MWO video discussion

[Gunhead]

So sucky mech game is still sucky.. who knew. I played MW / BT games back in the day but haven't touched one since MW:Mercenaries. It's hilarious to see they're still hashing same shit all over again so the fans don't get all nerdy ragey on them. But hey, if they so love their "simulation" to be about running in circles and pew pewing each other till one runs out of hitpoints why should I care. Well I don't really. It just boggles the mind. Besides what is this talk about redesigning your mech?? That's not how we played. Mechs where used as is from the box, maybe if there was a common variant in the fluff you could use that but that was by separate agreement. Once we got rules for clan stuff you could swap around but only as far as the prebuilt variants would allow.

From a strictly game balance viewpoint, here's what they should do: 1) reduce the gap between the really large and the really small vehicles in how much shit you can cram into them 2)Introduce a real armor system and tone down the importance of hitpoints 3) Make a greater distinctions in weapon systems i.e have LRMs work as indirect asset but useless if the enemy can get inside their range, have SRMs work as direct fire missiles 4) Have direct fire weapons serve different purpose i.e make projectile weapons into hard hitting but slow firing weapons and laser into more pew pew but less damage ones. 5) Increase combat ranges.

-Gunhead

[Nephtys]

Have you guys ever seen the basic rule set for the original version of Battletech, Battledroids (lol lawsuit right outta the gate XD)?

Also please disregard the barely alteredMacross kit and Dougram kit artwork and the repackaged Dougram kits XD

The game actually started as a much less finicky skirmish game but they quickly forgot about the pick and play rules for the more high resolution bullshit.

I feel like though, if you completely neglect the canon laser or missile boating Mechs (since most are variants made after the initial set) you will find most of them are designed with basic "one or two weapons per arm and one weapon per torso location" than the typical "glue on moar guns" approach we get later. It's almost as if they designed the internal structure and critical hit rules without considering their own basic designs. This applies both to the illicitly borrowed ones and their own originals that are heavily based on the former.

The only laser boating thing in the old 3025 TRO is the Charger with its six useless small lasers.

Most of the fun was how horrifically inefficient 90 percent of the 'classic' 3025 mechs were. There was about a 5:1 shit to gold ratio. For every Warhammer or Marauder, you had Shadowhawks, Chargers, and Banshees. For each iconic looking thing like the old Atlas (which was notable as being their only GOOD original design back then), you had Ostscouts, Ostrocs and more Ostshits.

The fun part of the game was trying to figure out how to handle the shit hand you were dealt. Not cramming more double heatsinks into a medium laser wagon.

[VF5SS]

Yeah definitely. It's more fun to deal with the cards you're dealt. At least then it kind of justified the inefficiencies and was more realistic because even real life combat vehicles aren't perfect.

Although it's kind of weird how they started making fun of the shitty robots in the fluff. Like nobody likes the Charger or Banshee which makes me wonder if even making them was some kind of huge joke on the players.

[Stark]

But that's the thing; you can't expect. Reds to do anything but use the 'best' mechs all the time. Outside a campaign framework what motivation is there to actually find roles for less efficient designs?

[Rabid]

I know it isn't directly related to MW, but in an online game I played some time ago (some sort of galactic empire game), the players had to choose between "classes", each having special abilities, strengths and weaknesses. If each player could have lived only on its own, the game was set in such a way that it was far easier and more efficient for everyone to cooperate and work together.

So, if you put apart the fact that it's a branded game and so it's kind of unrealistic to think that things could change so radically ; maybe the way to go about player interaction, on an MMO, would be to design mechs in such a way that even if they can act independently, they function at maximum efficiency only when they work together ? Like real units on a battlefield ?


The challenge, gameplay-wise, would be to tailor all these roles so that each one of them would be rewarding for the player.


Edit : I mean, to make a parallel, in World of Tanks, Scoouting is frustrating because most of the time you're the first to die, cutting you from the action, severely limiting the experience and money you gain. This is not rewarding for the players that are assigned to scouting roles.

[VF5SS]

But that's the thing; you can't expect. Reds to do anything but use the 'best' mechs all the time. Outside a campaign framework what motivation is there to actually find roles for less efficient designs?

I dunno why don't you tell me how factory locations are something that Btech needs to improve on :3

I mean obviously they fucked up by trying to include over a dozen designs they clearly didn't understand since they had no context to how they were used originally. And to be fair even in the shows they originate from, they only exist for variety. Btech just exacerbated the problem by throwing stats into a blender and picking whatever came out.

I think it might be interesting to go through the old unrevised 3025 TRO and pick out maybe two or three machines from each weight class to build upon. Even if it's just general aesthetics.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Centurion_(BattleMech)
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Clint

Like these guys are ok. Basic humanoid with a big gun arm. Maybe if the universe didn't have 30 faction that somehow share lots of the same robots it'd be easier to differentiate who is who and why someone uses something in particular.

Of course it i'm sure MWO is going to lovingly render the subtle differences between one AC and two MLAS and one bigger AC and two MLAS on opposite facings of the robot :v

[Nephtys]

Originally, there were indeed actual roles with the standard types. You could even see major trends, that could be made into 'classes' similar to the way World of Tanks works, or something. They all played different, and you could pay lip service to the material or whatever and design a game around some of these ideas. General trend is that some units are for high maneuverability circling and jumping around like if you were playing Tribes, and some are for waddling into combat firing PPCs at long range.

Light:
Disposable Scouts (Locust/Wasp/Stinger/Spider) were very high speed, generally had no more weapons than a pair of medium lasers or equivilent. May or may not be jump capable.
Skirmisher Lights (Jenner, Commando, Firestarter) , usually high speed, limited jump ability, good close range weapons
Fire Support Lights (Panther, Hollander), low speed typically, and a gun above their weight class.

Medium:
Medium Scouts (Clint, Cicada) - Basically an upscaled scout. Way underarmed, somewhat slower but way better armored than a light scout.
Medium Skirmisher (Phoenix Hawk, Dervish) - Good armament for close and medium range. At least 5/8 speed. Jump Jets preferred for close in dogfighting.
Medium Main Battlemech (Centurion, Enforcer, Griffin) - Usually packs one big weapon and some auxilary. Well armored.
Medium Close Assault (Hunchback, Hatchetman) - Tons of close range firepower. Limited open field mobility.

Heavy:
Heavy Skirmisher (Guillotine, Grasshopper) - Has jump jets, tons of close firepower
Heavy Fire Support (Warhammer, Marauder, Catapult) - Generally one or two major weapons, long range types. Decent short range capability (in the form of MLAS/SRM6)
Heavy Main Battlemech (Thunderbolt, Orion, Crusader) - Has weapons in every range category, multiple types.

Assault:
Facederper (King Crab, Atlas, Stalker) - Carries AC20 or other similar massive armament. Gauss Rifle in later eras. Walks up with max armor and blows things up at close/medium range.
Hillcamper (Awesome, Thug, Devastator, Annihilator) - Carries multiple PPCs/Gauss Rifles/AC10s. Sits at max range with heavy armor, rains death on opponents.

[VF5SS]

Some of those seem like they could be slashed out of the game but I can see there was some thought put into them.

Derpfacers is now the official term for Assaults.

So how did the Clans totally fuck this up XD

[fractalsponge1]

Didn't they sort of fix the class imbalance by having points based gametypes where you got a higher multiplier for doing damage in a light, regardless of how many times you were killed? That and team weight limits to force you to redistribute chassis to fit, though I'm not sure how you would do that in an MMO unless you had really structured pvp.

The change to legging causing gimping instead of insta-kill was also fine too. In organized team play if you went for legs chances are you wouldn't get very far ahead just because you don't degrade the enemy team's firepower quickly enough shooting for a small fiddly target instead of coring (or, in the case of many mechs, coring side torso and insta-killing on next torso hit due to transfer damage). The trend for group multiplayer in MW4 to be fought past 800m didn't do you any favors either for going for harder targets than just center of mass.

[Gunhead]

It's a shitty idea anyway how the build system works in MW / BT games originally. All mechs have just a single meaningful stat, max weight. If you are allowed to freely build your mech it's what defines it. Similar tier system to World of tanks might work for MW games too, specially the split into recon, general and arty types of mech each with unique gear and weaponry not available to other classes. With this you could fiddle between building a recon / sniper mech or a missile laden general purpose one or an arty mech with indirect cannon for sustained fire vs. a long range missile armed one for accurate single shot punch but is reliant on scout mechs painting targets for them.

-Gunhead

[VF5SS]

For each iconic looking thing like the old Atlas (which was notable as being their only GOOD original design back then)...

I showed this thread to my etarnal bro in the robot design fandom and he pointed out to me that the original Atlas art appears to be heavily based on the Scopedog Red Shoulder Custom artwork. It has the same pigeon-toed stance (like the Dougram stuff which was also designed by Kunio Okawara) and a lot of surprisingly similar details like the placement of hip weapons and the domed head. Even the Atlas radar dish seems to be placed over where the Scopedog's shoulder missiles normally go. Also in his opinion, the only thing really iconic about the Atlas is the skull faced head as the rest of it is just boxes :3

[VF5SS]

Extended Gameplay trailer

Boy look at those medium lasers.

[VF5SS]

One of the MWO forum guys made this

The only way to fix boating (loading up on one weapon) is to remove the realistic benefits of having arms on your robot XD

[Serafina]

The best way to fix boating: Throw out the Mechlab altogether. Give players a choice between several variants for each Mech that are each balanced on their own.

Or at least drastically reduce the freedom in it. You can swap out your LRMs for SRMs or maybe MRMs, but not not for yet another laser. Nor can you freely alter your armor or heatsinks - if you want more or less of one, you have to take it in a package deal with something else (say, taking a medium laser with some heatsinks instead of that large laser).

Ironically, those approaches would actually be MORE canonical to Battletech than the Mechlab we had in the Mechwarrior games. Most mechs can't be freely customized - that's the point of Omnimechs, and even those can't be fully customized, they just have an easier time swapping out their weapons.

[Rabid]

Is "boating" (whatever that term means) a real problem, or is it only a diversion/false problem someone invented to ignore the elephant in the room ? AKA that their robots are fucking slow and have shit maneuverability from what I've been able to judge with the videos here.

I mean, you are using an effin' giant robot shooting LAZORS, with targeting systems and whatnot, yes ? These people pride themselves on "realism", right ? In this case what the fuck is wrong with having technology allowing pinpoint accuracy at any range with DLOS weapons ???

Shouldn't they be working on a system where combat is more than two behemoth slowly circle-strafing each others while they "ablate" their adversaries' hit-points instead ?


ITT Rabid discover the famed "Robo-mormons".

[CaptHawkeye]

These people don't know what they want. The direction they sort of want to vaguely go in involves making the game as unintuitive and unwelcoming as possible.

[VF5SS]

ITT Rabid discover the famed "Robo-mormons".

They are having a gigantic thread on this and have no idea what to do about it

But yeah the robots are slow for no reason. I don't know why or when everything had to be as clunky as a 1989 DOS game because THIS used to be proper Battletech art. I know it's nothing special to any other robot franchise, but the robots are supposed to have the kind of dexterity and agility to do something as basically cool as grappling and fighting.

But they won't do that because slow robots and flat hitpoints make melee attacks too powerful XD

[Serafina]

Oh hey, look, the opening post in that poll points out the reason why boating is viable in the first place:
Mixed weapon layouts are useful if you have to deal with different targets.
In Mechwarrior games, you only ever have to deal with the same kind of targets (enemy mechs).
So of course you'd take the weapon that's most effective against enemy mechs, duh. Why should i take anti-infantry weaponry if there is no infantry, and why should i take anti-air weaponry if there are no air vehicles?

Which is, incidentially, why i like Mech Warrior Living Legends. First of all, it has no mechlab, but plenty of Mech Variants, so i can actually notice a difference between different mechs. And it actually has viable air, tank and battlearmor-assets. So if i pick a PPC-boat, i know that i'll have problems with agile hovercraft or battlearmor.

[VF5SS]

To be fair, MW2-4 did have other armor and air assets like fighters, helicopters, tanks, and wheeled vehicles. It's just that they were just blocks of single sets of hitpoints (except for those random fighters in MW2 Mercs that could fly with a wing shot off :3 ) that you could easily laser boat to death. None of them were particularly fast or maneuverable and were just more fodder for your kill score. They were only dangerous en masse if they caught you in the crossfire.

[Gunhead]

I don't think it comes as a great surprise "real hard core" MW fans will howl like hyenas if someone dares to tell them how sucktastic their games is. But hey, at least it has been sucking ass since the 80's. CONSISTENCY!! BT and MW games are in that strange zombie place of time and space. The games are pretty much dead but somehow refuse to keel over and acknowledge the fact, and every few years some evil necromancer comes along and pours fatty nerd sweat on the corpses to keep them twitching. I personally think it's a like a holy grail effect. Fanboys still can hope that someday someone somewhere will make a MW game that fulfills their dreams. I say keep dreaming. The amount of baggage laden on the franchise is just too large to abandon and if your MW game doesn't have a sucky combat system that adheres to the dogma laid out back in the day can you still call it Mechwarrior?

-Gunhead

[Serafina]

To be fair, MW2-4 did have other armor and air assets like fighters, helicopters, tanks, and wheeled vehicles. It's just that they were just blocks of single sets of hitpoints (except for those random fighters in MW2 Mercs that could fly with a wing shot off :3 ) that you could easily laser boat to death. None of them were particularly fast or maneuverable and were just more fodder for your kill score. They were only dangerous en masse if they caught you in the crossfire.

Which is why i said viable assets. Those in the Mechwarrior-games were barely ever a threat. And of course they weren't available in Multiplayer.

But no, actually giving players more options in play is a bad thing!

[VF5SS]

Just for comparison, the guys who made the Mechassault games are making their own new game called Reign of Thunder

Let's see who wins~

[Rabid]

Just for comparison, the guys who made the Mechassault games are making their own new game called Reign of Thunder

Let's see who wins~

Hey, if they manage to make it less boring and full of useless grinding than World of Tanks or any MMO ever, I might give it a chance...

Thoughts ? Seems fast-paced alright, if maybe a bit... confused ? I dunno.

[Gunhead]

Which is why i said viable assets. Those in the Mechwarrior-games were barely ever a threat. And of course they weren't available in Multiplayer.

But no, actually giving players more options in play is a bad thing!

Oh I'd love to see the fanboy howling over the balance issues. The fundamental problem with the whole BT universe is how the battlemechs have been written as the pinnacle of warfare and can take on flying battlemechs too. From a gamepoint of view, if tanks are t3h suck, why would anyone play one? If you make tanks equal to Battlemechs, well lot of screeching and wailing would ensue. Lasertankboating FTW! But hey, BT is about super knights in walking armor dueling for honor and shit, except this hasn't been the case.. since ever. Remember the days when mechs where supposed to be rare? I do. They even tried to turn back the clock by going into the future.... that turned out a treat.

-Gunhead

[Serafina]

The funny thing is that there actually IS a game (in the form of a full-conversion fan-made mod) where tanks are viable multiplayer assets and can take down a mech of equal weight (or even heavier ones under the right circumstances)

Of course there are only five different tanks (plus two hovercraft and an APC) with about four configurations each - and most of those actually ARE boats. Which is why they are great when supporting mechs, but vulnerable when on their own - an twin-AC 20 demolisher will get cracked at long range (but will devastate any mech if it get's close), a Morrigu with 3 HCLL's has overheating problems in prolonged fights (but works great if a more mobile mech engages the target) and trouble with small mobile targets, a partisan is great against aircraft and battlearmor but too weak to take out mechs.
Compared to that there are 24 mechs with about 5 or 6 configurations each, so they're clearly the primary combatants.

Which is actually how it's supposed to work in Battletech - tanks are secondary to Mechs, but still important assets.