297 replies to this topic

[Joseph Mallan]

El Bandito, on 08 December 2013 - 10:42 PM, said:

Comparing an experienced player like yourself to the average players (usually newcomers) is not fair, don't you think?

Newbies who are in non-elited mechs and are usually the first to die has every right to say the game progression is steep since they most probably earn 50-60K per match. That's discouraging. Customizations are also cost-prohibitive due to ranging from 250-750K.

No I don't. I am old and slow, If they are such hot shots they should be making C-bills in buckets over my aged reflexes. I am average or just over in abilities, so if i can grind money at a fair pace everyone should, this I say with a 41% loss rate.

[Sandpit]

I'm glad someone finally got the nerve to post about this

[MustrumRidcully]

Sandpit, on 09 December 2013 - 08:47 AM, said:

I'm glad someone finally got the nerve to post about this

I like how someone finally got the nerve to post about how someone finally got hte nerf to post about this.

[Sandpit]

MustrumRidcully, on 09 December 2013 - 09:44 AM, said:

I like how someone finally got the nerve to post about how someone finally got hte nerf to post about this.

You may have just created a time space paradox similar to what happens when you google google

[Roadkill]

OneEyed Jack, on 07 December 2013 - 04:44 PM, said:

I assume no such thing. But I am saying that 20 hours of in-game is by no means unreasonable to buy the biggest, most expensive mech in the game. We're not talking about "buy a mech" here. We're talking about the very top end, price-wise. And I'm saying that it doesn't matter if that 20 hours is in a single day or over a year, it's still the same amount of time in-game, and the same amount of effort.

But it does matter how long it takes the average player to put in those 20 hours. If an average player can't hope to get an Atlas in less than a full month of his playing schedule, then he's probably going to lose interest and stop playing.

Without those average players, the hard-core people who play 20 hours per week won't have anyone to play against. Those average players are the filler who show up once in a while and fill out the matches. They're the cornerstone of the f2p model.

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And I'm saying it's not. I do not pay. Let me repeat that in case you missed it (again). I do not pay. I'm well aware of the in-game economy, such as it is. And i specifically mentioned earlier that it could probably use a return to 8v8 levels. That's my opinion, to which I am entitled, and I offer it to counter your opinion.

Then why are you arguing? I've stated that I think a 15% increase would probably do it. Returning to 8v8 levels would take (according to most estimates) a 20-30% increase. More to the point, if the economy is not broken (which you just said), then why does it need to go back to 8v8 levels at all?

[Roadkill]

Joseph Mallan, on 09 December 2013 - 05:47 AM, said:

No I don't. I am old and slow, If they are such hot shots they should be making C-bills in buckets over my aged reflexes. I am average or just over in abilities, so if i can grind money at a fair pace everyone should, this I say with a 41% loss rate.

Sandbag much there Joe?

A 41% loss rate for someone who mostly pugs is phenomenal. That's a win/loss ratio of almost 1.5 which is pretty incredible given the way the matchmaker does its best to ensure a 1:1 ratio.

[Corbon Zackery]

No its pretty bad closed beta veterans call it welfare warrior or poor man warrior. They tried this economy change in closed beta when they had a repair system in play. At that time XL Eng. on a light mech were unbalancing the game.

It didn't work out so well because a 4 million dollar XL eng. would cost you 75% of the cost to repair or 3 million dollars people with premium account were actually losing money at a rate of 25,000 c-bills a match.

We pointed out that this was the first free to play game that rewards us, and then takes away that reward with repair and rearm costs.

That's also why you see a lot of my XL builds have case ammo in the LT and RT that way if I did have a ammo blow I would lose 3 eng. slots instead of the full eng.

Regardless the only way this economy will survive is if we get c-bill bonuses for holding certain planets 20% c-bill increase if you hold Terra Thurma.

I can tell you right now if you have premium time just keep it banked until the welfare warrior is over, and done with.

I think the ratio is 10 matches for 1 million dollars that's 2 hours of gameplay just so you can buy a ER Large laser and not bankrupt yourself.

Edited by Corbon Zackery, 09 December 2013 - 10:14 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Roadkill, on 09 December 2013 - 09:57 AM, said:

Sandbag much there Joe?

A 41% loss rate for someone who mostly pugs is phenomenal. That's a win/loss ratio of almost 1.5 which is pretty incredible given the way the matchmaker does its best to ensure a 1:1 ratio.

The team wins not the individual, so maybe my team mates are better when I PUG.

[Anton Shiningstar]

As this Alt, I am at 44.3 % loss so Still within what I consider average... Then again I do claim to be more competitive than most.

[OneEyed Jack]

Roadkill, on 09 December 2013 - 09:54 AM, said:

But it does matter how long it takes the average player to put in those 20 hours. If an average player can't hope to get an Atlas in less than a full month of his playing schedule, then he's probably going to lose interest and stop playing.

Anyone that's going to get that bored with the game in 20 hours, wasn't going to keep playing anyway. Even more so if it's spread out, as opposed to a solid block of time for them to get sick of it in.

If 20 hours, which is a minuscule amount of time in a game that's designed to be played long-term, is too long for the single largest, most expensive mech in the game, how much time do you think is right, FFS? 10 hours? 5 hours, so your "average player" can get an Atlas in a week? How does that translate to getting something that's not an Atlas?

I'll tell you how it translates. It translates into PGI better get crankin out those P2W Heroes, because for damned sure no one is going to be buying normal mechs with , or buying premium time.

Roadkill, on 09 December 2013 - 09:54 AM, said:

More to the point, if the economy is not broken (which you just said), then why does it need to go back to 8v8 levels at all?

Didn't say need. Haven't done an in-depth study to determine a precise percentage, and I'm honestly fine with right where it's at. In fact I rarely even glance at my match earnings. I have a rough idea how many Cb I have. I know how it's consistently risen, despite Mastering a mech each month, including buying and fully outfitting 3 variants (some exceptions) and being rather frivolous with my pretend money.

[Sandpit]

Roadkill, on 09 December 2013 - 09:54 AM, said:

But it does matter how long it takes the average player to put in those 20 hours. If an average player can't hope to get an Atlas in less than a full month of his playing schedule, then he's probably going to lose interest and stop playing.

Really? So if a player only plays 1 hour/week they should be able to get an atlas in a month without spending any cash?

[DaZur]

Roadkill, on 09 December 2013 - 09:54 AM, said:

But it does matter how long it takes the average player to put in those 20 hours. If an average player can't hope to get an Atlas in less than a full month of his playing schedule, then he's probably going to lose interest and stop playing.

Without those average players, the hard-core people who play 20 hours per week won't have anyone to play against. Those average players are the filler who show up once in a while and fill out the matches. They're the cornerstone of the f2p model.

Here's the problem with catering the grind to the lowest common denominator (the non-paying players) ... If the grind is lessened too much ... it runs the risk of tilting the table too much for the paying players... making the environment even less approachable for the new players.

In short, If the economics are such that a new player can obtain an assault mech at the rate you're alluding to... The byproduct also positively benefits the premium player...

A happy medium needs to a struck... The grind has to be abrasive enough to encourage players to appreciate their time more than their money... But not too much easier that premium players are capable of financially out-pacing a non-paying player.

While not perfect... that's kind of where we are now, like it or not...

Edited by DaZur, 09 December 2013 - 11:13 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Sandpit, on 09 December 2013 - 10:38 AM, said:

Really? So if a player only plays 1 hour/week they should be able to get an atlas in a month without spending any cash?

A 9.4 Million C-bill(Atlas-RS) Mech in 4 hours of play? The Heck you say! I put in hours and hours of play to have an Atlas, or spend cash. Put in the effort or go home I say.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 09 December 2013 - 10:43 AM.

[Roadkill]

Sandpit, on 09 December 2013 - 10:38 AM, said:

Really? So if a player only plays 1 hour/week they should be able to get an atlas in a month without spending any cash?

So you're saying it should take a full year playing 40 hours per week just to earn a Commando?

[Joseph Mallan]

I can earn enough in 5-6 hours to buy a Commando. Call it 6 to have Endo and double sinks.

[Sandpit]

Roadkill, on 09 December 2013 - 10:50 AM, said:

So you're saying it should take a full year playing 40 hours per week just to earn a Commando?

Where did I say that? YOU said a player should earn a full on Atlas in one month of play regardless of how often they played. So by your logic a player who plays 1hour/week should earn an atlas (which is 4 hours a month btw) without spending any cash.

Please tell me how a player earning an Atlas in 4 hours of playing the free game (in other words how 4 hours of play time in any game should earn you the top level biggest baddest unit in the game where there's literally dozens of units) is good for anyone but the "I want it now and I want it free and I want it cuz it's big" crowd?

Also?

4 hours will get you a nice custom mech. Just not an Atlas.

[Roadkill]

OneEyed Jack, on 09 December 2013 - 10:34 AM, said:

Anyone that's going to get that bored with the game in 20 hours, wasn't going to keep playing anyway. Even more so if it's spread out, as opposed to a solid block of time for them to get sick of it in.

You have a rather pessimistic view of this game we play if you think people are going to get bored of playing it in just 20 hours.

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If 20 hours, which is a minuscule amount of time in a game that's designed to be played long-term, is too long for the single largest, most expensive mech in the game, how much time do you think is right, FFS? 10 hours? 5 hours, so your "average player" can get an Atlas in a week? How does that translate to getting something that's not an Atlas?

The Atlas isn't the end game. NO SINGLE MECH is the end game. How many Mechs are there in the game right now? (Honest question, as there are so many that I've lost count.)

If it takes 10 hours (number pulled at random, not a suggestion) to buy an Atlas and another 10 hours (again pulled at random) to customize it to your liking, how is that a bad thing? There are 70+ more Mechs to buy and customize! 1400+ hours of gameplay!

This isn't Half Life Episode 1. There's more to do than just buy and customize that one Mech.

Quote

Mastering a mech each month, including buying and fully outfitting 3 variants (some exceptions) and being rather frivolous with my pretend money.

Based on my experience, which may vary greatly from yours, buying and outfitting 3 variants conservatively costs around 30 million c-bills. If you're frivolous, as you claim to be, that could easily be 36 million c-bills. At my current base rate of 87250 c-bills/match, 36 million c-bills is 412 missions. At 5 missions per hour, that's 82.5 hours of gameplay. So you're averaging just over 20 hours per week. That's a lot of MWO. Sounds to me like you're way above average, at least when it comes to the amount of time you have available to play.

Question for you - you seem to have more c-bills than you know what to do with. Does that make you want to stop playing? Are you frustrated with the game because you don't know what to do with all the money you've earned? If you had even more money would that make the game even worse for you?

[Joseph Mallan]

Roadkill, on 09 December 2013 - 11:05 AM, said:

You have a rather pessimistic view of this game we play if you think people are going to get bored of playing it in just 20 hours.


The Atlas isn't the end game. NO SINGLE MECH is the end game. How many Mechs are there in the game right now? (Honest question, as there are so many that I've lost count.)

If it takes 10 hours (number pulled at random, not a suggestion) to buy an Atlas and another 10 hours (again pulled at random) to customize it to your liking, how is that a bad thing? There are 70+ more Mechs to buy and customize! 1400+ hours of gameplay!

10 hours to make 10 million is a bit fast in my experience.

[Roadkill]

DaZur, on 09 December 2013 - 10:42 AM, said:

If the economics are such that a new player can obtain an assault mech at the rate you're alluding to... The byproduct also benefits the premium player...

Not me. They're putting words in my mouth. Sandpit is the one who wants to be able to buy an Atlas in an hour.

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A happy medium needs to a struck... The grind has to be abrasive enough to encourage players to appreciate their time more than their money... But not too much easier that premium players are capable of financially out-pacing a non-paying player.

Actually, I disagree with your last statement. What is the point of premium if not to allow paying players to out-pace non-paying players? Isn't that precisely the point in order to encourage players to buy premium time?

What I'm saying is that I don't think we're at that happy medium. Right now it seems to me that even a paying player, if they only have an average amount of time, cannot keep up.

People who can play 20 hours per week break the economy no matter how you balance it. So balancing the economy to try to encourage those few people to pay is crazy. Those people are either going to pay - or not - based on their enjoyment of the game. You aren't going to coerce them to pay with the in-game economy.

It's the 4-5 hour per week people that you want to encourage to pay. But you need to encourage them to pay, not frustrate the hell out of them if they don't.

[Blacksoul1987]

Joseph Mallan, on 09 December 2013 - 05:47 AM, said:

No I don't. I am old and slow, If they are such hot shots they should be making C-bills in buckets over my aged reflexes. I am average or just over in abilities, so if i can grind money at a fair pace everyone should, this I say with a 41% loss rate.

better win/loss rate than me I don't always have the patience