2 replies to this topic

[Quicksilver Aberration]

I think one thing that has been echoed throughout the forums for pretty much the past 3 years has been asking for lower prices. I bring this up every time this subject is brought up, but I remember the days when we thought the MW4 expansion paks were expensive, and those gave you 4 different chassis, a new map, and a new family of weapons for $13. In MWO, you have single mechs that cost more than twice that, I know things have changed but that is still outrageous.

To premise this, Im going to give a simple scenario:
Which is better in a F2P game, selling a $20 item to 5 people, or selling the same item for $10 to 10 people?
The answer is the latter, because getting more people to spend money is a great way to keep their wallets open and prevents segregation of the community between the paying players and those who don't. This is in spite of the fact that you are making the same amount of money for an item that costs the same amount to produce regardless of how many people buy it.

So with that out of the way, first thing is first, scale item cost (both MC and C-Bill) to age. This allows you to sell us new mechs at a higher cost than they ought to be. It also allows new players to not be overwhelmed with trying to play catch up to the veteran players. Real markets have this as does TF2, I see no reason why Mechs can't be the same way. So rather than feeling sorry for the poor sap who paid around $3 for a Trollmando, you would see a lot more Trollmandos if they were $0.50 on top of the next suggestion (which is steeper initial C-Bill costs).

Equipment and upgrade costs should be 1/10th of what they are to encourage more experimentation rather than punish players who try odd builds. To compensate for this, costs to buy mechs should be steeper (possibly around Clan mech levels), ergo costs to buy mechs should be more weighted by the variants weight than its equipment.

Mastery packs, great idea, but done a little bit wrong imo. These should be rotated out with each new mech, just like how TF2 has discounts for buying all the newly released content in bulk, so should MWO, using the Mastery packs. When a mech is released, its mastery pack is available for 4 months before it disappears. Selling the current meta mechs is kinda silly imo, especially if your meta is healthy, you would have to change these mechs a lot. Thus why just keeping these to newer items is easier and rewards those who are willing to support newer content.

MC packages, do away with these. Have a strict MC to Dollar conversion and allow us to make single transactions (even if it is only $0.50 worth of content). If you want people to feel rewarded for buying in bulk, keep your packages like the Phoenix or Invasion packs around, minus certain goodies (like warhorns or something). Packages are your friend, just like the Mastery packs.

Camos, I understand why you made it unlockable only per chassis rather than all mechs, because as you add more mechs, thats more money you are sinking into something that is no longer making you profit. That is fine, but the costs certainly need to be more reasonable. I know this is a complaint that is echoed consistently as well, so why not start by halving the unlock cost?

Events, not so much a price thing, but something I want to suggest nonetheless. Make them longer than a weekend, all the events I have enjoyed from other games, have been at least week long. For example, for a week you could have a daily challenge that differ each time and net you some sort of prize (mech bay, premium time, vouchers, c-bills, etc). At the end of that week would be a weekend long event that has a larger challenge and allows those that missed an item they wanted to makeup for that loss and try again.

Last but not least, I read about you stating something to the effect of keeping Hero mechs MC only because you guys have to pay the bills somehow. I understand that, but you could also make money if you allowed all mechs to be upgraded to 'champions' for a non-refundable fee. Not to mention the higher gain rate and unique camos would still keep people buying them, especially if they were brought more inline with the suggested MC/C-Bill cost changes. At such steep costs, I have no reason to even try and enjoy the Sparky and all its glory, even though I want too, all because of cost.

[Tonyret121]

Honestly this is one of the few things I can say I fully agree with when it comes to the cost=gain ratio in this game. It's crazy how greedy you guys have gotten yet there is so many alternatives to not only appease your old and new targets but make even more money I'm doing so.

[Nathan Xain]

Just imagine how many of the new clan packs they would sell if you could pick up the whole thing, all 12 mechs (if that's what it will be), for $60.