Lost desire to play due to 1.3 update

[yrrot]

Kudos to HBS for patching it, but a lot of this could have been avoided if the DLC was properly ran through QA or Beta-ed by players as suggested by Edmon - fans would tear the game apart looking for bugs, would do so happily and for free. (Do not confuse with releasing beta as finished product like certain X game...)

I'm sure it was properly ran through QA, just like every other game that "wasn't tested at all" that gets released by AAA studios. And those studios have QA departments that are larger than HBS is as a whole. I could rant on that topic for ages, but I digress.

Beta testing certainly has a place, and HBS has used public previews to get feedback (skill preview, for example). However, finding the bugs is only part of the process. Even if the two big bugs in 1.3 were found in a beta period, that doesn't mean that they would have been fixed prior to its release date. They might have ended up in the "known issues" part of the patch notes, though. We don't know what other, more critical bugs would have taken precedent in the work queue for the developers. Things like crashes and blocking bugs would have had priority.

 

[Shrike]

I am having bugs however nothing like you have mentioned. I would disagree with you regarding the 1.3 patch I think it's added a lot more reasons to fight or not fight. I think there is an issue to be addressed regarding how you can improve your standing with an ex "loathed" by faction instead of constant grinding. The 8 or so flashpoints have been generally well written and the rewards of sldf mechs or lostech give them a real sense of risk reward. Still there really is nothing to do with light mechs after a certain point. Shame, seems doable and doesn't really fit with the lore.

 

[Shake Appeal]

Also, I would say put the minimum specification at 16GB of ram, this game is unstable at 8GB. Especially the argo mission, which seems to murder 8GB ram players dead.

This is silly, though. 8GB of RAM should be more than sufficient! I just looked at the Steam hardware survey, and only 30% of players have 16GB of RAM, and only 3% have more; more than half of all players surveyed have 8GB or less.

In general, the game is creaky for what it is: Performance is remarkably inconsistent on my computer no matter what settings I put it at, and I can run The Witcher 3 on near-Ultra at 60fps. Battletech's UI and menus are horrendously sluggish, and get more so over long play sessions; it's telling that there are (reasonably simple?) community-made mods for this that help speed things up.

I'm also extremely surprised there hasn't been a hotfix to address the BSC bug and other well-known ones, such as the Assassination mission scripting bug.

I say all this as someone who adores the damn thing.

 

[karlo73]

I (16GB Ram) start with ~ 7GB, after about 2 hours playing I have a load of 11-12GB RAM. And the load times / transitions are getting longer and longer. I've gotten used to quitting the game every hour and restarting ...

 

[Swuul]

FWIW, I haven't played 1.3 after I noticed the skills did not reset if you took part in the beta-test for skills. What a way to thank players trying to help the developers as requested: A big middle finger up your face, with Nelson doing a "HAHA!" in the back

 

[Edmon]

This is silly, though. 8GB of RAM should be more than sufficient!

The game is 27GB in size. How much of that is really high resolution textures and such that need to be in the memory during a map?

The thing is, I remember when I thought 64MB of memory was insane (those were the total annihilation days)... there was even this 128MB memory map and we were like "who would ever play that?!".

Times move on, 8GB is definitely minimum specification these days. Even cheap-o IBM laptops that cost £240 are going out with 16GB...

 

[FLOYD_CZ]

I agree the game is unplayable for me.

Game over

The game was in the wrong direction

 

[scJazz]

The game is 27GB in size. How much of that is really high resolution textures and such that need to be in the memory during a map?

The thing is, I remember when I thought 64MB of memory was insane (those were the total annihilation days)... there was even this 128MB memory map and we were like "who would ever play that?!".

Times move on, 8GB is definitely minimum specification these days. Even cheap-o IBM laptops that cost £240 are going out with 16GB...

Which has nothing to do with the problem. The issue is the video card and thermal problems.

 

[fredman]

I was taken aback by how hard it is to now defeat light opfor mechs in 1.3. With lvl5 gunnery I was only generally able to muster 35%-50% hit-chance, making battling light mechs (often piloted by Pilots and Tacticians) a lengthy and frustrating process. If you like lights I guess it's cool, but otherwise I feel foolish taking 3-4 turns to defeat a Locust I used to take down in 1 or 2 previously, especially when it doesn't look like it's doing any fancy maneuvering or moving fast. I fully realize that If I'd not played this until 1.3 I wouldn't have known the difference, but experiencing it previously now makes it somewhat of a pain (I have abandoned starting a new career and just assumed my old post-campaign juggernaut lance to give those lights a proper what for)! OTOH, after all the warning/compaining about the reputation issue, I'm finding it relatively easy to maintain decent to good graces with all the factions. It does require examining each contract for rep impact, and some extra traveling around, but otherwise is not difficult if you DON'T get yourself into a hole right away. This includes examining Flashpoints for the potential loss of rep over 3 or 4 missions to any one faction. So overall, I guess I'm reasonably happy to play on as long as my Mechwarriors are maxed out on skills and I have the mech hardware to overcome the 'design enhancements'.

 

[Kereminde]

Suggestions:
1) Detect the players computer, if they are minimum specification and/or below specification, tell them so. Half of the people complaining about crashes have below minimum specification computers or 8GB of ram. Also, I would say put the minimum specification at 16GB of ram, this game is unstable at 8GB. Especially the argo mission, which seems to murder 8GB ram players dead.

My friend, I am running this game at so far below minimum specs it's not funny. I should not even be *possibly* running this game and I am. "Axylus" hasn't crashed it, or even made it hang, almost nothing has made it hang. (Beta Backer Skirmish was the last time it hung, and that was during the start animation). Nothing has made it crash save for exiting via clicking the "X" in the window corner. I'm going to repeat myself because I think it's worth mentioning. I'm playing this game on a Black Friday Special from over four years ago now, and while I routinely can get "pink 'Mechs" as an occurrence it's never done a crash or anything similar. If there's technical issues, being under-spec isn't the sole contributor.

I play it on 8GB of RAM, and 256k of video RAM. The game is surprisingly stable, functioning, and only occasionally trips and spills a drink on itself.

I have no clue where to start with root causes of all the crashes, and hangs, and such - but playing for over six hours on this rig didn't cause me any of those. This is another case, a classic case, of PCs being built entirely differently than consoles in that the hardware and software isn't consistent from box to box, not even in installation method. That wreaks unholy havoc on trying to chase down what causes various issues, especially since the team may not be able to reproduce on their work (and home) machines.

So this is what it winds up looking like:

Though to be fair, HBS hasn't gotten snappy at people about it nor made a copy-paste reply of "It's your hardware and/or software, not us." like one game I remember.

Note, all of this is about the crashes, slow performance, and hangs. The stuff about 'Mechs disappearing and the like . . . I'd almost put money it's related to now being able to drag and drop in the 'Mech Bay. It kinda feels to an outsider like something they did there opened about a dozen different minor bugs having a little party and occasionally causing something terrible.

Also the reputation thing kinda probably can be cited as "working as intended for 3025 era BattleTech" since the new model makes it really hard to get liked by everyone. Especially since the pirates are all too common a target due to . . . everyone hating them.

 

[Amechwarrior]

I was taken aback by how hard it is to now defeat light opfor mechs in 1.3. With lvl5 gunnery I was only generally able to muster 35%-50% hit-chance, making battling light mechs (often piloted by Pilots and Tacticians) a lengthy and frustrating process. If you like lights I guess it's cool, but otherwise I feel foolish taking 3-4 turns to defeat a Locust I used to take down in 1 or 2 previously, especially when it doesn't look like it's doing any fancy maneuvering or moving fast. I fully realize that If I'd not played this until 1.3 I wouldn't have known the difference, but experiencing it previously now makes it somewhat of a pain (I have abandoned starting a new career and just assumed my old post-campaign juggernaut lance to give those lights a proper what for)! OTOH, after all the warning/compaining about the reputation issue, I'm finding it relatively easy to maintain decent to good graces with all the factions. It does require examining each contract for rep impact, and some extra traveling around, but otherwise is not difficult if you DON'T get yourself into a hole right away. This includes examining Flashpoints for the potential loss of rep over 3 or 4 missions to any one faction. So overall, I guess I'm reasonably happy to play on as long as my Mechwarriors are maxed out on skills and I have the mech hardware to overcome the 'design enhancements'.

Not sure how the game is making Lights harder for you to hit due to the 1.3 changes. Their inherent hit bonus is the same and the rebuild of pilot abilities can only add 1 more pip of Evasion more than they would have before 1.3. They even lost 5% and 10% damage reduction to cover and Bulwark. I'm having no problems taking out light swarms in career even at the start when my pilots were the worst. If anything it's easier to kill individual units due to the loss of 50% Brace/Bulwark. The AI did get better in a few aspects, but if you say they are not moving very far, they won't be building up too much Evasion. It could be the Sure Footing 50% reduction to stability, but it's way easier to KD via legging on Lights in the early game before you can really stack stability weapons.

 

[fredman]

Not sure how the game is making Lights harder for you to hit due to the 1.3 changes. Their inherent hit bonus is the same and the rebuild of pilot abilities can only add 1 more pip of Evasion more than they would have before 1.3. They even lost 5% and 10% damage reduction to cover and Bulwark. I'm having no problems taking out light swarms in career even at the start when my pilots were the worst. If anything it's easier to kill individual units due to the loss of 50% Brace/Bulwark. The AI did get better in a few aspects, but if you say they are not moving very far, they won't be building up too much Evasion. It could be the Sure Footing 50% reduction to stability, but it's way easier to KD via legging on Lights in the early game before you can really stack stability weapons.

Well, your numbers certainly say there is little or no difference, but I really noticed it playing 3 CAMPAIGN restarts up thru Weldry and Panzer. My 3rd restart was a lance of Orions (2 Vs and 2 Ks); perhaps most of my inability to hit was due to low MW stats of lvl5 or less, but I do recall at least one complete battle where I was unable to score a single AC10 hit from any of my 4 mechs!.. is it harder now, or did I just forget what a struggle it was in the beginning? Cheers.

 

[xlarbarx]

Deciding not to play because of other people's feedback on a forum seems a little short-sighted to me. I value *MY* opinion over other people's opinions, and the interwebs tends to draw out the very strongest of opinions.

Not sure if this was addressed to me or to the general forum population, but the only thing that feedback prevented me from doing was forming alliances. As I mentioned, I mistakenly let my reputation with the pirates go too low, and now it is virtually impossible to restore it (no available 2.5 skull pirate missions due to post-campaign global difficulty scaling). I didn't want that to happen with any other factions as long as it seemed like I wouldn't be able to restore reputation at all.

I had to pull this out, sorry. I don't know whether you're an old TT player or not, but this game also simulates running a merc company - and there are consequences to your actions now with 1.3. This is a good thing - and was advertised by HBS too. You simply cannot have max rep (well unless you play a very long game and go against Local Government) with every faction. Sorry to hear you've suffered from bugs though - especially the mech losses - unlike an online game, where your data is on their servers and can be investigated, those mechs are forever lost

Never played TT, and my only other experience with the Battletech universe is Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries. I understand and even agree with reputation consequences (the pre-1.3 reputation system was worthless), but I think the problem is the inability to restore reputation once you've lost it. It may not be the case for the other factions, but I mentioned that I mistakenly let my reputation with the pirate faction drop too low, and now I have no way of restoring it. Because of this situation with the pirates, I am hesitant to let my reputation with other factions go down lest I accidentally cross some kind of reputation event horizon. I would like to regain access to the black markets but there is no way to do that because I can't find 2.5 skull pirate missions.

Being a working gamer with only 1-2 hours to play some days (not all days) I can understand the frustration of having your precious commodity (playing time) wasted because someone didn't catch what seems like an easy error to find.

I am a business owner that works 7 days a week and the father of 3 young children. This is EXACTLY the reason why the mech deletion bug I encountered finally caused me to stop wanting to play the game. I don't really have any problems with other bugs, UI issues, memory leaks, etc., but losing a decked-out mech due to a bug, no matter what I do short of loading an old save, is not something I am willing to deal with.

I like this game. A lot. I want to keep playing it. I just don't want to play it in its current state. Give me two things, and I'll go back to playing it again: 1) give me some way to restore reputation (at least with the pirates), and 2) fix the mech deletion bug without making me load an old save.

 

[Shake Appeal]

Not sure how the game is making Lights harder for you to hit due to the 1.3 changes. Their inherent hit bonus is the same and the rebuild of pilot abilities can only add 1 more pip of Evasion more than they would have before 1.3.

Didn't their to-hit bonus go from +1 to +3 in 1.1?

 

[Amechwarrior]

Well, your numbers certainly say there is little or no difference, but I really noticed it playing 3 CAMPAIGN restarts up thru Weldry and Panzer. My 3rd restart was a lance of Orions (2 Vs and 2 Ks); perhaps most of my inability to hit was due to low MW stats of lvl5 or less, but I do recall at least one complete battle where I was unable to score a single AC10 hit from any of my 4 mechs!.. is it harder now, or did I just forget what a struggle it was in the beginning? Cheers.

I've started one 8 part career with various harder settings and also harder modded AI. I've had no problem working my way from the starting Lance to gaining a HBK-4G and SHD-2D in under 170 days in addition to completing the Light chassis short of the UrbanMech. My salvage screens on missions where I am swarmed by lights normally look like this:

This is no different than my 1.0 campaign short of how I play has changed with the ability updates. I can't just "stand and deliver" and need to maximize both evasion and reduction, I've changed how I move defensively. But the enemy units are not harder to hit and offensively it's the same. Strip Evasion, side arc shots/ P.Strike to the legs, torso chop to kill, next. Here is just over day 200 and my pilots are on the left, the best ones being 5/5/6/6. Sumo was just hired a few game days ago.

 

[Pherdnut]

I was taken aback by how hard it is to now defeat light opfor mechs in 1.3. With lvl5 gunnery I was only generally able to muster 35%-50% hit-chance, making battling light mechs (often piloted by Pilots and Tacticians) a lengthy and frustrating process. If you like lights I guess it's cool, but otherwise I feel foolish taking 3-4 turns to defeat a Locust I used to take down in 1 or 2 previously, especially when it doesn't look like it's doing any fancy maneuvering or moving fast. I fully realize that If I'd not played this until 1.3 I wouldn't have known the difference, but experiencing it previously now makes it somewhat of a pain (I have abandoned starting a new career and just assumed my old post-campaign juggernaut lance to give those lights a proper what for)! OTOH, after all the warning/compaining about the reputation issue, I'm finding it relatively easy to maintain decent to good graces with all the factions. It does require examining each contract for rep impact, and some extra traveling around, but otherwise is not difficult if you DON'T get yourself into a hole right away. This includes examining Flashpoints for the potential loss of rep over 3 or 4 missions to any one faction. So overall, I guess I'm reasonably happy to play on as long as my Mechwarriors are maxed out on skills and I have the mech hardware to overcome the 'design enhancements'.

Light mechs did get an inherent evasion boost but that was months ago, not 1.3. If they're too hard to hit, sensor lock or punch them at a much higher % chance to hit (evasion is ignored by melee). OR, build your mechs to attack with more than one super-weapon so they always get some reliable damage in against harder-to-hit targets. It was a good change and they needed that boost IMO. Because once you get one hard hit in, it's over for them. I'm now comfortable running a light with my assaults on a lot of missions because of it and that can be really handy if you run them well. But you still have to be careful with them.

 

[Amechwarrior]

Didn't their to-hit bonus go from +1 to +3 in 1.1?

Checking my data backup shows it went from"ToHitLight": 2 to" ToHitLight": 3, or 1 Pip to 1.5 Pips of "Permanent Evasion" in 1.1. This isn't going to be a game changer even if you went from 1.0 to 1.3 with nothing in between. That's a total of just 1.5 extra pips if the target is also using the Sure Footing bonus, which they don't get until you start getting in to the 1.5-2 skull range.

 

[Amechwarrior]

Also, to get back on topic:

The BSC/'Mech deletion bug and the insane loading times are making me play less and I totally understand why 1.3 would put people off playing.

The BSC deleting player earned units or killing the ability to sell is a game stopper as much as not being able to load the game in the first place. The load times can me mitigated with mods like Turbine and BT Performance Fixer, but you shouldn't need to mod that excessively just to play the game.

 

[Pherdnut]

Being a working gamer with only 1-2 hours to play some days (not all days) I can understand the frustration of having your precious commodity (playing time) wasted because someone didn't catch what seems like an easy error to find.

I've been critical but as a programmer, I will say bugs that seem obvious aren't always that easy to find in QA. It takes a long time to play a full game. You can't do that on every iteration of the code if it's changing right up to a week or two before release. This issue only occurs if you store the BSC-27. Would you have done that if you were just testing to verify the reward was received when you cleared the mission?

That said, the code around the mechbay, storage, and shops has been a hot mess since the original release. First it was performance. Now it's state issues. Might be best to be patient for a patch and hope they're doing it right by replacing a lot of junk.