Disclaimer: this may stomp on many toes, sorry if its one of yours. This is meant to be just my HONEST and BLUNT take on things right now.

They said they would not make this game P2W, but, so slowly they are. I knew deep in my heart back when the FIRST hero mechs came around that that was a bad omen. I spoke up, said as much, and people, including <STILL INCLUDING> dev's all said: its not pay to win to have a hero mech. No, it is. It is an IN GAME ITEM obtainable by REAL MONEY only. They slipped it in, no one thought much <speaking to the masses, not the minority who saw it for what it was/is> and then, they <PGI> got bolder, added in consumables. It was a slippery slope to start with, and PGI is headed down that hill, full tilt, head first. It will not be long before we see gold ammo or other crap. Bad enough we have consumables that they laughably try to hide behind the: well you can buy the lesser variant with in game cash scam. Folks, lets look at something here, a real honest look.

1. "This game is being designed to be 100% First person only." That WAS a key design pillar. That is partially quoted from Paul Inouye, Lead Designer. Full statement here: http://mwomercs.com/...__fromsearch__1

Now? They are going to add in 3rd Person Point of view's to draw in 'more players' even though there are many threads where we all decry this as a bad idea.


2. "This game is not going to have Pay 2 Win. It is the skill you bring to the fight that decides the match, not your wallet." This started to fade out when Hero mechs were introduced. It slipped by because they said the hero mechs had no real advantage over the base versions. Well, why then can they only be attained by real money then? See, the truth in pay to win is this, anything that can ONLY be purchased by means of real money is a paid for advantage, even more so, when the item costs as much as some video games or movies. Then, they slipped in consumables, which, lets face it, is disturbing on a few levels. The C-Bill versions are lacking compared to the MC versions. Advantage to real money.

3. "They stated that they were never going to add in a coolant flush system, because they wanted heat management to be a key thing". Well, uh, why then add in coolant pods as a consumable. While, I always thought we should have them, how they got added was disturbing.

4. "Time in the MWO Universe is 1:1 with Earth, so, if it is say January 1, 2013 then, it is January 1, 3050." Okay, I admit THAT is a cool thing, BUT, and there is always a BUT. They have forsaken even this. See, if you are a hard core BTU fan, then you know what SHOULD be going on right now. Yes, that's right, the CLAN INVASION. See, we DID see a blurb from the news network persona about Phelan Kell going missing. This happened in lock step with the establish canonical timeline. THEN, comes the day most of us Clan <Canon/Lore Clan that is> fans dreamed and waited some 18 YEARS FOR. March 20, 2013 or more correctly: March 20, 3050, the day the first true wave of the invasion by Clans Jade Falcon and Clan Wolf started. BUT, where are they? No where to be seen.

Look, I get it, this is a huge title, and there are a lot of things that must be done to live up to the epic nature of the BattleTech Universe and what we rabid fans demand, I really get it. But, what I fail to grasp is why this is being handled the way it is. There are things going on in this game that boggle my mind. Some glitches that have existed since I hit closed beta back in June still exist, some bugs left only to return, while others yet seem to grow stronger each and every time we patch. I could go on about the many confusing things, but, this is getting long enough as it is. I close with: this is just my take on things, nothing more nothing less. Let this stand as my honest if blunt take on things.

I am genuinely horrified now. I just ran a test on the testing grounds with my normal setup in my AS7-D(F). For my test, I used my Gauss Rifle only. I always have the overkill of 80 rounds on my mech. Just a personal quirk that.

Okay, here is why I am horrified. I presume that all AI static target mech's are at the most basic of setups with regards to things like structure, armor and so on. SO..with this in mind, I figure, I can set up any angle and any range I want and have at it. By the way, way to go PGI on making a REAL tutorial of sorts that at least lets new players learn and old vets tweak!! ANYWAY...

I march up on an Awesome, stand 340m DIRECTLY BEHIND IT. Where, logic says its thinnest armor is. I line my gauss rifle up, and by my math, 2-3 shots TOPS before I core it, according to canon and lore. Shot 1. As expected, some damage. Shot 2. More damage, but I noticed: not yet a critical issue. Shot 3. I expected to punch into and out of the reactor.. NOPE. 4 shots later it falls dead. ALL shots into RCT. Paper Doll targeting confirmed this. I think to myself, well, maybe I am just off on my math. So, I march on.

Found me my mech, an AS7-D. I line up, 100m infront, line up on the cockpit, think to myself, I know this math, no guessing needed. 3 shots. 1, 2, 3.... still standing, all damage recorded into the cockpit by paper doll. 4, 5 THEN it falls.

This is staggeringly bad. Worse, when I found a Jenner to try this on in its center torso.... same thing 5 shots before it fell dead.

I am sorry to say it, but a weapon that does 15 damage by TT standards should by any stretch of the imagination be devastating in this game, and it is not. This is heresy in the extreme. the AC-20 and Gauss Rifle, are this universes biggest mech portable guns that we have in this game. 20 dmg on AC-20 and 15 on Gauss. The double armor and structure that is STILL in this game has GOT to go, or the damage MUST be increased to maintain canon and lore and TT values for power, or why use them, when you can save money and load up on cheaper weapons that hit JUST as hard which make the biggest guns a joke.

I wish to take a moment of time from everyone who may come past this thread. I want to take a moment an honor those who have fallen in the name of Scientific Exploration and Manned Space Flight.

From Apollo One, I honor you Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee.

From Space Shuttle Challenger Mission STS 51-L, I honor you Greg Jarvis, Christa McAuliffe, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Michael J. Smith, Francis Richard Scobee.

From Space Shuttle Columbia Mission STS 107, I honor you Rick D. Husband, William C. McCool, Michael P. Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David M. Brown, Laurel Clark, Ilan Ramon.

Although the seventeen of you may have passed away, your spirit remains with all of those you touched with your lives, and the legacy you each have left to our Space Program. From the tragedies of each of your deaths, we endeavored to learn why you passed away and how to learn from those tragic loses. We applied what we learned to protect those who followed. We endeavor each day to strive to learn how to take man to the Moon and beyond. We each learn what we can from the sacrifice you each made to not only America, but to the Earth itself. We will never forget you or your families. We honor you in our thoughts and prayers and well wishes today. Gods Speed to each and everyone one of you, our Brave and Fallen Explorers. Gods Speed.

Okay guys, I am going to anger a ton of people, I can feel this in my bones, but, this must be said publicly.

Right now, there is a huge problem in this game when it comes to MC related items, this includes the MXP to GXP conversion as an item, which, makes this include the Modules and Pilot Tree's.

We are basically told that, if we want a specific module, we have 2 options: Pay MC to convert the faster MXP into GXP, which, is paying real money into the XP system, which, if you can afford it, is fine, but some of us cannot afford this, even if it is a small fee. OR we can grind the GXP out at like 5-10GXP per match for endless weeks or months until we achieve our goal. Fine if you are patient or working towards a feasible goal of only 2-3000 GXP. But when that goal is 15,000 GXP? This grind becomes the most daunting thing possible, worse than grinding out 3 variants on a mech.

I have spoken to Garth Erlam and he suggested that IF I wanted real answers I should make a post in SUGGESTIONS, so here I am, posting in SUGGESTIONS.

My suggestion is this and PGI/IGP you guys can run with any version of this, as long as it actually improves this horrific grind. I should also state for the record, that since I am going to be playing Canon Clan Wolf, my premium timer and my 20,000 MC are frozen until then, so, I am basically a funky looking regular pilot in a founder mech.

1. Remove GXP entirely, keep the costs the same, but as MXP instead. Simple, easy, especially since most pilots will end up with tons of MXP that has no where to go at some point.

2. Reduce GXP costs to 1% of what they are now. When you pug, and can only get like 100 MXP a match that is like 5 GXP a pop, making 15,000 GXP seem a few galaxies away.

3. Make modules cost ONLY C-Bills, but, instead of say 2,000,000 for 360 radar <which is as standard issue in canon as a fusion reactor by the way, and should be on the mech just as standard AS the fusion reactor> make it cost 10 TIMES what it does, so, 20,000,000, keeps it an 'end game' item but far far easily attainable. This would also make removing the Pilot tree's totally. <this would anger a lot of people I am sure>

4. Make all items that are canonically speaking STANDARD ISSUE part of the mechs from step one. THIS is the best idea imo. There is no reason this cannot be done, as it would stay in the spirit of what PGI/IGP already stated: We are going to stick as close to TT as we can" which, right now, they are about as far away from that and canon as they can get.

These 4 are just a FEW ideas, but they are the swiftest to employ.

Okay folks, here we go again. As we all already know, they <PGI/IGP> are 'considering' the addition of third person views. We had a poll in which over 5000 people voted and said no. That poll has well, been altered to remove the poll itself. So, vote again.