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In-Game Economy After 250 Hours, "new Player" Perspective


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#1 Psyense

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Posted 20 April 2018 - 11:47 PM

Hi all,

Looking for a bit of a back and forth here on the following:

The background:
~250 hours in game, I have 21 mechs (7 through solaris pack, 1 purchased with MC and 1 purchased from the store, 3 free from events, the rest bought with CBills).

I've played mostly QP to date with some freelancer FP and in the last couple of months lots of unit drops in both.

The problem:
In a merc unit, the minimum that you need is 1 invasion drop deck and 1 scouting drop deck for both clan and IS. 10 mechs, or at least 8 mechs with interchangeable builds on two of the lighter mechs. For solo QP, I really only need 1 mech set up, but for dropping with the unit against other units I need a few; one for each weight class doesn't seem unreasonable - 4 mechs.

Here I am talking about what seems necessary to contribute equally with the members of a fairly casual unit who have been in the game a lot longer - 14 mechs, optimised, or 12 mechs and the ability to regularly switch the loadouts / between invasion and scouting on two of them.

This I could sustain, sticking to hero mechs when solo dropping and making the most of the events when they come out - these are an awesome part of the game.

Solaris is fantastic, I bought the mech pack hoping that it would give me a leg-up toward having enough mechs, and it has, it's just the build maintenance that is economy breaking.

TL:DR; I still feel like a "new" player, simply because I don't have the resources to tailor chassis, loadouts and skills to 3 different game modes despite buying the Solaris pack & Kaiju, and grinding hero mechs in QP. Build maintenance is the killer.

Suggested solutions:
  • Remove the cost of chassis mods (Artemis / no Artemis, Heat sink type, structure type, armour type) once purchased for a particular chassis - this is a big one. The biggest one, it's really, really unnecessary.
  • Enable more time in-game by allowing loadouts to be saved (alt-tabbing to smurfy and changing between existing builds between game modes is tedious and adds nothing to the game). Yes, I know the community has been crying for this, but now with a third game mode, I feel like I am wasting SO much time rebuilding between similar configs to save cash.
  • Reduce the cost of swapping engines, these are a huge build limitation in my current situation and an economy with either a lower initial outlay or reduced cost of exchange would help masssively. Particularly w.r.t. Solaris builds. Even if I could "rent an engine" for a match to test a build before I spend 4m CBills (that's a mech!).
Premium helps (though I suspect that this will not cover Solaris as well), I feel that this shouldn't be necessary; preferring to support the game development by buying the mech-packs instead (you get something).


Let me know what you think,

Psyense

Edited by Psyense, 21 April 2018 - 03:12 AM.


#2 Syntillate

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Posted 21 April 2018 - 12:06 AM

I don't disagree particularly now skill points cost cbills. I wouldn't want to start playing now, it was bad enough when there was only 8 mechs types to choose from, a fraction of the weapons and loadout options and skills were xp only. I think skill points should go back to xp only and reduce the cost of dhs.

#3 Leone

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Posted 21 April 2018 - 12:56 AM

I actually disagree about scouting builds not working in Invasion. My best scouting builds fit right inna my brawling drop decks, but perhaps your unit doesn't brawl as much as mine? Even so, I've had very few matches that didn't evolve into a brawl, so even in our 'long range' decks, we'll take a fast brawler for the end of the match.

I'd suggest paying attention on the third an fourth waves next time you drop invasion and just think how they'd go if'n you took your scouting builds as a mech. You might be surprised.

~Leone.

#4 Psyense

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Posted 21 April 2018 - 03:08 AM

View PostLeone, on 21 April 2018 - 12:56 AM, said:

I actually disagree about scouting builds not working in Invasion. My best scouting builds fit right inna my brawling drop decks, but perhaps your unit doesn't brawl as much as mine? Even so, I've had very few matches that didn't evolve into a brawl, so even in our 'long range' decks, we'll take a fast brawler for the end of the match.

I'd suggest paying attention on the third an fourth waves next time you drop invasion and just think how they'd go if'n you took your scouting builds as a mech. You might be surprised.

~Leone.


Thanks Leone, I'm sure there are some good options out there that cover both nicely. My play style currently is longer range than scouting typically requires and so need different mechs from the invasion drop decks that I built. I'll update the op to make it less absolute.

For the sake of argument, let's assume the new player knows what he's doing or gets some good advice / follows the meta, knocking us down to 12 mechs for FP and QP combined.

View PostSyntillate, on 21 April 2018 - 12:06 AM, said:

I don't disagree particularly now skill points cost cbills. I wouldn't want to start playing now, it was bad enough when there was only 8 mechs types to choose from, a fraction of the weapons and loadout options and skills were xp only. I think skill points should go back to xp only and reduce the cost of dhs.


Skill points didn't used to cost c-bills!?! that explains a lot. Thanks Syntillate.
It's currently 4.1 mil for 91 skills and 10.8 mil for the full tree.

#5 TooDumbToQuit

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Posted 21 April 2018 - 06:05 AM

I started during a Faction Event and did not play a Quick Play for a month or more.

I used trial mechs for a very long time. The first mech I bought was a Stormcrow and as I say, it bought the next 10 or so mechs.

I do not like the change in Trial Mechs. You used to get the XP from them that you got from playing them. If you bought that mech one day, you had XP to use. And it is a "trial mech" so it is not tip top to use. PBI took that away. That was a big plus because I literally bought 3 mechs that had enough XP to fit them out.

I was in the Wolf Clan until drops went to zero. Then I joined a merc unit and I had your problem. First off, no IS mechs. It took a year or so to really add enough mechs.

Faction is interesting because you can change your decks and even mechs within the decks when you see the map/game. They really need to fix that you only get 60 seconds to do it, they should make it a minimum of 2-3 minutes.

You have to wait 15 minutes for the match and then you get only 60 seconds to adjust your deck and if in a PUG drop, to discuss anything. I've been doing a lot of PUG Faction drops lately and 60 seconds is not near enough time to say hello let alone talk about any plan. The time set to 60 seconds is destroying what little chance these PUGs team had.

So, Faction and Faction decks are a rabbit hole. I used to go with a few simple decks. For the Clan, 3 Hellbringers and a Shadowcat is for me, the perfect deck. (My Clan alt ran only these mechs for a long time)

To start in IS faction, I bought 3 Thunderbolts and made a IS drop deck with them.

Most teams wanted you to bring an assault, a heavy, a medium and a fast light. But Faction Warfare has changed. Sieges were the only game, now most of the normal games as also faction matches.

So there are "Siege Decks" and other ones. For conquest, a Clanner might drop up to 3 Linebackers. Lately, in Sieges and in a few other games, the IS teams have been using almost two drops of assaults for their 1st 2 drops. Since the Kodiak was nerfed, they really have an advantage here.

You can keep it simple like I did for a long time and run the same deck all the time.

Or after time you can make decks for "Hot Maps" or "Incursion". Since we only have 60 seconds to switch mechs, I now renamed mechs names like "conquest" and/or the weapons they have.

Get two basic decks first. And go from there. As everyone said (and they were right), it just takes time.

Edited by LikeUntoGod, 21 April 2018 - 06:09 AM.


#6 Spunkmaster

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Posted 21 April 2018 - 07:26 PM

View PostLikeUntoGod, on 21 April 2018 - 06:05 AM, said:

...As everyone said (and they were right), it just takes time.


Agree with your entire post except for the quoted part. 20 months, 1300 hours and 4200 games in, I still only have 26 mechs. My clan deck is the only one I'm reasonably happy with (for now). Fortunately, my merc unit tends to contract with the clans.

It's difficult to plan decks in advance with PGI constantly playing with the game. When they do alter things, it usually costs me 10+ million c-bills to redo both decks. For instance, by nerfing IS LPLs, I had to replace the LPLs on my BLR-2C with LLs and purchase a new light engine. It cost me almost 5.5 mil c-bills just for new equipment. I don't remember off the top of my head the additional cost of re-skilling. This was for ONE mech that was already solidly built and skilled for many millions of c-bills. PGI's constant "balancing" costs pilots millions in c-bills just to stay useful, let alone competitive. The masochistic player base just rolls over and, in the words of Eddie Murphy, says, "uhhhhhh... OK."

#7 Alexander of Macedon

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Posted 22 April 2018 - 08:41 AM

100% agreed on ES, FF, DHS, and Art needing to be one-time buys per 'mech. It's obnoxious needing to pay every time I swap them for different builds.

#8 Psyense

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Posted 23 April 2018 - 10:09 AM

Thanks for the posts, I hadn't even thought of the cost of re-balancing after a patch ruining drop decks.

I'm starting to think that this thread might have been better of in General rather than the new player forum but didn't want to encourage too much old-boy salt.

On an unrelated note, after a pretty positive start the massive grind has completely put my partner off playing :/

#9 Throe

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Posted 23 April 2018 - 10:38 AM

[redacted]

Edited by Throe, 12 December 2018 - 05:46 PM.


#10 MechaBattler

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Posted 23 April 2018 - 10:49 AM

Mostly those costs for upgrades are there because in the lore it was costly and involved thing to change a mech to endo or ferro. But if we went absolutely by lore those upgrades would be hard to come by, not be all willy nilly on every mech. So I don't think it's unreasonable for the sake of the game after purchasing an upgrade you should be able to more cheaply swap between them.

The grind could be worse. They could lock mechs away behind faction rep grinds, same with the weapons. Or you have to earn an extra super special currency by doing 10x the matches just to get that clearly more powerful version of a PPC. But thankfully PGI didn't do that. They didn't embrace of F2P nickel and dime hell. They kept MC mostly to cosmetics and even C-bill consumables are now equal to pay versions. Faction rep only gets you mechbays, C-bills, I think some other stuff I can't remember. Which in a way is kinda bummer. Be nice to get more faction stuff, even if it's only cosmetic.

#11 MiZia

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Posted 23 April 2018 - 11:07 AM

TBH (and i m not trying to hurt anyone) i dont know how u dont have more mechs after that time.
Either u got bad Hardware or u r really bad Pilots..thats what i can say.
Those r my played games Wins / Losses
1,911 / 1,027
Actually sitting on 54 mechs with 48 fully mastered (only 1 MC purchased Mech, no Prem time), and im not pro tier Pilot.

At beginning i just focussed on IS only, and getting 4 medium range Mechs that perform well isnt that hard either,

Edited by MiZia, 23 April 2018 - 11:12 AM.


#12 Roughneck45

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Posted 23 April 2018 - 05:18 PM

Don't really disagree with your points, but those things you listed are the grind, especially if you feel the need to switch your build often.

I think it only becomes daunting if you picture the grind as obtaining hundreds of mechs. Its quite forgiving compared to most other F2P games in terms of getting a single thing, in this case a mech, maxed out.

I think the bigger problem is that so much of this game isn't intuitive in the slightest, so its easy to make a few bad choices and feel like you've wasted a ton of c-bills.

I just tell folks to never sell anything, especially engines, unless you are sitting on some absurd amount of them.

Edited by Roughneck45, 23 April 2018 - 05:18 PM.


#13 Psyense

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Posted 24 April 2018 - 09:39 AM

Thanks for all of the posts guys, it's great to get so many constructive perspectives.

Just want to emphasise: the f2p game needs a grind to incentivise buying premium time / mech packs etc. this is fine, I think we all realise that it's necessary to fund extra content.

What I'd like to focus on is the current (seemingly unnecessarily large) cost of attaining and maintaining a viable set of mechs to access all of the content in the game for someone who hasn't been in the game for years. The transition from new player to the "mid-game".

To reply in a little more detail to the above ...

View PostRoughneck45, on 23 April 2018 - 05:18 PM, said:

Don't really disagree with your points, but those things you listed are the grind, especially if you feel the need to switch your build often.

I think it only becomes daunting if you picture the grind as obtaining hundreds of mechs. Its quite forgiving compared to most other F2P games in terms of getting a single thing, in this case a mech, maxed out.

I think the bigger problem is that so much of this game isn't intuitive in the slightest, so its easy to make a few bad choices and feel like you've wasted a ton of c-bills.

I just tell folks to never sell anything, especially engines, unless you are sitting on some absurd amount of them.


PGI have done a great job of making the early game accessible (the new player bonuses, accessible base chassis values etc), and continue to keep the game interesting with events and extra content. This is awesome, and as I said a grind is necessary in f2p. I'm really just picking on the glacial transition into becoming a useful part of a unit from new player status, build experimentation as you discover your play style in the different modes is more expensive than it needs to be imo.

When it comes to comparison with other f2p MMOs, the only other that I can compare is World of Tanks; to play at the highest level there, you just need one top tier tank, which requires a lot less than 250 hours to achieve if you focus (or it used to) and there is next-to-no maintenance or variety associated with it. Here you need many more mechs, modules, hours and thought to stay relevant as a player - the breadth is great, I feel that it could be more accessible for those relatively new to the game.

View PostMechaBattler, on 23 April 2018 - 10:49 AM, said:

But thankfully PGI didn't do that. They didn't embrace of F2P nickel and dime hell.


+1, the game would be all but dead if they had. I'm really glad that they have taken a pragmatic approach on it, perhaps they know that there's a loyal fanbase out there. One thing to add is that I'm a huge fan of MC being available in-game through events.

I really feel that with the buckets of added content, some of the money-sinks delaying players getting to the mid-game and joining the community proper could do with being readjusted though, this is what I was trying to promote through the OP.

View PostThroe, on 23 April 2018 - 10:38 AM, said:

I don't really have a problem with this suggestion, because I'm mostly in the Free-to-Play grind category myself. However, I don't see this being implemented. Engine purchases are already a one time cost. Once you own one, you can swap it between any other 'Mech for free. Never sell an engine.


Thanks Throe, completely agree with your points there. To reply to the quoted one: I think you're right, and that building up a stock of engines makes sense as part of the grind. It would be good to be able to "burn" a few c-bills trying an engine in a build before investing ~ 10-15 matches worth ... I can dream :P.

#14 Throe

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Posted 24 April 2018 - 09:46 AM

[redacted]

Edited by Throe, 12 December 2018 - 05:46 PM.


#15 Zergling

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 05:19 AM

View PostPsyense, on 20 April 2018 - 11:47 PM, said:

  • Remove the cost of chassis mods (Artemis / no Artemis, Heat sink type, structure type, armour type) once purchased for a particular chassis - this is a big one. The biggest one, it's really, really unnecessary.



Ha, I remember making that suggestion back in the beta; the idea wasn't viewed favourably back then.

Edited by Zergling, 30 April 2018 - 05:19 AM.


#16 Throe

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 08:46 AM

[redacted]

Edited by Throe, 12 December 2018 - 05:47 PM.


#17 MechaBattler

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 09:28 AM

View PostThroe, on 30 April 2018 - 08:46 AM, said:

This is the crux of what you're pointing out here, and I'm in favor of them implementing a way for new players to transition into "a useful part of a unit" more easily, even if that only takes the form of an increased "Cadet Bonus", although I'd prefer they changed some other things instead.


This is a meaningless statement. The "Lore":

1) Has been retconned so many times it's functionally pointless to argue over.
2) Doesn't even really affect BattleTech TableTop all that much, because it mostly deals with stuff from the fiction.
3) Has even less bearing on MWO than it does on TableTop, being that MWO was originally loosely based on information obtained from TableTop.

It's worth mentioning that part of the point of such games is for each player to feel as though they are, "The elite of the elite". A bit of a super hero, if you will. And while I realize that in a strictly PvP game, that's exceedingly difficult to come by, I think the developers of MWO have done an excellent job so far. I just think they could do a few things better. Posted Image


My point was that by one side of the coin we follow lore in the form of the mechlab and other things. But on the otherside of the coin we ignore the lore for the sake of a better game. But we shouldn't simply disregard the lore or TT. If ignored both we'd have Titanfall or Hawken.

#18 Throe

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 09:45 AM

[redacted]

Edited by Throe, 12 December 2018 - 05:47 PM.


#19 Yondu Udonta

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 10:11 AM

View PostPsyense, on 20 April 2018 - 11:47 PM, said:

The problem:
In a merc unit, the minimum that you need is 1 invasion drop deck and 1 scouting drop deck for both clan and IS. 10 mechs, or at least 8 mechs with interchangeable builds on two of the lighter mechs. For solo QP, I really only need 1 mech set up, but for dropping with the unit against other units I need a few; one for each weight class doesn't seem unreasonable - 4 mechs.

Here I am talking about what seems necessary to contribute equally with the members of a fairly casual unit who have been in the game a lot longer - 14 mechs, optimised, or 12 mechs and the ability to regularly switch the loadouts / between invasion and scouting on two of them.
Psyense

At least you do understand that FP is late game content and it isn't a game mode where anyone can wander in with 4 random mechs and expect to do decent. Because FP matches inform you beforehand on which map you are dropping on, the mechs in FP are more specific compared to the cookie cutters in QP. I would say that you need more than 14 mechs to perform optimally. Long-range, laser vomit, brawl, ballistics and lights in general. My account is solely FP and I can say that I do not have the perfect drop decks for every map even though I'm 80+% done with the Marik ladder. That's how much of a grind it is. But do learn how to enjoy the grind instead of focusing on the end goal, experiment with new builds and have fun.

#20 MechaBattler

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 10:34 AM

When I reference the mechlab. I mean specifically the construction rules within the mechlab. Which is the closest to TT construction rules that any Mechwarrior game has come . You wanna say that we should completely disregard the lore and TT. Then go play one of those other generic mech games. You don't have to worry about lore then.

Honestly this game is only as good as it is because it is based on Mechwarrior and Battletech. No offense to PGI but it wasn't their skills as game developers that helped keep the game afloat. If they didn't have a framework to go by it would be a lot worse.





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