RPGWatch Feature - Battletech Review
 

You can learn what Forgottenlor thinks about Battletech in this first review of the year.

More information.

I still have to play this one - Thanks Forgottenlor!

Thanks for the review, forgottenlor!

I agree with most of your assessment. Most of the short-comings are attributed to budget reasons. Yes, the game could be deeper, the missions and maps more varied. They simply had to get the core right first. And I think they did a good job. Let's hope the add-ons (or hopefully BattleTech 2) will flesh it out further.

I'm a big fan of the game (and BattleTech in general) and I recommend to play the campaign once.

After that I strongly recommend to have a look at the mod RogueTech, which remedies many of the short-comings of the base game and adds deeper mechanics. Be warned though, that the mod is further ahead in the BattleTech timeline and you will see many new weapons and equips. Also many new mechs ported over from MechWarrior Online.

I have 100 h in the vanilla BattleTech and 240 h in RogueTech, which I will further play for a long time to come. Here is a link to the wiki:
https://roguetech.gamepedia.com/Roguetech_Wiki
Ask me anything about the mod, if you want.

Not sure I fully agree with the review. I thought the campaign was awful. I thought while the strategic maps combat was a bit repetitive the maps themselves - while small - were quite variant and decent. They also encourage different approaches.

Average at best. Yes I said it the campaign is boring and repetitive. Can't wait for modders to create custom campaigns as I don't see the expansions adding more.

Basing my opinion off the Flashpoint DLC.

Update: Also it's not an RPG and was never advertised as one. Same as X-Com.

I also still need to play this one, I believe I was waiting for all the content to land but then I'm not likely to buy any of the expansions, so I might as well just play it soon. I got sucked into replaying Fallout: Tactics, but after I finish it might be time to 'mech up.

I found the game fun at first even with irritatingly long loading times. But after 10h you notice that side missions are all the same. Then you notice as you start getting bigger MECHs that combat still plays the same. And that enemy MECHs are all just the same but only with bigger numbers in play.
Main story mission also don't offer enough variety to break this, after a while I had to force myself to finish the game just so I feel I didn't waste money on the KS.

I think this would have worked better as a MP competitive game as it was designed for the tabletop. Having samey rules but turning it into a tactical game with RPG elements just does not work. Especially not with lack of 20 additional features.

This is how Xcom would have looked and played if Firaxis made it with only half the features it had at release.

If I agree that the campaign design has a problem, it's not through repetition, it's through design of missions and surprise elements, that is play once to not choose a tactic/strategy not matching those surprises at second try. Moreover the story telling is average.

I quite disagree for the random missions diversity. I had a lot more diversity than in XCOM2 or XCOM1 or Long War 2. Including from enemies setup changing significantly a mission, but also a party changing missions as your roster evolves.

When you choose your random missions, you just need ensure not skip some types because they tend be harder. Moreover, there's a difficulty variation that hasn't XCOM and which changes significancy a mission.

What I disliked in this game is the fans base, a majority of Battletech fans are hardly bearable for me, this ended spoil me the game quite significantly. For MP I totally don't care and would have skip it, bother with the fans would have been a nightmare. And I know that bother with me is difficult too. :-)

I end defend a bit a game I don't want support because I felt the comment in this thread was rather unfair, it's just some comments don't match the feeling I had, I have no analysis on that, just some feeling. I'd love the game if it wasn't coming from some tabletop, but it's pretty clear that without such tabletop base, such game would not have benefit of such depth on combats and diversity. Mechs refit make ridiculously simple XCOM 1&2 soldiers building. If you like party builds it's a must play game.

That's why Fireaxis can only have hard time to compete, they did it from scratch, not from decades of designs from experts.

That opinion surprises me, because all the campaign missions had handmade maps and different conditions than on any of the generic missions. I found protecting the fleeing drop ships or taking out isolated and cut off bases before they could raise an alarm very exciting, where as the generic missions usually were destroy a convey, destory building, or destroy a mech lance, and were very straightforward. Or did you not like the characters and story?

Well you've voiced this opinion often, and we'll just have to agree to disagree. It is more of an RPG IMO than the Valkyria Chronicles, regardless of how they are advertised. I've made my case in the review, and that's the way I see it. :)

Well I'm stating a fact you're giving an opinion.

Fact #1 - Nowhere on the Kickstarter page is it called an RPG
Fact #2 - Nowhere in the marketing of the game was it called an RPG
Fact #3 - Steam and GOG don't even list it as an RPG

That would be like me calling the TotalWar games an RPG.

Valkyria Chronicles on the other hand is sold, labeled, and played as a tactical role-playing game. For reference Japan labels these type of games differently then the West.
Beyond that you wrote a good review.:)

Thanks for the review forgottenlor.

I picked this one up as my hubby really enjoyed the game (he is a big fan of robots/mechs) - unfortunately, I didn't really enjoy it :( I guess I'm not really a mech fan to begin with, and not understanding how each mech works gave me hard time.

I did enjoy watching hubby play though, the writing seems to be quite solid - very emotional when certain character gets killed etc.

May give it another go sometime.

It was the later part. I thought the story and presentation of the story was very poor. The actual combat portion of the campaign was fine; but i wouldn't consider that much to the story - just the action around the story.

In my opinion it's a good reason because a tag is a choice, it's Norman Spinrad I think that wrote that Science Fiction is anything published with the tag Science Fiction.

At internet age, that would be a little different, Science Fiction would be everything published and classified with the tag, not just by makers, but also by consumers.

For this point, a RPG or not RPG, my question would be if Batteltech is a RPG then why XCOM1&2 isn't a RPG?

At some point I admit that Tactical RPG are often borderline and still tagged RPG. Eventually the problem isn't that basic.

Buying mechs was really pretty crazy. It's far cheaper to just get salvaged mechs and work with whatever mechs end up in your bay.

I enjoyed the sandbox missions a lot more. I even kept playing after the campaign until I got friendly with House Steiner (which is barely in the game) and acquired the achievement for getting every mech, which took well over 100 hours! There are quite a few maps to play on and, even if you get the same map again, the battles will take place in different areas on the map so in mission you might be able to dance around a river to keep your heat down while, in the next, you're out in the desert with nowhere to hide. Plus the different mechs have pretty different abilities which force different tactics.

Some of the random missions did seem rather unfair. I quickly learned not to attack convoys, for instance. You're tasked to blast a convoy being escorted by enemy mechs but that convoy isn't a bunch of food trucks, they are monster sized tanks that can do serious damage to your mechs all by themselves. Then the reinforcements show up!! Assassination missions, on the other hand, aren't too hard and the target mech is often a big one. Knock that thing's legs off or bounce it around until the pilot breaks and you can get a great reward!

Ouch… uhh, a quick little edit, please?

I liked BATTLETECH quite a lot. Very entertaining. Played it all the way through, and then for a while after. I still need to try the expansion.

I only spent $25 for this as a Kickstarter backer, and it was $25 well spent!

So whether or not a game is an RPG is dependent on whether or not it is marketed as one? :P

I consider it to be a strategy game with RPG elements. There is a story. You play a character in that story, therefore you are playing a role. Your mech has stats and abilities which level up over time.

I read through my own texts three times and the editor reads through once. Still that isn't always enough to catch everything. :(

Guess every game is an RPG nowadays then by that logic.:lol:

Alright then Rome Total War 2 is also a turn-based SRPG because you play a leader with stats, abilities and so on. Let's not forget the agents, armies, and cities you manage.

Anyway lost all interest in this game as the new mechwarrior game looks better.


Lets call it an ARPG.:biggrin:

Its kind of like understanding the rules for D&D or Pathfinder. The ruleset is complex with lots of nuances. Its way too much for a proper tutorial, and I can see it being a barrier for getting into the game.

Grrr, why I have to support a game for which I get some hate against? Ha well.

In my opinion pathfinder is a lot more complex overall for the set of rules and special cases, also there's so many specificity and so many rules not quoted in detail in the game.

I agree that optimize mech refit and setup a party and use the tactics adapted to the whole, is very difficult. Firstly because everything is new, it evoked me no combat systems I had played before. Secondly because there's many balances problems to manage, and you can easily end in a poor refit.

In fact it's not that complex for the rules base, a lot more simple than pathfinder, just more uncommon.

Not the rules but some base to help:
- If I remember well, at first you can as well use the default refit, none are the most optimized refit, but good enough to make the deal.
- Rush the campaign is really for very good players or players with a large experience of the game or the board game. It means that you need do secondary missions.
- For secondary random missions, you need learn decipher a bit the hints to evaluate the mission difficulty, no way I can remember any detail, but it's really there in mission description, type of mission, rewards, and comment of the "advisor".
- For campaign missions, don't bother if you can't beat it at first try, it's quite standard because of their design.
- There's no need to roleplay the big guy and force yourself play it like permadeath, there's saves, use them.
- For rewards many players will explain you that salvage is better than money, don't listen them. This is true in general for more experienced players, this is true a lot because hardcore players are a lot about collecting mechs and rare equipment. But as a newbie to the game it's better ensure your company doesn't get bankrupt, and then few salvage and more money is a safer choice.
- Sometime a combat is going to be win, but one of your meach is going to be destroyed and eventually pilot kill. You can eject a pilot from his mech and save both.

That's it, for sure there are the rules, but until you start really bother with refits, there isn't that many.

EDIT:
This newbie guide seems fair, not really to read before to play anything, but when you start wonder what you are doing wrong:
https://www.gamecrate.com/battletech…g-combat/19088

Or this steam user guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfil…?id=1365402907

Yet it is not. It must be very different in some ways not to be tagged RPGs.

I'll read it as a non sarcasm post.

When it's about tags reasons can as well be money, "woo xcom sold a lot let say our game is tactical xom like, so no RPG". Or historical, "Yamamoto: Hey, story, characters, combats on a grid, clearly a tactical RPG".

Who ever tagged JA2 firstly as a tactical RPG? What would have happen if it's been done in Japan?

Thanks for the links to the guides. I think the Pathfinder ruleset is just as complex as the Battletech one, but vastly more familiar. There are a ton of rpgs that use a simplified version of Dungeon and Dragon rules and so key concepts will be familiar to anyone who has started with anything from a Final Fantasy game to something like Diablo. Battletech has certain concepts like heat and evasion through movement, or exploding ammunition from internal damage, which will be new to many players. For example, Battletech players know never to have ammunition alone in a location, because criticals are rolled out on the components located in a particular area. Have 4 components in your arm means 25% chance that the ammo will be hit on a crit, having just ammo leads to 100% chance of an ammo explosion doing internal damage. This is just one example of a rule implemented in the game correctly, but which any non tabletop player won't know or easily find out without looking it up somewhere.

Battletech system implemented into this game was not complex, not even close to what Pathfinder has. It was too simple, that is why the game is boring.

A dice roller.
Dice would have rolled differently.

The line obviously blurs at some point. Early strategy games had units. They might become veteran after winning a battle, but that was pretty much it for progression.

The came games like Heroes of Might and Magic, X-Com, Jagged Alliance and Final Fantasy Tactics, where you played a series of conflicts like in a strategy game, but you suddenly had units with a variety of stats like you would find on an rpg character, the units would improve attributes and gain skills, carry equipment, and there would be some kind of story. Many people called these strategy rpgs or tactical rpgs (depending sometimes on how much global strategy elements were in the game).

Now of days so many games have rpg elements, and there are few classical rpgs. But at the time when a game like X-Com came out it was pretty unusual that units in a strategy game had rpg like abilities. I think that's where these labels come from and lots of people who like rpgs (like me) also like these types of games. I don't think its coincidence that a lot of players on this site played Battletech.

@forgottenlor

I can't argue about that as every game nowadays has RPG mechanics. Seems it's a checkbox that you must include some type of leveling, stats, and other aspects of RPGs.

Developers found it enriches different genres.

Or sells games. I think it is the result of World of Warcraft becoming a mass phenomenon. We'll see if it proves to be lasting or if its just a fad.

Lol, so I suppose you know rather well the board game to argue it's been simplified by the video game.

That's why I can't bear this game, I'm not saying all players of the board games would be so negative, but so expeditious and with a superior attitude, too many.

Perhaps I didn't get major aspects of the game, but I'd say that anybody whining it's too easy should first never use any enhanced parts that obviously break the mechs original design.

I don't have a very exhaustive perspective because there are periods I skipped play video games at all. But I don't remember at all that HoMM3 (I played a lot including mods) ever been tagged RPG neither tactic nor strategy.

I can't say for X-Com but for later releases, I never noticed them tagged RPG.

Jagged Alliance is a different affair, if JA1 is no RPG, JA2 is very obviously a full RPG with everything, and even more than many RPG. Exploration, global map, local maps, main story and secondary stories, quests, many NPC, some key choices, characters to develop and equip, items to find, shops, party, perhaps more. The problem, in my opinion, is JA2 is mainly great for the combats, equipment, mercenary team management. For RPG aspects, it's developed, but it's a minimal part of the fun.

And for Final Fantasy Tactics I'm even chocked you put it with the others. What's sure, is it's always been tagged Tactic RPG, and its name is coming from this traditional genre in Japan, a genre not at all traditional in the occident.

But I won't deny that JA2 is more a complete RPG than FFT.
Is really that many RPG players played it, I don't see a Skyrim/The Witcher 3 player naturally inclined to play it.

I suspect there is a confusion here, because it's perhaps a RPG player population, more interested in turn based than is the global RPG population. And turn based isn't to to explore a world or talk with NPC, but to play party combats turn based.

And what has Battletech, turn based combats, I suspect it's the only link with players wandering at RPGWatch, not RPG.

So you don't think Harebrained should be doing Star Fleet Battles next? ;)

This is uncommon mechanism, it's not that complex. It starts be more complex when you start try optimize refit because of the balances linked and that the choices depend of the mech roles, tactic used and so on. But you don't need perfect refit and you can ignore plenty rules and play the game anyway.

I suspect that you know too well Pathfinder to realize the number of rules uncommon in this class or that skill that RPG players never seen anywhere. Myself I just gave up bother.

Eventually in Pathfinder it's the number of rules and special cases that is difficult, when in Battletech it's possible that there are multiple rules more complex by themselves. But for those you need bother with, it's not so complex I think.
Well isn't it more complicate than that? Chance to hit the part, part exposition, that it requires first destroy fully the external protection of the part, and so on.

Anyway it's a refit rule and if refit is really complex, you still can have a lot of fun with it, without doing perfect refit, not even ever bother with this rule you quoted.

I don't think that the number of rules to really know to play the single player game is that high, and I'm pretty sure you can fully ignore this one.

Where you want to go? That the the game single player requires years of expertise more than Pathfinder? I can say you that my save right before final of pathfinder, easiest difficulty, I gave up beat it a second time to see then end once more.

I hadn't this feeling that Battletech was requiring a very high expertise for the single player. As I wrote, there's no need to rush the campaign, the random missions are a lot of fun, for me it's from far the best part of the game with the refits, and the campaign is so so. Too bad that the mercenary team sim is so few developed.

At end it's among the most fun and diversified party combats I have played. And I felt Final Fantasy Tactics a lot more complicated.

I think that what he is ignoring is that you can play the single player game without ever bother with many rules.

It's not confirmed by some player arguing they felt it too complex, but there's three aspects:
- To be efficient enough you need learn some rules, not that many, but some will be hard to discover without some help. That's a problem but ask a few question on a forum won't kill you.
- You can ignore a lot of rules and be efficient enough.
- You can play as much you want mercenary missions, and it's the best fun of the game, certainly not the campaign. Which means there's a lot of fun to have without mastering anything.

No, I didn't say that. I said that what we got in the game is a very simple game with simple mechanics compared to something like Pathfinder.

I never played Battletech boardgame and I don't know the rules. I don't care, I only care what the game brought us and it was not much.

Ooops, sorry for the deliberate aggressiveness from a miss reading.

I wouldn't say it's so basic, balance, heat, different types of shot and their effects on parts, exposition, height, and more, biome, terrains, more.

Well it seems you didn't enjoy because it was too basic, ok, myself I found a lot of fun and tactical diversity in combats, and a lot more fun to experiment in refit than in RPG party building. That said, to compare to Pathfinder and party building, I give up optimize this too much in PK, so I can't say the comparison is fair.

But for combats tactical value, Pathfinder and its RTwP is very very far to Battletech in any aspects from depth to diversity, in fact PK is good for the meta level, not for tactics during combats.

You can do better than that. :-)

Yes there are different stats during combat but they don't change the tactics. It is always put a mech with bulwark pilot somewhere to tank shot while your non bulwark mechs move around between two forest areas and fire their long range/missile weapons.
You focus on one guy until you can kill him or put him on the floor. You use all your weapons without overheating.
Rinse and repeat. Every mission, every mission type I did it this way. It worked vs any kind of enemy. Only thought needed is actually in the meta level, in the mech bay where you prepare your mechs. This was the most fun part of the game.

There's perhaps an OP hole breaking the fun, abuse of missiles. I remind have read a bit about that.

In defend the base missions, intercept convoy missions, and escort convoy missions, I don't remind such boredom kill from long range was that easy. Moreover for non missile long range, you pay a hard price of damage power. Even for kill the mech missions, I have huge doubt it works that well when the mech to kill is solid and fast.

Anyway when you quoted you had an OP hole approach, you couldn't try something different to have fun in playing the game?

It's a sort of behavior I don't understand, you bore yourself and can't get out of it. I understand it even less because in almost all games like that there will be boredom op holes allowing rinse and repeat in almost all combats. You should better stop play combats games.

My experience is hugely different and with a ton more tactics that this, including a lot of mobility positioning tactics requiring to adapt precisely to enemies reactions and setup.

So I suppose you rushed the campaign, but is really you experienced more the mercenary missions more than a few try and get bored? I'm quite surprised you played many and all was boredom basic.

EDIT: Height, range, terrains, exposition from orientation, stability, attack from back, more, there's so many possibilities to exploit, end with some systematic static long range blast is a big waste.

Not really. I mean, there are certain characteristics associated with RPGs. The more of the characteristics a game has, the closer it is to being an RPG. How the elements are implemented within the game makes a big difference too.

Games can encompass more than one genre. No, BattleTech isn't a full blown RPG by any stretch of the imagination. It is mainly a strategy game. But it does have some RPG characteristics that may make it more appealing to RPG fans. You play a character as part of a story. You have (limited) interaction with other characters, and (limited) ability to make decisions that have consequences (both to the story and to other characters). Your character (via the mechs) has stats which progress throughout the game.

I'd say it is about 85% strategy game and 15% RPG.

I definitely don't consider BattleTech to be an ARPG. A 100% turn-based game doesn't meet the "action" part of it, and there aren't enough RPG elements to meet the "RPG" part of it. (Although I personally consider BattleTech to be more of an RPG than something like Diablo).

I'll probably end up buying this one too. It IS possible to enjoy more than one mech game, after all. :P