My point is that every other faction in PR is based on an actual army meaning the MEC are a complete contradiction of the general theme of PR.
But as I said, its not that relevant to gameplay. I'd play PR even if it had entirely imaginary factions with realistic depicting of military and warfare. If anything, MEC is a sort of white canvas that the dev team can paint on with relative freedom. It allows for creativity when most of the other designs follow their RL equivalents rather strictly. And the results, imo, are so good that I'd like to see MEC kept highly represent in game: I'd just love to see a large map with British/IDF against MEC, or insurgents vs MEC.
I disagree that it is a stretch to have Russians fighting IDF, as already stated the two factions have clashed in RL and the potential for a storyline explaining the involvment of the two factions is massive. PR officially does not create such background but that does not mean the potential isn't there.
The Russians and Israelis may have clashed through proxies, but the USSR and contemporary Russia lacks the power-projection abilities to actually invade Israel without getting hampered by other Western powers (and in such a case, any invasion of Israel would be out of question since Russia would be more concern with its own defense).
And further, its not as if Russia has any actual interests in Israel. Russian is not lead by rabid antisemites who'd like to risk all of what they have for a modern pogrom in Israel. And Russia has no vital material interest in Israel either, since it has no oil or anything.
But even if Russia had interests in a conflict with Israel, MEC is already more or less a Russian proxy or ally, quite possibly, since it has a large amount of Russian hardware and weapons. So in any case, Russia would simply hire MEC to do its dirty job in Israel and reward them as Russia always has, through bilateral trade preferences and stockpiles of weapons.
We're also talking about gameplay here and what is best for PR gameplay. In essence therefore we are debating something that we have not yet played and therefore really have no right to comment on until it has been tried. You never know but the IDF v Russia combination could prove to be one of the most enjoyable match ups in the game
Oh sure -- I have no doubt. I really like Russia too and their laz0rx accurate AK-74Ms with those upside down reticules.
But. The MEC have only 3 maps that I know of in 0.9. Kashan is a tank match, so its the same regardless of what factions you might have on the map. Jabal is an awful map. And I am sick and tired of Muttrah, which is a very good map, but its not the only map where I'd like to shoot my G3.
During testing for the map one of the developers (I forget who, possibly DB) made the valid and exciting point that Beirut is going to be a fantastic showpiece for PR; an entirely new and unique map being fought over by two completely custom factions that have been designed and created by the community from the base up. I can't think of anything more exciting.
MEC is almost entirely custom made by now. It has only some scarce vBF2 leftovers, like the flag, which, last time I checked, doesn't really affect gameplay unless it was plain white (which is a problem for the French faction devs
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