Some design decisions I don't get

[Ryltar]

While I think the game is good (wouldn't have spent 100+ hours playing it if it wasn't fun to do so) there are some things I don't understand that they are in a game released 2018:

1. Savegame folder - it's in a cryptic steam installation subfolder. Finding it was a pain. Why not put them into "my games" folder or even better letting people decide where to put them.
2. Savegames - with the game currently (have CTDs from time to time) being a "bit" unstable regular saving is mandatory but having no options to limit the number of savegames (Divinity: Original Sin 2 got such an option for example) makes things worse, especially because of 1. and because if you try to delete saves in game you'll get mad doing so.
3. Mech Bay - why can't i put mechs into different slots or sort them by type (l,m,h,a)
4. Store - a) would like to have an option to disable confirming every item when buying and b) why is there no option to /buysell more than one item at once?
5. AI - played quite some time now (day 900+) and in some escort missions the AI (at least that of the allied units) is - to express it nicely - dumb as shit. In one mission they turned around and drove right into the enemies instead of moving towards the exit point - probably because way-finding is very limited and the AI does not change which unit moves first. If the first unit blocks the path the rest will not wait until it's open again, no, they will look for a different path, even if that means going right TRHU the enemies.
6. Enemies - in some missions (not talking of story here) the number of enemies is just ridiculous (2-3 full lances and sometimes even some vehicles). Them having less armor does not change much, especially if those units all move earlier than you. In that case it's irrelevant for them having less armor if they have all their weapons and no penalty to hitting you (it's hard to get evasion if everybody else moves first). You could argue to bring lighter mechs or getting Master Tactician on all your pilots for such missions but the first also means you will have an even bigger disadvantage and if latter is required for all pilots the game has bigger issues than expected.
7. Mechwarrior stats - I don't have the feeling they do much. Especially piloting. I would expect much more rolls on the stat - for jumping, terrain, DFA, etc.
8. Cockpit module with injury resist - having 2 more chances of taking damage does not help much, if the 2 additional points are added at the end. Before getting 7 or even 5 hits the mech will be destroyed before that happens. The resist would be great if it was taking damage first. It's actually working, making this entry obsolete.
9. No quick save/load
10. Autosaves - the interval of saves is far from being logical. Every 30d, on the beginning of story missions but no autosave on random missions.
11. Performance outside of missions - the game runs smoothly in missions but on the Argo switching from one section to another feels sluggish at best. This is not a FPS problem but there are strange loading times. The cursor also turns to the standard Windows cursor when the program is busy. (game is installed on a SSD, 16GB RAM, i5 at 3.1GHz, GTX970)
12. Getting killed in Capture Base Missions by own Dropship - As there is no indicator for where the dropship will land it is possible to get killed by it if you are in the wrong place - it will simply crush every Mech being in the according spot to death.
13. No mode for people being color blind - would be nice to have an option to change the color for enemies from red to other colors
14. No minimap
15. Just played a Priority Mission where you HAVE TO STAY INSIDE a specific area and guess what happened when the dropship arrived? If you need hints read 12. DID ANYBODY PLAY THIS FAR AND DO IT'S JOB AT QA? I don't get the impression they did.
16. Never-ending-Assassination-Mission - just played a mission that did not end. Had to withdraw to get off the planet because there was no extraction point nor a secondary target which i was missing.
17. Escort missions again - would be great to have control over the escort vehicles as they DON'T stay near and because the vehicles to be escorted are much less sturdy than those encountered in ambush missions they get killed almost immediately if attacked by enemies - especially in the late game where the attackers are 75+ tons.
18. Mission desing - while the story is ok, missions feel a bit lame. It would be nice to have missions that evolve, have real surprises or even complete turn-arounds/objective changes, maybe even multiple missions with only some limited time to do repairs. I can't help thinking that mission design gets worse in the late game - somehow uninspired.

PS: I will update this thread if I stumble upon other things.

 

[tkaspar]

Definitely agree with number 3. All I want to be able to do is drag a mech to another slot....

 

[Ozymandious]

There are markers for where the drop ship will land but they are easy to miss and only show up when you mouse over the right pips when moving a mech.

 

[Adam_Taylor]

Saves... I definitely agree. Why is it not just in the usual Doc/MyGames/Battletech type of thing?
Also, why in the hell does the game keep every single save? It should keep at most two of the monthly auto-saves, and the "pre-battle" one made just before you start a mission. And manual saves should be fully manual. You hit save, put in a file name. If you use an existing one you overwrite it. Why have hundreds of saves piled up? They had better save systems in the 80's.

Mech bay management is something I made a suggestion for. Why can we not re-organize? We have to manually store and pull out all mechs if we want to sort them. And pulling out a mech from storage brings it out empty. Why in the hell does it not get put in with at the very least the default setup for the model? And why not give us a "save setup" option so that we can quickly load up mechs the way we want. If we try out different things we can always quickly jump back to a setup we like, instead of having to manually pull every component out each time.

And some of the map randomization for enemy positions can be insane. I've had maps where the enemy spawns at the top of a huge cliff, one that even with jumpjet shortcuts takes at least 5-6 turns to get up. In the mean time they're constantly bombarding you with missiles that you can't really do anything about. I'm all for some challenge, but some maps are just impossible.

 

[Aargh]

I agree on all points, except #12. The game puts red markers on the ground where the dropship is going to land. They're not easy to see (especially when considering your point about a lack of color blind mode), but they are there.

To add a point of my own: I'd really love an option to speed up travel time. I don't mean traveling faster ingame, I mean cutting out all the pointless waiting and multiple mini-cutscenes whenever I travel anywhere. If it takes 30 days to travel somewhere, don't make me sit on my thumb while the 30 days slowly tick away on-screen, with several repetitive cutscenes in between. Sure cutscenes are cool, but after I've seen them twice it feels like a waste of time every single time, since it's just the same shit over and over. Just warp me to my destination and turn the clock 30 days ahead, please.

 

[SQW]

What a fantastic game if all OP can complain about is save game and a few UI non-issues. Oh, dropship landing zone is marked - you just haven't been paying attention.

As for enemy numbers, *le sigh* THERE IS A BLOODY BIG RETREAT BUTTON!!! You aren't suppose to complete EVERY mission. It's a merc sim - sometimes you get shafted by bad intel. It's a legit design choice. Gamers have been too conditioned to wanting to finish everything because most designers made every mission completable to give players sense of accomplishment.

 

[Ryltar]

I agree on all points, except #12. The game puts red markers on the ground where the dropship is going to land. They're not easy to see (especially when considering your point about a lack of color blind mode), but they are there.

To add a point of my own: I'd really love an option to speed up travel time. I don't mean traveling faster ingame, I mean cutting out all the pointless waiting and multiple mini-cutscenes whenever I travel anywhere. If it takes 30 days to travel somewhere, don't make me sit on my thumb while the 30 days slowly tick away on-screen, with several repetitive cutscenes in between. Sure cutscenes are cool, but after I've seen them twice it feels like a waste of time every single time, since it's just the same shit over and over. Just warp me to my destination and turn the clock 30 days ahead, please.

I can't see red markers very well or not at all if the surrounding colors impact my visual perception - the game (and most other Paradox games, too) need options for color blind people. But I think this might even be a missunderstanding. I'm quite sure that in some missions there aren't even markers at all.

And you're right about travelling, getting jump cut scenes 3+ times in a row is a complete waste of time. Especally because you can't skip them manually.

 

[Voras]

6. Happens. If it happens, retreat. Tough luck, better luck next mission. Else, totally working as intended.
7. Piloting does give some nice boosts. +Evasion +Stability threshold +melee hit chance is a nice bonus, Guts gives faster recovery, more hitpoints and +heat capacity, Tactics gives called shot mastery, better indirect fire, and lower minimum range. So everything is helpful.

 

[Ryltar]

What a fantastic game if all OP can complain about is save game and a few UI non-issues. Oh, dropship landing zone is marked - you just haven't been paying attention.

As for enemy numbers, *le sigh* THERE IS A BLOODY BIG RETREAT BUTTON!!! You aren't suppose to complete EVERY mission. It's a merc sim - sometimes you get shafted by bad intel. It's a legit design choice. Gamers have been too conditioned to wanting to finish everything because most designers made every mission completable to give players sense of accomplishment.

Sorry, but I DID COMPLETE EVERY MISSION SO FAR (week 200+) and me pointing out that the AI is complete crap just shows that even putting tons of enemies into a mission won't make up for it being crap. That's something many recently released strategy games have in common, especially those with a multi-player part. Poor design, period!

Having more enemies is only a temporarily discomfort, because there will come the time, when even the largest force can be outplayed, because the AI and to some degree the mission design is quite lacking and can't compete with you lance's setup. Even putting Kamea into it in some instances did not hold me back kicking the AI's ass again and yet again.

 

[Socratatus]

Steam has ALWAYS had a weird way of keeping saves usually. It took me ages to figure out that it`s sort of coded to a number and shoved in a lost directory to make it real hard to find.

Truth is I can`t stand games on Steam because they add an extra level of faffing to what used to be a really easy process BEFORE STeam became mandatory (yes once upon a time it was optional). Of course, kids don`t know how easy it used to be because they`ve been told it was hard in the past when it wasn`t. In fact today, you jump through more hoops on Steam if you want to grab a save or even Mod a game.

There are so many reasons why Steam is not good (can`t use the Patch you prefer for example). Even modding goes really weird where Mods will sometimes appear and vanish on a whim. I never have such troubles on non-Steam games which is why most of my Mods I manually download from the Nexus.

Yea, not a fan of Steam. That`s why I give GOG most of my game cash.

Now I await the raft of people who think Steam is the Second Coming.

 

[Remnar]

It's odd that I haven't had any issues with the red markers as that is always a struggle for me. A color blind mode would have been great.

I agree on most of those points except the too many mechs thing. I like that sometimes withdrawing in good faith is your best bet.

 

[Remnar]

Steam has ALWAYS had a weird way of keeping saves usually. It took me ages to figure out that it`s sort of coded to a number and shoved in a lost directory to make it real hard to find.

Truth is I can`t stand games on Steam because they add an extra level of faffing to what used to be a really easy process BEFORE STeam became mandatory (yes once upon a time it was optional). Of course, kids don`t know how easy it used to be because they`ve been told it was hard in the past when it wasn`t. In fact today, you jump through more hoops on Steam if you want to grab a save or even Mod a game.

There are so many reasons why Steam is not good (can`t use the Patch you prefer for example). Even modding goes really weird where Mods will sometimes appear and vanish on a whim. I never have such troubles on non-Steam games which is why most of my Mods I manually download from the Nexus.

Yea, not a fan of Steam. That`s why I give GOG most of my game cash.

Now I await the raft of people who think Steam is the Second Coming.

Truth. Though I think I use steam mostly from habit now. And their sales are nice sometimes, but I play games rarely these days.

 

[Socratatus]

Truth. Though I think I use steam mostly from habit now. And their sales are nice sometimes, but I play games rarely these days.

Yes, their sales can be nice. True. Got a couple of games during Christmas which were about £6 (with every DLC included) and would normally cost about £30 or more. In cases likely that i`ll suffer Steam to have them.

 

[Dheran]

My Battletech game autosaves before every mission, including the random contract ones. It even autosaves again if I reloaded the autosave to re-do the mission, ending up with two auotsaves identical in content.

 

[WarHippy]

While I think the game is good there are some things I don't understand that they are in a game released 2018:

1. Savegame folder - it's in a cryptic steam installation subfolder. Finding it was a pain. Why not put them into "my games" folder or even better letting people decide where to put them.
2. Savegames - with the game currently (have CTDs from time to time) being a "bit" unstable regular saving is mandatory but having no options to limit the number of savegames (Divinity: Original Sin 2 got such an option for example) makes things worse, especially because of 1. and because if you try to delete saves in game you'll get mad doing so.
3. Mech Bay - why can't i put mechs into different slots or sort them by type (l,m,h,a)
4. Store - a) would like to have an option to disable confirming every item when buying and b) why is there no option to /buysell more than one item at once?
5. AI - played quite some time now (day 900+) and in some escort missions the AI (at least that of the allied units) is - to express it nicely - dumb as shit. In one mission they turned around and drove right into the enemies instead of moving towards the exit point - probably because way-finding is very limited and the AI does not change which unit moves first. If the first unit blocks the path the rest will not wait until it's open again, no, they will look for a different path, even if that means going right TRHU the enemies.
6. Enemies - in some missions (not talking of story here) the number of enemies is just ridiculous (2-3 full lances and sometimes even some vehicles). Them having less armor does not change much, especially if those units all move earlier than you. In that case it's irrelevant for them having less armor if they have all their weapons and no penalty to hitting you (it's hard to get evasion if everybody else moves first). You could argue to bring lighter mechs or getting Master Tactician on all your pilots for such missions but the first also means you will have an even bigger disadvantage and if latter is required for all pilots the game has bigger issues than expected.
7. Mechwarrior stats - I don't have the feeling they do much. Especially piloting. I would expect much more rolls on the stat - for jumping, terrain, DFA, etc.
8. Cockpit module with injury resist - having 2 more chances of taking damage does not help much, if the 2 additional points are added at the end. Before getting 7 or even 5 hits the mech will be destroyed before that happens. The resist would be great if it was taking damage first. It's actually working, making this entry obsolete.
9. No quick save/load
10. Autosaves - the interval of saves is far from being logical. Every 30d, on the beginning of story missions but no autosave on random missions.
11. Performance outside of missions - the game runs smoothly in missions but on the Argo switching from one section to another feels sluggish at best. This is not a FPS problem but there are strange loading times. The cursor also turns to the standard Windows cursor when the program is busy. (game is installed on a SSD, 16GB RAM, i5 at 3.1GHz, GTX970)
12. Getting killed in Capture Base Missions by own Dropship - As there is no indicator for where the dropship will land it is possible to get killed by it if you are in the wrong place - it will simply crush every Mech being in the according spot to death.
13. No mode for people being color blind - would be nice to have an option to change the color for enemies from red to other colors
14. No minimap
15. Just played a Priority Mission where you HAVE TO STAY INSIDE a specific area and guess what happened when the dropship arrived? If you need hints read 12. DID ANYBODY PLAY THIS FAR AND DO IT'S JOB AT QA? I don't get the impression they did.

PS: I will update this thread if I stumble upon other things.

I agree with most of this for the most part, however 12 is not true. On those missions if you pay attention when you are moving it does indicate that certain spots are dangerous to move to because it is a Dropship landing site. The dots will have a little red around them and if you hover your mouse over them it tells you that is where a Dropship will land.

 

[arithon]

I'd love to have the ability to manually type in the save name. That would help in a game like this were a small mistake can snowball into disaster and you have to go back.

 

[SQW]

Sorry, but I DID COMPLETE EVERY MISSION SO FAR (week 200+) and me pointing out that the AI is complete crap just shows that even putting tons of enemies into a mission won't make up for it being crap. That's something many recently released strategy games have in common, especially those with a multi-player part. Poor design, period!

Having more enemies is only a temporarily discomfort, because there will come the time, when even the largest force can be outplayed, because the AI and to some degree the mission design is quite lacking and can't compete with you lance's setup. Even putting Kamea into it in some instances did not hold me back kicking the AI's ass again and yet again.

Yes, the AI is hardly something to write home about but it wasn't designed to out play a turn based veteran. XCOM's AI was a push over and still the vast majority of players had to save scum on easy to get through the campaign. There are people who couldn't pass the tutorial mission or become broke a few hundred days in BT too.

Unfortunately, the HBS had to design around a bell curve and not hardcore gamers like us. Until someone does an AI mod, I recommend the following to give the AI a fighting chance:

1. Increase part requirement to 5;
2. Increase morale actions cost by 10pts;
3. Set CT destroyed own mech recovery chance to 50%;
4. Decrease base accuracy by double/triple each weight classes' inherent dodge value;
5. Activate movement accuracy penalty on the mech doing the shooting;
6. Stick to stock loadout (you'll never laugh at AI again).

If you look at the codes, it's obvious HBS designed it to give players a MASSIVE leg up. There's nothing to brag about beating an AI when the dev gives you so many tools that you SHOULD beat anything double your drop weight with only a few scratches.

 

[Hasler]

Yes, the AI is hardly something to write home about but it wasn't designed to out play a turn based veteran. XCOM's AI was a push over and still the vast majority of players had to save scum on easy to get through the campaign. There are people who couldn't pass the tutorial mission or become broke a few hundred days in BT too.

Unfortunately, the HBS had to design around a bell curve and not hardcore gamers like us. Until someone does an AI mod, I recommend the following to give the AI a fighting chance:

1. Increase part requirement to 5;
2. Increase morale actions cost by 10pts;
3. Set CT destroyed own mech recovery chance to 50%;
4. Decrease base accuracy by double/triple each weight classes' inherent dodge value;
5. Activate movement accuracy penalty on the mech doing the shooting;
6. Stick to stock loadout (you'll never laugh at AI again).

If you look at the codes, it's obvious HBS designed it to give players a MASSIVE leg up. There's nothing to brag about beating an AI when the dev gives you so many tools that you SHOULD beat anything double your drop weight with only a few scratches.

Also you can try setting spotting to 700. You will end up fighting multiple lances at the same time. The AI also seems to preform better and will focus on you better. It also gives a reason for long range weapons to exist.

 

[General Lee High]

Yes, the AI is hardly something to write home about but it wasn't designed to out play a turn based veteran. XCOM's AI was a push over and still the vast majority of players had to save scum on easy to get through the campaign. There are people who couldn't pass the tutorial mission or become broke a few hundred days in BT too.

Unfortunately, the HBS had to design around a bell curve and not hardcore gamers like us. Until someone does an AI mod, I recommend the following to give the AI a fighting chance:

1. Increase part requirement to 5;
2. Increase morale actions cost by 10pts;
3. Set CT destroyed own mech recovery chance to 50%;
4. Decrease base accuracy by double/triple each weight classes' inherent dodge value;
5. Activate movement accuracy penalty on the mech doing the shooting;
6. Stick to stock loadout (you'll never laugh at AI again).

If you look at the codes, it's obvious HBS designed it to give players a MASSIVE leg up. There's nothing to brag about beating an AI when the dev gives you so many tools that you SHOULD beat anything double your drop weight with only a few scratches.

Would you mind please putting the relevant 6 lines of code into your post and which files to update? I would like to try those tweaks, even though I'm not a hardcore gamer. However with a Steiner Recon Lance I'm holding my own through superior firepower.

 

[Jamey]

7. Mechwarrior stats - I don't have the feeling they do much. Especially piloting. I would expect much more rolls on the stat - for jumping, terrain, DFA, etc.

As you rank skills up, they have major effects. See the section on skills in Eck's guide (details in the spoiler tag below):
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1365402907

Spoiler

Gunnery - all ranks: +2.5% base ranged weapon hit chance per point

• Rank 5: Multi-Target - Action: Fire weapons at up to three targets.
  
• Rank 8: Breaching Shot - Passive: Attacks with a single weapon ignore Cover and Guarded on the target.

Piloting - all ranks: +2.5% base melee hit chance per point

• Rank 4: +1 Unsteady Threshold
  
• Rank 5: Evasive Movement - Passive: The unit generates an extra Evasive charge from movement actions.
  
• Rank 6: +1 max Evasion
  
• Rank 7: +20% sprint distance
  
• Rank 8: Ace Pilot - Passive: This unit can move after shooting if it has not moved yet.
  
• Rank 9: +1 Unsteady Threshold (+2 total)
  
• Rank 10: +1 max Evasion (+2 total)

Guts - all ranks: +5% bonus on survival rolls. Incapacitated Death Chance (90% - 5%*Guts), Lethal Death Chance (140% - 5% * Guts).

• Rank 4: +1 Health
  
• Rank 5: -1 Recoil Penalty, Bulwark - Passive: Gain Guarded when remaining stationary. (you can still shoot)
  
• Rank 6: +15 Overheat Threshold (redesigned, used to be 5 for every guts skill point)
  
• Rank 7: +1 more Health (+2 total)
  
• Rank 8: -1 Recoil Penalty, for a total of -2, Juggernaut - Passive: Successful Melee attacks knock your target back one Initiative Phase
  
• Rank 9: +15 Overheat Threshold, for a total of +30
  
• Rank 10: +1 more Health (+3 total)

Tactics

• Rank 4: -1 Indirect Fire Penalty
  
• Rank 5: -45 Minimum Range, Sensor Lock - Action: Select a target within sensor range to reveal it until the end of the current round and remove two evasive charges. Consumes your firing action.
  
• Rank 6: "Called Shot Bonus"
  
• Rank 7: -1 more Indirect Fire Penalty (-2 total)
  
• Rank 8: -45 Minimum Range, (-90 total), Master Tactician - Passive: Mechs piloted by this MechWarrior gain +1 Initiative, and remove one bar of Stability Damage when Reserving
  
• Rank 9: "Called Shot Mastery"
  
• Rank 10: Eliminates Indirect Fire Penalty

If you don't think that increasing the Evasion cap or the unsteady threshold (examples from Piloting skill) are notable effects, I'm confused as to why.

12. Getting killed in Capture Base Missions by own Dropship - As there is no indicator for where the dropship will land it is possible to get killed by it if you are in the wrong place - it will simply crush every Mech being in the according spot to death.

You mention a desire for colorblind settings, so maybe you cannot see the red markers around the spots where the dropship is going to land. I see them quite clearly, but I could see it being a problem if you are red/green because most of the ground colors are shades of either red or green.

There is also a tooltip when you are looking at those dots which indicates that a dropship is about to land there and that it will do very bad things to mech on that location when the dropship lands.

In short, there are at least two indicators in the game.