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Zaodai posted:When you start single-handedly beating their coup, and are known mercenaries, that offers them pretty strong incentive to at least pay you for non-interference if they're not going to hire you outright. They would be stupid not to at least try to buy you out, even if they suspect you'll refuse. actually that might be interesting as part of the story, to have them try to buy you out midway through the campaign of you kicking their rear end. Could lead to some interesting character moments, especially if you're not confident the offer is genuine.
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Jan 11, 2018 19:04
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Psion posted:actually that might be interesting as part of the story, to have them try to buy you out midway through the campaign of you kicking their rear end. Could lead to some interesting character moments, especially if you're not confident the offer is genuine. I'd also be fine with that, where they pretend to offer you a contract and it's an ambush. That's a tired cliche too, but at least it's a good reason to let you know why you're stuck siding with the Restoration: Because the Directorate are suicidally incompetent, actual moustache twirling cartoon supervillains a-la the Clans.
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Jan 11, 2018 19:12
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Now that I'm thinking about it, did the honor and infamy stats in MW4 mercs actually do anything?
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Jan 11, 2018 19:16
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Skoll posted:Isn't that like half of the MW PCs? Give me a Capellan mechanic or peasant who watched his village get stomped by crusading Fed Sun forces. MilkmanLuke fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Jan 11, 2018 |
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Jan 11, 2018 19:18
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Cyrano4747 posted:Yuuuuup. News flash: every "merc" themed game out there that isn't just a random battle generator has this same issue. Mechwarrior 1? Plot missions on top of random contracts. MW2: Mercs? Plot missions on top of random contracts. MW4? You get the idea. Well, not to get too involved in this discussion, as there have been plenty of well and poorly executed examples of both linear and branching stories in games - even ones where you're supposedly playing a mercenary - and thus I'll wait for the actual game to come out to judge, but MW4: Mercs is really not a good example of what you're trying to illustrate here. What with you ultimately being able to throw in with either of the warring houses, or just carving out your own niche, depending on your mission choices. The Chad Jihad posted:Now that I'm thinking about it, did the honor and infamy stats in MW4 mercs actually do anything? I want to say they can affect mission availability as the game goes on, but it's been a while. Like I think you might only have access to the mission with the recruitable Clan pilot with a certain amount of Honor.
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Jan 11, 2018 19:19
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to release MW5?
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MilkmanLuke posted:Give me a Capellan mechanic or peasant who watched his village get stomped by crusading Fed Sun forces. Disenfranchised Marik working man whose family was killed during one of their civil wars.
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Jan 11, 2018 19:23
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So basically this game is going to be Fire Emblem with giant robots. ...I’m okay with that.
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Jan 11, 2018 20:13
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Skoll posted:Disenfranchised Marik working man whose family was killed during one of their civil wars. Also good.
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Jan 11, 2018 20:21
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Skoll posted:I'm siding with Zaodai here. I used to run my own MegaMek merc campaign just so I can side with who I want, go where I want, etc. Allow me to hop on this Dropship as well. If I'm going to play the part of a mercenary, usually the main motivation is money. Nobility and such is great and all when you want to be the plucky hero, but at the end of the day, whoever is willing to pay more gets the contract. Sure, everyone thinks that siding with the Rebels might make for a more heroic story, but the option to join the Empire would be just as interesting. For examples of how to portray and tell the story of a true "conflicted" mercenary company, look at The Black Company novels, or the film The Dogs of War. MilkmanLuke posted:Give me a Capellan mechanic or peasant who watched his village get stomped by crusading Fed Sun forces. Omar_Comin fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Jan 11, 2018 |
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Jan 11, 2018 22:05
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Allow me to hop on this Dropship as well
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Jan 11, 2018 22:09
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Yeah but this game was never sold as that. It's a weird thing to get your jimmies rustled about is all.
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Jan 11, 2018 22:51
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I think ultimately we need to file these ideas under "maybe next game." HBS has been pretty honest about having limited resources and time to play with for this game. There's been a bunch of features and ideas that they hoped to include that they just couldn't manage. If the game's a decent hit and they can get the backing for a sequel, that would be the time to start pushing for more options.
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Jan 11, 2018 22:55
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^^^^^^ Again, it's not requesting an entire divergent campaign path or anything. It would take basically no dev work on a relative scale. I don't see how we need to file that away for "next game" as if it would be depriving the game of other features. Rygar201 posted:Yeah but this game was never sold as that. It's a weird thing to get your jimmies rustled about is all. It was also not sold as being a linear story either? It's also a weird situation for people to get outraged that someone would request a tiny addition that doesn't affect their ability to play the story "the right way!" at all. It's seems like a lot of anger coming out about things that would add to how some people would play the single player portion of the game without detracting anything from the way you want to play it.
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Jan 11, 2018 23:00
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yeah well maybe I just won't buy the game 
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Jan 11, 2018 23:02
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While I can see why people would want alternatives, in any merc for money game I can't blame the Devs for taking the usual 'Mostly main plot' route. From a quality standpoint. Because the effort of making a VIABLE set of alternatives is way more effort than a check in the mail saying "Pretty please don't take paying jobs to help the good guys. We have enclosed enough C-Bills for half a maintenance in exchange for ignoring your most consistent source of payday when the procgen gives you poo poo". I can see the appeal of "My only motivation is money!"... Which makes it all the more strange when people do so by ignoring the money in favor of the worst possible income, just to leap at the chance of being a hobo pirate or a mediocre payout with a laundry list of penalties that come alongside working for "The bad guys". A popular outlook though, which is why everyone gets away with adding a zero of few to the bill for any player merc companies compared to official lore backed ones I guess  If we're lucky, there will be a game where it's fully realized to work for the sides you want. That isn't Clans Vs Everyone else I mean. It's a great concept, but one that will take a lot more workload to realize. I don't think anyone is wrong for wanting that cool idea in general. Even if it's probably not in the cards here. But I'd like my dreamhouse robot pirate mercenary simulator to have more going for it than "You CAN be a renegade outlaw working for space Stalin!... It's going to suck super hard, the pay will be poo poo, and half the galaxy will shoot you on sight-wait come back, why are you working for the good guys again?" If in most games I can't side with a kingdom or corporation without seeing all the forces that burnt villages or shoot up space colonies get a free pass every war reset, while I'm still stuck with half the universe hating me just for SIGNING the contract? loving hell, designing comparably viable crime and bag guy contracts gameplay must be a complete nightmare by comparison. Section Z fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Jan 11, 2018 |
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Jan 11, 2018 23:16
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Zaodai posted:It was also not sold as being a linear story either? It literally was tho
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Jan 11, 2018 23:21
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Why is "I wish I could just play a mercenary company instead of a linear campaign" a controversial comment in this, a thread about a BattleTech game?
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Jan 11, 2018 23:25
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https://imgur.com/a/A6D5E That's the original pitch. The Merc game was a stretch goal
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Jan 11, 2018 23:30
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Some people just want to watch a thread burn.
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Jan 11, 2018 23:31
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Rygar201 posted:It literally was tho Battletech Kickstarter posted:Our STAGE 2 STORY CAMPAIGN will put you in command of your own mercenary outfit, as you find yourself inexorably drawn into a bloody dynastic conflict set in the Periphery of the Inner Sphere. Over the course of the campaign, you’ll manage the finances and logistics of your mercenary outfit - from the modifications and loadout of your 'Mechs, to the salaries and skill growth of your MechWarriors.  I get that it's blasphemy to suggest that there might be any improvement possible beyond what the devs have already thought of. I don't fault you guys for your loyalty. But you're fighting super hard against something with no downside that would improve the game for people and basically no cost. Yes, I admit I'd love a wholly mercenary, super divergent campaign. I'd also love a game set in the Clan homeworlds where you fight other Clans and dictate trials and bidding and stuff to try and gain both personal glory and rank, and improve the status of your Clan. I'd ALSO love a game where you're fighting in one of the Succession Wars to move the borders around on the map of the full Sphere. None of those things are what I recommended, nor were the recommendations anything to that scale or effect. You already have the option to ignore the main campaign and just do the procedural missions, except for the ability to work for the Directorate because they're the dedicated bad guys. Literally all I am suggesting for this game is some kind of event that logically lets you tell the Restoration to gently caress off because you have a better offer. Then it goes from "well just don't play the story" to "your resolution to the story was to actually be a mercenary and take a bribe to not take sides in the larger conflict and go spend your time elsewhere". It's not coding a new campaign. It's not a billion branching paths. It's a little bit of window dressing grade work to provide a little bit of player agency and make the conflict actually feel more alive. [EDIT] And technically the "real game" is just the skirmish mode. So your precious linear story was also a stretch goal.
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Jan 11, 2018 23:32
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What was goal #3, hmmmmm?
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Jan 11, 2018 23:34
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Strobe posted:Why is "I wish I could just play a mercenary company instead of a linear campaign" a controversial comment in this, a thread about a BattleTech game? It's not, but we're kind of way past the point where that is a worthwhile topic of conversation for this particular game. I mean, I can wish all I want that CoD WWII was a RTS with RPG elements, but it's not, and talking about how much I wish it was another game doesn't really contribute to a discussion of the game as it exists. We have a really clear idea what the game is going to be at this point. We've played the tactical level battles. We've seen videos of others playing story missions. We have a broad outline of what that story is going to be, and we've even got a fair idea (thanks to concept art etc) of what the actual between-battles game cycle is going to be. There really aren't any surprises left if you've been following the development at all. We can theory craft our ultimate BT game all we want, but this is the game that got made. Maybe people think that sucks, but at this point it's pretty much just don't buy the game if you don't like it. They were way up front with people about what kind of game they were making during the kickstarter, so I'm not quite sure why anyone who was paying attention back then would be scratching their head at what we got now.
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Jan 11, 2018 23:36
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Honestly Zaodai's suggestion doesn't seem too bad. A single event or mission that pops up where you can choose to basically say "no thanks" to the campaign would be interesting, in an attention-to-detail kind of way.
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Jan 11, 2018 23:37
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Cyrano4747 posted:It's not, but we're kind of way past the point where that is a worthwhile topic of conversation for this particular game. I mean, I can wish all I want that CoD WWII was a RTS with RPG elements, but it's not, and talking about how much I wish it was another game doesn't really contribute to a discussion of the game as it exists. Still a strawman, even if you took a few more minutes to type it. Are you guys even actually reading Zaodai's posts? He doesn't want a different game, he wants his "gently caress off to nowhere and do merc things" story branch which is already a thing to have an acknowledgement message. That's literally it.
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Jan 11, 2018 23:39
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Xarbala posted:Honestly Zaodai's suggestion doesn't seem too bad. A single event or mission that pops up where you can choose to basically say "no thanks" to the campaign would be interesting, in an attention-to-detail kind of way. Come oooon, we'll throw in a free commando if you push 'disable plot'.
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Jan 11, 2018 23:39
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Pooncha posted:So basically this game is going to be Fire Emblem with giant robots. If I wasn’t already a huge BT fan and committed to this project, you would have gotten me very excited.
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Jan 11, 2018 23:43
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Zaodai posted:\ Then it goes from "well just don't play the story" to "your resolution to the story was to actually be a mercenary and take a bribe to not take sides in the larger conflict and go spend your time elsewhere". It's not coding a new campaign. It's not a billion branching paths. It's a little bit of window dressing grade work to provide a little bit of player agency and make the conflict actually feel more alive. Yeah, Im' sorry, that's not actually player agency any more than "just don't play the game" is. I mean, what you're describing is basically the alternate ending to Far Cry 4. Sit down, eat the loving crab rangoon, and don't go on a killing spree across half of not-Nepal. The thing is that isn't "player agency." You aren't actually making any decisions that impact the core game in any meaningful way, any more than just turning the computer off is player agency. It's a neat gimmick that in the specific case of FC4 raises some pretty interesting questions about the whole scenario that plays out after that, especially if you like pondering just whether or not you really are the hero in that story, but it changes exactly ZERO of the game experience as the developers designed it to be played. The illusion of choice isn't really a choice, and in video games the option that just ends the game without really playing it isn't a viable choice.
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Jan 11, 2018 23:44
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I feel like people are reacting to the poster and his tone more than the message, imo
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Jan 11, 2018 23:48
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The only actual difference between the game as described and what Zaodai wants is the text box and the payoff, and that's assuming it doesn't exist in the game. But, if we operate on that assumption then we might be able to add such an event ourselves anyway with the included Event editor. Depending on just what capabilities it has. Stop being dicks over a minor quibble.
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Jan 11, 2018 23:48
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The illusion of choice is better than no choice when it does actually change the outcome, if you don't know the trick. The other side wins if you take that option, so in that sense it is actually a choice. Except instead of being an out of character choice to simply not play, it's justifiable in-universe, to your characters. There is a difference between Commander Whowever electing not to back the Restoration because he got an offer for his merc outfit to not get involved in a bloody civil war, and the player saying "Nah, gently caress it. I'm not doing that because the designated heroes are annoying jerkoffs, guess I'll just not play the story missions", even if both of those options end up with the Directorate winning. One option builds the world, the other brings you out of it entirely. Are there better methods to handle it? Absolutely. But those methods all take significantly more dev time and resources. You can't simultaneously argue I'm asking for things that take too many resources to be viable at the current point in the dev cycle and then when I point out that's not what I'm asking for turn around and be like "well that's not in-depth enough.". I specifically recommended it for it being low-impact from a development perspective with a big impact for the people who would otherwise only have immersion breaking choices when there's already a perfectly viable system in place that with a very minor tweak offers them an in-universe alternative.
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Jan 11, 2018 23:54
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Q_res posted:Stop being dicks over a minor quibble. AAAAA! Real Muenster fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Jan 12, 2018 |
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Jan 12, 2018 00:04
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Zaodai posted:The illusion of choice is better than no choice when it does actually change the outcome, if you don't know the trick. The other side wins if you take that option, so in that sense it is actually a choice. Kinda think that's just you, though. I mean how does it rip you out of your immersion to look at a job board, see... 1) gently caress up the Cappies for the Feds 2) gently caress up the Feds for the Cappies 3) gently caress up the Directorate for the Restoration ...and decide for whatever reason you want to pick 1 or 2? You can make your decision using whatever in-story or out of story reason you like. Maybe you prefer the Cappies to the Restoration and would rather help them. Maybe the Feds are paying better out of these three missions. Maybe you did get annoyed at the Restoration and refuse to take missions from them for reasons of your own. I mean, sure, I guess you could put in a text box that has the Directorate bribe you. But then you're basically asking for a checkbox that says "DO NOT PLAY CAMPAIGN MISSIONS" and expect to get paid for it, which is at least a little counter-intuitive. It also feels like its a bit too stark a choice, especially if its early in the game. If you have to decide to abandon the Restoration a mission at a time, you have the option to change your mind. Maybe some of the later missions look good from a payout standpoint, or you soften to their plight and decide to Han Solo back in at the last moment. None of those options are available if you cash a check and then forget about it for the rest of the game. For that matter, having that bribe mission would have to include an out of game text saying "This will disable all campaign missions irrevocably" or else some sneaky bastard will take the bribe expecting to be able betray the Directorate down the line and then get pissed at you for taking away all the campaign missions. And that kind of thing feels way more immersion breaking to me than just choosing whatever mission you want from the board. 
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Jan 12, 2018 00:13
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jng2058 posted:Kinda think that's just you, though. I mean how does it rip you out of your immersion to look at a job board, see... jng2058 posted:For that matter, having that bribe mission would have to include an out of game text saying "This will disable all campaign missions irrevocably" or else some sneaky bastard will take the bribe expecting to be able betray the Directorate down the line and then get pissed at you for taking away all the campaign missions. And that kind of thing feels way more immersion breaking to me than just choosing whatever mission you want from the board.
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Jan 12, 2018 00:16
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Here's a bit of a problem, though. From a game design perspective, you don't want players making that choice. Yeah, in universe, it makes perfect sense. But from a game design perspective, as best I can tell, beating the story campaign is the only thing resembling a win condition. Bankruptycy is the only thing that will say "hey game over you lose", but there is no equivalent free-roam win condition for the campaign. Without the story campaign, it's literally JUST the random missions, and though I think they'll be good, I don't think infinite random missions will be quite enough to carry this game. I don't think they're enough to carry ANY game, which is one of my concerns with MW5. Yeah, for certain players, they'll want to just play Mercenary Sim 3025, but for most there needs to be... a goal, of sorts. The story campaign is the only real goal, other than you saying stuff like "I want to have 12 Atlases." So to steer players to the story campaign you can't incentivize that decision to skip it. It needs to be basically strictly a roleplaying decision, and you can't pay players a lot of money to make it- maybe 1 contract worth. It's a sensible addition but I think it goes against the gameplay.
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Jan 12, 2018 00:39
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In my head, the incentive to skip it would be (a little) more than 1 contract's worth, but not more than like 2.25-ish at ABSOLUTE most. The idea being that most of the payment you get for it is "not getting shot". So the payment doesn't have to be large, just enough to not be insulting. Hell, personally if they're like "look, we'll pay you what they were going to pay you +10%", that satisfies my mercenary honor that I took the highest bidder and I'm now getting paid to not get my people and robbits blown up. The counterpoint then being if you breach it, you could just have an event fire where ComStar takes whatever the contract value was + some percentage for breach contract penalty. They just take it out of your account, because what bank is going to say no to ComStar? As ComStar is basically vouching for you because you're a Board-Certified merc, they could easily and legally take the funds from you, so it still stands up in-universe. That boils both the positive and negative path dev time down to a few minutes of event work. Nothing elaborate or demanding (hopefully), and I agree, you wouldn't want the "correct" response to be to avoid the campaign. Just enough in-universe that it would be viable for a (desperate) merc commander to consider it. Which isn't a whole lot.
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Jan 12, 2018 00:50
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Sky Shadowing posted:Here's a bit of a problem, though. From a game design perspective, you don't want players making that choice. Yeah, in universe, it makes perfect sense. But from a game design perspective, as best I can tell, beating the story campaign is the only thing resembling a win condition. Bankruptycy is the only thing that will say "hey game over you lose", but there is no equivalent free-roam win condition for the campaign.
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Jan 12, 2018 00:51
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Sky Shadowing posted:Here's a bit of a problem, though. From a game design perspective, you don't want players making that choice. I agree strongly here, but for different reasons. Zaodia's request is a reasonable one and he raises good points, but this was a game designed with limited resources and a significant portion of them went into creating the narrative campaign. The experience will be diminished by its absence (for most people), and the developers shouldn't be encouraging their players to forgo gameplay when they don't have something equally substantial to take its place. AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:His whole point is that he only wants to play the random missions, though. What you're saying makes lots of sense, but he suggested the option because it seems odd that there is no incentive to stay out of it if you want to let the bad guys win and play the endless random merc missions. I think it would be obvious enough to do it in a way to let the players know that they miss out on the campaign if they take it. People can make that choice, and it would be neat if the game found a way to acknowledge it somewhere, but from the perspective of game design it is absolutely not something the developers should be providing with any kind of direct encouragement because people are dumb and will ruin the game for themselves no matter how clearly you try to warn them.
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Jan 12, 2018 00:52
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Voyager I posted:People can make that choice, and it would be neat if the game found a way to acknowledge it somewhere, but from the perspective of game design it is absolutely not something the developers should be providing with any kind of direct encouragement because people are dumb and will ruin the game for themselves no matter how clearly you try to warn them. Why the gently caress should I care about dumb people ruining the game for themselves? No really, serious question. "Oh, I shouldn't have done that, let me reload my last save" is not a hard concept to realize. If it's early enough in the campaign, starting a whole new game wouldn't even be that egregious. And if someone is mad enough at something they didn't have to do, that they could very easily and with little effort been told explicitly what would happen, and still got mad enough for it to matter, then why the hell do you want their continued (dumb) patronage?
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Jan 12, 2018 01:03
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This rings a lot of "Why won't the devs cater to ME, the only gamer who matters?" 
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Jan 12, 2018 01:08
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The problem with that choice is that it's not an equal choice. It's basically asking the player "do you want to deny yourself access to content for a short-term gain, or keep access to the story campaign?" In my mind, that choice is a trap. They don't want you to make that choice. As a player you shouldn't make that choice. It's unbalanced to you, not the character, but YOU, the person at the keyboard. It denies you access to content with nothing to replace it. Sure, it's a perfectly viable choice in the game from a role-playing perspective. But most players aren't going into the game as informed as we are. We know that it's a trap, but a casual, first time gamer who bought the game because it looks cool will think, unless you specifically spell out "this is a bad choice and will screw you out of a lot of content", that both sides are viable. And if you do spell it out, they'll wonder why is it a choice at all? It's like in Skyrim, there's a choice to destroy the Dark Brotherhood. Most players probably don't even know it's there. Because it's a bad choice. You replace a long questline with some interesting content with a single "go kill all these people" mission with a poo poo reward. As a roleplaying choice, it's perfectly fine. It's less unforgivable in Skyrim because there's a lot other content. And Skyrim is a roleplaying game. This game is not. It's a tactical game with roleplaying elements. I think a decent compromise would be giving the player that option... ONLY after they've already beaten the story once, on any future restarts.
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Jan 12, 2018 01:30
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