Hey, just popped in after 3 years and made a few drop. Could anyone be arsed to sum up what happened since? Which mechs do I really need to have now, any major changes in weapon performances? From what I saw so far, my old mechs seemed alright still.
Since you left until April this year? Basically no changes except one very spiteful patch this March where Chris decided he wanted to completely gigabuff Clan ERPPC and Gauss damage and giganerf cooldowns for all PPCs and Gauss weapons. From April to present:
Chris patch rolled back
Game changes from April 2021 and forward are being developed by a group of experienced players called the Cauldron and implemented by PGI
A whole lotta weapon buffs
A few weapon nerfs
Mobility buffs (KDK, HBK-IIC, FS9, AS7 so far, rest in June)
Canyon network was revised
Polar Highlands was revised (dropping next week)
HPG Manifold is being revised
More changes on the way, i.e. quirks, weapon/mobility fine tuning, potentially a second rescale to make most 'Mechs smaller.
Some weapon changes, some map changes. Most of old meta builds can remain unchanged. All the weapon balance changes basically amount to a slight shift or favoring of some weapon types or increased viability, but nothing is a lot worse than before.