78 replies to this topic

[GoriKarafong]

Hello MWO community,



First off I hope I got you hooked by that catch-phrase. Second please understand all following is pure speculation, but I am pretty sure that the truth won’t be far off.

How will Repairs fit in the MWO economy? To answer this question we need to establish some targets first:

• Repairs need to be understandable to avoid complains by players
  
• Repairs need to be fair in comparison from one wrecked mech to another
  
• Repairs must be a major money sink ingame to balance income/output
  
• Players as well as Piranha want to see a lot of different mechs appearing in the battles and want to make sure that e.g. not only assault mechs are used
  
• Don’t forget Piranha want to live and earn some money so they will design the game to make us spend money

With this in mind, here is what I guess will be the repair system and the costs involved:

• Everything that can be damaged in your mech will most likely be tracked by the game (damaged armor, damaged internal structures, damaged critical slots like weapons)
  
• So quite easy everything that has been damaged in a battle can be repaired afterwards. Some things might not need to be repaired (e.g. armor plates) to start into the next battles, while other things are a must (e.g. cockpit)
  
• Everything will have an individual price tag for repairing. Like each ton of a defined armor type will cost x, a damaged M-Laser will cost y
  
• Maybe repair costs will for e.g. weapons with more than one critical space will raise if more than one critical space was damaged.
  
• All repair costs will be less expensive than buying something new
  
• Tech that is more powerful (especially the upcoming Losttech) will be more expensive to repair.
  
• Ammo based weapons will be cheaper to repair than non-ammo based weapons, as ammo based weapon will already have a price tag via reload
  
• Likely there might be some small modifiers for fixed costs per individual mech or mech class or tonnage. This might be a way for easy balancing repair expense for the devs.

Some assumptions about how to earn cash in a battle are needed:

• There will be a base income in each battle, this might be small, but otherwise it could be very frustrating
  
• Income will depend on overall team performance as well as on individual performance (there might be a multitude of factors here, but I won’t discuss those here)
  
• Income will most likely be modified by winning or losing a match. You do want a reward, do you?
  
• Hopefully AFK mechs will be detected and (partly) excluded from earning money, or if AFK the complete game, will be blown up to create a big repair bill
  
• Overall income can be modified by premium account/founder mech and maybe other options (time will tell)

So what does this mean? Why will we have to grind or pay money? I try to explain:

• If you have a low cost mech (low tonnage, lowtech and less equipment), it won’t cost you much to repair. Sure it will most probably be harder to earn cash with a low cost mech, but all in all it should be possible to earn money in a battle.
  
• Now let’s look at an assault mech. There is a lot more in it to be damaged and therefore the repair costs will automatically ramp up if you get damaged. That means you need to earn significantly more money to pay your bill. Also it helps to reduce the number of assault mechs involved if e.g. a medium mech is better in repair cost/battle income balance.
  
• Finally let’s look at some expensive tech. If you ramp up your mech with Lostech or maybe Clantech in the future. Those Parts will be way more expensive and therefore if they are damaged your repair costs will be significantly higher. This helps in terms of limiting hightech equipment due to repair cost.
  
• If you want to run an expensive mech (heavier mechs are more expensive, better equipment will be more expensive) you might run in the problem that your repair costs will be higher than your battle income. Especially true if you lose your match. Therefore if you want to play an expensive mech you need to have additional income, ether in the 50% Cbill boost by premium, maybe other ways to “buy repair/credits” or some lowcost mechs that produce better income/cost ratio to grind for Cbills.

Other effects:

• This system will be balanceable for the devs, especially if newer items (e.g. Lostech) starts to pull in, those will get a really high price tag, and maybe “old hightech” items will be reduced in price. This will also simulate the rarity of tech.
  
• Armor will be very important on most mechs, as they might probably be cheaper to repair than the system they protect. So economically it makes sense to put as much armor on your mech as possible.
  
• We might be seeing things, like first day win with a mech earns you extra credit. This provides extra flavor in mech variety and helps old mechs to be more needed and not to be sold (extra garage space won’t be for free ether I guess).
  
• The 25% credit bonus of the founder mechs are pretty good, as they exist live long. I guess we will see more possibilities to spend money on mechs with this kind of bonus (maybe less than 25%) in the future. My advice: Get thoese founder mechs if you know you will invest that kind of money in MWO anyway
  
• It might be unlikely that we see total destruction of mechs or ammo explosions that can destroy a lot of expensive systems. As this would ramp up the repair costs to a point, that most likely start to unbalance the income/expense and will get players frustrated. Nothing the devs and most players would like to see.

I hope this wall of text (sorry about that) gave you some insight. Maybe I am totally wrong, but after all this is how I would do it. Sorry also about my bad English (no native speaker).

Best regards
Gori

[aRottenKomquat]

I hope we don't have to grind much. I'd just much rather have all mechs and weapons have a role and if the pilot is good your equipment almost doesn't matter, versus playing hundreds of games just to level up and get a mech that doesn't suck.

Think of Halo. With good players, it almost doesn't matter what weapon you have, you are still likely to do good. MWO should be the same way, you just have to adjust your tactics and find your role in the battle, and have a reasonably-balanced team as far as what mechs and roles players fall into.

Obviously we still need a way to make C-Bills for repairs, ammo, and upgrades, but I think the battle should be the main focus of the game, not the economy.

[Madeskimo]

Hopefully won't be over priced repaires other wise some people who can't afford to pay money to get gold or premium accounrts won't get stuck with all lower tier mech's. I know for sure i can't afford to pay momey due to being fixed income as disabled veteran.

[Team Leader]

Alright, noted. Hopefully the "grinding" is actually fun. I mean, its all PvP, it doesn't make sense to have to play games just to... play(?) but with a fully upgraded mech.

[Lonenut]

Yeah. By grinding you mean "Playing fun games and saving money to afford the bigger stuff." That's probably ok.

[Gromkey Blackwind]

I think this is what the founders mechs are for.. the 75% cbill boost how could one not want that?

[Dataman]

and if I may add up:

maybe the territorial could effect economy:

eg: house with more border planets conquered could have better price than house with lesser planets.

and a merc corp with better reputation (helps conquered a planet, successful missions from houses) could get a discounted price from houses (eg: winning a battle for house marik)

this factor could make an interesting economy, IMO

[Donovan Jenks]

I think it will be interesting to see how the matching works for random battles. will their be a tier system lights, meds, etc. or will they try and balance each battle by mech specialty. fire support, recon, battle, etc this would be a way to reward players for playing their part in a balanced Lance of mech of different weights maybe taking the overall tonnage for the lance into account.

One big thing with battletech i always remember is salvage, will they be salvage rights, will that impact the cost of the victors and further penalize the loser. It could be played as a gamble giving the victor more rewards but allowing a player to select is they want to play in matched with salvage rights enabled.

you are right they need to find a way to make this profitable for them and not to brutal for us. The chances of it being perfect out of the gate is pretty slim but I can't wait to see it!

[pvtbryan]

I'm pretty sure it's not worth a giant alarmist "Be prepared to grind!!" forum topic.

I'll make another WoT comparison here (sry - I know it's bad, but some things they did right, I think the financials on tank repair are probably on the mark). In all but the highest tier tanks, almost all tanks are profitable over time if you're half decent at aiming a mouse pointer at a tank & clicking the fire button. I imagine folks that play the Founders mechs once in a while will have zero financial difficulties. Even without Founders mechs, I'd doubt you'll have to subsidize repairs with other mechs profits, again, for all but the highest "tier" of mechs.

[aRottenKomquat]

I think balancing matches by mech specialty rather than some tier-based system would be ideal. Mechs fill very different roles.

I do wonder how they'll work salvage in. That would be an interesting game mechanic, if I got blown up in a battle and lost half my weapons because it got salvaged by another player. It has to be done right though, so it's rewarding and challenging without just being frustrating to those who have their stuff salvaged away.

[ScrapIron Prime]

I'm not so sure.

The source material and genre are all about partially repaired battlemechs with quirks and permanent damage slugging it out and withdrawing before the price gets too steep. But the video game community will want fully capable machines blasting each other to scrap again and again.

The first would indicate that repairs be expensive, the second that they are cheap. I think the game will be more marketable if they cater to the latter, so my guess is that repairs and modifications will be easy to come by and readily available.

[Der Zivilist]

Gromkey Blackwind, on 21 June 2012 - 08:06 AM, said:

I think this is what the founders mechs are for.. the 75% cbill boost how could one not want that?

Pssst, it's 25% bonus for Founder's mechs, not 75%.

If you also have a premium account: Base x 1.25 x 1.50 = 1.875; you will receive 87,5% more than someone on a standard account using a standard mech.

[Chuckie]

Not to abuse the WoT anology..

BUT

1) WoT you have to BUY Gold and grind for Silver and they do two different things. Its my understanding in MWO you can grind for CBills or Buy them.. Thus no P2W scenario.

2) IF properly balanced, a Win will get you bonus Cbills to save for new toys and items, a Loss will barely cover repair expenses.. Thus keeping you in the game but making you want to buy Cbills to swap that LRM10 for a SRM6.. etc.. etc.. etc..

So long story short you will be able to play without grinding.. but if you want to build up a mech or do a lot of customizations you will have to grind or buy Cbills.

Edited by Chuckie, 21 June 2012 - 08:18 AM.

[Mogyi]

We don't know how this is gonna work, so don't make hasty and stupid statements.
Like: "Don’t forget Piranha want to live and earn some money so they will design the game to make us spend money".
My mistake, but pls look at WoT for just about 4 sec and you will know, that repairing may be expensive, but you'll still get enough to buy a new vehicle every month or so...given that you really do play it
My suggestion: don't bury the game yet, just by making statements like the one above... Let's wait 'till Aug. 7th, than you can bury them if u want

Edited by Mogyi, 21 June 2012 - 08:19 AM.

[Adrienne Vorton]

Hopefully AFK mechs will be detected and (partly) excluded from earning money, or if AFK the complete game, will be blown up to create a big repair bill

yep, i really hope that:) (as long as you have the chance to rejoin after an accidently diconnect..)

[ScrapIron Prime]

Der Zivilist, on 21 June 2012 - 08:17 AM, said:

Pssst, it's 25% bonus for Founder's mechs, not 75%.

If you also have a premium account: Base x 1.25 x 1.50 = 1.875; you will receive 87,5% more than someone on a standard account using a standard mech.

Free to Play, Pay to Pwn.

[Boarneges]

Finding the balance between avoiding major grinding and keeping things credible will probably be fairly challenging for PGI. After all, these are very expensive machines that we'll be piloting and repairs don't come cheap. On the other hand there's the fact that no one wants to grind endlessly just to have a little profit.

[OmegaMale92]

While I appreciate the time and thought you put into your speculation, I will still regard it as such. Until there is an announcement from the dev's about how damage is to be treated, all we can hope for is some sort of fairness to the whole situation.

[Gendo]

i prefer low repair costs because it encourages "heroic" (or stupid ) gameplay. better than eveyone is scared form the big repairbill and camping in cover - like wot...

[aRottenKomquat]

ScrapIron Prime, on 21 June 2012 - 08:17 AM, said:

I'm not so sure.

The source material and genre are all about partially repaired battlemechs with quirks and permanent damage slugging it out and withdrawing before the price gets too steep. But the video game community will want fully capable machines blasting each other to scrap again and again.

The first would indicate that repairs be expensive, the second that they are cheap. I think the game will be more marketable if they cater to the latter, so my guess is that repairs and modifications will be easy to come by and readily available.

Hmm, both ways sound like they could be fun. Who do you think PGI intends to market more for? Mass-market appeal, or mostly BattleTech/MechWarrior fans?

I guess the first option could lead to a couple well-armed mechs dominating the match because everyone else was too broke to re-arm their weapons.