32 replies to this topic

[Like a Sir]

TLDR:

If you give new players a choice of 1 mech they could own, you might be able to make more money. Explanation follows. (this is just my opinion, I am perfectly willing to accept that I am wrong)

I know that the subject has been brought up and it has been suggested that the new players get a free light or maybe even a medium. I will go ahead and say, give them a heavy or an assault too. I will elaborate:

PGI made some good decisions making mech bay slots, mechs, and hero mechs, purchasable with MC, however there is a problem, that I believe might have been overlooked: in order to use any of those, you want to lure the new players in, as it stands, the learning curve is steep (training/tutorial has been beaten to death), a lot of the trial mechs suck, and you guys come off as greedy money grabbing aholes, because you won't give people anything. The recently announced pay per spray cammo idea, seems to reinforce this notion.

Now let's look at it from the perspective of something people get addicted to, drugs is a good example. From what I gathered, the first dose of whatever the dealer is selling, is almost always on the house. No one in their right mind wants to try *******, but hey, if it's free, some people will go for it and then they will get hooked. And you will always be that friendly neighborhood dealer who they can trust.

What I am saying, is if you give the new player a mech, they won't just play that and never buy anything else, they still have to buy the other 2 variants to max it out, they will need money for upgrades, and they will have to grind out a ton of GXP to get it. The difference is: THEY WILL NOT THINK OF YOU, AS GREEDY ******** THEY DON"T WANT TO GIVE MONEY TOO OUT OF PRINCIPLE, you want them to think of you as a friend, who gave them their first mech. People are much more likely to give money to someone they like.

Now the beauty of this, is the bigger mech you give them, the more money they will need for other variants, give them an assault, and it will be a long grind to get all those variants bought and pilot proficiencies done. Also, a lot of the new players will probably pick something they won't like and keep forever. That's the money they could be spending converting GXP or just buying premium time.

You could even rig the whole thing, to where they won't just stick with that one mech!!! Mine your data, pull the less popular design of each class, and give those to them, so say they will get to pick between Raven, Cent, Dragon, or AWS (the non 9m), People will still be happy, but they will want to get the other mechs in the category as well, at the same time, make their first one non sellable, so that will use up one Mech bay slot, and make them want to get those 2 extra variants to max it out!!!

Another thing you could do with this, that will still make this a grind. Make it say 10 matches to pick light, 20 for med, and so on. Let them keep the money, a lot of the people are impatient and will get lights anyway, but even if they don't, buying 2 awesomes is not cheap!!!

Your trials have gotten better, but they still blow.. People won't spend forever in them even if you make trials good, people want to customize stuff and make it their own, get someone who knows how to put a mech together, and have them make the damn trials, also make them more heat efficient, less weapons more sinks, so the new players will have less of a learning curve.

Last but not least, try not to come off so greedy... It really puts people off, and you have been doing that a lot lately.

I trully hope this game succeeds and as I stated, these are just my ideas. I don't care what you do with them, just trying to help you out.

[Bishop Steiner]

Interesting. I need to come back and re-read this when it ain't 5am.. but while I don't (think) I 10)% agree, I like a lot of the premise (sorry I don't think ANYONE should ever just be given an Assault Mech. Not even Founders. (and I am one)

About the only way I would be down with Assaults being "given" out would be some sort of random lottery, or anything that keeps their numbers low, so that it does not turn into Atlas-warrior Online.

[Like a Sir]

Bishop Steiner, on 16 November 2012 - 01:57 AM, said:

Interesting. I need to come back and re-read this when it ain't 5am.. but while I don't (think) I 10)% agree, I like a lot of the premise (sorry I don't think ANYONE should ever just be given an Assault Mech. Not even Founders. (and I am one)

About the only way I would be down with Assaults being "given" out would be some sort of random lottery, or anything that keeps their numbers low, so that it does not turn into Atlas-warrior Online.

I understand where you are coming from, that's why I said, they could even pick the least desirable models for people to choose from, AWS-8T, Dragon etc... Otherwise yes, everyone would just pick an atlas, I'm sure you see where I'm going with this, either way, you don't look the gift horse in the mouth, so they new people would be happy and feel welcome here.

[Vosgedzam]

They were supposed to give us a starter mech of our choices, but they took it away and gave us the many horrible trial mechs, and a couple of the half-decent mechs.

I did mention they should stick with their promise, but allowing us to play with all-available trial mech to play in the practice games against the other trial mechs before settled on a mech of choice. That'd allow us to spend MC on such as new bay slots to add more mech chassis for the Mech/Pilot xp grinds, more MC for premium account to continue playing your favorite mech, and more. I agree.

[Bishop Steiner]

Like a Sir, on 16 November 2012 - 02:19 AM, said:

I understand where you are coming from, that's why I said, they could even pick the least desirable models for people to choose from, AWS-8T, Dragon etc... Otherwise yes, everyone would just pick an atlas, I'm sure you see where I'm going with this, either way, you don't look the gift horse in the mouth, so they new people would be happy and feel welcome here.

I like the AWS-8T though.... (admittedly it needs more ammo real bad tho). Probably was the best Trial Mech I can remember.

[Big G]

I'm new to the game but the ideas you present are sound enough to be discussed in a sales meeting. I would think that many ideas on what should be included with membership have been discussed. The best solution will be one where the gamer progresses through the simulation not being worried that their entertainment dollar is going into pay to play money pit. There has to be at least an equal or even better 2:1 return in entertainment value for the cost of playing.

[Like a Sir]

Shameless bump! I will do one more monday or something, then let it die =D

[Corvus Antaka]

One idea might be to give new players a 10% permanent CB bonus on the first mech they buy.

[Celesteel]

I am totally for your suggestion, and have even suggested that they maybe implement the Chameleon mech for a starter. For one, this goes along with cannon, as it is a trainer mech. Furthermore, this mech has a decent spread of hardpoints and could easily fit any role. I would make this mech not worth anything to sell though, so that would force players to grind to buy others.

[Wun]

I made a similar suggestion. I sugggested they give discount coupons for mech chassis to encourage people to buy more mechs and sell mech bays. WoT makes a ton of money selling tank slots, MWO should also.

I was thinking something pretty aggressive like after your first battle you get a 50% off any Commando chassis coupon, after 10 battles get a 35% off some medium chassis (Cicada maybe), after 50 battles a coupon for 20% off a heavy and after 100 get a 10% off a heavy. Then every hundred (tune this number) battles get a "random" coupon, weighted toward medium and light. This would be a tool to sell more mech bays as well as encourage lore or game-play appropriate mixes of mechs in the game.

[Pendraco]

Celesteel, on 16 November 2012 - 10:22 AM, said:

I am totally for your suggestion, and have even suggested that they maybe implement the Chameleon mech for a starter. For one, this goes along with cannon, as it is a trainer mech. Furthermore, this mech has a decent spread of hardpoints and could easily fit any role. I would make this mech not worth anything to sell though, so that would force players to grind to buy others.

If they do decide to go this route (giving newbies a 'Mech) This would be the best possible implementation. I had forgotten all about that 'Mech! Wonderful idea!

Note: They would have to make it something everyone could buy as well - mainly because now I want one ..LOL

Edited by Pendraco, 16 November 2012 - 10:42 AM.

[Matthew Pryde]

Nah I agree here with the OP, I've known several people that won't play because they won't use the trial mechs but don't feel the money would be well spent in buying a mech. Because of this they won't get invested in the game, and thus, PGI loses money.

[Imagine Dragons]

PGI did announce that they were planning to overhaul the Trial Mech experience soon... might as well just wait and see...

[Roughneck45]

No, because people would just keep making accounts and get the mechs for free that way.

[RG Notch]

People don't refuse to give money out of principle, they refuse to give money because they want things for free.

[Like a Sir]

Roughneck45, on 16 November 2012 - 11:04 AM, said:

No, because people would just keep making accounts and get the mechs for free that way.

They could, that's why one of the things I suggested was setting milestones for unlocking your first mech, 20 games for light 30 for med and so on, and you could only get one.

You could get different ones, but in the end, it's not like you can merge them all on one account, and you still need to unlock the other variants to maxx the chassis, most of the people like to max their mechs I think... Again, not saying you are wrong, just pointing out, that it might not be as bad as it seems....

[TPrty]

Many good ideas in here!
As the guy above me said, people are turned off by the trial mechs and are not willing to spend money on the game without knowing if they will actually enjoy it or not.
By giving them their "own" mech for cheap or free, you get them excited about upgrading, customizing, etc and "hook" them on the game. This also eats up their 1st mech bay and puts them much more firmly on the path toward spending $$.

Edited by TPrty, 16 November 2012 - 11:23 AM.

[Red squirrel]

I completely agree. The way PGI presents itself can be best described as greedy.
Especially if you know that they just got 5.2 million $ from founders.

I have not spent any MC yet just because I strongly feel that everything is way too expensive.
As soon as the economy becomes a bit more friendly I will happily spend money on MWO on a regular basis.
But currently I am in boycot mode.

PS: The AWS 8T is the damn best LRM boat in game. 4 x LRM15 1440 rockets.
Before the LRM nerf I killed Atlai in mere seconds. But it's still a good mech now.

[Felbombling]

Like a Sir, on 16 November 2012 - 01:54 AM, said:

...you guys come off as greedy money grabbing aholes, because you won't give people anything.

Like a Sir, on 16 November 2012 - 01:54 AM, said:

What I am saying, is if you give the new player a mech, they won't just play that and never buy anything else, they still have to buy the other 2 variants to max it out, they will need money for upgrades, and they will have to grind out a ton of GXP to get it. The difference is: THEY WILL NOT THINK OF YOU, AS GREEDY ******** THEY DON"T WANT TO GIVE MONEY TOO OUT OF PRINCIPLE, you want them to think of you as a friend, who gave them their first mech. People are much more likely to give money to someone they like.

Like a Sir, on 16 November 2012 - 01:54 AM, said:

Last but not least, try not to come off so greedy... It really puts people off, and you have been doing that a lot lately.

Like a Sir, you just saved me the trouble of starting a new thread. I highlight those three points above to shine a light on where I think PGI has tripped up. Any player out there that has spent hours upon hours grinding anything in any other game, be it resource gathering, reputation points, reward tokens... any grind you can think of... will be more inclined to just grind out C-Bills and make purchases that way, rather than open their wallet to a company that does not seem to value their time.

Where PGI messed up is the forced Trial Mech period. In my estimation, the best use for Trial Mechs should be twofold… 1) As a fallback position in the event of financial ruin… your A1 Mech gets blasted to smithereens and you cannot bring it up to snuff without some C-Bill farming. 2) The Trial Mechs should be sales vehicles to allow people to test drive a Mech before actual purchase, not an Iron Maiden they have to withstand torture within.

After much reflection, it seems to me that PGI wants to use pain as a reason for purchasing Mech Credits over fun factor. My initial reaction has been to endure the pain and withhold my money. If I really look at it objectively, I have to come to the conclusion that I have not sent PGI my money for the simple fact that I do not feel valued as a client.

[iminbagdad]

They have said many times no. I dont know why but somebody in PGI has a ****** for the trial mech system. The latest they said was looking into the new player experience but i dont believe they said they were getting rid of trial mechs.

To solve the issue on what to give people its easy. What does cannon say was the most common mech? Mediums.

Ok, welcome new guy. Drop into our pilot academy to learn the basics (no you don't have to watch any videos, that's ridiculous)

cue 3 or 4 missions that cover basic controls and such with three different mechs. show difference between speed, armor, ballistics, lasers, and missiles.

Congrats on passing pilot training, here pick your first mech, its on us because we know once you start you'll be hooked. Oh and by the way, if you would like for $2 (or something) we will attach a permanent 10% cbill bonus on your mech.

HBK-4G
HBK-4SP
CN-9AL
CDA-3M

This will keep mediums in large numbers, give players something they own (which cant be stressed enough how important that is), and hopefully get them to spend their first couple bucks. Spending 2 or so dollars is easy, and once you spend some its easier to spend more.

Right now trial guys are starting to save up enough for their first mech.
A commando.
You guys are mean no one should have to pilot a stock commando. ( and i love my commando but its not stock)

anyways my .02 that rambled on for too long