36 replies to this topic

[QuantumButler]

Ranek Blackstone, on 04 February 2013 - 12:55 PM, said:

There is no money sink right now. Once you get your mech tweaked just the way you like it, there isn't any thing to spend the cbills on.

And repairs weren't a money sink either, because everyone except the truly mentallky handicapped knew to keep auto-repair off, only repair armor and internals, not items, and carry enough extra ammo to never pay for ammo refills and just let the free 75% ammo refills cover it.

It was a pointless mechanic that served no purpose and did nothing to curb perceived "expensive build" frequency at all.

Indeed, it only made the game WORSE to play, since people grinding cbills would take all the guns and armor of their mechs and leave them unrepaired, screwing the rest of the team over with dead weight.

Edited by QuantumButler, 04 February 2013 - 01:00 PM.

[Kylere]

QuantumButler, on 04 February 2013 - 12:58 PM, said:

And repairs weren't a money sink either, because everyone except the truly mentallky handicapped knew to keep auto-repair off, only repair armor and internals, not items, and carry enough extra ammo to never pay for ammo refills and just let the free 75% ammo refills cover it.

It was a pointless mechanic that served no purpose and did nothing to curb perceived "expensive build" frequency at all.

Indeed, it only made the game WORSE to play, since people grinding cbills would take all the guns and armor of their mechs and leave them unrepaired, screwing the rest of the team over with dead weight.

Abusing the poor R&R does not negate it. Speed limits are a joke, you can ignore them 99% of the time, but it does not make it right.

[Ranger207]

Why was it removed? For newbies (supposedly). So if it's put back in (and I want it back in!) it has to be balanced so that newbs aren't saddled with a million-C-Bill repair bill after getting cored every match. Here's my idea: House players use the current system and mercs use the old system. This makes being a merc a bit tougher and more respected. For players that want to be part of a house and not be ridiculed for using "easy mode" (like me), there would be "independent" regiments, like, for example, the Deneb Light Calvary. Just an idea.

[Josef Nader]

The removal of R&R was the best thing that happened to this game bar none.

I don't know about you guys, but I still have flashbacks to Pugs tiptoeing around each other to avoid damaging their precious rides so they could actually afford to buy mechs and customize things. Any contact with the enemy was punished with high repair bills and a severe cut into your earning potential. It was a -much- better idea for those of us trying to buy new robots to just avoid all confrontation.

Now I make money by shooting it out of the stupid faces of my enemies. It's so much more damn fun than playing base swapsies online.

[Kylere]

Josef Nader, on 04 February 2013 - 01:12 PM, said:

The removal of R&R was the best thing that happened to this game bar none.

I don't know about you guys, but I still have flashbacks to Pugs tiptoeing around each other to avoid damaging their precious rides so they could actually afford to buy mechs and customize things. Any contact with the enemy was punished with high repair bills and a severe cut into your earning potential. It was a -much- better idea for those of us trying to buy new robots to just avoid all confrontation.

Now I make money by shooting it out of the stupid faces of my enemies. It's so much more damn fun than playing base swapsies online.

So, you mean it was like Battletech

[QuantumButler]

Kylere, on 04 February 2013 - 01:19 PM, said:

So, you mean it was like Battletech

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I'm not sure what battletech you're thinking of, maybe the fluff, but in the actual TT games, unless you were running a long running campaign, people just brought whatever the hell they wanted based on BV cost and gave very little ****s about how badly their custom 4 gauss rifle Daishi got damaged as long as they won.

[Kylere]

QuantumButler, on 04 February 2013 - 01:28 PM, said:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I'm not sure what battletech you're thinking of, maybe the fluff, but in the actual TT games, unless you were running a long running campaign, people just brought whatever the hell they wanted based on BV cost and gave very little ****s about how badly their custom 4 gauss rifle Daishi got damaged as long as they won.

I think it comes down to who was running the games. I GM'd WAYYYYY to much in the '80s and I always made players pay costs out of contracts. If you read all the canon books you can see the Merc units are ALWAYS hard up for cash. Heck, Grayson Carlyle even reenacts Gettysburg against Jaime Wolf, because like Little Boy Blue, he needed the money.

It should HURT to have an Atlas cored, it should make you think before you load up the 1080 LRM rounds.

Edited by Kylere, 04 February 2013 - 03:19 PM.

[QuantumButler]

Kylere, on 04 February 2013 - 01:32 PM, said:

I think it comes down to who was running the games. I GM'd WAYYYYY to much in the '80s and I always made players pay costs out of contracts. If you read all the canon books you can see the Merc units are ALWAYS hard up for cash. Heck, Grayson Carlyle even reenacts Gettysburg against Jaime Wolf, because like Little Bloy Blue, he needed the money.

It should HURT to have an Atlas cored, it should make you think before you load up the 1080 LRM rounds.

Maybe if this was a online battletech simulation, yes.

But it's an online shooter with stompy space robots, losing money because you got crushed by a syndropping 8 man is the antithesis of good game design.

[Josef Nader]

QuantumButler, on 04 February 2013 - 01:34 PM, said:

Maybe if this was a online battletech simulation, yes.

But it's an online shooter with stompy space robots, losing money because you got crushed by a syndropping 8 man is the antithesis of good game design.

Yep.

I wholeheartedly agree with ya, Kylere... if this was a tabletop. I currently participate in a BT TT, and mech combat is a last resort. We do everything we can to avoid directly engaging the enemy, 'cause the loss of our mechs is really serious.

In a video game designed to be picked up and played at any time, this is nightmarishly bad game design. It would be like playing TF2 where nobody actually wanted to fight because it meant that they lost all of the rare and valuable pickups they had spent their time hording. You -want- players to fight robots in MWO. If they aren't, your design has failed and your game is boring as crap.

[Mackman]

Ranek Blackstone, on 04 February 2013 - 12:15 PM, said:

QFT. Would help balance Clan mechs by having them be expensive to run if you lost.

So... you would balance something by making it really easy for premium members to play it consistently, but really hard for non-premium members?

You can't balance things by cost, especially when that cost can be mitigated by paying actual money. If there's ever some sort of long, campaign style warfare, then I can see RnR not only being useful, but actually adding to the game: You have a fixed amount of $$ for repairs during your campaign, campaign lasts a certain number of matches, etc.

But as it is, there's no metagame, meaning there is absolutely no place for RnR. All it would accomplish in the game as it is right now, is to turn people away from the game because of how unintuitive and frustrating it is to have a pimped-out mech actually hurt your progress in the game.

[Vassago Rain]

Kylere, on 04 February 2013 - 01:32 PM, said:

I think it comes down to who was running the games. I GM'd WAYYYYY to much in the '80s and I always made players pay costs out of contracts. If you read all the canon books you can see the Merc units are ALWAYS hard up for cash. Heck, Grayson Carlyle even reenacts Gettysburg against Jaime Wolf, because like Little Bloy Blue, he needed the money.

It should HURT to have an Atlas cored, it should make you think before you load up the 1080 LRM rounds.

In the campaign books, you make more money from running a big, expensive mech, too, but under MWO's system, you were punished heavily for tech and big mechs.

So no.
Keep that **** out of my giant robots until we have mystical community warfare.

[Kylere]

Josef Nader, on 04 February 2013 - 01:38 PM, said:

Yep.

I wholeheartedly agree with ya, Kylere... if this was a tabletop. I currently participate in a BT TT, and mech combat is a last resort. We do everything we can to avoid directly engaging the enemy, 'cause the loss of our mechs is really serious.

In a video game designed to be picked up and played at any time, this is nightmarishly bad game design. It would be like playing TF2 where nobody actually wanted to fight because it meant that they lost all of the rare and valuable pickups they had spent their time hording. You -want- players to fight robots in MWO. If they aren't, your design has failed and your game is boring as crap.

I entirely agree with you. The real shame is that it really does make the game more replayable. The fight without repercussions is an entirely different game. I watch people who run directly at the enemy just focus firing so they get a kill, and never caring about the damage. It is far more subtle and FUN to play it smart. I want to be fighting against people who understand that being dispossessed would bother a mech warrior. I want to fight against people who limit ammo using weapons because they are broke. I want to desperately patch together my last mech and hope for the best because mine are all toasty and I hate trial mechs.


Now, I know that schmuckery can happen because you will always have punks with LRMS who will get a kill and hide, or people that hide powered off until/if they have an advantage, etc. But, I would rather them be dealt with by the community than by weakening all game play. I can easily see that eventually even I will have to give up my PUGS OR DEATH stance (Which is half about this being beta, and half about my last online guild becoming a soap opera) because I will get tired of playing with people like that, once someone is known for that sort of game play they will be forced to pug forever.

TLDR: I guess I want more of the game than it will ever be.

[Vassago Rain]

Kylere, on 04 February 2013 - 03:32 PM, said:

I entirely agree with you. The real shame is that it really does make the game more replayable. The fight without repercussions is an entirely different game. I watch people who run directly at the enemy just focus firing so they get a kill, and never caring about the damage. It is far more subtle and FUN to play it smart. I want to be fighting against people who understand that being dispossessed would bother a mech warrior. I want to fight against people who limit ammo using weapons because they are broke. I want to desperately patch together my last mech and hope for the best because mine are all toasty and I hate trial mechs.


Now, I know that schmuckery can happen because you will always have punks with LRMS who will get a kill and hide, or people that hide powered off until/if they have an advantage, etc. But, I would rather them be dealt with by the community than by weakening all game play. I can easily see that eventually even I will have to give up my PUGS OR DEATH stance (Which is half about this being beta, and half about my last online guild becoming a soap opera) because I will get tired of playing with people like that, once someone is known for that sort of game play they will be forced to pug forever.

TLDR: I guess I want more of the game than it will ever be.

There are plenty of repercussions.
For instance, if you don't do your part, you make less money, and that makes you groan.

There was no smarts involved in the old system. Very binary. Are you good enough to know to turn all these buttons off, and abuse free armor repairs/welfare ammo? If 'yes,' you had 30 bays full of mechs. If 'no,' you went to battle with damaged internals.

[Thorn Hallis]

It served no other purpose then some kind of "immersion" for role-playing mercenaries or non-affiliated players. Balancing was not achieved by R&R and it never will.

[Jetfire]

RnR should only come back as a part of CW. Bigger takes from CW missions, but then you have to pay bills. Makes sense to me. In Free Drops RnR should just stay gone.

[Josef Nader]

Kylere, on 04 February 2013 - 03:32 PM, said:

I entirely agree with you. The real shame is that it really does make the game more replayable. The fight without repercussions is an entirely different game. I watch people who run directly at the enemy just focus firing so they get a kill, and never caring about the damage. It is far more subtle and FUN to play it smart. I want to be fighting against people who understand that being dispossessed would bother a mech warrior. I want to fight against people who limit ammo using weapons because they are broke. I want to desperately patch together my last mech and hope for the best because mine are all toasty and I hate trial mechs.


Now, I know that schmuckery can happen because you will always have punks with LRMS who will get a kill and hide, or people that hide powered off until/if they have an advantage, etc. But, I would rather them be dealt with by the community than by weakening all game play. I can easily see that eventually even I will have to give up my PUGS OR DEATH stance (Which is half about this being beta, and half about my last online guild becoming a soap opera) because I will get tired of playing with people like that, once someone is known for that sort of game play they will be forced to pug forever.

TLDR: I guess I want more of the game than it will ever be.

I'd love to see something like limited resources for factions in CW, meaning that they have to apply their forces very judiciously in attacking/defending planets. Everything would cost money to keep the war machine going, and having more planets would not only give your faction more resources, but more costs in defending and maintaining it.

The difference is, in CW everyone is being rather serious and it's treated as an end-game foci for organized play. You don't get random F2Pers in CW. Randoms should always be able to play without consequence. Save the limited resources and heavy tactics for the people who are interested in it.

[Mackman]

Josef Nader, on 04 February 2013 - 06:31 PM, said:

I'd love to see something like limited resources for factions in CW, meaning that they have to apply their forces very judiciously in attacking/defending planets. Everything would cost money to keep the war machine going, and having more planets would not only give your faction more resources, but more costs in defending and maintaining it.

The difference is, in CW everyone is being rather serious and it's treated as an end-game foci for organized play. You don't get random F2Pers in CW. Randoms should always be able to play without consequence. Save the limited resources and heavy tactics for the people who are interested in it.

This is the most intelligent post I have seen on the subject. I support this mindset.