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KickStarter BattleTech Pre-Release Thread
- Thread starter Infinitron
- Start date
Vaarna_Aarne
Notorious Internet Vandal
Location based damage is in tho (video and material leaves me unsure about what critical effects are in), watch the video to the end and he talks about it. Targeting your shots is not in though, because there's a reason why the tabletop game only allows you to aim when attacking a shut down 'mech. And why one constant in MechWarrior games was that each game made the head hitbox smaller and smaller.
They appear to have tweaked the variables for headshots though. Can't say for sure, since the guy said no numbers on how many people played the alpha there, but he said HBS said to him he was one of the only two people who got one of their Atlases instantly killed in the first round by a headshot. So could be the chance is lower than in the tabletop hit table, or could be they had 480 or less players (IIRC the instant death probability in tabletop was 2.4%). In itself this is not a bad thing because of the inevitable fact video games will make use of extended combat situations instead of two hopefully balanced forces battling it out like on tabletop. That is, if they don't just bolt on an Edge/Hero Point system for the player's pilots, which was MechWarrior RPG's solution to the "random instant death" problem.
They appear to have tweaked the variables for headshots though. Can't say for sure, since the guy said no numbers on how many people played the alpha there, but he said HBS said to him he was one of the only two people who got one of their Atlases instantly killed in the first round by a headshot. So could be the chance is lower than in the tabletop hit table, or could be they had 480 or less players (IIRC the instant death probability in tabletop was 2.4%). In itself this is not a bad thing because of the inevitable fact video games will make use of extended combat situations instead of two hopefully balanced forces battling it out like on tabletop. That is, if they don't just bolt on an Edge/Hero Point system for the player's pilots, which was MechWarrior RPG's solution to the "random instant death" problem.
ArchAngel
Arcane
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They probably should put some resources that help vs one shots as same player's Mechs will be shot upon many more times than players get to shoot at same enemy mech. So these mechanics only exist to punish players. From my understanding both mechs and pilots are even more worth than experienced soldiers in Xcom 2 and losing them due to one roll you could not really influence is kind of stupid.
So some limited resource that you can use to protect vs this or use it in other way and risk headshots would be good. In that case it is player's choice to use that on something else and their fault if they get one shot.
Vaarna_Aarne
Notorious Internet Vandal
Edge/Hero Point system is basically just that. A MechWarrior has X number of them, and can use them to various things, either re-roll their own attacks for one round (3 points), ignore effects that would shut down or destroy their 'mech for one round like overheating causing ammo explosion (3 points), cancel any attack made against their 'mech (4 points), cancel any damage allocation roll that would destroy their 'mech or kill them (1 point), cancel any attack that would destroy their 'mech or kill them (2 points).
IMO its a pretty good and accessible system that I imagine wouldn't be too hard to bolt on to the game, though I suppose if the game allows savescumming it wouldn't be necessary.
IMO its a pretty good and accessible system that I imagine wouldn't be too hard to bolt on to the game, though I suppose if the game allows savescumming it wouldn't be necessary.
Kem0sabe
Arcane
They could also take cover into consideration on what type of called shots a pilot can make. I doubt their cover system will be very complex tho.
Aimed headshots is a pretty fundamental balancing issue. Just look at what it did to FO/JA2.
Also, isn't it more than a little bit silly to place the pilot in easily target-able and softly armoured location?
Contemporary mech designs all put the pilot in the most heavily armoured spot in the mech.
Also, isn't it more than a little bit silly to place the pilot in easily target-able and softly armoured location?
Contemporary mech designs all put the pilot in the most heavily armoured spot in the mech.
Vaarna_Aarne
Notorious Internet Vandal
The missed follow-up joke to the descendant of the death claw omelet seller in New Vegas was noting that the Chosen One shot EVERYBODY either in the eye or occasionally in their groin while snickering.
I'd also have to point out that the old cliche that "BattleTech was a Western military realistic response to Japanese mecha" is quite frankly bollocks, since BattleTech started out expressly riding on the coat tails of RoboTech. And that's even before bringing in the fact that in terms of realistic depiction of 'mechs BattleTech doesn't have much on actual examples of Real Robot subgenre of mecha anime, like aforementioned PatLABOR.
Well, not just contemporary (and ones that have actually been built IRL like Kuratas), but also 80's fictional ones like Gundam, PatLABOR or Macross. Though IIRC the original Battlepod that Marauder is based on does have the cockpit where its incarnation and chickenwalker descendants in BTech do too.
I'd also have to point out that the old cliche that "BattleTech was a Western military realistic response to Japanese mecha" is quite frankly bollocks, since BattleTech started out expressly riding on the coat tails of RoboTech. And that's even before bringing in the fact that in terms of realistic depiction of 'mechs BattleTech doesn't have much on actual examples of Real Robot subgenre of mecha anime, like aforementioned PatLABOR.
Torso cockpits arrive at higher tech levels.
Vaarna_Aarne
Notorious Internet Vandal
Well, technically the tabletop game does this, but I don't think ANYONE would make an aimed shot at either of the legs anyway in a normal situation where the target 'mech is shut down. Since it takes some pretty badass cover to actually provide cover against BattleMech weapons, the tabletop game only provides cover when either behind a small hill or half submerged in water. The primary effect of cover in tabletop is that any hit allocation rolls that would have hit the legs make the shot a miss.
There's a reason why Targeting Computer tends to get banned rather quickly in BTech groups. It's arguably worse on the cheese scale than Triple Strength Myomer custom 'mechs. The mechanics of BattleTech are just completely incompatible with freely available aimed shots.
Targeting Computers used to get banned because of the -1 to hit bonus more than anything, every group that didn't play with restraint ended up having everyone run around with clan pulse laser + TC abomination mechs that almost never missed a shot. TC were re balanced to not work with pulse lasers, but Battletech is not really a game built around balance anyway. It's hard to play it as a straight skirmish style wargame, since so many vehicles/mechs/weapons are directly weaker than other options. The tabletop game works much better run campaign style, where players have to earn their way up to better equipment and fill holes in their lineups with crap mechs because that's all they've got. It leads to more interesting strategy when you're stuck with outright weaknesses, and I am hoping that this game pulls that campaign feeling off.
Vaarna_Aarne
Notorious Internet Vandal
The original boxed set was IMO actually relatively balanced if you ran with the stock mechs and a standard lance formation, but a big part in that regard was that it had a considerably smaller number of equipment so it was somewhat focused.
Yeah I'll concede that the box set was pretty well made for interesting skirmishing. It's just that once you go beyond the box set, Battletech supplements kinda throw that out the window in favor of D&Dish campaign style gaming.
Vaarna_Aarne
Notorious Internet Vandal
Indeed, and while a staple in video game adaptations, in tabletop it was always a *massively* bad idea to allow for customization of 'mechs if you wanted a balanced skirmish.
Mozg
Arcane
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This is not something I hear people talk about much, but in the late '80s/early '90s there was a big fascination with "critical hits" as a mechanic, where everything goes to shit in one diceroll. I remember an advertisement for I think Runequest in a Dragon Magazine was seriously just their critical hit table. GURPS had its own silly crit tables with 20 different possibilities for like ten different situations (crit to the arm of a guy holding a shield, that kind of thing). D&D itself was kind of the no-crits old fashioned RPG, and the widely-copied houserule about rolling 20 giving a crit spread enough that it went in 3ED. Fallout's GURPSian crits were a "throwback" to that stuff by the late '90s. Battletech headshots seem like they were part of that too (although I didn't realize Battletech went back to '84 until I just looked on Wikipedia).
I'd say it's also kind of an anti-"gamist" thing to have big, important, unavoidable crits, that makes playing Battletech with your buddy less of an antagonistic game and more of a cooperative "reenactment of a battle that never actually happened".
Now, you may say, wouldn't it be pretty crappy to implement that core design into a CRPG/C-strategy game?
I'd say it's also kind of an anti-"gamist" thing to have big, important, unavoidable crits, that makes playing Battletech with your buddy less of an antagonistic game and more of a cooperative "reenactment of a battle that never actually happened".
Now, you may say, wouldn't it be pretty crappy to implement that core design into a CRPG/C-strategy game?
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Vaarna_Aarne
Notorious Internet Vandal
Well in BTech I'd say the only genuine way to crit in the RPG sense is the double 1 center torso hit allocation roll, otherwise you just get crits from internal damage which I'd say is the point where you are almost far past fucked already.
PS: Ain't no crit tables like the enormous crit tables of MERP/Rolemaster.
PS: Ain't no crit tables like the enormous crit tables of MERP/Rolemaster.
oldmanpaco
Master of Siestas
God I remember that. There were like 300 hundred different critical effects covering 20 different situation. It was glorious.
Vaarna_Aarne
Notorious Internet Vandal
The Finnish translation of MERP had pretty funny descriptions too (overall it was quality localisation too, aside from a typo about Hobbits having a higher bonus to Strength than Olog-Hai), I don't know if the English table for blunt weapons had "The terrifying impact shatters every bone in the target's body, killing them instantly. The body is disgusting mush. A shovel would be handy." as the instant kill result. In retrospect, it was like a bizarre premonition: Middle-Earth goes Bad Taste.
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Mike says the beta will be released in "winter". It will have the basic tactical combat skirmish mode and multiplayer support, but no campaign. Jordan says final release is "about a year from now".
EDIT: Mike says the beta will be released early next year in last month's BoardGameGeek interview.
EDIT: Mike says the beta will be released early next year in last month's BoardGameGeek interview.
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Can I just have a HD remaster of Mech Commander 1+2 instead of this dull trash?
anus_pounder
Arcane
This game could be a complete and utter trainwreck and I'd still pay top dollar for it just for the fact we can support House Liao. 
orcinator
Liturgist
But why?
(I don't think 1 was much better either but I can't remember if it had the same flaws)
Zorba the Hutt
Arcane
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Glimpse of one of the "cinematics" : "A rework of an earlier piece I did, to fit a different mood we were going for in a cinematic for BATTLETECH. (Teaser here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbvJtznqkBE)"
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