21 replies to this topic

[Brillopad]

My first mech was an SDR-5K....I wasted most of the money I got with my cadet bonus on trying to make it worth anything...and that didn't work. So, my first REAL mech was an HBK-4J, I got it during the medium mech sale, and it was awesome. I thought "this is sweet, I should get more of these things so I can unlock the elite tree". So here I am now, with 3 hunchbacks...a 4J, 4SP, and 4G and an ILYA MUROMETS in my garage. I never play my 4J anymore, and rarely play my 4G...it just seems like a huge waste of space, and money to have to buy 3 mech variants in order to make one of them good. Can there be no other way to unlock the elite tier upgrades? Maybe make them cost 3x the XP? Or 2 variants with 1.5x the XP cost. Or make each tier have an XP cost...maybe 15,000 xp to unlock the second tier.
I'm glad I bought hunchbacks, and not an atlas, why would I need/want 3 atlases?(atlasi?) Thats a ton of money to unlock that tree. If you wanted to fully spec out your atlas, you would need to spend an additional 20 million bills. Do you see what I am getting at here? If you were a new player, and just had to have an atlas, then realized it wouldn't reach it's full potential unless you bought 2 more. You'd be upset right? That's 2 more of basically the SAME mech chassis. What if you might like the trebuchet, or catapult better? What if you buy them and you can't play them very well, but you did really well in your atlas, but now you've spent so much on other mechs, you just feel like you've wasted 200 games.
There's something about this system that needs improvement. This game is already daunting enough for new players, why make it even more so?

tl;dr: 3 mechs of one type is redundant, and expensive. Re-balance the XP cost of the elite tier.

Thoughts?

Edited by Brillopad, 28 February 2013 - 06:35 PM.

[Thoummim]

Its a way to make people buy mech bay...

If you dont want to buy new make bay that okay mech can be competitive even with no basic.

[Brillopad]

Thoummim, on 28 February 2013 - 06:36 PM, said:

Its a way to make people buy mech bay...

If you dont want to buy new make bay that okay mech can be competitive even with no basic.

I know they can still be competitive, but I really like the idea of the Pilot Lab, and think it should be so difficult to access.

[Sug]

Brillopad, on 28 February 2013 - 06:31 PM, said:

If you were a new player, and just had to have an atlas, then realized it wouldn't reach it's full potential unless you bought 2 more. You'd be upset right?

What if you buy them and you can't play them very well, but you did really well in your atlas, but now you've spent so much on other mechs, you just feel like you've wasted 200 games.

There's something about this system that needs improvement. This game is already daunting enough for new players, why make it even more so?

1) Full potential? The bonuses are nice but they're not mandatory to be effective. You can still play the game(!), and get experience(!) while playing(!) the game.

2) 200 games is like a month's worth of games. You'd either figure out you hated the mech or earn enough cbills to buy whatever you wanted long before 200 games.

3) The system isn't great. (Beta) Adding a real tutorial and mechbay with stats/info you can play around in will help.

4) If you have trouble earning money or XP you can purchase Premium Time or a Hero Mech. You can even transfer the XP from a mech you don't want anymore to another mech with MC.

Edited by Sug, 28 February 2013 - 06:48 PM.

[Homeless Bill]

That's the price of free-to-play: the grind. Just unlock the elite tier and sell them like most people. Not me, though; I'll be on Hoarders: Battletech Edition.

[Sug]

Homeless Bill, on 28 February 2013 - 06:48 PM, said:

That's the price of free-to-play: the grind. Just unlock the elite tier and sell them like most people. Not me, though; I'll be on Hoarders: Battletech Edition.

He's homeless and he wont' sell his mechs for cash : /

[Zolaz]

You must be new ... welcome to MWO. I suggest you learn how to use the search function if you are going to resurrect a dead horse.

[Sug]

Zolaz, on 28 February 2013 - 06:54 PM, said:

You must be new ... welcome to MWO. I suggest you learn how to use the search function if you are going to resurrect a dead horse.

To be fair the search function really, really sucks.

[Brillopad]

Sug, on 28 February 2013 - 06:46 PM, said:

1) Full potential? The bonuses are nice but they're not mandatory to be effective. You can still play the game(!), and get experience(!) while playing(!) the game.

2) 200 games is like a month's worth of games. You'd either figure out you hated the mech or earn enough cbills to buy whatever you wanted long before 200 games.

3) The system isn't great. (Beta) Adding a real tutorial and mechbay with stats/info you can play around in will help.

4) If you have trouble earning money or XP you can purchase Premium Time or a Hero Mech. You can even transfer the XP from a mech you don't want anymore to another mech with MC.

1.) Yes, I do mean full potential. By definition: The maximum ammount of potential. I realize, a lot of this game is skill, and I'm working on that part. But you can't tell me that if you have 2 identical mechs (and 2 players of similar skill) going head to head, and the only difference is that one has an unlocked/filled elite tree, that the one that doesn't have that tree unlocked will win the fight. Therefore, yes, the full potential of my mech will be reached with an unlocked mech tree.

2.) 200 games was an arbitrary number, and will net you around 20 mil c-bills. Which was the cost of 2 Atlases.

3.) Agreed

4.) I have both, and don't have a big issue with money or exp. My concern at this point is newer players. Or those with lower incomes...it makes it really hard to continue playing. 20 bucks for Ilya Muromets was a hard decision for me to make...thats a lot of money for one 'mech. But thats another topic entirely.

Sug, on 28 February 2013 - 06:54 PM, said:

He's homeless and he wont' sell his mechs for cash : /

I live in my mech

Zolaz, on 28 February 2013 - 06:54 PM, said:

You must be new ... welcome to MWO. I suggest you learn how to use the search function if you are going to resurrect a dead horse.

I've been playing for a month, I think I deserve the MWO Amateur title. New-ish to the forums, yes.

Sug, on 28 February 2013 - 07:02 PM, said:

To be fair the search function really, really sucks.

Yep, it's true...I can't ever find anything I'm looking for on there.

[Sacrosanct]

Everyone knows the current system is awful.

[Sug]

Brillopad, on 28 February 2013 - 07:06 PM, said:

But you can't tell me that if you have 2 identical mechs (and 2 players of similar skill) going head to head, and the only difference is that one has an unlocked/filled elite tree, that the one that doesn't have that tree unlocked will win the fight. Therefore, yes, the full potential of my mech will be reached with an unlocked mech tree.

My concern at this point is newer players. Or those with lower incomes...it makes it really hard to continue playing. 20 bucks for Ilya Muromets was a hard decision for me to make...thats a lot of money for one 'mech. But thats another topic entirely.

Basic vs Elite the elite has what, 5% more heat dissipation and cap? 10% faster top speed 5% less weapon cooldowns?

I get that every little bit helps but the differences are so minor. Compare that to a lvl 60 vs a lvl 90 in WoW.

Newer Players: If the learning curve is high it's because of the god awful documentation and introduction. The game itself isn't that hard.

Shooter + Tank Turret Aiming + Heat.

Anyone with gaming experience will pick up the basics of MWO before they lose their cadet bonus. As for blowing the bonus because you don't know what to buy - live and learn. There's a guide section on the forums. Or people could just ask what a good first mech is. I know we need an in game guide or something but i don't expect PGI to hold my hand as I play.

Low Income Players: I might actually qualify as one : / Student with a campus job that makes me about $100 a week. But I can still allocate 15$ a month for MWO. Some months I want MC, sometimes I want premium time. Depends on what i'm doing.

Edited by Sug, 28 February 2013 - 07:23 PM.

[Cest7]

Welcome to MWO brillo, The forum search function is your friend. I have 3 variants for each chassis that I pilot.

Yesterday, this same topic was posted in suggestions. My response was:

Cest7, on 27 February 2013 - 08:01 PM, said:

Making elite require 3 variants its smart, forcing players out of their comfort zone and into other variants.

Also, as Thoummim specified above, it is to sell mech bay slots. This topic has long been in debate since before open beta and I am almost completely sure PGI is not going to change the 3-variant elite system.

Edited by Cest7, 01 March 2013 - 12:02 AM.

[Spheroid]

Point #1 Mech bay = $1.66, a very good deal

Point #2 Third hunchback should have been 4P, the SP can easily do the 4J loadout. Sell your 4J.

[CheeseThief]

I'd rather spend 570MC converting experience to skip a varient that I don't like than spend 300MC and have to play it.

It would make me very happy to be able to spend general XP on mechs I don't own.

[darkkterror]

Sug, on 28 February 2013 - 06:46 PM, said:

2) 200 games is like a month's worth of games.

Or a weekend's worth if there's a tournament going on.

[Tickdoff Tank]

Sug, on 28 February 2013 - 06:46 PM, said:

2) 200 games is like a month's worth of games. You'd either figure out you hated the mech or earn enough cbills to buy whatever you wanted long before 200 games.

Or, if you are in the tournament, 200 games is about 1 days worth of matches.

Edit: Dark beat me to it.

Edited by Tickdoff Tank, 28 February 2013 - 10:46 PM.

[Beeman]

Oh boy, someone else complaining about three-mech grind. So many people dislike this feature(I personally hate it). It's bad design. Just bad design.

Nobody's problem is with the grind. The grind is fine. The grind has always been fine. The grind will always be fine. I never understood why people looked at someone complaining about three-mech grind and saying "it's free-to-play, they need to have a grind!". They can have all the grind they want(within reason) without forcing people to play mech variants they have no interest in.

On top of that, people would be MORE willing to buy mechbay slots if they didn't have to spend so much time worrying about their three variants. I mean, if I could just buy whatever mechs interested me, I'd have bought at least four mechbay slots right now. As it stands, I don't feel a need to until I elite out all three of one specific mech...then I'll move on to the next one until my mechbays are all full. Would definitely be nice if I didn't have to hassle with three-mech grind. I'd just buy a bunch of mechs that looked cool or seemed interesting to me and play them whenever the mood strikes me, filling out their skills as I go.

Variants should be balanced between themselves. THAT is what should keep people playing them. The problem is figuring out the sweet spot for making each variant appeal to someone. Especially with all these flavor of the month builds or cheese builds...or whatever you wish to call them.

Anyways, three-mech grind is bad design. It's always been bad design. There's been really good suggestions in the past for how to deal with this issue but the developers...for some reason or another, don't like discussing this specific feature even though it used to be one of the most talked about(in quite a negative way, too). It doesn't exactly spoil the MWO experience....but it is definitely poorly thought-out.

[Elessar]

Brillopad, on 28 February 2013 - 06:31 PM, said:

...
I'm glad I bought hunchbacks, and not an atlas, why would I need/want 3 atlases?(atlasi?)...
tl;dr: 3 mechs of one type is redundant, and expensive. Re-balance the XP cost of the elite tier.

Thoughts?

While it surely is the way of PGI to "encourage" players to buy more mech bays (and maybe spend additional MCs in outfitting the other 2 mechs (or in buying them firstplace), there definitely is a way to decrease the redundancy of the additional mechs:

Just outfit all 3 variants in a way, that they fulfill different purposes.
For example of the 3 Atlases in my stable, one is a Brawler, the second is a sniper and the third one is multi purpose. This way every Atlas plays different and I am encouraged to play all of them in rotation, instead only a single one, without getting bored by it.
I have done similar things for the other mech types I have (Centurion and Commando in 3 variants each)

Edited by Elessar, 28 February 2013 - 11:55 PM.

[Glythe]

Beeman, on 28 February 2013 - 10:51 PM, said:

Anyways, three-mech grind is bad design. It's always been bad design. There's been really good suggestions in the past for how to deal with this issue but the developers...for some reason or another, don't like discussing this specific feature even though it used to be one of the most talked about(in quite a negative way, too). It doesn't exactly spoil the MWO experience....but it is definitely poorly thought-out.

The truth is that the game needs to do something to make you want to spend $ instead of the in game currency. If you buy MC on sale you can get by with a very small pittance of MC just for mech bays. I think the 3 grind system is a great idea personally. I find it is quite interesting to play 3 different variants on a chassis you really love. Due to weapon changes or perhaps new maps/modules certain variants fade in an out of usefulness.

If you really can't afford any MC at all then you can upgrade mechs... it will just take forever as you will have to buy a mech and finish basic. Then sell it or another mech you finished. And then repeat this process twice more. It might not be so bad the first time when your mech bays are empty.

You're not required to play through everything..... in fact if you do you'll probably never discover that you are absolutely amazing with one specific mech.

[OneEyed Jack]

Not only do I think the whining about the grind is ridiculous, but I actually want the grind to stay.

It's really not that big a deal, and doesn't take very long at all to fill the basic slots on 2 extra mechs. You can even spend some MC and convert a bunch of XP to make it even easier. I've also found I truly enjoyed a number of mechs I never would have bought If I hadn't needed them to train the ones I planned to play.

The real reason, however, is that I adamantly want it to take some time and effort for people to jump into the current FOTM mech, which I think is really the driving force behind most of the complaining. (Not directed specifically at OP, but at the number of posts on the issue) Fully tricking out a mech includes at least training Elite Efficiencies, though many people may opt to skip the Module slot, and people want the new FOTM fully tricked out. But lo' and behold, they haven't trained that chassis, yet! Now it's going to take so much boring work to get in Elited out, having to train those stupid non-FOTM variants.

Darn PGI and their bad system that doesn't cater to those with ADD!

Hint: If you really, really don't want to play other variants, you can save up a bunch of XP, convert it to GXP, buy the mechs (can even buy with MC if you don't want to farm the Cb) and train them with GXP, then sell them. It's entirely possible to Master a variant without ever launching with a different variant, as long as you've already gotten one chassis in the game to Elite. It just costs money to save you effort, which is kind of the F2P model.