Mechwarrior Online

[Ironwood]

That, at least, makes sense.

[Goreschach]

Not really. If artemis weapons and ammo are now complete separate from the regular items, and must be purchased separately, then why do you even need the artemis upgrade? Why are they still exclusive? Why aren't they now just different weapons?

[eldaec]

If they were just different weapons you could mix and match on the same chassis, which would be a mess when calculating lock times and similar.

This is exactly the same model as heat sinks, and ferro armour.

Now we just need to remember to make sure all artemis chassis have their missile hardpoints filled on the day.

[Ironwood]

Not really. If artemis weapons and ammo are now complete separate from the regular items, and must be purchased separately, then why do you even need the artemis upgrade? Why are they still exclusive? Why aren't they now just different weapons?

Because the upgrade is making sure your mech can handle the weapons once mounted.  It's like SCSI and SAS.

 

[eldaec]

30% off the Cicada 3M this weekend - easily the most fun mech I've tried.

[Slayerik]

3M is a great mech. 4 MPL, ECM, and a 320 or 340 XL ... back rape

[Shannow]

For some reason I always preferred the 2A.

6xML, 141kph, didn't need the ECM.

Back rape indeed.

[Falconeer]

Hello MechWarriors!

Your feedback from our last public test of UI 2.0 has been well-received as we continue working behind the scenes to make it a top-notch user-experience. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to give us constructive feedback, this has been crucial to the process and we will continue to look to you for your suggestions and thoughts on your overall experience.

Preview Notes
Nov 28th 2013
Focus: UI 2.0 Preview - Part Deux
Test Time: 12pm-6pm PST

In this build we would like your feedback regarding the following
Pilot Tree Screen.
Camo Screen
Mechlab Upgrades Screen.
Mech XP can be exchange to GXP.
Artemis change.
Patch size is very large due to recent object.pak reconfiguration
Important note - You CANNOT launch into a match, but it is possible to go into the Testing Ground
Major Fixed Bugs
Fixed a crash when clicking "Mech trees" on certain 'Mechs in Skills tab
Fixed a crash that would occur when clicking Skills tab
Fixed an issue where the top bar would be non-functional after re-logging in
Fixed an issue with armor not being saved
Fixed an issue where launching in testing grounds will not launch in the chosen map
Fixed a placeholder message when logging in while servers are offline
Added checks for engines and heatsinks when launching in Testing grounds
Fixed several issues where errors occurred when checking out
Fixed issues where “Save Configuration” prompt was triggered when not supposed to
Restricted naming a mech to alphanumeric characters to prevent 'Mech corruption
Fixed numerous selection issues
Various other stability improvements
You can find out more about the Public Test Program here: http://mwomercs.com/...-schedule-info/

Please respond to our Poll after completing the test: http://mwomercs.com/...-feedback-poll/
You can identify new Bugs here: http://mwomercs.com/...-20-new-issues/
You can provide quality feedback here: http://mwomercs.com/...-questionnaire/
These threads will be opened at 12:15pm during the Test and will remain open until midnight PST.

We recommend getting the Public Test version downloaded as soon as possible, to reduce wait and download times during the Test period.

http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/143568-public-test-ui-20-preview-20/

[Sir T]

[Falconeer]

Black Friday sale, which for the first time features bonus MCs with every package.

[Sir T]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZoew1nP8Fg

Someone showing off the UI 2.0 playtest

All the clicking and clunking would slowly drive me nuts.

[Shannow]

Early testing would suggest Dual AC20 Jagers are overpowered.

3 Matches, 6 kills, 1520 damage dealt.

[Sir T]

Well, heres another much longer in depth look at UI 2.0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAiYtz3zFow

[Viin]

This game is hard. Just in case anyone was wondering.

[Flood]

Gratuitous asshole brag:

[Shannow]

1182 in a Raven?

Brag away, brag away.

[Sir T]

Gotta love artillery and airstrikes.

[Flood]

1182 in a Raven?

Brag away, brag away.

That was a weird scenario where the entire enemy team minus a shot up Jager and a defending Atlas variant (just remember it wasn't a DDC) were all that was left.  On my team it was a Locust and I.  We ganged up on the Jager and took him down but he damaged the Locust so badly that the Atlas got him right away.  After that it became "my turn radius is tighter than yours" and I just whittled the Atlas down until I cored him from behind.  He was at basically full armor, hence the huge damage numbers.  It sure looked good on the stat sheet though.

[Sir T]

They have released the stats for the Griffin and Wolverine

http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/143674-project-phoenix-sabre-mech-specifications/

[Falconeer]

I spent half of the day insulting PGI and Bryan Ekman on the official forum especially for their recent silence and lack of updates and as a result the thread got locked and Bryan Ekman decided to spill some of the beans that he's been saving for the zombie apocalypse. So here's four new Command Chair posts about some different topics.



READY SCREEN AND POST MATCH SCREEN

Players can select and ready [1] `Mech from their DropShip and launch into a match with it. The DropShip will feature up to [8] slots and needs to be preconfigured before a player joins the ready screen. A player cannot add a `Mech to the the DropShip in the ready screen. The player will start with [2] DropShip slots and be able to put any owned or Trail `Mech into a slot. Players can customize add or remove consumables to their currently readied `Mech. If a player does not have any consumables, they can purchase them with CB or MC.

Players can chat with other players via several channels including group, All, Team, Lance, and Command. All will go to anyone in the match, Team will go to your team, Lance to your lance, and Command is only available if the player is a lance or company commander.

Players can also organize into lances using the standard organization elements found consistently throughout the front and back end menus. These include the ability to take company and lance command, along with ability to resign commands. If a player is a company commander, he can move players around from one lance to another and remove or promote players to the lance command position. With one exception. A pre-made group can lock their ranks and prevent players from moving players from within their group around. A group is unlocked by default.

The player list view will need to display relevant information about each player currently involved in the match. These include their full name, faction association if any, rating, currently selected `Mech, their DropShip contents, ping, and ready state. Opposing team player information is hidden with the exception of their full name, association, and ping.

Post Match Screen

Players will return to the ready screen after a match and be greeted by a post game summary. The summary screen should echo the End of Round Summary screen featuring earnings, stats, and awards. Players will be organized into their previously associate teams and lances. Players will be held at the post game summary screen for [60] seconds before returning to the ready screen. Once back at the ready screen, the process begins again for both public and private matches. Player can chat using the standard chat interfaces in the post match screen.

Please take part in the official feedback thread to comment: http://mwomercs.com/...tures-feedback/

PUBLIC MATCHES

Launching into a public match is the default gameplay path. Players simply click the launch button in the front end and they are matched against other players.

Matchmaking

A Mercenary player with no allegiance via the contract system will be placed in a random alliance bucket. Players with an allegiance will be place in their appropriate faction alliance bucket along with any other faction players. There will be [2] alliance buckets created. Once players are placed into alliance buckets, they are matched against each other by using their Elo score.

Public Ready Screen

After matchmaking, players enter a game instance and are held at the ready screen. The Public Ready Screen has two phases.

Phase One – Voting [60+] seconds

Players have three choices during the voting phase, and may only chose to vote for one option. Vote for a match, vote to shuffle the match selection, or abstain from voting. Voting options (match/shuffle) are represented by an image. To place a vote, the player needs only click on the image. The current vote count is overlaid on top of the image. Once a player has voted for either a match or shuffle, that vote is locked in. Voting for a match has no cost, while voting to shuffle has a nominal escalating CB and then MC fee for each successful vote passed. This fee is collected from all players who opted to vote for a shuffle. If a shuffle wins, two new matches are randomly created and the voting process starts over again.

NOTE: the final design of the shuffle is subject to some other design considerations currently being reviewed.

Phase Two – Ready Up [60+] seconds

Now that the match is locked in, players can begin to organize and plan for the battle. The first order of business will be meeting the tonnage restrictions. Each team tonnage total must fall between [240] and [480] tons. Players can bring up to [8] BattleMechs with them to battle. For the purposes of lore, these are transported in a DropShip. Selecting a `Mech readies the `Mech and adds it to your teams total tonnage. The team’s tonnage will be displayed at the top of the team’s player list, showing each person’s `Mech and weight. The number will show total weight and the amount above or below the min/max tonnage limits. Players are encouraged to quickly organize through a match bonus mechanism. A match CB bonus starts at [10%] and goes down to [0%] at a rate of [1%] every [6] seconds. If both teams manage to ready up quickly, each player will receive a match CB bonus on any earnings they may receive.
Once all players are readied, and the tonnage limits are met for each team, the match is locked in and a [10] second countdown clock starts.

NOTE: This ready screen will remove the need for a match ready screen.

We encourage you to leave your feedback in the official thread here: http://mwomercs.com/...tches-feedback/

PRIVATE MATCHES

The goal of a private match is to allow two groups of players to challenge each other to a custom match of their own design and at their own leisure. We have identified a need from our user base for supporting competitive play between groups of players, and by guilds wanting to practice or train. They currently use 12 man groups and synch dropping to achieve private match functionality. Reducing the friction of this complex coordination by supporting the concept of two competitive teams engaging in offline competitions can be solved with private matches.

Creation

The process of creating a private match begins in the Front End UI. A player has two options, Public Launch or Private Launch. Selecting Private Launch triggers the creation of the Private Launch Ready Screen. If the match creator is also a group leader, he will bring his group with him into the private ready screen. If a player is part of a group and not the leader, they will first need to leave the group in order to launch a private match.

Inviting Players

When inviting a player, the match creator can do it 1 of 2 ways. First, the match creator can click “Invite Player” button and manually type in the player’s name. The second is to click a name on their friends list and select Invite Player. This alleviates the need to have a player on a friends list before being able to invite them. Anyone in the private match can invite another player, unless the match creator has locked the match. A match is unlocked by default.
A message is sent to the invited player, if they accept the invite they automatically join the ready screen. In order for a player to accept an invite they must have at least one `Mech readied and in a good launch state. If a player is inside a group, and not the group leader, they will need to leave the group first before accepting the invite. If the player is a group leader, they can accept on behalf his group which adds all of the players within that group to the ready screen. If for any reason a player fails to receive or declines and invite, the invitee should be notified of the reason.

Private Ready Screen

The ready screen allows the creator to invite or remove players, organize them into lances and teams, assign leadership roles, and customize the match parameters. Moving players around should be easy, ideally by dragging them from a list of unassigned players into team A or team B. Once on a team, players should also be able to self-organize, unless the match creator has locked out player organization control.

Basic Match Parameters:
Game Mode (Skirmish, Assault, or Conquest)
Premium Match Parameters:
Map
Tonnages Rules (Min, Max)
Even Teams (Yes/No)
Match Time ([5-25] mins)
View Mode (1PV, 3PV, or Both)
Launching


Once all of the conditions for launching a match have been achieved, the match owner can elect to trigger a launch into the game. Since there may be a limited number of dedicated servers available for use as a private match, a queuing mechanic needs to let players know their estimated wait time before the match is kicked off. The queue should be sorted by first come first server into two tiers. Premium Users and Basic Users. Within the premium user queue, matches are ranked and order based on their aggregate Premium User Score. This is defined as the sum of all players current active premium booster time left.

Premium Match

If the match creator has a premium booster (details forthcoming), they will have access to the premium ready screen options.

Note: Any numbers or words found with [ ] are for demonstration only and subject to change.

To provide feedback, please follow this link to the official feedback thread: http://mwomercs.com/...tches-feedback/

COMMUNITY WARFARE - LAUNCH MODULE

The following features are part of Community Warfare and grouped into a common concept called the launch module. Some of these features will be released on their own after UI 2.0.

Game Instance

A major overhaul to how players experience MWO is underway as part of the planned Launch Module. In the current version of MWO, players click the launch button and are matchmade against each other based on weight and Elo. A match is kicked off and 24 players come together, duke it out, and return to the front end. This is one game cycle that has a clear beginning and end. The new cycle is much more user friendly, allows players to continually play against each other if they choose, allows them to rejoin matches and game instances if they crash out, and allows the matchmaker to fill in missing spots as players leave, or quit the game.

For more information on each state, please visit the following links:
Ready and Post Match Screens - http://mwomercs.com/...t-match-screen/
Public Matches - http://mwomercs.com/...public-matches/
Private Matches - http://mwomercs.com/...rivate-matches/

[Falconeer]

More, this time from Paul Inouye.

PROJECT UPDATE.

Project Update:
Community Messaging:
We are currently changing some of the avenues for community information updates and plan to get this stuff out ASAP. One of the changes is to the Ask the Devs format of Q and A.

Current plans are to shift the regular forum updates to a video format which will hopefully be a little less time consuming as the current method of communication. Our first video is targeted for mid-December if everything works out as planned. Stay tuned for updates around that time.

UI 2.0:
We are currently working toward a release candidate of UI 2.0 which is to bring the functionality of the current UI with the improved flow and experience as well as the new store interface. A large part of the dev studio is involved in this process and the hard work of all involved is now showing a better polished version of the UI as each milestone is put up on the Public Test Server. The upcoming Public Test Server build of UI 2.0 will include the updated Pilot Tree screens, Mech Efficiency screen, the XP>GXP conversion tool and the preview version of how Artemis will be working in MechLab.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the community for the feedback so far on UI 2.0 and with each new build, we have been implementing a lot of the community’s feedback into UI 2.0. With each release we put on the Pubic Test Server, we gather both detail metrics from the servers as well as valuable feedback in the feedback thread. It is this information that allows us to make sure we are hitting key points in the delivery of UI 2.0 to make sure we’re on target for its live release.

Our target is to launch UI 2.0 as soon as possible and iron out the kinks over the next few months. I can tell you this, it will be buggy (not game-breaking) and we’ll be addressing both internal requirements and your feedback on a week by week basis. This means we’ll be splitting the UI2.0 team to have some people working on nothing but bug fixes, and the other group will be working on core feature items and updates. The bug team is the team that will be doing to a weekly cycle and we’ll be able to track updates a lot faster as we push the fixes into the normal patch process.

Community Warfare:
The first set of features for Community Warfare have been broken down and reviewed by engineering. The systems engineers have a roadmap and schedule in which they will start addressing the needs of all new systems required by Community Warfare and are working on the core layout for faction/unit gameplay. What this sums up is… engineering has done all project management breakdowns and specs for the upcoming feature and code clean-up and preparation is being worked on in a special new branch build (much like PTS). Some of the core new features, like database sharding for improved load handling, have been completed and are in that branch now.

We will update as each feature of Community Warfare enters development so you will know what order to expect things to start appearing. Right now all development is heavily, under the hood.

Another feature that will be updated is the Match Maker. A full analysis has been performed on the current system and fixes/updates are now planned. This is not a trivial update and may be included with the release of Phase 1 Community Warfare. Tonnage limits, grouping, Elo calculations are all reliant on these changes and we will fill you in with more detail, as these tasks move into production.

Gameplay:
A new game mode is being added. Skirmish will be released mid-December which is essentially Team Death Match. The inclusion of this mode is the first game mode specific step toward Community Warfare and the game modes that will be required for planetary control and community conflicts. It’s also a way for us to gather metrics on what may eventually turn into a Solaris game mode further down the line.

The Attack/Defend Mode is in progress and we have some functioning turrets that will be fortifying Forward Operating Bases in the mode and the game mode is being investigated for any retrofit issues with the older maps. This game mode in particular will have to take into consideration special rules or functionality for Community Warfare and how defensive positions operate and are possibly upgraded. This will be the first game mode to see a potential “respawn” system. We will update when we prep this mode to go live.

BattleMechs:
All BattleMechs are going through micro-tuning in terms of their hit boxes, quirks and abilities. We have just completed the first draft of upcoming new modules and pilot talents that will allow us to further refine the roles that the various BattleMechs partake in. We are also looking at chassis/role specific module slots being added to BattleMechs so that they do not occupy general module slots which can be considered as generic modules. As an example, players who equip a specialized Scouting module may receive higher XP/CB gains when performing scouting actions and players who equip a specialized Brawler module may receive higher XP/CB gains when performing support actions etc. Our plan is to start ramping up generation of these new modules and talents as soon as possible.

Clans:
Design has started to focus on Clan Tech. It is at this time that we must stress once again that we will not be bringing Clan Tech into the game as it was originally written. Game balance is going to take precedence over any values/behaviors found previously in other MechWarrior/BattleTech titles. Yes, there will be growing pains but we will make sure that Clan Tech does have a unique flavor when compared to InnerSphere Tech but not to the extent of everything just being over powered out of the gate.

Currently on the hot-seat is a discussion as to how Clan BattleMechs will be customized. We will update everyone once the final call has been made and who knows, maybe one of the planned BattleMechs will be announced soon™!

Map Gameplay Elements:
New layouts have been done for spawn locations and base/resource collector locations across all maps. The motivational drive was to keep the spawn locations fair and at the same time have players able to enter combat sooner. This is more evident on the larger maps.

Player Experience:
The art team has proven technically that cock-pit glass is now functional. This means a little more immersive effect when you’re sitting in the cockpit of your BattleMech. I’ve seen the effect and it’s very cool and non-intrusive so expect to see this coming soon with the next few new BattleMechs appearing on the battlefield. Previously released BattleMechs will be retrofitted over the coming months with their own glass treatments.

The Next Map:
The new map HPG Manifold has gone through some major polishing since you last saw a sneak peak of it and is ready for release.

[Shannow]

Well done Falcon. Productive trolling!   New map looks sweet.

[Sir T]

There is a rumour that tomorrows patch will introduce a Hero Jenner. Can you spot my lack of excitement?

[satael]

So any news on when the DX11 is going to be released?

edit: what a useless post to be my 1000th on this board

[Falconeer]

A Hero Jenner with 4 missile hardpoints, which means 4 Streaks, which means a light that is the bane of lights. Interesting. I hope they call it "Nemesis".

[Falconeer]

Sneek peek of the defensive turrets.

[Ironwood]

There is a rumour that tomorrows patch will introduce a Hero Jenner. Can you spot my lack of excitement?

Wait, we have 2 of them, no ?

[Sir T]

I think there's the founders Jenner and Sarah's Jenner, but they are the Jenner D I think with a 30% C'Bil Bonus. This is a new mech.

Of course I could have thought of other mechs that needed one other than the Jenner...

[Falconeer]

I understand values are open to change considering how far away we are from those tonnage limits being implemented, but they mentioned a max tonnage of 480. That's an average of 40 tons a 'mech. As much as I'd love a huge drop in average weight per match, they can't be real (lore or not).

[eldaec]

480 with one Atlas and one Orion would leave everyone else in a Spider.

The general limit won't be 480.

Having the weight limit a random roll could work well with the drop ship idea, but what happens when people start bringing 8 Atlaii in a drop ship? Or do we have bring at least one from each weight class or something?

[Sir T]

I think people should have a look at the maps before they log in and drop dead of a heart attack after this patch.

http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/map#n=canyonnetwork&m=conquest

Basically, all the lances have been split up into different starting places rather than all starting at the base. In at least one case (tourmaline) the short straw lance is further away from its teammates than the enemy.

W. T. F.

[Shannow]

Cause I'm lazy: Is there a FREE program that I can use to take screenshots and possibly video from within MWO?

[Falconeer]

Oxide, the hero Jenner - Video. It's nice.

Shannow, I use unlicensed Bandicam.

[Sir T]

Yes it is nice. I have to say they have a history of doing great vids for their hero mechs. I like the Misery and the Protector ones.

[Ironwood]

Yeah, but look chaps, it's a Jenner.

I mean.  A Jenner.

We did that ?