3 replies to this topic

[Jaynestown]

I have been thinking about this for a few days, with all the people arguing that mech purchases should not be made with MC. Finally, I crunched the numbers, and I can say that for you personally this might not be the case. All you need to consider are two factors. One, how much do you care about XP? Two, how many C-Bills do you currently earn each week, on average?

TLDR: If you play one day a week and you make 1.25M C-Bills or more when you do, buy 1 Day premium blocks and do not buy C-Bill Mechs using MC/money.

Results are below. If you currently earn more than the listed value, premium time in the corresponding block is better for you. This is based on C-Bills only, and does not assign a price value to the extra experience you would be earning.

360 Day Blocks... 2.36M per week (3.55M with Premium)
180 Day Blocks... 2.70M per week (4.05M with Premium)
30 Day Blocks... 3.11M per week (4.67M with Premium)
7 Day Blocks... 6.23M per week (9.35M with Premium)
3 Day Blocks... 3.24M every 3 days (4.86M with Premium)
1 Day Blocks... 1.25M per day (1.88M with Premium)

Input is below. If you are curious about where these numbers came from, read the next section. All numbers are approximate. C-Bills per week are based on rounding INT(Days/7) which might be controversial, since it cuts 2 days out of a 30 day month.

2,500 CBill/MC value... based on average Mech CBill Purchase Value over MC Price

67 MC/Day... for 360 Days... Equivalent to 1.18M C-Bills per week
75 MC/Day... for 180 Days... Equivalent to 1.35M C-Bills per week
83 MC/Day... for 30 Days... Equivalent to 1.56M C-Bills per week
178 MC/Day... for 7 Days... Equivalent to 3.12M C-Bills per week
216 MC/Day... for 3 Days... Equivalent to 1.62M C-Bills
250 MC/Day... for 1 Day... Equivalent to 0.63M C-Bills

50% Premium Bonus... multiply the per week value of C-Bills by two to see your target

Conclusion?

• If you play one day a week and you make 1.25M C-Bills or more when you do, buy 1 Day premium blocks and do not buy C-Bill Mechs using MC/money.
  
• If you play on multiple days and more often than "every other day," you need to be making 6.23M C-Bills per week to make 7 Day Premium Blocks better than just buying the mech you want with cash.
  
• If you're willing to buy larger blocks, you can get that as low as 2.36M C-Bills.

The size of the MC blocks you purchase does not factor in, unless you arbitrarily decide that you'd be willing to spend more money on one type of purchase or the other. In example, "I would buy $100 worth of Premium Time but I would only buy $50 worth of mechs." Just a heads up if that is your mindset: it doesn't make a lot of sense UNLESS you value the XP reward very strongly. I hope this helps some people to revise their purchasing habits in order to get the best bang for your buck.

Edited by Jaynestown, 03 January 2013 - 11:07 AM.

[BerryChunks]

To the people with rich parents or jobs in the 50+$ per hour range, buying the complete game with MC is so much easier and faster than grinding.

Getting the complete game relying on grinding is equivalent to sweatshop wages for your time spent.

I also made this post to point out that anyone who wants a long term game with MWO needs some MC, if nothing else than for bay slots so they aren't sharding their mechs every time they want more space to get basic variant proficiencies to unlock elite tier with.

Edited by BerryChunks, 28 December 2012 - 07:27 PM.

[Krazy Kat]

Good post. Here's a summary:

Jaynestown, on 28 December 2012 - 11:29 AM, said:

Conclusion? If you play one day a week and you make 1.25M C-Bills or more when you do, buy 1 Day premium blocks and do not buy C-Bill Mechs using MC/money.
I hope this helps some people to revise their purchasing habits in order to get the best bang for your buck.

[Jaynestown]

I decided to finally do the math out because I do not consider the time spent to be "grinding." I look at it as money earned coincident with playing the game (for fun). I have a certain amount of those c-bills coming in, and I have a certain amount of money I'm willing to spend on the game. If I wanted to "grind" out more purchasing power, I would do it at the office. I just don't want to make any part of the game a chore. For me, it looks like I could easily buy 30 day blocks of premium time and end up with more mechs than if I bought them with real money. I can do that without changing my play habits at all. That's what the post was about.

Krazy Kat, thanks. Editing in a TLDR in a moment.