481 replies to this topic

[Henree]

Shredhead, on 27 July 2014 - 05:04 AM, said:

R&R was bad, is bad and always will be bad! Especially the aspect of "balancing" through R&R costs is an atrocity. And btw, in which Elo hell are "poptarts" still a problem?

what you are saying is wrong. nerfing all the weapons so they are basically all the same with different light and sound effects is bad. Why not have ueber weapons? The ammo will cost, much more interesting and diverse playing field.

jumpjets? did you not hear? the weapons and the jumpjets GOT NERFED.
thanks for that.

[Vimeous]

Love the idea but where cbills can be purchased for hard cash it is direct p2w.

I do wonder if a more general R&R for CW where your end of match earnings are modified up or down based on the performance of the faction as a whole.

I also wonder if ELO stops being the primary arbiter of balance. Cbills reserves rather than ammo reserves become the defacto balancing tool which is in the interests of no one however realistic it might seem.

Right now it is a viable tactic for smaller mechs to use their larger brethren as extra armour to the benefit of the whole team. In PUG matches which assault pilot is going to be pleased to be paying in cold-cash for someone else's tactical choices?
Pilot behaviour will change, become more selfish and ultimately the gameplay will suffer.

[Khushrenada]

Draykin, on 26 July 2014 - 12:39 PM, said:

Yeeeeeaaaah, see, R&R is bad for new players. It also promotes prolific use of energy weapons, since you don't have to pay for more ammo. Meaning PPCs, ERLLs, etc. Keep in mind that, currently, MWO's income system is based pretty much off of kills and kill assists. What does that mean in a scenario with R&R? Every 'Mech ever will be built on nothing but raw killing potential. No scouts. No supports. All PPFLD. Where the PPC/Gauss combo is the absolute best build due to low ammo usage, high damage PP, and overwhelming range. That sure sounds fun. Oh, wait, no it doesn't.

You want a game that is kinder to new players and devalues the "Meta" builds? Get some better tutorials that cover how to use UAVs, Strikes, Cool Shots, etc., how to focus fire, how to target weak parts of a 'Mech, and basic understandings of the game modes. Then, get some Role Warfare up and running, where C-Bills (and possibly other rewards) are given based on certain acts (spotting, tagging, Narcing, etc.) other than kills and kill assists. Maybe then, we might have a game that supports better play for new players, and doesn't have all the "Meta", maybe. R&R is not a part of either of those two things.

R&R also was the idea to make people think about balanced mech builds.... don`t run missile boats for example... have you looked at some mech loadouts? there is always a mix of weapons on them, for good reason.

everyone whining about R&R probably runs XL engined missile or balistic weapon boats, which where back in the time when it was introduced unplayable due to the costs when you got killed.
that said everything is a balance issue, the devs just gave up after tweaking for some time since they couldn`t find a way to balance things out with the system they used. in my opinion they gave up way too fast.

R&R is essential to this game in my opinion and in the early days of beta i was able to make A LOT more money with the R&R in my atlas than i am able to do now.

besides your point of UAVs, cool shoots, etc. those are consumables and cost a massive amount of money compared to your earnings. for a new player that tries to save up for a mech those things are a complete no go if he wants to make some profit... if you have a really bad game and used a UAV, you might end up getting zero c-bills after the match...
so probably think about what you are saying before you use the new player argument to cover up that it is just you who doesn`t like the R&R system....

there are LOTS of ways to make this system work, you just need the willpower to think about it and maybe throw over some of your current mechanics.

Vimeous, on 27 July 2014 - 05:37 AM, said:

Love the idea but where cbills can be purchased for hard cash it is direct p2w.

we already have P2w in this game.... -> clan mechs that can only be bought by hard cash atm... so that is not a point that the devs would be shy about using

Edited by Khushrenada, 27 July 2014 - 05:48 AM.

[Sandpit]

Draykin, on 26 July 2014 - 12:53 PM, said:

And I'm quite convinced that 25 matches is not enough to make someone no longer be 'new' and definitely not long enough for players to learn everything they need to know. On top of that, I am also convinced that new players will not have immediate access to the builds that people tend to like to use and be able to fully customize. Why? Because you said only stock 'Mechs are exempt from R&R. You know what that means? New players go for the big bad Assaults. Those cost a lot. Then they want to customize. How much are they left with? Probably not much, after full customization. And then they have a bad match. Too bad they can't afford to repair all that damage, so they get mad and quit because they want to play the 'Mech they worked for.

and I'm thoroughly convinced you still didn't read because I explained how to work that also. Not repeating it just for you to ignore again lol

[Sandpit]

Two things
1. Nobody complaining is talking about anything other than r&r. There's a lot more to the op than r&r. Read and give suggestions. No, "R&R sucks and I don't like it" is not a suggestion.

2. For those that don't bother reading. You extend the cadet time. Make it 50 or 75. It's not hard to adjust.

I understand r&r isn't popular but neither is ghost heat, 3pv, hero mechs, and a myriad of other things.

everyone is trying to gloss over the fact that it was stated you can easily adjust r&r so it isn't bank breaking. You can extend cadet time, you can tweak everything. There are tons of other games that handle r&r just fine and you don't have the game being destroyed or new players handicapped. So you really expect me to believe that this is the only game in existence that would be "ruined" by r&r? Come on now. Leave the hyperbole at the door.

read the points and counterpoints. If you post stuff like 25 matches isn't enough or anything else myself or others have explained how to change then all you're doing is proving is that you didn't read and just saw r&r and decided you don't like r&r

[Lefty Lucy]

Sandpit, on 27 July 2014 - 06:20 AM, said:

Nobody complaining is talking about anything other than r&r. There's a lot more to the op than r&r. Read and give suggestions. No, "R&R sucks and I don't like it" is not a suggestion.

First off, disagreeing with you isn't "complaining."

Second, the reason why a lot of people dislike R&R is *because* it has collateral effects, and most of those effects are not good for the game.

If you're trying to have an actual discussion, you can't say "please limit your discussion only to things that support my position."

[Sandpit]

Lefty Lucy, on 27 July 2014 - 07:36 AM, said:

First off, disagreeing with you isn't "complaining."

Second, the reason why a lot of people dislike R&R is *because* it has collateral effects, and most of those effects are not good for the game.

If you're trying to have an actual discussion, you can't say "please limit your discussion only to things that support my position."

no, the ones posting "it hurts new players" "it's too expensive" etc. are not wanting a discussion. They saw R&R and immediately went to "no" mode instead of reading the posts which is painfully apparent when you repeat the same answer multiple times to people who didn't bother reading. Big difference

[Sandpit]

yes please, there's plenty of weapon nerf threads to argue this over guys

[Wintersdark]

Sandpit, on 27 July 2014 - 08:46 AM, said:

no, the ones posting "it hurts new players" "it's too expensive" etc. are not wanting a discussion. They saw R&R and immediately went to "no" mode instead of reading the posts which is painfully apparent when you repeat the same answer multiple times to people who didn't bother reading. Big difference

"It hurts new players" is a valid argument. Your solution - just not applying it to X battles - is insufficient, because players don't magically stop being new at a set point.

But let me rephrase the argument, to avoid this.

"It hurts poor players (be they new, relatively new, or just bad at the game for whatever reason) disproportionately."

Poor players already lose more. Losing is already sufficient penalty for loss, given the vastly reduced cbill rewards from losing. What you suggest is a situation that exacerbates that situation, wherein not only do the losing players earn less from the match but they also have to spend more to repair and rearm than the victorious players. This results in poor players who are less able to compete in future matches, making them more likely to continue losing, and earning ever less.

THAT is the crux of problem with R&R. Sure, you can make the argument that it's "realistic" - it is, in as much as one can use such a term in a battletech game. I don't even argue that.

But from a game design standpoint, the more you push the game to a "rich get richer, poor get poorer" paradigm the harder player retention is for all but the most dedicated players.

I understand your viewpoint, I really do. But R&R, as fluffy and awesome a concept as it is, is really crappy in practice for a huge number of players.

The only way to make it less awful for that bulk of players is to reduce costs dramatically/increase earnings dramatically, so anyone can easily afford to repair and rearm even if their mech is utterly trashed every match, but once you're going that far all you're doing is giving the better players a better win reward (earn more per win due to lower R&R costs).

And my argument here is not due to personal issues with it. If anything, R&R would benefit me, as I'm a very experienced player. I do pretty well, on average, already make a lot of cbills per match, and kill far, far more than I am killed (and could be killed much less, if I felt any need to survive in matches I knew I was going to win). But this means that for every me(and there are oodles of people way more dangerous than I), there's going to be several players with much higher costs at the end of the match.

[Wintersdark]

Sandpit, on 27 July 2014 - 06:20 AM, said:

everyone is trying to gloss over the fact that it was stated you can easily adjust r&r so it isn't bank breaking. You can extend cadet time, you can tweak everything. There are tons of other games that handle r&r just fine and you don't have the game being destroyed or new players handicapped. So you really expect me to believe that this is the only game in existence that would be "ruined" by r&r? Come on now. Leave the hyperbole at the door.

It wouldn't necessarily be ruined by R&R.

I'll leave hyperbole at the door.

R&R would be harmless, if it were nerfed into irrelevancy. Then it'd just be fluffy color, look cool. But that's a lot of dev time removed from other things (collisions, balancing, CW) to add a complex system that doesn't utlimately do anything.

If it DOES have an impact, then it's harmful. That's all there is to it.

[Lefty Lucy]

Tezcatli, on 26 July 2014 - 06:17 PM, said:

R&R and salvage should be for Merc groups only. If you're fighting as a grunt with a faction. Why would you foot the cost of battle damage and get to salvage loot? But it makes sense that a merc group would have to do that. That way pugs and new players can play factions and not be put at a disadvantage.

This is the only system I could see R&R making a return without being actively damaging to player populations. Ask new players to join a house, or warn them that if they choose not to they get thrown into the kiddy pool full of sharks and it's sink-or-swim time.

[Sandpit]

Wintersdark, on 27 July 2014 - 09:15 AM, said:

"It hurts new players" is a valid argument. Your solution - just not applying it to X battles - is insufficient, because players don't magically stop being new at a set point.

But let me rephrase the argument, to avoid this.

"It hurts poor players (be they new, relatively new, or just bad at the game for whatever reason) disproportionately."

Poor players already lose more. Losing is already sufficient penalty for loss, given the vastly reduced cbill rewards from losing. What you suggest is a situation that exacerbates that situation, wherein not only do the losing players earn less from the match but they also have to spend more to repair and rearm than the victorious players. This results in poor players who are less able to compete in future matches, making them more likely to continue losing, and earning ever less.

THAT is the crux of problem with R&R. Sure, you can make the argument that it's "realistic" - it is, in as much as one can use such a term in a battletech game. I don't even argue that.

But from a game design standpoint, the more you push the game to a "rich get richer, poor get poorer" paradigm the harder player retention is for all but the most dedicated players.

I understand your viewpoint, I really do. But R&R, as fluffy and awesome a concept as it is, is really crappy in practice for a huge number of players.

The only way to make it less awful for that bulk of players is to reduce costs dramatically/increase earnings dramatically, so anyone can easily afford to repair and rearm even if their mech is utterly trashed every match, but once you're going that far all you're doing is giving the better players a better win reward (earn more per win due to lower R&R costs).

And my argument here is not due to personal issues with it. If anything, R&R would benefit me, as I'm a very experienced player. I do pretty well, on average, already make a lot of cbills per match, and kill far, far more than I am killed (and could be killed much less, if I felt any need to survive in matches I knew I was going to win). But this means that for every me(and there are oodles of people way more dangerous than I), there's going to be several players with much higher costs at the end of the match.

you combine the xx matches with a lower R&R fee, you can also use a sliding R&R fee to make it more appropriate to lower Elo players (i abhor this idea as show me any other competitive game video or otherwise where poor play is rewarded but ok I'll go with it since this is in the name of not "punishing" poor and new players)

That solves any issue with "hurting" new and poor players. I also recommended bumping the earnings in response to these kinds of posts so that was already covered (see why I think people don't bother to read?) I also suggested reducing R&R costs to combat that as well (see again why I don't think people bother to read?)

Wintersdark, on 27 July 2014 - 09:19 AM, said:

It wouldn't necessarily be ruined by R&R.

I'll leave hyperbole at the door.

R&R would be harmless, if it were nerfed into irrelevancy. Then it'd just be fluffy color, look cool. But that's a lot of dev time removed from other things (collisions, balancing, CW) to add a complex system that doesn't utlimately do anything.

If it DOES have an impact, then it's harmful. That's all there is to it.

no, sorry, you don't have to nerf it to irrelevance.
Warthunder
WoT
***
all use R&R

Those are just off the top of my head so any arguments of "it would hurt the game" really are irrelevant. If other games have this kind of economy and do just fine why would it somehow magically hurt THIS game?

Lefty Lucy, on 27 July 2014 - 09:28 AM, said:

This is the only system I could see R&R making a return without being actively damaging to player populations. Ask new players to join a house, or warn them that if they choose not to they get thrown into the kiddy pool full of sharks and it's sink-or-swim time.

so the games I listed above are "actively damaging" their player populations?

[Lefty Lucy]

Sandpit, on 27 July 2014 - 09:29 AM, said:

so the games I listed above are "actively damaging" their player populations?

The games you listed above are not MWO.

[terrycloth]

"You're not buying this equipment, you're renting it" -- always bad for a game.
"Death needs CONSEQUENCES" -- always bad for a game

Repair costs are basically combining the two. Horrible idea.

Salvage and Repair works in a single player or co-op game where you're expecting to be beating up on a bunch of hapless bots. The bots are the losers.

In PVP other players have to be the losers. It's probably going to be the same players every time. They'll leave once it's obvious that the game is just continuous losing. Then, half of the former winners will be the losers. Repeat until no one is left.

From an in-world perspective, no one would be going on these missions unless their employers covered their insurance costs.

[Sandslice]

Sandpit, on 27 July 2014 - 09:29 AM, said:

Those are just off the top of my head so any arguments of "it would hurt the game" really are irrelevant. If other games have this kind of economy and do just fine why would it somehow magically hurt THIS game?

So, in other words, you honestly believe that there are no valid objections to your idea, as you have just handwaved all of them with a single sentence.

Here are a few.

1. Again, we already have a culture of people being afraid to take damage. R&R actively punishes taking damage, meaning a feedback loop that further encourages cowardice. As a side effect, this also discourages under-fire survival practices such as arm-shielding or spreading damage: if you must die, it is in your best interests to die efficiently and minimise your R&R.

2. With leg damage as it is, you get a further discouragement of light 'Mech play.

3. It gives a further punishment to weight-saving tech. For IS, this focuses on the XLE: it already has the major drawback of making the whole torso have deplete-to-kill options, without the further penalty of substantial R&R. Admittedly, this is not so much a drawback for endo or ferro, as most designers have already compensated for the crit-space concerns. But for the XLE, it's major (and if you want to see a world where people are afraid to use XLE, run your Light 'Mechs stock.)

This is also a nerf to the Clans: while they have weight-saving techs stock, they can't spec out of them - or, as with eg the Warhawk, swap out of ferro to use endo - and so can't avoid the costs. (And it's unclear whether OmniPods would be subject to R&R if their components get blown out.)

4. It enhances money-making "best practices" with a dash of trolling: best practice is to rip off components and let someone else have the kill. The trolling comes in because this is also the best way to maximise your victim's R&R.

5. It punishes the victims of TK, the victims of friendly fire (think blatting or walking through each other, not you ignored your buddy's line of sight and saved your enemy from your buddy's lasers,) and disconnects (while intentional DCs / farmers are an issue, legitimate DCs are much more common.)

Edited by Sandslice, 27 July 2014 - 09:53 AM.

[Sandpit]

Lefty Lucy, on 27 July 2014 - 09:31 AM, said:

The games you listed above are not MWO.

No, they are examples of the same type of game that incorporates R&R. They have their games laid out almost identically to this game. I thought it was kind of obvious that they weren't MWO.

terrycloth, on 27 July 2014 - 09:50 AM, said:

"You're not buying this equipment, you're renting it" -- always bad for a game.
"Death needs CONSEQUENCES" -- always bad for a game

Repair costs are basically combining the two. Horrible idea.

Salvage and Repair works in a single player or co-op game where you're expecting to be beating up on a bunch of hapless bots. The bots are the losers.

In PVP other players have to be the losers. It's probably going to be the same players every time. They'll leave once it's obvious that the game is just continuous losing. Then, half of the former winners will be the losers. Repeat until no one is left.

From an in-world perspective, no one would be going on these missions unless their employers covered their insurance costs.

see above game examples, those games are doing just fine so any "online games can't" is proven wrong by factual showing that online games DO use those and DO do well

Sandslice, on 27 July 2014 - 09:52 AM, said:

So, in other words, you honestly believe that there are no valid objections to your idea, as you have just handwaved all of them with a single sentence.

Here are a few.

1. Again, we already have a culture of people being afraid to take damage. R&R actively punishes taking damage, meaning a feedback loop that further encourages cowardice. As a side effect, this also discourages under-fire survival practices such as arm-shielding or spreading damage: if you must die, it is in your best interests to die efficiently and minimise your R&R.

2. With leg damage as it is, you get a further discouragement of light 'Mech play.

3. It gives a further punishment to weight-saving tech. For IS, this focuses on the XLE: it already has the major drawback of making the whole torso have deplete-to-kill options, without the further penalty of substantial R&R. Admittedly, this is not so much a drawback for endo or ferro, as most designers have already compensated for the crit-space concerns. But for the XLE, it's major (and if you want to see a world where people are afraid to use XLE, run your Light 'Mechs stock.)

This is also a nerf to the Clans: while they have weight-saving techs stock, they can't spec out of them - or, as with eg the Warhawk, swap out of ferro to use endo - and so can't avoid the costs. (And it's unclear whether OmniPods would be subject to R&R if their components get blown out.)

4. It enhances money-making "best practices" with a dash of trolling: best practice is to rip off components and let someone else have the kill. The trolling comes in because this is also the best way to maximise your victim's R&R.

5. It punishes the victims of TK, the victims of friendly fire (think blatting or walking through each other, not you ignored your buddy's line of sight and saved your enemy from your buddy's lasers,) and disconnects (while intentional DCs / farmers are an issue, legitimate DCs are much more common.)

lol Those are not valid, they're all based on the premise that R&R would "hurt" the earnings. I've already given several examples of how it wouldn't so the whole "game play would get worse because people wouldn't earn as much" doesn't hold water. I've already explained and given several different reasons and examples of how that could be avoided. Your arguments all stem from "earnings bad".

[Kyrie]

Hi all,

I guess it is just about time to have a good discussion on R&R. :-) Having nothing better to do this fine Sunday, I guess I'll wade into these deep waters once again.

To begin with, I fully supported removal of R&R with the game being an endless series of fairly pointless death-matches. I supported removal for the reasons others have very ably stated, and permit me to recap what I find the most salient:

1) It created a perverse paradigm wherein maximizing profit implied playing in ways destined to hurt the team, particularly once your team was at a slight disadvantage. Illustrated by: get yourself cored quickly, do not spread damage, do not try to survive as long as possible, etc, etc.

2) It penalized the use of specific weapon systems (ballistics, missiles) as opposed to energy based systems. In a first person shooter game where, in theory, each system is designed to be balanced against each other without taking into account R&R. Missiles and ballistics, under an effective rearm cost paradigm would have to be "better" than energy to justify their use.

3) It creates a potential for P2W advantages (endless supply of c-bills to defeat the R&R consequences).

In gist, introducing R&R in any way, shape, and form in a game that consists of endless context-free death-matches makes no sense. It does not add anything meaningful to the game.

Turning then to the possibility of adding R&R into the CW side of the game, and the discussion begins to be more interesting from my perspective. To make myself abundantly clear, the only possibility I see of incorporating R&R is via CW, and in a very limited sense that has very little to do with OP's suggestion.

The TL;DR version of my suggestion is to keep R&R as a measure of accounting for Unit level bonuses and payouts in CW. Not per mission-drop, but as part of an overall contract between the merc group and a particular House; and as a measure of house loyalist unit bonuses as well. Wall of text warning; details below.

In CW, I believe that we need at least two levels of payouts: one that is paid out per combat drop to each pilot, and bonuses that are paid out directly to the Unit as a whole. When a merc group pilot enters the CW interface, he will see standing orders and the current contract that the unit has signed with a particular House. For example, Smith's Irregulars working for the FRR has signed a 500 combat drop contract; with a series of conditions:

1) Complete a minimum of 500 combat missions on behalf of the FRR. Bonuses for finishing the 500 before X deadline, on a sliding scale.

2) The FRR will cover repair and ammunition up to X% (according to the contract the CO negotiated with the House AI). The higher X% is, the lower the overall completion bonus above. For example, perhaps a 100% coverage clause would reduce the potential bonus to 20%, paid out to the unit. Please note that this has ZERO impact on what is earned by individual pilots.

3) When a pilot for Smith's Irregular's logs in he checks to see the current contract terms, and standing orders as to where to run missions at. He checks the mission jobs-board at the key fronts identified in his standing orders left by his CO, and selects the best paying missions available. These payouts affect only his personal income.

4) After completing the mission, repair and rearm costs are calculated and are taken out of the merc unit coffers according to the contract signed with the FRR (the X% referenced previously). The individual player does not pay this cost. However, the player is informed of these costs as well as his direct payout and other earnings (per kills, salvage, etc).

5) When the contract is fulfilled, the CO gets a report from the House AI detailing the final payout made to the merc unit coffers under the contract he signed: Average R&R cost per drop, total costs deducted according to the percentage he negotiated at the start, and then the credit of the final bonus for completing the mission.

Some further details: I believe that R&R is an important concept in CW, particularly because it links in with the concept of supply-lines and deep raids that I hope will be possible in the CW map. In brief, I am in favor of a hardcore CW mode that takes into account whether one is operating within a supply-line, or outside of it. A raid deep into enemy territory (a very high payout mission possibility in the merc jobs-board idea mentioned previously) should have special risks, as the costs for R&R would be higher operating far from the front-lines. This would be one of the key things in running a successful merc outfit: balancing risks and rewards at the unit level.

Keeping R&R at the unit level also eliminates the P2W concerns as I propose there will be no way to inject funds into the coffers of a merc group once established except by contract mission bonuses.

Edited by Kyrie, 27 July 2014 - 11:17 AM.

[Fleeb the Mad]

I liked R&R from an immersion standpoint, though implementing it is really tricky.

I would like it if there was an economic incentive to play mediums and lights more. R&R could be the best vehicle for that. The reason they were the workhorse in BT was because they were the most bang for buck. They are the same in MWO in terms of overall cost (A Jenner costs as much as a Hunchback or Centurion, which costs half as much as a heavy). If mediums were your bankroll machine I think we'd see a lot more of them being used, but that also seems like it would artificially limit people from playing what they want. Though I'm fairly convinced there's some feedback loop where playing mediums becomes more fun when there are more smaller mechs. Driving a Hunchback is A-OK when you're not one of the smallest things on the field.

What I would love if is mechs in the 40-60 ton range were the bankroll, with 70 tons and upwards becoming progressively more expensive to operate. In fact, if I were to implement R&R I would want it set so that it was difficult to take a large negative hit with a big heavy or an assault, but equally hard to make lots of money with it. So that you could play anything consistently, but you couldn't consistently play huge mechs to earn bank.

In MWO's case it would be a rather huge incentive to have hero mechs and/or premium accounts. Again, I don't see that as neccessarily evil. That's a pay for convenience setup, where you pay to remove some need to grind money.

So let me pitch you something a little different. It's not a perfect solution, but what would happen if you implemented R&R based on the popularity of a given chassis and allowed that to fluctuate with use? Let's say the less a particular mech or variant was used, the less it cost to operate. Call it an abundance of spare parts. It's an indirect way to buff lackluster chassis.

[Sandpit]

Fleeb the Mad, on 27 July 2014 - 11:42 AM, said:

I liked R&R from an immersion standpoint, though implementing it is really tricky.

I would like it if there was an economic incentive to play mediums and lights more. R&R could be the best vehicle for that. The reason they were the workhorse in BT was because they were the most bang for buck. They are the same in MWO in terms of overall cost (A Jenner costs as much as a Hunchback or Centurion, which costs half as much as a heavy). If mediums were your bankroll machine I think we'd see a lot more of them being used, but that also seems like it would artificially limit people from playing what they want. Though I'm fairly convinced there's some feedback loop where playing mediums becomes more fun when there are more smaller mechs. Driving a Hunchback is A-OK when you're not one of the smallest things on the field.

What I would love if is mechs in the 40-60 ton range were the bankroll, with 70 tons and upwards becoming progressively more expensive to operate. In fact, if I were to implement R&R I would want it set so that it was difficult to take a large negative hit with a big heavy or an assault, but equally hard to make lots of money with it. So that you could play anything consistently, but you couldn't consistently play huge mechs to earn bank.

In MWO's case it would be a rather huge incentive to have hero mechs and/or premium accounts. Again, I don't see that as neccessarily evil. That's a pay for convenience setup, where you pay to remove some need to grind money.

So let me pitch you something a little different. It's not a perfect solution, but what would happen if you implemented R&R based on the popularity of a given chassis and allowed that to fluctuate with use? Let's say the less a particular mech or variant was used, the less it cost to operate. Call it an abundance of spare parts. It's an indirect way to buff lackluster chassis.

I've suggested one step further

The entire mech economy would be dynamic. Mech cost would fluctuate in a scaling fashion based on the popularity of the mech. Less popular = cheaper and vice versa. I know a lot of this isn't popular but if all of these were combined and done right it would make for a much more diverse game. It entices players to take less popular mechs.

[jaxjace]

What if we just got salvage? NO RandR just salvage, I think we honestly deserve that. Without premium or hero mechs the grind is ******* arduous. Im a veteran but I dont have stockpiles of c bills, I never have more than 2 million in the bank. Mech building and upgrading is expensive as ****.

We deserve a free large laser or some ac ammo or a few missle packs.