82 replies to this topic

[hashinshin]

Okay. Lets start simple and build my way up. I had a lot written here but I think simplifying my thoughts on this will be better for everyone. Lets start with the basics.

People want to play MWO.
There are Mechwarrior fans out there, and they want to play your game. They are also trying to convince their FRIENDS to play who keep asking "is it like a Gundam?"

People want to actually play in a Mech.
Not a trial mech, not a fake little ****. They want to play in a mech that they can sit there and go "oh man this is awesome!"

They will start playing the game.
And they will quickly realize that while not TERRIBLE trial mechs don't really hold to the other mechs. Whats more, they will do BAD because they are inexperienced, in a bad mech, with no idea what they're doing. Their money gains will be slow, painful, and at times they will gain nothing.

Then they will buy a mech (if they even get to that point) upgrade it, and realize...
Now I've gone from making next to nothing to making nothing. The current gains, ESPECIALLY without premium, are like nothing. And once you upgrade your mech (Spending your money) you will still have earned nothing.

The problem is we aren't getting enough money to justify these outrageous repair costs.
In the main competitor for MWO, WoT, you can play for like 20 hours on a non premium before you start to run in to issues of "I'm not getting enough money!" In MWO you run in to that issue on like minute 20.

What's worse, you can easily and very fast create mechs are are economically unsound.
I made a Dragon. Put an XL engine in it. Why not you know, Dragons basically don't even have side torsos. Then I put DHS in it cause I can toss 2 in the engine, seems like a good idea. ALREADY I was netting -50k+ on losses, and barely breaking even on wins. I havn't even put Endo-Steel on it yet! I have Premium and a mech that isn't even all the way upgraded is economically unfeasible? I'm not exactly running super crystal rounds here, DHS + XL engine is an extremely obvious and should be standard Dragon build.

Simply put, we're not getting enough money.
And I seriously suggest three things.

1. Salvaging higher tech tier mechs should reward a lot more. This is just a simple thing that makes sense. If matchmaking ever gets implmented and my XL engine + endo steel + DHS dragon is up against similar mechs we should all be making more money for blowing up such high tier mechs.
2. Objectives reward pretty much double what they are right now. (A kill right now is 1,000.... whoooaaa big freakin woop.) Spotting a target for the first time should reward a lot more since that's what matters, AND most importantly spotting for LRMs should give you a %of their rewards.
3. A flat increase in money earned. 125k on a win, 100k on a loss.

There's a difference between "lol you don't have premium" and "you can't play without premium." What's worse, and this is where we're at, is when even Premium isn't enough to cover the costs of even middling tech mech that we've upgraded.

And before anyone says it, yes I know the highest tier mechs should not be economically sound no matter what, but the issue we're facing is that without the Founders or Hero mech bonus mechs that have been upgraded even a little of the way start to become unsound to pilot pretty much immediately. What's worse is the costs of upgrading these mechs to that point are extremely high as is.

Think of the clans!

Edited by hashinshin, 07 November 2012 - 11:34 AM.

[LogicSol]

I run a CN9-AL with ES, DHS and an upgraded STD engine.
Fully destroyed it costs about 75k to repair/rearm.
Even without premium It can't lose money, and will earn 50-130k on a win.
Since it carries 3 tons of ammo, it can skip the rearming phase and have enough ammo to last most matches, saving 20k from the repair bill.

Also, a trial mech doesn't need to be repaired, so the person playing the trial atlas? yea they'll make just as much as the one in the the trial light.

PS: Anything with an XL engine is going to be expensive to repair, it's the single most expensive piece of equipment in the game.

[hashinshin]

LogicSol, on 07 November 2012 - 11:35 AM, said:

I run a CN9-AL with ES, DHS and an upgraded STD engine.
Fully destroyed it costs about 75k to repair/rearm.
Even without premium It can't lose money, and will earn 50-130k on a win.
Since it carries 3 tons of ammo, it can skip the rearming phase and have enough ammo to last most matches, saving 20k from the repair bill.

Also, a trial mech doesn't need to be repaired, so the person playing the trial atlas? yea they'll make just as much as the one in the the trial light.

PS: Anything with an XL engine is going to be expensive to repair, it's the single most expensive piece of equipment in the game.

yeah someone told me they did, and I JUST went to play one because that sounded suspect. Found out they do not in fact.

[Particle Man]

I like how people seem to mistake "This Game" with "Me" and feel that their personal experience is how it is with the entire community of thousands of people.

what's the word that describes that?

[Ockow]

Trial mech you will allways make money. You don't have to pay for repair/rearm cost.
But it true the cost of running your on mech is to high.

[BellatorMonk]

Repair costs are fine. L2P. Stop using expensive weapons/ammo, crappy mechs and or builds. Stop dying so much. At least until you can afford such luxuries.

[hashinshin]

LogicSol, on 07 November 2012 - 11:35 AM, said:

I run a CN9-AL with ES, DHS and an upgraded STD engine.
Fully destroyed it costs about 75k to repair/rearm.
Even without premium It can't lose money, and will earn 50-130k on a win.
Since it carries 3 tons of ammo, it can skip the rearming phase and have enough ammo to last most matches, saving 20k from the repair bill.

Also, a trial mech doesn't need to be repaired, so the person playing the trial atlas? yea they'll make just as much as the one in the the trial light.

PS: Anything with an XL engine is going to be expensive to repair, it's the single most expensive piece of equipment in the game.

I don't like the whole skipping the re-arm phase minigame, it's far too important to the maintenance of a mech yet adds needless busywork.

BellatorMonk, on 07 November 2012 - 11:41 AM, said:

Repair costs are fine. L2P. Stop using expensive weapons/ammo, crappy mechs and or builds. Stop dying so much. At least until you can afford such luxuries.

It's always founders, especially legendary founders, who say this. Have you noticed a direct correlation between "making more money than everyone else" and "complains less about not making enough money"?

Edited by hashinshin, 07 November 2012 - 11:41 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

I play an Atlas with 2 LRM15s a Gauss and an XL (Not my founders BTW). I make about 50K a loss and up to 200K with a win.

[roguetrdr]

hashinshin, on 07 November 2012 - 11:43 AM, said:

It's always founders, especially legendary founders, who say this. Have you noticed a direct correlation between "making more money than everyone else" and "complains less about not making enough money"?

You realise you're a founder right?

[James The Fox Dixon]

hashinshin, on 07 November 2012 - 11:43 AM, said:

It's always founders, especially legendary founders, who say this. Have you noticed a direct correlation between "making more money than everyone else" and "complains less about not making enough money"?

It's because they suffer from confirmation bias and are unable to step back to see the facts in an unbiased manner until they experience the same thing the majority of people do. My advice is to ignore them and keep on posting.

[BellatorMonk]

hashinshin, on 07 November 2012 - 11:43 AM, said:

It's always founders, especially legendary founders, who say this. Have you noticed a direct correlation between "making more money than everyone else" and "complains less about not making enough money"?

roguetrdr, on 07 November 2012 - 11:46 AM, said:

You realise you're a founder right?

Pot calling kettle. Non-founders might want to "invest" in the game to get some perks. Otherwise F2P means you have to play more since it's free. Do I have to pay for your repairs and ammo too or is paying for the game so others can F2P not enough?

[Aym]

hashinshin, on 07 November 2012 - 11:29 AM, said:

Okay. Lets start simple and build my way up. I had a lot written here but I think simplifying my thoughts on this will be better for everyone. Lets start with the basics.

People want to play MWO.
There are Mechwarrior fans out there, and they want to play your game. They are also trying to convince their FRIENDS to play who keep asking "is it like a Gundam?"

People want to actually play in a Mech.
Not a trial mech, not a fake little ****. They want to play in a mech that they can sit there and go "oh man this is awesome!"

They will start playing the game.
And they will quickly realize that while not TERRIBLE trial mechs don't really hold to the other mechs. Whats more, they will do BAD because they are inexperienced, in a bad mech, with no idea what they're doing. Their money gains will be slow, painful, and at times they will gain nothing.

Then they will buy a mech (if they even get to that point) upgrade it, and realize...
Now I've gone from making next to nothing to making nothing. The current gains, ESPECIALLY without premium, are like nothing. And once you upgrade your mech (Spending your money) you will still have earned nothing.

The problem is we aren't getting enough money to justify these outrageous repair costs.
In the main competitor for MWO, WoT, you can play for like 20 hours on a non premium before you start to run in to issues of "I'm not getting enough money!" In MWO you run in to that issue on like minute 20.

What's worse, you can easily and very fast create mechs are are economically unsound.
I made a Dragon. Put an XL engine in it. Why not you know, Dragons basically don't even have side torsos. Then I put DHS in it cause I can toss 2 in the engine, seems like a good idea. ALREADY I was netting -50k+ on losses, and barely breaking even on wins. I havn't even put Endo-Steel on it yet! I have Premium and a mech that isn't even all the way upgraded is economically unfeasible? I'm not exactly running super crystal rounds here, DHS + XL engine is an extremely obvious and should be standard Dragon build.

Simply put, we're not getting enough money.
And I seriously suggest three things.

1. Salvaging higher tech tier mechs should reward a lot more. This is just a simple thing that makes sense. If matchmaking ever gets implmented and my XL engine + endo steel + DHS dragon is up against similar mechs we should all be making more money for blowing up such high tier mechs.
2. Objectives reward pretty much double what they are right now. (A kill right now is 1,000.... whoooaaa big freakin woop.) Spotting a target for the first time should reward a lot more since that's what matters, AND most importantly spotting for LRMs should give you a %of their rewards.
3. A flat increase in money earned. 125k on a win, 100k on a loss.

There's a difference between "lol you don't have premium" and "you can't play without premium." What's worse, and this is where we're at, is when even Premium isn't enough to cover the costs of even middling tech mech that we've upgraded.

And before anyone says it, yes I know the highest tier mechs should not be economically sound no matter what, but the issue we're facing is that without the Founders or Hero mech bonus mechs that have been upgraded even a little of the way start to become unsound to pilot pretty much immediately. What's worse is the costs of upgrading these mechs to that point are extremely high as is.

Think of the clans!

Shenanigans. Either you're doing the math wrong or lying. You are NOT losing 50k on ANY loss if you stay for the whole game. Period, I'm calling you out on that.

[LogicSol]

hashinshin, on 07 November 2012 - 11:43 AM, said:

I don't like the whole skipping the re-arm phase minigame, it's far too important to the maintenance of a mech yet adds needless busywork.

Er what?
You uncheck the automatic rearm box. That's it, only thing additional you have to do is click repair if you want full ammo.
You get a 75% free refill on ammo. It's not maintenance, it's refilling the ammo store.
I usually use 200-250 ammo out of my 300, Since I have premium right now I always refill, but once that runs out I'll probably skip it when I'm trying to make money. 225 ammo will be fine most matches.

If you are having problems paying for ammo and breaking even, either carry less ammo for cheaper rearms, or don't rearm and play with 75%.

[malibu43]

While I was initially on the "rearm/repair is too expensive" band wagon a few weeks ago, I realize now I like it the way it is.

I'm running a mostly stock (cheap) Raven 4X right now and after a horrible match I might pay 30K to fix it at the most. Even if I lose I'm making CB. Now, if I add an XL engine or SSRM then it gets expensive to repair/rearm and maybe I can't afford it. I thought it was bunk.

But now, I realize that it needs to be costly to run with lots of "nice" stuff in your mech every round. A while ago it was just XL engines and SSRMs and it didn't make much sense, but now that I see what Artemis can do and eventually BAP, Beagle, and ECM, I like the fact that that stuff is too expensive for your average player to "boat". Otherwise, within a few weeks of playing, the average player would have enough CB to throw an XL engine, ECM, Artemis, etc... on each mech they own, and then those things would lose their purpose or significance since every mech on the battle field would have them.

Keep it expensive. It should be a big deal to have 1 or 2 mechs on your team with Artemis, and one with ECM, and one fast scout with an XL engine. That will make roles, specialization, and teamwork that much more important. If everyone can afford to run everything every match, then everyone will have some sort of uber jack-of-all-trades mech they run every time.

Of course, this all assumes that missing features (EMC, BAP, Beagle) are eventually added, weps and systems are balanced, and match making is fixed...

Edited by malibu43, 07 November 2012 - 12:02 PM.

[Henchman 24]

Aym, on 07 November 2012 - 11:53 AM, said:

Shenanigans. Either you're doing the math wrong or lying. You are NOT losing 50k on ANY loss if you stay for the whole game. Period, I'm calling you out on that.

Agreed,

I'm a fair to midland pilot, I do dumb things when bored that get me killed from time to time....I even run in trial mechs alongside friends just getting cranked up in play for the first time. I pub alot, I DO NOT cherry pick my matches, my K/D ratio looks abysmal, and yet I still manage to average a decent W/L ratio and earn on avg. 166K+ per match.....WTF are you doing worse than me? And no, I don't run my Founders Hunchback often as I'm frankly tired of using it since all the wipes, I will come back to it obviously, I love it....but since the last wipe, it's the least used mech I have.

Seriously, if you can't earn say 75k plus per match on average....you are doing something so ineptly that these results occur, or you have no clue.

[Sikosis]

BellatorMonk, on 07 November 2012 - 11:41 AM, said:

Repair costs are fine. L2P. Stop using expensive weapons/ammo, crappy mechs and or builds. Stop dying so much. At least until you can afford such luxuries.

so I guess that means we all must skew our perception of the game, jump in cheesedick builds and walk around spamming SSRM2 and MPLs on Cat chassis to "do it right" . . . . screw that man, the OP is not correct but two wrongs and all bro . . . that elietest crap attitude is the way to endorse the fact that this game is going sideways. . . from PGI / IGP screwing their founders all the way to the remaining founders turning into PGI/IGP cronies . . . way to go brother, die a little inside each time you see that post please. . . .

Aym, on 07 November 2012 - 11:53 AM, said:

Shenanigans. Either you're doing the math wrong or lying. You are NOT losing 50k on ANY loss if you stay for the whole game. Period, I'm calling you out on that.

I second that. . . . I'm think'n you might be one of those hot head kids who can't stand "team play" and thinks that 15 minute rounds to grind some cash aint worth your effort so you go out in a blaze of glory and quit the match to pump another mech into another match in order to grind a bit more cash, not realizing that you are cutting your nose off spite your mug . . . seriously man, think twice post once because that post screams nothing but PGI come warn me for being a suicide player OR I should go back to playing solitare, cause it's my speed. . . ><

[siLve00]

its totaly okay now.

every1 can play every mech he/she wants. with every loadout.. if your going streak you need to suffer some ammo but thats okay for its power ( imo.. actual the streaks are fine now ).

if you wana play with lrm´s its okay too.. i dont see any problems right now.
i can grind to an atlas in 1 week ( sure it depends on ya playtime but atm i can play 2-3 hrs a day ).

upgrading takes a little bit.. but iam not a prem user so its realy okay.
they shouldnt make it cheaper nor more expensive.

(btw the trial mechs are way better as before.. even with ams nom nom.. its fun to play them here n there )

[Harrison Kelly]

Oh look, it's another hyperbolic hashinshin thread. Honestly, I'm disappointed you couldn't confine yourself to League.

There is NO WAY you're eating 50,000 net per loss on a Dragon of all things. Not. Possible. I run an XL engine and Endo on an ammo-heavy Catapult build and even on losses, I make about 50K. Without Premium bonus, I'd lose some C-Bills depending on how bad it was, but not 50K per loss.

Yes, a lot of things cost too much in this game. Yes, salvage/objectives should earn more reward. Yes, the new user experience is awful. However, making up stuff to fuel your fire only discredits you.

[Peter2000]

Harrison Kelly, on 07 November 2012 - 12:24 PM, said:

Oh look, it's another hyperbolic hashinshin thread. Honestly, I'm disappointed you couldn't confine yourself to League.

There is NO WAY you're eating 50,000 net per loss on a Dragon of all things. Not. Possible. I run an XL engine and Endo on an ammo-heavy Catapult build and even on losses, I make about 50K. Without Premium bonus, I'd lose some C-Bills depending on how bad it was, but not 50K per loss.

Yes, a lot of things cost too much in this game. Yes, salvage/objectives should earn more reward. Yes, the new user experience is awful. However, making up stuff to fuel your fire only discredits you.

I agree, his numbers make no sense, but it is true that you can lose money if you run ammo-intensive high-tech builds. I've faced a theoretical 200k repair bill for carrrying 8 tons of LRM-artemis ammo (120k), having most armor stripped(30k+), and then having my XL engine blown(40k+). We lost, but I did 1000 damage to the enemy and took 3 with me. Even with founders + premium, I'd have lost money if I had to bother to rearm. Ammo prices (which are the real culprit) can price certain builds out of free players' reach. Which is a really bad way to try to balance them, since I'll still be running them.

[spaceghost2099]

I love this game. I love playing it. I love blowing people up. I love running around in giant mech's. But for non-premium non-founders, yeah, the repair costs can be a bit much. I end up making around 20k on a loss if I die in my YLW or Hunchback, so I grind with my Jenner to get to a place I feel comfortable to repair either or both. Awesome that I'm not losing money anymore, but 20k avg a match when I lose is a terrible grinding feeling. I know that the repair bills are actually pretty fair right now, but earning money could use a lil boost, at the very least in trial mechs.

All I'm saying is that after playing 2-2.5 hours with my friend who I just introduced to the game, he should have more than 1.1 mil. That's only 1/3 of the price of a decent mech for starters (cent or hunch). Maybe add a way to gift Mech's or C-bills? I dunno. Just throwing stuff out that popped into my brain.

*edit: added a word. You'll never know which one

Edited by whitelie, 07 November 2012 - 12:37 PM.