sneeking, on 01 February 2014 - 01:01 AM, said:
a map specific strategy would be to launch in the right mech with a build to suit the conditions no ?
apparently this is too obvious for pgi, mission intell and a mission specific loadout derp

Problem: This is a lore based game, as much as feasible and still have fun, and within reason.
In lore, IS mechs (not Omni designs) would take weeks or even months to alter for a specific customization. This would mean, either you waited months between missions to create specific loadouts for it, or you went in anyway with what you had and tried to send the best default configurations into the missions, normally with the pilots who are already use to those mechs. Often times, this lead to designs being used in any situation, even if they were not created for that specific situation.
Now, Camo, agreed. They changed that based on the terrain around your mech.
Omni though "changed the rules" of mech warfare, which is what contributed to Clan Omni mechs being considered so powerful and superior to IS standard mechs. Omni mechs could quickly and easily switch out pods to change the mech for different situations, roles and missions. This led to far more efficient designs no matter what the mission was, as between fights they could be switched out to better suit the situation at hand.
This ability to quickly change loadouts of their mechs was something that the IS standard mechs was incapable of. All our current mechs are standard mechs, and thus should not be able to be "changed between missions". You could possibly convince me that you might be able to select from a small pool of mechs to maybe have one that would better suit the mission at hand. To counter that thought by lore though (in game I wouldn't care about this bit), most mechwarriors only owned one mech, and not the lance(s) of mechs we can earn and own in this game right now. They cost money to maintain and to move and store.
I can't decide if you are joking with that emote at the end, or trying to make your post seem less harsh than it really is. PGI has actually been fairly good with what they have currently if you asked me, seen as most every mission is the same: "Kill all enemies", with a sometimes "Cap the base(s)". Personally, I rather like the "drop with what you have and go" we have right now. Your suggested approach would only emphasize specialist builds and make more balanced designs even more obsolete or useless than they already are viewed as. Why make an energy build that can run in Therma heat at all, when you can just use that energy build only on ice maps?
If what you suggest was implemented as I am taking it (correct me if I am wrong), this is what I would see happening:
River City (and other small maps): Brawling only designs.
Alpine (and other large maps): Long range only builds.
Frozen City (and other cold maps): Hot energy builds suggested.
Terra Therma (and other hot maps): Cold running designs, mostly limited to ACs only.
This would do nothing more than create a "map meta", and all of a sudden a build that is made to brawl but has a few long range weapons to help on larger maps go away (which was very cannon and very Battletech to have a brawler even in maps not suited to it). Energy builds that are made to work with good heat management would become stupid, as you would only play them on a cold map making heat management less of an issue. You would see nothing but ACs for the most part on any hot map, as anything else would be less effective.
Personally, I like seeing the variety I see in matches with the current system, even with sometimes overly strong metas making variety less seen. Knowing what map you are dropping into and changing your ride to match (either with mech selection, or customizing your mech) would drop a lot of variety and challenge from the game, and would drag the MWO game away from MW and Battletech. (If one is permitted to customize the mech itself to the mission/map, this will diminished the "effective" mech pool even more, and we already have several mechs that people consider "bad" as it is. Mechs that have different weapon type slots, particularly ballistic, would become even more valuable.)
(This is, of course, all my thoughts, opinions and concepts of what might happen. What would happen is anyone's guess, and I'm sure arguments could go either way with evidence on either side.)