A Productive Conversation to Improve the Game before Launch

[CRES]

Now that it has been a week since the Open Beta Launched, I think it is about time we had a proper discussion as players on how to improve the game before the game fully launches.

Please keep this civil and productive, for each criticism posed, try to come up with a possible solution or at least brainstorm alternatives.

I'll start:

1) Make Strikers available immediately or significantly cheaper.

The current prices for Strikers and prohibitively expensive. Right now, (playing as much as I can) I have only been able to purchase little over half of the strikers available. I still don't have the funds to buy Pinaka, SkyRaider, Strego, Panther, and of course Inferno. Either make all Strikers available immediately, or reduce the price of the most expensive Strikers down to about 10K Credits.

2) MashMak is unbalanced and grindy.

Right now my MashMak experience has been super easy mobs, super easy but incredibly tanky boss enemies, and instantly annihilated the moment any other player shows up. This makes MashMak very frustrating when all you want to do is grind for resources, but the moment another player group shows up you die. As for grinding it is absurd how little Merit Points you earn from a MashMak match. Right now I only have about 1K MP... and I need 18K to buy Inferno. Also the amount of slots available combined with how little you can Air Evac out at at time is frustratingly limited, especially since I basically only grind Mashmak to get Paint which takes the same amount of room as a Rare mod.

My solution to the first problem is to make enemies in the environment a bit more dangerous and the boss enemies less tanky and give other player teams an intensive to work together rather just immediately up and fight.

As for the second: Greatly increase the amount of MP gained after a MashMak match (we already have a weekly point limit to prevent people from just No Life-ing this mode so why be so stingy with point pay-outs), and allow more items to be carried and air evaced out. My easily solution for the second point is to allow certain low value drops (Like Paint or Research Data) to be stackable.

3) MVP tied to rewards.

Right now I have gotten all of the rewards for the "Ace Combat" pack, expect for one. The Jetpack which requires I get MVP for 5 different matches. I only got MVP ONCE. This feels unnecessarily difficult as it not only requires you to be better than your opponents to win the match it also requires you to be better than your entire team, which given all the factors that could go wrong (like hard counters, having your team abandon you, or not playing to the objective), makes getting MVP a challenge in and of itself. You can be one of the best players in the world and STILL not get MVP, so why make it a mission or tied to rewards. Just being named MVP should be reward enough.

The solution to this is easy, just don't make getting MVP a reward or mission requirements.

4) Custom Paint Job Slots

Currently, if you want to do a custom paint job on your Striker or for your Pilot, you need to overright the default paint job. Why? I feel like a much BETTER solution is to have a Default paint job (as well as any purchasable paint jobs) and then give players a slot for a Custom Paint job that they can use freely. And if players wanted more slots for custom paint jobs, just have them buy additional slots with the premium currency.

I might have more but I'll leave it to this for now. Please feel free to add to this list and hopefully the Developers can take this into consideration for the full launch.

[Om3ga-Z3ro]

I guess....

Don't make the inventory so limited? 120 slots is so little and even skins take up an inventory slot, skins should have its own inventory. The stuff that takes up inventory are
1. Skins and accessories
2. Mods
3. Mech Patterns
4. Crates
5. Paint

Each of these items should have their own separate inventory.

[Ichmag 🔑🌙]

just remove the bots, honestly

[Arkiuz]

Mashmak needs to have a maximum Strikers on the Map limit and there should be no NPC/AI Strikers. Period. It is absolutely annoying to find one lone NPC/AI and suddenly get mobbed by 5 other Strikers.

I barely knew we had an overall inventory until someone mentioned it. So, I can't really comment?

[Phazon_Storm]

rework the achievement based unlocks, so modes aren't unplayable for most leading to endless queues for those who do unlock them.

Mashmak needs a lot of tuning, but a think the presence of a premium subscription will kill that mode no matter what, the cargo rockets feel like a necessity.

[CursedXistence]

My suggestion would be to make the mashmak solo mode PVE only and keep higher tier rewards for the PVPVE co-op mode or at least rarer for the solo mode.

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I get the concept of having the modular weapons / weapon depots, but I do wish each mecha has a couple of default main weapons to select from that fit with it's class / weight. That's definitely one thing where Armored Core / Gundam excels at and it wouldn't hurt for them to take a bit of inspiration from that.

[CRES]

Originally posted by Phazon_Storm:

rework the achievement based unlocks, so modes aren't unplayable for most leading to endless queues for those who do unlock them.

Mashmak needs a lot of tuning, but a think the presence of a premium subscription will kill that mode no matter what, the cargo rockets feel like a necessity.

That's another big one, either remove the modes from the achievement unlocks and either have them unlock as part of the tutorial (for on boarding purposes) or put them all at the beginning of the level rewards.

Originally posted by CursedXistence:

My suggestion would be to make the mashmak solo mode PVE only and keep higher tier rewards for the PVPVE co-op mode or at least rarer for the solo mode.

------

I get the concept of having the modular weapons / weapon depots, but I do wish each mecha has a couple of default main weapons to select from that fit with it's class / weight. That's definitely one thing where Armored Core / Gundam excels at and it wouldn't hurt for them to take a bit of inspiration from that.

I thought about that too, but I doubt the developers will abandon the PvPvE concept this close to the game's full release.

[CursedXistence]

Originally posted by CRES:

Originally posted by Phazon_Storm:

rework the achievement based unlocks, so modes aren't unplayable for most leading to endless queues for those who do unlock them.

Mashmak needs a lot of tuning, but a think the presence of a premium subscription will kill that mode no matter what, the cargo rockets feel like a necessity.

That's another big one, either remove the modes from the achievement unlocks and either have them unlock as part of the tutorial (for on boarding purposes) or put them all at the beginning of the level rewards.

Originally posted by CursedXistence:

My suggestion would be to make the mashmak solo mode PVE only and keep higher tier rewards for the PVPVE co-op mode or at least rarer for the solo mode.

------

I get the concept of having the modular weapons / weapon depots, but I do wish each mecha has a couple of default main weapons to select from that fit with it's class / weight. That's definitely one thing where Armored Core / Gundam excels at and it wouldn't hurt for them to take a bit of inspiration from that.

I thought about that too, but I doubt the developers will abandon the PvPvE concept this close to the game's full release.

I'm not saying abandon the PvPvE aspect completely, just make the solo mode of it that you unlock at level 13 be PvE.

[Rhaaxerus]

The perfect mech game does not yet exist.
But Mecha Break has the potential to become an iconic game in the genre.

Would like to see a more grand scale.
Both in PVP matches and some sort of story to progress through and learn more about the who, what, where, and why of the Mecha Break world.
And more integration between the in-game world and the matches you fight.

I'm thinking multiplayer aspects like Front Mission Online, Mobile Suit Gundam Online, Gundam Battle Operations, Mechwarrior, etc.
There's a missing element of player interaction and mingling in Mecha Break.

I know this open beta isn't the finalized release, and we'll have to wait and see what the future of Mecha Break looks like.
But here's just some visions of what could be improvements to consider.

The Hangar: Player Lobby
The Hangar should be a player hub.
Not like an MMO with far too many afk players standing in front of all the quest givers.
But maybe some 16, 18, 24 player lobby with instancing and the ability to set up your own squad's private lobby or prioritize squad members joining.
It seems like the hangar had some sort of intended use by the devs, and I don't know what the final vision is they have in mind.
But It's such a large space with NPCs you can talk to and what looks like future things to interact with. But there's absolutely no reason to roam around the hangar.
You spend all of your interaction time between matches, selecting menus when you could be utilizing these hangar spaces for those interactions and be able to queue up with other players while you're doing things around the hangar and actually see other pilots there in the space.
Examples of utilizing the lobby space with players roaming around would be something like;
Monster Hunter towns, the Gundam Battle Operation base, Sky: Children of the Light which has gathering hubs in a much more open world sense than the others and with a sort of central hub that uses the space very well.

Expand and Intensify PVP Matches: More match types, bigger maps, longer time, more kills, more action, more excitement.
Verge matches feel far too brief and chopped down.
They should be a more significant battle to prepare to step into.
Or a new main PVP battle operation on a more full-scale with longer time limits, higher point count, higher kill counts;
And Operation Verge remaining as a separate more skirmish mode for quick battles in a simplified version of the main PVP mode.

Payload escorts - are just a short slug fest for a distance to race your cart to the end.
TDMs - are just 6 kills and best of 3 rounds when it easily could be best of 5 rounds or something.
Keys to the shuttle - is such a small map you just need to be quick and you're on the shuttle downloading the key immediately.
Extractor destruction - is brief and only a few extractors needed for each win.
Sector control - just have a low point count and can be over in a few brief mins if a team controls all points.

Faction Conflict: A Mashmak Full-Scale Battle Mode
I'm thinking; Go big here.
A 16 vs 16 Mashmak sized map, sector control battle, dependent on which Faction you are with.
There's no real sense that players are in a massive faction conflict that is being conveyed to us.
There's no full-scale battlefield conflict or opportunity for a group of players to fight it out on a battlefield for a faction they're associated with.
There's possibility for even a Faction based score tracking and the winning faction of a season to get some sort of benefits.

As it is now with Mecha Break, it seems that the faction you select doesn't have any significance or meaning or impact. Who you align with, and why you're fighting doesn't carry over into the actual gameplay.

I have no idea who any of these factions are or why they're fighting eachother.
And all I know is it has something to do with these magic space crystals and everyone wants them because they're the gimmick that makes the world go round.
Seeing some sort of storymode that incorporates player Co-op and shows the gameworld and the lore to players would make this so much more than it is now.

[KZ]

Bots need to go, "Logistic Support" needs to go, Strikers locked at all need to go.

[TinFoilMkIV]

There should definitely be a larger pool of easily unlocked Strikers. We have a ton of credit sinks but not many ways to earn them. So fully agree they should be less expensive. As well as probably have a free rotation so people can run the more advanced mechs and get a proper feel for them in pvp. That'll help sell people on wanting to invest the resources to unlock them and offer more variety right off the bat.

As for Mashmak stuff. I think the PvE is in an okay spot. I do think stacking paints would be really nice. They already take up so much out of match inventory it's hard to justify collecting many. Honestly the out of match storage should be higher or storage per category of item. Grind generally doesn't seem to bad with two exceptions. Inferno cost is just absurd. No way around it. Waaaay too many points. And Glider upgrade modules are damn near impossible to find, not to mention managing a full set to upgrade the glider you actually want. Since the credit sink on them is massive it's not feasible to just upgrade whatever you get. Assuming you even can get the materials to make a tier 2 glider.

Would definitely like paint job slots,

Game is fun but definitely has issues that will turn off a lot of casual players. I wanna see this succeed.

[Rikuto01]

If you want a productive conversation to improve the game, tie to lead dev to a chair for 30 minutes and force him to chat with you. He'd probably still ignore your feedback though.

[Kinxil]

In case devs ever read that:
- Some extra effort will be needed for balancing, especially on Mashmak and modular weapons. It's a PVP game so don't be afraid to nerf and buff. Beam autocannon kind of mistake should not happen again, or be quickly fixed.
- Mashmak needs to be a bit less punitive upon death. It's nice that it is a risk & reward mode but I think 4 item per transport wouldn't hurt.
- More content. On a general manner, it's a live service game so more mech and modes will be needed.
- Mechs gameplay should be more personnalizable. I can guess choosing mech parts would be hard to maintain (both in dev and in balance), but SOME gameplay personalisation of the mech would be awesome (I don't mean numbers, real changes). Like specializations tree. One example : Luminae with two branches : Healing (two allies can healed at once with basic shot) and Parasite (Corrupted enemies continously lose energy, or Corrupted enemy momentarily lose a part of their defense stats)
- Gameplay is a tad too focused on positionning and autolock. Some mech should reward aiming. For a starter snipers (in zoom mode) should not have any lock mechanic, it's non sensical. Aquila 3 should certainly not be multi lock and need a rework.


- The game seems very stable and I faced virtually no freeze nor bug with my modest build, keep up the clean work. It's nice to have 80+ FPS on an handheld PC.

[Sugaroverdose]

Originally posted by CRES:

1) Make Strikers available immediately or significantly cheaper.

The current prices for Strikers and prohibitively expensive. Right now, (playing as much as I can) I have only been able to purchase little over half of the strikers available. I still don't have the funds to buy Pinaka, SkyRaider, Strego, Panther, and of course Inferno. Either make all Strikers available immediately, or reduce the price of the most expensive Strikers down to about 10K Credits.

What people are going to do with everything unlocked? Half of game idea is to grind currency or achievements to get stronger, it's practically a basis of progression system, removing it makes game completely flat with nothing to achieve.

[CRES]

Originally posted by Sugaroverdose:

Originally posted by CRES:

1) Make Strikers available immediately or significantly cheaper.

The current prices for Strikers and prohibitively expensive. Right now, (playing as much as I can) I have only been able to purchase little over half of the strikers available. I still don't have the funds to buy Pinaka, SkyRaider, Strego, Panther, and of course Inferno. Either make all Strikers available immediately, or reduce the price of the most expensive Strikers down to about 10K Credits.

What people are going to do with everything unlocked? Half of game idea is to grind currency or achievements to get stronger, it's practically a basis of progression system, removing it makes game completely flat with nothing to achieve.

You're acting like the Strikers are the only thing to unlock. There are plenty of other things to unlock and even spend credits on. I mean, the entire model of a Hero Shooter is have all the heroes available to all players and have people pay for cool cosmetics. Locking Strikers and game modes behind time sinks only hinder the experience for people.