220 replies to this topic

[MustrumRidcully]

**** THIS ******* FORUMS ****** LOGIN SYSTEM
thank non-existing entity for CLTR-A, CTRL-C reflexes

Again with the R&R?

No.

R&R gave us:
- AFK Farmers (yes, they still exist, but not to that extent)
- Suicide Trial Mech Farmers
- People powering down in a corner to avoid taking damage
- People not torso-twisting to deflect some damage because this would be more expensive
- Imbalanced the game - some mechs were cheap to run, some where expensive to run ,but with no rhyme or reason.
- Base Cap Rushing with no shot exchanged.

Fundamental issues
Repair & Rearm does not actually encourage better play. There are two things that drive players in MW:O
1) The Will to Win
2) C-Bill and XP Rewards. The more you can get, the better. C-Bills and XP allow you to get the stuff you want to have and you believe will be fun.

R&R created a direct conflict between 1 and 2). Winning was not the guarantee to get rich in C-Bills and XP. Sometimes it was smarter to accept a loss (power down in a corner). It was better to suicide in a trial mech, leave the match, and start another suicide match in a trial, because you'd made more money from 2 lost matches with no repair cost then 1 hard-fought match with repair cost.

Another example here is the torso-twist thing. Everyone hopefully knows by now - you can try to avoid the enemy hitting your sensitive spots by torso twisting and not showing him those spots. But unfortunately, that means that more of your mech's armour was destroyed, which you needed to pay for afterwards. So better to get killed clean and fast.

R&R lead to pay-to-win scenario
The C-Bill reward bonus from Founder and Hero Mechs and from Premium Accounts meant that people that have these bonus are much more likely to bring expensive gear to every match, which someone without these bonuses couldn't afford. This is a direct advantage in every combat that you could get by paying money. It's not as clear-cut as buying a Gold PPC that deals 12 damage per shot instead of 10, but it's bad enough.

R&R didn't serve to balance the game
If a technology is powerful, it makes it more likely to win if you use it when the enemy isn't. So you are more likely to get high rewards if you use powereful technology, which gives you the money to use powerful technology.
Weak technology is not so popwerful, if you use it you are less likely to win, more likely to make less money, less likely to buy better technology.
So the winners win more, the losers lose more. At some point its's pointless or at least so unfun to try to get better that you might as well leave the game. A player less to fight against, a player less that could potentially buy some MC.

R&R and in-game world "realism"
R&R is also broken on a in-game world perspective. Why become a mercenary if you risk losing so much money or not making a profit? You'd be better off selling your mech and becoming a farmer. Real world mercenaries are well-payed in this day and age. A Mercenary employed by the US in Afghanistan earns a multiple of the money a regular soldier costs.
A real world mercenary will probably avoid taking any contracts that gets them the guarantee that the'll fight equally strong enemies. Unfortunately, match-making is all about balanced both sides of the match! Even real world armies will try to avoid fighting "balanced" matches. Balanced matches are a concept of games, because it's more fun that way. Wars are not usually fought for the fun of it.

Other Mechwarrior Titles
Comparisons to other Mechwarrior also fall flat
1) R&R didn't exist in online modes of previous mechwarrior titles.
2) In Single Player, the game is always rigged for you to win. If you don't win or are unsatisfied with your results, you can always go back to a previous savegame.


So Repair & Rearm, never again.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 18 April 2013 - 10:40 PM.

[King Arthur IV]

this makes alot of sense but as of right now the game really is still in beta testing. RNR is a road block on testing and balancing.

[Inkarnus]

@MustrumRidcully
1. what will to win is it now? play some pugs most ppl just run streight into the killbox to get it over with
scouts dont scout they hide and rush cap
2. yes the Baseincome shouldnt be touched by RandR MK2.0 it should just touch the point of were a player can
get double the income if he pulls a win with a light mech with lowtech instead of an Assault mech too make atleast meds and lights
a bit more viable instead as of now were assault are the endcontent of what you want to drive

ps RandR didnt gave us
- AFK Farmers (yes, they still exist, but not to that extent)
- Suicide Trial Mech Farmers
- People powering down in a corner to avoid taking damage
- People not torso-twisting to deflect some damage because this would be more expensive
- Imbalanced the game - some mechs were cheap to run, some where expensive to run ,but with no rhyme or reason.
- Base Cap Rushing with no shot exchanged.
it was the broken/unfinished RandR that gave us the crap alot of that could have been preventet!

Edited by Inkarnus, 19 April 2013 - 01:29 AM.

[DaPwnageMachine]

MustrumRidcully, on 18 April 2013 - 10:39 PM, said:

**** THIS ******* FORUMS ****** LOGIN SYSTEM
thank non-existing entity for CLTR-A, CTRL-C reflexes

Again with the R&R?

No.

R&R gave us:
- AFK Farmers (yes, they still exist, but not to that extent)
- Suicide Trial Mech Farmers
- People powering down in a corner to avoid taking damage
- People not torso-twisting to deflect some damage because this would be more expensive
- Imbalanced the game - some mechs were cheap to run, some where expensive to run ,but with no rhyme or reason.
- Base Cap Rushing with no shot exchanged.

Fundamental issues
Repair & Rearm does not actually encourage better play. There are two things that drive players in MW:O
1) The Will to Win
2) C-Bill and XP Rewards. The more you can get, the better. C-Bills and XP allow you to get the stuff you want to have and you believe will be fun.

R&R created a direct conflict between 1 and 2). Winning was not the guarantee to get rich in C-Bills and XP. Sometimes it was smarter to accept a loss (power down in a corner). It was better to suicide in a trial mech, leave the match, and start another suicide match in a trial, because you'd made more money from 2 lost matches with no repair cost then 1 hard-fought match with repair cost.

Another example here is the torso-twist thing. Everyone hopefully knows by now - you can try to avoid the enemy hitting your sensitive spots by torso twisting and not showing him those spots. But unfortunately, that means that more of your mech's armour was destroyed, which you needed to pay for afterwards. So better to get killed clean and fast.

R&R lead to pay-to-win scenario
The C-Bill reward bonus from Founder and Hero Mechs and from Premium Accounts meant that people that have these bonus are much more likely to bring expensive gear to every match, which someone without these bonuses couldn't afford. This is a direct advantage in every combat that you could get by paying money. It's not as clear-cut as buying a Gold PPC that deals 12 damage per shot instead of 10, but it's bad enough.

R&R didn't serve to balance the game
If a technology is powerful, it makes it more likely to win if you use it when the enemy isn't. So you are more likely to get high rewards if you use powereful technology, which gives you the money to use powerful technology.
Weak technology is not so popwerful, if you use it you are less likely to win, more likely to make less money, less likely to buy better technology.
So the winners win more, the losers lose more. At some point its's pointless or at least so unfun to try to get better that you might as well leave the game. A player less to fight against, a player less that could potentially buy some MC.

R&R and in-game world "realism"
R&R is also broken on a in-game world perspective. Why become a mercenary if you risk losing so much money or not making a profit? You'd be better off selling your mech and becoming a farmer. Real world mercenaries are well-payed in this day and age. A Mercenary employed by the US in Afghanistan earns a multiple of the money a regular soldier costs.
A real world mercenary will probably avoid taking any contracts that gets them the guarantee that the'll fight equally strong enemies. Unfortunately, match-making is all about balanced both sides of the match! Even real world armies will try to avoid fighting "balanced" matches. Balanced matches are a concept of games, because it's more fun that way. Wars are not usually fought for the fun of it.

Other Mechwarrior Titles
Comparisons to other Mechwarrior also fall flat
1) R&R didn't exist in online modes of previous mechwarrior titles.
2) In Single Player, the game is always rigged for you to win. If you don't win or are unsatisfied with your results, you can always go back to a previous savegame.


So Repair & Rearm, never again.

As much as I like this post I would like to point that you, as well as everyone else who hates R&R, are pointing out a time when we had R&R and we didn't have any of the things we have today. Nobody here is saying that R&R was flawed in the past, it was. But now there are already many mechanics in the game that combat a lot of the stuff that posed problems to the R&R system. We have double heat sinks, master cool run, performance based rewards, etc. We have a lot more stuff now that we didn't have back when R&R was originally implemented. it's a completely different game from back then.

Powerful technology would give you high rewards and weak technology wouldn't give you anyhting cuz it would be harder to win? You're forgetting that I'm suggesting a state where simply just using the more powerful weapons would be more costly than victory itself. You want to win 5-10 straight? You better have the money behind you to back it up. Ideally, you wouldn't earn anything from using Gauss Boats, LRM boats, SRM boats, if you had to refit all of them every match no matter how high your cbill bonus is. This would also encourage players to run only 1-3 tons of ammo with smaller support weapons instead of just +10 tons and no support weapons. Any boat that uses ammunition isn't as scary when he can only fire 10-15 times. You want to use PPCs instead? Sure, unlimited ammo with very low upkeep but they are 5x as difficult to manage during a battle. A PPC boat is not as scary when he can only fire 2-3 times in 10 second. Again, you have to decide which of the 2 evils you would rather have.

If R&R was reimplemented, there would be no point to AFK farm . There would be no point to trial suicide . There would be no point because everything is based on how well you do now in a battle instead of whether you win or lose. Founders mechs and hero mechs earning extra money? So what? The hero and founders variants aren't better than the ones that are free performance-wise. Why not, if you pay money for them and financially support the game then why shouldn't you have a little extra as opposed to the player who chooses to play the game that others are supporting without contributing a dime. Again, having a mech that earns more money doesn't make you a better player so it's not even P2W.

Edited by DaPwnageMachine, 19 April 2013 - 01:53 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Inkarnus, on 19 April 2013 - 01:20 AM, said:

@MustrumRidcully
1. what will to win is it now? play some pugs most ppl just run streight into the killbox to get it over with
scouts dont scout they hide and rush cap

The same will to win that causes the so called "crying" and "whining" against poparts and what not. People do care if they win or lose, otherwise you wouldn't see them complaining about imbalances, unfair match-making, PUG stomping and the like.

But the will to win doesn't necessarily create the ability to do so. If you lack situational awareness, if you lack common sense, you still die early. But that doesn't mean you didn't know how to win, just that you didn't know how to.

But there is a difference between walking into a killbox because you don't know any better, o because you know that this is the fastest way to C-Bills.

Quote

2. yes the Baseincome shouldnt be touched by RandR MK2.0 it should just touch the point of were a player can
get double the income if he pulls a win with a light mech with lowtech instead of an Assault mech too make atleast meds and lights
a bit more viable instead as of now were assault are the endcontent of what you want to have

"Realistically" speaking - if I bring an Assault Mech, an expensive and very advanced piece of gear, into a battle, I expect a great payout, and more than someone that just bring a cheap-*** light.

But Gaming-Wise - if LIghts and Assaults are supposed to be seen on the same battlefield and the choice is only supposed to be on personal preference, then both sides need to net the same amount of profits.

Quote

ps RandR didnt gave us
- AFK Farmers (yes, they still exist, but not to that extent)
- Suicide Trial Mech Farmers
- People powering down in a corner to avoid taking damage
- People not torso-twisting to deflect some damage because this would be more expensive
- Imbalanced the game - some mechs were cheap to run, some where expensive to run ,but with no rhyme or reason.
- Base Cap Rushing with no shot exchanged.
it was the broken/unfinished RandR that gave us the crap alot of that could have been preventet!

Present me a thought out R&R system where this isn't encouraged, and we'll talk. But just wishing that t here was a better system doesn't make it so.

The R&R system has fundamental flaws, and it had implementation flaws. I think most of what I adress is a fundamental flaw.

Just an example:
Torso Twisting to deflect shots costs you more money than getting cleanly killed. So how would you avoid this in an R&R system?
The only idea I can come up with is by giving the player more rewards for taking that damage than for repairing it. But what is left of an R&R system then? It seems more like a payout fee. "Oh yeah, you get 50,000 C-Bills for this job, but you must deduct the 15 % processing fee first."

And another problem is pretty fundamental:
Trial Mechs will stay. PGI doesn't want new players to get free mechs. And even if they would, they wouldn't want any player to go into debt and unable to repair their mech or launch a new match. If the obstacle of getting out of the hole you dug for yourself is too high, players would just stop playing, because the game stopped being fun. (Maybe the create new accounts instead of stopping all together, but that means that players don't feel bound to their accounts, which makes it less likel yfo rthem to be willing to invest real world money to get account-bound Mech Credits.)
But this will allow trial-mech suiciding always as a way to gather C-Bills consequence free.

[MustrumRidcully]

DaPwnageMachine, on 19 April 2013 - 01:36 AM, said:

As much as I like this post I would like to point that you are pointing out a time when we had R&R and we didn't have many of the things we have today. Nobody here is saying that R&R was flawed in the past, it was. But now there are already many mechanics in the game that combat a lot of the stuff that posed problems to the R&R system. We have double heat sinks, performance based rewards, etc. We have a lot more stuff now that we didn't have back when R&R was originally implemented.

If R&R was reimplemented, there would be no point to AFK farm . There would be no point to trial suicide . There would be no point because everything is based on how well you do now. Founders mechs and hero mechs earning extra money? So what? The hero and founders variants aren't better than the ones that are free performance-wise. Why not, if you pay money for them and financially support the game then why shouldn't you have a little extra as opposed to the player who chooses to play the game that others are supporting without contributing a dime. Again, having a mech that earns more money doesn't make you a better player so it's not even P2W.

We have more rewards now, but that doesn't necessarily translate into having enough rewards to make AFK/Suicide Farming unlucrative.

It's not just the number of rewards you can get, it's also about how fast you can get them. Think about how long a mech on Alpine or Tourmaline Desert can take now, with all the walking around. If you can make 3 suicide runs in the same time, it doesn't matter that the devoted player got extra rewards for Kills, Assists or Spot Assists. Especially if you consider that the devoted player that fought will probably have a repair bill, and the suicide or AFKer won't.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 19 April 2013 - 01:45 AM.

[Lunatic_Asylum]

Bring it back, please.
Also, do not reward at all for participating in a match and not even firing one's lasers once.

Edited by lunticasylum, 19 April 2013 - 01:45 AM.

[Henree]

MustrumRidcully, on 19 April 2013 - 01:43 AM, said:

We have more rewards now, but that doesn't necessarily translate into having enough rewards to make AFK/Suicide Farming unlucrative.

It's not just the number of rewards you can get, it's also about how fast you can get them. Think about how long a mech on Alpine or Tourmaline Desert can take now, with all the walking around. If you can make 3 suicide runs in the same time, it doesn't matter that the devoted player got extra rewards for Kills, Assists or Spot Assists. Especially if you consider that the devoted player that fought will probably have a repair bill, and the suicide or AFKer won't.

a destroyed mech would have to be replaced, so only the salvage won by the other party ought to be affected
loser should allways pay full price.

[DaPwnageMachine]

MustrumRidcully, on 19 April 2013 - 01:43 AM, said:

We have more rewards now, but that doesn't necessarily translate into having enough rewards to make AFK/Suicide Farming unlucrative.

It's not just the number of rewards you can get, it's also about how fast you can get them. Think about how long a mech on Alpine or Tourmaline Desert can take now, with all the walking around. If you can make 3 suicide runs in the same time, it doesn't matter that the devoted player got extra rewards for Kills, Assists or Spot Assists. Especially if you consider that the devoted player that fought will probably have a repair bill, and the suicide or AFKer won't.

You would make more money performing well in a cheap *** commando that, you would spend maybe 5,000,000 cbills tops, than suicide running for 30k a game. It might even be more enjoyable. Again, when collisions get reimplemented I would like to see an extra cbill bonus per kill based on class.

Another thing I would like about trial mechs is if PGI would allow the community to vote on the top 4 (1 per class) trial mechs and just keep those mechs forever instead of randomly rotating all of them. I think that would go a long way for new players to at least learn the game with the best trial mechs available.

Edited by DaPwnageMachine, 19 April 2013 - 02:02 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Henri Schoots, on 19 April 2013 - 01:55 AM, said:

a destroyed mech would have to be replaced, so only the salvage won by the other party ought to be affected
loser should allways pay full price.

So you plan to remove trial mechs? SO if you lost your last mech, are out of C-Bills, you only have three choices - spend MC, start a new account, stop playing? You really think this is something PGI would do?

[GriZzZly]

NEVER! DONT LISTEN HIM!

[KinLuu]

Repair and Rearm was and is a horrible game mechanics and completely anti-fun.

It is gone and shall hopefully never return.

[Inkarnus]

Well lets point out things we agree on
-Assaults are more viable as Lights atm more XP KILLS MONEY
-more advanced Equipment gives you an edge
-the higher the tonnage the higher you chances to get more cbills
and crucial contribute to the team

am i wrong here?

Edited by Inkarnus, 19 April 2013 - 02:10 AM.

[Keifomofutu]

R&R can stay in the Pit where it belongs. No not the pit from revelations, but the pit from where all bad videogame ideas come from and eventually return. R&R is chilling with Superman 64 right now.

[Nick Drezary]

I am the guy with 200,000,000 C-bills and I telling that R&r won't ballance a single thing, but bring back problems like DC/Suicide farming, and other "Comforts". If you want R&r so badly, then buy atlas with 4 module slots, install 2 coolant flushes, air and artillery strike and enjoy -130K C-bills per game

Edited by Nick Drezary, 19 April 2013 - 02:28 AM.

[Adeptus Odren]

Fut, on 18 April 2013 - 11:18 AM, said:

Yes!! Bring it on!
This is the attitude that people should have. Part of the fun in Mechwarrior is that it's challenging.
People who don't want R&R back are either lazy, or they only like games when they're easy.

Or they're people like me who can only play 30 minutes to 1 hour a day because of something called REAL LIFE. So good riddance to R&R.

Edited by Adeptus Odren, 19 April 2013 - 02:40 AM.

[Xx Albain xX]

NO

[Joseph Mallan]

Yes. But during CW. For those of us who want the immersion. And leave it out for those who want Solaris.

[Yokaiko]

Anyone who thinks that lights make as much as assault mechs never looked at the way they do match scores.

You can kill 4 mechs with 200(ish) damage you will have a quarter of the matchscore (and thus pay out) of someone with 800 damage and a bunch off assists.

Nothing for capping on conquest (even if you single handedly win the game for your team)
Crap spotting rewards
...and grossly increased odds of a sudden violent death.

[Xendojo]

If R&R does not come back with CW in some form, I will be highly disappointed.

Logistics needs to be in here somewhere.

And salvage needs to be more than just a number at the end of round screen.