45 replies to this topic

[Moldur]

Yellonet, on 06 September 2015 - 02:43 PM, said:

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!

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic.

Honestly, I don't understand the pay to play private matches. It's hiding a basic feature behind a paywall. It's like if we had to pay to save our mech loadouts. Every time we log on, all our mechs are completely stripped. Gotta pay 250MC to unlock "Save Loadout" button. What next? 500 MC to change mouse sensitivity? Add another 100 to access the achievement screen? Oh-ho-ho, and you wanna change Screen resolution too? Well get ready to sell that liver, buddy.

[Madcap72]

In this thread we find out who understands that PGI needs to keep the lights on and who doesn't.
FFS there's a HUGE player base, make friends with people, someone always has premium time running.



It's this, or a monthly fee.




Pick one.

[Pjwned]

Yellonet, on 06 September 2015 - 02:43 PM, said:

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!

Aside from me questioning your purchasing habits, I don't see how allowing a few private matches per month for everybody would be unfair when the paying player is still clearly rewarded more with what I proposed.

Out of curiosity, I wonder what you would say if you were given a choice between free and paying players benefiting from a stipend of free premium matches or nobody benefiting from it at all; no need to answer if you don't want to.

That said...

Moldur, on 06 September 2015 - 03:41 PM, said:

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic.

Honestly, I don't understand the pay to play private matches. It's hiding a basic feature behind a paywall. It's like if we had to pay to save our mech loadouts. Every time we log on, all our mechs are completely stripped. Gotta pay 250MC to unlock "Save Loadout" button. What next? 500 MC to change mouse sensitivity? Add another 100 to access the achievement screen? Oh-ho-ho, and you wanna change Screen resolution too? Well get ready to sell that liver, buddy.

I don't think that's a fair comparison at all, it's not a "basic feature" for the reasons outlined in this post:

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.

Additionally, free players do have private matches available to them, they just won't get premium options without premium time (or a stipend of premium matches as I suggested) and if they want more then they should be expected to pay for it to an extent.

[Yellonet]

Moldur, on 06 September 2015 - 03:41 PM, said:

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic.

Honestly, I don't understand the pay to play private matches. It's hiding a basic feature behind a paywall. It's like if we had to pay to save our mech loadouts. Every time we log on, all our mechs are completely stripped. Gotta pay 250MC to unlock "Save Loadout" button. What next? 500 MC to change mouse sensitivity? Add another 100 to access the achievement screen? Oh-ho-ho, and you wanna change Screen resolution too? Well get ready to sell that liver, buddy.

Of course I was being sarcastic. It's just so wrong I don't know what to say...

[aniviron]

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

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

Not having played games where 1v1 exists doesn't mean those games aren't real. 1v1 has been a staple of shooter games since Doom, and it has a strong tradition in pretty much every arena shooter on the market (quake, UT, Reflex, Toxikk, etc) and is also critically important in pretty much every RTS game.

Of course, Mechwarrior is none of those games. Now, can anyone think of a precedent for 1v1s in Mechwarrior? Does Solaris VII ring any bells? How about zellbrigen?

The point is that 1v1 has been a staple not just of gaming in general but is particularly important to Mechwarrior, and has been since it was a tabletop game. It's important enough that PGI's biggest new feature they keep wanting to add and tease the fanbase about is always Solaris, so clearly even if it doesn't matter to you, it does matter to most of the rest of us.

[Kaptain]

Sounds like most everyone feels the way I do. I guess the biggest frustration on my end is that there is nothing I can do to make this private match happen on my end. I have already purchased two top tier packages. I already have premium time.

[Lostdragon]

Kaptain, on 06 September 2015 - 06:20 PM, said:

Sounds like most everyone feels the way I do. I guess the biggest frustration on my end is that there is nothing I can do to make this private match happen on my end. I have already purchased two top tier packages. I already have premium time.

Not true, you could gift your friend some premium time...

[Kaptain]

Lostdragon, on 06 September 2015 - 06:27 PM, said:

Not true, you could gift your friend some premium time...

This is true, though I have already purchased his legendary founders package and he has already purchased into phoenix at the overlord level. Just feels wrong that 2 people with 2 top tier packages each, one with premium time ticking away, can't play a simple one v one. I suppose this is more of a matter of principal, not logistics.

Edit: Ugh. Can't buy just one day with the MC I already have and transfer it to him, I would have to buy 7 days of premium time on a new purchase. Because 2 people who have already spend $400 on this game have not paid enough.

Edited by Kaptain, 06 September 2015 - 07:30 PM.

[Madcap72]

Dude, IDK what you're begging for, but crying "poor me" after saying how much you've dropped on the game... rings hollow.

There's been, and will continue to be plenty of weekend challenges where premium time is awarded.


Or, like I said earlier, connect with the player base and find someone hosting practice sessions...

Hell, that COULD have been your opening post! "Hey, just looking for some 1v1 anyone with premium want to help host?"

[Warblood]

Why not use the free prvt match maker?

Cant be hard to find 23 ppl.. Get all your friends & ppl from your unit together...
or make a post here in the forums for X amount of ppl on "such'n'such" date n time...
call it "Kaptain's Free Duel Runs" .. I'm sure a lot of ppl would sign up for that.

You split all 24 ppl in to: 1 1v1s, 2 2v2s, 1 3v3s, n 1 4v4s
Setup preapproved/designated location locations for everyone to meet at.

An tada! You can now duel with your friends.

Edited by Warblood, 06 September 2015 - 10:08 PM.

[Quick n Fast]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

what the above poster said. u can get everything in the game for free cept MechBays unless on free give aways, you just have to try harder instead of throwin money at it. that "mythical paywall" everyone keeps talkin about is for the impatient.

Edited by Kahnawake MechMaster Prime, 06 September 2015 - 10:13 PM.

[Kaptain]

Madcap72, on 06 September 2015 - 09:21 PM, said:

Dude, IDK what you're begging for, but crying "poor me" after saying how much you've dropped on the game... rings hollow.
There's been, and will continue to be plenty of weekend challenges where premium time is awarded.
Or, like I said earlier, connect with the player base and find someone hosting practice sessions...
Hell, that COULD have been your opening post! "Hey, just looking for some 1v1 anyone with premium want to help host?"

"Dude" call it what you will, I'm simply expressing how the experience has made me feel. And the thing about it is, how I feel about a company does play a part in how much money I spend with them. And judging from this thread and others like it (like the closed feedback threads) I'm not the only one who feels this way.

The "Help host" idea is actually a good one truth be told. Initially I believe all players had to have premium time but only the leaders do. Still I find it rather ridiculous that we found ourselves, as paying customers, stuck behind a pay wall in a free to play game.

Edited by Kaptain, 06 September 2015 - 10:26 PM.

[Kaptain]

aniviron, on 06 September 2015 - 05:08 PM, said:

Not having played games where 1v1 exists doesn't mean those games aren't real. 1v1 has been a staple of shooter games since Doom, and it has a strong tradition in pretty much every arena shooter on the market (quake, UT, Reflex, Toxikk, etc) and is also critically important in pretty much every RTS game.

Of course, Mechwarrior is none of those games. Now, can anyone think of a precedent for 1v1s in Mechwarrior? Does Solaris VII ring any bells? How about zellbrigen?

The point is that 1v1 has been a staple not just of gaming in general but is particularly important to Mechwarrior, and has been since it was a tabletop game. It's important enough that PGI's biggest new feature they keep wanting to add and tease the fanbase about is always Solaris, so clearly even if it doesn't matter to you, it does matter to most of the rest of us.

This.

[Warblood]

As far as i know and can remember, mechwarrior never did 1v1(clans did but that's diff), its was always 1v11 or something like that in Solaris Arena. <--- We need a Solaris Arena! (gamemode)

Edited by Warblood, 06 September 2015 - 10:35 PM.

[Tarogato]

As a free-to-play player, I've never had a problem with pay-for-privates. It's really easy to find friends with Premium to drop with you, even if they just drop as an observer to a duel. And with the new Spectator tool, it's easy to find people that also want to try that out and exercise using it. My unit has a 1v1 tournament coming up and we have had zero problems organising duels and making sure that two Premium players are available to launch lobbies. Also, Premium Time is available very, very frequently during weekend events.

Launching a match is a server instance. It costs PGI money to run server instances, and ordinarily you get 24 players per server instance, which is a pretty good ratio. For 1v1s? That's only two players satisfied but it still costs PGI just as much to run that server instance. If doing 1v1s was completely free and people were doing them all the time, PGI would be dealing with higher costs in the end to run their servers. Buying premium time in order to run these lobbies makes sense to offset this.

Edited by Tarogato, 06 September 2015 - 10:41 PM.

[Kmieciu]

Warthunder gives private matches ("custom battle") for free. You even have a distinct "duel" mode.
Just saying.

Edited by Kmieciu, 06 September 2015 - 10:39 PM.

[Kaptain]

Warblood, on 06 September 2015 - 10:29 PM, said:

As far as i know and can remember, mechwarrior never did 1v1, its was always 1v11 or something like that in Solaris Arena.

Never played much of one or two. That said, mw3, mw4, mw4m, mw4bk all let you set up 1v1s or whatever you wanted. I suppose one would argue the difference is those where stand alone games and MWO is server authoritative. One might counter that those games cost 40-60 back in the day and top tier purchasers have paid $80-$240 (enough to cover some extra server cycles or whatever) To which I'm sure the counter argument is MWO is constantly being worked on and improved... but the counter to that is the glory that was mektek.

Was anyone else around, drooling over the Turkina, when the lead programmers house burnt down? What a lose, not just for him but for the entire MW community.

Edited by Kaptain, 06 September 2015 - 10:42 PM.

[Mcgral18]

Kaptain, on 06 September 2015 - 06:40 PM, said:

This is true, though I have already purchased his legendary founders package and he has already purchased into phoenix at the overlord level. Just feels wrong that 2 people with 2 top tier packages each, one with premium time ticking away, can't play a simple one v one. I suppose this is more of a matter of principal, not logistics.

Edit: Ugh. Can't buy just one day with the MC I already have and transfer it to him, I would have to buy 7 days of premium time on a new purchase. Because 2 people who have already spend $400 on this game have not paid enough.

If he has so many packages....any banked Premium he doesn't know about?

Activate in 30 day chunks.

[Kaptain]

Mcgral18, on 06 September 2015 - 10:41 PM, said:

If he has so many packages....any banked Premium he doesn't know about?

Activate in 30 day chunks.

Negative. The argument needed to be settled so I caved and gifted him some premium time. I piloted my Hunchy to victory

I still think it would be more reasonable for it to require only one person to have premium time or both parties to have made a package purchase or...

Edit: For those arguing that "pgi needs to keep the lights on" that $12 bucks cost PGI atleast $160. This silly pay wall doesn't even prevent two non premium players from tying up a server it just requires 2 premium players take time out of CW or the PUG cue to help them do it. IMO its non nonsensical and frustrating.

Edited by Kaptain, 06 September 2015 - 11:26 PM.

[Chuck Jager]

My experience in all level of sales has been that you do not generate income by lowering prices. When you do this it just lowers your perceived value of the product and you find yourself trying to attract people with out any money (they really should not be part of your daily business model - sad but true)

There should be discomfort in the F2P model, and premium time is less than 2hrs work at min wage in most 1st world countries. I am sure you can get 1 days premium time for less than buying a cup of Starbucks coffee. If this is expensive, it may be time to look for some extra hours or be thankful that you do have the options currently available.

Note I have multiple ongoing medical issues and I have been stuck with thousand dollar bills for medicine/services that I need to stay alive because of changes in insurance and procedures that are outside of my control. So sometimes a $5-25 pleasure expense is an envious problem.