Multiplayer...

[JesterHell]

As a former Starcraft player, I would like to disagree with that statement. Having a great multiplayer experience, and in the case of SC, with an eSport level of balance and competition, did not in any ways makes the single player less enjoyable by any mean. Starcraft is far from the only title I could lists here but it is the best one to take as an example.

I honestly cannot understand why so many people keep insisting that both types of game play cannot coexist.

Because they can't, the amount of Dev time spent on Starcraft MP is dev time not spent on it's SP, one or the other will always take precedence over the other and the "other" will be lesser for it.

Also Starcraft has a massive dev team compared to Battletech and there are just not enough devs for the people whom want this games to cover 3025-3075 in one long continuous SP experiance and to develop and support a competitive PvP scene, one or the other will have to be secondary objective and I vote that its MP that be the second.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

Being a subordinate priority is realistic and nothing more than I expected. I look forward to future HBS BATTLETECH announcements.

 

[Drekken]

I feel that the lack of a co-op option (whether it be skirmish or campaign) is a massive missed opportunity and is precisely why I have personally not bothered with MP with this game.

 

[Morfanos]

Because they can't, the amount of Dev time spent on Starcraft MP is dev time not spent on it's SP, one or the other will always take precedence over the other and the "other" will be lesser for it.

Also Starcraft has a massive dev team compared to Battletech and there are just not enough devs for the people whom want this games to cover 3025-3075 in one long continuous SP experiance and to develop and support a competitive PvP scene, one or the other will have to be secondary objective and I vote that its MP that be the second.

My replies was toward the many people who keep saying that having both a great single player and multiplayer experience was incompatible. I believe the StarCraft franchise and the Civilization franchise are both amazing example on how this is possible.

Now, if you want to go into size and resource, sure, it makes things more difficult but again, not impossible. Taking the original Starcraft as an example once more, it was made by a team roughly similar in size to the HBS BT team, 50 people to be more precise.

As for the last bit of your post, you state :

... for the people whom want this games to cover 3025-3075 in one long continuous SP experiance and to develop and support a competitive PvP scene, one or the other will have to be secondary objective and I vote that its MP that be the second.

Now, this is where I believe our views differ.

Keep in mind that in its current state, BattleTech is missing both features from it's SP and MP components that were promised as part of the kickstarter.

All we, the MP bunch, are asking for, is that both the SP and MP be finished as it was supposed to be.

What some(not all of them) of the SP crowd, seems to be asking for, is to have DLC development takes priorities over MP features that are missing from the game at the time of this writing. That's a whole different story and one I have a problem with.

Don't misread this, I want multiple DLCs and sequels for BattleTech, I've been in "love" with this franchise since the early 90s, but I firmly believe that the priority should be given to what's missing from the final product and not for adding extra content to it, not yet at least.

If you look at who's is generally in favor of the MP being finished as it should, you'll see that these people, including myself, have the kickstarter backer icons attached to our PDX account. Basically, we're just asking to get the product for which we invested money at in the first place, meaning both the SP and MP features that are still missing.

I want to be clear, this isn't me saying I have priority over non backer, this is me stating that backers did invest their money into a product that as yet to be fully finished and that's all we really want.

 

[Morfanos]

I feel that the lack of a co-op option (whether it be skirmish or campaign) is a massive missed opportunity and is precisely why I have personally not bothered with MP with this game.

I am not exactly sure how co-op could fit into the campaign but in the skirmish mode, yes, that would be a nice feature to have.

 

[Drekken]

I am not exactly sure how co-op could fit into the campaign but in the skirmish mode, yes, that would be a nice feature to have.

For a MP campaign game, it'd essentially be the same as SP, except with a two or four player option with mech and pilot slots divided up accordingly.
The host would have the commander slot by default.

 

[Morfanos]

For a MP campaign game, it'd essentially be the same as SP, except with a two or four player option with mech and pilot slots divided up accordingly.
The host would have the commander slot by default.

You mean adding extra lances? Because that would require a huge amount of work and rebalancing.

Or do you mean having say, player one be in charge of mech 1 and 2 and player 2, mech 3 and 4? That could work. I don't know how much enjoyable it would be but it could definitely work.

How would the managing part of the campaign work in this mode?

 

[Drekken]

Or do you mean having say, player one be in charge of mech 1 and 2 and player 2, mech 3 and 4?

^ This

How would the managing part of the campaign work in this mode?

Probably the best way would be to have the host control all of that and allow friends to join in the combat if they wanted to. The host's friends could also have the option of leaving at any time they wanted with their mech(s) either reverting back to the host's control for the remainder of the mission, or just reverting back to SP if everyone leaves.

 

[Morfanos]

Probably the best way would be to have the host control all of that and allow friends to join in the combat if they wanted to. The host's friends could also have the option of leaving at any time they wanted with their mech(s) either reverting back to the host's control for the remainder of the mission, or just reverting back to SP if everyone leaves.

That's an idea I'd be happy to have in game, but the problem is right now, the network infrastructure we have would not be fit for this. For a simple 1 on 1 skirmish, we keep having connection issues. I don't see how your coop idea would work any better when you would be adding even more than what we already have. I mean, right now, we don't even have a reconnect option in MP, if the servers screw up or if someone lose their connection, the game is simply lost. Things like these need to be addressed first if we hope to have any kind of coop like you're suggesting.

But I do like the idea, it's simple and shouldn't need too much work to implement, assuming a stable network is in place. A lot of my friends, who do not play or even know what BT is, like coop games and I know this is a thing that could get them to play this game.

 

[Varsi]

While I love co-op (way too rare in games generally) building it in BT campaign would not be a trivial thing to do. Can't see them having resources for something like that in near future. Also if it was pretty much just "remote hot seat" (host playing campaign, friends joining in battles) it probably wouldn't be worth the time anyway.

I'm really hopeful that proper multiplayer is coming in a year or two with proper machmaking and record keeping. While tournaments can be run by community it would be a lot less trouble if it was more automated.
The connection issues will need to be fixed before any of that of course.

 

[Zakhodit]

It would take far less time for them to fix connection issues than it would to develop co-op.

That's all most of us are asking for.

Any mechs or weapons that are created for SP benefit MP. So, that's not dev time wasted.

I don't understand the panic that ensues when someone mentions time spent on MP. Especially when this is all speculation anyway. The DEVs aren't looking at any of these posts and thinking, "Yeah, lets ditch all SP development and focus the next year on MP."

To be more accurate: The DEVs aren't looking at any of these posts. Period.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

@Drekken and @Morfanos, HBS has been quite clear on this, the "Co-op" they had hoped to introduce post-Launch was a PvE Mode and not a PvP Mode. In other words the BATTLETECH AI would be taking on multiple players rather than a single player under BATTLETECH Co-op.

 

[Zakhodit]

To be clear: When I say "what most of us are asking for" I am referring to fixing connection issues.

Co-Op in general is something I see as a Third game mode. It's not SP and it's Not MP (pvp).

And to echo what @Morfanos had stated, I also want HBS to just finish what they promised. Which was working PVP and we don't have that right now. We don't have a working SP for that matter.

We have a very nice beta. Fun to play and full of bugs.

 

[Pewpew!]

I can absolutely agree with this. HBS shoved this game out the door to meet the time table that Paradox gave them. Now they need to FINISH those kickstarter COMMITMENTS. And fix the connection issues. I watched 4 people in a row last night unable to connect to my lobby. That's totally unacceptable.

 

[Jack Ryan]

I can absolutely agree with this. HBS shoved this game out the door to meet the time table that Paradox gave them. Now they need to FINISH those kickstarter COMMITMENTS. And fix the connection issues. I watched 4 people in a row last night unable to connect to my lobby. That's totally unacceptable.

I consistently have the same issues.

 

[Slayer_TNT]

I feel that the lack of a co-op option (whether it be skirmish or campaign) is a massive missed opportunity and is precisely why I have personally not bothered with MP with this game.

So here's the issue with Co-Op: You are trying to execute a Strategy but you don't control all of the assets. This means you and your buddy need to coordinate your actions, but unlike a game like MWO, where the situation is evolving continuously and having a second mind doing part of the work is helpful, here you are simply inputting the course of action you decide on together. You can have the same experience by sharing your session on Twitch and talking it over with your friend on Discord. No coding or matchmaking required. Heck, with this approach they don't even need to own the game.

 

[Drekken]

So here's the issue with Co-Op: You are trying to execute a Strategy but you don't control all of the assets. This means you and your buddy need to coordinate your actions, but unlike a game like MWO, where the situation is evolving continuously and having a second mind doing part of the work is helpful, here you are simply inputting the course of action you decide on together. You can have the same experience by sharing your session on Twitch and talking it over with your friend on Discord. No coding or matchmaking required. Heck, with this approach they don't even need to own the game.

Perhaps you personally see that as a "problem", but I do not.

 

[Zakhodit]

I watched 4 people in a row last night unable to connect to my lobby. That's totally unacceptable.

For the best results
1) every time you want to create a lobby restart the client.
2) if you want to join a lobby restart the client.
3) if you don’t connect at first, try a second time. Past three tries, just restart your client.
4) if the match starts but you’re stuck looking at a leopard drop ship or it times out, swap who hosts

I’ve got over 100 MP matches and around 80% of the time all the problems are solved by both players having a fresh client. If you’ve been in SP for a few hours, restart before playing/hosting a match.

The other 20% of the time you are at the mercy of COMSTAR. All yo can do then is hope or try again tomorrow.

 

[Slayer_TNT]

Perhaps you personally see that as a "problem", but I do not.

Opinions can vary. What I'm saying is that the experience doesn't seem to warrant the development effort. For example, can you describe what a Co-Op experience you would find satisfying would look like?

To me it looks like you and I see the same field and mechs and you control two of them and I control two of them. Either I move and manage my mechs on my own, in which case I may or may not reserve when you need me to so I can properly sensor lock a fast target, or I may move in a different direction, or I may not use the weapons to cause the key stability damage you need to knock the enemy down, or any of a thousand other things, unless we are communicating and planning together.

If we are already talking it over, and have agreed what mech moves when and fires what at which target then how is it a substantially better experience that I input that info for two mechs and you do it for the other two? There isn't a lot of autonomy in that situation and a lot of the mechanics in this game rely on the timing and selection of weapons employed to generate specific effects, like knockdown or reserving scouts for later to deal with quick opponents.

How do you see it behaving?

 

[Triordinant]

Co-op PvE multiplayer? I'd love to see that in Mechwarrior 5. I wonder if they'll have it...?