87 replies to this topic

[DrBlue62]

Wraith05, on 16 December 2012 - 02:39 PM, said:

Ok, well we can agree on the problem seeming to be a new players experience in the trials leaves them wanting and not getting an accurate experience of MWO. It also makes them not want to put more money, or time into the game.

Would you agree there?

Yes, I can easily agree with that. The Atlas K and AWS 9M XL mechs are especially horrible due to their XL's and most players piloting them stock/trial have no clue why they seemingly spontaneously die. I'm glad I bought a founders and didn't have to use them but whenever I know someone trying this game I can't help but wince and tut as playing with a customized mech is just much more enjoyable then playing with a stock/trial one. Giving players an option to choose a medium mech and perhaps a few gameplay videos of the mechs to help them decide which to pick would be beneficial to PGI and the new players in my opinion.

Wraith05, on 16 December 2012 - 02:39 PM, said:

The pricing of the mechs will be for PGI to determine what will make them the most money. Using bell curves and all that jazz. I just know I myself would have been more likely to use my MC on a mech if the prices were lowered.

Also off topic. Repaying student loans sucks, hope you won't have to get many. I got out with less debt than most and it still drains the monthly budget haha. I do like my job though, so plus on that =).

I could perhaps agree with a slight decrease in MC for mechs, perhaps as low as $15 for the Atlas K while the premium mechs maintain their price more or less due to their +Cbill bonus.



I came from World of Tanks and let me tell you what people will spend on a tank or what they'll do to get past a tech tree... This one guy I sorta knew had a $50 two week allowance that his wife agreed to. He wasn't even the worst.

And yes, I've heard of the horrors and would not like to experience them first hand.

Edited by DrBlue62, 16 December 2012 - 03:05 PM.

[sokitumi]

DrBlue62, on 16 December 2012 - 02:57 PM, said:

Yes, I can easily agree with that. The Atlas K and AWS 9M XL mechs are especially horrible due to their XL's and most players piloting them stock/trial have no clue why they seemingly spontaneously die. I'm glad I bought a founders and didn't have to use them but whenever I know someone trying this game I can't help but wince and tut as playing with a customized mech is just much more enjoyable then playing with a stock/trial one. Giving players an option to choose a medium mech and perhaps a few gameplay videos of the mechs to help them decide which to pick would be beneficial i



I could perhaps agree with a slight decrease in MC for mechs, perhaps as low as $15 for the Atlas K while the premium mechs maintain their price more or less due to their +Cbill bonus.



I came from World of Tanks and let me tell you what people will spend on a tank or what they'll do to get past a tech tree... This one guy I sorta knew had a $50 two week allowance that his wife agreed to. He wasn't even the worst.

And yes, I've heard of the horrors and would not like to experience them first hand.

Problem is PGI is jumping straight to high prices without providing a compelling initial impression.

[Purlana]

And it's just going to get worse after the economy change. New players will join and get stomped, earning almost no credits.

Edited by Purlana, 16 December 2012 - 03:04 PM.

[Rotaugen]

It's really simple. If you want to go the free route ( which you can do) then you will put in hours of grind. If you buy a mech, you bypass a lot of grind. I use MC to buy mechs and c-bills to customize them. That works out well for me. As for the cost, there have been plenty of Retail titles over the years that I paid $60 for and never got the hours of gaming that I have with MWO.

[Taizan]

Volez, on 16 December 2012 - 01:21 PM, said:

The mechs are just way too expensive in real money, and the trial mechs are too bad. The economy is ridiculously badly designed and is severly limiting gameplay experience, fun, balances, and skill output.

For now, 50 - 60 matches with a trial mech no matter how you perform will get you enough c-bills for a decent medium mech. Use the Cataphract or HBK-J and you will be able to perform / contribute halfway decent.

PGI is improving the beginners experience with the upcoming patch, maybe things will be easier for you then. Earning c-bills generally isn't really an issue though, except if you have a mech that is high in maintenance/economically inefficient.

[Shootanoob]

I guess, most of the troubles would vanish, if a player could choose one medium Mech out of the available types when login in the first time. This paticular mech would grant no bonus nor special abilities, but it would be the first step to levelling up skills/XP without being stuck with a choice of Trial-Mechs he doesn't like.

Or even better: put 5 Million C-bills into each account when it's created and let him buy whatever he likes to buy (and if he's smart, he will go a few trial-rounds before making a final choice). Right from the start, a player could choose from a large variety of mechs, even customize them a little if he's not buying the most expensive ones.

Personally, I am happy that I choose to buy the founder's package which provided me with some Mechs right from the start. And that being not a cheap package, I would not go as far as to make that very start-up helping as efficient as the founder's Mechs (after all, people paid for them, so they should not feel ropped-off with everyone now getting the same for free, that simply would not make much sense). But I hope that many more players become attracted to this game, so I say making the start a little bit easier wouldn't do any harm.

On that F2P idea mentioned above: F2P is not meant to offer everything for free without having to do anything for it, F2P is, after all, a business model where the profit of the game company is made out of people paying money to get convenience items (such as XP-boosts, credit-boosts, not having to grind for a Mech but simply buy it for cash) or vanity items (yes, if you need to have that fancy SantaMech in your cockpit, you have to pay for it - even if it does not let you take one hit more than a Mech without that). The only thing where F2P might be some sort of a problem is when you can buy stuff for real money that influences gameplay a lot in your favor and at the same time is not available via grinding ingame currency. And that does explicitly NOT include the Founder-Mechs or the Yen-Lo-Wang/Muromets-Mechs - even if they are not available through grinding, they still have the same mechnics as all the other Mechs you can buy in the game - except for the paintjob (and if you want to modify your Centurion to carry an AC2o, noone is going to stop you - just do it).

[Secundus]

I agree with all sentiments regarding new player experiences needing improvement. I've been asking for that since I became a founder, it was an obvious problem from the start and I'm frankly suprised that we've gone in this long without something being done about. To be advertising the game as heavily as they have without having even a tutorial in place for new players is like throwing money into the trash as far as I'm concerned.

On to the economy, I'd like to see people be able to play whatever mechs they want. I don't think anyone should lose money in the game, regardless of using XLs and other upgrades. I think limiting the use of these items in the form of critical slots and the dangers associated (XL shoulder kills are enough to put me off of them on most mechs) should be what controls their use, not whether you have premium time going. This whole issue is really why I don't like free to play models, the games always seem to have these annoying artificial barriers to nickle and dime players. I'd rather pay $50-60 and just have fun playing around with the game. Maybe when we have some more game modes and maps it will feel like less of a grind, but the new game mode is disappointing on paper and the maps are going to be trickling in over months.

[ArmandTulsen]

Just as a general FYI, the devs did not set the C-bill prices. Those prices are Battletech canon.

[zverofaust]

The economy is not bad. Once you get past the Trial Mechs, it's pretty reasonable for short-term monetary gain (and might even be a little overboard and lenient in long-term).

The problem is the Trial Mech phase is just atrociously, embarassingly terrible. You get these utterly crap Mechs, you can't customize at all (and the game is designed so that all stock variants are utter and complete garbage), and all of your C-Bill earnings may as well just be a little counter counting down 30 games or so until you have access to the "real game" since all of your initial C-Bills will be going to your first Mech purchase -- it just servers absolutely no purpose even earning C-Bills at this stage.

[Xenophontis]

I bought my first hunchback within two days. I probably play too much but meh. I find the grind reasonable enough.

[Leetskeet]

Wizard Steve, on 16 December 2012 - 01:37 PM, said:

So crack open your wallets and stop sponging off the rest of us.

Die.

Sincerely, Leetskeet

[cmdr_scotty]

I think that partially the point of the need for a trial grind is to help new players get used to how the game works and how to play.


I see other F2P games where the new player experiance is basically being an 'errand boy' and by the time you finish that, you still know nothing of how to even play.

I'd rather it be a game where i'm given a weapon, shoved into the battle field and be told 'have fun!' rather than running errands for exp where it's lik "sgt, smithers needs 10 ore to finish his job" and the ore stack is sitting right next to him.

[NocturnalBeast]

Most of my clanmates would tell you otherwise, few of them are founders and they all have mechs they bought with Cbills earned in-game. Plus PGI is going to give new players a "cadet" bonus soon that will let them earn more Cbills with their trial mechs. So, stick it out and consider your time grinding in a trial mech, training (which it should be).

[Ursh]

New player experience is horrible. I only did the grind because I'm a huge battletech fan who used to play tabletop when I was younger. Now I really enjoy the game, but I got slaughtered in those ******** trial mechs.

Here's a hint devs. If the stock variants are so f**king awful, maybe try to make them more useful? EX: Don't put 3 erppc on a mech with no dual heatsinks.

[Sug]

*sigh*

James Warren, on 16 December 2012 - 02:55 PM, said:

I didn't realise making a game enjoyable was a bad business move.

It's not. I was commenting on the post saying we should remove the cost of repairs, the cost of ammo, and standardize the price of mechs.

James Warren, on 16 December 2012 - 02:55 PM, said:

Do you think people who feel the way the OP does are likely to spend a whole stack of money on the game?

No i don't. While I agree that the new player experience needs an overhaul (the bonus for 1st 25 matches is a good start) I don't agree with people (OP included) complaining about the real world cost of the game. They want a Free to Play game to give things away. 99% of the game can be acquired with time spent playing, and the 1% that requires MC does not give people an advantage.

James Warren, on 16 December 2012 - 02:55 PM, said:

Are you implying that keeping elements of the game chore-like will improve PGI's business in the long term?

What is a chore? Playing 2 hours to buy your first mech? Paying for repairs? That's part of the game. Compared to other F2P or MMO's I think the pacing of MWO is actually pretty good.

Keep in mind there is no "end game". When you find a mech you like and hit master cbills and Xp become worthless.

James Warren, on 16 December 2012 - 02:55 PM, said:

I don't have a problem with the economy overall, I just think that people should be able to play assault mechs all the time if they want to play assault mechs all the time (once they have purchased or earned enough c-bills to have one, if I need to clarify).

What is stopping them from doing that?

Edited by Sug, 16 December 2012 - 03:57 PM.

[Ozric]

BigPuma, on 16 December 2012 - 03:09 PM, said:

I guess, most of the troubles would vanish, if a player could choose one medium Mech out of the available types when login in the first time. This paticular mech would grant no bonus nor special abilities, but it would be the first step to levelling up skills/XP without being stuck with a choice of Trial-Mechs he doesn't like.

Beware the Flea... beware it...

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Franchi, on 16 December 2012 - 02:08 PM, said:

the trial grind would be OK if the trail mechs weren't deathtraps for anyone who isn't an uber experienced mechwarrior, the problem is they are.

He is referring to American minimum wage, $5.15 an hour.

American Minimum Wage is 5.15 an hour? Maybe back in the late 90's.

Dude minimum wage has been 7.25 for at least a few years.

[MrPenguin]

Wraith05, on 16 December 2012 - 01:39 PM, said:

I think that is part of the problem.

As a new player to a game he may not want to spend $20-$30 on something JUST to see if he actually likes the game. It's like saying pay $20 for a demo to see if you like it, then pay 60 for the game.

Good thing you don't have to pay that much,... actually, you don't have to pay a penny.

[Sug]

What I'd like to see once Community Warfare is in game is new players start out in the Houses/Factions and get to pick from a selection of lights and mediums. As long as they remain House units, i.e. not part of a Merc Corp or Lone Wolves, they will not have to pay for repairs/maintenance.

Upgrades/Different Mech options will be given based on completing a certain amount of objectives for that House. Maybe they can even get a small "salary" of cbills per match.

Once players strike out on their own or join a Merc Corp they have to rely on themselves for all their cbill needs but they will have free access to all mechs and upgrades.

[soarra]

MrPenguin, on 16 December 2012 - 04:19 PM, said:

Good thing you don't have to pay that much,... actually, you don't have to pay a penny.

lies the christmas lights in the cockpit makes any mech OP.
it takes no time to earn money for a mech even in trials without premium time.