MegaMekNET

[liom]

Can I just point out that from a mech pilot point of view the vast majority of mechs still around in 3025 were family heirlooms passed down, patched and jury-rigged to keep functioning. This would tie into the non reassigning of pilots imo.

Sure a mech jock could have excelled with lasers in simulators etc. but at the end of the day the mechs are very rare and every pilot has their own specific mech with its own quirks and flaws and improvised systems. Anyone who has read any amount of CBT novels set around this time period would agree with me I'm sure. The fact is that in 3025 two JR7-F might have completely different control layouts based on which family has maintained them or which tech has jury-rigged which system.

As to the coding side of things I believe Legends or Jihad has a pilot purchasing and levelling system in play but I do feel the random assignments on our server do add an extra element to the game, sort of like buying a booster pack of the old battletech CCG.

I tried a few different servers during the recent outage and continue to play the odd game or two to keep up to date with clantech etc. but mekwars has always been my favourite server for game balance and straight up fun. What I have experienced in other servers is a very high percentage of super units, players can pick and choose their levels and skills for xp which puts all the regular players at a huge advantage over anyone just starting out.

I would be interested to know the pilot rules in Strategic Operations if anybody has a copy of the newest rulebook and maybe a bv tweak might help with a lot of the complaints but I would be pretty strongly opposed to picking and choosing piloting levels.

[DrDesastro]

Attention: This reply contains philosophical approaches and "truths" that might not be digested easily by people with a loose temper. If you are one of these persons please stop the flame wars and do not read any further. If not, feel free to neutrally read those lines and get my point of view - maybe i am wrong - and i have no problems with that if you point that out.


What wrong is it to favor and reward players, who play this game often? Isn't this the purpose of this game at all?
On one hand we complain there are not enough players active to run the campagn properly and wait for players. Baw about Hangar Captains hogging 4/5 piloted Starleague shinies and so on...
And now you want to "punish" the active players, because they actually play the game?? Reward points and pilot level-ups are a reward - not a curse! A reward for playing the game, risking their lance, investing time and honing their wits - only to "balance" it for players only playing once a week? If you do not have the devotion to play this - well then don't do it. Grab a football, watch TV, go for a walk.
If you do not have time for it because of several reasons you either cannot manage your time or - the case i wish for you all - you need more time elsewhere because you have sth that is reason to be proud of, like a safe job, a loving wife, a girlfriend, children - and this is more important than a boardgame.
But to baw that you cannot keep up with the top notch players because you actually have a real life ain't do it. Nobody forces you to be a Frontline Commander and play the missions for the big points. Stay Garrision and play a casual patrol. Or stay in SOL - there you even need not care about lance and pilot management.
But if you play more often, the game should reward you - like having better pilots without worrying about that fact. You have better lances because you have more reward earned. You bays are bigger because you made more CBills and could afford them. Since when you get sth for nothing? Only death is free, but it costs your life. If you do only 10 sit-ups a day do really expect to look look like Schwarzenegger? You challenge Mike Tyson to a boxing match and complain that he accepts but does not fight blindfolded with one arm tied behind his back because it is unfair to YOU?

Those changes i proposed will hurt me as well. As you can see i am on the very low end of ranking and facing elite pilots will not make things better for me. I lost many games before and would lose even more. The only thing it will do is to think more carefully about my lance and be happy about any threat of an enemy elite pilot i permanently eliminate for the sake of our faction. And i would grow with that.

But for me, the changes would make this game more strategical and enjoyable. As told before - if you complain about being clobbered because you play not often enough to "master" this game" (have no good lances etc.), then stay in SOL and have some casual matches against friends. But when you join a house and the war do not expect someone to be nice and fair to you. War never is homogenous or symmetric. Never was and never will be. This game simulates a war - so why should we even try to make it in a fashion war-unlike?

My 5 cents - just feeled the urge to write since I saw things like this happen before. Good games emerged, community build up and ideas flew. Good thing. But after some time rules are changed, things were "balanced" - until every thing was a grey uninteresting pulp and it does not even matter, on which side you play. There is a proverb:
"The best compromise is the one after which EVERYBODY is unhappy."
I'd rather stay happy...

End of philosophical issues.

[Spork]

Look, I'd *love* to agree with you, but I *can't*.

Number one, some of us are talking with historical perspective. The elite players on this server *will* take advantage of being able to customize their mechs and retire pilots for free. It's not a "could" situation, it's a "will" situation. You will end up with monoculture 4/5 armies with over-armored 4/6 movement gunslingers, with the exception of your 5/1 OTTs and SDR-Vs and CDA-As. It's happened before - it's *not* conjecture.

Number two, and this really is important, much of this requires code. I write the code. I hate pilot swapping. Hate it, not dislike it, not am put off by it. Since I am not paid to code this, why would I spend my time on it? Now, you might convince Torren to put in the options that require code, but you are *not* going to convince me. Or, someone could submit a patch to me, and I'll take a look at it, but I am absolutely not going to do the work to code it.
_________________
Tell me what we're fighting for, I don't remember any more, only temporary reprieve.
And the world might cease, if we fail to tame the beast,
From the faith that you release comes an atheist peace

[DrDesastro]

No problem with that. It was not bawing against you not wanting to code a lot.
Since you are not paid, you have a valid point. I really did not expect a change to happen.

I just wanted to "imprint" another point of view to people overbalancing a game until it is dead. Because i like the game. If - by any means - odd situations concerning balancing issues arise that make the game not playable or somehow create frustration - then i think sth is afoul. And the need "might" be there to do sth about. As told - what game is fun if there always is a kind of safety line to force balance on a campaign during progress?

[culture vulture]

[DrDesastro]

You do not take into account attrition. Pilots die - almost every game.
If elite lances play each other, elite pilots will die. The RNG will look to that.
It takes time to train an elitepilot but it takes a single game to sort things out. So i am not afraid.

[Tuco]

will you stop to lecture those who have actually seen in action what you want to see ?
even if Spork or Torren code it, i will not enable it on the server. besides, there might be a different approach for the pilot issues coming for next cycle.
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[Khalcruth]

Can I put in a vote for "pilot leveling hasn't really bothered me lately"?

Since you have to have 3 for a conquer, I actually need leveled pilots. And now that it's not guaranteed that a 4/5 pilot will go to 4/4 (as it used to be), I'm actually pretty ok with the way things are at present.

Change is bad, down with change!

[Meatgrinder]

There is one thing absolutely missing this cycle. And this is any discussion about game ballance and cheesy armys.

I would like to thank all mods and responsible persons for this balanced environment.

Therefore I really dislike the pilot swaping idea!

But sometimes a casual Player put together all resources and buy an Assault. And he gets an 2/5 Charger with balistic Gunnery. The mech is fine and he don't want to change him but this unit is unplayable because it's to expensive.

So having the option to retire this pilot (or resend him into the pilot pool) would be great.

And having this option limited to avoid any abuse (f.e. one per month) will favor the casual players. But they are the absolute mass here. Additionally they are the fodder for the intensity players so you might have an interest to keeping us happy.

The only thinkable abuse is that gamers swap units to the ones who had not used their option in a month, retire the pilots and swap it back. This could be avid if this unit cant be transfered for a time after retiring the pilot.

I know this reqires even more coding, but I hope you like this suggestion anyway.

Best regards

[MajorFrantic]

[Caesar Steiner]

@ Meatgrinder: In order to help casual players, we could disable/slow down the levelups for Garrison Commanders since they don't need levelups for their missions.

Imho a casual player might be more happy as Garrison Commander with limited impact on the campaign than being forced to play as Frontline Commander against vets with optimized mechs and armies.

[Meatgrinder]

Hi Caesar,

the speed of levelups is not the root cause for my sugestion. This speed has been slowed allready during the cycle. A further decrease would not solve the issue since you can still buy an unit with a leveled pilot unplayable for the campaign.

But since there will be a solution (3025 style retirement) in the next cycle starting next week I think the poroblem will be solved that way.

Thanks to the server stuff for thinking about that issue and taking care about this.

Best regards