I'm curious to find out how other Mercs feel about the constatntly monthly-shifting FOTM meta.

We all have played "AR 514," "MD 514," and now we're playing "RR 514." This is largely due to the monthly releases of nerf/buff/new weapon patch cycles. With the new weapons, which seemingly get released in a greatly overpowered state, only to be nerfed into infinity in the next monthly cycle, it shifts the meta to the current hotness, the flavor of the month. There have been numerous flavors of the month, ranging from the examples above to the Flaylock hotness to the era of the Murder Taxis to the reign of the Caldari Logi-Assault.

In this month, it's the Rail Rifle, which was released in 1.7 as part of the effort to continue to flesh out all drop suits, weapons, generally nerf/buff/balance the game etc., and as has been the case with many other new releases or nerfs/buffs, it was released without compromises. It has the longest ranges in the game, considerable dps at any range, highly effective in close quarters, midrange, long range, etc. It's hard hitting and deadly accurate.

To some, as I've heard more than a few of my corpmates express, this creates a taxing cycle where the game dips and peaks from fun to not fun by having to continually deal with brokenly-overpowered weapon systems. If it wasn't the aim assist/fixes that made the AR overpowered one month, it was the shift to MDs that made Dust an MD-spam fest, or perhaps you remember the rampant Murder Taxi epoch. Now, Dust has filled its large-footprint maps with a long-range murder stick, capable of killing you from however far away your opponent is all the way through standing right in your face, using that same long-range murder stick to equal or better effect, despite you having a supposedly superior close-range weapon like the shotgun or Assault Rifle.

I wonder if this sentiment is shared by more of the community or is this more of an isolated problem for a few players not wanting to deal with a game in its early (though probably not anymore) stages. It is a valid concern, and I'm of the personal opinion that it'd probably be better to release something in a balanced or even slightly underpowered state so as to stop the waves of the ever-shifting meta that comes with each patch cycle. Releasing something slightly underpowered that could then be buffed later to bring it up to playable standards would curb the ever-shifting FOTM, give people confidence to spend SP in a weapon system that they enjoy (since it would be/have been released on parity with similar kit), and generally provide a "stable" feeling to the battlescape so its not always like trying to hit a moving target while blindfolded.