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C-Bill Income Changed. And You Think That Would Tie Users To Your Game Better?


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#1 grayson marik

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 05:30 AM

Original post was written here on German section. But I put it here for truth and for all those poor non German speakers ^^


The notion that lower c-bill earnings will bind players more to the game
[since they have a longer time with each Mech, hence more bonding; ed. add for explanation] is nonsense. In an other thread, someone mentioned it was ok when rookies are not able to buy everything so early. But we are not talking about 4 weeks until someone has earned 40 mechs, but we are talking half a year of hard core gaming for beginners until someone has the 7 Mech sets (3 pieces each) currently en vogue - and that is without the modules. Additionally, you would need MC worth about 50 US dollar for mechbays and maybe premium time.

But what can a player do during this time apart from endless grinding?
Granted, he can try to improve grinding along with a team. But what is in for him after half a year? Farm for the next 21 mechs? Maybe there are even enough teams that are ok with it - that is ok really. But many do simply want more conent: tournaments, eventy, role playing, dropping for planets, rankings or leagues. Many do crave for more diversity instead of the so called full meta.
However, that is limited by MWO itself: It does not not offer that kind of content via CW, tournaments or rankings - which is offered outside of MWO. Who in NA will want to play CW when NBT comes on line again? But planetary leagues and ladders need and want diversity, even when played with a low temporal investment. No one only wants to see only TBR and DWRs - or drive them exclusively.

The kind of content mentioned above is what keeps people attracted to the game mid to long term. The game needs people that do invest a thousand dollars or more, that do leave their wifes sitting in the living room watching TV. The game cannot survive with players that after six months' grind get the boot from their drop leader or from an (automatically?) enforced rule, telling them sorry, you cannot come along, you do not have the right mech any more (due to changing meta).

There are quite a lot of talented players with low or no money who would love to play competitively but who are turned down by low diversity, or who lack the time an/or money to grind-chase the ever changing quirks or meta.

And please do not try and tell us that people play games just out of boredom - every game only thrives from exictement and small success stories, be it soccer, pc games, chess or elementary school sack race.

So scaling down C-Bill income is just the wrong turn!

Edited by grayson marik, 23 August 2015 - 05:32 AM.


#2 Alienized

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 05:46 AM

also. as i heard from fellow mates that play CW:
4k damage and 16 kills but losing mechs is producing less c-bills than having only 1100 damage and 2 kills but losing no mech...


whoever had the idea to this has absolutely no clue and never put a thought behind CW.
is it meant to be a pure sniping battle?
surviving beeing the key part instead of taking the objectives?
brawlers suffer even more now than they already do?
who will lead charges and pushes if you get nothing out of it even at a win with good damage and kills?

sorry PGI, you dont know your own game at all.
economy was bad before but holy cow. now this is even worse.
its all tuned for longrange sniping now which was never a big thing in battletech EVER.
most battles been in close-mid range and this game just flips everything that is battletech towards a dumb arcade shooter.


i just done a battle with my executioner, cracking 980 damage, 2 kills, 5 assists, capping stuff because it was conquest. flanking mechs, soloing mechs, putting my mech on the line for my team to take cover and get their mechs out of the line.
600 matchscore.

all that stuff was getting me a whole 185k c-bills.
why PGI, why?

#3 Appogee

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 05:50 AM

View PostAlienized, on 23 August 2015 - 05:46 AM, said:

why PGI, why?

Because they want you to buy things for MC, instead of grinding them for free with CBills.

Any other mysteries I can clear up for you?

Edited by Appogee, 23 August 2015 - 05:50 AM.


#4 Alienized

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 05:56 AM

View PostAppogee, on 23 August 2015 - 05:50 AM, said:

Because they want you to buy things for MC, instead of grinding them for free with CBills.

Any other mysteries I can clear up for you?


i know that. and it will backfire massively to them.
its never the way to go.
you just dont cr*p on those that play this game with dedication, heart and soul just for greed.
those that kept this game alive for the last years.

the grind was already painful before. making it worse will not keep newer players here.

Edited by Alienized, 23 August 2015 - 05:59 AM.


#5 xeromynd

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 06:09 AM

View PostAlienized, on 23 August 2015 - 05:56 AM, said:


i know that. and it will backfire massively to them.
its never the way to go.
you just dont cr*p on those that play this game with dedication, heart and soul just for greed.
those that kept this game alive for the last years.

the grind was already painful before. making it worse will not keep newer players here.


^ This. Terrible F2P model.

#6 Alienized

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 06:15 AM

they actually should not be surprised to lose more players now.
i already didnt buy the origins pack because i was unsure of the incoming changes and i have to say, correct decision.
the first pack i didnt buy since wave 2.

map changes to river city and forest colony are awesome but they seem to make more things worse than better each time.

im a dedicated brawler and tactician. both things are literally not viable in here anymore. core things of battletech.
im not even sure this should be called mechwarrior anymore. it could be a random game out of nowhere without any background like titanfall.

thats how its been treated.

#7 Jabilo

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 06:41 AM

Sorry, do you get C Bills for surviving now? Is this new? Does it affect CW only?

#8 Trance Master

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 06:42 AM

Damn , the C-bill income has been really nerfed drastically.
I earn now per match at least 100.000 C-Bills less ... WTF PGI !!!!

please put the C-bill earnings back as it used to be at least ... I mean it was not great , but at least I could earn some money and saving up for some mechs etc..

#9 Thorqemada

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 07:38 AM

I have not seen a decreased C-Bill income but maybe it is bcs i do more damage since the HSR changes and the PSR implementation...

#10 grayson marik

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 09:14 AM

Well, across the board, it is a bit like this: you can do lot of damage but if you dont have that one or 2 key events triggered, you will earn just some 2 cent and thats it.

I think they should have left Cbills where they were and instead added MC prices to any and all equipment in the mechlab.

And custom decals on a mech for 5 mc each? with positions for such decals on legs, shoulders and torso .... Unit based paintshops like donegal guards and stuff for hmm 50 mc? This is the way to bind people to a game... open the doors to the background and enable people to build an identity for themselves in the game! Not let em grind forever, hoping that they will shortcut and buy mc .... there are a lot of people who cannot spend 20 bucks for a mech or something... but maybe 1 or 2 bucks at a time for a decal or an engine....

#11 Surn

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 09:32 AM

I have started grinding in hero mechs to compensate

#12 Tarogato

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 10:19 AM

... I haven't noticed a difference.

#13 Alienized

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 10:34 AM

View PostTarogato, on 23 August 2015 - 10:19 AM, said:

... I haven't noticed a difference.


i just compared old screens....
you must be joking.

#14 Rogue Jedi

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 11:05 AM

I have notices a slight increase in earnings recently, but since the last patch I have almost exclusively been working on leveling my ACHs, it could be that the increased earnings are due to me mostly using an OP Mech, but numbers for damage, kills and assists are slightly worse than my FS9s, and only slightly better than my favorite Mechs the SDRs.

I agree reducing earnings would be a bad idea and a 50-100% increase would probably convince more players to return thus increasing revenue. however I have seen no decrease in earnings since the introduction of 12v12.

#15 Appogee

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 11:17 AM

View PostMechregSurn, on 23 August 2015 - 09:32 AM, said:

I have started grinding in hero mechs to compensate

Even Hero Mechs with Premium time yields a pretty low income, compared to what we used to get in an average game, a year ago.

#16 Alienized

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 11:20 AM

View PostAppogee, on 23 August 2015 - 11:17 AM, said:

Even Hero Mechs with Premium time yields a pretty low income, compared to what we used to get in an average game, a year ago.


And it was already low to what one needs for CW a year ago.
you need so many mechs and modules its rather impossible to be CW ready in under half a year which is terrible considering CW is the main feature of MWO.

PGI keeps beeing totally counterproductive.

#17 Thorqemada

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 11:21 AM

When PGI released the Clans they (probably unintended) invalidated Hero-Mechs - nobody spends C-Bills for being inferior and the C-Bill Bonus only makes up the Net-Loss.

#18 Not A Real RAbbi

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 11:30 AM

View PostRogue Jedi, on 23 August 2015 - 11:05 AM, said:

I have seen no decrease in earnings since the introduction of 12v12.


Sounds about right. There was that economy nerf that happened about that time. I took a year-and-a-half break right before the clan invasion and CW, and it seems that the average payout is about the same today as it was then.

Look, for a WIN, as a light pilot (who therefore gets some cool bonuses for scouting tasks and ECM/COUNTER), I'll take home 80-110k C-Bills. Heck, call it a 100k average in a victory in a non-champ, non-hero mech. The mech I want costs about 11 million C-Bills per variant. That's 110 victories to buy a single instance of that mech, not counting any expendables I might have used (and I don't in PUG for exactly that reason). That's 330 or more victories to buy three of them.

Now, I get it. PGI has to keep the lights on. The long slog of the C-Bill grind does a good bit to push players into spending real-world $$$ on the game, which helps them make payroll and rent and all that. Without the MC and cash economies, there'd be no MWO at all, and we'd have all burned out on Hawken two or three years ago, calling it a half-assed BattleTech wannabe. No. We HAVE MWO, and some folks DO pay good money to keep it up and running, so others may slog through the long grind of the C-Bill-only economy.

And there ARE events, like the one that just ended a few hours ago, that can give us some free items we'd otherwise have to buy with $$$ or forego. (Love my Kickers warhorn!) Challenges are cool! Some give Premium Time, or mechbays. Pay attention, play the challenges, and the F2P grind isn't as bad.

But yeah. I miss the days of 200k payouts for solid victories, being disappointed at making ONLY 80k in a loss, etc.

Further nerfing the C-Bill economy is a bad idea, unless you're worried about real-world money.

#19 Rogue Jedi

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 11:41 AM

I just checked, I am on average earning slightly more since the stats reset about a year and a half ago than I was before, that is not solid evidence ether way as my skill may have improved in that time, but I personally have definitely not seen a reduction in average income.

#20 Ironwithin

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Posted 23 August 2015 - 11:46 AM

I'm not seeing any difference in CBill-earnings with this patch or any other in the last couple of months.

In fact, with the premium time from the event plus the hero-bonus of my phoenix-battlehamster, I did manage to make quite a bit of dough over the last couple of days, around 300k per match being normal and peeking at 450k. That would still be 150 to 250k any other day of the week without all the bonuses, just like it has been all year long.
Losses, like really really bad losses, are still around the 40-60k mark, no change there either.





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