When new players start up WoT they get given the tier 1 nublet tanks and a GO button that dumps them into a game. Like all new players they are going to either spend 5 minutes screwing around with the controls or just drive off somewhere and die, but either way at the end of the match they get given a small amount of experience and money regardless of how well they did. At tier 1 this bonus is enough to net the player an engine upgrade so the players experience, no matter how badly they got stomped, they came out of it better off.
In contrast MWO gives a new player 4 trial mechs and a go button, chances are they are going to spend 5 minutes learning the controls and the rest of the game running into walls, overheating and dying. Chances are they are going to lose horribly, earn some c-bills that they can't spend and wonder why everyone else on the team got XP and they didn't.
Lets break this down, assuming that a player grabs a trial mech/starting tank, jumps in game, dies horribly and their team loses;
In WoT the player;
- Earns money
- Earns XP
- Gets to upgrade their tank
- Has a new tank within 1-5 games
- Is having fun
- Earns some C-bills they can't use
- Doesn't get XP
- Is left wondering why they didn't get XP
- Has to play 10-15 games to be able to afford a Commando which they probably don't want
- Isn't having that much fun.
PGI can easily fix this by allowing trial mechs to earn XP, with some restrictions of course, like say not getting any GXP or being able to convert this 'trial XP' into GXP.
Suddenly the new player isn't counting the games off until they can get their custom mech and start having fun, they are slowly earning their way to a custom mech the same as they are now, but they are also upgrading their trial mechs as they go and 'building' their account by unlocking proficiencies. Since the new players have something immediate to look forward too then they are probably more likely to buy some MC and get premium so it goes a little bit faster. By the time a trial player has unlocked the basic proficiencies on all the four trial mechs then they should probably have enough money to buy their own mech and customise it a bit. Progression!
So now we have trials earning XP it means players will have to pay and play less to max the proficiency trees, but after the trial player finishes maxing a proficiency on a mech and unlocks the module slot, and 'trial XP' doesn't give GXP, then the players will be incentivised to grind some XP on their customs, pay the MC and convert some, which should make the accountants happy because they obviously designed the current one, and everyone knows accountants are boring and unfun.
TLDR version;
Letting Trial mechs earn XP and unlock proficiencies would drastically improve the new player experience, make trials less of a joke because they have the same easy access to stat boosts as custom mechs. Because they can progress people suicide in trial mechs less and maybe even look forward to the new trial mechs when they change because they could unlock something new.