71 replies to this topic

[IC Rafe]

Tycho von Gagern, on 27 August 2013 - 08:46 AM, said:

People are just mad right now because they want to be able to grind every variant of an assault mech in a week, and now they can't.

The c-bill nerf is definitely a game changer. I think it might change the game for the better. People will have to pick their mechs carefully, and if they want to try different systems they will have to explore variations on the mechs they already own. Assault mechs, and the decision to master one, should be a major commitment that takes a couple of months to accomplish.

Of course, none of that has to be true... you could always buy some MC (CHA-CHING!)

Anything that will get the number of assault-class mechs in the PUG down is a good idea. Everyone agrees, but no one wants to give up their assault.

Did it ever occur to anyone that giving players a pile of money in beta to test as many systems as possible is a good idea, but giving them a pile of money to buy everything they want in a couple of months is a bad idea?

Maybe it was OK in Beta, but maybe PGI never intended for players to have 30+, 40+, 50+ mechs (not without paying up some real money, anyway).

Finally, the numbers this poll shows are pretty wrong. If you took down the name of every C-Bill griever you see here and in the million other threads just like it, memorized them, and play for another year, you will come across all of them in game. No one is going to quit over this (unless they plan to come back with a new id). They'll all be here, kvetching about something else they don't like.

Small detail: without the heavy/assault, you make even less cbills. I AM a new player basically, have 2 light mechs and 1 medium. Rewards for me are down a lot and i for one am no longer playing, only keeping an eye on the game to see if it actually gets playable for me. So no, under the current system, you will not see every "griever" here. (i'll admit, i'm also bad, so i have actually seen a win of 40k cbills, where i went to cap/distract the enemy, but didn't fire a lot of shots, but all reward systems in this game at the moment are basically: do damage)

[Navy Sixes]

IC Rafe, on 27 August 2013 - 01:19 PM, said:

Small detail: without the heavy/assault, you make even less cbills. I AM a new player basically, have 2 light mechs and 1 medium. Rewards for me are down a lot and i for one am no longer playing, only keeping an eye on the game to see if it actually gets playable for me. So no, under the current system, you will not see every "griever" here. (i'll admit, i'm also bad, so i have actually seen a win of 40k cbills, where i went to cap/distract the enemy, but didn't fire a lot of shots, but all reward systems in this game at the moment are basically: do damage)

Well, you've got three mechs. I myself have two, so you win! I'm sorry you feel like you need to leave because you're not earning enough pretend money per match. I am also earning less money per match, but I guess it doesn't bother me as much as it does some because I'm not playing MWO to earn pretend money.

I hope you'll reconsider, but that's up to you. there are a lot of medium/light runners out there racking-up sick damage per match. There are a lot of assault-drivers who get crumpled with <100 damage and 0 assists. My point is that no matter how much pretend money they dole out, you'll never get good if you quit playing; trust me, when you come back there will be some other reason why the game sucks.

[IC Rafe]

The only light with which you can rack up a decent amount of damage is the jenner, and only because it has 6 lasers. That can put out a good amount of damage, but still a lot less than what a heavy/assault can put out.

The reason i choose not to play this game at this moment is not that i'm not "winning a lot of money" by itself, but also because with the time i can play, it'll take me over a month just to elite 1 mech. if i want to buy the heavy/assault i want, i have to play for over 2 months. I dont have the time for that and eventhough i love the battletech universe since i was 7, for me, its not worth it like this. Especially if they nerf everything which i prefer doing and my role in the game is to basically give the other people on the team extra cbills through damage by scouting/capping/being the annoying mosquito in some guy's back. This playstyle punishes me by nerfing what i can earn.

Edit: in short: i dont feel like i progress in this game, and will never be able to progress to other mechs with the time i can play unless i invest a massive amount of cash. While i'm willing to actually support a game by paying (did it for several MMO's, was planning to buy the phoenix package (all mechs) for 60ish euro in september), the amount to pay, is too high for what i get in return in my view.

Edited by IC Rafe, 27 August 2013 - 02:19 PM.

[Lunatic_Asylum]

Tycho von Gagern, on 27 August 2013 - 08:46 AM, said:

People are just mad right now because they want to be able to grind every variant of an assault mech in a week, and now they can't.

The c-bill nerf is definitely a game changer. I think it might change the game for the better. People will have to pick their mechs carefully, and if they want to try different systems they will have to explore variations on the mechs they already own.

I cannot agree more. The change dragged me back into pushing hard into buying more delicately-tuned mechs and scrutinizing every possible load-out before I actually buy anything. I really like the change!

[Thrystblade]

lunticasylum, on 27 August 2013 - 08:05 PM, said:

I cannot agree more. The change dragged me back into pushing hard into buying more delicately-tuned mechs and scrutinizing every possible load-out before I actually buy anything. I really like the change!

Yes, because punishing new players with a COMPLETE lack of forgiveness is really a good idea for attracting new players.

They either read up on every single mech and variant and loadout and this and that and the other thing. There is NO way to test mechs. You buy something you don't like? Well go **** yourself, buddy, PGI doesn't care. Sell it for 1 million cbills and spend another twenty hours grinding for a new mech you might not even like!

[IC Rafe]

lunticasylum, on 27 August 2013 - 08:05 PM, said:

I cannot agree more. The change dragged me back into pushing hard into buying more delicately-tuned mechs and scrutinizing every possible load-out before I actually buy anything. I really like the change!

ofcource you already have 3 good moneymaker mechs according to your signature. If you dont have that, have fun playing 200 matches in bad mechs

Do you really believe that you could start this game with your cadet bonus as a newbie (so about 8 mil) and get to the point where you are now, in about the same time, including any experimenting you might have done so you found out what worked for you and what mechs worked for your playstyle? (and dont say the trial mechs are an accurate gameplay for their weightclass for testing, because they are not)

[Angel of Annihilation]

lunticasylum, on 27 August 2013 - 08:05 PM, said:

I cannot agree more. The change dragged me back into pushing hard into buying more delicately-tuned mechs and scrutinizing every possible load-out before I actually buy anything. I really like the change!

I am just not sure where the fun comes from out of this sort of situation.

For me more half the fun of this game is experimenting with new mechs to try to tweak them to perfection. In fact I still find myself tweaking mechs I have had for months and months because of something new I have learned about playing or to account for changes to weapons balance. Today for example I needed another 800k LB-10x for one of my builds that I modified based on my experiences with the LB-10x after the last change. That is over a hours worth of grinding to get ONE cannon by the way.

Also you can scrutinize your builds all day long either in the Mechlab or Smurfy's but many of the BEST LOOKING builds don't survive first contact with the enemy. If they don't then it is back to the drawing board and your out alot of C-bills. Basically you can't know if a build is going to be good or not until you try it out on your mech.

Thrystblade, on 27 August 2013 - 09:29 PM, said:

Yes, because punishing new players with a COMPLETE lack of forgiveness is really a good idea for attracting new players.

They either read up on every single mech and variant and loadout and this and that and the other thing. There is NO way to test mechs. You buy something you don't like? Well go **** yourself, buddy, PGI doesn't care. Sell it for 1 million cbills and spend another twenty hours grinding for a new mech you might not even like!

Totally agree here. PGI has it all wrong. In the Sept Creative Development Update, PGI seems to think that 10 million C-bills that can be earned with the cadet bonus will allow a new player to buy several mediums and/or lights, a couple heavies or one Assault. What they fail to take into account is that while yes you can buy this number of STOCK mechs, stock mechs aren't competitive and the reality is that at a minium you need 10 million C-bills just to outfit a good Jenner if your just starting out in the game.

The thing of it is, heaven help the newbie that doesn't take the time to read the forums on how to build mechs because he is likely going to gimp himself tremendously with his first builds, prehaps even wasting all his cadet bonus on a mech build that sucks and fine himself in the position of having to grind for hours on end just to get his first build useable. This is not a good newbie experience.

My suggestion is that there should be a tutorial toggle, lets call this the mech simulator, where a new player has access to 4 different "starter" variants, Maybe a Jenner D, Raven 4X, Blackjack BJ-1 and Cicada 2B which all have a base price of about 3 million C-bills. While there they don't earn any C-bills but have full access to all the equipment in the mechlab aside from modules and can freely mix and match equipment at will for free and drop into matches with that equipment in order to get a feel for how everything works and come up with a competitive build.

Then after a minimum of 25 matches and once they have built one mech of the 4 choices out fully, the new player can click the "leave simulator and claim you mech" button at which point they enter the real game with a shinny new mech chosen out of the 4 simulator mechs that is fully equiped and with all basic efficiences unlocked for that variant (since they earn XP while in the training simulator). C-bill begin to be earned at this point and the game moves forward from there.

The whole point is that this gives new players lots of choices, exposes them to the mechlab and how it works, allows them to fully experiment and find a mech that works for them without worry about making a mistake, insures best as possible that a newbies first mech is competitive and still keeps the total C-bill at about the same as the cadet bonus because I don't think any of those mechs could exceed 10 million C-bills fully kitted out.

This would even be pretty easy for PGI to implement with very little programing, though it might make trial mechs obsolete but I am not sure that is a bad thing.

Edited by Viktor Drake, 29 August 2013 - 02:21 AM.

[Calica]

Tycho von Gagern, on 27 August 2013 - 08:46 AM, said:

Maybe it was OK in Beta, but maybe PGI never intended for players to have 30+, 40+, 50+ mechs (not without paying up some real money, anyway).

Sooo, if he never spent real money... how did he manage to have 30-50 Mechs? Last time i checked you need mechbays for that. 300 MC per Bay, with 50 Mechs (-4 bays that you start with)... thats more then 60 $. The Price of a AAA Title Game. Sounds a lot like REAL Money to me. And he is paying that for a game in Beta, with only 2 Game Modes, no real meta game and lots of content thats on hold until sometime after release. And thx to the C-Bill Nerf a average Player now needs a hour to grind enough money to get a LBX or ERPPC.

I actually was in favor of a small C-Bill Nerf, but i really didn't imagine 10min Games with 70K Payout for being the best Player in a losing team in conquest (and it was a close game). Really dont wanna know what the "not so good" Players got.

C-Bill Nerf+longer average Game Times = a lot less Cbills per hour. That also means less Mechs, so less need for new Mech Bays. And thus less income for PGI. And i really want them to get more money, but this isn't the way to do it.

[M0rpHeu5]

People that used MC to buy mechs will keep doing it, people that didn't won't start doing it so basecly they'll see the money drops from the mech bays and they will buff the rewards.

[ollo]

BillyM, on 24 August 2013 - 08:50 AM, said:

To think, we are in a time where we have ample free time, resources, technology, such that we can spend time playing free games and still find time to dislike them!

I fail to understand your reasoning - would you find time to dislike it if i offered you free poop? Lots of poop? For free!!!

[ollo]

Calica, on 29 August 2013 - 04:42 PM, said:

Sooo, if he never spent real money... how did he manage to have 30-50 Mechs? Last time i checked you need mechbays for that. 300 MC per Bay, with 50 Mechs (-4 bays that you start with)... thats more then 60 $. The Price of a AAA Title Game. Sounds a lot like REAL Money to me.

Quoted for truth. PGI should offer a free mech every weekend and dump all their ridiculous pricing schemes for mechs, colors, camos etc. in the toilet where they belong.

[LegoPirate]

i pretty much only play 12's with my unit after this change. solo pubs are too frustrating to be making 100k a game. that, and i have 120M in the bank and have an overlord package hitting me on october, so i have all the cbills i need for the next year or so.