We have played for quite some time now and I want to take the oportunity to look back and forward on the current season and HBS:Battletech.





The good

We have a constant number of players, who are playing games on a regular base.

Some of the Mercs have almost reached MRBC Alpha reputation and we have found and squashed some bugs at the beginning of the season.



I am optimistic, that we will still be playing in another 2 months, as BV values now start shifting into combat relevant areas, as does ELO ratings.



The new additive ELO procedure, granting a bonus to the weaker player, instead of giving a malus to the better one, seems to generate much less unrest. 😉

The bad

Player numbers, while being rather stable, are still by far not where I’d like to have them. I would rather have the map filled with loyalist units AND Mercenaries, having 10 to 20 times the player number we have now.

Also, I would love to improve or even rewrite the whole thing. But with small player numbers, job, kids etc. Nothing justifies this amount of work, really. But maybe things change, if HBS would give multi player some love finally. Which brings us to…

The ugly

HBS has not improved any aspect of multi player at all, aside from some bug fixes since release.

Disconnects are still an ever present issue.

There are still no generic pilots without special skills for tournament play.

There are neither new multi player maps nor new game modes such as king of the hill, escort, capture the flag or what ever.

Given the current state of multi player, one has to accept, that HBS follows a different plan to keep BT alife, other that a healthy multi player community.



