
-----------------------------------
DDM_Salvatoris
Thu Jan 21, 2010 12:10 pm

Re: Impressions of this new MWLL mod
-----------------------------------
Well, i played a couple hours last night & I was discouraged quite a bit.

Sure the mod looks good, the Mechs drive & work well, but there are major problems arising with this mod.

1. No mech lab & pre made shitty mech weapon loadouts. 

There will be a mechlab later.  They have been saying for the last year that there would be no mechlab in the first beta release.  I personally think it will ruin the game.... we'll all be rolling around boating the same two or three weapons soon enough.  As it is now, there are four configs for each mech, and they Are actually pretty good.  Sure, these configs would have sucked in mech4, but every weapon is usefully in this game... even flamers and machine guns are usefully weapons.  I usually take a Madcat C with 2 CLBX20s, 2 CDualSSRM4 and 2 flamers.  It's a great up close brawler and the flamers are great for dealing with battle armor.

2. LRM's are totally bugged & seemd to only hit target if u keep ur reticle on the target even tho they lock. LRM's are supposed to be fire & forget. They are not in this game.

I have not had any issues with LRMs.  They ARE fire and forget.  If you fire with a lock, tag or narc, they will hit the target.  How many of your missiles hit will depend on the targets movement speed and direction, and AMS.

3. A. u cannot dry fire LRMs at close range they just launch up in the air and go wherever.

LRMs have a minimum range of 300 meters... like they should.  If you fare at a target under that range, the missiles will hit the ground 300 meters in the direction you fired them.  They aren't meant for infighting, since the last thing you want is 20 LRMs going off in your face.  You can dry fire them, you just need to adjust the angle of your launchers by looking down.  IMO, this is the first game to do LRMs right.
B. AC5's do not fire repetivly. they fire once then u gotta wait a lifetime for them to reload or whatever.

ACs and UACs all have a reload time, like they have in every Mech game... I think what you want are RACs, which are also in game.

C. PPC's do not seem to do anything really significant. especially to tanks & planes.

PPCs work fine... you do need to lead shoot them, but they do good damage, have a long range, moderate heat and no ammo.  Great weapon, and again, they work like they have in every Mechwarrior game I have played. Planes are hard to hit with PPCs, but they aren't really an AA weapon.

4. Real life "inertia" is great but in this game it is retarded. I shouldn't have to hit "x" to stop my mech, just slow down the throttle . this mechanic is quirky.

I agree that the throttle is quirky... but it isn't inertia, it's just the way they have the throttle working.  You can stop a mech on a dime, you just have to hit x to do it.  Hopefully this will improve in time.  It's just an issue with how vehicles were controlled in crysis.... when you let off the gas, but don't the brake, they roll to a stop... you are just seeing the same thing in a mech.  With some practice, you'll realize you have all the same control of your mech as in previous games.  It just takes an extra keypress to stop dead in your tracks.

5. There is going to be a real problem with map domination by 2-3 peps on one side eventually with the bs C=Bill thing. I think U should be able to take any mech or vehicle . From what I saw last night only those who get "lucky" kills get more cbills and thus get better machs/vehicles thus dominate the map/game. this is based on the fact that a tiny shittily pre loaded out Raven cannot overtake anything.

This is just the server settings.  Some servers start with more money, some give you enough to buy an Atlas from jump street... I don't play on them because I prefer the standard rules.  You get promoted fast, and there can only be one person at each of the top two ranks.  It keeps the game from being all assault mechs, all the time.  If that's your thing, there are servers running those settings.  I think it really makes the game be more a battle sim... You start out the battle fighting as scout patrols and forward infantry, by the end everyone is in able to afford heavy or assault Mechs.  On servers running the default income rates, you start with 20K.  The heaviest tank in the game only costs 45k... you can get there after just a couple of kills.  Only two people from each team spawn with enough money for assault mechs, but money can be shared between team members.  Usually those top scoring guys aren't in mechs anyway.  Servers can have all players start the match or spawn with any amount of money they set it to.  I think most people just prefer to start out with the lower numbers.  Kills aren't worth much at all in the game, it's all about damage done to enemy vehicles.  If a pilot ejects, you get way more for finishing off his mech than for chasing him down and killing him.   

As far as starting equipment goes, don't take the Raven.  The raven is an electronics scout mech.  It has ECM, BAP, TAG and C3 (which shares it's radar and target data with the whole team)... it's not for brawling, but is a very useful mech to have on the field. When I only have 20K I either load out the battle armor with weapons and high explosives or I take one of the AC tanks.  You can really rack up points with the RACs or LBXACs


6. collision & getting stuck is a real problem. I cannot count how many times I was stopped by a pebble or was trapped under, between, or in rocks. 

This is an issue.  I wouldn't say it's all that bad though... it's only really a problem on clearcut with all the tree stumps and cut logs.  (both of which would be pretty challenging to navigate in a mech).  This is just beta, and they have already said what their fix was for this.  They are going to change the part of the mech that clipping applies to.  Now it's the legs, and not the torso... they are switching it.  Then we won't have torsos clipping through each other and low obstacles won't stop a mech.  

7. no joystick support what so ever. Ya I tried to read & comprehend the "joystick support" crap page, but I don't know WTF all that axis stuff is. My stick works other than torso twist. 

yep.. joystick support is terrible.  You can use a joystick, and you can copy of profile from their forums for just about every stick made.  It's a bummer that you can't program it in-game... but the game this is a mod for wasn't written for joystick support.  Even if you use a joystick, it's still just hitting A and D to turn.  Vehicles in the game weren't designed to have analog steering.  Maybe they can fix that, maybe they can't.  personally.. I don't care.  I am already comfortable with keyboard and mouse.  I haven't used a joystick for years.  I tried to go buy a new one and the carry one single joystick at Best Buy.  It is apparently the input device of the 90's.

8. It would be nice to have a complete Keyboard command list & what u need to change in the default setup in Crysis to change stuff. I would rather see a "new updated" Options menu for the mod.

I posted the keyboard layout here a couple of times.  It's in their forums if you do a search, or just look in our album.  Not sure what you mean about "new update".  The game tells you if you aren't running the newest version.  It would be nice if they had an installer... but I don't consider unzipping a file to be that much of a hassle.  

9. Targeting is stupid. All u get is a hugh red square outline with nothing to aim at. 

what?  Targeting is just like every other Mechwarrior game.  You get a red box around the target, you get the targets name, mech type, distance and direction.  Once you get close enough you get a damage display.  What more should there be to the targeting mechanic than that?

10.----------This mod is way too much like a FPS rather than a Mech Sim. To get 1 shotted (by a plane or tank) in a mech is stupid & not fun. I really felt like I was wasting my time last night in a FPS. I was playing Crysis & not Mechwarrior.

You can't get one shotted in a mech.  It takes at least two great shots to kill you... assuming they both hit cockpit.  You can't take damage until the cockpit is destroyed.  You can't core a mech in one shot and you can eject from the mech all way up until it explodes.  There just isn't a one shot kill in this game.  It works just like mech 4 in terms of tearing through armor before you damage internals.  If you get legged, which still takes more than one shot, you can fight from the ground or punch out.  Remember that if you punch out of a mech, you have blown the cockpit.  if you get back in it, you are one shot away from dead.  Flamers or PPCs are good to cook a pilot strolling around with no cockpit glass. If you shutdown first, you can hit F to just get out, without ejecting and blowing the cockpit.  If you do ejects, just run back to base and shut down in a bay to repair the head armor.

In my humble opnion this Mod was well intended, but is severly lacking & not at all a True Mechwarrior game. Not even close. 
Without the ability to choose ur own weapon loadout at all, no real imbalance between tanks, planes & mechs, Map domination due to Cbill count, and crappy radar & targeting I give this game a 2 score out of 10.

I couldn't disagree more.  This game feels more like a simulation of Battletech combat to me than any Mechwarrior game I've ever played.  The mechs have every feature or ability they had in Mech4.... you just control them differently.  I know the mechlab is coming, but I don't miss it or really even look forward to it.  Game balance and variety goes right out the window with it.  I'll probably want to look for stock mech servers most of the time after it's available.  Radar and targeting are exactly as they have been in mech4, mech3, mech2.  I honestly have no idea what more you could want from those systems. 

There isn't really supposed to be an imbalance between tanks, mechs and aerospace.  They have 100 ton tanks in Battletech, to rival the heaviest mechs in firepower... Aerospace vs mech one on one is almost always won by the aerospace fighter in the fiction... and there are several examples of a single elemental or power armor taking down a mech.  Make that a group of elementals and it's commonplace.  It's a combined arms game... you can't make 3/4 of the unit types grossly inferior to the other one.  It wouldn't be a very fun game if they did.   

 
