Any Plans For BATTLETECH After 2019?
- Thread starter Ed Steele
- Start date
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
There is a very hard balance to objective splitting, either I'm able to support each Lance a little bit with another, or I can't. If I can't, I'm just playing 3 separate fights at once.
Your going to want some cross Lance support possible, but this means you might be able to ball up and very quickly neutralize one local area and then shift the bulk to the next, while 1or 2 units finish the remainder.
I think it could be done, but there is still the issues of the time it takes to let 12 units on one side go and then 12+ on the other.
Any expanded unit count in the current game would either need to be restricted to a new type of mission (which would also require an explanation of why you can only bring extra units in that specific mission) or it would require remaking every single mission in the game. What we have now was designed to be completed with a single lance of mechs. Change that limit and the mission no longer works as intended. Most likely it will be too easy.
I don't see company scale engagements working in this game. I would like to see an expanded unit limit in a sequel, but it will require changes to the mechanics to work .
EDIT: Also want to point out that the sprinting speed of an assault mech is about medium mech speed. Creating objectives which assaults can't assist on will not be that simple.
I don't see company scale engagements working in this game. I would like to see an expanded unit limit in a sequel, but it will require changes to the mechanics to work .
EDIT: Also want to point out that the sprinting speed of an assault mech is about medium mech speed. Creating objectives which assaults can't assist on will not be that simple.
I did not suggest that HBS jump to Clans in the current game, in fact, I would like to see the current game slowly progress into the 4th Succession war. My suggestions were for BATTLETECH 2 sometime after 2019.
You could play BATTLETECH with as many MECHS as you want, but it would take hours just to do one round if you had much more than a company.
Just a dumb question, did you ever play any Tabletop games?
Because Focus fire is and was always a huge problem with any Turn based Tabletop. For example in the actual edition of Warhammer 40k a lot of the "not so good" players say who will get Initiative will win. Contrary a lot of the "better" players decide to go second because it helps you more. You can place your units out of LoS or out of Range, so you force your enemy to position his units into your dead zone. So he has 2 options, move his units and get mauled by the return fire. Or stay out of the Dead Zone and shoot only with half his army or less. This of course only works if you have the right terrain with enough LoS blockers. In my experience when your Enemy has a high Alphastrike potential, you need good positioning or you will just loose (I managed to table a player in round 2, now he worked on his positioning and i won't be able to do it again).
Btw. it was the same for Battletech as far as i can remember. You focused down the biggest meanest mech as fast as possible, or the next best one you could reach. You learn it quite fast that your Atlas only looks undestructible on paper, in the real Battletech World it was only a big juicy target that has a little bit more armor then the rest.
I can't see why this shouldn't also work for Battletech in the digital world. It is basically a Tabletop game in digital form so what works in the analog world should also work here.
Focus fire is the natural counter to a huge and very dangerous target, nerfing focus fire is bad, and especially bad in a turn-based game that already has random hits. Anyone who is concerned about "playing fair" in a fight will probably lose. Just remember, though that when the enemy is focused on one target, you can hit them in the rear.
Yes, TT BT extensively from 3025 era play to 3065. You're forgetting point 1 of my post, which is why it was the first point. HBS isn't making a game where losing 1/3rd of your forces is a "normal" thing. You didn't end up addressing that point actually.
Two, you're also forgetting that the biggest change from TT to HBS BT play is that units act and now resolve their actions entirely in their turn. You can now make sure you go one phase ahead of the enemy with something like a Cyclops BC and then thrash their damage dealers with your 5+ units starting a snowball the other side will not recover from as they have not had a chance to act and the lynch-pin units won't as they're dead. This is a massive change form TT BT where all 12 units on an opponsing team could focus one AS7-D and that AS7 still gets to fire back before any of the opposing teams rounds impact it.
Imagine your company is just getting out of the light phase, you got a scout Lance with lights and maybe one or two in the other Lances, 8 or so mediums on your side. You come on to the enemy forces, oops it's all PNT-9Rs and JR7s and other lights. They are fast enough to close the range gap, they have enough large, long ranged weapons or massed MLs+speed to deal major damage to full armor mediums and they will cripple one or two of yours before your real firepower can even act. Now you are down to 4 mediums and it's only the first turn.
The problem of focused fire has always been a problem in BT. Base TT kind of works around this with low to-hit scaling and simultaneous damage resolution, which HBS BT has neither. Add on the new stability and evasion mechanics TT doesn't have in the same way and it compounds itself even more.
It won't be an easy thing to go to company scale at our current ruleset.
All of this still doesn't yet address the issue of time.
This topic is getting off-track, it was about the future of BATTLETECH after 2019, not a debate about how accurately BATTLETECH captures the TT gaming experience.
Greetings MechWarriors,
Please return to the topic at hand and make the off-topic tangent into a new discussion thread.
Thank you.
Please return to the topic at hand and make the off-topic tangent into a new discussion thread.
Thank you.
Of course you will loose Mechs, were is the problem? But you won't loose 1/3 of your forces if you don't just run into the enemies without cover etc..
When what you say happens you did wrong positioning, in your scenario the lights should scout and harras while you keep your mediums a little bit back. When the enemy moves to get range on your lights you can move your mediums into range afterwards. Works like that already, you just have a bigger scale and more units.
low to-hit scaling??? 2W6 for a hit roll of 4 for a Mech that didn't move and short range nets you 91% hit probability, when you did walk and have medium range you still have a 58% to hit chance. And that's with unmodified Pilots. For me this doesn't look so different to the game.
Simultaneous Damage resolution only really protects your light mechs, no one shoots on a Locust instead of the Warhammer next to it. Why? Because 2 possible rounds of dmg from a Warhammer is much more ugly then 2 rounds of a Locusts fire. Basically what BT tries to do with evasion and different Initiative. They protect your light mechs.
I don't know why you think the time issue is the biggest problem. Don't you always need more time when you scale something up? You need much more time to solve a map in Supreme Commander then you need in Command and Conquer, maybe it's connected to the much higher unit count. As long as you keep it optional why should people really care? When i do a recovery mission i can do it in under 5 Minutes when i use a Spider, when i want to Kill all Waves in a Attack & Defense Mission i need 45-60 minutes. So when i don't have the time i don't do the A&D Missions but do recovery instead.
When what you say happens you did wrong positioning, in your scenario the lights should scout and harras while you keep your mediums a little bit back. When the enemy moves to get range on your lights you can move your mediums into range afterwards. Works like that already, you just have a bigger scale and more units.
low to-hit scaling??? 2W6 for a hit roll of 4 for a Mech that didn't move and short range nets you 91% hit probability, when you did walk and have medium range you still have a 58% to hit chance. And that's with unmodified Pilots. For me this doesn't look so different to the game.
Simultaneous Damage resolution only really protects your light mechs, no one shoots on a Locust instead of the Warhammer next to it. Why? Because 2 possible rounds of dmg from a Warhammer is much more ugly then 2 rounds of a Locusts fire. Basically what BT tries to do with evasion and different Initiative. They protect your light mechs.
I don't know why you think the time issue is the biggest problem. Don't you always need more time when you scale something up? You need much more time to solve a map in Supreme Commander then you need in Command and Conquer, maybe it's connected to the much higher unit count. As long as you keep it optional why should people really care? When i do a recovery mission i can do it in under 5 Minutes when i use a Spider, when i want to Kill all Waves in a Attack & Defense Mission i need 45-60 minutes. So when i don't have the time i don't do the A&D Missions but do recovery instead.
Getting away from the issue of bigger battles (and I agree that the issues of extended mission time and focused fire are showstoppers, as any random mission that essentially guarantees you will lose multiple mechs is not going to be one people are going to want to play in either campaign or career mode, nor are they generally going to want to play hour+ missions outside of flashpoints), I expect we have at least one more year worth of DLCs (probably more) before they begin seriously thinking about a Battletech 2.
HBS is the developers, but much of the marketing/distribution is being handled by Paradox. When to move on to create a sequel is at least partially a marketing decision, and while I can't imagine Paradox would overrule HBS if they said "ok, now let's make Battletech II," I expect Paradox's general policy of "sell the base game and continue adding on to it for as much as possible before" will likely inform some of their decisions. CK2 (the first Paradox game to use the current DLC policy) was released in February 2012, and is still being supported (the last major patch was last month, and the most recent paid DLC was this past November, i.e. 6.5 years after the first release). Likewise the other major Paradox titles of this generation are currently going strong years after their release. That clearly seems to be a strategy that is more or less working for them (and you can trace a lot of Paradox's rise from niche to significant market player to the period from the release of CK2), and one I imagine they'd recommend to HBS.
I doubt we'll see Battletech development last as long as CK2 has (if nothing else, I imagine at some point people will want Clans, and that very much should be its own game), but I expect at least another year or two before they start working on Battletech 2. It took ~3 years from announcement to release of the current game; making a sequel will likely take somewhat less time (no kickstarter, for one thing, as they would presumably have funding from Paradox), but still long enough that I imagine they will want to milk as much out of the current game as possible before switching over to developing a sequel.
The current game is a solid base with plenty of things left for them to expand on. I doubt we see fundamental changes to gameplay, but I could easily imagine things like introducing infantry to shake things up. Even if we just look at new mechs, there are what, 13? 3025 PGI mech models left to adapt; some of them will likely be added in Heavy Metal, but I doubt all of them will (and of course, there are plenty of other mechs out there if HBS wants to try their hand at making more mechs a la the Hatchetman, not to mention vehicles). Not to mention flashpoints with every expansion (even if not the main focus, I expect we will see more flashpoints with each expansion, if only because they are "easy," let you show off new mechanics (look at the UW flashpoints, pretty much all of which are focused on showing off either the new mission types or the new mechs) and give that part of the team something to do during the development of the DLC (if someone is an excellent scenario designer but doesn't know their way around the modeling software, you want them writing excellent scenarios instead of causing problems for the art team, and vice versa).
HBS is the developers, but much of the marketing/distribution is being handled by Paradox. When to move on to create a sequel is at least partially a marketing decision, and while I can't imagine Paradox would overrule HBS if they said "ok, now let's make Battletech II," I expect Paradox's general policy of "sell the base game and continue adding on to it for as much as possible before" will likely inform some of their decisions. CK2 (the first Paradox game to use the current DLC policy) was released in February 2012, and is still being supported (the last major patch was last month, and the most recent paid DLC was this past November, i.e. 6.5 years after the first release). Likewise the other major Paradox titles of this generation are currently going strong years after their release. That clearly seems to be a strategy that is more or less working for them (and you can trace a lot of Paradox's rise from niche to significant market player to the period from the release of CK2), and one I imagine they'd recommend to HBS.
I doubt we'll see Battletech development last as long as CK2 has (if nothing else, I imagine at some point people will want Clans, and that very much should be its own game), but I expect at least another year or two before they start working on Battletech 2. It took ~3 years from announcement to release of the current game; making a sequel will likely take somewhat less time (no kickstarter, for one thing, as they would presumably have funding from Paradox), but still long enough that I imagine they will want to milk as much out of the current game as possible before switching over to developing a sequel.
The current game is a solid base with plenty of things left for them to expand on. I doubt we see fundamental changes to gameplay, but I could easily imagine things like introducing infantry to shake things up. Even if we just look at new mechs, there are what, 13? 3025 PGI mech models left to adapt; some of them will likely be added in Heavy Metal, but I doubt all of them will (and of course, there are plenty of other mechs out there if HBS wants to try their hand at making more mechs a la the Hatchetman, not to mention vehicles). Not to mention flashpoints with every expansion (even if not the main focus, I expect we will see more flashpoints with each expansion, if only because they are "easy," let you show off new mechanics (look at the UW flashpoints, pretty much all of which are focused on showing off either the new mission types or the new mechs) and give that part of the team something to do during the development of the DLC (if someone is an excellent scenario designer but doesn't know their way around the modeling software, you want them writing excellent scenarios instead of causing problems for the art team, and vice versa).
Great post, Rubidium, I think your analysis of Paradox's release process is spot on. I never played TT so I'm actually not very clear on what options haven't been included yet. What other things haven't we seen that could come in? Long Toms, player controlled vehicles, flashpoints where you can't repair or drop more mechs...
I'm missing HBS's more RPG-oriented games, ie the Shadowrun games. Mitch has said that's over on twitter which REALLY bums me out but while I've enjoyed Battletech well enough I'd like to see something more along SR:HK from them again, whether that's a different kind of Battletech game or something entirely different doesn't matter.
In the same vein I'd love to see more done with the pilot traits and backstory missions, even for your own PC. It'd be rad to go back and address some of your character's background story (exiled, betrayed, etc.) could be generated based on those traits so you get a different option each career/campaign. And we just get a little taste of backer pilot backgrounds with the various random encounters, we could do a lot more there that'd help us connect more with our pilots and care more if they die.
How has the sales been going for the Urban Warfare expansion? And the season pass overall?
Other 3025 and lostech that could be included:
- Hovercraft
- VTOLs
- Ultra AC/5s
- LBX 10s
- Artemis and Streak missiles
- Artillery in some form
- Infantry in some form
- Aerospace is some form
- Dropships as active combatants
All we can do is speculate on that. There are a couple ways we can try and check, but I question their reliability. The best indication of Battletech's success will be whether they will continue developing it and it looks like they are going to keep going as far as I can tell.
You would have to advance the timeline to the Clan invasion for these things and it seems like the consensus in this thread is that the game should stay in the pre-invasion period as long as possible. I would like it if my dropship would give me close air support though and stepping on infantry could be fun too.
not that far....
they are brought back in 3035 except for artemis which happened in 3040.
first wave of clammer invasion was not until march 3050.
also HBS could bring some stuff in a bit early...like was done with ECM and other things...
but many are happy in this time period.
me not so much...i like the war of 3039 era....lots of lost tech has been reintroduced...new mechs are rolling off the lines.
lots of opportunities for mercs....
From Sarna:
"Thanks to the Helm Memory Core, the Successor States regained the ability to produce the original Ultra AC/5 in 3035.[4] Using this weapon and Clan-tech salvage, Inner Sphere scientists were eventually able to introduce Ultra versions of the AC/2 and AC/10 in 3057, and finally the AC/20 in 3060."
I guess we could see UAC 5s fairly soon, and the other UACs would be incredibly rare lostech like Gauss Rifles.
"The Federated Commonwealth employed an experimental version of the LB 10-X during the War of 3039"
Same as above for the LB 10-X.
"Introduced in 2598 by the Terran Hegemony, lost to the Inner Sphere in 2855, and later rediscovered by the Free Worlds League in 3035[1], the Artemis IV Fire Control System is a guidance system that utilizes an infrared laser designator and tight-beam microwave transmitter which improves the accuracy of LRMs, SRMs, and MMLs by roughly thirty-five percent."
We could see Artemis around the same time as UAC 5s.
Aside from ECM and the Gauss Rifle, most lostech currently in the game is a bit underwhelming though.