1105 replies to this topic

[Deathlike]

PGI is literally trying to make a deal with "the devil" known as greed.

As a company, making money is important. I don't think anyone disagrees with that. People here already invested with this game are more than willing to pay money for a good continually running product. However, when there are decisions to "cut costs" (not making separate queues for instance), "cut quality" (Kintaro hitboxes being #1 on the list), and "trying to make the quick buck" will slowly "eat" at the soul PGI perhaps had once upon a time.

If PGI wishes to continue down the path that "gives the immediate rewards", then that path is short... and shortcuts to executing something great will let more people down... not just the consumers, but PGI itself.

To the "white knights", ask yourself this: Compared to all the other "differences of opinion" or "arguments" to other notable "dustups" like ECM and coolant... the action of what PGI did (regardless of how you feel about 3PV) is unacceptable under most circumstances. The reason people care and speak up is because they don't want this game to fail, but they also cannot just watch PGI go into a direction that provides minimal benefits to everyone.

For a classic reference of how most reasonable forumers are "negatively" posting.. see this:
http://en.wikipedia....t_they_came_...

When you want a change, you have to be vocal. It is a necessary fundamental right to speak up, and within reason state your case. It is unacceptable how some have gone to extremes (although, I'm starting to wonder if it's just trying to get sympathy, when such an issue can be a completely separate announcement altogether). Most of the "vocal minority" have taken part in the process to provide feedback.. similar to those assisting a campaign for an election. It's not pretty, and I don't think everyone is trying to become "a complete arse" (some people are, but the majority is not). The thing is, people want to be heard, and although they will never perfectly get their way, but they will accept people taking responsibility for their actions. They will accept people who genuinely apologize and allow them to demonstrate that they say what they mean.

The fact is, this is not what PGI is doing. You may feel free to disagree, but it's not as if these people wanted to come to this. The whole "you are on an island" joke is a more serious issue than you realize. It used to be months ago where seeing people "ragequit openly" was an openly mocked ridicule shared by the "vocal minority". Now, it's not even fun to make of them... their opinion about this game suddenly is the same as the rest of the "vocal minority" and that's a more telling sign than anything you can imagine. If the "vocal minority" was "just that", then we would probably side with the "white knights"... but those days are long over, and it is becoming difficult to watch a great franchise to just go in a direction that isn't producing "the fun" that many players, including Founders used to have. We're in the same boat that effectively is most resembling open beta... with just one new mode, and many more maps.. more mechs... yet no CW. The gameplay has nearly reached the definition of insanity.. doing the same expecting a different outcome.... and yet there is nothing built in game to help the people we're trying to keep... the new player. Why is the focus not on a tutorial? Why is it so important to get "other features" implemented that doesn't necessarily increase the new player count?

You want to know what that island is starting to look like? It's starting to look like the size of "land from down under".... and its dissent will grow w/o much effort from the "vocal minority". People are more than willing to help PGI out however necessary.. but it is truly up to PGI to find ways to utilize the player base and seriously take feedback that has been given. That's all the "vocal minority" has been asking. The fact is... this isn't a beta by "feedback receiving standards"... only a dictation of "what PGI believes is good for the game, to the detriment of the core players".

There simply will be nothing of note to celebrate on September 17.... unless things dramatically change for the better... it will be a wasteland of casual gamers that will drop this game because "it's too grindy, too hard, and difficult to master". I can't say I would disagree to the state of MWO. Only PGI can change its own future.

[Ransack]

Quote

[color=#CCCCCC]If players so wish, they can even increase C-Bill earnings substantially by exiting matches if they are destroyed early, and jumping into a new one.[/color]

uh, what? First you make assists worth more than kills. Then you make it so that you do not get all of your rewards if you leave the match early. That was done to discourage suicide farming, correct?

Why are you telling people that suicide farming is okay now?

[Shiro Matsumoto]

This was. as bit of a letdown... are the people passionate enough to post here so unimportant?
It seems so. Shut up, vocal minority, you are just a few among the masses. And we dont need your feedback, as you are not representarive.

Informationweise.. this was thin. Whats the next mech? Next Map?
When we can hope to see the new ui2.0 build on test? What will be in the "release"?


Finally: Nice you make a launch party. Whst about is who live on other places of earth? We get plastered with "oooh we make as launch party, and you cant be there" - posts. Whats in for all the "normal" players who cant attend in flesh?

[Name140704]

HellJumper, on 28 August 2013 - 12:51 AM, said:

26 pages of heavy criticism and you dont have the guts to even clarify the people here.. good job devs..


this clearly shows that you are not at all bothered about what your community says... great work

and then you expect people not to go verbally abusive on the PGI team...epic...

I try to think of it as being a kid's first car. Sure they use you up, wreck you, etc., but...oh...not a good analogy for positive ending.

[nitra]

Viktor Drake, on 28 August 2013 - 12:58 AM, said:

Is he kidding us? I mean he just got the first build of UI 2.0 this week? Shouldn't they be very close to their final itteration by now, not just the first build? Also what does he mean by preview? It is functional or not? This is not sounding like it is going to be in at launch either.

we actually have a dev technical post regarding the u.i. its in regards to the hud crashing that plauqed the game for 3 months
http://mwomercs.com/...-hud-bug-brief/

so the ui seems to be challenging ( i find it difficult to understand why, you would think ui stuff would be the easier batch of all the things they have to do)

Edited by nitra, 28 August 2013 - 01:19 AM.

[HellJumper]

NARCoMAN, on 28 August 2013 - 01:09 AM, said:

I try to think of it as being a kid's first car. Sure they use you up, wreck you, etc., but...oh...not a good analogy for positive ending.

and a happy ending cannot happen because of it being a "kids first car"

[Corvus Antaka]

I really liked this Update, it was well thought out and covered a lot of questions we have had about when we finally get to see CW & ui 2.0

oh yes, the terrible white knight is here.

Looking forward to a very fun winter of mechwarrior too

Edited by Colonel Pada Vinson, 28 August 2013 - 01:14 AM.

[627]

3rdworld, on 27 August 2013 - 02:25 PM, said:

Just FYI.

Using Bryans numbers, the victor I just bought cost 15mil (reusing engines and several other components).

The average player would need to play:

189.7 matches
26.55 hours

And just fyi:

have you ever bought a weapon in planetside 2? These are normally 1000 certs and that's a hell of a grind without premium or double XP boosters.

Problem with that is only that those new shiny toys cost 7 dollars. Those Vics cost what, 15 dollars each?

[Wieland]

Garth Erlam, on 27 August 2013 - 03:38 PM, said:

[color=cyan]I think I can help here - many players simply didn't know you could do this (or more specifically, 8 mins average a round, doesn't mean every match will be 8 minutes for all players. So if you DO die, you CAN leave a match before it's ended. But no worries, we have checks for C-Bill farming )[/color]

Nice, everytime an official talks about this it is different.
Last time it was said that you have to wait till the round ends to get the full reward.

[Volt Corsair]

Wired, on 28 August 2013 - 12:09 AM, said:

First, a clarification of your overuse of this being "just a video game". This is "just" a forum on the internet, so if those of us who have a problem with "just a video game" are ruffling your jimmies that much that you have to reply on here to put those people down....

If you're trying to make a counter-argument, try to not contradict yourself with blatant ad hominem. >.>

[Lyrik]

Sometimes I'm ashamed that I'm a Gamer and BT Fan
Policy

That last piece of housekeeping is less enjoyable to discuss but I feel the need to remind all of our members to respect both your fellow players and the staff at IGP and PGI. We have seen an alarming number of verbal, and written threats directed at staff. These threats, whether idle or simple jokes will be treated as real, with local authorities being notified. There is no situation on earth that warrants these attacks, so I kindly remind you to think twice before posting anything that might be viewed in this light. Behind each of the names you see on the forums or Facebook or Twitter, are real people. Please keep that in mind - we do!


If you don't like the game... uninstall it.

I'm really excited for septembre . Finally UI 2.0 and CW. FINALLY !!!
CW means that our hours spend of playing a videogames got a meaning... oh wait :-P

[Tragos]

Yeah...and have you every played World of Tanks or War thunder? You are BURIED in new stuff in the first few hours. What do you get here? 1 unfinished mech after 25 matches. According to their average time, that means 3.5hours - or 2 hours if you suicide farm.

Just tried a new account myself to see how it was working - and after those matches I was able to buy a dragon and upgrade it slightly. Far from the engine of cause. So...now I have 2 options: Trial Mechs or an unfinished Dragon. Most of the trial mechs suck.

You seriously expect players to stay on this grounds? In War Thunder I had a range of ~21! planes at that time. Granted, a few were similar, but the first "Iconic ones" were there.

Well, at least Star Citizen is beginning to shine and I don't have to waste more money on MWO.

Edited by Tragos, 28 August 2013 - 01:34 AM.

[Takony]

InnerSphereNews, on 27 August 2013 - 01:17 PM, said:

Economics

As for the economics, we’ve heard some talk about the reduction in C-Bill rewards. As previous replies to the community in the latest ATD have stated, we needed to rein in some of the rewards a bit as they had grown beyond our original thresholds by about 16%. This is normal and common as a game evolves and players become more efficient. The addition of 12v12 also required a tuning pass to lower the earning by around 13% to account for an additional 8 players on the battlefield. The future vision for CB and XP rewards includes a more granular, role based approach currently in design and development. These expanded earnings will reward players directly for performing specific roles, allowing them to distinguish themselves.

Some economic math from our telemetry data:

• Average match time is 8.4 minutes.
  
• Average CB/match is 79,069.
  
• Average CB/hour is 564,778 if you only have 1 BattleMech to use.
  
• New players can earn 7,981,686 in cadet bonuses during their first 3.5 hours in addition to between 1-3 million in regular game earnings.

[color=#CCCCCC]Bryan Ekman[/color]
[color=#CCCCCC]

[/color]

Okay, so PGI is sticking to its "19-20 hours to get a top level avatar" myth.

Let us go deeper:

With the above average number, it takes roughly 19-20 hours to get around 10-11.3M Cbills. It is in itself too grindy in my humble opinion, but let's see why is it completely off the mark.

You can buy an assault mech with this. Or can you?
Let me rephrase it: you can buy 1 variant of an assault mech chassis with it.

You still need 2 more variants of that chassis, that's another 38-40 hours.

And you need at the very least double heatsinks for that 3 variant: 2.5M cbills * 3 = 7.5M Cbills, which is, using the above average number, around 13-14 hours. Want endo steel? Another 750k to around 1M per variant, lets count this as 1.5 hours per variant.

So in case you want to master an assault mech chassis ("top tier avatar" lol in case of Awesome), you are looking at 38-40 + 13-14 for Double Heat Sink tax + 4.5-6 hours of grinding, in total: 55,5 hours to 60 hours with DHS+Endo.
And there is more of course: XL engines, 10+ hours grind for one(!), Ferro-fibrous for lights, Artemis, and weapons.

So for a "top tier avatar" that actually WORKS and is not a death trap like stock mechs, i.e elites skills unlocked, basics at x2, and upgraded, with meta-conform weapons, you are looking at a minimum of 2 and a half DAY of playing MWO.
Well, in 7 months, my TOTAL played time is around 13-15 DAYS iirc.

PGI, I invite you to play your own game. You deserve the suffering.

And don't forget, that this cbill nerf pissed of premium players as well, since the nerf greatly devalued premium bonuses.
The +50% bonus, which meant 230-280k matches when someone played good, plummeted to 225k with absolute stellar player performance. I'm sure not going to pay for premium this way, wonder what the other guys think.

Please try harder at balancing the economy.
Will check back on Sept. 3.

Good luck. You will need it.

PS: "some talk" way to call the outcry on the forums lol, get a PR guy already...

[Tragos]

One might think, they would want their "core" player base to provide POSITIVE feedback around launch. I can't remember any moment since closed beta, when those forums were that negative. As a new player I would be at least worried after taking one look.

Edited by Tragos, 28 August 2013 - 01:39 AM.

[Corvus Antaka]

Tragos, on 28 August 2013 - 01:24 AM, said:

Yeah...and have you every played World of Tanks or War thunder? You are BURIED in new stuff in the first few hours. What do you get here? 1 unfinished mech after 25 matches. According to their average time, that means 3.5hours - or 2 hours if you suicide farm.

Just tried a new account myself to see how it was working - and after those matches I was able to buy a dragon and upgrade it slightly. Far from the engine of cause. So...now I have 2 options: Trial Mechs or an unfinished Dragon. Most of the trial mechs suck.

You seriously expect players to stay on this grounds? In War Thunder I had a range of ~21! planes at that time. Granted, a few were similar, but the first "Iconic ones" were there.

Well, at least Star Citizen is beginning to shine and I don't have to waste more money on MWO.

How does war thunder make money if they give you all those planes for free?

[StandingCow]

*sigh*

Any remaining hope is quickly diminishing...

[Sean von Steinike]

Tragos, on 28 August 2013 - 01:39 AM, said:

One might think, they would want their "core" player base to provide POSITIVE feedback around launch. I can't remember any moment since closed beta, when those forums were that negative. As a new player I would be at least worried after taking one look.

The new "core base" is the 3rdpv fan crowd that don't understand torso twist.

[Gixx]

A few things (some already mentioned):

We can, as previously mentioned, take from the first paragraph that basically anyone who paid for a founder's package is NOT their target demographic. Hilarious and sad all at the same time.

Also, the key features everyone's been dying to get their hands on are still 'in development' while 'more important issues' like the highly unpopular 3PV, C-Bill nerf, and 12 v 12 combat are rushed in for us to 'test'. This is backwards. Everything you've released could have waited until after launch, with the possible exception of 3PV.

If community warfare is a 'pillar' of this game it should have been in before launch. Instead your telling us we will get information about it at launch? Information?! That's absurd.

I halfway suspect the reason this particular feature has taken so long is because they realized it's way harder than they initially estimated it to be. I can think of no other reason why so many items were pushed first. Why there are still next to zero details about what CW would entail. How and when it'll be implemented. They simply have no idea because they have no ideas. (See the first link below)

InnerSphereNews, on 27 August 2013 - 01:17 PM, said:

If players so wish, they can even increase C-Bill earnings substantially by exiting matches if they are destroyed early, and jumping into a new one.

This sounds like you are openly endorsing suicide as a means of generating income. After all, for your 'advice' to be effective, one would have to die early and often.

InnerSphereNews, on 27 August 2013 - 01:17 PM, said:

There are vocal minorities and silent majorities on all subjects and we always have to balance between these groups. We have found that analytics and player profiling has helped us identify the needs of most demographics and while it may seem that we either a) don’t listen or [b )] are making choices that go against the “players” opinion, this is simply not the case.

So, basically, you've invited a friend over to your apartment to chill, but when he asks you to turn the music down you decide to turn it up instead. Because you're fairly sure the girls downstairs are having a party. And you can't have a party without music.

I haven't heard one peep from this 'silent majority' you keep talking about. Oh wait, that's right. They're silent. That makes it all better.

You can make guesstimations all you want. Or you can listen to the people screaming in your face. Your choice, I guess.

InnerSphereNews, on 27 August 2013 - 01:17 PM, said:

A lot of player feedback drove the design of UI 2.0, and we view it as a great success in communication and community involvement in the design process.

Look! They've already declared UI 2.0 a success! No need to provide feedback once it's released guys.

Why don't you let us tell you whether or not something is a success. That is, when you get around to releasing it. That is why you have us beta testing your game, is it not?

Seriously though, just tell me one thing: Will I be able to HOLD backspace to delete messages in the game's chat? Because that would be...what every other program made after 1995 already does.

InnerSphereNews, on 27 August 2013 - 01:17 PM, said:

We had an excellent response to our event invites and I think we’ll see some really competitive teams going for the win.

Wait, so event invites have already been sent? So those of us who've been waiting to hear from you are SOL? You could have let those of us you decided to not invite know as well, for the record. I guess I'll go cancel those reservations now. Thanks.

Next: Some Links! :
An earlier poster attempted to link this paper: http://citeseerx.ist...p=rep1&type=pdf

Also, everyone should read this article: http://loadeddicecas...ior-online.html

EDIT: Also: http://www.uniteanddrop.com/

P.S. If one week is an example of good retention ... I ... I feel very sorry for you.

Edited by Gixx, 28 August 2013 - 01:51 AM.

[Ransack]

Ramblin, on 27 August 2013 - 02:43 PM, said:

[/color]

Im actually quite disappointed to find out, after ive already dumped a couple hundred bucks on this game, that im NOT their target demographic.... I have never spent that much on/for a game. I have never spent half that on a game and then been told I wasnt really the guy they where looking for...

ouch

This rings very true for me as well. It's good to know that they want no more of my money though.

[Tragos]

So they (=the new core demographic aka 3pv crowd) provide any positive "buzz"?

Edited by Tragos, 28 August 2013 - 01:47 AM.