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[LKHERO]

Hi all. I'm a relatively new MWO player (with ~150 games under my belt). However, I've been a MechWarrior fan ever since the franchise was released, with MW2Mercs being my favorite game of the series. Currently, I'm working in the software game industry and I'm also a part-time game designer. My specialty is multiplayer and game balance. Please excuse my lack of a Founder's Icon, I was away on vacation for a very long time and forgot all about it!

I just wanted to say that from the last 2 days, I've been reading the forums. For the most part, I've seen some good posts, some bad posts, but generally, everyone cares about the game a lot. This is a very good thing. As an old-school pilot, it's great seeing the community so passionate and energetic about the game they now play.

I just wanted to jot down some notes here on the forums as a newer player of MWO, but also as an informed and educated member of the community.

There's a thread lying around here saying the MWO is no longer a MechWarrior game. I agree and disagree. What I disagree with is that you're still the pilot of a giant robot, stomping around and shooting things with futuristic weapons. If anything, PGI did a great job in capturing the feel of the MW universe because I still feel like I'm driving a mech. The ambiance and scale of the game is great; how the mech moves around the battlefield, shoots its weapons, takes damage, to the eventual player death, everything feels like a MW game.

However, there is something I disgaree with. The one thing that's been changed is the numbers on the weapons. I first noticed this while shooting off energy-based weapons and by fighting against the various other mech builds running around in the game. I saw tons of SSRMs, small lasers, LRMs, basically a lot of stackable weapons with low heat signatures. I noticed the something was "off" with energy weapons that didn't coexist with the "feel" of the other elements of mech-based combat. This later extended to other weapons as I played more and more until finally, I realized that something was wrong. I consulted to the forums and after much research, I realized what I was dreading was correct: Rate of fire has been increased while heat values have been unchanged.

From a game developer's standpoint, we must see this game as what it is: It's a tactical shooter more so than a simulator now. This is a smart business decision on their end because at the end of the day, games are getting dumber now. By dumber, I mean purely from the sense that people want to get the most enjoyment in the smallest amount of time. The learning curve must be low enough to attract a lot more players (something that simulators just inherently detract from), and the fun factor must be high enough to keep people hooked.

Shooting stuff, making big explosions, and doing it often is what makes this game "fun". People like big robots, people like big robots that shoot badass weapons, and people like it when they blow up other big robots with their big robots. It's very Michael Bay Transformers in that sense. And likewise, in that sense, MWO did a great job at capturing the blowing things up part of the game.

However, I think we can do better. By we, I'm talking about the developers, the community and the game itself. The first thing to address is a very simple numbers issue. If all weapons rate of fire has been increased, the heat dissipation and generation must also be addressed for all weapons. It's really that simple. Players should not all be forced to use low-heat generating weapons to get the best bang for their buck. As a Nova Cat pilot, I can assure you that energy pilots know how to control their heat. It's a pilot skill to manage his heat. Sadly, we are unable to express this skill when most energy weapons are unsuable when compared to the DPS of more heat-effecient weapons with respect to their ROF.

I realize that you (the developers) want the hands-on blow **** up blockbuster that looks great, feels great and conveys a true sense of scale of the destruction that's in that MechWarrior universe, but you cannot do this without realizing the issues you're causing to the internal balance of a tested and true system. Something that has been done in 4 other MW games. Nevermind the TT, because as accurate as that game is in portraying mech combat, it doesn't fit in the same category of tactical shooter as the MW video game series.

By addressing this issue, I think PGI can single-handily fix the weapon disparity in the current game. I'm strictly talking about weapon diversity, not general weapon balance. That can come later in another thread.

Thank you for reading.