156 replies to this topic

[Tarogato]

Bishop Steiner, on 05 April 2017 - 08:00 AM, said:

That said, if you remove the PPCs from a Warhammers arms, I have to believe you also stick puppies and kittens into burlap sacks and toss them into rivers.... (but I may be biased on that particular subject)

lulz, believe me, it bothers me too. I get my thunder arms fix in MWLL.

But in MWO, alas, I am forced to optimise as per the game mechanics, because I can, and because others will.

[R Valentine]

The problem with omni-pods is the addition of something as small as ECM to one pod can change an entire mech, moving it up several tiers. Locking those behind pay walls is pretty stupid. I don't see why hero omni-pods can't be available for c-bills, or at the very least, MC. Making people pay full price is ridiculous.

[Athom83]

Bishop Steiner, on 05 April 2017 - 08:00 AM, said:

allowing me to make attacks I simply could not with torso weapons. But that is very situational, and mostly of use in the chaotic scrum of QP, not in FW or organized team warfare, so much..

Firing at the tunnel entrance from the platform on Crimson, firing at people at the top/bottom of the hills when you're at the bottom/top on Alpine, and firing from certain areas on HPG at other areas are situations I find I'm either glad I brought arm weapons or regret not having them (depends on mech/build).

[Gas Guzzler]

El Bandito, on 05 April 2017 - 07:16 AM, said:

Look at it this way. Brawler Hellbringer is still not gonna be as meta as laservomit Hellbringer. Which means it is not powercreeping. On the other hand 6 high mounted energy points is definitely powercreeping the Hellbringer.

Meta in what sense? Laser vomit has at best a niche presence in comp. Much less than brawling as a matter of fact.

[Cy Mitchell]

El Bandito, on 05 April 2017 - 07:16 AM, said:

Look at it this way. Brawler Hellbringer is still not gonna be as meta as laservomit Hellbringer. Which means it is not powercreeping. On the other hand 6 high mounted energy points is definitely powercreeping the Hellbringer.

It may power creep the Hellbringer slightly if you can manage the increased heat but it will not power creep the game because the Hellbringer is clearly inferior to other Mechs in its weight class that can also do laser vomit as well or better. Thus yes it can be consider pay to optimize. However, it does not meet the definition of pay to win because there are other Mechs that can be acquired by grinding C-Bills that are better and will do more to insure that you win. On top of that, laser vomit is currently inferior to boated dakka, Gauss PPC and boated erPPC.

I can understand you favoring LRM arms due to your oft stated like for LRMs. However, as you stated a LRM Heavy with ECM would be something the Clans currently do not have. That is same definition that many are using for P2W here. Would an LRM Hellbringer be OP and power creep the game. No. But it would optimize the chassis for a niche role that it currently cannot fill so it would still be pay to optimize.

I have no issue with the omni-pods from the heroes being offered for sale for inflated C-Bill prices. PGI would have to set a C-Bill price high enough to make spending cash to avoid grind a desirable option for those that actually will still spend money on the game. However, once something is offered for C-Bills it becomes eligible for comp play under the present rules. That may or may not be something to consider when making demands of PGI.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Rampage, on 05 April 2017 - 09:47 AM, said:

PGI would have to set a C-Bill price high enough to make spending cash to avoid grind a desirable option for those that actually will still spend money on the game.

Or they should fix their prices because this is an issue for all mechs, not just heroes.....

[Athom83]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 05 April 2017 - 10:13 AM, said:

Or they should fix their prices because this is an issue for all mechs, not just heroes.....

You mean vastly increase prices to match lore? The Mauler costs like 18 million Cbills stock. The Dire Wolf cost like 30 million. Atlas surprisingly only 10 million. Those sounding like fun prices?

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Athom83, on 05 April 2017 - 10:17 AM, said:

You mean vastly increase prices to match lore? The Mauler costs like 18 million Cbills stock. The Dire Wolf cost like 30 million. Atlas surprisingly only 10 million. Those sounding like fun prices?

No, I meant make buying a normal mech for MC an actual thing rather than the joke it is currently (and not by increasing mech c-bill prices).

[Bishop Steiner]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 05 April 2017 - 10:27 AM, said:

No, I meant make buying a normal mech for MC an actual thing rather than the joke it is currently (and not by increasing mech c-bill prices).

what say...somewhere between 2-5 bucks per variant for the plain jane gundams? Or slightly more when and if the Rule of Three is abolished making the purchase requirements more tenable... and yet also requiring higher prices to compensate, to some degree? I'm honestly OK with the Hero prices where they are this pack, since compared to other F2P games they seem OK, and of course, sales, etc making them more affordable for the patient. But Champions less so, and I do agree, it's pretty desperate to buy a vanilla gundam for IRL money atm. But I could see (especially for a competitive player) where the choice of grinding or grabbing that assault one needs for their drop deck for 5-6 bucks... might make the convenience charge worth it... as opposed to now...where it's blatantly stupid to buy a normal mech for IRL money (apologies to those who have, but it's true)

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 05 April 2017 - 10:48 AM.

[LordNothing]

i didnt really see any omnipods that really stand out as p2w in this wave. there is that ecm ferret which looks nifty and there is a torso weapon for the mist lynx which actually makes that chassis approach usability. that was about it. none of the rest of them produce any unique builds.

Edited by LordNothing, 05 April 2017 - 10:56 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Bishop Steiner, on 05 April 2017 - 10:48 AM, said:

what say...somewhere between 2-5 bucks per variant for the plain jane gundams?

I might go a little more varied, cuz I wouldn't pay $2 for a normal Locust, but $0.50-$1? Definitely more worth it. Where as $5 for a Whale might be a little cheap (though I'm certainly not against them being that cheap) which makes $7.50-$10 more reasonable for something like that.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 05 April 2017 - 11:09 AM.

[GrimRiver]

Clan tech has always been superior than IS, new omni-pods isn't gonna change that.

Min-max meta builds already run at their peak heat efficiency and added more pods to an already heat efficient build will only decrease it.

Exp: Ebon with 2xLPL and 4-5xERML packed full with DHS is the current reliable laser vomit build, but adding a pod that has more laser hardpoints isn't gonna make it better but instead decrease it's performance because you already have it packed with DHS and can't fit no more, so slapping more lasers means less DHS to cool it down.

The pods only allow options in build variety.

[Alistair Winter]

I think it's fairly straight forward for mechs that aren't terrible, and also have a very specific direction already, like the Mad Dog which has mostly energy hardpoints in the arms and missiles in the torso. I think giving the Mad Dog some ballistic hardpoints in the torso is a great idea. It lets you do some new things, like having lasers in the arms and ballistics in the torso, but it makes you sacrifice some great omnipods in the process. The Mad Dog in MWO is all about SRM-boating, after all.

It's a lot more difficult for mechs that are terrible and/or have all types of hardpoints already. For example, the EBJ can already boat missiles or lasers or ballistics, depending on what you need. And it can have basically any weapon type in any omnipod. And for the Mist Lynx, it's kind of a no-brainer to give it hardpoints in the torso, but the problem is that the C-bill variants don't have hardpoints in the torso, so there's no trade-off.

Ideally, the hero mechs should provide both a trade-off and something new and interesting. This is easy to do with some chassis', but difficult to do with others, because PGI has shot themselves in the leg by leaving some big holes in the game. For example, they invented the most pointless Shadow Cat variant one could ever conceive of, instead of actually using their fictional variant to fix the holes in the canon variants (e.g. adding much needed non-ballistic hardpoints

[Bishop Steiner]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 05 April 2017 - 11:08 AM, said:

I might go a little more varied, cuz I wouldn't pay $2 for a normal Locust, but $0.50-$1? Definitely more worth it. Where as $5 for a Whale might be a little cheap (though I'm certainly not against them being that cheap) which makes $7.50-$10 more reasonable for something like that.

Yeah, just throwing out some basic ideas more than hard numbers to see if I'm hearing what you're saying.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Bishop Steiner, on 05 April 2017 - 11:12 AM, said:

Yeah, just throwing out some basic ideas more than hard numbers to see if I'm hearing what you're saying.

Yeah, heroes are probably too expensive for my liking unless they are 50% of MC (which I get the whole sales being the reasonable price thing) but the normal mechs really need to come down in price more so than the heroes do (at least for MC). So yes, you are picking up what I'm laying down.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 05 April 2017 - 11:29 AM.

[El Bandito]

Gas Guzzler, on 05 April 2017 - 09:21 AM, said:

Meta in what sense? Laser vomit has at best a niche presence in comp. Much less than brawling as a matter of fact.

In a sense that laservomit Hellbringer will still be more popular than brawler Hellbringer, even after my Hero gets implemented. Still, SRM brawler Hellbringers will be used more than now (which is close to zero), so my idea will also diversify the mech's loadout. And since the missiles are spread along the torsi and arms, it has way less OP potential, due to increased convergence.

Edited by El Bandito, 05 April 2017 - 05:04 PM.

[Ted Wayz]

CK16, on 05 April 2017 - 04:18 AM, said:

So you guys who are all knowing on this....make your own hero mechs that are not PTW based off the recent Wave 2 & 3 heros.....I dare you to come up with something not pay to win while not useless....Good luck!

Are there prizes?

I am back to buying almost everything, but not these. They are just so ugly. So while I see some potential, even though I never swap pods, I just cannot bear to be seen in these mechs.

[Marquis De Lafayette]

Ah the conundrum...

if PGI launches hero mechs that improve virtually nothing, except for a c-bill bonus...nearly nobody will pay $ for them. Being that PGI does in fact need enough people to actually pay real money for stuff this doesn't work for them. I don't blame them.

Instead, they launch heroes with role changes and some modest improvements to the already good chassis (like the Ebon and hellbringer) and actually give some decent buffs to some bad ones (Mist Lynx, Ferret, Etc) . The improvements are there, but shouldn't be a disaster balance-wise as the good mechs aren't buffed much and the bad mechs become maybe average-ish with the new useful omnipods.

If PGI launches these mechs as is, (but just as a pay-to-play-early) the improvements that are there may well not be big enough to entice early (real money) buyers. I am glad to buy a new mech pack when I don't know how the mech will play, but I doubt I will pay $25 to make my known-quantity, sub-par Assault average. I myself would just wait it out on all the hero chassis in this launch. None are "must haves" if waiting is an option. Not enough improvements to justify early-adopting for $.

The only way to probably entice enough paying early-adopters is to make the heroes even better than they are in this launch. If we kept our wallets closed (and most of us likely would) we would basically be telling PGI that we need enough (even more) powercreep to justifying opening our wallets on hero additions.

I see the peril in the model PGI has chosen....I am just not sure the alternative of pay-to-early- adopt has any benefit for PGI to look at and if they did, we might get some major power-creep to incentivize us not to wait on them becoming available for c-bills.

[Moomtazz]

Purifier pods made the kit fox deadly. Summoner loyalty pod is a huge improvement if running dual ERPPC. Mist Lynx torso energy slots will make it viable. Even the Ice Ferret gets a big boost with the ECM mount.
Oh and did I mention that I already paid real cash for every one of those sub par mechs? Now PGI wants me to pay more real money to make them viable? F Dat!

Those kinds of paywalled boosts are what kills games.

Edited by Moomtazz, 05 April 2017 - 07:17 PM.

[Mystere]

Hit the Deck, on 05 April 2017 - 06:17 AM, said:

Well, if you define "being competitive" as playing in official tournaments, then you can only bring C-Bills 'mechs/pods so the game isn't P2W in that sense.

Hold on a second! Isn't MWOWC the only "official" tournament so far? That tournament allowed heroes.

Or did I incorrectly read your post?