BattleTech - Let's Play Pre-Release

[screeg]

Crummy animations are aggravating, but not as aggravating as animations that take too long to play, arbitrary delays between animations, and animations you have to watch play out instead of just carrying on with the game.

These were all problems that XCOM had on release.

 

[Darkheart]

After watching streams, the product showed no bugs.



The combat resolution time is already lengthy with four mechs on the battlefield. 12 meant seeing 12 times the animation every time.

Starting with one mech only makes no sense storywise, introducing the story of a guy building up to a lance would have taken too much time and the SP campaign looks beefy enough.

That being noted, the salvage system and trading allows to collect up to 12 or 16 mechs in the mech bay after adequate upgrades. Plus NPCs also join the battle field at time.

Quite a lot of content for streamers.

The only bug I remember is from one of Cohh's streams were an enemy mech was trapped outside the combat area. Other than that it looks very solid. Also the beta was already very play- and enjoyable.

You are also right regarding time to resolve a mission. It is already long enough with just two lances fighting each other. I don't see why 2 lances on each side would make things more exciting.
What I would like to see is a tonnage cap for missions, as it was in Mechcommander. With this you have to think ahead what you bring and will have to make different choices.

You can have 3 active lances max (12 mechs) iirc. Edit: You can have up to 18 active mechs in your mechbays. But you can put as many mechs as you want into storage. I think they said the ship has around 60.000 tons of storage. Although, to put a mech out of storage and into battle-ready mode takes some time and money. Active mechs will produce fixed costs every month, so you should make sure to only activate what you think makes sense.

 

[you]

2 more weeks - well a bit less but ....

 

[Darkheart]

2 more weeks - well a bit less but ….

I will be on a business trip starting the 25th. Might get a sneak peek depending on when the download becomes available. When I'm back I will have 3 weeks off and those will be preeeetty battletechy!

 

[Pladio]

Well, I have watched around 5 videos now of this one and it seems much better than I originally thought.

The tactical elements are really deep and require a lot of forethought (for difficult battles). Even strategy wise it seems quite deep.

The story is the only "weak" point as it seems very predictable for now, but Chris is only 4 hours in, so maybe it twists later on.

 

[ChienAboyeur]

The tactical elements are really deep and require a lot of forethought (for difficult battles). Even strategy wise it seems quite deep.

So deep streamers struggled on first try without even knowing the system.

 

[Carnifex]

Battletech key acquired!!! /rubs hands together in glee!

 

[TomRon]

So deep streamers struggled on first try without even knowing the system.

I know it's kind of your trademark but...the line above makes no sense at all. Take away the "even" and it's a legit answer, replace "struggled" with "easily managed it" and it's legit sarcasm. Now it's neither.

 

[Carnifex]

Ok, TomRon wins some sort of kupie doll or prize for the sheer amount of giggles the above post gave me!

 

[Silver]

Thats a keeper TomRom! Tempted to use it for a sig.

 

[ChienAboyeur]

I know it's kind of your trademark but…the line above makes no sense at all. Take away the "even" and it's a legit answer, replace "struggled" with "easily managed it" and it's legit sarcasm. Now it's neither.

Of course it does not make any sense when being unable to consider the situation it responds to does not exist.

Three conflicting bits when taken together: the product is deep, players struggle with it, they do not even know the system in the first place.

Only one correct bit in it, the contradiction is resolved by dismissing the other two bits.

Many things do not make sense to people who must be explained things from the A to the Z going by the B.