mechwarrior online

600+ damage in an atlas in one game isn't odd. It should the norm...
But you know whats cool, my Shadowhawk doing 500+ damage (if i survive the round) and weighing in at 45% less than an atlas... And there are no Hero Shadowhawks yet.

And as someone who loves to get into a Spider occasionally, i've taken out a lot of heavies and assaults by sneaking up behind them. It's not that uncommon to do 500+ damage in have 2-4 kills in a spider also.
In 1-on-1 combat .. Spider > Atlas or Stalker. They can just run circles around them and hit them behind.
(now having a mech like an Archer, with a rear view camera and 2 rear lasers would be interesting)
 
So they announced Clan mechs which will be released in June and which so far have to be bought in packs starting at the low low price of $30 for a light and going all the way up to $240 for an assault, oh except the "gold" class mechs which cost up to $500 for who the fuck knows why. Now since this game is obviously not P2W, at least people who don't want to spend money will be able to buy Clan mechs in Ju... oh wait, whats that, they don't have a release date for c-bill mechs? but why wouldn't they have the same release date if the game isn't P2W.

So what do the apologists have to say?

Edit: Worst case, the way the developers are trying to monetize a game which has a fraction of features and game play promised before the game was launched is flat out fucking pathetic. I have already read a couple "Stop crying, you can use c-bills to buy them later" posts and it blows my fucking mind, given what they are charging. It should be real interesting to see just how much they are going to charge in c-bills for clan mechs whenever they finally get around to releasing them.

Edit 2: This game really is a train wreck and I stand by my prediction that in less then 12 months it is going to be damn near gone considering what they have delivered and what they are trying to fleece from people interested in Mechwarrior. Another thing someone pointed out, is why they have so many variants of clan mechs considering they are omni-mechs.
 
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Ok, so last week, I was defending the game as NOT pay to win. The announcement of the Clans changes everything about that. Everything. See, before, no matter what mech you were in,, the rules were the same. Everything was free, a ML was a ML, an LRM was a LRM. All free, all equally accessible.

Clan tech is a different set if rules. It is better tech. Period. That's the point of the clans. A 30 ton clan mech is BETTER than a 30 ton IS mech. It's faster, has more armor and weapons, more internal space and more efficient heat sinks. The weapons hit harder and ammo explosions are less catastrophic. These are mechs whose PURPOSE in the Battletech Lore was to present an overwhelming enemy to unite the IS.
And the only way to buy them? By spending hundreds of dollars. Come June, MWO becomes pay to win.

Unless they balance by numbers. So, for those not aware the clans always lowball the unit numbers brought into a fight. If they do unequal teams, clans vs IS and no mixed tech teams, then it would be fine, but there is no way in hell that's happening.

Also what the FUCK is someone going to do with 24 madcat variants!? What happened to its omnimech tech? And without UI2.0 how the hell are you going to search through them!?

What a joke.
 
so they spent their time developing clanners

and the goddamn game still freezes all the time

I'm just about done with this
 
So they announced Clan mechs which will be released in June and which so far have to be bought in packs starting at the low low price of $30 for a light and going all the way up to $240 for an assault, oh except the "gold" class mechs which cost up to $500 for who the fuck knows why. Now since this game is obviously not P2W, at least people who don't want to spend money will be able to buy Clan mechs in Ju... oh wait, whats that, they don't have a release date for c-bill mechs? but why wouldn't they have the same release date if the game isn't P2W.

So what do the apologists have to say?

Edit: Worst case, the way the developers are trying to monetize a game which has a fraction of features and game play promised before the game was launched is flat out fucking pathetic. I have already read a couple "Stop crying, you can use c-bills to buy them later" posts and it blows my fucking mind, given what they are charging. It should be real interesting to see just how much they are going to charge in c-bills for clan mechs whenever they finally get around to releasing them.

Edit 2: This game really is a train wreck and I stand by my prediction that in less then 12 months it is going to be damn near gone considering what they have delivered and what they are trying to fleece from people interested in Mechwarrior. Another thing someone pointed out, is why they have so many variants of clan mechs considering they are omni-mechs.

Holy shit, ease up with the attitude. The game flat out is not P2W. Otherwise my Blackjacks would not have rounds like this:

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For some reason people don't attribute luck and other peoples' ignorance as factors in this game when they are so much more important than any other fps I've ever played. If a team ignores my BJ-1 with 3 mediums lasers and a big honkin' AC20, they're going to pay. If I turn a corner and run into a Firebrand, Ilya Muromets, Yen-Lo-Wang and Heavy Metal who vaporize my shit instantly, that's just the luck of the draw. Those guys can all turn the next corner after killing me and run into a bunch of people in regular cbill mechs and get their mechs crushed. So who's going to cry p2w in that scenario?

Obviously some builds are very powerful and some of those builds end up on mechs purchased for real money instead of just in-game currency. If a player base decides that mech and build is the flavor of the month then that is just how it is. They've made sweeping changes to the game because of crap like that, otherwise this game would still be littered with 6 CTF-3D's in every match----before it went 12v12.

If they implemented the drop weight limit this game would be massively better because it would not be about short changing yourself with mechs that aren't assaults or heavies. That has a great deal to do with the actual and perceived balance of the game.

Anyways, just because they are doing that clan pack (which is expected) in the futuredoes not mean the current game is P2W. It doesn't validate anything to do with the argument at all because 1) We don't know how they'll play 2) The Phoenix mechs were fucking terrible 3) This is a F2P game that a developer needs funds to further develop.

Don't assume I agree with what they're doing. I don't agree with you that it is P2W but I sure as hell don't agree with their business model with the clans, either. I absolutely concur that the game will be all but dead in about a year from now based off of the excessive development time for practically everything.

But fact is, they need to incentivize things that people want. I wish they would have the cbill versions available 2-4 weeks after, of course, but I understand why they are doing it this way. The cost is high due to the development time for things up to this point and for the development time of things to come. That is business and it makes perfect sense. They just go about doing it in a rather shitty way.

Clan tech is a different set if rules. It is better tech. Period. That's the point of the clans. A 30 ton clan mech is BETTER than a 30 ton IS mech. It's faster, has more armor and weapons, more internal space and more efficient heat sinks. The weapons hit harder and ammo explosions are less catastrophic. These are mechs whose PURPOSE in the Battletech Lore was to present an overwhelming enemy to unite the IS.
And the only way to buy them? By spending hundreds of dollars. Come June, MWO becomes pay to win.

No. They've said more than once that clan tech in the game will be nothing representative of clan tech in the lore. You can't possibly balance that in a game. They're well aware of how the books had clan tech undoubtedly superior to IS tech, but that simply won't be the case in the game.

Unless they balance by numbers. So, for those not aware the clans always lowball the unit numbers brought into a fight. If they do unequal teams, clans vs IS and no mixed tech teams, then it would be fine, but there is no way in hell that's happening.

The game would be better with the drop weight limits that were supposed to be out, what a year ago now? That would help in the current game and the future game with the clan mechs for sure. There was talk of even using an era drop limiter, such as year 3025 mechs in a drop or 3047 mechs, which would be very interesting.

Also what the FUCK is someone going to do with 24 madcat variants!? What happened to its omnimech tech? And without UI2.0 how the hell are you going to search through them!?

What a joke.

24 Madcats? You're misreading it. Each "collection" tier they have has a specific champion version of the mechs listed plus 2 standard variants. It's exactly the same as how the Phoenix pack was featured, if that clarifies things a bit more.

Just so we're clear on my stance: if they do not offer the clan mechs in some near-immediate form after release in cbills then most of the argument against P2W is gone. The current game is not and has never been P2W---closer to a simple Pay To Play game than P2W since we are fronting their development costs. I love the game but my money for it is dried up and I refuse to shell out another dollar until they clearly define the clan mechs and actually release even 10% of the shit they keep on that stick out in front of us.
 
Yea, I notice now that the 24 mechs in the Madcat pack are different chassis. I was looking at it on my tablet, so no way to hover to see the details.

If you're right and they aren't making clan tech better, that's the point? What's the difference between tech? Just cosmetic? Just more mechs? Not pay to win then I guess, but its now just silly. So a clan ER ml is going to be the same as an IS ml? Or will there be no IS ml, and just clan ones? But that wouldn't be the same then.

Seriously, the art is cool and all, but they are really boning this launch. Seriously, $500 gold mechs!?

But yea, the promise to delivery ratio is starting to get ridiculous. The Command Chair forum is just embarrassing.
 
If you're right and they aren't making clan tech better, that's the point? What's the difference between tech? Just cosmetic? Just more mechs? Not pay to win then I guess, but its now just silly. So a clan ER ml is going to be the same as an IS ml? Or will there be no IS ml, and just clan ones? But that wouldn't be the same then.

I have no idea exactly what they are going to do but honestly, they don't have to make them more powerful in terms of damage at all. The omni mechs don't have hardpoints the way IS mechs do, which is a big part of the balancing concern, but that's a key difference right there. They also come default with DHS, FF armor and ES structures, meaning they'll take a little more punishment but deal a bit more as well. So aside from that and a ton for ton higher average speed (usually) I think they don't need to mess with the damage tables one bit.

And if I remember correctly they all produce a bit more heat from their weapons as a trade for that extra range. Not enough to make a drastic difference I suppose, but they could make that more pronounced. They are obviously testing things internally and for the most part they have done an ok job balancing things, even if it has been utterly ham-fisted at times.

Seriously, the art is cool and all, but they are really boning this launch. Seriously, $500 gold mechs!?

But yea, the promise to delivery ratio is starting to get ridiculous. The Command Chair forum is just embarrassing.

Agreed.
 
Do you have a link to the info re the clan tech implementation? I'd like to look over it...
 
If they dont make Clan tech superior to IS tech, that is almost as bad as P2W considering that would make the differences between mechs cosmetic.

I should of pointed out that unless they fuck up tech levels, the game is going to be P2W.

This actually pisses me off because I took the other posters advice and got a light mech and was actually having fun watching all the heavies/assaults trying to hit me.

Modred189: I believe they haven't released any information on how they are implementing clan tech, that is supposed to be announced in the future.
 
If they dont make Clan tech superior to IS tech, that is almost as bad as P2W considering that would make the differences between mechs cosmetic.

The clans are a paradox: how do you balance clan tech in the game where it is specifically meant to be unbalanced in the lore? Any implementation of something superior will absolutely be taken advantage of and more importantly, abused, if the game allows it.

People want to feel more powerful when using clan tech but they can't be so much more powerful that it destroys the game at its core. I really think PGI should just let the community decide on how to balance them since it is highly probable that, if they don't, they'll implement some sort of balance that pisses EVERYONE off, lol


I avoid the official forums when possible (mechspecs is a great alternative!) but in this instance the direct info is a good idea, haha.

Love this list of what people want.

I laughed my ass off when I first saw that. Spot on for sure!
 
SO, here's how I would solve the problem:

Split it all up. THe only thing shared between Clan and IS mechs is MC. Use different c-bill bases, nontransferrable and not exchangable. So, if I have a million IS c-bills, those dollars can be used to buy IS tech for IS mechs ONLY. And anything that is purchased with IS cbills cannot be used on CLan mechs. Vice versa holds.

Three kinds of games: IS v. IS (as is now), Clan v. Clan and IS v. Clan. The first two are 12 v 12 or 8 v 8. Games where IS plays clan, IS gets a numbers and elo/weight bonus. So, for example, you could do 12 v. 8, and match the Elo and weights. Or, you could do 12 v. 12, but give the Clan team a 20% weight handicap, and maybe a 10-15% elo handicap.

Mixed tech forces is a recipe for disaster. It would be incredibly hard to balance weight classes.

That said, their solution is horrible. The whole point of the clans, their very existence in the BT lore, is as an overwhelming force (albeit limited by their code and arrogance) to unite the weaker but more numerous IS forces. Without that quality, this isn't the clans. THis is just a new wave of mechs to confuse the weapons balancing they are still fiddling with. (Though I have to say, I like where things stand right now. There don't seem to be any OP or broken weapons).
And tbh, if UI2.0 and CW were in place before the clan mechs hit, I might be more forgiving, but this is just a money grab, and that's worrying. If they are looking for such a large influx of money, I wonder what state their financials are in...

Very frustrated. THis does not bode well.
 
So if I'm understanding the cryptic marketspiel, the Clan 'Mechs aren't being released until June?

If so, that's one hell of a long wait on a sensationally expensive pre-order.
 
So if I'm understanding the cryptic marketspiel, the Clan 'Mechs aren't being released until June?

If so, that's one hell of a long wait on a sensationally expensive pre-order.

There was a several-month wait for the pheonix mechs and the two additional ones aren't out yet. It's a model I was a bit curious about the first time, but now it screams "we have money problems." It's not a good sign to be asking for that much money up front.

Anyone care to find/post the fine print on the purchases of those mechs?
 
Why couldn't they have just made a game where you paid for it, and then you played it? An online mech game like that would do well, or so I would have thought.
 
Why couldn't they have just made a game where you paid for it, and then you played it? An online mech game like that would do well, or so I would have thought.

Free to play is trendy, and the successful ones are making an insane amount of cash compared to straight one time sales.
 
Massive Wait Online

I'm convinced the entire thing is just a cash grab. They've repeatedly done things they swore up and down they would not, haven't actually delivered on what we were promised (UI 2.0 and CW should have been here by now), all while shoving out blatant cash grab after blatant cash grab.

At this point it's obvious they aren't going to deliver. The best anyone can hope for is that this is all just an over the top way to get money from idiots and hope they drain peoples wallets brutally. After that, they find some sucker to sell the game off in a still broken and incomplete manner and that sucker steps in and fixes up the game. Not giving us what was promised, but at least something.
 
The lack of DX 11 isn't doing them any favors either considering that was talked about during early clsoed beta.
 
I suspect they lack the technical proficiency to be able to deliver a good DX11 renderer anyway.
 
The lack of DX 11 isn't doing them any favors either considering that was talked about during early clsoed beta.

That's not nearly as bad as the lack of UI 2.0 and clan warfare.

They sold the founders packages and pulled people in with the promise of waring factions. You'd have worlds to invade, territory to hold, resources to manage, shifting battle lines, politics to play, the whole nine yards. While this was going on the clans were going to invade to throw a monkey wrench into things and start taking worlds while you were fighting the other inner sphere factions, with the tech gradually trickling into a situations where we could use it.

Well.... lol that's not the game we have. And they have kept walking back what was promised, kicking the can down the road, and then adding things (cough 3rd person view) that they promised they wouldn't add... oh and more cash grabs, gotta grab some cash.

Compared to that, the lack of DX11 is a non issue, and that's honestly more something the "graphics matter more than gameplay" crowd cares about anyways. The game looks good and it's performance issues have been fixed (which took a while). I'd add the lack of VOIP, match making, and other functional issues as more important than graphical dick waving.
 
I was one of the founders package suckers. I just got the email for the clan shit.....500 bucks for a gold mech....are you fucking kidding me.
 
I was one of the founders package suckers. I just got the email for the clan shit.....500 bucks for a gold mech....are you fucking kidding me.

I fell for the founders pack as well, a lot of us did. We all thought we were getting a persistent universe like EVE or at least an MMO, boy do I feel stupid now.

Honestly the $500 buck mech doesn't really piss me off. It's the fact that what was promised and paid for is now clearly not going to be delivered, and the half assed version of it is going to be much later than they said. At this point they've tripled down on founders packs (the clan pack is the third bulk buy pack they've put out), and the actual "game" we were promised... still isn't here.

To make matters worse the other PGI games they were working on are fucked. Some staff has been fired and it now looks like PGI is simply monetizing MWO to pay off the debts racked up with IGP for the other games that failed. Odds are any cashed paid is going to pay off IGP for games people aren't playing rather than getting the game they want to play.
 
And then yesterday, they mention adding clan tech. Good lord. Clan tech unbalanced the TT game big time, and in a game that has ongoing weapon balance issues (not horrible, but they can't stop touching them), introducing a class of tech and mech that is MEANT to be hands and feet better than standard Inner Sphere tech is a horrible idea. And let's not even mention DX11.

Okay first. Clantech only unbalanced the tabletop game for people who had no experience balancing a game in the first place, this are guys who'd take Atlases against Phoenix Hawks. Plus you had players ignoring clan rules of engagement.

Hence the emergence of the Battle Value system. While no version of BV was ever perfect (or even easy to understand), it did allow for a nominally even battle by forces that were within a few hundred/thousand BV of one another.

If it were me, I'd scrap Clan tech all together. Too much going on in this game to deal with all that. Make this an innersphere game of 3050/3055 and be done with it. Clan mechs would be fun, but there's too much to do before that makes sense. By that time, the game will be old enough that it will be obsolete and abandoned.

In the format this game is in, yes, Clantech presents real problems.



I think you legitimately don't understand what I said or you are desperately grasping for some kind of counter argument in your rabid fanboyism. LRM indirect fire was for an advanced rulebook that only the diehard super BT poopsockers used, only worked for LRMs, and on top of that made any indirect fire attempts with LRMs much more innacurate.

Actually no. You're incorrect.

While indirect fire itself is more or less as you described it, it also works for MRMs and Artillery as well.

As for "advanced". I'd use the term "optional" rather than advanced. At least in the current format of the game.

As for the indirect fire being..."obscure". I'd beg to differ. While I haven't run tournaments for CBT in a few years, while I was running them, the subject of indirect fire came up at least once each year at both GenCon and Origins.

This being said, especially since I sunk Founder money on the game as a show of support.

MWO is a sexed up MW2 with Netmech, and not a lot more.
Granted, it can be fun in a limited sort of way. But it gets old pretty fast.

The lack of even a BASIC campaign setting hurts. Badly.
And the basic game itself still needs a LOT of work.

At least with BT: 3025, you had the planetary/region conquest and group factioning.

There's also the fact that some of the people who became entrenched in the community early on are some rude, STUPID motherfuckers. Were this back in 1996 or so, when I was still a regular hothead on rec.games.mecha, I'd dive in now and take the time to show other people what assholes these guys are.

Now, 17-8 years later? I just don't have the time. And, seeing as I'm a known entity within the BattleTech property, I don't want to put my partners or the guys at MWO in the sort of position where they'd have to mod me.


Why couldn't they have just made a game where you paid for it, and then you played it? An online mech game like that would do well, or so I would have thought.

  1. The budget wasn't there.
  2. The general "want" for such a game couldn't justify it.
  3. Microsoft holds all electronic rights to the BattleTech properties (save specific rights to the Virtual World location-based stuff). Betting that Microsoft would have wanted to be the publisher. But Microsoft's last few stabs in the MW space were duds.

Basically, MWO is suffering from mission creep and lack of ability to estimate labor necessary to deliver various subsystems in the game.
 
If you are pissed because they did not deliver what they promised, Do a charge back on your credit card. If the company needs money, a good number of those will get their attention real fast.
 
Why is this game so addictive?

Brings back memories of running MW2 on a DX4-100 :D Gorgeous landscapes...
 
If you are pissed because they did not deliver what they promised, Do a charge back on your credit card. If the company needs money, a good number of those will get their attention real fast.

No, don't be that guy. Credit card chargebacks are meant for purchases in which you don't get what you paid for. To date, all you could have paid for is mechs and premium time, or a founders' package. None of those purchases promised any sort of cw, ui2.0 etc. when people abuse the chargeback system, it makes it harder for the rest of us to use it when we really need.
People need to learn to live with purchaser's regret. At this point, having bought the founders package and an overlord package, I'm not sure I regret those purposes. I got well worth my money in game time and fun with the mechs that I bought. Just because the developers failed to deliver on the meta-game does not change that.
 
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The Clan pack is the single biggest money grab i have ever seen... Makes me want to go and play EveOnline.. at least it's cheaper (and you can get it on Steam sale).

The game is fun, but man, it's not worth spending the money on. I do think that i they cut the amount of money that they are asking for for mechs by say 50%-75% (premium time can still be expensive), they would actually get a lot more players into it and a lot more money. As is, only someone with lots of Money will buy these packages (or people with gaming addictions).. $240 for a complete clan pack.. that just sounds insane. And with all of these extra delays etc...

Well, at least we're finally getting deathmatch maps. Maybe we'll get Solaris soon.
I can see Jenners or Centurions being the kings of the battlefield.
 
No, don't be that guy. Credit card chargebacks are meant for purchases in which you don't get what you paid for. To date, all you could have paid for is mechs and premium time, or a founders' package. None of those purchases promised any sort of cw, ui2.0 etc. when people abuse the chargeback system, it makes it harder for the rest of us to use it when we really need.
People need to learn to live with purchaser's regret. At this point, having bought the founders package and an overlord package, I'm not sure I regret those purposes. I got well worth my money in game time and fun with the mechs that I bought. Just because the developers failed to deliver on the meta-game does not change that.

Actually I didn't get what I paid for. I was promised Clan Warfare when I gave them my money, that has not been delivered. I was also promised my name in the credits (which I don't care about, but bringing up to make a point) which has not been delivered. They have failed to deliver, end of story.

Now... maybe this time is different than the dozens of other times before and they are serious about the time frame. But... it will have been over two years. After a certain point of not being delivered the product you paid for it's fine to get your money back.

I'm not overly concerned personally. The cash isn't critical for me, so oh well. However I'd say that anyone who gives them any money at this point thinking that they will ever get what is promised and the game will ever be finished is an idiot.
 
CW= Community Warfare, not clan warfare.
Second, when you bought in as a founder (I'm assuming that's what you meant), their language in the T&Cs was clear that you were promised nothing but the contents of the founder's pack when and if it became feasible. Since there is NO credits page yet, they haven't exactly failed to put your name in (a fine line, I know, but it matters). Second, COmmunity warfare was not promised, it was planned, and they haven't failed to deliver, since they still plan to. And since this isn't a physical good, the FTC rules don't apply. PGI's posts about their timelines and plans are irrelevant to what you purchased.

But my point stands. This is not the way that chargebacks are meant to be used, and abusing it now means a harder time for those later who really deserve it.

That said, as someone who has spent some serious cash on this game (Basic founder's pack +Overlord and Saber), I'm not sending any more money their way until they deliver something more than just more mechs. I want some serious map variety, Community Warfare, and UI2.0. With those in place, the game will be, essentially, complete. I'll even let them pass on DX11, though I'd like it for the bonus speed.
 
CW= Community Warfare, not clan warfare.
Second, when you bought in as a founder (I'm assuming that's what you meant), their language in the T&Cs was clear that you were promised nothing but the contents of the founder's pack when and if it became feasible. Since there is NO credits page yet, they haven't exactly failed to put your name in (a fine line, I know, but it matters). Second, COmmunity warfare was not promised, it was planned, and they haven't failed to deliver, since they still plan to. And since this isn't a physical good, the FTC rules don't apply. PGI's posts about their timelines and plans are irrelevant to what you purchased.

But my point stands. This is not the way that chargebacks are meant to be used, and abusing it now means a harder time for those later who really deserve it.

That said, as someone who has spent some serious cash on this game (Basic founder's pack +Overlord and Saber), I'm not sending any more money their way until they deliver something more than just more mechs. I want some serious map variety, Community Warfare, and UI2.0. With those in place, the game will be, essentially, complete. I'll even let them pass on DX11, though I'd like it for the bonus speed.

They promised more than what you are trying to claim they did. In fact tons of people were able to get refunds on both the Pheonix Package and the Founders. It wasn't until people started getting really pissed and the world plus dog was asking for refunds that they stopped giving them. That's when the charge backs started going, and also when they started being more open about just how full of shit they were.

They've had dates and they've broken all of them. Honestly, at this point the best hope is for this game to fail and for them to give up the license so someone else can do it. The amount of bad blood and people who've already left is staggering. It's been two years, now were are told that shit we were promised we would have last year is still a year out!
 
They promised more than what you are trying to claim they did. In fact tons of people were able to get refunds on both the Pheonix Package and the Founders. It wasn't until people started getting really pissed and the world plus dog was asking for refunds that they stopped giving them. That's when the charge backs started going, and also when they started being more open about just how full of shit they were.

They've had dates and they've broken all of them. Honestly, at this point the best hope is for this game to fail and for them to give up the license so someone else can do it. The amount of bad blood and people who've already left is staggering. It's been two years, now were are told that shit we were promised we would have last year is still a year out!

Again, none of that has anything to do with the appropriateness of a chargeback. Remember, most chargeback processes have a 60-day limit.
Here's a good, nontechnical breakdown of the basics:
http://consumerist.com/2009/05/06/top-10-reasons-your-chargeback-will-be-denied/
 
WEll, people are saying they are going for chargebacks. Whether they are getting them or not is a different story. AND that doesn't change whether it's appropriate or not.
 
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