19 replies to this topic

[Eleidon]

Hi guys, I briefly played this game and signed up for the founders pack back in early beta, and I have just recently come back to play. I love all the new mechs and changes to the game since last I played, but I have to say....mech and fitting prices are absurdly overpriced.

Lets look at it this way, my founders package gave me like 10,000 MC...which got me a single timberwolf variant and a black knight...that's it. Ok fair enough, but what about c-bills? Playing with premium time I average 150k-250k c-bills per match, which takes roughly 15 minutes each.That doesn't sound too bad...until I want to go buy another timberwolf varient...which costs a whopping 16,000,000 c-bills. At the rate I've been earning c-bills (which isn't a bad rate either) it would take me approximately 80 matches...which comes out to 20 hours of solid grinding just to unlock another variant.

Oh and don't even get me started on fittings...just look at an engine, you can easily spend 5,000,000 c-bills on a single engine...that's roughly 6 hours of grinding just to buy a ******* engine. Honestly how do you people expect anybody without a no-limit american express to get any type of variety in their mechlab?

This wouldn't be such a huge problem if the real money store wasn't so expensive either. I dropped $50 there and only managed to walk away with a raven, a hunchback, and 3 marauder variants. Just let that sink in there....for $50...the price of many FULL GAMES on steam, I only got a handful of mechs.

Now I'm sorry if this comes across as incendiary, but this is ********. Out of all the F2P games I've ever played, none of them have ever been this much of a scam.

Reduce MC prices by 30%, reduce C-bill prices by 50%, and reduce fitting prices (especially engines) by 40%. You people really shouldn't have to be told this, any dev on your team who actually plays this game should have instantly realized that these prices are ******** the moment they were suggested. Fix your **** MWO.

[ET Penang]

Hi Eleidon, welcome to MWO. I have played this game for 2 year now, owned more than 20 mechs (and 40 mech bays) and most of them are mastered, with full modules installed.....however I have not spent a single dime on the game (shame on me I know!) except my free times. Now I have almost 120 millions c-bill sitting around in my account...still trying to figure out where to spend them.

I enjoy the game very much. It was always hard in the beginning to earn. To accelerate your earning, one nice thing PGI has done well is giving those freebies (Mechs, C-bills, MCs, Premium times) during events, so pay attention and participate, you will earn a lots in a short period of time.

I share my experience so you see how it can be done. I hope you don't get discourage with the slow earning in the beginning...we all do, unless those with load of cash!

Try to enjoy the game with your favourite mechs....see you in the battlefield!

[Eleidon]

How many hours a day are you sinking into this game to get to where you are now though? I play this game a good 6 hours a day at least, and I still struggle to get many C-bills. Just to outfit 3 heavy clan mechs it can cost 15 to 20 million c-bills. Then if I change my mind and wanna swap fittings it just eats up more money.

Are you able to get matches quicker or something? It usually takes me a good 2 minute wait to get into a match.

[ET Penang]

Hi Eleidon, I spent around 2 to 4 hours a day and slightly longer in weekend.....without premium time I can generate around 1 million plus on normal day. With premium time will go up to 3 millions usually. Also joining the CW events also boost significant C-bills earning.

Waiting for 2 minutes to get a match seem quite long for me (I hate to wait), it usually took me less than 1 minute to find nw match, by choosing the lower queue mech's range.

[Knaven86]

It's very daunting at first. It really is. I've only played this game for about 6 months, and probably can't even say I average more than 2 hours a day. It really has been fun though. I've gotten to where I have spare equipment in the garage that I can swap between mechs, reducing costs for new builds or new mechs. It gets easier with time. Sadly you did choose some really expensive mechs to start off with, that can make things worse when you're trying to get to elite exp tiers. Luckily with the latest build of the game getting a mech to elite is not quite as critical as before. Just having a mech basic exp level can still be very effective. One thing to consider is that there are cheap mechs out there that can earn money very quickly, are cheaper to outfit and master, and also are quite fun to play! Other things to watch for are the sales that occur periodically. For instance right now there are like 10+ mechs that get a nice sale price, which can really help.

The real money shop is surely pricey. Sadly it is due to low population. This community is funding further development of the game through store purchases, and the game is changing to reflect that. The FTP model is a crazy concept, but it does seem to work. I value our players that play for free every day, enriching the game with population for matches. I also appreciate those that have used their real dollars to help support the game. Like the other guy in the thread said, spending real money is not necessary, and won't get you an advantage that will be unavailable to those who do not pay... it just gets you things faster, as a convenience(Well, there are also the vanity things which don't affect gameplay but help reward players who contribute).

If you enjoy your matches, keep playing em. The cbills will come with time

[B0oN]

Welcome to the grind, good sir !

This stupid pilot (aka Rad Hanzo, aka Kitten playing with yarnballs) has 16k+ public games and 2k+ CW games .
It takes time to get somewhere, monetarily spoken, so please stick to and dont give up the grind .

[butchly13]

As a fresh new player starting in December I definitely see where you're coming from Eleidon. It is daunting to the new player to allocate c-bills and other resources without wasting them and it can be a paint to grind more just because you blew the cadet bonus c-bills on a mech you ended up not liking (or you girlfriend wanted you to buy so she could play once, but I digress...).

That being said, I only really see this barrier to new players because most people I've talked to who have played for at least 6 months don't have a problem allocating their resources. They know what mechs they want, they take advantage of the events, and they have more in-game currency than they know what to do with.

I personally think the right answer is somewhere in the middle. Perhaps PGI could create a starter package that gives you 4 more mech bays, 1 mech from each class (or maybe 2 from 2 classes) and enough c-bills to fully kit one of them out. Charge $50 bucks for it and call it a day. At least that way new players will have their cadet bonus c-bills AND the option to get a new player booster pack for a reasonable value. Now I'm a quicker learner than most and I already have my sights set on the next 3 mechs I want so I'm planning accordingly which ones I'll spend actual money on and which ones I'll buy with c-bills. Regardless, I'm just happy I found the game and am trying to enjoy it as much as I can only playing it 5 hours a week if I'm lucky.

Then again maybe I'm just a new player and I might not know what I'm talking about. But at least I'm loving every minute of the game so far

Edited by butchly13, 15 January 2016 - 08:28 AM.

[Volts]

Join a decent corp.

An evening of CW drops (if you are in a faction with instant drops), is around 10 mill cbills.

You'll end up with more money than you know what to do with.

edit: forgot to add that I use premium time.

Edited by Volts, 15 January 2016 - 10:14 AM.

[Hydrocarbon]

Ever play an online game on a non-official "private server"? Where EXP/money/drops are 10,000 times higher than normal? It gets boring as F***. In 5 mins you've maxed out into the end game, didn't learn squat, and even the toughest bosses are a cakewalk. You then quit & try the next game...

Learn how to farm. Join a unit, learn how CW works, then enjoy 2 mil+ per hour if you "get gud". You even get free mech bays & MC if you really grind it.



Conversely...you could focus your anger at your parents & teachers for lying to your generation, saying you can get anything you want with half-a**ed participation.

[Eleidon]

Hydrocarbon, on 15 January 2016 - 02:53 PM, said:

Ever play an online game on a non-official "private server"? Where EXP/money/drops are 10,000 times higher than normal? It gets boring as F***. In 5 mins you've maxed out into the end game, didn't learn squat, and even the toughest bosses are a cakewalk. You then quit & try the next game...

Learn how to farm. Join a unit, learn how CW works, then enjoy 2 mil+ per hour if you "get gud". You even get free mech bays & MC if you really grind it.



Conversely...you could focus your anger at your parents & teachers for lying to your generation, saying you can get anything you want with half-a**ed participation.

I hate to rain on your smug parade, but yes, I have played on private servers before. Try playing on a 7x Lineage 2 server, it's still an insane grind; picture 30 people in a clan all farming materials for a week just to craft a single weapon that isn't even top grade. Now imagine a 1x server, just let that sink in. The c-bill payouts/mech prices for this game are terrible.

Changing prices like I suggested wouldn't rush people to "end game" (I don't even think there is an endgame for MMO FPS/Strategy games tbh). The whole point of mechwarrior is to be able to customize your mechs and have a huge hanger of them to battle with. At the current prices, customizing more than one heavy mech is prohibitively expensive....let alone getting 3 variants of the same mech so you can unlock the perks.

I know how to farm, and I know how CW works. Unfortunately CW seems to be pretty ****** atm, hardly anybody queues up. Which makes quick play more c-bills per hour. The only way I could see CW being a better use of time is if you had 12 people to play with at all times, so that the queue would be nearly instant.

Finally, your last condescending "point" you can take, rotate 90*, and shove right up your *** . Odds are I'm older than you, but I digress.

[Kali Rinpoche]

F2P doesn't mean free to run. PGI is extremely generous with handing out multiple free premium days, mech bays, even free mechs during events. The only thing money does, except for premium time and mech bays, is let you buy cosmetic fluff. Their is no need to spend money on early access mech packs or even hero mechs if you don't want to. F2P players get full access to the game, not gating, no money for AA's etc. You can play the game if your prudent and frugal without ever spending a dime. I hope you stay and give it a shot, but if you're unhappy there are many other titles to play.

[Eleidon]

Kali Rinpoche, on 16 January 2016 - 05:57 PM, said:

F2P doesn't mean free to run. PGI is extremely generous with handing out multiple free premium days, mech bays, even free mechs during events. The only thing money does, except for premium time and mech bays, is let you buy cosmetic fluff. Their is no need to spend money on early access mech packs or even hero mechs if you don't want to. F2P players get full access to the game, not gating, no money for AA's etc. You can play the game if your prudent and frugal without ever spending a dime. I hope you stay and give it a shot, but if you're unhappy there are many other titles to play.

I think you're missing my point a bit. The point I was getting at was that if everything is going to cost so many c-bills for the f2p people, then at the very least the MC prices should be much lower. I spent $50 on this game and got basically nothing...which is crazy.

Unlike other f2p games, nothing you can buy with MC is overpowered or offers any advantage other than allowing you more variety to break up the monotony of the grind. So there is no reason why MC prices should also be insanely high if c-bill prices are as well. If I drop $50 on MC, I should be able to buy at least a dozen heavy mechs and loads of fittings for them....not just a mad cat, black knight, and 3 marauders. See what I'm getting at?

[butchly13]

Eleidon, on 16 January 2016 - 05:04 PM, said:

I hate to rain on your smug parade, but yes, I have played on private servers before. Try playing on a 7x Lineage 2 server, it's still an insane grind; picture 30 people in a clan all farming materials for a week just to craft a single weapon that isn't even top grade. Now imagine a 1x server, just let that sink in. The c-bill payouts/mech prices for this game are terrible.

Changing prices like I suggested wouldn't rush people to "end game" (I don't even think there is an endgame for MMO FPS/Strategy games tbh). The whole point of mechwarrior is to be able to customize your mechs and have a huge hanger of them to battle with. At the current prices, customizing more than one heavy mech is prohibitively expensive....let alone getting 3 variants of the same mech so you can unlock the perks.

If you know what a "true grind" is then how is MWO worse? If it took 30 people farming a week to get a sub par weapon, I'd say that took significantly more time than what it would take to get the most OP meta build in MWO.

I'm a casual player that started in December and already have 4 mechs, 2 of which I actually use and 2 that were stupid purchases that I should have saved my money. I checked Steam and I've put in around 30 hours of game play. Or, in your case, 30 people spending 1 hour to grind. I've got 4 mechs, 2 of which I can pull 300-400 damage games on a regular basis. They're lights too in case you care. If I really wanted, and could find the time to play 2 hours a night every night (not a terrible grind if you ask me), I could get a new mech each week with PGI's events and other specials. That's 52 mechs a year. Of course I'll have to spend some money to get the mechbays but that's still 52 mechs.

If you're turned on by maths, try this one:

1 game = 150k c-bills (probably a safe average for me without premium time)
1 game = 15 min (max, but I'd rather take the safe route)
150k * 60 / 15 = 600k c-bills an hour
600k * 2 hours per night = 1.2 million c-bills
1.8 * 7 = 8.4 million c-bills a week.

That at least gets me to the point where I can make the decision to buy premium time or not. But with the recent events PGI has been throwing in, I'm about to get a free Cicada, I already have 4 mechs, and with premium time I'd easily bump the 8.4 up another 50% to 12.6 million c-bills per week. Or roughly the average cost of all the mechs currently in the game.

Plus we all know most people play more on the weekends but I think you can see what I'm getting at. But then again, that's just me.

Eleidon, on 16 January 2016 - 05:04 PM, said:

Finally, your last condescending "point" you can take, rotate 90*, and shove right up your *** . Odds are I'm older than you, but I digress.

You're prolly older than me too, so I get why you're in such a hurry to get your massive inventory of mechs. Not much time left on the clock is there?

EDIT: Spelling and some grammar

Edited by butchly13, 18 January 2016 - 05:40 AM.

[Eleidon]

butchly13, on 18 January 2016 - 05:31 AM, said:

If you know what a "true grind" is then how is MWO worse? If it took 30 people farming a week to get a sub par weapon, I'd say that took significantly more time than what it would take to get the most OP meta build in MWO.

I'm a casual player that started in December and already have 4 mechs, 2 of which I actually use and 2 that were stupid purchases that I should have saved my money. I checked Steam and I've put in around 30 hours of game play. Or, in your case, 30 people spending 1 hour to grind. I've got 4 mechs, 2 of which I can pull 300-400 damage games on a regular basis. They're lights too in case you care. If I really wanted, and could find the time to play 2 hours a night every night (not a terrible grind if you ask me), I could get a new mech each week with PGI's events and other specials. That's 52 mechs a year. Of course I'll have to spend some money to get the mechbays but that's still 52 mechs.

If you're turned on by maths, try this one:

1 game = 150k c-bills (probably a safe average for me without premium time)
1 game = 15 min (max, but I'd rather take the safe route)
150k * 60 / 15 = 600k c-bills an hour
600k * 2 hours per night = 1.2 million c-bills
1.8 * 7 = 8.4 million c-bills a week.

That at least gets me to the point where I can make the decision to buy premium time or not. But with the recent events PGI has been throwing in, I'm about to get a free Cicada, I already have 4 mechs, and with premium time I'd easily bump the 8.4 up another 50% to 12.6 million c-bills per week. Or roughly the average cost of all the mechs currently in the game.

Plus we all know most people play more on the weekends but I think you can see what I'm getting at. But then again, that's just me.



You're prolly older than me too, so I get why you're in such a hurry to get your massive inventory of mechs. Not much time left on the clock is there?

EDIT: Spelling and some grammar

The difference between a private lineage 2 server and MWO is that way back then I was in high school and literally had nothing better to do than grab a sh1t bucket and farm materials all day. When I said 30 people farming for a week I didn't mean 1 hour a day, try 4-5 hours a day each. Now that I'm living in the real world with responsibilities I can't sink 8 hours a day into a game just to get a single item/mech. Also, by todays standards L2 is a horrible game.

I just checked steam and I already have 47 hours clocked on this game, and I've only started playing recently.

There are some problems with your logic here; you are buying the cheap (compared to bigger mechs) light mechs, also your "average" price for mechs is a HUGE lowball.

For starters, your "average cost of all mechs" is far too low, the very cheap lights skew the average toward the low end. A single good clan heavy can set you back between 15million and 19million c-bills. I haven't even looked at the prices of assault mechs yet, because it would probably make me ragequit the game.

That aside, you really can't compare your grinding experiences with light mechs (lol) to bigger chassis'...apples and oranges. By comparison the lights are fairly affordable. Go and try to grind up 3 variants of a timberwolf, then come talk to me about how not grindy this game is. Having to grind 20 hours for a single variant is a piss-take, and everybody knows it.

Edited by Eleidon, 19 January 2016 - 12:02 AM.

[XphR]

Apples and Oranges, both having differences a multitude of similarities also exist between them.

[butchly13]

Eleidon, on 18 January 2016 - 11:57 PM, said:

The difference between a private lineage 2 server and MWO is that way back then I was in high school and literally had nothing better to do than grab a sh1t bucket and farm materials all day. When I said 30 people farming for a week I didn't mean 1 hour a day, try 4-5 hours a day each. Now that I'm living in the real world with responsibilities I can't sink 8 hours a day into a game just to get a single item/mech. Also, by todays standards L2 is a horrible game.

I just checked steam and I already have 47 hours clocked on this game, and I've only started playing recently.

There are some problems with your logic here; you are buying the cheap (compared to bigger mechs) light mechs, also your "average" price for mechs is a HUGE lowball.

For starters, your "average cost of all mechs" is far too low, the very cheap lights skew the average toward the low end. A single good clan heavy can set you back between 15million and 19million c-bills. I haven't even looked at the prices of assault mechs yet, because it would probably make me ragequit the game.

That aside, you really can't compare your grinding experiences with light mechs (lol) to bigger chassis'...apples and oranges. By comparison the lights are fairly affordable. Go and try to grind up 3 variants of a timberwolf, then come talk to me about how not grindy this game is. Having to grind 20 hours for a single variant is a piss-take, and everybody knows it.

Time for a good 'ol pissing match. If you'd kindly take a gander at this thread you'll find an updated list of all the mechs and their various costs (MC/C-Bill/Real $). With any luck you can save the document and convert it to a spreadsheet and then get the average cost across all mechs. By my calculations, the total cost of all mechs is 1.7 billion c-bills, there are 227 mechs, and the average cost works out to a whopping 7,552,208.2 c-bills per mech.



To be fair, we were both wrong . In case you weren't sure how averages work, anything below the average means you're spending less to buy it, meaning you have money left over. That means, when you go to buy a heavy or assault you take the money left over from buying lights to afford the heavier mechs. And while we're arguing I'd like to point out an Atlas, one of the better "beginner" assault mechs only costs about 10 million c-bills for most variants. Not too shabby if you ask me.

I'm not sure what you mean by the "grind" difference between lights and heavies. Last I checked the quirk costs are the same amount of xp regardless of the class chassis you're running. To me, that means the grind is relatively consistent across all mechs. Sure you have to adapt your play style to get the most out of whichever mech you're using, but 1,000xp on one chassis is the same as 1,000xp on another chassis when it comes to affording quirks and leveling up your mastery.

I'm sorry for getting real with you on this but I'm not seeing your argument. I go to college full-time, work 50 hours a week as a database admin, tutor computer science to kids who don't understand the definition of variable scope for another 15 hours a week, am currently renovating my bathroom, and honestly don't have enough time to play a grindy game. I don't see MWO as a grind. It's fun. I get to play in a massive robot (or not so massive light mech) and turn other mechs into scrap metal. I'm having a blast and I love everything PGI is doing right now. As a fellow newcomer it would help if you could positively influence the direction of the game instead of complaining it's too grindy. Suggest something useful or base your opinions on something more concrete. Yes, heavier mechs tend to be more expensive. So go buy an Atlas and find out if the assault class is really for you.

[aaykeem]

How exactly did you only get "a raven, a hunchback, and 3 marauder variants" for $50? The Marauder pack is $20 which, imho, is pretty ok, considering you also get premium time, which boosts XP and C-Bill winning considerably. But they also come with very nice kit, especially those 2 XL engines, the expensive guns, etc.

I agree that the real cash prices are pretty high, especially if you compare to your average Steam game. But it also depends on how much play time you get out of that average Steam game. I'm usually the guy that's hunting sales, I rarely buy AAA games right on launch due to stupid prices and generally buggy releases. There's very few games that kept me playing for more than 20 hours (that's about the average I get out of a game I like, which explains why I don't buy games at launch). There's 6 games that got me playing for more than 50 hours (that's how much I get out of a game I really like). I've got exactly 3 games that I played for more than 80 hours (these are games that I really really liked).

Now, MWO I've played for 90 hours according to Steam and I can easily see myself playing for another 90. It's been my primary game for the past month and a half. I've already got my sights on another 3 chassis I want to master. I'm most likely going to drop real money on one more mastery pack and then cruise on c-bills for the rest.

So, what's the right price to pay for potentially hundreds of hours of entertainment? There's people picking up games $5 on sale and getting thousands of hours of play out of them. That's basically playing for free. It's very advantageous for the consumer, not such a good deal for the guy making the games and shouldn't be taken as the benchmark. On the other hand there's AAA games asking for $100 for the collector's edition, for what is probably a couple dozen hours of game time. MWO is a F2P, but obviously one that encourages you to spend some real cash if you want to cut the grind.

[Maelstrum]

The Timber Wolf might not have been the best choice to start skill-mastering a mech since clan mechs are really expensive.
But what is done is done so if I were in your shoes, I'd invest my time in learning all the bells and whistles on this particular variant of the chassis, not on trying to upgrade the mech skills past the basics. Your Mech XP will not be wasted: by the time you buy the second Timber Wolf, you'll have enough to get to full Master status. It's the first few chassis's skill tree that are the hardest. And since they nerfed pretty hard the bonuses, those skills aren't that OPed anymore. They help, but you can manage without them.

The good thing is: you've got a clan mech, and a Timber Wolf at that. Meaning you can easily swap omnipods for what equates around 3 good matches @200k per omnipod. This way, you'll always find ways to make your Timber Wolf feel new and fresh and never get bored with it.

Also, go do the Academy Training, it'll boost you a good 5mil with hardly any effort.
And as everybody are saying: watch out for those events. They really fatten your CBills wallet.

Edited by Mlstrum, 19 January 2016 - 07:52 AM.

[Der Hesse]

To be honest i somehow miss the times where i had to decide which equipment i should sell to be able to buy a new mech or more expensive piece of tech.
Those "bujah, i can finally equip doubleheasinks" moments. Or the joy of a new XL engine. ^^

Now im sitting here on far over 100 full equipped and mastered mechs and all i am considering cbill wise is if i should get some more seismic modules so i don´t have to swap out the 20 i already got if i want to dust off old mechs or if i save up another 100 million for...well....i don´t know for what. ^^

It may look like a grind, but it also is a joyful ride to equip the first mechs.

[Hexenhammer]

I must've playing this game wrong then. I decided I want the king crabs because they were on sale for 35%. I didn't have the money to buy even one of them so I asked myself what mech do I like to play that can rack up the cbills. I didn't have one so I asked a friend what he used and went to town.

I didn't watch the cbills. I just played. Making money wasn't on the brain. Playing as well as I could was. Besides playing with a "gotta make money" mindset poisons the game. Play to have fun and relax. Don't watch the cbill counter. Watching that is like watching the clock for an hour. Slow and painful

Oh and on the subject of money mech. I asked a friend what he used. He runs an lrm80 boat. I made one like his and started to make 250k a match. Does that make me a hack no talent LRM player? Don't know? don't care because I'm gettin paid 250k a match.

And how did I do? I started the sale with less than 500k and by the end of the sale I bought 2 king crabs and refitted them with meta builds.