297 replies to this topic

[Joseph Mallan]

Roadkill, on 09 December 2013 - 12:03 PM, said:

Nah, just run a test set like I did. Record your stats, run a bunch of games, record new stats, do the math. That's where my 87,250 number comes from. Well, that and a bit more math to compute out the Phoenix bonuses I got in 16 of the 30 matches.

But regardless, the real problem is that you don't seem to realize that you're really pretty good at this game. I've played with you once or twice in random drops. Neither of us is 1%-er good, but we don't suck. So I really don't think you can expect new players, or even average players, to be able to earn as fast as either of us does.

Not as fun as having another Alt. I could use a Capellan or Free Worlder!

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 09 December 2013 - 12:07 PM.

[Prezimonto]

Karl Streiger, on 02 December 2013 - 05:01 AM, said:

To remove the grind (is to change the grind) It has to stay but the route has to be another one.
Much more Minor Steps instead of big ones.
Like in WoT (grinding to a new gun - before you get to a new tank)

So most are able to buy any mech they like....but - only 1 of those Mechs.
For example the Atlas AS7-D
but you need XP for each Mech:
to unlock upgrades
Star League Weapons and Tech
...for example after unlocking XL and ER-Laser and Gauss and AMS you can unlock the AS7-K
...unlock DHS and Endosteel is a dead end
...unlock ECM will get you to the AS7-DDC
So a min maxed AS7-DD or RS is endgame content and it means you have played a couple of times with your Atlas with a couple of strange weapons.
Premium and Champion Mechs are the fast route towards other Mechs (but they don't have unlocks)

So mounting a ER-PPC into a Victor Dragonslayer need the Unlock of the ER-PPC for the Victor at the tree of the VTR-9K

You have different routes to get to your end game content Mech:
wen directly towards the Mech Variant you want to have - or modify the Mech you allready own.

I actually won't mind this at all... pathways that unlock customization through play. So you start with a stock mech and over a pile of matches you earn and spend XP not on silly skills, but on the ability to trade out the various bits of your mech, until it's totally customizable. So say you want to swap out the stock medium laser in a right arm energy hard point: spend some cbills and XP and it's now open to all rated lasers larger, a second tier opens it to PPC's. That ballistic point that's rated for an MG: going to take 3 upgrades to get it to fit an AC20 (AC5/UAC5 then AC10/LBX10 then AC20 with the Gaus perhaps as a side tech at that level).

The problem is then people might not buy as many mechs, and that's their main revenue stream.

Edited by Prezimonto, 09 December 2013 - 12:09 PM.

[OneEyed Jack]

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.

You're the one that said they'd get bored and move on. I said if they were going to get bored that fast, they wouldn't be staying, anyway.

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

The Atlas isn't the end game. NO SINGLE MECH is the end game.

Who said end game? Did I say end game? Don't put words in my mouth. I said it was the most expensive. The most expensive is not the place to set the bar.

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

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.

Meh, I haven't made an effort to determine my current income per match, and the one on my stats page is skewed by a lot of matches pre-12v12. But in the last several months I've played maybe 7-8 hours per week. More some weeks and not at all in others.
(Disclaimer: I don't always buy new engines, and I sell off variants I don't enjoy or plan to use, since my bay is pretty full and I'm not spending money for new mechbay slots)

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

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?

Oh, I could spend more, giving each mech it's own engine, even if I rarely play it, or it's own set of modules. Frustrated? No. Bored? Yes. I do have more MECHS than I know what to do with.

[Roadkill]

OneEyed Jack, on 09 December 2013 - 12:07 PM, said:

You're the one that said they'd get bored and move on. I said if they were going to get bored that fast, they wouldn't be staying, anyway.

I said they might lose interest and move on. Not quite the same thing. I could have said frustrated instead.

The reason they move on is important. As you've rightly pointed out, if it's because they got bored with the game then giving them more c-bills probably wouldn't help. They'll be bored either way. But if they're frustrated that they can't buy the Mech they want, or if they lose interest because it's taking too long to earn the c-bills, then increasing their earnings might very well keep them playing. This isn't just semantics, it's the crux of the issue.

Quote

Who said end game? Did I say end game? Don't put words in my mouth. I said it was the most expensive. The most expensive is not the place to set the bar.

Sorry, right.

I'm not sure I agree, though. Mechs in MWO are more expensive simply because they're heavier. Given the desire to make all Mechs combat effective, there's no real game balance reason for a heavier Mech to be more expensive. Heavier just means it serves a different role in combat.

If that different role is what a player enjoys and is good at, why imply that they need to buy some other Mech that is unsuited to their liking and play style? If an Atlas is what they like and what they're good at playing, why should they ever have to buy a Commando?

Quote

(Disclaimer: I don't always buy new engines, and I sell off variants I don't enjoy or plan to use, since my bay is pretty full and I'm not spending money for new mechbay slots)

Those are important points. I tend to be a pack rat, so I pretty much keep everything. All but a handful of Mechs in my bays are fully kitted out with equipment, including their engines, except for Modules. The few exceptions are ones that share XL engines with other variants of the same Mech, such as my Jenners (XL 300) and my BattleMasters (XL 350).

I have no idea what an average player does in that regard.

[Sandpit]

Roadkill, on 09 December 2013 - 11:57 AM, said:

Not it is not. Sorry, but you're just making **** up at this point. Where did I say that someone who plays 1 hour per week should be able to buy an Atlas in 1 month?

I didn't. YOU DID.

You're drawing an extreme conclusion from a generalization and substituting that for my statement. Sorry, doesn't work that way.

No, I asked about your statement. YOU said a player should be able to earn an Atlas within a month based on their play time regardless of how much time they invested

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.

20 hours a month
at 30 days a month that's like 35-40 minutes playing every day.

So a player shouldn't have to invest 20 hours to obtain the top level biggest and baddest mech in the game? There isn't a "grind" here. There's a time investment. There's not even than if you want to spend $20 on the game. 20 hours invested in teh game will get you a LOT more than just an Atlas if you aren't just deadset on getting a fully customized Atlas as your first ride

Atlas as your first ride is expensive. It should be. It's the biggest mech in the game. You have perfectly viable alternatives to play with while saving up for a big purchase like that. You have perfectly viable alternatives to obtain that mech from your very first game if you want to spend a little cash.

[Blurry]

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.



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?

They are also the ones that keep it viable because the are more than willing to spend money in order to speed things up.
But my experience even attempting that doesnt have the required effect.
SO even when supported the grind is bad and the players whom shell out $ dont feel that they are acknowledged by the company. I mean if they dont respect my time and my money then people leave - and you really dont want the $$ leaving.

Hardcore are happy to grind away because they can but they also need someone to play against and keep the game afloat.
Those are the casuals and if you disrespect them like PGI does then there isnt much left.

[Blurry]

Sandpit, on 09 December 2013 - 12:36 PM, said:

No, I asked about your statement. YOU said a player should be able to earn an Atlas within a month based on their play time regardless of how much time they invested

20 hours a month
at 30 days a month that's like 35-40 minutes playing every day.

So a player shouldn't have to invest 20 hours to obtain the top level biggest and baddest mech in the game? There isn't a "grind" here. There's a time investment. There's not even than if you want to spend $20 on the game. 20 hours invested in teh game will get you a LOT more than just an Atlas if you aren't just deadset on getting a fully customized Atlas as your first ride

Atlas as your first ride is expensive. It should be. It's the biggest mech in the game. You have perfectly viable alternatives to play with while saving up for a big purchase like that. You have perfectly viable alternatives to obtain that mech from your very first game if you want to spend a little cash.

What about kitting it out? what about master? ect it all adds up so you disregard 75% of the grind.
no one is saying get it for free and hand it out. what people are saying is their time isnt respected. And when things take well beyond established norms people ask questions.

And if they want to keep it "collect them all" then they do need to loosen it up a bit because it is very obvious people come in check it out and never come back.

I dont get it? Dont you want more happy people playing the game? Dont you want more happy people spending $$ because they feel that they are respected for their time?

They pump out mechs so fast that even by giving in a little it would be very hard to catch up and to be honest if there are happy people playing then they usually reward the dev with $$. I sure do.

But I see you dont want that. What do you want?
A dead game playing with yourself since you earned er grinded it?

Edited by Blurry, 09 December 2013 - 12:55 PM.

[Roadkill]

Sandpit, on 09 December 2013 - 12:36 PM, said:

No, I asked about your statement. YOU said a player should be able to earn an Atlas within a month based on their play time regardless of how much time they invested

No, I didn't. I said that if a player [who wants to play an Atlas] can't get one in a month['s worth of their game playing time], they're liable to lose interest and move on.

Quote

20 hours a month
at 30 days a month that's like 35-40 minutes playing every day.

Or it's like 10 hours a day for 2 days.

More likely than either of those, it's someone who plays 2-3 times per week for 2 hours each time. That works out to 5 hours per week or 20 hours per month.

The point is that for some people, 20 hours of game play to buy an Atlas doesn't seem like much. Those people are typically the ones who play 20 hours or more per week, so they see it as "I can get an Atlas every week, how hard is that?"

To other people, 20 hours of game play just to buy an Atlas seems like an eternity. Those people are typically the ones who play 5 hours per week (or less), so they see it as "It's going to take me months to buy an Atlas and customize it they way I want, this game takes forever!"

What I'm suggesting is that the economy is currently skewed too far toward the former type, and that the latter type makes up the bulk of the people who play the game.

[OneEyed Jack]

Roadkill, on 09 December 2013 - 12:20 PM, said:

I said they might lose interest and move on. Not quite the same thing. I could have said frustrated instead.

The reason they move on is important. As you've rightly pointed out, if it's because they got bored with the game then giving them more c-bills probably wouldn't help. They'll be bored either way. But if they're frustrated that they can't buy the Mech they want, or if they lose interest because it's taking too long to earn the c-bills, then increasing their earnings might very well keep them playing. This isn't just semantics, it's the crux of the issue.

Well, for this to make any sense, we've got to define where that player is prior to deciding to get a mech. If he's brand new, he's got a cadet bonus, and I'm really not for encouraging new players to jump straight into Atlases, anyway. If he's been around awhile, you've got to assume he's already got mechs that, presumably, he purchased on purpose and enjoys playing. In neither case do I feel that 20 hours to buy the most expensive mech is unreasonable. The new player should be learning to play, not worrying about how fast he can park his butt in a mech he doesn't know how to play, and the experienced player, if he stops counting coins and just plays, will find the game much more enjoyable. The money will just appear. If he thinks of it like a job, he'll never be happy, no matter what you give him.

Roadkill, on 09 December 2013 - 12:20 PM, said:

I'm not sure I agree, though. Mechs in MWO are more expensive simply because they're heavier. Given the desire to make all Mechs combat effective, there's no real game balance reason for a heavier Mech to be more expensive. Heavier just means it serves a different role in combat.

Big mechs come with big stuff. Bigger engines, more weapons/armor/equipment. Strip a mech and it's price is a lot less than price of a fully loaded one, even stock.

Roadkill, on 09 December 2013 - 12:20 PM, said:

If that different role is what a player enjoys and is good at, why imply that they need to buy some other Mech that is unsuited to their liking and play style? If an Atlas is what they like and what they're good at playing, why should they ever have to buy a Commando?

They don't have to. they can take a little longer and buy the Atlas. Or they can spend a few bucks. Non-heroes aren't that much , and go on sale all the time.

Roadkill, on 09 December 2013 - 12:20 PM, said:

Those are important points. I tend to be a pack rat, so I pretty much keep everything. All but a handful of Mechs in my bays are fully kitted out with equipment, including their engines, except for Modules. The few exceptions are ones that share XL engines with other variants of the same Mech, such as my Jenners (XL 300) and my BattleMasters (XL 350).

I have no idea what an average player does in that regard.

I sell bare chassis. I keep all the goodies, so I have plenty of most things. I have several of all the more common sizes of engines, in Std and XL, but some (mostly 300-350 XL) go in a lot of mechs. And many of my mechs see very little play, so there's no point in them having dedicated engines. Also, I experiment with builds a lot, so buying a new engine for a mech isn't always the best idea when I might be playing it with a completely different build and different engine tomorrow.

[Eflin]

Roadkill, on 09 December 2013 - 12:55 PM, said:

What I'm suggesting is that the economy is currently skewed too far toward the former type, and that the latter type makes up the bulk of the people who play the game.

100% agree. I am a relatively new player but have played a good chunk of my time both with and without premium time. In my opinion it seems like this game is balanced for MC premium time players... But it really needs to be balanced for the casual crowd in order to ensure continued growth and player retention. Right now you can play a 15 minute match... Lose... And get 35,000 c-bills. This is not fun or rewarding. At that rate it will take you hundreds of matches to afford ONE mech... Let alone outfit it. This is not a good equation for player retention. Especially for the poor newbies who buy a bad first mech they don't like... and are stuck with it and trial mechs for the next 100 matches.

You want this game to be accessible to all including newbies and people who just aren't as good. The only way to ensure this is to increase the base rate per match. It doesn't need to be a large buff... but the base rate of c-bills for a match needs to be increased... especially since the more mechs people have the more they will need to spend on mech bays... and the more vested in the game they will become... both of which lead to a better meta for us and more money for PGI.

If I had to throw a number to it... I'd say 15,000 to 25,000 more per match (which can be reduced later as new bonuses are added to the game... say for other roles such as scouting... or CW related stuff). It will still take a looong time to get to new mechs... but it will be more reasonable and even a bad match will feel more rewarding.

EDIT: as for the cadet bonus... it is wonderful but not a valid reason to think the current C-bill grind is balanced appropriately. It really ensures you can buy ONE large mech or 2 light ones... and they give this bonus to you when you are most likely to pick a bad mech for yourself since you're new. I imagine plenty of people have picked bad mechs with this money... that's part of the reason the grind is so bad for player retention in my mind... people need to be able to get variety and feel rewarded for their time... and the current grind is only more jarring after your first impression with the cadet bonus...

Edited by Eflin, 09 December 2013 - 01:16 PM.

[MustrumRidcully]

This will blow some people's mind in unhealthy manners:
Free mechs during leveling.

In Startrek Online, as you level, every 10 levels you get one free ship for your tier.

There are many, many more ships than those. You can pick only once, and there are some you can't get that way.

Give the player 4 tiers of mech experience (it should be easy to split the existing skill tree in such a manner, and without even increasing the total bonuses you can get) Whenever you complete one tier, you get one free mech. There might be constraints to what you can get (maybe you can choose each weight class only once, or you must choose variants, or you can't choose variants, or you can take only variants of the trial mechs currently available). You also earn money along the way.
The mechs you get for free cannot be sold, only dismiss it, giving it back to whoever gave you the free mech (your house, your mercenary group, a sponsor. (Any gear inside the mech is bound to the mech and can't be installed in any other. So you're not getting a free Atlas K with 300 XL out of this deal that you can sell of for your first Double Heat Sinks.)

The Mech Experience Tiers ensure that there is a feeling of steady progress that encourages people to keep leveling for the next level-up bing. The new mech will keep the game genuinely fresh because suddenly it means opportunity to try out something you haven't done before. Since you don't need to immediately spend C-Bills on mechs, you can also start outfitting sooner.

Why would people still buy new mechs? Because 4 mechs are never enough! You want to experiment with new stuff! And Mechs are almost as cool as bowties.
And you might even be able to lower the C-BIll gains further (if necessary), because people have 4 mechs guaranteed in their progression anyway. And Atlai aren't pseudo-endgame anymore just for being the most expensive mechs, because you can get your first Assault basically when you stop being a recruit.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 09 December 2013 - 01:31 PM.

[OneEyed Jack]

MustrumRidcully, on 09 December 2013 - 01:27 PM, said:

This will blow some people's mind in unhealthy manners:
Free mechs during leveling.

I'm not arguing here, but I have questions.

How would this be substantially different from trial mechs besides having to earn it?

If you can customize, how would you do that without blending the stripped gear with all your other lose gear?

[Roadkill]

OneEyed Jack, on 09 December 2013 - 01:00 PM, said:

If he's brand new, he's got a cadet bonus, and I'm really not for encouraging new players to jump straight into Atlases, anyway.

Why not?

I was "brand new" at one point in MWO, but I have 20+ years of experience playing Battletech and MechWarrior games. If I were an Atlas kind of guy, why shouldn't I be able to get one? (I'm more of a 75-85 ton guy.)

Once that Cadet bonus goes away... it's a rude shock. If you have friends who play and can warn you about what to buy and/or not buy, you can make reasonably good use of that Cadet bonus. But I bet that most players squander it because they don't know what to do with it. And they also have no clue just how bad the grind is going to be once it's gone. If you squander your Cadet bonus buying and upgrading a Centurion, which is disturbingly easy to do, then you've got a long wait ahead of you to buy that Atlas.

Quote

if he stops counting coins and just plays, will find the game much more enjoyable. The money will just appear.

But it doesn't unless you're really good at the game or have a lot of time available to play.

If the matchmaker decides that it hates me some night, which it seems to do disturbingly regularly, I can play for an entire evening (2 hours for me if I'm lucky) and not even earn 1 million c-bills. If I'm not paying that close of attention to counting coins, I might only be looking at the millions digit. And it might not change after an entire night's games.

It's almost worse to play all afternoon on Sunday only to look at your bank and it appears you've only earned 2 million c-bills. That might be a once-a-month type of time splurge, and you barely made enough to install double heat sinks?

I get it. The guy who plays 20 hours a week is going to see good progress every night and he's going to be able to buy that Atlas some time on Saturday afternoon. But he's going to play anyway. (If he doesn't like the game, what's he doing playing 20 hours a week?) It's the guy who only has 20 hours a month to play that needs to be teased along and encouraged so that he'll spend a few bucks to buy that Atlas with MC, then use his c-bills to upgrade it.

[Roadkill]

MustrumRidcully, on 09 December 2013 - 01:27 PM, said:

There might be constraints to what you can get (maybe you can choose each weight class only once, or you must choose variants, or you can't choose variants, or you can take only variants of the trial mechs currently available).

Quote

The mechs you get for free cannot be sold, only dismiss it, giving it back to whoever gave you the free mech (your house, your mercenary group, a sponsor. (Any gear inside the mech is bound to the mech and can't be installed in any other. So you're not getting a free Atlas K with 300 XL out of this deal that you can sell of for your first Double Heat Sinks.)

I broke that in half on purpose. I think you solved your own problem.

Let 'em sell the free Mechs. Just don't let them get the truly expensive ones for free.

Cool idea... that just might do it.

[Sandpit]

Roadkill, on 09 December 2013 - 12:55 PM, said:

No, I didn't. I said that if a player [who wants to play an Atlas] can't get one in a month['s worth of their game playing time], they're liable to lose interest and move on.

Or it's like 10 hours a day for 2 days.

More likely than either of those, it's someone who plays 2-3 times per week for 2 hours each time. That works out to 5 hours per week or 20 hours per month.

The point is that for some people, 20 hours of game play to buy an Atlas doesn't seem like much. Those people are typically the ones who play 20 hours or more per week, so they see it as "I can get an Atlas every week, how hard is that?"

To other people, 20 hours of game play just to buy an Atlas seems like an eternity. Those people are typically the ones who play 5 hours per week (or less), so they see it as "It's going to take me months to buy an Atlas and customize it they way I want, this game takes forever!"

What I'm suggesting is that the economy is currently skewed too far toward the former type, and that the latter type makes up the bulk of the people who play the game.

20 hours ISN'T much for the biggest baddest unit in the game. Not when you literally have dozens of other options that you could easily afford in that time in lieu of that one singular unit.

[Sandpit]

The biggest thing I see is there's no real "leveling up" in this game. You can spend $20 and start with the 100 ton beauty. You don't have to start in lights and "earn" your way past them to assaults. There's no ladder to climb. You CAN ride around in an Atlas at any time you'd like to. Drop a few bucks. There's absolutely no need to adjust the entire economy so that a player can earn what you're asking for here.

What everyone conveniently forgets is that sure it sounds great to just toss around some more c-bills for players and those casual and new players but do not think of how that would impact the upper tier and hardcore players. Think about this. Let it sink in.
It doesn't sound bad at all. Until you think about what the other end of the economy would be like. We already have players with hundreds of millions of c-bills running around. You can't simply adjust the economy on a whole based on one particular portion of the base. You have to think about how it impacts the entire population in total.

[Roadkill]

Sandpit, on 09 December 2013 - 05:04 PM, said:

What everyone conveniently forgets is that sure it sounds great to just toss around some more c-bills for players and those casual and new players but do not think of how that would impact the upper tier and hardcore players. Think about this. Let it sink in.
It doesn't sound bad at all. Until you think about what the other end of the economy would be like. We already have players with hundreds of millions of c-bills running around. You can't simply adjust the economy on a whole based on one particular portion of the base. You have to think about how it impacts the entire population in total.

Actually, that's exactly what I've been thinking about. And you know what my conclusion is? That it doesn't matter to those players, so PGI should go ahead and tweak the economy up by a little bit.

Think about it. As you rightly point out, we already have players running around with hundreds of millions of c-bills. It makes absolutely ZERO difference to them if we give them more. They already have effectively infinite money, and yet they're still playing.

Those players that I'm talking about? The ones I'm worried might be getting frustrated or lose interest when they realize how long it's going to take them to buy an Atlas? Yeah, those guys aren't playing anymore. And that makes the game worse for everyone, because they're no longer around to fill in games via the matchmaker.

I'm not campaigning for any one particular fix. I think a 15% increase in the base earning rate might do the trick. But I've also said in a different thread that if PGI believes that the base earning rate is already sufficient that bumping the Premium bonus to 100% might also do the trick. I understand how f2p games work... PGI needs to make money. But it looks to me like the economy is too slow even if you buy the Mechs with c-bills and use a Premium account to earn the money you need to customize those Mechs. Honestly, if you're double paying then money should be a complete non-issue. That just isn't the case with the current economy.

[Sandpit]

Roadkill, on 09 December 2013 - 09:52 PM, said:

Actually, that's exactly what I've been thinking about. And you know what my conclusion is? That it doesn't matter to those players, so PGI should go ahead and tweak the economy up by a little bit.

Think about it. As you rightly point out, we already have players running around with hundreds of millions of c-bills. It makes absolutely ZERO difference to them if we give them more. They already have effectively infinite money, and yet they're still playing.

Those players that I'm talking about? The ones I'm worried might be getting frustrated or lose interest when they realize how long it's going to take them to buy an Atlas? Yeah, those guys aren't playing anymore. And that makes the game worse for everyone, because they're no longer around to fill in games via the matchmaker.

I'm not campaigning for any one particular fix. I think a 15% increase in the base earning rate might do the trick. But I've also said in a different thread that if PGI believes that the base earning rate is already sufficient that bumping the Premium bonus to 100% might also do the trick. I understand how f2p games work... PGI needs to make money. But it looks to me like the economy is too slow even if you buy the Mechs with c-bills and use a Premium account to earn the money you need to customize those Mechs. Honestly, if you're double paying then money should be a complete non-issue. That just isn't the case with the current economy.

I just don't agree with you. It's just not my opinion on the economy. We had the exact same arguments during both CB and OB. There were still players complaining that the "grind" and the economy were bad and running off new players. Even at the height of the economy when players were earning tremendous amounts of c-bills. The only thing an increase in the economy would do is make things like premium time even less viable and continue to flood the upper level of the player base. Those hardcore type players with millions to spare WILL get bored once they've bought everything there is to buy.
Now IF they were to put in an R&R mechanic, then I could agree with a slight increase. The economy now just isn't, in my opinion, anywhere near as bad as your opinion of it is.
If you average 60k (which in my experience is very low and poorly played game and doesn't include the cadet bonus) a match and you get in about 8 matches an hour that's 480k/hour
in 20 hours that's 9.6 million playing very poorly, getting few if any kills and assists, and doesn't account for a cadet bonus. If you can't get in 20 hours of play within 2-3 weeks well then no offense to those players but an entire economy cannot be balanced for them. That's less than an hour a day.
9.6 million c-bills will get you a choice of dozens of customizable mechs to start with including a few assaults. Those casual players that you're speaking of that don't have the time to invest are EXACTLY what premium time, MC mech purchases, and such are designed for. Spend 20-30 bucks and bam, you're instantly in a top level premiere mech. No time invested at all.

[MustrumRidcully]

OneEyed Jack, on 09 December 2013 - 01:40 PM, said:

I'm not arguing here, but I have questions.

How would this be substantially different from trial mechs besides having to earn it?

If you can customize, how would you do that without blending the stripped gear with all your other lose gear?

Yes, you could customize it. The pre-installed gear would be speciifically bound to the mech and while you can remove it, you can't install it anywhere else. (it would simply not be shown in the list of things that you could add to your mech). When you dismiss the mech, all non-bound equpiment is put in your inventory and the bound equpiment leaves your inventory forever (you won't really miss it, since the only mech that could use it is gone.)

Being able to customize these mechs would make a big difference to players, since they could not just try somethnig new, they could tinker with it, which is of considerable appeal in a mechwarrior game and usually encourages playing more (I know I spend lots of time playing MW3 and MW4 just because I wanted to try out new builds.)

[Ghogiel]

Blurry, on 05 December 2013 - 07:43 AM, said:

So right it is a good thing PGI sells everything directly and the game plays like {Scrap}.
If it wasnt for the entitlement of you people the game wouldnt have anyone to play against and if it wasnt for new people the game would die. But who cares what thier experience is they are just stupid rubes who complain.

People like me dont exist - pay money play the game discover issues ask for changes.
Nope I am just a stupid f2p whiner who hasnt spent a dime and says everthing is too expensive.
No wonder this game is {Scrap} with people like you.

L2F2P

If you bought all the content you can with real money and still complain you don't have enough content, you didn't have time to earn enough cbills with premium time and heroes to buy modules and XLs etc, PGI thanks you for your contribution to their coffers.

Everyone else who plays the game, buys the content they wanted with cbills, won't even know you because you haven't actually played the game you spent $100s on enough for them to recognize your name.

You won't like 'fix' to the 'grind' anyway> the fix is to sell components and modules for MC as well as cbills. (or buy cbills with MC)
Then all the mechromney's who play mechpokemon more than mechwarrior can't complain about having to earn cbills.

Edited by Ghogiel, 10 December 2013 - 12:52 AM.