Listened to the audio, I have one thing to add.
At one point it was mentioned in the NGNG podcasts was a bit more geared towards the BT crowd and not so much the competative crowd, this doesn't have to be a bad thing. I'm part of the more hardcore BT/TT crowd and I think that the game isn't delivering anything here.
Some examples, these scans can be downloaded in PDF format at the official BT website here:
http://bg.battletech...ut-3050-upgrade
Let's take the CN9-D here:
look at all that information, the Centurion is pretty much one of the most common mechs in the BT setting. This will ofcourse never be reflected in MWO unless they have some broken ingame advantage that would make it worth taking.
You can do a ton of stuff with this for stock mode players.
Own a CN9-A? Cheap mech with low costs generally, only that autocannon is going to give you problems, you might need to approach different vendors to get a compatible type.
Have you saved up enough money? Buy yourself a
Field Refit Kit for that outdated bucket of bolts.
Have a lot of loyalty points in the FedCom? Get one for free! Hanse Davion will be footing the bill for that one, just don't expect him to get you leather seats.
It's not in the game, but here goes:
In the TT this mech will rarely overheat (apart from the C Config), in MWO it'll be a different story altogether, but let's not go into a DHS discussion here. The mech itself is pretty much a highly mobile heavy mech, the current balancing of weapons and equipment won't really do it justice.
This mech was actually pretty good in both MW2 and MW3, it would have really shined in MW3 if we had canon customization rules in that game. You would have run into situation where a Annihilator would pack more puch (but would be difficult to refit) and the lighter Summoner which could be reconfigured into a various configs (canon or custom, which is possible with omnimechs). Such a thing would have added a much needed dimension to making choices on what mechs to keep.
My point (yes there was one), you can be a competitive player in the BT setting with all the quirks that come with it.
The current game offers little challenge in obtaining the gear you want since we can get our hands on anything with sufficient C-Bills by grinding trial mechs. This is rather confusing to new players since they are often stuck with outdated trial mechs (designs that are contemporaries of the CN9-A in my earlier example). Either leave those mechs out or make it clear that they are "bargain bin" designs and sell them cheap.
Some mechs should be linked to your faction and be exclusive to that faction, Dragons should only be available in the FRR and DC. If you are in the LC, then you'll need to salvage one. You would also need to secure parts to actually keep this mech running. A good competative player would know what mechs are easy to maintain and keep them at peak performance in battle.
But now you might wonder, what about customization? Good question, it would ofcourse remain with the added option of stock only matches. the only thing that I would like to add here is that some supplies would be limited, these limitation should be linked to events on the IS map.
Lost a LRM ammo production site? I hope you were wise enough to stock up on ammo before, you're going to need them to win back the site.
The big winner with customization would ofcourse be to capture a omnimech, no hardpoint limitations, but you can't change the engine, armor levels or add/remove ferro/endo. Building a tricked out ride is easy, maintaining it should be the real challenge.
You could always join the Clans to get those cool toys immediatly, but the Clans should have everything dictated by honor points. This would be a challenge in its own right, you can't progress in any way if you fight dishonorable. There have been plenty of discussions about a Clan honor system, but I won't ramble on about that.
And there's also a place where you can play with pretty much what ever mech you want and create configs without having to worry about parts. I'm ofcourse talking about the Solaris Arena's, we even have Duncan Fisher for any voice work that needs to be done.
My other point here was, do something with the setting PGI.
4
Lazy Eye, on 14 August 2013 - 05:55 AM, said:
