12 replies to this topic

[Telemetry]

Think about this. It might actually stop the proliferation of ECM a bit and spread the love around mech-wise.

1 - Move ECM to module slot.
2 - Price ECM in the 50 million c-bills range
3 - Pilot skill requirement to use ECM. Maybe 1 level = 50m range. Increasing levels make it extend up to a maximum range.
4 - Each skill level requires 50,000 GXP
5 - Allow any mech to equip the module.

[sycocys]

ECM only in the master slot?

50 million seems quite high, if it were to get tweaked (hopefully at some point) and some solid counters released for it that were also modules (I also don't mind having a module + weight + heat for more powerful electronics and gear) it would add a lot more tactical choice into what people do with their module slots and builds. If things like bap, heat vision, night vision, override were all also modules then people would actually have to make some choices when it came time to consider ecm and it wouldn't maybe be the worst to have it available to any mech then.

[Lycrin]

You'd still get problems with a system like that even more so because everyone will eventually put that on their mech since all mechs have at least one module slot. And simply setting the GXP level that high will only serve to add to this issue by making so that people who use the MC point XP conversions to GXP have more of an advantage than people who play without any kind of premiums. And whenever you make it so that the most powerful equipment, mod, or weapon in the game is only accessable to people who pay or play more it's huge move toward alienating new players and people who don't play as often and this is a huge problem that many free-to-play games face. With that said I cannot say I agree with that method at all for stopping the proliferation of ECM.

[sycocys]

Just some ideas to toss about. A different way to implement it might help out in the long run.

Your right it would unbalance things some in the favor of players that play, or to some extent pay, more. I just wonder if ecm and its counters or the most powerful modules were limited to master slots, and some of the sub-level tactical boost were put into master or regular slots how much it would affect more varied builds. Adding a heat and leaving a weight cost into the more powerful ones should do a little to make it more of a choice of trade-offs.

Of course a repair cost would help the most if you ask me, but I understand that's not coming back any time soon if at all.

[hercules1981]

Telemetry, on 15 February 2013 - 01:59 PM, said:

Think about this. It might actually stop the proliferation of ECM a bit and spread the love around mech-wise.

1 - Move ECM to module slot.
2 - Price ECM in the 50 million c-bills range
3 - Pilot skill requirement to use ECM. Maybe 1 level = 50m range. Increasing levels make it extend up to a maximum range.
4 - Each skill level requires 50,000 GXP
5 - Allow any mech to equip the module.

Doing this would mean every1s mech will have ECM at some point later on and that is just a no no.
Making another peace of equipment to counter ECM would be much better mayb make only certain mech b able to carry that as well. Plus the new buff zone with radar señor module due out next patch will help out a good amount.

[Stringburka]

This is a very bad idea for several purposes:
1. Instead of balancing the equipment you merely make it more rare, meaning whoever gots it still has a big gain over the other.
2. Due to the insane GXP cost, and the ECM = much higher chance of winning, this would drastically increase the amount of P2W in the game, from close to zero to a very large portion of it.


Any piece of equipment that requires massive grinding should only be marginally better than a cheap variant, otherwise the skill-based combat gets dropped in favor of grind/pay based combat.

[Telemetry]

hercules1981, on 15 February 2013 - 04:32 PM, said:

Doing this would mean every1s mech will have ECM at some point later on and that is just a no no.
Making another peace of equipment to counter ECM would be much better mayb make only certain mech b able to carry that as well. Plus the new buff zone with radar señor module due out next patch will help out a good amount.

It would slow down the proliferation of ECM, making it a special item you actually worked for. It would also be more consistent as it really feels like it should be a module as well as making BAP a module.

Stringburka, on 15 February 2013 - 04:44 PM, said:

This is a very bad idea for several purposes:
1. Instead of balancing the equipment you merely make it more rare, meaning whoever gots it still has a big gain over the other.
2. Due to the insane GXP cost, and the ECM = much higher chance of winning, this would drastically increase the amount of P2W in the game, from close to zero to a very large portion of it.


Any piece of equipment that requires massive grinding should only be marginally better than a cheap variant, otherwise the skill-based combat gets dropped in favor of grind/pay based combat.

Just because I want it to be made a module and more rare doesn't mean it doesn't need to be balanced too. That is a separate discussion. Also, I don't think it's Play to Win. If you can get the item and it be non-real-life-money, it's not play to win. Sure the MC is a shortcut but given the millions of dollars it takes to make these games and keep them going, the companies have to make money somehow, they have to charge for something. Something that is actually desireable or noone will pay. If noone pays, the game gets shut down and none of the fans win. We all lose.

No matter how much work you have to do to earn something in a game, someone will complain that it's a grind. I have no problem again with having to earn rewards rather than just having them handed to me. Right now people are complaining about having to XP individual mech frames, and really that's hardly a grind. If someone sports ECM and it's actually hard to obtain, it becomes even more of a status symbol and benefit to the team. I think that's a good thing.

Edited by Telemetry, 15 February 2013 - 06:06 PM.

[Stringburka]

It's irrelevant if you theoretically "can" gain the item without paying for it to be pay to win, the relevant thing is if the average player will have access to it or not. If nearly no free players have access to the winning equipment, then you can literally pay to win. Pay to win isn't just a black and white on-off switch, it's an issue which can be lesser or greater. In MWO it's not a noticeable issue at all yet, and that's by design.

MWO has it so that if you start from scratch, after the first 25 matches you can buy almost any 'mech, and if you play intensively for a full day you can definitely build any one 'mech you'd like with even the most expensive equipment, barring modules. And modules, as is right now, give only marginal bonuses in most cases.

Putting in equipment that require months or years of grinding - or paying them cash - and making that equipment have a large relevant effect on the game, will make it so that those that don't pay _will_ have inferior equipment. 50000 GXP is equal to 10 000 000 standard XP. That's insane.

So, you can either have a game where:
- Most players will play with similar equipment and have similar chances of winning (if equal skill). Skill-based combat.
or:
- Those that pay or those that have grinded constantly for like 3 years has a much much larger chance of winning and everyone else has a much larger risk of losing. Pay/grind based combat.

Whether you want to classify it as pay to win or not, it has the exact same issue: People will stop playing. It's not fun to always lose, even if I'm promised that if I just keep on losing for 3 years I will start winning. PGI knows this, they know that the free players need to be kept happy or the paying players will have noone to play with, and when you have to wait 10 minutes for matchmaking because nearly no-one plays, they drop too.

It's not by chance PGI made the cadet bonus, made the most expensive 'mechs purchaseable after a full day of playing and made it so that 12 or so hours of gaming after that you can buy an additional expensive 'mech (maybe 20 for equipping it too, if one isn't that good of a player).

This is a suggestion which I can promise will not be implemented, and that's a good thing.

[Vizan Thalt]

I will have to say that while you are trying to limit proliferation of ECM (Ab)use, you are making room in the form of slots that those items take up. You are also not adding the weight they represent as well by making them modules. These two factors and the chasis specific requirements are the limiting factors for ECM.

You have to think about space when you want to run an XL engine 12 slots and Endo steel 14 slots and then you have your weapon loadouts and if they take ammo, you need space for that... Then theres armor, even if you don't use FF armor, you still have standard, what are you going to make vulnerable with less armor? I didn't even add in Artemis for LRMs which take one extra slot and ton per launcher.

[Telemetry]

Stringburka, on 16 February 2013 - 03:55 AM, said:

It's irrelevant if you theoretically "can" gain the item without paying for it to be pay to win, the relevant thing is if the average player will have access to it or not. If nearly no free players have access to the winning equipment, then you can literally pay to win. Pay to win isn't just a black and white on-off switch, it's an issue which can be lesser or greater. In MWO it's not a noticeable issue at all yet, and that's by design.

MWO has it so that if you start from scratch, after the first 25 matches you can buy almost any 'mech, and if you play intensively for a full day you can definitely build any one 'mech you'd like with even the most expensive equipment, barring modules. And modules, as is right now, give only marginal bonuses in most cases.

Putting in equipment that require months or years of grinding - or paying them cash - and making that equipment have a large relevant effect on the game, will make it so that those that don't pay _will_ have inferior equipment. 50000 GXP is equal to 10 000 000 standard XP. That's insane.

So, you can either have a game where:
- Most players will play with similar equipment and have similar chances of winning (if equal skill). Skill-based combat.
or:
- Those that pay or those that have grinded constantly for like 3 years has a much much larger chance of winning and everyone else has a much larger risk of losing. Pay/grind based combat.

Whether you want to classify it as pay to win or not, it has the exact same issue: People will stop playing. It's not fun to always lose, even if I'm promised that if I just keep on losing for 3 years I will start winning. PGI knows this, they know that the free players need to be kept happy or the paying players will have noone to play with, and when you have to wait 10 minutes for matchmaking because nearly no-one plays, they drop too.

It's not by chance PGI made the cadet bonus, made the most expensive 'mechs purchaseable after a full day of playing and made it so that 12 or so hours of gaming after that you can buy an additional expensive 'mech (maybe 20 for equipping it too, if one isn't that good of a player).

This is a suggestion which I can promise will not be implemented, and that's a good thing.

So, you want a game where everyone has equal access to everything with no need to actually play and earn the right to get an item (via c-bills, xp, whatever the mechanism). Then you want nothing that anyone actually wants to be for sale, or it's pay to win.

How exactly do you propose:

1) Providing a revenue streeam to pay for development and maintenance of the game and it's servers
2) Providing a mechanism where people will not get bored because they have everything immediately and there is nothing to work towards. If people stop playing, they stop paying, and the game dies.

Games like these are not developed in a garage by two buddies living off their parents. These games cost millions of dollars to develop, thousands of dollars per month to maintain, servers to rent/own, networks to deal with.

There are no serious games that are absolutely free in all regards to play. It is not possible. People have families, they need to provide for them. They have to get paid. Investors invest to get a return on that investment. Noone is going to spend years to make a game like this so you can have everything for free and they eat macaroni and cheese while living in a cardboard box in some alley. Not gonna ever happen.

Start thinking bigger picture here than "Everything must be fair, equal, and free!"

Edited by Telemetry, 16 February 2013 - 07:19 AM.

[Stringburka]

Telemetry, on 16 February 2013 - 07:06 AM, said:

So, you want a game where everyone has equal access to everything with no need to actually play and earn the right to get an item (via c-bills, xp, whatever the mechanism). Then you want nothing that anyone actually wants to be for sale, or it's pay to win.

More or less, and that's the way the game is now. Or rather, "everyone has equal access to anything" rather than "everything".

Telemetry, on 16 February 2013 - 07:06 AM, said:

1) Providing a revenue streeam to pay for development and maintenance of the game and it's servers
2) Providing a mechanism where people will not get bored because they have everything immediately and there is nothing to work towards. If people stop playing, they stop paying, and the game dies.

1) As it is now, selling cosmetic items and easier access to a lot of different chassis at the same time. Anyone can have any one 'mech after a full day of playing, they cannot have ALL 'mechs. See the difference?
That's what they do right now, and as far as I know it works pretty well.

2) As it is now, to get many different 'mechs and unlocking various tweaks etc. Also, loads of games have no kind of unlocks at all and are still popular (heck, there's still thousands of people playing Quake 3 which has 14 years old mechanics and no unlocks at all).

A lot of people play a game to play the game, not just to unlock everything. So the devs have to choose whom to cater to: Those that want the enjoyment to come from actual gameplay and those that want the enjoyment to come from unlocking stuff. Or, they can try to make a compromise and make the basic gameplay the same and having the difficult unlocks just give a minor minor edge (current modules) and/or be mostly visual (cosmetics with RL-cost).

Telemetry, on 16 February 2013 - 07:06 AM, said:

There are no serious games that are absolutely free in all regards to play. It is not possible.

Actually, there's quite a lot, though they aren't usually the big blockbusters. But the issue of "pay to win" isn't about the game being free so much as the payment affecting _chance to win_. There's no issue with costly paint jobs or extra mech bays or whatever - the issue is when there's a drastic demographical difference between the free players and paying players in terms of effectiveness. It's not about the individual free pilot, it's that when free players as a group have a much lesser chance of winning (due to not everyone having grinded for 3 years straight) they'll stop playing, and then the paying players have no-one to play with and then they leave too.

Quote

Start thinking bigger picture here than "Everything must be fair, equal, and free!"

Start thinking in the bigger picture here than "I know exactly how PGI should run their business and P2W will make them rich!".
You're the one advocating they change their economic model, not I.

[Lycrin]

Well they are trying to stay true to the battletech lore so any equipment to counter ecm other than another ecm probably won't happen. Some ideas on how to make it less powerful without destroying it's purpose maybe to reduce the ecm radius and perhaps make the equipment health low enough so that if someone hits them with a high velocity/impact weapon such as autocannons, gauss rifles, PPCs, and to a lesser extent LRM and SRM it has a chance of destroying the equipment alot easier. Or, what i think they should do is remove a certain Atlas's ability to equip an ecm since it's really the only mech that is overpowered by it in the first place.

Edited by Lycrin, 16 February 2013 - 09:18 AM.

[Telemetry]

Back to the original topic:

I am proposing moving the ECM to a module slot and requiring users to earn XP to unlock it's abilities up to the maximum effect.