48 replies to this topic

[ODonovan]

Personally, my favorite time in BattleTech history is the Fourth Succession War. Give me PPCs and AC/20s over all the high tech equipment that came later. I was playing the game for a number of years before all the new stuff came out. To me, it threw the game way out of balance and it was never the same after that.

How do YOU feel?

[Lt muffins]

Personaly i dont care for the lostech/clan weapons.
But it does add a bit of uncertanty to the game because you dont know what the enemy is packing,
and i always giggled when some one useing Er Large Pulse Lazers overheats their mech and has to shut down.

[Thorqemada]

The hunt for lostech, the research to recover lostech is something that appeals to me as long its in a reasonable range of benefits that left the game still balanced.
The clantech is simply out of balance.
And way later having Mechs able to reach topspeeds of 200 or 300 is simply an insanity - no surface would survive that and give a Mech that fast any stability.

Edited by Thorqemada, 16 April 2012 - 07:24 PM.

[ODonovan]

???

I did NOT post this to the "Tabletop Chat" forum!!!

This was not meant for tabletop, but for the game in general. As an example, when the MW1 computer game came out it was very primitive. There were only a few mechs and the tech was 3025 level. In subsequent games, the tech was advanced. The new high tech weapons and varied recycle times trashed the game balance.

In the days of the BattleTech ASCII-based combat MUSHes (text-based internet games), the most popular by far were the BT3030 and BT3034 games. The ones which used lostech and clantech weapons always had a terrible time balancing scenarios and keeping players interested, not to mention they were a coder's nightmare.

Mods, if you have a question about where I post something, ASK ME! If you're going to move my posts to another forum on a whim, that's a very good way to lose me as a player and have me making negative comments about this forum and this game in a lot of places. It's heavy-handed and smacks of totalitarianism which has no place on a publicly accessible message board.

This was a very poor welcome to this game for a veteran MMOer and BattleTech player.

[Myst Lynx]

Yes, 4th succession war time I think was best, but I also enjoyed the initial clan invasion up till clan smoke jaguar got anihilated. I don't even bother with this jihad part. I think it would be fun to have to fight clans but that they should be computer controlled.

[GrimFist]

The 4th succession war seemed to be the height of BT from a balance perspective. Sure we had some lostech around but it was nothing on the scale of clan tech.

Early clan stuff seemed ok from a story perspecitve. When it came to the computer games it was clear they really ramped up tech and nerfed everything for min/maxing as they were first and foremost single player games.

As for the progression of tech and story. It started to really ramp up quicky and put the story out of balance. The Jihad was a joke and I stopped following it at point. It was such overkill and over the top from both the politics, fragmentation of the story lines, and rapid tech changes again.

Its almost if BT lost site of who their core audience was.

[Major Havoc]

The end of the Third and the Fourth succession war is my favorite Battletech era (circa 3025 - 3030). Love playing in the setting, and with the characters and technology/equipment, of the original game.

[Modi]

I did not start playing until after the clans invaded so I am a little biased about it. I did enjoy retro fitting my Black Knight to turn it into an Assault Mech killer using clan tech and inner sphere tech though.

[Johannes Falkner]

GrimFist, on 16 April 2012 - 09:39 PM, said:

The 4th succession war seemed to be the height of BT from a balance perspective. Sure we had some lostech around but it was nothing on the scale of clan tech.

Early clan stuff seemed ok from a story perspecitve. When it came to the computer games it was clear they really ramped up tech and nerfed everything for min/maxing as they were first and foremost single player games.

As for the progression of tech and story. It started to really ramp up quicky and put the story out of balance. The Jihad was a joke and I stopped following it at point. It was such overkill and over the top from both the politics, fragmentation of the story lines, and rapid tech changes again.

Its almost if BT lost site of who their core audience was.

I think the major culprit was writer's block. By the end of the Smoke Jaguars you had the Inner Sphere largely closing the tech gap, the clans are no longer a monolithic threat, the political field of battle had reverted to effectively the same as just prior to the 4th War with five Successor States and Comstar/WoB in the wings. It seems to me as if someone (probably management) basically said, no we can't build everything back up from there again so do something different. Different, of course, must be bigger, badder, more epic, etc.

The biggest problem I have with the Jihad is Comstar. How could Comstar, which should have as many agents in WoB as it is possible to have in an enemy force, not know anything was coming? WoB was dependent on Comstar for parts and personnel defections for years.There should be almost as many WoB personnel on Comstar's payroll as WoB's. One would also think that the mobilization of all of the specialized assets needed to recommission the warships and build the dropships and fighters would have drawn some attention. Don't even start me on nukes, even for paint by the numbers nuclear weapon engineering, wouldn't telescopic observation show the big uranium mines...

[Pht]

Your group and your GM can run your game in whatever era they want to ... heck, solaris skunk werks even has an option to era-restrict equipment...

It's all good; they haven't broken the actual underlying system (like, say, star wars galaxies did).

[Jack Gammel]

I was introduced to Battletech post-Clan Invasion, so while I do understand the prejudice many older players have towards the Clans, I do not share those prejudices.

I like 4th Succession War though I mostly play FedCom Civil War. It's just my opinion, but the way I see the situation:
-the 4th Succession War could not remain the height of the Battletech narrative forever
-the tech and units of the 4th Succession War were limited enough to become a little boring after enough play sessions
-in an evolving universe the Battletech writers had to do something to advance the storyline, and the forces of Kerensky's Exodus were already built into the narrative
-the Clans might have had unbalanced tech, but once that tech was assimilated fully into the IS that advantage was somewhat mitigated and it made for much more variety in terms of unit and tech choices (for better or for worse)

Of course, I am speaking from a tabletop perspective as I have only played a couple of the videogames.

[MonkeyDCecil]

I did not like the lack of balance When lostech and clan tech came out. But I love the lore of it all. The rediscover of tech. Then the evasion of the Clans. Kick *** lore great for role-playing, but bad for balance. And ODonovan you sound a little full of yourself. You don't control the forums and even though you make the thread, people can commit anyway they want.
If we want to make a commit about Tabletop and the computer games. Then we can. You were also no in anyway specific about which your were talking about. And if your going to be a jerk. Then good riddance to ya.

Edited by MonkeyDCecil, 20 April 2012 - 07:33 PM.

[hilix mercer]

I first played the table top game as a kid in the mid 80s. I still remember the orignal artwork for the 3025 marauder. I got away form BT in high school as cars and chicks were more important to me. I picked up MW2 around 1994 when i was in collage. did not even realize it was a video game based on battletech till i started palying it. after that i was hooked. read all of the novels and bought all of the video games.

my favorite era is still 3rd and 4th succession war to about 3049. just as the IS is rediscovering Lostech form the helm memory core, the NAIS, and com stars help by providing Lostect battlemechs to the DCMS.

I like the clan invasion but it was way out of ballance. A good player with a star of medium and heavy omnis could wipe out a whole IS company.

My second favorite era was the refusal war. clan on clan is just like 3025 but with bigger guns.

Operation bulldog/serpent and the annilation of clan smoke jaguar didnt really do anything for me. the fedcom cival war / Cap Con reunification i saw comming for a long time in the plot lines it was ok but i would rather paly 3025 or 3052-3055.

I did not really care for the Jihad, but I am loving the Clan Wars of Reaving.

I think once we get to Dark Age it will be like 3025 all over again only better. forget the lame *** modified worker mechs. but i would love to see lance on lance combat again. with a small company you can take a whole planet. who says you need a whole RTC! I have read all the dark age novels. I highly recommend Mechwarrior Darkage novel - Target of Oppertunity and the Battle corps 15 part serial A Bonfire of Worlds. if they plan on following this plot line I think the dark age is going to be awesome.

[acheronlv426]

Personally, clan tech is just broken. Trying to level the playing field with "war rules" is just silly. This quote from the Youtube "Hitler's Battletech Game Goes Awry" (Not for kids due to strong language), says it all: "If I wanted a pointlessly idealized character I'd go play an elf!"

[LackofCertainty]

I kinda wish there were an option in MWO to play in the different timelines. I realize that'd cause too much work, most likely, to be viable, but I can dream. Having said that, I think the clan invasion is one of the more exciting times for BT. I like the infusion of High powered new/redesigned mechs and weaponry to shake up the normal balance of the game. I do agree that as time progressed things start to get silly, but in the moment it's going to be one heck of a ride.

Also, to the OP specifically.

I'd like to introduce you to a few words I learned as a child. They're called "Please" and "Thank You," and they're often called the magic words. I'm sure that if animals could talk you'd even hear fish and birds saying "Please" and "Thank You" because they're a great way to make your comments sound more polite.

Mods are people too, and you don't need to jump down anyone's throat for something so minor. Did moving your thread really -hurt- you in any way that you feel alienated by joining the forums here? Really?

Let me take a minute and transform your post into a more polite version.

ODonovan, on 16 April 2012 - 08:03 PM, said:

???

This was not meant for tabletop discussion, but for the game in general. As an example, when the MW1 computer game came out it was very primitive. There were only a few mechs and the tech was 3025 level. In subsequent games, the tech was advanced. The new high tech weapons and varied recycle times trashed the game balance.

In the days of the BattleTech ASCII-based combat MUSHes (text-based internet games), the most popular by far were the BT3030 and BT3034 games. The ones which used lostech and clantech weapons always had a terrible time balancing scenarios and keeping players interested, not to mention they were a coder's nightmare.

Mods, I understand you have a lot of threads to wade through, and that someone may have reported this thread for being in the wrong section. However, I'd appreciate if you would please move this thread back to general BT discussion instead. Thank you in advance.

Now doesn't that sound a bit nicer than accusing the mods of being totalitarian jerks who dared to move your thread without your permission. (something that is done regularly to all sorts of threads that are continuously posted in the wrong forums on a daily basis)

To end this, I really don't mean to come off as snide or anything. It's always nice to see a new face on the forums and I actually like your thread here a lot. Just relax and roll with the punches.

[Der Kommissar]

I like a very light smattering of Star League tech at most.

[JackCrow]

To me IS Tech vs. Clan is all about the tactical problem of a smaller number of higher tech forces vs. A much larger number of lesser tech forces. Secondly, there is a role playing aspect that comes with playing as a Clanner.

I think that if you play the techs the way they are meant to be played, then it works well. It even worked in the old MW and Mechcommander games.

[Jonas]

Honestly with the exception of a few Mechs in the 3055, I kept all my TT games in the early years of the clan invasion. Mechs still looked like Mechs and the tech wasn't to bad. Now a lot of the Mechs in the later TRO didnt look like they where form the same Universe as Battletech. A few did in the 3067 but most from 3058 on where didnt have the right look for ether the Clans or the Inner Sphere.

Now with that out of the way the Lostech and Clan Tech expanded the game to me and I have to say I liked it. I would often use clan weapons on Inner Sphere Mechs. Gave me an advantage in the games I played.

[ODonovan]

LackofCertainty, on 21 April 2012 - 01:25 PM, said:

Also, to the OP specifically.

I'd like to introduce you to a few words I learned as a child. They're called "Please" and "Thank You," and they're often called the magic words. I'm sure that if animals could talk you'd even hear fish and birds saying "Please" and "Thank You" because they're a great way to make your comments sound more polite.

Mods are people too, and you don't need to jump down anyone's throat for something so minor. Did moving your thread really -hurt- you in any way that you feel alienated by joining the forums here? Really?

Let me take a minute and transform your post into a more polite version.

Gee, could you be ANY more patronizing?

Yes, there ARE the words please and thank you, which were NOT used by the mods to ask me to post to another forum. They just presumed they knew it all, and moved my post without ever asking me to clarify the subject matter. All they would have had to do is message me and ask "Is this just about the boardgame or about all BT in general?" If you're going to castigate someone for rudeness, look THEIR way first.

Yes, their moving my post DID hurt me in a way. It took my post completely away from my target audience and totally invalidated the point I was trying to make. It made my time and effort in posting it a total waste.

As far as "transforming" my post, just DON'T. That whole concept is extremely rude on your part. It says exactly what I wanted it to say in just the right words. I've gotten along just fine in this world as an adult for almost 40 years. Don't pretend you have any reason, authority, or ability to teach me the "right way" to do anything. For someone who starts their post talking about manners, you seem to have lost yours rather quickly.

[Ghost]

If you prefer, I can move it to off-topic. It doesn't belong in MWO General though. That forum is explicitly for discussion about MWO, not MWO-related topics.