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In the lore of Battletech, 'mech warriors only had access to ONE 'mech, and then if it were damaged beyond the point of repair, they would almost always become of the 'dispossed', having to become a technician or foot soldier.
Only on EXTREME RARE occassions would warriors EVER get a chance at a second 'mech.
This game provides the players far, FAR, to many choices that go so beyond the Battletech Universe that we can't really even consider MWO to be "Battletech." What MWO is, I can't say for certain, but as we're still in BETA, maybe it's not too late to change course and steer this back closer to the lore of the Battletech so many of us know and love.
My recommendation is that PGI remove ALL but one slot from the 'mech lab, and that customizing 'mechs be something that is only available by random chance, with random items available.
This random chance would have to be extremely small, say one in every 1000 visits to the 'mech lab, and the variety of engines and weapons would need to be equally small and based on lore measurements of availability. Say for example that when if you received a chance to modify your 'mech you'd recieve, at most, 5 items. One being a machine gun, another being some standard laser, small or medium, another item being a short range missle, most probably SRM2 or an SRM4, and so on.
There should only be a one in 10,000 chance to upgrade engines as the fusion engine is THE MOST expensive and complex part of the battlemech to replace and modify.
Along the lines of IS warfare, CBILL rewards need to be SIGNIFICANTLY reduced. We're talking along the lines of receiving, at most 10,000CB for a victory, and absolutely nothing for a loss. I'm unaware of any losing force in lore being paid after being conquered. Perhaps house units would be, but for houses like Kurita or Liao, there should be a greater than 50% chance that your character would need to be rerolled, having all piloting skills and experienced gain completely reset to zero, as you'd be forced to commit sepeku, or executed sumarily for your failures and cowardice on the battlefield.
Also, if your 'mech is destroyed, there should be an 80% chance of total loss of the 'mech such that, unless the pilot has been able to amass enough money to purchase a new 'mech, he's also forced to delete his character, or continue logging in once a day for his one in 100,000 chance that he's received a replacement 'mech.
Finally, all the choices for battlemode must be reduced, and there should absolutely never be any option to be able to select a map, or select one's team mates.
The game should force everyone to play as IS warriors as documented in lore, period.
(By the way, if you've read all the way to the end, this is a FARCE, I in no way actually advocate this, but I'm hoping to generate some equivelant nay-saying posts from those who believe that the ability to select maps somehow 'breaks' the game from its lore roots. Anyway, have fun with it!)
Edited by Niko Snow, 21 February 2013 - 03:40 PM.
Warning! Satire above
