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there are no shooting penalties or PSR's for pretending you're a lamed bird and jump every round, there should be, nor do i think that mechs huddling in forests is all that "battletech" from my own experience with the TT, it was always more about keeping mobility up and using terrain as cover when practical, forests where certainly nice in niche situations, but not to the extend you're expected to hug the trees to keep the mitigation percentages up, nor where the odds ever really as loop-sided as the game makes it, lance-on-company engagements with equal chassis's was never not taking the piss regardless of pilot skills. and frankenmech optimization like we're encouraged, nay required to do here was never not a ridiculous thing outside omnis in the first place.If you recall the context of our talk, it was that I've not ever needed to up-armor.
That's a far cry from "requiring shenanigans" to play the game.
I guess we won't agree perspective wise though because from my time in TT on to now I suppose what you call cheese I call a list of ways for playing the game (that can all stack, including new bulwark). It's OK to disagree anyway. That's a natural part of life.
As for Sure-footed, yes we are sure.
humping the proverbial hill with ace pilot, or pretending you're a 70 ton bird with jumpjets doesn't actually feature anywhere in the tabletop because the former doesn't really happen due to the simultaneous shooting phase and the latter has significant penalties attached, yet every game made of PC fails to address these in some way, leading to gameplay loops that's got very little to do with how battletech is actually depicted in the fiction, or plays in practice outside the munchkin segment community, and Battletech here is no different, it arguably brings some of the bad stuff over from the mechwarrior games in that regard.
the thing is, limited mitigation and tabletopesque RNG is fine, even when you get [Mod edit: language] over by rolling 1's endlessly the gamemaster is there to help you salvage the campaign but there's no gamemaster here to toss you a "stomp a couple of locusts in with your two barely patched together Shadowhawks" mission or two in order to get proceedings back on track, the game doesn't really do that, you can roll the dice on a lower skull system, but that's about it, meaning you've gotta offset that elsewhere, chipping away at mitigation abilities increases the value of armor and that in turn limits choice when it comes to fitting. much like xcom the fundamental consideration at play in Battletech is risk management, and decreasing my ability to mitigate damage means increasing the relative value of armor even further, when it's already the most valuable investment on the mech ton for ton due to repair costs.
the litmus test, as i see it, is doing a stock mech run, in all it's gory sub-optimal-metaness, you could just barely scrape trough with bulwark for the heavy ground pounders and evasive movement for the more mobile jumpers like the Griffin, but i can't see it happen with the current bulwark/surefooted, it's going to flounder around 4 star missions where you're getting consistent 8v4 odds that outweigh you by at least 60%
evasion loses significant utility at this point due to the number imbalance between player and AI, Bulwark tanking-and-firing requires inspiration meaning you gotta shuffle your mech positioning to manipulate AI targeting (a gamey feature if there ever was one, but essential to survive those imbalanced battles without internal damage)
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Disagree! Even though I skipped most of it because my eyes started bleeding.
@Liare, Jordan shared with us two years ago at GENCON50 that HBS’s BATTLETECH was his opportunity to take the BattleTech that was possible on 1980’s tabletops, and move it forward to the possibilities and opportunities of 2018 PC Gaming.
BATTLETECH was never meant to capture all the rules and variances of BattleTech. HBS has been very clear with us on this from the very, very beginning of its Kickstarter.
For me, Jordan and HBS have quite successfully captured the heart, soul and feel of the BattleTech I first started to play during the Winter of 1985/86.
I understand that for you this is not the case. :bow:
I ask that you not judge BATTLETECH on the merits of a tabletop game from the 1980’s and since added to by a line of developers other than Jordan.
Let BATTLETECH stand on its own merits.
Jordan has mentioned that BATTLETECH hits much closer to what he originally envisioned for BattleTech, but could not bring to Big Stompy LIFE back in the mid-1980’s.
Perhaps from the above perspective Good @Liare, BATTLETECH will come to be a gaming experience more enjoyable... as it would be more in keeping with what Jordan and HBS developed BATTLETECH to be in the first place.
BATTLETECH was never meant to capture all the rules and variances of BattleTech. HBS has been very clear with us on this from the very, very beginning of its Kickstarter.
For me, Jordan and HBS have quite successfully captured the heart, soul and feel of the BattleTech I first started to play during the Winter of 1985/86.
I understand that for you this is not the case. :bow:
I ask that you not judge BATTLETECH on the merits of a tabletop game from the 1980’s and since added to by a line of developers other than Jordan.
Let BATTLETECH stand on its own merits.
Jordan has mentioned that BATTLETECH hits much closer to what he originally envisioned for BattleTech, but could not bring to Big Stompy LIFE back in the mid-1980’s.
Perhaps from the above perspective Good @Liare, BATTLETECH will come to be a gaming experience more enjoyable... as it would be more in keeping with what Jordan and HBS developed BATTLETECH to be in the first place.
my beef is that it gets so close but the skills serve to push people in the wrong direction, Mechs are tank analogues in the setting, with terrifyingly high mobility, even the slowest assault mech can out-phase a modern tank across terrain, respectable firepower (you can cram more on fusion powered tanks, but customized tanks with fusion engines are point for point, stronger than mechs in part due to the mechanics) and good protection. they're the knights of the field without the horses. this shifts a bit once the clans appear, simply because their mechs does the same thing so much better due to longer weapon ranges, much heavier weapon loads and much much higher mobility.
while the city, the forest belongs to the common infantryman armored or not, the cramped conditions serve to restrict the mechs advantages, it's mobility and firepower, while playing to the infantry's advantage, it's the same dynamic at play on the modern day battlefield.
and for much of the game it plays out almost precisely like that, it's only when the odds start getting stacked too high and evasion ticks starts losing utility because the number of incoming fire sources increases significantly you have to look at different strategies, such as relying on forest cover to get the mitigation up to par.
and mechs hiding in forests aren't really a thing, in universe it's a desperation move, such as the south army group on Huntress falling back into the Dhuan Swamp as the jaguar reinforcements where basically throwing themselves at them with wild abandon.
we will see how it works out once it's released, but after reading some more on it and thinking on it, i suspect that the "end game" has largely traded turret mechs for "hiding in forest" mechs with the same bulwark reliance as that grants 40%/60% damage mitigation as well as whatever few evasion pips you can get from shuffling about in the forest.
i'd rather have seen bulwark getting replaced with a "relentless advance" type deal, reduced damage depending on distance moved/movement consumed and the surefooted granting permanent evasion pips scaling off pilot skill, but eh. let's see how it works out.
while the city, the forest belongs to the common infantryman armored or not, the cramped conditions serve to restrict the mechs advantages, it's mobility and firepower, while playing to the infantry's advantage, it's the same dynamic at play on the modern day battlefield.
and for much of the game it plays out almost precisely like that, it's only when the odds start getting stacked too high and evasion ticks starts losing utility because the number of incoming fire sources increases significantly you have to look at different strategies, such as relying on forest cover to get the mitigation up to par.
and mechs hiding in forests aren't really a thing, in universe it's a desperation move, such as the south army group on Huntress falling back into the Dhuan Swamp as the jaguar reinforcements where basically throwing themselves at them with wild abandon.
we will see how it works out once it's released, but after reading some more on it and thinking on it, i suspect that the "end game" has largely traded turret mechs for "hiding in forest" mechs with the same bulwark reliance as that grants 40%/60% damage mitigation as well as whatever few evasion pips you can get from shuffling about in the forest.
i'd rather have seen bulwark getting replaced with a "relentless advance" type deal, reduced damage depending on distance moved/movement consumed and the surefooted granting permanent evasion pips scaling off pilot skill, but eh. let's see how it works out.