This is going to sound meandering and maybe a little ranty. Below is my essay on my belief that missile weapons are too accurate and effective, and evasion chevrons are too ineffective, especially when matched up against missile weapons. I'm curious if anyone else feels the same way or if this is a concern at the HBS and Paradox studios as well.
I must say I've been enjoying Battletech so far and do not regret backing the game one bit. Recently, I gave the Roguetech Mod a try and liked a lot of the systems they implemented. One aspect of vanilla Battletech that drove me crazy is the insane effectiveness of missile weapons on mechs and vehicles. It seems like no matter how much evasion you have, you get plastered by at least 50% of missiles no matter what. If the damage doesn't kill you, the stability loss will.
I'm trying not to sound too uncivil about this as I generally like what HBS has done with the game, I'm just not sure that missiles are supposed to be this effective. In the tabletop version of Battletech, you first test to see if you hit, like any other weapon, then you test to see how many missiles hit. What typically happens is that about half the missiles you fire actually hit the target. This also gives the opportunity for missiles to completely miss, an event which I have RARELY seen in the PC Game. It is for this reason that almost every one of my mechs has at least 2 LRM15s or 20s, simply because they are so efficient and pretty much always deal damage or cause enemy mechs to fall over. In some cases it feels like I'm cheating.
In the case of ROGUETECH, one workaround that the mod implemented was that evasion chevrons are not lost when fired upon. While it is frustrating to miss, it seems like I can guarantee at leats 90% of my shots hitting despite the amount of chevrons my targets have. I can also fire at enemy targets with missiles first and gradually knock off those evasion chevrons while simultaneously negating the purpose of them by dealing damage. If the target still has one or two chevrons left after the bombardment, I can use called shot and alpha strike with my lone direct fire mech to pretty much cripple or destroy my target. As far as evasion chevrons are concerned, they may as well not even be there.
I do understand that the strategy of managing your opponent's evasion was probably purposely placed into the game to create some interesting decisions for the player to make in combat. I just feel that missiles are far too effective at wrecking their targets regardless of the evasion or not. While they may not destroy the target, the called shot coming after the missile salvos will. At this point in my vanilla campaign, I pretty much utilize this strategy in all of my battles. Conversely, the toughest fights I face against the AI involve 8 enemies with 3 or 4 missile carriers like Catapults and Jagermech missile variants. In this scenario, the tactic I always have to rely on is to destroy the opponents with alpha strikes and missile bombardments faster then they can do the same for me. Using mechs that rely on evasion for defense just doesn't cut it. This has the effect of making light mechs pretty much obsolete in the late game.
How I would possibly fix this if I had the power:
1. Don't remove evasion chevrons when fired at.
2. Don't remove evasion chevrons from cluster weapons (like missiles or LBX ACs [if added in the future]).
3. Make evasion chevrons more effective against cluster weapons (fast units are hard to lock on to with missiles?).
4. Give missiles more of a chance to completely miss, if they hit, generate a random quantity of missiles that strike the target with a bell curve that makes 50% of the missiles hitting the most likely outcome (closer to tabletop).
5. Add Anti-Missile Systems to the game (I'm sure this is on the way).
Naturally, there are probably lots of other ways of addressing this concern besides the ones I've come up with here. I also can understand that "missing" is pretty frustrating and while I'm okay with the chance of RNJesus forsaking me on a regular basis, the vast majority of Battletech players might not be. One need only read reviews for games like Blood Bowl 2 to see how some gamers feel about bad dice rolls.
When I read a lot of salty forum posts in the "game suggestions" category, the people involved almost always make it out like they've been besmirched by some alleged "poorly designed" game feature and howl to the internet that the game is awful and unplayable until they get their way and it gets fixed. While I would like to see an improvement in the effectiveness of evasion chevrons and a "nerfing" of the effectiveness of missile weapons, I'm still enjoying the game for the most part and I'm looking foward to seeing where it goes.
My only hope is that I'm not the only Battletech fan that feels this way. Cheers HBS and Paradox.
I must say I've been enjoying Battletech so far and do not regret backing the game one bit. Recently, I gave the Roguetech Mod a try and liked a lot of the systems they implemented. One aspect of vanilla Battletech that drove me crazy is the insane effectiveness of missile weapons on mechs and vehicles. It seems like no matter how much evasion you have, you get plastered by at least 50% of missiles no matter what. If the damage doesn't kill you, the stability loss will.
I'm trying not to sound too uncivil about this as I generally like what HBS has done with the game, I'm just not sure that missiles are supposed to be this effective. In the tabletop version of Battletech, you first test to see if you hit, like any other weapon, then you test to see how many missiles hit. What typically happens is that about half the missiles you fire actually hit the target. This also gives the opportunity for missiles to completely miss, an event which I have RARELY seen in the PC Game. It is for this reason that almost every one of my mechs has at least 2 LRM15s or 20s, simply because they are so efficient and pretty much always deal damage or cause enemy mechs to fall over. In some cases it feels like I'm cheating.
In the case of ROGUETECH, one workaround that the mod implemented was that evasion chevrons are not lost when fired upon. While it is frustrating to miss, it seems like I can guarantee at leats 90% of my shots hitting despite the amount of chevrons my targets have. I can also fire at enemy targets with missiles first and gradually knock off those evasion chevrons while simultaneously negating the purpose of them by dealing damage. If the target still has one or two chevrons left after the bombardment, I can use called shot and alpha strike with my lone direct fire mech to pretty much cripple or destroy my target. As far as evasion chevrons are concerned, they may as well not even be there.
I do understand that the strategy of managing your opponent's evasion was probably purposely placed into the game to create some interesting decisions for the player to make in combat. I just feel that missiles are far too effective at wrecking their targets regardless of the evasion or not. While they may not destroy the target, the called shot coming after the missile salvos will. At this point in my vanilla campaign, I pretty much utilize this strategy in all of my battles. Conversely, the toughest fights I face against the AI involve 8 enemies with 3 or 4 missile carriers like Catapults and Jagermech missile variants. In this scenario, the tactic I always have to rely on is to destroy the opponents with alpha strikes and missile bombardments faster then they can do the same for me. Using mechs that rely on evasion for defense just doesn't cut it. This has the effect of making light mechs pretty much obsolete in the late game.
How I would possibly fix this if I had the power:
1. Don't remove evasion chevrons when fired at.
2. Don't remove evasion chevrons from cluster weapons (like missiles or LBX ACs [if added in the future]).
3. Make evasion chevrons more effective against cluster weapons (fast units are hard to lock on to with missiles?).
4. Give missiles more of a chance to completely miss, if they hit, generate a random quantity of missiles that strike the target with a bell curve that makes 50% of the missiles hitting the most likely outcome (closer to tabletop).
5. Add Anti-Missile Systems to the game (I'm sure this is on the way).
Naturally, there are probably lots of other ways of addressing this concern besides the ones I've come up with here. I also can understand that "missing" is pretty frustrating and while I'm okay with the chance of RNJesus forsaking me on a regular basis, the vast majority of Battletech players might not be. One need only read reviews for games like Blood Bowl 2 to see how some gamers feel about bad dice rolls.
When I read a lot of salty forum posts in the "game suggestions" category, the people involved almost always make it out like they've been besmirched by some alleged "poorly designed" game feature and howl to the internet that the game is awful and unplayable until they get their way and it gets fixed. While I would like to see an improvement in the effectiveness of evasion chevrons and a "nerfing" of the effectiveness of missile weapons, I'm still enjoying the game for the most part and I'm looking foward to seeing where it goes.
My only hope is that I'm not the only Battletech fan that feels this way. Cheers HBS and Paradox.
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