Quick Look: MechWarrior Online

@andys: Thank you for that information.

@hassun: No problem. If F2P bothers you, stay away. If you can deal with some of it and still have fun? MWO's a pretty rewarding game with a pretty high level of depths in the mechs and play styles, and a TON of configurability.

I always kind of have a game in the back of my head with F2P games in that I see them as a challenge to ring fun out of as efficiently as possible. I'll kick in money ever once in awhile if I enjoy myself, but I play mostly to have fun as cheaply as possible. If a game has too much of an advantage for the "whales", I'm gone before I ever drop any money. I don't think this game abuses the core gameplay balance very much with the pay stuff. Its money suck comes from cosmetics and earlier access to stuff you'll eventually be able to buy in game anyway for the most part. So most of that is avoidable if you want, with the exception of mech bays if you want to keep getting new mechs for your garage.

Man, this a quicklook that's been a longtime coming. Mechwarrior Online came out like...3 or 4 years ago?

They did a TNT for this game when it first came out.

@thespacemadness: you got Gundam in my Mechwarrior!

@vinny

Battletech lore is deep. In many respects the political games and spycraft is more interesting than the stories featuring snarky mercenaries in 100 ton mechs being orbitally dropped onto targets. It is a setting where the phone company is easily the most scary entity. Religious fervor in keeping your own secrets and knowing everyone else's secrets can do a lot.

It started as a recreation of European history through the lens of 80's Americans (the Chinese and Russians exist as a barely functioning tiny nation, the Japanese are a powerful but ultimately hidebound empire, the Americans were left out to keep the audience from just picking them). It started well after the fall of Rome and quickly transitions to the the creation of the Holy Roman Empire and then advances in the Next Generation-type leap to the Mongol Invasion, Reformation and Renaissance.

It has since become a bit more sci-fi with the reliability of old sourcebooks being called into question because they are all written in universe and there are conspiracies on top of conspiracies.

EDIT - Also, if the "Return of an Icon" mechs look familiar, it's because they are designs they are from Robotech/Macross.

I appreciated that HBK 4G joke.

MY HOME PLANET

Did/should someone make a mech game like this with diablo loot?

What is the best mech/piloted robots game based on:

1. Ease of controlling the mechs
2. Coolness of the universe
3. Interesting mech game play

Argue your answer succinctly as possible by explain why the control, universe, and game play is good.

Oh man i played so much of this when it released years ago, maybe i should try it again.

Holy shit, I want to play this just to buy all the shit for your cockpit.

Space Hamsters!

I've been playing this game off and on since it first launched and its one of my great loves. No, its not perfect, and no it isnt the best F2P setup in the world, but people who are still screaming 'LOL GOLD MECHS' should probably try to look past it and have fun with the thing.

This is a F2P hamster money wheel with a bad Mechwarrior skin that preys on nostalgia. Most people don't spend that much, but there are always the whales that drop the dough.

I was really really mad at this game's free-to-playness until they got to the air horns and then I was like "...I'd probably want to get one of those"

But that fucking "BUY ALL THE VARIANTS AND LEVEL THOSE UP TO UNLOCK THE ELITE SKILLS" thing sucks so fucking bad, holy shit, that might be the worst grind I've ever seen in a free-to-play game. Like damn, man. A lot of that grind just looks like it sucks.

Which is a shame because the game part looks and sounds great.

This is the second time this week the crew's enthusiasm for a new game has made me want to go back and play an old that scratches a similar itch. I'm already thinking about my next game of XCOM. After watching this, I'm just bumming hard that none of the mech games I've played have active servers. Enough with the Souls games, FROM. Make Chromehounds 2. Please.

This game is great. So immersive. So much customization. Epic battles. And I was never even into mechs.

The game is great but the grind can be an bitch. Find a group to play with and it will be immensely more pleasurable and improve your play.

@hassun: So thats the one argument ill make, a lot of this game's economy is whale hunting, but its still never pay to win. Ever.

You can spend 100 dollars on paint and on a chassis, but it boils down to skill. Even the 'Hero Mechs' which are REAL MONEY ONLY arent better, they're just different.

Example, the Misery. Its a Stalker assault mech. The Stalkers are big laser or missile boats. None of them have cannons except the Misery. So you pay your 20 bucks if you like stalkers to have a unique mesh (its got battle damage) and a unique set of hardpoints (a big fuckin gauss rifle!) and yay you have fun. Its not any better than the other stalkers, just different. Also since you paid real money for it, it gets a 10 percent free money bonus forever.

the only real downside for me is the 3x chassis to level up system. austin touched on it, but yeah, you want to get 1 of your mechs to its best potiential (and some of those master unlocks are fucking essential, one is 10 percent bonus run speed) but you have to play all 3 variants to do. Sometimes is great! sometimes its shit.

I was way into it when it first came out and really enjoyed it, but fell off right before all the Clans were introduced and my PC at the time died.

Load up every gun onto your mech. Assign them all to fire when you press the F key (F is for FIRE). Have your mech overheat and explode after one salvo. NOW WE ARE LIVIN.

Also, this looks awesome.

Also, Austin and Vinny together in a mech game is as close to pure bliss as I could imagine. Please you two, just make a new series where you play at least one hour of every mech game ever made.

@squigiliwams: I agree that they haven't really been p2w, but the danger is always there. The introduction of Clan mechs was probably the closest they've ever gotten to p2w.

Here you have a Timberwolf that has the armor of a 75 ton heavy mech, has the firepower to match an assault mech and also has a top speed that rivals most medium mechs but you're telling me I have to wait 6 months before I can get my hands on one?

Yes this game has a steep learning curve and skill definitely plays a huge role in offsetting mech advantage. Personally, after a few matches to admire how my favorite clan mechs looked in game, I found myself not wanting to play until the Stormcrow came out for cbills 3 months later. They've certainly gone out of their way to not repeat the initial clan launch for sure.

I lost it @ "Midi Drumset"

Aww, hell yeah!

A certain @humanity: posted this earlier today, upon which my immediate reaction was to save it to my computer and feel alright about the world and everyone in it, a feeling I usually reserve for videos of bear cubs playing with puppies. Now, the timing is just a little too perfect for me to pass up on posting this again.

Ghost heat ruined the fun I had with this game.

I have spent ludicrous amounts of money on this game. At least a thousand dollars. I'm afraid to actually check.

Is the intro area taking place on the Seed Bismuth or something?

@do_the_manta_ray said:

A certain @humanity: posted this earlier today, upon which my immediate reaction was to save it to my computer and feel alright about the world and everyone in it, a feeling I usually reserve for videos of bear cubs playing with puppies. Now, the timing is just a little too perfect for me to pass up on posting this again.

This G-Gundam revival is even wierder than the first.

Yay! Thanks Austin and Vinny! This game has gone through a lot of changes over the last year and it was great that you got Giant Bomb to return to it.

@huser: Oh yeah, that Warhammer is totally a Destroid Tomahawk

MAHQ - Destroid Tomahawk

I try not to fall into the the "I'm unhappy because people like a thing I don't like" mindset, but boy is the Studio Nue-Harmony Gold-BattleTech mess the closest I get to it because it literally makes being a fan of Macross more difficult.

@austin_walker is there any chance to come across a Valkyrie?

I love how this game looks and I'm a life long battletech fan.

But man the F2P crap and the complete lack of single player content absolutely kills it for me still. All I wanna do is take a shit load of mechs and go do skirmishes, I'd happily pay 60 bucks for that. Why oh why is it so hard for that experience to be allowed to exist. :(

Ah the 2016 Classic is Collection.

@lazyaza:

This game is pretty much 100% skirmishes though, albeit multiplayer skirmishes as opposed to bots. Just spend 60 bucks on a Resistance mech pack. That gets you 3 special mechs with C-Bill boosters, another 2 variants of each of those mechs (for a total of 9 mechs), 4 sets of "faction content" (a mech pattern, 3 colors, and 3 cockpit things), and a month of premium time. Or spring for the 80 dollar pack for another 3 mechs, more cosmetic whatsits, and another month of premium.

If you want more mechs, mech bays are handed out as rewards for ranking up in the faction warfare stuff as well, which means playing the somewhat more involved faction warfare matches. There's also the occasional event where mech bays (and sometimes entire mechs) are rewards.

@do_the_manta_ray: Holy shit.

Man, I so want @vinny and @austin_walker to watch Armored Trooper Votoms. MechWarrior Online scratches all my real and gritty mech itches despite being f2p, no laser swords here folks.

Fuck, do I wish console gamers like myself had a nice deep mech game to really dive into.

Looks pretty good, but damn...playing with M/Kb sounds weird to me. I loved using a joystick back in MechWarrior 3/4. I understand why M/Kb would be a far better option for this game. Maybe I just want an excuse to buy some fancy HOTAS setup.

@malrock: The best Mech anime, bar none.

Hell yeah it is!

This game is free but the developer is not worth supporting in any way. They have lied and scammed their players for years.

A brief check and I think a Thor would cost me $55 alone, damnit. Have to enjoy just seeing the galactic map and rooting for House Kurita without jumping in.

I'd just like to say for the record that the best mechs in this game are almost exclusively non-premium, and that most of the premium ones are actually objectively terrible. People just have a sort of poor understanding of how to play MWO specifically because they want to apply battletech logic to it, when in actuality it's just a shooter.

Some less than obvious lessons to learn about MWO: Jack-of-all-trades builds are garbage, not all hardpoints need a weapon, good builds are all too hot, weapon height matters, and some mechs are good only by virtue of having massive, dumb hitbox parts that you can use to absorb damage.

MWO is a weird game, and is extra weird when you look at the min-max competitive side of it.

So, return of the mech?

I'd love to check this out, but the prices seem absurd.

When this game was still terrible I played the hell out of it and built up a stable of around 16 mechs, which allows me to dip in and out whenever I want to without having any worries about grinding for cash. As someone who felt burned by all the delayed content and the implementation of third person (which they swore up and down they'd never do while they were taking your damn money!) I can say the game has definitely reached the place it should have been at its initial release. I'm not sure what kind of player retention they have with newcomers, but the grind isn't terrible if you can figure out how to build around it (high damage builds). It's a much better game than it was two years ago but it's still awfully limited in gameplay modes and there aren't a huge number of variations on loadouts for each of the various mechs due to the implementation of "Ghost Heat" and the pay to play model that requires you to own multiple variants to set yourself up with wildly different builds. The gameplay is solid but if you don't have a variety of mechs to pilot you'll find yourself burning out after a while, and the game rewards you for accumulating experience points in multiple variants of the same mech by making those mechs more efficient, which is an expensive and time consuming process.

If you're on the fence try it out, get through the tutorial stuff, play some matches, buy something, and if you're sold enough to try sticking with it, shell out some money up front to get yourself some kind of starting package. The grind feels terrible when you're stuck with mechs you don't have kitted out to your personal preferences but gets much easier once you're in the groove of just hopping in and out of matches doing damage.

Does this game work with VR? I'd might get it in that case.

@yellownumber5: VR support is coming in a future patch. No ETA yet.

@superkcross: I guess you could argue that. Yeah, ill bite. The time delay on the new stuff was rough with the clans. But i was one of the holdouts and it didnt ruin the game for me.

That said... when i got a fuckin storm crow. Christ those are good mechs. I don't see a 'HERE COME THE CLANS' event breaking the game in the future tho, but thanks for reminding me that did happen.

@thespacemadness: Hmm, i think i just might give it another shot at some point. How have they balanced the Clan weapons? I everyone just sporting clan toys or have they made them comparable to IS weapons?