333 replies to this topic

[Mothykins]

Marmon Rzohr, on 16 October 2014 - 07:57 AM, said:

IMHO, PGI should increase player rewards. But in a specific way.

They should give more stuff to two types of players - the really devoted who play a lot and the ones who play the least.
The best way to do this, IMHO, would be missions and daily doubles, stuff like that.

Give players double C-Bills for the first win of the day in any 4 different mechs, for instance. This will give a boost to players who struggle to play a lot, without devaluing Hero Mechs and Premium Time.

For the devoted players there could be monthly missions. Big, fat grindy ones that give you stuff like 10k GXP, in other words if someone jumps in the game and has the will to play it seriously, give them a chance to get stuff like modules that they need to be competitive, by grinding fast and hard, rather than over a long time.
These missions could occasionally also give stuff that's cool. Like a special camo pattern, a Hero Mech even, etc. to give devoted players the feeling they are being valued for the time they put in, not just the money.


But all in all the grind in this game isn't so bad. Especially since you don't NEED to buy premium time to realistically advance in the game. To anyone having a tough time grinding and not willing to pay for premium - buy a Hero Mech - a good one. It helps quite a bit in earning more.

I have two hero mechs. The grind is still still dumb. If I'm lucky and get optimal playing time, i might be able to afford all three Vultures when they hit for cbills. If i buy nothing else.

Even when i was playing with premium time, the grind was b.s. there are so many cbill sinks it's unreal.


EDIT but your ideas are pretty good.


Also, to Thomas Marik? When was the last time you had no cost associated with living or going to work? Last i checked you have to pay for food and transportation at the very least.

I already posted up what i was earning and my costs working $15 an hour. End of month free cash for me, not eaten by bills or transport, was $100.

That's it. That is not a lot of money. And usually i didn't even get that money, because of incidentals, like medicine or new tires for the car. Your average McDonald's worker usually has no money left at the end of a paycheck, just paid for bills and a credit card debt.

Edited by Cavale, 16 October 2014 - 08:34 AM.

[Almond Brown]

Rushin Roulette, on 16 October 2014 - 06:54 AM, said:

stuff

With the slow earnings as they are now, Mechbays are being bought less frequently, which in turn means slower MC sales.

Please do not make stuff up. Unless you can show PGI's financial sheets of past to current MechBay sales, based on prior economy changes, your just blowing smoke out your arse.

We have more than enough of that stuff around here already.

Any new Cadet who finishes their 25 Matches, and has a 8mill(+) bank has already seen all the Cool Toys that the BIG boys and gals have. Sure they want them and now. Then they do some maths and they may think "wow, need lots and lots more C-Bills" but I don't make more 100k+ per average Match. While true, that does not change the fact that in ALL F2P models there is 2(3) avenues to the toy box, Play, Pay or a mix.

How bad one really wants those BIG toys will ultimately dictate their own level of participation that they decide on using one(1) of the two (3) available avenues to the Toy Box.

Hell even @ 2X the current C-Bill gain, a fully kitted out Atlas (15.7m sans XL) would still be seen as a long ass haul to ownership from a dry bank. As such, there is no perfect level of rewards, just what each persons sees for themselves in any F2P as the effort required vs the level of Toy in sight.

As noted PGI is not running a welfare game but you can Play for Free to see if it to your taste. Ask the guy at the counter of McDonald's for a FREE Big Mac, as you never tried one before and would prefer to taset first and pay after and see what their response is.

Edited by Almond Brown, 16 October 2014 - 08:34 AM.

[Zolaz]

1) Get a piggy bank.
2) Put 10% of your allowance in it.
3) Save your pennies, nickles and dimes.
4) Get a Hero mech ... Ember.
5) Buy Premium Time.

Get your modules and other mechs in no time.

[Pendraco]

WarHippy, on 16 October 2014 - 08:14 AM, said:

I agree with what you are saying. I will add that there is a thin line between giving people an incentive to purchase to avoid the grind, and making people feel forced to purchase in order to get anywhere. If you run people off with too much grind before they get into the game you are never going to get anything from them, but if you hook them with just enough grind that it doesn't run them off they are more likely to stay and spend money both of which are good for the game.

As for the numbers the last time they gave us numbers on income it was roughly an average of 8 min and 79k C-bills per match across the player base. That to me is way too low. If they don't want to increase back to the old numbers I would be content if they added a first win of the day bonus similar to the xp bonus but different in that it would only apply to the first win in each weight class for a max of 4 bonuses.

While I feel the C-Bills are being made at a fair pace....This is one of the better ideas I've seen. And encourages people to take different Mechs out during they're daily game sessions.

I like it!

Edited by Pendraco, 16 October 2014 - 08:31 AM.

[Mothykins]

Zolaz, on 16 October 2014 - 08:25 AM, said:

1) Get a piggy bank.
2) Put 10% of your allowance in it.
3) Save your pennies, nickles and dimes.
4) Get a Hero mech ... Ember.
5) Buy Premium Time.

Get your modules and other mechs in no time.

1) Be condescending and belittling
2) assume that people with not much free cash are not working and free loaders
3)come across as a total ****.
4) ???
5) look dumb and get internet attention

[Bront]

Almond Brown, on 16 October 2014 - 08:23 AM, said:

Please do not make stuff up. Unless you can show PGI's financial sheets of past to current MechBay sales, based on prior economy changes, your just blowing smoke out your arse.

Not to make stuff up, but let's examine how this works.

Folks buy new mechs when they have the CBills to do so or decide to spend the MC for one. CBill income droped by 30%, that's in theory 30% less mechbays needed for CBill mechs. How much of that is made up by people spending MC instead is unknown, but it likely makes up some portion of that, but not likely the entire influx.

New CBill modules were released. This CBill money sink means you have to choose modules or mechs. This likely eats into MC purchases of Mechbays, and there's no MC way around this other than MC for CBills direcly (a really bad deal as they have it implemented now, you're better off buying a mech with MC and selling it).

So yes, they have shot themselves in the foot regarding mechbay sales. The question is are they making up for it elsewhere in this economy, or are they better off making the free/cheap players feel they can get more for 'Free' and hope it encourages spending? I think they need to encourage play more by making it rewarding rather than by making it necessary to get what you actually want in the game.

[VanillaG]

Mawai, on 16 October 2014 - 08:18 AM, said:

Ummm .. the main reason I find to buy hero mechs is the 30% cbill bonus ... PGI has been pretty careful to make most hero mechs hard point neutral and not offer an advantage over their regular counterparts. Increasing cbill earnings to the extent where most folks have enough might well kill the market for hero mechs ... which has to be one of their prime sources of revenue.

Clan mechs have broken this model since you can reconfigure the Invasion Hero to have the optimal set of hardpoints, assuming it does not require a specific center torso hard point.

[Mawai]

VanillaG, on 16 October 2014 - 08:37 AM, said:

Clan mechs have broken this model since you can reconfigure the Invasion Hero to have the optimal set of hardpoints, assuming it does not require a specific center torso hard point.

The ability to reconfigure the invasion version of a mech using omnipods and thus get whatever configuration you like with a 30% cbill bonus is certainly likely to reduce future clan hero mech sales unless the clan heroes either come with omni-pods that are unavailable any other way or come with some other feature that is not available on the standard versions.

[Mawai]

Bront, on 16 October 2014 - 08:34 AM, said:

Not to make stuff up, but let's examine how this works.

Folks buy new mechs when they have the CBills to do so or decide to spend the MC for one. CBill income droped by 30%, that's in theory 30% less mechbays needed for CBill mechs. How much of that is made up by people spending MC instead is unknown, but it likely makes up some portion of that, but not likely the entire influx.

New CBill modules were released. This CBill money sink means you have to choose modules or mechs. This likely eats into MC purchases of Mechbays, and there's no MC way around this other than MC for CBills direcly (a really bad deal as they have it implemented now, you're better off buying a mech with MC and selling it).

So yes, they have shot themselves in the foot regarding mechbay sales. The question is are they making up for it elsewhere in this economy, or are they better off making the free/cheap players feel they can get more for 'Free' and hope it encourages spending? I think they need to encourage play more by making it rewarding rather than by making it necessary to get what you actually want in the game.

Well ... lets look at the numbers a bit.

A mechbay costs 300MC.

Hero mechs run from about 2500 to 7500 not on sale.

A 30% reduction in cbills might reduce the number of mechs purchased in a time frame by 30% assuming players do not compensate for the reduction by playing more.

However, a hero mech starts at about 8 times the cost of a mechbay and goes up to about 25 times the cost of a mechbay. Its purchase also might incidentally require the purchase of a mechbay. So if the reduction in earnings results in somewhere between 3 and 10% of people purchasing a hero mech then the reduction would break even. If more folks buy a hero mech then they profit.

PGI has the numbers. They know how many folks buy mechs for MC, how many buy heroes, how many F2P players buy mechbays or just get by on the free mech bays they start with. You can manage to get 4 fully mastered mechs with just 4 mech bays but it does require some buying and selling.

Alternatively, if players want more mech bays they will just start more accounts ... maybe one for each kind of mech they want to drive. It is much less convenient but I am willing to bet that there are free to play players who want to contribute absolutely nothing and so just run multiple accounts to get multiple cadet bonuses and minimize their grind while paying nothing toward the game itself.


P.S. Modules generally aren't worth buying (with the exception of radar deprivation and advanced zoom in some cases) unless you have nothing else you want to spend cbills on ... that is why they are there ... an endgame cbill sink.

Edited by Mawai, 16 October 2014 - 08:58 AM.

[Belorion]

You should earn the most running lights then mediums, then heavies and then assaults. Presumably assaults are the most expensive to upkeep, and since they took out repair and rearm the only logical thing to do is have assaults pay out the least.

[Joseph Mallan]

Cavale, on 16 October 2014 - 08:32 AM, said:

1) Be condescending and belittling
2) assume that people with not much free cash are not working and free loaders
3)come across as a total ****.
4) ???
5) look dumb and get internet attention

You forgot
6)...Profit!

[Rushin Roulette]

Almond Brown, on 16 October 2014 - 08:23 AM, said:

Please do not make stuff up. Unless you can show PGI's financial sheets of past to current MechBay sales, based on prior economy changes, your just blowing smoke out your arse.

and other stuff

It is not making stuff up and it needs no financial statements or balances to figure out... just plain old intelligence (what some people seem to be compensating with writing about rear end blowouts).

Keeping players hooked on a product means lowering the frustration levels to slightly over annoying while keeping the willingness to spend money as high as possible. In terms of your McBarf analogy.. I get coupons in the post (inside free local newspapers) from that "restaurant". In the coupons you get great savings such as buy one get one Big Mac free.... Step back and think about that. Why are they giving away a free Burger to anyone with a silly printed scrap of paper? Are they really giving away a free burger? Nope... they are getting people who would normally never buy that particular burger an incentive to go visit the "restaurant" and maybe buy more than a Bigmac while they are at it... maybe even bring their families with them and if they have kids.. all the better. they get a Free toy.... well free if they buy a particular product that is...

How does this random text translate to MWO? You get free mechs for playing the game. You dont need to spend a penny to buy the mechs (Champion or Hero Mechs excluded). However to keep more than 4 Mechs at one time you need to spend a minimal amount of Money.... I mean 300 MC or 150 while on sale is not much. By getting more Cbills in games players will invariably look for ways of spending them and will buy Mechs at a faster pace. Now. you have a garage full of "free" mechs... how about customising them to stand out from the crowd? You get some "free" colours... but there are even nicer colours you can buy. Why not spend a few MC for premium colours? How about a cocpit item? We will give you a few now and then for playing our game... While we are at it and you want to put them into your cockpit.. look at all the great items we also have, go spend a few MC on those if you find them interresting. You have all the free mechs? Hmm. there are a few more (after you bought a Mechbay or 2) with slightly different quirks and hardpoints, how about them?

Selling to customers is always a balance between finding what they want to have and what they are willing to pay for it without feeling screwed over or frustrated about having spent the cash... make them happy to part with the cash and they will invariably be a return customer at some later point in time.

Increasing the Cbill gains per match may not (well deffinitely isnt) be the solution to all problems.. but it solves a few while in itself not creating many new ones. It might even shut up some players becasue the pro-players have such OP customised mechs while they are struggling to buy upgrades for their stock ones.

Edited by Rushin Roulette, 16 October 2014 - 09:14 AM.

[BourbonFaucet]

One of the things I wanted to bring up is that it also really feels like a grind because it's deathmatch over and over again with very little goals except to change your builds and try to succeed with said builds.

If we had PvE and CW, a modest boost to earned C-Bills might be enough to satisfy since we'd be enjoying the grind more.

[Utilyan]

Put it this way folks ,maybe a light will go off......lets lower the C-bill reward to 1 cbill per match. I got 4 empty mechbays. When do you expect this guy to put up money for a new mechbay?


In 68 million matches. The "whales" will always dish out cash for convenience that's a given. But the free player he ain't gonna spend a dime unless he absolutely has to.




Lets flip this. You get 10 million c-bills a match, bam you got mech you want, now you got equipment you want, now you got your modules..Now your running the mech you wanted to run.....oh whoa what is this....strange feeling........FUN WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!?


Guess what happens to those 4 empty mech bays? they get filled. guess who needs more mech bays? Better then NEED.....Guess who WANTS more mechbays?



Lets get 2 players same skill........ One who is FREE to play only VS a clan sht my sphere pack owner.

First match. Freebirth gets to use a trial centurion. And the clan **** my sphere pack owner gets a custom meta built KODIAK . Who you betting is going to win? If you don't think that's pay to win your out your mind that's why people left.

They need a guy who has a better hold on the reality of the game "luxuries" that would help the game popularity rather then hinder it.

For example wave II pack features faction specifc skins, colors, war horns. Every f*****g trial mech should have those. That way when people look at a you tube video they dont' see mob of green ssshit fighting some other mob. That's the first impression.

We should be seening clan ghost bear that whole team has snow camos versus a bunch of jungle Jaguars The first impression should be wow there is a epic war going on here.


Whatever they think they are gaining by charging folks for stuff like this, they are actually choking themselves. Cause guess whats being shown out there? a s****t-game.

How many times you heard this story......... OH wow MechWarrior I remember when I was a kid playing MechWarrior 2 lets play...... Hold on buddy. You want a timber wolf now? Sorry can't have it cost money, Oh your "profile is wolf" that nice you got a wolf camo? nope then I guess your just a s****y wolf.

Guess what that first time player's you tube video is gonna look like? in his poop green trial mech.......versus a bunch of other poop greens. Game looks lets score it a 5. Could decked out bad ass looking camos made a difference to that score?

[Duncan Longwood]

Excerpt from the Wikipedia page on Price Elasticity of Demand

Determinants

The overriding factor in determining PED is the willingness and ability of consumers after a price change to postpone immediate consumption decisions concerning the good and to search for substitutes ("wait and look").^[24] A number of factors can thus affect the elasticity of demand for a good:^[25]

• Availability of substitute goods: the more and closer the substitutes available, the higher the elasticity is likely to be, as people can easily switch from one good to another if an even minor price change is made;^[25][26][27] There is a strong substitution effect.^[28] If no close substitutes are available, the substitution effect will be small and the demand inelastic.^[28]
  
• Breadth of definition of a good: the broader the definition of a good (or service), the lower the elasticity. For example, Company X's fish and chips would tend to have a relatively high elasticity of demand if a significant number of substitutes are available, whereas food in general would have an extremely low elasticity of demand because no substitutes exist.^[29]
  
• Percentage of income: the higher the percentage of the consumer's income that the product's price represents, the higher the elasticity tends to be, as people will pay more attention when purchasing the good because of its cost;^[25][26] The income effect is substantial.^[30] When the goods represent only a negligible portion of the budget the income effect will be insignificant and demand inelastic,^[30]
  
• Necessity: the more necessary a good is, the lower the elasticity, as people will attempt to buy it no matter the price, such as the case of insulin for those who need it.^[10][26]
  
• Duration: for most goods, the longer a price change holds, the higher the elasticity is likely to be, as more and more consumers find they have the time and inclination to search for substitutes.^[25][27] When fuel prices increase suddenly, for instance, consumers may still fill up their empty tanks in the short run, but when prices remain high over several years, more consumers will reduce their demand for fuel by switching to carpooling or public transportation, investing in vehicles with greater fuel economy or taking other measures.^[26] This does not hold for consumer durables such as the cars themselves, however; eventually, it may become necessary for consumers to replace their present cars, so one would expect demand to be less elastic.^[26]
  
• Brand loyalty: an attachment to a certain brand—either out of tradition or because of proprietary barriers—can override sensitivity to price changes, resulting in more inelastic demand.^[29][31]
  
• Who pays: where the purchaser does not directly pay for the good they consume, such as with corporate expense accounts, demand is likely to be more inelastic.^[31]

It would take some market research and statistical analysis of historical sales data to say for sure, but I would guess that MW:O has a highly elastic demand curve based on these determinants. Lowering price should result in higher total revenue.

[Combat Loss Grouping]

MoonUnitBeta, on 16 October 2014 - 07:21 AM, said:

Fantastic job avoiding dicussing anything at all.

I explained why I (and many others I'm sure) won't spend money on premium time because it's set up to 'cheat' the player. Your response was "Well suck it up Suzy."

I am totally fine with PGI selling premium time in 8-hour chunks or whatever other number instead of full days/weeks, IF that time only counted down while I was playing. This is typically how things like this are done in other games. But since PGI has settled on the method they have, they won't be getting money from me (and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way) because the RoI isn't worth it.

I would pay for premium time if it wasn't such a bad deal, but because it is PGI is losing out on a revenue stream. It's no skin off of my nose, but they could be monetizing me if their system was more attractive. As it is they only get the occasional $1.50 for a mech bay from me, because:

- Premium Time isn't worth buying
- A single 'Mech chassis at $15-30 (3k-6k+ MC) isn't worth buying
- Camo unlocks for a single chassis aren't worth buying

I have no problem with microtransactions in a F2P game. The problem here is that these aren't 'micro' transactions. $30 for one variant of one chassis is ridiculous.

[Gauvan]

I think that with premium time the grind is about right for unlocking content at a rate that is both attainable but hard enough to make it seem like a challenge bested. Without premium time it's harder, enough to be slightly irritating, but that's part of the balance to motivate those who can pay to to so without putting an unreasonably punitive burden on those who are spending time not money.

So are non-premium earnings too low? If my math is correct, you are earning 66% for the same time outlay as a premium player would over the same period. (I'm presuming time is the real thing of value here and that C-Bills are just an abstraction of time.) If we treat C-Bills as really being two currencies, one earned under premium time (call them P-Bills) and one under free play (call them F-Bills) then the exchange rate is 1 F-Bill = .66 P-Bills, or 1 P-Bill = 1.5 F-Bills.

The C-Bill costs of items are really in P-Bills, that is, are priced balanced for the customer who is a subscriber. But it's easy to convert pricing.

At retail, a Jenner F costs 4,339,599 F-Bills.
A Centurion A costs 5,545,620 F-Bills.
A Jagermech S costs 12,769,880 F-Bills.
An Atlas D-DC costs 15,729,018 F-Bills.

So the question I think is if everyone had to pay these prices, would they be so high as to prevent people from playing, or at least from sticking with the game?

[Marmon Rzohr]

Cavale, on 16 October 2014 - 08:19 AM, said:

I have two hero mechs. The grind is still still dumb. If I'm lucky and get optimal playing time, i might be able to afford all three Vultures when they hit for cbills. If i buy nothing else.

Even when i was playing with premium time, the grind was b.s. there are so many cbill sinks it's unreal.


EDIT but your ideas are pretty good.


Also, to Thomas Marik? When was the last time you had no cost associated with living or going to work? Last i checked you have to pay for food and transportation at the very least.

I already posted up what i was earning and my costs working $15 an hour. End of month free cash for me, not eaten by bills or transport, was $100.

That's it. That is not a lot of money. And usually i didn't even get that money, because of incidentals, like medicine or new tires for the car. Your average McDonald's worker usually has no money left at the end of a paycheck, just paid for bills and a credit card debt.

Really ?
I didn't have such a problem farming C-Bills. It isn't fast with just a Hero mech, but I never found it annoyingly slow. Maybe that's just the MMORPG player in me

Do you use consumables regularly ?

[3rdworld]

I was under the impression that all mechs in MWO were bundled up and sold as "packs" for real currency.

I still haven't figured out what to do with the c-bills.

Edited by 3rdworld, 16 October 2014 - 10:34 AM.

[Bront]

Combat Loss Grouping, on 16 October 2014 - 09:37 AM, said:

- Premium Time isn't worth buying

You see, this I find a bit debatable, as someone who has purchased it. It does require you know you'll have the time to play for the period you buy though. The grind still feels like too much with PT, and makes it feel worse when it's gone.

Making PT worth more might help sell more of it, but getting more CBills means you get more from PT as well.

Fix the CBill economy first, then you can tweak PT to make it more interesting.