29 replies to this topic

[Skribs]

https://youtu.be/D5LJth7gJWI?t=47

So I came across this gem on YouTube, and learned that apparently I'm a cheapskate, because I've got a lot of Mechs (over half of my 162 Mechs were bought with real money) but few modules. Now, I didn't hear the rest of it, but my guess from the context of the clip is that it's gonna suck for me because I'm a "cheapskate" and so I won't be able to master everything I've already got mastered.

Now, if I heard the rest of what was said, maybe that would change my opinion, but as it stands, I feel incredibly insulted. Even though I'm a whale, I'm also apparently a cheapskate because I didn't spend my C-Bills the way it was intended.

PGI, if you refund the C-Bills that people got from modules, I'm sure there are very, very few players who won't be C-Bill poor afterwards who weren't already C-Bill rich now. Those players are probably not going to quit the game because they have too many C-Bills.

However, players like me, who have spent a lot of money on the game and are going to be reset on our progress are less likely to find re-grinding old Mechs very fun.

I realize this is yet another "your price model sucks" post, and to be frank, it does. Even at 45k per point or 4.1 million per Mech, If I can only get about half my Mechs mastered, then I'm still going to need to farm up a lot of C-Bills just to level up what's left. That doesn't sound like my idea of fun. You know, as a current whale.

[Davegt27]

You will receive over and above what you spent on C-bills

Don't be offended I also think that these hi Mech count stables should receive an additional
Loyalty reward

Your not cheap just thrifty (as a friend of mine likes to say)

[ForceUser]

Davegt27, on 11 March 2017 - 08:37 PM, said:

You will receive over and above what you spent on C-bills

Don't be offended I also think that these hi Mech count stables should receive an additional
Loyalty reward

Your not cheap just thrifty (as a friend of mine likes to say)

If we look at cbill only expenditure, explain to me why someone who spent all his cbills on mechs deserve a huge reward over someone who spent a large part of his cbills on modules? I am having trouble understanding this point people keep brining up and no one has been able to answer me yet.

btw, I have a huge stable of mechs and a relatively small number of modules. I tend to play my F2P games very much like a cheapskate.

[Trev Firestorm]

ForceUser, on 11 March 2017 - 08:46 PM, said:

If we look at cbill only expenditure, explain to me why someone who spent all his cbills on mechs deserve a huge reward over someone who spent a large part of his cbills on modules? I am having trouble understanding this point people keep brining up and no one has been able to answer me yet.

btw, I have a huge stable of mechs and a relatively small number of modules. I tend to play my F2P games very much like a cheapskate.

Its simple, they are denying players like us content we earned by locking it behind a cbill tax that did not previously exist. Those who spent on modules should certainly get their cbills back, but skills should remain the sole realm of xp so that its actually a fair refund that puts EVERYONE square.

Worst case, throw the cbill cost only on nodes that represent modules under the old system.

Edited by Trev Firestorm, 11 March 2017 - 09:01 PM.

[Bud Crue]

Sigh.

They are totally trashing what semblance of balance this game has, after four years, finally managed to achieve; and folks are pissing and moaning about cbills and the need to spend a few to re-master their mechs. Really?.

Forest for the trees people. Forest for the trees.

I'm was a whale. I am WAY more concerned about them destroying the viability of the content I purchased with real $ then I am about them deciding to make us put a little effort forward at getting 5 million cbills so as to remaster that content. I mean, what is the point of getting bent about having to spend a few cbills to remaster, when the underlying issue is that...that which they are saying you must remaster is now nerfed into non-competitiveness or non-viability. Who cares what the cost is when the underlying content is gutted?

Meh.

Cost to remaster is the least of our issues as whales...rather it is the cost to us, and the game, imposed by PGIs decision to destroy the competitiveness of over half the mechs in the game. That seems to me a more pressing issue.

[ForceUser]

The cbill tax is there for a reason, it's never going away. Compared to every other F2P game MWO is *really* light on soft currency sinks. NO repair and rearm costs, no service fees and consumables are strictly optional.

So remove cbill costs completely forever is not an acceptable alternative. It's never going to happen. So I guess still no straight answer. ah well.

[ForceUser]

Bud Crue, on 11 March 2017 - 09:05 PM, said:

Sigh.

They are totally trashing what semblance of balance this game has, after four years, finally managed to achieve; and folks are pissing and moaning about cbills and the need to spend a few to re-master their mechs. Really?.

Forest for the trees people. Forest for the trees.

I'm was a whale. I am WAY more concerned about them destroying the viability of the content I purchased with real $ then I am about them deciding to make us put a little effort forward at getting 5 million cbills so as to remaster that content. I mean, what is the point of getting bent about having to spend a few cbills to remaster, when the underlying issue is that...that which they are saying you must remaster is now nerfed into non-competitiveness or non-viability. Who cares what the cost is when the underlying content is gutted?

Meh.

Cost to remaster is the least of our issues as whales...rather it is the cost to us, and the game, imposed by PGIs decision to destroy the competitiveness of over half the mechs in the game. That seems to me a more pressing issue.

I played a wide veriety of mechs on the PTS from both IS and Clan, Medium heavy and assault, fast medium and slow, big medium and small engine. The mechs were all still viable. I'm a whale too. I have a huge mech stable, plenty bought with real money. Hell I'm a founder ffs.

The changes to balance in this patch won't hold a candle to what's coming. The way I look at it I can either enjoy the ride and help make the game as balanced as possible or I can be dragged to the new balance kicking and screaming. I know what I chose.

[Monkey Lover]

so you will make a post here but you will not take the time to listen to what russ said? Sounds like you just want to be insulted.

[Trev Firestorm]

ForceUser, on 11 March 2017 - 09:06 PM, said:

The cbill tax is there for a reason, it's never going away. Compared to every other F2P game MWO is *really* light on soft currency sinks. NO repair and rearm costs, no service fees and consumables are strictly optional.

So remove cbill costs completely forever is not an acceptable alternative. It's never going to happen. So I guess still no straight answer. ah well.

Thing is, they had repair and rearm once, I actually liked it personally though it did push things in favor of energy builds because they did a **** job of balancing it before giving up. This new tax is bait and switch, bought a bunch of mech packs and leveled/skilled them up? Well **** you, do it again. They are taking away what we earned with our time and demanded more to get back to where we were. Also I already covered keeping the cost as worst case attached to current module nodes.

Edit: As to why we "piss and moan" about the costs, they leave many of us thousands of games in the hole income-wise just to get back what we had, no exaggeration. Other problem aspects of the 'trees' are getting plenty posts as well.

For myself I'm looking at between 1250 and 2667 games depending on if you take 50% new tree as equal to current mastered or not. That is with an average of 120,000 cbill earning per game and me not spending anything on changing equipment or buying new mechs etc. That is between 208 and 444 hours of game time if a match and match making averages 10 minutes a game.

Edited by Trev Firestorm, 11 March 2017 - 10:05 PM.

[Skribs]

Davegt27, on 11 March 2017 - 08:37 PM, said:

You will receive over and above what you spent on C-bills

This doesn't even make sense. They are basically refunding the C-Bills from the modules you have purchased. Is there some additional bonus we're getting I don't know about?

ForceUser, on 11 March 2017 - 08:46 PM, said:

If we look at cbill only expenditure, explain to me why someone who spent all his cbills on mechs deserve a huge reward over someone who spent a large part of his cbills on modules? I am having trouble understanding this point people keep brining up and no one has been able to answer me yet.


btw, I have a huge stable of mechs and a relatively small number of modules. I tend to play my F2P games very much like a cheapskate.

I don't think I deserve a reward over those who have spent on modules. I just think that my XP shouldn't be blocked behind a paywall. That person with 300 modules should get a billion more C-Bills back than I. But I should be able to use all my XP.

Bud Crue, on 11 March 2017 - 09:05 PM, said:

Sigh.

They are totally trashing what semblance of balance this game has, after four years, finally managed to achieve; and folks are pissing and moaning about cbills and the need to spend a few to re-master their mechs. Really?.

Forest for the trees people. Forest for the trees.

You bring up a fair point, and I agree that it is a huge problem. The difference for me is the balance issue is something I expect them to sort out. Half my mastered Mechs being dropped to 0 skills is not going to be fun on day 1.

ForceUser, on 11 March 2017 - 09:06 PM, said:

The cbill tax is there for a reason, it's never going away. Compared to every other F2P game MWO is *really* light on soft currency sinks. NO repair and rearm costs, no service fees and consumables are strictly optional.

So remove cbill costs completely forever is not an acceptable alternative. It's never going to happen. So I guess still no straight answer. ah well.

1) C-Bill costs will still exist, for Mechs, Upgrades, Engines, and Consumables. They are not being completely removed.
2) Most players who spend C-Bills as soon as they get them will spend their module refunds as soon as they get them. The majority of players I believe are in the boat where they still need C-Bills.
3) Even if I had everything I wanted and never needed C-Bills, I'd still play because it's a fun game.
4) MWO would benefit from people buying Mech Bays, Early Adopter Mech Packs, and other assorted microtansactions just as much, if not more than Premium Time or C-Bills.

Monkey Lover, on 11 March 2017 - 09:44 PM, said:

so you will make a post here but you will not take the time to listen to what russ said? Sounds like you just want to be insulted.

I found the 57 second clip. I don't know what podcast it is from, and the podcasts that I have found are measured in hours. If you can find the full podcast and give me a rough estimate of where the rest of the quote is, then I'll listen to it. But yes, making a post was easier than listening to hours of podcast to hope I'm still awake at the right part.

Trev Firestorm, on 11 March 2017 - 09:49 PM, said:

Thing is, they had repair and rearm once, I actually liked it personally though it did push things in favor of energy builds because they did a **** job of balancing it before giving up. This new tax is bait and switch, bought a bunch of mech packs and leveled/skilled them up? Well **** you, do it again. They are taking away what we earned with our time and demanded more to get back to where we were. Also I already covered keeping the cost as worst case attached to current module nodes.

Edit: As to why we "piss and moan" about the costs, they leave many of us thousands of games in the hole income-wise just to get back what we had, no exaggeration. Other problem aspects of the 'trees' are getting plenty posts as well.

For myself I'm looking at between 1250 and 2667 games depending on if you take 50% new tree as equal to current mastered or not. That is with an average of 120,000 cbill earning per game and me not spending anything on changing equipment or buying new mechs etc. That is between 208 and 444 hours of game time if a match and match making averages 10 minutes a game.

I have to agree with this. At 4.1 million per Mech, I'm looking at about 1000 games with my premium bonus. If I can manage 10 minutes per game, that's over 166 hours of gameplay just to catch back up on my Mechs. It's not new content. Heck, it's mostly going to be on a handful of money-makers. So PGI is essentially saying "thank you for your money, now spend 166 hours playing Mechs you've already leveled before you can level up more.

It's stupid for so many reasons:
1) Players will not like having their progress reset
2) Of those players that stay, most will be too busy farming C-Bills to relevel old Mechs to buy Mech Packs (or even new Mechs, which means no new Mechbays or premium cosmetic items)
3) If the goal is to get people to use banked premium time to earn more C-Bills, they'll use banked premium time instead of buying more C-Bills

Honestly, it reminds me of those F2P phone apps where you can only play if you have enough energy, and it takes you like 6 hours of monitoring your game to build up enough energy for one play, or you can pay $1 to get a boost that will get you a couple games. But at level 5, it takes $5 to get that boost. At level 10, it takes $10 to get that boost, and so on.

PGI is adding a new paywall that is going to affect a lot of players. They are trying to justify re-leveling old Mechs as "new content" and comparing it to an MMO where you have to go from 60-70 in a new expansion (where you usually also get new zones and new dungeons and raids in addition to just going 60-70), and then they have the gall to call me a cheapskate and use that as an excuse to reset my progress.

[Appuagab]

Bud Crue, on 11 March 2017 - 09:05 PM, said:

Sigh.

They are totally trashing what semblance of balance this game has, after four years, finally managed to achieve; and folks are pissing and moaning about cbills and the need to spend a few to re-master their mechs. Really?

Sure. Why should I care about balance if I'm not even going to waste my time on this grindfest?

[Bud Crue]

ForceUser, on 11 March 2017 - 09:12 PM, said:

I played a wide veriety of mechs on the PTS from both IS and Clan, Medium heavy and assault, fast medium and slow, big medium and small engine. The mechs were all still viable. I'm a whale too. I have a huge mech stable, plenty bought with real money. Hell I'm a founder ffs.

The changes to balance in this patch won't hold a candle to what's coming. The way I look at it I can either enjoy the ride and help make the game as balanced as possible or I can be dragged to the new balance kicking and screaming. I know what I chose.

What's coming?

According to some:

PGI's will be constantly monitoring real game data and subsequently addressing all mech performance criteria and modifying every single mechs performance in a glorious and never ending beta of change thus necessitating that you -the player- are likewise required to respec and rebuild you mechs to take advantage or compensate for these constant changes.

Then on top of that, they are adding new tech at fairly regular intervals (presumed). With every new concept added there will be yet another new layer of change and of course the creation of legacy tech. PGI would never -heaven forbid- just gut things randomly and leave them or their tech to die on the vine *cough* -IS SL- *cough* - they will then be nerfing and buffing just about every value you care to mention, since they will of course want "every mech down to the variant level to have a role and equivalent value" since that's what PGI promised two PTS's ago.

That's what's coming.

Its either that or the status quo of half assed twice a year mass re-quirkenings that have little if any data or even -heaven forbid- real game play experience to back them up.

Either way...you're worried about cbills? I'm worried about the population finally getting fed up with this crap and all but the most ardent PGI supporters and pokemech addicts being driven from the game. I couldn't care less about what this incoming mess is doing to my cbills.

Edited by Bud Crue, 12 March 2017 - 05:34 AM.

[oldradagast]

Bud Crue, on 12 March 2017 - 05:32 AM, said:

Either way...you're worried about cbills? I'm worried about the population finally getting fed up with this crap and all but the most ardent PGI supporters and pokemech addicts being driven from the game. I couldn't care less about what this incoming mess is doing to my cbills.

Exactly. The future of MWO - as short lived as it is going to be at this point - will almost surely consist of endless "balance" passes, new tech being tossed in, random changes being made, and so forth. Think you're only going to have to regrind all your mechs once? Hahahaha - no.

No, you'll get to regrind them over and over again every time PGI muddles with the skill tree, which you know is going to happen because, as they've demonstrated before, they love making random changes all the time. And the skill tree grind is part of the new plan. Keep changing things over and over, forcing people to keep grinding the same mech, until they get mad and buy lots of premium time to get it done faster. Except it's never really done because of PGI's utter inability to leave well enough alone, and people are far more likely to quit the game then grind the same mechs over and over again.

Now, top that off with the coming New Tech and the likely balance problems that will create, along with almost certain "pay to win" with new mechs having new tech that nobody else can have unless they also bought the preorder packages, and you have game-killing mess on the near horizon.

Meanwhile, Russ insults the players who've spent far more than anyone probably normally would on a video game - and then PGI will dangle another mech pack in front of people, hoping that "cool, a rotary autocannon!" will somehow make up for destroying the core mechanics in the game and rendering all your previous purchases anywhere from weakened to utterly useless.

Edited by oldradagast, 12 March 2017 - 07:50 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

ForceUser, on 11 March 2017 - 08:46 PM, said:

If we look at cbill only expenditure, explain to me why someone who spent all his cbills on mechs deserve a huge reward over someone who spent a large part of his cbills on modules? I am having trouble understanding this point people keep brining up and no one has been able to answer me yet.

btw, I have a huge stable of mechs and a relatively small number of modules. I tend to play my F2P games very much like a cheapskate.

While I personally do not give a damn about this particular sore spot (it's all transitory, folks), I believe I understand it, so I'll have a go at explaining it.

With even one module, you gained capability for every single 'Mech you own because you can always move that module around. Under the new system, your modules are, after a fashion, locked to a single 'Mech. Because the amount of C-bills you get back is tied to the amount you spent on modules in the old system, and because the cost of those modules was amortized across several 'Mechs, you lose capability in the new system compared to what you had before in addition to the general de-powering of 'Mechs. That's what has people upset.

[oldradagast]

Monkey Lover, on 11 March 2017 - 09:44 PM, said:

so you will make a post here but you will not take the time to listen to what russ said? Sounds like you just want to be insulted.

Joke or not, it was in poor taste.

Besides, it's not like PGI actually listened to much of anything anyone had to say about their useless skill maze and attendant mech nerfs, so I'm not sure anyone has the right to complain about most of us not listening to all of Russ's rambling post just to appreciate his "joke."

Edited by oldradagast, 12 March 2017 - 09:24 AM.

[Monkey Lover]

oldradagast, on 12 March 2017 - 09:24 AM, said:

Joke or not, it was in poor taste.

Besides, it's not like PGI actually listened to much of anything anyone had to say about their useless skill maze and attendant mech nerfs, so I'm not sure anyone has the right to complain about most of us not listening to all of Russ's rambling post just to appreciate his "joke."

If they didn't listen they would have put the tree out on the last patch. The have now dropped the price over 50% and redid the skill tree a few times. Sure its not perfect but nothing will ever be to everyone.


As for Russ saying its true, a lot of people are cheapskates. They buy mechs over buying modules. Then swap 1 modules to 100+ mechs. I seen this a lot when im playing in groups and we have to wait for people to find a module.

Only people this is hurting are the people who never used or cared about modules to start with. As they're now being forced to buy them.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 12 March 2017 - 10:22 AM.

[Trev Firestorm]

Monkey Lover, on 12 March 2017 - 10:20 AM, said:

If they didn't listen they would have put the tree out on the last patch. The have now dropped the price over 50% and redid the skill tree a few times. Sure its not perfect but nothing will ever be to everyone.

A simple PR trick, they announced a new tax at 40,000 I believe it was, then gave us a test at 100k, said OK reduce to 60k, FIIINE reduce to 45k... and you think this is a reduction? Nevermind we are paying for skills that were previously XP only, even starting with the cbill cost we are still paying more than the original plan.

[Skribs]

So...I watched the whole video, and I feel slightly better about the "cheapskate" part...but mainly because everything else that was said really struck me as either factually incorrect or that PGI is just trying to push this out the door as quickly as possible.

The best part is when they said Skill Tree PTS1 had linear skill trees.

[Znail]

Trev Firestorm, on 11 March 2017 - 08:59 PM, said:

Its simple, they are denying players like us content we earned by locking it behind a cbill tax that did not previously exist. Those who spent on modules should certainly get their cbills back, but skills should remain the sole realm of xp so that its actually a fair refund that puts EVERYONE square.

Worst case, throw the cbill cost only on nodes that represent modules under the old system.

Not quite. If you bought a lot of mechs so do you have lots of c-bills invested in them that you can't get back and buy skill nodes for as selling mechs doesn't give you a 100% refund. On the other hand if you bought modules for all your mechs so will you get all of that back and if you got any extra so can you buy mechs for that and you wont have to sit and look at a hangar full of mechs that are not very usefull nor can be sold back for full money.

[Trev Firestorm]

Znail, on 12 March 2017 - 03:45 PM, said:

Not quite. If you bought a lot of mechs so do you have lots of c-bills invested in them that you can't get back and buy skill nodes for as selling mechs doesn't give you a 100% refund. On the other hand if you bought modules for all your mechs so will you get all of that back and if you got any extra so can you buy mechs for that and you wont have to sit and look at a hangar full of mechs that are not very usefull nor can be sold back for full money.

What? Whats this have to do with what I said?
Edit: precisely what is the 'Not quite' referring to? You just described what I mean by fair refund and squaring all players. Everyone gets back exactly what they earned and no content is blocked behind a new barrier that favors one group over another.

Edited by Trev Firestorm, 12 March 2017 - 05:16 PM.