48 replies to this topic

[Bloodweaver]

Kael Tropheus, on 30 June 2012 - 05:27 PM, said:

As for customizing, I and quite a few of us vets think that the customization is still too liberal so what we ended up with was a compromise that both camps have to deal with. I think stock mechs and varients, and thats it. To me there are plenty enough varients available to keep boaters and munchkins happy.

I agree... somewhat. It certainly goes with lore. And it certainly keeps people from finding ways to "cheat" the system in ways they did with MW4's pop-tarts. And, best of all, it makes players learn to work with what they have, and come to appreciate all the Mechs and all their respective variants for their own capabilities and drawbacks.

I don't care about most of the arguments FOR higher customization. Like the idea that Clan equipment should be balanced against IS equipment, these are at heart attempts to change the nature of BT. If you don't like it, you don't like what BT is. But there is one damn good reason to allow the customizations... and that is, ever since MW2, fiddling around in the Mechlab has been 50% of the game. Making new loadouts is fun, creative, and engaging. What I, personally, would like to see is for those kinds of customizations to be possible, but immensely expensive. On a level where, for the cost of making a Hunchie with twice the speed, jump jets, and an all-LRM loadout, you could buy several shiny brand-new stock Atlases, shipped from the factory to your hangar door at the drop of a hat, and with no technician sweatstains or coffee spills mucking up the paint job. That's accurate to the lore too, after all. I doubt that will be implemented to that degree, but it should be.

[Ranek Blackstone]

Bloodweaver, on 30 June 2012 - 06:55 PM, said:

I agree... somewhat. It certainly goes with lore. And it certainly keeps people from finding ways to "cheat" the system in ways they did with MW4's pop-tarts. And, best of all, it makes players learn to work with what they have, and come to appreciate all the Mechs and all their respective variants for their own capabilities and drawbacks.

I don't care about most of the arguments FOR higher customization. Like the idea that Clan equipment should be balanced against IS equipment, these are at heart attempts to change the nature of BT. If you don't like it, you don't like what BT is. But there is one damn good reason to allow the customizations... and that is, ever since MW2, fiddling around in the Mechlab has been 50% of the game. Making new loadouts is fun, creative, and engaging. What I, personally, would like to see is for those kinds of customizations to be possible, but immensely expensive. On a level where, for the cost of making a Hunchie with twice the speed, jump jets, and an all-LRM loadout, you could buy several shiny brand-new stock Atlases, shipped from the factory to your hangar door at the drop of a hat, and with no technician sweatstains or coffee spills mucking up the paint job. That's accurate to the lore too, after all. I doubt that will be implemented to that degree, but it should be.

Where you'll find a factory that will make a Hunchback chasis designed to be fitted with LRMs and JJ is going to be a trick and a half, but meh.

Currently, mech customization I feel is in a good place. Just enough wiggle room to get most mechs exactly as you want them, but not enough I have to worry about somebody doing something weird with weapons, like an Atlas covered in Slas.

Battlemechs are hard to customize, but can have the electronics and engine freely swaped, while Omnimechs have the oppisite problem.

[Bloodweaver]

Ranek Blackstone, on 30 June 2012 - 07:01 PM, said:

Where you'll find a factory that will make a Hunchback chasis designed to be fitted with LRMs and JJ is going to be a trick and a half, but meh.

Which is why doing so should be ridiculously expensive. That was the point. You're not modifying the chassis, you're basically building one from the ground up. Think about how much it would cost to build, say, your own supersonic jet fighter...

[Wildcat]

Well we might seen melee combat at some point, and who knows... you could pick up your Mechs broken Arm in combat and use it as a weapon against the enemy ! or as a shield lol

Pacoua, on 30 June 2012 - 03:45 PM, said:

The sheep is op....who could repel cuteness and devastation of that magnitude!?!

Only the Death Star can !!

[Skadi]

TLBFestus, on 30 June 2012 - 05:40 PM, said:

First of all, that's not a MEDIUM, that's a light. An Urbie could win against that.


Now this, this is a proper medium (jump jet variant);

Oh god, he has heavy large lasors! RUN FOR IT

[Thorgar Wulfson]

the advantage of mechs over tanks was customization, with omnimechs they took it a step further. as to actuators being in the crit space that makes me happy as that is what an actual mech sheet looks like for Battletech. they took up crit space, and its why arms carry smaller armaments unless they remove the hand actuator and sometimes the lower arm actuator (warhammer and marauder), you can even reduce it to just shoulder actuators in designs like the Jenner and Rifleman. Without actuators you should not be able to move that limb at all

[Schtirlitz]

Bloodweaver, on 30 June 2012 - 07:50 PM, said:

Which is why doing so should be ridiculously expensive. That was the point. You're not modifying the chassis, you're basically building one from the ground up. Think about how much it would cost to build, say, your own supersonic jet fighter...

And that is why i want OmniMechs - their modification process will be much cheaper and simplier

[Blackfire1]

Well... there options to totally remove arms in TT. I have no idea if there is other options though.

[HybridTheory]

Well if there are many variants of primary mechs, who is to say you cannot purchase a variant of that said battlemech that has energy weapon hard points instead of missile hard points? I think this is a great way to keep diverse mechs on the field and force people to really choose carefully when it comes to said variants based on how they want to play.

[superepicgecko]

Blackfire1, on 30 June 2012 - 08:26 PM, said:

Well... there options to totally remove arms in TT. I have no idea if there is other options though.

If you could totally remove them, could you add them on as well?

[PurpleShew]

I just can't wait to get my hands on the mechlab and findout for myself.

[Uxion]

As they say: Its better for you to experience something for yourself instead through a second hand source.

[MC Hammer]

Lets see if it will be cost effective too.
May bee cheaper to buy the mech you want instead of customizing the one you have.

[Damion Sparhawk]

I'm hoping they go for more freedom to build but with realistic consequences, like say, building a mech with equipment it wasn't designed for may not just cost more, but have exaggerated drawbacks like increased heat or less ammo, let people fiddle because it's fun to fiddle but give good reasons for going with the stock options too. I mean, I've never understood why anyone would ever intentionally run with machine guns instead of LL's if there's no foot/elementals to worry about also, I hope they have some fun toys available too, like long toms (please have a better ballistics targetting system than MW4 though, only thing it was good for in that game was swatting light mechs underfoot.) I can imagine a true ballistics weapon used well could be devestating the way they want this game to play.

[CL_Kodiak]

Bah lore aside, Im saying in TT I rarely if ever used a variant or stock mech. It was always busting out a clean sheet, naming my mech and building it from the ground up exactly as I wanted it. Why? Cuz for our group that was the most fun.

Same with MW2 & 3, they allowed the same thing - so I was happy and it felt normal

Mw4... Hardpoint system... angry Kodiak....

Same thing here in MWO... After ten years of waiting I'll take what I can get and shut my mouth!!

[Damion Sparhawk]

hehe Kodiak, I feel your pain, but truthfully as the game gets more aggressive they need things like hardpoints to make it more difficult (though hard to make impossible) things like the good old daishi laser build which pretty much made it hard to find a game for a while when just about every server had heat disabled (stupid idea, hey let's remove one of the built in factors for preventing people exploiting lasers as the go to weapon of choice) I'm all for full customization, as long as there's good balancing across the board, unfortunately in any multiplayer game as we've learned over the years inevitably someone will find the oft labeled 'broken' build and things like hardpoints and modification limitations are there specifically to limit the overall impact of it to some degree.

[BattleFerrett]

Ranek Blackstone, on 30 June 2012 - 07:01 PM, said:

[...] Battlemechs are hard to customize, but can have the electronics and engine freely swaped, while Omnimechs have the oppisite problem.

I challenge you to show me where in the lore it's established that BattleMech's can have electronics, or especially the ENGINE, swapped freely.

[HANGMAN1962]

ok lets see beagle probe, angel ecm,xl for stock engine need i say more?!
now in mwo you'll need to lvl up your pilot to unlock verients of the mech type your in.
or has any 1 seen the post for that?
the more you work your pilot up the more options you have to play with in the mechlab.
vis a vis: a diff.verient has diff. hardpiont locations on it,
there by letting you do diff. set ups on same type of mech.
hope this helps you!

sincerly the "hangman"

oh ya and you can scope out the diff. verients on battletech wiki too so as to plot your way to what you make of your mech in advance! tehehe

[HANGMAN1962]

oh oh ya and if you had a clan mech, anything in bold type could not be removed or replaced either
cus thats what the omni space was for! DDD!

[HANGMAN1962]

oh ya and kodiak after you made that 1 of a kind mech all its hardpionts was locked to that load out.
or your gm was throwing the rulebook out the window!
and why would you use a diff. mech every battle? defeats the perpose of teammates to me, unless you played clanners exclusively!
did you play solo? lance vs lance? or company lvl battles?