How to bring BATTLETECH to the next level?

[Paendragon]

Battletech is already a good game one can enjoy for many hours (thank you HBS!). I have recently finished my second play-through with mods and was thinking about what was missing.


One of the most common criticisms you encounter with current Battletech from players in Steam Reviews, from streamers, online magazines - and one I am agreeing personally to as well - is that Battletech is still, generally speaking, a game where you bring your four heaviest Mechs to battle, walk towards the enemy and stomp them. Or put differently: The game does not give you many big tactical choices that win the day. Instead, you get a myriad of small ones.


Sure, there is terrain, there is ammo, there is heat management, there is different weapon ranges there is mobility, there is facing, your load out etc. However, in the big scheme of things you end up with four of your beefiest Mechs with maybe a Hopper in between for gaining LOS and drawing fire. It will rarely feel like you won the battle because you had a better lance composition, or because you outmaneuvered the enemy or you had the better strategy in the course of the mission or your pilots had a higher quality (which they have on top of all things at the end of the game).


You can`t just build a lance of eight 50to Mediums to fight the four 100to Assaults.


You can`t use a hand full of cheap tanks to block the path of the enemy lance and flank them with lighter and faster Mechs.


You can`t place a minefield or call an airstrike in the advancing path of the enemy reinforcements.


You do not have interlinked objectives like having to capture and hold one point with one lance and at the same time push for another objective in a set amount of time with a different lance or fail the whole mission. There is no need for this kind of complex mission design. It is always do A then do B then do C. Search & Destroy.


I guess most of you are already seeing where this goes. I believe that in order to make Battletech a truly excellent game, we do not only need more of the same in a different garn (though that is always a nice touch). One should expand the game in dramatic and meaningful ways that take full advantage of the systems in place and make it tactically more interesting from the perspective of a commander.


- Transform the 4-Mech-limit to a real tonnage limit.

- Introduce playable tanks and infantry and strategic tools like artillery fire.

- Expand the lance limit up to a Company of 16 vehicles.

- Increase the size of maps (simply unlock more space of the current maps?) to open up more tactical possibilities.

- Expand the flashpoint concept to a multi-lance, multi-objective, multi-mission customizable editor so the community can get creative and we can put the whole power of our mercenary company into the field when necessary.

- Factor in pilots abilities. A lance of rooks should be cheaper to deploy then a lance of your best pilots.

- Open the game up for multiplayer (Solaris expansion?)


I think in the past HBS has spoken out against expanding the scope of combat like this because they want to stay focused on the lance level tactical combat and keep it to the 30-minute frame for one mission.


However, I say this has proven too one-dimensional for many people. Why fight this point when clearly there is demand for this in the community?


Sure, you could say loading times will be long; turns will take 15 minutes instead of one minute; the already challenged AI would totally crap out. Low spec PCs would melt. Idk.


Still, I think I would take it. Just for having the chance to play this game on the next level. It feels like the lance limitation & gameplay is but the tutorial on a greater scheme of gameplay.


Maybe all/some of this needs to go into the specs for Battletech 2.


What are other players thinking?


Completely happy with the current plans? Or do you think there are opportunities lost with the limit to one lance and the fixed 400to setup? Did the DLC (Flashpoint) alleviate the Assault onslaught S&D syndrome?

 

[whymakemedothis]

I can almost guarantee you that Kiva prototyped that option at some point during development and abandoned it as not really adding anything interesting to the game in actual play. One reason might be that rather than adding an interesting decision, it really just compounds the death spiral being negligible in a campaign doing well while potentially ending a struggling run without a shot being fired.

Imagine a different scenario where I'm against the wall and need to get a paying job to succeed. The problem is that now I can't afford to field the 'mechs most likely to give me success on this vital mission, or maybe not even be able to field a lance at all. I'd feel robbed of a chance to turn things around. If I dropped with my best lance and then failed it would feel like I gave it a shout and just couldn't cut it. Instead I didn't even have that option, just whimpered through, defeated by a spreadsheet and some bad luck.

Sure, it's possibly deliverable and may be fine as a difficulty toggle, I'm just not convinced it's going to add anything interesting over and above the toggles that exist and it has the danger of adding in a layer of busywork which has the potential of ending a run.

If this change was prototyped and abandoned I'd be pretty confident that occurred before career mode was a thing. That is important because you are correct in that such a change would increase the likelihood of events that will precipitate a death spiral in a campaign. However in career mode if a players back is to the wall and in need of a paying contract they always have the option of going to a low skull system where a lance of light mechs can get the job done. This is the whole reason I suggested the change, to increase the viability of lighter units in career mode. Currently they are useful in low skull systems but as the game progresses a player is most likely to succeed by replacing all of their lighter mechs with heavies and assaults. This is a carry over from the campaign where system skull ratings increase so light mech obsolescence is by design. Currently replacing a light with a heavy is all benefit, introducing a penalty in the form of a maintenance cost based on weight is a simple way to address it and give players a reason other than house rules to keep their light and medium mechs out of storage and in their mech bay.

Given the differences between campaign and career modes I'm even more certain that such a change is best implemented as a difficulty option.

 

[Zeusbunnyears]

As some of you may know, I was a Legendary Founder for MWO. From closed beta onwards the matches were 8 v 8, but was increased to 12 v 12 later. 8 v 8 was a completely different beast than 12 v 12 - for one, a single player could really make a difference in 8 v 8, but in 12 v 12 it got much, much harder to do so. In 8 v 8, you survived much longer than you ever did in 12 v 12 purely due to that extra lance making focus-fire so much more deadly.

For me, 8 v 8 was a lot more fun than 12 v 12 - individual player skill was so much more important there.

I haven't played since they introduced 4 v 4, but I imagine that individual player skill is even more important there.

The parallel of course being that an increase of our drop weight/numbers in this game would also diminish the value of each individual asset.

Mwo player here, never played 8v8 but played 12v12 and did scouting for a long while (4v4). 12v12 does actually come down to an individual player’s skill as the rest of the team in solo queue these days are utter trash potatoes. I’ve had matches where I’ll get 1k+ damage and most of the team’s kills and they’ll still bork the match. If you don’t carry a match, your team will noticeably lose at a higher rate, which sounds intuitive, but I mean you can’t be doing 250 damage and a 200 match score like the rest of the PUGs. Wait until you spectate others who act like they’re driving a mech with a guitar hero controller

4v4 is definitely skill based but actually more meta-based. What I mean by this is not dueling and seeing who is better at aiming and positioning, but who can kite with ErLL/ECM or smoke dive with the objectives (not get in contact with the enemy at all and run away to the drop zone).

I’d much rather have 1 Bows3r/Proton than 6 pugs. But you’re right to a degree but for the wrong reasons. MWO has pixel shooting accuracy and variables with speed/tracking that make lights just as deadly as assaults. The problem is that it doesn’t translate to BT where cooldown, weapon convergence, peeking, and poptarting fundamentally change the dynamic of the Mechwarrior universe.

 

[ThatGuyMontag]

If this change was prototyped and abandoned I'd be pretty confident that occurred before career mode was a thing. That is important because you are correct in that such a change would increase the likelihood of events that will precipitate a death spiral in a campaign. However in career mode if a players back is to the wall and in need of a paying contract they always have the option of going to a low skull system where a lance of light mechs can get the job done. This is the whole reason I suggested the change, to increase the viability of lighter units in career mode. Currently they are useful in low skull systems but as the game progresses a player is most likely to succeed by replacing all of their lighter mechs with heavies and assaults. This is a carry over from the campaign where system skull ratings increase so light mech obsolescence is by design. Currently replacing a light with a heavy is all benefit, introducing a penalty in the form of a maintenance cost based on weight is a simple way to address it and give players a reason other than house rules to keep their light and medium mechs out of storage and in their mech bay.

Given the differences between campaign and career modes I'm even more certain that such a change is best implemented as a difficulty option.

Have you considered that this may not be the right approach for the goal you have in mind? If ECM for instance were just an increase in shot difficulty I'd be pretty bored by it and probably never use it. Instead we're getting a full bore *mechanic*, a thing which it does that is completely different and that makes it far more interesting.

If what you care about is making lights more useful, thinking mechanics rather than taxes is probably the better bet.

In fact that analogy is probably the right one more generally. Tweaking things to engineer a result you think is optimal, having players forced to choose to use light mechs for higher difficuly mission more often, isn't generally a good approach unless you have no other option. Instead following the Firestarter route of giving players something they couldn't get otherwise, lots of those meaty support slots on a fast chassis for instance, seems like the way to get everyone what they want.

 

[Havamal]

Good lord dude, that is one hell of a run on sentence just to say, “the devs don’t want to make more than one lance” and “you totally gave more reasons than ‘I want it,’ but I’m going to say you had no other reasons than I want it.”

I’m quite sure the devs have the time and ability to do it - see what they spoke about the urban environments requiring attention to fundamentally change the game without causing optimization crashes. But they’d rather add more planets and mech variants...which mods have and can already do. Then they act like it worth paying a DLC for.

As for the second part - what the hell is an average player at this point? Most if not all players i’ve spoken to in this forum or outside have beaten the game six ways to sunday and know how the game functions. I understand not everyone has as much time as me to waste on video games, but begging to player incompetence at this point is just silliness.

Multiple lances plays to a longer game where you have decisions on how to approach scenarios by utilizing flanking, spotting, and screening. Maybe the limitation is you only have one dropship...understandable but why can’t it do a second run and bring reinforcements or have you link up with them? What if reinforcements are a second phase of the game where you can afford another dropship or have the experience to land multiple lances and coordinate? Again, these are all more reasons than wElL i WaNt It, it adds dimension and strategy to the game.

I believe I covered most that. Follow up by others covered the rest. Run-on or not.
I'd certainly be happy to provide a tldr though;

TLDR: Ultimately you're asking for a different game. One contingent on other multiple-feature additions.

Maybe in BT2.
O7

 

[whymakemedothis]

Have you considered that this may not be the right approach for the goal you have in mind? If ECM for instance were just an increase in shot difficulty I'd be pretty bored by it and probably never use it. Instead we're getting a full bore *mechanic*, a thing which it does that is completely different and that makes it far more interesting.

If what you care about is making lights more useful, thinking mechanics rather than taxes is probably the better bet.

In fact that analogy is probably the right one more generally. Tweaking things to engineer a result you think is optimal, having players forced to choose to use light mechs for higher difficuly mission more often, isn't generally a good approach unless you have no other option. Instead following the Firestarter route of giving players something they couldn't get otherwise, lots of those meaty support slots on a fast chassis for instance, seems like the way to get everyone what they want.

You seem to have the impression that I want to use light mechs in higher skull missions which is not true. In my previous posts I've even said that light mechs are perfectly usable in lower skull missions which are more than common at all stages in career mode. My issue is that the way the game works it is best for the player to have a mech bay full of heavies and assaults because when they arrive in a high skull system they can then complete every contract without having to advance the timeline and then complete their repairs en route to the next system. However that means when you arrive in a low skull system you don't have any lighter mechs to play with. The point of increasing the cost of heavier mechs is not to get the player to stop using them but give them a reason to consider keeping enough lights and mediums around to do missions in lower skull systems without resorting to a Steiner scout lance.

Essentially if a player has to pay higher upkeep for heavier units then instead of just having 18 assaults and heavies they will be encouraged, with out being forced, to have a better balanced company with hopefully one lance of mechs from each of the four weight categories and hence the ability to take on any mission with a weight appropriate lance.

As for new mechanics I'm all for them in general. However when it comes to solving a problem I'm very much the right tool for the right job kind of person. If a particular problem can be solved by a new mechanic then great. Equally if it can be solved by tweaking numbers or an existing mechanic then that is also great. Modifying maintenance cost based on weight is a tweak to an existing mechanic that I believe addresses a problem quickly and cleanly with minimal fuss. Even better if implemented as a difficulty option as players who like playing pure assaults or prefer the campaign can avoid the detrimental impacts it would have on their experience.

Now if I were to have a go at trying to come up with a new mechanic that solves the problem an obvious solution is mission types that favour lighter mechs. However this reveals a quirk in the design of the game. You speak about difficulty levels in regard to missions but the skull ratings are not common difficulty levels, rather they're a recommended drop tonnage. This creates problems when trying to craft missions for lighter mechs that are illustrated by recovery missions. Recovery missions are missions that on face value perfectly suit fast mechs, you get in recover the target and then get out. However five skull recovery missions will see you facing off against assault mechs, each capable of destroying lighter faster mechs long before they ever lay eyes on the extraction zone. This is the crux of the problem as the game was designed so that high skull missions are for heavier mechs and low skull missions for lighter mechs. This is perfectly fine in the campaign where system skull level scales but in career mode where it is static it results in a situation where a player either takes low skull missions with a Steiner assault lance(which is at best tedious), limits themselves to traveling between high skull systems or play by house rules to compensate.

 

[ThatGuyMontag]

However that means when you arrive in a low skull system you don't have any lighter mechs to play with. The point of increasing the cost of heavier mechs is not to get the player to stop using them but give them a reason to consider keeping enough lights and mediums around to do missions in lower skull systems without resorting to a Steiner scout lance.

That assumes that's a problem which the devs should care about. "You do you" is very clearly a core part of the HBS ethos, not just their design philosophy. Why should anyone who isn't you care how you choose to play the game?

Again, a mechanic is a straightforwardly better way to expand the role of light 'mechs.

So let's try some solutions. Start with the two features of a light 'mech: speed and weight. What can we do with this that isn't drop weight?

How about recon events ahead of an engagement? Weight and speed, combined with equipment and pilot skills, together give you a chassis "stealth" which give you your success chance. Success marks enemies at the start or gives you a better starting point. Possibly doable from dialogue pre-drop or as the first mission in a possible procgen mission chain

What about weight resticted *drop points*? Set your heavies up nice and conspicuous but only a passive light 'mech can start in that forest over there in perfect backstab range once the fight starts.

Any other ideas?

 

[stjobe]

But you’re right to a degree but for the wrong reasons. MWO has pixel shooting accuracy and variables with speed/tracking that make lights just as deadly as assaults.

1,000+ drops in a Commando here; never got 8 kills, but multiple 7s (in 8v8). And the Commando famously was "out of meta since closed beta"

The problem is that it doesn’t translate to BT where cooldown, weapon convergence, peeking, and poptarting fundamentally change the dynamic of the Mechwarrior universe.

It translates in the way I mentioned; every increase in drop numbers proportionally decreases the impact of each 'Mech and MechWarrior. It also makes it that much harder to avoid snowballing once either side starts getting kills.

 

[ThatGuyMontag]

Man, a thought about weight restricted drop points: what if using one of those gives a 'mech a charge of stealth which works like ECM? We could make it until they move to encourage verisimilitude, or just leave it as a nice chunky short-term buff for players using lighter 'mechs.

Ooh, and what if this worked in multiplayer as well, except the charge is lost if both you and your opponent choose the same drop point? That'd add an interesting layer of second guessing, depending on whether your lance is built for ambushes or whether your opponent's is and would encourage scouting likely ambush points.

 

[Amechwarrior]

more mechs being fielded by player to me means more mixed weight lances being able to do their intended jobs and doing it much later into a playthru.

I don't see that. Only mission design or drop weight limits would force that. You absolutely need to design for splitting forces to win or else the best tactical choice is the one most of us already do now. Ball up and focus fire, which favors bringing more weapons and heavier armor. This is only amplified by having more units under player control.

 

[unclecid]

I don't see that. Only mission design or drop weight limits would force that. You absolutely need to design for splitting forces to win or else the best tactical choice is the one most of us already do now. Ball up and focus fire, which favors bringing more weapons and heavier armor. This is only amplified by having more units under player control.

i wasnt clear..i meant the ability to....
see i dont need the game to force me to play "the right way" instead of the fps bring the bigger gun style.
if i could field a company...that company would be what i used in every mission....a recon lance of very fast movers...a striker/brawler lance,,,and a fire/command lance.
but thats me...thats what i meant by 'to me'

even with a second lance i could still do something that.

 

[stjobe]

i wasnt clear..i meant the ability to....
see i dont need the game to force me to play "the right way" instead of the fps bring the bigger gun style.
if i could field a company...that company would be what i used in every mission....a recon lance of very fast movers...a striker/brawler lance,,,and a fire/command lance.
but thats me...thats what i meant by 'to me'

even with a second lance i could still do something that.

Now imagine a flashpoint where the first mission parameters make you want to use your recon lance, the second the striker/brawler lance, and the third your heavy hitters.

It's still doable without leaving the lance drop limit, we just need mission parameters that encourage different 'Mech types.

 

[LaserSpam]

Make maps larger.

Make spotting and sensor ranges longer.

Uncompress the terrain a corresponding amount.

Give the player a pre-mission planning screen where they can select drop zone and extraction zone.

 

[Sigil]

Now imagine a flashpoint where the first mission parameters make you want to use your recon lance, the second the striker/brawler lance, and the third your heavy hitters.

It's still doable without leaving the lance drop limit, we just need mission parameters that encourage different 'Mech types.

Weight based drop limits are implemented. Underutilized, perhaps, but the underlying ability is there.

 

[Zeusbunnyears]

Now imagine a flashpoint where the first mission parameters make you want to use your recon lance, the second the striker/brawler lance, and the third your heavy hitters.

It's still doable without leaving the lance drop limit, we just need mission parameters that encourage different 'Mech types.

I wouldn’t be against that as it it prevents an update from going wildly out of scope (it would be easy to implement). I’d say those mechs should be locked in before hitting start and they should influence hot the next lance performs - I.e. more resistance, fewer turns, etc

1,000+ drops in a Commando here; never got 8 kills, but multiple 7s (in 8v8). And the Commando famously was "out of meta since closed beta"

Commando OP pls nerf

 

[stjobe]

Weight based drop limits are implemented. Underutilized, perhaps, but the underlying ability is there.

There's other limits that could be implemented - speed for one (have to move X distance in Y turns). Firepower is another (have to do X damage in Y turns).

Those are just off the top of my head, I'm sure there's better ideas out there.

 

[ThatGuyMontag]

Make maps larger.

Make spotting and sensor ranges longer.

Uncompress the terrain a corresponding amount.

Give the player a pre-mission planning screen where they can select drop zone and extraction zone.

I regularly play sniper only lances with some setups literally being able to avoid facing any fire over an entire engagement, all while largely not using sensor lock. In my usual setup of two brawlers and two fire-support I actually have more trouble keeping my snipers *in* range than out of the line of fire and all I use is bog standard terrain screening and initiative management.

The maps are plenty big enough for long range play. The only thing stopping people having long range play is their playstyle.

Bigger maps on the other hand just means longer times to enemy contact and longer times till reinforcements all of which makes the missions longer and take one of the most tense moments, the desperate fight to clear the enemy before reinforcements link up, off the table. Also, in the form you're putting it, it means it becomes even easier to separate off enemies to pick them off piecemeal.

A strategic layer between the Argo screen and the drop on the other hand would be a straightforward win in my books.

 

[EmptyPepsiCan]

At the tactical level BATTLETECH is excellent. It was good to start with. Flashpoint and the Cyclops made it better. Urban Warfare and the Raven will make better still. Heavy Metal will make it more interesting by adding additional chassis, and may add other improvements as well, thus raising it to the level of absolutely superb. The problem is that the tactical level was never a problem.

The problem has always been and continues to be the strategic level of the game. There's just nothing there.

 

[Havamal]

I regularly play sniper only lances with some setups literally being able to avoid facing any fire over an entire engagement, all while largely not using sensor lock. In my usual setup of two brawlers and two fire-support I actually have more trouble keeping my snipers *in* range than out of the line of fire and all I use is bog standard terrain screening and initiative management.

The maps are plenty big enough for long range play. The only thing stopping people having long range play is their playstyle.

Bigger maps on the other hand just means longer times to enemy contact and longer times till reinforcements all of which makes the missions longer and take one of the most tense moments, the desperate fight to clear the enemy before reinforcements link up, off the table. Also, in the form you're putting it, it means it becomes even easier to separate off enemies to pick them off piecemeal.

A strategic layer between the Argo screen and the drop on the other hand would be a straightforward win in my books.

And system performance.
We risk raising the specs and leaving portions of the player base in the cold.

 

[Wolfenguard]

i think the actual Fighting Build has not really much things what we can adjust to bring Battletech to the next Level.
We have different opinions from different people, what they like and dislike from the actual build.

The best thing here is the reservation system, from my view there should be some disadvances when i use the reservation like losing evasion charges aso and not only i cant use any more mechs in this phase. Or the change of the turnorder trough the iniative system.
Other People like the actual system and dont want any changes for it.

Injury System
i like to see a change of the injury system. for the first injury i get a light one and for the second or third i get a heavier injury witch need more time to heal. so with some luck i get 3 injurys but my pilot is only 5 days in the hospital instead of 30 days-

The 4 Mech Lance Problem
Yes sometimes i want to have more than 4 mechs for a mission especially when i fight an enemy heavy lance which get a full heavy lanve reinforcement lance so i have to fight against 8 mechs with only my 4 mechs.
But the Big Problem will be the multiplayer part, if we stay at 4 mechs in mp and 4+ mechs ins singleplayer, the people will cry shortly after, that they want the same in mp, but then we get match times from 2h and more.

my opinion is, if we want to bring BT to the next Level, we need a complete new Fight System especially when we want to use. more than 4 mechs.
no reservations, no phases aso.
we need a system where both players give their orders at the same time and thr orders will be executet (resolved) at the same time or one after another with a iniative system,
which this change we can have theoretical 2vs2 matches without changing the match duration time.

 

[whymakemedothis]

"You do you" is very clearly a core part of the HBS ethos, not just their design philosophy.

Exactly why they introduced all those difficulty options, so those that want to play the game a certain way can. Given I'm not suggesting anything more than another optional difficulty option I'm finding it hard to fathom why you are so hostile to the suggestion.

How about recon events ahead of an engagement? Weight and speed, combined with equipment and pilot skills, together give you a chassis "stealth" which give you your success chance. Success marks enemies at the start or gives you a better starting point. Possibly doable from dialogue pre-drop or as the first mission in a possible procgen mission chain

Personally I find the idea of any sort of extra strategic layer between the Argo and mission drop as doing nothing but adding a layer of tedium as all your really doing is adding a second strategy layer when one should suffice. I'm pretty sure that is why most games of this type avoid them.

If you want to achieve this sort of thing I'd suggest the route other such games take and add an espionage mechanic to the strategy layer. If we take inspiration from XCOM it could be by sending some pilots and mechs ahead to infiltrate a system and once you arrive at that system you get a mission involving them that you can complete to unlock some kind of reward. With this sort of mission you could then enforce a drop tonnage limit to encourage the use of lighter mechs as they could sit outside the skull rating system HBS currently use.

What about weight resticted *drop points*? Set your heavies up nice and conspicuous but only a passive light 'mech can start in that forest over there in perfect backstab range once the fight starts.

I'd consider that redundant with the introduction of ECM. If you place ECM in a mech then you can sneak into position for the same effect. Sure your idea would act as a shortcut but I don't think that's really enough to justify the work required to implement it. Additionally my understanding is that ECM can be placed in any mech so one could achieve a similar result with an assault mech. Hence it doesn't really do anything dramatic to make light mechs more appealing.

Any other ideas?

Personally I have no issue with light mechs on the games tactical layer, they do what light mechs are supposed to do. My concerns are all to do with the strategic layer(why I suggest 'number tweaks'). However based on the ideas you've put forward it seems your the opposite. Given that I think it's time to agree to disagree and move on.