82 replies to this topic

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

AnTi90d, on 15 February 2017 - 10:19 AM, said:

Oh, you are correct.

Well, damn..

I'm still opposed to it, as is over 90% of the reddit community.

I like being able to see, for free, if I like this build better with a MDLAS range or a MDLAS cooldown or an SRM range buff/module.. without having to pay through the nose to test those builds out.

I see it as quite similar to our current module system. for example you'd pay 3 million cbills for a range or cooldown module for a weapon and have various weapons to pick from. Now the cost is a bit less compared to the module system and the skills cover a wider range of weapons per node, such as an SRM skill boosting all SRM launchers instead of just an SRM6 or a pulse laser duration skill effecting small to large instead of just one class.

I prefer the freedom and lower expense of this system compared to the rigidity and high cost of the module system. Its not entirely perfect, but it is better.

Edited by Dakota1000, 15 February 2017 - 10:25 AM.

[Malcolm Vordermark]

Andi Nagasia, on 15 February 2017 - 09:43 AM, said:

i think the Skill Tree Costs should be brought down alittle, but Perhaps not reduced to 0,
why?

You never answered this question

[MuonNeutrino]

It's only lower cost if previously you bought a full set of modules for every single mech. For the majority of us who didn't have cbills coming out of our ears, we used our cbills to buy mechs and swapped around a much smaller set of modules. I personally own only four seismics, four radar deps, and no more than one or two of any other module, and I have 96 mechs.

Before, yes, you did have to pay a few million for that module. But once you had it, if you then decided you didn't want to use that weapon type anymore, the module simply went back into your inventory and could be used somewhere else rather than having it (and the cbills spent on it) vanish into the ether.

[MechaBattler]

I'm not really surprised. And it really doesn't bother me. You can respect point by point. So it'll be cheaper than buying modules. He did say lower cost, so at least there's that. And honestly there isn't that much variation in the trees to make me want to experiment with different builds.

Still more concerned with how they'll handle the boating issue and how the c-bill cost will effect new players.

[Cpt Zaepp]

MWO was the first Online-PVP game I actually came back for. I stopped playing shortly after the Clams arrived a couple of years ago. Not particularly because of the Clams, but I had other things to do.

I think it is still fun, despite of its shortcomings like the hilariously miss-designed pilot-rating system/MM, the Map/Game-Mode voting which seemingly leads to a never ending and exhausting stream of Skirmish on Plexus/Crimson/HPG/Polar and the still very unreliably hit-registration.

And, since I never believed in f2p, I regularly spent a few bucks to keep it running. I recently even thought about buying the mighty Bushwacker, but facing the changes to come, I discarded that idea quickly. TBH, retrospectively I even regret my recent purchase of two mech-packs.

When I'm leveling a chassis I usually respec several times. Sometimes I respec all my chassis, because I discover a new playstyle or I want to try a specific idea on several chassis to keep me entertained. And if that doesn't work, I go back to my original load-out.

Unless the costs for respeccing will be drastically reduced or eliminated, this won't be possible with the new skill-tree and my prefered way to use this service will not longer be available.

Edited by Cpt Zaepp, 15 February 2017 - 10:50 AM.

[FireStoat]

Looking this over more closely, I'm having a hard time thinking of a free-to-play / microtransaction model video game that would charge a player for Respec'ing. The most popular example in free to play would be League of Legends, where you buy a hero using either real money (new release) or with game-earned currency, purchase three different flavors of runes to give your hero bonuses (with game currency), set on a rune page (only a couple for free, the rest purchased with real money).

The real money sink comparison is similar, in that you need multiple pages to expand different build types for a hero vs Mechwarrior's Mech Bays where you need them to expand your inventory of mechs for different play types. Unlike League, Mechwarrior's headed in the direction of charging game currency for each new build of bonuses you'd like to try.

I think... yeah, it's an unabashed money-grab to promote players to examine the value of buying a mech pack in a different light, as CBills have a new drain source. For myself, it's not going to promote me to be eager for mech packs. It's going to foster a desire to develop a smaller stable of mechs and only ever buy single new mechs when they're out for Cbill release. Because to be honest, I spent money on the game to help support it because I enjoyed the format it was in. That's coming to an end.

[xe N on]

No free respec locks 1/2 of the game's content (aka mechlab, experimenting with builds) behind a pay wall.

I think, if that is going live, MWO will loose alot of customers. Me included.

Edited by xe N on, 15 February 2017 - 11:31 AM.

[Fox2232]

Dakota1000, on 15 February 2017 - 10:15 AM, said:

XP is refunded 100% using cbills or MC, re-read the PTS notes.

Rather than rereading, it is apparent to anyone who tested that thing. While finding match can be hard, everyone can be messing with mechlab with all that stuff.

It only tells you that person did not do their homework before criticizing.

[Malrock]

AnTi90d, on 15 February 2017 - 10:10 AM, said:

XP is only refunded when you respec using MC.

Cbill respecs destroy the XP.

It's a monetization scheme hiding under the guise of a Skill Tree.

..and they aren't giving us anything new, they're taking away what we have now and charging us cash or Cbills if we want it back.

--edit for clarification

Russ tweeted that he wasn't expecting it to be a money making scheme and if that is not the motivation here then it shouldn't be a problem to change this. Because i agree we are losing content we already worked hard for, and that feels terrible.

Edited by Malrock, 15 February 2017 - 11:34 AM.

[AnTi90d]

Fox2232, on 15 February 2017 - 11:31 AM, said:

Rather than rereading, it is apparent to anyone who tested that thing. While finding match can be hard, everyone can be messing with mechlab with all that stuff.

It only tells you that person did not do their homework before criticizing.

I played for two days and watched three streamers give their two cents. Total combined time has been around ten hours.

You don't really pay attention to XP, Cbill and MC costs on the PTS(D) server because they crap out ten billion of each into everyone's account.

[Rogue Jedi]

I am amazed that a respec costs cbills, I would just have an option to loose all the cbills and get the XP refunded (do not pay) or refund the XP and Cbills in full (pay MC), that is a win for both us and PGI, unlocking a skill will still cost 100k cbills and 1,500 xp, but those who are willing to pay are spared the non trivial 100k cbills per skill, which would be a significant incentive for people to spend MC ^{(and more MC spent = more income for PGI)} without realisticaly being open to pay to win accusations, and if that is too generous how about only refunding 75% or 50% of xp if you go for the free option

setup like that the ability to remove skills for free could give PGI non trivial income as the MC option would be far superior to the "free" opetion

[MacClearly]

Yeah....


I don't want to pay for messing around in the mech lab. Modules were basically equipment and that it bothers Russ somehow that it made sense to reduce costs by sharing them between mechs shows a disdain for the players of this game.

This attitude will cost him in the end as people are going to mitigate costs whether he likes it or not and it will drive people away or stop them from spending any real money.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

For the people who experiment so frequently with builds, why do you worry about the respec costs at all? Surely you would not purchase skills for weapons in the first place if you were planning to be so volatile with your weapons loadout. Do you all just purchase new weapons modules each time you create a build that has a weapon you weren't using before? The GXP and cbill costs of that must be outrageous, especially considering even changing from ERML to ERLL would be a 6 million cbill module cost compared to entirely free in the current system due to the weapon systems overlapping.

[Baulven]

Rogue Jedi, on 15 February 2017 - 11:51 AM, said:

I am amazed that a respec costs cbills, I would just have an option to loose all the cbills and get the XP refunded (do not pay) or refund the XP and Cbills in full (pay MC), that is a win for both us and PGI, unlocking a skill will still cost 100k cbills and 1,500 xp, but those who are willing to pay are spared the non trivial 100k cbills per skill, which would be a significant incentive for people to spend MC ^{(and more MC spent = more income for PGI)} without realisticaly being open to pay to win accusations, and if that is too generous how about only refunding 75% or 50% of xp if you go for the free option

setup like that the ability to remove skills for free could give PGI non trivial income as the MC option would be far superior to the "free" opetion

So you advocate pay to win since if you can afford to get everything back you won't have to deal with the average 20 matches that a regular person needs to respect with a monthly changing meta. That is 20 games per mech, by the by, meaning 80 for FP for a drop deck. How quickly do you accumulate 80 matches?

[Deathlike]

The only way I'd accept pricing on respecs or just accumulating points on the new Skill Tree is if the C-bill prices were literally 90% off (aka the equivalent of shaving a 0 off the end of the cost).

The bigger problem is that I don't believe there is an increased resale of the mech as allocating skill points does not give you any sort of money back when you're trying to sell the mech (not that it would be a primary goal, but sinking 9m into a mech you won't keep on a permanent basis is a waste of a mechbay).

People are going to be a lot more selective on buying new mechs, and mechbays as a consequence.. so it's not going to help PGI's bottom line anyways.


TL;DR
Reduce the stupid C-bills prices for specing and respecing by 90% or we're probably going to lose something like 90% of the playerbase instead.

[DAYLEET]

I just can't find the logic in making the game too expensive to play.

First it's going to cost an extra 9millions per mech and then its going to cost an extra 1million per skill tree branch reset. When i go back to a mech i like to change things, do i get jj this time? do i switch weapon around? The new skill tree looked like i could customise my mech further and add a lot of fun to the game. But it wont. It wont because i wont be able to afford to play the game. What happens if i cant afford to play the game do you think?

Widowmaker1981, on 15 February 2017 - 02:05 AM, said:

its really only the weapon tree you would ever change, no?

No, the weapon trees are the least interesting thing in this new system. The fact that you cant chose what you pick and basically have to take a full weapon tree makes them even more worthless.

Edited by DAYLEET, 15 February 2017 - 01:54 PM.

[MuonNeutrino]

Dakota1000, on 15 February 2017 - 12:58 PM, said:

For the people who experiment so frequently with builds, why do you worry about the respec costs at all? Surely you would not purchase skills for weapons in the first place if you were planning to be so volatile with your weapons loadout. Do you all just purchase new weapons modules each time you create a build that has a weapon you weren't using before? The GXP and cbill costs of that must be outrageous, especially considering even changing from ERML to ERLL would be a 6 million cbill module cost compared to entirely free in the current system due to the weapon systems overlapping.

Under the current system, yes, when I modify my build I do have to change weapon modules. However, that doesn't mean I have to *buy new ones* every time. Rather, over time I've simply built up a collection of the more common weapon modules, and I swap them in and out. I don't have to buy 10 medium laser range modules; instead, I just buy one and take it off after I'm done playing and return it to the pool for the next time I want to use it. So yes, I've spent a decent amount of cbills (and gxp, but I've got gazillions of that) on weapon modules, but it was far less than the cost of buying a set for every mech, and it was a *one time expense* - now that I've got them I don't need to keep paying for them over and over.

And 'just ignore the weapon skills' isn't a particularly good answer. That's effectively saying that if you enjoy experimenting with builds, you should just accept having gimpy skills, which is a non-solution.

[L3mming2]

MuonNeutrino, on 15 February 2017 - 07:51 AM, said:

If skill tree goes live with respec costs, I'm done with this game. Screwing around with builds is, in my opinion, *foundational core gameplay* for MWO that should never be charged for. Trying out random weird builds just to see what'll happen is half the fun of the game for me. I strip and rebuild several mechs every play session. If I have to pay even a few mil to swap around weapon quirks each time, I probably literally won't make any cbills. (e: I make 140k cbills/game average, so it's 18 games to pay to respec 20 nodes. At a ballpark of 10 minutes/game total, that's 3 hours, or a good evening's play. I rebuild at least one mech per play session. These respec costs will literally eat up every last cent I earn.)

And it only gets worse if they *do* manage to properly balance the skill trees. Right now it's just the weapon skills you'd be respeccing, but that's only because the rest of the trees are poorly balanced enough that there's such an obvious 'why would you ever take anything else' optimum skill distribution. If the skill trees get fixed to the point where's actually multiple interesting roles and choices enabled by different selections of non-weapon skill points (like there *should* be), then changing around the build and role of a mech will require paying to respec even more skill points.

Right now I'm already faced with only having the c-bills to re-master less than a quarter of the 96 mechs I own. I skip around and play different mechs all the time - if I want to reproduce my current ability to do so, I'm already faced with a truly ridiculous grind just to get my stable back even close to where it's currently at. Even if respec costs weren't a thing at all, it'd still prevent me from buying any new mechs for a very long time, and frankly the variety of mechs is one of the big reasons I play. And then you want to prolong that grind pretty much indefinitely by choking off my income with respec costs?

So once this goes live, I won't be able to play 3/4 of my mechs with any level of bonuses. (And 3/4 of my stable are 'crap' mechs that really *need* the bonuses.) I also won't be able to afford to buy any new mechs for ages. And then on top of that I'll have to choose between either *never fixing either of those things* because all my income goes to respec fees, or else playing the game in a way that I don't enjoy by never changing the builds on any of the mechs I *do* play.

I enjoy playing a wide variety of mechs and builds. It's what's attractive about this game to me. In a single stroke this system will remove 3/4 of my stable, prevent me from adding to it, and prevent me from playing the remaining mechs in an enjoyable way. So why the **** would I stick around?

Respec costs are not negotiable to me. Either they go, or I go.

this so much..... i have spend a crap ton real money on MWO but if cant afford the cost of rebuilding and respecing every few maches.. i'll be gone as soon as my refunded module c-bill stockpile is gone...

[SmokedJag]

xe N on, on 15 February 2017 - 11:30 AM, said:

No free respec locks 1/2 of the game's content (aka mechlab, experimenting with builds) behind a pay wall.

I think, if that is going live, MWO will loose alot of customers. Me included.

I'd say that's much more than half the depth of the game.

[Chound]

Widowmaker1981, on 15 February 2017 - 02:05 AM, said:

I think re-spec costs arent as bad as people are making out, its not like you will be respeccing the whole mech (since you can do skills individually) - its really only the weapon tree you would ever change, no? In my opinion things like the defence tree and the lower chassis tree are basically essentials for 100% of builds ever.

I think a small labor fee everytime you go in and change the configuration but you would also be getting new skills for the mech when you respec. that's like 10 nodes or so. There should be an option so the current config of the mech will be translated into skills at no C bill cost but any changes after that would face a small maybe flat fee as a labor charge for the techs 500 C bills per mech. One thing people ignore is that each mech is SUPPOSED TO HAVE it's own modules and sharing is just a cost saving method for new players that don't have the millions of C bills sitting around.