If someone can reasonably explain to me how to implement a system that is "designed" to drain millions of C-bills from experienced WITHOUT setting every single new player up for tzeh following situation, I`ll consider it`s viability in PUG games.
Player x plays 25 matches for cadet bonus
Player x buys a stalker and 1:1 copies the trial mech he felt he did well in.
Player x gets roflstomped and very heavily damaged in the next match
Player x as a casual player cannot easily afford, say, 500k in repairs. So he is forced to completely abandon the mech he just spent hours or even days acquiring, so as to spend hours or even days once again bannished to the trial mechs until he can afford repairs / His mech is auto repaired.
All so that he can drop once, get roflstomped again, and repeat the entire process from the beginning.
That player will NOT stay unless his love for BT is so HC that even our TT purists would call him excessively **** about details. That is the reason I am still here (or rather returned last march) while the rest of my unit is, as of this time, still lost to MWO forever. 22 of them are Legendary founders, and all of them still play MW:LL for multiple hours daily, and
wish they could spend money on a BT game that is not P2W or obviously designed to become it.
That is how hard R+R burned people last time around, almost 2 years ago. The 59000 they have collectively invested in SC could have just as easily been spent here, but they werent`s going to pay for a game that unnecessarily and heavily punishes new players while allowing veterans to do as they please, just so people will spend money on premium time. In fact, that`s exactly why we all left together shortly after OB. My or other`s "immersion" arguments hold very little water when you`re forced to play mechs you don`t want to for an exhorbitant period of time just so you can play the ones you already own.
This is even more pressing if it is a player that invested early by purchaseing a hero or champion mech ass their first mech. As soon as you start making it impossible for people to access content they`ve paid for, you stop earning money hella fast, as numerous Fortune 500 companies and Silicon Valley startups have very painfully experienced over the last 10-20 years. More often than not through class action lawsuits, more often than not resulting in their liquidation.
Develop a system that
entirely precludes that possibility for PUG matches, and we can talk about the merits of reimlplementing R+R to PUG matches.
Oh, wait, we already DO: We just don`t charge R+R.
Edited by Zerberus, 12 July 2014 - 05:34 AM.