Pay-to-win power creep is ruining the game
Lots of players that discovered mech arena are veterans of the game war robots. They thought mech arena was a fresh breath of air because it wasn't as hungry for their money as war robots was. One of the biggest complaints I see from war robots players is about power-creep. Paid for or high premium currency (in their case gold) cost robots were made significantly stronger to make the silver robots and the old robots obsolete to get players to spend more money.
Now I'm seeing the same thing with Mech Arena. Though Cheetah buff was first, It really started getting bad with pilots, when rocket mortars became overpowered. Thing is, you really need the radius maxed out if you want to need zero skill and need not take risks. But for anyone who people in the games industry involved with monetization refer to as "dolphins" and "whales" (because those fuckos in the games industry categorize players on how much they spend) that's really easy. Though it's not all bad, anyone can get rocket mortars and a radius implant and upgrade it over time. There's more to be said about the lack of skill needed involved in using rocket mortars.
But there's more. The only pilot you could ever want to use in the end game is a legendary pilot. The lack of implants and buffs from epic and rare pilots don't allow them to compete. But legendary pilots cost 3 times as much to unlock and twice as much to upgrade as epic pilots. And it's a-coins. 1000 is already a lot especially since you reduced the flow into the economy for f2p players a crap load last year. And there's more. The situation for implants is the same as the pilots themselves, but worse. Because with implants, ability related ones are optimum. And you already know this, lots of epic and legendary ability related implants f2p can only get from crates if you don't want to pay.
More stuff has followed that too. The next thing that followed was the stalker buff. It was perfectly balanced before it got buffed. But then you buffed it when you put it on sale. And you say you buffed it to compete with other attackers. I don't believe that in the slightest. Because you buffed other things when you put them on sale too. Shotgun 8 and Longarm 12. Nobody asked for those buffs. The weapons didn't need them. Also the stalker has MORE HP THAN ARES AND CONTENDS WITH ATTACKERS ON DPS AND CAN HEAL ITSELF so it's basically a tank. Sure it may be squishier when it gets optimum DPS but no tank has that DPS except brickhouse and brickhouse can buff it more still. And it's as fast as a panther. It's arguably the best mech in the game. And all of the stuff I just mentioned (except brickhouse) is stuck behind a paywall indefinitely.
Then disk launcher 12, then disk launcher 16 with 2 crate rushes neither of which had free tokens. Then arc torrent 12. Disk launcher 12 costs 7.5k a-coin, disk launcher 16 and arc torrent 12 paywalled indefinitely. Then you added orion. A "support" mech with MORE HP THAN ANY ATTACKER EXCEPT STALKER that "needs teamwork" except it totally doesn't need teamwork because of what I just mentioned and more. There's something unprecedented about Orion just like stalker's HP, despite it's own which as I already mentioned itself unprecedented. If you miss with Orion's ability, the cooldown is way shorter. The duration players are marked is as long as the cooldown too so there really isn't often a time when you're not getting the optimum DPS from your ability. Not even Stalker has that though it can still get bonus damage from Orion's ability or just hit the back flank by itself. That is very unprecedented.
Then you buffed the surge. It's a progress path mech and it needed it but you buffed it more than anyone expected and it costs 9375 a-coins to get if you're f2p. Many players see this as out of reach and it's not hard to tell why when so many other META items that aren't hard paywalled cost a-coins. Legendary pilots, one for each of your mechs, Disk launcher 12, Arc torrent 10 because you can't get arc torrent 12 but if you could it would cost even more a-coins, carbine 12, shadow. And you need to upgrade the ranks of all of these too. For surge that is expensive and for shadow too. And you probably really want surge if you don't have Orion or Stalker. Surge might have the most abilities that help it of any mech now. It gets dash, stun and stealth. It now has 2nd most HP of any scout and 50% more energy capacity than the scout in 1st place and it's faster than all of them. It is also quite an unprecedented mech.
If you don't have Orion, Stalker or Surge you're at a real big disadvantage to those that do. And you experience it in gameplay. If you do have one of these mechs, you're not likely to use the other mechs for their inferiority. As I put it earlier, they're rendered obsolete. Orion and Stalker are also paywalled indefinitely though at least Orion crate rush had a free token. This is harmful for the diversity of gameplay and it's not so fun relying on one mech and losing to it or one of the other 2 when you're not using it or killshot.
I don't want to see this game follow the path of war robots. I'm really not happy to see such power creep and it being behind a premium and be feeling the effects of it. It's not fun and it's disappointing and you need to do something so more earlier progress path mechs can compete again. Most of them are very lacking in speed or HP compared to mechs that have recently become META and at least slightly lacking in the other. Then you need to avoid power creep after that.
