63 replies to this topic

[Alexander Schmidt]

Greetings,

I would like to take a moment and update you on the new Rewards 2.0 system. As this feature added so many new rewards, it was necessary to rebalance the amount of C-Bills being rewarded and keeping the game economy in check. As you can imagine it is a pretty exciting moment when a feature like this goes live for the first time, and to see what is actually happening as data flows in from games being played.

I am very pleased to tell you that, after a first gathering of data, the reward economy stayed stable. We are currently looking at fluctuations between 5% to 10% compared to what it was before. What we have found is, the economy is still intact and the new rewards are functioning very well.

However, many of you have reported varying numbers to what you have recieved before. This is due to the new system being more targeted to role-warfare. What this translates to, is that the more specific actions based on your role on the battlefield, that you perform, results in higher earnings than before. In order to balance out the new C-Bill rewards, we had to reassess the current reward structure which resulted in some of the older rewards being reduced in C-Bill amounts.

For example, losses and assists were slightly reduced in the amount of C-Bills you would have earned, but the reduced C-Bills were reapplied to the more role specific rewards. The outcome that you should see is a bigger difference between bad rounds and good rounds that went really well.

Even though the data gathered so far gives us a good overview over what is happening, it is not enough to come to a final conclusion. We would like to gather more data over 2 to 3 days in order to be sure the numbers we have are accurate.

You should expect a fix to tighten up the economy if there are any issues found in the new data we collect.

Cheers,
Alex

Feedback can be provided here: http://mwomercs.com/...ds-20-feedback/

[BladeXXL]

Thanks for the update!

Even 5-10% do not match my experience (more like 25-30%) - I'm looking forward for a "fix"...

[Malleus011]

Thanks for the update, Alex.

My only real concern with the system has been the earning from a bad match (a 12-0 or 12-1, where you get stomped) having the potential to be so low that it wouldn't cover the cost of a single UAV - in fact, in a couple of bad stomps I've been in, I would've lost money for playing if I'd used a single consumable. We veteran players can shrug off an occasional bad match, but newer players - who are less capable of controlling their earnings in a match - may really suffer.

[Elysium911]

well, my income reduced by 30% on mediums and assaults.

[Clownwarlord]

The only down side I have noted so far is Assault Brawlers do not earn as much as other mech builds. The bonus help a lot of other mech builds in the C-Bill grind but since damage is the biggest thing that Assault Brawlers do and really nothing else they will most likely suffer from it until people either do combo builds (lrms, ac20, and medium lasers in an atlas) or make a switch to a completely different role build such as weapon platform sniping or lrm boating in their assault mechs. This also might help get people out of their assault and heavy mech which of late they have been the biggest groups in mech que.

[SweetJackal]

Malleus011, on 22 October 2014 - 04:07 AM, said:

Thanks for the update, Alex.

My only real concern with the system has been the earning from a bad match (a 12-0 or 12-1, where you get stomped) having the potential to be so low that it wouldn't cover the cost of a single UAV - in fact, in a couple of bad stomps I've been in, I would've lost money for playing if I'd used a single consumable. We veteran players can shrug off an occasional bad match, but newer players - who are less capable of controlling their earnings in a match - may really suffer.

This is pretty much the biggest concern here. Having the C-Bill economy 'break' for the top tier performers isn't really a concern as these people often have a C-Bill bank that rivals that of small nations anyways. The bottom end of the average has significantly more impact as that is the average of the lower end players and dramatically increases the time investment for any form of progression in game. Being that people need to buy and kit out 3 mechs of the same chassis, this can really drag out the new player experience.

Elysium911, on 22 October 2014 - 04:16 AM, said:

well, my income reduced by 30% on mediums and assaults.

Haven't played mediums since the patch because the queue is flooded with them. But my Heavies have faced hard reductions in earnings despite playing to the lance and working with the team.

[Xione87]

Perhaps the average loss is only around 5-10% but I have a feeling the reward spread increased a lot. I'm seeing around a 25% loss in mediums and assault mechs while playing normally.
Perhaps some light pilot running around with TAG, ECM and NARC sees a 25% increase but since that's not my style I feel I'm punished unfairly with the new system.

And I was just thinking about spending some money on a Clan or IS package too since the game was doing so well. Rewards 2.0 really put me off the game, I guess I'll try again around Christmas. Luckely Civilization: Beyond Earth releases in just 2 days

[SyNooB]

Well 80% of my time is spent in medium's and in a good match I averaged about 130 to 180, and now it's more 50 to 90. I doubt it is 5 to 10%.

[White Bear 84]

"Role Warfare"

Play it and reap the rewards then all will be well.

Love it.

[jackal404]

I do like this update and look forward to refinements, however I have one problem that this doesn't address.

I played with a group of my friends yesterday after the patch went live. We made 10 drops and had not one victory. A few were stomps, most were teams playing badly, some were outright "We're going to loose this looking at the other teams factions." Our matches were of the following modes: Skirmish-5, Assault-4, Conquest-1.

I don't play a lot, 10 to 15 matches a night, usually on the weekends or occasionally on patch day. It's pretty off putting to loose five in a row, by the time I hit 10 losses I'm ready to say "F this game". In my case, this seems to happen about 1 day out of 6.

I don't have access to the data, but look at how many times this happens to people. Then decide upon something to improve it. I, myself, would like to see a serious drop in ELO in this case. Or some kind of cbill compensation for the extended loosing streak.

It's nice to see all the improvements you've been making, keep up the good work!

[Riverboat Sam]

jackal404, on 22 October 2014 - 05:01 AM, said:

I do like this update and look forward to refinements, however I have one problem that this doesn't address.

I played with a group of my friends yesterday after the patch went live. We made 10 drops and had not one victory. A few were stomps, most were teams playing badly, some were outright "We're going to loose this looking at the other teams factions." Our matches were of the following modes: Skirmish-5, Assault-4, Conquest-1.

I don't play a lot, 10 to 15 matches a night, usually on the weekends or occasionally on patch day. It's pretty off putting to loose five in a row, by the time I hit 10 losses I'm ready to say "F this game". In my case, this seems to happen about 1 day out of 6.

I don't have access to the data, but look at how many times this happens to people. Then decide upon something to improve it. I, myself, would like to see a serious drop in ELO in this case. Or some kind of cbill compensation for the extended loosing streak.

It's nice to see all the improvements you've been making, keep up the good work!

I experienced that sort of thing before the patch many times. Stomps 10 in a row. The issue is that even in those stomps you earned enough rewards to make slow progress. Now you earn almost nothing. I'm talking you come out and get rolled over by the enemy mech ball in the first two minutes of the match and do less than 100 damage. Used to earn an absolute minimum of 150 XP to 250 XP (with premium time), just for showing up. Now you earn about 50 XP. Can you imagine gaming all night, getting stomped ten times (which does and will continue to happen), and earning 500 XP? You can't unlock one single skill at that rate.

Yeah, PGI really needs to look at how punishing the new rewards system is on the lower tier players - or even players that are just having hard times.

[Airox]

Alexander Schmidt, on 21 October 2014 - 04:50 PM, said:

The outcome that you should see is a bigger difference between bad rounds and good rounds that went really well.

It is strange to me that this was your goal. New players will inevitably have a lot of bad rounds. They get destroyed and now it takes even longer for them to skill up just their first mech, while I'm sitting pretty playing with good established pilots and winning almost all of our matches.

Staying with your lance is a LOSING strategy at times. Plus the reward for doing so is TINY. What this does is causes lances to stick together, get wrecked, and then have nothing to show for it.

Another example, Hit and Run encourages people to STOP firing. Just for 2,000 cbills. Decent reward for NOT helping.

Another example, good playing is all about focus fire. Biggest rewards go out to solo kills. With 5 or more mechs all focus firing one target, the chances of a solo kill ever being awarded are small. Now all of a sudden, the highest rewards are NEVER given under smart play.

I like the idea of encouraging role-warfare, but how about something better. Encourage SMART warfare. Please stop encouraging the people that I play with to do dumb things.

[ManOfAthens]

Riverboat Sam, on 22 October 2014 - 05:17 AM, said:

Yeah, PGI really needs to look at how punishing the new rewards system is on the lower tier players - or even players that are just having hard times.

Pretty much sums up my concerns. Players in fully mastered-meta builds (who arguably don't need a C-Bill/XP boost) are going to make bank, while anyone in a sub-par 'Mech, or with sub-par skill is going to be crippled. It makes it a lot more difficult to climb out of the poverty-hole so to speak.

Compounding income gain is an undeniable real-world economic principle... one that people don't play match-based multiplayer games to experience.

[VagGR]

the idea is solid...but your implementation needs a lot of work...last thing this games needs, especially for new players, is even more grinding

[Dracol]

One thing I think is missing is a damage sponge bonus.

Something along the lines of (100 - % of mech left at death or end of match) * Tonnage * x cBills

This would reward those who engage and soak damage for the team.

[Ashan An]

While i do like the idea behind Rewards 2.0 i do feel like the nerfs to the old rewards are a bit to hard.
As it is right now the rewards promotes way to much Kills (and by consequence ks attitudes) while assists have been nerfed into the grond (from 6500 to 2500 c-bill, it almost 1/3 of the old reward, now assists are worthless).

And while the Role Rewards are nice, the penalize to an absurd level builds that don't fit the roles that you assign to the various whieght classes; for example my trebuchet get much bigger rewards from using a Tag than the lrms, and if playing a lrm medium the game wants me to go around tagging instead of using the lrms it's just wrong

[Runs With Scissors]

you already nerfed c-bills last year supposedly in preparation for role warfare rewards, YOU DONT NEED TO DO IT AGAIN.

[Sky Hawk]

I like role warfare.. least in my role as "Assist Sniper" I liked it (1100-1300+ m range, 10 minutes on-going laser-fire, 8 Assists, 80 DMG...) Hope, the new system give me least 100k CB for it... I am fair.. so, I will try it least 2-3 day long...

[AdultPuppetShow]

I've gotten about a 50% decrease in c-bill earnings. The grind was barely tolerable before. I don't understand how people can sit on hundreds of millions of c-bills, it seems like I never have more than five million in my coffers at a time.

[Bront]

My earnings have been down 30-70%. Yes, 70%. I had a 28,000 cbill (pre-PT) game doing over 100 damage in a game. I regularly had games where I did OK and earned under 70K with PT.

My best game? 2 kills, 7 assists, 12 spotting assists, 735 damage, 2 component destructions, 6 TAG kills, plenty of protector and other bonuses, and I made 250,000 with PT. That would have been a 300,000+ game even in the loss with the old system.

The Role warfare benefits help lighter mechs, but the hard nerfs to normal spotting assists, regular assists, kills, and component destructions have hurt rewards greatly for everyone. Some of the rewards are at odds from eachother (lance formation and the new scouting), and in PUG groups, the lack of coordination didn't change much because of the rewards. Beyond that, the new weight grouping hurts that lone light that gets stuck with the Assaults sometimes, or when it breaks up a 4 man that dropped together on coms and can't rearange the units because someone else grabs commander.

I like the concept, but it hurts rewards way too much, and for a game that already had a disgustingly low pay rate on matches, I don't think this can continue without you losing players. I know I'm reevaluating my desire to continue playing over this.