Function before Form.

Give me a mechanic or purpose that needs to be fulfilled that would only make sense if that mechanic or purpose was being fulfilled by a mech/MTAC.

Function before Form.

Give me a mechanic or purpose that needs to be fulfilled that would only make sense if that mechanic or purpose was being fulfilled by a mech/MTAC.

I'm not necessarily pro-mech, but I'll play the Devil's advocate for the sake of the discussion.

I imagine the mech to be a larger and more menacing vehicle which would do more things than an HAV. Not only would it have offensive capabilities, but it would be very mobile. It would be a moving spawn point and would have massive health. It would have the capability to have both anti air, anti personnel and anti ground vehicle. The real downside would be the massive cost and how large of a target it would be.

If you brought out a mech and thought it would win you the game then the enemy team could bring out HAV's, turrets and anti MANPADS suddenly your giant mech is disintegrating on the ground and the battle just hot a lot costlier.

Universes with Mechs tend to contain nothing but Mechs... but could they exist alongside the rest of Dust? Or is it just too silly to have walking tanks stomping around the map...

Would lore or gameplay be the biggest problem?

Hmm....

To an extent we already have mechs. Dust armour was powered suits, which is exactly what mechs are. If you look at Commandos and Sentinels, they are definitely mechs in every sense of the word. AI controlled unmanned mechs, on the other hand would be something that could be added as PvE gameplay. With mechs, simply increasing their power at the expense of speed and manoeuvrability would add some degree of realism.

No... dropsuits are not mechs... no... just no

Balancing with ISK doesnt work. What you described was basically "It's does basically everything but that's OK because it's it's expensive" which is....Something I've heard before and it didn't end well for anyone.

The conversation should never be "We want mechs, let's think of a role for them to fill". It should be the other way around "So the game design requires a role with these functions....What should that element of gameplay look like?"

What are they then? I would categorize them as mechanized exoskeletons or mechanized armorsuits then.

While the distinction is often hazy, mecha typically does not refer to form-fitting powered armor such as Iron Man's suit. They are usually much larger than the wearer, like Iron Man's enemy the Iron Monger, and possess a cockpit from which they are operated.

Balancing with ISK doesnt work. What you described was basically "It's does basically everything but that's OK because it's it's expensive" which is....Something I've heard before and it didn't end well for anyone.

The conversation should never be "We want mechs, let's think of a role for them to fill". It should be the other way around "So the game design requires a role with these functions....What should that element of gameplay look like?"

I'm not necessarily pro-mech, but I'll play the Devil's advocate for the sake of the discussion.

I imagine the mech to be a larger and more menacing vehicle which would do more things than an HAV. Not only would it have offensive capabilities, but it would be very mobile. It would be a moving spawn point and would have massive health. It would have the capability to have both anti air, anti personnel and anti ground vehicle. The real downside would be the massive cost and how large of a target it would be.

If you brought out a mech and thought it would win you the game then the enemy team could bring out HAV's, turrets and anti MANPADS suddenly your giant mech is disintegrating on the ground and the battle just hot a lot costlier.

I'll disagree with that point since a lot of weapons in Dust 514 were extremely redundant. For example, the regular rail rifle was superseded by the assault rail rifle in competitive play, then you had weapons like the burst Scrambler Pistol, sleek locus grenade and the Plasma Cannon. All were theoretically viable, but in practice they were all either redundant or so since specific nobody ever needed them ever. Myofibril stimulants were also pretty uneccessary until they were given the ability to increase jump height. Nova Knives were also redundant since technically their job was already fulfilled by the Breach Shotgun and the only thing that kept them relevant in the slightest was that there was never am advanced or prototype version of the Breach Shotgun.

I think the entire "practical" approach to equipment design is BS.

Anyways, the ISK thing would only be a secondary deterrent. The first and foremost deterrent would be that if the enemy team could knock out the mech with their counyerasures that continuously calling in mechs would be useless. At that point it would make much more sense to simply use smaller concentrations of forces to engage the enemy in multiple smaller engagements on the battlefield where it is more difficult for them to coordinate.

It's basically the reason we don't use zeppelins in war anymore. Having everyone shooting at one target kind of negates the purpose of it entirely. Only if the other team can successfully counter their countermeasures could the mech actually see a good use.

But mechs have a 1-man crew. IMO, the more crew members a vehicle can have, the more effective it should be with all of them.

Honestly, mechs are a bad idea in general because vehicles are a force multiplier- any vehicle that can be effective with a single crew member is inherently OP because there's no downside to using them.
If you have 7 people in a dropship, that's 7 people that could be fighting elsewhere. However, the dropship can potentially make those 7 people far more effective if they're coordinated.
That wasn't the case with HAVs- an HAV could be effective with 1 person, and it made that 1 person far more effective with no need for coordination of any kind. That's why HAVs were so much better than any other vehicle.

So, my main point: single-person vehicles (or vehicles which a single person can be effective in) must not be added unless they have a glaring weakness to counteract how much more effective they make a player.
My idea: make an incredibly weak "pilot suit" which is required to operate single-person vehicles, and make some vehicles much more vulnerable to AV than vehicles that need actual crews. I'm saying make the pilot suit extremely weak so we don't have the pilot jumping out and gunning down AVers like they did sometimes in Dust.

What are they then? I would categorize them as mechanized exoskeletons or mechanized armorsuits then.

OK, so Commandos and Sentinels probably fit the definition then. They're much larger than the wearer. I know what the OP is on about - they want those huge machines that the Japanese seem to like. Yes, they're mechanised suits, too. The definition fits for both. If you want to make a distinction, that's fine, but it's just a matter of size, surely?

There is the issue of a cockpit - that would make for truly huge mechs. I guess I have to say I still think of that as a matter of scale - past a point, putting the wearer's legs into the legs of the mechs is probably ridiculous. But I still think it's down to a matter of scale.

And who knows, I may be alone in this, but I need more than that. Things should exist more more than just "Oh I use thing A to kill thing B and that's it". And I guess i get frustrated when people are looking for excuses to put Titans in the game instead of focusing on the meaningful gameplay first, and then figuring out what gun/vehicle/equipment/lizard works best for that role.

If you came to me and said:

"Ok so we need to get inside this base, but we need something to hack the main reactor to blow it up. But the outer wall has a hardened wall that you have to get past first, but to do that you need to clear the enemy out of an elevated position so you can get close enough to break through the gate. But the road to the gate has obstructions that cant and be destroyed and hinder large ground objects"

and I would say "Ok, so how do you you think a team should pull all of that off? What tools would they use?"

and you replied "Well....the infantry cant approach right away because of the enemie stationed at the gate, and we can't just drive a tank up because the obstructions were in the way. What if you used an MTAC which is a vehicle that can walk over the obstructions and take out the infantry posted above the door. The MTAC and infantry dont have the firepower to take out the gate, but the infantry could then hack the console controlling the obstructions while the MTAC defends them from other infantry, which would allow the HAV to roll up within firing range of the gate. The infantry would need to also defend the MTAC from enemy HAVs while all of this is happening since the MTACs are weak to HAVs. Once the HAV breaks down the gate, the infantry can slip inside and hack another terminal to let their HAVs and MTACs in to cover them and each other while the infantry make the final push for the reactor core to hack and destroy it."

I would buy you a ******* drink, because that would be epic. And what's important there is that it doesnt REALLY matter what the tool is, just that it performs the function the scenario dictates. You could replace every instance of MTAC with "T-Rex's with Lasers mounted to their backs" and it would still work. It would look ridiculous/awesome, but it would still work. And that's the point Im trying to make with putting Function before Form.

Wait, people still post here? lol, I guess the cancer never really lets go, huh?

Universes with Mechs tend to contain nothing but Mechs... but could they exist alongside the rest of Dust? Or is it just too silly to have walking tanks stomping around the map...

Would lore or gameplay be the biggest problem?

Hmm....

See and this is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. This argument of "Oh well it should need this many people to do this but if the other thing has only this many people then it needs to be this but not too much of that so make the other thing weak and require only one person."

As soon as you lock yourself into a system where elements more or less have a singlular purpose of "Kill A, Be killed by B" the balance conversation will immediate degrade into something like this. We've seen it a million times throughout Dust's life and as you know.....the **** never worked right. When the only metric to measure something is its ability to kill and be killed by other elements (which are also as equally shallow), you're going to end up with a shallow gameplay and a endless balance problems, especially when dealing with something with the potential of being a really interesting support/utility element in the game design.

Having strengths and weaknesses to other elements is absolutely a good thing to have. Dont think I'm saying otherwise. But there needs to be more to it than that. If anything it helps? "Well MTACs are kinda UP against infantry this balance cycle, but they still cover rough terrain nobody's business. We just need to change up our MTAC strategy to deal with it for the time being and focus more on taking advantage of its other strengths." So even if a role seems weak against its predator that patch cycle, you don't feel like you're totally screwed because you still have other useful things you can do.

Universes with Mechs tend to contain nothing but Mechs... but could they exist alongside the rest of Dust? Or is it just too silly to have walking tanks stomping around the map...

Would lore or gameplay be the biggest problem?

Hmm....