ColonelSkills
Member
This is my mistake, then. I was under the impression it was not coming back. Good to hear. Thank you for the clarification.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
MechWarrior Online - News and Information Thread
- Thread starter Orayn
- Start date
This is my mistake, then. I was under the impression it was not coming back. Good to hear. Thank you for the clarification.
Teknopathetic
Member
"Legit talk though; you're right in that removing it in it's current iteration is basically neither here nor there, because repair wasn't enough to make stuff like XL engines uncommon (there was a point in beta where repair costs were high enough to make fielding advanced tech a bit of a gamble), but I'm hoping that it doesn't negatively effect the idea of resource management. Which is a part of BT, so."
As an idea it's cool, but in reality, in a multiplayer game, most people want to play the stuff they unlocked. Furthermore, nobody really wants a team mate in a match who only partially repaired/rearmed. I'm sure plenty of people at PGI are having a pretty big headache over how to balance clan tech without R&R, though.
If this was a single player game, then all of this stuff would be really important to have, but in a MP game, I'm not so sure.
As an idea it's cool, but in reality, in a multiplayer game, most people want to play the stuff they unlocked. Furthermore, nobody really wants a team mate in a match who only partially repaired/rearmed. I'm sure plenty of people at PGI are having a pretty big headache over how to balance clan tech without R&R, though.
If this was a single player game, then all of this stuff would be really important to have, but in a MP game, I'm not so sure.
ColonelSkills
Member
This is true. I suppose I'm in the minority if I like the idea of upkeep and attrition as an additional player management responsibility.
I have no idea how Clan Tech and, heaven forbid, some expensive lostech if they ever implement it, will be balanced without R&R. It's very much an equalizer if done correctly. Clan Tech is not a lateral upgrade like most unlocks in games, it's very much "better" in all regards.
Unless they lock it behind some pretty convoluted system, there will never be a downside to running it, and there should be. That's what I really care about. I don't know how PGI can solve it without, but they've done some pretty damn good work so far so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
I am still bummed by this, though. Guess I agree to disagree with regards to it being important in MP. *shrug*
Edit: Maybe if Clan or other certain technologies had a repair cost, or even an upkeep, independent of the basic, common, everywhere-and-back-again Inner Sphere tech, that'd make some sense.
Giolon
Member
I've been playing the game since before repair costs were implemented. There was a noticeable difference in player behavior before and after repairs were a part of the game. Once they were put in, players started trying to play more tactically instead of the massive single group clashes that were happening previously - taking what measures they could to minimize their own damage taken while maximizing damage done to the enemy, e.g. using terrain to your advantage, hiding behind rocks, surprise flanking maneuvers, etc., instead of just smashing into each other in a big group like they used to. It was also the start of the rise of the LRM-wars that lasted up until ECM was introduced. LRMs made a great way to get in "free" damage at little risk to yourself.
A very important point and the thing that some of my friends complain about the most - it's not fun to lose money or not be able to play the mech I bought b/c I can't afford its maintenance. There is a certain truth to that, but World of Tanks/Planes are some of the most successful F2P games out there and they run on just such a model. I can see both sides of the argument, but the behaviors of players differ when there's no real penalty for losing/dying. There's also no penalty anymore for bringing expensive, exotic, and what's supposed to be 'rare' equipment onto the battlefield anymore and failing. Why not put that XL engine in? Why not get an Artemis system? Why not get Ferro Fibrous armor and Endo Steel internals? Or Clan tech as ColonelSkills pointed out? The balance was that it was expensive to run, so you better be winning with it.
I think PGI needs to incorporate the concept of Battle Value into the game, perhaps in a mode w/ respawns. Better stuff = higher Battle Value cost and your team has a limited pool of Battle Value to pull from. I played some game with a system like this recently but can't remember what it was. Take out awesome shit and fail spectacularly with it and your team is going to be hurt by it by consuming a lot of their respawn resources.
Back to the problems that ECM introduced. Ever since ECM was introduced, people just run around in a little ball under their ECM bubble (save perhaps a light mech cadre intending to speed cap the enemy base). Since the enemy team is walking around in a radar-invisible big clump, it hasn't been worth the risk to split up into lances - any 4-mech group that runs into 8 mechs is going to be in a lot of trouble. It's been far more profitable to run around in your own ECM bubble mega-clump. If you happen to smash into the enemy group, everyone rumbles. If you happen to have taken a different path than they did, you attempt to speed cap the base.
It seems with the changes PGI is making they have completely dis-incentivized any action other than damaging the opposing team. There isn't even much advantage to winning anymore, just the Salvage bonus and the fact that if your team won you're likely to have done more damage to the opposing team and thus earn more money. What's the point of a base cap anymore? Why not remove the mechanic entirely?
It'll be interesting to see if tomorrow's patch brings any changes to ECM. The only things we know are that the range of TAG will be buffed from 450m-ish to 750m-ish and the duration of NARC will be increased from 15 to 20s (but it doesn't work on mechs under the effect of ECM anyway...so yeah). I started out on the side of the pro-ECM folks saying that people just needed to adapt to its presence on the battlefield. But now after 2+ weeks of playing with it in place, I've decided it is just too strong. It's not impossible to win against it, but the fact that the team that brought the most ECM has a decided advantage over the other team and the fact that it only costs a couple tons where the only non-ECM counter to it occupies a valuable weapon slot leaves me with the feeling that it needs to be toned down in some respect.
One way to tone down the effects of ECM w/o breaking it would be to remove its ability to prevent enemy mechs from seeing where their allies are. The loss of situational awareness is pretty devastating and it's piled on top of the all the other advantages ECM provides (negates enemy target sharing, prevents target acquisition beyond 200m, prevents LRM lock on, prevents SSRM from firing entirely).
I'm not entirely disillusioned yet, but the path the game is going down these days and PGI's response to feedback (or lack thereof) is not giving me a positive outlook.
BattleMonkey
Member
Which was also one of the main problems with past Mechwarrior mp components.
And frankly the repair and ammo costs would have been some of the big things to help balance any future advances in technology.
A better fix would have been to just remove the ability to repair as you please and force players to auto repair after every match. Make it a reward penalty for taking damage and ammo expenses, and make it mandatory.
Clan tech will only be available on clan mechs. Clan mechs take 2 mech slots to field.
4 clan v 8 IS. 2 clan + 4 IS v 8 IS, etc.
ColonelSkills
Member
This presents an assload of problems if you don't start incorporating at least something like tonnage into it.
Battle Value is the way to go with this. Giolon's completely on point.
In fact, he's on point for pretty much his entire post. I echo practically every single one of those sentiments.
Well, the game tries to balance the classes as much as possible. So 1 clan heavy = 2 IS heavies.
BV would be an alright solution as well. Wonder if they'll multiply BV by player stats as well.
Considering I've been using MWO as an example as a poor f2p experience, especially for new players, I'm extremely happy about the new changes. My brain still wants to mutiny when seeing individual mechs are $15 - $20, but if the removal of repair and reload costs means it's feasible to play non-premium mechs, then I won't feel like I have to spend huge amounts of money to have a decent selection of mechs. I might even just pick up straight mech credit. This should hopefully cut down on the afk zombies, since it seems like there's one or two in nearly every match.
Yeah, it's too bad about getting rid of RnR ruins the metagame, and... wait, what metagame? Clans? I'm still not even in a House. This is basically extended practice mode, and there's no point in making all the new players feel miserable now. Once we get something more than clicking the big launch button for a random team deathmatch, then I'm fine with repair and reload costs. High ones, too. Make people grind in the random battles (without the RnR) a little while if they lose.
Yeah, it's too bad about getting rid of RnR ruins the metagame, and... wait, what metagame? Clans? I'm still not even in a House. This is basically extended practice mode, and there's no point in making all the new players feel miserable now. Once we get something more than clicking the big launch button for a random team deathmatch, then I'm fine with repair and reload costs. High ones, too. Make people grind in the random battles (without the RnR) a little while if they lose.
Wonder what the meta-game is going to be like.
Now fielding wild speculation about the meta-game.
I mean... players are going to be put into houses and or merc clans/guilds. Maybe in a house you can enroll into unit or regiment; which is kinda like a public clan/guild (i.e. details are visible in game, and anyone can sign up, as long as they meet certain activity mech/skill requirements).
People in houses are preferentially put together.
And your house gets weekly bonuses based on territories under its belt. Every week, certain territories go up on conflict mode; and engagements between the conflicting houses will count against capturing that territory/planet.
Those weekly bonuses are distributed to players of a house.
Some of the bonus is kept by the house itself; players can vote on what to spend money on (what weekly bonuses they want to recieve; +5% speed, +5% capping speed, etc... that kinda thing).
Mercenary guilds recieve bonuses based on contracts. Contracts are voted on by houses (or house representatives). So for that week/month/contract period, the contributions of those mercenary guild counts towards the house conflicts.
The houses/guilds have an economic balancing feature; the spoils are divided among players modified by activity level. The more players there are in a house, the less each of the gets.
So naturally, the players should gravitate towards a proportionate number of players for the number of planets they own (or at least, proportionate to the economic output of those planets).
When the Clans come in, their mechanism are much like the Inner Sphere, except maybe the use of a different economy (honour instead of C-bills, and also they get more money for killing, less for assisting, more money for doing damage... stuff that gels well with the Clan flavour).
It also costs them a lot more to hire mercenaries (honour to C-Bill exchange rate not so good).
I think that would give a good sense of community interaction and benefits with the overall meta game, while allowing players to emergently play out the destiny of the Inner Sphere.
I've never agreed with the repair/rearm costs as a balancing factor, even though I never paid for ammo and hardly ever die. Things like artemis missiles, XL engines, ferro-fibrous armor etc all have inherent drawbacks to using them and you should not have to play 10 matches in a Swayback just to fund one match in a customized mech. Of course, every time I bring this up in the official forums all the legendary founders jump on me and say painfully stupid things like that you should need premium to be able to run an Atlas without running into the red. So yeah, they should stay gone until community warfare, and there should always be an instant action mode with them disabled.
As for reining in assault mech spam with costs - the game is meant to be balanced in such a way that you should want to run a varied group with assaults being no more or less valuable than lights. It isn't, but that's what they were trying to do. Costs and 'battle value' should not be ways to balance this, there's a failure in the design process if they resort to these things. I still say tonnage based matchmaking was an unnecessary kneejerk reaction to forum whiners (I CANT BEAT 8 ATLASES WTF FIX IT), and its side effect was that it prompted the 4-man team thing because it made it so premades no longer ever fought each other (what were the chances of two identically composed 8 mans queueing at once?).
As for reining in assault mech spam with costs - the game is meant to be balanced in such a way that you should want to run a varied group with assaults being no more or less valuable than lights. It isn't, but that's what they were trying to do. Costs and 'battle value' should not be ways to balance this, there's a failure in the design process if they resort to these things. I still say tonnage based matchmaking was an unnecessary kneejerk reaction to forum whiners (I CANT BEAT 8 ATLASES WTF FIX IT), and its side effect was that it prompted the 4-man team thing because it made it so premades no longer ever fought each other (what were the chances of two identically composed 8 mans queueing at once?).
Teknopathetic
Member
"A better fix would have been to just remove the ability to repair as you please and force players to auto repair after every match. Make it a reward penalty for taking damage and ammo expenses, and make it mandatory."
If you're going to do this, what's the difference between that and just giving people who lose/die early less C-bills and removing the "repair/rearm" pretense? Because they are changing the C-bill rewards to compensate for the removal of repair/rearm.
If you're going to do this, what's the difference between that and just giving people who lose/die early less C-bills and removing the "repair/rearm" pretense? Because they are changing the C-bill rewards to compensate for the removal of repair/rearm.
My ideal matchmaking for this game would be a best of 3 matchmaking queue or territory capture/defend system that pits organized groups against each other.
-Damage is carried over between matches unless you choose to repair/rearm at cost
-1st and 3rd maps are symmetrical.
-2nd map favors the loser of the first map, but note that the winner of the first match will have more Cbills and less repair/rearm costs.
-Inbetween matches, each team can switch out up to 4 mechs, with an exponentially increasing drop cost for each swap beyond the first.
-More modes aside from TDM that involve more capture points and longer match rounds with the potential for respawning/repair at significant cost.
-Damage is carried over between matches unless you choose to repair/rearm at cost
-1st and 3rd maps are symmetrical.
-2nd map favors the loser of the first map, but note that the winner of the first match will have more Cbills and less repair/rearm costs.
-Inbetween matches, each team can switch out up to 4 mechs, with an exponentially increasing drop cost for each swap beyond the first.
-More modes aside from TDM that involve more capture points and longer match rounds with the potential for respawning/repair at significant cost.
Links to things such as the command chair would be a must have.
Shit, I haven't had any time to play because of my exams. How is the new conquest mode?
I made some Steam icons that people can use. Would be nice if you included it in the OP
I made some Steam icons that people can use. Would be nice if you included it in the OP
I made some Steam icons in celebration of the new login screen. Feel free to include it in the OP for this thread and the Open Beta one, Orayn.
Sorry about all the Clan mechs, but you simply cannot argue against good aesthetics.
BattleMonkey
Member
Did it step on a puppy? Whats the splat?
BudokaiMR2
Member
Just give me a Hatamoto-Chi and you've got a fan for life PGI!
Man, congrats to those guys for not making the Orion look like a prolapsed arse.
Hey. Hey.
I really like this 'multiple matches in a row' idea.
DCs/afks will be even more annoying than they are now, but really solid idea otherwise.
Hey. Hey.
I really like this 'multiple matches in a row' idea.
DCs/afks will be even more annoying than they are now, but really solid idea otherwise.
Not a chance. It is a new design, all current mechs are pre-3050 designs. Bushwacker was first deployed in 3058 (IIRC), ie you need to wait 8 years at least because 2013 is the year 3050 in-game...
BattleMonkey
Member
The unseen will be reseen once more!
But only as the art above. Which I drew. It's not making it into MWO.
Well Catalyst basically redesigned most of the Unseen to try and bring them back into the tabletop game, so we could always still see them in a new incarnation down the line.
The unseen will be reseen once more!
But only as the art above. Which I drew. It's not making it into MWO.
Pretty damn impressive! The job you've done with the Warhammer is particularly attractive to me.
Have you done anything else like this? i'd be interested to see if you've done anything on deviant art or something like that.
Cheers fellas.
I've been posting my stuff over at the MWO forums in their fan art section.
http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/90873-zaps-warhammer-whm-6r-redesign/
http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/88160-zaptruders-another-unseen-redesigns/
Few of the newer pics:
I've been posting my stuff over at the MWO forums in their fan art section.
http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/90873-zaps-warhammer-whm-6r-redesign/
http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/88160-zaptruders-another-unseen-redesigns/
Few of the newer pics:
autobzooty
Member
Anyone have any tips for a beginner? I've been playing a Catapult with mostly long range missiles and a few dumb-firing short range missiles, but I'm having trouble getting anything done in a match.
I try to just stay as far away as possible and take shots when I get missile locks. Is there an easier mech for a beginner to use maybe?
I try to just stay as far away as possible and take shots when I get missile locks. Is there an easier mech for a beginner to use maybe?
autobzooty
Member
small lasers? with an operating range of 90 meters i don't think i'd stay alive long enough to fire them!
i'm having a little more luck with lasers instead of missiles though. bit more intuitive, even if I have to be closer to the death zone. in the meantime, it's nice that i'm getting so many c-bills while i beat my head against this game!
how long does that "rookie bonus" last? seems like that's where most of my income is coming from...
i'm having a little more luck with lasers instead of missiles though. bit more intuitive, even if I have to be closer to the death zone. in the meantime, it's nice that i'm getting so many c-bills while i beat my head against this game!
how long does that "rookie bonus" last? seems like that's where most of my income is coming from...
First 26 wins. Gives you a total of about 8 million bonus credits.
autobzooty
Member
hm okay. what's the average pull for c-bills on a match you win vs. a match you lose while you're not on the rookie bonus?
When I play assault and get no kills, but spot and damage a few guys while racking up some assists, it's around 100,000. If you're a top gun, it's quite a bit higher.
Only ~30,000 for an immediate victory for capturing their base.
AstroNut325
Member
The unseen will be reseen once more!
But only as the art above. Which I drew. It's not making it into MWO.
Whoa... that takes me back! To Mechwarrior 2!
ColonelSkills
Member
Switching gears slightly, but I figure it'll be you guys if anyone, is anyone in the Mechwarrior TACTICS closed beta?
Worth dropping for founders on if you've been a TT fan for a while?
Worth dropping for founders on if you've been a TT fan for a while?
I'm in it. I can only imagine you'd be extremely frustrated if you actually spent money to get in, right now. The servers feel like Alpha. I've gone a week without being able to log in and play at all.
There's supposedly a new build coming through soon, to address some of the server issues.
Can't lie though. It's freaking Battletech man, and harkens very much to TT when it's running smoothly
BattleMonkey
Member
Its supposed to be similar to the tabletop game, but it's gotten lot of negativity just because of it being ugly and the way they redid the classic mechs....
To be fair to the developers, the ugly style they did them in had precedent in the form of Dark Ages.
But then again, I kinda completely ignored Battletech after the dark ages stuff came out.
Based on the Fisher Price design of the mechs, I'd say a resounding no.
ColonelSkills
Member
Yeah, the new designs are terrible. I was curious if it was an accurate representation of the TT game though, simply because I've had a difficult time organizing any real ones.
Was hoping it'd at least play decent but it sounds like a buggy pile of shit. Unfortunate.
Guess I'll stick with MegaMek, despite it's occasional weirdness.
Thanks, guys.
It's worth playing, despite the redesigns.
If the servers are unfubar'd, it'll be quite decent.
SaltyDoughnut
Member
Man... I just fired up the MW:O Beta for another go and I have to download 47 patches....
are these patches going to continue at a steady rate and take up more obscene amounts of hdd space?
or does each patch replace old files so that I'm not racking up huge amount of gigabytes in my system?
thanks
are these patches going to continue at a steady rate and take up more obscene amounts of hdd space?
or does each patch replace old files so that I'm not racking up huge amount of gigabytes in my system?
thanks
Almost all of it must be replacing files, since the game's footprint is still only 1.6GB.
ColonelSkills
Member
Hmm.
The Dark Ages type designs are so bad, but if it's worth playing I'll give it a shot. Won't bother with Founders, in this case.
I lol'd at how much they're valuing those packages at though. It scares me thinking about the premium content costs it might have in the future.
It's been a while since I got any local BT games going so it's really, really eating at me and my desire to give it a shot goes up pretty much daily. Hah.