413 replies to this topic

[Haeso]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 06 December 2011 - 07:57 AM, said:

Puma won't be in to start with. Longbow at this time is only 50? Awesome is slow and has problems at short range if they keep the range limit on PPC's. The Anni is a Wolf's Dragoon specific mech is it not and therefore possibly not included, at least at the start, it is also vulnerable to long range fire and doesn't have the speed to close the range on anything.

I could list another dozen boats, are you honestly going to try and pretend there aren't viable boats in canon? You're nuts if so.

http://www.sarna.net...oat_BattleMechs

I could keep adding more if you like.

Edited by Haeso, 06 December 2011 - 08:06 AM.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

No, what I am saying is everyone knows about them and the dev's can deal with them in balancing, even if it means not including them. Or are you saying that the Catapult shouldn't be in 'cos it's on that list of missile boats?

[Alex Wolfe]

Haeso, on 06 December 2011 - 08:05 AM, said:

I could list another dozen boats, are you honestly going to try and pretend there aren't viable boats in canon? You're nuts if so.

Here's the list of viable missile boats with "full customization". "Funny" thing is, such an option makes your list wholly obsolete.

http://www.sarna.net...ory:BattleMechs

Edited by Alex Wolfe, 06 December 2011 - 09:31 AM.

[Haeso]

Yes, which only favors customization... You could use any of those 'Mechs competitively. Weapon boats are a part of canon whether people like it or not. Specializing your 'Mech for one range and relying on your lancemates to either keep them inside your specialized range, or covering the slack should they get closer, is no matter how you look at it, more effective.

You limit it to only a handful of stock 'Mechs so none of the boats are in game, and you're going to see a lot of people's favorite 'Mechs don't exist. Some are designed to be boats, and that's it. Almost all of the 'Mechs capable of fire support are designed around working at maximum range with only occasionally having backup weapons.

Should we give the hunchback an AC10 and some large lasers, so it can't 'boat' the ac20? It's really specialized at short range.

Or the catapult, should we gut all the variants that focus on fire support and force it to carry short/medium range weaponry?

Some 'Mechs will be better than others, and boats will exist whether or not you can customize unless you simply do not include a large amount of Chassis/variants. Some are built only to boat, that's just how it is. We're better off having a complex Battle Value that makes mixed-weapon setups cost less and full customization if you're worried about boats. Because that's the only way you're going to do it well.

Edited by Haeso, 06 December 2011 - 11:02 AM.

[MaddMaxx]

Well I guess it comes down to how many Variants the Dev can create for Launch, if that will be enough to get the game going and if not, then they will be Forced to allow Customization (at some level right away). Why do I say that? It is obvious that if they don't either create a 100 starting variants, some of which will be "Gun Boats" from Canon, the cries from the peanut gallery will be intolerable and many will go play something that allows it.

The solution that might allow both camps to be happy is MAPS. An absolute "BOAT" load of various Maps that will account for all possible Mech load-outs, require that each Team will need Mechs for their Roles and not just added Firepower. And if a Team (Lance) just goes Heavy on one Mech type, they have little chance for victory.

Now this is what we have been hearing from the Dev. Roles/Skills/Urban etc. etc. What I would love to see, while driving my Customized Uziel, is that when the Lances load for the Persistence Map battles, it doesn't tell anyone "where" the fight will take place.

That would then put the likelihood of success or failure on each teams Command to assure that all required facets of a Team based "effort" be in place before departure. Ignoring to do so could find a Lance of Medium/Heavy Laser Boats on a Volcanic back water rock with no Scouting and some very "SERIOUS" heat problems. (as in running is more than enough to cause troubles)

LOL! That'll fix those bags of dirt....

Edited by MaddMaxx, 06 December 2011 - 11:57 AM.

[Wolvers]

I wonder how many of those who voted for Mech 4 limited customization actually played the TT? I think we might be seeing part of the difference between the 2 groups, those who started off playing the computer games and those who started off playing the TT.

Customization costs c-bills, full customizations (changing internal structure, engine etc) requires factory refits, which costs even more c-bills. I don't think it's going to be that easy to munckin-up your mech.

On the TT, having played the full customization, I haven't seen it make that much of a difference, mechs still get damaged, head shots still happen, critical hits still go through.

In the single player PC games, the only thing I really noticed with customization was how good missile boats were, too good in fact. On the TT you still had to roll to see how many missiles hit after getting a "lock on". In the game it appears just about every missile hits and in the one location. According to their FAQ, they are already looking at avoiding this.

"LRMs will be semi-guided. What the heck does that mean? You will be able to lock on to your target but it doesn't mean the actual missiles will home directly to the target. The chance of missing will still be part of LRM gameplay."




"We want to make sure we bring the roots of the MechWarrior® titles back to the surface and also incorporate the basic rules from the BattleTech® Universe. Players will be able to customize their BattleMechs with weapon and armor upgrades"

"We are adhering very closely to the BattleTech® tabletop rules. Some mechanics in the tabletop version of the game do not translate well into a videogame and we are coming up with our own rule sets that mitigate these differences in an intuitive and fun manner."

^ Based on that, I would expect then that any customization will be limited due to cost and factory refit costs (even if they allow that).

Edited by Wolvers, 06 December 2011 - 12:34 PM.

[Wolvers]

MaddMaxx, on 06 December 2011 - 11:50 AM, said:

That would then put the likelihood of success or failure on each teams Command to assure that all required facets of a Team based "effort" be in place before departure. Ignoring to do so could find a Lance of Medium/Heavy Laser Boats on a Volcanic back water rock with no Scouting and some very "SERIOUS" heat problems. (as in running is more than enough to cause troubles)

^ This, I think we'll see terrain and the Mech 2 "ambient temperature" come back into play

[MaddMaxx]

Quote

"Players will be able to customize their BattleMechs with weapon and armor upgrades""

Wonder where that leaves Electronics? Hmmm.

Sounds like, start with Stock and limited to...

[Mims]

i hope the devs are reading. No customization on par with MW4, no 55$ for you.

[Wolvers]

well the devs are trying to make this game closer to the TT than prior games

Edited by Wolvers, 06 December 2011 - 12:34 PM.

[MaddMaxx]

Mims, on 06 December 2011 - 12:29 PM, said:

i hope the devs are reading. No customization on par with MW4, no 55$ for you.

F2P! F - 2 - P! No 55$ to them.

[Mims]

no 55$? no more demands.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Mims, on 06 December 2011 - 12:29 PM, said:

i hope the devs are reading. No customization on par with MW4, no 55$ for you.

Does this mean that if you don't have a full MW4 Mechlab you won't even consider playing?

[Mims]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 06 December 2011 - 12:37 PM, said:

Does this mean that if you don't have a full MW4 Mechlab you won't even consider playing?

i wouldnt consider paying for it. but apparently its free, so i have no *****.

Edited by Mims, 06 December 2011 - 12:53 PM.

[verybad]

I really think having "Templates" based on the standard variants would work well.

If you own the chassis and equipment, then once you buy a template, you can set your mech up to that. or to default. Buy more templates and you can set the chassis up to those templates.

Factory variant templates are much cheaper than individual custom templates. Kind of like customizing a car. So once you've been playing the game for a while and have a lot of Cbills, then you can design your own custom template. Each one costs money, so if you wnat to change it again, you pay again. Nothings free. You can also sell or give away a template to other players, but it's not a copy, it's the original. You lose it.

Custom templates start with a factory variant, the more chnages you make the moste it costs, and the more radical a change is, the more it costs.


When buying a Chassis you can buy it with the default, or with a factory variant.

Omnimechs come with all variant templates already installed. New variants can be developed for less.

A player can increase their tech skill in the game, and that reduces the costs of custom templates.


***

This gives players free customization, they can make anything they want. However radical changes to a chassis cost a lot more, it's best to start with something closer to the base design. This makes factory variants much cheaper and mroe common to use on the battlefield. You know your'e fighting a veteran if he's got a jumping laserboat Hunchback.

This makes radical variants more signature designs, it gives the game more of a forward structure, getting the money together to mod you mech is meaningful. It helps preserve the integrity of different designs, but isn't constrictive.

In addition, it supports a team having a specialized "Tech" player that can help them get costum mechs for cheaper...though his specialization may affect his performance on the actual battlefield.

Edited by verybad, 06 December 2011 - 01:33 PM.

[Haeso]

I'd like to see maps that have areas that favor both long, and short range weaponry. Maps where you need a blend inside the lance. It stands to reason, especially without vehicles/infantry that secondary weapons outside your specialized range are wasted weapons. Putting short range weapons on a catapult, that's what I'd call a waste. But pairing that catapult with a hunchback to make sure nothing makes it within minimum range of those LRMs? That's not a waste.

Picture a small city encircled by hills, some wide streets, some narrow streets. Some streets can be bombarded from outside the city, others are shielded. You'd need short range 'Mechs to scour the city, and you could use long range 'Mechs to ambush and provide fire support, luring others into their avenues of fire.

Either you provide arbitrary benefits to mixing weapons, or accept boating as tactically the best option.

[Haeso]

verybad, on 06 December 2011 - 01:30 PM, said:

I really think having "Templates" based on the standard variants would work well.

If you own the chassis and equipment, then once you buy a template, you can set your mech up to that. or to default. Buy more templates and you can set the chassis up to those templates.

Factory variant templates are much cheaper than individual custom templates. Kind of like customizing a car. So once you've been playing the game for a while and have a lot of Cbills, then you can design your own custom template. Each one costs money, so if you wnat to change it again, you pay again. Nothings free. You can also sell or give away a template to other players, but it's not a copy, it's the original. You lose it.

Custom templates start with a factory variant, the more chnages you make the moste it costs, and the more radical a change is, the more it costs.


When buying a Chassis you can buy it with the default, or with a factory variant.

Omnimechs come with all variant templates already installed. New variants can be developed for less.

A player can increase their tech skill in the game, and that reduces the costs of custom templates.


***

This gives players free customization, they can make anything they want. However radical changes to a chassis cost a lot more, it's best to start with something closer to the base design. This makes factory variants much cheaper and mroe common to use on the battlefield. You know your'e fighting a veteran if he's got a jumping laserboat Hunchback.

This makes radical variants more signature designs, it gives the game more of a forward structure, getting the money together to mod you mech is meaningful. It helps preserve the integrity of different designs, but isn't constrictive.

In addition, it supports a team having a specialized "Tech" player that can help them get costum mechs for cheaper...though his specialization may affect his performance on the actual battlefield.

Unless you can also lose those customizations, the cost is largely irrelevant. It just means people will follow other player's templates rather than experimenting. I'm all for expensive customization, as long as that customization has an actual drawback rather than a one-time expense.

[Alex Wolfe]

Haeso, on 06 December 2011 - 01:34 PM, said:

Either you provide arbitrary benefits to mixing weapons, or accept boating as tactically the best option.

I would really love it if the designers actually made small weapons a little bit more potent this time around while limiting boating through canon variant-compliant hardpoint system, so that the canon setups of, for example, Assassin's medium laser, SRM2 and LRM5 would finally make sense and actually work rather than being stripped immediately in favor of large lasers and streak SRM6's. Less weapons per mech, but with a tiny bit more punch to them maybe? Or damage per second values climb not as drastic as the weapon's caliber increases?

Mechwarrior games so far have been all about boating, but I suppose it would be a really cool experience if it was suddenly a good idea, somehow, to take "defensive weapons" (even just a few small/medium lasers), and the factory variants would become actually combat-viable and making sense in-universe, instead of earning but a horrified "what were they thinking?" and a one-way trip to the mechlab. On a side note, that would also make vehicles/elementals slightly more powerful as well.

I guess it would require shifting the damage system a bit so that it doesn't promote big guns that heavily, and make "gnat stings" some sort of threat as well without falling back onto critical hits, and introducing minimal ranges for weapon that are described as having them.

That's... a bit off topic I guess, but a man can dream!

Edited by Alex Wolfe, 06 December 2011 - 01:51 PM.

[Haeso]

I'm actually for a battle value system that raises the cost of successive weapons of the same Range category and making short ranged weapons stronger per ton.


Another option would follow the books quite well, you know why they have more weaponry than their heat sinks can handle? Two reasons, spike damage and more importantly - they seem to lose weapons almost every single time they go into combat. Make losing weapons significantly easier and more common, and you're going to want more weapons on a starting loadout than your sinks can handle unlike MW of the past where the idea was maximize damage/heatsink ratio because by the time you're losing weapons, you've usually shot out the canopy in an ejector seat.

Ever notice the recycle time on lasers is basically zero in canon novels? The real problems are heat, and whether or not that Laser got slagged earlier in the fight.

Edited by Haeso, 06 December 2011 - 01:53 PM.

[verybad]

How is the cost irrelivent? It takes time to build up c-bills. and the templates aren't free. If you give it away or sell it, you lose that template. So sure, your MercCorp's tech may be developing variants for your group (which still cost money, just less because they're specialized), but it doesn't mean you can min max everything immediatlly.

If new tech is released, you may want to mod that template, or develop a completely new one for a newly available mech. It keeps mechs more similiar to their factory designs, but doesnt prevent a determined player from making his dream mech...if they spend a lot of time to finance it.

Players might even be able to sell a template to a factory if they do well in it, resulting in it becoming a standard variant FOR THAT FACTION.

Perhaps defense missions could result in a loss of a template if the mission takes place on a factory world. With players neediung to result to defaults.

The Factory world defense missions would be much higher paying than regular mission however, with lots of MercCorps interested in bidding. Strong defenses would allow winners to get a new template or chassis (to a limited cost level)