196 replies to this topic

[Angel of Annihilation]

soapyfrog, on 11 August 2013 - 08:14 AM, said:

How much were earnings nerfed by? I haven't noticed a huge difference... I guesstimate good win might net me 165k instead of 200k. Are people really freaking out about that?

That is a pretty huge difference. Lets take 10 matches. That is 2 million vs 1.65 million. How about 100 matches. Now you have 20 million vs 16.5 million or damn near the difference of a new mech chassis.

Lets talk about matches played. To earn 10 million at 200k per match you would have to play 50 Matches. To earn 10 million at 165k per match you would have to play 61 matches. 50 matches = 8.3 hours. 61 matches = 10.2 hours.

Additionally many of us are earning much less than you are. For myself, it was not uncommon for me to earn between 200-225k per match on at least 60% of my matches. Now I earn between 120-160k on that same 60% of matches.

I am seeing a 30% reduction across the board.

[Herodes]

Dozier, on 11 August 2013 - 10:14 AM, said:

Add up how much it would cost to build the mech you are currently playing. (include engine, upgrades modules and such)

In my Jenner (without premuim time) at say an adv of 100,000 per match with a lucky 8 mins per. It would take "close" to 30 hours to build. And thats an under 3 mill chasis and only 2 module slots. I feel reeeeallly sorry for those who prefer assault mechs.

I like heavies and assaults and I really can't play that many matches per week. So I buy Mechs with MC and even sell such Mechs when I get them in a nice sale to get C-Bills for upgrades and stuff. This has cost me hundreds of $$, but there is no other solution if you don't have much play time.

On the long run, I see problems though as I most likely won't be willing to overspend like this forever.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Dozier, on 11 August 2013 - 10:14 AM, said:

Add up how much it would cost to build the mech you are currently playing. (include engine, upgrades modules and such)

In my Jenner (without premuim time) at say an adv of 100,000 per match with a lucky 8 mins per. It would take "close" to 30 hours to build. And thats an under 3 mill chasis and only 2 module slots. I feel reeeeallly sorry for those who prefer assault mechs.

Yeah this is my issue. I am currently working on the Atlas chassis, trying to get all three to unlock everything. I bought my first one just before the patch and now 6 days after the patch, I have saved up around 6 million C-bills of the 12 million I need to purchase and outfit my second Atlas.

Average match now when counting wins and loses is 100k per match with each match lasting 10 mins.

120 matches per Atlas is what I have to play now with premium. Each match now averages about 10 minutes verses 7 before. 120 x 10 = 1200 minutes or 20 hours of play time just for each Altas Variant.

Now lets look at what it use to take me.

7 mins per match, average of 130k per match.

92 Matches per Atlas. 92 x 7 = 644 minutes or 10.7 hours of play time per Atlas.

Overall reduction in rewards earned/per hour = around 48% with premium.

So figure the following lenghts of time to own a new mech w/Premium activated:

Each Light mech variant + upgrades = 8 hours of play time per variant owned
Each Medium mech variant + upgrades = 12 hours of play time per variant owned
Each Heavy mech variant + upgrades = 16 hours of play time per variant owned
Each Assault mech variant + upgrades = 20 hours of play time per variant owned.

Now add 50% to the all these values for F2P players:

Lights = 12 hours per variant.
Medium = 18 hours per variant.
Heavy = 24 hours per variant.
Assault = 30 hours per variant.

Now ask yourself if this is a reasonable grind for a game with over 100+ variants currently in or announced for the game, not including hero mechs. Also keep in mind that this game only has about 10 maps and 2 game modes to keep you occupied and consdier that owning new mechs is about the only thing that prevents boredom from setting in.

[Sephlock]

In fairness, SOME people were earning LOL OMGWTF TOO MUCH, because they were playing continuously. The rest of us got screwed, when really what we needed was some sort of space Socialism, where they got taxed super hard and benefitted the rest of us .

[rgreat]

I demand repair & rearm.

I want to go into negative with high cost builds and bad playing.

[Spirit of the Wolf]

First off, because BOTH premium time and the hero mech/founder's mech C-Bill bonuses are percentage-based, anything that reduces the amount of C-Bills gained before they're applied also reduces their bonus.

Premium is a 50% bonus to C-Bills
Hero mechs are a 30% bonus to C-Bills
Founder's mechs are a 25% bonus to C-Bills

This is all fine.

The issue, however, arises when you think that because there are 8 more mechs total in a game, 4 per side, the number of kill assists automatically goes up for everyone. True, the potential number of assists goes up by 4, but very few players are ever able to get 8 assists, let alone 12. This is largely due to the fact that, even in PUG matches, players have distinctive roles, and are unlikely to get a chance to hit all enemy mechs during the course of the battle. Scouts are unlikely to take chances attacking the main enemy force, for example.
Kill Assists in Conquest mode used to be worth 3750 CB each. They are now worth 3200 CB each. 8*3750 = 30000, and 12*3200=38400.

Yes, you gain more money overall if you get 12 kill assists. True. This is a mathematically indisputable fact. However, the odds of you managing to hit 12 mechs over the course of the battle before any of them are killed is much lower, as you also have 11 other people on your team trying to do the same thing.

Now I'm going to use some 'ridiculous settings' -- meaning that the odds of this happening in a match even once are very low. Having them happen consistently is pure and utter bulls**t.

Team A: 12 mechs
Team B: 12 mechs

Because you have 11 other people on Team A aiming for 12 assists, the only way for everyone on your team to get 12 kill assists would be if all mechs on Team A hit all mechs on Team B at least once each, and then every mech on Team B suicides, granting a kill assist to everyone on Team A who had hit them.
Yeah, that ain't gonna happen.

So, we're now down to 11 assists each, assuming that each Team A player kills one opposing mech before they die, and each Team B player actually fights back, but not enough to kill their opponent. At 11 assists each, each player makes 35200 CB per match from kill assists.

The odds of all players on your team surviving long enough to do this in a PUG match is extremely low. Extremely low.

So let's go for a slightly more realistic chance. Each player on Team A gets a kill assist for 75% of the mechs on Team B, before they get their one kill. That's 9 assists per person. With 9 assists, you only get 28800 CB. With one more assist than was even possible before you get less CB.

Now let's remove the ridiculous idea that none of the mechs on Team B manage to kill their opponent, and the other ridiculous idea that all mechs on Team A get 9 assists and 1 kill. Let's make it a much more realistic 6 assists. That's 50% of the enemy team. That's probably about the average number of assists over the average player's total number of matches. (Yes, I know that every bell curve has outliers. I'm not talking about them, so don't bring them up.)
At 6 assists each, you now get 19200 CB. Before the patch you would have gotten 22500 CB. Not much of a difference, but still a small one.

So, if even kill assists make a difference, could someone please tell me the logic behind this move:

With a hero bonus (30% CB boost), and premium time (50% CB boost), you get a CB bonus of +80% of the original, or 1.8* your original CB amount. I was averaging ~60-90k in salvage per match, prior to this patch.

20k * 1.8 = 36k
60k * 1.8 = 108k
90k * 1.8 = 162k

60k - 20k = 40k
90k - 20k = 70k
The difference between normal players, lacking both premium and a hero mech, is 40-70k per match.

108k - 36k = 72k
162k - 36k = 126k
The difference between players with both premium time and a hero mech is 72-126k per match.


SO WHY THE BLOODY HELL DID THEY TAKE SALVAGE BONUSES FROM 80-90K DOWN TO EFFING 20K?

[Druidika]

They had that much money because there aren't any good c-bill sinks in the game.

[rgreat]

Spirit of the Wolf, on 11 August 2013 - 12:46 PM, said:

SO WHY THE BLOODY HELL DID THEY TAKE SALVAGE BONUSES FROM 80-90K DOWN TO EFFING 20K?

Maybe because all this salvaging thing is counter-intuitive for average user compared for damage done and mech destroyed?

[Deathlike]

Ah.. more from the Book of Paul™.

He never disappoints in providing more disappoint to the rest of us.

I think the goons scarred Paul for life.

[keith]

Viktor Drake, on 11 August 2013 - 12:34 PM, said:

Each Light mech variant + upgrades = 8 hours of play time per variant owned
Each Medium mech variant + upgrades = 12 hours of play time per variant owned
Each Heavy mech variant + upgrades = 16 hours of play time per variant owned
Each Assault mech variant + upgrades = 20 hours of play time per variant owned.

Now add 50% to the all these values for F2P players:

Lights = 12 hours per variant.
Medium = 18 hours per variant.
Heavy = 24 hours per variant.
Assault = 30 hours per variant.

Now ask yourself if this is a reasonable grind for a game with over 100+ variants currently in or announced for the game, not including hero mechs. Also keep in mind that this game only has about 10 maps and 2 game modes to keep you occupied and consdier that owning new mechs is about the only thing that prevents boredom from setting in.

in a nut shell yes. alot of us are "older" we hold jobs and have lives. idk about u but i may play this game now 5-10 hours a week. i believe if i pay for a mech bay that should be their payment for the mech. now it is PGI job to find items that will make me say hot damn i wish to buy that for my mech to earn extra money. that is what f2p is. does not have to be a huge grind. has to have some sort of grind. that can be end game to keep u playing, that would be called community warfare u know the thing we still don't have.

[Wintersdark]

Viktor Drake, on 11 August 2013 - 12:16 PM, said:

That is a pretty huge difference. Lets take 10 matches. That is 2 million vs 1.65 million. How about 100 matches. Now you have 20 million vs 16.5 million or damn near the difference of a new mech chassis.

Lets talk about matches played. To earn 10 million at 200k per match you would have to play 50 Matches. To earn 10 million at 165k per match you would have to play 61 matches. 50 matches = 8.3 hours. 61 matches = 10.2 hours.

Additionally many of us are earning much less than you are. For myself, it was not uncommon for me to earn between 200-225k per match on at least 60% of my matches. Now I earn between 120-160k on that same 60% of matches.

I am seeing a 30% reduction across the board.

It's worse than that, though, because matches take longer now. Longer matches = less c-bills per hour, everything else being equal.

It works out to more around 50% less c-bills per hour played.

[MechFrog1]

Deathlike, on 11 August 2013 - 12:59 PM, said:

Ah.. more from the Book of Paul™.

He never disappoints in providing more disappoint to the rest of us.

I think the goons scarred Paul for life.

Goons ruin everything.
C-bill sink?

[Appogee]

What I find strange is that they didn't offset the negative of ''reduced CBills, more grind'' with a positive benefit for spending Mech Credits.

For example, they could have doubled the Premium Time bonus level to 100%, or halved the Mech Credit cost of Mechs. Then I might have said ''well, the CBill reduction sucks, but WTF I can afford to pay $10 once a week of real cash to avoid the CBill grind''.

But they didn't. Premium Time now in effect yields me 33% fewer CBills than it used to, because the base CBills off which it's calculated earns 33% fewer CBills. And Mechs are hugely expensive. The Hero Victor is $40! The non-Hero versions are $17 each! These are crazy prices for single digital assets, and well above ''micro transaction'' level.

[xCico]

Why PGI is owner of this game, God why? Why isnt some another studio?
I really love this game and want to enjoy, even with my 5 mechbays and now this?

[Royalewithcheese]

I can only speak for myself, here, but the money I spend on this game will likely be through mechbays (meaning that the money I spend scales with the rate at which I get c-bills) and no level of grindiness will convince me to buy an imaginary robot in a computer game for $10+. It can, however, make the game stagnant (from my perspective) to the point where I'll switch over to something else, which is why I stopped playing Tribes. I suspect I'm not the only player with this set of preferences.

[Kibble]

I agree with his statements of us making too much. I also think the pay that the devs receive is too much. They should lower that also.

Edited by Kibble, 11 August 2013 - 01:51 PM.

[Sasha Volkova]

Sephlock, on 11 August 2013 - 12:40 PM, said:

In fairness, SOME people were earning LOL OMGWTF TOO MUCH, because they were playing continuously. The rest of us got screwed, when really what we needed was some sort of space Socialism, where they got taxed super hard and benefitted the rest of us .

YES THIS!!! SO MUCH THIS!!! BRING IN SPACE COMMUNISM!! xD

NO WAIT!! I DONT WANNA PAY TAXES!!! NOOOO D:

[Moku]

Apparently the devs are going backwards on new player friendly.

[FearTheAmish]

guessing none of yall actually listened to it, because he said it still needs adjusted. Basically we have to remember we are really close to launch and they need to fine tune the earnings, because if they don't we will have nothing to look forward too soon. Seen it before and i can almost gaurantee you they will be increasing rewards... not to where it was previously but will be closer to it then current amount.

[MechFrog1]

FearTheAmish, on 11 August 2013 - 02:28 PM, said:

guessing none of yall actually listened to it, because he said it still needs adjusted. Basically we have to remember we are really close to launch and they need to fine tune the earnings, because if they don't we will have nothing to look forward too soon. Seen it before and i can almost gaurantee you they will be increasing rewards... not to where it was previously but will be closer to it then current amount.

I've been telling people that the game needed a c-bill sink for the past ten months. That they're just figuring it out now... well it doesn't bode well...