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The Problem:
To master a mech you currently have to acquire 57250 Mech XP. While doing so you produced 2862.5 GXP (additional 5%).
With the suggested system you need to acquire 1500 * 91 = 136500 XP. I don't know if GXP will still exist or not, but I assume they will and still with 5%.
So in order to reach 136500 XP you need to generate 130000 Mech XP. The missing 6500 are the 5% GXP you'll get along the way.
The factor between current and proposed is 136500 / 57250 = 2.38. Let's assume you played you mastered mechs a little longer and you have roughly 70000 XP bound to your mech, the factor is still 1.95.
So for each mech that you've mastered right now, you need to master it again. I personally have only 1 variant where I have enough mech XP left to master it right away, and unfortunately that's one of my duplicate mechs (Sparky).
Now PGI comes in and tells you that you'll get tons of GXP, but let's be fair, it's only 5% compared to the 138% that we are short. So in my case (120 mechs, playing since Sept. 2013) this is 351500 GXP. That will master me 2.57 mechs from scratch. Or it will help push 4.43 mechs from mastered (57250) to the required 136500. Wow. I am screwed. The joke of having invested $820 is on me.
So why is PGI increasing the XP costs that much? Because we only require one variant to master a chassis, which is great. It really is. I never considered buying Timbers, but I might go for the Hero if this goes life. So now that we don't have to basic 2 other variants it requires more XP to master one. If you want to have every variant of a chassis mastered, maybe because you've bought them, you are screwed either way, but if you have basiced some variants to allow for mastering others you now face the problem of having all your precious mech XP bound to variants you possibly don't even own anymore.
The Javelin marks the first time where I bought an Ultimate Pack because I dig every variant (6+1duplicate). The amount of time I may spend on this game is roughly 5 hours per week. Sounds low? Get a full time job, wife and kids, and you'll think otherwise. In order to master all 7 it will take me 682 game (with 1400 XP earned on average) -> 136 hours (with 5 matches per hour) -> 27.3 weeks (with 5h per week) -> 6.825 months. yay.
Suggestion:
- Group HXP by chassis and not variant. So if you basiced 2 variants to be able to master a 3rd, you now have the combined mech XP from the 3 variants available for the 1 you wish to master. You're still short a long way, but closer.
- Lower the XP costs. It's fine if mastering costs more XP in the new system, but a factor of 2.38 is too high. 91*1000 = 91000 is still 1.59 times higher. Even 1200 XP per node would help, despite still being excessive (factor 1.9).
#2 CBill transition current to new
The Problem:
So most of the paying customers own at least 100 mechs, and won't be able to fully equip more than let's say 20% at a time. There simply was no need for that until now. You buy enough modules to be able to master multiple variants of the same mech without having to switch modules all the time and have a FP dropdeck ready. 9,100,000 CBills is about 50% of the previous costs, but is now fixed to the chassis.
This isn't as bad when comparing to the XP sink, but still bad enough. From the PTS I know that I'll get enough CBills refunded to master 28 mechs. That doesn't sound bad, but that's less than I have now, and all the other elited or basiced mechs are back to 0 which neither of them is now.
The second and even fiercer problem are the costs for changing skills. It looks like PGI wants to force us to only own one variant per chassis (because we can't effort more) but since we only own one, it needs to be as flexible as possible, but this flexibility comes at an insane price. Also it takes away all the fun of trying out different things.
Another problem that comes with changing being excessively expansive is the fact that PGI virtually either can't change the skills for balancing reasons anymore, or simply have to refund everything on every mech each time they change something. Let's say they nerf the sensors tree and people don't want it anymore -> angry customers / forum shitstorm. Let's say they make the JJ tree viable and ppl suddenly want it (which means they have to swap something else for it) -> angry customers / forum shitstorm
Let's take up on the Javelin Ultimate pack again here: 7*9,100,000 = 63,700,000 requires me 455 matches (AVG 140,000 CBills / Match) -> 91 hours -> 18.2 weeks -> 4.2 months. Less problematic than the XP sink, but still yay.
Suggestion:
- Remove the reequipment costs altogether. One of the best moves for Diablo III was to allow build flexibility by being able to switch around skill points instead of nailing down a character to the choices made along the way. It's not in PGIs interest to causing a shitstorm every time they rebalance the skills, and we'll enjoy the flexibility of being able to try out different loadouts/roles. With the reskill costs few people will dare to try things out. Everybody goes meta.
- Reduce the costs. 70,000*91=6,370,000 is still a hefty burden considering it's required for every single mech. Unless PGI really wants to force us to play fewer mechs, but why would we than want to pay for mech packs?
Edited by Myke Pantera, 12 February 2017 - 11:27 PM.
