How is the game in 2018?

Having backed it in beta then taken a massive break until about a year ago, then having played it fairly solidly since I have to say I enjoy it greatly. Could it be better? God, yes. But like Excali said, it really is the only product doing what it does currently so I am happy to roll with it for the time being. As for the balancing? Any complex game of a decent age needs constant balancing - the meta needs nerfing periodically in order to keep things fresh. I learned from my eight years in EvE that one must be ready for the nerf and anticipate what the new meta is - in other words, spread your knowledge-base wide rather than deep in order to be able to adapt to incoming changes. That being said, it's fairly clear to me that they don't have any real players on their staff. They either need to get someone in who has a genuine unifying vision regarding the entire system or create a player-led council who they listen to when it comes to what needs changing and what priority level to apply to those changes. I get the feeling sometimes that PGI have this idealised idea of what their product is that holds little bearing upon what it has become. This is a real problem, as with an old niche game the devs need to be hyper-aware of how their old customers feel regarding the experience - not only because pleasing them is the key to keeping a strong player base but also because most new players join old games because of the recommendation of long-standing players.

And yeah, I'm getting a bit overwhelmed by the constant barrage of events. It feels like a cheap move to keep the active player base up but in truth it's at best a topical solution rather than treating the underlying problems for why the numbers might be dwindling.

On the other hand, they've done some little changes recently that I really approve of. I like the idea of pre-existing real estate being used to it's fullest extent. They have been quietly redressing the problems of unused chassis, map areas that don't produce dynamic gameplay and poorly balanced game modes with some good results. For example: The new ramp at the back of the citadel on River City, the moving of the capture area when playing domination on Grim Plexus from being in the valley to on the hilltop, and the IS quirk pass that is slowly making some older variants more viable. I am also very fond of being able to save fits and then pass that fit to an ally as a link - such a simple change, but invaluable to newer players who can now get 2 or 3 fits out of one chassis thus giving them more diversity in their early play.

 

Me simple Jack. I like game.

As far as variety goes, it's fantastic. Meta is meta, but even within the meta there's variety and that's worth something to me. Skills are just something I click on to make up for my inherent lack of ability in producing a build that has this weird thing called heat efficiency, and I'm okay with that. It's a bit of a grind and sometimes an annoyance, but there are worse things. Like relying on loot boxes/supply caches for a more powerful version of a vanilla weapon system or, in this case, mech.

I get frustrated at how uncoordinated some teams can be, because lately it feels like it did back in T3 where you had some 2 or 4 and the odd 1 or 5 thrown in. Also not a fundamental problem with the game, just the nature of solo matchmaker in a small-ish population. I seem to have forgotten that.

I'm definitely sick of all these mini events, and I've essentially stopped playing for them entirely unless there's a super cool warhorn as a reward, so I just plod away in solo QP in whatever I feel like at the moment, skilled or not.

Side note, there is the distinct possibility that I am partially to blame when my team underperforms considering the bullshit I build and drop in.

 

Problem is that everyone now is Tier1 even potato players. Thus you get one way stomps in more than half games.

 

I've learned to take pleasure from a good performance even when surrounded by nubs. On the odd occasion one can even pull what should be a nubstomp around. If I'm not in the mood for being subjected to other peoples failings (or putting my failings on other people) I take a look at the S7 buckets, see who's in circulation (if D A T A is active then do something else lol). I like the odd Invasion, too - though even more than QP one has to be able to take pleasure from one's own performance within the context of the team as it's a long half-hour if you're going to let your nubby side get you down.

 

Skill trees are a lot more simple than they look. The key is to focus on one mech at a time. Take an assault that you like or that you've seen a good fit for and have simply have a go in it. When I came back from my big break there were 30 odd mechs and a great big pile of XP and sure it was daunting but I just piloted a vehicle that I liked before (in my case a 6xLL Stalker) and then applied the XP from there. As a rule of thumb you can't really go wrong with maxing out your armour/structure XP nodes on anything heavy or assault and conversely getting the speed quirks on something that's meant to be quick. Beyond that, I would counsel not being hasty with your refunded XP - it may have come off your Awesome but that doesn't mean you have to put it back there