31 replies to this topic

[Threat Doc]

PhoenixFire55, on 11 February 2014 - 08:56 AM, said:

3PV ... enough said I think.

For one, there was NO PROMISE that 3PV would not be placed in the game, it was never promised. That being said, I hate the idea of 3PV AT ALL, and I hate the ******** reasoning for it to be placed in the game, because it was NOT reasoning at all, it was an excuse, but it's in the game, it was NEVER promised that it would be left out and, to be honest, I've used it a couple times for my Catapult, to make sure my doors are open. On some maps you can't see the lights change from yellow to green on your dash, so you need an outside view; however, I can't play in 3PV, it's impossible for me, because I'm so used to 1PV.

So, no, not enough said. How about you reword your next rant about promises to not include the word promises, or any derivative thereof, and include some more research, please? Now, you said "3PV... enough said, I think." Unfortunately, you still did not provide the post where the word promise was used by any of the developers to express their desire to not have it in the game. Fortunately, the 3PV heat that came from all that controversy is very well documented, so I at least understood what you were talking about.

Next?

Edited by Kay Wolf, 11 February 2014 - 09:11 AM.

[PhoenixFire55]

Kay Wolf, on 11 February 2014 - 09:09 AM, said:

For one, there was NO PROMISE that 3PV would not be placed in the game, it was never promised.

If you tell that like 1000 times to yourself I guess you actually start to believe it. Doesn't make it true tho.

Kay Wolf, on 11 February 2014 - 09:09 AM, said:

How about you reword your next rant about promises to not include the word promises, or any derivative thereof, and include some more research, please?

I would, but devs posts with those same promises magically and very conviniently disappeared when forums went through changes bout a year ago. However everyone who payed attention late 2011 and early 2012 knows it.

[Sephlock]

Tycho von Gagern, on 10 February 2014 - 11:11 PM, said:

I agree with you about how clans really ruined the old TT game. I really stopped following the canon after the 4th Succession War. People talk about Word of Blake and all of that and I nod but I really don't know what they're talking about, nor do I really want to. 3025 was where it was at.

I really hope you're wrong about the Clans ruining MWO, but I am worried you're spot on. I wish PGI would have at least given us a year or two of IS CW before introducing the Clans.

Here's something you may enjoy, if you haven't seen it already...

The Word of Blake era was when things actually got ruined.

The introduction of the clans is where all the silly people dropped out and left fun for the rest of us.

[Losobal]

Deathsani, on 07 February 2014 - 04:08 PM, said:

I also feel that they gave the release date far too soon.

Like before the game is even complete?

Anyhoo, yeah there are two things at play here: Clan mechs/mechanics/structure as defined by the series and Clan mechs/etc as will likely be played by players. Not to mention that this is a game with no real consequences. Destruction consequence is relatively minimal, and less a factor the longer you've played the game. Its not like you're dead, so feel free to run up a wierd load mech and get blasted, at worst you spectate for awhile, at best you live and get a bit more xp/cash/whatever.

What player doens't want better heat sinks, or harder hitting/longer range weapons? And what player isn't going to exploit the strengths of those various items to the best of their ability?

[Threat Doc]

Sephlock, on 11 February 2014 - 09:45 AM, said:

The Word of Blake era was when things actually got ruined.

The introduction of the clans is where all the silly people dropped out and left fun for the rest of us.

The WoB Jihad was the most moronic thing to happen to BattleTech, and I think most people agree with that. There's no way it would have worked out the way it did... the WoBs would have seen the Inner Sphere united even tighter than the Clan invasion and they would have been utterly destroyed within weeks of dropping the first nuke on Tharkad.

However, it was NOT when things actually got ruined. The Clan invasion was the first mistake FASA made; I understand it was so they could save the franchise, but it should have been done with a good deal more care. I don't think they counted on their gamers being intelligent enough to know the difference; after all, Jordan Weisman, in Shrapnel, did say that the internet was a temporary fad. The guy was not terribly in touch with the times, and that was borne out when he was stupid enough to sell the BattleTech IP to Microsoft. I don't think he really even sold it, it was more like giving it away. Now, we have to deal with all of these other problems for an absolutely massive franchise that could really remain awesome, if it could just be released so more could be done with it.

As for "...left fun for the rest of us." I have to say that's not even remotely an accurate assessment. The super-shiny munchkin-mobile quadrupled in size when it was realized what sort of cheating tech the Clans had. Before the Clans, and for a short time after they came, I played an average of three BattleTech games per week. When the Clans dropped... well, let's just say I've played five tabletop games and maybe ten games of MegaMek since 1996. My mini's have been in storage for over two years, now, and the only book I have out is my BattleTech Compendium - The Rules of Warfare, from 1992. The Clans destroyed my BattleTech, as I stopped seeing the value of playing if the only 'Mechs that would be on the field at the end of a game would ALWAYS be Clan 'Mechs.

Losobal, on 11 February 2014 - 10:35 AM, said:

Not to mention that this is a game with no real consequences. Destruction consequence is relatively minimal, and less a factor the longer you've played the game. Its not like you're dead, so feel free to run up a wierd load mech and get blasted, at worst you spectate for awhile, at best you live and get a bit more xp/cash/whatever.

Thank you, but it's not only that. The BattleMech design rules were for newly designed 'Mechs, not stocks. Stocks SHOULD NOT be able to have their internal structure or armor type changed out at all, and it should be very difficult and very expensive to swap out weapons, ammo, and equipment.

Y'know, for guys who claim to love the BattleTech game, the lore, etc., these guys sure do have an awful lot of things wrong with this game. I understand why they're doing it, mind you, but it's still bass-ackwards.

[oldradagast]

Superior game mechanics being balanced by roleplaying drawbacks rarely works out, IMHO. Either the roleplaying element fails completely or gets shoved aside (leaving us with simply overpowered game mechanics), or the roleplaying element takes over and sucks the fun out of the game.

As an example, look at the Dungeons and Dragons Paladin over various editions. In most cases, he was flat-out superior to the Fighter in every way, but "balanced" by needing to follow a strict moral code. If he broke that code, he'd lose his powers and end up inferior to a Fighter until he repented. The problem is that this is a roleplaying balancing mechanic. A jerk DM running the game could easily put the Paladin in "no-win" situations so he's losing his powers weekly, while a "hack and slash" DM would ignore the roleplaying aspect, leaving Paladins flat-out superior to Fighters in every way with no real drawback.

A similar idea applies here. There are possible ways to balance the superior technology with role-playing drawbacks, but would they work and how much fun would they be? Penalizing people for kill assists when playing as Clan? Maybe, but it might make for nutty games where nobody would want to help their Clan allies for fear of getting the penalty. Pitting 8 Clan vs. 12 IS players? Might work, but it would be hard to balance those numbers and if the IS players just feel like cannon fodder, it won't be fun for them. You see the problems. I'm not saying it *can't* be done, but it would be difficult.

Given the troubles PGI has had so far just balancing IS technology, trying to then balance Clan as well seems to just be asking for problems. I have a bad feeling many Clan chassis will be DOA, the remaining will be overpowered, and if Clan tech can go on any mech, we'll have an incredibly narrow and broken meta-game once it's all implemented.

[Tyrnea Smurf]

Kay Wolf, on 11 February 2014 - 11:29 AM, said:

The WoB Jihad was the most moronic thing to happen to BattleTech, and I think most people agree with that. There's no way it would have worked out the way it did... the WoBs would have seen the Inner Sphere united even tighter than the Clan invasion and they would have been utterly destroyed within weeks of dropping the first nuke on Tharkad.

+1000 Internets to you. The Jihad was idiotic in the extreme. The Dark Age stuff is a close second. In terms of the lore the franchise's wheels fell off after the FedCom Civil War.

Quote

When the Clans dropped... well, let's just say I've played five tabletop games and maybe ten games of MegaMek since 1996. My mini's have been in storage for over two years, now, and the only book I have out is my BattleTech Compendium - The Rules of Warfare, from 1992. The Clans destroyed my BattleTech, as I stopped seeing the value of playing if the only 'Mechs that would be on the field at the end of a game would ALWAYS be Clan 'Mechs.

Clan is very OP, however if your using the BV systems, especially BV 2.0 it levels the playing field significantly. Just consider the Clans as a very small highly trained elite force with superior equipment, who's tactical and strategic planning gives them a significant force multiplier, vs the massive army of brute force that the IS can throw at them. Under BV 2.0 IS forces usually get 2 or 3 to 1 tonnage advantage. in some extreme instances IS forces can get a 5 or better tonnage advantage.

If your a IS player you learn to live with the fact your units are disposable, the trick is just have one more than the clanner can kill before he gets smothered under the raw tonnage you can bring against him.

oldradagast, on 11 February 2014 - 11:43 AM, said:

Given the troubles PGI has had so far just balancing IS technology, trying to then balance Clan as well seems to just be asking for problems. I have a bad feeling many Clan chassis will be DOA, the remaining will be overpowered, and if Clan tech can go on any mech, we'll have an incredibly narrow and broken meta-game once it's all implemented.

PGI announced recently that there will be no mixed tech. So the problem of mixed tech FrankenMech should be under control for now.

[wanderer]

Catalyst's been fixing the poop sandwich WizKids baked up for years now...but there's only so much you can do without obliterating the setting.

In any case, the dread "balance" issue.

PGI, IMHO has two choices

1) You "balance" Clan 'Mechs to be a 1:1 matchup for IS ones. Any real technological advantages are stripped away for "unique" Clan weaponry and such.

Of course, balanced Clan to IS also means you need numerical balance too. G'bye, Stars. Hello, lances and 12-mans!

2) You balance Clan 'Mech stuff against itself and you then apply appropriate numerical/tonnage modifiers vs. IS teams instead of making them balance 1:1. 5:8 or 10:12, for example. Yeah, that Clanner's better equipped. Too bad that doesn't mean diddly when you caught him in a crossfire with the rest of your bigger force, and he dies to just the same amount of damage anyone else does. Even with Clan-scaled-up versions of MWO weaponry, you put them into a 10v16 and watch that Clan force scramble across the map to avoid getting pinned down while whittling the IS force down.

Did I mention that with the fixed engine weights, the IS forces tend to be faster and more agile as it is?

[Marmon Rzohr]

I'm confused Mr. OP...

Why exactly do you think that Clan mechs are "easy" ?
Especially since we don't know much about how the weapons will be balanced ?

It is almost certain that if the weapons will be more potent they will be significantly hotter. Meaning they will be much more punishing if you miss a shot or misjudge your heat level. To average players they will probably be more difficult to use.

As far as competitive drops and top-level play is concerned there are other concerns such as will these mechs be able to carry competitive loadouts etc. PGI will almost certainly be very careful with how the configure the hardpoints. If you look at the Clan preorder page you can see the hardpoints of one of the variants and in the case of the Timber Wolf you can see that they carefully avoided giving it two ballistic hardpoints one in each ST. In fact the only one it has is in the CT making it unusable.

[oldradagast]

No mixed tech? Okay - good. That's a promise I hope they keep. Now, they only need to balance Clan vs. IS (which is hard enough...) not Clan vs. IS vs. IS with Clan tech.

[Abivard]

Rest assured when clan mechs make their appearance they will be so superior to IS mechs that IS mechs will disappear from fights.

At that point PGI is certain everyone will flock to buy clan mechs at inflated MC prices.

What is with all these posts that always ASSUME pgi will do things carefully, smartly, competently and well thought out.... when have they ever done that before?

[Deathsani]

In response Marmon, I will compare my favorite mech (the hbk-4p) to it's equivilant on the clan side the nova. The 4p kitted out the way I play it with an erll, six sl's, a medium laser on the head and all the goodies to make a big engine to fit in there. I go about 90k and I manage my heat pretty well.

The Nova prime variant has 6ml's, per arm. It has a 4p's shoulder on each arm. It moves just as fast, with more weapons and jump jets at the same weight. It also has all of those lovely weapons on arm mounts. Now, I know that most lame brain players would just alpha each arm once and melt into a puddle. Smart players would swap out a good portion of them for small lasers, or large lasers, or whatever and fire in small groups for devastating amounts of sustained damage. Best of all, if you want to alpha and run, you can just hop away with jump jets.

It has more weapons, a better layout, and just as fast. How could you argue that something with demonstrably better everything (except speed) is anything but easier to pilot?