Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?

[Captain of C-21]

Now I know we are all fans of the old clix mechwarrior game.  I've been playing since about 2004-2005, and still find it to be one of the most fun all-around games.  But still, even when I was playing, and now a few years removed, I always had an idea or two kicking around my head about what could've been done differently in designing the game.  I'm mostly talking about dial design and faction dial styles.  I think it'd be real cool if everyone here wanted to throw in a couple things they would've liked seen done with the game.

For starters, I would've changed or reversed defense on dials and what it meant.  In other words, the speedier and harder it is to hit a mech, the higher defense is.  Assault mechs should have always had the lowest possible defense, while lights have the highest.

Lights : 20-24 defense as standard.  Balance this out with their dials being relatively fragile as compared to other weight classes.  Think only the first two clicks after start holding steady values with every click after dropping a bit. With exceptions to the occasional light design that mounts a big gun (Panther, Pack Hunter, Solitaire), keep damage values in the 2-3 range.

Mediums: 19-23 defense.  There certainly are some speedy mediums.  Their dials get to be a little more sturdy (Maybe the first 3-4 clicks stay the same).  Damage values stay between 3-4  (of course, a Hunchback running around might carry a hefty six clicks with Armor Piercing, always exceptions).

Heavies.  Here's where it gets crazy. 18-22 standard defense.  Their dials start to get real sturdy though, they can take a good wallop or two (6 or 7 clicks) before you really start seeing any drops or changes on the dials.  Keep damage values between 3-5. 

Assaults:  The kings of the battlefield.  17-20 defense max.  Assaults should have their prime stats through most of their lives, and only close to death should they degrade.  Assaults are meant to take a pounding unscathed and deliver back serious punishment.  Damage can be anywhere between 4-6 for most damage values.

It never made much sense to me that a Light could both be easily hit and degrade so quickly, while Assaults often survived not because of lots and lots of armor and steady stats throughout its life, but because you almost could never hit them!  Give lights their speediness and make them hard to hit, but not very hard-hitting, and slowly reverse that as the weight scales go up.  Assign hardened and heavy armor as weight goes up as well just to make assaults even harder to kill, but not hard to hit.


Faction Changes:  Only one on my mind right now.  Steel Wolves and Clan Wolf.  Needed lots of more Infiltrate.  Just like their namesake, the Wolves should've almost always had infiltrate first click, then right into their prime click right after.  Sure, that kind of avoids the whole bezerker dial idea, but by Wolf Strike Wizkids was seemingly leaning towards this idea anyway, if most of the Wolf mechs are to be an indication.  Maybe load them up with lots of camouflage, electronic camouflage, evade, etc.

[SpaceCowboy1701]

I agree with you in principle on the defense ratings for the different 'mech classes, as well as stiffening the dial of the heavier units ... one of my peeves was one hit making my expensive pieces combat ineffective. I've wondered whether that would game out as well as it sounds. I would also try to bring the speeds more in line with the Battletech values ... assault 'mechs should not be moving 10 or 12 inches, even at a run ...

There's probably a whole list of "tweaks" I could spew out ... re-cost artillery to make it more expensive and therefore less common, remove tank drop (heavy and assault tanks should have their dials be more stable to compensate). Lots of units could be slightly enhanced to make them useful / playable ... too many were produced to be "filler" for boosters. Allow customization for vehicles to some degree, along with additional gear (say, two plus pilot for mechs).

I specialized a bit too much to have many opinions on faction paradigm changes ... you mentioned the Steel Wolves, and I think they could have used more than 1 or two clicks in the "sweet spot," kind of like Clan Wolf ... the Highlanders seemed to pay an awful lot to get their armor ... reduced speed, reduced damage, reduced attack ratings (until Falcon's Prey w/Kava, Dock, the Gnomes and Sniper Team, holy cow). I know a number of factions had their issues ... Bannson's people and the Spirit Cats probably had the most solid/functional paradigms.

It's late, so I think I'm going to have to come back later ...

[cavingjan]

Can't say I agree with your structured defense unless and only if the dial lengths were changed. Lights having the highest defense only makes sense if they had at most 3 clicks of non salvage stats. Defense is a combination of speed, armor, and internal structure. Now if you wanted to reduce all armor down to the 5-10 range and then add the speed to it before making an attack, you can make defense solely about the armor. But why add a step when you can easily add those two stats together for the printed dial.

The one thing I would remove the game would be the faction flavor. This has been the one stumbling block for CBTers getting into the game. It would eliminate an entire step in unit creation and get it back down to a single conversion. The faction flavor conversion rules really got in the way. Example: convert your Locust. If Highlander, reduce attack and speed, increase defense. If DF or CJF, reduce range by 2, increase damage, attack, and maybe damage. The SW and SC were range and damage based solely on attack type.

[DarkSpade]

Early on it was explained that defense wasn't about how hard it was to hit a unit, but how hard it was to cause meaningful damage.  Like a lot of what wizkids did, it sounded good on paper.

Back near the end of MW's life, me and a friend spent months trying to come up with tweaks or even a whole new rules set for the game.   Everything we tried ran into the same problem. The dials are crap.   Aside from some gimmicky dials, no unit in the game can take a hit.  You do 5-6 damage(sometimes less) to any mech lighter than an ares, and it's a paper wait.   With all the stats dropping the unit can't really respond.  It's the quickly declining dials that made striking first so powerful.  Charge monkeys, tank drops, VToL swarms, and the twins were all so powerful because they could hit before their targets could respond.  If you hit, it's not likely they'll be able to hit back as strongly if at all.  I think if the dials had remained somewhat stable for their first half, most of the cheese would never have happened.


Another issue was the unit choice.   While I did like the idea behind the industrial mechs, wizkids really over did it.  The first set had 24 possible ICE mechs! I've had people tell me online as well as in person about how they used to play CBT so they picked up a couple boosters to see what the game was about.  After getting nothing but ICE mechs in their boosters, they never looked at the game again.  Rather than having 3 different ICE and ICE mod mechs with 3 ranks each, they should have limited it to 2 total at most.  They had done slightly different sculpts for different ranks in heroclix.  why not do that with with MWDA?  Like the green forestry mech is a regular ice mech, and the elite is a mod with a gun.

[Captain of C-21]

Oh, one other tweak, although this is more of a rules thing.  Might answer your concern DarkSpade.  Other than making dials more stable, simply having all damage be calculated at the end of the 2nd player's turn (similar to old Battletech or even MWDA Solaris), so that by the beginning of the 1st player's next turn, all dials might have shifted and the game is more balanced.  My friends and I tried a game or two like this, worked out pretty well.

[SpaceCowboy1701]

Can't say I agree with your structured defense unless and only if the dial lengths were changed. Lights having the highest defense only makes sense if they had at most 3 clicks of non salvage stats. Defense is a combination of speed, armor, and internal structure. Now if you wanted to reduce all armor down to the 5-10 range and then add the speed to it before making an attack, you can make defense solely about the armor. But why add a step when you can easily add those two stats together for the printed dial.

The one thing I would remove the game would be the faction flavor. This has been the one stumbling block for CBTers getting into the game. It would eliminate an entire step in unit creation and get it back down to a single conversion. The faction flavor conversion rules really got in the way. Example: convert your Locust. If Highlander, reduce attack and speed, increase defense. If DF or CJF, reduce range by 2, increase damage, attack, and maybe damage. The SW and SC were range and damage based solely on attack type.

I was thinking somewhere around 5 clicks, but probably for different reasons ... I guess that if I was to tinker with the dials, I'd probably have to create a new point system from the ground up, anyway ... I've not really read anything about the system they used ... there may be other ways to put lights in their place ... maybe just giving the heavies and assaults stiffer dials ...

I could probably live with the faction paradigms gone ... since we ended up with cards giving abilities and enhancing capabilities. Things like the Highlander SM-1 always annoyed the heck out of me ... an AC-20 that does 3 clicks damage? With an attack rating that will have trouble hitting some infantry formations, let alone an MBT or assault tank? And it still has a chump defense?!  [soapbox] So, yeah, I would be willing to try that as well ...

BTW, I can never thank you enough for putting together Warrenborn. It's awesome to have as a functional online memorial ... and I use it on a regular basis for reference ...

[DarkSpade]

Oh, one other tweak, although this is more of a rules thing.  Might answer your concern DarkSpade.  Other than making dials more stable, simply having all damage be calculated at the end of the 2nd player's turn (similar to old Battletech or even MWDA Solaris), so that by the beginning of the 1st player's next turn, all dials might have shifted and the game is more balanced.  My friends and I tried a game or two like this, worked out pretty well.

We tried something similar by doing CBT turns.  Movement then attacks, then damage.  Tracking the damage was a pain, and would have been really easy for cheaters to exploit.

[SpaceCowboy1701]

Early on it was explained that defense wasn't about how hard it was to hit a unit, but how hard it was to cause meaningful damage.  Like a lot of what wizkids did, it sounded good on paper.

Another issue was the unit choice.   While I did like the idea behind the industrial mechs, wizkids really over did it.  The first set had 24 possible ICE mechs! I've had people tell me online as well as in person about how they used to play CBT so they picked up a couple boosters to see what the game was about.  After getting nothing but ICE mechs in their boosters, they never looked at the game again.  Rather than having 3 different ICE and ICE mod mechs with 3 ranks each, they should have limited it to 2 total at most.  They had done slightly different sculpts for different ranks in heroclix.  why not do that with with MWDA?  Like the green forestry mech is a regular ice mech, and the elite is a mod with a gun.

If you want to talk about redesigning the original release ... oh, yes, they should have handled that differently ... starting with how it was presented to CBT fans. I don't think there was any getting around the ICE 'mechs, because that was Jordan Weisman envisioned ... unfortunately I have to run and feed the family, so I must postpone my rant.

[DarkSpade]

Artillery was anther thing I'd like to have seen changed a bit.   I never liked how units with multiple "pogs" all had the same drift direction.   Also, a miss should have always missed.  Too many artillery pieces were really easy to hit with if you "center dotted" the intended target.

If you want to talk about redesigning the original release ... oh, yes, they should have handled that differently ... starting with how it was presented to CBT fans. I don't think there was any getting around the ICE 'mechs, because that was Jordan Weisman envisioned ... unfortunately I have to run and feed the family, so I must postpone my rant.

The ICE mechs themselves didn't bother me.  Story wise, they did make sense.  There was just so damn many.  To make it worse, when the fans made it very clear they'd had more than enough, but wizkids decided to stay the course and just keep pumping them out.

[Captain of C-21]

If you want to talk about redesigning the original release ... oh, yes, they should have handled that differently ... starting with how it was presented to CBT fans. I don't think there was any getting around the ICE 'mechs, because that was Jordan Weisman envisioned ... unfortunately I have to run and feed the family, so I must postpone my rant.

The problem with how the fans took Dark Age wasn't a problem with how Wizkids presented it, it was that way too many fans of CBT decided to immediately write it off and then cherry pick the worst aspects to represent DA as a whole.

But this thread isn't for CBT fans to yet again complain about how Clix was terrible, it's to talk about how clix could've been designed differently from a game perspective.

[SpaceCowboy1701]

Artillery was anther thing I'd like to have seen changed a bit.   I never liked how units with multiple "pogs" all had the same drift direction.   Also, a miss should have always missed.  Too many artillery pieces were really easy to hit with if you "center dotted" the intended target.

The ICE mechs themselves didn't bother me.  Story wise, they did make sense.  There was just so damn many.  To make it worse, when the fans made it very clear they'd had more than enough, but wizkids decided to stay the course and just keep pumping them out.

Part of the problem with the seemingly endless torrent of ICE was that the minis had already been designed and produced by the time player reaction had solidified ... not counting the general outrage of CBT players, of course ... I can't remember exactly how far ahead they had lined out, but the bottom line was probably the bottom line for that ... I'm assuming that the ICE 'mechs were intended to be phased out as the game went on, anyway ... I do get a kick out of them, but did not enjoy paying $10.00 for an ICE mech plus Mobile HQ, Peasant company, and standard foot ...

Artillery ... needed to be costed at about 2-3 times the points, at least, considering its effect on the game ... I would have liked to see spotters used. Maybe disallow the armor piercing function? Create a side board for the artillery/HQ section, so that it's off the main field?

Base sizes and scaling ... would have been cool to have even a little more variety in base sizes, so that the Behemoth II could be on a different size stand than a Fox armored car -- and be scaled properly. And maybe get a secondary weapon. Same with the 'mechs ... give the heavy and assaults larger bases with more clicks and maybe even a tertiary weapon.

Terrain could have been provided in boosters (cardboard or even just paper). Pre-printed maps (that are actually tourney-legal 3 x 3 size) would have been nice, too. I kind of like those that were in the later battleforce packs. They're just too small. Terrain sets should have come out sooner ... and maybe accompanied by some cheap / free downloadable buildings, as was done for Dropzone Commander (their buildings are even N-scale!). Wizkids already had downloadable terrain templates, so I can't imagine it would have been that much more trouble to generate. And it would have helped sell the game at the store level ...

Maybe faction boxes early on could have blunted the effect of the blind-buy boosters ... say each faction box has the faction leader's mech, a mobile HQ, a repair vehicle, MASH, combat techs, coolant truck (so support units don't have to take up space in boosters), a couple of faction specific 'mechs, faction dice ...

To woo CBT people, put out a few House and Clan non-blind buys featuring characters and hardware from the Civil War or Jihad era ... kind of like they did late in the run with the pilot cards of Kai, Jaime Wolf, Phelan Ward, and Natasha Kerensky.

The problem with how the fans took Dark Age wasn't a problem with how Wizkids presented it, it was that way too many fans of CBT decided to immediately write it off and then cherry pick the worst aspects to represent DA as a whole.

But this thread isn't for CBT fans to yet again complain about how Clix was terrible, it's to talk about how clix could've been designed differently from a game perspective.

Right - while the game had a number of ... hinky design aspects, it was -- and is -- fun to play. If it came back out, I would get back in in a cold second. Probably not in tournament play, but still ... It's frustrating that the initial marketing of the clix game went off the way it did ...

[DarkSpade]

Terrain.  Oh I wish the game would have worked better with 3D terrain.   :(

[(SMD)MadCow]

Biggest thing: Remove blind buying.
If I cant see what Im buying and buy what I want, then Im not spending money. Thays why I never got into the game.

[JadeHellbringer]

Terrain.  Oh I wish the game would have worked better with 3D terrain.   :(

I only got to try this once, but it really was awesome to have real terrain out there to use (we took over a 40K table for an evening after that crowd had headed out and had some Falcons vs. Davions. I lost.)

I think one of the gameplay dynamics that bothered me was that the game wasn't simultaneous turns. I admit I'm used to Battletech, but... it was always frustrating to get a key unit wiped out early and not get a chance to use it at all before it got ruined. Having firing as a simultaneous thing through one system or other would mean that even if Black Rose (for example) got hit hard early, I'd at least have a chance to fire back- as it was, it felt like whomever won initiative at the beginning of the game was likely going to win the game as a result. Even a system of changing initiative order per turn would have helped a lot in that regard.

[Captain of C-21]

Biggest thing: Remove blind buying.
If I cant see what I'm buying and buy what I want, then I'm not spending money. That's why I never got into the game.

Here's the problem with not having blind buying; buying exactly what you want is great for the consumer, bad for the company.  Blind boosters encourage people to buy more, and the company makes money off that.  Letting consumers buy exactly what the want means they really only need to buy that, and then nothing else.  Look at the current Battletech economic situation if you want proof of that.  You got plenty of people who have exactly what they want and probably haven't bought from Catalyst in years, but continue to come on here and talk about how the product "should be".

Furthermore, taking away blind boosters nerfs the trading aspect of the game.  Buying a blind booster and getting pieces I didn't want but that my friends did meant we could trade, barter for different stuff, or if we really wanted to, start new mini-collection of different factions for the occasional unique scenario.

I think what would've been best would've been  having a mix of the two.  Have Faction Boxes and Blind Boosters together.  The faction boxes come with a couple mechs unique to that faction (So for instance, the Jade Falcon box got non-unique Eryies, Gyrfalcons, and Shrikes).  The faction box can give folks a good base to start off their faction, but then blind boosters are necessary to build off of that.  That way you don't have to completely hunt down for everything.

[SpaceCowboy1701]

Here's the problem with not having blind buying; buying exactly what you want is great for the consumer, bad for the company.  Blind boosters encourage people to buy more, and the company makes money off that.  Letting consumers buy exactly what the want means they really only need to buy that, and then nothing else.  Look at the current Battletech economic situation if you want proof of that.  You got plenty of people who have exactly what they want and probably haven't bought from Catalyst in years, but continue to come on here and talk about how the product "should be".

Furthermore, taking away blind boosters nerfs the trading aspect of the game.  Buying a blind booster and getting pieces I didn't want but that my friends did meant we could trade, barter for different stuff, or if we really wanted to, start new mini-collection of different factions for the occasional unique scenario.

I think what would've been best would've been  having a mix of the two.  Have Faction Boxes and Blind Boosters together.  The faction boxes come with a couple mechs unique to that faction (So for instance, the Jade Falcon box got non-unique Eryies, Gyrfalcons, and Shrikes).  The faction box can give folks a good base to start off their faction, but then blind boosters are necessary to build off of that.  That way you don't have to completely hunt down for everything.

The blind boosters worked best when you bought a bunch of them ... several of us would usually go in together on a case, and trade for our preferred factions / valuable pieces. They were also fun to use in the booster draft ...

Ultimately, a combination of things did in the booster system ... people at my venues were not as excited to shell out $20.00 per booster for Wolf Strike ... and with the economy going south in 2007 and 2008, I would bet that kind of sealed the deal for a lot of people. Especially when you could buy a Champions or Solaris set for $30-$40 and get four 'mechs, cards, and a mapsheet. I had started nursing school in 2007 for a career change, so that pretty much ended my tournament involvement anyway ...

Speaking of tournaments, I have not had a chance to read through the Mutant Sea Bass rule set ... how much have they altered the basic rule structure for their continuation?

I think one of the gameplay dynamics that bothered me was that the game wasn't simultaneous turns. I admit I'm used to Battletech, but... it was always frustrating to get a key unit wiped out early and not get a chance to use it at all before it got ruined. Having firing as a simultaneous thing through one system or other would mean that even if Black Rose (for example) got hit hard early, I'd at least have a chance to fire back- as it was, it felt like whomever won initiative at the beginning of the game was likely going to win the game as a result. Even a system of changing initiative order per turn would have helped a lot in that regard.

Unquestionably there was a hard emphasis on the first strike ... probably artillery was meant to address that to some degree, but it ended up creating its own issues ... I wonder if a simultaneous "weapon phase" would work? With the assault orders, I'm not sure if it could get separated ...

[(SMD)MadCow]

Here's the problem with not having blind buying; buying exactly what you want is great for the consumer, bad for the company. 

Blind boosters only make me spend 0, because its a bad investment otherwise.
However, it is a good hook for people with no impulse control.

[SpaceCowboy1701]

Blind boosters only make me spend 0, because its a bad investment otherwise.
However, it is a good hook for people with no impulse control.

My experience is that is only conditionally true ... the blind buy can be gotten around by buying by the case, trading, using the secondary market (either the friendly local game store or online). The conditional part requires, of course,  that you have the money (or enough friends to go in with you), a healthy local gaming group that is buying into the same game, a friendly store, and/or the access to the internet. Without one or more of these things, then, yes, it is a potentially exploitative setup ... locally, we had a store that would give away boosters as prizes -- even as participation prizes -- on a regular basis, particularly in the first year of tournament play. Even handed one of my friends visiting from out of state a complete starter set. A number of us also donated units to a number of new players. From what I've heard, this kind of friendly environment was not the case everywhere by any stretch, although I know there were other places like this. Also, at one time, we had three local venues running games every week ... amazing for a city of only 100,000, when much larger cities only had one or two (or none at all).

[Captain of C-21]

Blind boosters only make me spend 0, because its a bad investment otherwise.
However, it is a good hook for people with no impulse control.

Yes because all the people who played MW:DA obviously are just poor saps with no impulse control. ::)  Not folks who might want to collect multiple factions, might enjoy the lure of not exactly knowing what you'll get, and being pleasantly surprised.  Just saps without impulse control.

Since you've said you never got into Clix, and seem intent on insulting people who were involved in playing and collecting the clix game, I'd ask that you leave my thread.  Really don't need that kind of a downer here.

My experience is that is only conditionally true ... the blind buy can be gotten around by buying by the case, trading, using the secondary market (either the friendly local game store or online). The conditional part requires, of course,  that you have the money (or enough friends to go in with you), a healthy local gaming group that is buying into the same game, a friendly store, and/or the access to the internet. Without one or more of these things, then, yes, it is a potentially exploitative setup ... locally, we had a store that would give away boosters as prizes -- even as participation prizes -- on a regular basis, particularly in the first year of tournament play. Even handed one of my friends visiting from out of state a complete starter set. A number of us also donated units to a number of new players. From what I've heard, this kind of friendly environment was not the case everywhere by any stretch, although I know there were other places like this. Also, at one time, we had three local venues running games every week ... amazing for a city of only 100,000, when much larger cities only had one or two (or none at all).

Our local gaming store was pretty friendly.  Had a few Battlemasters who would help folks out.  Really it was my circle of then-teenage friends who got me started, gave me all their unwanted Spirit Cat pieces until I had a decent army or two to play with.  Then I bought individual pieces from the store, traded, and of course got plenty of pieces that I wanted from the boosters.  As a kid blind boosters were awesome, even if they were a little expensive.

[(SMD)MadCow]

Yes because all the people who played MW:DA obviously are just poor saps with no impulse control. ::)  Not folks who might want to collect multiple factions, might enjoy the lure of not exactly knowing what you'll get, and being pleasantly surprised.  Just saps without impulse control.

Since you've said you never got into Clix, please leave this thread. 

Take a look at the popularity of Warhammer 40k and Fantasy, Warmahordes, and Flames of War. All games that let you see what you buy, and from what I've seen, people have no problem building multiple armies of differing factions. Freedom of choice is a better investment option and can potentially lead to hundreds if not thousands of dollars spent across different faction books, units, even novel lines.

Blind buys pander to low impulse control because it basically institutionalized and pathological gambling on whether or not you get something that has value to you.

I can to this thread to post my opinion on how to make Clix better, because if I had had the choice on what mechs I could buy - I would have put my time and money into it. Freedom of choice makes things better.

[YingJanshi]

I sort of agree with MadCow. At least for me personally it was the blind buy that put me off.  Now, I'm not going to bash it, I get the reasoning behind it. But at that time I was still in my late teens and simply didn't have the money to buy blind boosters. Nor did I have a game group (didn't even have anyone to play CBT with at that time). Also, I had just gotten badly burned out with CCGs with my friends. (When you can only afford to buy one small pack of cards a week and your friend has his dad buy him an entire CASE of boosters, yeah, it's easy to get burned out.)

That said I got a bunch of old Liao stuff recently from a friend, so I am rather looking forward to trying out the game some time. I really enjoyed the old Crimson Skies clix game, so wondering if this will be as fun. Maybe I'll take some of your guy's ideas to tweak things maybe...

[SpaceCowboy1701]

I sort of agree with MadCow. At least for me personally it was the blind buy that put me off.  Now, I'm not going to bash it, I get the reasoning behind it. But at that time I was still in my late teens and simply didn't have the money to buy blind boosters. Nor did I have a game group (didn't even have anyone to play CBT with at that time). Also, I had just gotten badly burned out with CCGs with my friends. (When you can only afford to buy one small pack of cards a week and your friend has his dad buy him an entire CASE of boosters, yeah, it's easy to get burned out.)

That said I got a bunch of old Liao stuff recently from a friend, so I am rather looking forward to trying out the game some time. I really enjoyed the old Crimson Skies clix game, so wondering if this will be as fun. Maybe I'll take some of your guy's ideas to tweak things maybe...

Yes, there was the "Mr. Suitcase" phenomenon, where the guy who spent $1000 on Ebay to put together the latest meta army ... thankfully, we didn't see too much of that. We saw meta armies, but less than average ... the guys who won could usually do it without the cheese, or at least with different cheese. The casual gamer can't compete with Mr. Suitcase, nor can the high school or college student. When you're talking about $10 or $20 boosters, it's even more the case than with the $3 card packs. So yeah, I don't endorse the blind buy as a preferred system at all.

Hope you enjoy the game for what it is ... on the bright side, you at this point can pick up additional pieces relatively cheap. Liao has some good stuff out there -- they were one of the strongest factions.

[Captain of C-21]

Take a look at the popularity of Warhammer 40k and Fantasy, Warmahordes, and Flames of War. All games that let you see what you buy, and from what I've seen, people have no problem building multiple armies of differing factions. Freedom of choice is a better investment option and can potentially lead to hundreds if not thousands of dollars spent across different faction books, units, even novel lines.

Except we were comparing Mechwarrior to Battletech, not Mechwarrior clix to Warhammer 40k, which is comparing apples to oranges.  Mechwarrior clix as compared to CBT sold far better and had a far bigger fanbase than CBT managed.  (And before you get into which one survived, keep in mind the clix version was closed by a management decision once Wzkids was purchased by Topps.  Wizkids since then has been trying to get its clix games out again since there is obviously still a market for it).

Blind buys pander to low impulse control because it basically institutionalized and pathological gambling on whether or not you get something that has value to you.

Please provide a psychological peer-reviewed study of this or stop playing amateur psychologist.  I gave my reasons for why blind booster buying could be a good thing for both the buyer and produce, you continue to go on about how its all about impulse control.

I can to this thread to post my opinion on how to make Clix better, because if I had had the choice on what mechs I could buy - I would have put my time and money into it. Freedom of choice makes things better.

Then keep it to that, not twisting it to say clix players have low impulse control and trying to insult them. 

I think our group only ever saw one or two Mr. Suitcases at our venue.  Strangely enough the phenomena of one or two unbalanced pieces dominating the meta-game seemed to increase with AoD, even as the game overall got a little more balanced.  Methinks it had to do with unbalanced pilot card abilities.

ANYWAYS

So what would folks do to better integrate vehicles into the game?  Tank-drop was one of the only real viable strategies originally.  Would people give vehicles move-and-shoot capability?  Make their dials simply deeper?

[cavingjan]

That said I got a bunch of old Liao stuff recently from a friend, so I am rather looking forward to trying out the game some time. I really enjoyed the old Crimson Skies clix game, so wondering if this will be as fun. Maybe I'll take some of your guy's ideas to tweak things maybe...

And that was a perfect example how not to do non blind boosters. The game was popular enough to keep except was not even close to breaking even to justify losses on so many releases. The problem was they used the pricing model from all of their other games that used repeat buying to drive up volumes (thus decreasing cost per unit). Unfortunately with the non blind boosters, you didn't have all that much repeat buyers. One of their three tourney formats wasn't even possible with it. We are seeing plastic minis in a non blind booster format (Xwing to name one) but when you look at the price, you realize just how much higher WK should've charged for it.

For MW, only a couple of the nonblind boosters could even allow (as in you could use two of the same minis) multiple purchases.

[SpaceCowboy1701]

I think our group only ever saw one or two Mr. Suitcases at our venue.  Strangely enough the phenomena of one or two unbalanced pieces dominating the meta-game seemed to increase with AoD, even as the game overall got a little more balanced.  Methinks it had to do with unbalanced pilot card abilities.

ANYWAYS

So what would folks do to better integrate vehicles into the game?  Tank-drop was one of the only real viable strategies originally.  Would people give vehicles move-and-shoot capability?  Make their dials simply deeper?

As a Band-Aid fix, I'd probably limit the number of artillery to maybe 1 per 450 or 600 points ... I tend to favor leaving the move and shoot to the 'mechs and VTOLs to emphasize their mobility / flexibility and keep them more distinctive. You could probably talk me into changing my mind, especially if it gamed out better. A more involved fix would be to deepen the dials on the heavier tanks. If we're theoretically refitting everything from the ground up, that would need doing, anyway.

[GhostCat]

I think the Game itself evolved nicely and fixed most of its early problems with the AoD rule set.  Sure, we saw all kinds of player input that created a very long FAQ, but all those issues were resolved. 

I'm fine with Artillery the way it is and I've seen all sorts of experimental rules trying to fix what people think is broken.  Having units that can bounce into a Deployment Zone and base artillery units while scoring VC3 does kind of show how weak they really are.  It won't happen often, but when you face an army that spends more than 200 points on Artillery, just remember those are points not spent on something else.

Tanks are also just fine the way they are.  That includes the tank-drop too, good tactics will defeat this every time.  I had to learn how to block the transport's rear loading arc so the passenger(s) couldn't exit.  It wasn't easy, but it can be done.

If anything, my only complaint was the marketing device of the blind boosters pawed over by the cherry-pickers.  Of course the best part was the card that said it was "intentionally left blank."  I never had a reason to complain about the infantry.

GC

[DarkSpade]

Tank drop bothered me mainly because of how little sense it made.  How does a hover craft carry an assault class tank in its hold?  Even just towing it makes no sense.  Meanwhile, all the 'vehicles' that were designed to be towed usually never left the deployment zone.

[Captain of C-21]

I'm fine with Artillery the way it is and I've seen all sorts of experimental rules trying to fix what people think is broken.  Having units that can bounce into a Deployment Zone and base artillery units while scoring VC3 does kind of show how weak they really are.  It won't happen often, but when you face an army that spends more than 200 points on Artillery, just remember those are points not spent on something else.

Aw, I had two awesome battles just this summer against two buddies of mine who were artillery hogs.  One was a Steiner, the other a Clan Jade Falcon madman.  I used the CNC ATV squads to infiltrate 28 inches all the way in front of DZ, then got to go first turn.  In the Steiner game I based both of his artillery pieces with one ATV, and the look on his face when it was his turn and he couldn't fire was priceless. :D  The Jade Falcon guy didn't have as much trouble, but I won that more due to my Tornado Planetary Card which stole away all his blocking terrain and made it hindering.  Suddenly, Black Rose was no longer so scary as my Wendigo and Nova Cat tore it up while hiding in the woods!!

[GhostCat]

Tank drop bothered me mainly because of how little sense it made.  How does a hover craft carry an assault class tank in its hold?  Even just towing it makes no sense.  Meanwhile, all the 'vehicles' that were designed to be towed usually never left the deployment zone.

So, you are bothered by the idea that a giant "lead balloon" can carry a small heavy object made out of "fluffy stuff"? 

In all of the Battletech game data, clix or classic, very little is said about the SIZE of an object.  Or how massive it is.  The conventional 50 ton mech can be thirty meters tall or only ten, depending on what you read or where you saw it. 

GC

[SpaceCowboy1701]

So, you are bothered by the idea that a giant "lead balloon" can carry a small heavy object made out of "fluffy stuff"? 

In all of the Battletech game data, clix or classic, very little is said about the SIZE of an object.  Or how massive it is.  The conventional 50 ton mech can be thirty meters tall or only ten, depending on what you read or where you saw it. 

GC

Sizes may not be stated explicitly in the TRO or on the file cards, but most / many of these minis were N scale ... and you can also make some rough estimates on size based on details on the minis. Add in the illustrations in the TROs and other books, as well as the stated cargo capacity in the TROs shows that none of them should be carrying 100 ton tanks (small vehicles, maybe) ... even the Savior, Garrot, and Bishop, which come closest to being able to do this job, at least out of what we got as actual minis. I always just accepted that it was a necessary evil in the MechWarrior game, a mechanic probably representing something more abstract in effectively deploying the tank. It was always worth a good laugh or nervous chuckle, if nothing else. I would rather they have released a totally new vehicle type as a dedicated assault tank transport, or even just a flatbed truck. As a game mechanic, it was less troubling by the end of AoD, thanks to assault orders and other natural counters. If I was redesigning the game from the ground up, I would probably create a new vehicle size and base and use cap 4 or 5 transports for heavy / assault vehicles ...

I think the Game itself evolved nicely and fixed most of its early problems with the AoD rule set.  Sure, we saw all kinds of player input that created a very long FAQ, but all those issues were resolved. 

I'm fine with Artillery the way it is and I've seen all sorts of experimental rules trying to fix what people think is broken.  Having units that can bounce into a Deployment Zone and base artillery units while scoring VC3 does kind of show how weak they really are.  It won't happen often, but when you face an army that spends more than 200 points on Artillery, just remember those are points not spent on something else.

I agree that a number of game mechanic and balance issues were taken care of by the end ... even artillery was not as bad thanks to Solitaire armies (at least at our venue). The trick was neutralizing the artillery without spending more points on countermeasures than they spent on artillery ... once every faction had ATV squads, pog warrior was less common ... but I still got tired of seeing double Arrow IVs on the other end of the field and feeling compelled to provide counter-battery fire with Hadurs or DI TFA, depending on what was allowed that night.