this is free to play, paying does not give you an advantage, it just gets you stuff quicker.
the stuff you can buy with real money includes:
preorder Mech packs, get new models months before free players do, occasionally a new Mech turns out to be really good
Hero Mechs with 30% bonus Cbill income and diferant hardpoints to cbill variants, heroes are not usualy overpowered, and are sometimes the worst variant
Champion Mechs, upgraded loadouts with 30% extra XP income, you can build exactly the same Mech for cbills without the bonus XP
Premium time, increases Cbill and XP earnings by 50%, also unlocks options for private matches, however a match must have 2 with premium time for less than 12v12
paint and
cammo, one shot cammo is cheep but is a single application to that Mech, unlock unlocks toe cammo for all variants of that chassis e.g. all Spiders, but costs 10x as much as one shot, buy paints and they are unlocked for any Mech
cockpit items
exchange Mech XP for GXP Modules need unlocking with GXP which accumulates at 5% the rate of Mech XP, so when finished leveling a Mech you can spend MC to convert extra Mech XP to GXP
on the meta, irrelevant in the lower tiers, piloting skill is more important than Mech build, teamwork is more important than piloting skill
there are 3 types of play,
Solo Quick Play, you just login choose a Mech and play, there to have fun and earn cbills. you are placed on a "team" with 11 other individuals, a little communication or organization goes a long way, you are the Blue team, the enemy are the Red team.
Group Quick Play, the teams are more organized, you are likely to get punished more for a mistake but as you are working with a group the games are much more interesting.
Faction Play, originally known as Community Warfare, you take a contract with 1 of 10 factions, 4 Clans and 6 Inner Sphere Factions, to fight for a map of the galaxy, this should be getting a major upgrade in April but for now you must first take a contract, I strongly recommend against taking a permanent contract. then you need to choose 4 Mechs which fit within the weight limits, at current that is 160 minimum 260 maximum, when one Mech dies you choose which you want to use next.
if you are Clan you can only use Clan Mechs, IS can only use IS Mechs.
You queue up on a planet and when there are 12 people a match forms, you then wait for an enemy team to form, if after 10 minutes no enemy show up you just drop against the base.
If the enemy turn up the attackers have to kill the base, the defenders have to protect the base, first kill gate generators to open gates (you can jump over the gates if your Mech has Jumpjets but not everyone will), then there are O Gens to kill, finally kill the "omega" a generator on the back of a big gun
There is also a counter attack mode where the base is already captured by the attacking team so roles are reversed there is only 1 objective then it is down to kills, if the objective "Omega"
(in this case a mobile field base not the big gun) is intact the defenders
(the team who wanted to attack) win, if the defenders have more Mechs left they win, to win the attackers have to knock out the Omega and finish with more survivors.
this game is growing with new features added periodically, new Mechs are added most months, there is some interesting stuff on the way including new game modes for both quick play and faction play due over the next few months, this is not a twitch shooter, even light Mechs can usualy take a few hits unless you let a big Mech have time to line up a shot on you, however if half the enemy team is shooting at you even a 100 ton Atlas (probably the most durable Mech in the game) goes down inside 10 seconds.
in terms of how often you need to be online, that does not matter for any of the game modes, you can play any as little or often as you want, however play more often and you will probably get better more quickly.
while you can improve individual Mechs by unlocking skills or customizing them, and there are modules to unlock which can give you a few % advantage there is no leveling the player up other than Player Skill Rating which is completely skill based and mostly aimed at getting you fair games, and it does not improve your stats except by you becoming more skilled.
in the long term especially if you want to get into faction play you will likely want to join a unit (player run team, equivalent or a guild or clan in other games), playing with friends feels more rewarding.
Edited by Rogue Jedi, 11 February 2016 - 09:47 AM.
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