Is pirannah games that bad? I didn't put any time on MW:O cause fuck F2P (especially when it just looks like a shinier MW game that we've played like 10 times already).
Not really.
Unless you post in this thread and then they are literally satan.
Is pirannah games that bad? I didn't put any time on MW:O cause fuck F2P (especially when it just looks like a shinier MW game that we've played like 10 times already).
They are grossly incompetent and have only survived by exploiting the hopes and dreams of an abandoned minority for huge profit and little effort.
If there is any hope to be had, its that HBS Battletech game will cause the death of PGI and a resurgence of new battletech/MechWarrior games from developers that actually know their dicks and assholes from ones and zeros.
One good thing about pgi is the mech art , when They do meet their end the guys doing the art need to be brought in by hbs. Some of the mechs concept art is better then the goddamn game model.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Is pirannah games that bad? I didn't put any time on MW:O cause fuck F2P (especially when it just looks like a shinier MW game that we've played like 10 times already).
They've got good parts, and lots of bad parts.
Their art department is excellent, and has done stellar work on updating the looks of virtually everything. It's a shame they're at PGI, because they do a great job.
Pretty much everything else about the company is... not excellent. The people in charge of balance are terrible and have been for years; as a result, the game balance has been in the toilet for most of the lifespan of MWO at this point. The head of the company is an ass, and has openly derided players for pointing out any of the many tremendously flawed things in the game. There is also the problem of very basic things taking literally years to see release, and then they're usually broken for months or years afterwards anyway. The only content that gets updated regularly is mechs; everything else releases at an astoundingly slow rate. The netcode has been abysmal from day one, and it looks like it's still terrible; in fact, they had to remove a feature where big mechs could knock down small mechs, because they couldn't figure out how to keep knocked-down mechs from standing back up in random places. They also spent years blaming several issues on Cryengine, when something like Star Citizen has managed to use Cryengine to do some amazing stuff. On top of all that, they tried to have a Kickstarter a couple years back for a space game of their own (which was pathetically similar in description to Star Citizen); they were universally derided for the obvious cash grab it was, and it never got anywhere near even the lowest funding goal.
Any other franchise, and MWO would've shut down years ago. All that props it up is that it's a Mechwarrior game and there's just nothing else out there in that niche.
All of which I say so that anybody who hasn't played MWO but likes the Mechwarrior franchise should simply watch and see where things go, and not get hyped. PGI has been working on a Mechwarrior game for years now (some day they may even finish it to a reasonable degree), so there is still the possibility of them making a good MW game.
I detest them about as much as anybody who has seen their bullshit over the years, but I'm still taking a "wait and see" view.
Is pirannah games that bad? I didn't put any time on MW:O cause fuck F2P (especially when it just looks like a shinier MW game that we've played like 10 times already).
Not really.
Unless you post in this thread and then they are literally satan.
It entirely depends on when you started playing, if you've followed their development process, and whether you listened to their plans for "the future" of MWO. If you were brought in by the list of features that they were said to have been working on back in 2012 (Dropship mutator, fully-fleshed out Conquest mode, Faction Warfare (the proper version...not the version we have now which is functionally the Dropship mutator), a fleshed out information warfare system, etc...), or have been through PGI's pants-on-head approach to game balance, then yeah, PGI is pretty bad.
However, if all you want is to stomp around and play 1-life (no respawn) deathmatch rock'em-sock'em-robits, then PGI is pretty decent.
| Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
Who the fuck is going to do the writing for it anyway? Or will it just be no story just missions? I feel like this will be a really really bad thing.
They could just recycle the story from MW1 and I'd be okay with it.
EDIT - although, MW1 was published by Activision...and they're kinda litigious when it comes to their games.
MW1 kind of didn't have any kind of story they could use in this day and age. There was exactly one quest fight at the end, the rest of the story was told in text boxes. Every battle other than the end game was you freelancing to build up your lance so you could beat that one fight.
Is pirannah games that bad? I didn't put any time on MW:O cause fuck F2P (especially when it just looks like a shinier MW game that we've played like 10 times already).
Not really.
Unless you post in this thread and then they are literally satan.
It entirely depends on when you started playing, if you've followed their development process, and whether you listened to their plans for "the future" of MWO. If you were brought in by the list of features that they were said to have been working on back in 2012 (Dropship mutator, fully-fleshed out Conquest mode, Faction Warfare (the proper version...not the version we have now which is functionally the Dropship mutator), a fleshed out information warfare system, etc...), or have been through PGI's pants-on-head approach to game balance, then yeah, PGI is pretty bad.
However, if all you want is to stomp around and play 1-life (no respawn) deathmatch rock'em-sock'em-robits, then PGI is pretty decent.
I think I'm just too jaded when it comes to devs in general to ever put any stock in anything any dev says about what their game will be. I just play the game in front of me and decide if I like it or not. Dev promises are meaningless.
Who the fuck is going to do the writing for it anyway? Or will it just be no story just missions? I feel like this will be a really really bad thing.
They could just recycle the story from MW1 and I'd be okay with it.
EDIT - although, MW1 was published by Activision...and they're kinda litigious when it comes to their games.
MW1 kind of didn't have any kind of story they could use in this day and age. There was exactly one quest fight at the end, the rest of the story was told in text boxes. Every battle other than the end game was you freelancing to build up your lance so you could beat that one fight.
Those text boxes were pretty lengthy, though, and they did stitch together to make a bit of a story. I mean, yeah, they all pointed you to that one fight, so if you knew where to go, you didn't need to follow the breadcrumbs.
| Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
The announcement of Mechwarrior 5 is kind of a good sign, but not for the reason you'd think. It's the smartest thing PGI has done so far. They take a huge load of assets that have already been paid for (mechs) and triple dipping by reselling them in a single player package. There's no doubt in my mind they've been working on this since Transverse died. They probably just restructured their plans into a single player Mechwarrior game instead of Star Citizen clone, and dropped the crowdfunding bit thanks to an injection of cash from HBS from selling them the mechs. If they can hit their 2018 promise, after blowing every technical delivery date so far, I'll have my wallet ready.
The worrying part for me is the final quirkageddon. This is as huge a game swing as energy draw (180 days overdue, 1 year since it was announced) detailed a pre-recorded demo that gave no specifics, and given yet another 90 day delivery promise: mid February. This change effectively zero's out any balancing done over the last THREE years. Let me give you an example.
What makes a Hunchback better than a Shadowhawk? The Shadowhawk has a bigger engine cap, jump jets, better hitboxes, better hardpoints in some cases, and 5 more tons of weight and hitpoints. Why ever use a Hunchback again? The answer was quirks. So now quirks are gone? But wait, we have "Skills." Are the Hunchback's Skills better than the Shadowhawks? How do you know what Skills your mech can unlock before you buy it? Are they appropriate for the hardpoints? How do you know if 5% more jump jet forward thrust is enough? Who decides how much better? Well, we're right back at Paul, who has historically made some pretty bad balance decisions. And don't even get me started on the Clans, are their skills just as good as the IS?
The number of questions these announcements brought up was way more than it answered. Escort sounds great, is it out yet? No long toms, why does scouting matter now? Solaris 1v1's don't interest me at all, what rewards make them worth playing? Public Queue tied to FW, how? When is energy draw coming out?
I'll buy Mechwarrior 5 after its released and there are reviews for me to read.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
The story of the Battletech universe is pretty loopy and full of holes and weirdness.
A new MW game wouldn't need to have too terribly much in the way of story to still be a decent MW game.
Which is good, considering who is getting to make the game.
Who the fuck is going to do the writing for it anyway? Or will it just be no story just missions? I feel like this will be a really really bad thing.
They could just recycle the story from MW1 and I'd be okay with it.
EDIT - although, MW1 was published by Activision...and they're kinda litigious when it comes to their games.
MW1 kind of didn't have any kind of story they could use in this day and age. There was exactly one quest fight at the end, the rest of the story was told in text boxes. Every battle other than the end game was you freelancing to build up your lance so you could beat that one fight.
Those text boxes were pretty lengthy, though, and they did stitch together to make a bit of a story. I mean, yeah, they all pointed you to that one fight, so if you knew where to go, you didn't need to follow the breadcrumbs.
Yeah. I'm just saying, there's nothing there they could use to recycle the MW1 story even if they wanted to. I think people are going to expect some quest missions, they're not going to be happy with a bunch of storyline cutscenes that don't even have 'Mechs in them. They could do a contract negotiation/payout & reputation system, but you can do that in Excel, too; that wouldn't be the hard part.
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SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
I think "I want to be hopeful" sums up my feelings.
edit:
Maybe a picture will be better:
Well, think about it.
What is arguably PGI's #1 problem of MWO that we complain about all the time? Balancing between IS and Clan.
What was the obvious solution they've taken? Set this before the Clans!
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited December 2016
Hate to bring it up, but the balance was shit before the Clans ever hit. In fact, the only time I can recall the game being something resembling balanced was back in beta, when the game was largely laser- and SRM- based because PGI had fucked-up cannons and PPCs. As soon as those started firing right, the balance went to crap and never came back. Before that, you could actually decently fight with a mix of mechs, because you didn't have stupid boring shit like a Jenner getting one-shot legged by something toting double gauss and a PPC.
The balance was fucked the moment PGI decided to give any high-damage long-range weapon pinpoint accuracy, it just didn't come up until they fixed the game enough to actually use those weapons.
Hate to bring it up, but the balance was shit before the Clans ever hit. In fact, the only time I can recall the game being something resembling balanced was back in beta, when the game was largely laser- and SRM- based because PGI had fucked-up cannons and PPCs. As soon as those started firing right, the balance went to crap and never came back. Before that, you could actually decently fight with a mix of mechs, because you didn't have stupid boring shit like a Jenner getting one-shot legged by something toting double gauss and a PPC.
The balance was fucked the moment PGI decided to give any high-damage long-range weapon pinpoint accuracy, it just didn't come up until they fixed the game enough to actually use those weapons.
Yeah, pretty much. Does nobody remember poptarting? If anything, the game is better balanced now with the clans than it was back then.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
And the time when they fixed poptarting by introducing the randomized aim during flight that should have fucking been in the game from the first place whenever mechs are moving around. And the time they turned off the randomized aim because they claimed people said it was making them motion sick (so they disabled it completely instead of redesigning it). And the time when SRMs were nuclear warheads that annihilated everything because they dealt multiples of their base damage due to a bug. And when Dragons could knock everything down because the game counted them as having the mass of an Atlas. And when they upped the top speed and light mechs became invincible because of the shitty, shitty netcode. And the multiple LRMaggedons where you just couldn't bring enough antimissile ammo to keep from getting destroyed by LRMs in a few seconds.
And how virtually every time there were major problems caused by a bug or design flaw, it took months or even years to get fixed.
It's pretty amazing how many completely fucked-up situations they kept managing to miss or cause.
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Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
Hype for MW5: Mercenaries is getting rather flaccid....
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SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
Hate to bring it up, but the balance was shit before the Clans ever hit. In fact, the only time I can recall the game being something resembling balanced was back in beta, when the game was largely laser- and SRM- based because PGI had fucked-up cannons and PPCs. As soon as those started firing right, the balance went to crap and never came back. Before that, you could actually decently fight with a mix of mechs, because you didn't have stupid boring shit like a Jenner getting one-shot legged by something toting double gauss and a PPC.
The balance was fucked the moment PGI decided to give any high-damage long-range weapon pinpoint accuracy, it just didn't come up until they fixed the game enough to actually use those weapons.
Yeah, pretty much. Does nobody remember poptarting? If anything, the game is better balanced now with the clans than it was back then.
Hell no. Poptarting was fine because 30-40 damage pinpoint is still less than the 70 damage alphas the Clanners are sporting. You have twice as long to maneuver and push up to get in their face and they're probably IS boats with XLs so they're fragile as hell. I never died instantly because I stepped out of cover when poptarting was around.
Who the fuck is going to do the writing for it anyway? Or will it just be no story just missions? I feel like this will be a really really bad thing.
They could just recycle the story from MW1 and I'd be okay with it.
EDIT - although, MW1 was published by Activision...and they're kinda litigious when it comes to their games.
MW1 kind of didn't have any kind of story they could use in this day and age. There was exactly one quest fight at the end, the rest of the story was told in text boxes. Every battle other than the end game was you freelancing to build up your lance so you could beat that one fight.
Those text boxes were pretty lengthy, though, and they did stitch together to make a bit of a story. I mean, yeah, they all pointed you to that one fight, so if you knew where to go, you didn't need to follow the breadcrumbs.
Yeah. I'm just saying, there's nothing there they could use to recycle the MW1 story even if they wanted to. I think people are going to expect some quest missions, they're not going to be happy with a bunch of storyline cutscenes that don't even have 'Mechs in them. They could do a contract negotiation/payout & reputation system, but you can do that in Excel, too; that wouldn't be the hard part.
I mean...that's why I said recycle and not just straight copying the text boxes and calling it good. There is wiggle room there to inject story missions or what-have-you to provide fillera more satisfying experience.
| Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
Hype for MW5: Mercenaries is getting rather flaccid....
At least you now know why there is such hatred in this thread about PGI now. MW5 could end up being good if they used the PGI art team mixed with the HBS story team (and heck for all we know that's what they're doing).
I think "I want to be hopeful" sums up my feelings.
edit:
Maybe a picture will be better:
Well, think about it.
What is arguably PGI's #1 problem of MWO that we complain about all the time? Balancing between IS and Clan.
What was the obvious solution they've taken? Set this before the Clans!
Or balance doesn't matter in a single player game because you can fight asymmetrically balanced scenarios against AI that doesn't care if it's outmatched. So there's actually no reason not to include clan tech in mercs 2018 because it can be used in a satisfying campaign story.
The only reason to leave it out is for the inevitable Clan campaign expansion pack.
Hate to bring it up, but the balance was shit before the Clans ever hit. In fact, the only time I can recall the game being something resembling balanced was back in beta, when the game was largely laser- and SRM- based because PGI had fucked-up cannons and PPCs. As soon as those started firing right, the balance went to crap and never came back. Before that, you could actually decently fight with a mix of mechs, because you didn't have stupid boring shit like a Jenner getting one-shot legged by something toting double gauss and a PPC.
The balance was fucked the moment PGI decided to give any high-damage long-range weapon pinpoint accuracy, it just didn't come up until they fixed the game enough to actually use those weapons.
Yeah, pretty much. Does nobody remember poptarting? If anything, the game is better balanced now with the clans than it was back then.
Hell no. Poptarting was fine because 30-40 damage pinpoint is still less than the 70 damage alphas the Clanners are sporting. You have twice as long to maneuver and push up to get in their face and they're probably IS boats with XLs so they're fragile as hell. I never died instantly because I stepped out of cover when poptarting was around.
poptarting would have never been as big as issue as it was if they didn't make jumpjets fucking retarded.
Jumpjets are supposed to PROPELL YOU FORWARD, and all PGI Jumpjets do is make you a hovership.
If jumpjets propelled you forward the 30m+ per jumpjet that they were supposed to, no one would have been poptarting, but instead of making proper jumpjets they introduce reticle wiggle that's easily defeated by turning off your jumpjets for a second slash shooting as you fall instead of as you rise
Not to mention that they put aside objectivity once again and dialed up the gravity settings to "Jupiter" because they felt things felt too "floaty" because they kept thinking on human scales and expected a mech to fall a mech sized several hundred foot drop in the same time that a human would fall a human sized six foot drop. So the ultra gravity rapidly pulled people down to safety instead of leaving them exposed longer at the peak of their jumps.
Once upon a time in the beta days, the twin gauss catapult was the most try hard OP mech.
Also it could run dual AC20s... I know what I'm building tonight.
That hasn't been a great idea ever since Jagermechs were released. Dual ballistics on the cat still suffers from low torso weapon mounts. Yes, you can shave tonnage by downarmoring the arms but having high mounted arms is generally so much more useful.
Additionally the size of the AC20's forces you to use a standard engine, and the weight forces you to use a smaller standard engine, so you plod around at minimal speeds.
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SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
Additionally the size of the AC20's forces you to use a standard engine, and the weight forces you to use a smaller standard engine, so you plod around at minimal speeds.
So you have a slow mech that can't side peek, can't hill peek, and isn't really that durable for its weight class. Oh and you can't even take that much ammo with it given minimum engine size for heatsinks.
So I didn't see, how does that work now? Instead of modules the stuff that was modules are now skills on a per mech basis? So some mechs might have radar dep as part of their skill tree or something? And you can unlock all the skills on a mech? Or do you have to choose which ones you use? I guess I need to watch that video.
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SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
But when there was only like 6 mechs in the game, I imagine boomcats were devastatingly effective.
Sort of. This was also back in the day when Catapults had the absolutely ginormous cockpit hitbox, so being the one model of Catapult that doesn't get jumpjets, well...
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MortiousThe Nightmare BeginsMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
So I didn't see, how does that work now? Instead of modules the stuff that was modules are now skills on a per mech basis? So some mechs might have radar dep as part of their skill tree or something? And you can unlock all the skills on a mech? Or do you have to choose which ones you use? I guess I need to watch that video.
It looks like a talent tree situation, where you can unlock a limited amount of skills, and some skills are locked behind other skills.
No mention of "respeccing", but at my most cynical guess I'm going to say it comes with a MC cost.
3edit: Ooh, more cynicism incoming. Assuming that xp is shared across variants, they finally have a use for Champion mechs!
SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
So, with transitioning to this new system, are they offering refunds for people silly enough to convert XP to GXP if max usage on a given mech is going to be much higher?
So, with transitioning to this new system, are they offering refunds for people silly enough to convert XP to GXP if max usage on a given mech is going to be much higher?
No, I think they're just dumping everything out into a Legacy GXP pool for you to use. Gonna be a pain in the dick.
I am still very hyped for MW5, even done by PGI, for a few reasons.
1: The core of MWO is some of the best meching ever made, hands down.
2: Any balance issues in a single player/co-op game are almost entirely irrelevant. If there are overpowered mechs or weapons, I can either choose to or choose NOT to use them, depending on how I feel, with exactly zero chance of ruining anyone's fun but my own. And if they end up as enemies, well, it means I have a big ol challenge.
3: Anything I don't like can almost definitely be changed with some mods which are almost guaranteed to exist post-launch.
Who the fuck is going to do the writing for it anyway? Or will it just be no story just missions? I feel like this will be a really really bad thing.
They could just recycle the story from MW1 and I'd be okay with it.
EDIT - although, MW1 was published by Activision...and they're kinda litigious when it comes to their games.
MW1 kind of didn't have any kind of story they could use in this day and age. There was exactly one quest fight at the end, the rest of the story was told in text boxes. Every battle other than the end game was you freelancing to build up your lance so you could beat that one fight.
Those text boxes were pretty lengthy, though, and they did stitch together to make a bit of a story. I mean, yeah, they all pointed you to that one fight, so if you knew where to go, you didn't need to follow the breadcrumbs.
Yeah. I'm just saying, there's nothing there they could use to recycle the MW1 story even if they wanted to. I think people are going to expect some quest missions, they're not going to be happy with a bunch of storyline cutscenes that don't even have 'Mechs in them. They could do a contract negotiation/payout & reputation system, but you can do that in Excel, too; that wouldn't be the hard part.
I mean...that's why I said recycle and not just straight copying the text boxes and calling it good. There is wiggle room there to inject story missions or what-have-you to provide fillera more satisfying experience.
There's a whole game's worth of wiggle room, is what I'm getting at. They can call you Gideon Braver, write "tale of revenge" in the ad copy and maybe put Natasha Kerensky in the game and bam, recycling's done. It would be more a massive remake a la Wolfenstein, and do they really need to talk to Activision just so they can use one name?
Who the fuck is going to do the writing for it anyway? Or will it just be no story just missions? I feel like this will be a really really bad thing.
They could just recycle the story from MW1 and I'd be okay with it.
EDIT - although, MW1 was published by Activision...and they're kinda litigious when it comes to their games.
MW1 kind of didn't have any kind of story they could use in this day and age. There was exactly one quest fight at the end, the rest of the story was told in text boxes. Every battle other than the end game was you freelancing to build up your lance so you could beat that one fight.
Those text boxes were pretty lengthy, though, and they did stitch together to make a bit of a story. I mean, yeah, they all pointed you to that one fight, so if you knew where to go, you didn't need to follow the breadcrumbs.
Yeah. I'm just saying, there's nothing there they could use to recycle the MW1 story even if they wanted to. I think people are going to expect some quest missions, they're not going to be happy with a bunch of storyline cutscenes that don't even have 'Mechs in them. They could do a contract negotiation/payout & reputation system, but you can do that in Excel, too; that wouldn't be the hard part.
I mean...that's why I said recycle and not just straight copying the text boxes and calling it good. There is wiggle room there to inject story missions or what-have-you to provide fillera more satisfying experience.
There's a whole game's worth of wiggle room, is what I'm getting at. They can call you Gideon Braver, write "tale of revenge" in the ad copy and maybe put Natasha Kerensky in the game and bam, recycling's done. It would be more a massive remake a la Wolfenstein, and do they really need to talk to Activision just so they can use one name?
If it follows this story, the answer is very likely "yes."
Erlkönig on
| Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
But when there was only like 6 mechs in the game, I imagine boomcats were devastatingly effective.
Sort of. This was also back in the day when Catapults had the absolutely ginormous cockpit hitbox, so being the one model of Catapult that doesn't get jumpjets, well...
It also had nearly 180 degrees torso twist, so it could shoot you while it ran away at the same speed as a hunchback. It could also run dual Gauss with no charge delay with an XL with no side torso death. TTK was also so slow at the time, taking side torsos off first was a legit strat, so it's microscopic side torsos were meta hitboxes.
But when there was only like 6 mechs in the game, I imagine boomcats were devastatingly effective.
Sort of. This was also back in the day when Catapults had the absolutely ginormous cockpit hitbox, so being the one model of Catapult that doesn't get jumpjets, well...
It also had nearly 180 degrees torso twist, so it could shoot you while it ran away at the same speed as a hunchback. It could also run dual Gauss with no charge delay with an XL with no side torso death. TTK was also so slow at the time, taking side torsos off first was a legit strat, so it's microscopic side torsos were meta hitboxes.
It wasn't ever that effective, but it was fun as heck. Back in the day since there were so few chassis there were crazy builds. The cat seemed to be the winner in the crazy builds: splatcat, boomcat, gausscat, kablamcat, lurmcat.
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Not really.
Unless you post in this thread and then they are literally satan.
They are grossly incompetent and have only survived by exploiting the hopes and dreams of an abandoned minority for huge profit and little effort.
If there is any hope to be had, its that HBS Battletech game will cause the death of PGI and a resurgence of new battletech/MechWarrior games from developers that actually know their dicks and assholes from ones and zeros.
They've got good parts, and lots of bad parts.
Their art department is excellent, and has done stellar work on updating the looks of virtually everything. It's a shame they're at PGI, because they do a great job.
Pretty much everything else about the company is... not excellent. The people in charge of balance are terrible and have been for years; as a result, the game balance has been in the toilet for most of the lifespan of MWO at this point. The head of the company is an ass, and has openly derided players for pointing out any of the many tremendously flawed things in the game. There is also the problem of very basic things taking literally years to see release, and then they're usually broken for months or years afterwards anyway. The only content that gets updated regularly is mechs; everything else releases at an astoundingly slow rate. The netcode has been abysmal from day one, and it looks like it's still terrible; in fact, they had to remove a feature where big mechs could knock down small mechs, because they couldn't figure out how to keep knocked-down mechs from standing back up in random places. They also spent years blaming several issues on Cryengine, when something like Star Citizen has managed to use Cryengine to do some amazing stuff. On top of all that, they tried to have a Kickstarter a couple years back for a space game of their own (which was pathetically similar in description to Star Citizen); they were universally derided for the obvious cash grab it was, and it never got anywhere near even the lowest funding goal.
Any other franchise, and MWO would've shut down years ago. All that props it up is that it's a Mechwarrior game and there's just nothing else out there in that niche.
All of which I say so that anybody who hasn't played MWO but likes the Mechwarrior franchise should simply watch and see where things go, and not get hyped. PGI has been working on a Mechwarrior game for years now (some day they may even finish it to a reasonable degree), so there is still the possibility of them making a good MW game.
I detest them about as much as anybody who has seen their bullshit over the years, but I'm still taking a "wait and see" view.
It entirely depends on when you started playing, if you've followed their development process, and whether you listened to their plans for "the future" of MWO. If you were brought in by the list of features that they were said to have been working on back in 2012 (Dropship mutator, fully-fleshed out Conquest mode, Faction Warfare (the proper version...not the version we have now which is functionally the Dropship mutator), a fleshed out information warfare system, etc...), or have been through PGI's pants-on-head approach to game balance, then yeah, PGI is pretty bad.
However, if all you want is to stomp around and play 1-life (no respawn) deathmatch rock'em-sock'em-robits, then PGI is pretty decent.
MW1 kind of didn't have any kind of story they could use in this day and age. There was exactly one quest fight at the end, the rest of the story was told in text boxes. Every battle other than the end game was you freelancing to build up your lance so you could beat that one fight.
I think I'm just too jaded when it comes to devs in general to ever put any stock in anything any dev says about what their game will be. I just play the game in front of me and decide if I like it or not. Dev promises are meaningless.
Those text boxes were pretty lengthy, though, and they did stitch together to make a bit of a story. I mean, yeah, they all pointed you to that one fight, so if you knew where to go, you didn't need to follow the breadcrumbs.
The worrying part for me is the final quirkageddon. This is as huge a game swing as energy draw (180 days overdue, 1 year since it was announced) detailed a pre-recorded demo that gave no specifics, and given yet another 90 day delivery promise: mid February. This change effectively zero's out any balancing done over the last THREE years. Let me give you an example.
What makes a Hunchback better than a Shadowhawk? The Shadowhawk has a bigger engine cap, jump jets, better hitboxes, better hardpoints in some cases, and 5 more tons of weight and hitpoints. Why ever use a Hunchback again? The answer was quirks. So now quirks are gone? But wait, we have "Skills." Are the Hunchback's Skills better than the Shadowhawks? How do you know what Skills your mech can unlock before you buy it? Are they appropriate for the hardpoints? How do you know if 5% more jump jet forward thrust is enough? Who decides how much better? Well, we're right back at Paul, who has historically made some pretty bad balance decisions. And don't even get me started on the Clans, are their skills just as good as the IS?
The number of questions these announcements brought up was way more than it answered. Escort sounds great, is it out yet? No long toms, why does scouting matter now? Solaris 1v1's don't interest me at all, what rewards make them worth playing? Public Queue tied to FW, how? When is energy draw coming out?
I'll buy Mechwarrior 5 after its released and there are reviews for me to read.
A new MW game wouldn't need to have too terribly much in the way of story to still be a decent MW game.
Which is good, considering who is getting to make the game.
Yeah. I'm just saying, there's nothing there they could use to recycle the MW1 story even if they wanted to. I think people are going to expect some quest missions, they're not going to be happy with a bunch of storyline cutscenes that don't even have 'Mechs in them. They could do a contract negotiation/payout & reputation system, but you can do that in Excel, too; that wouldn't be the hard part.
What is arguably PGI's #1 problem of MWO that we complain about all the time? Balancing between IS and Clan.
What was the obvious solution they've taken? Set this before the Clans!
The balance was fucked the moment PGI decided to give any high-damage long-range weapon pinpoint accuracy, it just didn't come up until they fixed the game enough to actually use those weapons.
Yeah, pretty much. Does nobody remember poptarting? If anything, the game is better balanced now with the clans than it was back then.
And how virtually every time there were major problems caused by a bug or design flaw, it took months or even years to get fixed.
It's pretty amazing how many completely fucked-up situations they kept managing to miss or cause.
Hell no. Poptarting was fine because 30-40 damage pinpoint is still less than the 70 damage alphas the Clanners are sporting. You have twice as long to maneuver and push up to get in their face and they're probably IS boats with XLs so they're fragile as hell. I never died instantly because I stepped out of cover when poptarting was around.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
I mean...that's why I said recycle and not just straight copying the text boxes and calling it good. There is wiggle room there to inject story missions or what-have-you to provide fillera more satisfying experience.
At least you now know why there is such hatred in this thread about PGI now. MW5 could end up being good if they used the PGI art team mixed with the HBS story team (and heck for all we know that's what they're doing).
Steam: betsuni7
Or balance doesn't matter in a single player game because you can fight asymmetrically balanced scenarios against AI that doesn't care if it's outmatched. So there's actually no reason not to include clan tech in mercs 2018 because it can be used in a satisfying campaign story.
The only reason to leave it out is for the inevitable Clan campaign expansion pack.
poptarting would have never been as big as issue as it was if they didn't make jumpjets fucking retarded.
Jumpjets are supposed to PROPELL YOU FORWARD, and all PGI Jumpjets do is make you a hovership.
If jumpjets propelled you forward the 30m+ per jumpjet that they were supposed to, no one would have been poptarting, but instead of making proper jumpjets they introduce reticle wiggle that's easily defeated by turning off your jumpjets for a second slash shooting as you fall instead of as you rise
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
Also it could run dual AC20s... I know what I'm building tonight.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
So you have a slow mech that can't side peek, can't hill peek, and isn't really that durable for its weight class. Oh and you can't even take that much ammo with it given minimum engine size for heatsinks.
Which of course would be stupid right. Right?
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
It looks like a talent tree situation, where you can unlock a limited amount of skills, and some skills are locked behind other skills.
No mention of "respeccing", but at my most cynical guess I'm going to say it comes with a MC cost.
3edit: Ooh, more cynicism incoming. Assuming that xp is shared across variants, they finally have a use for Champion mechs!
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
gauss cats were better because they had superior range and didn't melt the mech. AC20 heat was crazy back then.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
No, I think they're just dumping everything out into a Legacy GXP pool for you to use. Gonna be a pain in the dick.
1: The core of MWO is some of the best meching ever made, hands down.
2: Any balance issues in a single player/co-op game are almost entirely irrelevant. If there are overpowered mechs or weapons, I can either choose to or choose NOT to use them, depending on how I feel, with exactly zero chance of ruining anyone's fun but my own. And if they end up as enemies, well, it means I have a big ol challenge.
3: Anything I don't like can almost definitely be changed with some mods which are almost guaranteed to exist post-launch.
There's a whole game's worth of wiggle room, is what I'm getting at. They can call you Gideon Braver, write "tale of revenge" in the ad copy and maybe put Natasha Kerensky in the game and bam, recycling's done. It would be more a massive remake a la Wolfenstein, and do they really need to talk to Activision just so they can use one name?
If it follows this story, the answer is very likely "yes."
It also had nearly 180 degrees torso twist, so it could shoot you while it ran away at the same speed as a hunchback. It could also run dual Gauss with no charge delay with an XL with no side torso death. TTK was also so slow at the time, taking side torsos off first was a legit strat, so it's microscopic side torsos were meta hitboxes.
It wasn't ever that effective, but it was fun as heck. Back in the day since there were so few chassis there were crazy builds. The cat seemed to be the winner in the crazy builds: splatcat, boomcat, gausscat, kablamcat, lurmcat.