276 replies to this topic

[Hillslam]

XP way down
CBills down 25-50%

I don't suck.

[Arden Varr]

Just adding in my appreciation for the new rewards system. PGI, keep this going for a least a while before considering a nerf in reaction to forum hate. Light or Assault, when I played smart and kept to my role, my earnings were about what I normally got before, for just roaming and shooting whatever I could. When I went on my own in an Assault, or tried to brawl with a light, I had wins netting under 100K. When I kept to my Lance, scouted, flanked, etc. my c-bills were much higher. I like what you're trying to accomplish with these new rewards and I think, as long as you stick to your guns, this will greatly improve gameplay in the long run.

[Shalune]

If I was not in the new bonus cbill Atlas this would be a 36k game despite a very solid performance and sticking with my team the entire game. I got several lance formation bonuses despite our lance getting stuck with an ember. But yeah, the new rewards are fine guys. Let's just use anecdotal evidence of our top 1% of games to justify this new system.

[EvilCow]

My minimum and maximum today using the Raven 3L (2xERLL, no TAG, no NARC).




The problem here is not for expert players but newbies are going to suffer under the new system, there should be a minimum income "by contract".

Edited by EvilCow, 22 October 2014 - 09:36 AM.

[Lexx]

Pretty bad game for me, but a lot of my losses end up looking like this now. The rewards seem much worse than they were before, especially the EXP. I've had losses even worse than this one where I had used an airstrike and a coolant flush and lost almost 60K c-bills.

I'm trying to grind out the basics on the new Atlas and it's painfully slow. All have so far is the 2 heat unlocks and anchor turn. With the old system I'd probably have speed tweak unlocked already.

I haven't tried anything but my new Atlas, It's probably better for lights and mediums. I'm not liking how close range assaults don't get any brawler rewards. A lot of the rewards we do get (like lance formation bonus) are a tiny trickle of c-bills with no exp. This new rewards system seems brutal.

[Shalune]

EvilCow, on 22 October 2014 - 09:34 AM, said:

My minimum and maximum today using the Raven 3L (2xERLL, no TAG, no NARC).




The problem here is not for expert players but newbies are going to suffer under the new system, there should be a minimum income "by contract".

Good players suffer too. My raven just out-performed my kit fox in cbills for one reason and one reason only: almost every single time I fired the PPC I got 1,500 cbills for flanking. I did vastly less to help my team win with that damage than the number twice as large with 3 kills I put up on my kit fox.

The new rewards are good, but they are poorly balanced and unfair.

[AlmightyAeng]

Shalune, on 22 October 2014 - 09:53 AM, said:

Good players suffer too. My raven just out-performed my kit fox in cbills for one reason and one reason only: almost every single time I fired the PPC I got 1,500 cbills for flanking. I did vastly less to help my team win with that damage than the number twice as large with 3 kills I put up on my kit fox.

The new rewards are good, but they are poorly balanced and unfair.

Questions that come to mind:

1)Why aren't you flanking in your Kitfox, too?

2) Can you post a SS of your performance? 3x the damage when we don't know what the base damage is could mean anything, especially if they were killshots.

3) I'm not trying to be a ****, I'm trying to get some perspective, because the numbers I'm getting aren't NEARLY as bad as what some people are showing online.

Edited by Ghost Badger, 22 October 2014 - 09:56 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Lexx, on 22 October 2014 - 09:48 AM, said:

Pretty bad game for me, but a lot of my losses end up looking like this now. The rewards seem much worse than they were before, especially the EXP. I've had losses even worse than this one where I had used an airstrike and a coolant flush and lost almost 60K c-bills.

I'm trying to grind out the basics on the new Atlas and it's painfully slow. All have so far is the 2 heat unlocks and anchor turn. With the old system I'd probably have speed tweak unlocked already.

I haven't tried anything but my new Atlas, It's probably better for lights and mediums. I'm not liking how close range assaults don't get any brawler rewards. A lot of the rewards we do get (like lance formation bonus) are a tiny trickle of c-bills with no exp. This new rewards system seems brutal.

Then don't use Air Strikes and Coolant Flushes. They are money sinks unless you have a good team aiding you. The rewards are a touch better than before from my perspective. But I had GXP to burn on the Atlas-S.

[Shalune]

Ghost Badger, on 22 October 2014 - 09:56 AM, said:

Questions that come to mind:

1)Why aren't you flanking in your Kitfox, too?

2) Can you post a SS of your performance? 3x the damage when we don't know what the base damage is could mean anything, especially if they were killshots.

3) I'm not trying to be a ****, I'm trying to get some perspective, because the numbers I'm getting aren't NEARLY as bad as what some people are showing online.

First of all thank you. You are the first person to logically approach anything I've put forward. I appreciate the questions because if it is genuinely the case I am misplaying I'd like to learn.

(1)
The kit fox is radically slower than IS lights, and even many heavily armed mediums. It's poorly suited for heading out away from the main group because if it gets rushed down, it's doomed. The mech plays like a medium but in the light tier.

To clarify my flanking shots in the raven were also rarely flanking. I was the only person on my team for over a kilometer (conquest on Alpine, I went to solo cap the NE point, they sent a lance). The only reason I got so many bonuses is that they were not facing my exact position when I poked over the hill to shoot.

(2)
To clarify I said I did about 2x damage, the 3 was how many kills I got in the Kit Fox. KFX game is below.


Again I didn't screenshot the very bottom because (A) there was only one more bonus for something like 500, and (B ) I have no reason to hide if it was a premium mech. It would better prove my point if I could show the number was even lower.


And I'm dumb and just realized I should have screenshotted the bottom of this one to show it wasn't the Huginn or some nonsense, but adding up what's visible should show that there was no bonus tacked on.

(3)
Oh I know you're not being mean or anything. Again I actually appreciate you taking an honest effort to understand. My issue is not that the new system is so flawed that it should be scrapped, but that it rewards very specific teamwork behavior much more than other equally beneficial behavior. These two games obviously don't give the biggest contrast for this, but to demonstrate that point I'd point out how much you get for kills now:

Many people specifically applaud this system because it supposedly deemphasizes kill rewards when this is not the case. I watched a friend get a 1 kill match that gave him 200k. I asked to see the results, and found he had earned roughly 25k from the 1 kill alone because of a number of stacking bonuses: kill, solo kill, brawl.

Most of the huge numbers I've seen people post can be attributed to this same thing: high kill counts with stacking bonuses. This does not encourage team oriented play any more than it did previously. The one notable new rewarded playstyle is the spotter. They have successfully buffed rewards for spotting to make this a viable source of income. And I'm all for that. But I've noticed some weirdness there too. In a game earlier I got a TAG kill assist for TAGing a target that took Gauss to the chest. No missiles were hitting him at the time.

EDIT: Just confirmed. I played another game in the Raven and was getting TAG assist damage and kill assist for all weapon damage against my target, even by Embers at point blank range. I even got a TAG kill assist for a target I got the killing blow on. I got 20k points in TAG related bonuses, and I don't think a single missile volley hit any of my targets.

Edited by Shalune, 22 October 2014 - 10:29 AM.

[AlmightyAeng]

Shalune, on 22 October 2014 - 10:17 AM, said:

*snip*

So, looking at those stats, it would seem that you played two very different games. And yeah, I know, the total is 605 less in the Excel...I'm assuming some small reward got dropped from your SS.



In the two games you're getting basically the same bonus for Winning, Savior Kill, Salvage, Hit and Run and Lance in Formation. We'll ignore those.

In the Raven, you made significantly more with the Conquest Bonus (is this a bonus just for PLAYING conquest, or did they change the name of 'Resource Bonus' to this?) so you either made it inherently by playing the game mode or by capping bases. You also made more with Scouting (though just a little) Flanking, and Capture, Capturing Base and First Capture (all Conquest related).

So, with the Raven, it sounds like you ran to a base, capped it out, took it for your team, and then found a hill and took potshots at the enemy to help secure a win. Totally valid, decent way to play.

In the Kitfox you got more C-Bills for Spotting, Component Destruction, Killing Blows, Kill Assists, Damage Done, Most Damage Dealt and Protected Light. It sounds like in this game you were sticking with larger mechs and providing ECM, taking shots alongside them to deal out damage, shooting armor-stripped areas on mechs and trying not to take damage in return. Also a TOTALLY valid style of play.

So, the Raven played as a base-capper, making sure your team wasn't out-capped, and the Kitfox hid his team inside ECM and tried to contribute damage-wise in the brawl.

NEITHER of these two games hit a particularly high damage number (367 isn't BAD, but it isn't HIGH either). It's not that your Kitfox did double the Damage of your Raven, it's that it participated in a brawl alongside its fellow and blew off a bunch of components and got kill assists, and snuck in a few last killshots (367 damage with 3 kills and 6 assist would suggest to me that you spread your damage pretty thinly between those 9 targets with an average of 40 damage a piece...so likely 2-3 potshots before someone else killed it or you got the last killshot in on a cherry torso...but tell me if I'm wrong!)

The Raven kept your team from losing via points by securing a base and then contributed with potshots as he was able.

Since neither mech is doing rockstar damage and they focused on different roles in different game modes...I'd say an almost identical C-Bill earning for both is pretty fair.

Anyone disagree?

Edited by Ghost Badger, 22 October 2014 - 10:59 AM.

[Shalune]

Ghost Badger, on 22 October 2014 - 10:44 AM, said:

also snip, I like your space-conserving style

Fair points made. And yes the conquest bonus does appear to be tied to the points since they were over 600. And actually I would disagree with you about 360 damage not being a good number to get. Damage on its own is a meaningless number. Because this game has split health pools there's actually a point where doing more damage is a bad thing. You know those games where the person did 1400 damage? Unless they killed the entire enemy team they're wasting a LOT of damage into limbs and side torsos that did not directly contribute to the kill. So yes, when I see that I got 3 kills at 360 damage and one of those was a solo kill, I say that is a strong game.

I also stand by my points about how the new scoring works though. If anything it emphasizes getting kills much more than previously because of the stacking bonuses.

[Pygar]

Ghost Badger, on 22 October 2014 - 10:44 AM, said:

So, looking at those stats, it would seem that you played two very different games. And yeah, I know, the total is 605 less in the Excel...I'm assuming some small reward got dropped from your SS.




........
Since neither mech is doing rockstar damage and they focused on different roles in different game modes...I'd say an almost identical C-Bill earning for both is pretty fair.

Anyone disagree?

I agree with this pretty well- but the problem is that 100k per match as an average is pretty slow money (and that's if you don't use consumables) to hope to buy much just by grinding C-bills...and worse yet, now the money you get if you do badly in a match is even lower than before.

I think a lot of people were hoping that this new system would be better money/xp, not a money/xp nerf. (I think it's an even bigger nerf to xp than it is to cbills) Both Ravens and Kit Foxes aren't cheap to fly, and take a lot of XP and money to get all of the skills and equipment you could possibly ever get for them...and right now I kinda feel like I'm working my butt off in my Kit Fox to be lucky enough to make 100k Cbills and 750xp in a match. (And there's millions upon billions of cbills worth of mechs and gear I am trying to save up for.)

Edited by Pygar, 22 October 2014 - 11:23 AM.

[AlmightyAeng]

Shalune, on 22 October 2014 - 11:08 AM, said:

Fair points made. And yes the conquest bonus does appear to be tied to the points since they were over 600. And actually I would disagree with you about 360 damage not being a good number to get. Damage on its own is a meaningless number. Because this game has split health pools there's actually a point where doing more damage is a bad thing. You know those games where the person did 1400 damage? Unless they killed the entire enemy team they're wasting a LOT of damage into limbs and side torsos that did not directly contribute to the kill. So yes, when I see that I got 3 kills at 360 damage and one of those was a solo kill, I say that is a strong game.

I also stand by my points about how the new scoring works though. If anything it emphasizes getting kills much more than previously because of the stacking bonuses.

I suppose that this is where arguments tend to become anecdotal and include phrases like "mileage may vary." I didn't say you had a bad game, or that you weren't useful to your team. But when I do 367 damage, I consider that to be lowish damage. If you'd been running premium time with your Raven's game, you'd have made 180k C-Bills. I was making 140-180k off of losses last night with premium time.

As far as 'stressing kills' I disagree that your game shows this. You make within 5k between two very different games...one where you capped and one where you support brawled. You got 12k for getting a killing blow in a Kitfox, and made up the rest in assists and components. You got 40k for sitting in an orange box with a Raven.

Edited by Ghost Badger, 22 October 2014 - 11:22 AM.

[SteelKiller]

I guess I have to reserve judgment. I bought a 'crow Prime, first time out in stock config seemed to do okay in spite of a defeat (2 discos on our side). I liked how the team tried to work together as separate lances instead of just degrading into a murderball.





I guess we'll see how it goes from here.

[Shalune]

Ghost Badger, on 22 October 2014 - 11:22 AM, said:

I suppose that this is where arguments tend to become anecdotal and include phrases like "mileage may vary." I didn't say you had a bad game, or that you weren't useful to your team. But when I do 367 damage, I consider that to be lowish damage. If you'd been running premium time with your Raven's game, you'd have made 180k C-Bills. I was making 140-180k off of losses last night with premium time.

As far as 'stressing kills' I disagree that your game shows this. You make within 5k between two very different games...one where you capped and one where you support brawled. You got 12k for getting a killing blow in a Kitfox, and made up the rest in assists and components. You got 40k for sitting in an orange box with a Raven.

Let's look at some not anecdotal stuff then.

Most kills in a heavy or medium, arguably the entire game will be within 400 meters. So if you get a solo kill in a medium or heavy you get Solo Kill (10,000) Kill (4,000) Brawling (4,500) totaling 18,500 cbills not including damage (let's be conservative and say 100, for 2,100 cbills) and salvage (unsure how this is calculated. If you're TAGing your target when it goes down you inexplicably get a kill bonus (6,000).

You just earned 26,600 for a kill, or 20,600 if you're not a douche that games the system (still not including salvage or component destructions). Meanwhile we have people making threads saying that the reason people are seeing low numbers is they're not sticking with their lances and playing as a team. Okay, let's look at how this new reward system is rewarding that behavior from someone in this thread espousing the benefits of it:

Brawling is from the kill he got, so discarding that as it's tied directly to kills and not necessarily teamwork. That leaves us with a grand total of.... 8,485 from all non-kill bonuses combined.

So I welcome anyone to explain how the new system actually rewards non-spotter teamplay and not primarily kills.

[Deathlike]

Having played a whole nights worth of games, I've pretty much come to a conclusion of the new rewards system:

1) Already good winners/farmers win more rewards. We're talking about the people who normally get 150k+ regularly w/o hero or premium time, are making out like bandits. Self-explanatory here.

2) New players are worse off. If you haven't found all the tricks in the previous reward system, well, you're in for a rewards beatdown. I don't think ALL of the people that complain fall into this, but it tends to be anti-newbie centric, or players that tend to do the bare minimum on the field (like, the bad farmers, the tag everything and collect the reward). It's bad enough we don't have good tutorials, but now at this point we need a special tutorial on "how to make money in MWO". I don't know what else to say about this.

3) For those that are "in the middle" (those that used to rake in good C-bills and XP, but "feel" they were affected, including myself), this is where many people fall. While I think the rewards are different, it is a very lateral move. I've found that "flanking" is defined by sniping mechs with Gauss, for whatever reason. Once my shot hits, I get a nice boost. So, it does "reward" you if you are capable of doing stuff like that, although I wouldn't call what I was doing "flanking".

One of the things the rewards are geared towards to is "the deathball". While the gains are really paltry, you should be doing this anyways. What these rewards work against is attempts at "true flanking" (divide and conquer, where you try to split and and attack from two different flanks). It's hard to properly quantify success outside of results, but the current reward system doesn't really reward "setting people up" or anything of the sort... unless you are essentially doing vast amounts of gunnery (pewpew, dakkadakka, wubwub).

The best way of making dough in this economy though, is the same as it was before... and that is.. focus fire, and working together. Anything "outside" of that is up to debate with the system. Not all of the "outsiders" are doing negative things (like actual flanking), but the soloist are very likely getting punished the most, which depending on how effective they are is debatable enough. So, there are flaws in the system and it's very hard to look at the numbers w/o looking at the context of the matches of the participants that are involved.

Generally most reward systems are poor at "judging context". This is what we have here really. This is no different from the players that are "well rewarded" or "poorly screwed".

Edited by Deathlike, 22 October 2014 - 11:46 AM.

[AssaultPig]

Rewards should provide incentive to do things that are actually helpful; the old model (i.e. max out rewards by cheesing assists) was dumb. The reward system should have high-ish variance so that good games are more rewarding.

Maybe the low end needs to be raised a little bit, but in general the structure of the current system is good. Under the old system the difference between a decent game and a really good one was essentially random (i.e. how many savior credits did you get.) Under the new system it feels like playing well (flanking/spotting/scout, staying together, doing useful amounts of damage, etc) is what's rewarded and that's a good thing.

[AlmightyAeng]

Deathlike, on 22 October 2014 - 11:45 AM, said:

3) For those that are "in the middle" (those that used to rake in good C-bills and XP, but "feel" they were affected, including myself), this is where many people fall. While I think the rewards are different, it is a very lateral move. I've found that "flanking" is defined by sniping mechs with Gauss, for whatever reason. Once my shot hits, I get a nice boost. So, it does "reward" you if you are capable of doing stuff like that, although I wouldn't call what I was doing "flanking".

I'm with you on the flanking. It's be nice if what's currently considered "flanking" were renamed "sniping" or "long-range fire supression" and given a reduced reward.

Reward "flanking" within 350ish meters instead.

Shalune, on 22 October 2014 - 11:41 AM, said:

So I welcome anyone to explain how the new system actually rewards non-spotter teamplay and not primarily kills.

Sitting at my desk at work without my screenshots file, I can't. But I'll try a few games tonight using no UAV's and specifically try to damage, but not kill, anything. I'll let you know if my results seem to support your argument

That...or you can look at how your Raven got zero kills, no spotting money and capped a bunch and still made about the same as your spotting, killing Kitfox. You may have answered yourself. Are we looking at potential, or what actually happens?

Edited by Ghost Badger, 22 October 2014 - 11:58 AM.

[ExoForce]

ExoForce, on 22 October 2014 - 08:30 AM, said:

No, I ll do it for science on purpose as a new, bellow average low rank ELO player.

Medium queue was above 55% so Ive had to use Meta Adder with 2 tags, no weapons, only flammer. Flammer was not used even once. No consumables, only 2 Tags.



Amen.

[Shalune]

Ghost Badger, on 22 October 2014 - 11:57 AM, said:

I'm with you on the flanking. It's be nice if what's currently considered "flanking" were renamed "sniping" or "long-range fire supression" and given a reduced reward.

Reward "flanking" within 350ish meters instead.



Sitting at my desk at work without my screenshots file, I can't. But I'll try a few games tonight using no UAV's and specifically try to damage, but not kill, anything. I'll let you know if my results seem to support your argument

That...or you can look at how your Raven got zero kills, no spotting money and capped a bunch and still made about the same as your spotting, killing Kitfox. You may have answered yourself. Are we looking at potential, or what actually happens?

33k from the Raven game was due to our team accumulating over 650 conquest points (which admittedly made it a poor example for the point I was trying to make at the time) and another 8k was scouting because I was the first to target that heavy lance, so that was spotting, though not assists.

With 9k savior kill, 7.5k assist, 10.4k salvage, 3.7k damage, that's still 1/4 of my earnings coming from kill related bonuses, and almost half of it (58.6k) coming from the combined match win + cap points. For the record I only captured the same point twice, which remained in enemy control for a good time as well, so you can hardly attribute the full 33k to my doing, nor was it unique to me (I believe the whole team received this.)