12 replies to this topic

[Mykor]

I just received my Thanatos standard mech order and instead of being able to banked my premium time it was automatically injected for immediate use. This has happen the with last order or two I have done where I have always banked my time but lately it has been automatically injected for immediate use. There are times when I may not be able to play for extended periods of time if not days but even a week or more, so prefer to be able to use my earned premium time when I want. What has changed?

[Xetelian]

All packs since the Kodiak? have active time instead of banked time.

This is incredibly frustrating and not enough people have complained about it because it appears the core audience and the whales can either play enough or pay enough to have years of premium going. Maybe I'm wrong but for this change there should have been enough of a stink to get them to change it back like they did with the 'premium 0 standard 30 days collectors' change.

[Drudgewerk]

Experiencing the same issue here. I think it was the Javelin release that started this.

At the moment, I'm in a position where I have not been able to access my computer for over 2 months due to family issues. While I've managed to sneak a couple hours of play once or twice a month, I've had to stop even that. I have two mech packs and the loyalty rewards sitting unclaimed right now because I have not logged in for weeks now in the hope that the premium time isn't already ticking down. If I log in at all to play in order to distract myself from my currently horrible life situation, I'm going to end up wasting a lot of money with a near total loss of all the premium time I have coming. Using only maybe 4 to 6 hours of 60 days premium time just doesn't make it worth having.

Can we please, please return to banked premium time? I would be more than happy to play without it for short stretches if it means I have it available when I have the time to fully enjoy having it.

Please.

[Xetelian]

Best thing you can do is use Twitter to contact Russ. I've sent a couple messages in the past and if i send any more and he recognizes that I've sent them before he might block me for contacting him so much about it.


If we can get enough people, they very likely will change their policy.

It took a long time to get the ability to active 30 days at a time, so maybe he'd be willing to go half and half on bank/active time. That would be a huge step towards making it easier for people to time when they play.


I've got a few friends right now that have purchased packs but aren't playing because they have things coming up shortly that will eliminate their ability to play the game for a long while and they're miserable unable to play their new mechs.

[Curccu]

Xetelian, on 16 November 2017 - 04:58 AM, said:

All packs since the Kodiak? have active time instead of banked time.

Nope, since Civil War pack.

[arcana75]

It's been this way with mech packs since I joined MWO. I noticed that some players are nonchalant about PT, I saw that during the various events that have happened including the Treat or Treat event that gave out PT: I saw many players post that they don't care or want the PT cuz they have PT up the wazoo due to past mech packs. Some even have years still ticking away. So because of that, there's a certain pool of players who don't bother whether it's banked or active.

I personally prefer banked, cuz I don't have time to play each day every day, so most of the 11 days' PT I got from ToT are just ticking away. But I see PT from mech packs slightly differently: I see them as a monthly subscription when I buy a mech pack that comes with 30 days' active PT. Every mech pack that comes along, it's just me renewing my monthly subscription.

Would I want the system to be such that I can activate banked PT on a specific daily basis? Sure why not? But I understand it changed from banked to active some time ago. I am not defending the practice, but other subscription based games, if you sub'ed for a year and had to go away for months due to RL issues, the game company usually doesn't refund your wasted sub. I just don't think we'll be able to get enough of a critical mass to nudge PGI to act.

[Jay Leon Hart]

The only advice is, if you know you can't play for a chunk of time, then don't log in after a pack you bought is injected. The PT only activates once you log in, so if you can't play for a month and just bought a new 'mech, don't log in to have a look at it, just wait until you can play.

[Bandilly]

Curccu, on 16 November 2017 - 05:31 AM, said:

Nope, since Civil War pack.

Yes it was Civil War. It was more the occurrence of when PGI tried to take premium time away from the packs, but then they added it back in. It just hasn't been the same since then. It does say under each mech if it was going to be banked or not, all the new stuff specifies "Active".

.

[JediPanther]

People have also tried to get a toggle function for pt where they could chose to active pt for as long as they are loged in. Active time's benefits whose who play a lot and regularly. Banked works for those who have a huge amount and just can burn it. Unfortunately all pt you buy is active the moment you log in. Which is one reason I'll always go for a special mech with 30% c-bills vs buying pt myself. i've got a lot of heroes now that I rotate when I play.

It's also pgi going meh we can do any thing. Not our fault you didn't read the few lines of text explaining it like how the images of mechs can radically be different than the final mech but the artwork not final sub text lets them do that.

[Mykor]

Today was my first time logging back in since just before Thanksgiving and posting this initially. Lost about 3 weeks of time or so from last pack (Thanatos) as mentioned in original post. Its interesting to see that I am not the only one with concerns over this and hope Piranha see's this. All I can add is that, and if Piranha your listening, I and others may be more reluctant to buy the actual packs or limit how often or many we buy because of this. If the limited options like mention above for example of just not logging in until player is more able to play frequently then that may hurt MWO somewhat in long run by having less people actively playing at any giving time. I say this because even when I may not have enough time to dedicate to game i still try to get some quick time in here or there if i can probably like others do but to completely shut down from even logging in to check on things and maybe get a quick match in or two before heading back to real life obligations is not fair and a disservice to loyal fans of game in my opinion. So hopefully you can reassess this premium time issue and let players bank what they in turn paid for and use as they please. That simple gesture would go a long way with the players that love the game.

[Escef]

arcana75, on 16 November 2017 - 05:41 AM, said:

I noticed that some players are nonchalant about PT, I saw that during the various events that have happened including the Treat or Treat event that gave out PT: I saw many players post that they don't care or want the PT cuz they have PT up the wazoo due to past mech packs. Some even have years still ticking away. So because of that, there's a certain pool of players who don't bother whether it's banked or active.

I have a little shy of a year and a half of premium time banked, plus 71 days of active ticking down. Personally, I don't care about premium time right now. Those that don't have a lot of premium hanging around wanting it banked, I understand how it is you can want that, but keep in mind that VERY few games let you bank such things. Hell, I was in City of Heroes for a long time, and they, amazingly, never gave partial refunds or credit for days you didn't play, nor for months you paid for and then had issues pop up which prevented you from gaming.

Welcome to real life. Sucks, doesn't it?

[arcana75]

Escef, on 16 December 2017 - 04:18 PM, said:

I have a little shy of a year and a half of premium time banked, plus 71 days of active ticking down. Personally, I don't care about premium time right now. Those that don't have a lot of premium hanging around wanting it banked, I understand how it is you can want that, but keep in mind that VERY few games let you bank such things. Hell, I was in City of Heroes for a long time, and they, amazingly, never gave partial refunds or credit for days you didn't play, nor for months you paid for and then had issues pop up which prevented you from gaming.

Welcome to real life. Sucks, doesn't it?

Very few anything gives refunds of this sort. For example your mobile or fibre subscription, if you go overseas for abit, you can't come home and expect them to give you a refund. Hell they don't even give refunds when their network goes down.

Vouchers and gift cards too expire, and when they expire cuz we forget to use them or didn't have the spare time to do so, we too can't demand a refund or issuance of a new voucher.

It's quite demanding to expect PGI to do the same.

[Xetelian]

It needs to be banked, not active.

I'd like to save it for months when I'm able to play.

This isn't even remotely like a voucher or coupon expiring.
This isn't even at all similar to a refund.

PGI clearly wants people to buy premium time every time they have a few weeks to play instead of banking it off packs and using it in 30 chunks.


What is the point of having banked time and the hard won ability to active 30 days at a time if it is all active time now? What did we get when they added that change?



I see some of you whales don't mind shelling out every month and have years of time saved up that you'll never use. A lot of us don't, a lot of us don't play everyday and a lot of us don't have an extra 15$ to spend on a month of premium every time we get time off.