MA NOT ONE PENNY MORE!

I support this. I'll admit I have very little skin in the game; I have only doubled my Panther so far. But I've never really liked the 2nd bot copy deal. One of the things I like about this game is how much it emphasizes variety in your hangar. Doubling bots has always been the exception and while it isn't as bad as War Robots where people race to make a 5 copy META hangar, endgame hangars in MA are still way too monotonous. Even for me, I've found I am playing my double Panthers exclusively since I got the 2nd copy. Mainly for the speed, but still I'd much rather have more powerful light bots than just a Killshot/Panther/Guardian hangar.

The EN32 and 24 change is a little worrisome, but my guess is we'll soon see them release more powerful versions of existing weapons like Javelin 12s and Thermal Lance 16s. Honestly this makes sense since in some ways it feels like the devs have boxed themselves in on weapons. The existing options are so good, they only way to get people to pursue new ones are to go the War Robots route with either gimmicky game-laming abilities or incessant nerf/buff cycles. Tweaking the EN and then re-releasing some of the weaker weapons for endgame seems like a good compromise. But that is where I suspect people will feel shorted - not in the 6.1 bots but on 5.6 weapons like Jav 6s.

Also, standardizing the ENs to all be multiples of 4 seems generally a good move. Having to grind for Carb 10s for instance was pretty annoying. Folks who invested heavily in EN10 weapons might feel cheated, unless they start releasing more weird level weapons like 14s. I hope this doesn't stop players from trying out mixed weapon builds, but it seems like folks still do that even on EN16/24 bots.

Overall it seems like a good change. Just wish they'd nerf RM12s and restrict RM AI-bots from dropping in CPC where they are all pre5 much useless. I mean if they are "listening to player feedback" then deal with Rocket Mortars already!

The good news (from my perspective) is eliminating second copies. I think that will help increase variety in higher-level setups. The copy limitation in MA has always been a positive feature and I like that they are doubling down on this. However, this is only a patch over the underlying balance issues between mechs. Regardless of the number of copies, I bet most people will still be dropping Killshot first and then Panther or Guardian afterwards; these mechs are just slightly more powerful overall in their roles than others. Variety is at its best when there are many options with different roles that all have similar power level. MA has been pretty close to this ideal but at the top level it seems to need a couple of tweaks still.

Now increasing the energy cap on all Mechs? That really changes things. Currently as people have pointed out, there are a limited number of high-energy weapons to use. So to maximize energy you would use double stasis 16, double railgun 16, double carbine 12, double stasis 12, and double rocket mortar 12. However, doubling up stasis beam builds seems a bit silly. Those could be swapped out for missile rack 8, arc torrent 10, or carbine 8/10. What does this mean for end game hangars? Guardian and Panther take the two 32-energy setups, then killshot takes the carbines, and ares/zephyr/brickhouse takes the mortars (will be pretty necessary to target the railgun builds). The final slot is a bit more flexible, but I would bet that shadow with the missile racks or zephyr double arc torrent would be pretty good choices. So in reality, this change won't meaningfully increase overall diversity, since the same weapons will be used either way, it will just reduce the interesting choices about how to pair a 16-energy weapon with a 2-energy or 8-energy weapon, combining 10-energy and 8-energy weapons on the 18-energy mechs, etc.

So either the developers are reducing the meaningful number of endgame setups quite a bit, or they plan to release a lot more 12- and 16-energy weapons.

This leads me to the conclusion that this update is really the MA equivalent of War Robots Mk2. The progression to the top level of the game now requires not only ranking up 5 bots instead of 3, but also purchasing and ranking up extremely costly 12 and 16 energy weapons, of which I will bet they are making more as we speak. As others have said, this devalues the lower energy weapons dramatically and creates a much larger power differential between players with rank-6 equipment and those with rank-4 or rank-5. This is extremely frustrating to see as someone who had high hopes for the game.

I've been following the discord recently, and Akhhhh seems to have confirmed that the developers are actively working on a "pilots" feature, despite the negative feedback. Of course, we don't know what these would look like, and I would like to be optimistic, but the combination of pilots and this virtual Mk2 feels eerily reminiscent of the things that made me leave War Robots.

I would have loved to see them announce that rank 6, instead of being a second copy, instead came with an ability enhancement of some sort. Lancer with double jump, Shadow getting extra speed during stealth, Ares losing the ability timer, MD getting extended heal range, etc could all be very interesting and meaningful upgrades for rank 6 without breaking the core energy balance in the game. And this would be in line with the ability improvements that weapons get when ranking up. To me, the developers are skipping over this and other low-hanging-fruit balance tweaks that could really make this game shine and instead dramatically changing the game to enable better monetization of whales. I had hoped that MA was going on the "microtransactions and cosmetics" monetization route instead of the true "pay to win" route of War Robots; if they introduce these changes I think I will lose interest in this game very quickly.

I realized something that I'm NOT super happy about. The AI...they're going to R6 bots with all this new EN and I DO NOT want to see AI with KS with dual Carb12s or with Panthers that have 2 Railguns or even Shadows with PC8s. Let's all take a moment to pray this doesn't happen.

Except for the fact that you can’t deny that the mechanics of the game are far superior at the beta stage then War Robots ever was. Just think of the aiming and movement alone.

Yes, the pay to win aspect sucks, but even with these changes it still doesn’t diminish the skill of a player. Even with dual RG16, one can out play their opponent with counters, such as dual rm12, or now with a shadow RM12 - JR 6 on certain maps. More mechs in the meta is always better for the game.

I understand the doom and gloom as we are accustom to it from pixonic. But everything I’m seeing from MA, looks to be a move with balance in mind. Look no further than the last two Mech releases. How many of you run redux and surge??

How long it lasts will be the question. But for now I’m enjoying the ride. Even if I lose half my hanger and need to rethink my strategy across all modes of the game.

yea the credits to go from 6 star level 1 to full maxed is 1735000. If you do the math for the a-coin to credit conversion, it's 16435 a-coins per bot. Now consider I've done that three times. This is excluding the a-coins I spent to accelerate blueprint progression. If I get even 10k a-coins back, I'd be somewhat satisfied (and shocked at plarium's largesse). Then I'd just use those coins to level up other stuff instead.

But if they're gonna just give everyone 2k or 3k for each 6 star bot, then 「fluffernutter」 them, I'm likely to find some other game to play instead. This is their chance to show some goodwill and not shaft people who've invested time and resources into the game.

So here’s my two cents. The Bad: I’ll loose 3 Mechs, KS, Guardian and Panther, all at 6.2. I only run one dual copy now and that’s my Panther so I’m not impacted too much by this. Do hate loosing my other KS though as I had big plans for him and was thinking about dual copying my Zeph. Hopefully the compensation will be fair to the players. My other staples would be Zephyr and Juggy at 5.5 and 5.3 respectfully so at those levels I hopefully will be able to level them with the compensation I’ll get from loosing 3 Mechs. As things stand with what we know today I would probably run Guardian, Panther, Jugg, KS and Zeph. As for weapons I have dual copies of SB 12 and 16 along with dual Carb 12s. So that would leave me with one 32 energy mech and two 24s. My big takeaway right now is I’m not going to invest in anything until they drop the update. I’ll hoard my resources until it drops and then I’ll re-evaluate. Who knows, I may get enough resources to pick up any new Mechs or weapons that the developers come up with to take advantage of the energy change. Time will tell and I’m just going to take a wait and see attitude.

     Well light bots depend on speed and in Shadows case stealth. The idea being not getting hit and staying in game that way,  Plus they will hit harder in 1.24.
   
Some Gun n` Run pics from the 1980s. Same tactics.

I agree. I do doubt they factor all the daily deals spending credits and A-coins to buy Blueprints...because we all know the streams of prints dry up as you approach 4 or 5 stars. We are going to need to get the prints to get other bots up to snuff.

I've heard this number thrown out multiple times at this point.  I'm hoping Plarium is seeing this to...and they see it as a base level.  I think 5K/ duplicated mech sounds somewhat reasonable, but level after duplicate should play into it too.  5K sounds good to me because I haven't leveled any of my duplicates beyond 6.3 I think.

But look at this way, global launch = more players of all kinds. Match making will always be an issue. There was that time when War Robots ranked hanger, but for the most part it’s usually always the case. But there’s hope that with a larger player pool better results.

Plus with more real humans, you won’t get the annoying AI focus issue, as in they only have eyes for you.

Overall the change looks bad. This could cause them releasing higher EN for low EN weapon types such as SG and Javs (Being Closer to War Robots). Now imagine a Jav 16 lol. In my POV this is just greedy. Before you can level only 3 bots to R6 and boom you have 5 mechs to fill your hangar and variety just comes with the weapon setups and that ok for the majority of player base taht are F2P players. However only silver lining on this is as long as they don't mess up the matchmaking power gap will never be a thing.  

you better not take away my feats! I worked hard for finishing that panther for the skin 

So the big question now is is this a good time to clone a bot ?,I was about to clone my Killy,when I read this announcement my first reaction was wait it out and see what the update is like,but with compensation being mentioned is it better to clone now and possibly get some A coins returned ?.Or are Plarium only going to view the compensation as any resources spend after upgrading R6 hmmmmmm.

Agree,in the original announcement they brush over the compensation subject,it seems like they don't really know how to tackle that issue.