261 replies to this topic

[Lord Perversor]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 10 June 2012 - 12:16 PM, said:

While I agree with the OP it is a battle already lost. We have a MechLab, its just about waiting to see exactly what we can do. We know that we will need to buy all the variants of one mech to level up our pilot "perks" and progress to Elite level(s) for more module unlocks. As someone who prefers mediums I will be getting the Hunchback Founder mech. Once I have played a few games I will upgrade my mech with the best tech available. Unless testing shows otherwise I will fit 2 x ERPPC, ES, DHS and upgrade the engine for more speed, with max armour. This is completely do-able with what we know so far. More to the point you can do the same to the variants if you wish, so you don't need to change your playstyle. I have a couple of different variants ready for different maps/climate ready to be swapped to for each match.
I am sure that this sort of thing is what a large number of those who have played previous titles will have done. Not to do so is to handicap myself and I'm not a good enough pilot that I can afford any other handicaps.

But for all those totally against Frostikens ideas. How are IS Mechs differentiated from the Clan other than by tech now? We know have the ability to change mechs far more than Omnimechs were in canon.

Right now:
catapult custom has 2x hardpoints in arms for missiles means you can fit top 2x missiles modules there
catapult K2 has 2x hardpoints too but they are Energy you can fit 2x energy 2 Large lasers 2x PPC (providing heat/tonnage allows)
Now a Clan Omni should show 2x Total hardpoints wich means you can get 2x weapons of any choice you wish, since the Omni allows for a broad custom.

I think Clan Omnimechs should have a basic chassis, without variants, the variants are a way to differenciate the different weapons loadouts.


Also like to point Critical slots are bound to mech section, wich means free crit slots from arms/legs/other torso won't help to squeeze a weapon on another part of mech.


Or to give an example basic hunchback (pics) have 12 total slots in his right torso with 2x ballistic hardpoints.

Let's consider we have free tonnage to tinker (wich is not ingame) we can fit 2x ballistic weapons 1x gauss for 7 slots and 1x ac 5 for 4 slots total 1x free slot for ammo/heatsinks/armor.

We can not put 3x Ac5 12 slots total but only 2x hardpoints as example
or we can not put any energy weapon so no Swayback from custom hunchie.

On the other hand there should be a 4P variant that offer 0x ballistic harpoints in the right torso but 6x energy slots.

Edited by Lord Perversor, 10 June 2012 - 12:35 PM.

[Orion Pirate]

Frostiken, on 10 June 2012 - 11:06 AM, said:

Which makes me wonder where the accusations that this will "ruin the game" are coming from.

The vast majority of games that draw interest through 'customization' allow you to put a new hat on, slap an extended magazine on your rifle, and put a heat seeking missile on your helicopter.

Are these people who just want to shoot stuff actually going to be furious that there's more strict rules in place on a feature that, even with my limitations, would still offer unprecedented customization never seen in any other game they've played before?

I think you fear the average gamer and want to limit them in your own interests. Here is where you and I disagree. This is a free to play game. Limitations except where necessary will limit the fun of the game to the average gamer. You do not believe this, I do. It is as simple as that.

[Thomas Hogarth]

Orion Pirate, on 10 June 2012 - 10:27 AM, said:

Imagination goes a long way in playing any game. I can accept autocannons shooting out of missile pods because I understand it is a graphical limitation of the game I am playing. For you, this seems to be asking too much... For the TT I would just use a mini that closely represented my unique design, or the variant I modified... Part of the fun of playing BT is not knowing what the other team fielded, because customization has always been a core design of the BT game... Or at least the BT I played... You and I have different BT experiences...

Let's standardize the TT experience. What standardization rules are available to everyone is on the same page? You guessed it, Tournament rules - the most-used set of rules in TT. These explicitly do not allow customs. So really, your BT experience is different than most peoples.

514yer, on 10 June 2012 - 10:47 AM, said:

Yeah cause customization and replayability is horrible in a MMO

Immersion is the best thing to encourage in any game. Every 'Mech being a super-custom job breaks immersion for people who know the lore. Most 'Mechs being canon encourages immersion for those that know the lore, and does not break immersion for those that do not.

Orion Pirate, on 10 June 2012 - 10:55 AM, said:

So how does limiting how someone customizes their mechs make the game interesting? I think you forget the majority of the playerbase do not care about canon, they just want to shoot stuff.

See above: If they don't care about canon, they won't miss the mechlab. What difference will it even make to them?

Orion Pirate, on 10 June 2012 - 11:07 AM, said:

I am truly sorry about your canon, and your logic based on canon, and your fears in the game and how they will affect your canon. But if you want to play the game that will be made up of many non-canon players you are going to have to let go of something...

Again, non-canon players won't know the difference. They won't care one way or the other.

Draggon96, on 10 June 2012 - 11:36 AM, said:

"Well thats an Awesome, I can expect a PPC barrage at long range so I better close fast with my Hunchback..."
Otherwise its like this "Theres a large humanoid robot, he could do anything...better blow all my ammo now."

Right there, that's my fear too. I want to recognize the 'Mechs coming at me. I want to see a custom and go "whoa, that guy must know his stuff."

RG Notch, on 10 June 2012 - 11:47 AM, said:

True but IMHO only a fool limits people's options.

A law enforcement officer tells you that driving while drunk is against the law. He is limiting your options. Therefore... he is a fool? Although, really, he's not limiting your options, just introducing a cost for certain paths of action - with the intent of encouraging your to take other paths of action.

How is that so bad?

[phelancracken]

Also found in the BMRr in the optional rules section.

[Frostiken]

Lord Perversor, on 10 June 2012 - 12:08 PM, said:

Frostiken with around 400 post, and undoubtly way more time around this gmae info i'm amazed the lack of common sense/ knowledge about it you seems to show.

Refit a Mech it's free sure you can play as much as you wish with all the items in the store, just to see if it fits, but when you hit accept to be able to play then you need to pay for the changes on the mechs. So tinker for fun it's free leave the final design operative has it's price.

Right here buddy:

http://mwomercs.com/...devs-2-answers/

Quote

I don't recall the part where the dev says he just moves weapons from mech A to mech B to just not need to buy extra weapons

Right here buddy:

http://mwomercs.com/...devs-5-answers/


Be an *** less plz k thx.

[Toothman]

Squigles, on 10 June 2012 - 12:23 PM, said:

That's not actually true....you could alter even an IS Battlemech in pretty much any way you wanted, and there were table top rules for it, right down to tech skill checks to see if they managed the modifications without unbalancing the chassis, it was just expensive work. (If memory serves those rules were in 1 of the mercenary rulebooks)

Thats only if you did the RPG portion of the game. When we did table top we'd all show up with our stack of custom designs. Mix and match to get our tonnage correct and start the beatings. I played maybe my first 3 matches with stock mechs then ran to the library to photo copy the build sheets and started making my own. As for the person asking how IS might be different than spam mechs. (omni hardpoints)

[Damocles]

Criticals.

[Orion Pirate]

Gauge, on 10 June 2012 - 11:07 AM, said:

Your arguments are starting to confuse me... You don't care about canon (I really don't much either, I just want a fun game), but the difference between two mechs that are the same on paper is how 'cool' they will be. If you don't care what the mechs are usually like in BT, why is one cooler than the other? They're exactly the same. Sure you might like the look of one over the other (which I do), but releasing a charger 3 months down the line (when people have already made fast Awesomes) will generate a fraction of the excitement across the whole player base as it would if all of a sudden, now there's a really fast Assault! That's different, and couldn't be done before! let's get it and see what it can do!

I guess we just disagree about what we want though. I think we probably both have a lot of imagination. I could easily see myself using a ton of imagination for the first couple months of the game, and then not having a great deal of interest after that. New chassis? Eh, I already tried that with a Catapult/Hunchback/Jenner/Atlas/whatever...

I think we just said the same thing, except in relation to PGI and the awesome and charger. Why will a new chassis be interesting? I am sure there is more to it then just hardpoints and criticals. Looks will be a major one of course. Other things like where the hardpoints are located, Jump Jets etc... For some people of course, a few mechs are good enough, and there will be little or no reason to ever buy a new mech. This is a fact, but not a fact for all people, and it is a problem for any F2P game. But I love that this will be F2P, so I am not complaining about it.

[Saliddry]

this sounds more stupid than everything else



no free mech lab nu custom design and this game can go to hell

every mechwarrior titel had free mech design and i want it here too

pls get rid of those idiots who want to force guys to play the way they want (death nerf for lasers cause they want em to use guns) (death to mech lab cause they never understood how it works) and such rubbish

[Griffinhart]

UncleKulikov, on 10 June 2012 - 12:13 PM, said:

"Another thing that was mentioned was that hardpoints only count towards the number of weapons you can put in there, not the size. Theoretically, with enough crit space, you could replace a single small laser with a trio of ER large lasers"

You don't understand how hardpoints work. If there is a single energy hardpoint, you could replace a small laser with a single ER large laser. IF you have the crit space, AND the tonnage.

I don't consider this an issue.

I agree with you Uncle
The more I read in this thread the more I believe that some don't really understand how mech customization works. You can never replace a single small laser with a single ER Large Laser, let alone a trio. You can't simply swap out a larger engine without sacrificing elsewhere. That is going on the assumtion that they are using traditional mech design.

[Xperimentor]

I would have to disagree with most of it (the original post that is). Time constraints for customization makes sense, but inhibiting the ability to have variety is going to be a big turn off across the board. As several have already stated, that's part of the draw to this, and not being able to guess what your enemy can use is your problem. A good pilot can adapt to the opposition in mid combat, and that's part of the challenge and fun.

[Squigles]

Saliddry, on 10 June 2012 - 12:32 PM, said:

every mechwarrior titel had free mech design and i want it here too

LIES!!!! =)

Mechwarrior 2:Mercs (arguably) one of the best titles in the series, had considerable refit costs.

[phelancracken]

Frostiken, on 10 June 2012 - 12:28 PM, said:

Right here buddy:

http://mwomercs.com/...devs-2-answers/



Right here buddy:

http://mwomercs.com/...devs-5-answers/


Be an *** less plz k thx.

Snicker. It's not even out of beta and you calling that the sky is falling. Seriously, until the game goes live, this is all speculation. They have the mechlab right now, but how it works could change today, tommorrow, even an hour before launch. Still crits, tonnage and hardpoints will play in how a mech can be customized.

[Aym]

Frostiken, on 10 June 2012 - 10:38 AM, said:

The final 1/3rd is to ensure PGI aren't shooting themselves in the foot by compromising just about the only reason to actually want to buy different mechs and variants, when inevitably you will be able to find a chassis that has a really good hardpoint layout and you can turn it into damn-near any mech you so chose.

It may seem odd to be asking for ways to sink cash into the game, but as I said, it's free to play, and if people aren't putting money in, we aren't getting content in return. It's a symbiotic relationship, and since gamers are naturally cheap, frugal ********, so from what I understand of the current mechlab based on videos and interviews, there's not really a lot of reason to expand your mechhangar choices very much as you can circumvent the purpose of different chassis by simply getting creative in the mechlab.

I'm not sure most gamers are half as cheap as you claim. Or rather most of the kind of gamers that will find a strategic fps that only supports PVP interesting. I've played F2P's and sunk about $15/month into them on average, I attend cons that cost hundreds of dollars, and I've paid subscriptions to multiple concurrent games, yet I'm middle-of-the-road in terms of money spent on games among my friends. I think way more people than you believe will buy different mechs simply because they like the look, or their favorite canon pilot loved the mech, or whatever other reason.
However ultimately i think you're point that too much customization will ruin the game is short sighted. If we stuck with canon mechs there would still be mechs no one used, consider the poor Urbanmech, lol.

[Aym]

Thomas Hogarth, on 10 June 2012 - 12:26 PM, said:

I want to recognize the 'Mechs coming at me. I want to see a custom and go "whoa, that guy must know his stuff."

...

How is that so bad?

Game design must be a balancing act between giving players choices that are fun, and restricting choices in favor of gameplay. That being said, you should be able to tell if the hunchback at range has an AC/20 or x-number of x-sized lasers fairly easily, look at ANY gameplay screen shot an your HUD clearly shows the weapons load out of your target.http://mwomercs.com/...ly-screenshot-1

[pesco]

Happy to see this topic come up again, as I've made a similar suggestion before. Thanks Frostiken for taking the time to make such a nice write-up.

As far as I see it, the core worries here are:
* Customization will blur out the differences between chassis. Looking at a Mech becomes meaningless.
* How special is your Mech when everyone has a special Mech?
* Customization will make the stock variants vanish, because they're not focused enough.
* Once customization has been free, you can't easily change that. This is a conceptual issue, not something to tweak some time later.

Nobody says one shouldn't customize. But the big picture is that unless there is a deterrent to it, the above are likely results.

[Woodstock]

I have to say ... I love the mechlab ... I think its a great idea ... and that it is already limiting and balanced.

Go mechlab!

[Thomas Hogarth]

phelancracken, on 10 June 2012 - 12:35 PM, said:

Still crits, tonnage and hardpoints will play in how a mech can be customized.

But I do not think crits, tonnage, and hardpoints will ensure that most Hunchbacks loadouts look like Hunchbacks. To me, dual PPC Hunchbacks breaks immersion.

Thinking back on MW4, by far the best gameplay was on canon TRO variants only servers. There's enough variants out there that just about any flavor can be had.

My solution would be pretty simple: Hike up the cost of refits, and increase the repair costs. If its a repair that can be performed in the field or in the mechbay, then customization costs are nominal(2x or 3x cost of parts) and cost of repairs are doubled. If it needs a maintenance facility to perform the customization, then customization costs are high(1x or 2x cost of 'Mech), and repair costs are also doubled. If the job requires renting out factory floorspace to make the custom job happen, then customization costs are VERY high (5x to 10x cost of 'Mech) and repair costs are tripled.

That means that your CB earners are canon designs.

[Lord Perversor]

Frostiken, on 10 June 2012 - 12:28 PM, said:

Right here buddy:

http://mwomercs.com/...devs-2-answers/



Right here buddy:

http://mwomercs.com/...devs-5-answers/


Be an *** less plz k thx.

Quote

PROSPERITY PARK]: How much will the act of customizing your Mech cost, aside from just the cost of Parts (what should we expect for MechLab Technical Labor costs)?

[BRYAN]: None. But now you’ve planted the seed. Muhaha.

Again tinker with the mech to see what fits it's free , be able to PLAY with the pieces you tinkered after it's done = pay for them. So as i said custom the mech it's free but to be able to USE it you need to pay for the extra mods you added.

No trouble here unless you want to complain about that and use a 3rd party program to allow free tinker without punishing as it will eventually happen?

Quote

Q: Will equipment and weapons we remove from a 'mech be held in our inventory for later use? Or will they simply vanish? [WOSKA]

A: Any weapon/ammunition/heatsinks/etc that you purchase and remove from your 'Mech can be saved for later use. You can even be a cheapskate like me and use the same weapons in all your 'Mechs, just shuffling them around in between matches. [GARTH]

i just marked the answer as it seems to prove my idea, after you join a match it seems you aren't able to touch anymore the mech config, wanna be cheap? ok but you are now 100% forced to use a single mech and not be able to adapt for the match/team you have.

[Freyar]

Even APBR doesn't charge you to swap out your weapons and equipment. (Sure you lease it, but it doesn't cost you anything to swap between them.)

Limiting the Mechlab that hard would only frustrate new players as they learn what combinations work and how to design their mechs. It also removes the feeling of owning your own mech and being able to maintain it.

The only thing I liked to a degree was the "refit downtime". Severity based on how radically you changed your mech, but it shouldn't be any more than 15 minutes.