439 replies to this topic

[Odin]

DaMuncha, on 04 April 2012 - 10:58 PM, said:

MWO Has:
No Clans
No Clan Mechs
No Omni mechs
Restricted Jump Jets.
Forced Hardpoints.
XP to use upgrades.

Why the hell would I want to play MWO?. they've taken out everything I loved about the mechwarrior games.

Hell, yes why?

If you don't like it, move on. I, and I am sure I'm not the only one, love the restrictions.
This is Battletech, its the only way mech were meant to be played and build. And besides, there will be clans and omnis - when we get there.


S!

[pursang]

DaMuncha, on 04 April 2012 - 10:49 PM, said:

The hardpoint system was the worst thing about ME4 and I hated it so much it forced me to stop lplaying, and I cant believe they forced it in MWO. Its horrible.

I am so angry right now, cause its killed MWO for me. I wont put up with this ****, sorry. I cant stand it. I've been waiting 10 years for a new Mechwarrior game and they go and pull this **** on me.

[verybad]

maxoconnor, on 04 April 2012 - 12:31 PM, said:

I have a question VeryBad, I'm inferring from your statements that you were one of the developers for some of the mechs in the MekPaks?
What was the thinking on the development team when you guys made mechs that were cannon designs yet you didn't put the cannon weapons in place on it? The Stalker for example had to be stripped and reconfigured to be an ACTUAL Stalker for the weapons. Why wouldn't you just make it a true Stalker from the get go?

I'm an artist, not a programmer, so I wouldn't be 100% on that.

IIRC, the original released stocker was pretty standard. Jeho made some changes with newer releases, probably to get more of the different weapons types available to people playing stock games. I was actually surprised to see the config that's in there now. (havn't played myself in a while)

As for canon, I don't think Jeho ever played the TT game, and he's the one that put all the configs into the game. We work over the interent, not in a studio, so communications could be iffy at times. Havn't seen Jeho much since his house burned down, he's pretty much dropped out of development.

One thing to keep in mind is that we weren't ever supporting the single player game, our goal was always multiplayer, and multiplayer games are almost always optimized, or at least modified by the players.

I'd ask Jeho for you, but as I mentioned, I havn't seen him on our site in months so...

Edited by verybad, 04 April 2012 - 11:22 PM.

[BTBWolf]

Oh, and also limit the amount you can minus or add...obviously. The game should be *really* challenging, but to a reasonable extent. Give people lots of options but present it in a way so basic and user-friendly that no one's going to be scratching their heads over it and the bigger-MechWarrior buffs aren't going to have much of an advantage. Level skill-based playing field. Having several available weapon spots but only being able to use a few would also provide more variety in Mechs and more strategic value, instead of it being just "NO, your ballistics are here, your missles are here, your energy is here, now shut up and eat your cereal!!!!" That's my take on it.

Going back to the colours *yeah, I know, this is MechWarrior, not HelloMechKitty*, why not have the basic roy-g-biv colours and the mixes of those colours in logical order, have a "light, middle, dark" presets, 3 colour temperature presets, and slider options for these? The way it's simplified and saves certain borderline-OCD players, such as myself, from spending 1 hour trying to nail the right hue of black-blue-tungsten-gray camo. I know a certain unnamed game (*cough, robots in disguise*) coming up also lets you change the shine level. Something like that with different finishes and a slider and all that would be awesome, and you'd be able to adjust this per *individual* part (torso arms legs etc). Patterns, shapes, all that, that's great, as well, the ability to add "battle-damage" to your Mech in certain-areas would be kinda neat.

I think there should be a basic number of parts for customization (different types of *individual* arms, etc.) everyone starts out with, and over time you gain more through success and c-bills. Since the colours and stuff could get a little crazy at first, maybe most of the starting colours would be dark-ish and/or gray-ish and be limited to less "flaymboyant" colours...no pink, no purple, no teal, no hot-rod-red, etc.

Another idea is, after you play for a while/get *lots* of c-bills, etc., you can make your *own* mech (but just one), and use different *individual* mech parts (torso, arms, legs, missile boxes, etc.) to design your own mech, and even change play around with the size and a little bit of the shape of each with...you guessed it...presets and sliders. Maybe this mech would be able to have an extra jump jet, better jump jets, an extra weapon slot, basically one or two little advantages to make it more than "heh, look, I made my own mech." If this is going to be an option, though, the players really need to sweat, bleed, and cry for it, to the point where the amount of success and c-bills required for it would be about as painful as the steps to get there. Not unfair, but rewarding, that way it's there for people who really want to earn it, and for people who don't, it's a tiny bit less of an advantage, but with the time it'll take to be able to make one, they'll be able to change their minds in plenty of time.

After you get most of the stuff you want, it's just a matter of maintaining your mech and growing to love how difficult it is to get that battle-damage out of it. I think it'd be cool if over time it very gradually got more expensive to remove physical signs of battle-damage. I know this isn't a sim, though, I keep having to remind myself of that.

[ice trey]

Dear Devs:

Thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, and thank you.

The decision to bring the game back to using a system more similar to the Battletech tabletop's criticals and hit-locations is going to do wonders for making the Tabletop easier to present to players who get into it from the computer games. Plus, the "Modules" system you've declared you'll be using is a very nice nod to the customization system limitations as presented in Strategic Ops, which - if you're doing a field modification - limit you in a very similar way as you've presented. These limitations sound magnificent, and should minimize the excessive min-maxing with the customization system that plagued Mechwarrior 4 Multiplayer. It gives players options to tweak their designs, but still gives them reason to keep the stock configurations and.... oooh, I'm ecstatic!

Seriously. When Mechwarrior 2 and 3 were around, it was easy to teach people how to play Battletech, because everyone was so familiar with the computer games that it all just fit right into step. When Mech4 was around, though, people treated it like it was somehow obscenely complex to have a crit system they weren't familiar with, and tended to immediately tune you out even before giving things a chance.

This will do things. Great things. I've got to start brainstorming some ideas for a game to run at Origins!
Now the only question is how long do I have to wait before we can expand that 'mech roster to 50+ designs.

Edited by ice trey, 04 April 2012 - 11:37 PM.

[Suskis]

I understand a lot of people likes Hardpoints. Still, they have NOTHING to do with Battletech. It's a Microsoft idea and Microsoft is to blame for this franchise to fall into oblivion for years.
I think that, as per official Battletech rules, one should be able to change EVERYTHING in a mech, starting from his chassis. The only thing preventing a player from doing so should be the difficulty inherent to radical changes. As in advanced rules, sticking together parts from different mechs becomes harder and harder the more you depart from the original design.
A player should be able to change a mech engine, for example. Even from standard to XL, as long as there are free side torsos slots.
Same goes for energy weapons being interchangeable with missile or cannons. It should just cost more, it should take more hours to do and there should be a chance that your newly mounted weapons have a -1 or -2 to hit, generate some more heat and have shorter range and so on. There even could be some chance that it would fail amidst a fight.
I'd happily take those risks just to have my rules back.

[EDMW CSN]

Suskis, on 05 April 2012 - 12:12 AM, said:

I understand a lot of people likes Hardpoints. Still, they have NOTHING to do with Battletech. It's a Microsoft idea and Microsoft is to blame for this franchise to fall into oblivion for years.
I think that, as per official Battletech rules, one should be able to change EVERYTHING in a mech, starting from his chassis. The only thing preventing a player from doing so should be the difficulty inherent to radical changes. As in advanced rules, sticking together parts from different mechs becomes harder and harder the more you depart from the original design.
A player should be able to change a mech engine, for example. Even from standard to XL, as long as there are free side torsos slots.
Same goes for energy weapons being interchangeable with missile or cannons. It should just cost more, it should take more hours to do and there should be a chance that your newly mounted weapons have a -1 or -2 to hit, generate some more heat and have shorter range and so on. There even could be some chance that it would fail amidst a fight.

I'd happily take those risks just to have my rules back.

Have you guys even read Strat Ops ?

Edited by [EDMW]CSN, 05 April 2012 - 12:37 AM.

[Kael Tropheus]

Strat Ops was an optional system. No tournament and nor most player groups allowed customized mechs. They unbalanced the game far too much, to the point of not letting someone with a stock mech even be able to compete.

Heat and cost may balance this out. If heat will still cook off ammo if it gets too high and cause the other problems it causes, and the cost of doing customization is extremely high then perhaps it will be ok. By high, I mean 6 figure cost to trade out a medium laser. The system should force a player to really want to customize to be able to do it.

Edited by Kael Tropheus, 05 April 2012 - 01:14 AM.

[EDMW CSN]

Kael Tropheus, on 05 April 2012 - 01:13 AM, said:

Strat Ops was an optional system. No tournament and nor most player groups allowed customized mechs. They unbalanced the game far too much, to the point of not letting someone with a stock mech even be able to compete.

Heat and cost may balance this out. If heat will still cook off ammo if it gets too high and cause the other problems it causes, and the cost of doing customization is extremely high then perhaps it will be ok. By high, I mean 6 figure cost to trade out a medium laser. The system should force a player to really want to customize to be able to do it.

Strat Ops rule highlighted the duration, cost and the kind of facilities someone must have to do any kind of modification.

There are plenty out there who clamor for full modification (like Suskis, not calling out anyone, just an example) as per highlighted in BT rules. However, this would only result in everyone doing Class F refits and reach their ultimate min-max goal.

Class A and B refits = Field.
Class C and D refits = maintenance facility
Class E and F refits = Full fledged factory refit.

The "hybrid hardpoint + critical system" used by PGI is basically doing Class A and Class B refits, at the moment as seen.
At best Class C.

So if they want their Class F refits Uber Mech Fits. Are the players ready to suffer the penalties, cost and issue of such a refit ? Last check Class E alone can take up close to a month in real time at luckiest. And you need to own a planet with a working Mech Factory to do that !


Which will then mean only the most elite merc / faction unit will be able to afford such a luxury.

Edited by [EDMW]CSN, 05 April 2012 - 01:36 AM.

[Suskis]

Isn't this the point of F2p games? You pay for what you want if it's not strictly in base game. Money, maybe time and chances to fail or erratic behavior: all this sounds ok to me. It'hearing "no, Microsoft was right, you can do almost nothing in mech customization" that sounds wrong to me.

[Kael Tropheus]

Being able to do almost nothing in mech customization IS Battletech. The other games while fun were blasphemers in this respect and should have never happened. Alternate weapon systems are what official varients are for.

[Suskis]

At the end of 1st, official, basic Battletech rulebook, there was the original mech construcion set of rules. It has never changed since 1985. People playing Battletech have always modified and constructed their mechs. If the creator of the game didn't want us to do so, Battletech would have been like Warhammer 40,000 where you can do nothing but spend your money to buy new figs that suit your needs.

[Kael Tropheus]

Actually no. Those were ALWAYS optional rules. Only in a couple rare examples in the fluff. Very few groups used customization rules and no official tournaments. WHY? Because they unbalanced the game so bad there was no point in playing the normal mechs. I have actually joined 2 groups, one recently, and he first rule was stock mechs and varients only. Everyone that plays TT knows how bad customization was.

[EDMW CSN]

Suskis, on 05 April 2012 - 01:48 AM, said:

Isn't this the point of F2p games? You pay for what you want if it's not strictly in base game. Money, maybe time and chances to fail or erratic behavior: all this sounds ok to me. It'hearing "no, Microsoft was right, you can do almost nothing in mech customization" that sounds wrong to me.

I am fine for major refits if the players are ready to sit out their "best mech" for at least 3 weeks and above, not to mention cost, maintenance hell etc just to be able to tailor make the design to their whim.

Then perhap it adds more value to owned planets defended by various units. For example some planets have decent hangar bays that can function as a proper maintenance depot with some refitting capability.

Others have working factories that allow Class E and F, but if you lose that planet, you lose that mech !! And everything invested into the mech, even though it is in the final touches. Also since it is not a canon variant (or a small Class A / Class B upgrade), there should be no "exp" gain for char progression or mech progression.

If you want to build your dream mech, you should face stiff penalties as well. But even then I am still sure these penalties will NOT stop munchkin tendencies. People will simply reserve their best mechs for the hardest fights after all and "level up" as per normal with other mechs.

Edited by [EDMW]CSN, 05 April 2012 - 02:16 AM.

[BerryChunks]

DaMuncha, on 04 April 2012 - 10:33 PM, said:

I do not like the hardpoint system, in fact I hated it with a passion in MW4. it was the worst thing that could be done to mechwarrior. I dont like munition based wepaons. If I want my mech to use nothing but lasers, I should be able to arm nothing but lasers. I dont want crappy machine guns or autocannons on my mechs.

BOOOOOO!

DaMuncha, on 04 April 2012 - 10:49 PM, said:

The hardpoint system was the worst thing about ME4 and I hated it so much it forced me to stop lplaying, and I cant believe they forced it in MWO. Its horrible.

I am so angry right now, cause its killed MWO for me. I wont put up with this ****, sorry. I cant stand it. I've been waiting 10 years for a new Mechwarrior game and they go and pull this **** on me.

The hardpoint system didn't go far enough. Inner Sphere battlemechs cant be changed out on the fly. It takes lots of money and work in addition to the actual cost of the modules. The reason variants exist is because those are readily available builds of mechs. The design of the tabletop game not only prevented heavy munchkinizing with your lass laser mechs and whatnot, it also created a more tactical field where games last a little longer and people have a chance to win using brains.

If you want a fully customized infinite respawn FPS, there's tons of titles to choose from. the mechwarrior series' took great liberty in allowing people full customization. This game isn't going back to the original game (which is better), but it is restricting via hardpoint to go closer to that point.

Theres a new armored core out, if you want full customization.

DaMuncha, on 04 April 2012 - 10:58 PM, said:

MWO Has:
No Clans
No Clan Mechs
No Omni mechs
Restricted Jump Jets.
Forced Hardpoints.
XP to use upgrades.

Why the hell would I want to play MWO?. they've taken out everything I loved about the mechwarrior games.

Didnt he say in the GDC interview that we could customise mechs as much we want? It sounds pretty restrictive to me.

in the original game, you bought a chassis with jump jets or without. Clans will come later, clan mechs are omnimechs and then you can swap weapons like mad.

XP is a little wonky. It should be your own personal skills, but I guess it simulates you as a pilot becoming better at using the mech apart from point and shoot.

You guys need to go to Sarna.net and just look at inner sphere mechs in comparison with clan mechs.
Clan mechs have twice as many weapons.
Clan fighters have rules of combat, such as no legging, no shooting back armor, and so on. They also usually take on IS pilots at a 1:2 ratio, because they're all about the honor peen and glory wins.
Inner Sphere mechs prior to omni were incapable of mass hotswapping,

Play mechcommander and use stock IS mechs against stock clan mechs. 1 jaguar can take out 3 commandos easily.

You should thank them for bending the rules and allowing you limited customization instead of none at all.


The original battletech is about using units with specific designs in tactical roles. We've seen how bad the game gets when anything goes, as specific mechs dominate their weight class making every other mech useless, and laser/missile boats rule the game. It's about as fun as punching yourself in the head and laughing.

Edited by BerryChunks, 05 April 2012 - 02:28 AM.

[SirDenOfYork]

InnerSphereNews, on 23 October 2011 - 07:32 PM, said:

Welcome to Dev Blog 0!

Why is it called Dev Blog 0? Well, a lot has happened in the two years since we first announced MechWarrior back in 2009, and we felt a quick recap would help bring everyone up to speed on the events of the last 2 years. In order to make this blog a little more personal, we have referred to many people by first name.
The usage of we generally refers to:

• Jordan Weisman founded FASA and co-created BattleTech. Jordan has also been responsible for numerous other ventures including WizKids, and Smith & Tinker.
  
• Russ Bullock, Owner/President of Piranha Games Inc.
  
• Bryan Ekman, Owner/Creative Director of Piranha Games Inc.
  
• And sometimes the entire team at PGI, some 50+ awesome developers!

So let’s go back to the beginning before the 2009 announcement, when Piranha Games first began working with the MechWarrior license.
Rebooting Piranha Games

Three years ago, during the summer 2008, we put in motion a new strategy for Piranha, one that would focus our efforts on building killer original action games. With this ultimate goal in mind, we focused on three key areas.

• Only take on action based work-for-hire games, such as Transformers 2 and Duke Nukem Forever.
  
• Build an experienced development team, capable of creating fun and engaging products.
  
• Develop a game by acquiring or licensing an existing intellectual property (IP).

With these goals in mind, we began identifying properties that fit the bill. In October 2008, while looking into the MechWarrior rights, Russ, learned that Jordan was working on a new venture at Smith & Tinker. Jordan, through S&T had licensed some of the digital FASA rights back from Microsoft. Not long after the initial call, we began working with Jordan on a new concept, a major update to the MechWarrior franchise.
Rebooting MechWarrior

The initial ideas revolved around revitalizing or rebooting the series by focusing on two areas:

• Increasing the overall graphical fidelity of the entire game, especially the BattlMechs.
  
• Solve some of the long standing gameplay issues from previous MechWarrior games.

From these two key areas, early design pillars emerged in the form of:

• Urban Combat to address circle strafing and long range sniping.
  
• Dynamic Battlefield further expanded on the concepts of Urban Combat and mechs having roles.
  
• Dynamic pacing, introduced an early version of one of the final pillars, Information Warfare.

It would be designed for the Xbox 360 and PC. The game would take place on the planet Deshler, in the year 3015. Single player would revolve around Adrian Kohl and his exploits during an invasion by Kuritan forces. A gritty series of missions, designed to draw people deep into the rich vibrant and treacherous world of BattleTech. Multiplayer was a blend of features from previous MechWarrior games and modern FPS experiences. The package as a whole was the first step in making MechWarior cool again.
We continued to iterate on the design for several weeks, then started developing a plan of action.
Early on we decided to produce a marketing video that would demonstrate many of the core features and rebooted art style. We had three goals:

• Announce the project and generate a major buzz within the gaming community.
  
• Generate publisher interest.
  
• Increase Piranha’s profile as a quality developer with publishers and the community.

The marketing campaign contained 3 teaser videos , the final full length trailer, and a feature interview on IGN. We rolled out the plan during the second week of July, 2009.
The reaction was overwhelming. We anticipated the announcement would generate a lot of buzz, however the end result outperformed even our highest expectations.
Oh Yeah, Harmony Gold

Contrary to all the press and speculation that Harmony Gold was getting in the way of a deal or development, this had no impact whatsoever on development or signing a deal for MechWarrior.
Closing a Deal

The hard work began in earnest after the video release. We had an aggressive schedule to visit publishers and gauge interest. In the month of August we met with all of the major publishers, pitched the MechWarrior game to a captive audience and waited. The answers rolled in slowly, starting with the smaller publishers. Then word showed up from the big five. The answer was no.
We knew going in, there were two major risks. No PS3 version due to a Microsoft restriction, and the epic market collapse and major recession. In the end, it was mostly the lack of a PS3 option that did us in. The scope and budget required to develop a console reboot needed the support of a PS3 SKU and we just couldn’t convince publishers to take a risk. By late fall 2009, our dreams of making a MechWarrior game, began slowly drifting away.
Through the end of 2009 and into 2010 we rallied numerous times, reducing scope and budget, re-pitching the concept as a LIVE only title, etc. etc. In the end, nothing stuck.
To be honest, 2008/09 were some of the hardest times this company has ever seen. We spent a lot of time, resources, money and energy on MechWarrior, and it wasn’t looking good.
Then, in the spring of 2010, we secured the Duke Nukem Forever contract. This was a huge achievement and a cornerstone in our development history. MechWarrior played a large role in helping us secure the deal. A few key hires filled out our incredibly talented multiplayer AAA team.
MechWarrior took a back seat, as we focused on a very challenging and time compressed project.
2010 ended, and we rolled into 2011 without much fanfare as Duke Nukem Forever entered the final phases of development.
The Birth of MechWarrior Online

In the winter months of 2011 we assessed the state of MechWarrior. We came to the realization that any further work on MechWarrior would come at great risk to PGI. If we planned to take on significant risk, we needed to control the IP. After several sessions of deliberation, we decided to plunge in head first. Russ approached Smith & Tinker with regards to licensing the MechWarrior rights and within a few weeks, we signed a deal.
Not long after signing, we quickly realized licensing the rights was one of the most important and future sighted decisions made by us in the last 12 years. Offers were coming in from all over the planet, especially to make or license a free-to-play MechWarrior game.
Because of the overwhelming interest, we decided to spend some time researching what a free-to-play (F2P) MechWarrior game would look like. We spent some design cycles adapting our previous concepts and quickly realized a synergy between F2P and the BattleTech universe. We worked hard through spring, negotiating, designing, and rejecting a few potential partners. As it turns out, we didn’t have to look very far.
During much of the past 12 months there was a local group that also had a large amount of interest in developing and publishing a MechWarrior title. Once Piranha had become the license holder they came over immediately and met with us. From this point onward we decided to combine our efforts with Piranha as the rights holder and with them as the Publisher. After about 6 months of hard work together, funding had been secured, Infinity Game Publishing was born and development could begin.
The most positive thing that can be said about the relationship between Piranha and IGP is that both companies wanted to make the same game and Piranha was free to execute upon our vision.
The road to this Blog was an adventure filled with many hurtles and momentous occasions. We are excited and proud of the direction MechWarrior is taking as a PC F2P game. It offers us the ability to make a successor worthy of the MechWarrior name, and one that fans will enjoy for years to come!
Welcome to MechWarrior Online.

Cant wait to shoot all the pretty Mechs....

[Solis Obscuri]

DaMuncha, on 04 April 2012 - 10:58 PM, said:

MWO Has:
No Clans
No Clan Mechs
No Omni mechs
Restricted Jump Jets.
Forced Hardpoints.
XP to use upgrades.

Why the hell would I want to play MWO?. they've taken out everything I loved about the mechwarrior games.

Because you can find your ***** without a microscope?

[BerryChunks]

[EDMW]CSN, on 05 April 2012 - 01:33 AM, said:

Strat Ops rule highlighted the duration, cost and the kind of facilities someone must have to do any kind of modification.

There are plenty out there who clamor for full modification (like Suskis, not calling out anyone, just an example) as per highlighted in BT rules. However, this would only result in everyone doing Class F refits and reach their ultimate min-max goal.

Class A and B refits = Field.
Class C and D refits = maintenance facility
Class E and F refits = Full fledged factory refit.

The "hybrid hardpoint + critical system" used by PGI is basically doing Class A and Class B refits, at the moment as seen.
At best Class C.

So if they want their Class F refits Uber Mech Fits. Are the players ready to suffer the penalties, cost and issue of such a refit ? Last check Class E alone can take up close to a month in real time at luckiest. And you need to own a planet with a working Mech Factory to do that !


Which will then mean only the most elite merc / faction unit will be able to afford such a luxury.

Im not going to assume I would be one of those people, but that would be what makes them special, and what gives normal players "boss mode" enemies to fight against. Instead of seeing it as unfair, people should see it as a game designed challenge.

[Mchawkeye]

I've been reading this thread from the very beginning. As I mentioned a dozen pages or so back, I really dig the hybrid system. I think it makes balance sense, I think the addition of mech variants provides the flexibility players will need to find and adapt a mech to their own style without compromising oh-so-important balance.
I think the apparent representation of the internal structure/actuators/etc is good; although actuators do not need to be there, it helps to reinforce the technical details of the mech technology and also would hep to explain why mech without lower arm actuators and alike have more space in the arms comparatively.speaking.

There has also been several people outright claiming to leave the game because of the hard-point system. I say more fool them

there have also been people suggesting that this system negates clan omnimechs. I don't see that, and I don't see the logic of this thought process.

This System is not like MW4. or MW3. It's the best of both worlds, I think.

[Suskis]

Rebuilding a mech is not always the way to the munchkinism. Often is the only way to survive the Clans.
Because several Omnimech are just that: munchkin (4 erppcs and a targeting computer on Warhawks is just that, IMHO).