18 replies to this topic

[Mr D One]

Just an idea.

If you have had a bit of skill and you have a full hanger of mechs. There should be an option to let your lance mates (group) trial your config and frame. If your friends win or get kills then you would also get a % of xp and c bills because they used your design.

Also if you have done well in this game, (and ok $ wise in real life) there should be an option to allow you to gift mech(s) or C Bills to your loyal lance mates.

I would love to be able to gift a new Cataphract or Highlander to my fellow mech warriors.

A nice thought or impractical.

What do you think?

[Calmon]

Well PGI sells Mechs exclusively.

Why should they allow competitors? I mean imagine League of Legends where the people with a lot/all champions just could borrow them to others? Guess the impact on champion sell...

[Mu]

I would love to be able to let my friend borrow a mech even if I had to eat the repair cost until he made enough for a Hunchback or something. I want to get him into this game but doing that is IMPOSSIBLE because the trial mech system is so terrible right now, and we can't even carry him in an 8 man group because they took that out. They could even make it a premium only thing, which would convince me to actually keep premium active - I sure as hell won't need it soon.

Now, gifting mechs, no. As innocent as the intention might be, and even if this was the most obscure game in the world, putting in any kind of trading system will attract the botters and farmers like flies. It's bad enough dealing with 2-3 suicides each game.

[Redshift2k5]

If you could easily "borrow" finished, highly customized mechs, you would leave the door open to unscrupulous players to charge a fee under the table for the "priviledge" of borrowing the mech.

[Mu]

Redshift2k5, on 13 November 2012 - 05:31 AM, said:

If you could easily "borrow" finished, highly customized mechs, you would leave the door open to unscrupulous players to charge a fee under the table for the "priviledge" of borrowing the mech.

Uh...why would you pay to borrow a mech when you could just buy one with MC? I understand what you mean by a highly customized mech - XL engines/DHS/endosteel are expensive and made my hunchbacks cost 8M each. But I think most people would rather have their own mech permanently.

And hell, PGI could kill that even if it started happening. Rent their own badass customized Gausscats or whatever for people dumb enough to go for that.

[Sirous]

Or PGI could take advantage of a situation like that where one or the other pays MC in order to share mechs in the group.

[Aym]

Gifts are probably out of the question, leads to chinese gold farmers. The main reason we can't transfer in-game anythings is because it disincentives hackers/farmers because they can't profit off of it.
Now, onto the "loaner" program, I LOVE the idea except you should not get ANY profit off of it. No XP no C-bills the owner of the mech should eat the full repair and re-arm cost while the player borrowing it gets the equivalent of trial c-bills and no XP. If it's lucrative in any way for the mech owner it's subject to abuse. If it's simply an alternate to trial, or another way to get an effective lance comp (especially when dropship mutator gets in) I think it's a fine idea, and also acts as a c-bill sink for the loaning player, which creates another incentive for them to play and or buy premium time while they help their friends get into the game.

[Boris The Spider]

Provided you can only share mechs with people who are on your drop, I can't realy see any viable financial abuse. I would loan out mechs to lance mates for free, why would someone group up with someone who wanted under the table paypal donations for it?

Edited by Boris The Spider, 13 November 2012 - 06:17 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Dar1ng One, on 13 November 2012 - 04:43 AM, said:

Just an idea.

If you have had a bit of skill and you have a full hanger of mechs. There should be an option to let your lance mates (group) trial your config and frame. If your friends win or get kills then you would also get a % of xp and c bills because they used your design.

Also if you have done well in this game, (and ok $ wise in real life) there should be an option to allow you to gift mech(s) or C Bills to your loyal lance mates.

I would love to be able to gift a new Cataphract or Highlander to my fellow mech warriors.

A nice thought or impractical.

What do you think?

Not a bad idea. But it could interfere with PGIs ability to make money. Merc Commands do have their own "loaner" Mechs for when a Pilot arrives without one (Minobu Tetsuhara?)

[aspect]

Sirous, on 13 November 2012 - 06:11 AM, said:

Or PGI could take advantage of a situation like that where one or the other pays MC in order to share mechs in the group.

This could work...

Wouldn't be hard to put a limit on borrowing as well, if having players use other people's mechs exclusively was undesirable.

[Boris The Spider]

I think the best way to impliment this would be to add a share mech option bellow the select mech option. Then on the left side of the mech bay, provided you are in a group, you will have Your Mechs, Trail Mechs, Lance Hanger.

I also would disagree with charging MC for this as the feature is far more usefull for new players who have yet to purchase MC, so for example, i get a new guy in the squad who is humm-hawing about buying a HBK, I can then add mine to the share and say, take mine out for a spin, see if you like it. If he does, he is far more likley to purchase MC to get into his own HBK quicker.

As for making the sharer pay MC, its a little unfair to ask me to pay out of my pocket to help get new people into the game.

Edited by Boris The Spider, 13 November 2012 - 06:51 AM.

[Mu]

Sirous, on 13 November 2012 - 06:11 AM, said:

Or PGI could take advantage of a situation like that where one or the other pays MC in order to share mechs in the group.

Maybe if it was a one-time fee, otherwise why not just give your friend 5 bucks on paypal, heh. I still think it would be better to roll it into premium - as I said, I have very little incentive to get more premium time right now since it's so expensive and most of my grinding is done already. If they won't budge on the price then they could add more features.

[Mu]

Boris The Spider, on 13 November 2012 - 06:46 AM, said:

As for making the sharer pay MC, its a little unfair to ask me to pay out of my pocket to help get new people into the game.

That's a good point too. Down the line they could do something like WoW's referral/scroll of resurrection system where you basically sponsor a player and you both get bonuses if they end up spending money on the game.

[Grayzzur]

Borrowing Mechs is a great idea, especially to help new players get a taste of what's coming if they stick it out in that trial Mech just a little longer.

Gifting Mechs opens up a can of worms for trade, and for the third-party gold farmer market. Why pay PGI for MC, when for half the price you can have that new Mech "gifted" to you from your "friend?" I don't think that's going to happen.

[Alcatraz968]

Let my buddy borrow my Killer Jenner to see if he likes it.
He gets repair cost and i get alittle CB out of it. I like!

[Goose Igaly]

I would certainly support some form of this. Have four in my Lance, 2 founders and 2 f2p. Would love the ability to help them test builds outside of "Yeah, guass is nice on my Atlas." Almost sold a Lancemate on aCicada just by letting him have a seat in my command chair for 2 rounds. Would need to be some form of drawback to the system, though. Can easily see this as a way for players to never have to buy their own mechs.

[Mr D One]

Thanks for your input Mech warriors. I appreciate that. Your right about people abusing good intentions.

Like after the first reset. People abused the Gauss Canon on the Gauss Kat. The second reset saw XL give rise to the Commando, Jenner speed glitch. The 3rd the laser Swayback became king of the battlefield for a time. Then recently a hot fix was applied to stop LRM's being to OP.

I am sure, especially while in Beta, a borrow system for groups could be implemented. If it gets abused PGI could just turn it off.

(I promise you Russ, this was never designed to take away $ from you. Still that 200 K Veyron you bought tells me you are not suffering $ wise Don't worry I like real $ too. )

[Vassago Rain]

I could probably get the 3 guys who quit because of the grind right back into the game, if they could lease or borrow one of my actual mechs.

[Belorion]

Being able to lend out "loaner mechs" that act just like trial mechs is actually a really interesting idea. Gifting mechs not so much. The only slightly good application for gifting would be within a merc corp, but I think there would just be too much room for abuse.