33 replies to this topic

[Racerxintegra2k]

The cost of 45k cbills and 800xp is just to much imo. It really kills the progression feeling when you play to level the current mech. When you play an entire weekend and dont have any cbills to show for it, thats a problem. As your leveling one you should be making money to purchase another so the cycle can continue.

IMO this game had 3 things going for it.

1) Solid Shooter
2) Lots of mechs to collect
3) Ability to customize those mechs.

The cost of the skill tree is killing 2 and 3.

Edited by Racerxintegra2k, 22 May 2017 - 09:25 AM.

[Arctourus]

I love, LOVE, the skill tree...but I agree completely. There shouldn't be a cbill cost to unlock skill points. I know that they did it because modules used to cost cbills, but I rarely used modules because of that. Now you have to pay for a fraction of a percent improvement in something that came as an xp only cost before.

[Kdogg788]

The space tycoons needed a cbill sink and this is it. PGI was warned about the cost and although the brought it down from the initial numbers, it is still too high. With extra GSP I won't have to skill in the traditional way for a while. For someone with little or no GSP, the arrangement is brutal.

-k

[Wyald Katt]

I'm more concerned about the respec node reactivation xp cost. I'm still messing around getting my EBJ just right. About 5-10 nodes swinging around.

My suggestion is maybe a one XP chunk to be able to reactivate as many nodes as you want, or knocking the per node xp cost way down. I'm not hurting for xp, thanks to the historic stuff. Someone new, it's not experiment friendly, not without grinding.

[Racerxintegra2k]

Once you pay to unlock 91 possible nodes you should be able to arrange them anyway you want. Having to respec and purchase new nodes every time or even pay more xp to reactivate previously purchased nodes is bad business. Its really hard on experimentation which is a HUGE draw to this game.

[Coolant]

Even in bad games the amount to unlock and buy a node is only 2 matches. So every 2 matches (and possibly every match) you can improve your mech. Hardly any other game that I can think of has that kind of progression.

[cazidin]

Am I the only one who's realized that PGI's logic behind a C-Bill cost in a skill maze is because we'll be saving 25-45M c-bill by not having to buy 2 additional variants, even if we would anyway?

[Racerxintegra2k]

Coolant, on 22 May 2017 - 12:44 PM, said:

Even in bad games the amount to unlock and buy a node is only 2 matches. So every 2 matches (and possibly every match) you can improve your mech. Hardly any other game that I can think of has that kind of progression.

That's exactly my point. It takes 2 matches to get a node, 91 nodes not even counting any changes you need to make. Once you get to 91 nodes ... do you really have many cbills left over to continue on to another mech ? The answer will probably be no. So then you have to play more matches with the same mech you've been playing this whole time. There is no constant buying/leveling feel. That constant buying and leveling is what hooked me to this game.

[Destructicus]

Arctourus, on 22 May 2017 - 09:27 AM, said:

I love, LOVE, the skill tree...but I agree completely. There shouldn't be a cbill cost to unlock skill points. I know that they did it because modules used to cost cbills, but I rarely used modules because of that. Now you have to pay for a fraction of a percent improvement in something that came as an xp only cost before.

Compound that with the fact most people swapped out modules due to the cost and it's even worse

Skilling a mech should not be a cbill sink, PGI failed to realize this.

[Racerxintegra2k]

cazidin, on 22 May 2017 - 01:52 PM, said:

Am I the only one who's realized that PGI's logic behind a C-Bill cost in a skill maze is because we'll be saving 25-45M c-bill by not having to buy 2 additional variants, even if we would anyway?

I think that logic is flawed. Before yes we had to buy 3 of a variant to master, which was annoying but you had 3 mechs to play with. Now its 2/3rds play time to master just the 1. When you are done with the 91 nodes ... then you dont have a nice pool of cbills to buy another mech to keep you engaged. Hitting a wall in a game like this usually means either pay ... or stop playing. That's about as subtle and enticing a mechanic as getting hit in the face with a hammer.

PS: Love the new skill tree myself.

Edited by Racerxintegra2k, 22 May 2017 - 02:08 PM.

[A Really Old Clan Dude]

Coolant, on 22 May 2017 - 12:44 PM, said:

Even in bad games the amount to unlock and buy a node is only 2 matches. So every 2 matches (and possibly every match) you can improve your mech. Hardly any other game that I can think of has that kind of progression.

Thats 90 to 180 matches to skill your mech. No way in the old system it took that long to fully skill a mech. For that many matches I reckon I could have done all three.

Edited by DrVoodooAUS, 22 May 2017 - 02:42 PM.

[Moonlight Grimoire]

Before the economy on average was bad, the average per player income apparently was good enough that PGI thought a 35% tax on T4-T5 players (who made 112k cbills a match) was reasonable with the skill tree. This is foolish as they looked at a flat average and not the most common or most common values or range of values for people's match earnings. This says a lot to me as anyone who has worked with averages knows, you can have a few very high numbers skew results, if you have consistent (say 2-4 per match) high earning players it will make it look like people are earning a lot more than they actually are in this bracket. Now PGI did want a cbill sink, I get that, however they screwed the pooch on this with giving out GSP (no, seriously they did).

So let's address a few things here. GSP locked out using HXP on mechs that weren't previously mastered to burn cbills (a cbill sink!) for mastering previously unmastered mechs in the new system, or using GXP and cbills to master previously unmastered mechs (big mistake PGI, should have been a flat cbill refund!).

Next, 35% reduction on the average income of T4-T5 players is not looking at the mode income of players, as in, the most common amount players earn in that bracket. I doubt the most common amount players earn per match in that bracket is 112k or so, it is likely around 90k or 70k, so it eats more like 50-70% of their income, this is a huge problem, more so for newer players! Bad.
,
Now, for solutions, two things I want to see, one I wanted to see for a while due to the base economy of MWO is bad, good players are going to have a lot of cbills no matter what, equipment will always be the cbill sink. So, a 50% base income increase is needed, now more than ever. The other part of the solution, which could be done separately is a 30-50% (I would say 50%) cbill boost on a players first win of the day in a mech, just like with XP, since the skill tree now needs both XP and Cbills. This helps new players upgrade mechs and pay their Endo Steel and DHS tax faster, as well as everyone pay their skill tree taxes. This helps alleviate the grind, yes, I know the grind is how PGI is supposed to make their money via premium time and mech pack sales and MC sales and all that, but, at the same time that is supposed to be "get there faster" not "negate the whole thing instantly".

[Racerxintegra2k]

I just don't get why more people aren't complaining about the cost. Is it because most people are sitting on piles of cbills and sp nodes etc ?

[Moonlight Grimoire]

I don't know why, maybe it is a position of "this is how things are now" as PGI has launched the tree and had been looking at lowering the ST prices lower than 45k but left it at that.

45k per node, or 4.095mil per mech is nothing to scoff at, say someone is a good player and gets 2 nodes a match, that's 90k a match. That's a lot of lost money, as someone who makes 1.5 nodes a match on average (1200xp a match) that's a realistic possibility. For a new player they want to master that one mech since they have 4 mech bays to play with so they want to make those four mechs as good as possible. So that is a 4.1mil tax ontop of the 1.5mil DHS tax, the likely 700,000 or more tax for endo steel, plus the cost of the mech, engine, and weapons. Like Say a Warhammer 6R, it's base 6mil, 700k for endo, 1.5mil for dhs, 4.1mil for skill tree. This is without weapons changes we are already looking at going from 8.2mil to 12.1mil, a 32% increase in cost before things like weapons and engines even are considered. This will of course last between 30-90 matches because of the rate of XP is low. So, sure, it is a 32% increase over a long time, an investment, but, it has the draw back of that 4.1mil? That's 2/3rds of another Warhammer 6R, or 1/2 of another Warhammer 6R if you don't have to worry about weapons and engines.

[A Really Old Clan Dude]

Racerxintegra2k, on 22 May 2017 - 12:22 PM, said:

Once you pay to unlock 91 possible nodes you should be able to arrange them anyway you want. Having to respec and purchase new nodes every time or even pay more xp to reactivate previously purchased nodes is bad business. Its really hard on experimentation which is a HUGE draw to this game.

I've been saying this for weeks now. thank goodness I put some time into the test system for my main mechs or else I would have wasted 20-30 SP per mech, This is especially true for when you drop an entire tree to try another.

The other point is try doing a mech only using raw XP and cbills earned. Cbills are ok but light and medium mechs just dont earn enough XP per game, especially if you lose and don't have premium time. This is going to come back and bite everyone once they have used up all there historic and GSP SP.

[The6thMessenger]

I don't mind paying 45,000 CBills and 800 XP on each nodes, i hate it when i have to pay 400 XP to reactivate them.

This totally kills the ability to experiment.

[FupDup]

cazidin, on 22 May 2017 - 01:52 PM, said:

Am I the only one who's realized that PGI's logic behind a C-Bill cost in a skill maze is because we'll be saving 25-45M c-bill by not having to buy 2 additional variants, even if we would anyway?

It's also their logic with the XP costs of the skill maze. If you only want one variant, technically it's less XP since you don't have to skill up other variants. However, the moment you have more than one variant...

It's fairly ironic that every mechpack currently up on the store page still has 3 variants as the minimum package size. Even the packs announced months after the new skill tree.

[vandalhooch]

Racerxintegra2k, on 22 May 2017 - 02:06 PM, said:

I think that logic is flawed. Before yes we had to buy 3 of a variant to master, which was annoying but you had 3 mechs to play with. Now its 2/3rds play time to master just the 1. When you are done with the 91 nodes ... then you dont have a nice pool of cbills to buy another mech to keep you engaged. Hitting a wall in a game like this usually means either pay ... or stop playing. That's about as subtle and enticing a mechanic as getting hit in the face with a hammer.

PS: Love the new skill tree myself.

Save your C-bills until you have enough to buy the new mech AND pay for all the nodes. If you don't have any GXP to use, then you'll only be grinding the XP and you'll be earning the C-bills for the next mech at the same time.

Seriously, this is elementary school level economic advice.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Here is something to keep in mind.

Before you had to "Buy" three mechs to be able to unlock elite skills, let alone master the mech. Now you can just buy one mech and pay 4,095,000 million C-bills.

So lets look at a popular light mech, the Arctic Cheetah.

Under the old system, you had to buy 3 different variants so if we use the Prime, A and B variants you would have to spend 21.6 Million C-bills roughly on mechs. Then if you wanted to outfit with modules for just one for comparisons sake, I think my average spent for modules was about 10 million for a Radar Dep, Seismic and 2 Weapons Enhancement Modules. Therefore your total investment was 31.6 million C-bills. Now of course you just want one of the 3 mech so you could sell 2 off them off at 1/2 price so you could recoup roughly 7 million C-bills which then makes the total investment to master just one variant plus add module ONLY 23 million or so C-bills.

So lets see.....23 million under the old system or 12 million under the new system (cost of mech and skill nodes). Hmmm.....seems like the new system is a bit cheaper.

The6thMessenger, on 22 May 2017 - 05:41 PM, said:

I don't mind paying 45,000 CBills and 800 XP on each nodes, i hate it when i have to pay 400 XP to reactivate them.

This totally kills the ability to experiment.

Yeah I am with you here. It is more than a bit ridiculous that I once I buy a node, I have to re-buy it again if I want to experiment with my build and tweak it. Seems like having to buy maybe 150+ nodes to begin with, if I want to experiment with different builds would be enough grind, but nope....ya got to grind some more and more and more...wait whats the point of buying a mech pack if I am too busy grinding XP on another mech I am trying to experiment with???

FupDup, on 22 May 2017 - 05:45 PM, said:

It's also their logic with the XP costs of the skill maze. If you only want one variant, technically it's less XP since you don't have to skill up other variants. However, the moment you have more than one variant...

It's fairly ironic that every mechpack currently up on the store page still has 3 variants as the minimum package size. Even the packs announced months after the new skill tree.

Yeah I was just thinking about that. I bought into the Uziel and Mad Cat II, just the basic packs but do I really NEED Three each of them. What is worse is that the Uziel I really want is part of the reinforcement pack so of the three I get, I am not getting the one I really want and will have to wait for it anyway.

Honestly I think they should just start selling them ala carte. $10 each for any of the standard variants including the reinforcements and $15 for the Hero. To be honest I probably would have spent more money that way. If I could Ala Carte mechs from the Civil War Pack I would buy, UZL-3S, UZL-6P, ANX-1X, COU-H, MCII-1, MCII-A, MCII-DS (Deathstrike). Based on my pricing that would come to $75, Instead I just spend $40 because most of the variants I want are locked behind the "Reinforcement Pack" paywall or I am only interested in one variant.

[semalferuzA]

DrVoodooAUS, on 22 May 2017 - 02:41 PM, said:

Thats 90 to 180 matches to skill your mech. No way in the old system it took that long to fully skill a mech. For that many matches I reckon I could have done all three.

It takes that many games if you have a poor performance every match. Through normal play you'll skill up much faster than that. Especially if you play in the events for bonus rewards, e.g. premium time.

The choke should be xp earned rather than c-bills, correct? So at least your c-bills should be increasing while unlocking.

I think it took ~150k experience to master 3 with the old system, ~70k to "master" one with the new system.