Not everyone plays the same way and I think a good way to broaden the appeal of any game is to offer various ui features.

When it came to the mechwarrior series I thought it would be great if players could use control schemes they were most comfortable with and graduated up to a new scheme at their own discretion.

With Green Level controls the game can be played like an arcade.
Targetting is sticky so what ever you aim at you usually won't miss but you are penalized with a lock on time. The more complicated your target becomes the longer the lock on. You can't lock on specific body parts unless equipped with a TC.
Heat levels are handled automatically so weapons and the engine/gyro scale down on power output to compensate for rising heat levels.
When you perform actions with your limbs such as lifting you are restricted to predefined movement patterns.
There's more ways this can feel like a simple arcade experience but I want this post to be as short as possible.

At regular level, the automation is scaled back so it feels more like the old mechwarrior games.
You can preset different styles of firing controls for different situations.
A mechwarrior can control his usage of passive and active scanners.
You can change communication methods to get around various types of ecm.
Etc.

With veteran controls the automation becomes heavily optional. Things like autorunning at a preset speed will be in place but now:
a veteran can manually aim with all weapons ensuring they hit where they need to if they can aim faster than lock on time.
You can sacrafice power control safeties to increase power output of components like life support or your basic ecm package.
You have greater control over your mechs center of gravity if you don't like the way the computer compensates for you.
etc.

At elite levels you are given free reign to set a limited amount of automation protocols.
So you could sacrafice having the computer actively scanning at regular intervals so your mech can automatically use jump jets when ever coming across a gap it has to cross. To use active scanners you have to manually control it. The same could go for autorunning where that is disabled so you can automate another function of your mech.
Etc.


Personally I would hope from a system a player with green level controls could even use a game pad to play the game while with each increasing level more buttons are required to handle the increased sophistication.

I also hope that a person who is an expert at green controls would be able to destroy a rookie at regular controls but would lost easily to an expert at regular controls because of the limitations on what green controls allow.

FYI if this idea is accepted green, regular, veteran and elite are terrible names to tell new people what these control schemes are about. I simply used these names because anyone who's played btech long enough should be familiar with the connotations of those terms.

That is definitely an interesting concept but I come from the camp that believes controls should be hard for everyone to start because it helps build your skill.  You start out with chassis that has limited functionality or flexibility but helps build your core skills.  Once you are adept at using those skills you can bump up to a new chassis that requires something new on top of what you already know versus changing the mechanism by which you accomplish those basic tasks.

I always use training then campaign/single player for learning the ropes before I go multi-player if it's a game that I am not familiar with.

I see MWLL as giving a similar progression simply through the method by which you will be acquiring equipment.  It will take players a modicum of time before they will be piloting an Atlas or similar Mech.  Starting off only being in battle armor or in lighter vehicles will lend a natural progression to the mix.

Bah!  I never look for the notification. 

Hmm... what about the possibility of a 'free roam' map. A local game with all of the vehicles lined up for a test drive. Like a solo instant action. This way new players can toy around with the physics, see what works and what doesn't, thus entering real games some basic handling experience. This way they can worry about fighting the enemy, rather than the controls.

There a couple of key differences. The first is that in a training sim you are at best playing against the cpu based on the suggestions here. Only time I ever met bots that made me feel like I was playing real people were Quake 3D bots.

The second difference is that the system I'm proposing isn't just about getting people to train up but to give people options in finding their comfort zone. Some people aren't interested in playing a simulation and want to deal with as few buttons to be memorized as possible. Some want absolute control of their machines. The main reason I even mentioned skilled players with a more complicated control scheme should have a higher probability to win is my belief the system is more fair if a player chooses to sacrafice automation for precise control.

My idea makes the game more accessible to players with differing sensibilities.
.

Whilst I agree I would imagine the devs are going to want as many people to play and enjoy this game from day 1 through the (hopefully) many years of game play. Therefore making a learning right-angle isn't really a good idea when your battling for players with full commercial products.