Alt Campaign Missions for Ironman mode

[Lord_Eol]

Campaign missions need a "backup mission" or some sort to tree branch if a storyline mission fails when in ironman mode. Replaying it simply doesn't make sense conceptually (i.e. ironman, the story keeps going if something fails) but there should at least be a alt-backup mission, i.e. "failed to destroy dropship" so alt-mission would be "some other mission that still moves story forward as a result of that failure", ditto dead key players (i.e. the princess. What if she caught cancer? I'm sure there is a royal sucesion rule of some sort). That or some fluff written in where "key players" don't get killed in mission at least. Wars don't end because of a single tactical loss nor (in modern times with nationstates) loss of figureheads.

Just played the SDF mission and the Atlas got headshotted long range no other damage campaign end hundred hours. That doesn't take any player feel good. The point of ironman is to "keep going and adapt to failure", you can't adapt to something like "random headshot" hence need some sort of alt tree branch for each mission, or even two. Something conceptually like "Mission 1, 1A (if previous failed), 1B (campaign failure if failed). Mission 2 ...". You can strategize and adapt to ironman tactics to minimize chance / conservative play, PPC headshot campaign end, well I don't know what to tell you. The valid tactic can't be "-1 mech and ensure key character never engaged in combat and just hides edge of map because I have to game poor campaign design"

 

[Hobbes__]

Campaign missions need a "backup mission" or some sort to tree branch if a storyline mission fails when in ironman mode. Replaying it simply doesn't make sense conceptually (i.e. ironman, the story keeps going if something fails) but there should at least be a alt-backup mission, i.e. "failed to destroy dropship" so alt-mission would be "some other mission that still moves story forward as a result of that failure", ditto dead key players (i.e. the princess. What if she caught cancer? I'm sure there is a royal sucesion rule of some sort). That or some fluff written in where "key players" don't get killed in mission at least. Wars don't end because of a single tactical loss nor (in modern times with nationstates) loss of figureheads.

Question: what if the player also fails in the alt-backup mission? Then you'd need to add an alt-alt-backup mission too, and if player also fails in that one, then an alt-alt-alt-backup, etc. Where does it stop?

 

[Prussian Havoc]

Question: what if the player also fails in the alt-backup mission? Then you'd need to add an alt-alt-backup mission too, and if player also fails in that one, then an alt-alt-alt-backup, etc. Where does it stop?

Doesn’t the Campaign hardwire in an inability to Headshot either Victoria or High Lady Arano?

 

[Lord_Eol]

Hobbes_: Oh I agree, at some point there is campaign failure hence why I said something like 1,1A,1B (campaign loss). The campaign, especially on ironman, is about skill. You shouldn't have campaign loss over a single back luck headshot. As I said above, no "war" is lost over a single tactical fight or (in modern times) people. Leaders have lines of succession, campaigns/wars are lots of single tactical battles that don't depend on a single particular tactical fight ever.

The alternative is you never play Ironman which seems stupid as why waste dev time implementing it then. You figure a custom scenario takes what, a half day of dev time if that? Could knock this out in a week with no impact on revenue.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

...The alternative is you never play Ironman which seems stupid as why waste dev time implementing it then. You figure a custom scenario takes what, a half day of dev time if that? Could knock this out in a week with no impact on revenue.

You are vastly underestimating the complexity and expense involved.

 

[Lord_Eol]

Doesn’t the Campaign hardwire in an inability to Headshot either Victoria or High Lady Arano?

Arano was headshotted in my Atlas IIRC in my rage last night but maybe she just caught 3 PPC's to the chest and exploded. Point stands Awesome popped up and killed Arana campaign loss. The "how" is immaterial to the fact it's a bad design decision from an ironman perspective. Arano could have a brain aneurysm, slip and fall in the shower, etc .. she's expendable. There is always a line of succession.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

Arano was headshotted in my Atlas IIRC in my rage last night but maybe she just caught 3 PPC's to the chest and exploded. Point stands Awesome popped up and killed Arana campaign loss. The "how" is immaterial to the fact it's a bad design decision from an ironman perspective. Arano could have a brain aneurysm, slip and fall in the shower, etc .. she's expendable. There is always a line of succession.

The how is not immaterial.

CT Destruction for an Atlas happens over time, it is the end result of a series of decisions and actions by the player.

One could say, that one earns an Atlas CT Destruction.


Being “Beta’d” to the Head by an AC20...? (I know HBS_Oushi. #still2soon :bow: )

Well that is simply BattleTech.

HBS knows this and took the effort and bore the expense to safeguard the player from losing High Lady Arano to a Headshot. Kudos to HBS for that.

 

[Lord_Eol]

Yet once again, irrelevant to a campaign design. Lady Arano could trip getting out of bed on the dropship and break her neck. What's the contingency for that one? She is irrelevant to the campaign. LIke imagine a world where the World War 2 is over and lost unrecoverably because FDR died .. oh wait he did and the US didn't.

And you are right, the bad choice on ironman was "you should always run Lady Arano max retreat to campaign edge because the game devs don't grasp the concept of a campaign so that is the only way to make sure you don't ironman campaign loss because you are fool if you actually use the unit because of those artificial design limitations"

I don't care about loosing Lady Arano here, you are right, that is BT. Her death though doesn't end a campaign OR, for that matter, my work as a mercenary. LIke sure maybe (you could argue) her "storyline dies" but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to wonder the galaxy and continue to rent my services. Storyline mode failure is campaign failure, that makes zero sense no matter how you slice it.

 

[Havamal]

Greetings Mechwarriors,

Please post topically towards discussion and not at others personally.

Please post with civility and respect even and especially in critique and disagreement.

Thank you.

 

[Timaeus]

Doesn’t the Campaign hardwire in an inability to Headshot either Victoria or High Lady Arano?

That only prevents called shots/precision strikes. Not normal head hits.

Yet once again, irrelevant to a campaign design. Lady Arano could trip getting out of bed on the dropship and break her neck. What's the contingency for that one? She is irrelevant to the campaign.

Arano may or may not be irrelevant to the the campaign from a gameplay perspective; however, she is definitely relevant to the story set forth by the opening campaign cutscenes and story moments throughout given that the campaign is being relayed to us in an "after the fact" fashion with her very much so alive.

Career mode is where she is completely irrelevant.

 

[Blade_mercurial]

Campaign missions need a "backup mission"

The valid tactic can't be "-1 mech and ensure key character never engaged in combat and just hides edge of map because I have to game poor campaign design"

It isn't a 'Need'. I mean, I get it if its something some players want. But I think its safe to say at this point, that the majority of players doing the campaign on ironman have completed it without losing Lady Arano, so to me, that suggests there is no 'bad game design' to point a finger at here.

I think you are taking this to an extreme. I've completed the campaign at least 4 or 5 times, and I've never lost Lady Arano once. Not all of my campaign playthroughs were on ironman, but at least two that I can recall were, but if I've never lost her, its technically moot. And winning this mission is not really a case of, 'must hide Arano's Atlas at all costs to ensure victory'. However, you definitely have to be careful with her so she doesn't draw a lot of aggro. Its not really that complicated, imho.

If you are frustrated because you put her in danger and she got ganked, well, I can understand that kind of frustration. I think everyone with lots of time playing video games has experienced that sort of thing before. However, its important to make the realization that the mistake ultimately lies on the player's shoulders. That's called consequences of player decisions. You can try a new campaign on Iron Man, and if you learned the lesson well, I am willing to bet you will never make that mistake again (at least, its true in my case! ). Regardless good luck with your future Battletech! Again, imho, there are plenty of reasons to replay either the campaign or the career mode, so I personally wouldn't feel too bummed out about having to start over...

 

[Lord_Eol]

That only prevents called shots/precision strikes. Not normal head hits.

Arano may or may not be irrelevant to the the campaign from a gameplay perspective; however, she is definitely relevant to the story set forth by the opening campaign cutscenes and story moments throughout given that the campaign is being relayed to us in an "after the fact" fashion with her very much so alive.

Career mode is where she is completely irrelevant.

That is a fair point if you look at it through that angle. I don't look (and didn't even think about it until you mentioned it but as I rewatch it right now, you are right in that a lot of it is 'past tense'. In that case then the 'ironman' feature should work a special way for storyline missions (only) to allow one-off replayabilty after all, obviously we lived to tell the story) of the campaign as storytelling past even but more "You are engaged in the action right now and moving forward" hence in my head the storyline is not one of Arano but of the return to power of her ousted political group and as such she is irrelevant to that. I look at campaign as simply a set of specific missions in career mode.

But given your constraint (which I hadn't thought about, i.e. past tense) still should be a special case to handle ironman campaign play for storyline missions if that is going to be game ending via something other than reasonable expectation (i.e. lost all cbills)

 

[Lord_Eol]

Nah I'm not frustrated at her loss, I was frustrated in that I didn't look at the campaign as "past tense" hence it made no sense to me why her death resulted in campaign end. You can't beat bad luck, like I said SDF mission, Lady Arano near full health, Awesome PPC max range dead, hundred hours gone for something that made no sense (at the time). You are correct in that right, I play a lot of ironman so generally you play more conservative with key characters (mostly because worried about cbill or unit loss) or figured "well worst case campaign storyline ends but I can keep playing as a merc" but it literally ends the game, you can't even continue pretending it's now "career" mode. Plus like I said logically it makes no sense if the story is "happening now" as opposed to "in the past". FFS allowing commanders to fly around and do stuff doesn't make sense in the context of the past either but lets not go there.

Yes i've beat the game before, many times as well. Just first time doing on iroman and the fact it was instant campaign (and game) end was just stupid and I feel a poor design decision. Even if you want to play "in the past" so the storyline ends on mission failure, too bad there still is no reason it doesn't just kick you into career mode at that point kind of like when you "beat" a 4x scenario and it asks "do you want to keep playing though all the content is done?". Or for that matter warn you would a loss in campaign mode does in ironman when selected (it doesn't).

Edit: Typo

 

[Hobbes__]

Hobbes_: Oh I agree, at some point there is campaign failure hence why I said something like 1,1A,1B (campaign loss). The campaign, especially on ironman, is about skill. You shouldn't have campaign loss over a single back luck headshot. As I said above, no "war" is lost over a single tactical fight or (in modern times) people. Leaders have lines of succession, campaigns/wars are lots of single tactical battles that don't depend on a single particular tactical fight ever.

The alternative is you never play Ironman which seems stupid as why waste dev time implementing it then. You figure a custom scenario takes what, a half day of dev time if that? Could knock this out in a week with no impact on revenue.

I guess this revolves about each one's concept of 'Ironman' - I'm fine with having to restart a campaign because of an unlucky head shot because I don't see the failed campaign as a waste of time but rather a learning experience to do better next time and reduce the odds of Kamea getting a head shot.

As you said, it's about skill and I personally believe that you can learn more from failure than success, so I tend to use Ironman as default playing mode and I'd be screaming for HBS to include it if it wasn't present in the game. But while I prefer the higher risk of failure but sometimes I like the more control that non-Ironman provides. To me having both as options in-game caters to both styles of playing.

As for the death of a leader causing the loss of a war, it shouldn't and in modern days there are safeguards against it, but it happens all the time in the BattleTech canon. The best example is the death of Coordinator Minoru Kurita during the First Succession War by a Davion sniper that caused a breakdown of the entire Kurita offensive and prevented the Federated Suns from being conquered by the Draconis Combine.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

..."You are engaged in the action right now and moving forward" hence in my head the storyline is not one of Arano but of the return to power of her ousted political group and as such she is irrelevant to that. I look at campaign as simply a set of specific missions in career mode...

...Just first time doing on iroman and the fact it was instant campaign (and game) end was just stupid and I feel a poor design decision. Even if you want to play "in the past" so the storyline ends on mission failure, too bad there still is no reason it doesn't just kick you into career mode at that point kind of liek when you "beat" a 4x scenario and it asks "do you want to keep playing though all the content is done?"

HBS is not a AAA Game Development Studio, and so very much of the Kickstarter money was siphoned away for Kickstarter fees, Merch manufacturing and shipping, etc.

For our Kickstarter money, HBS gave us one helluva game. But even then some features that had been discussed had to be paired back. At one point we were likely to have the option to not answer the Restoration’s Call to Arms. Consequently High Lady Arano’s Cause would fail and Director Espinosa would reign unopposed and even offer us Mercenary Contracts in post-Campaign gameplay.

But due to problems and delays with a Unity Update and no doubt a thousand other factors, HBS need to opt-out of a few things.

We are lucky to have as much of BATTLETECH as we do.

Storyline Branches and Sequels of the type you offer (Death of High Lady Arano) are beyond interesting and compelling. But IMO we would have needed to have Kickstarter BATTLETECH by two or three times the money we did to even give HBS a fighting chance to reach that level of Campaign Branches and Sequels.

...As you said, it's about skill and I personally believe that you can learn more from failure than success, so I tend to use Ironman as default playing mode and I'd be screaming for HBS to include it if it wasn't present in the game...

...As for the death of a leader causing the loss of a war, it shouldn't and in modern days there are safeguards against it, but it happens all the time in the BattleTech canon. The best example is the death of Coordinator Minoru Kurita during the First Succession War by a Davion sniper that caused a breakdown of the entire Kurita offensive and prevented the Federated Suns from being conquered by the Draconis Combine.

Ironman was not even part of Kickstarter.

Early on it was Mike McCain who I recall first speaking of his “Hope” to develop a BATTLETECH Ironman Mode. Eventually it was added in the 1.1 Update if I recall correctly. And many, many of us rejoiced. : )



As to the Coordinator’s Actions on Kentares during the First a Succession War... that is what I like about about how BattleTech has evolved through the years. Yes, a Faction Leader can be as Evil as any War Criminal ever, but it doesn’t taint the Peoples of his or her Faction.

Hero’s rise and fall.

Villains rise and fall.

But their actions are their own.

BattleTech fans of one Faction or another are neither shamed or glorified by the actions of their Factions. It is just that some Factions have plumbed certain depths very publically... while others give their brides the destruction and death of millions as their bride gifts. : )

But in all seriousness, Catalyst has brought BattleTech a long, long way from its mid ‘80’s inception. :bow:

 

[Lord_Eol]

But in all seriousness, Catalyst has brought BattleTech a long, long way from its mid ‘80’s inception. :bow:

We will just have to disagree with that man and leave it at that lol. I find the entire BT franchise post FASA an abomination and that goes for all their other IP holders as well. WoD suffered the same after WW's sale to CCP (and now Paradox? Forgot who bought them recently). But yeah I will concede that is all just personal preference and, admittedly so, my guess dependent on which flavor/era one was introduced to BT.

Regardless amazed how much interest a thread about a recommendation to "fix" ironman campaign storyline received lol.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

We will just have to disagree with that man and leave it at that lol. I find the entire BT franchise post FASA an abomination and that goes for all their other IP holders as well. WoD suffered the same after WW's sale to CCP (and now Paradox? Forgot who bought them recently). But yeah I will concede that is all just personal preference and, admittedly so, my guess dependent on which flavor/era who was introduced to BT.

Regardless amazed how much interest a thread about a recommendation to "fix" ironman campaign storyline received lol.

Fair enough. :bow:

”Abomination” huh?

Yeah, we agree to disagree. : )

 

[Jade_Rook]

Yes, Paradox currently owns WoD.

At the beginning of the campaign, the Directorate has firm control of the Reach. People aren't happy about it, but without a strong personality to lead them, a ruler with a legitimate claim to the throne, they won't do anything about it. Without Lady Arano there is no Restoration.

Kamea is the last of her line. At this point she has no heir to step up if she dies. It is possible that a noble from one of the other houses would make a claim, but no appropriate character was included in the story. Lord Madeira fills the role of a loyal follower and assistant. I don't see him stepping into a successor role.

If Kamea dies, the Restoration dies.

Most of the campaign missions are critical to the Restoration effort. Failure on some might be more of a set back than complete defeat, but in general, we are deployed when failure is not an option.

It would be possible to write the story such that this is not the case. An alternate path could make Kamea a martyr who inspires another leader, but that is not how the story was written and it would not be easy to rewrite it to accommodate such failed missions. The amount of work required to make a branching campaign, as awesome as that would be, is substantial.

 

[Corraidhin]

If Kamea dies, the Restoration dies.

More importantly, she's our employer. Without out her, who do we send the invoices to? The story ends if she dies as far as I'm concerned, if you're in Ironman mode that's a risk to accept.

In code terms every branch you add down a chain grows the code complexity exponentially. The testing effort added is even worse as you need to test both positive and negative outcomes as you go. Limited side branches could be do-able with enough resources as these can be constrained, but branch after branch rapidly becomes impossible in campaign terms.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

...An alternate path could make Kamea a martyr who inspires another leader, but that is not how the story was written and it would not be easy to rewrite it to accommodate such failed missions. The amount of work required to make a branching campaign, as awesome as that would be, is substantial.

Substantial enough to be cost and perhaps more importantly for where HBS and we were almost two-years ago now, TIME prohibitive.

Andrew (aka HBS_TheBaron) and Team HBS tell a mean, compelling, page-turning, just-one-more-Mission manner of BattleTech Story. But while the choice of the Rimward Periphery gave them a largely blank canvass with which to work, this “blankness” was also the source of perhaps their biggest challenge.

Andrew and Team HBS had to create as rich and as immersive a skein of Political Intrigue, Power Machination and Machiavellian Plots as was possible using a minimum of preamble and then only cutscenes as their medium. Think of the challenge that represents! They doubled down and then doubled down again on the Arano-Espinosa dynamic. It is little wonder that we have a hard time looking beyond High Lady Arano.


I think @Lord_Eol has an excellent point about House Arano Loyalists and even Aurigan Coalition Loyalists embodying a strong and virulent opposition that ranged across the continuum from Resistance to Insurgency and organized across Political, Military, Traditional and Urban hotbeds of support.

Andrew and Team HBS do touch on this when they have Lord Simon Karosas lose his daughter as she continued to support House Arano even as High Lady Arano secretly escaped into exile. A second example of the resistance House Espinos found across the Aurigan Reach is the filled to the brim Political Prisons on Panzyr. Taken together this connotes that while unsuccessful in toppling the Directorate, there was a broadly based and quite motivated segment of the population just waiting for the Spark that would lead to full scale rebellion,

And while High Lady Arano proved to the that Spark, there would have been an amazingly complex and oftentimes working at crossed purposes layer of Planetary and Regional Insurgency Leaders, Commanders and Power Brokers.

The Societal Fracture Points and Centers of Friction existed.

High Lady Arano tapped into them and organized them to a degree greater than anyone before her. But to assume that these Societal Fractures and Rebellious Population Centers would have folded like a house of cards with her death is just not historically supportable to any substantial degree imo.