23 replies to this topic

[Anjian]

A new era of the Seen no longer Unseen shall begin?

Saw this on the Battletech Facebook page.


It mentions PGI and HBS. The suit against CGL has been dropped.


You also get this image of the Marauder right there. Is the picture worth a thousand words?

[The Lighthouse]

Yes, actually that picture tells far more than the facebook post itself, or any other documents except that stipulation, answering the nature of the result of the lawsuit.

[Ragnar44331]

I want to see a full Mechwarrior game. I want to see ground units and Elemental now. I just hope this will happen now its all over.

[Ted Wayz]

Does this mean PGI can finally make MWO a Battle Tech game?

Seriously, Catalyst games mentions Battle Tech three times in their statement and each mention just turned the knife deeper.

[C E Dwyer]

Frankly, for all the time, money, and frustration, unless we get, unseen, from all the above mentioned game developers.

It will still in the end leave us pretty much before the law suit started.

[HammerMaster]

It's just a shame that with population down and all the feels I get for MWO being at the end of it's life. Unseen would bring a HUGE drop of $ from all of us die hards.

Edited by HammerMaster, 30 June 2018 - 09:11 AM.

[KoalaBrownie]

Ted Wayz, on 30 June 2018 - 07:57 AM, said:

Does this mean PGI can finally make MWO a Battle Tech game?

Seriously, Catalyst games mentions Battle Tech three times in their statement and each mention just turned the knife deeper.

Not sure what you mean. Mechwarrior Battletech, just different names mate

[Koniving]

KoalaBrownie, on 30 June 2018 - 09:44 AM, said:

Not sure what you mean. Mechwarrior Battletech, just different names mate

Not quite...


Mechwarrior is the Battletech RPG turned into a shooter and stripped of all of its RPG elements aside from playing the role of a pilot in a story, or in the case of MWO, in an arena shooter.

Battletech is the tabletop game and universe in which mechwarrior is set in, rich in lore, with combined arms in which mechs are supposedly reasonably rare compared to all the other forces on the field...

So a game in which you could also play as infantry, tank drivers, aerotech pilots, battle in space, yank the hatch open on an enemy mech, kill the pilot and then use it to fight your enemies...
In other words: Living Legends, or Star Citizen in BT universe, or.. Classic Battletech.

As for PGI making one... MW5 will determine whether I have any faith in PGI's ability to produce a real game.

Edited by Koniving, 30 June 2018 - 09:59 AM.

[KoalaBrownie]

Koniving, on 30 June 2018 - 09:56 AM, said:

Not quite...

Mechwarrior is the Battletech RPG turned into a shooter and stripped of all of its RPG elements aside from playing the role of a pilot in a story, or in the case of MWO, in an arena shooter.

Not actually true, Mechwarrior is the Battletech game turned into a simulation where you control a mercenary unit, hire pilots, buy and sell mechs, take on contracts, follow clues, and interact with text-based story events to avenge the murder of your family. The game came out in 1989 and was developed by Dynamix, published by Activision.

Some of its sequels adopt the format you describe, or retained the ability to manage a mercenary outfit.

Koniving, on 30 June 2018 - 09:56 AM, said:

Battletech is the tabletop game and universe in which mechwarrior is set in, rich in lore, with combined arms in which mechs are supposedly reasonably rare compared to all the other forces on the field...

So a game in which you could also play as infantry, tank drivers, aerotech pilots, battle in space, yank the hatch open on an enemy mech, kill the pilot and then use it to fight your enemies...
In other words: Living Legends, or Star Citizen in BT universe, or.. Classic Battletech.

Battletech isn't a combined arms games. It's a game about mechs with combined arms elements. Before fans got a hold of its development, most of the units you're describing were absolute fodder. Infantry in particular died en mass to pretty much any attack. Tanks were more durable but would explode with any critical hit.

When fans took over development, they "buffed" many of these units but the heaviest vehicles will still succumb to an LB 10-X attack on their side. Infantry still die quickly, just not as quick. Aerospace fighters are strong but will fly straight into the ground and explode at the fail of a single piloting roll. I don't see how playing anything but a mechwarrior would be at all entertaining unless the game were to heavily deviate from the actual game mechanics of table top.

You can't actually shoot a pilot and commandeer his mech in the middle of the battle either. Every pilot needs to get their neurohelmet calibrated to the machine which takes a couple of hours.

And Star Citizen? That boondoggle is not a project to strive for. They've got a world of money but thus far have failed to deliver on the promised vision after many years of development. Their recent hour of "gameplay" for Squadron 42 from a few months back looked like a walking simulator in space.


If you want a game, you need to define some reasonable sense of scope. Like a First-Person Mechwarrior game with procedural generated maps & missions, free roaming travel and mission/planet hubs that you can walk around. Maybe with vehicles you can hire for support, or as OpFor, but not to pilot.

Edited by KoalaBrownie, 30 June 2018 - 11:12 AM.

[Koniving]

KoalaBrownie, on 30 June 2018 - 10:56 AM, said:

Not actually true, Mechwarrior is the Battletech game turned into a simulation where you control a mercenary unit, hire pilots, buy and sell mechs, take on contracts, follow clues, and interact with text-based story events to avenge the murder of your family. The game came out in 1989 and was developed by Dynamix, published by Activision.

Some of its sequels adopt the format you describe, or retained the ability to manage a mercenary outfit.

(Based on the first two Battletech PC games, based on the Mechwarrior RPG of 1986..)

Quote

Battletech isn't a combined arms games. It's a game about mechs with combined arms elements. Before fans got a hold of its development, most of the units you're describing were absolute fodder. Infantry in particular died en mass to pretty much any attack. Tanks were more durable but would explode with any critical hit.

Citytech is where vehicles are first introduced after Battledroids and Battletech second edition, while the lore was still in its infancy.
I used to go there for much of the rules and to be honest, without getting into the Clix game or AlphaStrike, so looking Battletech, "Classic Battletech", Total Warfare, TacOps, etc...

Not much has really ever changed. Tanks don't explode easily. They do get tracked easily, actually most vehicles have that issue. But nothing really goes boom easily unless you net a hit on the ammo,but your mech is almost as likely to do the same.

[KoalaBrownie]

Koniving, on 30 June 2018 - 11:38 AM, said:

(Based on the first two Battletech PC games, based on the Mechwarrior RPG of 1986..)

Yes but your description of the game was based on MW2 not the original game.

Koniving, on 30 June 2018 - 11:38 AM, said:

Not much has really ever changed. Tanks don't explode easily.

Yes they do. From the side every tank will take critical side damage 12% of the time and even two of those crits will disable the tank and any energy weapons (while the first crit will make the tank useless next turn). This is true unless the tank has side weapons, which the vast majority of tanks do not. One large-sized LB-X weapon or a couple of SRM packs will knock most tanks out of the fight immediately or turn them into pillboxes.

Prior to total warfare, a vehicle's crit table for any critical hit was:
1 - No actions for two turns
2 - Main Weapon jam one turn
3 - No movement rest of game
4 - Crew dead
5 - Vehicle explodes
6 - Vehicle explodes
For VTOLs, sub #1 for another Crew dead

Crit chances were only 5% of the table but when they happened, the vehicle was gone more often than not.

Koniving, on 30 June 2018 - 11:38 AM, said:

They do get tracked easily, actually most vehicles have that issue. But nothing really goes boom easily unless you net a hit on the ammo,but your mech is almost as likely to do the same.

Not even remotely true.

Hovertanks have a 10% chance to be completely crippled from any hit on the front, from the side the chance to become immobile is 21% from ANY HIT the vehicle takes. No wait, actually 25% if you count side criticals and assume no side weapons which is more often than not the case. If a hovertank got hit on the side by an SRM-6 (with 4 missiles) there's only a 31% chance it wouldn't be immobile after damage resolution.

Wheeled vehicles are much the same. Tracked are a bit better, but being subject to more attacks they wont last much longer.

Just imagine playing MWO and being in a mech which is legged after the first volley hits you almost every time. That's what playing in a lot of vehicles is like in tabletop.


As for the boom? Actual explosions? No. But put out of the fight? Yes. And I said, hit a vehicle on the side and will lose its engine very quickly.

Edited by KoalaBrownie, 30 June 2018 - 12:21 PM.

[MechaBattler]

They should be thanking PGI. Since HBS ducked out earlier. PGI was going to be the one taking it on the chin if it went wrong.

[Spheroid]

@Koala: Don't forget the inferno rules either. Any vehicle making an inferno induced heat check had a 54% chance of outright destruction each and every turn it was burning.

The old BattleTech rules were brutal for all unit types that were not mechs. They were inarguably the true kings of the battlefield. That is simply no longer the case.

Edited by Spheroid, 30 June 2018 - 12:48 PM.

[Der Geisterbaer]

KoalaBrownie, on 30 June 2018 - 10:56 AM, said:

Not actually true, Mechwarrior is the Battletech game turned into a simulation where you control a mercenary unit, hire pilots, buy and sell mechs, take on contracts, follow clues, and interact with text-based story events to avenge the murder of your family. The game came out in 1989 and was developed by Dynamix, published by Activision.

Not that it would matter much, but the MechWarrior pen & paper roleplaying game that served as the basis for said computer game was released in 1986. So no, the Mechwarrior game was not really the Battletech game turned into a "simulation" but rather the digital form of the previously established role playing game that happened to play in the vaster Battletech universe and took it down to individual protagonist levels in a manner similar to the Battletech novels that provided a closer look at events of the overall story arc.

KoalaBrownie, on 30 June 2018 - 10:56 AM, said:

And Star Citizen? That boondoggle is not a project to strive for. They've got a world of money but thus far have failed to deliver on the promised vision after many years of development. Their recent hour of "gameplay" for Squadron 42 from a few months back looked like a walking simulator in space.

You might want to reconsider some of the things you're saying there. Just look at the recent Cyberpunkt 2077 unveiling. That thing has been longer in development than Star Citizen. The presented stuff was explicitly also just "alpha" and you can't expect to see that game before late 2019 or more likely 2020 (which would actually make a whole lot of sense since the game is based on the pen & paper roleplaying game Cyberpunk 2020 ).

Other major titles have had longer development times than the 6 years that Star Citizen is going now, so nothing completely out of whack there either. The key difference is that with the crowdfunding the game's development was/is publically known from the get go where traditional development would most likely have announced it either last year or even just now.

Heck, there even were and are games with similar budgets that didn't have to show much after the same development times.

Will Star Citizen ultimately deliver? Who knows!? But at least be decent enough to criticize based on things that can be compared instead of just trying to use the different development approach in order to create a false dilemma.

Edited by Der Geisterbaer, 30 June 2018 - 01:59 PM.

[Tordin]

Its truly over? If curbstompingly true that HG will never hinder or infest the progress of Battletech ever again, well then, great!

[Ted Wayz]

Spheroid, on 30 June 2018 - 12:46 PM, said:

@Koala: Don't forget the inferno rules either. Any vehicle making an inferno induced heat check had a 54% chance of outright destruction each and every turn it was burning.

The old BattleTech rules were brutal for all unit types that were not mechs. They were inarguably the true kings of the battlefield. That is simply no longer the case.

There was a reason for this somewhat mentioned above. The non mech units were not cannon fodder, they were replenish-able. The mechs less so.

The day repair was removed from MWO signaled the departure from Battletech. PGI has avoided making a Battletech game, first under the guise of difficulty but now with no pretense whatsoever. It is now clear the intent was to make a arena twitch shooter with the dream of it becoming an e-sport from the start.

This despite numerous suggestions from the community which could have been easily implemented. Faction warfare should have been the game, not a sideline.

Now that HG is handled maybe we will eventually get what we want. Just not from PGI.

[Der Geisterbaer]

Ted Wayz, on 30 June 2018 - 02:10 PM, said:

The day repair was removed from MWO signaled the departure from Battletech.

Sorry, but that's just not true. Repair / Rearm were always elements of the campaign rules for Battletech which were and still are an optional extension. Standard Battletech games never required any of that.

Edited by Der Geisterbaer, 30 June 2018 - 03:06 PM.

[Verilligo]

Ted Wayz, on 30 June 2018 - 02:10 PM, said:

There was a reason for this somewhat mentioned above. The non mech units were not cannon fodder, they were replenish-able. The mechs less so.

The day repair was removed from MWO signaled the departure from Battletech. PGI has avoided making a Battletech game, first under the guise of difficulty but now with no pretense whatsoever. It is now clear the intent was to make a arena twitch shooter with the dream of it becoming an e-sport from the start.

This despite numerous suggestions from the community which could have been easily implemented. Faction warfare should have been the game, not a sideline.

Now that HG is handled maybe we will eventually get what we want. Just not from PGI.

MWO is not a twitch shooter by any definition of the term, unless you mean "a game that is streamed on Twitch." I'm not sure what this attachment to repair and rearm is, though. It's not a system you actually engage in and creates gameplay, it's purely a punishment system to discourage certain types of gameplay. Yes, that's more "sim-like" and increases difficulty, but it isn't fun difficulty. It's just an annoyance.

[Tetatae Squawkins]

KoalaBrownie, on 30 June 2018 - 10:56 AM, said:

Battletech isn't a combined arms games.

Nah. Even Battledroids had vehicles and infantry.

[Brenden]

Can.... Does this mean I'll have my original Shadow Hawk again?