Mech Sim Thread 2 - The Disappointment Thread

A while ago, I posted asking about mech sims. Well, I recently played MechWarrior 4 Mercenaries, and I was disappointed. I'll spare you a full review, but it'll suffice to say that the biggest problem was the combat.

I don't mean to sound hyperbolic when I say this, but even supposedly "dumb" games like Call of Duty have more tactical depth. Once you get past the steep learning curve from the controls, this deep, tactical mech simulation that people talk about seems to have only 2 viable tactics. Stand at the edge of the draw distance throwing long range missiles, or circle strafing at point blank range firing all weapons in the hoping their armour gives up before yours does. Maybe this changes later in the game, but from what I've played so far, this seems to be the path to victory. I'm not saying the game is bad, just that the game people wax nostalgic about fails to live up to the claims made about it.

I wonder what the real appeal of these games is, aside from pure nostalgia of course. The deep tactical simulation is out for the reasons I mentioned. Customisation can be fun, but is generally more about min-maxing and exploiting mechanics, and the deep battletech lore isn't really presented in the game itself, as it doesn't explain who the factions are and why I should care. As with Destiny, lore doesn't count if it isn't in the game itself. The game can be tense at times, but that's rarely cited as a reason these games were great.

Right now I'm working on another game, and there are people working on mech sims to a higher standard than what I can do (Vox Machinae springs to mind), but I keep looking at mech sims, and thinking about things that could be cut, changed, or added. For example, ammo never really seems to be an issue in these games, as any halfway decent player has enough for any mission (assuming they don't just use lasers), so if ammo is a non-issue, why even bother with ammo at all? Have a small number of mechs and weapons that are balanced and have trade offs. The way modern games often have hud elements projected into the world means it's feasable to have a mech cockpit where the screens actually function. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

I keep hearing all these nostalgic stories from the glory days of the mech sim, but I didn't grow up with these games. Maybe throwing out core mechanics like this misses the point of these games? Perhaps I'm doing things backwards, chasing the end result of "deep, tactical combat" instead of making an accurate sim and having the gameplay grow from that? A couple of people have joked that I should have a go at making one, but I really don't know.