90 replies to this topic

[Aaron DeChavilier]

phelancracken, on 07 July 2012 - 08:19 AM, said:

Actually Aaron,

they come in to play the game without wanting to complain all the time that the game is unbalanced.

At my FLGS, no one comes to play CBT at all, maybe it’s just my region - northeast USA.

phelancracken, on 07 July 2012 - 08:19 AM, said:

Aaron, You want the clans to come in but you say in nearly the same breath they are broken. I can mention a few IS experimental techs that are broken such as the MPW and the ELRM systems.

Is it so hard to comprehend that one would want the clans in and not have them broken? Evidently so. Yes, I want the clans in the game, but I want them to be balanced. You can mention all the experimental tech you want, doesn’t change the tech levels of the 3050’s where it was 3025 IS mechs with some Tech Level 2 scattered around vs a force of the most powerful Tech Level 2 deployed uniform.

phelancracken, on 07 July 2012 - 08:19 AM, said:

plooooooooooot

In a talk about game mechanics, weapon stats, etc – plot means nothing.

phelancracken, on 07 July 2012 - 08:19 AM, said:

Not to mention, I wanna be Clan wolverine and use nukes, Every game has an underdog in some way. 40k, everything.

Lol clan wolverine is never coming back, just another wasted opportunity in the plot line. As for 40k, name me the underdog.

Each army gets unique units and rules to make them viable, and the mechanics (there’s that word again) are balanced.

phelancracken, on 07 July 2012 - 08:19 AM, said:

As for the lore, again, if your monetarily challenged, most players are going to get what they need to play the game first. Rules, maps, figures then source books if they can get the money together. As for source books, FASA did what FASA did. I know that when the clans came out books were coming out like gangbusters.

So how come the current Starter Box is 50$ (which is a great price BTW) comes with 25 mechs, all IS models and all at Tech Level 1.

phelancracken, on 07 July 2012 - 08:19 AM, said:

I just love it when people want to try and make this game like every other game. Why? It's not 40k, or any other game. It's CBT.

Oh, so trying to balance a game is debasing it? How black-and-white. You should hate every edition since 1.0 then, because you know, the game was changed. Also, do you know how the concept of ‘example’ works? Where did I say that I wanted CBT to be like 40k? I pointed out the example of how WH40k manages ~9 unique factions that are quite balanced where evidently CBT can’t balance even 2. Also, the statement that CBT is not 40k does not excuse faults found in the CBT system.

phelancracken, on 07 July 2012 - 08:19 AM, said:

If you don't like how the clans are, then don't fight them. I can bet there is going to be a lot of matches that are only IS versus IS. People who don't want to play clans. That's their choice to play the game. I respect it and honestly, you have to respect everyone elses.

And what happens when two players want to play and one wants to play clan and the other IS? According to you, tough luck, the IS player should just accept the built-in inferiority or not play the game, well that’s not very nice especially to new players. Perhaps that’s why CBT has faded so much…

Edited by Aaron DeChavilier, 07 July 2012 - 09:03 PM.

[phelancracken]

GM,

You mean event coordinator? Or are you saying playing MECHWARRIOR the RPG? Not the same game, similar, but again, not the same game. Also, in an official tournament, which I have played in a couple, you have to have one person who makes rules calls. Just like any official event. Aka sports, 40k, anything. Yeah, been to quite a few official 40k events as a spectator and know how it's done. Even Flames of War which is produced by BattleFront has an event coordinator to watch times, field rules questions, and track scoring. The game event coordinator does that. TT rules are still there and in every event they use the most current event.

As for the moderator in here, what's your point? It's a discussion that gets heated but stayed sane and mature.

As for BT not getting 2 things balanced, why Aaron, your opinion is your opinion, just like mine is mine. If it was that badly balanced, just like the first edition 40k, would have been massively rebalanced. It's been tweaked, but nothing like that massive rebalancing that 40k 1st edition got.

As for the 2 players playing CBT, I have played IS versus clan. I can tell you, you have a numbers advantage, you use better tactics. I have played IS mechs against clan mechs. Know all about it. Surprised? Yeah, that's why I don't consider that there is an imbalance in the BT balancing system. I have played both as IS and clan repeatedly. It's something you have to consider. Every game has an underdog in it. Look at the Cappies for IS and 3025 tech. Vindicator was the biggest mech they could produce after the 4th Succession War for a while.

As for CBT fading so much, it's due in large part to the fact it's a slow game to play. It's one of the last pen and paper games still being done that uses charts and graphs. A Flames of War battle is set at 90 minutes start to finish max if you don't hold your objectives for 2 turns before then or destroy the enemy completely. This is not a small battle, but a company on company battle. Not to mention, 40k has rounds of playing in conventions that are 90 minutes long again max if you don't capture majority of objectives. Neither of them have charts or use pen and paper. They have one chart that lists ranges, hits, armour saves and kill roles. Not to mention, Only CBT has you write down your fire before fire phase. Simultaneous fire is great for the simple fact if you loose the mech but had written fire off, you get to fire that mech. B5, if a unit is destroyed before it fires, it's fire is GONE! Same as victory at sea. Warmachine has 50 minute rounds.

As for faults in CBT, what I consider faults would be different from what someone else considers. I realize that, but seriously, the game has stood the test of time. Not everyone has to play IS versus clan. They can play IS v IS or clan v clan. There is so much variety in the game it's not funny.

As for the game, BV on TT makes the game follow quite a few things everyone seems to think it needs. Clan mechs being smaller and fighting with fewer mechs versus IS having more and larger mechs. Or am I mistaking that?

Edited by phelancracken, 08 July 2012 - 11:34 AM.

[Aaron DeChavilier]

phelancracken, on 08 July 2012 - 11:34 AM, said:

As for BT not getting 2 things balanced, why Aaron, your opinion is your opinion, just like mine is mine. If it was that badly balanced, just like the first edition 40k, would have been massively rebalanced. It's been tweaked, but nothing like that massive rebalancing that 40k 1st edition got.

Yes, and we each back our opinions up with facts we deem important, that is the ‘why.’ I do see the game as that badly imbalanced, especially that the devs somehow thought a metagame was a good counter to egregiously overpowered equipment. Some of the equipment violates the mechanics of certain weapons – CLPLs.

phelancracken, on 08 July 2012 - 11:34 AM, said:

As for the 2 players playing CBT, I have played IS versus clan. I can tell you, you have a numbers advantage, you use better tactics. I have played IS mechs against clan mechs. Know all about it. Surprised? Yeah, that's why I don't consider that there is an imbalance in the BT balancing system. I have played both as IS and clan repeatedly. It's something you have to consider. Every game has an underdog in it.

No, I’m not surprised, in fact I find it reassuring that someone playing so long has played both sides. But I wouldn’t say you ‘know all about it,’ and I don’t say that I know all either. Also, you still have failed to name who the ‘underdog’ is for wh40k, I’ve been playing for 13 years, and I haven’t found one.

phelancracken, on 08 July 2012 - 11:34 AM, said:

Not to mention, 40k has rounds of playing in conventions that are 90 minutes long again max if you don't capture majority of objectives.

Have you played 40k outside of a convention? Say an FLGS? Different point caps, or objectives? The game’s mechanics scale quite well for combat resolution. May not be the most finesse of solutions. CBT can barely scale past 4 mechs per side in a reasonable amount of time.

phelancracken, on 08 July 2012 - 11:34 AM, said:

As for faults in CBT, what I consider faults would be different from what someone else considers. I realize that, but seriously, the game has stood the test of time. Not everyone has to play IS versus clan. They can play IS v IS or clan v clan. There is so much variety in the game it's not funny.

Agreed, we all see different faults. I would say though, that the mechwarrior games are a larger driving force for Battletech than the TT. As for IS v Clan, the game system has to cope with cases like this. You can tell someone to play IS v IS or Clan v Clan, but what happens when two (or more ) friends want to play Clan and IS, you’re still basically saying ‘tough luck.’ Other TT games maintain better balance between factions .

phelancracken, on 08 July 2012 - 11:34 AM, said:

As for the game, BV on TT makes the game follow quite a few things everyone seems to think it needs. Clan mechs being smaller and fighting with fewer mechs versus IS having more and larger mechs. Or am I mistaking that?

Yes but BV is an abstraction of values. It is a great tool to have, but points cost in any game system is never the silver bullet of balance. You can’t just say ‘stuff costs more’ and call it a day. This is not evening considering custom designs, I’ve see so many ridiculously broken designs using clan tech for decent points costs, that its not funny.

At the end of the day, I fundamentally believe that game systems are malleable, that things can and should be changed to make things better. I never view older games as written to a higher or better standard simply because they were written a while ago. Part of a reworking CBT in my view is adding special rules for every faction, and limiting customization, but hey that’s just me. Obviously CBT will grind on, I just don’t play it anymore; got better TT games to play like Dystopian Wars which is similar to Btech but so much more fun, and <gasp> no faction has items that are just weapon+1.

Edited by Aaron DeChavilier, 08 July 2012 - 12:06 PM.

[Dakkaface]

My two cents - I'm not sure what the battles will be like, or what the engine limitations on MWO are going to be, but it seems like the devs could institute a BV style system. Make so that Clan mechs have to fight 2x their tonnage in IS mechs, or have Clan mechs introduce a Zellbrigen style system where once you highlight a target, you can't switch targets and any attacks against other targets incur a steep XP and C-bill penalty - making pilots of IS mechs free to focus fire on Clannners, but Clanners must duel thier targets or take penalties that may make piloting a Clan mech worthless. This is on top of making Clan tech expensive to buy and maintain.

[phelancracken]

Aaron,

from what I have heard, Orks and Imperial guard? are not the current armies to play. Right now they fight uphill battles. But that's what I have heard from players that actually play 40k. So I am considering that what they are saying is their opinion and obviously not fact. Now that being said, why do you think CBT has BattleForce? It's meant for company on company fighting scaling up. The original game was designed for lance on lance fighting.

As for the rules, Hey, give me Compendium any day. However, it's not a legal rules set for current official games. One thing I never agreed with in the newer rules is that fractional accounting was removed. So that forces any mech with that's at the 5 ton margin, aka, 25, 35, 45, etc, etc, have to pay for the next weight class up chassis if they use endo steel chassis. But, like I have said, the current rules cover everything up to jihad, why keep revising things like FASA, FanPro, WizKids, and Catalyst have and start with the newest and "supposedly" best rules set out there first?

[Aaron DeChavilier]

phelancracken, on 09 July 2012 - 04:16 PM, said:

Aaron,

from what I have heard, Orks and Imperial guard? are not the current armies to play. Right now they fight uphill battles. But that's what I have heard from players that actually play 40k. So I am considering that what they are saying is their opinion and obviously not fact. Now that being said, why do you think CBT has BattleForce? It's meant for company on company fighting scaling up. The original game was designed for lance on lance fighting.

That’s fair, though I’ve seen some pretty nasty IG builds over at DakkaDakka. IG have some of the best tanks in the game. As for Orks, yes they are usually the last to get an updated codex, which is usually what holds them back – a lack of updated codex. Nowhere does that happen in CBT, closest analogy would be: clans come out, get their official codex, then IS never gets their codex update and the writers call it a day. I’d rather take the best clan tech and best IS tech, call blank slate say around the invasion, and start from there. Now you have two different faction that are powerful in different ways. Clans get to be the raw firepower group, and IS gets to have neat tech toys that accomplish different strategies.

With Battleforce though, it’s a new ruleset that one has to now learn on top of the existing rules. Wh40k’s rules (love ‘em or hate ‘em) scales from a small 500pt battle on up to an apocalyptic 10k point battle, without ever needing to learn a new rule set. Same goes for warmachine, and my new love; Dystopian Wars.

phelancracken, on 09 July 2012 - 04:16 PM, said:

As for the rules, Hey, give me Compendium any day. However, it's not a legal rules set for current official games. One thing I never agreed with in the newer rules is that fractional accounting was removed. So that forces any mech with that's at the 5 ton margin, aka, 25, 35, 45, etc, etc, have to pay for the next weight class up chassis if they use endo steel chassis. But, like I have said, the current rules cover everything up to jihad, why keep revising things like FASA, FanPro, WizKids, and Catalyst have and start with the newest and "supposedly" best rules set out there first?

I recently acquired a copy of the CBT compendium circa ’94, I think. I’ve been wanting to crack it open and compare it to TW, see which is more fun, unfortunately I completely lack other people to play the game : (. That margin thing sounds pretty stupid, then what’s the point of having a 45 ton mech? Granted most have never been stellar, but Vindicators rule! : ) I hope that’s the next redesign!

[Hood]

If you so desire to read the books (I recommend them, very good reading). Start with the Lethal Heritage: Blood of Kerensky.

You will also read that for the most part the big differences between the IS and Clan's were the targeting systems. IS Lazers could go as far they just were not accurate past a certain distance. That's where you get the range difference, plus most of the factory's were destroyed over the the secession wars.

At the time of the Clan invasion many factory's were coming on line but the big push to help catch the IS up so quickly was the Black Widow sharing Clan Tech with the IS.

In any case, dont just go read Wiki's go read the books. I really think you will enjoy Michael Stackpole's writing.

[Ashla Mason]

To the first question:
Clan tech is more advanced because (mechanically) it enables the clans to be played as a more elite task force that is less "street fight" and more duelist despite facing supperior numbers (Clan mechs are signifigantly more expensive then their IS counterparts due to their supperior components; For the price of a single Nova Prime, I can have 3 trebuchets).

Themeatically, it makes sense because the SLDF would have had all the tech specs on the advanced equipment that they use and (due to their break down not being as catastrophic as that of the IS) they not only retained it but also advanced it.

Why is it an issue
The greatest fear that people have with clan tech is that players won't respect the spirit of clan combat as espoused by zellbrigen and codified as "honor levels" and utilize a freakish hybrid thereof (vastly supperior mechs and utilized without any respect for the clan way) which would ultimately undermine players who don't use clan weaponry (which is consistently supperior to it's IS counterparts)

[pitviper716]

the succession wars pretty much brought about a interstellar dark age in the innersphere that it was just starting to recover from when the clans first invaded. the first sucession war saw the use of just about every for of wmd that you can think of on both military and civilian targets. mainly industrial complexes that produced advanced technologies. the mechs that feature the technologies were scavenged for spare parts during this brutal conflict

[Dakkaface]

Aaron DeChavilier, on 06 July 2012 - 03:11 PM, said:

cause the kids who play TT games are clearly scrambling for the latest copy of CBT

I also love how far munchkins go to defend the system, really betrays how shaky their platform is. Most TT games don't usually have fans crowing about how one faction 'was made to be powerful,' then most people wouldn't play that game - oh wait.

To be fair, as a relatively new CBT player, that has less to do with how good the system is and more to do with how impenetrable the library of books is. I know Total Warfare is the core book, but would it be so hard to have a subtitle "Classic Battletech Core Rulebook" somewhere on that cover? The book system for other games is less confusing - 40k has one core book and a book for whatever army you want to play. Malifaux, Warmachine and Infinity have core books with expansion books in the style of CBT's TRO's, but the main books are clearly labeled.

Then once you get beyond the book issue the gameplay is astoundingly archaic. Massive additive modifiers, random tables everywhere. Playing a simple match of 3v3 mechs at Tech L1 can take 2-3 hours. It is not a fluid game and there is little one can do at the intro level to better your chances - it's basically rolling dice and hoping you get lucky. Contrast this with Warmahordes using Focus and Fury to boost chances and Malifaux's cheat/soulstone mechanics which put tactical resource spending in the hands of the player and CBT can often feel like a boring game decided purely by the dice.

I'm actually interested in looking into Battleforce games after playing a particularly bad snoozefest intro game with a friend.

[Syllogy]

Clan Tech might be more "advanced" in tabletop terminology, but there are various downsides to using Clan Mechs and Tech.

These downsides will become more exaggerated and more prevalent as PGI balances Clan Tech against Inner Sphere Tech.