KickStarter BATTLETECH - turn-based mech combat from Harebrained Schemes

[oldmanpaco]

When I heard this one was shit

It's not terrible, it's just a wasted opportunity. It could have been so much better. But I'd encourage anyone interested in BattleTech to at least give it a try.

Nah man. This game was shit. People should not give the devs money like I foolishly did.

 

[Stavrophore]

Whoever programmed this pile of shit shouldn't be working in the industry at this level. I can't comprehend how you can ship something like this and still look at yourself in the mirror - and then proceed to do absolutely nothing about it and release some half-ass cashgrab DLC's the following year. It's doubly disappointing because the base game, while bland, provided plenty of modding opportunities to make something great. However, this isn't Bethesda level incompetence, this is so much worse, because mods can't fix fundamental problems with the engine itself.

I understand that its truism at current year, but Unity attracted lots of developers without strong knowledge of algorithms and proper coding starting from low level languages. The people who can write efficient algorithms aren't working on Unity games, or even in gaming industry.

 

[underground nymph]

BT isn’t shit at all. Missed opportunities indeed. The question is — why. Lack of financing I’d say.
As for the main campaign I’ve done it and had overall a good time, yet always wanting more. More tech, more pilots development, more mech customization. Some plot missions were really cool, especially those with timers.
Pity they abandoned the franchise, because Urban Warfare was overall a right step towards something bigger tactically and visually.
Thing is — a market for oldschool gaming is pretty thin and exhausted, thus we have great concepts with lack of implemented features.

 

[someone else]

Decided to wait till it gets patched with more content at a discount.
Maybe it was the bad reviews & low expectations but I'm having fun despite the flaws.
You can have 'they' as a non-binary pronoun for your pilots.

I notice vehicles often have rare weapons while mechs don't and I appear to get those rare weapons as a salvage, does this work with no rare salvage option?

 

[Cael]

BT isn’t shit at all. Missed opportunities indeed. The question is — why. Lack of financing I’d say.

More like a tranny trying too hard to be a girl and ended up sounding like an autistic, squealing 6 year old. "She is so pretty and beautiful and she's a PRINCESS!!! SQUEEEE!!!!"

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

wait till it gets patched

dude, the game's dead, it's been like that for months already. maybe a year? i don't know, they said the last expansion would had been the last expansion ever.

 

[True Ukrainian]

Decided to wait till it gets patched with more content at a discount.
Maybe it was the bad reviews & low expectations but I'm having fun despite the flaws.
You can have 'they' as a non-binary pronoun for your pilots.

I notice vehicles often have rare weapons while mechs don't and I appear to get those rare weapons as a salvage, does this work with no rare salvage option?

Its enjoyable at first, but then several hours in you realize that your strategy never changes and that light units are fairly worthless. Then it becomes a bore.

 

[someone else]

wait till it gets patched

dude, the game's dead, it's been like that for months already. maybe a year? i don't know, they said the last expansion would had been the last expansion ever.

Yes, I'm saying that I bought it after waiting till it gets patched/dlcs with discounts, after the last update in Feb this year.
Base game was less than $10.
Going to wait for MW5 as well.

One thing about BT is I don't find it addictive.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Going to wait for MW5 as well.

i wouldn't. i doubt that can be saved.

 

[valky667]

One thing about BT is I don't find it addictive.

It's a 2-sided sword and I played quite a bit ~28 years ago, usually 3025 & 3055 rules. But clanner-player are the biggest ego-whores there is; they can't do jackshit without their battle-hardened 1/1/1/1 pilots + extra re-rolls & other gimmicks.
And if you by any chance land a lucky hit, let's say a head-crit and force the pilot to eject - thy come up with other stupid nonsense and call it 'house-rules' sure, sure....
It's nice for a change with Inner Sphere player only or mercs.

@topic: I never got to finish the campaign, because it's repetitive³³ and they even said 'mix your lance' - 'use a combination of arms' blabla .. once you sit safe & sound in your 90-100to lance you just call it a day. The special BK (BlackKnight semi-omni) is quite nice, though.
Tried to give the game another shot recently in the new free-mode..played for ~40h, same story. I still rack up 191 hours gametime, so it's not a complete loss.
hint: avoid the DLCs, they are a stupid cash-grab and use a mod instead....same effect but cheaper.

And as Syme mentioned: Mechcommander is the coolest game ever released, even the AddOn was awesome. There it actually paid off to take a light mech every now and then...
Darn /me makes a note on my to-play-list!

 

[Cael]

One thing about BT is I don't find it addictive.

It's a 2-sided sword and I played quite a bit ~28 years ago, usually 3025 & 3055 rules. But clanner-player are the biggest ego-whores there is; they can't do jackshit without their battle-hardened 1/1/1/1 pilots + extra re-rolls & other gimmicks.
And if you by any chance land a lucky hit, let's say a head-crit and force the pilot to eject - thy come up with other stupid nonsense and call it 'house-rules' sure, sure....
It's nice for a change with Inner Sphere player only or mercs.

@topic: I never got to finish the campaign, because it's repetitive³³ and they even said 'mix your lance' - 'use a combination of arms' blabla .. once you sit safe & sound in your 90-100to lance you just call it a day. The special BK (BlackKnight semi-omni) is quite nice, though.
Tried to give the game another shot recently in the new free-mode..played for ~40h, same story. I still rack up 191 hours gametime, so it's not a complete loss.
hint: avoid the DLCs, they are a stupid cash-grab and use a mod instead....same effect but cheaper.

And as Syme mentioned: Mechcommander is the coolest game ever released, even the AddOn was awesome. There it actually paid off to take a light mech every now and then...
Darn /me makes a note on my to-play-list!

In Mechcommander 2, unless under special circumstances, I run with lights or the Sha Yu. You get to train up more pilots that way, and speed is crucial to several missions.

In Mechcommander 1, I will always have the fastest 'mech I have in the field. It's only task is to grab all of the resource warehouses before the mission ends.

 

[valky667]

In Mechcommander 2, unless under special circumstances, I run with lights or the Sha Yu. You get to train up more pilots that way, and speed is crucial to several missions.

In Mechcommander 1, I will always have the fastest 'mech I have in the field. It's only task is to grab all of the resource warehouses before the mission ends.

MC2: while finished back then...I wasn't really satisfied by the shift to 3D (garbage) - like nearly every game tried. 'hey look, fancy 3D....' It looked and felt dead, it's hard for me to describe it..but it was just not 'wow - holy fuck'. You did your missions and such, but it never felt fulfilling, but rather empty.

MC1 on the other hand...I played in a league with the platform they had back then online MP. That is such a masterpiece! I might have finished both campaigns (game + addon) at least 4 times....I get horny just thinking of that game....the outfitting of your mechs, the replay of a mission if you don't get some mech you desire....especially early on.
And then you field your first Atlas.... *sigh* - this MECH has actually a big fucking 'FUCK YOU' sign above its head! Fuck and I just got a tear in my eye....

Sadly, I don't have a CD/DVD rom anymore since 10 years....but am a mighty pirate 'lol' (I have the org + gold edition somewhere, though! I like to support good games)

That times.....ah 'MCG.iso' sounds legit ^^

 

[Cael]

In Mechcommander 2, unless under special circumstances, I run with lights or the Sha Yu. You get to train up more pilots that way, and speed is crucial to several missions.

In Mechcommander 1, I will always have the fastest 'mech I have in the field. It's only task is to grab all of the resource warehouses before the mission ends.

MC2: while finished back then...I wasn't really satisfied by the shift to 3D (garbage) - like nearly every game tried. 'hey look, fancy 3D....' It looked and felt dead, it's hard for me to describe it..but it was just not 'wow - holy fuck'. You did your missions and such, but it never felt fulfilling, but rather empty.

MC1 on the other hand...I played in a league with the platform they had back then online MP. That is such a masterpiece! I might have finished both campaigns (game + addon) at least 4 times....I get horny just thinking of that game....the outfitting of your mechs, the replay of a mission if you don't get some mech you desire....especially early on.
And then you field your first Atlas.... *sigh* - this MECH has actually a big fucking 'FUCK YOU' sign above its head! Fuck and I just got a tear in my eye....

Sadly, I don't have a CD/DVD rom anymore since 10 years....but am a mighty pirate 'lol' (I have the org + gold edition somewhere, though! I like to support good games)

That times.....ah 'MCG.iso' sounds legit ^^

The Atlas was too slow. I ran with Mad Cats and Vultures a lot, IIRC, until I started getting Masakaris.

 

[jac8awol]

You know a game is shit when its discussion page has people rather discussing 20 year old games that did a better job.

 

[Phinx]

BT isn’t shit at all. Missed opportunities indeed. The question is — why. Lack of financing I’d say.
As for the main campaign I’ve done it and had overall a good time, yet always wanting more. More tech, more pilots development, more mech customization. Some plot missions were really cool, especially those with timers.
Pity they abandoned the franchise, because Urban Warfare was overall a right step towards something bigger tactically and visually.
Thing is — a market for oldschool gaming is pretty thin and exhausted, thus we have great concepts with lack of implemented features.

It's more than just lack of funding. Shadowrun Returns they received a fair bit more than their initial kickstarter goal. Couldn't even implement a decent save system, optimization is terrible. Issues kept cropping up all the way till Hong Kong. I love the lore and decided to start up a project on the Hong Kong engine as it's something I've always wanted to do. The hoops I've had to jump through to make it to where I am now is ridiculous.

To fit 40 plus NPC's on a single map makes the load times nigh intolerable, so I've had to post load NPC's as you enter interiors inside a scene. It's not hard to see why their large city maps feel like a ghost town and yet still have insane loading times.

Pseudo real-time runs into tons of issues when scripting. Modding custom music was a pain, they made tools for UGC creators and modders, but with next to no way to import models. Persistence between scenes doesn't exist unless you manually attach variables to keep track of everything.

They do some good work, but god damn do they need to get some higher skilled programmers in the mix to fix up their mess. Year after year I wait for some good Mech games, Warhammer 40k games, and Shadowrun games. HBS's Shadowrun series I did enjoy btw, but just like Battletech, there is so much wasted potential.

I just purchased Mechanicus a week ago also, more wasted potential. Never ends.....

 

[Cael]

If you guys want to play a Battletech game with all the real rules and virtual open sandbox, try MegaMek (specifically MekHQ, which allows you to play against the bot, aka,. single player). It takes a bit of setting up, but once it is done, man, it gets intense, and in this one, unlike other games, money WILL be a big factor. Be prepared for dwarf fortress style of "losing is fun".

Best of all? It is free and sjw-free.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

just fyi: updating roguetech means it nuclearizes the installation and redownloads all its several gbs it's made of.
fuck you, i wanted to go to sleep two hours ago.

 

[Country_Gravy]

If you guys want to play a Battletech game with all the real rules and virtual open sandbox, try MegaMek (specifically MekHQ, which allows you to play against the bot, aka,. single player). It takes a bit of setting up, but once it is done, man, it gets intense, and in this one, unlike other games, money WILL be a big factor. Be prepared for dwarf fortress style of "losing is fun".

Best of all? It is free and sjw-free.

I was really hoping that this game was going to be a stripped down MegaMek. That's really what I want. MegaMek with a sleek UI, focused story, mercenary Inner Sphere battles once that is done. And I want an ending for each faction if I can somehow help them dominate the IS.

That's all I want. Instead I got this game that I backed and it turned out to be a turd.

 

[lightbane]

It was really bad to see in real time the warning signs (Kevin "becoming" Kevina, casually raping the lore, asspulling a form-fitting suit that was never seen before, the she-mudslime engineer, etc.) but nothing could be done because you happened to think it would be like that, instead of a poorly coded mess with a pronoun selector and lack of blonde hair option for your character creation.

 

[Cael]

It was really bad to see in real time the warning signs (Kevin "becoming" Kevina, casually raping the lore, asspulling a form-fitting suit that was never seen before, the she-mudslime engineer, etc.) but nothing could be done because you happened to think it would be like that, instead of a poorly coded mess with a pronoun selector and lack of blonde hair option for your character creation.

The tranny raped the lore so hard, the motherfuckers had to invent new stuff that goes against established canon in order to asspull their way out of it:

"The Argo class of DropShips was created specifically for the (apocryphal) 2018 BattleTech video game over the course of the crowdfunding campaign, and fans were quick to point out that its capability to carry Leopard DropShips with it through a jump seemed to violate established rules for how jump drives worked (the DropShip/JumpShip dichotomy and ultimately, the entire BattleTech FTL space travel concept deriving from it). The MDCS was invented to reconcile the Argo with established canon."

 

[DeepOcean]

Anyone know something about copyright law? Can you take the mech designs from BattleTech and use them on other games with only changing the names of the mechs, locations, characters and the weapons? I heard you can copyright specific stuff like names, story text or specific material that was used on the game like textures and models that were actually used on the game but you cant copyright art style, in theory, you could copy the visual design, make your own models on your game with your own made up names without Microsoft suing you into oblivion.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

nope.
appearances are copyrighted too.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Heck, BattleTech specifically has a LOT of history with litigation over visual likenesses, the whole Harmony Gold debacle that has lasted decades is heavily about that. BattleTech as a whole is even more of a minefield than usual because of all the complicated shit about who owns what, and then you have licensed art that's owned by a third-party (and one reason why the Harmony Gold debacle is so complicated and involves more than just BattleTech as an IP, the root cause there was the complicated legal status of licensing of Macross outside of Japan, as original boxed set of BattleTech licensed art from Macross and Harmony Gold claimed total ownership to all things Macross outside of Japan due to some weird 80's licensing contracts they had with Big West Advertising Tatsunoko, or rather Harmony Gold were are just being total crooks about the matter and trying to steal someone else's shit), and so on.

But yea, short version would be that there's a reason why a term like "legally distinct" exists and is most often specifically about visuals.

 

[lightbane]

The tranny raped the lore so hard, the motherfuckers had to invent new stuff that goes against established canon in order to asspull their way out of it:

If only that was the only wrong thing with the game. Lore-wise, it was much worse that mission where apparently a priceless bunch of archeotech is destroyed by the she-mudslime engineer for reasons I don't remember right now... But nothing happens. No immediate declaration of war by everyone in the star system, no punishment for destroying Star League tech, nothing.

 

[Cael]

The tranny raped the lore so hard, the motherfuckers had to invent new stuff that goes against established canon in order to asspull their way out of it:

If only that was the only wrong thing with the game. Lore-wise, it was much worse that mission where apparently a priceless bunch of archeotech is destroyed by the she-mudslime engineer for reasons I don't remember right now... But nothing happens. No immediate declaration of war by everyone in the star system, no punishment for destroying Star League tech, nothing.

We already went through that a few dozen pages back. Yes. The entire lot, including that pretty princess, should have had everyone from ComStar to the fucking Clans dropped on their heads for blowing up that outpost castle filled with LosTech.

And let us not even talk about the use of WMDs and such, which was one of the reasons the Clans went apeshit on the wobbies. So apeshit that anyone who got in between them and a wobbie gets fucking murdered for just being there.