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The problem with the new C-bill growth metagame:
1) It doesn't reward properly for those that contribute a lot to the match.
2) It rewards people that "sprays and pray" (a common RTS term for people that shoots weapons that have a cone of fire at random directions) or what they are also known as "tourney players".
3) It punishes people for playing Conquest.
It is understood that people who appear to have contributed most in the match should be well rewarded. The problem is that this is never the case.
So, I did like 2nd most damage on the team, but I get rewarded with just that much? Mind you, this happened almost 2 hours ago, and that ended with a spider coring me after I had removed its legs, allowing my teammates to collect the kill to end the match. I don't have the same need for c-bills as the next newbie, but moneywise that is unrewarding. The XP is a better reflection of what I accomplished, since XP scales to my contribution to the match. Outside of the fact that savior kills are easy collections of XP and C-bills, I did my part.
However, the guy who did the most damage in the match isn't collecting c-bills... there's a better chance that those players that got the 10 assists collected more C-bills than he did... and let me get to point #2 as to why.
These are matches in which I have collected stupid amounts of money, for practically doing "relatively little". I'm the kind of guy that doesn't mind "poking" the bear as it were... shooting targets with long range weaponry will net me money as long as the targets I am poking dies by my teammates or my own hand. It's kind of the same logic with XP, except it that it doesn't scale as well as it should.
You might say "what about damage dealt, shouldn't dealing damage give you some money?"
Refer to another post I wrote about the how much money you would collect:
http://mwomercs.com/...uick-breakdown/
For every point of damage you deal, you get only 21 C-bills.
So, if we have the "minimum" expectation that a player contributes 150 damage... they will collect 3150 for their efforts (21 * 150 = 3150). This actually LESS than what you would get for a kill assist in Conquest, which is 3200 C-bills.
It is actually unlikely that under the current 12v12 system that you will get incredible damage... unless you're some sort of missile boat blocking out the sun with your LRMs/"lurms" or your teammates are not picking up the slack. Even if you did, you're not well rewarded.
Also... kill assists are practically worth the same as a kill in Assault. If you do the math, and consider that every kill INCLUDES a component destruction (which is the mech's CT), the money made there is practically the same. There is pretty much no distinction between either.. unless you're in a tourney when it comes to scoring...
Savior and Defensive kills have been a gamechanger ONLY in the sense that you must be somewhat lucky to collect. If you are effectively doing a roflstomp of your enemy, you won't be collecting many of these.... but if the game is kept close, chances this "free money" will come into play... however a lot of this happens to do with luck.
If you're a newbie however or play a completely terrible match... this is what your match rewards can look like:
I'm sure there are many matches that look just like this... especially ones that involve straight out capping. In Conquest, this may not be an issue.... but this brings me to point #3..
Conquest was nerfed recently... for reasons that made no sense. I used to recommend that Conquest was great for collecting C-bills... but after the nerf...
I collected only 5000 in C-bills on that match. The resource score in that match was 402. If I had won that match, the C-bills differences right then and there would have increased to 20000 C-bills. If you lose now, your time is not worth the money. Even if the nerf was just 1/2 instead of 1/4 of what you would win, the difference of another 5K is staggering.... but outright nerfing C-bills from 20k to 5k is a 15K C-bills difference... that is huge when you are used to be told as a newbie that Conquest is best route to collect money. It is simply not the case anymore.
Also, remember that in Conquest, all the basic rewards... kills, assists, AND component destruction is reduced and "replaced" by the resource system. Note that you get almost 1000 more in C-bills for kills in Conquest than assists. Remember that Conquest is supposed to favor light mechs for their ability to move to caps quickly. Of course, this is negated significantly due to cap times and the lack of rewards for doing just capping.
So... I hope everyone has been enlightened by this post. If you want to learn the basic tricks to making money in MWO... it is summed up in 3 points:
1) Poke every mech with any weapon... as long as that mech dies at some point or you won't collect. It's even better when you poke a mech that you probably won't be able to finish off directly.
2) Help your teammate kill a mech that's hurting it. If you collect a saviour kill, that's a bonus. That should be a normal part of being a good teammate. Also, it helps to kill enemies trying to cap for the Defensive Kill bonus.
3) Avoid playing conquest. It is a waste of your time if you're a newbie, but just as much as waste of your time if you need the money.
I was going to write something about the newbie thing, but I'll post something specific soon.
Edited by Deathlike, 01 September 2013 - 01:41 PM.
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