[deathspeed]

https://mw5mercs.com/

Is anyone else excited about this?  I used to play the snot of of MW3.  I probably spent more time customizing loadouts than actually blowing things up.  I loved the sound and force-feedback feel of stomping around in my big robot.  (MechAssault on Xbox never did it for me - with the 3rd person view and quicker-feeling mechs, I never got the same sense of immense scale as I did from the PC games.)

I can hardly wait to try this out again. I'll pick it up when the price drops.

[General Battuta]

I wasn't excited (doubly so after how excellent MWLL has been, probably the best Mechwarrior game ever) but the first RPS review was...good?

I'm just really disappointed they're going back to 3025, again.

[Scourge of Ages]

Timed exclusive (1 year) to Epic Games store. Which means I won't be playing it for at least a year, so there's that.

[BlueFlames]

I don't trust PGI enough to get excited about anything they fart out, much less another attempt at the MechWarrior franchise.

In any case, I've got a backlog of HBS Battletech expansions to catch up on.

[theperfectdrugsk]

I'm pretty pumped.  Not pumped enough to get it on the Epic sure, but pumped nonetheless. I've been playing a ****load of HBS Battletech lately, still have MW4:Mercs installed (and have played through probably 8 times anyway), and just reinstalled MW2 via mechVM.

Hell, I probably spent almost as much time reading the exceptional MW2 manual as I did playing the game way back when.

Edit: I agree with Battuta...3rd succession war era is kinda played out at this point. I'd like a return to the clans.

[Turambar]

I am really loving the game so far.  Just bought a Stalker to add to my lance.

The music is fantastic.

[RangerKarl]

There are enough floating rocks in the game for this to qualify as a Bethsoft product IMO

[deathspeed]

Honestly, I don't know enough about the Battletech storylines or what has already been covered in other games for that to be a factor for me.  I'm just looking forward to stomping around again in a giant rocket-launching laser-firing jump-jetting walking tank.  From the reviews I have read this does capture the "feel" of the MechWarrior games and the gameplay is fun.  (I never tried MechWarrior Online, because, well, online.)

[Turambar]

Starting earlier just lets technology progress as the game goes on, and im pretty sure most of the 4th succession war happens in the game's timeframe.  When I was playing Mechwarrior 2, I didn't know anything and none of the stuff about the clans made sense.  I picked up that they had a different culture but I didn't know about the Star League and the Inner Sphere and how Kerensky took all the cool robots and left and all that.  I actually appreciate the Battletech turn based game for giving me a better picture of the setting.

Edit: looks like the patch later today adjusts the mid-mission enemy spawning, and fixes lots of floating rocks.  https://mw5mercs.com/news/2019/12/19-mw5-mercs-patch

And again, if anyone has questions or concerns about Epic store, let me know, I work there.  I can pass on feedback too.  I've already suggested they put the store on linux.

[Grizzly]

I picked up that they had a different culture but I didn't know about the Star League and the Inner Sphere and how Kerensky took all the cool robots and left and all that.

TBF Mech2 explains that to you in its codex. Its what got me hooked on the entire setting

(But yes Battletech is a good intro to the whole franchise, which is fair enough considering the original creator is behind it )

[Turambar]

Yeah, I was pretty young at the time, and I am not sure i ever found the codex.  I had the Titanium Trilogy for Mechwarrior 2, maybe it wasnt in that version?  I can't find any copies of it so I can't really check.

You can get $10 off on Mechwarrior 5 Mercs, since the epic holiday sale just started.  Not the best discount but not bad considering the game just came out.

[The E]

Except that the game is bad and not worth it.

It does the Oblivion thing of having one big voice actor right near the start (Elias Toufexis, in this case) to lure you into the idea that there is more to this game than there actually is, but .... no.

This game lacks a lot of what I want from a modern MechWarrior title. It doesn't have a story -- And what story it has lacks urgency and punch and character; Where MW4M had you run around the Inner Sphere, visiting defined planets that each had their own little mini story arcs that fed into the overarching FedCom Civil War storyline that the game was set in, in this game, you are running around the IS taking generic contracts from characterless mission givers which tell no story. There is no sense of events happening around you; the game just presents an infinite sandbox for you to run around in. Everything is strictly mechanical: You enter into a relationship with a great house not because you like that house and what it stands for, you do it because running up your rep with them gives you points you can spend during contract negotiations. Missions are interchangeable; there are about a dozen different maps and a bunch of prefab structures in them that you are tasked to defend, destroy, or visit while looking for things to destroy.

Speaking of missions, this game has one trick, and one trick only, to balancing them. Since there is no custom geometry to exploit and built interesting encounters around, each mission will have you defend yourself against wave after wave of the same enemies over and over again, and it's getting old fast.
It's procgen trash, basically. There's no real design here, just a progression system and an economy.

Meanwhile, this game screams "half finished" to me. Certain aspects work well: The mech models are pretty cool, the music .... exists, the weapons sound and feel good, and the basic gameplay of piloting your walking tank is solid. It is no coincidence that these things are all things that MWO also got right, to an extent.
It's in everything else that it falls down: The two main NPCs you end up interacting with (the mechanic and the mission control lady) are both pointless, characterless; your main in-between area is a lovingly detailed rendition of a Leopard's mech bay that you'll never, ever use or explore unless the game forces you to. UI elements are from a basic UI widget kit that I am sure is somewhere in the Unreal asset store.

So yeah. Instead of playing MW5, track down the Mektek release of MW4 Mercs and play that. You'll have a better time.

[Grizzly]

_{This is what MW5 thinks what a "Personality" is.}

What dissapoints me about this, straight after having played a battletech campaign and bearing in mind I'm still very much in the refund window having played 110 minutes, is that MW5 doesn't really capture the weight of the thing very well. Aside from the fun of rampaging around bases like a bull in a china shop, which is the most fun I've had causing enviromental destruction since Brigador, there's a lot of circle strafing fights with vehicles and the ocassional mech battle, but...

There are other games that do heayv steel combat: Battlefield V's tank combat isn't as complex as any Mechwarrior game, but it does convey the feeling of "This is a steel death machine" extremely well, especially if you're piloting something ridicilous like a Sturmtiger. Battletech is a turn based tactics game, but it manages to convey the feeling of an AC/10 being a DANGEROUS thing that you should fear very well. Titanfall 2 is a game that is far more about being outside of a mech then it is about being inside of a mech, but the mech battles in that game still convey a sense of lethality even if you are a bit bullet spongy.

All the fights in these games involve tactical thinking, popping in and out of cover, becuase even whilst you are fighting a steel death machine that dominates the battlefield, you aren't the only one. Mechwarrior 3 understood this very well,

And MW5 doesn't really seem to? A lot of the early game combat involves circle strafing with tanks who very slowly chip away at your health. A weapon like the AC/10, which in Battletech is conveyed as this very powerful weapon, seems to have no impact at all when it's brought to bear against a tiny spider, even whilst it can bring down entire buildings in one shot. A weapon which in other games gives you only a 10 round magazine and the mech visibly being brought out of alignment when fired, here only evokes a mild *thud* as you look to your ammo counter to see you have another 90 rounds. And yes, Mechwarrior 4 had a similar problem...

... But Mechwarrior 4 had a way smoother engine. I'm not at all impressed by how the feeling of recieving and taking damage is conveyed in this game. The game's sounds seem muted, and the game's engine itself is pretty janky, there's lots of very visible pop-in all around.

Yes, it's been 19 years since Mechwarrior 4. Yes, it's been 10 years since that first trailer (and yes, that trailer conveys the feeling of steel metal death better!). But since then we've had games that sold me the "Big robot" fantasy much better then Mechwarrior 5 is diong. Try the older mechwarriors again. Play Brigador. Play Battletech. Play Titanfall 2. Play Mechwarrior Living Legends. This game feels mediocre compared to any of them.

_{It's also very notable after playing Battletech that Mechwarrior 5 doesn't really understand the fiction of the whole thing very well. Yes, Battletech is cheating a little bit since it's literally the people who made the universe in the first place working on it, but your main antagonist in Mechwarrior 5 is introduced in a battle where he crushes the cockpit of one of his own allies under his feet. The first faction you fight proper just targets defenseless civilians for the fun of it. There's the odd "There are women and children here!" in a setting where women have oficially been part of the armed forces for a thousand years. Your engineer has been written with a slang that is speciifc to a certain part of England, half a galaxy away and a thousand years ago. It's not the intonation that is the problem here: Battletech VA gets this quite right, with various ways of inflecting the english language being there - from the start. MW5 just has US accents and LOOK THIS GUY IS ENGLISH. Despite, you know, a thousand years ago what we now know as "English" was still a bunch of saxons, danes, normans and what have you. Yes I am nitpicky, but it's not really doing quite well with the whole "medieval politics in space" thing that Battletech has. And what it tries to do, Titanfall 2 does better with it's own setting.}

[Grizzly]

in case that was too long for you:

Play Titanfall 2, Battletech or Brigador instead. They do a far better job with the "Big giant robot" fantasy in their own ways. Mechwarrior 5 simply chases nostalgia without understanding it.

[Turambar]

I'm still only at 30 hours in, and still running mixed lances of heavies, mediums, and lights, so I'll have to play a bit more before I give it a full review.  Maybe it gets boring when you can just drop 100 tons of death on every map.  Can't say my impression is as negative as The E and Joshua thus far, even if the story elements have gotten the short end of the stick, the mech battle gameplay totally carries it.  So far, at least.

[Turambar]

Joshua mentioned some pop-in.  I've got an ini edit to almost completely eliminate the pop-in, and it has certainly enhanced my enjoyment of the game.  open engine.ini in AppData\Local\MW5Mercs\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor


r.ViewDistanceScale=4
foliage.LODDistanceScale=4
r.SkeletalMeshLODBias=-3
r.StaticMeshLODBias=-3
r.StaticMeshLODDistanceScale=0.1
r.Shadow.DistanceScale=2

now I can't run that at 4k 60FPS, but reducing the render scale works alright with TAA to make a good picture.

Driving a Battlemaster now, with a couple of Warhammers, an Orion, a Marauder, and a Stalker rounding out my heavy and assault mechs.  I like the very heavy armor and good heat dissipation on the Battlemaster.  Got a Shadowhawk, a Vindicator, and a Kintaro that i use for support, each when the other is in the shop, and a Firestarter and a Javelin as my light mechs

[jr2]

Any modding support for MW5 to perhaps have an overhaul patch to address the issues mentioned?

[Turambar]

the mod tools just dropped, for me at least (i was bugging people at work about it) so i'll let you know.

EDIT: it's a placeholder for the mod tools, i'll keep you updated

[gevatter Lars]

Last info on the modding tools is that they are beeing worked on. The intendet to release them allready but found some bugs that stopped them from beeing released.
Someone on the MWO forums started to create his own tools and allready replaced some graphics. He is currently trying to bring the Grey Death Legion into MW5.

[Turambar]

basically, they were ready to go, but they needed to contact one guy to see if they could distribute his plugin, and they haven't been able to get in contact for 2 weeks.  They are removing the plugin from the editor and should distribute it soon.