We already have a system in which salvage cbill awards are given to the winning team.
Supply caches are essentially salvage.
Why not reward EVERY player on the winning team with a "supply cache" ... essentially their share of the salvage from the mission.
They can look at what is in their lot and then choose to either sell it for the cbill value which replaces the cbill salvage reward or spend some MC to obtain the randomly selected contents which represent the salvage that was in usable condition.
The advantages of such a system are than everyone gets a supply cache of some sort so they don't feel left out. If you award only one supply cache/match ... many folks will just get irritated at the scarcity.
Consider ... you will need to win 8 match to get a 50% chance at getting a supply cache. However to get a 90% chance it will take over 26 wins and 10% of the people will STILL not receive a prize. Most at this point will be saying that the entire system is BROKEN.
(Chance of not getting a prize is 11/12 ... probability of not getting a prize after N matches is (11/12)**N).
PGI ... please don't ignore the math when trying to design a new feature.
So ... lets say everyone gets their share of the salvage that can either be taken as cash (selling the salvage to the local business) or as a lot from the battlefield where it is not clear whether the actual contents are functional. This system works from a lore perspective, it makes sense in terms of WHY the caches might or might not contain usable equipment and it will address long standing requests for the option to receive salvaged gear as a match reward.
Using modest amount of MC to unlock the salvage both adds a revenue stream for PGI but also represents the investment the mechwarrior needs to make from his personal funds to get the salvage assessed and the usable parts moved to his mech bay.
Anyway, the main points are the following
- supply cache should replace salvage
- every player on the winning team should receive one
- contents are random and only a random selection of any salvage bundle will be found to be usable
- contents of a salvage container can be unlocked with MC or the unopened salvage container can be sold directly for cbills
The current plan to play a 1/12 lottery game on every win will just not generate any reasonable amount of interest or revenue since it will just occur too infrequently to be worthwhile. If everyone gets then everyone has the possibility of spending MC.
Using supply caches to replace salvage gives more head room for rewards without disrupting the existing economy.
Anyway, just an idea .. though some one else has probably already posted it .. I didn't search
Hopefully, someone actually reads these forums
P.S. With this system, a premium time bonus would apply to both the amount of cbills rewarded when selling a salvage lot and to the probability of obtaining items from a purchased salvage lot.
Also, keep in mind that the value of any salvage is the amount of cbills the item can be SOLD for ... not its cost to buy ... receiving weapons and other equipment is cool ... but it is only worth what it can be sold for ... not what it would have cost to buy. This is actually a motivating factor for unlocking caches since you might be able to receive something that would have cost you more cbills to buy directly ... but the selection is random so you can't count on it and items sell back for 50% or less of the purchase price.
Edited by Mawai, 13 May 2016 - 07:39 AM.