3 replies to this topic

[Apnu]

I had this idea on my commute to work this morning. What do you think about it?

I was thinking about the economic meta game of MWO and how, right now, we're all basically mercenaries and I don't consider myself a mercenary. I am with House Davion and that's all there is to that.

So, I wondered, how can MWO give an economic identity to faction players over mercenaries? Here is what I came up with:

First off, leave the MC system alone as it is. Players who want to support the game to buy stuff should be able to do so. Everything else I'm going to talk about centers around c-bills and mech availability. Players can buy all mechs with MC regardless of faction staus.

Second, leave the MXP and GXP system alone as is. Consumables also.

Mech selections: There are some mechs that are common across the Inner Sphere, and should be available to all pilots, either on loan or for purchase (more on that in a bit). Then there are variants of mechs that are specific to a house in BT lore. If you are a member of a house, or work for a house, you can choose or purchase a mech based off the general pool plus the faction specific mechs and variants. Mechs should be divided up in this way. There might be need to over-lap variants a bit to round out all houses having a good mix of variant choices.

For Mercs: Leave the current c-bill system as is, mostly. Mercenary players drop, they earn lots of c-bills, they use the c-bills to buy mechs and upgrades. mercenaries are limited to purchase mechs from a general pool of variants and house specific variants depending on which house they have a contract with. Say a mercenary has a contract with Liao and the RVN-3L is a faction specific variant. The mercenary can purchase a RVN-3L from Liao with his/her c-bills while under contract with Liao. They can purchase the base model, if they have a bay for it, and then pay for whatever upgrades they want. They can sell unused components back to the house and/or the Black Market (more on that later too).

How long contracts last, to prevent mercenaries from hopping from faction to faction collecting mechs can be discussed later. But that would be a clear problem to confront. Maybe a two week minimum contract length. Or having to re-up the mercenary contract every month or so. Some kind of timer to prevent a rich mercenary holding a contract just to purchase a Victor that only Kurita has access to and then leaving without having worked for that house.

For House players: A player who is not a mercenary, plays for a specific faction. When they drop into a match they earn a small stipend of c-bills. They do not have to pay for a mech in the general or faction specific category. If they have a free bay, they can get a stock version of a mech for 0 c-bills. This mech is on loan. Any upgrades beyond the stock config costs c-bills as normal. Its that player's mech for the player's duration with that faction.

All hero mechs should remain the same, for purchase of MC only if a bay is available as normal.

Also the house player should earn a new currency called Salvage Points. The player can then turn in Salvage Points to purchase a non-faction specific mech. If I'm a Davion pilot and I'm really sick of the RVN-2X (historically a Davion retro-fit of captured Ravens) and want a RVN-3L I would use my Salvage Points to get it or purchase the chassis on the Black Market.

If a player leaves a house for another house all the mechs that were not purchased with Salvage Points, MC or on the Black Market go back to the house, including any and all upgrades and ammo on that mech.

The Black Market: Your basic auction house where players buy and sell mechs and components. Players can't put faction "loaner" mechs up for auction. Only things they purchased with C-bills or Salvage Points can be auctioned off on the Black Market.

Should players be able to put hero mechs up for auction? I don't know. Maybe for MC? That would be interesting. MC to MC transfer to players. Could be a problem also. I don't know how I feel about that idea.

Changing factions: Players can move from house to house, and to mercenary status with some kind of waiting period or c-bill and salvage penalty as they move from faction to faction that wears down over time as the player "proves" their loyality to that faction or mercenary group.

Bonus thought: Maybe PGI can give players different badges for moving around and loyalty badges for staying put. Such as "spy" and "double-agent" and "mercenary" and "defender of the realm" and so on.

[ZIM]

Some very interesting ideas here.

I am personally against bringing real world money into anything that can be traded between players, as it invites trouble.

The limitations on 'Mech availability may make choosing a house more interesting.

[Bhael Fire]

Much of this will be handled once CW and Loyalty points are implemented. I imagine certain mechs and items will be able to purchased with house Loyalty points instead of C-Bills.

ZIM, on 29 July 2013 - 12:04 PM, said:

I am personally against bringing real world money into anything that can be traded between players, as it invites trouble.

I totally agree. I'm generally against anything that would give hackers a reason to farm accounts.

[Apnu]

Bhael Fire, on 29 July 2013 - 01:07 PM, said:

I totally agree. I'm generally against anything that would give hackers a reason to farm accounts.

I already see MXP, GXP and c-bill farming in MWO now. easily 75% of my PUG matches have some guy who disconnects within the first 5 seconds of the drop. We're long past the days where the game was so unstable it crashed randomly. I've experienced very few problems, never when the match begins and nobody from my unit has either. These people are farming XP and c-bills now.

Plus every single MMO-like game has an auction house of some kind. Having a player economy is central to keeping a certain type of player hooked into the game and (hopefully!) spending money on the game.