Town Hall Notes - February 19

Executioner, Cauldron Born, Shadow Cat, Arctic Cheetah confirmed.

 

MASC confirmed?



I'm going to keep making this mistake over and over again ><

Other highlights:

New CW map March 17th, Tourmaline map. April is Forest CW map. Only maps in queue are CW, but they mentioned replacing some old maps.
Still no solid ETA for Mining Colony return (it was briefly back on patch since it reset accidentally, but is gone again), hoping for first March patch
Might be a huge Battle of Tukayyid event when they do a CW reset. Sounds neat.
CW, they think faction jumping is happening a bit too often, the way that works may change later on.
SMURPHY mechlab may be coming in May!
PGI looking into adding quirks that affect ammo for dependent mechs like Huggies and Oxides

 

I'm liking what I'm reading, enough to buy into the clanpack? Will consider.

 

Haha, I know. And we're getting MASC. And three out of four chassi bring something unique. The Executioner will be the fastest jumping 95 tonner, the Cauldron Born carries a helluva lot of hardpoints, the Shadowcat is...well...the Shadowcat.

The Arctic Cheetah is a little meh, though it has ECM etc it doesn't look that exciting on paper to me. Might have to read Sarna again on it...

 

The Cheetah could be interesting...30 tonner, ECM, clan Spider? If it has a similar frame, it could contend decently. Depends on where they put the hardpoints. I would kind of rather have the Dasher/Firemoth, since it would be a superfast Clan light with amazing high hardpoints like the Raven, but what can ya do? Much like the other Clan lights, it will be slow (Sarna lists 130 KPH max), and I don't think you can use MASC on this one AFAIK. Which, again, is a shame since the Clans need a fast light mech to compare with IS lights.

Shadow Cat's traditional design could be fantastic, lots of very high hardpoints means it could easily poke above cover, fire off a shot, and fade away...always a good thing in MWO. On paper, if they keep the same design, this could contend as a very strong medium mech.

Cauldron Born/Ebon Jaguar is an interesting mech too...if they keep the traditional design, it will be squad and wide like Crabs. They seem like a good potential brawler on paper, but the hitboxes would be the telltale win/loss for the mech. If it has a giant CT, it's game over.

Executioner was always an interesting mech. MASC means it can move when it needs to, but armament and hardpoints are concerning looking at the chassis. Once again, we have a mech that works fine in TT...but in MWO, with those low-slung arms, it will be at a serious disadvantage in certain terrain, much like the Gargoyle. At 95 tons, it may be able to tack on a lot of firepower like the Banshee, but it will probably have to rely on quirks to compete vs the DWF, same as any other Clan assault...and even then, those arms will kill it. Needs good torso slots, or it will be weak.

 

Listened to it last night while suicide grinding basics on a piece of trash...

The best thing I heard all night was that March 3rd will see a performance increase for low end configs, which is a lifesend since I'm on minimum specs on this backup to a backup... he said 10-20 fps increase, so that will make a huge difference when half the time I'm at 20-30...

Shadow Cat will suck methinks. Cauldron Born, meh. Arctic Cheetah looks like a legit light for Clans, finally. Executioner will be a lot of fun.

Talk of new maps rolling out soon was great.

There were a couple other things but I can't remember, too busy today.

 

Actually looking at weapon mounts some of those look ok to my surprise.

 

Maps and Mechlab. That's all my eyes could focus on... Perhaps a UI overhaul with the mechlab??? No... that's just too hopeful...

 

Cauldron Born....
Ok that piece of awesomeness aside, still not interested enough in the clan mechs to get one. Now where the hell is my Annihilator?!

 

I think it is great they are adding new things but again all I see is new maps and new mechs. When is the game going to evolve beyond maps and mechs?

Maps ARE content. All this says to me is "maps and mechs and bug fixes".

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh, cause we got more maps to make and more mechs to sell. Ain't got time for thinking about evolving the game up in 'ere

 

Mostly I care about this too ! It would be great to never drop under 30 FPS.

 

Smurfy mechlab isn't something to sneeze at either, if they can get something more intuitive in there it'll go a long way to improve my gui experience.