128 replies to this topic

[wanderer]

Joseph Mallan, on 03 December 2012 - 09:26 AM, said:

Then you need to carry less ammo! Its why the stock chassis carry so little ammo after all! It costs a lot of money to make war.

You are hopefully being sarcastic.

The stock chassis carries so little ammo because frankly, it literally needs 25% the ammo to do it's job that it's MWO version does.

Ironically, that makes it about right for a 75% free reload.

[Joseph Mallan]

Vechs, on 03 December 2012 - 09:29 AM, said:

You know what, I agree with that.

But not for the random battles we have now. Why? Because they are not persistent.

Imagine this scenario:

Two Merc Outfits fight for a planet, on a persistent campaign that lasts for 5 missions, with 8 players per mission.

Each team is given 200,000,000 C-Bills for their War Chest, and from that amount, they must outfit fresh lances of mechs for each mission. That's enough to give everyone assault mechs... for the first two missions, and then they'd be out of money.

Suddenly, all the prices in the game suddenly mean something.

Especially because of this last rule I'm about to lay on you--

At the end of the campaign, the winning team keeps whatever money they haven't spent yet, and it's divided up between the eight players.

So, hypothetically, if Team A used up their 200,000,000 and lost to Team B, who, with skill and cunning, won using only 150,000,000, that's 50,000,000 paid out to the winning team, just over 6 million C-Bills in reward money for each winning player.

I think that would be awesome, and that would be an appropriate area where repair costs would make the gameplay very engaging and fun.

Yeah but if we don't pay for it now, when the game becomes "persistent" everyone will cry like a baby because they never paid for ammo before!!!


Welcome to the life of a Merc. The Scenario is pretty much spot on for how a Merc command could sink or swim on how thrifty they are. My friends and I sank a few times before we figured out how to manage the have/have not razor. Many time we SOLD the Sunder OmniMechs salvaged because we could better afford a Grasshopper-5H and some extra armor for when the going gets tough.

Quote

You are hopefully being sarcastic.

Not at all. As a Infantry Marine I often trained using "Bang Bang" ammo. Which is to say we had to say, "bang bang" to simulate us shooting at imaginary enemy troops. Cause ammo is expensive and if the US government was not able to give me even Blanks to train with, how are you as a Lone Wolf going to afford to pay for ammo and repairs?

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 03 December 2012 - 09:44 AM.

[Blowfeld]

IDKFA

for more ammo

[Khobai]

No one is abusing anything. If people actually had to pay for ammo they would be losing tens of thousands of cbills per match.

[Icebound]

Comassion, on 03 December 2012 - 07:01 AM, said:

Why not reduce the cost of ammo by 75% and make you pay for it all the time?

That's what I've been wondering this whole time.

[stjobe]

Icebound, on 03 December 2012 - 09:44 AM, said:

That's what I've been wondering this whole time.

As has been explained a few times, they have other revenue streams for us waiting to be implemented. If they implemented those and hiked the R&R costs by 300% there would be hell to pay on the forums. Instead, they can implement them and remove the 75% saying it was a freebie all along.

[Taryys]

In its current state trial mech blow a lot. I agree with that.
You have valid points, but I made my comment within the context of the answers really provided by my thread.
They can be just fine and great learning tools if my suggestions are followed:

Thread in sig.

wanderer, on 03 December 2012 - 09:20 AM, said:

Dropping your new players into 'Mechs that have piles of things done wrong is not how one gets your new players trained up properly.

...

[TheMightyWashburn]

This is a video game. Not a ******* life lesson. I pay bills in real life. I understand the logistics of war. I dont need or want a game to teach me about it. I want to have fun. Carry less ammo you say, well I cary 1440 and can run out of even that much in a good match. No, I dont waste missiles on bad targets. I am in the 312th Black Tridents and I only fire on targets I can see or that they have verbally assured me is in the open and they have a good lock on.

So how do I burn up 1440 missiles? Well, I dont always. Often I have plenty of change. And other times the enemy team is quite missile-aware and runs to cover ASAP. Not to mention AMS systems cutting down a bunch of them. Add to that the fact the damage is spread out a lot across the ground and their entire body. So yes, I do have reason to carry so much ammo. I pay the price for being a specialist. I have little armor and no speed. Any light mech or sniper can tear me apart. But I coordinate with my team to keep them away and stay out of LOS.

P.S. As a note about "skill" and LRMs. No, I dont have to aim manually. This obviously means I have it a little easier. But for that ease I pay a hefty price in survivability. And you dont have to be a genius to see what a lack of good judgement with LRMs can cause. Ive seen people with just as much ammo waste them all out of range or into cover or worst of all, on back 1/2s locks.

[Icebound]

stjobe, on 03 December 2012 - 09:48 AM, said:

As has been explained a few times, they have other revenue streams for us waiting to be implemented. If they implemented those and hiked the R&R costs by 300% there would be hell to pay on the forums. Instead, they can implement them and remove the 75% saying it was a freebie all along.

You need to reread what I was replying to.

[Foxwalker]

I was using the 75% free thing this weekend for the first time. I was struck with considering the way I would like to balance my mech. That is, if you want to be an LRM specialist, you want Artemis and BAP. So the additional crit spaces and tonnage for them apply. Add the extra tonnage for enough ammo to finish the game and you do not have enough tonnage left over for much in the way of secondary weapons, making you very vunerable to close range attacks. I hate not being able to defend myself against rampaging lights, so I up my secondary weapons and sacrifice ammo or LRM size to have the flexibility.

It is really interesting to me. It is sort of like protecting your Base. If you fully specialize in LRM boating, than you need someone dedicated to protecting you, thus tying up your teammates to keep you alive. Cool.

Edited by Foxwalker, 03 December 2012 - 09:58 AM.

[dF0X]

The free 75% works for repairs as well as ammo, so keep that in mind

[Joseph Mallan]

TheMightyWashburn, on 03 December 2012 - 09:49 AM, said:

This is a video game. Not a ******* life lesson. I pay bills in real life. I understand the logistics of war. I dont need or want a game to teach me about it. I want to have fun. Carry less ammo you say, well I cary 1440 and can run out of even that much in a good match. No, I dont waste missiles on bad targets. I am in the 312th Black Tridents and I only fire on targets I can see or that they have verbally assured me is in the open and they have a good lock on.

So how do I burn up 1440 missiles? Well, I dont always. Often I have plenty of change. And other times the enemy team is quite missile-aware and runs to cover ASAP. Not to mention AMS systems cutting down a bunch of them. Add to that the fact the damage is spread out a lot across the ground and their entire body. So yes, I do have reason to carry so much ammo. I pay the price for being a specialist. I have little armor and no speed. Any light mech or sniper can tear me apart. But I coordinate with my team to keep them away and stay out of LOS.

P.S. As a note about "skill" and LRMs. No, I dont have to aim manually. This obviously means I have it a little easier. But for that ease I pay a hefty price in survivability. And you dont have to be a genius to see what a lack of good judgement with LRMs can cause. Ive seen people with just as much ammo waste them all out of range or into cover or worst of all, on back 1/2s locks.

You know what? You don't want to pay to make war. Tough. It's part of a persistent game. The best games make you feel the pinch of having to supply yourself. Not enough bullets? You die. Not enough food? You starve. I've gamed these kinds of games for 30 years, and I have had a blast doing it. So if you can't handle the price of playing soldier... go play CoD.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 03 December 2012 - 10:00 AM.

[IIIuminaughty]

I like free money O_O

[Mercules]

Elkarlo, on 03 December 2012 - 08:45 AM, said:

And before you say anything, without the 75% NOBODY would be able to Field a Mech,

Khobai, on 03 December 2012 - 09:42 AM, said:

No one is abusing anything. If people actually had to pay for ammo they would be losing tens of thousands of cbills per match.

Neither of these statements are factual. I don't use my Founders mech and I have never launched without repairing and rearming my mech. I am able to pay for my ammo and repairs just fine. Someone can't do math or really, really, really, really sucks at this game.

Edited by Mercules, 03 December 2012 - 10:02 AM.

[MrPenguin]

AP514, on 03 December 2012 - 07:10 AM, said:

well then im going LRM BOATING

So?

[Lykaon]

AP514, on 03 December 2012 - 07:00 AM, said:

thats so much bull....it is a CHEAT

I am going to go out on a limb and make a wild guess as to why we have this 75% free rearm now.

Eventually we will have community warefare and when we have it each player will have a choice of what faction to join.
One of the great successor states,a mercenary company or lone wolf.

The likely outcome of joining a house unit is the benifits of having a massive military machine as a support network.The successor states pay for repair and rearm of the machines in thier service.This may be reflected by what bonuses are granted by territories held by a particular house.A house mechwarrior will recieve cost breaks as a result of affiliation.

A Mercenary player will likely see higher average payouts to subsidize the cost of repair and rearm.The mercs do not have the benefit of a huge successor states economy they pay out of pocket with the larger paycheck.A merc company may hold territory and also gain limited benefits from the territory like say..an LRM factory cutting LRM rearm costs.

Lonewolf players get none of these benefits at all they have to pay out of pocket for everything.Eventually a Lonewolf player will earn faction standing with a successor state and then gain some support from that house.until then they get the one benefit of 75% free repair/rearm.

Currently we are all Lonewolf players.

This is all congecture on my part I do not have any insider info it's a shot in the dark.

[Mercules]

Joseph Mallan, on 03 December 2012 - 09:59 AM, said:

You know what? You don't want to pay to make war. Tough. It's part of a persistent game. The best games make you feel the pinch of having to supply yourself. Not enough bullets? You die. Not enough food? You starve. I've gamed these kinds of games for 30 years, and I have had a blast doing it. So if you can't handle the price of playing soldier... go play CoD.

In fact in Paintball while we do play on airbunker courses in leagues that allow you to use whatever you can take on the field strapped to your body for ammo we enjoy more limited games much more. I too have literally sent a stream of bullets down the course while dumping more paintballs into my hopper from a tube. I've gone through half a case (1,000 paintballs) in a single match. It's a bit stupid but it is one way to play.

Alternately my friends and I will play "hopper ball" where all you get is your hopper full(usually limited to 200 balls max). Or we will set a given number of extra tubes. We have even played Woodsball where we had 3 10 round tubes instead of a hopper. In that case we had modified cigar tubes to hold 10 balls. You could carry 3 of these total so 30 shots. This was a reasonable amount of shots and you had to deal with "slapping in a new clip". The 30 shot style of play was MUCH more fun than the endless stream of fire.

Knowing you could run out really added to the game.

[Magnumaniac]

John T Quirk, on 03 December 2012 - 09:11 AM, said:

When i go shooting with my guns IRL and i run out of ammo some magic ammo fairy doesnt magicaly refill my mags. i have to go to the gun shop and buy my own ******** ammo at cost. the same should be true for this game.

The clue is in the name of the website you are reading this on... "MERCS"

If someone offered you a contract of employment of say, $200,000 - but you would have to cover all expenses yourself, which came to $250,000... you would take that offer? No, of course you wouldn't.

So in the game, you and I are deemed to be mercenaries who have accepted a contract of employment that provides 75% of all expenses paid for by the retainer of your services. Personally, I would not accept a contract that offered less than 100% of expenses IRL - so we are getting a bad deal here!

I think repair / re-arm costs should be zero across the board, and no c-bills should be awarded for win / loss. Only performance related rewards should exist. So you are AFK / suicide / do zero damage... you gain / lose nothing. Otherwise, you make what you are worth.

[p4r4g0n]

AP514, on 03 December 2012 - 07:13 AM, said:

TOTALLY untrue...I feild MEKS and do not have my PREM account active...I still make alot of MONEY and pay for all repairs/rearm

you got to be a total NOOB not to mke money in this game

Do you use your founder's mechs?

[Elkarlo]

Mercules, on 03 December 2012 - 10:02 AM, said:

Neither of these statements are factual. I don't use my Founders mech and I have never launched without repairing and rearming my mech. I am able to pay for my ammo and repairs just fine. Someone can't do math or really, really, really, really sucks at this game.

Mercules PLEASE read my Post before you blame my statement.

I explained the Fact that ATM without the free 75% Repair nobody could field a Battlemech without playing every secound Time a Trial Mech. And this would kill MWO.

Simple Math: the Average _REPAIR_ Bill would instantly go up to 150k on a CHEAP Setup.

WITHOUT Ammo Costs.

And about 70% of Mechs are killed in a Match, this Means a WIN with Mechloss would be a win of 40k C-Bills.
In a Cheap Mech + AC Ammo or Missles which would be easily over 100k too... and then you have to play a Trial Mech.
When i have moderate Armor Damage i have to pay 10k Repair bill... this would be 40k without the 75% freebe.
So even in a WIN with moderate Damage with Premium etc etc you don't make enough Money to cover a loose.
Especially when your torso was hit and lets say a component damaged, then you have to pay around 120k extra on Repair.

So Factual Enough that nobody would be able to Field an own Battlemech without the 75%?

Because you underestimate something... poeple would leave MWO very fast with this repaircosts so high...
and the 70% damage ones will stay... so even the good players will be smacked by better players, and they can't farm on lower Players as they have left the Game.. so the good player will leave... then the better and in the end only the Hardcore Freaks will stay battling each other in Trial Mechs to earn money for 8vs8 matches...

at least the Netcode Problem would be solved.