513 replies to this topic

[Sundervine]

Come on guys we just need to let the game go, since if anything can be play to win for any given time, then we need to get ride of all colors, patterns, hero mechs, champion mechs, etc. We need to let the game go unfunded save for people wanting to sponsor the game for these reasons.

White based camo, will for a match or so be p2w on a snow map since it makes you harder to hit than the other pilot that did not spend money on colors. Thus p2w! Even IF it is only a small change it is still p2w!

Champion mechs, well player A, player B both start today, A buys a champion mech because he wants to sponsor the game, B does not. A has a huge advantage over B because after just one or two battles he now has xp to make his mech better. Player B does not because he is using the same champion without skills unlocked. P2W!!! Get ride of it now!!!

I can go on, but this shows that anything can be considered play to win if your definition is not time, nor statisticly based.

[Mavairo]

Hero mecs are P2W now?

So... my Pretty Baby, Fang, and Flame are now P2W?

What did I sleep through?!

[qki]

Atheus, on 25 June 2014 - 01:36 PM, said:

You're mixing 2 premises here. Either Player A and Player X are normally on even footing, or they are not.

• If they were even, but player X upgrades to a better gun, then he's going to start winning more.
  
• If Player A is normally better than Player X, then depending on the amount of difference, Player A may still be ahead, may lose some of his advantage, or may by surpassed by player X with a new gun.
  
• If Player A is normally worse than player X, then the only change is that he dies faster.

In all these scenarios, player X got an upgrade, just that it didn't always let him win over Player A regardless of their skill gap. But it's not just player A that has to worry about player X. There is a whole community of players who play better, worse, and just the same as player X. If player X suddenly gets better skills, he's going to move up in the hierarchy. If he upgrades his weapon, the same thing happens without the need for change in skill.


Now you'll want to say well what if Player A could use player X's weapon upgrade, but chooses not to? Well that doesn't particularly matter. It's a bad assumption to begin with, but even if he can't benefit from X's cash shp uzi, there are plenty of other players just like player X who would benefit from a gun that shoots twice as fast who are going to get mowed down by X regardless of their identical skill.

You are still not seeing the whole picture.

What if there is a third gun (besides the regular one player A was using, and the premium one used by player , that is freely available within the game, and better than both of them?

The difference between You and me, is that in this situation, you get hung up on "Player B is using a better gun than player A, who would be better if he was using that same gun as well"

Whereas I will stop to ask "Why wasn't player A using an even better gun in the first place?" It's not like he was using the best one to begin with, so he can just pick up one that is better than player B's shiny new paygun, and so can everyone else for that matter.


Now the next part may blow all your fuses, so proceed with caution.


That's not necessarily a bad thing.
In a game with a steep learning curve, having a premium weapon that will allow a low-tier player to "magically" jump to mid tier might even be desireable. It will allow said player to defeat the low tier players who have not yet mastered the proper skills, and are unwilling to spend money do make the same jump.

But as long as the free stuff is better (or at least easily on par), then it is a simple question of players choosing the right tool for the job, and the playing field becomes level again - the "premium advantage" is all but gone, and "pure skill" is the deciding factor again.

[badaa]

champion mechs r the biggest rip off in the game paying real money for a very small and after u master useless xp bonus

[1453 R]

Roland, on 25 June 2014 - 01:34 PM, said:

snip for space

My God, an end objective and rational reasoning to support it.

You, sir, have my attention. Let us debate.

All right. Insofar as timed-exclusive content, on principle alone I mostly agree with you, though there’s room for dispute. It’s one of the best vices a gaming company can use to put the squeeze on players for money, good or bad, and employed sparingly and for certain things it’s generally not a problem. It can be seen as a sort of extended late beta – a sample of the population enabled to play a thing with questionable balance in the live environment so that the development team can collect data and adjust anything that needs adjustment prior to the thing going full-bore live.

As well, the two-week MC period for a given chassis prior to its C-bill release does indeed still fall under your momentary definition of P2W, but it brings up the question of whether minor and temporary instances of P2W are acceptable. I believe that the two-week MC buy is legitimate – two weeks is hardly nothing for a lot of folks, but it’s still the sort of thing which generates CW dollars for PGI, and frankly I think the community has largely stomached these two-week stretches. There is, and always will be, grumbling, but that’s just the nature of the Internet.

That said, the six-month stretch between now and the Timber Wolf (and let’s be realistic – nobody gives the remotest flap about anything but the Timber Wolf insofar as the Berlin Pay Wall is concerned) is definitely painful, and if people weren’t so violent in their dislike of it – and so inclined to blame me for it, point fingers and do the “you’re a bad person and you should feel bad!” thing, I’d be much more inclined to sympathize with them. It feels too harsh, and the cost of snagging the Timber Wolf for cash money now, while/how it’s available, is definitely out of reach of quite a lot of folks. The a’la carte prices start bad and never really get to good – if you’re not buying a fixed package, you’re hurting yourself and everyone knows it.

Here’s the deal, though. Piranha’s laid out a plan for the releases, one that has been very public for quite some time now. Deviating from that plan will generate tremendous backlash, regardless of how or when they deviate from it. Doing so now, right on the heels of the official Clan release, would be sort of akin to putting their necks under the guillotine and then handing the rope to its player base. Do you really trust these people not to let go? It would destroy them as a company, and all of our money would go to waste anyways since the game’d go belly-up and nobody would get anything anymore. We are, unfortunately, stuck with it insofar as the Invasion ‘Mechs go.

You bring up an interesting point with Hero ‘Mechs, but I think we’re pretty stuck there, too. For a very long time, Hero ‘Mechs have been an MC-exclusive option. People have bought them under the impression that they were MC-exclusive, they were created under the impression that they would be MC-exclusive. We get the problem I outlined with the Invasion release all over again – how much of the Hero-owning playerbase would rise up in revolt if Piranha gave Hero and Champion ‘Mechs C-bill costs, even prohibitively high ones? How much money would Piranha not see anymore, given that many players in this game are sitting on billions of C-bills they don’t give a frog about anymore and would gladly never pay a dime again for anything ever if they could snag Dragon Slayers for 50m C-bills?

I agree with removing pay barriers whenever possible and don’t care about early access, and I’ll admit that I would be a little put out knowing that all of my Heroes were now up for grabs for CB. Sort of a case of ‘what’s the point of even making them, then?’ On top of, y’know, Champion ‘Mechs completely invalidating any/all reason to own the regular non-[C] version of that given ‘Mech.

I think Piranha’s actually hit upon a semi-reasonable compromise – there’s too much MC-exclusive content in the game, very true, but Piranha also puts up some pretty deep sales on a frequent basis. The Original 4 sale, with its half-off C-bill price as well as MC, is an excellent example of how to go about giving the players a chance to grab their shinies on a budget without invalidating the expenditures of those of us who paid regular price when they came out. Sort of a Steam Sale approach rather than the usual preference for minor/cosmetic transactions only. I think there may be room in the world for the Steam Sale approach, even outside Steam.

What do you think? Are frequent strong sales enough of a mitigation for Piranha to get away with MC-locked chassis choices like the Durgan Soiler?

[Sundervine]

maybe but ifyou buy one on day one and another player does not, one using a trial mech does not give xp, and 2 you can unlock skills, he cannot. Pay 2 win same mech but one new player is better than another. Since time does not matter, not the amount of 'better' it makes you.

It might be an extremely small player but it is better than a trial mech and its p2w by that definition.

[Roland]

KamikazeRat, on 25 June 2014 - 01:40 PM, said:

so...i have a thought, is P2W...THAT bad? shouldnt paying for something give you something better? even if it is just marginally better or situationally better? other than paying for something that is just cool like camo or the gold mechs...shouldnt there be some sort of advantage to it if you put down money on a FREE game?

not stating an opinion on this matter at this time...just injecting a thought (i did buy clan mechs, so you can probably figure it out from there)

No, generally P2W is a bad thing to add into a game, especially a skill based game.

You don't want outcomes to be determined by who spent the most money, rather than who is most skilled.

[Nightmare1]

Good grief, another one of these nutcases? There's a half-dozen of these threads already, and they're spreading like crazy!

Sheesh, why is it that every time PGI releases some new content, the whiners come out of the closet to gripe about it and demand nerfs? Canonically, Clan Tech was better than IS Tech. In MWO, it's actually pretty balanced. Clanners sacrifice customization and speed for higher dps. They also sacrifice crunch. For example, a Boom Jager is going to crunch a lot harder than a comparable Clanner because all his punch is carried in two shots rather than ten.

Quit whining and get over it, or go ahead and QQ so that the rest of us can enjoy the game.

[Rebas Kradd]

Atheus, on 25 June 2014 - 01:06 PM, said:

For starters, Clans are mixed with IS right now, so unless you're referencing some unknown data you're just fooling yourself.

Fine and good, but that makes you equally in the dark. If I have no valid way to compare Clan tech to IS, then neither do you, upon which your argument falls apart.

Atheus, on 25 June 2014 - 01:06 PM, said:

You mean clan mechs are routinely defeated by IS mechs? This point does not contradict or even erode this argument in the slightest.

What? That makes no sense. Of course it does. We're talking about whether Clans are more powerful, and the idea of IS mechs routinely coming out on top would seriously affect your supporting data. What on earth do you mean it doesn't contradict or erode?

Atheus, on 25 June 2014 - 01:06 PM, said:

And an expiration date? My definition does not worry about when or if a pay wall is coming down.

You are nonsensically dismissing important perspective. Eventually, all clan tech will be available for free. What possible basis will there be, at that point, in calling it PAY to win if nobody needs to pay?

[Turboferret]

Roland, on 25 June 2014 - 02:08 PM, said:

No, generally P2W is a bad thing to add into a game, especially a skill based game.

You don't want outcomes to be determined by who spent the most money, rather than who is most skilled.

Skill based game?

This game is about fun, skill is secondary to that. As long as everyone's still having fun, I honestly couldn't give two flying ****s.

Everyone seems to be caught up in this whole "wow please let MWO be a real e-sport so competitive" thing. Guess what? Those players are a tiny portion of the user base, PGI's real customer base is the fan-gamer. So if they cater towards them? That's fine with me.

[Powder Puff Pew Pew]

Atheus, on 24 June 2014 - 08:44 PM, said:

The debate over whether clan tech is P2W has been raging for days now. I finally realized that it's quite easy to prove the P2W status of clan tech. This line of reasoning was inspired by the intensely popular Dragon Slayer Victor.

• Strong mechs have a greater chance of winning than weak mechs.
  
• Players generally prefer a strong mech to a weak mech.
  
• Players will attempt to design the strongest mech they can to suit their current play style, or the play style they would like to adopt.
  
• In a competition setting, players will choose the mech they feel gives their team the best chance of winning.
  
• Pay to Win means that something that is only available for cash can provide an advantage that can not be duplicated by an equivalent non-cash item.
  
• Providing a date at which a pay-to-win item will be available for in-game currency does not change the pay-to-win nature of said item in the present.

A Dragon Slayer Victor is very similar in hard points to the VTR-9S, but in a competition setting you'll see almost exclusively DS variants. The reasons are obvious to anyone familiar with the chassis. They're amazingly good pop-tarts, and pop-tarts win competitions. But the reason they choose the DS over the 9S is because of the different positioning of the ballistic hard points. The pilots understand that having the weapons all on the right side is an advantage, and so as not to fall behind other pilots who have that advantage, they purchase and use the DS. This example is funny since they are not paying to win, they're paying to not lose to the other guys who paid to win. Their choice of the DS makes it impossible to deny that they are paying for advantages that are not available for C-Bills. Therefore, by choosing that mech to use to win tournaments, they confirm that in their most honest analysis, their best option is the DS, therefore confirming their own consent to PGI's pay to win game structure.


Stepping away from the tournament, let's have a look at Clan tech. It is available immediately for cash, but will gradually become available in the C-Bill market between August and November. That's 2 months before the first clan mech is available for C-Bills, and 5 until the last is released.

Clan tech has many unique attributes. Nearly all attributes deviate from IS tech, and while most of them are pros, some are cons. The question is how do we figure out which is better overall? Well fortunately we don't need to come up with a consensus on which is better. Individual players will decide the answer based on their own estimations of what will best suit their play style. Some will be wrong, and make bad choices, but some will be right, and make good choices. Of the ones who are right, some will choose IS, and others will choose Clan. I can not irrefutably prove the existence of players who will both choose clan and be correct, but I do feel it is a reasonable assertion that such a player can exist, and most likely does exist — possibly in large numbers.

I'd like to point out that it does not matter whether this hypothetical player is highly skilled, or modestly skilled. The question is whether Clan tech will improve their ability to kill enemies and/or win matches. If they can build a mech that is better suited to killing/winning using their play style with Clan tech than they can build using IS tech, they serve as living proof that Clan tech can indeed provide an advantage to certain players that currently can not be acquired with C-Bills.

Is this Clan advantage universal to all players? Maybe not. It doesn't particularly matter, though. Some players may find Clan tech does not suit their play style. That does not mean that other players can not boost their combat potential using clan tech. Thus, whether or not you feel you can personally benefit from Clan tech, you should absolutely recognize that it is a pay to win element that will continue to be just that until all of it is available for C-Bills.

You are seriously stupid. You are like a teenage girl who over thinks about boy troubles but this situation is about a game. Thumbs waaaay down on this topic and its just spam. I've seen like 100 topic's on PTW and its all trash, totaly bogus whining. We bought content prior to the Cbill release. If you paid money you would have the content now too but you are just 1 of many whining cry baby players on here who just need to take a puff on some weed and chill out or get laid lol.

[Atheus]

qki, on 25 June 2014 - 01:52 PM, said:

What if there is a third gun (besides the regular one player A was using, and the premium one used by player , that is freely available within the game, and better than both of them?

The difference between You and me, is that in this situation, you get hung up on "Player B is using a better gun than player A, who would be better if he was using that same gun as well"

There are two answers:

The first most likely scenario is that apparently player A and player B are not able to make good use of weapon Z, because if they were truly better with it, they would probably be using it.

The second is that it doesn't matter even if they are choosing not to use weapon Z despite being better with it. Player A and player B play use the style of gun that they use because that's what they like. They exist in the game representing weapon X, just like a multitude of other players who enjoy weapon X or weapon Y despite their inferiority to Z. As a result they fall in the ELO bracket they fall in. If they suddenly have access to X², they're a step ahead of the guys stuck with the choice between weapon X which they like, and weapon Z which they dislike despite its advantages.

You still haven't gotten away from a guy paying for an advantage, receiving it, and making use of it.

Edited by Atheus, 25 June 2014 - 02:48 PM.

[AEgg]

Powder Puff Pew Pew, on 25 June 2014 - 02:23 PM, said:

-snip-

The point is that we care about the game. Selling significant gameplay-affecting content kills games dead. That said, the ship sailed years ago with hero mechs, so I don't understand why people are only upset about clans now, especially when they'll be available for cbills.

[1453 R]

Atheus, on 25 June 2014 - 02:26 PM, said:

You still haven't gotten away from a guy paying for an advantage, receiving it, and making use of it.

Hey.

Hey, hey.

Heeeeeey.

Hey, buddy.

...what if some of us did not pay for, desire, or expect an advantage? Are we still evil baby-eating P2W-ing jackholes if we bought the package for the fact that it was/is the cheapest way to obtain the content, we wanted the bonus fluff (<3 warhorns, ugly and all), and/or we liked the Clans and wanted the proper 'Mechs for those factions?

You keep trying to convince the world that anyone with an Invasion package is a game-killing jerkbag who's only in it to pilot his busted Timber Wolves around and stomp dem nubz into their own feces. Freaking Roland has made stronger points than you have at this point, and that guy's infamous for wanting Piranha to curl up and die.

You think that maybe you could extend the benefit of the doubt to your fellow players just a little bit?

Edited by 1453 R, 25 June 2014 - 02:34 PM.

[Powder Puff Pew Pew]

Everyone just take a Deeeeeeeeeeep Breath, Exhale......let ur mind sink into bliss. Meditate, get laid, do the nasty, talk to a shrink, do whatever you do that makes you happy and realize all this ptw is just you being a spoiled selfish grab fest at forcing someone to bend to your own igotism. This game is not Play to Win. There are games that ARE play to win and they cost $millions. Where people listerely have $ millions of cash invested in real money in a game. Those are the big boy games. This is free to play. Anyone can download the game, grab a mech and play. If anyone on here has a "MC" mech, a mech they bought with cash then you have no right to whine. You are seriously just a hipocrit.

[Atheus]

Rebas Kradd, on 25 June 2014 - 02:19 PM, said:

Fine and good, but that makes you equally in the dark. If I have no valid way to compare Clan tech to IS, then neither do you, upon which your argument falls apart... We're talking about whether Clans are more powerful, and the idea of IS mechs routinely coming out on top would seriously affect your supporting data. What on earth do you mean it doesn't contradict or erode?

The question is not whether clan is supreme ruler of the battlefield. The question is only can an individual pilot improve their ability to do their job in a match by upgrading to clan tech. If the answer is yes, then for that individual they have paid for an advantage. It can only be addressed on an individual basis, because trying to come up with a blanket answer that is true for everyone is not realistic, especially considering that a substantial portion of the player population can't even try it to find out.

Rebas Kradd, on 25 June 2014 - 02:19 PM, said:

You are nonsensically dismissing important perspective. Eventually, all clan tech will be available for free. What possible basis will there be, at that point, in calling it PAY to win if nobody needs to pay?

At that point there will be none. We aren't at that point yet, though.

What I can tell you is that although the clan release has a massive pay wall up, their policy for the last year or so is to always have a little pay wall up in front of every mech release. If they release a mech that's going to be an upgrade for a group of players (as basically every mech should be), that's going to be another pay to win situation, though it doesn't compare to the clan invasion in scale.

[Atheus]

1453 R, on 25 June 2014 - 02:34 PM, said:

Hey.

Hey, hey.

Heeeeeey.

Hey, buddy.

...what if some of us did not pay for, desire, or expect an advantage? Are we still evil baby-eating P2W-ing jackholes if we bought the package for the fact that it was/is the cheapest way to obtain the content, we wanted the bonus fluff (<3 warhorns, ugly and all), and/or we liked the Clans and wanted the proper 'Mechs for those factions?

This is why I separate it into two calculations. Players choosing pay to win, vs. payers receiving pay to win. You may not have realized that your clan mechs would offer you stronger options, but if they did, you received an exclusive advantage.

1453 R, on 25 June 2014 - 02:34 PM, said:

You keep trying to convince the world that anyone with an Invasion package is a game-killing jerkbag who's only in it to pilot his busted Timber Wolves around and stomp dem nubz into their own feces. Freaking Roland has made stronger points than you have at this point, and that guy's infamous for wanting Piranha to curl up and die.

You think that maybe you could extend the benefit of the doubt to your fellow players just a little bit?

I've never claimed anything like this, but that hasn't stopped a whole mess of people from trying to put these words in my mouth. If I'm wrong, feel free to copy paste some proof.

[Deathlike]

This thread is a disaster, so I'm probably going to bail quick.

The OP's argument is really "P2W now" as in the complaint ultimately boils down to "since everyone that has paid gets their mechs/tech in advance, indirectly exposing advantages inherent with that package". This probably holds only true to probably the Madcat, and nothing else. Then again, the 6 month wait for the Madcat release will probably take its toll at some point. I'm not bothered by the new Madcat overlords.

With respect to Hero mechs, the only mech that HAS NO COMPARISON TO (although the Dragon Slayer comes close - the HGN-733C is a worse JJ capable mech due to the JJ nerfs) is the Ember. Name a Light mech that has the perfect cutting tool of 4 med lasers WITH 4 MGs that ISN'T the Ember. The problem is that there is no equivalence. Back when the Ilya was one of the first few heros, it had something that most heavies DID NOT have... a useful 3rd ballistic hardpoint (the Cataphract-4X doesn't resemble the other Cataphracts at all in terms of hardpoints, engine, and usage). It took a while before the Jager was added to the lineup where this became a moot point... even though Ilya's probably still regarded as one of the more popular hero mechs. Note that the only build the Ilya can do that all the other IS mechs can't do is the 3 Gauss build... which is still regarded as a glass cannon (GL to you if you want to run that). There's nothing really imbalanced about that really (unless you get perfect convergence on a target's head...).

So, while some of us are still waiting for a non-MC only Ember-type mech, this "imbalance" does actually exist... whether it be for the Clan Pack or even the heros that have already been supplied in this game. Mind you, these are the extreme cases as not all Clan Mechs nor Hero Mechs are alike (I still laugh @ the Huginn and Oxide for instance), but it is worth pointing out even if you disagree with that point.

Edited by Deathlike, 25 June 2014 - 02:51 PM.

[Rebas Kradd]

Atheus, on 25 June 2014 - 02:37 PM, said:

The question is only can an individual pilot improve their ability to do their job in a match by upgrading to clan tech.

I do not think that is the question at all. I think that is a clever equivocation you have developed to circumvent the fact that Clan mech is not automatically or even demonstrably superior to IS tech, as testified to by numerous players who remain content with IS. Having to work a little harder (or, God forbid, find some friends) in an IS mech takes the P2W concept and places it on a spectrum, where degrees matter. And judging from the responses from the community, I think people are satisfied to the degree that P2W has been deferred.

And please, for the love of all that is good and holy, do not even mention "appeal to the masses" logical fallacy. That does not apply in a customer satisfaction situation. In customer satisfaction, if the majority is pleased with a policy, the company will maintain said policy.

Edited by Rebas Kradd, 25 June 2014 - 02:56 PM.

[Roland]

Rebas Kradd, on 25 June 2014 - 02:55 PM, said:

And judging from the responses from the community, I think people are satisfied to the degree that P2W has been deferred.

To be fair, as others have pointed out... the vast, vast majority of those saying that it's fine are folks who already paid for the clan mechs.

It's like a billionaire saying that income inequality seems fine from where he's sitting.