354 replies to this topic

[Sybreed]

DirePhoenix, on 06 April 2013 - 12:29 PM, said:

I feel like the lack of R&R makes this game less of a setting where I'm playing the role of a MechWarrior and instead just playing an arcade shoot'em'up Arena game. At least with R&R, people had reasons to not load up on all the most expensive gear they could cram into their machines just because there was space.

If you wanted to risk souping up your ride with EndoSteel, XL, and all the other expensive toys you could jam in there, then it should come at the cost of having to replace it if you weren't good enough to keep it intact throughout the battle.

that's exactly what I miss from R&R

[Master Maniac]

DirePhoenix, on 06 April 2013 - 12:29 PM, said:

I feel like the lack of R&R makes this game less of a setting where I'm playing the role of a MechWarrior and instead just playing an arcade shoot'em'up Arena game. At least with R&R, people had reasons to not load up on all the most expensive gear they could cram into their machines just because there was space.

If you wanted to risk souping up your ride with EndoSteel, XL, and all the other expensive toys you could jam in there, then it should come at the cost of having to replace it if you weren't good enough to keep it intact throughout the battle.

You're playing as a MechWarrior belonging to a faction, not as an independant contractor. As I mentioned before, maybe it would be okay for a merc player to have the option to R&R. If they want. Kind of like I think nothing should stop people from slamming their thumb in a car door if that's what they want to do.

Otherwise, you're saying "look at me, I'm spending real money to Premium so I can play with my big toys. Enjoy your lights and mediums, peons!"

EDIT -
"then it should come at the cost of having to replace it if you weren't good enough to keep it intact throughout the battle."

Or, you know, if you happen to, well, get killed in a fight. Playing the game. Normally.

Edited by Master Maniac, 06 April 2013 - 12:37 PM.

[Arcadinal]

Particularly as a PUG and before joining a clan I found R&R to be WAY too punative, given what percentage of matches most people end up loosing when pugging. Even without it I'm still often loath to drop solo when my clan-mates aren't on, but I'd be vastly less inclined with R&R back in the mix. It's just too hard to make all the solo-play aggrivation worth it if after all is said and done you've come out of your last twelve games frustraited on account of the lack of team play AND you've made jack-squat.

If solo-play is somehow made more enjoyable, this might change, but for now it would just make for a giant screw to anyone just trying to drop in and have some fun.

Edited by Arcadinal, 06 April 2013 - 12:37 PM.

[Roadbeer]

Master Maniac, on 06 April 2013 - 12:26 PM, said:

In my opinion, from previous games I played, a 'tax' or penalty on poor play didn't really appeal to me.
I don't know how this game used to do it, but in my experience it detracts from the core play mode and becomes a grind. I can see how some would like it for immersion, but I think there might be better ways to do it.
Many previous versions in the MW Universe had R&R in their game play, but they weren't in a persistent Universe that lacks an endgame, so I don't know if bringing them up as an example really qualifies.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this matter, but I respect your opinion.

Fixed that for you.

[Bullseye69]

Been there done that every drop was loosing money and that was using stock engine and endo steel and laser weapons with srm. You would not make enough to afford to drop if you did this now.nIt also encourage people to run and power down and hide and dc to escape damage. Would definitely make the game worse, since the rewards for win and loss are so low. With founder are hero mech the most I getting this weekend has been 200,000 deduct my consumable 40,000 and the deduct cbills I would only be able to drop in my jenner are my spider and then I could only squeak by and barely make any money.

Let the dead stay dead and let dig up this old thing from it grave.

[Infernus1986]

No.. just no
Removing R&R was one of the few good decisions PGI has made.
This is not an RPG, This is not a mech sim.

Edited by Infernus1986, 06 April 2013 - 12:40 PM.

[Khanublikhan]

Oh, just to clarify:

R&R as it was impliment before *was* bad. No argument.

The point myself and others are trying to get across is R&R + Salvage has been a fundamental part of Battletech. R&R *without* salvage is broken. A new shiny R&R *plus* salvage could be *less* grindy.

The R&R cost should be small, but present, for armour damage.
The R&R cost should be small, but present for internal damage.
The R&R cost for a destroyed mech should be small, but present.
Weapons lost by you in combat do not have to be paid for directly!
You do not lose mechs in combat, to be scavenged by your opponents! (you have a highly trained search & rescue & recovery team backing you up to recover your mech).

The above represented by hiring a mech technician crew. The ratio is not 1:1 to damage (or ammunition expended) as the previous R&R design. It is abstract / your immediate employer (and your battlefield scavenging expertise) allow you to bounce back.

By hiring said mech technician crew your mech recovers quickly, at differing rates dependent on their expertise. It is automagically repaired / scavenged together for the next match. Weapons. Armour. Everything.

Salvage on top - for any mech - you have severed limbs / dismantled weapons from = bonus! it is like getting rare drops in WOW or any MMO. You could lose the match, but if you shot accurately and did the right damage (or capped and raided a base for mechs choosing to do so to balance their behind the-lines risk), you could make extra profit.

Edited by Khanublikhan, 06 April 2013 - 12:55 PM.

[Master Maniac]

Roadbeer, on 06 April 2013 - 12:38 PM, said:

Fixed that for you.

Well, you see, I can't respect your opinion, because I don't respect you, or the methods you employ to make a point. "Mr. Condenscending," indeed.

[Nick Drezary]

DirePhoenix, on 06 April 2013 - 12:29 PM, said:

I feel like the lack of R&R makes this game less of a setting where I'm playing the role of a MechWarrior and instead just playing an arcade shoot'em'up Arena game. At least with R&R, people had reasons to not load up on all the most expensive gear they could cram into their machines just because there was space.

If you wanted to risk souping up your ride with EndoSteel, XL, and all the other expensive toys you could jam in there, then it should come at the cost of having to replace it if you weren't good enough to keep it intact throughout the battle.

One thing people like you are don't understand is the fact that people WERE PLAYING WHATEWER THEY WANTED, only difference that between games in their preferable mechs they were suiciding in one-thwo trial mechs, this was spoiling not only THEIR game experience, but OTHER players also, why do we need thing like that?For what they have to be forced to use game weak spots just to play mech they want? I won't eve remind about bots and other crap

[DirePhoenix]

Infernus1986, on 06 April 2013 - 12:39 PM, said:

No.. just no
Removing R&R was one of the few good decisions PGI has made.
This is not an RPG, This is not a mech sim.

So you DO want this game to stay an arcade shoot'emup then?

[Conraire]

Repair/Rearm costs had a lot to do with preventing people from boating PPC's, SSRM's, Gauss, AC20s. Due to the simple fact if one got blown off, you got railed with repair costs. Or in the case of Streaks, they cost a metric crapton to reload if you were burning through several tons of ammo.

The major Issue I'd had with it, was the reload costs for artemis armed missiles.

[MustrumRidcully]

Roadbeer, on 06 April 2013 - 11:48 AM, said:

That's not a risk, there is no penalty. That's everyone getting a trophy for participating, just some get slightly larger trophies.

Okay, here's the risk: you lose 20 % of the potential earnings of a match if you're dead at the end. If you're alive at the end, with a kill or an assist, you get 20 % bonus.

Happier now?

Though - did you notice that no R&R system suggested so far actually offered a reward for winning? I mean, if not getting any additional penalties beyond losing doesn't constitute a risk, then winning a match without additional bonuses doesn't constitute a win, either.

---

But ultimately, there is really no need to punish someone for losing. Losing sucks. No one plays this game because he wants to lose matches. People will always feel better when they are winning. So screw this.

The only "interesting" argument for R&R is trying to use it for either realism/immersion/verisimilitude (whatever term you prefer).

[Arcadinal]

I will also concur that I would rather not go back to the days of folks running into caves and crevases and powering down to avoid R&R costs as soon as one or two people on their team died. Most of us are here to have fun blowing stuff up...lets not make it more frustrating then it needs to be.

Edited by Arcadinal, 06 April 2013 - 12:46 PM.

[Master Maniac]

Khanublikhan, on 06 April 2013 - 12:40 PM, said:

Oh, just to clarify:

R&R as it was impliment before *was* bad. No argument.

The point myself and others are trying to get across is R&R + Salvage has been a fundamental part of Battletech. R&R *without* salvage is broken. A new shiny R&R *plus* salvage could be *less* grindy.

The R&R cost should be small, but present, for armour damage.
The R&R cost should be small, but present for internal damage.
The R&R cost for a destroyed mech should be small, but present.
Weapons lost by you in combat do not have to be paid for directly!

The three above represented by hiring a mech technician crew. The ratio is not 1:1 to damage as the previous R&R design. It is abstract.

Salvage on top - for any mech - you have severed limbs / dismantled weapons from = bonus! it is like getting rare drops in WOW or any MMO. You could lose the match, but if you shot accurately and did the right damage, you could make extra profit.

Not too bad, but really, this whole issue isn't an imperative until CW anyway. But again to shamelessly plug the survival bonus concept, this whole thing would be pretty much more satisfactorily represented by the implementation of truly robust performance rewards. The idea being what you make is already based on repair costs, belonging to a faction and all, and if you perform better you get much higher overall rewards based on your contribution. It's like a net gain approach, with less of a feeling of being punished for playing.

EDIT -
But ultimately, there is really no need to punish someone for losing. Losing sucks. No one plays this game because he wants to lose matches. People will always feel better when they are winning. So screw this.

The only "interesting" argument for R&R is trying to use it for either realism/immersion/verisimilitude (whatever term you prefer)."

^ This. Case closed. Over and done. And if you're trying to argue "realism," then why don't you close your account whenever your mech is destroyed?

Edited by Master Maniac, 06 April 2013 - 12:48 PM.

[DrSecretStache]

Nick Drezary, on 06 April 2013 - 12:42 PM, said:

One thing people like you are don't understand is the fact that people WERE PLAYING WHATEWER THEY WANTED, only difference that between games in their preferable mechs they were suiciding in one-thwo trial mechs, this was spoiling not only THEIR game experience, but OTHER players also, why do we need thing like that?For what they have to be forced to use game weak spots just to play mech they want? I won't eve remind about bots and other crap

Yah, this brings up a good point about the R&R. Suiciding. You send a mech out with nothing on it, you send another mech out with nothing on it. Even at present, with 25k for a win, if you did this with enough mechs, it would up your price point. The only difference right now is that there is incentive to do things, but by re-introducing R&R, there would be incentive to just send out a fully stripped light and quit the match. Which ruin's everyone's experience in that match.

Not sure how to prevent suiciding.

Edited by Zoughtbaj, 06 April 2013 - 12:48 PM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Conraire, on 06 April 2013 - 12:45 PM, said:

Repair/Rearm costs had a lot to do with preventing people from boating PPC's, SSRM's, Gauss, AC20s. Due to the simple fact if one got blown off, you got railed with repair costs. Or in the case of Streaks, they cost a metric crapton to reload if you were burning through several tons of ammo.

The major Issue I'd had with it, was the reload costs for artemis armed missiles.

What has this to do with boating? If my Atlas loses its side torso containing the AC/20, that cost me just as much as if a Jagermech loses his left arm containing an AC/20.
And whether a mech stores 1 LPL, 1 PPC and 1 SRM6 in a hit locaiton or 3 PPC - losing that location hurts both mechs.

Versatile or Boat, didn't matter for R&R.

[sarkun]

With the R&R went the viability of mediums.... I still take my hunchbacks for a spin sometimes but yeah... R&R is a good mechanic... just give no rewards for people suiciding, and have sane rearm costs for ammo...

Actually if ammo was free but repairs were not... that would work too imo.

[Master Maniac]

Zoughtbaj, on 06 April 2013 - 12:47 PM, said:

Yah, this brings up a good point about the R&R. Suiciding. You send a mech out with nothing on it, you send another mech out with nothing on it. Even at present, with 25k for a win, if you did this with enough mechs, it would up your price point. The only difference right now is that there is incentive to do things, but by re-introducing R&R, there would be incentive to just send out a fully stripped light and quit the match. Which ruin's everyone's experience in that match.

Not sure how to prevent suiciding.

Easy. By pulling the plug on the R&R idea and basing almost all income on player performance. Seriously 90% of it, in fact.

[DirePhoenix]

Master Maniac, on 06 April 2013 - 12:33 PM, said:

You're playing as a MechWarrior belonging to a faction, not as an independant contractor. As I mentioned before, maybe it would be okay for a merc player to have the option to R&R. If they want. Kind of like I think nothing should stop people from slamming their thumb in a car door if that's what they want to do.

Um, no I'm not playing as a MechWarrior belonging to a faction. None of us are. We're all playing as Lone Wolves right now... "independent contractors", if you will. These little symbols next to our avatars mean absolutely nothing at this point. Not to mention that it has no bearing on if we change to a Merc Corps later when that functionality ever makes it in.

[Infernus1986]

DirePhoenix, on 06 April 2013 - 12:44 PM, said:

So you DO want this game to stay an arcade shoot'emup then?

implying what I want matters
PGI is adding 3rd person its quite clear they want the game to be an arcade shoot'emup.