MechWarrior Online's new achievement system will reward new players as well as the its most battle-hardened veteran pilots. The awards were added with yesterday's patch, and hand out in-game cash and GXP for completing various mundane and spectacular tasks on the battlefield. While several achievements can be won in a single match, others could take months or years.
Probably the biggest advantage of the new system—beyond giving long-time players something new to do in the game—is the way in which the achievements could speed up progress towards a shiny new mech or a vital skill upgrade. By targeting a particular goal, such as getting three kills in a match while keeping your own health above 90 percent, you can get a boost to your slower-building GXP without having to resort to spending any real money in the free-to-play game. Some of the biggest GXP rewards will naturally take the longest to reach, depending on how fast it takes players to get, say, 10,000 assists or 1,000 headshot kills.
Sure, achievement and challenge systems in online shooters often seem arbitrary, but the new feature looks like it will add a level of persistence to MWO that wasn't there before. And with the highly-anticipated Community Warfare metagame expansion still on the distant horizon, any new features are very welcome.
A complete reset of all player stats also arrives with the new system, although old records are helpfully archived on the MWO website under player profiles. The full patch notes for the update are available here .
