22 replies to this topic

[LogicSol]

The begging grind can be a little off-putting to new players, due to the hours they must put in to get a customizable mech.

After putting a little thought into it and some inspiration from Sandpit I came accross a way PGI could pad the experience for new players without giving them a free lunch, or throwing the economy out of balance.
It also does not involve any client changes or new modes to implement.

The concept is rather simple.

Give out 3 rewards upon reaching specific milestones in trial mechs.

In my example here I'll be use 10 as the milestone.

Upon reaching 10 victories in a trial mech, a player will be awarded 1 Million CB. This then is repeated at 20 and 30 victories.
After 30 victories no more awards will be given out.

This will allow a new player to amass around 5.5 million CB in their first 5 hours of playing. Add the 60k per each loss they occur, and this adds up to be enough for a heavy, a custom medium, or 2 custom lights.

Now the new player has been introduced to the game and it's mechanics, played enough to learn how things work and earned enough to buy their own mech in the first day of playing.
After the 30 win mark has been reached and they no longer receive the bonus CB, They will be able to partake in the normal economy with a mech of their own.

This should greatly improve the experience of a new player, and allow them to get to the meat of the game(customizable mechs) without too much of an initial grind.
This should provide a much better "hook" for the game.

Alternatively, instead of a 1 million CB bonus every ten wins, new players could receive the premium bonus on trial matches until 30 victories.

[ltwally]

+1

Seems related:

http://mwomercs.com/...g-achievements/

[MrMasakari]

I like this idea. Newbies basically will get easy into their first mech rather than some horrendous grind. Might actually be a nice way to keep new folk interested until they get immersed. But after that I'm afraid the hunt begins. Que manic laughter

[Excalibaard]

As i've said in another thread, newbies are just thrown in the sea of players and expected to swim. They need some training first, and linking some starting credits to that is a very nice idea

[IceWendigo]

Just to point out that a new player can easily play string of loosing games after string of loosing games, if he needs 10 victories on top of getting the defeat bat, thats not helping imo.

[LogicSol]

IceWendigo, on 09 November 2012 - 05:29 PM, said:

Just to point out that a new player can easily play string of loosing games after string of loosing games, if he needs 10 victories on top of getting the defeat bat, thats not helping imo.

Once phase 3 matchmaking hits in December, they will have both a modifed Elo ranking and will be matching trials vs trials.
Since that is around a month or so away, I kept that in mind with the suggestion.
Plus after the 20th they shouldn't be facing any teams larger than 3, which should also keep the playing field a bit more level.

[mouzerius]

i like the idea here but why dos a noobie have to get a heavy.
a little costum medium mech is far enough for a goal, and it keeps
with the univers where mediums make up the most mechs of a army.

[MrMasakari]

mouzerius, on 09 November 2012 - 05:39 PM, said:

i like the idea here but why dos a noobie have to get a heavy.
a little costum medium mech is far enough for a goal, and it keeps
with the univers where mediums make up the most mechs of a army.

Im still up for the idea of giving them a Flea/Fireant which gives them a cbill/exp bonus which expires after 7 days or 30 wins, whichever is reached first.

Edited by Artaire, 09 November 2012 - 05:43 PM.

[LogicSol]

mouzerius, on 09 November 2012 - 05:39 PM, said:

i like the idea here but why dos a noobie have to get a heavy.
a little costum medium mech is far enough for a goal, and it keeps
with the univers where mediums make up the most mechs of a army.

A newbie doesn't have to have a heavy.

A big part of the flow for this idea is the 10 win mark.

If a new player wins half their matches(likely to be lower that) it will take 20 matches to reach the first milestone.
If you average 90k for a win, and 60k for a loss. that's 1.5 million from matches and 1 million from the bonus, or 2.5 million CB.
At 6 matches an hour, that's 2.5 million in 3 hours of playtime.

They now have enough to buy a light mech, and have there choice of which chassis.

If they go to 20 wins, that's another 3 hours and 2.5 million CB for a total of 5 million.
That is enough to buy and customize a light, or to buy a medium.

If they go to 30 wins, yet another 3 hours and 2.5 million CB for a total of 7.5 million.

At this point they have enough for 2 customized lights, a custom medium, or a heavy.

What this really does is gives them an extra hours worth of CB at each level, allowing them to get into the mech they want faster, but without giving them so mech they can hop right into a heavy or assault, or disconnecting them from the economy all together.

[Thirdrail]

This whole "problem" seems a little overblown to me. Think about the target demographic for all these fix-the-game-for-new-people ideas for just a second. (A lot of your ideas are very good, I'm not debating that, by the way, I'm just trying to provide a sense of context for the core discussion.)

This issue only affects people who like the game enough to become long term players, but not if it takes them a long time to become one, and, yet, aren't interested enough to spend $7 and buy themselves a light. If you don't care, or don't like the game, or aren't any good at it and want to go home, sure, you can use the trial mech grind as your excuse for bailing, but how many people who would really stick around and play and support the game with their time and/or money are being alienated by the current system? By the very nature of the dynamic involved, it has to be an incredibly small group. You're essentially talking about people whose viewpoint is, "I'd love to play and support this game, if only there were some way to play less of it while not supporting it."

The very fact that you have a pc capable of running this game strongly suggests that you have $7 of disposable income in your life. I lived in Mexico for years. Even my friends there had $7 to throw away on silly things they wanted. They sell prepaid credit cards everywhere, and most people without one have long since had to find a workaround (i.e. friend or relative to help them), to do things like rent cars, pay for Netflix accounts, buy WoW subscriptions, shop eBay, etc.

I agree completely on the training ground front, though. Dropping people into a game with this much technical nuance, without even providing tooltips and item descriptions, much less a full scale tutorial, borders on being cruel. Especially in a world where 35+ games a year hold your hand and teach you how to crouch. I don't think we lose many real players to the trial grind, but I'm sure we do lose them to the overwhelming nature of tactical board game mechanics and mech design.

[Procellus]

So all I have to do is get 10 wins with my team doing all the work while I chill afk in our spawn and make 1 mil C-Bills? Sounds good to me!

There are enough problems with bots and afkers in this game. No need to add more

[LogicSol]

@Thirdrail
All very true. The idea here, as this is a free to play game it's going to attract a lot of people that aren't interested in spending anything until they decide if the like the game or not.

Right now the first several hours of the game is pick one of four mechs, fight. While that may do it for some, the mechwarrior series has really always been about rigging up your own mech to fight in.

This knocks an hour off the process, and gives you the extra CB to make changes when you get enough to buy your first mech.

Procellus, on 09 November 2012 - 09:03 PM, said:

So all I have to do is get 10 wins with my team doing all the work while I chill afk in our spawn and make 1 mil C-Bills? Sounds good to me!

There are enough problems with bots and afkers in this game. No need to add more

Right because the first thing a brand new player is going to do is not play. Also how often do you think a team mostly filled with trial mechs is going to win while down a player?

Hopefully PGI will take care of the AFK issue with better detection and denial of rewards for AFKers..

[Nostram]

Could have a "rent to own" first mech. Basically you pick your first mech, use it "as stock" and the bulk of your earnings to begin with (80% or so) are automatically applied to pay it off. This would let new players get to start with what they want and have to work to pay for it. Still grinding, still getting 20% of earnings to save up for upgrades, might work.

Just another idea to toss into the pot, I tend to think the 7day trial idea better, the granting of cbills for wins, possibly... but might consider a tonedown of the ammount. maybe 3.5million total instead of 5+.

[iNfixc]

30 lost match with Trial mech gives around 2millions of c-bills... thats enough for learning principles and to know does he like the game. If he doesnt like to grind more money, he buys a mech. For me, i will buy the mech with hard earned cash when the time comes.

[Adrienne Vorton]

some similar ideas were brought up by me and some others already... PGI has planned something, and i have a feeling that it will not be much different, but we will have to see.

[Carmaga]

ah, nothing.

Edited by Carmaga, 10 November 2012 - 04:06 AM.

[Flit Asuno]

Thirdrail, on 09 November 2012 - 08:52 PM, said:

This whole "problem" seems a little overblown to me. Think about the target demographic for all these fix-the-game-for-new-people ideas for just a second. (A lot of your ideas are very good, I'm not debating that, by the way, I'm just trying to provide a sense of context for the core discussion.)

This issue only affects people who like the game enough to become long term players, but not if it takes them a long time to become one, and, yet, aren't interested enough to spend $7 and buy themselves a light. If you don't care, or don't like the game, or aren't any good at it and want to go home, sure, you can use the trial mech grind as your excuse for bailing, but how many people who would really stick around and play and support the game with their time and/or money are being alienated by the current system? By the very nature of the dynamic involved, it has to be an incredibly small group. You're essentially talking about people whose viewpoint is, "I'd love to play and support this game, if only there were some way to play less of it while not supporting it."

The very fact that you have a pc capable of running this game strongly suggests that you have $7 of disposable income in your life. I lived in Mexico for years. Even my friends there had $7 to throw away on silly things they wanted. They sell prepaid credit cards everywhere, and most people without one have long since had to find a workaround (i.e. friend or relative to help them), to do things like rent cars, pay for Netflix accounts, buy WoW subscriptions, shop eBay, etc.

I agree completely on the training ground front, though. Dropping people into a game with this much technical nuance, without even providing tooltips and item descriptions, much less a full scale tutorial, borders on being cruel. Especially in a world where 35+ games a year hold your hand and teach you how to crouch. I don't think we lose many real players to the trial grind, but I'm sure we do lose them to the overwhelming nature of tactical board game mechanics and mech design.

"I don't think we lose many players to the trial grind" It's a lot more than you think and the bigger issue is you're pointedly not gaining many players because of the trial grind.

[Procellus]

LogicSol, on 09 November 2012 - 09:47 PM, said:

Right because the first thing a brand new player is going to do is not play. Also how often do you think a team mostly filled with trial mechs is going to win while down a player?

Hopefully PGI will take care of the AFK issue with better detection and denial of rewards for AFKers..

My point is that you are adding an easily exploitable feature to a game that by its very business model is designed to have a bad grind so you pay money to alleviate it.

[Woodat]

As a newbie who just joined last week and grinded his way up through a few mechs (hooray for my XL300 jenner last night!) I will say the current beta does not make for an enjoyable starting experience. Victories were incredibly hard when lumped in nothing but trial mechs, and even if we did win I seldom lived to see it. On top of that it took an agonisingly long time to get out of the trials and into my first commando.

The moment I did though the game improved drastically. Saw a larger share of victories, a greater survival rate, and a huge amount more fun. But until the moment I got into the commando I had absolutely no desire to drop 7$ on a game which felt very stacked against me. I had no idea how much better and easier the game was once out of the trial mechs, so couldn't justify in my mind spending money to make it so.

The initial poster is right in his instinct here. Give the newbies a taste of how awesome the game is first, *then* look to charging them for cool upgrades and grind cutting. I'm much more comfortable now I'm using my own mechs and am perfectly willing to turn around to purchase greater stuff now the game doesn't feel monstrously stacked against me.

(well, almost. TBH I'm still rather bothered from learning how much more benefit being in the Founders society is than being an F2p'er. Only learnt of this game a week ago, don't like the thought of paying and still working hard only to get less just because of a bit of bad timing luck).

Edited by Woodat, 10 November 2012 - 07:52 AM.

[ToxinTractor]

This over all a good idea the thread posted above me ^ is very close to yours. I feel that they both go hand in hand and would make the game much more friendly to new players and it would give us who are more experienced a good run for our money.

Though my biggest worry now that i think about it is people just saving the cash to buy some like a atlas. However perhaps there could be a set number of achievements that you can get and it would let you pick one mech for free up to a weight limit like say up to 55 tons or some thing like that.