Mechwarrior Online: Ownership of Constraints

Mechwarrior Online is fun. The learning curve is steep, the premise unrealistic, and the game play has yet to reach a reasonable balance; yet despite all of this it is still fun. Victory is simple, defeat all opponents. The skills tested during actual game play are not new ones; pilot your mech, utilize teamwork to concentrate firepower, try not to die. Inside of these simple ideas and less than innovative gameplay is a hoard of constraints, distinct and separate while still being related, the suite of constraints placed upon you creates a very real sense of accomplishment when success is achieved.

The most important constraints are present before you even enter a match, and primarily have to do with choosing and building your mech. Each stage of creation and selection comes with an opportunity cost, I will endeavor to describe both tiers of primary decisions and why they are important.

First the mech itself. Mech’s come in approximately three different sizes, big small and in between. If your mech is small it will obtain superior mobility, but lack substantial armament and be easier to destroy. Conversely if your mech is large it will be harder to destroy and wield superior armament, but in return it is slow and easy to outmaneuver. Striking a balance is possible, but leaves you unable to stand toe to toe with a larger mech, and still possible to be outrun by a smaller one. As each mech comes with its own unique constraints, the combination of mechs in any given game provides for a unique challenge in organizing and utilizing strengths effectively. If your team has no smaller mechs to scout for it, you may need to split off into pairs in order to make sure you are not separated, yet still have presence all across the map. Alternately if your entire team is comprised of smaller scouts, you may decide collectively to split off individually and then coordinate a convergence on isolated bigger mechs, attacking like a wolf pack from multiple angles simultaneously.

After the size of mech has been selected, the next set of decisions involves choosing type of armament and internal components of your mech. Each type of weapon comes with its own strengths and drawbacks. Lasers do medium damage but require several seconds to do it in, missiles have a huge range but limited ammunition, PPC’s have unlimited ammo and great range, but do nothing at a short distance. It is possible to emphasis a specific strength by only taking one sort of weapon, or hedge your bets and take one of each. Choosing the former gives you amazing power at your chosen range, but cripples you when not in your preferred situation. The latter gives you flexibility, but condemns you to the position of underdog when facing an opponent who has specialized in a given range if they are allowed to choose the engagement terms.

The subset of weapon restraints within weapon categories layered on top of the constraints of size category makes for a huge amount of choices to be made before you even climb into the cockpit of your mech. Each choice is meaningful and interacts directly with other choices made, and the fun of Mechwarrior Online stems directly from those meaningful choices.

 Working within the restraints presented in order to create a mech that pairs effectively with your play style is a difficult yet ultimately rewarding task. Trial and error is a huge portion of learning to create your mech, similarly to how even wrong ideas are useful in the frame of Collective Intelligence, poorly designed mechs are useful in learning what works and what does not. Problems not immediately apparently in the design phase are showcased on the field, and then back to the drawing board to make sure the same mistakes are not made again. It is the ownership of the constraints, the malleability of your limitations, that is unique in Mechwarrior Online.

The end result of creating a mech that works is a huge amount of satisfaction. The visceral thrill of defeating other giant robots and watching them explode is made that much more satisfying with the knowledge that you did it with a tool of your own design. The culmination of hours of tweaking and testing is made manifest in a thirty story robot brimming with optimized death.