146 replies to this topic

[Kerjhr]

i never rearm/repair. The problem is u gotta buy 3x the same chassis of a mech and hardly make enough money to buy / equip all 3 so your are able to progress in the mech u want to play.

i dont need a carrot, i just want to operate the mech i like to play.

[Voridan Atreides]

ShadowDarter, on 29 November 2012 - 02:32 AM, said:

the ecconomy of war in MWO, should be a large part of the game, a lot of discussions are on how bad it is. My opinion is that it should be a major part of how everyone takes to battle, another layer of complexity to the game.

In all seriousness, there are to many games out there that offer a free ride or at least a cheap way out. Running a Mech is a very expensive affair and that was commented upon in just about all of the books.

Open for discussion, folks no flaming or trolling lets look at the other side of the discussion.

And make negative amounts of money? Yeah thats smart.....

[Jello2142]

Joseph Mallan, on 29 November 2012 - 07:18 AM, said:

Or you need to get a more cost effective weapon until you can afford to run an AC20. Just saying man. Run what you can afford to lose and repair. Don't you live within a budget in real life?

Let me ask you a serious question Joseph. Do you enjoy MWO? I am guessing yes, as do I. If so would you like to play this game long into the future?

I am on the side of R/R costs being ridiculous myself. I have never played the BT TT game but have read all of the books and have always been under the impression that the MW franchise while softly based on BT it was just that softly based not word for word or rule for rule. I could be wrong but hey.

If you enjoy said game would you not agree that it would be in the benefit of yourself and PGI to make a game that does not drive people away by making it not fun for them? Yes battlemechs are expensive however the fact that a person can not take a Atlas into battle (PUG or otherwise) because it doesn't fit the lance it just dumb. If I have 30 minutes to play and I prefer to roll out the atlas for a couple matches I should expect and be ok with probably loosing money?

If MWO is to become the game you guys want it to be then I am sure that it will continue on with a very small nitch and get updates sporadically untilt the studio finally dies. Again something I do not want.

I have a house, 2 cars, 3 children, wife, full time job bla bla bla bla bla I am capable of budgeting or I would probably nto have half the crap I do. I play vidya to get away from the grind of life, if I am to now have to keep a spread sheet of expenses for my game then it no longer becomes a game I have fun in but an extension of work and life.

Seriously now, reading this and nothing else is that what you want? Is this something that you think a majority of gamers want?

[Justin Xang Allard]

Joseph Mallan, on 29 November 2012 - 07:18 AM, said:

Or you need to get a more cost effective weapon until you can afford to run an AC20. Just saying man. Run what you can afford to lose and repair. Don't you live within a budget in real life?

I do.......... but I think the concept of starting at what you can afford and upgrading as you go is an alien idea to most now days...

*grabs walker*
Well I remember back in my day.............
.......walk to school up hill in the snow across the desert both ways........
.......hermna schermina......new fang led contraptions......

[RFMarine]

this is the opposite of the threads where people want to nerf the cost of repair and ammo

[Vexgrave Lars]

Awesome, raise the cost of everything... drive new players farther away from playing, and any interest in a premium account! Some people KNOW when buying something is really paying extortion for survival, rather than paying to have fun OR for something more.

Thats just Brilliant!

Turn off the servers, everyone go play something else.

Next! I hope IGP/PGI is ahead of this.

[TheMightyWashburn]

That is a terrible idea. A game is for fun and its not fun to be told "no, you can play with the mech youve spent REAL MONEY and/or REAL TIME on" Thats ********. I wouldnt play it another day. No game I pay for and spend time on is going to tell me I cant play it the way I want. Atlases arent strong enough for it anyway. They are easy as hell to take down and it would just be ridiculous to think they are so powerful that you should only be able to run them 1/10 matches or something.

As far as rearms, also absurd. Its already 120k to reload my missiles. And thats just for 25% of them. If it were full price it would cost about .5 million every time I used all of them. You would be looking at nearly a million in repair cost while making ~230k as the TOP person in a game WITH premium time. You cant be serious.

[Max Liao]

Jello2142, on 29 November 2012 - 08:09 AM, said:

If you enjoy said game would you not agree that it would be in the benefit of yourself and PGI to make a game that does not drive people away by making it not fun for them?

I'll quote myself as a reply to this ...

Max Liao, on 29 November 2012 - 07:38 AM, said:

You do realize that there are fanbois on both sides of this argument. I generalize greatly, but here it is:

• Fanboi #1: Keep the game BattleTech pure; a true simulation! Pew-pew shooters aren't fun!
  
• Fanboi #2: What's BattleTech, gimme a pew-pew shooter game! BattleTech isn't fun!

Personally, I'm fanboi #1 all the way.

• Unmodified Medium 'Mechs should be the bulk of the forces on the battle field.
  
• Mods should be costly to obtain and repair. (Risk/Reward.)
  
• Assaults should be expensive as hell to repair, when compared to a Medium. If used frivolously they should be prohibitively expensive.

If that's not fun for you, too bad. I make no secret of my disdain for people who want to ruin or change the BattleTech IP to a fast-paced action shooter. If you don't like it, don't play it. If you want a random robot shooter go and play or make a random robot shooter. I want to simulate a MechWarrior piloting a BattleMech in the BattleTech universe. That means longer weapons delay, expensive 'Mechs: "In the 31st century life is cheap, but BattleMechs aren't."


The average fanboi #2 wants a giant robot shooter in which they can min/max with unfettered customization, who feels they should be able to be on par with Founders and long time veterans on day one, and that fun can only come through action. They typically find fun through the action and gameplay, not the metagame, the story, or the progression.

If it's not fun people won't play!
Fun for whom?
#1 is not fun for you.
#2 is not fun for me.
They are not compatible, so one of us has to lose.

“But the BattleTech crowd can't fund the game for the long term.” While this is mostly correct, I think you'd also be very, very surprised how long we could fund this if it was actually true to the BattleTech canon/lore. Would it be as profitable? No, I have no illusions about that.

The devs have a conundrum. Do they cater to me or do they cater to you? Do they destroy the IP to cater to the lowest common denominator or the masses just for the sake of (potential) profit, or do they limit their player base by staying true to the IP and catering to the purist zealots?

The devs cannot please me and you at the same time, so they have to find some kind of balance. While I certainly do NOT agree with many of their design philosophies for MWO, I feel they have done a great job in finding balance between me (the purist zealot) and you (the action gamer).

I've said it from the get-go, when you take on an intellectual property (IP) like BattleTech/MechWarrior you stay true to the IP. If you want to make your game, you make your game. You don't do both – or you get MechAssault.

While I don't like to grind (and I still don't believe there's any grind in MWO), I like to work toward and earn my 'Mechs and upgrades through time and victories. I don't believe that things should be easy or freely given. As it is, everyone can play the game day one, and play effectively. I have used trial 'Mechs quite often, they are viable. If you can't hack'em; if they aren't fun for you because you can't alpha strike every two seconds, that's on you not me. Learn prudence, patience, and teamwork.

If the devs use this economy to control the number of customs and the amount of customization on the battle field, (as I said somewhere else) they have my 100% full support.

Jello2142, on 29 November 2012 - 08:09 AM, said:

Yes battlemechs are expensive however the fact that a person can not take a Atlas into battle (PUG or otherwise) because it doesn't fit the lance it just dumb.

Atlases are rare. Assault 'Mechs are rare. They are also very expensive - one of the reasons they are rare. So, if random player X wants to take an Atlas into battle, s/he better be prepared for one hell of a bill. This is a good thing. A player with experience and funds, who can afford the repairs for a duration or who wins well enough to keep his/her head above water, well, more power to'em.

Jello2142, on 29 November 2012 - 08:09 AM, said:

If I have 30 minutes to play and I prefer to roll out the atlas for a couple matches I should expect and be ok with probably loosing money?

Absolutely, yes.

[ThunderHart]

Here Here !! This is a thinking man's game. "Not Unreal tournament."

[Joseph Mallan]

Jello2142, on 29 November 2012 - 08:09 AM, said:

Let me ask you a serious question Joseph. Do you enjoy MWO? I am guessing yes, as do I. If so would you like to play this game long into the future?

I am on the side of R/R costs being ridiculous myself. I have never played the BT TT game but have read all of the books and have always been under the impression that the MW franchise while softly based on BT it was just that softly based not word for word or rule for rule. I could be wrong but hey.

If you enjoy said game would you not agree that it would be in the benefit of yourself and PGI to make a game that does not drive people away by making it not fun for them? Yes battlemechs are expensive however the fact that a person can not take a Atlas into battle (PUG or otherwise) because it doesn't fit the lance it just dumb. If I have 30 minutes to play and I prefer to roll out the atlas for a couple matches I should expect and be ok with probably loosing money?

If MWO is to become the game you guys want it to be then I am sure that it will continue on with a very small nitch and get updates sporadically untilt the studio finally dies. Again something I do not want.

I have a house, 2 cars, 3 children, wife, full time job bla bla bla bla bla I am capable of budgeting or I would probably nto have half the crap I do. I play vidya to get away from the grind of life, if I am to now have to keep a spread sheet of expenses for my game then it no longer becomes a game I have fun in but an extension of work and life.

Seriously now, reading this and nothing else is that what you want? Is this something that you think a majority of gamers want?

Reading this and nothing else I still say, "You drive what you can afford, until you can afford better." I can afford to drive an Atlas. I am driving a Hunchback cause I want to save up for a Stalker or 3 and I earn more money in a Hunchie than I do in my Atlas. It's a decision I had to make and I am having fun while I am playing within my Budget. So although you worded your position quite eloquently and presented it in a mature fashion, I still stand by my position. I am going to be on limited bonuses shortly cause i am saving my Founders premium package til I see OmniMechs coming at me.

[Jello2142]

Max Liao, on 29 November 2012 - 08:19 AM, said:

I'll quote myself as a reply to this ...


Atlases are rare. Assault 'Mechs are rare. They are also very expensive - one of the reasons they are rare. So, if random player X wants to take an Atlas into battle, s/he better be prepared for one hell of a bill. This is a good thing. A player with experience and funds, who can afford the repairs for a duration or who wins well enough to keep his/her head above water, well, more power to'em.

Absolutely, yes.

I see your quote on fanbois and I can understand/relate to a degree. I am able to differentiate between games in the fact that this isn't BT/TT and it is not the old MW franchise of old so can anyone really hold this game up tot that and expect anything but arguments?

If that is how the game is to be played then that is great but don't expect it to flourish as everyone would like it to. If you truly believe that punishing people who want to play the game they want to play it is the way to make a game then more power to you.

If PGI feels that way and is angling up to attract the E-Sports crowd I think they are going to have a hard time as LoL isn't as caustic to it's new and "bad" player base. *note I use bad as in not "noob" or "fail" but just those who aren't good but still have fun*

I don't know if it is gold vision, or fainboi-itis but how is allowing those who are looking to have fun have it going to hold those who feel the need to be competitive down? If Joeblo wants to roll out an atlas in a few pug matches he should be able to without breaking the bank, and whatever concessions PGI made to make this happen is not going to prevent me from forming a organized drop and competing with another organized group.

If Timmy wants to outfit a heavy with a pile of LRMs and pug it up he should be able to do it without any issue because again it is not going to cause any issues with how I play the game. If I 8 drop he won't be an issue to me, if I pug and I am on the other side I have no problems dealing with him on my team or otherwise.

[Agent 0 Fortune]

If PGI currently offers free 75% reloads, the solution is simple, reduce the cost of ammunition by 75%. The only people the current system hurts are new players who are not aware of auto-rearm and auto-repair features and are throwing money away, and further increasing the grind to their own mech.
I used to pay for all my reloads, then 2 patches later I realized, it wasn't a bug, but and intentionaly feature. If you can afford an extra ton or two of ammo, you can save 80K a match.

[Jello2142]

Joseph Mallan, on 29 November 2012 - 08:23 AM, said:

Reading this and nothing else I still say, "You drive what you can afford, until you can afford better." I can afford to drive an Atlas. I am driving a Hunchback cause I want to save up for a Stalker or 3 and I earn more money in a Hunchie than I do in my Atlas. It's a decision I had to make and I am having fun while I am playing within my Budget. So although you worded your position quite eloquently and presented it in a mature fashion, I still stand by my position. I am going to be on limited bonuses shortly cause i am saving my Founders premium package til I see OmniMechs coming at me.

I have my founders banked but mainly just to see how it would be to be free play.

I guess I look at these threads and see things a bit differently then the rest of you guys. I see your "drive what you can afford" and have no problem with that but then no one ever touches on the bigger issue of what I can afford in a organised group may not apply in a un-organised one.

I am not ok with the mind set of you better have a good group or you just cant run XYZ mech that the community has been championing as of late.

I am not ok with everyone stating that if you can't afford to play XYS way then don't purchase XYZ mech.

I know we have all seen the Camero parked in the MCDonalds employee parking lot, we don't tell that guy flipping burgers what that he can't possibly have that and work in McDonalds then who are we to keep gianty stompy robots from people in a game.. sheesh

[OneManWar]

Ok fine, run a mech you can afford, but let's say I play 20-30 games a night, and I win half, that means 15 or so games I get blown to bits. Lets take a STOCK hunch 4G since people are talking unmodified medium mechs. Lets say you lose an arm and a torso (obviously the AC20 torso) and 1 of your medium lasers.


Earnings 15 x 120 = 1.8 million

AC20 x 15 = 9 million
ML x 15 = 1 million
Armor costs 40 x 15 = 600,000
Ammo costs = 10 x 15 = 150,000

So you're looking (with a stock mech) if you go half and half at running a 9 million dollar loss a night at 30 games. That is completely ridiculous and everyone would be running in the red forever (and thus forever running a trial or a commando). If I want to run a stock medium, THE canon medium for a Hunch, I do not want to run at a loss of 9 million in one night, it's just completely and utterly senseless.

[Kaspirikay]

I play this game for fun. Fun to me is being able to play any mech I want, anytime I want. I do not want to have a situation where I have to spend time grinding CBills just so I can use the mech I want for a few games before I go broke again.

You should be able to take out any mech you want, despite the repair bill.

[Mangonel TwoSix]

I don't think many of you that are asking for a stricter economy really know what your asking for.

I'm blessed to play with a good unit. We work well together and seldom lose. After the last patch I played one game without the premium bonus and said screw that and started my time. I made 130k in a win with a 45k repair bill on a mech that was not even critically hit.

Let's see what happens to your economy when we are in premade only games 8 on 8 before we start calling for the economy to be tightened up.

Edit: I think that even when community warfare comes out there will still be a place for casuals and hyper competitive teams. Maybe the casuals don't effect the universe as much and don't get all the benefits a 'hard mode' player would.

Edited by Roknari, 29 November 2012 - 09:00 AM.

[Mu]

Max Liao, on 29 November 2012 - 08:19 AM, said:

Atlases are rare. Assault 'Mechs are rare. They are also very expensive - one of the reasons they are rare. So, if random player X wants to take an Atlas into battle, s/he better be prepared for one hell of a bill. This is a good thing. A player with experience and funds, who can afford the repairs for a duration or who wins well enough to keep his/her head above water, well, more power to'em.

That is not a good thing, I don't care if it fits the battletech setting. It's a painfully stupid thing from the standpoint in terms of BALANCING A VIDEO GAME.

Cost should not be a crippling limitation to run the mech - it should exist as a balancing factor for performance-based mission rewards. If an Atlas makes twice as much money because it killed twice as many people as a lightly armed Commando, yes its repairs should be higher to compensate. This doesn't happen (yet), but it's the real reasoning for higher repair costs.

If you pick that assault mech it's because your group needs an assault mech for team balance, not because you spent all weekend grinding in an unupgraded hunchback 4P to afford it. Hell, right now Jenners are dominant, it's not like you're even getting an advantage by running that expensive AWS-9M. We need to keep this in mind moving forward, we need a game that feels competitive, not something that is chained by the fluff.

Also can people please stop talking about community warfare like it is something that will be implemented before the heat death of the universe? We have problems to worry about now, not then.

[Gallowglas]

If you restructured the game so that the average person couldn't earn enough to buy the mech they wanted, I suspect that people would abandon it pretty fast. BT/MW is about consequences, sure. However, more importantly, it's about driving the big stompy robot of your dreams, too. Being relegated to the equivalent of a mechanized tricycle isn't the answer.

[Lefty Lucy]

Justin Xang Allard, on 29 November 2012 - 07:57 AM, said:

I really like this idea, but I don't think it would be too popular.

That being said.........
TT had repair and salvage roles in play, also cost for repairs and such. This would need to be added in. I would look up the rules but I'm at work............

TT has *highly optional* rules for salvage and repairs for campaign play. I've played for years without spending a single c-bill.

[Joseph Mallan]

Mu, on 29 November 2012 - 08:57 AM, said:

That is not a good thing, I don't care if it fits the battletech setting. It's a painfully stupid thing from the standpoint in terms of BALANCING A VIDEO GAME.

Cost should not be a crippling limitation to run the mech - it should exist as a balancing factor for performance-based mission rewards. If an Atlas makes twice as much money because it killed twice as many people as a lightly armed Commando, yes its repairs should be higher to compensate. This doesn't happen (yet), but it's the real reasoning for higher repair costs.

If you pick that assault mech it's because your group needs an assault mech for team balance, not because you spent all weekend grinding in an unupgraded hunchback 4P to afford it. Hell, right now Jenners are dominant, it's not like you're even getting an advantage by running that expensive AWS-9M. We need to keep this in mind moving forward, we need a game that feels competitive, not something that is chained by the fluff.

Also can people please stop talking about community warfare like it is something that will be implemented before the heat death of the universe? We have problems to worry about now, not then.

Dude! you want to be able to afford and fight in a Multi million credit war machine on your own ability, from word one? I understand this. But do you get THE BFG and Ultima armor in the first few hours of playing other games, or do you have to grind to get em? I know in all the games I played in the last 32+ years, I never got to buy the biggest, fastest, toughest weapons & armor in the game til i earned them... or I had cheat codes.

Quote

[color=#959595]TT has *highly optional* rules for salvage and repairs for campaign play. I've played for years without spending a single c-bill.[/color]

Then you (like myself) were missing a very emersive part of the game! You haven't played CBT till you have to figure out whether its better to fix or sell that captured mech.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 29 November 2012 - 09:13 AM.