174 replies to this topic

[Mudhutwarrior]

All in all it is a grind and if you experiment with builds a lot the grind is bad. It does take a lot out of the game for new players and casuals.
If not increase earnings at least open up equipment purchase for mc or a better conversion. You should not have to wait on sales like a dog at an empty bowl.

[DaZur]

Mudhutwarrior, on 02 January 2015 - 08:54 AM, said:

All in all it is a grind and if you experiment with builds a lot the grind is bad. It does take a lot out of the game for new players and casuals.
If not increase earnings at least open up equipment purchase for mc or a better conversion. You should not have to wait on sales like a dog at an empty bowl.

Actually MW:O needs a "sand-box" with full access to all mechs and all equipment to allow a pilot the opportunity to try all their experiments without cost or penalty...

It's kind'a crappy but MW:O and the F2P model actually prays relies on the uneducated purchase / sell model.

[WarHippy]

Almond Brown, on 02 January 2015 - 08:28 AM, said:

And if the OP took more responsibility. He does not even know what MC can be used for? Or it is the "Teams" (always with the Teams) he gets put on that are the cause of his misery.

Maybe we could make him a queue of 1 so he doesn't have to play with others.

You know. At least complain after understanding fully.

What the bloody hell are you talking about?

[Pjwned]

DaZur, on 02 January 2015 - 06:33 AM, said:

He will not be missed...

In reference to your inference that he's joined the ranks of new players who've left for greener pastures:

a.) This game is not going to "be" for everyone. In fact F2P business model is wholly reliant upon players downloading, trying and making that yes / no decision... Of course PGI would like everyone to love MW:O but statistically a 50/50 is statistical win for a F2P game.

​b.) While I do not have any empirical numbers, based on my PUG experience and the fact that I rarely see the same players more than a few times in a given 3 -4 hour period, leads me to believe the player-pool is actually growing in numbers and no in decline. (I used to see the same half-dozen players routinely)

c.) A more concerning metric would be the decline in veteran players IMHO...

Seems like a piss poor attitude to say that somebody will not be missed because they decided to quit due to the nature of the grind in this game and that you're only concerned with veteran players leaving; new player retention is essential for the game's growth.

Edited by Pjwned, 02 January 2015 - 10:41 AM.

[DaZur]

Pjwned, on 02 January 2015 - 10:41 AM, said:

Seems like a piss poor attitude to say that somebody will not be missed because they decided to quit due to the nature of the grind in this game and that you're only concerned with veteran players leaving; new player retention is essential for the game's growth.

You misunderstand... Player retention is paramount to the success of MW:O

This player played a little bit, could not justify the effort to play the game and left in a huff. So in the grand scheme of things, where a 50/50 retention is considered a "win" this single player taking his toys and going home is a statistical norm.

That said... Players who have invested in the game, typically are the financial life-blood of the game as patterned history is they continue to invest. When they leave so too does their financial investment.

Add to that the reality that these veteran players are also typically active in team / clan development and are usually the sage knowledge base for new players, their lose does definitely resonate deeper and longer than a new player who's total contribution to MW:O was a brief period of being cannon fodder.

I know it sounds harsh but that's the reality of the situation.

The OP clearly had no vested interest in sticking around MW:O unless it was a cake-walk... Hell, he didn't even complete is cadet before complaining.

Edited by DaZur, 02 January 2015 - 03:18 PM.

[Flaming oblivion]

Funny you believe player numbers are going up all my indicators say otherwise .

Edited by Flaming oblivion, 02 January 2015 - 02:36 PM.

[DaZur]

Flaming oblivion, on 02 January 2015 - 02:36 PM, said:

Funny you believe player numbers are going up all my indicators say otherwise .

Then either you are a card carrying member of the steering wheel underhive or one of the chosen few looking down on us peons from Mt. Olympus.

I'l let you and the rest of the community decide where we should send the thank-you cards...

[Event Horizon]

I just mastered another mech since the time this post was started.

[DaZur]

Eugenics, on 02 January 2015 - 03:17 PM, said:

I just mastered another mech since the time this post was started.

You sir clearly are not a representative of the poor and down trodden and your opinion should be treated as a one-off outlier!

Now if you tell us you're having fun you will vanish in a puff of sparkly pixie dust because you clearly are a fairly tail...

[Savage Sweets]

I have to agree that MWO needs price reductions in both MC and C-Bill costs. (Or higher C-Bill yield.)

Like Mudhuttwarrior said earlier, if you experiment (outside of using the limited amount of trial mechs, which may not even be the mech or build you're trying to test), it costs you tons and tons of C-Bills that are only recouped by long, grindy and hopefully successful matches. (Yes, believe it or not, not everyone has a 12+ person clan to play with all the time.)

Back to MC purchases, MWO, despite being a quality game, has some of the most expensive cash shop prices I've ever seen in the many F2P online games I've played, read about, or watched friends play. Unfortunately (often times) the quality/"bang for your buck" of the items (at their regular prices) is hardly or marginally worth the amount of money being charged.

Micro, rather than macro, transactions (as several others have said) would entice more people to make more MC purchases.

As Mudhuttwarrior said: "You should not have to wait on sales like a dog at an empty bowl."

No one's asking for a cake-walk of a 10 million C-Bills a match.
We know MWO is an acquired taste. It is a good game underneath all the clunky barriers & U.I.
We're just asking that you don't expect everyone to sit back & accept the piss in the drinks.

[Pjwned]

DaZur, on 02 January 2015 - 12:52 PM, said:

You misunderstand... Player retention is paramount to the success of MW:O

This player played a little bit, could not justify the effort to play the game and left in a huff. So in the grand scheme of things, where a 50/50 retention is considered a "win" this single player taking his toys and going home is a statistical norm.

That said... Players who have invested in the game, typically are the financial life-blood of the game as patterned history is they continue to invest. When they leave so too does their financial investment.

Add to that the reality that these veteran players are also typically active in team / clan development and are usually the sage knowledge base for new players, their lose does definitely resonate deeper and longer than a new player who's total contribution to MW:O was a brief period of being cannon fodder.

I know it sounds harsh but that's the reality of the situation.

The OP clearly had no vested interest in sticking around MW:O unless it was a cake-walk... Hell, he didn't even complete is cadet before complaining.

Considering what a pain in the ass it is as a new player to get your own mech set up to satisfaction even with the cadet bonus, let alone fill out only the elite efficiencies in the mech tree (which isn't even the end of the grind) while running at a big disadvantage compared to the majority of other players until you do so, it's not much of a wonder why at least some new players might feel the need to essentially post "the grind in this game sucks" and then leave without having spent a cent on the game.

I see you brought up the players that have invested money in the game, but if new players get fed up and leave before they even consider investing money...I shouldn't need to say why that's bad, and then we have veteran players pouring salt in the wound by saying "good riddance" simply because the atrociously bad new player experience turns people away from the game.

[StandingInFire]

I agree, the main thing that prevents me from playing this game more than sporadically is the grind (mainly play when I can get a friend online and screw around a bit [have wrecked my kdr from ~3 to 1 lol ]).

It is close to where it needs to be in payout though, atm its only good payout if you know how to abuse the reward system (e.g. make sure to get killing blows, spam lasers to get assists everywhere etc), which I don't consider fun to do myself, and if you don't abuse it you occasionally have **** games that get <50k.

Pretty much they need to increases the minimum yield while slightly decreasing the max yeild [curb some of the abuse cases], **** players need money to. It would probably help reduce the "meta" builds as well cause way back in closed beta when rewards where way higher you had people try out all kinds of silly builds because you can afford to experiment with equipment, now pretty much you grind for 1 loadout/mech and thats it.

[DaZur]

Pjwned, on 02 January 2015 - 07:42 PM, said:

I see you brought up the players that have invested money in the game, but if new players get fed up and leave before they even consider investing money...I shouldn't need to say why that's bad, and then we have veteran players pouring salt in the wound by saying "good riddance" simply because the atrociously bad new player experience turns people away from the game.

Again, It's a harsh reality... F2P is built upon a 50/50 net loss/gain scenario.

Mind you my "good riddance" was in reference to EGG's inference that the OP's departure is somehow a microcosm of a greater mass exodus of new players do to the abysmal grind. Which despite a handful of doom-mongers ruminations, is nothing more than pure hyperbole.

Do you want to know what turns new players away from the game without giving it a fair shake? The missive rantings of a segment of this player base that does a good job of convincing players that life in MW:O is rough and they are being abused... I'm thoroughly convinced if you introduced players to MW:O's grind in a vacuum a far smaller percentage of players would come to the conclusion that the grind is harsh.

Instead... We have what seems like a broken record that plays at least once a week as a constant reminder of what patented sheep we are for playing / enjoying MW:O and we should feel bad for being here. I'm not saying new players are dim-witted moppets but the reality is it's a lot easier to carry the momentum of negative propaganda than it is to foster positive or at the very least maintain any sense of balance to allow new players to form their own opinions.

There is a very good reason Joseph Goebbels was able to sway a nation and drown out any voice of reason...

[Event Horizon]

Seriously I just mastered one and it has been a blast =)

I made some slight adjustments to the mech at the end and now it is fine tuned. Just had a 5 kill match followed by a 6 kill match in it a few minutes ago.

Sure it sucked at first, but maybe because I sucked in it at first too. It takes time to learn a mech.

Edited by Eugenics, 02 January 2015 - 09:02 PM.

[ZippySpeedMonkey]

One of the best ways to get around this is to use/buy a Hero mech you like and use it exclusively..

If your build is good, your income will be decent...

P.s. A hero mech + premium time is really, really good ( or obscene depending on hoe you look at it )

Edited by ZippySpeedMonkey, 02 January 2015 - 09:10 PM.

[Pjwned]

DaZur, on 02 January 2015 - 08:46 PM, said:

Again, It's a harsh reality... F2P is built upon a 50/50 net loss/gain scenario.

Most successful F2P models also don't make their new players immediately slog through a crappy grind at a significant disadvantage against other players in a PvP-only game.

Quote

Mind you my "good riddance" was in reference to EGG's inference that the OP's departure is somehow a microcosm of a greater mass exodus of new players do to the abysmal grind. Which despite a handful of doom-mongers ruminations, is nothing more than pure hyperbole.

Hyperbole though it may be that "most" new players leave due to the grind, it is still a problem.

Quote

Do you want to know what turns new players away from the game without giving it a fair shake? The missive rantings of a segment of this player base that does a good job of convincing players that life in MW:O is rough and they are being abused... I'm thoroughly convinced if you introduced players to MW:O's grind in a vacuum a far smaller percentage of players would come to the conclusion that the grind is harsh.

Instead... We have what seems like a broken record that plays at least once a week as a constant reminder of what patented sheep we are for playing / enjoying MW:O and we should feel bad for being here. I'm not saying new players are dim-witted moppets but the reality is it's a lot easier to carry the momentum of negative propaganda than it is to foster positive or at the very least maintain any sense of balance to allow new players to form their own opinions.

There is a very good reason Joseph Goebbels was able to sway a nation and drown out any voice of reason...

I don't think you give people enough credit for forming their own opinions based on experience if that's what you think is actually turning people away from the game.

[Ghogiel]

Pjwned, on 02 January 2015 - 09:17 PM, said:

Most successful F2P models also don't make their new players immediately slog through a crappy grind at a significant disadvantage against other players in a PvP-only game.

MWO follows something like the WoT model. Which is successful. And imediately puts new players through a crappy grind at a significant disadvantage.
Comparing MWO to other pvp f2p games like LoL isn't very useful a comparision, That just isn't MWOs model.

[Vassago Rain]

Ghogiel, on 02 January 2015 - 10:26 PM, said:

MWO follows something like the WoT model. Which is successful. And imediately puts new players through a crappy grind at a significant disadvantage.
Comparing MWO to other pvp f2p games like LoL isn't very useful a comparision, That just isn't MWOs model.

WoT is successful because it has tanks.
MWO is not successful. It's some kind of break-even affair. We had to go 6+ months without new maps because IGP and PGI both said new maps generated no money.

[Ghogiel]

Vassago Rain, on 02 January 2015 - 10:36 PM, said:

MWO is not successful. It's some kind of break-even affair. We had to go 6+ months without new maps because IGP and PGI

HPG was released Dec 2013, swamp came out in Nov 2014. Make that 11 months.

[Yellow Kat]

DaZur, on 02 January 2015 - 08:46 PM, said:

Again, It's a harsh reality... F2P is built upon a 50/50 net loss/gain scenario.

Mind you my "good riddance" was in reference to EGG's inference that the OP's departure is somehow a microcosm of a greater mass exodus of new players do to the abysmal grind. Which despite a handful of doom-mongers ruminations, is nothing more than pure hyperbole.

Do you want to know what turns new players away from the game without giving it a fair shake? The missive rantings of a segment of this player base that does a good job of convincing players that life in MW:O is rough and they are being abused... I'm thoroughly convinced if you introduced players to MW:O's grind in a vacuum a far smaller percentage of players would come to the conclusion that the grind is harsh.

Instead... We have what seems like a broken record that plays at least once a week as a constant reminder of what patented sheep we are for playing / enjoying MW:O and we should feel bad for being here. I'm not saying new players are dim-witted moppets but the reality is it's a lot easier to carry the momentum of negative propaganda than it is to foster positive or at the very least maintain any sense of balance to allow new players to form their own opinions.

There is a very good reason Joseph Goebbels was able to sway a nation and drown out any voice of reason...

Well don't forget every player that quits the game is more likely to tell others how bad the game is and sway potential players away from trying it. Also in all reality they wouldn't want a 1:1 retention rate. That actually is a sign of a failing game. They really need atleast 90% or more of the people that try the game to stay to offset costs. Even better if some of those 90% are more than happy to dump money on the IRL currencies.

Edited by Yellow Kat, 03 January 2015 - 04:29 AM.