9 replies to this topic

[PsylentFox]

So, this is something I just noticed while building out my Stone Rhino... and while this is likely something people have been on about since the game began, but as a new player with less than 500 hours of experience this stands out to me to be a MAJOR oversight.

If you purchase Ferro Fibrous (& Light Ferro Fibrous), or switch from FF to Standard armor, you should NOT be charged for swapping between armor sets you already purchased. This goes DOUBLE for Endosteel and Standard Structure, and Heat Sinks (going from singles to doubles and back again).

I can understand making the player purchase everything once, such as they have an Endosteel Structure for their Mech, and they want to downgrade it to a Standard Structure so they can have those slots back. If that Mech doesn't have Standard structure then it stands to reason that they would have to purchase that new structure. Same goes with Standard Armor to Ferro Fibrous, Light Ferro Fibrous, etc, etc, etc.

Forcing the player to pay a very large amount of C-Bills to swap between structures, armors, and heatsinks they already purchased *for that PARTICULAR chassis* does not make any sense and is not good game design. It is essentially a C-Bill sink, and when you try out new builds you'll find that they'll suck, and you just spent not only a whole boatload of C-Bills on the new weapons and equipment, but now you're on the hook for the Structure, Armor, and Heatsink changes you made as well?

As much as people want to talk about "Lore Wise" arguments, thats a very poor argument, because if we were going to do "Lore Wise" anything, then you'd be forced to purchase a new Mech every single time you died. Or, playing devils advocate here, if you have a Standard Structure and you purchase an Endo Steel structure... then what do you do with the Standard Structure you have now? You put it in your infinite storage. The same with the armor plating.

Ultimately, this just further gates what you can build, and while there are plenty of players with $100+ Million C-Bills that they can't see to get rid of fast enough, I am not one of them.

My main point is that the game is already grindy enough as it is, with lots of C-Bill sinks to gate FTP progress (and to be clear I bought the Stone Rhino Pack to support PGI, and will likely buy the Draconis Combine campaign when it comes out), and forcing people to pay significant fees over and over again if they want to try out different builds with a limited stable of Mechs is just... anti-fun.

It doesn't *add* anything to the gameplay experience, and only makes you gawp when you swapped between standard structure and endosteel after playing a game, only to see that you just blew $2 Million C-bills... for what? Trying out different builds and playing the game?

[KursedVixen]

so maybe have FF and standard armor as like a set of equipment where you have say 2 FF for say clan mechs ?

[PsylentFox]

KursedVixen, on 27 July 2023 - 04:42 AM, said:

so maybe have FF and standard armor as like a set of equipment where you have say 2 FF for say clan mechs ?

Or make it something you can purchase and add/remove at will. I would be totally fine with buying Endo and FF by the chassis, as it makes sense, but penalizing you for trying to build with the few Mechs you have when there are like 1,000 variants? That seems a bit much.

The issue is I don't know if its a limitation of the Cryengine or not, but the modding community has made a pretty darn expansive Mechlab that is more permissive with MW5.

My thing is paying a huge fee every time you swap from Endo to standard, or from standard to Endo when you already made the purchase to begin with. It doesn't cost me anything to pull an XL400 out of one mech and drop it into another, the same goes for all other pieces of equipment, so why here?

[JumpingHunter]

I like the idea, but i also keep thinking about Endo Steel being a chassis-specific thing in lore and in table top, so benefit of an ability to swap any chassis between standard structure and Endo Steel should come at a cost of some expenses.

Think of it like of a process of scrubbing a mech's skeleton out of entire carcass and then putting another one inside. I think this process costs a lot, it's definitely more expensive to just swap external armor plating.

As a side note, i personally wouldn't mind a need of repairing mechs for money after matches, like in MW4, though it would make assault mech pilots EVEN MORE cowardly and scared of taking damage, so it would come with it's flaws...

[simon1812]

This used to be an issue for me back in the day....started playing a year ago...but now Im sitting on some 244k CBs so it isnt a big deal anymore.

PS didnt buy CBs it all can be attributed to my hero mechs plus events.

[VectorStrike]

Absolutely agree with this one!

Edited by VectorStrike, 04 August 2023 - 01:44 AM.

[KursedVixen]

I think this would work out if say they were like jump jets where each class fits to a certain weight class so for example we'd have


Light FF
Medium FF
Heavy FF
Assault FF
Clan Light FF
Clan Medium FF
Clan heavy FF
Clan Assault FF

as a component you buy when you click save after changing to Ferro fiberous for example this scould work with Stealth armor and Light Ferro endo steel and such.... maybe even Artemis systems.

You still have to buy it but this way you could just re-equip it later if you want to change for free, I know this isn't lore accurate but what part of this game is?

Edited by KursedVixen, 04 August 2023 - 12:36 PM.

[Necroconvict]

Well I don't find the fees to be crazy, or anything.. but at this point it really only does kick the new players to have to switch when they are trying to find their groove. Those of us that have been playing forever, not a problem.

But I also think you should be able to trial skill point builds in training, without having to actually buy them. But only in training. Obviously

[PsylentFox]

KursedVixen, on 04 August 2023 - 12:35 PM, said:

I think this would work out if say they were like jump jets where each class fits to a certain weight class so for example we'd have


Light FF
Medium FF
Heavy FF
Assault FF
Clan Light FF
Clan Medium FF
Clan heavy FF
Clan Assault FF

as a component you buy when you click save after changing to Ferro fiberous for example this scould work with Stealth armor and Light Ferro endo steel and such.... maybe even Artemis systems.

You still have to buy it but this way you could just re-equip it later if you want to change for free, I know this isn't lore accurate but what part of this game is?

You wouldn't be able to do this per canon as this would not be possible to have because things like Endo and Ferro Fibrous are essentially custom made- the armor plating needs to be molded into shape and the endosteel structure is essentially lathed/machined from 'blank' blocks of endo steel, so every single piece created is for that mech and that mech alone. Now, you could, I suppose have this for certain mech chassis, as the structure and armor plating would essentially be similar (aside from weapon mounts and hardpoints), and as for Artemis the Artemis sensors are mounted to the missile packs themselves.

However, having Artemis on your LRMs should NOT lock you into using SRMs with Artemis as well. A lot of Mechs have ART on one missile system and not another, and you should be able to mix and match at will because of this.

Necroconvict, on 08 August 2023 - 10:16 AM, said:

Well I don't find the fees to be crazy, or anything.. but at this point it really only does kick the new players to have to switch when they are trying to find their groove. Those of us that have been playing forever, not a problem.

But I also think you should be able to trial skill point builds in training, without having to actually buy them. But only in training. Obviously

Yes, I understand that the current long-going players don't really have to worry about the FF/Endo fees associated with tinkering with builds because they have multiple years worth of C-Bills saved up, but the game, I think, will likely experience a new swell of popularity once the new MW product is announced with more details, which will bring in a new player base. However, if the number of C-Bill gates are too much then they will quickly find that their progress is stymied because if they don't realize that switching back and forth creates a penalty then they will end up wasting a lot of C-bills trying out different builds.

And when they do notice?

Well then that forces them to cut their build ideas down significantly as they are forced to find a small handful of mechs with builds that work (or are 'meta') and will be stuck with that until they accrue more C-bills, which then forces them to decide on whether or not they want a new mech or a new build.

I'm not saying that FF and Endo should be free, if you want it for your mech then you should obviously pay for it, but having to pay for it over and over and over again is sort of a huge detractor for no real purpose other than to sap C-Bills away from your account.

New engines? Yeah, those are expensive, but guess what? You can pull them out of one mech and stick it in another.

New weapons? Same thing, but you can strip one mech down to build out another mech and try it out, and if you don't like it then you can put them back with minimal effort.

But FF and Endo as modifiers shouldn't cost a significant fee to put on and take off once purchased because if you can take out/put on literally every other thing in the game without a fee, then why have the fees there at all?

If the older players don't notice the pinch at all because they have a lot of C-Bills, then I feel it would be beneficial as a whole to just remove the associated fees once purchased.

It doesn't add value or fun or strategy to the game, and it only serves to gate progress and frustrate newer players who aren't as familiar with the systems the game uses.

Edited by PsylentFox, 13 August 2023 - 08:05 PM.

[KursedVixen]

PsylentFox, on 13 August 2023 - 08:04 PM, said:

You wouldn't be able to do this per canon as this would not be possible to have because things like Endo and Ferro Fibrous are essentially custom made- the armor plating needs to be molded into shape and the endosteel structure is essentially lathed/machined from 'blank' blocks of endo steel, so every single piece created is for that mech and that mech alone. Now, you could, I suppose have this for certain mech chassis, as the structure and armor plating would essentially be similar (aside from weapon mounts and hardpoints), and as for Artemis the Artemis sensors are mounted to the missile packs themselves.

However, having Artemis on your LRMs should NOT lock you into using SRMs with Artemis as well. A lot of Mechs have ART on one missile system and not another, and you should be able to mix and match at will because of this.


Yes, I understand that the current long-going players don't really have to worry about the FF/Endo fees associated with tinkering with builds because they have multiple years worth of C-Bills saved up, but the game, I think, will likely experience a new swell of popularity once the new MW product is announced with more details, which will bring in a new player base. However, if the number of C-Bill gates are too much then they will quickly find that their progress is stymied because if they don't realize that switching back and forth creates a penalty then they will end up wasting a lot of C-bills trying out different builds.

And when they do notice?

Well then that forces them to cut their build ideas down significantly as they are forced to find a small handful of mechs with builds that work (or are 'meta') and will be stuck with that until they accrue more C-bills, which then forces them to decide on whether or not they want a new mech or a new build.

I'm not saying that FF and Endo should be free, if you want it for your mech then you should obviously pay for it, but having to pay for it over and over and over again is sort of a huge detractor for no real purpose other than to sap C-Bills away from your account.

New engines? Yeah, those are expensive, but guess what? You can pull them out of one mech and stick it in another.

New weapons? Same thing, but you can strip one mech down to build out another mech and try it out, and if you don't like it then you can put them back with minimal effort.

But FF and Endo as modifiers shouldn't cost a significant fee to put on and take off once purchased because if you can take out/put on literally every other thing in the game without a fee, then why have the fees there at all?

If the older players don't notice the pinch at all because they have a lot of C-Bills, then I feel it would be beneficial as a whole to just remove the associated fees once purchased.

It doesn't add value or fun or strategy to the game, and it only serves to gate progress and frustrate newer players who aren't as familiar with the systems the game uses.

yeah like the howl or sunspider or roughneck are cannon, also look at clan mechs and IS mechs their armor values are all wrong.... Canon has already been thrown out the window...