55 replies to this topic

[John Wargrave]

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?

Edited by John Wargrave, 02 December 2014 - 08:57 AM.

[jper4]

your best bet is to take advantage of the cadet bonus which after 25 matches will give you 8-9 million cbills to buy mechs with using the trial champion mechs (back in the beta days they were horrible but much better now) until you find the one that seems to be the best fit for you as a player. cbill earning rate will drop after those 25 matches (say 100k for a win) so don;t spend it all right away. once you are sure only then should you break down and buy that mech (note- you need to elite 3 versions of each mech type ie. 3 different hunchbacks, atlases, or whatever you decide on to get the max efficiency on them). you may actually have enough xp stored to have all the basic skill trees filled on your trial mech depending on how long you've stuck with it.

also the bigger the mech the more cbills it will cost so it might be more cost efficient to start with a light or medium mech since you will need three of them again to get every skill bonus out of them. there are also several events/contests run (usually on weekends) which can get you free mech bays (normally they are MC/real cash only purchasables) in addition to the four you start with for when you want to try out that second mech after you mastered your first ones. or you can sell off the varient/chassis you don;t like once you have them mastered to get a few cbills and free up a mech bay (note- best bet is to strip the engine/weapons/equipment off before you sell- it will cut down on the selling price but now that's bonus weapons/engines/equipment you don;t have to spend cbills buying seperately if you decide you want them later)

i've been buying stuff as i went though so can;t really say how life as a freebie player works but those are the main basics as far as starting out and cbill earnings go. all depends on how many mechs you plan to collect. i'm over 50 mechs atm and some have many more than me if you're willing to stick with a lesser amount you should be fine. and trial champions are always around if you feel like trying something different but don;t want to commit to a chassis right away.

edit- adjusted my misinformation about the cadet bonus- hey it wasn;t there when i started

Edited by Tanar, 02 December 2014 - 10:00 AM.

[Tarl Cabot]

Each account starts off with 4 mech bays. The only part that you would need to spend RL funds for MC is for mechbays for your mechs to reside in. If you do not purchase any mech bays you would need to sale mechs to make room for mechs you want to purchase.

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.

Almost every mech can be purchased for Cbills earned while playing the game. Those that can only be purchased with MC are only slightly different from the base versions but are better, only different.

Best times to purchase MC? This past Black Friday and likely sometime around Christmas. And PGI does have sales on Mechbays at different times of the year also. Majority of the sales start each Friday afternoon. If your finger is inching on Thursday, wait for Friday.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 02 December 2014 - 09:32 AM.

[Phobic Wraith]

Absolutely. I played the game for nearly a year before I purchased anything. The only paywall you'll run into is your mechbay capacity. You start out with 4 bays for 4 mechs. You need three for mastering any given chassis, which means that you have one extra at the start. if you want to play with more mechs then you'll have to get additional mechbays somehow, or sell the mechs you no longer want. Occasionally the devs will do a challenge weekend that allows you to earn a free mech with a bay included - which can be sold or used as per your preference.

edit: bah, Tarl beat me to it.

Edited by Phobic Wraith, 02 December 2014 - 09:31 AM.

[Molossian Dog]

Yes you can.

The real limit is the amount of Mechbays.

You need 3 Mechs of one chassis to level it to master and start with 4 Mechbays.

That means you can have 2 mechs mastered if you sell (game-money) everything except one of the same chassis.


EDIT: Typed too slow. Ninja´ed two times. I must meditate on this.

Edited by Molossian Dog, 02 December 2014 - 09:32 AM.

[Danghen Woolf]

I went for a while before shelling out real cash. You can play the game for free and in fact, unless you want premium content like hero or champion mechs, colors, or camo, you never have to spend a dime. With the different events that come along PGI has even been giving out some premium items for free, like the champion Victor and the Halloween event. One of the things you may want to consider is Premium Time which gives a boost to C-bill and XP earnings.

Good luck out there.

[HlynkaCG]

The buisiness model is to charge real money for aesthetic items and convenience "skip the grind". Most game items can be purchased using Cbills and XP that you earn in game through playing.

The only item that you really "need" that can't be bought through in game currency are vehicle slots "mech-bays" but those are quite reasonably priced. A F2P player gets 4 bays for free starting out and that's a bit tight if you're going to play this game with any degree of seriousness.

[Tesunie]

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

Can I have fun as a cheapskate?

I have two accounts here, one is for stock mechs and the other for customized mechs. I'm also very low on funds myself (read that as broke).

To answer your question, you can play this game completely 100% free and still have a lot of fun. You don't need any real money items to be able to play, and play well. A lot of the purchasable items are either cosmetic (such as cockpit items and mech skin colors.designs), decrease the grind (such as Hero mechs, Champion mechs, and Premium time) by granting increases in either c-bill income and/or experience income, or just present a different hard point flavor for mechs (hero mechs).

Over all, the only thing you may desire over time to get with real world money would be mechbays, which will permit you to own more than the 4 mechs max you can get from the 4 free mechbays you get with every account. PGI has also been having competition and challenges (things that require meeting some ingame goals) that sometimes give away mechbays and even champion mechs with a mech bay for free.

Mechbays are rather cheep, and if you hold off for a mechbay sale, which happens from time to time, you can make $6 (lowest Mechwarrior Cash (MC) bundle) go fairly far. Even without a sale, for $6 into the game you can gain a lot of mechbays for future mechs you can own later.

Overall, even mechbays only offer a little more than your basic free 4, as you can rotate mechs you own within the bays and just keep the 4 you love most. So, in the end, this game is 100% free to play if you don't have or don't desire to place any money into the game itself.

[Kekkone]

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

Can I have fun as a cheapskate?

Yes.

But you will need to:

-Do your reasearch on game mechanics regarding eliting and mastering a chassis.
-Take your time in choosing your first purchased mech

The game gives you 4 mech bays for free. That is enough to master 2 different chassis without a hassle. I just checked my old stats and it seemed i played about 100 matches / variant while mastering. This means that with the free mech bays you will be playing at least 500 matches while mastering your first two chassis. This is a very simplified answer, but at 7.5 mins / match you will get about 60 hours worth of playtime.

Special events that give out mech bays aren't all that rare these days. Just try it out, it's free

Edited by Kekkone, 02 December 2014 - 09:37 AM.

[Tesunie]

Kekkone, on 02 December 2014 - 09:36 AM, said:

The game gives you 4 mech bays for free. That is enough to master 2 different chassis without a hassle.

Agreed here. However, there are ways to at least finish eliting (the more important skill grade to get for double basics) if not mastering a mech with only one mech bay slot and careful planing on the order of buying and selling your mechs you work on. I did this with my Dragon, where I got the basics finished on one Dragon, sold it, did the same for the next one, and then sold that one after basics where done to buy the last Dragon I needed and wanted to get elite's/mastery on. (I already had mastery on another heavy mech, so I was able to get that third Dragon up to mastery with only two basiced out.)

It's doable, but not easy... Needs a lot of foresight and careful planing.

[Spheroid]

Most lights and assaults need immediate engine transfers and thus heavy frustrating grinding.

Choose something from 50-65 tons. The following engines from those weights can be swapped between many chassis.

200 STD, 250 STD, 260 STD, 275 STD, 275XL 300 STD, 300XL.


Hunchbacks and Centurions are good starters. On the Clan side the Stormcrow-Prime.

Edited by Spheroid, 02 December 2014 - 09:47 AM.

[Rear Admiral Tier 6]

i played my first 6 months for free and elited 3 chassis types(with those 4 mechbays),Hunchy,Cent and Quickdraw,it was grindy,but not a huge chore.

[Kodyn]

Tanar, on 02 December 2014 - 09:19 AM, said:

your best bet is to take advantage of the cadet bonus which after 25 matches will give you 25 million cbills to buy mechs with ...

Your cadet bonus is more like 8-9 mil CBills, plus whatever you made off the grind. If you made 25 mil on your first 25 games, you'd be one amazing player, cadet bonus or not.

[Rogue Jedi]

this games funding model is pay for convenience, cosmetics and early access.

you buy MC, that MC is then spent in the ingame store
the things not available to free players are:

Hero Mechs ( usualy about equal to the free variants but have a unique set or hardtops, a unique pattern and a 30% cbill earnings boost)

Mechbays (you start with 4, additional slots are not expensive often available as prizes for weekend events)

Champion Mechs (a different load out on a standard chassis, usualy includes the useful upgrades and a good engine, also has a 30% XP earnings boost)

Premium time (a 50% cbill and XP boost)

colours (most colours are only purchasable with MC)

Patterns (each Mech has a default pattern, buying different patterns costs MC

Prerelease content, a few times a year a pack of Mechs is put up for preorder, you purchase a set consisting of 3 of each of a number of mechs (usualy 4) which are released for free players to purchase a few months after the release of the pack, (purchased with money not MC)

Tanar, on 02 December 2014 - 09:19 AM, said:

your best bet is to take advantage of the cadet bonus which after 25 matches will give you 25 million cbills to buy mechs with using the trial champion mechs

the bigger the mech the more cbills it will cost so it might be more cost efficient to start with a light or medium mech since you will need three of them again to get every skill bonus out of them.

i've been buying stuff as i went though so can;t really say how life as a freebie player works but those are the main basics as far as starting out and cbill earnings go. all depends on how many mechs you plan to collect. i'm over 50 mechs atm and some have many more than me if you're willing to stick with a lesser amount you should be fine. and trial champions are always around if you feel like trying something different but don;t want to commit to a chassis right away.

sorry Tanner, while that post was mostly good information there were a few errors
the first 25 matches give you about 8 million, not 25

while Lights and Mediums are alot less expensive to purchase than Heavies or Assualts, they tend to need more upgrades to make them competitive.
e.g. Lights usualy want an XL engine (3-5 million) DHS Endo Steel and Fero Fibrus (another 3 million), lights can often cost more to buy and outfit than assaults.

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 02 December 2014 - 01:31 PM.

[jper4]

bah sorry on the cadet bonus- i played before it got put in. thought for sure it was 25 million, apparently not maybe i just had the 25 stuck in my head from the first 25 matches.

guess i should edit the first post

Edited by Tanar, 02 December 2014 - 09:59 AM.

[RazorbeastFXK3]

Welcome to Mechwarrior Online!

I wouldn't call players like us "cheapskates." I'm proud to be a freeloader when it comes to online games. Money is understandably tight when it comes to our offline responsibilities but eventually we all catch a break somewhere along the line.

Yes, you can have fun as a freeloader/cheapskate.

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.

Not sure what you mean by "traps" but I can only guess you're concerned with putting money into the game when you could've earned what you bought without putting money into the game. I don't believe that to be the case here as the moderators put out special deals for Packs (Put in a certain amount of money to buy a load of useful items and prizes) during certain events so you can get your hands on special items that otherwise you wouldn't be able to get. I haven't really looked into it much but the deals I see on the main page are rather decent and I've been tempted to dedicate some extra funds of mine into it but again, I'm a freeloader so I haven't gone down that road yet.

Yes, you can have fun as a freeloader/cheapskate.

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

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.

You're giving me the feeling that you're afraid that someone will be upset with you if you don't put money into the game. I don't believe you have to worry about that as the community here is a bit more mature than what I've experienced playing other online games. Take all the time you need and when you feel comfortable enough to do anything along the lines of paying for anything that Mechwarrior Online has to offer I hope you never feel pressured to do so.

Yes, you can have fun as a freeloader/cheapskate.

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

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.

Ahyup, you can have fun as a freeloader/cheapskate. If you have any questions at all, feel free to ask as this is a great community and the only stupid question is one never asked.

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

Can I have fun as a cheapskate?

[3xnihilo]

Welcome to MWO! You've already been given lots of good answers but I wanted to emphasize: feel free to ask us your questions. The initial learning curve can be rough but we love to help new people out around here so if something is frustrating you chances are good you will find some answers and help here on the forums:)

Have fun Mechwarrior!

[Revorn]

Welcome to MWO.

Hard to put a real Answer up for your Questions. The Game itself is absolutly Free and you "can" have Fun at playing it for Free.

This "can", depends much on, how you define Fun. Game is hard and have a step learning Curve, you will, as we all had, have Days when you will think, "Fu... This Sh... Game", Be prepared for Loosingstreaks and Times when you think, "Man, will this ever Stop, i only want one nice Win". Be prepared for this. Its a Though Game. ..... But also be prepared for amzingly intense Figths and Great Victorys.

For the Traps, well, per se, there are no Traps at all ..... but.......If you dont like to play about 120 Games for a new Mech, or realy want to have some of this nice brigth Collors for your Mech, or want such an cool looking special Hero Mech, wich is, of course, most Time only cool looking, but realy not better then normal Mech-Models, then you can call this Traps.

So all in all, you can Play for Free and have real Fun, but be sure, its real Fun to go shoping for Mechs, Collors and Fluffystuff in this Game as well.

[Ascaloth]

As a free player myself, i've made my way selling mechs here and there, 'til PGI started giving a few mechbays and MCs for free on events. If you don't spend real money, you take a very long road to buy new mechs and fit them to your taste (a single XL engine can cost you an entire weekend playing a lot!) and also those very expensive modules, and in this long road you might get lucky and get some Mechbays or MCs in the events

I didn't trust the "old" PGI to invest a single coin in this game, but now things finally changed and i'm inclined to spend some dimes.

[Darwins Dog]

It's been covered pretty well already, so I'll just add that mech bays are a really good value. $14.95 buys 3000 MC, and that will get you 10 mech bays (300 MC each). If you really get into the game, you'll find that won't be enough, but it should keep you occupied for a while. If you buy them on sale (both MC and bays go on sale from time to time), then you can get 13 mech bays for about $10.

In the past 6 months I think there's been 3-4 mech bays available from challenges, so they trickle in for free as well.