12 replies to this topic

[Draigun]

—Insert cheesy Hawken marketing line here (certainly not entirely unwelcome, since we've seen the PC store use over 3 different fonts for a front page banner...)—

 

I've searched the forums with the exact terms "sell mech", and from what I've seen, about 5 threads in total on this topic. It's obviously something we players feel should be implemented, but not to be considered from a lower end standpoint. Therefor, this topic will be targeting the medium to high end spectrum of players, since they will have more currency and resources. It's important to keep in mind that this is a solution that roots itself in finding any sane form of function when player X has two of the same kind (or more) mech.

 

That being said, I think we need to look at this same type of topic from another perspective. We hate having duplicate mechs, because they literally serve no purpose other than for a second or two of in-game convenience. Builds have seen the most use out of them, but this only applies to the now defunct competitive scene—as others have put it. Instead of hating this, why should it not be a good idea to

 

I want you to think about this from a player's perspective only, nothing else: What if those who buy duplicate mechs and those who level them up actually have something to grind for (I know some have complained about the grind, but that's another topic) and be rewarded for? What if I told you that there was a point in maxing the mech's rank? Above all else, what if you can earn some MC without ever spending one cent?

 

Like the game's current setup, you can literally grind for weeks to access everything except cosmetics and XP/HC boosters. As you might already know, the only way to obtain the cosmetics/boosters is when paying with real-world money. Of course this already makes MC extremely valuable, since in addition to cosmetics, it can unlock anything in the game.

 

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So, onto the point here: what if we could sell our duplicate mechs (or at this point, actually have a purpose for it) in exchange for MC and a chance to earn a pack of boosters? Hopefully you read that from a player's perspective, because from that very perspective, this would almost certainly bring a new definition of life, replayability, and of course, grind to the game.

 

Here is a high level list for what I'm suggesting/thinking:

• What exactly is Mech scrapping?
  • Scrap all mech parts in exchange for MC currency from any mech, and a chance for an XP/HC booster pack
  • The total value of a mech is determined by these equipment categories:
    • All installed and/or purchased: weapons, items, and internals
  • Three tiers of HC to MC exchange rate for the value of mech
    • Tier I: Earn a 1% exchange rate when Mech is Rank 2
    • Tier II: Earn a 2% exchange rate when Mech is between Rank 3 and 5
    • Tier III: Earn a 10% exchange rate when Mech has reached it's max Rank
    • For example, if you have a rank 4 Mech that has over 35,000 HC worth of equipment installed and/or purchased, by Mech scrapping it, you will be credited 700 MC to your account
  • There are limits however
    • You can only scrap one unique mech per week
    • You cannot scrap more than once in a day (justified due to Illal not having the manpower to scrap a mech)
    • You cannot scrap a mech that is Rank 1
    • You can only scrap a duplicate mech
• The effects of Mech scrapping:
  • Mech will be permanently deleted from your garage
  • Any cosmetics you have previously purchased for that mech will remain in the database (e.g. when you purchase the same, unique mech, you can still equip those cosmetics again)
• Important/Other notes:
  • Chance to earn a XP/HC booster pack starting from Tier II
  • Transferring XP to a mech will not unlock exchange rate Tier levels
  • This is the only way to obtain MC without spending any money. This makes the process both rewarding and valuable to the player
  • Until further notice, G2 mechs should be excluded from participating in Mech scrap
  • Consumables are the only equipment in mechs that cannot be processed by a mech scrap garage (justified since consumables are global)
• Negatives/Cons
  • Game developer and publisher will lose potential revenue, especially in the beginning
  • Not ideal "curve" against newer players with no amount of resources to work with; reducing the effectiveness of the proposal by exponential amounts towards the lower end
  • More grinding (not all are complaining though)

In case you haven't noticed, I have designed the rewarding of Tiers in the form of a low-effort, low-reward setup. This should help mitigate the devaluation of MC in general, but still be relevant. Remember, any MC at this point is essential to the player, as you only earn 500 or so of MC from in-game achievements.

 

For many, the problem with the grind in Hawken is it's exhausting diminishing return rate; after so many hours of grinding, it essentially becomes pointless for the player. It's also unfortunate that the other two major resources (that I consider), which are MC and XP/HC boosters, cannot be obtained when you grind in the game. This should be changed, as it doesn't make sense. An economy redesign is already in the works (I think), I see no reason why not to include the above as a grindable "income", if you will.

 

This would make more apparent since if PC also was on CU3/4. More stuff in-game, so value of all other currency/resource in the game automatically goes up. Pay to not grind will still exist, and be as convenient as ever.

 

Among other things, I would expect the "art of Mech Scrapping" to improve player retention rates, and largely improve the player base in turn.

 

I will apologize for making another one of these threads relating to mech selling (this is thread #6 by my estimation?) Even so, there should be a noticeable difference in the proposal I'm making and from the perspective I've decided to tackle from.

 

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Other stuff I jotted down:

 

All Internals: 12800 HC

All Items: 34333 HC

All Weapons: 8260 + 4130 HC (initial [primary] weapon used, it is assumed to be the same price of all other weapons)

 

Total value of a maxed out mech will be capped at 59,523 HC.

 

Other proposed values of HC to MC ratio for selling mechs: 1%; 5%; 10%; 0.01%; 0.10%

 

Initial design was to use a slider to change the reward ratios, but not so sure?

[ReversusRex]

The only issue I see is that before long you could quickly have access to every single cosmetic in the game without having spent a dime. 700MC seems like a massive reward to get on a weekly basis. Might be more effective if there was some sort of lotto-based thing.
Like you take your mech to be scrapped at the yard and while you're there, you find a certain chassis piece and it comes with a certain skin applied. When you're in the garage, you can choose to add it to onto any one of your mechs in the same weight class. finding a piece with a certain skin wouldn't give you the option to apply it to your whole mech, only on the chassis piece it came on.
More expensive skins would be harder to find and certain chassis pieces like the Assault's or Fred's would be more common because everyone has those. The special pre-skinned chassis could be ultra-rare loot ("who scrapped this?!") or maybe they could be MC-only cosmetics.
If you already own a global skin, then the loot system won't give you chassis pieces with that skin, but it won't affect the other probabilities. If it were to get a piece with one of your skins on it, it would simply run random numbers again until it was a new skin. Justified from a "lore perspective" because a pilot wouldn't grab a chassis piece with its old, dirty skin if they already has infinite paint buckets of it at their garage.
Weapons and items could be part of the loot equation too. Let's say on each scrap run (only rank 5 or higher mechs can be scrapped) you get 5 rewards that can be either a chassis piece, an item, or a weapon. Items can be added to any mechs you want (end up permanently tied) and weapons can be added to any compatible mechs (also tied). Could be a big win if you really wanted Vulcan for your grenadier but didn't feel like leveling it.

I keep editing this with more ideas lol. Depending on what mechs you have, you have to go to either a Prosk or a Sentium scrapyard and that affects the sort of loot you get. I think many of today's big games implement some form of RNG/loot system (Halo, Overwatch, Hearthstone, League of Legends, Counterstrike) and it definitely works as an incentive system.

Edited by ReversusRex, 25 February 2017 - 03:41 AM.

[SS396]

While I LOVE the idea of helping remove unused mechs from my garage I am strongly against giving out any MC as a reward for grinding this game.  

 

I feel it will just give people a reason to grind for hours just so they won't have to spend any money on the game and since Reloaded doesn't make any money from players spending time (cough cough ingame advertisements, which I DON'T WANT TO EVER SEE) in this game, it doesn't really directly benefit them.

 

Extra Credits talks about this very subject in a bunch of their F2P videos, check them out.

[EM1O]

the MC idea sounds nice, but as mentioned, a negative revenue proposal.  most likely HC only, as lack of it or millions of it is immaterial to the cash side of the game.  i've wanted to get rid of extra mechs ever since i got awarded another same new mech i'd earlier bought every time I ranked up (pre-Ascension).

in addition to this concept, it would be nice to have something to use the millions/billions of XP laying around.  it and the drowning in HC issue make this a win or lose game, with socializing with players, and not much else for a goal.  i have several of most mechs, and squandered hundreds of thousands of HC on fully-loaded G2Raiders, Vanguards, Brawlers, etc.  my garage is a little bloated, as is I imagine many other folks'.

[6ixxer]

• Scrap all mech parts in exchange for MC currency from any mech, and a chance for an XP/HC booster pack

No to MC.

I am ok with giving back most of HC value. there should be a token scrapping penalty.
If they bought a cosmetic for MC, it asks if you want to transfer those cosmetics to another mech in the same class.
If you bought equipment for MC early that you could have bought for HC later. That's your issue.

Edited by 6ixxer, 25 February 2017 - 02:33 PM.

[Draigun]

No to MC.

I am ok with giving back most of HC value. there should be a token scrapping penalty.
If they bought a cosmetic for MC, it asks if you want to transfer those cosmetics to another mech in the same class.
If you bought equipment for MC early that you could have bought for HC later. That's your issue.

 

HC value has absolutely no purpose for mech scrapping. Why would you buy another mech, upgrade it, then sell it for more HC? Even from the lower end, this doesn't make sense. HC has no value for those who can buy the same mech. Even if it did, it wouldn't serve much usefulness towards the player, as you can obtain HC from playing the game.

 

For cosmetics, I disagree, the cosmetic should remain in the database permanently. Also, it's impossible to transfer some skins from an A class to a C class (unless the devs wanted to do that).

 

I fail to understand what you mean for your third point. How does buying MC even relate to this thread? Mech scrapping will be supplementary, and compliments the current system. We're selling mech parts, not buying them.

 

 

In the end, it could be something so simple as to just run a script that removes your duplicate mechs. Nothing gained, nothing lost really. But there might be a better opportunity to improve the economy, not just with selling mechs.

Edited by Draigun, 25 February 2017 - 11:42 PM.

[6ixxer]

HC value has absolutely no purpose for mech scrapping. Why would you buy another mech, upgrade it, then sell it for more HC? Even from the lower end, this doesn't make sense. HC has no value for those who can buy the same mech. Even if it did, it wouldn't serve much usefulness towards the player, as you can obtain HC from playing the game.
 
For cosmetics, I disagree, the cosmetic should remain in the database permanently. Also, it's impossible to transfer some skins from an A class to a C class (unless the devs wanted to do that).
 
I fail to understand what you mean for your third point. How does buying MC even relate to this thread? Mech scrapping will be supplementary, and compliments the current system. We're selling mech parts, not buying them.
 
 
In the end, it could be something so simple as to just run a script that removes your duplicate mechs. Nothing gained, nothing lost really. But there might be a better opportunity to improve the economy, not just with selling mechs.

I'm saying something very simple. I disagree with Reloaded giving back MC.

I also see why people often like to have duplicate mechs. I purposely bought several duplicates to have the option to change internal loadouts mid-match. Of course HC value has purpose. Sometimes people decide they bought a mech and don't want it, they should have an option to scrap it so they can buy another mech with the HC. Some people don't have 200K HC.

People sometimes expect that spending MC on something means they have the right to get that back and spend it again. IMO you get back the HC value, even if you bought with MC, any cosmetics without a HC value, get transferred to another mech in the same class so you can't cry that you lost your MC investment. You can't just keep stuff in the database permanently, they are linked to Mech IDs which change, so you can have 2 of the same mech but in the database they aren't the same. Note that I never said transfer stuff to different classes.

I've been in Hawken a while and I have done app programming, scripting and DB admin. Some of what you suggested will be difficult to implement, but I just jumped to the one deal-breaker for the people who sign off on what the devs can put on their to-do list. They won't give away premium currency just like that.

Edited by 6ixxer, 26 February 2017 - 12:13 AM.

[Draigun]

I'm saying something very simple. I disagree with Reloaded giving back MC.

I also see why people often like to have duplicate mechs. I purposely bought several duplicates to have the option to change internal loadouts mid-match. Of course HC value has purpose. Sometimes people decide they bought a mech and don't want it, they should have an option to scrap it so they can buy another mech with the HC. Some people don't have 200K HC.

People sometimes expect that spending MC on something means they have the right to get that back and spend it again. IMO you get back the HC value, even if you bought with MC, any cosmetics without a HC value, get transferred to another mech in the same class so you can't cry that you lost your MC investment. You can't just keep stuff in the database permanently, they are linked to Mech IDs which change, so you can have 2 of the same mech but in the database they aren't the same. Note that I never said transfer stuff to different classes.

I've been in Hawken a while and I have done app programming, scripting and DB admin. Some of what you suggested will be difficult to implement, but I just jumped to the one deal-breaker for the people who sign off on what the devs can put on their to-do list. They won't give away premium currency just like that.

 

Yes, my apologies, I misread your quote there for transferring from mech to mech.

 

True, being able to sell a mech for HC instead of MC should be an option as well. Perhaps my original idea to create ratios with an in-game slider wasn't entirely off base.

 

I am curious, why do you disagree with "Reloaded giving back MC"? Although in defense of my point here, I never said that the mech's in question had to have MC value attached to them. In fact, the system will never calculate MC value on the mech, only HC for conversion.

 

This game's current economy system doesn't make sense. HC throughput generated in-game is too low for the rewarding curve, and having a premium currency in exchange for real money isn't the best option for generating revenue for a game in this state. The sole reason why MC exists in the game is to make it a "pay2notgrind" game. I doubt any company taking over the game would generate any decent revenue from it.

 

Let's go a little deeper though. Let's figure out the reason why Meteor Credits were created.

 

MC (originally called Meteor Credits), were created when the game was conceived. It's pretty simple, have an in-game currency that is payed for with real money, and the company generates revenue. At the time of Hawken's creation, this made sense. The publisher expected the game to sky rocket, and revenue would soar since only cosmetics could be obtained with MC. Remember, the CEO of Meteor believed that Hawken would have 25 million players worldwide. So it's not inaccurate to say that MC's design is complete nonsense for Hawken going forward.

 

Has Reloaded even adjusted anything for MC, or have they not laid a finger on it? I think they adjusted the packages for console, but nothing for PC right?

 

Anyway, as we all know, the game has failed to grasp a decent following, and 'The Fall', as Nept wrote brilliantly, exacerbated things to what we have now (at least for the PC market). Until there is a vast content system that allows the player to customize their own avatar from the inside out in Hawken's universe, this premium currency will never see the light at the end of the tunnel.

 

MC is not being used to it's full potential, in my opinion. Rewards for playing the game are now few and far between. But because MC is very valuable, we ought to use this to our advantage. Instead of flatlining the player's rewards, buff the incentives to drive them towards those rewards. You will have to admit that being able to obtain MC without spending a dime is a very strong way to keep players in the game.

 

It's prudent to examine the economy of a free to play game, as it's the foundation everyone works with, including the playerbase. I think we need to start thinking outside of the box for Hawken, otherwise it will become (well, depending on who you ask, it may already be) a failed game.

Edited by Draigun, 26 February 2017 - 02:28 AM.

[Draigun]

The only issue I see is that before long you could quickly have access to every single cosmetic in the game without having spent a dime. 700MC seems like a massive reward to get on a weekly basis. Might be more effective if there was some sort of lotto-based thing.
[...]

 

Perhaps, and if so, imposing more limits, or reducing the reward would be a patch away. I will not be afraid to admit that this system being implemented would almost certainly require a thorough examination of the current economy, and subsequent updates to it. Definitely not something you'd want to do too much, especially with a resource limited company.

 

While I LOVE the idea of helping remove unused mechs from my garage I am strongly against giving out any MC as a reward for grinding this game.  

 

I feel it will just give people a reason to grind for hours just so they won't have to spend any money on the game and since Reloaded doesn't make any money from players spending time (cough cough ingame advertisements, which I DON'T WANT TO EVER SEE) in this game, it doesn't really directly benefit them.

 

Extra Credits talks about this very subject in a bunch of their F2P videos, check them out.

 

Let's think about it from a future propagated timeline. While the amount of revenue could theoretically go down, will Reloaded actually suffer in the long-term? Ultimately I don't know, as I don't have access to their data regarding money generated. But the effect here that we will probably see is more players and more activity. This drives more people to the game naturally. This is important because it improves the game's state on all fronts, including the economy. There are certainly player's that have the mindset of low-effort, high-reward—and rightfully so, it makes sense as it's an efficient mindset. I wouldn't go to the lengths to say that there will for sure be more players that spend money on the game though. I'm not an economist.

 

I don't think Reloaded makes much money even though MC is exclusive to those with real money. This is my guess, and I will change my stance on MC if Reloaded actually makes decent revenue.

 

I mean, what's wrong with giving "people a reason to grind for hours just so they won't have to spend any money"? We barely have one now, so what's the matter here? I totally agree that in-game advertisements have no bearing, and they never will from my viewpoint.

[SS396]

I don't think Reloaded makes much money even though MC is exclusive to those with real money. This is my guess, and I will change my stance on MC if Reloaded actually makes decent revenue.

 

I mean, what's wrong with giving "people a reason to grind for hours just so they won't have to spend any money"? We barely have one now, so what's the matter here? I totally agree that in-game advertisements have no bearing, and they never will from my viewpoint.

 

I agree, currently I think they make more money by overcharging excited/loyal players every 8 weeks by locking a brand new mech behind a paywall.

 

The only thing I see wrong with players grinding for MC is I fear they'd just keep freeloading and it doesn't entice the players to open their wallets.  I mean thats why I never bought anything but skins or drones with MC, because I could just wait and grind and use HC instead, and when there wasn't anything left to buy with HC, I just let it rack up for the next time there'd be something released.  It was kind of a two fold system because I was leveling the mechs while getting HC.

Edited by SS396, 26 February 2017 - 10:15 PM.

[crockrocket]

I would suggest an exclusive cosmetic over mc. Game gotta monetize somehow

[Pulcinella]

Turning HC into MC? That would be cool. And the grind would be a nice balance to it. But, like everyone else, I think this would hit the revenue pretty hard. Being able to go from basically HC to MC is the real issue. Scrapping leveled up mechs for MC is just gonna hurt revenue.

Looking at other mmos I've played, no one has ever really done something like turning free ingame credit into paid credit.

My suggestion in place of the function to scrap mechs for MC is to instead scrap for HC. The higher rank the mech, the more HC earned. Base HC earned is the mech's stock price tag. Although this may hinder some judgements like there would be less commitment towards the purchase of a mech. But then again, with as many mechs as there is, and more to come obvs, maybe the ability to buy more mechs more easily really isn't a bad idea.

Anyway, as a variation of Rex's idea, we make two different lottos. One bought with HC and the other with MC. The HC lotto will have things like holos, nerfed exp/HC boosters, reticles, hud colors. And there would be a, idk, 15% chance it'll give a stock mech. And even rarer, 4% chance to win a cosmetic. So the tier for reward rarity would go junk<boosters<mechs<cosmetics. With the MC lotto, there would be higher percentages of winning cosmetics, like 10% increased chances. However, the MC lotto will also have exclusive cosmetics which have a smaller chance of reward. These super rare cosmetics have to be equally super awesome so that there is an incentive to keep throwing cash at the lotto to get the greatly desired cosmetic.

Also, getting extras like the same booster or mech action may instead have the option to convert to HC (or MC depending on rarity). I don't feel that weapons should be a reward from these lottos as if you're farming HC, and most likely you are to get that one cosmetic, then the most optimal thing to do is grind a mech to max exp by which then all weapons are unlocked. If you can grind endlessly for HC then that's just wasting all the time (and HC) just for a weapon that you could've just grinded for anyway.

That's my suggestion. Although, your, the OP's, original idea could work still. I'm not sure either if in the long run it'll actually make a huge impact towards their revenue but if it did, there's my idea.

Edited by Pulcinella, 27 February 2017 - 05:57 AM.

[Draigun]

I would suggest an exclusive cosmetic over mc. Game gotta monetize somehow

 

Not a bad idea—in fact that could be what this proposal is missing; it's big down side is MC revenue loss for the developer/publisher. This would theoretically fix that problem in many ways.

 

We would need the ecosystem to support it though, which is mentioned in the solution's design.

 

[...]

 

HC would work, any currency as well, but I would be concerned with the value of HC going down further. Some very good points, nonetheless. It would have to be more than what the mech is worth though, in my opinion. Because there will be some people who don't want to put much effort into creating a valuable mech to sell for bigger gains. Even at the lowest tier, there should be a positive income of HC.

Edited by Draigun, 02 March 2017 - 12:21 AM.