106 replies to this topic

[MrWhite]

I agree, they are way way to low, if they used battletech tabletop figures more people would buy mech packs, just think of all the maps we'd get if PGI could sell ten times as many mech packs. Grab deal yo!

[KraftySOT]

Our prices and BTech prices are pretty similar. Mech cost wise. I dont think they put much thought into that one way or another. And just adjusted "pay out" by those prices. Probably a Jordan thing.

For instance in my campaign, a Wolverine I want is just shy of 6mil cbills, and its pre 3025 tech, but the best build.

I think native clan cost modifier is 1x which is what we have now generally. Though 3x is what I use. Making a Direwolf somewhere in the range of 50 mil cbills. Or about half the cost of a civilian drop ship.

[WazOfOz]

Do you really wish MWO was NOT free to play ? then cough up the real bucks you've done your grinding for at work. either way there's got be some grinding. would you rather PGI devs do all the grinding & then just give it to us for a coupla hundred space bucks ? I for 1 am happy its free to play.

[Madcap72]

Krysic, on 22 March 2015 - 07:00 PM, said:

Agreed OP. I'd give what little I have if I could actually buy anything with it. $20-$30 a pop is too high (I run a non-profit theatre company). As it stands the $100 I'm in for is about all this game will probably see from me if the pricing schedule doesn't change drastically. Even premium time is a waste because it runs while you're not playing.

That's not good value, that's a straight up "F*** you casual player. This game is only for the hardcore."

To those of you talking about what other F2P games cost you're missing the point. Particularly once the game hits steam it's going to be competing for the money of a LOT of people who have no idea what Mechwarrior is. Most other F2P games give you the majority of the games core functionality for free.

These guys need to calculate the amount of time players spend in the mechlab. I'll bet it's 3 times the amount they spend shooting stuff. You limit access to mechs and equipment and you're missing one of the biggest draws in the franchise.

I'd love to see PGI do a completely free, all mechs, all weapons, all skills weekend and track the number of players as well as sales of mechs, colors, patterns and other customization options. Seems counter intuitive but I bet the overall revenue for that weekend (and possibly the following week) would go UP.

There's a lot of irony in this post, and I'm finding it really hard to articulate it, but the observant posters will probably figure it out.

[Joseph Mallan]

Quxudica, on 22 March 2015 - 05:56 PM, said:

I just returned from a bit of an absense due to technical difficulties, was looking at some of the nifty new mechs available and thinking of diving into them but after awhile of playing it just feels draining. I enjoy playing, have since early closed beta, but it feels like the grind to something new is so large I'm not sure I have the desire to do it. I had the thought of picking up a KGC to try out a ballistic build, only need 4 mllion for that so thats not so bad.. but no thats not really true is it. It's not four million for that KGC, it's actually more like 23 million + upgrades and parts thanks to the levelings system. a single unmastered KGC is likely to feel slow, sluggish and unlikely to give me a good impression of whether it's even enjoyable since it's not actually performing up to snuff yet.

A King Crab is supposed to be slow and sluggish. It's 100 tons of metal and cannons! It is not meant to be blazing fast or even reasonably quick.

[Quxudica]

WazOfOz, on 22 March 2015 - 09:40 PM, said:

Do you really wish MWO was NOT free to play ?

Yes I do. The free to play model always hurts the game it is attatched to. The entire pacing of the game must bend to serve the F2P need to sell microtransactions. Excessive grind is added not because it makes the game better, but because it encourages people to spend real money. The customization feature is also made to serve this goal, designed foremost to be a money maker rather than an interesting mechanic that adds anything to the game.

For me, Ideally MWO would be a 30-60 dollar game (though honestly I don't think MWO has enough content to merit a 60$ price tag. I don't see MWO being worth more than 25 in it's current state. there's just way to little meat to it) where you pay once for the entire game, and subsequent expansions (real expansions, something almost unheard of in our DLC age) would come along every now and then for twenty or so.
Maybe you have a cbill treadmill (it's unneccisary, progression treadmills are not required to keep people playing any type of game, the only thing you need to keep people playing is a fun game) but even if you do have one it wouldn't need to be anywhere near as crazy as it is here.

Yes it's nice that you can just hop into a free to play game without any need to pony up, and theoretically never need to do so, but the game *always* suffers in some way as a result. It's always going to be a lower quality product simply due to the demands of the business model. Even a game like Path of Exile, which has only cosmetic items in it's microtransaction store,
is lesser for being F2P since their artists must reserve the higher quality item designes, costumes and spell effects for the store instead of actually including them in the game - PoE's aethstetic is deliberately uglier, it's items deliberately more bland and homogenized and it's animations deliberately lower quality so that it can sell. If the game were buy to play, there would be no need for that - the game would be better.

To me F2P is only ever used as a model for two reasons: Either because it's a cash generator first and a game second (most old school asian mmos were like this. today its mostly mobile titles such as Clash of Clans or Candy Crush fit this description) or because the developers feel the game cannot be financially successful for some reason using the standard pricing model. Usually because it's niche in some way with a small audience, or the studio is to small to afford large scale marketing.

MWO is the second, it would have been a financial flop as a standard one time pay copy - the audience is simply to small. So it's great that it's F2P since that allows the game to exist, but MWO is still a lower quality game directly because of this model.

Joseph Mallan, on 23 March 2015 - 01:08 AM, said:

A King Crab is supposed to be slow and sluggish. It's 100 tons of metal and cannons! It is not meant to be blazing fast or even reasonably quick.

You know what I meant, any mech that isn't Elite feels like a shadow of what it's supposed to. Speed tweak alone makes a huge difference in the feel of a mech. It's enough of a difference that it's required for anyone that isn't playing casually.

Quote

There's a lot of irony in this post, and I'm finding it really hard to articulate it, but the observant posters will probably figure it out.

Not sure what you are getting at, his points are valid. Though only thing I'd contend is it's not a clear distinction between casual and hardcore. You aren't a hardcore player because you invest a lot of time in something. You can play MWO once a week but still be "Hardcore" as all that means is you have the interest and drive to learn the more than just the fundamentals about the game.

Edited by Quxudica, 23 March 2015 - 01:20 AM.

[Rando Slim]

I agree with the OP, I think the devs need to understand the concept in Economics called ELASTICITY. These are not cigarettes, the demand for video game assets is highly elastic I would imagine, meaning demand should fluctuate pretty significantly in relation to the price. Conversely something like cigarettes, or some other "necessity", really has about the same level of demand regardless of the price you charge for it up to a point. This crap of mechs costing as much money as entire games is just bullshit and theres really no viable argument to defend it IMO. Colors are stupidly overpriced as well, and the OPs point bout how much of a waste premium time is due to the fact it always runs means by default you waste at least half and probably two thirds of it, is an absolutely correct observation. PGI needs to entertain the idea that hey maybe if you make prices say 25 percent cheaper, maybe they will get a more than proportional increase in sales volume, meaning more profits overall.

The grind itself IS daunting and annoying. Even if we don't argue about c-bill costs for mechs, what about this idiotic module system? Holy bejeebus gobshit batman! 6 mil for a ******* seismic sensor, more than a whole ******* Shadowhawk? GTFO. Oh but that's right, you also have to burn this arbitrary stupid thing galled gxp to even unlock the PRIVILEGE of being able to then fork out such ridiculous prices for something that may not even be useful a few months from now. Even if you have the money for a module you have to grind for 15,000 gxp to even window shop for it. Its just this dumb double-grind wall and theres seriously no legitimate defense for it.

Edited by Rando Slim, 23 March 2015 - 01:34 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

65(ish) Ton Abrams tank Price tag 6.2- 8.6 Million Dollars

65 ton Thunderbolt Mech 5.2-5.9 Million C-bills

Abrams has an ICE engine not a Fusion reactor

Abrams has 1 Main Gun and a Machine gun for weapons

A Thunderbolt carries 2 Main weapons, 3 support weapons and 2 anti infantry support weapons.



PER vehicle we kinda get a deal, having to buy 3 to be a master of 1... That is a stupid game mechanic.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 23 March 2015 - 01:56 AM.

[Insects]

The recent bonus cbills for 30 match score was pretty popular and successful I think, unlike earlier "kill + win" challenges.
I was also getting a lot of $100k+ lucky charms prizes.

So hopefully we will be seeing more of that sort of thing to inject bonus cbills.

They can't make it too easy because they do need to make people do the time vs cost calculation and buy their mechs in packs or MC.

[Rogue Jedi]

joelmuzz, on 23 March 2015 - 02:09 AM, said:

The recent bonus cbills for 30 match score was pretty popular and successful I think, unlike earlier "kill + win" challenges.
I was also getting a lot of $100k+ lucky charms prizes.

So hopefully we will be seeing more of that sort of thing to inject bonus cbills.

They can't make it too easy because they do need to make people do the time vs cost calculation and buy their mechs in packs or MC.

that event was great, I used my Ember which had largely been neglected in favor of the A since quirks, the FS9-E was getting me way higher average match scores than usual, consequently I was averaging 200,000 cbills per match instead of the usual 120,000 AND earning the +150,000 hero bonus cbills most matches, I earned enough with just the light matches to outfit most of my Grasshopper and Zeus resistance Mechs

[Fragnot]

Quxudica, on 22 March 2015 - 05:56 PM, said:

Relatedly, the leveling mechaninc (which I've always only barely tolerated) is really becoming more and more distasteful for me. I love the Timberwolf, not because of it's supposed bandwagon OPness but because I like many others simply have nostalgic feelings for that design, yet by the time I was starting my third TBW I was almost sick of running it. It'd be one thing of the skill unlocks were marginal, but you pretty much have to elite any mech before you know what it actually runs like.

A pay solution may not be what you are looking for, but the MC conversion price of Mech XP to GXP isn't so bad, and especially good when it goes on sale 50%. I've done it a lot where I by 3 chassis, instantly basic the two I don't want and Speed tweak the one I wanna keep; then start playing it. Costs about 48k GXP and it feels great.

[Cyborne Elemental]

Mech prices are actually pretty reasonable IMO.

What is absurd.. is having to buy 3 of them just to skill up the one you want to get it to its peak potential.

I can understand why they did it that way, but that is the source of the grind.

And it wasn't too bad before Rewards 2.0, back when you were making enough to afford buying a new variant or mech every couple days.

[Jetfire]

The mech prices are fine... it is the CBill earning rate that is tedious. If they start repeating these nice events like Pot of Gold it would be a huge help. 12MM bonus CBills in a weekend is pretty solid.

[Water Bear]

Quxudica, on 23 March 2015 - 01:09 AM, said:

Yes I do. The free to play model always hurts the game it is attatched to. The entire pacing of the game must bend to serve the F2P need to sell microtransactions. Excessive grind is added not because it makes the game better, but because it encourages people to spend real money. The customization feature is also made to serve this goal, designed foremost to be a money maker rather than an interesting mechanic that adds anything to the game.

For me, Ideally MWO would be a 30-60 dollar game (though honestly I don't think MWO has enough content to merit a 60$ price tag. I don't see MWO being worth more than 25 in it's current state. there's just way to little meat to it) where you pay once for the entire game, and subsequent expansions (real expansions, something almost unheard of in our DLC age) would come along every now and then for twenty or so.

First paragraph QFT. As for the second paragraph: This game was marketed to long term fans who were willing to pay for a bare-bones game. Essentially it was marketed to people willing to pay for the game's development before it even came out. I believe the paradigm was called "minimum viable product." Simply put, you are not only correct that this game has too little content to put on the open market, but it was designed that way.

[anonymous161]

MrWhite, on 22 March 2015 - 08:59 PM, said:

I agree, they are way way to low, if they used battletech tabletop figures more people would buy mech packs, just think of all the maps we'd get if PGI could sell ten times as many mech packs. Grab deal yo!

Hahaha so you want everyone to be a whale!?? I dont know about your life standards but I got a mortgage to pay, a baby to feed, I got life to feed with money that keeps me happy, this game doesn't bring me happiness in life it's just a distraction that often makes me wonder why I'm playing it when I could be playing the older games, but alas I kinda like socializing with people.

Thats a pretty dumb comment dude. Telling people the mechs are too cheap...lol at least with a movie if it's a good one you feel good after watching it, playing this you are basically just a zombie doing the same motion over and over. Movie brings out interesting emotions distracts you much better than a game like this will.

[Scyther]

I think most of the mech prices are decent if they were in fact the full price.

Take the mech price, add in 1.5mill for DHS, @1mill for Endo and/or FF, more for weapon upgrades, then toss on 10 mill or more for modules, and yeah, now it is getting into the ridiculous zone.

If you played 2 hours a day, with premium on all the time, and did moderately well (say 150K C-bills per match average)... that is still roughly 100 matches at 10-ish minutes each or 15-16 hours of play time to purchase and outfit 1 mech. And you need 3 just to elite it... sorry but in general the game just doesn't offer enough to justify that. I mean it's a good game alright but it's not 'grind for 3 weeks to a month to buy your next chassisX3, then grind for a month to master those' kinda good.

(Yes you can save some by buying 1 set of gear, and swapping between mechs but that just makes the grind longer and even *more* annoying.)

[KraftySOT]

Joseph Mallan, on 23 March 2015 - 01:56 AM, said:

65(ish) Ton Abrams tank Price tag 6.2- 8.6 Million Dollars

65 ton Thunderbolt Mech 5.2-5.9 Million C-bills

Abrams has an ICE engine not a Fusion reactor

Abrams has 1 Main Gun and a Machine gun for weapons

A Thunderbolt carries 2 Main weapons, 3 support weapons and 2 anti infantry support weapons.



PER vehicle we kinda get a deal, having to buy 3 to be a master of 1... That is a stupid game mechanic.

Modern M1s carry missiles too. Pretty much all tanks do these days.

[Deathswarrior]

Quxudica, on 23 March 2015 - 01:09 AM, said:

Yes I do. The free to play model always hurts the game it is attatched to. The entire pacing of the game must bend to serve the F2P need to sell microtransactions. Excessive grind is added not because it makes the game better, but because it encourages people to spend real money. The customization feature is also made to serve this goal, designed foremost to be a money maker rather than an interesting mechanic that adds anything to the game.

For me, Ideally MWO would be a 30-60 dollar game (though honestly I don't think MWO has enough content to merit a 60$ price tag. I don't see MWO being worth more than 25 in it's current state. there's just way to little meat to it) where you pay once for the entire game, and subsequent expansions (real expansions, something almost unheard of in our DLC age) would come along every now and then for twenty or so.
Maybe you have a cbill treadmill (it's unneccisary, progression treadmills are not required to keep people playing any type of game, the only thing you need to keep people playing is a fun game) but even if you do have one it wouldn't need to be anywhere near as crazy as it is here.

Yes it's nice that you can just hop into a free to play game without any need to pony up, and theoretically never need to do so, but the game *always* suffers in some way as a result. It's always going to be a lower quality product simply due to the demands of the business model. Even a game like Path of Exile, which has only cosmetic items in it's microtransaction store,
is lesser for being F2P since their artists must reserve the higher quality item designes, costumes and spell effects for the store instead of actually including them in the game - PoE's aethstetic is deliberately uglier, it's items deliberately more bland and homogenized and it's animations deliberately lower quality so that it can sell. If the game were buy to play, there would be no need for that - the game would be better.

To me F2P is only ever used as a model for two reasons: Either because it's a cash generator first and a game second (most old school asian mmos were like this. today its mostly mobile titles such as Clash of Clans or Candy Crush fit this description) or because the developers feel the game cannot be financially successful for some reason using the standard pricing model. Usually because it's niche in some way with a small audience, or the studio is to small to afford large scale marketing.

MWO is the second, it would have been a financial flop as a standard one time pay copy - the audience is simply to small. So it's great that it's F2P since that allows the game to exist, but MWO is still a lower quality game directly because of this model.




You know what I meant, any mech that isn't Elite feels like a shadow of what it's supposed to. Speed tweak alone makes a huge difference in the feel of a mech. It's enough of a difference that it's required for anyone that isn't playing casually.


Not sure what you are getting at, his points are valid. Though only thing I'd contend is it's not a clear distinction between casual and hardcore. You aren't a hardcore player because you invest a lot of time in something. You can play MWO once a week but still be "Hardcore" as all that means is you have the interest and drive to learn the more than just the fundamentals about the game.

I would just like to point out that Heroes of Newerth (HoN) thought like this and wanted you to pay a subsciption fee.
HoN was more popular then League of Legends (LoL) becasue it wasn't F2P and the people I talked to wouldn't play F2P crap.
I don't know the exact time frame but HoN had to "HAD TO" go F2P just to compete, but by that time it didn't matter LoL had already won. LoL looks better,plays better,is alot easier,and no P2W in a F2P game that went up against Sub Fee game.

[Axeface]

StaggerCheck, on 22 March 2015 - 06:51 PM, said:

What is your time worth to you? If you go to the movies for an afternoon you'll end up spending what... $25.00 between the ticket and snacks for two hours of entertainment.

You can buy yourself four new Clan Mechs, four Mech bays, some new paints, camo patterns and some cockpit items for $30.00 right now. They'll give you hours upon hours of entertainment by way of comparison.

I don't mind tossing a few bucks PGI's way to support their efforts.

So you'de happily pay like 400 dollars for normal games then?
That way of thinking can not apply in f2p. You spend 50 dollars on a full retail game and get like 30-to-infinite hours of gameplay for that price. In MWO you already have that gameplay if you wish, the price of extras to make it more convienient (or just be better) arn't comparable.
The fact of the matter for ME is that the prices in this game are absolutely insane, it isn't about 'tossing pgi a few bucks', it's about tossing pgi a LOT of bucks - which I'de wager most people who make that important first purchase probably end up doing.

As for Cbill prices. I have always said that cbill earnings are too low (and CW is even worse). I play this game a lot, like... way too much. I have the luxury of time, I can't fathom how people that don't earn mechs.

Strangely, I know for a fact that if I earnt cbills faster I would spend more money, because I cant buy mechs without mech bays.

Edited by Axeface, 23 March 2015 - 09:06 AM.

[Jetfire]

Water Bear, on 23 March 2015 - 05:09 AM, said:

First paragraph QFT. As for the second paragraph: This game was marketed to long term fans who were willing to pay for a bare-bones game. Essentially it was marketed to people willing to pay for the game's development before it even came out. I believe the paradigm was called "minimum viable product." Simply put, you are not only correct that this game has too little content to put on the open market, but it was designed that way.

The MVP statement makes much more sense to me having read about Scrum. Not great messaging to those not familiar with its concepts.