17 replies to this topic

[Alistair Winter]

From the website:
The various weight classes of BattleMechs help create their own evolving roles on the battlefield. Fast moving scouts can feed target and tactical information back to the main battle group and the team commander. This information allows the support and assault role pilots to decide where to put their resources to work.

So, back in the day, PGI had a plan to implement different roles and certain skill trees to compliment those roles. An assault pilot would have certain skills, a commander would have certain skills, etc.
Unfortunately, this has now been abandoned.

From the latest Ask the Devs:

Team Leader: When will we get rid of the current "placeholder" (-Paul, many months ago) XP system and go back to the pilot roles and mech tech trees that are included in the Dev blog? I think many players prefer the system described in the dev blog to what we have now.
A: Trees evolved into the current design. We have plans to add more content to the existing system.

I'm guessing this is simply because they don't have the resources to implement such a system in a good way. It does introduce a whole new batch of problems, like matchmaking. On top of ELO, you also need to worry about weight distribution and roles on each team, so one team doesn't have 8 "team commanders".

I'm hoping that the game grows big enough that matchmaking will no longer be a problem, because the whole idea of role warfare was always one of the most promising aspects of this entire game.

[Durant Carlyle]

Yep. I am disappoint.

[Zylo]

Current state of role warfare = bring high alpha designs to compete in the arms race or bring fast mechs to cap as a counter to high alpha designs.

[FupDup]

Something I wonder about their previous model of role warfare is how would people choose their role from the list of 3 possible (scout, assault, commander)? It can't be by just mech class, because how would you differentiate an "Assault" role assault mech from a "Commander" assault mech? The same goes for heavies. Lights would obviously just get the "Scout" role but what would mediums like the Centurion, Hunch, and Treb get? They sure as heck ain't scouts, commanders, or assaulters.

Edited by FupDup, 19 April 2013 - 05:04 PM.

[Alistair Winter]

FupDup, on 19 April 2013 - 05:03 PM, said:

Something I wonder about their previous model of role warfare is how would people choose their role from the list of 3 possible (scout, assault, commander)? It can't be by just mech class, because how would you differentiate an "Assault" role assault mech from a "Commander" assault mech? The same goes for heavies. Lights would obviously just get the "Scout" role but what would mediums like the Centurion, Hunch, and Treb get? They sure as heck ain't scouts, commanders, or assaulters.

I guess the idea was that it was entirely independent of the mech. You would just pick pilot skills, presumably with GXP, independent of mech skills.

You could be a team commander in light, medium, heavy or assault. Same goes for any other roles. The difference between a team commander assault and an assault assault (lulz) would be that the team commander can do stuff like artillery and airstrikes, while the assault pilot can do stuff like extra pew pew and resistance to knockdowns. A scout could do stuff like targetting several mechs at once. The information is still online somewhere, with PGI's old ideas for each role.

[FupDup]

Alistair Winter, on 19 April 2013 - 05:07 PM, said:

I guess the idea was that it was entirely independent of the mech. You would just pick pilot skills, presumably with GXP, independent of mech skills.

You could be a team commander in light, medium, heavy or assault. Same goes for any other roles. The difference between a team commander assault and an assault assault (lulz) would be that the team commander can do stuff like artillery and airstrikes, while the assault pilot can do stuff like extra pew pew and resistance to knockdowns. A scout could do stuff like targetting several mechs at once. The information is still online somewhere, with PGI's old ideas for each role.

I want to see an assault Spider!


And a scout Atlas...it would give Steiner scout lances a whole new meaning lol.

Edited by FupDup, 19 April 2013 - 05:12 PM.

[Typhon27]

I do not see what is so complicated about it. The skill tree is Mechwarrior2 encouraged role warfare. A pilot could increase his/her skill in sensors, long range weapons, ballistic weapons, medium lasers, missiles, heavy mechs, light mechs and so on. I would rather see a system similar to that. A pilot should take his "skill" in large lasers with him into whatever mech he piloted. A pilot skilled in heavy mechs (granted after some initial familiarization with each variant, maybe that requires X amount of matches in a specific mech before enjoying the full bonuses that skill bestows) should skillfully pilot all heavy mechs, just as a skilled truck driver with a CDL license can reasonably expect to drive any truck with skill. A skilled airline pilot is a skilled pilot no matter what airliner he pilots.

My .02

[Sephlock]

I think we need to be a bit more realistic here. Even IRL role warfare has resembled this:



Far more than this:



What exactly are you guys hoping for?

[Inconspicuous]

I prefer the current system over one that encourages me to level multiple pilots to unlock the skills.

I prefer simulation games, skill should come from practice and not from unlocking the magical torso twist skill...

[Sephlock]

Inconspicuous, on 19 April 2013 - 06:40 PM, said:

I prefer the current system over one that encourages me to level multiple pilots to unlock the skills.

I prefer simulation games, skill should come from practice and not from unlocking the magical torso twist skill...

Don't ever buy a Centurion.

[Joe Mallad]

FupDup, on 19 April 2013 - 05:03 PM, said:

Something I wonder about their previous model of role warfare is how would people choose their role from the list of 3 possible (scout, assault, commander)? It can't be by just mech class, because how would you differentiate an "Assault" role assault mech from a "Commander" assault mech? The same goes for heavies. Lights would obviously just get the "Scout" role but what would mediums like the Centurion, Hunch, and Treb get? They sure as heck ain't scouts, commanders, or assaulters.

you are misunderstanding.

In the first role warfare model a scout could be any mech... light, medium, heavy or Assault that 1. could move fast enough and 2. be mounting any of the Scout type equipment.

An Assault role isnt an Assault mech per say... its any mech that is built to be more of a front line mech... lots of firepower and armor. While this would probably knock most lights out of this category, it would have left the Assault (front line) role open to some more traditional light (slower) brawler mechs like the Panther or Wolfhound to name a few. And the Commander role could be any mech type that probably equipped a command counsel and any other command equipment. Lights would also be great for a command role... run fast set up, call in strikes, give commands to the grunts and move, move, move lol

It would have worked if they would have stuck to it.

Edited by Yoseful Mallad, 19 April 2013 - 06:46 PM.

[Syllogy]

Bryan Ekman, on 22 March 2013 - 07:08 AM, said:

William Denton: Are you planning to group the module-unlocks into specific skilltrees? I am thinking along the Commander/scout/attacker/defender classes you mentioned in one of your blogs.

A: Instead of defining those roles, we leave it to players to come up with their own templates/builds and help define what they feel falls into those rolls. It’s more of sandbox approach, like MechLab.

[Sephlock]

Quote

In the first role warfare model a scout could be any mech... light, medium, heavy or Assault

Good to see they weren't discriminating against Steiner.

[Eddrick]

FupDup, on 19 April 2013 - 05:03 PM, said:

but what would mediums like the Centurion, Hunch, and Treb get?

Look at the intended roles for the Mechs. But, overall, the Medium Weight Class in general was more of a Hybrid the anything. A "Jack of all Trades/Master of none", if you will. Made to be able to do anything/but not exel at it like it more specialized brothers.

Out of those three, the only one that had a defined role in it's description was the Hunchback. Which is made for Urban Combat and Close Range Brawling.

[Sybreed]

Zylo, on 19 April 2013 - 05:00 PM, said:

Current state of role warfare = bring high alpha designs to compete in the arms race or bring fast mechs to cap as a counter to high alpha designs.

yup, it's run fast... or die fast!

[Hellen Wheels]

Ya, that's what sold me on the game. False promises are false, eh? I wonder what the internal correspondence about the issue will reveal when it gets produced during the tort action for misrepresentation. That's going to be a hell of a lot more interesting than even the forums!

[Taemien]

Everytime I use a Light Mech for scouting and recon.. someone makes a post about it. They either say:

1. HSR doesn't work.
2. ECM is OP (even if I'm using a Jenner)
3. Complain about capping.

Course I just ignore them.

[Tennex]

its not the first time they went back on their vision of something. the current mech xp system is shallow.