Mechwarrior Online

[Falconeer]

June 2013 Director's Update.

A lot of work continues to be focused on our major launch features. If you haven’t already checked it out, head on over to the UI 2.0 Command Chair post and check out the latest information on our major overhaul of the Front End UI. Production is well under way on this new UI and we expect to begin testing in August. The final bits of engineering work are being put into 12 v12, which include further networking code optimizations, UI work, art optimizations, and some minor gameplay/level adjustments. Our drive to launch continues to keep the bulk of our team focused on delivering an exciting MechWarrior experience for all players.

New Content:

`Mech of the Month - Quickdraw (18th)
Hero `Mech of the Month - FireBrand (4th)

Champion `Mech of the Month - Hunchback-4P© (18th)
New Pattern(s) - Sherman (4th)
New Cockpit Item(s) - Spider Statue (18th)
Special - Sarah's `Mech (25th)

Test Servers



The networking and hardware wizards are hard at work setting up this our new public testing environment. While not necessarily a new feature per se, this new server architecture will allow us to test a range of features from small tuning adjustments to large additions such as 12 v 12 and UI 2.0. This is part of our continued commitment to product quality and stability, along with involving the community in key aspects of the game’s development. The test servers will be coming online in June, and the first major test will feature 12 v 12 functionality.

Company and Lance Improvements

Further lance improvements make their way into the game this month. These adjustments are based of internal testing and player feedback. These new adjustments include text and audio queues when new orders are issued, Company and Lance Commander icons to identify leadership, revised chat color, and revised order icons for more clarity. If you haven’t tried out your leadership skills yet, have a go! Players can take command by pushing “B” for BattleGrid and taking either a Lance Command (4 players) or a Company Command (8 players).

Balancing and Tuning

LRMs, SRMs, and Flamers will receive tuning passes in the first patch of this month. For mid-June expect to see more tweaks to the UAV consumable, and Seismic Sensors. Jump Jets will receive a weight based shake to add a more realistic feel and help to balance out some of the jump sniping meta game. Caustic Valley gets a lighting adjustment for the mid-June patch Expect to see more details about upcoming adjustments in the Command Chair section.

Host State Rewind (HSR) – Missiles

With this latest addition, all weapon systems are now affected by HSR. HSR helps high ping players achieve more reliable hits, improving the gameplay experience and making them more competitive.

Bugs and Stability

A lot of effort has gone into improving and fixing some of the more difficult technical issues, among them the HUD bug (last month). This month we are introducing fixes for some to the more frequent black screen and disconnect issues some players may experience.

Looking Forward

12 v 12 is due out for first patch in July.
Training Grounds (tutorial) will make it's way live mid-July to early August.
Third Person view will be pushed to test servers in the next 30-60 days.

So next 'mech is the Quickdraw. And on the 25th we get Sarah's Hero 'mech.

[Ironwood]

STOP FUCKING ABOUT WITH FLAMERS.

[schpain]

ooh, 3rd person will be interesting.  hopefully won't affect gameplay too much, but would be nice to see your mech and it might add a sense of scale.

[Hoax]

Ah they are going through with third person? I can finally uninstall this for good then.

[Falconeer]

They are gonna separate 3rd person matches from 1st person matches though.

[apocrypha]

Why the hate for 3rd person? Genuinely interested, it always felt like it was missing when I was playing.

Is it the whole being able to see round corners and over obstacles thing?

[Falconeer]

Yes, that's one big reason. But also, shifting the game's perspective from being a mechwarrior and having to deal with screen shake, smoke and stuff, like you were in the cockpit, to something else entirely. It's like it started as a 'mech "simulation" game (bear with me) and with 3rd person it would become a 'mech arcade game.

But again, they said there will be separate queues for 1st and 3rd person matches. So we'll see.

What I am interested in is a 3rd person *spectator* mode. But playing? No.

EDIT: Looks like the jumpjet shake hit the poptart community pretty hard. Also, boost to both LRM (more damage) and SRM (much better spread) aren't bad at all.

[apocrypha]

OK, that makes sense. I suppose the mech sim feel never really clicked for me because the perspective was so wrong. It always just felt like your mech was only about 2m tall.

I'm still hoping that this game gets properly fixed in time, it just doesn't look like that's happened enough for me to give it another shot yet.

[Falconeer]

I might be wrong, but I feel that the launch of the new UI in late August could do the trick.

[Hoax]

Separating the games won't last because its a stupid idea and the game isn't nearly big enough to support such a thing. There is no way I trust them with that promise in the slightest.

[Falconeer]

Here comes the Quickdraw, a 60 ton heavy 'mech that just cut the line of the planned development cycle (pushing the Orion a few 'mechs ahead) because, according to Ekman, "the Quickdraw offered more to the meta game at this point, so we pushed it up a cycle." We'll get this thing with the next patch, June 18th.

For some reason, I feel it will be attracting headshots like crazy.

[Llyse]

The dragon and the marmoset are on sale and I think I will be making a purchase...

[Ironwood]

Marmoset was the best investment I ever made.

[schpain]

Agreed, separate queue for 1st/3rd person is stupid and i can see the 'it'll kill the sim' angle.  Doh, I was hoping to feel like a mech baus with 3rd person view.  UI2.0,  Fix this game!1!

[Falconeer]

Gameplay update by Paul Inouye.

Includes the nerf to boating.

Gameplay Update:

Weapons - We’ve been busy getting more systems implemented for fine tuning our way to launch. Here are some of what’s been going on and is still in production:

S-SRMs are undergoing a revamp on their targeting solutions. There are 7 bones that are randomly selected by each SSRM missile. Right now, those bones are located at joints rather than center-points for each of the components. We are looking at changing that so the bones are placed further apart and more toward the center of each component. We are also looking at weighting the torso bones in a manner that make them not a priority for SSRMs. For example, all components would have a weight of 1.0. The Torsos however would take a weighting of 0.35(LT) 0.3(CT) 0.35(RT). The reasoning behind this weighting is that if all the torsos had an equal value of 1, each missile would have a 3/7 chance of going for a torso. Any sort of torso twist/movement would increase the chance of a missile in flight to hit the CT (since it’s the biggest component on a Mech) if they were to target a side torso.

Flamers and Machine Guns are getting a damage boost. Flamers will be increased from 0.4 damage to 0.7 damage. Machine Guns will be going from 0.08 damage per bullet to 0.1 damage per bullet. (June 18th Patch)

Pulse Lasers are being normalized to have their variances standardized between the different sizes. This is in preparation of them being tuned as we move toward launch. What this directly means is that for now, Small Pulse Lasers will have their damage increased to 3.4 and their heat reduced to 2.4. Large Pulse Lasers will have their damage increased to 10.6 but their heat is also increased to 8.5. This puts all 3 pulse lasers in alignment of having an approximate 1.25 variance for DPS and a 1.3 variance for HPS. Once this is implemented into the live servers, we will be looking at how they play out and making further adjustments as needed. (June 18th Patch)

Heat Damage at High Heat Levels
We now have a system in test that will apply damage to your Mech’s internal center torso if your Mech exceeds 150% of its tolerable heat level. While your Mech is above 150% heat, it will take damage over time. Once your Mech has cooled below 150%, it will no longer take heat damage. Be careful with that override button or high heat alphas when you’re near your max heat threshold.


Heat Penalty

Last update, I let it be known that we would be investigating a heat penalty for high alpha builds. It is understood that this raised the eyebrows of the many but at the same time a lot of assumptions were made which should hopefully be cleared up here.

We considered the notion of doing a max heat threshold reduction but this would have ended up nerfing every weapon system and every Mech in the game. This is why the heat scale penalty path was chosen since it lets us address every weapon individually and also allows us to take into consideration all Mech builds.

How it works:
We set a threshold of the number of weapons fired simultaneously. By simultaneously fired, we mean weapons of the exact same type being fired in under a 0.5 second time range. This 0.5 second time comes from the amount of time between weapon switches when Chain Fire is engaged. Chain Fire is a mechanism meant to help MechWarriors manage their heat and we do not want to punish those who use this mechanic.
If a player fires a number of weapons beyond the threshold, the heat scale will increase significantly for every weapon fired beyond the threshold.

An example:
Mech Model: Hunchback-4P
This Mech (known as the Swayback) is capable of firing 9 energy weapons all at the same time. There are 6 energy hardpoints in the pod on its shoulder, one on each arm and one on the head. The most common build for this Mech is to boat it with Medium Lasers.

We take into consideration that the 6-pack pod is intended to be fired all at once and a player should not be penalized for this. It is for this reason that we would set the Medium Laser threshold to 6; meaning that firing 6 MLs simultaneously will NOT suffer from a heat scale penalty. The 6 MLs will generate the standard amount of heat currently in the game.

The heat scale penalty kicks in when the player fires 7 or more MLs and for each ML fired beyond 7, the heat scale increases. The breakdown would look as follows (Keep in mind, these numbers are for demonstration purposes only):

6 ML fired = 0 heat penalty
7 ML fired = 5 heat penalty
8 ML fired = 10 heat penalty
9 ML fired = 20 heat penalty

To avoid the heat penalty while playing a Swayback is easily avoided if the player fires 6 MLs and waits 0.5 seconds and then fires the remaining 3 MLs. Doing so will result in 0 heat penalties.

How each weapon system will be individually tuned:
Weapons like the PPC would have their thresholds set to 3 with a higher heat penalty per additional simultaneous firing of PPCs.
3 PPC fired = 0 heat penalty
4 PPC fired = 10 heat penalty
5 PPC fired = 20 heat penalty
6 PPC fired = 40 heat penalty

Again, if a player wants to play a 6 PPC stalker, they can freely do so and can avoid heat penalties by triggering 3 PPCs, waiting 0.5 seconds and then firing the next 3 PPCs.

Missile and Ballistic weapon systems will be equally looked at in terms of their heat penalty thresholds.

At the end of the day, some weapons may never see a heat penalty the others will and in the long run, we hope this encourages a more varied build of player Mechs or make players much more aware of their heat management.

I’ll update this post for delivery dates as soon as I have confirmed them.

[Goreschach]

Someone high up on the ladder just needs to go away.

[Lantyssa]

It should be 2 PPCs.  That's the standard through all of B'Tech for the heavy hitters.  Marauder, Warhammer, Thug, etc.

Still not a great solution.

[Ironwood]

That's really bad.

[Falconeer]

Is it? Why?
They are going for stupidly convoluted mechanics, but I think it's not a bad idea to punish some builds that shouldn't exist anyway. And mind, they are only punished if you alpha strike with them. If you just stagger what you have over 0.5 seconds nothibg bad happens. And they seem to be able to customize the penalties on a weapon by weapon basis.

We'll see how it plays out, it'll probably break something else. But if it tones down the actual excess of alpha strikers I can't see how this is a bad thing.

Also, damage and penalties for overheating? Yes please.

[Hoax]

Additional hidden systems? Just what the game needs! What an incredibly inelegant solution that will lead to more changes and more changes down the line as they add mechs or will make them afraid to add certain mechs/variants because they can mount 3 PPC 3 AC10 and would instantly become the best mech in the game because those fall beneath the current anti boating arbitrary heat penalties.

Heat Damage at High Heat Levels
We now have a system in test that will apply damage to your Mech’s internal center torso if your Mech exceeds 150% of its tolerable heat level. While your Mech is above 150% heat, it will take damage over time. Once your Mech has cooled below 150%, it will no longer take heat damage. Be careful with that override button or high heat alphas when you’re near your max heat threshold.

This is the system they should be working on. And cone of fire. Why is cone of fire anathema to these devs exactly?

Its bad and stupid because newbies would be able to handle and understand better if they just made it so that mechs can't fire more than 3 ppcs at once. Sliding heat scale hidden values are fucking bad and stupid. If they just made it so that putting a 4th ppc on a mech would give you a warning that you couldn't fire all four at once (firing 3 puts the fourth on some kind of half timed recycle or whatever) then they have the same effect without confusing the shit out of people quite so utterly.

[Falconeer]

Seriously, what with the 150% heat? Who the fuck ever gets there anyway? Penalty should kick in when you get over 100%. Period. 125% if you want to be generous.

[Ironwood]

This is my point - they've once again gone retardedly to the moon to fix something with a massively silly system, when the actual problem is much more easily fixed.

IF YOU FIRE 6 PPCs YOU FUCKING BLOW UP.

Jesus Wept.

[Hoax]

Why not start much more simple? If you generate 30 or more heat in a single press of your trigger additional heat is generated. Some kind of scaling, 30-35 you take an extra X heat, 36-40 you take an extra Y heat etc.

Tell me how that didn't accomplish 90% of what this change will without requiring them to create the arbitrary XY numbers for every single fucking variant.

150% is accomplished all the time in a 4-6 PPC build. You often fire a full alpha while already over 75% heat because:
-You don't lose movement as you go up the scale.
-You don't lose accuracy as you go up the scale.
-You can't hurt your pilot by overheating.

So why wouldn't you be pushing the scale to the maximum?

Also do they have any of the real shutdown mechanics which were:
When you shut down you need to wait for whatever HS's that are still operational on your mech to work at half strength and get your heat down to what would be around 50% in MWO.

I don't think they have any of that but its been too long since I played to say for sure. I was definitely under the impression that your restart time was a fixed number that didn't care if you shutdown on 101% or 300%.

[Goreschach]

You're all way overcomplicating things.

Double heatsink value.
Cut heat capacity in half.
Over 100% heat means you explode.

Tweak the numbers to your preference.

[HaemishM]

This is my point - they've once again gone retardedly to the moon to fix something with a massively silly system, when the actual problem is much more easily fixed.

IF YOU FIRE 6 PPCs YOU FUCKING BLOW UP.

Jesus Wept.

This. The fact they still haven't implemented it or even contemplated it tells me that I probably won't ever be going back to this game.

[Pennilenko]

This shit is why nerds can't have nice things.

[Ironwood]

I mean, what's fucking complicated about 'you're driving a nuke, don't get it hot'.

If you get it hot you shutdown.  If you override shutdown and fire, you blow up.

This isn't rocket science.  Even though it has nuclear stuff in it.

[HaemishM]

The removal of blowing your own damn self up because you overheated really does ignore a very big part of the original game.

[Falconeer]

To be fair, you can blow yourself up by overheating. It happened to me more than once, and I don't have more than two PPC. But at the moment it can only happen if you override shutdown (And you actually get a confirmation in the deathscreen "Killed by: overheating"). My point is that the suicidal overheat thing IS in the game. It should just be used properly, goddammit.

[Arthur_Parker]

I wish he'd stick his Flamers and Machine Guns up his arse, I'm so sick of hearing them mess with that shit.  Small pulse lasers finally get a look at, after nearly a year.

[Ironwood]

What's worse is that you get that fucking Commando that thinks they're viable because they've been dicked around with so much.  Running around with his double flamers like a dumbass.

[Samprimary]

those solutions are interesting but still do nothing about the standard long range high alpha crap, which is typically something like 2-3 ppc's and a gauss rifle

[Falconeer]

More Quickdraw.




EDIT: This would be the "original" design.

[Falconeer]

A selection of interesting questions and answers from the latest Devs Q&A.

On third person view:

Viper69 : If we are going to be able to choose to play against people using 3PV or not to, how are you going to address the then fractured and smaller groups that then have to wait in queue for a match that meets their perimeters?

A: There will be two modes Normal and Hardcore (FPV) only. We anticipate most players will play the first mode leaving the hardcore mode for the those wanting a challenge. 3PV will be going onto test servers in the next 60 days and we’ll see how it goes from there.



Ghost Badger: How does PGI plan to reconcile Community Warfare matches with 3PV and 1PV? How will they reconcile matches between teams with different preferences? Or do they plan to split the CW mechanic by viewpoint?

A: The plan is to have scheduled matches will be FPV only, since these will be performed between Merc. Units. Regular matches will follow the above rules (Normal/Hardcore).



On Community Warfare:

irony1999: Currently it seems that CW Phase 1 is primarily delivering features for the "clan" (Merc corp) experience, from the current reveals. Will there be any enhancements for Faction members, or will that be delivered in Phase 2? Can you discuss these faction member enhancements?

A: Phase 1 will be the meta game (levels, ranks, loyalty points etc). Phase 2 will encompass association (being a part of a faction, whether a merc unit or house).



Blade Pride: Will lone wolf players have access to similar rewards as Units and Houses in the CW?

A: Each type of player will have a set of rewards to achieve. There will be a detailed write up on how we plan to do this.


Trufast: I was wondering how merc corp sizes would matter in community warfare. I understand that you guys can't reveal too much about that stuff yet, but I was wondering if a merc corp of say 20 members would be at a disadvantage compared to the 2-300 member corps. Is there a minimum requirement to be able to function as a merc corp? (more than twelve active members that is)

A: The minimum requirement will be 12. We don’t want size to play a major role in the CW meta game. Zerging the universe with masses is not really what we are trying to achieve. More details will follow when we outline CW to the public.



On weapons and loadout:

Biruke: Will the different manufacturers laser beams differ in color? Say now we have blue LL beam. Lutien manufacturers could make the LL beams violet, no?

A: It’s one idea we have, yes.



On maps/Environment:

Nick Drezary: When Comstar will stop playing ecology and finally approve destruction of trees in the battle zones?

A: When collisions come back into the game.



RF Greywolf: Is there plans for making more realistic bases, like ones with defenses that must be dealt with before capping?

A: Yes.



On Gameplay/Game modes/Meta:

StalaggtIKE: Light and Medium mechs were the most prevalent within Battletech lore, with Heavy and Assault being a rarity. This is not the case within our current meta game, which consists of opposing teams of mostly Heavy and Assault class. Basically the plan is to bring your largest, heaviest hitting mech. Is this intended,and if not, are there any plans to curb this trend?

A: We have some plans in the works to limit the amount of tonnage on the battlefield and encourage balance through rewarding will structured teams.



Weaselball: Is the current large energy weapon alpha build meta something the Dev's are ok with? If not, when can we expect to see some tweaks to help tune the game away from said meta?

A: It’s being worked on.



Noktoo: Currently it is possible to drop with 8 Atlas into an 8man to maximize the firepower, but the firepower of the enemy team is not taken into consideration, though it may happen that 800 tons drop against an more balanced team with ~500. Are there Plans to bring in weight-limitation on 8vs8 or later in 12vs12?

A: Yes.



littlelifter: Please could you make a special “headshot” notification and reward like “component destroyed” notification and reward?

A: It’s coming.



Jman5: A while back you had expressed concern that mechs were dying too fast. With 12v12 coming the amount of firepower directed toward a single mech will increase substantially. Do you still feel this is a problem? If so, how are you planning on addressing it?

A: Yes. Ongoing weapon and game balancing is improving the rate of damage dealt.

So the actual First Person View is gonna become HARDCORE mode? Fuck everything. This sounds AWFUL.

[Ironwood]

Yeah.