Mechwarrior Online Shows Us Some Gameplay
 

We now have some gameplay footage for Mechwarrior Online and you can almost feel the armor melting off your opponents.. This looks and feels like Mechwarrior of old. I think a CoG Battalion will be in order. What say you CoG? Will you ride with me into glorious mech battle?

Mechwarrior is dumb. Especially when I see people with tattoos relating to the franchise. They're the worst.

Hah! You know you love it.

prepared to drop, guass cannons loaded!

Damn it would be awesome to get a big group going

Huh, something looked off about that.
I am not sure what exactly, yet.

..I believe I need a joystick for this... so hot.

It's the lack of the mech's reaction to such firepower that's trying to ram them to the ground such as no stumbling, no trying to balance the explosive power that's trying to shove the mech one direction while you're trying to go the other direction, no environmental reactions to the warfare shootings between two mechs, etc.

Piranha, you need to bullshot up this trailer! The internet has spoken!

This is the version of MechWarrior that I'm actively going to try and get into. Can you veterans attempt to explain how best to look at MW gameplay? I've tried MW2/3/4 and never really understood it. I blame the fact that I approached them less as a simulator and more as an FPS. Coming at it from a sim standpoint, how do you describe the flow of the game? I always spammed the SHOOTEVERYWEAPONATONCE button until I ran out of ammo and died while waiting for energy weapons to recharge

I'm guessing it's more about targeting specific parts of the enemy mech based on their (and your) weapon loadout. It reminds me of an 1800's gun fight, with having to take time to pack more powder and load the next shot, all while staring your opponent in the face. Am I close?

Looks very promising. I hope it keeps improving with time, and by the time it's done I'll be ready to lead a lance.

No, you should always try and stay mobile. You need to balance heat generated with damage output. Target specific mech parts is a strategic move, want to stop that Gauss rifle from tearing you apart? Shoot that weapon. Tired of that quicker mech running circles around you? take out that leg. If you are fighting in a city, do you have jump jets to get behind the enemy?

bah! slap the alpha strike button until you shut down!

I would be over this like shit on a stick.

The main tactical consideration in a mech duel, in no particular order:

1) Speed versus aim. If you move faster, you're harder to hit, but you might find it harder to hit your target. If in doubt, always keep moving and keep moving fast.

2) Firepower versus heat. Some mechs can shoot all day and stay cool, but many will build up heat if you fire everything continually. Heat up too much, and you'll shut down and become a sitting duck. Which leads into the next point:

3) Appropriate weapon for range. Select which weapons systems you'll used based on the range of the weapon. Larger lasers can hit father, missiles are sorted by range - spam your SRMs in a knife fight, pelt a distant target with your LRMs - and so forth. Often you can fire everything, even if it has little chance of hitting and build up heat, or fire the appropriate weapons and stay cool.

That's about it. Everything else has to do with details of your role on the battlefield. Some mechs are better up close, some better at range, some can fight at every range but can be bested at certain ranges by specialists.

Welcome to Solaris! Now let me show you the sky.

I can hardly wait.

Thats the problem I have always had with Mech battle games. At the end of the day its nothing more than deathmatch. You just don't die as fast(although you WILL die), and you get more things to shoot with, but you still end up doing nothing but circle strafing each other. I would like it more as a Squad based game where you could have a team of 4-5 or more Mechs that had to work together to win a common goal. That way you could have a varied team and could cover each others weaknesses. Dont know if this game has it but judging from the video it mostly looked a single player deathmatch or maybe team deathmatch.. Off to check out the site.

Chromehounds did a pretty good job of this, although I wish it had more varied mission types. Hopefully there is more than just deathmatch/TDM in this one.

I want 32 player conquest with limited respawns. That would kick ass.

There will be objective based combat and "Role Warfare" you will load modules that give you better command and control,scouting, artillery support, etc. You will also have city maps where circle strafing will NOT work. This will be 12 v 12 if I recall correctly.

Role Warfare
Role Warfare continued

Mech Warfare

Seriously though click those links.

Ugh, yet another franchise turned into a first person shooter.

This is looking good. I'm glad this franchise is returning.

Fucking awesome. The missile and ballistic weapons FINIALLY look right!! And the lasers seem to have struck a cord between the pulse and regular lasers of mech 3. I wonder if the game will even have pulse lasers, and if they'll be more like 3's or 4's. Both games - wildly different. also - the cockpits look great.

I see from reading some of the details that the game's damage readout takes into consideration both the armor and the internal structure - it is no longer just an armor "lifebar" as it was in previous games. Makes me wonder if certain weapons will have armor piercing qualities.

No pulse lasers considering the timeline. At least not at first.

Half the fun of mechwarrior occurs before the battle when you are balancing your loadout vs. the weight limit of the chasis and how much firepower you can have vs. how many heatsinks you need.

Personally, my favorite thing to do is to have 2 banks of SRMs and a ton of lasers/heatsinks that let me keep firing. I go light on armor to emphasize offense and I use the lasers to target the enemy's weakpoint. . . all mechs have a weakpoint like having most of their weapons on the right side or they are fast but have poorly armored legs. I'm the guy that slowly backpedals and hits you where you least want to be hit over and over. The SRMs are just so if a fight starts crowded, you can bull-rush the weaker enemies so that you are dueling by the time you are down to lasers.

I have always favored laser-based builds too...That brings up questions as to how strong the laser weapons are going to be. In the standard single player games of the past, even the medium laser is pathetically weak on it's own.

They pointed out ballistic weapons ammo stores will be reloaded by spending the players actual in-game soft currency, they my have a serious edge, perhaps dealing both damage to armor and internals, where as lasers merely ablate armor on the surface first.

BTW- since you mention this timeline Ghostbear - they have PPCs but not Gauss Rifles? Or did I miss something. the Gauss Rifle is as iconic as the PPC IMO.

This is sounding very much like World of Tanks but with Mechs. Which is fine with me, by the way. As long as there is a good amount of loadout customization I will be happy.

Oh, man. That Battletech MMO they tried to launch 10 years ago was one of the best games I ever played, and probably the game I was most disappointed to hear got cancelled. I'm hoping this fills that void in my heart.

Should be gauss rifles. The medium laser is generally only powerful in groups. By that I mean groups of lasers.

They will have established variants of mechs, but I dont believe you're gonna be strapping a PPC onto your Jenner.

If I gotta pay for ammo I hope looting and salvage become a big factor.

You won't pay with actual money for ammo, but with the money you earn in matches.

Besides they have those, they're called Panthers.

Don't you try to school me on Battletech son. I WILL WRECK YOU.

Yeah I've always found a group of 4 mediums perfectly fill the role of filling the void between more powerful weapons cycling.

however having them in a huge group and alpha striking is another story.

Because the Nova ruled for that in Mech 2. :)

I love GB.

Thanks now I'm interested.

I will play this game.

I will have a Catapult, bristling with missiles, and bombard the shit out of my enemies from half a map away.

While this looks like Mechwarrior and Battletech, I am thinking that Hawken is more of what I am looking for these days.

There are no Awesomes in Hawken

I don't need brand-name mechs to enjoy.

Honestly, I don't even care for many of the Battletech designs. The original licensed original mechs were cool, but after the first technical manual, many of the designs are boxy, unoriginal and dull. Now, the Awesome is more excellent than the over-hyped Atlas, but I love the look of the Zeus. Although, Hawken has its own cool style to mechs too.

http://www.playhawken.com/images/calendarGraphic.jpg

Overall, Hawken just looks more badass. Much more badass! The Mechwarrior video in this thread looks slow and dull compared to the Hawken videos.



Hawken looks more kinetic, like you are really in a giant earth-stomping mech. Things are faster, and the action more intense without being FPS-level twitchy. The environments have character and atmosphere rather than Mechwarrior's relatively bland open areas. Hawken also has extensive and clever use of jump-jets.

Why isn't this made with the Frostbite engine?

(This question is rhetorical.)

I plan to play and enjoy both. Hawken looks more like a fun, kinetic experience and a great shooter but it probably won't have the tactical depth or longevity of Mechwarrior. With Mechwarrior, you want to be able to see exactly what's happening, where your weapons are hitting, where everyone is, etc. A faced-paced experience is directly opposed to that.

+1

Best of all, these will both be F2P....nothing to lose in trying them both.

Questions and answers on combat.

I liked it better when I called it a Marauder*





*Or an Officer Pod for you misanthropes

Go for it. The Catapult's weakness is that it's an easy headshot (especially for jumpers) though I tend to pick an Atlas when it becomes available and due to my slow speed, you could probably hurt me pretty bad before I got a headshot lined up (especially if you moved in profile and only lined up to empty your LRMs after they reloaded).

The Q&A says that lances should be varied though, so maybe I'll get to run around in a panther doing skill shots and "wasting" some enemy fire as they struggle to hit me.

This is a lot like how I'm not a car guy, and I've tried to watch Top Gear and all the jokes go way over my head. "I can't believe Whirleygig Phalanx reconfigured their intake manifold tubing with Jasper Carrington's old stock whatchamacallits. It's like Firebrand Motors using PX20-01 claspers instead of dingbat ball sockets all over again!" {hearty room-filling laughs}....me: o_O

What I'm trying to say is I'm proud of you all :) I humbly present myself for learnification.

I first learned to play battletech like fifteen year ago, have played through most of the mechwarrior games, and clocked tons of hours in megamek, yet I still scratch my head a bit when playing with battletech fans that can identify every mech by its sillhouette and talk about its history and role and how efficient/inefficient it is. I still can't tell an Atlas from an Awesome without looking at my sheet.

Thank you for your honesty. So.....next applicant? ;)

You just reminded me of my frustration trying to collect cars in LA Noire. There's like 130 of them, but in my brain, there are 4. I'm starting to think the overall issue might be that I'm stupid.

If you can't tell the difference between
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/images/e/e8/3025_Awesome1.jpg


and

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/images/3/3a/3025_Atlas1.jpg

It kinda makes me think your eyeballs don't work.

Oh, I know them from videogames only and then I only know a handful of them by name. The Juggernaut is a huge "tanky" mech. The "Atlas" is gargantuan and is basically an insane mobile weapons platform that can have a variety of configurations. The Catapult is all about long range missiles, and then you have a bunch of shitbird little mechs that are very mobile, but traditionally have not been able to deal with the firepower of the big mechs.

Honestly, there has never been a reason to use a light mech if you have a heavier one available. Their mobility isn't that much better and you can buy more mobile legs for heavier mechs. . . the big thing that hurts you in mechwarrior is weight limit, and light mechs have the lowest weight limit. More weight limit means more weapons, armor, heatsinks, and weight capacity to throw at faster legs (or even jump jets) should you want these things. Can someone please contradict me on this? This has been my experience, but I'd love to hear how a light mech might not suck.

In the pen-and-paper game, they had a mechanic for jump jets that allowed you to deal damage to both mechs by jumping on top of another mech. I built a "Dragoon" mech that was simply very heavy and had a ridiculous amount of armor and jump jets. This allowed it to jump very far so that it could crush itself into other mechs over and over. My brother immediately banned it from the game after about 3 rounds versus the catapult he loves.

ATLAS LEGS DO NOT BEND THAT WAY!

http://www.comicmix.com/wp-content/u...61129morbo.gif