My feeling after 500h

[Symfreddy]

Well, hi all.
I've excceded the 500h of play. 2 campains et 3 carrers, buy flashpoint but not the urban DLC.

This game is the best I've played since a long time.
Thanks to the devs for the work done at launch et after to polish the game.

But after finish this week-end my third carrer in difficulty 1.0, I have some adjustments to suggest:
I will concentrate on the carrer mode only.

The start is very hard but the end is a piece of cake. I had 400d to go and 3 full lances of heaviest mech in bay.
I'ts boring to "farm" without other objective than make the best score. No more fun.
It's due to maps always the same for drop zone, ennmy spot and reinforcements.
The second boring effect is the classic table top values, for both mechs (ok for mechs) and stuff (not enough choice or random values).
The flashpoint DLC bring more lostech stuff but too few special missions to really hunt the magic stuff and keep the hipe up to the end of the 1200d.

I've done many trys, to change mechs, stuff and warriors perks, but I generally always converge to the same lance style, the most effective to my play style, but no real possible alternative.

An annoying issue is the game will slow down more and more as the days go by, even with a war machine.
The performances go down when the stock increase but the market screens is not good enough and slow.
It's a fastidious tash to keep the stock as small as possible to not collapes the performances. And it's not enought.

I'm not convinced by the mechwarriors abilities.
Some are really strong and some not enough powerfull. I use rarelly multiple shoot/breach shot, and abuse of sensor lock / master tactitian / bulwark.
I'm not convinced by the other abilities, maybe only for light tonnage missions, but it's too rare to dedicate many warriors on it.

So when you have all the mech you want, full stuffed, you don't have any intresting challenge (no stuff to hunt, no more mech and not enough flashpoint to hope lostech ones).
It's a long filling period to complet the career and reach the best score.

 

[Panzer-Killer]

Well, hi all.
So when you have all the mech you want, full stuffed, you don't have any intresting challenge (no stuff to hunt, no more mech and not enough flashpoint to hope lostech ones).
It's a long filling period to complet the career and reach the best score.

I think this is quite common with any video-game you might have ever played or will - or, at least, this is my personal experience about it: no matter what video game you play, whenever you hit the endgame you're usually so well geared up, fine-tuned, purpose-build and generally overpowered to steamroll any possible enemy OpFor you might face.

I've played any Total War, Heroes of Might and Magic, Starcraft, Warcraft, Civilization, Fallout and Deus Ex game titles released from their corresponding IPs' launches up to now, and in the end-game you're always so OP that any leftover walk-through is more or less a cakewalk. BATTLETECH, on the other hand, has so many difficulty's setting you may play around with that you can always come with a new interesting challange up.

 

[Edmon]

Time to play with 4 lights.

I assure you, the challenge will return .

 

[Blade_mercurial]

Yeah, this game has a ton of replay potential, but you have to think about it to make it less boring. Challenges such as limiting what you bring (I've seen stock only, lights only, mediums & lights only, etc).

You may also want to consider Urban Warfare. Other than the fact that the Raven is completely broken (or more accurately, the ECM suite it carries), there are really no 'negatives' to this particular expansion. I REALLY like the new Flashpoint missions and even the new mission-types that UW adds to the experience. I feel it does a good job of breaking up some of the monotony that occurred for me in a campaign or career prior to getting UW.

Another option: it may be time for you to consider modding the game. There are a ton of excellent mods out there that have all kinds of new shiny stuff to play around with.

I'm almost at 1000 hrs with this game, and I've got quite a few ideas for new play-throughs, so speaking for myself, the future of the game still looks bright.

 

[Panzer-Killer]

Time to play with 4 lights.

I assure you, the challenge will return .

This might be a little too much of a challenge for me right now... so I think I'll stick to my ongoing "pokemech" campaign a little longer, until I manage to complete a copy each of the Javelin JV-10N and the PPC-armed UrbanMech. After that I'll go for a few career play-through.

 

[DarkSpade]

Reminds me a bit of X-com: Enemy Unknown, and even more, Enemy Within. The difficulty curve was in reverse. Brutal at the beginning and a joke by the end. And just like Xcom, The most fun is somewhere in the middle.

In the story campaign, I always had the most fun during that phase where heavies were an occasional threat and assault mechs were scary stories you knew had some truth in them.

 

[Symfreddy]

Yes you're right, the difficulty curve is in reverse as it is for x-com.
And yes the same "boring effect" during the end game is felt on many games.
But we can reduce this issue in Battletech due to the career limited time (1200d).

The additionnal mercenary spawn(s) can be a solution to increase the challenge, but should'nt be systematic.

Some IA adjustment can be done to increase the fear to be exposed in the middle of the battlefield.
If a long range lance pound you when a full brawler rush, you will feel the fear.

The "zerg" IA is too predictable and somtime silly (when an ennemy fire you on tree cover and later move to break the cover to stay on unstalbe ground, I'am crying internaly).
You discover the lance and you just have to wait for it on high position, under trees cover and fire at will without care.

As we have in the campain we can have orbital strikes from ennemies on a zone using morale system. A red zone will appear and you have a round to move.
You can have more reinforcement as we stay longer on battlefield (but only if you are the annemy have a chance to reverse the fate).

The normalized rare stuff system (+5dom, +1acc, +3acc, 3acc + 50%crit) is a major issue to the boring effect at end game because we can easilly install the best stuff possible.
If the stuff stats was random ones you will have a goal to reach the maximum stats during and game.
When you have 2 x AC/20 with +20 dom and +20 stab you are the king of the world.
And you can get it quite easily.
But if you have a + 17dom + 9 stab and a +12 dom + 16 stab you have a goal to get the perfect stuff. I know you beark the tabletop rules, don't blame me.
It's a big hunt as the score traking.

Another concept is to increase the mechwarror capabilities. The skills are the same for all warriors, OK, it can be a little randomized to increase the discover effect and hunt goal.
The personnal traits are so poorly used we can magnify the system, light mech master, feel the fear on battlefield and can loose control, keen eyes (los increased) and so on.
We coul'd have pros en cons more visible than little disputes to loose spirit for a month. There is a solid backgroud and trait pool but it's not really exploited to the full.

I've finished my alpha strike, go back to my argo, see you all.