269 replies to this topic

[Hotthedd]

Deathlike, on 14 August 2013 - 05:02 PM, said:

They should've tweaked it prior to adding Savior/Defensive Kills.. which has actually accelerated C-bills/XP growth (mostly XP, since it had noticeably affected me more). That was the last known major C-bills addition to 8v8 for your reference.

The thing is.. if regular players to this game are actually doing worse, imagine how the newbie is faring. That's the true test of the system.

Remember that XP growth acceleration makes the ETA to buying a new mech shorter (especially when you're trying to master them),. Having gone through a major double XP weekend a long while back (at least 1 or 2 of them prior), it made it difficult to keep up with the C-bills growth to make the next Atlas purchase.

But newbies get the cadet bonus, and newer players are theoretically playing against players of the same level, thanks to Elo. Yeah...okay...even I can't type that with a straight face.

But if I read your post correctly, it seems that you are spending your C-bills recklessly, wanting to but every variant as soon as possible. Maybe you could save some C-bills?

[DemonRaziel]

Hotthedd, on 14 August 2013 - 05:55 PM, said:

But if I read your post correctly, it seems that you are spending your C-bills recklessly, wanting to but every variant as soon as possible. Maybe you could save some C-bills?

It's a double edged sword, though. Saving money is, essentiall, a grind for more money, until you have enough to buy what you were aiming for.

If you are able to amass the CBills to acqurie a new 'Mech fast enough, you have more incentive to get new 'Mech bays - and that's an investment pretty much everyone is willing to make (it's not an investment to cometics, it's an investment to verastility as it expands your selection of 'Mechs at hand).

Making the grind more tedious might lead to people giving up on it and just buying the 'Mech they want with MCs, but said people might just as well give up on the game entirely, instead. Which is more likely to happen, only time and PGIs internal sales reports will tell.

[Hotthedd]

DemonRaziel, on 14 August 2013 - 06:06 PM, said:

It's a double edged sword, though. Saving money is, essentiall, a grind for more money, until you have enough to buy what you were aiming for.

If you are able to amass the CBills to acqurie a new 'Mech fast enough, you have more incentive to get new 'Mech bays - and that's an investment pretty much everyone is willing to make (it's not an investment to cometics, it's an investment to verastility as it expands your selection of 'Mechs at hand).

Making the grind more tedious might lead to people giving up on it and just buying the 'Mech they want with MCs, but said people might just as well give up on the game entirely, instead. Which is more likely to happen, only time and PGIs internal sales reports will tell.

The only reason I see people quitting over the grind are people who do not really enjoy playing the game, or are frustrated with some mechanics of the game. People who quit because of the grind would seem to have the mentality of wanting to "beat" the game instead of "play" the game. MW:O is not really the kind of game you "beat".

[StandingCow]

See, this goes back to the lack of communication mentioned in the townhall... before this change was made why couldn't we have gotten a command chair post or something explaining why it was happening? A Cbill nerf isn't a minor thing.

So, why didn't they say...instead of we were earning too much, that other ways of earning cbills was coming down the pipeline and this was just preparation?

All we want is communication.... agree or disagree (look at 3PV) it is appreciated more than silence.

Edited by StandingCow, 14 August 2013 - 06:28 PM.

[Nicholas87]

Hotthedd, on 14 August 2013 - 06:13 PM, said:

The only reason I see people quitting over the grind are people who do not really enjoy playing the game, or are frustrated with some mechanics of the game. People who quit because of the grind would seem to have the mentality of wanting to "beat" the game instead of "play" the game. MW:O is not really the kind of game you "beat".

Exactly, the rush "feeling" of need to beat the game/collect/unlock everything should not exist that much at all in this game. Of course, that is not to say we do not want everything, but what we do is go through the stages slowly. As for me, I just played MW:O for few days and just starting to feel comfortable (I consider myself beginner as well although already played Mechcommander, Vengeance, and Mercenaries long time ago). Although I do agree that there is some need for grinding CBills involved, I find myself choosing my loadout and choices of mech more carefully (this meaningful decision is fun, at least for me). With this, grinding for the CBills has become less of a burden in the mind.

[TKSax]

Niko Snow, on 14 August 2013 - 02:03 PM, said:

It's easier to test and adjust this way: By first reducing the overall reward, we can observe the telemetry of how much less players are making overall during this period of time and thus make better judgement on the value of future rewards.

This also helps reduce the possibility of over-shooting our adjustments and giving away too many rewards. In such a scenario, we would have to nerf those rewards permanently and be left with much upset from any players who had grown accustomed to those greater reward levels.

In our current development: We can confidently counter frustrations with the current rewards implementation with the knowledge that more rewards will be coming, similarly to when rewards were previously adjusted last year.

Your other concerns should be addressed in future communications from the Dev Team on the upcoming rewards.

Thanks for the feedback even if it is way to later that it should have been. You know what a crazy idea would have been, see what effect 12 mans had on the economy and the tell the community about any adjustment to c-bills if needed. I bet a lot less people would have been pissed off, of course that would require that crazy thing called communication.....

[Time at the Position]

Niko Snow, on 14 August 2013 - 02:03 PM, said:

This also helps reduce the possibility of over-shooting our adjustments and giving away too many rewards. In such a scenario, we would have to nerf those rewards permanently and be left with much upset from any players who had grown accustomed to those greater reward levels.

Love this circular logic lets crap on playerbase now instead of later

[ZedekiahCromwell]

Niko Snow, on 14 August 2013 - 02:03 PM, said:

It's easier to test and adjust this way: By first reducing the overall reward, we can observe the telemetry of how much less players are making overall during this period of time and thus make better judgement on the value of future rewards.

This also helps reduce the possibility of over-shooting our adjustments and giving away too many rewards. In such a scenario, we would have to nerf those rewards permanently and be left with much upset from any players who had grown accustomed to those greater reward levels.

In our current development: We can confidently counter frustrations with the current rewards implementation with the knowledge that more rewards will be coming, similarly to when rewards were previously adjusted last year.

Your other concerns should be addressed in future communications from the Dev Team on the upcoming rewards.

Except with any communication beforehand, the reverse approach of implementing rewards and then nerfing is clearly better. Players are given higher rewards per match for a limited time, with no preconception that the rewards would remain that high permanently, as they have been prepped by the PGI press release. That encourages players to play during that period as it's a limited time bonus. This gives more data to PGI during that period than they would have received otherwise, allowing them to get more accurate readings on how the economy responds to new rewards.

Then after you've gotten the data you need (in a much faster time due to increased playing), you implement the nerfs needed. Players who took advantage of the increased rewards knew it was coming, so their expectations are appropriate, and no one feels disillusioned.

In short, PGI gets more testing data quicker, players get to feel rewarded for playing for a bit, and then it settles into the new norm. It's a win-win for all involved. Hell, it would even sell Hero mechs and premium time, as people would want the hero+premium bonus on the higher Cbills and XP.

What you ended up doing, however, is causing players to leave the game completely, as well as many asking for refund of their Phoenix package. Oh, and new players are looking at the math to get a single mech after their cadet bonus and saying "no thanks". Whoops.

And even then, what you guys did would have been perfectly fine with any small amount of communication. "Hey guys, we'll be adjusting Cbill earnign the next month until release. This is not a permanent change and is in preparation for additional features. We've turned off everyone's Premium time, but you may reactivate it if you would like during this period."

Bam, now you don't have issues with a single paragraph of communication. Then again, Paul said pretty succinctly, "Yes, I think you were earning too much", so that's even more information in even less words.

Edited by ZedekiahCromwell, 14 August 2013 - 07:40 PM.

[ZedekiahCromwell]

Hotthedd, on 14 August 2013 - 06:13 PM, said:

The only reason I see people quitting over the grind are people who do not really enjoy playing the game, or are frustrated with some mechanics of the game. People who quit because of the grind would seem to have the mentality of wanting to "beat" the game instead of "play" the game. MW:O is not really the kind of game you "beat".

Let's play a game. I pretend to be a new player, and you tell me that again.

"Hi! I just started MWO about a week ago. I played the trial mechs for a while, but I didn't really do okay. People kept on telling me that it was better with your own mech. I knew I wanted to buy a mech, so I saved with my cadet bonus and bought a Victor. But now that I have it, I can't afford double heat sinks or any new weapons. I'm having a really hard time with the Victor, and I keep dying immediately in matches. People tell me that the mech gets a lot better when you master it, but I looked and you have to own three mechs! I'm lucky if I get 100,000 in a win! At that rate, I'm gonna need 180+ games to get the other two so that I can level up my mech and actually start to be competitive. Is it really worth that much time just to be okay with one chassis?"

And that's giving the new player a lot of credit. If a new player is getting 100,000 per win after cadet bonus drop off, he's playing better than a lot of experienced players.


Your turn.

Edited by ZedekiahCromwell, 14 August 2013 - 07:49 PM.

[MoonUnitBeta]

Hotthedd, on 14 August 2013 - 05:49 AM, said:

There is no R&R, so all of the money is profit. I would be all for raising the C-bill reward IF there was risk involved.

Actually when they removed R&R, the reduced the c-bill rewards.
So..... we're already paying for R&R... and now even less.

[Hotthedd]

ZedekiahCromwell, on 14 August 2013 - 07:48 PM, said:

Let's play a game. I pretend to be a new player, and you tell me that again.

"Hi! I just started MWO about a week ago. I played the trial mechs for a while, but I didn't really do okay. People kept on telling me that it was better with your own mech. I knew I wanted to buy a mech, so I saved with my cadet bonus and bought a Victor. But now that I have it, I can't afford double heat sinks or any new weapons. I'm having a really hard time with the Victor, and I keep dying immediately in matches. People tell me that the mech gets a lot better when you master it, but I looked and you have to own three mechs! I'm lucky if I get 100,000 in a win! At that rate, I'm gonna need 180+ games to get the other two so that I can level up my mech and actually start to be competitive. Is it really worth that much time just to be okay with one chassis?"

And that's giving the new player a lot of credit. If a new player is getting 100,000 per win after cadet bonus drop off, he's playing better than a lot of experienced players.


Your turn.

Hi new player. Welcome to MW:O. This game has a steep learning curve, sorry there is no tutorial, but since you are learning the hard way, congratulations on your new Victor.

Now, it is going to take you a while to master your mech, and it will take plenty of C-bills to customize it just right. You are lucky. Many of us were new players when we had to pay to repair and re-arm our own mechs. We could actually LOSE money after a match. It added a level of immersion, but there were plenty of entitled whiners, so that got removed. NOW you are guaranteed to earn C-bills no matter what.

You say it might take 150 or even 200 matches just to buy all the neat-o stuff that people who have been playing for months have? This is true, but after 200 matches you know what you will be? An inexperienced player.

If you were looking to play this game for free and still have all the best toys within a week, you may have chosen the wrong game. But if you were looking for a game that gives you the satisfaction of having earned your cool toys, then you will feel great after you have worked to get all the great upgrades.

If you want to reduce the grind, that is fine, too. They have MC which can be purchased for money. This money allows the game to continue to exist. Some of it even trickles down to the coders and artists and programmers, allowing them to feed their children. Isn't that great?

You see, you are a welcome addition to the game, but you are not a special snowflake who is entitled to anything from this free to play game.

[Devilsfury]

This guy above me...wow...just wow. Aparently he dont realize that people want fun, and for new people, being forced to play 150-200 games while getting your butt handed to you every match, IS NOT FUN. And yes, it will run people off, and there will be no MC purchase. You want people to have fun and stick around so they do buy MC and mechs, etc. I definately do not want them to be handed everything to them on a silver platter but you have to make it easier to get stuff. Common sense isnt common. Its a rule I live by.

[Deathlike]

Hotthedd, on 14 August 2013 - 05:55 PM, said:

But if I read your post correctly, it seems that you are spending your C-bills recklessly, wanting to but every variant as soon as possible. Maybe you could save some C-bills?

Nope... if anything, I preplan stuff with Smurfy's mechlab, with lots of extra C-bills just in case I don't like what I built.

Edited by Deathlike, 14 August 2013 - 09:11 PM.

[Duncan Longwood]

Don't hate on mech collectors, we end up paying for alot of mechbays.

I do feel entitled to increased rewards ever since I started paying for premium time to take the grind away.

The cbill nerf is bad all the way around. Even if they want to make everyone spend MC on mechs, you still have to buy engines, upgrades, and modules with cbills, thus increasing the time between MC purchases. The more mechs you have the easier it becomes to justify purchasing paints and whatnot by spreading the fixed cost of the color across numerous mechs you own (economy of scale). So it is now slower to purchase mechs and mechbays as well as being slower to customize each mechs' cockpit and camo.

They are stifling their own cash flow with this, which worries me as much, if not more, than my imaginary cbill earnings. It seems to be in PGI's financial interest to have as many people constantly excited to buy the latest mechs rather than the alternative of buying just a few at a slow, grinding pace. I have to assume that nobody at PGI took Microeconomics in college, cause this is some basic stuff. Needless to say, my indifference curve is showing decreased utility from MWO.

PGI is not only hurting their current cashflow, but also damaging consumer goodwill with the cbill nerf. It takes alot of that goodwill to have me repeatedly spend $50 on this game over the months like I have. It will take something special from PGI to build that goodwill back up for another transaction from me. I know I will not be paying for premium time again until it takes the grind back out of the game, even then I won't be getting another 6 month block of time because of this nerf. This also means I won't be buying mechbays because I can't earn the cbills to fill them, even with premium time.

From what I gather reading between the lines, since there is no official word from the DEVS, is that PGI doesn't want me as a customer anymore. I used to pay them for the fun I was having, but this isn't fun for me now so I will stop paying. If this doesn't change by the time I'm done mastering my current mechs, I will stop playing. No metagame, No rewards, No fun.

Edited by Duncan Longwood, 14 August 2013 - 10:58 PM.

[Deathlike]

I posted some more pics in a related thread:
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__2656498

It still benefits the players that stay alive and long enough to shot virtually every mech... which is so not newbie friendly.

[GODzillaGSPB]

Hotthedd, on 14 August 2013 - 04:14 PM, said:

What if they did not realize they had been overpaying us until recently?

The simple fact is that cadets still get their bonus, and those of us who have been playing for a long time *should* have plenty of C-bills by now, unless we have been spending everything we make on the newest shiniest toys. In real life, we would call these people "spoiled" or "entitled".

What about those who did not have the time to play that often? I have a feeling that all those in favor of the cbill nerf are sitting on a buckload of millions...

[ZedekiahCromwell]

Hotthedd, on 14 August 2013 - 08:40 PM, said:

Hi new player. Welcome to MW:O. This game has a steep learning curve, sorry there is no tutorial, but since you are learning the hard way, congratulations on your new Victor.

Now, it is going to take you a while to master your mech, and it will take plenty of C-bills to customize it just right. You are lucky. Many of us were new players when we had to pay to repair and re-arm our own mechs. We could actually LOSE money after a match. It added a level of immersion, but there were plenty of entitled whiners, so that got removed. NOW you are guaranteed to earn C-bills no matter what.

You say it might take 150 or even 200 matches just to buy all the neat-o stuff that people who have been playing for months have? This is true, but after 200 matches you know what you will be? An inexperienced player.

If you were looking to play this game for free and still have all the best toys within a week, you may have chosen the wrong game. But if you were looking for a game that gives you the satisfaction of having earned your cool toys, then you will feel great after you have worked to get all the great upgrades.

If you want to reduce the grind, that is fine, too. They have MC which can be purchased for money. This money allows the game to continue to exist. Some of it even trickles down to the coders and artists and programmers, allowing them to feed their children. Isn't that great?

You see, you are a welcome addition to the game, but you are not a special snowflake who is entitled to anything from this free to play game.

Hotthedd, on 14 August 2013 - 08:40 PM, said:

Hi new player. Welcome to MW:O. This game has a steep learning curve, sorry there is no tutorial, but since you are learning the hard way, congratulations on your new Victor.

Now, it is going to take you a while to master your mech, and it will take plenty of C-bills to customize it just right. You are lucky. Many of us were new players when we had to pay to repair and re-arm our own mechs. We could actually LOSE money after a match. It added a level of immersion, but there were plenty of entitled whiners, so that got removed. NOW you are guaranteed to earn C-bills no matter what.

You say it might take 150 or even 200 matches just to buy all the neat-o stuff that people who have been playing for months have? This is true, but after 200 matches you know what you will be? An inexperienced player.

If you were looking to play this game for free and still have all the best toys within a week, you may have chosen the wrong game. But if you were looking for a game that gives you the satisfaction of having earned your cool toys, then you will feel great after you have worked to get all the great upgrades.

If you want to reduce the grind, that is fine, too. They have MC which can be purchased for money. This money allows the game to continue to exist. Some of it even trickles down to the coders and artists and programmers, allowing them to feed their children. Isn't that great?

You see, you are a welcome addition to the game, but you are not a special snowflake who is entitled to anything from this free to play game.

And there goes your new player, who is not willing to be stomped on in a mech that he may or may not end up actually wanting for 30 hours. They will most certainly leave for a game like LoL, where at the very least they will be able to have tried out at the very least 30 different champions in the same amount of time between the IP earned and the free champions offered. This equates to about 1/5th of the champions, and more than enough for them to have access to competitive options in any role.

If you seriously expect a player to devote 200 games to getting to a point where they can even compete, you're completely disconnected from the reality of the world. PGI loses the average account in 9 hours. If you expect new players (who can certainly do the math of how long it takes to grind to an even 2 chassis garage) to play 191 more hours than that feeling like they're getting punched in the face (a loss with no kills and low damage can result in 30,00 cbills).
That 200 games is wins, not even all games. New players already have a horrible time getting into the game. PGI did not need to make it worse.

[DemonRaziel]

Hotthedd, on 14 August 2013 - 08:40 PM, said:

Words to "a new player"...

You see, you are a welcome addition to the game, but you are not a special snowflake who is entitled to anything from this free to play game.

And let me just add, dear newbie, that if you find out that Victor is not really a 'Mech for you and would like to go with a different 'Mech, maybe a Jenner, it's only about 200 more games to get the 3 variants of Jenners and 2 XL engines to swap between them. That means you are stuck in the Victor for a few weaks at least, before you grind the necessary amount.

And since you didn't like the Victors, you have probably sold them so you have room in your 'Mech bays still. Well that's cool, at least, since now you don't really need to spend any MC to expand your 'Mech bays

[Alex Wolfe]

Games are entertainment, not neccessity. There are many alternatives if you don't enjoy a game. If a game isn't fun, there's no pressure to persevere/pay, you can just uninstall and move on.

You can't force players to pay by making their unpaid experience unpleasant. You have to make the core game fun and enticing, and the paid experience even more attractive. Instead free players have to go through torture to even have a shot at playing the bare-bones game, maybe, somewhere down the line if they persevere? Not happening, and we've been saying that since R&R got introduced (and, luckily for all involved, removed).

Less C-bills per match for everyone, even worse new player experience (didn't think it was possible, trials that overheat in 3 salvos then cool down for 90 seconds not punishment enough for picking up the game?), premium time for veterans and loyal fanbase devalued.

I'm sure this was all well-thought out, and in no way can backfire horribly.

Edited by Alex Wolfe, 15 August 2013 - 02:37 AM.

[Takony]

Wow, a CBILL thread with PGI presence/communication.
Much appreciated. But PGI could have avoided all the forum insurrection entirely.

After their morning coffee, they could have like, done a thought experiment in seconds, like this:

"- Ok, so 12v12. Do we need to adjust nerf the hell out of the cbill income?
Because ermarhgerd 4 more mechs to give them dirty rich ******** assist/kill moneyz!!!111
- But Chief, them 12v12 matches last longer!
- ORLY?
- YARLY.
- Ok but then what dey gon do with them cbill? We have no cbill sinks you know, DHS+Endo automatic + 2.500.000 cbills on each mech x 3 because our brilliant grindy 3 variant system jsut doesn't cut it!
- Chief, they spend it on new mechs, no matter how terribad the scaling and the hitboxes, you know, just to "try" them or something. Just a wild guess, I'm not playing or anything, you know what I'm sayin'.
- But how the no-lifer freeloaders buying new mechs for cbillz makes us more $$$$$$?
- Dunno maybe if they have enough cbills and we actually give them more content fast enough, they buy mechbays, and camos, and all that fluffy stuff? If by pure chance we nail the scale/hitboxes, they might buy the ridiculously overpriced hero versions as well?
-Nah whales do that already, they sit on hundreds of million cbills too!
-Ya Chief, but then casuals could be turned to paying customers as well? You know, 3PV for broader target audience is cool, but the old farts haz the phat walletz yeah?
-Yea okay, but what if they just swallow it like the sheep they are?
-Chief, this is the interwebz!!!
-Uh-oh, you are right. So what we gon do?
-Umm, nothing?
-You are a geeeenius, let's NOT nerf cbills, LIKE A BOSS."

Sorry for the crap above, but really...

/venting anger on being totally demotivated to play (not to mention to buy MC like, ever?): done.

Edited by Takony, 15 August 2013 - 02:39 AM.