152 replies to this topic

[James The Fox Dixon]

Terror Teddy, on 15 November 2012 - 06:56 AM, said:

Snip

Tone and delivery plays an important role in how said criticism is taken. However, your first post in this thread was:

Quote

So, in short. The more expensive the mech, the more possible earnings I receive?

So to put a story on your jenner example to put things into perspective.

Mercenary Goldchain McMechpimping is ona patrol duty with Poorman Stockmecher on a patrol and escort duty. They do the job and get a reward of 378 000 credits.

McMechpimping demands more money that his colleague for the exact same job because he needs the more expensive turtle wax to polish his more luxurious mech.

Someone who is RICH should get PAID more just BECAUSE?

So basically you want to remove the Risk VS Reward when bringing something expensive unto the field?

EDIT: Ok, I saw you upped repairs but you have forgotten another factor.

Underdog markup.

A cheaper mech taking down or assisting taking down a more expensive one should gain a bigger bonus compared to the expensive ones.

After all, a pimped mech is more efficient and EASIER to use.

Nothing at all in your original reply was constructive. It was pure criticism without anything valid or pertinent or even offering a counter solution. Nope, it was all just a flame and emotional knee jerk reaction. It also wasn't very well thought out.


Where is your solution Teddy?

[Terick]

James The Fox Dixon, on 15 November 2012 - 07:02 AM, said:

Is there anything like this implemented in MW: O? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Because it is a TERRIBLE idea. Props to PGI for NOT using these rules.

If you can't figure out that 390k wont' recover your damages should you run in to any real pirate forces... you shouldn't be a merc.

[ForceUser]

James The Fox Dixon, on 15 November 2012 - 07:06 AM, said:

Tone and delivery plays an important role in how said criticism is taken. However, your first post in this thread was:





Nothing at all in your original reply was constructive. It was pure criticism without anything valid or pertinent or even offering a counter solution. Nope, it was all just a flame and emotional knee jerk reaction. It also wasn't very well thought out.


Where is your solution Teddy?

The solution chuckles is to improve the current system.

Edited by ForceUser, 15 November 2012 - 07:21 AM.

[buckX]

Great idea, OP. It frustrates me that the current motivations are to disable repair/rearm and depend on your allies to carry you through. What you bring to the fight (both in terms of skill and financial investment) should be rewarded. In "real" BattleTech, anybody looking for mercs who said he was paying the exact same to all comers would get a bunch of laughs and find a couple lances of stock fleas waiting for him. Larger and more expensive mechs with high R&R costs should get more.

That said, your numbers for them are way to high. You start with a 1.5 Base and go up to 3.5. That is, unfortunately, way too gigantic. I would do a couple things differently. Firstly, scrap the current free 75% of ammo comes free thing, and just make ammo somewhere between 0 and 10% of current cost. If your employer wants you to expend ammo on his behalf, he better be willing to pay for it.

Secondly, I would drop the "F" base from 1.5x to 1x (cleaner and doesn't need to be as high after the rearm change), and drop "A" to 2x. Yes, those upgrades and big mechs cost more to repair, but my goal isn't so much to see pricy mechs make bigger profits, I just want them to not make less after repairs.

I would also lower spotting base to 5k. Yes, lights make valuable contributions to be sure, but spotting is a stat more suited to gimmicking than many, given that you don't need direct LoS to reap the rewards. I really don't want money making to turn into some weird LRM jerk off with everybody trying to farm spotting. Lets not forget about damage either. 100 C-Bills/damage would be a fine thing to throw in. With those modifications, lets look at a couple examples.

Near Stock Jenner (Remove 4 JJs, swap the 4ML for 6SL, Add AMS and a heatsink. Nothing crazy):
Spotting x4, 1 Kill, 3 Assists, 150 damage, Win = 20k + 10k + 30k + 15k + 10k = 85k
Yes, this is an unremarkable sum, but his costs are also really low. The goal here after all is not "Everybody needs more money". We need to nerf the cheap end and buff the expensive end.

Now lets look at that 13 million C-Bill bigshot doing massive work (Approximate stats from a great game with my tricked out Streakapult):
Spotting x2, 4 Kills, 4 Assists, 600 damage, Win = 10k + 40k + 40k + 60k + 10k = 160k x2 = 320k. That's a hefty chunk of change, but while that Jenner might see 15k in repairs, my Streakapult can be more like 80k if I'm destroyed, without considering ammo.

After the repairs, I'm still ahead of the Jenner by 170k, though I would note we contributed very differently. Might still be too much, and your plan may shift too much away from base pay. I like performance based pay, but we also don't want to screw new players with repeated C-Bill losses. Getting blown up off at the start of a match could easily put you in the hole, and if you don't have a nest egg to absorb it, that might feel frustrating.

Edited by buckX, 15 November 2012 - 07:48 AM.

[Terick]

buckX, on 15 November 2012 - 07:22 AM, said:

Great idea, OP. It frustrates me that the current motivations are to disable repair/rearm and depend on your allies to carry you through. What you bring to the fight (both in terms of skill and financial investment) should be rewarded. In "real" BattleTech, anybody looking for mercs who said he was paying the exact same to all comers would get a bunch of laughs and find a couple lances of stock fleas waiting for him. Larger and more expensive mechs with high R&R costs should get more.

That said, your numbers for them are way to high. You start with a 1.5 Base and go up to 3.5. That is, unfortunately, way too gigantic. I would do a couple things differently. Firstly, scrap the current free 75% of ammo comes free thing, and just make ammo somewhere between 0 and 10% of current cost. If your employer wants you to expend ammo on his behalf, he better be willing to pay for it.
Secondly, I would drop the "F" base from 1.5x to 1x (cleaner and doesn't need to be as high after the rearm change), and drop "A" to 2x. Yes, those upgrades and bit mechs cost more to repair, but my goal isn't so much to see pricy mechs make bigger profits, I just want them to not make less after repairs.

It still wouldn't pay enough. Since the system was used to pay for months and not battles. It is very easy to rack up more in repairs and rearming then you would make.

I want to see no free rearming. You use ammo, you buy new ammo. Ammo should cost per shot and not per ton. That avoids replacing ammo you still have... You used one shot out of 45 for an AC/2. But you buy new full ton of ammo?...

Edited by Terick, 15 November 2012 - 07:27 AM.

[ForceUser]

FWI, this is all about the OP not being able to run his FF/ES/DHS Artemis LRM? or was it SRM? A1 because he lost money when he gets blown up and loses the match.

Just giving you all some background info.

It's not even the best mech. The best mechs are all pretty cheap to run in the first place and the current system work very well with the majority of the mechs. A system like this is unnecessary if it will mean that running those builds means I make even more money.

Seriously, I bet I can break 700k through normal play with his system.

Edited by ForceUser, 15 November 2012 - 07:30 AM.

[James The Fox Dixon]

buckX, on 15 November 2012 - 07:22 AM, said:

Great idea, OP. It frustrates me that the current motivations are to disable repair/rearm and depend on your allies to carry you through. What you bring to the fight (both in terms of skill and financial investment) should be rewarded. In "real" BattleTech, anybody looking for mercs who said he was paying the exact same to all comers would get a bunch of laughs and find a couple lances of stock fleas waiting for him. Larger and more expensive mechs with high R&R costs should get more.

That said, your numbers for them are way to high. You start with a 1.5 Base and go up to 3.5. That is, unfortunately, way too gigantic. I would do a couple things differently. Firstly, scrap the current free 75% of ammo comes free thing, and just make ammo somewhere between 0 and 10% of current cost. If your employer wants you to expend ammo on his behalf, he better be willing to pay for it.
Secondly, I would drop the "F" base from 1.5x to 1x (cleaner and doesn't need to be as high after the rearm change), and drop "A" to 2x. Yes, those upgrades and bit mechs cost more to repair, but my goal isn't so much to see pricy mechs make bigger profits, I just want them to not make less after repairs.

Do you see Force User and Teddy that this here is a constructive post that works to improve the idea? Kudos to buckX for presenting constructive feedback.

I can see what you mean and I could live with the drop in the multiplier. I could do the multiplier is 25% increments.

[vifoxe]

**** your lore, balance the game.

[zhajin]

James The Fox Dixon, on 15 November 2012 - 01:12 AM, said:

I would ask very politely that any comments about the economy being fine and/or being broken to be withheld and put into the proper threads, since it has no place here. This thread is about revampling the payment system to be rewarding and not punishing.

you lost my intrest when you broke your own rule in the first statement. you claim debate about the current system does not belong here, then voice your opinion about the current system in the next sentence...

[Joseph Mallan]

James The Fox Dixon, on 15 November 2012 - 07:02 AM, said:

Is there anything like this implemented in MW: O? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Again using lore...

Merc Unit: Ceteris Paribus
Size: Company
Composition: 12 'mechs
Lance 1: BLR-1G, CPLT-C1, JM6-S, RFL-3N
Lance 2: LCT-1V, COM-2D, JR7-D, CDA-2A
Lance 3: SHD-2H, WVR-6R, HBK-4G, WTH-1

Payroll: 18,000 (12 MWs)
Maintenance: 3,600 (12 mechs)
BT Contract Pay after x5 Multiplier: 90,000 C-bills per month. FOR THE COMPANY. Not one warrior. Not including Salvage and other "bonuses". I submit yet again using lore that we are over paid.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 15 November 2012 - 07:38 AM.

[Celesteel]

TL/DR: Your system rewards premades (since they make the most money from wins, thereby increasing their upgrades) and punishes everyone else. Sorry, but I prefer the current system over yours.

[ForceUser]

You know the more you reduce the numbers on your idea, the closer it becomes to the current system right?

Just you know, more easily abused.

Edited by ForceUser, 15 November 2012 - 07:42 AM.

[buckX]

Terick, on 15 November 2012 - 07:27 AM, said:

It still wouldn't pay enough. Since the system was used to pay for months and not battles. It is very easy to rack up more in repairs and rearming then you would make.

I added in some examples. I do want to avoid what you're suggesting, but I don't think it's an issue if somebody actually contributes to the match. The highest risk is for a pricy mech, but with the multiplier, it's really not hard to get some cash up on the board. Loss + 3 Assists + 50 damage would be a pretty pitiful performance, but it still gets you 40k as a base, which might be 80k after a multiplier. Still potentially a loss, though not a crippling one. If it's judged to be an issue though, sure, bases could be raised from 5k and 10k to 20k and 40k or some such.

ForceUser, on 15 November 2012 - 07:27 AM, said:

It's not even the best mech. The best mechs are all pretty cheap to run in the first place and the current system work very well with the majority of the mechs. A system like this is unnecessary if it will mean that running those builds means I make even more money.

Not all the best mechs, but your point of "running those builds means I made even more money" is super true. That's why I suggest removing or trivializing rearm costs. Most people seem to think it's "unfair", because you should pay for what you use, but I would note that we're working with a distorted economy. We're getting 3% of salvage, and repair costs are probably similar. Rearm is, however, sitting at 25%. Payouts are reduced to match the 3% salvage repairs in an effort to make there be more grind for a mech (which I'm okay with. being able to buy a new mech every 3 wins would be a little crazy), but the fact that rearm is now proportionally 8 times as expensive makes any ammo heavy build awkward, and there are some good builds that suck it down. SSRM and LRM boats are crazy expensive to run currently. Most people are disabling rearm and just living with being nerfed. These people aren't evil exploiters, they just realize that they enjoy running those mechs, and paying for ammo the 'right" way isn't financially viable. I myself have premium, so I wouldn't strictly lose money on average (though I would without it), but I would still drop my C-Bill gain to a standstill. Who wants to do that? There are mechs to be bought!

Joseph Mallan, on 15 November 2012 - 07:37 AM, said:

BT Contract Pay after x5 Multiplier: 90,000 C-bills per month. FOR THE COMPANY. Not one warrior. Not including Salvage and other "bonuses". I submit yet again using lore that we are over paid.

Keep in mind that we should be getting the mother of all hazard pay bonuses. MWO is based around having career ending mech destruction about every 20 minutes of play. If Ceteris Paribus saw mech destruction with the regularity we do, you can bet their "maintenance" number would increase by a factor of 1,000 or more.

Edited by buckX, 15 November 2012 - 07:53 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Quote

That's why I suggest removing or trivializing rearm costs.

To me this would dumb down the game. Having ammo is not trival in combat. game or not infinite ammo is a video game weakness. I want to be forced to choose between armor or ammo if I don't have enough cash. That is part of the immersion. You are making your "living" off war. War ain't cheap.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 15 November 2012 - 07:51 AM.

[Vosje]

buckX, on 15 November 2012 - 07:22 AM, said:

After the repairs, I'm still ahead of the Jenner by 170k, though I would note we contributed very differently. Might still be too much, and your plan may shift too much away from base pay. I like performance based pay, but we also don't want to screw new players with repeated C-Bill losses. Getting blown up off at the start of a match could easily put you in the hole, and if you don't have a nest egg to absorb it, that might feel frustrating.

Wow, I'm glad I kept reading after the third page, hoping for some good ideas.

There is 1 addition I'ld like to incorporate: The enemy tech-factor. If my team consists of stock material, going up against a tricked-out team. My gains should be higher than vise versa. This can be in salvage-difference (I'm wondering what the OP thinks of this as a solution) or as an additional calculation-factor.

This may even be incentive for a group new mechwarriors to dual the vets.

[buckX]

Joseph Mallan, on 15 November 2012 - 07:50 AM, said:

To me this would dumb down the game. Having ammo is not trival in combat. game or not infinite ammo is a video game weakness. I want to be forced to choose between armor or ammo if I don't have enough cash. That is part of the immersion. You are making your "living" off war. War ain't cheap.

As I noted though, there is a legitimate reason why ammo currently costs too much. Salvage awards are dropped to 3%. Repair bills for a cored mech are (probably) also about 3%. If we assume it's 3% for repairs, the 25k for my Cored Swayback would be 833k to repair normally, and the 80k for my XL Catapult would be 2.7 million. Those both sound about right. Payouts, obviously, are reduced to match up with these changes. Ammo costs currently sit at 25% if you spend off of it. If you don't use it all, you pay more than 25%, all the way up to 100% of ammo price if you get through a quarter of your ammo or less.

It's not hard to see why ammo feels so abusive. While every other monetary issue has been scaled down to 3%, ammo hasn't. The "first 75% free" paradigm is stupid anyway. It makes every shot abusively expensive for the first 25% of your load, then everything after that is free, so fire away! I'd like to see the free reloads scrapped, and ammo price dropped to 3% to match everything else.

[Terick]

buckX, on 15 November 2012 - 07:45 AM, said:

I added in some examples. I do want to avoid what you're suggesting, but I don't think it's an issue if somebody actually contributes to the match. The highest risk is for a pricy mech, but with the multiplier, it's really not hard to get some cash up on the board. Loss + 3 Assists + 50 damage would be a pretty pitiful performance, but it still gets you 40k as a base, which might be 80k after a multiplier. Still potentially a loss, though not a crippling one. If it's judged to be an issue though, sure, bases could be raised from 5k and 10k to 20k and 40k or some such.

There shouldn't be a modifier to using more advanced tech. I see this as balance, we don't have to pay the bills to maintain our advanced tech, we don't get the extra pay of having/using it. Because in the TT system using advanced tech easily upped the regular bills for upkeep.

buckX, on 15 November 2012 - 07:45 AM, said:

Keep in mind that we should be getting the mother of all hazard pay bonuses. MWO is based around having career ending mech destruction about every 20 minutes of play. If Ceteris Paribus saw mech destruction with the regularity we do, you can bet their "maintenance" number would increase by a factor of 1,000 or more.

If I remember right the monthly pay for a mech pilot was 250 every two weeks. That isn't much...

Yes there are mechs to buy, why I'm more inclined to the current system. The grind is pretty heavy right now as it is, I don't see this as actually helping that for people that are not paying real cash.

Which brings up the point, if this is to help people that own their mechs, this in the long run won't help the game at all. Since we need to make it easy for people to get in to and make people want to stay. Not help those that have ground through it now have an easy button. No challenge means most people move on.

Edited by Terick, 15 November 2012 - 08:03 AM.

[John Norad]

One Medic Army, on 15 November 2012 - 01:21 AM, said:

Honestly, I'd rather people didn't bring all their super-expencive tech out all the time.
I'd rather they saved it for those important territory battles that will hopefully come out with Community Warfare.

I'd rather just see more bonuses based on your in-game contribution, rather than the majority of your money coming from simply being there.

I'd also rather the super expensive toys carried some risk to play, this would help encourage people to not run high level tech all the time, which would help keep the game from being stratified even more into the "haves" and the "have nots".

I know that if I made more money in a mech with an XL regardless of being cored I'd throw it straight in and beat up on the guys still working towards affording DHS or Endosteel on their mechs even more.

I totally agree.
Changing the payouts to be performance-based is good and necessary, though.
However the rewards for capturing or completing an objective should always be higher than for kills. Otherwise it will just encourage kill-whoring instead of teamplay.

Edited by John Norad, 15 November 2012 - 08:07 AM.

[Broceratops]

for a guy that was quitting the game because it stinks you're still quite active on the forums OP

[James The Fox Dixon]

Broceratops, on 15 November 2012 - 08:06 AM, said:

for a guy that was quitting the game because it stinks you're still quite active on the forums OP

I never said I was quitting. Is there a post that you can link that to? Oh you can't since I never said it. I did say I wanted a refund for my closed beta MC purchase. I also said that I would never recommend this game for two reasons: the economy and the community.

Edited by James The Fox Dixon, 15 November 2012 - 08:08 AM.