38 replies to this topic

[Mawai]

Bud Crue, on 22 July 2016 - 09:27 AM, said:

If we had your "contract stipulation" and instead of what we actually have: "BOB HAS BEEN AWARDED A GOODIE CRATE!" (or whatever it says), I'd probably be cool with it. With your idea the reward notice ought to say something like: "Mechwarrior Bob, for valor under fire, has been awarded first pick of the salvage from this battle" and then internally in Bob's mechlab the rest of your hypo would play out. With that sort of immersive mechanism I would probably have no issue. But without your active imagination, what we have instead is Bob and his goodie crate...and a subsequent game of slots. To me that is just kinda lame.

I don't really care about this fairly minor mechanism honestly, but it does show the laziness of devs in how they approach the game and suggests a direction for the game that I don't think many of us are real excited about. When apathy is the up side of something there is a problem.



There are White Knights still?

Agreed

I'd prefer different text. I also pointed out this alternate interpretation in a post after supply crates were announced but not in game. The mechanism is IDENTICAL ... it all has to do with is spin ... unfortunately, if PGI has demonstrated one particular tragic flaw over the years, it has to be the utter and complete failure of the ability to communicate with their player base no matter what the medium.

Especially in a situation like these supply crates ... they COULD have been transparently fitted into the underlying lore of the game (contract rewards) ... rather than an arcade game approach (you win and get a special prize). LOL. It just makes me laugh (or possibly cry) that PGI is so bad at MW game design that they miss such a complete and obvious tie in that would increase immersion with absolutely NO significant cost other than changing message text ... sigh.

[TWIAFU]

Omaha, on 22 July 2016 - 09:24 AM, said:

Yet another feature that Units can indulge in free of charge.

Oh?

When did this become Unit only thing? Or does everyone not in a Unit have to pay?

Or just salty for getting rolled by Units in Group/CW?

I have a real good idea already...

[Omaha]

TWIAFU, on 22 July 2016 - 09:35 AM, said:

Oh?

When did this become Unit only thing? Or does everyone not in a Unit have to pay?

Or just salty for getting rolled by Units in Group/CW?

I have a real good idea already...

Think what you like that's just how i feel about it bro.

[TWIAFU]

Omaha, on 22 July 2016 - 09:36 AM, said:

Think what you like that's just how i feel about it bro.

K, salty it is.

Oh, not your "bro" by any means.

[JaxRiot]

So these Supply Caches are not Gambling.

In Gambling, you place your bet and roll the dice with a high chance of getting Nothing in return, or possibly a lot. But more than likely, you will lose and receive nothing at all.

With the Supply Caches, you spend the 25 MC on a Key and always win something. Always.

It might be an ER PPC, but its still something of some kind of value opposed to absolutely nothing.

The problem is that if there is a very high chance of getting a ER PPC (or equivalent) almost every time instead of a Highlander or Grand Prize, then there will be a point when you will be spending more MC on keys hoping for the grand prize than the Mech or Grand Prize itself is worth in MC.

So instead of opening 12 Caches with a very high chance of getting an ER PPC (as an example) every time, it would be wiser to have just saved that MC and bought a Mech Bay instead.

[Mawai]

JaxRiot, on 22 July 2016 - 09:38 AM, said:

So these Supply Caches are not Gambling.

In Gambling, you place your bet and roll the dice with a high chance of getting Nothing in return, or possibly a lot. But more than likely, you will lose and receive nothing at all.

With the Supply Caches, you spend the 25 MC on a Key and always win something. Always.

It might be an ER PPC, but its still something of some kind of value opposed to absolutely nothing.

The problem is that if there is a very high chance of getting a ER PPC (or equivalent) almost every time instead of a Highlander or Grand Prize, then there will be a point when you will be spending more MC on keys hoping for the grand prize than the Mech or Grand Prize itself is worth in MC.

So instead of opening 12 Caches with a very high chance of getting an ER PPC (as an example) every time, it would be wiser to have just saved that MC and bought a Mech Bay instead.

This actually depends on the odds of winning the prize. If the odds are actually 1/8 then by picking and choosing which caches to open you should be able to get what you want for less than it would have cost for MC directly since the MC cost is low and the odds of getting the prize (if 1/8) aren't that bad.

However, MOST if not all prizes are available already for cbills.which is really the point. Would you spend 3000MC on a Highlander that you could buy for cbills? If yes, then the caches are a great deal. To get a 90% chance of getting a mech you need to open 17 caches (which contain a mech) or spend about 425MC ... to get 50/50 odds you need to open about 5 caches or 125MC. Both of those are huge discounts over the retail MC cost. You can also look at this as a mechanism to spend small sums of MC to save grinding cbills since it is far more effective than buying cbills directly AND you might get a jackpot.

On the other hand, the odds might be a lot less than 1/8 though I am hoping that PGI would not do that since it is a bit dishonest to show eight items, randomly scroll through 8 items but have odds of winning any of those 8 significantly different from 1/8.

Edited by Mawai, 22 July 2016 - 09:49 AM.

[Moldur]

There is no good defense for opening caches to begin with. period.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Mudhutwarrior, on 22 July 2016 - 09:13 AM, said:

Well we clearly Identified the white knights in this thread.

simple easy......

Hahahaha.
"White Knight"
Def: Anyone who doesn't think everything PGI does is wrong and malicious.

If PGI jaywalked across the road, I woukd call them a JayWalker. If PGI gave a homeless man a gift certificate for some groceries, I certainly would not call them a left wing Communist.

White Knights are people who come to someone's rescue when they are being abused... but also provide irrational defenses to poor decisions.

I have not provided any irrational defence to supply caches. They are a source of free C-Bills to everybody (increased mission payout) and they give you the option to convert MC to C-Bills or convert MC to inventory. Nobody has to "risk losing" MC over it because there is a 0% chance of receiving no reward, and all the rewards are higher than MC->C-Bill conversion rates. People with little time to play use cash to shorten acquisition time of available items (Mechs, engines, upgrades, modules, etc.).

Nobody in reality loses with supply caches. Nobody walks away from a mission with reduced payout. Nobody.

The only people who lose with supply caches are the whineyass babies who are "insulted" by the fact that this game has a feature that other games have, and your special snowflake mentality is melting away as a result.

I really want to see someone demonstrate how Caches hurt the game OTHER THAN by driving away those exact people who are complaining about people leaving. Seriously, I want to see a complaint other then "it will make people leave" because you need a reason to leave. You need an egg before you get a chicken.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 22 July 2016 - 10:02 AM.

[Mole]

ScrapIron Prime, on 22 July 2016 - 08:14 AM, said:

Let's say you're at the store with your mother. And on the way out she gives you a quarter. You could put this coin in your pocket, or you could pull out a few more and head over to the candy and gum machines by the exit. You do this, because you can see the neat Harley Davidson zipper pull behind the glass, so you put in your quarter plus a few other coins, turn the handle and...

Out comes a gummy frog. And now you're angry at your mother for some reason for giving you the quarter.

...

I use the child analogy because I see a lot of people angry at PGI for giving them caches worth 50,000 cBills. Yes, you can spend MC to trade up for a random thing (which seems to always be worth 300,000 cBills or more, or costs more than 25 MC to buy), but the fact of the matter is they gave you a free thing. It's up to you whether you walk by the gum machine or not.

Don't know about you, pal, but I always got mad at the machine for not giving me what I wanted and not at my mom for giving me the quarter. Also, pretty crap analogy when you are talking about your own money in the situation of supply caches vs. money that was provided to you out of someone else's generosity such as your mom giving you a quarter. I got my supply caches for this event, one of them had nothing but garbage in it, so I sold it. The other one has some pretty good possibilities, so I'm hanging on to it. Once I get my free key, I'm happy to take a spin and I get what I get. But once it becomes an issue of "Do I spend money on this" it's an entirely different ball game.

[C E Dwyer]

ScrapIron Prime, on 22 July 2016 - 08:14 AM, said:

Let's say you're at the store with your mother. And on the way out she gives you a quarter. You could put this coin in your pocket, or you could pull out a few more and head over to the candy and gum machines by the exit. You do this, because you can see the neat Harley Davidson zipper pull behind the glass, so you put in your quarter plus a few other coins, turn the handle and...

Out comes a gummy frog. And now you're angry at your mother for some reason for giving you the quarter.

...

I use the child analogy because I see a lot of people angry at PGI for giving them caches worth 50,000 cBills. Yes, you can spend MC to trade up for a random thing (which seems to always be worth 300,000 cBills or more, or costs more than 25 MC to buy), but the fact of the matter is they gave you a free thing. It's up to you whether you walk by the gum machine or not.

Yet again, its not the free stuff that's a bother, its how its presented.

[Pjwned]

Usually I don't consider too much what the silent majority thinks, but I'm honestly wondering how the supply caches are working out for the people who aren't whining about caches not always giving them top tier drops.

Omaha, on 22 July 2016 - 09:24 AM, said:

Yet another feature that Units can indulge in free of charge.

You mean because of the MC reward for capturing planets? Try getting in a decent unit (or make your own) if you want a piece of that pie.

Unless maybe you're complaining about it without even trying to be in a unit or play any faction warfare? I can understand not wanting to play the mode because it's bad, but if you are complaining about other people getting MC while not even trying to participate yourself, then that seems rather petty; I don't play FW myself but I'm not complaining about units being rewarded with MC for participating so I would hope other people don't do that.

[Stormbringer13]

the only way to truly win is to only open them with free keys.

[Hotthedd]

Prosperity Park, on 22 July 2016 - 08:44 AM, said:

Roulette tables do not have a 100% payout rate. Supply caches do. You ether get 50,000 C-Bills for free, or you get something worth more than 25 MC for 25MC.

Not exactly.
You can get 50,000 C-bills for free,
You can pay 25 MC, and get something worth 25 MC or more,
OR you can pay 25 MC and get a LRM5 (something worth LESS than 25 MC)

I got the 2 supply caches from the event. I paid my "stupid tax". If I ever win a cache, I will not poo-poo the extra 50,000 C-bills. But I've paid my 50MCs worth of stupid tax for the year.

[Guzzarov]

I tryed out some crates just for fun turnout was as it is with lottery some good some bad last one hade a mech in it and the wheel stoped on it then jolted to the next slot who was 5000gxp.
Now thats a bugg or its rigged not to give out mechs i will file a report to pgi about it its something wrong if it changes loot after it stops.

[cazidin]

If you want a mediocre™ child's analogy. "You're damned if you do and damned if you don't."

Edited by cazidin, 23 July 2016 - 11:21 AM.

[Baulven]

I wish I could sell my caches to other players for 100k. Obviously some people want the tall things, and beyond free keys, I know that someone isn't me.

[Kmieciu]

Supply caches exist only to drain players of their MCs. You spend MCs and get things that are available for c-bills or some crap like dog tags you would not buy otherwise. Then you are out of MCs and can't buy new mechbays. Thats how you hit the paywall.
Tina wrote they are unwilling to share the probability of wining. Thats probably because the chances are stacked against the players. If the probability of winning 500 MC was 5%, then the bet would be fair. But in the long run PGI would not benefit from it, therefore the chances are probably lower.

Edited by Kmieciu, 23 July 2016 - 11:42 AM.

[Kodiak Jorgensson]

Baulven, on 23 July 2016 - 11:31 AM, said:

I wish I could sell my caches to other players for 100k. Obviously some people want the tall things, and beyond free keys, I know that someone isn't me.

I'm actaully surprised these things didn't go on the steam market.

[Satan n stuff]

Omaha, on 22 July 2016 - 09:36 AM, said:

Think what you like that's just how i feel about it bro.

Did you actually check the income rates on planets? Do you have any idea how many people are needed and how much time has to be spent to tag a planet in the first place? Most units would have to be incredibly lucky to average just 1MC per player per day. You're not going to be opening a lot of supply caches at that rate.

Guzzarov, on 23 July 2016 - 11:19 AM, said:

I tryed out some crates just for fun turnout was as it is with lottery some good some bad last one hade a mech in it and the wheel stoped on it then jolted to the next slot who was 5000gxp.
Now thats a bugg or its rigged not to give out mechs i will file a report to pgi about it its something wrong if it changes loot after it stops.

Probably just the animation that's bugged, these things usually pick an item the second you click the button and then make sure to end the animation on that item.

Edited by Satan n stuff, 23 July 2016 - 02:46 PM.