I had an idea earlier today I felt was too good not to share. Mostly it's just wishes and dreams, but they are very nice wishes and dreams. It is kind of a dropship mode for the non CW queues except you can only use one of your four mechs. Essentially, you chose four mechs before you hit launch. Once it lines up a group of teams for a match you can then see what map you're on and choose one of your four mechs. There would be a countdown timer for a minute or two where you could chat with your lance and team and let that dictate what mech you choose. To keep the current 3/3/3/3 system players could only have a single weight class (lights, mediums, heavies, assaults) in their dropship. For me, anything that let me choose a mech based on the map and my teams composition would be a step in the right direction.
One of the main ideas behind having randomized maps and fixed load outs is to encourage people not to have ridiculously hot builds that only perform well on certain maps, and instead try to go with a balanced build.
I'd agree with that...part of the challenge on any build is that you have to try and make something that works in any situation if you play it right. TBH, if this happened, I'd predict everyone would keep the same 4 types of mechs: the super long-range sniper, maybe with ECM (say, RVN-3L), the all close range super brawler (SCR, GHR, TBR, and some others), the super cool mech (Dual Gauss), and an LRM boat. Imagine Caustic Valley, if everyone on the map was able to change their mech after getting the map, and you dropped with every single person in either an ECM mech or an LRM boat? Or Alpine when everyone was in a sniper? Terra Therma with all dual gauss? It would get very stale very quickly. Some maps would have a bit more diversity, but a lot of the "worse" maps would have people set up mechs specifically for if they got those maps on a drop, and every round would start to play out exactly the same. This might seem unlikely...but after playing this game for years, and getting to know the community and how it plays, I feel pretty confident that it would turn out in this exact way.
I'm sure you're right, especially with the group queue. It's just that I get very annoyed that guys like me who don't have the time to get into group play can't really do anything about team makeup in solo. I would enjoy deciding to bring a tag or narcing mech if I knew my team was bringing a bunch of LRM's. Basically, I think I'd enjoy the few games I do play more if something gave puggers more unit cohesion.
TBH, I play in solo queue most of the time...and I really think it would end up the same way. People learn what the metas are, and they start using them, especially after someone annihilates them with a specific build. It would take a little while, but you would see a lot of people running the "standard" mech combos, and playing the same maps the same way every time they got them.
It's kind of like that now. You want to snipe, use this mech. You want to brawl, use this one. If you want to do your very best this one will work best. Not that I'm complaining actually. It's kind of fun to use the best, but it I manage to play for an extended period it gets old. The not best mechs have things that make them unique. I enjoy messing around with those. Sometimes I even find due to my habits and play style they work better for me then the meta mech. Unfortunately, because I don't play in group there are some things I can't try because they depend on team mates bringing certain things.
They were going to do dropship gamemode but then basically said fuck it and didn't do it. I would personally love it. But instead of 4 mechs it would be better with 2 mechs.
There's a lot they could do with the game to make it better, including a basic dropship mode. Actually, they could have done a lot with the game at the beginning to make it better. Not that they created a bad game. I enjoy it and I play it because I enjoy it. And they did have some grand ideas when they first started out or so I've heard, but somewhere in the past all those plans fell apart. I think they have been making an effort to move in the right direction, but it's been slow.
Actually it is not the queue that is the problem, but the map rotation. If a differently weighted randomization is used, say, changes everyday, and is posted, then way more tactics would be involved. It would allow for different mechs and different metas even to shine. People would make different decisions when the chances of hot map is showing up way more in a day, as they would flock to cooler builds, same goes for a day with more cool maps. On the other hand, a day with many builds and cityfights would attact brawlers. So things would differe in different days, more fun. You have to think in a day with 70% ice maps, and 30% caustic... do you risk it by bring in a laser vomit... or go cool? Everyone will have a different tactic on that, and it would be more interesting.
