45 replies to this topic

[Suko]

PGI,

There are many of us Founders members still around who have not used our premium time. We were waiting for features that we all thought were "right around the corner" (Community Warfare, Clans, Faction Play), but as those features kept getting pushed back further, we kept squatting on that premium time while we waited for our proverbial "day in the sun" to come.

Because of this, many of us have amassed far more than the original premium time granted by the Founders package. I know for myself I have all my Founders premium time, all that Overlord time, and even the random bonus day premium time all piled up waiting. To put it simply; This sucks.

I'm now more worried than ever to activate premium time because I know I must commit to 1/3 a year of serious MWO playing to truly get my money's worth from it. I was ready to commit to a month or two for my Founders and committing another month or so for Overlord would've been alright. But having to use it all in one massive chunk is stressful and it makes me resentful of your company that you didn't get us those key features we were waiting for BEFORE all this premium time backed up.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I'll get to the meat of my post:
Please give those of us with a massive surplus of premium time the option to use portions of it instead of all of it at once.

This could (should) be relatively simple. Change the current function of the "Activate" button to only activate 1 week of premium at a time. While premium time is running, the button would grey out and be unusable. Once that week of premium time expires, the button will be active again. Another click will activate another week's worth of time. It will do this until all stored premium time has been consumed.

Please add this option in the next month or two. I don't think we're asking for a lot, especially since most of us are some of your first (and continued) supporters of this game. We invested into your game and company early on. Please invest a little bit back into us.

Edited by ShadowVFX, 27 November 2013 - 11:31 AM.

[Sandpit]

i'm glad someone finally got the nerve to post about this

[Suko]

Sandpit, on 27 November 2013 - 11:36 AM, said:

i'm glad someone finally got the nerve to post about this

I know you're being snarky, but do you have a link to any recent previous posts on this topic? Especially as a formal suggestion in the Feature Suggestion thread? A quick search didn't come up with anything on my end.

Edited by ShadowVFX, 27 November 2013 - 11:42 AM.

[Sandpit]

ShadowVFX, on 27 November 2013 - 11:38 AM, said:

I know you're being snarky, but do you have a link to any recent previous posts on this topic? Especially as a formal suggestion in the Feature Suggestion thread? A quick search didn't come up with anything on my end.

Take not (you might want to screenshot this)

I stand corrected! There's a few topics that have involved a discussion on it but it didn't have its own thread. Shadow my good sir, I apologize.

I'm still not deleting my ninja post though lol

(I did find several in the archives though)

[Suko]

Apology accepted.

I saw some of the archived ones, too. But those were made before the Phoenix premium time bonuses were part of the equation. In my opinion, the need for the ability to use premium time in smaller chunks is now more important than it has ever been.

[Sandpit]

ShadowVFX, on 27 November 2013 - 03:24 PM, said:

Apology accepted.

I saw some of the archived ones, too. But those were made before the Phoenix premium time bonuses were part of the equation. In my opinion, the need for the ability to use premium time in smaller chunks is now more important than it has ever been.

Niko and a few other mods have "resurrected" some of the archive posts lately. I know this subject has been talked about in several other posts concerning cost of MC and such.

I suggested a stop feature that could be used maybe once monthly. That prevents exploitation of it and gives those who might actually have a real life situation come up that prevents them from being able to make use of their premium time. All others pay cash

[Funkin Disher]

Yeah, I still haven't started my founders premium yet. I'd like to be able to do a couple days at a time.

[Flying Judgement]

this is so important!! i would buy premium time a lot faster if i could use up just a portion of my present premium time.
5 day or a week sounds reasonable.

[Void Angel]

I'm pretty sure I'm one of those posts - what I found was that when you count up the premium time days you get per bit of MC, and then compare each 'tier' of premium time purchase, it's actually still better to purchase MC in large chunks. I looked at it like this: if I buy a given-sized chunk of premium time, how much of that would I have to waste to make the next-lower size more economical. Turns out it's a fair amount - under normal circumstances, it'll be very difficult to "lose" MC by not obsessively playing every day. So the problem with not being able to stop premium time isn't economical - it's conceptual and ergonomic.

The problem with premium time as I see it is this:

• It's clunky and inconvenient to use. Don't get me wrong - it's not hard to activate, and it's a nice bonus. But you can't just buy it and use it whenever. It's finnicky: you have to look at your calendar; you have to plan ahead. You're not allowed to just say, "Hey, I want some premium time to grind this new mech, but I'm not sure what my work schedule is going to be like the next few weeks, so I'll just use a little bit now and save the rest for later." It doesn't work that way - but I think it should.
  
• It's hard to assess its real value. If I want to know economical a deal for 30 days of premium time is, I can't just look at it and do the division. I have to check my calendar, then estimate how many days of premium time I'm going to miss, then subtract that from the total and... You get the idea. It's an annoying way to sell the product, and one of the reasons I usually don't bother to buy premium; I got a huge chunk as part of my Phoenix package, but I may very well never buy it again.
  
• It feels like it punishes you for buying more at a time. It doesn't, really; you get enough of a volume discount that any given tier is reasonably going to be more economical than having just bought a day or a week at a time. But it certainly feels that way, which is why I ran the math on that in the first place. Of course, that math doesn't account for the edge cases who never used their founder's Premium because they were trying to min-max their future - and the ones who bought Phoenix packages as well. These folks may still be in the same boat as the rest of us, but the water on their side is a lot deeper.

What I'd like to see with Premium time is the ability to use it in discrete chunks. You'd just put a toggle on Premium time, possibly with any day that starts getting used still counting down after you turn the toggle off (Premium is sold in days, after all.) Then you'd know exactly how good a deal any given tier of premium will be, and people like me wouldn't just invest in one-time purchases so they'd never have to rely on Premium to grind c-bills ever again. =)

Of course, Premium time is almost certainly priced with its current implementation in mind - if we did see a toggle, we might very well see an adjustment in the cost of Premium. But I'd much rather pay a little more per day of premium time and be able to use it as I see fit than to pay what I'd pay now and have to guess how my schedule will affect what I actually end up getting.

Edited by Void Angel, 28 November 2013 - 12:52 AM.

[Tekadept]

I want this, but I wont be holding my breath.

[Ziogualty]

People should help me remember if there is any other MMO that allows you to activate premium time in fractions...
I don't think it's possible...more, you know what you buy: when i got the Overlord pack, i agree to buy a one-way ticket for a 90 days of premium. I was aware of what it means and i bought it anyway.
But...

They should allow people to activate each single pack at different times (i never bought 2 premium packages of any sort, so i dunno if the game already have this feature).

Talking about ShadowVFX he should be able to activate the Founders premium time alone, leaving theOverlord time and the random bonus day premium time untriggered.
Or just try the random day, saving massive premium packages for better days.

TL;DR: Each premium package should have his own "activate" button.

Edited by Attank, 28 November 2013 - 01:14 AM.

[Rasc4l]

+1

I'm not even a founder but still feel that I'd like to use my 120 days in pieces.

I wish we could activate, if not per week, at least per month so that 30 days would go at one time. Because now it's clear to me that the 120 days won't be activated until we have a real game. If I could do it chunks, I probably would end up spending more money in the long run.

[smokefield]

This is exactly why I will never buy premium. I have suggested in an old topic opened by me that we should be able to activate/deactivate premium by our needs. The premium time idea is not new and it is used in a lot of online games - but copmared with other games who use premium time ( and that i played) mech warrior has a big difference -for mechwarrior the premium time is usefull only as long as you actively play the game - in other games you have some slight advantages even if you are not online playing that game...so you feel that your money are used for some benefits.

Now - I can't buy 1 month of premium time here and actually use only a portion of it. I am playing 1h per day during week and maybe 2-3 per weekend days....so my total play time is like 40-50h playtime per month- actually used. And i am paying 720h if I buy 1 month of premium...which is a too bigger waste to make me buy that premium.

I had suggested that we should be able to activate premium time based on a 24h schedule. everyone knows when he has time to play the game...wont be hard to implement the possibility to set up 2 time intervals per day when you have the premium active. For example lets say someone generally can play from 9-11pm and then from 16-18 pm. He choose to set up these 2 intervals as premium time intervals...the rest of the day it will be on normal time (if he has a free day and plays all day...it will still maintain the same schedule). This was my idea but there may be better ones....in any case - personally I will not buy premium just to use under 10% of it..as it is now. Hopefully someone will get notice of it and do something.

thanks

[Crimson Fenris]

I'm in the exact same case, waiting for "the golden age" to finally come before activating my founder's premium time.

Sadly, I think we'll wait another bunch of months before finally be able to play a "finished" MW title, with other gamemodes than team deathmatch, for more rewards than painfully slow grind leading only to buy some more mechs, over and over again...

I already suggested this idea months ago, like a whole portion of other forum users, but I seriously doubt PGI will take the time and effort to implement such a useful feature... They rather prefer adding more bling-bling and more MC/CB sinks to the game...

I strongly believe that, considering the high cost of MC, and the near-mandatory use of premium (in regard of the sluggish grind we have to crawl in without), the least they can do is to allow their customers to gain better control over their hard-earned time...

Edited by Crimson Fenris, 28 November 2013 - 01:33 AM.

[Cab]

They won't, 'cause they don't give a f... ... at least, this is what their behavior implies.

[Rev Everett]

I think making usable increments of premium time, be it day, week or somewhere in between, would be a happy medium between folks who would micro manage their premium, ie turn it on and off on a match by match basis, and give something to those gamers who can primarily play on certain days (weekends ect). PGI would loose out on any hours they might miss getting paid for while the weekend gamers are at work, but they might gain additional customer base who would not have considered paying for premium time in solid, unsplittable blocks.

[Rushin Roulette]

What would be even better is for the premium time model to be changed in its basic.

Only have premium time ticking when the player is actually logged into the game launcher.

This in itself poses one giant problem for PGI. All remium time up till now was measured in days... with the changed model this would cause them to loose money in the short term (or with the founders/phoenix crowd in the long run). To solve this they would have to reduce the amount of hours from 24 to the average time active players are logged into the launcher (lets say 3 hours for simplicity).

As an example we could take a theoretical account with 10 days active premium time and 30 days banked time. This would simply be changed to 30 hours active time and 90 hours banked time. These 10 hours active time would only tick for the time when the player is actually logged into the game (if he is AFK logged in... then its his own fault for wasting the time he paid for).

The advantages to this system;

• PGI doesnt need to change any pricing models (7 days premium time now would translate to 21 hours of premium time at the same MC price as before).
  
• The players are not wasting premium time while they are sleeping working or having a daily life without being punished for buying premium time.
  
• it is much easier to track the amount of real premium time you have left (See the point above)
  
• Players are allowed to be sick, on holiday, in prison, etc... wihout being punished for having activated or bought premium time

Dissadvantages;

• PGI would need to overwork the complete system for which premium time is calculated so that it is linked to the launcher insted of the website.
  
• Players who play more than 3 hours per day are at a dissadvantage, and players who play less are at an advantage... but in average it should theoretically be even.

[Kyynele]

The premium time is a player retention mechanic.

You want to have it so that you spend less time grinding C-Bills.
-> You notice that you get better value if you buy more at a time.
-> If you buy a longer period of premium time, you're more likely to play during the time you committed yourself to.

Using premium time in short amounts is bad for retention, so it's intentionally priced to be a bad deal. Expect it to stay that way.

edit: To be clear I'm on the actual subject: it's in PGI's interests for you to use the premium time in a big chunk. That's why it's not made more convenient for the players to begin with, and why it's very unlikely to change. IMO it would make sense to just use the founder's time, because if you haven't used it by the time you don't want to play the game anymore, then you really wasted that money.

Edited by Kyynele, 28 November 2013 - 02:18 AM.

[stjobe]

Kyynele, on 28 November 2013 - 02:09 AM, said:

The premium time is a player retention mechanic.

You want to have it so that you spend less time grinding C-Bills.
-> You notice that you get better value if you buy more at a time.
-> If you buy a longer period of premium time, you're more likely to play during the time you committed yourself to.

Using premium time in short amounts is bad for retention, so it's intentionally priced to be a bad deal. Expect it to stay that way.

edit: To be clear I'm on the actual subject: it's in PGI's interests for you to use the premium time in a big chunk. That's why it's not made more convenient for the players to begin with, and why it's very unlikely to change. IMO it would make sense to just use the founder's time, because if you haven't used it by the time you don't want to play the game anymore, then you really wasted that money.

I don't even know how much premium time I have. 7 months? 8? No way of knowing, as far as I can tell.

The only reason premium time even has an activation button is because they couldn't deliver CW in time for open beta release - and they haven't been able to deliver it still, over a year later.

The only thing that not being able to activate lesser chunks of ones premium time achieves at this point is to effectively stop people like me from ever purchasing any more premium time.

If I could activate one week or one month at a time, I would. It would have been extremely helpful in grinding out the Phoenix 'mechs, but since I can't, I won't activate my 7+ months at all, and we all lose - PGI loses money from me having zero incentive to purchase more premium time, and I lose because I don't get the benefits from premium time.

In short, what looked like a good idea a year back doesn't look so good now.

Please make premium time activate-able in lesser chunks. A month would be okay, a week would be ideal.

[Daniel Travieso]

+1