229 replies to this topic

[PewPew2]

So I reinstalled after being gone since the raven was released and im enjoying myself for the most part but theres something really bugging me. Since there is no repair and rearm anymore what the hell is the point of all the basic equipment??? Everyone just puts endosteel, ferro, double heatsinks and xl in EVERYTHING.

[Carrie Harder]

Re-implementing RnR would not change that fact that "basic" equipment would still be inferior for the most part. It would just force bad/new/poor players to use bad mechs while they grind up to play fun mechs.


PS: Ferro isn't even used in that many mechs, and a number of mechs prefer STD engines over XL due to hitboxes.

[MasterBLB]

Abandoning rearming and repairing costs was one of the best design decisions they ever made.

[aniviron]

Am I the only one who remembers what closed beta was like? Who doesn't have a rose-tinted neurohelmet?

Okay, so first off: R&R is a great concept from an immersion standpoint. That's awesome. It felt great that actions had consequences, and that after a match, I would be able to go through and see exactly what those consequences were. It made the game feel much more 'real,' (not real as in real life, fools) and it made it feel like a Mechwarrior game. That was awesome.

You know what wasn't awesome though? Being punished by the game because I was poor. Half my matches my armor was at the free 75%. Almost all of them I was at 0% internals. All my builds had ammo counts based on not being able to rearm, and using the free 50% you got. My teammates weren't too pleased with me either, but ****, it takes forever to get new mechs and engines, so they could go stuff it. R&R also promotes suiciding or "suiciding" into the enemy team so you can take as little damage as possible during a match you know you're going to lose. Charlie lance decided that no guys they can totally hold off the enemy team alone in conquest? Might as well overheat now, and save yourself the huge repair bill!

Seriously, R&R promoted some terrible game mechanics. People at the bottom get punished, and people where I am now don't care. Oh, I would lose money for running in a clan mech? How terrible, my 260m cbill stack will be gone in no time! Haha, just kidding, I can ride that to a 90% winrate for years if some weapons are only balanced because they're expensive to use.

The idea of R&R is great. But you'd be hard-pressed to come up with an implementation of it that doesn't disproportionally hurt new and poor players. The only thing that even comes close is having an R&R system where either your faction alignment or merc corp foots the bill; presumably a percentage of your winnings go to your house/clan if you're not in a corp, and you would be expected to donate to your merc corp's coffers if you were a part of one. These have the advantage of letting the rich players absorb some of the cost for their newer buddies, and it would mean that you wouldn't see players intentionally getting destroyed in the most cost-efficient way possible as soon as the match's outcome became clear. The downside is that if someone is footing the bill for you and the repairs are automatic, why even have it at that point? Then you get some of the inconvenience, and none of the immersion.

[PewPew2]

Hmm interesting didn't think of it that way thank you.

[Gryphorim]

I always figured offering stackable [1.2x] multiplier to your c-bill earnings at the end of match, for each instance of low cost tech you are running, (eg: STD engine, SHS, STD Structure, STD Armour, STD Guidance).

[Darian DelFord]

Part of the problem is PGI doubled the ammo on most weapons. Put them back to TT values and you will see alot of problems solved.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Darian DelFord, on 16 September 2014 - 09:32 PM, said:

Part of the problem is PGI doubled the ammo on most weapons. Put them back to TT values and you will see alot of problems solved.

I don't see how that solves anything. They increased ammo per ton (not doubled, exactly) for a lot of weapons because they doubled armor and internals.

Edited by Kaeb Odellas, 17 September 2014 - 08:45 AM.

[wanderer]

PewPew2, on 16 September 2014 - 09:10 PM, said:

So I reinstalled after being gone since the raven was released and im enjoying myself for the most part but theres something really bugging me. Since there is no repair and rearm anymore what the hell is the point of all the basic equipment??? Everyone just puts endosteel, ferro, double heatsinks and xl in EVERYTHING.

All R&R did was say that spacepoors got to be kicked around by the premium elite, and it was more economical to be stupid than successful.

Bugger that for a game of soldiers.

[Quxudica]

PewPew2, on 16 September 2014 - 09:10 PM, said:

So I reinstalled after being gone since the raven was released and im enjoying myself for the most part but theres something really bugging me. Since there is no repair and rearm anymore what the hell is the point of all the basic equipment??? Everyone just puts endosteel, ferro, double heatsinks and xl in EVERYTHING.

R and R the way it was done before was awful, and detrimental to the game. It heavily punishes players that don't have much play time, players that prefer ammo based builds are at a major disadvantage to energy users, and worst of all it punishes build experimentation resulting in an even lower variety than we see now. It also adds a massive amount of grind to a game that is already bursting with it, in a way that is unenjoyable and frustrating.

The return of RnR without some major redesigns will only see the return of stripped down cheap mechs that don't repair themselves suicide grinding every match, possibly run by bots. The intended positive benefits of such a system do not, in my opinion, even come close to outweighing the negative aspects of its impact.

Edited by Quxudica, 16 September 2014 - 10:02 PM.

[Targetloc]

I would love to see a game mode where you fight for multiple rounds and have to pay R&R costs out of a fixed pool (that is from your 'employer' not your own personal cbills).

If you take a super expensive mech with max ammo and trash it in the first round you'll be limping for round 2 or 3. But taking a low-tech mech is also a viable strategy because it may be at a disadvantage in round 1, but you can afford to fully repair it every match until the end.

[Mothykins]

Right now the grind to advance is pretty steep. I calculated that, on average with my skill level and playable hours, it will take me a month to afford most heavies (Two or so hours a day, 100,000 CBills a game on average.) You can go backwards now With consumables, I can't imagine what it would be like if I had to pay to repair and rearm my 'Mech. Most likely negative earnings and no advancement.

And that's where a lot of players would quit. You're locked out of using what you've already earned because the cost to upkeep it is more than you can make. This is why it's gone.

[Quxudica]

Targetloc, on 16 September 2014 - 10:04 PM, said:

I would love to see a game mode where you fight for multiple rounds and have to pay R&R costs out of a fixed pool (that is from your 'employer' not your own personal cbills).

If you take a super expensive mech with max ammo and trash it in the first round you'll be limping for round 2 or 3. But taking a low-tech mech is also a viable strategy because it may be at a disadvantage in round 1, but you can afford to fully repair it every match until the end.

It's an interesting concept, but would have the ability to snowball to the point that the outcome is decided much earlier than the mode ends. If it can reach a point where the losing team simply can't recover it just becomes annoying, rage quitters would also probably be a big problem.

[Impyrium]

R&R doesn't really have a place in skirmish matches in my opinion.

But in CW... perhaps if it was tabbed down a bit, but kept that mechanic there... that'd be awesome. It's set apart the mode even more from skirmish, which is good. It'd make much more sense, too, since you're playing in the 'real' IS rather than battles that aren't placed.

Still, it sounds that it was pretty tricky back in beta. I wouldn't want to see it quite that extreme.

[meteorol]

R&R can't be brought back in the current enviroment. PGI is selling hero mechs and premium time (80% cbill bonus together) and straight up Cbills for MC.

Anyone who just opens his wallet could 100% bypass the R&R mechanic, always running around with the most expensive weapons and upgrades, while others who don't spent money would be forced to gimp around in "low cost mechs" if they want to make any progression.

This would be the closest thing to flat out P2W that MWO will ever get.

Edited by meteorol, 16 September 2014 - 10:12 PM.

[Quxudica]

AUSwarrior24, on 16 September 2014 - 10:10 PM, said:

R&R doesn't really have a place in skirmish matches in my opinion.

But in CW... perhaps if it was tabbed down a bit, but kept that mechanic there... that'd be awesome. It's set apart the mode even more from skirmish, which is good. It'd make much more sense, too, since you're playing in the 'real' IS rather than battles that aren't placed.

Still, it sounds that it was pretty tricky back in beta. I wouldn't want to see it quite that extreme.

It got to the point where the best way to make money was to buy three cheap Commandos, strip them of almost everything save maybe a small laser and never repair them. You'd just drop > run into the enemy shooting a few > die > leave > drop in the other Commando and repeat.

Meanwhile pretty much every Ammo using build was designed around using the "Free" 50% ammo rearm, so they never actually payed for reloading (it was prohibitively expensive to begin with) and many players wouldn't repair their mechs to full (enjoy those 12 to 2-3 stomps now? imagine dropping in a team that was undersupplied in ammo and badly injured at the start, this combined with the even greater damage available now would result in.. well you get the idea). It already takes way to long to grind out Cbills right now unless you have a lot of time to play, having the potential to lose money on a match would lead to a lot of bad things. Having it in the CW mode would also probably not be a good idea, it would only succeed in locking out a large number of players from what is supposed to be the centerpiece of the game.

Edited by Quxudica, 16 September 2014 - 10:18 PM.

[Lord de Seis]

It was terrible in the beta and not keeping it was one of the best decisions they ever made. Repair costs aren't going to prevent people from building mechs a certain way and cbills are a tough enough grind already.

Let people build mechs the way they want and enjoy it. Not all mechs have xl's, endo and ferro.

Edited by Lord de Seis, 16 September 2014 - 10:19 PM.

[meteorol]

Quxudica, on 16 September 2014 - 10:16 PM, said:

It got to the point where the best way to make money was to buy three cheap Commandos, strip them of almost everything save maybe a small laser and never repair them. You'd just drop > run into the enemy shooting a few > die > leave > drop in the other Commando and repeat.

Std engine commando, the got to money grinder back in the days... had one aswell . While grindind towards my first atlas. Without cadet bonus or something like that. Dang that took a while

[Naduk]

if they are going to keep a "public" and the "CW" ques separate i think RNR should most certainly be a apart of CW
however even in here it still promotes the same negatives as it did before (hence its removal)
i absolutely love RNR but i completely understand why it was removed

So I have a Proposal
Repair rearm be worked just as it was before, costs and everything
however the major difference is how you pay your repairs
everybody has access to three methods of payment for their repairs/rearm

1. FREE
the free method of RNR is simply time, if you are low on cbills and saving up, you can elect to pay nothing for your repairs.
however the mech will stay locked in the repair bay until repairs are complete (say 15-20mins[1-2 games])
to continue playing simply select another mech and launch as normal, when the engineers are finished working on your beauty it will show as ready in the mechbay

2. C-bills
pay your engineers some over time/ bribe an offical to have your mech jump the que... what ever is going on here involves cbills leaving your account and your repairs being done instantly, pop just like new and your back in action

3. contractual
(CW only) your repairs are paid for by the host of your current contract, this works out great for everyone
you see action faster, but might take a hit in your winnings/rewards/salvage/loyalty, depending of course on how trust worthy you are and how much the host likes you.... perhaps they owe your unit a few favors

[EvilCow]

R&R could be reintroduced in a more balanced way.

The previous implementation was about repurchasing destroyed elements, instead of doing this I would instead repair damaged elements at a cost like 1/200 the full price except for armor and structure, that would be full price but it is not that costly to begin with.
Cbills gains could be tweaked up in order to compensate.

The effect would be a more careful approach to configuration of mechs.

The game is in dire need of depth, this is the kind of mechanics missing.

Edit: I like the previous post suggestions too, a mech would be repaired for free after some time, a reason to have backups. A CW contract could include repair costs.

Edited by EvilCow, 16 September 2014 - 10:38 PM.