23 replies to this topic

[Mothermoy]

Now i did search first before i asked (completely new player, the steam launch sucked me in). Im just wondering as far as time needed to grind to your next mech (mechwarrior being non linear sounds amazing). Compared to grinding up a WOT line, how long will it take me? faster, about the same time, or shorter

from what i read its the Cbills and not the xp that necessarily takes longer? is this correct.
any other random tips you feel you should throw in for a newb would be helpful!

[Lupis Volk]

Mothermoy, on 12 December 2015 - 12:13 AM, said:

Now i did search first before i asked (completely new player, the steam launch sucked me in). Im just wondering as far as time needed to grind to your next mech (mechwarrior being non linear sounds amazing). Compared to grinding up a WOT line, how long will it take me? faster, about the same time, or shorter

from what i read its the Cbills and not the xp that necessarily takes longer? is this correct.
any other random tips you feel you should throw in for a newb would be helpful!

this is correct. Cbills is all you need to get mechs. XP is used to unlock skills (passive buffs)

mechs with (c) are champion mechs they give you a extra 30% xp while (h) hero mechs give you 30% extra cbills. both are brought with MC (premium currency) you need 3 mechs of the same chassis but different variants to get through the higher skills. If you want to you could buy a Mastery bundle of your choice when you've figured out your play style and mech class of choice (light, medium, heavy, assault)

[Leone]

Random Tip,

If you die really early, you can just exit match and drop in a different mech. The classic suggestion though is stay, and learn from spectating others. But, from a purely grinding point of view, your just missing out on the kill assists an such for ditching, and if you died early, (unless you brawl quite heavily, chance is you wont earn much anyways.) Now, you die late game, may be worth hanging around to pick up a few more assists as your team clears up. And it's always nice to check an see how many 'kill most damage dealts' one gets.

~Leone.

[Hawk_eye]

To expand a bit on the skill thingy (I´m still a relatively new player, so if my picture is wrong, someone tell me please )

[Mothermoy]

how long of a grind does it take to get each mech. using your griffin example. how long will it take to get the three mechs then elite them. im really looking hard at the assault steam pack while it is on sale. My mech i try to learn first will prolly be the King Crab.

[Rogue Jedi]

Mothermoy, on 12 December 2015 - 01:15 AM, said:

how long of a grind does it take to get each mech. using your griffin example. how long will it take to get the three mechs then elite them. im really looking hard at the assault steam pack while it is on sale. My mech i try to learn first will prolly be the King Crab.

I earn roughly 150,000 per match with premium time,
so without I would probably be averaging 100,000 per match, that means 10 matches for a million cbills, so using your example of the King Crab that is about 110 games, assuming no premium time or special variants with a cbill bonus, games usualy take between 5 and 15 minutes so lets say 10 minutes per game on average, so 18 hours to earn a King Crab,
As a new player you can get about 18 million for the tutorial and your first 25 games.

if you buy the assault performance pack that includes a King Crab and a Dire Wolf both with a 30% earnings boost, if you used those that would take it down to about 12 hours

edit:
the performance pack also includes a camo patern for the KCG and DWF and some colours, 6.5 million cbills, a month of premium time as well as 4,000 MC enough to buy one of the King Crab varients, and add the 6.5 million to your 18 million for the tutorial and first 25 and you can buy and outfit 2 King Crabs + outfit the special varient from the performance pack with the Performance Pack and your cadet bonus.
with the premium time going by the time you have finished leveling the KCGs you should have enough money to purchase at least one (probably 2) other DWF to go with the DWF from the pack

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 12 December 2015 - 05:19 AM.

[BeaverOnFire]

But be aware of this: Assaults are the most expensive mechs in the game. You need to earn a lot of cbills in order to be able to buy three and fit them all out with the right engines (!), weapons, armor type and double heat sinks (and later on: modules).
Don´t get me wrong, the King Crab is a good mech but i would start with a medium or light mech. You can build them properly with your starting cbills which is kinda important. The better you perform in a match the more you earn. And you need a lot more cbills to build an assault properly (more weapons needed, the right engine, etc.) That being said, mediums/lights are also more forgiving than an assault in their playstyle and trying to grind out all the things you want with an assault as a new player can be tough due to poor earnings resulting from subbar machtes. You need to know where to go and stand as an assault and thats hard if you don´t know the maps.

If you get the bundle on the other hand, you don´t need to buy the initial Crab and you can use your starting cbills to built it properly, earn 30% more cbills and so on. In that case, i don´t see that much of a problem to start your journey in an assault.

If you need any help, ask. You can send me an invite ingame also, if you like. Always happy to help.

PS: A good place to look for good builds, which mechs to buy first, which builds to build: metamechs.com
There is a Guide section, where he explains mech by mech, which Crab for instance you should buy first, how to build it and how to master it in the end. A liitle bit outdated in the build compartment but still a very nice site.

Edited by BeaverOnFire, 12 December 2015 - 04:35 AM.

[Rogue Jedi]

BeaverOnFire, on 12 December 2015 - 04:33 AM, said:

Don´t get me wrong, the King Crab is a good mech but i would start with a medium or light mech.

also do not fall into the trap of seeing a Light costs 3 million so buy it thinking it is cheep, an Inner Sphere Light Mech will generally want double the purchase cost in upgrades to get it to a semi competitive state, so if a light costs 3 million rough rule of thumb you will probably end up spending 9-10 million total to get it into good shape,

The Mediums can usualy be setup much cheaper, in many cases you can outfit a medium for less than 2 million.

this is due to XL engines, an Inner Sphere XL engine (short for eXtra Light) weighs about half as much as a standard engine but means loosing a side torso will kill your Mech, most lights desperately need full speed but also want some tonnage for weapons so an XL engine (in many cases costing 4.5 million+) is almost compulsory for most lights, where as mediums can often make do with standards, in fact several Medium Mechs are better with standard engines

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 12 December 2015 - 04:47 AM.

[Modo44]

Mothermoy, on 12 December 2015 - 12:13 AM, said:

from what i read its the Cbills and not the xp that necessarily takes longer? is this correct.

You can have a mech fully unlocked (3 variants bought and leveled) in a week. There are no prerequisites to choosing a specific mech, so that part is easy.

The long grind is for modules. They require tons of GXP and Cbills to buy, and are the real end-game content in MWO.

[Hawk_eye]

In the about 550 matches I have under my belt, I have gotten about 740 base (without premium or mech-boni) XP and about 92000 c-bills per match

Total XP needed for

Basic: 14000
Elite: 21500
Master: 21500

So, on average, I need 19 matches to basic a mech and 29 matches to elite and another 29 to master it.

Keep in mind though, that I am baaaaaad (and way too aggressive for my own good).

In my first, oh 10 or so matches I had single-digit damage-numbers and only after 100 matches or so I started to reliably get three digit ones (my currently best game was a 770 damage one with three kills, but that _is_ an outlier. Still 200 to 400 damage games are nothing special anymore - so yeah, it gets easier after a while)

[Unreliable Mercenary]

Leone, on 12 December 2015 - 12:52 AM, said:

Random Tip,

If you die really early, you can just exit match and drop in a different mech. The classic suggestion though is stay, and learn from spectating others. But, from a purely grinding point of view, your just missing out on the kill assists an such for ditching, and if you died early, (unless you brawl quite heavily, chance is you wont earn much anyways.) Now, you die late game, may be worth hanging around to pick up a few more assists as your team clears up. And it's always nice to check an see how many 'kill most damage dealts' one gets.

~Leone.

Can I also add that if you stay you get the XP and credits from assists even after death. If you leave you don't get any of them AFAIK.

[Mechwarrior1441491]

New players can almost be tier 2 before they are done their first 25 matches.

[Rogue Jedi]

xMADCATTERx, on 12 December 2015 - 12:27 PM, said:

New players can almost be tier 2 before they are done their first 25 matches.

I am guessing you replied to the title without reading the original post, the question was about purchasing and skilling a Mech, as in going from basic to master

Can a new player seriously climb 3 tiers in 25 matches? I know that used to be possible with a top player starting a new account but now that they start in t5 is that still the case?

[Duvanor]

Mothermoy, on 12 December 2015 - 12:13 AM, said:

Now i did search first before i asked (completely new player, the steam launch sucked me in). Im just wondering as far as time needed to grind to your next mech (mechwarrior being non linear sounds amazing). Compared to grinding up a WOT line, how long will it take me? faster, about the same time, or shorter

from what i read its the Cbills and not the xp that necessarily takes longer? is this correct.
any other random tips you feel you should throw in for a newb would be helpful!

I think it has not been stressed here enough, so let me add: Your Tier has nothing to do with the mechs you can buy. You can get every mech (except new releases, heroes and champions) you want right from the beginning if you got the C-Bills. No leveling involved.

Leveling mechs will give you some good buffs on the leveled mechs and to get the elite and master buffs you need 3 variants of that mech type. Antecursors numbers seem pretty good. Premium time gives you a 50% XP boost and the first victory of the day for every individual mech chassis you own brings you another 100% XP boost.

Your Tier in MWO is for the matchmaker to get matches with roughly evenly skilled players. If not enough players in the same bracket are available the matchmaker will soften up the rules a bit.

I hope that answers your question.

Edited by Duvanor, 12 December 2015 - 08:43 PM.

[Modo44]

Owen Miller, on 12 December 2015 - 12:12 PM, said:

Can I also add that if you stay you get the XP and credits from assists even after death. If you leave you don't get any of them AFAIK.

Yes, but it remains more efficient to drop again immediately. Staying around and watching is recommended for new players, since you can observe the epicness (of fails), and learn.

[Pskonejott]

Lets say roughly a million cbills an hour and king crabs are 10 million. Maybe another 3 million to outfit one, without modules. So, roughly 13 hours, but that's one of the more expensive mechs in game. The amount earned can vary a lot, but even if it were more like 750k it doesn't change things a huge amount.

Running a king crab as a brand new player may lead to some frustrations though, I'd recommend the heavy pack with its timber wolf over the assault pack. The special variants with their 30% cbill boost are definitely nice and are going to help out quite a bit until you start getting a larger stable of mechs.

FYI, not sure how much of a commitment you're looking to make but the Clan Origins IIC mechs release on Dec 15th, for $80 (highlander pack) you get 12 mechs total, 3 each of light, medium, heavy, assault, and one of each class is a special variant with the 30% cbill bonus. If it were me that's what I'd do (I've already bought it, and are looking forward to them). You'd be able to elite all of those mechs without having to buy any further mechs, and you could just concentrate on outfitting them nicely. That's available by clicking the store button above.

As for grind, if you buy a pack or 2 there isn't really any grind. Sure you still have to play the mechs 50 matches or so each to max out their bonus's but you're playing the game anyway for fun. Once you have a few mechs you like you'll just start accumulating cbills and buying new mechs just because you can.

[Duvanor]

Pskonejott, on 13 December 2015 - 12:49 AM, said:

Lets say roughly a million cbills an hour and king crabs are 10 million. Maybe another 3 million to outfit one, without modules. So, roughly 13 hours, but that's one of the more expensive mechs in game. The amount earned can vary a lot, but even if it were more like 750k it doesn't change things a huge amount.

This comes from a Tier 1 player. I'd say, the average guy without Heromech and Premium Time should expect something like 80K-150K per game and 4 to 6 games per hour. So after the Cadet Bonus expires it would be around 90 minutes to two hours per million C-Bills.

It really depends on your luck with the teams you get into in the beginning of your MWO career. Good teams bring victories and victories bring more cash.

Edited by Duvanor, 13 December 2015 - 06:21 AM.

[Pskonejott]

Duvanor, on 13 December 2015 - 06:20 AM, said:

This comes from a Tier 1 player. I'd say, the average guy without Heromech and Premium Time should expect something like 80K-150K per game and 4 to 6 games per hour. So after the Cadet Bonus expires it would be around 90 minutes to two hours per million C-Bills. It really depends on your luck with the teams you get into in the beginning of your MWO career. Good teams bring victories and victories bring more cash.

Perhaps I was a bit off on my estimation of new player earnings with the current rewards systems Been a while. But if Mothermoy does go for an (s) variant he should pull somewhere in that ballpark

[Rededevil]

Leone, on 12 December 2015 - 12:52 AM, said:

Random Tip,

If you die really early, you can just exit match and drop in a different mech. The classic suggestion though is stay, and learn from spectating others. But, from a purely grinding point of view, your just missing out on the kill assists an such for ditching, and if you died early, (unless you brawl quite heavily, chance is you wont earn much anyways.) Now, you die late game, may be worth hanging around to pick up a few more assists as your team clears up. And it's always nice to check an see how many 'kill most damage dealts' one gets.

~Leone.

Actually, it is my experience that if you die, your mech is locked until that match is complete - so no, you cannot go into a new match unless something has drastically changed.. your mech will be locked for the duration of the match that you died in. You can, however, do many other things should you exit a match, including reconfiguring your mech, using the store or look at your skills/achievements among other things. But you cannot start into a new game.

[Rededevil]

Just a little advise... Randomly you will see a special on a set of mechs in the store.. For instance, you might see a 50% off Timberwolf sale. And then it is a good time to use your Cbills to buy them. many times, they have mechbays on sale, and conversion from XP to GXP specials. If you are patient, just earn your cbills and use them sparingly to update the mechs you already own.. be patient and you will see a 'special weekend' where you can purchase selected mechs for 50% off. This is exactly how i purchased 3 Timberwolves for what I would have paid for one and a half timberwolves.. They had a 50% off on Timberwolves and I had saved the cbills to buy it.. Bammo, I was set to skill up a group of mechs. I recommend being patient, and saving your cbills until you get an opportunity to buy 3 at one time. Then, you are set.