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Taerkar posted:I got the AI to commit to a punchbrawl in a small forest. The final mech standing was my overheated catapult with 6 of the 7 dead mechs within three hexes of it. ^^^^ Currently playing a match with 4 Jagermechs with 6 AC2s on them. All 4 have been firing at a single atlas for about 3 turns now and have yet to reduce any section of armor below half. It's pretty magical. It does make me wish there was a toggle of some kind just aesthetically to have all weapons fire at once instead of the staggered method that they use now. I know that staggering shots is pretty essential for you to be able to tell what's actually happening (OK, that laser missed, the AC20 connected, etc), but I just want my PILE 'O DAKKA
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Jun 2, 2017 04:11
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isildur posted:the thing is, we have turbospergs on staff. we have people who care *deeply* about BT and its lore and its rules. and we've reached where we're at now after trying a lot of different stuff to try to capture the feel of BT while still making a fun computer game. We've had close adherence to the rules, and we've had wild variant rules with silly poo poo going on, and everything in between. And what we're using as our metric is *playing* the things we try, and then i fill an entire whiteboard with feedback and action items, and we try new things and play those. Just in case, I didn't mean to offend if my post offended. I think HBS has done a fantastic job, the game feels great. I've never played tabletop so I can't speak to that. I think you guys absolutely have made the right decision- rigid adherence to the rules does not necessarily a fun game make. And you guys have made a REALLY fun game, and I'm extra anxious to get my hands on the campaign, where I have to make Choices other than "gently caress my pilot getting injured, I can win this match."
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Jun 2, 2017 04:12
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^^^ nah, I was in agreement. I just wanted to give a little bit of the 'why' for the stuff we changed. and the process, which involved waaaay more prototyping than any game I've ever worked on before. For any given rules variant we probably prototyped it and tried it out. PoptartsNinja posted:The AI's pretty good, but yeah, it needs to weight some `Mechs missile batteries as lower priority weapons. I had a Centurion run off to a corner to play missile boat rather than contributing to its team. You might want to set an "Is Missile Boat? Yes/No" flag on certain `Mech chassis in addition to the "does this `Mech have LRMs it can indirect fire with?" check. A secondary check for the "should I hang back and shoot missiles?" would prevent Atlases and the like from loving around in the back while still letting the Stalker and LRM Awesome do their thing.
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Jun 2, 2017 04:13
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Sky Shadowing posted:Were they missiles? Could have been indirect fire. Otherwise, Nope, PPC and autocannon fire too. Really just an issue of not knowing the maps well enough to block fire lanes, a little practice and hopefully I can stop the concentrated fire. Still beats my tabletop learning experience when I was learning from a munchkin whose response to me winning our first Hunchback/Commando mirror match thanks to good luck (had a Hunchback fall and fail several pilot rolls to stand ("flopping like a fish" as I joked) so I moved around and backshot him with my AC20) was to face off with me with a Crusader with a green pilot vs. his 0/1 Atlas in a cave system. I just said hell with it and ran away from that bullshit and never played him again. quote:E: You know what's one thing I love? A few people on the official forums are bitching about things that make it 'different from BattleTech'. And I think HBS doesn't care. I've seen too many games get taken over by the turbospergs. Like Elite: Dangerous. "Wahh, I don't like this thing because it's not realistic in this spaceship game." gently caress 'em. HBS, make the best game you can, and gently caress the whiners. Yeah, I like a bunch of changes they made really. Heat seems a little off in terms of accumulation (seemed like my Griffin's heat was skyrocketing even standing still and firing one weapon) but I like the general "internal damage/shutdown" idea rather than screw with modifiers. Knockdown is a good system for juggling an enemy's speed/positioning which adds some strategy, though if it isn't taking pilot skill into account it should be (high pilot skill making the bar longer or reducing stability damage would be very appropriate). Do agree light mechs needs more survivability from moving; "speed is life" is a core Battletech thing, especially for them. Honestly my main headaches are probably going to solve themselves with enough practice, I just need to learn the game equivalents of the stuff I know how to do on tabletop like dropping forests in the way of likely enemy fire and such. It certainly FEELS like Battletech should overall, and everything that feels off seems like stuff this beta is supposed to discover and allow fixing/balancing.
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Jun 2, 2017 04:18
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, but BattleTech.
that it's not 'mah daddy's BattleTech' or something can download mods that tweak numbers to make it 'real BattleTech' and the rest of us can not care.
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isildur posted:^^^ Yeah I'll throw in that I'm seeing this A LOT too. The Atlas in particular seems to only be used for its lrms by the AI. I've never seen one lead the charge, only loiter in the rear pretending to be a fat trebuchet. poo poo two matches ago I had an AI atlas indirect firing while a trebuchet got close enough to my line to get gutted by a hunchback. Fucker really wanted to use those medium lasers I guess.
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Jun 2, 2017 04:18
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Cyrano4747 posted:Yeah I'll throw in that I'm seeing this A LOT too. The Atlas in particular seems to only be used for its lrms by the AI. I've never seen one lead the charge, only loiter in the rear pretending to be a fat trebuchet. I finally had one lead the charge and it wrecked my team bad.
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Jun 2, 2017 04:24
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Cyrano4747 posted:poo poo two matches ago I had an AI atlas indirect firing while a trebuchet got close enough to my line to get gutted by a hunchback. Fucker really wanted to use those medium lasers I guess.  but if you're looking for challenge, it's not the one to pick unless you carefully build the AI lance to cope with the short engagement distance.
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Jun 2, 2017 04:26
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Mountain / Arctic river aren't very good maps. I know they're supposed to be like 2-fort sniper types, but the sniper weapons in the game (apart from the JagerMech) aren't in a great place right now, so `Mechs like the Griffin, Panther, and Vindicator are pretty anemic. Which is fine, I don't particularly want to snipe, so anything that promotes getting in and punching this is A-Ok. I just know I won't be using PPCs in the campaign. I feel like this is a thing that probably shouldn't be as easy to pull off as it is with dedicated LRM boating: 
PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Jun 2, 2017 |
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Jun 2, 2017 04:35
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I feel like that's something that could be at least part-way solved by weighting head hits differently in terms of pilot death. Maybe it takes 12 pilot damage to die, and SRMs do 2 each but LRMs only 1. It'd effectively cut LRM headshots in half, which would probably still leave them somewhere higher in frequency than their TT counterparts thanks to individual missiles.
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Jun 2, 2017 04:38
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Nothing is more cathartic than caving in the head of a commando who's been knocking your mechs over with SRM spam.
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Jun 2, 2017 04:38
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BadOptics posted:Nothing is more cathartic than caving in the head of a commando who's been knocking your mechs over with SRM spam. Never not punch metal babbies
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Jun 2, 2017 04:40
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Strobe posted:I feel like that's something that could be at least part-way solved by weighting head hits differently in terms of pilot death. Maybe it takes 12 pilot damage to die, and SRMs do 2 each but LRMs only 1. It'd effectively cut LRM headshots in half, which would probably still leave them somewhere higher in frequency than their TT counterparts thanks to individual missiles. Most of those came from LRM-induced knockdowns. LRMs are really great at knocking `Mechs over. If LRMs are unchanged, I know I'll be using the hell out them in the campaign to farm salvage. And that's a good thing. Autocannons do damage, LRMs knock poo poo down, Lasers exist, and PPCs can stay in the box. PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Jun 2, 2017 |
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Jun 2, 2017 04:40
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Zaodai posted:
I'm actually with you on this because they look a little too much like lasers at the standard zoom level when you're playing combat. Zoomed in when you're taking a shot, yes, they're clearly different but until I positively IDed the awesome my first mission I thought they were large lasers 
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Jun 2, 2017 04:43
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Any good gameplay videos of this beta out there yet? I want to buy in because hell yes stompy mechs by Harebrained but I'm utterly poo poo at most strategy games to the point where they stop being fun.
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Jun 2, 2017 04:47
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Cyrano4747 posted:Yeah I'll throw in that I'm seeing this A LOT too. The Atlas in particular seems to only be used for its lrms by the AI. I've never seen one lead the charge, only loiter in the rear pretending to be a fat trebuchet. I had that happen in a game as well, but when his spotter babby died, a switch flipped and it turned into YOLO Atlas as it charged it and got in my teams face and tried to alpha strike them all to death.
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Jun 2, 2017 04:49
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isildur posted:If that was on Arctic River, the AI is really awful at that map. It ends up running long-range Mechs down into the river and getting clogged up trying to get LOS. I don't know what the deal is there, but we know that map is kind of stupid and we included it because it's kind of stupid, to get feedback like this. It was in that one desert map. The one with no water but the mineral outcrops that mess with laser damage
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Jun 2, 2017 04:55
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Clearly I need to try this Trebuchet boat strategy of LRM-sandpapering for pilot kills. What's a good rest-of-lance for that?
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Jun 2, 2017 04:56
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Kinda wish the game would let you move to where you choose and still melee. Sometimes melee is the best combat choice, but shittiest movement choice.
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Jun 2, 2017 05:00
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Psion posted:Clearly I need to try this Trebuchet boat strategy of LRM-sandpapering for pilot kills. What's a good rest-of-lance for that? A light running the sensor lock skill, a tanky mech with the dodge skill, and whatever else will fit. Ideally something that also has some lrms but that can off tank as well - cents are good for this. Use your light to get spots and locks at range, retire it for the beefy tank when poo poo closes. Personally I'm not seeing lrm pilot kills that much, but it's a workable tactic for softening poo poo up at range as well.
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Jun 2, 2017 05:04
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Psion posted:Clearly I need to try this Trebuchet boat strategy of LRM-sandpapering for pilot kills. What's a good rest-of-lance for that? You need two LRM-boats with paired LRM-15s for best success, they'll force a knockdown every turn and get a pilot hit about one turn in three. A light with sensor lock is ideal, but I accidentally brought a Commando with evasion and just ran him back and forth in the woods guarding every turn so he'd have cover, evasion, bulwark?, and entrenched and take like--no damage on the rare occasions when he did get hit. Once enemies get close enough you can reliably sandpaper them, but if they decide to make a run for your LRM boats having something that can intercept them and tank hits (like a Centurion) works pretty well.
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Jun 2, 2017 05:10
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The Centurion is really turning out to be a MVP, and I'm in love with the battlemasters ability to just beat the hell out of things at mid range. I do not like the vindicator at all though. EDIT: And I'm really liking the treb for LRM spam. I like the Cat too, but given a choice between a treb or a cat and being able to up the tonnage on another lancemate, the treb wins. First thing I do in campaign is going to be doing something with that heat load though.
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Jun 2, 2017 05:27
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Isildur, I just wanna say thank you. This loving owns and it's only a goddamn single mode beta.
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Jun 2, 2017 05:45
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Rhymenoserous posted:The Centurion is really turning out to be a MVP, and I'm in love with the battlemasters ability to just beat the hell out of things at mid range. I do not like the vindicator at all though. The Treb is in a really drat good spot, in the campaign with access to the MechLab I'm going to find one and ditch 1 ML for another ton of LRM ammo. I used one with the bulwark skill earlier, so it just stood in some water launching all the missiles and bracing every turn.
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Jun 2, 2017 05:53
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PoptartsNinja posted:I think Headshots / pilot injuries are in a good place for Skirmish and Multiplayer, but I really hope they turn them down a lot for the campaign. Especially if they make us bring light `Mechs. You have to work to keep Light `Mechs alive. Yeah, stingy tonnage limits and even mediums costing a mint are probably why we'll be needing tinfoil lights on the job. As much as anything what would probably keep +1 initiative Mediums from being your go to man for speed in exchange for no active skills. Though spamming sensor lock while they stay as far out of the fight as possible while very useful as said already by others, isn't very engaging either. isildur posted:'death' won't always result in a lost pilot. it is likely to result in a pilot in the medbay. Salt is for deaths where you had that shining chance to not lose it all. Each time my head gets dinged because the coin flip landed on headshot O'clock, it just makes it that much harder to care if they do die. Getting an arm with minimal weaponry in it blown off causes me more concern by comparison, just by how much more earned that pain feels. But that at least, shows how sweet a lot of the other combat aspects are when limbs getting blown off is loving metal and concerning at the same time 
Section Z fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Jun 2, 2017 |
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Jun 2, 2017 06:00
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I guess I'm going to be the negative nancy here. First impressions: Good -The game is fun! -Graphics are great -It doesn't mind being minimized at all Bad -PPC's are almost entirely worthless, I took an awesome, a treb, a locust and a centurion out and the awesome was completely worthless. Even when I landed a full alpha against a centurion it didn't do as much damage as a treb 2xlrm15 2xmed laser. -SCALE! It doesn't feel like giant stompy robots, you're zoomed out so far it feels like dudes with weird armor and guns. -There doesn't seem to be much strategy to moves other than clump up and focus fire. Yeah sprint is amazingly powerful, I had an enemy hunchback sprint to my front lines and dodge an Awesome alpha, a treb&locust fire support, and a centurion alpha. I was on a hill, the hunch was in a river, I get it sprinted but dude, I should have destroyed the hunch. -They need to tweak lights a bit, I need to be able to remain hidden while using my sensors to spot stuff. What's the point of taking a locust/commando on a heavy lance if it has to reveal itself to get LOS. I want to be able to run my light up, hide it then rain hate down on the enemy with missiles. -Missiles and autocannons are way too powerful. They do great damage, have good range (and the way the game is with LOS you're almost never at extreme ranges) and do stability damage. A PPC should be somewhere between an AC10 and an AC20, right now they're between an LRM5 and a med laser. -The music is waaaaaaaaaaay too somber. It feels like I'm in some WW2 holocaust documentary not shooting giant guns in giant robots and leveling cities. Overall I think the game will end up alright, but as of right now I don't feel like I'm commanding a unit of giant robots (xcome dudes feel bigger), I don't feel like I'm making cool tactical decisions other than picking mechs and focusing targets, and I'm not really getting in the mood to destroy stuff because of the music. I think the game has tons of potential, but they definitely need to do something to make the tactical aspect more... tactical. -edit- Yeah, an AC10 does 37 damage, stability damage, low heat and no min range. A PPC does 25 damage, no stability damage, min range, tons of heat. Stick with balistics for now. -edit2- my small laser just did 20 loving damage, wtf. JacksLibido fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Jun 2, 2017 |
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Jun 2, 2017 06:00
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Rhymenoserous posted:The Centurion is really turning out to be a MVP which is great for me, considering my plan to build up a Centurion pirates-of-tortuga style 
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Jun 2, 2017 06:08
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JacksLibido posted:-Missiles and autocannons are way too powerful. They do great damage, have good range (and the way the game is with LOS you're almost never at extreme ranges) and do stability damage. A PPC should be somewhere between an AC10 and an AC20, right now they're between an LRM5 and a med laser. Missiles and Autocannons are fine, PPCs could be safely bumped up to AC/10 damage (75) from their current AC/5 damage (50). I think lasers are in a pretty alright place, small lasers are king poo poo of tiny weapon mountain, and nothing's got flamers yet but I'm eagerly awaiting them. Mediums feel a little anemic at times but they're so ubiquitous I feel that's alright, and larges do respectable damage for their heat. The Swayback feels just as threatening as the standard Hunchback to face, it just runs a lot hotter.
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Jun 2, 2017 06:12
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flamers were hilariously OP. They aren't anymore but still, I think there's a really broken flamer build out there waiting to be discovered. you know how heat seems a little too high? You used to be able to crowd-control literally anything with a single firestarter. It was so much fun because of how frustrating it was for the other person to watch this teeny little mech ruin their whole day. it made me wish we had the Charger so i could swap all its small lasers for flamers. Anyway yeah. alas, it was tuned. But for a brief glorious few days, the Firestarter was The Best Mech. We've gone back and forth on whether the view of your mech's armor/structure is from the front or from the back. It literally always feels wrong to me, no matter what. vvvvvv isildur fucked around with this message at 06:24 on Jun 2, 2017 |
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Jun 2, 2017 06:18
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My Hunchback lost a side torso and I was like ok my AC/20 is still there. The hunchback model was mirrored for some reason so the hunch was visually on the wrong side and I lost it anyway 
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Jun 2, 2017 06:21
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PoptartsNinja posted:Missiles and Autocannons are fine, PPCs could be safely bumped up to AC/10 damage (75) from their current AC/5 damage (50). I think lasers are in a pretty alright place, small lasers are king poo poo of tiny weapon mountain, and nothing's got flamers yet but I'm eagerly awaiting them. Mediums feel a little anemic at times but they're so ubiquitous I feel that's alright, and larges do respectable damage for their heat. The Swayback feels just as threatening as the standard Hunchback to face, it just runs a lot hotter. I'd mostly agree with you here, ACs don't really need any changes. But Missiles, maybe tone down the stability damage just a hair. Bump the PPC to 60 dmg. Completely agree on the ML and SL, not sure how I feel about the LL right now. MGs are garbage, but that's to be expected.
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Jun 2, 2017 06:23
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PoptartsNinja posted:Missiles and Autocannons are fine, PPCs could be safely bumped up to AC/10 damage (75) from their current AC/5 damage (50). I think lasers are in a pretty alright place, small lasers are king poo poo of tiny weapon mountain, and nothing's got flamers yet but I'm eagerly awaiting them. Mediums feel a little anemic at times but they're so ubiquitous I feel that's alright, and larges do respectable damage for their heat. The Swayback feels just as threatening as the standard Hunchback to face, it just runs a lot hotter. I disagree, autocannons have almost no downside apart from ammo usage, and at least in this skirmish mode Ammo has not once even been a consideration. They have great range (given the short range skirmishes the sensor system encourages), great knockdown and great heat usage. There needs to be more of a downside to using them. PPCs need SOMETHING to make them useful, right now I feel like running literally anything else is better, they seem like an active detriment to your lance. Mediums honestly feel great to me, they seem to carry a lot of balistics and missiles, both of which are in a great spot right now. I'd say if anything Assaults feel like rear end.
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Jun 2, 2017 06:26
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isildur posted:it made me wish we had the Charger so i could swap all its small lasers for flamers. I would love the Charger in this. Especially its tiny little pistol. I'm sure you've seen this visual bug already, but if you haven't you'll probably get a kick out of it: 
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Jun 2, 2017 06:27
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I think missiles and ACs feel good, and large lasers seem nice, but yeah, PPCs seem like complete poo poo, and I feel like some of the lasers could have their heat tweaked to be slightly less punishing, but I'll need to do more testing on my end as it might just be that the heat curve is right and I want to fire them more. I definitely don't think ACs and missiles should be nerfed, though.
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Jun 2, 2017 06:29
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Alright, so there needs to be some more explination in the game. I have a treb who has LOS, the game says they have LOS, but I can't shoot, I have no idea why, but it'll let me move, it'll give the red line to shoot, it'll give me the hotkey to shoot, but when I go to shoot it wont bring up the shooting dialogue. Also, wtf is the point of high ground? Does it give me more LOS? Does it give me more aim? Does it give the enemy penalties? Does it just expose my dudes to more LOS? Finally, seriously this music is depressing as gently caress. -edit- Holy poo poo the orion is so much loving better than the awesome, wtf?
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Jun 2, 2017 06:36
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Goddamn is this game fun as hell. Yeah I'll mirror the point that PPCs are kinda garbage even with some precision shot bonuses but man is it satisfying to just slam a griffin in the back with an ac20 salvo.
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Jun 2, 2017 06:50
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PoptartsNinja posted:You need two LRM-boats with paired LRM-15s for best success, they'll force a knockdown every turn and get a pilot hit about one turn in three. If two is good, three is better: I just ran 3 Trebuchets with a spotter (whatever I had space left over for, who cares) and I didn't get a ton of pilot hits but I sure got a boatload of knockdown. Hilarious. Also this might be an AI thing or it might be a map thing but they sometimes like to engage one at a time and when you send in an unsupported locust against an undamaged lance, like, lmao. What even. Maybe it's the map I played on? I forget what it's called, you start with a river directly to your right and it's easy to go stand around a rock in the river and bathe in cooldowns while raining LRM hell for days.
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Jun 2, 2017 06:50
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JacksLibido posted:Alright, so there needs to be some more explination in the game. I have a treb who has LOS, the game says they have LOS, but I can't shoot, I have no idea why, but it'll let me move, it'll give the red line to shoot, it'll give me the hotkey to shoot, but when I go to shoot it wont bring up the shooting dialogue. Is it a straight red line or an arcing red line? If its an arcing red line that means only indirect fire can take a shot (i.e. LRMs) and it will need someone else to spot for you (any other mech with a LOS to the target).
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Jun 2, 2017 06:54
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kingcom posted:Is it a straight red line or an arcing red line? If its an arcing red line that means only indirect fire can take a shot (i.e. LRMs) and it will need someone else to spot for you (any other mech with a LOS to the target). it was an arcing red line, I had lrm 15s with ammo, it just wouldn't let me fire. Obviously there is a reason it wont let me fire but the game doesn't really help me in solving that issue. To expand on the "explain more" part... -what's the point of firing in your first "action" section? Do I get a bonus to aim for not moving? Why would I not MOVE then shoot? Terrain seems to be of no concern other than forests, so why not move just for the sake of moving? -What's the point of high ground? I feel like I should get a greater LOS, increased accuracy and increased defense but I don't know if I do. I DEFINITELY give the enemy increased LOS -They ABSOLUTELY need to incorporate a shot hit % for each move option you have. If I have a 50% chance to hit with an AC20 at spot x, they need to show me what it will be if I move to spot y. Right now you kinda have to roll the dice on if the shot will have a better or worse chance to hit. Again, I may sound like I'm being negative but it's simply because it's a beta and these are things that I feel need to be fixed before it ships. Overall the game is fun and I'm happy I bought it, it's mechwarrior and I love mechwarrior, but it definitely needs some polish... which is what this BETA is for. -I am a bit disappointed in the utility of lights though. I tried running 1xlocust 3x trebuchet against the default 20mil loadout and it didn't do nearly as well as I thought it would. The locust got great line of sight right away, but was fragged almost instantly. It'd be great if there was an option to keep a spotter stealthed or otherwise untargettable while you rained down hate. It'd incentivise using scout mechs to spot the enemies scouts. JacksLibido fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Jun 2, 2017 |
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Jun 2, 2017 07:04
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JacksLibido posted:
The Raven is supposed to be carrying rudimentary ECM and Electronic Warfare systems. It is possible that when this gets added in it might be able to do this kind of job.
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Jun 2, 2017 07:13
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Either use the spotting skill [note that the spotter doesn't need los] or use the evade skill and cover. Either will preserve your light for guiding in lrms.
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Jun 2, 2017 07:16
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