2 replies to this topic

[darkcyd]

I love battletech and I hate griping without first giving you something positive

i really like your the mech building and hard point system which preserves the spirit of the mech while maintaining a fair degree of flexability to upgrading.

The glaring problem with this game at the moment is your game modes make me want to shoot myself in the face.

The variety is, take capture point and shoot mech. No thought process beyond that. No story or plot line beyond that.

Battletech is so rich and endless in its ability to deploy mechs for a vast array of different reasons in different situations that it is really frustrating to be stuck in such a redundant display of pointless head on violence.

I suppose my last complaint is the ability for a mouse controlling player to accurately hit any stationary object at nearly any range given LoS. This ability for every awesome out there and sometimes there are more to hit with every PPC anytime you poke your head out creates real issues both closing the distance and poking in general. The result is smaller and lighter mechs run in to annoying and harrass while the heavier mechs close once the enemy is distracted. Closing the distance without lighter mechs is simply not possible and whoever has the biggest guns or most LRM's wins.Only practical way to fix this would be to introduce a little "engine vibration" to the mouse.

Edited by darkcyd, 30 January 2013 - 03:56 PM.

[ice trey]

Agreeing with you on the customization bit. It's such a relief that they've incorporated the standard Battletech-style customization system. Besides being raised on it with MW2 and 3, back when MW4 was the accepted standard for Mechwarrior Computer Gaming, the customization system was completely gutted, and even some 'mechs were given loadouts that didn't resemble their canon loadouts in the least (Thor, Loki, I'm looking at you).

At that point in time, getting a Mechwarrior 4 player to play Battletech was a lost cause. Half of the time, they'd look at the record sheets, claim "That's Confusing and dumb" and not want to even give the game a chance. Since going back to Battletech style customization, MWO players have been really receptive to the mechanics of tabletop Battletech, as the customization system has made them very familiar to the layout of the Battletech record sheets.

As for the issue you have with the point-and-click, autokilling of larger designs, this is unfortunately a side effect of allowing customization in MWO without any side effects besides "it costs C-bills up front", combined with all weapons perfectly following the cursor, with only projectile speed preventing perfect aim. Admittedly, if you're using a joystick, you're sacrificing accuracy for immersion, so I think that there's really no grounds to complain if that's the case. As for lights distracting the big-slows, that's sometimes the case in tabletop, as well. Concentrating fire is common practice, and the first 'mech to poke it's nose out into the open is going to get eviscerated. Using terrain to your advantage has always been a huge focus in the Mechwarrior games. The only thing is that range is less of a factor here than in tabletop.

As for the story experience, I'm all with you on that. I was hoping for ten years to get another immersive single-player campaign, especially if it included RPG elements. I was disappointed to hear that it would end up being online-only. Still, depending on how well they pull off the Community Warfare, it might make up for the lack of a single-player experience.

All the devs go on about MW games' single player games getting used up in a few sessions and then they played online all the time - thus why they focused on online games, but I was just the opposite. I played through the campaigns in MW games, then tried a night or two of multiplayer, but then got so frustrated with the experience (Jump sniping assaults everywhere, minmax Clantech EVERYWHERE), that I ended up going back to the single player game, and played it over, and over, and over again. Then when Mektek announced that you could trick MW4 Mercs into incorporating their 'mechs into single player, I played single player raw, and even more so when they incorporated them all into the game. I just wish they had done the same with MW4 Vengeance, so that it was a little truer to the canon, and designs that by all rights shouldn't be cropping up in such huge numbers on some small-time world in the federated suns could get replaced for stuff more appropriate to the area. I even ended up figuring out how to get MW2, GBL, and MW2Mercs running again on Dosbox, and play those games' single player campaigns raw, even now. The only reason I don't do MW3 is because of weird code issues that cause 'mechs to jitter due to my computer being way too fast to run it.

Edited by ice trey, 30 January 2013 - 04:14 PM.

[darkcyd]

ice trey, on 30 January 2013 - 04:06 PM, said:

Agreeing with you on the customization bit. It's such a relief that they've incorporated the standard Battletech-style customization system. Besides being raised on it with MW2 and 3, back when MW4 was the accepted standard for Mechwarrior Computer Gaming, the customization system was completely gutted, and even some 'mechs were given loadouts that didn't resemble their canon loadouts in the least (Thor, Loki, I'm looking at you).

At that point in time, getting a Mechwarrior 4 player to play Battletech was a lost cause. Half of the time, they'd look at the record sheets, claim "That's Confusing and dumb" and not want to even give the game a chance. Since going back to Battletech style customization, MWO players have been really receptive to the mechanics of tabletop Battletech, as the customization system has made them very familiar to the layout of the Battletech record sheets.

As for the issue you have with the point-and-click, autokilling of larger designs, this is unfortunately a side effect of allowing customization in MWO without any side effects besides "it costs C-bills up front", combined with all weapons perfectly following the cursor, with only projectile speed preventing perfect aim. Admittedly, if you're using a joystick, you're sacrificing accuracy for immersion, so I think that there's really no grounds to complain if that's the case. As for lights distracting the big-slows, that's sometimes the case in tabletop, as well. Concentrating fire is common practice, and the first 'mech to poke it's nose out into the open is going to get eviscerated. Using terrain to your advantage has always been a huge focus in the Mechwarrior games. The only thing is that range is less of a factor here than in tabletop.

As for the story experience, I'm all with you on that. I was hoping for ten years to get another immersive single-player campaign, especially if it included RPG elements. I was disappointed to hear that it would end up being online-only. Still, depending on how well they pull off the Community Warfare, it might make up for the lack of a single-player experience.

All the devs go on about MW games' single player games getting used up in a few sessions and then they played online all the time - thus why they focused on online games, but I was just the opposite. I played through the campaigns in MW games, then tried a night or two of multiplayer, but then got so frustrated with the experience (Jump sniping assaults everywhere, minmax Clantech EVERYWHERE), that I ended up going back to the single player game, and played it over, and over, and over again. Then when Mektek announced that you could trick MW4 Mercs into incorporating their 'mechs into single player, I played single player raw, and even more so when they incorporated them all into the game. I just wish they had done the same with MW4 Vengeance, so that it was a little truer to the canon, and designs that by all rights shouldn't be cropping up in such huge numbers on some small-time world in the federated suns could get replaced for stuff more appropriate to the area. I even ended up figuring out how to get MW2, GBL, and MW2Mercs running again on Dosbox, and play those games' single player campaigns raw, even now. The only reason I don't do MW3 is because of weird code issues that cause 'mechs to jitter due to my computer being way too fast to run it.

I understand what you are saying however I feel the current game modes enhance the," Oh, you stuck your head out first" problem." Another possible solution would be fire. In the TT you could intentionally or accidently start fires to cover advance and retreat. I know smoke is in the game but dynamic terrain may be beyond the game engine.