54 replies to this topic

[Daiichidoku]

Demoned, on 17 February 2013 - 09:25 AM, said:

that if all can be brought with MC, there is no grinding to be done in game at all,

there is no grind if you are here to pilot mechs

[An Ax Murderer]

Kashaar, coming from a F2P player, I cannot say I agree with all of your aforementioned ideas. I think that buying the mech with MC and customizing it with C-bills is fair, and being able to deck out your mech outright takes away from the experience (If you understand what I mean by that). I can understand buying the XL engines with MC though, because sometimes the engine is as much, if not more than the mech itself.

I can say however, that I respect you a great deal for the way you handled the citicism. It was a very entertaining read, and you explained yourself very well.

Edited by An Ax Murderer, 17 February 2013 - 09:33 AM.

[Warskull]

Kashaar, on 17 February 2013 - 09:16 AM, said:

That's exactly what I'm addressing in the OP. For pure value, 25$ for a hero mech is way too expensive. But if you consider that it means you won't have to spend any more money at a later point and can keep that mech for life, it's a different story.

That's the problem though, you are paying $10-$20 for crappy premium. It locks you into one mech forever. Many of these hero mechs are bad or mediocre at best. Depending on which hero mech you get you need something like 1-3 months of playing exclusively on that mech to be worth the price.

Hero mechs are mostly conspicuous consumption. The problem is the tie the consumption to a specific mech. "Oh he's terrible, he spent $30 on a pretty baby" instead of "Wow, look at the super premium D-DC there, he's got the 'Bling-Bling' paint job." $20 for a lifetime C-bill bonus on my favorite mech (or maybe even mech line instead of a single mech), that is a much better value. Plus people now know you are an X pilot.

Most people think about real money in F2P games wrong, and it isn't entirely their fault. Nearly every single company does it wrong. You can't just milk the whales. You have to look at your different player groups and figure out what you can sell them. If it means you sell some items cheaper, that's fine, you make it up with volume. You can still milk the whales by selling them the $100 Super Disco Atlas paint job with neon lights and flames that shoot out its butt.

Sure some players will never give you money, but most can be tapped for something.

Edited by Warskull, 17 February 2013 - 09:38 AM.

[PoLaR]

Daiichidoku, on 17 February 2013 - 09:28 AM, said:

there is no grind if you are here to pilot mechs

I would say that depends on one's goal.

If the goal is to solely have fun and play with what you have, than sure, there is no grind.

My long-term goal is to have every BattleMech and have them all mastered. So I would say that in order to fulfill my needs, then this game Is basically one giant grind for me. But I am okay with that and enjoy doing so.

So we are both having fun, with different goals.

Everyone wins!

[Iscariott]

I've spent a LOT of money in other F2P games over the last two years. LoL is practically a permanent line item in my monthly expenses. I honestly can't see myself ever spending money in this game for anything other than extra mech bays due to the pricing. I like my cataphract-4x, and was all jazzed up to buy an ilya until I saw the price tag. If people really want to spend $30 on a single mech that is their business and I wont argue with them. I will say that I will never pay that much for a single mech variant unless every star aligns. I would gladly pay $10-$15 for a mech if I really liked the chassis, really liked the paint job, and really wanted its hardpoint config.

Actually, I'd probably spend $30 on 2-3 mechs I want and be pretty happy about it overall. I want to give PGI my money, I like their game a lot. I can't justify giving them my money with how they have set their price points.

[Zerethon]

Warskull, on 17 February 2013 - 09:37 AM, said:

That's the problem though, you are paying $10-$20 for crappy premium. It locks you into one mech forever. Many of these hero mechs are bad or mediocre at best. Depending on which hero mech you get you need something like 1-3 months of playing exclusively on that mech to be worth the price.

Hero mechs are mostly conspicuous consumption. The problem is the tie the consumption to a specific mech. "Oh he's terrible, he spent $30 on a pretty baby" instead of "Wow, look at the super premium D-DC there, he's got the 'Bling-Bling' paint job." $20 for a lifetime C-bill bonus on my favorite mech (or maybe even mech line instead of a single mech), that is a much better value. Plus people now know you are an X pilot.

Most people think about real money in F2P games wrong, and it isn't entirely their fault. Nearly every single company does it wrong. You can't just milk the whales. You have to look at your different player groups and figure out what you can sell them. If it means you sell some items cheaper, that's fine, you make it up with volume. You can still milk the whales by selling them the $100 Super Disco Atlas paint job with neon lights and flames that shoot out its butt.

Sure some players will never give you money, but most can be tapped for something.

I'd have multiquoted, but i can just quote you and poke you like so:

I own -3- of the 6 hero mechs + the 4 founders, i bought the hero mechs for the hardpoints, design, or both.

Curious? Flame (4x EN On arms, fast engine, wonderful little murderbot) Knell (See Flame) & Ilya (3xEN/3xBall is quite fun to play with)

MWO does the F2P Model almost as well as games like path of exile, you cannot directly buy items, but you can buy cosmetics and things (I don't consider stock mechs to be "Items" for the record, they're more of a "Blueprint")

The "Value" of a hero mech comes in the CB Bonus, i could pay for premium time (15$+) which works on any mech but only lasts for a few days, or i can buy a hero mech with a layout i like that lasts forever and gives me a decent boost to my CB, which makes building other mechs down the line that much easier (XP is easy to get once you have a build, CB takes longer)

I'll stick to spending my MC on making my mechs look shiny and/or eye burning in most other cases. I have the patience to farm for mechs.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

To me this comes down to the impulse buy vs. the contemplated buy.

For 1-2 dollars I wont think about purchasing something. And ill do it often (apps for phones, songs, etc.).

Once you get over 10 dollars I start having to think about whether its worth it. And lets face it, in this game most of the high priced MC stuff is crap. So problem solved.

5-9 dollars is a gray area, but I still tend to think about those purchases.

[Kashaar]

Demoned, on 17 February 2013 - 09:25 AM, said:

i think what people are trying to say is,

that if all can be brought with MC, there is no grinding to be done in game at all,
with MC we can skip grinding on the Mechs themselves, but i do feel some grinding is needed, to at least **** it out.

I'll just reply to this post, since it seems representative. Maybe we need to clarify what is "grinding" and what is "playing". I'd say that grinding is when you're forced to play a certain, unenjoyable way in order to reach a certain goal.

In my opinion, collecting XP for mechs you enjoy is not grinding, it just happens while you're having fun playing. Having to own 2 other variants of a chassis in order to unlock the Elite/Master tree can be, but doesn't have to be a grind. It can be a grind if the other two variants you choose (or are forced to choose in case of mechs with only 3 variants) aren't fun for you.

Collecting GXP can not be considered a grind, because you can collect them in whatever mech you choose. Sure, it takes a long time, but you have complete freedom of how you spend that time.

Earning C-Bills can be a grind if you don't have a mech built with which you enjoy playing. You're playing in an unenjoyable way in order to reach the goal of making your build better, or to buy a different chassis, or that XL Engine you need to make your build work. Once you have an enjoyable build, earning C-Bills loses much of its importance.

And in any case, none of this is related to the topic of paying-to-win. MWO does a great job of avoiding a pay-to-win scenario: Yes, there is content - Hero Mechs - that is only available for real cash, but Hero Mechs are still useless without skill and experience.

As a matter of fact, all of the areas I have identified as "grind" above would be a valid cash cow for PGI, but they seem to have deliberately chosen not to allow players to e.g. unlock the elite mech trees without completing the basic mech trees on 3 chassis. GXP conversion exists, but you still have to collect enough Mech XP to convert first. And granted, there is the possibility of indirectly "purchasing C-Bills" by buying a Hero Mech and selling it, but you only get half the C-Bills that chassis is worth - which is a strong discouragement. They must have their reasons for not allowing us to directly buy equipment with MC, and I'm curious what it might be. In any case, I'd say the system as it is is working well.

[zverofaust]

Kashaar, on 17 February 2013 - 07:44 AM, said:

I'm not a business person, so take all of this with a grain of salt.

[Erasus Magnus]

Zerethon, on 17 February 2013 - 08:55 AM, said:

Lets just say i have both the time and disposable income, personally.

Games with the "Buy it with cash or earn it in game" ALWAYS cause outrage among their fanbase over various things (See: Planetside 2, Tribes: Ascend, Blacklight, etc.)

MWO that problem would be MAGNIFIED by far, if you "Own" the xl305, it only works on one mech, you have to own several to be able to use it on other mechs.

to someone playing entirely F2P, someone spending 50$ to have the convenience of 4 XL's over them, where they have to farm 20m+ CB to have the same (Something that takes, at BEST, 100 wins @ 200k a win) that's buying power. they circumvent the games to have the same advantage in less time.

I heard the "Skill" argument all day in tribes. and yet a level 1 brute with all the toys bought by gold could still kill an opposing Level 30+ player who earned all his toys by spamming generically into chokepoints. If it were possible, a fully-MC-bought atlas could still kill a much better brawler pilot with a lucky alpha. Not much different.

you have the same issue with premium time, only to a lesser extend. your time to get enough c bills to afford an xl engine is reduced significantly.
It still hasnt anything to do with pay to win.
and in mwo you dont have level gaps as in wow and the sort.
pay to win is, like in world of tanks, where you have ammo that is superior to standard ammo, that is only buyable with real life cash, not ingame currency.
and, yes, bone stock catapult k2 without any skills unlocked in the pilot tree can oneshot you with a lucky alpha. whrere is the problem?

[Beeman]

I feel like the price of hero mechs is completely fine....and I like that it's consistent. 75MC per ton. I like that...because hero mechs aren't really that advantageous, they just net you more cbills over time. I'm entirely content with them being a costly, but personally justifiable purchase.

Cosmetics, on the other hand...they need to drop the price of. Lower cost=more sales. It'll either balance out or(as with Steam Sales) exceed expectations every time.

[anonymous175]

You don't have to collect every mech. But that won't stop some people.

If they're crazy enough to C-Bill their way through it, they deserve a Purple Heart. Otherwise the option to MC it is there.

And Hero Mechs are bling. Not everyone wants bling, but whoever wants bling can buy bling but they gotta pay for bling.

But just because you have bling doesn't make you any cooler, but you got bling and some will be jelly cause they don't got bling, so heroes gonna hero.

[Khobai]

The prices are too high for my liking. I would prefer pricing that was more micro-transaction oriented. For example, just being able to spend $10-$20 at a time, and not feel like im being ripped off. But the current way MC is priced, its basically pointless to spend less than $50 at a time.

Quote

You don't have to collect every mech. But that won't stop some people.

If they're crazy enough to C-Bill their way through it, they deserve a Purple Heart. Otherwise the option to MC it is there.

Its not as bad as you think. You have to play games in each mech you buy to get Elite or Master with them anyway. You get more than enough c-bills just grinding xp for one mech to buy your next mech.

Edited by Khobai, 17 February 2013 - 12:34 PM.

[anonymous175]

This is true.

There need to be more items at different price points because the ripoff factor differs per person. But at least the option would be there.

[lsp]

You would bother to renew your premium if rearms and repairs where still in the game. Guaranteed,another reason I don't understand why they removed it.

[Stone Profit]

TwentyOne, on 17 February 2013 - 07:53 AM, said:

TL;DR!!!!!!!!!!!

They need more GOOD hero mech's like the muromets If they want to swim in cash.
And It would be cool if you could buy mechays for like 10 mil C-bills

Pretty Baby rocks. Just gotta know how to use it same with the other hero mechs.

[Kashaar]

lsp, on 17 February 2013 - 12:39 PM, said:

You would bother to renew your premium if rearms and repairs where still in the game. Guaranteed,another reason I don't understand why they removed it.

Oh yes, you're absolutely right. Without premium, sometimes you could actually lose money if a round went particularly badly...

Stone Profit, on 17 February 2013 - 12:46 PM, said:

Pretty Baby rocks. Just gotta know how to use it same with all the other mechs.

FTFY

[Vassago Rain]

I'm pretty sure the intent is to let you buy stuff in the shop tab, but since that's not been implemented yet, you're stuck shelling out for whole mechs that have the parts you need.

[Khobai]

Quote

You would bother to renew your premium if rearms and repairs where still in the game. Guaranteed,another reason I don't understand why they removed it.

Because the game is free to play. If rearm and repair is so prohibitive that you have to have premium then the game is subscription based.

[Inappropriate1191]

TL;DR Alt account of dev/shill for devs tries to justify outrageous prices.

Here's some truth for you.
Fact: I want to buy some hero mechs
Fact: Hero mechs pricing is completely idiotic.
Fact: Therefore, I am not going to buy any of them.
Fact: If they made prices more reasonable, I'd not only buy a few hero mechs (PB, IM, and Flame are the ones in particular), I'd buy premium time more often.
Another Fact: I bought premium time when they were offering 40% off for a week's worth of it.

I'm not the only one, and the facts are clear. Lower prices, then you increase demand exponentially. Not only would you have far more customers, you'll get far more REPEAT customers, this, in turn, would increase profitability. Selling digital crap isn't like selling a real product, you don't have to worry about supply, so as a result, the only cost in the hero mechs, is the manhours put in to make them.

Of course, PGI has bean counters churning these numbers, so maybe they hit something that I didn't. Still, as it stands, I, and people like me, won't be buying their digital crap, when there's tons of plastic crap to buy instead.