|
Didn't somebody do the math on PTN's dice and determine this is all confirmation bias at work? I mean, not that I care. I'm still blaming them. 
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 16:25
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 00:44 |
|
|
tuluk posted:Kial needs to take the "Stackpole" option. Which option is that, exactly? Is that the one where Kai Allard-Liao appears out of nowhere to dropkick a Timberwolf and then fall off a cliff?
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 16:30
|
|
|
PoptartsNinja posted:Which option is that, exactly? Is that the one where Kai Allard-Liao appears out of nowhere to dropkick a Timberwolf and then fall off a cliff? depends, what would Kial have to roll to get that to happen?
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 16:32
|
|
|
The Kell Hounds combat drop and save the day, obviously. May or may not feature Andy Redburn being exploded.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 16:32
|
|
|
Psion posted:depends, what would Kial have to roll to get that to happen? It doesn't matter, he'd just end up rolling 1 under the target.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 16:33
|
|
|
He turns on his secret supercharger, charges the nearest thing and does some sort of Judo throw so he ends up chest-to-chest with it and fires off the HAG at point blank before he dies from the massive amount of incoming fire into his back.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 16:35
|
|
|
Zurai posted:It doesn't matter, he'd just end up rolling 1 under the target. look all I'm saying is Kai Allard-Liao, or K. A-L, or perhaps ... Kial PTN has been cheating us all along. Kial should never have missed a single roll! Ever!
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 16:35
|
|
|
Don't think I get a vote, but Crab for MVP IMO. The first Crab got torn apart by my Arctic Cheetah and the Warhawk, the second is an unkillable engine of death.Psion posted:Didn't somebody do the math on PTN's dice and determine this is all confirmation bias at work? I don't think it was so clear cut as confirmation bias. The Trout crit rolls were far superior in number and quality (particularly of the crippling variety). Overall I believe the to hit rolls evened out over the long run, with a few notable exceptions. Dire Wolf H - Torso-twists to threaten hex 1405! - Fires Heavy Large Laser at Chameleon (2 base + 0 range + 1 movement + 2 enemy movement +1 Heavy Laser (whoops! I’ve been forgetting about this  ) + 1 partial cover + 0 Void Signature System - 1 targeting computer = 6): rolled 10, hit Right Leg (damage blocked by terrain)!- Fires Heavy Large Laser at Chameleon (2 base + 0 range + 1 movement + 2 enemy movement +1 Heavy Laser + 1 partial cover + 0 Void Signature System - 1 targeting computer = 6): rolled 12, hit Right Leg (damage blocked by terrain)! - Fires Gauss Rifle at Chameleon (2 base + 0 range + 1 movement + 2 enemy movement + 1 partial cover + 0 Void Signature System - 1 targeting computer = 5): rolled 8, hit Right Leg (damage blocked by terrain)! - Fires Gauss Rifle at Chameleon (2 base + 0 range + 1 movement + 2 enemy movement + 1 partial cover + 0 Void Signature System - 1 targeting computer = 5): rolled 10, hit Left Leg (damage blocked by terrain (what did that hill ever do to you, anyway?))! - Gains 45 heat, sinks 40! Overheating! :facepalm: Also I managed to miss a stupid amount of TAG shots. Ahhh well. Kial fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Jul 14, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 16:38
|
|
|
Kial posted:I don't think it was so clear cut as confirmation bias. What they're saying is: if you take the players and the opforce rolls together my dice I think someone found that my dice tend to roll ever-so-slightly below average, but not enough so to be statistically significant. I roll the box for each `Mech, sometimes multiple times, so everyone (player and opforce)'s first weapon is rolled with the same pair of dice. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 16:59
|
|
|
PoptartsNinja posted:Which option is that, exactly? Is that the one where Kai Allard-Liao appears out of nowhere to dropkick a Timberwolf and then fall off a cliff? Stackpole option is the action that appears nowhere in the core rulebooks or optional rules. So yeah, the Kai Allard-Liao dropkick move or any of the other bullshit moves he did in the clan invasion novels. Head-ejecting directly into a enemy would be a peak dickhead clanner response versus opponents who lack "clan honor".
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 17:31
|
|
|
Psion posted:Didn't somebody do the math on PTN's dice and determine this is all confirmation bias at work? I'm pretty sure that they confirmed that a lot of the player mechs scored below average dice rolls.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 17:42
|
|
|
Wait if Kai Allard-Liao showed up, surely he'd be there to help stomp on the clanners?
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 17:44
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:I'm pretty sure that they confirmed that a lot of the player mechs scored below average dice rolls. IIRC the Mist Lynx, Ebon Jaguar, Kraken player's to-hits (Artificier?) were massively below normal, while the others were average except for Kial consistently after the math was done. There's also the quality of rolls though as mentioned above. Readingaccount fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Jul 14, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 18:28
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:I'm pretty sure that they confirmed that a lot of the player mechs scored below average dice rolls. For once scenario or for the entire thread? A single scenario's sample size isn't likely to be statistically meaningful when calculating dice roll averages. The whole thread's got a lot of rolls and might produce something - but then that would require scraping a whole hell of a lot of updates to - more than likely - demonstrate PTN's dice are in fact, dice. Psion fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Jul 14, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 18:47
|
|
|
The idiot who sat down and did all that math on the dice was me. Here's what I had to say:GenericServices posted:Because I'm a diseased individual, I crunched the rest of the math for PC shooting over the course of the battle. I had gone into this honestly expecting the numbers to trend lower than expectation (which is not the same as trending unfairly, since the same dice are used for everybody), but turns out that's not the case at all. Pretty much every 'Mech that managed to stay alive for more than a few turns was within about ten percent of its expected damage. Noteworthy outliers in the positive direction were the Mist Lynx B and the Huntsman, both of which punched above their weight while firing enough shots to matter, unlike the Mist Lynx D, which was sixty percent ahead of its expected damage output of 5.5. In a later post, I did find that the OpFor had rather better luck with crits than GoonStar. Kial had been saying he suspected it for a while, and I'll confess I was suspicious, but he was right there as of when I checked. I haven't updated any of this with the last few turns of shooting, but I'm pretty sure the trend of "Kial's luck is awful" would continue. Also, Warhawks are crazy good, but that's not news to anybody. Edit due to other post: Psion posted:For once scenario or for the entire thread? A single scenario's sample size isn't likely to be statistically meaningful when calculating dice roll averages. The whole thread's got a lot of rolls and might produce something - but then that would require scraping a whole hell of a lot of updates to - more than likely - demonstrate PTN's dice are in fact, dice. Just for this scenario, and only for the players, at that. Given that the result pretty much was "the dice are fair, Kial's just freakishly unlucky," I didn't bother testing for statistical significance. GenericServices fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Jul 14, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 18:55
|
|
|
How do you weight the statistical likelihood of a critical chance scoring an actual critical hit? How does a rolling a 10 or 11 (2 crits) or a 12 (3 crits or a limb blown off) affect that, or do you just compare whether or not a critical chance actually scored a crit (while disregarding the number of critical hits scored (and if so, wouldn't the rate just be a flat 45.5% or whatever an 8+ is, statistically))? I'm curious because I'm terrible at math but I love statistics. If you took all crits (player and opforce) together was this mission above, below, or at the average?
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 19:43
|
|
|
GenericServices posted:Just for this scenario, and only for the players, at that. Given that the result pretty much was "the dice are fair, Kial's just freakishly unlucky," I didn't bother testing for statistical significance. Fair enough! I appreciate your dedication to math. It's cool to calculate this stuff out anyway. Psion fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Jul 14, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 20:09
|
|
|
PoptartsNinja posted:How do you weight the statistical likelihood of a critical chance scoring an actual critical hit? How does a rolling a 10 or 11 (2 crits) or a 12 (3 crits or a limb blown off) affect that, or do you just compare whether or not a critical chance actually scored a crit (while disregarding the number of critical hits scored (and if so, wouldn't the rate just be a flat 45.5% or whatever an 8+ is, statistically))? If I recall what I did correctly (I can double-check tonight, if I kept the spreadsheet; anything I say here is filtered through memory), I just checked for whether any given chance for a crit resulted in at least one crit, so yeah, we should expect a little over forty percent of the rolls to be successful. I was trying to keep things sorta simple. The number I came up with for the OpFor was 55-60% of crit chances having generated a crit, which is well above par. However, the sample size was kust under twenty incidents, so while it's high, it was only a couple of extra successful rolls versus predicted average. I'm not sure how it works out if I adjust to look for predicted number of crits, and it's also hard to calibrate for things like limb/head removal that don't result in nice round numbers. I recall the players' crit results ran approximately in line with expectation. Edit: Also, there was a lot of staring at turns and transcribing the numbers involved here, so transcription errors are completely possible. GenericServices fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Jul 14, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 20:21
|
|
|
Since I don't let crits 'flow' on limb destruction (the way they technically should) I suppose that also alters the numbers a bit. The Players were in machines that have higher overall damage output, so they're more likely to completely destroy a section and erase quite a few of their own crit chances.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 20:51
|
|
|
Voyager I posted:When Kial's rolling, there's no miss I won't believe. Kial's Large Laser at Enemy Stationary Building (2 base + 0 movement + 4 range -4 target immobile = 2): Rolls 1, miss! That shorthand is for use with Battleforce. And I do believe they are, in order: Searchlight, Endo Steel, Sealed (as in, doesn't die in a vacuum/underwater), no clue, Autocannon Rating 3 (short)/3 (Medium)/0 (Long)
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 00:34
|
|
|
Space Operations Adaptation? If you build an industrial mech it doesn't have it until you environmentally seal it, when it gains both.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 01:19
|
|
|
We can only hope that by the time we have to face the Trouts in the final battle, that Kai Allard Liao and Phelen Kell Cameron are both present in the NRWR forces, since obviously in this timeline they would have both been captured and become true trouties.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 02:49
|
|
|
I thought Candace was dead, ensuring Kai will never exist? And without the Dragoons around, Salome is just going to keep miscarrying unless ComStar takes pity on her.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 04:56
|
|
|
I was bored so I put together a summary of everyone's favourite crab. I included the first crab for comparison. Crab #1 Update 1-8 Fired a lot of shots, missed pretty much all of them except for a hit on the warhawk that was immune to damage, got chumped totally. Update 9-10 managed to actually hit and hurt the artic cheetah! Continues to get mauled otherwise. Update 10 Back to missing Update 11 Hit the artic cheetah again Update 12 finally drew the attention of the warhawk which murdered it with the gauss rifle, while it continued to miss. Crab - Torso-twists to threaten hex 0825! - Fires ER Large Laser at Warhawk B (2 base + 0 range + 0 movement + 1 enemy movement + 1 Void Signature System = 4): rolled 3, miss! - Fires Medium Pulse Laser at Warhawk B (2 base + 2 range + 0 movement + 1 enemy movement + 1 Void Signature System = 6): rolled 3, miss! - Fires ER Medium Laser at Warhawk B (2 base + 4 range + 0 movement + 1 enemy movement + 1 Void Signature System - 2 Pulse Laser = 6): rolled 5, miss! - Gains 33 heat, sinks 36!  Crab 1 was secretly piloted by Kial. Summary: Despite having pretty heavy hitting weapons, shot at the artic cheetah constantly and missed, and really didn't do much. Pretty ineffective. Crab #2 Appears in Update 16! Update 17: Ebon Jaguar fires everything at it with 2x7's and 4x9's, hitting only once (expect hits 2). Stipping half it's left torso armour. It fires it's large lasers at the warhawks and following it's predecessors example, misses on 9's. Update 18: Wolf spider targets it (12s) with hail mary fire to no effect, shoots at Ebon Jaguar missing on 9's. Update 19: Warhawk fires everything at it with 1x7, 6x9s and 2x10s, hits twice (expected 2-3). TAC on CT, and missiles hitting RT, CT and head, with a pilot hit. Wolf spider continues hail mary shots 12s, missing. Ebon Jaguar unloads on crab on 7x9's hitting twice taking CT to 2 armour and damaging right leg. Crab counters by hitting warhawk with 2 large lasers and a medium pulse opening the LT Update 20: Warhawk gauss rifle, missing on 9, Crab shoots the hell out of the back of the warhawk hitting everything, critting it twice and taking the structure of the right leg low enough for the chameleon to finish it off. I'm going to give the Warhawk kill to the crab. Update 21: Ebon jaguar fires everything, 7x9's, hits twice (expected 2), crits the CT twice neither of which confirm. Crab fires at Ebon Jaguar R, hits once. Crab now has 9 structure left in CT. Update 22: Ebon Jaguar continues to shoot at crab, 7x8's, hits once (expected 3), Crab shoots at Ebon Jaguar R hits twice on 7s. Update 23: Kraken fires everything at crab, 4x10's, hits once (expected 1), manages to hit undamaged parts. Ebon Jaguar continues to fire at crab 5x8's, hits once, light damage to left leg and RT down to 5 armour. Crab continues to maul Ebon Jaguar R, hitting on 2x8's removing it's left arm. Follows this by kicking the Ebon Jaguars head off on a 4. Update 24: Nobody shoots at the Crab! Crab shoots at Kraken on 8's and misses. Update 25: Kraken Shoots at crab with 4x8's and misses (expected 1-2 hits)! Crab responds by shooting at Kraken hitting with everything but the ER Small laser all into LA and LT. Update 26: Kraken continues shooting at crab, hits once on 4x9's (expected 1). Hits left leg, LT and LA, LT now open. Crab fires large lasers and small laser at Kraken and hits with everything. Update 27: Atlas joins the party, fires everything at crab, 1x7, 6x9's, hits twice (expected twice)! Opens and crits LA, and hits the right arm twice, failing to hit any already open area (LT, CT). Crab shoots the back of the Kraken, opens and crits the CT twice, gives no fucks. Crit on the crab takes out a double heatsink, Crits on the Kraken is two engine hits, destroying the Kraken. Update 28: Nobody shoots at crab! Crab shoots at Atlas, hits once. Update 29: Crab starts mauling stationary stormcrow, hits twice on CT. Crab is not shot at. Update 30: Crab fires at Atlas, hits 4 times, TAC on right leg, does 2 crits, damaged the hip (crippling the atlas' mobility) and destroyed a double heat sink. I did the stats on shooting at the crab. You fired at the crab 67 times, and hit 13. Based on the to hit percentages you should have hit about 20 times. So the crab is 7 shots ahead. Also your hits tended to be from small weapons and loved hitting undamaged parts and stripping armour. The Crab fired 43 times, and hit 31. From the to hits, expected is 29 hits. So the crab is 2 hits ahead there. As well as being accurate in it's shooting it was lucky in its hit locations and crits, smashing the warhawks leg, kicking off the jaguars head, destroying the kraken's engine and crippling the atlas's leg. It's had 9 structure in it's CT since update 21 and hasn't taken a hit there. It was instrumental in killing the Warhawk, solo killed the Ebon Jaguar and Kraken and crippled the Atlas. Seriously, that loving crab.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 05:01
|
|
|
Defiance Industries posted:I thought Candace was dead, ensuring Kai will never exist? And without the Dragoons around, Salome is just going to keep miscarrying unless ComStar takes pity on her. Either that, or he's going to end up being brother to Sun-Tzu. Evil Kai as Sun-Tzu's unstoppable minion is dangerously close to an interesting character however...
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 05:08
|
|
|
Picard Day posted:Either that, or he's going to end up being brother to Sun-Tzu. Evil Kai as Sun-Tzu's unstoppable minion is dangerously close to an interesting character however... I would actually love for Kai to show up in a scenario acting like he always does, and then getting cut to pieces in one round by concentrated fire from Goonlance because PTN don't gently caress around like Stackpole does.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 05:09
|
|
|
Picard Day posted:Either that, or he's going to end up being brother to Sun-Tzu. Evil Kai as Sun-Tzu's unstoppable minion is dangerously close to an interesting character however... Sun Wu! 
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 05:45
|
|
hooman posted:It was instrumental in killing the Warhawk, solo killed the Ebon Jaguar and Kraken and crippled the Atlas. Wait a second, I think it also scored a TAC on my Wolf Spider, crippling it? Was it another
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 08:54
|
|
|
Hooman's analysis is a perfect description of why it's critical to finish off enemy mechs once you've devoted fire to them. Basically all of the shots on it were wasted. 67 shots that could have been used to finish off other mechs were wasted on that goddamn crab because it was never killed. Granted goonstar certainly tried to finish it off, but given the crab is still nearly 100% effective at the end of the game, that failure is a huge part of why the players wound up with a poor result. One notable factor is that none of the shots were on better to-hits than 7s, and most were on 8s or 9s, with quite a few as hail marys on 11+. Sometimes that's the only shot you've got, which suggests the crab pilot did an excellent job outmaneuvering the goons. I actually think that's strong evidence of just how disadvantaged the goons were, on positioning and on force composition. Inability to mutually support combined with the difficulty in getting good movement modifiers, the enemy's ability to retreat when damaged but not killed, and the need for the goons to try to protect the command vehicles all combined to make it impossible for them to finish off most of the enemies they damaged, rendering all shots on those damaged but not mission-killed mechs essentially wasted. So no shame on the players, they did the best they could in what was probably an unwinnable scenario even if Kial had rolled better.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 09:27
|
|
|
Void is a real killer for to hit chances. Particularly when the two main disadvantages of the equipment (+5 heat and +1 to hit) are smoothed away by special rules, equipment (high heat sinks) and 2/3 pilots.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 09:47
|
|
|
That's an amazing analysis, about the Kraken though I think the Crab counts as having been assisted by the Coyote for an engine hit and taking out half it's armaments that might've finished off the crab. And defeating all enemies is probably only theoretically winnable, but distracting the enemy from the CCs would be doable with some luck. Readingaccount fucked around with this message at 10:41 on Jul 15, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 10:15
|
|
|
That Coyote certainly earned a critical assist on the Crab's kill on my Kraken.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 12:28
|
|
|
Yes, I missed that first engine crit from the Coyote! Sorry Coyote, you get some kill credit on the Kraken too! A double hit to the rear CT to strip armour and crit it, then confirming a double crit on the roll then the last two crits on the engine is a drat fine piece of coring from the Crab. One of the things I noticed is that most of the shots on the Crab were 7+, and a lot of the shots the Crab took were a lot lower. Outnumbering your opponent seems like a huge advantage since you can rotate in and out mechs as they get damaged to present easier shots to undamaged mechs or harder shots to damaged ones, shoot at the pristine mech that's hitting you on 6s or shoot at the one you might actually kill on 9s. Very, very cool.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 16:18
|
|
|
I'm currently in Turkey and my internet speed is abysmal, so it's difficult for me to check, but didn't That loving Crab take a DHS crit four or five turns ago? It's probably too late for it to matter even if it did though.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 16:27
|
|
|
Scintilla posted:I'm currently in Turkey and my internet speed is abysmal, so it's difficult for me to check, but didn't That loving Crab take a DHS crit four or five turns ago? It's probably too late for it to matter even if it did though. Reducing it from sinking 36 heat to 34 heat isn't significant. I've been working around that. Leperflesh posted:So no shame on the players, they did the best they could in what was probably an unwinnable scenario even if Kial had rolled better. Defeating every enemy `Mech was never a win condition for the scenario. I just threw the counter up because I knew people would like to see it. PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Jul 15, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 17:18
|
|
|
This was def winnable. Even killing all the enemies was possible. Though the lances of coyotes and hidden thug were scary. Bad luck did some but being so spread out really killed the players.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 18:38
|
|
|
Being spread out was part of the scenario design, though. I also noted that while "overkill" shots are common from players (that is, player A and B both target an enemy, A kills it, but B still fires on it because those were his orders), PTN rarely (never?) has that issue. Although I don't remember if that's just due to skill in picking targets, or if he always gives his own mechs the equivalent of contingency orders to fire on a secondary target if the primary is already destroyed when their turn comes around. Ultimately, every battletech scenario is "winnable" if your dice are good enough, because you could just headcap every opponent on insanely lucky rolls. But if you assume something like not rolling better than two standard deviations from the norm, I'm not convinced they had a chance to win, and by win I actually mean just keep all of the command vehicles alive. Maybe if they'd figured out the reinforcement placement rules immediately and been extremely good at predicting when their mechs were about to die, but even then, PTN had unused assets on the table. With better luck and controlling reinforcements locations, I think the players could have lasted several more turns, but actually winning (by the scenario's victory conditions)... I'm skeptical. No knock on PTN though, I don't want to be taken that way. Designing and running these scenarios is an extraordinary amount of work, and he obviously cannot playtest them first. This was a super-interesting setup and it's been tons of fun to watch. Despite the difficulty I'm jealous of the players, too, because they each got to pilot three different mechs.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 18:56
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:PTN rarely (never?) has that issue. Although I don't remember if that's just due to skill in picking targets, or if he always gives his own mechs the equivalent of contingency orders to fire on a secondary target if the primary is already destroyed when their turn comes around. That actually depends on the capability of the opposition (in fact, it happened in this scenario when the four Coyotes kicked Berryjon's Dire Wolf after it'd already been taken out). That wasn't spite or irritation or malice, they were just all queued to kick it. If you guys voted for missions involving pirates, non-RWR periphery forces, or planetary militias you'd be seeing a lot more of this.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 19:02
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:Ultimately, every battletech scenario is "winnable" if your dice are good enough, because you could just headcap every opponent on insanely lucky rolls. But if you assume something like not rolling better than two standard deviations from the norm, I'm not convinced they had a chance to win, and by win I actually mean just keep all of the command vehicles alive. Maybe if they'd figured out the reinforcement placement rules immediately and been extremely good at predicting when their mechs were about to die, but even then, PTN had unused assets on the table. With better luck and controlling reinforcements locations, I think the players could have lasted several more turns, but actually winning (by the scenario's victory conditions)... I'm skeptical. Keeping the command vehicles alive was a matter of getting onto the plateau with strong forces earlier, so that the enemy was forced to engage and destroy the Players as they approached rather than having time to devote to smashing Metal Boxes. Berryjon could have run north, for example, which would have added that Dire Wolf to the mix. However, it would have made for a couple of boring turns for him and deprived us of watching the Dire Wolf rip up several 'Mechs then get torn down by a pack of Coyotes in a most cinematic way. That goes back to the thinking earlier in the mission about the difference between five 'Mechs run by one person and five run by five. We can't really ask a Player to expend their rare, long-awaited chance to play by sending "Run five hexes north" for two weeks straight when "crush the dezgra tin cans beneath my feet!" is right there. Does that mean a winnable mission might be lost? Sure! But the thread title is "rewrite Inner Sphere history," not "be relentlessly optimal." The players seem to have enjoyed themselves, the thread had fun watching it, mission success!
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 19:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 00:44 |
|
|
GenericServices posted:Keeping the command vehicles alive was a matter of getting onto the plateau with strong forces earlier, so that the enemy was forced to engage and destroy the Players as they approached rather than having time to devote to smashing Metal Boxes. Berryjon could have run north, for example, which would have added that Dire Wolf to the mix. However, it would have made for a couple of boring turns for him and deprived us of watching the Dire Wolf rip up several 'Mechs then get torn down by a pack of Coyotes in a most cinematic way. That goes back to the thinking earlier in the mission about the difference between five 'Mechs run by one person and five run by five. We can't really ask a Player to expend their rare, long-awaited chance to play by sending "Run five hexes north" for two weeks straight when "crush the dezgra tin cans beneath my feet!" is right there. Does that mean a winnable mission might be lost? Sure! But the thread title is "rewrite Inner Sphere history," not "be relentlessly optimal." The players seem to have enjoyed themselves, the thread had fun watching it, mission success! Yeah, I agree with this for the most part, but I don't think even if (for example) Berryjon had run north, they could have held off the rim worlders indefinitely. Concentrating the clan forces near the northern vehicles would have given them the ability to protect each other better, but would also have given PTN the ability to concentrate his forces and have good shots every turn for more of his mechs. Obviously this is all just opinion-slinging, there's no practical way to re-run the scenario a bunch of times to see if it is actually winnable with different tactics used. PoptartsNinja posted:That actually depends on the capability of the opposition (in fact, it happened in this scenario when the four Coyotes kicked Berryjon's Dire Wolf after it'd already been taken out). That wasn't spite or irritation or malice, they were just all queued to kick it. That's really good to know, and something I think we should all take into account. Our choices of scenario aren't only about shaping the story, they also determine to some degree the difficulty of the scenario the next batch of players will face. I'm really glad we got to see this scenario though.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 19:25
|
|