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Sample_text posted:They could have just ditched the voice actor for your tactical officer and just have a proc gen voice with a neutral tone. No voice at all, just scrolling text, would have been an improvement. It's so bad that it is jarring and actively detracts from whatever else is going on. One of the various mods I've got installed includes a package of all the voices from the Mech Commander games, which you can set for your various AI wingmen. Just heads and shoulders better, makes the minute to minute gameplay a lot better. Plus it means you never need to hear that nasaly "FINNNNNNNALY!" male pilot voice ever again. Or the one that sounds like a middle schooler trying to do an impression of a Russian.
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# ? May 18, 2024 18:46 |
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Cyrano4747 posted:No voice at all, just scrolling text, would have been an improvement. It's so bad that it is jarring and actively detracts from whatever else is going on. That's the other thing -- for some bizarre reason they went with "Major So and So" for the pilot names. That's not how this works! Just pull from a list of like a thousand nicknames and go with that. also the fact that pilots at lower levels have skill caps kinda sucks. Like, at least let them top out in *something* so I get attached to them as a result of keeping them for a while
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Yeah there are a few mods that overhaul the pilot system in a good way, including letting you boost their skills.
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Cyrano4747 posted:No voice at all, just scrolling text, would have been an improvement. It's so bad that it is jarring and actively detracts from whatever else is going on. The voice that tells you what mech you just targeted is actually really helpful for me and I wish it would go off every time instead of just sometimes.
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MW4 Mercs voice acting had some pretty decent performances and one outstanding one
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Mercs 4 had a lot of character in its voices. Ledoux blew away Solaris As Duncan Fischer, but even Spectre and Castle had a believable casting and rapport between them. And each lancemate you could hire had personality without being awful.
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Cyrano4747 posted:Honestly one of the biggest MW5 sins is the just absolutely poo poo-tier voice acting. It's just amazing how much they cheaped out on it. The mechanic guy sounds like he's probably one of the developers and did all his reads cold, never having seen the script before. The delivery is super stilted and just bad, for everyone. Again, like it's a cold read and one take. The cheeseball bad VA in MW5 is one of the best parts. Except the Commander himself he just sounds like he’s been drugged, that’s bad in a confusing way not a funny way. Nasal voice dude especially. Ours was named Captain Handy and he refused to die despite our best efforts. A real hero of the Inner Sphere ![]()
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Command in MW3 also carried that game hard in the briefings.
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Alchenar posted:Command in MW3 also carried that game hard in the briefings. For real that guy makes the game for me and he could have easily broken it. He nails the tone of an overworked plate spinner. You just know after briefing you he's gonna be having a stern chat with the MFB crew. https://youtu.be/597fVQG5CAo
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Him giving instructions to the presentation really makes the scene. Feels very authentic.
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There are technically lance mates in the game but the only unique voice lines I can recall are in the mission where they get introduced, so he really is the only real character in the game. The story of the campaign rests entirely on that guy's voice acting. e: also it's amazing that I can't really think of any games that have mission briefings this good. If a game dev popped up today and asked 'hey I want to do voice briefings for levels in my game' then I would point them to that video as the gold standard of what to aim for.
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Alchenar posted:
The Ace Combat games historically have really good mission briefings, and AC7 in particular stands out in that regard. There's a whole poo poo ton of story telling done through the briefings. It's pretty notable when you compare it to that not-Ace-Combat game that's basically AC with the serial numbers filed off that came out a couple years ago.
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Cyrano4747 posted:The Ace Combat games historically have really good mission briefings, and AC7 in particular stands out in that regard. There's a whole poo poo ton of story telling done through the briefings. It's pretty notable when you compare it to that not-Ace-Combat game that's basically AC with the serial numbers filed off that came out a couple years ago. Hmmmm, they're good for ambiance and storytelling but there's generally not that relevant to the actual mission (which in Ace Combat 99% of the time is 'shoot all the red things'). It's not at MW3's 'here's the mission map, here's your waypoints and some pictures for orientation, he's a threat assessment and a hint at what the mission might throw at you'.
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Alchenar posted:Hmmmm, they're good for ambiance and storytelling but there's generally not that relevant to the actual mission (which in Ace Combat 99% of the time is 'shoot all the red things'). It's not at MW3's 'here's the mission map, here's your waypoints and some pictures for orientation, he's a threat assessment and a hint at what the mission might throw at you'. Eh, they usually highlight the major things you need to do. Main target, here's the opposition, that kind of thing. But yeah they're not as fine grained as the MW3 ones are.
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Cyrano4747 posted:Eh, they usually highlight the major things you need to do. Main target, here's the opposition, that kind of thing. My problem was that it went "Here's the target, here's the opposition. You took a bomber to bomb some stuff? What an idiot, an absolute moron. Dogfight the enemy ace now." Edit: I fixed my framerate issues by disabling DLSS, ray tracing is on and it looks prettier than ever with the ultra effects mod. The downside is now I can't camp one place for too long or the smoke and fire make it impossible to see. Ensign Expendable fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Feb 10, 2023 |
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Ensign Expendable posted:My problem was that it went "Here's the target, here's the opposition. You took a bomber to bomb some stuff? What an idiot, an absolute moron. Dogfight the enemy ace now." Try turning on thermal penetrating sight if you have yaml (it's PgUp/PgDown for the two sights by default). It really helps since it sees through smoke but it does have limited range compared to normal/nightvision. e: Also I almost went bankrupt in RT despite playing on generous contract rewards. How you might ask? Well, I bought a royal Atlas 2 for 9.6M at the beginning of my third month ![]() e2: I got it on Epsilon Indi where there is a bunch of royal SLDF stuff for sale, not sure it's because it's a castle brian which the RT wiki mentions adds SLDF tech or if it's special because of the whole thing that happened on Epsilon Indi. Normally you can't buy assault mechs in RT at all, but since SLDF is not around in 3040 that might be why. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Feb 10, 2023 |
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Alchenar posted:There are technically lance mates in the game but the only unique voice lines I can recall are in the mission where they get introduced, so he really is the only real character in the game. The story of the campaign rests entirely on that guy's voice acting. There was a bunch of them piping up during briefings. The mission after you kill ratache osis and his supernova theres a bit of a spitting match between epona and command. Alan does an entire briefing after you link up with him when you're raiding the crashed dropship. Also they would have different voice lines if you gave them orders in the command screen mid mission 1 by 1 than if you just gave group orders from the cockpit Ensign Expendable posted:My problem was that it went "Here's the target, here's the opposition. You took a bomber to bomb some stuff? What an idiot, an absolute moron. Dogfight the enemy ace now." Yeah ace combat 7 loves the "no enemy planes to worry about, heres lord thousand names have fun" bait and switch. I spotted listening to the briefings entirely by mission 4 and would just bring something fully loaded for a2a, and then would go back to hangar screen if it turned out i acually needed a2g. The Chinese Valley mission was really annoying with this. The overview screen shows nothing but grind targets, then all of the drones and a raven half show up Stravag fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Feb 10, 2023 |
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The newest mw5 update seems to have hosed itself up, it crashes steam to try and install lol
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So my old highschool friend I used to run BT with got MW5 on sale and convinced me to buy in. Is it just me or do all the mission types have very vague names? Like we're about rep 6 and just got a ON1 and I still don't really know what's the difference between a Raid, a Demolition and a Scorched Earth is. Or a Targeted Kill vs Assassination? Beachhead vs Warzone? That and all the maps (we've done exclusively co-op career, so I can't judge any campaign maps) feel like "arenas" instead of the more natural landscape of HBS map design. Like did the SL only build small installations in crater circles with high rear end natural cliff surrounding that so only aerial craft can get to them? There's a few maps that are interestingly shaped, like a very long and narrow map we did a raid through the entire length, but I can't help feeling I'm in an arena. Using vonBiomes for the whole time too, I appreciate the realistically dense forests even if they're a pain. Also seems MW5 updated in error and they're reverting. https://www.reddit.com/r/Mechwarrior5/comments/10yy4l1/111051_update/j80ot68/
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I think a Raid requires you to blast specific structures, while Demolition requires you to destroy the entire base in general. So a Raid needs you to destroy small and precise targets, and you can dash in with a light to do the job before tucking your tail between your legs and running. A Demolition needs you to do a lot more destruction, and quite frankly, you're better off making use of the fact that you're piloting a multi-ton nuclear reactor with legs and just walking through the buildings instead of trying to take the time to shoot them. I have no idea what the difference is between those and Scorched Earth. Targeted Kill versus Assassination is the same "the gently caress is the difference" deal, but I think Beachhead versus Warzone is that for Beachhead, there's things you can blow up to get reinforcements. As for the maps, I suspect that what happened is that the important plotty missions got hand-crafted maps, and all the procedurally generated filler got generic map chunks that can be stapled together and have prefabricated assets plopped right in. It reminded me a lot of when I played Mass Effect, and the worlds where actually important poo poo happened were interesting to look at, and all the filler worlds full of sidequests were just big squares with mountains and maybe a base on them.
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Thanks for that, I feel like the mission types don't quite have solid "theme" to differentiate them or the names they use don't really describe what I'm supposed to do. Like HBS has "Defend Base, Destroy Base, Capture Base" and "Battle, Assassinate, Attack&Defend" each type is immediately descriptive of what my objective is. Where as something like "Beachhead" had me thinking we'd be the tip of a much larger spear hot dropping in to secure a LZ or something and not just "Battle, but maybe some allies are around or maybe enemy artillery?" Yeah, I'll get around to doing the campaign missions and the DLC stuff (if those don't appear in career co-op?) but the "chunks stapled together" was kind of how HBS maps worked with a set massive topological map with modular buildings/roads/etc and mission borders that made use of the same large map multiple times in slightly different ways. I never really felt like was in an arena, where things felt symmetrical, with center being an obvious kill zone and protective walls near the outer edges.
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The non-random missions can broadly be broken down into a few types. If or how these get done depend on if the host actually does so, but they should all appear in co-op. There's the Main Plot Missions, which are the ones detailing Commander Mason's vendetta against Black Inferno. As you can guess, these are only if you do the story mode where you're specifically playing Commander Mason, not the generic campaign start where you're playing some generic schmuck who starts in a place more or less of your choosing. Then you've got the various Side Plot Missions. Those are the "high paying missions" and you can just, y'know, get to them whenever. They're also hand-crafted, and some of them award you cool prizes, like weapons or mechs or even unique Hero Mechs. Or maybe you'll get the shattered remnants of a cored Dragon! Who knows. And finally, you've got the DLC Historical Campaign missions. You have to do those during specific dates due to the aforementioned "historical campaign" thing. If you pass on them, you don't get to do them.
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The Historical Campaign stuff is pretty good about yelling at you to be like HEY YOU’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME YOU GOOD WITH THIS? There will always be a conspicuous bird or snake themed priority transmission on the main screen if you’re in the Kestrel or Rasalhague windows.
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Scorched Earth is literally an improved version of Demolition that was added when the first DLC came out. Targeted Kill has the same relationship with Assassination. Why they added them as separate mission types is a loving mystery, my suspicion is that it somehow broke the campaign.
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Q_res posted:Scorched Earth is literally an improved version of Demolition that was added when the first DLC came out. Targeted Kill has the same relationship with Assassination. Why they added them as separate mission types is a loving mystery, my suspicion is that it somehow broke the campaign. It’s not really a mystery. It reflects difficulty. Scorched Earth missions have more aggressive reinforcement waves and are generally more dangerous than Demolition missions. The same is true of Targeted Kill relative to Assassination and Garrison Duty relative to Defense.
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Ah, I can see that making sense to a player who started at before the DLC. However, for someone coming in today with base+DLC it just makes it confusing until you look it up. Thanks for the clarification!
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Hired Steel episode 3 is out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNMveg0lmVo
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I'm loving my newest Blakist run in BTA 3062. running a Cicada 3xLL, Centurion A/C5 & 30MRM and a Blackjack 2xLL & LRM20. really just need to upgrade the starting Locust and Hussar and we can really party down
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What do people run as their forward observer once they get into assault mechs? I’ve been using a black knight with a vanguard in that role and it seems ok. (Rest of lance is typically a mix of atlas/highlander/annihilator/cyclops) I get that the ai isn’t up to the task at endgame so in that sense it may not matter, and I’m sure the answer changes with mods (my next campaign will be modded). Just curious about the goonsensus.
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Anias posted:What do people run as their forward observer once they get into assault mechs? I’ve been using a black knight with a vanguard in that role and it seems ok. (Rest of lance is typically a mix of atlas/highlander/annihilator/cyclops) Victor with a pilot with maxxed out piloting skill and enough tactics to get you sensor lock. You can get a surprising amount of evasion on a max distance jump, you have enough armor to survive a hit or three, and that AC/20 can contribute to the fight. Sensor lock works for grabbing targets for your LMR boat if you can't get in sensor range for a turn or so. You could probably skip that skill honestly and run guts instead for the extra survivability.
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Haven't played BTA in a year or two so updated and restarted. Lucked my way into a Turkina fairly early, but I cannot hit poo poo with it even at gunnery 6. Either they tweaked evasion since I stopped, or I'm definitely used to the endgame 10/10/10/10 crew.
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Anias posted:What do people run as their forward observer once they get into assault mechs? I’ve been using a black knight with a vanguard in that role and it seems ok. (Rest of lance is typically a mix of atlas/highlander/annihilator/cyclops) My last campaign, I got the Black Market event early enough that I was able to go almost straight from the starter Blackjack (kept for a while because I was still constrained by refit/repair time) to the SLDF Griffin (double Snub PPC++ so it had enough punch to do flanker/backstabber/brawler shenanigans). I typically had a Master Tactician/Bulwark pilot in there, but that was as much due to the particulars of that campaign instead of being sure that's the best choice. On the lighter end, the main options are the Griffin, SLDF Phawk and the Firestarter. You can make arguments for all three, though personally I'd favor the Phawk the more the lance wants a spotter and the Griffin the less it does. On the heavier side, you'd presumably want to use a 4-JJ mech, and the best general-purpose mechs with 4 jet slots are probably also the best observers: Marauder (leaning toward 3R, especially in a lance like yours that doesn't have a fantastic Precision Shot mech) over the other 75-tonners and the SLDF Warhammer. In lances like yours, that don't seem particularly skewed towards missiles or sniping, I'd prefer the fighting power of a heavy observer over the initiative and mobility advantages of a lighter mech (with maybe a few mobility-favored mission types as exceptions). The Black Knight seems rather reasonable there, although a Marauder is often going to be better even if you're not leaning into overpowered Marauder precision shots.
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Anias posted:What do people run as their forward observer once they get into assault mechs? I’ve been using a black knight with a vanguard in that role and it seems ok. (Rest of lance is typically a mix of atlas/highlander/annihilator/cyclops) In base game, I actually keep one Firestarter around to be forward observer, with as much evasion buffing crap as I can get, all the Punch Damage stuff, and a loadout of support weapons. It's nigh unhittable and because the AI generally aims for the thing with the least armor, most enemyes will stupidly walk forward and fire exactly one gun at it to try and strip it of evasion, only to run out of units to shoot with before I run out of pips. Then every so often my Firestarter will run up behind someone and core them out with a punch that does more damage than an AC20. In BTA meanwhile, I have enough units to play with in a mission (two mech lances plus a vehicle lance) that I can avoid the whole All Assaults All The Time mentality that infects the base game. It's much easier to run heavy/medium lances in the late game when you're not constantly being forced to build Maximum Damage Fully Optimized Murderbots just to deal with the fact that you're constantly fighting 3 to 1 odds in most missions.
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Anias posted:What do people run as their forward observer once they get into assault mechs? I’ve been using a black knight with a vanguard in that role and it seems ok. (Rest of lance is typically a mix of atlas/highlander/annihilator/cyclops) I went with a Battlemaster not too far off stock. Similar to the Black Knight in that it's a laser boat that's slightly faster than big assaults.
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Anias posted:What do people run as their forward observer once they get into assault mechs? I’ve been using a black knight with a vanguard in that role and it seems ok. (Rest of lance is typically a mix of atlas/highlander/annihilator/cyclops) ECM'd up Mad Cat S.
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Trying out BTA for the first time, first mission was supposed to be against the draconis combine, ended up being against the wolf's legion. In short, ended up starting as Davion and ending up with a free clan mech 1 day in (a very overgunned artic cheetah) ![]() Liking BTA though, even if it's a bit overwhelming with all the new gear being available straight away. It's also a bit goofy how AI helpers are so much better equipped at the start than your mechs. Falcorum fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Feb 12, 2023 |
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Falcorum posted:Trying out BTA for the first time, first mission was supposed to be against the draconis combine, ended up being against the wolf's legion. In short, ended up starting as Davion and ending up with a free clan mech 1 day in (a very overgunned artic cheetah) BTA has a fairly high learning curve starting out, but nowhere near Roguetech. As a tip, Sensor Lock is your friend in the early game, along with Target Prediction. I usually have my Commander in a light/medium with Target Prediction, and a couple of lights with Sensor Lock, to help deal with evasion pips when my gunnery is still pretty poor.
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Other option is melee, while shooting at things won't remove evasion pips, kicking them in the shins will (unless it's a vehicle, they just lose 2 pips) So opening up your round with a mobile mech like a cicada running up and kicking someone, then focusing all your fire on them to knock them out is a good way to take down targets. I genuinely keep my starting cicada until I get a LAM (which apparently can fly around while kicking things in the current BTA version lmao)
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Lol a clash of titans 1.5 star in BTA gave me two lances with one having two assaults and a heavy against the other party, which had an Atlas The difficulty's definitely broken, but on the other hand, I'm rich b*tch
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# ? May 18, 2024 18:46 |
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Clash of titans is specifically super heavy mechs fighting each other though, isn't it? The idea is you let them fight each other and try to pick off the winners, then loot all the wreckage.
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