Mechwarrior online

[generalripphook]

Anyone playing? Its super fun!

 

My pilot name is generalripphook

[Brother Glacius]

I'm still playing, although Neverwinter has really sucked me in lately. I'm part of a nice casual Kurita unit. They play fairly regularly. Let me know if you are interested.

[generalripphook]

I am already in Clan Wolf

[Guest]

Downloading, I'll give it a shot...

[Justjokin]

I really like this game, but haven't logged on for sometime.  Justjokin is my pilot name.  

[generalripphook]

Well Ill add ya.

[Duckman]

Is PGI actually supporting their customers now?  I participated a long time ago but quit when PGI went through a long period of lying to their customer base (raising cash by selling chassis and such and then pre-selling clan mechs which they delayed for months and months).  The final straw was when they basically started banning people for disagreeing with their design choices in the forums.  I was not banned and in theory still have an account and everything but as one of those who disagreed with a lot of their choices at the time I didn't feel the need to stick around and support them and on top of that they went through a period where their physics engine made it *really* bad to play with people who were laggy and players started running torrents while playing specifically to handycap their opponents.

 

I will admit that I enjoyed their premise and if they ever managed to right the ship I might be willing to give them another chance.  Opinions?  Worth going back?

[generalripphook]

Its really awesome. You can join a clan and as you fight the map flucuates and the clans have a very cool roleplaying apect.

[Guest]

Playing this one for now. My pilot name is "Brother Paxton"

[Guest]

Game is too much for me. Between choppy graphics on my lap top, intentionally lacking mouse control, and a complete lack of in-game explanations of various features, I'm just not having fun. It is very much one of those games you want to enjoy more than it is enjoyable.

[generalripphook]

Ah I am sorry to hear that pax.

 

The thing i really like about it is coming from a battletech history I understand a lot of their refrences and see all the detail they have put into it. I really enjoy the clan mechanics too. Joining clan wolf ey have a bunch of levels of initiation and trials of position and really a great roleplaying aspect to the game that makes it pretty awesome.

[Duckman]

How did they handle clans?  Are the trials all NPC or PC or what?  (I assume PC given the basic core of the game.)  Are the clan bits actually being managed by PGI or is that all being managed by the players in the Clans?  Has PGI actually provided the tools necessary to manage trials and unbalanced drops (clan lance vs. merc lance for example)?

 

Back when they started working on the clans they actually force disbanded every "guild" which was named for a Clan.  I happened to be part of Clan Wolverine (with all the history that implied if you know the lore).  We ran our own trials and stuff (by spending hours trying to get sync-drops since PGI refused to support any kind of planned matchmaking) and to have them force-disband us because of the name was part of what caused people to rain a [big bad swear word]-storm on their forums.  (And we were far from the only clan hit.)

[generalripphook]

They are all player run. But they have matchmaking as groups and you can set up private groups.

 

Some clans are very laxidazical about the roleplaying aspect and you can also just join a clan and diddle around. But if you wanna actually be serious about it each one has a forum and teamspeak and group drops and teams, galaxies and depth.

[Brother Glacius]

Clans are for pussies. PGI needs to fix match ups for IS vs clan. Until they do that, community warfare is a joke.

[generalripphook]

There is inner sphere versus clan matches. I have most definitely fought innner sphere forces with the clan.

[Duckman]

Ok, it's clear that PGI's website is no more useful than it was when I was playing long ago...  In fact, Smurfy's mech builder tells me more about the state of the game than anything else.  They finally got PPC EMP effects in game.  They have a heat penalty in place for Alpha strikes (I knew this was coming but didn't stick around until they got it built).

 

I can tell they have implemented a multi-mech drop option but I can't tell if it is the only option now or if they still offer a single-mech conquest drop like we were using back in 2012.  I can also tell that they have implemented some sort of dropship mechanic but I can't tell if it is present in all matches or not.

 

What does a standard PUG drop entail (i.e. how many mechs do I ready, am I guaranteed an all-clan or all-IS drop, does clan drop in stars while IS drops in lances)?  I have not gone through the numbers from Smurfy closely but clearly the clantech is better than IS tech numberswise and the most recent forum post I have seen implies that clantech is not allowed on IS chassis.

 

How well are they supporting the lore of Clan vs. IS these days?

[generalripphook]

They still have everyone dropping in lances of 4. With 12 on each side.

 

Community warfare can be clan on clan and IS on IS and clan on IS it all depends on who is fighting who at the moments.

 

Statistically clan stuff may be better...but I have definitely lost clan versus IS battles.

 

In a normal drop (not Community warfare) you get one mech. In clan warfare you get 4 mechs of your choice.

[Duckman]

Ok, I got back into my account and am online once in a while.  IGN is Rakashan.  You can find me if I am not busy in my mechlab trying to rebuild all the things that are no longer valid after all the changes.

[Brother Glacius]

Where to start? State of the game maybe?

Play types:

 

Standard Drops:

Solo dropping means you are not part of a group. You will play against other solos only. This is a mix of clan and IS on each side. You will have a light lance, a medium-heavy lance, and an assault lance. You play on one of the 6? maps. And you play one of the three scenarios (conquest, assault, or skirmish).

Group dropping means you and at least one other up to 12, but not 11, are in a group. You drop only against other groups. Your company may be vs a single 12man, or up against multiple groups that add up to 12. Same as solo, the mix is IS and Clans. However, your makeup is a bit less controlled due to what your groups are bringing. Each group is restricted to 3 of any class size of mech. So you can't have more than 3 lights, or 3 mediums, etc.

 

Community Warfare: This is new, and is map based. You try to conquer or hold planets. You can solo or group drop into this. Matchups may take longer, depending on the planet you go to. Also, the planets that are available are determined by PGI I think. Instead of dropping one mech, you build a full lance of mechs between 160 and 240 tons. You select which mech to start in. If you are destroyed, or damaged to the point where you can't fight, you can eject and bring in another mech which starts at the drop point. Game is over when the mission is completed, or when all attackers are destroyed, or time runs out.

 

This is either attack or defend. I have seen two maps so far. The attacker wins if they can take out the main generator. To do this, they must first breach a gate by jumping it, or by destroying the gen next to it. If the gen is destroyed, the gate opens. Then you have to fight your way through the opponent, and the turrets, to take out several other smaller gens, before being allowed to attack the main one. You will fight either Clan vs IS, or IS vs IS based on the border the planet is on. I am not sure if clan vs clan is in the game, as I am in an IS faction.

 

here is the issue, PGI has done nothing to make the Clan vs IS matchups fair. Each side has the same number of mechs, and the same total tonnage allowed. Therefore, the Clans have a huge advantage every single game. Clan mechs are simply superior. It is possible to win vs Clans as IS, but it is a completely uphill battle the whole time. So if you like losing a lot, then play IS, if you like winning, play Clan.

 

New features:

IS quirks - in a move to try to balance the power between Clans and IS, IS mechs now have quirks. So basically, they have advantages that apply to specific aspects of the mech that are not supported by Battletech history. For example, a Dragon 1N has quirks that allow their AC5s to fire faster than normal. Some mechs have longer ranges, shorter cool downs, less heat, etc. Some are defensive in nature...more internal structure points, more armor, greater twist arcs, etc.

 

It does help. However, it also restricts the builds. You need to build to the quirk.

 

ECM is still too powerful in the game. It prevents locks, it hides mechs, and if the ECM is close enough to an enemy mech, than that mech can't lock on targets outside of the ECM either. And instead of reducing how strong ECM is, they just keep adding mechs that can take it.

 

You can counter ECM with your own, you can hit a target with a tag laser which will allow locks to occur as long as you hold the laser on the target, and you can Narc a mech. However, if you don't narc the mech with ECM, then ECM protects against narcs. For example, the Raven has ECM, and the hunchback is under its umbrella. If you narc the hunchback, you won't be able to target it. If you narc the raven, then you can target the raven.

 

LRMs have the potential to be very effective, but that is completely based on the amount of ECM your opponent has. So it is risky to take unless you have people helping you with locks.

 

It is a fun game. I play it almost daily. However, they still have more work to do on it. They need to change Clan rules for Community Warfare so that it matches battletech lore. I don't think you'll see that though. I think they will keep tweaking IS mechs or Clan weapons until they think it is balanced.