33 replies to this topic

[Psyense]

Throe, on 24 April 2018 - 09:46 AM, said:

Honestly, if they were to implement anything of the sort, I'd prefer they simply made it so that you could build something in the Store's 'Mech Lab, and then take that exact build into the Academy or Testing Grounds for free.

That would be fantastic, but (a Beyonce sized butt): as PGI I'd be wary of going to full customisation, it might allow a very, very rapid evolution of a meta and take a bit too much of the "new and shiny" feeling out of getting a new Mech. Just a "rent an engine" option would be a good first step. Thanks for all of your contributions so far!

Zergling, on 30 April 2018 - 05:19 AM, said:

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

Why was that?

MechaBattler, on 30 April 2018 - 09:28 AM, said:

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.

@ Throe too. The MW universe is an important part, diverging from it is necessary for the sake of mmo PVP; I think we're all agreed. However, this is probably a topic for another thread, balance tweaks are definitely outside of Lore, and definitely necessary!

Yondu Udonta, on 30 April 2018 - 10:11 AM, said:

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.

Thanks Yondu. To clarify, by "optimised" I essentially mean "good enough" for FP. The perfect set-up should be a massive, enjoyable grind; achieving it should be quicker via a premium subscription and bonussed mechs, because this is what funds an f2p game. PGI are doing a fantastic job in giving players a choice in how to contribute to the game's development.

The point is that quick-play gets pretty stale before the player is at a level where they can usefully get into FP. The root of this *I think* is the build up of content over the years, making player flexibility (i.e. lots of mechs) a necessity for the "mid-game". Pushing the mid-game further into the grind discourages new players and the player-base shrinks as older ones leave.

On a side note: Having played quite a bit of Solaris now, it's impact on this isn't quite as big as I thought it might be, the pay-out seems to balance quite well with the need for loadout maintenance & build evolution if you stick to a couple of tiers.

[Pain G0D]

Well this is a free to play game with in game purchases . If you are FTP gamer there is a gonna be ton of farming and grinding ahead for you . Its just that type of game . Some gamers really enjoy it . I played for most of a year before I opened my wally .

If you have both a hero mech and premium time then Cbills is pretty easy . You can play FP mode with a bunch of stock mechs and still make lots of cbills assuming your group won. Lets be realistic , not many game modes and who of us actually play qp till we have a deck of fully mastered mechs before we tried FP ?

I think i jumped into FP several days after i joined using trial mechs only ..........the horror .

Edited by Pain G0D, 07 May 2018 - 08:25 AM.

[Eisenhorne]

Pain G0D, on 07 May 2018 - 08:23 AM, said:

Lets be realistic , not many game modes and who of us actually play qp till we have a deck of fully mastered mechs before we tried FP ?

I think i jumped into FP several days after i joined using trial mechs only ..........the horror .

I did, but I also had a lot of mastered mechs from playing since closed beta.

[McGoat]

Pain G0D, on 07 May 2018 - 08:23 AM, said:

Lets be realistic , not many game modes and who of us actually play qp till we have a deck of fully mastered mechs before we tried FP ?

I think i jumped into FP several days after i joined using trial mechs only ..........the horror .

I did two, maybe three, CW matches during 3.0 with 228 and Wing-0 with a mastered HBR and scat, plus unmaster TBR and something else.

After those few matches I went and ground out QP until I felt like I was competitive enough to try again and carry vs being carried. When I first came back I was fortunate enough to drop with KCOM but quickly grew tired of LBK/ONion rushing, and after losing a trading game vs 12 PUGs I went solo for a while developing my own skills making friends along the way.. Now I hate QP and spend 99% of my time in CW, but even that is becoming boring. I logged off after one game EVIL+Friends, opponent ended up being PUGs and one 48-4 match is more than enough for me to find something else to do.

Edited by McGoat, 07 May 2018 - 08:51 AM.

[Psyense]

Just an update to this, I'm now 370 hours in. The recent dearth of events and sales has been fantastic and done a lot to alleviate the mid game c-bill wall. I feel like I have a spread of fun 'Mechs, can comfortably build decent decks for both Clan and IS, with some variation, and don't feel strapped for weapon systems / equipment. This is awesome, keep up the good work PGI, it's keeping me interested.

I'm super happy to hear that standard HS are getting a buff, potentially making more 'Mechs viable and have heard rumours that a build saving feature is in the works - this would be awesome.

I bought the tournament supporter pack and CINDER.

Still ham-stringing the evolution of my builds is the cost of changing armour type, heat-sink type and structure type - I'm sticking to old builds on old 'Mechs to avoid having to shell out 1-3 m c-bills each time. It would be really good if we could make these costs a one-time only purchase; they just seem an unnecessary c-bill sink given the breadth of content that requires investment and maintenance.

[Cloves]

Psyense, on 14 June 2018 - 12:23 PM, said:

Just an update to this, I'm now 370 hours in. The recent dearth of events and sales has been fantastic and done a lot to alleviate the mid game c-bill wall. I feel like I have a spread of fun 'Mechs, can comfortably build decent decks for both Clan and IS, with some variation, and don't feel strapped for weapon systems / equipment. This is awesome, keep up the good work PGI, it's keeping me interested.

I'm super happy to hear that standard HS are getting a buff, potentially making more 'Mechs viable and have heard rumours that a build saving feature is in the works - this would be awesome.

I bought the tournament supporter pack and CINDER.

Still ham-stringing the evolution of my builds is the cost of changing armour type, heat-sink type and structure type - I'm sticking to old builds on old 'Mechs to avoid having to shell out 1-3 m c-bills each time. It would be really good if we could make these costs a one-time only purchase; they just seem an unnecessary c-bill sink given the breadth of content that requires investment and maintenance.

. Those are one time charges. There is no reason to go back to single heat sinks, endo and ferro are dependent on your mech weight mostly. Lights will take both, assaults will take neither, clans have them fixed in place and as part of the initial purchase. Take endo first, usually on mediums and heavies. Light ferro will be the one you might toggle, but you should never toggle doubles.

[Psyense]

Cloves, on 14 June 2018 - 02:09 PM, said:

. Those are one time charges. There is no reason to go back to single heat sinks, endo and ferro are dependent on your mech weight mostly. Lights will take both, assaults will take neither, clans have them fixed in place and as part of the initial purchase. Take endo first, usually on mediums and heavies. Light ferro will be the one you might toggle, but you should never toggle doubles.

Perhaps I wasn't clear. By saying "one-time charge" I mean that once a 'Mech has gone from standard to FF armour, you shouldn't then have to pay to toggle between the two. Currently you do, this is an unnecessary c-bill sink, stymieing build optimisation for early and mid-game players.

I agree that in most cases you will not want to go back to SHS, however, just occasionally, for a slot heavy assault build the necessary DHSs take up too much space. When tonnage is not your limit, but slots are, that is where you switch to SHS, this will be more common with the incoming buff to SHS. 750k to switch to SHS and then another 1.5 mil to switch back later down the line is painfully expensive.

Finally, clan adoptions of IS 'Mechs also have the above toggle-able.

[Tarl Cabot]

Lore wise, the c-bill sink is because you are basically rebuilding the internal structure/armor setup itself. Very rarely have I switched back from Endo/Ferro to standard. It is definitely not a regular occurrence.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 16 June 2018 - 05:56 PM.

[Cloves]

Psyense, on 16 June 2018 - 08:24 AM, said:

Perhaps I wasn't clear. By saying "one-time charge" I mean that once a 'Mech has gone from standard to FF armour, you shouldn't then have to pay to toggle between the two. Currently you do, this is an unnecessary c-bill sink, stymieing build optimisation for early and mid-game players.

I agree that in most cases you will not want to go back to SHS, however, just occasionally, for a slot heavy assault build the necessary DHSs take up too much space. When tonnage is not your limit, but slots are, that is where you switch to SHS, this will be more common with the incoming buff to SHS. 750k to switch to SHS and then another 1.5 mil to switch back later down the line is painfully expensive.

Finally, clan adoptions of IS 'Mechs also have the above toggle-able.

You can make these switches, but you should not. There is no good build for a locust that does not have ferro. There is no good build for an atlas that has ferro. As you play the game you will learn there are certain maxims that apply. Most folks folks find one good build for a mech, based on its geometry, weight, agility and hard points. Once you buy a selection of engines, that is done as well. Then you buy a few of each of the new tech weapons as they fit in your builds and that is done. The people that have been playing awhile have all that set, and only complain when the meta shifts or new tech comes out (like new engines that don’t insta-kill you), feel like they have to buy 40 of them because they have 100 mechs. Play with premium time about 300 QP games a month and you will get better at playing the game, building mechs, and making money. Without premium time, you will earn enough to skill up the mech, or play with the build, but not both. The idea of being a free to play player and being ready to be competitive in faction play with less than a few thousand quickplay games is not something I really believe is likely. Also, a faction deck at the competitive level will not have any mechs in common with a competitive Solaris deck. I would not expect to use the same mechs across all game modes without a ton of investment, and even then you will be hamstringing yourself. To be competitive in Solaris requires 7 mechs fully skilled and equipped uniquely for Solaris. Scouting requires 1 mech per faction you wish to represent, that could be, but it’s highly unlikely to be a Solaris mech. Faction play at the competitive level requires about 8 mechs per faction. So yes, you can play in any mode with a trial mech, but you are going to be bad. If you want to compete at the faction play level, which is endgame stuff, you will need a little more experience and a few more cbills, but it’s pretty much stable cost once you are there, your winnings will pay for the shift in meta as it occurs. In theory I think you could do it all free to play, but you are talking about hundreds if not a thousand hour grind.

[TheCaptainJZ]

You can always buy multiple copies of a chassis to prevent swapping equipment if you find yourself doing that a lot. I like to move equipment around a lot and experiment, but not usually with toggling FF.

[Eisenhorne]

Cloves, on 17 June 2018 - 02:56 PM, said:

You can make these switches, but you should not. There is no good build for a locust that does not have ferro. There is no good build for an atlas that has ferro. As you play the game you will learn there are certain maxims that apply. Most folks folks find one good build for a mech, based on its geometry, weight, agility and hard points.

There are a few mechs that do have switches between tech between builds sometimes. the ANH-2A is my favorite example. My 6 AC2 build uses Endo + Light Ferro, because the AC2's take up 1 slot each. Any other build (4 LBX10 or 6 AC2) does not use Light Ferro, so if I ever want to swap back I need to. I have some ANH builds that use Light Ferro and no Endo Steel because I need more crit spaces. That mech swaps techs around a lot depending on build.

[Cloves]

Eisenhorne, on 20 June 2018 - 08:36 AM, said:

There are a few mechs that do have switches between tech between builds sometimes. the ANH-2A is my favorite example. My 6 AC2 build uses Endo + Light Ferro, because the AC2's take up 1 slot each. Any other build (4 LBX10 or 6 AC2) does not use Light Ferro, so if I ever want to swap back I need to. I have some ANH builds that use Light Ferro and no Endo Steel because I need more crit spaces. That mech swaps techs around a lot depending on build.

I have that same anh, and yes, I use light ferro. I just did not want to list the exceptions to a rule that applies most of the time. New players are taking heavies and doing things like turning doubles on and off for bad builds, draining their cadet bonus on a bad investment. If we can teach them basic concepts that will serve them well, they can get to the niche rules later. I wish that metamechs was current so we could point them there, but it's woefully out of date now.

[AureliusDean]

I know I will likely be murdered for saying this, but I think we should have to pay for ammo and repairs, and the Cbill rewards should be increased to reflect it. It shouldn't cost me the same to burn through 7 tons of RAC ammo and a destroyed engine in a loss as it does to poke with LL's, and finish with your machine at 85%. In the lore, refitting was EXPENSIVE and it would maybe increase TTK if there weren't 12 year olds in every 3rd Atlas. Just my opinion. The game economy should be harder, not easier.

I'm just a drunk potato most of the time, but can you imagine what it would cost IRL to put 15 tons of high tech ablative or reactive armour on a fighting machine after a bad performance? I think the game is amazing, high learning curve, great community, but I think it should get harder not easier. It should be as complex as being the Quartermaster in a real fighting outfit would be.

[Daggett]

AureliusDean, on 20 June 2018 - 01:47 PM, said:

I know I will likely be murdered for saying this, but I think we should have to pay for ammo and repairs, and the Cbill rewards should be increased to reflect it. It shouldn't cost me the same to burn through 7 tons of RAC ammo and a destroyed engine in a loss as it does to poke with LL's, and finish with your machine at 85%. In the lore, refitting was EXPENSIVE and it would maybe increase TTK if there weren't 12 year olds in every 3rd Atlas. Just my opinion. The game economy should be harder, not easier.

I'm just a drunk potato most of the time, but can you imagine what it would cost IRL to put 15 tons of high tech ablative or reactive armour on a fighting machine after a bad performance? I think the game is amazing, high learning curve, great community, but I think it should get harder not easier. It should be as complex as being the Quartermaster in a real fighting outfit would be.

While fine for singleplayer games it's not working well in a multiplayer environment like MWO. It will favor guys like me who already swim in cbills or who use premium to mitigate the ammo and repair cost while new or average players who die often without dealing much damage are punished. You can't increase the cbill rewards high enough to mitigate this without making those who game the system stupidly rich.

Speaking of gaming the system: Do you really want a mechanic that favors poking with laser-vomit even more and punishes brawling because many players WILL (or are forced to) game the system and chose ammo-free builds and defensive playstyles?

Would you like me to tell you:
"Sure, you CAN do some AC20+SRM6 brawling in your assault mech. But if you do, then say goodbye to your progress towards another mech since you likely will die on the front and then have huge repair and rearm cost.

Take this LL-raven instead, it's much better for poor greenhorns like you who can't afford premium to finance a proper brawl setup.
It may not be what makes much fun for you but MWO is the real immersive sh*t you know. As in reality you will have to work a while before you are able to have some fun."

Seriously MWO already has immense problems getting and holding new blood. The very last PGI should do is to make the game or it's economy even harder for them. You can't make the economy hard enough for veterans like me without making new blood suffer as long as rewards are based on performance.

In my opinion such mechanics are much better suited for singleplayer games like Battletech or MW5 where you can easily abort a mission that went bad to save your mech without leaving behind a team or real players that's counting on you.

If immersion and realism is your thing those games have much more potential. MWO (and most multiplayer games) however will never become the holy immersion/simulation/realism grail simply because there are not enough players out there who would play it then.

Edited by Daggett, 21 June 2018 - 09:17 AM.