29 replies to this topic

[Foster Bondroff]

Since the latest patch and open beta i have this strange feeling that the C-Bill economy has either changed or is bugged.

I have a real hard time getting some money. The C-bill grind speed is way slower than before the patch and the repair cost seem to be way higher.

I am now playing the third evening with founders mech and premium and i have barrely made 3 - 3.5 million C-Bills. This is a real tough grind. Sometimes i even have a hard time making any significiant revenue in my founders medium mech due to repairs cost being extremely high. And i yet haven't installed any DHS or XL engines.

If the C-Bill earning are correct, i heavily suggest an significiant increase in income or a notable decrease in repair costs.

Currently i get the strange feeling premium is needed to make any revenue at all. I am pretty sure thats not working as intended. If it was, i think this is a serious issue with negative impact on long time motivation and the F2P experience.

[Shazarad]

Foster Bondroff, on 31 October 2012 - 02:42 PM, said:

Since the latest patch and open beta i have this strange feeling that the C-Bill economy has either changed or is bugged.

I have a real hard time getting some money. The C-bill grind speed is way slower than before the patch and the repair cost seem to be way higher.

I am now playing the third evening with founders mech and premium and i have barrely made 3 - 3.5 million C-Bills. This is a real tough grind. Sometimes i even have a hard time making any significiant revenue in my founders medium mech due to repairs cost being extremely high. And i yet haven't installed any DHS or XL engines.

If the C-Bill earning are correct, i heavily suggest an significiant increase in income or a notable decrease in repair costs.

Currently i get the strange feeling premium is needed to make any revenue at all. I am pretty sure thats not working as intended. If it was, i think this is a serious issue with negative impact on long time motivation and the F2P experience.

Are you kidding me? This game currently has one of the fastest grinds ever (and the most fun).

Repair costs are nothing. I'm still in shock of the 4-5million repair bills back when they made XLs super super expensive to fix. I always make money every match, even if its only a few thousand. Sure I have premium time and what not, but I'm pretty sure you can still make money every match if you play smart without premium.

No idea what long grind you're talking about. Why can't you just have fun as you play the game and not think about the grind?

[StriplingWarrior]

I too have premium and over the last two nights and only 30 rounds, have cleared in excess of 6M C-bills. If you are not getting close to 200K per win, and 140K per loss, per match in a founders with premium, you are doing it wrong. If you are playing Assaults exclusively instead of mixing lights or mediums in there, or are using DHS, XL engines or any other level 2 tech your repair costs will go up considerably. Have not played in a premade, just a single lancemate. He did not sound like C-bills were any problem for him either. If you like look me up and we can go a few together and see if we cant figure out the problem.

EDIT: That 6M does not count weapon loadout changes for either the Jenny or Fatlass. Just a 300XL and DHS for the Jenny.

Edited by StriplingWarrior, 31 October 2012 - 02:53 PM.

[StarColonelBicen]

All i know is, my credits on the mechs i owned was refunded and i nolonger had those mechs. i had over 12 million C-bills, i bought an Awesome Mech (The Most Expensive) and now i log in, no credits, no c-bills, No Awesome Mech. So i'm like WTF just happened?

Edited by StarColonelBicen, 31 October 2012 - 04:25 PM.

[Cest7]

StarColonelBicen, on 31 October 2012 - 04:25 PM, said:

All i know is, my credits on the mechs i owned was refunded and i nolonger had those mechs. i had over 12 million C-bills, i bought an Awesome Mech (The Most Expensive) and now i log in, no credits, no c-bills, No Awesome Mech. So i'm like WTF just happened?

You missed the open beta launch and the whole reset...

I don't have premium so I gain c-bills 25% slower than all of you.... and I think its daaaaamn slow.

[GatorG]

I have been grinding away, so far bought 2 cicadas(sp), a 300xl, almost enough for a 200xl, have endo on both, double heats on one, and assorted other weapons. Although I will admit to playing a lot since open bata started.

Forgot, obviously not a founder, also now premium time and no MC purchase.

Edited by GatorG, 31 October 2012 - 05:39 PM.

[Flapdrol]

how much money you make heavily depends on what mech you're running.

If I'm running my hunchback 4SP I usually end up high on the scoreboard and often do most damage but my repair bill when completely destroyed is only 50000, so even without premium you still make a healthy profit on a loss. If I dump the 2 streaks I make more money but dont do as well, so I keep them on for now.

build is
standard 225 (200 is fine too, just some leftover tonnage)
medium pulse in head
2 medium lasers left arm, 2 right arm
2 streaks
ams
1 ton ams ammo and 1 ton streak ammo in CT
A lot of double heatsinks. (expensive to install but not expensive to repair)

Edited by Flapdrol, 31 October 2012 - 05:43 PM.

[Kaixers]

I think most founders in the forum tells that everything works just fine. But on the free to play players the C-bill reward is too low to even compensate the repair cost once they have their own mechs.

I personally felt the repair cost hurts a lot and I'm still playing Jenner without DHS or XL engine.
for now if I want to gain some C-bills, I went back to trial mech.

Overall, for non-founders, either the repaircost too damn high or the C-bill reward per game is too damn low.

[Foster Bondroff]

As i said, i am not sure if i experience the real grind or if something is bugged. I make around 140k with a loss and 240k with a win. Those are the same number i got prior to the 26 Oct. reset. But my c-bills do not seem to stag as before. On multiple losses i noticed repairs bills at around 100k-120k, so from the 140k earned only 20k remained in pocket. Not sure why this is, as i so far do not use XL nor DHS. Just Endosteel chassis. But even before i put ED into my founder HKB i noticed incredible high repairs costs.

And now if i just imagine losing 25% founders and 50% premium bonus i would have a hard time to even keep up runing one medium. I cannot believe this is intended, cause it would drive away any F2P folks after a few hours.

[DrVulcan]

Flapdrol, on 31 October 2012 - 05:42 PM, said:

how much money you make heavily depends on what mech you're running.
.....

This is very true.
It is also play style.

If I am running an atlas build that I have dubbed "MrMoneyBags" which is long range, and no special equipment, I often live through the games with little damage and get a good level of kills in. With founders and premium time this means an average of around 250k per game for me.
When I jump in a hunchback with an ac20 and med laser set up, and go in with the front wave group, I die a lot more and often only get 80-120k per match profit with founders and premium time.
On the other hand, for a friend of mine, on a non premium account, using YLW base build the average is around 120-150 just due to different pilot that is a little better at close range combat.

Furthermore, if I use endo and FF (haven't used xl much since openbeta due to cost in repair / purchase) my profit per match is cut roughly in half with either of my builds overall due to cost of death.

In summery, if you want to make money, don't use more than one of: endo/ff/xl; get kills / cap; and don't die

[Indeed]

240k/140k sounds fantastic, because if I have a great game (by my standards, at least) in my hunchy, I'll clear ~130k (100k win + 40k bonus - 10k repair/reload). A decent loss will probably net >50k (75k loss + ~20k bonus - ~50k repair -- those numbers fluctuate a lot, but that's the gist).

So if I'm pretending I die less than I do, I might say 120k/60k avg. I'm not sure if it's broken, but the grind sucks for the new guy because half the game is outfitting your mech. I wonder if the carrot might be a bit too far away to keep guys who can only play an hour or two a week coming back...

Also, I posted this so I could get back to the old profile page. For some reason, I want to see my .40 kdr.

Edit: OK, that isn't how that works.^^ Meh. Seems my actual average is ~41k per match?? Ugh...

Edited by Indeed, 01 November 2012 - 06:40 PM.

[Damien The Omen Thorne]

I accept all your POV.

My two cents....
It took me fourty plus matches in closed beta to earn enough to buy my first mech. And it was a Commando.

While playing trial mechs, you were earning 50k for a defeat and 75k for a win. Plus a few damage credits and a kill here or there, I did not have to worry about repair and rearm costs..

When I started with my Commando, All of a sudden I was earning 100K per win and 75k per defeat.

And my beautiful little mech was only setting me back a maximum of 25K to repair.

Guaranteed minimums of 50k earned per match. The second this was happening, I filled out my mech with the tech I wanted and have not looked back. I still have this original commando. It's not used often but hey, since I've got three pewters on my desk, I'm loving the fact I can have one in game...

About a week ago, I invested in MCs just to outfit an atlas.... and I'll be damned if my repair bills for that mech were absolutely horrendous. I lost c-bills on that mech... never again.

If your costs outweigh your gains, it doesn't make sense. but like most people have said, play smart and play cheap, you'll be affording a decent mech you can upkeep in no time.

And posting a response like this to your thread has allowed me to spread a positive POV that some newbs will read and emulate...

[Phoenix Alien]

So, if you don't have premium play Commando, if you do Atlas with tech 2 is just fine?
With loss and death in tech 2 mech you should at least be able to repair and not lose C-bills.
Otherwise, servers will be flooded with tech 2 cowards, and losing C-bills will turn F2P people away fast.
In order to succeed PGI needs a lot of F2P players, which will gradually become P2P players.
I'm still F2P but I intend to buy MC and spend it on Mech bays, because I love my mechs

[Jagatai Khan]

After the last patch i had everything reset except my founders pack,i didnt get any of the c-bills that id made back as per patch notes said i would and iv also found that i make c-bills really slow even with my founders bonus.

[King Hrothgar]

It's tough to make c-bills, that's for sure. Light mechs give you far more net gain than heavies and assaults. Also, trial mechs typically pay better than owned mechs. I know it's completely backwards, but owned mechs only pay 20k more c-bills per match and if you lose you're likely to have 100-150k in repairs/rearm if using a founders cat. Haven't even touched my atlas yet. Something tells me I'd lose c-bills on a win with it if I died or was heavily damaged. So yeah, recommend you ditch the heavies and grab a raven instead. I've been having a blast with my LRM 15 raven and dual large laser founders jenner.

In any case, if you want to make c-bills fast, use a trial mech. With few exceptions, a loss with a trial mech pays more than a win with an owned mech. The trials aren't that bad either. The trial awsome and dragon are fairly decent if you're careful with heat and conserve ammo.

[Leprosyvirus]

What bugs me badly is when you guys lose with your bonuses you almost make more then I do when I win without them. I'd rather see a bigger difference between the two.

[XSive Death]

Flapdrol, on 31 October 2012 - 05:42 PM, said:

how much money you make heavily depends on what mech you're running.

If I'm running my hunchback 4SP I usually end up high on the scoreboard and often do most damage but my repair bill when completely destroyed is only 50000, so even without premium you still make a healthy profit on a loss. If I dump the 2 streaks I make more money but dont do as well, so I keep them on for now.

Strange, in my 4SP the repair bill is usually around the 85-90k after a heavy beating. More than I make from losing.

[Milene]

On my plain stock founders atlas with the founder mech and premium bonus on a loss where I died I would make nearly nothing on a loss and turn up a decent gain of maybe 200k if I did well and didnt get too beat up. Once I saved enough to buy a hunchback even with endo steel and dhs on a cored out death and loss I still net at least 100k on a loss and can take home most of the 250k on a win with no founder mech bonus and only premium cash on it. It is entirely mech dependent as the more damage there is to repair the more its going to cost. Having to scrounge up money to get something like an atlas then be faced with not being able to run it match after match due to repairs for the non premium/non founder looks like its going to hurt, but at least for the medium mechs it isnt that bad.

[Firesteel]

Currently the biggest problem with the economy imo is the horrendous ammo costs. I have my Jenner decked out in tier 2 equipment and it at most costs 40k to repair (no XL engine). My founder's cat usually has that in just ammo costs. They either need to up the rewards or lower the cost of rearm, I have no problem with the repair costs now though.

[Sanreal]

Welcome to F2P "monetizing frustration." I have premium account plus Founder's mech and I'm making money, very, very slowly. I really want to recommend this game to a couple of my friends, but I can't because without premium bonuses, they'd be grinding for weeks before they even managed to afford a decent mech and loadout and managed to have any fun. Trial mechs are terrible. I'd be very surprised if any new players managed to stick with this game at this rate.