79 replies to this topic

[MrLee]

gregsolidus, on 08 November 2012 - 01:40 PM, said:

I don't quite follow, If I spend the time necessary to earn the experience necessary to fill a variant's tree have I not earned it?


Exactly, I'm willing to pay actual currency and it isn't and advantage so it seems like a fair change to me.


I know you mean well with this statement but it's a weak argument for an inconvenient system. I know how I want to play and every time I use a different chassis I build it to that play style regardless, combine this with the fact that the three mech system is designed to be a part of the intentional grind anyway and you see it doesn't really benefit anyone in any meaningful way. No one is taking away the ability or incentive to experiment with different play styles or variants but for those who are comfortable with what they have, like myself, it seems like an unnecessary hassle to go around buying variants they have no interest in when they are willing to give PGI money in exchange for the convenience of building mech trees with variants of their choice.

Oh right, I never realized that you can't spend GXP on variants you don't own. My bad.
Anyhoo, I guess they need to make you buy the mech to keep you playing. It's a money/time sink and if it makes people buy the Mech for MC, again, for convenience, a source of income.

[gregsolidus]

No problem. If anything this is a new source of revenue given there is little reason to convert GXP since you still need to buy the variant. People who don't want the extra variants probably wouldn't have spent MC on them anyhow.

[DrBlue62]

gregsolidus, on 08 November 2012 - 01:40 PM, said:

I don't quite follow, If I spend the time necessary to earn the experience necessary to fill a variant's tree have I not earned it?

I feel that obtaining the varient mechs at some point in time should be required as to progress upon the Elite and the Module slot. I don't agree that you earned to go to unlock the elite items if you only ever owned one mech, it makes more sense to me that if you want to have better stats in that type mech that you should play more than one variant of it. To me it feels like the mech is more 'mastered' or familiar which would provide the pilot lab bonuses.

That's my opinion of how it should work anyways.

[gregsolidus]

Considering the only thing that differentiates a variant is it hardpoints that's an odd hang up to have. The CN9-A and the CN9-AL are exactly the same beyond their weapons so what is there to master other than those since, once again, they share the exact same chassis.

Edited by gregsolidus, 08 November 2012 - 02:58 PM.

[The Crow2k]

Its MWO's version of a tech tree and I dont see any other way to make it work than making us buy all the variants if we want to level skills all the way up.

[gregsolidus]

Considering the end goal is to have a player pay with actual money I would say changing the system is to their benefit.

[DrBlue62]

I will admit the Centurion variants aren't different except for the 9D, right now I've only Elited three hunchbacks which are quite different from each other, visually and hardpoint-wise.

Edited by DrBlue62, 08 November 2012 - 03:15 PM.

[gregsolidus]

That's great, but you have to admit they are the same chassis.

[VanillaG]

Sounds like an opportunity for PGI to put in a mechanism to use GXP on mechs you don't own for MC. So for basically double the conversion cost, one to convert it to GXP and another to use it on the variant, you can avoid having to purchase the unwanted variants.

[gregsolidus]

Lets not give them big ideas...

[Hellcat420]

i personally think the xp system is kind of dumb. you should be able to grind up using the standard variant(which should be easy and economically feasable for anyone to run). if you want other variants you should have to pay a bit of real money to unlock them(unless you are a premium player). if they are dead set on making people grind on all variants then make the standard variant the long grind, and the other variants a very short grind since you would pay a bit of real money for them.

[White Bear 84]

Its all part of the model, see if you want lots of mechs you have to pay hard cash to get the bays, otherwise your limited in your options. Without buying new mech bays, you can unlock all the efficiencies for 4 mech classes. You have a variety of options for doing this, many of which are not really economical e.g. buy mech, level it, sell it, get next one... ...untill you end up with just the four different mechs you want e.g. CPLT-A1, AS-D etc..

Of course this works fine if your a F2P player and dont mind being limited by four mechs, otherwise you need the currency. I wouldnt say that makes the game P2W, but it does mean that if you want more mechs you will at some point have to say goodbye to some $$$.. ...of course a mech bay at 300 MC isnt really that much..

[gregsolidus]

They still get paid with my purposed change. It takes 300 MC for a mech bay yet a little over a thousand for an XP conversion of 28,000.

Edited by gregsolidus, 08 November 2012 - 04:31 PM.

[gregsolidus]

I demand more discussion. This is a legitimate thing to discuss that doesn't involve LRMs or premades.

[Mister Haha]

gregsolidus, on 08 November 2012 - 03:24 PM, said:

That's great, but you have to admit they are the same chassis.

yep. doesn't make much sense logistically. aside from the whole business side of things.

i guess it's a bit too transparent, isn't it?

[Lord Soth]

Just thinking out loud here so dont flame me too much. What if PGI implemented additional levels to skilling up a particular mech type (hunchie, catapult, atlas etc) in the place of having to own an additional variant. So for example if I had a hunchie 4sp and didn't want to pilot the others then I could unlock the basic skills, then there were two additional basic skill levels (at slightly higher XP requirements say 30% higher) that you can unlock with the same variant and you could do this all the way to master at increasing XP requirements. Then, if you wanted to you could still purchase another variant and skill that up at the standard XP level as the system currently stands. So for buying another variant you get the convenience of having to earn less XP to skill it up but at the cost of buying a new variant. Hope that makes sense?

[gregsolidus]

Your solution is more like a lateral shift than an improvement or detriment.

[Stormur Herra]

Vermaxx, on 08 November 2012 - 12:07 PM, said:

How did you only make 4 million CB in the time it took you to make 28 thousand XP? Even without founder or premium you're making far more CB than XP.

Depends on your repair/rearm costs, doesn't it? You are vastly over-estimating how much someone without bonuses makes. If I didn't turn off auto-rearm I would be negative in anything but a crushing win.

[Tarman]

As far as the rides themselves more mechs will be getting individual traits, so in future the variants will operate more, well, variably. Right now there's not a whole wack of variance in the chassis but it's the plan for the future.

[CeeKay Boques]

It's annoying, but the pace of the grinding Economy is built around the fact that you MUST purchase these Mechs. Somewhere there is spreadsheet that includes a 2-5 million dollar money bleed for buying each chassis. That said, I "Ho-hum" bought the K-2, but wasn't going to spend the money to transfer the 10s of thousands of XP from my founders, and suddenly found that I really like driving that Mech too...

So: To Cryptic not Specific (TCNS):

1. The Economy is built around the fact that you will buy these mechs. Its a money sink.
2. "Try our other Chassis, you might like it" is a good thing to force.