New player currency question.

[METHSTROKE]

Hey all, Gotten into this game from MW5 and I love it! Was kinda worried it'd be like warthunder or enlisted and drive me away, but the tactical mech strategy has me hooked. It feels like I actually mean something.

But I'm not looking to pour (too much) money into it (yet).
What should I prioritize with the premium I get? I understand full well what to do with the credits but is there anything to use the Premium on that I should ABSOLUTELY BUY? Like something I'd do horribly to overlook? Or is it just cosmetics?

Thanks in advance!

[Vassago Rain]

Mechbays when they're on sale, and maybe some hero mechs if they're on sale, too. Don't buy anything else.

[Harukage]

^ This. Buy Yourself extra mechbays.
And once you are comfortable with the game and know what mechs you like - buy yourself hero mechs you may find the most usefull.

[Thundercracker]

Originally posted by Vril VVizard:

Hey all, Gotten into this game from MW5 and I love it! Was kinda worried it'd be like warthunder or enlisted and drive me away, but the tactical mech strategy has me hooked. It feels like I actually mean something.

But I'm not looking to pour (too much) money into it (yet).
What should I prioritize with the premium I get? I understand full well what to do with the credits but is there anything to use the Premium on that I should ABSOLUTELY BUY? Like something I'd do horribly to overlook? Or is it just cosmetics?

Thanks in advance!

much more "Warframe" than "war thunder" in their F2P implementation.

watch for events. i've picked up a good number of my mechs and like 3-4 months of premium time just from events, as well as all but my starter premium currency.

spend money if you like, but know that unlike war thunder, you do not even need to get premium time to keep feeling like you're making progress.

edit: also, when it comes to spending money, know that /almost/ every mech in the game can be acquired without spending real cash. hero, champion, and legend mechs only cost MC, and i did mention that you get MC from events.

new mechs, though, have a period of time, (from preorder to some months after release) where they are money-purchases only. right now, this is just the stone rhino, unless they released it to us plebs while i wasent looking.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Originally posted by Vril VVizard:

What should I prioritize with the premium I get? I understand full well what to do with the credits but is there anything to use the Premium on that I should ABSOLUTELY BUY? Like something I'd do horribly to overlook? Or is it just cosmetics?

There are two gameplay-relevant things you cannot obtain without MC:
1. Mechbays, which you absolutely need to store mechs in
2. Hero mechs, which are nice to have but not mandatory to prosper (although the 30% C-bill boost is nice)
3. champion mechs, NOT worth your currency though (XP boost is basically useless and the loadout works 100% the same on the standard version of the chassis)

Obviously wait with spending MC until there's a sale, bays are 50% off at least once a month

Mechbays will be your primary MC sink for a while. I recommend stocking up 4-6 at a time and making sure you have at least 2-3 open at any given time (don't recommend selling mechs, it's not efficient).

And pay attention to events, there's a free mech every month, sometimes a hero, sometimes more than one (the summer event this year awarded four hero mechs over a span of two month, for example), typically also accompanied by a chunk of MC.

Originally posted by Vril VVizard:

But I'm not looking to pour (too much) money into it (yet).

I'd recommend waiting until the Loyalty Program for the year gets announced and seeing how you can min/max the rewards - that should be sometime in late October / early November.
Usually there's either a set of new Loyalty variants (C-Bill boosted exclusive versions of chassis that will get Standard versions added to the game about 4-5 months later) or pick-your-prize options allowing you to choose either hero mechs or previous years' loyalty mechs.

[Goodall]

if you are putting money into the game, DO NOT buy premium currency. If you buy a legendary mech instead, it comes with a battle pass that includes its purchase price worth of premium credits, a few weeks premium time, mech bays, a bunch of exclusive cosmetics and some consumables.

also you can buy packs of 13 mech bays for $6 every so often (now is one of those times) which is really good value imo.

[ZeroDivide]

Cbills - You want to save up a few mil of this and when mechs that allow Cbill purchases go on sale buy them at 50% off. Because you re-sell these mechs at 50% their normal cost this means your Cbills are invested with 0% loss here. You can do the same with Cbill weapons, engines, consumables ect. Just don't accidentally buy the consumables that cost MC

MC- try to save this to spend on Mechbays or better yet on Hero Mechs that go on 50% off sale in the in game store. In general avoid wasting it on 'Champion' mech variants as you can buy an identical version with out the xp boost with regular Cbills, and the xp boost is a joke. Hero mechs however cant be purchase with Cbills and both have a boost to cbill generation and have unique hardpoints. I recommend youtubeing up "TTB hero mechs" for a good video on the best hero mechs. Light and medium hero mechs have very affordable MC prices (especially on a 50% off sale)

Real world dollars - the mwo website store often offers Mechbays on a big sale, 11-13 mechbays for 4.99-5.99 (right now its the fresh start bundle 13 for 5.99) its a fantastic deal. I cant recommend this one enough as its likely the BEST dollar investment if you ever want have more mechs and frees up your MC from being spent on bays.

If you ever consider buying MC directly (and not for Loyalty program reasons) instead consider the 'new player packs' clan or IS, as the Light and medium packs are good deals. Instead of buying 3000 MC you get 3000 MC + a bunch of other goodies. (additionally the Purifier and K-9 Urbie are just really nice).
Steams 14.99 legendary packs look like a fine deal too, Even better if you can get them on a steam sale(not sure they will ever go on sale). but they require 'work' to get the MC bonus they offer.

If you really want a bunch of heavy hero and assault mechs the best option may be to wait for a dropship deal on the MWO website. Every now and then they offer a pick and choose option of 2-4+ hero mechs where you make their own bundle and it drops their price to about 5$ each. Just beware that picking up light or medium mechs like this, because MC is much more efficiently spent on them.

But I do agree that waiting for the loyalty program is a good plan if you plan to spend real world dollars. They offer some really nice bonuses based on what you have purchased in the last year.

[Silhouette]

Biggest thing with anything you want to buy with 'real money', Save and hold onto the MC. There are very frequent sales in game, where you can get pretty much everything for half off. Including Mechbays and hero mechs, which are only purchasable with MC I'll load up on mechbays when that happens, might as well get 10 mechbays for the price of 5, and fill them later with grinding in game currency. Heck thats also when I use in game currency to get mechs or engines usually, since its half off for in game currency as well.

The game will have events dropping MC and Premium time pretty often (now), but premium time can be something to consider buying if thats something you really really want, if for day or so.

[ANGRY MARINE #8]

Loot-Bag events are really good for getting free MC.

[Flare |UKCS|]

My advice is to limit your real cash spending, take a few mechbays but be aware PGi are not interested in this game anymore, they are using MWO as a cash cow to pay for MW5 and others.
PGi have changed a lot, they use to be mad MW / Battletech fundies, now the suits have taken over, so its a grab cash no matter what happens.
Its a pity as they used to be a cool team of devs... I even got a free beta code, so I paid for a elite founder pack as I got £20 value, but now its more how much they can suck from this dead game until they can it for... MW6 ? They nearly canned the game for MW5, MWO is on life support for now, no new stuff just new cash mechs until there is nowt left to nab, then bye bye MWO.

[Thundercracker]

Originally posted by Flare |UKCS|:

no new stuff just new cash mechs

which become "regular mechs" after a time.

also, convenient of you to forget the new weapons and the fairly constant stream of new maps.

dont get me wrong, i dont disagree with your actual point, only that we dont have any new stuff.

[Oddball]

You don't need to spend a penny on this game. They give stuff away for free almost monthly. You don't need the fancy hero mechs or whatever they're pushing to have fun. Just work your way into mechs as you can, get comfortable with the few mechs you have at the moment, and you'll slowly build up a nice inventory of skilled mechs for free. Skill is more important than mechs in this game anyways... so spending your money to "jump start" your MWO experience will just result in disappointment. Need to cut your teeth on failure to truly appreciate the game...

[Dagher]

Originally posted by Oddball:

You don't need to spend a penny on this game. They give stuff away for free almost monthly. You need the fancy hero mechs or whatever they're pushing to have fun. Just work your way into mechs as you can, get comfortable with the few mechs you have at the moment, and you'll slowly build up a nice inventory of skilled mechs for free. Skill is more important than mechs in this game anyways... so spending you money to "jump start" your MWO experience will just result in disappointment. Need to cut your teeth on failure to truly appreciate the game...

This. You don't need to hurry. Steal a meta, find a build. You'll be fine. Finding a tactic you're comfy with is much more important - hit and run, peaknpoke, vomit, brawl, snipe, combos. All individual, all enjoyable.

And never buy anything not on sale.

[Oddball]

Originally posted by Dagher:

Originally posted by Oddball:

..... You need the fancy hero mechs or whatever they're pushing to have fun.

This. .

Thanks!

*meant to say "you don't need the fancy hero mechs to have fun"

[Oddball]

Originally posted by Flare |UKCS|:

... They nearly canned the game for MW5, MWO is on life support for now, no new stuff just new cash mechs until there is nowt left to nab, then bye bye MWO.

Yeah this is a shame, because I think a few tweaks to what they have already coded would contribute greatly to the experience.... like just making every quick play fight a contribution toward faction play rewards (as in each QP match is presented as a battle on a particular planet between clan/houses etc, so players constantly wrack up points either for their clan/house or as mercenary), instead of faction play being separate (and unused), and nobody ever reaping those rewards. Also just letting us use drop decks in quick play to lengthen the matches, instead of constantly hopping into other QP games each time.

Also, only exploring BattleTech as first person simulators gets dull, because all the MWx lineage becomes is same spchell with new graphics. Need to explore strategic level conquest for example... or multi-player MechCommander 3rd person combat where each player controls a company for example, working their way up the command chain...

[METHSTROKE]

Well thanks all, I'll take it for what it's worth, bays only.

I have to admit thought the game is mostly fun to play it's a damn shame they monetized it this much, I can't even do my good conscience purchases. Or those shameful "I shouldn't but I will."
30$ for one tricked out mech (and only that class) is kinda insane.