49 replies to this topic

[Althae Rhea]

One solution was to just remove trials altogether. Give a choice from a few basic mech variants to choose from to a starting player.

No more no repair problems
Instant acess to the Mechlab (imo the one of the most important features of any battlemech game which one was to play for hours to get acess currently - in a not very fun environment with crappy mechs to boot - It would greatly increase the fun for new players while keeping them playing through the beggining)
Performance rewards like it has been said - perhaps even none obstructive achievments like 1st time you overheat in your account they give you a free heat sink, serves as a reward and as a sort of learning tool.

As long as they keep making hero variants and skins and what not i dont think they would need to gimp their game so much just making it unplayable without spending MC, ultimatly driving everyone off.

[Xenok]

Make winning a bigger reward and loosing a smaller one. 25k difference is ridiculous anyway. I think winning should be a scale based on how you did. If you got 25k from all the other stuff (Kills, Assists, spots...) maybe that gives a victory bonus when on the winning side of 50k-100k (2x-4x the other stuff, when on the winning side, with a scale that increases the multiplier the more awesome you are).

Alternately you could drop the looser reward to 50k rather than 75k and provide the awesomeness bonus to the looser as well. If a person played great, but had a team that was not so great why not reward the good player there with the bonus? Make it a multiplier though so that if you spot, kill, assist and destroy systems its much larger than if you only do one of them.

Less stick more carrot and you will change the behavior of these people.

[Snapfishes]

Just shooting a quick question in.

Does anyone think once community warefare is in full swing we will see less of this and the exploit users will be single out quicker?

Between the smaller PUG pool and communities policing their members.

[elsie]

There is no difference between the trial mechs and the versions you can buy with c-bills, except that they can't be modified (setting aside the cbill and xp issue). It is more an issue with the mentality of the player than a problem with the mech. You've all seen it, and possibly participated in it. Whether it is an over-inflated sense of entitlement or a need to rush to the "endgame" (and I don't really see an endgame in MWO), it boils down to "I've got to get it NOW" and whatever the quickest and easiest method to do so is the one that is utilized. It doesn't matter to them if it spoils the enjoyment for others or shows their lack of teamwork. And unfortunately, when they finally do get past their trial mechs, their attitude will not be any different.

The main problem is how to dissuade the 'bad' behavior and encourage teamwork without turning them off of the game entirely. I think the simplest answer would be that the game they are in has to finish before they can take another mech out of the bay - kind of like they can't be in two places at the same time. Perhaps even boost the rewards for actually accomplishing something in a trial mech - same win/loss cbills, but an extra 5% for damage, spotting, kills, kill assists, capture and capture assists, while maintaining the no cost for repair/rearm. This will slightly accelerate their need for rushing through the 'starter stuff', encourage play, and encourage them to stay in the game. Maybe even toss them a 5 cbill tip if they stay till the mission is actually over.


elsie

[Trashcan Man]

elsie, on 30 October 2012 - 02:07 PM, said:

There is no difference between the trial mechs and the versions you can buy with c-bills, except that they can't be modified (setting aside the cbill and xp issue). It is more an issue with the mentality of the player than a problem with the mech. You've all seen it, and possibly participated in it. Whether it is an over-inflated sense of entitlement or a need to rush to the "endgame" (and I don't really see an endgame in MWO), it boils down to "I've got to get it NOW" and whatever the quickest and easiest method to do so is the one that is utilized. It doesn't matter to them if it spoils the enjoyment for others or shows their lack of teamwork. And unfortunately, when they finally do get past their trial mechs, their attitude will not be any different.

I have to disagree with those statements;
There is a difference between trial 'mechs and purchased 'mechs. Trial 'mechs are based on TT variants and are optimized for TT play. (some of them poorly at that) Purchased 'mechs are optimized by their users for MWO, not BT. Some of the stock variants perform well enough that they don't need to be changed, but generally they run into one of two problems:
1. Heat dissipation. Trials are generally poorly heat optimized.
2. Over-generalized design. Many of the selected trials have generalized designs, a few tons devoted to LRMs, a few to a ballistic weapon, a couple medium lasers. A 50 ton 'mech doesn't have the tonnage to be general purpose, and when you have 7 team mates, there's no great need to be general purpose.

Being stuck in a trial 'mech at all is not where people want to be, and the fact that they can't access the 'mech lab for their first four or so hours of gameplay means that a large part of the appeal of mechwarrior games is unavailable to new players, that's a turn off. But if it's a turn-off that gets some people to throw down some real money for some MC, then clearly the devs need to keep it. But being stuck in a trial 'mech that's poorly optimized for the game that it's in adds insult to injury.

Additionally, the scourge of players reporting that they are being run up against hard core groups out to grind as many cbills as possible out of the open beta influx of new people is probably making some players throw their hands up in the air and say, "Why bother trying to win if we're just going to get rolled anyways? It's better to get enough money so I can buy a 'mech of my own and wait for MM fixes to come in."

MM fixes are on the way, so hopefully that won't be cause for players to suicide much longer, but that still leaves how bad the trials are.

Why not take a poll to find which variants would be the best for trial mechs? Or, find out which stock variants in each weight class are least likely to be modified by their users and set those as the trials. (Like the hunchback 4G, catapult K2, and Atlas D which perform well enough) Or perhaps PGI should consider making the game their own a little more by introducing new MWO optimized variants, perhaps inspired by some popular player builds, but watered down slightly.

Edited by Trashcan Man, 30 October 2012 - 04:42 PM.

[Watchit]

Good idea Trashcan. Some less generalized builds for trial mech might help improve new player performance.

All this talk about trial mechs being un-fun and/or unoptimized for mwo play gave me an idea. How about trial mechs having limited customization? Perhaps bringing them to the full mech lab menu, but with certain things blocked off such as changing engine size, buying upgrades, and/or limiting what weapons can be changed out. For example perhaps you have a trial 4G, you may only be able change out things like armor and lasers for more ac20 ammo and heatsinks, but your engine and ac/20 are locked in.

That way new players would be more engaged, would get a taste of what customizing a mech would be like, and allow trial mechs to be more optimized.

It's just a thought I'm throwing out there.

[Watchit]

Update: http://mwomercs.com/.../66088-farming/

-Trial mechs are locked in like owned mechs

-Quitting/diconnecting early: you will only recieve C-bill up to the point you disconnected (N.B. You still make all you money if you disconnect/quit after you die)

-Players who AFK/Idle will be kicked from a match

[CallMeGunny]

I have a few ideas..

1- Remove win/loss set rewards entirely and replace them with a multiplier.

Loss= 100% C-Bill Multiplier. (Earned awards with no bonus)
Win= 135% C-Bill Multiplier.

(Percentages may need to be raised slightly, due to 25,000 C-Bills per match not automatically being awarded.)

This should apply to all performance related rewards earned during battle. This way you get ZERO rewards if you do nothing, win or lose: but even laggers and DC'ers who have so much as spotted someone get a reward. And the better said individual did, the more they get.

So assume you had 6 assists in a winning match, with 25,000 worth of salvage, as of right now you'd get the following rewards:
Win: 25,000
Assist: 7,500*6=45,000
Salvage: 25,000
Total: 95.000.

But with these changes, you'd instead get:
Assist*6=45,000
Salvage: 25,000
Win= (subtotal*1.35) 70,000*1.35=94,500 (Compared to only 70,000 if you lost the match.)

And if you earned more awards, you'd obviously see a bigger increase in what you earned during that match.

I repeat: Multipliers may need a numbers tweak due to removing the 25,000 per match earned, but the general rule still applies and I personally think it's a good idea. Or even easier, simply increase all base rewards by a small amount: Ie- Kills and assists to 9,000 from 7,500 and so on.)



2- Fix C-Bill rewards for assists and kills.
I guess kill reward less than assist to avoid killstealing, but AT LEAST make them the same (7,500 C-Bills, as Assists are now.)

3- Award small amounts based on surviving teammates.

This is tricky, but the idea in my head is this:

There should be a 500 C-Bill multiplied as a "survival bonus." IE- If your team loses, but you were the last alive you should earn 4,000 C-Bills. The first to die should earn 500. The second should earn 1,000, etc. The idea is that for each teammate dead, you earn 500*(1+DeadTeammates) calculated at the time of your death: To encourage players to stay alive.

There is one modifier to this, though:

If you are still alive at the end of a match and WON BY DESTROYING ALL ENEMY MECHS: The C-Bill award should be capped at how many players have died.

IE- You destroyed all enemy mechs, with 4 of your team left alive. On your team the rewards would be:The first to die won 500, then 1,000 for the second, 1,500 for the third, 2,000 for the fourth: And everyone left standing should be awarded 4,000 C-Bills (the cap) for surviving.

However, if you won by objective: The C-Bill rewards should stop at the numbers of players dead on your team. IE: 4 players died, so the remaining players are each awarded 2,500 C-Bills, as they were the "5th left standing".

The reason for this last multiplier is because a win by objective is not combat related, so a combat multiplier cap does not seem appropriate.

This should apply to both the winning and losing team, as a reward for the players who survived the longest on each one. The winning team would still gain more due to their C-Bill multipler for a win, but the best players on each team would earn more than the not-so-good players.

AND the reward by itself is not enough to encourage hiding and idling, even with a victory multiplier.

All in all, these rewards are not very large BUT they do give incentive to play well without making the rewards entirely lopsided. The winning team will get more for their efforts, and the better players will get more than players who did nothing.

Edited by CallMeGunny, 19 March 2013 - 03:11 AM.

[Hayashi]

While under normal circumstances I'd complain about necroing a 4 month old thread, these are good ideas, to me at least. Especially the multiplier one.

It's also interesting to see how the Savior Kill and Defensive Kill have applied some of the early ideas.

[Watchit]

I agree there are some good ideas in there, I especially like the percentage for losing/winning. Though you probably should have gone ahead and made your own thread, seeing as suiciding is pretty much a non issue now. And afkers are a lot less common as well.