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[Mavek]

I worry that PGI is spending so much time nerfing FOTM builds, that they are losing sight of long term goals. Then again, I can see that balancing each weapon is very important. But the long term solutions to mech diversity and boating cannot be found in the weapons themselves.

It is known that the hard core units/clans out there have a short list of mechs/builds that their members are even ALLOWED to use during team drops. This is not good for diversity or fun for anyone except hard core mechwarrior RP'rs that believe their lives depend on winning this game...and no matter how many times PGI nerfs the flavor-of-the-month build, we will always find a new 'best build' to roll with.

PGI should be using the Mech Bay to its advantage, by giving us drop options that make us choose our mechs and builds wisely. This meta game is a big reason so many of us enjoy Mechwarrior to begin with. It also gives us the best possible reason to have 20 mechs in our mech bays, and alieviates the idea that we 'always have to play with the same mech to win'...or P2W.

When planetary terrain control gets here, there should be a good way for PGI to vary the drops so that players can play in the ones that are most fun to them. Maybe we wont always get to use our favorite build, but if we want mech diversity, we will only find it by diversifying the drops and the value of victory for each drop.

For starters, we have basically two kinds of mechs: Standard Varient and Homegrown. So we should have two basic types of drops.

A) Standard Drops- Mebbe we call them something CBTechy like 'House Drops'.
B) Homegrown Drops- Then call these 'Merc Drops'.

Then we have drop limits:

1) No limit drops. (Worth the most planetary points.) Great for teams decked out with all the best gear, two each in the 6 best FOTM builds possible. Woopee, isn't this fun? We are all in the same mech using the same guns WOOOHOOO!

2) 1 Varient Limit. (Medium points) We did this voluntarily in clan battles in Living Legends, and it worked very well. Great way for units to target each other and choose relatively even mechs.

3) C-Bill Drops. (Lowest risk/ Lowest points) Limiting the amount of C-bills available you makes you make some choices. Do you take a big low tech mech, or a medium sized, medium tech mech, or mebbe a smaller, higher tech mech. Maybe someone has already clicked ready on this team that has come in well under the average cbill amount per player for this match and now you have some more cbills to play with. This is the answer to all those questions about why anyone would use cheaper weapon systems or standar chassis, etc. This was the great equalizer in CBT.

Now you have plenty of drop diversity for players to choose from.

a1) Standard varient + no limit
a2) Standard varient + 1 varient limit
a3) Standard varient + C-bill limit
a4) Standard varient + 1 varient + c-bill limit

b1) Homegrown + no limit
b2) Homegrown + 1 varient limit
b3) Homegrown + C-Bill limit
b4) Homegrown + 1 Varient + C-Bill limit

I'm not trying to say that either Standard or Homegrown matches should be worth more than the other. But maybe one could be. Maybe the assaulting house would be forced to greater limitations the closer to the capital they get, and the defenders would get less limitations as they are pushed closer and closer to home. There are some good possibilities here.

Implement a 'Drop Zone'. Let players see not only what planets are up for grabs, but also what kind of matches the other side has players readying up for in defense or assault of those planets. You wont get to see exactly what they have, but by the types of matches that players are piling into, you will be able to select your mech and get into a match quickly.

And OMG, the player base will be deciding what kind of play they like best. Not the poor developers that are having to spend all their time coming up with short term solutions for short term players whining about too many boats and not enough diversity.

For those of you wanting a PUG only match...I thought about it. The drop zone would inherently both nullify and create PUG matches on its own. If you can select any match, there would be nothing to keep a 12man team from disbanding the team and all selecting the same match. At the same time, if you are a PUG (like me) you are getting to choose your drop, so you can avoid going against 12mans. You will end up against a 12man sooner or later, but if you play a lot, you'll figure out who they are and which games they play.