Jump to content

I Am Sad Because I Think Battletech Is Holding This Game Back


202 replies to this topic

#121 kapusta11

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Little Helper
  • Little Helper
  • 3,854 posts

Posted 05 October 2014 - 04:35 AM

As I said, no one even read the rules yet let's ignore them. It appears ignorance rules both the community and PGI.

#122 Mercules

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • The Nimble
  • The Nimble
  • 5,136 posts
  • LocationPlymouth, MN

Posted 05 October 2014 - 04:35 AM

View PostSavage Wolf, on 05 October 2014 - 04:23 AM, said:

Those are tweaks at best. Changes would be different ways of building mechs. Like how MW4 did mech customization even if it still had the flaw of the Atlas just being better than the Shadowhawk.
Don't fix what isn't broken. That is why D&D 4th edition is a crappy system and Pathfinder is excellent. 3.5 was on the right track for that gaming system and they threw it out and started from scratch for the most part.

PGI has thrown out rules for the sake of, "We don't think players would play that sort of game." like stock mechs, having to reload and repair your mechs, and many other things. Some of those changes are why EVERY Mechwarrior game has had issues.


View PostSavage Wolf, on 05 October 2014 - 04:23 AM, said:

I do enjoy the universe and the feel of the game. Like Russ says, it's a battle of attrition unlike Hawken which is just a twitch shooter in mech skins. And you change a lot of things and it would still be BattleTech. A different BattleTech, but still BattleTech.
No... it wouldn't. I mean it's okay if everyone in a Starwars game uses lightsabers and not just Jedi right? It just a different Starwars but still Starwars, right?

View PostSavage Wolf, on 05 October 2014 - 04:23 AM, said:

If you need to love complex rules to get into MWO then they will lose more players per year than they will gain and thus slowly die.
You don't have to love complex rules to get into MWO. The computer does them behind the scenes. Try playing a double blind system in TT. It's a pain. MWO does it every single match.

View PostSavage Wolf, on 05 October 2014 - 04:23 AM, said:

So all the rules that becomes irrelevant when converting the game into a shooter? So they kept all the complicated stuff and don't need the simple stuff. Brilliant.
I still don't see where the complicated stuff is coming into play. Battletech is not all that complicated.

View PostSavage Wolf, on 05 October 2014 - 04:23 AM, said:

Which is the perfect excuse to make changes.
As stated, PGI doesn't own Battletech, they can't change Battletech.

#123 Johnny Z

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Knight Errant
  • 9,942 posts
  • LocationDueling on Solaris

Posted 05 October 2014 - 04:40 AM

And before anyone really thinks the worste of my previous reply, let me say that not everyone bringing up tt, lore or sarna is using it badly.

Also I hope Mechwarrior Online remembers the spirit of the original board game and the other great additions like the clans etc but can improve upon these, while ignoring the BS that has been added along the way :)

Anyone that has been in game and read the recent road map and is legit will most likely agree the game appears to be headed in the right direction. A bit slow so everyone has to wait and see but looking good.

Edited by Johnny Z, 05 October 2014 - 05:03 AM.


#124 Wolfways

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Mercenary
  • 6,499 posts
  • LocationIn a shutdown overheated mech near you.

Posted 05 October 2014 - 05:01 AM

View PostSavage Wolf, on 05 October 2014 - 03:16 AM, said:

If that was the case I would be able to mix non-Artemis LRMs and Artemis LRMs on the same mech. Currently not possible.

ArtemisIV must be applied to every launcher of a similar type(LRM or SRM). No idea why. Maybe it's something to do with the mechs computer.

#125 Tyler Durden

    Member

  • PipPipPip
  • Ace Of Spades
  • Ace Of Spades
  • 99 posts
  • LocationWisconsin

Posted 05 October 2014 - 05:15 AM

View PostSavage Wolf, on 05 October 2014 - 04:23 AM, said:

And you change a lot of things and it would still be BattleTech. A different BattleTech, but still BattleTech.

And you taught the TT game to TT players. Those are niche players and MWO is not a TT game. But that is a very limitied number of players. If you need to love complex rules to get into MWO then they will lose more players per year than they will gain and thus slowly die.


I guess we're just going to disagree on these points. You cannot make lots of changes to a game and still call it the same thing. A different BattleTech is not BattleTech.

As for the players I taught, they are so far from the normal game player that I was amazed that they enjoyed the game at all. Only two of them had any D&D experience and even that was pretty limited. Most of them were video gamers and others, like some of the ladies, had zero gaming experience.

Now, once they knew about BattleTech, a couple of them started playing MWO. But you know what made me even more proud? They started teaching others how to play BattleTech!

Playing and enjoying the board game is not exclusive. You can enjoy both the video game and board game "complexity". It depends on the day. Some days I feel like BattleTech, others I feel like MWO.

The game is not dying, nor is it driving people away because of its old game mechanics.

#126 CMDR Sunset Shimmer

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Legendary Founder
  • Legendary Founder
  • 5,341 posts
  • Twitch: Link
  • LocationNetherlands

Posted 05 October 2014 - 05:20 AM

View PostTyler Durden, on 05 October 2014 - 05:15 AM, said:

I guess we're just going to disagree on these points. You cannot make lots of changes to a game and still call it the same thing. A different BattleTech is not BattleTech.

As for the players I taught, they are so far from the normal game player that I was amazed that they enjoyed the game at all. Only two of them had any D&D experience and even that was pretty limited. Most of them were video gamers and others, like some of the ladies, had zero gaming experience.

Now, once they knew about BattleTech, a couple of them started playing MWO. But you know what made me even more proud? They started teaching others how to play BattleTech!

Playing and enjoying the board game is not exclusive. You can enjoy both the video game and board game "complexity". It depends on the day. Some days I feel like BattleTech, others I feel like MWO.

The game is not dying, nor is it driving people away because of its old game mechanics.


Not entirely true... I mean... Battletech: Alpha Strike, is still battletech. And it's a pretty radical shift of the core rules.

#127 Vassago Rain

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Bridesmaid
  • Bridesmaid
  • 14,396 posts
  • LocationExodus fleet, HMS Kong Circumflex accent

Posted 05 October 2014 - 05:22 AM

This thread turned out way better than expected.

Posted Image

#128 kapusta11

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Little Helper
  • Little Helper
  • 3,854 posts

Posted 05 October 2014 - 05:25 AM

  • You know why people whine about ECM? Because it's does more than it's supposed to do according to TT rules.
  • You know why it's does more than it's supposed to do? Because LRMs do more than they are supposed to do.
  • You know why people whine about instant convergence? Because MWO lacks any kind of mechanic that represents hits allocation (whether it's cone of fire or more skill based mechanic doesn't matter at this point)
  • You know why people whine about Ghost Heat? Because it makes some chassis completely worthless compared to the others
  • You know why PGI decided to implement Ghost Heat? Because some builds where getting out of hand, again, because PGI went against TT rules, they kept stock dissipation while at the same time increased rate of fire AND forgot to implement Heat Scale.
  • Same goes for JJs and many other, less important, things.

Yeah, "corerule ignore".

Edited by kapusta11, 05 October 2014 - 05:26 AM.


#129 Wolfways

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Mercenary
  • 6,499 posts
  • LocationIn a shutdown overheated mech near you.

Posted 05 October 2014 - 05:32 AM

View Postkapusta11, on 05 October 2014 - 05:25 AM, said:

You know why it's does more than it's supposed to do? Because LRMs do more than they are supposed to do.

They do? So other than being the most heavily nerfed weapon in the transition from TT to MWO what exactly do they do more of?

#130 Lightfoot

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Bad Company
  • Bad Company
  • 6,612 posts
  • LocationOlympus Mons

Posted 05 October 2014 - 05:47 AM

PGI has not enabled Battle Tech in MWO's Battlemechs. Battlemechs do not suffer Ghost Heat, have full DHS 2.0's, and Gauss Rifles are not set up like faux sniper rifles copied from a 3rd person shooter. And all this needed to be done because PGI doubled the recycle times of the heaviest and longest ranged weapons. They doubled the armor, but maybe this was not enough and the internals should have been boosted until gameplay was fun.

PGI has done some things well and not all things work in real-time as they do in TT.

It's like when I played MW3 and MW4 I never counted the damage of my weapons vs the armor on the target mechs. Some were just tougher or better at certain roles and we all could see what those roles were. Like the Thor has always been the speed-brawler since it could not sport the multi-range loadout of the Mad Cat and it was so obvious that you use a tough Thor for brawling and a Mad Cat for long or multi-range. No one saw this as a design error, it was design strength and gameplay depth.

Once 3058 arrives the arsenal of weapons really opens up and I assume after the Battle of Tukkayid in 3052 that we might see some type of faster advancement since we are two years overdue now.

Key to restoring MWO to Battle Tech based gameplay is either dropping the high-speed recycle times and all the dumb nerfs like the Gauss de-sync, or making the mechs tougher and role-based and dumping all the dumb nerfs like the Gauss de-sync.

Edited by Lightfoot, 05 October 2014 - 02:28 PM.


#131 kapusta11

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Little Helper
  • Little Helper
  • 3,854 posts

Posted 05 October 2014 - 05:53 AM

View PostWolfways, on 05 October 2014 - 05:32 AM, said:

They do? So other than being the most heavily nerfed weapon in the transition from TT to MWO what exactly do they do more of?


Posted Image

LRMs are bad in MWO bacause of long lock and projectile travel times and mindless counter systems that counter the last good thing they have - missile spread, which in fact was the cause of the problem in the first place, by denying whole weapon group entirely. in TT they were bad bacause they had "huge missile spread" and were prone to ammo explosions. Artemis and NARC added +2 to the roll virtually improving missile clustering. ECM denied said bonuses.

Nice cherry-picking btw, have nothing to say against other points?

Edited by kapusta11, 05 October 2014 - 06:03 AM.


#132 Dark Jackal

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • The Vicious
  • The Vicious
  • 187 posts

Posted 05 October 2014 - 05:54 AM

Big Stompy robots and folks still think the TT rules some how boring, uncool, or just unworkable even in the spirit of the said rules. But they could not be more wrong! Let's examine what's missing.

There hasn't been a real MW game to date that has made full use of the rules. If they did, they would have a famous piece of artwork showing an Atlas doing CQC to a WarHawk right through the cockpit. In addition to giant fist fights, there are such nice things as kneeling, picking up things, kicking things, Mech sized weapons, Land-Air-Mechs (LAMs), pilot ejection (if you're lucky your 'Mech has a quirk where it works right), climbing, walking, as well as Jump Jet drifting.

Yup, drifting, not full on Jumping which every MW game to date has done "Jump" Jets which folks call pop-tarting. That 120m Jumping is distance not height. It makes sense too considering the Anime BT spirit is based off of that shows the wild maneuvers Mecha does in such things as Macross or Robotech. Height in BT is actually very small compared to the total distance you can cover.

I'll avoid the gauss shot to the head with the pilot surviving and other nice novel-warrior that doesn't quite fit nicely, but fighting with a messed up Head is possible so long as the piloting controls are intact or the pilot retains consciousness.

#133 Alek Ituin

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Bad Company
  • Bad Company
  • 1,525 posts
  • LocationMy Lolcust's cockpit

Posted 05 October 2014 - 06:09 AM

View PostDark Jackal, on 05 October 2014 - 05:54 AM, said:

There hasn't been a real MW game to date that has made full use of the rules. If they did, they would have a famous piece of artwork showing an Atlas doing CQC to a WarHawk right through the cockpit.

I'll avoid the gauss shot to the head with the pilot surviving and other nice novel-warrior that doesn't quite fit nicely, but fighting with a messed up Head is possible so long as the piloting controls are intact or the pilot retains consciousness.


Like this? ;)

Spoiler


Also, aren't Mechs semi-sentient on their own? IIRC a Mech does everything on its own except direction of movement, aiming, and firing its weapons. If the Mech encounters rough terrain, it can make its own choices about how to walk over it, following the direction set by the pilot...

Essentially, Mechs are giant stompy robot horses. With guns. Lots of guns... >_>

#134 Wolfways

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Mercenary
  • 6,499 posts
  • LocationIn a shutdown overheated mech near you.

Posted 05 October 2014 - 06:14 AM

View Postkapusta11, on 05 October 2014 - 05:53 AM, said:


Posted Image

LRMs are bad in MWO bacause of long lock and projectile travel times and mindless counter systems that counter the last good thing they have - missile spread, which in fact was the cause of the problem in the first place, by denying whole weapon group entirely. in TT they were bad bacause they had "huge missile spread" and were prone to ammo explosions. Artemis and NARC added +2 to the roll virtually improving missile clustering. ECM denied said bonuses.

I'd gladly accept a roll for less missiles hitting if LRM's got a decent projectile speed (although obviously not instant like in TT), and increased damage to compensate for the spread, and a removal of the incoming missile warning so that LRM's could actually be used at long range.
I wouldn't want a good chance of ammo explosions though. Not until PGI at least doubled the ammo/ton for all weapons instead of leaving it at the amount designed for a match that simulated a few minutes of real time. Mechs are forced to carry far too much ammo in MWO.

Quote

Nice cherry-picking btw, have nothing to say against other points?

Actually i agree with everything you said. I just picked out the LRM comment because i wondered what they did better in MWO considering how much they've been nerfed.

#135 Dark Jackal

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • The Vicious
  • The Vicious
  • 187 posts

Posted 05 October 2014 - 06:34 AM

View PostAlek Ituin, on 05 October 2014 - 06:09 AM, said:


Like this? ;)


That's the one!!!!

:D

#136 kapusta11

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Little Helper
  • Little Helper
  • 3,854 posts

Posted 05 October 2014 - 06:58 AM

View PostWolfways, on 05 October 2014 - 06:14 AM, said:

I'd gladly accept a roll for less missiles hitting if LRM's got a decent projectile speed (although obviously not instant like in TT), and increased damage to compensate for the spread, and a removal of the incoming missile warning so that LRM's could actually be used at long range.
I wouldn't want a good chance of ammo explosions though. Not until PGI at least doubled the ammo/ton for all weapons instead of leaving it at the amount designed for a match that simulated a few minutes of real time. Mechs are forced to carry far too much ammo in MWO.


Actually i agree with everything you said. I just picked out the LRM comment because i wondered what they did better in MWO considering how much they've been nerfed.


I wouldn't mind inreased projectile speed for LRMs either, it would make them much less situational while increased missile spread would make them more forgiving for the amount of effort put. If one is willing to deal more damage (tightened spread = more damage) he can alway put Artemis at the cost of exposing himself, since it requires LOS, or use NARC. And no one would cry about ECM that denies only bonuses that said systems provide rather than entire weapon group. The implementation may slightly differ but the idea is brought fom TT.

Regarding ammo, I agree as well, at current explosion damage values it's putting too much luck into the game, though when adjusted I wouldn't mind them happening either. With proper Heat Scale they could be used as balancing factor for Ballistic/Energy hybrids who cheat on heatsinks actually.

#137 Burktross

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Bad Company
  • 3,663 posts
  • LocationStill in closed beta

Posted 05 October 2014 - 07:04 AM

View PostMercules, on 04 October 2014 - 09:49 PM, said:


Yup, I did. There is this mecha game out there called Hawken. It is not beholden to any TT rules whatsoever. No one is forcing people to play a game based off the Battletech universe.

You people seem to think that slight deviation from TT means gundam and hawken, when in reality I'm fairly certain people just want tweaking to make the game more "FPS" friendly.
We can expand, change, and improve things, no?

#138 Roadbeer

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Elite Founder
  • 8,160 posts
  • LocationWazan, Zion Cluster

Posted 05 October 2014 - 07:28 AM

View PostBurktross, on 05 October 2014 - 07:04 AM, said:

You people seem to think that slight deviation from TT means gundam and hawken, when in reality I'm fairly certain people just want tweaking to make the game more "FPS" friendly.
We can expand, change, and improve things, no?

Hyperbole aside, that's not what anyone is saying.

The OP contends that it's the franchise that's holding back the game. That's blatantly false
1. The lore has more than enough in it to satisfy the OPs needs, it's just been ignored to satisfy simplification or expedient needs.
2. This ship sailed from BT rules LONG ago, and things got worse, not better.

Without Battletech, there is no Mechwarrior. In my saltier days, I referred to this project as Mechwarrior: In name only.

#139 CDLord HHGD

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Legendary Founder
  • Legendary Founder
  • 9,190 posts
  • Location"You're not comp if you're not stock."

Posted 05 October 2014 - 07:30 AM

CoD players who don't understand the franchise and genre are holding this game back (3PV anyone?).

#140 Mechwarrior Buddah

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Legendary Founder
  • Legendary Founder
  • 13,459 posts
  • LocationUSA

Posted 05 October 2014 - 07:32 AM

View Postkapusta11, on 05 October 2014 - 04:35 AM, said:

As I said, no one even read the rules yet let's ignore them. It appears ignorance rules both the community and PGI.


Two wrongs is a right.... right?





5 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 5 guests, 0 anonymous users