26 replies to this topic

[AndyHill]

I think that double C-Bills would be more useful than XP and encourage you to own a huge collection of 'mechs with their associated mech bays. You can open the basic skills for a 'mech in one night and mastering won't take many more so the XP boost is a bit meh by itself.

What do you think? If you could pick just one, would you rather have x-tra xp or CB?

[CDLord HHGD]

XP is far more valuable than C-Bills.....

[Bhael Fire]

BOTH!

But if I had to pick one, it would be XP.

Seems like C-BIlls are becoming more scarce, especially now with the new c-bill reward nerf after matches.
So, if I had to pick one, I'd say give me the cash.

Edited by Bhael Fire, 06 August 2013 - 05:09 PM.

[Black Templar]

needs both.

[Corvus Antaka]

totally cbills. esp with the cbill cut we took.

[AndyHill]

Calculations:

To master a 'mech takes 57250 XP. I make about 860 XP per game so that's 57250/860 = 66,5 games to master (case 1). However, after the beginning stages of the game it only takes basic skills for two variants if you want to master one variant of a 'mech type. This produces a comparison number of (57520 + 14250 + 14250) / 3 = 28673 as an average number of XP per 'mech, which amounts to 33 matches per 'mech to master one variant (case 2).

During 66,5 games I make about 161514 * 66,5 = 10751949 C-bills (case 1). For 33 games per chassis I get 5329962 C-bills (case 2).

Quickly browsing the contents of my 'mechbay, the cheapest one I found was 7M+ and the most expensive about 15M, without modules. Add a few seismics and sensors and that number goes up dramatically, but of course, so does the (G)XP requirement. These numbers seem to indicate that C-bills is the more valuable resource.

More importantly, however, it takes me about one night to open the basic skills on a 'mech, meaning that I only ever get the double bonus once on two variants and perhaps two to four nights per the mastered variant, depending on how much I play. After that the bonus becomes meaningless. I also don't gather XP on more than one chassis at a time - in part that's a personal preference (in WoT I had a few tanks to grind at any given time) but also because they are expensive.

Thus the XP bonus is largely wasted for me and doesn't entice me to get a lot of 'mechs or take many of them out for a spin on any given day. Double C-bills would make for a much more enticing reason to get a lot of 'mechs and take them all out for a ride daily.

That's my view on the subject, your mileage may vary.

Edit: forgot to mention the resale value of the two unnecessary variants, which has some effect on the numbers. However, the resale value is fairly small compared to the price of a fully equipped 'mech - but you can save the weapons and engines, which makes it cheaper to equip the next ones you buy. It's not simple to include the resale value in the calculations, but my estimate is that even after selling the unnecessary variants after opening the basics with them you end up with less than the about 10M+ average price of a 'mech in my garage.

Edited by AndyHill, 06 August 2013 - 01:54 PM.

[Astral Esper]

C-Bills definitely. The new 12v12 C-Bill nerf is dreadful. I honestly could care less about 2x XP. Doesn't entice me whatsoever.

[Boyinleaves]

Do not need extra XP. I have 30 'Mechs already, and most of them are fully Elite, if not Mastered. The time it took to get them all to this state was negligible, and doesn't need to be increased. If anything, I would suggest making leveling skills take longer, actually have some hard choices available, and make skills a continual XP sink if players want to change their selection (e.g. like Hawken does, or World of Warcraft even).

In comparison, I am always short on C-Bills, and would gladly use them on consumables if I got a bonus. Given the new nerf on C-Bill rewards, they will be scarcer for me now.

I already own all but one or two of the Hero 'Mechs, so I have no reason to really invest more money into the game at the moment, but I would probably purchase components with MC if it was an option, since the C-Bill grind, even with Hero 'Mechs and Premium Time is already quite unpleasant for someone of my disposition who wants to collect absolutely everything and try everything out.

If a 2X C-Bill bonus was offered, I would play every mech I own every day, even my Raven 2X and 4X.

Edited by Boyinleaves, 06 August 2013 - 06:35 PM.

[BillHones]

voted yes, but BOTH! WoT does lots right. do those, and dont do the bad

[ShotgunWillie]

How about, and maybe this is crazy, but how about a CBill boost for any Mech that you have Master on and a XP bonus for the rest?

[Bront]

I'd love it to be both. XP is nice, but is a dead end unless you convert. You can almost always use cbills (though it too is eventually a dead end).

I'd rather they unnerf cbill earning in the first place.

THat said, the XP Boost is a noobie boost, which should make it easier on them (get basics faster, be more competitive).

Edited by Bront, 07 August 2013 - 12:01 PM.

[AgroAlba]

I prefer XP. Gives me incentive to level up the mechs I don't spend as much time in. Double C-Bills wouldn't make me get into the mechs I get in least. It'd just make me gravitate more towards the heavy hitters and the mechs I'm better at. I bet you the idea behind double XP is to get greater build diversity into the world.

[Lunatic_Asylum]

Where is the third option? Removing any double rewards should be the best move for the company.

[Borengar629]

As it is now with the 2*XP it feels (!) to me like I do get to much XP to fast so I have to grind for money to give me something to level at all.
On the other hand before the 2*XP I didn't miss it, or even thought about something like a dayly bonus at all.
So why not simply remove it again and balance XP- and C-bill-gain without any bonuses beside mech-bonus and premium-bonus?
I know that I'm provocing a shitstrom here but I seriously think the game (!) would be better off without any bonus of that sort.

[Alex Warden]

i know people with 50+mechs in their bay... just saying. if they´d restrict it to, say 5 mechs per day, okay, give us double CB

Bront, on 07 August 2013 - 11:58 AM, said:

THat said, the XP Boost is a noobie boost, which should make it easier on them (get basics faster, be more competitive).

+ this

Edited by Alex Warden, 08 August 2013 - 02:55 AM.

[Borengar629]

Alex Warden, on 08 August 2013 - 02:52 AM, said:

i know people with 50+mechs in their bay... just saying. if they´d restrict it to, say 5 mechs per day, okay, give us double CB

This has really nothing to do with how many mechs one has. The question at hand is if the or any bonus harms the balance within the leveling process.

Before the bonus you leveled a mech till you had enough XP to master it and automatically had enough c-bills to buy and at least partially rearm the next one.

As it is now you gain XP to fast and "feel stuck" when it is leveled out because you still gotta grind to buy the next one.
So now the question that matters is if it would be a good idea to counter this with an additional c-bill bonus. That would basically only speed up the whole process. A process that was fine before the XP-bonus. If you would replace the XP-bonus with a C-Bill-bonus you would only lessen the value of c-bills a lot in my opinion.

But if you would simply remove the XP-bonus and admit it was a bad idea to begin with we would be were we started... with a balance between c-bills and xp that was proven to work just fine.

I cannot remember much threads that proposed the introduction of xp- or c-bill-bonuses before we got it. So I think this is proff enough that we -as one of the whiniest communities that I ever encountered- didn't need it.

But like I said. Maybe I'm completly wrong there and we need more and more of free stuff...

[Emetivore]

XP is 100% worthless after you've piloted a particular mech for a few hours. Honesly if I could just delete my XP for all these mechs I would. Giving me 2x of a resource that has absolutely no value is not a bonus.

[Hellcat420]

ya cbills would be nice. i have no use for any more xp. already have a ton of useless xp sittin on my mechs.

[Kronos907]

ShotgunWillie, on 07 August 2013 - 08:47 AM, said:

How about, and maybe this is crazy, but how about a CBill boost for any Mech that you have Master on and a XP bonus for the rest?

That's a great idea Shotgun, but sadly I don't believe PGI is interested in giving us more C-Bills, as it is their intent to make the grind so painful that we opt to purchase MC to buy our mechs with, thus further filling their coffers.

[Tennex]

Yes. but they would never do that, they want the grind to be as difficult as possible to promote buying of hero mechs and premium time.