I’m having a somewhat hard time seeing a change that definitely never happened transform into a bug fix a group of ninja developers has secretly been working on the past two years, retroactively sneaking it into the patch launched over a week ago by clever use of a time machine. But I guess this is Krystara, where Tyri has taught has that anything is plausible, you just need to believe.
In the past, whenever some change significantly increased the amount of resources gained by players, the value of those resources was decreased to compensate. One prominent example is the x4 speed setting, the increased gold income was used to justify the guild task nerf. Since tribute income has now roughly been halved compared to what we received the past two years, would you consider it fair to also go the opposite way, increasing what we get for gold, souls and glory?
Possible options:
Gold, decrease the cost of guild tasks or increase the task rewards
Souls, decrease the amount needed to level up troops
Glory, decrease the cost of weekly Glory Packs and Spoils of War or add additional items to the contents
A bump to the guild statue tribute multiplier would also be welcome.
Something techy mentioned recently in the Bug Fix thread was the addition of glory gnomes - although they’re probably not common enough to really make up the difference, at least for an end-gamer - and I guess the same could be said for the other types of currency.
It does devalue the investment of levelling up kingdoms, though, aside from the skill bonuses you get, which I’m not 100% sure has been accounted for. I guess the occasional 50,000 gold from a treasure gnome would help with that, but are the rewards level-restricted at all? I don’t remember getting that one when I made my alt, but I do remember getting lots of 100 souls. All other resources used to increase power levels should be counted in that too, though.
Edit-ish: So essentially, resource gain has shifted slightly from passive accrual to active play.
We’ve enjoyed higher income than we were supposed to for 2 years - why would we be owed compensation again to make up for the issue being finally fixed?
“Your $10,000 CD has erroneously been accruing 10% interest the last 2 years. We aren’t going to take away what you’ve already earned but we’ve fixed the issue so starting today you’re earning the 1% you should have been earning all this time.”
I don’t like earning less tribute either but come on now. We’re certainly not owed any entitlement here.
Generally when someone prefaces their opinion with a statement that it is fair (or unbiased) you end up with an opinion that is anything but what they promised.
This thread did not break the tradition.
What I didn’t expect was how much snark was liberally sprayed over everything. More flies with honey. No flies with vinegar.
I got to be honest here. I think it’s a bit odd they would devote the resources to fix something that wasn’t really broken. Yet nothing for weapon upgrades or class changes. Was it really that big of a deal that people were getting a few more glory a day than originally designed?
Under the perspective of game and business economy i assumed that we would eventually see some changes to tributes. I calculated it would come next year with a better explanation that could sooth, partially, all the animosity… But well, it happened in a blunt way.
As a business it’s prefectly reasonable that the devs will keep creating content that aims to drain our resources. So in this model a bugged increment in tributes that’s been going for far too long would be addressed anyway.
Someone pointed out that players in the early/middle stage of the game wouldn’t even notice this change anyway, and assuming they are a better target as potential costumers the wailing from all veterans/endgamers in these forums is insignificant to the devs/publishers ears.
At this point you can call the devs and the people working with them liars, you can make threats of leaving the game, you can actually leave the game or keep playing thanks to some sort of “Syndrome of Stockholm” you feel about your progress… It doesn’t matter.
To be honest, I am bit perplexed over the change, but not for the expected reasons. On one hand, I thought that the pre-change levels of gold were one of the sources of balancing for higher-tier hoard investment costs. I figured that the nerf would have been to gem income from kingdoms and not the other older currencies as those going to be eventually deprecated in favor of Underworld replacement currencies as a global economic reset at some point in the next year.
Fully agree though that the global game economy would be continually reviewed and changed as needed to move the game forward in whatever direction it goes in 2019 and beyond.
If these reviews come with some other changes reducing the chance of being randomly screwed by the RNG the game could have better profits/sales.
Any experienced player will avoid using real money for a chance to gamble at pixels… When the developers and the publisher finally understand this, they can move without stepping on too many toes.
It’s not about making the game pay to win, no… If an old weapon in the shop would cost gems AND also have a small price in real money then they would be able to hit two… (looks around to see if @Sheba is present…) ahem… Ishbaalas with a single stone.
Keep the $5 dolars price and also offer a 500 gems cost for example, then they could finally get rid of, or reduce, the class change fee for example. Give us reasonable things to use our resources and i’m sure there will be more opportunities to make some money too.
While I approve of that statement, the idea of two Ishbaalas is horrifying because even one of them is already 100% more Ishbaala than what should exist.
Should I also say something about the topic on hand? I dunno. I mean, I quit. If delves wouldn’t have made me quit, this would have likely been it since 100% of my income had been from tributes.
I also find it ridiculous to call something that has been for over two years in the game a “bug”. From what I know, the game isn’t fully four years yet? Not sure, but if that’s true, then that “bug” existed for over half the time this game is online, which means that it’s not “a bug”, but just how the game normally worked.
I mean, if they would replace all the troop images with images of bunnies, that would also be fixing a longstanding bug that’s in the game since the game exists. Yet no one would ever believe it would be a bugfix because it has always been like that. Of course no one would complain in this case since it would make the game better, but still… I call bullcrap on this “bugfix” and if the devs are now at the point where they are lying to the community instead of saying that they want to lower the resources to make more money, then that’s the point where I’m totally out.
Sadly, the proliferation of gacha and loot-box games across the globe would say the exact opposite of your claims. Randoming “screwing” the player with RNG causes players to tend to spend more and not less, especially if the collection of pixels are desirable to them.
Go ask EA how much money they are making with Ultimate Team modes in their sports games, or Overwatch and Team Fortress 2 with their lootboxes. They aren’t hurting in the slightest financially.
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BONUS: Here is a prime example, in another game of this genre I play, Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, that exploits nostalgia over a collection of pixels. Just this week, the devs laid a nasty trap preying on a crossover with a classic RPG, Valkyrie Profile.
To maximize a unit there, you need 4 copies of a highest rarity pull. (so in GoW terms, 4 copies of the same mythic on its release week as an equivalent mode).
The costs of doing so this week for the well-known valkyrie, Lenneth? ~$4,700 USD for a 95% statistical chance of pulling 4 copies of her.
From a reddit thread on the topic, here’s what you can get for that kind of money:
And people in-game actually have achieved this goal successfully. So, yes, people will spend ridiculous amounts of money chasing collections of pixels.
GoW playerbase is nothing but a spec of dust compared at the playerbase of such companies. They operate at much wider markets sometimes using well estabilished brands, like Final Fantasy as you mentioned, and with much more support that allows those practices.
As such practices goes, for GoW, if the devs keeps putting the grapes too high everyone will say they are sour… Just release another “Zuul’Goths-type” of troop in GoW and watch the world burn.
GoW’s playerbase is growing, and showing receptive signs to these behaviors though. The question really is in the long run, how far the devs are willing to push further monetization with the game in 2019 versus encouraging additional growth. There’s no good answer for this, as it’s a strategic decision that has to be made.
There will absolutely be a Zuul’Goth-tier long-term goal in the Underworld at some point in the future. That was already said on the last dev Q&A stream. It would be silly not to do this, as a long-term stretch goal is needed for end-gamers in the Underworld to give players something to work towards.
That isn’t a question for Infinity Plus Two. That is a question for 505 Games. And the current state of mind for virtually every major company in the US seems to be “a dollar earned this quarter is better than two dollars earned next quarter”.
It’s honestly Growing vs Rettention at some point. 100 new accounts per week shows growing, but with only 20 still playing the game in the following month, where only five made a purchase of 10 dollars in this given month and then quit in the next month or never spend a dime again doesn’t feels like a very good prospect, at least not for me if it was my business/game after almost four years.
Rettention and Satisfaction monetizes in a different way, customer satisfaction needs many factors to grow and among them are the perceived enviroment of the community.
So yes, there will be another “Zuul’Goth goal” at some point, but the devs can’t rush these things as EA or other company probably would be able to, because there is a need for some “damage control” when considering and making these changes. Just imagine the loss of a well-estabilished icon of our community like @Tacet if he would quit the game.
To other people that might be confused and ask:“But haven’t you said it doesn’t matter how we react to this change of gold/glory tributes?”
Yes, it doesn’t matter because this change was not fast in the sense that it took, broadly speaking like other already did, two years (more or less) to happen. It was innevitable because we are reaching 10+ stars in many kingdoms with all those troops and factions so at some point it’s easy to have many tributes even with the new requirements for each new star. The new gamemodes, whether you recognize or not, are already giving us more gold and glory too. This change to tributes is definitive.
And as time goes on the devs will bring more changes that may or may not make some of us abandon the game, but if the timing is more or less right new faces will be here to either complain or praise this game and the design direction it’s taking.
I’m pretty sure some of us consider themselves the spiciest pumpkin latte in this halloween, but everyone can have some at the nearest Starbucks and put a new picture of it into Instagram. ← Sassy skellyface.
And the current state of mind for virtually every major company in the US seems to be “a dollar earned this quarter is better than two dollars earned next quarter”.
← Sassy skellyface.