103 replies to this topic

[GaussDragon]

Jonneh, on 05 August 2012 - 12:12 PM, said:

Mentioning battletech/lore/TT rules or anything similar in a thread aimed at giving balance feedback for a live action game results in an immediate void of your opinion and instant execution of a puppy.

You monster.

Best quote ever.

[GnawTsatyr]

I'm so glad I never played mechwarrior 4. I miss MW2: Mercs. Good ol' Vindicator to boot. Sigh... the good old days of Voodoo cards...

[Maarek Stele]

Orzorn, on 05 August 2012 - 11:27 AM, said:

The very fact that the Battletech universe makes it a point to have a distinction between normal mechs and omnimechs means a hardpoint system is basically already in the lore.

This is a very good point. I'd love to have all the freedom I'd like to mix and match weapons here and there based on a slot space method but although the table top game rules allowed for new mech designs like this, Mechwarrior novels and RPG rules always made it very hard to modify a mech. I think about it like this & I don't have any more issues. I want several small AC's in my right Atlas Torso, and I now have an AC/20... Well, the model has one barrel. I could put something similar in there without a lot of re-tooling, work, but to completely re-do the weapon system in an IS non-Omnimech would require re-designing the entire Atlas right torso and likely more with ammo feeders, heat dissipation etc. I love the more realistic method, it is better balanced, different mech designs are truly unique and fun. You even get the realistic problem of how do IS mechs deal with the extra heat of mounting clan tech? Tactics change of course and maybe my old IS weapons weren't so bad in the first place. ..

[Hythos]

I was initially against hard-points, though seeing how it has been implimented - and 'defended' as such, it's quite acceptable.
While I could agrue that, coming from a real-world engineering perspective, being able to fully customize the load-out of a unit to encorporate any electronics or weapons systems to any locations (provided it makes logical sense)...

being able to do so IS covered under Battletech rules, under "jerry-rigging" (usage of other components, even limbs off of alternate tonnage mechs) - which in this case, would be more role-playing or long-term campaigning. While I would love to see a dynamic in that direction, I'm happy with what we have (been promised with) to start with, even if it never progresses to become more.

[AXE MURDERER]

When you're moving a universe from one type of game to another:

Gameplay > Staying true to the source

[Harvey Batchall Kerensky at Law]

SHUT UP OP

[CocoaJin]

How does non-weapon gear apply to MechLan customizing? If a mech doesnt come with a NARC launcher or BAP or ECM suite, etc, will there be the possibility to mount these items without concern...assuming you have the free hard-points?

[Rion Raios]

Let's put it this way:

The "slots" a mech has are what an engineer can work with during mech design. For example, you only have two slots in your Center Torso, and twelve on each side torso. These are your limits for what you can put where. It's why no matter how much you want to, even the Classic Battletech mech design rules don't allow you to put a Gauss Rifle on your mech's head.

It's likely that you can ship your factory-model mech to a mech shop and have it fully customized, kind of like when you send a car you just bought from a dealer to your fave mod shop for souping up. This could take time, depending on what you want. Your tech, like your car's mechanic, will give you a ballpark figure for the number of weeks or months it could take to make your specified mods.

We who fight in MWO should consider the customization we have as BATTLEFIELD mods. When you look at your mods that way, the hardpoint system makes sense.

Ordinary battlemechs have limits to what mods you can do to them on the fly in the field. Let's say we're in our dropship, having just been spit out by our jumpships at a pirate point. If you don't have the luck/rank/pull to pilot an Omni, you have to go with what you have. Your tech will tell you that they can probably swap out the PPC for, say, a Pulse Large given your timeframe but they're going to shake their heads if you want a Gauss Rifle installed there. The electronics and general design of your battlemech just can't hack it, given the time.

From what I know about the lore, this is why Omnis are such devastating platforms. The first time Clan Coyote fielded them, their enemy thought they were using a set config and deployed to counter that config. The Coyotes ran back to their dropships, swapped pods, and creamed their opponents.

Not all mechs are Omnis, unfortunately.

So, yes, limited customization of BATTLEMECH hardpoints sounds BT "canon." It makes sense, actually.

You want almost-unlimited customization, wait for the Omnis, I guess.

Edited by Rion Raios, 11 September 2012 - 04:06 AM.

[Buckminster]

I grew up on the TT game, and part of the fun for us was in designing absolutely crazy mechs. We'd usually start from scratch, and build them to the way we wanted, and then just sub in a mini and duke it out. Our builds would always get stupid at some point - how small of a mech you can put a PPC on, and that sort of thing, but sitting down with a pad of paper and the rule book and designing mechs was a large part of the game for us.

But that being said, I like the current hard point system. It gives a need for the variants, and helps eliminate min-max builds. I definitely think the system needs some tweaking, but I also think that a lot of that will be taken care of as more mechs are released. Right now people are trying to cram their favorite builds into the existing (and limited) selection of mechs.

[Odanan]

tyrone dunkirk, on 05 August 2012 - 11:16 AM, said:

You know what mate, you're right. Let's go back to the good old days of MW4's everything-is-omni hardpoints.

No.

[Xynith]

Is this in the right forums?

[bikerbass77]

Revak Vendal, on 05 August 2012 - 11:28 AM, said:

everyone brings up mech warrior 4 as a example. mech warrior 4 was the worse game to the legacy of battle tech and mech warrior. to base the rules truley lets go back to mech warrior 2 that was the true game for mechwarrior. mechwarrior 4 change up all the rules and really put a bad end to the mechwarrior name.

Please explain this comment. As far as I can tell, people have been lamenting MW4's existence without stating a proper reason why, as to exactly what was the problem with it. In this comment, you are basically saying 'I didn't like MW4 so whatever the designers did with it is not relevant.' which is about as nonsensical a reasoning as I have ever come across. Many people, including Paramount who made the original Star Trek movie, didn't like the film. That doesn't stop the computer generated effects that were brought in with it being valid for many more movies going forward right up to the latest big screen blockbusters..

Looking at Battletech lore, there have always been standard and omni mechs. With standard mechs, you would be stuck with the basic weapon type (ballistic, missile or energy) at each hard-point which you could change depending on the weight allowance and size. As far as I can see this is something that MW4 brought in. They might have not got it all as good as it can be, but remember the technology in terms of software programming techniques and hardware have increased exponentially since then.

With Omni-mechs the freedom to switch between a laser, missile rack or ballistic weapon on any particular hard-point is a major advantage in the battlefield where, more often than not, you would have to make do with what is at hand which is where the old game element of salvage really comes alive.

[bikerbass77]

TizZ, on 05 August 2012 - 12:30 PM, said:

Why so many mw4 haters lol it wasnt that bad and brought more mechwarrior fans into being , it wasnt perfect but what can you really say has been the perfect mechwarrior game ( considering it was 10 years ago ) ... hopefully mechwarrior online is .

I mean my first mechwarrior type game was shattered steel by bioware then mechwarrior 2 and 3 all good and i enjoyed them all even mw4 .

different mechs with different load outs , half the fun for me is making different loadouts for different roles , some mechs use lasers more than ballistics and viceversa .. that is what makes this game diff to others ... same mechs can be very different depending on how skillful the pilot is in the load out of his mech .

It brought me into the worlds of Battletech and Mechwarrior. I have to say that with the cut-offs in your timing, I think when it comes to the game next year, you should be playing as a Clanner.

[bikerbass77]

tyrone dunkirk, on 05 August 2012 - 12:57 PM, said:

I thought I liked MW4... But if this guy says I'm wrong then, maybe I was secretly hating it all along.
Bummer

One of my main rules of life is that no-one can tell me what I can or can not enjoy. If you spend your life following the herd, what makes you different than a sheep.

[Grumm Esverian]

Revak Vendal, on 05 August 2012 - 11:39 AM, said:

Maybe im being misunderstood. What my point is for example as long as i have enough tonnage available and open slots i can configure on the same rules. for example... I can take an atlas drop down the engine or some of the heat sinks off and put 4 lrm 20's on a atlas. put 2 in left torso and 2 in right torso as long as i have the tonnage and space to do it. I mean that only seams legal i should be able to do that. or a madcat for example: drop the engine to a lower speed and lower tonnage and put 4 ppcs and some extra heat sincs.

Given that the Mad Cat/Timber Wolf is clan-tech and omni-mech, it's a bad example to include.

If you could mount as much as you wanted anywhere you wanted there would be no reason to have multiple mech designs for each weight class. The reason the devs have gone with the hardpoint system is to make sure that each mech has a different feel and playstyle. You can still do a lot of customizing on each mech, but you don't have total freedom, which is fine.

From a realism standpoint, the reason you can't mount four LRM20's in an atlas is because the atlas is not set up for that. For it to be able to, it would need to be completely redesigned. Same with why you can't mount a dozen small lasers in it's left torso, or two gauss rifles, etc etc.

[bikerbass77]

vettie, on 05 August 2012 - 12:48 PM, said:

I am thinking we should be happy there IS customization at all. We COULD be stuck with stock / standard variants ONLY.

What would this be like, I'm sure there has been something a bit like this in the past...

Oh, I know. MechAssault

Onifrk, on 05 August 2012 - 01:26 PM, said:

I love that people think these are just arbitrary decisions and not hard thought out choices. Developers work very hard to balance and design games. Personally the hard points are a damn good thing. because without them there are plenty of mech configurations that simply destroy the game. I have found that those who fight hardest for the fully open designs are normally the ones who want to field the broken designs.

Like an Awesome with 50 small lasers.

[xXxBANExXx]

Personally, i love how you do the load-outs in this game..... it makes you think and get creative.

[bikerbass77]

Tyr Anasazi, on 06 August 2012 - 10:46 PM, said:

As long as I can do small changes, I'll be happy. That way if I get a Jagermech I can retool it into my DrakkenJager. Remove the 2 AC/5's and the 2 tons of ammo, and switch out for 2 Large Laser's, 2 more heat sinks and 6 more tons of armor, which will double all the armor to amost max for all areas. I used to hunt Dragon's with it on tabletop campaigns. By small changes I mean simple weapon swaps, armor adds and/or heat sink adds with any excess tonnage if there are any.

You would not be able to do that particularly as you are talking about putting lasers in ballistic hard points. You could change the Medium lasers for two large lasers and simply dump the AC5's. What I would do is change the medium lasers for medium pulse lasers, some extra heatsinks and replace the AC5's for Ultra AC5's while dumping the AC2's and ammo to balance the weight.

Another way would be 2 x Ultra AC5's, 2x AC2's and dump the lasers/heatsinks for armour. This would give you both long range from the AC2's and short range punch from the Ultra AC5's.

[bikerbass77]

GnawTsatyr, on 07 August 2012 - 02:41 AM, said:

I'm so glad I never played mechwarrior 4. I miss MW2: Mercs. Good ol' Vindicator to boot. Sigh... the good old days of Voodoo cards...

MechWarrior 4 was not a bad game. I don't understand why it got such a bum rep but it surely didn't deserve all the bashing it's had throughout the MWO forums.

Ask yourself, if it was such a bad game, why 12 years later does it still have a following?

Edited by Hans Davion, 11 September 2012 - 06:37 AM.

[bikerbass77]

AXE MURDERER, on 07 August 2012 - 01:10 PM, said:

When you're moving a universe from one type of game to another:

Gameplay > Staying true to the source

By which, nothing changes so why buy a new game in the first place? What you say here would mean the end of any gaming series right after the first instalment. I mean, by such mantra, the only things you could add are fancy graphics (what's the point?) or storyline.