2
So maybe a reward system could help with that. Give the players some incentive to master many mechs, instead of implementing the new mastery as a "necessary evil" in order to stay competitive.
Disclaimer:
The numbers proposed here are obviously completely up for debate. I don't claim to know how to balance the economy of games or anything. It's just an idea that I think could work out.
Reward System based on the number of mastered mechs
To encourage players to invest into their mechs and help compensate the cost for each individual mech, you could reward them with a global C-Bill boost, based on how many mechs are mastered.
For example:
Mastering your first mech gives you a global C-Bill boost of 7.5%. This bonus would be multiplicative with other C-Bill boosts, since that's how these things work in the game (correct me if I'm wrong).
Variant 1:
After that, this bonus might increase in a linear fashion for every other mech mastered (e.g. 0.75% added to these 7.5% per mech), up to maybe a set maximum bonus, like 30%.
Variant 2:
As an alternative, the increase might come in breakpoints. So mastering the first mech grants the already mentioned 7.5%. Having 3 mechs mastered may increase this bonus to 10%. for 5 mechs it may be 12.5%, for 10 mechs 15% and so on. Again, probably up to a set maximum.
What the players get:
Mastering mechs will pretty much be mandatory to stay competitive. But instead of generating an endless C-Bill sink that just gets bigger with more mechs, a reward system like that would help them to get enough C-Bills to master the next mech. At some point, the bonus (together with other bonuses like Heroes / Special Variants and Premium Time) will likely get big enough to almost negate the cost per mech. This way, you would more or less end up in the same state as before the new skill tree system. Skilling your mech would basically pay for itself and therefore be (more or less) free and you would grind only to buy and equip new mechs.
What PGI gets:
Probably less complains about the system being too expensive.
While individual mech sales (for real money) might decrease because eventually the reward system would help players buy mechs faster, sales of mechbays would likely go up since people would fill up their accounts faster. Additionally, players might buy more Hero mechs and Premium Time, because those bonuses would rack up pretty fast.
Of course everything stated here is up for debate. It's just an idea I got, because of all the complaints about the new systems cost.
However, some points I wouldn't touch. One of these would be the fact, that the first mech mastered would give the biggest boost. This would probably benefit new players the most, who would have to spend all their hard earned C-Bills on just one mech, delaying other new mechs they would want to buy.
Similarly, I wouldn't restrict such a mastery reward only to the mastered mech, like say "mastered mechs gain a 15% C-Bill boost". That would likely lead to monotony, since you would probably just stick to your mastered mechs, feeling like your missing out as soon as you pick another one.
Update 1:
Added a poll to the topic. Maybe this way we can get some opinions from users, who don't want to write comments.
Let me know, if you think there should be more options.
Edited by FunkyT, 08 March 2017 - 05:31 AM.
