99 replies to this topic

[IceTitan]

My Dragon is fully decked out endo, dbl sinks, xl engine and always costs me on average 50K to repair when it gets knocked out. It depends heavily on the weapon types, ammo, how many areas are damaged/destroyed, if you have endo or FF, endo is alot cheaper though. If your using streaks, streaks are expensive to repair and re-arm, etc etc etc.

[Boswelli]

quasihuman, on 27 October 2012 - 12:09 PM, said:

If you win, you get salvage which reduces your repair costs, so win more. You can increase your win ratio greatly if you join a gaming clan.

Where someone is winning there must be someone who is losing too, so it's obvious to say "win more".

But thanks PGI for the YLW, which gives +30% income AND has only half of the standard repair costs

[DarkraiOfDoom]

Boswelli, on 28 October 2012 - 03:29 PM, said:

But thanks PGI for the YLW, which gives +30% income AND has only half of the standard repair costs

its like a founders mech! only Japanese Chinese

[Mr G]

I don't see why so many people are so convinced that atlases should be cost prohibitive to play, especailly for newer players who will get damage, die and lose more. They aren't walking incarnations of death gods, even the "hero" mech doesn't live up to that! Yeah they have a lot of weapons and armor, but they are also slow and ponderous. This is a "simulation" game not a table top. While many of the rules from table top are useful not all of the balancing methods from it are applicable. We don't have battle values, we can't melee, rare tech is generally easily available. Hit locations are not randomly decided, execpt for a few convergence issues of course.

Why should someone who drops $20+ on a mech not be able to play it routinely because they can't afford repairs? Now I'm not saying that the advanced tech shouldn't increase repair bills, but it also shouldn't be so high that at some point they can't play a mech that they either grinded several days to get or droppped actual cash on. Even if they lose every match with no kills. Having them always break even or maybe even go a little negative, say 3-10k would be good. However 50k down on a loss sounds like a bit much considering, unless you have a premium account and a founders or "hero" mech, you only earn like 150k+, before repairs and such, on a win.

Edited by Mr G, 28 October 2012 - 04:27 PM.

[latdheretic]

As far as I am concerned, repair costs are right, rearm costs are too high. I think leaving repair bills the same, and halving the cost of ammo would be about right. That will lessen the discrepancy between laser boats, and missile boats in the post battle money hit.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

I am the busy adult gamer who has maybe an hour to play every couple days or so that F2P makes its money on. Since, I don't have time to grind out C-bills so I'll end up buying my first mech (which will be a Dragon). However, since I don't have time to play much I mostly PUG and since PUGs lose probably 1/2-3/4 of the time, I just can't justify spending more money on the expensive tech heavy mechs since the cost of operation is way higher than what I make averaged over time. Obviously the solution would be to join a group but since I might play 3 hours a week, I'm never going to really meet the standards most groups are going to want.

All of this does have some interesting implications for the economics of tech selection. Basically, those casual gamers that want to run assault mechs or higher tech mechs or ammo dependant mechs are pretty much forced to buy premium in order to keep playing their chosen mech. That's good for Piranha since it will bring in more money. However, those who buy premium regularly will be in the minority and those who are more like me and might drop $5 every couple of months on a new mech and a bay to keep it in will run mechs without all the nice toys putting us and our teams at a competative disadvantage which further lowers our win/loss ratio. Continuously getting beat up on reduces the enjoyment of the game for casual gamers causing them to be more likely to say screw you guys I'm going home. Of course, I'm sure Piranha has an economist helping them balance these forces and frankly since I'm an CBT guy anyways I'm not exactly going anywhere.

.

[AEgg]

Repair costs aren't consistent at all right now, even with the same mech, and the same damage to it.

I've had exactly the same damage to a mech (everything gone but CT and then cored) four or five times, and repair bills have varied from under 30k to over 170k. There's a known issue with the system (a dev commented that they're working on a fix in the beta forums), but I don't know if the variation in costs for the same damage is random or if there's something causing it. Maybe there's some hidden variable that impacts repair costs that we don't know about, or maybe they're just broken.

[Roger Spectre]

Blue Ivy Carter, on 28 October 2012 - 10:03 AM, said:

I agree that the repair costs are ridiculous... Actually went on the forum to see if there were changes regarding this lol

Is this not relevant (from the topic "What to expect Monday")?

Quote

On Monday, there will be a tweak to address some of the repair bill issues.

[Kadassa]

Yea I figured out what lost tech stuff cost alot and actually removed them from my mechs...I run a Cent forgot the variant and I run an UAC5 and 3 srm6 with three tons of ammo each, and standard armor and Endo steel internals. costs about 50K to refit repair and I had one odd instance where the armor repair spiked at 50K one match when it had been at 15k with more damage to it other matches. so I'm thinking that perhapse there is an intermittent bug in the armor calculations but thats just a guess

Hah pretty much said what aegg said but I have to agree with him its probably a bug or hidden variable

[Haroldwolf]

ForsakenImp, on 28 October 2012 - 11:03 AM, said:

I personally like that in super advanced mechs, you need to win to make it cost effective. You can't run a FF armor Endo steel atlas with awesome weapons every round, you'll go broke. Still, one should be able to earn their Cbills in a way they enjoy.

One idea floating around is to reward damage done and damage taken. I would love to see the base reward lowered, but the other rewards raised so on average one would earn slightly more than normal, and bigger mechs (with bigger costs) would earn appropriately more. LRMboats would get most of their bills from damage done. Assaults, Damage Taken and Damage done. Lights, from capping (even if they didn't actually win) and the spotting mechanic. I love this idea, but don't think there's enough time left in the beta to fully balance it.

Still, I think the rough costs we have now will re-enforce the lore- Mediums are the workhorses, lights are common, heavies show up, and Assaults are precious commodities. Running a medium (unless you throw in everything + leather bucket seats) isn't too hard on the cbills, you still gain quite a few. Lights, ditto. Heavies have slim margins, and assaults may as well be firing the c-bills directly at the enemy.

IRL you'd pull back your mechs before they were destroyed. We do the same now with tanks and apcs depending on the mission. So far all we have is whack-a-mech for missions. Hope there will be better and clearer missions after we go Open Beta.

Kadassa, on 28 October 2012 - 05:17 PM, said:

Yea I figured out what lost tech stuff cost alot and actually removed them from my mechs...I run a Cent forgot the variant and I run an UAC5 and 3 srm6 with three tons of ammo each, and standard armor and Endo steel internals. costs about 50K to refit repair and I had one odd instance where the armor repair spiked at 50K one match when it had been at 15k with more damage to it other matches. so I'm thinking that perhapse there is an intermittent bug in the armor calculations but thats just a guess

Hah pretty much said what aegg said but I have to agree with him its probably a bug or hidden variable

I run a similar Cent with standard armor and frame. Not too expensive to repair.

Edited by Haroldwolf, 28 October 2012 - 05:36 PM.

[CrashieJ]

i think it is a bug with the repair costs, but I would actually like repair costs to a bit higher without being ridiculous. It'll deter the usual Roflstomping by Atlases and AmmoCats and bring more varied mechs onto the field. Ammo cost for AMS ammo and lighter ammos should be a bit cheaper and machineguns having the range of "light" variants with the power of "heavy variants". PPCs should be freaking artificial lightning and not blobs.

also, it doesn't quite matter if you're running a custom or an trial mech, in the right hands Trials can stomp heavier weight classes with ease if you know how to utilize their weapons properly.

I do request more compensation for doing damage and assists, along with a percentage off repair costs if we do achieve victory. That way playing "Mr. Missile Sponge" for allies doesn't seem like a waste of resources...

[Scrawny Cowboy]

Yar, when my atlas is totalled... I'm looking at about 70-90k c-bills for armor alone. Then about another 50k for the 360 XL engine, and whatever ammo I've used up from 3tons of SRM's and 4tons of Gauss.

Just to keep my budget within reason, I usually have to leave the XL engine at 25%.

Oh well, wipe coming anyways.

[Sean von Steinike]

Yawn. More whines about something that is being tweaked.

[Zerethon]

EDMW CSN, on 28 October 2012 - 01:30 PM, said:

In fact, i actively discourage people from spending MC on mechs unless they are pretty darn sure they CAN pilot it. And a final point, Founder's mech might have a perm c-bill bonuses, but who wants to pilot just 4 mechs ?

I Myself as a -LEGENDARY- founder like yourself, would like to pilot only 2 mechs:

My custom catapult C1(f) and my "Laserknight" CN9-AL Centurion.

I'm -INFURIATED- by the repair cost bug (Hoping it is one) since i mainly pug, and most of the time it literally comes down to 6-8 of the enemy left to JUST ME on my team.

Why? I'm that good, i understand mechwarrior, i know how to hit and run, to use terrain, etc. If i die early it's because i got far too cocky on a kill and it's my own fault.

But being rewarded negative credits for surviving to being the last person standing and dropping 3 people in a row on the enemy team before finally getting killed is g*****n frustrating. Why do i get penalized so hard for making a stand? yeah i got the hell blown out of me eventually but rather than just run and make it a free cap I WENT DOWN IN A BLAZE OF GLORY AND BROKEN MECH PARTS.

Think of it this way: Not only does this penalize people who just go leeroy, this also penalizes people like me with that "NOT WITHOUT A FIGHT YOU DONT!" mentality as well. This is detractory to the game.

Also, The variant system for pilot upgrades as well, but that's a whole different rant (In short - It needs to go away)

[Zerbob]

"My repairs are so high because I run XL!" Well...yeah. You're running an engine that costs as much as some complete 'Mechs, it's going to be expensive. And why does every 'Mech need an XL engine? Out of the 6 or so in my 'Mech, maybe 2 will run XL and those are for when I'm playing with friends. You really don't need a maxed out 'Mech to do well, in fact I usually do better in my more standard builds because my mental state is slightly different. When you run a XL engine and have more guns then brains, you get the idea that you can rambo, and thus, you die. If you run a standard engine and have the typical restraints, you're more careful and make smarter decisions, resulting in lower repair bills.

Also pro-tip: Don't run XL on an assault 'Mech. It's unnecessary and really just a bad idea.

[Hugh Manatee]

It's not just about the cost/balance of heavy vs light(because TBH light VS assault is kinda balanced by speed and skill) or losttech vs oldschool, it's about the players ability to progress in a manner thats fun and at least semi psychologically rewarding. Before I went legendary I was in the glitch beta key bunch, I'd been MWing since MW2 on an old Pentium 90(I didn't get founders for the economy stuff I got t cause MW has been an awesome part of my life for a long, long time, since I saw the old cartoon, I'd shelled out at least twice the legendary costs on mech warrior games over the years, but the boosts were a nice bonus). I got to try the game with the trial mechs but the progress was way way way too slow, especially compared to games like Tribes ascend or guild wars. At that time it would take weeks to get even a commando, never mind any upgrades to the engine or guns to put on it, where in Tribes, in that amount of time, you'd have your hands on one of the top tier guns. Also tribes has a bunch of freebie "achivements" and "one ups" that occure(IE cap the flag X times and get a badge, your first win of the day gets a bonus payout, they even have a "tell a friend" reward thing) Each of these gives you a little boost(economically and psychologically) on your way to getting the top tier stuff, or you can go on a spree on a few cheaper perks or weapons. (edit the reason I bring this up is this kind of stuff kept me playing tribes, and got me to shell out for tribes gold/bundle kits, and it's still got me going at least a half hour a day)

Then they fixed the economy so you could make a lot of progress, win or lose, even using expensive gear. Now something has obviously glitched in the costs of armor and maybe ammo, and we're back to slogging slowly and painfully, sometimes going backwards, and it's demoralizing again....

A gamer needs to feel he's leveling up or something to keep at these F2P stuff, otherwise the freebies quit and the paying carebears got noone to shoot at....

Also a huge part of the fun of MW has always been the tweaking and customization in the mechlab, adding a slow, grindy C-bill chore to the second best part of the game doesn't seem very fun...

Edited by Hugh Manatee, 28 October 2012 - 09:45 PM.

[KGrahn]

Hmm, I rarely troll around forums - Even tho I enjoy browsing through. ..Anyways. I picked airwolfs post, as an example, about nothing specific in it, but as typical post about ignorance.

What points out here, is that there is words used like in this manner - YOU stupid, ME correct, YOU not smart, ME LOT SMARTER - eg. typical ramblings, what you expect to hear from 5 year old kids.

For me, this particular post exhumes something like that this game was made for YOU. That its your right get a game whichy costs nothing, and is perfect in all aspects for YOU, and everything which differentiates from your yearnings, is something that doesnt fit in game.

One thing straight guys - These games are made for earning money for developers. there might be some glorious ideas behind, to provide exellent experience about worlds beyond for players, but when it comes to the bottom line, they want to earn money. They care very little about your experiences or opinions as long their game provides them steady stream of earnings. Its ok that you like the game, ok if you dont, they probably choose to make great game, but not on their own expense. If the game proves to be fail, or some aspects do not work, they try to fix it according to the ifs and wants from the customers, but in the end, it all again comes to money. If the customers demand something that costs more than it brings, it will not be implemented ever. Unless the investment brings something to table, monetary or something else, theres a very small chance for it happening.

This brings me into the real issue at hand. Ask yourself, do you realise how free to play models work?

Is it smart to design a game, which costs millions to launch, and then is given free to the players, and they can just play indefinetly, untill they have all the perks and gear, without paying a dime to the game developers?

Or would it be more clever to design game economy in a such way, that its free from the start, which attracts large playerbase to the basic level of gamplay, but which gets harder at later levels to maintain with repair costs, ammoes etc., but which you can still pay, if you pay a few euros, dollars to get premiums perks, like extra credits per game. Those who want to play for free, advance much slower to the lategame, and are forced to come back to the lowbie mechs, to earn credits which they can again use for few games with larger mechs, better equipments etc. And while they play lowbie levels, they keep bringing more people with them, as the lowbie levels are also more active this way.

Theres several models which work for free to play games, this is jsut one of them - one of the more successful ones, mind that. I got no idea, what they are planning to do with MWO, but I would guess, developers main goal is to earn money, and with best way there is. So quit ******** about being cheap if you play for free. If you play premium, you can be sure they will eventually balance it in a such way that it attracts you to pay up for premium account, and you can be the wallet warrior.

xXairwolfXx, on 27 October 2012 - 12:14 PM, said:

This Is not such a smart move from the makers.
What's the point in buying upgrades now ?
Too punish you and get you into debt while playing. your customized mech?

This kinda behaviour reminds me of blizzard /wow everytime a patch comes out they make the game mechanics
differend so they can leech you out of your money.
This a great game.too play I realy enjoy it......
And it's still in the beta version tho...
As a costumer I was planning to buy some mc.
But this gives me kinda the feeling.
Your more battling a lost cause . Costumer against The creator of the game.

The idea of the game is more becoming how can i rip of the player the most.
Give him/her the feeling of enstranglement/entrapment to buy MC.
When it comes too the money making of the game
you basicly waste the players time into boredom grinding.
Forcing the player to buy mc or ****. (Instead of having fun).

Greed kills this game.
Kinda dissapointed.

Hope they change their minds.

Edited by KGrahn, 28 October 2012 - 10:23 PM.

[Nunchaku]

DrCapon, on 28 October 2012 - 09:49 AM, said:

This guy wins.

[Red Dox]

Quote

"My repairs are so high because I run XL!" Well...yeah. You're running an engine that costs as much as some complete 'Mechs, it's going to be expensive. And why does every 'Mech need an XL engine? Out of the 6 or so in my 'Mech, maybe 2 will run XL and those are for when I'm playing with friends. You really don't need a maxed out 'Mech to do well, in fact I usually do better in my more standard builds because my mental state is slightly different. When you run a XL engine and have more guns then brains, you get the idea that you can rambo, and thus, you die. If you run a standard engine and have the typical restraints, you're more careful and make smarter decisions, resulting in lower repair bills.

Some of us can also play with brains while having a maxed out mech. You will play a bit more careful as a light with XL because you know that you can´t take the same ammount of dmg like with a normal engine. And if we can afford the supertech, why should we not take it?
Also in my case, I don´t complain about how awful the XL repaircosts are in general. I get steamed up because something seems simply wrong, as demonstrated here
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__1289907
By logic alone heavier mechs with same XL or even better engine and other better tech should cost more, not less then a lighter mech with a XL.

-----Red Dox

[Blackfire1]

I would say if your repair is so high. Try to pilot your mech better. Yea, LRM'***** like a buss. Guasscats are everywhere. Ect ect.
But there is no excuse for good tactics.

Remember.... Mechs ARE expensive. Its the reason why Mediums are the "work horse" of the Inner Sphere. They were cheap for their weight and did a great job at things.

Seeing assaults on the battlefield was almost uncommon outside of the major armies.

Plus remember this. There will be added benefits later on to balance out the high cbill repairs. bonuses from rank. Planets being held. ect ect.