4 replies to this topic

[Dorion]

Just saw a picture on the net of MechWarrior tactics and was lamenting the $60 I plowed into it with no return and the loss of what I hoped to be a great game.

Anyhow that is not the point of this thread. I never got to play tactics, but for those who participated in whatever testing phase it was in, I have a question.

Was tactics basically the computer version of the table top game? I never played the table top game either, but I'm just curious.

Thanks

PS. hope some developer picks up the title again one day as I would gladly pay another 60.

[slide]

Tactics was a reasonable representation of table top mechanics, although not as specific as MegaMek in it implementation. It incorporated all the good and bad effects of the dice roll but the implementation and maths behind it was some what lacking. To hit bonuses didn't work properly and other glaring bugs in game play that should have been a given for this type of game let it down badly.

Graphically the game looked good, although you had to get over the fact that all the mechs were dressed in Sumo Suits. In that respect they should have licensed the style of the mechs from PGI as well as the rights. I particularly did not like how weapons were tacked on to arms and shoulders when they should have had internal mounts for some of them. I was very disappointed that they never got movie replay mode working so you could go back and watch a match in real time afterwards, that would have been epic.

Balance was pretty good provided you stuck to stock mechs, which unlike MWO were actually very effective. An Awesome 8Q was actually a very dangerous opponent and could carry a game by itself, something that appealed to me as it put it a lot closer to lore than MWO is. The downside to this was mechlab, as similarly to MWO you could build mechs which were stupidly OP. This was made worse by the way "quirks" were added to chassis and weapons as it made builds possibly that were simply godly. One smart cookie during the last community run comp managed to build a Hunchback variant which ran 7 LRM5 launchers with 100% to hit bonuses and almost guaranteed Through Armour Critical (TAC) hits. It was capable of wrecking an Atlas in one shot if it got LOS. Which it did most matches. I have seen that 1 mech take at a whole lance of Assaults without a scratch.

The Card system was OK but really creates the pokemon "gotta collect em all" scenario that really favors players who can grind a lot or who spend big. The BV (Battle Value) system helped with this somewhat but was flawed so badly that it allowed the situation described above with the Hunchback to happen. That Hunchback should have had a BV so high it wouldn't have been on the field.

As with many games the real challenge is against other players. The AI opponents which you had to play a lot were as dumb as a post and with the ability to stack the deck in your favor (4 assaults v 4 lights) made winning games in 3 or 4 turns easy but as boring as crap. Unfortunately stacking the deck against yourself made the game more interesting but for grinding out resourses was very much wasted time.

Which brings me to the engine. I don't know much about the Unity engine itself but the way it was implemented in this game was woeful. It looked pretty and having the ability to play or continue a game anywhere is great. But the loading times, amount of crashes, constant need to refresh screens to make inputs work was dreadful. From what I understand if you had a fast internet connection it wasn't to bad, but for me with woeful internet at the time it was terrible. It would literally take upwards of 10 minutes to load into the UI and then another 5-10 to load a match, with delays of up to 2 minutes between turns. There was no such thing a a quick game. The good thing though was you could keep it open in the background and play as you had a moment. I actually played it between drops in MWO at times. Most of the issues around the long loading times were the engines need to constantly download maps, mechs other graphics. If you played the same mechs and maps continuously it got a lot better as that info resided in your browser cache, but as soon as the cache cleared, which happened if you didn't play for a while or you needed a new mech or map, load times skyrocketed. A stand alone install with internet connectivity (like MWO) would have been order of magnitude better.

All up it had a lot of potential, but I think the management at IGP didn't have a clue what they were trying to achieve and they certainly squandered the good will of people like yourself who invested money in good faith. They didn't listen to fans who were actually playing the game and investing money and I am pretty sure they didn't know who their target audience was. Not a good recipe. I was fortunate enough to get into closed beta without having spent any money. I saw enough to know that it was too soon to invest, as I was concerned with they way MWO was going at the time (once bitten, twice as shy) so I have no sour grapes on that score and the games I had against other players were good enough to make me miss playing it from time to time, but I can honestly say that I am glad it died before it made to the masses as i believe it was being run by a bunch of unethical a...holes who would have continued to rip people such as yourself off and would have permanently damaged the reputation of the franchise.

[Kenyon Burguess]

Pretty much. There was a long ways to go, but it was fun to slug it out on those maps and apply some tactics. I hope another company picks up the torch someday and tries again with the ip

[Vassago Rain]

It was a buggy card game.

[Tarl Cabot]