Multiplayer...

[Zakhodit]

I've completed 92 online matches.

Once was someone rude. So rude that I muted the chat.

It was also some random player, not someone from the discord.

Gathering on the discord first is the best way to:
A) Find players who are pleasant to play with.
B) Find an opponent quickly and set up a match quickly
C) Find players willing to tutor and suggest rather than take advantage for a cheap win.

 

[Hypnotist]

If multi-player dies out, players like myself will just end up playing other games. We'll never buy any BattleTech DLC because we won't know about it. BattleTech will be a long forgotten gem in our Steam libraries. Without our purchases, the resources to continue supporting BattleTech will greatly diminish. Then new single-player content will dry up because HBS will have to move on to a new IP to feed their own families. Therefore, irrespective of whether we love single- or multi-player, it's in all our best interests to support all aspects of this game if we truly want to see BattleTech thrive.

So if I understand this opinion correctly, it is stating that without MP, this game will die out. That position is hyperbolic and sounds like "No True Scotsman" circular logic. Read these boards and it's easy to come to the conclusion that more people are interested in SP than in MP and that customizing is far more popular than sticking to stocks. SP games will always be viable IF they are well balanced and fun to play. What will kill this game with more certainty is not getting the base SP game to that state. I don't consider BATTLETECH to be a full release. With the extreme lack of polish and balance, it still very much acts and plays like an early access game. We'll see what they do with the promised QoL/Balance patch that is supposedly coming down the pipe in the next 60 days. That will likely be the true make or break point for this game. If the SP game doesn't get faster, better balanced to make more builds/loadouts/tactics viable and with greater variety of missions and tactical situations to overcome, yes, this game will die. If the MP faction leaves, it will certainly be a double LRM head shot to the long-term viability but not likely a mortal wound.

Cheese can be address by stock only leader and then a free(cheese) ladder and done.

This is certainly a possible solution for people who play stocks only, but from what I have gathered, stocks-only players are a minority faction. Most MP people would choose the custom ladder because tinkering with mechs is a BIG draw for the fan base. Which will still leave us with the inevitable grousing about what constitutes cheese and it's prevalence in the system.

Also if you add to the whole game anti cheese rules like 2 of the same weapon generates more heat or limit hardpoints , etc you could have more realistic matches

First, "realistic matches" is a strange term to use for a game based a millennia in the future with giant robots doing the fighting. Second, hardpoints are already limited and third, making multiple weapons generate more heat is anti-canon and I can already hear the screaming from the fanbase on that count. Additionally it would neuter most stock mechs that utilize multiple instances of a weapon system (only 10 of 55 the stock mechs included (variants inclusive) do NOT utilize multiple instances of a given weapon system, Hunchback 4Ps would be hit particularly hard by this type of restriction). Where there are game systems, be they card-based, dice-based or computer-based, there will be cheese. People will ALWAYS look for ways to game the system for an advantage and almost always find them.

Add a team mode where 8 players can battle(each in one mech),etc,

Adding co-op is my personal vote for improving MP play. I used to be big into WWII flight sims (IL-2 Sturmovik) and fought in an organized squadron against other organized squadrons and taught at a school created to teach beginners how to fly and fight. For the most part it was an incredibly healthy community. It would be an easy transition for the BT universe. Instead of squadrons, you could have merc companies or even fight for the great houses. Co-op brings people together, anonymous PvP death matches is where enjoyment-killing toxicity comes in, in my experience.

 

[Jack Ryan]

The people who support SP in this game never fail to mention how much they don't care about MP. Multiplayer gamers are not outnumbered by the SP ones, we just never slight the single player game. They are two parts of a whole, give this game some time and the single players won't be playing single player anymore. That's no slight to the SP game, it's just reality. You can only play a single player game so much before it gets predictable. I have something like 400 hours in the Single Player game, I have modded it to the gills and it is still old, the AI lacks real skill. The Single Player game compensates for this by spamming company sized forces at you on an ever increasing power level and tonnage. That does not display skill, that is simply highlighting the shortcomings of the AI.

I do wish there was a surrender option in MP... I rage quit on a cheese build today. I was simply disgusted after watching the OpFor methodically move their 3 FS9's into range, picking off my straggling mechs not from skill but from a mechanic with Flamers that is simply too damn lopsided. Perhaps I should have specced custom mechs... such is life. The last mech was some LRM spam boat, never even figured out what it was. Just a finishing mech to kill KDed mechs. I win some and I loose some. Then just now, I had a player give up because they only had an Awesome 8T remaining, I had a CAT and a Thunderbolt, both pretty banged up. I got the whole GG but the loss of the credit kind of blows after you've played for over an hour. The graceful surrender from BETA really needs to be in there and I have no idea why they couldn't even deliver on that one small improvement to the MP game. God knows, they neutered it enough.

Cheese builds have a place in the game, that place would be in a Solaris Arena. I hope we actually see that addon, because it will easily be one that can cater to SP and MP gamers alike. The SP gamers could travel there and have their SP matches and we MP gamers could actually have something interesting.

Frankly I don't understand why the SP crowd is so hell bent on knocking the MP aspect of the game. We all love Battletech, we all want the devs to invest in all aspects of the game. Investing in Multiplayer does not screw the Single Player portion of the game, it allows the devs to hone the weapons, systems, mechanics and even create new and interesting combat modes (perhaps like hatchets) and field test them in a place where the person you're playing against is always going to be better than an AI. The AI isn't even AI, it's a series of branching scripted choices, which becomes predictable. MP is a great platform for any game's growth and exposure. The MP community in general, massively outnumbers Single players. Everything has Multiplayer in it now days. SP has seen a bit of a resurgence, and I'm grateful for that because I do love my private SP games. However, for this game to be truly great it needs to cater to both audiences.

Look at Mass Effect Andromeda. It's a Single Player focused game with a Multiplayer element. Say all you want about the game, yes, EA screwed the pooch on it. However, a bunch of mods later and the SP portion of the game is pretty darned good. Or at least playable. However, the only people still really playing the game are Multiplayer gamers. Star Citizen is another example (if it ever comes out) A MP game with a single player element which is heavily played by more multiplayer gamers than single players (granted its all still in Alpha).

All of my friends (and everyone I know) only play MP games. Whether it be Life is Feudal, WoW, League of Legends, Battlefield, Call of Duty, etc. They are the prevalent and prevailing titles that see the most traffic, all of them Multiplayer Games.

So, lets back one another up here and hope for growth on both sides of the fence, no?

 

[Havamal]

Greetings Mechwarriors,

Please post topically towards discussion and do not post AT others personally.

In my experience Arguing opinions is futile. Everyone has one, and argument rarely inspires others to relinquish theirs.
What it does do is lead to snarky back and forth and eventually derailment.

I would encourage community members to present their own personal perspective and not overly focus on that of others especially when incivility and personal dismissiveness had already been requested as something to avoid.

Posts choosing not to take this advice will experience unfortunate Jump Drive malfunctions to the Far country to be used as nesting materials by the locals going forward.


Please consider, there is no need for divisive either/or arguments between MP and SP. Community members are welcome to their fair personal play preference, and should not be threatened that others have fun in different ways as it has no bearing on anyone else. Creating a dividing line is a false narrative. The IP can and always has supported both. We don't need to yuck yuck each others yum-yums over the order of operations.


Thank you

 

[Prussian Havoc]

There are plenty of us who enjoy PvP Multiplayer and do not Rage Quit. : )

Sorry but BATTLETECH is in all the stronger a market position when it follows through on KickStarter Features and works toward supporting both its Single Player and PvP Multiplayer fans. :bow:

 

[Akito272]

The people who support SP in this game never fail to mention how much they don't care about MP. Multiplayer gamers are not outnumbered by the SP ones, we just never slight the single player game. They are two parts of a whole, give this game some time and the single players won't be playing single player anymore. That's no slight to the SP game, it's just reality. You can only play a single player game so much before it gets predictable. I have something like 400 hours in the Single Player game, I have modded it to the gills and it is still old, the AI lacks real skill. The Single Player game compensates for this by spamming company sized forces at you on an ever increasing power level and tonnage. That does not display skill, that is simply highlighting the shortcomings of the AI.

I do wish there was a surrender option in MP... I rage quit on a cheese build today. I was simply disgusted after watching the OpFor methodically move their 3 FS9's into range, picking off my straggling mechs not from skill but from a mechanic with Flamers that is simply too damn lopsided. Perhaps I should have specced custom mechs... such is life. The last mech was some LRM spam boat, never even figured out what it was. Just a finishing mech to kill KDed mechs. I win some and I loose some. Then just now, I had a player give up because they only had an Awesome 8T remaining, I had a CAT and a Thunderbolt, both pretty banged up. I got the whole GG but the loss of the credit kind of blows after you've played for over an hour. The graceful surrender from BETA really needs to be in there and I have no idea why they couldn't even deliver on that one small improvement to the MP game. God knows, they neutered it enough.

Cheese builds have a place in the game, that place would be in a Solaris Arena. I hope we actually see that addon, because it will easily be one that can cater to SP and MP gamers alike. The SP gamers could travel there and have their SP matches and we MP gamers could actually have something interesting.

Frankly I don't understand why the SP crowd is so hell bent on knocking the MP aspect of the game. We all love Battletech, we all want the devs to invest in all aspects of the game. Investing in Multiplayer does not screw the Single Player portion of the game, it allows the devs to hone the weapons, systems, mechanics and even create new and interesting combat modes (perhaps like hatchets) and field test them in a place where the person you're playing against is always going to be better than an AI. The AI isn't even AI, it's a series of branching scripted choices, which becomes predictable. MP is a great platform for any game's growth and exposure. The MP community in general, massively outnumbers Single players. Everything has Multiplayer in it now days. SP has seen a bit of a resurgence, and I'm grateful for that because I do love my private SP games. However, for this game to be truly great it needs to cater to both audiences.

Look at Mass Effect Andromeda. It's a Single Player focused game with a Multiplayer element. Say all you want about the game, yes, EA screwed the pooch on it. However, a bunch of mods later and the SP portion of the game is pretty darned good. Or at least playable. However, the only people still really playing the game are Multiplayer gamers. Star Citizen is another example (if it ever comes out) A MP game with a single player element which is heavily played by more multiplayer gamers than single players (granted its all still in Alpha).

All of my friends (and everyone I know) only play MP games. Whether it be Life is Feudal, WoW, League of Legends, Battlefield, Call of Duty, etc. They are the prevalent and prevailing titles that see the most traffic, all of them Multiplayer Games.

So, lets back one another up here and hope for growth on both sides of the fence, no?

But you are naming non TBS* games xD. If you are going to compare use similar games that have turn based mechanics and customization options. Not a single of game you named has anything in common with BT xD. Not mechanics or player base or a dev with money. If you want to compare use Xcom or something along those lines.

That being said i do hope the game works for all. MP and SP players.


ps. MP cheese happens because the devs slapped MP into the final cut. They did not gave it much of a though. Shame =(

 

[Jack Ryan]

But you are naming non TBS* games xD. If you are going to compare use similar games that have turn based mechanics and customization options. Not a single of game you named has anything in common with BT xD. Not mechanics or player base or a dev with money. If you want to compare use Xcom or something along those lines.

That being said i do hope the game works for all. MP and SP players.


ps. MP cheese happens because the devs slapped MP into the final cut. They did not gave it much of a though. Shame =(

I wasn't going for a direct comparison. I was simply stating that Multiplayer is where it's at for a title's longevity. That's a good point though, even Xcom gets old and I had played the single player portion of the game for hundreds of hours with every mod imaginable running all at once. There is no comparison to playing against another human. In my 44 years I have seen one constant, Multiplayer Games drive the marketplace. It's been a constant. As a Single Player guy I chafed under the seemingly endless waves of Multiplayer games as they were introduced and eventually learned to accept and embrace them. I came from an era where multiplayer was death match Doom or Rise of the Triad or Duke Nukem. Now, everything is different. The only challenge back them was still playing against your friends, or against someone over a terrible modem connection. It's no different now. The tech level is higher, internet speeds are insane by comparison and Multiplayer games continue to thrive and live much longer lives than single player only ones.

 

[Morfanos]

If I may, I have a few TBS games I know that did have a pretty strong community(at least compared to their respective market). The Civilization series, at least since the 4th one, is one good example that do come to mind. Frozen Synapse, an indie game, had a huge multiplayer community(again, for it's respective size). So much in fact that they have a sequel coming up this month, 6 years after the first game was released. I played Hero Academy for a while and again, never had trouble finding people to play against.

That's all for now but I'm sure I could come up with more if I took the time. Basically, there's not many TBS examples not because TBS multiplayer isn't popular, but because as a whole, the TBS market is pretty small(and usually more difficult to learn and more time consuming) compared to the other type of games.

 

[Cato Zilks]

I mean any online chess game meets the TBS standard and those clearly work. MP can and should work pretty easily for Battletech, but like chess each piece needs to be well balanced before games between people are fun.

 

[Dreepa]

It baffles me how someone can deny another person his opinion. The people here that like MP do not diminish the value of SP. Yet the SP people bash on MP people like there is some exclusivity for SP going on.

Just respect that someone feels different about it. You can have a nice campaign and PS stuff, and play it, and the others can have some nice MP battles and like it.

Most games that live long have multiplayer.

 

[Cato Zilks]

It baffles me how someone can deny another person his opinion. The people here that like MP do not diminish the value of SP. Yet the SP people bash on MP people like there is some exclusivity for SP going on.

Just respect that someone feels different about it. You can have a nice campaign and PS stuff, and play it, and the others can have some nice MP battles and like it.

Most games that live long have multiplayer.

I don't see anybody denying another person their opinion, [Mod Edit: Again: please do not attempt to infer to people how to engage on this community, AKA do not engage in self moderation of this community. If someone thinks something is afoul of the Rules of conduct, do not reply: Use report.]

 

[MajorPrankster]

I see bashing in the tone all over on both sides of the MP/SP discussions, but not always _here_.
The Mods here are good about taking out the seriously bad stuff.

IMO, it is all shades of grey around the money and what to spend it on to add more BATTLETECH.

We have a (competitive) group of people who play strategy games, passionate about two different aspects of the same thing, that assume a limited amount of resources to get the things they want, so guess what?

This MP/SP PvE/PvP snake-eating-it's-tail 'discussion' is as old as the MUDs us old guys played.

First off, why so salty?
Second, who said HBS/Paradox would only fund one side?
Third, chess and solitaire have both been around for centuries; the 'longevity' arguments are money-based, meaning they appear to provide more long-term income, or they are population based, but neither proves MP or SP 'live longer'.

IMO, TT is the seed for all of this and by it's nature is a beer and pretzels game, not a competitive PvP/eSports game.
The MP 'MechWarrior' type games brought a bunch of PvP to the franchise.

Two very different types of MP gaming, from my PoV.

The developers even stated that the level of Balance needed for those two types of games are quite different, as is the medium, and they seemed from my PoV to state their goal is for more of a beer and pretzels approach.

So, finding a MP lobby/queuing/matching system that works at scale for _this_ game might not be so cut and dried.
This is a game where you have to set aside a good bit of time per match, have patience for allowing the turns of others, and even some level of self restraint to not cheese rules at this time in order to have fun matches.

Shades of grey.

 

[Pewpew!]

I don't see anybody denying another person their opinion,[ Mod edit]

The reason your not seeing people attacking other people because of they're opinions is because the mods deleted those posts and rightly so.
[Mod note: While forum staff appreciate the vote of confidence, Publicly discussion or commenting about of Moderation is against PDX site rules, and should only be done in PM for precedent reasons amongst others]

 

[2fisted]

Major Prankser: "IMO, TT is the seed for all of this and by it's nature is a beer and pretzels game, not a competitive PvP/eSports game.
The MP 'MechWarrior' type games brought a bunch of PvP to the franchise."
I agree with your point, I will say that things can get very competitive and intense when it comes to turn based games because winning/losing all comes down to 1 player (at this time).
In non time limited versions of BT (Megamek/MWT) one can think of their opponents next move for days wondering whats going to happen next. I do hope the pro team at HBS finds a good balance.

 

[Zakhodit]

If the only thing HBS does to improve multiplayer is allow ease of connections, I would be happy. (My God it's 2018, and we can't connect online)

[Mod edit: Snarky nicknames]. I'm quite sure you'll get plenty of SP content.

 

[jss78]

[snip]

Shades of grey.

That was an excellent post, and even as a player largely interested in PvE, I agree.

There are two major "levels" of PvP play I think.

On one hand you might only have some minimal facilities in the game to set up a PvP skirmish. I was very happy to see this in the game, because I might use this to play with my RL gaming buddies. We know and respect each other. We can easily decide possible house rules if the game balance is so-and-so, etc. So this is good for that "beer and pretzels" type of PvP.

Then you have the next level, with a large number of players, anonymity, no house rules, rankings etc. People variably going full meta cheese or stock builds, with no way to enforce either. This is the stuff I have no interest in.

It's fair to point out that while MWO is the latter type, it's always had a really nice player base (but not without bad apples).

 

[Red_Legion]

Many of the people saying multiplayer isn't important are the same people that say they want as close to TT realism....i don't get it.

A pvp base is the only way a franchise stays alive. Without a consistent multiplayer base the majority of the pc community quickly losses interest and the game stops earning enough profit to justify a large number of dlc, expansion, or sequel. It's the nature of the market these days. Execs are going to look at it and say, hey you guys made decent money, but we can make a lot more money by investing in a popular pvp template.

Also, I do not feel pvp is dead, it is just inaccessible. By my observation 90%+ of games are private and there is a huge waiting time to try to get a random person to join your match.

 

[MajorPrankster]

That was an excellent post, and even as a player largely interested in PvE, I agree.

There are two major "levels" of PvP play I think.

On one hand you might only have some minimal facilities in the game to set up a PvP skirmish. I was very happy to see this in the game, because I might use this to play with my RL gaming buddies. We know and respect each other. We can easily decide possible house rules if the game balance is so-and-so, etc. So this is good for that "beer and pretzels" type of PvP.

Then you have the next level, with a large number of players, anonymity, no house rules, rankings etc. People variably going full meta cheese or stock builds, with no way to enforce either. This is the stuff I have no interest in.

It's fair to point out that while MWO is the latter type, it's always had a really nice player base (but not without bad apples).

Thanks.

I think HBS has built an engine on top of which they can bring a franchise of the TT to a new audience.
As with any 're-imagining', or any other media, some will like it and some won't, such is life.

All of the ideas/desires around the game for adding more BATTLETECH can all be built using the foundation they have created, IMO.
Paradox seems to be good at nurturing strategy games over the long term.

IMO there is plenty great yet to come, but as with all games, not all of it will cater to every player...

I came to play BATTLETECH and HBS delivered.

If HBS can figure out a way I can easily play BATTLETECH with others, anytime, that would be awesome.
Some things are hard and/or take time.

 

[SP3CTREnyc]

Battletech needs a mission builder.

Because then it can have a campaign builder.

And then it could have... Co-Op!

 

[Zakhodit]

Battletech needs a mission builder.

Mitch talked about why they didn't have a mission builder during the development phase. The work hours required almost surpassed the work hours spent on just the single player alone. As much as a mission builder would desired, I think it likely they create more MP features before they create a Mission builder.

I and don't think it's likely they'll create more MP features.

The most likely additions will be single player focused. Some of those things will indirectly improve MP (More mechs, maps, weapons) and that will "count" toward developing both at the same time.