5
Starting off, We've all complained about the high pricing for everything. All of us. At least once. And it sucks, but We've been getting ton's of sales as of late, which take the hurt off. I don't see this changing quickly, and here's why:
- The game has been up for years at this point. If you drop the price, all the players who've already sunk money into it will be understandably upset.
- If you try to mitigate that damage with refunds/free in game stuff, you now need to track the many thousands of players and how much they've spent, which takes up tons of resources.
- The sale prices are generally closer to what I'd personally consider "in line" anyways, with a few exceptions.
We also have an issue where expansion requires real world money - Mechbays, though PGI has been doing it's best to give those away as part of challenges. This is a great move on their part, as long as it becomes a semi-recurring theme.
"So what's the problem? It can't be just Premium Time."
Glad you asked.
The problem is the games current C-Bill rewards. Even with Premium they're terrible. This is a serious throttle to players.
The following is based off of myself, who is an average, if not below average player.
I've bought a single 'Mech in game in the last three months, because it's not easy to create any in game income with the current model. This is while running a Locust, ranging into the 400-600 damage per match range, with numerous spotting rewards. In game income is ~120,000CB, minus the 80,000CB for a total of 40,000CB. Some games are Net Zero. Some are better. Average is 40,000. (My 1V-P nets more, but I'm basing off a standard variant)
A Locust, pretty much the cheapest thing in the game, costs 1,491,242CB. This is 38 Matches (Rounding up.) An average match is 1 minute to connect, and then 7 minutes on average. This is five hours of solid playing. For a Locust. By contrast, a Clan Mech, the Summoner, costs 14,071,353CB, which is more than an inner-sphere Assault. This is about 10 times the cost, so the grind would be ten times the length. 50 hours to get a Clan Heavy. More than two days of solid playing. If you spread that out at two hours a day (personally my average), that's 25 days. Nearly a month to get a single clan heavy.
This is incredibly frustrating as a player. 25 days to get a single 'Mech Chassis; by this point most sane players would quit. Advancement is slow and painful, so why keep going, there's hardly any reward. (The only reason I'm here is dedication to the IP really. But we need to retain new players.)
This is not a good model. It feels like you're forcing people to pump real money into the game to advance at all, and alienating the casual players. This is compounded by the high price to buy things for real money. You need better rewards in game, be it just a general income buff or better rewards for filling warfare roles.
EDIT FOR CLARITY:
I'm Stating that the average casual player who's just trying the game out will feel like they can't advance and the only option is to spend money. The game is toted as Free To Play, yet feels like you require money to advance in a timely fashion. As well, They're told that in order to advance, they can't use game-play options that are offered to them (UAV, ART./AIR Strike) OR 'Mechs they enjoy piloting. This isn't some single player, linear advancement game where the end result is a lance of Assaults.
Hoping for constructive comments and Suggestions on how PGI could fix this. Good ideas will be quoted to the opening post.
Edited by Cavale, 11 September 2014 - 11:21 AM.
