101 replies to this topic

[Rebas Kradd]

Thanks for taking the time to write that up. I'd like to offer you my thoughts in a "good, bad, and ugly" format. This is how a developer would approach a proposal: look for holes in it, attack it, and if it gets damaged, refine it until it's bulletproof.


The good:

* You acknowledge what's really wrong with FP: The crummy gamemode it offers for 12v12 play. This absolutely needs to change.

* I like the idea of larger maps and the efforts to use them, and I like the idea of advancing spawns. That's how to keep things from becoming a walking simulator.

* I appreciate the ideas of military objective themes and varied terrain, although those aren't gamemode issues so much as map design issues.


The Bad:

Your writeup: waaaaaayy too long. Any dev who saw this probably didn't get past the first two paragraphs. These guys are slammed for time and need a TL;DR with a great, clear, simple hook in the first ten seconds to convince them that the proposal will stand out. (For example: "My concept is Assault-Conquest-Assault strung together with advancing spawns in each stage, to create variety in tactics and the sense of a campaign"). That gives them an immediate sense of what they're looking at.

As it is, you probably could have lopped half off that essay and still gotten the point across. For example, again, cut out the part about varying terrain and military theming (as others have said). That belongs in a discussion on map design in general, and distracts from your idea.

* If you want your gamemode to feel different, you need to realize that two existing QP gamemodes sandwiched into the same general structure as Invasion might not accomplish that. I actually don't have a problem, necessarily, with a "destroy the objective" campaign-style thing. It makes sense. Especially when more of the map is used and chokepoints are eliminated - that's my big thing. But brace yourself for the people who don't think it's all that different. It's going to be a bit "meh" to some people.


The Ugly:

* I disagree that your idea will require minimal new design and work. Throwing in dozens of conditional triggers multiplies the needed testing exponentially. It also sounds like you'll need different structures and assets for each scenario ASIDE from what's already in-game (I don't think we have assets for spaceports yet, and you named a bunch of other stuff). And with the complexity of multiple objectives, you're going to want some new in-game indicators to guide players to them and keep them focused.

* You're talking about a lot of artificial mechanics. Delays and timers, enforced separation, etc. Artificial conditions kill immersion. PGI got around this with gates and chokepoints, but that hurts gameplay. So your map will have to be much more open. Specify how you plan to prevent the attackers from skipping stages and moving straight to "kill the enemy". And then you have to account for the fact that different environments will probably require different assets to do this (i.e. you can't use a spaceport door in a jungle, etc). And even then, constantly shifting advance conditions still carry the feeling of artificialness (i.e. the devs spoon-feeding you along the mission).

Quote

Beyond mere map variety, the variety of viable mech types, gameplay styles, and strategies should expand significantly.

I don't see that happening. It's true that Stage 2 will require lights, but beyond that, most teams will do what they always do: murderball and accomplish each objective one at a time. Your response to Davers included nothing that will actually discourage deathballing; players will just hit each flank as one, hit the other, then go canyon. So we'll see forced dropdeck variety, but not all that much variation in tactics. Deathballing remains. Especially since the nature of your gamemode is still somewhat linear.

Quote

Various methods can be used to ensure that players cannot camp opposing players' spawns or gain unfair access to other areas

*That's the big hole in your proposal - "various methods". Well, what are they? This is a huge part of the gamemode's success, dude. In fact, it's probably 90% of it.

Ensuring objective-based play is probably harder than you think. People WANT to kill the enemy. They don't want to do the objective, sometimes not even if you bribe them with C-Bills (though that would help). It's just gamer behavior. This is a big problem with every MWO gamemode thus far, and "various methods" provides no specifics, in addition to sounding like more artificial mechanics.

If you want devs to pay attention, you need that detail covered, and you want the mechanics to be simple, natural, and organic to a battlefield. Because you will definitely need to force that beachhead to be guarded; it makes no sense to create advancing fronts of spawns when defenders can get camp or get behind them. Also, varying defender spawns are an awkward thing as well.



I like your general idea of Rush, though, mostly because it's the only way to get larger maps into the game without making assaults walk for five minutes. I've been hawking the idea myself for a while, but with a wrinkle that might fix all the holes I see in your proposal:

Use advancing spawns, but keep the rearward spawns open and require the attackers to KEEP them open in order for the forward spawns to stay open. Kind of like supply lines. Then give extra artillery assets (or something else valuable that makes killing easier) to the attackers for every spawn they keep, so both attackers and defenders are incentivized to fight over them.

Voila - the spawns themselves become the interim objectives. That way, the attackers have to set up and defend a front in order to mount an attack on the final objective. It's a simple concept (rather than "Destroy A/B/C, then cap D/E/F/G/H, then go back to destroying I/J/K/L") but one that can play out in a dozen different ways.

In my mind, this fixes everything about your proposal. It prevents deathballing and motivates attackers to split up, because attackers need to occupy multiple cap points simultaneously throughout the game to keep their front active and their artillery available. It prevents camping by defenders, because they'll find themselves pounded by extra artillery if they do. It fixes awkward artificial mechanics, because fronts and supply lines are simple yet natural to a battiefield. It requires even fewer structures and assets to create. It's no longer so confined and linear.

Here's a video proposal for my idea (you can stop watching after about 5:38, everything else is just fluff):



Let me know what you think.

But I'm happy to keep refining your idea in this thread as well, since that's what the thread is about.

Edited by Rebas Kradd, 10 August 2016 - 11:12 AM.

[Deathlike]

ScarecrowES, on 09 August 2016 - 03:06 PM, said:

So hard to keep these things on the front page.

It's so weird. If I were to post something controversial or provocative in any way, I'd have half of the community singing my praises and the other half burning me in effigy. But post something well-reasoned that most players will happily get behind and you can watch your topic die.

Like in politics, satisfied people feel no need to say so. Haha.

Welcome to MWO.

[Positive Mental Attitude]

Holy moly what a write up, Im glad you did it too bc I was thinking the same thing only I could never write something up so nicely.

[ScarecrowES]

Jack Lowe, on 09 August 2016 - 04:58 PM, said:

Your proposal is very well presented and I thought something like this would have been the best course of action for the game back when CW phase one was still in development. The dev's decided to go a different route.

That did two things one it caused me to become bored with MWO and games in general, and two got me interested in the process of game development and thereafter programming. So I don't think I've played more than two or three matches since a few months after CW phase 1 was released. That was the final disappointment, on the other hand I had more free time on my hands. You can guess how I filled it.

You mentioned that random spawn points would require little or no coding. Well you would be essentially right. I can devise a proto type for a single map with the possible spawn areas dependent on the objective location in probably two weeks tinkering on it in my spare time. It gets a little more complicated for multiple maps and depends on if all maps objectives and spawns will be created at the start of the mode or if certain completion criteria for one map will affect the potential maps for the next phase adding in differing different objective options and spawn location possibilities would add extra layers of complexity that would make it probably a good 6 month undertaking but I'm far from a ace coder still I feel confident I could bumble my way thru using with only a few exceptions the basic to intermediate knowledge I have.

That sounds like hey they should of done it already wtf, right? Well it's not quite that simple I would be developing the sub system in a vacuum. They have fully running game with no doubt hundreds of thousands of lines of code already written on top of a modified game engine. At this stage and perhaps even back when CW was in development that played a part in things. If they didn't write their code with your idea left at least as an option it could require a lot of code that will have to be dug into and perhaps rewritten in order for it to accept the new system. Then depending on how independent that code is will determine restricted the team is in implementing this idea. It's still certainly doable, and I would love to see them make the change over to your format.

It will just become a more time and resource intensive undertaking the longer it goes undone, and therefore less likely to ever get done. If this turns out to be like other MMO's that have gone before it by the time they get to a point where they need to look at the invasion game mode as an issue and go digging around and perhaps find this post looking for an answer it will probably be to late for this wonderful suggestion to be of use and you may well have moved on to another game and no longer care.

Thanks for the reply.

Just for the sake of clarification, objectives and spawns under my proposal would not be random. Each scenario on each map would have a fixed set of objectives, though it's not necessary that those objectives be the same from map to map or scenario to scenario. You'd be playing through the same 3 objectives every time the game dropped you in a given scenario. Spawns would also be pre-determined based on the needs of the map and scenario. They will, however, shift from place to place as the match progresses.

In this way, we're merely using a set of triggers - in this case match start, objective 1 accomplished, and objective 2 accomplished - to modify a set state for the map, including spawn locations. The current Invasion mode already has these sorts of triggers, but they're not really used to do anything more than tee up the next objective. I'd simply be using an existing system to do much more. Thus, the only part that needs "coding" would be the manner in which spawns are switched. I use the term coding lightly here, because in reality all you're doing is using a map state to determine which team is using a set of spawn locations at a given stage of the match. It's really quite a simple thing to do.

[ScarecrowES]

Rebas Kradd, on 10 August 2016 - 10:59 AM, said:

<snip>

Lots of well-thought out criticism here. I may not be able to respond to it all at once, since there's a lot to go through.

I acknowledge the write-up is long, and have since included a TLDR statement after the initial posting. Admittedly, when I write, I tend not to write for the attention span of the average internet dweller, but for the person who might actually be interested in what I have to say. In such cases, I prefer absolute clarity over brevity, and this leads to long posts such as my OP.

If PGI ever decides to read this topic, I'm hoping clarity and detail will win out. Who knows if that'd be so. Russ himself, if you've ever listened to him talk, is rarely ever brief, haha.

To some of the more specific points, I don't think you're looking at much coding work here, though I'd agree map assets would have to be created. Most everything, from a functional perspective, to make Rush as I've described it work in MWO is already there. It merely requires adaptation. The game doesn't really care what model you use to act as your "destroy this thing" objective, so artists are at their whim to design whatever seems right for the environment. Likewise, a scanning objective doesn't HAVE to look like the data nodes of Scouting. Capture points don't have to look like boxes on the ground with laser fences. The mechanics within the existing game are quite adaptable. After all, Domination is merely Conquest with a single large cap point and some significant timer adjustments.

As far as assets... Each map will have to have its terrain created from scratch, though it could incorporate terrain from existing maps. Texture packs, shaders, etc could be readily copied or adapted from existing maps. There is a wide swath of texture types in the game now. Model variety is significant at this stage of development. That can be hard for many to believe because we're so used to fighting on small sections of maps, but many maps are quite dense with assets.

You mention the space port, as an example. Interestingly, River City already has a bit of space port in it. A runway, at least, with a shuttle and some buildings. There are also buildings throughout that map that work quite well as hangars. I'd like to design a large central terminal building, not unlike a large modern airport. Architecturally interesting to look at, appearing to be functional, but also set up to break up what is ostensibly a large arena into chunks and pathways and multiple levels that offer a fun place to fight.

Sadly, the one map I think would require the most new assets to be created would also be one of the more visually striking - the dam map. The rest I've mentioned as examples can be built quite easily using existing assets with various additions where necessary.

In terms of protecting stage flow integrity and how it relates to map and mode design, there could be a lot to say here.

You've suggested some of the artificial limits necessary might ruin immersion, and I'm sure that could be true. Handled poorly, you'll be just as aware of the artificiality as you are with the gates in Invasion. In the end, we can do no worse than how these things are handled in the current game. At best though, we can provide plausible reasons for some of the artificiality where possible. A lot of that will depend on the theme of a give map. My intent was for maps to feel like real, distinct mission spaces. A lot of that means making design decisions based on what's right for that map.

Rush maps tend to be built with linear geometry, and in many cases you're always pushing forward in the same direction. In the example graphic I used, the build was still linear, but the direction shifted as dictated by map design. In the case of that, or any, map, the simplest means of separating stages is through physical barriers... walls, mountains, whatever. Nearly all MWO maps use physical barriers, and I'm sure Rush maps would do the same. There's a lot of flexibility here.

How do we make it so an attacking team can't rush past defenders and go right to the end stage? In much the same way FP works now, for one... the next objective can't be tackled until the previous one is done. Can't even attack the orbital cannon unless the O-gens are destroyed. That's the simplest means. You could also set following stages as out-of-bounds areas. Cheap, but effective. Stage shifts can be accompanied by a set of defender turrets that activate on the transition to the next stage that will cover the defenders' retreat and slows the attacking team down. This is an artificial, but totally plausible, means of controlling match flow, and many variations of this can be used.

I don't outline spawn camping mitigation tactics specifically because there are so many possibilities here there isn't much point. Pick your poison. PGI could simply choose the current tactic of having your dropships defend your spawn. I'd think turrets would be a better option here, since those could prevent encampment in the first place, which is infinitely more helpful.

I've also thought it might be fun to try different spawn methods than what exist in the game. Having a sort of underground bunker with an elevator that brings your mech to the surface and pushes you out from inside a mech repair and refit hangar on the map might be pretty cool. It'd be a bit like the reverse of dropping from a dropship, and might actually make a lot more sense for initial defender spawns on some maps. You'd also be guaranteed protection for your mech on 3 sides on initial spawn, and cover for a bit so you can get your bearings. Just an idea.

Your proposal is an interesting one, and something I've thought about myself in the past. My only concern with such a system is that it's tailor-made for a more fast-paced game and would work best with an ebb-and-flow pacing best served by continuous respawns. With a mere 4 "lives" for 12 players per side, there might not be enough match flow to let that sort of system really get legs in a MWO match. If we had more players per side, or more "lives" I think it'd play a much greater factor in matches than MWO would let it have.

I wonder if we might be able to get a more grande-scale mode some day that would really make use of such a system. Big battles with some real give-and-take going on. That would be pretty awesome.

[darthJaeger]

Rampage, on 31 July 2016 - 11:13 AM, said:

Nice presentation. I could see a similar type staged battle for a planet by using the present QP maps with the existing Invasion maps already in FP.

Example - Cold Planet
Stage 1 - Scouting
Drop on Alpine Peak to scout for intel and get whatever the Scouting award turns out to be.
Stage 2 - Invasion
Drop on Boreal Vault with a FP Drop Deck to establish a foothold for the invasion. Take out cannon.
Stage 3 - Domination
Drop on Frozen City to control home base for the invasion forces
Stage 4 - Conquest
Drop on Polar Highland where the invasion force is confronted by defenders in open battle and tries to secure key resource hubs.
Stage 5 - New Assault
Drop on Alpine Peaks to secure enemy base and subdue defenders.

Attackers must succeed in every mode to secure planet. For either side that fails a Stage can be replayed once during an attack phase and then the invasion must continue to advance or the defenders may be able to force the previous stage to be replayed to force the invaders off the planet.

If neither side completes all the stages before the end of the attack phase then the planet will be scored as contested and the next attack phase will begin at Stage 3 and continue until the invasion is either repelled by the defenders or the invaders triumph and complete all the stages.

The advantage to this type of planetary campaign is that it would use existing assets that are already in game. Some logistical links from one stage to the next and planet status would be the only additional coding requirements.

Existing maps would be themed together to give the planet a distinct personality.

This could be a great scenario for another community lead tournament !

[ScarecrowES]

A bit sad, really, that the community seems to put more time and energy into developing ways to improve the game than the actual devs do.

In fairness though - I suppose - there are a lot more of us than there are of them, and we have the luxury of not having to spend our time actually keeping the game flowing.

Still, if PGI would turn an eye to topics like this one and so many others we've posted over the years, their path forward might have been smoother and more satisfying for devs and players alike.

[zagibu]

This rush game mode reminds me of Far Cry's assault mode. We still play it on LAN parties from time to time, and it's always a blast on the Mango River map.

[Malleus011]

Bump.

Love to see this happen, or at least get commented upon by the Dev team.

[ScarecrowES]

Well... I've sent the topic to Russ, but I am almost sure he doesn't read player mail. I hadn't thought to send it to Tina. I should probably do that.

But I'm very keen to get this looked at. There seems to be a fair deal of positive support.

[Rebas Kradd]

ScarecrowES, on 10 August 2016 - 03:44 PM, said:

A lot of that will depend on the theme of a give map. My intent was for maps to feel like real, distinct mission spaces. A lot of that means making design decisions based on what's right for that map.

Well, that's what I'm saying - if every map needs a separate design approach, that's multiplying the work. Whereas if you find some setup that can be applied to any map regardless of terrain or objectives (like, say, my idea of fighting over spawns themselves), that really does save them a lot of work.

ScarecrowES, on 10 August 2016 - 03:44 PM, said:

How do we make it so an attacking team can't rush past defenders and go right to the end stage? In much the same way FP works now, for one... the next objective can't be tackled until the previous one is done. Can't even attack the orbital cannon unless the O-gens are destroyed. That's the simplest means. You could also set following stages as out-of-bounds areas. Cheap, but effective. Stage shifts can be accompanied by a set of defender turrets that activate on the transition to the next stage that will cover the defenders' retreat and slows the attacking team down. This is an artificial, but totally plausible, means of controlling match flow, and many variations of this can be used. I don't outline spawn camping mitigation tactics specifically because there are so many possibilities here there isn't much point. Pick your poison.

But these artificial things are already a source of criticism for PGI's current Invasion mode. "Gates and access hatches that open when DEPRIVED of power? How does that make sense?" It's exactly the thing we're trying to address, coming up with stage mechanics that are sensible and organic to a battlefield instead of counterintuitive and a creative punt.

Turrets aren't such a bad idea, but they're unlikely to be much good against deathballs. They'd be much more effective against smaller groups, which again, two of your stages aren't promoting.

ScarecrowES, on 10 August 2016 - 03:44 PM, said:

I've also thought it might be fun to try different spawn methods than what exist in the game. Having a sort of underground bunker with an elevator that brings your mech to the surface and pushes you out from inside a mech repair and refit hangar on the map might be pretty cool. It'd be a bit like the reverse of dropping from a dropship, and might actually make a lot more sense for initial defender spawns on some maps. You'd also be guaranteed protection for your mech on 3 sides on initial spawn, and cover for a bit so you can get your bearings. Just an idea.

All great stuff, although again, it's kind of a doohickey add-on rather than an embedded part of your gamemode proposal.

ScarecrowES, on 10 August 2016 - 03:44 PM, said:

Your proposal is an interesting one, and something I've thought about myself in the past. My only concern with such a system is that it's tailor-made for a more fast-paced game and would work best with an ebb-and-flow pacing best served by continuous respawns. With a mere 4 "lives" for 12 players per side, there might not be enough match flow to let that sort of system really get legs in a MWO match. If we had more players per side, or more "lives" I think it'd play a much greater factor in matches than MWO would let it have. I wonder if we might be able to get a more grande-scale mode some day that would really make use of such a system. Big battles with some real give-and-take going on. That would be pretty awesome.

I think it would probably work with lights and mediums opening the battle.

Edited by Rebas Kradd, 11 August 2016 - 01:58 PM.

[ScarecrowES]

A lot of good game design is making artificial impositions seem plausible in-context. In fact, the originator of Rush, as well as the modes that spawned it, never really give much reason why the sudden destruction of a given mcguffin should suddenly be enough reason for a defending force to just abandon that position. Or why, once a match moves forward to a new stage, why defenders can't push the attackers back to the previous one. So on. I don't know if it's absolutely necessary to have iron-clad and completely real impositions, as long as the impositions you DO have allow for suspension of disbelief.

Perhaps in the heat of battle, if given a reason you can't go to a particular place that the player can shrug off at worst, this reason is more than enough.

I think some of the difficulty in current Invasion with the gates and such... the impositions don't seem plausible. Every single planet we're fighting over has an orbital cannon supported by some gens trapped behind at least one gate with a poorly positioned power supply? There's artificial, and then there's that. Perhaps if the "gate" made more sense in the context of the map, it wouldn't seem so out of place? Just some food for thought there.

To an earlier point, about different maps having different objectives adding significant work... certainly it'd be more work than all maps having the exact same objective. But likely no more work than a single map having to support 5 different game modes and still function correctly and fairly in all 5 modes. This is the case with our current Quick Play maps, with each one having to support Skirmish, Conquest, Assault, Domination, and Scouting. I don't imagine the work involved in my idea is any more difficult than that required for QP maps. Though, admittedly, the scope is larger and requires a greater deal of creativity.

[ComradeHavoc]

COME ON DEVS

[ScarecrowES]

OH... and I wanted to add... on the idea of essentially "fighting over spawns."

Battlefield has a few maps where the traditionally open-map Conquest mode is focused to a mere 3 conquest cap points on a narrow map. This puts all 3 objectives in a linear alignment... cap A on the "attacker" side, C on the "defender" side, and B in the middle of the map. Teams start at their end of the map, and Conquest plays out. The interesting thing here is that each team always starts the match being able to cap their closest cap point and the fighting mainly focuses on the middle one, but there is a great tug-of-war that goes on.

Often, while one team is focusing on capping or holding the central objective, the other can sneak behind and take that team's near-side cap, changing the focus of the battle entirely. It's a very interesting dynamic, and one of my favorite variations on standard Conquest. Similar to ladder-style modes. Whenever I hear the "fighting over spawns" concept, I think of this. I tend to like the implementation of this mode quite a lot too.

Edited by ScarecrowES, 11 August 2016 - 04:12 PM.

[ComradeHavoc]

COME ON DEVS

[ScarecrowES]

ComradeHavoc, on 11 August 2016 - 04:49 PM, said:

COME ON DEVS

Right?

[J0anna]

Very good ideas, and very similar to what I hoped FW would be. PGI (Russ) keeps saying that MWO is a niche game. Well if his vision is endless QP matches, he's certainly right. Not only will it always be a niche game, it will be a dead niche game.

Without meaningful FW, MWO lacks "staying power". The lore/history is always what set BT apart from other games. Imagine if FW was like fighting the final battle in "The Price of Glory". How much more people would get out of it. If I were in PGI's position, I would realize that if FW was really MWO's "endgame", it has to be something the majority of players eventually want to be a part of. Right now. it's not.

Something you mentioned, immersion, is very lacking in this game. Sure the mechs have a sense of immersion, but the universe has none. PGI has consistently dropped the ball by excluding lore from their game, and their window of opportunity to recover from this shortfall is about to slam shut. If you think for one second that Jordan Weisman isn't going to wrap the new Battletech game HEAVILY in lore and history, you're deluding yourself. His passion for Battletech is very obvious, the man IS Battletech. The gameplay is significantly different, but the new BT game is competing with MWO and whoever can tap into the passion that BT players have, will hold the majority of us.

[ScarecrowES]

J0anna, on 12 August 2016 - 04:04 PM, said:

Very good ideas, and very similar to what I hoped FW would be. PGI (Russ) keeps saying that MWO is a niche game. Well if his vision is endless QP matches, he's certainly right. Not only will it always be a niche game, it will be a dead niche game.

Without meaningful FW, MWO lacks "staying power". The lore/history is always what set BT apart from other games. Imagine if FW was like fighting the final battle in "The Price of Glory". How much more people would get out of it. If I were in PGI's position, I would realize that if FW was really MWO's "endgame", it has to be something the majority of players eventually want to be a part of. Right now. it's not.

Something you mentioned, immersion, is very lacking in this game. Sure the mechs have a sense of immersion, but the universe has none. PGI has consistently dropped the ball by excluding lore from their game, and their window of opportunity to recover from this shortfall is about to slam shut. If you think for one second that Jordan Weisman isn't going to wrap the new Battletech game HEAVILY in lore and history, you're deluding yourself. His passion for Battletech is very obvious, the man IS Battletech. The gameplay is significantly different, but the new BT game is competing with MWO and whoever can tap into the passion that BT players have, will hold the majority of us.

I know I repeat it a lot throughout my proposal, but I do that specifically to emphasize the importance of it to an overall theme of my proposal... I want matches in FP to be presented to the player in such a way that it FEELS like you're on an actual mission with real stakes for your faction.

Immersion is all illusion and trickery, really. Shooters are all based on a very small set of gameplay concepts. In the end, you're just moving around and shooting at things - all pretend. In the most amazing shooters, this is enough. However, "enough" is rarely enough to satisfy people, even when the core systems are perfect. We all like to have a reason to do these things that satisfies our higher level needs. We like to know why we are there, doing what we're doing. We want continuous feedback and some notion of significance to our actions that lends them weight and meaning.

It is actually remarkably easy to lend this sort of gravity to what is ostensibly a series of meaningless actions. One of the best ways is through story. This is one of the most important parts, I think, of the proposal I outline, and the reason I repeat it often... from the map themes and designs, to the objective types and implementations, and including intro/outro cutscenes and in-match VO - I want each scenario to tell a story.

I want each match to begin with an intro cutscene that shows you what you're fighting over and why. Much of this would be done similar to your intro in the Academy - a combo of in-mech HUD Picture-in-Picture VO and mission briefing video. Match progress should be conveyed through VO, HUD vid/briefings, etc. Transitions from stage to stage should be ushered in with fanfare and triggered events, and each new stage should come with briefings to explain what you're to be doing next. Match results should produce an outro that shows the aftermath of your victory or defeat. All of this should be presented to the player in a way that is appropriate to their faction, with, at a minumum, a difference in dialog for Clan and IS pilots.

None of this is particularly difficult or costly to do. Certainly more costly than not doing it at all... if you feel immersion isn't necessary. I think most players here... Battletech veterans among the group... would disagree with the notion that we can have our Battletech without the story of battle. I'm quite keen to put at least SOME story in there. I'm quite adamant that the expense is well worth it.

Edited by ScarecrowES, 12 August 2016 - 06:52 PM.

[ComradeHavoc]

No but seriously this would breath fresh life into an old game.

[J0anna]

ScarecrowES, on 12 August 2016 - 06:50 PM, said:

<<snip>>

Well said, and as for another idea for a series of FW battles, it wouldn't be battletech without a fight for and discovery of a Star League Weapons cache or base, even a ruined one.