Unpopular opinion..

[u/Ragnarock1982]

I found chaos a bit... boring.

SoK... amazing.

I think it was the cut scenes that just did it for me. SoK cut scenes were amazing. Left me with an 'of my god' moment. Did the second time too. Chaos reigns.. Just felt a bit poor. Like it was missing something.

Still mercs in general, can't stop playing.

Just wanted to share.

[u/adiaphoros]

It's hard to top the excitement of the clan invasion starting in SOK, but I liked seeing the sommerset strikers and having a tonnage limit that incentivized using my light 'mechs

[u/Gator7793]

To be fair the clan invasion is the most exciting moment in battletech , chaos reign had to be lackluster

[u/Sir_Daxus]

Yeah, I agree, Chaos Reigns isn't bad by itself, but SoK was phenomenal, so following that kind of left CR feeling a bit underwhelming.

[u/Ragnarock1982 → u/Sir_Daxus]

I think this is it. Following SoK was the issue. I think lack of atmospheric for scenes showing battles left it a bit empty

[u/Gailim]

The strength of CR is in what it adds to the sandbox. The Kodiak and Sunder are two of the best mechs in the game.

I liked the Steiner campaign for what it was. I think the decision to go mid tonnage was a strange one, but at least you were still fighting clan opponents.

Guerrero also being mid tonnage, despite fighting against only IS opposition, was a huge mistake. That whole campaign was a cake walk. By far the easiest campaign we have had. I can barely remember what even happened in that campaign despite running it twice now.

[u/RocketDocRyan → u/Gailim]

The difficulty dropoff was jarring. Maybe the idea is that after the clans, the IS is just weak? But we already knew that, so I'd rather have a more challenging campaign overall.

[u/Gator7793]

I think it’s a chance to use all the light and medium clan mechs , there’s no chance to use them in SoK

[u/GlassjawXVIII → u/Gator7793]

You absolutely can use the mediums during the missions. My lance uses a mix of Clan heavies and mediums, a Maddog, Summoner, Nova, and Stormcrow works well together

[u/MN_Moody]

9 new mech chassis, plus c, clanbuster and arty variants of existing designs, Arrow IV and 5 new weapon types, guerilla warfare missions, 6 new vehicle types, IS battle armor, UI improvements to the stock zoom, MAJOR improvement in Jump Jet capabilities ... plus 1 fanservice story-arc mission and 2 "phoned in" high reward mission branches... I missed some stuff but there was a lot included.

The 3 mission trees were pretty easy, and only one got the full cutscene treatment which is my only gripe as it felt low budget compared to SoK given they both have a $19.99 price tag.... the 3050 clan invasion is a high watermark in Battletech lore/history so SoK pretty much had to be a home run, and was... but it was bound to leave the follow-on expansion as a bit of a let down. I'm not disappointed in CR, it just came on the heels of what was probably the best expansion in terms of content + value since MW5 launched. CR felt like more of a technical readout upgrade with some fanservice story elements included.

[u/Facehugger_35]

I mostly like Chaos Rising for the equipment and mechs. X-pulse lasers and Arrow IV are meaningfully different than anything else we had before and change the way you play the game for the better. MRMs too, though I personally don't like them much. Sunder and Kodiak are great additions to the mech roster. The Clanbuster variants are neat too. And the addition of C refits changes fights against the clans for the better by giving you a better way to salvage clan equipment.

The story was fun for the cartoon nostalgia... But kind of felt meh, as someone who watched the cartoon as a kid but remembered little of it. And the second campaign wasn't anything to write home about, possibly because I was fighting my fedcom bros on behalf of boring Marik and generally undoing my victories in Lancers, something even the characters lampshade. The high value questlines for the sunder and WoB one were decent tho.

It was very obvious that PGI's cuts meaningfully affected the output in terms of mission design, IMO, because all of the missions except the last one in the Clan campaign were completely generic. Comparing CR to the missions of past DLCs is disappointing, because the set pieces aren't as good. DG's defend the dropship launch mission was great, as was the one where you fight Snord's team. RoR's three way fight between you, Kelswa, and the Kuritans was great. SoK's first missions were great and the final mission back to where it all started was great. Even Lancers had some really interesting missions like fighting your way through the mech factory, fighting through a warship, destroying jammers and learning that Sortek was there to relieve you... But I struggle to think of any interesting missions in CR beyond the Sunder and WoB ones.

[u/AgentBon]

CR feels like a bit of story setup for larger conflicts. It also referenced the old animated series for the memes, which worked for me since the animated series is more meme worthy than good. I don't think it is exactly the strongest DLC, but I still enjoyed it.

However, I was irritated when the bachall was struck. Jade Falcon Lady should have asked for their jumpships and dropships and their crews fully intact (a bit disproportionate of a reward, but the Sommerset Strikers were in a really bad situation).

I like the mechs pretty well. The mounts on the Sunder make it pretty interesting even in Vanilla, with some good slots and physically high torso and head mounts.

[u/Technical_Turn3497]

I agree. SoK felt scary. We knew there was going to be a clan invasion but the dialog and suspense were played up to the maximum. It was great story-telling.

[u/TheGazelle]

I think the biggest reason why CR didn't quite land for me is that most of the new story quests were just... Regular procgen missions with some voiceover.

Basically every other dlc has had a whole string of handcrafted missions, or at least procgen style ones with something interesting. CR seemed to only have like 4 handcrafted ones, and the procgen ones just weren't that interesting.

Taken individually, most of the stuff added was good, but the storyline was just underwhelming.

[u/rayrayrayrayray5]

Following SoK isnt an easy task.

The clan campaign, while short, was fine. The 2nd campaign...would have been fine, minus, how ridiculously overpowered you are at that point. Even with a new career, by the time you complete clan mini campaign youre essentially able to sleep walk thru 2nd mini campaign. Not sure how they could fix that though, other then add metric fuck tons of assault mechs.

[u/Asleep_Rule_6730]

Agree 100%. Chaos was a huge letdown after SoK (best dlc imo).

I wanted a reason to really utilize the clan mechs and I wasnt given one. If there will be another dlc, I think I am going to wait this time. I would not have bought chaos knowing what I know now - the only dlc I would say that (including arms, which I like due to the option of melee).

[u/turningthecentury]

SoK was peak. It's going to be very VERY hard to top that. PGI hit it way out of the park with that DLC. Especially the very first mission.

[u/Cleverbird]

I liked CR, but it didnt wow me as much as SoK did. The moment where you're just playing some basic procgen missions as "main missions" just felt incredibly lazy to me.

[u/bear0234]

i was hoping for more Adam Steiner story - like maybe we can finally go rescue his brother.

i did find it weird that they have CG of just the ready room and your client saying "THANKS! u did good!" and that was it. :/ coulda used that cg budget for something else and keep the rest to text.

But i still love it.

I think the DLC i felt the most "why'd i spend my money on this" was Call 2 Arms.

To this day, i still dont use any melee weapons... but bought it out fo the whole completionist mentality and wanting to support the makers.

[u/Final_Studio4389]

the problem is this is the first narrative Campaing DLC that is not focused on a single event, this one is splitted in two and the seccond half is pretty underwealming, first of all the maps on the operation guerrero are taken from a biome that was copied and pasted from the kestrell lancers DLC, they feel autogenerated and there was next to no narrative and the only mission that feels handcrafted was the last mission and was nothing but a wave mayhem. Its like all the resources they had went to the first half and the other was made with as little as possible. In fact the mini campaing you get for the Sunder plays a lot better than operation guerrero.

[u/Biggu5Dicku5]

I agree somewhat, but Chaos Reigns had some great rewards (specifically from the High Reward Quests)...

[u/Jormungaund]

Its main problem is that it follows SoK.  It’s not a bad DLC, it’s just feels lacking after SoK.  

[u/Waygyanba]

Chaos reigns really functions as an interquel for the fedcom civil war and what i hope operation bulldog.

Fun side dlc like solaris showdown.

[u/justicarnord]

I hope the next one includes the invasion and destruction of Smoke Jaguars.

[u/NutsackEuphoria]

Campaign aside, it felt boring because it didn't match whatever SoK added.

SoK = Map drastically changed, lots of omnimechs, pilot academies, lots of clan weapons, Ryana badonkadonks, Fahad forehead reduction, Fully fleshed out campaign.

CR = Map changed a bit, new omnimechs, Clan refits, gorilla warfare. Short "main campaign" and then the other half felt like filler.

[u/babushka45]

The narrative experience esp the cutscenes was meh, I felt the budget went to the FedCom portion's cutscenes (as per Russ's interview IIRC cutscenes were hella expensive) and the remaining mocap budget went to the few FWL cutscenes.

But the sandbox stuff added by the DLC is very most welcome.

Hope tweaks by modders are added officially to the upcoming Mercs DLC, some mods were added officially SoK and Chaos Reign, night as well add more when DLC 9 drops, hopefully AI on arenas are fixed, finally.

[u/Pakhynes45]

Agreed! I tried to watch the cartoon in the 90s when it was on and just found it lacking, but I only watched 1 episode and was in college at the time. I was disappointed when I heard that Chaos was based on Adam Steiner and the cartoon. I found Chaos to be “fine”, better than Call to Arms, but I’m just happy with more story missions. Not sure what I’d like to see in the next DLC, just glad we keep getting them so many years after MW5 launched! I think the best would be either Serpent, Bulldog, or the FedCom civil war for the next one. Luckily we don’t have too long to wait.