Bud Crue, on 14 October 2017 - 12:14 PM, said:
Huh. Seems to me that is exactly what we are now experiencing. These up coming changes are no more about balance than last month's. These changes are nothing more that a mechanism to force us to do things like what I was just doing: spending some xp and sp points to modify a mech from one build to another, spending some cbills replacing weapons and (and a slightly smaller engine damn it) so as to not suffer the consequences of the latest nerf to what I had been having decent results in. So stay tuned for next months totally predictable and inevitable changes when other of your favorite mechs and weapons get hit, so you can continue to participate in PGI's new economy of constant change.
Endless grind. Not sure how it fits their economic model. I'm a relatively new player coming on, and am just beginning to build up my mech collection. It is a pain in the *** when I think I finally have a build 'worked out' and can file it away and move on, buying a new pack to grind up some more builds. I'm less likely to purchase new mech packs if I have to go back and spend weeks grinding to re-build old mechs that no longer work anymore due to balance changes.
Some balance changes I am in favor of. I don't mind the gauss/PPC meta getting nerfed down. The old clan small pulse laser was very much OP and nerfing it was not a bad idea. However, I haven't seen many SPL's on the battlefield after they nerfed it into oblivion. I would like to have seen rather than a general laser nerf, a very slight buff to IS and clan SPL's to see if they could find a place again. That and light gauss and light PPC could maybe use a small buff of some kind (maybe in cooldown?). In general right now I feel like the battlefield has a pretty good sustainable mix of weapon opportunities; with the exception that small pulses and the light gauss/light PPC aren't really incorporated much.
And in general the grind process is a pain in the *** and I can only imagine very intimidating for new players. If PGI had any balls they would kill the whole skill tree system entirely. That would both lower the pain threshold for new players, and as a side effect work out to a general increase in the TTK.