37 replies to this topic

[Void2258]

Mechbay restrictions are nonsensical and drive away casual players. Mechs are very expensive, and it feels horrible to have to sell a mech. On the other hand, there are a large number of people who, for various reasons, cannot pay real money, which is required for mechbays. In addition to being told that there are certain hardpoint configurations they are simply not allowed to have (Hero Mechs), they are now also told that in order to play more than 4 mechs, they must flush 75% of their hard earned c-bills down the toilet to sell a mech in order to free up a bay? On top of having to buy 3 of each mech in order to be able to fully level any of them?

This system is responsible for the majority of player retention issues. I can personally attest to every single person I have introduced to the game leaving over this. Players feel that this is an inordinate amount of greed on PGI's part, when there are already more than enough ways for them to make money from the game (mechs for MC, paint, cockpit items, premium time, Hero Mechs, Champion Mechs, Mech bundles, mech preorders) without harming the free players so much. Free players contribute to the game by providing opponents for the paying players, and they spend a huge amount of time getting the c-bills for mechs. To be treated so badly as to be locked out of the majority of the play experience by a completely arbitrary and unnecessary petty change grab is for most the last straw.

Just imagine for a second if any other game did this. Can you imagine League of Legends or Smite only allowing free players to have a pool of 14 champions, and requiring you to sell a champion, at a loss, in order to get a different one? What do you think that would do to retention? Why do we think it would have any other effect here? So long as Mechbay restrictions exist, the game is virtually guaranteed to have a huge casual player turnover rate, and the more people leave over this, the more will tell their friends not to bother playing the game in the first place.

Edited by Void2258, 03 January 2015 - 07:56 PM.

[Dusty Howard]

I don't think mechbay restrictions should be removed. However increased to twelve. Everyone who plays this game should have enough mechbays to own 3 variants of four mechs so they can participate in community warfare without have to put money into the game. After those twelve mechbays then they may choose to put money into the game at that time.

[Tarogato]

Four points:

Win a mechbay events: very common.
Win MC events: not uncommon.
Mechbay 50% off: common enough.
Mechbays for loyalty points: first one is easy to get, and you could even do it on multiple factions.

---

I've been playing for 12 months and I haven't been able to spend a single penny on the game. Yet I own 17 mechs, and all but one are mastered.

Sure, the very initial grind was abysmal, and I would love to see the new user free mechbays increased to at least 6, but I don't see the point in removing them/making it unlimited. Buying in to continue playing the game makes sense, it supports PGI, and it makes you feel good for contributing. Mechbays at the very least are cheap, especially if you double up on MC and mechbay sales.

Edited by Tarogato, 04 January 2015 - 12:54 PM.

[Void2258]

Dusty Howard, on 04 January 2015 - 12:44 PM, said:

I don't think mechbay restrictions should be removed. However increased to twelve. Everyone who plays this game should have enough mechbays to own 3 variants of four mechs so they can participate in community warfare without have to put money into the game. After those twelve mechbays then they may choose to put money into the game at that time.

Explain the BENEFIT of the mechbay requirement to the game. Not to PGI, but to the game itself. Every other way they can make money is also beneficial to the game (or at least neutral for the cosmetics), giving players options if they want them but not punishing players if they don't, while mechbays are detrimental. How does arbitrarily changing the number make a difference to the underlying problems the system introduces?

JTSR, on 04 January 2015 - 06:35 PM, said:

PGI needs an income stream. So if people are not willing to part with $7 for MC may be they cant afford the internet either or the computer to play the game.

sorry but i understand your intent but money has to come from some where.

For those of you who point to money, I repeat that there are many many many other systems in place that are both more profitable and, again, non-detrimental to the game and to player retention. The mechbay system is the equivalent of nickel and diming people who are already buying a car from you - it won't make them buy something they weren't already going to buy, but it could make them walk out in disgust at your penny pinching.

It is not a significant source of revenue compared to anything else in the game, and it is the only source of revenue that is proven to cause people to leave without spending any money. No one left because they could pay for mechs if they want to. No one left because they could pay for paint if they wanted to. But plenty of people have left because they signed up for a free-to-play game only to discover that they were only able to play a very small part of it. As with any free to play game, the revenue comes from large purchases by "whales" (in this case the people who bought $500 gold clan mechs, bought every mech pack, all the paint, etc.), where the rest of the player base exists to play against these whales. Without both whales and "guppies" (those who play a lot but contribute little to $0), the game collapses. Mechbays are inconsequential for whales and are a drop in the bucket compared to the money they bring in from larger purchases, but they are more than enough to drive away the guppies.

"It gives very small amounts of money to the devs" is not a good reason to have it if it destroys the game in the long run. Penny wise and pound foolish results in a failed game. So again, if you want to keep the system, explain the benefit it brings to the game, and how this benefit offsets the drawbacks.

Edited by Void2258, 04 January 2015 - 07:01 PM.

[Docta Dakka]

this would be unfair to all those who have paid for mechbays.

[Void2258]

Misfir3, on 05 January 2015 - 09:10 AM, said:

this would be unfair to all those who have paid for mechbays.

Give them refunds on the MC they paid. You have to do that anytime you change a system that cost resources, in any game, if you want to retain the trust of your players. For most people that means they'll get enough back for a single mech at most, which we can call an apology for the mechbays having existed.

Edited by Void2258, 05 January 2015 - 09:20 AM.

[Reno Blade]

I don't think the mechbay limit should be removed.
Other games do the same (Warthunder, SWTOR, Guildwars2, etc...) and their economy models are also very similar (cosmetics, bays/character slots, colors, outfits premium boosters...).
The reason people don't stay is because it's PvP only and it's hard to get into and to stay good versus the competitive players (especially if you don't play as much as them).

It's a F2P game, but that doesnt mean everything should be unlimited. Having a limit might restrict some people to only play a bit, but if people truely have fun playing MWO and collecting a bunch of mechs, they will have no problem spending 10 bucks or so.
Most single player game cost 40-60 bucks for something like a weekend or a few days of fun until you play through the game.
Most MMO games need subscription or micropayment to get most out of it which would be usually more than what you pay for MWO.

I spend over 500 bucks in this game over the last 3 years which would be 14 bucks per month.
Of the 44 available chassis, I have 113 mech variants
- 39 of them are Clan mechs (3x13 from the packages)
- 18 are Phoenix/Saber mechs
- 8 are Hero mechs
- (soon 12 more resistance mechs not yet available)
Thats around 3 mechs per month (or 1.3 mechs per month without the packages/heros).

Yes I collect a lot of mechs (greedy collector I am) without selling more than 4 variants (2 ravens and 2 dragons) I still have 13 free mechbays, most from events or sales.

I think I've got quite the value for my money here. I don't think this game needs to be cheaper or faster, but the new-user experience needs to be improved, to have better player retention, because the gameplay and skill level needed is quite hard on new players.
Some COOP vs AI (at least as a tutorial or beginner level map) would also help player retention.

[Banditman]

There are 45 Mech Bays up for grabs in CW as faction rewards. Go get them.

[Void2258]

Reno Blade, on 05 January 2015 - 09:52 AM, said:

I don't think the mechbay limit should be removed.
Other games do the same (Warthunder, SWTOR, Guildwars2, etc...) and their economy models are also very similar (cosmetics, bays/character slots, colors, outfits premium boosters...).

All of these games are self contained on the given class. You don't spend large portions of the game switching, you play long stretches on each character, and the characters don't interact. It's a completely different model then MWO. In MWO you might be switching every other match, and only having 4 choices adversely effects the play experience.

Edited by Void2258, 05 January 2015 - 11:47 AM.

[Void2258]

Ozealot, on 05 January 2015 - 11:55 AM, said:

How about I leave a room for somebody to use in my house and he suddenly makes a petition to get the whole house...

Completely inappropriate comparison. Apples to Dinosaurs.

[Pz_DC]

Disagree since its one of the main way to make money for devs. For example i spend MC only for mechbays, becouse i dont need anything more. Same time, i think 1)amount of free mechbays need to be increased 2)mechbays can be sold ofc-bills for few millions pr one.

[SuperPignouf]

Yes ! Ten times yes ! The mechbay system as it is forces new players out and adds to the "Pay 2 Win" reputation of the game (at least amongts my friends). The system as it is is too limiting and needs a lot of rethinking. Maybe guidance should be found by looking at other popular F2P games (War Thunder ? World of Tank ?) those are very successful but are not really restrictive regarding the amount of machines you can actually possess.

[Lily from animove]

Void2258, on 03 January 2015 - 07:38 PM, said:

Mechbay restrictions are nonsensical and drive away casual players. Mechs are very expensive, and it feels horrible to have to sell a mech. On the other hand, there are a large number of people who, for various reasons, cannot pay real money, which is required for mechbays. In addition to being told that there are certain hardpoint configurations they are simply not allowed to have (Hero Mechs), they are now also told that in order to play more than 4 mechs, they must flush 75% of their hard earned c-bills down the toilet to sell a mech in order to free up a bay? On top of having to buy 3 of each mech in order to be able to fully level any of them?

This system is responsible for the majority of player retention issues. I can personally attest to every single person I have introduced to the game leaving over this. Players feel that this is an inordinate amount of greed on PGI's part, when there are already more than enough ways for them to make money from the game (mechs for MC, paint, cockpit items, premium time, Hero Mechs, Champion Mechs, Mech bundles, mech preorders) without harming the free players so much. Free players contribute to the game by providing opponents for the paying players, and they spend a huge amount of time getting the c-bills for mechs. To be treated so badly as to be locked out of the majority of the play experience by a completely arbitrary and unnecessary petty change grab is for most the last straw.

Just imagine for a second if any other game did this. Can you imagine League of Legends or Smite only allowing free players to have a pool of 14 champions, and requiring you to sell a champion, at a loss, in order to get a different one? What do you think that would do to retention? Why do we think it would have any other effect here? So long as Mechbay restrictions exist, the game is virtually guaranteed to have a huge casual player turnover rate, and the more people leave over this, the more will tell their friends not to bother playing the game in the first place.

CW will allow you to get mechbays form faction rewards, so soon you will have quite some mechbays at you harnd for FREE

what sucks more is that you need 3 mechs to master one, so maybe default amount of mechbays should be 6 to keep the 4 mainmechs and have 2 spare ones for the "leveling" mechs that you probably gonna throw away later.

Edited by Lily from animove, 06 January 2015 - 04:04 AM.

[Draven Darkshadow]

uhh unless someone can link to an official post from the president or maybe the devs.. loyalty points are to be used primary for optional decals and titles from the president and the official staff .. There were some suggestions from players that LP could be used for faction specific mechs but i hardly believe that they would do that for anything that would decrease the sale of "MC only" products

[Draven Darkshadow]

ok i stand corrected just did a search and there is a pdf chart from Russ
link

[Lily from animove]

Draven Darkshadow, on 06 January 2015 - 04:37 AM, said:

ok i stand corrected just did a search and there is a pdf chart from Russ
link

see mechbays for faction ranks YAY.
people even get some MC's at higher ransk they can spend for cokcpit items and camos or whatever they like.

Edited by Lily from animove, 06 January 2015 - 08:24 AM.

[Void2258]

Do you not realize how hard it is to win CW matches dropping PUG in unmastered mechs without modules? I did 3 drops with the 63rd the other day as an extra to make 12 while on TS with them and even with all that we still lost all 3 matches (light rushes are so hard to stop). Your average beginning player has almost no chance of getting these mechbays you keep pointing to as if they save the entire system, since you get 0 LP if you lose. Most people getting them are vet players with tons of stuff who barely need them.

[DEMAX51]

Void2258, on 06 January 2015 - 08:55 AM, said:

since you get 0 LP if you lose...

You don't get 0 LP for a loss, you just get no bonus. You still earn LP for your in-game actions, just as you do with C-bills and XP.


Also: No, I don't think they should be free or unlimited. They give them away for free ALL THE TIME, and it's incredibly inexpensive to buy a bunch of 'em. If you really can't afford to spend seven dollars to unlock 4 to 8 more mechbays, all you have to do is play in a few weekend events or get up to Level 2 for a faction to earn a crapload of 'em for free.

Edited by DEMAX51, 06 January 2015 - 10:14 AM.

[Troopie]

I would add default amount to 6 bays, so there is enough slots for CW and still places for grinding chassis.

[Ano]

For my part, I agree with the general notion that's been counter-proposed, namely that while mechbays shouldn't be unlimited, you should get more than 4 for a starter set. 12 seems like a decent amount to me -- I know you can elite+ 4 mechs with only 6 bays, but given the resale value of mechs, it'll feel bad to HAVE to sell mechs to free up space so you can elite+ 4 mechs for CW, and that assumes you figure out exactly which chassis you like in advance (not always easy, even with trials). 12 gives you enough space to not have to sell elited mechs to get an all elited CW drop deck, and might even help stimulate those Pokemech feelings that drive some players to buy lots of bays, and lots of mechs!