4 replies to this topic

[LordKelvin]

I came up with this idea last night when browsing another thread, so here goes. A word of warning though, most of my ideas come from my experience playing Team Fortress 2, and I've never played World of Tanks, so my idea lifts lots of examples from the former.

The following introductory is spoilered for those who haven't played TF2 and can't make sense of it, and simply want to get on to the meat of the suggestion.

Spoiler

In Team Fortress 2, each class has its own strengths and weaknesses. Scouts can flank and maneuver to get the drop on the enemy, but are terrible at absorbing punishment. Demomen can put out a lot of damage very quickly (which is the main reason that they're limited to one per team in competitive matches), but are extremely vulnerable at close range. Spies can break through enemy defenses and sneak behind their lines to cause havoc, as well as insta-kill any other enemy from behind (with few exceptions), but are virtually helpless once detected, especially by an enemy Pyro. And the list goes on. There is no single class that can single-handedly take on every other class in the game and emerge victorious. When the game first launched back in October 2007, it was more or less always like this. If you couldn't use your class's strengths in combination with working in tandem with your team, 9 times out of 10 you would lose, unless the other team was even worse.

Starting around April 2008, and continuing on to the present, Valve started adding new weapons to the game, which gave each class additional different ways to play. The Medic got the Kritzkrieg, which, instead of making their patient invulnerable during an ÜberCharge, would instead let them deal guaranteed critical hits for a short period of time. The Heavy got Natascha, which does less damage than the standard Minigun but slows enemies that are hit, making them easier to damage both by the Heavy and by teammates. The Demoman got the Scottish Resistance, which lets players lay larger minefields and selectively detonate individual bombs, at the cost of a significantly longer arming time and thus severely limit their ability to go on the offensive. The Scout got the Force-A-Nature, which lets them put out two shots in quick succession as well as greatly enhance their maneuverability, at the cost of being unable to sustain fire over time. And the list goes on, you can include weapons such as the Brass Beast, Reserve Shooter, Phlogistinator, Gunslinger, and on and on and on. Within each class's role, these weapons allowed players to branch out into their own personal way of playing, instead of simply using the stock weapons available to everybody.

However, everybody only started with access to the stock weapons, and only gained access to newly introduced ones over time or by earning them. You could get these weapons through grinding achievements, waiting for them to drop over time (which happens automatically as you play the game), crafting them (by getting rid of duplicates of weapons you already have that you got through drops), or purchasing them for real money from the store (which, given that there are over 100 weapons in the game, can run a person upwards of $200 to unlock everything). As a result of this, the vast majority of players are "forced" to play as the stock classes for at least a minimum amount of time before they gained access to different weapons. However, in this time, players learn the basic mechanics of how to play a class the "normal" way, which gives them the basic feel of how to play the class. By the time they unlock a specific weapon for a class, they'll have enough experience to be able to judge how the new weapon affects their gameplay, and whether they like it better than the stock loadout or not.

My proposal is similar to how the above system works. To start out with, every player should have access to at least a few types of 'Mechs, ideally two or three types in each weight class. These 'Mechs would be the "basic" 'Mechs that everyone can start out with, and can fill various "standard" roles that would be expected of a 'Mech in that weight class. For instance, for Light 'Mechs, players could start out with access to the Jenner, which is well-balanced in firepower and maneuverability, the Wasp (I know it's Unseen, but I'm using it here strictly as an example), which focuses more on speed and less on firepower, and the UrbanMech, which has almost no speed to speak of but is backed up by its signature AC/20. These three Light 'Mechs are quite widely spaced in the roles that they are capable of filling on the battlefield, so within the Light 'Mech weight bracket, players will have their choice of roles that they can fill.

As players play with that 'Mech more and unlock various BattleMech Efficiencies or Modules on it as they gain XP, they automatically unlock access to new 'Mechs as they do so. For instance, if you're using a Wasp, chances are that you're focusing mainly on spotting the enemy rather than on dealing damage, as it only has a grand total of two Medium Lasers and two Small Lasers to rely on. Let's say that, in this case, you're spending all of your BattleMech Efficiences on Tier 1 and Tier 3, which focus on speed and maneuverability, which a spotter would naturally want since it makes them harder to hit and makes it easier for them to get into positions to spot the enemy. Once you fill out those two tiers on a Wasp, you automatically unlock access to a new Light 'Mech, the Locust. The Locust, as everyone here is probably familar with, is even more geared towards high-speed reconnaisance, being significantly faster than a Wasp but also far more vulnerable. Since the player already has quite a bit of experience using the Wasp as a reconnaisance 'Mech, they may want to see how the Locust handles in comparison; you might not like being unable to fight back in the Locust, or you may absolutely love its increased top speed, but since you're already used to the Wasp, if you don't like the Locust then you may come to the conclusion that the Wasp is the better Light 'Mech, and switch back to it.

Or additionally, let's say that you prefer using electronic methods to spot enemies rather than on using speed and maneuverability, and put your time and money into unlocking Pilot Skills and purchasing Modules that help you with that. If you focus all your effort on getting the Radar Range Increase skills, then once you've gotten 5/5 in that while piloting a Wasp, you unlock a different 'Mech, the Raven. If you really like to focus on electronic warfare, then you could switch to the Raven, which also has a larger weapons payload but suffers from the drawback of being easily crippled due to carrying an XL Engine (again, this is strictly an example, I don't know if/how the devs will incorporate XL Engines into the game).

You could similarly apply this to every other introductory 'Mech. For example, if you're using mainly an UrbanMech, you unlock the Panther after unlocking all the Tier 2 and Tier 4 BattleMech Efficiences on the UrbanMech. Or if you unlock all of Tier 3 and Tier 4, you gain access to the Firefly. Within each introductory 'Mech's "role," there is the possibility of unlocking additional 'Mechs that can fill that same role but in a different way that players may like better or worse. But the main idea here is that the player starts with access to a basic 'Mech that's ideal for that role, and then gains the option to branch out to a more specialized 'Mech once they become competent with the first one.

Of course, simply because you don't play with a certain 'Mech type doesn't mean you should be excluded from being able to access the 'Mechs in that same role area. What if, for example, you really like playing using the Jenner, but dislike the UrbanMech, and want to try out the Panther? In this case, every unlockable 'Mech should automatically become available to a player once they've accrued enough experience in that weight class; for instance, once you unlock Elite 1 for any Light 'Mech, then a number of other Light 'Mechs in other "branches" are automatically unlocked for you (in this example, unlocking Elite 1 on the Jenner lets you access the Panther, or unlocking Elite 1 on the UrbanMech lets you access the Raven, and so on). The same happens once you reach a certain rank if you don't play Light 'Mechs a lot (ranks referring to the Community Warfare aspect of the game). Or, you could simply pay real money at the store to unlock the Panther on your account, though the exact price would have to be high enough to prevent people from instantly unlocking everything immediately after creating an account.

And that's my idea. Don't simply let everybody have instant access to every single 'Mech type at the start of the game, but give us a number of introductory ones that let us cut our teeth on how a 'Mech in a certain weight class plays, and then give us other 'Mechs that can fill niche roles or are highly specialized that we can unlock over time. By the time we get access to a 'Mech, we'll be able to judge for ourselves if we would like that 'Mech better than the one we were using before.

If needed, I could post some pictures or diagrams to illustrate some of the key points.

[Damocles]

In short: The devs have stated that there will not be tiered access to mechs.

[Bluey]

in short TL DR

[Sp12]

While this sounds like a very well-executed, thoughtful, fun, and effective way of increasing player enjoyment and options, I don't think it's in the canon.

[990Dreams]

I think all Mechs should be accessible/unlock-able for anyone, regardless of there role.