Mechwarrior Online

[Amaron]

I had a very low opinion of them before doing it but was actually surprised by just how unfun and terrible they are, they all run far far too hot, too many weapons not anywhere near enough heat sinks for combat.

I think they are all default TT designs.  One of the coolest things about the base game is having all those different weapons.  In MWO it just doesn't work.

[Arthur_Parker]

I think they could draw from classic designs without having mechs that are incapable of firing their weapons for even a short period of time.

[HaemishM]

I had a very low opinion of them before doing it but was actually surprised by just how unfun and terrible they are, they all run far far too hot, too many weapons not anywhere near enough heat sinks for combat.

This is absolutely true and something that is going to KILL this game if they don't do something about it. It's one of the main things that has kept me from spending money on the game. The trial mechs are HORRIBLE. A new player trying to make their way with freebie mechs is going to get curbstomped on a regular basis. In addition, playing with trial mechs absolutely shuts you out of one of the most important phases of gameplay, customizing mechs. There is NO customization, which means the free/new player sees maybe 1/5th of the actual game and is facerolled constantly for doing so. This isn't even a question of "learn2playnoob." Most noobs aren't going to learn to play, they are going to fuck off to greener pastures.

I know it's open beta, but they are taking money. This is going to the main detriment to this game's success. If I didn't have a lot of affinity for the setting and big mechs fighting big mechs, I'd have given up on this game months ago.

[Arthur_Parker]

They implemented double heats sinks in an acceptable manner, ECM is going to keep streaks under control, trial mechs are next on my list for them to address. 

This interview is a concern when he talks about trials.

INTERVIEW WITH PGI CEO RUSS BULLOCK

[Samprimary]

I tried to get others into the game.

"Here's your extremely shitty mech, go get facerolled and/or shut down after pew pewing your gun twice ¡es supar fun game!" is really just the opposite way to get people appealed to play it and the barrier for care is just way too high

ah well

i might join them in quitsville soon :/

[Merusk]

They implemented double heats sinks in an acceptable manner, ECM is going to keep streaks under control, trial mechs are next on my list for them to address. 

This interview is a concern when he talks about trials.

INTERVIEW WITH PGI CEO RUSS BULLOCK

"Trial mechs are fine! We had a veteran tester with skills in the upper 5% of players run one and he did awesome, so clearly there's no problems!" 

Why do so many game devs have their heads up their asses when it comes ot understanding their skill vs public skill?

[Samprimary]

It's not even about skill so much as it is fun. Okay, I started the game, hopped in a mech, fired off two volleys and now the game is immediately telling me "sorry bro you had your 4 seconds of pew pew. If you add another pew, you get shut down. Remember, you're only allowed one pew every ten seconds about. Don't miss!!!1"

yeah

very fun mechanic sir or ma'am

[HaemishM]

That interview does not bode well. DUH, player skill trumps shitty mech design - it's supposed to. Now run that test where all the mechs are in the hands of n00b players and see how the trial mechs do.

I keep trying to give this game the benefit of the doubt, but it's getting old.

[Pennilenko]

I am not liking how things are going. Ill chalk this one up to a learning experience regarding purchasing "founders" packages from a bunch of dice nerd developers.

[Samprimary]

Haha! Got a friend to sign up. The available assault mech is an Awesome. He's always liked the Awesome!

Jumps in, gets right into the fight like it's coming back to the oldschool. Aw yeah. He's doing it all out of memory. Gets into a circle strafe dogfight with a cataphract. Fires ppcs! blammo! Yea! Fires again! YEA! oh shut down from overheating. Blinks.

Plays a couple more games. Ponders. Concludes: "This game is anti-fun." Goes to play a game where you can pew, pew, and .. get this ... pew AGAIN (HERESY) without being punished for it and having to nursemaid a heat counter on a bad tabletop adaptation

god and we're such mechwarrior nerds too

:<

[Falconeer]

I really think you are exaggerating.

[Samprimary]

I see no reason why I would exaggerate in favor of disappointment/inability to get people on board for a mechwarrior game, of all things.

[Falconeer]

No, obviously you are genuinely disappointed, and so is your friend. But

"This game is anti-fun." Goes to play a game where you can pew, pew, and .. get this ... pew AGAIN (HERESY) without being punished for it and having to nursemaid a heat counter on a bad tabletop adaptation

while certainly your respectable and valid personal opinion, a nd while I agree that the trial mechs are _FAR_ from optimal and not so enjoyable due to the lack of the tweaking fun, feels to me like a huge exaggeration and misrepresentation of the actual experience.

EDIT: clarified.

[MahrinSkel]

Given the way heat management works (and the way it violates most new player's expectations to be able to hose out fire with abandon), they'd be much better off with newbie mechs that were under-gunned and over-sinked, so that it took long periods of wildly firing to overheat (and your shutdowns wouldn't last long).

Newbs are going to get pwned, but they need to feel like they're doing *something*.

--Dave

[Arthur_Parker]

No, obviously you are genuinely disappointed, and so is your friend. But

"This game is anti-fun." Goes to play a game where you can pew, pew, and .. get this ... pew AGAIN (HERESY) without being punished for it and having to nursemaid a heat counter on a bad tabletop adaptation

while certainly your respectable and valid personal opinion, a nd while I agree that the trial mechs are _FAR_ from optimal and not so enjoyable due to the lack of the tweaking fun, feels to me like a huge exaggeration and misrepresentation of the actual experience.

EDIT: clarified.

They aren't far from optimal the current 4 are completely shit.

The Jenner has 4 medium lasers that will overheat even if you chain fire one, pause and fire again.
The Hunchback has lrms which are ok but require you to know how to lock on and know about the 180m minimum range, the mediums just can't be used without rebinding weapon groups to limit weapon fire to just two of them.
The Cataphract has low armour, an AC10 with only 15 hots, a ppc with a minimum range of 90m that new players aren't going to know about, you can rebind the mediums to be somewhat useful but you can't fire very often with just them.
The Awesome has a streak and a pulse laser, weird combination, not to mention 3 ER ppc's when it doesn't have the heat sinks to keep 1 ER cycling.

There is no reason to be like this, the trial K2 they used to offer was okish, dual ppcs with machine guns, with a machine gun buff in the works plus someway of warning a new player about ppc minimum range it wouldn't be too bad.

The previous trial Awesome was actually not bad at all, two weapon groups, dual lrm 15 plus two large lasers and enough heat sinks to run either set somewhat reasonably.

If you haven't played the trials recently Falconeer, you should experience just how bad the current four are.  It's like dropping a new player into an online FPS against experienced players using sniper rifles & body armour and liimiting them to a blunderbus and a feathered hat.  New players are already at a massive disadvantage, there's no good reason to drive them away from the game.

[Arthur_Parker]

Given the way heat management works (and the way it violates most new player's expectations to be able to hose out fire with abandon), they'd be much better off with newbie mechs that were under-gunned and over-sinked, so that it took long periods of wildly firing to overheat (and your shutdowns wouldn't last long).

Newbs are going to get pwned, but they need to feel like they're doing *something*.

I agree with this 100%, I over sink all my mechs anyway as nothing ever goes as planned.

[Falconeer]

Fair enough, I'll give a whirl to this month's rotation of trials. But I can see why I've never felt extremely underwhelmed by trials so far, and that's because I tend to run my mechs hotter than the average (I hate the very definition of "heat neutral", but this is a different story). So yes, it could be me. I still think that "anti-fun" and "punishment" are hyperboles, but maybe I'll change my mind after trialing.

[satael]

Haha! Got a friend to sign up. The available assault mech is an Awesome. He's always liked the Awesome!

Jumps in, gets right into the fight like it's coming back to the oldschool. Aw yeah. He's doing it all out of memory. Gets into a circle strafe dogfight with a cataphract. Fires ppcs! blammo! Yea! Fires again! YEA! oh shut down from overheating. Blinks.

Plays a couple more games. Ponders. Concludes: "This game is anti-fun." Goes to play a game where you can pew, pew, and .. get this ... pew AGAIN (HERESY) without being punished for it and having to nursemaid a heat counter on a bad tabletop adaptation

god and we're such mechwarrior nerds too

:<

Add to that the fact that PPCs still (afaik) have the minimum range (of 90) that they really don't advertise and your circlestrafing dogfight will feel even more frustrating especially if the opponent notices you using PPCs 

[Ironwood]

Funny Story :  I didn't know about the PPC Minimum range.

[Falconeer]

Pro tip: Weapon systems in the lower right corner are colour-coded to show:

- Green, optimal range (full damage).
- Yellow, extended range (degrading damage from full to nil based on distance)
- Black , out of range. It could be less than minimal or over the extended, it's still "out of range" and it does zero damage.

The colour coding changes dynamically and in real time based on where you are pointing your crosshair. Try it out.

[Merusk]

Funny Story :  I didn't know about the PPC Minimum range.

Me either. I didn't know about the LRMS min range until the match I was grouped with Lant and a few others and everyone was yelling at me in chat about it.  I don't see it anywhere on the interface, either. 

Or any damage numbers, now that I think about it. One of the most basic pieces of info you should have in-game.  It's 2012, not 1999. 

I agree with the assessment of Sam's friend: The game is anti-fun.   You have to bring too much tabletop knowledge to enjoy it. 

There's also no handholding for the newb, which frankly, is going to be the bulk of your playerbase since the last MW game is now 10 years old.   I *know* there's chainfire somewhere in the game.   I've seen many people reference it, but I'll be fucked if I can find how to toggle it and I'm not cruising forums at home when I could be playing games.  I'm not doing it at work because I'm not 25 anymore and I've got shit to do and meetings to attend. I read one site at work: this one. .

Pro tip: Weapon systems in the lower right corner are colour-coded to show:

- Green, optimal range (full damage).
- Yellow, extended range (degrading damage from full to nil based on distance)
- Black , out of range. It could be less than minimal or over the extended, it's still "out of range" and it does zero damage.

The colour coding changes dynamically and in real time based on where you are pointing your crosshair. Try it out.

Awesome.. and we're supposed to know that, how?   Oh, and why do I have to look there, taking my eyes off the action and terrain vs. in my HUD, which makes infinitely more sense?  Because MW Lore trumps good design? 

[angry.bob]

The game really is sort of anti-fun.

All my mechs are super over heat sinked to the point of incredulity, and I still find myself shutting down at inconvenient times - usually after 6-7 shots.

The shits just harder to control than it needs to be, I blame the throttle mechanism. Just change the controls to be like every FPS ever. I'm constantly getting torn up because I've over-estimated where my throttle setting is going to end up and crested a hill to much, walked out from cover, backed up too much and lost a shot, or my personal favorite the "walking into an object but not going anywhere". I've fallen through the terrain several times.

And Cryengine 3 is causing wayyyyyy to many performance problems.

It's striking how much this game is an inferior version of WoT. What Wargames needs to do is ditch the battleship game and make a WoT with giant robots instead of tanks.

[Der Helm]

chainfire

Wut?

[Falconeer]

Awesome.. and we're supposed to know that, how?   Oh, and why do I have to look there, taking my eyes off the action and terrain vs. in my HUD, which makes infinitely more sense?  Because MW Lore trumps good design?  

No, you are not supposed to look there. But the constant colour changing might give away that something is going on with range. Once you have memorized the different ranges, you don't really have to look there.

This is not to say that the interface is ANY good. It's impossible not to agree that the game needs more visible data and helps. I was just trying to give a useful piece of advice given the present situation.

EDIT: Chainfire is activated when you select a weapon group and hit Backspace. From that moment on, firing that weapon group won't shoot all your weapons in it, but one after another. Again, the ones in THAT weapon group. And this is assuming you know how to change and edit your weapon grouping, which is something you can do on trial mechs too, and helps dealing with their heat issues.

More EDIT: NO to everything angry.bob said.

[Der Helm]

EDIT: Chainfire is activated when you select a weapon group and hit Backspace. From that moment on, firing that weapon group won't shoot all your weapons in it, but one after another. Again, the ones in THAT weapon group. And this is assuming you know how to change and edit your weapon grouping, which is something you can do on trial mechs too, and helps dealing with their heat issues.

Found a video.

[Falconeer]

They have been making lots of tutorials in the last three months. Biggest problem being, they can't put them in the client yet. Hence, they don't exist.

[calapine]

You all suck. I am usually not a good at anything high-twitch but having a blast here. Definitly not "anti-fun".

[Falconeer]

Lots of people are having fun with it, despite the obvious issues, so looks like someone is immune to the anti-fun curse. Also I guess not everyone is so dependent on hand-holding, especially having grown up without it.

[Arthur_Parker]

I honestly think I've put more time into this than anything else ever, I'm having a blast but they really do need to fix the new player experience\mechs asap just so the game has a long term future.

This is useful information, not sure if it's completely accurate.

[calapine]

Also, what do you have if you take a chicken and cut it's head off?
















A Jenner pilot!

[calapine]

Oh, what do Charles Bronson and a Jenner pilot have in common?
















They both have a Death Wish!

[Arthur_Parker]

If anyone is after some advice post what mechs & cbills you have.

Once you have the basics down you need to learn the maps and how to move your mech around without bumping into walls.  

The absolute best way to do that is with a fast light, it's daunting at first but your skills will rapidly improve, it will also help a lot piloting everything else.  Best lights are currently the Jenner D (4 energy 2 missile), > Jenner K (4 energy 1 missile, extra module slot) > Jenner F (6 energy), although the Raven 3L (3 energy, 2 missile, extra module) is fairly good and will get ECM, these mechs are all fairly meh until you get an xl280-xl300 engine in them.

[Merusk]

Lots of people are having fun with it, despite the obvious issues, so looks like someone is immune to the anti-fun curse. Also I guess not everyone is so dependent on hand-holding, especially having grown up without it.

Not everyone wants to spend hours combing forums, youtube, etc for basic bullshit that should be in the game.  I'm an adult with a life, career, family and responsibilities and think spending an hour or two of my precious free time to track shit down that a reasonable person would assume would be in the fucking game.

You go ahead and continue to throw snark in your usual fanboy frenzy.  It's worked out for so many other games whose issues were pointed out in beta, only to be drowned out by the L2P and beat-down of people like yourself.  Dick.

[Falconeer]

Dick.

I am so sorry career and responsibilities are getting in the way of your gaming. Poor thing.

[Kitsune]

No, pretty much everyone agrees that the lack of tutorials and requirement for newbies to go looking for instructional videos on their own is clownshoes game design.  It's just not a show stopper for veteran Mechwarrior players, so not a lot of noise is coming from the playerbase about it.  But no question, if they want to grow their game, they're going to need to get a way to teach newbies how to play, a better way than youtube and trial and error.