Sounds like the old days where you could get some decent "Drop Commanders" who would take over the comms to rally the random team are harder to find these days? I would almost always have someone on comms making some sort of plan, or asking for input on drops.
Also the coordinated huge groups would be rather rare to go up against, so it wasn't such a stomp if you were against them.
Again, this is just me reading the posts here and I haven't piloted my mechs in more than 2 years now.
Honestly I blame the “soup” queue experience. Group queue was shut down and now you can queue with 1-3 friends into a QP game. Each side can have 1x4 man group, or a combination of 2x2 man groups or a 2+3 man.
You have a chance of getting a 4 man doom stack on either side of high tier (front page of Jarls list) players who can win by themselves, or you have a chance of getting a 4 man running stealth Ravens who just want to try to cap out the game.
I do need to state that there is a proposal that was submitted to PGI by Jay Z (Aussie Stalker Connoisseur) for a system to balance lobbies, but who knows how long that’s going to take, if ever.
0
AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
Some more fun/ridiculous Battletech lore.
The Noisiel Summer Games are held on the world of Noisiel III in the Lyran Commonwealth. It is a twelve day event in which Mechwarriors engage in a multitude of competitions. This includes Mech scale rugby, hockey, football, baseball, and chess. The focus of the games is firmly about piloting finesse and less about shooty-shooty boom-boom.
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
I have gathered my thoughts since my last play session and boy howdy do I have a lot to say. This thread has been a great source of positivity, though, and I don’t want to shit it up. I’ll quarantine the bulk of it in a spoiler.
TL:DR; the MWO community at large is ass at the game on purpose, but the game is the best it’s ever been, mechanically. This is pretty much applicable to every multiplayer game nowadays, so if you can handle people being people, jump back in and get your stomp on. Still plenty of time to farm up all those stocking stuffer loot bags.
The problems that plague MWO team play aren’t unique to MWO, and frankly there is no solution.
Players in MWO are turning off/ignoring chat, not watching kill feeds or score lines, not playing objectives, not examining their damage outputs, building boats/one trick ponies and then dumping ammo outside of maximum ranges, ignoring friendly UAV data, ignoring their maps completely, not targeting with R, etc., etc., etc. I see these in nearly every single game I play. It’s egregious. I’m not talking about shooting skill; that’s a whole nother ball of wax that is definitely way harder than any of the other stuff going on in the game. People are ignoring game mechanics to the detriment of their team and not caring, and still playing. How do I know? I keep seeing the same people in matchmaking. People are heavily voting in favor of skirmish and Alpine (when it shows), because it’s the easiest way to Play The Way They Want To Play.
And that’s kinda the crux of it, isn’t it? It’s not toxic to be bad at a videogame, not at all, it’s not something you can or even want to regulate. Incentivizing better play doesn’t work, though; every single modern game rewards wins more than losses, but that just doesn’t change player behavior for the better. MWO gives you way more cash if you win, along with small bonuses for formation play, assists, etc. People don’t care.
What about matchmaking improvements? Well, if you have played any other team games for a period of time, you already know the answer to this; all matchmaking sucks. It has always sucked. There is no such thing as a good matchmaker. Whether it’s because of too many human variables to account for, or whatever, it all sucks. The best you can do is group up with as many people as the game allows to try and at least guarantee that some people are at least going to contribute to the team.
This is all so fucking frustrating because all these multiplayer games have the same problem, but they are all so mechanically solid and fun to play. Including MWO! The game I left years ago is so much better now.
But it can be miserable to play.
I had the absolute worst MWO game of my life a couple nights ago.
I’m in my Nightstar-10p. At the back of the group, but I’m circling left to get some flanking shots in, to be the lead if the team wants to swing. I get pinged by a stealth mech’s ppc, and my ecm switched off. Then I get narced. For the rest of my alive time that game, I ate LRMs. My ECM never got to switch back on. I begged for help in chat, using the help ping, too. Tried desperately to stick to cover, but there wasn’t enough. With my mech half busted, I tried walking close to my teammates to try and visually signal with the missile rain and my smoking soon-to-be scrap heap that holy shit please help.
It didn’t matter. I dropped dead, having fed the enemy team free damage while doing none, and my team didn’t move. I mean, literally, everyone wasn’t moving. Just standing there. Staring at the hill/structure in front of them, waiting for enemy blips to pop up. Except, who was supposed to get those blips? Even the light mechs were just, parked next to the big boys, looking at dirt. No one cared or even seemed to be playing.
And then the NARC warning lit up on the LRM boat I was spectating. Got plunked by a PPC from behind. The player didn’t move. I blinked, quit to desktop, and went to read some TROs.
Has anyone tried BEX? Is it complicated to install?
Yes, and not particularly (IMO). It does change the game a bunch and can be frustrating! Personally I turn off pilot fatigue as I hate it, I left everything else on I think.
Has anyone tried BEX? Is it complicated to install?
Yes, and not particularly (IMO). It does change the game a bunch and can be frustrating! Personally I turn off pilot fatigue as I hate it, I left everything else on I think.
I did it, and I am pretty tech illiterate. Just find and follow a YouTube install instruction.
BEX is lots of fun. About to hit 3048, mostly just annoyed how early I started and how I need to keep taking missions purely to keep my pilots from losing mech affinities because I want them at their peak for Clan arrival.
You need to turn off fatigue (and mech affinities) before starting a campaign/career, FYI.
Fleebhas all of the fleeb juiceRegistered Userregular
Grabbed MW5 and the DLC while it was on sale with the intention of using the VR mod... haven't tried the mod yet because I'm having a ton of fun in pancake mode. Just got my first big mech (a Stalker) and man I'm having a blast. I grew up playing MW2 and this really scratches that itch.
Any suggestions for the campaign? Should I focus on the campaign missions or take my time? Doesn't look like there's time limits so that's nice.
Grabbed MW5 and the DLC while it was on sale with the intention of using the VR mod... haven't tried the mod yet because I'm having a ton of fun in pancake mode. Just got my first big mech (a Stalker) and man I'm having a blast. I grew up playing MW2 and this really scratches that itch.
Any suggestions for the campaign? Should I focus on the campaign missions or take my time? Doesn't look like there's time limits so that's nice.
Definitely take your time. I enjoy building up a huge cash vault then spending time system hopping to find new toys to upgrade the team with. I can't help but think of it in terms of an actual merc company; fight your ass off, get some R and R, go back in fresh and beefed up.
I have a Stalker build I really like. It's the variant that strips one of the LRM launchers. I pulled that off and threw another SRM6 on it, and shoved in more heatsinks. It's a brutal Flashman++ that can very nearly kill any medium mech in one alpha strike, and have the armor and firepower to pull bigger mechs into pieces very quickly. I call him "Shredder" because he does just that.
I can get Mech Commander working on a modern system... But MW2-4 requires arcane sorcery on Windows 10 even with emulator programs like Dos Box.
Yeah, I managed to get it working a few years ago, even had the fan HD texture pack working.
However, my multiple attempts to get it running on my current Win10 have all failed. I tried the different sources, followed multiple apparently-recent "how to get it working!" guides, nada. Real shame.
Alas, no joy, I just cannot get the autoconfig to run, same problem I've had for years now. It seems like for some people it Just Works (including the author in question I'm guessing), but it does not for me. I tried the various fixes people suggest on the mod's page and they don't do much either.
I did get it to run once... thinking I had cracked it I closed it, then ran it again, just to confirm it worked, but nope, that one time I got lucky. More fool me for not taking advantage of it.
Finally fighting clans. Collected one Timberwolf and an Executioner so far. I'm going to need to hire and train some new pilots at this rate, though, I've lost two so far.
Picked up MW5 and started playing it. My son walked over to see what I was doing and proceeded to have a ball at my expense as I learned how to play.
“Dad, are you going to play stompybots?” Gave way to “Dad I want to play stompybots with you - I’ll control the missiles and the big gun.” Eventually this was bound to happen:
Picked up MW5 and started playing it. My son walked over to see what I was doing and proceeded to have a ball at my expense as I learned how to play.
“Dad, are you going to play stompybots?” Gave way to “Dad I want to play stompybots with you - I’ll control the missiles and the big gun.” Eventually this was bound to happen:
*picks a mech with neither missiles or big guns*
Let's go kiddo.
+5
OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
Picked up MW5 and started playing it. My son walked over to see what I was doing and proceeded to have a ball at my expense as I learned how to play.
“Dad, are you going to play stompybots?” Gave way to “Dad I want to play stompybots with you - I’ll control the missiles and the big gun.” Eventually this was bound to happen:
*picks a mech with neither missiles or big guns*
Let's go kiddo.
Picked up MW5 and started playing it. My son walked over to see what I was doing and proceeded to have a ball at my expense as I learned how to play.
“Dad, are you going to play stompybots?” Gave way to “Dad I want to play stompybots with you - I’ll control the missiles and the big gun.” Eventually this was bound to happen:
*picks a mech with neither missiles or big guns*
Let's go kiddo.
Discoballhunchbacksayswhat?
Fire enough small guns and it's like firing a big gun!
Picked up MW5 and started playing it. My son walked over to see what I was doing and proceeded to have a ball at my expense as I learned how to play.
“Dad, are you going to play stompybots?” Gave way to “Dad I want to play stompybots with you - I’ll control the missiles and the big gun.” Eventually this was bound to happen:
*picks a mech with neither missiles or big guns*
Let's go kiddo.
Discoballhunchbacksayswhat?
Just saying, the mech on the screen has two medium lasers, two small lasers and a quartet of machine guns.
I don't think any of those count as a "big gun".
And even if you add them altogether, I don't think they'd add up to one big-gun like the swayback.
Picked up MW5 and started playing it. My son walked over to see what I was doing and proceeded to have a ball at my expense as I learned how to play.
“Dad, are you going to play stompybots?” Gave way to “Dad I want to play stompybots with you - I’ll control the missiles and the big gun.” Eventually this was bound to happen:
Those clanners aren't going to stomp themselves... mostly.
Picked up MW5 and started playing it. My son walked over to see what I was doing and proceeded to have a ball at my expense as I learned how to play.
“Dad, are you going to play stompybots?” Gave way to “Dad I want to play stompybots with you - I’ll control the missiles and the big gun.” Eventually this was bound to happen:
*picks a mech with neither missiles or big guns*
Let's go kiddo.
Discoballhunchbacksayswhat?
Just saying, the mech on the screen has two medium lasers, two small lasers and a quartet of machine guns.
I don't think any of those count as a "big gun".
And even if you add them altogether, I don't think they'd add up to one big-gun like the swayback.
I tried using a firestarter and got “oh. Okay I’ll be the guns on the X spot.”
“Actually I can play and you can watch now”
Little guy still doesn’t quite get steer with legs, aim with torso, but he’s learning. Just need to work on that whole “reading” thing.
Picked up MW5 and started playing it. My son walked over to see what I was doing and proceeded to have a ball at my expense as I learned how to play.
“Dad, are you going to play stompybots?” Gave way to “Dad I want to play stompybots with you - I’ll control the missiles and the big gun.” Eventually this was bound to happen:
*picks a mech with neither missiles or big guns*
Let's go kiddo.
Discoballhunchbacksayswhat?
Just saying, the mech on the screen has two medium lasers, two small lasers and a quartet of machine guns.
I don't think any of those count as a "big gun".
And even if you add them altogether, I don't think they'd add up to one big-gun like the swayback.
I tried using a firestarter and got “oh. Okay I’ll be the guns on the X spot.”
“Actually I can play and you can watch now”
Little guy still doesn’t quite get steer with legs, aim with torso, but he’s learning. Just need to work on that whole “reading” thing.
Perfect way for him to learn how to read. He might not know how to read the word cat, but he'll be able to read the word Cataphract
Picked up MW5 and started playing it. My son walked over to see what I was doing and proceeded to have a ball at my expense as I learned how to play.
“Dad, are you going to play stompybots?” Gave way to “Dad I want to play stompybots with you - I’ll control the missiles and the big gun.” Eventually this was bound to happen:
*picks a mech with neither missiles or big guns*
Let's go kiddo.
Discoballhunchbacksayswhat?
Just saying, the mech on the screen has two medium lasers, two small lasers and a quartet of machine guns.
I don't think any of those count as a "big gun".
And even if you add them altogether, I don't think they'd add up to one big-gun like the swayback.
I tried using a firestarter and got “oh. Okay I’ll be the guns on the X spot.”
“Actually I can play and you can watch now”
Little guy still doesn’t quite get steer with legs, aim with torso, but he’s learning. Just need to work on that whole “reading” thing.
Perfect way for him to learn how to read. He might not know how to read the word cat, but he'll be able to read the word Cataphract
Can't wait for him to see a Timberwolf and try to decide if it's a Marauder or a Catapult.
Picked up MW5 and started playing it. My son walked over to see what I was doing and proceeded to have a ball at my expense as I learned how to play.
“Dad, are you going to play stompybots?” Gave way to “Dad I want to play stompybots with you - I’ll control the missiles and the big gun.” Eventually this was bound to happen:
*picks a mech with neither missiles or big guns*
Let's go kiddo.
Discoballhunchbacksayswhat?
Just saying, the mech on the screen has two medium lasers, two small lasers and a quartet of machine guns.
I don't think any of those count as a "big gun".
And even if you add them altogether, I don't think they'd add up to one big-gun like the swayback.
I tried using a firestarter and got “oh. Okay I’ll be the guns on the X spot.”
“Actually I can play and you can watch now”
Little guy still doesn’t quite get steer with legs, aim with torso, but he’s learning. Just need to work on that whole “reading” thing.
Perfect way for him to learn how to read. He might not know how to read the word cat, but he'll be able to read the word Cataphract
Can't wait for him to see a Timberwolf and try to decide if it's a Marauder or a Catapult.
He will get a kick out of that!
One of the things that hooked him was when I’d call out what the mechs were named and could explain what role they were for - and now he’s trying to memorize them and help me with situational awareness.
“Dad, that’s a Panther! Shoot it’s right arm.”
“Dad, that looks like a Maderer <sic>, watch out for PPCs!”
“Dad, that’s a Cyclops! Get it so we can get it’s computer!”
Picked up MW5 and started playing it. My son walked over to see what I was doing and proceeded to have a ball at my expense as I learned how to play.
“Dad, are you going to play stompybots?” Gave way to “Dad I want to play stompybots with you - I’ll control the missiles and the big gun.” Eventually this was bound to happen:
*picks a mech with neither missiles or big guns*
Let's go kiddo.
Discoballhunchbacksayswhat?
Just saying, the mech on the screen has two medium lasers, two small lasers and a quartet of machine guns.
I don't think any of those count as a "big gun".
And even if you add them altogether, I don't think they'd add up to one big-gun like the swayback.
I tried using a firestarter and got “oh. Okay I’ll be the guns on the X spot.”
“Actually I can play and you can watch now”
Little guy still doesn’t quite get steer with legs, aim with torso, but he’s learning. Just need to work on that whole “reading” thing.
Perfect way for him to learn how to read. He might not know how to read the word cat, but he'll be able to read the word Cataphract
Can't wait for him to see a Timberwolf and try to decide if it's a Marauder or a Catapult.
He will get a kick out of that!
One of the things that hooked him was when I’d call out what the mechs were named and could explain what role they were for - and now he’s trying to memorize them and help me with situational awareness.
“Dad, that’s a Panther! Shoot it’s right arm.”
“Dad, that looks like a Maderer <sic>, watch out for PPCs!”
“Dad, that’s a Cyclops! Get it so we can get it’s computer!”
Fleebhas all of the fleeb juiceRegistered Userregular
Finally got around to trying the MW5 VR mod and... woof... that's rough. I have pretty solid VR legs and I was feeling queasy after 15 minutes or so. It's SO CLOSE to being great, but low fps and screen jitter make it pretty hard to bear. Having to switch between 3d for the fights and 2d for everything else was weird but understandable.
Really wish PGI had put in the effort to support VR natively. What a missed opportunity IMO.
Posts
Also the coordinated huge groups would be rather rare to go up against, so it wasn't such a stomp if you were against them.
Again, this is just me reading the posts here and I haven't piloted my mechs in more than 2 years now.
Steam: betsuni7
You have a chance of getting a 4 man doom stack on either side of high tier (front page of Jarls list) players who can win by themselves, or you have a chance of getting a 4 man running stealth Ravens who just want to try to cap out the game.
The Noisiel Summer Games are held on the world of Noisiel III in the Lyran Commonwealth. It is a twelve day event in which Mechwarriors engage in a multitude of competitions. This includes Mech scale rugby, hockey, football, baseball, and chess. The focus of the games is firmly about piloting finesse and less about shooty-shooty boom-boom.
TL:DR; the MWO community at large is ass at the game on purpose, but the game is the best it’s ever been, mechanically. This is pretty much applicable to every multiplayer game nowadays, so if you can handle people being people, jump back in and get your stomp on. Still plenty of time to farm up all those stocking stuffer loot bags.
Players in MWO are turning off/ignoring chat, not watching kill feeds or score lines, not playing objectives, not examining their damage outputs, building boats/one trick ponies and then dumping ammo outside of maximum ranges, ignoring friendly UAV data, ignoring their maps completely, not targeting with R, etc., etc., etc. I see these in nearly every single game I play. It’s egregious. I’m not talking about shooting skill; that’s a whole nother ball of wax that is definitely way harder than any of the other stuff going on in the game. People are ignoring game mechanics to the detriment of their team and not caring, and still playing. How do I know? I keep seeing the same people in matchmaking. People are heavily voting in favor of skirmish and Alpine (when it shows), because it’s the easiest way to Play The Way They Want To Play.
And that’s kinda the crux of it, isn’t it? It’s not toxic to be bad at a videogame, not at all, it’s not something you can or even want to regulate. Incentivizing better play doesn’t work, though; every single modern game rewards wins more than losses, but that just doesn’t change player behavior for the better. MWO gives you way more cash if you win, along with small bonuses for formation play, assists, etc. People don’t care.
What about matchmaking improvements? Well, if you have played any other team games for a period of time, you already know the answer to this; all matchmaking sucks. It has always sucked. There is no such thing as a good matchmaker. Whether it’s because of too many human variables to account for, or whatever, it all sucks. The best you can do is group up with as many people as the game allows to try and at least guarantee that some people are at least going to contribute to the team.
This is all so fucking frustrating because all these multiplayer games have the same problem, but they are all so mechanically solid and fun to play. Including MWO! The game I left years ago is so much better now.
But it can be miserable to play.
I had the absolute worst MWO game of my life a couple nights ago.
I’m in my Nightstar-10p. At the back of the group, but I’m circling left to get some flanking shots in, to be the lead if the team wants to swing. I get pinged by a stealth mech’s ppc, and my ecm switched off. Then I get narced. For the rest of my alive time that game, I ate LRMs. My ECM never got to switch back on. I begged for help in chat, using the help ping, too. Tried desperately to stick to cover, but there wasn’t enough. With my mech half busted, I tried walking close to my teammates to try and visually signal with the missile rain and my smoking soon-to-be scrap heap that holy shit please help.
It didn’t matter. I dropped dead, having fed the enemy team free damage while doing none, and my team didn’t move. I mean, literally, everyone wasn’t moving. Just standing there. Staring at the hill/structure in front of them, waiting for enemy blips to pop up. Except, who was supposed to get those blips? Even the light mechs were just, parked next to the big boys, looking at dirt. No one cared or even seemed to be playing.
And then the NARC warning lit up on the LRM boat I was spectating. Got plunked by a PPC from behind. The player didn’t move. I blinked, quit to desktop, and went to read some TROs.
On a side note, an ex-comp team member of mine posted an Annihilator guide on the Steam forums, and it's incredibly detailed.
Too many people in VC just... being obnoxious or wrong or screeching into the mic with no input.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
Yes, and not particularly (IMO). It does change the game a bunch and can be frustrating! Personally I turn off pilot fatigue as I hate it, I left everything else on I think.
I did it, and I am pretty tech illiterate. Just find and follow a YouTube install instruction.
BEX is lots of fun. About to hit 3048, mostly just annoyed how early I started and how I need to keep taking missions purely to keep my pilots from losing mech affinities because I want them at their peak for Clan arrival.
You need to turn off fatigue (and mech affinities) before starting a campaign/career, FYI.
https://www.polygon.com/tabletop-games/23538869/battletech-sales-numbers-2022
Any suggestions for the campaign? Should I focus on the campaign missions or take my time? Doesn't look like there's time limits so that's nice.
Definitely take your time. I enjoy building up a huge cash vault then spending time system hopping to find new toys to upgrade the team with. I can't help but think of it in terms of an actual merc company; fight your ass off, get some R and R, go back in fresh and beefed up.
I have a Stalker build I really like. It's the variant that strips one of the LRM launchers. I pulled that off and threw another SRM6 on it, and shoved in more heatsinks. It's a brutal Flashman++ that can very nearly kill any medium mech in one alpha strike, and have the armor and firepower to pull bigger mechs into pieces very quickly. I call him "Shredder" because he does just that.
However, my multiple attempts to get it running on my current Win10 have all failed. I tried the different sources, followed multiple apparently-recent "how to get it working!" guides, nada. Real shame.
https://www.nexusmods.com/mechwarrior4/mods/3?tab=description
I did get it to run once... thinking I had cracked it I closed it, then ran it again, just to confirm it worked, but nope, that one time I got lucky. More fool me for not taking advantage of it.
I’ll try to get a summary after it’s done
“Dad, are you going to play stompybots?” Gave way to “Dad I want to play stompybots with you - I’ll control the missiles and the big gun.” Eventually this was bound to happen:
*picks a mech with neither missiles or big guns*
Let's go kiddo.
Discoballhunchbacksayswhat?
Fire enough small guns and it's like firing a big gun!
Just saying, the mech on the screen has two medium lasers, two small lasers and a quartet of machine guns.
I don't think any of those count as a "big gun".
And even if you add them altogether, I don't think they'd add up to one big-gun like the swayback.
Those clanners aren't going to stomp themselves... mostly.
I tried using a firestarter and got “oh.
“Actually I can play and you can watch now”
Little guy still doesn’t quite get steer with legs, aim with torso, but he’s learning. Just need to work on that whole “reading” thing.
Perfect way for him to learn how to read. He might not know how to read the word cat, but he'll be able to read the word Cataphract
Steam: betsuni7
Can't wait for him to see a Timberwolf and try to decide if it's a Marauder or a Catapult.
He will get a kick out of that!
One of the things that hooked him was when I’d call out what the mechs were named and could explain what role they were for - and now he’s trying to memorize them and help me with situational awareness.
“Dad, that’s a Panther! Shoot it’s right arm.”
“Dad, that looks like a Maderer <sic>, watch out for PPCs!”
“Dad, that’s a Cyclops! Get it so we can get it’s computer!”
I wish I could awesome this twice.
Steam: betsuni7
Really wish PGI had put in the effort to support VR natively. What a missed opportunity IMO.
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