Mechwarrior 5 Mercenaries

[Daehawk]

Someone is playing it on Twitch right now...not sure its him vs AI or other players. Seems its 4 real people playing vs AI in a demo.

[Sepiche]

Hopefully they'll catch up on the features. Steam really is light years ahead, but they've also got a ~15 year head start.

If nothing else it seems like the competition has spurred Valve to put some more development time into Steam. Seems like the improvements have been coming hot and heavy with it lately.

[Paingod]

My excitement is only tempered by the platform. I'd have it pre-ordered if I didn't feel like Epic Games was being more underhanded than they needed to be. As it is, I'm comfortable waiting until I can maybe grab it on GOG.

I did recently fire up MechWarrior Online and that satisfied the big stompy itch. It just doesn't have the same metagame a single-player mercenary campaign would have.

[jztemple2]

My excitement is only tempered by the platform. I'd have it pre-ordered if I didn't feel like Epic Games was being more underhanded than they needed to be.

How so? I’ve only gotten one game through them but I didn’t observe anything with which I would have an issue. Is there something of which I should be aware?

[Paingod]

My concerns were summed up by one Redditor when I was looking for info:

• Epic Games Store has crappy features compared to Steam.
• They are behaving in a shitty and consumer-unfriendly way by offering huge cash bribes to acquire exclusive rights to various high profile third-party games right before their release (like console companies used to). Even when those games had already promised their fans, backers and pre-buyers to release on Steam, their contract with Epic prevents them from doing so for a year.
• Epic Games is significantly owned by a major Chinese telecom firm with questionable ethics and terrible politics.

[NickAragua]

Yeah, that's about it.

I don't care about the features, but the other two things bother me.

I don't know that they bother me enough not to play Mechwarrior 5 though.

[Paingod]

I don't know that they bother me enough not to play Mechwarrior 5 though.

I get enough modern-graphics-level robot stomping with MechWarrior Online and Battletech that I don't specifically feel a need to lunge for this one at release. I have owned and played every Mech title since MechWarrior 2 and plan to get this as well, just not right away.

For the last year or so, I've also been getting really picky about what and where I want to buy and spending a lot more time playing the 300+ games I already have. It's apparently so bad that Steam could only suggest one title from this year that I bought and might nominate for different categories.

[Daehawk]

1. They are new and will adapt. Im not playing their store Im playing the games.
2. They aren't forcing anyone to take their money. If you dont like that point then blame the devs.
3. Dont know them dont care. Doesn't affect me playing a game.

But I cant get games these days so all 3 points are moot. To me where I buy and when comes down to lowest price thats legal still.

[Badcompany]

I'll bite when it hits Steam or GoG. I'm out on Epic.

[morlac]

My concerns were summed up by one Redditor when I was looking for info:

• Epic Games Store has crappy features compared to Steam.
• They are behaving in a shitty and consumer-unfriendly way by offering huge cash bribes to acquire exclusive rights to various high profile third-party games right before their release (like console companies used to). Even when those games had already promised their fans, backers and pre-buyers to release on Steam, their contract with Epic prevents them from doing so for a year.
• Epic Games is significantly owned by a major Chinese telecom firm with questionable ethics and terrible politics.

Ill give me thoughts as a counter.

1. True. However, I don't really compare the 2 as imo they aren't really the same. Steam is a place to hang out, discuss and discover games, buy some shit. In other words it's a mall from the 80's. Epic is just a store. All I really need from Epic is a place to buy their exclusives and get their free games and I guess a launcher of said games. Not opposed to buying more from Epic presently but their pricing hasn't been better than anyone else.

2. Don't hate the player, hate the game. Or in this case the game developer. Epic promised nothing to the fans of these games and forced no developer to break their promises. I hear this all the time and the Devs get a 100% pass most of the time. Nonsense. Plus throw some shade on steam and everyone else who have been killing the Devs on high % cuts over the years which created this strategy/oppurtunity for Epic. Ok last point is astretch . However, I really do believe Steam is becoming less consumer friendly. The shit to quality ratio is out of control, review bombing that includes the ability to add user defined tags to games so that not only can you review bomb but add tags like Nudity, sexual content, anime novel to games that have none of that and screw Steam algorithms. I still spend most of my gaming time on it but have started buying significantly less on there.

3. Can't argue with that one. However, Tim Sweeney (majority owner) did basically say the Chinese can go pound sands in regards to Freedom of speech and pro Fortnite players. Chinese own shares in pretty much EVERYTHING. Nice to see a CEO publicly declare he won't appease our Chinese Overlords.

“Epic supports the rights of Fortnite players and creators to speak about politics and human rights,” Sweeny said via Twitter.

Asked if his stand would still apply if a well-known figure made a political statement at an Epic-sponsored event, he replied: “Exactly.”

Sweeney also stressed the independence of his decision making from Tencent.

“Epic is a US company and I’m the controlling shareholder,” he wrote. “Tencent is an approximately 40% shareholder, and there are many other shareholders, including employees and investors.”

[morlac]

On topic:

I love MWO, warts and all so I am pretty excited for this one. I am fully expecting a buggy launch but will be getting it that first weekend for sure.

[Daehawk]

The only thing Ive seen I dont like is the same since I so loved MW2.....you cant blow off a leg and have the mech fall over useless. You can damage it dark but it will still move and fire until you do both legs. In MW2 1 leg would completely blow off and it would fall over dead and you could salvage better from it than a fully destroyed one.

[Blackhawk]

And in 3 and 4 you could exploit the crap out of that, nearly one-shotting most enemy mechs by just targeting their leg.

[Daehawk]

You could not blow off legs in 4. It was one of my gripes. Its like MWO it turns dark and they hobble around or simply slow down some. I thought 3 was the same.

[Blackhawk]

It was one of them - 3 or 4. I remember setting mechs up with... machine guns, I think, in every slot. I'd just close up fast, target the leg, and fire them all. Any mech in the game would drop in two or three seconds flat. It was almost cheating levels of easy.

[NickAragua]

The leg thing was 2/3. Take the leg off, then just run around to the back of the poor bastard and peg the other leg while stationary.

To be fair, in tabletop, if someone takes your leg off and you somehow manage to get up, you *can* turn.

[IceBear]

The thing was....the mechwarrior games allow you to aim at the legs where in the tabletop game that it's based on there wasn't any aiming...where you hit was randomly determined. Seems like they needed to bend reality a little in the video games to keep the gameplay from being 100% "sweep the leg".

I've only played 2 or 3 skirmishes in the beta but didn't hit any bugs. I liked MWO but hate playing multiplayer as I'm just not very good. This was a no brainer for me...MWO singleplayer.

[Daehawk]

I liked MWO but hate playing multiplayer as I'm just not very good.

Seems to be me now days too. At least you can finally stomp trees again!

[wonderpug]

Do we know if this supports a HOTAS setup? Or is it aimed at people using a console controller?

[IceBear]

I didn't have my stick around so I tried it with the XBox controller. It was actually better, for me, using keyboard and mouse than the XBox controller.

[Daehawk]

Made for mouse from what I have heard others say. Like MWO. Probably ok on joysticks too perhaps.

[coopasonic]

This came out yesterday. A few good reviews, a few mediocre reviews. I really, really want it, but apparently the AI (friendly and enemy) is trash, which tempers my enthusiasm significantly. Waiting for a deal for now.

[NickAragua]

Played a couple of hours of this last night (hi, Chinese govt surveillance guy!). It's a lot of fun. Let's go over the check list:

Giant robots : check
Lasers : check
Explosions : check
Meaningful plot : uh... that's not supposed to be on the list

Maybe I'm just high from being able to stomp around in a giant robot while squashing tanks and crushing buildings, but I didn't see anything particularly bad about the AI. They're not exactly the best shots or the most crack tactitians, but I assume that's because every enemy I've fought so far has been rated "green". And my AI squadmates are pretty wet behind the ears too. They shoot down helicopters just fine, though. I'll see what I think after the initial high wears off and I can think in objective terms.

I'm was stomping around in a Centurion after a brief stint in a Javelin. I did get pretty pissed off when one of my guys got his Jenner shot up and lost one of the good lasers.

My main complaints are the difficulty of key-binding (you can't bind mousewheel clicks or rotations) and minor graphical glitches (probably because my system isn't "above top of the line" as far as the game is concerned). I haven't checked out coop yet, because that means I need other people on at the same time who also have the game.

[morlac]

I should get some time with it tonight and will report back. I had zero expectations on quality AI as that would be a first in a Mech game so I'm not too concerned with that. I too am interested in trying MP, maybe we can get interested pilots together this weekend some CoOp robot smashing?

[Cylus Maxii]

Do we know if this supports a HOTAS setup? Or is it aimed at people using a console controller?

Yes.

Review I read used a HOTAS and the game had built-in compatibility and a default profile for his specific controller too. He raved about the feel. He was somewhat less impressed with the mappings because he wanted to do something that was not addressable in the configuration interface. So he had to get on a forum and find out how to do an ini file change.

[Sepiche]

I'm enjoying it. Visually it looks great, and the big worry I had, that the campaign would be dumbed down, doesn't appear to be the case. They borrowed liberally from HBS Battletech campaign and it plays very similar to that with a few tweaks.

I played the campaign far enough (4 or 5 missions) to unlock coop play and traveling, now I just need to convince a couple of my friends that are interested to pick it up.

[gbasden]

I'm enjoying it. Visually it looks great, and the big worry I had, that the campaign would be dumbed down, doesn't appear to be the case. They borrowed liberally from HBS Battletech campaign and it plays very similar to that with a few tweaks.

I played the campaign far enough (4 or 5 missions) to unlock coop play and traveling, now I just need to convince a couple of my friends that are interested to pick it up.

I haven't found a review that discusses Coop play - is it a thing?

Found it! Please report in on what you think about it!

[gbasden]

OK, if you are making a game about giant stompy robots, how can your joystick/HOTAS support be *SO BAD*!! Ugh! If you have rudder pedals set up for turning, it crashes to desktop. And to even get a joystick to work you have to manually edit an ini file with pretty arcane usb settings. Seriously, WTAF?

[morlac]

Shrug, I play M&KB.

I only played about a hour last night through the first couple tutorial missions. So far so good. Favorite feature is being able to completely destroy everything. "Accidentally" backing up into a building and having it crash down around you felt very Giant Robot smashy satisfying. Felt so good that I spread that joy around to the entire complex. Closest I have felt to being a kid and smashing sand castles. Totally ready for the Godzilla mod. Looking forward to playing more and diving into the meta Mech Company mgmt aspects.

Oh and the heavy Metal rifts while playing made grin from ear to ear. They really timed them well.

[NickAragua]

I think they put out a 240MB hotfix last night to fix a crash-on-startup issue for when you have a peripheral with more than 25 buttons connected, and a rubber pedal crash. I have trouble managing maybe ten buttons, and there are controllers with 25?

"Button 24 keybind - shed a single tear over the loss of a mech. And, uh, the mechwarrior too."

Played a couple more hours of this last night. Did a multi-mission contract (you have to deploy to two+ missions in a row with no repairs in between) - this basically means that you need to either do really well on the first mission or have a bunch of spare mechs/mechwarriors on deck to cycle out. I did neither, so I wound up losing the three AI squadmates on the second mission (one KIA, two wounded for 80+ days) and their mechs. And the mech I was running had no weapons left at the end, so I had to stomp over the base I was supposed to destroy then run back to my dropship with my tail between my legs.

I was able to make a recovery though, as I salvaged a couple of light mech wrecks and was able to fix the starting Centurion plus the Jenner of that guy who you recruit in one of the early plot missions, along with a Spider we'd salvaged earlier. Selling the four wrecked mechs (two lancemates and two salvaged) let me buy *drum roll* a Cicada, which I greatly regret as it is a terrible mech. But beggars can't be choosers, I suppose.

[Blackhawk]

I think they put out a 240MB hotfix last night to fix a crash-on-startup issue for when you have a peripheral with more than 25 buttons connected, and a rubber pedal crash. I have trouble managing maybe ten buttons, and there are controllers with 25?

If it's a 'virtual controller' like what CH uses, sure. It can take multiple physical controllers (joystick, rudder pedals, and throttle, for instance) and tell Windows that it is just one controller. In some cases, the hat switch can act as eight different buttons (kind of like D-pad on a console controller), and the stick and throttle I have each have one - that's 16 buttons just for those two switches.

(I bought that damned control set - stick, rudder, throttle - more than 15 years ago when I had income and a desire to learn flight sims. Most expensive paperweight I've ever owned. I've tried a few times to sell them.)

[Hyena]

Hell yes. I'm picking this up tonight.

[Hyena]

Ok, I got this and loaded it up last night. Stayed up WAAAY too late playing, but really enjoyed it. Man, I'd forgotten what a challenge these missions can be. First few missions I'm carving the tanks and SRM/LRM launchers up like nobody's business, then after a mission where I have to take out an enemy base, a Spider shows up and runs around me and picks me to pieces. A SPIDER. And I'm in a Centurion! Granted, I had taken quite a thumping from the two dozen helicopters and tanks before that, but still...

A FREAKIN' SPIDER.

[Fretmute]

A FREAKIN' SPIDER.

In your defense, medium lasers are the single greatest weapon in Battletech, and the Spider has two!

[Hyena]

A FREAKIN' SPIDER.

In your defense, medium lasers are the single greatest weapon in Battletech, and the Spider has two!

Appreciate the attempt, but I had an AC-10, two medium lasers, and an LRM10. Once he got close, all we did was the circle of death and he was much more accurate than I. Plus he was at full health, and I had already lost an arm and was red/orange in every single limb when he came on the stage.

[NickAragua]

Yeah, the difficulty curve in that game is a little *phew*

So far, the message I'm getting is that I shouldn't bother buying expensive high-end weapons, because every time I do buy one, it gets blown up almost right away. Case in point: bought a 4-pip large laser, mounted it on a Phoenix Hawk. The very next mission, the right arm gets blown off.

The other thought I had (and mostly implemented) was that I need to get up to eight mechs in my stable (where the hell do they keep the other four? A Leopard only has space for the four mechs. There's probably an off-screen cargo ship or something.) That way, I can stay out in a warzone longer - since going out on a mission takes time, you can go out with the first four mechs, get them shot up (a little bit, not too much), queue up repairs, go out on the second mission. While that's going, the first mechs are getting patched up, and when you get back, you can re-use the first set of mechs. Now, warzone repairs can get pretty hairy in terms of costs, so you're losing money doing repairs there, but you also lose money every time you jump back to civilized space, both in raw jump costs and in the ticker to your "once every hundred days" maintenance.

This approach lets me stay out in the field as long as I don't lose components that I can't replace.

Some other thoughts:
Take out the tanks and choppers first, they go down easy and it's a good reduction in the amount of firepower coming at you. Choppers are probably my main reason for having LRMs.

Unlike in tabletop, where they're solid gold, jump jets are more or less useless here, take them out for extra armor or heat sinks. Same goes for small lasers, machine guns and other BS short-ranged weapons.

Keep track of your ammo counts during missions. If you notice that you've got a lot of ammo left over, consider pulling a ton or a half a ton out (for more armor, duh).

Generally speaking, light mechs cost 6-8 salvage points, medium mechs cost 10-12 salvage points. I imagine heavies and assaults continue the trend. Keep that in mind when negotiating salvage for a contract.

A word on weapon usage:
Lasers are hit-scan, but then you have to keep them on target while the beam is going, which is tough vs lighter, faster units.
Autocannons and PPCs, you need to lead your target.
LRMs have a minimum range of about 190M, they won't fire. Takes 2-3 salvos to destroy a light tank, 1 salvo for a chopper.
Haven't used SRMs yet.
MGs and flamers are kind of pointless - not enough damage and while I'm patiently peeling away paint chips, some other hostile is coming up behind me with an autocannon.

If anyone wants to do some tank and building stomping, let me know.

[Hyena]

One thing that does kinda chap my hide is that unless I'm missing something, the choppers and tanks literally seem to pop out of nowhere, and right on top of you as well. They usually get in at least two salvos before I even know they're there.

[NickAragua]

I've also noticed that the bad guys tend to spawn right behind me.

Apparently it's a known issue and PGI is working on it.

[NickAragua]

Unrelated. I just bought a Hunchback.

First, unlike almost all the other mechs, the right side view is completely blocked, due to the giant AC/20. Second, obviously, the AC/20 takes enemy mechs apart in about five seconds. Third, I'm amazed at this little detail: as I'm walking along, I hear this weird squeaking sound. First, I think it's someone in the house. But no, it turns out that they gave the hunchback an "unlubricated metal" sound effect for when it's turning.

You'd think that our genius tech who's able to put torsoed mechs back together could find some WD40.

[Isgrimnur]

Well, it does have poor sealing.