131 replies to this topic

[Alan Hicks]

After playing enough MWO, just to get more Mechbays (I own 40 now, thanks to CW and some events) I still feel that not being able to get more space for your battlemechs is still one of the flaws of this game. We will always want more mechs to play and boost our collection.

Hell must be for new players, lack of space was hell for me when I started this game. It makes you be extra careful when choosing new mechs to buy. If you want more space (mechbays) I still feel constricted because it does not makes sense to sell mechs you like or spent plenty of time leveling all their exp.

PGI will keep losing players (especially new ones) because of this, and that is something that cannot be overlooked. We all want the community never to shrink but to continually grow, don´t we? For example, other games just require time to get more content. Here you can get a good amount of mechbays just with that, but after a while, it gets harder and harder and they become almost unavailable. Plenty of people will not have the patience or endurance to play that much CW.

The original post here contains the solution: Make mechbays available for c-bills (even if they are sold for A LOT of c-bills) but make the ones bought with MC more attractive.

So if anyone wants more mechbays, there will always be two EFFICIENT main options: Play more of the game (more time demanding) or buy them with MC. (save time by paying with real money)

Edited by Alan Hicks, 22 January 2016 - 07:23 AM.

[KafkaSyrup]

PGI does enough with free MC, Premium time, sales, and CW...

I don't see how allowing 2-5 bays for cbill purchase only marginally delays the inevitable wall and frustration a player will get, nor pricing them steeply. It will never come fast enough to keep up with all the shiny new toys out there.

They cannot jeopardize drying up the cash flow by discouraging MC purchases by having 10mil mechbays. That's fairly cheap to those in hero mechs with premium time.

And while it helps to have more players, they need much more cash to support content generation, which is ultimately needed to sustain the game. If crappy mobile games can garner hundreds of dollars with In App Purchases with a fraction of the effort, I think PGI is fair to create a little bit of scarcity to get you to part with 7-15 USD, to at least keep the lights on.

I'd rather first see loyalty perks, or at least ways to support more impulse consumption:
* Bulk Mech Bay packs (3@800, 6@1400,12@2000 -- i.e. Everyday sale prices)
* Same idea with Premium consumables, 10/20 packs, Although doubt many people use em...
* The ability for those that have supported the game to be able to buy back bare chassis at a 20% discount (If chassis was Mastered)

The game started and survived with a much more brutal grind they have today. With all the promotions and sales, you can average 2 a month, which is far more than most games will ever offer you.

Edited by KafkaSyrup, 24 January 2016 - 02:37 PM.

[IraqiWalker]

Alan Hicks, on 22 January 2016 - 07:22 AM, said:

After playing enough MWO, just to get more Mechbays (I own 40 now, thanks to CW and some events) I still feel that not being able to get more space for your battlemechs is still one of the flaws of this game. We will always want more mechs to play and boost our collection.

Hell must be for new players, lack of space was hell for me when I started this game. It makes you be extra careful when choosing new mechs to buy. If you want more space (mechbays) I still feel constricted because it does not makes sense to sell mechs you like or spent plenty of time leveling all their exp.

PGI will keep losing players (especially new ones) because of this, and that is something that cannot be overlooked. We all want the community never to shrink but to continually grow, don´t we? For example, other games just require time to get more content. Here you can get a good amount of mechbays just with that, but after a while, it gets harder and harder and they become almost unavailable. Plenty of people will not have the patience or endurance to play that much CW.

The original post here contains the solution: Make mechbays available for c-bills (even if they are sold for A LOT of c-bills) but make the ones bought with MC more attractive.

So if anyone wants more mechbays, there will always be two EFFICIENT main options: Play more of the game (more time demanding) or buy them with MC. (save time by paying with real money)

Here's exactly what will happen:

Players get the chance to buy Mechbays with MC

Player1 :Hey, they're too expensive. What a huge grind.

Player2: Yeah, it's a massive grind, this is BS.

So now there will be calls to lower the price of Mechbays, since they're so "essential" ... etc. Now mechbays are cheaper to get, and PGI definitely loses a source of revenue.

While instead, by the time a new player has had the chance to farm enough C-Bills to buy their 4th mech, there were already 3 events that landed them anywhere between 2-6 mechbays at least. Also, by this time, they probably played about 4 matches of CW, which landed them another free mechbay.

Now they have their 4th mech fully optimized. They probably have about 7-8 mechbays by now.

They dive into CW, and now they have the chance to earn 2 mechbays per faction very easily, and very quickly. Before also considering any events happening during all this time.

By the way, this is all without spending a single cent on the game, yet. If they spent even a little, they can either get a batch of bays, or maybe they decide they want to purchase a pack, or a bundle, both of which come with bays for each of their mechs, at a total price of 50% what you'd pay if you bought the parts individually.

KafkaSyrup, on 24 January 2016 - 02:34 PM, said:

The game started and survived with a much more brutal grind they have today. With all the promotions and sales, you can average 2 a month, which is far more than most games will ever offer you.

No game actually offers you that. Look at Warthunder, World of Warplanes, World of Tanks, World of Warships, or basically any other game that might count as competition. I have yet to see one of them hand out bays as often, or as easily as MWO does.

Edited by IraqiWalker, 27 January 2016 - 01:46 AM.

[Wintersdark]

You get a free mech bay for rank...2? In a faction. 10 factions, 10 mechbays free just playing CW and switching factions as you earn your mechbays.


Now add the bonus ones from events, there's more than enough ftp mechbays. Just the base 4+10 from.events, that's 14, which is enough to buy and master 4 mechs with two bays to spare selling nothing.

[Wintersdark]

Alan Hicks, on 22 January 2016 - 07:22 AM, said:

After playing enough MWO, just to get more Mechbays (I own 40 now, thanks to CW and some events) I still feel that not being able to get more space for your battlemechs is still one of the flaws of this game. We will always want more mechs to play and boost our collection.

as I said, 14 bays without any events or any real success in CW. Rank 2 is trivial to get. 4 mastered mechs, 2 empty bays.

There will be more free bays, there's opportunity to get 3-6 per year roughly.

And failing that, mech bays are extremely cheap. Just buy a couple. Stop being cheap and support the game a little bit.

[oldradagast]

I voted no.

I didn't do this to be selfish or anything, but we must not kid ourselves; in most free to play games, a huge chunk of the population only spends much of any money on buying extra mech bays, ports, garages, or whatever the game's version of storage for your stuff may be. Remove that incentive to spend real-world money, and there's a danger the game ceases to make money and thus we ALL lose our investment in it.

Realistically, it is very easy to get extra mech bays in this game. Even without spending money, they give them out now and then, and you can play CW for a bit in each faction, if you can stomach CW. But for the laughably small investment of $15, you can get about 5 mech bays, assuming no sales.That's the price of one decent meal at a mid-level restaurant here in the US. Honestly, if you can't shell out that much money now and then - even once a year - to support a game that is providing you hours and hours of entertainment, I can't sympathize with you.

Sorry, but despite all the ragging on PGI, they are real people, too, and they need to pay their bills; selling mech bays for real money is one of few ways to lure today's average "I expect perfection but I don't pay for anything, because I'm too smart for that!" gamer to actually spend a dime.

Edited by oldradagast, 31 January 2016 - 11:49 AM.

[Hawk_eye]

I´m pretty sure (and yes, this is just a gut feeling), that PGI makes the _vast_ majority of their money by two things: Mech Packs and Premium Time.
Yes, mech-bays also contribute, but I have the feeling they are a rather minor part, overall.

100$ get you 25,000 MC which translate into 83 mech-bays (not counting sales which, I am pretty sure, most veterans know to wait for and transform this to 166 mech-bays and probably all you´ll ever need (well, except for the _really_ addicted ).

Mech-Packs go for between 17 and 80$, one year premium time goes for 104$ (shorter increments cost more)

I agree that it is _easy_ to get free bays (I got most of my 20+ bays due to MC I got in events and then used the December sale)
The thing is, many _new_ player don´t know this and many new player don´t visit the forum.
Now, you can say: "Well, that´s their own fault!"
But if we want to have growing player numbers, it is _essential_ to "lure" new players in before putting on the screws.

Sure, they could have a big advertising pop-up when a new player creates his account screaming at him: FREE MECH-BAYS IN CW!
But then, there already are complaints enough, especially during events, that newbies that have no clue are ruining CW (more that it is ruined already anyway)


From my point of view, all you people saying PGI needs to make money and thus mech-bays should not be sold for C-Bills, only look at this in a rather simple way:
Real money spend on mech-bays means PGI makes money and stays afloat.

I, on the other hand, look at it from a different angel

Question: What makes people pay for premium time?
Answer: The "grind"

Selling mech-bays for (a healthy) sum of C-Bills increases the "grind", which increases the incentive to buy premium, which increases the money PGI gets.

The difficult point would be to make mech-bays _so_ expensive, it actually _does_ make more people buy premium time but not _so_ expensive, it pisses people off.

[butchly13]

Antecursor Venatus, on 01 February 2016 - 08:38 AM, said:

Selling mech-bays for (a healthy) sum of C-Bills increases the "grind", which increases the incentive to buy premium, which increases the money PGI gets.

The difficult point would be to make mech-bays _so_ expensive, it actually _does_ make more people buy premium time but not _so_ expensive, it pisses people off.

Alternatively, keep them available for both. For example, the smallest MC bundle is $6.95 and gets you 1250 MC, or 4 mech bays (not on special). You can also buy c-bills for MC at a rate of 1.1 million c-bills for 800 MC (smallest package). Finally, premium time runs 250 MC for 1 day. So, fancy maths and hand waving:

1 MC = 6.95/1250 = $.00556
1 Mechbay = 300*.00556 = $1.66
1 MC = 1100000/800 = 1375 cbills
1 Mechbay = 1375*300 = 412,500 cbills
1 cbill = .00556/1375 = $.00000404

So, all things being equal (at the most terrible conversion rates), 1 Mech bay is $1.66, or 300 MC, or 412,500 cbills. Because you can make that much in only a few games, the cost should probably be higher to encourage purchasing of MC or premium time. So more fancy maths:

1 day PT = 250*.00556 = $1.39 (PGI losing money)
3 day PT = 650*.00556 = $3.614 (probably enough money for PGI)

PT = 50% more cbills per match, 1 match = 100k cbills (on the low end for most I think)

1 day = 2 hours gaming * 6 matches per hour (shooting high for this one) = 12 matches* 100k = 1.2 million cbills/day (non PT)
1 day = 1.2 million *1.5 = 1.8 million cbills (PT enabled)
3 day gains = 5.4 milllion cbills (with PT)

Finally,

1 Mechbay = $1.66 when purchased for MC
1 Mechbay = 5.4 million grinded with PT = $3.61
1 Mechbay = 5.4 million grinded with w/o PT = $3.61*1.5 = $5.42

So, if someone cares about time equating to money, they'd be far ahead to just buy a mechbay with MC. If they don't like that they can farm cbills using premium time for double the cost. Or, if they just wanna be a F2P bum they can spend even more time without PT.

Of course this was all just hand wavy math and it really means nothing. I was just really bored and figured I'd try and contribute to the discussion...

tl;dr - Make mechbays cost 5.4 million cbills to encourage premium time or MC purchases...I think

Edited by butchly13, 01 February 2016 - 11:07 AM.

[Hawk_eye]

Oh, I never meant for mech-bays to _not_ be available for MC, the C-Bill thing (at least in my mind) was always meant to be in _addition_ to selling them for MC.

So yeah, I agree with you, butchly13

[IraqiWalker]

Wintersdark, on 30 January 2016 - 10:34 PM, said:

as I said, 14 bays without any events or any real success in CW. Rank 2 is trivial to get. 4 mastered mechs, 2 empty bays.

There will be more free bays, there's opportunity to get 3-6 per year roughly.

And failing that, mech bays are extremely cheap. Just buy a couple. Stop being cheap and support the game a little bit.

If you ever have a shortage. Another dozen drops per faction will pump you up to rank 6. At rank 6 you get another free mechbay, per faction.

[Dodger79]

If someone plays enough to be short on Mechbays (free mechbays: 4 from the start + 20 from CW + several through events) he seems to like this game. And if you like a game you do not have to pay a dime for, perhaps you can think about dropping some Dollars to support the developers of the game you like so much. And as Mechbays are the cheapest thing you can buy in the store the hurdle isn't too high...

[Wintersdark]

Dodger79, on 02 February 2016 - 04:35 AM, said:

If someone plays enough to be short on Mechbays (free mechbays: 4 from the start + 20 from CW + several through events) he seems to like this game. And if you like a game you do not have to pay a dime for, perhaps you can think about dropping some Dollars to support the developers of the game you like so much. And as Mechbays are the cheapest thing you can buy in the store the hurdle isn't too high...

This. After 24 mechbays for free assuming zero from events, you've got enough to master 8 mechs. Either sell variants you don't want, or just pony up a couple bucks and stop being cheap. If you can't afford the $1.66 (at the worst deal on MC *and* non-sale Mechbay price), or wait for events.

24 mechs is more than reasonable for a 100% free player.

[Windscape]

I vote yes but I know it would only be a dream before mech bays are available for cbills

[Beaching Betty]

Yes! At least we dont have to spend our money~

[Nightshade24]

I just got a random idea...

Why not instead of c-bills, you use GXP to get your mechbays?

Say 30,000 per mechbay? or something.

[Windscape]

hey that sounds cool! haven't thought about that.

[C E Dwyer]

No game ever makes extra bays available for in game currency, its the only form of income, in many cases, if this was introduced it would be counter productive.

The game is free to play as it stands, just you want a stable, you have to pay to keep your mechs.

However, P.G.I should provide Six free mech bays, not just Four, which is enough Free Mech bays to give you a usable CW deck, without having to use trial mechs.

Edited by Cathy, 28 February 2016 - 01:31 AM.

[Nightshade24]

Nightshade24, on 28 January 2015 - 06:17 AM, said:

yes, however getting payment methods to get it (especially in some areas) is quite hard.

Not everyone is in USA who has gift cardss everywhere, prepaid cards, etc....

Speaking of the devil...
http://mwomercs.com/...-for-karma-koin

My own statement matches perfectly to my problem... Karma Koin is the only direct payment method I got to PGI contents and goods for MW: O.

Things I will be no longer able to do:

Gift people hero mechs
Gift people mech packs
Gift people mechs
Buy myself mech packs [nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo]
Buy myself mechs [on gift store, I do not have a problem with this]

Things I can still do:

Buy MC
Buy Steam mech Packs [I got no problem with them. But I would rather buy a grizzly, bane, marauder II, viper, howler, flea, firemoth, thug, etc instead of a mech I already own and got doubles off.]

This really limits my abilities and I have actually been doing good with money recently otherwise and wouldn't mind cutting some of my video game funding into events for WT, MW: O, etc... now I can never do my planed first massive give away of giving dozens of Wasps away (or stingers, or firemoth, or flea, who ever comes first).

I guess I could exchange a steam game purchase for a MW: O pack gift but that isn't reliable from personal experience before karma koin was added to MW: O purchase options >.>
However in the end of the day I can still pay for mechbays... just means I have to blow all my money on Classic and Kodiak and hope I can last.


[side note: paying through steam massively cuts the funding I give directly to PGI, not that I hate valve but I think valve has enough money comparable to PGI who I really want to support.]

Perhaps it's time for me to do the ever increasingly complicated methods of getting a debit card. -shiver-

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

This is a selfish idea.

Sure, it sounds good in theory, but in reality it undercuts the company that's making a fun game.

If you like the game, winning and grinding out mechbays is perfectly viable. Or you can choose to support the game and buy some MC.

[IraqiWalker]

Nightshade24, on 01 March 2016 - 06:42 PM, said:

Speaking of the devil...
http://mwomercs.com/...-for-karma-koin

My own statement matches perfectly to my problem... Karma Koin is the only direct payment method I got to PGI contents and goods for MW: O.

Things I will be no longer able to do:

Gift people hero mechs
Gift people mech packs
Gift people mechs
Buy myself mech packs [nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo]
Buy myself mechs [on gift store, I do not have a problem with this]

Things I can still do:

Buy MC
Buy Steam mech Packs [I got no problem with them. But I would rather buy a grizzly, bane, marauder II, viper, howler, flea, firemoth, thug, etc instead of a mech I already own and got doubles off.]

This really limits my abilities and I have actually been doing good with money recently otherwise and wouldn't mind cutting some of my video game funding into events for WT, MW: O, etc... now I can never do my planed first massive give away of giving dozens of Wasps away (or stingers, or firemoth, or flea, who ever comes first).

I guess I could exchange a steam game purchase for a MW: O pack gift but that isn't reliable from personal experience before karma koin was added to MW: O purchase options >.>
However in the end of the day I can still pay for mechbays... just means I have to blow all my money on Classic and Kodiak and hope I can last.


[side note: paying through steam massively cuts the funding I give directly to PGI, not that I hate valve but I think valve has enough money comparable to PGI who I really want to support.]

Perhaps it's time for me to do the ever increasingly complicated methods of getting a debit card. -shiver-

Why is Karma Koin your only way of paying?

Cathy, on 28 February 2016 - 01:31 AM, said:

No game ever makes extra bays available for in game currency, its the only form of income, in many cases, if this was introduced it would be counter productive.

The game is free to play as it stands, just you want a stable, you have to pay to keep your mechs.

However, P.G.I should provide Six free mech bays, not just Four, which is enough Free Mech bays to give you a usable CW deck, without having to use trial mechs.

Unless you want to keep every mech you purchase, you can easily build a full CW deck with 4 bays. Of course, this is before factoring in the free bays you can get from playing a few matches per faction in CW.

Here's how I did it when I first started playing MWO:

1- Look at variant info, per chassis I want to try out. You can do that from the mechlab, even back on UI 1.0. Or use smurfy (when I discovered it)

2- Pick the three variants I really want to try out, and select which one I will like the most/keep (for example, with commandos, I knew I wanted keep the 2D)

3- Start with the variant I would enjoy the least (JR-7K), basic it, sell it, get the second variant, rinse repeat until you have the 3rd one which you'll want to keep, and fully elite.

4- repeat the process 4 more times, to have 4 separate chassis in your drop deck, at full elites.That's how I did it for a long, long time.

You only need 1 mechbay to fully elite a variant.