118 replies to this topic

[mad kat]

Project Purification, on 06 August 2015 - 10:40 AM, said:

I don't have time to play for 12 hours a day to be able to get the mechs I want, and while I'd be more than willing to pull out ye' ol' card to do it is this just another pay-to-win game?

What's more in order to get to higher levels of efficency I have to have 3 varients of the same type, I have been playing for about 4 hours and barely have 2 million.

Yes and Yes i'm Afraid despite what some may say this is pay to win unless you have a lot of spare time or no life..i mean Wife. Also something seems broken every time you go into the game but then i guess a lot of us are gluttons for punishment as we try to overlook them for the heart of the game which is the mechlab. lets face it who doesn't like modifying stuff?

But yes ploughing cash into the game is the only way to get ahead in any time zone that resembles casual gaming and not hardcore l33t obsessive mode.

The only saving grace is find a regular unit, join up, take on board advice and things should ease.

[DivineEvil]

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So as a guy who wants to play in Clan wars, how in the world am I supposed to buy anything? I started playing yesterday, and after the beginner perks wore off I've averaged about 80k a fight.

Well, you play the game, earn c-bills and spend them responsibly. Everyone plays like that. Watch out for events and play causally without bothering about your per-match earnings. The less you bother, the less it bothers you.

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I don't have time to play for 12 hours a day to be able to get the mechs I want, and while I'd be more than willing to pull out ye' ol' card to do it is this just another pay-to-win game?

Nope, it's pay-to-play-less. You either spend some time playing completely for free, or you spend some money to play less. Simple as that and just as any other game works.

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What's more in order to get to higher levels of efficency I have to have 3 varients of the same type, I have been playing for about 4 hours and barely have 2 million.

So what? If you're the one of those players, who want to earn everything in a week, you're in a wrong game, buddy.

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This game is rapidly approaching gutter even with how good it looks. It's one thing to have the option, but another thing entirely to feel like I don't even have a choice.

There's four choices for you.
1. You play normally and don't stress over your fantastic goals.
2. You play better and getting better rewards over time.
3. You play more.
4. You pay some small fee to increase your earnings.
The choice is yours.

[Nerdboard]

mad kat, on 08 August 2015 - 08:23 AM, said:

Yes and Yes i'm Afraid despite what some may say this is pay to win unless you have a lot of spare time or no life..i mean Wife. Also something seems broken every time you go into the game but then i guess a lot of us are gluttons for punishment as we try to overlook them for the heart of the game which is the mechlab. lets face it who doesn't like modifying stuff?

But yes ploughing cash into the game is the only way to get ahead in any time zone that resembles casual gaming and not hardcore l33t obsessive mode.

The only saving grace is find a regular unit, join up, take on board advice and things should ease.

I strongly disagree on the pay to win part. Like it quite literally says the concept refers to games in which your chances of winning or success increase with how much money you pay. This is - mostly - not the case in mwo. The only point which sometimes leans towards this is the release of some of the new mechs which are simply more powerful than others and dont come out for ingame currency right away. But even this does not cause any strong balance issues in my eyes.

Paying money however does increase the speed of your progress. Personally I think thats ok. If you, OP, feel like doing so I would, as some have here already, recommend looking into mastery bundles. These offer some great deals and give you right away the opportunity to master your mech. I would recommend trying to get some opinions on the mechs you are interested in before though as the pure stats of a mech sometimes dont paint the full picture.

Once you have three mechs of a chassis you like your point of the whole thing might change. That is at least how it was for me. I did not feel like I had to grind all the time. Rather I was playing a cool mech, had fun and on the way earned some credits.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

Project Purification, on 06 August 2015 - 10:40 AM, said:

So as a guy who wants to play in Clan wars, how in the world am I supposed to buy anything? I started playing yesterday, and after the beginner perks wore off I've averaged about 80k a fight.

I don't have time to play for 12 hours a day to be able to get the mechs I want, and while I'd be more than willing to pull out ye' ol' card to do it is this just another pay-to-win game?

What's more in order to get to higher levels of efficency I have to have 3 varients of the same type, I have been playing for about 4 hours and barely have 2 million.

This game is rapidly approaching gutter even with how good it looks. It's one thing to have the option, but another thing entirely to feel like I don't even have a choice.

Not really P2W. IF the hero mechs and early adopter award mechs were really OP, then maybe one could make the argument. But it's just not the case.

The C-Bill grind is tough. If you're relatively new and already averaging 80k a match or thereabouts, then you're doing fairly well. Call it 8 million for a decent medium, and you're gonna be able to afford a new mech every 100 matches. Enjoy that.

You can play the loaner mechs to work up your C-Bill account until you can afford a chassis you want, and in the course of earning those C-Bills, you'll be able to figure out what you do or don't want. YAY, right?

It wasn't always this bad. But look, PGI has to make payroll. So, if you buy a package, or you buy some MC, then it helps them do that. And if you don't, you can still play just as well as anyone else. It's just gonna be a much slower route to your ideal mech garage.

[Eaerie]

You start with enough mech bays to pick a chassis, get 3 mech variants of that chassis and get the mech skill trees elited which puts you on the same level of play as anyone else, barring experience at the game. Hero mechs arent pay to win. i cant think of a single hero mech that is significantly better than thier normal variant counterparts. What a hero mech does do is give you more C-bills, which just lowers the grind a bit.
If you arent in a hurry to get all the mechs right now you could feasably play this game, do the weekend events as they come along and slowly gather mechs without paying a dime. (weekend events sometime include sales, free mech bays, double xp etc)

If you want to improve your C-bill earnings, you could find a chassis you like, buy the hero mech for that chassis and use it to help grind out C-bills. Just be aware that owning a hero mech isnt an automatic big boost in earings, you will see an increase but the biggest increase is learning your mech, maps, heat, manouvering and staying alive while doing as much damge,kills, assists etc that you can.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

Oh yeah, don't forget the Oceanic server event this weekend (applies to ALL servers). Score 30+ in a match, get a point. 3 points gets you a day of Premium time. Either 9 or 12 gets you a 1,000,000 C-Bill bonus. I scored my day of premium in 4 drops tonight, before I even realized that the deal was on (I don't pay much attention to the front page). Consider that it's a surprise double XP weekend, too. You can make some SERIOUS progress on leveling AND building C-Bills. So, don't be afraid to call in sick on Monday, is what I'm sayin'... ;-)

[mad kat]

I still beg to differ. If your forced to spend hours in an unskilled mech, some chassis always seem to have a 'lemon' mech which is always a sore spot of the three and takes longer to elite/master.

Cutting the grind to me is winning. And paying for the shortcut as others have said is basicaly cheating by bypassing the time requirement. If i have the opportunity to plough some cash into an xp conversion from another mech to elite a mech without even playing it that to me is p2w.

Besides there is no 'winning' in this game. Winning the odd match hardly counts as matchmaker sees to it that you will also lose some. Winning in this game is having a top tier mech which is competitive and dangerous. Unfortunately this has resulted in the meta lrm, laser vomit, ppc and gauss buils which to many is classed as winning. Wheras winning for this game should really be pulling together as a team and winning a close fight not who can pack the most lurms, with the biggest xl and play noob mode.

[Thrudvangar]

Project Purification, on 06 August 2015 - 10:40 AM, said:

So as a guy who wants to play in Clan wars, how in the world am I supposed to buy anything? I started playing yesterday, and after the beginner perks wore off I've averaged about 80k a fight.

I don't have time to play for 12 hours a day to be able to get the mechs I want, and while I'd be more than willing to pull out ye' ol' card to do it is this just another pay-to-win game?

What's more in order to get to higher levels of efficency I have to have 3 varients of the same type, I have been playing for about 4 hours and barely have 2 million.

This game is rapidly approaching gutter even with how good it looks. It's one thing to have the option, but another thing entirely to feel like I don't even have a choice.

right now there's an event going on where you can make lots of cbills.. check out the tournament page.. also you can get premium time easy while this event is going on.

[bad arcade kitty]

12 skirmishes 12 assaults 12 conquests on each of all the 3 servers (if you didn't do european and american yet) it's 9 free millions for 108 games (where you reached 30 points) not counting the game earnings, also 9 days of the free premium time and 9 free warhorns and consumables

Edited by bad arcade kitty, 09 August 2015 - 02:31 AM.

[Bad Karma 989]

Bilbo, on 06 August 2015 - 11:13 AM, said:

...or he could spend money and end up in the spot without taking all the time required to get there.

And have absolutely no clue as to how to use his gear.

Grind it, son. Get your Mad Dog ass blown the hell up. That's how you learn. Through pain. We all did, don't like it, and would have avoided it if we could.

There is no. avoiding. the grind.

Welcome to MWO.

[jss78]

00ohDstruct, on 06 August 2015 - 10:42 PM, said:

Yeeeeeeeah. I can't LIKE this comment enough. I mean, what's the mentality behind this?

"HEY! I got $20 to burn! I know! I'm going to spend it ALL on UAV's because I can't make 40k cbills in a match!"

Sooooooo friggin stupid.

But isn't the answer to this the same as for anything that can be bought for either c-bills or MC: do you want to pay money or grind. There are lots of people out there for whom $20, or $200 for that matter, is absolutely nothing (no, I'm not one of them), so they'll dish out some cash to ease the grind, and get fully kitted out mechs sooner.

On the whole topic, IMHO PGI has overall struck a pretty good balance with the c-bill grind and the MC incentives. The c-bill grind needs to be at least a little bit awful, to incentivize buying mechs and premium time for MC. The uncomfortable truth is that PGI doesn't want too many of those perennial c-bill-only people. They do need the people who get to know the game through the F2P content, and then spend on MC.

Yet you can get mastered/moduled mechs with c-bills only, and play at the top level, so despite the necessary MC incentives the "pay to win" situation is avoided, and that to me is a commendable achievement from PGI.

Now, to retain those first-time players, the experience in the first few dozen games is obviously critical.

With regards to that, for me the best to do is ensure that the Trial mechs are at least halfway competitive. This is obviously tough because the Basic/Elite unlocks improve the mechs so much. I've sometimes wondered if we could make the Trial mechs automatically play as if at least the Basics were unlocked.

We really need to give the new players at least halfway decent mechs to get that critical first experience in -- but again, not so good as to encourage playing in the Trials forever.

[Kotzi]

Well you heard it. To be "competetiv" you either have to pay, recommended by most as it seems, or grind 12 mechs + equipment + modules. Roughly double it as you want to play clan mechs. But you have to wait for Events that reward you with mechbays. Because there is no way to get them without real money. So no P2W i guess. Or you just screw the heat and manouverability bonuses.

[TWIAFU]

Nik Reaper, on 07 August 2015 - 11:58 AM, said:

OFC not, but you do get that that is the new player perspective and that probly no one here except the op is new and has no point of talking from a perspective that is eather a whale or has grinded everything they need right?

New players in ANY game that has been up and running will have to take their lumps when they start.

How can anyone not understand that? This is not a single player game with save and restarts.

New players have low ELO, they will be in the same ELO bracket, give or take.

What do you want to do? Give these new players a XP'd mech, modules, and upgrades right after install? How would a new player even know how to use any of it, let alone what any of it means.

All that is needed is a NPE that explains basic and advanced MWO gameplay via tutorials.

[Chados]

I don't think it's pay to win as much as it is pay to compete. There are certain mechs you've got to invest real money in if you want them.

I don't think you absolutely have to do that to be competitive, but an infusion of actual cash can help with some of the learning curve especially with talentless bums like myself, for example, and help you find "your" niche. It does get better over time. I'm without a doubt the worst player in the game. My K/D ratio is 0.04 over 84 matches, and when my average damage per match hit 100 I was popping a bottle of vintage Bollinger in celebration. I really am "that gal" no one wants on the team.

But even I am getting better and if I can, anyone can. Baby steps...Rome was not built in a day and the "grind" is what it is...one must find ways to exploit it if you dig big stompy machines of death and I love the lore, have for years. It's what keeps me in the game. The organized units will help and some don't get mad when you drop with them and suck royal. I point at the 9th Sword as one example, great bunch of fellows there.

It is important to find what style fits your character. In games like World of Warcraft I'm used to straight tanking. I can't do that here. My reflexes aren't those of a 20 year old, because I'm an ancient and I don't move as fast or see as well as I used to. But age and treachery will always beat youth and skill, and that means more up front time learning the ways of the platform. I'm becoming a mid-range heavy pilot, learning how to use LRMs, medium lasers, and positioning to max terrain masking and using both direct and indirect fire modes to support hardcore brawlers. And I still suck. But I suck less today than I did last week. Perseverance.

[Eaerie]

Someone mentioned spending money to ease the xp grind on variants, that work IF you have mechs with lots of xp laying around. it does not work for a new player trying to get in the game and in my opinion a waste of money that could be better spent buying a mastery pack, premium time or even mech bays (i recommend premium time if you want to ease the grind a bit). In all honesty it doesnt take long to elite out a mech, especially on weekends like this which are double XP weekeneds.
Even if a new player had a pool of XP to convert over, I think he would be dissapointed in the results. Eliting the skills on a mech you have no idea how to handle is still going to result in real sub par performance in that mech. Go with premium time, you get a boost to C-bills and XP to minimize the grind while you learn how the mech(s) of your choice work and manouver.

[Revener]

It is not that bad I have played games wher it is harder to earn money even if you pay for premium, World of tanks for example

[JC Daxion]

I don't buy a ton of games, or spend a ton of money buying games. I just don't have it, and tend to buy on sale, or buy games that have been out a few years before i pick them up. To date, i spent 105 bucks on this game, and played for 2 years, own 50 mechs, and played about 6k matches..

To me this FTP game, is just the right balance.. To me a lot like the turbine DDO model. Try the game for free, If you like it, spend 30-40 bucks, Just like buying a triple A game, and boost your account with goodies.. In this case to me goodies are buying one of the medium mech starter packs, and saving the extra MC for some paint and mech bays..

YOu just got a huge boost, and even playing an hour a night a few times a week, in a month you should have all 3 mechs mastered.. It really isn't a huge grind for someone that can spend a little bit of cash, and doesn't feel like they need everything..

that said, for my 50 mechs.. I suspect i will be playing for another year at least before i get um all outfitted with modules..which will basically double the amount of money i have made in game.. (i hit the 1% badge a while back) though i would say, i will be happy if PGI runs another module sale in the near future!

[Chados]

I don't think it's pay to win. The only way to get the real modules like advanced zoom or seismic sensor is with GXP, unless there's a way I haven't found yet. You have to earn GXP in game. And UAVs are 40k Cbills for one shot. That's a lot for a one use consumable-I don't make much more than that in an average match, but I'm slowly improving. I second the mastery pack. I think that's good advice.

[Freeman 52]

To the OP: my experience as a new player is that you do not need to pay to win. I did my research and decided to focus on a Mech that I liked -medium, support- then used the premium time from the event to make sure I got my first variant up to snuff in terms of survivability and basic skills, and then moved on to the other two. I now have the 3 variants I want, all elite, with pretty much the loadout I want, and I am saving up my GXP and c-bills for modules. My win/loss with these 3 mechs (the only ones I own) is getting close to 1, and my kill/death rising to between .28 and .50. It is clear to me that except for the odd quick death, I can contribute to the team, and start doing kills on top of assists. Yes, I may get ambushed by the enemy, or we may lose to cap because of some sneaky survivors from the other team, but it's more often than not a fair game.

You can pay MC to get early mechs more quickly, but I think the real value came from:

• Learning to pilot the mech you have to maximize its role advantages. No sense in running first on my WVR just to get torn to pieces.
  
• Learning the maps. Some of them still hate me, apparently, but others I am getting the hang of and can even use to my advantage.
  
• Tinkering with your build according to your role. For instance, I only switched back to an SRM brawler build when I could add a fast engine to quickly move around the battlefield. This requires a very careful spending policy!
  
• Learning to "read" the pug group you are in, using chat when useful and asking people to play to their strengths (e.g. assaults that do not push when they should, or lights that could go capping when we are losing by points).

Granted, I have never done more research to actually start playing any other game. But hey: this is BattleTech!! The niche game where military types and nerds come together to count tonnage. You have to appreciate the game for what it is, and learn to enjoy the technical, logistical, and tactical layers on top of the first-person shooter.

PS: I have joined a unit and done some drops with people over TeamSpeak: MUCH more fun and feeling much more useful when working within a coordinated lance. And again, no need to pay anything for that experience.