556 replies to this topic

[Roland]

Sandpit, on 21 July 2014 - 06:29 PM, said:

yes it does, I can buy modules faster than give me an advantage. Free players are still grinding out money to buy a mech, I'm using that extra % to buy modules, master mechs faster, etc. It's a clear advantage that does translate to battlefield results

I can also buy modules with MC instead of having to wait and earn enough cbills. New players just starting out don't have the advantage of a stockpile of cbills so it's a rather large advantage

You are missing the key aspect of pay to win that the advantage it is granting is a competitive advantage.

This is on contrast to something like an advantage in terms of grinding efficiency, because that does not actually impact the assets that players can field.

That is, a player without premium time can field the exact same set of game assets as the premium player. It may take him longer to gather the resources to field it, but he can do so, and thus play on an absolutely level competitive field.

This is generally regarded as the correct way to do f2p in competitive games, as it preserves the integrity of competition.

Seriously, this stuff is all pretty much established in the industry. There are lots of sources you can go and read up on if you want to learn about this stuff, you don't need to just believe me.

[Grey Black]

Grey Black, on 21 July 2014 - 06:31 AM, said:

Oh, my god. I'm going to say this once, and then copypasta it all over the place whenever I see a thread like this:

THE CLANS ARE NOT PAY TO WIN!!! THEY WILL NOT BE AND NEVER WILL BE!!!

Pay to win implies that you gain a significant in-game advantage in exchange for money, such as dealing extra damage or taking less damage. The clans are not this. The Clans are not even particularly superior to their Inner Sphere counterparts. In fact, I'm willing to bet that 90% of MWO players can't get full benefit out of their Clan mechs.

To begin with, all Clan mechs are hard-locked with certain items. be it engine size or fixed structure/armor type. These cannot be changed. This is a more significant nerf than it appears on the surface, as all Clan mechs equip an XL engine. Take out 2 torso locations on a Clan mech, or just the CT, and it falls. No exceptions, this does actually create fragility in the Clan chassis, compared to the standard IS mech who can adjust their structure/armor/engine type to fit not only their personal playstyle, but also what works best for the mech.

Secondly, half of the Clan mechs are nigh-on unusable. Sure, the Timber Wolf is, bar none, the best mech in the game (I'll address this in a second), but what else is good? The Dire Whale is slower than sin, letting it get picked apart and eaten quickly by more mobile opponents, the Nova can't equip enough weapons to take full advantage of its hardpoint selection without remembering that Ghost Heat is a thing, and the Kit Fox and Adder are lumbering weapon platforms which can be taken out with ease. The Summoner lacks adequate weapon hardpoints (Seriously, 3 hardpoints on a 70 ton mech?!?), and the Warhawk's arms are the size of Mother Russia in terms of targets. The Ryoken and the Timber Wolf are the only clear winners, but even the Ryoken is offputting for me due to the lack of jump jets.

Which actually leads me into another point: CLAN MECHS ARE TOO SLOW. The Dire Whale moves like it was beached for a week, the Warhawk I don't have enough experience with, but the Adder and Kit Fox cannot get out of harms way at all, which locks them into a very immobile playstyle. Want a better light mech than the Kit Fox? THE RAVEN. THE JENNER. THE FIRESTARTER. All of these are superior mechs. Want a better assault mech? I'm not familiar with assault chassis, but the use of the DDC as an ECM blanket or the Victor as a mobile striker are bar-none better than the Clan equivalents.

By comparison, the Heavies and Mediums can't pack nearly as many guns as their Inner Sphere counterparts. I forget where I saw it, but someone compared the pod space available to a Summoner to a Cataphract and found that the Cataphract can actually mount more weapons than the Summoner while maintaining a similar speed. The Ryoken has so much of its space taken up by engine that it's difficult to really build anything. The problem of "TOO MANY HARDPOINTS" plagues the Nova hardcore.

Now, this is all just the chassis, but what about the weapons? The LRMs are easy enough to get shot down by AMS, the Autocannons don't deal front loaded damage, and the beam weapons have a longer burn time. The only weapon type which is strictly superior is the laser group, and only because they deal fractionally more damage per tick than their IS counterparts. Every other weapon type, the IS has the advantage (except the Gauss, which is a tie due to it being the EXACT SAME WEAPON). HOWEVER, the Clan weapons do have a greater potential to deal damage, in the right hands. Not everyone can use them to their full effect, however, WHICH IS MY ORIGINAL THESIS TO THIS WALL OF TEXT.

Now, I'm not debating that the Timber Wolf is currently the best mech in the game at the moment, mostly due to the inclusion of the Timber Wolf S (A BAD IDEA FROM WHERE I STAND, SERIOUSLY, WHY COULDN'T WE HAVE THE TIMBER WOLF D?!?), However, the fact that it WILL be available for CBills should be a HUGE comfort for all free players. Just because some people are impatient and want to buy the Timber Wolf for real money doesn't disqualify you from owning one. You just have to wait a little bit longer.

[MischiefSC]

If the cost of getting Modules took me weeks instead of hours, I might agree Sandpit. At that point, buying them or earning them in a fraction of the time is competitively significant. Like, say, several months of exclusivity.

Since I can get the ducats to buy a Module in an evening or two of good playing though it's not particularly significant.

FupDup in a Stormcrow thought?

Totally OP.

[Sandpit]

Roland, on 21 July 2014 - 06:35 PM, said:

You are missing the key aspect of pay to win that the advantage it is granting is a competitive advantage.

This is on contrast to something like an advantage in terms of grinding efficiency, because that does not actually impact the assets that players can field.

That is, a player without premium time can field the exact same set of game assets as the premium player. It may take him longer to gather the resources to field it, but he can do so, and thus play on an absolutely level competitive field.

This is generally regarded as the correct way to do f2p in competitive games, as it preserves the integrity of competition.

Seriously, this stuff is all pretty much established in the industry. There are lots of sources you can go and read up on if you want to learn about this stuff, you don't need to just believe me.

Again, that's all subjective even if it IS industry standard. It's subjective because things like "advantage" are subjective.

Point being, if I have premium time and I use it to buy stuff that you don't have access to due to a pay barrier (even if it is free currency, it's still a pay barrier) then it's an "advantage"

Airstrikes
Arty
Weapon modules
Seismic
Radar Dep

All of them have a distinct advantage on the battlefield. The new player who buys premium time on day 1 has the opportunity to buy them before a free player who spends nothing. They can also use MC they've bought to gain the advantage of exchanging gxp to buy skills and modules and master mechs faster giving them another advantage over free players.

it's all perspective. Clans aren't "op", they don't offer any clear cut advantage over IS.
They offer advantages in certain areas
IS mechs also offer advantages in certain areas
(all of these have been well documented in this thread)

Now your opinion on those advantages and how "good" they are is purely subjective but if your opinion is the clans have "better" advantages, that doesn't make them "op"

Since we're talking about legalese and industry standard type definitions


[color=#252525]Overpowered (often abbreviated to OP) is a common term referring to a perceived lack of game balance. It is often used when describing a specific class in an RPG, a specific faction in strategic games, or a specific tactic, ability, weapon or unit in various games. For something to be deemed overpowered, it is either the best choice in a disproportionate number of situations (marginalising other choices) and/or excessively hard to counter by the opponent compared to the effort required to use it.[/color]

[color=#252525]So we can see that it is subjective. Are clans the best choice? Depends on the build, your play style, your opinion, the situation, the map, etc.[/color]

Is it excessively hard to counter using IS mechs? Not for me, and several others in this thread, so again, it's subjective.

[Roland]

No dude, you are mistaken.

Cost in in game currency is not a pay barrier. A pay wall in af2p game refers to content which can only be accessed by spending real world currency. If you can access it via in game means, then it is not behind a pay wall.

At this point you are just using definitions which aren't actually correct. You are just making up your own definitions, and then sassing it's subjective. But that's not how language works.

I mean, you can make up your own definition where pay to win means murdering baby puppies, and then say that something isn't p2w because you aren't murdering puppies... But at the end of the day you haven't said anything at all, because you are no longer using the terms as they are commonly defined.

Across the industry, p2w means passing for competitive advantage that can only be accessed through expenditure of real world currency.

That's what the term means. That's what we are taking about here.

[FupDup]

MischiefSC, on 21 July 2014 - 06:42 PM, said:

FupDup in a Stormcrow thought?

Totally OP.

Extremely OP.



Especially when using 4 ERML + 2 ERLL.

[Roland]

4 erml and 3 csrm6 with Artemis.
Run over 100 kph and one shot assault mechs.

[IraqiWalker]

Sandpit, on 21 July 2014 - 06:00 PM, said:

IF your opponent has clan mechs then there's no in-match advantage
IF your team has the same number of clan mechs then there's no in-match advantage
(no, I don't feel clans are "op" just illustrating the point)

I'm just pointing out that the philosophy being discussed would define premium time as P2W.

Different types of cake in my opinion. You're talking from a starting up position, where both players are starting out at the same time, and one has premium time, while the other doesn't, and I'm talking from the perspective of with everything else equal and premium time being the only different thing, will it cause the player with premium time to win the match, or give them an advantage over the non-premium player.

Roland, on 21 July 2014 - 06:10 PM, said:

Because my definition is the one actually used by everyone involved in the industry. I mean, I can link you to various sources defining pay to win as purchasing advantage, but I don't think you would bother changing your mind.

Honestly, your definition of pay to win meaning literally paying for a guaranteed win is nonsensical on its face. You should be able to reason it out and figure out why your definition couldn't possibly be the case. Paying for a guaranteed win would actually eliminate the entirety of the game.

Regardless, I don't care if you continue to be wrong about this. Educate yourself, or don't. It's up to you.

1- the first line is a general assumption, that is clearly not 100% true since there are those that ascribe to my definition.

2- Drop the hostility, I know tempers can run high during debates, but there's no reason to stop being civil about this. I'm not trying to be antagonizing, nor am I insulting you. I simply asked why you think your definition is more correct than mine.

3- Links would be appreciated to some of these sources, I'm not going to turn down the chance to learn something new, or understand a different viewpoint.

4- My definition may seem harsh for you, but effectively that's what's happening, in many of those games where pay to win applies, the items "technically" give you an advantage over others, however, the advantage is so overwhelming that it guarantees victory. Yes, if someone else paid as much as you have, they can possibly beat you, and you would lose, however, versus someone who has not paid money, you cannot lose.

[Sandpit]

Roland, on 21 July 2014 - 06:52 PM, said:

[color=#252525]So we can see that it is subjective. Are clans the best choice? Depends on the build, your play style, your opinion, the situation, the map, etc.[/color]

Is it excessively hard to counter using IS mechs? Not for me, and several others in this thread, so again, it's subjective.

[MischiefSC]

I would fairly argue that 'best in class' and 'top tier' isn't the same as OP.

Conversely I'd say you don't need OP to be moving towards P2W.

Who here would say the Clan Release isn't a long way from where things started, with Hero Mechs being nerfed to avoid them being perceived as P2W? 5 months of best in class access isn't the same, that's for sure. 6 months of access to Clan content ahead of F2P players isn't the same.

Waiting until we all sit down and say 'Yep. Yep that's totally P2W' to say 'This isn't the right direction, this ain't cool, please don't do it again' is a bad idea.

[Sandpit]

it's purely subjective, your opinion is they have an advantage over IS mechs. My opinion is they don't.

My opinion is each has their own set of advantages and disadvantages against the other

[Roland]

Like I said Iraqi, you can educate yourself if you see fit. No one subscribes to your belief on this one though, at least not along people who know anything about the f2p model.

[Lightfoot]

Roland, on 21 July 2014 - 06:26 PM, said:

No, premium time does not give you a competitive advantage.
It has absolutely no impact on the result of a match, which is why premium time clearly is not pay to win. This is not subjective.

I have most of my Premium Time banked. I am waiting for CW, I guess. You really don't need it for leveling up or buying stuff, but it takes longer, but I like the challenge of earning C-Bills and mechs, etc.

As for Clan tech, the mechs are not OP, they get blown to bits pretty fast sometimes and some are pure junk compared to Inner Sphere mod-ability mechs (only PGI could make ancient IS more Omni than advanced Clan tech). However Clans get the ER Medium Laser. Inner Sphere is supposed to have cooler PPCs and Gauss Rifles to fight Clan ER Medium Lasers, but PGI nerfed that good stuff because of all the Gauss+PPC meta whining a year ago. You will remember me saying you never nerf Inner Sphere tech before the Clan Invasion? No one listened and we got too hot PPCs and Ghost Heat and the ridiculous Gauss Rifle de-sync. Yep, "Alea iacta est", the dye is cast, and they will never fix the Gauss Rifle+PPCs to save Inner Sphere from Clan tech.

[MischiefSC]

FupDup, on 21 July 2014 - 06:52 PM, said:

Extremely OP.



Especially when using 4 ERML + 2 ERLL.

You were rocking SRMs I though with those ERMLs? You were top score in that match btw. The other team thought our team was a premade.

We were 70% clan mechs. More likely to be a concentration of vet players.

[FupDup]

MischiefSC, on 21 July 2014 - 07:00 PM, said:

You were rocking SRMs I though with those ERMLs? You were top score in that match btw. The other team thought our team was a premade.

We were 70% clan mechs. More likely to be a concentration of vet players.

Yeah, I was using 4 ERML + 3 ASRM6.

[Sandpit]

Roland, on 21 July 2014 - 06:58 PM, said:

Like I said Iraqi, you can educate yourself if you see fit. No one subscribes to your belief on this one though, at least not along people who know anything about the f2p model.

you're ignoring every other opinion besides yours bud. There are many more than Iraqi that don't agree that clans are "op"

[IraqiWalker]

Roland, on 21 July 2014 - 06:58 PM, said:

Like I said Iraqi, you can educate yourself if you see fit. No one subscribes to your belief on this one though, at least not along people who know anything about the f2p model.

See, this is the problem I'm having here. What makes you the authority and decider on this definition. I'm honestly trying to understand what you're saying, and I'm getting the gist of it. I still see it as flawed, I understand it, but I think it's flawed.

[MischiefSC]

Also, just saw Sean Lang in a Stormcrow absolutely *wrecking face*.

Clan mechs OP. PGI knows it and exploits it for.... uh....

Yeah. See?

Joking aside, I think the SCR is the most under-rated mech out right now. Well played it's a stone cold killer and puts all other mediums to shame.

[Joseph Mallan]

Sandpit, on 21 July 2014 - 07:05 PM, said:

you're ignoring every other opinion besides yours bud. There are many more than Iraqi that don't agree that clans are "op"

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 21 July 2014 - 07:08 PM.

[KharnZor]

So having premium time is p2w now?