45 replies to this topic

[Kaptain]

To start, I have introduced several people to MWO and a few of them have stayed around. In total I think I convinced 7 people to purchase into the founders program, 5 of them at the legendary level. Two of us went on to purchase Phoenix packages at the Overlord level. On top of that there are atIeast 2 or 3 friends that have free accounts. I alone purchased 2 founders legendary and one phoenix overlord and upgraded 5 friends systems to handle the game. I say all this because I am, or rather was, committed to MWO and PGI.

Last night I (legendary/overlord) tried to dual a (legendary/overlord) in a private match. I have premium time, he does not. And thus, we were not able to dual. All of this energy and excitement (we were determined to put an argument about hunchbacks and centurions to rest once and for all) turned into money grab frustration with PGI.

First it was "you cant play together if you have more than 3 friends" (resolved but the damage is done, they are never coming back)
Then it was "You can't buy patterns or colors for your favorite mechs, mechs you paid for" (resolved for resistance 2 but what about the mechs I paid for?)

Premium time still counts down when you are logged off thus most of my friends will never purchase as they are only able to play the game a few times each month. Although ALL of us would gladly purchase if it applies only to hours spent in game.

The last straw is not being able to play a dual with my friend, despite being a paying customer. I can only imagine the damage this is doing to PGIs player base if people(paying customers mind you) are not able to introduce MWO to friends at lan parties and events. Oh well.

Having recently come into a bit of extra cash I was seriously considering a R1 and R2 purchase despite the bad taste phoenix left in my mouth. This cash grab, pay to play, model has convinced me otherwise. Why support a company that simply does not care about its paying customers?

[Squirg]

You're 100% right but brace yourself for the people who will defend this.

[Commander A9]

I have to agree; I can't stand the fact that I have to pay to play in a private lobby.

Seems like I'm getting only half the game here...

[Hotthedd]

Kaptain, on 06 September 2015 - 11:08 AM, said:

Premium time still counts down when you are logged off thus most of my friends will never purchase as they are only able to play the game a few times each month. Although ALL of us would gladly purchase if it applies only to hours spent in game.

I have still never been able to figure out how PGI has ever come to the conclusion that "running premium time" somehow makes them more money than "active premium time".

Dear PGI, Please look up "Laffer Curve".

[mike29tw]

Kaptain, on 06 September 2015 - 11:08 AM, said:

Premium time still counts down when you are logged off thus most of my friends will never purchase as they are only able to play the game a few times each month. Although ALL of us would gladly purchase if it applies only to hours spent in game.

Agree on all parts except this.

Every game I played that has their equivalent of premium time does this. PGI has some bad pricing but if you think premium time doesn't worth the money, maybe you should suggest them to add more value toward premium time.

...and no, access to private games doesn't count.

[Wrathful Scythe]

I get why premium time is needed but forcing 2 players to have premium time kinda sucks. Though, the number of people who are actually annoyed by this is kinda low so don't expect any changes in this regard.

Would love to play against some of my friend in private lobbys but none of them is willing to purchase premium time for obvious reasons. It sucks.

[Lexx]

Private matches use server resources beyond what's already being used to run public and CW matches. If you joined the regular queue, it uses the same server resources that were already going to be used to run that match. When you make a private server, extra server resources are used up to run your private match that wouldn't have been used otherwise.

PGI is paying server hosts to run those servers, so your private match is costing them money. Since PGI has to pay more when you have a private match, it's only fair that they require a couple of the players to have bought premium time to cover the cost.

[MechaBattler]

[mike29tw]

Lexx, on 06 September 2015 - 11:39 AM, said:

Private matches use server resources beyond what's already being used to run public and CW matches. If you joined the regular queue, it uses the same server resources that were already going to be used to run that match. When you make a private server, extra server resources are used up to run your private match that wouldn't have been used otherwise.

PGI is paying server hosts to run those servers, so your private match is costing them money. Since PGI has to pay more when you have a private match, it's only fair that they require a couple of the players to have bought premium time to cover the cost.

And by doing so it drives more people away who could potentially be playing customers.

[C E Dwyer]

Hotthedd, on 06 September 2015 - 11:25 AM, said:

I have still never been able to figure out how PGI has ever come to the conclusion that "running premium time" somehow makes them more money than "active premium time".

Dear PGI, Please look up "Laffer Curve".

Right or wrong all games use the same system buy time and it ticks down, so its a standard product.

You can decide if its defending the situation or not, but it's an optional feature that from day one P.G.I said wouldn't be free because of the server space it takes for just two people.

Possibly I haven't noticed because 1v1 hasn't interested me at all, but I can't think of another game that has a 1v1 feature at all, let alone free.

So nearly all games would appear to be half complete

[Khobai]

Quote

First it was "you cant play together if you have more than 3 friends" (resolved but the damage is done, they are never coming back)

Theres been a lot of talk about this recently and I really hope max group size of 4 comes back. With a max of one group per team to prevent sync drops. Similar games like world of tanks and war thunder dont allow bigger groups and for good reason. Groups larger than 4 have always been horribly unbalanced in this game and never shouldve been allowed in the first place.

Going back to groups of 4 would allow matchmaker to balance the game out the game more easily and allow PGI to apply matchmaker to CW which currently has no matchmaker and ends up being a roflstomp most of the time.

And for people with more than 3 friends, well you can always make a custom lobby to play with them.

Edited by Khobai, 06 September 2015 - 12:11 PM.

[Hotthedd]

Cathy, on 06 September 2015 - 12:05 PM, said:

Right or wrong all games use the same system buy time and it ticks down, so its a standard product.

You can decide if its defending the situation or not, but it's an optional feature that from day one P.G.I said wouldn't be free because of the server space it takes for just two people.

Possibly I haven't noticed because 1v1 hasn't interested me at all, but I can't think of another game that has a 1v1 feature at all, let alone free.

So nearly all games would appear to be half complete

I never said it should be free.

My point is that PGI would make more money if they allowed premium time to be activated and de-activated than they do by making it tick down non-stop once activated.

[AlexEss]

Hotthedd, on 06 September 2015 - 12:51 PM, said:

I never said it should be free.

My point is that PGI would make more money if they allowed premium time to be activated and de-activated than they do by making it tick down non-stop once activated.

How...? With that setup i would never have to pay for premium time with the time i had banked frm the early days of the game. Heck most people could go most of a year on a single purchase.

I am not going to be nasty but your idea is not in any way valid for healthy finances. And seeing how we like to keep the P2W of this game to a minimum. With your idea... That would not be possible,

[Hotthedd]

AlexEss, on 06 September 2015 - 01:13 PM, said:

How...? With that setup i would never have to pay for premium time with the time i had banked frm the early days of the game. Heck most people could go most of a year on a single purchase.

I am not going to be nasty but your idea is not in any way valid for healthy finances. And seeing how we like to keep the P2W of this game to a minimum. With your idea... That would not be possible,

It is a matter of volume.
1000 people buying 3000 days of premium time (72 hours each), and re-buying every month or so will bring in the same money as 100 people buying 3000 days of premium time (1 month each) and re-buying every month. (Actually MORE money, since premium time gets less expensive in larger quantities)

Personally, I believe the ratio to be more than that 10:1 in the above example.

I could be wrong, sure. But there is a really good way to find out.

[Alan Davion]

Khobai, on 06 September 2015 - 12:10 PM, said:

Theres been a lot of talk about this recently and I really hope max group size of 4 comes back. With a max of one group per team to prevent sync drops. Similar games like world of tanks and war thunder dont allow bigger groups and for good reason. Groups larger than 4 have always been horribly unbalanced in this game and never shouldve been allowed in the first place.

Going back to groups of 4 would allow matchmaker to balance the game out the game more easily and allow PGI to apply matchmaker to CW which currently has no matchmaker and ends up being a roflstomp most of the time.

And for people with more than 3 friends, well you can always make a custom lobby to play with them.

You're probably thinking of the 4v4 "Scout" matches planned for CW at some point.

If they made it so it was only 4v4 in the public queue, I think there's a good chance that the servers would roll down to 0 that day.

Considering maps are getting BIGGER, and not smaller, having 4v4 on maps like Forest Colony or Alpine would be the biggest waste of resources ever. They need to keep it at 12v12 for these huge maps, otherwise, you get into a game of Assault, you could probably scour the map and only have maybe a 10-25% chance of running into another player.

[Pjwned]

To solve this, I think that players should get a monthly stipend of premium private matches without being required to have active premium time, and players who purchase packages (or other similar items) should have an increased stipend. Let's say for example (not any hard numbers given here) that free players get 5 premium matches for free per month, and players who purchase packages get up to 10 additional free premium matches per month per package, and this would be a permanent thing that stacks in a somewhat similar manner to mech bays.

This would mean that everybody gets a few premium matches per month if they want to use them, players who support the game with packages are rewarded more, and then for the players who want even more premium matches then they can buy (or activate) premium time to play as many premium matches as they want for the duration of premium time.

Of course free players don't need any kind of stipend in this manner, but I think it would be helpful for both players and PGI who would probably get (at least a bit) more money from happier customers and/or customers who decide they want the benefits of premium matches on top of other benefits from premium time.

[Moldur]

AlexEss, on 06 September 2015 - 01:13 PM, said:

How...? With that setup i would never have to pay for premium time with the time i had banked frm the early days of the game. Heck most people could go most of a year on a single purchase.

I am not going to be nasty but your idea is not in any way valid for healthy finances. And seeing how we like to keep the P2W of this game to a minimum. With your idea... That would not be possible,

Make it a different currency of premium time. There have been games that have done this before. The only that comes to mind though is S4 League, they had timed equipment that would last for 7-15-24 hours of gameplay IIRC. It wasn't worth it if you played a lot and could purchase the permanent or 'running' timed items, but for those that didn't, it was fine.

[Lostdragon]

I think if you have purchased over X amount of dollars or maybe a top tier mech package you should get free access to private matches. I've spent over $500 on MWO, and if I had friends who played it too I would be pissed if we couldn't play due to not both having premium time. If PGI wants folks to buy premium time they should really make it more worthwhile and treat it like a subscription, giving players access to more than just bonuse cbills, xp, and private matches.

If I were in charge of PGI's marketing I would create an incentive program with the following rewards after using these amounts of premium time:

30 days: 3 mech bays
60 days: 5 million bonus cbills
90 days: Free light mech
120 days: Free weapon module
150 days: Free medium mech
180 days: Free light or medium hero mech
210 days: 10 million bonus cbills, 5000 GXP
240 days: Free heavy mech
270 days: Free mech module
300 days: 3x free camo unlocks
330 days: Free assault mech
360 days: Free heavy or assault hero mech

If there was some kind of reward structure like this I would view premium time as a worthwhile subscription service and I would gladly setup a $15/month auto pay for it and I think many other players would too.

[Yellonet]

Yes, it should cost money. I've spent hundreds of dollars on this f2p game and then some sucka comes along thinking he should be able to play privately for free... hell no! Only fair solution is that he pays too!

[patataman]

A limited amount of free private matches sounds reasonable. Another option could be paying with MC directly instead of purchasing the PT, think of it as a consumable. Or having only one guy with PT active, but make his PT tick at double speed. IDK, but options are always good.

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