Posted 28 April 2015 - 07:00 AM
My unit was aligned with the clans for this event. I just recently came back after a year away. After reading about all the que lengths for IS players I was extremely happy to drop as clan for this. (I don't care what I drop in, or who I drop for, as long as I can drop) However, that meant I had to drop in 3 trail clan mechs. I only have 1 Stormcrow in my mechbay.
The event was fun for about the first 15 or so drops. Then the mechanics and the drop duration began to be noticeable. I dropped in pre-mades and solo a lot. Obvioulsy I had much higher success when I was in a pre-made. Even a 4-7 man group is a million times better then alone. The match score became an issue. Players played for the 80 points and not the outcomes. I don't want to see the rewards tied to wins, though. Lets face it we are basically beta testing CW right now and it is no where near balanced. The trial mechs were a bear to deal with. This heat management though, made me feel more immersed. Not being able to vomit 3 or 4 alphas made the matches for me, more technical. Positioning, map awareness, effective weapon ranges, weapon groups all came to bear in playing matches, more so then in some of my other mechs, regardless of clan/IS chasis. The unbalanced nature and builds made them test my abilities, more any other player. Not saying I wasn't tested by other players, but combined with trial mechs really gave me a lot of "oh s@#!" moments.
I will hit the 50 event goal. I am clan and have fast drops, and I retired from the military recently and am in school now. It allows for more freedom in my schedule to make time for MWO. Like I said though it hasn't been fun after the first 15 matches. The maps are horribley designed. They are either strong defense maps or strong attack maps. Drop ship camping is real, and until PGI fixes the mechanic, players will take the path of least resistance.
Mechs need to be slowed down. They run around traversing the enviroment to fast for the size of the current maps, and the size of the bigger mechs. They no longer feel cumbersome and heavy. Either a new heat mechanic needs to be invented or something needs to happen to slow down alphas. I don't mind dieing to coordinated fire and good group positioning and tactics, but we have since moved on from that with these alpha strikes.
In the end I think the concept was amazing. I would have loved to see it take place over a longer period of time. I realize PGI may not have that kind of time though and this week is really just data gathering for them. In the end though, I'm not sure I would want to do so a lengthy event again.