22 replies to this topic

[Team Leader]

I hope so. I was thinking the other day, I have a lot of disposable income, since Im moving and have sold a lot of my things. I could spend it on games. But its not going to go to MWO. Why? Because nothing is worth buying to me. Buying mechs I like with MC dont get any special boosts, you still have to pay R&R. The paint in this game is is washable, and I would have to pay for every layer, every time I want to put it on. The premium time isnt enough of a bonus to warrant 7 dollars a month (Sure, 50% is nice, but I need more than that with my limited play time/low skill) and with no community warfare scheduled I wouldnt want to be wasting it in Beta in case theres more boots down the road. I dont get enough cbills to afford many new mechs it seems, so even mechbays are almost useless to me. Gxp conversion? Dont need it. Modules are too expensive for me to afford anyway.

If IGP really wanted to shake out my wallet, they would slash prices across the board, change the way we use MC. As of right now, pretty much everything bar hero mechs and bays is temporary. I personally dont have any faith in this system. Thoughts?

Edited by Team Leader, 16 December 2012 - 06:15 PM.

[Team Leader]

If you guys are going to say "No", please explain? I dont see how anyone without infinite money can say the system is "fine". The fact that they are charging real money, starting at $100, in a BETA is extremely concerning. Also, nobody say anything about "blah blah premium tanks in WoT are $60 stop whining about money", that game is clearly a cash funnel.

[General Taskeen]

I will say this. The "base" MC prices are exactly like WoT. Why do they need be the same? I'm sure they can come up with their own pricing schemes or bundles (LoL, HoN, etc.).

[Khobai]

They need to change MC pricing so that all the MC packages cost the same dollar to MC ratio. You should not have to spend $50 or $100 just to buy MC at a reasonable cost.

All that does is discourage people who like to spend $10 or $20 at a time from spending money on their game. WHICH IS THE WHOLE PURPOSE OF MICROTRANSACTIONS. DERP.

Edited by Khobai, 16 December 2012 - 09:08 PM.

[Inconspicuous]

Khobai, on 16 December 2012 - 09:07 PM, said:

They need to change MC pricing so that all the MC packages cost the same dollar to MC ratio. You should not have to spend $50 or $100 just to buy MC at a reasonable cost.

All that does is discourage people who like to spend $10 or $20 at a time from spending money on their game. WHICH IS THE WHOLE PURPOSE OF MICROTRANSACTIONS. DERP.

The tiered MC pricing is a bad idea, it actually discourages me to purchase MC at lower rates.

[DrBunji]

ITT; communists.

[Teljaxx]

The biggest problem is the variable MC to dollar ratios. If they gave 250 MC per dollar no matter how much you pay at a time, more people would be willing to pay a small amount than nothing at all. As it stands, if you do not buy $100 worth of MC at once, even if all you want is a couple paint colors or something small, you are pretty much wasting money. it seems to me that getting small payments from lots of people is better than getting larger payments from just a few, and nothing at all from the rest, and this system makes small payments an extremely unattractive option.

The other problem is that most of the items you can buy for MC are not permanent, once again making it fell like a waste of money to buy them.

Because of these two problems, and the overall feeling of greed that I get from the whole MC system in general, I have no interest in spending any money on this game. Usually when I play a F2P game, I will spend at least $5 on it if I enjoy it enough, and I do enjoy MWO, but I am not even willing to spend that much as it stands.

[Nexus Omega]

The Better value with bigger spends is normal in the Fermium world, look at any social/casual game.
However they word it as a "Bonus" Buy X get +20% Bonus
MWO could reword there page like this, people like Bonus's!.

Also, anyone played planet side 2? its $7 for a single gun.
It has a flat conversion rate, 100 sc is $1

If you don't like the prices don't spend your Money, I'm not spending any-more than my founders. I still have my 20k MC and premium time sitting there, saving it for the Clan Mechs!


Edit:
I would like to see something worth purchasing with my MC...

Edited by Nexus Omega, 16 December 2012 - 10:03 PM.

[Team Leader]

Khobai, on 16 December 2012 - 09:07 PM, said:

They need to change MC pricing so that all the MC packages cost the same dollar to MC ratio. You should not have to spend $50 or $100 just to buy MC at a reasonable cost.

All that does is discourage people who like to spend $10 or $20 at a time from spending money on their game. WHICH IS THE WHOLE PURPOSE OF MICROTRANSACTIONS. DERP.

Teljaxx, on 16 December 2012 - 09:23 PM, said:

The biggest problem is the variable MC to dollar ratios. If they gave 250 MC per dollar no matter how much you pay at a time, more people would be willing to pay a small amount than nothing at all. As it stands, if you do not buy $100 worth of MC at once...

Because of these two problems, and the overall feeling of greed that I get from the whole MC system in general, I have no interest in spending any money on this game. Usually when I play a F2P game, I will spend at least $5 on it if I enjoy it enough, and I do enjoy MWO, but I am not even willing to spend that much as it stands.

Very true. I dont get why people are so reluctant to discuss this topic, my threads always die. Guys, this is an issue that is absolutely VITAL to the success of this game! Instead of whining about ECM or group drops this should be discussed. People will adapt to everything else, but if the game isnt worth paying for then nobody will buy anything! No money = dead game!

[Apoc1138]

My opinion is... that if mechs are cheap in MC then people will buy them, get bored because there's nothing really to earn cbills for beyond the first couple of weeks and have no driver to buy premium time, also decreasing their investment in actually playing the game

the current model encourages players to pay for premium time and then play lots to get stuff, maybe buying a hero mech for the extra cbill boost

I agree that the cost of cosmetic items is high to the point that I won't buy them, but I will happily buy a load of premium time and maybe a mech or two, some mech bays and maybe even some GXP conversion, but play for the rest... I have already put in about $160... if Assault mechs were $10 each then I'd have bought 2 ($20) and not bothered with premium time and then be in the same place now with no real driver to drop the extra $100 on premium time... I might have spend a couple of dollars on unlockable patterns... but with a lack of sense of investment both in time and money, probably not

the current model encourages me to invest both lots of money and lots of time in the game and therefore my chances of dropping the game entirely decrease exponentially, AND I spend more time in game and therefore helping to keep the server population healthy

the question is, if they lowered prices of mechs to $3-10... would there be enough of an increase in payers of $10 mechs to cover the loss of $130-140 dollars from payers like me?

Edited by Apoc1138, 17 December 2012 - 08:31 AM.

[Kdogg788]

Teljaxx, on 16 December 2012 - 09:23 PM, said:

The biggest problem is the variable MC to dollar ratios. If they gave 250 MC per dollar no matter how much you pay at a time, more people would be willing to pay a small amount than nothing at all. As it stands, if you do not buy $100 worth of MC at once, even if all you want is a couple paint colors or something small, you are pretty much wasting money. it seems to me that getting small payments from lots of people is better than getting larger payments from just a few, and nothing at all from the rest, and this system makes small payments an extremely unattractive option.

The other problem is that most of the items you can buy for MC are not permanent, once again making it fell like a waste of money to buy them.

Because of these two problems, and the overall feeling of greed that I get from the whole MC system in general, I have no interest in spending any money on this game. Usually when I play a F2P game, I will spend at least $5 on it if I enjoy it enough, and I do enjoy MWO, but I am not even willing to spend that much as it stands.

The differential benefit for MC purchases depended on how much you buy has been put in place to encourage people to buy the larger MC packages and give incentive to someone to purchase more, otherwise people will buy the absolute minimum. I have bought MC and even then have a massive batch of extra MC still even after buying premium time, which is the best use of MC. The only items that are out of control are hero mechs, but players are buying a bonus not a special mech in a way.

-k

[Joseph Mallan]

Been spending $15 a week for odds and ends.

[Aegis Kleais]

What I don't get is if nothing you see right now is worth buying, how are cheaper prices going to be an incentive? If I don't want to buy paint, saying that I will buy it if it was made cheaper means you DO want it, you just don't like its current price point.

The power we have, as consumers, is our wallet. If you're the minority voice saying "The prices are too high! I won't buy til they are lower" and they mare making more than supple sales at their current price point, chances are you are not going to see lower prices. But in the event that sales were not justified, chances are that IGP would lower the prices in time (or have more sales) to see where they need to be to entice actual sales and get a better return on their investment.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Some minor changes. I think once something is purchased for a chassis with MC, it should be permanently purchased for that chassis (as long as it is active in your mechbay at least).

If you go through the trouble of purchasing camo for a certain chassis, and then change it, I should be able to re-apply the old camo to that same chassis without paying for it AGAIN (since it was purchased prior).

I understand that PGI needs to make money, and that is why I have no complaints with the current pricing of items with MC, but this double dipping is a bit shady.

[Penance]

Why is there no option for:

"No, I don't think it will change since it's the business model, but for players sake, and the sake of the game it should"

[Khobai]

Quote

The differential benefit for MC purchases depended on how much you buy has been put in place to encourage people to buy the larger MC packages and give incentive to someone to purchase more, otherwise people will buy the absolute minimum.

Yes but the way its set up now is punitive because founder's packs set the 250:$1 ratio as the expected pricing. You get less for buying smaller packages and you get the normal amount of buying larger packages. Instead of getting the normal amount for buying smaller packages and extra for buying larger packages. Its a psychological thing... players are going to be less inclined to buy MC if they feel punished by buying smaller packages.

The way their pricing should work is this:
1) All MC packages should sell MC at the base 250:$1 rate.
2) The more money you spend the more "bonus" MC you should get on top of that

Edited by Khobai, 17 December 2012 - 08:37 AM.

[Rotaugen]

I've already spent 45,000 MC and still have 60,000 left. If the largest packages didn't have an extra bonus, there'd be no incentive to purchase it. If they made a small adjustment that raised the lowest tier to 250 per $ but gave the top tier 300 per $, I'd be fine with that.

[Khobai]

Quote

If the largest packages didn't have an extra bonus, there'd be no incentive to purchase it

Yes but theres no incentive to buy smaller packages now. And smaller packages is where you make most of your revenue in microtransaction games. Thats why its called microtransaction.

[AlanEsh]

The only thing I will pay for, at the current rates, is Premium.

The virtual goods are foolishly expensive; they need to be priced for impulse buy.

[IIIuminaughty]

No. because they are not going to change it anyways.