191 replies to this topic

[Rossario x Vampire]

Since I remember there where talks like about to... - Give a starter enough C-Bills to assamble 1 of each class mech (around 15kk per class). Now I see lots of forumborn twittards who now talking exactly opposing.

Oh dat MWO community. You folks make my day every time.

Edited by Rossario x Vampire, 10 March 2015 - 01:01 PM.

[Xetelian]

Payouts are lower for a lot of people now.

[Rossario x Vampire]

Xetelian, on 10 March 2015 - 01:03 PM, said:

Payouts are lower for a lot of people now.

And some square minded twittards can't admit that this is very wrong.

Edited by Rossario x Vampire, 10 March 2015 - 01:09 PM.

[Kristov Kerensky]

You are pretty much on target there Dusty, and that's why I said we need some improvement in the rewards, I just don't know what kind/how much because I'm not the guy who's having problems making cbills without premium/hero/boosts, so I'm not the one who can tell you what's needed. I'm also rather old school when it comes to MMO style games, I EXPECT to invest a lot of time to get anything decent, it's the rule we used back in the days of PnP gaming, no one really wanted the Monty Haul game because it's not any fun after a bit. It's more rewarding when you earn what you get, instead of having it handed to you.

But I'm an old fart and can't understand the 'give it to me NOW!' mindset, the entitled little twits who populate the planet more and more it seems.

[Lord Perversor]

Leg them all and check salvage those engines are the meaty payouts guys!!

[FrDrake]

Lord Perversor, on 10 March 2015 - 01:15 PM, said:

Leg them all and check salvage those engines are the meaty payouts guys!!

You only get salvage on a win though, these guys feel they are entitled to a 50/50 win rate just for showing up or the MM is broken, just like they are entitled to earning enough cbills to get a mech a day just for showing up as well.

[Rossario x Vampire]

Lord Perversor, on 10 March 2015 - 01:15 PM, said:

Leg them all and check salvage those engines are the meaty payouts guys!!

Legging anything IS more than 90 tons build around any STD engine mostly take hours and can be a reason of your own death.

Edited by Rossario x Vampire, 10 March 2015 - 01:21 PM.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Rossario x Vampire, on 10 March 2015 - 01:21 PM, said:

Legging anything IS more than 90 tons build around any STD engine mostly take hours and can be a reason of your own death.

That's correct, hence the old BTech phrase...

Kill the meat, save the metal

Meant go for the headshot, cockpits are cheap, MechWarriors are easily replaced, and you get a lot more salvage when you don't shoot up the Mech, plus you can reuse the entire Mech instead of just pieces

[Dahnyol]

Yea... lots of people defending their expenses on this game. Too much pride to see the problems for future game growth and development.

[Rossario x Vampire]

I just totaly disagree with common C-Bill's rewards cause... They are just taking away new players = They are taking away potential tired spenders.

Edited by Rossario x Vampire, 10 March 2015 - 01:39 PM.

[DustySkunk]

Kristov Kerensky, on 10 March 2015 - 01:13 PM, said:

You are pretty much on target there Dusty, and that's why I said we need some improvement in the rewards, I just don't know what kind/how much because I'm not the guy who's having problems making cbills without premium/hero/boosts, so I'm not the one who can tell you what's needed. I'm also rather old school when it comes to MMO style games, I EXPECT to invest a lot of time to get anything decent, it's the rule we used back in the days of PnP gaming, no one really wanted the Monty Haul game because it's not any fun after a bit. It's more rewarding when you earn what you get, instead of having it handed to you.

But I'm an old fart and can't understand the 'give it to me NOW!' mindset, the entitled little twits who populate the planet more and more it seems.

Thank you Kristov. I agree that there's no fun in getting things handed to you. There needs to a challenge in order for there to be an accomplishment, and there certainly is a rash of people that believe everything should be handed to them immediately these days.

MWO as a rule has a very fair F2P model that I have always been an advocate of. Like all things though, there's room for improvement, and I'm glad I'm not alone in seeing this.

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As a competitive game, there will always be a skill gap between players. In the past, Mechwarrior titles always had a strong single player element so the gap wasn't necessarily as glaring. Players could enjoy Mechwarrior without ever having to play against other people. It also was more of a simulator(lite^TM) than an arena shooter. My reasoning for feeling strongly about the rewards system here is for those people who just want to enjoy big stompy mechs, for those players that have a lower skill ceiling than average and for newer players just starting out. Ideally, progress should be a linear slope over time. With the way it is now, after the Cadet Bonus if you still are having trouble being competitive you can easily falter. Rather than looking at a slope, you are looking at a cliff. This is especially true if new players make a silly purchase with their Cadet Bonus earnings without knowing any better. That shouldn't result in a player needing to make a new account and start over, which is basically the case now. Other than new players, some people are simply just not that good, or take a longer time to get better. That's fine, but they should still be able to have some means of progression even if it isn't nearly at the high rate of a player who plays well. Eventually they will get better or hit their skill ceiling, but in that time they'll need some semi-decent means of income for trying new builds or upgrading their mechs. Revising the rewards system so that continual progress is possible while at the same time excellent play is rewarded appropriately is a great step in the right direction.

Edited by DustySkunk, 10 March 2015 - 02:03 PM.

[Greyboots]

Jman5, on 09 March 2015 - 12:58 PM, said:

The biggest problem with the economy is that there is too much emphasis on killing blows. Most people haven't broken down the numbers, but getting that last point of damage can have a huge impact on your money.

Let's Assume you busted your butt to kill a mech. However, in one situation you get the killing blow, but the other someone sneaks in and gets the last point of damage so you get an assist.

Kill
Killing blow: 4000
Kill Most Damage: 5,000
Solo Kill: 10,000
component destruction: 2300

Total: 21,300 cbills

Assist

Assist: 3,500
Kill Most Damage: 5,000

Total: 8,500 cbills

A few of us pointed this out a long time ago and unfortunately every time it comes up people speak out against it. It just keeps getting worse. Someone can pound the hell out of a mech for those good earnings and all it takes is one guy who hid behind a rock and let me get smashed to pop out, take the kill and... well, you get the picture. And then if you accidtentally core him out from the back (some of us DO play on a high ping and it happens with the occasional alpha strike) you get penalised for it and get to listen to some munchkin go on and on about you being a team killer for the rest of the match.

The rewards aren't really "rewards", they are arbitrary payments that pit teammates against each other and don't promote the team-based play that the devs so often say they are promoting. That's always been the problem with the kill rewards being so outlandish.

Teamwork is OP if you want to win games. If you want to earn money or XP? Not so much. Helping some guy take out his target is far more likely to get you yelled at for being a kill stealer as having someone say "thanks, he was about to nail me to a wall".

They changed the way gauss rifles fired, heated up PPCs no end and introduced ghost heat with the stated goal of solving the alpha strike kill problem but their "reward system" still promotes that type of gameplay so it keeps on persisting. I don't think they understand that they won't stop it being overly popular (as opposed to strategic) until they stop rewarding it.

This isn't just a "Paulconomy" problem, it's got a lot of fingers in a lot of pies including the balance at which types of mechs people are joining matches with so even effects queue wait times.

It's a shame because the reward system has gotten a lot better over time, this focus on kills just keeps being a thorn in it's side that prevents it from being well-rounded and actually adequately rewarding the actions that lead to a win.

Edited by Greyboots, 10 March 2015 - 02:29 PM.

[Koniks]

Jman5, on 09 March 2015 - 12:58 PM, said:

The biggest problem with the economy is that there is too much emphasis on killing blows. Most people haven't broken down the numbers, but getting that last point of damage can have a huge impact on your money.

Let's Assume you busted your butt to kill a mech. However, in one situation you get the killing blow, but the other someone sneaks in and gets the last point of damage so you get an assist.

Kill
Killing blow: 4000
Kill Most Damage: 5,000
Solo Kill: 10,000
component destruction: 2300

Total: 21,300 cbills

Assist

Assist: 3,500
Kill Most Damage: 5,000

Total: 8,500 cbills

Saviour and Defensive Kills, too. But also all the bonuses from being grouped with your lance, near lighter or heavier mechs, brawling, flanking, and hit and run. Plus there's potentially 24,000 CBills just for being the first to hit R 12 times.

[KodiakGW]

It seems that they are quite happy with the way it is, and have no plans to change anything.

Something is wrong you earn the GXP to unlock weapon modules faster than you earn the CBills to pay for them.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Dahnyol, on 10 March 2015 - 01:26 PM, said:

Yea... lots of people defending their expenses on this game. Too much pride to see the problems for future game growth and development.

No, we've pretty much covered those things in other threads, this game needs a LOT of stuff added in order to actually have a future as a F2P game, content besides Conquest(deathmatch), Assault(deathmatch), Skirmish(deathmatch) and CW(deathmatch), a functional tutorial, PvE aspects, and so much more.

How many cbills you get for a drop is really up for debate, but most of us agree that it needs to be revised UPWARD in some fashion, how and how much are the questions. There ARE rewards people don't even know exist for team based actions, some of us know this and do well in cbill rewards because of that. I make more when I do LOTS of team based actions and get assists than if I just go for kills. I went 0 kills, 2 assists, 40 damage and we lost, I made 150,000 cbills for that, LOTS of spots, lots of lance formations, protected Light, UAV spots, UAV lock damage, and so on, TEAM oriented actions that mainly kept me from doing anything but playing as a Recon Mech, which in a Light is not a bad thing at all. People think Kills are the only way to really get a payday, it's not, but it IS still one of the top paying actions, THAT needs to changed, but how?

PvE content would go a long way to letting new players learn the game AND make some cbills to play around with, and it doesn't have to be strictly PvE, it can be contracts that get applied to your next PvP drop. Spot X targets in a single drop and get paid, get X Lance Formation bonuses and get paid, Hit and Run X times and get paid, Flank X times and get paid, contracts that carry out over multiple drops even, so you do them without having to get them all in a single drop, but give a bonus for doing them in a single drop. Contracts on specific Mech types, specific faction players, and so on, the possibilities are pretty immense there, and that gives people a reason to drop more and more times. Titles and rewards besides cbills for completing so many contracts, such as the Raven 3L Champion for doing 20 Spotting contracts, an Assault or Heavy Champion for so many Brawling contracts completed, I think you get the idea. This adds both a cbill boost to all players, and it gives people something to DO besides just drop again and again and again without any reason really. They can even tie in the Kill X of Faction Y so many times and get a Faction specific bonus to LP item for CW, and even make another contract where you go after people of a faction with X rank in that faction for CW, you don't KNOW what their rank is unless it's showing, so that's one of those 'go do CW for a while' type contracts, one that shouldn't be given to anyone who has less than XX number of drops under their belt however.

All simple things, all add variety to the game, and give new players something to do besides aim at the enemy and click the mouse button. Investment doesn't have to be monetary, you build it in the players via all the little things, they stick around, they are more likely to spend money the longer they stick around...it's good for the game and it's good for PGI, and that's good for all of us players.

[Jman5]

Mizeur, on 10 March 2015 - 02:30 PM, said:

Saviour and Defensive Kills, too. But also all the bonuses from being grouped with your lance, near lighter or heavier mechs, brawling, flanking, and hit and run. Plus there's potentially 24,000 CBills just for being the first to hit R 12 times.

None of those are any different if you got the killing blow or not. You get savior kills bonuses regardless of whether or not you got the actual killing blow. You can add all those values you mentioned, but because they would be identical in both hypothetical scenarios I laid out the difference between the two will always be 12,800 cbills. For example I left kill most damage in for clarity sake, but you get it regardless of killing blow or not so subtract 5,000 cbills from scenario 1 and scenario 2 and you're still let with 12,800 cbill difference all dependent on whether or not you got that last point of damage.

[One Medic Army]

FrDrake, on 10 March 2015 - 01:19 PM, said:

You only get salvage on a win though, these guys feel they are entitled to a 50/50 win rate just for showing up or the MM is broken, just like they are entitled to earning enough cbills to get a mech a day just for showing up as well.

Entitled or not, I have a full time job, don't have enough disposable income to just buy everything for cash straight up, and end up only playing games maybe 1-2 hours per day on average. (Some days a 4-5 hour session, some days nothing).

I would gladly pay a monthly subscription or whatever so my 1-2hrs/day of playtime could actually earn me enough CBills to do something with, as is I'm having trouble fitting the mechs out I already own, like he champions/heros I bought over the Christmas holidays on sale. The rewards are so pathetic, that even with a 30day block of premium running, it's discouraging to the point I'd rather go play something else.

Edited by One Medic Army, 10 March 2015 - 03:23 PM.

[Insidious Johnson]

We can't have nice things. Because Paul.

[Koniks]

Jman5, on 10 March 2015 - 02:42 PM, said:

None of those are any different if you got the killing blow or not.

Sure, you can lose out on 12,800 CBills with a split second of timing. But how often does that happen in a game on average?

The luck of getting Saviour and Defensive Skills and the ability to be in position for the other bonuses has a larger impact on earnings.

Edited by Mizeur, 10 March 2015 - 03:38 PM.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Jman5, on 09 March 2015 - 12:58 PM, said:

The biggest problem with the economy is that there is too much emphasis on killing blows. Most people haven't broken down the numbers, but getting that last point of damage can have a huge impact on your money.

Let's Assume you busted your butt to kill a mech. However, in one situation you get the killing blow, but the other someone sneaks in and gets the last point of damage so you get an assist.

Kill
Killing blow: 4000
Kill Most Damage: 5,000
Solo Kill: 10,000
component destruction: 2300

Total: 21,300 cbills

Assist

Assist: 3,500
Kill Most Damage: 5,000

Total: 8,500 cbills

The biggest problem with the economy is they figured out they can sell cbills for real money