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MechWarrior Online is still going strong in its open beta

phase. As more patches continue to come forth, it’s obvious

the development

team at Piranha Games is putting their noses to the grindstone in

anticipation of

the game’s official launch this September. There are a number

of things I think

the game is still missing (mainly a robust faction system but there is

a tab

for it, so I have hope). One of my biggest issues with the game was

addressed

last week by making matches 12 vs. 12 instead of 8 vs. 8.

On the surface, it really doesn’t sound like such a bigdeal, does it? It’s just another 4 mechs being added to eachside. Believe itor not though, it really does make a huge difference and let me explainwhy.When each side has only 8 mechs, there’s less room foreffective PUGs (pick upgroups) to utilize their mechs of choice effectively with littlecommunication(another piece of the game that needs more work as well). In an 8 on 8match,light mechs are rarely used as they should be, let alone to their fullpotential.

In any battle, no matter what game we’re talking about asfar as I’m concerned, there need to be multiple scouts andharassers. With eachside now bringing in 12 mechs to a battle, this means any team shouldvery,very rarely find themselves without a good spread of available mechtypes towork with. An average team now looks like this:

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2 to 4 Light Mechs

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to 3 Medium Mechs

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and DPS varieties)

and DPS varieties) 2 to 4 Assault Mechs

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That's going to leave a mark.

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Before the change, there were times I found myself on teams

that always seemed to be missing any light mechs at all or at best only

had one

or two. Since the team size change has come, I’ve been

playing a lot of matches

lately and personally, I’m pretty happy with the spread of

teammates I get now.

This doesn’t mean my side wins any more than we did, but

it’s not because the

team starts off gimped to begin with.

Let’s face facts – any PUG is going to be at adisadvantage against a group of players that are on the same Ventriloserver andkeeping in constant communication. This is one thing in MechWarriorOnline thatwas an issue before and though it is *definitely* still a problem,it’s notquite as bad as it was before the recent team size increase. At leastnow, Idon’t feel like my team has next to zero chance of winningany given match themoment we’re tossed into a map together.

When a match started “back in the day”, your teamwassplit into two groups (called lances) of 4 mechs each. In true PUGmentality,compounded by inferior communication tools immediately available, therewasalways a natural tendency for everyone to group together like a herdand gocharging down the middle. There were times that support mechs wouldhang behindor light mechs would go out scouting to start highlighting targets, butthiswas very rare. Support mechs only hung around in case a base would beattackedand light mechs had zero fire support while they were out scouting. Allin all,it was a recipe for disaster on a regular basis.

Now that there are 12 mechs on each team (split intothree lances consisting of four mechs each), there is another PUGpattern emerging,albeit a bit slowly – a triangle formation. When you onlyhave two lances goingagainst each other (PUG lances always stay together as a group), therearelimited options that those lances will feel are effective. When yousuddenlythrow a third lance into the mix though, there is a natural desire tostarttrying to outflank your opponent.

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Headshot! style="width: 620px; height: 373px;" alt=""src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/252547/preview">Headshot!





Over the course of the week, I’ve seen this begin to

happen more and more. Personally, I think it’s a beautiful

thing. The matches

still turn into a cluster of a free for all more often than not, but

there’s

finally a bit of movement in the overall match. Far more than I

regularly

witnessed before to be certain.

So it’s obvious that I’m a fan of the change, butthereare plenty of players that aren’t. Some complain that nowthere’s just a biggersingle group of mechs converging in the middle of the map and thatthere areeven less tactics being used than before. I respectfully choose todisagreewith this assessment. I will freely admit (as I believe I already have)thatthere is still a serious lack of communication among both team andlance mates,but at least now I can see some semblance of a pretend strategy.

I regularly see multiple long-range support mechs set upon a mountainside and start lobbing missiles early sincethere’s more than asingle light mech out front scouting targets. At the same time, I seemediummechs hanging near the edges of the fray coming in and out to distractheaviertargets from annihilating those long-range support mechs. All thewhile, theassault mechs are coming in like a bull in a china shop and blastingthe holyliving hell out of anything they can find.

Is it perfect? Not even close. Is it getting better? Ithink the answer to that is a solid yes. Do I think the game is a lotof funand will continue to appeal to old BattleTech and MechWarrior players?You betyour ass I do.