27 replies to this topic

[Plonky]

Vote for a dev response to this thread in the ask the devs - http://mwomercs.com/...te/page__st__80

UPDATE: Ok so this thread is starting to gather some good ideas, so I'm going to keep this post updated with all good ideas. Maybe we can point PGI towards it on the next ask the devs (thanks ollo for the good idea:) Please read and then make any of your own suggestions below

As mentioned by many people in many other recent threads, the way CBills are earned is not handled very well. No matter what the rate of CB gathering, this system will always struggle with either the gains being too slow for new players, or being too quick and having players accumulating CBills with nothing to spend them on.

I think there needs to be a move away from controlling the economy by CBill gain alone. I think it would be reasonably fair to assume that the longer a person plays MWO, the more likely they are to spend money on it. Apart from the necessary purchases of mech bays, a player who is invested in the game emotionally/time committed will feel more justified in outlaying money, because they will feel like they are getting enjoyment from it.

If a person comes to believe that the only way they can have fun or make progress is to pay money, they will be less likely to spend money, because they are not otherwise invested in the experience. Also, if you bind together the concepts of "progression" and "monetary payment" too tightly (i.e. by making accumulation of mechs by CBills too hard), people are not as likely to play the game in the long term, because the player is constantly thinking about the value they are getting from the experience - comparing the fun they get from playing to the fun they get from buying new stuff.

I think the goal of the makers of MWO should be to retain each player for as long as possible. This is how words spreads, community grows, and how games eventually make money. The most important thing for a game's longevity is its community. It takes dedication to make websites, videos and other fan content, and that dedication will not be there if you have a highly rotating player base - it will simply not have time to evolve.

Helping new players

Players need to have some motivation to keep playing. In a new player, that motivation must be high, because they are not yet emotionally invested in the game. A negative experience that wouldn't bother an experienced player might cause a new player to stop playing altogether. Accumulating CBills faster for the first 25 games is a good idea - to help new players reach their first goal (buying their own mech) faster. The problem is that actually equipping that mech is costly, leaving the new player no CBills left over to put towards their second mech. This is a large gap between rewards for a new player.

I think it would be a great idea if you were given a new mech after a certain achievements are completed. For example, after 10 wins, a new player can choose any non elite light mech to have. After 25 wins they can choose a medium mech. After 50 wins, you get a heavy. After 100 wins, you get an assault.

This would be a very good incentive to keep playing the game. Not only would this give the player regular rewards, the rate that CBills are gained would no longer be a grind factor for the accumulation of new mechs in the early stages. The CBills can be used to equip the rewarded mechs, rather than be spent on purchasing the mechs themselves.

Random rewards

How cool would it be if every so often you managed to salvage a random part from an enemy mech you've killed? At the end of the match a window will pop up and say, for example, "Salvaged ERPPC from playername". This could have a very small chance of happening, but would just be an occasional bit of "loot". I think that would be really exciting whenever it happened.

How about if your team wins by cap, any mech that assisted in capping a point has a small chance to get a CBill bonus for "Ensuring the continuing viability of the mining operation".

Random purchases

How about being able to buy a random mech with CBills? It could cost 10mill and you get a random mech, and that mech could be any mech in the game, including hero mechs (and perhaps rare mechs that you can only get through gambling). I think this would be a pretty awesome way for people who have accumulated a lot of CBills to "spend" those CBills.

CBill weekends

Give a 10% bonus to CBill generation on the weekends. Do you know how much more likely it will make people to play MWO on weekends? About 10%. If people can build their schedule around it they will (10% chance).

From ollo

to add to that:

• there should also be a daily x2 bonus on CB as well, as this encourages to have more mechs in the bay
  
• What about a minor bonus on 4,8,12 kills/assists? It should have a huge first-time bonus to encourage the players to get better, maybe 5/10/20 million on kills and 2/5/10 on assists, dropping to a tenth of that afterwards.
  
• for general player binding: i'd also introduce numerours achievements that won't neccessarily gain CB (maybe they add on general XP and you get a CB bonus for getting all achievements of one class), e.g.:
  
  • Atlai-Killer: killed a whole lance of atlai in one game (also for every other chassis)
    
  • I know my tools: get at least one kill with every energy/ballistic/missile weapon in the game
    
  • Dancer on every Party: killed at least one mech of every class in one match
    
  • Party host: own at least one/two/three/all chassis of every class
    
  • Savior: get 3/4/5... savior kills in one match
    
  • Captain: killed at least 3 mechs with an energy/ballistic/missile boat in one match
    
  • Master, MASTER!: mastered 1/2/3... chassis

XP



Good suggestions. I have some more, but for XP. How about after you earn a certain amount of XP you can choose a perk. Each perk has a positive and negative component, so they are an optional way to customize your playstyle. For example:

Running hot: You move 5% faster, but moving generates 10% more heat, and slows heat dissipation by 10%.
Extended Lasers: Your lasers have 10% extra range, but do 5% less damage.
Difficult target: It takes 20% longer for enemy mechs to get target information on you, but it takes 10% longer for you to get target information from enemies.
Improved ballistics: Your ballistic weapon shots travel 20% faster, but have a 10% longer recycle time.
Reflective armor: You have a 10% chance to "reflect" an incoming attack (and take no damage), but shots that do hit do 5% more damage.
Dampened armor: 20% of the damage you take is displaced to an adjoining part of your mech, but you take 10% more damage overall.
Realigned jumpjets: The thrust for your jumpjets is now mostly forwards (meaning you can't jump up cliffs as easily but giving you increased distance and speed).

Achievements (from BlacKcud)

http://mwomercs.com/...e-achievements/

Trial mechs

Had an idea for trial mechs. How about each week PGI lets the community know which mechs will be up for next week. The community gets to make builds for those mechs and then vote on them. The top voted builds are what appear on the trial mechs the next week.

OTHER

How about you get a CBill discount on any mech of a chasis you currently own. Bigger discount if you own two mechs of that chasis. Would help people to buy their second and third mechs, and incentivize buying more than one mech of a type in people who might otherwise not.

Have sales on mech parts. Maybe each week it could rotate between the different types of weapons - lasers one week, missiles the next etc. Would encourage people to try new builds.

Have engineers in your hanger that get happier or sader depending on your performance, and they complain if you die too much, or tell you it's your turn to buy them a beer if you didn't take much damage.

HeavyRain, on 31 August 2013 - 12:43 PM, said:

I think it would be a strong incentive for people to play more matches if we got a daily bonus of 2 x C-bills for a win, but we get to choose when we are going to use this bonus. So I play a match and I see that I made 105k, "Meh, I can do better and use the bonus on a better match". *clicks Launch again*. I think we would see many "bonus addicts", playing over and over until they can get maximum benefit from the 2x bonus. It would make the grind less obvious, on a psychological level.

Ryvucz, on 31 August 2013 - 12:48 PM, said:

Personally I wouldn't mind having a 5x C-Bill reward that only happens once a month and resets every first patch of the month.

Win or lose.

Hopefully to encourage players to be their best. (At least at the start of the month)

Edited by PeenyPoke, 31 August 2013 - 04:17 PM.

[Boyinleaves]

I do like a lot of your ideas,and particularly the intent behind them. PGI can only really benefit from working on their economy. As you say, more players is almost always a good thing, and there are plenty of untapped ways that this game could be monetized without affecting game balance, which would also improve player experience.

I can think of a few reasons for why the initial cadet bonus is the way it is, and not more, but i have seen first hand how high the barrier to entry is with this game, and i am certainly inclined to agree with you that new players need something more to get them invested in continuing with the game above and beyond what is currently on offer.








My personal picks for improving the economy would be the following:

Use match by match 'achievements' to facilitate C-Bill gain as well as encourage performance. E.g. players may be able to get an additional C-Bill award for 'getting 3 kills and at least 150 damage in a match', or perhaps for 'getting at least 150 damage and achieving a kill with a ballistic, an energy and a missile weapon'. Numbers here are an example, but I'm she anyone who cares could think of a myriad of possibilities for this that would encourage skilled and varied okay and reward either good players or those who exhibit teamwork.

Implement multi-match and lifetime achievements that reward players with C-Bills and other paraphernalia when completed (see Hawken's system for some good inspiration here). I don't personally care for achievements, particularly if they can be gamed, or are not of a type that actually requires some skill and/or effort to achieve, but i have seen them used to great effect to aid in retaining players, and to provide motivation to attempt playing in ways that people wouldn't normally choose.



Give players a whole lot more cosmetic or novelty stuff to spend C-Bills on. At the moment we can get mechs and stuff for mechs, and with the current state of chassis differentiation, there really isn't a lot of incentive to buy more mechs other than 'gotta catch em all' syndrome. Many aspects of the game could be improved with respect to C-Bill purchases.

Random rare (cosmetic) stuff is great incentive for collectors to keep playing and to keep trying for. Camo, colors, decals, cockpit items, whatever. I do like your suggestions about random items and mechs as well.

Ok, getting sick of typing on my phone, apologies if this is a mattress and unclear, i can't be bothered fixing the words and the formatting anymore.

[Kushko]

Alot of good ideas so far. Only one im not that fond of is the random purchase since i dont think it would translate too well in to MWO (in d2 it was great though ).

The small chance to salvage random weapons/items would be fantastic. And making MWO more accessible to the average player and even more so the new players. Im really not sure where devs get this weird idea that progress has to be slow, punishing and tedious instead of decently paced, fun and exciting. MWO has enough content/mechs to buy at this point with more and more being added monthly+all their variants. We dont need or want slow progression from mech to mech.

[KodiakGW]

I like the idea of C-Bill weekends. The few that they have done are weekends that I've played longer hours. Getting me to play longer hours, without frustrating me, makes me look at buying things with MC I would not think about otherwise.

Here is another idea. Giving us the ability to purchase the mech chassis separately with C-Bills. No engine, no weapons, no components. Newer players would then be able to customize the mech the way they want it before hitting the buy button. Experienced players already have a number of those items in inventory. Right now, in both cases, players end up spending real or earned money on chassis with expensive components that they are going to strip out or replace to make the loadout they want.

Since they have show by not addressing this issue and making C-bill earning worse in Conquest in the last patch, this change is here to stay. Engines, mechs, and modules are now ridiculously expensive for those that cannot commit many hours to playing this game. The devs need to find innovative ways to not make new and old players get frustrated and leave. As it stands, I'm drifting away quickly because I'm tired of signing on to see the names of the 30+ players on my friends list in red.

[Tatula]

How about a new social aspect for the game? A c-bill casino! Take your hard earned c-bills and gamble it away at the Blackjack tables. If you're lucky, you can double or triple your measly merc salary so you can afford that new large laser you've been drooling over at the mech bay shops.

How cool will it be if you can boast that you won that Atlas at a high stake poker game?

Edited by Aloha, 27 August 2013 - 07:26 AM.

[ollo]

Great ideas so far! Nothing else to say, just bumping to increase the chance it meets at least on dev's eye...

[Buehgler]

Great post and ideas. It is nice to see some new ideas and not just more "NO NO".

As for the details, I think c-bill bonus times (e.g. weekends) are a great idea. I also like the idea of real salvage. The current salvage bonus is far too opaque and small to really have much influence. I do not see why they do not just reduce/eliminate that and replace it with a random/rare big bonus. They can keep the seemingly precious average total c-bill payout the same, just concentrate it and make it random -- people would much rather win the lottery than grind away at a mediocre paying job that will produce the same long term payout.

As for helping new players, I do not think the cadet bonus really does it. It was a nice stop-gap for the open beta, but this game really needs better tools to help get people invested and learning the game. I am not sure the "achievement" model you propose is ideal, but something along those lines that gets people into decently built mechs early on and gives them an opportunity to be successful should produce a huge boost to player retention and improve the learning process for many/most.

[Plonky]

Buehgler, on 27 August 2013 - 07:14 PM, said:

As for helping new players, I do not think the cadet bonus really does it. It was a nice stop-gap for the open beta, but this game really needs better tools to help get people invested and learning the game. I am not sure the "achievement" model you propose is ideal, but something along those lines that gets people into decently built mechs early on and gives them an opportunity to be successful should produce a huge boost to player retention and improve the learning process for many/most.

I think a lot more incentives could be given to keep new players playing, as well as to make earning CBills relevant past the purchasing of initial mechs. My proposal of giving mechs away after a certain number of wins is a way to help players get started with MWO, but of course does not represent the entire solution to the problems new players experience. The main reason I wrote the initial post was to get players (and hopefully the developers) to think constructively about changing aspects of the game that are currently lackluster. There are a lot of posts identifying the problems with the game, but not as many working towards a solution. This is an attempt to correct that.

When coming up with ideas, my goal was to provide rewards to players without influencing the way they play the game, and without giving away "too much" for free - the end goal to be increased fun for players and increased profit for PGI. I'd love to work more on this type of design and flesh things out, but I have little incentive to do more than get the ball rolling, because I am not confident that these posts will be read by anyone who is in a position to make a difference. I would love to help with other ideas if someone from PGI would like to contact me.

Thank you everyone for your positive comments so far. I hope this thread results in more good ideas. When writing a post, assume that someone from PGI is reading it. Maybe if we can get enough good ideas, they will implement some of them.

Edited by PeenyPoke, 27 August 2013 - 07:43 PM.

[ollo]

Buehgler, on 27 August 2013 - 07:14 PM, said:

As for the details, I think c-bill bonus times (e.g. weekends) are a great idea.

To add to that:

• there should also be a daily x2 bonus on CB as well, as this encourages to have more mechs in the bay
  
• What about a minor bonus on 4,8,12 kills/assists? It should have a huge first-time bonus to encourage the players to get better, maybe 5/10/20 million on kills and 2/5/10 on assists, dropping to a tenth of that afterwards.
  
• for general player binding: i'd also introduce numerours achievements that won't neccessarily gain CB (maybe they add on general XP and you get a CB bonus for getting all achievements of one class), e.g.:
  
  • Atlai-Killer: killed a whole lance of atlai in one game (also for every other chassis)
    
  • I know my tools: get at least one kill with every energy/ballistic/missile weapon in the game
    
  • Dancer on every Party: killed at least one mech of every class in one match
    
  • Party host: own at least one/two/three/all chassis of every class
    
  • Savior: get 3/4/5... savior kills in one match
    
  • Captain: killed at least 3 mechs with an energy/ballistic/missile boat in one match
    
  • Master, MASTER!: mastered 1/2/3... chassis

I'd think of more, but once again i feel like i'm doing the job of PGI here without the payment...

PeenyPoke, on 27 August 2013 - 07:39 PM, said:

I'd love to work more on this type of design and flesh things out, but I have little incentive to do more than get the ball rolling, because I am not confident that these posts will be read by anyone who is in a position to make a difference. I would love to help with other ideas if someone from PGI would like to contact me.

Maybe point them towards this thread via support or an ask the devs?

[Plonky]

ollo, on 28 August 2013 - 01:38 AM, said:

Good stuff

Good suggestions. I have some more, but for XP. How about after you earn a certain amount of XP you can choose a perk. Each perk has a positive and negative component, so they are an optional way to customize your playstyle. For example:

Running hot: You move 5% faster, but moving generates 10% more heat, and slows heat dissipation by 10%.
Extended Lasers: Your lasers have 10% extra range, but do 5% less damage.
Difficult target: It takes 20% longer for enemy mechs to get target information on you, but it takes 10% longer for you to get target information from enemies.
Improved ballistics: Your ballistic weapon shots travel 20% faster, but have a 10% longer recycle time.
Reflective armor: You have a 10% chance to "reflect" an incoming attack (and take no damage), but shots that do hit do 5% more damage.
Dampened armor: 20% of the damage you take is displaced to an adjoining part of your mech, but you take 10% more damage overall.
Realigned jumpjets: The thrust for your jumpjets is now mostly forwards (meaning you can't jump up cliffs as easily but giving you increased distance and speed).

That type of thing.

[Scandinavian Jawbreaker]

Good ideas here! The new players have to have opportunities to gain more C-Bills and gear. I especially liked the salvage system granting gear instead of C-Bills - you can alway sell the salvage you don't need and thus gain the extra C-Bills.

Been reading alot about people earning 50k average per match. That is unacceptable. There has to be some ways to reward the player, and as simple as weaponry or gear is very useful to obtain. Random drops (for example 3% change to drop a PPC, costing 400k) would give new players some advantage, as for veterans could just sell or stash it.

[Kushko]

Loads of great ideas, but i would just like to remind people that their ideas need to be in the confines of battletech and the 3050 era. Meaning no reflective armor or other such gizmos.

If you are unsure if your idea is whithing those confines, here is a website of all things battletech: http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Main_Page

[Plonky]

Kushko, on 28 August 2013 - 06:57 AM, said:

Loads of great ideas, but i would just like to remind people that their ideas need to be in the confines of battletech and the 3050 era. Meaning no reflective armor or other such gizmos.

If you are unsure if your idea is whithing those confines, here is a website of all things battletech: http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Main_Page

Surely gameplay trumps lore? Tauren didn't have zergling pets in the warcraft "lore" but then can in the game. And it's fun.

[Plonky]

I thought of some more ideas. How about you get a CBill discount on any mech of a type you currently own. Bigger discount if you own two mechs of that chasis. Would help people to buy their second and third mechs, and incentivize buying more than one mech of a type in people who might otherwise not.

Have sales on mech parts. Maybe each week it could rotate between the different types of weapons - lasers one week, missiles the next etc. Would encourage people to try new builds.

Have engineers in your hanger that get happier or sader depending on your performance, and they complain if you die too much, or tell you it's your turn to buy them a beer if you didn't take much damage.

[Kushko]

PeenyPoke, on 28 August 2013 - 07:15 AM, said:

Surely gameplay trumps lore? Tauren didn't have zergling pets in the warcraft "lore" but then can in the game. And it's fun.

There are alot of hardcore Battletech fans that would be very upset if PGI just started adding random nonbattletech stuff in to the game. All in all it would just be more trouble than worth. We can still have good gameplay functionality within the confines of battletech lore.

For example there are different types of ammunition we could have. Theres inferno rockets that explode in to a napalm like gel that covers a mech and cooks it. Theres LRM missiles that spread small mines at the target area. Theres a special kind of myomer muscle that makes your mech go faster the hotter its running. Those being just a few examples of things we can take out of battletech to make MWO gameplay more fun and engaging.

Edited by Kushko, 28 August 2013 - 10:27 AM.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Don't care what they do as long as I am earning more C-bil per match than I currently am doing.

[Plonky]

Had an idea for trial mechs. How about each week PGI lets the community know which mechs will be up for next week. The community gets to make builds for those mechs and then vote on them. The top voted builds are what appear on the trial mechs the next week.

[Dodger79]

In my opinion earning of CBills and XP as well depends too much on the damage you inflict in a round. Yes, dealing a great amount of damage is not a bad thing. But killing a heavy Mech in a light or medium with a fast and precise headshot and therefore remove a lot of enemy firepower early in the game is even better. At least in my opinion. But there are no bonusses for precision, early kills or killing heavier opponents. Perhaps it would be a good idea to implement something like this. And it would encourage people to play in a medium Mech from time to time if you get tonnage-based bonusses for your kills. And it would make sense because it is a good trade of firepower/threat-potential if you sacrifice your 45-ton Blackjack to kill this nasty 70-ton Cataphract, for example. How about 1 XP for every ton the killed enemy weighs more than you? And 2500 CBills for every 5 tons?

[BlacKcuD]

I really like all of these ideas. If you want to flesh out your introductory post a bit more, take a look at my achievement thread and maybe copy/paste some or link it here.

http://mwomercs.com/...e-achievements/

Dodger79, on 29 August 2013 - 06:13 AM, said:

In my opinion earning of CBills and XP as well depends too much on the damage you inflict in a round. Yes, dealing a great amount of damage is not a bad thing. But killing a heavy Mech in a light or medium with a fast and precise headshot and therefore remove a lot of enemy firepower early in the game is even better. At least in my opinion. But there are no bonusses for precision, early kills or killing heavier opponents. Perhaps it would be a good idea to implement something like this. And it would encourage people to play in a medium Mech from time to time if you get tonnage-based bonusses for your kills. And it would make sense because it is a good trade of firepower/threat-potential if you sacrifice your 45-ton Blackjack to kill this nasty 70-ton Cataphract, for example. How about 1 XP for every ton the killed enemy weighs more than you? And 2500 CBills for every 5 tons?

Something like this is already in the game. The salvage bonus when you win a round. However, I agree that it is too unimportant in the great scheme of things and it does only reward you, if you actually win the round.

[Plonky]

BlacKcuD, on 30 August 2013 - 01:13 PM, said:

I really like all of these ideas. If you want to flesh out your introductory post a bit more, take a look at my achievement thread and maybe copy/paste some or link it here.

http://mwomercs.com/...e-achievements/

I added your link to the OP.

Also, I've asked a question on the ask the devs. It's on page 5 and it links to this thread. Go vote if you'd like a dev response.