283 replies to this topic

[Nightmare1]

El Bandito, on 07 December 2016 - 06:34 PM, said:

Except back then the game was played by Founders, people who actually had immense connection with the game, people who could be pushed around yet stick to the game! Newbies in 2017 are not the same type of people. If they do not like a core aspect of a "completed game", they will leave.

*Smile*

...I was a lottery pilot. Got in without paying a dime and played that way for a long, long time.

El Bandito, on 07 December 2016 - 06:34 PM, said:

You are basically telling the type of players who comprise the majority of the player base to **** off. If that's PGI's stance as well, then it is their loss.

Not really. I'm just pointing out that people can be smart or they can be stupid. You can really only build in so many safety nets you know.

Besides, what PGI's doing is nothing new. It's an old model that's pretty widespread. The chances that the people coming here to play MWO haven't already seen something similar in other games is pretty low.

Case in point, the very first online game I ever played was Star Trek Online. I was a complete noob and wound up ruining my skill tree. I didn't have the funds to put towards buying respec tokens back then, so I became trapped into playing that character. However, that was my very first gaming experience ever. Now, having learned that lesson, I always consult with game guides or other players before I start making leveling choices, regardless of the game I'm playing.

What you and others are basically saying, is that this is a bad system because incoming players are too stupid to recognize it and use it. I personally look at it and say, "Huh, PGI is finally catching up to the industry, and is actually surpassing it by adding in a free respec option."

[El Bandito]

Nightmare1, on 07 December 2016 - 06:54 PM, said:

What you and others are basically saying, is that this is a bad system because incoming players are too stupid to recognize it and use it. I personally look at it and say, "Huh, PGI is finally catching up to the industry, and is actually surpassing it by adding in a free respec option."

As I said, it is PGI's loss. They gain nothing from further gating the newbies. Especially for a niche game like MWO. Of course, I could be wrong--heck, I would be glad if I was wrong.

Edited by El Bandito, 07 December 2016 - 07:08 PM.

[Nightmare1]

El Bandito, on 07 December 2016 - 07:01 PM, said:

As I said, it is PGI's loss. They gain nothing from further gating the newbies. Especially for a niche game like MWO. Of course, I could be wrong--heck I would be glad if I was wrong.

What would you do different? Like I said, PGI's model is already better than the industry standard, so I can't really see it as gating newbs. To me, it would actually be more attractive to new pilots.

If I was starting over and had the knowledge I have now regarding respecs, and was comparing MWO and STO side-by-side, then I would be more inclined to choose MWO over STO because of the free respecs alone.

[Deathlike]

Nightmare1, on 07 December 2016 - 07:09 PM, said:

What would you do different? Like I said, PGI's model is already better than the industry standard, so I can't really see it as gating newbs. To me, it would actually be more attractive to new pilots.

If I was starting over and had the knowledge I have now regarding respecs, and was comparing MWO and STO side-by-side, then I would be more inclined to choose MWO over STO because of the free respecs alone.

I'm still unclear how those respecs operate.

Still, gating the XP the way they are doing it.. will make the grind that already exists, another PITA.

At best, getting all the XP you need will mitigate/distract the actual grind for the next mech to outfit.

At worst, it's just going to get an actual "unending grind" tag, which will put people off on the game even more than they do now.

[Y E O N N E]

El Bandito, on 07 December 2016 - 07:01 PM, said:

As I said, it is PGI's loss. They gain nothing from further gating the newbies. Especially for a niche game like MWO. Of course, I could be wrong--heck, I would be glad if I was wrong.

Well, here's something to maybe increase your optimism:

New players to the game are likely to be new blood to the franchise at this point and majority younger. They are people who will very likely have experience with other F2P games and will find absolutely nothing out of the ordinary under the new skill system. The only people who are going to be turned off by that are those who have become accustomed to the current scheme.

I am 25. I have a lot of experience with other F2P games. Nothing about the mechanics of the new skill tree are really off-putting to me, no worse than Warframe or Planetside 2 and those are basically the golden standards for how to do F2P correctly, in my opinion.

Also, you don't have to clear your entire node tree in one go. Russ did say you can clear only the nodes you want to change (though child nodes do get removed if you take away the parent node).

[Besh]

El Bandito, on 07 December 2016 - 06:11 PM, said:

That may not be such a big deal for vets with millions of XP and C-Bills refunded, but what about newbies? They are already paywalled by mechbays. Any decent F2P game makes it easier for newbies to get used to the system, not the other way around.

Speaking of 'Mechbays as being "paywalled" when PGI does events which easily let you earn enough MC to buy a 'Mechbay every other weekend or so is exaggerating imho .

Also, what Yeonne Green wrote above . Noone who has played any online Game involving Character/skill progression in the last 10 years will find ST 1.0 anyhow strange, difficult, disturbing or hard to understand .

Edited by Besh, 07 December 2016 - 07:31 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Besh, on 07 December 2016 - 07:29 PM, said:

Speaking of 'Mechbays as being "paywalled" when PGI does events which easily let you earn enough MC to buy a 'Mechbay every other weekend or so is exaggerating imho .

They tend to do them in sprees, there isn't always an event that gives mechbays and even then, that is still a losing battle considering they are releasing around 6 variants a month. The idea being that people should be able to become collectors without hocking out lots of cash. The more plentiful mechbays are the more likely they are to get duplicates of the ones they like and collect the rest on the outset that they may be good. I just think to games like TF2 which has an expanding inventory to accommodate when they add enough items to the game, whereas this game is still stuck with the starting 4. It can be a little daunting to any new player given that we have almost 100x that many unique variants.

Yeonne Greene, on 07 December 2016 - 07:17 PM, said:

Nothing about the mechanics of the new skill tree are really off-putting to me, no worse than Warframe or Planetside 2 and those are basically the golden standards for how to do F2P correctly, in my opinion.

The irony being that another F2P game, LoL, allows for free respecing. To me, with such an emphasis on customization and experimentation, I don't care how much they try and mitigate the issue, there is still an issue with charging people for respecing a mech or risk having to grind even further to recover the XP.

[N0MAD]

Nightmare1, on 07 December 2016 - 07:09 PM, said:

What would you do different? Like I said, PGI's model is already better than the industry standard, so I can't really see it as gating newbs. To me, it would actually be more attractive to new pilots.

If I was starting over and had the knowledge I have now regarding respecs, and was comparing MWO and STO side-by-side, then I would be more inclined to choose MWO over STO because of the free respecs alone.

There is no free respec bro.
When they change the system you will of course be able to spec your mech because the system has changed thats not a respec.
I also play STO and have got several free respecs when they changed the system significantly enough that it warranted it.
Also with STO the game gave my what 4 character slots, i was able to level up several characters also delete an remake them, here you need to make a completely new account.
Bad examples are bad bro.
And as far as MWO model being the best well thats your opinion, mine is totally different, opinions are opinions not fact.
IMO STOs model is way beter, eg, Multiple characters for one account, able to delete/recreate characters, i could go on but i leave it at that..

[Wintersdark]

Deathlike, on 07 December 2016 - 07:13 PM, said:

I'm still unclear how those respecs operate.

Still, gating the XP the way they are doing it.. will make the grind that already exists, another PITA.

At best, getting all the XP you need will mitigate/distract the actual grind for the next mech to outfit.

At worst, it's just going to get an actual "unending grind" tag, which will put people off on the game even more than they do now.

You pick a node to respect from, and either do it for free and lose the XP, or pay MC and keep the XP (and or any other costs).

So, leveling a mech takes the same time it does now, and you can Respec for free eas XP allows or pay for a no go lost Respec.

This is better than pretty much anything in the industry, where respecs cost something all the time

You can of course do partial respecs, too, so changing a couple high end skills isn't a big deal for free.

This system gives you a use for all that XP after mastery, wWHILE making mastery easier for new players (no 3 mech requirements)

Compare to currently, where pilot skills are not changeable at all, and quirks change randomly on you every 6 months or so.

You can thus mirror the current system largely by just speccing it out once and forgetting about it.

On the other hand, if you swap modules all the time that could suck a bit, but do you change to DIFFERENT modules? I doubt it.

[Wintersdark]

N0MAD, on 07 December 2016 - 07:48 PM, said:

There is no free respec bro.
When they change the system you will of course be able to spec your mech because the system has changed thats not a respec.
I also play STO and have got several free respecs when they changed the system significantly enough that it warranted it.
Also with STO the game gave my what 4 character slots, i was able to level up several characters also delete an remake them, here you need to make a completely new account.
Bad examples are bad bro.
And as far as MWO model being the best well thats your opinion, mine is totally different, opinions are opinions not fact.
IMO STOs model is way beter, eg, Multiple characters for one account, able to delete/recreate characters, i could go on but i leave it at that..

Russ confirmed free respec and paid respec. Free doesn't refund spent XP, paid does refund spent t XP.

[Wintersdark]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 07 December 2016 - 07:37 PM, said:

The irony being that another F2P game, LoL, allows for free respecing. To me, with such an emphasis on customization and experimentation, I don't care how much they try and mitigate the issue, there is still an issue with charging people for respecing a mech or risk having to grind even further to recover the XP.

Why is that an issue? You can do partial respecs, so you set up for skill builds, see how it goes - those matches spent seeing how it goes earn XP that in the current system would be worthless except to pay to convert to GXP. Now that XP can be used to make changes to the build.

Sure, you can't wholly change it every match for free, but it's hardly onerous as things stand. Leveling a mech now is pretty damn fast after all, and they're keeping that speed, so even 10 matches will pay for the bulk of a respec.

[Y E O N N E]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 07 December 2016 - 07:37 PM, said:

The irony being that another F2P game, LoL, allows for free respecing. To me, with such an emphasis on customization and experimentation, I don't care how much they try and mitigate the issue, there is still an issue with charging people for respecing a mech or risk having to grind even further to recover the XP.

I am calling out misuse of the term "irony" here, because it's not really ironic. It's not ironic because A.) LoL is not really praised for its F2P specifics, not that I've seen anyway and B.) what you are specifying in your tree is central to LoL's core mechanics, while the skill tree in this game is not. The skills you unlock in MWO are not going to compensate for a lack of ability, but the ones you unlock in LoL will both because they provide a bigger number and combat is almost entirely determined by that number (with some RNG *gasp* thrown in for good measure).

MoBAs like DotA2 and LoL are, in fact, entirely about stacking skills to the point where your collective numbers are so big that no amount of reflexes will stop your team's roll. That is not at all how skills in MWO work, because at their maximum levels the advantages remain small enough that a team like EmP without mastery still crushes 228 in the finals.

[Deathlike]

Wintersdark, on 07 December 2016 - 07:58 PM, said:

Russ confirmed free respec and paid respec. Free doesn't refund spent XP, paid does refund spent t XP.

It shouldn't cost MC (like ever, but I get what they are doing in this instance).. and the cost to respec should not ever be greater than the cost to spec.

Wintersdark, on 07 December 2016 - 08:02 PM, said:

Why is that an issue? You can do partial respecs, so you set up for skill builds, see how it goes - those matches spent seeing how it goes earn XP that in the current system would be worthless except to pay to convert to GXP. Now that XP can be used to make changes to the build.

Sure, you can't wholly change it every match for free, but it's hardly onerous as things stand. Leveling a mech now is pretty damn fast after all, and they're keeping that speed, so even 10 matches will pay for the bulk of a respec.

You know how punishing players with their first bad mech selection sucks? Double down with bad specing and you're only causing more problems.

It only benefits those that know what to do with the system (especially with the excess XP some people tend to accumulate with their favorite builds).

Edited by Deathlike, 07 December 2016 - 08:08 PM.

[N0MAD]

Wintersdark, on 07 December 2016 - 07:53 PM, said:

You pick a node to respect from, and either do it for free and lose the XP, or pay MC and keep the XP (and or any other costs).



This is better than pretty much anything in the industry, where respecs cost something all the time

Cherry picked a couple your comments so i can comment on those..
First one could be seen as P2W for many..as in.
Pay MC and keep your Aced mech, dont pay MC and you are at a disadvantaged by having to drive an inferior mech, you also forgot to mention that there is also a Cbill cost to each skill costing you not only XP but also cash, so in that instance your MC (real $) is buying you cash.

Second point again as i stated before thats your opinion not fact, and the part of the statement where you say respecs cost you something all the time is an outright lie, there are several games i play STO for instance where i have received respecs for all my toons several times free.

Edited by N0MAD, 07 December 2016 - 08:18 PM.

[N0MAD]

Wintersdark, on 07 December 2016 - 07:58 PM, said:

Russ confirmed free respec and paid respec. Free doesn't refund spent XP, paid does refund spent t XP.

You keep omitting the ingame money cost, another handicap to respec for your so called free respec another burden on the new player most likely scratching for coin in game..

[Johnny Z]

N0MAD, on 07 December 2016 - 08:11 PM, said:

Cherry picked a couple your comments so i can comment on those..
First one could be seen as P2W for many..as in.
Pay MC and keep your Aced mech, dont pay MC and you are at a disadvantaged by having to drive an inferior mech, you also forgot to mention that there is also a Cbill cost to each skill costing you not only XP but also cash, so in that instance your MC (real $) is buying you cash.

Second point again as i stated before thats your opinion not fact, and the part of the statement where you say respecs cost you something all the time is an outright lie, there are several games i play STO for instance where i have received respecs for all my toons several times free.

SOOOOOOOOO glad this isn't STO. Plus this title is worth more than Star Trek anyway.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Yeonne Greene, on 07 December 2016 - 08:04 PM, said:

It's not ironic because A.) LoL is not really praised for its F2P specifics, not that I've seen anyway

You don't see anyone really complaining about it either, like you do about Planetside 2 and Warframe.

Yeonne Greene, on 07 December 2016 - 08:04 PM, said:

and B.) what you are specifying in your tree is central to LoL's core mechanics, while the skill tree in this game is not.

It may not be to that huge degree, but it is still pretty important when we consider the fact that quirks are also getting rolled up into this.

[RestosIII]

Johnny Z, on 07 December 2016 - 08:52 PM, said:

Plus this title is worth more than Star Trek anyway.

I can't believe it. He said it again. Keep saying things like that and I'll never need to watch a comedy skit again.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Wintersdark, on 07 December 2016 - 08:02 PM, said:

Why is that an issue? You can do partial respecs, so you set up for skill builds, see how it goes

Because I wouldn't have to do that before? Granted there will be a set of specs you always go into (agility/heat related ones will almost always be defaults) but the point is that the way they are trying to go into this isn't making me want to spend MC, it is making me want to never customize, it doesn't encourage me to do anything but avoid it. Whereas as Solahama suggested on reddit, switching to unlock-esque system encourages me to use MC because it allows me to actually skip grinding or even the cost of respec completely, which should be acceptable given the price that could possibly take.

For reference:

Quote

The best thing I can personally come up with is adding an optional MC price to unlock nodes to bypass ANY XP/GXP expense and grind. Then having a Cbill or MC cost to reset with nothing lost other than the payment for said reset. MC purchased nodes could be stored in it's own pool that can be used on any mech. So when you reset (for cbills or MC) you'll have a skill pool for the XP/GXP purchased node points, as well as a pool of MC purchased node points... This system would allow players to bypass the grind by opting to spend MC on the nodes rather than punishing players who don't spend MC on a reset. Seems like it would be much better for the player IMO and still be monetized in a F2P way. It follows the same principle of "pay to not grind" that is appealing, and you don't LOSE anything, but rather gain something useful for your money that doesn't give you a gameplay advantage.

^ this is the way it always should've been, it was always weird that you could never directly level up a mech with MC, you always had to have some mech XP laying around to transfer to GXP to actually level it up. It just never made sense, this would solve the shady monetization of resets and the lack of a direct way to level up a mech with money.

Wintersdark, on 07 December 2016 - 08:02 PM, said:

Sure, you can't wholly change it every match for free, but it's hardly onerous as things stand. Leveling a mech now is pretty damn fast after all, and they're keeping that speed, so even 10 matches will pay for the bulk of a respec.

Not when you consider how many mechs are getting churned out and how daunting it is to new players trying to get setup, let alone keep and enjoy a few joke mechs on the side. If they are really wanting people to spend MC off of this, 10 matches won't pay for a respec.



Speaking of getting people to spend MC, is it time we remove the MC consumables yet, do they honestly serve a purpose at this point? Better yet, why aren't consumables getting rolled up into skill trees as well?

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 07 December 2016 - 09:09 PM.

[vandalhooch]

Deathlike, on 07 December 2016 - 07:13 PM, said:

I'm still unclear how those respecs operate.

Still, gating the XP the way they are doing it.. will make the grind that already exists, another PITA.

At best, getting all the XP you need will mitigate/distract the actual grind for the next mech to outfit.

At worst, it's just going to get an actual "unending grind" tag, which will put people off on the game even more than they do now.

"Unending grind" is called playing the dang game! You spec out your mech. You like it and keep playing it. You accumulate more Mech XP and GXP. When you decide to respec, was all that playing of the maxed mech "grinding?"

BTW: If you spend your time playing in other mechs you are still earning GXP that can be used to respec a mech you haven't been playing! GXP now has a real purpose! Yeah!