81 replies to this topic

[Sleeping Bear]

There are a few cliques forming around two very distinct factions. The ones who favor a mechwarrior game that embraces all of the rich lore and story that the universe holds, and the group who want a kick *** game that allows them to blast giant robots. I see it as a battle between the Battletech Purists and the Mechwarrior Gamers. In my opinion there is no right side to this debate, since both sides are right in a lot of ways.

The Purists want a game that adheres to the tabletop rules and embraces all the minutiae that encompassed it. They bandy words like battle value, mp and weight. They can probably recite every single ruler of ever single house between 3028 and 3081. They can tell you what mechs proliferate what forces, and in what numbers. They are the Yodas of the forums shouting down Clan threads with resounding scorn. They just know everything about the Mechwarrior universe.

The Gamers are a more visceral lot. They know how much ERPPC's a Summoner can mount, and how much heatsinks it takes to alpha strike with em. They can tell you what the optimum 'mech and configuration are for a 4 vs 4 tournament match. They can tell you the damage-per-second of a star of Clan Smoke Jaguar omnimechs in a close quarters brawl. They are the min-maxxers, and the power gamers, and I love and hate them. They will tell you why the Dragon is a worthless 'mech and why any pilot worth his salt runs a Hunchback.

The thing is, that Mechwarrior Online could and should be a place for all players, regardless of clique or outlook. I truly hope it is a new home for me and for you as well. In fact, that resounding song that haunted me in William H. Keith's novels comes back to me now:

Home is the Regiment, across the sea of stars
On worlds hot, on worlds cold,
where Warriors tread afar.
Though place of birth and family,
though loved ones all be lost,
Home is the Regiment, across the sea of stars

Home is the Regiment, though warriors travel far.
They cannot take our home from us,
our home is where we are!
With brothers under arms we share
a bond that draws us where
Home is the Regiment, across the sea of stars.

Home is the Regiment, the price of glory high.
We stand with brothers at our sides
to pay that price, and die!
The blood of comrades cries to us
long after glory's past:
"Home is the Regiment, across the sea of stars."

Home is the Regiment, in honor's proud refrain -
blood brothers forged together as
drawn steel quenched in flame!
They stand by us in blood and fire
and share with us the cry:
"Home is the Regiment, our family and our own!"

[Xantars]

Cannon is Nice but a good balanced game is better for everyone in the long term

[Strisk]

I like to see both, but I think balance is probably more important...while I enjoyed the TT, if I wanted to play the TT game I would just go play the TT game...not everything will translate perfectly, and I'd rather see good thought out balance than strict adherence to TT/BT Lore with no thought to how it effects what they are doing now.

[Ilfi]

Canon is great, but Balance must always come first. Always.
Even before profit.

[Freyar]

An unbalanced game will kill itself. Balance is VERY important, but I'd hope that the lore can be weaved properly into it.

[Thoman Coston]

Balance first, it is a combat sim.
CBT canon provides a nice backdrop and rich universe, but should not be a limiting factor in balancing the game.

[shintakie]

Of course balance should come first. A game can have the richest history with the best lore ever, but if its a multiplayer game and is an unbalanced mehfest, no one will play it.

[ARC73]

I would tend to agree as well, that a more moderate stance is required. You want a game with an interesting background and options that you can build on. But you also have to make it playable for a diverse group of people. Canon vs game balance is a difficult challenge for any Dev Team to deal with. Some of the frustration we are seeing in the forums comes from the complete lack of details to draw any conclusions from. We have very little hard intel to go on at the moment, just shadows and rumours. Hopefully as we get closer to an open beta we will all get a better look at the various aspects Mechwarrior Online has, and how they will relate to our own interests and playing styles.

[Forever]

I think the best out of both worlds seems good to me. But of course balance should come first.

[CycKath]

I'm all for balance, but not at the cost of canon. Tweaks are okay, but if things are thrown out wholesale, why go to the effort of getting the license to begin with?

[Tincan Nightmare]

I honestly don't see a conflict or problem here. The devs are already making the game as close to canon and tt rules as they can, adjusting some aspects to make it more playable as needed. So far everything I've seen has been fairly good in sticking to canon, even picking unusal mech chassis like the Cataphract or Stalker, but making a playable game. I guess lets just have a little optimism until something concrete arises to cause concern.

[Draco Argentum]

I don't see a conflict. Is the exact heat per shot of a medium laser an important part of the BT universe? Not really, the lore is a story not the mechanics. Mechanics exist to translate the story into a game, the TT and MW:O rules both represent the story, hopefully well. But they can't and don't need to be the same rules.

[Horizon]

Been playing a significantly Unbalanced F2P before. It's so terrible, you've got tons of player stress and a lack of pride. The company makes money but the players who won't throw away their money will suffer. Utter sadness.. Though, I have a ton of hope for Mechwarrior Online because of this beautiful community!

Oh, and yeah, the community is a strong factor in this. I'm sure you guys know how..

Edited by Horizon, 07 June 2012 - 11:57 PM.

[Strisk]

Horizon, on 07 June 2012 - 11:51 PM, said:

Been playing a significantly Unbalanced F2P before. It's so terrible, you've got tons of player stress and a lack of pride. The company makes money but the players who won't throw away their money will suffer. Utter sadness.. Though, I have a ton of hope for Mechwarrior Online because of this beautiful community!

Oh, and yeah, the community is a strong factor in this. I'm sure you guys know how..

From what I've seen so far the devs are doing their best to not make this one of those games, personally I walk away from those kinds of games every time I happen into them, not worth spending a bunch of money just to claim you're better than someone who didn't....not to me anyway.

[Tyra]

There has to be a balance. Throw canon out the window and then you have to ask why bother paying for the license in the first place. But don't balance things and the game itself sucks.

I'm going to use a phrase Lotro liked to use. The Lore-Cookie.

They have so many lore-cookies.

Using a lore-cookie is when gameplay > canon. So they try to be careful where they apply gameplay, and where they can work within canon.

Frankly, Battletech is diverse enough of a setting that I really don't think we need to worry about major canon vs gameplay issues.

Now I love the TT game but anyone who thinks they'll be able to do a strict numbers to numbers conversion to a video game is deluded.

[chewie]

how about making it both

We keep it canon and balance, lets wind time back to 3025, then we can all have the same tech and weapons for the next 25 yrs

sorted.

ok, no need to continue, thread can be locked now, answer has been given and your problem has been solved OP

[Murphy7]

Voted for a little of both as well.


There are things that were perpetrated in the game system that I hope to never see in a computer game version.

Example 1. - Tandem Charge SRMs - When the SRM would hit, it would apply 1 point of damage to armor, and the other point went internal in that location. Rediculously overpowered in the tabletop game, had munchkins everywhere in need of a change of underwear.

Example 2 - Shadowmech skill / Phantommech skill - in one of the game supplements this was posited to help explain just how badass some of the Kell and Wolfs Dragoon pilots were - if one pilot had the skill and another did not, the one who did not started had a minimum to hit roll needed of 10+ to hit the shadowmech skilled pilot's mech. If both pilots had shadowmech skill, it was backto normal rules. Sure, it was represented in the novelizations, but it doesn't make for a good game, and naturally was more munchkin bait. I think it was meant to represent how some pilots wouldn't show up on radar / computers would not get firing solutions for certain pilots.


On the other hand, there are cool bits of fluff and interest that would be fun to see in the game.

Example 1: In the lore for the Rifleman mech (ok, many barriers to see this show up, but as they say, "dreaming is for free") - the Rifleman's targeting computer was particularly advanced/well attuned to tracking and firing on air assets; if I could find it again, there used to be a list of small extra rules that could be applied to all the mechs and variants in the 3025 technical readout - the Rifleman had a -1 bonus to hit aerospace or conventional air assets in a combined arms game. Something like that would be pretty cool if modelled in game.

Example 2: I know we aren't supposed to get out of our mechs, but I would certainly laugh myself out of my chair if I was to encounter a Locust pilot who (a) overheated his mech into shutdown, and ( popped the hatch to take potshots at passing mechs with a laser pistol and a revolver.

[Kelebril]

I votes for "A little of both".

I want the balance and the canon. BT TT is not balanced in all aspects.
Balance is of incredible importance for longtime motivation.

[Rodney28021]

Kelebril, on 08 June 2012 - 02:20 AM, said:

I votes for "A little of both".

I want the balance and the canon. BT TT is not balanced in all aspects.
Balance is of incredible importance for longtime motivation.

Yeah i agree with this.

[Warskull]

Balance and design trump canon.

Which would you rather have?

A poorly balanced mechwarrior game that stays 100% true to canon, but it is bad and no one wants to play it or a well balanced mechwarrior game that deviates from canon.

Remember, most people don't care about the tiny details, they just want their favorite mechs to show up.