66 replies to this topic

[Appogee]

I've bought more than $1500 worth of Mechs for myself and my sons in the four years I've been playing Mechwarrior:Online. I now have about 150 Mechs in my personal hangar.

But I play relatively few of these Mechs regularly. Many that I bought in packs turned out to be quite uncompetitive, or were rendered uncompetitive by various quirk/balance changes over time. But I've been ok with that, because Mechs are the main way that PGI makes money, and I want PGI and MWO to succeed.

It's been irritating though to be unable to save multiple drop decks for Faction Play... especially as there's only one minute in which you know what map you'll be fighting, and the actual deck change UI is buggy and obtuse.

So I was glad to hear at the town hall that PGI will finally introduce multiple drop deck functionality. Yay. However, if we want to store more than 2 Drop Decks, we'll need to pay MC to purchase more saved drop decks...?!

Hold up there, PGI.

Many of us spent all that money buying so many of your Mechs, yet you expect us to pay you for core game functionality that should have been there from Day One...? Having indulged you and your perpetual PokeMech funding model, you think your best paying customers should pay for convenience in sorting/using all the Mechs they bought?

What next? A MC-only search function to more easily find where you equipped your Modules or engines in your $1500 of Mechs? MC to find out which planet you'll be dropping on ahead of the 1 minute window? MC to find out when the members of your unit last logged in?

Getting players to pay for basic game functionality sets a dangerous new precedent. At the very least, it should be provided free of charge to anyone who bought two drop decks worth of Mechs from you. Otherwise, I have bought my last Mech from you.

Edited by Appogee, 01 May 2016 - 07:48 AM.

[Afuldan McKronik]

Paying for QoL improvements. Yeah, almost forgot about that with all the "Opinions don't matter™."

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

Maybe they can monetize development goals.

Donate $1 if you want PGI to fix the heat system.
Donate $1 if you think PGI fixing the heat system is a bad idea.



Donate $1 if you want PGI to work on PvE.
Donate $1 if you want PGI to work on Solaris.

Et al.

[Afuldan McKronik]

I Zeratul I, on 01 May 2016 - 07:44 AM, said:

Maybe they can monetize development goals.

Donate $1 if you want PGI to fix the heat system.
Donate $1 if you think PGI fixing the heat system is a bad idea.



Donate $1 if you want PGI to work on PvE.
Donate $1 if you want PGI to work on Solaris.

Et al.

I think they get quite a few donations in the form of pre orders for mechs that don't become available for 3 months.

[Mcgral18]

2 is for the most part adequate...aside from the Modules if you don't own 8 sets.

A Cool and a Hot map, but you can also have Short Range and Long range, hot or cool of those (but now you have 16 sets of modules needed, at 216 Million Cbills)


Depends how they price them. If it's 200MC, that's less than a mechbay.
If it's 1000MC, PGI needs to understand the Micro part of Microtransaction.

Edited by Mcgral18, 01 May 2016 - 08:08 AM.

[Thorqemada]

They should make Premium time more interesting by offering additional Options like Map/Mode Voting, additonal Dropdecks, etc.
I am ok with that as they need to make some Money and advanced features should be monetized.
But well - the ship probably has already sailed off a while ago...

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

Afuldan McKronik, on 01 May 2016 - 07:46 AM, said:

I think they get quite a few donations in the form of pre orders for mechs that don't become available for 3 months.

I'm sorry. I was just kidding about that.

I wish there were some way to incentivize PGI away from listening to people who seem to be deliberately misleading or sabotaging the development process -- like whatever people misinformed PGI into believing reforming the heat scale was the way to fix TTK.

But I know it wouldn't be worth it in terms of time or money because there's just no way to silence that kind of crazy when they constantly seem to be by far the loudest (and craziest) demographic in the game.

[Afuldan McKronik]

I Zeratul I, on 01 May 2016 - 07:50 AM, said:

I'm sorry. I was just kidding about that.

I wish there were some way to incentivize PGI away from listening to people who seem to be deliberately misleading or sabotaging the development process -- like whatever people misinformed PGI into believing reforming the heat scale was the way to fix TTK.

But I know it wouldn't be worth it in terms of time or money because there's just no way to silence that kind of crazy when they constantly seem to be by far the loudest (and craziest) demographic in the game.

By loudest you mean the people who badger him on his personal Twitter on non work days? Why he thought Twitter was a Good Way to Communicate™ is beyond logical thought.

[Wintersdark]

Afuldan McKronik, on 01 May 2016 - 07:42 AM, said:

Paying for QoL improvements. Yeah, almost forgot about that with all the "Opinions don't matter™."

Well, that's pretty much exactly how F2P games work, after all.

See: Mech Bays.

You get two free saved drop deck configurations, buy more. *shrugs* You've got an attack and defend deck premade right there. That seems reasonable to me?


And, yeah, Appogee, I'm in your boat too having spent way too much on mechs and such. I get where you're coming from.

But this? This is exactly the sort of thing that gets monetized in F2P games. I wouldn't expect anything else.

Mcgral18, on 01 May 2016 - 07:47 AM, said:

2 is for the most part adequate...aside from the Modules if you don't own 8 sets.

A Cool and a Hot map, but you can also have Short Range and Hot range, hot or cool of those (but now you have 16 sets of modules needed, at 216 Million Cbills)


Depends how they price them. If it's 200MC, that's less than a mechbay.
If it's 1000MC, PGI needs to understand the Micro part of Microtransaction.

This is true. As with McGral, I'm thinking 2 free covers most common use cases to start with...

But, yeah, they need to be priced very reasonably (and ideally be inserted into loyalty rewards too, as with mech bays, so you can maybe get another one or two for free via playing FW on it's own and ranking up). If they're priced high, then yeah, that's a big fail.

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

Afuldan McKronik, on 01 May 2016 - 07:53 AM, said:

By loudest you mean the people who badger him on his personal Twitter on non work days? Why he thought Twitter was a Good Way to Communicate™ is beyond logical thought.

It is possible to send direct messages on twitter with afaik no text limit, if they're enabled.

Once in awhile I'll see someone on the forums try to have a serious discussion about things like weapons balance and game mechanics and I notice that when they start to cite facts, statistics and figures there are immediately people who try to sabotage the process and object to them trying to make a legitimate case for anything. I'm also pretty sure that there are also some people that post on these forums regularly who are very strong in their opinions who don't play the game.

And it is also possible that the same people who object to serious talks on game mechanics are the same people who never log in and play the game.

What does it mean if some of the people who post the most fanatically on here about things being OP, necessary game changes and wanting to influence the way the game works are the same people who object to real discussions on game mechanics, who also never play the game and never log in?

Sometimes I get the feeling there are people that post here politically who are extremely loud and extremely opinionated and for whatever reason they deliberate try to sabotage the game, the development process and basically do whatever they can to destroy things here.

That's just the feeling I get sometimes. I don't have the time, will or energy to confirm it.

And also I get a strong feeling sometimes that PGI chooses to listen to people who don't even play this game. That the people they listen to are people who haven't logged in or played the game in 2 years as opposed to those who are active.

Edited by I Zeratul I, 01 May 2016 - 08:11 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

Honestly, it doesn't bother me. I just find it funny. First of all, players have been asking PGI to monetize features for years, and this is finally how they did it. It's particularly funny because CW is struggling a bit to begin with. And then putting a tax on a fairly basic feature is just.... it's not wrong, it's just ironic.

[TercieI]

Agree with Mcgral and Winters, 2 with more available seems spot on for a F2P game. Should be no more than 500 a toss though, 300 would be better.

[Appogee]

Wintersdark, on 01 May 2016 - 08:05 AM, said:

This is true. As with McGral, I'm thinking 2 free covers most common use cases to start with...

It cover all the people who didn't buy a lot of Mechs.

So we are left with a situation where the most 'loyal' customers get the worst part of the deal.

That's rarely good for business.

[Afuldan McKronik]

Appogee, on 01 May 2016 - 09:36 AM, said:

It cover all the people who didn't buy a lot of Mechs.

So we are left with a situation where the most 'loyal' customers get the worst part of the deal.

That's rarely good for business.

Go back and retroactively give one deck per pack.

[FupDup]

Next Feature™: Pay MC to speed up the loadout-saving process!

[sycocys]

Most people will never need more than 2 decks.

1. Attack deck
2. Defense deck

And why are you complaining about them actually starting to implement one (or some if you include decals and geometry) ideas that we gave them specifically so they could generate a little extra revenue?

[Afuldan McKronik]

Next new feature : only half ammo is replenished between matches.

New feature : spend 50 MC to replenish full ammo amounts.

[Appogee]

sycocys, on 01 May 2016 - 09:43 AM, said:

And why are you complaining about them actually starting to implement one (or some if you include decals and geometry) ideas that we gave them specifically so they could generate a little extra revenue?

Because it's a tax on the people who already gave them most of their previous revenue.

Afuldan McKronik, on 01 May 2016 - 09:40 AM, said:

Go back and retroactively give one deck per pack.

This would be reasonable.

Edited by Appogee, 01 May 2016 - 10:03 AM.

[EgoSlayer]

Appogee, on 01 May 2016 - 09:36 AM, said:

It cover all the people who didn't buy a lot of Mechs.

So we are left with a situation where the most 'loyal' customers get the worst part of the deal.

That's rarely good for business.

We have one bay now. They are giving us another one for free. Actually we are getting 4 - 2 for Scouting and 2 for Invasion.
They could have just left it at one. But they are doubling quadrupling it, and giving the option of buying more. This IS the kind of microtransactions they need to put in the game.

Edited by EgoSlayer, 01 May 2016 - 10:47 AM.

[TheArisen]

EgoSlayer, on 01 May 2016 - 10:37 AM, said:

We have one bay now. They are giving us another one for free. Actually we are getting 4 - 2 for Scouting and 2 for Invasion.
They could have just left it at one. But they are doubling quadrupling it, and giving the option of buying more. This IS the kind of microtransactions they need to put in the game.

I don't really like it but it makes sense. F2P games operate this way. I wouldn't be surprised if additional dropdecks were offered through CW rewards & events. I mean, you hate this but you're okay with them selling mech bays?

Perhaps they could offer dropdecks in a similar way to mech bays; if you buy a mech pack you get 1 or more extra dropdecks depending on the pack you buy. It'd be an extra incentive that would be tacked on.

I agree they need to handle this carfully, 200 to 300 MC is reasonable, 500 at the most.