481 replies to this topic

[Sandpit]

So, in the course of another thread this idea was kicked around. I don't take full credit for it as many others have suggested similar over the years and I've just kind of combined them all and refined it a bit.

Let's start with R&R:

Put R&R fees back into the game. I know I know, but sand, we already don't earn much! Well I disagree with that but I understand some feel that way so, in order to counter that, you boost earnings slightly and reduce the R&R fees a bit.
You MUST R&R your mech. I've always thought it was a bit silly that you stomp around, fire of 5 tons of ammo, and don't have to reload that ammo or buy new ammo. Now, stock mechs in stock loadouts wouldn't have to pay for reloads and cadets wouldn't pay for reload and repair. That would prevent new players from getting "hurt" by something digging into their rewards so they can still have all their cash when they "graduate".
Stock mechs don't pay for R&R (if you want fluff for this then explain it as your faction absorbs the cost of that because it's a standard military issue unit, once you start customizing you're paying for it out of pocket, this also helps new players and players trying to save money for new mechs as well as helps justify seeing stock mechs on the field.) Now I realize at the higher Elo brackets that this becomes pretty much a non-factor because they've generally got a stockpile of cash and mechs anyhow, but those players aren't going to be playing against new(er) players still trying to build a hangar.

But why R&R?

Well I'm glad you asked. R&R is essential for adding in an economy that has both rewards and consequences. It has a far reaching implications across other aspects of the game as well. Want to run the LRM boat and spam missiles for 15 minutes burning through 10 tons of ammo? Go for it, but your'e going to have to pay for that ammo.
Want to run that poptart? Hey, that's great too! You're going to have to pay for all that ammo you're shooting downrange though. It doesn't limit what you can take but it does make you think before you just needlessly click that fire button every time you get a 2 second lock or a quick glimpse at a poptart target.
It also adds in something that's sorely needed here. An actual economy. Right now the only thing to spend cbills on are mechs and modules and skills. That means players who have a "set" mech and/or loadout they play almost exclusively, they are not actually spending those cbills which means they're stockpiling.
Now I understand that many are going to say "Stockpiling isn't bad" and I agree to an extent BUT this is where you run into long-term issues. Those players with stockpiles of tens and hundreds of millions of cbills have the ability already (before it's even implemented) to create major imbalances in the economy.

Techs:

Here's another cost associated with R&R as well as refitting a custom design. Techs would be two-fold. They create another sink but also provide bonuses to R&R and Salvage (which I'll cover here momentarily) bonuses after the initial investment is made. No players would be required to have techs but investing the cash up front for techs would pay out dividends in their bonuses.
Techs would be similar to modules. Except you don't "buy" them, you "hire" them for xx matches. Different levels of techs would offer different levels of bonuses.
Green = 10% bonus to salvage, -10% to R&R fees
Regular = 15% bonus
Advanced = 20% bonus
Elite = 25% bonus
Now all of these numbers are purely for example purposes and I'm sure would need to be adjusted. To further diversify have techs broke down into classes. A "light" tech would be able to keep your hangar running but you wouldn't get the R&R bonuses, although you would still get the salvage bonus.
The initial cost for techs would be cbills & xp although you can offer the option to buy them for MC as well (similar to the way arty and such have an MC version).


Salvage:
Here's where things really get interesting. Instead of the current salvage system we have, we need it to be shifted to an actual salvage system. Instead of receiving cbills for salvage, players have a % chance to actually salvage equipment. Component destruction = more chances to salvage and the techs also add a % to salvage as well. Players could then choose to keep the salvaged item or sell it back for the regular "used" item price.

Everyone would have a salvage chance but the techs, component destruction, and such would increase the chances of getting it.

These 3 things would add a lot of depth and immersion to the game and introduce the start of an actual economy for the game.

[Alistair Winter]

I've been asking for R&R and Salvage since... well, since they removed R&R.

The concept of techs would be great for a game like Star Citizen, but I think this game is very far from what it needs to be in order to implement 'techs' in a way that accomplishes its purpose, which is... immersion. I guess another point of having techs would be to speed up the C-bill grind for veteran players, because grinding C-bills for your 150th mech isn't quite as thrilling as buying your first mech. That's not really a concern for me though. I don't need to "collect 'em all".

With UI 2.0 being so far from the dream vision of the mechbay (which, incidentally, is pretty much like the dream vision of Star Citizen's hangar, except Chris Roberts materialized that vision nicely), I'm not sure I want the extra clicking of hiring techs for every x number of matches played. I would feel differently if MWO was more like old MW games, where you actually hired crew with different abilities and personalities (again, I loathe to bring up Star Citizen, but they promise to do exactly that with their NPCs)

[Wintersdark]

But wait, component destruction = more chances for salvage? Don't you think you have that backwards?

Wouldn't you WANT to run poptarts and just CT core/headshot/leg people to not destroy the components you want to salvage?


Anyways, with regards to R&R: You do a good job of highlighting the upsides of R&R, but I was here when we had it, too.

I remember the downsides: Spawning in matches with players who are farming cbills and not bothering to repair and/or rearm their mechs, basically screwing you from the outset.

While R&R may dissuade certain builds you'd like dissuaded, it also grossly penalizes a lot of other things too. Sure, your poptart will have to pay for the AC5 shots it's tossing downrange, but it's also

It's brutal for new players, and this game is already very hard on new players. I see you don't want to charge Cadets to R&R, but a player on match 26 is still going to suffer, hard. Stock mechs? Don't make me laugh. In MWO, stock mechs are flat out bad. Trying to make new players run stock mechs to avoid R&R is cruel and unusual punishment, and basically just making them c-bill pinata's for experienced players.

There's so much rose-coloured-glasses with regards to R&R.

I still very clearly remember my first months playing with R&R. Months of constant deaths, massive repair bills, precious little money (and we made a LOT more back then). It was fine for the vets, I'm sure, but it _sucked_ for me.

I get the appeal, the concept, of R&R, absolutely. I really sincerely do. But in practice, in a game like this, it's far more negatives than positives. It creates a situation where players who aren't good enough face net loss from matches, and that doesn't encourage improvement, it encourages "Screw this ****!"

MWO's new player experience (beyond just their first 25 matches, just newer players all around) is already very hard.

[Davers]

I have to disagree with ya Sand. R&R only hurts new players and F2P players. It will not stop poptarting, and will not make ACs any less powerful. It will only take them out of the hands of free players.

This game has no economy. Not one that is grounded in actual gameplay anyway. Why is FF so much more expensive to repair than Endo despite having only half it's advantages? Why is the LB-10X more expensive than Gauss or any regular AC?

For R&R to mean anything, it must actually limit what people can use. That means you would have to be always losing cbills. Which means a new player can never dream of accumulating the Cbills we have today. So new players will never have the stable of mechs many players currently have.

R&R can only exist as purely a punitive measure, and so cannot be allowed in the public queue. If it included in Faction warfare for the express purpose of a massive Cbill drain, fine. But casual players who just want to play a stompy robot game should be left out.

Lastly, Joe M loves to talk about his Atlas LRM boat, and how during R&R he made tons of Cbills. If it doesn't limit assault mechs with ammo dependent load outs, then what will it actually be targeting?

[Lefty Lucy]

R&R never added anything good to this game.

[Scrawny Cowboy]

Any CB vets remember how much repairs cost for us assault pilots?
I already feed a 7.3l diesel for work and play, now you guys want me to feed my hungry fatlas again?

[Scratx]

Adding a hardcore CW mode of sorts where R&R, salvage and stuff actually means something other than "Oh, we got 20k c-bills per pilot in salvage" could work. But it'd probably have to be kept separate of the normal gameplay.

I can't see anything like it working on the kind of matches we currently have, though.

[Sandpit]

Scrawny Cowboy, on 26 July 2014 - 11:00 AM, said:

Any CB vets remember how much repairs cost for us assault pilots?
I already feed a 7.3l diesel for work and play, now you guys want me to feed my hungry fatlas again?

hence why I said ADJUST the numbers

Davers, on 26 July 2014 - 10:50 AM, said:

I have to disagree with ya Sand. R&R only hurts new players and F2P players. It will not stop poptarting, and will not make ACs any less powerful. It will only take them out of the hands of free players.

This game has no economy. Not one that is grounded in actual gameplay anyway. Why is FF so much more expensive to repair than Endo despite having only half it's advantages? Why is the LB-10X more expensive than Gauss or any regular AC?

For R&R to mean anything, it must actually limit what people can use. That means you would have to be always losing cbills. Which means a new player can never dream of accumulating the Cbills we have today. So new players will never have the stable of mechs many players currently have.

R&R can only exist as purely a punitive measure, and so cannot be allowed in the public queue. If it included in Faction warfare for the express purpose of a massive Cbill drain, fine. But casual players who just want to play a stompy robot game should be left out.

Lastly, Joe M loves to talk about his Atlas LRM boat, and how during R&R he made tons of Cbills. If it doesn't limit assault mechs with ammo dependent load outs, then what will it actually be targeting?

That's why I suggested new playres under cadet bonus do not pay them as well as adding in stock mechs that don't pay for it either.

[Wolfways]

Just two comments.

1) IS mechs should not be able to fit clan salvage. It would make IS mechs completely OP.

2) This basically punishes ammo users even more than currently. Ammo/ton needs increased as the TT values are for matches which last a few minutes of game time, while MWO matches are up to 15 minutes. It needs tripled imo due to this and double armour.
I'm not actually opposed to buying ammo...if the ammo is worth it. i.e. AC's, Gauss, SRM's and SSRM's would need buffed and LRM ammo...well, LRM ammo would never be worth it
Imo weapons should not be balanced by out of combat mechanics, so i would not agree with this proposal.

[Sandpit]

Wintersdark, on 26 July 2014 - 10:44 AM, said:

But wait, component destruction = more chances for salvage? Don't you think you have that backwards?

Wouldn't you WANT to run poptarts and just CT core/headshot/leg people to not destroy the components you want to salvage?


Anyways, with regards to R&R: You do a good job of highlighting the upsides of R&R, but I was here when we had it, too.

I remember the downsides: Spawning in matches with players who are farming cbills and not bothering to repair and/or rearm their mechs, basically screwing you from the outset.

While R&R may dissuade certain builds you'd like dissuaded, it also grossly penalizes a lot of other things too. Sure, your poptart will have to pay for the AC5 shots it's tossing downrange, but it's also

It's brutal for new players, and this game is already very hard on new players. I see you don't want to charge Cadets to R&R, but a player on match 26 is still going to suffer, hard. Stock mechs? Don't make me laugh. In MWO, stock mechs are flat out bad. Trying to make new players run stock mechs to avoid R&R is cruel and unusual punishment, and basically just making them c-bill pinata's for experienced players.

There's so much rose-coloured-glasses with regards to R&R.

I still very clearly remember my first months playing with R&R. Months of constant deaths, massive repair bills, precious little money (and we made a LOT more back then). It was fine for the vets, I'm sure, but it _sucked_ for me.

I get the appeal, the concept, of R&R, absolutely. I really sincerely do. But in practice, in a game like this, it's far more negatives than positives. It creates a situation where players who aren't good enough face net loss from matches, and that doesn't encourage improvement, it encourages "Screw this ****!"

MWO's new player experience (beyond just their first 25 matches, just newer players all around) is already very hard.

Increase the new player matches to 50 then

Component destruction can be called whatever you like, it's fluff for a bonus.

Wolfways, on 26 July 2014 - 11:08 AM, said:

Just two comments.

1) IS mechs should not be able to fit clan salvage. It would make IS mechs completely OP.

2) This basically punishes ammo users even more than currently. Ammo/ton needs increased as the TT values are for matches which last a few minutes of game time, while MWO matches are up to 15 minutes. It needs tripled imo due to this and double armour.
I'm not actually opposed to buying ammo...if the ammo is worth it. i.e. AC's, Gauss, SRM's and SSRM's would need buffed and LRM ammo...well, LRM ammo would never be worth it
Imo weapons should not be balanced by out of combat mechanics, so i would not agree with this proposal.

I never said mix tech, that was never a suggestions of any kind
Ammo users are NOT punished lol
You have NO ramifications for ammo at the moment, none

[Davers]

Sandpit, on 26 July 2014 - 11:07 AM, said:

hence why I said ADJUST the numbers


That's why I suggested new playres under cadet bonus do not pay them as well as adding in stock mechs that don't pay for it either.

We have already seen how good stock mechs are vs custom mechs. So when you are running your stock mech there will be people running their best mechs in every game. Not to mention, most Clan stock mechs would wreck stock IS mechs...

[Yokaiko]

Scrawny Cowboy, on 26 July 2014 - 11:00 AM, said:

Any CB vets remember how much repairs cost for us assault pilots?
I already feed a 7.3l diesel for work and play, now you guys want me to feed my hungry fatlas again?

Depended on how beat up you got. A you might pay 80,000-120,000 for R&R for an Atlas if you lost all of the ammo 200,000 if you got pogo sticked and had endo installed. I think my biggest repair was something like 2.8mil but that was a dragon and I got it blown to hell before I went down, so gauss, endo XL (that was the big one) and yeah.

But you made like 2.4 mil on a win, we literally had no idea what to do with all of the C-Bills. I recall having every mech that was in the game at the time and still sitting on like 250mil. Now remember that R&R made it all of like 6 weeks before they removed it (and knockdowns) and wiped for OB.

Davers, on 26 July 2014 - 11:10 AM, said:

We have already seen how good stock mechs are vs custom mechs. So when you are running your stock mech there will be people running their best mechs in every game. Not to mention, most Clan stock mechs would wreck stock IS mechs...

Missile stormcrow has 8 tons of LRM ammo....STOCK, the AWS (whichever it is) two tons....oh and a pair of llas with like 13 SHS lol

Yeah, pass.

[Scratx]

Look... the fundamental issue with RnR is that it punishes new and inexperienced players while basically doing nothing to veterans, plus making premium players have an inherent advantage by being able to afford better loadouts.

Whatever you do, you can't fix something that's inherent to the very nature of the system.

What you can do is allow RnR to be opt-in either by some game mode like a hardcore CW mode where you have to use your unit's mechs and not your own (and they have their own economy and etc), or you go for a "hardcore" mode where you have a high risk, high reward model going... you get much more money for winning, but you get slapped with big repair and rearm bills because your employer isn't helping you.

[Wolfways]

Sandpit, on 26 July 2014 - 11:09 AM, said:

Ammo users are NOT punished lol
You have NO ramifications for ammo at the moment, none

You mean other than having to carry a ridiculous amount?

[Scrawny Cowboy]

Sandpit, on 26 July 2014 - 11:07 AM, said:

hence why I said ADJUST the numbers

If there's a bonus implemented for tanking/spreading damage (factored and scaled with of how long you lasted at how little health) I'd be more supportive of the idea

[Yokaiko]

Scrawny Cowboy, on 26 July 2014 - 11:41 AM, said:

If there's a bonus implemented for tanking/spreading damage (factored and scaled with of how long you lasted at how little health) I'd be more supportive of the idea

It was actually the other way around, spreading damage actually increased repair (it looked at is a tonnage - X) so FF was ******* ridiculous to repair, like 10,000 a ton.

[Lefty Lucy]

It doesn't matter what you do, or how you incentivize using stock mechs, until MWO's heat system allows sufficient cooling for medium lasers with SHS nobody is ever, ever, every going to use them. If people are forced to use them they simply won't play the game.

[Yokaiko]

Lefty Lucy, on 26 July 2014 - 11:47 AM, said:

It doesn't matter what you do, or how you incentivize using stock mechs, until MWO's heat system allows sufficient cooling for medium lasers with SHS nobody is ever, ever, every going to use them. If people are forced to use them they simply won't play the game.

We have sort of been screaming that since CB.

[Joseph Mallan]

Wintersdark, on 26 July 2014 - 10:44 AM, said:

But wait, component destruction = more chances for salvage? Don't you think you have that backwards?

Wouldn't you WANT to run poptarts and just CT core/headshot/leg people to not destroy the components you want to salvage?


Anyways, with regards to R&R: You do a good job of highlighting the upsides of R&R, but I was here when we had it, too.

I remember the downsides: Spawning in matches with players who are farming cbills and not bothering to repair and/or rearm their mechs, basically screwing you from the outset.

While R&R may dissuade certain builds you'd like dissuaded, it also grossly penalizes a lot of other things too. Sure, your poptart will have to pay for the AC5 shots it's tossing downrange, but it's also

It's brutal for new players, and this game is already very hard on new players. I see you don't want to charge Cadets to R&R, but a player on match 26 is still going to suffer, hard. Stock mechs? Don't make me laugh. In MWO, stock mechs are flat out bad. Trying to make new players run stock mechs to avoid R&R is cruel and unusual punishment, and basically just making them c-bill pinata's for experienced players.

There's so much rose-coloured-glasses with regards to R&R.

I still very clearly remember my first months playing with R&R. Months of constant deaths, massive repair bills, precious little money (and we made a LOT more back then). It was fine for the vets, I'm sure, but it _sucked_ for me.

I get the appeal, the concept, of R&R, absolutely. I really sincerely do. But in practice, in a game like this, it's far more negatives than positives. It creates a situation where players who aren't good enough face net loss from matches, and that doesn't encourage improvement, it encourages "Screw this ****!"

MWO's new player experience (beyond just their first 25 matches, just newer players all around) is already very hard.

So you remember it being more like a sim?

If I read (skimmed) the Op correctly, we get paid our 125K+ And we get say an AC10, Large pulse, and a PPC. Then we pay for repairs, rearm, and if we need more cash we can sell the equipment.

If I missed it in the OP, I would suggest those in Canon House units should have a deep discount for R&R. Sorry they are Government employed and as such, I had little to no out of pocket costs. Uniform Upkeep excluded.

[Lefty Lucy]

Yokaiko, on 26 July 2014 - 11:49 AM, said:

We have sort of been screaming that since CB.

Yep.