90 replies to this topic

[JohnnyC]

I think the worst part about this is that we had to get this info from an interview on another website... Not terribly surprising though... communication from the devs seems rather sparse these days (in my opinion), especially concerning hot button issues like the economy, MC cost of items (which they have been pretty much silent about outside of one comment saying they're looking into it), etc.

[The Cheese]

Kristov Kerensky, on 16 December 2012 - 05:29 PM, said:

The Cheese, the LP system is only for use with Houses, it's a favor system and you get things from the Houses for the LP based on whether you are part of a House, a Merc Company member or a Lone Wolf(lone wolf gets nothing from the LP system actually). It's not used for anything else so that's why it's not being implemented right now.

I'm not suggesting that the LP system be put in place in it's final form as described in the dev blog post. Just that the concept is already there and it would do the same thing as the recently announced idea while at the same time testing the function of a future feature. It doesn't actually need factions, units or lone wolves as current features of the game to implement in a functional capacity.

Edited for a misreading of a previous post.

Edited by The Cheese, 16 December 2012 - 06:04 PM.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Farix, on 16 December 2012 - 05:45 PM, said:

Define "contribute". Is someone who is a hapless victim of combined fire contributing? Is someone who acts as a meat-shield contributing? Is someone who is a poor player and isn't able to land any hits contributing? Is someone who is on a loosing end of a base-cap rush contributing? Is someone who is new to the game and is clueless as to what to do after being thrown into the shark tank contributing? Why should they all be published for the actions of a small group?


And I would guess that you are an elitist who doesn't want to play with new or mediocre players.

If you don't contribute, be it because your game crashed to desktop, you don't have a clue how the game works, you can't hit the broadside of a dropship with an Atlas, or you're just brain dead, why should you get any rewards? Seriously, why should you get rewarded for doing nothing?

Have any of you played ANY online games before? You don't get rewards for standing around doing nothing in any of them, you have to DO something to GET something, hence the term 'reward' instead of calling it welfare. WoW, LoL, WoT, CoD, BF3, and so on, if you do nothing, you get nothing. If you do something, you get something, it's literally THAT simple.

And who's being punished? You do nothing in a match, you get nothing, that's not a punishment, that's a LACK of reward, and the two are different things all together. Being punished would be if they subtracted cbills from your total amount or subtracted xp. See the difference there? Lack of rewards =|= punishment no matter how loudly you proclaim otherwise.

And Farix, I have no problem dropping with new or mediocre players, as long as they try. You sound like someone who expects to be given all the xp and cbills you need to max out every tree, buy every chassis and equip them all with everything you could ever desire, just for hitting Launch and going to the bathroom. Guess what, this is not the game for you!

[Teralitha]

Fabe, on 16 December 2012 - 04:52 PM, said:

That is another problem players have been reporting losses even when they do win and place at the top,under the new system things will be even worst. As for the skill part I have no problem with the better players earning more but the rest of us should be able to slowly scrape by ,not loss everything after a few bad games.

Well.. everything will be just fine if they also remove repair bills. Its not like they described the whole fix. Just the part that involved the exploit.

[Purlana]

Teralitha, on 16 December 2012 - 04:29 PM, said:

What bug?

Yellow screen, black screen, FPS bug, no HUD, stuck on terrain, crash to desktop.

We have to pay repairs if we get killed, but we can't contribute as much. PGI needs to fix these issues...

Edited by Purlana, 16 December 2012 - 06:24 PM.

[Teralitha]

Farix, on 16 December 2012 - 05:45 PM, said:

Define "contribute". Is someone who is a hapless victim of combined fire contributing? Nope. Thats just stupidity.

Is someone who acts as a meat-shield contributing? Also stupidity.

Is someone who is a poor player and isn't able to land any hits contributing? NO, unless all they are doing is base capping, which is rewarded.

Is someone who is on a loosing end of a base-cap rush contributing? Yes, and they will get cbills for damage done kills/assists the same as normal.

Is someone who is new to the game and is clueless as to what to do after being thrown into the shark tank contributing? Not much, but they will when they get better. Same as now.

Why should they all be punished for the actions of a small group? Its not a small group, and its not a punishment. Its a loophole in the system that people exploit.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Purlana, on 16 December 2012 - 06:22 PM, said:

Yellow screen, black screen, FPS bug, no HUD, stuck on terrain, crash to desktop.

We have to pay repairs if we get killed, but we can't contribute as much. PGI needs to fix these issues...

You can exit the game, and if you CTD nothing happens to you. And those are bugs yes, but they are not the reason ppl get free cbills is it? So I say again.... what bug?

Edited by Teralitha, 16 December 2012 - 06:27 PM.

[Purlana]

Teralitha, on 16 December 2012 - 06:25 PM, said:

You can exit the game, and if you CTD nothing happens to you. And those are bugs yes, but they are not the reason ppl get free cbills is it? So I say again.... what bug?

Nope, you still need to pay repairs if they kill you. Even if you leave the match.

Edited by Purlana, 16 December 2012 - 06:34 PM.

[Rhakthul]

Kristov Kerensky, on 16 December 2012 - 06:02 PM, said:

If you don't contribute, be it because your game crashed to desktop, you don't have a clue how the game works, you can't hit the broadside of a dropship with an Atlas, or you're just brain dead, why should you get any rewards? Seriously, why should you get rewarded for doing nothing?

Have any of you played ANY online games before? You don't get rewards for standing around doing nothing in any of them, you have to DO something to GET something, hence the term 'reward' instead of calling it welfare. WoW, LoL, WoT, CoD, BF3, and so on, if you do nothing, you get nothing. If you do something, you get something, it's literally THAT simple.

And who's being punished? You do nothing in a match, you get nothing, that's not a punishment, that's a LACK of reward, and the two are different things all together. Being punished would be if they subtracted cbills from your total amount or subtracted xp. See the difference there? Lack of rewards =|= punishment no matter how loudly you proclaim otherwise.

And Farix, I have no problem dropping with new or mediocre players, as long as they try. You sound like someone who expects to be given all the xp and cbills you need to max out every tree, buy every chassis and equip them all with everything you could ever desire, just for hitting Launch and going to the bathroom. Guess what, this is not the game for you!

I think the bolded statement is the important bit. I think most people give others some slack if they're at least trying. The problem is it is exceptionally hard to design a reward system that does this without being exploitable.

Making the system purely performance based is a bad idea because it will discourage people who are trying, but failing for whatever reason. To use myself as an example, I started playing when Open Beta hit, and I was pretty horrible - and I read the forums / watched some Youtube videos first. Despite wanting to like the game, the grind to my first mech (4SP) nearly made me quit. I was continuously getting curbstomped, earning crumby CBills, no XP, and couldn't do anything in Mechlab (the part that I was a sucker for with Mechwarrior 2).

If I was earning less CBills due to poor performance based rewards, I don't know if I would've stuck around. Player retention is very important to games, not just for company income, but so communities don't stagnate as well. Think about it - some 8 man groups are sync-dropping to PUG-stomp. Do you think the PUGs will stick around to be stomped if they're always losing and earning no rewards for it? Games can't be populated only by wolves, after all.


Am I saying I like dealing with AFKers now? No, of course not. I just think that PGI has to be very careful how this is implemented or it could have severe repercussions. I'm willing to wait and see, but I'll be honest and say I'm not entirely optimistic.

[ArmandTulsen]

I think people are reading into this the wrong way.

If you start off the match and don't do squat without any inputs or movement or firing, then that's probably what counts towards not getting the match bonus.

If this is the case, of course, griefers will exploit this by just shooting the sky once or twice, then going AFK.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Am I bad for just throwing 3 ERLGLAS on my founders atlas so I can maximize money gained?

[Mordin Ashe]

Volume, on 16 December 2012 - 04:44 AM, said:

Honestly, I see a lot of problems with this. If everything is performance-based (since it won't be just for showing up) this punishes people who enter the match and end up having to deal with a hud bug. Obviously it adversely affects player performance, and therefore will affect their pay. I do like performance based rewards, and it is a good way to stop rewarding AFK players, but when the game is so unstable that players cannot perform to the best of their ability, either due to FPS issues, or more glaring flaws like not even being able to see their heat meter or armor and such, they shouldn't lose money. Sure they aren't able to help their team as much, but it's not their fault they crashed to desktop or whatever. Spotting, assists, kills, damage done, etc, should all be much higher, but how can you differentiate between the total damage done of an afk player, a player who has a bad game (gets cored without doing much damage), or a player who is the victim of sync-drop eight-mans (sometimes get focused down before getting barely any damage off)?

Especially for new players, I think this might make things difficult for them. I know they're getting a 25-match C-Bill bonus, but if it's a bonus of a lower total, how does that help them? I'm concerned because obviously the damage potential of a trial 'Mech does not match up with 'real' 'Mechs...How can a new player be competitive in damage done compared to 36SRM cats? I know I just got 420 damage done in a game with my Commando that has nothing on it except a large laser and ECM, so technically I know the damage *potential* for any 'Mech can be decent, but it was mostly because people just ignored me and I got to blast their backs. Most players won't have that experience, let alone new players, and if they need to perform really well to get anywhere because the "played match" bonus is mostly gone, then they aren't going to be sticking around.

Not trolling, not complaining, just a real concern.

Just wait until it gets implemented. This can be implemented in so many ways that it is rather pointless to argue about it until we see how it works. I for once am glad they are adressing the more pressing issues. Just be happy they are doing so, we can allways throw wrenches on devs later.