98 replies to this topic

[pizzafly]

So, I managed to buy ONLY ONE MECH and seismic module, playing 41 matches.
And this because I'm not a newbie and thanks to 5 million from tutorial.

If I want 2 ach more, to elited and master them, it would take 130-140 matches.
BUT THIS only because I'm not a newbie.

MOREOVER, suddlently in tier 3 in few matches, a newbie will be in teams with and against tier 1-2, so I think it would take around 200 matches for a real new player.

So, do you really really think that there will be players wanting this, hundreds and handreds of matches to have stuff?
Do you really really think new players will open thier wallets meanwhile being wrecked and not having fun at all?

I hope that along with the mythical rebalance patch, you are really thinking something about what to do with the economy.
If not, Steam will be a complete failure.
Dropping with trail and always the same mech for hundreds of matches is the most boring playing experience EVER.
Period.



Think about let players use every chassis, and try to find out a different way to get real money from playerbase.

Thanks for reading.

Edited by tzetzefly, 27 October 2015 - 02:31 AM.

[Sp4rtan]

sad but true

[PurpleNinja]

I may be wrong, but the point of free to play model is to make people buy stuff.

[Appogee]

You appear to be trying to provide feedback to PGI.

The General Forum is probably the least effective way to do that. All you'll get here is an angry mob agreeing with you, and a few white knights telling you that the real problem is you.

Twitter is probably your best chance.

Edited by Appogee, 27 October 2015 - 02:38 AM.

[STEF_]

PurpleNinja, on 27 October 2015 - 02:34 AM, said:

I may be wrong, but the point of free to play model is to make people buy stuff.

This happens when they are having fun.
If not, they fly away.
That's the reason why newbies should have MUCH MORE than trail mechs with awful loadout.
The more they have fun the more they will spend.

Now the noob experience is just a complete failure of fun.

[NextGame]

In the past I would have probably argued the case that it was fine as is; however with so many mechs available, it would make more business sense to decrease the grind for levelling a mech, and increase the cbills a little bit in order to give players a slightly higher sense of progress and encourage them to buy more mechbays.

Could also add a cooldown timer on selling mechs to make people have to wait if they dont want to purchase more bays.

[El Bandito]

Best way to resolve this is to revamp the damn skill tree so we would not need to buy THREE effing mechs to elite the one we want. Suddenly, our C-Bill income would be 3x more effective--until Paul decides to meddle with it, again.

Also, newbies should start at the bottom of T5.

Edited by El Bandito, 27 October 2015 - 03:01 AM.

[sycocys]

You could have purchased 3-4 mechs instead of a radar hack and a cheetah.

Or purchased a heavy/assault mech you enjoyed playing the trial version of.

[3xnihilo]

El Bandito, on 27 October 2015 - 02:43 AM, said:

Best way to resolve this is to revamp the damn skill tree so we would not need to buy THREE effing mechs to elite the one we want. Suddenly, our C-Bill income would be 3x more effective--until Paul decides to meddle with it, again.

Also, newbies should start at he bottom of T5.

Revamping the skill tree would be great. Needing three variants of each chassis forces you to buy stuff you don't really want, which, at least in my case, often prevents me from buying the first variant to start with. I have even passed over hero sales, where I would have liked to pick up a new shiny hero mech, but didn't really feel ambitious enough to grind to purchase two more variants, then grind xp for them.

I know "if you are having fun it's not a grind." But that is my point. When I am playing mechs I like, to buy a mech a want, I am having fun. When I know my cbills (or worse my real $$$) are going to a mech I don't really want so that I can grind a bunch of XP in that mech, and then repeat with another mech I don't care for. . . just so the mech that I originally wanted can be playable (non elited mechs are awful), then it feels like a grind.

[El Bandito]

sycocys, on 27 October 2015 - 02:56 AM, said:

You could have purchased 3-4 mechs instead of a radar hack and a cheetah.

Or purchased a heavy/assault mech you enjoyed playing the trial version of.

An IS Light mech without DHS and big engine is not a mech--its trash. And when you upgrade those IS Light mechs, they become no less expensive than Clan Lights.

[STEF_]

sycocys, on 27 October 2015 - 02:56 AM, said:

You could have purchased 3-4 mechs instead of a radar hack and a cheetah.

Or purchased a heavy/assault mech you enjoyed playing the trial version of.

mmm...I think you miss the point.

The point is: 41 matches for having around 10 milions (+5 milions from tutorial).

And using 3 trial only. No modules, no basic skills unlocked, never (because u can drop 1000 times with the same trial, but....no skill unlocked). The other trials are actually so pitiful..... and a pain to use. NO fun at all.

The Kingdom od Boredom.

New players will never open their wallet.

[Paigan]

Stefka Kerensky, on 27 October 2015 - 02:37 AM, said:

This happens when they are having fun.
If not, they fly away.
That's the reason why newbies should have MUCH MORE than trail mechs with awful loadout.
The more they have fun the more they will spend.

Now the noob experience is just a complete failure of fun.

For a new player it makes no difference if the loadout is awful or not.
For the first dozens of matches, the fun lies more in "oh look, it shoots lasers" or "I'm going to try out missiles now" or "I'm taking the fat mech for the next match".
And seeing maps and seeing team members, etc.

There will be not one single new player saying "I want the current high-end optimized modules-enhanced mastered laser build, and I want it NOW and FOR FREE or I can't have fun in this game."
(and btw: if you do that, you strip the game of ANY motivation to accumulate progress, because there would be none)

Or put in another way: a new player will suck in an ACH just as much as he's going to suck in a stock commando.


IMHO, the whining in this thread is based on mixing up stuff and pure personal frustration/spite, not reason.

Edited by Paigan, 27 October 2015 - 03:21 AM.

[Elizander]

We already did all the new player maths a long time ago.

[Chemie]

they hope those new players will get depressed and buy a mech pack vs leaving. I guess they figure if 10% "given in", they are doing OK. They don't understand word of mouth...or that Star Wars had 10MM players or that there are tons of steam games for $10-$20 for the entire game instead of one mech.

[STEF_]

Paigan, on 27 October 2015 - 03:19 AM, said:

(and btw: if you do that, you strip the game of ANY motivation to accumulate progress, because there would be none)

Ironically enough, what you wrote in brakets, is the real issue of MWO, but also is another topic.

So, after the initial phase of surprise (For the first dozens of matches, the fun lies more in "oh look, it shoots lasers" or "I'm going to try out missiles now" or "I'm taking the fat mech for the next match".
And seeing maps and seeing team members, etc.), a player will want to play effectively and kill stuff instead of being farmed.

He will start to see the... "impossible wall of grind" needed, only to have a bunch of stuff needed to be good.

At the same time, he stands in a crossroad: Open or don't open the wallet.
Imo, he'll think: "I'm not having fun, so why should I open the wallet?"

INSTEAD, if a newbie could pilot every chassis available, and PGI can surely find another way to receive real money, the new player experience should also be less painfull and maybe more fun.

[Cyborne Elemental]

Man.. If I had to come into MWO right now with the way balance and the grind is...

The likelyhood of me actually sticking around and actually putting up money for Mechpacks and PT is pretty low, if I had to start fresh right now at this moment in time.

Especially for new players to have missed out on all the sweet giveaways like I and others have gotten over this past year or two, that alone is probably the one and only reason I've stuck around this long.

Piles of free mechbays, Piles of Cbills over and over, Free mechs, Centurion, 2 Thunderbolts, Raven, Cataphract3d, Banshee/Warhawk, Adder, Stormcrow, I mean wow..

Events are what keep me going with this, without the PT injections, and all those little buffers from rewards and events to make it worthwhile, I would have a hard time.

Now I've thrown in a decent amount of $$, not nearly as much as some of you guys.. but $60 on MC packages, and then $40 for my urby-pack, thats more than I've spent on any Retail Multiplay game.

Alot of us guys already have everything we need, more mechs than we could possibly play, modules, paint, camo, ect..

And its easy to turn a cold shoulder and say everything is fine in terms of earnings, Because you already have it all and could care less.

You have to look at it from the perspective of what a new player can actually get over a set course of time.

The grind is bad, even with Hero mechs and PT running it can be pretty rough trying to save up for a new mech or modules.

How do you hope to inspire and keep new players with things the way they are now, and with all those goodies behind us and with how hard the grind is..

[TWIAFU]

sycocys, on 27 October 2015 - 02:56 AM, said:

You could have purchased 3-4 mechs instead of a radar hack and a cheetah.

Or purchased a heavy/assault mech you enjoyed playing the trial version of.

Not to mention a new player to MWO from Steam is NOT going to have the GXP to unlock Seismic. Let alone understand what it is.

[Oncoshi]

Stefka Kerensky, on 27 October 2015 - 02:37 AM, said:

This happens when they are having fun.
If not, they fly away.
That's the reason why newbies should have MUCH MORE than trail mechs with awful loadout.
The more they have fun the more they will spend.

Now the noob experience is just a complete failure of fun.

This!
If you dont like the game because you cant compete with others why should you pay money or waste time?

[Charronn]

The new player experience is awful but not as bad as when I started a couple years ago. (trial mechs where a joke and tutorial which now gives 5m cbills) It does put new players off.Why are they stuck into tier 4?Surely t5 is better.Ease them into the game instead ok lets feed these noobs to the lions.
The only reason I stuck it out was because I liked past Mechwarrior games on pc (never done tabletop).
Change the starting tier and my main gripe and put off is the ludicrous master 3 variants ********.It makes no sense and is just a time/moneysink.Get rid of it.
If they don't you can see this game getting panned by the steam crowd.

[jss78]

The NPE has always been brutal. Yet all of us are here, despite that, so clearly there's hope. Also, arguably the NPE is now better than it's ever been (between the immensely helpful Training Academy and PSR keeping new pilots clear of the comp crowd).

That said, I think it'd be a wasted opportunity to not further improve the NPE as much as possible, before going to Steam.

I keep wondering how far off a simple but fully-functional AI is. IMO, it'd be hugely helpful if the novice could launch a one-off "single player match", with AI team mates vs. AI bots. Maybe easy/medium/hard modes with 11/7/3 team mates vs. an enemy team of 12. All that you'd need to implement that is a semi-passable AI code -- no need for voice actors, scripted campaigns, etc. It'd give the new player a chance to feel good about his pixel robot skills when the human opposition is just too much. (Hell, I'd play it myself, on those weekday evenings when I want some action but am just too tired to deal with actual people in their meta-mechs.)

Edited by jss78, 27 October 2015 - 03:53 AM.