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So been messing further with mods. specifically RogueTech and the difficulty changes and mechanic adjustments make the game a lot more fun. Evasion matters (no loss when being shot at, easier to gain, melee is now vital vs those quick lights), a panic system has been added, weapons have been rebalanced (no more LRM stability spam, tons of new weapons), and the entire battletech inner sphere is added. Starting out is also a crazy gamble because it gives you 1 random heavy, 2 random mediums, and 2 random lights (along with new variants, mech mods, and lostech stuff). Skills have been rebalanced a bit too, most tier ones have been swapped with tier twos along with MUCH higher EXP costs (but also higher EXP gains). Salvaged has been rebalanced, as has been getting new mechs (now you need 5 parts, with a max of 4 parts per mech kill if they punch out)

Basically if you're looking for a good challenge, something to do after your first/second/etc playthrough and want to change it up from traditional mods that just add weapons or mech variants it's makes battletech feel like a whole new game.

Hope the next expansion we can run company size. Throw in some armor, Infantry, and some fighters. Combine arms. I be a serious spender then

 Jihadin wrote:
Hope the next expansion we can run company size. Throw in some armor, Infantry, and some fighters. Combine arms. I be a serious spender then

eh. Company sized, combined arms battletech has unfortunate consequences. Namely that battlemechs aren't a particularly good or efficient choice, especially in 3025. The faster vehicles make much better scouts, the heavier vehicles make much better fire platforms and fighters are ridiculous for various shenanigans. And properly equipped infantry tends to be cheap and disposable ambush predators.

Voss wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Hope the next expansion we can run company size. Throw in some armor, Infantry, and some fighters. Combine arms. I be a serious spender then

eh. Company sized, combined arms battletech has unfortunate consequences. Namely that battlemechs aren't a particularly good or efficient choice, especially in 3025. The faster vehicles make much better scouts, the heavier vehicles make much better fire platforms and fighters are ridiculous for various shenanigans. And properly equipped infantry tends to be cheap and disposable ambush predators.

Heavy vehicles die quite easily in the game ? Esp if clsoe enough to kick

I am just hoping we get an update soon....otherwise I guess its just mods.

 Mr Morden wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Hope the next expansion we can run company size. Throw in some armor, Infantry, and some fighters. Combine arms. I be a serious spender then

eh. Company sized, combined arms battletech has unfortunate consequences. Namely that battlemechs aren't a particularly good or efficient choice, especially in 3025. The faster vehicles make much better scouts, the heavier vehicles make much better fire platforms and fighters are ridiculous for various shenanigans. And properly equipped infantry tends to be cheap and disposable ambush predators.

Heavy vehicles die quite easily in the game ? Esp if clsoe enough to kick

I am just hoping we get an update soon....otherwise I guess its just mods.

Update 1.1 is in beta. Large lasers become better than functional (18 heat vs 30), PPCs are slightly better (35 heat vs 40, which is still too high) and stability is vastly increased for the heavier weight classes.
A bunch of other weapons also get heat reduction for no apparent reason, and medium and small lasers get a slight heat generation increase (to combat laser spam)
There are also a bunch of optional campaign toggles, to take it out of easy mode (no free weapons from salvaged mech, loss of mechs with CT destruction, more parts required for salvage, etc)

Mission difficulty ratings have also supposedly been adjust to make it reflect the actual opposition somewhat better.
Speed adjustments have been made (can speed through animations, and skip splash screens)
Some basic UI functionality added so you can actually find out basic details and real numbers in the MechBay (how this was overlooked originally I have no idea)

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/beta-battletech-update-1-1-release-notes.1106263/
---
Heavy vehicles do die easily in this game. Mostly because of the tendency for enemies to spawn with pre-broken armor for a long time, because they drive into your face, and because of the random melee damage multiplier. Actually doing it by the book and without nerfing them severely as opposition, tanks are ridiculously nasty things, and often out armor AND out gun mechs of the same weight class, and don't have to worry about heat.

But if combined arms are in the player's hands, most of those built-in nerfs go away. You can mix the good stuff like LRM carriers and shreks, hang back, get line of sight with fast stuff and just obliterate the enemies, and for a much lower C-bill cost, which becomes a big balance problem at the company level. And that's before you get crazy stuff like Long Toms.

So realistically- what's likely to happen with DLC? Are we more likely to see themed mechpacks, maybe by faction adding different mech availability? Or will they start advancing the timeline, going with a Lostech pack, or a 3039 pack?

With the setup, it seems like adding mechs would be very easy, and lucrative.

Faction availability isn't really a thing in this game, otherwise we wouldn't start off seeing kurita, liao and davion signature mechs on our side for the first three missions (the kintaro, blackjack and vindicator).

Warhammer and marauder will be added back when they feel its safe to do so once the lawsuit details are completely settled (or not, depending on the terms of settlement), they're done, they were just removed from the release version.

They've said they want to so story packs as dlc, or at least story elements.

But first up is Linux version and all the kickstarter promises and stretch goals that didn't make it in, so dlc will frankly be a while.

Stabilty changes seem to be big - tried a quick game with my 4 Mechs vs 8 Assaults and not a single (even my Medium) one fell down.

Is it me or do ac/10's just not really have a good place in weapons. They weigh so much if you can just take ac/20's you would. The range is meh and stability damage is just ok. I'd rather just spam lrm's for stability damage. AC/2's are also kinda meh but more because they don't do a lot of damage or stability and weigh a lot. Also i didn't see many AC hardpoint mechs early in the game. I think the first AC heavy mech i found was the jagermech so that was at least halfway through the game.

Large lasers may be viable now though. PPC's are ok i guess.

I still need to learn more details of the game but the chance to crit weapons are nice once you strip the enemy's armor away. Could potentially be amazing vs long ranged enemy sniper type units with missiles or AC's.

I think this game needs some serious explanations for some of the stats. I suppose some are explained well like stability but it'd be nice to know how much heat each of my pilots on each mech could suffer on each planet type per weapon fired. Just give me an idea so i don't have to pre-guess it all. Crits are also not explained the best or how much more accurate lasers are or how much AC's are effected by recoil for each pilot on each mech given the amount of AC's they each have. I'm just saying having an idea of more parts of the game would be nice. Perhaps that's too in depth and me being too picky.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Is it me or do ac/10's just not really have a good place in weapons. They weigh so much if you can just take ac/20's you would. The range is meh and stability damage is just ok. I'd rather just spam lrm's for stability damage. AC/2's are also kinda meh but more because they don't do a lot of damage or stability and weigh a lot. Also i didn't see many AC hardpoint mechs early in the game. I think the first AC heavy mech i found was the jagermech so that was at least halfway through the game.

Large lasers may be viable now though. PPC's are ok i guess.

I still need to learn more details of the game but the chance to crit weapons are nice once you strip the enemy's armor away. Could potentially be amazing vs long ranged enemy sniper type units with missiles or AC's.

I think this game needs some serious explanations for some of the stats. I suppose some are explained well like stability but it'd be nice to know how much heat each of my pilots on each mech could suffer on each planet type per weapon fired. Just give me an idea so i don't have to pre-guess it all. Crits are also not explained the best or how much more accurate lasers are or how much AC's are effected by recoil for each pilot on each mech given the amount of AC's they each have. I'm just saying having an idea of more parts of the game would be nice. Perhaps that's too in depth and me being too picky.

Not really. HBS didn't take a lot of time to explain a lot of concepts. Just getting a summary of how much heat and damage a mech can generate was completely hidden up until this update (and it's still behind a tooltip, and only visible in the mech bay)- well, if you know enough you can add it up, but it isn't entirely obvious to new players.


As far as AC/10s go, yeah. They're kinda bad, especially with large lasers being usable now. Even before, I'd rather downgrade to an AC/5, and free up four tons (and have more ammo per ton). AC/20s are a bit too all or nothing for my taste, but I can see why more gambling types like them.
But on most mechs with AC/10s you can free up a single ton and replace it with an AC/5 AND large laser.

Unfortunately AC/10s are in a weird place. If damage is increased, they can headcap mechs. If tonnage is changed (for any weapon) lots of stock loadouts are suddenly non-functional. And that would be even worse than some of the heat changes.

 Jihadin wrote:
Throw in some armor, Infantry, and some fighters. Combine arms.

I too would love to see combined arms, and not just the AI. I'd love to be able to field Bulldogs and VTOLS and stuff like that.

Kinda hit a wall with the campaign

My Mechs and pilots are good enough and I have enough money that there is no real incentaive to go on missions - especially since its invariably against twice the numbers and little more than a slug fest so good chance I loose the good stuff.

I personally need more variety in the missions, some story stuff, larger maps where oputflanking does not just make you run straight into the reinforcements

Cityscapes and LOS blocking maps where we can hunt each other down.

Anybody else realizing Heavy Lasers have become the new hotness? Seriously if you spam about 5-6 of them on a mech and have a fully leveled up called shot skill you can pretty much head shot the enemy once on average a turn. Usually 40 or more damage and it's almost enough to destroy the head off a mech and kill the pilot instantly with all mech salvage left intact. Seriously it's pretty ridiculous. SRM6's spam with a 4 damage boost is also good in that way. Each SRM6 under similar situation as the heavy lasers will get at least one head shot a turn per SRM6 and when they're doing 12 damage each they eat away a significant amount of health.

Seriously in a 5 difficulty rating mission where enemy armor was at 25% of normal armor i basically headshot anywhere from 2-3 mechs (and auto-killed them) and i think 1-2 of them were just one mech firing instantly killing an Assault mech with a headshot all by itself in one volley. It was just really absurd stuff. I faced probably at least 9 enemies all assault mechs or high tier vehicles.

Anybody else realizing Heavy Lasers have become the new hotness?

Pretty much everyone. They don't automatically outclass AC/5s and LRMs, but they're definitely worth taking now, rather than complete garbage.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Kinda hit a wall with the campaign

My Mechs and pilots are good enough and I have enough money that there is no real incentaive to go on missions - especially since its invariably against twice the numbers and little more than a slug fest so good chance I loose the good stuff.

I personally need more variety in the missions, some story stuff, larger maps where oputflanking does not just make you run straight into the reinforcements

Cityscapes and LOS blocking maps where we can hunt each other down.

Yeah there are certain mission types that I just want to avoid-

Escorts are annoying, even with the ability to speed up moves, as they take more time, and for some reason the final 'parking' animation at the end of the move dials back down to normal speed.
Battles easily get out of control because the reinforcements often show up about half-way through the first lance. If you random LRM heavy opposition in the other lance, you're going to have a bad time.

Base defense turrets can be a bit boring, simply because they're usually spread out in a way that makes them a complete lack of threat. Just kill any active defenders, then sensor lock each turret in turn and pop it.

There does need to be a lot more mission variety, map variety and mech variety before the base game is anywhere near complete. Adding new story packages doesn't sound that great (because they're fairly rubbish at storytelling/characters), but it needs more hand crafted content to intersperse the waves of procedural dross.


I did find turning on destruction when CT cored out, going up to 4 salvage parts to a mech and no free equipment on salvaged mechs makes for a nice jump in the difficulty. 4 parts can also make it slightly more tedious to get new chassis (what with the RNG on opposition), but in my original run through I had sold 40+ mechs before I got bored half-way through, mostly due to lack of challenge..

I broke out all my BattleTech Tech manuals. I'm tooling a Jagermech to fit into my idea of a SNIPER mech
Water is my friend
Woods are my friend
Tundra is my lover

Wonder how they're going to implement anti missile system on mechs

Edit


Have to remember. Caliber/type of weapons gives you an idea on how to deploy your mech.


My Orions have AC10's for long range and only for long range till I get in close to use med lasers. Then I go mecha hand to hand

Voss wrote:


Escorts are annoying, even with the ability to speed up moves, as they take more time, and for some reason the final 'parking' animation at the end of the move dials back down to normal speed.
Battles easily get out of control because the reinforcements often show up about half-way through the first lance. If you random LRM heavy opposition in the other lance, you're going to have a bad time.

There is a trick to escort missions. Clear out the initial attackers before letting any of your mechs into the RV circle. Once that is done look for the most plausible destination and move two mechs a full turn towards that and keep two near the RV circle the following turn move a mech into the RV circle and activate the units they you are to escort. Most likely you have correctly judged the destination, otherwise your forward pair will need to sprint to adjust, the other pair accompanies the escorted assets, slightly from in front is possible. You do not need light mechs, you can pull all this off with four 4/6 speed mechs of any weight bracket so long as you get one turns head start so ou dont need to waste moves doing sprints.

If you need to give your mechs time to deploy block the road with a mech so the escorted vehicles need to go off road, this will slow then down a turn allowing your forward pair to make a frontal screen without having to sprint and lose firepower to stay ahead, or sprint a wrongly positioned forward pair before they are too far away to help..

Escorted vulnerable vehicles that blindly always keep moving forwards is standard escort mission bullcrud from gaming from long ago. On the whole Battletech has it easy as you can block your own transports if they are going to rush into a dumb position and get shot up.

There does need to be a lot more mission variety, map variety and mech variety before the base game is anywhere near complete. Adding new story packages doesn't sound that great (because they're fairly rubbish at storytelling/characters), but it needs more hand crafted content to intersperse the waves of procedural dross.

Loved the Story as it was (for me) just like a BTnovel - so playing through one was great.

I still think adpating the previously published campaign packs would be awesome as playign through them on line with the pre set characters, maps and Mechs (often flawed) would be really enjoyable - but that may just be me.

I didn't think it was like a BT novel at all, except the unlikable wooden protagonist. I really disliked the clear good vs. Evil story, down to cackling about concentration camps and mass murder while twirling mustaches.


----
@Orlanth- I don't find escort missions difficult, just that they add an extra layer of tedium. I'm not actually sure its possible to activate the escorts before triggering the first wave of enemies, and the second wave usually waits until the vehicles are really close to the exit point.

Its just more turn changeovers (and accompanying delays) and little reward in the way of decent mech chassis to salvage. Assassinations are usually the best ones to farm, though recently I ran into an orion k on a convoy ambush.

Sadly didn't manage to salvage much of it, despite taking out both torsos and a leg, it was still going. I was trying to finish off the other leg, and despite going for medium laser side shots and the last leg at 22 structure and the CT at 80, the torso went first.

If you want salvage use melee, you take out mechs with a combo of leg damage, and pilot KO through repeated knockdown.

 Orlanth wrote:
If you want salvage use melee, you take out mechs with a combo of leg damage, and pilot KO through repeated knockdown.

I'm well aware.

The RNG simply didn't cooperate on called shots, even when stacking the odds with side shots, and it was a Guts pilot that soaked four injuries. It was also happily guarding excessively, which made stab damage ineffective (especially with the new higher stab thresholds for heavies)

Voss wrote:
I didn't think it was like a BT novel at all, except the unlikable wooden protagonist. I really disliked the clear good vs. Evil story, down to cackling about concentration camps and mass murder while twirling mustaches.

That's a good point. That said the baddies make a couple good points.

1st

2nd

I'll admit the logic for the first is a bit flawed but it isn't the worst bunch of plans a bad guy's had ever esp. for a video game. The whole 'break his jaw' line was so hammy though esp. when she actually did it. Admittedly that guy looked she punched seemed so posh and annoying that a couple punches to his face were to a degree wanted by me. He's not a real person guys so it's ok. I mean come on.

-----

Of all the female characters i'd probably say i like Sumire the most. Maybe it's just her opinion on things. Kamea Arano makes some bad and risky choices that put herself in too much in danger. To be fair it's nice to see her not always be 'too good' to fight but the bit with the 'shiny new mechs' was a bit careless and could have ended her resistance right there. The Middle Eastern lady (or whatever she technically is since she from 'middle east-the planet') seems ok. I guess she's a genius with tech. That story where she married a kooky Bill Nye the science guy IN SPACE!!! was a bit odd.

Well, as to the 2nd, the enemy is worse. They aren't just There isn't a 'both sides' issue, or even the usual BT shades of grey. The opposition is just Evil with a capital E, for reasons. Which is unfortunate, but especially since the original proposition was that you could choose a side, and it was more fitting for the setting, not just 'But Thou Must' White Hat on Black Hat.

So the writing really suffers, and it's really odd given the people in charge of HBS and the focus on 'for reals' battletech. (And the Argo is also a fluff abomination, if you care for that sort of thing)


As to the first point- eh. They *are* a tin pot state. They don't even rate as an empire, or even a lesser state (that would be Canopus and the Taurian). They don't have anything in the way of resources or trade, and frankly don't even exist in 50 years. The exception is the stuff they aren't supposed to have, which honestly is a bit of a lore breaker.

Even a hint that they (and you) start running around with that stuff would mean black ops teams from half a dozen organizations/states drowning the entire region in blood. The fourth succession war would have kicked off early, and they're passing that stuff out like party favors. It would be like King Arthur finding the Grail, the ark of the covenant and Excalibur all in one go, and tossing Excalibur not to Galahad or Lancelot, but to a passing Irish Mercenary Captain who was trying to turn in a bounty on bandits.

Voss wrote:
Well, as to the 2nd, the enemy is worse. They aren't just

Spoiler:

torturing 'someone,' they're explicitly setting up concentration camps, mass-murdering civilians, and keeping people in racks of cages and the whole generic Nazi parallel. And this comes up in the second (real) mission and Kamea talks about avenging it in a planetary (or event regional) broadcast

There isn't a 'both sides' issue, or even the usual BT shades of grey. The opposition is just Evil with a capital E, for reasons. Which is unfortunate, but especially since the original proposition was that you could choose a side, and it was more fitting for the setting, not just 'But Thou Must' White Hat on Black Hat.

So the writing really suffers, and it's really odd given the people in charge of HBS and the focus on 'for reals' battletech. (And the Argo is also a fluff abomination, if you care for that sort of thing)


As to the first point- eh. They *are* a tin pot state. They don't even rate as an empire, or even a lesser state (that would be Canopus and the Taurian). They don't have anything in the way of resources or trade, and frankly don't even exist in 50 years. The exception is the stuff they aren't supposed to have, which honestly is a bit of a lore breaker.

Even a hint that they (and you) start running around with that stuff would mean black ops teams from half a dozen organizations/states drowning the entire region in blood. The fourth succession war would have kicked off early, and they're passing that stuff out like party favors. It would be like King Arthur finding the Grail, the ark of the covenant and Excalibur all in one go, and tossing Excalibur not to Galahad or Lancelot, but to a passing Irish Mercenary Captain who was trying to turn in a bounty on bandits.

LOLOLOL, exalt sir.

@Voss:

I totally get that they did that stuff but i meant the actual torturing bits.

As far as battletech lore goes i'll be incredibly honest that i have no clue about battletech other than the mechs and that it's a tabletop game and has had video games. I wouldn't know the lore massacres they may have created.

Btw i wanted to bring it up for a while but i was holding it off partly because it tends to end in thread locks. Did some of the stuff come off as pushing a bit of a Politically Correct narrative? I enjoy the game and all but i can't help but be bothered almost every random person in a random mission is referred to as 'her', the beginning allows 'he', 'she' or 'them' (who wants to be called them?), the main 'good guy' faction that helps lady arano is a 'feminist matriarchal utopia' the writers have nothing bad to say about and a character has a certain religion and wears a headscarf a thousand years from now in a fictional universe and just i dunno it pushes so many things all at once.

I enjoy the game and all but some of that comes off as obnoxious. I mean it's worse when people use it as an excuse to attack fans or as a 'get out of jail free' card for criticism.

Now being entirely fair i don't know battletech as much as i should but most sides seemed to have a form of hypocrisy about them. The Magistracy does as well (sick of patriarchy so makes a matriarchy instead) but they seem to be pushed as super good guys.

I don't want this to cause a lot of back and forth between the forum members but it'd be nice if maybe it's at least kept civil. I'm betting that won't happen though.

----------

Oh Lore abominations? You mean like khorne sorcerors and "100 BANEBLADES!!!"?

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
I enjoy the game and all but i can't help but be bothered almost every random person in a random mission is referred to as 'her', the beginning allows 'he', 'she' or 'them' (who wants to be called them?), the main 'good guy' faction that helps lady arano is a 'feminist matriarchal utopia' the writers have nothing bad to say about and a character has a certain religion and wears a headscarf a thousand years from now in a fictional universe and just i dunno it pushes so many things all at once.

I did notice that every time you have to rescue/recover/find someone it's a 'she'. Thought that was odd.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
I enjoy the game and all but i can't help but be bothered almost every random person in a random mission is referred to as 'her', the beginning allows 'he', 'she' or 'them' (who wants to be called them?), the main 'good guy' faction that helps lady arano is a 'feminist matriarchal utopia' the writers have nothing bad to say about and a character has a certain religion and wears a headscarf a thousand years from now in a fictional universe and just i dunno it pushes so many things all at once.

I did notice that every time you have to rescue/recover/find someone it's a 'she'. Thought that was odd.

I look at the universe in BT similar to 40k: It is so insanely huge you can have pretty much any belief system you want turn-up.
As to the usually a "she" being rescued, a certain engineer had a job to do, you were supposed to keep the heat off her... I felt her mission was rather cool to be honest... too bad she seemed lackluster moving forward, bordering on irritating with the same canned responses.

To be honest, I never really paid attention to the gender of the "pick up the spy" missions and I did not look at them as a "rescue" it is more a armored extraction (too important to just try to sneak away).
Reminded me a bit of the Cyberpunk methods of collecting a researcher that wish to "defect" from a company.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
@Voss:

I totally get that they did that stuff but i meant the actual torturing bits.

As far as battletech lore goes i'll be incredibly honest that i have no clue about battletech other than the mechs and that it's a tabletop game and has had video games. I wouldn't know the lore massacres they may have created.

Btw i wanted to bring it up for a while but i was holding it off partly because it tends to end in thread locks. Did some of the stuff come off as pushing a bit of a Politically Correct narrative? I enjoy the game and all but i can't help but be bothered almost every random person in a random mission is referred to as 'her', the beginning allows 'he', 'she' or 'them' (who wants to be called them?), the main 'good guy' faction that helps lady arano is a 'feminist matriarchal utopia' the writers have nothing bad to say about and a character has a certain religion and wears a headscarf a thousand years from now in a fictional universe and just i dunno it pushes so many things all at once.

I enjoy the game and all but some of that comes off as obnoxious. I mean it's worse when people use it as an excuse to attack fans or as a 'get out of jail free' card for criticism.

Now being entirely fair i don't know battletech as much as i should but most sides seemed to have a form of hypocrisy about them. The Magistracy does as well (sick of patriarchy so makes a matriarchy instead) but they seem to be pushed as super good guys.

I don't want this to cause a lot of back and forth between the forum members but it'd be nice if maybe it's at least kept civil. I'm betting that won't happen though.

----------

Oh Lore abominations? You mean like khorne sorcerors and "100 BANEBLADES!!!"?

I didn't find the game per se obnoxious. That the Canopians market themselves as a matriarchal utopia it's already present in the lore. The Taurians have always been the paranoid rednecks of the Periphery, while Canopus got all the class. so nothing really new there. Farah IMO was the way you can write a minority of any kind in a game; she is muslim, she is a genious but she doesn't go ranting that she got to be best in her field because she is a woman and a Muslim.

My point is, that if you forget all the out of game stupid PC stuff that came from some devs, and a part of the audience, the game and it's chars by itself doesn't seem out of place in the IS. If any, I want to complain that in the original Btech lore an Arano Restoration with SL tech would be deader than 3000 year old mummy the moment the Houses got wind of the existence of those tasty SL mechs. House Liao pre Sun Tzu might be a joke but the Death Commandos were feared everywhere for a reason, and Davion surely would find a reason to send the Assault Guards on a Periphery tour, and don't start me with what Comstar would do when reading all those HPG videos talking about Castle Brians and SL tech...

M.

Er, Taurians aren't rednecks. They have the best educational system in the entire inner sphere, bar none, they just don't have the industry or resources to exploit it. And the most democratic government and largely the best standard of living for average citizens.

Canopus is a mixed bag, with problems with corruption, crime and poor education- they're pretty far from a matriarchal utopia. Someone just checked a box back in the 80s and made one of the dozen periphery states a matriarchy.

IIRC the Taurian drop ship pilot/Navigator mentions that and also that their leader is "not all bad"

I thought some of the rescues were male but might be wrong.

BattleTech novels and SL tech seem to often go together -

Trying to reinstall. Sadly my game has been crashing every single time I play since the update. Annoying as feth all.

Hope to fix it. Addressing the topic at hand, I think you simply can't escape "political" messages anywhere in today's world and I agree it's tiresome. I can ignore most of it (because, shocker...it never enriches a story). I didn't find it overwhelming in Btech, it just received a cursory "Oh, we're doing that...okay". moment from me.

It does smack of a college-tuition pamphlet of diversity in the game (awkwardly so). Whatever, the game is still pretty excellent.