72 replies to this topic

[Psyctooth]

I'm in the boat of saying this, to all your grouchy snobby oldschoolers, 'tone it down.'

To all the people who are "I <3 clans" when you play the game without clan-tech, then play the game with clan tech you will know why people hated clan tech... that is the case for the table-top. This however isn't a table top game. However with that said, having clan tech in my opinion destroys the dichotomy of the weight rating class system and the capacity to fit out your mechs with uber-leet-awesomesaurse = same thing in previous mechwarrior games: "80 ton mechs with heaps of armour, heaps of guns and go absurdly fast for their weight" and the game devolves into what we see in MW4, everyone running around in Loki's on Solaris 7 shooting ER-PPCs at each other; you may find that fun, but I find that as enjoyable as fighting another Garen as Garen in league of legends. Where skill and tactics plays no part in winning, only a person's IQ level.

If and when they do introduce clans and clan tech I really do hope that Piranha games do it in a way where it won't impact on the beautiful symmetry of what looks to be fantastic role-warfare. With that said I wouldn't mind seeing a game mode with *no clan tech* once clans are introduced. Having a "derp 3025" mode would be ridiculous as it will for one limit people to stock builds for mechs and secondly limit the number of atlas and other assault mechs in use.

I am by no means a hater on clan tech or a 3025 fan-boy, my first encounter with Battletech was Mechwarrior 2. I only fear what clan tech could do to gameplay balance, with that said I am sure Piranha are ontop of making sure it won't obstruct it.

Edited by Psyctooth, 05 June 2012 - 04:36 AM.

[Ashla Mason]

Quentin Yatoki, on 05 June 2012 - 03:41 AM, said:

I think you're being overly nitpicky. I think the point of this topic is to gauge people's desire to play on a server with only level 1 tech and no clans, rather then the actions of canonical characters or factions.

Half the whining I see about the clans Has nothing to do with actual game play mechanics and everything to do with how people don't like zell/iron wombs/the children of kerensky running roughshod over the a chunk of the galaxy.

But you know what, If people want to make this purely about the tech, lets talk about the tech.

The greatest thing about battletech is that everything is a balancing act, and any time you get an improved version of one of the weapons theres always some sort of nasty catch. Ultra autocannons jam, Pulse lasers of the non clan variety are hot and short ranged, ER weapons are super hot, LBX rarely hits with it's full force and streaks aren't anything to get too excited about. Double heat sinks are great for disipating heat but eat up lots of space in your mech and when your armor goes they'll be gone in a hurry.

[Sassori]

Ashla Mason, on 05 June 2012 - 02:19 PM, said:

Half the whining I see about the clans Has nothing to do with actual game play mechanics and everything to do with how people don't like zell/iron wombs/the children of kerensky running roughshod over the a chunk of the galaxy.

But you know what, If people want to make this purely about the tech, lets talk about the tech.

The greatest thing about battletech is that everything is a balancing act, and any time you get an improved version of one of the weapons theres always some sort of nasty catch. Ultra autocannons jam, Pulse lasers of the non clan variety are hot and short ranged, ER weapons are super hot, LBX rarely hits with it's full force and streaks aren't anything to get too excited about. Double heat sinks are great for disipating heat but eat up lots of space in your mech and when your armor goes they'll be gone in a hurry.

Dunno what threads you've been reading. I haven't been reading them. Sure I dislike the whole slavery aspect of the Clans but what I really hate is how their lore /won't/ be a deciding factor in the game because it's not something you can enforce. That's why the balance is gone.

Clan Tech /is/ superior in every way to Inner Sphere Tech, even Lostech. Clan ER lasers run hotter, but do more damage at far better range /and/ their double heat sinks take up a lot less critical space so you can fit more of them also.

Their non-energy weapons are lighter as well, and even some of their energy weapons are lighter.

Streak SRM's /are/ pretty awesome. They don't shoot unless they're going to hit. A weapon you literally can't miss with, can't waste ammo with, somehow isn't anything special?

I don't think I'm living in the same reality you are.

[Cerlin]

I read it as ONLY play and I voted no to that. But if there were two servers I would play on both.

[Joseph Calvert]

Play on a server with old school rules, ... Sign me up!

[GreyWolfXR]

I choose to abstain.

Why don't we just wait to see what we actually get, and see how the Devs actually handle Operation Revival before we start dividing up the community with I only like to play this time period, or that time period.

[Major Bill Curtis]

Sure, I'd play on a 3028 server . . . sometimes. While it'd be slower than 3049- it'd probably work fine for a video game.

Unlike all you guys who pine for the earlier era in Battletech over the table (which you can play anytime you like), I do not: it was needlessly and horrendously slow to play --- shockingly slow; boringly slow; glacial, really. One should never underestimate the power of nostalgia when critiquing bad games, however

Making 'mechs actually capable of destroying each other was a positive move, at least from a game design standpoint, especially for an '80s style, "let's play one battle for the next sixteen hours," ruleset.

Don't get me wrong, I love TT, and I have since the '80s, but the 3025 era made for a very slow game, so slow that egregious errors were difficult to punish . . . it'd be quite good in a video game, likely adding to the strategy and only adding minutes to the play time (rather than hours), but for the lack of electronics on the scouts.

Edited by Major Bill Curtis, 05 June 2012 - 03:05 PM.

[Kobold]

TRO: 3050 was published in 1990. We've had clanners for 22 years. Most "younger" players (myself included, and I'm 30) have never known a time when clanners DIDN'T exist.

I have no problem with someone wanting to play a slower paced, shorter range game (which is basically all that is really different between playing in 3025 and 3060, once L2 tech is ubiquitous in the inner sphere), but at some point I wish they'd all stop being so bottom-hurt about it.

[Ashla Mason]

Christopher Dayson, on 05 June 2012 - 02:30 PM, said:

Dunno what threads you've been reading. I haven't been reading them. Sure I dislike the whole slavery aspect of the Clans but what I really hate is how their lore /won't/ be a deciding factor in the game because it's not something you can enforce. That's why the balance is gone.

Clan Tech /is/ superior in every way to Inner Sphere Tech, even Lostech. Clan ER lasers run hotter, but do more damage at far better range /and/ their double heat sinks take up a lot less critical space so you can fit more of them also.

Their non-energy weapons are lighter as well, and even some of their energy weapons are lighter.

Streak SRM's /are/ pretty awesome. They don't shoot unless they're going to hit. A weapon you literally can't miss with, can't waste ammo with, somehow isn't anything special?

I don't think I'm living in the same reality you are.

See, I wasn't specificly talking about clan weapons when I brought up that L2 tech isn't game breaking but rather the IS versions. They did in fact have them you know.

As to Streaks: You're guaranteed to hit sure, but only if it actually fires and at this point the only streaks available are SRM2s... which are inferior in almost every way to a medium laser.

And about the clans and balance: the dev team has said they're already looking into ways to balance out the clans, which suggests to me that either honor or numbers will be factored into matches.

[Dark Severance]

Having done Multiplayer Battletech as well as Battletech 3025, which was all 3025 era I'd have to say no. I've played those for years and ready to move on. The only way I'd be interested in that era is if we get access to the Unseen

[UncleKulikov]

Roland, on 03 June 2012 - 12:06 PM, said:

I certainly wouldn't ONLY play in 3025 servers, but I would probably check them out at least.

I don't really see too much problem with allowing such rules modifications, other than perhaps fragmenting the community.

I would definitely enjoy some Classic BTech in certain servers, or maybe offered as a 'weekend' playlist or something like that. Community splitting is the worry, though I'm not sure how relevant that concern is.

Kobold, on 05 June 2012 - 03:00 PM, said:

I have no problem with someone wanting to play a slower paced, shorter range game (which is basically all that is really different between playing in 3025 and 3060, once L2 tech is ubiquitous in the inner sphere), but at some point I wish they'd all stop being so bottom-hurt about it.

I'm butt hurt because double heat sinks remove any potential advantage ballistic weapons would have over energy ones, and ER weapons negate any reason to use missiles. I'm not a fan of huge swathes of the game becoming irrelevant.

Edited by UncleKulikov, 05 June 2012 - 03:46 PM.

[Dark Severance]

UncleKulikov, on 05 June 2012 - 03:43 PM, said:

I'm butt hurt because double heat sinks remove any potential advantage ballistic weapons would have over energy ones, and ER weapons negate any reason to use missiles. I'm not a fan of huge swathes of the game becoming irrelevant.

ER Weapons require line of sight to shoot. Missiles only require one person to have line of sight to the enemy, while the missiles can fire from behind cover. There is plenty of potential advantage for ballistic weapons. Just from looking at the dev blogs there might be a couple other reasons as well. Laser platforms run hotter, ballsistics tend to run cooler that means in a environment where you'd use thermal or night vision they would be at a disadvantage.

[UncleKulikov]

Dark Severance, on 05 June 2012 - 03:51 PM, said:

ER Weapons require line of sight to shoot. Missiles only require one person to have line of sight to the enemy, while the missiles can fire from behind cover. There is plenty of potential advantage for ballistic weapons. Just from looking at the dev blogs there might be a couple other reasons as well. Laser platforms run hotter, ballsistics tend to run cooler that means in a environment where you'd use thermal or night vision they would be at a disadvantage.

All AC varieties and machine guns require Line of Sight as well. Ballistics weigh a lot more, take up more space, require ammunition to function, thus making a mech vulnerable to ammo explosions, and have time to target. Missiles do have that advantage, but with much more tonnage, approximate heat, many more crit slots, and the aforementioned ammunition concerns it's a tenuous advantage at best.

Energy weapons are already better than ballistics before double heat sinks cut their one disadvantage in half, regardless of tertiary bonuses like thermal vision (which can have other restrictions like close range).

For example.

1 AC20, 2 tons of ammunition (10 rounds of firing)
7 heat
20 damage
14+2 tons
10+2 critical slots

For the same tonnage and crit space:
6 Medium Lasers
18 Heat
30 damage
6 tons
6 slots
+ 10 heat sinks
10 tons
10 slots

Neither build will overheat even when running and firing all weapons.
Both have the same range brackets.

The AC one has 2 chances of ammunition explosion, and loses all effectiveness after 10 rounds of firing, and does less damage.

With double heat sinks it just gets more ridiculous since the 6 medium lasers would be covered completely by the engine heat sinks alone.

Edited by UncleKulikov, 05 June 2012 - 04:24 PM.