Dee Eight, on 10 February 2017 - 12:12 PM, said:
10. This point only affects existing players who are pokemech collectors. New players won't think its bad because they can avoid having to buy three variants to master JUST the one they want. Existing players who got their pokemech fixes playing M:TG or similar collectible trading games that had physical tangible assets with real dollar values that could be sold/traded won't care at all either because we (and I'm one of them) can just buy the single mech variants we want and avoid the ones we don't. I ONLY wanted the legend killer rifleman for example... but was forced to buy two other rifleman just to basic so I could elite the RFL-LK. I didn't keep either of those basic rifleman, and lost cbills selling them back, and wasted time playing them and time is the one commodity in life you never get back.
11. New players benefit because they don't need to spend 6 million cbills plus GXP to unlock and own a radar dep module. Instead they can just spend money and xp on nodes that they need for that particular mech. Also existing players who didn't have space for the radar dep module for whatever build they were using, now can get the benefits of it along with whatever other mech module they previously used. My Archer 5W for example... 5xLRM5, 2xSRM4 and 2xSRM6. Only missile quirk was an LRM velocity one. I ran target decay, adv sensor range, and the LRM5 cooldown and range modules. Didn't have an AMS fitted so I had to seek cover and largely shoot indirect with the LRMs to avoid counter-battery fire. Well now I can have LRM and SRM skill nodes.. and improved sensors and radar derp and a seismic and target decay and improved target info gathering all at the same time.
12. New players after the patch won't know this (unless they read the forums) and thus won't care. Only the forum whiners among the existing players actually seem to care.
Okay, I was asked by someone who downloaded the game last week to do a price comparison between skill buffs and I really only hinted at the max (direwhale) without going into the thought underneath in my post but here goes... Three thunderbolts (-5SS, -9S, -9SE) plus endo (all three) and double heatsinks (-5ss) requires just under 21million c-bills (plus weapons, engines, etc) and after you’ve elited them you have three mechs that are the solid underpinnings of a FW dropdeck. Not as good as they could be with modules, but not an entire waste.
Skill nodes to meet or better the
live server skills, cost 5.3 million and can't actually be done (heat dissipation comes up short), but you also get a few skills that are quite a bit better (or didn't have before), so it balances out. But if you still want those three Thunderbolts for FW the cost is now just over 36million (mechs, nodes, endo, DHS) again plus weapons, engines,
and weapon/defense/sensor skill nodes.
Yes, one mech remains cheaper than buying three under the old model, but the costs of upgrading it have climbed sharply. Also, under the old model modules are a
capital expense. Once you've bought them they are yours to move around and keep. Say you module out those three Thuds, (RaderDerp, Seismic, 2x weps) costs 54million, but then tonnage gets upped and you decide to drop a Grasshopper and…whatever, so you take them off the Thuds put them on the new mechs and, hey, you aren’t shelling out 54 million again (assuming, of course, that you want to port over all 4 which I doubt).
Or, to put it another way, a fully kitted out 4xThunderbolt dropdeck (which I recall was a thing at one point) would cost ~99million (plus cost of weapons and engines), under the old system and ~63million under the new, but if you wanted to change to a dropdeck with no thunderbolts you had a 54million c-bill investment under the old system that you could use with your revised dropdeck.
But in the PTS that’s no longer the case. To those players with hundred of millions, or even billions of c-bills it might not matter much, to those scrapping by with a few dozen million c-bills who are suddenly experiencing a tonnage change in FW, or want to make a fairly substantial change to their dropdeck? That’s a rather different animal.
Finally, say you want to make a change or tweak your mech. Every node you replace costs 125k c-bills which can make refitting a mech (especially an omni with the costs of pods added), an expensive proposition. And before anyone starts on Clanners OP, allow me to point out that a timeline advancement puts IS omnis on the near horizon.
Dee Eight, on 10 February 2017 - 12:12 PM, said:
15 & 16... this is why they're doing a playtest now ahead of the patch. Constructive feedback is useful. Whining complaints about how the sky is falling is not.
17. Then they were already pay-to-win because we already had them.
Actually...not. You could still acquire equivalent consumables through in-game progression without spending real money. If c-bill consumable nodes go in tied to individual mechs, then players willing to spend real money get maximum-effectiveness consumables
and 91 skill-nodes. On the otherhand, an F2Per would have to spend nodes on consumables (and taking an underperforming mech), or take less effective consumables.
Being able to spend real money for a distinct advantage in-game is the
definition of a play-to-win game mechanic.
Dee Eight, on 10 February 2017 - 12:12 PM, said:
They've already said that cbill consumables will NOT be less effective than MC consumables and that the changes will be in place before the patch happens.
They did, and I quoted it. The issue is a lack of clarity. If they make c-bill items just flat-out equivalent (and I’m not sure how they could and expect to sell any mc variants) all well and good. Likewise if they create a ‘pilot skill tree’ for the consumables, again, all well and good. What you are paying MC for in the live server is the priveledge of using full-up consumables without leveling them.
If they put in arty/air/coolshot nodes tied to the
mech and that was my interpretation given the lack of arty/air/coolshot nodes, then a real pay-to-win element is created. Likewise, if they create an overarching ‘pilot skill tree’ with a limited number of unlocks you would get the same situation where someone willing to spend real money could bring a better pilot
and max-performance consumables.
Edited by Kael Posavatz, 10 February 2017 - 04:01 PM.
30
