40 replies to this topic

[Kali Rinpoche]

For those of you that missed today's NGNG.tv session. Russ mentioned that the cost went down to 45k per node and might go lower.

What was missing is what to do for folks like me and other that have 100's of mastered mechs, but few modules that we swapped back and forth.

Many of us (that have spent a lot of money in support) are going to be short 100's of millions, even after the reduction.

For me after blowing my 530M cbills, i'm now still short 231 million. Please come up with a way to make players like me whole. (after blowing my hard earned savings.)

Edit with exact numbers:
252 mechs fully mastered x 4,095,000 = 1,031,940,000
Refund amount for my modules = 270,00,000 cbills
Current Savings 530,000,000
530,000,000 + 270,000,000=800,000,000
1,031,940,000 - 800,000,000 = -231,940,000 in the hole

I'm @230,000,000 million in the hole, and will be bankrupt. (I play my entire stable when not leveling new mechs, which i can't afford after this.)
Also:
i've got 131 days of premium time left and have spent @1k in 3+years.

Edited by Kali Rinpoche, 10 March 2017 - 09:14 PM.

[Wintersdark]

I actually (as have many others) brought my account up to Russ asking about this, and he discussed it in the podcast as well.

I too have lots of mechs, and fairly few modules. We're looking at 4.1m cbills per mech to skill it up given 45k/node, so it's certainly something I'm concerned about.

Basically, the answer is this (from the podcast):

* People who bought lots of modules get refunded a lot of cbills, because they chose to spend those cbills on modules rather than whatever people like me spent them on (or simply grinded more cbills in the first place). Either way, they earned those cbills, so they MUST get refunded. 100% of spent currency is being refunded.
* I chose not to buy modules, and instead spent those cbills elsewhere, and still have whatever I spent those cbills on (more mechs, gear, whatever else)
* It's unfair to give me a big whack of bonus cbills, as I still have all the cbills I earned (either in cbill form, or whatever I bought with them).
* There needs to be a cost implemented, or else all the players getting hundreds of millions of cbills refunded are suddenly massively space-rich and that destroys the "economy" for that player. After that, he's got essentially unlimited funds. (I get where Russ is coming from here, even if I don't agree: he's refunding the cbills, but he doesn't want this to be a huge windfall either)
* There will be some people who get the short end of the stick: those who bought no modules. They're working on finding a cbill cost with the least negative impact on those players (like us), while also not giving players who've spent a lot on modules a massive payday. The line has to exist somewhere. We CAN bring out accounts to Russ's attention, and if you feel this is going to unduly impact you, you SHOULD DO SO, as this is contributing to where that line is set. If you've got a particularly egregious edge case, they may help you out as well.

As it stands, we're essentially getting 3 mechs fully mastered (cbill cost) for each 2 weapon modules we have, plus more from the other low-cost modules.

But the upside is that with mastery (being way more than what "mastery" means right now) we're just paying 4m per mech, so it's not THAT huge a grind.

[DAYLEET]

Russ made it clear that he dont want people to spend that cash back into mech. Since he believes he cant have so much cbill loose in the "economy", hes afraid of people using it for new mech. Also, what economy?

Theres the people who spent their cash on mech rather than modules. They get few cbills and get to keep half the mech they bought. At least they can chose which of their mech the game will allow to master.

Theres the people who bought modules instead of buying more mech. They will get lots of cbills back but they have to use that cbills for the mech they currently own. They get to keep all their mech but they dont have as much as the first people sicne they bought modules instead. These lose as much as the people above but might not feel the hit as big as they had their losses over the span of years.

Theres the people who bought all the mech and have modules on all of them. These people are already rich, they will get obscenely richer with the cash back. They wont use that cbills to buy mech, they wouldnt be rich to begin with. So they will just accumulate cbills like they already are doing.

If you're afraid of people buying mech with cbills i recommend not making the mechbay free. Maybe charge 300mc per mechbay or something. What else can people waste cash on? Multiple of XL so we dont have to swap them? 6 arty on every mech? well WTH do you even allow this? two was bad and you had to change it back to one.

What economy? I dont play a game with an economy, only cbill sink, all those sink prevent you from doing more with the game. None of those sink would change/break the game if they were removed. This isnt an mmo, there is no economy.

Edited by DAYLEET, 10 March 2017 - 07:13 PM.

[Wintersdark]

DAYLEET, on 10 March 2017 - 07:08 PM, said:

Russ made it clear that he dont want people to spend that cash back into mech. Since he believes he cant have so much cbill loose in the "economy", hes afraid of people using it for new mech. Also, what economy?

Theres the people who spent their cash on mech rather than modules. They get few cbills and get to keep half the mech they bought. At least they can chose which of their mech the game will allow to master.

Theres the people who bought modules instead of buying more mech. They will get lots of cbills back but they have to use that cbills for the mech they currently own. They get to keep all their mech but they dont have as much as the first people sicne they bought modules instead. These lose as much as the people above but might not feel the hit as big as they had their losses over the span of years.

Theres the people who bought all the mech and have modules on all of them. These people are already rich, they will get obscenely richer with the cash back. They wont use that cbills to buy mech, they wouldnt be rich to begin with. So they will just accumulate cbills like they already are doing.

If you're afraid of people buying mech with cbills i recommend not making the mechbay free. Maybe charge 300mc per mechbay or something. What else can people waste cash on? Multiple of XL so we dont have to swap them? 6 arty on every mech? well WTH do you even allow this? two was bad and yo uhad to change it back to one.

What economy? I dont play a game with an economy, only cbill sink, all those sink prevent you from doing more with the game. None of those sync would change/break the game if they were removed. This isnt an mmo, there is no economy.

There isn't an economy in really, but there is a currency each player uses for progress, and that's cbills. There needs to be sinks, if players just get effectively infinite cbill pools a lot of motivation suddenly ceases to exist for your average player.

So it IS important that people don't just suddenly get a huge windfall.

And don't assume those who have lots of mechs with modules are already rich. They could be dirt poor - probably are dirt poor, as modules are extremely expensive.

[Kali Rinpoche]

Wintersdark, on 10 March 2017 - 07:07 PM, said:

I actually (as have many others) brought my account up to Russ asking about this, and he discussed it in the podcast as well.

I too have lots of mechs, and fairly few modules. We're looking at 4.1m cbills per mech to skill it up given 45k/node, so it's certainly something I'm concerned about.

Basically, the answer is this (from the podcast):

* People who bought lots of modules get refunded a lot of cbills, because they chose to spend those cbills on modules rather than whatever people like me spent them on (or simply grinded more cbills in the first place). Either way, they earned those cbills, so they MUST get refunded. 100% of spent currency is being refunded.
* I chose not to buy modules, and instead spent those cbills elsewhere, and still have whatever I spent those cbills on (more mechs, gear, whatever else)
* It's unfair to give me a big whack of bonus cbills, as I still have all the cbills I earned (either in cbill form, or whatever I bought with them).
* There needs to be a cost implemented, or else all the players getting hundreds of millions of cbills refunded are suddenly massively space-rich and that destroys the "economy" for that player. After that, he's got essentially unlimited funds. (I get where Russ is coming from here, even if I don't agree: he's refunding the cbills, but he doesn't want this to be a huge windfall either)
* There will be some people who get the short end of the stick: those who bought no modules. They're working on finding a cbill cost with the least negative impact on those players (like us), while also not giving players who've spent a lot on modules a massive payday. The line has to exist somewhere. We CAN bring out accounts to Russ's attention, and if you feel this is going to unduly impact you, you SHOULD DO SO, as this is contributing to where that line is set. If you've got a particularly egregious edge case, they may help you out as well.

As it stands, we're essentially getting 3 mechs fully mastered (cbill cost) for each 2 weapon modules we have, plus more from the other low-cost modules.

But the upside is that with mastery (being way more than what "mastery" means right now) we're just paying 4m per mech, so it's not THAT huge a grind.

Thanks Winter

[Kali Rinpoche]

DAYLEET, on 10 March 2017 - 07:08 PM, said:

What economy? I dont play a game with an economy, only cbill sink, all those sink prevent you from doing more with the game. None of those sink would change/break the game if they were removed. This isnt an mmo, there is no economy.

Agreed there is no economy. Basically my savings will be used to buy back the content I owned before at a loss of all my savings and negative amount to make up.

[DAYLEET]

Wintersdark, on 10 March 2017 - 07:11 PM, said:

There isn't an economy in really, but there is a currency each player uses for progress, and that's cbills. There needs to be sinks, if players just get effectively infinite cbill pools a lot of motivation suddenly ceases to exist for your average player.

So it IS important that people don't just suddenly get a huge windfall.

I dont even buy that. Theres over 400 mech in the game, new ones released all the time. XL cost as much as a mech in some cases. New weapons are comming and we will have to "rebuild" out inventory. weapon is one thing people dont switch, at least ive never heard about it once in 4 years. How many of you remember how much a large laser or gauss cost? we have them already lying around, the new weapon is gona hit hard.

Lessen that progression by half today and you still have the progression. Instead maybe you would kit all your mech instead, maybe you will buy more mech or more of the same variant since its a thing thats supposed to be good with the tree. You can give everybody 200million tomorrow and the game woudlnt feel it.

People would still buy packs. People buy those for heroes and patterns and bonus and the gizmos that comes with them. You will always need cbills. Lets pretend i get modules refunded, im getting 219million back btw, and i dont have to pay to for my 102 mech that are mastered. First ill make sure the mastered have their own engine, because i swap xl too. Then lets says i have money left, sure ill fill my free mechbays, and then if i can ill also fully kit them. Do you really think i want to play less now that my mech suck less?

Heres what makes me bitter the most. Back when they redid the module system and, in my view, rendered most of the module useless. They refunded NOTHING, no modules, no xp, you didnt get **** back. I was in the process of kiting my mech with modules at that time because i hated to make my friend wait everytime i switch mech and i switch mech and loadout all the time. So i decided i wasnt going to buy those expensive module anymore because when they change something they go "fk off i dont care". Its also when i stopped buying more of the same xl since if was going to switch all the modules i might also do it for the xl. It pissed me off, i hated doing that and didnt want to do that. but its what i did because i wasnt going to get fked again. So i put that cash in consumable and more mech. Now we're 3 years later and i get fked again. Go me, lets see if i learn my lesson with pgi.

Edited by DAYLEET, 10 March 2017 - 07:40 PM.

[Kali Rinpoche]

Dayleet, I am right there with you in feeling shafted. I updated my original post with my numbers. I'm getting back 272 Million and will still be 231 million in the hole.

Edited by Kali Rinpoche, 10 March 2017 - 07:50 PM.

[Remover of Obstacles]

I feel like Mastered Mechs should remain Mastered.

Otherwise, what is to stop Russ from having a new, better skill system next year that will result in many being millions in the hole again just to facilitate more grinding/micro transactions. Seems to be setting a bad precedent.

I understand this creates issues with the proposed c-bill module refund.

If nodes were unlocked based on percentage of skills unlocked currently, then the c-bills from modules would result in an excess for the non "cheap skates" out there.

[Kali Rinpoche]

Remover of Obstacles, on 10 March 2017 - 08:56 PM, said:

I feel like Mastered Mechs should remain Mastered.

Otherwise, what is to stop Russ from having a new, better skill system next year that will result in many being millions in the hole again just to facilitate more grinding/micro transactions. Seems to be setting a bad precedent.

I understand this creates issues with the proposed c-bill module refund.

If nodes were unlocked based on percentage of skills unlocked currently, then the c-bills from modules would result in an excess for the non "cheap skates" out there.

Excellent Idea. Yeah, I wasn't very happy about that cheap skates comment.

[QuePan]

so dont give back Cbills Convert the modules into GXP . problem solved

[Kali Rinpoche]

QuePan, on 10 March 2017 - 09:21 PM, said:

so dont give back Cbills Convert the modules into GXP . problem solved

Nice suggestion, but i'd be 500 mill in the hole at 4,095,000 per mech

[soapyfrog]

Russ says players who dont like the skill tree "don't like tradeoffs": No Russ, we want MORE tradeoffs, there are NO MEANINGFUL TRADEOFFS in the current proposed skill tree.

Russ says variants are the economy of the game: this skill tree discourages owning variants or even copies of the same mech

Russ thinks 91 clicks per mech is fine: no it is a symptom of bad design. You could have 1/10th the nodes and it would still function the same. A sprawling mess of a system is not "fine". It is not a good UI. A good UI fits on one screen.

Russ thinks I'm a cheapskate: hey jackass I spent hundreds of millions of c-bills on modules and I am going to be short 700 million c-bills with your stupid tree. Seriously you want to see a cheapskate? Well guess what, I'm a cheapskate in this game from now on. You will never see another dime from me. I don't care if you make the skill tree free tomorrow, I am done spending.

Russ says there is more in the new skill tree than in the old: Nope. I played on the PTS. The "more" you are talking about is not there. Not only do many mechs feel WORSE, there is simply not a noticeable gameplay difference or advantage to this new skill tree.

I am disgusted.

[soapyfrog]

Oh and Russ said there is no respec cost

Having to buy new nodes on respec IS THE RESPEC COST. Having to REBUY YOUR ORGINALLY UNLOCKED DOES for XP IS ALSO A RESPEC COST.

CAN YOU HEAR ME OR DO I NEED TO SWITCH TO A BIGGER FONT?

If you MUST charge c-bills, charge them for SKILL POINTS not for SKILL NODES. Then respec cost issues GO AWAY.

[xe N on]

Wintersdark, on 10 March 2017 - 07:07 PM, said:

* People who bought lots of modules get refunded a lot of cbills, because they chose to spend those cbills on modules rather than whatever people like me spent them on (or simply grinded more cbills in the first place). Either way, they earned those cbills, so they MUST get refunded. 100% of spent currency is being refunded.
* I chose not to buy modules, and instead spent those cbills elsewhere, and still have whatever I spent those cbills on (more mechs, gear, whatever else)
* It's unfair to give me a big whack of bonus cbills, as I still have all the cbills I earned (either in cbill form, or whatever I bought with them).
But the upside is that with mastery (being way more than what "mastery" means right now) we're just paying 4m per mech, so it's not THAT huge a grind.

On the one side Russ state, that players that spend Cbill on modules must get refunded. On the other hand, people that invest their Cbill e.g. in mechs or engines, loose Cbill if the sell their stuff to get money for skilling their mechs.

In addition, player that doesn't invest in modules loose their progress in evolving mechs by the old skill system entirely without getting any refund. That is rather a bad decision and will disgruntle many players.

I copied my solution this from another thread:

Currently mechs are improved by investing XP into mech skills and CBill into modules.

The new skill system combines both. The idea behind this is not that bad. The problem is clearly the transition between the old system and the new system.

Currently you can master a mech without equipping any module and vise versa. For example, a mech that currently is mastered and does not use any modules will not have the same "status of improvements" with the new skill system as currently. It takes CBills to get the former skills back.

So, a 1:1 transition from the old system to the new system is not fair by only providing CBills for modules. Player that didn't buy modules loose a major invest in their mechs.

Decreasing the costs for the skill nodes of the new system cannot be the solution, because for a player that didn't buy modules it will be in any case a loss.

Solution 1:
According to the amount of XP accumulated with the mech a amount of Cbill is given to the player up to a total of XP necessary to formerly fully master the mech. This would allow players, that mastered their mechs but didn't buy modules to compensate.

Example: The amount of CBill for a currently fully mastered mech could be set with a value that is high enough to skill half of the nodes in the new skill system.

Solution 2:
Set the costs for unlocking a node for existing mechs for the first time after the patch to 0 CBill.

[Widowmaker1981]

DAYLEET, on 10 March 2017 - 07:08 PM, said:

Theres the people who bought all the mech and have modules on all of them. These people are already rich, they will get obscenely richer with the cash back. They wont use that cbills to buy mech, they wouldnt be rich to begin with. So they will just accumulate cbills like they already are doing.

Im not ingame rich at all - i barely ever go over 20m C-Bills before i spend it all on more modules or engines to kit out mechs. I did whale fairly hard for a while (Wave 1, 2 & 3, R1, R2, MAD, WHM, PHX, NGR, MAD-IIC) so i havent spent as much on mech chassis as many, and instead spent the Cbills i earned primarily on XL engines and modules. I am going to be losing out because the engine Dsync is going to make a lot of the XLs MUCH less valuable (~150m on XL engines over 350 which are all going to be MUCH less useful).

I WILL be rich after the module refund however, and since i have absolutely no desire to master mechs that i dont care about driving, ill probably be in the position of never having to worry about cbills again. Since the effect thats likely to have for me is to mean i never spend another penny on the game, i assume PGI DONT want to put too many people in my situation.

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 11 March 2017 - 02:40 AM.

[Sarsaparilla Kid]

How about for a 1 week or even 1 month period after the skill tree goes live, we get to sell mechs and equipment for full price, not the 50% or less current market rate, so that those of us that are mech-rich and module-poor can make some adjustments with our stable? I'm one of those that will probably only be able to fully master about 15% of the mechs I currently own because of investing in mechs rather than modules...since buying and leveling new mechs was more fun than buying the same old module for every mech you have. Because the Rule of 3 no longer applies, I'm sure I could sell off a number of mechs that weren't the greatest to help fund mastering the ones I want to keep. Here's the other thing...in my case, I used real money to buy a lot of my mechs rather than C-bills, so how is this "economy" affected when now I have to grind the same mechs again and may as well skip buying new ones with real money?

[DAYLEET]

Widowmaker1981, on 11 March 2017 - 02:38 AM, said:

Im not ingame rich at all - i barely ever go over 20m C-Bills before i spend it all on more modules or engines to kit out mechs. I did whale fairly hard for a while (Wave 1, 2 & 3, R1, R2, MAD, WHM, PHX, NGR, MAD-IIC) so i havent spent as much on mech chassis as many, and instead spent the Cbills i earned primarily on XL engines and modules. I am going to be losing out because the engine Dsync is going to make a lot of the XLs MUCH less valuable (~150m on XL engines over 350 which are all going to be MUCH less useful).

I WILL be rich after the module refund however, and since i have absolutely no desire to master mechs that i dont care about driving, ill probably be in the position of never having to worry about cbills again. Since the effect thats likely to have for me is to mean i never spend another penny on the game, i assume PGI DONT want to put too many people in my situation.

Im in the situation where i dont want to buy mech pack with cash anymore because i wont be able to afford to skill them. I also dont want to buy new mech for the mechbays pgi sold me already because mechbays have become a 4million debt hole. I also cant skill the mech i already own and put time into, making falling back on my stable of mech not optimal. Do pgi want many people in my situation? Do they really think i want to spend more cash in their game now? I dont think you understand, they are going to lose spenders to curb the free2players abilities to buy mech with cbills? Thats preposterous!

[Fetherator]

I have a question.

What when the servers one day shut down forever?
.
.
.
.
My hope for you: Made enough Screenshots from your collection of fully equipped, nice painted, mastered virtual mechs.

One hope for us all: PGI releases a Disc-Edition for the Fans <----------- then, I would spend real money too.

[Skribs]

I don't think that the extra costs are necessary. Even if they refund the price of modules and don't provide an equivalent sink, most players who are C-BIll poor now will still be C-Bill poor after the change.

PGI doesn't need to balance C-Bills around those who already have everything they want. They need to balance it around those who are still farming to buy Mechs and level what they have.

Sarsaparilla Kid, on 11 March 2017 - 12:48 PM, said:

How about for a 1 week or even 1 month period after the skill tree goes live, we get to sell mechs and equipment for full price, not the 50% or less current market rate, so that those of us that are mech-rich and module-poor can make some adjustments with our stable? I'm one of those that will probably only be able to fully master about 15% of the mechs I currently own because of investing in mechs rather than modules...since buying and leveling new mechs was more fun than buying the same old module for every mech you have. Because the Rule of 3 no longer applies, I'm sure I could sell off a number of mechs that weren't the greatest to help fund mastering the ones I want to keep. Here's the other thing...in my case, I used real money to buy a lot of my mechs rather than C-bills, so how is this "economy" affected when now I have to grind the same mechs again and may as well skip buying new ones with real money?

And then later re-purchase the Mech and re-buy the upgrades (i.e. double heat sinks) for it? No, thanks.