Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries

Okay, I've been playing for a little bit now. My thoughts (unrelated to whether this is similar or not to tabletop, this game is not a tabletop game and many tabletop restrictions simply don't translate to real time gameplay)

• Very grindy. I realize this is normal for the Mechwarrior franchise, but the rate of progression is unpleasantly slow in my opinion.
• Weapons are lost super easy, cost to replace, particularly the good weapons is prohibitive
• AI pilots are not valuable except as damage sponges and trash clear but have very little command capability, should be able to dedicate their targets beforehand or command them to move to a sector of the map.
• Mission cost gets increasingly negative, but reward does not equally progress, especially when moving out of your favored area.
• Salvage costs are unreasonable, in order to roll on even the most worthless mechs you have to sacrifice almost all your barter chips and there is no guarantee of salvage. Often leaving you both without the benefit of scrap to sell and minus the extra pay or damage recovery you might have had otherwise.
• Mission scale is absurd. Just sayin'
• Can only ever field 4 mechs regardless of circumstance is both annoying and difficult to manage.
• Very few missions cannot be beaten with a lance of speedy mediums
• Ammo for specific weapon types can be difficult to find/replace and often times are not even available in the same market you acquired the weapon itself in. It may be 'realistic' but it does not in any way enhance the game experience

I enjoy stompy robots, I would very much like to run some coop missions once they release to steam (I will buy on steam, I will not buy on Xbox or Epic) I suspect it will be significantly more enjoyable and manageable when playing with people instead of bots simply due to the ability to ask players to accomplish simple tasks such as 'go to X waypoint and blow target up' which apparently is too complex for AI

 

It's funny that the graphics of this game made by a studio having such a long track record is nothing that I couldn't achieve with my friends if only we had some cash to actually sit down and focus on it.

Which kind of makes me wonder just how much of a shoestring budget are they running their development on.

Just a sincere honest question when a random unemployed bloke with his old mate could achieve the same and better.

 

Why is the FRR green?

 

I think that has been a complaint since day one. When they form the color is close enough to the Cappies people just thought it was the Cappies expanding in a way that made no sense. In game it looked the same color as cappellan space.

 

I think it is cyan in game still but for some reason it looks the same as the green (or at least close enough) to the cappellan confederation.

 

This game was totally off my radar, but I'm interested to check it out later from what you guys have been sharing about it here. Eventually I'll grab a new desktop box to handle it (along with Star Citizen).

Was just revisiting MWO tonight after quite a long time. A lot has changed there, but it's been interesting figuring it out again.

 

Oh damn. On cyberpunk day. I am conflicted.

 

saw this on Battletech International facebook page this morning. (which some of the authors for the battletech books are in the group.)

"PGI has been acquired by the Swedish game publisher EG7. The take-aways seem to be:

• PGI will get more financial stability and still operate as an independent studio.
• PGI will get more support in terms of QA and marketing.
• EG7 is particularly experienced with marketing, where one of their divisions has done marketing for Call of Duty, Destiny, Fortnite, Angry Birds.
• PGI will work on both Mechwarrior and start working on a new live-service IP in the next 5 years.
• MW5 has sold hundreds of thousands of copies on EGS.
• MWO has generated around 75 million CAD in its lifetime and has tens of thousands of daily players.
• In the investor presentation, Russ Bullock mentions that during the development of MW5, they realized how difficult it is to advertise a game and make the product stand out in the market as a small studio. Getting EG7 to help out will alleviate some of these challenges and make it possible for them to create better games.

You can read the press release here: https://www.enadglobal7.com/press/121645C48E654694/ "

 

hopefully. I'm hoping this leads to more transparency in the mechwarrior stuff they do, and more stability (not just financial) with the mechwarrior products as well. It also makes it seem more likely there will be a expansion or mechwarrior 6 if EG7 intends on growing PGI to two teams. One that will work on mechwarrior stuff and one that will do this new IP. My guess is Russ will stay on for 6- months to a year and then retire (at least from PGI).

 

Yup. He finally passed the post.

[Edit] whoa, or maybe not. The "Earn Out Provisions" are something interesting I hadn't seen in a contract before...
https://www.enadglobal7.com/press/121645C48E654694/

 

Don't do it EG7. Don't do it (at least not with Russ there.)