Mechwarrior 5! (Maybe)

[Starglider]

Ah, I miss the first Aliens vs Predator game. Not only did the marines get unlimited night-vision, the Predators had a whole slew of funky imaging modes. Technically the second game also had that, but it wasn't as fun to play.

[Vympel]

Vympel just reminded of one of my favorite gaming cliches these days. All the advanced super future tech in the galaxy, hyperdrive, walking robots, and yet no one invented night vision.

It's like how Master Chief is supposed to be this super awesome soldier with ultra advanced tech...and the Marines are better equipped than he is. Maybe one day, developers will stop making obvious balance concessions for the sake of gameplay.

I fear that day is not in our lifetimes however.

It's pure ignorance. Forget the Marines being better equipped than he is, a Red Army conscript from the 1970s has greater night vision capability than he does. It makes me want to lose my shit.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

This interview seems to suggest they're looking at alleviating a lot of the dumbed-down information warfare junk, or at least making it interesting. Their comments hint that half the game is using scout units, reconnaissance, probes, etc. to keep tabs on enemy units.

[Stark]

Whoa so IS it a Mech Commander style game instead? Oh, just in multi.

And it looks like it is 'Mechwarrior' and not 'Mechwarrior 5'. Sadly it has the worst story imaginable. Amusingly they're incorporating some of the dumbest shit from the novels (PPCs cause a heat-wave to hit the cockpit, lol).

BTW, they think Mechwarrior was the PC's first real action title. Everything these guys say is 50-70% obvious marketing speak.

[Sarevok]

Fuck you whiners. MW 4 was decently balanced compared to 99 % of shit sold as videogames. The only thing it had missing was better AI and if it had that it would be one of the best games ever.

My feeling is that each Mechwarrior game had it's own strengths and weaknesses. And if you combine their best aspects you would end up with a very very good game. Mechwarrior 2 had a dazzling variety of battlefields. You fought on airless worlds, low gravity moons, mars like rocky highlands etc. It really felt like piloting a Mech in a war taking place in star systems over a thousand lughtyears away. Few games have ever done alien planets that actually look alien. Then there is Mechwarrior 3. It had the best sim aspects of all the Mechwarrior games. The mechs felt big, powerful machines with all kinds of tacticool weapons and systems. But the weapons were straight rip from the board game. Thus gameplay was suffering from things like a single Shadowcat with LBX-5 and 100 rounds of ammo wiping out 2 stars of clan mechs. This is where Mechwarrior 4 came in. MW 4 had shitty graphics and none of the sim feelings. But the game mechanics were the best. Most of the weapons were worthwhile and extremely well balanced. The AI was not too bad as well and as an extremely rare oddity DID NOT CHEAT. There was also a combined arms focus with an impressive array of armored vehicles,aircraft, helicopter gunships etc. You had things like tank columns driving into an enemy base, friendly aircraft providing you with air support, many AI controlled friendly Mechs fighting alongside you own lance etc. I loved those aspects enough to forgive the games lackings. Now if they blended MW 4 with MW 3 and 2 it would be heavenly.

(adding a Mechcommander style commander mode for multiplayer matches would be sweet as well).

[consequences]

Did they have Axemans in 3015? I'd like to try out one like Adam Steiner's custom from the cartoon.

No chance in heck. The original Hatchetman was only introduced in 3023, and the Axman was only supposed to be 'nearing production' when the 3050 Tech readout was published as an in-universe document.

[Uraniun235]

Anyways I'm not impressed by the big reveal video with the Atlas in the dust and all that shit. It just reminds me how much I hate game developers who have gotten dumber over the years.

Remember Image Enhancement mode in MW2? Yeah, apparently we don't do that anymore. We just sit there looking in dust until an Atlas ambushes our dumb ass because we have no advanced optics/ sensors whatsoever, even though it's 3015 and we have better in 2009. Heck, 1979.

I can't wait for the night missions when you're tooling around with big ass white headlights trying to spot targets.

If I remember right, smoke and fire could still obscure your vision in IE mode; you just got a big solid wireframe square instead of an animated sprite. I do remember IE mode coming in handy during particularly heavy moments, though, when my dad's Pentium-133 couldn't quite keep up with the game; IE mode was easier to render than normal mode.

MW2 also had a night-vis mode, although (IIRC) it wasn't usually as useful as IE mode, and was prone to being knocked out by battle damage.

[Nephtys]

MW4 was cool in that it had more emphasis on non-Mech support units... too bad they were all rubbish! The best aircraft and tanks were no match for the lightest of 20-ton Mechs.

It'd be much more interesting if they went full BT, and made a company of heavy tanks an even match for a lance of Mechs, and have fighters match up well one to one against Mechs, depending on the conditions of terrain, weather, etc. I want to see that STU-D6 Barreling in for me, firing huge salvoes of LRMs and lasers while my Rifleman struggles for cover and to throw up flak.

[CaptHawkeye]

Hilariously the books even show that air power in Battletech is just as important as any Mech Army. That all of the powers of the Inner Sphere have lots of Strategic Bombers, ground attack craft, and fighters to achieve air supremacy. Of course this would never jive with the balance-obessesed developers of the game. So they do things like give attacking aircraft ridiculously slow cruise speeds of like 50kts and have them attack from an altitude of 300 feet.

[Vendetta]

Of course this would never jive with the balance-obessesed developers of the game. So they do things like give attacking aircraft ridiculously slow cruise speeds of like 50kts and have them attack from an altitude of 300 feet.

It's odd that you think that making a balanced game is something worthy of mockery....

Really, the point of making a game is to make a game, not to model anything in any form of realistic manner. Games that attempt the latter tend to be monumentally unfun to play. If that requires abstraction or compromise in the name of balance, so be it.

[CaptHawkeye]

Of course this would never jive with the balance-obessesed developers of the game. So they do things like give attacking aircraft ridiculously slow cruise speeds of like 50kts and have them attack from an altitude of 300 feet.

It's odd that you think that making a balanced game is something worthy of mockery....

Note the word obsessed after balance. I'm not saying "make the game as unplayable as possible". I'm saying it's hilarious that developers want to have X feature...and then graft it into the game in the most hackjob manner. In this case, allowing players to deal with air attacks...comically useless air attacks.

Really, the point of making a game is to make a game, not to model anything in any form of realistic manner. Games that attempt the latter tend to be monumentally unfun to play. If that requires abstraction or compromise in the name of balance, so be it.

Watch your step on that slippery slope there pal. You're basically saying any attempt at realism leads to an inherintly broken and unplayable title. By this logic, IL-2 should not be a popular sim.

[Commander 598]

To be fair, WW2 flight sims aren't exactly a completely saturated market. Since MS quit making Combat Flight Simulator, how many other WW2 flight sims have their been and how many of them do you want to remember?

[Vendetta]

Note the word obsessed after balance. I'm not saying "make the game as unplayable as possible". I'm saying it's hilarious that developers want to have X feature...and then graft it into the game in the most hackjob manner. In this case, allowing players to deal with air attacks...comically useless air attacks.

Except, of course, if you couldn't "deal with" air attacks, there would be no strategic decision as to whether you included them in your force or not. You simply would always do so. That's what balance means in a tabletop game. If something is powerful enough that you would always take it, it's not balanced. If air attacks in Battletech are powerful enough to make a difference to the battle, then they have to be counterable as well.

Watch your step on that slippery slope there pal. You're basically saying any attempt at realism leads to an inherintly broken and unplayable title. By this logic, IL-2 should not be a popular sim.

I'm saying that balance always trumps realism, especially in a competitive miniatures game. If you make a game which isn't balanced, everyone will either settle around always using the thing that's unbalanced and too powerful, or always ignoring the thing that's unbalanced and too weak.

[Starglider]

If air attacks in Battletech are powerful enough to make a difference to the battle, then they have to be counterable as well.

They don't have to be counterable by having the aircraft fly so low and slow that you can shoot them down the same way you'd shoot a mech or a tank. Real armored vehicles mount anti-aircraft guns and sometimes missiles, but they're independently targeted. In a computer game, you could either have the option to fit automated SAM/CIWS pods to your mech (which could double as defences against big, long-range missiles), or you could have a button that switches you to an 'AA targeting mode', with super zoom and enough auto tracking to keep the plane in view (but not enough to make hits automatic, since you'd still want some challenge for the player). It wouldn't be that much extra work, but apparently it was too much for the MW4 developers. In a board game, this is even less of an issue, as it's trivial to have separate rules for SAMs and AAA fire (though you have to abstract aircraft maneuvering to 'make a pass every n turns' - which is as it should be).

[Uraniun235]

Alternately, another way to 'defeat' an air attack would be to give enemy aircraft limited munitions, and blare an air raid warning at the player as the aircraft are inbound - then the player can try to evade or hide from the attack, rather than get into yet another slugging match in a game full of slugging matches.

[CaptHawkeye]

At its heart Mechwarrior is ultimately as typical as FPS games come. It's annoyed me throughout the history of the games that the only opponent in the game is essentially other mechs. The games would have you believe there is no point in emplacements, aircraft, tanks, and that combined arms warfare is magically non-existent or something. In MW4 you can literally shrug off impacts from tank weapons...despite them being armed with Large Lasers and Autocannons just like you. The games so obviously bias everything in favor of the Mechs it gets sickening. Since enemy mechs end up being the only thing worth shooting at, then technically the games have a had a whopping ONE type of enemy every time!

This won't happen, because as cool as MW is it's also ridiculously wankhard, but i'd like to see more viability in aircraft and conventional armour against Mechs. Battletech is Battletech and the Mechs must take center stage of course, but that doesn't mean they need to completely exclude everything else.

[White Haven]

It's again the classic conflict between writing and gameplay. You don't want aircraft to have a significant role in the game? Then have them be really nasty but give the player air cover that drives hostile fighters off. Boom, problem solved AND you can use 'OH SHIT IT'S AN AIRSTRIKE' for a brown-pants moment at the same time.

[Nephtys]

All mechs in Battletech are capable of tracking and engaging aircraft with the majority of their weapons. Some more effectively than others. Certain mechs even have additional anti-air equipment, such as the Rifleman's AA Radar. Certain aircraft in the setting and other games are as deadly as Mechs are, since Aerospace Fighters are every bit as advanced and prestigious as a Battlemech.

In game terms, you can either just engage them with your weapons normally (but make them fast and well armed adversaries you need to use terrain to avoid getting hit often) with limited loiter time, or make some kind of AA mode you can switch into. Whatever. Or hell, if we're playing MW5: Mercs, have the option of buying friendly air cover! That'd be a great sort of thing to balance. How much of your resources do you pour into support (Infantry, vehicles, logistics, air cover) and how much into your own lance?

[Tanasinn]

A few things from this specific trailer that I think are worth note.

-Yes, that is a Warhammer (and seemingly a pre-redesign one); the name pops up in the percentage-based damage indicator when the Atlas is battering it down. Some sort of deal must have been struck to use these designs, so it makes me wonder if the redesigned looks will appear at all.
-The game is set in 3015. No Clan cheesetech, no Wobblies, no Dark Age clicktoys shit. Your milage may vary on whether or not that's a good thing. I
-At stated earlier, some older names are apparently going to be involved in the series, which will hopefully mean a return to greater accuracy in loadouts/modification and less of the flavor of MechAssault. Bits of the battle seem to point to the aforementioned accurate loadouts, though I'm going on (very fuzzy) memory. Also note the variant names: "Jenner-D, Atlas-C," whose use might also support canon loadouts.
-That Jenner pilot is retarded.

Remember Image Enhancement mode in MW2? Yeah, apparently we don't do that anymore. We just sit there looking in dust until an Atlas ambushes our dumb ass because we have no advanced optics/ sensors whatsoever, even though it's 3015 and we have better in 2009. Heck, 1979.

Considering that this was a teaser and obviously meant to appeal to the old "Oh fuck, it's an Atlas!" thing, I wouldn't start crying foul yet. It's obviously Rule of Cool shit, particularly since moments earlier in the video the Warhammer deployed a recon drone, which itself hints towards more sophistication in dealing with the environment and finding your enemies. Advanced vision modes aren't exactly foreign to Mechwarrior - Mech2 had night vision, image enhancement, and a satellite uplink mode.

[CaptHawkeye]

Now that I think about it, it'd be pretty cool if Mechs were super hard to build and ended up being operationally treated like land battleships. "Oh geez those stuput Davions have 300 more Mechs than us and most of em are modernized. QUICK MAKE AN ARMS TREATY."

"One of our Medium Mechs just exploded!"

"Their is something bloody wrong with our Mechs today!"

-The game is set in 3015. No Clan cheesetech, no Wobblies, no Dark Age clicktoys shit. Your milage may vary on whether or not that's a good thing.

I'm already celebrating. I'm so tired of the obsession with that era in B-tech history. I'll miss my Mad Cat though.

[White Haven]

I'll miss the early-Clan-wars tension, though...Succession-War-era tech struggling for every dirty trick they can find to halt the clan juggernaut. It doesn't translate as well into a more actiony setting, because a lot of the fun stuff you get in that era is thinking way outside of the box and going for really dirty tricks that really work better with a GM'd game. the only way I'd see it working would be if you did more freeform missions with a planner akin to the old Rainbow Six system, and now many people every actually USED that? Even then, you'd have the problem of trying to get ahead of every creative player so they don't run into 'this should work, but the devs didn't think of it, so you can't do it,' scenarios, and if MMOs have shown anything it's that players will always outsmart original dev work if only because there are so many of them.

[Nephtys]

I'll miss the early-Clan-wars tension, though...Succession-War-era tech struggling for every dirty trick they can find to halt the clan juggernaut. It doesn't translate as well into a more actiony setting, because a lot of the fun stuff you get in that era is thinking way outside of the box and going for really dirty tricks that really work better with a GM'd game. the only way I'd see it working would be if you did more freeform missions with a planner akin to the old Rainbow Six system, and now many people every actually USED that? Even then, you'd have the problem of trying to get ahead of every creative player so they don't run into 'this should work, but the devs didn't think of it, so you can't do it,' scenarios, and if MMOs have shown anything it's that players will always outsmart original dev work if only because there are so many of them.

A 3050 IS Commander's best friend isn't a battlemech. It's LRM-deployable mines and massed artillery

In a MegaMek game for the early clan invasion, I was so heavily outgunned for one battle during Tukayyid. It was a clan heavy Star with basically every flagship Mech the Clanners could field, against one reinforced lance of IS 3025 Heavies and two tank platoons, with a squadron of Swiftwind Scout Cars.

However, I did get SIX Long Tom Artillery battery barrages every turn, with a 3-turn flight time. On the big map we played, they got shelled to pieces before the Shreck PPC Carriers got into position. My poor Mechs were so battered by long range fire, that they barely did any damage to the enemy. It was all the tanks and artillery, with the swiftwinds spotting.

[Serafina]

Well, Combined Arms is one of the reasons i am propably going to prefer Mech Warrior - Living Legends (a full-conversion mod in development) above Mech Warrior 5.
Because you will not only fight decent tanks and aircrafts, you will also pilot them.

Basically, there are two game modes (its multiplayer only):
-Solaris Arena: Mech only. You have access to mechs of a certain cost/tonnage limit, and its basically a deathmatch.
-Conquest: You start out in an Battlesuit adn earn money by acomplishments. From this money, you can buy mechs, vehicles and aircraft.

I am propably going to play both games, but unless one has clearly superior quality (due to the other being crap), i think i will play MW:LL mostly - multiplayer is just more fun.

[VF5SS]

I hate to necro this thread, but this is something that affects this game as well as upcoming Battletech products. I hate to say I told you so, but Sometimes things just don't go as we want them to.

[Darksider]

God Dammit

do we know who the owners of the U.S. publishing rights are?

they didn't mention the company by name in the release, just that they were "cool" about the whole thing.

Maybe they'll just use the redesigns for the game.