[Feedback] Patch Notes 1.3.470, 7 July 2015

The X5 tube is long overdue.

 

Oh my, my dual SRM 4 / ML X5 gained then.

 

So even if its 2 slotted it can fire a LRM20 in 1 salvo?
https://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab#i=64&l=92001edcc2ee11caf5539368298bb82aeb3fca5b who will do it? 2x10 would be better thou

 

I wanted to really get some play in before I wrote this, but I figured I'd give my feedback on the new map. I'll start with the TL;DR version: It's awesome!

The Good:

• The much larger layout means that you have a TON of extra space to move around in. This means that it's harder for the assaults to get instantly jumped, and it's easier to move about the map in general.
• The added cover in the old areas, and the changed buildings, really helps in several ways. It feels more like a real city, for one, and it makes skirmishing and flanking more feasible since you're harder to spot at range. The matches I had there took place all over the map, constantly shifting the battleground since it was easy for a fast moving lance to cause havoc if people weren't careful.
• The various environments lend themselves to different styles of play. Some spots are ideal to snipe from, others are great for LRMs to excel, while others are fantastic for brawling and skirmishing mechs to capitalize upon. No area of the map really feels awful, although the runway is a bit dangerous since it's so open (but it's a great place to post if you have LRMs, and the team is in front of you).
• The dynamic lighting, shifting during the match from one time to another, is amazing. Also, I spoke to Russ on Twitter, and he confirmed that this lighting effect will be present in every map that is made from now on, so the new Forest Colony will have it present (SWEEEEET)!
• The destructible terrain is perfect, allowing you to clear visual obstacles that would have been annoying before.

The Bad:

• Some people have noted some FPS issues...I found a couple spots myself where it can be a bit rough, but nothing that made my PC die (yet)
• Heard a couple people say they were getting dropped in weird spots, such as in the water, accidentally. Just a bug.
• We don't have kickass remakes of every old map to enjoy right this second.

I said this on the Outreach reddit as well, but any doubts I had about their map making abilities were really put on hold while playing this map. It's balanced, well done, and thoughtful in its construction; as a map maker for a lot of games in the past, I can't see anything that I hate about the map. It's exactly what it needed to be in order to make River City fun to play on, and it really shows a level of commitment above what a lot of people expected from them at this point. If this is the future of what the new and remade maps will be like, it speaks of good things for said future.

 

I think they have hired a new group of programmers and designers?
Fells like that at least. The map is quite above other maps really.
Granted it is an upgrade of an old map, but it feels new.

Other changes are nice as well. Yay for weaponized Awesome, and tube upgrades.

The most disappointing one being the new hero mech, I guess.

The top dog/tallman is a bit lacking in terms of quirk, though it is quite tanky, and it is good to be close to lore. The model and paintjob is disappointing, too close to a regular standard paintjob.

The Q variant is nothing special, so to speak, Wish for a better model. Need more testing for playability, but looks and feel quite standard so far.

 

The Deletion of Turrets makes somehow sense if you think about the game mode mission - Assault (the Enemy Base!). But with great LRM Spam and Alert System for the Enemy - no one cared and so in the last months i actually had almost zero situations where a Win was achieved by Basecap. Now we have it very often in Pugs - it`s annoying, especially if you expected to have epic battles. You can blame your team for not defending the base appropriately, but you don`t want to stay around your base the whole match to prevent Zergrush. I didn`t like the "old" Turret-Concept, but i also didn`t/don`t like the non-Turret Version. It felt Pre-Beta-ish before, and now it feels like Regression instead Progression.

I really wished that PGI had replaced the Turret-Concept with another better Concept than just simply turning back to the past, by deletion. Could be something like replacing the simple Cap Point to a Real Base with HP to shoot down, maybe a Base with Short-Medium Firerange Turrets (e.g. Medium Pulse Lasers, SSRMs) for Defense, and maybe also some Bonus Stuff like AMS, ECM, so you can`t simply take it down with Heavy LRM Firepower.. and additionally an Energyshield so you have to actually step inside to do some damage. To bring it further - the Energy-Generators for the Base Defense Systems are located on different Nav Points - take it down and the Base is losing defense gradually. Would be awesome fun.. and yes a high self-defended Base would be no interesting for Base Assault Attempts - but if you can work on breaking it`s Defense it would give a lot of Immersion to the Gamemode, distuingishing it more from simple Skirmish.

but well, let`s be happy first with the next Map Updates.

 

Also a bit wary of clan ballistics changes, for the same reason as the other ones. I'm actually fine with the 2s behaving as pinpoint because they're the small fry fast fire anyway, but if the intent of the weapon design is skill-required stream-fire instead of pinpoint then...I dunno.

Excited to check out the new map! Map overhaul. Whatever. It looks amazing. Hopefully Durandal didn't hype it too much so my expectations are too high going in (though if that's the case, I'm blaming him ).

The new heroes don't especially wow me, but they're not bad either. TBR with that level of structure and armor buff will be hard to put down. Especially if it's wubbing faces. I also want to like Quarantine, but will need to see it in action. I'm a sucker for solid mixed loadouts, especially JJ capable ones. Otoh, the leaderboard event to get people to buy the heroes at full price...I have mixed feelings. The rewards aren't too crazy, so it's hard to feel like it's a nasty pay-to-win or too base a give-us-money scheme. The new scoring formula is very interesting, though. Instead of just kills being worth more than assists, they're now worth the same as assists, but you get bonus credit if you did the most damage and more credit still if it qualifies as solo kill. It will be interesting to see how that falls.

 

Wow I see why you lot were raving over the new map its something else.

Feels totally different.

Slightly worried it really hits short range slower mechs though. My Gargoyle with 2 LPL and 4 ERSL does well there though.

 

Loving new RC!

 

Like any map, the slow assaults have to plan their movements. However, it is much easier to lose yourself in cover, even for an assault. I would say the map is best for medium mechs with good speed (Blackjack, Wolverine, Stormcrow, Nova) as they can use all the new terrain to flank very quickly
through the buildings. Every game I've gotten there with a BJ or WVR has been absolute gold (and I carried the match by being a mobile striker )

 

Have to admit after playing that map 3 times not I finally ponied up for the IIC mechs in hope for the future.

 

Save up the cbills for the new engine sets though. That would be millions of dollars.

 

Oh god. I saw they were allowing interchangeable clan engines on the IIC - but, dodged the twitter questions about if you'd be allowed to pull engines from current clan mechs to put into IICs so you wouldn't have to buy $8-10m+ equipment. I'm guessing not.

 

Honestly, I'd doubt that. The engines on Omnimechs are locked in like the other fixed hardware, so I doubt that they'd change that to let you pull them for the IICs. My bet is that you'll have to buy new engines for your IICs

 

Well, seriously, you have those millions of cbills sitting there doing nothing... better use them on the engines then?

That, and probably you don't need too many of them, you swap them out like you do with IS mechs.

 

Yeah have to be honest I have plenty of c-bills anyway so doesn't bother me... now my activity level could do with an improvement though

 

Sometimes I feel sad for newbie players...
They see us just hop in tool out a completely new mech with all the upgrades and a couple trial runs with different XL engine and what not, and they have to grind a bunch before even affording DHS.

 

Except we've dropped thousands of hours and a lot o money into the game so you'd expect us to have broader resources,