55 replies to this topic

[HlynkaCG]

Virgil Greyson, on 03 December 2014 - 10:19 AM, said:

I assume this offer is open to anyone?

Feel free to stop on by.

[Athena Pryde]

You could also start a new second account once you filled the 4 mech bays on your first account and you get cadet bonus again and 4 more mech bays if you don't want to spend money at all. Although Mech bays are cheap enough.

[Senor Cataclysmo]

You can certainly have fun without spending any money.

But if you can't spend money it helps to be able to spend time. Grinding C-bills can be time intensive, especially if you're a new player who has just gotten out of the cadet bonus. The game has a steep learning curve so it may take you a while to figure out how to maximise your earnings per match. If you can only play for an hour or so once a week you might find it quite frustrating to earn in-game money.

Make sure you spend your cadet bonus wisely. I would recommend spending extensive time with all the trial mechs to find out which weight class suits you best. This is an important decision because to get the most out of your new mech, you will eventually need to buy two other variants of it to unlock pilot skills. Pilot skills are usually % bonuses to things like torso twist, acceleration, heat management, and eventually, speed, all of which are extremely important stats. Unlocking the 'elite' skills (which double the bonus the basic tier skills give you) is absolutely crucial to getting the most out of your mech. If you'be been playing in an elited mech for a while and switch to another of the same chassis which is not elited, it will be noticeably more sluggish and harder to use.

In other words, it might be a while before you can buy another chassis. You don't want to blow your cadet bonus on an atlas only to find you hate assaults and dont want to buy two more to elite them. Only spend your cadet bonus once you're sure you'll enjoy levelling three of that chassis.

Also, it is worth pointing out there are hidden costs. For example light chassis may superficially look very cheap compared to assaults, but if you want to play lights successfully, chances are you'll have to upgrade the engine that comes stock with your light mech. The kind of big engines that most lights need can cost a lot more than the mech itself. You will also have to pay out for necessary armour and heat sink upgrades at some point.

There is a lot of depth to it, but this may help: http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab

Smurfy has the costs of everything in game and allows you to test and budget mech builds before you buy them in game. Once you've had some thought about what chassis you like, I would highly recommend budgeting how much it will cost in smurfy before buying in game, just so you know the final cost with all the weapons & upgrades

[Budor]

Its quite the grind especially for a new player, make sure you take advantage of the challenges PGI is running to aquire mechbays, premium time and extra cbills.

Your first mech will stay your only one for quite a while so go with a chassi that is considered top tier and it will ease the pain. Firestarter, Stormcrow, Timberwolf, Direwolf or Banshee are good picks at the moment.

[Senor Cataclysmo]

Budor, on 03 December 2014 - 05:45 PM, said:

Its quite the grind especially for a new player, make sure you take advantage of the challenges PGI is running to aquire mechbays, premium time and extra cbills.

Your first mech will stay your only one for quite a while so go with a chassi that is considered top tier and it will ease the pain. Firestarter, Stormcrow, Timberwolf, Direwolf or Banshee are good picks at the moment.

Yes, that's a very good point. You'll see a lot of people moaning about PGI on the forums, but they're actually quite generous. Like you OP, I chose not to spend much on the game. I have managed to acquire something like 8 mech bays and 3 free mechs just from giveaways and competitions. Make sure you check the announcements for freebies!

[Nick Makiaveli]

Tarl Cabot, on 02 December 2014 - 09:31 AM, said:

In the long run you do not want to sale back the mechs for.. half price or something like that. It is cause you may need that mech to level up another model of that mech.

First Atlas, Locust, Shadowhawk all refer to the Chassis. Atlas DDC is a variant of the Atlas chassis. Class refers to Light, Medium, Heavy and Assault. 20-30 tons is Light, 35-45 is Medium, 50-75 is Heavy, and 80-100 is Assault.

Not entirely true. You need Basic skills on 3 variants (say 3 different Atlases) to unlock Elite skills for that chassis. To unlock the Master slot, you need all the Elite skills for that mech, AND have 2 other mechs of that same class.

That said, the easiest way is to Elite the first three mechs you get in a class.

Hard Way: So let's say you start with an Atlas, you can buy one, get Basic, sell it, rinse repeat, then for your 3rd buy the Atlas you want. However, you will then have to buy 3 more Assault mech, get Basic, etc. Then pick a 3rd chassis, etc. Then you you can now get Mastery on your Assault mechs.

Easy and cheaper way: Elite all three of those Atlases. Sell 1 or more if you want. Then when you switch to Stalkers say, you can just get Basic and sell the first two. The third will be able to go all the way to Master since it will be your 4th Elite mech.

Another tip...you can always create another account. Let's say this nickname is the one you want to keep. Get your cadet money and some experience running around. Then start another account and play with it. You the player will get experience playing and you can experiment with mechs. That way if you find that you hate Atlases, but like big mechs, you can try a Battlemaster. Or just start another account etc.

The point being is make your mistakes with a trial account. I didn't but I've been around long enough that I've recovered.

[Lucky Noob]

Nick Makiaveli, on 04 December 2014 - 09:51 AM, said:

[/size]

20-30 tons is Light, 35-45 is Medium, 50-75 is Heavy, and 80-100 is Assault.

20-35 Tons = Light / 40 -55 Tons = Medium / 60 - 75 Tons = Heavy / 80 - 100 Tons = Assault.

Just to fix that for you.

Edited by Braddack, 04 December 2014 - 10:12 AM.

[Lord Letto]

I'd say you only need to spend money on Mechbays and Possible Computer Upgrades, the cheapest MC Pack ($6.95 US) get's you 1250 MC (More if it's a sale where you get Bonus MC That they do from time to time), 1250 MC is enough to buy 4 Mechbays (300MC Each) at regular price although sometimes they go on sale for Half Price so you could get 8 for the Price of 4 and that should be all you need because 4 Free plus 8 = 12/3 Mechs per chassis to master=4 Mechs so you can choose a light chassis to Master then move on to medium, then heavy and Assault Mechs.

as for Hardware, MWO is VERY CPU Intensive and it Prefers Intel CPUs over AMD, if you post your Computer specs we can give you a idea of how it would preform and any possible tweaks to get better performance and if you have the money to spend on upgrades you could post your upgrade budget and we could recommend what upgrades you could get in your budget.

[Joanna Conners]

John Wargrave, on 02 December 2014 - 08:57 AM, said:

So I will admit I am a bit of a cheapskate. Money is tight and I am looking to play a game I can enjoy with investing very little, if any, real world cash into.

Before I commit to MWO, I am curious if anyone would mind explaining the business model here, and perhaps any traps I might fall into with this sort of mindset.

I am not saying I will never spend a dime on the game, I just really want to play for quite a while before I decide to make any investment.

Can I have fun as a cheapskate?

Yes.

[Chocowolf Sradac]

The only real thing for a new player that they may want to invest in is some more mech bays and the best time for them is when they go on sale for %50 off you can nab like 20 mechbays for $15

with the recent IS Quirk system you can certainly have some fun without investing any real money into the game. It will take awhile at first to build up the c-bills to buy your first mech and to optimize it. There are quite a few decent trial mechs to use in the mean time till you can decide which of the various mechs will be your 1st.

Edited by Chocowolf, 04 December 2014 - 11:26 AM.

[DarkExar]

And last but not least - if you like the game, and have good time playing then buy something from time to time. Piranhas must eat something to run the game!

If one likes MW world as a whole then ability to enter it in a big bad mech with or against other living mechawarriors is an amazing expirience. Definately worth to spend a dime or two.

ps. Hunt for Black Fridays sales and so

Edited by DarkExar, 04 December 2014 - 12:29 PM.

[Nick Makiaveli]

Braddack, on 04 December 2014 - 10:11 AM, said:

20-35 Tons = Light / 40 -55 Tons = Medium / 60 - 75 Tons = Heavy / 80 - 100 Tons = Assault.

Just to fix that for you.

Appreciate that. After I posted it, I thought that doesn't sound right.....but hey had knee surgery on Tues so I am going to blame the Oxy

[Tim East]

I played for something like 2 years before I started buying things, so yes it can be done. Most of the advice in this thread is pretty good, though I have a small caveat about Light mechs for you. They may be cheap to buy, but they tend to be costly to upgrade, since very few of them come with XL engines that most of them need.

[Nick Makiaveli]

Tim East, on 04 December 2014 - 01:22 PM, said:

I played for something like 2 years before I started buying things, so yes it can be done. Most of the advice in this thread is pretty good, though I have a small caveat about Light mechs for you. They may be cheap to buy, but they tend to be costly to upgrade, since very few of them come with XL engines that most of them need.

One thing some people miss, is you can take the engine out and move it to another mech.

In other words, if you chose Mech A, and you want to run variant 1 which will require a huge upgrade etc. Look to see if 2,3, or 4 has the engine you want. If so, buy that mech, get the skill level you need on it, then sell it minus the engine. Also always strip all equipment off. I usually keep my inventory (not counting installed) of ML around 30. I still have about 50 single heat sinks, since why not? Might actually use them down the road.

[Sky Hawk]

If you want play longterm.. and want hold almost every your Mechs.. you must sooner or later buy some extra Mechbays (for real money).. Some of them can you earn freely in Challanges and Events... but, for the most of the players here, are that not enough..

If you use alwas, just ONE Mech.. and don't want many of them.. you don't need to spend money...

If you just see around here and then go away, to play an other game.. you don't need spend money...

[bar10jim]

Nick Makiaveli, on 04 December 2014 - 01:40 PM, said:

One thing some people miss, is you can take the engine out and move it to another mech.

In other words, if you chose Mech A, and you want to run variant 1 which will require a huge upgrade etc. Look to see if 2,3, or 4 has the engine you want. If so, buy that mech, get the skill level you need on it, then sell it minus the engine. Also always strip all equipment off. I usually keep my inventory (not counting installed) of ML around 30. I still have about 50 single heat sinks, since why not? Might actually use them down the road.

As an example, the Cicada CDA-3M comes with an XL engine, as does the Shadowhawk SHD-5M.

That being said, the XL 300 is probably the single most useful engine in the game. It can be used in one of lights (Jenner), six of the mediums, all or the heavies and all of the assaults. Please note that putting an XL engine in certain chassis is NOT a good idea.