94 replies to this topic

[Erwiin]

PANZERBUNNY, on 26 June 2012 - 09:53 AM, said:

Salvage doesn't make sense for soldiers fighting for their faction.

Why not? Using the enemies' weapons against them makes perfect sense. Real world armies do it, so why wouldn't MechWarriors?

[CmdrSpider]

Agreed no one is going to pay to lose a mech and it wouldn't be fair for some to get a prized mech simple because they took one down. On the other hand perhaps some sort of reward system could be set up that took into consideration the number of time a player took down a particular mech and then allow the player to purchase it at a reduced cost. Or perhaps if you salvaged a particular mech enough time you would recover enough parts to build the whole mech.

Good Hunting,

CmdrSpider

[Feyd Rautha]

Greyrook, on 26 June 2012 - 12:30 AM, said:

They might do a thing like the Battlefield 3 dog tags, where killing a mech in a certain way will give you a status mark that doesn't directly take away from the opponent's experience. Like, maybe if you shoot out an opponent's cockpit, you get to display their sigil in your profile or whatever. The whole "cutting off an ear" thing has been around for a while in gaming and I can see how it would add competitive flair, especially in the BT universe.

I think it would be interesting if there was a way to visually represent battle prowess on the exterior of one's cockpit. Maybe some graphic representation of number of kills scored could be represented in tally marks, stick-figure mechs, etc. What do all of you think? (Kinda' like the tally marks on old WWII fighters)

[PANZERBUNNY]

Erwiin, on 26 June 2012 - 10:18 AM, said:

Why not? Using the enemies' weapons against them makes perfect sense. Real world armies do it, so why wouldn't MechWarriors?

Because anything salvaged is half destroyed and useless. A lance or a company or even a regiment more than likely doesn't have the logistics to use such items. Material like that is shipped off to base, more than likely out of the reach of the looting soldiers.
Looting mechbays of working material someone can instantly jump in is obviously not in the scope of this game.

Merc companies obviously work differently, but if you have a large enough unit, what you find doesn't automatically mean you get to keep it.

Hence your C-bills at the end of the match. You are compensated for your loot.
Actually, while working for the Great Houses, the odds of getting high % salvaging rights is odd and almost non existent for Clan tech.

Yes, there are incidents in protracted engagements of using the enemies tanks etc, but for the most part they aren't used very long due to the absence of parts OR the material is shipped off to the rear for refit/repair and given to another unit.

The Germans were experts at putting the enemies vehicles to use, but to think that aggressive panzer troops had a say in what happened to that material is silly.

Edited by PANZERBUNNY, 26 June 2012 - 10:57 AM.

[Hellhoundman]

HybridTheory, on 26 June 2012 - 12:11 AM, said:

This would be a very cool idea... perhaps it could be done but the mech would require a large amount of C-Bills to "repair" it... I'm sure there would be issues but it should definately be given a serious look.

What also might be a idea with this as a extra game mode. where one can exally capture mech.
Or that one doesn't get the mech but get's C-bills for preforming such a action. Possibly a achievement too.

Because when you capture a mech what does the other guy do.... ummm....loses his?
That's one big way to lose C-bills for the other player involved, who get's luckshot or w/e

Edited by Hellhoundman, 26 June 2012 - 10:50 AM.

[Themo]

There has been plenty of games where pvp kills give you a roll on a loot table rather than being a full loot system. Salvage was what seduced me into battletech in the first place and i don't want to believe that there will be none heh.

[Hellhoundman]

Themo, on 26 June 2012 - 10:51 AM, said:

There has been plenty of games where pvp kills give you a roll on a loot table rather than being a full loot system. Salvage was what seduced me into battletech in the first place and i don't want to believe that there will be none heh.

Neither do i, because it's really something that adds a lot to the game. The question is how would one incorporate all this.
And that's where it get's a bit hard . What might just be the problem.

Edited by Hellhoundman, 26 June 2012 - 10:56 AM.

[Project_Mercy]

I personally don't feel you can balance a game with only carrot and no stick. You can in the short term, but it just causes issues over the long term. If you do it, you just have constant power creep and forced obsolescence. It means all your old content becomes a worthless hurdle to new players.

Full loot was an issue in some MMOs, because there were uncontrolled environments. You were out farming something and 3 guys gank you. In a closed environment, you're starting on roughly equal footing. The issue is the people who just refuse to accept that they suck. They want to drop into a game, charge forward like a maniac, stab some stuff, die while accomplishing nothing, and then move on. I'm not personally claiming to be awesome or anything. I'm just claiming to accept the results of my actions as having an actual result, and not some no-op event.

Before PGI got around to explaining to us how it was all going to work, I wanted a system like:

• You have a base list of mechs with a fixed variant. Everyone had access too these. They auto repaired themselves based on time, or you could pay to repair them. If over time the game changed (clans came out or whatever) these base mechs could change. There would be no assaults in this list, but the mechs would be balanced around being good for each of the defined roles.(scout, command, close support, long-ranged support, defense, etc)
  
• Every so often (day, week, third tuesdays, whatever), based on the active participants for the last period, and the number of mechs that were destroyed, a certain number of new mechs would show up. They were something more interesting or rare. They would be auctioned off. This is basically the Mech Draft, except instead of winning your draft pick by failing, you get it by succeeding.
  
• A mech that wasn't able to withdraw from the combat, and wasn't cored, would be salvaged by the winning side. The mech and/or its constituent parts would be dealt with by loot rules chosen by the group at the start, unless the mech was owned by a particpant in the winning side, in which case he/she would get their mech back in whatever state it was in.
  
• Mods in mechlab required you had the parts (either bought from others or salvaged personally) and required time and extensive c-bills to do. If you lost your mech, the salvager would get it as you had it.

Clearly, MWO will not implement this system. It's too far gone from the current foundations of the game. I personally still think it would make for a better game.

Edited by Wraeththix Constantine, 26 June 2012 - 11:20 AM.

[Liberty]

Hmm.... As Themo mentioned earlier. A random loot roll for a particular mech might not be a bad idea. You can make getting a chassis a really really low chance but make the chance of salvaging a weapon or piece of equipment higher. Thus, the more mechs you destroy of a particular mech type then the more chance you have of securing the chassis.

[RedHellion]

I can see how it would be difficult to implement 'mech salvage (and possibly a barrier to access for players with a mindset geared towards no-risk gaming environments), but as a number of people have mentioned already salvage is one of the things that made BT as a whole and MW4 Mercs so fun.

I like the track Wraeththix was on, but I have a slightly different implementation I would suggest (and yes this is the sequence of events):

- 'Mechs destroyed in battle go into the salvage pool for that match
- Any 'mechs from the salvage pool which were owned by members of the winning team go back to them
- Equipment is dismounted from all 'mechs left in the salvage pool and listed separately; equipment from a destroyed limb or destroyed section is declared unsalvageable
- Any Founders Mechs are at this point removed from the pool and returned to their owners on BOTH teams (their equipment is reset to a default loadout however, since their equipment is left in the salvage pool)
- Any 'mech past a certain level of damage (reactor explosion or equivalent) is declared unsalvageable and removed from the pool
- Remaining 'mechs and equipment in the salvage pool are shown to the winning team; equipment and 'mechs are given "repair & refit" costs to get them back into working condition
- The winning players are ranked by the amount of exp or points they gained during the battle (to take into account scouts/commanders/partial damage)
- Players rank the salvage 1 through x that they would like to get (players don't have to rank every salvage item if they don't want it)
- The system runs through the list of salvage seeing who has the highest priority on any given item; conflicts are resolved by highest battle rank
- Salvage is resolved to the appropriate players, and the "repair & refit" costs are deducted for any salvage they successfully acquired

- The losing team for the match gets nothing from salvage
- If a player loses enough matches and has no 'mechs left, they get access to a free starter 'mech as if they were a new player getting their first 'mech

Obviously it's too late to be implemented at this point, but maybe later on in the future it would be a good idea to look at this kind of thing. Even if it's only as a separate "realism" battle type.

Edited by RedHellion, 26 June 2012 - 12:25 PM.

[Hellhoundman]

RedHellion, on 26 June 2012 - 12:23 PM, said:

- If a player loses enough matches and has no 'mechs left, they get access to a free starter 'mech as if they were a new player getting their first 'mech

This part is all fun and games but, if someone for example just got a assault mech but, sold everything almost to get the mech. Then he truly is unlucky. But then again you got 2 teams so there is a 50% chance of losing in general. So for FUN-PLAYERS this might just be a total bummer. And prevent pll from even start to play the game at all, or even keep playing it.

So what i am trying to say is:
One just got a good mech but loses it because of low experienced players on his side..

If you ask me that's not a good way or even fun to play a mmo.

Edited by Hellhoundman, 26 June 2012 - 12:37 PM.

[RedHellion]

I don't think so. I have a feeling that since they want people to be able to play the role they want from the start that they'll give a selection of one light, medium, heavy, or assault 'mech to start (quite possibly the same as the Founders 'mechs but without the XP bonus). Possibly even all basic chassis' will be available to start, and the only thing you have to work towards are the variants.
Discussion here: http://mwomercs.com/...starting-mechs/
This just means they lose their customization and variant 'mech they had in that weight class. The XP in the class tree stays there I believe, so it's not even a matter of not being able to get it again but one of working up money with the base 'mech until you cna afford it again. It's not like someone who had an Atlas and lost would have to start out with a Jenner and completely different play style and work his way up again (even though that is the way it would work realistically).

If you're that worried about it, they could have it as a different game mode as I said instead of being how standard play works. Or even make it so that you opt-in to salvage on a match-by-match basis, which puts your 'mech up for possible salvage if you lose but means you get access to the salvage pool if you win.

Edited by RedHellion, 26 June 2012 - 12:59 PM.

[skud789]

I personally don't think salvage will work with this game purely because all there is to do is fight. We are all put in an arena with 11 other people to fight 12 other people and only half of us will walk out.
I'm going to be lucky if I get to play more than a few hours a week so loosing most of my customized weapons every other game because I started with 8 other people with the basic starter mechs and ran in guns blazing with nothing to lose, costing me the game and everything I'd won by winning the 2 games previously is going to get very old very fast! This is probably going to be the case with a lot of the people on here, I'm just not going to have the time to develop the relationships needed with other players to make a consistently winning team which is needed to play this sort of all or nothing strategy.
I'm not opposed to the option of visiting Solaris though for example and having the option to play for keeps.

[Liberty]

Personally, I'd like to see captured chasis and salvage. Why? Because it happened in previous MW titles, TT, and even in the lore. It also gives more personal satisfaction. C-bills give nothing. They show that you earned nothing. It doesn't matter if win or lose because you still get what? C-bills. It doesn't matter if you single handedly took down a lance of four Atlas with a Commando. It doesn't matter if if you took down a Clan star and was the lone survivor. Why? Because your reward is C-bills. You lose. Your reward is C-bills. I would like there to be a sense of acccomplishment and something that adds unpredictability to the game. Salvage can work as can gaining a mech chassis. However I do recognize especially after reading the comments here that there will have to be limitations. That being that the loser can not lose their hard earned mech and equipment. The second being that acquiring rare salvage or a chassis should be very rare as to not upset game balance. That is. We can't have all the IS Mechs running around with decked out Clan weaponry when the Clans arrive. I can deal with it not being in at launch but I very much hope they put it in later and the impression I get is that it is something most players want in the game. If not a part of PvP then as a later implemented PvE.

[John411]

Liberty, on 26 June 2012 - 01:14 AM, said:

The hardpoint system already cuts down on customization and the ability not to salvage mechs and parts restricts customizing mechs even more. I'm not a fan of stock mechs. I'd rather see this game evolve rather than devolve into some sort of PvP shooter that resembles nothing like the TT version. I think PvP is awesome. Just... I'm not into forced play styles and the original TT and earlier versions of Mechwarrior gave you a lot of freedom customization. The everybody has to be in the same kind of mech doesn't really scream Mechwarror unless your referring to the Microsoft version shooter. When everyone has the same stuff then it becomes predictable and thats one thing the Mechwarrior game should not be.

I agree until you left out the major factor. If the machines are equal (a la "I-ROC") then it comes down to SKILL and LUCK. Have no fear, those that do not have either can supplement them with cash.

[Tooninki]

Dont know how the Mech trees work, so i have to guess...
Im thinking this, if u kill a mech that has equipment u dont have researched/unlocked in your Mechtree u get to unlock the equipment if it was not destroyed during the fight.
This way u get spoils/loot out of enemy Mech.

[John411]

So, after a quick re-read, it seems that a "Battle-for-Pinks" option could be an implemented option. Very rare or "ghost" drops can not be implemented as the "required daily gameplay" would exceed any advertised safe limits posted by the liable entity. Read the warning labels on any video game. Breaks are recommended and any time you click "I Agree" you are confirming that you understand these things. Ignorance is never an excuse for unsafe practices.

[Wolftrap]

I know this game isn't going by the books completely but I'd like to remind people that in the novels any piece of hardware that was salvaged from the clan went directly to the research facilities of the governments that captured it. Even in one book when the Combine tricked the attacking clans and won a binary of omnimechs completely undamaged those 10 mechs didn't go to the best pilots in the regiments that fought on that world but to the Combine homeworld to be taken apart piece by piece. Thats why and how the new generation of mechs in the 3055-3060 TROs got alot of their design and equipment from. So if after the clans are released and if more mechs are released as they are now, I wouldn't be surprised to see a Sunder, Blackjack II, Avatar etc released for Inner Sphere players after a while. Otherwise what would be the reason to switch to a clan if you could just wait a month and buy your on Timber Wolf, Nova, Summoner or Dire Wolf.(Mad Cad, Black Hawk, Thor or Daishi)

Edited by Wolftrap, 27 June 2012 - 12:23 AM.

[xenoglyph]

Maybe if enough of us sign up they could start a hardcore server for us. I'm down for that.

[Liberty]

John411, on 26 June 2012 - 11:57 PM, said:

So, after a quick re-read, it seems that a "Battle-for-Pinks" option could be an implemented option. Very rare or "ghost" drops can not be implemented as the "required daily gameplay" would exceed any advertised safe limits posted by the liable entity. Read the warning labels on any video game. Breaks are recommended and any time you click "I Agree" you are confirming that you understand these things. Ignorance is never an excuse for unsafe practices.

I wouldn't mind battling for pink slips but I can't see any Clanner willing to lose a Clan mech for a IS mech. Would anyone in the Clans even be caught dead piloting a IS Mech?