43 replies to this topic

[Quxudica]

MeiSooHaityu, on 17 November 2014 - 09:55 AM, said:

The problem with that is it hurts light mechs too much. People want light mechs to have more of a role and more of a presence as it is. Making a UAV have weight and take crit space hurts lights even more.

Actually, it wouldn't hurt to have light mechs be the only mechs to carry UAVs. People want lights to be scouts anyway, so let lights be the only mech to carry UAVs and maybe up the UAV bonuses a bit.

Ok, crazy talk now....

Since people don't like Arty/Air Strikes and many want nerfs, make it so only Light mechs can call in strikes. Since they are scouts, they have the distinction of scouting with UAVs and using that data to call in strikes .

Gives the lights more of a unique roll. Just saying

It doesn't hurt lights, it helps define the role of a scout or recon mech. The game desperately needs to move away from the whole "stack as much damage as possible on every mech" mindset. If you want to be a scout, strike-recon, fire support, artillery, main battle tank, or any combination thereof you should have to make trade offs for the tools those roles use. Limitations are the heart of Role Warfare, the entire concept depends on the idea that you can't do all things.

ECM, BAP, Strikes, TAG, NARC, Command Console, UAV's and any other pieces of equipment introduced down the road are all items that could and should be used to bring more definition to the games "Role Warfare". If you want to load your Light or Medium for bear then go ahead, but you now sacrifice tools like UAV's for that additional firepower and thus are no longer kitted ideally to be a spotter/scout, If you want to run a heavy mech with lots of kick go ahead but you no longer get to use support role tools like the ability to call in Air and Artillery strikes or deploy surveillance.

You can't have Role Warfare when anything can use the tools of any role with no sacrifice. Support is an almost laughable idea when there are only two items unique to the role that can't be taken by any other mech in the game.

There's a reason the U.S. Airforce fields both AWAC's and AC-130 Gunships, you can't put all of that equipment on one vehicle. There's a reason aircraft carriers are escorted by several different classes of ships ranging from destroyers to submarines. Engines of war, be they old modern or futuristic, are designed with specific needs in mind and the acknowledgement that you can't do everything with one chassis. The Humvee coexists in the US army alongside the Bradly Fighting Vehicle because, despite both being light troop transport vehicles you can't just interchange them.

[Purger of Man]

Well being a person that benefits from both premium time and the occasional hero mech, I believe it's cost should be higher for those whom do benefit from premium time and hero mechs so both parties have the same risk of loss for a botched match for deploying said consumables.

Also I support the above for the sake of balance due to teams having more or less free to plays versus those who do indulge and support the game, because balanced games make everyone happy in the end

Edited by Purger of Man, 17 November 2014 - 10:28 AM.

[Kodyn]

The grind should be present, and new players shouldn't have access to everything off the start. I had to grind my way through the hard way, and only recently started to be able to afford to use consumables myself, and while I earn decent CBills(Premium, no heroes yet, and only recently even got into premium), I still use them sparingly, and only on matches where I think I'll make enough to cover the cost.

Yes, we want new players, yes we want the game to grow, but there should be a learning curve, and a steep one. This kind of game attracts a certain kind of player, and it rightly should, because if they can't handle it, they probably shouldn't be playing this sort of game anyway. MWO is kind of like EVE in that way. The chaff are weeded out early.

Now if you want to suggest better tutorials, more actual info in game on mechs, heat scale, explanations on C.A.S.E usage, a better Cadet experience, 4v4 for first 25 matches, etc, that's the kind of thing we need for the new folks. But let them grind up just like everyone else had to, or pay if they want to skip the grind, it's just how it works, and it does make sense.

Also, UAVs are just one more way for a new player to get themselves killed because they're too busy standing still in their brand-new Atlas they decided would be cool, trying to figure out how to launch the thing, which they then end up jamming into a mountainside on Tourmaline, etc anyway. They should be learning how to play first, then worrying about the advanced, extra stuff.

[Bilbo]

Purger of Man, on 17 November 2014 - 10:26 AM, said:

Well being a person that benefits from both premium time and the occasional hero mech, I believe it's cost should be higher for those whom do benefit from premium time and hero mechs so both parties have the same risk of loss for a botched match for deploying said consumables.

Also I support the above for the sake of balance due to teams having more or less free to plays versus those who do indulge and support the game, because balanced games make everyone happy in the end

I've played a huge number of games in order to get to the point where my c-bill income and expenditures no longer matter. That option is available to everyone. Premium time and heroes are there so that you don't have to play that many games in order to get to that point.

[Moomtazz]

Purger of Man, on 17 November 2014 - 10:26 AM, said:

Well being a person that benefits from both premium time and the occasional hero mech, I believe it's cost should be higher for those whom do benefit from premium time and hero mechs so both parties have the same risk of loss for a botched match for deploying said consumables.

Also I support the above for the sake of balance due to teams having more or less free to plays versus those who do indulge and support the game, because balanced games make everyone happy in the end

I like that idea. Normalize the cost to keep it fair.

[Prezimonto]

Quxudica, on 17 November 2014 - 10:25 AM, said:

ECM, BAP, Strikes, TAG, NARC, Command Console, UAV's and any other pieces of equipment introduced down the road are all items that could and should be used to bring more definition to the games "Role Warfare". If you want to load your Light or Medium for bear then go ahead, but you now sacrifice tools like UAV's for that additional firepower and thus are no longer kitted ideally to be a spotter/scout, If you want to run a heavy mech with lots of kick go ahead but you no longer get to use support role tools like the ability to call in Air and Artillery strikes or deploy surveillance.

You can't have Role Warfare when anything can use the tools of any role with no sacrifice. Support is an almost laughable idea when there are only two items unique to the role that can't be taken by any other mech in the game.

I still very much enjoy the idea of tying consumables to support equipment.

If you want that Arty or Air Strike you should have to equip a command console or some other kind of advanced/spotting equipment (even if it's just a tag or better sensor package) first. Even UAV's might need a BAP or Command console.

Alternatively, they could add a bidding system where you select a "role" for your mech and that role defines which in game rewards receive bonuses as well as what side equipment is available for your mech to equip.

So while working on your mech you select that it's role is going to be scout/spotter. This opens up TAG/NARC/BAP/ECM/UAV/Arty/Airstrike, but closes off access to coolant flushes, weapons over a certain size (unless you mech is designed to carry them like the PPC on the panther or AC20 on the Hunchie). Additionally, you mech would receive a 2x bonus to all scouting and spotting rewards.

Or take the same mech and select "Direct Fire Support". This closes off TAG/NARC/BAP/ECM/UAV/Arty/Airstrike, but opens off access to coolant flushes, and long range weapons over a certain size like the PPC and Gauss, but leave the AC20 and maybe 10 closed. Additionally, you gain 2x bonuses on rewards like "protected".

Or take the same mech and select "skirmisher" while building. This closes off coolant flushes, TAG/UAV/Arty/Airstrikes, but opens BAP/NARC/ECM and large pulse lasers. Players gain 2x bonuses on hit and run and flanking actions.

The best part is you could then graphically display to the whole team what role your mech is built to play with a little icon set, and everyone could then group together to help each other out.

[Bilbo]

Moomtazz, on 17 November 2014 - 10:49 AM, said:

I like that idea. Normalize the cost to keep it fair.

That is not normalization. That is punishment for having paid for anything.

[ollo]

Bilbo, on 17 November 2014 - 09:49 AM, said:

A cheap c-bill sink isn't really a c-bill sink. They aren't a requirement so if the price is unbearable don't use them.

Which just is a soft flavour of pay to win - premiums can afford to use UAVs and other consumables, FTP players will hamper their progress severely. I won't ever use them because of the price unless i don't know what to do with my money anymore, which is a couple of years down the road with the current grind and prices for everything.

So yeah, I'm a liability to my team in terms of consumables.

[Moomtazz]

Bilbo, on 17 November 2014 - 10:52 AM, said:

That is not normalization. That is punishment for having paid for anything.

What the guy suggested sounds like normalization to me.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Quxudica, on 17 November 2014 - 10:25 AM, said:

It doesn't hurt lights, it helps define the role of a scout or recon mech. The game desperately needs to move away from the whole "stack as much damage as possible on every mech" mindset. If you want to be a scout, strike-recon, fire support, artillery, main battle tank, or any combination thereof you should have to make trade offs for the tools those roles use. Limitations are the heart of Role Warfare, the entire concept depends on the idea that you can't do all things.

ECM, BAP, Strikes, TAG, NARC, Command Console, UAV's and any other pieces of equipment introduced down the road are all items that could and should be used to bring more definition to the games "Role Warfare". If you want to load your Light or Medium for bear then go ahead, but you now sacrifice tools like UAV's for that additional firepower and thus are no longer kitted ideally to be a spotter/scout, If you want to run a heavy mech with lots of kick go ahead but you no longer get to use support role tools like the ability to call in Air and Artillery strikes or deploy surveillance.

You can't have Role Warfare when anything can use the tools of any role with no sacrifice. Support is an almost laughable idea when there are only two items unique to the role that can't be taken by any other mech in the game.

There's a reason the U.S. Airforce fields both AWAC's and AC-130 Gunships, you can't put all of that equipment on one vehicle. There's a reason aircraft carriers are escorted by several different classes of ships ranging from destroyers to submarines. Engines of war, be they old modern or futuristic, are designed with specific needs in mind and the acknowledgement that you can't do everything with one chassis. The Humvee coexists in the US army alongside the Bradly Fighting Vehicle because, despite both being light troop transport vehicles you can't just interchange them.

I get what your saying, but reducing the firepower of lights even further for a scout roll would make the mech a bit less apealing. Light mechs like the Locust are already scrounging for every free ton it can find.

Instead, I would be more apt to moving some modules like UAV, Artillery Strike and Air Strike to light platforms only. Assign the above modules as "Battlefield Support" modules and have lights be the only chassis with those module slots assigned.

This way you don't punish light pilots by taking away crit and tonnage (especially on the lighter lights) and you still assign a support/scout roll for the light mechs.

Tradeoff is good for mechs with 40% queue take rates, not ones with a 4% queue take rate.

[Kodyn]

Not to be "that guy", but if it's going to take someone years to be making enough CBills to FTP their consumables, then they should probably give up now...

Been playing for 4-5 months, and have not been smart about my CBills at all, and it's not really too noticeable when I use consumables. As I said earlier, I still watch them, but I don't have to avoid using them in order to still make money...I just have to play well, which is what you need to do to make money regardless...so if you can't get better, the cost of UAVs really isn't what's holding you back..

Sorry to be so blunt.

[Purger of Man]

Purger of Man, on 17 November 2014 - 10:26 AM, said:

Well being a person that benefits from both premium time and the occasional hero mech, I believe it's cost should be higher for those whom do benefit from premium time and hero mechs so both parties have the same risk of loss for a botched match for deploying said consumables.

Also I support the above for the sake of balance due to teams having more or less free to plays versus those who do indulge and support the game, because balanced games make everyone happy in the end

Bilbo, on 17 November 2014 - 10:52 AM, said:

That is not normalization. That is punishment for having paid for anything.

I don't see how it would be punishment because the cost would be equal for everyone on a simple addition formula to the cost of said consumable on the mech(s) in question, whether the player has premium time active or if it's a hero variant mech.

Ps: The real boon to Premium/Hero/MechCredits in my mind is the ability to amass cash/xp/gxp much faster than non-premuim/hero users, and the luxury of obtaining and converting regular xp into gxp at a much faster rate, and not having to wait for an event to roll around to increase the number of mech bays/mechs we can own/have, so in conclusion spend to grind/wait less

Edited by Purger of Man, 17 November 2014 - 11:22 AM.

[Bilbo]

Purger of Man, on 17 November 2014 - 11:09 AM, said:

I don't see how it would be punishment because the cost would be equal for everyone on a simple addition formula to the cost of said consumable on the mech(s) in question, whether the player has premium time active or if it's a hero variant mech.

Ps: The real boon to Premium/Hero/MechCredits in my mind is the ability to amass cash/xp/gxp much faster than non-premuim/hero users, and the luxury of obtaining and converting regular xp into gxp at a much faster rate, and not having to wait for an event to roll around to increase the number of mech bays/mechs we can own/have, so in conclusion spend to grind/wait less

You are taking away part of the incentive for buying the PT and/or Hero mechs. The incentive being that you don't need to play as much to achieve the same result. It's what the business model is based on, in part, and taxing people that choose to take that route would be detrimental to that model.

[AlphaToaster]

Prior to dropping I decide what my intentions are.

If I'm grinding to a specific Cbill amount, I will either un-equip all consumables from my mech or uncheck the auto-refill until I meet that amount. This way if I do use a consumable on a loss, I can chose not to purchase another until after a good paying win. It will end up I only use the consumable every other, or every 2 or 3 matches, but I won't spam em every game if I'm saving up.

What I would like to see rather than some refund or reduced cost, is a role warfare module system.

Scout module example(Forward Observer) = 2 mil cbills to purchase. It's essentially a UAV that you can use once a match, that you don't have to refill. Takes up the role warfare slot. While scout module is loaded in a mech, the cbill rewards shift towards more assists/spotting.


Off topic but here's another module type:

Support module example(Anti-Missile Specialist) = 2 mil cbills to purchase. It's essentially an extra AMS that has unlimited ammo. Treated like a single AMS w/ both overload/range5 modules combined. Grants cbills for every 5 LRMs shot down that had a valid lock on a friendly mech as they were fired.

Edited by AlphaToaster, 17 November 2014 - 01:06 PM.

[Goose]

It take a certain combo or heat and lack of ground speed to consider not taking a UAV. Read: It's mandatory to give Teh Keds A Clue in most games.

I've not head if the Improved Beagle has rolled back the UAVs' importance in anybodies doctrine, but I'd bet on "no," not until we get a multi-track plug-in to go with it …

I would like to know if Teh Devs are keeping track of player-games with negative paydays, by how much was lost for the player involved, and what they think it means … The chief excuse for removal of R&R was "moral" over negative paydays, remember …

[topgun505]

While I don't disagree with you necessarily, I will make a counterpoint.

For those new players who are not die hard, hard-core MW players, chances are they will start out life in this game as free players. They will not invest money into the game until they are sure they like it.

If you make the game too difficult, or too much of a grind, or make it REALLY obvious that the only way to have an edge up is to sink a massive amount of money into it then all you're doing is turning them off and they leave. Another potential paying customer out the door who goes off in search of another game.

You need to get the player hooked FIRST before you try to squeeze him dry. And right now this game just doesn't do that.

Cygone, on 17 November 2014 - 10:20 AM, said:

You need to take a step back.

This is a game that is a BUSINESS, to get the maximum from this game, you SHOULD have a premium account.

If you do not, then their are certain aspects of this game that would "seem" expensive.

Premium Time = Less Time To Play for same results.

Edited by topgun505, 17 November 2014 - 01:22 PM.

[Pjwned]

One side effect of being disenfranchised with all the grinding in this game is that I don't really have any goals to grind towards, and thus I can use my UAVs without feeling too bad even if I end up on the losing side.

topgun505, on 17 November 2014 - 01:21 PM, said:

While I don't disagree with you necessarily, I will make a counterpoint.

For those new players who are not die hard, hard-core MW players, chances are they will start out life in this game as free players. They will not invest money into the game until they are sure they like it.

If you make the game too difficult, or too much of a grind, or make it REALLY obvious that the only way to have an edge up is to sink a massive amount of money into it then all you're doing is turning them off and they leave. Another potential paying customer out the door who goes off in search of another game.

You need to get the player hooked FIRST before you try to squeeze him dry. And right now this game just doesn't do that.

I don't really see how I could agree with this more, dealing with all the grind just makes me play far less and I'm not going to pay money just to not have as much of a crappy grind, I'm just going to not play nearly as much and thus not spend money on the game.

Edited by Pjwned, 17 November 2014 - 02:13 PM.

[DONTOR]

Joseph Mallan, on 17 November 2014 - 09:47 AM, said:

Not really DON. Why Should it cost less to by the same drone when you lose?

Because if the U.S. military launches a drone and lose's a skirmish or something, that drone still costs the same amount. Same reason adding removing artemis costs something, because of engineers doing actual work to replace systems costing money. This is a war sim. things dont cost less in real life just becasue you lose. Thats the theory that carries over into this game, in more ways than one.

However re-arm / repair is still missing. I just pretend its taken out of our pay before we see the amount

Edited by DONTOR, 17 November 2014 - 03:30 PM.

[Lykaon]

Quxudica, on 17 November 2014 - 09:43 AM, said:

UAV's shouldn't be some magic consumable card to begin with. It should be a piece of equipment we have to install in our mechs that takes weight and critical slots.

I assume you feel the same about all modules especially the other consumables?

Since every module does not require critical slots or tonnage yet all provide "magical" abilities (I assume you mean it's magic because it has no weight or crit space?)

So in essence you are opposed to the whole module system mechanics as they are currently implimented (no crit use or tonnage expence) ?

[ShinobiHunter]

It's a gamble this way. It could pay off big or you could potentially lose money with it. I wouldn't mind it changing, but I think it's fine how it is too.