814 replies to this topic

[Lily from animove]

ohh damn, haven't seen that yesterday gonna fire the game up today and look at it.

Edited by Lily from animove, 09 February 2017 - 12:14 AM.

[Michal R]

First look and:
On paper it's look like piece of S****
1 mode exp and MC- WTF?

The skill tree is unreadable.

Who do this? 5 year old child?

SKILL TREE MUST BE SIMPLE or you loose players.

[Appogee]

DGTLDaemon, on 09 February 2017 - 12:09 AM, said:

So, was this a blatant lie by PGI? Because 136k XP is in no way "similar" to 56k XP...

I think they added the XP of unlocking pilot modules to the XP of unlocking Mechs to rationalise to themselves the new number.

Whether you agree with their "reasoning" is another matter entirely.

[process]

Michal R, on 09 February 2017 - 12:13 AM, said:

SKILL TREE MUST BE SIMPLE or you loose players.

The trees themselves are fairly easy to navigate, but the checkout box is awful. We're managing like what, 4 currencies? 91 nodes, how arbitrary is that; and if I go over 91 it starts counting up again?

[Ravenlord]

Btw, another implication I have nobody seen mention yet: Mech Packs.
If they do away with the rule of three, there is no reason why people should buy at least a total of 3 variants for 20 $ when one variant is enough. This means that they will probably change the structure of mech packs, too. I can imagine to a system more akin to how they sell the clan heroes. The thing is, I don't believe they will sell the single mechs for 6.66 then and independent of weightclass as they do now. I am afraid the pricing will be more akin to clan heroes then, too. Of course this is just speculation at this point but I don't think it is too far fetched.

[Appogee]

Despite the obvious attempt to gouge more MC in respecing, I'm still interested to see how they intend to address the fact that a Mech Pack of 3 Mechs will be much less necessary/saleable under this new system.

For example, maybe they think they're going to sell single Mech variants for $10 each from now on, that you will still need to buy 3 before you can purchase a Hero, etc etc. So many opportunities to increase prices even further as they milk the cash cow to death.

Edited by Appogee, 09 February 2017 - 12:22 AM.

[DGTLDaemon]

Appogee, on 09 February 2017 - 12:14 AM, said:

Whether you agree with their "reasoning" is another matter entirely.

It's not the matter of "agreeing" or "disagreeing", it's the fact that mastering a mech will now take 2.5 times as long as it used to... Which effectively will mean the end of my career as a mechwarrior. I have a life outside of MWO, there's no way I'm spending hundreds more hours in this game just to bring my mechs back to mastery...

[PraetorGix]

All this translates into a big stinking pile of "Soon, getting your mechs to the same place they are now in the Live server will cost you A RIDICULOUS LOT of cBills"

[theDarkFox]

Coming out of lurk to say the system as proposed is awful, and will probably end up causing me to quit & uninstall.

Why can't we just unlock skillpoints on a mech and adjust those points as we see fit with no cost penalty? I don't care about spending $9.1MCB to fully master a mech - especially since I don't have to waste time in 2 varients I hate - what I care about is that I've got to spend more money if I realize I've made a mistake.
What about balance changes? Will I have the option to get a full refund of my skillpoints if the mech is subjected to balance tweaks?

I'm also mixed on the varients - I sort of like that it forced you to try different mechs. I found an oddly satisfying CNT-AL build I'd never have stumbled on if I didn't have to play it to unlock the other chassis.

[Hastur Azargo]

Arkhangel, on 08 February 2017 - 09:25 PM, said:

that's because you're also a tool, who hasn't actually read and understood what's being done.

also.. please bear in mind YOU ARE GETTING ALL XP and Module C-bills refunded, and those modules are at cost. even if you got them for free or on sale. they'll be at full normal cost refunded, or even with an extra mil tacked on if they were the special ones from Clan wave one.

Ahahahahahahaha

So, ok. let me break this down for you. C-bill wise, I'm getting around 110 mil. c-bills from all the modules. That would be enough to pay for skillups of 12 mechs. 12. Twelve. I have lots more leveled mechs I liked to play, and now I can pay for leveling only 12 of them back for the cost of all the modules I have (and I have plenty).

Not only that, but previously a module was a long-term investment, since all future mechs I'd ever buy would already have seismic and weapon cooldowns and whatnot. Now each new mech will have to be grinded and paid for FROM SCRATCH.

And XP-wise, maxing out a mech will now cost 136500 XP. That's more than double the amount of grind for mastered mechs, and since I usually prefer to only elite the mechs I play (to prevent burnout), I'll be facing tripled grind to max them. So even with all the XP refunds, my mechs will be sitting at around 36k XP, with 100k more to go.

Do you see my problem here?

This system benefits people that only have a handful of mechs. It deincentivizes collecting and destroys half the long-term investments. It encourages only getting the best mechs and locking them into the best builds, punishing experimentation and deviations from meta. This will really be KDK-3 Online, because who would ever grind out 136k XP on Panthers and Dragons when you're gonna be facing all optimized Kodiaks and Madcats in drops?

[Appogee]

DGTLDaemon, on 09 February 2017 - 12:21 AM, said:

It's not the matter of "agreeing" or "disagreeing", it's the fact that mastering a mech will now take 2.5 times as long as it used to... Which effectively will mean the end of my career as a mechwarrior. I have a life outside of MWO, there's no way I'm spending hundreds more hours in this game just to bring my mechs back to mastery...

I have 247 Mechs, almost all Mastered. So you are complaining to the wrong person

I intend to use my refunded XP to Master a couple of drop decks worth of my best Mechs and my Heroes. I will strip or sell all the rest.

My PokeMech days are over. I am tired of PGI's increasing focus on gouging its best customers, making the grind and economy worse for players with each successive iteration.

They are milking their cash cow to death. It's clear they just want to gouge us until MW5 gets released.

Edited by Appogee, 09 February 2017 - 12:49 AM.

[Hastur Azargo]

SuperFunkTron, on 08 February 2017 - 10:41 PM, said:

I just want to know why you will have to touch the mechs you don't want to use, especially those you haven't touched in years. Do you feel the need to elite all of them, even if you hate playing them?

I kinda do, but that's not the point. There are lots of mechs that I elited/mastered and didn't touch them since, not because I didn't enjoy them, but because there were newer mechs to elite/master. I kinda welcome the opportunity to revisit the Stalkers, Dragons and Awesomes with this system, but more likely I'll just burn myself out on the mere thought of facing a 136k XP grind, and go on a long hiatus before long.

[anfadern]

I am a Founder of this game
I have 208 Mechs, close to all are mastered
Go figure, I have a huge problem with this idea....
I'm not happy, not happy at all...

[Appogee]

Hastur Azargo, on 09 February 2017 - 12:45 AM, said:

This system benefits people who only have a handful of mechs. It deincentivizes collecting and destroys long-term investments. It encourages best mechs and locks in best builds, and punishes experimentation.

Nailed it in three sentences. Bravo!

[TheSneakyFlea]

Well I will play only unmastered mechs then...cause I won't have the time for the grind and don't have the money to spend.

[DGTLDaemon]

Appogee, on 09 February 2017 - 12:48 AM, said:

I have 247 Mechs, almost all Mastered. So you are complaining to the wrong person

I intend to use my refunded XP to Master a couple of drop decks worth of my best Mechs and my Heroes. I will strip or sell all the rest.

I'm afraid you're missing the point here. If I'm interpreting PGI's words correctly, you WON'T be able to pool your refunded XP and use it to master a few of your favorite mechs, because the "historical XP" will be locked to the variants it was earned/spend on. In other words, if, for the purposes of argument, you have 247 mechs which all have been mastered, but have no extra XP on them, then after the refund you'll be sitting on 247 mechs with 56k of refunded XP per mech, and will still need to grind 136k - 56k = 80k XP on any mech that you choose to master.

[Appogee]

Have I captured the pros and cons in the below?

Negatives:
* takes 3X more XP and an extra 9.1M CBills to Master any Mech.
* benefits people who maintain only a handful of mechs.
* discourages collecting many Mechs.
* encourages buying only metamechs.
* incents locking in of "best build".
* significantly taxes experimentation with different builds.
* destroys previous XP spent on non-Meta Mechs.
* in effect, requires you to grind a separate Mech Module for each Mech.
* in effect, reduces building up the CBills while griding necessary to purchase new Mechs.

Positives:
* no more module hunting/swapping.
* you can spec out multiple versions of a single Mech, with different skills.
* it's something new, in a game that has been stagnating.

Edited by Appogee, 09 February 2017 - 01:35 AM.

[Appogee]

DGTLDaemon, on 09 February 2017 - 01:00 AM, said:

I'm afraid you're missing the point here. ... you WON'T be able to pool your refunded XP and use it to master a few of your favorite mechs, because the "historical XP" will be locked to the variants it was earned/spend on.

You are correct, and this was already my understanding. But no, I am not missing the point.

You may be missing that they will also refund all the GXP spent unlocking pilot skills. That will add to my already big pool of GXP, which I can then use to fully unlock the couple of dozen Mechs that I intend to constrain myself to.

But even then, I don't believe I will have enough to fully Master my short list of Mechs. I will just focus my Mastering on filling in those gaps.

Edited by Appogee, 09 February 2017 - 01:06 AM.

[SiliconAngel]

Morggo, on 08 February 2017 - 04:41 PM, said:

Soooo excited. Haven't really seen anything yet that is overly bad honestly.

Cost? C'mon really? 9 million cbills bad? I'm mediocre and my average cbill per match is over 100K. So you're telling me I can fully master out a mech in 75-80 or so drops? easy peasy! Love it!

136K xp to fully master out.. .people do realize that there is far more benefit in these 91 nodes than we get today.. so yeah, I'm totally fine with spending more to get more.

Build variety? Damn straight! I've already got all sorts of builds in mind for mechs I used to rarely drive. I was never much into poke mech.. but this will likely get me started.

I know I'm in the total minority based on the three pages I've read so far... but damn I'm looking forward to this.

PTS already loaded up!

If you are being sarcastic then I apologize. I just did some basic math based on what you said: 80 drops x a half an hour per match = 40 hours of your life. For one mech. Which was already mastered. They pressed the reset button on the grind. I already did this. I already bought 3 variants of a mech I liked. Two of which I didn't actually like. Then spent hours grinding to elite them so I could master the one variant I did like. I did this multiple times for multiple mechs.

You are saying that this is okay and fair to the people who already did this for their favorite mechs? To have to do it all over again? I'm already sitting on a pile of xp - that means nothing without millions and millions of c-bills ( equaling hours and hours of more grinding) just to get my mechs back to where they were before this happened. Its really not that bad for new players but its really upsetting to players who have played for years and like the mechs they spent a long time mastering.

Edited by SiliconAngel, 09 February 2017 - 01:12 AM.

[meteorol]

Encourages boating even more, punishes experimenting with builds, further kills build diversity.

Moreover it punishes people who switched modules and won't get a 500m+ cbill refund. You will have a considerable amount of your playerbase being unable to master their mechs due to 9mio per mech paywall. I'm pretty sure people don't like being unable to master their mechs after they already had them mastered.

Utterly terrible quite frankly speaking. Putting people on hard reset this way could make some people simply quit the game instead of grinding the cbills to master their mechs again.

Edited by meteorol, 09 February 2017 - 01:10 AM.