Monday Night Combat and why shooter-MOBA players are few.

I genuinely loved MNC when it first released on the PC. I bought a copy for myself and another seven copies for my friends. All of them now refuse to play MNC whenever I suggest it. These are mostly hardcore shooter players who have hundreds of hours in other class-based shooters like Wolf:ET and Team Fortress. Most of these hardcore shooter players are not, however, MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, i.e. DOTA) players.

So why do they all hate MNC enough that it's like pulling teeth to get them to play? I decided to compile all the reasons why they have left this game behind and have never returned.

1) Bad taste left from playing during initial launch period (Aimbotting snipers, no way to remain as a set team across multiple rounds, game settings not saving or repeatedly resetting). New games often have only one or two chances to make a good impression.

2) Unusual control scheme reveals compromises from initially gamepad-influenced design. Shift, Q, & E are close to WASD but how many other games have you tapping them constantly (Bioshock 2 MP is the only recent example I recall and it's MP community is dead) Example: Shift, Q, E, or Right Click: How do I grapple? Well that depends on the class.

3) Fairly loose and difficult aiming (lots of float and kickback on weapons) especially at higher mouse DPI. This again feels like a residual issue of the game's initial design for the 360 controller. Compared to Killing Floor or even TF2, this does not feel like a precise PC shooter.

4) Classes look and act somewhat equivalent to those in TF2 but the best class vs class counters are often totally different (e.g. Assault Grenades or Gunner Mortars to flush out and kill Snipers not Assassins compared to Sniper vs Spy dynamic in TF2). The TF2 design forces snipers to have to watch their backs sometimes, not just their fronts. The freeze traps in MNC mean that snipers can allow well placed traps to watch their backs for them.

5) Many player deaths fail to communicate adequately why and how the death occurred (e.g. Launch Pads, long-range sniper kills). TF2's kill-cam mechanic is probably the best I have seen for communicating to the player who and what killed them. Plus Domination / Revenge makes new players feel good even if they only get one kill on the guy who killed them ten times. "All least I got my Revenge" with a dramatic little music clip.

Sure new players shouldn't be dying because they are just giving free money to the opposing team but, honestly, with potential one-shot kills (sniper / sin) noobs gonna die. This is why other MOBA games generally don't have classes capable of killing opposing heroes in a single strike from the very start of the round.

6) Players in competitive (as opposed to co-op) shooters want to kill other players more than they want to kill AI bots. It's a DOTA-style MOBA in a competitive shooter's body. The game rarely communicate to new players that bots are the absolute priority and reward player with appropriate visual and audio feedback. Farming cash is simply not enough incentive for new players to remain engaged when a good sniper keeps dropping them from across the map.

7) Frustrating map design. Every map feels like TF2's CP_Junction. Lots of corners, lots of cover. Perhaps too many and too much for those not used to MOBAs. Additionally, certain maps have a real problem with one team (or even a few members of that team like a sniper + an assault to protect the sniper) taking a superior map position and being incredibly difficult to remove due to limited sight lines and wide arcs on indirect weapons.

8) No (even partial) refund on upgrades discourages class switching. New players often feel stuck in classes that are ill-suited for the map or opposing team composition because they already have the "sunk-cost" in another class's upgrades. When a spy kept harassing me in TF2, I as a new player could switch to Pyro and get revenge. If a sniper owning my face in MNC and I am playing Tank, my best option is to try to just avoid the lane with the sniper and hope that sniper isn't accurate enough to one-shot me every time through the skull.

9) 6 v 6 means most, and perhaps even every, player must contribute for the round to end in success and victory. Few players means higher individual responsibility to contribute (compared to TF2's 12 v 12). I honestly feel like MOBA and MOBA style games will continue to be a niche market that bleeds players until someone solves the inherent design problem of these games being incredibly unforgiving to new players and incredibly frustrating to both new players (because of repeated deaths) and experienced players (because those deaths directly provide a resource advantage to the opposing team).

I still play occasionally (looking to earn the money necessary to unlock the last custom class slot) but I simply prefer to play whatever my friends are playing. I have only 42 hours in MNC so I don't claim to be a Pro but something is wrong when 30+ of those hours were played alone or with friends in the first week of release and I've only been able to convince my friends to clock around 12 hours playtime with me since.

I'm not saying that all the concerns above are justified or have not been addressed by intervening patches. I'm simply sharing the reasons my friends don't and won't play MNC. I sense that many others feel the same and have abandoned MNC.

Agreed.

Oh and the fact that UBER decided not to advertise, but to rather pour money into shitty maps (Sorry, Uncle Tully's sucks), is probably the most idiotic idea I've ever heard.

all i saw was tf2 comparing, its not tf2 and plays nothing like it

TF2 and MNC are very similar games cosmetically. From a gameplay aspect they are both shooters with VERY similar classes and there is no reason to say that many aspects of TF2 don't also apply to MNC. Please read his arguments and answer to them instead of spouting out crap that has absolutely nothing to do with the argument.

MNC loses its community because it isn't noob friendly at all and you really need to spend time with the classes in order to play effectively. Uber needs to make some damn tutorials for each Pro because as it stands, everyone that bought it and quit probably have no idea how to play.

It doesn't help that they made classes like Sin and Assault who you can't tell what their real job is based on their name alone. Who would know that the Sin is supposed to be the best bot killer in the game and the Assault (noun) hardly ever actually assaults (verb )anything and has less turret killing capabilities than the Gunner and Support. Also, new players would look at the Support and put healing as a secondary objective seeing as how you are barely rewarded for it.

And OP, I hope you have a lot of money because buying 7 copies for your friends was a terrible idea...

no hate bro

OT:
the main problem i see would be the learning to play of this game, and most new players just quit after the frustration of dying. i'm not really sure about a tutorial since actual competitive MOBA games like LoL don't even have tutorials and still has a great playerbase. aside from the fact that it's free to play but i don't really see the logic in sticking around a free-to-play and hard-to-learn game as opposed to quitting a paid-for and not as hard-to-learn game.

the TF2 comparison of class match-ups might be a reason people quit since they're not willing to adapt but i can't really figure out a solution to that since it's how this game is designed

the control scheme issue is also true since i actually have to remap my controls for each different class i play (not all, but at least a few)

as for map designs and the "loose aiming", i'm not a highly-experienced game designer so i wouldn't comment on that

not really sure what you're talking about here. Try turning off VSync

mouse control is pretty tight for me

I found turning sensitivity way down helped greatly. Higher DPI settings or sensitivity just felt very imprecise compared to other PC-first or PC-only shooters. I only mentioned it because my friends also felt the same. I will fully admit that point 3 is probably the most subjective in the entire list. I don't know that I can really adequate describe the different feel of the shooting mechanics in MNC. I invested the time to adjust my settings, expectations, and playstyle accordingly. My friends, however, had neither the patience nor the inclination to do so.

I would absolutely hate to see MNC become a TF2 clone. MNC should, of course, be it's own game with its own mechanics and quirks and fun. I'll fully admit that my points repeatedly reference TF2. This was not meant to denigrate MNC at all but I simply understand TF2 far better than MNC (1000+ Hrs active playtime vs 40+ Hrs active playtime).

Because of the initial TF2/MNC cross-promotion, MNC was bound to attract Team Fortress 2 players who brought with them certain (clearly inappropriate in hindsight) expectations based on the similar classes, similar art style, etc. If MNC fails to attract and retain players from another "similar" shooter like Team Fortress 2, how will it then succeed? Sure, a weekend sale might bring a significant influx of new players for a few weeks but what then?

The top-down MOBA community (e.g. LoL/DotA/HoN) will likely not prefer the First Person Shooter approach (reduced situational awareness, fewer abilities, reduced team coordination and strategy). MOBAs did start as custom maps for RTS games like Warcraft 3 after all.

Most military shooter players I've encountered (from CoD to BFBC2) tend fetishize "realistic graphics" and unlocks, eschewing "toon" games. It honestly took months for my friend who was a former Wolf:ET devotee to get over TF2's art style enough to start playing regularly.

MNC is trying to carve a new space for itself as an FPS/MOBA hybrid. That effort is absolutely admirable and I fully commend it. The last thing such a game can afford, however, is to alienate present and potential players. Let the fate of Demigod be an object lesson to all MOBAs that refuse to be mere clones of DoTA's mechanics. The road is a difficult one and it's even more difficult to win back players who had a bad taste the first time.

I think the issue of MOBAs not being noob friendly has already been solved by Leauge of Legends and Heroes of Newerth. The matchmaking system adapted from Warcraft 3 places you perfectly in games of players of generally equal skill. There's always the one vet making his fifteenth hundredth account that complains the entire game but generally speaking it's fun. You don't get instaganked because the other players are figuring out mechanics too.

Something like this could easily be introduced to MNC considering how the star rating system already somewhat accurately tracks how annoying someone is to play against but unfortunately it would require a larger playerbase that it currently has to even be worth the development time. Matchmaking doesn't work when there's only like 20-30 people playing each night.

Lol looking back at my post, I overreacted sorry Tikki

exactly what we need!

i think the problem with mnc and moba lovers is that it does not have enough moba elements, no items, no towers in the lanes, no sense of danger if you go into the enemies half of map alone, no fog of war cover (which would be ridiculous i know but is a good fun part of moba), creeps are not dangerous, no jungling, no carrying, no humorous ganking.

I think mnc did it well, no doubt, but i think if it was harder or had way more stuff in it like dota, hon etc it would be better accepted. In saying all this though i do not really have any idea how these would be implemented into a fps/3ps which is probs the same problem uber had.

match making doesn't work with such a small community

Regarding the analogies with HoN & co, what I miss the most is a proper pre-match lobby, and players forced to play different classes, this contribute a lot to thoses games getting more of a teamplay feeling in pubs. The stats and leaver status also probably play a great role in it.

Also, give modding tools! Pretty sure we could get quite close to a moba experience just by changing a few stuff to the elements we already got.

@OP
3) The hit detection is really funky too, as a sniper it's not rare to see a headshot go through the opponent's head (with the explosive bullet animation) and have the hit not registering at all, same with the gunner's mortar. Also since last patch I never ever managed to grapple an opponent on tank after a charge+stun, not sure wtf is up with that.

5) Yup it's quite a problem, even while I play since open beta I sometime just don't know what killed me exactly, so I guess it must be very frustrating for a newbie, especially with all the instadeaths possibilities.

7) I don't really share that opinion unless I misunderstood, seems to me there's lots of open space, and for example it's much easier to snipe in MNC than in most other shooters.

(MNC is a TPS, not FPS.)

7.) I would say the opposite of most maps. Lazer Razer has the most cover from fire and that map is the most balanced in my opinion. You can avoid snipers and snipers can still shut down the lane and slow progress in the center.

9.) I agree. Just the other day I met a player that I chose to teach because unlike the others he came to me to learn. He elaborated to me how he had no idea how to use the most basic stuff and he knew nothing about endorsements.

I have met too many people like this and this most recent case brought me back onto the side of caring about the plight of those players that have no easy way to learn the basics or even access the tutorial easily.

For the sake of gathering information what would you suggest.

Coming into the game fresh but with hon/ but primarily fps/ tf background I found the following to be roadblocks:

• control scheme/ info on what your skills is not immediately identifiable. blue/green/red circles are not very informative- this could be greatly improved.
  
• No consistency of moves between classes, i.e. dash/grapple have different keys between different classes. Don't add complexity for the sake of complexity.
  
• Endorsements- entire system is convoluted and hidden to new players. It took me a while to discover this and I only did because I'm the type of player who dives into games I find interesting.
  
• team balance/team switching in games. the autobalance has been atrocious plaguing the game for a while now. You could say with 80+% confidence which side was going to win at the start of the match. Not sure if most recent patch has tried to address this but it seems there's been fairer games since the patch.
  
• if the game ends up 3vs5 you cannot even switch to the other team to try and even it out. Results in runaway boring stomps.
  
• general lack of knowing what kills you when you first start playing..especially understanding assassins. This is somewhat expected if new to a game but I found dealing with assassins overly frustrating in the beginning. I know it drove away some friends. Only later did I come to pick up that they make a sound while cloaked and what it sounded like.
  
• Locked into classes for an entire round. I understand the premise and underlying reasons to discourage class changes, but there's a better way to go about it. Allow players to pick a new class at any time and let it change after they die. It's annoying to have to change class at that specific time. Don't give money if changing classes, but allow some percentage of skills 'value' they had invested in their previous class to go toward skills on the newly chosen class. i.e. you play tank for most of the round and have invested $1100 in his skills. Change class and you are allowed to pick ~$800 in skills. Doing something like that would still discourage changing classes often, but allow some minor flexibility.

There's other things but that's off the top of my head.