I find the cost for the DLC's pretty rough. I could buy them but I will not until they drop to 10€ or below. I may be wrong but everything I read about them sounds like they are overpriced.
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I find the cost for the DLC's pretty rough. I could buy them but I will not until they drop to 10€ or below. I may be wrong but everything I read about them sounds like they are overpriced.
when the season pass first came out discounted and all....thats about what i ended up paying for each.
It's a good thing I try to differentiate my claim with "I'm having fun" rather than "it's a good game". I've had fun with terrible games before. (Look up Hydlide some time.)
Speaking solely for myself, I grew up with the mentality of not bringing up a problem unless it was either critically important ("hey, you know, you're keeping the oil too close to the stove burners") or I already had a solution in mind ("we could shave some money off the electricity bills if we stopped letting the television run while nobody is actively watching it"). Similarly, there was the very real education by a couple excellent teachers which revolved around instructing their students on the difference between "it's wrong and bad" versus "I don't like this".
Now, as I alluded to, I've tried to tinker with ideas now and then to see how it works out. (The 'White Reach' campaign is a space I use to tinker with things, admittedly, and there's anywhere from two to ten versions of some rules.) For a few issues, I've come up with no solutions which don't run into "completely rewriting the game" as of yet. These issues are, I find, a lot of ones which get brought up repeatedly about this game. Such I like to consider "inherited problems" since they exist on the Tabletop this game was based off of. (And if I wanted to be pedantic, some of these problems exist in three versions of tabletop play.) Bad 'Mech designs, lackluster weapons, and initiative sucking are a good selection of three problems which fall into this category. (Only one of these is fair game to tinker with too far, as well.)
Then there are problems which are resulting entirely from choices made in the design of this game, which I've walked around a couple times and don't quite see fixes to which remain "solved" beyond the context of the problem. (Or in many cases, the solution breaks down in the face of other "fixes".) ECM I haven't actually gotten to play with yet - I'm quite busy and haven't had the chance to really tear into a few things - but this is one of those things which don't get any good solutions. (Other than "don't touch it with the standard ten-foot pole, or the eleven-foot one either".)
There are three areas I find the game lacking, which could have been altered or already have been worked on.
- The Story. It's been noted, many times, how there's literally one path through the Campaign. Flashpoints have some variant paths through them, as well, but this isn't nearly as glaring as in the main Campaign Mode. There's no branches, background choices at creation (or during the game) seem to have very little effect on things, and some writing goes "thud" heavily as it fails to take off and lands on the deck like discount meat found on the black market. As someone who writes (if we broaden the definition to those who can spell) and tried several times to anticipate things players might do at the roleplaying table (and failed...) there's always been a decision to make on how much work should be done and how much time there is to do it in. Weighed against the important question of "does this really make things work better or is it just clunkier?" which should probably get asked more often. I can't think of a way to fix it without adding about four months of development time just to troubleshoot dialogue trees and flag checks. Let alone alternate missions or OpFors, which would take . . . infinity amount of man-hours to really "do a good job".
- Time Pressure. So long as you can keep making payroll each month, there's no pressure to get things done. The only timer which matters is whether or not the next payment is in hand to avoid bankruptcy. Naturally, after a point in the game this becomes very difficult to trigger - for as much as Mitch talks about how much he's failing, I don't recall him hitting the "red zone" all too often. But more importantly, contracts don't seem to expire or change if you sit in orbit and let the clock run - you can technically take a mission you can't complete due to repair time or medical leave, wait for it to finish, then do the mission. Campaign is even worse about this, as the war the Restoration is fighting is seemingly in a stalemate unless your outfit gets involved. As much as the story wants to play certain points as vital to a timetable or problematic, the game itself fails to make it feel there's any pressure to do things. I know why this is, because it's no fun to lose to the clock, but . . . it's not something I like when it's supposed to feel like "the clock is always ticking" when it's not mattering when the clock ticks.
- Lasting Impact. To be blunt, this is a branch from the first point: nothing I do seems to make a difference outside of the Campaign flipping systems or ratcheting the progressive difficulty. In Career mode, performing a mission just seems to affect my outfit's (mis)fortunes. I help out the Canopians take a swipe at a League-controlled planet? Doesn't seem to make a difference outside the stack of C-Bills I get paid. Fail to repel a Capellan attack on an Aurigan base? Eh, I'm out reputation and repair costs. As with the first point, I know this is due to having absolutely nowhere near the time to render the game into something which can change quite that much.
FWIW, the distance you can jump is 30 meters, plus 30 meters per jump jet installed. So four jump jets get you 150 meters of distance, five get you 180, and so on. On top of that, the ground movement distances were brought in towards the "standard" four move... so three movement is a little higher than 90 meters, four is exactly 120, five is a little less than 150... without mods, full jump jets will always get you farther than a basic move, regardless of the terrain.
Likes:
Graphics
Game stability
Story
Solid launch
Dislikes:
Just 4 mechs to command
Vehics cant be controlled along with mechs
Not enough pvp support
Great game tho, look forward to mods and DLC.
\
Graphics
Game stability
Story
Solid launch
Dislikes:
Just 4 mechs to command
Vehics cant be controlled along with mechs
Not enough pvp support
Great game tho, look forward to mods and DLC.
\
Like:
Good tactical combat.
Transition from table top to PC is very well implemented.
A decent Battletech game.
Dislike:
Missions boils down to the same 'kill everything' objective;
Factions are just change of logo;
Reputation doesn't really matter;
Bad AI;
Stale gameplay - less a merc sim where choice matter and more disjointed series of arena matches;
DLCs fixed nothing.
Good tactical combat.
Transition from table top to PC is very well implemented.
A decent Battletech game.
Dislike:
Missions boils down to the same 'kill everything' objective;
Factions are just change of logo;
Reputation doesn't really matter;
Bad AI;
Stale gameplay - less a merc sim where choice matter and more disjointed series of arena matches;
DLCs fixed nothing.
yeah I have played a little and the convoy missions are where the ai really shines...
Bigger maps would be nice too. So often I run around the edges of the map.
Likes:
- The campain is good and immersive
- The career mode is a cool add and increase replay
- The battlemech biome
- The well polished game and the effort to increase the quality over the time
- The music (the main theme is magic)
- Gameplay is good
Dislikes:
- Not enough usable stuff (so many items/weapons are useless and you finish with the same build, in addition the stats are fixed)
- Boring end game in career mode
- Mechwarrior skills are not well balanced, the best main template is vangard (bulwark, sensor lock, advanced tactician) and we cannot really change it (maybe lancer)
- The game slow down the longer you play (due to mechbay slots, mechwarrior pool and of course inventory, the worst of all and not well designed)
- The game is designed to have a full assault lance, the bigger you have, the best you have (due to sensor lock that ruins lighter mechs and to multiple lance facing requiring big armor).
- Not enough flashpoints in carrer mode (ok it's the only mode you can encounter flashpoints), we cannot "hunt" the FP
Neutral :
- Mechwarrior traits is a good idea but not well exploited
- Map (size is sometime bigger enough, sometimes not, some stating spots are diffrents, somtimes you begin always from the same place)
- Ennemy mechs are always using the same loadout, it's cool to detect the mech model without see it but reduce the tactical part
- The knokdown reduce by 1 the init, it's cool, but it means a lighter mech can be knocked down and even move and fire before you turn ! The same on assault mech because you cannot reduce init lower than 1.
- The campain is good and immersive
- The career mode is a cool add and increase replay
- The battlemech biome
- The well polished game and the effort to increase the quality over the time
- The music (the main theme is magic)
- Gameplay is good
Dislikes:
- Not enough usable stuff (so many items/weapons are useless and you finish with the same build, in addition the stats are fixed)
- Boring end game in career mode
- Mechwarrior skills are not well balanced, the best main template is vangard (bulwark, sensor lock, advanced tactician) and we cannot really change it (maybe lancer)
- The game slow down the longer you play (due to mechbay slots, mechwarrior pool and of course inventory, the worst of all and not well designed)
- The game is designed to have a full assault lance, the bigger you have, the best you have (due to sensor lock that ruins lighter mechs and to multiple lance facing requiring big armor).
- Not enough flashpoints in carrer mode (ok it's the only mode you can encounter flashpoints), we cannot "hunt" the FP
Neutral :
- Mechwarrior traits is a good idea but not well exploited
- Map (size is sometime bigger enough, sometimes not, some stating spots are diffrents, somtimes you begin always from the same place)
- Ennemy mechs are always using the same loadout, it's cool to detect the mech model without see it but reduce the tactical part
- The knokdown reduce by 1 the init, it's cool, but it means a lighter mech can be knocked down and even move and fire before you turn ! The same on assault mech because you cannot reduce init lower than 1.
Likes:
- It's definitely Battletech and feels very much Battletech!
- The combat system is awesome and almost every turn is interesting with lot's of cool details to consider
- It's easy to get emotionally invested in your outfit on your way through the game
- The gameworld evolves beautifully and there are memorable moments naturally occuring even after countless hours.
- Game's still running bad with lackluster performance for its visuals and way more crashes a title of this caliber should have.
- Multiplayer is basically non-functional for many players and hasn't seemingly improved since its broken release in early beta.
- The A.I. is a bit lacking in terms of the bigger meta-strategies of a match.
- Overall, while you can clearly see all the heart poured into it, there are also some areas as well with a bit of a lack of polish, that are good enough to be checked of a list instead of being reiterated ad infinitum until being perfect (Think Blizzard quality of oldschool Blizzard that would rework stuff so many times it hurts but have polish in every little detail of their games at the end). Which is, of course, a lot to ask from a small studio with limited budget and time. Maybe Mitch should have been even more adamant.
Likes
-The turn based combat works well in my view
-Mech customisation is satisfying
-I never played the table top games, but did enjoy the various computer games in the past. I think the feel of Battletech is definitely there.
-The scenery is good, and the urban settings look great.
-It seems to be friendly to modding in many areas
-The missions with allied or third party forces are fun - they should come up more often in my view.
Dislikes/things that can be improved
-aside from the campaign where the map changes I think things are too static - there ought to be a bit of life in the campaign map. I would like to see the major houses focus on a handful of worlds with the potential for these to change hands depending on how local battles go.
-The game could really benefit from some background activity in the form of news reports from the rest of the inner sphere. Likewise there ought to be the odd report of actions of merc companies in the periphery.
-The reputation system has flaws in that almost all parties are the great houses, there should be more parties like the planetary government faction (e.g. corporations or nobles) where the great houses do not care about the outcome.
-There are times when being able to deploy more than a single lance would be appropriate (attack and defend missions spring to mind) - perhaps something to consider for a sequel. A dream scenario would be to allow a friend to drop in to command an allied lance in a larger battle in one’s campaign.
-The turn based combat works well in my view
-Mech customisation is satisfying
-I never played the table top games, but did enjoy the various computer games in the past. I think the feel of Battletech is definitely there.
-The scenery is good, and the urban settings look great.
-It seems to be friendly to modding in many areas
-The missions with allied or third party forces are fun - they should come up more often in my view.
Dislikes/things that can be improved
-aside from the campaign where the map changes I think things are too static - there ought to be a bit of life in the campaign map. I would like to see the major houses focus on a handful of worlds with the potential for these to change hands depending on how local battles go.
-The game could really benefit from some background activity in the form of news reports from the rest of the inner sphere. Likewise there ought to be the odd report of actions of merc companies in the periphery.
-The reputation system has flaws in that almost all parties are the great houses, there should be more parties like the planetary government faction (e.g. corporations or nobles) where the great houses do not care about the outcome.
-There are times when being able to deploy more than a single lance would be appropriate (attack and defend missions spring to mind) - perhaps something to consider for a sequel. A dream scenario would be to allow a friend to drop in to command an allied lance in a larger battle in one’s campaign.
I really like your idea here. :bow:
The Inner Sphere, especially a Mercenary Outfit with a Lance that is regularly up for any number of local contracts and Regional Flashpoint Missions should have some background hustle and bustle of events both local and distant. I think it would greatly aid the depth and immersion of BATTLETECH gameplay. A main sticking point would be that if Lore-based Events were used, it would pin gameplay down to the three years between 3025 and 3028 (the timeframe for the current game.)