Posted 20 December 2011 - 08:11 PM
Bear with me here, you're in for a ramble. I swear, I get to the point eventually. A summary however is available at the end. My thanks in advance to the four people who will read this through.
Personally I've only played MW4:Mercs and have no experience with any of the other mechlabs, but I loved MW4s. I really did. The cheap config swapping has seen me spend many hours without playing a single match. I'm an avid customizer in all systems - I play Warhammer 40,000, have done for 8 years, and I've never played a canon army (Ie, The Imperial Fists Space Marines chapter, or the Saim-hann Eldar) or a typical configuration of an army (My Eldar (The 'Space Elf' army) for example don't use tonnes of elite troops or fast LAVs, I use many conscript militia troops and tanks instead). Continuing the 40k ramble, I have always stormed up my own characters and factions etc and thrown them into the mix. I simply am never quite satisfied without putting my own spin on things.
Even with the MW4:Mercs campaign, I actually attempt to RP my unit on occasion. My current playthrough has me playing a Steiner loyalist, taking contracts where he can to get the most money, to buy more mechs and hire more pilots. I'm nearing the end of the game, and have nearly every pilot hired, over a full company of mechs in a mix of chassis' (I even managed to get through the Hesperus II Mechworks defence mission using only 2 assaults, the rest using mediums and heavies) and carry them all around despite the massive c-bill drain from all these things I never use, because in the playthrough 'Spectre' is trying to get as many rough and ready mechwarriors together to help save House Steiner from total defeat, to get that little bit of extra power at their disposal.
I went mental when I read the first dev blogs, promising that MercCorps could influence the course of action, mech customization was in, and (I can't remember if this was in the blogs or a rumour I fell in love with) that MercCorps could take over their own planets(And presumably kit them out to some degree, á la McCarron's Armoured Cavalry for example). The degree of customization dazzled me. Immediately I began dreaming about putting together a MercCorp of friends (coming up on double company strength, 29 of us at last count) and slowly expanding as the game progresses, possibly managing to take our own planet, forming our own minifaction (Á la St. Ives, assuming I read their background right), and a dozen other such things.
Reverting this ramble back on track to mechlabs, it would devastate me to be forced to use only stock variants. Even if refit kits are bought and sold, I would swiftly stop playing from the disappointment. Suddenly a huge chunk of customization is cut. A further example (Please continue to bear with me).
Now I won't lie, I have been a boater. To a degree I still am. In my Davion playthrough, I have 4 Behemoth(Stone Rhino)s stomping around followed by 4 Daishi(Dire Wolves)s (I'm simply not good enough to play anything smaller on elite mode. Why I chose elite I do not know, but I'm too stubborn to give up.). My Daishis are currently kitted with 3 Clan Gauss, and 2 Light PPCs for uber range support. In my defence, I changed them to this after I realized the second lance will always trail around at 400m+ from the enemy unless I myself get right in amongst them. I made the change purely for gameplay benefits. I have had a variant with 4 clan ER Med lasers and 3 AC20s on the Daishis before (which was hysterical, I enjoyed it far more than I should).
However, even playing against my flatmates rather than the AI, I easily take these boats out with my Behemoths 1-1, with a K/D of around 2.5-1. My Behemoths are kitted out much more reasonably, with 2 AC-10s in the chest, 2 Light PPCs in the arms, a Clan ER Med laser on the dorsal gun, and 2 Clan ER Small lasers under the cockpit. I still fit LAMS, but I have had to cut the jumpjets, so they are much less manoeuvrable, which has led to me getting cut to pieces by Mad Cats.
In short, when playing against humans on the more interesting maps of the Mektek packs, rather than the open planes of the coliseum from vanilla mercs, boats get pulverised by skilled and intelligent players. That cannot, and will not ever change.
I welcome it! I welcome the fools who endeavour to try!
Now I've never actually read any of the battletech books (Barring an short novella that came with the wolfman-X mod of MechCommander II [Note: *That* mechlab, though fun, was stupid. I do not want it for anything other than arbitrary skirmish mode], which I don't really think counts) but I have trawled the sarna.net wiki to death. I am not a loremaster by a long shot, but I do have a general grounding (Or so I'd like to think). However, the wiki, MC2, and MW4 are full of ***** commanders and demented characters with their own personal tastes and whims. They're full of mad geniuses, or brilliant warriors gifted unique mechs. Look under unique mechs on the wiki. Kai Allard Liao's Yen-Lo-Wang anyone?
I want that. I want the ability to do that. Hell, I want the option to over or undertonne a mech at whim, just to see what I can do with it.
The long awaited summary:
Sure, the mechlab is an add-on for games. But it's a very important one. It allows gamers to create their own unique mechs, that already exist in the fluff. It is merely a means to an end. Yes, there will always be boats. Yes, there will be some seriously stupid mechs out there. The boats will score some cheap wins. You will wonder what ***** though putting 3 AC20s, 2 Light gauss rifles with no extra ammo and nearly no armour on a Daishi was a good idea.
BUT those mechs will be useless in the face of skilled competition. The Behemoth I mentioned above is designed to wreak havoc on any assault or heavy. It is magnificent at it's job. It is however, atrocious at killing aircraft, vehicles, and any mech that can go above 50/60 mph. Unless I have a couple of skilled players watching my back, I'll get obliterated.
Wait a minute, there's that teamwork and coordination thing the devs wanted.
A mechlab will add boats and variants that can limit a mechwarrior's dependance on allies. But there is no way to design a competitive mech that can scout, and tank, and shoot, and manoeuvre, and the list goes on. It is not possible. A team of randoms who try may get some fluke victories against skilled players, they may get some steamrolling successes against a fresh, inexperienced or experimenting team.
But I cannot help but think that ultimately a mechlab, of a similar vein to the MW4 system (All I have to base experience on, it does need some tweaks, hold on, I do have some ideas for this!) can only help to aid the aim that the devs want - teamwork, role warfare, and so on. Find me a single mech that was not built with an intent to perform a job, or a variant designed to enable it to do a new one, or it's old one better. It doesn't exist. The players who boat will be ultimately outclassed by those who endeavour to design a mech with a purpose.
The Idea:
I'm not a starry eyed romantic. I'm a games development student at the University of Abertay (I mention this because it is noted for the 'standard of excellence' of it's games courses. I mention this not to brag, I'm certainly nowhere near the top of my class, but to shameless advertise the institution that allows me to ramble like this and not just look like an ***** with nothing but a list of petty demands). I have thought this over, even as I rambled. The goal here is to create a mechlab that prohibits but does not eliminate the ability to create boats, is difficult but not impossible to use, and allows the maximum of customization with the minimum of imbalance. Here are my own ideas for the mechlab.
In six stages:
Purchaseable Variants.
Slot limits.
Mass values.
Heat sink and ammo locations, heat/location.
Further customization.
Exponential customization and maintenance costs.
First and foremost, purchaseable variants. Any variant produced by your faction may be bought at will, or if a MercCorp, acquired through a market. This keeps *everyone* happy. The newbies get a place to start, the customizers get ideas and again a starting point, and the age old fans get all the shiny toys they know and love.
Secondly, hard point customization similar to MW4. Using the MW4 system as a starting point, with all the same hardpoint types, make the following edits:
Slot limits: Each hardpoint fits 1 gun. It may be a bigger or smaller gun, but it fits one gun. You can replace your Hunchback's AC-20 with a machine gun if you want, I love you for it you machiavellian ******* who knows where everyone is shooting, but you can only stick one of them on it.
Mass/hardpoint: An arrow IV takes up a lot more space than an SRM, as well as weighing less. By the same measure, a 20mm Flak 38 autocannon takes up a lot more space than an MG34. Add mass values to weapons, ammo, heatsinks etc, and mass capacities to hardpoints.
Ammo and Heatsink locations, heat values/location: Specify the location of your heatsinks and ammo. Your Arrow IV thunderbolt cannot load missiles the size of a smart car into it's arm from it's torso in safety or efficiency. If you have 20 heatsinks in your mech torso, you're keeping it nice and chilly - but the Clan ER Large Pulse on your arm is still pumping out the heat in spades. You must keep all locations cool, or the location that overheats explodes, even if your whole mech doesn't go. This can easily be kept track of in game by messages such as 'Left/right arm/torso/dorsal gun/etc overheated, shutting down weapon system' and then following them through. As per mech overheating, override them at will - and your own peril.
Increased customization: Engine types, exoskeleton types, everything in the lore. Add it in, load it up, change it about. See what happens.
Exponential customization and maintenance costs. A time requirement for customization in MW:O will only serve to detract from the experience of all but the most dedicated roleplayer. I agree with it if major events are ongoing (If the Battle of Tukkiyad is being fought and after coming out of a match you decide you can take a Hellbringer much easier if you swapped some things around, I'd listen to arguments that you shouldn't be able to reconfigure things and jump back in. On the other hand, it's a game, not reality, and I wanna use my new toy naow!) in theory, but as a standard feature, it would only drive players away. Instead, have an exponential cost of upgrades, that stacks. You want to replace your ferrofibrous armour with endo steel? Go for it. Cost of the Endo Steel is say, 1 million c-bills. However, you now have a very different mech, making the existing systems less familiar to the technicians. Endo steel is a pretty major refit, so say the mech has a multiplier of +1.0 from it. This means your next upgrade will cost twice it's normal cost. So if you want to swap out your Hunchback's AC-20 for an LBX AC-20, you're still paying twice as much. Straight weapon swaps like swapping a 3 slot ballistic weapon for another 3 slot ballistic will have a low modifier, but if you want to tuck in that machine gun array from earlier, sure it's a lot smaller system but what do the techs do with all that empty space? How do they keep it in place while you're getting knocked around? That's a larger multiplier. Same with swapping out the hunchback's 3 slot ballistic hard point on the shoulder for say, a 2 slot beam with more space for heat sinks. That's a big multiplier. That hunchback is now decidedly nonstandard. Take this even further, and have the multipliers only add if you do all the conversions in one go. If you make another customization later, that's an even larger multiple. Obviously an eventual cap is needed, or even a way to go back (Swapping back to the 3 slot ballistic makes the design more familiar, and should therefore cost less). Maintenance also will cost more, again exponentially. I don't have an algorithm on hand, but I believe the idea is sound.
Thoughts?
Also, congrats if you did manage to read all that!
17
Nik Van Rhijn, on 20 December 2011 - 02:24 AM, said:
