[UPDATE] Piranha addresses some of the MWO's issues

Today, the Creative Director and Co-Founder of Piranha Games, Bryan Ekman has shed some light on the issues reported about MWO's gameplay and mechanics.


WEAPON BALANCING

This is a list of what is being tuned in the immediate future. There are no set dates for this. This is just a FYI as to what is coming down the pipe. 

In Current Development: 

Projectile speeds on AC rounds can use a buff:

• AC/2 is fine where it's at

• AC/5 is pretty close to where it should be

• AC/10 needs a boost

• AC/20 needs a fairly big boost

• UAC/5 will be the same as AC/5

Gauss Rifle is going to become very fragile:

• The Gauss Rifle is going to have it's internal health dropped substantially

• Once armor surrounding a Gauss Rifle has been removed, there is going to be a high probability that the Gauss Rifle will detonate via critical hits when that component gets hit by enemy fire

LRM/SRM/SSRM/ARTEMIS:

• Artemis is fine where it is at the moment.

• SRMs are fine where they are at the moment.

• SSRMs will spread damage across LT,CT,RT instead of always just hitting CT. On moving targets, limbs will be hit as well.

• LRMs will get a 0.1 damage buff

PPCs are being investigated:

• Heat balance?

• Projectile Speed?

What we are planning:

• Special effect when you are hit by a PPC that is similar to EMP

• Getting hit by an AC/20 is going to rock you hard

• MG's will be getting a damage boost

• Flamers will be getting the heat generation on enemy scaled in a way that makes more sense. You're not going to overheat a Mech but you should be raising their temps to the point that if they fire anything they will shut down/overheat

NEW USER FLOW AND TRIAL MECHS

Lots of cool stuff to talk about.
Rule changes for Trial Mechs, Achievements, smoother, more fun, first user experience. All coming to an MWO near you.

 FARMING

We are addressing several known issues with farming.
Trial Mech Locking

• Trial Mechs will now work the same as any BattleMech, they are locked until the match ends. This ends the ability for a macro player to "churn" matches to maximize CB.

Quitting/Disconnecting Early - While Still Alive

• You will only receive rewards up to the point of disconnection.

• NOTE: If you are dead, you will receive earned rewards, plus match rewards.

Idle/AFK

• Players that fail to provide any input will be kicked from a match Although it does not prevent a macro player from simply putting in inputs, it forces them to LOOK like a bot.

FOUNDER'S PREMIUM TIME

We are working on a Premium Time redeem button. 

Late November Patch

• Your Founder's Premium Time will be reset to full.

• A redeem button will be available in the Front End of the Client.

• If you click the button and accept the prompt, your time will be injected in FULL and begin counting down.

• This is a one time permanent operation.

• This operation is not reversible or refundable.

MATCHMAKING

Phase 1: November 6th

Pre-made groups will be limited to a max of 4 players when playing in random public forums. This is a quick fix to ease the PUG vs PRE issues. We do not consider this a final, nor complete fix to matchmaking. 

Phase 2: November 20th 

Pre-Made groups will be able to match against other pre-made groups.

• Min group size: 5 players

• Max group size: 8 players

• Class Matching: No

• Uneven Teams: Yes

Phase 3: December TBD
Full implementation of our modified ELO matchmaking solution. Details forthcoming.

HEAT AND DOUBLE HEAT SINKS (DHS)

EHS' are not taking into consideration the DHS values of 0.2. Instead they are using regular heat sink value of 0.1. This is the bug, it has been fixed in the upcoming November 6th patch.
During the testing of the DHS bug we uncovered a long standing heat related bug. This is also going to be addressed in the next patch. Expect some widespread changes. I will fill you later when the exact numbers are tested. 

[02-11-2012]

Double Heat Sinks (DHS)

• Fixed a bug where DHS where Engine Heat Sinks were not be converted to DHS.
• Single Heat Sink = 1.0
• Double Heat Sink = 1.4

After fixing the EHS bug, and setting DHS to a cannon value of 2.0, we experienced anticipated result. Heat was no longer a concern, increasing DPS exponentially on certain types of mech loadouts. After testing a variety of standard builds, we settled on 1.4. This value maintains the spirit of both DHS and maintains the integrity of MWO's overall gameplay experience.
PGI will monitor DHS' closely and tune this number up or down depending on the telemetry data received from production servers.

Heat Bug

Testing revealed a long standing issue with how heat was calculated for some weapons.

• Total Generated was used as Heat Per Second.
• The fix now calculates Heat Per Second based on Total Generated Heat.

This affects Small, Medium, Large Pulses Laser, and Small Lasers. They will now produce more heat when fired and work as originally intended. 

Fixes for both issues will be in the November 6th Patch 

KNOWN ISSUES

Hit Detection/Network Movement Code
We are rolling back some networking code fixes. This will address many of the hit box issues currently in the live environment. The rollback does not fix the problem entirely, and we are working hard on improving the overall experience vs performance. This is a long term engineering task and a top priority internally.
HDR/Glowing Mechs
Screens fade to pitch black when looking at very bright objects, primarily glowing BattleMechs. Our engineers have identified and located the issue which has two parts. An adjustment to the HDR settings and a fix for the glowing damage texture. Expect a fix in the November 6th patch.

USER INTERFACE IMPROVEMENTS

Item Stats and Details 

As you can see below, we are making some minor/major tweaks and improvements to communicating item information to players.
Expected: Mid-Late November

NOTE: THIS IS A MOCK UP, not and actual in game shot.

UI 2.0 

Is currently in design and will be executed before launch next year. Target Jan/Feb 2013.

INTO THE LAB

Next Patch - November 6th

• New DHS values (1.4) applied to all heatsinks, including engines
• A fix for the glowing mechs and HDR blacking out screens
• A rollback of some netcode changes, hitbox detection improved, but still needs work on faster mechs
• Centurion CN9-D
• Artemis
• Cockpit Damage FX
• Missile Door Toggle/State Lights (Open, Closed, Destroyed)
• Trial Mechs act like purchased mechs and stay locked until match ends. Reduces suicide farming, AFK players
•  Phase 1 Matchmaking. Max pre-made group size is not (maybe "now"!?) set to 4

Future Patches

ECM 

We've had several internal playtests. Overall I'm excited to see this hit the battlefield, as it adds a very interesting tactical component. However, in its current state is very overpowered and makes certain mech builds even more useful (Gausspults). There was some general usability feedback, along making it a bit more obvious to your team, that ECM is equipped. We're keeping it in test until some HUD/BattleGrid changes help smooth out communication, along with making sure the ECM is no OP. For those wanting to hide from LRMs, this will be your must have item. 

New Camo Spec 

Exciting stuff! Players can customize their mechs skin and pattern for MC. The system is very easy to use, select a skin, select up to 3 colors and hit the save button. Like a paint shop, changes are permanent and erase any previous pain schemes. There will be some free skins, CB only content, but mostly camo spec will require MC to make changes. 

Bitchin Betty

Currently in the game, available by .cfg command only. Will be turned on in November with new dialogue, which sounds freaking awesome. Anyone seen or heard our new trailer. Hint Hint. Answer: Yes.

Conquest Mode 

We've been play testing this for a few weeks now, things are coming along nicely! It's fun and requires lots of team coordination. We're fixing up some balance issues, resource/base locations, and general HUD/BattleGrid messaging to smooth out what's going on. We're taking a look at CB/EXP rewards, focusing on rewarding teamplay above all else. This means a reduction in kill/assist/damage done rewarding, and an increase in holding resources points. With a new mode, comes a new way to launch into matches. A new button will allow players to select/set their default mode to: Quick Play (random), Assault, or Conquest. 

DirectX 11 

Courtesy of Matt Craig:After integrating CryEngine 3.4 we noted a number of issues with the DX11 implementation that we didn’t feel were acceptable to push out to production. We have worked with our partners to address the key issues, thesehave now been resolved and we are enabling DX11 internally for testing. Once it passes QA it will be enabled on production, we appreciate the fans patience while we work to ensure the DX11 renderer is just as stable as the DX9 renderer.

Well, it's nice they are communicating with their player base and looks like they're receptive to the issues raised, at least the more pressing ones.
I will keep this post updated if anything changes, but expect a big patch on november 6th.

Source: MWO forums


EDIT: added "known issues"
01 nov - added UI improvements
02 nov - added more info on DHS bug
03 nov - added "into the lab" section
09 nov - added new sections to "into the lab"
09 nov - striked out section that were covered by recent patch
15 nov - added "weapon balancing"