73 replies to this topic

[Dark Jackal]

Since "Stock 'Mechs" are entirely based off the Board Game whose essence this game has taken from, a lot of BattleTech stock configs quite frankly are terrible especially the default 3025 'Mechs not impacted by Harmony Gold law suits. The 80t Charger being the most infamous example but you also see it with some 'Mechs in MWO like the Cicada with it's pretty lame 3 Medium Laser setup. Sadly, some very good configuarions like the Archer, Crusader, Marauder, and Warhammer are not available for the IS heavies that would certainly be impacting the whole Clan v. IS balance discussion given the amount of weapons those 'Mechs had and could potentially be configured to be OP.

Then queue in the Clan 'Mechs which have some really nasty and very good BattleTech configurations and viola, you have rage on the forums. Of course, the Clan 'Mechs aren't immune to unremarkable configurations, like the Fenris, but the BT boardgame attepted to balance out all these quirky 'Mechs based on Battle Value (which isn't perfect in of itself for balance) though you could still cheese it out in certain cases making it a real though time for a green player to understand why brawling a Fafnir or LPL WarHawk was a bad idea.

There is simply no stand-in for rolling dice and random pilot skill from the Boardgame into a FPS like MWO, that discusssion was ongiong since before day 1, where really crappy IS Configured 'Mechs *could* eek extra numbers based on low BV value.

[Malleus011]

A suggestion I posted a good long while ago:

Malleus011, on 20 May 2014 - 01:04 PM, said:

Those of us who have tried playing with stock only mechs (that's 3025 era level 1 tech to some of you) know we'd really like to have our own 'game mode' for it in the main game.

Naturally, PGI would like to wait and see if it's popular, and if enough of us show interest.

That said, I'd like to suggest ways PGI can *monetize* a stock-only mode, and perhaps encourage them to add this game mode sooner.

• Sell Stock-Only 'mechs.
  
• Sell them cheap.
  
• Sell them painted.

Stock 'mechs should cost a minimal amount. Perhaps just 1-4$ as they cannot be modified, cannot use modules, and are uncompetitive in the main game. This will encourage true micro-transactions, an area where MWO currently lacks.



As a compensation, the stock 'mechs come already painted in a variety of patterns. (That's right, stock 'mech paint cannot be customized) If possible, add famous unit colors and patches, like Sword of Light, Davion Guards, Skye Rangers, Fusiliers of Oriente, or famous pirate factions. (Fine, Death Commandos too).

If you create sufficient variety - easy work for the art department as these schemes can't be changed - you can sell these cheap stock 'mechs as collections or sets - perhaps collecting a lance of Lyran Guards 'mechs would unlock an achievement or special paint scheme in the main game.

This is designed to draw in and appeal to the casual gamer and new player. Stock mode battles are slower paced. Have fewer possible weapons. Last longer. Are easier to learn. And, with a variety of inexpensive stock 'mechs, new players might purchase several before deciding they want to advance to the next level and purchase a C-Bill or MC 'mech that's fully customizable.

This would address a number of issues for PGI.

• Stock matches are newbie friendly.
  
• Stock matches are cheaper to become competitive in.
  
• Stock 'mechs could allow them cheaper, 'entry level' and 'impulse buy' purchases in their store. (the current set of 'mechs are paints are expensive for a F2P title, as you've been told many times before)
  
• Stock 'mechs are immune to the current meta.
  
• Collecting Stock 'mechs would not dilute your main game's economy.
  
• Stock 'mechs give 'useless' mechs like the Locust, Awesome, and Panther a place to shine.

If possible, I'd like to see any player be able to take their 3050s era Inner Sphere custom death machine and drop it in a stock match - where it would, for the duration of the game, revert to stock, so any 'advanced' player could hang with their newbie friend - and let their friend play in an area where he might live long enough to be tempted to drop a 1$ on that cool Redjack Ryan Centurion.



Details:

• Stock 'mechs wouldn't use a 'mech bay - that's for your own, customized 'mechs or Clan machines.
  
• Naturally, a player who bought a 'mech in the usual way could use his library of custom paints, if he wished, and drop into Stock matches. Nothing wrong with that.
  
• Should we ever get Community Warfare, unlocking (stock) mech skins might be a small but enjoyable fringe benefit of planetary conquest.

Constructive criticism requested please. If your response to this idea is 'No' or to write a half page diatribe insulting the intelligence and lineage of those who dare to believe that the Awesome has a place in this game, thank you in advance for your kind comments, and please move along and flame that guy complaining about Gauss Rifles (again). If you've got an idea that might make this better, or encourage PGI to sit up and take notice, I'd like to hear it.

FWIW.

Edited by Malleus011, 04 September 2014 - 11:16 AM.

[VoodooLou Kerensky]

HammerMaster, on 02 September 2014 - 03:51 PM, said:

PGI's current system of Customization is overdone. Costs nowhere near what it would by ALL accounts of rule books. Causes META. Stock Mechs' should have been what was used from the start. Should BE community warfare. Us TT heads would play it. Not on a lark but because THAT is BattletechTM. You want customization. YOU PAY. Stock mode should NOT be the PAY line. Meta SHOULD be.

I played many a Table Top game that had Min/Maxed mechs. They were just loaded out differently than the customized mechs in the Online Games. And Im sure just about every TT player knew that one guy who had the dice that always went his way, no matter if they were his dice or not. And even if only stock mechs are used there will be those mechs that no one uses (if they have a choice) because they are total crap. Forcing people to playTable Top in a Simulator game just wont work. Dont play a video game if you want to play Table Top. There isnt a random number generator that I will ever trust and I also dont want to spend 2 hours going through the motions you have to go through for TT for something a Simulator game takes 15 minutes or less to do. Your comparing Lemons to Oranges, Yes they are both citrus fruit but they arent the same and they never will be.

[Malleus011]

You have many options in your first-person-shooter selection of games, if you don't want to play Mechwarrior, you have the choice to go and play something else. For those of us who would like the 'A Battletech Game' tag on the website and the license-holder for the Mechwarrior intellectual property to actually live up to their claim and make 'A Battletech Game' this is pretty much our only option. Please stop trying to tell Battletech and Mechwarrior fans that their Battletech/Mechwarrior game can't be like Battletech. Your base premise is faulty.

Now, back to trying to monetize stock mode ...

[Alistair Winter]

Saxie, on 04 September 2014 - 07:55 AM, said:

Im fine with paying premium time and doing stock Mech Mondays. If it was available to me all the time I would probably spend the majority of my time in the stock queue, which means that 50 MC will rack up quickly...

Again, the 50MC per match would only be for people without premium time. There needs to be some sort of way in for people who don't want to pay premium time, but still want to try it out.

Prezimonto, on 04 September 2014 - 07:47 AM, said:

There's obvious flaws with a lot of stock builds inside the rules sets and mechanics employed by this game. Most notable is a lack of ammo. When you've only got 15 tons for weapons and you take up 7 tons or more for ammo dependent weapons, one ton of ammo doesn't justify the tonnage cost. Very low armor on certain builds is highly exacerbated in this game as well with pin-point damage an aim. Otherwise I agree, most stock mechs are viable when fighting other stock mechs, even very lightly customized mechs (when XL/ENDO aren't readily available you can't free enough tonnage to make MASSIVELY more powerful builds in most cases without also making serious agility and speed tradeoffs).

Yeah, the ammo may be an issue. I don't know, I haven't played any stock mech monday matches, so I don't know about this. Maybe the ability to do a lot of quick damage against poorly armoured stock mechs makes up for the lack of ammo. But it is possible that the ammo per ton values would need to be adjusted, so everyone doesn't just run stock mech laser boats or PPC boats.

cdlord, on 04 September 2014 - 07:30 AM, said:

Sign me up! 50mc per match seems a bit high though, but I'm sure the numbers would get tweaked.

Well, it would be "free" for people with Premium time. Kind of like membership at a Golf club. If you're a member, play as much as you want. If you're not a member, pay for each time you want to play golf.

Malleus011, on 04 September 2014 - 11:16 AM, said:

A suggestion I posted a good long while ago:
FWIW.

I agree with most of this, except the idea that stock matches would be easier for new players. Heat management is a much bigger issue for stock mechs, and that is a very alien concept to most new players. So I'm not sure they would be easier. Certainly not more intuitive.

[Kassatsu]

Stock mechs that come with DHS standard would need those reverted to SHS, otherwise that's all anyone would play.

[Alistair Winter]

Kassatsu, on 04 September 2014 - 02:30 PM, said:

Stock mechs that come with DHS standard would need those reverted to SHS, otherwise that's all anyone would play.

Yeah, there should be some sort of mechanism to avoid mixing mechs with SHS and DHS, I guess. One alternative would be to not permit any stock mechs that have DHS, but I don't know how common they are.

[CheeseThief]

Private match premium option would be a much better way than most of the suggestions I've seen in this thread. You click a clearly labeled premium only check box and when you launch the private match the mechs load with the stock loadouts rather than with whatever custom job the players have otherwise done to them. Should also comes with a 12 IS vs 5 Clan team size option, for ultimate stockness.

Colour coding the player mechs in the lobby when the stock box is ticked also couldn't hurt, so as to add a visual separation between tech 1, 2 and clan so the people running the stock mech private match can easily police their own.


Then all PGI needs to do is add a game lobby so players can easily find these games.

I wouldn't put it as an open matchmaking queue because of how sparse they would end up, with the players needing queues for tech 1, tech 2, clan and IS vs clan, on top of ELO and weight class limits you'd be very lucky to get a stock mech match unless the games population really took to it, and possibly doubled in size.

Edited by CheeseThief, 05 September 2014 - 01:42 AM.

[Widowmaker1981]

Kassatsu, on 04 September 2014 - 02:30 PM, said:

Stock mechs that come with DHS standard would need those reverted to SHS, otherwise that's all anyone would play.

and then all anyone (with sense) would play is AC based mechs, since that would be the only way to avoid overheating every 3 seconds.

[DaZur]

Easy way to incentify running not only stock mechs, but to also encourage players to not min/max is to apply a recursive c-bill bonus.

Foundation is: Have "stock mechs" and or mechs running with lesser configurations net the most profitable c-bill payout. For sake of argument, let apply a +10% bonus to these mechs and mech configurations. Then with every "upgrade" applied (i.e... double heat-sinks, endo, consumables... etc.) that bonus value decreases in a linear fashion until it reaches "0".

So... A Stock Atlas would net normal match payout +10% bonus... While a fully kitted min/maxed Atlas would just net just the default payout.

In short, it's an monetary incentive package to run stuff contrary to the meta- metrics...

[Jazzbandit1313]

Hey, why not make DHS only available for MC? That'd be great!









*if you can't notice the sarcasm please leave*

[CDLord HHGD]

What about instead of a Stock mode (or along with), a limitation on tech level?

Standard Tech (circa 3025), no XL, DHS, UAC, NARC, TAG, ECM, etc.
Lostech (circa 3050)

[RussianWolf]

Sandpit, on 02 September 2014 - 03:25 PM, said:

Private matches are still the best and most viable option. Private matches won't earn rewards though.

what's the difference between private matches and a separate queue? In a perfect world, the people that would populate the queue would be in private matches and not available to the general solo/group queues. So the player base is still being split, just in a more cumbersome way.

[Malleus011]

Somewhat less than a third of the existing IS 'mechs are Tech II models, meaning they have DHS, endo, or some combination of advanced 'tech. Most of them work reasonably well and aren't actually all *that* much stronger than Tech I 'mechs, because the designs aren't min/maxed to operate with MWO's wacky design.

Technically, all tech levels faced the clans during the invasion, so you could take the old Tech I mechs against Clans (I have, it's challenging).

Games with stock 'mechs are actually not dominated by auto cannon 'mechs; remember you're also dealing with the low ammo loads of the original designs. So your AC/2 Blackjack burns through it's single ton of ammo very, very fast. That said, there are other machines like the Centurion or Hunchback that have more ammunition, and do quite well - but a K2 with dual PPC's is a perfectly viable machine in T1 stock matches.

I think when a lot of us refer to 'stock mode' we're talking about T1. The games at T1 seem to be very well balanced. Yes, there are 'mechs that aren't used a lot - for example, most of the Orions are madly over-gunned for their heat capacity - but just about everything can play a role in a stock battle. The differences between the 'good' stock designs (like the 4G Hunchback) and the 'bad' stock designs isn't all that huge; you can take a 'bad' 'mech into the match and do fine, you just have to be mindful of it's weaknesses or limitations.

For those who haven't played Stock - you should give it a try some Monday night. A T1 light or medium is generally really inexpensive and requires no upgrades or modules. Games tend to be slower paced, but far more tactical and tense as the combat is far more balanced that MWO's unlimited queue. And it's really fun.