Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: deathspeed on December 11, 2019, 06:25:45 pm
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https://mw5mercs.com/
Is anyone else excited about this? I used to play the snot of of MW3. I probably spent more time customizing loadouts than actually blowing things up. I loved the sound and force-feedback feel of stomping around in my big robot. (MechAssault on Xbox never did it for me - with the 3rd person view and quicker-feeling mechs, I never got the same sense of immense scale as I did from the PC games.)
I can hardly wait to try this out again. I'll pick it up when the price drops.
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I wasn't excited (doubly so after how excellent MWLL has been, probably the best Mechwarrior game ever) but the first RPS review was...good?
I'm just really disappointed they're going back to 3025, again.
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Timed exclusive (1 year) to Epic Games store. Which means I won't be playing it for at least a year, so there's that.
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I don't trust PGI enough to get excited about anything they fart out, much less another attempt at the MechWarrior franchise.
In any case, I've got a backlog of HBS Battletech expansions to catch up on.
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I'm pretty pumped. Not pumped enough to get it on the Epic sure, but pumped nonetheless. I've been playing a ****load of HBS Battletech lately, still have MW4:Mercs installed (and have played through probably 8 times anyway), and just reinstalled MW2 via mechVM.
Hell, I probably spent almost as much time reading the exceptional MW2 manual as I did playing the game way back when.
Edit: I agree with Battuta...3rd succession war era is kinda played out at this point. I'd like a return to the clans.
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I am really loving the game so far. Just bought a Stalker to add to my lance.
The music is fantastic.
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There are enough floating rocks in the game for this to qualify as a Bethsoft product IMO
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Honestly, I don't know enough about the Battletech storylines or what has already been covered in other games for that to be a factor for me. I'm just looking forward to stomping around again in a giant rocket-launching laser-firing jump-jetting walking tank. From the reviews I have read this does capture the "feel" of the MechWarrior games and the gameplay is fun. (I never tried MechWarrior Online, because, well, online.)
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Starting earlier just lets technology progress as the game goes on, and im pretty sure most of the 4th succession war happens in the game's timeframe. When I was playing Mechwarrior 2, I didn't know anything and none of the stuff about the clans made sense. I picked up that they had a different culture but I didn't know about the Star League and the Inner Sphere and how Kerensky took all the cool robots and left and all that. I actually appreciate the Battletech turn based game for giving me a better picture of the setting.
Edit: looks like the patch later today adjusts the mid-mission enemy spawning, and fixes lots of floating rocks. https://mw5mercs.com/news/2019/12/19-mw5-mercs-patch
And again, if anyone has questions or concerns about Epic store, let me know, I work there. I can pass on feedback too. I've already suggested they put the store on linux.
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I picked up that they had a different culture but I didn't know about the Star League and the Inner Sphere and how Kerensky took all the cool robots and left and all that.
TBF Mech2 explains that to you in its codex. Its what got me hooked on the entire setting
(But yes Battletech is a good intro to the whole franchise, which is fair enough considering the original creator is behind it :P )
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Yeah, I was pretty young at the time, and I am not sure i ever found the codex. I had the Titanium Trilogy for Mechwarrior 2, maybe it wasnt in that version? I can't find any copies of it so I can't really check.
You can get $10 off on Mechwarrior 5 Mercs, since the epic holiday sale just started. Not the best discount but not bad considering the game just came out.
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Except that the game is bad and not worth it.
It does the Oblivion thing of having one big voice actor right near the start (Elias Toufexis, in this case) to lure you into the idea that there is more to this game than there actually is, but .... no.
This game lacks a lot of what I want from a modern MechWarrior title. It doesn't have a story -- And what story it has lacks urgency and punch and character; Where MW4M had you run around the Inner Sphere, visiting defined planets that each had their own little mini story arcs that fed into the overarching FedCom Civil War storyline that the game was set in, in this game, you are running around the IS taking generic contracts from characterless mission givers which tell no story. There is no sense of events happening around you; the game just presents an infinite sandbox for you to run around in. Everything is strictly mechanical: You enter into a relationship with a great house not because you like that house and what it stands for, you do it because running up your rep with them gives you points you can spend during contract negotiations. Missions are interchangeable; there are about a dozen different maps and a bunch of prefab structures in them that you are tasked to defend, destroy, or visit while looking for things to destroy.
Speaking of missions, this game has one trick, and one trick only, to balancing them. Since there is no custom geometry to exploit and built interesting encounters around, each mission will have you defend yourself against wave after wave of the same enemies over and over again, and it's getting old fast.
It's procgen trash, basically. There's no real design here, just a progression system and an economy.
Meanwhile, this game screams "half finished" to me. Certain aspects work well: The mech models are pretty cool, the music .... exists, the weapons sound and feel good, and the basic gameplay of piloting your walking tank is solid. It is no coincidence that these things are all things that MWO also got right, to an extent.
It's in everything else that it falls down: The two main NPCs you end up interacting with (the mechanic and the mission control lady) are both pointless, characterless; your main in-between area is a lovingly detailed rendition of a Leopard's mech bay that you'll never, ever use or explore unless the game forces you to. UI elements are from a basic UI widget kit that I am sure is somewhere in the Unreal asset store.
So yeah. Instead of playing MW5, track down the Mektek release of MW4 Mercs and play that. You'll have a better time.
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(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/495355197032235028/657721367633854494/unknown.png)
This is what MW5 thinks what a "Personality" is.
What dissapoints me about this, straight after having played a battletech campaign and bearing in mind I'm still very much in the refund window having played 110 minutes, is that MW5 doesn't really capture the weight of the thing very well. Aside from the fun of rampaging around bases like a bull in a china shop, which is the most fun I've had causing enviromental destruction since Brigador, there's a lot of circle strafing fights with vehicles and the ocassional mech battle, but...
There are other games that do heayv steel combat: Battlefield V's tank combat isn't as complex as any Mechwarrior game, but it does convey the feeling of "This is a steel death machine" extremely well, especially if you're piloting something ridicilous like a Sturmtiger. Battletech is a turn based tactics game, but it manages to convey the feeling of an AC/10 being a DANGEROUS thing that you should fear very well. Titanfall 2 is a game that is far more about being outside of a mech then it is about being inside of a mech, but the mech battles in that game still convey a sense of lethality even if you are a bit bullet spongy.
All the fights in these games involve tactical thinking, popping in and out of cover, becuase even whilst you are fighting a steel death machine that dominates the battlefield, you aren't the only one. Mechwarrior 3 understood this very well,
And MW5 doesn't really seem to? A lot of the early game combat involves circle strafing with tanks who very slowly chip away at your health. A weapon like the AC/10, which in Battletech is conveyed as this very powerful weapon, seems to have no impact at all when it's brought to bear against a tiny spider, even whilst it can bring down entire buildings in one shot. A weapon which in other games gives you only a 10 round magazine and the mech visibly being brought out of alignment when fired, here only evokes a mild *thud* as you look to your ammo counter to see you have another 90 rounds. And yes, Mechwarrior 4 had a similar problem...
... But Mechwarrior 4 had a way smoother engine. I'm not at all impressed by how the feeling of recieving and taking damage is conveyed in this game. The game's sounds seem muted, and the game's engine itself is pretty janky, there's lots of very visible pop-in all around.
Yes, it's been 19 years since Mechwarrior 4. Yes, it's been 10 years since that first trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inyDH0SepKE) (and yes, that trailer conveys the feeling of steel metal death better!). But since then we've had games that sold me the "Big robot" fantasy much better then Mechwarrior 5 is diong. Try the older mechwarriors again. Play Brigador. Play Battletech. Play Titanfall 2. Play Mechwarrior Living Legends. This game feels mediocre compared to any of them.
It's also very notable after playing Battletech that Mechwarrior 5 doesn't really understand the fiction of the whole thing very well. Yes, Battletech is cheating a little bit since it's literally the people who made the universe in the first place working on it, but your main antagonist in Mechwarrior 5 is introduced in a battle where he crushes the cockpit of one of his own allies under his feet. The first faction you fight proper just targets defenseless civilians for the fun of it. There's the odd "There are women and children here!" in a setting where women have oficially been part of the armed forces for a thousand years. Your engineer has been written with a slang that is speciifc to a certain part of England, half a galaxy away and a thousand years ago. It's not the intonation that is the problem here: Battletech VA gets this quite right, with various ways of inflecting the english language being there - from the start. MW5 just has US accents and LOOK THIS GUY IS ENGLISH. Despite, you know, a thousand years ago what we now know as "English" was still a bunch of saxons, danes, normans and what have you. Yes I am nitpicky, but it's not really doing quite well with the whole "medieval politics in space" thing that Battletech has. And what it tries to do, Titanfall 2 does better with it's own setting.
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in case that was too long for you:
Play Titanfall 2, Battletech or Brigador instead. They do a far better job with the "Big giant robot" fantasy in their own ways. Mechwarrior 5 simply chases nostalgia without understanding it.
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I'm still only at 30 hours in, and still running mixed lances of heavies, mediums, and lights, so I'll have to play a bit more before I give it a full review. Maybe it gets boring when you can just drop 100 tons of death on every map. Can't say my impression is as negative as The E and Joshua thus far, even if the story elements have gotten the short end of the stick, the mech battle gameplay totally carries it. So far, at least.
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Joshua mentioned some pop-in. I've got an ini edit to almost completely eliminate the pop-in, and it has certainly enhanced my enjoyment of the game. open engine.ini in AppData\Local\MW5Mercs\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor
r.ViewDistanceScale=4
foliage.LODDistanceScale=4
r.SkeletalMeshLODBias=-3
r.StaticMeshLODBias=-3
r.StaticMeshLODDistanceScale=0.1
r.Shadow.DistanceScale=2
now I can't run that at 4k 60FPS, but reducing the render scale works alright with TAA to make a good picture.
Driving a Battlemaster now, with a couple of Warhammers, an Orion, a Marauder, and a Stalker rounding out my heavy and assault mechs. I like the very heavy armor and good heat dissipation on the Battlemaster. Got a Shadowhawk, a Vindicator, and a Kintaro that i use for support, each when the other is in the shop, and a Firestarter and a Javelin as my light mechs
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Any modding support for MW5 to perhaps have an overhaul patch to address the issues mentioned?
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the mod tools just dropped, for me at least (i was bugging people at work about it) so i'll let you know.
EDIT: it's a placeholder for the mod tools, i'll keep you updated
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Last info on the modding tools is that they are beeing worked on. The intendet to release them allready but found some bugs that stopped them from beeing released.
Someone on the MWO forums started to create his own tools and allready replaced some graphics. He is currently trying to bring the Grey Death Legion into MW5.
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basically, they were ready to go, but they needed to contact one guy to see if they could distribute his plugin, and they haven't been able to get in contact for 2 weeks. They are removing the plugin from the editor and should distribute it soon.
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I am still wondering what the Editor will be and what we can do with it. Russ was kinda cryptic about the "Its only the editor". Isn't an editor to build stuff the basis for any kind of mod?
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MW5Mercs Editor has been released. I'll play with it and let you know what it can do.
EDIT: This is pretty much the editor they used to make the game. We can do everything. I am already cracking open their UI blueprints.
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If you take a look at the UI, do you think you can do something like the 2016 alpha preview hud or at least the 2018 mechcon trailer hud? Would allready be a big help.
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I'm pleased to present the first wave of mod activity! The next crop of UE4 developers is getting their first bit of experience!
https://www.nexusmods.com/mechwarrior5mercenaries/mods/newrecently
Some good stuff in there, like the mod for saving and loading colors and patterns, and the mod for applying IK to mech legs.
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We were trying to remember on discord why you were acting like you were paid to promote this game. Question answered
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We were trying to remember on discord why you were acting like you were paid to promote this game. Question answered
Always charming here on the HLPBB. Never change. :nono:
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Why don't you go cram it up your own ass, Batts? If people are talking this kind of **** in the Discord I need to get in there and set you all straight.
I was able to turn modding into a career, where I have a house and a wife and am about to start a family, and there's some newbies in there and I'm enthusiastic about them taking the first steps on that path, and this is what you have to say? Do you even remember what forum you're on?
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Why don't you go cram it up your own ass, Batts? If people are talking this kind of **** in the Discord I need to get in there and set you all straight.
I was able to turn modding into a career, where I have a house and a wife and am about to start a family, and there's some newbies in there and I'm enthusiastic about them taking the first steps on that path, and this is what you have to say? Do you even remember what forum you're on?
Chill.
Seriously, chill.
Take a step back and take a good look at what's happening here.
On the one hand, you have a game dev giving modders a level of access to their game that, in the year of our cat 2020, is unexpected. This is great. That the modding tools used are industry-standard tools that would allow modders interested in making games on their own to strike out more easily, or to genuinely put "Experience with UE4" on their resume is also great.
But, on the other hand, you have a game so unpolished that something like "adding IK to mechs" is something a modder had to do, because the original developer did not bother to do it themselves (sidenote: Isn't it curious that Battletech shipped with IK everywhere?). You have a game that is seriously disappointing in the context of the games before it, that shows every sign of being developed half-assed or rushed. This is baaaaad.
Does this good thing cancel out that bad thing? To me, it doesn't. Games that ship in a state where a community needs to pick up the slack to get it to a good place should be unacceptable, regardless of what else the developer does or how much you, personally, like that game.
Also, remember that Battuta's career, just like yours, features modding quite prominently.
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Why don't you go cram it up your own ass, Batts? If people are talking this kind of **** in the Discord I need to get in there and set you all straight.
I was able to turn modding into a career, where I have a house and a wife and am about to start a family, and there's some newbies in there and I'm enthusiastic about them taking the first steps on that path, and this is what you have to say? Do you even remember what forum you're on?
Amazing how we had identical experiences!
Your company crunched my friend half to death then fired her to make more Fortnite so no, I’m not super excited about anyone going into the game industry. (She then ended up at Blizzard and Marvel, where a forged tweet by an Internet rando led to a massive harassment campaign against her.) And I’d absolutely say the same about anyone going to my company.
You don’t need to like video games because they’re on ‘Your’ engine.
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More importantly you can post about them without sounding like a shill.
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But, on the other hand, you have a game so unpolished that something like "adding IK to mechs" is something a modder had to do, because the original developer did not bother to do it themselves (sidenote: Isn't it curious that Battletech shipped with IK everywhere?). You have a game that is seriously disappointing in the context of the games before it, that shows every sign of being developed half-assed or rushed. This is baaaaad.
I don't disagree that the game was rushed, but I do disagree that the game is 'half-assed' or 'baaaaaad.' They had to release early, that's all. This characterization that they're 'halfassing it and relying on modders to fix their game' is coming entirely from hypercritical internet people, most of whom have no idea how a game is made. They have plans for patching and DLC for months to come to add to their base game. If you want to look at game launches that were similar, how about No Man's Sky? I know I avoided that one on release because there was no chance they could ship what they were promising. Mechwarrior 5 did ship most of what it was promising, and it looks like it has lots of room to grow.
It doesn't surprise me that modders were able to quickly find a lot of easy adds to the game, because it looks like they had a lot planned that they had to cut for time, once you poke around the game files. Something like adding IK to mechs, as a mod, just requires the modder to hook up the plugin. Adding it to a game you intend to ship means you have to test and adjust it for each mech, on varied terrain. I don't doubt they intended to do it, and I expect the mod has all kinds of edge cases where legs go all weird.
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I don't disagree that the game was rushed, but I do disagree that the game is 'half-assed' or 'baaaaaad.' They had to release early, that's all. This characterization that they're 'halfassing it and relying on modders to fix their game' is coming entirely from hypercritical internet people, most of whom have no idea how a game is made.
I think I have a pretty good handle on how games are made, thank you. I am calling it half-assed and bad. The game was announced in December 2016, with an original projected release date in 2018. PGI already had years of experience in making a Mechwarrior at that point; there was a huge library of assets that they could draw on.
Basically, once they had finished porting assets from Cry over to UE, they should have been able to get a good head start on making missions and maps. You should be painfully aware of how much of an advantage that can be in game design.
Then the game was delayed. In December 2018, PGI pushed the release date back to September 19, then, in July, to December 19. So, with 3 years of development time, what was the game they shipped? A decent enough skirmish game, an economy and a whole lot of procgen to automatically generate what game designers didn't. A rudimentary story without any character and without any real characters. The contrast to Battletech, which has a design brief that is largely identical to MW5M is stark.
Measured against its kin, MW5M is disappointing. Measured against Battletech, it is downright insulting.
They have plans for patching and DLC for months to come to add to their base game.
So does Anthem. Them announcing that they have a plan does not mean they will execute that plan.
If you want to look at game launches that were similar, how about No Man's Sky?
Hah. No. Try again.
See, No Man's Sky was disappointing because it was hyped up beyond reason by the developers and the community. It still shipped in a playable state, it still offered an experience that was fulfilling if you didn't really go into it with preconceptions.
MW5M exists in a different context. It exists in a context where the other MWM games and Battletech exist. These are games that all prominently featured curated content, that all had decent gameplay and rythms. For MW5M to discard all that in favour of what feels like a live-service skeleton is in no way comparable to what happened with NMS.
Mechwarrior 5 did ship most of what it was promising, and it looks like it has lots of room to grow.
I don't know about you, but I do not buy games based on what they could be 2 years after release. MW5 could become good with a bunch of work, yes. I'd still rather live in a world where PGI cancelled the game because it didn't come together or delayed it further than have it be released in the state it is currently in.
It doesn't surprise me that modders were able to quickly find a lot of easy adds to the game, because it looks like they had a lot planned that they had to cut for time, once you poke around the game files. Something like adding IK to mechs, as a mod, just requires the modder to hook up the plugin. Adding it to a game you intend to ship means you have to test and adjust it for each mech, on varied terrain. I don't doubt they intended to do it, and I expect the mod has all kinds of edge cases where legs go all weird.
They had 3 ****ing years. They had all the models and all the skeletons ready to go from Day 1. Do not expect me to believe that it takes so long to port something from CryEngine to UE, or to get from that point to having a map generation pipeline set up. More importantly, these are not new problems that require deep research.
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They’re a small studio with no money and limited manpower and I’m sure they were basically taking angle grinders to their faces just to make a minimum viable product. Game dev sucks and the skyrocketing cost of assets and technology (in man-hours if nothing else) means you get less done with an equivalent amount of work than you could back in Mechwarrior’s heyday.
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I am not unsympathetic to the developers and their constraints. Those explain why the game is as it is, but that does not make the game better.
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I do post with a very positive and understanding perspective sometimes, which could be seen as shilling. I just see the opposite so much on the internet, I feel the need to speak from a different perspective.
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None of you understand game development.
Furthermore, Star citizen is good.
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****, wrong thread.
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None of you understand game development.
Furthermore, Star citizen is good.
****, wrong thread.
Congrats, you actually improved the thread tho. :highfive:
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None of you understand game development.
Furthermore, Star citizen is good.
****, wrong thread.
Congrats, you actually improved the thread tho. :highfive:
:lol: :lol: :lol:
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Seemed very à propos to me :)
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So this is on Xbox Game Pass now, so I took a deep breath, paid 1 euro to Microsoft, and installed it again, this time playing via co op.
I think the game still has major issues with how it represents challenge: It's more interested in feeding you cannon fodder rather then full-on equal-strength enemy lances. I've only had one major challenge thus far: A campaign mission that has me blowing up a refinery eventually ended with fighting two enemy lances in sequence. That was good, that is the 'mech on 'mech combat that I want in this game. Feel free to have vehicles supporting the enemy 'Mechs whilst this happens, but ... I've only once had a situation where the game felt confident enough to throw an opponent of equal strength at me.
The co op aspect of the game is very good, which I suppose shouldn't surprise me considering these folks made a multiplayer game for years: Other players can drop in and drop out at any time, taking the role of an AI pilot. Giving them the option to mess around in the 'Mech bay is pretty good too. It atleast made the early game slog a lot more bearable.
Doesn't make up for the terrible intro, which you can't co op in.
Also why can't the AI use Jump Jets? Why do I need a mod for this (which the windows store version doesn't let me install)? It's been half a year since the game's release and--*
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I'm just wondering if and when MW5 will be available on GoG or Steam...probably gonna be at least another year, I think (but what do I know?).
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*BZzzssshhhttt---* --- *Screen flickers on*
It's been a year! The game has now had a steam and GOG release, a decently sized patch, and a DLC! And, because I am an absolute sucker, I bought the whole pack!
So, the issues remain: It's still a game that has a mediocre story that relies quite a bit on padding and fluff. The game still has some development issues, like how the hyped infantry is *still* not in, becuase they found it hard to tune right. On the other hand, the padding is significantly better tuned now. The awful tutorial can finally be skipped, and it's replaced with an intro movie that is at least a decent watch. The randomly generated missions are a lot more eager to throw heavy stuff at me, and I'm facing medium 'mechs immeadiately (which in itself helps pacing considerably, becuase I can now try and salvage them and upgrade my lance quicker). The soundtrack has been expanded considerably too.
My chief annoyance, which is HUD distortion also distorting the subtitles, has been fixed too. I'm not sure who thought that was a good idea, but they have repented!
It feels less monotone and less dumb. That shifts it for me from a mediocre mech game to a decent mech game, but it still can't hold a candle to Mechwarrior 4, or Brigador, Battletech and Titanfall.
It now has cross-platform co op, and non-dlc owners can join hosts that have the DLC just fine. Co-op stomping, co-op mech tuning and co-op mech painting is in itself a lot of fun and it's nice to have a game that now features that. It, imo, no longer needs mods to be fun, which is not a high bar to clear, but still.
Oh and it now has a career mode that cuts out the story alltogether from what I can tell. Not sure if that's an improvement, but it atleast lets you play with all those mods without having to go through the (better polished now) intro missions again.
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Nearly every mod has been broken thanks to the patch, so all the little QoL stuff like having a HUD that doesn't suck ass and being able to modify a mech while in someone else's game break it as it loads. It's annoying as ****.
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Nearly every mod has been broken thanks to the patch, so all the little QoL stuff like having a HUD that doesn't suck ass and being able to modify a mech while in someone else's game break it as it loads. It's annoying as ****.
Being able to modify a mech whilst in someone else's game is a vanilla feature and works just fine? I never got it to work *with* mods, although I was using the fancy Merctech.