iStitch
United States
Kalamazoo
Michigan
If at first you don't succeed, forget it and start drinking.
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kuhrusty wrote: cold_fuzion wrote: And we like Rusty. Aw, great. They're sympathy thumbs!?
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Andrew Franke
United States
Elkton
Virginia
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Mantisking wrote: I've been thinking about this review and trying to formulate a response that doesn't come down to "IS NOT!" But I think it'll take a day or two to come up with a decent rebuttal.
One thing that is bothering me though is the number of "thumbs up" this has gotten in the nine hours or so since the review was posted. We barely get any traffic out here on the Mechaton page yet this review has gotten over four times the accolades of any other topic on the Mechaton forum. Do people really feel this way, are outside people jumping on the bandwagon, or do people just think this is a really good review?
I think many people just appreciate an attempt at an honest review whether they have played the game or not. There are many "mech" fans out there. I am going to pick up a copy because of the review. I want to the mechanics of the game now.(I am a student of design)
I didn't originally buy this because I know I will never build Lego mechs.I have way too many Battletech and CAV mechs already.
I would bet most reviews here get read and commented on than most official company forums.
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Fabio Calzolari
Italy
S.Lazzaro di Savena
Bologna
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Mantisking wrote: One thing that is bothering me though is the number of "thumbs up" this has gotten in the nine hours or so since the review was posted. We barely get any traffic out here on the Mechaton page yet this review has gotten over four times the accolades of any other topic on the Mechaton forum. Do people really feel this way, are outside people jumping on the bandwagon, or do people just think this is a really good review?
This review is one of the better i've read. He explains his expectations, and says all the reasons for every point he did'nt liked.
I could not agree at all (i liked this game a lot, there's a review from me) but i guess that the poster and me could discuss about the mechanics and the game in a very friendly, objective, dry and constructive manner.
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Rusty Ballinger
United States
Arcata
California
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usiandrew wrote: I didn't originally buy this because I know I will never build Lego mechs.I have way too many Battletech and CAV mechs already.
You know, one thing I didn't cover is how easy it would be to play this with non-Lego mechs. You could use colored beads or sticky-dots or something on the bases, and just remove them as the mech takes hits. Or you could record each mech's attachments etc. with dry erase markers on a laminated sheet, like we did in our third game; maybe my friend will post his to the files section. (He came up with that because there were a lot of dice on the table--so, instead of leaving your initiative die or defense die on the table next to your mech, you'd write its number on your sheet, and erase the initiative number when you went, and your other rolls at the end of the turn. It was better in some ways but worse in others--it did introduce a minor "what's that guy's defense again?" element--but it would certainly make it easy to use non-Lego mechs.)
One difficulty with non-Lego cover is that it might be harder to blow up, but that's just a minor neat thing, not essential to the game.
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Mike Holyoak
United States
Idaho Falls
Idaho
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Mantisking wrote:
One thing that is bothering me though is the number of "thumbs up" this has gotten in the nine hours or so since the review was posted. We barely get any traffic out here on the Mechaton page yet this review has gotten over four times the accolades of any other topic on the Mechaton forum. Do people really feel this way, are outside people jumping on the bandwagon, or do people just think this is a really good review?
I'm a fan of Vincent's Dogs in the Vineyard, and always considered buying Mechaton, but a lack of information on the mechanics and the fact that I don't have any Lego's made it easy to pass up.
This is an excellent review, and actually makes me want to buy the game! The mechanics sound amazing, and it doesn't seem too difficult to house rule around some of the main issues.
I bought TONS of MechWarrior figures and tried to convince myself that was a good game before the hard truth slammed me like a pulse rifle (The game is TERRIBLE)!
Now I'm hoping some colored sticker dots and these rules will put those cool mechs back to good use.
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Fabio Calzolari
Italy
S.Lazzaro di Savena
Bologna
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anubis9 wrote: I bought TONS of MechWarrior figures ....
Are you willing to sell or trade some Mechs and ship them here? 
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Was George Orwell an Optimist?
United States
Corvallis
Oregon
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Mantisking wrote: I've been thinking about this review and trying to formulate a response that doesn't come down to "IS NOT!" But I think it'll take a day or two to come up with a decent rebuttal.
One thing that is bothering me though is the number of "thumbs up" this has gotten in the nine hours or so since the review was posted. We barely get any traffic out here on the Mechaton page yet this review has gotten over four times the accolades of any other topic on the Mechaton forum. Do people really feel this way, are outside people jumping on the bandwagon, or do people just think this is a really good review?
In my case, I didn't even know Mechaton existed, but when I see a review pop up on the front page with the title in ALL CAPS, I'm in. Who can resist that?
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Rusty Ballinger
United States
Arcata
California
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anubis9 wrote: I bought TONS of MechWarrior figures and tried to convince myself that was a good game before the hard truth slammed me like a pulse rifle (The game is TERRIBLE)!
Now I'm hoping some colored sticker dots and these rules will put those cool mechs back to good use.
The guys I played this with have a bunch of Mechwarrior stuff too; I just posted the variant we used to use (based on another game) which let everything move & fire every turn.
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I always like a negative review that starts out with "This is a negative review..." Good cut to the chase.
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Sphere wrote: I didn't even know Mechaton existed, but when I see a review pop up on the front page with the title in ALL CAPS, I'm in. Who can resist that?
He had me at 'Mechaton: Fighty Robots', but the ALL CAPS title sealed it. Declaring it as a negative review in the very first sentence was the icing on the cake. Highly satisfying all around.
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fen
Wales
Cardiff
The Vale of Glamorgan
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Sphere wrote: Mantisking wrote: I've been thinking about this review and trying to formulate a response that doesn't come down to "IS NOT!" But I think it'll take a day or two to come up with a decent rebuttal.
One thing that is bothering me though is the number of "thumbs up" this has gotten in the nine hours or so since the review was posted. We barely get any traffic out here on the Mechaton page yet this review has gotten over four times the accolades of any other topic on the Mechaton forum. Do people really feel this way, are outside people jumping on the bandwagon, or do people just think this is a really good review? In my case, I didn't even know Mechaton existed, but when I see a review pop up on the front page with the title in ALL CAPS, I'm in. Who can resist that?
I believe I have a winning formula for reviewing then.
Step 1: rusty + negative + review + ALL CAPS = thumbs
Step 2: ????
Step 3: Profit!
Now I just need to get rusty to c&p my reviews.
Seriously, the review got my thumbs because it managed to not only enlighten me on the game, but educate me both on how the game plays and the feel you get when playing it. I know when I'm visualising parts for a game I've never even seen that I'm probably engaged with that review. 
When I'm making 'pew pew' noises while reading, I know I am.
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Was George Orwell an Optimist?
United States
Corvallis
Oregon
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Styfen wrote: I know when I'm visualising parts for a game I've never even seen that I'm probably engaged with that review. When I'm making 'pew pew' noises while reading, I know I am.
This suggests you're capable of reading without making 'pew pew' noises? I'm often told I should stop that... 
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Dan Gilkey
United States
Eureka
California
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As the third player in the games Rusty played I would like to thank him for writing this review. As he mentioned we were very excited by the idea and potential of this game (a personal note: I love Mech and Lego, two of my favorite things).
That being said I do believe the core of the game could be saved with some modified rules and I believe Rusty and Ray agree but while we played and discussed the game we kept comparing it to another miniatures game that we also played with Legos Shock Force. The fact was that rather than fixing Mechaton we would rather play Shockforce.
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Joshua A.C. Newman
United States
Northampton
Massachusetts
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Hi, I'm Joshua. I'm publishing the second (really, third) edition of Mechaton under the name Mobile Frame Zero: Rapid Attack.
First off, Rusty's obviously getting thumbs up because it's an unusually thoughtful review that he wrote well.
Second, I'm happy to see this critique. It's difficult as a designer and publisher to get this kind of feedback — it tends to be gushing (useless but encouraging) or incorrect (which is useful in that it shows us what we have to explain better).
Your review does something really great, though: it confirms a lot of our decisions about the new edition. Some of the issues you're having are with the way the rules work, while some of them are strategic factors that aren't obvious. We've altering a bunch of rules in subtle but important ways while endeavoring to explain strategy more lucidly than we have before.
For instance, we're addressing the very discussion about hand-to-hand weapons you have here in two ways:
1: Under the old rules, HtH weapons did damage on a 5 or 6, ignoring cover if there was any. That means that they're a little less than twice as powerful as ranged weapons. That's not quite what it should be, though, so now they hit on a 4+.
2: That said, the strategic value of HtH weapons is so great, even with the old numbers, that one of my favorite armies has no ranged weapons at all. Here's why: In a game that has only 4-6 turns, you need to capture an objective as soon as you can. Typically, everyone's forces are spread out kind of thin, trying to hedge bets or concentrate force where needed. That means that, when there's a defender on a station and you shoot it to pieces at direct range, no one else is there to hold the station but the attacker still hasn't taken it. The only way to be present when the station's up for grabs is to attack the defender in HtH and be the only remaining team present. If you've attacked the guy with Direct weapons, you can't take the station until next turn. That's a huge cost. And so is having another frame present who's not doing something else useful.
Now, you're partially right about the guy with the weakest team being the target. Me, I do what I'd do in real life: run the fuck away. Let your opponents take an objective and find yourself with an erstwhile ally for a while. If you've run away effectively, you haven't lost too much and can make a strong comeback. It's a strategy game. That means you need to make strategic decisions, like when to run. We're talking about fighting from a point of weakness in the advice section, too. Just last week, I was in this position and I'd managed to even things up by the end of turn 1 with 1 loss in 5 and had gotten my opponents to stretch out too far.
I'm happy to answer other questions about the rules and how they're changing in this thread, if you like.
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Talarius Dunedain
United States
Unspecified
Unspecified
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Great review and great response from Joshua.
As a confirmed Lego wargamer, I would love to play games like Mechaton, but I too, have experienced the crushing disappointment of flawed rules. I look forward with great anticipation to the release of Mobile Frame Zero. Any idea when it'll be polished up and ready for the public?
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Mike Holyoak
United States
Idaho Falls
Idaho
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Can't wait for the Kickstarter campaign! Good luck with the new rules!
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Joshua A.C. Newman
United States
Northampton
Massachusetts
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Thanks for the encouragement, guys! I'm really, really happy with the way the new rules are coming together.
We realized that there was an omission in the old rules, for instance: how big to make the table. If it's too big, you can put objectives so far away that they're practically free points. It also means you can never really run away because the edge of the board is so distant. We never play that way, getting the table as close to circular as we can (which is usually a square).
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Sean Schoonmaker
United States
California
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I must say that this discussion as a whole has been very enlightening as to the old system, what might not be perfect about it, and things to look forward to for Mobile Frame.
I very much look forward to trying to break it (and likely having fun regardless)!
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Dave J McWeasely
United States
Louisville
Kentucky
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I like the news about table size being a well-defined thing.
Another parameter that seemed to break our games was the number of mechs. We typically played 3-p games, but as the primary mech supplier I simply didn't have the bricks for 18 mechs. It was always more like 9 mechs. So that meant that turns went twice as fast. That in turn meant spotting dice were getting left on the field twice as often. As a result, spotting turned out to suck, it was always better to take a different attachment type. I can't really fault Mechaton for that - it was quite clear on how many mecha we were supposed to have - but it was kind of saddening to find that mech's individual designs scaled so poorly with army size.
Joshua A.C. Newman wrote: I'm happy to answer other questions about the rules and how they're changing in this thread, if you like.
Want to talk about the faster initiative system? It really did cause Mechaton to grind.
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Mike Holyoak
United States
Idaho Falls
Idaho
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Noticed the Kickstarter Campaign is live.
I'm happy to back it.
If any one else is interested, the link is here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/JoshuaACNewman/mobile-fr...
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Joshua A.C. Newman wrote:
Now, you're partially right about the guy with the weakest team being the target. Me, I do what I'd do in real life: run the fuck away. Let your opponents take an objective and find yourself with an erstwhile ally for a while. If you've run away effectively, you haven't lost too much and can make a strong comeback. It's a strategy game. That means you need to make strategic decisions, like when to run. We're talking about fighting from a point of weakness in the advice section, too. Just last week, I was in this position and I'd managed to even things up by the end of turn 1 with 1 loss in 5 and had gotten my opponents to stretch out too far.
I'm happy to answer other questions about the rules and how they're changing in this thread, if you like.
I found out about this from Penny Arcade and am very excited to see rules. So I'm speaking from a position of not knowing beans about gameplay. Still, though, wouldn't your enemies just chase you when you run? Maybe shell you with infinite range artillery? You're still ahead on points, so they still want you dead. Or are objectives to boost their own scores more valuable than tearing yours down?
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Raymond Bull
United States
Massachusetts
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Joshua A.C. Newman wrote: Now, you're partially right about the guy with the weakest team being the target. Me, I do what I'd do in real life: run the fuck away. Let your opponents take an objective and find yourself with an erstwhile ally for a while. If you've run away effectively, you haven't lost too much and can make a strong comeback. It's a strategy game. That means you need to make strategic decisions, like when to run. We're talking about fighting from a point of weakness in the advice section, too. Just last week, I was in this position and I'd managed to even things up by the end of turn 1 with 1 loss in 5 and had gotten my opponents to stretch out too far. SuperKlaus wrote: I found out about this from Penny Arcade and am very excited to see rules. So I'm speaking from a position of not knowing beans about gameplay. Still, though, wouldn't your enemies just chase you when you run? Maybe shell you with infinite range artillery? You're still ahead on points, so they still want you dead. Or are objectives to boost their own scores more valuable than tearing yours down?
If you take an objective from the opponent, you gain points while they lose points. It turns into a 2X point swing instead of just an X point swing. And depending on how people's armies are put together taking one objective may be enough to go from second to first.
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Joshua A.C. Newman
United States
Northampton
Massachusetts
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MrWeaseley, spotting works a little differently and winds up being more important now. Sure, having fewer frames on the table proportionately means that you can take advantage of fewer spots, but if everyone's playing with a really small number of frames, it should all come out in the wash.
You can also play at a skirmish level, btw: 3-5 frames rather than 4-8. Those numbers have worked fine for us.
Were you playing with identical teams?
Initiative is now from highest score to lowest with the option to pass (as long as there's someone to pass to). It makes it much faster and you wind up with less accidental uncoordination of your forces.
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Timothy Adamson
United States
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I actually liked the old initiative system. I took to using a deck of cards instead of dice though, both because it prevents ties and because I don't have that many d10s.
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Joshua A.C. Newman
United States
Northampton
Massachusetts
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Good solution! That's one of the interesting features of cards: drawing one obviates that particular value again. Did you stand the guys on their cards or something? Or use tiny playing cards?
One of the reasons we changed it is that it was practically impossible to keep frames in formation or otherwise working in a coordinated manner. Now you can do things to your opposition that disrupt their plans, but if you don't (and they can keep it in their pants) they can get their guys to work together.
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If at first you don't succeed, forget it and start drinking.
