92 replies to this topic

[BoBo Jones]

ive read a lot of talk about clan mechs and clan weapons , when will it be here and how powerful will it be. thats all fair and good . but ive not read one person so far mention about the way clan rules of engagment.
i know the whole subject of clans ingame is a long way away from when we can start playing. but as a dedicated fan of inner sphere mechs , my main advantage over clans has always been that i have no rules when picking targets.i can gang up on mechs or even squish the little cougar with my atlas .
now when the clans do arrive on the seen,with all there mechs and stuff. there are going to be al lot of players jumping on the clan bandwagon. but how many of them will play like a true clan warrior. squareing off on opponents one on one , weight for weight .
i know there are a lot of poeple out there that know about this more then i do . but i would like to see some kind of honour system inplace to restrict players from just picking clan coz they get the better gear.maybe a system where if there honor drops to low that they can no longer play clan.

[Adridos]

They will probably implement honor system (discussed in a veery old interview), but rather than not being able to play Clan, I would rather suggest giving them the worst Clan mechs like in lore (i.e. suicide Hunchback IIC, Urbie IIC, etc.).

[FrostPaw]

I don't believe many rules of "honor" can be enforced in a video game, some players might choose to play with them but I expect they will be in the minority.

Instead of trying to enforce honor I think you have to enforce cost and risk. Things players can measure and cannot choose to ignore.

[Arafinar]

Dont really think unless the parties are agreeable to enforce dueling rules or Zellbrigen.
In leagues Ive been in before it was all pre-agreed to follow.

Arafinar

[Adridos]

FrostPaw, on 20 May 2012 - 03:57 AM, said:

I don't believe many rules of "honor" can be enforced in a video game, some players might choose to play with them but I expect they will be in the minority.

Easily, if two Clans attack the same mech, honor goes down for both. Teamkills on their side would take everyone but the people who really want to play Clans because of their identity, switch. What's the point if they can't have their noobish Mad Cat, right?

[Beazle]

Honestly, it's questions like this that make me feel i would be perfectly happy if the clan invasion never came.

Coming up with was of balancing combat between technologically disparate forces (Clan vs IS) led to all sorts of rules on the tabletop game that drove me nutso.

When the clans come i think i'll just stick to killing Davion fan-boys.

[FrostPaw]

Adridos, on 20 May 2012 - 04:03 AM, said:

Easily, if two Clans attack the same mech, honor goes down for both.

I imagine people don't join a multiplayer match to watch other people duel.

Is fun > sounds fun

[TheVirus]

The whole "honor" thing was tried in MW4. No legging, no chaining, 1 vs 1, no shooting down mechs, all that silliness. It failed miserably.

[Jaroth Corbett]

BoBo Jones, on 20 May 2012 - 03:46 AM, said:

ive read a lot of talk about clan mechs and clan weapons , when will it be here and how powerful will it be. thats all fair and good . but ive not read one person so far mention about the way clan rules of engagment.

Then you need to search the forums properly. This topic has been covered.

TheVirus, on 20 May 2012 - 05:20 AM, said:

The whole "honor" thing was tried in MW4. No legging, no chaining, 1 vs 1, no shooting down mechs, all that silliness. It failed miserably.

Since the ideal of honor is not built into the game itself, its execution rests solely in the hands of the players. Only the players can make it succeed or fail. I have played in a few Clans & fighting honorably was upheld.

P.S. Legging is not dishonorable. That whole notion started in MW3 when someone began to whine about it because taking off a leg was a kill & someone thought it was cheap. Clansmen take pride in being able to target & destroy specific parts of mechs, disabling it quickly to move on to other opponents on the battlefield. MW3 is long gone. This is 2012 people.

Edited by Jaroth Winson, 20 May 2012 - 05:30 AM.

[Redshift2k5]

Perhaps an honor system instead of c-bills to earn new mechs and parts.

[Skylarr]

Not sure if the developers will include a Clan Honor System (not sure how they would). But, some of the unit may require their members to follow it.

[Basch]

This seems to come up alot, an easy fix with out all the hub-bub. Make the clans have the same equipment values but like the houses, have different mechs. If you wanna argue canon give the clans lighter weapons but have them do less damage. Honesly if thay decided to give the clans the worst tech in the game id still play because thats what i wanna do and i actually think the clans would be better for it none of that "clans have uber tech".

[Tremor]

I think it should also be mentioned that even honorable clanners ignore Zellbrigen when engaging dishonorable foes. (IE: pretty much all I.S. combatants)

Edit: and even if they DID choose to fight I.S. forces with honorable rules of combat, they are ignored the second opposing forces break the rules. Knowing I.S., this would pretty much be immediately anyway.

Edited by Tremor, 20 May 2012 - 06:13 AM.

[KingCobra]

The Virus said=(The whole "honor" thing was tried in MW4. No legging, no chaining, 1 vs 1, no shooting down mechs, all that silliness. It failed miserably. ) The reason it failed is the young new players in MW4 were to immature to understand what the older players were trying to teach them from MW2 or MW3 leagues with RP and planetary.Most Young MW4 kids just wanted to point and shoot and never run out of bullets just like in the movies.Playing from a InnerSphere side and a clan side like i have for so long i can say both factions were very fun to play online what the innersphere lacked in firepower the players adapted by tactics to win battles and league titles.

Edited by KingCobra, 20 May 2012 - 06:22 AM.

[dyrewolfe]

I don't think this should be a really big issue.

Zellbrigen, batchall etc. only really apply to Clan v Clan battles. People wanting to play as Clanners will likely abide by the rules if that is how they wish to play.

During the invasion and thereafter, I think I'm correct in thinking there have only been a handful instances where IS forces agreed to fight by Clan rules. Most of the time the IS forces fought as they normally would, meaning zellbrigen wouldn't apply to the Clan forces (as soon as the rules are broken, they are free to fight as they wish).

I suspect this is how the majority of IS v Clan battles were fought, so I don't really see the need for an honour system. That said, I wouldn't object if some feature was introduced which rewarded honourable conduct (as I like to play as Clan myself).

[akito]

I for one would like to see some in game honor system. us it as currency.

[Noble]

To be honest a lot of 12 year olds are going to be playing as clanners just because its going to be a lot easier for them to crush enemies and call out that they have skill....A system of honor would keep only the good players as clanners. Seeing they can uphold honor if there were an honor system. Should give the clanners like a C-bill bonus or an honor reward that can be a currency for buying special clanner hardware.

And why would an Innersphere lance not simply dust them in a duel? Lets say we give the Innersphere warrior a 5% chance of salvaging something random off the clan mech they destroyed after the battle (Percentage could be higher..).

Edited by Noble, 20 May 2012 - 06:27 AM.

[Toothman]

Just Limit the numbers or the tonnage and lets smash. You can't enforce moralities on players in a video game. Way too many have zero e-morals. Hell half the people you meet online can't even be polite.

[Strum Wealh]

IMO, such a "Clan Honor System" would have to be a non-optional element coded into the game itself; for all the reasons outlined in this thread as well as the other thread on the same subject; anything less (e.g. relying on the players themselves to enforce such an honor system) is ultimately doomed to failure.

The Clans' customs are a defining feature of what makes the Clans who and what they are, and are a large part of why they didn't just proverbially curb-stomp the IS during the initial invasion.
Without that element, they're just "the faction with generally better toys than everyone else, but otherwise the same".

Your thoughts?

[Threat Doc]

Jaroth Winson, on 20 May 2012 - 05:25 AM, said:

Then you need to search the forums properly. This topic has been covered.

Not remotely sufficiently

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Since the ideal of honor is not built into the game itself, its execution rests solely in the hands of the players. Only the players can make it succeed or fail. I have played in a few Clans & fighting honorably was upheld.

I disagree. There is a way to build physical-hits-over-time into the system, though even I have to admit it would likely be relatively difficult to do. Legging, heading, back-shooting, firing on shut-down/knocked-down 'Mechs, etc. If an individual fires on a location so many times within a certain time-limit, it's considered deliberate by the game, and some manner of penalty is marked.

Quote

P.S. Legging is not dishonorable. That whole notion started in MW3 when someone began to whine about it because taking off a leg was a kill & someone thought it was cheap. Clansmen take pride in being able to target & destroy specific parts of mechs, disabling it quickly to move on to other opponents on the battlefield. MW3 is long gone. This is 2012 people.

I'll explain the same thing to you that I explain to all of the MechWarrior's in Armageddon Unlimited who ask me about this: it began back in Mercs-2, not MechWarrior 3, and it's been a staple of the community ever since. With those games, it was super-simple for a twitch-gamer -that term started about MW3 time-frame- to take off an opponents leg, to shoot them in the head, the back, etc. It became dishonorable in the community, on the whole, and the only reason it didn't remain as such in the late Pirate's Moon to MechWarrior IV time-period was because so many whiney baby twitchers cried it down. Starting with the end of MW3 and the advent of Pirate's Moon, the lore of this game, as has been displayed on these very forums, became less and less important, and the only thing that became of importance was being able to bang the hell out of one-another using whatever means were necessary.

Honor was always an integral part of BattleTech, mostly through the novels, though it has been expressed in small quantities in various products from FASAs time-frame till Catalyst's products, now. The fact the community had to police their own during the earlier computer games was testament to how poorly designed those other games were.

Recently, in the Twitter chat, it was expressed that PGI will not just keep it's head in the sand regarding dishonorable battlefield conduct, and have worked to make MWO a close amalgam to the BattleTech board game without sacrificing the fun. Kudos to them for keeping this in mind. However, I will keep the rules of DBC in-mind when this game goes live, and will believe it when I see it.

EDIT: Oh, and if you're 'good' enough, read twitch enough, to deliberately shoot an opponents legs, head, back, etc., for an unfair win, then you're probably good enough to win without resorting to those sorts of cowardly tactics.

Edited by Kay Wolf, 20 May 2012 - 07:15 AM.