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, cant wait for CW 
just my thoughts and observations of MWO thus far. In terms of gameplay and game balance, few other things that the devs might want to consider.don't mind spending money on new mechs although (some are a bit overpriced) it would be nice to get a free mech slot for buying a mech with MC. It would be especially nice with hero mechs, being that they are usually overpriced and underpowered, saved only by their (usually) faster engine ratings and the cbill bonus (I accept the challenge however). the cbill bonus with hero mechs is nice but it is not really enough compensation for what feels like having one of your arms tied behind your back, as they say. Also give Baby back that extra speed it needs it
On mech variants, I love that there are tons of mechs and many variants of each mech, what I will say about the variants is this, they need more variety in terms of viable builds. All to often mechs only have 1 or 2 truly viable builds, for example; all of the Spiders, the Cat-A1, most of the Highlanders, almost all of the ecm mechs save only the Atlas-DDC. I wont list the rest but there are many examples sadly. All I want to say about this is that I would like for each variant to have at least 3-5 truly viable options of mech loadout and weapons. This is mostly a limitation of weapons selection and heat balance, not hard points. although some of them could have more varied hard points, which is another matter mostly related to the Stalker. On that note there are more examples than just the Stalker of mech variants being far to similar.
Not simply choosing between SSRM or SRM blaster master, is a direct example. I hold nothing against pilots that use mechs with few options/loadouts, I actually own allot of the these mechs including the S/SRM blasta masters because they are good mechs in the right team with the right tactics and that is cool. I would just like to have other options for them if I wanted to experiment while still possibly remaining a competitive build and be useful to my team.
On weapons, we need more, the ones we have already are plenty overbalanced. Simply make LRMs work, to do this make them have 2 fire modes, 1 direct fire, where they lock and fire with no arc and move with great speed, think the LRMs in Mech2, the second fire mode should be an indirect fire barrage with an arc with ground impact indicator that is illuminated on your HUD. let pilots get good with estimating ranges and arcs, skill will now be needed to use LRMs properly. The pilot could choose how far to fire and how much the arc projects over terrain. This will allow Lrms to be truly useful without needing target lock (ecm suddenly becomes cannon) and to give it the advantage of real indirect fire. This solves both the need for a target lock for long range guided use (direct fire) and the unfilled role of artillery (indirect fire) which is what lrms are essentially intended for.
secondly fix streaks, auto-homing is not cannon (neither is guided inner sphere LRMS either but whose counting
), they should simply have a lead indicator on the HUD for the current targeted mech, where the pilot should generally aim to account for flight time. Then give them all the ammo types so we can get down with making mechs to fill a certain role 
.but on weapons I cannot stress this enough, more weapons please. All the current mechs and game balance will greatly benefit from a greater variety of weapons loadouts, where is my super heavy Gauss? my thunder LRM? long tom artillery?. I know there are way too many weapons in Battletech to implement and balance right away, and that choosing which weapons to implement next might seem challenging, especially when you have to go against cannon to maintain game balance, this is an understandable challenge.
So I simply request please at least, start with the basics. ER Med and ER Small Laser, different kinds of missile ammo, add the heavy PPC and a few more PPC variants. maybe just hashing out a few variations of existing weapons is a good way to go, then add the bigger things like Long Tom and Thunder LRM after most of the rank and file weapons are implemented and balanced.
I contend that simply adding more variations of existing weapons will bring in tremendous balance that the whole community will appreciate. One wont have to load his mech with only unbalanced blasta masta builds if one can actually build a fully balanced mech. Which would bring more fun to the game I think. This is because I don't actually enjoy playing exclusively smasher builds, I like to experiment and find niches and roles for my mechs:) .
On the queue...... what can I say. It should be relabled the "Instant Action" button
, and as soon as possible players should be allowed to match up in custom matches and even have control over tourneys like a house or mercenary outfit publicly hosting their own respective tournaments, for example. Also please allow different game options to be chosen before a match as agreed upon by the players. Example being, choice of map, mech weight limits, total tonnage, custom variables such as night/day gravity heat, whether flamers or machine guns are useful or default, I leave the rest to your imaginations .I'm sure there is more but this should suffice for now. All in all I think PGI has made tremendous progress thus far, as I'm sure many forum members have stated before, making any game of this scale, MMO or not takes a great deal of organization and resources.
tyty PGI
