354 replies to this topic

[Khanublikhan]

I miss R&R. It was flawed in its original iteration.

As it stands now? There is no need to care about losing. I enter a map, I get a profit. Woo. My mech bay has bloated with mechs. My cup runneth over.

[ferranis]

How about no.

[Terror Teddy]

I think R&R should be put back in put it needs tweaks with a sliding scale depending on tech.

-05% = Re-Arm
-05% = Armor Repairs
-05% = Weapon Repairs
-10% = Internals Repair with Standard Heatsinks
-25% = Internals with DHS or XL Engine
-20% = Endo-Steel Repairs
-15% = Ferror Fibrous Repairs

This gives us a cost up to 75% of winnings if you go loaded with XL / Endo / Ferro.

The percentage is of course an example but should be tweaked depending on what modification is the most popular. DHS and ENDO are the most used ones and then you get XL engines while Ferro is rather less used in favor of Endo.

[Mackman]

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.

[MustrumRidcully]

I am glad it's gone and I don't really want to see it again.

It punished people that played smart just as much as it punished bad players and newbies. If you made the error of diverting damage from sensitive areas by torso-twisting, your armour repair costs went up significantly.
It even failed as a balancing system on several levels - for example, Ferro Fibrous was much more costly to run then Endo-Steel, despite Endo-Steel being the superior upgrade. It utlimately lead to a Pay-To-Win system where a Premium account allowed you to afford all the good toys while a regular account would go broke or never advance.
On a more fundamental level (a few things on the above are implementation details - no reason to keep FF so expensive and Endo so cheap).
It promoted bad play like AFK farming and trial suiciding - who cares about repair cost if you didn't have to pay, and if you had to pay because you didn't use a trial, why risk a tough battle - better power off in a corner to earn your C-Bills. It forced players to make a choice whether they wanted to play to advance (and get a better mech with good gear in the long run), or wanted to fight.

It was overall very bad for the game.

It will always fail as a balancing tool, because in its essence, it means that the winners get better mechs that make it easier to win which meaks it easier to get better mechs which makes it easier to win which makes it easier to get better mechs and if you want to know what recursions are you first need to understand what recursions are.

[Lil Cthulhu]

Lets see, games are supposed to be fun, this is a game, R&R was not fun, R&R was ******** annoying and actually a really good example of a pay2win system.

Want to run the best equipment? Better have premium time stocked so that you don't end up losing money by playing the game they way you want to play it.

So, no. R&R should not be re-implemented.

[Roadbeer]

Vermaxx, on 06 April 2013 - 09:51 AM, said:

So if we're going to pick and choose which 'expensive' tech is ACTUALLY expensive to repair, what is the point of repair?

Aside from an XL or getting equipment REALLY shot up, armor was often the most expensive thing. That isn't fair to an assault, who takes more armor to BE A FOCAL POINT. Maybe armor is too expensive? Well, ammo is really insane if you shoot a lot off. Ammo might need some repair discounts too.

An engine is literally the heart of a mech, and cannot be easily fixed. Three crits (dead engine) is a dead mech, because you need an entirely new engine and it is often easier (while only marginally more expensive) to just get a whole mech. They threw us a BONE on repair costs for engines - a dead engine has every right to require a full replacement fee.

Weapons didn't do anything when damaged - they didn't shoot hotter, shoot on random angles, suffer from reduced damage, or failures, or backfires, or suddenly explode. Engines at 25% didn't bleed one heat per second and invalidate ten heatsinks.

Repair and rearm was halfarsed, and it didn't belong in the game. If they get it fully arsed next time, then it can come back. The system we had punished some people and rewarded others. It did NOT often force people to choose which tech to run and which not to, because the minmax players never repaired items period. Some honest people paid for armor (I usually didn't and it wasn't game breaking), but most minmax players never repaired items or paid for ammo.

That isn't immersion, it is a cash sink. It is also a poorly designed cash sink that punishes the most suseptible crowd - new people who are likely to quit anyway.

I don't think anyone is saying that R&R was good the way they had it. Just that it made sense TO have it.

A good system, poorly implemented, is a bad system.
It's pretty low priority in the grand scheme of things, But I would like to see a well-thought-out Risk/Reward system in play.

It's like when ARTEMIS came out... I had an A1, boated with LRMs and 1400+ ammo. Made the sky black, didn't care if I hit or not, just had the trigger down until depleted. Even though I survived and won the match, it still cost me 15k more to R&R than I made on the match. I actually thought that was a good thing. Next match, I picked my targets more carefully and only launched with a good lock.

[MadcatX]

I view R&R in this game the exact same way as I view it in WoT: nothing more then an incentive to get players to get a premium tank / hero mech or premium time to allow them to play their more powerful vehicles or vehicles they prefer to play more often, thus, from a purely statistical point of view, get more c-bills and the cycle continues.

[Bagheera]

Yup.

Not in the exact form that it existed previously, but I would love for it to return. Forget about trying to use it for balance/mitigating power creep, or whatever.

It just made the game a little more interesting. The numbers definitely never really worked out for all weight classes previously, but that's just a matter of someone working the "maths."

Also, I think I've come around and decided that it's fine if R/R only comes into play in "Community Warfare" matches - whatever that ends up meaning. A lot of folks wanted an option for pick-up/quick games that had no impact on the territory map that also did not have R/R. I think that's probably fine.

Edited by Bagheera, 06 April 2013 - 10:02 AM.

[Bogus]

I like the concept of repairs but the numbers were horribly out of whack such that even with tech 1 gear it was near impossible to stay above water if you weren't getting ez $$ from pugstomping.

If R&R was 10 to 25 percent as much and/or good game performance was adequately rewarded it might be a fun mechanic. But only if.

[Vermaxx]

With repair and rearm, my friend used to run his FOUNDER ATLAS. He has always been good at torso twisting to spread damage, having learned it in tabletop. No fancy tech, maybe a gauss. This is even before endo (which an Atlas doesn't need) and ferro anyway.

I saw several matches where he torso twisted to survival, being the star of damage and kills...amd LOST MONEY for winning. I, on the other hand, in my relatively stock 4SP with premium time, always made a mentally imbalanced level of profit.

A system that tells people 'regardless of performance, running a CORE MECH will be financially painful' is not fair. It is not balancing, it is not intelligent, it is not immersive, and it is not fun. It created the Fatlas - an entire group of players who did nothing but run three LRM racks with ammo, and sunk an entire 100t mech into being a turret. Those people usually made huge cash too, because they weren't paying for ammo.

[Locan Ravok]

R&R was a nice idea that could never be made to work. People would just abuse that system to dead and use zombi mechs without repair to farm money. The game is better without it.

[Vermaxx]

Roadbeer, on 06 April 2013 - 09:58 AM, said:

I don't think anyone is saying that R&R was good the way they had it. Just that it made sense TO have it.

A good system, poorly implemented, is a bad system.
It's pretty low priority in the grand scheme of things, But I would like to see a well-thought-out Risk/Reward system in play.

It's like when ARTEMIS came out... I had an A1, boated with LRMs and 1400+ ammo. Made the sky black, didn't care if I hit or not, just had the trigger down until depleted. Even though I survived and won the match, it still cost me 15k more to R&R than I made on the match. I actually thought that was a good thing. Next match, I picked my targets more carefully and only launched with a good lock.

Then it shouldn't have been optional. I demanded it not be optional. I DEMANDED you not be allowed to drop in a mech with ANY DAMAGE WHATSOEVER. Why? Because they were planning on coding in an entire SERIES of functions for how equipment and weapons acted when damaged, and the game was already running delayed.

I'm not opposed to repair coming back, if they do it right. Given they made no effort to do it right last time and just ripped it out, I think that's a clear indicator of how involved CW is going to be.

Edited by Vermaxx, 06 April 2013 - 10:02 AM.

[Petrothian Tong]

OHGAWDNOTYOUGUYSAGAIN....


please do a search to find why it was removed and the 28377131273 pages of reasons why it stayed removed.


Short extremely condened summary:
1) less ppl will be playing due to grindiness to cover lossses ***hint; majority of players suck... and most of those can only afford 15 to 30 minutes a day to play, also: less money for PGI. ***and before you argue, more people actually quit due to time/grindiness of MWO back then than leet kiddies who THREATEN to quit cause is easy mode... leet kiddies still around complaining***
2) there is no economy in this game, R&R serves to punish people who either a) sucks, or b ) doesnt have 8 hours a day to play the game to fit mechs they wanted. or c) encourage ppl to get premium to play.... which leaves bitter taste in ppl mouth's, also: less money for PGI as per 1)
3) re-adding R&R does not stop botting/farming as long as trail mechs are in the system, you need to remove that to stop it.

But yes, I don't miss it at all.
I don't miss having to pay 200k every match just cause someone decides to hit my hunchie's AC20 1st.

back then, I only play my jenner with Med lasers to make sure I get a profit every match (seriously, no one person can carry an team all the time, you will lose, and R&R hurt back then).

now I have fun playing different mechs.

Edited by Petrothian Tong, 06 April 2013 - 10:30 AM.

[Ph30nix]

im sorry taking weeks(depending how much yoiu play) of play time to earn enough C-bills to buy a 5+mil engine is enough of a time sink I dont want to have to spend an hour or two in the trial mechs to earn enough c-bills to keep my better mechs running.

This sounds more like a veiled "Stock mechs only" post.

[Khanublikhan]

Vermaxx, on 06 April 2013 - 10:00 AM, said:

With repair and rearm, my friend used to run his FOUNDER ATLAS. He has always been good at torso twisting to spread damage, having learned it in tabletop. No fancy tech, maybe a gauss. This is even before endo (which an Atlas doesn't need) and ferro anyway.

I saw several matches where he torso twisted to survival, being the star of damage and kills...amd LOST MONEY for winning.

That is a fair point. Armour is doing its job by protecting a mech. A pilot is doing his job by spreading the damage around.

So *any* cost for standard armour repair should be very very low.
So *any* cost for FF armour repair should be very low.
Any damage to internals should be moderately more expensive.
Repairing / replacing weapons is the expensive cost -- offset in previous mechwarrior games by the fact that battlefield salvage could be recovered to offer an alternative replacement.

It all speaks to me of a fundamental misunderstanding from the developers on what mechs are. They are centuries old tech passed from generation to generation, at their core really hard to destroy - and ultimately salvageable from the battlefield in the BT dark age even when reduced to a smoking ruin.

Repair costs needed a deft touch. Battlefield salvage needed to be included, as a benefit, as an offset. Instead it was removed...

[Roadbeer]

Vermaxx, on 06 April 2013 - 10:02 AM, said:

Then it shouldn't have been optional. I demanded it not be optional. I DEMANDED you not be allowed to drop in a mech with ANY DAMAGE WHATSOEVER. Why? Because they were planning on coding in an entire SERIES of functions for how equipment and weapons acted when damaged, and the game was already running delayed.

I'm not opposed to repair coming back, if they do it right. Given they made no effort to do it right last time and just ripped it out, I think that's a clear indicator of how involved CW is going to be.

I think you and I are on the same page here. I didn't like that it was optional with the 75% R&R. I think a better option would have been, if it's going to be optional, than the reward would be around 75% of what you get for a match now, if you turned it off, but if you had it on, the reward should be around 50% more than what you get for matches now... Risk = Reward.

It seems to me that R&R was one of those systems that would have been relatively simple to fix and work properly that was jettisoned in favor of developing something that they have REALLY screwed the pooch on.

[Vermaxx]

Someone suggested a tier system for CW based on your 'pilot' choice.

Lone Wolf gets 100% pay (including FULL SALVAGE VALUE) but pays 100% of all costs incurred.
Merc gets something, I forget if they got the original system or they just got 75/75.
House units get paid 50% (I think?) and pay zero repairs.

However, the chances of this happening are slim, considering the Garth+woman interview suggested the real game is being focused on merc players. They will probably be the best tier to be of HOWEVER things work out, with Houses being second, and Lone Wolves being the absolute worst way to play.

[Khanublikhan]

For example, they could have abstracted it into:

• Repair costs do not represent the costs of repairing each individual part. Repair costs represent the C-Bills costs of hiring Face from the A-Team to sneak into HQ and appropriate spare parts. Or hire BA Baracus to weld the internals. Or hire McGyver to do ajury rig repair. It is is an abstraction of the "technical expertise" and wilyness of your hired mech technician crew to quickly and efficiently make those repairs.
  
• If repair costs are not met sufficiently, your tech crew cuts corners - then your mech will suffer % chances of misfires, ammo misfeeds, torso twist penalties, actuator failings in your next match (but your mech still has its armour cos that is dirt cheap to repair).

Hey presto.

The above is what Mechwarrior repairs are all about during the dark days of the Clan Invasion. It encompasses the sense of Lost-tech and having to make to do and pull a rabbit out of the hat.

Ask any real life Gulf War soldier what its like when HQ sends you the wrong supplies, coldwarfare boots when you're fighting in the desert - and then you get the sense of what Battletech repair costs should be.

Edited by Khanublikhan, 06 April 2013 - 10:27 AM.

[Duncan Longwood]

The only thing that I miss about it was that it made you take something other than the biggest baddest mech in the mechbay. With the current scoring system being 98% damage, you are gimping your earning potential by taking anything other than a heavy or assault. At least with R&R there was a trade-off that forced you to decide if it was worth it to take the big guns and the accompanying big repair bill, or go with a light with a low repair bill. With the current system, there is no need to downgrade in tonnage to increase your bank, in-fact the opposite is true.

To be clear, I don't want R&R back, but I do want a system that promotes more consideration for taking a lighter mech than what we have now.