Ich les die inzwischen kaum noch mit echtem Interesse... Immer das gleiche blabla und der Antwort ausweichen...

Insbesondere der erste Post war ja absolutes Marketing-Gewäsch... Thema welche Punkte zum Release garantiert drin sind... Keine sinnvolle Antwort *lol*

Ask The Devs - 43 - Answers!

Question from Homeless Bill: How will the game at launch be different than it is currently, all aesthetic and balance features aside?

Answer from Bryan: A lot of new features are in production and will be rolling out to test servers and then production servers in the next 60 days. 12 v 12, DX 11, 3PV, First Victory of the Day, Engine Update, UI 2.0 and CW will all make debuts on test and then live servers IF they are fun and stable. UI 2.0 and CW are such large feature pushes, we have to be sure of their stability and balance before pushing live. You can expect to see these feature on the test servers shortly. Details on CW will be released slowly through August in a similar fashion as the UI threads. Where we post concepts and request feedback. The game will change dramatically through from now until the end of the year, with each of these major features coming online in stages when they are ready and thoroughly tested and balanced.




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Question from Mcgral18: Is there any plan to change the current heat threshold system, and how heatsinks increase the capacity as well as the rate of cooling? If we had a hard cap of 30, as per TT (which is subject to change after testing) it would prevent excessive alphas, since only 2 ERPPCs could fire before shutting down, assuming original heat values are reinstated. With the current boating penalties, 3 standard PPCs would also put you into a shutdown state, with 10 heat per PPC.

If the heatsinks cooled faster than they currently are, and more heatsinks add to that effect I feel the excessive alphas would decrease, and that chainfire would be needed for some of the current boating loadouts.

In sum, is there going to be any change in the current heat threshold system?


Along the same lines, asked by DEMAX51: Before the introduction of HSR, PPCs were given a reduction in heat and a buff to projectile speed to offset the hit-detection problems. Can you comment as to why those buffs were not rescinded prior to the implementation of the new heat scale? Personally, I think the recent changes have helped gameplay immensely, I'm just curious to know why PPCs weren't directly nerfed. Is this something that is still being considered?


Answer from Paul: There are no current plans to change the heat threshold towards TT values. Are we hard set against it? No, just at the moment there’s no need to do this.

Playing with a higher rate of cooling makes a lot more builds become heat neutral. A lot of heat neutral builds results in mid-range damage applied at a constant rate over time. This mechanism would be highly exploited by those with knowledge of building efficient heat neutral Mechs.


View PostPaul Inouye, on 26 July 2013 - 01:13 PM, said:



Sorry DEMAX51, bad edit on my part.

To directly answer your question, in the recent Creative Director Update, I mentioned that PPC/ERPPC will be going back up 1 base heat each. While this is a step in the right direction, it doesn't mean we have to stop tuning them at this point. All weapons are going to go through heavy screening from now through Launch and each patch will have some sort of update on any weapon in the game.



Answer from David: I would also like to mention that TT doesn’t really have a hard cap of 30. Yes, the TT heat scale goes from 0 to 30, but the big difference is how TT calculates heat. In TT, all heat generation and cooling is both instant and simultaneous. In TT, if you have 30 heat sinks, and fire two ER PPCs (which generate 15 heat each in TT), not only will you still be at 0 heat, but you’ll never have actually been at 30 heat (which would have forced an automatic shutdown). This is what we’re trying to simulate when heat sink increase the heat scale capacity.




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SerEdvard: Are there any plans to incentivize people to pilot mediums instead of heavies and assault mechs? Some examples of possible incentives: global 10% c-bill/XP bonus for all medium mechs, double GXP rate, tonnage drop restrictions, or kill/assist award multipliers based on tonnage differential...

Mediums are currently the rarest class on the battlefield when they should be the most common. Most teams are 5-6 assaults/heavies, 1-2 lights, and 1 medium (me!). More mediums would be truer to TT lore, create more dynamic battlefields, and naturally evolve away from the current boating and high alpha meta. (Hard to boat PPCs and gauss in a 50 ton medium, plus less total armor on the battlefield to melt away)

Answer from Paul: We are currently implementing some upgrades to the way Mediums and Lights will handle on the battlefield. This comes in the form of agility buffs in their quirk systems. For example, the mediums will have their torso twist speeds increased to help them track targets faster. As for rewarding the Mediums and Lights, a global straight up % increase in bonuses is not really fair but we will be looking at all the gameplay capabilities of the Medium/Light roles and rewarding those actions. Heavies and Assaults already have their damage/kills rewards. It’s time that Mediums/Lights start getting better rewarded for their abilities of detection and frontline support.

Another thing we are looking at (as you may have heard recently), is tonnage restrictions on teams. Each team will have a minimum and maximum tonnage that their total team weight will have to adhere to. This makes Mediums and Lights highly beneficial as it allows heavier Heavies and Assaults to be fielded. The great thing about tonnage limits is that it prevents an entire team to consist of all Heavies/Assaults.




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Question from Kazly: What are PGI’s plans to remove the speed cap? It was introduced because of problems, like HSR, that have been addressed (I think). I feel with collision coming (ATD42, ‘on hold till release’) speed cap is a significant factor for light/medium mechs with smaller load outs and less armor to become more viable among those in their same class, and in a game that is trending to high pinpoint alphas. Currently lights all travel about the same max speed, with the Cicada in the same group, and Trebs/Centurions right behind that number.

Answer from Paul: Medium and Light Mechs are being addressed as stated in the above response. However, when it comes to the actual top speeds, we are capable of increasing them right now. BUT! There is still the problem with hit detection and increasing speeds at this time has a high probability of exasperating the hit detection problem. That being said, we will be looking into what can be done about speeds while keeping in mind that a ) hit detection may become a bigger problem and b ) MASC is still on the horizon and pushing base speeds to high may end up being a bigger issue when it comes to how fast MASC actually affects speed.





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Question from JDH4mm3r: When will you give us more game modes to play around with? I mean it's getting boring playing only 2 modes and having something fresh and new and challenging might really perk the game up in some ways. One of the ideas behind it was to somehow make a mission mode where you have to actually complete the mission, as an an individual or as a team. There'd be two different scenarios on how to go about doing that, but thats just me throwing out ideas. Of course, you gotta actually complete the mission objectives and each level gets harder as you go.

Answer from Bryan: Missions modes are awesome, and something we’d look to add as a PVE component to MWO. PVE is a long term goal for MWO. Once we’ve got launch, CW, and Clans out of the way, our we’ll most likely look at PVE then. We have tons of great ideas, along with a huge amount of creative community ideas.





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Question from sdfvnre: What is the timeline for adding new game modes, like Dropship?

Answer from Paul: Game modes are in the queue. The delay at the moment is making sure the new modes will work with the changing landscapes of each of the new maps. To be efficient, we need to make sure that game modes work on as many (if not all) maps as possible. We are looking at ways of enhancing current game modes and possibly including weaponization of certain assets in the game. Sorry to be vague on this but I really don’t want to overpromise on what to expect before Launch.

Dropship has taken on the role of the pre-match lobby system that is on the horizon. Players will be able to bring up 4 (planned 4 for now, might have more) Mechs of a chosen weight class. Since the match has already been paired with the two teams involved, you would then be able to choose your ‘cool running Mech’ for the hot maps and your ‘more heat dependant Mech’ for the cooler maps. Further down the road we really want to give players the ability to choose cross weight class Mechs to bring on their dropship. That is a far stretch goal at the moment, but will always remain on the table for implementation pending time and resources.





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Question from Scarcer: Dear PGI, What are you planning, and doing to make the MWO experience more immersive?

Some good opportunities to make the game more immersive and competitive on the market are for example:•Ejection,

•1PV on foot experience of the Mech-lab, walking around the mech, going up the lift,

•1PV experience of getting into the cockpit; long term objective? (mechlab, dropship mode, attack defense mode.)

•1PV experience as part of the pre-match lobby where you can move around the control room of a hangar, jump-ship, or drop-ship, (Think Mechassault 2)

•A cinematic and drama driven experience for attack/defend mission types, etc, (Introductory scenes to drive emotion, to motivate the pilot so it feels real.)

•Operable mechbays and hangers, where you spawn, re-arm or repair,

•Since chassis' and parts have different manufacturers (And supposedly you're going to play weapon quirks off of this fact.) You could play out the whole service with the companies/retailers; the whole act of test driving a loaner model in the Testing Grounds, making the purchase with an e-signature linked to your c-bill account with a detailed invoice delivered to the in-box. The chassi should go through a shipping & delivery animation/cinematic with a brief wait time for the sake of in-game depth and realism. Shipping can be insta-rushed with a very minute c-bill cost for the sake of convenience.

•PvE,

•Castle/Commander experience via client, or tablets,

•Extra special goodies for enthusiast level gaming computers,

•A minimal, primitive form of melee,

•Display collisions, knockdowns, and engine blow-outs from 1PV in hardcore, rather than from 3rd person view, to make for a very dramatic experience.

•Music (In production?), perhaps also contract Jeehun Hwang for his proven emotional and nostalgic work from MW2.

Answer from Bryan: All of the above ideas are great immersive concepts, however there are some basic realities about what we are trying to accomplish with MWO. Walking around MechLab is a very cinematic and interactive experience, but has almost no bearing on making the game more functional. Eventually, once we a redone with the larger core features, our team can take time out to expand on the non-gameplay experiences, offering up more immersive concepts mentioned above. Most of the ideas presented here are in a wish list backlog that may see the light of day. But only once we are happy with a rich gameplay feature set.•A cinematic and drama driven experience for attack/defend mission types, etc, (Introductory scenes to drive emotion, to motivate the pilot so it feels real.)
[Bryan] Some of this would be part of a PVE experience, however I don’t want to get people’s hopes up. MWO is a multiplayer game first, and we’re focused on a solid multiplayer experience before offering any non-MP content.•Operable mechbays and hangers, where you spawn, re-arm or repair,
[Bryan] These ideas are part of potential new game modes we have in design•Since chassis' and parts have different manufacturers (And supposedly you're going to play weapon quirks off of this fact.) You could play out the whole service with the companies/retailers; the whole act of test driving a loaner model in the Testing Grounds, making the purchase with an e-signature linked to your c-bill account with a detailed invoice delivered to the in-box. The chassi should go through a shipping & delivery animation/cinematic with a brief wait time for the sake of in-game depth and realism. Shipping can be insta-rushed with a very minute c-bill cost for the sake of convenience.

•PvE,
[Bryan] See Paul's reply to sdfvnre's question above.•Castle/Commander experience via client, or tablets,
[Bryan] We are limited to Microsoft platforms. If this ever happened, it would be for a Windows platform device only.•Extra special goodies for enthusiast level gaming computers,

•A minimal, primitive form of melee,
[Bryan] Long term goal.•Display collisions, knockdowns, and engine blow-outs from 1PV in hardcore, rather than from 3rd person view, to make for a very dramatic experience.
[Bryan] Long term goal.•Music (In production?), perhaps also contract Jeehun Hwang for his proven emotional and nostalgic work from MW2.
[Bryan] In production.






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Question from Sybreed: What are you plans to promote mech character and personality? As of now, mechs feel like a number of hardpoints on 2 legs with no real distinctions between them, the quirk system did not work in that regard. Why would someone pick the Awesome 8Q or 9M when all Stalker variants do the same thing but better? Even with tonnage limits, the 5 tons difference between them is negligible. Also, the incoming Shadow Hawk will possibly obsolete the Hunchback 4G, having the ability to put an AC/20 where an AC/5 currently is.
edit: Battlemaster will also make the Awesome obsolete.
What are you planning to do to make each mechs more distinct between them?

Answer from David: Due to the nature of what makes up a Mech, as we add more and more of them to the game there is always a risk of one of them ending up to similar to another one. This is, obviously, something that we would like to avoid. We do our best to try and keep the hardpoints and quirks of similar tonnage Mechs different from each other. In fact, the hardpoint combinations of the Hunchback and the Shadow Hawk are quite different from each other, with the Hunchback capable of loadouts that the Shadow Hawk can’t handle (and vice versa).

I would like to investigate if there is more that we can add to differentiate Mechs, as we’re only ever going to be adding more Mechs to the game, but this is unlikely to happen before launch.





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Question from mint frog: Why aren't we seeing weekly challenges/achievements to retain players?

Answer from Bryan: The achievement system is coming with UI 2.0. We have a very expansive meta game in development right now that requires a large refactoring of our backend systems. Once complete, we will be able to add challenges/achievements, bundles, and all kinds of other reward goodies. In the short term players will be able to earn double XP for the first victory of the day on each owned `Mech.





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Question from zhajin: Can we get some clarification on the plans for missile tubes? And how they match to launchers?

Currently the newer models have complicated tube to launcher setups, such as the VTR-9S that has 3 lauchers, but tube configurations of 6, 4 and 2 (12 total). thus to get 12 missiles in all one volley you need to use a srm6, srm4 and srm2, rather than just 2 srm6s or 3 srm4s.

However the older models still use the old system, such as the CN9-A that has a similar layout of 3 launchers and 10 tubes, but can fire 3 srm6s all in one volley.

I understand that tubes are a way to limit the fire power, but this gives older models an advantage and newer models and overly complex system. why not just a system where you have x tubes available for all launchers? That should work for balancing all models.

Answer from David: Throughout the history of the game, our process of making Mechs has constantly evolved. In the beginning, all the weapons were modeled as part of the Mech’s chassis. That is, there was no way to show, say, the left torso without also showing the missile rack integrated into it. We also didn’t make any alternate weapons in either the default weapon locations or in any additional hardpoints the Mech may have beyond its default loadout. This is because some of the earliest design decisions, under which these Mechs were built, involved no swapping of weapons.

So this leads to the CN9-A which, as you say, can fire 3 SRM 6’s in one volley, but you also have the AWS-9M which is currently limited to firing all of its missile weapons out of two-tube launchers.

As we progressed, we began to make more and more alternate weapon pieces for each Mech, to better reflect customized loadouts. (Due to the resources required to keep making new Mechs, we’ve had little time to retrofit older Mechs, but we haven’t forgotten about them.) As we began to produce more and more pieces for each Mech we started to butt against two limitations.

The first problem is manpower. Each piece takes time to concept, model, texture, etc, and this was dramatically increasing the amount of time the art team spent making each Mech. The second problem is technical. Each piece requires space on the texture sheet. If we have too many pieces we end up having to either increase the size of the texture sheet, which impacts performance, or to lower the texture density/resolution, which lowers the visual standard of the game.

Design wise, we’ve been continually trying to make do as best as possible under whatever the current constraints are while putting a Mech together. There are also a number of stylistic choices that are a mix of art and design. With the Victor, we didn’t want to bulk up its torso with additional missile boxes attached to the side, so all the missile launchers were embedded in the torso. But there’s only so much real estate to place them all. And there’s the fact that the focus of the Victor models is the big ballistic weapon in the right arm. None of them, by default, come with more than one missile weapon. So, within the universe of the game, modifying them to fit two or even three would require a fair degree of hard work and best fit solutions.





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Chronojam: How come we always fail to find a match in the 8-man queue, has PGI realized why we fail to find a match so often, and is there a plan to rectify this problem?

Answer from Paul: 8-man matches fail approximately 25-30% of the time.

We’ve known why the 8-man queue is suffering for quite a while. The number of teams lining up for 8-man games isn’t high enough for consistent match making. What’s causing that? Team imbalance in terms of weight and over use of the “sniper/longrange” meta.

Due to time constraints caused by the development of key features that have been steadily pushed out, certain other features took higher priority over addressing the issue. This is slowly starting to change as you should be able to surmise by the information trickle about lobbies and tonnage limits. It’s going to take a combination of fairly significant new features to get 8-man queues back into play. Once we get tonnage restrictions working properly in game, along with the current heatscale mechanism cutting back on the cookie cutter ‘cheeze’ builds, 8-man games should become a very organized experience with both in and out of match strategies making a difference.





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Question from StalaggtIKE: Information warfare


InnerSphereNews said:


At its heart, Information Warfare is about controlling the flow of information on the battlefield.•Knowing where your enemy is.

•Knowing the current status of your enemy.

•Understanding your enemy’s intentions.

•Sharing information between units.
We have not heard much about IW for a while now. Currently most of all the IW tools we have ingame are passive, or require very little input from the user:•ECM decreases radar range

•BAP negates ECM and extends radar range

•UAV gathers intel for set time

•seismic pick up nearby enemies
All of these tools involves a user simply equipping and turning on for the duration of battle.


Q: Will we be seeing tools that require more proactive usage, such as active and passive radar? Where a user reaps benefits because he is a better/smarter player, and not by simply equipping a better tool? What kind of improvements and/or changes can we expect in the future for IW?
Source: DEV BLOG 2 - INFORMATION WARFARE

Answer from David: I would like to think that the UAV requires the knowledge and skill of when and where to place it, as well as the potential risk involved in travelling to the location where you want to launch it, but Information Warfare could probably stand to have a new design pass. This wouldn’t necessarily be to make sweeping changes, but to add the sort of features that reward the skilled scout/spy. We have ideas for some changes along those lines, including (potentially) active and passive radar. But there is no timetable for them at the moment.

Ask The Devs 46 - Answered!

Question from Toong: When 3rd person was first mentioned, and again when it was implemented, there were a lot of people who complained that they felt they weren't being listened to. PGI's response to this was that the forum community is only a small fraction of the total community, and a good majority of the playerbase hardly communicates at all. I don't doubt this to be true, but it did get me thinking about this unheard majority, so my question is this:

Do you guys have any thoughts or future plans for possibly encouraging more people to actively participate in the community? Things like, just off the top of my head, forum/client integration, occasional surveys upon login, or maybe some kind of minor reward system for people who communicate in positive ways? I think having a more representative chunk of the playerbase talking to itself and PGI would be a positive thing, and would maybe help people to realize that their opinions are not the only ones.

Answer from Bryan: First off let me preface this reply with one comment. We are not ignoring the more popular questions, rather we have already made several official statements that respond directly to why there are no separated queues. I also invite you to listen to part two of a recent podcast I did with NGNG for a longer explanation and some future direction: http://www.nogutsnog...opic,930.0.html

I picked this question because it was refreshing and actually progressed the conversation in a new way.

A clientside survey system is a very interesting concept, and one I’ve seen used in other products. I think there is real benefit offering a small reward for participation, and you would be able to get a much better - widespread profile of what your demographic wants. We can also tailor the questions to specific demographics. Ie) we could ask new players about the new user experience, but exclude anyone over a certain number of matches played.

I also believe there is a way for us to use an up-voting system on the forums to help guide which features are more important for development. SOE ran an experiment with their PS2 roadmap. Most of the features we content or minor updates, but they allowed the player base to help guide the direction of these minor adjustments. I think this may be another piece of the communication puzzle that will help connect the player needs with the development of the game.




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Question from Monsoon: What can we expect for Launch? If there's no CW, UI.20, Lobbies or Training Grounds what will make it a Launch versus just another day in Beta?

Answer from Bryan: You can expect development to continue a steady pace with new features, tuning, bug fixes, and content being released 2-3 times per month.

In the world of online development, where development of new features and content never really ends, Launch is a really just ceremonial milestone. Online development has very little in common with tradition retail box products, where little future work is done once you “Launch.” Going from Closed Beta to Open Beta is arguably a much bigger deal than launch because we no longer reset the game data and everything a player would do from that point on was permanent. For launch we feel the game has achieved a natural balance and stability that warrants the Beta title to be removed. Nothing else changes in terms of how we build, test, or deliver features once we launch, other than natural evolution in development practices.

We have a full slate of features coming out in the next 3 months, among the UI 2.0, CW, and other major features players have been requesting. We plan to reveal some details about these, including previews starting with the Launch Party later this month.




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Question from StalaggtIKE: ERPPC and PPC have a max alpha of 2, allowing for full 20pts of damage immediately upon impact. LLaser is also limited to 2, however, it only allows for 18pts of damage (that is if you can maintain both lasers on target throughout the full duration of the beam). ERPPC and PPC is simply the better large energy choice since it has greater range and better recycle time than the LL (3.25 sec recycle time + 1 sec laser burn versus PPC's 4 sec recycle time). If instead LL had a max alpha of 3 or 4, it would become a more viable choice. The same can be said for ERLL and LPL that run considerably hot already. Can we expect a balance passover in the near future concerning max alphas, preferably with an increase in max alpha for weapons such as LL?

Answer from Paul: Heat Scale on affected weapons is always being monitored. The large laser class (LL,ERLL,LPL) will be adjusted in smaller increments over time as will all weapons affected by Heat Scale.




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Question from 101011: Could one of the developers please explain a little piece of ‘mech economics: selling ‘mechs? According to BT lore, the Battlemech is a highly valuable piece of machinery, a weapon of incredible power and destruction, and an incredibly important vehicle in any Great House’s armies. So why is it that in MW: O, when I go to sell my incredibly powerful killing machine, I get paid 20.42% of what I paid for my stock chassis? If you factor in the upgrades (ES, DHS, etc.) though, you get an amazing 12.47%! Who am I selling my precious ‘mech to if all they give me is 12.5% of what I paid? When you have a 40-hour playtime to get a ‘top tier’ ‘mech, why do you then have to sell it for such a low price?

Answer from Paul: Game economics doesn't follow your typical supply demand economy. It is important to drain currency where possible to avoid an inflated economy where prices would be in constant flux to make up for it.

Answer from David: Also, keep in mind that when you bought your Mech, you paid for both the chassis and all the equipment on it. That equipment (especially large XL engines) can add up to often be worth more than the chassis itself. If you sell back a stock Mech, and choose the option to sell back all the equipment at the same time, you’ll get around 50% of your C-Bills back.




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Question from Wales Grey: How did you get enough data within a week to declare 3pv a success, …?

Answer from Bryan: We track many different metrics, including retention and conversion. Both of these were affected immediately with significant upticks with new players. We’ve also seen the number of matches played by new players go up since 3PV was introduced. We continue to monitor our analytics of course, and will be able to make a final assessment after 30 days of 3PV being live.




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Question from Zolaz: Why are Founders not your target demographic any more?

Answer from Bryan: They are part of our target demographics, but not the only part. We have been working hard on getting features into the game that will make more “Founder” players. These new user features ease players into the MechWarrior experience, so they have a chance to become those core players! Now that we have achieved most of these new user items, or have them well in development, we have switch our focus back to the core user base and will be releasing a steady supply of core content! These include features like Private Matches, Lobby, Chat Systems, new UI, more game modes, Community Warfare and more!




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Question from Sybreed: What is currently being done to fix NARC? As someone who tried to use it many times, I know it is severely lacking in utility and the main culprit is the beacon HP. In any kind of teamfights, a single beacon will last less than 1-2 seconds as damage will come from many sources and take the beacon off. Since it weights 4 tons, needs ammo, needs to be aimed and fired at someone, there really should be more benefits to using such a piece of equipment. Removing the HP per beacon and giving a flat duration would make the equipment a thousand times more appealing to use. In the end, role warfare would greatly benefit from having a viable NARC.

Also, another feature that would make NARC more useful is giving SRMs a "soft-lock" mechanism when fired on a NARCed target. By this, I mean they act a little more like SSRMs, but are perhaps easier to dodge (are less "seeking" capable). I know this is probably difficult to code so I'm just throwing the idea out there... the Kintaro kind of inspired it.


Answer from Paul: We've been holding off on NARC improving the tracking of missiles waiting for hits to be detected more reliably. We still have a ways to go in terms of missile hit detection but the notion of NARC giving a slight tracking ability to SRMs has been on the drawing board for quite a while. I personally agree that the NARC could use a health boost before it gets knocked off. With LRMs the way they are currently, it would probably benefit from a slight boost.




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Question from Toltecher: Could we get sprites for the trees instead of removing them entirely at their current draw-distance? (e.g. when beyond the model draw-distance that's determined by graphics setting, then replace the models with sprites)

This would alleviate the issue of players with higher graphics settings being seen by players with low graphics settings when the trees should obscure line-of-sight for all players (regardless of ECM). It would give a tactical purpose to vegetation, maintain pretty visuals, remove player confusion, and would retain resource optimization for supported hardware specifications.

Answer from Kevin: Visually, it’s not as good as we want it to be, but until we get some performance wins in other areas (Mechs, HUD) it’ll be pretty much a non-starter for adding new tree-sprites for other trees, extending the distances that the trees render, or allowing more tree types to render for low spec. The question for whether or not we include a tree type on low spec, and how far that tree should render from the camera, are almost completely gameplay based. Generally, people playing on low spec are going to have the same large tree in between them and the Mech they are fighting as someone playing on high spec, but the high spec guy will have a bunch of shrubs, smaller trees, and grass as well. We don’t think that it gives competitive players who are running low spec a ridiculously unfair advantage, compared to the cost of losing all those players who are just scraping by at 25fps on low spec right now – at least no more of an advantage than having no depth of field, no shadows, thinner particles, etc…

We shouldn’t underestimate the cost of sprites vs. nothing at all, and how low we want our low-spec to reach. On the level side, we are far more constrained by draw calls than poly count so adding sprites actually hurts us pretty bad. Currently the only tree types that use sprites are our low poly trees way off in the background mountain in forest colony, and even those have to peel out for low spec at a few hundred meters, while we’re right at the top of our draw call limit (~2000) for the level on low spec. More likely than adding a sprite distance, we’ll be looking at slightly increasing the draw distance for those few trees that are important enough to be on low spec at all, since our furthest Level of Detail for our regular trees are already quite optimized on the draw call front (single material, no shadows low spec), and don’t use alpha like a sprite does, at the expense of being ~300 triangles more expensive than a card and receiving light – two things I care less about when optimizing the level for low spec.





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Question from Hellen Wheels: A quick one for DEVS of MAPS: FROZEN CITY NIGHT Where does the light source come from in the tunnel?

It's night everywhere in the map, except in the tunnel which is so bright. The map could be grey shaded if some light comes from the moon shown in picture below but the tunnel should be pitch black and this is where we should have some fun having no other choice than using Night/Heat Vision to see something.

Answer from Kevin: It’s coming from an Environment Probe that is set too brightly for this level. That screenshot is old, and it’s not that bright anymore (the level or the environment probe) but it is still incorrect. I’ll make a task for myself to go through Frozen City Night to see about removing the in-crevasse environment probes completely, and what our options would be to darken the base of the crevasse (different dark environment probes, negative lights, darker material, etc…).

We like that it’s not too dark in there, because it has lots of neat bounce light coming from the more polished interior of the crevasse (as opposed to the more “fallen snow” exterior), so I don’t think we’ll be aiming to get it so dark that it requires night vision mode, but we agree that it would look a bit better darker, and that the additional light shouldn’t be there at all.

Ask The Devs 47 - Answered!

Question form van Uber: Could you please stop spreading detailed information about the game across the internet without posting the relevant information on mwomercs.com?

I think most here understand the need to deliver new information to other sources, no one wants to deny you that possibility. It's just that whenever you do that, it would be extremely appreciated if you could do a writeup or summary of that particular information, ie a bit more than a link to a podcast.

For instance, there is roughly three hours of verbal interview with Bryan at NGNG, but none of that vital information is available here, unless you count the valiant effort from the community (thanks to Peiper) to create a transcript.
mwomerc.com should alway be the primary source of information, it does not have to be published here first, but it should always be, to some extent, published here.

Along those lines, Bryan mentioned in the NGNG interview that he wanted to know what PGI did wrong in communication (not sure if completely accurate, I've just read second hand information of this). Not posting information revealed trough other sources is one of those things. Another would be the silence. There should not be a contest between "getting the game out" and "communication", you need to start seeing them as equally important. Not communicating is potentially even more hurtful than missing deadlines. As IqfishLP puts it in regards to the recent PGI post about UI 2.0 history:

View PostIqfishLP, on 11 September 2013 - 02:24 PM, said:


Why don’t you get an employee to write down a page of stuff that he is working on every week?



It's a reasonable suggestion to ask one of you to share some information once a week and would have very little impact on your ability to deliver your product, but it would have an significant impact on the expectation management towards the community.


Answer from Bryan: Different messages require different forms of communication. A podcast is a great way to communicate emotion, or complex ideas that require the intonation of verbal speech. Often written words lack this context and can be misconstrued, and the messaging around those recent podcasts was far too delicate and tricky to be expressed in a written form.

We do continue to post regular, detailed information via these ATDs, and Command Chair posts, more than could be conveyed in a podcast for example. And we plan to release all of the glorious details touched on in the podcasts via posts here on the forums when we are done writing them up. I like to use our UI 2.0 threads as a great example of how forums should be used to communicate information.




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Question from Timuroslav: What Future Game modes can we expect? (~about~ mid Next year)
In example:
Asymetrical Warfare
Convoy
Drophship Hunt
Espionage & Escape
Protect the Ambassador
Search & Destroy
Tug-o-War


Answer from Paul: We are actively investigating various iterations of Attack and Defend. One team defends an objective while the other tries to conquer it. This is meant to help promote the feel of planetary conquest in Community Warfare.

Another “mode” per se that we’ve been looking at is the ability to chain a series of matches together in a gauntlet style of gameplay. For example, and yes, this is an example and not a promise... imagine dropping into a best of 3 matches, match 1 is against Team A, match 2 is against Team B, match 3 is against Team C. You get repaired between matches but you do not win anything until you defeat Team C. Think planetary conquest on this one too.

Many of the modes you have suggested rely on a respawn system which is something we’re not truly supporting. You may have heard of DropShip mode where players will be able to take up to 4 Mechs into a match. This is something that is still on deck but will require a rather significant amount of resources on all three fronts of the game (gameplay, UI, backend Match Making) There is no ETA for this at the moment.




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Question from MizarPanzer: When are you going to implement a more diversified pilot tree, for instance replace speed tweak from Atlas and instead replace it with an armor tweak?


Answer from Paul: The pilot tree was designed with the mindset of what could a pilot do to his neurohelmet interface that could boost his interaction with his Mech. Think along the lines of chipping a car. You can get better HP, handling, fuel performance, etc. by chipping a car, but it’s not going to make your car any tougher. That being said, we will be adding more skills to this tree as soon as we can.




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Question from SaJeel: When/How do you guys plan on implementing role based rewards. I'm not asking for a specific date, just some insight into how this aspect is coming along, if its a priority, will it be in before lets say the end of the yea Currently there is no C-bill/exp incentive for a scout to scout, or for a player to defend their base, or for a player to attack, the only thing the game seems to reward heavily is component destruction. If you could also discuss how you plan to i guess encourage role based behavior, i wouldn't mind =D


Answer from Paul: This is currently a priority for the designers. While I can’t give you an ETA, I can tell you that it’s being looked at on a daily basis. We are putting together the stories (design requests in agile development) and prepping them for engineering review. We want to make sure that what we implement can focus on the various roles of combat instead of by-chance rewards. We will update you on this as it moves into development.




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Question from Butane9000: Since you confirmed the Timber wolfs/Mad Cats existence within game as well as having the design, concept art and modelling work done. What can you tell us of how the missile pods will work in regards to the damage skeleton? Will it have additional skeletal points or will the missile tubes be counted along with the arms and or torso?

This particular question has been on the forums for quite some time. The easiest solution would seem to give them additional damage modules on the skeleton. However that would make it unique in having what one could consider "additional health" as well as other issues. What exactly have you looked at in regards to this issue?


Answer from Bryan: I would love to give a longer answer, however we are working to solve many of the technical challenges associated to Clan technology. If you look to my answer below, we’ve allocated time very soon to solve these challenges. I look forward to addressing this question in the near future once we have an answer!




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Question from FactorlanP: Role Warfare - Recently, while explaining the adjustment in C-Bill earnings, an Atlas was referred to as a"Top Tier Avatar"
This language doesn't seem consistent with your previously stated design pillar that Every Mech Class would be viable on the battlefield and that MW:O would not be a race to the largest most powerful mechs

Has that design pillar changed, are Assault class mechs now considered to be "End Game Content"?

(Hopefully this tees you up to discuss plans to make each and every role viable and important on the battlefield. And by "viable and important", I mean... What are you doing to make it so a team actually WANTS every role represented when they drop into battle. It isn't enough to simply give additional bonus xp or c-bills for particular battlefield actions. There must be reasons why a team focused on winning would want or need that mech type included in the drop. Tweaks such as more torso twist don't seem to be doing much to improve Medium mechs, for instance.)


Answer from Bryan: An Atlas is the top end of the Assault spectrum. Assault class starts at 80 tons and go to 100 tons. With that logic in mind a starting Assault `Mech is not the Atlas, rather the Awesome or some other 80 ton assault chassis. So no, we’re not redefining, and saying there is a linear progression from Light to Assault, rather that every weight class should be viable AND still have a progression with that class range. By virtue of how our economy works, there CAN be a natural player progression from Light to Assault, which is not necessarily a bad thing, however it’s most definitely not a requirement with our Trial `Mech and Cadet Bonus systems.

As we continue to add more `Mech content each month, there are more options for players to buy entry level class `Mechs. With future updates we plan to continue adding more developmental content that feels like player progression within a class, role, and overall as a pilot.




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Question from Sojo: As a new player I am finding it tough to upgrade the chassis that I buy because of my C-Bill income which equals about 300k-400k an hour (not a great pilot yet and a bit off the stated average). What I'm finding hard to do is getting the basically required, for the most part, DHS and Endo (or Art) for mechs that I am trying out or working on eliting 3 variants. Much less extremely costly different engines for testing and fits.

The problem I'm finding, along with others in my group of new players, is that the investment of the structure upgrades (DHS/Endo/FF/Art) does not add to the sell factor of the mech and cannot be switched freely after purchase (Endo/Standard) for different build testing. If you don't take these upgrades during your elite grind you're severely gimping yourself/team and the grind becomes worse. Ex: No builds use SHS and DHS is basically a required 1.5mil tax on each new mech. Add to that the costs of equipment/weapons/engines and trying experimental builds makes this a mind numbingly long and painful grind-like experience.
If you have solidified the current state of C-Bill gain and the costs of upgrades, engines and weapons does not relate directly to MC profit for the company. Why not leave the cost of mechs the same and adjust C-Bill costs of weapons/upgrades? This would lead to more diversity on the battlefield and more enjoyment of the overall game experience while removing some of the grind.•Is there any plans to adjust the price down for these upgrades, engines & weapons since most are pretty much required purchases to be competitive? Or to allow the switching back and forth of upgrades for no cost after being upgraded.
•Any plans to look at the minimum earned per match since new players can have games back to back of around 27k a match. Increasing the minimum gained for players that stick around to learn from spectating would overall be better for the equipment grind as well as the playerbases' knowledge of the game. Also this would possibly entices people to purchase premium time more since it's currently not worth it for people with alot of low paying matches.


Answer from Bryan: The pricing design for upgrades was based on a labor model. We wanted to simulate the cost of a technician adding a removing these upgrades and the associate costs of doing so. Rather than make these and item that the player owned. Upgrades are advanced technology, and our goal was to make it mid to end game content for players that have experienced over 100 matches.

I can say we are definitely looking at the costs of upgrades right now. They are not indicative of where the economy is as a whole. We have not come to a final decision, however we believe the costs may be out of line with the progression of player development.

Also it’s important that we’ve never hidden the fact that our economy balances a fine line between too much grind and too little in an effort to encourage players to purchase a variety of MC items. Item pricing takes this into account.




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Question from Redshift2k5: Will November, December, etc see more than one mech released per month? With all four primary Project Pheonix mechs coming out in October, plus reinforcements in December.. If those mechs are all completed months ahead of their c-bill release date, will we see any additional mechs released during that time (ie, mechs being created during the span from October 2013 to Feb 2014?)


Answer from Bryan: We’ve created a nice little 3 month buffer to get ahead of our `Mech of The Month (MOTM) releases. This window was created and designed to allow us some time to experiment with Clan technologies and `Mechs. Our goal is to have the Clan starting lineup (4-6) `Mechs ready and completed for launch in the first two quarters of next year. So while we could focus on doubling up MOTM releases, we feel this time is going to be spent on Clan technologies.





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Question from ACfromDC: Have you thought about replacing the 2x XP Daily with a 50% extra C-bills/50% extra XP Daily instead?
With the recent adjustment to C-bill income, I believe a 50% extra C-bills/50% extra XP would be more beneficial for new and old players. Plus, it is the same bonus one would receive with premium time and would help show players the advantage of buying premium time.


Answer from Bryan: Honestly, we haven’t thought of changing the DXP bonus. The reason is mostly due to the why DXP is there in the first place. The goal of DXP is to encourage daily play across as many `Mechs as possible, without impacting the economy. Encouraging daily play helps players develop their skills and stay engaged over a longer period of time.

It’s also designed to encourage exploring the Pilot Lab and developing the each `Mech to a Master state. Don’t forget new players have access to nearly 8m in CB earnings across 25 matches, in addition to their regularly earnings. With the new UI, we’re going to be introducing Premium Time concepts via a training system.

I think this will be more effective in teaching players the value of Premium Time, which IMHO is a must have. From a personal side, DXP is really addictive. I jump on and play every day to grind out XP to unlock more potential in my new MOTM `Mechs.

Thema Pilot Tree... Wer findet den Fehler des schneller fahrenden Autos, weil der Fahrer denkt es fährt schneller? Ich mach mir jetzt Flammenzüge auf meinen Mech... müsste ja nochmal 10% geben... oO

Hmm ich beziehe mich auf die Antwort von den Devs, die du in diesem Zusammenhang vielleicht nochmal lesen solltest ;)

Zum Pilot Tree und mehr Armor. Man können das nicht einfach damit erklären das der besser ausweichen, den Schaden verteilen, oder ganz vermeiden kann mit dem Skillpunkt. Also die Ausrede warum es keinen Brawler Zweig gibt im Pilot Tree zieht nicht.

Das funktioniert sogar besser, als die Erklärung:

"Du denkst ans schnellere gehen und der Aktivator macht es sogar!11elf!!"

Die denken allerdings viele Dinge nicht zu Ende..

... Er sagt auf deutsch:
"Wir haben uns überlegt, wie die Mechs durch Modifikationen am NEUROHELM besser gesteuert werden können."
Am Mech wird 0, nada, niente, zero verändert...

Du kannst einen Atlas nicht mit deinen Gedanken schneller machen.

Deine Bewegungsbeeinflussungen bewirken aber nur, dass der Atlas seine maximale Geschwindigkeit besser halten kann, keine Steigerung.

Was das knappere anheben der Füße angeht, bezweifel ich, dass das mit dem Neurohelm geht, weil man normalerweise mit dem Neurohelm nur den Gleichgewichtssinn hat und mit den Pedalen die Beine steuert. (so wird es zumindest in allen mir bekannten battletech büchern beschrieben)

Ask The Devs 48 - Answered!

Question from FactorlanP: Clearly the Ask The Devs feature has been falling short in many people's eyes lately, and you seem to have nearly abandoned the Command Chair. Answers to questions are mostly vague non-answers, and aside from a single history lesson about UI2, you haven't posted anything in the Command Chair in September.
Would you consider simply scrapping the feature and replacing it with a regular (every other week) blog where you can give us information about something that is being worked on that you are ready to talk about instead?
It is incredibly frustrating to jump through all the hoops that make up Ask the Devs, only to be fed a series of unsatisfying non-answers.

Answer from Bryan: The goal of the ATD is to allow players to ask questions and interact with the developers. What I consistently see is a series of good questions that get solid answers mixed in with leading questions that don’t or get short answers. Questions can be opinion driven, and we usually avoid those as they are not objective.
An example could be – “I don’t like SSRMs, what are you doing to fix them!”
Often the leading questions end up with the most votes, which makes it difficult for us to answer with any depth. This is part of the reason we opted for this format. Even if something gets top vote, we can chose to not answer if the question serves to not further any reasonable discussion. Take this question as another example. The number one voted question was a complaint (and a good suggestion) about the ATD answers.
So that being said - I personally would have no issue with removing ATD altogether. I will discuss it with the devs and see what we can come up with. Question 3 is similar to this one, so I will lump the response in here. Yes, we can look to merge these ideas together.



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Question from Least Action Jackson: While reading the answers to ATD 47, I found myself troubled by some of the answers. One in particular that bugged me regarding the double XP First Win of the Day bonus was from Bryan: "It’s also designed to encourage exploring the Pilot Lab and developing the each `Mech to a Master state."


That struck me as a bit nonsensical, as the pilot tree is currently a perfunctory break-in period for a 'Mech, and is exactly the same for every 'Mech. There is no exploration involved whatsoever. I recall reading during closed beta, although I can't find the thread, so this is hearsay, that the pilot tree as it is now was a placeholder for something deeper and more interesting. The message I'm getting now is that the devs have abandoned this idea (if that was indeed the plan).

My question is: Are there any plans to change the pilot tree? Perhaps to something with a maximum number of skill points and more skill nodes than points (cf. Masteries in League of Legends), thus forcing the player to make a choice? The idea that the current system allows no freedom of customization, and is therefore redundant crops up on the forums periodically, but I feel I've never gotten a straight answer. Thanks!

Answer from Paul: As stated in AtD 47, we will be adding more items to the Pilot Tree as time allows. With the huge upcoming features (CW and UI2.0 for example) these new items are low priority as both design and engineering are focussed on the big fish at the moment. That being said, we will try to get a few more nuggets in the Pilot Tree soon™. The notion of having a limit to the number of unlocks is still on the drawing board. I think I know where you’re coming from, something similar to World of Warcraft’s talents where you have a finite amount of points to distribute across a series of talents but you will never have all of them. This leads to unique “builds” which is something we’ve been talking about since day one. Again, it’s something we’re still planning on doing and expanding on, just don’t have a concrete delivery timeframe for you at the moment.



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Question from MizarPanzer: Dear Devs, it's barely more than 2 weeks where the Phoenix mechs will be released. An they come with a 10% bonus to loyalty points.•Will you be able to finish the associated features with loyalty point before October 15th?

•Do you understand the potential negative reactions if you reach October15th without being able to release the associated features?

•Do you have any contingency plan in place in case you cannot meet the date?
Thank you.



Answer from Bryan: The good news is we already have the ability to track and earn loyalty points. It’s been in the game since we went Open Beta and could be turned on for October 15th. Our main concern is pretty straight forward. We’d prefer waiting to turn them on when players can actually pick their faction AND be matched against their enemies. Until this functionality happens we’re going to hold back adding and removing LP from player accounts.
From a contingency POV - we currently track the game rules that award and remove LP, we can easily replay our telemetry for several months and retroactively set a player’s standing with each of the factions. However, this may not be ideal, as players will have very little control over the accumulation of LP for the different factions and may start them off on a bad footing.
In the end, I feel most players will be understanding and know that the LP boost will come online in the near future when players can associate themselves officially with a faction and meet matched correctly. Players will have access to all the content they paid for and the added bonuses will automatically take effect when the remaining features are turned on.

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Question from HammerSwarm: The word on the forums is that the Flea was delayed because MASC was playing heck with the game engine. Mechs moving at too high a speed with too small a hitbox were too hard to hit and kill.


With the Flea turning 1 year old today (it was announced September 26th, 2012) I’d like to ask this question:

“What is the status of the Flea regarding its addition to the game, and what progress has been made regarding any hurdles that have prevented this Mech from being added for 365 calendar days?”

Please add this mech.

Answer from David: The good news is that the game is at a point where we can start to look at finally putting MASC into the game. And, once I finish up on the Phoenix Mechs, I’d like to try and devote some time to trying to make it happen. Now keep in mind that, just because the game can handle it, doesn’t mean that all we have to do is flick a switch to implement it. At the very least, there’s going to be engineering time to implement it, and then some time to balance out its benefits and drawbacks. I’d like to be able to give you an ETA but, at this point, it’s a little too early to call it. However, once it is working, we’ll be able to release the Flea as soon as we can fit it into the Mech schedule.

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Question from Alistair Winter: A lot of recent reviews, by fans and by big gaming websites, have pointed to MWO's lack of variety, particularly because it only has 2 game modes, which are quite similar to each other.


Game trailers said:
Quote
Despite the variety in mechs, repetition starts to sink in quickly. This is partly because there are only two game modes. (...) With only two modes and no larger framework linking any of the battles together, you'll soon see most of what Mechwarrior Online has to offer, and the pull of obtaining new things won't be enough to keep you playing."


Ten Ton Hammer gave MWO a 50/100 score in "Lasting Appeal" and wrote:
Quote
"As it stands right now though, the game is little more than a decent mech combat match grind. The game gets far too repetitive in terms of what you can actually do to give it any real lasting appeal."



We have some information about some ideas that you have regarding future game modes, but very little specific information and no clear estimated time for when new game modes will be tested, let alone implemented in the game.
Q: When can we expect a third game mode?

Answer from Paul: As mentioned in AtD 47, Attack/Defend is our next target. This is a more robust game mode that is asymmetrical and needs some engineering/art time outside of normal gameplay coding time. We do have engineering resources working on this at the moment and I will let you know more once I have further details on how big of a development impact this will have on our schedule.

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Question from Nikoliii: New User Experience - I've tried to get people into this game, but the tech curve/economic curve is too large. New Users are expected to drop into trial mechs and compete against flavor of the month setups or mechs that have every skill maxed out, critical upgrades (DHS), etc. You can explain the concepts as much as you can, but you aren't going to retain users if their first experiences with the game are walking out in a trial, firing three shots, overheating, and getting destroyed in less than 3 minutes. Most people I tell to try the game give it up before the cadet bonuses kick in. The few that do get to that point stop playing because it would take them too long to upgrade to the point where they can actually compete. Nobody wants to get stomped for the first 100 matches or so until they can upgrade their mech.


Have the developers considered a STOCK ONLY queue? This would not only improve the new user experience by allowing them to play without being drastically penalized for being new, but also allow the veteran pilots sick of "flavor of the month" builds a safe haven. This seems like an easy fix to a fairly large problem, plus it would increase the allure of champion/hero mechs (since they would offer a different loadout than the stock chassis).

Answer from Bryan: We have discussed allowing players this option, but not as part of the new user flow. We are currently working on a completely new onboarding process for the new user. This will come online after UI 2.0 and will ease players into the different aspects of MWO ranging from basic piloting, weapon, and heat management all the way up to advanced MechLab configurations. Part of this new system is the ability for us to reward players with items, XP and currency for completing specific tasks. There will be a mandatory tutorial and series of optional ones. By the end of the mandatory tutorial players will have a starter `Mech which eliminates the need to rely on Trial `Mechs. That being said Trial `Mechs will always be around to allow players the ability to test out new content for free.


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Question from Nick Drezary: In one of the previous ATD you've mentioned that you already have a concept art for Timberwolf, so... can we see it(pwety pwease)?

Answer form Paul: No. Absolutely not.



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Question from Homeless Bill: Just how low-priority is the reintroduction of collision at this point? Like, based on the current state of development, if you had to throw out a ballpark estimate of what month or quarter it would come back. Disclaimer: Neither I nor any other reader will pretend this is a promise or firm date; it's just what I asked for: a ballpark estimate based on the way things look internally right now.


Alternatively, if you feel like a time estimate isn't a good way to go, where is it in relative to other things on the priority list (e.g., after Community Warfare, but before Clans)?
Answer from Paul: Collisions are unfortunately very low priority at the moment. There are much bigger fish to fry before we get there. UI2.0 and CW are consuming most of our engineering resources and the netcode behind knockdowns would need a fairly significant rewrite to get it working properly. Remember, it wasn’t just an issue of knocking a Mech down, there were huge problems with the camera smashing through geometry and the knocked down Mech would be teleporting positions all over the place making it impossible to shoot. All of this would have to be readdressed to get knockdowns back into the game and as I said, this is low priority at the moment. However, your statement of after CW and before Clans would not be far off the intended target at which we look into it.



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Question from StalaggtIKE: Now that streaks and LRM have been fixed, can we expect to see ECM and BAP revisited? To make them less like hard counters and more as information warfare tools.

Answer from Paul: There are no plans at the moment to revisit the core mechanics of ECM/BAP. The numbers associated with them may or may not be tuned but the core is currently okay where they are at the moment.



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Question from Sable Dove: Can we get an ETA of when you're going to make a balance pass on the current mechs to bring some of the underachievers up to snuff?


For example, the RVN-2X and 4X are obsoleted almost completely by the 3L.
SDR-5V doesn't have anything that makes it worth taking over the 5D.
The AS7-D-DC is hands-down the best Atlas, though the D and RS are at least different enough to have a reason to use, even if they are slightly worse overall. The K is not so lucky, and there is no good reason to ever use it over any other variant.

Not to mention certain chassis are in need of buffs. The Awesome is probably one of the most-cited, but Commandos are easily one of the least common mechs around, because there is little reason to take them over any other light.

So when can we expect some sort of balancing effort both between variants, and between chassis? And are you willing to change hitboxes in order to improve certain mechs (Awesome, Catapult, Dragon, etc.)?

Answer from David: At the moment, I’m going over the Light Mechs, looking to improve those underachieving variants. One thing that I can say for sure is going to happen is that the max allowable engine is going to be increased for certain variants. This will allow them to travel faster than the current ~138 kph speed cap (~152 with Speed Tweak). The new potential max speed for these variants will be ~154 kph (~170 with Speed Tweak). I’ll also be looking at their maneuverability, torso twist angles and speed, etc in order to shore up their effectiveness.
When the Lights are done, the next group of Mechs will be either the Heavies or Assaults (as the Mediums have received a tuning pass relatively recently). In addition to tuning the usual aspects on those Mechs, I’ll be taking a look at their hitboxes, to try and ensure that their relative sizes are all in line with each other.


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Question from James Montana: What is the game content you are currently working on right now? Not content on a wish list, but right now.
Answer from Bryan:
UI 2.0 is the big one.
Community Warfare
User Drops – we’re tracking down an elusive backend communication problem.