EEeeeeeeeeee! They're going to release the Nightstar! The next in the line of Marauder mechs. Its torso even looks more Marauder than the in-game Marauder does. *fanbois* Anyone excited by the next four mechs coming out? EDIT: Sadly there's only two actual variant of the Nightstar, PGI has made up the others. >.> Or changed them for no apparent reason.
am considering to get the Nightstar. Looks pretty good.. BUT you know the problem with MWO - it doesn't lack Mechs, it lacks satisfying Gameplay Content - where it means something to play again and again, other than simply destroying Mechs in Arena-Mode. Also I hope the upcoming new weapon tech doesn't break the Balance (again).
Battletech in its prime is third succession war with rare Lostech cache discovered here and there - no more. Even that's pushing it. Clan tech in particular always ruins the balance of online battletech games, and then the crazy IS civil war era stuff happens and further pushes the balance of power. Eventually we'll have plasma guns and clan ATM or whatever launchers. I find the biggest appeal of battletech and mech combat to be managing heat, stripping components from targets, 30-100 ton brawls, mercenary contracts & missions, planetary invasions, logistics etc. Probably why MW3 campaign and both Mech Commander games are still my favorites. Seeing PGI just inject newer and newer tech does nothing for me. Need game mode stuff.
Clan tech ruins it in every battle tech game. They all become 'equip clan weapons and equipment asap'. Only the chassis of IS mechs with particularly useful hardpoints sometimes carries over. The more powerful weapons become and the less you have to manage your heat the worse the games get for me. You can only put so much armor into a mech before heavy Gauss, heavy ppc, ATM, long toms, Arrow IV, Thunderbolt, heavy lasers evaporate targets that much faster.
Clan tech never ruined our games. Long before FASA decided to use a BPV, my friends and I had already decided that IS would get a 1.5:1 ton advantage over Clans. This levelled the playing field quite well.
I don't even use clan tech most matches so no that's a odd comment and totally wrong as a blanket term. For example clan lights are far worse atm than IS lights imo. Javellin and the Death Knells rather rule the roost there.
That must be why 99% of lights I see are arctic cheetahs. Infact I see locust and spiders way more than DK's or Javelins (never seen one all week). Yes PGI has done a wonderful job compared to previous battletech games in regard to clan mechs. But it still represents something that has ruined the games before for me, and infact the franchise itself. Compare battletech to the Gray Death Legion era or Fourth Succession War to the post-Clan invasion / Civil war era. It just died down and people lost interest. Everything became about newer and greater weapons and tech over the original magic of battletech. In the online games it leads to boating whatever is current meta because you can slap on 4-6 UAC's on your clan assaults or a butt load of SRM's and smpl. Run around alpha striking each other while drooling over your keyboard. I still "fondly" recall the days of 7ERL Nova Cats in MW4 or MW3 lag shield shadowcats with UA 12 machine guns or nothing but small lasers. People push in that direction in MWO as much as they can, but I can't really blame them because the objective is to win and they will min max their way around fun for that one and only goal. As much as I love the mechlab, I just don't like what people do with it. I'd almost prefer stock mechs (I hate not customizing my own mechs though) so there'd be some more interesting gameplay.
I'm curious what tier you play in? Not counting this event and FW ACH's have taken a massive hit as the skill tree really didn't help them. They got by prior to it as the other mechs (Spider and Locust excluded) were very weak comparatively. Under the new system their skills are spread far more thinly and things like structure/armour quirks on lights really benefit from the Survival Tree. For example my Death Knell has SIXTY points of armour on each arm. That's a lot to chew through and I've been getting nice kills throughout its use. Those points you spend in ECM and JJ I get to spend in weapons, agility and survival. Even if we spent identical points in survival I can still tank far more effectively - I am smaller and have heavier armour despite being lighter. Your only real advantage is your clan XL engine as we both have plenty of space for endo and ferro. Just from my last outing in the TDK: That's 3 out of the about last 7 matches in the TDK. Coincidentally I notice that only 1 of 13 lights fielded in those matches was an ACH. Yes the ACH was OP but honestly its past and the energy revamp tomorrow is unlikely to help it (but we'll see!). I've been playing both and currently I know exactly which of those two I personally prefer.
Not sure why we're talking about arctic cheetahs now, I only pointed out how often I see them when it was said how vastly inferior clan lights are to IS lights. Don't know what this tier thing is you speak of. Doesn't change fact that I think clan crap tends to ruin battletech / mechcommander games. PGI has balanced clan mechs/weaponry quite well all things considered but now we're headed to civil war and eventually dark ages and the end of battletech. They had to add quirks to all the IS mechs to make them competitive again let's not forget that mystical numbers change. Wouldn't have happened without clans. Too much useless tech / weapons on top of weapons when the game just becomes an arms race and nothing more. Just constant upgrades and out-boating each other.
