The Culture: Why You Booing Him? He's Right.

Jeffro made an observation about mecha gaming, and people got mad.

This image is what everyone wants from a giant robot game.

It is the exact opposite of what BattleTech gives you.

And yet you turkeys will still sit through 8-hour long lore videos where you pretend this is not a problem. https://t.co/xGLfKyeqrU

— Cardinal Jefforieu (@JohnsonJeffro) October 1, 2023

This is not the first time he said something like this, and last time I noted that his discontent is valid because the game doesn't fulfill the expectations provided by the source media.

BattleTech is a game of 19th Century/early 20th Century Dreadnaught-era naval warfare masquerading as a game of giant robots.

"But-"

There is no Robotech game that nails how things work in Macross/Southern Cross/MOSPEADA (or Sentinels/Shadow Chronicles for that matter) either. That same problem carries over to all Palladium gameplay experiences with mecha, great and small alike (and vehicles generally) so it applies to RIFTS and Splicers too.

Dream Pod 9, to date, is the best we've gotten with their not-Gundam (Jovian Chronicles) and not-VOTOMS (Heavy Gear), and people shit on both of them because of how combat works despite that being how it is in the source media (when they bother to play at all; again, both are Setting Bibles masquerading as games).

And, as much as I think fondly of it, Mekton Zeta doesn't deliver on its implicit promises either and a lot of other products that offer some form of mecha don't center on it as the highlight of the game so they aren't thought of as mecha games (e.g. Champions and other superhero games).

Gelantinus Rube swears by Lancer; he knows more about it than I, so I refer you to him on that.

Yet, for all of this, Jeffro is right about one thing: we have yet to produce a successful and proper tabletop mecha game. BattleTech succeeds due to a lack of competition, and against any significant contender always ends up faltering- especially away from the tabletop medium. (Look how fast Armored Core 6 and the recent Front Mission releases sucked up all that attention away from Mechwarrior 5.) Even games that aren't in its specific lane do this (e.g. Super Robot Wars 30 and the V/X/T series).

It's not hard to succeed when you're all that most people ever seen on the shelves. It is when near-pear or better alternatives show up and begin to crowd you out.

That's what Catalyst--like FASA, Wizkids, and Fanpro before them--have to contend with. It doesn't help in the least that the experience of play has sweet fuck-all to do with popular mecha combat entertainment media; BT stans can cope, seethe, and mald all they like but when Jeffro says that missiles are weak he's right and that's just one direct hit he's landed- especially in light of a comparable real-world war going on right now in Ukraine and the nigh-ubiquitous combat footage both sides release showing this in action.

Jeffro's said that Car Wars is a better game, and he's right- it is. If SJ Games bothered to promote it properly, it could and would compete and win against BT (and I do mean the "Classic" version, not that new thing on sale).

So, predictable as it is, the BT stans are just living out this meme and looking stupid doing it.

Here's a hint, BT players: in a game of armored combat, a proper ruleset is Save Or Die when you're hit- just like the real thing (and fiction with proper verisimilitude).

Y'know, like the Real Robot mecha shows your favorite product shamelessly stole (and steals) from.