12 replies to this topic

[ConnorSinclair]

With the Release of the stalker I've found some players underwhelmed from its release over better assaults. Alot of the mechs we get are chosen over a wide variety of criteria. But one of these pieces of criteria is a blurred line.

And thats Variants, many mechs are held back simply because they lack them despite being Iconic or being major set pieces for certain houses. Mechs like the King Crab, the Daboku/Mauler and many others.

So where do we draw the line? Do we follow Lore to the letter despite these mechs being fielded even now? Or do we allow PGI to take some liberties in making variants? Are some things taboo while others not?

Vote, Discuss

[Cmdr Harabec]

If they're creating non-canon Hero mechs, I'm fine with non-canon variants. Especially as the game progresses into Clan tech I can see more powerful variations of IS mechs cropping up to compete that might not exist in the current timeframe in canon. I don't really see any downsides here, as long as they're in addition to canon variants what's there to get mad over? More variety is good as long as it's balanced, and there certainly are plenty of wonderful mechs that just don't meet the variant requirement I'd love to see in game.

[Flit Asuno]

I'm personally all for mechs like the Mauler or King Crab being introduced. I know there's probably 3 dozen mechs just in the inner sphere that are people's favorites that they want to see put in.... But I think disqualifying a mech on not having 3 variants available or not having that third+ variant until post 3050 is a bit silly.

If they're willing to make up a variant for hero mech's why not make up a logical variant or two for the mech based on the lore of the house that uses it? or a merc company that made heavy use of them?

(I just want to shout crab battle. Don't judge)

[Adridos]

Cmdr Harabec, on 25 December 2012 - 12:38 AM, said:

If they're creating non-canon Hero mechs, I'm fine with non-canon variants.

Except those aren't non-canon variants. Those are unique custom designs that are not a variant, just a personalised mech.

As far as their cannonicity is considered, they were written by the main Battletech lore-guy, so I think we can actually call them canon. Will have to ask over at battlketech official site.

[Flit Asuno]

Adridos, on 25 December 2012 - 12:52 AM, said:

Except those aren't non-canon variants. Those are unique custom designs that are not a variant, just a personalised mech.

As far as their cannonicity is considered, they were written by the main Battletech lore-guy, so I think we can actually call them canon. Will have to ask over at battlketech official site.

It's a short jump from that to making a mech a full variant. They're treated as a separate variant by the system. And all a variant tends to be is a house/company backed customization of a particular chassis and instead of it being one pilots particular mech. It's used by a noteworthy number. It wouldn't be so hard to write up new variants and I'd actually prefer they did that if it meant getting a few mechs people like into the game.

[Nightfangs]

I still don't see why there have to be several variants of each mech frame.
The experience-trees are still retar'ded and are the only real reason why there have to be at least 3 variants.
So just remove the trees and if a mech has only 1 or 2 variants, implement only those.
It's all just another case of "correcting" something by making another mistake.

[JudgeDeathCZ]

Ye they should add more IS mechs.I dont know why gametime started only 1 year be4 invasion.If there are like 2-3 years we can get more mechs be4 Clan invasion

[Alex Wolfe]

It's tricky. If you allow too much freedom and leniency, you risk making mechs obsolete before they even come out.

Imagine there's an Awesome who's given some ballistic slots for "leniency" and variety. What's the use for ever adding Zeus then? Why not just add Zeus?

We're already halfway there, with Raven 4x pretty much taking Urbanmech/Hollander's role, and Catapults/Cataphracts playing at being Jagermechs.

My vote, stick to canon for the most part. Exceptions to the rule should be very rare, or you'll run out of content mighty fast - people will just look at a mech X announced and say "mech Y variant Z already does that, what's the point?".

Edited by Alex Wolfe, 25 December 2012 - 06:41 AM.

[El Jeffe]

Flit Asuno, on 25 December 2012 - 12:40 AM, said:

(I just want to shout crab battle. Don't judge)

Battle Crabs... ATTACK!!!

[Flit Asuno]

Alex Wolfe, on 25 December 2012 - 06:34 AM, said:

It's tricky. If you allow too much freedom and leniency, you risk making mechs obsolete before they even come out.

Imagine there's an Awesome who's given some ballistic slots for "leniency" and variety. What's the use for ever adding Zeus then? Why not just add Zeus?

We're already halfway there, with Raven 4x pretty much taking Urbanmech/Hollander's role, and Catapults/Cataphracts playing at being Jagermechs.

My vote, stick to canon for the most part. Exceptions to the rule should be very rare, or you'll run out of content mighty fast - people will just look at a mech X announced and say "mech Y variant Z already does that, what's the point?".

I could think of another solution to this but it would turn into a shitstorm all it's own. Hardpoint sizes.

[ConnorSinclair]

Alex Wolfe, on 25 December 2012 - 06:34 AM, said:

It's tricky. If you allow too much freedom and leniency, you risk making mechs obsolete before they even come out.

Imagine there's an Awesome who's given some ballistic slots for "leniency" and variety. What's the use for ever adding Zeus then? Why not just add Zeus?

We're already halfway there, with Raven 4x pretty much taking Urbanmech/Hollander's role, and Catapults/Cataphracts playing at being Jagermechs.

My vote, stick to canon for the most part. Exceptions to the rule should be very rare, or you'll run out of content mighty fast - people will just look at a mech X announced and say "mech Y variant Z already does that, what's the point?".

This could also be modified by moving crit spacing around. Move 5 crit slots off of Cat side torso and put them on arms.

Voila, no more Gaussapult AC20 cat.

[Necromantion]

I just think its silly that they are going at a 1:1 ratio as far as the timeline goes since it will bottleneck their options for new variants in the future as well as new mechs and technology for them to ultimately make more money to continue development of this game.

I feel that we will probably see them compressing the 1:1 temporal ratio we see right now in the next year or so to allow for more mechs/variants to be available.

[Alex Wolfe]

Flit Asuno, on 25 December 2012 - 05:54 PM, said:

I could think of another solution to this but it would turn into a shitstorm all it's own. Hardpoint sizes.

I had a huge thread proposing exactly that, back when dinosaurs ruled the forums. Was quite popular, but no dev elected to chime in before it got nuked in the Closed Beta Forum Purge.

If they don't start differentiating chassis further, I think we're going to see a lot of toe-stepping very soon, with mech variants close/identical to each other. Not to mention that with engine restrictions (which I am for, only believe they should be compensated) there already doesn't appear to be a niche for slow lights/mediums (Urbanmech, Panther, Whitworth). Creating hardpoint sizes and allowing only bulkier mechs access to bigger weapons would help that IMO.