103 replies to this topic

[Skribs]

50 50, I think you just pointed out why people are upset. At no point were we thinking "hey, I should buy modules for all my Mechs in case they get rid of modules, refund us the money, and make us pay for skills."

I buy Mechs. I tinker with them. I buy new weapons and engines for them. I don't sell equipment because if I need it later, I've just spent 50% more to buy, sell, and re-buy. I don't sell Mechs for the same reason. I don't even keep the majority of my Mechs combat ready most of the time. I just have equipment in ones I'm actively playing, and have a database of my old builds so I can quickly rebuild a Mech. This cuts costs on engines especially, but also other equipment as well. If I have to do that with equipment, what do you think I have to do with modules?

Players who have played where the majority of their C-Bills has gone into buying Mechs or messing around with them (which is the biggest draw of the game for a lot of players, trying out new Mechs and new builds) are the ones who are getting punished the hardest.

[Dogstar]

@50 50

As I said earlier I've only been playing for a year and a total of 1500 matches, where I've upgraded engines from STD to XL I've generally speaking sold the old engines to get more cash for more upgrades.

I'm assuming you mostly play clan mechs? I exclusively play IS mechs which almos all need either an endo or ferro upgrade, DHS upgrade, and, except for a few odd builds, an XL engine. That's where my couple of hundred million earned so far has gone. I simply have never had enough to afford more than a few modules.

However that's not a problem per se - I can grind away and slowly procure everything I want one mech at a time - I've got plenty of premium time thanks to those mastery bundles.

Almost all of my mechs are basic skilled and most are elited but only a few are mastered - because I enjoy playing lots of different mechs and don't concentrate on one.

Again not a problem, I'll get there in the end and the mechs I like the most soon get skilled up.

With the new tree I have to make harsh decision though - do I buy upgrades or do I buy skill nodes? I've got a maximum amount of income as I can't play more battles per week/month/year so more grinding is not an option.

Upgrades are generally more bang for each c-bill so I'm going to be playing mostly unskilled mechs for a long time which is a sh*tty situation to be in.

I've made suggestion as to how to fix this problem: https://mwomercs.com...mechpack-again/

[Dodger79]

50 50, on 25 February 2017 - 09:48 PM, said:

Let me try and describe it another way.
I have 3 Centurions with the mech tree mastered.
However I've only bought 4 modules which I swap between them.
With the change I would get enough XP refunded from each of those mechs to buy 71 nodes for each of them.
If the 4 modules I purchased were Radar Dep, Seismic Sensors and 2 weapon mods, the refund from those 4 modules is going to be 18,000,000 in c-bills.
To buy 91 nodes on a single mech I need 5,460,000 c-bills.
Therefore for my three Centurions I need a total of 16,380,000 c-bills so I'll be coming out ahead with another 1,620,000 left in the bank which is nice.
All that is then needed is the additional XP to get the extra 20 skills for each mech (we already have 71 nodes bought). That's 16,000xp for each. Now I'm afraid I am unsure how much XP it takes for the mech and weapon modules but there is probably a few thousand XP being refunded from the pilot skill tree. Chances are I have additional XP sitting on my three Centurions anyway and more than likely some GXP which could be used as well, so I'm probably in a good place to actually get all 91 skill nodes for all three mechs.
So I will go from having 1 Centurion fully mastered and fully completed with all the modules to actually having all 3 of my Centurions full mastered and also completed with all the modules.... and some left over c-bills.

So, basically, the 3 Centurions guy is fine, but the guy with 200+ Mechs is still f*cked. Oh, and if the Centurion-guy has discovered for himself that he likes the AL best and bought 3 of those he now has to remaster all 3 of them instead of just one like now (personally, i own several Mechs of the same variant because i like it, have different loadouts on them and to be able to switch fast between loadouts without rebuilding it [better for group-play when you do not let your mates forever just to change a build] and i am really looking forward to it mastering them all over again, but now per Mech and not per variant and having converted the XP on them to GXP because back then Mech-XP were useless after mastering). And the HXP he gets refunded might only be enough for one variant because of GXP-conversion. Just great!

[soapyfrog]

Yes people who bought extra copies of the same variant are extra screwed. Why PGI decided to do things that way is, again, baffling. Why would you have to level up the exact same mech again???

[50 50]

Yes, ok.
I'll apologise as I was hoping you might have had enough modules for 1/3rd of your mechs which would cover all the costs.
But it sounds like you, and others, might have 100+ mechs but only ever got enough modules to completely outfit maybe 10.
Even if you had the range and cool down modules for each weapon system, that's a fair bit of cash.
So I understand how this will financially impact your ability to buy back these skills and I can only hope you might have some duplicate mechs you may not need or lots of inventory items you might be able to sell to get the funding. I was hoping I might have been able to provide a different perspective and alternate options.

Yes, I play mostly clan mechs so the cost is upfront making the acquisition of those mechs a bit slower so the spending was more on weapons and equipment. Ultimately I got to a point where I wanted to completely outfit the mechs with modules once I had settled on a build so I diverted my funds in that direction but would still have quite a few mechs that are missing modules and other components (arms, legs, weapons etc). Where I see the skill tree being a challenge for me personally is with mechs I have duplicates of. In some instances I've got 3 or 4 of a single type so the XP split will be interesting.
That said, I simply don't have the time to play all the mechs I've got and I've only got about 70 or 80.
There are several I've never touched and others that might as well be museum pieces, so my intention is to have fun piloting the mechs I normally pilot and get those all skilled up first and inbetween gradually work on the others.

[Skribs]

To be fair, 50 50, I think clan Mechs are usually more expensive. The price of upgrades is usually built into the Mech. For example, Shadow Cats (45 tons) run 8.9 - 10.5 million, and Ice Ferrets (same) run 10-10.4 million. Vindicators, Phoenix Hawks, and Blackjacks start in the 3 million range. But then if you add 1.95 million for endo-steel and DHS, and then add in potentially a lot more for an engine, and it starts to add up to close to what the clan Mech cost.

Thank you for understanding now that many players have 100+ Mechs and can module out 10 or less. I've been in "debates" with several others on this forum who can't seem to grasp that fact. While you may not play all of your 70 or 80 Mechs, I do play all of mine, or at least most of them. Even if it's just a drop or two every once in a while, I like to get back in and have a good match to remind myself why I enjoyed leveling it, or to compare a build on another Mech to it.

[Bellum Dominum]

Skribs, on 26 February 2017 - 11:49 PM, said:

To be fair, 50 50, I think clan Mechs are usually more expensive. The price of upgrades is usually built into the Mech. For example, Shadow Cats (45 tons) run 8.9 - 10.5 million, and Ice Ferrets (same) run 10-10.4 million. Vindicators, Phoenix Hawks, and Blackjacks start in the 3 million range. But then if you add 1.95 million for endo-steel and DHS, and then add in potentially a lot more for an engine, and it starts to add up to close to what the clan Mech cost.

Very good. Now apply that same rational thinking to proposed new skill system:
IS = old system
Clan = new system

[Sarsaparilla Kid]

Bellum Dominum, on 27 February 2017 - 12:06 AM, said:

Very good. Now apply that same rational thinking to proposed new skill system:
IS = old system
Clan = new system

Except, under the old system, both mechs and modules were sold back for 50% or less of their original cost...now under the new system, modules sell back for 100% while mechs will still sell back for 50% or less. The one that bought modules in bulk is happy with their investment, the one that bought mechs instead got burned on their investment, which leads to the title of this thread...why buy more mechs with such a bad return on investment and the more you have, the more grind you will have under the new system in combination with a distinct lack of C-bills?

[Trev Firestorm]

50 50, on 25 February 2017 - 09:48 PM, said:

No, I'm saying that a mech that has been mastered under the old system is only the equivalent of 50 nodes under the new system. I am also saying that if you have actually bought enough modules to completely outfit 1/3rd of all of your mechs, you will be able to afford the c-bill cost for those 50 nodes for all of your mechs at a minimum. More thanks to having some left over.
You don't lose anything.
To get any mech back to where it was with modules equippedit is another 20 nodes. 16,000 xp and 1,200,000 c-bills per mech.
Chances are you will probably be able to afford that for 1/3rd of your mechs so you will be back to where you were with 1/3rd of your mechs fully mastered and fully equipped with modules.

This right here is my point, you assume 1/3rd modules, some of us have over 100 mechs with only 10-20 modules total, some even less and thus will be punished under this system.

Edit: I see you understand now.

Edited by Trev Firestorm, 01 March 2017 - 12:16 PM.

[Dogstar]

>But it sounds like you, and others, might have 100+ mechs but only ever got enough modules to completely outfit maybe 10.
2

I can outfit two mechs completely plus a couple of spare modules that I don't use like Advanced Zoom which is a noob trap module.

[50 50]

That..... is not a lot.

I guess that's where I went astray in my thinking as just a handful of modules between 111 mechs and having to swap them around whenever I fancied trying something else would eventually have driven me bonkers. This was particularly true when joining a group and the mech limits or tonnage limits changed meaning a reshuffle. It would have been even worse prior to the speed up for saving the loadouts, unless of course you simply didn't bother.

But that is why I was discussing it from the point of view of only having 1/3rd of all the mechs outfitted as that seemed a reasonable target. not even counting the mech modules there are over 50 weapon modules which would suit different mechs due to hard points etc so even one of each would have netted a decent refund. Everyone's approach is different though and it's certainly very easy to spend millions mucking about with different configurations in the mech lab, especially when considering engine and structure changes, so we all have had to make our choices on where to spend that next lot of c-bills.

[Dogstar]

Yeah, 200-odd million spread amongst 11 mechs does not get you very far.

As I said that wasn't a problem before whereas with the new skill tree I've effectively got to split that same amount between upgrading mechs and upgrading skills. So I am forced to lose out somewhere.

[R Valentine]

50 50, on 23 February 2017 - 12:14 PM, said:

Are you skilling them up from scratch and not going to use any of the refunded XP or c-bills you will be getting?

That's dedication and determination.

You are not getting C-bills for your mechs, only the xp refund. Even at 3-6 million a pop, unless you have 20 modules, it's not going to make much of a dent. The grind is real. I've bought my last bit of MC. Never going to buy more.

[soapyfrog]

Also I hope the myth of "previous mastery only represents 50 skill nodes" thing is now laid to rest.

It's pretty obvious there is no real added benefit to this skill tree over the status quo. The value proposition of being able to pick your quirks (but only fairly weak ones) is simply not worth being bankrupted.

[Malrock]

soapyfrog, on 03 March 2017 - 01:34 PM, said:

Also I hope the myth of "previous mastery only represents 50 skill nodes" thing is now laid to rest.

It's pretty obvious there is no real added benefit to this skill tree over the status quo. The value proposition of being able to pick your quirks (but only fairly weak ones) is simply not worth being bankrupted.

Yes i agree that myth is debunked, as you can't with any amount of skill points ever return to where you were on the live server. Even if we could get all the skill points in every tree we still couldn't get back to equivalent to the live game currently. Feels like they are making us pay to recoup some of the performance we are loosing by their choice to change the system.

Also by adding many more skill points and hiding all the effective ones behind worthless ones now all our points are diluted and represent a more minor improvement than even the previous PTS. Skill points have effectively been devalued even more on the current PTS.

[oldradagast]

TercieI, on 23 February 2017 - 11:49 AM, said:

This is the thing I've been saying. It's just a suicidal business model.

Yep. They couldn't possibly destroy their income better than getting rid of the rule of three, nerfing all existing mechs, and then forcing everyone to waste a fortune in time and money regrinding what they already have.

So, I need fewer mechs, the mechs I have are less fun to play, and it'll take me forever to get to the new, weaker version of full power. No reason at all to buy anything in that environment.

[oldradagast]

Cygone, on 25 February 2017 - 02:47 AM, said:

I think most people when they actually play the new skill-tree will find that they have enough c-bills to Master the 'Mechs they want to play WHEN they want to play it. Read NOT enough to Master them all on-release.

Nobody disagreed with the notion that "eventually" we'd be able to remaster our mechs... though at the rate it'll take, the game will probably be dead by then.

The topic at hand, though, is why would anybody bother buying new mechs (or anything else) given how much time and money they'll need to waste re-mastering what they have? Oh, sure - I suppose PGI could just go straight to "Pay to Win" and make every new mech release an obvious power-up over previous ones... but that'll kill the game even faster than this joke of a skills system on the PTS.

[Chound]

Skribs, on 26 February 2017 - 11:49 PM, said:

To be fair, 50 50, I think clan Mechs are usually more expensive. The price of upgrades is usually built into the Mech. For example, Shadow Cats (45 tons) run 8.9 - 10.5 million, and Ice Ferrets (same) run 10-10.4 million. Vindicators, Phoenix Hawks, and Blackjacks start in the 3 million range. But then if you add 1.95 million for endo-steel and DHS, and then add in potentially a lot more for an engine, and it starts to add up to close to what the clan Mech cost.

Thank you for understanding now that many players have 100+ Mechs and can module out 10 or less. I've been in "debates" with several others on this forum who can't seem to grasp that fact. While you may not play all of your 70 or 80 Mechs, I do play all of mine, or at least most of them. Even if it's just a drop or two every once in a while, I like to get back in and have a good match to remind myself why I enjoyed leveling it, or to compare a build on another Mech to it.

You should look at what they have now. there are NO MODULES all you have is cool shots, artillary strikes and UAV. everything else is in the skill tree and you will be getting a full refund GXP, XP, and I think C bills as well. This will help remastering the mechs.

[soapyfrog]

Chound, on 03 March 2017 - 04:52 PM, said:

You should look at what they have now. there are NO MODULES all you have is cool shots, artillary strikes and UAV. everything else is in the skill tree and you will be getting a full refund GXP, XP, and I think C bills as well. This will help remastering the mechs.

Not really! I am sure I have more modules than most and I project 4000+ matches I need to play without spending c-bills on anything else in order to buy the skills for all my mechs.

The new system is absurdly expensive.

[R Valentine]

New PGI business model is suicidal. If it went live now I'd never buy a new mech again. I'll spend forever catching up the old ones. It even affects how I buy things now. With the massive engine nerf, I can't buy engine upgrades for some of my newest mechs. 5.4mil of XL engine could very well be wasted if the engine nerf goes live, and that won't be refunded. PGI is going to drive themselves under.