16 replies to this topic

[focuspark]

R&R used to be, not isn't. It was removed because newb players could lose c-bills and actually go backwards because they were playing with the MechLab and added expensive equipment; AND since the MechLab is half the fun for a lot of people this acted as a "fun brake".

So how about this for a version of R&R that doesn't punish newbs (too much) but rewards good game play and solid tactical thinking.

• All damage and ammo usage needs to be paid for before a mech can be used again (otherwise known as Repair & Rearm or just R&R)
  
• R&R costs come from match awards, but never exceed them. If a player loses badly, the most they can actually lose is the reward of the match but never actually slide backwards in terms of c-bills.
  
• Allow players to flee the battlefield to reduce losses. If a player makes it out of bounds instead of blowing up they shutdown and disappear. Fleeing a match should cost a fixed amount of XP and c-bills for being a coward equal to the win/loss amount. This prevents bots form joining and fleeing for money.
  
• Trial mechs should require no R&R, thus making them more profitable and offsetting their terribleness.
  
• This method also encourages the use of Hero Mechs and thus helps to fund PGIGP (so they can, hopefully, stop selling consumables for real money)

Comments, flames, suggestions?

Edited by focuspark, 18 March 2013 - 11:01 AM.

[blinkin]

not entirely what i want but this would be acceptable.

[Deathlike]

Any time you complete a match, you should not ever be worse off than you were before. Slower to gain c-bills, sure. Making it impossible to continue monetarily, unacceptable.

[focuspark]

Deathlike, on 05 March 2013 - 11:21 AM, said:

Any time you complete a match, you should not ever be worse off than you were before. Slower to gain c-bills, sure. Making it impossible to continue monetarily, unacceptable.

So then you agree?

[blinkin]

something i just thought of that might be in line with what you would like and still covers my concerns.

what if the player was given a stipend for repairs that would completely cover the repairs for a stock variant. if they upgraded parts they would still get the stipend but it would not increase beyond what is needed to completely repair the stock mech. all of the mech classes would start out on level footing, but my 11,000,000cbill catapult would still run the risk of costing me money if i played poorly.

i think ammo could be covered in the same way, or rather they should be lumped together. so most balanced builds run little risk but a 3x UAC5 ilya with 10 tons of ammo runs the risk of costing some money if you burn it all frivolously.

to put it simply the base mech is insured but none of the modifications are.

[Reitrix]

When they removed R&R, they mentioned it could come back eventually.
Now, for our current Assault/Conquest we have essentially standard FPS modes, and no R&R.
For Community Warfare, with contracts and whatnot, I figured they'd move to a system whereby Assault and Conquest are the modes we play for fun when our Merc Corp or Clan isn't doing Contracts, or simply training with recruits, thus not costing us anything, but when we do Contracted drops, the R&R costs make their return.

The way i rationalize that in-universe is simply that Assault and Conquest are simulators, and the Contracts are actual drops in physical 'Mechs.

[blinkin]

Reitrix, on 06 March 2013 - 03:06 AM, said:

When they removed R&R, they mentioned it could come back eventually.
Now, for our current Assault/Conquest we have essentially standard FPS modes, and no R&R.
For Community Warfare, with contracts and whatnot, I figured they'd move to a system whereby Assault and Conquest are the modes we play for fun when our Merc Corp or Clan isn't doing Contracts, or simply training with recruits, thus not costing us anything, but when we do Contracted drops, the R&R costs make their return.

The way i rationalize that in-universe is simply that Assault and Conquest are simulators, and the Contracts are actual drops in physical 'Mechs.

the problem i have with this is that i don't want the random matches to be a dumping ground for parts of the game we do not like. this includes certain undesirable groups of players.

i would like the random matches to stay on equal footing with the community warfare.

i can find any number of ways to justify what you are saying within the game world. my issue is that that way of thinking leads to bad design. the dumping of "necessary evils" on to the random match maker.

[Reitrix]

blinkin, on 06 March 2013 - 11:43 AM, said:

the problem i have with this is that i don't want the random matches to be a dumping ground for parts of the game we do not like. this includes certain undesirable groups of players.

i would like the random matches to stay on equal footing with the community warfare.

i can find any number of ways to justify what you are saying within the game world. my issue is that that way of thinking leads to bad design. the dumping of "necessary evils" on to the random match maker.

Im unsure how you got that from my post.
All i meant was that no R&R on Assault/Conquest can be rationalized as the mode being a 'simulation' drop.
We still don't know enough about Community Warfare to make accurate guesstimations on what will happen to the other modes once its released.

[blinkin]

Reitrix, on 06 March 2013 - 08:39 PM, said:

Im unsure how you got that from my post.
All i meant was that no R&R on Assault/Conquest can be rationalized as the mode being a 'simulation' drop.
We still don't know enough about Community Warfare to make accurate guesstimations on what will happen to the other modes once its released.

i apologize. i misunderstood.

most other times i have heard that retoric there is also mention of shoving the "grind" portions of the game into the random matches along with many other ideas that turn my stomach.

[focuspark]

Added a poll so now you can vote on it!

[Roadbeer]

Abstained.
I like R&R and we'll probably see it return around CW when/if faction bonuses/pay come in to offset the potential losses in match play.

I long for R&R to return though... so When 1800 LRMs are launched indiscriminately, even if they win, they still get stuck with a 20k CBill rearm

Disclaimer: I enjoy using LRMs, and I'm all for paying the price for playing stupidly.

[Caseck]

The game needs a "Hard Core" Conquest server with "Full Realism." Permadeath, real costs, etc.

[FrostCollar]

focuspark, on 05 March 2013 - 11:08 AM, said:

• Allow players to flee the battlefield to reduce losses. If a player makes it out of bounds instead of blowing up they shutdown and disappear. Fleeing a match should cost a fixed amount of XP and c-bills for being a coward equal to the win/loss amount. This prevents bots form joining and fleeing for money.

I had to vote no because of this. If this is introduced many moderately damaged new players will be encouraged to flee early and hurt their team. If someone wants to survive they should try to win or to evade the enemy, not kill themselves by running out of bounds.

[MustrumRidcully]

I don't think this will be enough. it wasn't just that people could lose money. That was still a rare thing to happen.

The problem was that people wanted to make _lots_ of money. Because they need it to get the stompy robot they want, with the dakka, pew pew and swoosh they wanted to have.

And the trick to making the most money was not the same trick to play the game just to have fun with fighting big stompy robots.

You played smart and used torso twisting to ensure that incoming fire didn't kill you early - You had to pay horrendous armour repair bills. If you just got cored early and quickly, you were better off.

You rushed for cap and hoped to be faster than your enemy and never meet him anywhere, so you didn't have to repair your mech but get the sweet winning money.

You took a trial mech and suicides because it didn't cost you anything, made a bit of money and then could immediately queue again.

Match took a turn for the worse for you? Don't try to turn things in your favor again - run away and power down, let the enemy cap the base, so you don't have to pay the repairs.

What would be needed to make R&R "work":

1) Steady in the Face of Battle Bonus: Gain 250 C-Bills for every point of damage you took. Repair Bill is 200 C-Bill per point of damage.
2) Team Effort Bonus: 1,000 C-Bills for every Assist and every Kill your team got. 100 C-Bills for every component destroyed, and 500 C-Bills for every team member that capped.
3) Never Surrender Bonus: For each kill the team achieves, it gets a 2,500 C-Bill bonus for each point of team size difference. (so if a team lost 4 members and finally gets its first kill against the enemy, it gets 4 * 2,500 = 10,000 C-Bills.)
4) Efficiency Bonus: Divide the Total Team Damage by the number of Kills + Assists, and multiply by 1,000 C-Bills.

These 3 rewards should all encourage to keep on fighting even if the repair bill is piling up. But I think 1) illustrates the key point here - Fighting is dangerous. You must reward it more than you punish it with R&R, so it is questionable that it's ever worth jumping through the hoops of R&R.

If we play mercenaries in MW:O (and it is mwomercs.com), then mercenaries must have a way to guarantee fighting is worth it. If it's not, mercenaries don't exist, because they alternative earn no money, or they provide no service that is worth money. (E.g. they take on only milk jobs.)

I don't know how real world mercenaries handle things, but I imagine they have something in place to deal with the loss of heavy equipment (though that heavy equipment probably doesn't include real tanks, but maybe a chopper, a boat or a humvee.). They will get this in through the price they are asking. AFAIK, real world mercenaries are considerably more expensive then an equally trained soldier, because they either ask for all these securities or pay them off via the money they get. They are not taken because they are cheap.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 18 March 2013 - 12:08 PM.

[Neolisk]

Caseck, on 18 March 2013 - 11:31 AM, said:

The game needs a "Hard Core" Conquest server with "Full Realism." Permadeath, real costs, etc.

I second that. You purchase a mech, go die in the field, enemy has it salvaged and now you have nothing. You can still buy another one and try again, or use trial mechs to gather enough C-Bills. Or choose to bargain your damaged mech from another team (who in most cases would not want to R&R it - see below why).

Did I mention making R&R costs higher than they were? For example, you had half of your mech blown off, you will pay close to half of the new mech's price to repair it. <-- this needs balancing. You lose a weapon by a critical hit - you need to buy a new one.

Based on your performance, you should be able to buy full insurance coverage for your mech, payable in C-Bills. So in case it is lost in the field or damaged, insurance company will pay it in full, and raise your premium.

To make it viable as a F2P, MC-only mechs (i.e. hero and founders') could be automatically insured, i.e. PGI is paying your claims for those.

Edited by Neolisk, 19 March 2013 - 05:48 AM.

[DeadlyNerd]

The biggest problem of former R&R WAS that the trial mechs were more profitable than custom mechs.
Another problem with the former R&R was that it scaled rewards badly and gave no benefits to those who actually did well.
*You did most damage? Doesn't matter you'll receive only 50% more of the pitiful income that everyone else receives.* 50% more of pitiful is still pitiful, just so it's clear.
Your "encouragement" was already there with premium as premium users got to profit despite R&R while free players had to struggle.

You don't fix those problems by scaling down repair costs according to income from the battle. A totaled porsche costs the same to repair, whether the driver won $10k or $100k.
You're all whining about this game losing the feeling of a simulator and then come up with fairy land logics for repair bills. Even WoW had no remorse for those that sucked in raids and died often.

I already stated how most of the forum is probably hypocritical. Guess I'm right.

Edited by DeadlyNerd, 19 March 2013 - 04:11 AM.

[blinkin]

DeadlyNerd, on 19 March 2013 - 04:10 AM, said:

The biggest problem of former R&R WAS that the trial mechs were more profitable than custom mechs.
Another problem with the former R&R was that it scaled rewards badly and gave no benefits to those who actually did well.
*You did most damage? Doesn't matter you'll receive only 50% more of the pitiful income that everyone else receives.* 50% more of pitiful is still pitiful, just so it's clear.
Your "encouragement" was already there with premium as premium users got to profit despite R&R while free players had to struggle.

You don't fix those problems by scaling down repair costs according to income from the battle. A totaled porsche costs the same to repair, whether the driver won $10k or $100k.
You're all whining about this game losing the feeling of a simulator and then come up with fairy land logics for repair bills. Even WoW had no remorse for those that sucked in raids and died often.

I already stated how most of the forum is probably hypocritical. Guess I'm right.

most of your complaints have nothing to do with RR itself. i don't think anyone is suggesting a complete roll back of the economy.

we can have the incentives for effective play AND have repair and rearm. the two are not mutualluy exclusive. in fact towards the end of closed beta we had the early versions of the reward system working in tandem with RR.

the rewards system still needs more work, but that is a major reason why we should have RR back. an effective atlas player should be given enough rewards to cover their repair costs AND still make a decent chunk of cash. removing RR just sweeps the faults of the reward system under the rug. if the systems are balanced properly most players would at least break even on a loss WITHOUT having any sort of cbill reward for the losing team.

Edited by blinkin, 21 March 2013 - 12:09 PM.