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Summary of HBS developer AMA on Reddit

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A

Aries37

Private
Apr 30, 2018
12
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For those who don't use Reddit or can't be bothered to read through it all. Link to AMA.
  • Game has been a big success. This means they are meeting soon for a 'roadmap' meeting to plan future content.

  • New content will take the form of DLC and FreeLC.

  • New content will include things like different encounter types (think battle, capture base, escort etc), some of these will be designed to increase the use of light and medium mechs late-game.

  • Other additions may include 'broader systemic gameplay, recurring enemies with grudges, contracts that aren't what they seem, and "unexpected events" in battles'

  • Looking to add to the post-game. Possibly harder missions, a map 'Domination' mode, enemy mechs with modded weapons and custom loadouts.

  • A Long War-esque (an X-com mod) options menu to change variables in the game (i,e ironman mode) to control difficulty is being considered. Other variables mentioned include 'CT destruction permanently destroys a mech, you need 5 pieces of salvage to reconstruct a mech, rather than 3, parts that get blown off a mech may lose slots or max armor capacity, etc.'

  • More random ship events which make use of mechwarrior tags, more Argo content and other additions to out-of-combat gameplay to come.

  • Technical performance issues are the top of their list of priorities and being worked on right now. FPS increase, ultrawidescreen compatibility issues etc. Press release coming soon.

  • They are working on cleaning up speed of animations and general dead time to speed up the game.

  • Linux support coming within a few months

  • Reinforcements appearing at the start of missions confirmed not a bug, but it's unexpected due to poor communication. Likely changes to the difficulty rating of missions though to make them more accurate.

  • Weapons are being rebalanced. In particular lostech weapons will get a boost.

  • Lostech weapons will be made available outside of the story campaign.

  • Urbanmechs are being made more common

  • Juggernaut skill (guts tree) is being looked at/redesigned

  • New mechs, including possible clan DLC may be coming but he is under NDA. 'We have plans' is all he could say. Most of the new content needs to be discussed first at the roadmap meeting.

  • Ability to sort mechs in the mechbay is being considered

  • No Land Air Mechs coming

  • High/low spirits bug- they are looking for the cause so they can fix it.

  • AOE weapons may or may not come. Friendly fire unlikely to be implemented as it wasn't fun in testing.

  • No plans to have players control more than one lance at a time. Additional lances may have 'off screen' effects.

  • There will be no friction with the modding community- they are free to do what they want. No plans for official modding support but individual engineers may be approached for help.

  • Paradox are in charge of localizing the game in other languages
  • Developer team of about 35 people spread across a few rooms. Only one animator (great job Hollie!)
 
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Thank you good sir... summed up a lot of questions people are asking... I hope they fast track LosTech outside the campaign because gimme gimme gimme... I finished the campaign like 20-30 hours of game play ago...
 
Thank you for the post!

There are some goodies in there for sure :D.

Although it is very intimidating, I am cautiously looking forward to an Ironman mode. I am trying to play that way now in a way (I haven't reloaded due to bad performance/killed MechWarriors). A harder mode of this may be a bit too much for me, but after this play through, I think I could be up to the challenge.
 
Recurring enemies with grudges would be cool, Mechwarrior 4 Mercs actually had that with the Burr's Black Cobras merc unit if you blew up their mechs in that one base raiding mission on that snowy planet in the beginning.
 
Aries37 said:
  • Urbanmechs are being made more common
    ...
  • No Land Air Mechs coming
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More Urbies!? YES PLEASE! Despite the apparent "common" nature of them in the jsons, they are darned hard to find.

No LAM!?!?!? Heresy! Burn the heretics! j/k ... that would be one step too far while the company that shall not be named is still a functional entity with lawyers.

Was there any mention of more campaigns either under the broad 'new content' or as something that the modding community would be able to put together? Has anyone modded entirely new missions?
 
This looks great. A lot of points in there, the community have touched on. Glad to see they take the critique to heart and have a look at things! A great game is on the road to becoming greater, and to say I am thrilled, is putting it mildly right now :)
 
mjbroekman said:
More Urbies!? YES PLEASE! Despite the apparent "common" nature of them in the jsons, they are darned hard to find.

No LAM!?!?!? Heresy! Burn the heretics! j/k ... that would be one step too far while the company that shall not be named is still a functional entity with lawyers.

Was there any mention of more campaigns either under the broad 'new content' or as something that the modding community would be able to put together? Has anyone modded entirely new missions?
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Tyler clarified that LAMs are basically impossible because there's no aerospace dimension coded into the game right now i.e it's all just ground level stuff.

Nothing specific about new campaigns as they haven't had their roadmap meetings yet. However we should expect 'a lot' of new content so more campaigns are very likely IMO.
 
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Thanks for the summary! :) This is awesome news, pretty much excatly want I wanted to hear from HBS - it's clear they have been reading and taking fan (customer) feedback seriously and is to be commended!

They only other thing I would have liked to have heard was about more maps/randomly generated maps a la XCom 2's parcel system. I already know where enemies will spawn on the escort maps and it's kinda hard not to use that knowledge!

And please, please, PLEASE don't race to include the Clans! Lots more IS content first would be my dream :)
 
Reinforcements appearing at the start of missions confirmed not a bug, but it's unexpected due to poor communication. Likely changes to the difficulty rating of missions though to make them more accurate.

I would get that it happens sometimes, but it is nearly every mission that has them and the "not a bug" conflicts with the VO that you get when you kill the last of the original mechs. it is also very annoying as there is little better salvage in those mission, as they tend to be lower tonnage mechs.
 
Diedel said:
Reinforcements appearing at the start of missions confirmed not a bug, but it's unexpected due to poor communication. Likely changes to the difficulty rating of missions though to make them more accurate.

I would get that it happens sometimes, but it is nearly every mission that has them and the "not a bug" conflicts with the VO that you get when you kill the last of the original mechs. it is also very annoying as there is little better salvage in those mission, as they tend to be lower tonnage mechs.
Click to expand...

Yeah, out of all the answers that's the one thing that bothers me. It almost seems like they are not aware of the full extent of this issue. Otherwise I can't see how they would respond like that.
 
Instant reinforcements not a bug sounds like an off the cuff not fully informed response. I suspect they want it to be possible but not every mission every time with the reinforcement notifications happening at the end of the mission.
 
XTRMNTR2K said:
Yeah, out of all the answers that's the one thing that bothers me. It almost seems like they are not aware of the full extent of this issue. Otherwise I can't see how they would respond like that.
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I'll copy paste the exact responses just so nothing gets lost in translation:

''So this is largely a communication issue: the reinforcements aren't a bug, per se. They're supposed to be there. Unfortunately, the mission language calls them reinforcements which implies they were to arrive later.

Some work is being done right now to change that language, and also to change up some of the map/contract/encounter combos to make them more interesting. That's Connor's whole jam.''

''Well, we're definitely going to ensure it's clearer that the "reinforcements" are more of "Shit, more forces than our intel suggested, Commander!" kind of message.''

So I think we assume that it's the voiceovers that are the confusing bit and need to be tweaked.
 
The timing and wording in game is wrong is the impression I got from the ama, the mechs are supposed to be there, as a result of bad Intel, so the wording needs to be replaced with something like 'additional heat signatures' or something
 
Clans could be fun but I really want some more IS dynamics and weaponry. Maybe have some sort of balance reshuffle to include other types of mechs. All I keep seeing are Hawks, griffins, thunderbolts, and the occasional Orion (and all those pesky light mechs). Maybe have some sort of change to the code so you don’t have to play against 5-6 assault mechs for 4 1/2 missions when you want to try and get some good loot.

Edit:
Also yes to more LosTech. The gauss is a beast and while I don’t think you should see it in every mission, every once and a while it should pop up. Maybe hit a certain reputation threshold for a faction to send you against such an arrayed force.
 
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