14 replies to this topic

[D20Face]

Didn't see a thread on it so I figured I'd start one.

I'm about to buy Crysis Wars just for it.

Anybody else here play it_ Any useful tips_ Any harsh criticism I should be aware of_

For those who know not what it is, links

[Naraklok]

Never heard of it. Interesting.

[D20Face]

Naraklok said:

Never heard of it. Interesting.

I'm honestly surprised. You seem like one of those people that looks for anything and everything mech, and this is by no means a low profile mod.

Currently installing, I'll give a full critique once I'm done and I get a few matches in with a friend.

[Naraklok]

I'll have to check it out.

[CEJBLADE]

Let us know what is like, looks good

CEJBLADE

[Perigren]

I am an inactive alpha tester for MW:LL. It is an awesome mod, definitely a good way to get your mech on. The only criticism I can think of is its system requirements are even more steep than crysis.
Definitely worth having it.

[D20Face]

Can't connect to any servers. Apparently this is a common issue with people who just bought Crysis Wars and it should fix itself within a week. If it doesn't I'm bitching to EA.

I guess that review will have to be put on hold for a bit.

[Perigren]

Did you connect to the crysis wars servers with punk buster enabled to verify your cd key before you installed MW:LL_

Also make sure you patch wars as well if needed. If you bought it from steam it should be patched already if you bought the disc you will need to patch it.

[D20Face]

Time for that review you were waiting for.

First and foremost, fuck the registry. I had to edit it then deny my computer edit permissions in order to play the game.

Alright, now on to the actual review. My review will be treating it like a full release game and not a free fan-made mod so it's on the harsh side.

Control scheme-Par.

The mechs feel right, but the game falls short on several issues. While the "feel" of the mechs is generally good, a lot is left to be desired in the screen wobble department, particularly in lowgrav with jump jets. It goes from what should be an immersive factor to just plain annoyance that actually pulls you out of the game for a moment.
Another painful experience is piloting the flying vehicles, but I assume that changing the controls for those should solve a bunch. The defaults for the flying vehicles SUCK. Rebind them asap or just stay away.

Lacking a mechlab sucks.

You are neither able to change the weapon groups on a mech nor look up the stats of the weapons/mechs. I haven't memorized the capabilities of all the mechs. I don't know what torso spin they have, I don't know the speeds, and I don't know what all the abbreviations for the weapons are, or even the stats(damage, travel speed, heat) for them. In a game where numbers management is just about everything, that sucks. It's a beta though, so hopefully it'll get added in soonish(a year or two)

Balance. Poor.

Snowbally in Solaris Arena, I've not gotten a chance to try Terrain Control, and Test of Strength isn't very fun except for some 1v1 shenanigans. Solaris Arena is super duper snowbally. If two people team up from the getgo you're boned since they can pool cash, and late joins are just flat out abysmal. Once a team gets a single assault class mech you're pretty much fucked. Another problem is the bases. Given the massive power a stocked base has, you're pretty much boned if you get near it. This leads to some obnoxious camping inside the base for cheap kills.

Appearance. Less than impressed.

The first thing I have to complain about is the scale of the mechs. Heavies aren't any bigger than lights. This disappoints me. Assault mechs should be massive targets. I was facing off against an Atlas yesterday and I MISTOOK IT FOR A MEDIUM MECH. That should never happen, ever. Other details are good. For instance, I like the way limbs fall off when they break. The maps themselves could definitely use some visual work. Again, beta, I expect improvement in this area.

Overall I'd say it's worth buying Crysis Wars for, but just barely and only if you've got friends to play with. It generally seems good and I'm hoping a number of the issues are done away with over the course of the beta which is currently at 0.5.5.

[RedVan]

Arseface said:

Time for that review you were waiting for.

First and foremost, fuck the registry. I had to edit it then deny my computer edit permissions in order to play the game.

Alright, now on to the actual review. My review will be treating it like a full release game and not a free fan-made mod so it's on the harsh side.

Control scheme-Par.

The mechs feel right, but the game falls short on several issues. While the "feel" of the mechs is generally good, a lot is left to be desired in the screen wobble department, particularly in lowgrav with jump jets. It goes from what should be an immersive factor to just plain annoyance that actually pulls you out of the game for a moment.
Another painful experience is piloting the flying vehicles, but I assume that changing the controls for those should solve a bunch. The defaults for the flying vehicles SUCK. Rebind them asap or just stay away.

Yeah, back when I played I had to increase my mouse sensitivity to max to get a descent turn rate...  Was nice because I have a G9 so it's easy to do so.  Never tried it with a stick though...  The fixes they implemented seemed to have made it worse too...

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Lacking a mechlab sucks.

You are neither able to change the weapon groups on a mech nor look up the stats of the weapons/mechs. I haven't memorized the capabilities of all the mechs. I don't know what torso spin they have, I don't know the speeds, and I don't know what all the abbreviations for the weapons are, or even the stats(damage, travel speed, heat) for them. In a game where numbers management is just about everything, that sucks. It's a beta though, so hopefully it'll get added in soonish(a year or two)

It's really not hard to pick up on which mech you like.  I never memorized stats of anything, I just rolled with what I liked (Scat, madcat mkii, atlas when I was in the mood, several others).  It comes with play time.  Despite never really knowing the values of any weapons or turn rates etc... I still managed to destroy whatever I looked at.  Abbreviations for the weapons... again, just takes time to learn that stuff.  Some will learn it the first time they play, others it'll take months...

As for weapon groups, you can change that.  It's been... probably 1.5 years since I played, so I may be wrong, but I believe you use the numpad if I remember correctly_  You can also make the weapons fire all at once or one after the other if you need heat management.  Think that was the \ key.

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Balance. Poor.

Snowbally in Solaris Arena, I've not gotten a chance to try Terrain Control, and Test of Strength isn't very fun except for some 1v1 shenanigans. Solaris Arena is super duper snowbally. If two people team up from the getgo you're boned since they can pool cash, and late joins are just flat out abysmal. Once a team gets a single assault class mech you're pretty much fucked. Another problem is the bases. Given the massive power a stocked base has, you're pretty much boned if you get near it. This leads to some obnoxious camping inside the base for cheap kills.

Comes with skill.  I've had many a late join in my time playing that I went on to be top score by the end of the game.

Also, most people are willing to give out free cash.  Most times I've played, the team would chose a bank, generally someone who doesn't die much, and everyone would transfer credits to them.  They would then pass on credits to whoever needs it.  If people were stuck in light mechs, it was usually because they wanted to be in one, or they didn't bother to ask for credits.

As for TC mode, it's pretty fun.  I stopped playing just after that was released.  I much prefer SA to TC, TC can tend to get slow.  But it has it's good points.

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Appearance. Less than impressed.

The first thing I have to complain about is the scale of the mechs. Heavies aren't any bigger than lights. This disappoints me. Assault mechs should be massive targets. I was facing off against an Atlas yesterday and I MISTOOK IT FOR A MEDIUM MECH. That should never happen, ever. Other details are good. For instance, I like the way limbs fall off when they break. The maps themselves could definitely use some visual work. Again, beta, I expect improvement in this area.

!!  I'd say this problem would be fixed with more play time.  I've never mistook an assault for a light lol.  I guarantee the assaults are much bigger, if you place them side by side.  If you see an assault at a distance and nothing to relate the size to, then yes, I can see how you might possibly be able to mistake it.  Now, if you're facing off with a mech, you should be close enough to be able to see the shape to tell what kind of mech it is.  Even at distance, the shapes are quite unique.  Give it more time and you'll easily be able to pick out what you're looking at

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Overall I'd say it's worth buying Crysis Wars for, but just barely and only if you've got friends to play with. It generally seems good and I'm hoping a number of the issues are done away with over the course of the beta which is currently at 0.5.5.

I'd say it's worth getting if you like mech games at all.  The MWLL team jumped in to fill a void that nobody else was filling at the time, and they've done a great job at it.  The community is one of the best I've seen, so, even if you don't have any friends, you'll make new ones.

Another thing, I'm no mech head, so I don't really know or care about "lore" and all that crap.  But I can tell you that the MWLL team is doing their absolute best to stick to lore and the battle tech or battle mech, whatever they call it, weapon values.  I guess to huge mech fans that's a big +.  At the same time, they're not being restrained by those values, if a value doesn't work well for good gameplay, they tweak it.

I'd still be playing if it weren't so time consuming, I just don't like spending 1.5+ hrs in one map lol.

Here's my fav vid I took in my time playing


and this one

[Perigren]

I can tell you Redvan, the game has come along way since you played it. Yes the game is in beta, yes there is a huge learning curve. Like Redvan mentioned the community is top shelf,if you have any questions there are people there that bend over backwards to help out new people.

Many of the concerns Arseface presented are subject to change, I was privy to many things as an alpha tester and can tell you great care and consideration goes in to everything released to the beta build,thats about all I can say with out violating the NDA.

Expect awesome things from MW:LL in the future, Remember the Dev's are all volunteer and work on it in their spare time.

[D20Face]

Redvan said:

I've never mistook an assault for a light lol. I guarantee the assaults are much bigger, if you place them side by side.

My friend was on the other team, he was in a medium mech. They were standing right next to each other. The Atlas couldn't have been more than a meter taller. Assault mechs should be 4-5 times the size of lights, and 2-3 times as big as meds.

Redvan said:

It's really not hard to pick up on which mech you like. I never memorized stats of anything, I just rolled with what I liked (Scat, madcat mkii, atlas when I was in the mood, several others). It comes with play time. Despite never really knowing the values of any weapons or turn rates etc...

Not knowing the movement speeds or torso twists on the mechs is obnoxious. I can live with the decisions I make because I'm good enough to make up for it, but I'm nowhere near as effective as I could be.

I plan on playing with friends in organized matches, and I know they're good players. I'm going to find all those numbers, but it'll be a pain looking without the lab.

Redvan said:

As for weapon groups, you can change that. It's been... probably 1.5 years since I played, so I may be wrong, but I believe you use the numpad if I remember correctly_ You can also make the weapons fire all at once or one after the other if you need heat management. Think that was the \ key.

I grouped my weapons very oddly in the Mechwarrior games. They have preset groups and whatnot already, but I'd rather set my own. Not gamebreaking, but obnoxious.

Redvan said:

Comes with skill. I've had many a late join in my time playing that I went on to be top score by the end of the game.

I absolutely hate snowballing. Hate. It. Whether or not it can be overcome by the raw skill of a single player only means one thing. The snowballing shifts in the other direction. Stomps aren't fun, period.

EDIT:

Perigren said:

That's about all I can say with out violating the NDA.

I know that feel.

Perigren said:

Remember the Dev's are all volunteer and work on it in their spare time.

I call it Black Mesa Syndrome.

[Perigren]

The wep groups are customizable using the arrow keys and enter. It is a pain initially but it saves for each chassis and variant, so you have to set each variant individually but it will be saved. you can also set chain fire or group fire as well as alpha strikes too.

Mech lab is planned.

There is a wiki page that has all the data you are looking for on each chassis and weps.

[D20Face]

Perigren said:

The wep groups are customizable using the arrow keys and enter. It is a pain initially but it saves for each chassis and variant, so you have to set each variant individually but it will be saved. you can also set chain fire or group fire as well as alpha strikes too.

I'll have to try that then. I still need to rebind a BUNCH of crap anyway.

Perigren said:

Mech lab is planned.

I figured as much. Saying I was looking forward to it would be an understatement.

Perigren said:

There is a wiki page that has all the data you are looking for on each chassis and weps.

And then I get to write that all down in a notebook, organize that, then sum it up on a few notecards for play day. Possibly set up some Excel sheets for easy access.


Oh, and thanks for all the the help!

[Perigren]

You are welcome.

Do a search over at living legends forums. A lot of this stuff has been covered and may even be in a format that you can use.