Mechwarrior 5 Mercenaries

[Jag]

Hows the learning curve on this? I forgot mech maintenance is a real thing with tabletop. I just want a fun stompy single player campaign. May pick it up on the EGS sale.

[NickAragua]

The "strategic layer" economy isn't that difficult. The main thing is to avoid, as much as possible, paying high markup for repairs in warzones (some have crazy 100/300% cost/time increases), and don't go overboard buying lostech as it gets blown right off your mechs anyway (and certainly don't give it to computer-controlled teammates).

The main difficulty curve is when missions go from throwing swarms of tanks/helicopters at you to throwing swarms of light/medium mechs (and tanks/helicopters still). Then you have to be real careful and either a) take it slow and wipe out all opposition at long range (as much as that's possible) or just plow through any buildings you're supposed to destroy, ignoring the opposition, then run for the extraction zone. It also helps to put a hill between yourself and the bulk of the bad guys so they don't all shoot at you at once.

So anyway, it's fun but challenging.

You can also control the difficulty by picking which warzones you take contracts in: the "recommended reputation" level determines the difficulty of the opposition you face, kind of like skull rating in HBS Battletech.

[Victoria Raverna]

Yeah, Clff Bleszinski is annoying.

I find the exclusives annoying, too, but to be honest, I don't think there was any other avenue they could have pursued to seriously compete with Steam. Valve has the market so locked down that there aren't many openings.

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

They can sell games cheaper than other stores like what they're doing now with the $10 discount coupon.

[Blackhawk]

Steam could do that too. From what I understand, Epic is doing it out of their own pocket in order to draw business. Spend now, earn later.

[Jag]

Steam could do that too. From what I understand, Epic is doing it out of their own pocket in order to draw business. Spend now, earn later.

And gamers win in the short term at least. I don't love EGS, but I'm loving the cheap games.

[stimpy]

This is now available via Xbox Game Pass.
From the lack of impressions I'm thinking it may not be that great, but for $1, I'll bite.

[NickAragua]

The bottom line:

Mech combat is great
Mech customization is fine
Starmap is acceptable
Mission variety is a little low
Storyline is... "basic"

Oh, and currently, no crossplay between epic and xbox game pass people.

[coopasonic]

This is now available via Xbox Game Pass.
From the lack of impressions I'm thinking it may not be that great, but for $1, I'll bite.

Yeah I'll give it a chance for the price of free.

[Sepiche]

I haven't played this since it came out, but I thought it was all pretty cool except for the fatal flaw of brain dead companion AI.

Might be they've fixed it, but when I tried the campaign it was pretty game breaking to constantly have your companions doing millions of C-Bills in unnecessary damage to your mechs.

[NickAragua]

I haven't played this since it came out, but I thought it was all pretty cool except for the fatal flaw of brain dead companion AI.

Might be they've fixed it, but when I tried the campaign it was pretty game breaking to constantly have your companions doing millions of C-Bills in unnecessary damage to your mechs.

This mod's got you covered: https://www.nexusmods.com/mechwarrior5m ... s/mods/104

[Sepiche]

I haven't played this since it came out, but I thought it was all pretty cool except for the fatal flaw of brain dead companion AI.

Might be they've fixed it, but when I tried the campaign it was pretty game breaking to constantly have your companions doing millions of C-Bills in unnecessary damage to your mechs.

This mod's got you covered: https://www.nexusmods.com/mechwarrior5m ... s/mods/104

Thanks, I'll check that out next time I play.

[raydude]

How about the campaign multiplayer? I thought that was a thing? Is it not well thought out? I was thinking one could mitigate the AI by having friends play in one's company.

[NickAragua]

It's pretty fun multi-player and works very well in my experience.

The only problem is that there's no cross-play between epic and xbox game pass currently, which is annoying.

[Skinypupy]

I fired it up last night. Never played a Mechwarrior game before, and came away completely unimpressed after the tutorial and first mission. The load times were horrendous, the graphics were mediocre (at best), the voiceovers were laughably bad, the plot seems very uninteresting, and I'm having a hell of a time getting the hang of the controls.

Will give it another shot tonight, but first impressions certainly left something to be desired.

[NickAragua]

Yeah, the plot is just... uh... well, the most amusing thing about it is counting the number of times the main character says "copy that".

As far as graphics, well, I'm not sure what you were expecting. Seems perfectly fine to me, but I guess it's in the eye of the beholder.

The main point of the game is basically the procedurally generated battles where you get to stomp tanks and fight giant robots. Preferably with other players in coop. The mission objectives could use a little more variety, though. Hopefully they'll address that with the DLC. Mod scene doesn't seem to be taking off too much, which is a shame.

[Blackhawk]

[side rant]

Something has always bugged me about calling mechs 'robots'. Aren't they just vehicles? If mechs are robots, why aren't tanks?

[NickAragua]

[side rant]

Something has always bugged me about calling mechs 'robots'. Aren't they just vehicles? If mechs are robots, why aren't tanks?

Heh, some mecha settings use the term "Wanderung Panzer" (walking tank) or "Standing Tank". Personally, I probably use the term because when I was first introduced to the concept of a giant combat walker, it looked like a TV robot.

[Paingod]

[side rant]

Something has always bugged me about calling mechs 'robots'. Aren't they just vehicles? If mechs are robots, why aren't tanks?

Between geeks and gamers, I always call them Mechs. When I'm talking with someone who has no idea, I call them giant robots.