96 replies to this topic

[sldf spector]

The only issue I have with the F2P model is the cost of new 'Mechs. Really, $55 is kinda steep IMHO. However, that's my opinion. As for the fact that PGI has to charge SOMETHING to pay for the overhead, well, I fully understand and support that.

I work for an IT Service company and we lease a 2 racks at a data center. And trust me when I say that can be expensive. They charge for power, used space, bandwidth, etc, etc, etc. Those costs add up and quickly. Try upping your rack wattage and watch the prices fly. And these costs don't include our hardware and software costs. A VMWare license alone kills us.

F2P may have been the route to go previously, but if PGI switched to something like a subscription base and reduced the cost of these 'Mech packs, they might produce a better profit than what we have now.

Are the 'Mech packs P2W? Of course not. Now if they sold a 'Mech loaded down with max armor and a Thumper, well, that might just cross the line for some people unless it was super nerfed.

All in all, the game is free right now. You get what you pay for. Pay nothing, you get what they offer for free. Buy a 'Mech or a pack, you get just what the name says.

[Gattsus]

Mercules, on 04 November 2014 - 11:06 AM, said:

Which locks content behind paywalls. For example: Artifact quality equipment is not usable without unlocking it through paying. You receive the gear from some missions. There are also missions you can't access without paying.

I agree, the "F2P" model only saved it from bankrupcy. Maybe, this is a good example of how locking content ends looking as (and being) a cashgrab. As you said the SW TOR model is based in locking content. Maybe this is a good example on a bad F2P model. The list of content locked it's ridiculous, you can't event sprint without paying:
http://www.swtor.com/free/features

It's worth noting that according to rumours, the number of players are roughly similar to MWO, in the order of a million. Though I am not so sure about the specifics, since the number of players of MWO is based in estimations from community events, which might be wrong. Therefore, these two games might share some similarities, such as: niche demographic (SW/Battletech), locked basic content (sprint/mechbays), bad preceding reputation (bad gameplay/CW) amongst others.

[Alexander MacTaggart]

Gattsus, on 04 November 2014 - 09:46 PM, said:

niche demographic (SW/Battletech)

Uh, Btech may be a niche demo, but Star Wars sure as hell isn't.

[Gattsus]

Alexander MacTaggart, on 04 November 2014 - 10:09 PM, said:

Uh, Btech may be a niche demo, but Star Wars sure as hell isn't.

At least in terms of subscribers they are(?) pretty comparable. Having said that, SWs MMOs are pretty **** beides the F2P model (and sometimes the games themselves).

Edited by Gattsus, 05 November 2014 - 03:43 AM.

[psihius]

This game is a team game. The correct way to initiate and retain players is getting them into a unit, into a social structure, that can explain the ropes and provide practice oppotunities untill the person can stand on his own. All that "solo" crap in a team game is just that: crap. You play in a team of 12 ppl and you are playing a team game. This is what many solo players do not understand or don't want to think about, hense the results: too much grind, it's hard to play, bla-bla-bla. Well, ofcourse it is so - you lose and don't get your payout. Your efficency is low - low XP payouts.
With new reward system only team gameplay gives any sort of substantial rewards - any solo action is cutting of 40% to 70% of your potential reqards.

I play 2-3 evenings a week on average, I pull 10 to 15 mil during those sessions without any premium time, I have most of modules opened, hense GXP flows steadilly, I have overabundance of XP on my mech's to re-open pilot tree all over again if I need to. I have a few keywords for you: unit, teamplay, social interaction.

You can totally be in the unit and not play regulary - just dont choose those hardcore roleplaying and any other normal unit will have it's core and a flok of on and off players that play from time to time.

Edited by psihius, 05 November 2014 - 04:27 AM.

[Ghogiel]

Gattsus, on 04 November 2014 - 10:55 AM, said:

Please justify yourself by providing a list of widely acclaimed games that lock content behind pay walls.

At one time or another I know these do or did>
Warframe
NWN
GW2
ToR
STO

I also want to make a special mention for games like Wot that used to lock items like gold ammo behind paywalls.

Edited by Ghogiel, 05 November 2014 - 04:16 AM.

[Belorion]

Praslek2, on 03 November 2014 - 12:37 AM, said:

I can't stress that last part enough. If your whales aren't extinct yet, they will be soon enough, based on the trend of overhunting them in every free-to-play title that exists. It's time to start fishing and stop whaling.

So they should cater to the non-paying customer instead? Please explain to me how that makes a valid business model?

Oh, and traditional game development became non-profitable for all but the top games quite some time ago... so its a hard model to sell now a days. F2P is the way to go.

[Pjwned]

Praslek2, on 03 November 2014 - 12:37 AM, said:

I have roommates. Sometimes those roommates ask me what games I play, and MWO is one of the names I respond with.

Then they ask me if it's worth playing, and how much it costs, and I'm forced to tell them, "No, don't play MWO. It's too expensive and grindy for a new player to get into it. Maybe in the future it'll be better, but right now, don't do it."

When I have to tell my roommates, who are a bunch of guys that play videogames in most of their free time, that they should not play MWO, something is not right with how things are implemented.

Feature suggestion: reassess the monetization strategy for MWO and make informed decisions about changes based on the data available and, more importantly, designed to capture a wider audience, not exclusively the whales that this game is currently designed to harpoon.

I can't stress that last part enough. If your whales aren't extinct yet, they will be soon enough, based on the trend of overhunting them in every free-to-play title that exists. It's time to start fishing and stop whaling.

Yep, I have a few friends who might be interested enough to try the game if I recommended it to them, and 1 of them was even curious enough to ask if it was worth playing, and I said pretty much the same thing: "no, it isn't worth playing because it's a frustrating grindfest hassle for new players" and terms such as "pay2havefun" came up as well.

Do I want to recommend the game so I can play with my friends? Yes, but until it's not horribly stacked against new players I'm not going to, especially because I nearly quit the game forever for the same reasons.

Edited by Pjwned, 05 November 2014 - 04:28 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

In this thread, a bunch of people who spent hundreds of dollars on this game say that the F2P model is fine.

[psihius]

Alistair Winter, on 05 November 2014 - 04:54 AM, said:

In this thread, a bunch of people who spent hundreds of dollars on this game say that the F2P model is fine.

Ironically, I mostly run mech's that I have bought for CBills, not those that came from Founders and Pheonix packs...

[Rando Slim]

Yes I have spent a lot of money because Im in a unit, I loved the feel of the game, and I got hooked once I had my first few truly decent matches. I have succeeded in getting one friend of mine to play the game, he has joined my unit and genuinely wants to like the game.......but even though we have told him what he needs to do and he gets it, hes still a long painful ways off from actually having those things. You HAVE to have a couple really expensive xl engines, you HAVE to have a slew of expensive modules these days, you HAVE to have double heat sinks and endo steel on every mech, you HAVE to have 3 mechs of a chassis to get the most out of any one of them. Like the OP said he gets thrown in the meat grinder against guys with months and years of experience and the mechs, modules, and tactics to go with it. Yea we all went through it.....but honestly its unnecessary, there has got to be a way to allow PGI to make money and reduce the grind a little. Yes other f2p games like Warframe are grindy but honestly MWO is probably a little worse, and frankly the price for various assets besides mechbays is pretty dang steep for what you get.

I truly feel that if PGI wont bend on the whole 3 variants needed for each chassis thing, then they need to allow players to either give away items to other players, or give them c-bills. My friend wants to tear his hair out right now and I truly can't help him. Cause look even if I gave him c-bills so he could buy the engines he needs and a radar derp module, he would still be limited by mech bays and by his own skill level. PGI would stand to make just as much money as before. Look the bottom line is if people like the game they will pay for things, is PGI really THAT afraid that if we could trade items or give away things that people would seriously never buy a single mechbay and just go around begging for c-bills till they find a donor who will give it to them so they can just sell all their mechs and keep using the same 4 mechbays?

[Cest7]

The poor business model and monetization over development is what turned me away from this game. There are far better business models for F2P out there, look at War Thunder or Planetside.

[Ashstomper]

By deciding to tell people it isn't worth the time and effort, there by steering away potential pilots, you're only cutting your own throat, and to a larger extent is completely detrimental to the game and its future. Not to mention that it hurts those who have paid money, and or spent a great deal of time earning their mechs and enjoy the system as it is. Is it perfect? No. But it's a great game and lots of fun.

Please quit being the smartest person on the planet, and let others decide for themselves. If they feel it's too "grindy", which it's not, then you help them along. Everyone benefits.

Steering people away only hurts MWO, PGI and everyone who plays the game. But stop coming here and ranting if you clearly don't like the system. Why do you play? Because deep down you know you have fun. And that's the bottom line.

Cheers.

[Yumemi79]

Logan Hawke, on 03 November 2014 - 09:23 AM, said:

C-bill payout should definitely be higher..

I have to disagree though. I make in an assault on average about 180k. Good games get me a lot more. In a medium support or heavy i get atleast 120k. It sounds not much with artillery and uav but no one is forced to use them. Especially as most use their consumables wrong. Including myself for the most part.

So a weekend night or two will get you a good amount of credits.

[Belorion]

Alistair Winter, on 05 November 2014 - 04:54 AM, said:

In this thread, a bunch of people who spent hundreds of dollars on this game say that the F2P model is fine.

Your point is?

I have paid a lot less for this game than a certain subscription model game that shouldn't be too hard to guess.

[Sjorpha]

Belorion, on 05 November 2014 - 04:16 AM, said:

So they should cater to the non-paying customer instead? Please explain to me how that makes a valid business model?

When he says "stop whaling and go fishing" it doesn't mean "cater to non.paying customers", it means try to make many people pay a little rather than a few pay a lot. Personally I think it should be possible to combine, with worthwhile microtransactions as well as expensive very exclusive things (Gold mech type of stuff). The whales want good deals for fish to be avilable too so they can have people to play with, so this idea that whaling and fishing are mutually excusive seems wrong, rather they are interdependent.

I think the Resistance pack kind of marks a more sustainable pricing point in my eyes. I didn't buy any of the clan packs because they felt extremely expensive for 4x3 mechs. But buying the Resistance pack effectively gets me 2 very nice bonus mechs (Atlas S and King crab) + the 4x3 mechs in the pack + quite a lot of fluffy stuff on top. So in my eyes it actually has more content than the Masakari pack for 1/3 of the price. I really hope this reflects a new pricing policy rather than just some misplaced idea that clan mechs should cost so much more money (more cbills, yes absolutely. More real money, no not at all)

When it comes to the grind... I am personally roleplaying the leader of a small mech unit in the battletech universe, and from that perspective I feel that buying a new mech should be a pretty big deal, not something that happens every other day. So the pace at which I aquire and master mechs is fine, but I still feel that the game is too grindy. What gives? Well, the problem is that there is no OTHER sense of progress besides the new mechs. No feeling of establishing myself in a sci-fi universe, no sense of building lasting relationships, no sense of being part of something bigger. If there was other types of progression and stories going on I wouldn't think the mech grind was slow at all. So I'm hoping to achieve this feeling through CW combined with joining a group soon.

[Sjorpha]

Alistair Winter, on 05 November 2014 - 04:54 AM, said:

In this thread, a bunch of people who spent hundreds of dollars on this game say that the F2P model is fine.

Isn't the fact that they spent hundreds of dollars a pretty good argument that the model worked? At least it worked on them. You do realize that the whole point of any business model is to make people spend money, yes?

Edited by Sjorpha, 05 November 2014 - 06:24 AM.

[Clint Steel]

For a FTP its not that bad, especially with how many "Free Stuff Weekends" they have been having. I think I have gotten 5 mech bays for free, plus a couple of mechs, that came with bays.

If you spend on this game what you spend on an Xbox or Playstation game you'll get quite a lot out of it, as long as you don't blow it all on an Hero. I spend 50 bucks, and got a ton of Mech bays, a few colors and a Yen Lo Wang.

The one thing I would like them to change is Premium Time, I won't buy it the way it works now. If I could buy it in number of matches as opposed to number of days I would though.

The only "grind" i see is having to play 3 varients of each mech to Elite them, which still isn't that bad. Other than that, you just play the game to earn money, its not like you spend most of your time "mining for iron" when you would rather be fighting. If you feel playing the game is "grinding" maybe you should take a break, I mean really, what are you "grinding" for if you don't like playing?

[Alistair Winter]

Sjorpha, on 05 November 2014 - 06:23 AM, said:

Isn't the fact that they spent hundreds of dollars a pretty good argument that the model worked? At least it worked on them. You do realize that the whole point of any business model is to make people spend money, yes?

No need to condescend. In a game like this, with no lobby and no single player experience, you need loads of people online at all times. The big spenders need people to play with. Ideally, you have loads of big spenders online at any time, but this game isn't that popular. It needs a large number of players who didn't spend a lot of money, just to keep the waiting time between each match down.

We have so few players that there's not even any kind of matchmaker that prevents new players from playing with elite players. Everyone gets thrown in the same pool and the matchmaker just tries to make sure both sides are somewhat even in every match. It's all for the sake of keeping the waiting time as low as possible.

If the game isn't fun to play for free, then you have a lot fewer players than you would otherwise. And this game desperately needs players.

[Belorion]

Sjorpha, on 05 November 2014 - 06:03 AM, said:

When he says "stop whaling and go fishing" it doesn't mean "cater to non.paying customers", it means try to make many people pay a little rather than a few pay a lot. Personally I think it should be possible to combine, with worthwhile microtransactions as well as expensive very exclusive things (Gold mech type of stuff). The whales want good deals for fish to be avilable too so they can have people to play with, so this idea that whaling and fishing are mutually excusive seems wrong, rather they are interdependent.

This may or may not be a better model. MWO has both... you can microsupport with paints and camo's, or you can be a more direct contributor.

11 people paying 100 > 1000 people paying 1$

Presumably they are monitoring such things.