288 replies to this topic

[Daeron Katz]

In this thread, lets discuss ideas for updating or adding to our current monetization model in MechWarrior Online, such as:

• New Player Packs
  
• Starter Packs (Brawling, Long Range, Heavy)
  
• Themed Packs (Pop Culture, NASCAR)
  
• New Items (Metallic Patterns, Custom UI Colors, Voice Packs, Sound Packs, Laser Color Customization, MechLab Customization, Global Patterns)
  
• Improve Cockpit Item Bonuses (added value)

[Will9761]

Personally, I would get rid of the "Rule of 3" Mechpack in favor of letting people buy as many variants as they want or a specific type. I have a Google Slide that goes in to more depth.

But something like this:

Edited by Will9761, 16 November 2020 - 11:12 PM.

[Kojin]

I might get a bit of flak for this, but personally I liked the old way:
The Hero mech would be the "paid early access" mech and then the rest of it's chassis group would be released later.
The mech packs were themed - Invasions and Reinforcements.

As it is now I think the single chassis packs are backwards. The Hero should be the first point of buying the pack with addons scaling downward. The "special" should be simply a paint job unlock with 3 colours and then the option to add the regular mechs.

I also think the Hero mechs should be pulled from lore more again too.

[Galahad2030]

Most players I know, ranging from veterans to newer players, want mech bays and hero mechs for their MC. The idea of the mechpack is a comprehensive full service package, and if I want to try out a new mech I'm more inclined to buy the (H)ero variant by reputation or maybe 1 standard variant. The premium time is a good added benefit, so let's not adjust that much.

The company keeps pitching collections of a chassis type, and most people I know don't necessary want to buy all the Hellbringers or Griffins in one shot. Sure, I'll buy that one Hero to open up new gameplay styles, or maybe a new chassis to try it out (with c-bills first). I believe this is how most players view it. Feels like we're forced to buy stuff we don't need, even if the intention is to provide players with a comprehensive new experience.

I'm not sure what the solution to that is, but I'm not that happy buying more mechs just because the price is a good deal. That just contributes to mech bay bloat.

One idea I have is buy a random hero at a random MC price. That might be closer to what players are looking for.

Another idea is to sell Battle Brother packs. 2-pack of curated Heroes and Champions (total of 2 in the pack).

The sheer number and volume of packages and packs is daunting to the new player. Promote and sell new player starting packs (perhaps 8 mechs. 4 IS and 4 Clan representing each weight class). Promote a specialist starting pack (4 of one weight class. choice of IS or Clan OR mixed). Promote these to new players prominently.

Finally, ingame store should feature sortable filterable cosmetics. the Camo Spec section is hard to scroll through all the possibilities.

[Sheridan Mackison]

Player designed decals for a “small” fee. Include the ability for each member of a unit or friends to share decal files.

[Slambot]

How bout a small per month fee for all consumables to be "free"?


How bout a random mech personalization subscription? ie. every month you get a pattern unlock for a mech chassis, a new decal and a new color or 2?

[Vampyreq]

Mech packs need to be changed.
I don't want/need to get multiple variants of the same mech.

Make it such that the player can choose to buy x number of variants they want and the cost adds up accordingly, but having a small discount as the number of variants purchased increases. Then a plus Hero option like now. Champion mechs are pointless since there's nothing to do with chassis bonus, and conversion to GXP is rather expensive.

I will suggest mechs purchased with MC come with 91 GSP that the player can immediately put into to enjoy the mech instead of having to grind through using a "******" hero. If 91 is too much, then 50 is a good starting point. They will also have the flexibility to put those GSPs into other mechs should they choose to.

[Big-G]

Will9761, on 16 November 2020 - 06:06 PM, said:

Personally, I would get rid of the "Rule of 3" Mechpack in favor of letting people buy as many variants as they want or a specific type(s). I have a Google Slide that goes in to more depth.

But something like this:

Would definitely like the ability to a-la-carte any mech pack, but keep the group options also.

I'm a Mech collector through and through, so I "gotta-have-them-all"

I like the idea of Callsign-Decals available for say 10 MC that's not a one-shot.

The (S) variants I agree are just duplicates with pretty paint jobs, rather make the pattern available to "collectors".

[Brauer]

There should be some kind of mechpack where players can relatively quickly purchase a bunch of decent chassis. I think the dropship deals model is a decent blueprint, but open it up some more. Something where someone could buy a good light, medium, heavy, and assault right out of the gate without breaking the bank or buying a bunch of subpar variants. I'm not certain about price, but somewhere between $10-$20 would be solid.

Mech packs should also come with some GSP, I'd say at least enough to put each mech in the pack at 45 skill points upon purchase, if not enough to fully skill all of them. Mech packs exist to circumvent the grind, so packaging SP encourages people to purchase.

[LordNothing]

initial buy in bonus to get f2p players to contribute. these bonuses will greatly reduce all further grind in the game. you get it once after you buy your first mech pack or a certain dollar amount worth of stuff. perhaps reduce grind by somewhere from 15-25% in perpetuity. this includes grind in fp/solaris/supply cache progress/xp, etc. perhaps even allow players to get trickle mc (like 1-5 mc per game based on performance).

grinder items. items that greatly reduce the grind in one aspect of the game. make it an in store cash item.

buff trash tier mechs to be more competitive, this will make people want to buy them again.

buff premium time to 2x, make it apply to everything, not just cbills.

more store-exclusive varients.

more impulse buys in the $1-$10. you have a $3 urbie so its possible.

weapon variants like in mw5.

Edited by LordNothing, 16 November 2020 - 08:16 PM.

[Ragedog4]

New player packs should be thick of good stuff. (Like first off they should be able to get 4 free mechs after the first 25 games or like each 25 games they unlock these 4 mechs since when they start the game, and make them 4 simple standard variants, a Raven 3L, Hunchback 4g, Catapult C1, and Battlemaster-1G, Not overly used mechs but each have a little something that they can practice with) So to BUY a new player pack it should have 2 Clan Medium mechs and 2 IS heavy mechs for say...$25, can only apply it to new accounts. Let them be Champion Variants so they can get high XP for playing them to get them kicked started right into the game and 30 days premium time. It gives them that "OH YA" feeling for their first few mechs then later mechs the grid is not as bad because they have a few mechs to fall on to use.

Starter packs I would say anyone can buy, make them 4 mechs of each category. Community votes on the top 4 of each category of non-hero mechs. You could bring them out as sets month by month giving a month time to vote for the community, etc. Give them all the goods, so you can drop with them ASAP and since they are C-bill mechs you can already buy make them $20-25 for all 4 for each set. Themed I would say "Brawl, Support, Skirmish, and Snipers" are the 4 standard themes. Others would be "Front Line, Light Hunters, Wolf Pack (lights), Equipment Kings, Fast and Ferocious, and maybe Medium Masters" type of thing.

Now cosmetics is where a lot of us older players would drop some money. I HATE DOING MODS along with a lot of my friends so yes give us sound/voice packs (get D.Fisher to start up my Mech!) and give us different colors for EVERYTHING! For Camos give us a global button to buy that applies to EVERY mech for a one time purchase (each costing different since I know some are special) but like maybe $10-$15 bucks to unlock the thing for every mech. Also make COLOR packs that are just straight $$$ and not MC (Ive heard a lot get sick of the MC and just want to know the $ amount) So like "Forest color pack" comes with 10 colors that costs $10. Or Premium Metallic Color Pack (5 colors) that costs $20. Then in the middle 10 special colors (like clan or house colors) for $15-20 bucks. But also might want to reduce the MC cost on single purchase colors (a lot dont like paying so much for 1 color, reducing the price would increase buying power). Oh and give us more GLOWING EYES for mechs, we love those (maybe some LED lights for a bolt on similar to the glowing eyes that we can put like under our feet like some do under their cars).

[50 50]

Pilots
This ties in with skill tree changes so has a double whammy of addressing a pain point while providing new options.
Essentially a pilot is a central spot to allocate XP and unlock a limited number of skills that can then be assigned to multiple mechs.
Add to that idea things like buying:
-a recruit, regular, elite or veteran pilot from the store that might come with a set number of skill points already available.
-a hero from the lore that might have a unique skill and some preselected skills
-community pilots for popular streamers or the mechcon world cup winners.
-pilots from other MW/BT games

Some voice options, different HUDs, a portrait.

[Thilas]

The Resistance mech packs had faction themed cosmetic packs, I was always vaguely surprised that they were never made available to purchase separately. Say, a full pack that includes the colors, warhorns/etc at one price point, and another that includes just the cockpit items and a couple of unlockable patterns at another. Could also offer it as an add-on to mech packs or complete collection purchases.

Battle Passes: I'd base them around a specific faction, Include a special variant (ex: DRG-5K for Kurita) as a midpoint or end reward. Other rewards during the duration could include consumables, premium time, C-Bill variants of the special variant (ex: DRG-1N) GSP, faction themed cosmetics, etc.

[Heavy Money]

Buying mechs in packs has some downsides. Sometimes you only want one variant, and so you feel like you're paying extra for stuff you don't want, or might have already bought with c-bills. And sometimes you want ALL the variants, and you want a discount for that because you're spending more money at once.

I'd suggest making it possible to buy stuff like heroes separately for decent prices (MC price ingame feels WAY too high). Also let people buy multiples at once and get a bigger discount the more of a similar chassis they buy. That way they don't have to pay again more chassis they might already have. Let these discounts apply even if the other variants were purchased previously. in other words, let me buy 1 variant and try it out, and then incentivize me to buy the rest of the variants by making them cheaper.

Also, give a MASSIVE discount on buying variants that you already bought. There's basically no reason to own multiple of the same mech variant right now. So make them cheap, and share unlocked skills. Then some people might buy multiples of the same variant just for the convenience of different loadouts.

And overall, make the mech packs cheaper. A single pack currently costs more than many full games. You'll net more total $$ from sales if you reduce price by ~50% i'd wager.

Edited by Heavy Money, 16 November 2020 - 10:28 PM.

[SoulRcannon]

Have you considered making these "metallic paints" you mention another layer (perhaps labelled "finish") in the camo tab? It's already in the game - variants or camo patterns having a metallic sheen to them, or being more glossy or matte. You could then sell differently tinted metallic sheens to use with colours/camo players already have, alongside more pearlescent, gloss or matte finishes to give the player the opportunity to change/remove their finish on patterns where that finish was once fixed. A matte finish would be a nice choice for those who like to paint their mechs "tactically" too!

Lowering the price of mechpacks and adding more value to them, such as adding bundled (potentially retroactive) GSP or by bringing the early adopter colours back into the packs would help them look more enticing. If you're worried about the former, generous GSP rewards are required to ensure fun where you have a skill tree and to actively encourage mech purchases.

Other options to implent soon might include upgrading an owned mech to an (S) variant with hero bonuses for MC. And if XP conversion was ~80 % cheaper than it is now it might actually be used, so that might also be another welcome change.

Edit: Just wanted to add, the Tournament Supporter Pack when it was around was a good idea, a few simple additions, tangible bonuses, and a clearly useful application of the money generated. If you want more than that though there'd need to be more that comes with it - many other games feature UI elements showing clearly earned bonuses, but I suppose that's more of a Battle Pass thing.

Edited by SoulRcannon, 17 November 2020 - 03:32 PM.

[thievingmagpi]

Map Supporter Pack.

Money goes to map development (honour system I suppose). Get a unique camo (or a free camo of our choice if that requires too much work) and a cbill/xp/gsp boosting cockpit item. Maybe a cool flag or bolton and a unique warhorn and maybe a chunk of premium time.

[nuttyrat]

Streamer Packs

Work with streamers and other content creators to build mech packs that represent the mechs they play, with some portion of that going to support the streamer. This is somewhat similar to the support-a-creator program that EGS has, which has min requirements in order to be eligible. There is a small but dedicated collection of content creators that have been busting their asses to help keep eyes on the game so it could be an interesting partnership.

Lance Packs

One thing I noticed when I backed the Clan Invasion Kickstarter, is that mech minis are sold in specialized lances. Adopting something like this in MechWarrior would be a good way to sell popular variants of mechs so that people don't have to buy an expensive mech pack when they may only play one or two variants. Lance packs could be setup for all sorts of things .. from lore-based collections to MWO competitive play mechs!

Return of Supporter Packs

A return of Tournament Supporter Packs would be a welcomed site, and shouldn't be limited to just MWO:WC or MWO:CS. Other MWO tournaments should have some kind of support in this fashion.

[LordNothing]

fp packs. they include a drop deck, 4 mechs, 364 gsp (enough to master them). they would also be faction themed including faction skins, colors, and items. mechs would include 2x lp/rp bonuses to reduce grind.

[RageRandom]

Here's an Idea I would love to see, and should be a good money maker.

Weapon adapter kits.... two types :
A: Changes hardpoint types (ie energy into balistic,...etc)
cost (MC equiv of $5-10) uses an extra .5 ton and 1 slot.
B: Changes hardpoint technology (Clan vs Innesphere)
cost (same)

It could be tuned (weight/slots) to keep the game playable.

Edited by RageRandom, 17 November 2020 - 12:01 AM.

[DeadWeight18]

I could imagine FW Drop Mech Packages in IS and Clan flavour with a Drop Deck and 4 Mechs as Special variants and 200 GSP from existing mech chassis.

You could theme them by house or clan with typical mechs of Faction with matching cockpit items, colours and patterns.

Standard - special Light, Medium, mech; 2 Mech bays, 50 GS, 6 Cockpit items, Faction patterns on mechs, 3 Faction colours, 30 Days premium time
Collector - special Heavy, 1 Mech bay, 50 GSP, 3 Cockpit items, Faction pattern on mech,
Utimate - special Assault mech FW 50 GSP, 3 Cockpit items, Faction pattern on mech, drop deck