17 replies to this topic

[xJohnWolf]

I did some math comparing the cost of cbills in mc vs the value of mechs vs the game time played to gain the same cbills. Some interesting results. This post was copied from the patch notes section and given it's own thread because I wanted other people to be able to benefit from the work that I did to come up with these figures...


Here is the math:
1,100,000 @ 800 = 1375 cb/mc
2,400,000 @ 1600 = 1500 cb/mc
6,500,000 @ 4000 = 1625 cb/mc = OR 30% off 6,500,000 @ 2800 = 2321 cb/mc

Grid Iron Currently on sale 50% off
2,939,112 @ 1875 = 1567 cb/mc
Jester while on sale 50% off
2,851,757 @ 2437 = 1170 cb/mc

Atlas K (For example)
13,691,066/2 @ 5480 = 1249 cb/mc
30% off
6,845,533 @ 3836 = 1784 cb/mc

Locust 1V
1,388,242/2 @ 560 = 1239 cb/mc
30% off
694,121 @ 392 = 1770 cb/mc

Champions - CBill Sell value @ MC cost
SDR-5K(C) - 2636258 @ 1235 = 2134 cb/mc -BEST!
JR7-F(C) - 3067911 @ 1450 = 2115 cb/mc -BEST!
CDA-2A(C) - 3551523 @ 1600 = 2219 cb/mc -BEST! <---- TOP DEAL
BJ-1(C) - 3016837 @ 1695 = 1779 cb/mc - Better!
HBK-4P(C) - 1981946 @ 1800 = 1101 cb/mc
CN9-A(C) - 2075946 @ 1850 = 1122 cb/mc
DRG-5N(C) - 4066139 @ 2550 = 1594 cb/mc
CPLT-A1(C) - 2757257 @ 2790 = 988 cb/mc ------- OUCH!
CTF-3D(C) - 3115394 @ 4945 = 630 cb/mc ------- OUCH x2! <---- WORST
VTR-9S(C) - 5522115 @ 3725 = 1482 cb/mc
STK-3F(C) - 5822239 @ 3815 = 1526 cb/mc
HGN-733C(C)- 4367794 @ 4335 = 1007 cb/mc
AS7-RS(C) - 4983988 @ 4685 = 1063 cb/mc

After checking most of the other mechs they appear to gravitate between 1239 cb/mc and 1250 cb/mc. EDIT: Checked this math against ALL listed c-bill purchasable mechs. The price remains constant between 1239 and 1250. That seems to be the standard for the standard variants. The Hero variants appear to be upcharged quite a bit. But at 50% off they still beat the mid-range package.
EDIT: Some of the hero mechs beat the mid-range. It appears that the hero MC prices have very little to do with the actual cbill value of their components. So most of them would be a rip off to purchase and sell for cbills. EDIT: Hero mechs are priced @ 75mc/ton (thanks). I tested this with the Jester today and only got around 1170 cbills per mc. Which is significantly less than even the lowest tier cbill bundle.
EDIT: And Champion mechs after looking at their cost vs value don't seem to follow a pattern of mc cost per value of components. Only the regular mechs follow a pattern of C-Bill per MC value and cost.
EDIT: The cost differential between Champion mech variants and their stock variants seems to be 25% increase on all mechs that are champion variants regardless of how they are equipped and what the value of their components seem to be. That is why the lights and mediums seem to be so much more valuable. Because they went from STD engines to XL engines at the low range, but the MC cost didn't change to scale with the cb value change. And why some of the mechs actually decreased in value because their engines didn't change to XL from STD but in some cases their equipment value actually decreased but their MC cost increased at the same 25%. All Champion variants are 25% more expensive in MC than their normal variants.

After looking at this math, it is obvious that purchasing standard mechs on 30% off sales and selling them for c-bills is much more cost effective than purchasing the c-bill bundles for mc. Unless, they offer the C-bill bundles for MC later. It is definitely NOT worth it to purchase the c-bill bundles with mc and then use the c-bills to purchase a mech. That would terribly cost ineffective. I would've been much happier with a more cost effective alternative to melting mc purchased mechs for cbills...

Now when we look at C-Bills per hour (This will vary based on pilot skill, weapons used, mechs used, luck, etc...)
My average C-Bills per match is 162,193
Without premium time it would be 107,047
Average matches per hour 4-6... so 5. Over a period of 12-16 hours I average about 5 matches per hour during grinding sessions. Single hours varying between 4 and 6.
C-Bills per hour ~ 810k/535k
C-Bills per dollar (@ $100 pack for 25000mc against the Cicada Champion cbill per mc value) ~ 554750 per dollar
Dollars per hour grinding ~ $1.46
$100 worth of MC converted to C-Bills by using the Cicada to purchase + melt is about
68.4 game hours worth of C-bills if you make as many c-bills as me with premium time.
103.6 game hours worth of C-Bills without premium time if you make around as much cbills per match as me.

PGI,
Based on this math, you have some balancing to do. Either increase the C-bill packages to have their value EXCEED the current value of the Cicada champions, fix the champion prices and refund everyone the difference, tweak pricing of equipment, normalize the mc/cbill pricing between champions and hero mechs, or go on hoping that no one else does the math. The easiest option here is to increase the amount of cbills gained from the cbill bundles to make them more valuable at least than the cicada champion.

Also.... the Mech Starter bundles still aren't "starter" bundles. They should still include 3 mech variants of a chassis to truly be a "starter" package. Get rid of the fluff, and maybe drop the premium time down to 7 if you really feel it's too much. But DO include 3 variants of each chassis in a bundle.

One last thing... these starter bundles should have a tooltip to show whats in them or a side window to display what is inside. Many players might just avoid hitting the "buy" button in fear that they will "buy" when they click rather than assuming they will be able to see what is in the package. Shouldn't have to click the buy button to see what is inside the bundle... that is what we call "unintuitive".

As always, thank you for your time!

v/r,
xNoSkillz

Edited by xNoSkillz, 16 April 2014 - 04:48 PM.

[SnipeXR]

Now thats doing your math Homework!

Great catch!

Way to go =0)

Use Mechwarrior Money Laundering from MC -> Mech -> Cbills

Edited by SnipeXR, 16 April 2014 - 06:48 PM.

[NocturnalBeast]

Hmm, with my napkin math, I had always thought the Jenner (C) was the best for MC to Cbill conversion, but then I hadn't really looked at the Cicada.

PGI just needs to make a Cbill <---> MC slider with reasonable exchange rates, like the XP / GXP slider, this would be great for people with more money than time and for people with more time than money.

[Durant Carlyle]

Ed Steele, on 16 April 2014 - 07:59 PM, said:

PGI just needs to make a Cbill <---> MC slider with reasonable exchange rates, like the XP / GXP slider, this would be great for people with more money than time and for people with more time than money.

No, they need to keep it so that you can NEVER buy MC with C-Bills. One-way conversions only.

[xJohnWolf]

Durant Carlyle, on 16 April 2014 - 08:54 PM, said:

No, they need to keep it so that you can NEVER buy MC with C-Bills. One-way conversions only.

I'm not sure I understand what Ed Steele meant, but I agree that you should never be able to purchase MC with C-Bills. One way conversion is the only way it works to keep the game funded with real money.

More money should hopefully = better game.

[aniviron]

xNoSkillz, on 16 April 2014 - 08:58 PM, said:

I'm not sure I understand what Ed Steele meant, but I agree that you should never be able to purchase MC with C-Bills. One way conversion is the only way it works to keep the game funded with real money.

More money should hopefully = better game.

There are plenty of games that let you purchase premium currency with in-game dosh. One that I played personally for a couple years, Spiral Knights, actually has a much healthier economy and more players than MWO; turns out that getting people to invest dozens and dozens of hours of playtime to get a few bucks on premium currency keeps people wanting to play, and lots of players means more people paying for premium currency instead of grinding it...

[xJohnWolf]

aniviron, on 16 April 2014 - 09:01 PM, said:

There are plenty of games that let you purchase premium currency with in-game dosh. One that I played personally for a couple years, Spiral Knights, actually has a much healthier economy and more players than MWO; turns out that getting people to invest dozens and dozens of hours of playtime to get a few bucks on premium currency keeps people wanting to play, and lots of players means more people paying for premium currency instead of grinding it...

A fair point here... I suppose if you could purchase MC with C-Bills at very high prices, then it might be able to accomplish exactly what you are talking about here. More people might play if they could say.... purchase mech bays with c-bills sometime down the road with a C-Bill -> MC conversion. I'm still wary of this concept, but I can definitely understand the logic. you make a good point.

[Vermaxx]

I would never consider spending MC to directly generate cbills. I would buy premium time (if I still needed currency), or MAYBE buy mechs directly with MC, but I would not buy mechs with MC just to melt them for cash. I never entertained the use of MC to directly generate cash, I only used it to purchase premium time, premium aesthetics, and (MAAAAYBE) purchase mechs directly instead of grinding the cash for them.

However, the math is interesting in that you really aren't gaining much by spending money, you are just saving time. One COULD assume that was the point, PGI is making it so you cannot pay to win, but you CAN pay to avoid grinding.

On the other hand with the PGI track record I'll just assume they bungled this like everything else.

[Malcolm Vordermark]

Hey xNoSkillz, could you explain the method by which you collected the sale price of these mechs? Did you attempt to sell them with their stock load outs in the game client or did you use another method?

[xJohnWolf]

Rouken, on 22 April 2014 - 04:16 PM, said:

Hey xNoSkillz, could you explain the method by which you collected the sale price of these mechs? Did you attempt to sell them with their stock load outs in the game client or did you use another method?

I purchased and sold each mech that day in my client on the live server using my own MC.

Edited by xNoSkillz, 22 April 2014 - 05:49 PM.

[Arnold J Rimmer]

xNoSkillz, on 22 April 2014 - 05:48 PM, said:

I purchased and sold each mech that day in my client on the live server using my own MC.

That's a damned expensive test. You could have taken their given MC values, then worked out what the 30% discount would leave. The loadouts are all given, and sell price is always 50% of the buy cost. A bit more number crunching, perhaps, but your wallet might thank you!

[Malcolm Vordermark]

xNoSkillz, on 22 April 2014 - 05:48 PM, said:

I purchased and sold each mech that day in my client on the live server using my own MC.

Wow, that does sound like an expensive test. Well, I appreciate you going so far to get us the most accurate numbers possible. Nicely done.

[xJohnWolf]

Rouken, on 22 April 2014 - 06:16 PM, said:

Wow, that does sound like an expensive test. Well, I appreciate you going so far to get us the most accurate numbers possible. Nicely done.

The only way for it to be truly accurate though. As the selling system doesn't seem to account for upgrades... I haven't done the break downs in that much detail yet.

[Sandpit]

+1 OP

Just goes to show yet another example of PGI being absolutely clueless when it comes to data like this.

[Alex Warden]

know what? i refused from buying anything for a while now (one 5$ purchase for xp conversion within 6 month is not enough to make PGIGP celebrate i hope ^^) .... i guess it stays this way... won´t support their pricing policy any longer...

Sandpit, on 22 April 2014 - 07:53 PM, said:

+1 OP

Just goes to show yet another example of PGI being absolutely clueless when it comes to data like this.

believe me ...it´s not cluelessness... it´s counting on the cluelessness of their customers... unfortunately there are still Battletechers around, and most i know are very smart guys up to academic levels

Edited by Alex Warden, 22 April 2014 - 08:06 PM.

[Sandpit]

Alex Warden, on 22 April 2014 - 08:03 PM, said:

know what? i refused from buying anything for a while now (one 5$ purchase for xp conversion within 6 month is not enough to make PGIGP celebrate i hope ^^) .... i guess it stays this way... won´t support their pricing policy any longer...


believe me ...it´s not cluelessness... it´s counting on the cluelessness of their customers... unfortunately there are still Battletechers around, and most i know are very smart guys up to academic levels

i bought a small MC pack to get the Misery because it was on sale but that's all I've spent since PP and all I WILL spend.

[Deathlike]

Here's something to think about... consumables.

40000 C-Bills vs 15 MC - this implies ~2666 C-bills per MC. Mind you, you can't sell consumables to make a profit (why would you?)

Take the 15000GXP requirement for most/all consumable modules to upgrade their basic version to "improved versions".

When you take advantage of the double XP conversion weekend...

15000XP * (1 MC / 50 XP) = 300 MC required (600MC when not on sale).

For the normal price of a mechbay (or 2 when not on dbl XP conversion sale), you can get "cheaper" consumables instead of pushing in straight MC for each consumable.

A straight conversion would cost 20 consumables when on sale... 40 consumables when on sale.

Of course, you will still have to collect 15000 mech XP, but that's very easy to get relatively speaking (it takes like 14250 XP to GET ALL MECH BASICS for 1 mech by comparison).

You can do more with 800MC than spend it on C-bills.

Edited by Deathlike, 22 April 2014 - 10:33 PM.

[employee24601]

I find this excellent thread to be most excellent.

I only ever convert Mech XP to GXP on double conversion weekends and bought a bunch of mechbays during the sale recently. I also grabbed some MC when it was +20%MC a while ago.

If that Champion Jenner or Cicada ever go on sale..

Edited by employee24601, 23 April 2014 - 12:19 AM.