Author Topic: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?  (Read 17906 times)

Captain of C-21

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Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« on: 17 April 2014, 23:15:49 »
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.

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Face it - MW:DA had, for its run, massively greater commercial success than BattleTech's ever had. Over two million click-base minis - want to guess where the number of BT minis comes in? I'd guess on the order of a few percent of that. While BT has survived for 30 years, we've never had the same number of players at any point. The pity was that unlike BT, MW:DA ended up being run by businessmen, not game fanatics.

SpaceCowboy1701

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #1 on: 18 April 2014, 01:58:15 »
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

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #2 on: 18 April 2014, 06:39:29 »
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

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #3 on: 18 April 2014, 09:28:48 »
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.
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Captain of C-21

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #4 on: 18 April 2014, 10:13:06 »
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.

Proud Warrior of the Clan Protectorate.

Looking to play clix Mechwarrior in the Northeast Ohio area?  Come join our playing group!

Quote from: Worktroll
Face it - MW:DA had, for its run, massively greater commercial success than BattleTech's ever had. Over two million click-base minis - want to guess where the number of BT minis comes in? I'd guess on the order of a few percent of that. While BT has survived for 30 years, we've never had the same number of players at any point. The pity was that unlike BT, MW:DA ended up being run by businessmen, not game fanatics.

SpaceCowboy1701

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #5 on: 18 April 2014, 10:20:05 »
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

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #6 on: 18 April 2014, 10:28:37 »
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.
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SpaceCowboy1701

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #7 on: 18 April 2014, 10:48:17 »
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

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #8 on: 18 April 2014, 11:40:14 »
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.
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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #9 on: 18 April 2014, 11:49:54 »
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.

Proud Warrior of the Clan Protectorate.

Looking to play clix Mechwarrior in the Northeast Ohio area?  Come join our playing group!

Quote from: Worktroll
Face it - MW:DA had, for its run, massively greater commercial success than BattleTech's ever had. Over two million click-base minis - want to guess where the number of BT minis comes in? I'd guess on the order of a few percent of that. While BT has survived for 30 years, we've never had the same number of players at any point. The pity was that unlike BT, MW:DA ended up being run by businessmen, not game fanatics.

SpaceCowboy1701

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #10 on: 18 April 2014, 13:34:10 »
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

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #11 on: 18 April 2014, 17:51:44 »
Terrain.  Oh I wish the game would have worked better with 3D terrain.   :(
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(SMD)MadCow

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #12 on: 18 April 2014, 17:59:29 »
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.

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #13 on: 18 April 2014, 19:52:53 »
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.
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Captain of C-21

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #14 on: 18 April 2014, 20:25:35 »
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.

Proud Warrior of the Clan Protectorate.

Looking to play clix Mechwarrior in the Northeast Ohio area?  Come join our playing group!

Quote from: Worktroll
Face it - MW:DA had, for its run, massively greater commercial success than BattleTech's ever had. Over two million click-base minis - want to guess where the number of BT minis comes in? I'd guess on the order of a few percent of that. While BT has survived for 30 years, we've never had the same number of players at any point. The pity was that unlike BT, MW:DA ended up being run by businessmen, not game fanatics.

SpaceCowboy1701

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #15 on: 18 April 2014, 22:53:21 »
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

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #16 on: 19 April 2014, 01:59:33 »
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.
« Last Edit: 19 April 2014, 02:10:36 by (SMD)MadCow »

SpaceCowboy1701

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #17 on: 19 April 2014, 10:16:40 »
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

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #18 on: 19 April 2014, 10:30:37 »
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.

Quote
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.
« Last Edit: 19 April 2014, 10:35:07 by Captain of C-21 »

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Face it - MW:DA had, for its run, massively greater commercial success than BattleTech's ever had. Over two million click-base minis - want to guess where the number of BT minis comes in? I'd guess on the order of a few percent of that. While BT has survived for 30 years, we've never had the same number of players at any point. The pity was that unlike BT, MW:DA ended up being run by businessmen, not game fanatics.

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #19 on: 19 April 2014, 10:46:27 »
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.

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #20 on: 19 April 2014, 11:05:39 »
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...

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SpaceCowboy1701

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #21 on: 19 April 2014, 11:52:35 »
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

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #22 on: 19 April 2014, 12:27:06 »
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).

Quote
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.

Quote
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?
« Last Edit: 19 April 2014, 12:38:12 by Captain of C-21 »

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Face it - MW:DA had, for its run, massively greater commercial success than BattleTech's ever had. Over two million click-base minis - want to guess where the number of BT minis comes in? I'd guess on the order of a few percent of that. While BT has survived for 30 years, we've never had the same number of players at any point. The pity was that unlike BT, MW:DA ended up being run by businessmen, not game fanatics.

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #23 on: 19 April 2014, 12:39:48 »
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

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #24 on: 19 April 2014, 14:50:19 »

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.

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #25 on: 19 April 2014, 15:49:05 »
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.

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #26 on: 19 April 2014, 16:36:34 »
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.
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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #27 on: 19 April 2014, 17:23:52 »
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!!

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Quote from: Worktroll
Face it - MW:DA had, for its run, massively greater commercial success than BattleTech's ever had. Over two million click-base minis - want to guess where the number of BT minis comes in? I'd guess on the order of a few percent of that. While BT has survived for 30 years, we've never had the same number of players at any point. The pity was that unlike BT, MW:DA ended up being run by businessmen, not game fanatics.

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #28 on: 19 April 2014, 18:05:34 »
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. 

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SpaceCowboy1701

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #29 on: 19 April 2014, 22:59:59 »
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.

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #30 on: 20 April 2014, 09:16:49 »
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 remember in the forums there were often calls for transporting vehicles being limited to vehicles with a speed of 0 or even just those with "towed" in the name.
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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #31 on: 20 April 2014, 14:50:00 »
I remember in the forums there were often calls for transporting vehicles being limited to vehicles with a speed of 0 or even just those with "towed" in the name.

As I recall, the game designers found an answer to this, themselves.  Transports can not carry other transports.  This led to a few silly things like units with Single Use Infiltrate that click away to 0MV and cannot move or be carried. 

As for larger transport capacities, how do you limit that to "just one big tank"?  Might someone try to use a slightly smaller with a few infantry to fill up the truck?  Now you have an instant formation drop with just one transport.  Should we be glad that current rules do not allow five TGR or TAC infantry to jump out of one transport?  (YES! I do have infantry that can hit for 3damage at 12inches and five of them still cost less than one Behemoth tank.)  Well, I'm sure you get the point.

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SpaceCowboy1701

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #32 on: 20 April 2014, 17:20:25 »
As I recall, the game designers found an answer to this, themselves.  Transports can not carry other transports.  This led to a few silly things like units with Single Use Infiltrate that click away to 0MV and cannot move or be carried. 

As for larger transport capacities, how do you limit that to "just one big tank"?  Might someone try to use a slightly smaller with a few infantry to fill up the truck?  Now you have an instant formation drop with just one transport.  Should we be glad that current rules do not allow five TGR or TAC infantry to jump out of one transport?  (YES! I do have infantry that can hit for 3damage at 12inches and five of them still cost less than one Behemoth tank.)  Well, I'm sure you get the point.

GC

Several possibilities, I suppose ... price the transport at 50 points or more ... make it speed 4 or 5 ... add some rules allowing passengers to take damage, especially if it's just a flatbed (how does the Garrot or Savior give more than partial cover to the carried tank or infantry?). I've been on the receiving end of a number of TAC / TGR drops ... and done my share of SRM / Sniper Team drops out of a J-37 (talk about cheap - 26 pts for a J-37, 54 pts for 2 SRM teams and a Sniper). Even if they are cheaper than a Behemoth II, they are more vulnerable once deployed ... take out the middle unit, and you've got trouble. So, don't put point defense SE on the transport, either .... Another way to do it is to make different Cap classes for light, medium, heavy, and assault vehicles, with the understanding that it is able to carry vehicles and/or X number of infantry ... just some ideas that I've never really had the time to game out ...

On a related note, I thought Wizkids might have missed a bet in not producing enclosed gun emplacements, essentially cap 1, speed 0 infantry or vehicle stands with "pillboxes" on them. They would have been stuck in the deployment zone, but maybe add another layer ... or not. I would be curious to see something like that playtested and see if it's a waste of time.

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #33 on: 23 April 2014, 06:53:02 »
Several possibilities, I suppose ... price the transport at 50 points or more ... make it speed 4 or 5 ...

On a related note, I thought Wizkids might have missed a bet in not producing enclosed gun emplacements, essentially cap 1, speed 0 infantry or vehicle stands with "pillboxes" on them. They would have been stuck in the deployment zone, but maybe add another layer ... or not. I would be curious to see something like that playtested and see if it's a waste of time.

WizKids did make infantry with transport capacity of zero called the "Gun Nest".  In Falcon's Prey, it was very slow with a move of 4" and looked like a towed gun behind a wall.  The AoD version made it look like a machinegun team, had SU Infiltrate and couldn't fight as long as it was able to move.

As for costing transports more, have you seen these?

AOD066 R10 Mechanized ICV 48 pts. (Spirit Cats) .... Speed 8, Cap 3
** has AntiPersonel SE like SC Shock Troopers and costs as much as a three unit formation

FP049 Hasek Mechanized Combat Vehicle 61 pts. (Spirit Cats) .... Speed 10, Cap 1
** fights like an Enyo tank for the same cost without Improved Targeting

AN031 Bishop Transport 39 pts. (Clan Nova Cat) .... VTOL Speed 12, Cap 3
** slow, even for a non-VTOL transport

And you want to make transports more silly and less useful than they already are.

GC
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SpaceCowboy1701

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #34 on: 23 April 2014, 10:33:47 »
WizKids did make infantry with transport capacity of zero called the "Gun Nest".  In Falcon's Prey, it was very slow with a move of 4" and looked like a towed gun behind a wall.  The AoD version made it look like a machinegun team, had SU Infiltrate and couldn't fight as long as it was able to move.

I wanted a cap 1 infantry, actually ... not cap 0 ... I'm familiar with the Gun Nest -- and when I saw it, I questioned why they didn't just allow it to hold another infantry unit as a pill box.

As for costing transports more, have you seen these?

AOD066 R10 Mechanized ICV 48 pts. (Spirit Cats) .... Speed 8, Cap 3
** has AntiPersonel SE like SC Shock Troopers and costs as much as a three unit formation

FP049 Hasek Mechanized Combat Vehicle 61 pts. (Spirit Cats) .... Speed 10, Cap 1
** fights like an Enyo tank for the same cost without Improved Targeting

AN031 Bishop Transport 39 pts. (Clan Nova Cat) .... VTOL Speed 12, Cap 3
** slow, even for a non-VTOL transport

And you want to make transports more silly and less useful than they already are.

Sillier than a Zahn with 8 tons of cargo capacity flopping out an 80-ton DI Schmitt or 95-ton Kelswa? I'm just spitballing to make a weird meta tactic less weird and potentially abusive. I haven't gamed these ideas out, so they may be terrible. Probably it wouldn't work as, say, an isolated change, but as part of a larger system of changes, who knows? Creating a new vehicle size (as in different base size) appealed to me on several levels ... let assault vehicles have the kind of dials that makes them stand out ... but that's more than just a tweak or minor adjustment.

I like the R10s in theory -- a transport that can provide cover fire for its cargo ... but yeah, you're not going to run most of those, especially the Hasek, unless you don't have much choice. 60 points is a lot for a tank that would have a hard time hitting anything substantial ... putting 8 attack on it is kind of insulting (my wife ran Spirit Cats for awhile, so I've got a good number of their units). So the Hasek finds its way onto my growing list of units that need their stats adjusted ...

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #35 on: 24 April 2014, 16:50:37 »
I was someone who jumped into the game initially then jumped out. The mechanics of the rules never seemed to grab me. Many units could move further than their weapons fired, you couldn't move and fire in the same turn, and a few other things. I was really bummed because I thought using a dial to speed up Btech was a great idea but I just thought they were trying to fit a square peg into the round hole of Mageknight/Heroclix. I wanted range brackets and simo movement and fire, or over watch, or something. It just always seemed like the first person to shoot won.

From a marketing standpoint I think Wizkids screwed the pooch with the traditional CBT players from the beginning. Why would the Forestry Mech be the first model you leak? why not drop a few of the classic mechs into the first release (Centurion was a good one, but what the heck were they thinking with that crappy Panther).   

SpaceCowboy1701

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #36 on: 24 April 2014, 23:55:25 »
I was someone who jumped into the game initially then jumped out. The mechanics of the rules never seemed to grab me. Many units could move further than their weapons fired, you couldn't move and fire in the same turn, and a few other things. I was really bummed because I thought using a dial to speed up Btech was a great idea but I just thought they were trying to fit a square peg into the round hole of Mageknight/Heroclix. I wanted range brackets and simo movement and fire, or over watch, or something. It just always seemed like the first person to shoot won.

From a marketing standpoint I think Wizkids screwed the pooch with the traditional CBT players from the beginning. Why would the Forestry Mech be the first model you leak? why not drop a few of the classic mechs into the first release (Centurion was a good one, but what the heck were they thinking with that crappy Panther).

Yeah, it really was a weird transition from the Battletech system with the simultaneous shooting -- I remember having a hard time with that early on, as well as the damage from pushing. The "assault order" for 'mechs helps some ... I had some friends who bailed on the game sometime before Falcon's Prey, I believe, due to aggravation with certain rules. I guess I just managed to adapt. As far as the marketing goes, I really question how much they were trying to reach hard core CBT players ... there was actually a ton of attention to detail in many elements of the background information, but in other ways, it seems like they managed to push just about every possible button to honk people off. Maybe the assumption was that the CBT fans would stick with the new Fanpro Jihad material anyway ... since a lot of the devotees of a hyper-detailed wargame are by definition not going to like a super-abstracted version of the same game. As far as the preview choices ... the urban legend is that Jordan Weisman was in love with the "Mad Max" look and feel of the ICE / ICE MOD 'mechs, and that was actually to be the selling point of the game, rather than "this is your new Battletech" (which is apparently what some players were told). The sculpt redesigns ... I think I remember hearing that some of those may have been due to limitations on the durability of the plastic used -- but I could be misremembering there. Since I wasn't as wedded to the classic designs, I wasn't as offended by some of the ... alterations. But I certainly understand why players would be mad.

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #37 on: 25 April 2014, 08:01:46 »
I really don't think they were after CBT players.  After all, CBT players already had a game, CBT.   I think they were after players that wanted a mech combat game but didn't want the complexity CBT has.  I know that's what I was actively looking for at the time it came out.  Only other thing I could find was Ronin and nobody was playing that.

I think the scuplts had just as many hits as misses.  In some cases the issue was the pose more than anything.  For example, see the squatting warhammer.
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Atlas3060

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #38 on: 25 April 2014, 08:45:46 »
Going back to the blind buy option, yes I would have removed it in part but kept sort of what they did with AoD.
Bear with me on this ramble.
Make the minis themselves non blind buy.
If I want a Warhammer, I get the Warhammer.
Vehicles come in two packs, and infantry would come in sets of 4-5 but randomized in packaging.

However there will be a package available to purchase called something like "Supply requisition".
These Supply Requisition packages are a blind buy, but they also have various things to enhance the Mechs such as:
*Pilot cards
*Weapon cards
*Weather cards
*Situation alliance/Merc Contract cards
*Special ability cards
*Mission cards

Basically the same types of cards that we got in Dark Age, but some may be tweaked for specific chassis weights.
So that way the lower end buyer (first timers, maybe just a occasional fan) wouldn't get upset at a blind buy, because it is optional.
If they want to plunk down cold hard cash on one Atlas, a Marksman tank, and a squad of infantry let them.
They could play all sorts of basic scenarios with just the minis.

Now if he/she wants to spice up the game, get hardened armor, supply the tank with inferno rounds, or upgrade that artillery to have direct fire capability then the Supply requisition purchase will fit the bill.
I can't say how this would help in a tournament front.
I've only seen one, and that was because I came to the store to buy Battletech stuff.

As for game mechanics I think that infantry should move or shoot, vehicles could do both but with some limitations like push damage, and Mechs needed that Assault option where they can run and gun with little problems.
I guess that's why I liked AoD, things were starting to come together a little better, but that's how games develop sometimes.

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #39 on: 25 April 2014, 10:04:07 »
I love the idea, but I think you'd have to get rid of factions on the units for that to work.  Otherwise you're going to see issues where stores see the highlander atlas isn't selling well and neither is the highlander jupiter so they just stop ordering the highlander units.   Or, even worse, wizkids would have probably sent stores a case that included two of each unit per faction.  Like two HL centurions, two DF, and SW in a case.   Store sells out of the DF centurions and customers want more, but to do get them, they have to order the other two factions that are still sitting on the shelf(heroscape made a similar mistake through 10+ releases all the way to the end).    Now, if you do remove factions from the units, I could totally see it working.


Was anyone else disappointed with the "intentionally left blank" dossiers?   Seemed like a wasted opportunity to me.   Would have loved to have seen them used as TROs for non unique units.


Another idea my group had was using the plastic cards for off board artillery.  So instead of using your last few points on a peasant company that'll never leave your deployment zone, you get a one shot "pog" to put on the board.  Maybe another card you pop out two pieces, put them together and set on the board to represent a fly by from an aerospace unit. 
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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #40 on: 25 April 2014, 11:22:40 »
Heh, tank drop... if there's anything funnier than the mental image of some little Anat APC rushing out into the middle of the field and disgorging a Kelswa assault tank out of itself in violation of the laws of physics, I'd love to see it.  ;D
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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #41 on: 01 May 2014, 20:27:42 »
When I first started playing I read the rules and then tossed a few out. The small group I had playing with me used a movement phase, followed by combat phase followed by damage phase(we used d6 behind the unit to represent damage taken. Turns were done simultaneously with effects being applied left to right. It worked well with heat/pushing damage being applied as normal.

We also never played with factions, it seemed too much of a crutch/crippling effect to the collections we had.

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #42 on: 07 May 2014, 19:55:54 »
this is probably the mother of all hindsights being 20/20, but in light of the seeming popularity of the Pre Star Leauge "Primitive" mechs, I would have set the game in the Age of War, where everybody was fighting no body knew about what and the wars themselves were pretty inconsequential.
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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #43 on: 10 May 2014, 06:12:49 »
Atlas3060
That was what I was hoping for with the release of the Action packs.
Take it one step further once Topps was involved.
-Action packs for Big Block Mass Stores (Targets and Wally Worlds)
-Blind Reinforcement Boosters for powerful vehicles and Mechs for FLGS and Big Block Stores
-Booster packs (pilots, gear enchantments etc) for only FLGS
-Prize Support for tournaments at FLGS.

Dial length and stat drop off is needed for the game to run in under 50 minutes.  I know I don't have the time for a single match to run 4 hours like full games of CBT anymore.  That's one of the reasons I liked MW

Oh and the blank dossiers was a way to prevent cherry picking.  As in the beginning you could grab a unique by simply squeezing the box and hear the paper dossier in it.  The blank ones were a simple, cheap and quick way to prevent this from happening.

And on the blind booster format.  I like it for 1 reason.  It promotes trading.  It encourages two or more players to be social and trade with each other.   O0
The down side is the purchasing on secondary market where all rare pieces get priced on popularity (and turning the game into an investment -different topic) and then every one wants to buy and not trade  >:(

tbrminsanity

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #44 on: 13 May 2014, 09:30:48 »
Things I loved (and still love) about Mechwarrior Clix:
  • All the stats for my character are on my character, no need for sheets
  • Pre Painted.  I can't stress this enough, I'm not an artist and I don't have the time, skill, and patience to paint my own minis.
  • Age of Destruction.  This fixed many of the minor issues I had with Dark Age and added the modularity that was welcome to the game
Things I hate about Mechwarrior Clix
  • "Mini" factions.  I think the story behind all the mini factions (All the RofTS IS break away factions) was due to legal and not story, but I still wanted to play House Kurita and Clan Nova Cat on day one, not several years later.
  • The fluff not matching tournament results (case in point Spirit Cats/Clan Nova Cats dominating in tournaments, but getting screwed by the writers, while Steel Wolves/Clan Wolf/Wolf Hunters doing poorly in tournaments, but end up being a major winner because of the writers).
  • Lack of terrain.  This is touched on above, but other Clix games have terrain (even destroyable terrain), they could have done the same for Mechwarrior Clix.
Recommendations:
  • While some factions like the Republic of the Sphere, Bannson's Raiders, and Northwind Highlanders should exist, Dragon's Fury, Swordsworn, Stormhammers, Spirit Cats, and Steel Wolves should never have existed.  WizKids should have pushed forward with getting licensing in place prior to game launch so that all the IS factions would be available day one.
  • Some Merc factions (Wolf's Dragoons being the biggest example) should have been a faction, or some factions (Bannson's Raiders, Northwind Highlanders, and Wolf Hunters) should have been Mercs.
  • In the first year of MW:DA the tournament results directly effected the story of the Mechwarrior Clix game.  They even had which planets were being controlled by which factions.  They should have continued this.  The method of lifting up or destroying a faction through writing is handwavium and leads to disenfranchised players.
  • The other option would be to follow the Battletech root and have pre scripted scenarios with expected results.  The tournaments would then be about personal victories and not faction victories.  This would be similar to Gladiator (the movie) where Maximus plays Hannibal (who was suppose to lose), and when he won the battle in the arena, people thought he fought well, but history was not changed.
  • While I'm not a fan of the Free Worlds Republic.  I would have liked to see their units in the game.

« Last Edit: 13 May 2014, 09:34:01 by tbrminsanity »

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #45 on: 13 May 2014, 09:42:21 »
Heh, tank drop... if there's anything funnier than the mental image of some little Anat APC rushing out into the middle of the field and disgorging a Kelswa assault tank out of itself in violation of the laws of physics, I'd love to see it.  ;D
It's like the reverse of watching a snake eat some larger animal. Rolling down the battlefield it looks like an Anat APC, but it's all bloated and fat looking. Then when it stops, out pops a tank and the Anat goes back to it's regular size.
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Atlas3060

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #46 on: 13 May 2014, 09:46:05 »
And on the blind booster format.  I like it for 1 reason.  It promotes trading.  It encourages two or more players to be social and trade with each other.   O0
The down side is the purchasing on secondary market where all rare pieces get priced on popularity (and turning the game into an investment -different topic) and then every one wants to buy and not trade  >:(
Consequently for me those were reasons why I hated the blind booster idea.
I plunked down 10 dollars, I got either designs I have six of already or a faction I care nothing for.
Yes I could trade, but that's assuming what I have is of worth to another player and what they have is of worth to me.
Now if they had a visible product which costed a little more, I would have happily bought those packages instead.

The Battleforce and Action Packs would have been snatched up in an instant from me if they were released in Wave 1.
By then it was 2006 and I've got scores of Highlander cheap stuff, Dragon's Fury junk, and only a handful of Swordsworn or RasDom stuff I wanted to play with.
The game lost interest with me by then, the amount of money I put in there could have supplied a battalion of minis from IWM.  ;D

So I guess if they had to redo it, give us a small collection of visible sets with scores of boosters for "reinforcements".
Yeah you might pay a bit extra for the visible purchases, but you get exactly what you see.
Folks that like the random stuff can just buy the blind reinforcements more.

As I type this out I wonder if maybe I shouldn't have been such an early adopter.
I might have not lost interest so quickly if my first purchase was the House Davion Action Pack.  :-\
« Last Edit: 13 May 2014, 09:47:43 by Atlas3060 »
It's not about winning or losing, no it's all about how many chapters have you added to the rule books after your crazy antics.

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #47 on: 13 May 2014, 18:45:14 »
And on the blind booster format.  I like it for 1 reason.  It promotes trading.  It encourages two or more players to be social and trade with each other.   O0
The down side is the purchasing on secondary market where all rare pieces get priced on popularity (and turning the game into an investment -different topic) and then every one wants to buy and not trade  >:(

I agree.  Once I got fully into collecting MW:DA it became an addition.  "I bet I'm going to get something cool in the next pack!"
The only thing I would have liked to seen was specialized boosters that were faction specific.  After Age of Destruction, I was exclusively playing House Kurita and Clan Nova Cat.  Most times I opened a booster and said, "ah nothing I want."

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #48 on: 13 May 2014, 19:00:21 »
Mini" factions.  I think the story behind all the mini factions (All the RofTS IS break away factions) was due to legal and not story, ...SNIP.... WizKids should have pushed forward with getting licensing in place prior to game launch so that all the IS factions would be available day one.

Wizkids didn't have to license anything.  They owned the rights.

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tbrminsanity

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #49 on: 13 May 2014, 19:04:26 »
Wizkids didn't have to license anything.  They owned the rights.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that when MW:DA first started in development they didn't have the Battletech license.  The RofTS factions were meant to be standins for the IS factions.

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #50 on: 13 May 2014, 19:18:33 »
As I understood it, Jordan Weisman owned the rights to battletech when he founded wizkids.  Wizkids licensed the rights to FanPro and when he sold Wizkids to Topps, Topps got(and still holds) the rights.  All that excludes electronic rights of course.
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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #51 on: 13 May 2014, 21:51:54 »
Yep, Wizkids owned the whole kit and kaboodle for Battletech when FASA folded.  Then they even licensed out the Battletech IP so Fanpro (?)  could keep running the original game as Classic BT.

The splinter factions were there because the Dark Age clix game was originally supposed to focus on just the Republic space, at least at first.  So you had the descendants of settlers in ROTS space forming up splinter factions based on their former nationalities.  Of course, House Liao was planned on coming into the game almost as soon as Dark Age was released (It took Wizkids about a year to plan and design sets, and Liao Incursion came out a year after Dark Age pretty much), so the splinter factions were always meant to be a temporary thing.

All in all, the clix game was very closely designed to follow the story Wizkids was writing, and I always liked that effort.

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Face it - MW:DA had, for its run, massively greater commercial success than BattleTech's ever had. Over two million click-base minis - want to guess where the number of BT minis comes in? I'd guess on the order of a few percent of that. While BT has survived for 30 years, we've never had the same number of players at any point. The pity was that unlike BT, MW:DA ended up being run by businessmen, not game fanatics.

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #52 on: 14 May 2014, 10:07:16 »
Following further, the desire was to introduce factions that didn't have the "baggage" of all of the cbt history. A small microcosm approach was selected rather than a reboot of the history. This allowed an expansion out into the bigger cbt world.
New players were the target audience and not necessarily cbt existing players.

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #53 on: 14 May 2014, 10:12:44 »
Yep, Wizkids owned the whole kit and kaboodle for Battletech when FASA folded.  Then they even licensed out the Battletech IP so Fanpro (?)  could keep running the original game as Classic BT.

The splinter factions were there because the Dark Age clix game was originally supposed to focus on just the Republic space, at least at first.  So you had the descendants of settlers in ROTS space forming up splinter factions based on their former nationalities.  Of course, House Liao was planned on coming into the game almost as soon as Dark Age was released (It took Wizkids about a year to plan and design sets, and Liao Incursion came out a year after Dark Age pretty much), so the splinter factions were always meant to be a temporary thing.

All in all, the clix game was very closely designed to follow the story Wizkids was writing, and I always liked that effort.

In that case, they should have gone down two routes, first make the factions part of their parent organization if possible (Dragon's Fury = House Kurita) and give them colour schemes that differ to give flavour, or had rules for rebel factions (two icons, a rebel icon + the Republic/IS faction icon) to denote their loyalties.  The two clan factions really should have been full clans.  Personally when I first saw Steel Wolves I thought they were Clan Wolf (in Exile) and they just changed their name to Clan Steel Wolf when they moved to the Republic.  I was expecting to see Clan Steel Wolf in the Lyran Commonwealth as well.  Clan Nova Cat was so small to start off with, and the story of the Spirit Cats made me feel they should have been called Clan Nova Cat from day one.
I also wish there was more of a presence for ComStar in the game.  Even if they were just a Merc faction.

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #54 on: 14 May 2014, 17:37:57 »
As part of a playing group that still meets monthly - six years after the end of WizKids version 1 - I see very little need to change anything in the rules.  AoD seemed to get almost everything right; it's a shame that these rules were not released in 2002 instead of 2005.

Most of the "fixes" people want to bring up are just personal pet peeves, like "how does a tank fit into a hovercraft?" and "how does a 50-point artillery unit scare my 300-point Mech?"  Trying to fix one thing leads to other problems that need to be fixed, etc.  The game is pretty well balanced, IMHO.

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"Face it - MW:DA had, for its run, massively greater commercial success than BattleTech's ever had. Over two million click-base minis - want to guess where the number of BT minis comes in? I'd guess on the order of a few percent of that. While BT has survived for 30 years, we've never had the same number of players at any point. The pity was that unlike BT, MW:DA ended up being run by businessmen, not game fanatics." - Worktroll

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #55 on: 14 May 2014, 19:23:06 »
In that case, they should have gone down two routes, first make the factions part of their parent organization if possible (Dragon's Fury = House Kurita) and give them colour schemes that differ to give flavour, or had rules for rebel factions (two icons, a rebel icon + the Republic/IS faction icon) to denote their loyalties.

When the story made sense for it, many did merge into their parent factions.  At the beginning most of the splinter factions saw no support at all from their parent faction.

 
Quote
The two clan factions really should have been full clans.  Personally when I first saw Steel Wolves I thought they were Clan Wolf (in Exile) and they just changed their name to Clan Steel Wolf when they moved to the Republic.  I was expecting to see Clan Steel Wolf in the Lyran Commonwealth as well.  Clan Nova Cat was so small to start off with, and the story of the Spirit Cats made me feel they should have been called Clan Nova Cat from day one.

The Steel Wolves weren't originally Clan Wolf.  Kal Raddiack(spelt?) called for all disgruntled former clanners to follow him and then called the group the Steel Wolves.   The Spirit Cats and Clan Nova Cat never gave a crap about each other and now The Spirit Cats are still around and Clan Nova Cat is nothing more than a debris cloud.

Quote
I also wish there was more of a presence for ComStar in the game.  Even if they were just a Merc faction.

A large presence of ComStar wouldn't have made sense.  Their military was outlawed by the Republic and after the Jihad, I'm sure the rest of the inner sphere was completely on board with that.  The only time they showed any kind of military presence was when they thought they had a chance to secure someone who could fix the HPG.  That little bit of exposure ultimately led to them being hunted and destroyed after the fortress went up.
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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #56 on: 14 May 2014, 22:37:07 »
@DarkSpade
You make many good points, and I understand why they did what they did from a fluff point of view.  I just don't like it.  As AsburyGrad's signature like states, MW:DA was run by businessmen with a business agenda, and it feels like the writers were forced to use handwavium to make all the pieces fit properly.  I think I would feel better with the fluff, if the writers made a overall story, and then marketing figured out how to mass produce it instead. 

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #57 on: 17 May 2014, 15:58:51 »
I wanted to add an additional comment to my earlier post.  In April 2013, my playing group "released" a new set of stats for Falcon's Prey figures.  When we made this fan-created "set", we also added a few rules updates.  Here are the things we changed:

1. NC/HK grand alliance ended
2. Hell's Horses / Jade Falcon grand alliance begins (for the Mongol Doctrine storyline)
3. Spirit Cats / Sea Fox grand alliance beings (for the Clan Protectorate)
4. Bannson's Raiders units are now recruitable like Wolf Hunters, but do not get Merc Faction Pride for lower cost
5. SalvageMech MODs (the only IndustrialMech in the Falcon's Prey set) may be equipped with a light-class P-card or a light-class gear card, but not both, and suffer a -1 penalty on heat effect rolls if equipped with a gear
6. Merc Pride (F-022) cannot be used for capture attempts
7. P-A28 (Wolf Spiders Major) costs 45 points instead of 30

We also created a "Battle Armor" ability, which certain pilot cards have as their pilot ability.

That's all that we have changed so far (besides new stats for every unit in Falcon's Prey of course).  After our large annual tournament in June, I think we're going to consider more changes to take effect for the year until the next June tournament.
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"Face it - MW:DA had, for its run, massively greater commercial success than BattleTech's ever had. Over two million click-base minis - want to guess where the number of BT minis comes in? I'd guess on the order of a few percent of that. While BT has survived for 30 years, we've never had the same number of players at any point. The pity was that unlike BT, MW:DA ended up being run by businessmen, not game fanatics." - Worktroll

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #58 on: 18 May 2014, 17:06:25 »
In that case, they should have gone down two routes, first make the factions part of their parent organization if possible (Dragon's Fury = House Kurita) and give them colour schemes that differ to give flavour, or had rules for rebel factions (two icons, a rebel icon + the Republic/IS faction icon) to denote their loyalties.  The two clan factions really should have been full clans.  Personally when I first saw Steel Wolves I thought they were Clan Wolf (in Exile) and they just changed their name to Clan Steel Wolf when they moved to the Republic.  I was expecting to see Clan Steel Wolf in the Lyran Commonwealth as well.  Clan Nova Cat was so small to start off with, and the story of the Spirit Cats made me feel they should have been called Clan Nova Cat from day one.
I also wish there was more of a presence for ComStar in the game.  Even if they were just a Merc faction.

Splinter factions could be used interchangeably with their parent factions with the use of House Alliances in AoD.  There is no need for mucking the game up with lots of tokens.

And your other complaints are all about things clix did due to what was going on in the storyline.  The Steel Wolves and Spirit Cats technically were full Clans in the sense that they had their own leadership and did their own things, but they were still different from the old Clans and thus the different names.

Comstar got one piece because as of 3135 the only Comstar military out there was a secret division that shouldn't have existed (And got whomped on in 3140).  Comstar otherwise in the Dark Age era has zilch for military.

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Quote from: Worktroll
Face it - MW:DA had, for its run, massively greater commercial success than BattleTech's ever had. Over two million click-base minis - want to guess where the number of BT minis comes in? I'd guess on the order of a few percent of that. While BT has survived for 30 years, we've never had the same number of players at any point. The pity was that unlike BT, MW:DA ended up being run by businessmen, not game fanatics.

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Re: Redesigning Clix: What would you do differently?
« Reply #59 on: 19 May 2014, 09:45:50 »

Comstar got one piece because as of 3135 the only Comstar military out there was a secret division that shouldn't have existed (And got whomped on in 3140).  Comstar otherwise in the Dark Age era has zilch for military.

My assumption was that Comstar would have shown up as a playable faction (at least briefly) because of the events on Wyatt. I don't know if Wizkids would have used the same endgame for Comstar, but I bet we would have seen them ... perhaps after the FWL was introduced, since they were apparently coming in. Would love to know how far ahead they had planned.