34 replies to this topic

[nehebkau]

PGI,
Your biggest hurdle in this area is giving people what they need or want. Thing is, there are several types of players and each group has different needs and wants. Whales, collectors, old-timers, f2P casual and newbie players all have different requirements for compensation. No matter what you decide you are going to alienate some of them.

So, how can you deal with that? Well you can come up with some convoluted reward system that makes almost everyone angry and then try to market the hell out of it (This was your first choice?) or, you can give people EXACTLY what they want.

So, how do you give people EXACTLY what they want? You let people convert the different in-game currencies however they see fit. Right now, you allow people to convert MC into time, cbills or GXP but you should expand that system and allow for converting any non MC currency into another currency. You setup conversions where you can use any currency (GXP, XP, SP, Cbills, time MC) into another in game currency. Just like with a currency exchange, you take a cut of the exchange based on what gives PGI value. Your MC conversion would have the smallest 'cut' whereas c-bill transactions would probably have the highest cut. A player wants Cbills and has a lot of SP, no problem. A player wants GXP and has a ton of SP, no problem. A player as a ton of XP and wants ptime -- NO PROBLEMO!

In this manner, when you are offering rewards you have less contention because a player will have the ability to convert said reward into something more useful. In the case of the current skill tree, you could give out cbills, then allow players to move those around however they see fit. Just think about it for a minute... It's pretty easy to justify having this system without breaking immersion (experience purchased by cbills is the equivalent of going to mech-driving school)

Since you DON'T allow the movement of MC, Cbills, GXP, SP, XP between player accounts you have no economy to ruin by doing this. If you make MC the best way to purchase other in-game currencies you will still make it the default road for people to go to get what they need and, more likely you will see people spend more money on MC since they know it will have MORE uses.

You see, you need to identify MORE ways for people to spend their in-game currencies. A guy sitting on 1,000,000,000 cbills might be enticed to part with them if they could get a bunch of premium time, or some MC to purchase cammo patterns. Likewise someone with 3,000,000 mech XP would probably love to be able to spend that on a bit of MC or cbills so they can get a new mechbay or chassis.

Edited by nehebkau, 27 April 2017 - 06:43 PM.

[Khobai]

pgi has always been cheap with cbills this is nothing new

they dont want to give people a full refund for modules because they think itll hurt their bottomline.

even though they know people rightfully earned those cbills by playing

[Baba_Yaga]

Even better dump the skill tree period problem solved!

[Clownwarlord]

Wow give a mouse a cookie and they ask for a glass of milk. Suck it up buttercup or go find your safe space because you clearly are not going to last much longer in the real world.

[nehebkau]

Clownwarlord, on 28 April 2017 - 10:07 AM, said:

Wow give a mouse a cookie and they ask for a glass of milk. Suck it up buttercup or go find your safe space because you clearly are not going to last much longer in the real world.

LOL. You gotta love young people -- so "I'm right I can sound so smart by being a tough love grownup." I assume you were unable to actually comprehend the entire nuance of the original post which postulated that PGI should actually pay some attention to the economy in game rather than let people have mounds of 'currency' sitting around and doing nothing. They already do this in a limited fashion when they have GXP conversion sales. If you like I could talk to your mommy and explain it to her and she could explain it to you.

[Bud Crue]

Neb, you ought to know better.

PGI has NEVER, EVER gone with stream-lined simplicity if there were any way to avoid it. Remember the original flamer fix? Remember the evolution of info tech? The every increasing goofiness of Russ trying to justify the long tom as being "fine"? Hell, remember the mini-map?

Simple, elegant solutions are just not something they are every interested in if there is a more complex and burdensome way to do the same thing. And if someone has done that simple elegant solution before them or pointed it out to them (now its your fault for certain) they are guaranteed not to consider it out of hand.

Good ideas though.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Bud Crue, on 28 April 2017 - 02:47 PM, said:

Neb, you ought to know better.

PGI has NEVER, EVER gone with stream-lined simplicity if there were any way to avoid it. Remember the original flamer fix? Remember the evolution of info tech? The every increasing goofiness of Russ trying to justify the long tom as being "fine"? Hell, remember the mini-map?

Simple, elegant solutions are just not something they are every interested in if there is a more complex and burdensome way to do the same thing. And if someone has done that simple elegant solution before them or pointed it out to them (now its your fault for certain) they are guaranteed not to consider it out of hand.

Good ideas though.

I remember Energy Draw going from a simple "fix" to AlphaWarrior Online, into a re-balance of ALL THE WEAPONS!!

If PGI only change 1 thing in the Skill Tree, I hope they go back to the original Firepower trees. They encouraged boating, sure, but at least you could actually choose useful nodes with less garbage picks.

Edited by Jay Leon Hart, 28 April 2017 - 03:00 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Wow give a mouse a cookie and they ask for a glass of milk. Suck it up buttercup or go find your safe space because you clearly are not going to last much longer in the real world.

Except in the real world if someone did what PGI did with modules, theyd be facing criminal prosecution.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Khobai, on 28 April 2017 - 03:02 PM, said:

Except in the real world if someone did what PGI did with modules, theyd be facing criminal prosecution.

Someone has never received "store credit" it seems.

[Khobai]

Quote

Someone has never received "store credit" it seems.

Except thats not a good analogy at all.

Its more like you buy a product/service from the government thats useful and youll be able to use for the rest of your life, then the government suddenly makes it illegal, and forces you to sell it for either a fraction of what you paid for it or full compensation in government vouchers that you cant really use because theres nothing you can buy with them at the government store.

A good real world example of this was when the US government seized peoples gold in the 30s and paid them a fraction of its actual value. Unfortunately the government gets away with crap like that but that doesnt make it any less immoral on unjust.

Thats a better analogy to whats going on here. Your money has been stolen. And people would go to jail for that kindve corrupt **** if there was any actual justice in the world. The point is what PGI is doing is completely wrong. Its the principle of it that irks me more than the cbills id lose.

Even PGI has to see this isnt right what theyre doing. They need to give at least 50% cbills and 50% GSP as a compromise.

Edited by Khobai, 28 April 2017 - 03:19 PM.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Khobai, on 28 April 2017 - 03:06 PM, said:

They need to give at least 50% cbills and 50% GSP as a compromise.

This I can agree with (or many of the other options I've read this week)

That said, there is no "good" analogy for this situation.

Either you need the new currency, or you don't. Either way it doesn't change the fact that no-one is losing out.

People complaining they are losing C-Bills aren't because they don't have those C-Bills right now and they won't have them after modules go POOF! Nothing changes.

They will gain a "limited" number of "coupons" that allow them to have the same functionality as modules on many, many 'mechs.

Whether people want or need those GSP is not relevant. It is fair.

[Jingseng]

let the player choose.

opt in/opt out - full cbill refund, or gsp refund.

your decision ends at you - you do not decide for anyone else.

Edited by Jingseng, 28 April 2017 - 06:05 PM.

[Vxheous]

Jay Leon Hart, on 28 April 2017 - 03:03 PM, said:

Someone has never received "store credit" it seems.

GSP isn't store credit, it's like a car dealership making me give back my rims off a 5 year old car and compensating me by giving me 10,000 vouchers for oil changes (non transferable, this car only)

[vandalhooch]

Jay Leon Hart, on 28 April 2017 - 03:30 PM, said:

This I can agree with (or many of the other options I've read this week)

That said, there is no "good" analogy for this situation.

Either you need the new currency, or you don't. Either way it doesn't change the fact that no-one is losing out.

People complaining they are losing C-Bills aren't because they don't have those C-Bills right now and they won't have them after modules go POOF! Nothing changes.

It's not the loss of C-bills that makes this shady. It's the fact that POOF only happens for some of the players and not others.

Quote

They will gain a "limited" number of "coupons" that allow them to have the same functionality as modules on many, many 'mechs.

Whether people want or need those GSP is not relevant. It is fair.

[TLBFestus]

Bud Crue, on 28 April 2017 - 02:47 PM, said:

Neb, you ought to know better.

PGI has NEVER, EVER gone with stream-lined simplicity if there were any way to avoid it. Remember the original flamer fix? Remember the evolution of info tech? The every increasing goofiness of Russ trying to justify the long tom as being "fine"? Hell, remember the mini-map?

Simple, elegant solutions are just not something they are every interested in if there is a more complex and burdensome way to do the same thing. And if someone has done that simple elegant solution before them or pointed it out to them (now its your fault for certain) they are guaranteed not to consider it out of hand.

Good ideas though.

Honestly, it's not that they aren't interested, with the leadership they have it's more likely they are incapable of doing any better.

They've demonstrated a long history of taking even relatively simple, elegant solutions and ignoring them completely for something that floated out of the noggin of whomever is in charge of an area.

Despite the number of games with good track histories that they could crib notes from, PGI seems bound and determined to carve their own unique path. I'm starting to think that that one time RB's infant child told him they didn't like something wasn't a one off event, it's starting to seem that they hired them as a permanent-part timer to come up with ideas after school

[LordNothing]

i am happy with current refund scheme.

there are a couple things that i think could be improved. diminishing returns of the multi-node upgrades. this solves boating and gives mixed builds some advantages. thats just doing 7,6,5,4,3 instead of 5,5,5,5,5. adjust base value and delta as needed. keeping the delta low makes the curve shallow and prevents mixed builds from becoming the new meta, though that might not be a bad thing.

then to solve the issues with offensive quirks having no place to roll into. you just have a global modifier a multiplier that applies to all nodes within a particular tab. this maintains proportionality between the different types of upgrades but makes them slightly stronger based on the values of the modifiers for each varient. its rather elegant and easy to do. it also becomes a balancing tool so instead of doing shotgun nerfs/buffs by changing node values directly (affecting more than one mech), you can just specifically target problem mechs. you could even use the modifiers to give each weight class a distinctive flavor.

but both these things could be implemented after going live without too much disruption. its not like we weren't going to see tweak passes after it goes live no matter whats done.

Edited by LordNothing, 29 April 2017 - 03:19 AM.

[El Bandito]

Khobai, on 27 April 2017 - 06:47 PM, said:

pgi has always been cheap with cbills this is nothing new

they dont want to give people a full refund for modules because they think itll hurt their bottomline.

even though they know people rightfully earned those cbills by playing

Except PGI did say that they would offer full refund at one point, but then some people got mad cause of that because they wanted a form of SP instead, to skill up their "hundreds of mechs". So I personally would blame it on part of the population.

Edited by El Bandito, 29 April 2017 - 03:15 AM.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Vxheous Kerensky, on 28 April 2017 - 06:19 PM, said:

GSP isn't store credit, it's like a car dealership making me give back my rims off a 5 year old car and compensating me by giving me 10,000 vouchers for oil changes (non transferable, this car only)

It's more like they give you 1,000 vouchers for monthly car rentals. You can still use a vehicle, you can even change it month to month, but eventually they run out.

[Jay Leon Hart]

vandalhooch, on 28 April 2017 - 07:54 PM, said:

It's not the loss of C-bills that makes this shady. It's the fact that POOF only happens for some of the players and not others.

If it just happened with no warning, I would agree. However, we have had nearly 5 months to come to terms with modules going away. We have (somewhat limited) choices in the matter.

El Bandito, on 29 April 2017 - 03:15 AM, said:

Except PGI did say that they would offer full refund at one point, but then some people got mad cause of that because they wanted a form of SP instead, to skill up their "hundreds of mechs". So I personally would blame it on part of the population.

Yeah, feel free to "blame" me

Though as mentioned elsewhere (rather a lot), the buck stops with PGI. They have to decide. If they decide to go for GSP refunds only? Then they must have a reason (and it's probably based on £££).

[Bluttrunken]

I think Premium Time should stay a real dollar purchase. PGI needs to make money to keep developing the game. If they enable buying Premtime with in game currency they're losing out on most direct purchases from their most devouted customers. They should probably put it on sale more often, though.