506 replies to this topic

[Vassago Rain]

HlynkaCG, on 16 November 2014 - 06:57 AM, said:

[/size]

You say "just a tax" like it's an argument. The 15.2 million cbills you pay for that shiny new Mad Cat is just a tax, ditto the 600,000 you pay for a Gauss Rifle, and the 40,000 you pay for a strike. They add about as much to the game as R&R would yet I don't see you leading a crusade to eliminate cbill costs from the game, why is that?

No, the c-bills I pay for the madcat is similar to the XP I use to unlock stuff in a brown and bloom shooter. Once it's unlocked, it's mine. No one can take it away, it won't degrade, but further upgrades will cost more resources.

And as you helpfully pointed out up there, we already have upkeep in the game. It's an optional system that lets you buy one-use combat items. We'll ignore just how controversial their inclusion was, or how polarizing they remain to this day.

Maybe they should add more of those, rather than listen to ignorant forum users who complain that we need to pay for our bullets, our armor, and to repair our robots?

Edited by Vassago Rain, 16 November 2014 - 07:04 AM.

[Quaamik]

R&R turns this into World of Tanks.

It would kill the game.

[ollo]

Yeah, right, bring R&R back in! I'm looking forward to seeing whole unrepaired teams with low ammo trying to avoid each other again! It will be fun!!!

Seriously, it's just a bad, bad, bad idea. No matter how you implement it, it's a punishment for playing in general and especially for taking risks to help the team. Even if it's not the utter crap system they had in closed beta.

[HlynkaCG]

Vassago Rain, on 16 November 2014 - 07:03 AM, said:

No, the c-bills I pay for the madcat is similar to the XP I use to unlock stuff in a brown and bloom shooter. Once it's unlocked, it's mine. No one can take it away, it won't degrade, but further upgrades will cost more resources.

Wrong, if this were the case you'd get full value for sold items, and wouldn't have to pay to add or remove upgrades after they'd been "unlocked". No such luck.

And you're still avoiding the core argument. People who run the most expensive meta-mechs they can because there is no incentive not to. This results in greater stratification between "haves" and the "have nots" not less, as the space-poor who don't have the cash and GXP for a mastered meta-mech are forced to face off against the space-rich who drive nothing but.

Unless you want to segregate the queues based on tech level / battle value give people a reason to run something else.

[Vassago Rain]

I really don't have anything further to say on this subject.

RnR is dead, and it's dead for a reason. If they add it back, the game is gonna be dead, too.

[Koniving]

(Edit: Added the vids that never made it).

Quote

There's never been RnR in a mechwarrior game. Singleplayer campaigns, yes. Sure.

Single player Mechwarrior games (the various Battletech / Mechwarrior computer games straight from MW1 onward, MW2 Mercs was especially known for having a very comprehensive repair and rearm system), MWO, and Battletech.

So there has been, even in the multiplayer (MWO).

Honestly I made so much money back then I didn't need premium time. 1 mil per match? Record high of 3 mil in one LRM apocalypse using 3 LRM-5s and a tag? 32,000 repair and rearm typical, maybe 40,000 if completely killed? Sure thing; just give me a standard engine Commando and some scouting duties.
Did feel sorry for the assaults though; but that's okay, they can transition back and forth like the rest of us.

(Typical earnings on them in closed beta was about 400,000 without premium time or other benefits [standard non-founder Atlas D and RS] with high ends at the time being around 800,000 without exaggeration. Typical repairs was about 250,000 (so 400,000 - 250,000 = 150,000) after a brutal brawl lasting about 8 minutes of sustained, constant combat where the damage is well spread akin to what is shown here, or here in this base defense. Then again that was during standard engines and delayed convergence for lots of weapons spread. Though repairs for an assault mech sporting XL engines, endo steel, lots of ammo-based weaponry would have easily exceeded 600,000. It'd be the death of Dire Wolves as we know them.)

Of course one important thing to remember is that base captures used to pay (and in that second video, notice how the enemy team didn't care for the easy kills, they wanted the base capture no matter what), and it was better to play the objective than to go for total annihilation; so going into battle with offense or defense in mind and the objective first created two things that we don't have. 1) Spread forces with minimal deathballing; those deathballing almost always lost. This also means that mechs lived longer due to significantly reduced focus fire. 2) A genuine purpose for light mechs. The spread forces meant scouting had purpose, base harassment had purpose, first responders to base assaults had purpose, etc.

These need to make a real return before any R&R can actually be considered. And akin to what some said, it should be done as a community warfare thing.

---------

Most important to me: I need monitors that can give me REAL information about the status of my equipment.
About half of the heatsink monitors don't work anymore. The ammo monitors barely work at all. But furthermore I need to know about the other stuff, what is the condition of my C.A.S.E.? What is the condition of my actuators? Engine? Gyro? Sensor equipment (BAP, ECM)? Etc?

These are things that I absolutely need to know. For example my heatsinks buffer and protect my ammo. If my heatsinks in this torso are destroyed, I need to know because that tells me how 'at risk' my ammo is. If that BAP took a hit, there's no way I'd know unless it was destroyed and I don't like that. And of those ideas to do things like actuator damage and engine damage, I need to know when it happens if I'm going to be paying for it. I mean I realize actual effects on gameplay are a long way off if they ever come, but they are still serving as crit buffers and I need to know when they have failed on me.

Edited by Koniving, 18 November 2014 - 04:06 PM.

[HlynkaCG]

Vassago Rain, on 16 November 2014 - 08:58 AM, said:

I really don't have anything further to say on this subject.

RnR is dead, and it's dead for a reason. If they add it back, the game is gonna be dead, too.

GG Close

[Bishop Steiner]

Alistair Winter, on 16 November 2014 - 06:01 AM, said:

Y'all are being real irrational right now. You do realize that, right? You do realize that PGI is giving you the choice between earning 200,000 C-bills with a 100,000 C-bill tax, or just earning 100,000 C-bill, right? And you're acting like one choice is vastly superior to the other.

Here's what we have now:

• You get C-bills depending on your performance
  
• If you play well, get kills, do damage and win the match, you earn a lot of money and XP
  
• If you play poorly and die, you get very little money and XP

Here's what R&R would do:

• You get C-bills depending on our performance
  
• If you play well, get kills, do damage and win the match, you get a big paycheck and fewer repairs, earning a lot of money and XP
  
• If you play poorly and die, you get very little money and XP

Can anyone see the similarities? Anyone? Please? Yes, it's unfair. Yes, skilled players will have bigger rewards. Yes, poor players will have a lower income than good players. Yes, it's exactly what we have now. There's just one single difference:



In addition to rewarding good players for kills and damage, it rewards players for not risking suicide just to get maximum kills and damage. So the good players are still going to earn more money than bad players, but they will want to play a bit more cautiously if they want money. E.g. no more facehugging rock'em sock'em robots. No more people sending their light mech directly at the enemy to launch a UAV and then dying 1 minute into the match, pretending like they did the team a favour.

At the end of the day, our incomes will likely be buffed to make up for the costs of R&R. Good players are still going to earn more, bad players are still going to earn less.


So... exactly what we have now? Gotcha. Guys are just spending real money on C-bill boosters, XP -> GXP conversions, mech packs and premium time. They reduce their grind to a small fraction of what F2P players are going through, as they can basically just buy their way to lots of mastered mechs with modules, if they want to spend enough cash on the game.

And free players are earning 40,000 C-bills and 250 XP per 0-12 roflstomp.

The status quo called. It said "I ain't going nowhere."


They're obviously going to increase our incomes. And they'll try to keep the C-bill per hour of gameplay more or less constant, like they did with Rewards 2.0.

There's no incentive to pay R&R, just like there's no incentive to use the new Reward system. But there will be incentive not to suicide or sacrifice their health just to steal kills, like people are doing now.


I'm equally puzzled by your inability to understand two simple things:

• People who lose drops are already being punished. The game has always rewarded the best players and forced bad players to grind harder. That's not changing.
  
• The last time they tried R&R it sucked. But that was one of an infinite ways to implement R&R. Literally infinite.

Oh snap. <applause.gif>

except that is an "up to 100k tax" on the RnR model, which could prove much less if you don't run maxi tech or lrm *****.

That said, well done, RnR adds depth. Done with loopholes that even Vassago can figure out? Yeah, better off without.

[Fut]

Satan n stuff, on 16 November 2014 - 03:30 AM, said:

So give us an example, how would you do it?

I'd use a system quite similar to the way War Thunder works. Where you can repair any Mech (even if completely destroyed) for free, but it takes time. The larger the Mech and the more damage to be fixed, the longer the repair takes. If you don't want to wait you can spend some Cbills or MC to have the repair done instantly.

It's simple, and there's no "automatic tax".

Edit:
There's also potential to expand on this concept, and have Mech Technicians in our MechLab. Allow people to sink Cbills, and GXP into training these workers. The better they get, the faster and cheaper they can complete repairs.

Edited by Fut, 16 November 2014 - 10:33 AM.

[Brody319]

Fut, on 16 November 2014 - 10:28 AM, said:

I'd use a system quite similar to the way War Thunder works. Where you can repair any Mech (even if completely destroyed) for free, but it takes time. The larger the Mech and the more damage to be fixed, the longer the repair takes. If you don't want to wait you can spend some Cbills of MC to have the repair done instantly.

That system is pointless. It exists to waste time, and with this game already a grinder that just means it takes longer to skill up, and make c-bills. Also forces people to play mechs they might not feel like playing. If I am grinding my ravens, I don't want to wait for them to get fixed up.

R&R cannot work in this game. In other mechwarrior games it works because you can just load a previous save or sell some mechs you got as salvage to make cash. Unless you start letting people steal your mechs if your team loses or you boost the c-bill earnings to make up for the loss in money, which would make it even more pointless.

Of course they could always give out a daily injection of 1 million c-bills. That would be nice.

[xengk]

HlynkaCG, on 16 November 2014 - 02:50 AM, said:

I like your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter

I would actually go so far as to say that anything that the mech comes with from the factory gets repaired/replaced for free.

Free R&R for stock mech might be pushing it a little.
Quirks that encourage stock built are already generate player rage, this will make them go nuclear.

Unless it is a Faction bonus?
Iconic faction mech will get free replacement of stock equipment.
However people will want to join the faction that give the biggest free repair mech.

[Bishop Steiner]

xengk, on 16 November 2014 - 10:42 AM, said:

Free R&R for stock mech might be pushing it a little.
Quirks that encourage stock built are already generate player rage, this will make them go nuclear.

Unless it is a Faction bonus?
Iconic faction mech will get free replacement of stock equipment.
However people will want to join the faction that give the biggest free repair mech.

Or perhaps each House Gets a list of Mechs that are "House Appropriate". In general get same rewards as now, and those mechs get RnR for free. Mechs outside of it get partial RnR comp. (Since house mechs are usually owned and maintained by the house)

Then Mercs and Lone Wolves get higher rewards but pay much higher RnR, with a discount given for certain chassis based on which House they are currently aligned with?


IDK...just a rough thought, but I do get tired of the blank "no " that folks like Vass that just want to minmax all the time make. Also I guess Clans, being essentially "House" would follow the House model.

[Satan n stuff]

Fut, on 16 November 2014 - 10:28 AM, said:

I'd use a system quite similar to the way War Thunder works. Where you can repair any Mech (even if completely destroyed) for free, but it takes time. The larger the Mech and the more damage to be fixed, the longer the repair takes. If you don't want to wait you can spend some Cbills or MC to have the repair done instantly.

It's simple, and there's no "automatic tax".

Edit:
There's also potential to expand on this concept, and have Mech Technicians in our MechLab. Allow people to sink Cbills, and GXP into training these workers. The better they get, the faster and cheaper they can complete repairs.

That would be waitgaming, which has never made a game more enjoyable. The whole concept exists only as a means to squeeze money out of players by forcing them to pay up if they want to play more often than whatever arbitrary limit has been set for them.

[xengk]

Bishop Steiner, on 16 November 2014 - 10:50 AM, said:

Or perhaps each House Gets a list of Mechs that are "House Appropriate". In general get same rewards as now, and those mechs get RnR for free. Mechs outside of it get partial RnR comp. (Since house mechs are usually owned and maintained by the house)

Then Mercs and Lone Wolves get higher rewards but pay much higher RnR, with a discount given for certain chassis based on which House they are currently aligned with?


IDK...just a rough thought, but I do get tired of the blank "no " that folks like Vass that just want to minmax all the time make. Also I guess Clans, being essentially "House" would follow the House model.

Just spit balling here, maybe a dev might glance at this thread and ponder it while at the water cooler or whatever it is that canadian have at their office pantry.

Still won't stop people who want a R&R free Atlas from gravitating to, say, House Steiner.
Not technically a bad thing, people should be allowed to pilot what they like, but the system also need to fend off moochers.
Maybe a weekly quota? The house will foot X amount of Cbill R&R for a week, anything else incurred beyond the quote need to be paid by the player, until the next week. (House Salary?)
This will encourage player to pilot cheaper mech on the House Appropriate mechs list when they are nearing the limit of their quota.

The next question would be how to treat upgrades on these House Appropriate mechs, most of stock build are still running SHS, will upgrading to DHS invalid the benefit and push it to the partial R&R list?
Or even extra ammo; if the stock only carries 2 ton but the player throw in 2 extra ton, will the House only replace 2 of the 4 that was destroyed?

Mercs can get a contract multiplier at the end of match to gain extra CBill and/or get to pick extra loot bag to illustrate their first dibs salvage rights. Faction pilot who is short on dough could moonlight as a Mercs for a while (CW Faction duration).
Should Lone Wolf be treated like a Mercs with another name? Having contract bonus and/or salvage dibs.
Or limit Mercs to Cbill multiplier and Lone Wolf to loots. Mercs get paid extra by the house to perform while Lone Wolf get extra salvage rights to upkeep their mechs, plus standard match earnings.


I just realise how my "critical equipment destruction system" will make MG and Flamer VERY scary, getting hit by them constantly can possibly put someone in the poorhouse. Yet, I kinda want that to happen, making them a sadistic weapon for the masochist pilot that runs them.

Edited by xengk, 16 November 2014 - 11:52 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

xengk, on 16 November 2014 - 11:23 AM, said:

Just spit balling here, maybe a dev might glance at this thread and ponder it while at the water cooler or whatever it is that canadian have at their office pantry.

Still won't stop people who want a R&R free Atlas from gravitating to, say, House Steiner.
Not technically a bad thing, people should be allowed to pilot what they like, but the system also need to fend off moochers.
Maybe a weekly quota? The house will foot X amount of Cbill R&R for a week, anything else incurred beyond the quote need to be paid by the player, until the next week. (House Salary?)
This will encourage player to pilot cheaper mech on the House Appropriate mechs list when they are nearing the limit of their quota.

The next question would be how to treat upgrades on these House Appropriate mechs, most of stock build are still running SHS, will upgrading to DHS invalid the benefit and push it to the partial R&R list?
Or even extra ammo; if the stock only carries 2 ton but the player throw in 2 extra ton, will the House only replace 2 of the 4 that was destroyed?

Mercs can get a contract multiplier at the end of match to gain extra CBill and/or get to pick extra loot bag to illustrate their first dibs salvage rights. Faction pilot who is short on dough could moonlight as a Mercs for a while (CW Faction duration).
Should Lone Wolf be treated like a Mercs with another name? Having contract bonus and/or salvage dibs.
Or limit Mercs to Cbill multiplier and Lone Wolf to loots. Mercs get paid extra by the house to perform while Lone Wolf get extra salvage rights to upkeep their mechs, plus standard match earnings.


I just realise how my "critical equipment destruction system" will make MG and Flamer VERY scary, getting hit by them constantly can possible but someone in the poorhouse. Yet, I kinda want that to happen, making them a sadistic weapon for the masochist pilot that runs them.

good spitball though.

One other thought, is perhaps the further from stock, the less the "House" covers. Aka, the Quartermasters order in bulk stock components for mechs. Mind you, some things, like Endo and DHS would need to be exempt as they are essentially mandatory. But perhaps if you are a Davion with a Stock CN9-A, you get 100% repair on ac10, LRM10 and medium lasers, 75% refit for LB-X, different sized LRM launchers/artemis, and MPL, and only 50% coverage for a Gauss, Large laser and SRMs/Streaks. So then you have to decide, is it worth it, on average from match score and rewards to alter it heavily? Sometimes, it may well be, where as some might be better stock (or choosing a CN9-D, instead).

I dunno, I think things like that could be huge, but one thing would be needed is that rewards would have to be in general, generous enough it does not become a more onerous grind.....yet losses can hurt enough to make Min/Max a matter of risk/reward.

The compies won't like it, and yes, it could make it harder in some cases for new players who make poor decisions. But I guess I am not part of the cup stacking, everyone gets a prize for participating generation of the wuss.

Also, mind you, I think all this should be for CW ONLY. Leave non CW as casual mode, but make CW hard, but rewarding enough to make it overall worth stepping up to the big leagues. And give us more depth so it's not JUST about twitch skills.

[Fut]

Brody319, on 16 November 2014 - 10:34 AM, said:

R&R cannot work in this game.

The question has been asked already, and I haven't seen a decent response yet - but what is it about MWO that makes R&R an utter failure regardless of how's it's implemented, when there are numerous other similar games where R&R works just fine?

Seriously, what is it besides the fact that some people have become used to there being 0 consequences to dying and don't want to change the way they play?

Sandpit, on 16 November 2014 - 02:56 AM, said:

"R&R would destroy this game"

I think
War Thunder
World of Tanks
World of Planes
DDO
SWTOR (both of these games require you to repair equipment and some on this list can even cause loss of money in the higher tiers)

didn't get that memo.

SO I'm just curious, why is it that an R&R system would kill THIS game, but those others are doing just fine? (I could probably find you more examples if you really want them but I figured WT and WoT are good since they're very successful games and do quite well with R&R systems)

Why is MWO different? Why would an R&R system kill this game specifically when it's a proven fact that R&R systems do NOT kill other games?


maybe you can answer my question then?

Can anybody answer this?

Edited by Fut, 16 November 2014 - 11:48 AM.

[Prezimonto]

I had an idea to actually incorporate repair and rearm into the GAMEPLAY, which is where the effects (good and bad) properly belong.

http://mwomercs.com/...tyle-game-mode/

In short, I think we should play a match series and if you're using weapons/loadouts that aren't stock you have a chance to start the next match in the series down a little bit on armor, engine performance, ammo/ton, ect... UNLESS you take and hold some supply depots during the CURRENT game.

It takes earnings entirely out of the equation, more properly models supply and logistics on a campaign, and it's newbie friendly because it equally affects all players WITHIN the game.

It would be simple to implement, as your mech would just be locked from editing for a series of 3 or 4 matches, but you could play them in any sequence.

I could also be allied to match series in CW.

[Sandpit]

Vassago Rain, on 16 November 2014 - 03:53 AM, said:

length

so your argument equates to
Because we haven't had it for a long time
and
PGI won't implement it well

uhm ok, look bud, that's just not a valid reason. GPCLOSE though

As for how I'd do it Sat?

Well that's easy
You set up a mechanic just like every other game does. You can either pay for the repair fees or let it go for free at the expense of time. Every other game that's similar in nature runs the exact same mechanic and makes millions of dollars and is quite successful with it. The mechanic and implementation are already out there for examples.

Now with that said, I'd tweak it a bit and add in a few things.

Techs: Players can purchase techs for Cbills or MC that reduce the cost of the repair fees. (I've actually laid all of this out in a very detailed and in-depth thread I started a few months ago and don't really want to retype it again for the umpteenth time. I'll see if I can find the thread and link it later)
You have different levels of techs
Green
Regular
Veteran
Expert
whatever you want to call them. The higher the level, the more the discount on R&R fees but the higher the cost of the techs.
Techs aren't a permanent deal. You can hire them for xx amount of time at which time you have to hire new techs.

One thing that Mekwars does quite nicely is use a system where techs are hired and can actually level up based on how often they're used, etc.


Again, there are TONS of games that run this kind of mechanic and system and are very successful. Anyone arguing "Because it would kill the game" is simply using sensationalism and scare tactics. It is a factual statement that R&R fees do NOT kill games. Just because some want to whine about it because they don't like the idea doesn't mean it's bad for the game nor does it mean it would "ruin", "kill", "destroy" or any other hyperbole that likes to get tossed around in this thread.

Grow up a bit guys, this isn't a game breaking idea.

Bishop Steiner, on 16 November 2014 - 09:15 AM, said:

except that is an "up to 100k tax" on the RnR model, which could prove much less if you don't run maxi tech or lrm *****.

That said, well done, RnR adds depth. Done with loopholes that even Vassago can figure out? Yeah, better off without.

agreed
It's a matter of implementation, not a matter of this mechanic being some game killing thing. The ones arguing against it simply don't want to worry about anything other than "I played I want cbills!", which is fine, give them the pub matches. CW should have an economy.

[Durant Carlyle]

If people would stop firing four or more tons of ammunition during a match, then they would have very little to complain about with R&R.

Taking other non-ammunition-dependent weapons is a staple of BattleTech. Energy weapons are supposed to be the weapons you rely on most, with the other types being either support or the big hit saved for when it counts. R&R reinforces this.

Also, R&R rewards actual thinking when it comes to 'Mech builds. Perhaps you lose a little speed in taking that standard engine, but not only do you last longer in a typical match, you also save in R&R costs when your 'Mech is totaled. Sounds like a win-win to me.

[GernMiester]

RnR is a terrible idea, If you cant figure out why I cant be bothered to explain it.