There has been a lot of discussion about matchmaking, balance and P2W in Mech Arena. And yes, spending money gives you a significant advantage. I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

But I also don't think the gap between paying players and F2P players is as impossible to overcome as people sometimes make it sound. In my opinion, one of the biggest mistakes F2P players make is progressing in the wrong direction.

They save A-Coins for months, buy expensive/meta mechs from ECR, rank them up, and eventually end up with a hangar full of excellent mechs... equipped with mediocre weapons and weak pilots.

I think that is backwards.

# Weapons and pilots win fights. Mechs mostly deliver them.

Of course mech abilities matter, and some mechs are objectively much stronger than others. But a great mech carrying weak weapons is still weak.

A mediocre mech carrying properly developed weapons, supported by a strong pilot, can absolutely destroy people. For F2P players, I think the priority should usually be:

**Weapons → Pilots → Mechs**

not:

**Mechs → Weapons → Pilots**

Weapons are also much more transferable. You can invest heavily into a strong weapon today, use it on a basic mech, and later move it onto a better mech when you unlock one. The same applies to legendary pilots.

# So I tested this idea.

I built a deliberately weak hangar using mostly starter mechs. Almost all are only **3 stars**, except my **4-star MD**.

I also handicapped the pilots:

* most pilots are **not matched to the weapon type**, so they don't even provide the weapon damage bonus;
* only Shadow and Quasher have matching pilots;
* no legendary weapon implants;
* each pilot has only **one implant equipped**. The legendary implants there are those you buy with credits;
* no maxed out weapons, but most at 6\* (Gemini 6 at 5\*)

So this is far from an optimized hangar. The idea was simple:

**Use mediocre mechs and let the weapons do the work.**

The screenshots show the result: consistent wins in CPC, Deathmatch and FFA, including several high-score matches.

I'm not saying matchmaking is perfect. I'm not saying P2W doesn't exist. And I'm definitely not saying F2P players progress as fast as paying players.

What I'm saying is that **F2P players have much more control over their competitiveness than they sometimes realize.**

# If you're F2P, don't build a showroom. Build weapons.

I'd rather have a mediocre mech with a weapon that can reliably kill enemies than a top-tier mech firing underleveled gear.

Pick a few weapon families you know you'll use for a long time. Develop them properly.

Get good pilots for them. Invest in useful implants. Then upgrade the mech carrying them.

And one final piece of advice:

**Epic weapon implants are worth the A-Coins.**

If you regularly use a weapon, I would almost always buy and equip the relevant purple implants when they appear. The performance difference compared with blue implants is significant, and for F2P players this is one of the better places to spend limited A-Coins.

F2P players: stop chasing meta mechs. You're probably upgrading the wrong things.