45 replies to this topic

[Asym]

I am mastering the last of the three mechs PGI gave me for buying into MWO in February of 2017 and on the last event. Oh, good Holy Supreme being, help this poor soul through this process....

Bottom Line Up Front: Mastering a new mech sucks. It is not a grind; it's a misery of the n^th degree.

I am amazed that PGI hasn't capitlaized on this (since they created it) and have a MC or large c-bill method to avoid it? 91 skill points for "x" MC or a lot of c-bills....

A "Mastering Kit" you can purchase seperately..... Or an event award.

Oh please, we've a few days left in the 12 days of advent or whatever your cultures call these 12 days:

"on the 12th day of Christmas, PGI gave to me, a brand new mastering kit...."

Thoughts?

[Bud Crue]

Assuming mastery (91 nodes applied with a modicum of intelligence) give a benefit, then your idea would give folks with cash a clear advantage no? Sort of the definition of pay to win, and in a F2P game I understand that is frowned upon. Now excuse me while I go play a few rounds in me Deathstrike.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Both this and being able to sell GSP for 22,500 C-Bills (half the C-Bill purchase cost of SP) came up during the time the Skill Tree was on the PTS.

One gives PGI money & helps players with lots of 'mechs (or newly purchased 'mechs) but no GSP play them at "full strength" sooner.

The other is a goodwill gesture to smooth over the "refund" debacle.

Bud Crue, on 03 December 2017 - 08:15 AM, said:

Assuming mastery (91 nodes applied with a modicum of intelligence) give a benefit, then your idea would give folks with cash a clear advantage no? Sort of the definition of pay to win, and in a F2P game I understand that is frowned upon. Now excuse me while I go play a few rounds in me Deathstrike.

I'd agree, if we didn't already have hundreds, maybe thousand of players with enough GSP to claim 91 SP on every 'mech PGI ever release from now until the game's sunset.

I should play my MCIIs more. Maybe next month.

[Bud Crue]

Jay Leon Hart, on 03 December 2017 - 08:18 AM, said:

Both this and being able to sell GSP for 22,500 C-Bills (half the C-Bill purchase cost of SP) came up during the time the Skill Tree was on the PTS.

Similar ideas were proposed long before the skills tree, and I believe that the P2W fear was what was cited then as the reason for not selling xp back then. If I recall correctly, the example given back then was in regard to the cbill packs PGI sells: Selling Cbills for cash is tantamount to selling any other in game asset, since you could buy and sell a mech for example to get cbills in the same manner as buying the cbills directly. But selling XP, or what is essentially the mechanism to get better performance, gives the "haves" a clear advantage shortcut that the "have nots" can't access, and that goes against the ideals or at least basic fundamental model of a F2P game. Meh. Point is,it aint going to happen and if it does, that will be sign of the end of the game as we know it.

Edited by Bud Crue, 03 December 2017 - 08:28 AM.

[s0da72]

Skill tree is there to give us a sense of pride and accomplishment. Why would you want to skip earning those nodes?

Anyways, it does have pay-to-win it's just better hidden and throttled somewhat. If you're a new 'day 1' player there really isn't a way. But for veteran players that have XP all over the place it just a matter using MC to convert XP to global XP, then go to the store and buy C-bills. Instant mastered mech!!

Edited by s0da72, 03 December 2017 - 08:32 AM.

[Humpday]

Kinda sounds like pay to win no?
Paying to auto master a chassis gives you a significant edge on someone that doesn't pay.

Think about it, some mechs can almost jump 2 weight classes in armor/structure when fully mastered.
Mechs just a touch unmanageable heat wise, become perfect with heatgen and cool run.
Then you have things like seismic sensors or enhanced ecm the provide superior intelligence.

Don't get me wrong, if I could pay to master, yeah I'd dump money into it, but is it fair to other people people that aren't stupid enough to blow money on a videogames? Likely not.

Also... As everyone else has mentioned... I guess I'll go play my deathstrike now Hahahahah

Edited by Humpday, 03 December 2017 - 09:34 AM.

[kuma8877]

Can't you essentially do this already (as a veteran player) transfer XP to GXP via MC and purchase C-bills via MC? Expensive but possible.

[Asym]

Fair? There's no fair in video games? This is a "for profit" business: not a charity for heavens sake. Fair? I'd take "just" for heavens sake.

Mastering kits for c-bills would increase our population because you can explore the game without driving yourself nuts or away. For some, and I include myself in this, "the grind" drives me away from the game and spending money because we aren't all that good and mastering takes an awful....long....time; we're average players here for the "fun" of it; for the nostaliga of it; not, the hardcore I'm a killer dogma some espouce.... MWO loses players to the grind every month.......the grind is not value-added in a very small and obsecure niche market.

There is no fair when profitability is the goal.

[Humpday]

kuma8877, on 03 December 2017 - 09:39 AM, said:

Can't you essentially do this already (as a veteran player) transfer XP to GXP via MC and purchase C-bills via MC? Expensive but possible.

Oh, yeah, i suppose it is. Though thats only if you've been playing forever and if your ledger is huge.
I know for me, I used all mine up now. And my gxp now goes right into SPs

[Bud Crue]

Asym, on 03 December 2017 - 09:55 AM, said:

Fair? There's no fair in video games? This is a "for profit" business: not a charity for heavens sake. Fair? I'd take "just" for heavens sake.

Mastering kits for c-bills would increase our population because you can explore the game without driving yourself nuts or away. For some, and I include myself in this, "the grind" drives me away from the game and spending money because we aren't all that good and mastering takes an awful....long....time; we're average players here for the "fun" of it; for the nostaliga of it; not, the hardcore I'm a killer dogma some espouce.... MWO loses players to the grind every month.......the grind is not value-added in a very small and obsecure niche market.

There is no fair when profitability is the goal.

You or I may not like it, but that "grind" that you assert is driving folks away from the game, that is the game. Alas. That grind is not going anywhere.

Meh, don't take my word for it, take PGI's. This sort of thing has been asked for before and PGI responded in a townhall in the manner I described above (I'm guessing this was in mid 2015 sometime...I know it was a while back). But hey, now that PGI is seemingly desperate for population numbers, and not to mention the fact that they are funding MW5 too, you might have some hope. If they get desperate for cash to finish MW5 development, I can see them offering your "mastery" packs (as opposed to actual current mech based mastery packs) as a last ditch effort to keep the lights on. So keep your fingers crossed!

[Asym]

After I wrote the piece I just posted, I went out to continue mastering a StormCrow the last big event gave me.... Yes, I'm thankfull for the new mech.......I really am and it was difficult to win being an average player.

But, as I opened the mechlab screen, I have 25 or 91 skill points done and, to be honest, it took "dozens of games" just to get those 25 and I just can't go any further. To be really honest, I'm not sure I can spend the next few weeks on this mech........or, any other new mech... If I am experiencing this, you can bet that there are a lot of others who "just don't want to endlessly grind anymore" and that presents PGI with a huge problem: we aren't going to buy anything new because of the grind................

My suggestion is a trade-off: give a little to get a lot.... A little in-game c-bill or MC investment to save hundreds of hours of meaningless gameplay only to lose a player to frustration. If players are affraid of P2W on a F2P platform, I understand. But, what would you rather have: a game with a lot more players that in and of itself would greatly help MM or a game that has so few players that what we do have is a lopsided affair?

Quantity versus quality in my mind..... Without quantity there is no quality because quality only works when there is enough quantity.....

[Mechrophilia]

I save my GXP and GSP for when I have to skill-up an assault because I feel its impolite to gimp my entire team with a 100 ton paperweight for the X amount of games it takes for me to fill out couple trees.

As far as paying money for skill points, it wouldn't bother me too much at all, but I suspect it would bother more than a few of our friends and team mates.

[Y E O N N E]

Humpday, on 03 December 2017 - 09:30 AM, said:

Kinda sounds like pay to win no?
Paying to auto master a chassis gives you a significant edge on someone that doesn't pay.

Think about it, some mechs can almost jump 2 weight classes in armor/structure when fully mastered.
Mechs just a touch unmanageable heat wise, become perfect with heatgen and cool run.
Then you have things like seismic sensors or enhanced ecm the provide superior intelligence.

Don't get me wrong, if I could pay to master, yeah I'd dump money into it, but is it fair to other people people that aren't stupid enough to blow money on a videogames? Likely not.

Also... As everyone else has mentioned... I guess I'll go play my deathstrike now Hahahahah

Whether or not it is Pay 2 Win is superfluous. The game throws new 'Mechs into an ecosystem where they are fodder for 'Mechs that have upgrades...upgrades that add capability at no cost other than the opportunity cost of alternative capabilities. AKA, they are straight upgrades. A vanilla 'Mech has no chance, skill being equal.

Adding the option to purchase your upgrades, at this point, merely allows for one way to even the playing field other than grinding, perhaps frustratingly, through matches with poormechs.

[FupDup]

I've got 1,105 GSP and 758,710 GXP that I don't even know what to do with. Maybe if this game let me transfer some to you I could get a mechpack in exchange?

[Y E O N N E]

Yeah, I'm sitting on over 3,000 GSP (still) and 440,000 GXP and really don't plan on using them up. When I tweak a 'Mech I've already mastered, I just use the standard SP process because, for small numbers of nodes, it's not that expensive and I make it back in a few matches.

That said, I also don't use the GSP because I have already mastered the 'Mechs in my garage that I care about and PGI hasn't released many new ones that I care enough about to spend GSP on. If I could buy GSP with MC, I'd probably be more inclined to use it. Right now it's just insurance against having to grind a chassis I like.

[JediPanther]

I'd rather have a pick your own mech variants for a mech pack. Fang,Flame and the champion version would be a good mech pack.

[Spheroid]

Leveling IS THE GAME, it is what keeps the servers populated and your wait time low. To reduce is not in your overall interest. There is a massive two month gap between the c-bill release of the Annihilator and the Mad Mad Mk II. If someone can't master all variants in that amount of time then they have issues.

However if you must, be aware that you can get two double XP bonuses in quick succession around midnight GMT and then further stack these gains with premium or premium one shot for something like 5-10k in 30 minutes. At that rate leveling is nothing.

(On Edit) XP is the limiting factor, especially on loyalty mechs where your earnings outstrip your XP. The ratio is 45k c-bill and 800xp per node. Please describe the scenario where you be starved of c-bills for conversion.

Edited by Spheroid, 03 December 2017 - 11:45 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

XP isn't what limits leveling.

And if leveling is your game, you f*cked up with your game design. Games like the original Halo and Counter-Strike don't have any leveling. Unreal Tournament didn't have any leveling. Quake didn't have any leveling. Even other games that do have leveling aren't such a chore to play without having already leveled; the stock equipment in the Battlefields, Call of Duties, and Mass Effects are useful and good from start to finish.

[Spheroid]

@Yeonne: No a robust progression and unlock system has been a boon for videogames. BF1 has had a population falloff much faster than that of BF4. Either you believe the progression system was lacking or DLC didn't come out fast enough.

BF2 did have a very primitive progression system, they invented it. People wanted that sweet G3A3 and Colonel rank for bragging rights.

I put nearly 900 hours on BF2 and over 1,000 on BF3. Unlocks prolong player base numbers and increase gameplay variety in the pursuit of trophies. They are a positive innovation.

[Y E O N N E]

Spheroid, on 03 December 2017 - 11:31 AM, said:

@Yeonne: No a robust progression and unlock system has been a boon for videogames. BF1 has had a population falloff much faster than that of BF4. Either you believe the progression system was lacking or DLC didn't come out fast enough.

BF2 did have a very primitive progression system, they invented it. People wanted that sweet G3A3 and Colonel rank for bragging rights.

I put nearly 900 hours on BF2 and over 1,000 on BF3. Unlocks prolong player base numbers and increase gameplay variety in the pursuit of trophies. They are a positive innovation.

I've put more hours into Halo: Combat Evolved than you have into Battlefields 2 and 3 combined. I lived, ate, and breathed that game from 2002 until 2008. Not a progression system in sight, and at no point was there ever a deficit of players. I could always find people to play with locally and, when Halo PC came out in 2003, I could always find servers filled. The modding scene even thrived, and even as recently as this year a major re-imagining of the single player campaign was released.

What progression systems have done is make it easy to phone in the lost art (science?) of managing to make the core 30 seconds of gameplay fun extend for hours. So we get droves of bland games that aren't actually fun to play that we convince ourselves to continue playing because it might get better when you unlock that thing.

As for BF1, I'd wager the fall-off has more to do with its ****** play mechanics. Bullets take too long to kill people, and what should be the more powerful weapons per round (and technically are) take even longer still with no reward thanks to the close-range bent of the game and wild RNG nature of their accuracy. And what did they do? Buff the automatics even harder! PGI would approve.

BFBC2 was the pinnacle of the series gameplay. Not scale, but everything in there was well-balanced (except maybe helicopters). And to my earlier point, even its starting gear was still good.