44 replies to this topic

[Tweaks]

UnwantedProblem, on 07 September 2013 - 07:56 PM, said:

Hello,
I don't think giving away mc for free for a win or whatever reason is fair for people who already paid a lot of money to get mc.

I not the best player in the world, but I make 1300 exp per win (average) WITHOUT PREMIUM ACCOUNT. (with looses I make 500 or 600 exp on average... good team->win, or epic fail teams...).

A good way to solve this problem would be decrease the amount of gxp required for modules, the prices are just insane.

And is not pay to win, someone said it above, but Pay to Win is when you can get something that gives you advantages by paying real money, and there are no other means to obtain that something.

Also, hero mechs, I don't see much of them in the battle field, I find cicadas being a very big jenner, but without jumpjets, TDK doesn't have ECM nor jumpjets and only 4 lazor points, so Jenners are far better (even Spider 5D with 3 lazors and ECM is better). The wang, well, that an AC20 centurion, other than that, just trash, the others are better, Golden boy is thrash xD. The Missery is good, very good sniper and Long range support, but, you always have to give away something. Dragons are pretty out of the meta right now, so, no flame, no fang. I like the Firebrand, Energy points on arms, really good sniper, I haven't see much of them tough, The Ilya is good, is different from the other phracts, that doesn't make it better. Pretty baby, it's a f**** awesome, awesome are trash right now... Dragon slayer, well different build from the other victors, doesn't make it better than the other either. Heavy metal, it's the same that the other Highlanders... The protector, I think is the black sheep of the family, well, there are no other orion in game, but, the hard point layout, don't like it...

So, Hero mechs, there are good, bad, and horrible, (and some are just trash). By no means I'm saying that there are variants of the same chassis that can do the same thing that their hero variants, that's because they are different, and they are meant to be built the same way. It's like trying to duel an atlas with a jenner face to face (no hit and run, tank the damage) jenners are not build to do that.

I don't think is pay to win.


(Also, coolant is pretty lame, and very dependent on the situation)

Why do people keep coming back to the Hero 'Mechs when I'm only talking about the consumable modules? That said, I would agree to lower the cost of consumable skill unlocks considerably, or increasing the percentage of GXP received per match. Either way, I was to make it easier for non paying players to get even with paying players in terms of consumable equipment.

Until this is done, in order to get the better modules and consumables, you DO need to pay or it takes several months. For this reason, it is Pay To Win (Now). The fact that it takes more than a month to unlock a single consumable skill even with a premium account (15,000 GXP, 5% of match XP is converted to GXP, do the math...), makes those pay to win. You have to pay to either convert the 'Mech XP to GXP just to get enough GXP to unlock the darn things. Without that, the grind is just long that it nullifies the fact that you can get it without paying. THAT is what makes it pay to win right now.

Forget Hero 'Mechs, they are not a problem. The MC-only Consumables are since you need to unlock extremely expensive skills to get the same effect with the non-MC versions.

Cool Shot 18 is not lame. If you have a 'Mech that often runs hot and that you can't fit more Heat Sinks, it could mean the difference between a kill or a death. It did save me quite a few times. It actually lets me alpha twice in a row without shutting down even when I'm hot in my 6x MLas Jenner.

[Firewuff]

Tweaks .... Seriously your a father and get in 6 games a day and complaing about grind? Dude. try twins, I'm lucky if I get 2 hours a week.

Nothing wrong with the GXP as it is, its slow but then I've got most of the modules before this thing has launched. 10-50 MC is WAY too much given a mech bay cost 300. 1-5 MC per match i could back.

[Tweaks]

Firewuff, on 08 September 2013 - 04:47 PM, said:

...but then I've got most of the modules before this thing has launched

...so you never had to suffer the extreme slow grind. Create a new account and try it you'll see. If you only have 2 hours a week, without premium and come MC to convert 'Mech XP into GXP, you won't be able to unlock a single consumable skill for several months, no matter how good you are. 15,000 GXP is just way too much.

And I never complained about that 6 matches a day. I was just saying I didn't have that much time to play, and I'm fine with that. What I'm complaining about is that I have to pay real cash if I want to get even with paying players, or else I have to wait over a month just to unlock a single consumable skill.

It shouldn't take you more two weeks as a casual player to unlock those. They really need to take example on Planetside 2!

Edited by Tweaks, 08 September 2013 - 05:32 PM.

[Ordellus]

Get over pay to win.

The current generation of bad gamers suck balls at life, so they expect everything to be handed to them if they pay money.
Therefore, pay to win games flourish b/c companies are all too willing to do whatever they need to do in order to get more money.

It's not going anywhere, the losers that need it will never admit that's what it is (nor will they ever stop needing it, b/c skill isn't developed by paying to win), and the game will make some money for a few years until they fade into obscurity as just another crappy pay to win game full of bad players with too much money and not enough intelligence to spend that money wisely.

[Bendak]

Tweaks, on 07 September 2013 - 09:35 AM, said:

15,000 GXP is hardly easy to get, and will take months unless I pay MC to convert 'Mech XP to GXP. So... Pay To Win. The amount of GXP you get per match is way too low or the price of those unlocks is way to high.

I stopped reading here. Sounds like don't pay to QQ. You need to seriously look at what you are saying and then looks at how free to play games work. There has to be incentive to keep playing and leveling in online games. As stated by others... it's pay to avoid the grind(for impatient kids).

[ShotgunWillie]

Where's the poll for this so I can vote "No"?

[Syllogy]

Pro Tip: Convert Mech XP to GXP

Pro Tip #2: Win Tournaments to get Free MC.

[Tweaks]

Bendak, on 10 September 2013 - 07:22 AM, said:

I stopped reading here. Sounds like don't pay to QQ. You need to seriously look at what you are saying and then looks at how free to play games work. There has to be incentive to keep playing and leveling in online games. As stated by others... it's pay to avoid the grind(for impatient kids).

First, I'm not a kid, I'm a 35 years old dad, and my kind consists more than half the player base right now. It's our generation and the ones before it that brought this game to life, and not the kids that started playing it a year ago. Have some respect.

Second, I very much agree that there must be an incentive to keep playing, but that's not the argument here. That incentive has to be balanced so that paying players don't have too much of the advantage, or it is by definition a form a Pay To Win.

Before you state things like this, I dare you to create a new account and try to grind 15,000 GXP without paying for Premium Account and without buying MC to convert 'Mech XP into GXP. Good luck with that! Everybody who's against this suggestion and claim that it should stay like this have either never had to suffer that grind, never tried it, or just bought all their unlocks by converting 'MechXP into GXP without realizing that without this, they would still be grinding.

Seriously, do the math! If you exclude the daily double, in average, good players make no more than what... 800-900 XP per match? (That's before premium account bonuses). That's less than 50 GXP per match, and this is an average, which means most of the time, it will be less. That means you'd have to play over ~3,000 matches just before you get a single one of those consumable skill unlocks. With a Premium Account, cut it down by a lot but it's still a long grind.

I get that PGI wants players to pay for their game or they just wouldn't have any income, but right now there's not much of a choice. With the speed with which you can grind that GXP without paying, it's not just an incentive to pay, it's pretty much an obligation to pay if you want it, unless you're ready to play everyday for hours for more than a month just to get a single unlock. Most players get tired of a game within the first month of playing it unless they can get better at it and advance at a good enough pace. Not many will just enjoy the slow grind when they see most players around them already have more than half their pilot skills unlocked already.

All I'm saying is that they need to either adjust the cost in GXP for non-paying players so they can actually grind for it within a reasonable timeframe, or less, don't call it Free To Play; call it "Free To Grind".

For example, if granting MC for every match is not an option, they could allow conversion of 'MechXP to GXP using CBills (with a reasonable ratio), so that the grind can be lessened for good players that don't wish to pay or can't afford to pay enough to buy everything out right with MC.

Syllogy, on 10 September 2013 - 08:24 AM, said:

Pro Tip: Convert Mech XP to GXP

Pro Tip #2: Win Tournaments to get Free MC.

I'm not a pro, but Tip #1 costs MCs to do by the way, which means I'd need to pay for this. I have done it because it's the only way I could get those unlocks within the month, but I won't be able to pay for all of them. I've already spent more than 30$ this month on MWO in Premium and MC. That's more than any MMORPG's monthly fee out there, and I can't sustain that every month until all the important pilot skills are unlocked.

As for tournaments, I have better things to do, and tournament only apply to a minority of players.

Edited by Tweaks, 10 September 2013 - 09:39 AM.

[Kramdog]

gotta put in my 2 cents here.

I can see the point of how it is semi-pay to win... but it isn't pay to win... it is an advantage available to paying players but there IS that whole grind thing.

Personally I don't plan on buying any of the consumable item upgrades until I have all of the modules that actually DO something... And even then I bought 360 target retention around 2 weeks before Seismic came out (what a waste of GXP gah).

I'm a 35 year old player as well who CAN buy MC but when I do and have it has just been for Mech bays... 4 isn't enough if you want any variety in your games. I think instead of giving MC for wins or for anything it would be much nicer if for every 300 wins or so you got a free mech bay.

I will go through times of being a little bit kamikaze with my lights... or my assaults... or anything in between. Quite often I will overheat and get myself killed by being stupid. That means I get a fair bit of time to watch other players. The number of times my team has gotten a win from somebody dumping heat from cool shot (whatever variant they use) I could count on one hand and I have been playing for around 9 months. Luckily I had around 2 months of getting paid a minimum salary while sitting home and playing this game.

If someone wants to pay money to be able to fire that extra shot or two or get off an extra alpha. Good on them. I think it's a silly idea. Worry about the modules that matter and use builds that don't have the big heat issues. Or if you do have heat issues then use tactics that will save you some problems.

If you have time constraints on how many matches you can play I'd suggest taking advantage of the xp bonus for first win of the day and using a different mech for each one. That way your 1000 xp and 50 GXP turns into 2k xp and 100 GXP per match. Cut your 50 days back to under a month. Sadly I only have 28 mech bays right now with 14 or so mastered mechs. I know I have no life though

[Tweaks]

Ok, so to the nay-sayers in this thread. I challenge you:

1. Create a new Pilot
2. Don't buy any Premium Time
3. Don't buy any MC
4. Play until you have at least 15,000 GXP
5. Come back in this thread and tell us how long it took you and if you still believe it's okay like this.

If you still do, and you still think that those GXP unlocks are just as available to non-Premium time players as they are to Premium time players, then I'll forever shut up about it.

Edited by Tweaks, 13 September 2013 - 09:49 AM.

[focuspark]

Firewuff, on 08 September 2013 - 04:47 PM, said:

Tweaks .... Seriously your a father and get in 6 games a day and complaing about grind? Dude. try twins, I'm lucky if I get 2 hours a week.

Nothing wrong with the GXP as it is, its slow but then I've got most of the modules before this thing has launched. 10-50 MC is WAY too much given a mech bay cost 300. 1-5 MC per match i could back.

F-it, I have two kids (not twins) and I get about the same amount of play time. Tweaks has nothing to complain about.

As for the original concept: NO. PG needs to make money and MC is how they make money. If they give that away for free, they will make less money which could jeopardize the survivability of the game.

Tweaks, on 13 September 2013 - 09:48 AM, said:

Ok, so to the nay-sayers in this thread. I challenge you:

1. Create a new Pilot
2. Don't buy any Premium Time
3. Don't buy any MC
4. Play until you have at least 15,000 GXP
5. Come back in this thread and tell us how long it took you and if you still believe it's okay like this.

If you still do, and you still think that those GXP unlocks are just as available to non-Premium time players as they are to Premium time players, then I'll forever shut up about it.

Dude that's the point. You can play for free, but it should just suck enough to get your to cough up some cash. Remove the inecentive and the money stops coming in. Right now, it's just about annoying enough any less and we'll all see MWO being sold for parts to EA in a year - then you'll really be bitching.

[Tweaks]

focuspark, on 13 September 2013 - 02:51 PM, said:

Dude that's the point. You can play for free, but it should just suck enough to get your to cough up some cash. Remove the inecentive and the money stops coming in. Right now, it's just about annoying enough any less and we'll all see MWO being sold for parts to EA in a year - then you'll really be bitching.

I never said to remove the incentive, I just said to tone it down a little and make it more reasonable than what it is now. Right now you pretty much have to pay a premium account just to get somewhat even, unless you really have no life and don't mind waiting more than a full month just to unlock a single 15,000 GXP skill, while you could unlock several of them within the same time frame with a premium account.

What I'm saying is that the gap between the GXP grind when using a premium account and a non-premium account is just too great right now and could be adjusted without completely removing the incentive for players to buy premium or MC.

For example, if a normal player could get 15,000 GXP within two weeks without a premium account, I think that would be more reasonable. Basically cut the grind time in half. The same players that currently don't mind to pay premium or buy MC to exchange 'Mech XP into GXP would still do so if they want the skill within a day or two, which they will want. Point is, nobody likes to wait that long. All they have to do is to make the free GXP grind long enough (while still being reasonable) for players to want to pay a premium account, but not so long that they pretty much have to.

Edited by Tweaks, 13 September 2013 - 04:05 PM.

[focuspark]

Tweaks, on 13 September 2013 - 04:01 PM, said:

I never said to remove the incentive, I just said to tone it down a little and make it more reasonable than what it is now. Right now you pretty much have to pay a premium account just to get somewhat even, unless you really have no life and don't mind waiting more than a full month just to unlock a single 15,000 GXP skill, while you could unlock several of them within the same time frame with a premium account.

What I'm saying is that the gap between the GXP grind when using a premium account and a non-premium account is just too great right now and could be adjusted without completely removing the incentive for players to buy premium or MC.

For example, if a normal player could get 15,000 GXP within two weeks without a premium account, I think that would be more reasonable. Basically cut the grind time in half. The same players that currently don't mind to pay premium or buy MC to exchange 'Mech XP into GXP would still do so if they want the skill within a day or two, which they will want. Point is, nobody likes to wait that long. All they have to do is to make the free GXP grind long enough (while still being reasonable) for players to want to pay a premium account, but not so long that they pretty much have to.

Exactly. If you have no life (and no job) you're free to grind until you're blue in the face. If however you have a job and a semblance of a life, it's best to pony up a few bucks, support the service, and get something to save yourself the grind.

[Firewuff]

The grind on gxp is slow. I get about 1k to 3k per week, no prem time no hero mech. Its the end game and it also is not something that makes a critical difference. Only a few of my mechs have modules despite having unlocked everything. Also you can exchange XP for GDP but it costs.... I.e. income stream


Its a long term not a big deal

[Tweaks]

focuspark, on 13 September 2013 - 07:01 PM, said:

Exactly. If you have no life (and no job) you're free to grind until you're blue in the face. If however you have a job and a semblance of a life, it's best to pony up a few bucks, support the service, and get something to save yourself the grind.

Gargh... you're so hopeless. For the record, I do have a job and I'm probably one of the ones paid too much for this game since closed beta. Only the legendary founders package was $120 and I have bought quite several packages of MC. I'm pretty sure I've spent nearly 400$ on this game so far. So don't think I'm just a cheap unemployed guy that doesn't want to pay. I just shouldn't pay that much for a game, but unless I do, I have to painfully grind away for months.

Edited by Tweaks, 13 September 2013 - 08:23 PM.

[focuspark]

Tweaks, on 13 September 2013 - 08:21 PM, said:

Gargh... you're so hopeless. For the record, I do have a job and I'm probably one of the ones paid too much for this game since closed beta. Only the legendary founders package was $120 and I have bought quite several packages of MC. I'm pretty sure I've spent nearly 400$ on this game so far. So don't think I'm just a cheap unemployed guy that doesn't want to pay. I just shouldn't pay that much for a game, but unless I do, I have to painfully grind away for months.

I know, and I understand. I missed Founders because I hadn't heard of the game but I dumped a similar amount of money into the game for the same reasons as you. What I'm saying is "this is their business model", they've been clear since the beginning. Don't act surprised now and don't expect things to change.

[Tweaks]

focuspark, on 15 September 2013 - 09:22 AM, said:

I know, and I understand. I missed Founders because I hadn't heard of the game but I dumped a similar amount of money into the game for the same reasons as you. What I'm saying is "this is their business model", they've been clear since the beginning. Don't act surprised now and don't expect things to change.

Then it's a bad business model. They are getting too greedy and it will cost them in the future if they don't tone it down a little. They are not really giving players a choice right now. They are giving the illusion of a choice. "You can get everything for free" ... sure... but nobody reads the fine print.

I stand my ground on this one. I've seen other F2P games do the same thing. They started greedy like this and they finally adjusted their free to play grind slope to make it easier and more affordable to accommodate more players. I know two right off the bat that did: Battlefield Play4Free, World of Tanks.

PGI should learn from this.

[Corvus Antaka]

Buy a little MC instead?

[Galen Crayn]

PGI has to earn money, they have to pay the salary of their employee, the rent for the office and many other stuff. So, if everybody would be like you, do you think this game would last more than a week? NO! Because they need money. So there are different systems to get that money.
1) Selling the game - that would be perhaps 40-50 bucks for each player
2) Selling the game AND a monthly fee of 10-15 bucks
3) Free game download and a monthy fee of 10-15 bucks
4) Free download and NO monthly fee - thats the system of MWO
As you can see MWO has the user friendliest system possible. You can get EVERYTHING for free, you only have to grind. So its understandable that they sell specials - camo, colors, heroes, and faster getting of modules. Is that unfair? The hell no! Are you working for nothing? No. Should PGI work for nothing? No! So pls shut up and think first...

[Tweaks]

Galen Crayn, on 15 September 2013 - 11:32 AM, said:

PGI has to earn money, they have to pay the salary of their employee, the rent for the office and many other stuff. So, if everybody would be like you, do you think this game would last more than a week? NO! Because they need money. So there are different systems to get that money.
1) Selling the game - that would be perhaps 40-50 bucks for each player
2) Selling the game AND a monthly fee of 10-15 bucks
3) Free game download and a monthy fee of 10-15 bucks
4) Free download and NO monthly fee - thats the system of MWO
As you can see MWO has the user friendliest system possible. You can get EVERYTHING for free, you only have to grind. So its understandable that they sell specials - camo, colors, heroes, and faster getting of modules. Is that unfair? The hell no! Are you working for nothing? No. Should PGI work for nothing? No! So pls shut up and think first...

Galen, you obviously haven't read my posts carefully if you're stating this. First of all, I must have spent over 400$ on this game so far. Can you say the same? So before you say "people like me", think about that. Second, what's with all of you people thinking I want to get everything for free without working for it? I'm not stupid, I know very well that PGI needs to have an income and that the free to play model works like that. All I'm saying is that the free grind should be toned down a little compared to the payed one, because right now, it is too extreme.

They would still make plenty of money, they would still be able to pay their employees just as much, but the people who spent 400$ on the game so far and wish to lay low on the expenses for a while (like me) and grind for free on some of the remaining skills, or the starters that can't afford more than a basic premium account and no extra MC purchases, would have a reasonable grind ahead of them and not an impossible one like it is now.

Now think about that carefully.