36 replies to this topic

[Appogee]

Yeonne Greene, on 07 December 2016 - 06:41 PM, said:

The desire to have multiple 'Mechs already loaded to go for a variety of play styles so I don't have to pay for a Respec. Drives 'MechBay sales, not just packages.

You're assuming that each Mech you own will have its own skill tree.

Do you know that for certain?

What if each variant has a skill tree? Ie. multiple copies of the same variant could share the same skill tree?

[EgoSlayer]

DAYLEET, on 08 December 2016 - 12:13 PM, said:

Crappy variant? You mean those you personally dont like? Of course people will keep playing them, regardless of what you like.

No not personal feelings, mechs that are under performing relative to the other variants, or to the entire weight class. Has nothing to do with what I like or dislike. There is a reason that when you see a griffin in a match 9 times out of 10 it's a 3M or 2N and not a 1N. And it's a griffin instead of a vindicator, or a phoenix hawk. Or if you see a Mauler its mostly only the MX90 or the 1P and not the 1R. Or Grasshopper 5P/5H and not the 5J. And so on. Most people don't want to handicap themselves with an under performing chassis (aka crappy) and now with the new system they will never have to buy them and will still be able to play only the ones they want with all the skills unlocked.

DAYLEET, on 08 December 2016 - 12:13 PM, said:

The poor will only get one variant at first and still be able to master it which is great. But saying they will never get another variant or more of the same is just meta-tryahrd thinking. Its your choice to do what you do and why you do it but dont project it on everyone else. Im not part of the sad, tryhard playerbase, and i dont impose stupid rules on myself such as "this is the very best mech in the weight class, therfor, i only play this one".

Please, take your personal wishful thinking and start looking at real data of what mechs are used in matches, not your personal opinion and "try-hard rules" and look at it objectively. You are objectively wrong. The vast majority of the MWO player base don't play in under performing chassis, maybe you don't have that view but you are in a minority.

Edited by EgoSlayer, 08 December 2016 - 01:01 PM.

[EgoSlayer]

Appogee, on 08 December 2016 - 12:47 PM, said:

You're assuming that each Mech you own will have its own skill tree.

Do you know that for certain?

What if each variant has a skill tree? Ie. multiple copies of the same variant could share the same skill tree?

Russ said in the presentation that each mech has it's own, so you can own two of the same variant with completely different skill trees was an example he gave during the presentation.

EDIT:edited for clairty

Edited by EgoSlayer, 08 December 2016 - 02:17 PM.

[DAYLEET]

EgoSlayer, on 08 December 2016 - 12:59 PM, said:

No not personal feelings, mechs that are under performing relative to the other variants, or to the entire weight class. Has nothing to do with what I like or dislike. There is a reason that when you see a griffin in a match 9 times out of 10 it's a 3M or 2N and not a 1N. And it's a griffin instead of a vindicator, or a phoenix hawk. Or if you see a Mauler its mostly only the MX90 or the 1P and not the 1R. Or Grasshopper 5P/5H and not the 5J. And so on. Most people don't want to handicap themselves with an under performing chassis (aka crappy) and now with the new system they will never have to buy them and will still be able to play only the ones they want with all the skills unlocked.


Please, take your personal wishful thinking and start looking at real data of what mechs are used in matches, not your personal opinion and "try-hard rules" and look at it objectively. You are objectively wrong. The vast majority of the MWO player base don't play in under performing chassis, maybe you don't have that view but you are in a minority.

I just dont get the same playerbase you do i guess. I remember what elo hell was back in the days where one team would have nothing but meta. Ive not hit it once in quick play solo queue with current meta. The current meta is not near as prevalent as you make it seem. Even the KDK started disappearing from my matches 2 weeks ago. The way my teammates play is always a defining factor in win/loss, not the mech they play.

[Appogee]

EgoSlayer, on 08 December 2016 - 01:03 PM, said:

Russ said in the presentation that each mech has it's own, so you can own two variants with completely different skill trees was an example he gave during the presentation.

That's excellent news, thanks.

[EgoSlayer]

DAYLEET, on 08 December 2016 - 01:19 PM, said:

I just dont get the same playerbase you do i guess. I remember what elo hell was back in the days where one team would have nothing but meta. Ive not hit it once in quick play solo queue with current meta. The current meta is not near as prevalent as you make it seem. Even the KDK started disappearing from my matches 2 weeks ago. The way my teammates play is always a defining factor in win/loss, not the mech they play.

Well you can look at the objective data that other players have put together from leader boards and end of match screen shots and see that the mechs that are played most are limited to the best performing. I think it's Taragato that has put together one of the more recent ones, but the "for science" threads that various others have put together prove out that the mech used has a major impact on performance.

Sure teamwork is the key, but a good team playing in the worst mechs isn't likely to win against an average team playing in the best mechs. And the fact is that most MWO players don't play in handicapped variants, which means they will be nearly extinct with the rule of 3 gone.

[Y E O N N E]

DAYLEET, on 08 December 2016 - 01:19 PM, said:

I just dont get the same playerbase you do i guess. I remember what elo hell was back in the days where one team would have nothing but meta. Ive not hit it once in quick play solo queue with current meta. The current meta is not near as prevalent as you make it seem. Even the KDK started disappearing from my matches 2 weeks ago. The way my teammates play is always a defining factor in win/loss, not the mech they play.

That last point is really what I was getting at. KDK-3s were becoming less and less prevalent in my games even before the torso nerf. I was , very poorly, trying to point out that despite there being a gravity toward better 'Mechs, I sincerely doubt it is so heavy that PGI would be in dire straights if three variants are no longer necessary to master one. The fact that we see more than the top tier chassis commonly in games invalidates that narrow train of thought all by itself. If people only ever wanted to play the best 'Mechs, we wouldnt still see tons of Stalkers, Awesome, Marauders, Jagermechs, Crabs, etc.

[EgoSlayer]

Yeonne Greene, on 08 December 2016 - 02:17 PM, said:

That last point is really what I was getting at. KDK-3s were becoming less and less prevalent in my games even before the torso nerf. I was , very poorly, trying to point out that despite there being a gravity toward better 'Mechs, I sincerely doubt it is so heavy that PGI would be in dire straights if three variants are no longer necessary to master one. The fact that we see more than the top tier chassis commonly in games invalidates that narrow train of thought all by itself. If people only ever wanted to play the best 'Mechs, we wouldnt still see tons of Stalkers, Awesome, Marauders, Jagermechs, Crabs, etc.

It's not about "only the best mechs" it's about only the best variants of what you want to play. You are the one who kept focusing on the KDKs, I am talking about all mechs and all variants, now and future.
If you want to play Stalker 4N's you don't have to buy the 3F, 5M, etc to play the 4N to its full potential in the new system. Same with Jagers, Want the DD? Just buy the DD, don't need the other 6M varients, and so on. There isn't any need to spend an ounce of time (or C-Bills, or real money) in any variant you have no intention of playing with the rule of 3 gone, and if a player doesn't want to play it how many of them are going to buy mech packs that have 1, 2, or 5 variants they no longer need to ever touch or play?

Edited by EgoSlayer, 08 December 2016 - 02:28 PM.

[Angel of Annihilation]

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

The real question is: Who is actually happy with just one meta mech?

Thats my way of saying, grind or no grind, we are still going to buy more than one variant.

Yep, exactly. This is also why I don't really see Mechpack sales declining all that much. I mean for me anyway, the biggest reason I buy a Mechpack is the early access because I don't want to have to wait for 3 more months before I can play a mech that I am intersted in and honestly, when a new chassis comes out that I want to play, I am not going to be happy with just one variant. Take the upcoming Marauder IIC for example. Aside from the early adopter reward mech, all the variants are significantly different and pretty much require a completely unique build for each one. No way in hell I would be satisfied wtih just one variant.

Then there is in game currency savings to consider. Buying even one Marauder IIC for C-bills would likely cost me 12-15 million C-bills. Even earning 200k C-bills a match, that is still 60+ battles to buy just one variant and as I already stated, I wouldn't be happy with just one so spending $20 to get 3 chassis is a no brainer for me.

Finally there is the actual value of the Mech Pack. 30 days premium time is worth around $12 and since I always run premium, that means I get everything else in the pack for $8. 3 mechs, 3 bays and a bunch of other swag if you early adopt for $8 is a hell of a deal.

So whether PGI understands this or not (and I wonder if they do since Russ just did a twiter poll asking if we had enough mechs), mech packs are still going to sell like hotcakes

[Angel of Annihilation]

EgoSlayer, on 08 December 2016 - 02:26 PM, said:

It's not about "only the best mechs" it's about only the best variants of what you want to play. You are the one who kept focusing on the KDKs, I am talking about all mechs and all variants, now and future.
If you want to play Stalker 4N's you don't have to buy the 3F, 5M, etc to play the 4N to its full potential in the new system. Same with Jagers, Want the DD? Just buy the DD, don't need the other 6M varients, and so on. There isn't any need to spend an ounce of time (or C-Bills, or real money) in any variant you have no intention of playing with the rule of 3 gone, and if a player doesn't want to play it how many of them are going to buy mech packs that have 1, 2, or 5 variants they no longer need to ever touch or play?

While this is true, how do you know which variant is going to be your favorite until you buy and try them all out? I bought my PHX's for C-bills. The first variant I bought, the one that I thought I would like the most, ended up the one I liked the least. My KDK is another example. Sure the KDK-3 is a nice Variant but I really love my KDK-2 as well and might even prefer it over the KDK-3 just because I tend to enjoy energy builds more than dakka builds. Again I wouldn't have known until I tried out the other variants.

So I really don't think people are going to be buying just one variant as often as you think they well, rather people will want to pick up a second or even third variant just to try them out and see if what they could build with that variant is better than what they currently have with the variant they own. Also your probably going to see people buying 2, maybe 3, of the same variants fairly often because they might want one KDK-3 to specialize in UACs and another to specialize in LBXs, things like that.

[Y E O N N E]

EgoSlayer, on 08 December 2016 - 02:26 PM, said:

It's not about "only the best mechs" it's about only the best variants of what you want to play. You are the one who kept focusing on the KDKs, I am talking about all mechs and all variants, now and future.
If you want to play Stalker 4N's you don't have to buy the 3F, 5M, etc to play the 4N to its full potential in the new system. Same with Jagers, Want the DD? Just buy the DD, don't need the other 6M varients, and so on. There isn't any need to spend an ounce of time (or C-Bills, or real money) in any variant you have no intention of playing with the rule of 3 gone, and if a player doesn't want to play it how many of them are going to buy mech packs that have 1, 2, or 5 variants they no longer need to ever touch or play?

The KDK was always just an example, you are the one who actually focused in on it last page.

That out of the way, the real problem is less that certain variants are just that much better and more that there is no variety. People will play the different Stalkers or JagerMechs or Locusts regardless of which one is the supposed "best" simply because there are significant differences in available payloads and the variants are typically similar in performance when played to their strengths. On some 'Mechs, like the Grasshopper and Black Knight, there isn't really any variance to the available payloads. If I'm gonna have to energy boat no matter what variant I pick, I might as well take the best-quirked one, right?

Yes, there are pure garbage variants in the game (i.e. LCT-3V), even garbage chassis (i.e Mist Lynx). But I submit that to be the exception rather than the rule. Most variants of most 'Mechs are serviceable enough and with enough variation that it makes it worth owning more than one of each. Which is why I still have and play all of the Marauders, all of the JagerMechs, all of the Riflemen, all of the Locusts, all of the Blackjacks, etc., so on and so forth. It's also why I never bought Black Knights or Grasshoppers or Wolfhounds and sold my Crabs...too samey no matter which variant you choose.

I will cede, however, that PGI is going to have to pay much closer attention to 'Mech variants from now on. They will not be able to get away with releasing 'Mechs that have little variation in the hard-point types like the Black Knight.

[Quxudica]

N0MAD, on 07 December 2016 - 06:57 PM, said:

Could perhaps see the price of single mechs going up in price, similar price structure of say WoWs where a single ship costs $50 to $80 ?.


What charge for maps?

It'll never stop being amazing to me that people think a single mech, or even a trio of mechs, is worth what collector editions for entire games go for.

[SuomiWarder]

I don't understand the original line of thought. Why would new skill trees affect mech pack sales? The skill lines are specific to the mech line and cannot be maxed out (meaning you can't have all the skills like you can now). So if you want to have the same basic chasis maxed out for different weapon loads / metas / maps / fun or whatever your design criteria is you will need to have multiples of the same chassis and mech packs give you just that 3 to 6 versions of a chassis to mess with.

[Y E O N N E]

SuomiWarder, on 08 December 2016 - 07:50 PM, said:

I don't understand the original line of thought. Why would new skill trees affect mech pack sales? The skill lines are specific to the mech line and cannot be maxed out (meaning you can't have all the skills like you can now). So if you want to have the same basic chasis maxed out for different weapon loads / metas / maps / fun or whatever your design criteria is you will need to have multiples of the same chassis and mech packs give you just that 3 to 6 versions of a chassis to mess with.

His line of thought is that people only ever play other variants to master the perceived "best" of the bunch because you need at least three to do so. With the new skill tree, you no longer need three, meaning nobody needs any variant but the perceived "strongest," meaning PGI loses sales.

I find it to be an extremely presumptuous theory.

What PGI is in danger of losing sales from, though, are 'Mechs whose variants lack any significant variety.

[nehebkau]

Ted Wayz, on 07 December 2016 - 06:38 PM, said:

With the new skill trees obviating the need for mech packs, mastery packs and Steam packs what will fund this game?

MC for respec can't do it on it's own.

GXP for MC? P2W?

Any guesses?

OP, I will let you in on the truth. PGI is a front. PGI is actually laundering money for the maple-syrup and back-bacon syndicates in Canada. There is a reason Russ always smells like a Denny's.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Yeonne Greene, on 08 December 2016 - 07:55 PM, said:

His line of thought is that people only ever play other variants to master the perceived "best" of the bunch because you need at least three to do so. With the new skill tree, you no longer need three, meaning nobody needs any variant but the perceived "strongest," meaning PGI loses sales.

I find it to be an extremely presumptuous theory.

What PGI is in danger of losing sales from, though, are 'Mechs whose variants lack any significant variety.

Yep exactly this and of course there are omnimechs to consider, especially when one of the variants happen to have a unique CT. I would say that if they removed all quirks, there would be very little reason to buy any Omnimech variant except the one with the unique CT and aside from specialization you could easily get buy with just one variant of any Omnimech.

However that specialization is going to be the kicker. Most people are going to want to run multiple builds and they are going to want to specialize those builds so they are going to be more than happy to buy 3 variants to work with to do that.

Also I still say most of the people who are currently dropping money on meck packs will continue to do so just because of the early access and also because they know they will want to try out multiple variants before picking their favorite.

[Ted Wayz]

Yeonne Greene, on 08 December 2016 - 02:17 PM, said:

If people only ever wanted to play the best 'Mechs, we wouldnt still see tons of Stalkers, Awesome, Marauders, Jagermechs, Crabs, etc.

Yes, each of those mechs weigh multiple tons. So if you see one of them every twenty matches you have still seen "tons" of them.

nehebkau, on 08 December 2016 - 08:04 PM, said:

OP, I will let you in on the truth. PGI is a front. PGI is actually laundering money for the maple-syrup and back-bacon syndicates in Canada. There is a reason Russ always smells like a Denny's.

Laundering US dollars for Canadian dollars...the perfect crime. I actually believe 70% of that.

Viktor Drake, on 08 December 2016 - 08:26 PM, said:

Also I still say most of the people who are currently dropping money on meck packs will continue to do so just because of the early access and also because they know they will want to try out multiple variants before picking their favorite.

Or just read the forums for "Mech X variant Y is OP!"

Edited by Ted Wayz, 08 December 2016 - 08:32 PM.