4
The Collector
I think I speak for a lot of people when I say I'm a collector. I own a large, diverse stable of 'mechs, and it will continue expanding until I quit playing this game. I want all of my Clan favorites from MW2 and MW2: GBL. I want the Mauler and some other IS favorites from MW2: Mercenaries. I ******* need the Black Knight (even used that as a screen name for a while). Who doesn't want to own a Blood Asp or Timber Wolf Mk2 eventually?
I keep everything I buy, and I try to avoid buying **** I'm never going to use. The more selective people tend to keep at least one variant unless they hate the 'mech. Hell, even players that specialize and prefer one chassis tend to own multiples with multiple builds (Jman and his 15+ Hunchbacks comes to mind).
Progression to me is just buying another chassis, kitting it out, and leveling it up. That's my end-game.
The Problem
But that path of progression is in direct contention with the way modules (the other end-game) and cockpit items currently work. For each new 'mech that I pick up, every module and cockpit item becomes less valuable. When I had four 'mechs, I was rocking my cockpit items 1/4 of the time and bothered switching modules. Now, I'm far too lazy to go look through my 70 variants for Target Info Gathering - let alone aesthetic garbage.
Sure, everyone has a couple favorites that they play more often, but every single 'mech that gets a slice of time decreases the amount of time I spend in a module- and cockpit item-equipped 'mech. Alternatively, you've got to go track them down and spend time switching them through a clunky, slow process.
Let's be honest here: no one aside from the hardcore players with metric fucktons of money is going to blow 20,000,000+ C-Bills to get the four 'Mech and Weapon Modules for each variant. That's two fully customized 'mech's worth of money. Instead, they're going to:
- Be like me, and be too lazy to move things around at all.
- Spend stupid amounts of time trying to find modules (time that increases with the number of 'mechs you own).
You Want My Money, Quiaff?
I really loved my Christmas lights when I first got them. But my love has faded over time, mostly because I never know where they are. I thought about getting the Disco Light and Disco Ball, (equally abrasive items that I would love to own), but I ended up taking a pass. That Isobaric Warhorn had my name all over it, but I knew it would never get used.
Ultimately, until cockpit items are sharable, I'll never buy another one. It takes minutes to move modules around; why the **** would I spend an equal amount of time for something that's purely aesthetic? And I'm certainly not going to buy $10.00 of decorative tchotchkes for each of my 70 robots (which, again, is a number that will continue to grow).
Every single 'mech I pick up makes every cockpit item I own that much more redundant.
By trying to be stingy and forcing players to buy duplicate items, they're really only robbing themselves of money. I'll blow $50.00 on aesthetic bullshit without blinking, but it has to be worth something. Right now, $50 would be enough to make 10% of my stable shiny - an almost hilariously bad value. It's a shame, because I'd buy three or four sets of cockpit items if I could mix-and-match between all my different 'mechs.
Modules with Value
We don't need a "module viewer" or "module finder" - they just need to be shared between 'mechs; there's no reason for the inconvenience. If PGI insists on modules being a per-variant C-Bill sink, they should decrease the cost of each module dramatically (to around 1,000,000 C-Bills).
Especially with most variants now having four (20,000,000+ C-Bills) permanent module slots, the cost to equip a single 'mech is ridiculous. PGI should be focused on releasing a large body of diverse, useful modules that encourage role specialization - not forcing players to buy duplicate items out of sheer inconvenience.
TL;DR
The requirement of buying duplicate modules directly contends with being a 'mech collector, which is the end-game for a large portion of players. It is a miserable choice: spend two fully customized 'mech's worth of money to make a single 'mech more effective, constantly suffer the needless hassle of switching modules around, or just don't use modules.
Cockpit items, for the same reason, have become nearly worthless; who has the motivation to find and switch around purely aesthetic items? I'd buy some more cockpit items, but they're a total joke right now.
The solution is to make modules and cockpit items shared between 'mechs. It makes cockpit items worth something and relieves players of the frustrating module hunt. If PGI really wants the modules to be a constant, per-'mech C-Bill sink, they should decrease the cost of each module to around 1-2,000,000.
