Alpha's may be to powerful, at least that's how I feel. They've the firepower to turn the tide of a match. To just be able to engage in a 1v5 or even 1v6 and eliminate the opposing players is something that shouldn't be happening. The issues I'm seeing are a player can just bide their time until they can deploy an Alpha. Just reach a captured point and call it in, but that's objectively fine. What I feel isn't fine is that the Mech that is being swapped out recovers fully. To return unscathed is a huge advantage if you've got no armor recovering abilities. It should still retain some degree of damage and if not Alpha's should maybe be set to a timer before they exit the battle. This would make the Alpha's more rewarding when used and strategical than just calling them in over using your own Mech you've built. And if all your other Mechs haven't been eliminated or the match objective has been reached you can work towards calling in a new Alpha. It's hard not to just call in the Alpha because of it's firepower, armor, and overall health are substantially greater than other Mechs you could hope to build and take into battle.
#Thoughts on Alpha
wooden rampart
Of course even if you were to put a exit timer on the Alpha that falls back into the Mech that is being swapped out returning unscathed. So that could create further problems.
silver night
i agree with you on the second bit, however if you try to engage with an alpha against 5 or 6 somewhat skilled players running other thngs that are not an alpha, you will lose the fight while maybe taking out 1 bot or more if their armor has been lowered beforehand. Consider that only one bulwark with thunders and its ability can cripple an alpha's armor (trust me, in certain cases the bulwark may win), then add 4 other sources of variable damage on torso or other specific point and boom: alpha no more. The only way you will win such an engagement will be either against heavily damaged ennemies or if they decide to clump up for you to use both abilities on. If you are complaining about being able to go with that big of a number's advantage against a 5-6 player group and still kill some, remember you are sacrificing a high health high damage (both aoe and against single targets) and high range machine against some weak/lower potential robots in contrast.
zenith moon
Try running scourges on your robots and you eat alpha for lunch. Dash out of the sky lasers and you will be fine.
grand tree
I don't agree
Alpha is just big not rotary target, i was fighting against two simultaneously, and defeated one by one but lost one robots
slim snow
from my experiance the alpha we have access to is basically a 'mage' in other games, its skills are very strong, but once they are CD hes a free kill, any well optimized mech with a defensive or two can blow them up really easy, Alphas artillery support is def useful, but honestly i dont even pick him, more so i save him for the swap outplays, when people try to 2v1 me on a point im defending
players hiding and biding their time isnt an issue as much, because the games king of the hill gameplay favors offensive/aggressive play patterns, if youre behind and spending 30sec to hide and poke again, youre going to fall behind a ton on points
unborn basin
This Alpha is not needed in game at all imo