9 replies to this topic

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Given this game is in maintenance mode and given how often engines and stuff are on sale, what are the chances of that just being made free or unlimited? Are these really driving sales of anything anymore? Given the number of mechs would it really be problematic that people can afford more of them?

I've always hated that this game wants to force you pay for every possible engine upgrade you could make, changing between artemis/endo/etc. It's also felt counter-intuitive to one of the major components of this game, which is to tune and experiment. I would ask whether this could just get remove as something the game even bothers to check but without engineering support doubt that can be done easily.

Ultimately c-bills being used to limit how fast one can access all the mechs/content sort of makes sense, but limiting how you can build has always seemed wrong and if it isn't driving sales of something, then what is the point in keeping it?

Same for consumables, those should've stopped being a c-bill tax a long time ago.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 09 November 2023 - 02:05 PM.

[LordNothing]

i stopped caring about engines some time ago. i recently found like 30 unused std300s in my inventory and selling 25 of them fixed my cbill crisis. 500 medium lasers.

Edited by LordNothing, 09 November 2023 - 06:54 PM.

[Meep Meep]

The cost of equipment and skill nodes and endo ect was designed to slow progression at the start since there wasn't really a huge selection of mechs. You even had to pay for ammo replacement then iirc. But now at the games twilight hours its not really a positive mechanic and should be toned down to token amounts of cost just so people don't spam buy them as that increases the load on the database server that keeps up with such things.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Meep Meep, on 09 November 2023 - 07:58 PM, said:

The cost of equipment and skill nodes and endo ect was designed to slow progression at the start since there wasn't really a huge selection of mechs. You even had to pay for ammo replacement then iirc. But now at the games twilight hours its not really a positive mechanic and should be toned down to token amounts of cost just so people don't spam buy them as that increases the load on the database server that keeps up with such things.

IDK if it increases DB load, depends on whether each individual item is a record or just an integer in a record, but I kinda wish they had just removed that from the DB and from the game before they pulled engineering support.

[Meep Meep]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 09 November 2023 - 08:00 PM, said:

IDK if it increases DB load, depends on whether each individual item is a record or just an integer in a record, but I kinda wish they had just removed that from the DB and from the game before they pulled engineering support.

Every time you change anything on your mech be it just one point of armor or swapping around weapons or buying or selling etc and you save it that data will be sent to the db so when the game server needs to pull info for the match it matches the loadout in the client. For one person spamming loadouts in the mechlab its not a measurable load. For hundreds or thousands swapping and saving its a huge load and why it sometimes takes so long to log into the client because the db server is straining to keep up with user demand. Eve online had huge issues with its game because of all the db calls which a traditional hdd raid array could barely keep up with and they had to invest in what was then cutting edge electric memory technology. It was cumbersome to maintain and dram based and very expensive but it was a game changer on performance across the board for the game. Nowadays with cheap superfast flash storage this is no longer an issue but communication bandwidth and amount of storage needed is.

Edited by Meep Meep, 09 November 2023 - 08:58 PM.

[Curccu]

Us veterans do not give a damn about CB but removing cost would probably help new players a lot, sucks to play bad and suboptimal mechs because cannot afford to build them better.

Would make alt seal clubbing easier also...that wouldn't be good.

[martian]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 09 November 2023 - 02:02 PM, said:

Given this game is in maintenance mode and given how often engines and stuff are on sale, what are the chances of that just being made free or unlimited? Are these really driving sales of anything anymore? Given the number of mechs would it really be problematic that people can afford more of them?

I've always hated that this game wants to force you pay for every possible engine upgrade you could make, changing between artemis/endo/etc. It's also felt counter-intuitive to one of the major components of this game, which is to tune and experiment. I would ask whether this could just get remove as something the game even bothers to check but without engineering support doubt that can be done easily.

Ultimately c-bills being used to limit how fast one can access all the mechs/content sort of makes sense, but limiting how you can build has always seemed wrong and if it isn't driving sales of something, then what is the point in keeping it?

Same for consumables, those should've stopped being a c-bill tax a long time ago.

I think that it is quite simple: PGI (and MWO) is a business. It needs money to survive and to thrive. It has to make enough money every single month. The C-Bills grind acts as incentive for MWO players to spend their money and buy MCs (or 'Mechpacks direclty), so they save their time and effort. Many F2P games use this type of operation.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Meep Meep, on 09 November 2023 - 08:56 PM, said:

Every time you change anything on your mech be it just one point of armor or swapping around weapons or buying or selling etc and you save it that data will be sent to the db so when the game server needs to pull info for the match it matches the loadout in the client. For one person spamming loadouts in the mechlab its not a measurable load. For hundreds or thousands swapping and saving its a huge load and why it sometimes takes so long to log into the client because the db server is straining to keep up with user demand. Eve online had huge issues with its game because of all the db calls which a traditional hdd raid array could barely keep up with and they had to invest in what was then cutting edge electric memory technology. It was cumbersome to maintain and dram based and very expensive but it was a game changer on performance across the board for the game. Nowadays with cheap superfast flash storage this is no longer an issue but communication bandwidth and amount of storage needed is.

If what you say is true, we would already have that issue because your inventory is already checked with load out changes

martian, on 10 November 2023 - 08:07 AM, said:

I think that it is quite simple: PGI (and MWO) is a business. It needs money to survive and to thrive. It has to make enough money every single month. The C-Bills grind acts as incentive for MWO players to spend their money and buy MCs (or 'Mechpacks direclty), so they save their time and effort. Many F2P games use this type of operation.

That wholly depends on what drives purchases in this game and I don't think it is MC, there is a reason mech packs and legends are cash only, and it is to avoid MC hoarders spending their MC on the packs because no one is really using MC for cbills nor is anyone buying MC with that intent.

[martian]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 November 2023 - 09:26 AM, said:

That wholly depends on what drives purchases in this game and I don't think it is MC, there is a reason mech packs and legends are cash only, and it is to avoid MC hoarders spending their MC on the packs because no one is really using MC for cbills nor is anyone buying MC with that intent.

MWO has thousands of player accounts. You do not know how the majority of players spends their MCs.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

martian, on 10 November 2023 - 09:33 AM, said:

MWO has thousands of player accounts. You do not know how the majority of players spends their MCs.

Neither do you, but you can generally tell what sells well by what they are pushing constantly for several years. If mech packs werent doing well they would have stopped. MC sells but there is a lot of uses for MC besides just c-bills. I remember back in the day they had mentioned that premium wasn't really a seller either which is probably why they hand it out like candy.