187 replies to this topic

[Der Geisterbaer]

Some of the thoughts I have concerning the information given in that vlog:

• Legendary mechs - while certainly being a somewhat logical progression beyond "Hero mechs" are a bit of a concern to me on several levels:
  
  • Some of the existing "Hero mechs" - regardless of their strength within the "meta" of this game - are actually what should have been "Legendary mechs" in the first place: St. Ives Blue (to a lesser degree), Yen-Lo-Wang (the most legendary mech in the entire lore), Bounty Hunter, Dragon Slayer (debatable) and Heavy Metal. In turn the name Widowmaker should have been a legendary version for the Dire Wolf not a Warhammer (Natasha Kerensky's Warhammer IIRC did not ever carry that name).
    
  • While I can generally apprechiate the idea of the mini battle passes not expiring they also seem to put some form of limitation on those legendary mechs being made available via MC at a later time. Additionally C-Bill purchase for the legendary version is definitely out of the question just like with normal heros but ultimately you'll have to consider C-Bill availabe variants with the same hardpoint layouts as those Legendary mechs or you'll invite "pay 2 win" and "oppressive monetization tactics on a 'dead' game" accusations.
    
  • While you guys managed quite well to avoid actual "pay 2 win" with all the heros so far I'm not too sure about the "outlier quirks" not opening that path as well.
    
  • While I certainly do respect the work that the Cauldron puts into the game I also have mixed feelings about them being responsible for setting those Legendary mechs up because no matter how much they try to be "unbiased" as much as possible they still are shaping the current meta of this game and it's a good bet to expect that those Legendary mechs will either be shaped directly around said meta or turn out as "useless" as some of the existing Hero mechs by being even weaker than current non-meta mechs just to compensate for their "outlier quirk".
• Sorry Matt, but the subtitle "Legends" doesn't give me any feeling of the game experiencing progression / going forward and reverting to just "Mechwarrior online" wouldn't give me the feeling of a regression. I also perceive it as an attempt to further delegitamize "Mechwarrior: Living Legends" without going after the project directly. Since you also intend to bring new weapon systems to the table I'd suggest looking for a new subtitle that reflects on that rather than those Legendary mechs. Maybe a reference to the BT timeline where those new weapons came into play?

[KursedVixen]

C337Skymaster, on 14 January 2023 - 06:18 AM, said:

Pretty sure that silhouette is just the Crusader. I strongly suspect they're going to do another "one-piece-a-week" puzzle like they did for the Crusader to tease it, a month or two before the pre-order window opens.

They can use any silloute they want but I sincerly hope it's not another IS mech... we need more clan mechs. Even if it's just some of the IICs like the locust IIC conjurer (WolverineIIC) Shadowhawk IIC etc. I'd be happy but clans really need new chassis to work on, and it's high past time for the HAG 20,30,40

Edited by KursedVixen, 14 January 2023 - 07:24 AM.

[UltraVioletDeath]

Definitely like the idea of Solaris coming back as a once per month event.

Will this be a single battle? or the 6 battle robin you que for? Hoping it can be single battle.

Will there be an option for single drop deck FP...event or otherwise?

I am a live in carer so anything longer than 15min can be a challenge/risk...and apologise for the times I have to go afk. Hopefully this helps others who might have similar circumstances.

I have not done FP yet because I do not want to risk wrecking a potential 2hr game for others, and bailed on starting Solaris when I realised you had to be in que for 6 battles for the same reasons.

At least there is always QP.

Loved the event fun, look forward to more.

Concerned that the Legends battle format sounds expensive?...or is this going to be something like an optional $5 per month subscription style? and the specials are won as rewards?...or every month an expensive pack to buy?

[Curccu]

C337Skymaster, on 14 January 2023 - 06:10 AM, said:

Watched the episode to verify claims of "MechWarrior Online Legends". First, second, and third reactions are: it's too close to MechWarrior Living Legends.

Yep Living Legends was 1st thing that came into my mind after seeing this on video.

[Iridium Fallout]

PLEASE>>>> MECH MELEE AS IN MW5!!! I BEG YOU!!!

Edited by Iridium Fallout, 14 January 2023 - 08:43 AM.

[Crashburn]

MechB Kotare, on 14 January 2023 - 06:41 AM, said:

Yes i know. Been here from the start. Doesnt change the fact that its a bad design and needs to be redesigned, if not completely removed. Forcing 24 players to fight for a choke point is bad. Having a high wall, with only limited possibilities to fire above is bad, having only two accessible paths (without JJs) is bad. Theres absolutely no wonder why FP's lost interest, ''original'' design was flawed, and thats why they added quick play assets with respawns to it. It was just too late. Siege idea failed once, should not be expanded on.

I won't deny that some of the Siege maps need to be redesigned, but to completely remove them and leave only the select QP maps. Might as well just can the whole FP at that point. I know a lot of guys who left FP back in the day had the same viewpoint as Skymaster (no real point or incentive to play the mode). Yes maps became stale...especially due to the fact that 2 or 3 of the Siege maps came up the vast majority of the time. Before some of the QP maps came into the mode, I would play Siege for a few hours (about 50% solo/50 grouped). The vast majority of the games I would get Boreal Vault, or Helebore. Which are probably the two worst Siege maps based on the chokepoint complaints. I think the 2 best Siege maps were Emerald & Vitric (choke points weren't nearly as bad) but those rarely were the maps played, and usually only if you had a good amount of players active in FP that day. I'm actually surprised Skymaster didn't bring Boreal up for his choice for reworked chokepoints. Most guys would not play faction attack if they knew they were getting Boreal, and back when it was those zone circles you pretty much could tell what map was coming up in the next drop.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, what killed faction for me, was just getting the same map over and over. It's my same complaint for QP, when sometimes the same map selection of 4 comes up 3x in a row. People tend to vote for the same maps. I think any game mode gets boring & stale getting the same map 3, 4 times in a row.

Getting rid of Siege maps/mode...honestly that would kill FP for me. Especially since you don't get all the QP maps in that mode, I believe PGI said some of the QP maps were too small to incorporate in FP. So we really only get the big QP maps, and the radomization of the QP FP maps tends to drop you into the same maps time after time if you play consecutive matches. 3x Respawn on Polar, Alpine, Terra, Forest, Frozen, and HPG the thought makes me want to slit my wrists.

In response to MechB Kotare, if you don't want to play Siege mode...if I'm not mistaken after a few hours (maybe it's 1/2 way) into the 8 hour FP windows, you are pushed into the non-siege modes (if FP has been active enough), at that point you have no chance of playing a Siege map(except if the other Faction wins enough to push it back into Siege, but once it's moved that far into QP maps it's pretty much done for that window). You could try a FP QP drop without having to worry about playing Siege. At the very least you are able to click on the FP tab in game and see the mode it's in. So if Siege is your biggest hangup with FP, you can find FP drops, that you know will be a QP map for sure before you are committed to the drop. As long as you happen to be online during those points in the FP windows.

Edited by Crashburn, 14 January 2023 - 08:44 AM.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Iridium Fallout, on 14 January 2023 - 08:23 AM, said:

PLEASE>>>> MECH MELEE AS IN MW5!!! I BEG YOU!!!

I don't think they can, because of technical limitations. Honestly melee would be great in a PvP game like this, I just don't think they can actually do it in this engine.

[BigSpam]

I love the conversation! So happy that my favorite game all time is still relevant enough to merit this discussion. Thanks to PGI and the Cauldron for keeping it going and to the community for being passionate about it!

I agree with an earlier sentiment that the balance of the game is the best it has ever been. Though I wish that brawling wasn't punished by the sniper meta, especially on weekends/holiday when I generally have more time to play. I believe that rewarding multiple play styles might be the hardest to balance...

I am happy to continue to support this game, but honestly I have not been too terribly interested in purchasing the Platinum packs. $20 to buy four mechs that I already own with a new paint job and an event --- just doesn't seem to be a good value for me. If it were less expensive, perhaps, but still maybe not. Meh. However, what if instead of purchasing a "battle pass" to get a completely new variant of a chassis (that might coincidentally break the balance of the game or not work at all or be viewed as P2W), you give the player some "agency" to designate an existing variant of a given chassis as "Legendary"? This could grant them the ability to get a specialized paint job or pattern, cockpit items, decals, (limited) unique quirks or extra nodes in the skill tree, plus a C-bill and XP bonus. I say "grant them the ability" because they wouldn't necessarily get that all up front - but instead would open up the opportunity for them to obtain these items (and perhaps additional rewards like MC, etc.) in an event. That would be value, both to the player who is getting these items but also to MWO because it is incentivizing players to play the game. Please just don't make the battle pass cost prohibitive. If it is the right price for the value, you will see broader support from the community.

On the idea of a MWO2, sign me up! Keep in mind that any successor to MWO has big shoes to fill. There is no game like it. The successor shouldn't just be a cosmetic upgrade - though that will be huge. Please don't take away the mech lab or the skill tree but please do address some of these "opportunities" for improvement like scale, hit boxes, hard points, match maker, game modes (objectives should matter too), etc. Simplifying things such as XP or GSP and making the game easier for players unfamiliar to the Battletech Universe would also be important. How about a "simple mode/advanced mode option (like some cell phones)? In simple mode the player gets a fully equipped (one or two weapon system) mech and as they gain XP it automatically assigns skill nodes. In advanced mode, the player gets the ability to customize all that. It might help newer players introduction to the game and will still satisfy long-time players.

In the meantime, thank you for the occasional new chassis, new map / map upgrades, events, etc. These are helping MWO to stay somewhat fresh. Thank you also for taking the time to communicate with us and for considering all of this input. Have fun weeding through it all! I for one am optimistic about 2023 and the future of Mechwarrior PvP.

Edited by BigSpam, 14 January 2023 - 08:50 AM.

[Crashburn]

Curccu, on 14 January 2023 - 03:26 AM, said:

MM isn't just working well right now for example Yesterday dropped with two friends of mine, we are all high T1 players and MM added other group of two with high T1 players to our side, I recognized zero formidable players in opposing side....from seeing that screen I already knew ot was going to be bad stomp and it was 12-0. Moving those two really good players to other side there might have been a battle instead of slaughter.

I agree, this happens a lot. I'm a tier 1 player that plays solo QP a lot...and this happens all the time, one side has 6 or 7 known players and the other side not so much. It's laughable, when I can look at the names on each team before every drop and correctly predict which team will win and when/if it's going to be a 12-2 (12-1, 12-0) roll.

My guess is the MM looks at groups as 1 entity instead of the individual players within the group. So MM probably looked at the 2 groups as 2 Tier 1's instead of 4, and then maybe the other team in your drop did have 2 solo tier 1 players, just names you didn't recognize. Still you have the disparity because in actuality your team has 4 Tier 1's because you have 2 groups and the other sides Tier 1's were solo's perhaps.

Edited by Crashburn, 14 January 2023 - 08:56 AM.

[Horseman]

C337Skymaster, on 14 January 2023 - 06:10 AM, said:

Watched the episode to verify claims of "MechWarrior Online Legends". First, second, and third reactions are: it's too close to MechWarrior Living Legends.

Agree.

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Wait, these "legend" 'mechs are built by the Cauldron?! Hell no!!!

As opposed to the ones built by PGI and then the ones built by community consensus?
Also, according to Ash, only two members of Cauldron knew anything about it so PGI's claim that they discussed the mechs with the Cauldron is at best disingenuous.

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Firstly, you've seen how the Champion mechs that were built around the meta of the time have aged over the years.

Same will happen with any new pre-built mechs no matter who designs them. Meta changes, there's no escaping that unless your game has no balancing patches and no new content being added - at which point it is dead.

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Secondly, this game has been faithful to the record sheets and the lore over the years, and this is no time to break with that tradition.

A lot less than it seems on face value. There's plenty of variants that do not exist in lore, or that have different loadouts than in canon.
FWIW, I'd expect the Standard versions of these variants to come with the lore loadout.

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I have very little faith or trust in this "Cauldron" to be true to the spirit of MechWarrior, as they have demonstrated repeatedly since they took control.

Maybe it's time to accept that MWO cannot be "true to the spirit of the franchise" the way you dream of because of a LOT of things baked into its' foundations that it's around 8 to 9 years too late to backtrack on.

[TheCaptainJZ]

There are a lot of issues with FP and it all boils down to not having a thorough design for what MWO is. They started with the core mechanics of course, a match and mech battles. That took all their dev resources to make and there wasn't any bandwidth left for the larger community warfare idea they initially pitched. Just the sad reality of it. When they did create FP, it wasn't anything like the original design because they had to make it work within the existing game we had at that point. Then they went with this idea of corridors which I think was a bad idea. It should be a pretty open-ended map where the enemy can attack from most any direction barring walls or cliffs or whatnot and there should be different objectives, not just destroy the cannon. There can be different objectives on the map as well. I'm fond of MechCommander and think FP should have been conceptualized like those missions. The experience could be different for each match. On one, you have a sensor net you can optionally capture and it can change hands. Or you can destroy the towers themselves to deny it to the enemy. Turret controls should be the same way. Quick Play should all feed in to FP, where if your faction is doing well, you all get extra bonuses depending on how involved you are. Maybe daily cbills or MC allotments or something in the vein of supply caches with random rewards (number of rewards based on how active you are or your overall performance; quality of rewards based on your faction's performance). The first thing you pick should be your faction and that is your identity in the game. The in-game store could have different availabilities of mechs and equipment too based on what's happening at the macro level and what faction you are (if you pay real money on the website, you can use anything at the same price for any character but it would be limited to one character on your account). Like, if you're Steiner and fight against Davion and fight over some conflict period, it could drastically reduce the price of Enforcers in the store for your faction. If we had a repair and rearm system, you could have FP matches produce salvage to participating players in those matches. The original pitch as I understood it and as some forum warriors seemed to envision at that time is the game would involve some light role-playing revolving around the faction you joined. We originally had the InnerSphereNews and the 1-1 timeline which was quickly discarded as too ambitious and impossible to keep up with. But these ideas would have to wait for a probably-not-going-to-happen MWO2.

[TheCaptainJZ]

The main problem is everyone is at a loss for how to monetize this game other than by adding new mechs. We have plenty of mechs. We have literally several hundred mechs. Adding more mechs is cool and all, but it's just scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point. That's why mechpacks stopped selling as time went on. Once you have over a hundred mechs, why keep buying more?

I honestly don't see much in MWO's future. The only way people are going to want to spend more money is if they never spent much on this game yet, aka, new players. And I don't know what you'd need to do to bring in new players. You need to find the biggest friction points and then address them. And advertise. I can't tell you how obnoxiously I see ads for Hero Wars. Those ads are everywhere. But this game is complicated if you're not familiar with BT. I don't think you can really simply it for them without just making a new game and designing that in to begin with.

[East Indy]

Watching from the outside, I think this is a fine way to serve a decade-old community core while monetizing the license and making money for EG7. Really doesn't get more sincerely folksy than Russ and the gang (they do run a business).

MechWarrior itself does have a future, I'd say. Even before all the meta/MMO stuff, though, it has to refocus against challenges of PVP games and how they impact expectation and reality -- especially for new players/markets. It'll take back-to-basics questions of "What is BattleTech/MechWarrior?" Slow pace? Fast pace? Long range? Grand melees most of the time? Unless the goal is to bring back the same tiny crowd, it'll be worth rejecting the premise of "it's always been this way."

Edited by East Indy, 14 January 2023 - 09:29 AM.

[Horseman]

Wraith 1, on 13 January 2023 - 07:52 PM, said:

Raven with +200% AC/20 range, Highlander with +1000% forward JJ thrust, Annihilator with -100% MG spread, etc. I'd pay for a silly mech like that, but it (probably?) wouldn't be the best option for trying to win.

Outlier quirks already exist in MWO and do not need to have ridiculous magnitude to make a meaningful impact and be worth building around. Consider the UM-R80 with it's 10% ECM quirk. Not much on face value, but practically with a maxed ECM the distance at which the mech can be detected is cut by 40% relative to a mech without that quirk.

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The possibility of another PvP Mechwarrior is VERY exciting to hear, but I do worry that a potential "MWO2" would fall into the same problems MWO has for its entire lifespan. I would argue that MWO is the best Mechwarrior game as far as the core mech combat gameplay is concerned: the smoothest controls, the biggest weapon/mech variety, and the best PvP balance.

According to Russ, there's not going to be a MWO2 in the foreseeable future. Just way too expensive to develop compared to the revenue stream MWO is generating.

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I'm not sure it's even possible to fix this issue without adding unlimited respawns and allowing players to join/leave in the middle of matches. I know many of the current playerbase hate this idea, but Hawken (rip) had a gamemode that was nearly identical to Conquest, but the unlimited respawns resulted in much more dynamic movement around the map and more intense fights over the capture points.

Infinite respawns are probably something to experiment with in the Event Queue and could make sense in context of FP (imagine a mode with drop decks + infinite respawns; it becomes more important to have mechs kitted out for different situations than just using them as extra lives).
I'm not convinced allowing players to join matches that are already in progress is possible with PGI's current tech.

C337Skymaster, on 14 January 2023 - 05:31 AM, said:

The durability skill tree section (and the jump jet section, I believe) are all new to the revised skill tree, and furthered the gap between skilled and unskilled when they were added.

They are "new" to the skill tree since 2017. We can hardly call that new seeing how it's 2023 now...

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Firstly, "Siege" was originally just "Faction Play". That was THE game mode, all its maps were unique to it, and you played Faction to play that mode on those maps. Yes, it got stale, that's why the QP maps and modes were added as random alternatives, but Siege is still the "core" game mode that makes FP what it is, and removing that will pretty much kill what's left of FP.

Agreed.

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That said, I was talking about this with other folks the other night, and while the Siege idea is a good start, it REALLY needs to be expanded on. There needs to be more dynamics to this game, more persistence between matches to make in-game events and decisions feel meaningful beyond simply trying to flip a planet on a map. Things like attacking an ammo manufacturer decreasing the amount of ammo available for a faction, or attacking an LRM manufacturer, or attacking an Autocannon manufacturer, or a 'mech manufacturer, etc. Attack the factory, decrease the supply for a time. This would be made more meaningful and impactful if destroyed components were really destroyed and had to be repurchased, but any thought of such a thing would immediately require the removal of CB as a skill point cost, and make that XP only.

Any kind of macro strategy layer would likely be too complicated for PGI to implement. FP is a niche mode thanks to PGI's own fuckups and the company failed to fix it despite many chances and dozens of threads full of feedback; remember "Year of Faction Play" and how that dumpster fire ended? Yeah, so I would not hope for vast reworks of FP.

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EDIT: Forgot to address weapons: you call out the Long Tom, but accept the idea of Arrow IV. You know those are also Artillery, right? Arrow IV in MW2: Mercs had a range of 3km (so you can shoot clear across the entire width of Polar Highlands, drop zone to drop zone). Their proper range is more like 9km. The main issue with a big artillery piece like that is that PGI never figured out how to do crit-splitting, and those weapons require it. IS Arrow IV is 15 tons, 15 crits. Clan version is 12 tons, 12 crits, but these were still generally arm-mounted weapons. Long Tom was something like 20 crits, I think? I know Sniper Artillery is 20 crits, and that's supposed to be smaller than the Long Tom...

I suspect any carriers might just have it as locked equipment, with no other chassis or variants getting access.

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(I'm not actually sure you could 'mech-mount a Long Tom, outside of MW4)

There's two Long Toms, the Artillery and the smaller Cannon: https://www.sarna.ne...Long_Tom_Cannon . MW4 probably used the latter.

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So I thought the Solaris mode did okay as a weight-class event, and I saw a lot of different variants get tried, and a lot of different variants do well which were generally considered terrible under the old "divisions" setup. I've long been agitating for weightclass rules only, and not splitting 'mechs up based on their QP performance.

You forget that a handful of variants objectively dominated all the others. This is inevitable under weight class rules, results in a deathly stale meta and is the entire reason we had the division system in the first place - it sidestepped over- or under-performing mechs by just bumping them up/down so that they would face opposition more in line with their capabilities.

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I miss scouting, and I definitely think the MatchMaker should be made dynamic such that it can launch different sized matches based on the current queue and a countdown timer.

Agreed.

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I've personally felt the entire game should be reworked to be Clan vs IS, even in QP, and the MatchMaker launches games of Clan vs Clan, IS vs IS, or Clan vs IS, depending on how many players of which type are ready to go.

Why should it matter in QP? FP artificially restricts chassis availability when in lore salvaged or captured machines are not uncommon on either side, and Clans can field older IS-tech variants easily. From that perspective, the free mix of chassis in QP could actually be more lore-friendly than the hard restrictions of FP.

TheCaptainJZ, on 14 January 2023 - 09:24 AM, said:

The main problem is everyone is at a loss for how to monetize this game other than by adding new mechs. We have plenty of mechs. We have literally several hundred mechs. Adding more mechs is cool and all, but it's just scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point. That's why mechpacks stopped selling as time went on. Once you have over a hundred mechs, why keep buying more?

There are monetization possibilities in lore that won't fly in MWO because of how it's designed with mech customization. A possible future successor might fix that, if designed with a more MMO/role-playing slant but that's something that has to be in the design from day 1 and cannot be retrofitted into MWO's current framework without majorly pissing off just about everyone.

Edited by Horseman, 14 January 2023 - 09:43 AM.

[LordNothing]

id be willing to buy legendary mechs if the pricing is acceptable. im willing to drop $10-20 a couple times a year. but if you are going to make $40+ mechpacks and legendaries, id be better off buying some other game. ive spent a lot on this game over the years, many times the $90 average claimed on the recent q&a. having spent that much i don't much like seeing permanently ungrindable paywalled content, especially considering how little development actually happens. i also do not like subscription model for the same reason.

i think you need to figure out how to market content to those who have never bought a mech pack before rather than relying on the whales. if legendary mechs were to allow new players to grind mc and unlock all the other content with some grind, that might be more conductive to turn f2p players into contributors. for the whales set it up so that every time you buy content in the web store, you get a permanent discount towards future web store purchases on the same account. this would be cumulative the more you buy (though with a minimum so you still have to pay for stuff). the value proposition goes down the more stuff you have.

market the battle passes as an alternative to individual purchases. you should be able to grind all in-game currencies with them, and make them stack with premium time, if its not going to be a full replacement of it. premium time has never really had much value to me as an in store purchase.

that said if you add new weapons, it will bring me back to the game in a significantly more involved way. and if its tied to a specific pack i will probibly make a purchase to show my gratitude. i kind of wish the weapon model system was more dynamic though, rather than based on static submodels as part of the mechs. would make it a lot easier to add new ones, make possible the sale of premium weapons with *** for tat tweaks, faction-specific variants, or different effects/colors. and you can make distinct models for every gun, laser, and missile. if thats not possible, make it a request for mwo2.

i would also prefer to put the f2p model to bed in future mw games. even if i was able to port all my purchases i still wouldn't want the f2p baggage. id rather have sequels coming out every couple years than ongoing purchases on a stale game that sees no real core updates. you could have a common core built on an engine with long term upgrade path. thus each sequel could share code assets and still get the upgrades that come with the most recent engine version. this will give the game a more polished look and might attract more new players than a game that frankly looks like it was made in 2009. mw5 is of course a good starting point for this. build something that is both upgradable and easy to maintain. seeing the trouble mwo has had with its code base.

[Kotis77]

Its so cringe to talk about FP updates. Can you stop lying for ffs. Do it or dont talk about it.

[w0qj]

<< WARNING >>

MechWarrior Online Legends ==> propose change to: MechWarrior: The Remembrance Trials

MechWarrior: Living Legends

==========================
Above two titles are far too close, may well result in a lawsuit that EG7/Piranha/MWO may well lose (especially since MechWarrior: Living Legends is already a registered trademark).

==========================
Propose: MechWarrior: The Remembrance Trials

Edited by w0qj, 14 January 2023 - 06:13 PM.

[LordNothing]

yea, mwll fans like myself are a little bit miffed by that.

[Clay Endfield]

C337Skymaster, on 14 January 2023 - 06:10 AM, said:

Watched the episode to verify claims of "MechWarrior Online Legends". First, second, and third reactions are: it's too close to MechWarrior Living Legends.

Wait, these "legend" 'mechs are built by the Cauldron?! Hell no!!! Firstly, you've seen how the Champion mechs that were built around the meta of the time have aged over the years. Secondly, this game has been faithful to the record sheets and the lore over the years, and this is no time to break with that tradition. I have very little faith or trust in this "Cauldron" to be true to the spirit of MechWarrior, as they have demonstrated repeatedly since they took control.

Gonna speak out in defense of Cauldron here, but translating the Lore and TT origins of Battletech to a Competitive online game is going to require "sacrificing the spirit of Mechwarrior" to achieve balance.

Otherwise Direwolves would just annihilate every other mech in the game, and nobody would play light mechs because they'd be destroyed by a single gauss hit. In this regard, Cauldron has done wonders for preserving balance, whether you agree with their changes or not. Cauldron's "Top Down" approach to balance can be tricky to understand to players not within the top 1%, but despite most players not being able to comprehend why the Ice Ferret hasn't giga buffed to all hell, the changes have mostly been healthy for game.

Regardless of whether you like the Cauldron or not, they've done more good for MWO than they've done wrong. Without them, we wouldn't have new weapons and mechs incoming. So unless peak MWO for you was maintenance mode, you mght wanna weigh in on their contributions.

[Hawk819]

My take on this is this:

1) Legends will work. Why? Simply because the name is shortened to Legends, not Living Legends.

2) The new classification of the next `Mech variant should be Legendary, not just Legend.

3) Lastly, the new `Mech chassis is none other than then Phoenix Hawk IIC.

As to what I'd like to see in the new MWO:

1) Ticket system, just like the old MechWarrior 4 system.

2) Revamp the faction maps. Some are in dire need of a remake/re-imagination.

3) We still lack skins for Diamond Shark, Nova Cat, and Steel Viper. For crying out loud!!! Give us the damn skins already!!

Other than the above, I'd love to see a better que system, and a PVP type challenge system like the one used by MechWarrior 3 did. Boy, those were days! Whereas teams can challenge each other for ladder battles, not just for Faction play, either. I miss the Star Lance League, and how teams would simply challenge each other for resources and prestige, etc. We definitely need a ladder system in MWO. It'd be nice to see that in the game and be used to improve gameplay, and it'll give new players a chance to improve themselves as well. A revamp Solaris would definitely benefit from a ladder system. Just saying.