The real money sink items are: premium time (increased xp/cbills per match), new mechs (that can alternately be bought with cbills), hero mechs (only available with mc and imho of dubious value), cosmetics (camo, colours, cockpit items), and mech bays.
More or less the world of tanks model except you cant buy regular tanks with gold in WoT.
Of course, they could be going the LoL route, and basically let the game be fully playable without spending any cash, with most of the monies going towards cosmetic changes.
Pretty much already the case.
how can you see how many matches you have played? i can’t find the stats page you used to be able to access in beta.
JoshV
1623
I’d argue that no, it wasn’t. The rate of gaining c-bills if you didn’t buy a founder mech was fairly anemic, and combined with the incredibly shitty resale value on mechs, meant that it took way too long – I’m guessing 26 matches =P, to get a decent mech with decent gear.
pg1
1624
Nathan - http://mwomercs.com/profile/stats I’ve played about 700 matches already and earned a bit over 100 million CBills overall. I make around ~1.5 million per hour of play.
I agree the grind was a little steep for new players but now that won’t be the case. If you compare the lessen grind with games like Tribes Ascend or Hawken, MWO is clearly much easier on new players with the changes (and even before them I’d argue it was easier). I’m very happy to see them make this change as I believe players are much more likely to stick with the game once they can get a mech, which is better/stronger, and get involved in customizing. It’s important to keep new players coming in for a F2P game.
JoshV
1625
I agree, the grind is less than Hawken, though I felt more effective from the start in Hawken. And I completely agree that gating customization is stupid, since it’s their one major novel feature that other games don’t have.
Timex
1626
The changes they’ve suggested will be going in tomorrow are great, in that they address exactly what needed addressing… namely, that totally new players would have a hard time getting over that initial hump to the point where they can buy their own mech.
Now, play 6 matches, and you have enough to buy your own light mech… By 25 matches in, you can buy your own ASSAULT mech.
After that point, with a real mech, you are pulling in a good amount of money… Around 1.5 million an hour or so, I would say, with no earnings bonuses. Enough grind that you have some incentive to buy premium time, but not so much that it’s disheartening if you don’t. At that rate of earning, you’re able to buy new mechs fairly regularly.
So, overall, nice changes by PGI.
pg1
1627
Hawken is better balanced, in fact many would argue the rookie Assault is among the best in the game. In comparison trial mechs in MWO generally have huge weaknesses (mostly heat related). I wish they’d put in strong custom designed mechs as trials like a tricked out HBK-4P or a Splatcat. That’d also force them to balance better as people would be clued in on stronger designs. Most people probably don’t even use the offline mechlab which lets you test build mechs.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/57283401/MWOMechbay.zip
Timex
1628
Ya, but the nice thing about the new system is that after you play a few matches, no matter what, you’ll be able to buy your own mech and trick it out.
pg1
1629
And we meet again…
We honestly should have lost that match but our superior 4 man teamplay got us the capture. The top 4 blues were in the group together. I should add that the groups I play with are random and almost always different people so it’s not like a practiced team. It is sickening that lights can tank more than an Atlas in MWO.
Ah yes that was a disappointing match. pg = Fastidious, got it ;) I was wondering!
I am rounding out my commando mastery with the 2D now, having played the 3A and 1D to master.
The 2D really feel like cheating. I only do badly when I run into organized packs of ECM ravens or commandos… Even when my team loses I am often getting 800-1000xp. My primary job as I see it is to destroy enemy light mechs and ECM mechs. Once that is done I go hassle enemy missile boats.
Finding I need to figure out how to pack more ammo on. I am often running out.
Aaand Commando mastered.
A few stats, having mastered Atlas, Awesome, Cataphract, Centurion, Raven and Commando:
773 wins/795 losses (49.4%)
1.44 KDR (this has remained very consistent for a loooong time now, floating between 1.4 and 1.5)
Avg XP/match: 684.81
Avg cb/match: 171075.42
Total XP: 10730620
My personal stash of cbills stands at 53 million and change, supposedly to get an addition 8 million or so after the patch, so I should be able to afford all my stalkers. Looking forward to a new mech! Will probably master hunchbacks while I am at it to break up the grind a bit.
Janster
1632
Broken in 2 Atlases myself, one brawler and one useless K variant that I’ve fitted a gauss and two long range lasers on…
Both will usually give as good as they get, the brawler will given the right map almost single handedly take down half the enemy team.
pg1
1633
Yeah, I can see why you’d be confused. I told my team mates that we had to kill you, win or lose, haha! One of them said something like “soapy you’re dead” at the start of the match, LOL. I didn’t do that great, I died when I got stuck in that overheat bug (this gets me killed a lot!).
I fear ECM lights more than any other mech. Now that’s pretty variable however. Some lights are extremely easy to swat and scare away but others are impossible to hit. Lights win games when the numbers go down but if there are still a lot of mechs fighting they aren’t as strong. It’s just so frustrating to have to continually test out different leads to get hits on them. Sometimes you need to lead a little, sometimes a lot, sometimes not at all. The inconsistent leading drives me nuts. Then even if my crosshair goes red for my whole alpha strike at times it doesn’t appear to hurt lights. I think it’s just a speed issue because vs any fast mech it’s very spotty. I like fighting Atlas because I can actually aim vs them and hit extremely consistently.
Sad to see we won’t see the new Desert map til March, but I am having fun with the Stalker so far. It’s incredible number of hardpoints really let you pack on the firepower.
I wonder how well the game is doing, really? I am having fun with it but there are a lot of negative nellies out there. I’d hate for this to be a repeat of Battletech 3025.
I guess what I’m saying is… I’m not ready for another 10 year drought, dammit!
pg1
1635
http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/85590-which-do-you-fear-more-in-the-field/ - I’m apparently not the only one who fears light mechs.
I think MWO is doing great honestly. The just set a record new high for forum users online anyways. I agree though the official forums are pretty bad (really it’s just a few haters that are very active). I like r/mwo and PGI Erlam posts a lot there (probably more than all PGI guys combined on the official forums!).
HUMBY50
1636
I too have to be careful not to venture into the official forums too regularly as the negativity tends to be infectious!
I think if PGI have made a mistake it’s in opening the game up to the public and taking money too quickly. Far too many people don’t realize it’s still all subject to change at each patch. Doesn’t make it any less frustrating to have to wait for them to fix the netcode so I can actually kill a light mech though!
Janster
1637
This new Stalker class is really flexible murder machine…not much armour though, but I dont like going toe to toe with one in my atlas.
Well I think they moved to open beta too quickly but they must have had their reasons… I.e. they need cash!
Speaking of lights, probably this is a symptom of the Stalker and new Hero mechs entering the game and everyone wanting to play them, but I have been seeing almost no light echo in random matches since the patch dropped.
Also speaking of light mechs, the Jenner has maybe half or less the jump capability it used to, and you need to dedicate 2.5 tons to get that. I am wondering if most Jenner pilots will just ditch jumping altogether in order to maintain their firepower.
The jump jet change is going to make the Spider the most mobile mech on the battlefield since it should be able to mount 8 jumpjets to the Jenner’s 5.
I generally don’t put jumpjets on my Jenners (or haven’t; I fired up the MWO client last night and had 27 patches to download). It’s capable of mounting a ton of firepower for such a wee mech, and in cramming on two PPCs or an LRM20 or what have you, I normally don’t have space for jump jets. :P
HUMBY50
1640
I get that cash is the main motivator, just sad that they didn’t make enough off the founders scheme to go public with a game that was a little more complete!
I do find it shocking the level of entitlement displayed by people who haven’t put penny one into the game. In my day we paid 70 quid for Super Street Fighter 2 on the SNES and we were happy with that!
I couldn’t imagine playing a Jenner without jumpjets, I’d constantly be looking at the space bar key in disbelief when trying to escape the atlas I’ve just irritated!
