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[00 Newb]

Before I get into the meat... Love the game. Sincerely, thank you for bringing life back into this long loved genre.

A few suggestions to make the game better.

General

1) Unlocks Do What? A F2P person that does not own a mech should be able to take a look at all the unlocks, all the weapon stats, all the everything without owning a mech. The candy needs to be visible on the table so that people can say, "That looks good, I want that."

2) First Mech. Purchasing the first mech is not intuitive. Add a help box for the first one detailing how the process works. The buttons "Buy MC" and "Buy CB" made me think that I was spending real-world cash to buy more MC and CB respectively, not buy the selected mech. I also thought I needed *both* MC and CB to purchase mechs at first, not one or the other.

3) Open Beta Feedback. I expected to find a forum or a website submission form specifically for open beta feedback. I do not know what software development process Piranha is using, but being able to segment out where and when users provide feedback is very helpful to a good scrum or waterfall process.

Mech Lab

1) Trial Mech Access. Trial mech users should be able to enter the mech bay for trial mechs and be able to select the four modification buttons, i.e. loadout. First time users have no idea what the modification experience will be like or get to see all the weapons and options available to them. Trial or otherwise, it should all be open and accessible.

2) Overloadable Building. Part of the fun of putting together the perfect mech is figuring out just how to make it work. Give users the ability to reconfigure their mech the way they want without regard to weight or if they own the equipment. Then when done, do the checks for weight and give them the total cost for them to confirm. If the user wants to see what sacrifices would need to be made by loading up 4 ER PPCs then let them do it, play with their components, and then tell them what are the impacts.

3) Zoomable Mech Window. The current 3D window on the chassis nice. But I would prefer to be able to zoom in and out as I like, not be auto zoomed into hard set views.

4) Module Prerequisites. Okay so the user has to go to the pilot lab and expend experience in order to purchase modules, but this is not intuitive. In the module selection the prerequisites box just shows "This item has not" and stops there. Provide information to the user that they need to go to the pilot lab and purchase the base unlock in order to buy the module.

Pilot Lab

1) Selectable Unlocks. Allow users to select items that are not available to them so that they can see what the items do. The user has no idea what to save up XP for or an ability to generate desire for that really cool upgrade if they can't read about it in game. Users are forced to switch to a website window to read about what other people have posted. What does "Speed Tweak" do? I have no idea because I can not select it to read a description that "may" just push me to want to fill out the basic variants requirements.

2) Better Selection Interface. The user should not have to dig through all the mech variants to get to their pilot unlocks. They do not own every single version of mech so they do not need to see, or dig through, the full list. Provide a selectable check-box to filter out all mechs the user does not own. If the user only has four mechs, then the list should auto-default to only showing those four mechs in ONE list. If the window tracks experience regardless of ownership then the same applies.

Gameplay


1) Select Under Reticle. Please add an option to select the target under the user's reticle. Having to cycle through targets when the thing I want data on is right in front of me is annoying.

2) Destructible Terrain. Please add in destructible terrain. Trees should slow mechs down. Buildings should crumble under the weight of some mechs. Bridges should be able to be dropped. Gas tanks should be destructible and provide effects, like fog or corrosion.

3) Splash Damage. When a mech is destroyed and explodes it should generate splash damage to everything else around it. When a gas tank explodes it should effect nearby mechs.

4) Proximity Collision Damage. Yes, using the Raven to circle and destroy a Atlas is fun, but should be risky. If a Raven gets caught in the middle of Atlas's stride it should be slightly damaging to the Raven, and the Atlas.

5) Mines. Would very much love to have a package that allows a mech to drop mines on the road. The loadout slot cost would be relative to the damage output. (Not sure if this was in the original universe.) This would be a great option for resource protection and urban environments. (And lets face it, if it isn't in the original universe, it would be in reality.)

6) Single User Story. Having a single user - or with friends - story line serves two points. First it gives new players the chance to learn how to play the game. Second it gives casual players an ability to not get bored with the game. Of course, this will incur development cost.

7) User Developed Games. Provide an interface that allows users to generate content. The cost to build the interface is recouped through lower in-house development requirements over time.

8) Tracked Vehicles. The original universe includes tracked vehicles used for lesser support roles. Their addition would give more options to players or even to mission objectives.

9) Transforming Bots. Make the mechs transform into tanks or planes. Okay, I threw this one in to see if you actually read the whole post. Thanks for doing so and hope they these inputs are useful for making the experience and the game better.

~Newb

[Lukoi Banacek]

Some interesting points here. Of course, it also illustrates someone didn't bother to use the search feature, which would likely have provided quite a bit of information to the OP regarding some of your points (G3, GP1-9).