Mechwarrior Online

[shaq_mobile]

Bleh. Anyone else tried it out? To me it felt very sloppy, rushed and greedy. I got so frustrated with the store, price model and ONE round that I played, I just uninstalled it. The map was incredibly dark and nightvision was terrible. Combat was sloppy and confusing.

It's a shame they probably stole a lot of people from MWLL. I thought MWLL was much closer to what I imagined a MW game would look like, today.

[Dizik]

Although it's not an MMO, have you given Hawken a try?

[Mentawl]

I had such high hopes. But all they're interested in is monetizing Battletech.

[Scrotos]

Freebirth scum!

[Philldoe]

Yeah, great game actually. One round is not going to give you a proper introduction to the game. I've been playing since they did the Closed Beta. I will say that their way of doing ECM is total horse ****, but aside from that the game is quite nice.

MWO is a team game. Do not expect to do well unless you are co-ordinating with other people. Why? Because everyone else is doing so. If you are looking for a group to start playing with and learn from, shoot me a PM and I'll get you set up with my group. We have a website and Teamspeak. We have casual and Hardcore players running 4 and 8-man teams.

[Forge]

Freebirth scum!

That's MY line.

I have MWO installed and would not mind assembling a star.

[Philldoe]

We should set up a game night. I've got TS covered

[Scrotos]

I've been getting emails from MWO for a while, in the beta and all that, but too busy to give it a shot. I haven't played a mech game since Mechwarrior 2 + Ghost Bear (never got into Mercs). I should make time to give it a shot considering my investment in the #!@$ boardgame.

[rythex]

I was in the closed beta.. I had it uninstalled for a few months, it's pretty lame. Netcode is terrible. I reinstalled it a couple days ago.. still lame.. :/

It pretty much boils down to lamers running Jenners or some other light mech lagging around and shooting you while you have to aim 10 meters ahead on screen and pray you hit them.

For an online-only cash sink game, the netcode is junk.

The game modes are pretty terrible.. Capture the point and multiple capture the point ... (whoever reaches # points after whatever minute)

Game is pretty fun when its a M/H/A mech vs M/H/A mech, lights with the **** netcode make the game unbearable and cheesy.


Kid saves up enough for Jenner/Raven/Commando and whatever the biggest engine is, runs around and shoots stuff and doesn't get hit = profit.

The game should have been in closed beta for another year

[Philldoe]

The netcode issue is being blown out of proportion. I one shot lights with my 2x AC/20 Catapault K2 daily.

[shaq_mobile]

Maybe I'll give it another shot. I was just so frustrated with how bad/confusing the UI was and the lighting of that city map. It's just difficult because MWLL is so fun and it's ACTUALLY free, not "pay to get the good items". I'll give it another shot when I get tired of trying to find MWLL matches.

[shaq_mobile]

Although it's not an MMO, have you given Hawken a try?

No I haven't. Worth a shot?

[Philldoe]

Maybe I'll give it another shot. I was just so frustrated with how bad/confusing the UI was and the lighting of that city map. It's just difficult because MWLL is so fun and it's ACTUALLY free, not "pay to get the good items". I'll give it another shot when I get tired of trying to find MWLL matches.

You don't have to pay to get the good items. MWO is a Pay to not grind for a few days game. Not a Pay to Win game. They also have a recruit bonus that give you a ton of C-Bills for your first 25 matches, regardless of win/loss.

EDIT: All mechs and weapons can be bought with earnable game cash, you do not have to buy MC with real money to get anything aside from Hero mechs which are just normal game mechs with alternate crit slots. These mechs are no more powerful than any other mech. Take out the right shoulder or arm on the Hero Centurion and it's just become cannon fodder. Same with the Hero Cataphract.

[NovusBogus]

I'm a backer, was in closed beta, blah blah blah. The developer has good intentions but they don't have much experience making 'real' games and it shows. The "open beta" is really more of a public dev build where you can pay cash money get stuff quickly. Gameplay is actually pretty good when you get a good match going, but the mechanics are so simplistic that good matches almost never happen. There's no matchmaker to speak of which exacerbates all the other problems. They've got a new game mode now that's supposed to move away from "whichever 8 mech blob is more cohesive gets a steamroll victory" but the holidays and other games have had me too busy to try it out so can't comment either way about that.

It's got potential, but I agree with rythex that it should have been in closed beta for a lot longer. It just isn't anywhere near a finished product.

[MadManOriginal]

I got into tabletop Battletech ages ago. I have a bunch of rulebooks, tech readouts, scenario books, universe background books, and other bits and pieces in a box. When I was young I played games with friends or at hobby shops, or just read the books for fun. Just saying that to make clear I am (was - just haven't done anything with it in ages) a big and long-time Battletech fan.

There is one simple problem with all real-time Battletech games that attempt to translate the tabletop stats directly to real-time gameplay: the fact that players can aim, whereas in the tabletop game hit location was a probability based on die rolls. (2D6 so there was a bell curve distribution from 2-12; some die rolls were pure random 1D6 but not hit location.) This is exactly what rythex described.

This problem goes all the way back to the original Mechwarrior game. My favorite mech in that game was the Phoenix Hawk - I just headshotted enemies with the large laser. Now this is realistic from a Mechwarrior roleplaying point of view, but it simply does not work when weapons and armor are direct translations from the tabletop game. There are other things that don't translate well, like weapon cycle timing and heat management but those can usually be pretty well adjusted. Players aiming cannot be adjusted without making a game very few gamers would want to play. In MPBT 3025 one common tactics was to have a group of Blackjacks, a very crappy mech in the tabletop game but the only one with AC/2 - the longest range weapon - in MPBT, line up across an open field. When an enemy was nearing range, begin to backpedal, and everyone concentrate AC/2 fire on center torso or an ammo-carrying area. A lance of crappy Blackjacks could take out half a lance before it was in range to fire back but that wouldn't happen in the tabletop game because hit location is randomized. Legging was also a common tactic. Those are just a few examples of how this problem makes real-time Battletech a mess.

Until a Battletech game randomizes hit location there will always be this problem, and the amount of kludging weapon damage or armor to overcome it is not practical and wouldn't be balanced either. MPBT was fun, and probably the best first person Battletech/Mechwarrior game I played, but I don't see there ever being a good real-time Battletech game that has a chance of being successful.

[Hawkwing74]

Interesting post, I loved tabletop Battletech and played with friends and family over the years. I agree that the flaws you describe are difficult for an MMO or multiplayer PC game to overcome.

I kinda liked Mech Commander but that was a different type of game.

[Forge]

A good point, MMO. I remember breaking out MW3 at a LAN party, years and years ago, and being nearly ignored. Once I fired it up and ran like I did in SP, I was one-shotting legs off and people quit left and right. Finally the last few were all on the same playbook and it got very boring, very fast. The problem was exactly what you described.

[NovusBogus]

Accuracy is a very good point, many of the balance issues in MWO come down to the developer trying to use the tabletop values for everything while even novice players have no problem hitting center mass every time. Even headshots are pretty common because most of the mechs are the older more industrial-looking ones that have big giant cockpits. I never played the tabletop game but in MechCommander mechs tended to die from the outside in whereas in MW games, and especially MWO due to the mechs involved, mechs die by getting CT drilled out.

[shaq_mobile]

I guess what it comes down to is that I really like the idea of extreme customization. Lot's of games pretend to do that in one form or another, but ultimately steer away from it. Lots of MMOs feature talent systems that they eventually nerf/narrow so that you really just have two or three choices. Gear is all the same for everyone. Encounters have one and only one way to do them, typically. I just thought it was cool that you could customize your mech so much. You could even customize armor values. That's cool. I'd really enjoy a non pay-lots-to-have-fun or whatever model pay to play really turns into. $40, 10 maps, 3 modes, 20 mechs, 20 weapons with different subtypes, fully customizable mechs...

Hawken is okay, but its too simple. There isn't much customization and there were only two maps, I think? Two maps, a handful of mechs, 3 weapons. I did have fun, but there wasn't much to bring me back to it.