Bishop Steiner, on 02 March 2016 - 06:47 PM, said:
Much as I tend to get accused of white knighting, I would like to know myself. Perhaps if they added an extra variant, but as is?
Also still feel the collectors should be $10 upgrade, not $20. And should be a token letting you choose which variant you want to be the "special" model. (1 time only, selected like one does faction content)
Likewise, IMO, the Ultimate Pack should come at like a 10% discount, or have extra stuff added to make it more appealing.
The pack costs have always seemed somewhat arbitrary from that perspective. On the other hand, from a production cost perspective, it doesn't take them any more or less resources to design, model, and texture a 20 ton mech versus a 100 ton mech.
So assuming they looked at previous sales figures and how much it costs to produce, (i.e. pay the artists/modelers, the overhead in utilities, equipment costs, etc, etc), and still bring in a margin of profit, that is probably how they arrived at that. That's how I would do it if I were them.
We already know from existing mechs that 45 tonners tend to cost between 1300 to 1600 MC for standard chassis and around 3300 for 'Hero' variants. So at about $7 per chassis, plus 3 mechbays at 350 MC each, which is roughly $5, it would cost about $26 to buy just the basic stuff in the $20 pack. That's not even including the premium time or 3 cockpit items.
So as far as existing pricing systems go for MWO, it's still a pretty good deal. Note that this post doesn't necessarily mean I'm defending the cost vs value of their current system or that I agree with it. I'm just pointing out that using their existing system of valuating mechs in MC based on their tonnage and equipment wouldn't necessarily be in our favor cost wise, quite the opposite in fact.
Would I love it if they packed even more value into these packs and threw in more mechs or cut back on the prices? Absolutely. But from their perspective based on current systems they probably already feel like they're bending over backwards for us at current pack prices.
I doubt you'll be able to convince them otherwise, but far be it from me to stop you since I plan on picking up this pack as well.