Codex Review RPG Codex Review: BATTLETECH

[Chippy]

So my summary from reading this thread is; the writing is shit, even if you ignore that the gameplay mechanics are too frustrating, it doesn't hook you on the Battletech lore, and the tone of the game is comparable to Jordan Weismann and Mitch Gitelman being the George Lucas of Battletech and handing the reins over to Kathleen Kennedy?.

 

[Black]

and the tone of the game is comparable to Jordan Weismann and Mitch Gitelman being the George Lucas of Battletech and handing the reins over to Kathleen Kennedy?.

Just another case of has-beens.

 

[Nutria]

All things that were already available in Mechcommander over a decade ago.

This is what I keep coming back to every time I think about BattleTech. MechCommander might have dumbed down things like designing your mechs, but it was great at using combined arms to give you a lot of interesting tactical choices. In BattleTech, there isn't even any use for light mechs. You just bring whatever is the heaviest you've got and bang away at the enemy until they're all dead.

 

[MF]

I mostly agree and I'll add that MP Skirmish is a major disappointment as well. My cousin is an avid TT player and we used to play a couple of games a year together. He moved to Canada, so we backed this..thing and thought we could get our fix playing this online. Not only are the mechanics inferior to the original game, but running it is such a drag that it would probably be faster to play tabletop. Including the flight over.

That's not Unity's fault though. Unity is great and it doesn't have to run like shit. Poor performance is 100% Harebrained's fault. They load assets dynamically -which is useful if you want to do cosmetic in-app purchase DLC or something I guess? Otherwise a really bad idea-, they have multiple audio sources on each mech -how? why? didn't they learn how to overload audio sources?-, they didn't make custom LOD models -Unity's default distance decimation isn't bad, but in the case of blocky mechs this is such an obvious optimisation win that I don't know how they missed it-, they have bloated savegames with exponentially increasing metadata, they use resource-heavy shaders everywhere to cover up the fact that their terrain assets are weak, and most jarringly: The GUI uses raycasted sprites in 3D world space rather than a 2D overlay. That is fine for simple games and main menus, but complex interfaces like this should not be set up that way. It's so bad that dragging components onto hardpoints slows down the mouse cursor. Some of these decisions make me wonder if they have any decent programmers in-house. I guess you can blame Unity for that: You can develop a game with limited technical know-how. Still, if a carpenter builds you a shed with a leaky roof, are you going to blame the hammer?

 

[Chippy]

and the tone of the game is comparable to Jordan Weismann and Mitch Gitelman being the George Lucas of Battletech and handing the reins over to Kathleen Kennedy?.

Just another case of has-beens.

That's just it though - these guy's are 'le version originale' in terms of Battletech. They're both savvy enough to know that fans like me gave up because of Microsoft after MW4, and nobody cared about MW5 and it's gold plated mech DLC. Fans wanted this: a mercenary campaign with resource management and perhaps even RPG elements. So it seems this review is pointing towards incompetence...there was enough oney raised...but the game is shit. Just amazing that the game has all the ingredients for success, but is shit for incompetence and/or a lack of talent.

 

[Gecos]

I mostly agree and I'll add that MP Skirmish is a major disappointment as well. My cousin is an avid TT player and we used to play a couple of games a year together. He moved to Canada, so we backed this..thing and thought we could get our fix playing this online. Not only are the mechanics inferior to the original game, but running it is such a drag that it would probably be faster to play tabletop. Including the flight over.

That's not Unity's fault though. Unity is great and it doesn't have to run like shit. Poor performance is 100% Harebrained's fault. They load assets dynamically -which is useful if you want to do cosmetic in-app purchase DLC or something I guess? Otherwise a really bad idea-, they have multiple audio sources on each mech -how? why? didn't they learn how to overload audio sources?-, they didn't make custom LOD models -Unity's default distance decimation isn't bad, but in the case of blocky mechs this is such an obvious optimisation win that I don't know how they missed it-, they have bloated savegames with exponentially increasing metadata, they use resource-heavy shaders everywhere to cover up the fact that their terrain assets are weak, and most jarringly: The GUI uses raycasted sprites in 3D world space rather than a 2D overlay. That is fine for simple games and main menus, but complex interfaces like this should not be set up that way. It's so bad that dragging components onto hardpoints slows down the mouse cursor. Some of these decisions make me wonder if they have any decent programmers in-house. I guess you can blame Unity for that: You can develop a game with limited technical know-how. Still, if a carpenter builds you a shed with a leaky roof, are you going to blame the hammer?

Smells of budget issues and a game launched early due to that.

 

[Cael]

So my summary from reading this thread is; the writing is shit, even if you ignore that the gameplay mechanics are too frustrating, it doesn't hook you on the Battletech lore, and the tone of the game is comparable to Jordan Weismann and Mitch Gitelman being the George Lucas of Battletech and handing the reins over to Kathleen Kennedy?.

What Battletech lore?

 

[Cael]

and the tone of the game is comparable to Jordan Weismann and Mitch Gitelman being the George Lucas of Battletech and handing the reins over to Kathleen Kennedy?.

Just another case of has-beens.

That's just it though - these guy's are 'le version originale' in terms of Battletech. They're both savvy enough to know that fans like me gave up because of Microsoft after MW4, and nobody cared about MW5 and it's gold plated mech DLC. Fans wanted this: a mercenary campaign with resource management and perhaps even RPG elements. So it seems this review is pointing towards incompetence...there was enough oney raised...but the game is shit. Just amazing that the game has all the ingredients for success, but is shit for incompetence and/or a lack of talent.

Never, ever accuse SJWs of being savvy or competent. They are always more interested in shoehorning in their SJ causes than actually produce a quality product.

 

[Cael]

So my summary from reading this thread is; the writing is shit, even if you ignore that the gameplay mechanics are too frustrating, it doesn't hook you on the Battletech lore, and the tone of the game is comparable to Jordan Weismann and Mitch Gitelman being the George Lucas of Battletech and handing the reins over to Kathleen Kennedy?.

Don't forget that a lot of the early novels of the Battletech universe was actually written by Michael Stackpole, he of the fusion reactor going nuclear fireball fame. Weissmann may have little to do with the tone of the setting that subsequently evolved out of that. He may have been the numbers guy that came up with the rules set. Sort of like the difference between Jobs and Wozniak of Apple fame.

So, when he finally tried his hand at writiing in the setting he helped create, it was a hatchet job of non-lore and SJW-ism simply because he had no idea what the setting is about. Oh, he knew the broad strokes (probably fed to him by someone) but the second he talked about GoT in space, I knew that he had no idea what the hell he was talking about.

 

[Black]

and the tone of the game is comparable to Jordan Weismann and Mitch Gitelman being the George Lucas of Battletech and handing the reins over to Kathleen Kennedy?.

Just another case of has-beens.

That's just it though - these guy's are 'le version originale' in terms of Battletech. They're both savvy enough to know that fans like me gave up because of Microsoft after MW4, and nobody cared about MW5 and it's gold plated mech DLC. Fans wanted this: a mercenary campaign with resource management and perhaps even RPG elements. So it seems this review is pointing towards incompetence...there was enough oney raised...but the game is shit. Just amazing that the game has all the ingredients for success, but is shit for incompetence and/or a lack of talent.

In that case it's the OG creators failing to grab their own devs by the collar and making them create what they wanted, meaning they're incompetent.
Has-beens or incompetents, which one is better and why?

 

[almondblight]

I encourage you to share this review widely. Harebrained are in need of criticism beyond the shit-tier "perfect except the game is too slow" reviews they've gotten from the mainstream media if they're to return to their former heights.

I think the Codex is still owed a visit to HBS from the SRHK fundraiser. These points could be made directly to them.

 

[Haba]

I mostly agree and I'll add that MP Skirmish is a major disappointment as well. My cousin is an avid TT player and we used to play a couple of games a year together. He moved to Canada, so we backed this..thing and thought we could get our fix playing this online. Not only are the mechanics inferior to the original game, but running it is such a drag that it would probably be faster to play tabletop. Including the flight over.

That's not Unity's fault though. Unity is great and it doesn't have to run like shit. Poor performance is 100% Harebrained's fault. They load assets dynamically -which is useful if you want to do cosmetic in-app purchase DLC or something I guess? Otherwise a really bad idea-, they have multiple audio sources on each mech -how? why? didn't they learn how to overload audio sources?-, they didn't make custom LOD models -Unity's default distance decimation isn't bad, but in the case of blocky mechs this is such an obvious optimisation win that I don't know how they missed it-, they have bloated savegames with exponentially increasing metadata, they use resource-heavy shaders everywhere to cover up the fact that their terrain assets are weak, and most jarringly: The GUI uses raycasted sprites in 3D world space rather than a 2D overlay. That is fine for simple games and main menus, but complex interfaces like this should not be set up that way. It's so bad that dragging components onto hardpoints slows down the mouse cursor. Some of these decisions make me wonder if they have any decent programmers in-house. I guess you can blame Unity for that: You can develop a game with limited technical know-how. Still, if a carpenter builds you a shed with a leaky roof, are you going to blame the hammer?

Smells of budget issues and a game launched early due to that.

Budget issue? Basic competence is now a budget issue?

Some of those architecture and design choices sure probably caused a budget issue for HBS. But this is rank incompetence, nothing else.

I encourage you to share this review widely. Harebrained are in need of criticism beyond the shit-tier "perfect except the game is too slow" reviews they've gotten from the mainstream media if they're to return to their former heights.

I think the Codex is still owed a visit to HBS from the SRHK fundraiser. These points could be made directly to them.

Through medium sized hammers and correctly applied pliers?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

WTF, there's nothing ~controversial~ in the review. Can you ask why it was banned?

A Profound Pronoun (“Yeah, I’m going to get into this.” “Probably shouldn’t, though.” “Yeah actually on second thought oh whoops –)

choices and consequences in writing reviews

 

[thesheeep]

I mostly agree and I'll add that MP Skirmish is a major disappointment as well. My cousin is an avid TT player and we used to play a couple of games a year together. He moved to Canada, so we backed this..thing and thought we could get our fix playing this online. Not only are the mechanics inferior to the original game, but running it is such a drag that it would probably be faster to play tabletop. Including the flight over.

That's not Unity's fault though. Unity is great and it doesn't have to run like shit. Poor performance is 100% Harebrained's fault. They load assets dynamically -which is useful if you want to do cosmetic in-app purchase DLC or something I guess? Otherwise a really bad idea-, they have multiple audio sources on each mech -how? why? didn't they learn how to overload audio sources?-, they didn't make custom LOD models -Unity's default distance decimation isn't bad, but in the case of blocky mechs this is such an obvious optimisation win that I don't know how they missed it-, they have bloated savegames with exponentially increasing metadata, they use resource-heavy shaders everywhere to cover up the fact that their terrain assets are weak, and most jarringly: The GUI uses raycasted sprites in 3D world space rather than a 2D overlay. That is fine for simple games and main menus, but complex interfaces like this should not be set up that way. It's so bad that dragging components onto hardpoints slows down the mouse cursor. Some of these decisions make me wonder if they have any decent programmers in-house. I guess you can blame Unity for that: You can develop a game with limited technical know-how. Still, if a carpenter builds you a shed with a leaky roof, are you going to blame the hammer?

Smells of budget issues and a game launched early due to that.

Budget issue? Basic competence is now a budget issue?

Some of those architecture and design choices sure probably caused a budget issue for HBS. But this is rank incompetence, nothing else.

It kind of is.

I studied programming with a bunch of other people about 10 years ago at a games school and I also spent two years being a lecturer myself there and at another games school.
Over the years, I got to know a few really talented programmers and a truckload of untalented ones.
Only very few of the talented ones work in the games industry any more - or in a manager-like position where they don't actually code any more.
Of the untalented ones, about half stuck with the games industry.

So less than 50% of programmers studying to get into games actually decide to stick with it.
The reason is, of course, that working at games in most cases is just a bad job for coders. Pretty much guaranteed crunch time, pretty much expected to stay "a bit longer"(tm), payment that is WAY below the industry standard for programmers (If I was asked to join a game studio and told them my salary expectations, they would probably faint), constant incoming barrage of idiots cause everyone has an opinion about games and how to develop them.
And, which was the main reason for me not stick with the games industry: You have to implement someone else's ideas. And they often suck. While you don't really get a say about it.

Capable programmers are rare. Period.
In the games industry, they are even harder to get. Most "game programmers" in mid-to-big studios by now are people who know Unity and some C# and that's about it. And that's what leads to shoddy coding as found in BattleTech.

 

[Haba]

If I was asked to join a game studio and told them my salary expectations, they would probably faint.

What is your salary expectation anyway?

I'm guessing ~$70k/year for C# is industry average in kwanzania.

For comparison, with certain business techology, junior tech staff member (entry-level) gets $105k/year salary w/o extras. The same thing at Microsoft is $100k/year. Add senior in there and you are looking at 70-80k more.

 

[thesheeep]

If I was asked to join a game studio and told them my salary expectations, they would probably faint.

What is your salary expectation anyway?

I'm guessing ~$70k/year for C# is industry average in kwanzania.

70k for more experienced ones, maybe.
For me, it would be around 70-75k. For a 4-day week (I prefer having three free days over getting more dough) of 8 hours of working. If I wanted to work more days, or 1-2 hours more per day, you can adjust accordingly. I also don't quite know about the living cost in the US compared to where I live now, so that might require adjustment, too.
And I don't consider myself extremely talented* or expensive.

From what I have heard, it is more like gameindustrycareerguide.com writes:

Game programmer salaries start around USD $44,000 annually for entry-level engineering positions. But they can grow to well over $120,000 per year (yes, $120k!) for very senior programmers, or programmers who lead teams.

That is easily 25%-50% less than what you can earn elsewhere, especially if you are willing to move freely.
I was offered a job in Turkey once where I could have earned >500€ per DAY. But who wants to live in Turkey?

*Seriously, I don't. It might come off that way, but that is only because I witnessed so many programmers that are so utterly bad that it makes me seem like some kind of prodigy - whereas I just consider myself sufficiently capable.

 

[Jack Dandy]

American History Mechs

 

[Iskramor]

 

[Quillon]

The turn-based genre had not only been treading water for years, it was occasionally opening its mouth to suck in some public pool tang just to stay hydrated. It is a genre that’s never been truly perfected. It’s the ultimate Sisyphean design nightmare, for if you give the player infinite time (pauses) to choose actions, then the given levels of abstraction are almost limitless. And the more you abstract, the more you simulate, the more aware you become of that which is not simulated.

I haven't seen gameplay of it nor played the game. What does infinite time (pauses) mean in TB? What is there to be simulated "more or less" in TB?

 

[FreshCorpse]

The reason is, of course, that working at games in most cases is just a bad job for coders. Pretty much guaranteed crunch time, pretty much expected to stay "a bit longer"(tm), payment that is WAY below the industry standard for programmers (If I was asked to join a game studio and told them my salary expectations, they would probably faint), constant incoming barrage of idiots cause everyone has an opinion about games and how to develop them

Yeah, just another professional programmer chiming in: I would be pretty reluctant to take a game development job. In my particular situation they pay cut might well be more than 50% and of course it would likely come with poorer long term prospects, longer hours and probably worse project management (already bad in most places!). That doesn't mean at all that there aren't people comfortable to do that to themselves to work on something they really like - I mean, wouldn't it be cool to work on something like Battletech at HBS? If you were really into tabletop or something? I'm sure there's some really strong people who would jump at that, I just think that there will be far fewer.

The other point which I think is not made enough is that it is clearly cheaper to run a project in Unity. I think the alternative to Battletech in Unity is possibly no Battletech at all because doing it in something UE4 is prohibitive on cost grounds. I think Unity is a force for good because without it (and comparable engines) the CRPG renaissance of the last few years probably couldn't have happened.

 

[Black]

Crpg reneissance?

 

[FreshCorpse]

Oh yeah, I forgot, this is the codex so I should have included some alt-crpg comments about how Pillars is shit or "fuck wesp, vtmb is already perfect" something something

 

[Black]

Even if there was a recent crpg reneissance, unity had nothing to do with it.

 

[Fenix]

I don't know how they missed it

It would be safe to assume that probably the same way as Bioware did they Androfailure - there is another kiva-programming gurl in the bowels of the HB...
...or what thesheeep said as well - when one field of industry bring significantly more money then other and thus sucks qualified personnel like a vacuum cleaner, so the rest re full of hacks.

 

[FreshCorpse]

Even if there was a recent crpg reneissance, unity had nothing to do with it.

Pillars, Tyranny, Wasteland 2, Shadowrun, probably lots of others that don't come to mind. Probably fair to say that if Unity (or some alternative) had not existed Obsidian would have shut down sometime in 2012. One of the big reasons developers suddenly started making AA games like CRPGs again five years ago or so is technology like Unity.