audience beyond the brand, because you'll never please them, the old games sucked shit, and you need the largest pool of players possible to make it work. If they'd been braver and actually made a Btech MMO instead of a Remember MW MMO I think the game would have been better.

[Darksider]

And Cykeisme's post is the best example of why they shouldn't even have tried to reach the old audience beyond the brand, because you'll never please them,

If they want to pander to the base reach the old audience, they should just re-release mechwarrior 3. The bitching has been getting steadily louder since that point (though I actually liked 4: mercenaries the best) to the point where I cannot discuss the XBOX games with a Btech fan, because it will result in screaming

[Stark]

OTOH, if their business model was based on just reaching the percieved market of people who yearn for ye olde days of awful torso twisting controls, there's no point actually building a fun robit game because they won't like it.

All that stuff they said when starting, about 'reliving' and 'bringing back' and 'not dumbing down for consoles' should have made all this entirely predictable, of course.

[Darksider]

All that stuff they said when starting, about 'reliving' and 'bringing back' and 'not dumbing down for consoles' should have made all this entirely predictable, of course.

See I wasn't sure how far they were going to go with that because these days, if you're bringing back an older franchise with a rabid fan base, I think you're contractually required to say shit like that.

[Stark]

True. Some of the mechanics they have changed (as people moan) and they've TRIED to solve the fundamental mechanical problems of the Mechwarrior games... but it turns out that laserboating and legging are actually why nerds liked the games in the first place, so trying to 'fix' it will never be received well.

There are easy fixes (and they stole some from WoT, but they were obvious 15 years ago) but the 'simulationist' crowd of idiots would hate them. So its an odd mix of hidebound and relatively innovative.

[Darksider]

I'll probably dip my toes into this game, so to speak, but I probably won't get too involved with it. The think I liked about the old mechwarrior games the most was the presentation and mission design. I never really did multi that often, and even then, only with friends. This game has no story, none of those cool mission briefings, and no varied objectives to achieve.

[Stark]

Its free, so there's no reason not to. To me, its the epitome of the current crop of retro-re-releases.

[Darksider]

By "epitome," do you mean best, or most accurately demonstrates the sort of things developers are doing with re-releases nowadays?

[Stark]

Its an exemplar in that they said all the things you have to say to get nerd buzz, but it actually exists and you can play it and see where they have new mechanics or ideas and where they have band-aided over the fundamentally wrong decisions made in 1991 and where they have kept the old stuff.

Its basically exactly what I expect when any developer aims squarely at the nostalgia market (ie, every successful kickstarter).

[PainRack]

Wait, Stark likes a game? Seriously?


The game has LOTS of problems though, and it seems the devs are going to keep selling micro-transactions rather than fix it. Relatively clunky controls and load times for the servers, subpar graphics...

Even the revamped game mechanics faced balance problems(LRM boating anyone?)

Gameplay is entirely limited to have lights rush past so that they can maintain sensors and let the LRMs do the job. For all the talk about "information warfare", what this essentially means is that we need to find a role for light mechs/scouts xp.

And UNLIKE WOT, scouting experience/cash was quite pitiful.

Granted, a lot of this is legacy from the old mechwarrior games. The clunky controls is a direct drawback to the whole torso twist and movement from MW3 and it does make combat more "frantic". But given the poor graphics and having to switch imaging just to get increasing blurry visuals isn't fun.

[Stark]

I actually think it sucks, but mostly because they keep so many of the old problems and don't take enough cues from modern games. They should have played some Armoured Core 5. :V

[Hawkwings]

I've been playing since closed beta. It's certainly fun when you are with friends, in good mechs, doing competent-player things. Playing solo is awful. The new player experience is awful. The balance is awful. The developer communication with the playerbase is awful. The monetization is awful. It just feels like a very amateurish operation.

They did get some things right though. The core gameplay is fun, and the controls are good. Yes, they do take a bit of getting used to, but once you do it makes sense. Netcode is still bad but slowly getting better. New mechs and maps are released once a month (hopefully) along with new real dollar trinkets and paint schemes (which are awful). The real money mechs are not overpowered, but they do allow unique builds that are not possible with standard in-game currency mechs.

So far, the biggest draw for me at least has been the player-run competitive tournaments. It's an entirely different game at the upper levels of play, and I find it far more fun than ridiculous pubbie matches.

If you do play this game, I would advise you to treat it more like an alpha than an "open beta". There are plenty of things missing on all fronts, balance is barely an issue, and the game is quite buggy.

[Cykeisme]

And Cykeisme's post is the best example of why they shouldn't even have tried to reach the old audience beyond the brand, because you'll never please them, the old games sucked shit, and you need the largest pool of players possible to make it work.

Ehh, where'd you get that? I actually think the old MW vidja games are garbage, especially for multiplayer.
Perhaps you took that from my comment about external Double Heat Sinks being 1.4x of Single instead of 2.0x?

See, it's like this: The reason that sucks is because it's obviously one of the design features to balance light robits with bigger ones. This is very obvious because the 10 "free" double heat sinks built into the engine are running at 2.0x, only "extra" external heat sinks are at 1.4x.

Only the bigger robits can carry enough weaponry to really need more than 10 Double Heat Sinks. Therefore, it's very, very clearly a change made for the express and specific intention of artificially "balancing" little robits against big ones (because apparently they think little robits being faster is NOT ENOUGH!).

Thus my comment that they changed stuff to make the game suck. Okay, not ALL their changes are negative, probably just this one. But srsly. The li'l robits are fine as they are.


The very next thing I said was that I like hardpoints* and doubled robit durability, which basically rape the worthless Btech shit fluff/crunch/whatever but make the game WAY better. Also, I love the way they did lazorz. Probably some of the bestest lazorz in any action game anywhere!

* Unfortunately their hardpoint system is apparently not restrictive enough, because people still whine about other people boating six PPCs or six SRM6 or something.

If they want to pander to the base reach the old audience, they should just re-release mechwarrior 3.

I'd like to see MW3 redone with MWO's engine/mechanics!

I've been playing since closed beta. It's certainly fun when you are with friends, in good mechs, doing competent-player things. Playing solo is awful. The new player experience is awful. The balance is awful. The developer communication with the playerbase is awful. The monetization is awful. It just feels like a very amateurish operation.

Agreed. The garbage frontend UI is absolutely horrid, and the lack of built-in voice comm combines with the heavily team-oriented game design to alienate the solo game. Basically they're telling everyone that unless you're going into this with friends, just fuck it.

If you do play this game, I would advise you to treat it more like an alpha than an "open beta". There are plenty of things missing on all fronts, balance is barely an issue, and the game is quite buggy.

And yet apparently there are schmucks spending money on ingame junk already (and I don't mean the initial kickstarter donations), which is only encouraging them to sell junk instead of fix/improve things.
I'm even loathe to call them "microtransactions" because the cosmetic stuff is ridiculously expensive (not that I'd spend even pennies on them if they were cheaper).

[Cykeisme]

Doh hit quote instead of edit.

[Hawkwings]

I can buy a real hula girl bobblethingy for cheaper than an ingame one costs.

[Cykeisme]

And put it on your desk beside your monitor, for much the same effect.

At the risk of being distasteful, in some parts of the world you could probably buy a real hula girl for a lower cost as well.

[Cykeisme]

Well, to be fair, it's a game that clearly has a lot of effort put into it, and also has loads of big stompy robits.
It remains to be seen how much it'll improve, and I believe the next few months will turn out to be the deciding period for whether this game soars or lands in the mud.

If it the devs do pull it off, and address the issues that need addressing, I believe I'll eventually be more than happy to spend real moneys on it (even on silly cosmetic trinkets) solely for the purpose of providing them with monetary remuneration for the enjoyment gleaned from playing their game.

So, anyone else actively playing?