142 replies to this topic

[FunkyFritter]

The only time I ever bought MC is was for more mechbays. At this point I still have MC sitting idle because I can't afford to buy a new mech. The more I play the same 5 variants the less interested I am in playing more, which slows my progress towards something new even further. This scenario is bad for both me and PGI, something has to change.

[Thuzel]

This game didn't need more reasons not to play. Just sayin....

[RavenGenesis]

I've played F2P for a long time, and it always goes into a meaningless grind, so I've become immune to income reductions... afterall.. they're doing everything they can to get people to go for premium options

I can tell those that's not familiar about the system to be upset and looks to quit playing.. well here's the honest truth... they want quality premium players and not just free loaders.. so with or without you, they'll keep going with MC users

basically if you want a good playing experience, you're gonna have to pay for it, devs don't work for free and server expenses will continue to go up... not enough MC users will eventually shutter the game, handing out "freebies" is never going to compensate their expenses

[ztac]

KingKalvin, on 11 August 2013 - 07:50 AM, said:

Paul needs you to buy credits to use premium time thats why

Except the C-Bill nerf has also nerfed Premium ... whoops! Clangers ahoy! ... Soup Dragon incoming!

[Riptor]

RavenGenesis, on 11 August 2013 - 11:41 AM, said:

I've played F2P for a long time, and it always goes into a meaningless grind, so I've become immune to income reductions... afterall.. they're doing everything they can to get people to go for premium options

I can tell those that's not familiar about the system to be upset and looks to quit playing.. well here's the honest truth... they want quality premium players and not just free loaders.. so with or without you, they'll keep going with MC users

basically if you want a good playing experience, you're gonna have to pay for it, devs don't work for free and server expenses will continue to go up... not enough MC users will eventually shutter the game, handing out "freebies" is never going to compensate their expenses

What a short sighted CEO ******** view.

Heres a news flash:

You need those "freeloaders" or else the non free loaders will have no one to play against but themselves. And with how people get tired of games pretty fast these days this number will bleed out.. with no one comming to replace them because new players, "free loaders" as you call them are treated like crap.

This is the same mentality that lead us to such "interesting" developments as pay to win shops in single player games (dead space 3) and the milking to death of franchises.

Corporate ******** reasoning that is sawing off the branch youre sitting on. It might be a good comfortable branch youre sitting on right now, but once you saw off the base.. youre going to fall and break your neck!

Once no one is left to pay for the game guess what! Those devs wont get paid anymore! If your game is not fun for the "free loaders" they sure as hell are not going to stay on the promise that they have to unlock the fun with real money. You should only have to pay for convinience.. not to make the game fun to play.

Not to mention that this cbill nerf ALSO has an negative impact on premoum time because now you gain less cbills for your real money you invested.

So tell me.. how exactly is this a good thing when you not only punish those "free loaders" wich is an incredible short sighted and stupid idea to begin with, but also your paying customers?

[Royalewithcheese]

I strongly suspect that this isn't part of a strategy to make the game more grindy to encourage MC purposes, because Occam's Razor suggests that PGI didn't understand an aspect of their game and balanced it around an incorrect intuition of how that aspect of their game works. It's only something they do, what, once a patch on average?

[Appogee]

Ironically, earning fewer CBills is already leading to me playing the game less frequently.

The things that kept me going - new Mechs, the only remaining source of variety - now seem too distant.

For example, I have been saving up for my second Victor...12m CBills including the necessary upgrades to make it competitive. According to my Mech stats, that will take about 120 PUG games in my current Victor. Worse, with Terribad Therma in high rotation, those games will on average last a lot longer.

Further irony: If the Mechs themselves cost fewer MC then maybe I'd probably pay the cash. But $15 for a single digital asset in a game ($40 for a Dragon Slayer!) is just too big an ask. Halve the price and then I'd probably be convinced to forego a capuccino to buy myself that second Victor.

[scJazz]

Appogee, on 11 August 2013 - 01:11 PM, said:

Further irony: If the Mechs themselves cost fewer MC then maybe I'd probably pay the cash. But $15 for a single digital asset in a game ($40 for a Dragon Slayer!) is just too big an ask. Halve the price and then I'd probably be convinced to forego a capuccino to buy myself that second Victor.

This is where Confirmation Bias enters... 1.1m people have downloaded the game. Some number of them have spent literally a $1000 on Founders, MC purchases, and Phoenix, yeah Koniving I'm talking about you. When Russ, who we all fully understand knows exactly nothing about how this game plays but is acutely aware of the Bank balance looks at the filtered data (best foot forward) all he can see is that of all the people who give him money most give him way more than the $15 a month that any other MMO costs. After that he sees 1m people who downloaded and started an account and found no compelling reason to give him any money.

What Russ sees is a bunch of leeches who he immediately ignores and what can only be charitably described as a bunch of dumb ***** who will pay $30 for a Hero Mech, advance pay for some stuff, or spend $5 to play with a color palette for 10 minutes.

My point being... after the not so wonderful data is filtered out of Russ's view what he is left with is an astonishing number of fools willing to pay twice what an MMO is worth just to have a shiny toy and half that much again to avoid the grind for a skull crushingly foolish amount of about $45 a month.

Thank you to the dumb *****! If for just 30 days you examined clearly your purchases we wouldn't be where we have arrived. Or perhaps Russ needs to actually play the game for a month and grind Centurion's to Master with a Module. Then he might understand what is so clearly busted but is obfuscated by his employee's best foot forward data dumps.

[Appogee]

The idiots over at Star Citizen aren't helping, either. Some of them are spending hundreds of dollars per ship, for a game that's not even released yet. They are raising developers' expectations of what is an 'achievable price' for a digital asset.

[FatBabyThompkins]

Just remember Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

[RavenGenesis]

Riptor, on 11 August 2013 - 01:00 PM, said:

What a short sighted CEO ******** view.

Heres a news flash:

You need those "freeloaders" or else the non free loaders will have no one to play against but themselves. And with how people get tired of games pretty fast these days this number will bleed out.. with no one comming to replace them because new players, "free loaders" as you call them are treated like crap.

This is the same mentality that lead us to such "interesting" developments as pay to win shops in single player games (dead space 3) and the milking to death of franchises.

Corporate ******** reasoning that is sawing off the branch youre sitting on. It might be a good comfortable branch youre sitting on right now, but once you saw off the base.. youre going to fall and break your neck!

Once no one is left to pay for the game guess what! Those devs wont get paid anymore! If your game is not fun for the "free loaders" they sure as hell are not going to stay on the promise that they have to unlock the fun with real money. You should only have to pay for convinience.. not to make the game fun to play.

Not to mention that this cbill nerf ALSO has an negative impact on premoum time because now you gain less cbills for your real money you invested.

So tell me.. how exactly is this a good thing when you not only punish those "free loaders" wich is an incredible short sighted and stupid idea to begin with, but also your paying customers?

so what if they turned up the premium payout to give 100% bonus then? would that work?

it's never to punish freeloaders, but finding ways to convert freeloaders into premium users... there's never any profit to have freeloaders in any game for any genre... even as a playmate... they'll probably be at best a target practice

[WVAnonymous]

RavenGenesis, on 11 August 2013 - 06:52 PM, said:

it's never to punish freeloaders, but finding ways to convert freeloaders into premium users... there's never any profit to have freeloaders in any game for any genre... even as a playmate... they'll probably be at best a target practice

Not true. There just aren't enough paying players to fight each other. You have to have the free players to provide liquidity for the matchmaker.

scJazz, on 11 August 2013 - 01:55 PM, said:

This is where Confirmation Bias enters... 1.1m people have downloaded the game. Some number of them have spent literally a $1000 on Founders, MC purchases, and Phoenix, yeah Koniving I'm talking about you.

Wow, and I thought I was a big spender at Founders, Overlord, plus a couple hundred bucks for bays, colors, and camo... There isn't enough total content to spend a kilobuck, is there?

[Danny Crane]

I don't think that the drop in cBill earnings was to get people to pay more money. I like to think that they honestly thought that when more mechs were in a match, people would be making more cBills per match. Russ said it himself in the Twitch stream. He said something along the lines that the changes to earnings would mean that people should get about the same amount on bills as when it was 8v8.

This is not the case.

[Thuzel]

RavenGenesis, on 11 August 2013 - 06:52 PM, said:

it's never to punish freeloaders, but finding ways to convert freeloaders into premium users... there's never any profit to have freeloaders in any game for any genre... even as a playmate... they'll probably be at best a target practice

Extra Credits put it best: In a FTP multiplayer game, players are the content regardless of whether or not they actually pay. Sure, paying players are better for the company, but free players should absolutely not be shut out.

I guarantee you that would miss those "playmates" if they weren't around.

For ref: http://youtu.be/WXA559KNopI?t=2m21s

[mack sabbath]

Just got 37k for a win where I had damage and assists, followed by a loss where I earned 58k, similar performance. I screenshotted these totals because not only does this make ZERO sense, it'll take weeks to save up for the large XL engine I need.

[Purlana]

Danny Crane, on 11 August 2013 - 07:36 PM, said:

I don't think that the drop in cBill earnings was to get people to pay more money. I like to think that they honestly thought that when more mechs were in a match, people would be making more cBills per match. Russ said it himself in the Twitch stream. He said something along the lines that the changes to earnings would mean that people should get about the same amount on bills as when it was 8v8.

This is not the case.

Good thing PGI extensively tests everything before making changes?

Edited by Purlana, 12 August 2013 - 05:26 AM.

[KuruptU4Fun]

Die Primate Die, on 11 August 2013 - 08:08 PM, said:

Just got 37k for a win where I had damage and assists, followed by a loss where I earned 58k, similar performance. I screenshotted these totals because not only does this make ZERO sense, it'll take weeks to save up for the large XL engine I need.

Then what are you doing in here bitching and moaning? Get to work pilot!

[Jestun]

RavenGenesis, on 11 August 2013 - 11:41 AM, said:

I've played F2P for a long time, and it always goes into a meaningless grind, so I've become immune to income reductions... afterall.. they're doing everything they can to get people to go for premium options

I can tell those that's not familiar about the system to be upset and looks to quit playing.. well here's the honest truth... they want quality premium players and not just free loaders.. so with or without you, they'll keep going with MC users

basically if you want a good playing experience, you're gonna have to pay for it, devs don't work for free and server expenses will continue to go up... not enough MC users will eventually shutter the game, handing out "freebies" is never going to compensate their expenses

A free to play game which only retains the small population willing to pay will fail.

The people paying don't want the free players to quit, it effects the queue times, the balance of the matches and means you're just fighting the same premium players again and again.

[Ronan]

Meh. MY matches don't seem to be taking any longer. MY income doesn't seem to have changed much. What happens to ME must apply to everyone.

There, am I one of the cool kids now?

My 130K cbills per match (before and after 12v12) means nothing. YOUR numbers only apply to you/prove anything about you.

[Leafia Barrett]

FatBabyThompkins, on 11 August 2013 - 04:13 PM, said:

Just remember Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Okay, fair enough. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Ronan, on 12 August 2013 - 08:45 AM, said:

Meh. MY matches don't seem to be taking any longer. MY income doesn't seem to have changed much. What happens to ME must apply to everyone.

There, am I one of the cool kids now?

My 130K cbills per match (before and after 12v12) means nothing. YOUR numbers only apply to you/prove anything about you.

This is why the huge numbers of people all reporting a significant drop in CB income is worth taking notice over. It's not just one or two people.