513 replies to this topic

[LordKnightFandragon]

Corralis, on 24 June 2014 - 11:16 PM, said:

Yea it is a bit OP but not P2W as you can buy the module with C-bills. Also it kinda counters the fact that not many Clan Mech's have ECM so it should really be a Clan Mech only module.

Yeah, after dumping 15K into the skill then 6mill to actually have it.

Whereas the clan pack guys got it for free didnt they?

[Corralis]

LordKnightFandragon, on 24 June 2014 - 11:17 PM, said:

Yeah, after dumping 15K into the skill then 6mill to actually have it.

Whereas the clan pack guys got it for free didnt they?

Some of them did, might be the very top package that got that module.

[Atheus]

Corralis, on 24 June 2014 - 11:01 PM, said:

Yea I realise these questions are rhetorical but I'm gonna answer them anyway.

1. Any amount will do.
2.Nope.
3.Yes, the fact you choose not to buy something is your choice and you have the right to make that choice. Complaining about people that do is your problem.

I disagree with you on point 1. Any player is valuable to the game, whether they pay or not. Perhaps you haven't noticed that this game has a fairly small player base. Treating free players like trash is not helping whether it's you or PGI doing it.

Point 3, I'm not complaining about players jumping over the pay wall, I'm complaining about PGI putting up a pay wall and saying "hey guys you know, do what you want. I know you love this game and all, but here's all our new content. You can play it now or in 2-5 months, and if you decide to wait you'll be good target practice for the real customers."

Do I wish players held PGI to a higher standard? Yes. Do I blame them? Not really. Not everyone has the time or energy to fight the game designer of the game they enjoy when they do things they don't like. This is 100% about PGI using a BS scheme to monetize the game rather than growing it properly by delivering on all the content they have been promising since the beginning, thus retaining and gaining players rather than just shedding the non-true-believers like dead skin.

Corralis, on 24 June 2014 - 11:01 PM, said:

And don't you think it's a bit late to be complaining about a mech that has been out for months?

It's not too late to use it as an example. I spoke out about hero mechs from the very start, though, so your implied assumption is baseless.

Corralis, on 24 June 2014 - 11:01 PM, said:

The concept of P2W is simple, if I spend real money to be more powerful in a game than some one who does not and the game allows me to do that then the game is P2W. Piloting the VTR-DS does not make me more powerful than anyone else in this game, I don't suddenly gain more armor than another 80 ton mech, my weapons do not do more damage than a non paying player's do. I do not gain an advantage by buying this Mech, just a new play-style.

Yes, the concept is indeed simple, but you're somehow failing to comprehend it. You become more powerful than yourself without the DS. That's all that matters.

Corralis, on 24 June 2014 - 11:16 PM, said:

But your forgetting about the main point of Hero Mech's, the 30% C-bill and XP boost. A CTF-3D can do everything the VTR-DS can do but I can make more money in the VTR-DS if I spend some real money. I'm paying for convenience not for power.

You act like these guys in the tournament might have been piloting their DS's for the C-Bill boost.

I'll give you this: If you bought your VTR-DS for the 30% C-Bill boost, not because you thought it was possibly the strongest mech in the game and you wanted to cash in on that, and then it turned out that you couldn't pilot it all that well, then yes, indeed you did not pay for an advantage, nor did you receive an advantage that you managed to make use of.

Edited by Atheus, 24 June 2014 - 11:28 PM.

[AlexEss]

Seeing how no mech that can be bought for money actually resist more damage or deal more damage then the normal ones... I fail to see the problem. At best you are talking about P2EA and that early advantage will in be equalized.

Now i have brought up NFS:W several times before when this discussion comes up. That game was P2W since the best cars could only be bought with money. Unlike our mechs they were actually better, they had faster acc, better top speed and gained more boost from nitro... That was P2W, MWO is not P2W, the DS is not P2W, the clans mechs could be P4A if they were to remain as MC only.... depending on your play style but would still not be P2W.

Selling AMMO that does more damage or heatsinks that are more efficient woudl be P2W. Selling mech battlefield repair kits for MC only would be P2W

See the difference..?

[Vassago Rain]

AlexEss, on 24 June 2014 - 11:36 PM, said:

Seeing how no mech that can be bought for money actually resist more damage or deal more damage then the normal ones... I fail to see the problem. At best you are talking about P2EA and that early advantage will in be equalized.

Now i have brought up NFS:W several times before when this discussion comes up. That game was P2W since the best cars could only be bought with money. Unlike our mechs they were actually better, they had faster acc, better top speed and gained more boost from nitro... That was P2W, MWO is not P2W, the DS is not P2W, the clans mechs could be P4A if they were to remain as MC only.... depending on your play style but would still not be P2W.

Selling AMMO that does more damage or heatsinks that are more efficient woudl be P2W. Selling mech battlefield repair kits for MC only would be P2W

See the difference..?

>this robot that costs money and outperforms everything else is not pay to win.
>because I say so.
>it doesn't instantly win, so it can't be pay to win!

[MonkeyCheese]

Corralis, on 24 June 2014 - 11:09 PM, said:

Ahh but this guy has PROVED that this game is P2W so that alone demands a brand new thread

Really? I stopped reading the first posts of all these QQ threads weeks ago, I just came to read with my popcorn.

[AlexEss]

Vassago Rain, on 24 June 2014 - 11:41 PM, said:

>this robot that costs money and outperforms everything else is not pay to win.
>because I say so.
>it doesn't instantly win, so it can't be pay to win!

It does not out perform everything... It outperforms in a very specific meta that might be coming to an end very soon. Outside of said meta it is fairly average.

As compared to my examples where these cars simply outdid every one in any mode... Or the equipment would simply ,be flat out better.,

[Atheus]

AlexEss, on 24 June 2014 - 11:36 PM, said:

Seeing how no mech that can be bought for money actually resist more damage or deal more damage then the normal ones... I fail to see the problem. At best you are talking about P2EA and that early advantage will in be equalized.

Now i have brought up NFS:W several times before when this discussion comes up. That game was P2W since the best cars could only be bought with money. Unlike our mechs they were actually better, they had faster acc, better top speed and gained more boost from nitro... That was P2W, MWO is not P2W, the DS is not P2W, the clans mechs could be P4A if they were to remain as MC only.... depending on your play style but would still not be P2W.

Selling AMMO that does more damage or heatsinks that are more efficient woudl be P2W. Selling mech battlefield repair kits for MC only would be P2W

See the difference..?

This bold part - it's not even remotely close to true. About your fast cars - I built a dire wolf today that can churn out 249 damage from 450m in 6.25 seconds and then keep shooting. I built a (50 ton) Nova with a highly usable and ghost heat free 64.5 point alpha, a 55 ton LRM60 Stormcrow with 10 tons of ammo, and a Timberwolf with a 94 point alpha and high sustained DPS. Clan mechs can toss on LRM15's like IS would toss on an SRM4, and if they didn't have the hard point they could probably grab it from another variant. These kinds of numbers don't appear in IS mechs of those weights. You can bet your ass that many, many players will find themselves being more effective in the cockpit of some Clan mech long before the pay wall comes down, and every one of them should be able to recognize that they have paid for that advantage.

It's just astonishing to me that this stubbornness exists in these forums to see P2W for what it is. It's like you guys have been brainwashed into thinking that somehow buying things that offer you an advantage can somehow under the right circumstances be something other than pay to win. This double-think is what allows PGI to get away with selling you guys "early access" at the expense of the gameplay of anyone who doesn't pay in. I can't count how many times I've heard these same people try to justify it with "you'll start getting clan tech in a few weeks." Not even realizing that the clan tech isn't going out for C-Bills until August, lol... And even then it's the crappiest clan mech they could come up with - a light that tops out at 90 kph.

Transparently the "best" clan mech is coming out SECOND TO LAST, because man if they actually had it coming out last that would make them look bad, right? PGI has their own game.

[qki]

And how many of these supermech that you've built have you actually played? Or played against?

It's easy to argue from a theoretical standpoint, but in practice, the argument falls apart.
There are a lot of people out there performing impressive feats of strength with clan mechs, perhaps even feats they weren't able to perform in IS mechs. But the crux of the matter is that there are other players out there performing just as well in IS mechs.

And your argument?

"those players would do even better in clan mechs". Really? What proof do you have of that assumption?
This view comes entirely from a very elitist "if you don't play it my way, you might as well not play at all" attitude, that tends to separate all mechs into "absolute best, god tier, alpha male, top of the food chain", and "utterly worthless", where exactly one mech falls into the first category, and all the rest fall into the second.

So whenever a hero mech is released it is either the new gold standard (and therefore p2w), or absolute garbage. See the critical flaw in your argument?

[Atheus]

qki, on 25 June 2014 - 12:17 AM, said:

And how many of these supermech that you've built have you actually played? Or played against?

It's easy to argue from a theoretical standpoint, but in practice, the argument falls apart.
There are a lot of people out there performing impressive feats of strength with clan mechs, perhaps even feats they weren't able to perform in IS mechs. But the crux of the matter is that there are other players out there performing just as well in IS mechs.

And your argument?

"those players would do even better in clan mechs". Really? What proof do you have of that assumption?
This view comes entirely from a very elitist "if you don't play it my way, you might as well not play at all" attitude, that tends to separate all mechs into "absolute best, god tier, alpha male, top of the food chain", and "utterly worthless", where exactly one mech falls into the first category, and all the rest fall into the second.

So whenever a hero mech is released it is either the new gold standard (and therefore p2w), or absolute garbage. See the critical flaw in your argument?

What are you talking about? This hypothesis makes no assumptions about what skill levels can benefit from clan mechs. The only assumption that you have to accept to accept the hypothesis is that SOMEONE can benefit from clan tech. That's a pretty freakin' low bar. If you accept that assumption, the theory does not fall apart.

Also, you're trying to throw hero mechs into some hyperbolic state of total domination or total inferiority. Never mind I can't even take you seriously.

[AlexEss]

Atheus, on 25 June 2014 - 12:05 AM, said:

This bold part - it's not even remotely close to true. About your fast cars - I built a dire wolf ... .. ..

Ok... since i was unclear... Clan mechs are not included in the first line... Since clan mechs will be able to be bought for C-Bills. No CURRENT hero mech is able to deal or soak more damage then the other mechs in it´s weight bracket. Sure they might exel in a very narrow band or specific meta but that is not something you can fully guard against. And yes i am pretty sure that some one at marketing wne through the data and cherry picked how the DS was built in order to sell as many as they could. But outside of that very specific meta it is not all that special. So once that specific meta is not the bees knees any more.. you will have a big lump of average.

Clan mechs... I have already said that i agree you pay for a early advantage (and it in turn will work out as a bit more experince) but it is a diminishing advantage over time and it will also come with the caveat of receiving the most changes and the clans get their first balance passes. Now i have no doubt that clan mechs can be OP... I have been here since closed beta and i have seen enough weird stuff to fill your nightmares for a week. But OP get tweaked and clans get released... So that is still not P2W.

As i said if they kept the clans MC only... That might have been considered P2W but AFAIK they will release the mechs to the general public.

[Vassago Rain]

AlexEss, on 25 June 2014 - 12:43 AM, said:

Ok... since i was unclear... Clan mechs are not included in the first line... Since clan mechs will be able to be bought for C-Bills. No CURRENT hero mech is able to deal or soak more damage then the other mechs in it´s weight bracket. Sure they might exel in a very narrow band or specific meta but that is not something you can fully guard against. And yes i am pretty sure that some one at marketing wne through the data and cherry picked how the DS was built in order to sell as many as they could. But outside of that very specific meta it is not all that special. So once that specific meta is not the bees knees any more.. you will have a big lump of average.

Clan mechs... I have already said that i agree you pay for a early advantage (and it in turn will work out as a bit more experince) but it is a diminishing advantage over time and it will also come with the caveat of receiving the most changes and the clans get their first balance passes. Now i have no doubt that clan mechs can be OP... I have been here since closed beta and i have seen enough weird stuff to fill your nightmares for a week. But OP get tweaked and clans get released... So that is still not P2W.

As i said if they kept the clans MC only... That might have been considered P2W but AFAIK they will release the mechs to the general public.

I'll be able to buy them for c-bills starting in august, one robot per month. Madcat in 6 months.

So it's only P2W for 6 months, is what you're saying, and that's totally fine? Oh, okay.

[Navid A1]

hmmm... pay2win...

i was wondering... in a 4-5 months time all clan mechs will be available for C-bills... what will the clan mechs become then...?

making posts about balance makes sense... but pay2win?... no... clan mechs are (going to be) free...!!

[Atheus]

AlexEss, on 25 June 2014 - 12:43 AM, said:

Ok... since i was unclear... Clan mechs are not included in the first line... Since clan mechs will be able to be bought for C-Bills. No CURRENT hero mech is able to deal or soak more damage then the other mechs in it´s weight bracket. Sure they might exel in a very narrow band or specific meta but that is not something you can fully guard against. And yes i am pretty sure that some one at marketing wne through the data and cherry picked how the DS was built in order to sell as many as they could. But outside of that very specific meta it is not all that special. So once that specific meta is not the bees knees any more.. you will have a big lump of average.

Clan mechs... I have already said that i agree you pay for a early advantage (and it in turn will work out as a bit more experince) but it is a diminishing advantage over time and it will also come with the caveat of receiving the most changes and the clans get their first balance passes. Now i have no doubt that clan mechs can be OP... I have been here since closed beta and i have seen enough weird stuff to fill your nightmares for a week. But OP get tweaked and clans get released... So that is still not P2W.

As i said if they kept the clans MC only... That might have been considered P2W but AFAIK they will release the mechs to the general public.

So in your analysis of Hero mechs you're using the word "specific" to describe a job. That's exactly my point. When you have a unique hero variant of every chassis, which in many cases only has 3 or 4 other variants, you're going to run into the situation quite often where the hero variant is the best one suited to a specific job for a particular player, or for a whole cross-section of players. Just by their very nature they are going to stumble into being P2W with regularity.

The rest of it... there is a reason that P2W has a bad reputation. People dislike it, and it hurts the game. It doesn't matter if it's Pay to Win for 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, or in this case 6 months. It's all bad.

[qki]

Atheus, on 25 June 2014 - 12:33 AM, said:

What are you talking about? This hypothesis makes no assumptions about what skill levels can benefit from clan mechs. The only assumption that you have to accept to accept the hypothesis is that SOMEONE can benefit from clan tech. That's a pretty freakin' low bar. If you accept that assumption, the theory does not fall apart.

Also, you're trying to throw hero mechs into some hyperbolic state of total domination or total inferiority. Never mind I can't even take you seriously.

If you go there, then you are looking at "proof" right now - my nova is by far my most successful mech. Something just clicked right with the build, and I am getting better results with it. Partially on account that the mechs I played prior to clan release were my LRM30 (twin artemis15) cat and my MLP/AC20 Yen Lo Wang - hardly the most competetive machines out there, but my favourite mechs to play.

And that's not what pay to win is.
The question is not whether you can buy something that makes you more powerful than yourself without that thing. The question is "can players who didn't buy the damn thing be as powerful as you".

But I can see where your argument is from, and my statement still stands.

You theorize, that player skill X times mech power Y gives a certain number, that only goes up if you replace mech power Y with mech power Y+1. Therefore the aim of every player should be to only use the absolute best mech ever (or at least best at any given job), since it gives that player the greatest potential.

Am I correct so far?

Going down your road, if at least one clan option is better than at least one previously available IS option, clans are P2W, because player A paid money, and became more powerful as a result.

I'm afraid it is quite the opposite. The game is not P2W, until there is at least one clan option, strictly better than every single IS option at the time.

[Atheus]

qki, on 25 June 2014 - 12:59 AM, said:

If you go there, then you are looking at "proof" right now - my nova is by far my most successful mech. Something just clicked right with the build, and I am getting better results with it. Partially on account that the mechs I played prior to clan release were my LRM30 (twin artemis15) cat and my MLP/AC20 Yen Lo Wang - hardly the most competetive machines out there, but my favourite mechs to play.

And that's not what pay to win is.
The question is not whether you can buy something that makes you more powerful than yourself without that thing. The question is "can players who didn't buy the damn thing be as powerful as you".

But I can see where your argument is from, and my statement still stands.

You theorize, that player skill X times mech power Y gives a certain number, that only goes up if you replace mech power Y with mech power Y+1. Therefore the aim of every player should be to only use the absolute best mech ever (or at least best at any given job), since it gives that player the greatest potential.

Am I correct so far?

Going down your road, if at least one clan option is better than at least one previously available IS option, clans are P2W, because player A paid money, and became more powerful as a result.

I'm afraid it is quite the opposite. The game is not P2W, until there is at least one clan option, strictly better than every single IS option at the time.

All right, so you're double-thinking then. You have something you bought with cash that can't be obtained with C-Bills at the moment, you seem to recognize that you are getting better results with your cash shop exclusive than you get with the free stuff, but you refuse to recognize that you have purchased an advantage. You're just being dishonest with yourself. Get over it. You have paid for an advantage that other players don't have. Yes they can pay up and get the same opportunity, or they can wait 3 months for the Nova to come available for C-Bills, but aside from that they're just dealing with the same junk you had pre-clan-upgrade.

I'm not asking you to apologize or feel bad or something, but you necessarily have to recognize what you're up to in order to recognize what PGI is up to. I really don't care that people bought clans, and I frankly don't care that clans are OP. As I said recently, I want clan mechs to be OP, but I also want them to be balanced properly by putting them on separate teams and giving them a handicap. "CW before Clans, we promise! Oh never mind Clans then CW!" It's PGI that I have an issue with.

[Sjorpha]

I think the Dragon slayer and Ember are evidently real problems, since they are cash only and at the same time the top competitive meta for assaults and lights.

Clan tech I don't agree with, at least not yet, because 1. it hasn't established a dominating competitive meta yet and 2. it is still in the phase of testing and balancing where judgements about p2w or not should be postponed until that phase is over.

If clan tech (i guess mad cats in the heavy slots) becomes a mandatory pick for winning top tier matches before they become available for c-bills. For example if there is a tournament where it is a clear disadvantage to run all IS, then it can be said that clan tech is p2w at that time.

[Atheus]

Sjorpha, on 25 June 2014 - 01:15 AM, said:

I think the Dragon slayer and Ember are evidently real problems, since they are cash only and at the same time the top competitive meta for assaults and lights.

Clan tech I don't agree with, at least not yet, because 1. it hasn't established a dominating competitive meta yet and 2. it is still in the phase of testing and balancing where judgements about p2w or not should be postponed until that phase is over.

If clan tech (i guess mad cats in the heavy slots) becomes a mandatory pick for winning top tier matches before they become available for c-bills. For example if there is a tournament where it is a clear disadvantage to run all IS, then it can be said that clan tech is p2w at that time.

PGI has to make a reasonable effort at balancing the game at all levels. Even if for whatever reason the Victor and CTF-3D reign supreme at the elite extravaganzas — if the whole mid and lower brackets are utterly dominated by clans they have a problem for 90% of their player base.

[qki]

Atheus, on 25 June 2014 - 01:14 AM, said:

All right, so you're double-thinking then. You have something you bought with cash that can't be obtained with C-Bills at the moment, you seem to recognize that you are getting better results with your cash shop exclusive than you get with the free stuff, but you refuse to recognize that you have purchased an advantage. You're just being dishonest with yourself. Get over it. You have paid for an advantage that other players don't have. Yes they can pay up and get the same opportunity, or they can wait 3 months for the Nova to come available for C-Bills, but aside from that they're just dealing with the same junk you had pre-clan-upgrade.

I'm not asking you to apologize or feel bad or something, but you necessarily have to recognize what you're up to in order to recognize what PGI is up to. I really don't care that people bought clans, and I frankly don't care that clans are OP. As I said recently, I want clan mechs to be OP, but I also want them to be balanced properly by putting them on separate teams and giving them a handicap. "CW before Clans, we promise! Oh never mind Clans then CW!" It's PGI that I have an issue with.

Or they can use other options.

It's not unreasonable to expect the clan machs to be good at something, and I understand, that clan mechs will take some top spots away from IS mechs, limiting the options of those players who didn't buy them.

But limiting is not the same as elliminating. Just because you have fewer top contenders doesn't mean you are out of the fight.
And I'm not paying for an advantage you don't have - I'm paying to have more good options than you.

Now, obviously, since I'm coming from the side of the barricade that has clan mechs, my statement comes with a certain level of bias.

The closest I can come up with an equivalent is the phoenix package. At a time when the shadowhawk was considered hands own the best meium, and one of the best mechs in the game, and still not available for c-bills at that time.
I did not buy the phoenix package, but I understood that while this limited my options somewhat, leaving me to play the "second best" centurion, or the JR7-F (considered the best light then), it was fair.

The people that pay help keep this game running, and they deserve something for it. I'm not saying they should be made more powerful than those who can't (or won't) pay, but again - I'm getting more good options than free players, not the "only good options that free players can't have at this time".

That's where I make the distinction on p2w.

[Atheus]

I just wanted to point out one thing before I hit the sack... it took 4 pages to get one guy to admit that he managed to take the whole new arsenal of weapons with its substantially buffed stats and a few minor nerfs and somehow make it work to his advantage. It's probably my fault since it may seem like I'm trying to shame the players in this thread. That is not my interest. I just want the players to recognize what PGI is doing, and what the stakes are. People struggling with the definition of P2W are not going to be able to dissent in a timely fashion. The reason that the free consumables are on par with the MC only ones is because players dissented quickly and vocally when PGI proposed blatantly P2W consumables. After supporting this latest and most egregious foray into P2W, though, don't be surprised if the next one is past your tolerance threshold too.

qki, on 25 June 2014 - 01:28 AM, said:

And I'm not paying for an advantage you don't have - I'm paying to have more good options than you.

You're still wallowing in double-think. Free your mind. Those phrases are functionally identical, because you took those good options and used them to your advantage. Assuming those good options would not be helpful to me is a very bad assumption.

Edited by Atheus, 25 June 2014 - 01:40 AM.