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RE: Is MQ Dying II+How Can We Improve It?

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11/3/2010 23:50:27   
EinhanderX01
Member

If it is to be re-released, it would be classed as part of the Revival/Rebalancing Projects, and just released to provide a nice above-average mech for several levels.

And I guess it wouldn't hurt to just make the non-Rare version of the 3009 April Fool's mech not have the 1HKO; but instead just leave the strong healing special intact as compensation. The rest of the equipment would undergo reduction to better fit as a Non-Rare, including a slight head redesign and color edits so that it looks more like an old-style suave Mafia Gangster (like the attire worn by Michael Jackson in Smooth Criminal).

The older 3008 Clowns could just be given a few specials plus a Body (and a Head if they don't; but I think they did) weapon and just released at Mysterious Johnson's shop. After all, they're just about as eclectic as his magic shop, and they were pretty good machines for their time. Just need a minor update and released as permanent content (since it was pretty much just a damage machine, and the few specials the series has are now pretty much considered standard and average). To visually vary them from their original Rare form, just a slight recoloring plus sections that could be Color Custom will suffice.

The old 3009 4oJ tank mech, as I stated previously, would lose the Stars and Stripes theme, be color custom, and would have the Shoulders replaced with cannons, partly as a homage/parody to the Guntank, but also just to be a decent non-legged mech. It would need a proper Head special though, and the rest of the equipment could use some minor updates in the specials department to make the revived and Non-Rare version on par with other Non-Rare NSC and SC mechs. Because it's otherwise a pretty standard machine, it could be released at Tek's w/o preamble.

The 3010 Striker for 4oJ would just gain Color Customization and a slight tweak in specials and damage output (mainly the Body's damage output) and voila. Like the tank mech, it's standard enough in design to fit at Tek's w/o much issue.

Along with those could be the SDF Delta and Rebel mechs, which I have previously mentioned here.
Post #: 351
11/4/2010 2:54:25   
NaturallyMaria
Ebil Empress


 As a relatively new NSC player, I'm actually decently satisfied with the low-level (5-12) mech selection for the most part. A little re-balancing could help, but at least the selection is there. I do think it would help if new players actually knew what mechs were on the table though, and exactly where to get which one. When I first landed in Soluna, I figured that most of my upgrades would come from TexMex for quite a while. I only stumbled on the house mechs by accident, and I had no clue which house to choose until after I already committed to one. I also didn't realize for a while that the Soluna jobs were going to be the only mechs available for the next few levels, so instead of focusing on one job, I kind of floated between them and didn't actually get access to those mechs for far too long.

I think new players would be encouraged to complete the jobs and level up faster if they actually knew what the mech prizes were, and what each one looked like. Even getting written descriptions of them would be nice, if giving away the pictures themselves is too much. Something like Parma John saying, "The Deluxe Mecharoni is the latest in pizza technology! Its shoulder cannons slice pepperoni like no other, and it can launch enough cheese to wrap up an entire mecha!" would tell me that hey, this is a power/stun kind of guy, and that's what I like! Conversely, I'd know that the Feral Werewolf is not at all my style, though it might be perfect for someone else. I went with the pizza mission first, just because it seemed easiest (mostly because I had no idea you could even upgrade your energy blades at first...), but I'd have been rather disappointed if I chose to complete the museum or hospital mission first. The tickets to other planets are also pretty costly for newcomers, which kind of prevents new players from ever even discovering the Fastflash/Geekatron.


The worst part of the lower levels though, in my opinion, is the complete lack of worthwhile NSC weapons. Aside from the Used Electron Sniper and maybe some of the Geekatron weapons, there's really nothing worthwhile between levels 5 and 16, and then nothing again until 20. None of the mission shops offer anything better than mecha defaults that low-leveled players can actually use. On a related note, it's really discouraging to have finished so many of the storyline missions and not having anything to show for it. With my lv 13 Mecharoni, I went through and finished K&S, Westion, and Yokai... then realized that I'm still only level 16 and therefore can't use ANY of the prizes yet.

I think the best solution to this is to add a few more areas like the K&S, where the opponents are at fixed levels rather than scaling with you, so that you KNOW when it's time to tackle that challenge, and you KNOW you'll be able to use the prize once you earn it. I was seriously close to quitting after going through pretty much all of Yokai and finding absolutely nothing for me. I get that maybe I wasn't supposed to do the newest mission first, but hey... As a new player, how should I know to ignore the flashing button on the corner of the first screen?

I also think it's pretty much agreed that 12-22 is the worst stretch of grinding, not because of the time/effort involved, but because of the complete lack of new options available. You get an upgraded House/Mecharoni/Valkyrie/Police/Werewolf/Fastflash, but that's nothing we haven't seen before. The next non-rare NSC available is the severely underwhelming Deputy at 14. From 16-19, there's exactly one new choice per level (Wrangler, Drakel v4, Geist Hunter, Khael Serpent) and then again no new choices available until 23. For anyone who picked up the overpowered lv 13 Mecharoni, there's literally no point buying another mecha until... probably the V-Trapper? And like I mentioned before, the complete lack of worthwhile custom parts means that you'll be sticking with your default weapons pretty much from the time you get them.

What I'd really like to see are more choices in general at each level. They don't even have to be particularly GOOD choices, just valid alternatives of roughly equal power to what's already there. Even simple palette swaps would be nice. I just don't think that having basically one new choice per level is enough to keep a new player interested, and not nearly enough to motivate that person to actually invest money into the game.
MQ  Post #: 352
11/4/2010 11:07:42   
Hellsoarer
Member

The game gets fun at lvl 24-45 :]
But for a rare collector... Even lvl 2 is fine

< Message edited by Hellsoarer -- 11/4/2010 11:22:33 >

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AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 353
11/4/2010 20:40:19   
icemaster 77
Member

I hope this week release will include weapons for lv gaps and a long quest.

< Message edited by icemaster 77 -- 11/4/2010 21:03:32 >
MQ AQW  Post #: 354
11/7/2010 13:59:48   
ZamuelNow
Constructive


 I'm going to make a daring and potentially unpopular suggestion that I think has a lot of merit. MechQuest should make it's absolute maximum level cap 50.

*dodges tomatoes and energy blades*

Constantly raising caps is popular but not that needed at this point. One of MQ's weaknesses is also one of its strengths--level is (mostly) meaningless. Enemies scale to equipment instead of player level and very little in the game is non-scaled. Once you get to a certain point, there isn't much need for xp. Plus, raising the cap and only putting equipment there is what led to some of our gaps today. By planning for a specific max cap, things in the game can be adjusted accordingly.



One of the issues with the SDF mecha isn't just the fact that the mecha went rare. Two wars they were associated with went rare too. While it didn't really give us new info about the Rebel/Kingadent/ShadowScythe situation, it helped add to the overall weight and feel of things. Plus, it's just another issue of lost content. Alternate missions for SCs and having the war meter that converted to an HP bar and counted down are cool things that people who weren't there should experience. Something else about lost content is that it too feeds the level gaps. Wars are essentially structured farming and caused many to bypass the problem area that was in this range.
DF MQ  Post #: 355
11/7/2010 15:17:29   
stealthwings
Helpful


 I disagree. *Throws tomato*
As you said, there is not much need for XP. As a result, getting to the cap is a choice, once you get past 25, you only level if you want to. Why make the cap low? The people who do not like to level can stop whenever they want (as long as they reach around 25) the people who like to level, can continue. The people who do not like to level will not be affected by what the cap is at. The people who do, will want it to be high. Who gains from it being low?

Raising the cap has not caused gaps. Gaps are caused by power inflation. At every gap, there are weapons/mecha, they are simply outdated. In order to stop mecha gaps, all that needs to be done is to have the house mecha continuously updated, if they become UP, all versions get slightly tweaked in order to make them balanced. Then, they will be what they were supposed to be, not the most powerful mecha in the game, but an easy to access ok mecha, which is available in all levels.
DF MQ  Post #: 356
11/7/2010 15:27:36   
EinhanderX01
Member

Gaps are not caused by power inflation.

It's actually the result of sudden Cap increases without proper filling of the gap zones (notably the jump from about 15 to 20 followed by 20 to 25 in the span of a few months). Look at Westion Part 2. Many of the quest rewards have gaps in them, with the Khaeldron Mayor missions being the worst. They have about 4 different weapon designs and only for 2 different levels. In fact, the only reason Westion Part 2 still has any equipment available to cover all levels up to 40 reasonably well is because the War was never shut down and the War Rewards still available.

As for max level cap, 100 is as good as any a place to stop. The issue is properly filling in gap zones and providing adequate variety for every 2 to 3 levels.
Post #: 357
11/7/2010 15:33:20   
Hellsoarer
Member

quote:

*Throws tomato*

*Deflects tomato into stealthwings face* HAHA >:D dragonguard and sepulchure and skullcrusher scale to 100 so you shouldnt be able to go higher than 50
AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 358
11/7/2010 15:37:19   
stealthwings
Helpful


 *falcon smacks tomato into hellsoarers face*
Wait, what? Because they scale to 100 you shouldn't be able to get to 100?
DF MQ  Post #: 359
11/7/2010 15:53:32   
jrobot2
Member

What they should do to improve it:

1-More shops in soluna. We need someone in soluna to sell mods varying from levels 1-45, Sc, non sc, and NG. We need some of these.

2-Better storyline, yokai bored me a lot, even though it was a new planet.

3-More blades in soluna, higher level ones at levels 30-45.

4-Shops undated in soluna. You can't find any good weapons anymore, they should expand all the shops in soluna if possible.
AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 360
11/7/2010 16:06:53   
Psycho Warrior
Member

what if the pedia was cleaned up a bit?

maybe separate it into SC, NSC, and NG?

it would help with people searching for mecha/weapons since they would generally know if they are SC or NSC.
MQ  Post #: 361
11/7/2010 16:12:22   
Doom Zero
Member

*joins the conversation without reading pages 1-14*

Well, I don't really agree with that level cap maximum idea. DragonFable has been running for a few years now and the level cap is only at 60. I say MQ shouldn't have a final level cap set at all. Level caps are a hard thing to adjust to, yeah, but really, as long as they are few and far in between, they're manageable.
You know I'm really not going to try and join that particular argument; I really have no idea what a level cap is viewed as for MQ players.

But I can argue another point.
See, I'm a gamer, like everybody here. I'm particularly fond of AE games. This means I play (or have played) every game of AE's. Except Epic Duel, but that's not the point. I've built up strong(ish) characters in every game... But in the end, I leave that game. I haven't played AQ in so long, even though my character is very well off. The only reason I keep coming back to (but not staying with) MQ is because the mechas are so enticing. It doesn't hold me here though. Yes, it's a mech quest, but it's got to have some story in it. What holds me to DragonFable is the story. They have characters, jokes, awesome weapons. In essence, they're doing it right. The quests in DF are basically the same thing over and over, but what you're trying to accomplish through each quest is made clear. You have a cutscene which explains the setting, the characters, the enemies, and the goal, and then you're sent off to battle those enemies. If you take away the cutscene and add mechs... it's, well, this.
tl;dr: MQ needs some life in it.

Oh, yeah, I forgot something.

The thing that brings me back to MQ is the mechs... But the thing that ultimately makes me leave is also the mechs. They look brilliant, they sound brilliant, but the costs... Aaaaagh. If I were to stay with MQ permanently, it would be because I had the Sepulchure mech (or the Dragonguard, but that's not an option, even for christmas.) I would never have to farm for another mech again. I would have a sustainable mech that levels up with me and has attacks that will probably never get old.
To be clear, when I say levels up with me, I mean to say it gets upgrades every few levels so I would never have to replace it.
AQ DF AQW  Post #: 362
11/7/2010 16:41:39   
ZamuelNow
Constructive


 I plan to eventually comment on most of these responses but this one stuck out the most despite the strikethrough

quote:

DragonFable has been running for a few years now and the level cap is only at 60.


I feel it actually favors the argument and is a lot of the reason why I had the idea. The game that's been out longer and has much more content is actually very slow about raising the cap. Plus, as far as your comment about farming, that's also a side effect of gaps and missing content. You still have to farm in DF, it's just that they do a better job of hiding it within the course of a quest line and the fact that once you have an armor trained you only have to be concerned with higher level weapons.

*sits in comfy chair and awaits more responses*
DF MQ  Post #: 363
11/7/2010 16:43:17   
stealthwings
Helpful


 MQ is slow about raising the cap. How long was it at 40 for?
DF MQ  Post #: 364
11/7/2010 16:45:06   
Hellsoarer
Member

quote:

Wait, what? Because they scale to 100 you shouldn't be able to get to 100?

Yes I just said that
AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 365
11/7/2010 16:49:21   
stealthwings
Helpful


 Why? What is the point of them scaling to 100 then?
DF MQ  Post #: 366
11/7/2010 16:51:14   
Mange
Member

My thoughts are thus.

Redo the older mechs so they are in line with the current ones.
Give us a reason to USE house mechs, as of current they are worse than many of the other choices.
Allow Default weapons to scale a few levels (not to max level but a few)

Give us better inventory control, its a PITA to shuffle through tons of stuff just to get to what you need.

Give our captains a reason to get out of their mechs to fight, currently when i have to battle outside the mech I just spam the attack button in a energy blade fight till my opponents dead. no reason to use any of the others.

Quit making level/story progression based on a random roll, I would even go as far as going back to the older missions and removing that, one of the worse things you can do to your players is make them have to fight the same thing over and over again just to fail each time because they have to roll a 90 or higher, thats not skill, thats just plain luck.

Add loot drops to more 'bosses' and make the bosses harder.

Make loot drops better on Harder difficulties.

More items with passive bonuses.

Thats it for now. I'll come back and re-edit when i can think of more :P
MQ  Post #: 367
11/7/2010 16:59:10   
stealthwings
Helpful


 I disagree about the more stuff with passive bonuses. Passive bonuses are OP/very good when they are high, and useless when they are low.
DF MQ  Post #: 368
11/7/2010 16:59:57   
Mange
Member

Eventually levels will get higher, some of the mech scaling to 100 is just so people who spend a buttload of money on a mech (Read Dragonguard) wont come back complaining that their expensive mech is now useless. That dosent mean however we will ever see level 100, but I'm sure we will see the cap raised a few times.
MQ  Post #: 369
11/7/2010 17:01:08   
Mange
Member

I'm talking about passive bonuses like the ones on the halloween gear, like a +1 here or there but nothing op.
MQ  Post #: 370
11/7/2010 17:42:23   
seventy two
Member

@Zam
quote:

Plus, raising the cap and only putting equipment there is what led to some of our gaps today. By planning for a specific max cap, things in the game can be adjusted accordingly.
This problem could easily be solved by raising the cap 1 level every couple of months(Instead of large 5 level jumps) allowing levels to be guaranteed 2 months worth of items.

@Mange I agree with you on most points, others I do not.
quote:

Give us better inventory control, its a PITA to shuffle through tons of stuff just to get to what you need.
The tabs at the top of your inventory do a fine job at sorting weapons.
quote:

Add loot drops to more 'bosses' and make the bosses harder.
NO! Drops are not good, this is the thing I hate about AQW and DF. MQ has the best weapon obtainment system of the games IMO.


Now in my opinion I see no reason not to raise the cap, it providers some content while allowing casual players able to relax without worrying about it. The problem is with cap increases being so drastic, a level every little bit is fine but quick jumps of 5 levels is overkill.
AQ MQ  Post #: 371
11/7/2010 17:49:45   
Mange
Member

@seventy two

adding loot drops dosent mean the loot would be 'random' like it was in the other games, I agree, I HATED farming for a weapon i wanted and coming up with even more daggers. What I mean by 'drops' I mean like how you get the Candybag for example (from the event) however make the boss actually a bit tougher than a normal boss (Not impossible) and give that gear a slight boost when obtained on a higher difficulty. Either way the loot would be 100% drop and be the same loot, and unlike DF and AQ usable by anyone.
MQ  Post #: 372
11/7/2010 18:13:07   
Vampire Fexy
Member

Pretty sure that Korin said that the lvl cap is 100 somewhere, dont remember thought but i know he did.

quote:

I'm going to make a daring and potentially unpopular suggestion that I think has a lot of merit. MechQuest should make it's absolute maximum level cap 50.

*dodges tomatoes and energy blades*

Constantly raising caps is popular but not that needed at this point. One of MQ's weaknesses is also one of its strengths--level is (mostly) meaningless. Enemies scale to equipment instead of player level and very little in the game is non-scaled. Once you get to a certain point, there isn't much need for xp. Plus, raising the cap and only putting equipment there is what led to some of our gaps today. By planning for a specific max cap, things in the game can be adjusted accordingly.


That would be awesome, having lvl 50 capped would help at a lot of things, mechas/equipments wont be useless because of lvl raising, less versions for mechas/equipments would also give mods more time to do other stuffs since they wont have to make states for every version, i mean how much time they would have to do when the lvl cap is 100 ? over 25 version of mechas would be out there.

quote:

what if the pedia was cleaned up a bit?

maybe separate it into SC, NSC, and NG?

it would help with people searching for mecha/weapons since they would generally know if they are SC or NSC.


I would do that if the mods there would be a little greatful for the persons who keep wasting there time helping in the wiki, and its dead now because of that.

quote:

But I can argue another point.
See, I'm a gamer, like everybody here. I'm particularly fond of AE games. This means I play (or have played) every game of AE's. Except Epic Duel, but that's not the point. I've built up strong(ish) characters in every game... But in the end, I leave that game. I haven't played AQ in so long, even though my character is very well off. The only reason I keep coming back to (but not staying with) MQ is because the mechas are so enticing. It doesn't hold me here though. Yes, it's a mech quest, but it's got to have some story in it. What holds me to DragonFable is the story. They have characters, jokes, awesome weapons. In essence, they're doing it right. The quests in DF are basically the same thing over and over, but what you're trying to accomplish through each quest is made clear. You have a cutscene which explains the setting, the characters, the enemies, and the goal, and then you're sent off to battle those enemies. If you take away the cutscene and add mechs... it's, well, this.
tl;dr: MQ needs some life in it.


Cutscenes arent the only thing we need, the story plot is just horrible at late planets, Yoaki had no major plot at all, "go defeat the master and his students!", we had that all the time which was way to dumb, we need a better plot and more cutscenes overall.

quote:

Redo the older mechs so they are in line with the current ones.
Give us a reason to USE house mechs, as of current they are worse than many of the other choices.
Allow Default weapons to scale a few levels (not to max level but a few)


You dont expect them to update old mechas, they are old and made for lower lvl persons, maybe give some UP mechas some buffs but not a whole new updates for every old mecha, and house mechas USED to be OP, they are just bad the time being since they are old, default weapons dont need a scale, only scaled mechas have scaled weapons and thats the point that its called scaled mecha.

quote:

Quit making level/story progression based on a random roll, I would even go as far as going back to the older missions and removing that, one of the worse things you can do to your players is make them have to fight the same thing over and over again just to fail each time because they have to roll a 90 or higher, thats not skill, thats just plain luck.


Some missions need these, but defiantly not a lot, there should only be 2 missions with random roll maximum >_>

quote:

Add loot drops to more 'bosses' and make the bosses harder.

Make loot drops better on Harder difficulties.


How the heck would a huge mecha drop a shoulder weapon and you would carry it without fingers ? also loots are plain dumb and annoying thats a reason i dont play DF now.

_____________________________
AQ DF MQ AQW  Post #: 373
11/7/2010 18:17:14   
Psycho Warrior
Member

@Fexy:

i was talking about the MQ encyclopedia, sorry for not specifying.

as for the wiki, i actually forgot we had one, i haven't been on it in quite a while
MQ  Post #: 374
11/7/2010 18:42:44   
ZamuelNow
Constructive


 Forgot that we do have equipment that actually scales to lvl 100. 50 was merely an arbitrary number that is admittedly and purposely "close" to where we are. But yeah, the 15-20 and 20-25 jumps really threw things out of whack for the game. The current level cap is higher than it should be. The suggestion that all level cap increments should be small is good. I'd say it should be by two levels rather than just one. Remember, anyone already at the cap will immediately hit the cap at their next fight if it is only raised by one.

Regardless of whether or not the game gets a specific max cap, we should stay at the one we are at until most of the gaps are filled. We may have been at lvl 40 for a while but in that time a lot of the past problems weren't fixed. Speaking of gaps, it's interesting that Zargon comes after Westion chronologically but it has equipment that's available at lower levels. This might be ignorable since the two are slightly interchangeable but one of numerous quirks here and there.

As far as loot, MQ works relatively well in regards to the fact that you buy what you need. It's just that if you get stuck at some of the lower levels you have difficulty recovering and there most certainly are ways to get stuck. Now, loot actually can work, even on a story/roleplay level since you could theoretically use a teleportation system, it's just that it needs to be handled well. Honestly, Valor Badges should have been better handled than they were. Some sort of "scrap metal" system where it could be traded in for credits and/or parts has potential. DF avoids some of the money problems not just because you get drops you need but because you can sell the ones you don't.
DF MQ  Post #: 375
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