33 replies to this topic

[Miezekatze]

Hello fellow commanders, i understand that the fancy endo-steel/ double hs etc deserve a bit more of repair costs but wheres the point. If you get destroyed you often end with repair bills about 50-100k credits and if you loose the game theres a chance you do minus-credits. i dont see that theres a point building the cheapest mech and run in and die to grind some money, and i dont think thats what the developers had in mind. I dont mind grinding some credits but running in your favourit mech and have a win about 0 and 100k credits or running around in a zombie, dont help your team so much and grind about 100-200k is just bad

[Silra]

Hello there!

In my honest opinion what you describe as a problem is a good thing. If you cram every upgrade you can into your battlemech and can still pull income all the time, then those upgrades become a full blown necessity instead of just a nice thing to have. As it stands you have to use something else to make up for the occasional losses incurred for playing your favourite, pimped out hulking machine of destruction.

Think of it this way. If having Endo Steel, Double Heat Sinks and Ferro-Fibrous together increase my win percent by for example 10% (random number, don't get suck on it, thank you) and the increase in wins amount to only very slightly less c-bills over time than going without those upgrades then why would I ever play Stock variant?

You do lose c-bills on the occasional bad match with such a mech, but you do rather often make c-bills or atleast break even, As I said, if this was changed so you always have positive income, you would be removing big part of why people stick to the unupgraded variants to bring in the c-bills.

Edit: Silly typo.

Edited by Silra, 03 November 2012 - 06:12 AM.

[Gaulwa]

Yes, but if it isn't possible to play all the time at "top level" pimped-out and everything, people will complain about imbalance in a match because they couldn't get the same pimping.

What really bother me is the little fact it cost money to upgrade, and also money to downgrade. This mean if you ever want to switch stuff on your favourite mech to try different outfits, or reduce the repair cost mentioned above... it will get very costly.
This kind of encourage people to keep two identical version of the same mech. One to grind money, and the other for important matches.

I believe once an upgrade has been purchased, you should be able to switch freely between one or another with no extra cost.

[Lootee]

If repair/re-arm costs are eating you up, here's a hint:

Destroyed stuff on your mech is automatically repaired to 25% and ammo is rearmed to 75% after every match. A 25% engine or laser works just as good as a 100% one. If you aren't running out of ammo too early every match you can maybe get away with the freebie reload and not have to spend a dime.

It probably won't stay that way forever, but that's how damaged components are right now. No real drawbacks for entering battle with a slightly busted piece.

Edited by PanchoTortilla, 03 November 2012 - 06:00 PM.

[Discordantone]

You're a founder, which means you have premium, which means that your bonus nearly pays for itself (or you die a alot). However, if you are indeed dieing alot, or playing a hammer/skirmisher, you might consider dumping one of the two upgrades to lessen your repair bill if it is truly a big issue.

[John MatriX82]

try to over rearm with extra tons of ammos and calculate never to rearm them so that the given 75% will be enough to sustain any battle. Try to repair only structure/armor and avoid using FF, it's too costly, Endo is much better (frees up more tons and you have to pay for it only when you're cored), while FF is something that will be damaged 95% of the matches.

[Webber]

This isn't something that I see, but I pilot a light mech all the time. On a death, I have seen a maximum of 40k repairs in my Jenner, but I still earn over 200k in any given match with my Founder's Jenner using Premium. Even without these bonuses, I'm making money each match, even if I get a high repair bill with an XL Engine, Endo Steel, and DHS.

It helps to say what mech you're using, what upgrades and equipment you have equipped, and how much the enemy strips you down before death.

[Walk]

I think the repair costs are fine as is. If you have the highest tier upgrade and dying and losing every single match, you SHOULDN'T make money. As long as you can keep a 50/50 win/loss rate, you will net a positive gain.

[Gun Bear]

Advanced components are a risk/reward kind of thing, The reward being enhanced performance and the risk being increased costs. My solution is to only stick to a few advanced parts with each 'mech; if you '****' it out with the best gear expect to pay premium repair prices - there are reasons why in real life they don't add all the newest cool gadgets to every single weapon on the battlefield today, instead they figure out where the new gadgets are best deployed.

[Elder Thorn]

Miezekatze, on 03 November 2012 - 06:00 AM, said:

Hello fellow commanders, i understand that the fancy endo-steel/ double hs etc deserve a bit more of repair costs but wheres the point. If you get destroyed you often end with repair bills about 50-100k credits and if you loose the game theres a chance you do minus-credits. i dont see that theres a point building the cheapest mech and run in and die to grind some money, and i dont think thats what the developers had in mind. I dont mind grinding some credits but running in your favourit mech and have a win about 0 and 100k credits or running around in a zombie, dont help your team so much and grind about 100-200k is just bad

if you ask me, it should be a bit higher.
Unfortunatly it is sometimes kind of... impossible to tell why you have to pay X amount of money.
Sometimes i get cored only, i have to pay about 20k.
Then i shot all my ammo and get cut off everything that can be cut off before the mech falls and i have to pay 50k.
Then again, i die somewhat damaged, with some ammo left and i have to pay 80k
and THEN once again, i sometimes just pay about 10 c-bills total with like 0 for ammo or armor or both.

can't explain that

I dont know how it is for non paying players, but i think overall repair costs can be a BIT higher. Losing a Mech should hurt, at least if you also lose the match.

[Mister Haha]

if you're losing money as a founder with premium, you must be running a pretty expensive build. i run an atlas with a max engine and about 60 firepower, but i'm able to get ahead on C-Bills the majority of the time unless they take me apart piece by piece..

what exactly are you running??

[Miezekatze]

Mister Haha, on 04 November 2012 - 11:51 PM, said:

if you're losing money as a founder with premium, you must be running a pretty expensive build. i run an atlas with a max engine and about 60 firepower, but i'm able to get ahead on C-Bills the majority of the time unless they take me apart piece by piece..

what exactly are you running??

I try around a bit and run a bit off everything. if you dont repair all or dont use all the upgrades the repair costs are quite ok. but for example in my fully pimpedout jenner7d, awesome, or gausapult i often would need around 90k to repair/rearm all. for example if i run my little yenlo with nothing fancy and all standard the max repair is about 40k

[Discordantone]

Miezekatze, on 05 November 2012 - 12:44 AM, said:

I try around a bit and run a bit off everything. if you dont repair all or dont use all the upgrades the repair costs are quite ok. but for example in my fully pimpedout jenner7d, awesome, or gausapult i often would need around 90k to repair/rearm all. for example if i run my little yenlo with nothing fancy and all standard the max repair is about 40k

Then dump an upgrade... Ferro armor is nearly worthless to anything other than a scout, it merely takes up structure points that could be better used by things like ammo and heat sinks. Endosteel, by and large, gives more tonnage for the buck... and unless you get utterly massacred, costs less too. On top of this, considering the fact that unless you are running pure energy weapons, if you have all three upgrades, almost every slot you have is consumed by upgrades, save a 4-5, which again means that really only a scout or a cicada should even consider it, as you run out of room for both ammo and heat sinks, unless you run either A: extremely little ammo and thus run out of ammo halfway through a match, or B: run an efficient amount of ammo, and over-heat a lot.

I've found on my Atlas that merely by tossing on an Endo-steel frame I can carry around, easily, a Gauss (4 tons of ammo), two ER PPCs, and two Medium Lasers, with a Standard 360, with DHS, and ... be perfectly fine, and unless they blow out my left shoulder my heat efficiency is high enough that I literally have to alphastrike four times in a row before I over heat myself, three times in Caustic... so I mean... honestly. Ferro-Fiberous Armor does -not- give you more armor, it just means your armor weighs less/ton by a whomping 12%, which is neat when you realize a commando has a total of 6.5 tons of standard armor... the savings of 12% of that weight mean absolutely jack. The same tends to apply once you do the math for the rest of the mechs, all the way through the assaults.

Atlas (let's give this big guy a crazy 640 armor, just for the ease of mathematics): that's 640/32 = 20. 20 tons of armor. 12% of this is 2.4 epic tons that you save, for the amount of structure slots that Ferro takes up. Worth it? I'll answer for you. No. Whereas with Endosteel... Yeah.

Edited by Discordantone, 05 November 2012 - 02:51 AM.

[Wurzelkobold]

Walk, on 04 November 2012 - 03:34 PM, said:

I think the repair costs are fine as is. If you have the highest tier upgrade and dying and losing every single match, you SHOULDN'T make money. As long as you can keep a 50/50 win/loss rate, you will net a positive gain.

Thats wrong. Can only speak for my point of view, but i do minus even if i win a game. Repaircosts are about 80k if i survive, much higher if i die. Ammo costs about 100-120k. For the game i won i get about 140k. Thats at least 40k minus......

[beniliusbob]

If it were cheap to run Assault-class mechs, the game would top out with everyone getting Assault-class mechs... and all the weapons and all the upgrades.

This is what I, from previous games, know as a "gold sink." You can literally FARM cBills with the correct loadout, so certain builds force you to LOSE cBills. In the cRPG mod for Mount & Blade: Warband, for example, repair costs drive down the amount of "tin cans" (plate-armoured warriors) and cavalry. In MWO, if you made money on ALL builds ALL the time, everyone would eventually have every mech, every upgrade, and every weapon, and would therefore be enticed to play heavier or at least highly tricked-out builds.

cBill sinks force you to choose the right build at the right time. This aspect of the game will probably only get more significant as clan support is added: a clan that can afford missile boats or tricked-out Assaults and Heavies will gain an upper hand.

Besides, I already see at least 2 Assault-classes per side every match. Some of these are trials, but obviously there are people out there willing to lose money to roll in a doombringing mech. I know that when I can afford an Atlas, I will gladly lose money to stomp on faces.

[Rubberman]

As someone who runs an Atlas with 6 tons of Artemis IV LRM's, I don't find the repair/rearm costs out of whack. last night i had a few matches where I lost 60-80k - it's the disadvantage to my build. It rains death, but at the cost of cbills to rearm. If i die the 40 -50k of armor repair is also part of the class.

[JadeViper]

I see repair cost as a mixed bag. I love that better stuff costs more, but at the same time, I find myself just spamming trial mech because it isn't worth playing my rigs. If I already had all the mechs and gear I wanted then hey, no problem, but I only have 2 mechs owned, and am desparately try to save up, but I cannot justify playing my founders or my other owned. Founders bonus is dwarfed by repair bills, and my main mech barely breaks even in a decent round. I just tred water unless I spam trial mechs. And god that's lame. I don't want to 'farm' Cbills in a trial... but I'm forced to.

It really kills game play to try and save money on repairs/ammo. I'm forced into meh trial rigs.

Edited by JadeViper, 29 November 2012 - 12:35 PM.

[Vaerhoren]

JadeViper, on 29 November 2012 - 12:35 PM, said:

I see repair cost as a mixed bag. I love that better stuff costs more, but at the same time, I find myself just spamming trial mech because it isn't worth playing my rigs. If I already had all the mechs and gear I wanted then hey, no problem, but I only have 2 mechs owned, and am desparately try to save up, but I cannot justify playing my founders or my other owned. Founders bonus is dwarfed by repair bills, and my main mech barely breaks even in a decent round. I just tred water unless I spam trial mechs. And god that's lame. I don't want to 'farm' Cbills in a trial... but I'm forced to.

It really kills game play to try and save money on repairs/ammo. I'm forced into meh trial rigs.

I really agree with this. It kinda punishes you for using better equipment; generally speaking. I get that using better tech should cost more, but never you should pay more for repairs and ammo if you were to win the match. What's the point of winning then, gloating rights?

Don't get me started on ammo costs... If you want to play as missile artillery and pay for rearm: 150k from 75%. So, even If had a founder bonus and blow everything to smithereens(but died in the process), with luck I could get... 10k? 5k? That's not an incentive for winning. You should not be happy for "breaking even" by winning the match!

So, in order to use missiles you have two choices:
1) Grind, grind, grind a rearm. Then grind, grind, grind...
2) Use the free 75% BUT in order to do so, you must artificially increase the number of ammo carried by your mech to be viable, thus wasting tonnage (basically lowering damage per ammo ton).

Edited by Vaerhoren, 30 November 2012 - 01:27 AM.

[Dogan]

Remember the Clans!

Seriously, XL engines, DHS, ER everything, Endo Steel... You want a Timberwolf, you better have the bank or the skills to keep it running.

Dogan
When clans arrive, account balances will be the first defeat.

[MeerKatV]

This is why I usually drive Hunchies with standard engines, endo & dhs. My favorite weapons are AC2's, AC5's, PPCs, lasers - cheap to maintain but effective (the Hunchie's hunch maybe be a liability but it's a great sniper platform). I do have one config which has a single LRM launcher but no Artemis, that works out well too costwise.

The Hunchbacks will enable me to run more expensive mechs, no Trial mechs for me thank you.

Edited by MeerKatV, 02 December 2012 - 08:51 AM.