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[OldGrayDonkey]

Well,

Here we go again. TLDR: This game is in serious need of a 2.0 reboot. Some suggestions at the end to improve the skills, mechlab, and meta game.

I keep watching this game, trying it out now and then, but nothing seems to get better. I had high hopes for it, but it continues to suffer from poor design choices. It was often said in Beta that this game was too much like World of Tanks. I'm sure the forums are full of this comparison, but here is one more:

1. In WoT, you have crews. Each member of the crew learns skills that make sense for the gameplay, because there are actually multiple members of a tank crew, and you can't play all of them at once. So things like driving better, faster loading of weapons, repairs, etc., it makes sense to have skills for these abstracted human actions. In MWO, we have Pilot skills. None of the pilot skills, as they are now written, have anything to do with actually being a pilot. They have everything to do with the mechanics of a Mech. Faster turning, acceleration, all things under control of servos and electronics in the Mech, with nothing contributed by the pilot. There may be some bluriness in this, but nothing in the skill tree makes any sense. Now, you might try to argue that the pilot gets better and learns certain tricks, maybe, but adding 10% arc to the arms? He might be good, but he's not so good that he'd be able to push his mech's arms through the stops.

2. 2x Experience each day. WoT has it, so now we have it in MWO. Why? The amount of experience necessary to unlock a mech's initial tree is nothing compared to the cost of buying a new mech to work on the next variant because for some reason you can't unlock the 2nd tier of skills unless you've learned it on at least three variants of the same platform. Again, it makes no sense. In WoT, it makes perfect sense because it takes a long time to unlock all the equipment on a tank, and when you're done with equipment, you can send all that extra experience into the crew. It's a loooonnnggg way to maxing out a tank and crews. In MWO, it's just wasted because you'll probably dump those variants with all that experience on them that you'll never use. Maybe if the devs gave an option to convert all experience earned to GFX once you finish the first tier, it might make sense, but I doubt they'd do that.

3. Mechlab. K, we asked for a 3D mechlab. What did we get? A one axis 3D spinning model on a 2D background. A horrible interface for finding and mounting gear. There are some good points to the lab... esthetics are not one of them. WoT has a full 3D mechlab, and seriously, they don't even need one. They just did it cause it's cool to spin around your tank and look at it from all angles, unlike here where it's just a toy. The mechlab would be the one place they could really drive home the size and scale of mechs. How about a mechlab where we see all our mechs in bays around the room and we select our mech by walking to it with people working on them to scale? (or clicking on it, doesn't have to be like Star Citizen where you actually climb into the mech).

4. Dropships. Ok, so I'm getting into the mood, sitting at the team screen, looking at a generic map of the area. No tactical advice, just a "ready" button to click and we all sit and watch everyone get ready. Why the heck can't we at least be told where we're going to be dropped to? If there are nodes to harvest, then show them. Give me some tactical information about the situation we're dropping into. Let us start planning from the moment we're in the scenario. WoT doesn't do this either, but it's less an issue there. Yes, the more you play, the less this is an issue, but just seems that if I was sending a team of mechs into battle, I'd want them to know as much about what they were getting into as possible.

5. Meta game... what meta game? WoT doesn't have one either, but lets see... WoT is a game about tanks battling tanks in it's own setting that the developers had complete control of. MWO is the latest in a long line of Mechwarrior/Battletech games. More on this later.

6. Combat. Well, this is one that isn't too bad, but it's not perfect. For instance, targeting. This is an advanced civilization, the pinicle of technology, and the best method they have of targetting anything is by looking at it. Seriously? Does anyone on the development team understand how sensors work? You don't have to line of sight everything. Sensors, that are supposedly mounted in our mechs because I have a few slots dedicated to it, can only see forward? I'd fire the engineer that came up with that design. Once again, it's just stupid design.

7. Maps. WoT has 35+ maps and counting. MWO, about 10. Granted, WoT has a few years head start on them. MWO maps aren't too bad, just need more of them.

So now you all can look up my stats and start flaming me on them. Sure, I don't play that well. But let me put out a few other stats that aren't on the page. I started playing Battletech with the Battletech: The Cresent Hawks Inception. A more of an RPG game that had the same kinds of choices for mechs and weapons that you have in MWO today, only it was done maybe 25 years ago. I played and beat the Cresent Hawks Revenge, the true first Real Time Strategy game because it was out years before Dune was. I played the original Mechwarrior, in all it's 8bit color glory. I played and beat Mechcommander 1&2. I played Mechwarrior 2, 3, and 4, though the shift to Microsoft in 4 didn't sit very well. I played and beat the whole Earthsiege series, and yes, Hercs were better than Mechs.. at least they could lead predict a moving target.

So out of all that, I am absolutely convinced in saying that MWO is the worst implementation of the Battletech universe I've every played. Its lack of common sense game design is really hurting what it could be.

To maybe help make it better, here are some suggestions:

1. Dump the whole skill tree arrangement. If you want a faster mech, get a faster engine. If you want arms that turn faster, remove some armor. If you want a better pilot, quite frankly, I don't see how you can do this because WE are the pilots, and the whole skills like in WoT don't seem to apply here as much. There is a one-to-one correlation between the mech pilot and us. We provide the true skill that makes things really count, so if you want some kind of a tree to unlock things, then I suggest you find alternate technology paths. The modules are a decent design, but they need to be decoupled from the mechs. Pilots should have their own tree completely free from the mechs they pilot. That can be unlocked with GFX, or some other experience pool. If you want more options, make the modules scalable so that the higher you go up the tree, the better they become.

Just please, stop making us buy mech after mech variant to unlock them. This just wastes money and provides little value because the fun is playing with loadouts ourselves in the Mechbay. The Mechbay is where we should be chosing our weapons, not buying a new variant to get the same basic mech but now with a missle rack option instead of a large laser. As it is now, I have to save all my money to buy variants and can't afford to play in the lab that much.

And really, I've played many games that redo their skill tree. World of Warcraft does it every expansion practically. There's plenty of precendence to say old designs can be dumped in favor of better ones.

2. Targetting. Get rid of the LOS model and go with a full 360 degree sensor model. If someone is pounding the ground at full tilt, they should be lighting up every sensor within a mile of them. If they power down, they should be only be detectable visibly (this effect may be in the game now, but I'm not sure. I don't see it very often done). If someone is shooting me from behind, he should be lit up everywhere. The biggest problem the current implementation produces is that this model forces you to expose your main torso too much.

3. Achievments. Again, WoT has them, so now MWO does. A step in the right direction for dealing with the lack of currency for buying mechs, but too few of them. Need some dailies to help.

4. Add the meta game. I know this is a little tougher and will take some time, but you need to bring the Battletech universe into this game more than just the houses and clans. Mechwarrior has always been about the larger universe. MWO is missing this part completely.