39 replies to this topic

[Trainee]

If I just purchase the $20 Standard Pack, will the Medusa arm Omni's unlock when regular mechs are out for cbills? Or will they never unlock until I purchase the Hero?

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Trainee, on 06 April 2016 - 03:50 PM, said:

If I just purchase the $20 Standard Pack, will the Medusa arm Omni's unlock when regular mechs are out for cbills? Or will they never unlock until I purchase the Hero?

I was wondering that too. The Medusa seems to have the best arm pods out of the group, allowing for builds such as 6 ersmalls + 4 MGs, or 10 ER smalls.

[FupDup]

You probably have to get the hero if you want the most energy hardpoints on your Ducks. Paywalling gameplay-affecting items is very common in MWO monetization, and I don't expect that to ever change.

Buying one for MC in several years whenever it comes out would work out the same as preordering it.

Edited by FupDup, 06 April 2016 - 03:54 PM.

[Gas Guzzler]

You can do 9 ER SLs without them though, and they probably will have slightly worse quirks than the other arms.

Its more of a "feeling left out" than a "objectively inferior" type thing.

[ScarecrowES]

I don't think PGI has ever come out to say how this works... will we be able to change pods on Hero omnis?

Right now, if you have a special Clan omni variant... like the Nova loyalty D, once you change out the unique D parts, I don't think there's any way to get them back. Nova-D omnipods are not available for use on other Novas (even if you OWN the D), and you can't re-add D pods to your D chassis if you've previously removed them.

On the basis of the precident already set in the game, I worry that your Hero arms won't transfer to other variants, and you may lose access to them altogether if you ever strip them off the mech.

[1453 R]

Yaknow, Fup - they do have to put food on their tables and run electricity to the servers.

Your choices are kinna...have the Heroes available for MC or not have Heroes at all, since we all know nobody would ever spend a single nickel on these things if they were 110% free the way people keep saying they should be.

I don't like Piranha's monetization plan; I'm one of those who's ready to spit if he hears Russ say "well, this is how they do it in World of Tanks" even just one more time...but they are allowed to actually have a monetization plan, aren't they?

ScarecrowES, on 06 April 2016 - 04:01 PM, said:

I don't think PGI has ever come out to say how this works... will we be able to change pods on Hero omnis?

Right now, if you have a special Clan omni variant... like the Nova loyalty D, once you change out the unique D parts, I don't think there's any way to get them back. Nova-D omnipods are not available for use on other Novas (even if you OWN the D), and you can't re-add D pods to your D chassis if you've previously removed them.

On the basis of the precident already set in the game, I worry that your Hero arms won't transfer to other variants, and you may lose access to them altogether if you ever strip them off the mech.

I'm almost entirely certain this is absolutely, blatantly false, and if you've lost the Omnipods somehow you should be contacting Support.

Edited by 1453 R, 06 April 2016 - 04:04 PM.

[Tennex]

My guess on why they gave Medusa such good hardpoints is because, it will be like an innersphere mech, unswappable

[ScarecrowES]

1453 R, on 06 April 2016 - 04:03 PM, said:

I'm almost entirely certain this is absolutely, blatantly false, and if you've lost the Omnipods somehow you should be contacting Support.

Just sayin... You can't put Nova-D pods on any other Nova, even if you own the Nova D, because they're not available in the mechlab. I'm not sure if you can remove the D pods from a D and reinstall them as long as they're in your inventory (because, again, they don't show up, even just to say you have zero units available)... but you certainly CAN'T buy a set if you've removed and sold them.

Right now, I think the Nova-D is the closest thing we have in the game to a limited-availability omni that would be comparable to a Hero mech... ie, not a mech variant available otherwise for c-bills. In fact, if I recall from past experience since Wave 1, you can only put pods on your mechs that are currently available for c-bills. So if you own a variant of a mech that you bought as a part of a preorder pack, but you wish to use pods from a variant that was released in the same set that you did NOT buy, and that other variant has not been released to the public yet, you can't use pods from the versions you didn't buy on the versions you did.

Under the current mechlab coding, Hero omni-pod versions would never appear in the mechlab for purchase, even for use on the same Hero chassis. PGI would have to change their coding, which seems unlikely. Otherwise, paying for the exclusivity of Hero omni-pods wouldn't be a thing. You could buy the Hero and copy all the exclusive Hero pods to other mechs and make more Hero mechs without having to purchase them outright. That doesn't sound like PGI... giving you unlimited Hero mechs for one purchase.

Edited by ScarecrowES, 06 April 2016 - 04:25 PM.

[FupDup]

1453 R, on 06 April 2016 - 04:03 PM, said:

Yaknow, Fup - they do have to put food on their tables and run electricity to the servers.

I'm not complaining about the end, I'm complaining about the means.

There is a difference.

1453 R, on 06 April 2016 - 04:03 PM, said:

Your choices are kinna...have the Heroes available for MC or not have Heroes at all, since we all know nobody would ever spend a single nickel on these things if they were 110% free the way people keep saying they should be.

I don't like Piranha's monetization plan; I'm one of those who's ready to spit if he hears Russ say "well, this is how they do it in World of Tanks" even just one more time...but they are allowed to actually have a monetization plan, aren't they?

For hero mechs, the "ideal" system would allow the hero's hardpoints and quirks to be available as a C-Bill variant (although costing much more C-Bills than the normal variants), but the MC variant would be the only one with money boosting and special paint jobs. That way, you can have the same combat/meta effectiveness without spending real cash, but you have the crappy scrub green paint and no spacebucks booster (which don't impact game performance).

The reason that some people like me don't like the current system is because, in some cases, it leads to the absolute best mechs in the game being ONLY available for real money, meaning that you have to pay real cash or you are inferior to other players who did pay. Perhaps the money booster should be kicked up a notch to help out. You should be paying for convenience and vanity only, NOT combat power.


The most infamous example of this would be the Dragon Slayer hero Victor during the poptart meta. If you wanted to meta, you had to have a VTR-DS.

The Ember was once the overall best light.

The initial Clan invasion had several mechs like the SCR, TBR, and DWF that were (at the time) completely superior to their Inner Sphere competitors. For many months, C-Bill purchased mechs were getting roflstomped left and right by their premium Clanner overlords.


And yes, I am aware that the pendulum has also swung in the opposite direction at times. We've had Pay-2-Lose mechs such as the Anansi, Loopy Bucket, Pretty Baby, one of the Dragon heroes, Invasion Mist Lynxes, pre-quirk Huginns (and the current Huginn), and so on.

When these mechs are locked behind a wall, the outcome can at times be very binary. There is both a potential for the pay-only mech to dominate the game with an iron fist and the potential for the pay-only mech to be absolute garbage. It can't really be balanced this way. It's like a dart board...

[Roadkill]

ScarecrowES, on 06 April 2016 - 04:01 PM, said:

Right now, if you have a special Clan omni variant... like the Nova loyalty D, once you change out the unique D parts, I don't think there's any way to get them back. Nova-D omnipods are not available for use on other Novas (even if you OWN the D), and you can't re-add D pods to your D chassis if you've previously removed them.

Not true. If you remove them they show up in your inventory and can be used on other Mechs, or put back onto the original Mech, as you see fit. I've done it with my own Mechs.

You cannot get more copies, though. You're stuck with just the one copy that came on the Mech that you were given. You can move it around, but you can't get another one. That includes getting more copies if you sell your originals - if you do that, you're just screwed (and selling them was stupid).

If yours are actually missing and not just accidentally used on some other Mech, you should contact support because it's a bug.

Edited by Roadkill, 06 April 2016 - 04:28 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

FupDup, on 06 April 2016 - 03:53 PM, said:

You probably have to get the hero if you want the most energy hardpoints on your Ducks. Paywalling gameplay-affecting items is very common in MWO monetization, and I don't expect that to ever change.

Buying one for MC in several years whenever it comes out would work out the same as preordering it.

paywalling the arms which will get shot off first anyhow, for 2 extra hardpoints you will almost never get a legit advantage out of..... yup. Very noteworthy.

[ScarecrowES]

Roadkill, on 06 April 2016 - 04:26 PM, said:

Not true. If you remove them they show up in your inventory and can be used on other Mechs, or put back onto the original Mech, as you see fit. I've done it with my own Mechs.

You cannot get [i]more[i] copies, though. You're stuck with just the one copy that came on the Mech that you were given. You can move it around, but you can't get another one.

If yours are actually missing and not just accidentally used on some other Mech, you should contact support because it's a bug.

If you sell it, you can't get a new one. You can only ever have that one of each pod that came on the original chassis. Once they're gone, they're gone. That's what I'm saying. You can't even buy the pods to restore the D to stock config.

It's a problem I discovered only after trying to restore the left ballistic arm from the D to the D chassis to see if it had a better ballistic quirk than the readily-available right ballistic arm from c-bill chassis. You should be able to at least restore the original pods to a specific chassis, but alas, you cannot in the case of the Nova-D, and this coding would extend to the Medusa.

Edited by ScarecrowES, 06 April 2016 - 04:32 PM.

[1453 R]

FupDup, on 06 April 2016 - 04:24 PM, said:

I'm not complaining about the end, I'm complaining about the means.

There is a difference.



For hero mechs, the "ideal" system would allow the hero's hardpoints and quirks to be available as a C-Bill variant (although costing much more C-Bills than the normal variants), but the MC variant would be the only one with money boosting and special paint jobs. That way, you can have the same combat/meta effectiveness without spending real cash, but you have the crappy scrub green paint and no spacebucks booster (which don't impact game performance).

The reason that some people like me don't like the current system is because, in some cases, it leads to the absolute best mechs in the game being ONLY available for real money, meaning that you have to pay real cash or you are inferior to other players who did pay. Perhaps the money booster should be kicked up a notch to help out. You should be paying for convenience and vanity only, NOT combat power.


The most infamous example of this would be the Dragon Slayer hero Victor during the poptart meta. If you wanted to meta, you had to have a VTR-DS.

The Ember was once the overall best light.

The initial Clan invasion had several mechs like the SCR, TBR, and DWF that were (at the time) completely superior to their Inner Sphere competitors. For many months, C-Bill purchased mechs were getting roflstomped left and right by their premium Clanner overlords.


And yes, I am aware that the pendulum has also swung in the opposite direction at times. We've had Pay-2-Lose mechs such as the Anansi, Loopy Bucket, Pretty Baby, one of the Dragon heroes, Invasion Mist Lynxes, pre-quirk Huginns (and the current Huginn), and so on.

When these mechs are locked behind a wall, the outcome can at times be very binary. There is both a potential for the pay-only mech to dominate the game with an iron fist and the potential for the pay-only mech to be absolute garbage. It can't really be balanced this way. It's like a dart board...

Well, the issue remains the same. Piranha is permitted to try and make things people actually want to buy, yes?

If Hero 'Mechs were available for C-bills, nobody would ever buy another Hero 'Mech ever again. Why would they? Everyone already claims that buying C-billable 'Mechs for MC is stupidity just the slightest bit barely shy of actively throwing your money in a burn barrel (possibly because there's a definite grain of truth to that). If you could nab the Hero configuration for five games' worth of C-bills, why bother? I mean hell, people already rip Piranha a new one over Collector's Edition pricing for the new singleton tier packs, and the twenty bucks for a CE nets the buyer a whole helluva lot more than a funky paint job everyone always goes out of their way to diss (seriously, does anyone in this forum like any hero paint scheme?), and a C-bill bonus everyone is equally quick to trash as being solely for scrub-tier idiots too spacepoor to be rolling in REAL money like a proper closed beta supervet.

In principle I agree, combat ability shouldn't be paywalled in a free-to-play game...but frankly, I don't think it matters as much as it might, and players have, with a very small handful of transitory exceptions (how META are those Dragon Slayers or Hugginz feeling lately?) successfully campaigned to make most Hero 'Mechs objectively inferior to one of the standard chassis. The playerbase itself insists on Pay 2 Lose, and for the most part gets it.

How does Piranha keep paying their bills if players also insist that the company's entire revenue stream be not only optional, but sub-optimally optional?

[Ace Selin]

ScarecrowES, on 06 April 2016 - 04:23 PM, said:

Just sayin... You can't put Nova-D pods on any other Nova, even if you own the Nova D, because they're not available in the mechlab. I'm not sure if you can remove the D pods from a D and reinstall them as long as they're in your inventory (because, again, they don't show up, even just to say you have zero units available)... but you certainly CAN'T buy a set if you've removed and sold them.

Never even bothered to check on this with my Loyalty Nova, will go home and look now, just because im intrigued.

ScarecrowES, on 06 April 2016 - 04:29 PM, said:

If you sell it, you can't get a new one. You can only ever have that one of each pod that came on the original chassis. Once they're gone, they're gone. That's what I'm saying. You can't even buy the pods to restore the D to stock config.

It's a problem I discovered only after trying to restore the left ballistic arm from the D to the D chassis to see if it had a better ballistic quirk than the readily-available right ballistic arm from c-bill chassis. You should be able to at least restore the original pods to a specific chassis, but alas, you cannot in the case of the Nova-D, and this coding would extend to the Medusa.

If correct, i agree you should at least be able to restore the pods to its original omni mech.
Im fine with not being able to use the unique pods on other mechs though.

Edited by Ace Selin, 06 April 2016 - 07:05 PM.

[Monkey Lover]

Bishop Steiner, on 06 April 2016 - 04:27 PM, said:

paywalling the arms which will get shot off first anyhow, for 2 extra hardpoints you will almost never get a legit advantage out of..... yup. Very noteworthy.

It starts off small and will increase over time. They're already using masc and ecm for the "extra" mechs in the new packs.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 06 April 2016 - 07:09 PM.

[Navid A1]

FupDup, on 06 April 2016 - 03:53 PM, said:

You probably have to get the hero if you want the most energy hardpoints on your Ducks. Paywalling gameplay-affecting items is very common in MWO monetization, and I don't expect that to ever change.

Buying one for MC in several years whenever it comes out would work out the same as preordering it.

They charge for double price for an (S) variant (that invalidates the Prime in your basic pack).

What did you expect.

And because this is an omni mech, there will be only one variant after mastering the chassis... 1 custom variant.

So you are paying 70$ dollars.... for 1 mech?..... this is ridiculous.

This shows that the pack model is deeply thought out... like 1 cm deep.

[Bishop Steiner]

Monkey Lover, on 06 April 2016 - 07:09 PM, said:

It starts off small and will increase over time. They're already using masc and ecm for the "extra" mechs in the new packs.

I think we already know that we stand on opposite sides of the chasm on this conversation. *shrugs*

When there's smoke, seems like a lot of people instantly cry fire. I tend to look around, realize some schmuck just lit a cigarette and go back to my business. So far everything we've seen (IMO) is a lot closer to this


than this:


when that status actually starts to change, then I'll start to think it's worth making a fuss over.

[Trainee]

So the consensus is; you can only get the Hero omni arms if you purchase the hero. You can move them around to other variants, but can only have the original set. And if you sell them by mistake, you can't purchase them back. Short of deleting your Hero, and buying another one.

Sound about right?

[Narcissistic Martyr]

Bishop Steiner, on 06 April 2016 - 07:13 PM, said:

I think we already know that we stand on opposite sides of the chasm on this conversation. *shrugs*

When there's smoke, seems like a lot of people instantly cry fire. I tend to look around, realize some schmuck just lit a cigarette and go back to my business.

My gods! PGI is trying to give us lung cancer! Those perfidious fiends!

[Troutmonkey]

Trainee, on 06 April 2016 - 07:44 PM, said:

So the consensus is; you can only get the Hero omni arms if you purchase the hero. You can move them around to other variants, but can only have the original set. And if you sell them by mistake, you can't purchase them back. Short of deleting your Hero, and buying another one.

Sound about right?

That would be the most sensible option, but I've not heard any official word from PGI