12 replies to this topic

[Kurshuk]

Heyo Readers, thanks for coming.

OK, I know some of you came to this thread looking for something to regurgitate into the big thread. And some of you came here to tell me that 'these modules won't break the game'. Unfortunately I don't need or want either group. Those that say this isn't pay to win won't be convinced by me. Those looking for something to repost, scroll down, important text and link to original articles included.

What I'm looking for are people from back in closed beta who remember seeing information from the devs and PGI specifically stating that they would control pay to win by limiting MC only items to cosmetic items and mechbays. I remember a lot of Q&A sessions in the beginning where you could chat in questions for devs to answer.

I remember several times the question of pay to win came up and as I recall the devs always said something like "Gameplay affecting items won't be available for MC only." or "This game is not pay to win, MC only purchases will be limited to non-gameplay affecting items."

Does anyone have any links to any of these discussions where we can find more of this information? I found a couple and added them below. Thanks for any help and I'll leave my email if you'd rather send it there than post it on the forums.

Kurshuk
Alexi.Kurshuk@gmail.com




Russ alluded to MC items in a Kotaku interview here.

hotnoodles
how will you keep your F2P game from falling into the trap of players buying their way through the game and making so that people who spent time instead of money feel that they aren't losing out?

RussBullock@hotnoodles
Well I think the same way it is right now. You can buy the mech's with real money but you can also buy them with in game C-Bills. More importantly the only way to get the XP is to play the matches, you can't buy that and that will never change. Keep the things people can buy restricted to time savers, not skill boosters.

Bryan in a PC gamer interview

PCG: So you talk about upgrading skills, a leveling system, upgrading your Mech, and this is such a tricky area for F2P games. There are all these fears about pay-to-win games, and Mech aficianados, they know the specs on a Mech. They know what the Mech is capable of. How is progression going to work? It’s F2P, but obviously money comes into it somewhere. What does your money buy you?

BE: One of the most important things in any F2P games, in my opinion, is not allowing players to buy skill. The fastest way to destroy your game is to allow your players to buy something that gives them a tactical advantage over an enemy. So we’ve been very careful about what you can purchase and what you need to earn.


Same PC gamer interview with Bryan

PCG:Can you get into items and upgrades yet?

BE: You’re going to to be able to purchase, using a variety of different methods, Mechs, Mech pieces, skills – but I’ll be careful with what i mean about skills.
When it comes to the pilot, you’ll be able to train your pilot to fit the role that you like. But you won’t be able to pay real cash for pilot training, for example. That would be through earned experience points or earned in-game cash. So you would actually have to play the game to upgrade your pilot. Anything that would affect or give your a tactical advantage, you can’t purchase with real cash. You have to earn that by playing the game.
So we have a pilot tree, a skill tree. As you level up you can unlock new features and new abilities. So if you want to be a scout, you would get skills related to information technology, or being able to move faster, hide, things like that. If you wanted to be more of an assault person, it would be more related to weapon control and such.

EDIT: Removed some of the HTML formatting from when I copied these off the pages.

Edited by Kurshuk, 06 March 2013 - 06:02 PM.

[Lonestar1771]

Interesting how they added they things they said they WEREN'T going to add and never added the things they said they WERE going to add.

[Biglead]

..

[Boymonkey]

Honestly I do not think it will matter to much when you look at what it gives you per match it is very little.
If people want to waste MC on it let them it will help the game stay afloat.

[Protection]

[tuokaerf]

Software development is a moving target. While it looks like some of their early desires might have said otherwise, there could be a multitude of business reasons that require some changes.

It's not betrayal, it's a change. They were open about it too.

[Joe Mallad]

I'm not screaming Pay 2 Win but here is a few questions I'd like answered.

If I'm playing this game with the F2P thought in mind and never spend real money...meaning I don't buy any MC and I want to grind through my mech and advance my pilot tree only by using mech XP, does anyone here feel that by another player using MC to convert Mech XP to General XP so they can advance other mechs and skills up faster as that being a Play 2 Win advantage over those that are F2P?


Or if I use MC to convert mech XP to general XP to get modules way after than a F2P player, is that not a form of Pay 2 Win? As those modules give you abilities like base cap and so on that allow you an advantage that F2P players can only get through grinding to get their GXP up?

Edited by Yoseful Mallad, 06 March 2013 - 06:34 PM.

[Zolaz]

Protection, on 06 March 2013 - 06:13 PM, said:

So you have all your module slots filled? Would I give up 1 slot for some MC cost or 2 for none? PGI is counting on some people to spend the money.

[Zeus X]

So, How do you guys think the devs will back peddle on this?

[Lonestar1771]

DCM Zeus, on 06 March 2013 - 06:25 PM, said:

So, How do you guys think the devs will back peddle on this?

Honestly I don't see how they can recover from it. I mean they have been wasting hours and hours of man power to code and test these things. They chose money over compelling gameplay. The latter brings in more players and the former is the product of the latter bringing in those players. Cart without the horse in this case.

[Zeus X]

Lonestar1771, on 06 March 2013 - 06:30 PM, said:

Honestly I don't see how they can recover from it. I mean they have been wasting hours and hours of man power to code and test these things. They chose money over compelling gameplay. The latter brings in more players and the former is the product of the latter bringing in those players. Cart without the horse in this case.

I have to agree, the devs have alot of thinking to do, I still can't believe they put resources into consumables.

Bad move PGI, You were doing so well, but now, now you have caused a mass amount of anger.

[benth]

Yoseful Mallad, on 06 March 2013 - 06:20 PM, said:

I'm not screaming Pay 2 Win but here is a few questions I'd like answered.

If I'm playing this game with the F2P thought in mind and never spend real money...meaning I don't buy any MC and I want to grind through my mech and advance my pilot tree only by using mech XP, does anyone here feel that by another player using MC to convert Mech XP to General XP so they can advance other mechs and skills up faster as that being a Play 2 Win advantage over those that are F2P?


Or if I use MC to convert mech XP to general XP to get modules way after than a F2P player, is that not a form of Pay 2 Win? As those modules give you abilities like base cap and so on that allow you an advantage that F2P players can only get through grinding to get their GXP up?

GXP does take a long time to gain, and PGI does need to make a better effort in order to communicate to players that this is NOT supposed to be used on mech skills but instead unlock modules.

As it stands now Capture Module could be the only one that is borderline, but I would rather they rework capture mechanics entirely. Slim chance of that happening, I'm afraid. GXP gain rate is slow, but it is feasible for free players to attain it. Unlike consumables, gaining GXP for a module doesn't completely hinder your c-bill gain the way losing 12.5k c-bills per match would.

Luckily, most players seem like shooting giant robots over rushing to capture the red square and see the victory screen.

[Joe Mallad]

I can see things like coolant flushes being consumables just as long as its fare to all players. But things like air strikes and artillery strikes should be those skills that are used through command consoles or command modules that someone that's supposed to be in the COMMAND role is the one that calls them in. By allowing everyone to use these, they are pulling more and more away from role warfare.

Edited by Yoseful Mallad, 06 March 2013 - 06:46 PM.