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Post by Redfiend on Sept 26, 2020 21:25:52 GMT -5
I was going to wait until I had all of the available items for my current average rank at the precipice of ranking up before writing this, but even that, is a few weeks away.
A few days ago I had a discussion with the MA Discord moderators about my concerns about the in game economy. It ended with a not-so-subtle threat of being reminded that they're moderators, and how they can block my feedback to the dev team.
That being said I'm going to summarize my findings so far, and my personal perspective about the nature of the game's current business model.
If you have a personality that is predisposed to addiction: Do not play this game.
Ranks 1 and 2 are better than most time/money gates. That's the hook.
Rank 3 is the final stretch where small gear differences make a big performance difference.
A prime example would be rank 4 Killshot vs rank 3 players and the AI's inability to properly assist against the enemy team composition when items are imbalanced by level differences.
Rank 4 Killshot charge deals 18K damage at the minimum. That is 90% of R3 low health bot's health. 75% of the R3 health of average HP bots, and 50% of the health of R3 tanks.
While skill can overcome differences like that, it doesn't change how numerically imbalanced that is.
The cost of getting a bot from the floor of rank 3 to Rank 4 level 1 is 135k credits and 1500-2500 A-coins depending on the weight class of the mech.
The average credit income of the game through regular play is 10K credits per day before tournament winnings, Token boosters, or energy refills in Division 1.
A-Coins come predominantly through tournament and Vault crates, which is fair for the amounts offered.
The costs only get even higher at rank 4 and up, but the rewards do not increase. By the time a player reaches that point, they're already invested. That's where the game presents a "choice" of progress extremely slow, or put in a great deal of cash to reach the next milestone.
The game will not hesitate to throw stronger opponents at you until you are at the levels where nothing can be stronger than you. If the game decides you're going to lose, you're going to lose, and there is jack squat you're going to be able to do about it.
The only reason there isn't any apparent Pay2Win in this game is solely the lack of whales to do the clubbing, and the sea of AI combatants that populate every match.
The largest disparity, amazingly enough, is in credit distribution.
Coins are offered at fair amounts in tournament.
Blueprints are random, but their time gate mechanism keeps most gear at similar potential levels. This is, however, another level of paid feature that the most expedient way of rectifying is a thick wallet.
The sparse Credit economy leads to a demand "Choice" where coins, which can mean real money, are the most expedient way of obtaining the most basic currency in the game. This leads to a siphon of earned coins from the grind towards the higher priced, higher level gear, slowing down what would be a streamlined progression if Credits were readily available while coins could be delegated to Rank ups and higher level gear. As seen with the carbines, and anyone that has already passed the rank 3 to 4 threshold, the asking price in terms of coin amounts is anywhere from $20 worth for a rank up, with Rank 5 weapons being in the $60 range.
While these prices are mitigated with the amount of premium currency that can be won through regular play, those coins can easily be wasted at the demand for credits a single, static, loadout for a hangar may require, and the blueprints required from level to level.
All that being said, prices towards the end really get up there, and the first few months are the sunken cost primer for the exuberant monetary amounts thrown around towards the higher echelons.
Youtubers, and other players don't have everything. As a matter of fact, the small handful of items they use in their videos are the only items they have upgraded to rank 5/6. The upgrade system, as it currently exists, was implemented 7 months ago. The progress of someone like KSO, who posts videos almost daily, is telling of the current state of the grind. Especially because he kept all of the items owned during alpha, and didn't need to spend the initial buy in cost of anything in the game.
If you're going to stick with this game, stay a cheap arse, and don't rush. Stick with the 100 coin boosters, and 100 coin tournament ticket packs. Don't kill yourself grinding. Limit wasting coins on flat credits purchases, because you're going to need them.
If I suddenly disappear from these forums again at any time in the future, it means I dropped this game like War Robots.
I'm not cynical, I was a salesman. Ethics don't exist in marketing, which is why I'm no longer a marketer. Buyer beware, and don't push yourselves if the fun fades.
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Post by mechtout on Sept 26, 2020 22:08:54 GMT -5
I think I spent less than $100 in 4 yrs playing War Robots, and thats divided over 3 hangars on ios, android, fbgr. I am a cheap ?illegitimate child?.
That being said i did notice how freaking hard it was to get my jugg to Rank 4 and the pulse cannons i want to use on him to Rank 4, basically used all my acoins, and still saving up for the final rank up fee. I needed the 16 energy and increased accuracy, but don't feel the need to rush for other set ups
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Post by Redfiend on Sept 26, 2020 22:25:17 GMT -5
I think I spent less than $100 in 4 yrs playing War Robots, and thats divided over 3 hangars on ios, android, fbgr. I am a cheap ?illegitimate child?. That being said i did notice how freaking hard it was to get my jugg to Rank 4 and the pulse cannons i want to use on him to Rank 4, basically used all my acoins, and still saving up for the final rank up fee. I needed the 16 energy and increased accuracy, but don't feel the need to rush for other set ups My point is, that push for *just a little more* will only get stronger as levels roll on. From what I've gathered,R5 upgrades hit 50K+. Once what you(or anyone) uses makes it to that next threshold, the game can, and will, throw another step up at the player to keep them handicapped. The cost curve and time sink continue to weigh heavier on spending RM to suppliment the process. If you're content with grinding, by all means do you. This topic is just a general warning against the predatory side of the business model that isn't immediately apparent when picking up the game. It's a courtesy that game studios, especially mobile games, will N E V E R extend to the playerbase, or admit to. People that do have addictive personalities should tap out early. War Robots has hooked and kept a hefty sum of people that took the "wait and see approach", which is why so many of you guys are familiar to me, despite leaving the forums and War Robots over two years ago. Right, mechmanmechout? For people who can get sunk by those kinds of hooks, I wanted to call them as I saw them, because they are there, just way further in than the War Robots "GIB ME DA CASH NAOW" approach folks have gotten used to with the last few years of War Robots. |
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Post by hicycles on Sept 27, 2020 4:07:54 GMT -5
"The only reason there isn't any apparent Pay2Win in this game is solely the lack of whales to do the clubbing, and the sea of AI combatants that populate every match."
This, right here, is the reason why the game is playable at the moment. I watched either scape or kso, and they ranked up their killshot from 3 to 4. It wasn't the point of the vid, but I noticed it cost 1875 a coins to do. Quick, back of the napkin, math tells me that I would need close to 16k a coins to rank up my hangar from 3 to 4 (4 bots, 4 weapons). This is a grind, but for those willing to spend the money, not a problem. I can't even imaging the cost to rank up 4 to 5. I can't even imagine what the game will look like when there are enough players to eliminate the need for ai. Can you imagine what tournament would look like? When I start a tourney match, I'm hoping for only bots, and a little stressed out when I'm playing against 1 other human...
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Post by hicycles on Sept 27, 2020 4:09:27 GMT -5
By the way, thanks for the status update. I really appreciate your knowledge and analysis.
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Post by mechtout on Sept 27, 2020 9:49:07 GMT -5
Haven't figured out the mm yet, but seems to match you up based on similar strength unless you win too many games in a row. We'll see how that translates to a larger player population and less ai. So far I have not ran into all the 2000+ players that are in the game now
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Post by Redfiend on Sept 27, 2020 10:05:15 GMT -5
Haven't figured out the mm yet, but seems to match you up based on similar strength unless you win too many games in a row. We'll see how that translates to a larger player population and less ai. So far I have not ran into all the 2000+ players that are in the game now There are only a handful of players that are actually above 2K. So few, that running into them unless you're squadding with them, or are in Indian/Russian timezones, is unlikely. The only new players entering the game that will effect the current generation of the playerbase are whales. Everyone who joins today has the same grind you or I have already put in for the performance metrics to put them where we are. By then, we will have moved up. Big money however, will cut through that and roflstomp everything up to and including the generation of player population at our milestone. The massive amount of AI is part of the reason why a person's individual win/loss rate is completely determined by the game. It doesn't have to pit you against numerically stronger opponents when it can literally turn the brain of all of your allies off. |
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Post by Redfiend on Sept 27, 2020 10:39:38 GMT -5
"The only reason there isn't any apparent Pay2Win in this game is solely the lack of whales to do the clubbing, and the sea of AI combatants that populate every match." This, right here, is the reason why the game is playable at the moment. I watched either scape or kso, and they ranked up their killshot from 3 to 4. It wasn't the point of the vid, but I noticed it cost 1875 a coins to do. Quick, back of the napkin, math tells me that I would need close to 16k a coins to rank up my hangar from 3 to 4 (4 bots, 4 weapons). This is a grind, but for those willing to spend the money, not a problem. I can't even imaging the cost to rank up 4 to 5. I can't even imagine what the game will look like when there are enough players to eliminate the need for ai. Can you imagine what tournament would look like? When I start a tourney match, I'm hoping for only bots, and a little stressed out when I'm playing against 1 other human... That's why if you take a good look at the hangars of players like Scape, Omniverse, and KSO, very few of the items that are mainstay in their hangars started below rank 4. The only mechs they actually leveled/ranked up were Killshot and Panther. Everything in storage is still rank 3 and below, while once again, they've been playing since the current iteration of the upgrade system went live, 7 months ago. |
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Racerx7394
GI. Patton
Posts: 141
Karma: 121
Platform: iOS
League: Champion
Server Region: North America
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Post by Racerx7394 on Sept 28, 2020 16:44:20 GMT -5
I’ll jump in here too. My feedback after a few weeks. Overall, it’s fun and I give the game a “B” at this point. I hope it keeps getting better. I am around 1,300 and in Division 3. Not sure what the numbers mean. I've paid $30-$40 for bots/tokens/packages. The Positives- The matches start in 15s and tournament games in 30s. (not waiting long)
- Only booster is the token booster which is relatively cheap. Not the 5-6 boosters you need for War Robots.
- There are many fun bot/gear combinations to play with.
- Relatively cheap to get started. The bots and weapons so far are around $6 or less.
- The AI is a usually a good teammate. They can be punishing when they are on the other side hammering you with Long Arms and Mortars. I prefer the the AI over 90% of the people in War Robots Champions League. The AI grabs beacons, defends, etc.
- Regular matches have a good range of bots/weapons to battle and a good maps.
The Drawbacks- Graphics too basic for my taste. I play on iPad and like better details and colors.
- The tournament can pay good, but it’s a grind. I don’t like to grind for rewards. I won a grandmaster bracket last week and the winner of the Saturday heat was something like 9,000+. Not sure how much time I will put into the tournaments.
- The tournaments are the same map all day. Gets boring when you are grinding for a top spot.
- It looks like gearing up from 4 stars and higher is going to be a lot of grinding. They sell upgrade kits, but it gets expensive quickly to level up gear.
- In game information is light and often I have to come to the forum to figure things out.
- List item 2
- List item 3
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Post by S1E1 on Sept 29, 2020 18:30:30 GMT -5
Good to get a sense of how things progress and figure out my plans going forward. But so far I'm fine with the economy. I just maxed out Loot Rush within seconds of it coming active and got a great haul.
In 3 years of War Robots I've never had such an easy experience. I could never get the Superchest because I need to focus on upgrades but here I'm pretty sure I'll have 50 keys saved for the next LR before this one even ends.
Maybe my perspective is skewed by dealing with Pixo, but so far nothing really seems predatory. You get a lot of variety for cheap RM prices at the beginning, everything is useful the second you get it and upgrades are instant. No bait-and-switch where by the time f2p gets and upgrades a weapon to useful levels it is already nerfed.
And maybe this is just me but if the truly high-powered stuff is expensive then fine. That separates out the p2w whales into their own brackets so I don't have to compete against them. And making it expensive prevents them from just instantly doubling everything up and clubbing everyone with the same bots and weapons. Also the AI smackdown is super brief compared to War Robots. It keeps cranking up til it wins the it goes back down. War Robots just throws beat down after beat down at you for days at a time.
So far the only thing that ticks me off is Rocket Mortars. Economy-wise it seems to be delivering what I want most. A healthy variety of gear I can play for cheap without feeling clubbed by whales. At this point there are only a couple bots I even want to take past R3 just to get 16 energy (Jugg/Ares) or 12 for the light bots. Weapons are less of a value to upgrade but might be more worth it if I slow down on bots, especially given the lower cost. Really I kind of want to play maxed RPGs more than a maxed Panther. I love the Panther but 16 energy is good enough, you know?
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Post by Redfiend on Sept 29, 2020 19:42:45 GMT -5
Good to get a sense of how things progress and figure out my plans going forward. But so far I'm fine with the economy. I just maxed out Loot Rush within seconds of it coming active and got a great haul. In 3 years of War Robots I've never had such an easy experience. I could never get the Superchest because I need to focus on upgrades but here I'm pretty sure I'll have 50 keys saved for the next LR before this one even ends. Maybe my perspective is skewed by dealing with Pixo, but so far nothing really seems predatory. You get a lot of variety for cheap RM prices at the beginning, everything is useful the second you get it and upgrades are instant. No bait-and-switch where by the time f2p gets and upgrades a weapon to useful levels it is already nerfed. And maybe this is just me but if the truly high-powered stuff is expensive then fine. That separates out the p2w whales into their own brackets so I don't have to compete against them. And making it expensive prevents them from just instantly doubling everything up and clubbing everyone with the same bots and weapons. Also the AI smackdown is super brief compared to War Robots. It keeps cranking up til it wins the it goes back down. War Robots just throws beat down after beat down at you for days at a time. So far the only thing that ticks me off is Rocket Mortars. Economy-wise it seems to be delivering what I want most. A healthy variety of gear I can play for cheap without feeling clubbed by whales. At this point there are only a couple bots I even want to take past R3 just to get 16 energy (Jugg/Ares) or 12 for the light bots. Weapons are less of a value to upgrade but might be more worth it if I slow down on bots, especially given the lower cost. Really I kind of want to play maxed RPGs more than a maxed Panther. I love the Panther but 16 energy is good enough, you know? Everything in the game can be exponentially more powerful than what you currently own, and the game will pit you against those leveled opponents consistently, even when upgrades break the 50K mark and rank ups are $10-$30 worth of coins. The rewards don't improve, there is a ceiling to the ease of access. Bot upgrades are important for the weapons they can carry, and their HP is paper compared to the next rank up. I'll say it again, the only reason no one is getting clubbed is because there aren't any whales yet. |
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Post by S1E1 on Sept 29, 2020 21:20:38 GMT -5
Everything in the game can be exponentially more powerful than what you currently own, and the game will pit you against those leveled opponents consistently, even when upgrades break the 50K mark and rank ups are $10-$30 worth of coins. The rewards don't improve, there is a ceiling to the ease of access. Bot upgrades are important for the weapons they can carry, and their HP is paper compared to the next rank up. I'll say it again, the only reason no one is getting clubbed is because there aren't any whales yet. The AI only seems to go about 1K above you in hangar strength and it starts easing up in response to losses. That is a pretty responsive system to mostly get competitive matches. Compared to War Robots which alternates between impossible, guaranteed win, and competitive, each in multi-day blocs (and with special crackdown periods of ultra-impossible) that's a pretty good matchmaker. In tourney, the incentives for playing higher brackets are good enough that while people tank a bit, they don't do it too much. And it's all temporary unlike the War Robots league system which has maxed players just permanently camped out throughout the lower leagues. I know I benefit from having flexibility in when I can play, especially late at night when tourney is easiest. Maybe that skews my experience a little as I've definitely played during frustrating times when it's hard to rack up any points. But I haven't encountered that many standout equipment imbalances against other human players and they tend to feel like noobs who just bought their gear, not deliberate mismatches. In War Robots, everything Pixonic does is to push Expert level players up into Champs, while mysteriously allowing maxed-meta players to continously club everyone in Diamond league, get tons of whales to buy 5-of-the-same bot hangars with 4 weapons each, etc. And from what I see so far of MA, there's a lot of conscious effort to avoid all that. I mean I can choose not to bother levelling any bot but my Lancer past R3 and then still get competitively matched, and what's the downside? That I can't try out Railgun or Stasis Beam? ¯\_(?)_/¯ Every other weapon comes with a E8 or below version. Right now you can get most of cool stuff in the game easily for $30 which is much less than a cartridge game. Once the player base is built up and the game is finalized, I'm sure it will get more expensive. But to go really p2w I think they'll need more than just a bigger player pool. They'll have to alter the matchmaking algorithm and the rank/energy system in some pretty deliberate ways. So again, I'm not feeling a predatory vibe just a game trying to create a multi-year resource mining economy. |
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Post by Redfiend on Sept 29, 2020 21:25:56 GMT -5
S1E1 you're not listening to what I'm saying. It doesn't stay like that. Play enough and it will hit the unbeatable match 2/5 games against bots that outperform everything you've got with ease, while pairing you with friendly AI that will suicide into the grinder. The beginner ramp is a hook to make you feel that way. The cheap purchases run dry after a certain point, and the only purchases left thereafter are $30 a pop, at minimum, per item, to progress in any way. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FpctV0O5DIWeR8JJRICDL65LO-AvLoSxICZxAdJSQpc/htmlview#If everyone feels like something's wrong, then there are no marks for the predatory practice. If people feel secure, despite the predation, that's the goal. A "multi-year resource mining economy" is, by design, a skinner box predatory practice. Also, exchange is required for an economy. You pay a cost, you don't trade. You're a commodity to a business, not an equal partner. The only economy is you pay them, or are content others pay them for. Yes, you're jaded by War Robots, and mobile money mills in general. The gaming industry as a whole is seeing inflation, but that doesn't change how large of an asking price any one particular thing in a mobile game compares to real life, real world costs.
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Post by S1E1 on Sept 29, 2020 23:49:42 GMT -5
S1E1 you're not listening to what I'm saying. It doesn't stay like that. Play enough and it will hit the unbeatable match 2/5 games against bots that outperform everything you've got with ease, while pairing you with friendly AI that will suicide into the grinder. The beginner ramp is a hook to make you feel that way. The cheap purchases run dry after a certain point, and the only purchases left thereafter are $30 a pop, at minimum, per item, to progress in any way. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FpctV0O5DIWeR8JJRICDL65LO-AvLoSxICZxAdJSQpc/htmlview#If everyone feels like something's wrong, then there are no marks for the predatory practice. If people feel secure, despite the predation, that's the goal. A "multi-year resource mining economy" is, by design, a skinner box predatory practice. Also, exchange is required for an economy. You pay a cost, you don't trade. You're a commodity to a business, not an equal partner. The only economy is you pay them, or are content others pay them for. Yes, you're jaded by War Robots, and mobile money mills in general. The gaming industry as a whole is seeing inflation, but that doesn't change how large of an asking price any one particular thing in a mobile game compares to real life, real world costs. I am listening to what you're saying. I know about the increasing costs as you advance in the game, the increased difficulty of the AI and 5v2 matches, and of "gamification," it's basis in operant conditioning, and that all video game reward systems (as well as social media) derive from research on casino slot machines. And I would agree that there is an inherent problem with "resource mining economy" games in regards to that. Really the only solution is to avoid them entirely. And it is good to keep raising awareness of those issues, especially for people who've never played these games before. But even games that don't have resource economies have some of those same problems as they too offer virtual rewards which people spend oodles of time pursuing. MA seems to have a built-in circuit breaker mechanism with the limits on how many tokens you can earn so even on the time-suck question it has points in its favor. Basically, this game's frustrations seem very mild to me. I've gotten annoyed at the AI and tourney matches too, but it's nothing compared to War Robots. I want my matches to be competitive and I know they need to be or else most players would quit. So I accept that the matchmaker will ramp up the difficulty again and again, figuring out what "competitive" for me, and what I appreciate is that it then adjusts downward immediately after it's gone too far. That says it is about creating a challenge not forcing me to spend. I don't see much of an inducement to spend on upgrades no matter what they cost. The only real incentive to upgrade bots is to mount new weapons (vatiety) and there's barely any above E8, only one of which (Stasis Beam) does anything novel. And it seems like the higher ranks likely contain far less variety, until you get to the top where it'll be 2 Killshots and 2 Panthers in every hangar and boring as all hell. So who cares about getting there to begin with? $30 unlocks half the game's gear quickly, the rest I get free playing at a natural pace. The higher prices are contained to whales who, once as they spend, segregate themselves out to only playing against other whales. This is exactly what I want these kinds of games to do. The whales subsidize the game and new maps, etc, while I only spend very little and get tons of variety. But the I don't get fed to the whales, they just munch on each other. And unlike War Robots I am not forced to pursue gear I don't want just to play the stuff I actually enjoy. I can try out the Zephyr and then shelve it and stick with a Lancer, etc. So many of us were just endlessly trying to figure out how to keep our older bots in our hangars in War Robots, just to have Pixo keep messing up our plans. To me that is an unhealthy game economy and MA seems like a breath of fresh air. Just my 2¢ of course. |
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Post by Redfiend on Sept 30, 2020 0:10:48 GMT -5
Jaded by war robots. It's like saying "at least they don't beat me" when entering a garbage relationship after leaving a different toxic relationship.
There are no whales in this game yet. There are so few players past the rank 4 threshold that even the youtubers, who obtained almost all of the items without paying their initial purchase cost, do not have 90% of the gear within the game past their base rank outside of killshot and Panther.
More people also leads to an even harder grind as the chances of someone either significantly stronger, or someone who will no-life 8000+ point any given tournament day will increase. Without the tournament rewards, zero to none of this game is any kind of obtainable.
The game will force your hand to move up by increasing the severity of the beatdowns until you do. Avoiding upgrades becomes less of an option as the enemies you face gain health pools that laugh at your weapons, while outputting damage that laughs at your health.
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Post by Koalabear on Sept 30, 2020 8:01:55 GMT -5
Redfiend, Hey bud, the last time we squaded, I noticed your hangar strength was less than mine. I'm midway through 1600 and you're under 1500. Are you doing that on purpose? Does it help with the MM to keep our hangar strength trimmed? I'm quite happy with my hangar make up right now so I'm in no hurry to rank up or such. I like my builds too and the only mech I really want to replace is my Jug. I just slapped on TL6 on it and ranked up the TL one rank and it's not bad, so I think I'm gonna keep it like this for a while. On paper, it doesn't do as much damage per clip as PC6, but in practice, I'd say they're about the same depending on ranges and game flow and team mates. I'm a casual player and after 2 months of playing, I'm already in Division 1. That scares me a bit, to be in Champion equivalent so soon when in War Robots, it took me like 3 years. But, it hasn't been that bad. CPC can be tough as that's when I play against people with similar or higher hangar strengths. Tournament is usually easy for the first few days, but as I move up the brackets towards Grand Master, it does get more challenging, so it stays fun. By the last couple of days, I don't even bother trying to grind for top spot anymore. I just try to get into a spot that gives me some A-coins and I'm happy.
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Post by Redfiend on Sept 30, 2020 8:40:41 GMT -5
KoalabearYour hangar power has always been higher than mine because you obtained the missile racks early. None of my gear is rank 4. Every time you've played against me, I've had a gear disadvantage. The results of those games were determined by how easy/difficult we each found Answerer. No, it doesn't help MM, at all. 80-90% of my opponents can evaporate me in a few seconds(especially Killshot), while it takes 2 magazines from every weapon I have to destroy enemy ~light~ bots. Divisions don't matter. It's your total games played that has more of an effect on the MM than division. The AI you fight in CPC are tied to you, specifically. Not your rank, hangar, or division. If Divisions mattered, the AI would have scaled with division progress, but they don't. They don't even start growing a brain until the higher end of Division 1. The ELO score shown with Division ranking is a lie, and does nothing but determine how many chests you can get in one sitting. Your real elo score, how the game measures you up for MM, and what AI the game throws at you, are not common knowledge. When people squad with me, it's a coin toss. We either get their AI and completely wipe the enemy, or we get my AI and the enemy AI will 4 cap before 2 minutes have passed.
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Post by Koalabear on Sept 30, 2020 8:45:18 GMT -5
Koalabear Your hangar power has always been higher than mine because you obtained the missile racks early. None of my gear is rank 4. Every time you've played against me, I've had a gear disadvantage. The results of those games were determined by how easy/difficult we each found Answerer. Skill > Money for sure!  |
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Post by Redfiend on Sept 30, 2020 8:54:57 GMT -5
Skill > Money for sure! At just over 1900 games played, the AI makes sure that's no longer the case for me. That's the point of me writing all of this. I have to abandon 90% of the gear in my inventory and focus 2 bots, and weapon sets for them. If I don't do that, there's 0 chance of upgrading any gear to equitable levels of what I'm put against before November. It's not even October. |
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Post by Old-Cat on Sept 30, 2020 9:38:00 GMT -5
Skill > Money for sure! At just over 1900 games played, the AI makes sure that's no longer the case for me. That's the point of me writing all of this. I have to abandon 90% of the gear in my inventory and focus 2 bots, and weapon sets for them. If I don't do that, there's 0 chance of upgrading any gear to equitable levels of what I'm put against before November. It's not even October. Out of curiosity what are those two bots? The Killshot and panther? |
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Post by Redfiend on Sept 30, 2020 9:47:34 GMT -5
At just over 1900 games played, the AI makes sure that's no longer the case for me. That's the point of me writing all of this. I have to abandon 90% of the gear in my inventory and focus 2 bots, and weapon sets for them. If I don't do that, there's 0 chance of upgrading any gear to equitable levels of what I'm put against before November. It's not even October. Out of curiosity what are those two bots? The Killshot and panther? Pretty much. Focus level Killshot and Panther. Spend 500K credits on missile racks, 400K-ish credits on Zephyr to replace Guardian and 970K credits to replace Juggernaut with Brickhouse. Using the credits to buy those two bots is more cost effective than leveling up the bots they would be replacing because of the A-coin price tags on ranking up. Creativity and skill are not encouraged as total games under a player's belt start getting up there. Get the most cost effective/Best bots/weapons up while replacing the others ASAP with side-grade items that start at a higher level/rank, or get shrek'd. The items are balanced when at comparable levels to each other, rewards distribution assures that it is unreasonable to keep more than a handful of items at level for the AI the game will throw at you. |
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Post by mechtout on Sept 30, 2020 10:00:31 GMT -5
Sounds like you need to have a tournament hangar with gear that is up to par with your XP level. I remember squading with 100K XP players and I got wiped off the map by 2500+ ai. I guess if we want to use common gear in the later game, we will need to build the "tournament" level hangar to gain resources to upgrade them.
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Post by Redfiend on Sept 30, 2020 10:17:43 GMT -5
Sounds like you need to have a tournament hangar with gear that is up to par with your XP level. I remember squading with 100K XP players and I got wiped off the map by 2500+ ai. I guess if we want to use common gear in the later game, we will need to build the "tournament" level hangar to gain resources to upgrade them. So like I said. Rush upgrade Killshot and Panther. Rush buy and upgrade missile racks. Rush buy the highest tier of gear you have access to, or get shrek'd. "Progression" turns into abandoning what is perfectly viable when upgraded, for getting the highest pre-leveled gear you can get your hands on. Or, a combination of the two by opening your wallet. |
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Post by Koalabear on Sept 30, 2020 10:26:33 GMT -5
Skill > Money for sure! At just over 1900 games played, the AI makes sure that's no longer the case for me. That's the point of me writing all of this. I have to abandon 90% of the gear in my inventory and focus 2 bots, and weapon sets for them. If I don't do that, there's 0 chance of upgrading any gear to equitable levels of what I'm put against before November. It's not even October. I'm still at under 900 games played so hopefully I'm still far away from what you're experiencing! I will start focusing on more love on the Killshot though. Maybe even pick up the MR6 for it. |
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Post by Redfiend on Sept 30, 2020 10:32:17 GMT -5
At just over 1900 games played, the AI makes sure that's no longer the case for me. That's the point of me writing all of this. I have to abandon 90% of the gear in my inventory and focus 2 bots, and weapon sets for them. If I don't do that, there's 0 chance of upgrading any gear to equitable levels of what I'm put against before November. It's not even October. I'm still at under 900 games played so hopefully I'm still far away from what you're experiencing! I will start focusing on more love on the Killshot though. Maybe even pick up the MR6 for it. 1000-1600 total games was where the AI brute forced it, and threw me against 23-2700 power squads. After that, the hangar power of the enemies went back to the 15-1700 range, but 4 bot hangars of all R4/R5 items, and smart. As in the AI on both sides is what decides if the match is won or lost, not anything you do. Your friendly AI are either capable of dealing with the enemy onslaught, or you get spawn raided before the 2 minute mark to the point where: even if you break out of your spawn, the beacon bar guarantees your loss. |
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Post by mechtout on Sept 30, 2020 10:37:53 GMT -5
Sounds like you need to have a tournament hangar with gear that is up to par with your XP level. I remember squading with 100K XP players and I got wiped off the map by 2500+ ai. I guess if we want to use common gear in the later game, we will need to build the "tournament" level hangar to gain resources to upgrade them. So like I said. Rush upgrade Killshot and Panther. Rush buy and upgrade missile racks. Rush buy the highest tier of gear you have access to, or get shrek'd. "Progression" turns into abandoning what is perfectly viable when upgraded, for getting the highest pre-leveled gear you can get your hands on. Or, a combination of the two by opening your wallet. The funny thing is i paid about $22 to get the MR8s, Jav6, and Guardian/PC6s...and i only use the Jav6 really. I rarely get to drop the Guardian MR8, rather use the LA Panther, J6 killshot, RPG Jugg which were free. We'll see what happens as i progress |
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Post by Redfiend on Sept 30, 2020 10:46:40 GMT -5
mechtout where I am: 3.5 Long arms take at least one full magazine to kill. 3.5 Javenins take 2 volleys to kill light bots and enemy killshots, enemy Killshot's dash damage is 90% of your Killshot/panther's health, 75% of any other bot but Jug's health, and 50% of Jugs health if your bots are under R4. A split second of Pulse 8/Carbine fire, get charged, dead. Friendly AI either can't, or won't be capable of dealing with R4/5 enemy killshots, and if the enemy team has more than 1 of them on the field at any given time, prepare to die.
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Post by mechtout on Sept 30, 2020 11:53:05 GMT -5
mechtout where I am: 3.5 Long arms take at least one full magazine to kill. 3.5 Javenins take 2 volleys to kill light bots and enemy killshots, enemy Killshot's dash damage is 90% of your Killshot/panther's health, 75% of any other bot but Jug's health, and 50% of Jugs health if your bots are under R4. A split second of Pulse 8/Carbine fire, get charged, dead. Friendly AI either can't, or won't be capable of dealing with R4/5 enemy killshots, and if the enemy team has more than 1 of them on the field at any given time, prepare to die. man, im getting close to 1200 games played now, so will be looking over my shoulder |
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Post by Koalabear on Sept 30, 2020 12:36:14 GMT -5
So like I said. Rush upgrade Killshot and Panther. Rush buy and upgrade missile racks. Rush buy the highest tier of gear you have access to, or get shrek'd. "Progression" turns into abandoning what is perfectly viable when upgraded, for getting the highest pre-leveled gear you can get your hands on. Or, a combination of the two by opening your wallet. The funny thing is i paid about $22 to get the MR8s, Jav6, and Guardian/PC6s...and i only use the Jav6 really. I rarely get to drop the Guardian MR8, rather use the LA Panther, J6 killshot, RPG Jugg which were free. We'll see what happens as i progress I get more mileage with my MR8 Guardian in Tournament than CPC - and only on brawling types of maps. My Jav6 KS is still my #1 go to mech for most games. In CPC, I primarily use the Guardian to quickly spawn and defend a Control Point that is being attacked by a red. I can usually take out most mechs except for high level Jugs and fast Shadows. |
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