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The Economy
I reference the economy within the game in terms of C-Bills.
I mention this because as I have played this game for the past few weeks, which has totalled to just over 280 matches, I realize that I have only been able to afford 3 mechs (1 of which I sold for the meager amount of C-Bills presented to me and I regret it). Over the course of these matches I have earned a significant amount of currency for toying with things (32.9M C-Bills) but ultimately through my trials I ended up building my mechs very similar to the most common builds, but my question is why?
Well after tweaking loadouts on each chassis a few times and trying it out I get frustrated with the play-style of the mech and revert to something that has proven to be a formidable force on the battle-field (loadouts that kicked my *** and stuck-out in my mind). This still doesn't answer the why though, we'll get there I promise.
With the cost of weapons and mechs being so high, especially when compared with the amount of C-Bills earned per match, I eventually stop wanting to spend 10-15 matches worth of C-Bills for 1 new loadout. Now this can be addressed without necessarily increasing the amount of C-Bills earned each match by lowering the cost of weapons (seriously, some weapons alone cost nearly 1M) and increasing the sell-back value of mechs/weapons (a mech I spent 8M on sells for 370K or 2M if I sell all the parts & chassis) so that if we tried something and don't like it we aren't out a week or two of gameplay to try something else (or a different variant).
Opportunity Costs
With all of the choices out there in terms of variants, weapons, and auxiliary features we run into a slew of different possibilities for creating our own custom mech, oh the FREEDOM! However with this freedom comes a heavy burden of making the right choice.
When faced with a situation that we have to deal with for so long before being able to liberate ourselves from making a bad decision, we often follow the same process: Go research online what variants are successful, remember those few variants that seemed extremely powerful (especially lights as their mech-cost is lower), or ask others within the community for advice (I know I did).
All these options lead to the inevitable feeling that no matter what choice we make, it is conceivable that there was a better option out there and we missed it. Which leads us to try and pay closer attention to what we see dominating the battlefield, inquire to others with more experience as to what can help us, etc. This is the principle of Opportunity Costs, the idea that if we had held out that little bit longer, or just researched a little bit more, we could have made a better decision and because we didn't we have lost some value between the decision we made and that conceivably better decision.
Variety
The Economy and Opportunity Costs discussed, I believe, take away from the variety on the field. People aren't out there testing some wild idea as often because it takes so long to acquire the funds to do so. We aren't as inclined to go buy another mech when we are down to our last mechbay slot because we definitely want to make sure we get that decision right.
I do believe that changes in the C-Bill cost of weapons/mechs or earnings per match would help alleviate the "same-old same-old" variants that we encounter on a regular basis within this game and lead to more people trying new things that aren't as common, thus adding a more spice to this game.
Thank you for your time if you read this far, I will get off my soap-box now as I look forward to some feedback (not flaming, take that **** somewhere else
).
