287 replies to this topic

[Heffay]

Deathlike, on 31 October 2013 - 08:59 PM, said:

It's like saying having lost of half of Microsoft's or Apple's stock value is a good metric. Half of any "large population" is relatively significant in terms of recurring investments. Obviously retention is different in terms of a video game population, but when you have the "optimal" possibility of starting at the "best possible state" by keeping most of the founders relatively happy and trying to keep a healthy portion of them spending... that is when you know you will continue to be successful. Starting @ 50% is a very low bar, and consideration retention rates in conjunction with the game's current New Player Experience (it's not that great, unless you think it's just dandy), you're realistically dying from a slow death. It might not be now, but there's no assurance that this can continue indefinitely at the current pace.

It's not like that at all. If you normally lose 90% of your playerbase over the course of the year (and of course, replace them...aka churn), how is only losing 50% worse? It may be the highest retention rate of any video game ever, but you're putting it out there like it's a bad number.

[Dr Herbert West]

Heffay, on 31 October 2013 - 10:52 AM, said:

You're wrong pretty much across the board. You weren't even right for the wrong reasons at any point of your post, which is really incredible.

Roland, on 31 October 2013 - 11:01 AM, said:

Heffay, you basically just said, "Nuh uh!"

You are incorrect in your perception of how statistics work.

And this, right here is capitulation. You can not answer my points and resort to, as Roland so elegantly put, “Nuh uh”

You have no idea how statistics, polls, and sample sizes work and should really not comment on such until you have even a basic understanding on how these work. I suggest Wikipedia, or if you’re still in college, taking an undergraduate stats course on statistics. It will help you later in life even if you don’t go on to earn a doctorate in a field that uses statistics, especially statistics from large human cohorts, on an every day basis … unlike some people.

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Hey, if we're going to talk prior polls, then 93% of the most fanatical, active playerbase is fine with 1PV being in 12 mans only. Because that was the latest poll held on the topic.

This, on the other hand isn’t a misunderstanding of stats/samples, but is instead a flat out lie.

You know, as Thomas Covenant pointed out, that the poll was asking if 1PV should be in 12 mans … NOT that 1PV should ONLY be in 12 mans.

In fact, there were many people in that very thread (myself included) that we should vote against that poll because we feared that PGI would say EXACTLY WHAT YOU SAID. I.e. that they would lie and say that the poll was evidence for players being ok with 1PV only being in 12 mans.

Thomas Covenant, on 31 October 2013 - 12:14 PM, said:

I am not really impressed with anyone. The actual "pro 1PV" voice was pretty small, is what I am saying.

"I don't want A!" and "I really am in favor and want B" ARE actually separate messages, and the pro 1PV voice, in support of HOW EVER pgi could deliver it, was fairly silent, in comparison at least, and it's what I seek to change, though I do have the caveat I don't want it to rest on the laurels of an exclusive 12 man mode.

Were you around back for the first 3PV polls? This was back in the spring, when PGI announced that they were “thinking about it” or some other lie. There was a poll made asking a simple question (paraphrasing here, as I don’t have the screenshot on hand): Does MWO need to have or should have 3PV. More than THREE THOUSAND people replied to the poll (have you ever seen a poll or even a thread on these forums with more than three thousand votes or posts?), and the results were >90% against.

The pro-1PV/anti-3PV voice was huge. Larger than anything you see on the forums now. It was like the one thing that everyone on the forums agreed on.

Now the question you should be asking yourself, and the motivation for my first post in the thread, is “where did all of these people go.”

The short answer is “away.”

Heffay, on 31 October 2013 - 12:27 PM, said:

You're trying to drum up more support for the 1PV queue crowd with this survey?

There were several rather vocal groups (#savemwo, United and Drop) which mustered pretty much every available asset that was actually interested in that. It was about 1000 people total, or less than 1% of the player base. Less than 1% (significantly less) of the people playing the game cared enough to sign their name to try to change the whole 3PV direction. And that was during the peak of the "issue". And of course a significant number of those people ended up buying Project Phoenix packages anyway.

In other words: Nobody cares about 3PV.

Once again, no numbers, just pulling things out of the air.

Heffay, on 31 October 2013 - 06:20 PM, said:

You make the same mistake you accuse others.

How do you know losing half the founders in a year is a bad metric? If the normal churn for a F2P game is 90% over a year, a 50% churn would be fantastic.

Heffay, on 01 November 2013 - 04:25 AM, said:

It's not like that at all. If you normally lose 90% of your playerbase over the course of the year (and of course, replace them...aka churn), how is only losing 50% worse? It may be the highest retention rate of any video game ever, but you're putting it out there like it's a bad number.

Your pulling numbers out of the air again. Where did you get 90%?

Also, remember that PGIGP was being very disingenuous with their “retained founders” figure. They were counting a founder as “retained” if they logged in to patch, and then never played again. This means that not even half of the founders are even starting up the game to see what’s changed. Of those 50% who do, how many of them actually play? We’ll never know because PGI won’t release the numbers.

Until you have some sort of data on what the norm burn rate is for paying customers in a F2P game, we can’t say anything on a relative level. On a qualitative level, you can definitely say that this is a bad thing.

Edited by Dr Herbert West, 01 November 2013 - 04:52 AM.

[Heffay]

Dr Herbert West, on 01 November 2013 - 04:50 AM, said:

You have no idea how statistics, polls, and sample sizes work and should really not comment on such until you have even a basic understanding on how these work. I suggest Wikipedia, or if you’re still in college, taking an undergraduate stats course on statistics. It will help you later in life even if you don’t go on to earn a doctorate in a field that uses statistics, especially statistics from large human cohorts, on an every day basis … unlike some people.

I use them every day in my job, but let's not resort to the logical fallacy of the appeal to authority as the basis for debating this, as you have done. Instead let's just say that anyone who believes that a self selected sample is an accurate representation of the population as a whole clearly has no idea what they are talking about and I doubt that any amount of evidence will manage to break through your confirmation bias, so let's just agree to drop it?

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Once again, no numbers, just pulling things out of the air.

Check out the #savemwo thread. They posted a link to a spreadsheet with all the signatures of the people who agreed with them.

Less than 1% of the playerbase, and a fair chunk of them are running around the forums with shiny Overlord badges.

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Your pulling numbers out of the air again. Where did you get 90%?

Industry data. No, I'm not at liberty to share the source with you, since it's proprietary. Feel free to dig up any data you can find about churn rates for video games though. Let me know what you find.

[Deathlike]

Heffay, on 01 November 2013 - 04:25 AM, said:

It's not like that at all. If you normally lose 90% of your playerbase over the course of the year (and of course, replace them...aka churn), how is only losing 50% worse?

You're assuming that you and "churn" enough people to replace the 50% you lose. That's unlikely given various factors in this game that tends to not favor retention.

Remember the quote itself is that 50%+ of the Founders "log in" within a month. That has a "extraordinarily wide net" where it also factors in just founders that patch and login and leave until next patch. That is not what I call "active".

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It may be the highest retention rate of any video game ever, but you're putting it out there like it's a bad number.

It's a bad number given the context of the info that can be realistically extrapolated.

There's a difference between "playing MWO everyday" if I were to "just log in" and not play a match for an hour, instead of playing MWO 1 hour average per day (like, actually dropping into matches). These have very distinct characteristics that have different values to people.

It's like having a sale in a store. Having an increase of 5000 people show up is great... except if the # of people that buy the stuff is the same and the amount of stuff they purchase is the same, then the sale hasn't had much of an effect!

Of course, my example is overly simplistic and probably not real in any sense. If the goal was to get more heads in the store, you could spin that as success. If the goal was to get people to buy more, then it is an effective failure. To spin that any other way is like the phase that uses "lies, damn lies and statistics".

Edited by Deathlike, 01 November 2013 - 06:48 AM.

[Aeolus Drift]

Heffay, on 31 October 2013 - 06:20 PM, said:

You make the same mistake you accuse others.

How do you know losing half the founders in a year is a bad metric? If the normal churn for a F2P game is 90% over a year, a 50% churn would be fantastic.

Your right, I don't know that if it is a bad metric. I'm not a buisness major (at least not currently), so the exact dynamics of market retention are a bit of a gray for me to debate on. However, my intuition leads me to think that it is not exactly for somebodies competence in maintaining support. I also conceded that by the same reasons that I declined your contention that the playerbase is growing because PGI said so on twitter, that the "half of founders" statistic evidently postulated by Bryan on either NGNG or reddit is a very tenuous source to rely on for information at best for accurate statistics, especially given the fact we don't have any number on the number of people playing MWO at anyone time, let alone how many people fit within PGI's definition of active. My ultimate point was that what little data we have on the demographics the developers are marketing we have brought into the discussion may come from official sources, but not official statements. This makes the reliability of these statements temperamental at best, if not outright dismissable in any serious discussion of market retention, and that this conclusion applies to both sides of the discussion. Your right, I don't have any good position to say I know anything, and you make a valid point that I know almost nothing about market management. However I'm willing to acknowledge my ignorance so long as I have the opportunity to replace my ignorance with knowledge. If you possess a similar disposition to your knowledge, then I think there is much we can learn from one another.

[Dr Herbert West]

Heffay, on 01 November 2013 - 05:02 AM, said:

I use them every day in my job, but let's not resort to the logical fallacy of the appeal to authority as the basis for debating this, as you have done.

First of all, if this is appeal to authority, then you just did it too. Secondly, this isn't so much as appeal to authority as it is appeal to "please understand what you are arguing about." Third, there is no way you use statistics every day in your job given the comments you're making.

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Instead let's just say that anyone who believes that a self selected sample is an accurate representation of the population as a whole clearly has no idea what they are talking about and I doubt that any amount of evidence will manage to break through your confirmation bias, so let's just agree to drop it?

Not going to drop it because you're dead wrong, and I'm not conceeding that point to you. This lie/error is a key pillar of belief for the shills/knights of PGIGP that must be knocked down if the game is to improve.

First of all, I will admit that the data that we have (forum polling, player/website/magazine reviews, etc.) is not ideal. Ideal data would be a polling a sample of every individual who has ever played MWO, not just those currently playing MWO. While it would be possible for the devs to do the latter, the former is probably impossible.

Second, that does not mean that there isn't information that can be gleaned from forum polls. In fact is is the ONLY information that we have. Dismissing the forum polls and then coming up with some sort of explanation for why they're wrong isn't creating new information, its dismissing the only information you have which puts your argument on shakier ground than anyone using forum polls ... in fact it makes your arguments groundless.

Third, there is no a-priori reason to assume that the self-selected population of forum users isn't representitive of the population of MWO players at large. The fact that someone uses a forum and posts on it is indicative of a higher level of motivation and dedication to the game. Level of player motivation and interest is not concievably correlatable with specific opinions about that game.

Fourth, as I stated before, the existence of feedback forums, containing polls, for MWO and every other game out there now is an implicit assumption that forum users are at least a reasonable aproximation of the game population at large. The existence of these forums rests on the assumption that there is useful information to be gathered from them. Of course that doesn't stop bad devs and their shills from dismissing this information when it doesn't fit their pre-concieved worldview.

Finally, self selected populations are used when necessary in other fields. The entirety of drug and biomedical research involving human populations rests on self selected populations (especially the healthy controls). You can't force people to participate and you can't randomly call people and ask them to participate (as you might do in a phone poll). You put up advertisements and the most interested and motivated (sound familiar?) individuals apply. I'm pretty sure the same approach is used in marketing focus groups. In each case there is no way to account for the """silent majority""" of individuals who were not motivated enough to participate ... and yet these studies are treated with validity.

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Check out the #savemwo thread. They posted a link to a spreadsheet with all the signatures of the people who agreed with them.



Less than 1% of the playerbase, and a fair chunk of them are running around the forums with shiny Overlord badges.

You don't know the size of the playerbase.

Also, as noted before, you don't understand how statistical samples work.

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Industry data. No, I'm not at liberty to share the source with you, since it's proprietary. Feel free to dig up any data you can find about churn rates for video games though. Let me know what you find.

Calling BS on the "secret proprietary info!" claim.

You're the one who used the 90% figure, so the burden of proof is on you.

If this is public information, you should be able to provide a link. If its private information, then you only have access to whatever games you have proprietary info on (again, my suspicion is that the number of games you have info on is 0).

Why should I do my research for you? Since I'm generous, I did do a quick google search and found this:
http://massively.joy...fts-churn-rate/

Two points in this article: One, the churn rate for WoW is claimed to be ~45%, and secondly that the churn rate, industry wide is not known. Both of these points contradict your 90% average claim.

Also, unless you're secretly a dev, IGP employee, or a famliy memeber of one of the above, there's no way you know MWO's churn rate, so its all a moot point.

[pbiggz]

Dr Herbert West, on 01 November 2013 - 07:44 AM, said:

babble

I don't know why you think writing essays on the MWO forums will get rid of your OMGQQWALLHACK3PV, because it wont. It has ZERO effect on my game, and should have zero effect on yours. The only effect it actually has is the one you imagine. It's all in your head. Don't tell me I'm objectively wrong because I honestly don't care anymore. Your numbers are sketchy at best and the conclusions you draw from them only go so far as to support your narrow-minded and selfish view of what this game should be. You are not a dev, you are one very vocal player who had his feelings hurt when PGI put in 3pv even though they said they wouldn't waa, and as far as I am concerned, we wont miss you. If you want forced first person go play Hawken. Or better yet, take your population statistics skills and do something useful in the world instead of spending all your time droning on and on passive-aggressively on internet forums.

I have no quarrel with you as a person, but I'm sick and tired of your arguing. You're not helping anyone so knock it off.

Edited by pbiggz, 02 November 2013 - 10:08 AM.

[CrashieJ]

SirLANsalot, on 31 October 2013 - 04:45 AM, said:

However that is only a minor adjustment anyways and one that can come at a later date after CW has been established.

minor adjustments and PGI don't go hand-in-hand, I'm sorry

I enjoy using 3PV as it is right now due to the fact I can doubletap the F4 key and not only check on my paintjob but also look around the map.

does it give me an advantage? I'd like to think it does awareness wise but the crosshairs act funny when it comes to terrain
does it actually? not really

I got reemed by 3pv jumpers back in MW4 and hated it, literally hated it to the point of doing it myself. But MWO seems a bit more gimped but not balanced.

-what gets me is, there used to be countless polls with over 1000 people saying no to 3PV, PGI acknowledging the community saying no and accepting their stance, only to have all the polls *gasp* "lost" and PGI inplementing 3PV anyway. I can understand taking a stance BEFORE implementing a mechanic, but Acknowledging a wish (not a promise), catering to said wish, and then going against said wish and THEN saying "it was our plan all along to implement it anyway"... just seems hark worthy.

I'mma use it for the lulz, because MWO is not a simulator anymore, that ship has sailed.

Edited by gavilatius, 02 November 2013 - 11:10 AM.

[KovarD]

pbiggz, on 02 November 2013 - 10:07 AM, said:

I don't know why you think writing essays on the MWO forums will get rid of your OMGQQWALLHACK3PV, because it wont. It has ZERO effect on my game, and should have zero effect on yours. The only effect it actually has is the one you imagine. It's all in your head. Don't tell me I'm objectively wrong because I honestly don't care anymore. Your numbers are sketchy at best and the conclusions you draw from them only go so far as to support your narrow-minded and selfish view of what this game should be. You are not a dev, you are one very vocal player who had his feelings hurt when PGI put in 3pv even though they said they wouldn't waa, and as far as I am concerned, we wont miss you. If you want forced first person go play Hawken. Or better yet, take your population statistics skills and do something useful in the world instead of spending all your time droning on and on passive-aggressively on internet forums.

I have no quarrel with you as a person, but I'm sick and tired of your arguing. You're not helping anyone so knock it off.

"YADAYADA! STOP USING LOGIC! GO AWAY! GO PLAY HAWKEN! YADAYADA!!!"

[Dr Herbert West]

Looks like 3PV chat has died down in the other thread so ...

pbiggz, on 02 November 2013 - 10:07 AM, said:

I don't know why you think writing essays on the MWO forums will get rid of your OMGQQWALLHACK3PV, because it wont.

You're probably right. PGIGP has demonstrated very high resilience against taking advice from the community, be it on 3PV or other issues like weapon balance, weapon converegence, and tutorials/new player experience.

Somehow, I still have hope that either PGI will figure things out and start undoing their mistakes (3PV, Ghost heat, gauss charge, lack of lobbies, lack of CW, lack of a real new player experience), or that another developer inthe future will pick up the IP and learn from PGI's mistakes.

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It has ZERO effect on my game, and should have zero effect on yours. The only effect it actually has is the one you imagine. It's all in your head. Don't tell me I'm objectively wrong because I honestly don't care anymore.

You post alot for someone who doesn't care.

Chances are that it does and you just don't notice it. Anyone who understands how 3PV works (especially all of the MW4 veterans out there) will know how to use it as a periscope for looking over and around obstacles without the risk of exposure or detection by radar. Unless you're looking right at my location and happen to see the drone, you'll never know I peeked and spotted you.

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Your numbers are sketchy at best and the conclusions you draw from them only go so far as to support your narrow-minded and selfish view of what this game should be.

I, and the other 1PV proponents, are the only ones who are using any numbers at all.

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You are not a dev, you are one very vocal player who had his feelings hurt when PGI put in 3pv even though they said they wouldn't waa, and as far as I am concerned, we wont miss you.

Why does me being or not being a dev matter at all? As for not missing me, boo hoo my feelings are hurt. However, while you might not miss me, if you want MWO to succeed, then you don't want players quitting your game. Especially paying players, like myself (not a founder, but I've bought MC).

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If you want forced first person go play Hawken.

I actually did.

PGI could learn volumes from Hawken's new player experience. I went in knowing nothing, and the tutorial immediatly introduced me to all of the game's mechanics. Additionally, within ~10-20 games, I was given 7 mechs. One from each of the seven "classes" (losely defined) of mechs.

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Or better yet, take your population statistics skills and do something useful in the world instead of spending all your time droning on and on passive-aggressively on internet forums.

Does biomedical research cound as "useful for the world?" I can still fit in time for posting between tasks.

Also, you don't know what passive agressive means.

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I have no quarrel with you as a person, but I'm sick and tired of your arguing. You're not helping anyone so knock it off.

Nah, I think I'll keep posting if I feel like posting.

Edited by Dr Herbert West, 05 November 2013 - 12:47 PM.

[Dr Herbert West]

gavilatius, on 02 November 2013 - 11:03 AM, said:

does it give me an advantage? I'd like to think it does awareness wise but the crosshairs act funny when it comes to terrain
does it actually? not really

I got reemed by 3pv jumpers back in MW4 and hated it, literally hated it to the point of doing it myself. But MWO seems a bit more gimped but not balanced.

3PV isn't nearly as strong as it was in MW4, for precisely the reason you list, and due to the lower view angle (I think?).

However, it still lets you look around corners and over hills without exposing yourself or risking radar contact. In some ways, this is even more critical in MWO than in MW4 since radar doesn't go through hills in MWO (which is in itself a very good thing).

EDIT:

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-what gets me is, there used to be countless polls with over 1000 people saying no to 3PV, PGI acknowledging the community saying no and accepting their stance, only to have all the polls *gasp* "lost" and PGI inplementing 3PV anyway. I can understand taking a stance BEFORE implementing a mechanic, but Acknowledging a wish (not a promise), catering to said wish, and then going against said wish and THEN saying "it was our plan all along to implement it anyway"... just seems hark worthy.

This though is the thing that makes 3PV go from merely a terrible design descision to something insulting, offensive, and potentially fraudulent.

Edited by Dr Herbert West, 05 November 2013 - 12:51 PM.

[Geek Verve]

mint frog, on 28 October 2013 - 05:49 AM, said:

Even people such as you should be furious at the wasted time and resources that went into 3PV.

I'm guessing that amounted to little more than the time it took to make the view camera move back a few meters and up a few degrees over a 3-4 second period. In other words - maybe an hour or so to code and perhaps a day or so to test on the various mechs on each map.

Personally I find 3PV cheesy and a departure from the sim vibe of the game, but I could care less if others want to view the game that way. Of course that floating, flashing drone basically paints a bullseye on the player, with which I'm perfectly OK.

[IrrelevantFish]

In PUG matches, 3PV isn't all that useful and doesn't really change the game.

HOWEVER, it's a whole different story in 12-mans. 3PV allows light mechs to gather intel with impunity, getting visuals without exposing themselves. In 12-mans, when everyone's coordinated and on VOIP, that makes for near-omniscience.

[Heffay]

IrrelevantFish, on 05 November 2013 - 06:52 PM, said:

In PUG matches, 3PV isn't all that useful and doesn't really change the game.

HOWEVER, it's a whole different story in 12-mans. 3PV allows light mechs to gather intel with impunity, getting visuals without exposing themselves. In 12-mans, when everyone's coordinated and on VOIP, that makes for near-omniscience.

There is no 3PV in 12 mans.

[IrrelevantFish]

Heffay, on 06 November 2013 - 03:51 AM, said:

There is no 3PV in 12 mans.

I'm well aware of that. I was simply commenting that while I have no problem with mixed 1PV/3PV queues for PUGging (in fact, I'm opposed to separated queues), I would have a huge problem if they added a 3PV option to 12-mans, or any future game mode allowing more than four people to coordinate on comms.

[Zarlaren]

1pv is the reason I love mwo I feel I gotta have 1pv. It is why I love the other mechwarriors games. So I feel I need to have it.

[Johnny Z]

The 3rd person view needs to be "adjusted"

[Kyrie]

There is a subtle distinction between the 90% churn rate cited by Heffay, and the 50% loss of founder participation. A 90% churn rate in an F2P game of all users is not the same statistic as a 50% churn rate on paying players (Founders). In fact, the Founder class would fall into a small subset of the paying player group, the most committed -- having paid well in advance of full development of the game; perhaps most from closed beta who bought just because of the concept of the game without seeing its reality.

The reason for this of course is that in most F2Ps, the vast majority of the players are not paying for the game. A churn rate of 90% in the whole total population of the F2P might not be important. A churn rate of 50% of your most committed paying members is, however, a lot more significant. It obviously spells "trouble", IMHO.

[Captain Stiffy]

Looks like the results are in. Nobody gives a {Scrap} about 3PV just like anyone with a brain predicted.

This argument was the stupidest WASTE OF TIME to ever infect this community.

It needs to die. Anyone who brings it up until it is changed again should be ignored and spat upon.

[Dr Herbert West]

Captain Stiffy, on 09 November 2013 - 05:46 PM, said:

Looks like the results are in. Nobody gives a {Scrap} about 3PV just like anyone with a brain predicted.

This argument was the stupidest WASTE OF TIME to ever infect this community.

It needs to die. Anyone who brings it up until it is changed again should be ignored and spat upon.

This thread, and the poll attached to it prove the exact opposite of what you said.

You are a liar.

Also, knock of the internet toughguy routine. It looks ridiculous.