176 replies to this topic

[El Bandito]

Ovion, on 15 September 2015 - 03:57 AM, said:

Don't really pay attention there do you?

For a start, if I gained 15 free and nothing else, I'd have 19 base.
And that's just what I remember free.
So probably 12-18 months.

I've obviously bought / acquired more as indicated by my Mad Dog badge and signature with some 130+ owned mechs in.

But, before I started paying, in the first say... 6 months, I did fine.
I got 2-3 bays from various stuff, then put a small amount in to buy a few bays, few colours, and that held me for AGES.

Honestly though, expecting the full unfettered experience from a game like this without paying a penny is absurd.

1. Even if you make mechbays free it will still not be full unfettered experience, as Hero mechs, camos and colors, cockpit items, and private matches are still behind the paywall. They can stay behind paywall as long as Hero mechs are not P2W. Mechbay, however, is essential part of this game. One does not see Dota 2 or League of Legends, or Path of Exile having real cash only hero slots. That's why I am asking for at least nine free mechbays, or better yet, make mechbays free.

2. Having the Mad Dog badge means you have spent at least $240 on this game, far higher than what F2P gamers spend, or willing to spend on average on a game. It also means that you were probably pressured by the grind and lack of mechbays so you bought the pack. (also probably not but you can't prove that to me)

Edited by El Bandito, 15 September 2015 - 04:13 AM.

[Christof Romulus]

El Bandito, on 13 September 2015 - 07:15 AM, said:

Cmon, PGI. Two kills (Mauler and Atlas), five assists, 358 damage is more than an average person on the team does, and I get only 92,755 C-Bills for that? Even the XP reward is disappointing, since if we discount the double XP weekend, I got only 850 XP.



I feel sorry for the newcomers.

With a premium time enabled you could have earned 46378 more...

Just saying.

[IraqiWalker]

El Bandito, on 14 September 2015 - 06:23 PM, said:

T3 runes and mastery pages are all unlockable without spending money. Mechbays are not. That's a BIG difference.

If one wants a successful F2P game, one should not gate vital parts of the game behind paywall.

I thought we were talking about Gating. Not pay walls. So that's shifting the goalposts.

Even then, You still earn a lot of mechbays without having to do much in the game.

I personally think mechbays should remain MC only. The MOST I'd be fine with, is letting players purchase 2 more mechbays for C-Bills (for a total of 6). Other than that, we have enough stuff that you can get for free.

Since we don't have to worry about tiers being locked from us. A new player that's brand spanking new can earn enough C-Bills to purchase any mech he wants, and have it fully loaded out without having any hard locks. The same can't be said for LoL.

I CAN'T put 30 points into my mastery page when I am level 1. I CAN buy any mech I want, and fully load it, and customize it, on day 1.

By the way, Runes, and mastery points are more critical to LoL, than mechbays are to MWO. Those things actually impact your performance (to the point where allocating a couple of points in the "wrong" mastery for your role, can cripple you). On the other hand.having 1 mechbay, or 7000, has no bearing on my performance in the match.

[El Bandito]

IraqiWalker, on 15 September 2015 - 05:46 PM, said:

I thought we were talking about Gating. Not pay walls. So that's shifting the goalposts.

Even then, You still earn a lot of mechbays without having to do much in the game.

I personally think mechbays should remain MC only. The MOST I'd be fine with, is letting players purchase 2 more mechbays for C-Bills (for a total of 6). Other than that, we have enough stuff that you can get for free.

Since we don't have to worry about tiers being locked from us. A new player that's brand spanking new can earn enough C-Bills to purchase any mech he wants, and have it fully loaded out without having any hard locks. The same can't be said for LoL.

I CAN'T put 30 points into my mastery page when I am level 1. I CAN buy any mech I want, and fully load it, and customize it, on day 1.

By the way, Runes, and mastery points are more critical to LoL, than mechbays are to MWO. Those things actually impact your performance (to the point where allocating a couple of points in the "wrong" mastery for your role, can cripple you). On the other hand.having 1 mechbay, or 7000, has no bearing on my performance in the match.

You will fight with same level League players anyway and they will also have T1 runes--and T1 runes are dirt cheap using in game money. And most importantly all the runes and mastery pages will be eventually available to you for free using in game cash and you can buy all the Champions too. Mechbays, not so much.

Oh, and you can't fully deck out a mech in day #1 because you will have to buy THREE to master it. A mech without 2 x Basic + Elite tree is just as gimped as champions without runes.

Edited by El Bandito, 15 September 2015 - 05:58 PM.

[Red Shrike]

IraqiWalker, on 15 September 2015 - 05:46 PM, said:

By the way, Runes, and mastery points are more critical to LoL, than mechbays are to MWO.

Heh, I mostly use random runes and apply mastery points in a semi random way.

[IraqiWalker]

El Bandito, on 15 September 2015 - 05:52 PM, said:

You will fight with same level League players anyway and they will also have T1 runes--and T1 runes are dirt cheap using in game money. And most importantly all the runes and mastery pages will be eventually available to you for free using in game cash and you can buy all the Champions too. Mechbays, not so much.

Oh, and you can't fully deck out a mech in day #1 because you will have to buy THREE to master it. A mech without 2 x Basic + Elite tree is just as gimped as champions without runes.

Pretty sure I can solve a big part of that problem with premium time, MC, and some C-Bill injections.

Also, the "Eventually" argument really doesn't work here, because it applies to MWO as well.

Timberwolf581, on 15 September 2015 - 05:53 PM, said:

Heh, I mostly use random runes and apply mastery points in a semi random way.

Your performance can improve by so much if you apply runes, and masteries efficiently.

[Aethon]

Mumuharra, on 13 September 2015 - 07:55 AM, said:

Yep, the grind is hard.
But I was told it's much worse in other games.
I can't compare but a lot of people told me this.
Buy premium if it's half price.
It doubles the fun.
But don't buy at full price.

Is this some sort of poem? The formatting is what makes me wonder.

[El Bandito]

IraqiWalker, on 15 September 2015 - 06:00 PM, said:

Pretty sure I can solve a big part of that problem with premium time, MC, and some C-Bill injections.

Also, the "Eventually" argument really doesn't work here, because it applies to MWO as well.

Your performance can improve by so much if you apply runes, and masteries efficiently.

Then I win this argument, cause you had recommended using real cash to get around MWO's locked bays and the grind. One never feels limited by runes in LoL because until one reaches level 20 he will not have the need for T3 runes, while one cannot even master 2 chassis without having to sell previous mechs in MWO--which is stupid.
Also performance improves mostly from experience, not runes. I can have T1 runes and still do well in my bracket.

Edited by El Bandito, 15 September 2015 - 06:12 PM.

[IraqiWalker]

El Bandito, on 15 September 2015 - 06:04 PM, said:

Then I win this argument, cause you had recommended using real cash to get around MWO's locked bays and the grind. One never feels limited by runes in LoL because until one reaches level 20 he will not have the need for T3 runes, while one cannot even master 2 chassis without having to sell previous mechs in MWO--which is stupid.
Also performance improves mostly from experience, not runes. I can have T1 runes and still do well in my bracket.

You actually lost

Because the argument is still that in MWO I have access to everything. Whereas in LoL, I can't get many things, because of 29 layers of gating.

Also, could you please point out where I said that Runes are the only thing that improves experience. The quote I responded to was about assigning them at random, and I said he would get better performance by assigning them efficiently.

Edited by IraqiWalker, 15 September 2015 - 06:25 PM.

[Fate 6]

Davers, on 13 September 2015 - 08:08 AM, said:

The grind is MUCH less than many other games. In LoL you can grind for over 40 hours to buy an expensive champ. In games like WoT you would have to play for months to get a top tier tank that would be considered competitive in their CW.

Without premium in MWO it'll take you AT LEAST 40 hours to get 3 of the more expensive mechs.

[bad arcade kitty]

Mumuharra, on 13 September 2015 - 07:55 AM, said:

Yep, the grind is hard.
But I was told it's much worse in other games.
I can't compare but a lot of people told me this.
Buy premium if it's half price.
It doubles the fun.
But don't buy at full price.

Aethon, on 15 September 2015 - 06:01 PM, said:

Is this some sort of poem? The formatting is what makes me wonder.

reformatted from free verse to blank verse

the grind is hard.
but i was told it is
much worse can be in the other games.
i can't compare, but
a lot of people told me this, it should be true.
buy premium if it's half price,
it doubles fun.
don't buy the premium if it is not half price,
it is expensive.

Edited by bad arcade kitty, 15 September 2015 - 07:35 PM.

[EmperorMyrf]

Timberwolf581, on 14 September 2015 - 12:40 AM, said:

Well, here's a video of a game I had. I'd consider it an average game.
As luck would have it, the match after that when I was no longer recording went a lot better, winning a 1v2 against a Cataphract and a Mist Lynx.



That game (see video) was more like World of Tanks than Mechwarrior. :/

My issue is I have poor field position, so I won't address that.
As far as the actual combat, I noticed a few things. Gotta watch your LRMs and be aware of where they're going to go. Just because you can lock on and they're in range doesn't mean they'll connect. Also when engaged up close and your weapons are on cooldown, you've got to take advantage of torso twisting. ~30 damage is a lot more bearable when you've distributed it across all your armor.

Definitely not bad though, there's no mistakes like I see new guys make (for example running out alone into a nest of reds).

[The Flying Gecko]

Drop two consumables, and you're looking at a sweet sweet 12,755 Cbills baby!

Once, after playing for 3 hours and being horribly trolled by the matchmaker, I realized I'd made a grand total of *NEGATIVE* 10,000 Cbills. Pretty much stopped using the consumables after that.

[bad arcade kitty]

Timberwolf581, on 14 September 2015 - 12:40 AM, said:

Well, here's a video of a game I had. I'd consider it an average game.
As luck would have it, the match after that when I was no longer recording went a lot better, winning a 1v2 against a Cataphract and a Mist Lynx.



That game (see video) was more like World of Tanks than Mechwarrior. :/

- poor tbr build:

the proper laser vomit for timber it's 2 lpl 4 ml, not 2 ll 2 ml, the current clan er large lasers are good only for sniping from very far, their burn time is very long

2 lrm-20 with only 2 tons of ammo, you lose a ridiculous amount of weight for those which could go to lasers and heat sinks; lrm-20 are bad, use lrm-15 maximum unless your mech heavily quirked for lrm-20 (timber is not), 2 tons of ammo is very little, ditch lrm completely or if you want them for lore reasons use lrm-10 or lrm-15 and more ammo (5+ tons)... but then if you are laser vomit you should be careful with wasting space for lrm, better ditch them

2 puny machineguns which you don't need and which you used very little, for like 1-2 seconds during the whole match right before you were destroyed (you had other opportunities too)

having 1-2 jump jets (tbr-s ct or one of the st) would help

- poor positioning:

most of the time you didn't have a space to peek or even to use lrm, you had to move to the fringe of the murderball (jj could help there too btw), a lot of your lrm hit obstacles, btw it seems you unloaded the whole 2 lrm-20 salvo in the back of a friendly mech on 4:36

- you don't use other vision modes

heat vision would make it much easier for the eyes

[Davers]

Fate 6, on 15 September 2015 - 07:02 PM, said:

Without premium in MWO it'll take you AT LEAST 40 hours to get 3 of the more expensive mechs.

40 hours to get 3 mechs is not the same as 40 hours to get 1 champion. Of course, if that champion is available for free that week you could play it with all the bells and whistles unlike trial mechs. But, LoL is just a better game.

[Christof Romulus]

Davers, on 15 September 2015 - 09:59 PM, said:

40 hours to get 3 mechs is not the same as 40 hours to get 1 champion. Of course, if that champion is available for free that week you could play it with all the bells and whistles unlike trial mechs. But, LoL is just a better game.

I don't believe you're being entirely fair.

Our trial mechs are the champion versions - unless I am mistaken.

Recently, evrey champion mech was re-vamped into a "Meta" mech by us, the community. So, by that logic, the trial mechs that players get to use do include all the bells and whistles.

[Nightmare1]

El Bandito, on 14 September 2015 - 12:38 AM, said:

Besides, it is not that easy to pop a perfect UAV as an Assault.

Does the key get harder to press when you pick a heavier Mech?

I use UAVs on my Assaults without any issues. The only difference between a Light's UAV and an Assault's UAV is purpose. A Light is going to try to run through the enemy and plant it early for aggression and planning. An Assault is going to wait to pop his until he is either pushing into the enemy or being pushed by the enemy. It's more defensive. If anything, it's harder for the Light Mech since it has to run the gauntlet alone whereas the Assault has supporters.

To say that it's hard to launch a UAV as an Assault is rather silly.

[Nightmare1]

Christof Romulus, on 15 September 2015 - 10:13 AM, said:

With a premium time enabled you could have earned 46378 more...

Just saying.

Yep!

I think one issue is that the player base thinks free-to-play should also mean "convenient-to-play." That's bunk though. The very nature of a free-to-play game is that it has an inconvenient grind. The grind makes it possible to buy things without having to financially support the game, but only in a way that takes longer than the financial supporters. What I'm seeing from a lot of posters and some of these screenshots, are players who aren't using Hero Mechs or Premium Time. In other words, they aren't actively supporting the game financially. To think that they should be able to earn money at a rate that is on par with pilots using both Hero Mechs and Premium Time is kind of silly. PGI's a business, not a charity. Folks need to either clam up and accept the grind or go buy Premium Time and Hero Mechs.

Personally speaking, I don't mind supporting the game financially since I enjoy playing it. I use both Premium Time and Hero Mechs. Even without them though, my earnings are pretty decent.

[El Bandito]

Nightmare1, on 16 September 2015 - 08:31 AM, said:

Does the key get harder to press when you pick a heavier Mech?

I use UAVs on my Assaults without any issues. The only difference between a Light's UAV and an Assault's UAV is purpose. A Light is going to try to run through the enemy and plant it early for aggression and planning. An Assault is going to wait to pop his until he is either pushing into the enemy or being pushed by the enemy. It's more defensive. If anything, it's harder for the Light Mech since it has to run the gauntlet alone whereas the Assault has supporters.

To say that it's hard to launch a UAV as an Assault is rather silly.

Read my post again. I said it is not easy to pop a perfect UAV as an Assault. Mostly due to how slow Assaults are compared to lighter classes. Besides, UAV on average does not give you back the C-Bills you spent on it. The SS showed that Escef earned 24K from scouting (presumably from the well placed UAV). But that's still 16K short of the total C-Bills he spent on the consumable, making it a deficit. Telling others to use consumables for better C-Bill reward is rather silly, IMO.

Edited by El Bandito, 16 September 2015 - 08:53 AM.

[Nightmare1]

El Bandito, on 16 September 2015 - 08:49 AM, said:

Telling others to use consumables for better C-Bill reward is rather silly, IMO.

Consumables aren't meant to increase your rewards. They are a money sink and part of the free-to-play game model. All they are supposed to do is give you an advantage in battle. Frankly, I always operate under the assumption that I am losing money by using the Consumable rather than earning additional money.

Basically, it comes down to this: How bad do you want to win? Are you willing to pay for an "edge?"