425 replies to this topic

[2500kgm3]

While I understand 4 mechbays is plenty for F2P players in the current state of the game, we know there will be new game modes in the future (such as dropship mode) that will require 4 different mech configurations in order to play. Depending on how integral these kind of model are to Community Warfare, any F2P player wanting to have any variation in his games would be left in the cold unless he is willing to play with Trial Mechs, which could prevent him from enjoying some of these new game modes / partaking in the metagame.

Therefore, I think the number of free mechbays should be revised according to the current features of the game in order to keep them a commodity, and making sure they don't turn into a requirement. I agree after a certain amount of mechs have been purchased and mastered, people should seriously consider financially supporting the developers that provided them with such an entertainment, but I'd be wary of anything that, by denying players access to essential features such as game modes, can decrease the number of players of this game, since critical mass is essential for a game to be enjoyable regardless of if you are paying or not.

[Joseph Mallan]

Livewyr, on 15 February 2013 - 10:07 AM, said:

Not to ruin everyone's day or anything.. but World of Tanks doesn't give out free garage slots for the many vehicles they have.. and yet..they're very successful.

Why is this?

Awww no U di'ent! You did not just shoot holes in the OPs rant!

[Livewyr]

Joseph Mallan, on 15 February 2013 - 10:09 AM, said:

Awww no U di'ent! You did not just shoot holes in the OPs rant!

Bish pleez, I so did dat, Wut? WHAT? Whatchu got? You got nuttin!


(I really had to think about that and edit it 3 times over before posting.. lol)

[Ngamok]

Sigifrid, on 15 February 2013 - 08:52 AM, said:

Free to play games do not survive upon those who do not pay. Besides, you are not restricted from participating in anything planned (aside from the mech collector achievements) by not having extra mech bays.

Concerning the planned collector achievements: only those who really want it will bother with it. Most of the people I know of do not plan to waste money just to have every mech, only the designs they like.

Exactly. No way I am doing every one. For instance. I have 2 Hunchabacks at Master, my Founder 4G and my 4SP. Two Catapults (C1 and K2). Three Stalkers, Two Cataphracts (3D and Ilya). One Cicada (3M). I also have 2 Lights sitting at Elite +21,500 banked XP because if I do a third Light, I'll buy the 3 for Basic and then I just need 1 to get through Elite and hit Master on the other two with the banked XP.

But I am a Founders, and I did buy a package+ and have 25 mech bays total. For me it was convenience. Will I play those mechs listed above? Who knows. I saved them for the sake of saving them. I could always repurcahse them if I sold them and lose nothing but C-Bills.

[Grugore]

To OP: Are you serious? You're complaining about something that is so freakin cheap? Mow someones lawn, and you'll have plenty of MC to spend on mech bays. Unbelievable.

[KhanCipher]

Livewyr, on 15 February 2013 - 10:07 AM, said:

Not to ruin everyone's day or anything.. but World of Tanks doesn't give out free garage slots for the many vehicles they have.. and yet..they're very successful.

Why is this?

becuase it's the Twilight Saga of F2P games, it get's a bunch of praise when it should've been ran into the ground. oh and there's "pay to win" ammo. and let's face it, it probably bribed it's way to fame, just like every other bad game out there (when was the last time you've ever heard a bad review on a bad game, and the reviewer got fired soon afterwards)

[Livewyr]

KhanCipher, on 15 February 2013 - 10:29 AM, said:

becuase it's the Twilight Saga of F2P games, it get's a bunch of praise when it should've been ran into the ground. oh and there's "pay to win" ammo. and let's face it, it probably bribed it's way to fame, just like every other bad game out there (when was the last time you've ever heard a bad review on a bad game, and the reviewer got fired soon afterwards)

I don't put half as much stock in the reviewers as I do.. well.. the amount of players and success the game is enjoying..

It is horribly P2W.. and yet.. it is very successful.. it seems to defy all speculation... wonder why?

Is IT wrong.. or is the speculation wrong?

[Khobai]

Quote

Lets see if a friend of a friend of a friend hears about our game and pays $7 that means that the odds are good we'll maybe make some money off of someone someday possibly in the near future unless we don't maybe.

Thats how LoL was so successful. Friend of a friend of a friend is an existing and proven model. MWO is actually out in uncharted water with their unproven model of insanely high prices for hero mechs, unfriendliness towards new players, and overall poor player retention.

[pencilboom]

I pick my nose..Voila!!! I found 7 dollars..

[Khobai]

Quote

There are at least a couple free to play games out there that sell more expensive things than MWO's hero mechs... And how is basically giving new players 8 million Cbills unfriendly?

The fact they have to use trial mechs to earn those 8 million c-bills is whats unfriendly. I wouldnt wish using a trial mech on my worst enemy.

Quote

As for player retention... All indications from people who actually know the actual player retention is that MWO's playerbase is "skyrocketing"

Player retention is the number of "active" players at any given time. Back when they actually showed us how many players were online, that number was trending downward. So I'm not so sure that the player base is skyrocketing. In fact a lot of the people I used to play with don't even play anymore... except when a new patch comes out they might play for like 1-2 days before they get bored.

Edited by Khobai, 15 February 2013 - 10:46 AM.

[Sug]

Khobai, on 15 February 2013 - 10:43 AM, said:

The fact they have to use trial mechs to earn those 8 million c-bills is whats unfriendly. I wouldnt wish using a trial mech on my worst enemy.

You can give a new player 100 millions cbills, every mech, every module, every xp slot unlocked, and hell, a magic button that lets them kill 1 enemy mech per match, and they will still end every match with 1 kill and 10 damage done.

Things will be fine once new players are matched against similarly skilled/equipped players.

[Commander Kobold]

Stone Profit, on 14 February 2013 - 09:35 PM, said:

No they don't. If they desire to refuse to contribute to MWO financially, let them be stuck at 4 mech bays. It is completely fair.

and how exactly does them not wanting to sink money into a "beta" mean they should be stuck with four (two mastered tops)mechs?

Sug, on 15 February 2013 - 11:10 AM, said:

You can give a new player 100 millions cbills, every mech, every module, every xp slot unlocked, and hell, a magic button that lets them kill 1 enemy mech per match, and they will still end every match with 1 kill and 10 damage done.

Things will be fine once new players are matched against similarly skilled/equipped players.

I wouldn't hold my breath on that once chief.

[Stone Profit]

Omni 13, on 15 February 2013 - 02:06 PM, said:

and how exactly does them not wanting to sink money into a "beta" mean they should be stuck with four (two mastered tops)mechs?



I wouldn't hold my breath on that once chief.

If "beta" is the issue, come back when its not "beta" or dont cry about. "Beta" issues making you refuse to support the game. Herp de derp!

[SnuggleBug]

I participated in 3500+ battles in WOT. I never spent a dime on it. Not one. I refused to based on the fact that it is pay to win. I just couldn't justify supporting a pay to win system. In this game you don't have to buy anything if you wish. You have a game here that is just as even if you have premium or not. There are no magic shells that are twice as likely to work if you pay for them. I don't see how you can complain about paying seven dollars for 4 OPTIONAL mech bays. It's seven dollars. For a game that allows everyone reguardless of fiscal disposition the same opperatunity of victory. Seven dollars. Thats four 20 oz. cokes. Six big grab bags of chips. Stop being cheap. It's seven dollars.

[Carnivoris]

Free to play basically means that you can play all you want for free... but you're not going to get all the advantages you'd get if you paid money. I don't have an issue spending some money on MWO. It's damn well earned it, in my opinion. I play more than anyone should and have been doing so for quite some time now. I'm still not burned out.

I gladly threw some money PGI's way last week. I'd run out of mech bays and I NEEDED more mechs. All the mechs I had were tricked out and the way I wanted them. No more selling at that point. Time to pay up.

What the hell kind of ******* are you that you don't want to pay these devs for their time? What, you think they should just work for free? Come on, man, get some sense.

[AC]

Not burnt out? I think my mechs have stomped on every square inch of every map twice now. I am getting map blahs.....

[Vechs]

Sometimes I wonder if the very prevalent hostility towards free players is a self-esteem issue for these paying players. Does it make you guys feel better to point at the free player and sneer and laugh and think how much more awesome you are because you spent some money on a videogame?

Heh.

Free players are:
- game content
- potential future paying players (this point seems lost on many of you)
- providers of ancillary benefits (maintaining wikis)
- potential social marketers (anytime a free player mentions anything about MWO to anyone, it's advertising for PGI)

As someone who has spent 160 USD on this game so far, I want PGI to cater to free players. I want PGI to go out there and get as many players as they possible can, free or paid, into this game. As many as they can build servers for. That's how you grow a game.

Try this.

Go through all your arguments and replace the phrase "free player" with the phrase "potential customer and multiplayer content for my paying customers".

It will make for awkward sentences, but you might start looking at things a little different.

[Zerstorer Stallin]

Volume, on 14 February 2013 - 01:00 PM, said:

I understand that PGI needs to make money. I realize that someone who has acquired four of their own well-equipped and upgraded battlemechs has probably gotten many hours of enjoyment out of MWO, and maybe therefore "should" pay for the entertainment.

However, I find it unfair that players can hit a F2P wall and be unable to progress without heavy compromise.

I feel that there needs to be a way to let F2P players explore all the elements of the game without forcing them to essentially backtrack in terms of Battlemechs.

I don't think a player should need to sell the one he has been using to try a new 'Mech. It's not that they can't make a choice, it's that that choice simply shouldn't have to be made, because it's not a sensible choice to impose on players.

Like I said, I don't expect PGI to give everything away for free to players. I would think that allowing slots to be purchased with C-Bills could be a mistake, but perhaps if a player is capable of getting a few extra slots from pilot rank ups or GXP, he would have a fair degree of wiggle room.

What I find hardest here is that the number of available 'Mechs to play has more than doubled, but F2P slots remain locked at 4. It takes three of the same 'Mech to even get a Chassis to Elite/Master, and having three variants of the same 'Mech and one other seems like a strong limit, leaving the player having only two different 'Mechs to play (3 variants of the same one, one variant of another) unless you count the abhorrent trial 'Mech loadouts with no pilot skills (Which are very, very gameplay-affecting).

Don't push away the players who want to play your game - empower them to earn the items they want, even if they have to grind for them. Otherwise they may not play at all. I think pushing away free players is a scary idea and obviously not what we want to do. It's a good thing that you keep XP even if you sell a chassis, but at the same time, it is a hefty c-bill loss if you decide you want to pick up that chassis again - one that is unfair to a player without a founder's bonus and premium account.

I just don't want to be losing players over this.

I really dont think you understand that PGI needs to make money. You want pretty much everyt thing via CBills which means no way would ANYONE pay for anything. Sounds like a great way to go broke.

[Vechs]

Zerstorer Stallin, on 15 February 2013 - 03:06 PM, said:

I really dont think you understand that PGI needs to make money. You want pretty much everyt thing via CBills which means no way would ANYONE pay for anything. Sounds like a great way to go broke.

League of Legends.

[JudgeDeathCZ]

Vechs, on 15 February 2013 - 03:10 PM, said:

League of Legends.

But in LoL you have to grind a WAY MORE to get what you want...