148 replies to this topic

[Koshirou]

van Uber, on 05 March 2013 - 07:08 AM, said:

But my main question, that Narcisoldier seems incapable of answering, is if that ability, unique to c-bill coolant should be classified as a disadvantage?

That depends on the situation.

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If not, is it instead a direct advantage, something not possible to do with mc coolant?

That likewise depends on the situation.

As you see, your question cannot simply be answered by yes or no.


I'll break it down to the very bare basics again:

The tier 3 coolant flush is the first instance of a unique gameplay feature that you can only access by spending real currency.

Every other item with any gameplay effect could be bought by investing time rather than money. Until now.

Hero Mechs do not offer unique gameplay features. If only hero Mechs could mount ECM, for example, this would be the case. But as it is, none of them can.
You are correct to say that Hero Mechs do offer increased C-Bill payout. But this is is not a unique advantage in the game because you can again replicate this effect by investing more time.

Coming back to my brief explanation on page 1 or 2 of this thread, just ask yourself the following question:

If tier 3 coolant flush does not offer a unique advantage, then why can it only be paid for in MC? What reason does PGI have not to make all three tiers available for either CB or MC?

[Everything Bagel]

Matt Minus, on 05 March 2013 - 05:08 AM, said:

I think it's cute the way space poors are inventing definitions to support their arguments.
Still have not seen one address how the game is supposed to generate revenue if they're only allowed to sell undesirable items.

The same way League of Legends and other successful games drive revenue. By creating a large player base, they can turn a 2-4% conversion rate into a sustainable business. These types of mechanics only appeal to the hardcore fan, and therefore shrink the player base.

Any game that wants my time will not be p2w. The way this was described in the dev post is clearly p2w. I am not sure what the argument is? This issue could not be clearer. There is a good way to make a f2p game, and this isn't it.

[Koshirou]

YouMadQuiaff, on 05 March 2013 - 07:20 AM, said:

who is voting 'yes' to this poll?

Rich people of bad character?

[BigMooingCow]

I don't like it. This is WoT's golden shells, adapted to MWO. Pure pay to win, in the most shrewd and unfair way possible.

Someone who pays, lets say $1 per match will be more effective than someone who doesn't.

The idea to allow these purchases with CBills makes no difference, unless the CBill cost is so minuscule as to not be noticed in your per match income. Which of course it won't be, or there would be no reason to P2W.

I can't believe PGI wants to make ARTILLERY a buyable item controllable by players. Imagine this scenario: you and your buddies drop into a match with the Cobra Kai mercenary squad. As your lances hoof it through the Caustic valley you see a Raven poke its head up over a ridge. A few seconds later eight artillery strikes rain down on your position, knocking out one of your medium harassers and doing a decent amount of damage to a few of your heavies and assaults. The Cobra Kais just spent, lets say $10 and are now in position to stomp your team.

How about a less extreme scenario: you're a little low on armor from fighting and decide to cover your base while your team hunts down a couple pesky light mechs. One of the lights stumbles into your base and you open up on him. An artillery strike rains down a few seconds later and takes you out, giving the enemy a free run on a cap on your base. You got killed because someone threw a dollar bill at you.

Artillery strikes are as close as you can get to deus ex machina in a game like this, and making them something that hides in a player's wallet is going to induce a LOT of rage. F2P or "traditional" people like to play games where they have a fair chance to win. Even in Vegas, people go to the slot machines knowing the that odds are stacked against them, but have a belief that the machines aren't rigged. To introduce a gameplay mechanic where someone can take you out simply by dinging their credit card may or may not cause massive spending in the game, but it WILL make people feel the game is unfair, because the people most willing to pay money will be the people who win. That's not a game, that's a bidding war.

Some might say "wait to see it", but the concept has already been outlined by Paul, and there's no way to make the system NOT P2W based on his outline. It's going to be Not Fun. How much Not Fun depends on the cost. If it's cheap, it will be ArtilleryWarrior Online, with crap flying everywhere. If it's expensive you won't see it often, but when it does you better believe it will be effective (else nobody would pay) and so you're likely to be killed by someone's dollar bill when they do decide they want you dead.

You might also excuse these P2W mechanics by offering that you could pay with CBills instead. CBills = MC. If I have to spend $1M CBills to buy P2W items I won't make enough money to buy mechs, so I'll have to spend MC to buy mechs. Paying with CBills is simply a straw man mechanic. (Or rather, it will HAVE to be, or nobody will spend MC, and PGI's entire raison d'etre for consumables is defeated.)

I won't play that kind of game, and I'm VERY disappointed that I spent $60 to fund a game where the developer said they were going to do everything they could to avoid P2W and then introduce such an obvious P2W mechanic into the game. I feel like PGI promised me the game we've been playing the past few months, but is now changing it into P2W.

I hope PGI considers forum feedback and doesn't write it off as whiny users who don't want to pay to play their game. We're willing to pay to play, we just want a fair and level battleground to play on. Monetize the cash (ala MC equipment purchases and hero mechs). DO NOT MONETIZE GAMEPLAY BONUSES.

[van Uber]

Koshirou, on 05 March 2013 - 07:26 AM, said:

If tier 3 coolant flush does not offer a unique advantage, then why can it only be paid for in MC? What reason does PGI have not to make all three tiers available for either CB or MC?

I agree it is situational. However I never agued that tier 3 coolant lacks a unique advantage, I argue that c-bill coolant does too have a unique advantage.

I have yet to see anyone compare these two unique abilities, which I think would be a more accurate and valid debate wether this is a good or bad feature.

EDIT: to answer your question of PGIs strategy, I'd say it is about incentive. That may have been possible without MC, but I'd like to try the feature first before I make any final judgment.

Edited by van Uber, 05 March 2013 - 07:37 AM.

[KuruptU4Fun]

BigMooing Cow, there are other contributing factors you're not considering when it comes to the effectiveness of the artie strike. Size and speed of the mech, available cover, time for strike to land on target. Other questions include: is warning given; is is a direct strike or an AoE strike...

IF any of those allow a pilot to avoid being hit (especially the second list) then there is no clear P2W from a C-Bill to an MC strike.

Edited by KuruptU4Fun, 05 March 2013 - 07:35 AM.

[Greyfyl]

I just can't believe that so many people never saw this coming and are surprised by it.

I need to dig out some of the threads from over the past few months where so many of you acted like Paul and the other PGI guys were your best buddies. I got flamed for stating that these guys from PGI posting on here are nothing but salesmen/marketing people, if you think they are telling you the truth 100% of the time you are naive as hell.

[Grand Ayatollah Kerensky]

Thontor, on 05 March 2013 - 07:32 AM, said:

i don't disagree... But that is debatable....

Making your poll question "do you like the addition of pay to win consumables" will skew the result... Of course most people don't want p2w consumables.... But some of those people might not agree that consumables as described by the devs are p2w.

Really if you want an informative poll, leave your opinion out of the question or the answers...

The new consumables system being a pay to win scheme is not an opinion.

[KuruptU4Fun]

Narcisoldier, on 05 March 2013 - 07:39 AM, said:

The new consumables system being a pay to win scheme is not an opinion.

Oh I think the dozens of created threads on each side of the fence since it's announcement would prove otherwise....

[ShogunATL]

Just because someone buys something that confers an advantage, doesn't mean that that item confers skill as well. In my experience with other F2P games, or AAA that have gone F2P, most players that shell out money for the advantageous items do tend to lack skill. But their infusion of cash helps the devs keep the lights on, so, sure if they get some marginal advantage over the people who only sink time into the game, fine by me. I'll beat them by being a better player, and if I can't then oh well, it is just a game.

[RG Notch]

Narcisoldier, on 05 March 2013 - 07:39 AM, said:

The new consumables system being a pay to win scheme is not an opinion.

in your opinion.

[Matt Minus]

Everything Bagel, on 05 March 2013 - 07:27 AM, said:

The same way League of Legends and other successful games drive revenue. By creating a large player base, they can turn a 2-4% conversion rate into a sustainable business. These types of mechanics only appeal to the hardcore fan, and therefore shrink the player base.

Any game that wants my time will not be p2w. The way this was described in the dev post is clearly p2w. I am not sure what the argument is? This issue could not be clearer. There is a good way to make a f2p game, and this isn't it.

You realize this isn't a very broad, bog standard, sword and sorcery game, right? You realize that a mech sim, especially a western one that is slow and clunky by design, is a niche game, right?Even a perfectly realized MechWarrior game will never attract 32 million players a month.

It's like you'd be puzzled that City of heroes failed while World of Warcraft succeeded using the same business model.

One point that I've made on many gaming forums is that you'll have to choose between getting the best value and getting your particular genre preferences satisfied. If you want the absolute best value, I hope you have very prosaic tastes and a fondness for elves and dragons,because, as you note, the best value relies on economies of scale that niche games will never achieve.

I don't want the cheapest game, I want MechWarrior. If I have to pay a little more for it, I'm fine with that. I honestly don't understand the people that think they should have a completely unfettered play experience for free.

[Grand Ayatollah Kerensky]

KuruptU4Fun, on 05 March 2013 - 07:41 AM, said:

Oh I think the dozens of created threads on each side of the fence since it's announcement would prove otherwise....

So a tiny minority of threads started by people who either misunderstood the dev post or don't know the definition of "pay to win" is somehow indicative of a divided community?

[CPT Hazel Murphy]

Having actually read the entire dev post, it is quite clear that this is a P2W item. You have to sacrifce 2 module slots for 35% heat reduction.... OR you can pay a small fee and only use one slot. Now you can fit your 360 targeting and an airstrike if you have the space.

Scenario 2: You're 1v1 with an enemy mech. Caustic Valley. Both of your heat levels are almost maxed. He activates CF3 and alpha strikes. You lose.

Sounds Pay to Win to me.

That would be like if in League of Legends you could pay money to have your Ult come off cooldown right when you need it in a fight.

[Mackman]

I've read through this entire thread, and all I've seen from those for the current consumables is:

A. Stop whining! We don't know anything yet!

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Answer: Yes we do. They laid out exactly how Coolant Flushing will work, and given that they used Coolant as the flagship model for all consumables, have no reason to believe that they will not work in the exact same manner.

B. It's not P2W because.... UR POOR LOLOLOLOLOL. That's popped up a surprising amount in this thread, and since it doesn't really need an answer, we'll move on.

C. It's not P2W because you can achieve the same affect with the C-Bill version!

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Answer: If this were the only module in the game, you'd have a point. But it's not the only module in the game.

If you're a non-paying player, and your mech has 3 module slots, you can choose to get Tier 1 and Tier 2 cooling (for 35% flushing) and one other module, whether it's another Tier 2 Consumable or another kind of module.

If you're a paying player, and your mech has 3 module slots, you can get a Tier 3 Coolant (for 35% flushing), another tier 3 consumable (which right there puts you over the non-paying player), and you still have another slot for whatever else you want in there.

You may still be thinking, "well, alright, that's kind of an advantage, but it's still pretty small." Now multiply that advantage by 8 (or 12, when we get 12v12), and you'll see that a paying lance will have a noticeable, objectively measurable advantage over a non-paying lance in any kind of competitive setting.

You can get the same effect for one consumable... at the cost of a large amount of flexibility and power when it comes to the other consumables.

D. It's not P2W because... it's so expensive it won't be used in everyday matches!

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You're right: Not in everyday matches. But what about tournaments? What about those special events PGI wants to keep throwing? See Answer C: A Mech or team of mechs that pays will have a distinct, measurable advantage when you consider the total number of modules available.

E. The CB one is actually better, because it gives you two uses!

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This one is the closest you have to an actual point, but it still doesn't hold water in most cases. What I think a lot of people aren't realizing is that for you to get any advantage out of the "flexibility" this offers you, you'd need to use the two flushes in two separate bouts of fighting, with a return to 0 heat in between: Otherwise, you would have gotten the exact same result from the MC one. How many times will you need to use one flush, but not the other? Keep in mind that in almost any build, one of the smaller flushes is less than a full alpha.

F. It's not P2W because... the advantage it gives is so small that it's not going to guarantee you the win!

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That is not, nor has it ever been, what P2W means. P2W means offering an advantage that you cannot get without paying, and as I've demonstrated above, this is exactly what the current proposal for coolant flushes does.

[Barghest Whelp]

Why is it that everyone is so bloody obsessed with the 35%? Am I the only one that realises that the CB version offers more versatility at the cost of a module slot? I would much rather have two smaller bursts than a single bigger one. 35% is not enough to win any battles. Certainly not any more than 15% once and then 20%, which could even be combined to give you that single 35%.

The fact is, that 35% percent isn't going to offer a PPC stalker any more alphas then 15%. Why? Because a 6PPC stalker shuts down after two alphas. If it was 50% I'd be chiming along with you, but it's not. All this is going to offer is a chance to fire off an extra shot or two, or maybe lower your heat enough so that you can JJ to safety. That's it. End of story. Not a game changer, not a game breaker.

As to arty and airstrikes, that depends entirely on the implementation. I can imagine that they'll be easy to avoid, and mostly used to flush the enemy out of their fortified position, which would make the MC version more or less useless, as it would rarely do any damage at all. The funny thing here is that people would still buy them. Once again, this would give the CB version an advantage as you would be able to do it twice.

The other scenario I can imagine is almost impossible to avoid, but low damage spread across multiple sections. Since the MC version would do more damage based of a percentage, it rreally wouldn't offer much of an advantage. Example: Tier 1 does 10 damage spread across multiple sections. Now the tier 2 does either 11, or about 13 depending on how the calculations are done. This would mean that the tier 3 would do either 12, or 23, again depending on how it's calculated.

And it's important to remember that these are one-off shots. If you miss once with the tier three, you don't get a second chance. With a tier 1+2 you get two chances to hit at the cost of a module slot.

Don't see what all the fuss is about. Oh, and by the way, the MC version is also a consumable, one time use item, just like the CB version.

[Super Mono]

Koshirou, on 05 March 2013 - 07:26 AM, said:

The tier 3 coolant flush is the first instance of a unique gameplay feature that you can only access by spending real currency.

This is exactly it. And unless the feedback from the coolant module changes their mind this will not be the last premium module. In the future more premium modules will be introduced that players not buying won't be able to compete with as the free versions take up many slots to be equivalent to the 1 slot premium version.

[Grand Ayatollah Kerensky]

RG Notch, on 05 March 2013 - 07:46 AM, said:

in your opinion.

No, it's basic reading comprehension. I read the dev post, and it was immediately clear that it was an outline for the beginning of a "pay to win" consumables scheme. Much like when someone tells you that 1+1=2, you don't petulantly retort with "well that's your opinion."

[KuruptU4Fun]

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D. It's not P2W because... it's so expensive it won't be used in everyday matches!
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You're right: Not in everyday matches. But what about tournaments? What about those special events PGI wants to keep throwing? See Answer C: A Mech or team of mechs that pays will have a distinct, measurable advantage when you consider the total number of modules available.

If we go by the last contest (by definition is was not a tourney because it was a single player ranking) then there is no clear advantage when used by single players. Team tourneys aren't going to be an advantage either because (according to you) the only people who use them will be teams. PUG's will not participate in those tourneys, therefore your argument is moot.

Edited by KuruptU4Fun, 05 March 2013 - 08:14 AM.

[KuruptU4Fun]

Narcisoldier, on 05 March 2013 - 08:10 AM, said:

No, it's basic reading comprehension. I read the dev post, and it was immediately clear that it was an outline for the beginning of a "pay to win" consumables scheme. Much like when someone tells you that 1+1=2, you don't petulantly retort with "well that's your opinion."

The coolant flush was the only example outlined. You're making a very large assumption that other modules will follow this path exclusively.

The artie/air strike module may come with faster targeting when purchased using MC, maybe not. Until we have details then assumptions are completely pointless.