MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries by Piranha Games - now on Steam and GOG

[Haba]

But that's the thing though, isn't it? Can you blame the IS for just caring about winning? Isn't that what War is all about? What does it matter if you're the champion of 1v1 honor duels when in a real fight, your dumb ass steps on a mine. It just seems like a lot of effort for no real benefit. Something like mock battles in real battle conditions (or as close as you can get) seems like a better use of time.

I'm no military expert or historian either, so I digress.

An elegant tradition from a more civilized age

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_combat

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I would argue that the fundamental gameplay problem for MechWarrior has never been the degree of simulational aspects present, map size, or any of that sort. It has always been a single issue: Speed. Or maybe I should use agility instead, but overall point is that MechWarrior games are too heavily locked into a fairly static decisive battle of circling (or in case of MechWarrior 3, exploiting the fuck out of Clan Ultra AC20's or flamers). To put in simple terms, the problem is that Mechs cannot DODGE or otherwise do rapid tactical maneuvers. Even directional jump jets are far too slow to turn the tide.

mw4 player here. number 1 in 90% of the games with uller and owens among assaults, way before lighter mechs got a score bonus with mw4mercs.
you need maps suited for lights, maps with lots of small bumps. most of the people is convinced that urban maps are for light mechs because "dude, close combat, duh", but it's actually quite suicide because you have to scan for the enemy only on the x axis and in a way or another you always know where the enemy is going to come from.
and also you need max speed, you can't settle for anything slower than 150 km/h. unfortunately i couldn't try this in mwo because buying a new engine for a light mech would have cost me several weeks playing non-stop. pure insanity.

You must have played among some grade A suckas if they can't even pop a horizontal poptart with all the 800+ meter range hitscan they can be mounting. That reminds me, another problem that MechWarrior has is that the radar is not LOS/tag-limited and there are no active-countermeasures. Heavy Gear 2 had the best radar system in mecha games for nearly twenty years because the radar in it was not something you could rely on. Only Armored Core V came and had a better radar system because in it you need to work for your radar and make sacrifices (ie, Scan Mode, the full data view both for yourself, target info, and your sensors, disables your weapons). Then again, in 4 and For Answer the radar was also of limited value because the average combat speed is spiking somewhere around 1000 km/h.

And this is absolutely irrelevant to what I'm talking about. I'm talking about 1 on 1 duel, the basis of all mecha action. THIS is how a lightweight fights toe to toe, as designed by the Dark Souls guy:

EDIT : Also, checked up what 'Zellbrigen' is suppose to be. Found this gem -

Certain actions taken during a duel are considered dezgra and an opponent who engages in them too often can render the fight void. These include intentionally moving out of the line of sight of an opponent, intentionally moving out of weapons range of an opponent, or failing to fire a weapon at the opponent if capable of doing so, although even these may be acceptable if tactically appropriate.

Wtf?

Those are just game rules to prevent people exploiting the duelling system by challenging a mech and then running away all game so they never get to do anything, since you're not allowed to freely switch targets once you've declared a duel. If you want to follow zell then basically all you need to do is fight 1v1s only, and avoid cheap shit, and you're basically done. You can even get away with some minor cheap shit if you want, as long as it's not too egregious.
The point is to show off how good a warrior you are. Beating someone by teaming up with your friends to outnumber them doesn't prove anything. Beating someone by trickery like luring them into a minefield doesn't prove anything. Beating someone in fair 1v1 does show you're better than them. Just it doesn't work against the IS because they only care about winning, not looking good, so whoops.

But that's the thing though, isn't it? Can you blame the IS for just caring about winning? Isn't that what War is all about? What does it matter if you're the champion of 1v1 honor duels when in a real fight, your dumb ass steps on a mine. It just seems like a lot of effort for no real benefit. Something like mock battles in real battle conditions (or as close as you can get) seems like a better use of time.

I'm no military expert or historian either, so I digress.

Zellbrigen is also very much the most flagrant display of Clan hypocrisy, because the rules of Zellbrigen are quite distinctly in the advantage of standard OmniMech design principles like removing hand actuators. On average in-game rules an OmniMech has around 50% statistical advantage due to across the board part weight reduction, along with either significantly lighter or more powerful versions of the weaponry. Zellbrigen is basically just a continuation of all "honour" traditions which are actually just stacked in favour of its core practitioners. Particularly amusing when you consider the fact that the single piece of IS tech that can be an equalizer against Clannerscum is the Triple Strength Myomer, which brings itself to bear in hand-to-hand combat, but Clannerscum only cry about "muh honor" if you punch or kick them.

 

[Theldaran]

Mechwarrior 2: 31st Century Combat, the 1995 game, was a real game for real men, and beating it took some effort, that today could be not well received.

Back then it was quite something.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

But that's the thing though, isn't it? Can you blame the IS for just caring about winning? Isn't that what War is all about? What does it matter if you're the champion of 1v1 honor duels when in a real fight, your dumb ass steps on a mine. It just seems like a lot of effort for no real benefit. Something like mock battles in real battle conditions (or as close as you can get) seems like a better use of time.

I'm no military expert or historian either, so I digress.

Oh, I'm not saying it's a good idea, I'm just saying that's why they do it. Remember, Clans don't have personal property. The Clan owns everything, right down to the people themselves (they fight trials to aquire ownership of citizens all the time). The only thing a warrior can own is their honour, so it's pretty important to keep it intact.
It's a stupid concept, but hey, that's how it is. And the honour system does mostly work when they stick to fighting each other, which is basically the only time they use it now since they know the IS is either going to ignore it or exploit it to screw them.

Zellbrigen is also very much the most flagrant display of Clan hypocrisy, because the rules of Zellbrigen are quite distinctly in the advantage of standard OmniMech design principles like removing hand actuators. On average in-game rules an OmniMech has around 50% statistical advantage due to across the board part weight reduction, along with either significantly lighter or more powerful versions of the weaponry. Zellbrigen is basically just a continuation of all "honour" traditions which are actually just stacked in favour of its core practitioners. Particularly amusing when you consider the fact that the single piece of IS tech that can be an equalizer against Clannerscum is the Triple Strength Myomer, which brings itself to bear in hand-to-hand combat, but Clannerscum only cry about "muh honor" if you punch or kick them.

Strictly speaking, using a front line Clan omni against 3025 battlemechs isn't even honorable. You're meant to handicap yourself by using an underweight mech or disabling weapons or whatever so things are fair. If it's still unfair you should go even further and just fight unarmed outside your mechs, or find some other way to compete. It's true that the Clans were being hypocrites by using overpowered mechs to smash people who had no chance in the initial invasion, but that's not a failure of the honour system. That was them ignoring the honour system that's meant to prevent that. If the enemy is weak you're meant to lower your bid so you're weak too, so you'll look good if you win. Winning through overwhelming force doesn't prove anything.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Zellbrigen is also very much the most flagrant display of Clan hypocrisy, because the rules of Zellbrigen are quite distinctly in the advantage of standard OmniMech design principles like removing hand actuators. On average in-game rules an OmniMech has around 50% statistical advantage due to across the board part weight reduction, along with either significantly lighter or more powerful versions of the weaponry. Zellbrigen is basically just a continuation of all "honour" traditions which are actually just stacked in favour of its core practitioners. Particularly amusing when you consider the fact that the single piece of IS tech that can be an equalizer against Clannerscum is the Triple Strength Myomer, which brings itself to bear in hand-to-hand combat, but Clannerscum only cry about "muh honor" if you punch or kick them.

Strictly speaking, using a front line Clan omni against 3025 battlemechs isn't even honorable. You're meant to handicap yourself by using an underweight mech or disabling weapons or whatever so things are fair. If it's still unfair you should go even further and just fight unarmed outside your mechs, or find some other way to compete. It's true that the Clans were being hypocrites by using overpowered mechs to smash people who had no chance in the initial invasion, but that's not a failure of the honour system. That was them ignoring the honour system that's meant to prevent that. If the enemy is weak you're meant to lower your bid so you're weak too, so you'll look good if you win. Winning through overwhelming force doesn't prove anything.

And of course, there's still varying levels of how the Clans themselves are in this regard. There's a bit of distance with warden Clan Wolf and Jade Falcon, much less Smoke Jaguar.

 

[commie]

Mechwarrior 2: 31st Century Combat, the 1995 game, was a real game for real men, and beating it took some effort, that today could be not well received.

Back then it was quite something.

My then girlfriend was an ace at Mechwarrior 2. Finished it before I did.

90's women, best women

 

[Azrael the cat]

But that's the thing though, isn't it? Can you blame the IS for just caring about winning? Isn't that what War is all about? What does it matter if you're the champion of 1v1 honor duels when in a real fight, your dumb ass steps on a mine. It just seems like a lot of effort for no real benefit. Something like mock battles in real battle conditions (or as close as you can get) seems like a better use of time.

I'm no military expert or historian either, so I digress.

An elegant tradition from a more civilized age

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_combat

Bear in mind, half the 'noble warrior' stuff was - both in the West and Japan - propaganda to stop the peasants from revolting. That's why the French and Japanese alike banned the peasants from owning swords or other martial weapons (also why the French, like the Japanese, developed a martial art, Savate - the peasants still hated the nobles enough to make sure they knew how to fight effectively with basic farming tools + unarmed).

Don't have the reference myself, but I recall a Sargon video where he mentions a medieval battle where they fucking stopped and called a time-out because a knight got killed. They had a funeral for him and everything (and you just know there would have be a hundred or so dead footmen/peasants scattered around that they didn't give a shit about, but oh nos one of our really ultra brave daring noble knights got hurt - quick stop the fight!)

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

But that's the thing though, isn't it? Can you blame the IS for just caring about winning? Isn't that what War is all about? What does it matter if you're the champion of 1v1 honor duels when in a real fight, your dumb ass steps on a mine. It just seems like a lot of effort for no real benefit. Something like mock battles in real battle conditions (or as close as you can get) seems like a better use of time.

I'm no military expert or historian either, so I digress.

An elegant tradition from a more civilized age

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_combat

Bear in mind, half the 'noble warrior' stuff was - both in the West and Japan - propaganda to stop the peasants from revolting. That's why the French and Japanese alike banned the peasants from owning swords or other martial weapons (also why the French, like the Japanese, developed a martial art, Savate - the peasants still hated the nobles enough to make sure they knew how to fight effectively without farming tools + unarmed).

Don't have the reference myself, but I recall a Sargon video where he mentions a medieval battle where they fucking stopped and called a time-out because a knight got killed. They had a funeral for him and everything (and you just know there would have be a hundred or so dead footmen/peasants scattered around that they didn't give a shit about, but oh nos one of our really ultra brave daring noble knights got hurt - quick stop the fight!)

The entire armoured knight thing was basically war as a game for the nobility with cheat codes turned on. Things like ransoming being the standard by the book procedure for those capture should give a hint that "chivalrious" war was intended to make it so the nobility wouldn't get their bodies or feelings hurt. Which is why the fact English peasants killed thousands of French knights at Crecy when the knights tried their way against a smaller enemy force who just happened to one trained to wage war for real is one of the sweetest, sweetest moments in history. Dead useless aristo cunts all around. Though I suppose Warren Ellis is correct, pity about all those poor horses.

 

[Theldaran]

Say all you want, your filthy lumpen-peasants can't stand against the holy wrath of Amber Scott's SJW paladins.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Campaign missions unlocked through real cash... "nothing in life is free pilot" says the gruff badly accented russian voice over.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.pcgamer.com/mechwarrior-5/

Everything we know about MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries
We talk to Piranha Games to get all the early details on the next singleplayer MechWarrior game.

A new singleplayer-only MechWarrior is coming in 2018. That's a long ways off, but I sat down with Piranha Games president Russ Bullock to talk about their plans for bringing MechWarrior back to its roots and what shape that will take. Bullock is quick to stress that, outside from the live demo that prefaced the announcement, MechWarrior 5 is still very early in development and that many of its features are still being pieced together. "One thing we've learned over is just to be cautious with expectations with our playerbase," he says. "We want to make sure we're really certain about things before they go out."

NEED TO KNOW
Release date 2018
Developer Piranha Games
Publisher Piranha Games
Engine Unreal 4
Key details SP-only; minimum 24 mechs in combat; level generation; no microtransactions

While the nitty-gritty details will have to wait until MechWarrior 5 is further along in development, what we do know is that Piranha Games is working to evoke the unfettered sense of scale and freedom of the first MechWarrior game released in 1989. Players will take charge of a struggling mercenary outfit in the Inner Sphere, the massive region of space surrounding Earth. While there will be a loose story and some pivotal story moments during the campaign, MechWarrior 5 is first and foremost a sandbox-esque game where players have the freedom to choose where to go, which houses to fight for, and how to equip their soldiers.

MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries is completely standalone and won't have any microtransactions, Bullock tells me. Instead, the game will be a "you pay full price, you get the game, you're done" kind of deal. Developed in Unreal 4, MechWarrior 5 is being made by a separate team than the one working on MechWarrior Online at Piranha, which has been publicly available since late 2012. It will be self-published, and there is no plan to utilize a platform like Steam's Early Access to release the game in an unfinished state. "I can't really see anyway that will work for this game," Bullock says.

A mercenary's life for me
It's been over 15 years since the last singleplayer MechWarrior game was released, so you can't be blamed if you've never had a chance to dive into the incredibly deep BattleTech universe. The MechWarrior series is a strategic FPS where players pilot a single mech into combat while giving orders to supporting squads called 'lances.' Mechs aren't just disposable robots however, they are cherished and valued relics of the noble houses that pass them down from generation to generation.

Set during the Third Succession War of 3015, MechWarrior 5 takes place much earlier in the timeline than what some fans may be used to. During the live demo, a character remarked that the Shadowhawk Bullock piloted was more than 500 years old, highlighting that, at this point in the timeline, mechs are relatively rare. But MechWarrior 5 won't stay stuck in 3015 either. The campaign will take place over the course of 34 years.

"We want to go from 3015 right up to the clan invasion of 3049," Bullock tells me. "What this allows us to do is to have players experience being a startup, floundering mercenary business. You can think of it like you're brand new and green and you have this half-working mech and just enough resources to take on your first mission. But by the endgame, the timeline has moved along up to near the clan invasion and you have maybe an entire company of elite mercenaries and BattleMechs and you're taking the hardest missions the houses can throw at you."

I think 95 percent of MechWarrior players will never have had this much freedom when it comes to where and who they fight for.

The first-person combat will build off of the foundation established in MechWarrior Online. "We don't want to reinvent the wheel in certain areas," says Bullock. "If there's one thing that almost everybody would agree on in our community is that one of the strongest elements of MechWarrior Online is the mech combat. It's tight, it's exciting."

Obviously the big difference is that players won't be battling against human opponents. Bullock wasn't able to confirm the exact scope of combat missions, but did say that he has "minimum desired goals" of 12 versus 12, company-on-company combat—the same size offered in MechWarrior Online. Until they start building the AI that'll pilot those mechs, there's no guarantee that MechWarrior 5 will hit that target, however. With the countless planets of the Inner Sphere to fight on, MechWarrior 5 will use "seeded" levels which will generate terrain dynamically based on a variety of factors. Mechs won't be the only thing melting under your alpha strikes, either. Combat missions will feature ground and flying vehicles and potentially infantry.

It's not clear how the timeline will advance as players take on missions, but Bullock confirms it will have a profound impact on what weapons and mechs are available. With the story looking to conclude just as the clan invasion of 3049 is heating up, he suggests that players shouldn't expect to access the powerful OmniMechs used by the clans, which are more modular than their Inner Sphere counterparts.

Wartime economies
What players will have access to is a large swathe of the Inner Sphere to travel through and fight for. While later singleplayer MechWarrior games seemed to narrow in focus, MechWarrior 5 looks to blow the series wide open by pairing its nuanced, strategic combat with an equally complex management simulator. "Our goal is to create a very in-depth manager experience," Bullock says. "It's sort of like taking—and this might be overdoing it—Football Manager wrapped over top of MechWarrior 1. [MechWarrior 5] is about managing a business, you're trying to keep it afloat and save money so that you can not only do your repairs but also get ahead of your repairs and go to the market and say, 'okay cool now I can afford to get a shiny new 50-tonne medium mech.'"

"The thing I really want to drive home here is that I don't run into too many people that played MechWarrior 1 in 1989, but everyone played MechWarrior 2 in 1995. But since Mechwarrior 2 onward, there was not nearly as much of the freedom and replayability that we want to go for. There should be very little in the form of like, 'I have three missions to choose from and that's it.' I think you should be able to choose which great house you play for whenever you want as long as you can afford, as a business, to move your unit around the Inner Sphere. I think 95 percent of MechWarrior players will never have had this much freedom when it comes to where and who they fight for."

Part of that freedom will be a little different than what most MechWarrior Online players are used to. In MechWarrior Online, mechs are customized using the 'Mechlab,' which allows you to build a mech with any kind of weapon loadout so long as it follows some loose principles. One of the bigger criticisms with the Mechlab is that it ruins the flavor of each individual mech by making them all feel the same within their weight class.

Bullock explains that, while no final decision has been made, MechWarrior 5 is looking to focus more on a "variant-based free market system" that guides how mechs are outfitted. What this means is that, instead of open-ended customization, mechs will have a handful of variants for each chassis that they will conform to. This should make mechs feel more unique to one another while reinforcing the roles that they fill on the battlefield.

While Bullock wasn't able to go too deep into detail, he did suggest that along with mech customization, players could expect to also have a degree of control over the mercenaries they hire, what they pilot, and how their lances are formed. "Not since MechWarrior 1 has a game made you think about all the c-bills [the currency of the BattleTech universe] coming in the door. We don't want it to just be like, I hit my repair-all button and now I don't worry about any economy in this game. The point is that we want someone to really manage that minutiae."

Speaking of economy, Bullock said that MechWarrior 5 will feature a "dynamic" in-game economy that will change based on the timeline and where the player is currently located. "A lot of factors will play into what's on the market," he says.

We've always felt like MechWarrior Online was, at most, half of the MechWarrior market. There's a huge portion out there that's just waiting for a singleplayer experience.

As an example, Bullock suggests that if a player were to travel to the more destitute Outer Periphery, they might not have access to the top of the line gear found at the center of the Inner Sphere. Salvaging will also play an important role. In combat, players will need to think carefully about how they engage enemy mechs. If they're smart, they could headshot the mech, killing the pilot but preserving the chassis for their own use. The system is more comprehensive than that, allowing players to shoot weapons off of enemy mechs to later recover and repurpose.

With the new BattleTech turn-based strategy game due in 2017, there hasn't been a better time to get up to speed with this 30-year-old universe. While MechWarrior 5 will undoubtedly appeal to an audience who never had a chance to play these games growing up, Bullock is serious about making sure MechWarrior 5 is first and foremost for the fans. "Being a smaller independent developer, we know who our customers are and we're making this for them," he says. "We've always felt like MechWarrior Online was, at most, half of the MechWarrior market. There's a huge portion out there that's just waiting for a singleplayer experience."

 

[Kem0sabe]

MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries is completely standalone and won't have any microtransactions, Bullock tells me. Instead, the game will be a "you pay full price, you get the game, you're done" kind of deal

Until suddenly it does. They will certainly release a bunch of DLC, for a pay2win developer not to do this goes against their nature, they can't help it.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Going from 3015 to 3049 is quite ambitious, and IMO welcome since its most of the better BTech source material right there.

 

[Infinitron]

If nothing else, this game's development is good for HBS's BattleTech since they'll be working on assets that can be ported over. And vice versa, I guess. Synergy!

 

[Morkar Left]

A new singleplayer mechwarrior game as a mercenary is great news. Still a lot that can make this game bad. Still, I'm looking forward to it. It's been ages since the last. I fucking love Battletech.

EDIT:

What players will have access to is a large swathe of the Inner Sphere to travel through and fight for. While later singleplayer MechWarrior games seemed to narrow in focus, MechWarrior 5 looks to blow the series wide open by pairing its nuanced, strategic combat with an equally complex management simulator. "Our goal is to create a very in-depth manager experience," Bullock says. "It's sort of like taking—and this might be overdoing it—Football Manager wrapped over top of MechWarrior 1. [MechWarrior 5] is about managing a business, you're trying to keep it afloat and save money so that you can not only do your repairs but also get ahead of your repairs and go to the market and say, 'okay cool now I can afford to get a shiny new 50-tonne medium mech.'"

Don't have the reference myself, but I recall a Sargon video where he mentions a medieval battle where they fucking stopped and called a time-out because a knight got killed. They had a funeral for him and everything (and you just know there would have be a hundred or so dead footmen/peasants scattered around that they didn't give a shit about, but oh nos one of our really ultra brave daring noble knights got hurt - quick stop the fight!)

Ahh yes, Bretonnian knights in action. Can't wait till they are available for Total War Warhammer.

 

[Mangoose]

Could be interdasting

I'm glad to see that they're using Unreal Engine 4.

Oh yeah? Have fun messing with the config inis for that. Ugh. All those scalability crap.

UE4: No in-game options to turn off specific elements. Many settings are grouped together. For example, you'll have an AA in-game setting, but the options will be for "low quality, medium quality, high quality, etc.) instead of "turn off FXAA", keep and choose SMAA level, etc. So, FXAA +SMAA are in the same group, and the developer decides his own set of AA "scalability groups" (AA Level 1 = low FXAA only, AA Level 2 = med FXAA + some MSAA, etc). Instead of allowing you to micromanage whether you want to play SMAA with no or little FXAA, stuff like that.

Another example: You can't turn off bloom, light shafts, lens flares, DoF, motion blur etc. separately.

Now this can often be tweaked by over-riding the vanilla scalability groups, but that only works if the dev provides what their original scalability groups were. For Warmachine Tactics, the devs did provide, unencrypted, the default scalability settings they decided on.

But, really, I shouldn't even have to touch any .ini files for what could be simple in-game options: AA settings, post-processing settings, effects settings, LOD settings. Hell, you could do all that in UE3.

 

[Siveon]

If nothing else, this game's development is good for HBS's BattleTech since they'll be working on assets that can be ported over. And vice versa, I guess. Synergy!

That's very unlikely. You can quote me in 2017 or whatever but I can't say I've heard of devs doing that between other devs.

 

[Santander02]

A good video series for anyone interested in catching up on the history of this franchise: (watch on jewtube for the whole playlist)



About Mech V: Not sure if want, everything I've heard about Pyranha's Mech Online ranges from it being typical f2p shit to merely mediocre, also I'm still salty about them shutting down Living legends. I can only hope they've gotten better after years of receiving feedback from Online's player base.

 

[sser]

Walk across a handrail-less platform ten stories in the air to then lean over and clamber up and into a sloping metal structure.

 

[Infinitron]

If nothing else, this game's development is good for HBS's BattleTech since they'll be working on assets that can be ported over. And vice versa, I guess. Synergy!

That's very unlikely. You can quote me in 2017 or whatever but I can't say I've heard of devs doing that between other devs.

They already have.

 

[Direwolf]

I would argue that the fundamental gameplay problem for MechWarrior has never been the degree of simulational aspects present, map size, or any of that sort. It has always been a single issue: Speed. Or maybe I should use agility instead, but overall point is that MechWarrior games are too heavily locked into a fairly static decisive battle of circling (or in case of MechWarrior 3, exploiting the fuck out of Clan Ultra AC20's or flamers). To put in simple terms, the problem is that Mechs cannot DODGE or otherwise do rapid tactical maneuvers. Even directional jump jets are far too slow to turn the tide.

Considering that canonically in BattleTech one of the advantages of a BattleMech over conventional vehicles is supposed to be the fact they are all-terrain vehicles that can perfectly mimic organic movements thanks to their myomer muscle construction as well as exert manual force equal or above its own mass, it's always the thing that gets most overlooked in adaptations because the tabletop only truly managed to model this when Triple Strength Myomer exploiting became a thing. Basically, the canonical reason for the dominance of the BattleMech is not just the fact its durability and firepower rivals that of tanks and AeroSpace fighters, it's the fact the BattleMech can navigate any terrain AND it knows kung fu. An example of trying to represent the style would be that no, the fight between a single Medium BattleMech and a Von Luckner tank column would not be a stand-up shootout. The Von Luckners would be tactically helpless and get reamed hard. There's not much a limited mobility tracked vehicle can do when the BattleMech DFAs them one by one as it jumps over hills and forests before reaction can be mounted, or if it can exert enough manual force to flip a Von Luckner to its side and use it as a makeshift barrier and battering ram against the others. The BattleMech is stronger and faster as a physical entity,

Similar to how the Achilles' Heel of the Clans that's completely absent from vidya adaptations is Zellbrigen. In MechWarrior games everyone fights like a Trueborn cockfag adhering to Zellbrigen, and in desperate need of a reminder that a charging Atlas kicks/punches/rams/bodyslams more devastatingly than Ultra AC20... Or that nothing says certain kill than a direct hit with DFA on a Heavy or Assault. And that's before you even remember the fact that the tabletop rules have as far as I know never gotten around to actually reflecting the fact Atlas and its variants are supposed to be absurdly strong physically even for 100 tonners (tech readouts have flavour text describing how Atlas is uniquely capable of lifting other 'Mechs off the ground without effort and tossing them about like toys).

EDIT: So in short, IMO what MechWarrior needs is moar speed, and an indepth hand-to-hand combat engine. And for Jaime Wolf or Big Boss to instruct sometime before Tukayyid that Clan MechWarriors only know how to fight as MechWarriors, and have completely forgotten how warriors fight (or animals, if you want to play the whole irony of Clans using animal motifs but being a society completely divorced from state of nature).

So what you are saying is that the closest game to the original concept of BattleTech is TitanFall?

 

[shihonage]

I would argue that the fundamental gameplay problem for MechWarrior has never been the degree of simulational aspects present, map size, or any of that sort. It has always been a single issue: Speed. Or maybe I should use agility instead, but overall point is that MechWarrior games are too heavily locked into a fairly static decisive battle of circling (or in case of MechWarrior 3, exploiting the fuck out of Clan Ultra AC20's or flamers). To put in simple terms, the problem is that Mechs cannot DODGE or otherwise do rapid tactical maneuvers. Even directional jump jets are far too slow to turn the tide.

Yeah, let's ignore what makes Mechwarrior Mechwarrior, and instead convert it into shitty TPS.

How about NO. How about we do NOT do that. Mechwarrior is not about "turning the tide thru maneuverability". And the sim aspect is not just about physical movement. It is about whether you picked the right mech for the right weather conditions and scenario, it is about managing the heat/damage patterns of both yours and enemy mech's, about whether you grouped your weapons correctly and in what patterns you fire them in.

And amazingly, I've had situations in MW2 campaign where I barely survived, by positioning an enemy mech between myself and another enemy mech. So yes you can turn the tide thru maneuverability. Just not in the way, thankfully, of every shitty mech-pretending TPS out there.

Yes, many times you will march to certain doom, your mech's arms being blasted off, overheating, knowing that you stand no chance. It cannot be reversed, the tide can't be turned, because that's how some things are in life. That is the Mechwarrior experience.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I would argue that the fundamental gameplay problem for MechWarrior has never been the degree of simulational aspects present, map size, or any of that sort. It has always been a single issue: Speed. Or maybe I should use agility instead, but overall point is that MechWarrior games are too heavily locked into a fairly static decisive battle of circling (or in case of MechWarrior 3, exploiting the fuck out of Clan Ultra AC20's or flamers). To put in simple terms, the problem is that Mechs cannot DODGE or otherwise do rapid tactical maneuvers. Even directional jump jets are far too slow to turn the tide.

Yeah, let's ignore what makes Mechwarrior Mechwarrior, and instead convert it into shitty TPS.

How about NO. How about we do NOT do that. Mechwarrior is not about "turning the tide thru maneuverability". And the sim aspect is not just about physical movement. It is about whether you picked the right mech for the right weather conditions and scenario, it is about managing the heat/damage patterns of both yours and enemy mech's, about whether you grouped your weapons correctly and in what patterns you fire them in.

And amazingly, I've had situations in MW2 campaign where I barely survived, by positioning an enemy mech between myself and another enemy mech. So yes you can turn the tide thru maneuverability. Just not in the way, thankfully, of every shitty mech-pretending TPS out there.

Yes, many times you will march to certain doom, your mech's arms being blasted off, overheating, knowing that you stand no chance. It cannot be reversed, the tide can't be turned, because that's how some things are in life. That is the Mechwarrior experience.

Laughable. For one thing, MechWarrior experience has absolutely nothing to do with real life, because in real life it'd be sudden poof->dead because of a missile fired several kilometers away by some guys that were trained and equipped to completely fool your sensors. Or the OFP analogy of hearing zip->death (then again, OFP is specifically about military pornogasm, unlike MechWarrior which by its very premise is unrealistic). In a real life situation a BattleMech would never be either doable nor viable, especially not one with as many weapon systems as presented. In the only equivalent fight, which is face-to-face mano-a-mano with either nothing or sharp sticks and armor, the tide is very much turnable and the most significant factor is skill.

The core issue is that MechWarrior is a skill-free game where only a bare minimum of skill is required because mechanically it's designed to limit the degree skill matters. It's why it's *never* been even close to the level of Heavy Gear 2 or Armored Core series. Even besides the aspect of it being limited in combat that's slowed down to handicap for pansies that can't fight for their life like a man, even the simulational aspect is subpar to the aforementioned games. There's no real electronic warfare options (ECM in MechWarrior is not worthy of its name, it's nothing more than a modifier to basic calculations), not even basic active countermeasures like in Heavy Gear 2, much less active scanner pods of Armored Core V series. Radar is always limited to the simplicity of base+bap-ecm, and radar itself is omniscient if target is in range (one of the most exciting features to me in MekPak4 would have been the promised terrain-affected and los-limited radar). There are no melee options. Your reactor is only for your movement speed, and only movement quality that has more variable than speed in its calculation is torso twist. White boi mech can't jump without jump jets, and jump jets are so SLOOOOOOOOW a more descriptive name for them would be "gentle elevation fart." Missile lockon and flight behaviour is standardized. Heat is laughably easy to manage. From MW2 onward lasers are hitscan, by contrast there are no hitscan weapons at all in Armored Core games which is why weapons have things like EFFECTIVE range (because ballistics will simply keep flying and losing speed until Coriolis effect makes them hit the ground, missiles run out of fuel and fall, and only some energy weapons dissipate), muzzle velocity, accuracy, and a very long list of other non-impact variables are of statistical significance. Etc, etc.

Until MechWarrior 4, the process of building a Mech had chassis reduced to nothing but a set of hitboxes for a given weight class (aside from torso twist, where it's generally notable only with Vulture because of its often unique 360 degree twist), which while Heavy Gear 2 also has a negative side the Armored Core series veers away completely and has every part from limbs, torso, and head up and down selected and have highly varying performance at given tasks. To give a good example of what that means on the mechanical level, there's no statistical measure for how quickly the mech can move its arms, while that's just one entry on the page of stats for Arms in AC. A single look at the statistical page of a mech in Armored Core is enough to demonstrate a whole different level sim it operates on compared to MechWarrior. Compared to Armored Core or Heavy Gear 2, MechWarrior is a shitty FPS.

Sorry but not sorry, when the height of skill is knowing how weapon group cycling is set up and how to circle of doom or poptart, you are playing a mecha sim that keeps kid gloves on so as not to accidentally throw real challenges at you where you must overcome statistical disadvantage through skill as the only force multiplier.


PS: MechWarrior 2's graphics have aged about as well as a septic tank.

 

[Black]

by Piranha Games

What are you fags so excited about? Have you not seen MWO? Have you not heard what (((they))) did to MW:LL mod?
Is this really Codex?

story-based

OH BOY, THAT'S WHAT MW NEEDED

 

[warpig]

What are you fags so excited about? Have you not seen MWO? Have you not heard what (((they))) did to MW:LL mod?
Is this really Codex?

MWO is an F2P game, it's supposed to be shitty by design. That does not necessarily have to mean that the dev will fuck up a normal sp game. There are no SP Mechwarrior or Mechwarrior-like games so I'll be happy with this if it turns out to be at least a somewhat ok, "good for what it is" game.