92 replies to this topic

[Moomtazz]

3 kills 4 assists 540 damage. Treb Hero with Premium Time. Lost the match and earned 140k Cbills and 480 XP.

Without the C-bill bonus I would have made 70k.

480 XP just seems way too low.

Imagine a new player who is working on Basics and Elites for his new mechs. New player probably has <1 Win/Loss. It takes 64k XP to take 3 mechs to Basic and 1 of those three to Elite.

The only thing that allows me to keep playing this game is that I have the cash to convert XP, buy packs, and not have to grind every mech. I do grind Mastery or often the Elites other than Speed Tweak, but otherwise I am paying for it.

I don't see how a new player or someone who does not have the cash to spend on the game would feel that it was worth the time.

[GeistHrafn]

Moomtazz, on 21 June 2015 - 09:09 AM, said:

I don't see how a new player or someone who does not have the cash to spend on the game would feel that it was worth the time.

It's a F2P game, there's always gonna be a grind.
Also, the cadet bonuses more than make up for the initial losses, if any. After that, yes, it gets slower. But I mastered my first purchased mechs without ever spending any money, and while working a full time job and being a father. It was worth the time for me. *shrug*

[Moomtazz]

Rhazien, on 21 June 2015 - 09:17 AM, said:

It's a F2P game, there's always gonna be a grind.
Also, the cadet bonuses more than make up for the initial losses, if any. After that, yes, it gets slower. But I mastered my first purchased mechs without ever spending any money, and while working a full time job and being a father. It was worth the time for me. *shrug*

So do you think the rates are fine?

[Burktross]

Rhazien, on 21 June 2015 - 09:17 AM, said:

It's a F2P game, there's always gonna be a grind.
Also, the cadet bonuses more than make up for the initial losses, if any. After that, yes, it gets slower. But I mastered my first purchased mechs without ever spending any money, and while working a full time job and being a father. It was worth the time for me. *shrug*

The problem is, even when you do pay the grind still hurts!

[ScarecrowES]

Even if you're winning a good chunk of the time the grinding is painfully slow. But that's how PGI can make some money... typical for a F2P game, so it's to be expected.

What sucks is that rewards are not tied to performance. The game doesn't care how well you played... only if you won. And then, if you won, how much damage or how many kills you got. As far as rewards go, the game doesn't care whether or not you played the objectives, or if you performed heroicly on an otherwise bad team.

Makes no sense to run 500+ damage and 2+ kills per match, somewhere around 80 match score, lose, and end up getting less reward than the guy on the enemy team who died first after doing only 50 damage.

Edited by ScarecrowES, 21 June 2015 - 09:42 AM.

[C E Dwyer]

Said it time and time again, there are far worse grinds in other games.

I've 1/1 mastered nearly every mech in the game over 200 + I used premium, I don't notice it, most of the time, when I do its usually frustration at my poor performance, which usually goes once the speed tweak is mastered, by the time its fully elited, the last 21k flys by.

[Mystere]

If you are playing to have fun instead of playing to farm resources, thing look quite a bit differently. So don't be a farmer.

[ScarecrowES]

Mystere, on 21 June 2015 - 09:49 AM, said:

If you are playing to have fun instead of playing to farm resources, thing look quite a bit differently. So don't be a farmer.

I'd argue here that once mechs are mastered, they're vastly more fun to play, and vastly more competitive in the game. Generally speaking, you have to sow before you reap.

[Mystere]

ScarecrowES, on 21 June 2015 - 09:59 AM, said:

I'd argue here that once mechs are mastered, they're vastly more fun to play, and vastly more competitive in the game.

You're not going to get any disagreement from me on this point.

ScarecrowES, on 21 June 2015 - 09:59 AM, said:

Generally speaking, you have to sow before you reap.

Well, I don't know about you, but my mastering mechs comes as natural a consequence of actually playing them.

[EgoSlayer]

ScarecrowES, on 21 June 2015 - 09:41 AM, said:

<snip>

What sucks is that rewards are not tied to performance. The game doesn't care how well you played... only if you won. And then, if you won, how much damage or how many kills you got. As far as rewards go, the game doesn't care whether or not you played the objectives, or if you performed heroicly on an otherwise bad team.

<snip>

Rewards are tied to performance. The only difference in XP and C-Bill payout of a win vs a loss is the value of the "Win" item vs the "Loss" item. In the case of XP, it's a pretty extreme difference. A loss is 40 XP, a Win is 250 XP. So a win pays out 210XP more than a loss. That's not a trivial amount, but that thing that pays differently in rewards. Damage done is 0 XP in both cases, damage done only inflates match score, not XP.

Look at the bottom of the patch notes for what the XP and C-Bill values are, although I think that some things have seen a minor adjustment since then on the C-Bill side:
http://mwomercs.com/...tch-notes-13345

The reason that losses end up being so much less is because typically the players don't get all the extra assist, savior, brawling, etc bonuses that come from a win by killing the entire enemy team.

Edited by EgoSlayer, 22 June 2015 - 04:07 PM.

[ScarecrowES]

EgoSlayer, on 21 June 2015 - 10:15 AM, said:

Rewards are tied to performance. The only difference in XP and C-Bill payout of a win vs a loss is the value of the "Win" item vs the "Loss" item. In the case of XP, it's a pretty extreme difference. A loss is 40 XP, a Win is 250 XP. So a win pays out 190XP more than a loss. That's not a trivial amount, but that thing that pays differently in rewards. Damage done is 0 XP in both cases, damage done only inflates match score, not XP.

Look at the bottom of the patch notes for what the XP and C-Bill values are, although I think that some things have seen a minor adjustment since then on the C-Bill side:
http://mwomercs.com/...tch-notes-13345

The reason that losses end up being so much less is because typically the players don't get all the extra assist, savior, brawling, etc bonuses that come from a win by killing the entire enemy team.

Looking at it realistically, individual perfomance takes a backseat to whether a player was on a winning or losing team as far as his rewards go. The win or loss is the primary factor in determining reward output, and then performance is factored as a bonus to that. Within individual performance, damage and kills output is by far heavily favored for rewards.

Thus... your reward is most influenced by these factors, in this order: 1) whether or not you won; 2) what kind of kills or damage output you had; 3) all other factors, including objective play.

[Escef]

ScarecrowES, on 21 June 2015 - 09:41 AM, said:

What sucks is that rewards are not tied to performance.

Really?

ScarecrowES, on 21 June 2015 - 09:41 AM, said:

The game doesn't care how well you played... only if you won. And then, if you won, how much damage or how many kills you got.

Wait, wait, wait... Winning, damage, and kills aren't performance where you come from? WTF?

[EgoSlayer]

ScarecrowES, on 21 June 2015 - 10:33 AM, said:

Looking at it realistically, individual perfomance takes a backseat to whether a player was on a winning or losing team as far as his rewards go. The win or loss is the primary factor in determining reward output, and then performance is factored as a bonus to that. Within individual performance, damage and kills output is by far heavily favored for rewards.

Thus... your reward is most influenced by these factors, in this order: 1) whether or not you won; 2) what kind of kills or damage output you had; 3) all other factors, including objective play.

Except it's not. A 2 kill, 3 assist, 400 damage done game loss pays the same as a 2 kill, 3 assist 400 damage done win *except* for the Win paying out another 210 XP and 15,000 C-Bills. That's it. If you play well as an individual (carry harder) a loss pays out nearly the same. But what usually happens is that a loss is a roll and you don't get the same payouts because the enemy team's Mechs didn't die. The rewards are the same otherwise.

To have a loss on more parity with a win would require either different boosted payouts for the losing players, a greater boost on the "Loss" reward value, some sort of system that pro-rates the XP/C-Bills based on the performance within the team, etc.
But as it stands now, the rewards for performance are the *exact same* for everything except the "Win" or "Loss" reward itself. Every other objective reward is the same.

Edited by EgoSlayer, 22 June 2015 - 04:07 PM.

[Jabilo]

I do not mind the grind so much as I have so much of everything I want / need from years of play.

Mechs, equipment, engines, modules etc.

The grind is far too much for new players I think to really hook them in to the game.

Perhaps extend the cadet bonus or give all new accounts a month of premium time...

[Tiamat of the Sea]

ScarecrowES, on 21 June 2015 - 09:59 AM, said:

I'd argue here that once mechs are mastered, they're vastly more fun to play, and vastly more competitive in the game. Generally speaking, you have to sow before you reap.

Elited. Mastery is just a slot.

Personally, I like to use the time in Basics and Elites to adjust builds and such (and adjust myself to hardpoint locations). Never be afraid to smargle your build around looking for useful alterations.

Edited by Quickdraw Crobat, 21 June 2015 - 11:43 AM.

[Xetelian]

Currently it is crazy to think we'll retain players when a week is needed to get 1 robot and they need 3 of them + 3 non stock engines and even if clan you need to setup weapons for each which is easily another million or three.


I've got 4 DWFs 3 TBRs and 3 SCRs all from Cbills. I play a lot so I earn more than a new player would and can cope with the grind.

However if I wasn't addicted to TDM and Nascar racing I'd probably be back to playing LoL.


Add more rewards to rewards 2.0 and raise damage done and solo kill brawling and most damage done rewards.

Raise assists as well, they are a lot lower than they used to be.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

EgoSlayer, on 21 June 2015 - 10:50 AM, said:

Except it's not. A 2 kill, 3 assist, 400 damage done game loss pays the same as a 2 kill, 3 assist 400 damage done win *except* for the Win paying out another 190 XP and 15,000 C-Bills. That's it. If you play well as an individual (carry harder) a loss pays out nearly the same. But what usually happens is that a loss is a roll and you don't get the same payouts because the enemy team's Mechs didn't die. The rewards are the same otherwise.

To have a loss on more parity with a win would require either different boosted payouts for the losing players, a greater boost on the "Loss" reward value, some sort of system that pro-rates the XP/C-Bills based on the performance within the team, etc.
But as it stands now, the rewards for performance are the *exact same* for everything except the "Win" or "Loss" reward itself. Every other objective reward is the same.

Actually, if you lose, you don't get the C-bill 'Salvage' reward, which ups the difference considerably beyond 15k.

[Mawai]

I think you also need to look at the specific actions that reward both XP and Cbills. Hit and run, flanking, solo or kills most damage done ... tag, narc, and uav bonuses ... lance formation bonuses ... if you just focus on kills/assists/damage you actually leave a lot of possible cbills and XP behind.

I started long before there were rewards for these things ... so my play style is generally not optimized to rewards ... newer players who do some reading may be more likely to specifically choose some of the actions that earn cbills and xp.

Finally, the reason that winning usually pays more doesn't have to do with actually winning ... the rewards for winning are almost the same as losing (except for salvage which is usually 10 to 25k. The real reason is that the winning side usually wins by eliminating the opposing team which means that the winning side usually has much more opportunity to earn awards for kills/assists/damage and all of the other awards that are possible. Players usually last longer when they win and thus earn more.

[EgoSlayer]

Quickdraw Crobat, on 21 June 2015 - 11:44 AM, said:

Actually, if you lose, you don't get the C-bill 'Salvage' reward, which ups the difference considerably beyond 15k.

Ah, right forgot about that - fair point. But the other objective rewards are still the same, winning gets the salvage reward as well and the Conquest points C-Bill reward might be for the win only as well., although it doesn't affect XP.

EDIT- Conquest C-Bills rewards are paid win or lose.

Edited by EgoSlayer, 22 June 2015 - 04:09 PM.

[Mawai]

Xetelian, on 21 June 2015 - 11:44 AM, said:

Currently it is crazy to think we'll retain players when a week is needed to get 1 robot and they need 3 of them + 3 non stock engines and even if clan you need to setup weapons for each which is easily another million or three.


I've got 4 DWFs 3 TBRs and 3 SCRs all from Cbills. I play a lot so I earn more than a new player would and can cope with the grind.

However if I wasn't addicted to TDM and Nascar racing I'd probably be back to playing LoL.


Add more rewards to rewards 2.0 and raise damage done and solo kill brawling and most damage done rewards.

Raise assists as well, they are a lot lower than they used to be.

A week is nothing. If you actually think that taking a week to earn a robot is too much then you are probably correct that the game won't retain folks like that ... but then they probably aren't that interested anyway if they don't want to put in a week.

Just look at games like Everquest ... it was subscription based originally ... it generally required groups to play ... most classes couldn't solo and grinding out a level could often take much more than a week at the higher levels. It was also highly addictive and at the time, extremely popular.

However, MWOs XP system is boring. It is the same thing for every mech, every time ... no customization, no new things to try, no new ways to play the same mech, no way to tailor the mech to roles.