It doesn't matter either way now, the damage is already done.
It's funny you brought EVE up in this analogy though, because CCP did a similar thing that was equally as stupid and detrimental to their game.
Back a while now, can't remember the exact date, CCP listened to someone they shouldn't have, and decided to try and monetize first person play on stations. The thing that did the real damage here wasn't Walk in Stations, or even the monetization of it through real-cash-only clothing and other bauble-head micro-transactions. It was the mandatory Graphics card minimum that was slapped onto the game, where previously anyone with a functioning potato could play. The very next day most of us didn't log back on, not because we didn't want to, but because we couldn't as our potatoes fell below the "NEW" minimum requirement. It was a very similar experience to the introduction of Ghost Heat. People just didn't log back in the next day, and many haven't, and won't be, returning.
The EVE company I was in, before WiS and GFX card minimums, was easily over 100 players/accounts (many players wold run up to 5 or 6 accounts simultaneously) active at any one time. After, it was like an apocalypse or something had wiped them all out, nobody logged back in after the update, all gone, never to return. Sure some people still played, but things in EVE have never been the same since.
Same thing happened to MWO with the Ghost Heat, everyone in a 48 strong unit(bar 3 die hards) said "F**K it" and never came back. People didn't want this level of hand-holding in MWO, the truth is Ghost Heat broke many builds, and took away the most entertaining things we had in game.
As for Balance, that's ridiculously easy to fix, just remove all hard point restrictions all together, if it fits crit-wize and it fits tonnage-wise that should be all the restrictions we need. PGI's "NEED" to hold our hands while we make our mechs is another reason all this is falling down like a house of cards. The more restrictions, the less the imagination, very simple really.
Edited by Drunken Skull, 22 August 2016 - 02:15 PM.