165 replies to this topic

[Mawai]

I think that you need to look at several factors ...

1) average earnings over the player base
2) DISTRIBUTION of individual average earnings ... it isn't clear from your 5 to 10% number whether 20% are seeing significantly increased rewards while 80% see a reduction.
3) Earnings by mech class
4) You need to assess whether the role rewards are consistent with actually playing and winning the matches ... if 3 lights go out to scout on one side but die while doing so since they are operating away from the group ... does this behaviour result in the team losing while lights on the other side that "protect" ... end up winning?
5) Are the role rewards accessible to all weight classes? Assaults for example will have trouble getting any bonuses for "hit and run", "flanking", "scouting" ... are there rewards that they CAN receive to make up for the deficit in kills and assists?

There is so much information you need to analyse to determine whether these changes are actually beneficial to the majority of the player base. In addition ... keep in mind that this game does NOT have an economy ... cbills are never transferred between players ... the only thing you are looking at is the average time for players to earn enough cbills to buy new stuff as a competing factor against MC purchases.

If you introduce a change that increases the spread in earnings .... some players make much more and some make much less ... but the average is the same ... all you have done is DECREASED the MC expenditures on the game ... those making more have no reason to spend and those making less will simply quit because the game feels so unrewarding.

It is a balancing act. In a few days you will hopefully have the numbers to make a proper assessment

[Lord de Seis]

My concern with the new system is players are going to forced to play the game a certain way in order to make any cbills. This won't be good for the game in two ways, for one it only increases an already steep learning curve for newbies and is going to make new player retention that much harder because by the time they figure it out their cadet bonus will already be gone.

The other concern I have is that I can't just sit down and play for a couple hours with a good idea of how much cbills can make in that time. I had a few losing streaks in the solo queue last night where I was only making 50k a match and that was with a hero mech AND premium time. I was playing no different then I always was (sticking with my teams assaults, using UAV's, communicating enemy movements in team messages, etc). Even games where I felt I was productive for the team even though we lost by only 2-3 mechs I still had very poor cbills in the end.

When I played in group play it was a little better but earnings were definitely down and I had some very good games where I made over 300k which is awesome but I would rather make less on those rare awesome games to have more consistent earnings overall. I only have a few hours to play everyday and when I am only making 50k a match I feel like MWO is a waste of my time because I will never be able to play around in the mechlab and save for new mechs in a reasonable amount of time.

Edited by Lord de Seis, 22 October 2014 - 06:48 AM.

[AdamBaines]

N0MAD, on 21 October 2014 - 06:33 PM, said:

Hey Paul, same challenge for you as for Russ.
Grab a C mech or an unmodded medium/heavy and go play 1/2 dozen games in the solo Q, post Screenies of the games without picking the best (we trust you,,, really we do, cough).
That will give you all the feedback you will need...
Go on do it.

I don't like this suggestion. What if he does as you say and it come back more towards what PGI is saying? You guys will kill him.

Id rather them stick with the raw data being provided on the back end. It is less biased on each side. It might not be perfect, but its more reliable. I dont doubt the experience by the players posting here and other places. I myself have yet to play the new patch and will tonight. You can be sure I will have prepped my pre patch scores scores and cbills ready to compare to the new ones.

[AdamBaines]

Karkland, on 21 October 2014 - 07:09 PM, said:

Stomps are really, really, frustrating now.

Been getting stomped in about 3/4 of games tonight, and at I certain point I just start thinking why bother? If you're going to get 50-60k after that stomp no matter what you do then you might as well just shut down, leave the game early, whatever. Whatever you do, don't even bother thinking about using a consumable-- in addition to a frustrating game you're going to be getting a net loss.

A hard-fought loss where I did pretty well (3 kills, some assists, about 700 damage) earned about 120k (maybe a tad less). Okay, but those matches don't feel bad anyways.

Had a win where I did well, about 160k. Seems not too different, and that was with 4-5 NARC kill assists.

On the whole, I like the concept but find the execution to be immensely anger-inducing. Again, the stomp rewards just rub it in your face--why even blasted try?

The grind was already quite harsh (and I say this as a person who's spent more than I should have on this game), but this most certainly feels like a big step towards getting even worse.

Edit: To clarify, this was 100% heavy mech dropping (since the queue for them is low in the first time... ever?) Perhaps other classes end up faring better, but I'm been having a piss poor time in a heavy.

And another edit: after a little more time I'd say that if you always, always, regardless of your mech's class or role bring TAG or NARC then you might see an overall slight boost in earnings?

This leaves, however, the issue of enjoy-ability. Losing streaks are always painful, but in case it wasn't abundantly clear I feel it's now worse. The sheer tripe you get for a bad loss means that if, say, a lance pugs off and gets wiped early on you may well be better off quitting right then and starting a new match. It used to be you could at least go out guns blazing and hope for some assist kills. Now post-death assists are worth so little the profit to be gained by fighting it out is insufficient. I don't think that should be encouraged behavior.

Exhibit A: The Iron Banner event in Destiny. Only got rep (what folks were grinding for) by winning, but if you lost you still had the usual chance of loot/other rewards. Result? Entire teams quitting early on, frequently. It's an extreme example, but it can create a toxic environment.

Edit once again: okay, first time uploading images but I was sufficiently driven. Here's a few losses and a win, all conquest, all in heavies. Note that I have at least one NARC bonus in all three matches.

First: A close match, lost on points, only a few left on each side. I didn't do superb, but I did okay. 63k.



Second: More or less got stomped, a bad loss, 12-3. I did... worse, but not absolutely awful. 68k.



Finally, and this one is a two parter, a win that I did pretty well in.

The stats (I'm the TBR-C):



Then, the reward: 170k. That's probably higher than it would have been a few days ago. I believe that XP is with the first win bonus.



So there's a few examples. Didn't have any better games, but had many worse ones.

I wish Community members would provide more of this type of feed back....its so much more useful then people spouting off numbers they may or may not be correct and fudged to fit an argument.

[BARBAR0SSA]

If you want to milk cbills for all they are worth, bring Tag AND Narc. Have tag permanently on, and narc targets. You get 6k Cbills if a target dies with Narc on etc.

eg. Firestarter only doing 1 kill 8 assist, 600 dmg, was 200k Cbill

[KommandoSpookums]

I sent support feed back yesterday with screen shots of my best game from last night and one from a week prior

2 kills 10 assists 590 damage; 198k post patch
2 kills 8 assists 678 damage; 268k pre patch

10% difference? I scoff at you

[VanillaG]

Here is my feedback:

• Swap the awards for Kill and Assist to lower the incentive to kill steal. Getting the Kill blow opens the door to Kill Most Damage/Solo/Brawling so the actual act should not be as rewarded as heavily. Look at increasing the reward for Assists a little.
  
• TAG/Narc Damage should only be awarded for missile damage.
  
• TAG/Narc Kill should only be awarded if the target received missile damage within [5] seconds of being killed while TAGed or Narced.

Other than that, the other rewards feel fine.

[Alexander MacTaggart]

I kind of feel like reward the killing blow in a team-based game is counter-productive.

I'd rather see Killing Blow and Solo Kill removed entirely, and the c-bills/experience from them added to Kill Assist and Salvage Bonus.

This way it doesn't matter who gets the actual killing blow, what matters is that the enemy is destroyed, and everyone gets rewarded for it, both the heavy/assault who was brawling with it as well as the light that was TAGging it for the missile support to indirect fire on it.

[KommandoSpookums]

I don't understand why rewards must be broken down and redistributed, why not just add them? Generosity goes a long way to boosting sales, I'm not buying any more packs or color schemes until earnings are restored

[Kain Demos]

Dragomir Zelenka, on 21 October 2014 - 05:22 PM, said:

My primary worry is that a bad night of play will be vastly more painful than it was before. Everybody who drops PUG here knows that some nights are just stomp after stomp, and with the hugely reduced rewards for a loss it's going to make those nights even more frustrating.

I'm also worried that once people aren't running these new mechs - without unlocked skills, but with 30% bonuses - in huge numbers, things are going to look very different. Could work out of the better, could be for the worse, but it's bound to be quite different.

Man this was me last night, the first time playing under the new system and it was terrible.

I think I went 1-15 for the night with many 400-700 damage games with 0 kills and my rewards were god awful. I used to at least pull 150k in a well fought loss but it seems that number is now well below 100k and under 75k in most cases.

[Jody Von Jedi]

I posted this in another thread, but it bears repeating here. I might add, in the example below, I was the last team member to die:

I had one match last night with 2 kill assists, around 400 dmg, and some of the new flanking/lance rewards. My team pretty much got rolled. It was a 2-12 loss.

I earned 38k and I used a cool shot. So I netted -2k.

Here in lies the problem for new players. I remember my W/L ratio being .25 for a looooong time. After playing for 6 months or more that average climbed to .8 W/L ratio. Since the stat reset, my overall is 1.10. Since the earnings are so much lower for a loss, a new player is not going to last very long, imho.

Maybe PGI should consider extending the Cadet bonus to 50 or more matches. Or better yet, a gradually decreasing percentage bonus. After the initial 25 matches, apply a 50% bonus to the next 50-100 matches and gradually drop that percentage to normal earnings. I can't see new players sticking it out with the meager earnings.

Jody

[Jody Von Jedi]

Lily from animove, on 22 October 2014 - 04:06 AM, said:

Second
When you wanna keep your kind of rewards, set some borders to define the assist, change them to be more of a effort related versions:

Kill light assist:

• deal < 20% dmg to a mech
  
• The target dies.

Kill medium assist:

• deal 20%<50% dmg to a mech
  
• The target dies.

kill big assist

• deal >50% dmg to a mech
  
• The target dies.

kill solo

• deal >80% dmg to a mech
  
• The target dies.

Lily,

Great idea on the damage percentages. Couldn't agree more.

Jody

[Redleg37]

I think the rewards are a very good idea that have been implemented very poorly. I had a game last night with 3 kills and over 500 damage in a hero mech. We lost and I got 80,000 c bills. It feels like I am making a lot less now. I would like to see the awards increased quite a bit. There shouldn't be games where you get less than 30,000 c bills.

[Jman5]

I consolidated some of my posts.

How to Improve the reward system

• Loss: increased from 10,000 to 15,000. Reason: Makes losing a little less painful.

• Tie: Increased from 15,000 to 20,000. Reason: have to bump it up since you're bumping up loss.

• Assist: Increased from 2500 to 4000 Reason: To increase parity between kill shot and assists. Remember killshots still auto get 1-2 component destruction bonuses so there is no need to give them +1500 cbills on top of that. You either need to bring down kill reward, or bring up assist reward.

• Solo Kill: Remove it entirely for cbills. Reason: As I understand it, solo kill requires killshot and kill most damage. This 10,000 cbill reward creates a massive gap between a player who got that last tick of damage in and the player who got it taken from him. We need to make damn sure we do not let mechwarrior online devolve into people crying about kill steals. Solo kill and the lower assist bonus magnify the kill steal problem. We're talking up to 18,500 cbill difference all from 1 point of damage. The 10,000 cbills will be made up in the boost to assist reward and two others I below.

• Kill Most Damage: Increased from 5,000 to 6,500. Reason: Because you're dumping solo kill

• Brawling: Remove Kill shot requirement and replace with Kill most damage. Reason: Now, Assists can give you brawling bonus instead of only killshots if you did the most damage to it.

• Scouting: Awarded only when target information pops up. Reason: prevents target cycling spam at the start.
  
• Team Damage: -21 cbills per damage. Can you add this pretty please? Not only would it be interesting to know how much team damage you did, but it would make people more hesitant to shoot through their teammates to get a kill.

Edited by Jman5, 22 October 2014 - 09:26 AM.

[Skexy]

I like where this is going so far. Any chance we'll see a new batch of achievements show up based on the new rewards categories?

-skexy

[Nick Makiaveli]

Jman5, on 21 October 2014 - 05:31 PM, said:

From what I have seen wins are giving me a good chunk more and losses are giving me a good chunk less. One thing I worry about is that many of the new rewards rely on kill shots.

So lets say I'm close range and do most of the damage, but I don't get the kill shot. I get:

Assist: 2500
kill most damage: 5000

total: 7500

Then lets say same thing, but I get kill shot I get:

Killing blow: 4000
kill most damage: 5000
solo kill: 10,000
Brawling: 4500
Component destruction: 2300

Total: 25,800

18,500 extra from getting the last bit of damage on that mech.

Am I reading the patch notes wrong? That's a pretty significant difference.

Yes you are. Solo kill wouldn't count if you just got final shot. I don't know if you get most DMG if you get solo. Also you won't get Brawler every time.

You also are leaving out Hit and Run, Flanking, locks/narcs etc.

Edited by Nick Makiaveli, 22 October 2014 - 10:07 AM.

[Voivode]

I like the categories and the way rewards are doled out better in the new system than the old, but it seems like all actions should have ~20% boost to their base cbill reward.

[Felio]

I would say you could raise the loss payout and lower the win payout. Wins will always be much more rewarding regardless.

But there is another problem. The VIP of the match, the player who takes a great personal risk at great benefit to the team, will often reap the least rewards.

I feel this actually discourages role warfare. Don't stick your neck out; you can still rack up those bonuses after someone else takes the risks and it's safer.

As if we didn't already have enough of teams bunching in a ball and playing cornerhumping peekaboo.

[VanillaG]

Here is some additional feedback based on other posts:

• Solo Kill - Change trigger from Kill blow and Kill Most Damage to Kill Most Damage and apply damage within [5] seconds of the target being killed.
  
• Brawling - Change trigger from Solo Kill to Kill Most Damage and apply damage within 450m and [5] seconds of the target being killed.
  
• Since it would be possible to get an assist as well as Solo and Brawling, if you get Solo and/or Brawling you should NOT get an assist. Assists should be for the other who do not qualify for the other higher rewards.

[Kirkland Langue]

The game has no economy to begin with, so the most basic reward system is all you should have gone with. Something to vaguely represent how long it takes to acquire a new mech. Instead you guys developed a complex reward system which is far from clear how to go about getting rewards.