169 replies to this topic

[King Arthur IV]

here is a bit of math for you.
mech bays: if you were to own 3 varients of every mech(12) 3x12=36 36x300cm=10800mc. if you spend $50 straight up, you will have enough for 36 mech bays. if you pay $7 a time, then it goes up to $72.

$72 f-ing dollars just on mech bays and i havent even bought paint yet. im torn between buying paint or mech bays right now. you can call me a cheap ******* but the big spender probably only accounts for >%15 of the spenders. this is only a small example of how expensive this game is.




i know i didnt subtract the 3 free bays but when the next mech rolls in it will take care of that.

[King Arthur IV]

FrostPaw, on 29 December 2012 - 10:04 PM, said:

If PGI wanted to drop all prices it would take them about fifteen minutes to edit all of them...

less then that, way way less. just have to up mc to dollar instead

[AlexWildeagle]

Spent all my founder MCs and haven't bought more just cause it really doesn't seem worth it. I have to agree with the OP.

[CodeNameValtus]

I haven't bought a hero mech yet because I think they are far overpriced. I'm not dropping a $20 bill for a single mech, surely not Ilya Muromets $30 price tag. If hero mechs were ~$10 a piece, and once a month they had a rotating sale where they would go for 25-50% off...sure I'd think about spending some MC. Right now, I'm happy with Mechbays...cockpit items don't even really show off to your opponents, so no one is really all that impressed by them.

Seems like they are gouging on the hero mechs. At 2-3 times the cost they should be. I can for one tell you, that I wouldn't buy milk at the store if it were $8 a gallon, $4 is fair, and $3 on sale sometimes. It's an absolute insult to the consumer to sell things priced so high.

[twibs]

I've spent 30+50$ on MWO, the 50 for the +20% bonus for MC.

YLW was when I didn't understand the game and just wanted to get out of the trial mechs, but in general I think the hero mechs are okay-ish. I did buy the Ilya and yes they seem fairly common on the field. Premium time and mech slots are pretty okay, paint would be better if you could unlock one color to one chassis variants and then just use C-Bills to repaint, but I think I may end up buying a color or two for those special mechs that come my way.

I think the whole Christmas / new years items shamble was a test from the devs to see which would actually produce more revenue. You know how Christmas was horribly overpriced yet new year was way more sensible. I'd be curious to know how the test went, but I guess we'll see the next time they put items up and see what their prices are.

[Apoc1138]

King Arthur IV, on 08 January 2013 - 05:15 AM, said:

here is a bit of math for you.
mech bays: if you were to own 3 varients of every mech(12) 3x12=36 36x300cm=10800mc. if you spend $50 straight up, you will have enough for 36 mech bays. if you pay $7 a time, then it goes up to $72.

$72 f-ing dollars just on mech bays and i havent even bought paint yet. im torn between buying paint or mech bays right now. you can call me a cheap ******* but the big spender probably only accounts for >%15 of the spenders. this is only a small example of how expensive this game is.




i know i didnt subtract the 3 free bays but when the next mech rolls in it will take care of that.

but there is nothing making you buy 3 of every chassis AND keeping them all
I have 3 atlases, sure, they all have niches and I have each one set up differently
2 stalkers (sold the 3rd as it was a carbon copy of one of the others)
I'll keep 1 cataphract and 1 dragon and 1 hunchback, I'm not even interested in any other mechs right now

that's 8 mech bays total, 4 of which you start with (5 in my case as I had a founders mech that came with 1 extra free), 10 because you need extra ones to put some in when you are levelling up the hunchbacks

at the rate I bought MC at (20% bonus weekend) it's like $5 on mech bays I've "committed" myself to

I don't think there are many people who will want to get one of every single mech in the game - and if they do and they are prepared to play the game enough to get them, then $50 or $72 will be pretty good value in comparison with many other past times that would use up that amount of free time

[Mazgazine1]

I totally agree, right now the premium time is ONLY good if you get a year, and pay for the $100 MC package. That is too much of an investment for me and I'm sure a lot of people.

you need to change it so the MC you pay for stuff like premium time is far lower, so I don't have to by the big package to get the most worth from it.

Also $30 a mech is BRUTAL.

The only thing worth the money right now are slots.

Also, the price for premium time is still not officially public.

oh yeah and paint is stupidly expensive, and should be transferable to the same model of mech, otherwise its USELESS.

I was pissed when I couldn't move the phranken from my 5M stalker to any other stalker.

Edited by Mazgazine1, 08 January 2013 - 05:53 AM.

[King Arthur IV]

Apoc1138, on 08 January 2013 - 05:44 AM, said:

but there is nothing making you buy 3 of every chassis AND keeping them all
I have 3 atlases, sure, they all have niches and I have each one set up differently
2 stalkers (sold the 3rd as it was a carbon copy of one of the others)
I'll keep 1 cataphract and 1 dragon and 1 hunchback, I'm not even interested in any other mechs right now

that's 8 mech bays total, 4 of which you start with (5 in my case as I had a founders mech that came with 1 extra free), 10 because you need extra ones to put some in when you are levelling up the hunchbacks

at the rate I bought MC at (20% bonus weekend) it's like $5 on mech bays I've "committed" myself to

I don't think there are many people who will want to get one of every single mech in the game - and if they do and they are prepared to play the game enough to get them, then $50 or $72 will be pretty good value in comparison with many other past times that would use up that amount of free time

3 to get your elites. you would be surprised at the amount of people who want to have it all or just keep things even if they dont use them. you would be even more surprised at the amount of people who just want to paint and give a bunch of mechs loads of different paint jobs. its soo counter productive to get elite then sell two mechs.
50-70 dollars just on bays..... if thats good value to you then sure, but to most of us its terrible because i havent even bought anything i find fun.

do you know the game league of legends? there are over 100 characters to unlock and over 50 of them have over 10 skins. alot of people have loads and loads of skins and probably all the characters but it doesnt mean they play with them all.

[Taizan]

The only pricing scheme that disturbs me is that of the paint system. The pricing for the Hero mechs and cockpit items however are fine. Maybe not fine for everyone but hey, you can play for free instead and not suffer any disadvantage. USD 30 or 7 for a permanent virtual item is not much if you've been playing for free for more than 3 months. Also the price tag of the hero mechs is of course a bit higher because you are getting a permanent 30% increase in c-bills.

[Apoc1138]

King Arthur IV, on 08 January 2013 - 06:09 AM, said:

3 to get your elites. you would be surprised at the amount of people who want to have it all or just keep things even if they dont use them.

I will buy 3 of each, I will then sell 1-2 of each and only keep the one I really want
I am in the process of deciding which stalker to keep and which one to sell
why is it counter productive to sell what you don't want to keep or use? I call that efficient

my point was, even if you do keep all the mechs you buy, most people won't want to get every mech anyway
I have no interest in light mechs and very little interest in mediums - I am only going to get 1 mastered on the off chance that my group need a medium to fill out a roster for a set match... I am definitely not going to keep 3

I never said that $70 on bays was good value TO ME, I said that I can understand how it would be to someone who plays the mega hours needed to get enough cbills to buy 3 of every mech in the game
IF you are that commited to the game, then you would pay the $50 price, not the $70 price anyway

value and worth are entirely subjective... I have no issues with the current pricing structure, I see premium time as "good value" and I also see the $7 I am likley to spend on mech bays as good value along with the $0.50c I've spent on paint (and yes, all my mechs are custom coloured but only my main atlas RS has been given the gift of MC colour)

Edited by Apoc1138, 08 January 2013 - 06:37 AM.

[King Arthur IV]

Apoc1138, on 08 January 2013 - 06:22 AM, said:

I will buy 3 of each, I will then sell 1-2 of each and only keep the one I really want
I am in the process of deciding which stalker to keep and which one to sell
why is it counter productive to sell what you don't want to keep or use? I call that efficient

my point was, even if you do keep all the mechs you buy, most people won't want to get every mech anyway
I have no interest in light mechs and very little interest in mediums - I am only going to get 1 mastered on the off chance that my group need a medium to fill out a roster for a set match... I am definitely not going to keep 3

I never said that $70 on bays was good value TO ME, I said that I can understand how it would be to someone who plays the mega hours needed to get enough cbills to buy 3 of every mech in the game
IF you are that commited to the game, then you would pay the $50 price, not the $70 price anyway

value and worth are entirely subjective... I have no issues with the current pricing structure, I see premium time as "good value" and I also see the $7 I am likley to spend on mech bays as good value along with the $0.50c I've spent on paint (and yes, all my mechs are custom coloured but only my main atlas RS has been given the gift of MC colour)

it either feels counter productive or/and it is because of the time you have spent to get the mech in the first place.
the micro translation business scheme does not apply to players like yourself. you choose to be wise and "efficient" spend once and spend wisely. if all the players were like yourself, igp would cease to make revenue after the initial payment. thing is this is f2p and f2p works best when the micro translation is "micro". you need to attract the player in with low prices and they will unwittingly spend on cheap things.
another thing in the game world is, players like to own many things. you may not but im telling you, you are the minority. (even gave you an example)

its easy to say value is subjective without trying judge it from your surroundings. (all the billionaire mwo players please stand up!)

you do understand that igp shouldn't be gearing towards players like yourself because price will not effect the frequency of your spending? you may think bays are fine but i did say that was only one of my/our problems.

[Carnivoris]

I agree. The MC costs/what you get aren't really conducive to me wanting to drop cash on the game. I've spent a little money so far on mechbays and some premium time but that's really all I care to buy. I might buy some paints if it was unlocking that paint for future use on other mechs but it's not. I will not buy a mech with MC (I might buy a hero one day... I dunno. I'm not sold, though). I don't like spending real money to convert XP to GXP but I do think that's something that should cost MC (just not as much).

If MC was really cheap, I'd be more inclined to spend money. Right now, the ONLY reason I'll buy MC is for more mechbays. That's it. I feel no need to buy anything else in the game. I'm sure that'll change with future hero mechs but, right now, I'm sitting pretty with my cash in my pocket.

However, if I could buy a bunch of permanent paints and a hero mech for $30 total, I might throw some cash PGI's way. I got the free PC Gamer paints and they look GREAT on my Stalker. I've got the free cockpit items. I don't feel the need to buy anything else besides mech bays.

[Apoc1138]

King Arthur IV, on 08 January 2013 - 07:11 AM, said:

you do understand that igp shouldn't be gearing towards players like yourself because price will not effect the frequency of your spending? you may think bays are fine but i did say that was only one of my/our problems.

I strip all the items off mechs before I sell them so that I have a mechbay full of items, meaning that when I do buy a new mech, I can outfit it how I want in seconds for next to no cbill cost, instead of keeping a dead mech that I never play and having to buy all new items all the time, I also get some cbills back off the empty mech which covers any cost of modding the next one

it is only counter productive if you don't enjoy playing the game... I spend 3 hours playing the game, as a byproduct of playing the game for fun, i buy a new mech, I play the mech to get the skills up on the other mech I want to keep, I strip the items, I sell the mech, giving me items and cbills I can use to buy/modify other new mechs

it is fine if you want to keep every mech you buy, but to me (and no doubt many others) doing so in and of itself seems counter productive to me when it will cost real money and the chances of me playing that mech are so small as to be 0

so PGI shouldn't be gearing the game towards players who have already laid down over $100 with plans to spend another $100 over the next 12 months as and when more content is released?
okay then

it is easy to say that value is subjective because it's true according to the very definition of the word

on the one hand you are saying that micro transactions should rule the day - mech bays cost what, about $2 each tops?
then in the same breath you are saying that $72 is too much to spend on mech bays... well surely, the fact that a microtransaction ends up costing you $72 is the very model you seem to be espousing?

the way I see it, this game has every viable option in paying a small amount for tat (or mech bays, which are, oh yeah, really useful)... through to $30 mechs for people with more money than sense... and everything in between

I give you examples of how a reasonable middle ground player can pay very little and still have a very enjoyable game, you give examples of extremes that are unlikely to be very common and citing these as proof of how the game needs changing to make these extreme examples easier or more likely to be achieved

the very fact that I see plenty of YLW or Ilya mechs in game shows me that your assumption that no one is buying mechs is wrong, then factor in that the game is still in very early days with only a tiny fraction of the number of items that will be available for MC and I really have no concerns about people spending money on the game and it going out of business through lack of funds in the short term

a far bigger concern is that if they don't start fixing the problems with the game that people will stop playing / paying... MC costs in and of themselves is a minor / non-concern

this game uses a very similar model to WoT, which has been going alot longer and seems to be relatively successful (by virtue of the fact of how long it has been going and that the company behind it are now producing 2 more sister games in the same universe)

the truth of the current economy is that only PGI know how effective it is and I am sure that if it isn't effective then they will change it... if they reduce the cost of mechs or increase the number of MC that you get per $ then I'm pretty sure you'd have every person who has bought one or bought MC clamouring for a refund of some kind, so you'd need to also factor in the damage to good will that a massive change to the system would bring about, or the direct cost of keeping the good will by offering adjustments on past purchases

how many hours per week do you play (or how many matches have you played since OB), and how many mechs / mech bays have you bought?

[Balsover]

Carnivoris, on 08 January 2013 - 07:27 AM, said:

If MC was really cheap, I'd be more inclined to spend money. Right now, the ONLY reason I'll buy MC is for more mechbays. That's it. I feel no need to buy anything else in the game. I'm sure that'll change with future hero mechs but, right now, I'm sitting pretty with my cash in my pocket.

I feel this way also. Which is why I think the average C-Bill reward should go up for each game played. I would gladly buy a mech bay or two a month, but right now it takes so long fill the 4 I have (and outfit the mech's in them with high tech gear), that I probably wont get that far without getting bored.

Give me C-Bills! give me tons of C-Bills, because I will buy mech bays to put all those new mechs I can now afford.

[King Arthur IV]

Apoc1138, on 08 January 2013 - 07:46 AM, said:

I strip all the items off mechs before I sell them so that I have a mechbay full of items, meaning that when I do buy a new mech,

we are at an impass. you clearly think not many people want to own all, flaunt all and play all but i beg to differ.

so your going to drop another $100 but on what??? you have already told me the way you play and that doesnt involve spending more. for $100 straight up you normally get a complete game (unlockables to keep) this thing is still in beta and with plenty of restrictions. As i have said before, players like yourself will drop $100 regardless if the price drops anyway but others wont even drop a dime unless you can make the offer more appealing. (proof is in the posters alone on this page)
by having all these game restrictions and high price points for cosmetic changes, it doesnt open the game up to the market.

as for the hero mechs, i dont know what kind of person is buying them eg. new to game? founders? etc. but i personally find them to be so useless. $30 for something that only grants you bonus only if you play it....... there are a ton of reasons why people buy hero mechs, like maybe cuz they like to own different stuff. (kind of ties in with my theory on owning all) but have you not seen the posts complaining about their prices? you are seriously the minority here (not just in this post) people are complaining left right and center about prices and all. the thing about consumers is, not everyone wants to pay up front like you but if the price is right they will unwittingly spend $100. as of right now, many of us wont spend anywhere close.

i have this feeling you hope the founders alone can fuel this game. tbh i dont care if igp is doing fine all im saying is there are other ways to make more money.

do you know how the $1 shop works? **** is so cheap you come out with 20 items and spend $20 but if they were priced normally, you might have only bought 4items and spend $15.

btw fun is subjective.

[Apoc1138]

King Arthur IV, on 08 January 2013 - 08:55 AM, said:

we are at an impass. you clearly think not many people want to own all, flaunt all and play all but i beg to differ.

do you know how the $1 shop works? **** is so cheap you come out with 20 items and spend $20 but if they were priced normally, you might have only bought 4items and spend $15.

I do spend MC... on premium time, on mech bays, on paint, on mechs occaisionally if I want to skip some playtime to get some quickly, I fully see myself getting a hero mech or two at some point, I might buy a skin or 2, again when I see something I like, I sometimes convert MXP to GXP... it's a slow trickle, but it is there and the end result is that I've already put $110 in to a game which is already more than I've ever spent on any other game

your entire argument falls over compared with what we see in game in regards to the number of people each team who have obviously spent money on mechs and paint, so the "you are the minority" claim just doesn't wash... the actual number of people complaining or claiming to spend little or no money is actually very small compared with what we see in game... the number of founders accounts sold was something like 60k people... compared with some over 400k registered users means that at least 15% of users have already spent as much or more than the cost of a AAA boxed game, and we don't even know how many non-founders have bought MC (but again, a fairly decent percentage from what I can gather)... this is phenomenally good compared with the hit rate of paying players for a F2P title

I don't know how it works in the US, but over here, the £1 shop works by selling you things in units of measure that mean you actually end up paying more than the item would have been in the supermarket if you'd bought a normal family pack for £1.50, or it is such low quality that you end up chucking it in the bin (just before christmas they were selling knock off chinese childrens face paints that turned out to contain lead and had to be recalled)

I also realise that fun is subjective... but if you are considering putting money in to a game that is not fun then really, you need help

Edited by Apoc1138, 08 January 2013 - 09:14 AM.

[King Arthur IV]

Apoc1138, on 08 January 2013 - 09:12 AM, said:

I do spend MC... on premium time, on mech bays, on paint, on mechs occaisionally if I want to skip some playtime to get some quickly, I fully see myself getting a hero mech or two at some point, I might buy a skin or 2, again when I see something I like, I sometimes convert MXP to GXP... it's a slow trickle, but it is there and the end result is that I've already put $110 in to a game which is already more than I've ever spent on any other game

your entire argument falls over compared with what we see in game in regards to the number of people each team who have obviously spent money on mechs and paint, so the "you are the minority" claim just doesn't wash... the actual number of people complaining or claiming to spend little or no money is actually very small compared with what we see in game... the number of founders accounts sold was something like 60k people... compared with some over 400k registered users means that at least 15% of users have already spent as much or more than the cost of a AAA boxed game, and we don't even know how many non-founders have bought MC (but again, a fairly decent percentage from what I can gather)... this is phenomenally good compared with the hit rate of paying players for a F2P title

I don't know how it works in the US, but over here, the £1 shop works by selling you things in units of measure that mean you actually end up paying more than the item would have been in the supermarket if you'd bought a normal family pack for £1.50, or it is such low quality that you end up chucking it in the bin (just before christmas they were selling knock off chinese childrens face paints that turned out to contain lead and had to be recalled)

I also realise that fun is subjective... but if you are considering putting money in to a game that is not fun then really, you need help

we are at an impass..... the countless games and beggers for players greatly out numbers a bunch of founders.

so 60k founders leaving 340k beggers. you founders will spend regardless............. if igp is happy with that amount coming in that is their thing then but if you want to tap the potential of the beggers and add to the existing pool of income............ you are the 60k that is minority.

you spend your money on heros, paint blah blah blah but some like to spend it on having all mechs and paints and blah blah blah. this arguement is sooo boring now...... we are at an impass......

btw your 1 pound shop sucks. all the other $1usd, 100 yen, $10hkd, $1aus etc. work as intended appealing to the masses and spending more because items are so cheap.
you are a very conscious spender.
i realize if you spent $11 to buy a 12 pack oppose to buying 12 separate item just to save $1, that is totally fine. alot of us are not like that, with the same $12 i can get many different things instead of 12 of the same. whatever this is off topic.

i hope you and the founders can fuel the game alone. if igp ever needs a helping hand then just lower them prices and the rest of us will join in. im done explaining economies of scale, it takes charts and alot more time.

you realize fun is subjective but "judge" someone on how they do it. are you really such a hypocrite?

[Apoc1138]

Another baseless and incorrect assumption, that the 60k+ founders are the only people to have put money in to the game... where have I judged anyone? Are you really saying that you don't find the game itself fun, but that if they reduced prices you would buy every item in the game? I can certainly think of more cost effective ways to have fun. I don't think you were in pgi's target demographic when they created the economic system for the game

Edited by Apoc1138, 08 January 2013 - 01:50 PM.

[LadyBrecky]

I agree with the OP, I simply can't justify the amount they are asking for for a mech and cosmetic changes. When their prices drop, I will spend money.

[Merky Merc]

I can see myself buying a hero mech at some point down the road, should the price drop down to sub10$ prices and should it be a mech I'm interested in.

Until that occurs the 5$ I've spent so I can purchase mech bays will probably be all the money I'll spend.