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[Neonivek]

I know it is silly for me to say this... But I am still kind of bothered that we are soo many games into the MechWarrior Franchise... and mechs still act entirely unphased by enemy fire and often don't show any damage whatsoever.

Also why the heck in all these MechWarrior games do people use Locusts to assault bases?

[Retropunch]

hyperventilation and high pitched squealing in 3...2...1...

So, so, so, excited. I enjoyed MWO, but I didn't enjoy the endless grind or some of the inherent multiplayer problems (unbalanced matches and so forth), so this is what I've been hoping for forever.

I really hope they do a second pass on the outdoor terrain though - the inside of the hanger looked awesome, but on exiting the bay the graphics were very, very underwhelming (playstation 2 era hills and fuzzy background). Obviously I'm on B12, so graphics aren't a big draw for me, but the disconnect from inside to outside was pretty brutal, and I think it'd put a lot of people off.

Obviously really pre-alpha, so there's a long way to go, but I really do hope this can drum up a bit of mass appeal. Piranha games has been a bit sketchy at times - it wouldn't surprise me if what we've been shown is all they've got, and they're waiting to see if it looks like it's going to take off before putting more effort into it.

[Flying Dice]

I know it is silly for me to say this... But I am still kind of bothered that we are soo many games into the MechWarrior Franchise... and mechs still act entirely unphased by enemy fire and often don't show any damage whatsoever.

Also why the heck in all these MechWarrior games do people use Locusts to assault bases?

If you're talking about the trailer, that was a Raven.

More generally, because outside major House military actions and MWO you generally don't see large concentrations of 'mechs, especially when you're operating at the level of planetary militias and small merc units. Remember, even a Light is still a fast, agile, well-armored killing machine. If you're hitting a lot of locations simultaneously, or if both sides are badly under-equipped, it makes sense. If you've got a Light in decent condition and the enemy has a couple vehicles and a mob of PBI, if the MechWarrior is at all competent they'll be able to clean house.

In this specific instance, I'd hazard a guess (in-universe, of course) that the hostile scouts were ordered to attack bases right before the droppers hit atmo in order to disrupt defensive efforts.

[Knave]

The REAL question is why do they have a Raven at all? The game is set is 3015, but the Raven prototype wasn't deployed until 3024 /BTnerd

[Flying Dice]

Because they already had it modeled and didn't want to not use assets from their five-year alpha test. 

Though maybe I was tired when I watched it last night, did they confirm the date to that degree of specificity? Thought it was just known to be pre-Clan Invasion.

[Knave]

Because they already had it modeled and didn't want to not use assets from their five-year alpha test. 

Though maybe I was tired when I watched it last night, did they confirm the date to that degree of specificity? Thought it was just known to be pre-Clan Invasion.

Ha ha, probably, but they have other cool light mechs, why not a Jenner? Ah well!

To answer your question, there was a brief flash on the startup screen showing the year in the video, but this article on PC Gamer goes into a lot more depth on what they're planning to accomplish. Starts in 3015 and goes to 3049, right before the clan invasion.

They talk about how they want to make it more sandboxy than mercs 2/4 and more like the original Mechwarrior 1, where you could basically fight for any house anywhere in the innersphere and negotiate for salary/salvage rights etc. They also mention wanting to make the in-between battles part football manager-esque in terms of getting your mechs and pilots trained and equipped, so that has me very interested as well!

MechWarrior 5 looks to blow the series wide open by pairing its nuanced, strategic combat with an equally complex management simulator. "Our goal is to create a very in-depth manager experience," Bullock says. "It's sort of like taking—and this might be overdoing it—Football Manager wrapped over top of MechWarrior 1. [MechWarrior 5] is about managing a business, you're trying to keep it afloat and save money so that you can not only do your repairs but also get ahead of your repairs and go to the market and say, 'okay cool now I can afford to get a shiny new 50-tonne medium mech.'"

[JimboM12]

We'll have so many Mech options!......which I'll probably ignore to give all my lancemates Uziels because they're cheap, reliable, and well-rounded. Eventually we upgrade to Arguses. Clan tech can get rekt. Inner Sphere 4 lyfe.

[Drakale]

Wow, I need this.

Hope they manage to fit in a dynamic campaign...

[Mephansteras]

If they're going MW 1 style then I'm even happier. Despite all the limitations that is still my favorite MW game. I don't need a campaign for a Merc game. Just let me go from battle to battle trying to keep the team alive and the mechs in working order.

[Hanzoku]

We'll have so many Mech options!......which I'll probably ignore to give all my lancemates Uziels because they're cheap, reliable, and well-rounded. Eventually we upgrade to Arguses. Clan tech can get rekt. Inner Sphere 4 lyfe.

Sadly, neither of those mechs will exist in this timeframe, as both are post-invasion designs.

[JimboM12]

We'll have so many Mech options!......which I'll probably ignore to give all my lancemates Uziels because they're cheap, reliable, and well-rounded. Eventually we upgrade to Arguses. Clan tech can get rekt. Inner Sphere 4 lyfe.

Sadly, neither of those mechs will exist in this timeframe, as both are post-invasion designs.

Nooooooooooooooo! Ah well, I'll choose another 'general' use mech for my non-specialized lancers when I see the full roster.

[Sensei]

Woooooo!

About bloody time. It'll never be a true sequel to Mechwarrior 4 unless it's designed to play best with joystick controls (it almost certainly won't since MWO wasn't and expecting people to own joysticks isn't a good business decision anyway) but hey, I'll take it.

[Neonivek]

Light mechs need support to do well and no mech is more fragile then the Locust (which it wasn't) and quite a few other light mechs.

A Light Mech on its own is either a scout doing recon... OR it is on some planet without mechs at all.

[Flying Dice]

The latter half is pretty much exactly what I said, yes.

Granted, if you're talking about lights skill-capped by modern FPS standards a la MWO (and, presumably, MW5), they're incredibly dangerous in the hands of a good MechWarrior and fully capable of bringing down an assault 1v1 in the right circumstances. Tabletop and MechCommander are much less forgiving, the latter especially because your MechWarriors are braindead fools and there's basically no cover or concealment.

Basically almost all the factors that make lights so effective in MWO aren't represented very well in other formats, things like other 'mechs being piloted by people with human reaction times, the way size + speed + good camo patterns make small lights difficult to see and difficult to hit (especially in rough terrain, cities, and dense forests), &c. If you look at things in that way pretty much the only paradigm where lights should reasonably expected to fail miserably are Solaris VII situations where you can't play the ambush-and-repeat game, or when the MechWarriors are braindead farts like the one in the trailer Raven who just charge straight into the guns of larger 'mechs.

[Neonivek]

Well because Mech Warrior online had to
1) Increase their defense to ridiculous levels (They are 5x more durable)
2) Increase their speeds and turning to ridiculous levels.
3) Make all the stages as claustrophobic as possible.
4) Decrease the effectiveness of most weapons that are great for pegging Light Mechs.
5) No Kicks, Punches, or anything that would make their hugging strategies less effective
6) Jump Jets are a joke

Basically Mech Warrior Online bends over backwards to make Light Mechs effective.

THEN AGAIN a lot of other uses for Light Mechs are just flat out impossible to do in MWO, so meh.