24 replies to this topic

[Helix]

So we're now back to the earning levels we had when R&R was in the game, when PGI (rightly) realized that was a terrible idea and removed R&R.

I get that the idea is to make the game more grind-y to encourage people to buy Premium Time, I really do. But with such anemic initial earnings no one new is going to want to buy Premium Time, they're just going to go play something else.

Consider changing it back, PGI...I think this will really hurt your business long term.

[Bhael Fire]

They have three options:

A. Leave it as is without fixing it.
B. Increase Premium Time to be 100% boost to C-Bill/XP instead of just 50% and thereby making it more attractive.
C. Revise match earnings so that people make approximately what they used to make per match on average.

They'll most likely just go with option A because it's easier...even though I think the smart thing to do would be to go with option B.

[Devils Advocate]

I'm all for asking them to change it back but good luck with that. They've pretty much lied in interviews about it stating that they made these adjustments because people were making too much money using the old system, implying that every player was averaging more money per battle now that there were twelve mechs on each side, completely discounting that every match takes longer than it used to and mechs do not have any more ammo or armor than they had before the patch. With the old rules a very strong player could potentially have made slightly more earnings per hour than he would have before the 12v12 patch while the average player would still net less money per hour as a result of the longer matches. Now the best players make around 20% less per match and the average player makes even less than that. It's by design.

[oldradagast]

Any excuse given is nonsense - the notion that the 50% increase in enemy mechs will somehow result in a 50% increase in your earnings per match assumes that the extra 50% more mechs on your team will be sitting around and doing nothing the whole match. If anything, my match scores and damage dealt have dropped a bit after 12 vs. 12 came out since it is harder to just flat stomp a team with a single, well-played mech when there are 12 of the vs. 8. At least I earn fewer cbills now AND the matches take longer... yeah, what a trade-off!

This is just a ploy to get people to buy premium time, which I seriously doubt is going to work since everyone who's currently in the game knows that the value of their premium time just got nerfed, so why buy more? This change will, however, make the game far more grind-driven, which combined with the more brutal nature of 12 vs. 12 will serve to drive new players away. I doubt that's the goal, but I also doubt anyone has thought this whole thing through.

[Chemie]

salvage would go up but they could have just reduced that. Dropping win for 50K to 25K does not have anything to do with 12v12 versus 8v8

Edited by Chemie, 11 August 2013 - 04:24 PM.

[Angel of Annihilation]

I have no idea what they are thinking at this point. I figured it up and between the lower rewards and longer matches I am making earning C-bills about 45% slower now than before.

I have to run 120 matches to buy an Altas and upgrade it now at 10 mins a match vs 90 matches as 7 mins a match before. It is insane because that means just to buy one variant of an Altas I have to spend 20 hours playing. Even the average light mech now takes 8 hours to grind and this is with premium.

I mean they do realize they have 93 variants currenlty in game with at least 20 more variants annouced or releasing shortly right? At 10 hours per variant that equals 1,130 hours of grinding if you wanted to try out each variant. That is not even counting the clan mechs coming out next year which by the way will be double to triple the price of the mechs we have currently. Want a Madcat? Grind 60+ hours and you can afford one...maybe.

If anything they need to be considering a boost to the earnings, not a reduction.

Edited by Viktor Drake, 11 August 2013 - 04:38 PM.

[Novaspawn]

It's essentially a ploy to get people to buy hero mechs and premium time. Although I feel it's going to backfire in the long run. Also I disagree with the "people are averaging more c-bills per match", the majority of the mechs I play full time I run a 2.38-4.11 kdr and my average c-bills have dropped by 7k since the patch. I don't use premium time and I don't use a hero mech. If it stays like this and nothing is done by PGI about it, I feel the player base may dwindle down a even more, and PGI may even begin losing it's die hard MechWarrior fans. I REALLY do not want to see this game fail. It's already bad enough I have to play 2 variants of a mech I don't want just to play the one I like competitively.

I doubt they would ever do this, but I'd like to see the ability to just be able to purchase a stripped chassis, or even build one out of salvaged parts from matches. (or even build weapons out of salvaged parts, here's to hopefulness). Or we could possibly make our own new variants, but that's for a different topic.

[Chemie]

Giving lots of CB would encourage mech bay purchases?

[armyof1]

The CBill grind is getting over the top after the recent nerf. The whole getting 3 variants before you can master a chassi was a big enough grind before the patch if you play an hour or two each day. The lack of play modes makes the game too repetitive for this kind of grind after the patch, it just gets too boring before you can afford new mechs to renew your playing experience. This will without a doubt drive off more free players, which are essential for any F2P to function properly. It's like the devs thought the player base wasn't small enough before, they needed to make it even smaller to make even matches even harder to set up.

Edited by armyof1, 11 August 2013 - 06:06 PM.

[Unbound Inferno]

Helix, on 11 August 2013 - 04:01 PM, said:

So we're now back to the earning levels we had when R&R was in the game, when PGI (rightly) realized that was a terrible idea and removed R&R.

I get that the idea is to make the game more grind-y to encourage people to buy Premium Time, I really do. But with such anemic initial earnings no one new is going to want to buy Premium Time, they're just going to go play something else.

Consider changing it back, PGI...I think this will really hurt your business long term.

In all honesty, we need a kind of R&R system.

Just most likely not what PGI did or would do.

Bhael Fire, on 11 August 2013 - 04:14 PM, said:

They have three options:

A. Leave it as is without fixing it.
B. Increase Premium Time to be 100% boost to C-Bill/XP instead of just 50% and thereby making it more attractive.
C. Revise match earnings so that people make approximately what they used to make per match on average.

They'll most likely just go with option A because it's easier...even though I think the smart thing to do would be to go with option B.

Option B still would mean I would not pay for Premium time.

It is still not worth it. Crap multiplied by anything is still crap. Not worth it.

[Zordicron]

You can not get angry with the dev team on this one. Or even the people that have made public statements.

When you see something like this go down, it is 99% of the time driven by a corporate marketing group. Some people, somewhere are going to be there with a big brother is watching kind of vibe, telling the dev team "this is what you say". Because, someone somewhere is trying to coax more real money out of players, because first and foremost, MWO is there to make money.

To the dev team, this is not priority one, not in the same sense it is to the corporate group. Of course, they want it to make money, because that is how they get paid and continue on the game. But lets be honest, the development team really doesnt care if you are holding a scrooge Mcduck moneybin of c-bills, so long as you are enjoying the game and keep playing. They want, priority one, for the game to be AWESOME. AWESOME, followed by monetary success, so they can continue making awesome.

I wish marketing people would look at it in a different light. Having a million players give you 1 dollar is much better then having 25,000 players give you 5. In this sense, it is superior to offer a cheap fun game and grow the player base then it is to pinch the smaller existing one for more money.

I still think they should have a sub plan. Built in premium time, some other crap. A steady income would relieve the perceived need to keep putting indirect pressure on the players to try to herd them into the money gate.

Offer a sub plan. Then with a solid steady income, offer sales and perks for MC that are AWESOME. Right now, market people are trying to use slight of hand like the guy with the marble under the coconuts to swindle and Bo Bindle players out of another 25 dollars. It is not a long term buisness model. it will create tension between the playerbase and the company providing the game.

There are just so many better ways to do it.

[Zordicron]

Oh one other thing, slowing C-bill rates isnt to get people to buy premium time or hero mechs. it is to get them to buy regular mechs with MC. If people buy a hero mech or premium time thats bonus. But really, it's to make the MC option look really attractive, especially for stuff like an Atlas K. Grind 10 hours or give them 30 dollars? Now, its grind 30 hours or give them 30 dollars. Like it or not, it is going to change the percent of players that opt for money.

Unfortunatly, it is also going to hinder the player base growth, possibly even shrink it some. This is bad, for reasons stated above.

[KuruptU4Fun]

Can't get paid if you crawl away like a little bitty bug, neither. I got a share in this job. Ten percent of nothing is—let me do the math here. Nothing into nothin'. Carry the nothin'... Jayne Cobb

[Tsig]

I'm not sure what all the complaining is about? Is it because you're not earning 150k C-bills per win anymore? Why? Even without Premium, I'm still making 130k on a win where I don't play like a derp.

Are you complaining for the new players that might not know how to complain for themselves? You do know they get a cadet bonus for their first 25 matches, right? As long as they stick around for all 25 matches, they can afford almost any mech in the game with money left over for customization.

[Deathlike]

Tsig, on 11 August 2013 - 10:26 PM, said:

Are you complaining for the new players that might not know how to complain for themselves? You do know they get a cadet bonus for their first 25 matches, right? As long as they stick around for all 25 matches, they can afford almost any mech in the game with money left over for customization.

Just because they get the money.. doesn't mean they know how to spend it, or spend it well. Most remotely top tier competitive builds can cost an additional 50 to 100% of the cadet bonus (8m is the cadet bonus in total), so to say that is... very misleading. This isn't even factoring the many losses they will most likely take while getting the 25 matches to claim all 8m.

Edited by Deathlike, 11 August 2013 - 10:53 PM.

[Tsig]

You're saying that as if new players will even care about top-tier competitive play. Sure, some will, but those are the ones that will do their research.

The truly new players will have had some small amount of experience with Battletech or a Mechwarrior game prior to this. Very few will just start up this game without some kind of background in Mechwarrior. They're going to be looking for the mech they want to buy first, then they'll start saving up for it. They won't care about what kind of builds are best for it, they'll build what they want that will fit.

[Deathlike]

Tsig, on 11 August 2013 - 11:11 PM, said:

You're saying that as if new players will even care about top-tier competitive play. Sure, some will, but those are the ones that will do their research.

The truly new players will have had some small amount of experience with Battletech or a Mechwarrior game prior to this. Very few will just start up this game without some kind of background in Mechwarrior. They're going to be looking for the mech they want to buy first, then they'll start saving up for it. They won't care about what kind of builds are best for it, they'll build what they want that will fit.

That's not what I said. If you want to upgrade a mech "up to speed" with everyone else, you have to first commit to 1.5m in DHS.. and probably commit to 250k in Endo Steel... assuming these upgrades aren't already applied.

The next thing is usually having to upgrade the engine.. which in the case for XL will cost quite a bit.

Even if they DON'T KNOW any of this stuff, not doing any of this research will hinder future progress, which will indirectly affect their grind (especially after the cadet bonus) AND indirectly affect their interest in this game. It leads to "why is everyone's builds are better than mine?" type of thinking and proceed to ragequit and/or show up on the boards with major confusion and fustration.

As much it sounds great in theory that "people can explore however they wish", the problem is that this game does not lend very well to that type of thinking... not just because of poor balance, but they don't have the insight that would allow for future planning. It's like trying to tell people not to switch DHS (or Endo or Ferro) on and off for testing... because it will easily eat into their money that they didn't realize would be needing (usually, because they save the config, confirming the purchase that they did not actually want).

There's just a lot of things that would need to be covered in a TUTORIAL in order for a new players to not be behind the 8-ball which is the #1 problem with this game.

Edit: It is noted your assertion is that people playing this game has some MW/BT/TT experience... the actual problem is that PGI/MWO is catering (or trying to cater) to the casual gamer, who doesn't know any better. That's the major difference here. Then again, PGI is doing a "great job" keeping the MW/BT/TT player here... amirite?

Edited by Deathlike, 12 August 2013 - 06:00 AM.

[FatBabyThompkins]

Here's a wacky concept: new players will want to try several different mechs. Now, let us exclude trial mechs as they are not customizable, nor are they decent mechs in today's PPCWarrior Online meta.

The first several games the new player jumps into each of the different trial mechs. They get slaughtered, but they have fun. Then they start getting killed repeatedly by a certain type of weapon. It doesn't matter if it is PPC, ML, or LRM. They see that and think, ok, that's what I need. What mech can I buy that has that. Let's start with LRM, because that's exactly what I thought.

So they buy a Catapult and put several LRM-20s in there. They head out. Aaaand don't do surprisingly well. What's the deal? On the other team it was working perfectly. (Read, the player didn't know about ECM, nor knew that targets must be prioritized by those that a lock can be maintained). Oh, a tag may help... nope, still nothing.

Ok, LRM's are crap. How about SRM? I have this big missile boat, lets get in and... holy crap. Doing a bunch of damage, but I'm dying really quick. Hmmm. Not really liking the missiles. Let's try a fast mech.

Wow. This Jenner's awesome! I'm not dying like I used to and I'm fast! I can get behind people and tear them up! Let's see, how can I make this better. 6ML? Sure. We can do tha.... Ok, shutting down in front of a big mech is bad. Need to watch the heat. Heat... how does that work? Ohhh Ok, so, double heat sinks are, not double? What's up with that? Well, I'll just watch my heat. Let's see how much each shot is... I go from 0% to 47% in one shot. That means I need to have around 50-60% before I can fire again.

WTF? Their's pilot skills? Holy crap. Heat skills. Yep, need those. Let's see, 3 of 8. I can get the rest easily. (Several matches later). Ok, 8 of 8. Why didn't elite open up? Oh, there's other variants. I need to get those and get the basics on those. Well, ok, I'll get one of the others. Hmmm, both only have missiles, and one has 2 missiles and one has 1 missile. I already don't like missiles, but I guess I have to.

Yeah, don't like missiles. Let's try these SSRMs. Ok, they're kind of cool. Kind of like SRM but with LRM locks and they hit. But, I can't lock onto all of these other lights. Why is that? Oh, ECM. What is that? Is there a way to, oh I need ECM. I can't get ECM. Is there another way to counter? Ah BAP. ****! That's 1.5 tons. I guess I can squeeze that in... Yep. Ok. Now I'm rockin'.

The above scenario was played out by myself over the span of several weeks. I made one horrible purchase, the Catapult. I bought the JR7-F( C ) as it already had everything and gave the hero bonus. I also bought premium time with some of my remaining MC. I barely had enough CBills at any one time to buy anything. I had to run that hero mech many times just to grind to purchase the other variants. And then, I had to take the XL300 out of that hero mech to run in my variants. So, I was completely strapped for cash and still had to engine swap. This was all pre-patch CBill nerf.

Now, I cannot imagine how any new pilot will get to where they want to be. After their first poor decision, which will be about the time that the cadet bonus expires, they'll want to experiment and try something else out. But they won't be able to because that one bad purchase dried their funds up. They'll have to make a purchase with MC if they want to try something else out. It's a pay wall. Much like in game, one bad decision can completely ruin you. That is not how you retain players, or even get them to buy.

You want them to buy? How about taking the literal meaning of micro from micro transaction. They have enough CBills to buy a new mech, but not enough mech bays. 300MC? That's cheap. I can do that. Hmmm. There isn't a 300MC option to buy, so. Wait. That screen kept telling me I can get more XP and CB if I had premium time. How much is that? Yeah. I can buy 1000MC and buy that mech bay and some premium time. Hell yeah. I'm starting to get some CBills now. I'll need to buy the next two to master the one I just built. I'll need more CBills for that. And I'll need another two mech bays. So, another 600MC. Might as well get some more premium time to cut the time as well. (About 2 weeks later of decently heavy play). Hell yeah. Got that mastered. What else do I want to try? Let's try one of those heavies. I'm starting to see those more and more. Hmmm... the Ilya. DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA. I want to try that. Yeah, that's expensive, but I can throw down on that....

That's what gets people buying. Small transactions (AKA micro transactions) that add up over time. Not a pay wall that turns people away because they get discouraged at one or two bad decisions. PGI, you had that. And you just threw it away...

[KuruptU4Fun]

But Fat, 7 bucks for enough MC to pay for 1 week of premium time IS a micro transaction. Second, as you've stated you've been around for a while. So the purchases you've made into a customizable mech were to a degree educated ones.

I do see your point, but there's two pools a new player can play in (and SHOULD) to get money and experience to earn more faster and be a better player ASAP.

One, is to invest a small amount of money to see what premium time can do for you. The second is to educate themselves by the "NEW PLAYER" threads and maybe even the thread about "MECH LOADOUTS". Since most people new or not just come in here and state "I died 29 times, so NERF THE GAME!" I'd venture to say that PGI isn't doing their best to funnel people thru those areas. But neither are we as a community, since we are the game, we need to be doing this...

[FatBabyThompkins]

KuruptU4Fun, on 12 August 2013 - 06:33 AM, said:

But Fat, 7 bucks for enough MC to pay for 1 week of premium time IS a micro transaction. Second, as you've stated you've been around for a while. So the purchases you've made into a customizable mech were to a degree educated ones.

I do see your point, but there's two pools a new player can play in (and SHOULD) to get money and experience to earn more faster and be a better player ASAP.

One, is to invest a small amount of money to see what premium time can do for you. The second is to educate themselves by the "NEW PLAYER" threads and maybe even the thread about "MECH LOADOUTS". Since most people new or not just come in here and state "I died 29 times, so NERF THE GAME!" I'd venture to say that PGI isn't doing their best to funnel people thru those areas. But neither are we as a community, since we are the game, we need to be doing this...

I'd say 7 bucks for a week is not a micro transaction, relative to traditional subscription based models. At that rate, you're double what traditional subscription models are. And you still have to look at bay purchases, vanity items, and hero mech purchases, which can cost as much as several months play at subscription based pricing. That is not micro transactions, that is simply transactions. Some would call that a macro transaction as its sum is larger.

Also, I wanted to point out that even at the previous CB income level, I was fairly broke for a great length of time while in premium time and in a hero mech. I kept playing in my hero mech to grind out some CB, but it wasn't at all bad as I could net 170-230k per match (but also remember those matches were on average shorter than in 12 vs 12) looking for that next several million to buy a new mech (which needed a mech bay) or a new engine. I can honestly say that at today's income levels, I would not have stayed around. I've pretty much all but quit as is. Not because of the CB nerf, or the devolvement in 12 vs 12 play, but because I do not see a future where these problems are fixed. Edit: Oh, and being lied to. All signs now point to a reduction in CB because they wanted to push for MC, not the stated reason of 12 vs 12 could net more.

But I do agree there needs to be an information overhaul. UI 2.0 or what ever needs to happen. This game can be punishing in many ways. Its breadth and depth are some of its biggest strengths, but also can make for a very frustrating experience when new.

Edited by FatBabyThompkins, 12 August 2013 - 06:53 AM.