91% Said No - But We Are Getting It Anyway

For one thing, I feel there is a great misperception on PGI's part. Yes, as we saw, the forum Polls have identified that 91% don't want it. However, PGI assumes that the members of the forums are but a small sample of the actual player base, and well, doesn't feel that it is an actual representation of the overall picture, and therefore isn't giving the Poll the consideration they should. It not only upsets me that they are going to be causing a segregation of the player base, but I'm concerned what this may do to some of the already established Units. Are Unit Leaders going to have to actually state on their Unit's Applications, that they will only tolerate playing one way or the other? Is this going to ultimately divide friends that we have acquired over the past year?

How are Leagues going to handle this? Are teams going to be able to drop against each other without the concern of whether it's a 1st-person or 3rd-person styled Unit? And how, oh how, would we police such a thing?

In the options menu?! Seriously??!!! In other words, players will be able to change views on-the-fly? Good god, this will create havoc!

 

I doubt they will allow people to change views on the fly, that would be stupidity on a cosmic scale if they did.

I imagine that they will simply make it be an option like now "Assault, Conquest, All" it will be the same with views....

Assault - First Person
Assault - Third Person
Assault - Any

Conquest - First Person
Conquest - Third Person
Conquest - Any

Maybe not that many options but there might be a toggle where you can select "First Person Only, Third Person Only, Don't Care".

If they put it in the options menu I would imagine that it will only take affect during the next drop because allowing it on the fly would be epic dumb.

As for leagues? Leagues will simply say state "This league is first person only" or "this league doesn't care what you use" and it will be up to members to decide if they want to stay in the league, join the league etc. Realistically? 3PV leagues will be the girly leagues anyways

In regards to fragmenting the playerbase even more? Maybe BUT there is a caveat to that; people who only want to play third person view may quit the game entirely if they can't play 3PV because they aren't all that good in a simulator? or they prefer it third person? or a variety of other reasons.

For me....

If friends of mine can only play First person? Great, I prefer this.

If friends of mine can only play Third Person? Great, we can drop in "I don't care" matches and they can do their thing and I can do mine.

 

But how do leagues enforce this? Do they need to?

For me, the one overwhelming reason why I left the MWL ladders, and MW4 online altogether in the end was the poptarts. I am a casual player. I like to play *somewhere* within the lines of lore and the universe. It is all about immersion and following the classic battle-strategies that I have read about and imagined in my mind. Maybe that makes me a hardcore simulator kind of person, maybe not. But in NO lore has there ever been a battle won by a side (as far as I know) by simply hiding behind terrain, and using JJ's and 3rd person view to pop over and massacre the opposing forces. Maybe because in the books / lore I have read, JJ fuel was not 'unlimited'. Maybe it was that 3rd person view was not possible, and folks actually had to use skill and strategy, along with lance / binary / trinary / unit cohesion? Are we dumbing all of that implicit, albeit 'real' (in quotes!) mini-meta-game for a few ... 'transplants' from other games to be comfortable with this? I do not know.

However, this breaks immersion for me, and is a big turn-off. Same thing with 3rd person view. Why would anyone need 3P view, when they are supposed to be the pilot? Give us a rear-facing camera to cover the 'blind-spot' in sensor coverage, or some similar mechanic. That is all that is needed. 3P is a clunky and quite exploitable fix to bridge the simulator-versus-arcade crowd, imHo. And it breaks both. So... why?

Just my 2 c-bills.

--Netherkat.

 

Well look at it this way. If your group leader selects NO THIRD PERSON then you won't drop into a third person match. If the enemy team drops with people trying to use third person you will never meet up and so a fight can't take place which means someone is BSing the rules. Easy peasy.

 

After having read all of this..............
I think back to long ago and how much I liked Mechwarrior BEFORE Microsoft got involved with it.
Time passed.......
Coming back to the game now, I'm not sure if it has matured or degenerated to it's present level.
I can say that I like it less.

 

The reason that the decision was made despite the 91% is two fold.

First off, forum activity accounts for maybe 10% of a games total user base. Typical casual gamers don't visit the forums.

Secondly, the players that 3rd person view would most benefit is first time players who obviously are not represented in that poll.

This addition would be to expand the user base of the game. Mechwarrior has always been a very niche genre that never had mass appeal. Most of the hard core fans probably prefer this, but it isn't good for business to say the least.

Personally, I think it's a terrible idea, along with allowing jump sniping to persist. For all the reasons mentioned by others in this thread. They back tracked on earlier promises and are letting their publisher push them into design directions they never originally wanted to go.

It's unfortunate but that is the reality of things.

 

They probably will let you swap between views on the fly.

Your idea about letting players to choose between forced first person, forced third person, and free mode is a bad idea. It fragments the playerbase and MWO does not have a large enough player base as it stands. Fragmenting your player base is one of the worst possible things you can do in a multiplayer game.

Third Person is going to be bad for this game, that's just how it is. The problem is that third person benefits some play styles more than others. Brawlers don't get affected that much. Pop-tarts and peekaboo snipers on the other hand get a huge boost. They can now see over that hill and line up their shots without exposing their mech. These playstyles are already very strong and don't need another boost.

They refuse to back down because they don't understand sunk costs. They already wasted money on it and they think wasting more money on it could make it a worthwhile endeavor. The best thing they could do with thrid person would be to limit it to spectating only.

 

Ifffffffff you say so. Guess we will just have to wait and see how it all turns out huh?

 

I don't see any way for 3rd person to have a positive overall impact. PGI seems to be under the impression that it will draw in new players.

Take a look at MW4, third person was a huge factor in the dominance of the jump sniper meta.

 

I'm not talking about a positive impact, just how they will implement it.

I'm betting that they will allow you to select which mode you want to drop against.

Yes
No
Indifferent

 

Tell any MMORPG that they should only have PvP Non-RP realms so they don't fragment the playerbase. At least with this game you could swap back and forth between options, instead of being locked to one server type.

I also disagree that brawlers wouldn't benefit. Maybe the big ones moving 45-60 kph wouldn't, but those in the 60-90 kph range could use cover much more effectively with third person mode.

No, who it will benefit most is anyone who wants to use cover but still see their target. This negates the disadvantage of being behind cover, making peek-a-boo (especially poptart) sniping and indirect fire support even easier, as well as skirmishing.

I don't think they would do 3rd person only, more likely 1st person only or free mode.

 

That's the problem where you start splitting your playerbase again. A pool of 1,000 players is far preferable to a pool of 700 and a pool of 300. The small pool can start to have difficulty getting matches and will either give up or move the other pool just to get a game. If they do go and split the base, free mode will probably be the default and the biggest player pool. There is a genuine risk of forced first person becoming like the 8v8 match pool. I doubt they will even have a forced third person mode.

MMOs aren't split among PvP, RP, ect. They are actually even further splintered among various servers. I see servers die all the time forcing the players to keep consolidating, causing massive drama about server switches, and causing players to leave as their server dies. A flexible system like GW1 had is far superior to the forced server system. Now if you have a large enough playerbase like WoW the fragmenting does matter. However Rift, SWOTOR, Warhammer Online, and many others accelerate their decline with over fragmentation of their player base.

 

But you're talking about the current playerbase, I'm looking at the future playerbase. How many people would quit if they were forced to play against people using 3rd person? Poptarts are already making a lot of people take a break from the game; probably half my unit is on hiatus until sniping dies down. If you want to play only 1st person to get the full simulation experience, you aren't going to want to go against people doing 3rd person.

I will not play an MMORPG on a PvP realm, so if PvP were the only option, that would be an automatic turnoff for me (and a lot of people). Some people thrive on world PvP and would not play otherwise. I think the same applies in here. A lot of the kids want to see their mechs in 3rd person, and this mode would draw more players. However, to prevent alienating people who want the full simulation experience, they would have to split the options.

Would you say that splitting into Assault and Conquest mode fragmented the playerbase?

The servers are usually split into Normal, PvP, RP, and PvP-RP in the games I've played. Drama that fragments players cannot be blamed on game design.