101 replies to this topic

[LordKnightFandragon]

Torgun, on 25 April 2015 - 11:33 AM, said:

That sounds like a really good way to start up new players, too bad it's entirely against the theory of Paulconomy and thus will never ever happen.

That is everything wrong with Paulconomy...

Sure, it your a super man and have managed to slog through the horrid experience of the last 3 years, its no big deal, but if your a new player, its huge....

[Pjwned]

You are penalized because PGI expects you to pay real money to buy mechs and premium time to make it a little bit easier. This has been complained about for a long time and PGI hasn't done anything, and actually they've only made it worse with revised weapon modules and the huge c-bill nerf that came around when 12v12 matches started happening, so they obviously don't care.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Pjwned, on 25 April 2015 - 12:45 PM, said:

You are penalized because PGI expects you to pay real money to buy mechs and premium time to make it a little bit easier. This has been complained about for a long time and PGI hasn't done anything, and actually they've only made it worse with revised weapon modules and the huge c-bill nerf that came around when 12v12 matches started happening, so they obviously don't care.

Wonder if its having an impact in their wallet.....Its just me, but I feel games should be less about their grind and more about impressive, fun, engaging, amazing gameplay that makes you want to keep playing, buy premium, buy more stuff for it and just keep playing for years to come.

But it seems the majority of games follow the premise of annoying grind, meh gameplay, hoping you spend money to make the game less annoying to play......

World of Tanks used to have a decent progression and economy, 20K for a pretty avg game. I could net 12-20K in my Easy 8 and I didnt do that well in it, about 650avg dmg and a 49% Win rate in almost 1000 games in it.....but now, I watch my dad and bro play, even in premium tanks they end up netting 12-15K.......and they do very well, usually 2-4K dmg and a few kills each game.

What do games have against a good economy that doesnt emphasis a grind?

[Lily from animove]

Because it keeps people playing a game if they have something to work and improve.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Lily from animove, on 25 April 2015 - 05:12 PM, said:

Because it keeps people playing a game if they have something to work and improve.

That is where the game should have a MUCH better and indepth progression for the mechs and pilots. It shouldnt be about taking 2500 games to get enough money for a few mechs, rather it should be 2500 games to master the moderate number of mechs you have. Game should be fun to play, but have a good, deep and enjoyable experience and progression system.

You can always improve yourself..dont need a terrible money grind to do that.

Should be fairly easy to get mechs, should take a long ass time to master them all. Pretty much like Everquest 2 characters. Its easy to make a lot of them, takes a long time to master them all, get them all geared up and make them uber. MWO should be much the same.

Edited by LordKnightFandragon, 25 April 2015 - 08:44 PM.

[Clint Steel]

I do feel that the trial Mechs are way too weak to start new players in, though they are better than they used to be, since they are champions now for the IS (though the champion builds should be revamped since the recent changes to weapons and quirks), the Clans need something similar to champions.

I'm ok with the leveling of Mechs, though it is unfair to the new players, I like working towards Eliteing my Mechs to get the most out of them.

[FatYak]

Gamers are sadists?

[Xetelian]

WoT was punishing when I tried it, I was essentially no help to my team and in a &@%$ tank for starters, then I was lost on how progression worked out of the game. I haven't gone back, I don't feel like I'm missing anything.

Warthunder has a strange progression system and in my first matches I didn't know I was supposed to kill tanks on the ground not other airplanes, so I was dogfighting like mad but futilely. The progression system doesn't make much sense to me but I really haven't looked further into how to unlock planes or tanks.

LoL still has match making where someone with a few wins under their belt end up against other solo queue with many more wins. The progression in LoL is very difficult for new players, Tier 1-2 runes are a complete waste and none of that is explained. Ranked is awful for fresh 30s...they often go against guys tiers above them with full pages of runes.

Strife has special enhancements that are the grind in the game that add stats to the existing weapons you can by during a match. Going up against someone who has crafted stats onto the items when you haven't is just futile.

DoTA 2 really doesn't help new players with their complicated stats and items with 2 shops to worry about and couriers.

Actually a lot of games are hard for new players...

My first MWO experience, Founders Atlas running around with a 200 engine and 2 LRM20s. 32kph and only a 10 and 6 tube for the 40 LRMs that streamed endlessly. I didn't know I had way too low an engine, I didn't know AS7 D is a ballistics not a missile mech due to knowing nothing about tubes which is entirely PGIs fault and still not clear.

I'm sure we've all got stories about how we built things totally different in the beginning when we didn't know better.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...cb38aac910bc118

Didn't know to put ammo in the arms either. Had a best of 300 damage in that mech back when I was fresh.

Edited by Xetelian, 25 April 2015 - 09:39 PM.

[JediPanther]

Nothing wrong with the locust. I've mastered most of them except the newest one. I also run them as my main mech on an alt account I made to see how I could do without all my build up founder bonus and invintory. As one of the lightestest mechs speed is your life and what makes the locust so good. You can quickly engage and disengage almost any mech at will. Very few mechs can keep up with you.

It does take a long time to build up any amount of cbills when you don't have a mech with a cbill bonus or premium time. Those are optional and not a must have. Your cadet matches should net you around 10 million for a new mech. I've bought and sold hbks,spiders, and jenners slowly grinding up with the locust. Once you have the xl 170 and xl 190 you'll find you can do a lot with the bug as far as diffrent builds go.It is one of the cheapest mechs in the game to upgrade too as far as double heat sinks and endo steel go. I kept singles on mine because i mix up my builds a lot.

Personally I like med lasers on the bugs. They have decent range and heat. The xl 170 will allow you to mount an er ppc if you want to go full sniper. Why the er ppc? Because it doesn't point back to your location when you fire it.

The main thing I always do no matter what build or version of the locust I use is to always keep an eye on the mini-map-radar. Eventually you'll be able to read your teammates movements and guess with fairly high accurcy what they are doing or going to do next. Team mates won't always target lock but if you notice several or one of them moving strangly you can bet that team mate is either under heavy fire or engaged with an enemy light.

While I think trial mechs are trash with poorly thought out builds they do two very important things for you. First they teach you the hard way to manage heat. The trial nova will explode on alpha with all 12 of its lasers for example. Second is they give you xp on a mech chasis that you keep indifintaly untill you buy and skill up that mech. The trial spider 5k I managed to get 43,000 xp on. Since it takes about 22,000 xp on a mech per skill tree branch that is enough to basic and elite that mech. It leaves only the two other spiders to basic and elite.

[MrMadguy]

In F2P games you can't give bonuses to new players, cuz it could lead to massive creation of alt accounts abuse then. You have to be punished for starting a new account, cuz you're not paying for it and therefore can create any amount of accounts.

P.S. I know, that PGI bans players for creating alt accounts, but they possibly won't be able to deal with this problem, if it will became massive.

Edited by MrMadguy, 25 April 2015 - 09:57 PM.

[Mystere]

FatYak, on 25 April 2015 - 09:04 PM, said:

Gamers are sadists?

I think the word you are looking for is "masochist".

[xe N on]

What we need are tutorial PvE missions that teach new players the basics. After these tutorials they should receive a gift code that unlocks a champion light or medium mech of their choice.

Edited by xe N on, 25 April 2015 - 10:33 PM.

[Jack Corban]

Xoco, on 25 April 2015 - 07:32 AM, said:

TLDR:
Mechs grow stronger with time, which improves your performance. But why do we have to start out in the worst possible state, especially when you are already lacking in actual experience piloting the mech?
-----------
So I've been playing for a good bit, and I think I'm learning the ropes. I'm now at least doing 200 dmg (still pretty low), but it's improving pretty quick.

The thing is, I'm still just as bad at the game as a few months back mostly. I just happened to now be carrying bigger guns, going faster, as well as being tougher.



See, when I start out the game, I decided to go with the Locust (mainly because of its appearance)--I'm still playing them, and they are still my favorite mechs so far. The thing is, when I started, I was rocking the standard engine, and 2xsmall lasers. I was really struggling to do any damage (my alpha is a whopping 6 dmg!) at point blank range, in an armorless coffin. Needless to say, I usually don't make it past 3 minutes mark each game.

Then I made enough to start kitting out my Locust--new engine here, a few medium lasers there--now I'm going 50% faster than before, and doing 8 times the damage per salvo. Even when I was pretty much doing the same thing I did before, my score improved tremendously (which allows me to buy a few more stuff).

I'm also getting more EXP, which lets me get some mastery going, which makes my mech even stronger.

My question then, is why does the game penalize me when I'm starting out? When you buy a new mech, you're playing in a gimp bot. Why? For the sake of having in-game progress? Shouldn't new players be given a handicap, rather than having the worst possible mech in existence? Why not at least start everyone on equal footing, instead of making sure late-comers will always be at disadvantage?

Its funny you brought that up. Because a couple of people me included had a draft send to Russ about just that issue as part of our Stockproposal. Sadly it went under the rug and was not talked about in the Townhall. Nor did we get a response.

Stock Proposal

Edited by Jack Corban, 25 April 2015 - 10:46 PM.

[Pjwned]

Lily from animove, on 25 April 2015 - 05:12 PM, said:

Because it keeps people playing a game if they have something to work and improve.

Except when it drives people away from the game because the grind is overly excessive.

LordKnightFandragon, on 25 April 2015 - 08:42 PM, said:

Should be fairly easy to get mechs, should take a long ass time to master them all. Pretty much like Everquest 2 characters. Its easy to make a lot of them, takes a long time to master them all, get them all geared up and make them uber. MWO should be much the same.

Having an Everquest style grind would make me stop playing completely even if new mechs were easy enough to acquire.

Edited by Pjwned, 25 April 2015 - 11:29 PM.

[Deathlike]

The grinding system that exists in MWO is in some ways "normal" for any modern game. So, it's not new.

However, the type of grinding required, in conjunction with the mech efficiencies system is kinda problematic.

The dependency on some of the quirks (coolrun, heat containment, twist X, twist speed, kinetic run, hard break, speed tweak [for faster mechs], doubled basics, fast fire [to a degree]) are pretty significant for most mechs in the game. In some ways, to not have it is to gimp yourself. Some people don't seem to notice, but I'd say many of the comp players would essentially require you to elite out the mechs before you even do serious matches with it.

XP growth is easy enough though... as you get better, it tends to scale with being effective in combat.

However, C-bill growth is porous, and is a "feature" in the "Paulconomy". If you are able to farm properly (like, be really good at the game to a degree), this isn't an issue... but it's harder for effectively accomplish for some (if you're not even doing 200 damage, you're not getting much money usually).

The NPE currently does not do anything to assist in any of this, thus causing the rift in for those that have (either by buying packs or just playing a lot - either by length of time or just playing everyday) and the havenots.

Its takes a while (probably a year, or even 6 months if you're good and actively playing) to get the stuff you need before it doesn't matter anymore...

So... it is what it is, and it's more of an issue with PGI than it is players not getting better (although the tutorials or lack thereof is causing more of it indirectly).

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

sneeking, on 25 April 2015 - 07:51 AM, said:

Bolt bombs were like playground party poppers and if you knew how to amp them up a few notches they could take out a knee and leave another child limping off the quadrangle

We used to throw acorns and get the cops called on us for "throwing rocks" -.-

[Repasy Cooper]

Despite the fact that there is no leveling system like some J-RPG, hidden beneath the folds of this game there is one, in a sense.

We can't quantify a player's level, but we can quantify a player's skill. Player statistics, ELO, build strategy, there are many aspects of this game that get easier over time with pilot experience.

As far as why new players get slapped around so much, here is my theory: Every player starts out with a grade of 0. As new players lose, their elo lowers into the negatives, but at the same time they gain valuable (and hard earned, i'll warrant) experience at a rapid rate from losing to players that have at one point gone through the same punishment. As new players learn & increase their skill, they are also introduced to lower-elo players, making it easier to 'practices' and spring back up to a balanced elo. Wins become more frequent, and thus the warrior is able to earn more C-bills and purchase better equipment.

There are other ways to level up as well that can avoid some hardships. The forums are a treasure trove of experienced players' recommendations on every piece of equipment available. Think of it as the main trading hub. The merchants here trade information, with which warriors can avoid careless mistakes, such as purchasing an awesome when the better choice for their playstyle was a stalker (this is exactly what I went through when I first started unfortunately).

And lastly there is inherent skill. Even a new player, unaccustomed to anything Mechwarrior, already has their own set of 'starting skills', like classes in an RPG (god I sound like a nerd). They may be really good at sniping in other games, or perhaps a wealth of beginner's luck. In any case, this will affect how quickly they jump back from initial defeat, but there's no question that all will first experience defeat.

So, once a new player experiences hardship, but then manages to propel their selves back from the brink to reach their original level, they can be considered seasoned warriors.

In short, the reason this game is so hard initially is because it's PvP. There are no PvE leveling grounds to make use of. You get thrown in the mix with all the lvl99 paladins and sorcerers.

It's always going to be hard for the new players. Without a single-player campaign or co-op missions, there's no way to 'lvl up'. The only thing we can do as seasoned veterans is to give as much advice as possible and hope their initial experiences are not as hopeless and frustrating as ours once were, in the beginning. (shudder) I spent over a year in the negative elo, but i finally managed to bust through the skill ceiling this year.

Things that need to change to make this time period shorter: Economy, PvE gameplay (proper PvE, not just turrets and beacons), and more Objective-based, less grindy objectives.

Good luck rookies. We're here for you. <3

Edited by Repasy, 26 April 2015 - 12:24 AM.

[Chagatay]

FupDup, on 25 April 2015 - 07:36 AM, said:

Many games, particularly F2P games, use arbitrary systems of "progression" to create a sensation of moving up in the world and to try to "stretch out" a given amount of content over a longer period of time. For F2P in particular, they monetize it by letting you spend real $$$ to reduce or skip the grind. It's become a widespread gaming norm and I don't think it's going away anytime soon, sadly.

I miss older pay-to-play games where you just start with everything and get to dork around however you want. I actually liked Hawken's closed alpha until they started smothering it with "progression" stuff, then I didn't really touch it again afterwards (besides trying a few minutes of open beta and post-release, but got bored real fast).

But what if....<evil laughter> mech skills started maxed and degraded with use a sort of reincarnation penalty as it were. Of course trial mechs would always give you max skill level with that mech.

But what about monetization you ask?
Well, you can always reset your skills for a some MC or a big pile of c-bills.....decisions.....decisions.....

Edited by Chagatay, 26 April 2015 - 12:33 AM.

[bar10jim]

Just be glad it's not as bad as it used to be. We used to only have 4 trial mechs (1 for each weight class) - and they were stock. Now you've got 16 Champion mechs. Does not compare.

[Elizander]

It wouldn't be much of a penalty if new players fought new players. Most other games have this system including League of Legends where (unlike Dota 2) you need to level up your account and acquire runes before your are considered worthy of endgame. Even a game like Heartstone has a progression system since you don't start the game with all the cards in your deck. The only issue I see is that I'm bringing my 96 alpha mastered Direwolf with modules filled out and the game decides that it's fine to pit a new player on his 5th game in a trial mech against me (this actually happens enough that I notice it and contributes to my matches where I get 5+ kills).

Try to make a trial account and go through the 25 cadet games while asking everyone in the match how long they've been playing and who has mastered mechs.