354 replies to this topic

[DaZur]

Okay... That was 15 pages of rough reading.

Clearly both sides are very passionate about their convictions (Some, so much so to resort to name calling... tsk..tsk..tsk.) and I believe both sides can agree R&R was poorly thought out and the failings enumerated quite well throughout this thread.

While it's easy to vilify us pro-R&R supporters, I think far too many of you have this perception that we enjoyed punishing poor players, wish to rage class warfare and wanted to balance the game economically, I think for the majority of us, you could not be further from the truth.

The reality is even with it's warts and the fallacy of our reality arguments, R&R gave many of us, as contrived as it sounds, a reason to play a certain way that helped suspend the belief we fight with reason and repercussion.

Sadly, the mechanics of R&R were poorly implemented, Founders and Hero mechs made it P2W and the grindy aspect of it simply fostered farming and abuse.

I think what us pro-R&R supporters are saying when we say we miss R&R is that we miss the aspects of it that differentiated MW:O from the plethora of first-person shooters.

Long and short, we enjoyed a little role-playing with our big-stompy robot action...

Do we really miss R&R? No... not really. But we do miss an aspect of cerebral gameplay that made us care about how we played and the ramifications of doing so? ... Yes.

At best, I think the empty hole R&Rs removal left can hopefully be replaced by community warfare.

Edited by DaZur, 07 April 2013 - 09:32 PM.

[jay35]

Xenois Shalashaska, on 07 April 2013 - 07:32 PM, said:

This guy is speaking my language. R&R is a must for community warfare or factions will never weakend and we will have endless ransacking of boarder control.

It already will be, but in a less monetarily-punitive manner: Certain tech, weapons, etc, will be available to whichever faction holds certain territory. So if you want access to that equipment, you need to hold that territory.

[Xyroc]

They claim R&R is not good for new players n such ... but World of Tanks has R&R and is growing very well.

[Josef Nader]

Trust me, the R&R system they had was terrible and it encouraged all kinds of exploitative behavior. The game is -infinitely- better off without it.

Unless you want every game to be a "tiptoe around each other and try to cap fastest lest we dent our mechs and have to pay exorbitant repair bills". That's what it was before R&R got dropped. No lie.

[SquawkHawk]

I would like to see R&R come back (it felt that little bit more immersive to me).
But it would:
1. Only cost 10% of what it did,
2. Be Compulsary.
3. Assult/Heavy armor would be cheaper than Light/Medium armor.

[MustrumRidcully]

SteelJaws, on 07 April 2013 - 04:00 PM, said:

"Punish the new players"

"Elite attitude blah blah blah"

Nevermind that in the paragraph before it, I said that the costs should be tweaked lower.

I don't see how having repair and rearm makes it RP, but whatever.

if you lower the cost, don't you end up with it just being a RP feature? "Oh, yeah, I made 100,000 C-Bills on this match, and had 15,000 in repairs for my XL Engine and Endo Steel Internals and Double Heat Sinks." It certainly won't achieve what some expect from R&R - balancing high level equipment.

And if you keep the prices high, you get the problem that weak players can never hope to use the technologies that might perhaps give them the advantage they need, while good players get the best mechs and don't need to worry about losing or R&R because they have the gear that secures them the win over weaker players in weaker mechs.

Quote

Nevermind that all of the previous games had it, Original Mechwarrior, Mechwarrior Mercs, and MechWarrior 4.

The titles that had multiplayer didn't have repair & rearm in multiplayer.

The games also had Load & Save functions (even the original Mechwarrior 1 had that!). So if things went awry, you could just go back to an earlier save.

Moreover, in these games, it was basically ensured that you made enough money to cover the repair cost. Salvaging mechs alone would probably cover any cost you had suffered.

Not to mention that PVE games are always rigged for you to win, unlike PVP matches.

[BlightFang]

I feel like R&R doesn't have a place until they add community warfare and even then only if money plays an important role in victory(like EVE online?).

[Ricama]

Beliall, on 07 April 2013 - 09:31 PM, said:

They claim R&R is not good for new players n such ... but World of Tanks has R&R and is growing very well.

There are fundamental gameplay differences between the two games that allows it to work in WoT and not in MWO. There are 2 main reasons for this, first you can not go negative in WoT until at least tier 6. The second: there is a tier 6; if you take a tier 1 tank against a tier 6 with anything even remotely resembling similar skill levels the tier 6 tank will win without a scratch but fortunately in normal game play the tier 1 tank will never fight the tier 6.

In MWO you are forced to play with the big boys no matter what. You don't get a sandbox tier for mechs that don't have ECM, you don't get a special battlefield free of LRM's when you don't mount ams, you get to play against the expensive tricked out mechs no matter what you run. Heck currently you get to fight them even if you run a trial mech. R&R very quickly turns this setup into a frustrating catch 22. Either you're constantly underequiped against the tricked out death machines or you need to put together a drastically underequiped 'grind' mech in case your own death machine has a couple of bad matches in a row or *gasp* you actually want to purchase another mech or experiment with designs you find fun instead of either credit efficient or murder death kill machines. By contrast when you grind cash in WoT, you're usually taking a tricked out tier 5 or 6 tank against tier 4-6 and 5-7 tanks respectively.

MWO is simply not set up to allow R&R to be fun for the average player in a pick up battle. For CW it would be wonderful, and should actually be full cost to replace broken mechs that the entire company/house can help foot the bill for.

[Kraven Kor]

I don't miss it per se; I hope it comes back in some fashion for Community Warfare, as I like the idea of having to manage my finances along with managing my mechs and fighting in them.

I'd be all for perma-death and that kind of "harsh reality" setup as well though, if done right. So I may not be the best person to ask

[BlackWidow]

Roadbeer, on 06 April 2013 - 09:24 AM, said:

I completely agree. R&R didn't just mean Repair & Rearm, but also Risk and Reward.

But I do get that it made an aspect of the New Player Experience horrendous.

I hope to see it again some day, then you get to juggle the R&R and consumable cost when dropping.

"Well, lets see, that cost me 205,000 CBills, and I made 174,000... maybe I shouldn't spam LRMs in the hope of a hit."

RB,

Gotta tell you, sir, you are currently my favorite poster lately. Your posts are either informative, funny or add positively to the topic at hand. More often than not, all three. [EDIT: Too bad you are Marik]


And I also agree is risk v reward. Yeah, XP engines are expensive and slightly more vulnerable, but things like ECM, DHS, and XP should just have a steep price to get but to maintain. This is one of the MAJOR issues that MWO hasn't implemented to my satisfaction. I know they have ELO, etc. But one of the things about MW/Battletech that kept things balanced was COST.

In TT, you either had tonnage limit or BV's that you had to work within every single match. And more often than not, our old TT games were the battle extension of our MW Role Play characters that had to either work within the confines or their units inventory or within the funds available to your merc unit.

If there were more "ongoing" cost / availability restrictions you would see a lot fewer drops with 4+ ravens or 4 + Atlas'. I realized things changed after the Clan wars, but up to that point...mechs were still rare, special and hard to maintain. It wasn't like you just had a used mech lot where your only difficulty was deciding on color.

Edited by BlackWidow, 08 April 2013 - 11:37 AM.

[Fut]

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.

Nah. It should be brought back.
If R&R was brought back, we'd see more people running Mediums and Heavies, less people in Assaults... Sort of how it "should be".

[Sybreed]

BlackWidow, on 08 April 2013 - 11:33 AM, said:

snip

if you and I agree on this... that means we're really onto something.

[Davers]

Fut, on 08 April 2013 - 11:54 AM, said:

Nah. It should be brought back.
If R&R was brought back, we'd see more people running Mediums and Heavies, less people in Assaults... Sort of how it "should be".

So R&R should be used to force people to run mechs they don't like for economic reasons? Doesn't sound like much fun.

[Josef Nader]

Fut, on 08 April 2013 - 11:54 AM, said:

Nah. It should be brought back.
If R&R was brought back, we'd see more people running Mediums and Heavies, less people in Assaults... Sort of how it "should be".

R&R did no such thing. Heavies were one of the most expensive chassis to run, and lights were insanely expensive for what they were. Even medium mechs struggled to pay the bills, as a lot of them rely on XL engines and expensive tech like PPCs and Gauss rifles for their punch.

Meanwhile, my SRM/AC20 Atlas was pretty cheap to run (the most expensive thing being my two tons of SRM ammo) and incredibly destructive.

[TheStrider]

No, I don't miss it at all. I was happy to see it's backside.




Well except for my poor Awesome 8Q "Radiator". He used to be a contender... He used to be a cbill man...

Now he's a janitor...




Poor Radiator.

[Bounty Dogg]

Davers, on 07 April 2013 - 04:31 PM, said:

Why is punishing bad players so important?

I have an idea- when you lose MWO automatically uninstalls. This will simulate the time needed to repair your mech.

So they have INCENTIVE to learn to be better. Really that simple.

[Ricama]

Bounty Dogg, on 10 April 2013 - 09:31 AM, said:

So they have INCENTIVE to learn to be better. Really that simple.

Punishment is not incentive, it is the opposite. Giving someone an incentive to play better is doing things like giving people extra monies when they do damage, or get the last shot on a damaged enemy or blow off a section or their team wins the match ... kinda like we already have. Punishment is negative reinforcement, it's making things unfun unless you shape up. Unfun and game should not go in the same description if you want the game to be successful.

Managing expenses is only fun in a game when I can control the contribution of my side of the game. It will make an excellent addition to CW where your team is controlled by what side you go with. My earnings are already partially at the mercy of at least 4 other players and weather my opponent has managed a syncdrop. I do not want the possibility of going negative also controlled partially by the contribution (or lack there of) from 4 other random people and luck of the draw.

[FupDup]

Ricama, on 10 April 2013 - 10:47 AM, said:

Punishment is negative reinforcement

http://www.mcli.dist...roj/nru/nr.html


(I do agree with your overall point, however. I just felt the need to point out what negative reinforcement actually means. It's a common misconception).

Edited by FupDup, 10 April 2013 - 10:57 AM.

[Ricama]

FupDup, on 10 April 2013 - 10:57 AM, said:

http://www.mcli.dist...roj/nru/nr.html


(I do agree with your overall point, however. I just felt the need to point out what negative reinforcement actually means. It's a common misconception).

Yeah, I was going more by the parenting colloquial definition where positive reinforcement is accomplished through incentives and negative reinforcement is done through punishment. You are right, avoiding a negative outcome is still technically incentive.

[Denno]

It added some much needed depth but failed in implementation, unfortunately.