PC Product Update 8 is questionable..

It seems like this update was meant to make the game more 'newb' friendly but the benefits are questionable..

New gears for Pros are always a nice addition. It doesn't add much to the game but it certainly doesn't hurt. I don't see the reason for the added timer countdown. It's the players' job to keep track of the time left until end game / Overtime. Now the game straight up tells you when you need to turret up and secure/obtain juice.

This change kills the game for me. The whole OT and juice thing needed some work but this is not the solution. It is far too easy to win a game now by lowering their moneyball health a miniscule amount and then turtling up your base with a bunch of level 3 Rock-It turrets. Now that juice has been nerfed it can be difficult facing a bunch of level 3 Rock-It turrets. It doesn't help that teams start with 2x level 2 Rock-It turrets and that getting them to level 3 is so much cheaper (you only need to earn $250 to upgrade 1 turret to level 3 if you don't spend your starting $350. Earn $850 to upgrade both to level 3. Spawn as gold ROF Assault to kill bots and earn money fast early on.)

Using the above strategy I was able to win all my games today. The most memorable of them was on Grenade III. In the prelobby I was voicing my discontent with the patch when players on the other team decided to make the remark that I couldn't win without "OT and juice." I decided to take advantage of the new patch changes and went with my gold ROF Assault. I did not purchase any skills in the beginning so that I could save the $350 for later. I rushed early with my team and was able to take down their level 2 Rock-It turret. After sticking around killing bots and doing miniscule damage to their moneyball I decide to retreat and respawn as a Support. Since I didn't purchase any skills in the beginning I now had enough money to upgrade both base turrets to level 3. I set up shop with my FB and started hacking and overhealing. Needless to say it was a easy victory. They could not bring down our overhealed level 3 Rock-It turrets even when juiced. I'm sorry to say I had fun taunting them each time they tried. They came close when 2 of them were juiced but I was able to use my juice to keep the turret alive. When there was 2 minutes left it was already apparant we had won. We had done miniscule damage to their moneyball but they were not able to bring our turrets down. No one on my team had a positive KDR except me (14 kills and 2 deaths.) I had stayed in our team's base the majority of the time. Amusingly enough, afterwards they admitted "juice is kinda worthless against turrets now." I had fun trolling them but truth be told, this type of strategy should not be effective.

This should've been done a while ago. Good job.

This doesn't make too much sense to me. I like how the game is about keeping your streak alive. This alone differentiates it from other FPS games where people would continuously rush with no regard to their well being. The original kill streak bonuse of $50 wasn't overpowered in the first place. $20 for the first kill streak bonus is pretty weak.

Hopefully LaserBlazer is more useful now. It's irritating when a teammate decides to build a bunch of them in the base.

I've heard of people taking advantage of this but never really saw people abusing it in game. Maybe this is a preemptive change now that LazerBlazer is more useful.

While I know people complain about juice and OT, the current juice nerfs isn't the solution. It's already hard enough to take out a level 3 Rock-It turret. With the other changes, this really slows down the game. If you must tweak juice, keep fire interval and critical hit the same as before while keeping the current damage reduction while juiced. This way juice isn't quite as 'invincible' but is still very useful for taking out level 3 Rock-It turrets.

Early incoming blitz rushes aren't fun but this throws the game off balance. Games are now dragged out longer. It is now faster/easier to obtain level 3 Rock-It turrets for your base. You only need to spend $1200 vs. $1800 before. It doesn't help that juice has been nerfed now.

We'll see how this one goes..

No problem here. I did find the max number of chat characters limiting.

This change makes sense. When people see "stacked" teams or a bunch of high starred players together, it tends to kill the lobby. Hopefully this will also stop people from caring too much about their star rating. While on the topic of star rating, the game doesn't seem to split up the high starred players very well. Is it supposed to work this way?

Bug fixes are good so nothing much to be said here. I do wish you guys would fix the issue with minimizing the game though..

Feature Request
Since we're on the topic of this game I thought I would include a feature request. Can we get the ability to vote skipping the next map in the pre-game lobby? I've seen games where people dread the next map *cough* Funland *cough* so much that everyone simply quits. Just adding a button to opt in to vote would suffice. Make it require 60-66% majority vote.

oddly enough, the original xbox360 version had a map veto vote in the lobby

I think that it's pretty usefull because now you don't have to go all the way back to your base just to look at a clock to see how much time is left until 0, it's precious time lost, everyone gets mobilitated and thats good to me, people actualy start to hurry before OT if not, oh well, also it makes MNC feel more like a real sport, you know, the crowd counting, the end thrumpet.

Problem is, its the owner of the Dedicated server that picks the maps and not the players. There should be an option for the server mod to allow map vetos but it is completely up to them what maps you play.

Jotun? and Goose.. didn't expect to run into you guys on the forums. Nice to see you guys on the forums. RaTcHeT302 is this the alias you use in game? I don't recall running into you.

You got a point there. I'm just not a fan of dumbing down a game just to appeal to the masses, which is what this update seems like. The nerfing of the Assassin in this patch is underhanded..

I wonder why it wasn't included in the PC version.

I would think the owners care more that people are playing rather than what map is currently being playing. Anyhow the option for map veto would be nice. It wouldn't have to be mandatory..

Why should the damage output of juice be kept the same as before if the problem are the turrets only? Why not just increase the damage against turrets, but keep these changes against players > that would solve the turret problem better and keep juice less frustrating to fight against.

That could be a decent compromise if they increase damage to bots, maybe. Juice is supposed to help break stalemates which was what it was good at previously. Now juice doesn't quite have the same effect.

Officially never playing PC version again.

I get the feeling the reason juice was nerfed is that people kept chaining juice and steamrolling through turrets and pros alike, getting a lot of whines posted here. However, juice is -supposed- to turn you into an extra-mobile steamroller compared to your non-juiced stats. It breaks stalemates because it goes "LOLOLOLOL RAPE TRAIN".

However, it's unbelievably frustrating to play against someone who chains juice up - builds it, uses it, buys some, uses it, etc. I'd prefer a cooldown on juice that persists through death. Perhaps 2-3 minutes would do. This would allow it to be as ludicrously effective as it's supposed to be, a reward for surviving in what is potentially such a chaotic battle, a stalemate breaker, etc without being too abuseable by single players.

EDIT: You would be able to gather it while it was on CD, just not activate it.

I did not feel there was anything wrong with the previous juice mechanics, but I would not be opposed to this considering the current system as the alternative.

Frankly, juice should not have been touched at all.
If we can juice and overpower them, so can they.
It boiled down to who has the team with the most strategy, as it should.

If we lose because they juiced, we could have have juiced too and didnt.
Our team did not have a string juicing strategy.
Thats fair and I can accept a loss this way.

That is why I always wondered why people whined about juice at all.
Whatever the enemy can do, you can do too, right?

Whining about Juice up until now was just an excuse by newbies to explain their losses.
The fact is they could have juiced just as well and reduced their own losses, but could not figure out this strategy so they whined instead of learned.

You need to be picky about to whom who you listen when considering these types of risky updates, especially when players have so many alternative games to play.


I myself will now use my spare time to work on my own game engine.
But consider this:
My own game engine is my single most valuable use of my spare time, since every license is $50,000 or more.
I only need to sell one per year, yet I can easily sell 20 per year and retire in just 3 years.

Yet your game was so appealing to me that I wasted a lot of time playing it when I could have instead been working on my engine.
I dont regret the time I spent on your game, but when you consider that I was willing to play Monday Night Combat over any other game, and instead of working on my engine/my future, you better believe you had some kind of magic working for you.

On the bright side, I will now be finishing my own stable and fast engine in a shorter period of time.
My game engine has never crashed. Not even during development and debug-testing, and after 4 shipped titles.
More than I can say for Unreal Engine 3.


L. Spiro

The juice change hurts. It hurts a lot.

Kind of like the Assault nerf during its first week of introduction. :lol:

I've had no issues with any of these updates, espcially the juice nerfs. I may only destroy 1-2 turrets instead of an entire base, and I now have to actually worry about dying while I do so. Don't see what the issue is. The juice nerf against players is perfect IMO, and has really made deploy an awesome investment for the gunner as an anti juicer class.

Honestly, I think this is one of the better patches. The balance changes were desperately needed. We play MNC every night at my house and it used to be really difficult to find a good game. Most of the games would be monopolized by a group of 3 players abusing the hell out of juice.

Juice should be a means to an ends, not the other way around. With the new patch its been much easier to find a fun and balanced game.

The OT change just makes sense to me. Losing in overtime when your team was winning the entire game (but unable to close the deal due to weird class balance choices)... just sucks.

The fact that there are only 6 players on each team must make this game extremely hard to balance. I applaud the team for the job they're doing.

I figure the game will even out in the coming weeks. There's always a load of BS in the weeks that follow an update. Assaults everywhere after the armor nerf, heavies everywhere after the assault nerf, and now supports everywhere because of the juice nerf.

Wait till next patch and we see nothing but ginger stepchildren :lol:

I wonder if anyone could test this out...

Get a 3.3 rockit turret. Have someone on the other team juice and attack it, start with the turret at full health, not overhealed. At the same time that the juiced player starts attacking it, a support starts healing it.

Which classes can actually beat that turret now?

(I say to not start it overhealed because I'm fairly confident that ONLY the gunner could win in that case)

Everyone is acting like the support isn't still king of turret clearing. I don't understand that.

Clearing firebases, sure..

Triple airstrike doesn't even come close to downing a Lv3 rockit (2500x3 vs 13000). With the juice damage nerf, the juiced hurt beam can't compete with an enemy healing, and you have to be in range of the turret so you'll be getting pounded by both it and any nearby enemies

I think the two main things are the juice change and the ball rule change. Juice should be able to take out turrts not entire bases. I get that. But at the same time juice should be able to take out turrets.

Tweak the ball change and I'd be satisfied.

Otherwise good patch. Had a lot of the things I wanted and creates some team dependance.