108 replies to this topic

[GreyNovember]

Bit of psychology in gaming, for perspective. I love seeing big, positive numbers. Negative numbers make me sad, and not feel as nice. If I don't feel good about the game, I play less.

Putting a big negative number on my earnings defies this. If you insist on putting what is essentially a drop fee, spin it in a way that makes it not SOUND like a negative.

i.e. " Your first drop today in this mech bets you bonus Cbills, because it's pristine and ready to go!"

Instead of " Your mech is damaged after your first match , and I'm taking away your cbills!"

At this point we're clearly never going to agree whether something is the best for "MUH IMMERSION" or "MUH BALANCE". So approach it from a different perspective mayhap.

[MrMadguy]

As I already said, we simply need BETTER MATCHMAKER. If matchmaker would be able to separate players with different power of their 'Mechs, i,e, weak 'Mechs would be able to play agains weak 'Mechs only and Meta 'Mechs would be able to play against Meta only - then we wouldn't need any balance in this game. Game actually was balanced, when Open Beta started, cuz all 'Mechs, that were available at that moment, had very close performances. And it was enjoyable due to this fact. But the fact, that every subsequent 'Mech was more powerful, than previous one - completely destroyed the balance. Now we need to return this balance back. If I choose to play crappy obsolete IS 'Mechs, like Highlander or Atlas, that are powerful against 'Mechs from their class only (same crappy obsolete IS junk with 4-6 hardpoints) - I should play against this 'Mechs only. Go to hell, OP Clan 'Mechs, like Arctic Cheater, Stormcrow, Timberwolf, Direwolf. If you've chosen to play this OP 'Mechs - be ready to play against OP 'Mechs too. As simple, as that.

Edited by MrMadguy, 27 July 2016 - 11:24 PM.

[NeoCodex]

Many of you read this thread only as "let's bring back R&R and ruin poor players". This is not what was originally sugested at all, and you're missing the point about BV which would be better as a whole: to make mechs and technology more diverse and worth using instead of relying on quirks which are more confusing and harder to learn than a simple "BV" strength meter. Sticking with the quirks creates additional learning curve and makes the game even harder to approach than what a BV system with Solaris as primary game mode would do.

Expensive high value mechs need to remain expensive to get, because there's something you need to look forward to as a new player, a reason to grind, otherwise there is no point if there's no progression. And it would be obviously clear that you need the experience to make those high risk high reward builds worth using. It's not like new players would face top veterans with maxed out mechs and game knowledge the first week of playing; no, most of them would go along just fine with playing low and mid tier stuff. And by the time you face one of those epic players you would score huge, huge points if you manage to damage/kill him.

Hear me out.

MeiSooHaityu, on 27 July 2016 - 11:16 AM, said:

Point is, your balance can be circumvented with a credit card. People that can spend real money either don't suffer loses or can buy themselves out of it. People who play for free suffer far more and are forced to make very hard decisions on what they can pilot and what they can afford to install.

I really like the very hard decisions part about what you would take into battle, but I didn't take into account how different this would be for a whale/veteran player or a new player. In the current system where you can boost everything with a credit card or have a stockpile of c-bills, it's certainly a problem. These decisions would be likely way too harsh for a new player, as if it isn't hard enough already.

That's why I removed the R&R part from my suggestion as it obviously creates too many problems to make it worth, I would just use the BV instead. BV alone would create hard decisions if it is worth risking running expensive (in terms of BV) configurations, as it only creates a choice between low risk and high risk high reward play.

There would have to be an additional resource which at the moment no player has stockpiled and would be a fair start for everyone: a real, deep pilot xp tree, that would not be tied to just mechs but as it was suggested before - to your pilot. So xp would become a new commodity, as you might earn more or less experience if you lose a match, depending on your BV modifier. You can have a steady xp and cbill gain with less expensive setups, and more sensitive gain with better ones. This just means you risk less and still earn well even if you lose by running second line mechs that you want to have fun with, you won't be severely punished for it.

Adding a new farmable resource over time is not a new thing in the F2P game market. It prevents old players that have stockpiled old resources to be "good for life" and gives them a new reason to keep buying premium time since there's a new resource that they need to farm now and there's no other way of getting it (if you want to get it a bit faster). It's sucks for old players and is only fair for the new, but that's what F2P games do.

Now if we talk about the BV curve again with the choice of second line vs high cost high risk setups, this would be harder to design for quick play than FW or Solaris deatmatch with respawns, but in quick play, matches should have been balanced by mm based on BV anyway, so it shouldn't mean you're lowering your chances to win by using a second class config. It just means that if you run high class there's certain things expected of you. And a good pilot will do just well in both situations, there's no doubt about that. That's the whole point.

Specificaly for Solaris this would be the best system and it's where my idea is originating from - similar to how leaderboards per chassis/variants are working, you would get a modifier for your Solaris score based on the BV of your configuration. And a good pilot will always do well no matter what he plays. It's just that playing a mediocre Phoenix Hawk does not decrease his chances to get a good score against a Blackjack. Dying in a Phoenix Hawk is half as expensive for your score as dying in a Timber Wolf, so it's not like you're at a disadvantage because you're playing a weaker mech in power scale. Tier list guides that specifically say "this is trash, do not bother using" would become obsolete, as whole idea about BV is that by modifying your score, it creates equal opportunities for you as a player to perform well, no matter what you pilot.

That would go for Solaris (which it's various game modes I would like to replace "quick play jump into some action"), and combine current MM quick play and non MM planetary conquest into FW. The hardest part would be designing a MM that would balance the quick play drops, but in terms of managing your drop deck and Solaris scoring system, the BV could work really well.

It's obvious that quick play mode as it is, is an obsolete placeholder with too many problems that limit further, better design. Just imagine if we removed QP and give you (several) Solaris game modes instead, and a better faction play that combines what we have now into something that makes sense.

Edited by NeoCodex, 27 July 2016 - 11:59 PM.

[MeiSooHaityu]

NeoCodex, on 27 July 2016 - 11:12 PM, said:

I really like the very hard decisions part about what you would take into battle, but I didn't take into account how different this would be for a whale/veteran player or a new player. In the current system where you can boost everything with a credit card or have a stockpile of c-bills, it's certainly a problem. These decisions would be likely way too harsh for a new player, as if it isn't hard enough already.

That's why I removed the R&R part from my suggestion as it obviously creates too many problems to make it worth, I would just use the BV instead. BV alone would create hard decisions if it is worth risking running expensive (in terms of BV) configurations, as it only creates a choice between low risk and high risk high reward play.

There would have to be an additional resource which at the moment no player has stockpiled and would be a fair start for everyone: a real, deep pilot xp tree, that would not be tied to just mechs but as it was suggested before - to your pilot. So xp would become a new commodity, as you might earn more or less experience if you lose a match, depending on your BV modifier. You can have a steady xp and cbill gain with less expensive setups, and more sensitive gain with better ones. This just means you risk less and still earn well even if you lose by running second line mechs that you want to have fun with, you won't be severely punished for it.

I was actually thinking about something similar to this for a form of R&R with maybe BV.

I'm not actually against the idea believe it or not, I just don't want it tied to a wallet. That is hard to do because how do you repair or rearm a mech but not use money to do it.

I had an idea, but it is admittedly kind of flawed at the moment. It does take into effect BV, but not as a more expensive goal like you stated, but more as a modifier for a R&R resource.

Essentially my idea was in match salvage would be used as a resource to repair and possibly rearm mechs. We will call this new "currency" Salvage Points or SP. SP would be earned by things like kills, assists, damage done, KMDD, a long with NARC, TAG, Scouting, and other activities. At the end of a match, these points are tallied to determine how much salvage you were awarded for the match. Also, team kills and team damage could take away from your SP.

The scale of how much SP you would receive would have determining factors like the weight class of mech you used or the BV of the mech you used. Maybe a lower BV mech gets a small SP multiplier.

Once you are back in the Mechlab you could use the SP to repair your mech. If you don't have enough SP, you can only repair the mech as far as you can. Also, if you have more SP then you need, you can bank it or sell off the surplus for a small amount of C-Bills (probably pretty equal to the current salvage C-Bill rewards).

There will also be a max limit of how much SP you can bank so that you can't just bank a ton and repair everything all the time without worry of running out. Once your SP reaches that max limit, the additional SP is automatically sold for C-Bills.

That's generally it. A lot more details would need to be determined, but that is the general guidline.

Good:

• Removes R&R from real money
  
• Uses a players performance and skill only to determine how much resources they have for repair
  
• Uses a BV multiplier to allow lesser mechs to more easily run better equip to cover repairs and more effective Tier 1 mechs need to have better and effective games to guarantee they can be fully repaired
  
• Could also have a multiplier related to Tier level to allow less skilled players to have a bit more SP compared to more experienced players.

Bad:

• Disconnects could really get the short end of the stick. No SP generated for the match and yet the player is probably fully destroyed. Logging back in and finding a damaged mech with no way to repair would be pretty crappy. A fair system would need to be thought up.
  
• Yet another resource to track as we already have C-Bills, MC, XP, GXP. Might get a bit too overwhelming.

It's just an idea. Not sure if it is worth it, but it basically takes the real world money aspect out of repair and rearm cost. That levels the playing field between paid and free players. It would be far more fair.

[Hotthedd]

MeiSooHaityu, on 28 July 2016 - 03:50 AM, said:

I was actually thinking about something similar to this for a form of R&R with maybe BV.

I'm not actually against the idea believe it or not, I just don't want it tied to a wallet. That is hard to do because how do you repair or rearm a mech but not use money to do it.

I had an idea, but it is admittedly kind of flawed at the moment. It does take into effect BV, but not as a more expensive goal like you stated, but more as a modifier for a R&R resource.

Essentially my idea was in match salvage would be used as a resource to repair and possibly rearm mechs. We will call this new "currency" Salvage Points or SP. SP would be earned by things like kills, assists, damage done, KMDD, a long with NARC, TAG, Scouting, and other activities. At the end of a match, these points are tallied to determine how much salvage you were awarded for the match. Also, team kills and team damage could take away from your SP.

The scale of how much SP you would receive would have determining factors like the weight class of mech you used or the BV of the mech you used. Maybe a lower BV mech gets a small SP multiplier.

Once you are back in the Mechlab you could use the SP to repair your mech. If you don't have enough SP, you can only repair the mech as far as you can. Also, if you have more SP then you need, you can bank it or sell off the surplus for a small amount of C-Bills (probably pretty equal to the current salvage C-Bill rewards).

There will also be a max limit of how much SP you can bank so that you can't just bank a ton and repair everything all the time without worry of running out. Once your SP reaches that max limit, the additional SP is automatically sold for C-Bills.

That's generally it. A lot more details would need to be determined, but that is the general guidline.

Good:

• Removes R&R from real money
  
• Uses a players performance and skill only to determine how much resources they have for repair
  
• Uses a BV multiplier to allow lesser mechs to more easily run better equip to cover repairs and more effective Tier 1 mechs need to have better and effective games to guarantee they can be fully repaired
  
• Could also have a multiplier related to Tier level to allow less skilled players to have a bit more SP compared to more experienced players.

Bad:

• Disconnects could really get the short end of the stick. No SP generated for the match and yet the player is probably fully destroyed. Logging back in and finding a damaged mech with no way to repair would be pretty crappy. A fair system would need to be thought up.
  
• Yet another resource to track as we already have C-Bills, MC, XP, GXP. Might get a bit too overwhelming.

It's just an idea. Not sure if it is worth it, but it basically takes the real world money aspect out of repair and rearm cost. That levels the playing field between paid and free players. It would be far more fair.

I like the idea of salvage points, and brought it up as a thread years ago.
(it was tied to the salvageable % of defeated enemy 'mechs, and served a way to get faction-specific weapon brands or 'mechs that would be unavailable to your faction)

But repairs and resupplying ammo would still need to be able to be done with C-bills (C-bills are not real money).

[MeiSooHaityu]

Hotthedd, on 28 July 2016 - 04:20 AM, said:

But repairs and resupplying ammo would still need to be able to be done with C-bills (C-bills are not real money).

And that is our sticking point and where we are never going to agree *shrug*.

To me, R&R (especially as a balance tool) can not be allowed to be circumvented with real money (and C-Bills by extension). Like I have said to the point of exhaustion, you shouldn't be able to buy yourself out of game balance. You say it is only convienence, but if that "convienence" is so great of a divide between free and paid players, then it is P2W. That's just my feeling on that. I think PGI realizes this as well and it is one of the reasons they removed it.

Something like Salvage Points is disconnected from any form of real world currency. You can't buy Salvage Points, only earn it. You can then essentially use R&R as a balance tool because both paid players and free players would essentially be on a level playing field and treated equally. Now your resources for fixing your mech and/or arming it is solely generated by your performance and cannot be manipulated by paid content.

I feel that might be the only way it would be fair or viable with a F2P game model.

P.S. Yes C-Bills are real money (well sort of) in this title. If I can directly buy C-Bills with real world money, then I can use real wealth to boost my game wealth. It is a one way street, I can't transform C-Bills into real money, but none the less I can add C-Bills at will with a credit card, as much as I want to afford, and that essentially destroys the ability for R&R to use C-Bills (again especially as a game balance tool).

Edited by MeiSooHaityu, 28 July 2016 - 05:36 AM.

[DaFrog]

Davers, on 27 July 2016 - 12:15 PM, said:

I'm on my phone at work so I can't be bothered to do all the quoting and editing to address you line by line.

What you are suggesting is that new players should be stuck with bad mechs until they somehow become rich themselves. That's not a good way to get players to stick around.

Why are bad mechs bad? Because they do not perform well in a match. Bad performance equals bad payouts. Good mechs perform well in matches. Good performance equals good payouts.

If I race my Lamborghini against your Buick I will win and get the prize money and you get nothing. As long as my prize money is higher than my R&R I will continue to drive my Lamborghini and beat your Buick. Eventually I will have enough money to buy a second Lamborghini and you won't have gas money to race anymore.

Stop hating on New players. Stop hating on bad players. It only hurts the game.

Bring your Lambo Countach and I'll bring a Buick Grand National. Both stock.

[cazidin]

Alistair Winter, on 26 July 2016 - 06:11 AM, said:

This again? Ok, let me try to quickly rehash the old arguments.

• Saying that we had R&R before and that it doesn't work is like saying we had InfoTech before and it doesn't work. It's all about how you balance it.
  
• The key to having a working economy for a game like this is to make the costs for maintenance exponentially bigger as players grow wealthier. For example, if a player has 50 million C-bills and 100 fresh battlemechs in his hangar, then he needs to have a lot higher costs than a player with 1 million C-bills and 3 damaged battlemechs in his hangar. As you gather more and more resources, it should be increasingly difficult to keep them.
  
• In order to balance a game around economy, the economy needs to be self-regulating. E.g. if gauss rifles are too popular, then the demand for both gauss rifles and gauss rifle repair crews goes up. So both purchase and repairs become increasingly expensive for the most expensive weapons. (In real life, the guy who repairs a tank's engine isn't generally the same guy who repairs the cannon or the targeting system or the radio).
  
• You could balance weapons and mechs and equipment in addition to letting the market economy sort things out, of course. But you wouldn't need to worry so much about whether the LCT-3M is as good as the LCT-1V all the time.

1.That's true. But if your earnings are increased to compensate for R&R, was any change really achieved? If not, and you can lose C-Bills, especially as a new player, then their concerns are valid. If not, and new players get some form of protection, then OK but they'll have to face the harsh reality after a specified number of games. The question should be "Does Repair and Rearm add immersion or gameplay benefits?" if the answer is no then don't add it.

2.An interesting idea. I do not trust PGI to execute interesting ideas.

3.See 2. Also, this would probably annoy new and old players alike.

4.See 2 and 3.

I like your ideas, I just sincerely doubt they'd add much to the game as it is now. We're still several months late on the promised Command Console buff.

[Baulven]

The only thing that would create an incentive would be to figure out battle value and give you a multiplier to your earnings based on the difference from average battle value. For example if average battle value is way 3k (not using the battletech book values just tossing a number out there) and your setup was 2k you would receive a 50% bonus to earnings. This means less meta options both for gear and mech type would have enough incentive to use, and you would get an ok payout even if you aren't posting huge numbers every match.

Granted this would take a lot of calculations and creating a good BV table which I don't think PGI could do. They have issues making simple corrections without screwing things up (the unnerf to long tom for example) and I don't think this would be any different.