Tired of Fighting 2x or 3x my number and getting swarmed.

[The Reign]

I love traditional battletech but this is BS. I'm tired of getting swarmed by 2 to 3 times my number. What the hell were there developers thinking? The mission designs are innovating, the just make you outnumbered every single battle and your lucky to come out with one mech hopping on one leg. Its seems like any mission with 2 and a half schools is damn near unbeatable. If your going to throw 3 lances at my one, the developers should allow us to deploy multiple lances to. I remember one mission were I engaged one enemy lance on turn 2, then on turn 3 two other enemy lances came in on each side of mine, with catapults just wrecking mine, I managed to get rid of the enemies heavy and medium mechs but by that time I was down to 2 mechs and 5 light enemy mechs were surrounding mine doing hand to hand combat, didn't stand a chance. What where the developers thinking, that isn't any type of fun.

[Sinsling]

Well, yes, harder missions means you have to be better to beat the game. You're going to have to learn how to build mechs and pilot sets to mitigate enemy lrm spam or allow you to quickly reach key targets in the enemies' composition.

Or focus on the objective and not on engaging enemy mechs when possible.

[wesnef]

Originally posted by The Reign:

I love traditional battletech but this is BS. I'm tired of getting swarmed by 2 to 3 times my number. What the hell were there developers thinking?

They were thinking that the combination of being able to min/max your mech builds, improve your gear with ++ variants, and plan things with a human brain; would not be challenged by their so-so enemy AI and equal numbers. So they outnumber you in order to provide that challenge.

(Yes, some of the random mission setups are awful. WIthdrawing is an option when you get hit with a particularly bad one. The rest of the time, you're expected to win against 2+ times your number. It's definitely possible.)

[Socipat]

Originally posted by wesnef:

They were thinking that the combination of being able to min/max your mech builds, improve your gear with ++ variants, and plan things with a human brain; would not be challenged by their so-so enemy AI and equal numbers. So they outnumber you in order to provide that challenge.

This explanation would be true if the Devs didn't state they were so proud of the AI.
The real truth is that HBS does not know how to make an actual tactical war game. If you go back and look at the combat in the Shadowrun games you will notice that the AI's actions are very similar to that in Battletech. It worked in Shadowrun because it is an RPG first and a Turn Base Tactical Game second. We are willing to over look the ridiculous number and stupid mob tactics for the story and general enjoyable game play. Battletech is a Turn Based Tactical War Game. The combat IS the game. There is nothing to break the game and distract from the horrible AI and mob tactics.
Add in some very terrible decisions in the translation of the actual TT game and you get the Battletech PC game.
The good news is that a lot of this can be alleviated by modding the game. The bad news is that there is little you can do about the bad AI.

[Cervidal]

Originally posted by socipat:

Add in some very terrible decisions in the translation of the actual TT game and you get the Battletech PC game.

I played a ton of the table top game. What decisions are you implying here?

As a whole, the table top game got bogged down in unnecessary detail; it was almost as bad as late stage Pathfinder. I don't want to have to bookmark six sourcebooks to play a single game.

[Daneel]

I agree; this is getting old af.

[Socipat]

Originally posted by Cervidal:

Originally posted by socipat:

Add in some very terrible decisions in the translation of the actual TT game and you get the Battletech PC game.

I played a ton of the table top game. What decisions are you implying here?

As a whole, the table top game got bogged down in unnecessary detail; it was almost as bad as late stage Pathfinder. I don't want to have to bookmark six sourcebooks to play a single game.

Bad weapon balance, short visibility range, OP Jump Jets , No Short Range, OP Melee Attacks...
With the exception of visibility all those are core rules for the game.
And like I said, easy to fix by modding the game.
BUT I love how you cherry picked the TT translation and ignored everything else. So I guess you agree that the Devs don't know how to make this type of game and those make it flawed on a fundamental level.

[starmind]

and add to that the same missions where not only you challenge 3 lances but also you should do it in X turns or loose.

But at end it's more some some of "mass public game" so not following known mechwarriors rules allow more missions and challenges.

[Sinsling]

Originally posted by socipat:

snip

Name one strategy game where high level AI doesnt have some sort of cheat to compete against human players.

[Dheran]

Originally posted by Sinsling:

Originally posted by socipat:

snip

Name one strategy game where high level AI doesnt have some sort of cheat to compete against human players.

Chess, Go :P

[wesnef]

Eh, whatever. Everyone's entitled to their opinion. /shrug

I played the tabletop game for years (mostly 90's era, none of the later sourcebooks). Haven't played any of the other digital games. I enjoy this game, and it has a good 'feel' of the tabletop version, just evolved for modern&digital. Haven't felt the need to mod anything. Without the enemy outnumbering or out-massing, it wouldn't be that challenging. (as the rare "just fight one lance" mission shows)

[Sinsling]

Originally posted by Dheran:

Originally posted by Sinsling:

Name one strategy game where high level AI doesnt have some sort of cheat to compete against human players.

Chess, Go :P

Okay you got me, but professional ai making flawless move picks is borderline cheating imo. :p

[Cervidal]

Originally posted by socipat:

BUT I love how you cherry picked the TT translation and ignored everything else. So I guess you agree that the Devs don't know how to make this type of game and those make it flawed on a fundamental level.

Don't presume to speak for me. I had a question about a specific point of your complaint. That's it.

When you do something like that and make a sarcastic, presumptive statement like that, you make absolutely no one want to listen to anything you have to say. It's the argument of a child rather than a reasonable adult.

I happen to disagree with many of your points.

- I think there's fairly reasonable weapon balance. There are situations where I've found just about any weapon in the game viable.

- I'm not sure where you think the spotting distances are off? Do you honestly expect easy line of sight at distances of more than a kilometer?

- What do you mean by no short range?

- If you think Jump Jets and Melee attacks are overpowered, you and I are playing very different games.

I couldn't honestly care less about any of your AI complaints. While the AI could use some work, the same could be said for just about any tactical combat game. This isn't new to Battletech and definitely isn't new to gaming.

[Dheran]

Originally posted by socipat:

Originally posted by Cervidal:

I played a ton of the table top game. What decisions are you implying here?

As a whole, the table top game got bogged down in unnecessary detail; it was almost as bad as late stage Pathfinder. I don't want to have to bookmark six sourcebooks to play a single game.

Bad weapon balance, short visibility range, OP Jump Jets , No Short Range, OP Melee Attacks...
With the exception of visibility all those are core rules for the game.
And like I said, easy to fix by modding the game.
BUT I love how you cherry picked the TT translation and ignored everything else. So I guess you agree that the Devs don't know how to make this type of game and those make it flawed on a fundamental level.

Just for clarity: are you saying that those points are bad in the tabletop game or in the computer game?
If you have an issue with translation from tabletop to computer game, you should notice, that the points you mentioned are actually caused by bad design of the tabletop game.
- Bad weapon balance was pretty much inherited from tabletop. Devs did what they could to make other choices viable without introducing "ghost heat" and other things, but there is a limit to what you can do.
- The short range is real for LRMs and Gauss rifle even on all-10 pilots, with hit chance against assaults dropping to sub-50%. PPCs not so much, true, but then again original PPCs only lost power in the short range IIRC.
- Jump Jets were OP in tabletop, but 1) most mechs were stock (so access was limited) and terrain was rolling hills at the worst. Battletech on computer has deep ravines and such, with limited access on foot, so it just underscored the problem. And to be honest the rolling hills maps are the worst, as they limit the tactical options you have to pretty much only turrettech.
- OP melee attacks are 100% inherited. There were no weapon mods in tabletop, but you could mount the hatchet/sword on any mech. The only thing added is extra melee damage for some mechs as quirks, but I believe this is the way computer BT handles the has hand/lower actuator/upper actuator melee damage modificators.

[Socipat]

Originally posted by Cervidal:

Originally posted by socipat:

Guess I hit a nerve there.

Originally posted by Dheran:

Originally posted by socipat:

Since both of you guy don't know what I mean by "no short range" I can take it that you 1) Never played the TT version and 2) never opened the .JSON file for a weapon or the combat constant. Which also tells me you guys don't know what you are talking about and are just butt hurt that someone pointed out issues with the game. Now let me answer your questions.

1) The weapon balance in the game is off because of the bonuses they give to the damage and Stability Damage. For example the AC2, AC5 and the AC10 all get a +10 to Damage even though they do different damage. this gives the AC2 a 40%, the AC5 a 22% and the AC10 a 16% increase in damage. The AC20 only gets a 20% increase in damage from its ++ bonus. That means you can mount 2 AC2++ and get the same damage output as an AC10++ for the same weight.

2) The sight distance of 300 was so player will engage the enemy. The Devs actually said that. This means that there was no logical reasoning for the site distance other than forcing the players to engage the enemy. Limiting the player tactical options in a tactical game is never good and the Devs did this on purpose.

3) There are three ranges in the CBT, short,medium and long. If you open the .JSONs you will see that the weapons and CombatGameConstants actually have the short range. The value for both is the same as the medium range value. The only reason I can think of for doing this is to open up range combat and make it more viable. But adding a value and the short range you shrink the sweet spot for a mech's alpha strike and force the player to think more tactically, and making a player think tactically in a tactics game is always a good thing.

4)If the Jump Jets were OP in the TT and the only balancing mechanic for them is heat than making them cooler only makes them more OP. The TT jump jets do one point of heat for every hex moved. This actually translate to JumpHeatUnitSize": 9ish in game. The value in the .JSON is 6. There is also a value that makes jumping add stability damage, I personally like that as a balancing mechanic.

5) Melee in the TT game, in my opinion, was not all that great, but it was balanced. Damage was based on the weight of the mech and any melee weapon it had. Take the Atlas as an example. In the TT its punch only does 10 points of damage. That is 50 points in the PC game. A full melee attack( 2 punches) is 100 points. They have the base Atlas melee damage at 140 points. Add in the fact that melee counters guarded and the upgrades that adds some insane bonuses to damage and....

Now all of these can be fixed by opening the corresponding .JSON file and editing some values. Which is what I said in my original post.
Now I will not responed to anymore about the this becasue it is appearent that you are nothing but a butt hurt fanboy who don’t know what they are talking about.

[Wantoomany]

To be fair, they had to boost melee damage simply because you cant melee and shoot like you can in TT. So, while yes that Atlas can punch with each arm for 100 points. I can also still alpha strike, doing far more then 140 points an Atlas melee attack can do in this game.