It was a big mistake to put Canon Mechs in the game and design a system that made them less than functional. The system in even harkons to encouraging the use of different variant design, plucking them right out of technical readouts.
I mean hell, you can customize tanks in a game like World of Tanks... yeah its not 'complex' like Battle Tech, but you can buy the Tank and just play it how it is and it well, just works, that simple. You are even matched against the same or close level of gear. And many Tank "variants" are plucked straight out of history.
And of course, as always, before anyone says "herp derp stock Mechs were bad" need to consider that 1. This is a game. And 2. Its F2P. That last part is important. To encourage people to keep playing the game (especially new players) in their leisure time and well maybe they don't want to bother with customization or anything like that, at least the Mech should just WORK within the confines of a well developed system, whether it be the weapons it comes with or the nuanced "heat" of Mech Warrior games to use said weapons. I should also point out, that a good majority of stock mechs were not actually excessively hot, but very heat neutral, just with sometimes weak-sauce load-outs. But in MWO you can have a weak sauce loadout, but can barely use it... which goes back to the the flaws of the "heat system."
I tried getting some of my friends to play MWO. One them, who had NO knowledge of Battle Tech whatsoever, absolutely LOVED the loadouts on Stock Hunchbacks and always played the same variants. I taught them that they could customize it if they want, but they thought the weapons it came with were just fun to use, but usually got frustrated since he went up against players that slapped on DHS so he was always shutting down in his stock Mech and getting annihilated, but still got really good just trying to use the Mechs as-is. A rare example maybe, I don't know, but definitely happens. My friend also did not have the patience for grinding for gear, he just wanted to launch into games with me and couple others and shoot stuff while trying to win.
Another thing is you aren't really matched against same level gear in MWO, its just really pure random with your earned skill base of a Mech type. The Heat System also is not fixed as pointed out here and thousands of times, since each Mech can have a varying "heat cap" based on heat sink type, number of heat sinks, and unlocks. That right there is a huge flaw and mistake with the system. I can't even imagine how much work would need to be done to fix it all from scratch...
Edited by General Taskeen, 05 February 2014 - 07:24 PM.