Played league NBT 4 Mercs for almost 2 years. Was also involved in MW3 online and I physically own every mechwarrior title to be released, also a long time table top player of Battletech.
Nothing wrong with 1 shot kills. It happens, its also a realistic event in some cases (AC20 to the head. Lucky critical, etc etc). The problem came when the Mechwarrior series allowed you to cheese the hell out of your mech. For example taking the heaviest mech possible and loading it was a many high impact weapons as possible (boats for short). Boats were common. They were the norm. The league teams who wanted to win were forced to adopt Boat tatics and spam ER large lasers etc etc.
When this became the main steam thing to do it was impossible to take a classic style load out. Now when you actually look at the board game that Mechwarrior is based off of, not every mech was built for a slug fest. Recon mechs were lightly armed, or armed to deal with infantry and vehicles. Mediums were your average ground pounder skirmish mechs. Heavies were the rare heavy hitting power behind a force. And assualts were damned near non exsistant on the battlefield. The problem comes when the game only allowed for a Slug fest. Where in mechwarrior 4 mercs did taking a light mech really benefit anything. Where in MW4 mercs did taking machine guns allow you to fend off waves of infantry.
And if you were to further investigate theres a fundimental flaw with being able to customize a mech with ethier the MW4 style hard point system or the classic battletech slots system, both of which are unrealistic. Using the reference material from the battletech universe it states that its very difficult or impossible to modify stock equipment, Which is what gave the clans Omni systems such an advantage over the inner sphere. A light mech and an assualt mech both have the same amount of space based on the classic system, however you couldnt mount a heavy weapon on a light mech where ever you wanted without throwing off its balance. For example you couldnt realistically take a Jenner, strip off all its weapons and then throw a single massive large laser on its right arm and nothing in the left and expect it to be able to operate normaly. And there in lies the problem, because alot of the Battletech mechs were designed the way they were for a reason or purpose that cant be incorporated into the video game series. Example of this would be a Cyclops, where its head can be removed and turned into a mobile command center, well in the video game you could mount a weapon in the head space slot but realistically wouldnt have room.
Anyhow 1 Shot kills will only be a problem if MWO turns out to be another team death match, slug fest with boat style mechs. If there is VALUE in recon, IF there is value in speed and agility, then you will find 1 shot kill mechs wont be as common, and they will be countered.
This is my 2 cents based on years of expirence with the series.
Edited by SteelWarrior, 20 March 2012 - 09:55 AM.