192 replies to this topic

[Destructicus]

WM Quicksilver, on 22 September 2014 - 07:40 PM, said:

So wait, if you pay actual money, you can only skip one grind, that seems silly does it not, especially compared to other successful F2P games?

Think of WoW
Now you can buy a level 90 (something I disagree with)
But once you're 90 there is still a grind for gear.
Money isn't going to buy epics.

[Sprouticus]

In a FTP model you have customers. Those customers are NOT the free players. They are the paying players. The free players are (part of) the product being sold.

edit: Free players are important, but they are NOT customers.

There is a balance the companies makes. They want the grind to be large enough that it forces those who can afford it to pay for convenience. But they want it low enough that it does not drive off the free players (part of the product).

The better the game, the larger the population, the larger the grind they can afford to have. The equilibrium point in the curve varies. It is a curve. They try to find the sweet spot where they are maximizing income and keeping the game population healthy.

Now, we can debate where that sweet spot is, which I think was the initial point of the post (even if it was formatted as a whine). But PGI has not budged at ALL in 18 months since they lowered the rewards, and they are not going to start now.

Edited by Sprouticus, 22 September 2014 - 07:48 PM.

[Destructicus]

Pjwned, on 22 September 2014 - 07:40 PM, said:

I was addressing you saying that I want everything free and easily and how I said that's a nonsense strawman, I don't see how that's dismissing your opinion even if I clearly don't agree with it in the least.

You're calling me and idiot and saying I'm derailing your thread simply because I have a differing opinion from yours.

"It'd be nice if idiots didn't derail this topic every time with the same nonsense and strawman arguments."

Pjwned, on 22 September 2014 - 07:40 PM, said:

So apparently saying that I'm just an entitled whiner earlier is not saying that I'm an entitled whiner, cool logic.

And yes, I did call you an entitled whiner, because you are, though that isn't actually the argument I'm presenting.

Pjwned, on 22 September 2014 - 07:40 PM, said:

If it's not a perfect system but you don't agree with my statements then how would you fix it? I put forth why I think it's a bad system, apparently all you care about is taking a **** on other peoples' grievances with the the game though.

You're not presenting a fix beyond "give it to me now"

So how can you fault me for not presenting a fix myself?

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Destructicus, on 22 September 2014 - 07:42 PM, said:

Think of WoW
Now you can buy a level 90 (something I disagree with)
But once you're 90 there is still a grind for gear.
Money isn't going to buy epics.

Don't they also have a tier system to separate different levels of players for PvP, among other things?

[Destructicus]

WM Quicksilver, on 22 September 2014 - 07:52 PM, said:

Don't they also have a tier system to separate different levels of players for PvP, among other things?

they do and you can't buy that gear either, it must be earned through a grind with honor points.

Edited by Destructicus, 22 September 2014 - 07:53 PM.

[Sprouticus]

following up on my last post:


To the OP:

As I said, this is a curve. Just like any bisness based upon attracting an audience, there are people who are just unwilling to participate in the system. That is ok. again, you can request that they change the time/$$ curve, but as I said it is unlikely.

If that is the case, and if you are unwilling to participate in the system they have devised, your options are simple. Change your expectations or dont play.

Not saying you should leave, I dont want anyone to leave. Just saying that your options are fairly limited. I get why this could be frustrating, especially in an game with so much history that your heart may reallly want to play. But that does not change how the system works. If you end up on the wrong side of that desire/grind curve, you should probably just walk away.

Or as I said, you can change your expectaitons and enjoy the game for what it is.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Destructicus, on 22 September 2014 - 07:53 PM, said:

they do and you can't buy that gear either, it must be earned through a grind with honor points.

Then there is the difference, do they want to separate players by tiers based on mastery and keep the grind, or reduce the grind and keep all players in one giant queue (and allow players to skip the grind all together). Considering this is still an arena shooter with a limited population split between 3 game modes, I'd have to run with the latter, especially since mastery doesn't save bad mechs, it just exacerbates the issues in balance between designs.

Edited by WM Quicksilver, 22 September 2014 - 08:02 PM.

[Duncan Jr Fischer]

Heh, it's funny you mention modules.
If it comes to really necessary spendings, it's DHS, EndoSteel, also engines cost like hell, but modules are what you can totally play without. It's certainly good to have them, but it's not a must-have for mastering a mech. I play since closed beta and have come to buying modules only recently, never felt I have enough cbills to spend on them. As I have got more than enough mechs to chose from and don't have to buy or customize new ones, I buy modules.
And did you expect to get everything from the game for a week-end? Impossible.
Personally I even think to stop visiting MWO on week-ends, despite all the good things. There appear to be much more new players in such days and they mess up things pretty much. Never before the last two week-ends I saw half a team in 3pv and so much friendly fire and even TKs..

[Destructicus]

WM Quicksilver, on 22 September 2014 - 08:01 PM, said:

Then there is the difference, do they want to separate players by tiers based on mastery and keep the grind, or reduce the grind and keep all players in one giant queue (and allow players to skip the grind all together). Considering this is still an arena shooter with a limited population split between 3 game modes, I'd have to run with the latter, especially since mastery doesn't save bad mechs, it just exacerbates the issues in balance between designs.

In wow people are separated by tiers in Arena
This is determined by rating which is indirectly tied to gear.
In Bg's everybody is thrown together to duke it out.
In this game we take into account elo
but not mech mastery.
Still
A skilled player can still dominate a fully mastered player.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Destructicus, on 22 September 2014 - 08:07 PM, said:

In wow people are separated by tiers in Arena
This is determined by rating which is indirectly tied to gear.
In Bg's everybody is thrown together to duke it out.
In this game we take into account elo
but not mech mastery.
Still
A skilled player can still dominate a fully mastered player.

I was more referring to the different levels not gear. Levels are more like mastery, gear is more like upgrades in my mind; though with the heat sink tax, it makes a little more sense to have it the other way in this game.

[Destructicus]

WM Quicksilver, on 22 September 2014 - 08:15 PM, said:

I was more referring to the different levels not gear. Levels are more like mastery, gear is more like upgrades in my mind; though with the heat sink tax, it makes a little more sense to have it the other way in this game.

hit rating itself is almost like a level
You can't raid without it man
at least not effectively.

[ice trey]

Pjwned, on 22 September 2014 - 01:45 PM, said:

unless you want to deliberately have a sub-optimal mech in a competitive mech shooter game.

You know what the best secret to getting over that hurdle is?

Stop Competing.

Sure, the devs are pushing the whole "Competitive, Competitive" chant, but what exactly are we competing for? Kills? You can't even see other players kills ratios. Wins? Again, all winning does is pit you against harder oppnents so you lose more often. In-Game Currency? Let's be honest, all you can spend it on is more mechs and more customization, meaning more grinding all over again.

When you as a player can stop looking at MWO as an E-sport and just look at is as a romp in a mech and as part of a team, you can have a lot more fun with it. If only the Devs dropped this Competitive BS and started pushing the more atmospheric and immersive elements of the setting instead of this constant tournament/challenge/TOPSCORE garbage, I think the MWO communitys' overall character would improve greatly.

Not to say I don't appreciate a free mech or mechbay every now and again, but I'd rather be playing a Battletech game, and not just some optimizationfest which has nothing to do with the lore that reduces us to using only the munchiest 10% of the mechs available.

When you can just say "Eff-it" and drop in Awesomes, Locusts, Dragons, Quickdraws, or whatnot else, you'll probably have a much better time. You'll also notice that your performance in the game has a lot less to do with how optimized your mech is, and a lot more to do with how well both you and your team works together.

Edited by ice trey, 22 September 2014 - 08:35 PM.

[Pjwned]

Sprouticus, on 22 September 2014 - 07:46 PM, said:

In a FTP model you have customers. Those customers are NOT the free players. They are the paying players. The free players are (part of) the product being sold.

edit: Free players are important, but they are NOT customers.

Free players in a F2P game are customers as long as they have the potential to pay, and even that isn't a good definition either.

Destructicus, on 22 September 2014 - 07:50 PM, said:

You're calling me and idiot and saying I'm derailing your thread simply because I have a differing opinion from yours.

"It'd be nice if idiots didn't derail this topic every time with the same nonsense and strawman arguments."

That's more of a cause & effect thing, if you throw out some strawman nonsense and then fail to address most of the argument up until that point then I'm going to say that you're being an idiot, that's not just outright dismissing opinions.

Quote

And yes, I did call you an entitled whiner, because you are, though that isn't actually the argument I'm presenting.

That's not how it works, your argument isn't any different from what you're claiming it's not.

Quote

You're not presenting a fix beyond "give it to me now"

So how can you fault me for not presenting a fix myself?

Pretty sure I made it clear multiple times that it's not necessarily an issue of wanting it now, it's an issue of not wanting to deal with a boring, tedious grind in the mech tree. If a fix were to result in getting things sooner (or even right away) then that's fine with me, but the mech tree can be made easier to deal with without necessarily making it take (any notable amount) less time to achieve, which is apparently such an offensive idea.

Sprouticus, on 22 September 2014 - 07:58 PM, said:

following up on my last post:


To the OP:

As I said, this is a curve. Just like any bisness based upon attracting an audience, there are people who are just unwilling to participate in the system. That is ok. again, you can request that they change the time/$$ curve, but as I said it is unlikely.

If that is the case, and if you are unwilling to participate in the system they have devised, your options are simple. Change your expectations or dont play.

Not saying you should leave, I dont want anyone to leave. Just saying that your options are fairly limited. I get why this could be frustrating, especially in an game with so much history that your heart may reallly want to play. But that does not change how the system works. If you end up on the wrong side of that desire/grind curve, you should probably just walk away.

Or as I said, you can change your expectaitons and enjoy the game for what it is.

Your options aren't mutually exclusive with me expressing my dissatisfaction with the system, so that's what I chose to do here. Even if I did grudgingly accept it or just stop playing that doesn't mean I still don't want to see it changed.

Duncan Jr Fischer, on 22 September 2014 - 08:04 PM, said:

Heh, it's funny you mention modules.
If it comes to really necessary spendings, it's DHS, EndoSteel, also engines cost like hell, but modules are what you can totally play without. It's certainly good to have them, but it's not a must-have for mastering a mech. I play since closed beta and have come to buying modules only recently, never felt I have enough cbills to spend on them. As I have got more than enough mechs to chose from and don't have to buy or customize new ones, I buy modules.
And did you expect to get everything from the game for a week-end? Impossible.
Personally I even think to stop visiting MWO on week-ends, despite all the good things. There appear to be much more new players in such days and they mess up things pretty much. Never before the last two week-ends I saw half a team in 3pv and so much friendly fire and even TKs..

I do actually have a problem with DHS tax and other high costs, but I tried at least a little bit to keep the topic somewhat more focused on the mech tree; the complaining about new modules was that it now adds even more grind than there was previously, and it's also part of the mech tree as well.

Edited by Pjwned, 22 September 2014 - 08:46 PM.

[Pjwned]

ice trey, on 22 September 2014 - 08:32 PM, said:

You know what the best secret to getting over that hurdle is?

Stop Competing.

Sure, the devs are pushing the whole "Competitive, Competitive" chant, but what exactly are we competing for? Kills? You can't even see other players kills ratios. Wins? Again, all winning does is pit you against harder oppnents so you lose more often. In-Game Currency? Let's be honest, all you can spend it on is more mechs and more customization, meaning more grinding all over again.

When you as a player can stop looking at MWO as an E-sport and just look at is as a romp in a mech and as part of a team, you can have a lot more fun with it. If only the Devs dropped this Competitive BS and started pushing the more atmospheric and immersive elements of the setting instead of this constant tournament/challenge/TOPSCORE garbage, I think the MWO communitys' overall character would improve greatly.

Not to say I don't appreciate a free mech or mechbay every now and again, but I'd rather be playing a Battletech game, and not just some optimizationfest that reduces us to using only the munchiest 10% of the mechs available.

When you can just say "Eff-it" and drop in Awesomes, Locusts, Dragons, Quickdraws, or whatnot else, you'll probably have a much better time. You'll also notice that your performance in the game has a lot less to do with how optimized your mech is, and a lot more to do with how well both you and your team works together.

Competing does not automatically mean eSports, getting tired of hearing this, the game is competitive by nature.

Edited by Pjwned, 22 September 2014 - 08:37 PM.

[Orbit Rain]

This thread: tl:dr

If you play to grind, your mindset is wrong. If you play to make cbills, you're doing it wrong. If you play to smash faces, if you play to win the mechlab game, if you play to win the light game, assault game, lrm role, sniper role, brawler role...and a bunch of other "games" within this game...you're on the right path and probably having fun....If you enjoy the struggle to find the right mix, the right role, the right way to play...and you enjoy the challenge of not knowing what is on the other side...you are getting there....

If you haven't figured out how to "game" in this game, you haven't figured it out...yet. There's nothing going to be given you on a silver platter, where you will be the hero...you have to create yourself into a hero, and prove it on the field...people aren't going to roll over so you can have a "good time"

I'm here to smash faces and win...*that* game is also fun. I'm here to play this shooting, and I *want* it to be hard, complex difficult...I want to master as much and as many of the games within as I can, and enjoy the process as I enjoy my mastery of pieces of it...

I enjoy smashing faces. i enjoy figuring out mechs, their strengths and weaknesses, and making them all work...finding the right build and the right role...I enjoy all that. If you don't enjoy the battles themselves. You need to change your perspective of your "progression" in this game...There is still and always progress to be made. You either enjoy the ride or you make yourself miserable. Either way its all between your ears how and what you look at in this game.

If you can't shrug off a loss, miserable teamates, your hated map, the wrong loadout for the terrain...and all the rest...*you* are just making yourself miserable...not your team, not the enemy, not PGI, not me...*you*....*you* are the one making yourself miserable over this. You either accept responibility for your own emotions...or you're just another a' thousands of crying little girls pretending to be a man, in a man's body.

Put bluntly, you're weak if you can't control your own mind. You're weak if you give that control to anyone outside your own self.

You're pathetic.

Spoiler

...and you're doing it wrong

[Destructicus]

Pjwned, on 22 September 2014 - 08:34 PM, said:

Pretty sure I made it clear multiple times that it's not necessarily an issue of wanting it now, it's an issue of not wanting to deal with a boring, tedious grind in the mech tree. If a fix were to result in getting things sooner (or even right away) then that's fine with me, but the mech tree can be made easier to deal with without necessarily making it take (any notable amount) less time to achieve, which is apparently such an offensive idea.

God you're dense.
That's what premium time is for, just because you don't like it or want to pay for it doesn't change what it is.

[Sergeant Random]

Whale: "Get a job."
Freeloader: "A sucker is born every minute."
Forum Moderator: "Can't we all just get along?"

[Mothykins]

Sergeant Random, on 22 September 2014 - 08:49 PM, said:

Whale: "Get a job."
Freeloader: "A sucker is born every minute."
Forum Moderator: "Can't we all just get along?"

Yo, Even with a Job the prices are steep and they don't really alleviate the grind. Not Worth it.

I might not care so much if there was more to do with the 'Mech than Play Skirmish, and two modes pretending to be something that isn't Skirmish. As it is, the only variation is new 'Mechs, which take forever to get to. But there isn't. So pretty much the game gets really dry, you don't feel like you're accomplishing anything, etc etc.

Maaaybe community Warfare will change this, but doubtful. We need something larger than this.

[Pjwned]

Orbit Rain, on 22 September 2014 - 08:38 PM, said:

This thread: tl:dr

If you play to grind, your mindset is wrong. If you play to make cbills, you're doing it wrong. If you play to smash faces, if you play to win the mechlab game, if you play to win the light game, assault game, lrm role, sniper role, brawler role...and a bunch of other "games" within this game...you're on the right path and probably having fun....If you enjoy the struggle to find the right mix, the right role, the right way to play...and you enjoy the challenge of not knowing what is on the other side...you are getting there....

If you haven't figured out how to "game" in this game, you haven't figured it out...yet. There's nothing going to be given you on a silver platter, where you will be the hero...you have to create yourself into a hero, and prove it on the field...people aren't going to roll over so you can have a "good time"

I'm here to smash faces and win...*that* game is also fun. I'm here to play this shooting, and I *want* it to be hard, complex difficult...I want to master as much and as many of the games within as I can, and enjoy the process as I enjoy my mastery of pieces of it...

I enjoy smashing faces. i enjoy figuring out mechs, their strengths and weaknesses, and making them all work...finding the right build and the right role...I enjoy all that. If you don't enjoy the battles themselves. You need to change your perspective of your "progression" in this game...There is still and always progress to be made. You either enjoy the ride or you make yourself miserable. Either way its all between your ears how and what you look at in this game.

If you can't shrug off a loss, miserable teamates, your hated map, the wrong loadout for the terrain...and all the rest...*you* are just making yourself miserable...not your team, not the enemy, not PGI, not me...*you*....*you* are the one making yourself miserable over this. You either accept responibility for your own emotions...or you're just another a' thousands of crying little girls pretending to be a man, in a man's body.

Put bluntly, you're weak if you can't control your own mind. You're weak if you give that control to anyone outside your own self.

You're pathetic.

Spoiler

...and you're doing it wrong

What the hell are you even going on about? I suggest taking your meds, maybe try projecting less.

I also notice in that screenshot you blocked out any and all additional XP modifiers, so um...cool story.

Destructicus, on 22 September 2014 - 08:45 PM, said:

God you're dense.
That's what premium time is for, just because you don't like it or want to pay for it doesn't change what it is.

Fair enough, doesn't seem like it has much value if all you do is pay to not deal with an insufferable grind then, just a less annoying but just as tedious and worthless grind.

[ice trey]

Pjwned, on 22 September 2014 - 08:37 PM, said:

Competing does not automatically mean eSports, getting tired of hearing this, the game is competitive by nature.

Not really.

There's a difference between playing, and competing.

Playing, you're just there to have a good time. You'll take what's given to you, shoot the breeze, and as long as you're not completely getting mauled all the time, you're doing just peachy.

Competing, you're only there to win, and if you're not winning, you're not having a good time. Chewing people out for not doing their jobs when you were out lone wolfing, Getting back and pouring over record sheets trying to figure out how you can get a one-uppance on everyone not by tactics, skill, or even luck, but by number crunching.

The game is just a versus play team game, the game is not competitive by nature. When the match is over, no difference is made. Whether or not a game is competitive is what you make of it. If I play street fighter with my friends, I might take a good character, I might take a bad character. I don't care. Either one I'm learning how to use, and improving my ability to adapt. I guarantee that if you were to go to a tournament setting, people who were playing the street fighter game would use nothing but Ken, Ryu, and/or Akuma over and over and over again, completely ignoring the other 30-some characters, only because they're not "Optimized". The thing is, they're probably competing for SOMETHING, whether it's bragging rights, a trophy, some prizes, or money.

In MWO, there is none of that. No bragging rights, no trophy, no prizes, no money. I don't see why the forever pursuit of keeping min-max'ed to the meta is even a thing. Sure, swapping out stuff because you can't get comfortable with it, or maybe just swapping things out so that the number of weapons groups needed is reduced, but calculating optimal DPS, crit placement and all that jargon? Nah, no thanks. So long as I can fill a role, even if the role is "General purpose", I'm good.

In all honesty, the best weapon I've seen in MWO is teamspeak with a group who is actually coordinated. I used to have fantastic runs with other players, all the while scooting around in Dragons. So long as we all called targets and concentrated fire, things worked well. These days, it doesn't seem like anyone calls targets or stick together in teamspeak anymore. Lots of lone wolfing and wandering off because everyone's making hyper-optimized builds made for pugging, so the idea of "Sharing a kill" is offputting to them.

Edited by ice trey, 22 September 2014 - 09:23 PM.