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Klyith posted:how can you write those posts and not say Mech and Blade? for shame! The strategy layer of M&B is just a way to generate battles, and the Contract system (including Flashpoints and all the other ways you could expand on it) already gets you what you need from that. There's a lot in this game that's the beginning of an idea that was clearly dropped because it's too big for now. All planets have traits but that practically means nothing. Faction reputation is in but it doesn't mean anything. Borders are in but they don't move and the faction issuing a contract doesn't matter for anything. I hold any of that against the game - it works well as what it is. But it's also clear there are already lots of ideas on the shelf for how to go bigger and better.
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Sep 13, 2018 13:33
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I've never been able to tell how much is on purpose but the randomness of what you might be up against is what keeps me hooked on this game. 3 stars? Ya, that's some tanks with half armor, no issues. Next three stars? That a lance of 2 75t heavies and 2 55t meds backed up by 2 lrm carriers and a king loving crab.
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Sep 13, 2018 21:43
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Alchenar posted:The strategy layer of M&B is just a way to generate battles, and the Contract system (including Flashpoints and all the other ways you could expand on it) already gets you what you need from that. There's actually a mod where each month the factions do simulated battles over planets on their borders, with players online actually affecting it via house contracts. So the borders do move around in that mod at least.
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Sep 13, 2018 21:51
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Panfilo posted:There's actually a mod where each month the factions do simulated battles over planets on their borders, with players online actually affecting it via house contracts. So the borders do move around in that mod at least. This is what makes Battletech so fascinating from a 'how games are made' perspective for me. I can't think of another game where so much stuff has obviously been cut before it could be implemented beyond a very initial stage but is still there in front of you - and yet the game doesn't feel like anything is missing.
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Sep 13, 2018 22:28
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isildur posted:In fact i want to expand this a little. PM me on the Paradox forums if you'd like to help out further with balance testing. (I'd just ping you individually here, but some of y'all don't have PMs, and I don't know who everyone is over there.) PMed you. I think? Hopefully you are Kiva, cause boy howdy if not I just sent the lead dev of Battletech the gooniest PM.
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Sep 13, 2018 22:43
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Rookersh posted:PMed you. I think? Hopefully you are Kiva, cause boy howdy if not I just sent the lead dev of Battletech the gooniest PM. She is indeed Kiva.
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Sep 13, 2018 22:50
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Sky Shadowing posted:Poster isildur here on our very own Something Awful forums is better known to you probably as Kiva, lead designer on this very game and in no way associated with Kiva is cool and good and more than willing to spitball mechanics ideas with people, unlike the PGI people who sniff their own farts daily and say “Yes that is good” after an eyebrow scorcher makes them vomit in their own lap. For the record PGI isn’t bad because they tried ghost heat, they are bad because their ability to take constructive criticism after the fact is non existent.
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Sep 13, 2018 23:01
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Rhymenoserous posted:Kiva is cool and good and more than willing to spitball mechanics ideas with people, unlike the PGI people who sniff their own farts daily and say “Yes that is good” after an eyebrow scorcher makes them vomit in their own lap. "What's that? Ghost heat is bad? HAVE MORE!"
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Sep 13, 2018 23:10
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Ghost heat be damned, mounting 10 PPCs to a Dire Wolf is a good idea.
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Sep 13, 2018 23:14
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Remember how many times SRMs got nerfed because PGI can't handle boating in any form
Gulping Again fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Sep 14, 2018 |
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Sep 14, 2018 06:15
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Alchenar posted:This is what makes Battletech so fascinating from a 'how games are made' perspective for me. I can't think of another game where so much stuff has obviously been cut before it could be implemented beyond a very initial stage but is still there in front of you - and yet the game doesn't feel like anything is missing. I don't think it's evidence of cut content; rather that they laid down an open and flexible foundation that would support expansions and future development. They kept their options open in all directions so they could see what people responded to best and go from there. After their experience with the Shadowrun games they must have been thinking about potential sequels / follow-ups in the same vein. And any problems they ran into with Hong Kong or Dragonfall based on something they cut corners with in Returns would have been fresh lessons for this one. It's a good inside look at how good designers and programmers make things -- when they're doing things the right way. The fascinating thing is that a lot of games aren't made this way. HBS seems to have a bunch of really competent people. Stuff like a mods with changing borders and dynamic maps are possible because the game is in Unity and they didn't lock it down at all. People are able to get into the code. They may not be officially supporting mods, but they've put zero barriers for it. It doesn't mean there's some cut Succession-Wars feature with a dynamic map, it means that a modder has written code for it.
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Sep 14, 2018 08:09
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I’m just glad they’re thinking about Flashpoints since that’s what I really miss from the Mercenaries games. I loved the sequence in 2 where you got ambushed by a Clan Wolf advance party in front of the big invasion, escape in a hovertank to where they’re holding your mechs, then battle your way to your dropship and run like hell. The clanners will challenge you to 1-on-1 duels at some points. You can either duel them (and the rest of the star will let you go if you win) or just blow them up at a distance.
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Sep 14, 2018 08:45
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Rhymenoserous posted:For the record PGI isn’t bad because they tried ghost heat, they are bad because their ability to take constructive criticism after the fact is non existent. PGI is bad because they can't take criticism of any kind, this is true. However, them even trying Ghost Heat is indicative of another reason why they are bad. They are also bad because they haven't a damned clue how their game works. Like not even an inkling. Mistakes like ghost heat would never have been made if they did, because it woudl have been obvious to them that it would work (Ghost heat doesn't work because Direstars/gauss rifles are unaffected) I was actively involved (long rear end effort posts and feedback) in MWO from the second round of closed beta right up until Ghost Heat/3PP was introduced. The first clue that they were clueless should have been when when they introduced stock mechs as free starter/trial mechs (don't remember what they were called) for new players. Everyone who knew anything about the game knew that this was a bad idea: stock configs are balanced for battletech (and even then are sub-optimal, I think by design, in CBT) and certainly not for MWO. You give new player's lovely mechs to start with and they're going to be turned off from the game. Possible solutions are a) provide custom mechs as trial mechs, b) make slight alterations to the stock configs to make them suck less, c) redo weapon balance so that configs good in CBT are good in MWO (very difficult, but conceptually doable), d) completely redo the new player experience (e.g. provide them with one free mech that they can configure free of cost or with X amount of free money to configure). All of these things were suggested constructively and explained in detail. They were ignored. Once again, if they knew anything about their own game, they would never have proposed it in the first place. So many things they proposed (and ultimately implemented) that they never should have proposed in the first place because they were obviously dumb. -Ghost Heat: doesn't affect GRs, doesn't mechs that rely on one shot kills/big finishers which were the big problem in the first place (jump snipers, direstars) and punishes the mechs that counter the problematic mechs (infighers/high ROF suppression mechs, which rely on being able to fire all the time) -3PP: There was a whole history of experience from MW4 informing why this was a bad idea -Clan mechs: Clan tech is inherently unbalanced, all base stats were based on CBT, and there was no system in place to mitigate this imbalance -Clan mechs as pay only to start: See above, make it pay to win -Gauss rifle charge up: encourages boating of GRs, doesn't affect problematic mechs I'm probably missing alot of things, and I have no idea what they've done over the last several years to fix it (although I'd bet a huge pile of money that its still a goddamn mess). The thing is that yes, they did ignore all of the warnings that these were Bad Ideas when they suggested, but furthermore they never should have suggested these ideas in the first place because they're so obviously, stupidly wrong. Sorry for the  . I was a huge fan of MWO when it came out. I played the hell out of MW4 (from open beta there too, No-respawn planetary leagues for 5+ years), MWO looked amazing and looked like it could fix many of the problems with MW4. And then the project was just shat upon by Paul and Russ. I feel sorry for the programmers and artists, who did an excellent job. I'm still bitter about those whole thing, and I'm pissed beyond measure that MW5 is going to be developed by these clowns.
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Sep 14, 2018 16:40
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Gulping Again posted:Remember how many times SRMs got nerfed because PGI can't handle boating in any form SRM boating was the best part of MWO before you could mount two heavy gauss rifles on an Annihilator and die historic on the Fury Road seriously loading up a GRF-3M with SRM/4As, JJs, and a dangerously large engine and playing Roadrunner Shotgun was awesome
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Sep 14, 2018 16:43
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MWO is unfixable because Paul "I don't need to play the game to know what's good for it" Inouye is still design lead.
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Sep 14, 2018 17:14
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God the Kickstarter backer pilot backstories are so bad. Did the backers themselves write these?
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Sep 14, 2018 17:37
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Yep. Kiva's better half cleaned them up to some degree, but they're all written by the Backers.
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Sep 14, 2018 17:42
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Obligatory PGI post: PGI are setting new standards in train wrecks that us mere mortals didn't even know were possible within the laws of physics. It's like the world's biggest train in the universe filled with smaller trains, and those trains carrying cargos of various gauges of toy trains crashing at 500kph plus right through the largest factory in the world that makes both real, toy, and imaginary trains of all shapes and sizes located right next to the world's most dangerous and poorly maintained hybrid explosive factory/nuclear power station/bioweapons research storage facility on top of a volcano. PGI literally couldn't be any worse at customer relations unless they started fatally shooting customers at random.
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Sep 14, 2018 17:50
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GotLag posted:God the Kickstarter backer pilot backstories are so bad. Did the backers themselves write these? Of course, did the Mary Sue type bios give it away? 
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Sep 14, 2018 18:00
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GotLag posted:God the Kickstarter backer pilot backstories are so bad. Did the backers themselves write these? The "War Boar" one where it was like "If only Siegfried Krauss didn't love women so much, he could be happy" should have immediately been forwarded to the FBI. Tempted to hire that guy and place him in a zero-armor assault with ammo in every slot
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Sep 14, 2018 18:00
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Field all the Mary Sues in locusts, let the enemy do the needful.
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Sep 14, 2018 19:25
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Assault with maximum armor on everything but head, no armor on head, ammo in head
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Sep 14, 2018 19:46
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Piell posted:Assault with maximum armor on everything but head, no armor on head, ammo in head They don't deserve the amazing fashion statement that is Missile Hat.
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Sep 14, 2018 20:04
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I think the kickstarter pilots are immortal, like the player character. This isn't the first time the death of the kickstarter pilots has been plotted in this thread.
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Sep 14, 2018 20:27
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Pattonesque posted:SRM boating was the best part of MWO before you could mount two heavy gauss rifles on an Annihilator and die historic on the Fury Road The funny thing is that the one time the game was somewhat balanced (before I quit) was when SRMs were bugged. For those who don't know, for a while SRMs were bugged so that they did massive amounts of damage. Basically, SRMs had a splash radius and in their bugged state, each SRM would do full damage to every armor panel within its splash radius instead of just the panel it hit. The funny part about this is that about this time, the game was somewhat balanced. Sure you had Gauss/PPC jump snipers/hill humpers, but if a brawler got on top of them, they were *super dead*. In this meta, Snipers/FS, pure brawlers, and even mixed range fighters were viable! Of course PGI was too stupid to see the solution here. Sure, they fixed the SRM splash issue (as they should have), but they failed to see that this was proof that short ranged weapons, sufficiently buffed, actually balanced out PPC/Gauss snipers and even made mixed ranged fighters viable. I mean, that's one of the big, core, design priciples of CBT/Mechwarrior (i.e. short range weapons are deadlier up close than ranged weapons), they had a test case that proved the principle worked in a FPS/Sim environment, and THEY STILL DIDN'T GET IT. No! Instead we get ghost heat, to make the PPC/GR sniper wait a few more seconds behind the hill after they core you. But no worries guys! You now have 3PP so you can track your target (or next target) without exposing yourself to fire! 
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Sep 14, 2018 20:37
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Omar_Comin posted:Obligatory PGI post: I don't want to derail this thread any further. Could you give me a cliff notes version or a link. I'm morbidly curious.
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Sep 14, 2018 20:38
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PGI probably invented the dumbest upgrade system last year or something with all these nodes you have to unlock or something, and you had to do it for every mech you wanted to use and it was just a dumb slog. MWO just seemed to make the whole drat franchise lovely by comparison and I was ready for it to be dead, but thank god HBS made Battletech to give it a broader appeal than the weirdos who play MWO
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Sep 14, 2018 20:42
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Organ Fiend posted:I think the kickstarter pilots are immortal, like the player character. This absolutely is not true. I’ve had a KS Pilot die on me.
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Sep 14, 2018 20:47
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Organ Fiend posted:I don't want to derail this thread any further. Well, for one, their Customer Service team doesn't work Nights or Weekends (you know... the times when 90% of the few people who DO play their game are playing...) so if you are playing during prime time and something happens to your account you are just screwed until the next day, or possibly longer. I actually found this out the hard way when I bought something, however I received the wrong item in game. I made the purchase on a Friday afternoon and they didn't even answer my ticket with a "we're out of the office until Monday, we apologize for the inconvenience" email, so I continued to submit follow up emails all weekend and finally on Monday they answered. Good thing I didn't want to play what I bought on Friday all weekend... I'm sure you can find thousands of other stories like my own and many much worse if you search Google a bit. EDIT: Oh, and when they DID finally email me on the following Monday, they had 0 empathy for the inconvenience caused by them not being open Friday evening and all weekend and were pretty much "we don't fix stuff like this, but we'll make an exception this time, don't ask again though" I was so annoyed by their poor customer service, I told them not to bother fixing it, I'd keep the wrong item and they'd never see another dime from me. They said "cool man, enjoy" and I have never given them another dollar since. deathbagel fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Sep 14, 2018 |
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Sep 14, 2018 20:48
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The worst part of the whole MWO debacle was PGI thinking it was actually their success and not the franchise carrying them, which they immediately attempted to squander by pouring the MWO revenue into their dumb EVE rip-off.
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Sep 14, 2018 21:02
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Panfilo posted:Of course, did the Mary Sue type bios give it away? They're mostly poo poo but I liked the one that's something like "this old guy's been around for a while and keeps making poo poo up about what he's done, but he actually can pilot a mech so hire him anyway".
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Sep 14, 2018 21:35
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Never forget that their lead (only?) community rep got every single official company reddit account shadowbanned because they tried to run and police the subreddit for Transverse!
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Sep 14, 2018 21:43
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wiegieman posted:The worst part of the whole MWO debacle was PGI thinking it was actually their success and not the franchise carrying them, which they immediately attempted to squander by pouring the MWO revenue into their dumb EVE rip-off. Oh, I remember that! That crowdfunding campaign was just the loudest and wettest of farts. It was a glorious thing to behold.
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Sep 14, 2018 22:27
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It was more of a Star Citizen ripoff than an Eve ripoff, which is even more sad.
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Sep 14, 2018 23:49
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Phrosphor posted:Never forget that their lead (only?) community rep got every single official Wasn't Niko just a king shitler of the official forums that was given an official role and immediately went full Cartman when exposed to trace amounts of authority?
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Sep 15, 2018 00:01
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Voyager I posted:Wasn't Niko just a king shitler of the official forums that was given an official role and immediately went full Cartman when exposed to trace amounts of authority? Correct.
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Sep 15, 2018 00:18
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Klyith posted:It was more of a Star Citizen ripoff than an Eve ripoff, which is even more sad. The best parts were the stretch goals. $1M pledged for space flight. In a space ship game. $2M pledged for space combat. In a space ship game. Also they had literally zero protection on their launch forums, so someone that totally wasn't me, then the rest of the MWO goons that left when the game became poo poo, had full run of the PGI_PaulInuoye forums account which was literally indistinguishable from actual developer accounts.
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Sep 15, 2018 01:05
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Is mentioning Transverse still a bannable offense on the PGI forums?
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Sep 15, 2018 01:11
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If we're still talking pgi, was Hefay ever outed as Paul or one of his family members?
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Sep 15, 2018 01:39
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God, I still remember the good old days in MWO when Hunchbacks were the best (at least in my opinion) mediums, Metal Babbies were rightly stomped on, Dragons could knock over anything like a giant bowling ball on legs and brawls were everywhere and exciting because you didn't die in like five seconds flat from a 12man firing line!
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Sep 15, 2018 03:50
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