84 replies to this topic

[ColonelProctor]

I completely forgot to get the ER PPC ones for my Thunderbolt. Woke up this morning and saw it was just past ten Pacific Time.

[Simbacca]

I spent over 180 million C-Bills alone due to the sale...now I am broke. I had to equip over 100 mechs in my collection...

[Void Angel]

This sale was great fun - but it also served to emphasize the insane expense of modules in comparison to player income. I had actually given up on modules for the time being. They were something I'd go buy later, some fine day when I had all the 'Mechs I needed for CW, and I could afford to pour enough money to buy an Assault 'mech into my Locust's module slots. The sale brought modules into focus again, but I still couldn't afford more than a few of them, since I'd just bought my second King Crab for c-bills before the sale.

I calculate my gross cbills per hour to be about 624,000 c-bills.¹ If I'm really in a hurry, dropping nonstop, I can probably get that number up to ~728,000 c-bills. Since a fully kitted Assault (or XL Heavy) can cost anywhere from 15,000,000 cbills to 17,000,000 cbills, it would take me between 20 and 23 hours of frenetic grinding to purchase one solitary, module-less Battlemech. If I play an average of two hours a night, seven days a week, that'd get me one 'Mech variant every week and a half or so; slow enough, but not too bad - except we forgot modules. Those can pretty easily double the price (e.g. Seismic+Target Info+2xWeapons=16million cbills,) so now we're up to 40-46 hours per Battlemech. That is a full. time. job.

Right now as I write this, there are (by my manual count) two hundred unique BattleMech variants in MWO. That means that if PGI stopped developing this game tomorrow and released the Hero 'mechs as c-bill variants, It would take longer for me to grind out a full collection of Battlemechs than the entire amount of time this game has actually existed, counting from Closed Beta launch. C-bill rewards are supposed to give you enough of a reward to keep playing, yet still be tempted to buy Premium time and other MC goodies; but currently the grind is so long that it falls short. My motivation to play is social interaction with my unit, not the actual rewards that the game offers me. That's not a good prognosis for my long-term involvement in playing (and paying for) the game.

1: I assume that my average c-bills per match is 104,000 - it's a bit higher, but go with it - and an average of 6 matches per hour (my average time alive in a match is ~six minutes; add in a few minutes for getting out of the match, matchmaking, and spectating)

[Insects]

I think the module prices are fine.
You are not supposed to F2P every single mech in the game, why would anyone try and do that?

[Void Angel]

Why would you think the c-bill income in the game is "fine" compared to the actual cost of c-bill items (including modules?) Do you not realize that a top-priced module costs about twenty dollars worth of MC? The only explanation you offer is a non sequitur about buying every 'mech - which not only supposes knowledge you do not have ("supposed to,") but also completely misses the point. Nothing you've said indicates an understanding of the issue.