76 replies to this topic

[Thomas Covenant]

Forward

I would like to share some calculations that I've arrived at. These calculations challenge the claim that Hero Mechs are in no way, pay to win.

If upon reading my above statement, you assume you know what my calculations are, assume you already know they are wrong, and most importantly are not open to the idea that there may even exist such data, I ask that you leave.

If however, you put what you want to be the truth aside, and determine the truth for yourself, agree or disagree; I welcome you to a discussion about my calculations at what ever length you are comfortable.

It is my wish that either I am proven wrong, with which I will be content; or I am right and one of two things happen:
pgi makes a change
or
pgi remains content with being mostly not p2w.

I am not invested in being right. I am invested in finding the truth!

The 11% Argument:

11% is a number that is subject to a lot of things; but it is a number that exists, and you should know about it.

there are two 'perfect world' factors that would make hero mechs NOT pay to win items.
•if all mechs were balanced
•if all players had equal skill in all mechs

Neither of these I would argue, are the case.

11%?
As of April 21st 2013 there are...
MWO Mechs: 70, Standard Variants: 62, Hero Variants 8. 11% of Mechs are Hero Mechs.

if all mechs were balanced

There would be an 11% chance your best mech is a hero mech.

if all players had equal skill in all mechs

There would be an 11% chance the best mech is a hero mech.

if neither of these were true, which is what I believe, than there is an unknown number that represents the truth. This number, high or low, will not be 0.

PGI is trying to fit some ideas into a bag all at the same time:
•MechWarrior: Online is f2p(free to play) not p2w(pay to win)
•Hero Mechs are unique varients
•Hero Mechs can only be bought with MC

I would say they don't all fit. Remove one of your choosing, or by default, the first is removed for you.

Theoretical Example

Johnny plays MWO. He likes to play Cicada. He wins most often in a Cicada. Johnny is also good with missiles. A friend lets him try out the X-5 Cicada Hero Mech which has missiles. He learns his best Cicada is the X-5. He wins a lot more in this mech than any other. Johnny either decides to buy an X-5 and wins more often from then on, or he keeps his money and continues to pilot his second best Cicada. He has to pay to win more often.

Bob on the other hand is best in a 3H Stalker, so he does not. He is not part of the 11%.

Concluding Thoughts

There are many unfair advantages PGI doesn't have control over: people with more money can buy better performance machines, people with more skill will perform better. This is not quite the same. This is inherent within the execution of Hero Mechs. 11% of millions of players is still hundreds of thousands. Some of them will only perform 2% better, some will perform 20% better. All will have to pay to win by that amount.

I thank you for your consideration. I ask you are courteous in your tone with questions & opinions, and thank you for sharing them. It is in good nature I share this, please return my good humor in kind.

Poll Clarity

The poll is asking if you are aware of a mech and variant you play best at. Given enough testing in game, I believe anyone would have a mech variant they preform best with.

Noteworthy Counter Arguments

Elo
You will notice players with more mech tree skills, pilot tree skills, and more skill as a player have, whether small or large, a clear advantage over players with less. Yet the game is still mostly balanced. This is thanks to the Elo feature. A player that wins plays against tougher opponents and vice versa. A player who has a little more skill may be matched with one that is further down the skill trees.

What does this mean for the 11% who are best in a hero mech? Well, it means Hero Mechs may not translate to pay to win for them, but rather "pay to improve Elo", a hidden stat that is handled by the game for matchmaking. So if Elo is working properly, in random encounters your team will not win more or less if you are not piloting your best mech.

Counter: This does not apply if you are engaging against a certain opponent, say for a tournament or event or part of Community Warfare, if you have a static opponent your chances only go up if you are piloting your best mech.

Edited by Thomas Covenant, 22 April 2013 - 11:11 PM.

[Panzerman03]

The best hero mech, hands down, is the Ilya Muromets. And it's not even the best Cataphract. The Heavy Metal is ok, and one of the Dragons is alright. The rest are garbage.

I'm not sure what you're getting at with your nonsense poll here.

Edited by Panzerman03, 21 April 2013 - 10:04 PM.

[Elizander]

Sadly the wording of what you are asking for this poll confuses me.

[SmoothCriminal]

So you're completely ignoring the fact that hero mechs give you bonuses to cbills and xp? The main reason people have a Hero mech in the first place.

Come on....

[Naja]

You make far too many assumptions for the reulsts to yeild anything useful. For starters, people play hero mechs for the bonus, increasing their experience and thus skill on the chassis. The viability of tge chassis (which for it to be P2W is tge important bit), never enters into why a person may be.skilled on the chassis. There's other things too, but i'm on my phone and typing is hard lol

[The Cheese]

Are you arguing that a hero mech could be considered pay to win if a player's ability to pilot that particular mech is better than their ability to pilot any other, and that this is judged on a player-by-player basis?

Basically, you're suggesting that 'pay to win' is related to the player's ability to excel with a hero mech, rather than just the mech itself.

That's what I'm getting from this, anyway.

Edited by The Cheese, 21 April 2013 - 10:18 PM.

[Myworstfear]

I'm having trouble picking up what you're putting down.

[SmoothCriminal]

I'll help, he's basically saying that if hero mechs arent P2W, their use should be approximately 11% of total battlemech use.

But as I said above, this disregards:
The Cbill and XP advantages; and
Some variants that just arent any good in the current meta.

[Shively]

I'm having trouble thinking of my triple-UAC5 Muromets as anything but "pay-to-win."

As far as I know, no other Cataphract can equip them while also taking triple medium lasers, carrying loads of ammo, and maxed armor. Granted, most of my use of it came pre-poptarting meta, so perhaps it's no more dangerous than a gimp flailing around in a dark room at the moment. It did tend to bore into enemy mechs like a drill, however.

Overall, though - my best mech is the Catapult-K2. It's just a really versatile variant, and even the stock loadout's pretty decent (drop the MGs and put on some more heatsinks). I loved this thing even in closed beta, when PPCs were nigh-useless in comparison to how they operate today. And, it'd be unwise not to note the devastation a 4x LL build can cause, along with all the other min/maxed builds available for this variant in particular.

Edited by Shively, 21 April 2013 - 10:28 PM.

[One Medic Army]

As I understand it he's implying that since Hero mechs represent 11% of total battlemechs, then they should also represent 11% of "favorite" battlemechs, if they were on average as good as other variants.

[Ragashar]

The 30% C-Bill bonus for Heroes and 10% XP bonus for the Champion are far from pay to win. The chassis are not something greatly superior in any way. They have different hard points, but nothing that really breaks the game (like +10% damage bonus) or something that really affects the action on the battlefield. Mostly the bonus from these MC Mechs is "less grind". You get more money and/or xp on them and thus you don't have to play as many matches as with your typical stock variants, but that's about as advantageous as it gets... At least for the time being.

As I suspect for the most of us, who write on these boards more, the favorite Mech and variant and setup varies. At least it does for me... Currently for some reason, I've been having quite an efficient time with my Catapult A1, the one with all Missile slots, call it weird, but it seems I get overlooked and can just fire away as many missiles I have in a round as "they do no damage" at the moment.

I don't have Muromets, which some here say is superior, but as many have said it is not the best Phract even though it is unique in the build. I have a Dragon Flame of the Hero kind, and I've mostly used it to grind money... The builds are nothing unique I have. Currently it has 2xPPC and 2xML on it, which is not even close to optimal, but it is what it is. The Dragon's huge center torso is no fun as the weapons hit more precisely now. I get cored way easier on it now than I did a few weeks back... Even though I have it moving almost at 110.

[Thomas Covenant]

The Cheese, on 21 April 2013 - 10:16 PM, said:

Are you arguing that a hero mech could be considered pay to win if a player's ability to pilot that particular mech is better than their ability to pilot any other, and that this is judged on a player-by-player basis?

Basically, you're suggesting that 'pay to win' is related to the player's ability to excel with a hero mech, rather than just the mech itself.

That's what I'm getting from this, anyway.

Yes, that is what I am saying. 11% is a starting point to calculating to what factor MWO is pay to win, while including personal skill level as a factor. If every mech was intentionally inferior, with the volume of players there is still likely to be a factor, some people will still do better in them. Do you believe all hero mechs are designed to be inferior? Even if you did, which I don't, this still applies. I also don't think they make them intentionally superior either, but the 11% argument still applies.

[Panzerman03]

Maybe you should word your poll so it has at least some bearing on what you're arguing.

[Kiiyor]

100% of the mechs I am skilled with are mechs I am skilled with.

Basing anything on an arbitrary statistic does not a valid argument make.

[BladeSplint]

Panzerman03, on 21 April 2013 - 10:04 PM, said:

The best hero mech, hands down, is the Ilya Muromets. And it's not even the best Cataphract. The Heavy Metal is ok, and one of the Dragons is alright. The rest are garbage.

I'm not sure what you're getting at with your nonsense poll here.

Looks like someone's never driven an X-5.

[matux]

111% of the time i talk out my arse...

[The Silent Protagonist]

I'm a freak. My best mech is the Death Snail. I don't know why, I'm just better in it than in any other mech. Sure I may not always rack up the damage (but I have gone over 1000 before in it. Felt like a baws) but I do what a light should (and then get ****** over by Raven-3L wolfpacks) and get at least 1 kill nearly every match. NEARLY every match. I have my bad rounds like everyone else. So I suppose you could call me a pay2win wallet warrior...

[Grey Black]

This thread needs to be 20 percent cooler.

[Barghest Whelp]

See, it's not that I'm best with the Muromets, it's that the Muromets has the best hard point configuration of all the phracts.

Sure, it's more or less a one trick pony, but that's not due to the chassis, but due to weapon balance. If it's not an AC20 or a UAC5 then it's not worth the slots/tons. I've tried fitting it with dual AC10, but it just falls short of the 3xUAC5 configuration.

And before you tell me that a jager can fit the same, let me tell you that it has 5 tons less to play with, less armour and a lower speed cap (even though it's miniscule, it's a lot easier to achieve a higher speed with the Muromets with the 5 extra tons).

[Ramrod]

SmoothCriminal, on 21 April 2013 - 10:11 PM, said:

So you're completely ignoring the fact that hero mechs give you bonuses to cbills and xp?

Just wanted to pop in here and say that there is no XP bonus when driving a Hero mech, only C-bills.

EDIT: Hard to find an official source outside of the banners on the client's splash page, but here you go.

Edited by Ramrod, 22 April 2013 - 12:22 AM.