I forgot about the targeting computer. total -3 on every roll. Go from not being able to hit the broad side of a barn to shooting an apple of someone’s head while running and jumping
HEAVY METAL ON IT'S WAY!
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You...you do realise that pretty much all of the initial Battletech mechs were directly taken from anime, right? There was this...whole legal thing over it. And besides that, the Bullshark literally has the torso of an Awesome. It doesn't look even a bit like an anime robot. In fact, it has the same general structure as a Nightstar, a 'mech that's pretty popular.
Also can you actually name any of these 'long-standing issues'? Or are they just generally there?
Anime drew influence from BattleTech, not the other way 'round. Well, until now I guess. :|
Sure, long standing issues:
- The game's AI remains terrible. I'm not looking for SkyNet, just something that doesn't inexplicably JJ itself into a position where all guns face away from me and I get free shots into the rear armor.
- There remains no interesting role for a mixed lance aside from stylistically deciding to go that route. Assaults remain king, and most of the game still feels like a race to get a full Crab lance if you're looking to play optimally.
- Base accuracy remains too high. Energy weapons would probably feel at least a bit more balanced if their bonus to accuracy mattered.
- LRM artillery, while not as ridiculous as it used to be, is still far too good.
- Nevermind full spectrum combat - we still can't even supplement a lance with some vehicles. Nobody was expecting playable vehicles within the first or second xpac... but now we're 3 xpacs in and are starting to see 'original' non-canon mechs added into the game at the expense of development budget that could have gone towards playable vehicles.
- Still total radio silence on the matter of full spectrum combat. Again, I wasn't expecting this right away - but yeah, I fully expected eventual implementation. Not hearing a whisper about it while HBS pulls the age old Piranha Studios trick of just dumping mech packs into the game rather than expanding / improving gameplay and pretending that this contiitutes ongoing support. For this era, we already have plenty of mechs... what's the progress on the other stuff? Will we get it before we're into the next Succession War and/or the Clan Invasion? Will we get it at all?
- The 'dynamic' free form campaign remains a more or less barren chain of mercenary missions that can feel quite repetitive and grindy.
Sure, long standing issues:
- The game's AI remains terrible. I'm not looking for SkyNet, just something that doesn't inexplicably JJ itself into a position where all guns face away from me and I get free shots into the rear armor.
- There remains no interesting role for a mixed lance aside from stylistically deciding to go that route. Assaults remain king, and most of the game still feels like a race to get a full Crab lance if you're looking to play optimally.
- Base accuracy remains too high. Energy weapons would probably feel at least a bit more balanced if their bonus to accuracy mattered.
- LRM artillery, while not as ridiculous as it used to be, is still far too good.
- Nevermind full spectrum combat - we still can't even supplement a lance with some vehicles. Nobody was expecting playable vehicles within the first or second xpac... but now we're 3 xpacs in and are starting to see 'original' non-canon mechs added into the game at the expense of development budget that could have gone towards playable vehicles.
- Still total radio silence on the matter of full spectrum combat. Again, I wasn't expecting this right away - but yeah, I fully expected eventual implementation. Not hearing a whisper about it while HBS pulls the age old Piranha Studios trick of just dumping mech packs into the game rather than expanding / improving gameplay and pretending that this contiitutes ongoing support. For this era, we already have plenty of mechs... what's the progress on the other stuff? Will we get it before we're into the next Succession War and/or the Clan Invasion? Will we get it at all?
- The 'dynamic' free form campaign remains a more or less barren chain of mercenary missions that can feel quite repetitive and grindy.
No. The original Battletech mechs- Battledroids? Something like that- are literally taken from [Mod edit: IP conflation] Macross and some others that I can't recall. It's the entire reason for the Unseen being a thing. The whole reason for the Marauder, Warhammer et al being redesigned multiple times is to try and avoid lawsuits and copyright claims. And besides that, anime robots tend to be humanoid. The Bullshark is about as far away from that as it can get without being a quad. But whatever, I understand that's just opinion- although if you'd said that it's seems to take a little bit of inspiration from the Thor in Starcraft I might be inclined to agree with you.
So, I'll give you the points on the lance composition and maybe the AI, although honestly I consider the AI decent for this type of game, just with dodgy moments- I'm fairly sure that the jump-jetting away is something getting messed up in turning the least damaged portion of the 'mech to you, and the AI has improved since release in my opinion. But I can't agree with you on accuracy. Sure, tabletop was far more stingy with it- but this isn't tabletop. The early game is frequently unbearable as it is, forcing the entire game to be a long string of missing more than hitting would absolutely ruin it for me. I'll agree with you on the campaign, it's fun once or twice but does get repetitive, but when it comes to full spectrum combat- we were never promised that. I wouldn't expect it and, honestly, I don't expect it. But I do see that it's an opinion thing again, so I respect that.
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I feel like there is probably a middle ground between TT and what we have now. Yeah, constantly missing every shot would be awful; but what we have right now is a game that hardly values positioning at all, just range and LOS. Optimal range with an unobstructed shot on a halfway decent pilot has north of 85% accuracy base.
Please force me to do something to get such a good shot. Elevation, flanking, some kind of aiming resource... anything to make it feel slightly less like I am just marching a colonial gun line up the map and clicking the shoot button. I don't want the game to only offer dumpster fire shooting odds, I just want the player to have to solve a puzzle in order to get such high precision base shooting.
Honestly, that's fair enough. It is kind of weird that once you get to about 7 Gunnery and Heavy mechs pretty much every shot hits. Not that I don't think high Gunnery should be rewarded, but it does sort of make the last few Gunnery dots pointless. It's just frustrating in early game when a Light mech moves all of three inches and your pilots drop to 20% hit odds.
Anyway, yeah. Those are the kind of long standing these-are-game-fundamentals issues that have yet to be addressed, and it is frustrating to me that what we get instead of that is a non-canon chassis that looks like it was very development-resource intensive to make.
Sorry, but this is very much incorrect. Macross (a VERY popular anime; mostly referred to as Robotech in the US) came out in 1982. The first edition of Battletech came out in 1984. The designs for the Locust, Wasp, Stinger, Maurader, Rifleman, Phoenix Hawk, and Archer (and others; I believe there were 14 total?) were lifted directly from Macross. There are no changes to these designs at all from one to the other.
There's conflicting information available about it, but it seems like FAFSA had originally licensed the designs from the anime, then copyrighted them in the US. Then they got sued, because, well, of course they did.
It's definitely a more... I hesitate to use "realistic" for giant robots, but at least more grounded aesthetic than anime usually goes with mecha shows. But Battletech indisputably has its design roots in anime, not the other way around.
Everything opionwise is completely subjective like I posted elsewhere though. You're completely entitled to dislike the direction, or new designs, or that there's not vehicles yet, etc. Just chiming in on the fact bit.
Slightly tangential: Please recall the "Unseen" do not all derive from the same IP, there were more than one which were in use; the legal issues from one of those caused FASA to immediately panic and grab all of them to be safe instead of sorry. And at the same time, this has also swung back across...
Also slightly tangential: If I wanted to play BattleTech where I missed far more often than I'd hit, I'd play tabletop Classic BattleTech with 4/5 pilots in Lights and Mediums. (Which is on the table again for "soon"...)
Also slightly tangential: If I wanted to play BattleTech where I missed far more often than I'd hit, I'd play tabletop Classic BattleTech with 4/5 pilots in Lights and Mediums. (Which is on the table again for "soon"...)
Greetings Mechwarriors,
The topic is the dlc: Heavy metal.
Please remain on topic and avoid tangents.
As for other IPs, please avoid posting conflation errors. And please keep discussion in this subforum directly related to Battletech. Re: tangents above.
Thank you
The topic is the dlc: Heavy metal.
Please remain on topic and avoid tangents.
As for other IPs, please avoid posting conflation errors. And please keep discussion in this subforum directly related to Battletech. Re: tangents above.
Thank you
I can't find the quote either but if it helps, I recall him saying the same thing..
I think the context is very important for that statement... as I recall it, it was not so much a regret that the numerically inferior Clans had superior Tech, as it was a moment of reflection on how poorly some of the player base felt it impacted on Mech to Mech Combat moving forward from 3050. At least that was my thoughts on Jordan’s comment.
And tying it back onto the topic of HEAVY METAL,pre-Fourth Succession War Mech Mortars, COIL Weapons, LBX, UAC, etc, contribute to similar Tech Level challenges moving forward from HEAVY METAL.
I don't consider them "numerically inferior" because they weren't. But that's neither here nor their.
I do think that you are correct in the full statement was about their introduction and resulting effect on the Battletech IP going forward. And how, if he could do it again, he'd either NOT introduce them or try and find a better way to do so.
But that recolcation is most certainly open for debate as I don't have the actual quote. I don't think it was on the forums, either of them but instead was said in a Dev video type thing. Like a Q & A thing . . ..
I thought it was the Hbs q&a where Randall was a guest. Because Randall spoke on it too.
I recall the Clan tech thing being not a regret that it was noticeably better than SL tech, but rather a hindsight feeling that they made it better by too much. (My memory ain't the best so I may be wrong on that.)
This may be relevant to the expansion because some of the weapons being brought into the game were first invented by the Clans, not the Star League, and the Wolf's Dragoons flashpoint-campaign would provide a plausible mechanism for why we're finding them here and now. If HBS feels the need to rebalance Clantech (and they already rebalanced introtech so it's by no means a stretch), we may be about to see the start of it.
This may be relevant to the expansion because some of the weapons being brought into the game were first invented by the Clans, not the Star League, and the Wolf's Dragoons flashpoint-campaign would provide a plausible mechanism for why we're finding them here and now. If HBS feels the need to rebalance Clantech (and they already rebalanced introtech so it's by no means a stretch), we may be about to see the start of it.
If back in 1989, ClanTech was a “Shock” to a sizable portion of BattleTech Player Base...
...what better way in 2019 to avoid such a “Shock,” than to gradually introduce advanced (“near,” maybe “peer-ClanTech”) in the form of a generous portion of SLDF Tech in the base game, then COIL, Mech Mortar, LBX, UAC, E-WAR Components, etc in a Wolf’s Dragoons mini-Campaign.
Such would go a ways toward lessening the “Shock” of actual Clan Tech later on. Almost... inculcating an acceptance of advanced Tech. Gotta say, I see this as part of HBS’s genius for game design, similar to the manner of game design that Kiva spoke of in a recent article.
I recall the quote as well. I have not played TT, but as I recall:
IS ML: 5 damage, 1 ton
IS LL: 9 damage, 5 tons
Clan ER Medium Laser: 8 or 9 damage, 1 ton, range comparable to the Large Laser...and matched with double-strength heat sinks
So, for example, the Nova is walking around with the firepower of 6-7 IS large lasers -- assault mech firepower -- with much better cooling, speed, and maneuverability, all at 50 tons.
The clans have better engines, better weapons, better cooling, bigger payloads, and more armor. There's basically no area of tech in which they aren't superior to the IS.
I am concerned by how powerful the ++ gear is... I think a ++ laser at +5 damage would still be meaningful - these +50% damage bonuses feel/seem over the top to me, and don't reflect the stagnant tech base of the setting. +stab weapons, even more so.
IS ML: 5 damage, 1 ton
IS LL: 9 damage, 5 tons
Clan ER Medium Laser: 8 or 9 damage, 1 ton, range comparable to the Large Laser...and matched with double-strength heat sinks
So, for example, the Nova is walking around with the firepower of 6-7 IS large lasers -- assault mech firepower -- with much better cooling, speed, and maneuverability, all at 50 tons.
The clans have better engines, better weapons, better cooling, bigger payloads, and more armor. There's basically no area of tech in which they aren't superior to the IS.
I am concerned by how powerful the ++ gear is... I think a ++ laser at +5 damage would still be meaningful - these +50% damage bonuses feel/seem over the top to me, and don't reflect the stagnant tech base of the setting. +stab weapons, even more so.
Yes, but that's still over the top. You don't need big #s to make a measurable impact.