50 replies to this topic

[Natasha Kerensky]

TanE, on 11 February 2013 - 10:23 AM, said:

Think about this:

What happens, when the Clan Mechs go another way? My idea is:

Clan Mechs are OMNI-Mechs. So why should I buy another chassis, when you can use ALL variants on a SINGLE chassis?

Maybe we only have to buy ONE ClanOmniMech! At this point of view 36.000.000 is much, but not much more than 3 Atlas/Atlai/Atlases ( ) on after the other. Now you only have to pay for expensive weapons and gear, maybe in MC as an alternative.

How could the variants be implemented in the MechLab?

This could easily be solved by a "variant button". The player have to choose the variant he likes to drive and due to the chosen variant the Mech get the slotlayout of this special variant. When clicking another variant the Mech withdraw all weapons and is ready for customization.

If we follow this path, how do we get the Elite/Master Skills? My thoughts for this:

The player have to buy the Prime variant and have to skill is to basic or elite, as a kind of endgaming, to unlock another variant - chosen by the player.
To master the chassisvariants, the player have to unlock 3 variants. Then the master tree is free for skilling.

I think, it's simple and "special".

Hero "Variants" could be introduced, too, by buying special variants, that includes a special paintjob, when used.

Not all Clan mechs are omnimechs. Some are.

[ExplodedZombie]

You are assuming there are not many people out there who will not pay $65. I am here to assure you that there are. They could do an A/B test with high and low MC prices and I bet that Clan mechs would make more money at higher prices. I've seen this happen in many other games from a dev's view. It's not cool at all but it's reality. I'm not saying it's definitely a rule for MWO but it's very possible.

[Sybreed]

I would pay 40$ MAX for a 100 ton clan assault mech... 65$ is just too much.

[Gaan Cathal]

Norris J Packard, on 11 February 2013 - 12:46 AM, said:

When I see these constant fluctuations in deals, I assume that PGI is gathering information based on sales to try (as Russ has recently stated doing) and hone in on a specific series of discounts that the community likes. Now since PGI has already refunded MC and CBills once before, they have set a precedent that they will undoubtedly happen again. Since the Clan Mechs by and large will be abhorrently expensive and not sell very well at all (Seriously, $65 USD a Mech?), they will have to adjust the MC prices in order to make them more appealing for more players. Now how can PGI do this? Simple. Take the current MC values of (non-Hero) Mechs and slash them in half. PGI then only has to refund a portion of the MC back to the player's account for these adjustments with no fuss from the Community. With this change PGI will be able to add the Clan Mechs at more “reasonable” MC prices that the community will have already been used to; while allowing more frugal players to suddenly buy Mechs that were previously out of their price range. And that's pretty much how I foresee the addition of OmniMechs going.

I know a couple players who, pre-Cadet bonus, laid down the MC for their first mech to skip the terrible (and still terrible, but abbreviated) trial mech phase. The most expensive one was a Dragon, everyone wanting anything heavier gritted their teeth and ploughed on through the grind (or gave up). At half, or even two-thirds, price, I estimate PGI would've made a higher total profit out of my (statistically insignificant) sample pool.

Overall the number crunching is interesting and useful, though we don't yet know the structure Clan Mech purchases will take, whether they will be restricted to 'Clan accounts', whether we will need to grind variants for omnimechs (which seems unlikely, depending on implementation), etc. It may be that a Clan Mech is entirely independent of CBills, bought with a Clan-only currency. At that point a Dire Wolf costing as much as an Atlas is actually a moot point, since the number of mechs in player hands is irrelevant, only the number of mechs in a match. If, as is postulated elsewhere, IC-Clan matches are asymmetric in numbers, the cost-equivalence in MC would be largely moot.

[GrimlockONE]

christophermx4, on 11 February 2013 - 10:04 AM, said:

PGI is in the business of making money - if they price the Clan Mechs at insane prices, no one's going to buy them.

That said, I could easily PGI offering some kind of Clan "bundle", where for 60 bucks, you get access to two or three Clan Mechs. Prices for IS Mechs would dropping accordingly - though I would think you could equip Clan equipment on IS Mechs.

I think the OP nailed it.

Just like they did for closed beta they will probably offer some sort of "Founders Package" It actually makes really good financial sense with three tiers, obviously the lowest tier would have to change since you can now play the game freely.

Legendary Clan Founder- Gains Premium Time, MC, and all four original Clan Mechs. (one of every class)

Elite Clan Founder- Premium Time, no MC and two clan founders mech, or MC and one clan founders mech.

Veteren Clan Founder - Premium Time and one clan founder mech

------------------------------------------------------------------------

With the success the original founders had I could definitely foresee another founders bundle deal. It would give PGI another influx of cash to possibly hire more development talent and churn out content at a faster rate.

[MischiefSC]

I'm still trying to figure out how clan mechs can be introduced without utterly destroying game balance. Utterly, completely and irrevocably. Pinpoint aiming accuracy, OPed missiles balanced by OPed ECM, double fire rate combined with doubled armor values leading to OP alpha strike designs...

Clan ERPPCs do as much damage as gauss and weigh less. How about a 8 x ERPPC Daishi with a 120 point alpha strike at anywhere from 0 to 800 meters? Core an Atlas half way across the map. If you hit it, it dies.

Won't that just be AWESOME?!? So much fun....

Oh. Wait. No.

[Nathan Foxbane]

Twice as expensive as an Atlas you say? Look at it this way. It is an Omnimech, right? You only need to buy one to master it out instead of three variants. Of course it will probably take three times as much XP for each skill.

Still you pose a very interesting question. They will have to drop MC costs of IS 'Mechs if they do not wish to put some of the Clan 'Mechs out of reach. I shudder to think about the costs of having everything needed to make all configurations of a Timber Wolf.

Edited by Nathan Foxbane, 11 February 2013 - 11:29 AM.

[Magitek]

Increasing the cost of anything, in c-bills, only increases the amount of time it takes for saturation. The only thing that can counter that saturation is a lack of value. There is little in the way of lacking value when it comes to clan OmniMechs, at least from my point of view.

Edit:

The Atlas is very pricy, but that doesn't stop players from seeing 8 total, in a match.

Edited by Magitek, 11 February 2013 - 12:09 PM.

[Ghogiel]

I think what is going to happen is, they aren't going to lower or half MC costs of the mechs, but rather run % off sales more regular.

It's marketing, it urges players who might have contemplated buying mechs for MC to actually do it on the spot. When the brain sees "50% limited time only" and it's something that they did want to buy, but might have been a little too expensive or even twice as expesive, they will grab deal.

At least it worked on me, the founders deal, and the dazzle camo on sale, I bought all that ****.

Whatever MC price they set for clan mechs, I really don't think it'll be cheap.

Edited by Ghogiel, 11 February 2013 - 01:12 PM.

[Norris J Packard]

Vanguard319, on 11 February 2013 - 10:02 AM, said:

In all likelyhood, I doubt you will need to buy three clan mechs to master an omnimech, simply because omnis are not variants in the conventional sense. Since one omnimech can be setup as any of it's "variants", it's probably more likely you will have to spend more xp on the one chassis to master it.

Oh, but I do. I have several good reasons for thinking this but they are unrelated to the economic issue at hand.

My assumption works off this premise of 3 Mechs still being required, and that each one at the current MC prices will be a huge sum of money. I am not sure how PGI plans to go about adding them in a non-hard currency form for players to get, but again that's irrelevant. My main point here is that if PGI were to simply stuff them in the game at $65 dollars a pop, then they are squandering a massive financial opportunity. Imagine if they did Founders, but each Mech cost $65 dollars and the packages were scaled up correctly to reflect this. That's how badly it'd go over. Oh sure, a very small number of people would buy them, but nowhere near the numbers that they did with the actual Founders.

[Norris J Packard]

ExplodedZombie, on 11 February 2013 - 10:54 AM, said:

You are assuming there are not many people out there who will not pay $65. I am here to assure you that there are. They could do an A/B test with high and low MC prices and I bet that Clan mechs would make more money at higher prices. I've seen this happen in many other games from a dev's view. It's not cool at all but it's reality. I'm not saying it's definitely a rule for MWO but it's very possible.

Your thinking is extremely narrow-minded.

Just because a small portion of the already small playerbase can afford something (theoretically) doesn't mean they will actually take advantage of it. Nor does it mean that by keeping the hard currency prices so inflated does it mean good business sense. More people will take advantage of a buying MC, and buying Mechs, and buying Premium Time when the purchasing power is made stronger. That's just the reality of the situation. It's not a good decision financially for PGI to keep these Mechs arbitrarily expensive.