354 replies to this topic

[Quxudica]

Henri Schoots, on 06 April 2013 - 05:12 PM, said:

it simulates damage and merc corp management, when better implemented it will cause balance and a diverse playing field.
I for one would like to see not only repair costs but damaged equipment having to be re-bought.
At the moment it is an endless spawn fest, it's just impossible to lose.

Maybe we should have infinite in match respawn and infinite ammo modes

It did nothing of the kind. It ensured everyone ran around in the most tried and true builds, punished ammo users severely, granted an even bigger advantage to those with more time to play and made the new user experience even worse. It existed for one reason and one reason only, to drag out the grind to unlock new mechs and items and thus extend MWO's painfully shallow content pool.

The only real gameplay result of the RnR system was ensuring every match had at least one, if not multiple of the following: AFK farmers, Suicide farmers, people who never repaired their mech and people never re-armed. In short, the only thing it did was drive people to find ways to avoid it.

[Ricama]

Mackman, on 06 April 2013 - 09:54 AM, said:

You know what happens when a new player sees all the cool customization he has access to? He's really happy. He thinks, "Man, this is such a cool game: I can do almost anything with my mech! I love this!"

Then you know what happens when he foolishly upgrades and customizes his mech? The R&R mechanic kicks him in the balls and takes his hard-earned money.

You know what happens next?

He leaves. He doesn't stick around. He goes to a game that doesn't punish you for taking advantage of one of the major draws of the game.

R&R is incredibly non-intuitive. When the only goal in the game is upgrading your mech (and until we have CW, that is the only goal in the game), it makes zero sense when achieving that goal actually hurts your ability to continue making money. I was embarrassed to recommend the game to people when R&R was in, because it was such a ridiculous, pointless mechanic.

Now: Will it work in Community Warfare? Sure! If implemented correctly, R&R has the chance to put some really cool additional strategy in the game. Running a pimped-out mech means performing well, but it could also mean running out of funds mid-campaign.

It doesn't work now because it's basically an arbitrary, out-of-game tax on any players who dare to upgrade their mech from the sacred "stock" version (which, again, is exactly what makes this game so fun to the vast majority of players). It could work for CW, because in CW, the game is bigger, and each match is connected in a way that just isn't true right now.

But once CW comes, I fully anticipate that regardless of whether or not they implement R&R there, they will NOT re-implement it in what we have now. It makes no sense, it punishes players for having fun in their mechs, and it will kill the game for the non-hardcores.

Totally agree, R&R would make an excellent addition to CW, forcing players to play non CW battles to earn enough money to fight in battles that matter (and none of this half cost nonsense, you get trashed you practically have to rebuy the entire mech). For random battles it is a pointless cash sink that punishes you for liking the 'wrong' style of play. A fully pimped out light would only ever loose money on a draw until they fixed the draw rewards then never. A bone stock Founders Atlas could loose money on a win. That it survived. And made a kill on.

[Byk]

Nope. It would be even more painful trying to afford new things,

[Aym]

[One Medic Army]

It never discouraged Endo or DHS, only XLs, Missiles, and Ferro (which is bad enough already).

[Aym]

Sybreed, on 06 April 2013 - 09:20 AM, said:

.

Yeah, it wasn't perfectly implemented, but it was a nice balancing tool.

Which is to say it was poorly implemented and was a TERRIBLE balancing tool

[jay35]

FerretGR, on 06 April 2013 - 09:25 AM, said:

No. It was a meaningless c-bill sink. It didn't balance anything if you were willing to pay it or game the system. It encouraged bad gameplay. It encouraged c-bill farming via AFKing and suiciding with unrepaired mechs. It was bad for the game and it's removal made zero negative impact aside from the nonsensical immersion argument (money sink /= immersion). In fact, its removal had a dramatic positive impact on build variety in-game. Keep it gone.

Bingo.

[jay35]

John Norad, on 06 April 2013 - 05:20 PM, said:

All the downsides you are listing were due to sloppy and kinda short-sighted (non exploit-proof) implementation.
Just saying.

And a money sink is never meaningless. Actually it's an integral part of any game economy.

Actually, all the downsides he listed are inherent to the entire concept of R&R and why it's an unfair and unfun concept for a game. It's not an integral part of any game economy, but it might be an integral part to Mech Simulator 9000, not MWO.

Edited by jay35, 06 April 2013 - 06:15 PM.

[Tekadept]

R&R is essential, perhaps not in the way it was previously (I was fine with it but there was so much QQ) There needs to be some kind of Risk involved if you insist on bringing the most expensive battlemech possible to a battle, I found people played a lot more tactically and didnt just charge in blindly, it balanced out the variety of build a lot more as well.Even with losses and repair I still made more profit after repairs than I do currently. People just need to toughen up but I guess we will never get it back because of all th QQ "target audience" so meh.

All the people that say its unfair obviously dont live in the real world. the real world aint fair people.

[Merky Merc]

Tekadept, on 06 April 2013 - 06:22 PM, said:

All the people that say its unfair obviously dont live in the real world. the real world aint fair people.

I don't play games that want me to treat them as a second job. And since when are videogames the real world?

[jay35]

Tekadept, on 06 April 2013 - 06:22 PM, said:

R&R is essential

Absolutely not.

Quote

perhaps not in the way it was previously (I was fine with it but there was so much QQ) There needs to be some kind of Risk involved if you insist on bringing the most expensive battlemech possible to a battle,

No there doesn't, because this isn't a hardcore simulator, this is supposed to a fun multiplayer Mechwarrior game like previous MechWarrior games were in their multiplayer mode. And in this case, since they've gone the f2p model, there is the additional hurdle of having to earn all the hardware.

Players have to grind to earn and unlock everything. There's also such a large and increasing number of chassis and variants that a negative modifier like R&R designed to slow the grind is no longer necessary to prolong the grind as it was when there was only a handful of chassis and nothing left to do after that. R&R was needed for a game with extremely limited content to keep people grinding. It is vestigial at best anymore.

Also, there are already FPS-genre "risks" included in combat, such as having limited lives per match (at present, one life per match), if you die you put your team at a disadvantage, no ability to repair on the battlefield so whatever damage you take you are stuck with for the rest of the match, the upcoming CW which bestows benefits on the teams that win which further increases the import of careful play and winning matches, and the reality of your stats and performance ranking (ELO, tournaments, etc).

The other thing you're ignoring is that even with things as they are today, we do not see matches where everyone runs "the most expensive battlemech ever" and there are key reasons for that. For one thing, people enjoy diversity and have different playstyles that are best suited to different types and chassis of mechs. So, regardless, we don't see everyone run the most expensive mech even if they own it.
Second thing, is that the chassis are balanced and compliment each other in various ways on various maps in various roles. The most expensive mech is not the best mech. It's not that simple and never will be.

So really, your argument for R&R is borne out of ignorance of how the game works, how things are balanced, and a misconception that "more expensive" means "better".

There is no need for an additional "risk" in the manner you describe. It's purely punitive in nature and serves no purpose now that the game has many more features and much more content than it did when R&R was around. R&R outlived its usefulness, was a bad concept to begin with, and is wholly unnecessary in this game.

Edited by jay35, 06 April 2013 - 06:49 PM.

[torgian]

I know I'm posting again but....

I do enjoy R&R time and again. Sometimes I go to the bar and grab a beer. Other times I head to the beach. I think it would be awesome if PGI put in some sort of MMO element where you're not in a mech and you spend some R&R time off-base.






^.^

[DirePhoenix]

From what info has been recently released about COmmunity Warfare from PAX East and GDC, it sounds like not much at all has changed from the original concepts discussed last year: Mercs fight Mercs for control of border worlds, House players fight House players for influence over faction worlds, Lone Wolves are filler b/c HUR HUR GIANT ROBOTS GO BOOM HIT PLAY AGAIN.

If all else remains the same, then lack of Repair and Reload is a significant blow to CW, especially to Merc players, as the whole point of controlling those border worlds was to affect the prices of the resources controlled by those worlds. What point is there for controlling the prices on items when you NEVER HAVE TO REPLACE OR REPAIR, or even RELOAD YOUR ITEMS?!? You only need to buy things once. You never lose an item unless you manually sell something, which there is very little reason to do so in this game.

[jay35]

DirePhoenix, on 06 April 2013 - 07:02 PM, said:

From what info has been recently released about COmmunity Warfare from PAX East and GDC, it sounds like not much at all has changed from the original concepts discussed last year: Mercs fight Mercs for control of border worlds, House players fight House players for influence over faction worlds, Lone Wolves are filler b/c HUR HUR GIANT ROBOTS GO BOOM HIT PLAY AGAIN.

If all else remains the same, then lack of Repair and Reload is a significant blow to CW, especially to Merc players, as the whole point of controlling those border worlds was to affect the prices of the resources controlled by those worlds. What point is there for controlling the prices on items when you NEVER HAVE TO REPLACE OR REPAIR, or even RELOAD YOUR ITEMS?!? You only need to buy things once. You never lose an item unless you manually sell something, which there is very little reason to do so in this game.

If you paid attention, you'd know that PGI has stated in official interviews that the control of border regions in CW will result in a faction or merc unit's access to certain tech they otherwise wouldn't have (or that others who don't control that region don't have) . So there is a reason and it doesn't have to revolve around weapon pricing, which is actually a good thing because nothing brings out the QQ more than prices.

Edited by jay35, 06 April 2013 - 07:07 PM.

[Vermaxx]

John Norad, on 06 April 2013 - 05:20 PM, said:

All the downsides you are listing were due to sloppy and kinda short-sighted (non exploit-proof) implementation.
Just saying.

And a money sink is never meaningless. Actually it's an integral part of any game economy.

This game doesn't have an economy. It pays you for work, and then you spend that pay at Mechs Unlimited, where everything is always in stock. Until such time as THAT changes, and things have limits, price fluctuations, and flat out unavailability, r/r has no place here.

DirePhoenix, on 06 April 2013 - 07:02 PM, said:

From what info has been recently released about COmmunity Warfare from PAX East and GDC, it sounds like not much at all has changed from the original concepts discussed last year: Mercs fight Mercs for control of border worlds, House players fight House players for influence over faction worlds, Lone Wolves are filler b/c HUR HUR GIANT ROBOTS GO BOOM HIT PLAY AGAIN.

If all else remains the same, then lack of Repair and Reload is a significant blow to CW, especially to Merc players, as the whole point of controlling those border worlds was to affect the prices of the resources controlled by those worlds. What point is there for controlling the prices on items when you NEVER HAVE TO REPLACE OR REPAIR, or even RELOAD YOUR ITEMS?!? You only need to buy things once. You never lose an item unless you manually sell something, which there is very little reason to do so in this game.

I think the indicators of how unimmersive CW will be started showing up when they promised to implement 3rd person as a separate queue (in a game with BATTLE PLANETS, not queues accessed from the main screen), and Command Mech functions never got added. Seriously, the ability to call in support assets should have been Command only, and they've given it to everyone.

EVEN WITH a perfect, living economy, the argument can be made that r/r is unfair in such a scenario. Because it means that AN ENTIRE FACTION starts getting curbstomped harder and harder as they lose, rather than individual players.

[Tarl Cabot]

MadcatX, on 06 April 2013 - 11:48 AM, said:

It was a core tenant of the SINGLE PLAYER PC games. I don't remember a rearm and repair feature in any of the multiplayer of those. As for TT, if you were playing a campaign, perhaps. But if you just had one-off's, r&r was not part of the equation there either.

In MPBT EGA (GEinie) you piloted house mechs and they were repaired/rearmed, provided supply lines were not cut. You were able to check the availability of unit mechs and their condition before selecting one to use for a combat drop. Your own personal mech though you had to at least repair it. Someone who ran as a merc though would need to provide the information on how it worked for personal mechs and unit mechs (if there were any).

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 06 April 2013 - 08:41 PM.

[Davers]

People who ask for R&R's return always want to talk about the 'realism' it added. But by the end of the Mechwarrior games, didn't everyone have a huge stable of mechs and tons of cash sitting around? R&R was only used to slow down your ability to do things early on in the game. By mid game it was hardly an issue. After all, the game designers WANTED you to be able to buy and field every mech in the game, just not on your second drop.

For R&R to work, the game would need an economy. It doesn't have that. The only way to make Cbills is by doing drops. If you are forced to use 'cheap' mechs instead of 'good' mechs it hinders your ability to win, and if a premium time player is able to field his tricked out mech and the f2p player can't that is very unfair.

[Sybreed]

Davers, on 06 April 2013 - 10:15 PM, said:

People who ask for R&R's return always want to talk about the 'realism' it added. But by the end of the Mechwarrior games, didn't everyone have a huge stable of mechs and tons of cash sitting around? R&R was only used to slow down your ability to do things early on in the game. By mid game it was hardly an issue. After all, the game designers WANTED you to be able to buy and field every mech in the game, just not on your second drop.

For R&R to work, the game would need an economy. It doesn't have that. The only way to make Cbills is by doing drops. If you are forced to use 'cheap' mechs instead of 'good' mechs it hinders your ability to win, and if a premium time player is able to field his tricked out mech and the f2p player can't that is very unfair.

Considering being "forced" to use cheap mechs would be something everyone has to deal with, by that alone it should "balanced" because both teams would have members with less than min-maxed mechs. Yes, I understand what you mean, but I think what made R&R interesting is because it forces players to use something other than the perfect mech. Which is what Mechwarrior is somewhat supposed to be about...

[FunkyFritter]

Using costs as a balancing factor is inherently flawed in a game with matchmaking. Every match is equally important and you don't know what you're up against until it starts, so there's no benefit to making some options more expensive than others.

Edited by FunkyFritter, 06 April 2013 - 10:39 PM.

[Sybreed]

FunkyFritter, on 06 April 2013 - 10:35 PM, said:

Using costs as a balancing factor is inherently flawed in a game with matchmaking. Every match is equally important and you don't know what you're up against until it starts, so there's no benefit to making some options more expensive than others.

if battlevalue was used as a MM tool, it wouldn't be an issue...