199 replies to this topic

[Saved By The Bell]

If I did the game:

1) Repairs need money. So try hard not to die.
2) Losing side get so small money, so they barely able to repair.
3) Winning side get some money. But to buy medium mech or Err PPC you need to win many times.
4) Faction wars bring more rewards and sometimes very damaged mechs and weapons. Well like it was in old mercenaries, but much much harder to get.

All starting with one very cheap little mech. No free stuff.

There is no economic and its damaged the game. Drunk players get boring without goals and go another place.

[Thorqemada]

At first PGI tried to have R&R but the Tryhard Competetionists rallyed every vocal person to shout: R&R is no balance factor!

So PGI gave way and abandoned it...


I mean, games like EVE have a big part of economy and seem to use it for balancing as well as driving factor for player generated content and it does work well enough i guess to prove them right who say R&R is a balance/motivation factor.

Edited by Thorqemada, 30 January 2023 - 08:44 AM.

[sycocys]

IMO r&r was probably one of the best methods they had for build/drop balance.

Didn't need broken ecm - replacing 2k+ lrms is something you didn't want to do unless you were hyper efficient - using your own locks and tag/being near the team.

Repairing your assaults and heavies (especially with expensive engines/weapons) meant you were dropping in medium and lights for a few matches.

Was a shame they caved in and removed it.

[Thorqemada]

When you imagine what economy and logistics would have meant for Faction Warfare...

For example, waging a war and conquering planets is all well and good but at the same time your economy and logistics become strained as the ressources you have to move to an far away front becomes more expensive and slows down the restock.

So instead of having the usual avalanche of success effect cheap strategic games often end in it suddenly becomes harder to keep your forces fighting so even a superior force will have and obstacle to simply roll over an inferior force and the chance to fight back keeps players motivated to play on the inferior side instead of become winner-hopping.

Why would logisitics slow down with distance?
Bcs you have only a limited and if at all very slowly chaning number of Transport Ships that is dependent on even less Jump Ships.
Sure, you can require civil jump ships to work for your military but they then are not availale for your commerce.
So either your economy slows down or your military advance/restock slows down.

Or the next target to conquer is a hot planet - usually you would try cool running mechs that are ammunition based but you only get a certain number of ammunition so ammuniton becomes really expensive for your side as you try to buy it from other sources and it exhausts your finances.

You then can change your Mechs to energy based but now on that hot planet you have the backhand bcs you have only half the effective firepower of your enemy who has short logistic lines and can replenish his weapon and ammunition stocks with ease bcs i,e, half the distance means twice the number of deliveries for your opponent.

Suddenly you can try a new mission type also which is stockpile capture.

There is so much that has its roots in economy and logistics that can add to the gamepay and prevent negative avalanche effects...

Edited by Thorqemada, 30 January 2023 - 10:40 AM.

[sycocys]

Yeah, would have made a massive difference even with their short-sighted dota model for FP.

Still just hoping Russ wakes up and realizes that he has the potential to bring back the game to its better populations by making this a MW5 expansion type system where they already have many of the modes built, and the capability to get far more interesting than simply skirmish for gameplay.

Hell even if they wanted to be lazy and not increase it beyond 4v4 with calls for ai units (like air strikes but there you can use actual units on the field). Could far more easily split up the tonnage disparities that way, A mm only mixing 8 instead of 24 would be more effective and they can consider larger drops for more end game style/event missions.

[AEgg]

Der Geisterbaer, on 30 January 2023 - 12:22 AM, said:

You're essentially advocating for a Battlefield-Clone under the name of Battletech that has fundamentally nothing in common with the universe and / or the trappings that the name implies. Ask Microsoft and Mitch Gitleman how well yet another traditional FPS game under the Shadowrun brand name went.

12v12 or larger mech battles happen in-universe what, once or twice a decade? Mechs are the core part of Battletech, but they're never the only players, and most conflicts are dominated by a few, not an entire company. A game that pulls from the enormous back-catalog of in-universe units would be more like Battletech, not less. Battlefield is just the most well-known example of a successful combined-arms game. You'd obviously have to adjust things to make it work, the hardest question of course being 'everybody wants to pilot a mech (or maybe fly something)'. I never got into Living Legends but I heard it handled that pretty well.

The takeaway though, is not that I have the perfect design. It's that the current design is not anywhere near ideal, and a true sequel would need to make some big changes to succeed.

Edit:
On-topic to the more recent posts, R&R has a major 'pay to win' problem. If you can reduce or eliminate the grind with money, and the grind is used as a balancing factor, you are effectively buying power (e.g. WoT).

Edited by AEgg, 30 January 2023 - 04:33 PM.

[sycocys]

AEgg, on 30 January 2023 - 04:29 PM, said:

Edit:
On-topic to the more recent posts, R&R has a major 'pay to win' problem. If you can reduce or eliminate the grind with money, and the grind is used as a balancing factor, you are effectively buying power (e.g. WoT).

Other than the resistance crab(which shouldn't have been buffed further), and maybe a few platinum mechs I don't know which ones would be considered pay2win in any sort of meta build with r&r. most use expensive parts/engines and/or ammo which nullifies their ability gain even if they are up to par.

[Der Geisterbaer]

AEgg, on 30 January 2023 - 04:29 PM, said:

12v12 or larger mech battles happen in-universe what, once or twice a decade?

Despite the "humble" LOS-Tech beginnings with Grey Death novels revolving around encounters on just lance levels ...

AEgg, on 30 January 2023 - 04:29 PM, said:

Mechs are the core part of Battletech, but they're never the only players, and most conflicts are dominated by a few, not an entire company.

... pretty much anything beginning with and after the 4th Succession War involved at least mech groups at company size and above both in the accompanying fiction as well as the main table top sourcebooks. And while you are correct that Battlemechs aren't the only units involved they sure as hell are the main focus from narrative.

Now look at your original suggestion and notice that Battlefield-clone and notice that your idea - along with respawn - simply does not reflect that ... neither in mech quantities nor in narrative focus.

AEgg, on 30 January 2023 - 04:29 PM, said:

A game that pulls from the enormous back-catalog of in-universe units would be more like Battletech, not less.

You mean in-universe units that even in cases of mercenaries came had regiments worth of Battlemechs? Or those various House regiments?

AEgg, on 30 January 2023 - 04:29 PM, said:

Battlefield is just the most well-known example of a successful combined-arms game.

And you suggested cloning that game while promoting its gameplay ideas and thereby essentially making it "not Battletech" in every possible way in the vague hope of attracking players that are already very well entertained with the original and with a very good chance of alienating the actual core audience of anything called "Battletech" and only get marginal interest from those who already compromise with stuff like Living Legends.

AEgg, on 30 January 2023 - 04:29 PM, said:

The takeaway though, is not that I have the perfect design. It's that the current design is not anywhere near ideal, and a true sequel would need to make some big changes to succeed.

None of which include making yet another Battlefield clone or trying to invade into LL territory

*********************************************************************************

AEgg, on 30 January 2023 - 04:29 PM, said:

Edit:
On-topic to the more recent posts, R&R has a major 'pay to win' problem.

R&R also poses a serious skill gap problem where average and below players would regularly end up having to play cannon fodder in Lights and Mediums because they end up being unable to R&R mechs from the higher weight classes and you'D have to make sure that match earnings definitely ensure that a player can R&R their cannon fodder lights.

Considering the very common notion that heavies and assaults should represent the absolute pinacle on the battlefield in terms of power and lights and mediums should indeed be just cannon fodder only the best players would eventually rise high enough to field anything above lights and mediums. D A T A would certainly appreachiate that very much.

[AEgg]

Der Geisterbaer, on 31 January 2023 - 03:40 AM, said:

-snip-

I really don't see how having more than just mechs makes it not Battletech. MWO is the first video game adaptation that doesn't include tanks and helicopters, for example.

Respawning has no bearing on the source material in either direction. Respawns are used in games because you simply can't have large scale battles without them, both for technical and gameplay reasons. (Networking, map/team sizes, and objectives being meaningless as a few examples). Respawning can mean a bunch of different things too, from taking over an AI unit already on the field to falling in from the sky.

If you're latching onto mech quantities as a problem, realize I'm not trying to design a whole game here, numbers are irrelevant. For mechs to be the focus, there have to be things for them to be superior to. If everybody is in a mech, it's not really any different than everyone being infantry, it's still an even fight with everything you encounter, so there's nothing to convey the idea that mechs are anything special.

Der Geisterbaer, on 31 January 2023 - 03:40 AM, said:

You mean in-universe units that even in cases of mercenaries came had regiments worth of Battlemechs? Or those various House regiments?

I can't tell if this is serious or sarcasm, so to clear it up, 'units' clearly was used to refer to 'things', a mech, a tank, a rifle, etc. not a military unit.

I am not suggesting 'cloning' battlefield. I'm saying that it (historically, not recently) has a lot more potential as a starting point than the current MWO design does, particularly because of how good a fit it is for Battletech. We're talking theory here, not specific application. If my example had mentioned mechs as the basic unit and you control infantry or whatever else while waiting on your next mech to arrive, I'm guessing you wouldn't have jumped at it so quickly. Ignore the particulars, the important part is that what we have today is a starting point, not an end goal.

The mechlab, movement, controls, and combat in general in MWO is quite good. The game modes, maps, and game structure as a whole is almost nonexistent. Almost ten years in and the only game modes are still basically 'drop 24 mechs into an empty bowl and see what happens'.

[LordNothing]

just dont make it an f2p. id rather buy a new game every few years than pay for scraps in a game that sees little development over a decade. its also easier to attract population to a new game. all those people on the quit parade might come back for the next one.

Edited by LordNothing, 31 January 2023 - 07:32 PM.

[sycocys]

Honestly the only two reasons I'm back are because I got a new PC rig and wanted to try the game out again on it and because I got MW5 and realized how much cooler it would be if it was PvP which this is one of the few game ips that lends itself to pvp extremely well.

Would happily buy MWO2 on the unreal engine playing out those missions and whatever new created PvP challenge modes people can come up with. Being able to disable artillery and radar/ecm. Actually defending or attacking a base. Pillaging. Searching out players in their defended locations. Capturing a base then holding it against reinforcements. Can add in tank and vtol battles because why wouldn't you - and flying mechs as bad as they probably are people would purchase the packs/dlc for it.

Even if they made it only 4v4 it would be better than this game.

[Der Geisterbaer]

AEgg, on 31 January 2023 - 05:03 PM, said:

I really don't see how having more than just mechs makes it not Battletech.

Luckily I nowhere made the claim that "having more than just mechs is not Battletech" but I guess we're now going down fallacy lane with strawman arguments, aren't we?

AEgg, on 31 January 2023 - 05:03 PM, said:

MWO is the first video game adaptation that doesn't include tanks and helicopters, for example.

~cough~ You might want to educate yourself there again. Multiplayer BattleTech: 3025 had zero tanks and helicopters. The MechCommander titles in their unmodded versions had no tanks or helicopters beyond mission targets. While some of the various Mechwarrior (I to IV) titles featured some helicopters and tanks in the single player campaigns their multiplayer modes (provided they had one) usually did not include such combat units ... particularly not for players nor in numbers that really exceeded mech numbers to a noteworthy degree.

AEgg, on 31 January 2023 - 05:03 PM, said:

Respawning has no bearing on the source material in either direction.

I'd heavily disagree. From the various computer games back to the original table top the basic premise was and is: A destroyed unit is out of the currently ongoing conflict. So respawns most definitely alter the premise of the source materials both in terms of narrative and actual gameplay.

AEgg, on 31 January 2023 - 05:03 PM, said:

If you're latching onto mech quantities as a problem, realize I'm not trying to design a whole game here, numbers are irrelevant.

No, they are not irrelevant. You proposed a particular gameplay in line with Battlefield where the narrative focus and the numbers of heavy machinery is very different from Battletech's narrative and actual gameplay focus. While the latter indeed has combined arms, the focus of the various games are Battlemechs even if the foot notes mention conventional forces as well.

You also made the absolutely incorrect claim that in source material fights rarely occur(ed) with companies of mechs (I'll go into details again a bit further down).

AEgg, on 31 January 2023 - 05:03 PM, said:

For mechs to be the focus, there have to be things for them to be superior to. If everybody is in a mech, it's not really any different than everyone being infantry, it's still an even fight with everything you encounter, so there's nothing to convey the idea that mechs are anything special.

Battletech always described Battlemechs as the ultimate combat machines and the game originally didn't even have infantry or other vehicles. As such your claim that there is an actual need to have something to convey the idea of them being "special" is based on a false premise and leads to a logically correct but worthless conclusion.

Are there combined arms in Battletech? Yes, but unfortunately outside of very particular cases within the narrative those non-Mech units are usually nothing but a foot note.

AEgg, on 31 January 2023 - 05:03 PM, said:

I can't tell if this is serious or sarcasm, so to clear it up, 'units' clearly was used to refer to 'things', a mech, a tank, a rifle, etc. not a military unit.

There's no sarcasm involved at all. You tried to make the claim that Battletech rarely involves / involved battles at (mech) company strength (12 mechs per side) or above and I told you that reasonably well known mercenary outfits as well as house armies canonically actually had multiple mech regiments and mech battalions (and even greater structures like Mech brigades, divisions and corps up to the entire army itself) that mainly consisted of mechs. So 12v12 "scenarios" were and are actually quite common. Within the narrative (and actual table top gameplay) they regularly enter(ed) into combat at at least company size but more than often at regiment strengths and above with the beginning of the 4th Succession War (which somewhat contradicted the original Lostech premise). Did some of these regiments and battalions include other forms of vehicles and / or infantry as part of a sub element like a Regiment at Battalion size or the equivalent of a Company within a Regiment or a Lance within a Company? Yes, but usually they were outnumbered by actual mech Regiments / mech Companies / Mech Lances or were even just part of "extended" contingents where the mechs still were the dominant unit type.

AEgg, on 31 January 2023 - 05:03 PM, said:

I am not suggesting 'cloning' battlefield. I'm saying that it (historically, not recently) has a lot more potential as a starting point than the current MWO design does, particularly because of how good a fit it is for Battletech.

You certainly did suggest "cloning" battlefield both in terms of mechanics (including respawn) and distribution between unit types because of how you think that would be a "good fit" for Battletech ... and I'm telling you that it's absoultely not a good fit for Battletech and your lack of knowledge concerning the Battletech universe as well as the games relating to said universe is showing in those claims of yours.

AEgg, on 31 January 2023 - 05:03 PM, said:

We're talking theory here, not specific application.

And I'm telling you that your "theory" is flawed on various levels.

AEgg, on 31 January 2023 - 05:03 PM, said:

If my example had mentioned mechs as the basic unit and you control infantry or whatever else while waiting on your next mech to arrive, I'm guessing you wouldn't have jumped at it so quickly.

And your guess would have been wrong.

AEgg, on 31 January 2023 - 05:03 PM, said:

Ignore the particulars, the important part is that what we have today is a starting point, not an end goal.

I won't ignore the particulars because you want to ignore them based on your largely incorrect perception of what the "essence" of Battletech is and isn't and then try to make claims about how it should be.

[edit]
Heck, in the case of "Mechwarrior" I can even directly point at the name of the game itself to show where the focus is. Not on infantry, not on tanks or helicopters but friggin' Battlemechs.

Edited by Der Geisterbaer, 01 February 2023 - 09:26 AM.

[An6ryMan69]

Paying for repairs would be catastrophic.

This game is already likely too hard on new and casual players, and even good players are very often swept up in the tide of battle and cannot actually change quickplay outcomes.

Having someone actually lose out mass C-Bills because they randomly got dropped on a quickplay team that sucked, despite their personally strong play in that match, would be suicide for the game.

Edited by An6ryMan69, 01 February 2023 - 10:20 AM.

[CFC Conky]

Saved By The Bell, on 30 January 2023 - 08:11 AM, said:

If I did the game:

1) Repairs need money. So try hard not to die.
2) Losing side get so small money, so they barely able to repair.
3) Winning side get some money. But to buy medium mech or Err PPC you need to win many times.
4) Faction wars bring more rewards and sometimes very damaged mechs and weapons. Well like it was in old mercenaries, but much much harder to get.

All starting with one very cheap little mech. No free stuff.

There is no economic and its damaged the game. Drunk players get boring without goals and go another place.

In my opinion, without a robust matchmaker those suggestions would make it difficult for casual players. There comes a point where a player's ability combined with the content of their account reaches a critical mass where earning c-bills/buying kit is no longer an issue, or as time consuming. With the current matchmaker, new/casual players would end up against these 'critical mass' players/accounts and never be able to get ahead.

It may work in single-player games like MW5, but it would take a lot of tweaking to get it to work in MWO, again, in my opinion.

Good hunting,
CFC Conky

Edited by CFC Conky, 01 February 2023 - 10:34 AM.

[sycocys]

An6ryMan69, on 01 February 2023 - 10:18 AM, said:

Paying for repairs would be catastrophic.

This game is already likely too hard on new and casual players, and even good players are very often swept up in the tide of battle and cannot actually change quickplay outcomes.

Having someone actually lose out mass C-Bills because they randomly got dropped on a quickplay team that sucked, despite their personally strong play in that match, would be suicide for the game.

The R&R we had way back when only had a major cost impact on people that boated a lot of ammo and pulses (more expensive weapons), ran larger xl engines - it was no where near as painful as MW5 to repair a blown out mech. I think the tops were in the million range.
Run a few matches in a light or medium and you were back in business.

--
As far as Battfield and taking some queues from it goes - their daily player count is larger than this games total ranked player count. They are doing something right, this game is doing something wrong.

-When it comes to cannon - most of you completely ignore the canon unless you find it to be a way to keep your chosen play the more advantaged one.

Take guass for example - there's no energy system here, its all combined into heat - guass should have a high non-dispersible heat value per each equipped.

Or how about consumables that take no tonnage or crit slots - one magically puts smoke on the ground and the other doesn't reduce your cooling capacity when used. The third lets you haul around radar drones for zero functional cost.

What about mech modifications (skill tree) that don't take any crit slots, tonnage, energy(heat) to utilize?

Maybe we should have a discussion about going into battle with shiny gold/platinum "camouflage" with a bunch of garbage bolted to your mech that is also covered in neon colored stickers?

Edited by sycocys, 01 February 2023 - 10:45 AM.

[Kanil]

sycocys, on 01 February 2023 - 10:43 AM, said:

The R&R we had way back when only had a major cost impact on people that boated a lot of ammo and pulses (more expensive weapons), ran larger xl engines - it was no where near as painful as MW5 to repair a blown out mech. I think the tops were in the million range.
Run a few matches in a light or medium and you were back in business.

R&R was a very long time ago and I don't remember it that much, but I mostly recall running XL engines was expensive. This was particularly problematic, since the light and mediums you suggest you use to save money are exactly the sort of 'mechs that desperately need XL engines, and thus would be expensive to run.

More conceptually though, R&R fails because it punishes the people who are the worst at the game. The highly skilled players are going to win more, get wiped out less, do more damage and make more c-bills, and thus be less affected by R&R, meanwhile the lesser skilled players are going to lose more, die a lot more, do less damage, and be poorer and more affected.

The good players already have little trouble defeating the bad players, and this is with the bad ones using their best 'mechs. Now you want those folks to have to drop into whatever they can afford, rather than what they consider good? The good players don't need another handicap in their favor.

Also, given how out of whack the C-Bill cost of things versus the combat effectiveness of things can be, this would also reduce build diversity, since if two builds were equally viable, but one was way less expensive, people would use the cheaper one -- e.g. get used to more dual H-gauss builds because they use cheap standard engines but still really hurt.

Edit: This would also would be bad for the matchmaker, having clueless teammates on your team is already frustrating enough without being paired up with someone intentionally running a stock UrbanMech so they can save C-Bills.

Edited by Kanil, 01 February 2023 - 06:53 PM.

[sycocys]

Kanil, on 01 February 2023 - 06:47 PM, said:

R&R was a very long time ago and I don't remember it that much, but I mostly recall running XL engines was expensive. This was particularly problematic, since the light and mediums you suggest you use to save money are exactly the sort of 'mechs that desperately need XL engines, and thus would be expensive to run.

More conceptually though, R&R fails because it punishes the people who are the worst at the game. The highly skilled players are going to win more, get wiped out less, do more damage and make more c-bills, and thus be less affected by R&R, meanwhile the lesser skilled players are going to lose more, die a lot more, do less damage, and be poorer and more affected.

The good players already have little trouble defeating the bad players, and this is with the bad ones using their best 'mechs. Now you want those folks to have to drop into whatever they can afford, rather than what they consider good? The good players don't need another handicap in their favor.

Also, given how out of whack the C-Bill cost of things versus the combat effectiveness of things can be, this would also reduce build diversity, since if two builds were equally viable, but one was way less expensive, people would use the cheaper one -- e.g. get used to more dual H-gauss builds because they use cheap standard engines but still really hurt.

Other than the ballistic/lrm hunches and cents back then, the smaller mechs also had a reduced rate for repair based on tonnage. Also if the MM actually separated T1 (high skilled) from T4/5 (lower skilled) players it wouldn't be an issue at all. Hell I still see cadets running trials in T3 matches when I know there are T1s dropping in groups in the same match - if that's all the better the MM is going to be then there's really no point in attempting any balance at all - may as well just go back to beta where it just threw the first x amount of people into a match regardless of tonnage or any other metric.

And if they ever bothered to develop the game beyond deathball skirmish mode it would have made a massive difference - the Squawk club proved how well terrible players could counter expensive builds and higher skilled players regularly.

Guys crying because they couldn't be bothered to defend their base basically ruined mode development right from the onset - instead of playing the mode they cried for ct turrets, the b'd and moaned about that because they couldn't get the base after they actually had to fight through a team defending their base.

[Kanil]

sycocys, on 01 February 2023 - 07:03 PM, said:

... the Squawk club proved how well terrible players could counter expensive builds and higher skilled players regularly.

If terrible players can use inexpensive builds to counter expensive builds, then what is stopping the good players from also using those inexpensive builds to counter the terrible players?

If the inexpensive build is the strongest, then people aren't running it because it's cheap, they're running it because it's strong. Thus adding R&R just serves to punish those who want to try something different.

If the inexpensive build isn't the strongest, then the good players are still going to have an edge over the bad players, because they can occasionally afford to bring the superior 'mech. It might be a marginal advantage, but again the good players don't need any mechanical advantages.

[AEgg]

Der Geisterbaer, on 01 February 2023 - 09:19 AM, said:

-snip-

(Last reply since we're really off-topic at this point and I have no desire to explain why R&R doesn't work as a balancing factor again.)

Why would the focus be on anything but mechs? Even in battlefield the focus is on the vehicles. Pretend I never said it's name. What things fit in a multiplayer Battletech game?
Community warfare, but it doesn't change the basic structure of each match, so isn't relevant to the discussion.
PGI already has the mechlab and mech vs mech combat pretty well nailed down, so that one is a given.
Giant combat zones.
Objective-focused gameplay.
Large teams on both sides.
Wide variety of units (both in roles and within each role)
'Simcade' level of realism (believable and detailed, but not too picky about physics for obvious gameplay reasons)
Well organized forces on each side (or at least the tools to do so, like the commander interace that MW:O ripped from BF2)

Battlefield does all of these things, and even if you hate it in particular, there's no arguing that the formula works. That makes it a good starting point. A starting point means you change whatever doesn't fit. As a simple example, Battlefield has customizeable loadouts, one of the first mainstream FPS games to do so. Rather than picking sniper/medic/assault and customizing your weapons/armor, you'd be choosing light/medium/heavy/assault and customizing in the mechlab. The same premise, but different execution because the setting is different.

I am not arguing for battlefield with mechs, they made that game in 2006. A combined-arms MechWarrior game would be dominated by mechs, powerful enough to easily overwhelm any of the smaller units, but always needing to be aware of the enemy mechs, and of the battlefield as a whole if they disregard the lesser units for too long.

Vehicle, turret, infantry, and air units would largely be filler, to 'flesh out' the world, holding and possibly vying for position if left unchecked, but easily dispatched when a mech is involved. Combined with actual objectives, they'd also make classes other than assaults more useful. They'd have to be mostly AI or RTS-style controlled simply because the numbers don't work otherwise. Having the option to see the world from their perspective would be valuable though, if only for the wow factor of having a mech carve through a force that nearly wiped you out.

Der Geisterbaer, on 01 February 2023 - 09:19 AM, said:

I'd heavily disagree. From the various computer games back to the original table top the basic premise was and is: A destroyed unit is out of the currently ongoing conflict. So respawns most definitely alter the premise of the source materials both in terms of narrative and actual gameplay.

Respawning does not mean that a destroyed unit is not out of the conflict, it is a tool to let one player control more than one unit. It's no less realistic than one player directing multiple mechs simultaneously in a tabletop game, and doesn't fundamentally change the gameplay, especially if you 'respawn' into a unit that's already on the battlefield somewhere, maybe even already in combat.

--

In previous games, of course units other than mechs were mission targets, all the games prior to MW:O were primarily single-player.

The setting provided by nearly all of the games promotes the idea of drawn out campaigns distant from constant reinforcements. A design decision driven by the obvious gameplay problem of only being able to control one mech at a time, or the nonsensical premise of dropping 12 mechs less than a kilometer from 12 enemy mechs, it doesn't matter which was the reason. If it's common in the larger storyline, so be it.

--

The whole point is that we can do so much better than MWO. Having other unit types in the game is all upside, how many there are, how useful they are, and whether players directly control them or not is a design decision we're not trying to solve today. The original question was what the barrier to a successful sequel is, and right now, it's the simplistic gameplay modes. Which can also be rephrased as thinking that MWO2 would do better if it was just more of the same.

[sycocys]

Kanil, on 01 February 2023 - 07:57 PM, said:

If terrible players can use inexpensive builds to counter expensive builds, then what is stopping the good players from also using those inexpensive builds to counter the terrible players?

A actually functional MM for one would take care of it. There was zero in beta, currently basically zero. So no it wouldn't work with the MWO they have kept alive to this point, if they had actually developed a game to keep their player base around R&R would have been a far better balancing mechanic for the tiers than a piled up bunch of garbage quirks that are done to fancy the top tier. But you also needed to keep that larger player base and actually incorporate some game modes that aren't skirmish.