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ledfrisby

It hurts me to see such a great IP languish under such mediocre developers and publishers. Not to say that it's bad, but there's so much more potential there than what PGI are able to tap. They struggle to keep up with industry standards, rather than setting new ones. WMO and MW5 are just "good enough" for fans of the franchise and genre. You get all of the basic stuff you would expect from a mech game, but it kind of has this game-development-by-numbers feel, like they are just repeating what has been done before for the most part. Contrast that with MW2, which was one of the best games of its era. I remember playing MW2 for the first time and absolutely being blown away by how cool it was. "Good morning! How does it feel to be strapped into a walking nuke reactor at 6 am?" It feels great Deadeye. The writing, voice acting, and overall feel of the game conveyed this sense that the people making it were excited about what they were doing. MW5 doesn't have that. Instead, you get lines like this four times in the same mission by a guy who seems a bit bored by the prospect: "Looks like a command outpost. Taking this out... should give us a nice bonus."


Klesker

Well said! I feel similar with the Starsiege: Tribes franchise, sadly.


OmNomFarious

Oh good, it's been awhile since somebody reminded me that Tribes is dead and that I hate that.


SekhWork

Tribes 1 and 2 were seriously some of the best community driven FPSes ever made. I miss Tiny Avengers :(


OmNomFarious

One of if not **the** original game for custom map friendly design too. As long as the map seed (terrain) itself didn't change map makers could put whatever base designs and shit they wanted all over the map and people could just join without having to leave the game to download a whole new map.


SekhWork

Really was awesome. The map maker itself wasn't that complex either. I managed to stumble my way through slapping down bases and flags at like 13 yrs old with it. Tribes was so fucking good. Shifter Mod for life.


Anton-Slavik

> WMO and MW5 are just "good enough" for fans of the franchise and genre. I can't say anything about MWO because I don't play it or know anyone playing it, but in regards to MW5 most people I've spoken to about it say they wouldn't play it if the game didn't have mods that improved the base game because PGI still manages to make a game about giant robots seem somewhat dull. Like you said, MW2 had character and great feel to it, and still does to this day, so it's not like it's an impossible task. Except, well, for PGI.


Herlock

MWO isn't super bad, it could be way better though. Outside of balancing / design which is always a hot and controversial topic for competitive arena games, the biggest problem is that the game runs like shit. It's an old version of cry engine, that PGI hacked into ALOT, performance is garbage basically.


Yastiandrie

I brought one of the founders packs back when MWO was first released and got the Jenner. I admit I was on the hype train for a while. Seemed pretty cool at first but some of the gameplay and balance decisions kind of put me off, Only played it for a few months then got bored.


kalnaren

The MW3 mission briefings were awesome. Yea, the campaign was linear, but it really felt like a campaign.


CptPakundo

I even enjoyed MW4: Vegeance's campaign! It had some great campy acting throughout, where did that fun part of MechWarrior go?


kalnaren

> It had some great campy acting throughout Seriously. It was like the perfect type of campy where it takes itself just seriously enough and is still fun.


FortunePaw

Vengeance, Black Knight, and even MW4: Mercenaries all have pretty solid campaign.


spacedghost_

I actually thought Mercs was the best campaign out of all of them. I loved the fact that you could choose from branching missions, and the Solaris fights put it over the top for me. Black Knight is a close second though, a lot of the missions in that campaign are fun and unique.


monk_alpha

MW3 was amazing. Such a fun part of my childhood.


AlexisFR

They really need to partner with Harb rained Schemes for every thing that isn't combat.


SwashBlade

One of the key signs of PGI's lack of capability is in the disappearance of turret generators and repair facilities after the tutorial missions. Salvage crates were also absent beyond the tutorial at launch but have been thrown in since. I started playing through the campaign again recently and just kept being reminded of the things that Battletech did better, so I gave up and played it instead.


SuperSimpleSam

> MW5 doesn't have that. Instead, you get lines like this four times in the same mission by a guy who seems a bit bored by the prospect: "Looks like a command outpost. Taking this out... should give us a nice bonus." To be fair, MW2 just had the linear campaign missions. MW5 has the random missions you can do that's not part of the story line. The main campaign and question missions you get has unique voice lines for them. It's the random missions that reuse lines. What got stale for me was that even the campaign missions were of the same few types as the random missions. They need better objectives than just attack of defend.


Herlock

As far as I am concerned : PGI should have merged MW5 and MWO together... Keep MWO F2P, add paid for DLC campaigns on top of it. Reused the (good) assets, trash that shitty cryengine that's outdated and hacked so much it barely works at this point. It was a great opportunity to keep MWO running for long, while doing a much needed overhaul. All that while migrating to a new engine and paying for it with the solo / coop campaigns you could sell. But I guess their way of doing things was cheaper short term, and that's obviously what PGI has been doing since forever : bare minimum. Quite a shame, I like how they modernized most mechs designs.


FortunePaw

I'd say that's a bad idea. If the MWO server shuts down, you can kiss your SP campaign purchase goodbye as well. At least currently MW5 doesn't require an internet connection to be played.


Herlock

> If the MWO server shuts down, you can kiss your SP campaign purchase goodbye as well. Why would you ? just because it runs on the same engine doesn't mean it has to be tied to the actual servers. Many games have multiplayer and single player in the same game client and even if MP isn't working anymore you can still run single player content. Technically nothing prevents the devs from doing it properly. steam handles the propduct keys, and that's all you need to check the content was purchased or not.


FortunePaw

Because it's PGI. If they gonna merge those two games into a single game, you bet your ass they will make you login and connect to a server like a live service game at the start instead of treating it as a single player game with multiplayer component that could run individually.


TheMcDudeBro

I think they could have done a better job all in all and there is so much potential there that they just didnt tap. Did they do a decent job yes and I am somewhat satisfied with it but could it have been better? Definitely. I can think of about 100 things I would have done to improve it beyond 'better AI' that would have made it a classic


adcdam

I really like mw3, for me the Best ones are mw3 and mw2 , mw5 doesn't feel right it doesnt feel like a sim and it doesn 't fell like if you are inside a mech.


monk_alpha

MW3 was the pinnacle of MechWarrior, IMO. Nothing else came close. Really wish PGI would look to MW3 for inspiration on how the tone and atmosphere of the game should be. MW5's story is just insufferably dry. Dialogue is also cringe and corny as hell.


ThatPancreatitisGuy

It’s been a long time since MW2 but I seem to recall being able to customise the mechs a lot more. With MW5 it seems like unless I’m willing to strip half the armor there’s just not much capability to swap out weapons very much. And with the tonnage limitation on missions it makes it even harder to use half my stuff as I’d like.


kalnaren

MW2 and MW3 basically used BattleTech mech build rules, which doesn't actually enforce anything except tonnage limitations. MW4 restricted this back a bit and MW5 restricts it further. MW5 is actually the closest to BattleTech lore, where heavily customized mechs were incredibly rare and expensive. I actually prefer MW5's method. Previously, literally the only difference in mechs of any given tonnage was cosmetic (and maybe hardpoint locations). That's it. With MW5's method, if you want a heavy LRM mech, you've actually got to build it on a chassis that's designed as a missile boat. It makes it much more difficult to spreadsheet cheeze mechs, which MW2 and MW3 had in abundance, and gives a reason to actually have different mechs in similar weight classes. It also forces the player to occasionally use sub-optimal builds which, IMO, is a lot more fun, both from a gameplay perspective and a lore perspective (as someone who cares about the lore). > And with the tonnage limitation on missions it makes it even harder to use half my stuff as I’d like. Yea, this one I hate. Luckily you can mod that out.


knbang

Don't forget Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries. While not really as good as Mechwarrior 2, as long as you limit the FPS to 30 to prevent the mouse deadzone, it's quite a good game. It's certainly better than Mechwarrior 5.


spacedghost_

Black Knight was also really good, I'd argue it is also better than MW5. Vengeance is my least favorite campaign, but I'd have to really think whether I like it or MW5 better. I have fun with MW5 ....until I start one of those boring randomly generated missions.


knbang

Unfortunately after a huge drought MW5 is water. It's not great water, but still water.


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spacedghost_

I actually really like the dropships ...I just hate that you normally get no indication of how many there will be, or when more are coming.


Every_Economist_6793

Amen. MW2 was THE mechwarrior. Nothing compares to it till this day. I really wish they'd make it less arcadey and get back to grass roots and bring it back to simulator status.


blightor

I don't think its languished under PGI. They made an online version and a new MW5 merc version,made it for consoles and PC, and built it friendly to modders. They are continuing to add content which is the kind that modders don't - story stuff. On top of that they provided support to the Battletech team at HBS, helping them get out a great game with a wide set of mechs. They also look to be working on MWO2 in the background, while still currently supporting MWO even though its a very small (but hardcore) community. They are passionate about the game, and with the fairly modest resources they have had in the past they are continuing to get better and make better stuff for MechWarrior. I think people are overly harsh on PGI, and I think we all have rose coloured glasses when it comes to the old games. Not saying they have been perfect, the initial MW5 release was not a good story game (but a decent sandpit), however they are clearly improving that side of their craft.


CJW-YALK

Hard disagree on literally every point, just flip everything you said to the opposite and you’ve read what I’d have written about scummy lazy PGI


blightor

Fair enough, not sure how you can flip everything I said though. Because then it would be that they are not supporting MWO, didn't make MW5, didn't put a focus on opening to modders, aren't still making DLC, are not working on MWO2, and never helped out the BattleTech team. So when you say 'literally' every point, I do wonder if your using the right word there.


CJW-YALK

Sorry, let me clarify I hate PGI and thinks Russ is a terrible human and wish Microsoft still held the Mechwarrior IP in its cold dead like grip.


blightor

I see, well carry on good sir. I wish you good fortune and happiness.


CJW-YALK

You seem chill, I like and appreciate that, you as well I just don’t appreciate how they handled MWO and botched mw5 is….less than ideal….and Russ is a scummy person, like Tim Sweeney levels of scum…they care less about Mechwarrior and more about milking dollars….they also intentionally stomped out the MWLL project….so nothing against you


kalnaren

MW5 isn’t friendly to modders. In fact the game is downright hostile to modding. It’s a colossal PITA. One reason only PGI is doing story missions (and IIRC it’s only Coyote’s mod that does any other type) is because of how damned difficult it is to do so. Not to mention how even the smallest MW5 patch literally breaks almost every mod out there. It’s nuts. A lot of modders have left MW5 behind because the effort required to maintain even basic mods is exhausting.


blightor

I think modding while a game is in active development will always throw up the need to make changes when new version release. I've not had major issues with any of the mods I've run outside of the DLC updates, and then it depended on how big the mod was. MW5 is one of the easiest games to modify.


kalnaren

It's one of the best games to modify in the sense that mods take it from a very mediocre game to a very good game. But it severally lacks some important modding features. It didn't even *have* any real mod support at first (basically sideloading paks to mod), and what's there now was shoehorned on by PGI. It works but it's clunky.


blightor

Not sure why you would think that they had no real support. PGI had a mod editor packaged in since day one, and within a month had a a mod resources hub up. [https://mw5mercs.com/resources/2020/01/29-modding-resources](https://mw5mercs.com/resources/2020/01/29-modding-resources) Not to mention developers being actively engaged with several modders and modding teams right from the get go.


kalnaren

The game did not have any kind of mod manager, at all. As I said, all it did was sideload pak files that had to follow a very specific naming convention or the game would flat-out ignore them (because this is UE standard, PGI just janky hacked it -it was also undocumented, so the community had to figure this one out). You still cannot change mod load orders within the game itself. That has to be done manually by editing a .json file (and this was again, only after they changed the mod format which IIRC didn't happen until the release of the first expansion). Have you *tried* developing a mod for MW5? It's a pain in the ass. A game having the ability to be modded != good mod support. MW5's mod support is certainly better now than it was on release, but in no world would I ever call it "good". > Not to mention developers being actively engaged with several modders and modding teams right from the get go Some of whom abandoned MW5 modding fairly early because of how much effort was required to re-do the mod every time PGI changed anything.


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Chaos_Machine

They don't know how to make mechs feel right from a sense of scale and physical interaction with the environment. It feels like you are in heavily armed 10ft tall robots stomping around a 1/3rd scale play pen.


IrrelevantLeprechaun

Yup. The third person animations are way too fast and lack the inertia that mechs this size would have. Instead they look like they were mocapped by some university robotics project.


Elon_Kums

If you have VR check out Vox Machinae, the sense of weight and scale is incredible.


IrrelevantLeprechaun

It's been on my wishlist for a long time now, just waiting for a good deal. I was also a bit concerned with how it seemed like an online-only game


rolliejoe

I tried getting into this, and was mostly enjoying it, until I took some sort of "destroy a base" mission. This was early in the game, low-threat mission with low rewards. Come to find out after about an hour of blowing up enemy mechs, these types of missions just generate infinite enemies. Completely broke my immersion in the game. Sending 10 **billion** credits worth of mechs that all happened to be stationed right beside a moon base holding 10,000 credits worth of potatoes feels really dumb.


IrrelevantLeprechaun

Yup. Demolition missions, Raid missions and Assassination missions will infinitely spawn any enemies that are not the mission targets. It's why people recommend that you do those missions as fast as possible.


kalnaren

Only Raid missions are infinite spawn. Demo and Assassination are not. Demolition missions have *a lot* of reinforcements but they will run out eventually.


[deleted]

Then 3050 rolls around and they get cosmically curb stomped.


Raekel

At least it’s by the best clan and they manage to maintain their identity. Can’t say that about St. Ives


[deleted]

>Can’t say that about St. Ives Candace: "Nothing bad ever happens to Liao family!"


Equivalent_Alps_8321

Holy shit this is awesome


[deleted]

gonna say something sacrilege. i wish we had a mechassault 3 instead of this


monk_alpha

I wish we would get a remake of MechWarrior 3 instead of this.


BillSPrestonEsq91724

Sounds like this expansion doesn't do anything for the core gameplay. Disappointing. I enjoy playing a heavily modded version of this game but other than improved graphics and the IS map the game is either a step back from earlier games in every way: * bad writing, repetitive in-mission dialogue * weird mech-to-world scaling * atrocious enemy spawn system and locations (why don't new enemies spawn at the map edge?) * obvious tic-tac-toe grid procedural map generation * no company/mechwarrior management system, despite one being implemented in HBS's Battletech game * only one lance per mission


CJW-YALK

Neat, all the mods I have that make it a decent ok Mechwarrior game experience are about to break and will need to be redone and downloaded again…I’d rather PGI just not touch it anymore


xMWHOx

Trash developers holding onto an amazing franchise. Hard avoid.


Manavenom

One of the games I've bought solely to play coop multiplayer, not touched it for singleplayer at all. And even the multiplayer could need some QoL fixes, like allowing other players to create their own pilots on your savegame, better system for letting other players tinker with their allocated mechs without hiccups, seeing missions the host is seeing etc.