Perfect intel makes mission difficulties too predictable!

[SQW]

*Career mod without Flash Point*

I still see the occasional "I'm shocked at the level of opposition" threads now and again but the thing is, HBS has given us perfect intel. No, not the skulls - it's all about the MONEY. A 3 skull paying 300k vs a 2 skull paying 650k...I wonder which is gonna be a cake walk.

It's like the guy paying you is also the guy who financed the opfor so he/she knows exactly what the contract is worth. For example: opfor is pirate, low skull, high pay means at least 8 mechs/vees at light/medium. If it's high skull, low pay, it means probably 3-4 mechs at medium/heavy possibly in damaged conditions. After a while, you start to get really good at knowing what to expect. Of course, when you get to 5 skulls, it's always assaults but that's another HBS design problem.

So, my point is, during the early and mid game, there's no surprise and because of that, there's no tension, no suspense. It's like turning up to work and knowing exactly what needs to be done and how much effort it'll probably take.

Can we at least have some missions where there's NO INTEL? It can have a higher degree of hidden variance based on planet base difficulty coupled with some hefty C-bills to account for the unknown risk? Players will be going in blind and far more cautious. Is that damaged medium lance all there is or will there be another lance of heavies hidden behind the hill? Just the unknown will significantly change the way people approach the sensor blips and create some much needed pulse racing. Heck, even mission profile can change on loading - that scouting mission can turn out to be destroy convoy as your employer is updated.

BT desperately need some of those emotions because right now everything feels too bland and formulaic...unless I purposely jump into missions I know is more than I can handle. I may feel good winning a hard fought battle but I rarely feel excited GOING INTO a battle anymore.

 

[Amechwarrior]

I also developed a "Feel the Money" sense on contracts but was shorted today. Had a 1.5 skull Battle with something like 5/22 max salvage and way more cash that everything else in system. I save it for last, as obviously this is the big one and I want to make sure I can grind my cash jobs for the month before attempting something that might give Yang something to work on. I go +1 Salvage for a generous 4/17 and still something like 130k payout. It was 2 LCTs, a SDR and 5 vehicles, not even anything larger than a Striker. I felt ripped off.

 

[mjbroekman]

The sense of being "ripped off" by missions that are too easy or "cheated" by missions that are too hard are things game developers try to avoid. The latter especially makes people rage quit because "why bother if the AI is just going to cheat with all these uber opfors".

 

[SQW]

I also developed a "Feel the Money" sense on contracts but was shorted today. Had a 1.5 skull Battle with something like 5/22 max salvage and way more cash that everything else in system. I save it for last, as obviously this is the big one and I want to make sure I can grind my cash jobs for the month before attempting something that might give Yang something to work on. I go +1 Salvage for a generous 4/17 and still something like 130k payout. It was 2 LCTs, a SDR and 5 vehicles, not even anything larger than a Striker. I felt ripped off.

The vees do mess up the formula a bit. Shrieks and Demolishers are nothing to be sneezed at but bad luck if you upped the salvage instead of c-bills expecting mech parts. However, the level of opposition still seem to fit within the range of the c-bill.

 

[mjbroekman]

It's even worse when the turrets are involved. Shredder turrets, while "scary" are too easy to kill and laser turrets are next to useless. Sniper turrets are really the only scary things out there. Even LRM turrets aren't particularly scary unless you're facing 3 or 4 of them.

 

[BobaFatt]

Heck, even mission profile can change on loading - that scouting mission can turn out to be destroy convoy as your employer is updated

I really like this idea. The intel isn’t always right, and I really like the challenge of having to beat a mission when you didn’t necessarily bring your most optimized lance for the task.

Maybe the convoy you were sent to destroy diverted to a hidden base. Now the destroy convoy mission is a destroy base mission, and you have to figure out how to get it done with your persuit lance, not your base assault lance.

A base defense mission might get an update that the incoming opfor is a full assault company and you need to bug out with critical personnel (turns into a convoy escort mission) where you have to manage a fighting retreat against multiple waves of enemies to get to an evac point.

I’d also like to see a (very rare) chance of an employer double cross (maybe only possible if you take a contract for someone who dislikes or is indifferent to you) ala the MMM mission. Maybe the payout is bonus salvage since you wouldn’t get any cash.

We do sort of have one of these changing mission types now: trap sprung is set up like an assassinate mission but it turns into a battle with reinforcments, but we know it’s coming.

 

[Captain Slide]

The assassinate ones where an "extremely heavy" lance is in the area.

Rub hands together, load up on salvage rights only to drop in and the "extremely heavy" lance is a single Shrek or Devastator with a reinforcement lance of light vehicle or mechs.

Kind of a waste of time for your 4 Assault lance.

 

[SQW]

I really like this idea. The intel isn’t always right, and I really like the challenge of having to beat a mission when you didn’t necessarily bring your most optimized lance for the task.

Maybe the convoy you were sent to destroy diverted to a hidden base. Now the destroy convoy mission is a destroy base mission, and you have to figure out how to get it done with your persuit lance, not your base assault lance.

A base defense mission might get an update that the incoming opfor is a full assault company and you need to bug out with critical personnel (turns into a convoy escort mission) where you have to manage a fighting retreat against multiple waves of enemies to get to an evac point.

I’d also like to see a (very rare) chance of an employer double cross (maybe only possible if you take a contract for someone who dislikes or is indifferent to you) ala the MMM mission. Maybe the payout is bonus salvage since you wouldn’t get any cash.

We do sort of have one of these changing mission types now: trap sprung is set up like an assassinate mission but it turns into a battle with reinforcments, but we know it’s coming.

Exactly!

Too bad HBS/Kiva seems to be designing missions more to suit a controlled purpose like the new Target Acquisition. That mission literally requires you to retool your lance to suit a very narrow play style to have a good chance of success.

Unfortunately, the modding community seem to be focused on clan era tech a la RogueTech and weapon balancing than broad gameplay overhauls.

 

[BobaFatt]

Exactly!

Too bad HBS/Kiva seems to be designing missions more to suit a controlled purpose like the new Target Acquisition. That mission literally requires you to retool your lance to suit a very narrow play style to have a good chance of success.

Unfortunately, the modding community seem to be focused on clan era tech a la RogueTech and weapon balancing than broad gameplay overhauls.

TA isn’t that bad. I like flankers so I usually have some good 5/8/5s and grasshoppers kicking around my mechbay, and I use them plenty on other missions. And I’m actually excited to get a banshee which is a sentence that a couple weeks ago I didn’t think I would ever utter.

So far I’ve been enjoying the extra wrinkle that TA brings to the table. I am desperate for more variety than just assault slugfest, so even though it may not be perfected yet I like the variety TA brings.

 

[mjbroekman]

It can have a higher degree of hidden variance based on planet base difficulty coupled with some hefty C-bills to account for the unknown risk?

That's pretty much what you DO see when that 2 skull mission has higher compensation than the 3 skull mission. That, right there, is the variance. Now, could it be hidden so it looks like you're negotiating one thing but then get another? Sure. But if I'm negotiating a 2 skull mission with a max of 4 priority picks, you better believe I'm going to take those 4 priority picks to get in on whatever I'm getting hit with. On the other hand, if you hide that info and only show it as a 2/10 mission with mediocre cbill rewards, I may leave it at the middle and then be pissed that I didn't have more priority picks when there are heavy mech parts left on the field.

Now, if you want to talk salvage / cbill mechanics and how to change those, by all means. The whole 'picks vs random' thing is okay, but it could be improved. For instance, instead of having a specific number of picks, negotiations could be over the percentage of salvage that goes to the player. Maybe, by default, the player gets 40% of the salvage...no matter how many items there are, the player would get 40% of them. Want more? Bump the salvage negotiations. Maybe you can bump it up in 10% increments. And then, when the fighting is over and you know how many pieces of salvage there are in total, you get to pick 10% of your salvage and get the remaining 90% of your salvage randomly. Those are just example numbers, but then you wouldn't feel screwed when that 2 skull mission went sideways with a heavy lance in the opfor and you only getting 2 picks. Good target management would give you a treasure trove of parts to pick from regardless of whether you faced heavies or mediums or lights. And you wouldn't "know" at the negotiations which one it would be since you're dealing in %s and not raw numbers.

And "unknown risk" can just be a case of hidden secondary objectives which increase the mission payout (like clearing the turrets in some missions). Adding more of those kinds of things would be welcome.

Heck, even mission profile can change on loading - that scouting mission can turn out to be destroy convoy as your employer is updated.

Hell NO. If it's an escort mission, I may want a different lance makeup than a destroy convoy vs an assassination mission. No. Also, lore-wise, it would likely be an MRB violation. You were hired, through the MRB, to do task X. The employer is not allowed to change it to task B when you drop. Not without penalties.

I don't mind hidden objectives (like taking out all the turrets on a destroy base base mission), but completely different objectives is just a recipe for disaster.

Too bad HBS/Kiva seems to be designing missions more to suit a controlled purpose like the new Target Acquisition. That mission literally requires you to retool your lance to suit a very narrow play style to have a good chance of success.

People wanted more use for lights and mediums. HBS gave lights and mediums a mission type that they EXCEL at... not sure where the issue it. Target Acquistion is cool and the 'stand in this zone' for a few rounds to set up a beacon is far more immersive than, say, run into that zone there and survive until the end of the round so some rando can load someone or something onto your mech in the middle of a firefight.

 

[BobaFatt]

Hell NO. If it's an escort mission, I may want a different lance makeup than a destroy convoy vs an assassination mission. No.

That is the point. The whole point of changing mission types would be to force the player to figure out a way to complete the mission with a lance that is not optimized for the task. It would promote more balanced builds and lance composition instead of Uber specializing/boating/ 4x 3/5/0 lance composition.

Also, lore-wise, it would likely be an MRB violation. You were hired, through the MRB, to do task X. The employer is not allowed to change it to task B when you drop. Not without penalties.

I don't mind hidden objectives (like taking out all the turrets on a destroy base base mission), but completely different objectives is just a recipe for disaster.

Not necessarily, see my examples above, a destroy convoy mission that turns into a destroy base because they diverted to a hidden base in the area is still destroying the same target, they’re just in buildings now. It would certainly be a hidden objective that pays a bonus.

In the base defense turns to convoy escort mission above, Darius might update you after the first wave “heads up commander, it looks like (Opfor) really wants this base eliminated. I’m showing a full company incoming on long range scanners, including an assault lance. We won’t be able to hold the base. There’s a dropship pad nearby, The client is loading essential personnel and research into APCs. Sumire’s coming in hot, Get those trucks to the evac zone, And get out of there!”[/quote]

 

[SQW]

That's pretty much what you DO see when that 2 skull mission has higher compensation than the 3 skull mission.....

That's not exactly 'hidden' variance. I'm talking about you get X c-bill and salvage right but you don't know the skulls at all. You see blips in the radar and you don't know if it's a lance of lights or a lance of heavies or the only lance for that matter. Just knowing with 80% accuracy of what the opfor will be makes a huge impact on how you play. Right now, the combination of skull and reward is too good an indicator of what you will face and let you plan accordingly.

As for switching contract type half way, it can be easily written in the briefing that the situation on the ground is fluid and may change. You go into those missions knowing that base defense might turn into an evacuation + bonus...or not. Perfectly reasonable, realistic and more thematic than the cookie cutter missions we get right now.

And finally, while HBS said TAs were meant to encourage a mobile type of play, in the end, what we have is max JJ Dragons/Hoppers or as the previous poster mentioned, Banshee. While it does break up the assault grind, mediums are hardly the better option let alone trying to make Spider/LCTs work. Or they hard cap the drop weight which is just a blunt instrument at this point.

I know a lot of people don't like ANY RNG in their strategy games so just slap a tick box in the option and everyone can be happy.

 

[unclecid]

thats one reason i really like the mission control mod.
the possibility of allies or extra baddies makes things unpredictable

had an assassinate mission yesterday....in addition to the target and its support and its reinforcements ( 8 meks ) there were 2 other reinforcement lances of meks/vees.
if i hadnt gotten an allied support lance of my own i woulda turned tail and ran.
if was difficult but worth it. managed to get a MAD3L out of it ( only my second heavy in career so far )

 

[Kernel Panic]

Exactly!

Too bad HBS/Kiva seems to be designing missions more to suit a controlled purpose like the new Target Acquisition. That mission literally requires you to retool your lance to suit a very narrow play style to have a good chance of success.

Unfortunately, the modding community seem to be focused on clan era tech a la RogueTech and weapon balancing than broad gameplay overhauls.

I'm sorry, but did you play RogueTech? Because broad gameplay overhaul - is exectly what it does. Includung this very problem described in this topic. Just yesterday had a rare catapult model spawning in easy mission reinforcements. That was quite some epic fight i shoud say.

And yeah, Target Acquisition missions are bad. If you have to make a specific mission to make lights usefull, that alone says a lot about them being completly useless.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

That's not exactly 'hidden' variance. I'm talking about you get X c-bill and salvage right but you don't know the skulls at all. You see blips in the radar and you don't know if it's a lance of lights or a lance of heavies or the only lance for that matter. Just knowing with 80% accuracy of what the opfor will be makes a huge impact on how you play. Right now, the combination of skull and reward is too good an indicator of what you will face and let you plan accordingly.

As for switching contract type half way, it can be easily written in the briefing that the situation on the ground is fluid and may change. You go into those missions knowing that base defense might turn into an evacuation + bonus...or not. Perfectly reasonable, realistic and more thematic than the cookie cutter missions we get right now.

And finally, while HBS said TAs were meant to encourage a mobile type of play, in the end, what we have is max JJ Dragons/Hoppers or as the previous poster mentioned, Banshee. While it does break up the assault grind, mediums are hardly the better option let alone trying to make Spider/LCTs work. Or they hard cap the drop weight which is just a blunt instrument at this point.

I know a lot of people don't like ANY RNG in their strategy games so just slap a tick box in the option and everyone can be happy.

“Hidden Variance” - I like that idea quite a lot. It opens up some interesting FLASHPOINT options.

One variable I would like to add to your list of how contracts could be varied with respect to Intelligence would be the option to pay for Intelligence, and for that Intelligence to then be “tainted” by either our Employer or some other third-party. In this manner, if the player decides to invest “x” Cbills a additional layer of Intelligence will be added (numbers of Enemy Entities, perhaps the break down between number of Vehicles and number of Mechs, perhaps some Vehicle and/or Mech Identification by Model, if not Variant.)

And then as a twist, “tainted” Inteligence could be those instances where what we paid for, proves false but Darius gets wind of which party interfered with our Intelligence Collection, thus perhaps spawning a FLASHPOINT Decision for a Mission of Retribution against the perpetrator. : )

Just some random ideas that might serve as fuel for our Modding Community as the FLASHPOINT Editor is put into play for FLASHPOINT Mods. :bow:

 

[SQW]

I'm sorry, but did you play RogueTech? Because broad gameplay overhaul - is exectly what it does. Includung this very problem described in this topic. Just yesterday had a rare catapult model spawning in easy mission reinforcements. That was quite some epic fight i shoud say.

And yeah, Target Acquisition missions are bad. If you have to make a specific mission to make lights usefull, that alone says a lot about them being completly useless.

I admit I only looked at Roguetech when it first came out and I couldn't stand the starting mech and it's kaleidoscope of gear and weapons.

@Amechwarrior Yes, BT desperately needs more mission variety and how they are presented to us. 95% of what we have boils down to go to point A, kill everything or go to point A, kill everything and grab object B. Kinda like Bethesda school of quest design. FP honestly doesn't break up the formula enough in my view. Sure, linked mission with a bit of background is nice but once in-mission, the individual contracts themselves are essentially still the same.

Really hope the next DLC will break the current contract mold.

 

[Nakkivene]

What would this do, though? You'd deploy the heaviest lance you can so you have the best chance to brawl through the mission, and you'd withdraw whenever you want.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

I admit I only looked at Roguetech when it first came out and I couldn't stand the starting mech and it's kaleidoscope of gear and weapons.

@Amechwarrior Yes, BT desperately needs more mission variety and how they are presented to us. 95% of what we have boils down to go to point A, kill everything or go to point A, kill everything and grab object B. Kinda like Bethesda school of quest design. FP honestly doesn't break up the formula enough in my view. Sure, linked mission with a bit of background is nice but once in-mission, the individual contracts themselves are essentially still the same.

Really hope the next DLC will break the current contract mold.

Does anyone think the “Go Here, Kill Everything” paradigm can be broken without a quantum evolution of the BATTLETECH AI?

I love BATTLETECH. It already surpasses all but the Civilization Series as my favorite computer game of all time, and with further development (Infantry, Artillery, Airstrikes and the CLAN INVASION) it clearly has a path to supplant CIV.

But just like old-school CIV’s AI “Stacks of Doom” the BATTLETECH AI is challenged on a level that is beyond anyone’s capabilities to realize a solution.

How in the world would BATTLETECH’s AI be capable of the nuanced gameplay, @SQW (and I, admittedly) appears to relish and prefer?

Being forced into Running Battles on Asset Extraction Mission. True Rear Guard Actions when it comes to Base Defense Missions. Not being able to “sprint” my Assaults to accomplish even the most time sensitive Convoy Attack Missions.

The AI that could challenge our Top Tier BATTLETECH gamers, would likely annihilate our Beginner and Mid-Tier BATTLETECH gamers. With the advanced and complex AI Tactics that would be needed challenge Top Tier Players, likely to be inscrutable and beyond frustrating for other BATTLETECH Gamers.


Basically, without a means for our BATTLETECH AI to measure our “Relative Player Skill Levels” however could BATTLETECH challenge each of us individually?

And such an advanced and adaptive AI would be EXPENSIVE! Which would be prohibitively so in my opinion.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

What would this do, though? You'd deploy the heaviest lance you can so you have the best chance to brawl through the mission, and you'd withdraw whenever you want.

But the AI lacks the ability to withdraw, and the Al lacks the ability to call in overwephelming force.

Basically every mission is all too often s question of “how will I farm every single Mech the AI throws at me on this map.”

Do I put the AI down with ruthless efficiency, Precision Shotting at 82% all the AI Center Torsos I can (something that really enhances Weapons Salvage by the way.)

Or do I take the risks of damage to my Mechs and injury to my MechWarriors of angleing for Flank Shots on Legs and Sode Torsos to the extent I incapacitate AI MechWarriors?

For example in my current Career Mode Attempt, after the first 200-days, I’ve been able to “Clean Sweep” every single Mission that has come my way. Ideally, as far as I am concerned, that should not be possible. AI should be able to withdraw and/or call in Overwhelming Reinforcements.

It should be up to me to realize this is happening and react accordingly... but that is not the case, all too often (real as “always”) every BATTLETECH Mission is a possible win. (As long as I don’t start bringing 1-Skull Lances into 5-Skull Missions, that is.)

 

[Nakkivene]

To the above, I was being unclear. I meant "what would obscuring the opfor tonnage further accomplish, really?".

Does anyone think the “Go Here, Kill Everything” paradigm can be broken without a quantum evolution of the BATTLETECH AI?

Yeah, more varied level design. Which would be mostly pre-planned missions and not generated, I imagine.