KickStarter BattleTech Pre-Release Thread

[Zorba the Hutt]

Tyler posts in the current "Doesn't feel like tabletop/Battletech" megathread

https://community.battletechgame.com/forums/threads/8141/comments/152005

So, a few statements from me, based on what I DO know of this thread, and also my own personal opinions, and facts we've shared!

First, I have a hard time engaging with the statement This doesn't feel like Battletech, to me." It's not because that statement is wrong, or it makes me mad, or because the stars haven't aligned to reveal my brilliance - but because it's a statement of emotional opinion. If it doesn't feel like Battletech to you, that's entirely valid. For me and the design team, it does feel a lot like Battletech - which isn't to say it's perfect, but because we have different emotional touchstones as to what constitutes an "authentic" experience. We're trying to modernize the experience, keep it fun and fast paced, and appeal not just to old fans, but new ones as well. That means that sometimes we're not going to be able to make everyone happy.

That said, some specific statements:

Melee Animation Variance: Without discreet hexes and hex-wide terrain effects, it's close to impossible to have distinct punch/kick/charge deliver in a satisfying way. This is doubly true for realistic hit locales. For example, if you pit a Commando vs an Atlas on even terrain, and punch, you can only ever hit the Atlas's legs and crotch, because the Commando isn't tall enough to hit anywhere else. If you stand on a hill next to that Atlas, though, you can't punch at all... And given the right terrain, your kicks can only hit the head. While that may seem fun for you, think about if that happened TO you, because the AI knew "Hey, if I stand here I've got a 95% chance of an instakill cuz my kick can only hit the head." That's why the melee is an abstraction layer for what is actually occurring. Our other option was "no melee", and that's an unfun option.

Critical Hits: These are still being tuned. That's what beta is for. I've personally got some charts for addtional critical hits to actuators and gyros and stuff, we just need to see how the current abstracted system works first. I don't think we'll reverse course on ammo explosions TOO much (other than maybe re-rolling empty bins - but I can't guarantee that) because while dramatic for skirmish, they're liable to make the single player game unwinnable. I run a weekly tabletop Battletech game on Twitch, and I'd say every third week a mech gets blown out by ammo explosion. The PCs have lost a pair of mechs to ammo crits, but half of them run with no ammo at all, or dump it at the first sign of trouble. Which in turn, for the video game, leads to this question: How do you dump ammo? Is it all or nothing? WHEN do you dump ammo? Etc. All of those are engineering and UI concerns that balloon out... just because of ammo crits as they are in TT.

Lack of Fun: So we know the movement bug on being legged is there. But why not let you play with tabletop rules where you can shoot from your back, etc? Frankly: it isn't any fun UNLESS you're gathered around a table with your friends and can taunt them. The AI will just indirect fire you to death while you lay there, and if it's a story mission that has a timer or the like, you either automatically lose... Or you send your remaining mechs on while Ol' Stubby Turtle back there gets to hang out and have a cup of coffee. Better to just take a double-legged mech out of comission for the fight. And firing arcs while laying down are a UI mess.

Lack of fun informed most of our decisions. All of the tabletop modifiers were winnowed down because they lead to analysis paralysis, with people taking upwards of 5 minutes per turn. The expanded heat and range modifiers lead to situations where players tried to hunt for the ABSOLUTE most advantageous position, rather than being presented with an array of "very good" positions... Now, the higher level tactical thought is about thinking ahead a few rounds and planning your movement, not looking for a numerical advantage. Will some of those modifiers come back? Quite possibly. We'll definitely discuss it!

And lastly, as to all of our planned features... I can't comment on those, because if they don't work out, and we don't include them, some people may feel like we've cheated them - when if fact, we were like, "Eh, that would have taken too much time/money to make work right..." or we may include that feature in an update after launch. It's not that we don't want you to know what we have planned - it's that we want you to see what you have right now and make judgements based on that.

My last two cents is that I can't wait to have PVP get pushed out to the beta, to see how that shifts some perceptions... And also so I can shoot all of you in good fun.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Oh, and a follow-up

The second twofer part is just a general statement about "casual" gamers and our changes, re: Avenger's comments and similar ones I've seen elsewhere.

We don't want casual gamers. We're not looking for farmville players. We're looking for people that love Xcom, and Space Hulk, and Jagged Alliance. I have a Nintendo DS lite with about twenty or so games. Aside from Puzzle Quest and Infinite Space, all of them are tactical RPGs: Jagged Alliance, Disgaea, Devil Survivor 1 & 2, Advance Wars, etc. All that kind of stuff. That's the kind of gamer I am.

But also understand that if our intent was to only to sell to pre-existing fans of Battletech tabletop, the highest budget we could reasonably afford would be under 100k. There are just not that many fans married to the Classic BattleTech rules out there that are ALSO willing to buy a video game. The idea is, was, and always has been to bring in fans of games LIKE ours while not being married to the specific rules presented in tabletop.

Let me give you a UI related example: I spent a lot of time when I was at Monolith trying to make other designers understand that a paper mockup of a UI wasn't being interfaced with like a player would an actual UI, because people were making piles of gear and paperclipping stuff and all decided that what we needed was a stack of items, a staging bucket for looking over items with, an "I want to equip this bucket", and finally a paper doll. They were convinced of this, because that's what worked with their hands. So I said, "Okay, pick up that Xbox controller. My right index finger is now where the UI has focus. Use your UI." And it all fell apart.

Converting tabletop games is a lot like that. There are things that work in video games and things that work in tabletop and things that work in both. Doing a lot of both, I tend to be pretty aware of the differences. Shadowrun is my One True Love, but I'd never try to replicate 3rd edition in a video game. The mechanics of combat pool, karma pool, die rolling, etc... they're just too obtuse for a video game. The mechanics must be altered. 4th and 5th, even, are too obtuse. The reason they work in a tabletop setting is because you're with other humans, and there's tension there via the shared experience.

I feel you, I really do. I won't and can't address the statement of "changing features on sequels kills franchises" because there's so much nuance there that I'd need to write a paper and make a presentation on it. Which I did. Because I do study trends in gaming. Suffice to say there are many, MANY moving parts there, and boiling it down to "you can't change your core mechanics" only hits half of it. It's about a 50/50 split on sequels crashing and burning or succeeding wildly.

The core rule is this: treat the subject matter and your audience with respect, build on what you have already, but don't be afraid to capitalize on what made the game good, while still looking for the bigger picture. And that's what I think HBS does very well, and is also why I work here.

 

[ArchAngel]

So he is a kind of gamer that plays tactical games on a crappy console?! WTF. This game is doomed.. doomed I tell ya!

And name drops Jagged Alliance and Xcom when the game is currently not even half as good.

 

[Infinitron]

Only surprise is the grognard rage took this long to begin

 

[thesheeep]

Only surprise is the grognard rage took this long to begin

Indeed.
I don't give a rat's ass about the original rules. All I care about is how well the rules work in this specific game.
If that is satisfactory, all is well.

I do hope that the rules will go much deeper than their Shadowrun adaptation, but that won't be hard to pull off, really

 

[Kem0sabe]

A lot of the features he says wouldn't be fun for players sound just like stuff that HBS isnt competent enough to implement.

The shadowrun games were mostly fun for the stories and characters they told, not for the mobile device designed gameplay, and that lack of design competency is showing up now in battletech.

 

[Grotesque]

"Let me give you a UI related example: I spent a lot of time when I was at Monolith trying to make other designers understand that a paper mockup of a UI wasn't being interfaced with like a player would an actual UI, because people were making piles of gear and paperclipping stuff and all decided that what we needed was a stack of items, a staging bucket for looking over items with, an "I want to equip this bucket", and finally a paper doll. They were convinced of this, because that's what worked with their hands. So I said, "Okay, pick up that Xbox controller. My right index finger is now where the UI has focus. Use your UI." And it all fell apart."

Can someone translate this shit to me?
Also should I be worried that the words "Xbox controller" made their way into all that gibberish?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Can someone translate this shit to me?

UI on paper != effective UI in game.

And yeah, probably.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[veevoir]

Oh noes, he said xbox controller while giving a random example to ilustrate an idea! We are doomed!

 

[Grotesque]

Oh noes, he said xbox controller while giving a random example to ilustrate an idea! We are doomed!

Do you know what happens to humans if they fail to see the patterns in nature? Are eaten by lions and thus become evolutionary dead ends.
But hey... an idea!

 

[ArchAngel]

Oh noes, he said xbox controller while giving a random example to ilustrate an idea! We are doomed!

Read better. He also talks about how he plays tactical games on a fucking Nintendo DS lite. Fucking

 

[Zetor]

There are some pretty legit SRPGs for the DS, just saying.

According to mobygames, Tyler was a designer for Shadow of Mordor and was part of the localization team for Fire Emblem 10 (Radiant Dawn), so that may explain the popamole xbox and nintendo console thing...

 

[thesheeep]

There are some pretty legit SRPGs for the DS, just saying.

Yeah, no shit. Some of them are pretty good, if you can look past the art style (which for me is the actual issue ).

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Unlike some of the previous games, don't expect ejection animations or options

HBS_Adarael
Tyler Carpenter: HBS Game Designer, GM of Death from Above

So, when I pilot is "killed", they're not actually killed. We check behind the scenes when the mission is over if the pilot has escaped without injury, or is injured, or is actually killed. The difficulty of this check is based on how the mech was disabled/pilot killed - head destructions are harder to escape without serious injury, for example.

So: ejections happen automatically, in essence.

Long follow-up from Connor about their internal processes and potential additional features:

Spoiler

HBS_CaptKerberos
Connor of HBS. Designer on BattleTech. Plays Cam 'Talon' Coyne on DFA. "Two is one and one is none."

So let me start by saying I appreciate this discussion and I agree with many of the sentiments shared. I think manual ejection would be pretty cool (as anyone knows who watches DFA I have what some might call a 'penchant' for ejection).

Ultimately any feature that is not in the game already, part of our kickstarter commitments, or plans we've made public: adding it might ultimately pull focus away from those 3 aspects of the project. So this butts up against Mitch's tried and true axiom: "Focus equal quality".

To address some of the questions, let's dig a bit more.

@gloowa:
<Snip>
>>Says who? Don't get me wrong, i understand the concept of time, but neither of us is in any way informed enough to make that judgement.

As someone who is slightly informed, it is what we would call a non-trivial workload.

To clarify, in order to make Manual Ejections an option in game, this is what I would consider when making a design request internally.

These and possibly more things would need to happen (In no particular order or organization):

• Get code in place for non-automated ejection. Could be easy as we already have some stuff going on in the background (as Tyler pointed out earlier in this thread), but I never assume ANY code ask will be easy or quick. That's a sure fire way to be wrong.
• Make new space on the abilities bar, or elsewhere in the already crowded UI, to put this new button. That requires rework and reflow on the UI to ensure that people see it and can understand it. There are parts of the existing UI that beta feedback has shown to not be fully clear, adding more to that makes things clear as mud.
• Create the necessary VFX, Sound, and Animations to support the gameplay of 'A Pilot Punching out of a Mech'. Of which there currently is none. So it's entirely new. This may not be totally necessary, but as most things in the game have some sort of grounding, it can be expected we'd want to do this. This also assumes we don't record VO for the pilot ejecting, which takes coordination and $. So when this happens there would be no "I'm punching out, boss!" bark.
• Create rules and specifications around how the player interacts with this ability. When can it be used. When does it get resolved. Are there penalties or bonuses. How is the pilot handled. Can they take injuries even on a manual ejection.
• Look into our turn order system to allow for best use by player. For instance our system ends your turn when you fire or use an ability. So you would not be able to say, fire with a Mech X, then immediately after have Pilot Y eject from Mech X. That's cuz your turn ends when you fire the rest is damage resolutions & animations & camera pans that are automated, you've essentially ceded player control when the 'Fire' button is hit. This would require additional code/work in our turn system to allow for you to fire then do anything without your turn ending. Let alone eject.
• Build into the AI decision tree some node that allows them to consider their survivability rate, and make a call to eject or not. As some of you have pointed out that you would like the enemy AI to eject to save themselves. We want them to eject when it makes sense, and not just at the first sign of trouble, which would consequently have all battles taking 2 minutes because the AI ejects once they take their first crit or big hit.
• We need sufficient tutorial-ization / messaging to educate players who are unfamiliar with Battletech TT (which will be a big chunk of who will ultimately plays this game) how to eject, what the trade offs and benefits are to a manual ejection, and when it is a good time to eject.

So in my hypothetical we have: (1) a UI designer/artist (possibly both), (2) gameplay programmer, (3) maybe an engine programmer (for the turn order stuff), (4) an AI programmer, (5) a designer, (6) our VFX artist (maybe tech artist too for lighting issues related to the new VFX), (7) animator, and (8) audio designer for this task. All of which will likely need more than 1 pass from each person for implementation and polish. And obvious bug fixing as no feature is ever bug free from the jump. So we'll take on 1-2 QA technicians if I'm being conservative.

We now have tasks for (at least) 8 people (not including the big dogs like lead design and production to make sure people are keeping track of this feature). And even though each of their individual part may be small or short in time required, it ultimately takes away from their already big lists of bugs and features to work on leading up to ship.

So while I agree. I personally would love to have manual ejections. It takes away from the focus on other issues of higher priority and frankly the other unfinished parts of the game that we've made Kickstarter commitments to. This is not to say the idea is bad or to shut down any discussion on it, please continue as these things help inform our future decisions. Nor am I soliciting solutions for the hypothetical problems I've laid out. We have an incredibly talented team here at HBS, they can solve just about any problem you throw at them, and solve it well. I have no concern on that count. No matter which way you slice it, even if it was a silent operation with no VFX/SFX/Animations needed, and even if it was JUST for player and not AI, this is still a chunk of work. Though when you have time on the clock (and we do), you have to pick which problems you solve, "Focus equals Quality."

Now I am not our director, nor our producer. So even I am not fully qualified to make such a judgement. But that's my thought process if I was gonna push for such a thing (and it's sorta my job to push for features). I say all of this to explain that even a 'light' implementation of any new system is a risky proposal that must be weighed and decided on. Our current plan is not to support manual ejection.

In summation, some things that are PURELY data we can tweak with low risk. But if it is a new interaction model we don't currently have, the best first assumption is that it would be non-trivial to build.

Hope that clarifies some.

 

[Alienman]

Bit cheap I have to say.

 

[veevoir]

Gotta love HBS, out of all kickstarter companies they are most transparent about how the sausage is made, despite Mitch's comment he doesn't want us to know that

It is very informative, even if not exactly good news.

Alienman - Projects are always about managing resources, you need to cheap out/cut on something. Otherwise star citizen. Focusing on what is already promised to be delivered seems like a healthy priority.

 

[Alienman]

Sure but ejections? Isn't that something you would rather have- seeing a guy pop away before his mech explodes.

 

[Viata]

Last time I heard about this game it had just been announced. Has any gameplay trailer released? Is it good?

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

I think that lack of manual ejection is more worrying in regards of gameplay.
Now what are you going to do with mech that has its leg busted or is in some other way in deep shit?
As far as I know game as it is only offers 2 options, which are "Fight to the Death" or "Withdraw the whole lance".
Player controlled ejection (with roll if pilot is Ok/injured/MIA) would have given one option more to do.

 

[Janise]

As far as I know game as it is only offers 2 1 option, which is "Fight to the Death" or "Withdraw the whole lance".

As it should be.
I'll leave the budget arguments and add the muh realizm angle.
What is a pilot gonna do after he ejects? Get shot at. So, his survival chances arent 100 anyway. So a last stand with a roll for survival is the same thing as ejecting, mechanically.
Manual eject is larper shit.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

I'll leave the budget arguments and add the muh realizm angle.
What is a pilot gonna do after he ejects? Get shot at. So, his survival chances arent 100 anyway. So a last stand with a roll for survival is the same thing as ejecting, mechanically.
Manual eject is larper shit.

Manual eject would give a way for player to limit damage that mech is going to take and therefore it grants him some control for lowering repair costs.
Also manually ejecting pilot should have higher chance for survival than one that escapes exploding mech.

Besides who is going to target ejecting pilot?
His mech is a neutralized target and there are probably higher priority threats in battlefield.
There is also the "chivalric" angle for not shooting ejecting pilots in their parachutes; there is historical tendency that certain niceties are observed in symmetrical conflict and breaking one of those rules would lead to reprisals and other nastiness.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

There is also the "chivalric" angle for not shooting ejecting pilots in their parachutes; there is historical tendency that certain niceties are observed in symmetrical conflict and breaking one of those rules would lead to reprisals and other nastiness.

Agreed, in BT, particularly in this era, mechs were precious and there were certain protocols often observed in battle, mechs wouldn't be totally destroyed but captured and the pilots ransomed back. The losing faction would then hope to recapture their hardware next time. Thus the machines were old and battered, but valuable, as they couldn't just be replaced with another off the production line. It was more like knights dueling than every battle being a fight to the death.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Supposedly some campaign footage coming up

 

[Infinitron]