26 replies to this topic

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Ultimately the issue of grind comes down to the underlying economics of free-to-play.

Free players are content. Whales will stop spending if they are dissatisfied by the content available. Making it easier for free players to participate on an even playing field makes it more likely that larger quantities of free players will stick around, providing better content for the whales.

Some F2P games make the mistake of thinking that whales want easy content. This leads to things like super grind for free players, premium gear for pay players, and ultimately pay-to-win or even pay-to-play-for-real.

MWO is certainly not pay-to-win, but the grind is certainly not friendly, nor does it encourage free players to stick around. The Cadet bonus was a good first step, and the c-bills for the tutorial are a great second one, but ultimately the sustained level of income is simply too low to retain a large enough population of free players to provide sufficient content for pay players. This leads to longer queue times, imbalanced matchmaker results, and ultimately frustration on the part of whales who are then disinclined to continue spending money.

There are a few key principles that PGI would do well to try to embrace more than they have so far:

1 - Progression needs to be apparent. Players like to see that their games have meaningful impact on their progression. In MWO, that means both XP and c-bills. Both are slow right now, especially for those who don't tailor their gameplay behaviors to maximize them. Reworking mech efficiencies and XP unlocks will help make progression more meaningful, but ultimately XP and c-bill earning rates should be bumped to give players the feeling that every match was worth it.

2 - Spending leads to spending. Give players a small amount of Premium Time and MC over the course of their learning period. Once they have PT and experience how it boosts their earnings, they'll be more inclined to pick it up in future. Once they've spent some MC on colors or patterns or Hero mechs, they'll be more inclined to pick up extra MC to make future purchases. Buying MC and Hero mechs and such will lead to buying mech packs, which are where PGI's real funding comes from.

3 - Variety leads to interest. PGI needs to get 4v4 up and running, and their Assault rework launched. Giving players meaningful variety in objectives and game modes will lead to increased player retention, which in turn will make it easier for players to find matches that will be of better MM quality, which will lead to whales being happy and opening their wallets.

[Sp4rtan]

Khorender, on 26 October 2015 - 09:18 AM, said:

MWO is FREE and yet another thread on getting more for free, the main useless grinds for me are the 3 chassis rule, I understand it from a marketing point but after the 3rd or 4th time it get's old, and CW they can keep trying to bribe me to play it again, after the Tuk event there is little to no desire. Give me a better game not more free stuff that's already free.

Well can you specify to me the line you say Give me a better game not more free stuff that's already free"
Because if you are refering to mech packages or the bundles you seem to be a little confused.

As I already said the mech bundles and the mech packages ARE NOT ONLY about MECHS :-) you get unique stuff as well, and other game enhancements like premium time, mech bays, and 30% c-bills boost from the hero variants tha you get along with ALL the packages. . . . (cockpit items, titles, and acces to apreciation rewards I leave them out because they have little meaning for you since you are concetrating only on the mechs).

All I;m saying is that if players somehow got new mechs in to their hands at a faster rate, this could be a good thing!
1 you keep them busy and online! That's the main goal right I mean you need customers into the store!!
2 You keep them satisfied and and they might want to buy some extra stuff
3 the player base is going to get bigger! (more possible customers,you expand the target group)
4 The piloting skill will rise (more competitive matches for all)
5 Less meta (since people have some more c bills to spare they will try new builds and not only the safe meta way :-p)
6 More CW matches ( No mundane trial mechs anymore plus they will have mech with modules battle ready and not trying to remeber where did we last put the damn module)

So the question is ho the hell the players will spend mcs if they get c-bills!
I think it;s obvious! Keep them online,satisfied and they will buy stuff for their favorite direwolf once they got it in their hands!!!

peace

[Pjwned]

The thing is that PGI wants to double dip by encouraging you to buy mech bays with MC (and maybe some enhancements) as well as buying the mechs themselves with MC.

Considering how often people complain about this though it doesn't seem like it's the best model, but I guess enough whales show up and spend $50-200 on various crap that PGI hasn't felt the need to change anything.

[Airu]

I agree that cbill gain is a little too slow if you don't play everyday for hours. I average around 93k a match according to my stat page, so if I want to get, say a hunchback - thats about 6,000,000 cbills with all mandatory upgrades, but not including a new engine. That is around 65 games or about 7-8 hours for a single medium mech. If a ftp player wants to play an IS assault that will take 2-3 times the time to get cbills. Assuming you get 93k average per game.

Edited by Airu, 26 October 2015 - 02:44 PM.

[Cupid and Psyche _]

I do not think PGI reads the forums very often haha...

IMO, the amount of C-bills earned needs to be raised period. I am not even talking about a drastic increase at all, but just enough so it feels like you are working towards something (instead of grinding).

[Sp4rtan]

Pjwned, on 26 October 2015 - 02:40 PM, said:

The thing is that PGI wants to double dip by encouraging you to buy mech bays with MC (and maybe some enhancements) as well as buying the mechs themselves with MC.

Considering how often people complain about this though it doesn't seem like it's the best model, but I guess enough whales show up and spend $50-200 on various crap that PGI hasn't felt the need to change anything.

I Agree! The whales are going to be whales... But why not the sardines as well?? 1 $ from each sardine and you are millionaire :-p

[TLBFestus]

Bobzilla, on 26 October 2015 - 08:44 AM, said:

You have to look at it from the standpoint of:

People willing to spend money do and those not willing to spend money won't.

So low cbill earnings really just causes those who won't pay to not want to play. It doesn't motivate them to spend, because if they don't enjoy playing (grinding) then why buy mechs to play (grind) with? And if they don't want to pay, but enjoy playing (grinding), the low cbills means nothing, tho they will have to spend on mechbays (but not nearly as fast or as much due to low cbill earnings).

People willing to spend buy mech packs and PT, but the PT is for XP not cbills, as they get most of the mechs through packs which adds PT anyways. So low cbill earings doesn't affect them either.

Low cbill earnings affects the casual/new player that isn't invested in the game. So they won't stick around long enough to want to buy things.

Then again, I don't know where they make most of their money. I'm guessing its from packs. So those invested and willing to spend will buy a pack, and you may get a new/casual player to buy one too. But then they quickly realize they still have to grind them out anyways, and a pack will take them a very long time to master (being new or casual), probably until a new pack is out. So cbill earnings isn't really a big deal there either.

Mods take a long time for gxp, so cbills don't matter.

No amount you can spend on the game takes the 'grind' out if you don't enjoy the game.

That's a good observation, but you neglected to mention that the non- paying players are NEEDED as "content" for the game. Without enough players the game becomes stagnant and the whales have nothing to shoot at.

I think it's safe to say from your argument that higher c-bill earnings wouldn't discourage spenders that much because they are "going to spend", and I agree with you. With that in mind increasing c-bill earnings (and it doesn't have to be a lot) would encourage non-paying players to stick around because the grind is less arduous.

Less grind = More non-paying players = more targets/content in the game for the spenders, which = healthier game.

Edited by TLBFestus, 27 October 2015 - 07:07 AM.