Mechwarrior Online

[Kageru]

Most of the game-play videos I've seen haven't been too tempting. Lots of noise and explosions but most of the time it's people circle-strafing one another or playing visibility games with a hill. The tanks or artillery environment just seems more tactically interesting.

And 8x8 sounds pretty limited.

[apocrypha]

Yeah that's pretty much exactly my experience of it Falc.

I played maybe 10-15 matches, found the control and client performance incredibly bad, the UI uninformative, unclear and frustrating, the maps uninspiring and the actual gameplay clunky and not much fun. I found myself thinking "World of Tanks is so much better than this" the whole time.

I wouldn't say I'm a mech nerd (never played TT) but I've always been a minor fan of the franchise and was looking forward to this immensely, so it was very disappointing when I didn't like it at all. However, I'm enough of a fan of the franchise that I still read this thread and am definitely waiting to see if the general opinion of it improves.

Also, videos of other people playing it are fun to watch.

[Arthur_Parker]

Ok fair enough.

A Goon propaganda video has just been released into the wild in the SA thread.

Montage of the Newbird 

[Falconeer]

Consensus seems to be that ECM introduced a whole new layer of tactics. What's your opinion, from a good 8-group perspective, Arthur?

[Arthur_Parker]

It's a bit like chess only the pawns are all on voice comms, the team that loses the first mech is at a terrible disadvantage so most matches start slow while the scouts try to locate the main enemy force.

I've only played about 15 games so far, we lost maybe 4-5 people in 2 close matches, mostly we don't lose anyone, I've not been on the losing side yet but when the old 8 man lances were in weeks back we sync dropped against some Germans and they totally destroyed us several times. 

This will all change though, people are figuring out tactics and experimenting, PGI will likely put a weight drop limit in as some clans/houses are taking 8 Atlas DDC ECM teams to turtle their base which sounds real boring to me.

[Kageru]

It would be fun to watch the goon discussions, their analysis and weird builds were about 60% of the fun of playing Eve.

[Samprimary]

This will all change though, people are figuring out tactics and experimenting, PGI will likely put a weight drop limit in as some clans/houses are taking 8 Atlas DDC ECM teams to turtle their base which sounds real boring to me.

Sounds kind of like MW3 - eventually nothing but daishis.

[Ironwood]

All the games I've played in thus far suggest having nothing but heavy mechs is utter suicide.  I really hope that doesn't change.

[HaemishM]

Finally got enough C-Bills to buy a mech. Settled on a Raven RVN-4X. Discovered that compared to the trial Jenner, it's barely faster than a fucking medium mech and died a few times trying to be a scout. Now trying to figure out what the fuck to change out in this thing to make it better. Are there build sites out there that will actually show me important shit like DAMAGE since I can't seem to find that shit anywhere in the fucking MechLab client?

[Falconeer]

This for all sorts of mech, hardpoints and weapons detailed info.

And this is a forum just about mech builds 'n specs.

That first link in particular should totally be in the game. Even as a freakin .jpg, it should just be in the game. We all know it is going to be. But when? It's inexcusbale that it is not in yet. I find it hard to believe that they don't have an intenr that could just glue that thing anywhere into the client as a crutch until they revamp the UI.

[Arthur_Parker]

HaemishM, that's the 2nd best Raven, at least you can install jump jets (you only need 1 jump jet equipped at the moment to get maximum use out of it), how many cbills do you have left?

What normally happens is you end up buying all three Ravens so you can elite and master the Raven 3L tree, that's the current best light for non 8 man team games and arguably the best light for everything with ECM as it is now.

The 3L Raven can hit the current speed cap, so the other two suffer a lot until you unlock the elite skill speed tweak and even then they still suffer in comparison.

[HaemishM]

Right now I've got about 264k C-Bills left. I'm looking at saving either for the Ferro-Fibrous armor, Upgraded Internal structure or just waiting until I can upgrade to a good XL engine because I am SLOOOOOWWWWW. I did experiment with replacing a med. laser with a small pulse laser and the SRM 6 went for a Streak SRM2. I think I like the latter change more than the pulse laser.

[Falconeer]

(you only need 1 jump jet equipped at the moment to get maximum use out of it)

Didn't they fix that in the latest patch?

EDIT: DO NOT TAKE FF Armour! It's gonna drain your wallet and then you are gonna be angry at the world and quit playing out of (rightful) rage! FF armour is for rich people. Endosteel on the other hand is always a great idea if you have the room.

[Arthur_Parker]

Right now I've got about 264k C-Bills left. I'm looking at saving either for the Ferro-Fibrous armor, Upgraded Internal structure or just waiting until I can upgrade to a good XL engine because I am SLOOOOOWWWWW. I did experiment with replacing a med. laser with a small pulse laser and the SRM 6 went for a Streak SRM2. I think I like the latter change more than the pulse laser.

XLengines give the same speed as standard engines they just weigh less and mean you will die if your side torso is blown.  I'll check later on exact builds/engines but from memory with non elite skills the largest standard/xl engine you can fit will have a speed of about 111 kph which isn't great.

Structure would be good to upgrade, also double heat sinks if you want to drive this mech a bit but they are pricey 1.5 million, you'll want double heat sinks on the 3L.  Two medium lasers with streak 2 might be ok for a while, medium pulse are a lot better but might be too hot with single heat sinks.

I agree with Falconeer on FF, avoid.  Also turn auto repair/rearm off, do not repair items, having damaged items doesn't currently do anything, for ammo you get 75% each match free so you can avoid rearming as well to save cbills, just repair armour and structure.

(you only need 1 jump jet equipped at the moment to get maximum use out of it)

Didn't they fix that in the latest patch?

They put a graphical effect in for damaged jump jets, the real fix isn't in yet for singles.

[Zaljerem]

I've been enjoying the hell out of this game. It probably helps that:

1) I'm an oldskool Battletech/MechWarrior fan
2) I'm a Legendary Founder, so I never had to deal with trial 'Mechs
3) I have a couple people I drop with regularly, and I don't mind pugging otherwise
4) I have enough of a C-Bill bonus from Premium time/Founder and Hero mechs that I can easily customize/buy additional 'Mechs - even a loss makes me decent money
5) I have plenty of time to play (probably TOO much)
6) I recently upgraded my PC, it's now a beast and I have very few performance issues (I wonder sometimes what kind of shit PCs people are running on that they're getting constant crashes and poor performance ... I crash extremely rarely)

I really can't imagine coming in as a newbie and grinding up with Trial 'Mechs, though both Slayerik and my friend RalphNumbers did so (RN did end up buying MC to pick up a Yen-Lo-Wang).

I really should add some of you to my friends list; I wouldn't mind dropping with a group of 4 or even 8 if we could swing it. Feel free to add me.

[Segoris]

Engine speeds/size by class, also weight listed on the right: http://www.dotamentor.com/mwomercs/MWO-engines.PNG

For 8mans - yeah, bring as many Atlas as you can and it's easy. It's not as boring as it sounds if you actually try to leave your base but have to turn around as you've been rushed. Happened a few times last night (we ran 4 Atlas, 1 Cat, 1 Swayback, a Dragon, and the new mech) by the time we were about 300m out of base we already had a couple lights on our cap. This turned into a non-intentional 8v8 on the cap point after their 3 lights had got cap to almost 50% (3 of them with the bonus cap quick).
As long as people listen and assist it's possible to do pretty well, which is nice.

I agree with Falconeer on FF, avoid.  Also turn auto repair/rearm off, do not repair items, having damaged items doesn't currently do anything, for ammo you get 75% each match free so you can avoid rearming as well to save cbills, just repair armour and structure.

I have not heard about auto-repair not doing anything. So not repair at all before heading into a match will have no effect? Or are there some things which should still be repaired?

[Arthur_Parker]

Repair armour and structure, ammo is optional but you get 75% free, for item damage there is no point in repairing, there are two options for auto repair and auto rearm in the mech lab, you need to turn them off to be able to selectively repair just armour & structure.

Engine speeds/size by class, also weight listed on the right: http://www.dotamentor.com/mwomercs/MWO-engines.PNG

Chart seems wrong/missleading to me, Raven 3L can fit a 295.

[Arthur_Parker]

Right now I've got about 264k C-Bills left. I'm looking at saving either for the Ferro-Fibrous armor, Upgraded Internal structure or just waiting until I can upgrade to a good XL engine because I am SLOOOOOWWWWW. I did experiment with replacing a med. laser with a small pulse laser and the SRM 6 went for a Streak SRM2. I think I like the latter change more than the pulse laser.

Well from mech lab, an xl245 will make your Raven 4x go as fast as it can, but it's not a very reusable engine, it's only really good for the other slow Raven, the 2x and it's 4 million cbills, plus any engine less than 250 needs at least 1 ton free for extra heat sinks

You could buy a standard engine 245 for 1.5 million cbills, you'd go just as fast, have less tonnage for weapons but you'd live slightly longer (as side torso death kills xl engines) and with only 2 energy slots and 1 missile it's not like you can fit a lot anyway. (I'm ignoring the two ballistic slots, machine guns are not worth fitting for anything other than comedy, ac2 is fun for a short while but very difficult to hold on target, you'd need a ac5/uac5 or above to do decent damage and those are HEAVY on any Raven).

It's worth mentioning you could buy a jenner d, k or f, all come with standard 245 engines that you could strip out and reuse in your raven, cheapest is jenner f at 2.8 million.  Then save for an xl280 [my raven 3l engine] (or an xl295 engine) that can be reused in all jenners, the raven 3l, all catapults, even some cataphracts plus others mechs.

If you go Raven 4x, standard engine 245, 1 heat sink, 208/238 armour (take all armour off left arm plus a bit elsewhere), you are at 28 tons, so you'd have 7 tons for energy/missiles, upgrading to endo steel drops you to 26.5 tons.  Energy weapons, all lasers are good except ER large and small pulses, medium and large pulses are good but run hot.  Streak missiles always hit but with ecm you might not be able to fire them, srm's take practice but sometimes an srm4 is preferable to an sm6 for spread and heat reasons.

edit to add, also remember you can sell the standard 175 engine that came with your 4x for half a million.

[Samprimary]

hey, am i crazy or do you get a ton more money per hour rush-suiciding as fast as you can in stripped-down mechs

[Arthur_Parker]

There isn't a massive difference between winning and losing, so the more matches you play the more money you make, I wouldn't be incredibly obvious about it though, but given what some players do, as long as you fire your weapons while charging the whole enemy team, you wouldn't look that unusual.  You can immediately exit the match after death and launch a new game with a different mech, cbills from the 1st match should automatically appear after the match ends.

If you have a non-trial mech you can save on armour repair bills by dropping your armour to 1 point all over, if you go below 1 point in any area the mech looks odd in the HUD and people ask difficult questions (I used to run zero armour in closed beta for a while so I could fit more weapons/sinks, changed it to 1 ton when people started asking what I was doing).


Edit to add.

Feature Roadmap - Updated December 4Th, 2012

Conquest
Target Date: December 18th - 95%
Status: Final Stable/Stage Playtesting
Notes:

Economics/New User Phase 0.5
Target Date: December 18th - 95%
Status: Final Stable/Stage Playtesting
Notes: Tuning Changes - Detailed post on December 18th

Matchmaking Phase 3
Target Date: Late December/Early January
Status: In Development
Notes: Work is mostly complete. A period of testing will commence shortly.

Content Roadmap - Updated December 4Th, 2012

December 18th
Stalker BattleMech
Phranken Pattern (all Mechs)
Dazzle Pattern (all Mechs)
Urban Pattern (all Mechs)
Holiday Cockpit Items Part 2
Kill a Dev Banner
Community Contributor Banner

January 15th
Spider BattleMech
Woodland (all Mechs)
Desert Map (80% chance)

[Segoris]

Repair armour and structure, ammo is optional but you get 75% free, for item damage there is no point in repairing, there are two options for auto repair and auto rearm in the mech lab, you need to turn them off to be able to selectively repair just armour & structure.

Engine speeds/size by class, also weight listed on the right: http://www.dotamentor.com/mwomercs/MWO-engines.PNG

Chart seems wrong/missleading to me, Raven 3L can fit a 295.

I knew about the check boxes and ammo refill, just wasn't sure if some or all of the repair options are effect, thanks for that info though.

As for the chart - it's been handy, but it's probably out of date, but it's been good for all the mechs I've picked up so far.

[Shannow]

Not enough maps. Too small maps. I have to agree the map design is uninspired to say the least. sigh. I'm not sure exactly whats holding back their release of new maps but they need to fix it asap.

[Falconeer]

80% chance to get ONE new map 40 days from now is... well I have no words.

[Arthur_Parker]

You should follow the roadmap links if interested, I didn't quote the distant stuff  

Also an example below of an 8 man drop, link might die but it's in the SA thread so I'll link it.  Pilot is in a Raven 3L.

Mechwarrior Online - Word of Lowtax 8v8 Combat - Forest Colony Snow

[Kageru]

They need to learn from the Eve guys and start selectively cutting in external shots and selected gameplay. Because that looks like a guy running around the map before they had a virtual melee in the centre. Neither of which looks all that impressive or interesting.

[Kitsune]

Eve benefits from external cameras that you can swing around in any direction.  Not as easy to make compelling footage from in-cockpit cam.

[Arthur_Parker]

You couldn't show a full match and use edited footage from only a single player anyway, it just wouldn't make sense, that was a good video the match itself was just pretty bland.

[HaemishM]

I've been playing more with the Raven and I can safely say that this is an entirely different fucking game from the n00b/free/trial mech game. It's actually a decent game now. Like, holy fuck the difference is MIND-BLOWING. I've played over 10 games with my Raven (named Skedaddle). I have YET to overheat. Not... fucking... once. I have added NO HEATSINKS to the standard design. I've futzed about with some different weapon loadouts, but nothing that changes the heat dramatically up or down. The only big change I've added has been the Endo Steel structure, which just reduced some tonnage. And yet I've been able to run around firing as wily nily as before without one heat shutdown on all the maps.

I'll have to make a post on the general forums. I'm sure I'll get screamed down by the fanfucks. The trial mechs are going to absolutely KILL this game's earning potential. Either they have to unfuck the heating issues with those mechs or they fucking need to provide a free light mech after a set number of games that you can customize. It doesn't even have to be a good one. Hell, make it the worst Commando. It'll still be better than the fucking trial mechs, if for no other reason than it provides a window into the customization game which is at least HALF the fun of the game.

I realize I'm  but fuck me. This game has so much earning potential, and it seems deadset on punishing free players instead of encouraging them to become customers.

[Falconeer]

Updated list of f13 people and their screen names to populate your friend lists (although I don't think you can play with friends at all now all unless you gather 8 of them right?):

1 - Falconeer = Lefteye
2 - Slayerik
3 - Llyse = Eek
4 - Jherad
5 - Satael
6 - Merusk
7 - Goreschach = Cornjob
8 - Bann
9 - Pennilenko
10 - 5150 = Ashrid
11 - Lantyssa
12 - Evildrider = Harshaw
13 - Lightstalker = Dr Fang
14 - Cadaverine = Noitek
15 - Helm = Hlem
16 - Megrim
17 - Zetleft
18 - MahrinSkel = Abuse Magnet
19 - Ironwood = Sugo
20 - Ghambit
21 - Shannow = Galen Shannow
22 - HaemishM
23 - angry.bob = Kitty Gallore
24 - Calapine = Tressa
25 - Segoris
26 - schpain = ChiefTripodBear
27 - Arthur_Parker = Horrace
28 - Ragnoros
29 - Samprimary = GG Unit 
30 - Zaljerem
31 - ? = Neaon Reaper
32 - ? = Abetterpilot
33 - ? = Fish Eye
34 - ? = Maltak

[HaemishM]

Skeddadle is the name of my mech - my user name is still haemishm. 

[Segoris]

Updated list of f13 people and their screen names to populate your friend lists (although I don't think you can play with friends at all now all unless you gather 8 of them right?):

Unless something changed yesterday or this morning, then solo, and groups of 2, 3, and 4 still work the same way as before the last patch. If you want more than 4 by any amount than you have to have a full 8player party. Basically, there are no 5, 6, or 7 player parties

[angry.bob]

I bought a raven, not sure which one. I put an Ultra AC5 on it. It wasn't as fun as I thought it would be. Guess I'll put everything else besides the engine back in it.

[Samprimary]

OH my GOD. none of my friends made it past the trial mechs


asdfhpasdigup4ui5tgh134potuh1q[34th

[Arthur_Parker]

OH my GOD. none of my friends made it past the trial mechs


asdfhpasdigup4ui5tgh134potuh1q[34th

I made a thread, please post in it.

THE FALLEN MECHWARRIORS

Please feel free to list the number of your friends who never made it past the trial mech stage of the game below.

If you so wish you can individually name them and add any reasons they gave for leaving.

As an example one of your friends might have said:-

"I overheat anytime I fire twice, then someone runs along and immediately kills me, for some reason this does not please me at all".

Let us pause for a moment and remember the fallen.

I like the game but the devs seem clueless to the new player issue so I'll see if anyone bites apart from the fanbois.

[Segoris]

Good thread AP


Also, people should post in this thread. It basically outlines all the things stated here (you know, the obvious flaws just about everyone sees...) in a fairly well thought out way. Some details need some work on the OP, otherwise it's spot on.