513 replies to this topic

[Atheus]

Fut, on 25 June 2014 - 10:57 AM, said:

Suppose you'll just continue to side-step any comments that are in opposition of your 'proven facts', right?
Oh well, we can't all be logical human beings.

Demonstrate that you've read more than just the thread title and I may develop an interest in what you have to say.

[pwnface]

Many players still prefer the 733c over the dragon slayer in pug play and can perform much better with it due to 2xuac5 and more armor. If you are looking exclusively at tournament/competitive play then I don't think spending a few bucks is a big deal. Realistically, even tourney teams don't run exclusively hero mechs. There are usually shadowhawks and ctf-3ds that need to be fielded to make weight restriction which are both free to play. If you are having trouble coming up with a few dollars to support this game, maybe you shouldn't be spending your time arguing on the forums and you should get a job so the $30-50 to buy a mech isn't such a big deal.

[Fut]

Atheus, on 25 June 2014 - 11:19 AM, said:

Demonstrate that you've read more than just the thread title and I may develop an interest in what you have to say.

Meh, you'll still just play your childish games because you know that you cannot refute my comment.
Something cannot be "Pay to Win", if people are losing after they pay.

End of your thread, my friend.

[Sundervine]

Clans are not really pay to win, other than two outliers. However they are better at making a mediocre pilot better. Most seem to say its the other way around however:

The longer beam time actually makes it easier to hit your target, as well as the longer range keeps them from firing at things to far away and waisting shots.The stream of ac makes it easier to hit your target. Not needing to worry about changing the engine and the structure/armor, makes it easier to add weapons without nerfing your mech into the ground. The stream LRMS actually help with people learning to play and well looks cool. It however does limit your opositions visibility. All these things help someone who is not great at the game look like they know what they are doing.

What does this actually do though, less time on target, no FLD, their light mechs, way to slow, the medium mechs one to slow the other might be considered PTW at the moment because it is really good at making low level pilots better. TW or mad cat whatever you want to call it also could be PTW because i cannot think of another heavy that can do better, I mean it is the one meck that can be a catapult, a cataphract, or a jagermech... well it can do most of whatever the others can do. So the end result until more clan mechs are released is to me thus:

IS rules the light game hands down.
IS rules the medium game because even with the stormcrow being a really good mech, it does not have jump jets and its FLD is not that of a Shadowhawk.
Heavy is clan, madcat is the best i can think of.
Assaults, a draw, the Victor is still better than the warhawk and the daishi overall but i can see the argument made otherwise.

[Atheus]

pwnface, on 25 June 2014 - 11:25 AM, said:

If you are having trouble coming up with a few dollars to support this game, maybe you shouldn't be spending your time arguing on the forums and you should get a job so the $30-50 to buy a mech isn't such a big deal.

Clearly my issue has nothing to do with my personal finances. You've either missed the point by accident or on purpose. If it was by accident, all you have to do is go back and reread and you'll figure it out.

Fut, on 25 June 2014 - 11:29 AM, said:

Meh, you'll still just play your childish games because you know that you cannot refute my comment.
Something cannot be "Pay to Win", if people are losing after they pay.

End of your thread, my friend.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and just say that you're a troll, even though I suspect the worst here. Either way, thanks for the bump, but I'm ignoring you until you stop spouting nonsense that clearly demonstrates you have not even made an effort to read what you're responding to.

[qki]

Fut, on 25 June 2014 - 11:29 AM, said:

Meh, you'll still just play your childish games because you know that you cannot refute my comment.
Something cannot be "Pay to Win", if people are losing after they pay.

End of your thread, my friend.

While I disaggree with Atheus on the subject of MWO being pay to win, this is just nonsense.

So get this:
At one point, I was playing Killzone Liberation - a pretty cool psp game with really good multiplayer. Trouble was, idiots and a-holes with custom firmware consoles were cheating. Not so much an advantage, as a god mode. Think a player who is able to fly, has infinite health, and a guided missile launcher with unlimited ammo. And when the end of match scoreboard comes up, he is last. He sucked so bad.

Throwing a tantrum and hanging on the literal meaning of "win" does you no good.


here's a definition for you: http://mwomercs.com/...32#entry3506232

since you seem to have missed my last post

Edited by qki, 25 June 2014 - 11:49 AM.

[Roland]

Fut, on 25 June 2014 - 11:29 AM, said:

Meh, you'll still just play your childish games because you know that you cannot refute my comment.
Something cannot be "Pay to Win", if people are losing after they pay.

End of your thread, my friend.

What you said here is clearly wrong, just so you know.

[Atheus]

Sundervine, on 25 June 2014 - 11:33 AM, said:

However they are better at making a mediocre pilot better.

This is all I need to demonstrate your double-think. Mediocre pilots are getting better by using clan. That's pay to win. Why? They now have an advantage over other mediocre pilots, not because they upgraded their skills, but because they upgraded their equipment to cash-exclusive stuff. Same pilot, no new skills, but better in combat.

[Barantor]

cSand, on 24 June 2014 - 09:12 PM, said:

Hey, here's a newsflash

Pay some cash if you want the new shinies right away

IF you don't wanna pay, that's fine, but make sure you STFU and wait while the rest of who bankroll your f**king experience get rewarded (rightly so) for it

Hey here is another newsflash.

I don't like clan mechs but want the game to be balanced. It still isn't and I've put a lot of money into this game so take your own advice.

Just because I don't pay now doesn't mean you are bankrolling me, hell I probably bankrolled you.

Unbalanced game is everyone's problem regardless of the problems. If something is obviously overpowered and behind a paywall I WANT people to complain about it.

I WANT people to complain? Yes, because if they don't then the guys that are going "l2p and buy shinies newb" drive off the average customer that is trying to try out the game and see if they like it. We will never get CW if the "old vets" continue to dole out the drivel that everything is fine when it isn't.

The OP has a point and an opinion, the only time STFU needs to be really said here is when someone is trolling or is saying it to someone giving their opinion on something. Seriously, grow up.

[Fut]

Atheus, on 25 June 2014 - 11:40 AM, said:

Clearly my issue has nothing to do with my personal finances. You've either missed the point by accident or on purpose. If it was by accident, all you have to do is go back and reread and you'll figure it out.


I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and just say that you're a troll, even though I suspect the worst here. Either way, thanks for the bump, but I'm ignoring you until you stop spouting nonsense that clearly demonstrates you have not even made an effort to read what you're responding to.

qki, on 25 June 2014 - 11:45 AM, said:

While I disaggree with Atheus on the subject of MWO being pay to win, this is just nonsense.

So get this:
At one point, I was playing Killzone Liberation - a pretty cool psp game with really good multiplayer. Trouble was, idiots and a-holes with custom firmware consoles were cheating. Not so much an advantage, as a god mode. Think a player who is able to fly, has infinite health, and a guided missile launcher with unlimited ammo. And when the end of match scoreboard comes up, he is last. He sucked so bad.

Throwing a tantrum and hanging on the literal meaning of "win" does you no good.


here's a definition for you: http://mwomercs.com/...32#entry3506232

since you seem to have missed my last post

Roland, on 25 June 2014 - 11:47 AM, said:

What you said here is clearly wrong, just so you know.

I'm actually just trying to point out how foolish it is for the MWO community to continually latch onto pre-existing terms and morph them into something different to suit their needs.
This is happening repeatedly around here. The P2W fiasco is the worst offender though.

Using the term "P2W" for something that's more along the lines of "Pay to have something that's different, but not necessarily better" is just sad. Just like the nightly news, these people are trying to over sensationalize and hype the situation into something that it isn't.

[cSand]

Barantor, on 25 June 2014 - 11:49 AM, said:

Hey here is another newsflash.

I don't like clan mechs but want the game to be balanced. It still isn't and I've put a lot of money into this game so take your own advice.

Just because I don't pay now doesn't mean you are bankrolling me, hell I probably bankrolled you.

Unbalanced game is everyone's problem regardless of the problems. If something is obviously overpowered and behind a paywall I WANT people to complain about it.

I WANT people to complain? Yes, because if they don't then the guys that are going "l2p and buy shinies newb" drive off the average customer that is trying to try out the game and see if they like it. We will never get CW if the "old vets" continue to dole out the drivel that everything is fine when it isn't.

The OP has a point and an opinion, the only time STFU needs to be really said here is when someone is trolling or is saying it to someone giving their opinion on something. Seriously, grow up.

pay to get what you want, or STFU and wait. I said it to the other guy, and I'll say it to you right now. Doesn't matter if you are a founder or not. you got what you paid for then, and you get what you pay for now. Deal with it.

Cool story though guy

Edited by cSand, 25 June 2014 - 11:59 AM.

[Mcgral18]

Atheus, on 25 June 2014 - 11:48 AM, said:

This is all I need to demonstrate your double-think. Mediocre pilots are getting better by using clan. That's pay to win. Why? They now have an advantage over other mediocre pilots, not because they upgraded their skills, but because they upgraded their equipment to cash-exclusive stuff. Same pilot, no new skills, but better in combat.

Well, certainly not from my point of view. IS tech is much easier to use then the Clan stuff. Fire and forget, not hold it on target in order to deal any measurable amounts of damage.

cUACs have their bursts, which is a much bigger thing than you seem to make it. Lasers, well their small+med ER lasers have the advantage, but their pulses are terrible, and the ERLL isn't much of an upgrade to the IS ERLL.

Which mech will the mediocre IS pilot do better in than a comparable IS mech? TimberTart has a Gauss, which apparently mediocre pilots can't use. Daishi is also gauss. Blackhawk, poor pilots will cook themselves.

Stormcrow? Not enough lasers to cause ghost heat, fast, decent armor but no JJs. Potentially better than an IS 55 or 60 tonner for the average pilot.

Edited by Mcgral18, 25 June 2014 - 12:15 PM.

[qki]

@Atheus:

What if I told you it doesn't matter. Your argument is constructed on the subjective feeling of who deserves to win the confrontation.

You are limiting yourself to thinking, that player X does not deserve to be more effective in combat, because instead of putting in extra effort, he just paid some money to arbitrarily make himself better.
But what does it matter in the grand scheme of things?

Imagine, that player X has roughly 50% accuracy. Suddenly, he gets (buys) a gun that fires faster. He is still missing half his shots, but by virtue of shooting more, he is hitting more often.

How is that different, than player X improving his marksmanship skills and simply hitting more often with the old gun?
It all boils down to "but that player doesn't deserve to be better!".

Except from the perspective of the player fighting him, there is no difference - the end result is that he is getting hit more often.

And before you chime in with "but if the other player also had the faster gun..." - what if the other player was using a different weapon entirely? One with a much lower rate of fire, but higher damage, and relying on his accuracy with it to get one-hit kills?

I know the example is very black and white, but it proves a point. If you are the player looking to win, you must be prepared to do better than your opponents, and from this point of view, it doesn't matter WHY your opponent is stronger - only that he is stronger. For all you care, every opponent you face might suddenly develop greater skills and then what? If you want to win, you must be able to beat them all the same.

As long as the means available to you can compete with your opponents' "artificially improved performance" without requiring unreasonably more effort, you are not in p2w territory yet.

[1453 R]

Mcgral18, on 25 June 2014 - 12:14 PM, said:

Well, certainly not from my point of view. IS tech is much easier to use then the Clan stuff. Fire and forget, not hold it on target in order to deal any measurable amounts of damage.

cUACs have their bursts, which is a much bigger thing than you seem to make it. Lasers, well their small+med ER lasers have the advantage, but their pulses are terrible, and the ERLL isn't much of an upgrade to the IS ERLL.

Which mech will the mediocre IS pilot do better in than a comparable IS mech? TimberTart has a Gauss, which apparently mediocre pilots can't use. Daishi is also gauss. Blackhawk, poor pilots will cook themselves.

Stormcrow? Not enough lasers to cause ghost heat, fast, decent armor but no JJs. Potentially better than an IS 55 or 60 tonner for the average pilot.

Unfortunately, we’re on losing ground here, man. Atheus’ objective with this thread is to apparently get the forums to agree that the Invasion package is P2W. If/when that happens, he and those who support him can then feel free to point at the rest of us and do the “You’re bad people and you should feel bad!” routine with a clear conscience, because we paid for P2W stuff. Doesn’t matter if we intended, or even desired, to carry on to the “to win” portion of P2W – all that matters is that P2W is there, we P’d, and thus we should all just lay down and die for daring to sully the honor and good name of MWO players everywhere.

It’s not a really a constructive or helpful stance, but there’s nothing we can do about it. Until they get everything we paid out cash to get except they get it for free, without having to pony up either their money (cash, MC) or their time (C-bills), we’re bad people and we should feel bad. Kinda sucks, really.

Edited by 1453 R, 25 June 2014 - 12:27 PM.

[Atheus]

So I've thought of an interesting scenario to consider. I occasionally see people expressing that if Clan tech benefits the play style of certain marginal players that's not really a problem, so long as it either doesn't universally benefit the play style of EVERYONE, or just doesn't benefit the play styles of tournament play.

This usually revolves around the idea that players are all unique to some degree, and depending on their skill level and play style they may not derive any benefit from Clan tech. I'd like to take this concept to the extreme and see how it goes, though.

On to the demonstrative hypothetical!

Pretend for the sake of this article that exactly 50% of the players are male, and 50% are female. That's not really vital to the point, but it will even the stakes a bit. Male and female players are not evenly distributed across all ELO ratings, but for the most part they are both represented to some degree throughout the scale.

I present to you BGI's next cash-exclusive release, though. I'll call it MAN TECH. It's a technology that can really only be leveraged by male players. Female players won't really get anything out of it since they're innies. Since MAN TECH is not universally better in all situations for all players, certain players would not define this as pay to win, but I can guarantee that as female players start to notice that male players using MAN TECH seem to be a bit stronger than they were without it, they will be a little unhappy, but even if they bought MAN TECH there would be no improvement for them, so they just have to accept the meta shifted away from their skill set and live with it. The male players who chose not to purchase MAN TECH have a different problem, though. They may have been dead even with another player in the past, but now that that other player has MAN TECH which is well-suited to their gender, they can't keep up. In order to remain competitive with other male players, they need to either buy MAN TECH, or accept their disadvantage until MAN TECH is finally released for in-game currency.

Useful story, or just confusing?

[Mcgral18]

Atheus, on 25 June 2014 - 12:25 PM, said:

So I've thought of an interesting scenario to consider. I occasionally see people expressing that if Clan tech benefits the play style of certain marginal players that's not really a problem, so long as it either doesn't universally benefit the play style of EVERYONE, or just doesn't benefit the play styles of tournament play.

This usually revolves around the idea that players are all unique to some degree, and depending on their skill level and play style they may not derive any benefit from Clan tech. I'd like to take this concept to the extreme and see how it goes, though.

On to the demonstrative hypothetical!

Pretend for the sake of this article that exactly 50% of the players are male, and 50% are female. That's not really vital to the point, but it will even the stakes a bit. Male and female players are not evenly distributed across all ELO ratings, but for the most part they are both represented to some degree throughout the scale.

I present to you BGI's next cash-exclusive release, though. I'll call it MAN TECH. It's a technology that can really only be leveraged by male players. Female players won't really get anything out of it since they're innies. Since MAN TECH is not universally better in all situations for all players, certain players would not define this as pay to win, but I can guarantee that as female players start to notice that male players using MAN TECH seem to be a bit stronger than they were without it, they will be a little unhappy, but even if they bought MAN TECH there would be no improvement for them, so they just have to accept the meta shifted away from their skill set and live with it. The male players who chose not to purchase MAN TECH have a different problem, though. They may have been dead even with another player in the past, but now that that other player has MAN TECH which is well-suited to their gender, they can't keep up. In order to remain competitive with other male players, they need to either buy MAN TECH, or accept their disadvantage until MAN TECH is finally released for in-game currency.

Useful story, or just confusing?

[KuroNyra]

Atheus, on 24 June 2014 - 09:14 PM, said:

This is not something you should be saying to a Founder. It makes you look like a jerk.

Being a Founder's doesn't make you better.

In my eye's, your a stupid child just angry because he can't get his toy first.
And I'm a legendary founder's. So in your eye's, it must mean something.

Your wall of text prooved absolutly nothing except your are just mad.

All your interaction on the other thread's prooved it multiples times.

Edited by KuroNyra, 25 June 2014 - 12:30 PM.

[Atheus]

1453 R, on 25 June 2014 - 12:25 PM, said:

Unfortunately, we’re on losing ground here, man. Atheus’ objective with this thread is to apparently get the forums to agree that the Invasion package is P2W.

Yes, exactly.

1453 R, on 25 June 2014 - 12:25 PM, said:

If/when that happens, he and those who support him can then feel free to point at the rest of us and do the “You’re bad people and you should feel bad!” routine with a clear conscience, because we paid for P2W stuff.

What gives you this impression? You don't think it's useful if a player population can agree on what is and isn't a pay to win mechanic based on reasonable examination of the concept? If players can't settle on the basic facts due to absurd misconceptions like "P2W means you pay you automatically win" or "It's not P2W if they will eventually release the P2W stuff later on", there is absolutely no reason for the developer to listen to the players who don't have a cohesive voice, much less a rational voice.

The point of this thread is not name and shame, it's attempting to establish a functional and useful definition of P2W, so that people can think clearly on the subject so they can have some hope of applying it correctly when it belongs, and not be the people obstructing the more useful conversation of what to do about P2W creeping in to a game you like.

[qki]

@Atheus - I already did that for you - check my posts.

[Rebas Kradd]

Atheus, on 25 June 2014 - 12:42 PM, said:

The point of this thread is not name and shame, it's attempting to establish a functional and useful definition of P2W

Your definition of P2W is neither functional nor useful. If Clans are routinely defeated on the battlefield, you've established only a purely theoretical and abstract standard for P2W, not one that reliably shows up in practical use. And if the Clans will eventually become available for completely free, then your definition of P2W is not only pedantic, but it has an expiration date.

Edited by Rebas Kradd, 25 June 2014 - 12:58 PM.