Posted 29 January 2013 - 02:27 AM
Sasuga echoes my sentiments exactly.
I started playing 3-4 weeks ago, ground out the extra money on top of the newbie c-bills for a dc atlas... aaaaand it looks like I won't be getting any more chassis any time soon. The current C-Bill accrual rate is painfully slow, even when using the TS servers to drop 4-man groups. $20 for one mech when I can get an older but good entire game for that much or a brand spanking new top-shelf game for $50-$60 just isn't feasible. I would like to spend some money on this game, maybe get a couple of other Atlas chassis so I can use the 90k xp I've racked up on my one DC so far, and maybe get a medium or heavy something for when I'm tired of being so slow. $5-10 is something almost anyone should be able to come up with every 2-3 weeks to spend on a mech.
Basically, right now for any new player there's this huge gulf of time from where he gets his first mech, caps all the tier one pilot abilities, and when he can get a second mech. This is especially painful if the new player ends up buying one of the more poorly configured mechs or discovers that medium mechs don't have enough armor for him to learn how to use his weapons effectively. The options become
1: grind out a crapton of C-Bills,
2: go buy a new chassis outright with real world money. Do you have $20 you're willing to basically lose if it turns out you don't like the chassis you bought? I bet a lot more people will take that risk for $5 than for $20. At $5 even if you hate it it's still worth it since you can find a configuration you can put up with and master the chassis so you can see if you like a different version of that mech.
3: stop playing since it's going to take way more time or money than you're willing to invest in exploring the different aspects of a game that involves you dying quite a lot and being on the bottom half of leaderboards most matches, since you're still learning how to move, fire, and coordinate with a bunch of other people using controls you're still getting the hang of. (This last bit was much more difficult before the netcode fix though)
Basically, with over 60 chassis already on the table and more on the way, and a skill system that requires people to unlock each tier of skills on three different chassis before moving on to the next, you should be pushing to increase the quantity of purchases. If I can buy one chassis a month for twelve months averaging $7 you've made over $80, which is more than I'd pay for a single software purchase and way more than the zero you'll make off me at $15-20 a chassis (Well.... if you introduce a Hero Executioner/Gladiator I might, MIGHT buy one at $20ish. But that's also dependent on how omnis, jump jets, clan heat sinks/ER weapon generation, community warfare, and the long-term support and balancing of the game work out)
And yes, if they stayed unlocked and I could switch back and forth, I'd be willing to spend $.50-$1.00 to get a particular color or camo pattern on my mech if I really liked it, or maybe $5-$10 there was a particularly awesome camo pattern and I could apply it to everything on my account. I would like to have a gigantic mechbay, and I actually think the price per mechbay is pretty reasonable.
I've played every Mechwarrior title since 2. I would like to support you guys. I plan on spending, over an extended period of time, a significant chunk of money on the game - more significant if my budget loosens up, but I still don't think that a non-hero assault chassis is worth more than $8.
Since the only benefit of a hero chassis can, and indeed should be in: cosmetics, a subtly different hardpoint selection, and a modest economic advantage that does not translate into a direct mech vs mech gameplay benefit i.e. "pay to win" I don't feel the hero status is worth more than a few extra bucks. That's not to say that you shouldn't put out a $70.00 sweet looking Atlas where the faceplate weeps blood, it has a bunch of four-foot crackling lightning rods on its shoulders and the individually rendered heads of Commandos hanging from its waist - you totally should. There should be some bona fide luxury "holycrap someone bought that" rides. And maybe that particular atlas can have the D-DC loadout plus one energy hardpoint in the CT. And maybe if you actually put that out or something similarly awesome I would find a way, such as a birthday, early christmas, unexpected bonus, hold neighbor's dog for ransom sort of thing, to buy it.
But for an "everyday" standard mech configuration? Half the fun of mechwarrior titles was trying out all the speed/weapon combos the various chassis had to offer- especially with the hardpoint limitations in MW4. If I'm going to invest at least as much or more than the retail price of a top-tier game (over time), I expect to have access to at least a large chunk of the standard mech roster (eventually).
3
Sigismund, on 27 January 2013 - 05:46 AM, said:
. For example. 
