192 replies to this topic

[Pjwned]

Now I remember why I hate building new mechs in this game, and in a game like this where customization is such a big deal that doesn't seem like a good sign. Due to the way the mech tree works I grind out matches for several hours so that I can play one mech variant optimally (excluding an additional module slot from mastering it) and then after all is said & done I don't even feel like playing because it was such an annoying hassle, especially at the end. This is also on top of spending a huge amount of c-bills (which took a while to build up) for overpriced heavy mechs and several million more c-bills on top of that for some new weapon modules, and now I don't have enough c-bills to get another set of mech variants beyond 40 tons unless I want to pay real money (LOL no) or grind even more just to have the "privilege" of MORE GRINDING.

The grinding nonsense in this game is and has been killing my enjoyment greatly and it overshadows pretty much every improvement I can think of since I started playing, especially now that weapon modules add even more grind since there's no reason to not take them unless you want to deliberately have a sub-optimal mech in a competitive mech shooter game.

Before anybody suggests buying premium time or hero mechs or whatever else then that's not happening because I'm not going to spend money to alleviate a worthless, crappy grindfest; I might possibly spend money on the game for other reasons, but not for that, ever.

Edited by Pjwned, 22 September 2014 - 01:47 PM.

[Xtrekker]

Hey Russ, there's some content here talking to you. It wants you to give it stuff to "pjwn".

[Whaler]

Welcome to FTP. All FTP have some sort of grind to them.

[YaKillinMeSmalls]

When you play a game like this with the intent to grind, you end up focusing on the XP/Cbills and not on having fun. Just play to have fun and before you know it, you'll have enough.

[DasaDevil]

a good clan helps with the grind

[aniviron]

Whaler, on 22 September 2014 - 02:16 PM, said:

Welcome to FTP. All FTP have some sort of grind to them.

Not true at all. Off the top of my head, Path of Exile and Spiral Knights both have no grind; both have leveling systems, and neither can be sped up by paying, either.

[terrycloth]

The extra two chassis make you grind because they're not fun to play. If you were playing to have fun you would never play them.

[Nauht]

You need, what, 15k XP total for the basics which then allows you to elite and master your favourite variant. You don't even have to touch the other two variants past basic.

You call that a grind? Especially with the double XP weekend?

Sheesh.

[Grimlox]

Nauht, on 22 September 2014 - 02:35 PM, said:

You need, what, 15k XP total for the basics which then allows you to elite and master your favourite variant. You don't even have to touch the other two variants past basic.

You call that a grind? Especially with the double XP weekend?

Sheesh.

If you try to play in small groups and lose 6 matches in a row in the group queue it can definitely feel like a grind. I don't even care so much about the cbill grind but when I buy a pack of mechs for money I want to get some money's worth out of them by getting the x2's but running subpar chassis and getting abyssmal xp rewards on a loss makes me wonder why I even bother buying packs that have at least a couple lousy chassis on them that are painful to unlock.

I'd be much happier if the XP grind was not so bad especially for losses. Cbills I don't care as much about but buying the masakari pack I feel like certain chassis I just want to get over with but can't because I lose with them and am stuck for an eternity unlocking an adder or locust but don't want to leave them unplayed because I spent money on them. If it keeps up I will likely just consider not buying packs in the future and sticking only with the a la carte good chassis that don't feel like such a chore. Less money for PGI that way though.

[Nauht]

Grimlox, on 22 September 2014 - 02:45 PM, said:

If you try to play in small groups and lose 6 matches in a row in the group queue it can definitely feel like a grind. I don't even care so much about the cbill grind but when I buy a pack of mechs for money I want to get some money's worth out of them by getting the x2's but running subpar chassis and getting abyssmal xp rewards on a loss makes me wonder why I even bother buying packs that have at least a couple lousy chassis on them that are painful to unlock.

I'd be much happier if the XP grind was not so bad especially for losses. Cbills I don't care as much about but buying the masakari pack I feel like certain chassis I just want to get over with but can't because I lose with them and am stuck for an eternity unlocking an adder or locust but don't want to leave them unplayed because I spent money on them. If it keeps up I will likely just consider not buying packs in the future and sticking only with the a la carte good chassis that don't feel like such a chore. Less money for PGI that way though.

Then your group shouldn't suck so much and win some?

Or drop solo for a few matches and win some?

Either way, 15k XP is hardly a grind. It'll take you, what, one afternoon to get and with the double XP weekend I got it in about 5 wins.

[Grimlox]

Nauht, on 22 September 2014 - 02:49 PM, said:

Then your group shouldn't suck so much and win some?

Or drop solo for a few matches and win some?

Either way, 15k XP is hardly a grind. It'll take you, what, one afternoon to get and with the double XP weekend I got it in about 5 wins.

When there's just a few 2-4 man groups it can be difficult to affect the outcome of the match when there's a 8+ man on the other side. As you suggested for this double XP weekend I did end up going to the solo queue and won more than 60% of my matches. It just sucks to drop out of playing with a few buddies because you make XP about 8 times faster in the solo queue between higher win rate and quicker match turnover.

With all the variants from buying a big pack it just sucks when there are 9 or so crap variants that take several hours each just to get done basics to be done with them.

I should probably just stop buying so many mechs when I only get on a couple nights a week and don't feel like spending the entire time grinding crap variants because I've finished all the decent ones that came in the pack. I'm not sure that's what PGI really wants though (me to reduce my spending). It's what will happen if this keeps up between the painful nature of the group queue and the crap xp rewards for losses.

[Pjwned]

YaKillinMeSmalls, on 22 September 2014 - 02:28 PM, said:

When you play a game like this with the intent to grind, you end up focusing on the XP/Cbills and not on having fun. Just play to have fun and before you know it, you'll have enough.

That's largely what I have done actually and how I was able to afford buying new mechs, the problem is when I want to make some new mechs because I'm tired of playing the same ones over and over, that's also not very helpful when it comes to grinding out matches in other (unwanted) mech variants.

Nauht, on 22 September 2014 - 02:35 PM, said:

You need, what, 15k XP total for the basics which then allows you to elite and master your favourite variant. You don't even have to touch the other two variants past basic.

You call that a grind? Especially with the double XP weekend?

Sheesh.

It took several hours of playing sub-par mechs that I'm only going to end up throwing away at some point anyways while dealing with crappy matches as a result, it also cost a lot of c-bills, and all of that is just so that I can play my favored mech without it being a piece of crap. Additionally, I actually would need to touch those 2 variants further if I wanted to master my favored variant because I never bothered buying or leveling other heavy mechs, precisely because it's such a pain in the ass to do so.

Whaler, on 22 September 2014 - 02:16 PM, said:

Welcome to FTP. All FTP have some sort of grind to them.

I think you mean "most" F2P games have some sort of grind, and while I can deal with some level of grind it's just stupid here, especially because this is a competitive game and doesn't have any content besides blowing other people up.

Nauht, on 22 September 2014 - 02:49 PM, said:

Then your group shouldn't suck so much and win some?

Or drop solo for a few matches and win some?

Either way, 15k XP is hardly a grind. It'll take you, what, one afternoon to get and with the double XP weekend I got it in about 5 wins.

If you're playing in a group then it's not exactly helpful to be playing sub-optimal mechs while facing off against other groups, and as far as solo even if you play reasonably well you can still lose pretty badly and oops there goes a bunch of XP lost.

Edited by Pjwned, 22 September 2014 - 03:16 PM.

[terrycloth]

It took me maybe 5-10 games to get 15k for the spider k, because I could use the champion build which is at least slightly effective. It was a grind because I didn't like the mech, but at least it was a relatively short grind of only a couple hours.

'A couple hours' is still a grind.

The v, on the other hand, was horrible. I spent all day Saturday grinding it. It was a grind. A win on double xp weekend was 600 xp, 900 since I have premium time active, and most of them were losses instead which is only 300. You have to lose 50 times to fill out basics on the spider-v, and since it's an effectively unarmed mech with no armor, you're not going to get a lot of extra xp from other activities.

[Xtrekker]

I think the system is terribly unimaginative. Getting exactly three mechs and mastering every one of these specific specialties for the bonus...it's just dumb "must have" stuff that gives you no way to customize your experience.

That said, I still think that obtaining these high-end mechs, weapons, and equipment should be limited in some way. It should feel like an accomplishment to finally move up. But I also think that we as "mechwarriors" shouldn't be running around with entire regiments of battlemechs in our pocket. It's a broken two-dimensional theme geared toward collecting shiny stuff and making the upgrade process just frustrating enough to make you consider paying money to get past it. Which is annoying as hell as is the point.

I hate this new "free-to-play" era.

[Mothykins]

terrycloth, on 22 September 2014 - 03:04 PM, said:

It took me maybe 5-10 games to get 15k for the spider k, because I could use the champion build which is at least slightly effective. It was a grind because I didn't like the mech, but at least it was a relatively short grind of only a couple hours.

'A couple hours' is still a grind.

The v, on the other hand, was horrible. I spent all day Saturday grinding it. It was a grind. A win on double xp weekend was 600 xp, 900 since I have premium time active, and most of them were losses instead which is only 300. You have to lose 50 times to fill out basics on the spider-v, and since it's an effectively unarmed mech with no armor, you're not going to get a lot of extra xp from other activities.

I'm trying to get anywhere with a Stalker 5M

You'd think it'd be easy, Assault and all, but it literally gets left behind by my team and summarily ganked consistently. Averaging 300 XP becasue of this (I just had a 60 Damage game where my team left me on River City) this can be summed up as TAKING FOREVER.

[Xtrekker]

Cavale, on 22 September 2014 - 03:14 PM, said:

I'm trying to get anywhere with a Stalker 5M

You'd think it'd be easy, Assault and all, but it literally gets left behind by my team and summarily ganked consistently. Averaging 300 XP becasue of this (I just had a 60 Damage game where my team left me on River City) this can be summed up as TAKING FOREVER.

Stay off Skirmish/Conquest when leveling slow mechs.

[Zolaz]

Greetings new players, welcome to MWO. If the grind is too much for you, let me interest you in some Premium Time for a 50% increase to your Experience. See, the guys over at PGI were way ahead of you for helping with the grind.

I suggest reading this article ...

http://mwo-builds.ne...e-vs-hero-mech/

[Pjwned]

Zolaz, on 22 September 2014 - 03:25 PM, said:

Greetings new players, welcome to MWO. If the grind is too much for you, let me interest you in some Premium Time for a 50% increase to your Experience. See, the guys over at PGI were way ahead of you for helping with the grind.

I suggest reading this article ...

http://mwo-builds.ne...e-vs-hero-mech/

Try getting some reading comprehension first:

Quote

Before anybody suggests buying premium time or hero mechs or whatever else then that's not happening because I'm not going to spend money to alleviate a worthless, crappy grindfest; I might possibly spend money on the game for other reasons, but not for that, ever.

I would say I'm surprised to see that suggestion coming from somebody with elite founders and phoenix overlord badge but--well, that would be lying.

[Moonlander]

Cavale, on 22 September 2014 - 03:14 PM, said:

I'm trying to get anywhere with a Stalker 5M

You'd think it'd be easy, Assault and all, but it literally gets left behind by my team and summarily ganked consistently. Averaging 300 XP becasue of this (I just had a 60 Damage game where my team left me on River City) this can be summed up as TAKING FOREVER.

As an assault player, you just learn how to move on maps and always expect to be left behind. Sometimes you'll get a good group who will stick with you, or at least 1 or 2 heavies/mediums who will escort you... hell, even a light will stick around which is nice. Sometimes you'll get a nice light mech witch ECM to wait for you so you don't get hammered by LRMs. But I really never have issues being left behind anymore. I know the maps well enough that I just weave my way through, avoiding open terrain at all costs. My fastest assault is only 55kph so I know the struggles, especially since I usually pilot a Direwolf which is maxed w/ perk, 53kph.

[Warblood]

I just picked up a CN9-AL yesterday, I needed to get a 2nd CN9 in anticipation of the free CN9-Ah that ill be getting soon which will be my 3rd and will be the one Im going to elite/master right away, but anyways I got it all if his basics in 2hrs in the solo queue w/ 0 premTime, was stupid easy. Grind? lol hardly.

Edited by Warblood, 22 September 2014 - 03:52 PM.