61 replies to this topic

[grendeldog]

Hey there. So I'm not going to harp on about the Timber Wolf nerfs - there are plenty of other threads for that purpose. Instead, I would like to discuss the Timber Wolf A - specifically the left torso omnipod with 3 E hardpoints - and my concerns about how PGI has approached the sale and then nerfing of this variant.

Basically the Timber A was released into the gift shop, and it provided something that none of the other variants have: super-high energy mounts that are above the cockpit, allowing laser-puke builds to hill-hump instead of knuckle-dragging with low-slung clanner E arm hardpoints. The A variant left torso omnipod immediately became an integral and nearly mandatory part of the top-tier las-vom and gauss+puke meta builds. The movement nerf quirks were completely insignificant in my experience; the advantage of those energy mounts above the cockpit far outweighed any reduction in movement and maneuverability.

Now that the Timber A has been out for a while, quite a few people have spent money to purchase it from the gift shop since it's not available for C-bills or even MC yet. So PGI has made some bank - I don't know how much they have made from this variant, but I imagine it isn't an insignificant chunk of change. And yet now the A left torso has received some really serious nerfs on top of its existing de-buffs - and these new negative quirks are much more significant than the negative movement quirks it used to have because they affect the weaponry on top of the movement and maneuverability.

So the way I see it, PGI put out a variant that had a unique advantage over its brethren, selling it for a fairly expensive price for a digital object. For comp players and other folks who play toip-tier min/maxed meta builds, it was an essential purchase. And yet now it has been rendered much less effective.

I am not going to get into the validity or lack thereof regarding the new Timber nerfs. I think hitbox modification was the way to go, or perhaps negative quirks if that was not possible - but with the nerfs being a bit smaller. That's only my opinion, so you are welcome to disagree - but that is not what I want to talk about.

What I wish to focus on is the possibility that this was an intentional and petty cash grab. I expect that I'm not the only one that is seriously disturbed by PGI selling something that is a 'must-have' for a certain group of players - comp and other high-Elo people - only to render it ineffective and fairly useless once they have made their money off of it. This seems like a bait and switch / petty cash grab.

If I give them the benefit of the doubt I would say that there was simply a lack of coordination within the development team - somebody designed the A variant and another person did the nerfs, with no communication between the two. So that would be a case of foolishness and a lack of coordination and communication within the team. On the other hand there is the much worse possibility that this was purposely designed as a cash grab to make money off of players in an unfair fashion. By this I mean that they release something that is required for a certain type of play, only to render it mostly useless once they have made enough money and the frequency of purchases begins to level off and drop. And not only that, by doing so they ensure that people who want to play clans may need to purchase the new Wave 3 pack to continue to be as competitive as before, adding a second money grab on top of the original trickery / potential thievery.

So which is it? Am I the only person that is concerned by this? Am I missing something here? Or is this a valid criticism of a seriously troubling development in the history of the game? I find that it sets quite a dangerous precedent - it indicates that PGI may be willing to purposely trick their players into spending money.

Anybody have thoughts as to whether it is stupidity or malice? Or anything else to add?

I do politely ask that we stay away from the topic of whether or not these nerfs are either a good thing or armageddon itself, as well as request that we stay away from the topic of whether these nerfs are actually that serious of a thing or not. I would ask that we keep the discussion to the topic of whether or not this was a purposeful and deceptive cash grab, and if so what the implications of such a situation may be. The servers haven't gone back up yet so nobody has played with the new quirks, and thus we can't say for sure how serious the subjective feeling of the nerf is during actual play. It may well be the case that this is all much ado about very little - or it may be that the Timber is rendered ineffective. That isn't the point though; the point I am making is related to the principle of the matter - or lack of principles to be honest: it is wrong to purposely get people to spend money on something (A variant) only to render it ineffective to try and get them to make a second purchase (Wave 3).

[bad arcade kitty]

yeah, they nerfed it before it's for c-bills when they decided they had enough of cash

[Artifact]

I can only speak for myself. I planned to cancel my Wave 3 purchase if this patch went live; it did, and I cancelled my wave 3. The email I sent along with the refund request was scathing and made many of the same points you made here.

Look, PGI is a company, and it exists to make money. I'm fine with that. But as a consumer, I get a say when someone /blatantly/ creates a pay to win be competitive with IS model, then revokes the win be competitive part of the equation after they've gotten enough cash. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

PGI has killed the golden goose on this one. Congrats, guys. You finally managed to burn out any benefit of the doubt I might have once been willing to extend to you.

Edited by Artifact, 19 May 2015 - 11:21 AM.

[Apnu]

[grendeldog]

bad arcade kitty, on 19 May 2015 - 11:14 AM, said:

yeah, they nerfed it before it's for c-bills when they decided they had enough of cash

Exactly, this is what I fear. See, I would love to buy that new ECM 'Phract - but I can't justify that purchase if there's a chance that it will be turned into a piece of trash once they have made their pieces of silver.

I really want to add that I am not an inveterate critic of PGI. Hell, I was called out as a shill during Tukayyid for suggesting people wait until day two or three to declare it a failure or success instead of calling it a failure literally ten minutes into the event. Generally speaking I am cool with PGI; I wasn't here during the bad old days with IGP.

I have been really impressed with their work lately - redoing the public queue maps, finally fixing the O-gen on the Taiga, etc. - but the drop deck tonnage reduction for the IS is one thing I disagree with. I also disagree with the severity of the nerfs on the SCR and TBR. They needed hitbox work instead of a bunch of nerfs, and they are so dominant in CW precisely because the other clan mechs are underwhelming due to locked engines and locked ferro / endo / lack thereof. Furthermore, the laser vomit meta is dominant for the clans because their other weapons aren't that great - the regular ACs are inferior to the ultra ACs in every way, they lack PPFLD with ballistics, etc. So I think that PGI should have gone with hitbox fixes, HSR fixes, and should have redesigned and then rebalanced the various clan weapons instead of nerfing the two most viable chassis.

I acknowledge that the Timber and SCR were more powerful than some IS mechs - but they are WAY better than the other clan mechs. So they should have rebalanced weapons and then rebalanced the Timber and Crow against the other clan mechs.

But that is all balance stuff, not seriously dangerous cash-grab thievery, trickery, and deceptive advertising practices. Balance has an element of subjectivity; shameless, blatant cash grabs are not - they are objectively scummy and make me less interested in playing and much less interested in the new mech packs and gift store variants.

[grendeldog]

Apnu, on 19 May 2015 - 11:21 AM, said:

Holy cow bro, your argument is so well thought out that it exploded my skull and convinced me that PGI is a paragon of virtuous charity. Seriously, you just totally changed my mind about what tyo eat for dinner, the honesty of PGI, the potential for shady developer behavior regarding MWO, the existence of the One True Abrahamic God, the creation and wonder of the universe, and the existential plight that stems from each human's eventual certain death.

You have shown me the errors of my ways and demolished my well-reasoned argument so hard that I will now go kill myself via drowning in filthy, rotten human excrement prior to self-immolating using JP-8 rocket fuel.

My mind just got blown harder than a john in a truck stop bathroom. For reals, brohhh!

Edited by grendeldog, 19 May 2015 - 11:38 AM.

[cSand]

what do any of the negative quirks matter for a player who is gonna hide behind a hill and play peekabo anyways?


While I didn't find the TBR to be OP (I don't own one either) I do find it wierdly satisfying that PGI is nerfing the coward's playstyle

in fact, that is pretty awesome

Edited by cSand, 19 May 2015 - 11:34 AM.

[Apnu]

grendeldog, on 19 May 2015 - 11:30 AM, said:

Holy cow bro, your argument is so well thought out that it exploded my skull and convinced me that PGI is a paragon of virtuous charity. Seriously, you just totally changed my mind about what tyo eat for dinner, the honesty of PGI, the potential for shady developer behavior regarding MWO, the existence of the One True Abrahamic God, the creation and wonder of the universe, and the existential plight that stems from each human's eventual certain death.

My mind just got blown like a john with a 'lady of the night' in a truck stop bathroom. For reals, brohhh!

[Artifact]

I love guys like Apnu. In their minds, they think that their snark is epic, Jon Stewart-level trolling, and that they are /serious/ satirists and clearly more intelligent than everyone with whom they disagree.

Of course, they are really nothing more than trolls who copy other people's creative work and paste them into posts, in lieu of making a cogent argument. Which is what makes them so cute, cuddly, and adorable. Kind of like a brain-damaged dog that is too stupid to realize that the dog it is barking at in the mirror is actually itself.

Edited by Artifact, 19 May 2015 - 11:39 AM.

[AlphaToaster]

I believe the TOS is misleading to suggest that the content 'may' change when it should state that it 'will' change.

The method of offering something for cash, then nerfing it afterwards is standard procedure now. The excuse that they can't nerf them until they see them in action is a cop-out admitting they lack internal testing.

If I had known about the future of the Heavy Metal and the Dragon Slayer, I would not have bought them. I didn't think PGI was capable of completely ruining a hero mech. I can't remember the last time I saw either of these mechs in CW, and in fact, I don't think I ever have.

[Aresye]

The only reason I bought the TBR-A was to have at least SOME type of ability to face the hulled-down STK-4N firing lines that DIDN'T require exposing nearly my entire mech.

Seeing as how that purpose is completely nullified now, I've asked for a refund on my TBR-A.

Not expecting to get it, but there is literally no purpose in having that variant anymore. The cons far outweigh the pros.

[Christof Romulus]

Quote

REPLYING TO TIMBER WOLF A - STUPIDITY OR MALICE?

Impressive!

I enjoy the title of this thread very much.

http://en.wikipedia....anlon%27s_razor

[LordKnightFandragon]

Apnu, on 19 May 2015 - 11:21 AM, said:

Unamused kitty looks very unamused.

[Ursh]

Not stupidity or malice, just cold calculation.

Tukayyid showed them that IS whales will sit in long queues no matter what, and will show up to CW in lots of different horrible builds in mechs they paid real money for.

Clan whales are much smaller in number, therefore making bad IS player happy by hitting the Twolf and Scrow with the nerf sledgehammer was a calculated risk. It will make IS whales, whose own meta mechs were barely touched, feel like PGI is doing a good job, and the play stats show PGI that clan whales play lots of different clan mechs, and most don't even play CW, while they apparently didn't sell enough of the blatant new cashgrab variants to show them that it would impact them much to make a statement to their IS whales that PGI took balancing (nerfing) seriously.

Cashgrab variants= Twolfs with high mounted energy, Scrows with epic amounts of energy hardpoints, Dire Wolfs with jump jets. Notice how Summoners got nothing. A new variant with zero new hardpoints, and the same treatment for most of the clan mechs. It's because clan mechs aren't making them enough money right now, so they stopped caring.

[grendeldog]

Apnu, on 19 May 2015 - 11:33 AM, said:

Hai guize! Eye cammot furm ay cogent arg-yoo-ment so I trowl instud!

Artifact, on 19 May 2015 - 11:38 AM, said:

I love guys like Apnu. In their minds, they think that their snark is epic, Jon Stewart-level trolling, and that they are /serious/ satirists and clearly more intelligent than everyone with whom they disagree.

Of course, they are really nothing more than trolls who copy other people's creative work and paste them into posts, in lieu of making a cogent argument. Which is what makes them so cute, cuddly, and adorable. Kind of like a brain-damaged dog that is too stupid to realize that the dog it is barking at in the mirror is actually itself.

Yeah I know what you mean. I can't actually get angry at such lame responses to my original post, so I make fun and laugh instead!

Aresye Kerensky, on 19 May 2015 - 12:01 PM, said:

The only reason I bought the TBR-A was to have at least SOME type of ability to face the hulled-down STK-4N firing lines that DIDN'T require exposing nearly my entire mech.

Seeing as how that purpose is completely nullified now, I've asked for a refund on my TBR-A.

Not expecting to get it, but there is literally no purpose in having that variant anymore. The cons far outweigh the pros.

I just played a match in Mordor where I ran my Timber with an A omnipod and some others: 2 LPL, 3 ERML, 1 MPL. It wasn't actually as bad as I expected; we lost but it had nothing to do with my heat management and everyhing to do with the team not acting in a coordinated fashion. I only shut down once, and so I am actually pleasantly surprised that it's not as bad as I feared.

I also ran my prime with 2 LPL and 4 ERML - standard laser vomit - and it felt like a Timber that hadn't gotten double basics yet. But I didn't feel like it was a totally catastrophic thing.

However, that aside, our points about the A variant cash grab still stand firm.

Christof Romulus, on 19 May 2015 - 12:13 PM, said:

[/b]

Impressive!

I enjoy the title of this thread very much.

http://en.wikipedia....anlon%27s_razor

Yup, exactly that. And the corollary that sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice - I don't agree with that 100% - more like 75 or 80%. But yeah, glad somebody caught the reference.

Ursh, on 19 May 2015 - 12:23 PM, said:

Not stupidity or malice, just cold calculation.

Tukayyid showed them that IS whales will sit in long queues no matter what, and will show up to CW in lots of different horrible builds in mechs they paid real money for.

Clan whales are much smaller in number, therefore making bad IS player happy by hitting the Twolf and Scrow with the nerf sledgehammer was a calculated risk. It will make IS whales, whose own meta mechs were barely touched, feel like PGI is doing a good job, and the play stats show PGI that clan whales play lots of different clan mechs, and most don't even play CW, while they apparently didn't sell enough of the blatant new cashgrab variants to show them that it would impact them much to make a statement to their IS whales that PGI took balancing (nerfing) seriously.

Cashgrab variants= Twolfs with high mounted energy, Scrows with epic amounts of energy hardpoints, Dire Wolfs with jump jets. Notice how Summoners got nothing. A new variant with zero new hardpoints, and the same treatment for most of the clan mechs. It's because clan mechs aren't making them enough money right now, so they stopped caring.

Yeah. My thing is that when the top units like MS were clanners, clanners won Tukayyid. When they went IS, the IS pushed the clans back to their capitols.

To me that means that player skill was the deciding factor. It also showed that player population on a given side was another main factor; high IS pilot numbers allowed them to ghost drop the clans to death post Tukayyid.

Therefor I would say that the IS and clans were balanced well with the extra ten tons for IS dropdecks, and so I loudly disagree with the reduction back to 240. Dropdeck weight has nothing to do with player skill or player population, so using dropdeck weight modifications to 'balance' something that was actually balanced just fine as it was made me angry.

And then now we have these TBR and SCR nerfs. It indicates to my eyes at least that PGI wants people to have to buy the Wave 3 pack because the two most viable clan mechs are now less viable. Instead of shittin on the TBR and SCR so hard they should have instead brought the underperforming mechs up to better spec - Ferret, Summoner, Nova, Warhawk, and all clan lights. The TBR and SCR would then have received some minor nerfs - emphasis on minor - and they would have their hitboxes redesigned. Then they could have worked on bringing the IS up to a more perfect balance. Finally, they would have adjusted clan ballistics other than the gauss - as well as the ERPPC - so as to make different builds viable not only on the Timber and Crow but also on all the clan mechs across the board.

That's only the proper course if you want to balance things though. If you want to try and grab cash by bullying the already shrunken clan pilot population into getting Wave 3, and if you want to eliminate the purpose of the TBR A now that they have made their money, well... you do what PGI did end up in fact doing.

It's a shame.

[Innocent]

The only thing of any relevence is the players perception of the changes. You can spout statistics all you want but there are too many variables for those to mean anything. It is what the paying customer percieves that matters.

My perception is that they do not intend to ever have balanced clan mechs. That would require revisiting old decisions which is something they have shown great reluctance to ever do (someone please give me an example of reversing some old mechanic). They talk about incremental changes and the result is small incremental nerfs for IS and small incremental buffs to clans but the flip side is large buffs to IS and large nerfs to clans. New IS mechs get armor quirks while clans only get structure quirks (one example). How is that equal?

As a result i will choose not to give them any more money. To change this they will need to make significant changes to what has already been implemented (not holding my breath).

[Pjwned]

grendeldog, on 19 May 2015 - 11:12 AM, said:

So the way I see it, PGI put out a variant that had a unique advantage over its brethren, selling it for a fairly expensive price for a digital object. For comp players and other folks who play toip-tier min/maxed meta builds, it was an essential purchase. And yet now it has been rendered much less effective.

How is this saying anything other than "I wanted this pay2win component and now that it's balanced I'm annoyed because I wanted to pay2win."

[Nathan Foxbane]

So, by the OP's logic, PGI realized it was selling something which, for once, might actually be classified as pay to win, and nerfed it. They are not being applauded why?

[Apnu]

Artifact, on 19 May 2015 - 11:38 AM, said:

I love guys like Apnu. In their minds, they think that their snark is epic, Jon Stewart-level trolling, and that they are /serious/ satirists and clearly more intelligent than everyone with whom they disagree.

Of course, they are really nothing more than trolls who copy other people's creative work and paste them into posts, in lieu of making a cogent argument. Which is what makes them so cute, cuddly, and adorable. Kind of like a brain-damaged dog that is too stupid to realize that the dog it is barking at in the mirror is actually itself.

Nope. I don't take myself seriously at all. I posted those to say I think all this stuff is tin-foil hat country.

I just think all you guys twisting over this stuff are blowing it way out or proportion and making up stuff in the absence of data.

All of your walls of text are absent of any data, proofs or truths. You all get in a circle and speculate wildly, when the truth is usually far more simpler than you can ever imagine.

Simply put with MWO: PGI's bitten off more than it can chew and its struggling with the immense size of the game compared to their available bandwidth all while suffering all the drama that goes on around here.

Malice. Yeah right. Anybody who thinks PGI is malicious is not living in reality.

Stupidity. This statement is stupid on its face. If they were truly stupid, this game would never have gotten out of CB. One cannot be a software engineer and stupid. Anybody who's taken any 101 level Computer Science course will know this.

Its posts like this that make me wonder how people get through life thinking F2P video games come from malice and/or stupidity.

[Mawai]

Artifact, on 19 May 2015 - 11:18 AM, said:

I can only speak for myself. I planned to cancel my Wave 3 purchase if this patch went live; it did, and I cancelled my wave 3. The email I sent along with the refund request was scathing and made many of the same points you made here.

Look, PGI is a company, and it exists to make money. I'm fine with that. But as a consumer, I get a say when someone /blatantly/ creates a pay to win be competitive with IS model, then revokes the win be competitive part of the equation after they've gotten enough cash. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

PGI has killed the golden goose on this one. Congrats, guys. You finally managed to burn out any benefit of the doubt I might have once been willing to extend to you.

Just curious though ... if PGI stupidly releases a particularly overpowered, only available for cash item that clearly offers significant advantages and could be classified as pay to win (at least temporarily since it isn't available for cbills) that they are then NOT supposed to fix their mistake?

If you have decided that the Timberwolf-A omni pod was not worth the money spent then send an email to support and ask that you be refunded the omni pod purchase and have the digital content removed from your account ... since they have made a significant change to the product you purchased.

If you think it is worth keeping despite the nerfs (which were required because it is much too useful in its current format) then stop complaining since you would have bought it anyway.

So ...
1) Get a refund and give up the omni-pod
2) Keep it and stop complaining

PGI made a mistake releasing such a useful and OP omnipod ... they fix it ... what else did you expect them to do?