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Re: BattleTech

#46
Scytale wrote:
Tue Apr 24, 2018 8:58 am
From what I understand they won't be using precisely the Classic Battletech tabletop rules, but it should capture the sense of it.
Not unsurprising. Translating between different formats requires making changes. On tabletop you'd have a lot more forced time to make decisions, for instance - there would be no getting around all the math that would have to be done. That would give the players extra time to think.
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Re: BattleTech

#48
I got this game and played it some over the weekend. I like it a lot.

The presentation of the lore nails the Battletech vibe. It absolutely does! The cutscenes are in a painterly/semi-animated drawing style which also works super well.

Gameplaywise, comparisons with XCOM are inevitable. When I started playing I was worried that the battles would just turn into standing in one place to slug it out, hoping to catch a critical on the other guy. Given that mechs can take a degree of punishment, at first it seems like the battlefield isn't really on a hair trigger, unlike a comparable XCOM mission. But there's something about Battletech mechanics which I think extend from the boardgame: when you attack a mech, really anything is possible in a certain sense. It is possible to get lucky and hit the already damaged part of a mech, or even get a headshot on it. On the other hand, all your shots may contact the other guy but only hit armoured portions of it. So it seems at first sight that RNG plays too much of a role and skill doesn't matter. I saw a reviewer express this with some frustration.

On the other hand, how you use your mechs also really matters. If they keep moving, they gain a bonus that makes them harder to hit. You can orient them so they present only their amoured sides to the enemy. Or you can do a 'hunker down' that makes them take half damage. The skill of the mechwarriors also features, keeping the mechs stable as they move, and accurate as they shoot.

But there's always a risk that your mech goes into battlefield and takes a ppc to the face, killing the pilot. And I actually really like that. It happens rarely enough that it doesn't necessarily affect your strategy, but often enough that... well, that it happens. Along with your mechs taking damage and dealing it themselves as they move around the battlefield, this lends a real slow-burn tension to the match. Things may happen slowly or quickly, and its your job to keep your mechwarriors and mechs safe while dealing damage to the other guy. It happens in slow motion, so things just kinda build up and build up.

You can catastrophically lose a mission, and even in victories I think you're likely to take heaps and heaps of damage, costing lots in money and time to repair. But the overworld mechanics are forgiving in this regard, it's not like XCOM where a single catastrophe on the battlefield can spell your doom.

The role of the RNG on the battlefield I think is one of the most Battletech things about the game. Mechwarriors are competent, and their skills matter, making a material difference on the field, but it's only a glass cockpit standing between them and the other hulking machines out there. All it takes is one unlucky hit... and you just hope it doesn't happen to you this time. And... chances are it won't, if you're lucky and your commander is competent. But it's happened to friends of yours. That's a very Battletech thing.

So yeah, it's not a knife-edge tension like XCOM in the game, but it's still there. It's just distributed differently.

I'm looking forward to playing more of it.

(The soundtrack is decent but anodyne.)
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Re: BattleTech

#52
Scytale wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 4:19 pm
Silverware wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 3:04 pm
Is a very good game, Everyone one would want from a Mechwarrior Tactical game.
Basically Xcom with giant robots.
i should hope so; the tactical form is the original!
Oops, was supposed to be "Everything one would want" :V
I think you got the message anyway.
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<Cuisinart8> apparently without the demon driving him around Silver has the intelligence of a botched lobotomy patient ~ Mar 04 2020
console.log(`What's all ${this} ${Date.now()}`);
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Re: BattleTech

#53
Silverware wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 5:32 pm
Scytale wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 4:19 pm
Silverware wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 3:04 pm
Is a very good game, Everyone one would want from a Mechwarrior Tactical game.
Basically Xcom with giant robots.
i should hope so; the tactical form is the original!
Oops, was supposed to be "Everything one would want" :V
I think you got the message anyway.
Oh I didn't even see the typo :P

I meant it's a translation of the tabletop game, which is kinda the whole reason for Mechwarrior being there
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Re: BattleTech

#54
Scytale wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 7:33 pm
Oh I didn't even see the typo :P

I meant it's a translation of the tabletop game, which is kinda the whole reason for Mechwarrior being there
Yeah.
Although as a Strategic game it lacks because it's only 4 mechs.

And it could also have been done in the style of MWO or MW:Mercenaries and be a FPS.
(MW:M5 is not looking so hot, MWO's beta looked FAR better...)
°˖◝(ಠ‸ಠ)◜˖°
WebGL Spaceships and Trails
<Cuisinart8> apparently without the demon driving him around Silver has the intelligence of a botched lobotomy patient ~ Mar 04 2020
console.log(`What's all ${this} ${Date.now()}`);
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Re: BattleTech

#55
Silverware wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 7:48 pm
Scytale wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 7:33 pm
Oh I didn't even see the typo :P

I meant it's a translation of the tabletop game, which is kinda the whole reason for Mechwarrior being there
Yeah.
Although as a Strategic game it lacks because it's only 4 mechs.

And it could also have been done in the style of MWO or MW:Mercenaries and be a FPS.
(MW:M5 is not looking so hot, MWO's beta looked FAR better...)
That's kinda what I mean though - all it is is a translation of the tabletop game, which is lance-based turn-based-tactical, with the rules adapted. That's why they called it Battletech instead of Mechwarrior, I suppose! In one sense it's very refreshing, since most computer game adaptations have been FPSes.
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Re: BattleTech

#56
The writing and characterization in the campaign is so cheesy, and the soundtrack still hasn't grown on me. It's as if it was made to be as deliberately inoffensive as possible. I'm not done with it yet so hope to be proved wrong by the rest of the storyline, but it ain't looking good.

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