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Forum > Goal Line Blitz > What do you think needs to be done to bring GLB back to a very enjoyable game?
7steeladonis
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Originally posted by bhall43
So what is the point of building a player?
To live vicariously thru a dot on a virtual football field?
So what is the point of building a player?
To live vicariously thru a dot on a virtual football field?
Hagalaz
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Originally posted by jdbolick
Eh, in my experience it's extraordinarily rare for competitive games to reveal all their calculations. Even stuff like Call of Duty has players piece together information about how much damage declines over distance, etc.
Starcraft 1&2: everything is disclosed.
League of legends: everything is disclosed.
If you look at e-sports stuff, these should give you a good example being the most played ones.
If you look at MMos:
Lineage 2: full disclosure after C1
World of warcraft: Full disclosure
LotRO: Full disclosure
Rift: Full disclosure
Aion: Full disclosure
EQ2: Full disclosure
Tera: Full disclosure
I tried to give an ample list between the 2nd generation of MMOs and more recent ones, both middle-of-the-pack and the really recent ones.
Call of duty doesn't disclose anything, but the thing is... What is there to disclose? You don't build your character to the depth that we see in mmos/mobas and GLB. I can say that the sims doesn't disclose information, but why is that relevant? It has nothing to do with the issue at hand. GLB behaves like an mmo. If bort didn't want that, he greatly failed, but this is what we have now.
Heck, I'd use lineage 2 as a great example. It's a 9 years old game (soon 10). 31 classes (they eventually funnel into fewer, but for the largest amount of the game's existence, there were 31 classes). 30 of those were viable and requested in PVE. Some had multiple ways to build. Variation and richness was not getting stifled by full disclosure. If anything, it was helped by it, because as soon as someone said "Hey, this seems to be underpowered", it was easily verifiable. We don't have that in GLB.
To the argument that disclosure would enforce cookie-cutter builds:
A) There is still no proof to back that up. Wishful thinking backing up wishful thinking is all we have for this. It's not acceptable.
B) We currently have a game with cookie cutter builds, mostly because few people dare to do different due to the time required to do so, the monetary investment and the lack of assurance that at least it would be a worthy effort.
To the argument that disclosure would not help:
A) I'd bring up the example of niche strategies like archon flush in SC2 and rainman teemo build in LoL, which were only attemptable due to people knowing how the game's mechanics interact in great detail.
B) Those in favor of disclosure don't want to know exactly what every attribute contributes in every roll. That is not only a too extensive work but also it wouldn't be essential to more information. What is required is that every single SA and VA is explicit in what it does and has a description that is 100% devoid of ambiguity. Also, that every "triggerable" VA or SA has a verifiable way to see when and if it works, or conversely more information on where they do and when.
Eh, in my experience it's extraordinarily rare for competitive games to reveal all their calculations. Even stuff like Call of Duty has players piece together information about how much damage declines over distance, etc.
Starcraft 1&2: everything is disclosed.
League of legends: everything is disclosed.
If you look at e-sports stuff, these should give you a good example being the most played ones.
If you look at MMos:
Lineage 2: full disclosure after C1
World of warcraft: Full disclosure
LotRO: Full disclosure
Rift: Full disclosure
Aion: Full disclosure
EQ2: Full disclosure
Tera: Full disclosure
I tried to give an ample list between the 2nd generation of MMOs and more recent ones, both middle-of-the-pack and the really recent ones.
Call of duty doesn't disclose anything, but the thing is... What is there to disclose? You don't build your character to the depth that we see in mmos/mobas and GLB. I can say that the sims doesn't disclose information, but why is that relevant? It has nothing to do with the issue at hand. GLB behaves like an mmo. If bort didn't want that, he greatly failed, but this is what we have now.
Heck, I'd use lineage 2 as a great example. It's a 9 years old game (soon 10). 31 classes (they eventually funnel into fewer, but for the largest amount of the game's existence, there were 31 classes). 30 of those were viable and requested in PVE. Some had multiple ways to build. Variation and richness was not getting stifled by full disclosure. If anything, it was helped by it, because as soon as someone said "Hey, this seems to be underpowered", it was easily verifiable. We don't have that in GLB.
To the argument that disclosure would enforce cookie-cutter builds:
A) There is still no proof to back that up. Wishful thinking backing up wishful thinking is all we have for this. It's not acceptable.
B) We currently have a game with cookie cutter builds, mostly because few people dare to do different due to the time required to do so, the monetary investment and the lack of assurance that at least it would be a worthy effort.
To the argument that disclosure would not help:
A) I'd bring up the example of niche strategies like archon flush in SC2 and rainman teemo build in LoL, which were only attemptable due to people knowing how the game's mechanics interact in great detail.
B) Those in favor of disclosure don't want to know exactly what every attribute contributes in every roll. That is not only a too extensive work but also it wouldn't be essential to more information. What is required is that every single SA and VA is explicit in what it does and has a description that is 100% devoid of ambiguity. Also, that every "triggerable" VA or SA has a verifiable way to see when and if it works, or conversely more information on where they do and when.
Edited by Hagalaz on Apr 20, 2013 12:00:23
SikoraP13 DTD
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Well, I'm normally not the type to post in this type of thread. Having done much posting publicly since suggestions starting going down the tubes. Now everything is NGTH or just trolled to all holy hell or a yello1 post. Anywho, here are my 2 cents both on what is killing the game, and how to fix it.
1. Lack of Rivalries- With the removal of regions and the creation of the WL, rivalries have gone the way of the Dodo. Removing the mixture of competitive and non-competitive teams with the Elite/Competitive/Regular structure have left the teams stretched way too thin and have made far too much lateral movement to make rivalries possible. Here's what I propose:
Since removing WL is NGTH, we need to improve rivalries by revamping league structure at the lower levels.
Instead of having competitive/elite/normal leagues, lump leagues together into new leagues of 4 conferences. Each conference will have 8 teams. Each season a team in a conference will play each of the teams in it's own conference. Then it will play 3 teams from each of the other 3 conferences. These will in essence be the balancing of Elite/Competitive/Normal. 1 Conference will be the Elite Teams, 2 conferences of Competitive Teams, and 1 conference of normal teams. Teams will move fluidly between these conferences, but never outside of their league (without a request being filled from support). This will keep teams playing the same people throughout their dots' careers, allowing rivalries to spur.
2. Lack of randomness- This game has lost the "any given Sunday" value. We need to bring back the days where a dot could completely go off in a game and cause a low ranked team to beat a high ranked team.
We need more X-factor. I propose a VA addition, X-factor, available only to glamour positions that allows for a .3% chance/level that the dot get a +5% bonus to all major attributes for the game, a +1% bonus to all minor attributes, and a +5% bonus to the success rate of all SA's for that game. This will make the difference between a dot having an amazing performance, or a normal one. At maximum there would only be a 4.5% chance of it happening, per dot, but when it did, it could have a large impact on the game.
We need more non-game related items. We need random events (that affect everyone equally) during the regular season. Stuff that could be both funny and could provide depth to the game. Player X got a DUI and missed practice. He will suffer a -5% to vision and stamina in the first quarter. Player Y ran a charity marathon this weekend and will have a -5% bonus to stamina, but a +1% to speed for the game. Notifications of these changes would be sent to owners/coords (with an opt-out option for coords who want to gameplan normally not taking these into effect). Each team could get 1-3 of these each game, and there would be probabilities and "League Blotters" to show which players had what bonuses/drawbacks. Would make the game much more dynamic.
3. Simplification/Transparency of the Game- Currently, their are a lot of unanswered questions about game dynamics, what SAs/VAs are active in what situations, etc. There needs to be a page (preferably not on the wiki), where there is a catalog of all the different SAs/VAs and information on them. This would include when they are active/inactive, what they do, requirements, recommended positions, and a button to "Request More information". This would allow users to ask questions to an ADMIN who would be able to shed more light on them or get the question answered and then update the page to reflect as such. I'm not asking for a complete breakdown of formulas, just how the SAs/VAs affect them.
4.Reducing the Learning Curve- Not sure how to do this one, but I think #3, along with a dot-building tutorial would definitely be helpful.
5. Combat the min-maxing of the game- Make limiting curves on dots for abilities. Ie. Strength (leg strength) would/should affect your top speed and your agility and acceleration. Increase that effect if it's already in place. Similiarly, make vision, confidence, and morale modifiers on EVERYTHING and make their effects larger. This would help make balanced, more intuitive builds at least somewhat viable and would likely have an impact on making the scores more realistic.
6. Lack of New Users- Between the problems in 3-5, the new user is overwhelmed and rarely sticks around longer than a couple of weeks. GLB is advertising, which is great, but what got people here in the first place was word of mouth. The people you bring in, are the people you're going to want to hang out with, and the people you're going to be willing to help. This is why I recommend GLB increase the referral flex gained and not only that, but tier it, such that it rewards everyone across 3 levels.
Player A refers Player B- 100 flex
Player B creates a dot -100 flex
Player B remains active(not red-inactive) for 2 months- Player A gets another 100 flex
Player B remains active for 6 months(not red-inactive)- Player A gets another 100 flex
Player B remains active for 1 year(not red-inactive)- Player A gets another 100 flex
Player B purchases flex package- Player A gets 5% of the quantity of flex purchased in RP.
Player B refers Player C- Player A gets 50 flex. Player B gets 100 flex.
Player C stays active for 2 months- Player A gets 25 flex, player B gets 50 flex.
Player C buys flex- Player A gets 2.5% and Player B gets 5% of flex purchased in RP.
The flex packages would be good for the first 50K flex a player buys, allowing a player to make up to 2500RP and 500 flex per active/paying player they refer. This would need to be capped, let's say at a max of 5000RP and 1000 flex per season to keep from abuse/multis. This large new amount of RPs would promote new dots to be built and could also net bort future flex sales.
Furthermore, attempt to bring back people who have left the game. Send out an email to all players who haven't been active in the past year, detailing all the changes that have happened since they went inactive, and offer them 10000RP to come back and play the game again (roughly 1 glamour dot's lifetime, with boosts/CE). (This would happen only once per account).
So, these are my thoughts. Feedback?
1. Lack of Rivalries- With the removal of regions and the creation of the WL, rivalries have gone the way of the Dodo. Removing the mixture of competitive and non-competitive teams with the Elite/Competitive/Regular structure have left the teams stretched way too thin and have made far too much lateral movement to make rivalries possible. Here's what I propose:
Since removing WL is NGTH, we need to improve rivalries by revamping league structure at the lower levels.
Instead of having competitive/elite/normal leagues, lump leagues together into new leagues of 4 conferences. Each conference will have 8 teams. Each season a team in a conference will play each of the teams in it's own conference. Then it will play 3 teams from each of the other 3 conferences. These will in essence be the balancing of Elite/Competitive/Normal. 1 Conference will be the Elite Teams, 2 conferences of Competitive Teams, and 1 conference of normal teams. Teams will move fluidly between these conferences, but never outside of their league (without a request being filled from support). This will keep teams playing the same people throughout their dots' careers, allowing rivalries to spur.
2. Lack of randomness- This game has lost the "any given Sunday" value. We need to bring back the days where a dot could completely go off in a game and cause a low ranked team to beat a high ranked team.
We need more X-factor. I propose a VA addition, X-factor, available only to glamour positions that allows for a .3% chance/level that the dot get a +5% bonus to all major attributes for the game, a +1% bonus to all minor attributes, and a +5% bonus to the success rate of all SA's for that game. This will make the difference between a dot having an amazing performance, or a normal one. At maximum there would only be a 4.5% chance of it happening, per dot, but when it did, it could have a large impact on the game.
We need more non-game related items. We need random events (that affect everyone equally) during the regular season. Stuff that could be both funny and could provide depth to the game. Player X got a DUI and missed practice. He will suffer a -5% to vision and stamina in the first quarter. Player Y ran a charity marathon this weekend and will have a -5% bonus to stamina, but a +1% to speed for the game. Notifications of these changes would be sent to owners/coords (with an opt-out option for coords who want to gameplan normally not taking these into effect). Each team could get 1-3 of these each game, and there would be probabilities and "League Blotters" to show which players had what bonuses/drawbacks. Would make the game much more dynamic.
3. Simplification/Transparency of the Game- Currently, their are a lot of unanswered questions about game dynamics, what SAs/VAs are active in what situations, etc. There needs to be a page (preferably not on the wiki), where there is a catalog of all the different SAs/VAs and information on them. This would include when they are active/inactive, what they do, requirements, recommended positions, and a button to "Request More information". This would allow users to ask questions to an ADMIN who would be able to shed more light on them or get the question answered and then update the page to reflect as such. I'm not asking for a complete breakdown of formulas, just how the SAs/VAs affect them.
4.Reducing the Learning Curve- Not sure how to do this one, but I think #3, along with a dot-building tutorial would definitely be helpful.
5. Combat the min-maxing of the game- Make limiting curves on dots for abilities. Ie. Strength (leg strength) would/should affect your top speed and your agility and acceleration. Increase that effect if it's already in place. Similiarly, make vision, confidence, and morale modifiers on EVERYTHING and make their effects larger. This would help make balanced, more intuitive builds at least somewhat viable and would likely have an impact on making the scores more realistic.
6. Lack of New Users- Between the problems in 3-5, the new user is overwhelmed and rarely sticks around longer than a couple of weeks. GLB is advertising, which is great, but what got people here in the first place was word of mouth. The people you bring in, are the people you're going to want to hang out with, and the people you're going to be willing to help. This is why I recommend GLB increase the referral flex gained and not only that, but tier it, such that it rewards everyone across 3 levels.
Player A refers Player B- 100 flex
Player B creates a dot -100 flex
Player B remains active(not red-inactive) for 2 months- Player A gets another 100 flex
Player B remains active for 6 months(not red-inactive)- Player A gets another 100 flex
Player B remains active for 1 year(not red-inactive)- Player A gets another 100 flex
Player B purchases flex package- Player A gets 5% of the quantity of flex purchased in RP.
Player B refers Player C- Player A gets 50 flex. Player B gets 100 flex.
Player C stays active for 2 months- Player A gets 25 flex, player B gets 50 flex.
Player C buys flex- Player A gets 2.5% and Player B gets 5% of flex purchased in RP.
The flex packages would be good for the first 50K flex a player buys, allowing a player to make up to 2500RP and 500 flex per active/paying player they refer. This would need to be capped, let's say at a max of 5000RP and 1000 flex per season to keep from abuse/multis. This large new amount of RPs would promote new dots to be built and could also net bort future flex sales.
Furthermore, attempt to bring back people who have left the game. Send out an email to all players who haven't been active in the past year, detailing all the changes that have happened since they went inactive, and offer them 10000RP to come back and play the game again (roughly 1 glamour dot's lifetime, with boosts/CE). (This would happen only once per account).
So, these are my thoughts. Feedback?
bhall43
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Originally posted by SikoraP13 DTD
We need more X-factor. I propose a VA addition, X-factor, available only to glamour positions that allows for a .3% chance/level that the dot get a +5% bonus to all major attributes for the game, a +1% bonus to all minor attributes, and a +5% bonus to the success rate of all SA's for that game. This will make the difference between a dot having an amazing performance, or a normal one. At maximum there would only be a 4.5% chance of it happening, per dot, but when it did, it could have a large impact on the game.
Problem here is why even make it a VA? It should just be part of the game already if that is the case as it is just streaky with no downside.
We need more X-factor. I propose a VA addition, X-factor, available only to glamour positions that allows for a .3% chance/level that the dot get a +5% bonus to all major attributes for the game, a +1% bonus to all minor attributes, and a +5% bonus to the success rate of all SA's for that game. This will make the difference between a dot having an amazing performance, or a normal one. At maximum there would only be a 4.5% chance of it happening, per dot, but when it did, it could have a large impact on the game.
Problem here is why even make it a VA? It should just be part of the game already if that is the case as it is just streaky with no downside.
TrevJo
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Originally posted by Hagalaz
Starcraft 1&2: everything is disclosed.
I stopped reading here (as an avid Starcraft fan), and I completely agree with you Hagalaz. Not only is it a painful process to try to learn how things work in this game (speaking specifically about in what scenarios attributes/VAs/SAs are applicable), it is equally painful to try to go back through lousy documentation to try to find evidence of things that we know we heard explained before but aren't 100% sure what the explanation was (especially in the many cases where the explanation seemed to mean one thing at the time, but was vague, and probably would have a different interpretation now).
The Q&A wiki/veteran abilities link on the wiki was never updated well enough, and now that site hasn't even been up for a week or more. What's really terrible is that all of the VAs, SAs, and attributes have tooltip descriptions but they never get updated to answer obvious questions. We shouldn't even need the wikis and the Q&A archives and the forums to find answers that have already been revealed, it should be updated in the official/easily discoverable descriptions. It's one thing to put up these tooltips all at once and know that realistically they are not going to be perfect right away. I don't expect a first version to be great. It is quite another to have 3-4 years of bake time and still not update 90% of these descriptions.
I know that there are people who like the mystery in this game. I recognize that there won't ever be widespread agreement from the user base on this issue of disclosure vs mystery.
But personally my opinion is that there are lots of things that have been learned via Q&A and forums and other public methods (as opposed to secret or learned through private experimentation) that are still way too damn difficult for new agents or even experienced agents to discover and/or double-check. Count me in with the group that is sick of it.
Starcraft 1&2: everything is disclosed.
I stopped reading here (as an avid Starcraft fan), and I completely agree with you Hagalaz. Not only is it a painful process to try to learn how things work in this game (speaking specifically about in what scenarios attributes/VAs/SAs are applicable), it is equally painful to try to go back through lousy documentation to try to find evidence of things that we know we heard explained before but aren't 100% sure what the explanation was (especially in the many cases where the explanation seemed to mean one thing at the time, but was vague, and probably would have a different interpretation now).
The Q&A wiki/veteran abilities link on the wiki was never updated well enough, and now that site hasn't even been up for a week or more. What's really terrible is that all of the VAs, SAs, and attributes have tooltip descriptions but they never get updated to answer obvious questions. We shouldn't even need the wikis and the Q&A archives and the forums to find answers that have already been revealed, it should be updated in the official/easily discoverable descriptions. It's one thing to put up these tooltips all at once and know that realistically they are not going to be perfect right away. I don't expect a first version to be great. It is quite another to have 3-4 years of bake time and still not update 90% of these descriptions.
I know that there are people who like the mystery in this game. I recognize that there won't ever be widespread agreement from the user base on this issue of disclosure vs mystery.
But personally my opinion is that there are lots of things that have been learned via Q&A and forums and other public methods (as opposed to secret or learned through private experimentation) that are still way too damn difficult for new agents or even experienced agents to discover and/or double-check. Count me in with the group that is sick of it.
Edited by TrevJo on Apr 20, 2013 14:49:29
Edited by TrevJo on Apr 20, 2013 14:29:54
Edited by TrevJo on Apr 20, 2013 14:28:26
Edited by TrevJo on Apr 20, 2013 14:28:00
Edited by TrevJo on Apr 20, 2013 14:26:36
TrevJo
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As to the issue of the mystery being needed to keep this game alive, my opinion is that the long player cycle (still about 1 year to get to plateau and another half year to go through plateau), and the high cost of players, combined make it prohibitive for most to conduct large-scale experiments, and that is what keeps the game alive. I know I have a huge backlog of things I'd like to try but time (my own availability to execute the ideas) and cost (I try to pace myself on what I spend) prevent me from satisfying my curiosity even though in most cases my ideas have more to do with trying new or unique strategies (as opposed to trying to figure out the answers to mysterious questions). Not only is each player build a new experiment to try, but given that a team is 55 players with nearly-infinite DPC possibilities, the scope of what's left to try exponentially that much greater. That's why I'd do not fear that more disclosure would not harm this game.
And don't get me wrong, I sympathize with Bort. Documentation is a pain in the ass and when Bort created this game (and for a long time afterward) he was flying by the seat of his pants, not sure what direction things were going to go and changing things frequently. Wouldn't make sense to heavily invest in official-type documentation at the expense of doing actual work on the not-yet-mature-developed game. Now that the game is out of Beta it's time that a user should be able to click on an attribute or ability and from there easily the get answers to questions that have been asked about it.
And don't get me wrong, I sympathize with Bort. Documentation is a pain in the ass and when Bort created this game (and for a long time afterward) he was flying by the seat of his pants, not sure what direction things were going to go and changing things frequently. Wouldn't make sense to heavily invest in official-type documentation at the expense of doing actual work on the not-yet-mature-developed game. Now that the game is out of Beta it's time that a user should be able to click on an attribute or ability and from there easily the get answers to questions that have been asked about it.
Edited by TrevJo on Apr 20, 2013 15:19:48
Edited by TrevJo on Apr 20, 2013 14:44:58
Edited by TrevJo on Apr 20, 2013 14:41:55
bhall43
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There are certainly mysteries in this game that should be disclosed via the tooltips or even just the wording in them. We shouldn't have to ask whether Blitz is an SA for more than just a CB. That should be in the description. We shouldn't have to ask whether blitz is good for just passing or is it also good for run blitzing too? That should be in the description. I don't mind disclosure on those sorts of things as tricky wording just fools people into thinking something should never be taken when it actually might be something that is the difference between whether a build is relevant or not.
I don't think their should be any % disclosures of anything. I actually kinda wish they were never disclosed in the VA's.
I don't think their should be any % disclosures of anything. I actually kinda wish they were never disclosed in the VA's.
SteveMax58
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This has been hashed out 1000 times on this board but the elephant in the corner is that the GLB business model is fundamentally unsound.
Flex model - Buy (partially) reusable flex currency
How it is
In the beginning boom days for GLB, the market was starved for this game. And in any business, especially one that has uncertainty in what the market will/will not bear, you have to throw some sort of pricing out there & see how it sticks. You won't know if the price is optimal or if its too low or too high but you plan to adjust.
You also may (or may not as is the case with GLB) subsidize your direct customer revenue with ad supported revenue. GLB has chosen not to use ad supported revenue & rely solely (at least on the surface) revenue. GLB allows customers to "recycle" flex to 70% (I think its 70, right? lol) meaning customers may replay an entire player with minimal additional purchase, but with a hefty (relatively) upfront investment.
Why that doesn't work
The flex model allows customers to make a small investment & remain on the site for 70% longer without paying. This is a great model if 2 things are happening...(1) GLB earns money via ad revenue & (2) GLB's customer base is so enormous that many customers are buying flex constantly, so the upfront investment is obviously not a problem.
Since GLB does not earn money on ad revenues, GLB should not encourage stale users to "hang around" until flex runs out. It costs bandwidth, server storage, admin focus, and does not generate revenue. Yes, customers may decide to buy more. Or perhaps more likely, customers purchase by what they feel they can afford and leave when that money runs out or they lose interest.
Customers that are "hooked" are not the problem...its customers who will not give the game a chance to get "hooked". Given the relative complexity to this game, and the likelihood that new customers will not have a lot of immediate success due to "not knowing what they don't know"...the upfront investment model is flat wrong. Again...fine in the beginning days because everybody was a rookie with equally little knowledge of the game. But not as good a model once there are real "masters" at this game as we see today.
What to do about it
A couple of options here but they all have a common theme...lower the barrier to entry cost for customers to feel like they can spend highly disposable amounts of money & enjoy the game (oh, yeah make sure the game is enjoyable too). That doesnt mean less overall revenue. The goal is to optimize costs while growing revenue. Here's a couple of models:
(1) Add advertisements...Lower Flex Cost...Maintain Flex Amount...Increase Flex Recycle % (increase site traffic & charge less...but do so by earning revenue with ads)
(2) No advertisements...Maintain Flex Cost...Increase Flex Amount...Reduce Flex Recycle % (keep current base buying more...but "pay or GTFO" strategy to reduce costs & run a niche for a handful or hardcore users)
(3) No advertisements...Lower Flex Cost...Increase Flex Amount...Eliminate Flex Recycle % (similar to #2...but perhaps more attractive to new customers with hopes of getting them to dab their feet longer with less upfront investment)
(4) Add advertisements...Maintain Flex Cost...Reduce Flex Amount...Increase Flex Recycle % (this is where you go when business is booming...not recommended now)
Each of these models are intended to do "something". Where "something" is defined as changing what is occurring today...userbase erosion(and the revenue that GLB relies upon). Certainly there could be tweaks to each, and many other combinations, but these each serve a specific purpose & attempt to grow revenue.
Flex model - Buy (partially) reusable flex currency
How it is
In the beginning boom days for GLB, the market was starved for this game. And in any business, especially one that has uncertainty in what the market will/will not bear, you have to throw some sort of pricing out there & see how it sticks. You won't know if the price is optimal or if its too low or too high but you plan to adjust.
You also may (or may not as is the case with GLB) subsidize your direct customer revenue with ad supported revenue. GLB has chosen not to use ad supported revenue & rely solely (at least on the surface) revenue. GLB allows customers to "recycle" flex to 70% (I think its 70, right? lol) meaning customers may replay an entire player with minimal additional purchase, but with a hefty (relatively) upfront investment.
Why that doesn't work
The flex model allows customers to make a small investment & remain on the site for 70% longer without paying. This is a great model if 2 things are happening...(1) GLB earns money via ad revenue & (2) GLB's customer base is so enormous that many customers are buying flex constantly, so the upfront investment is obviously not a problem.
Since GLB does not earn money on ad revenues, GLB should not encourage stale users to "hang around" until flex runs out. It costs bandwidth, server storage, admin focus, and does not generate revenue. Yes, customers may decide to buy more. Or perhaps more likely, customers purchase by what they feel they can afford and leave when that money runs out or they lose interest.
Customers that are "hooked" are not the problem...its customers who will not give the game a chance to get "hooked". Given the relative complexity to this game, and the likelihood that new customers will not have a lot of immediate success due to "not knowing what they don't know"...the upfront investment model is flat wrong. Again...fine in the beginning days because everybody was a rookie with equally little knowledge of the game. But not as good a model once there are real "masters" at this game as we see today.
What to do about it
A couple of options here but they all have a common theme...lower the barrier to entry cost for customers to feel like they can spend highly disposable amounts of money & enjoy the game (oh, yeah make sure the game is enjoyable too). That doesnt mean less overall revenue. The goal is to optimize costs while growing revenue. Here's a couple of models:
(1) Add advertisements...Lower Flex Cost...Maintain Flex Amount...Increase Flex Recycle % (increase site traffic & charge less...but do so by earning revenue with ads)
(2) No advertisements...Maintain Flex Cost...Increase Flex Amount...Reduce Flex Recycle % (keep current base buying more...but "pay or GTFO" strategy to reduce costs & run a niche for a handful or hardcore users)
(3) No advertisements...Lower Flex Cost...Increase Flex Amount...Eliminate Flex Recycle % (similar to #2...but perhaps more attractive to new customers with hopes of getting them to dab their feet longer with less upfront investment)
(4) Add advertisements...Maintain Flex Cost...Reduce Flex Amount...Increase Flex Recycle % (this is where you go when business is booming...not recommended now)
Each of these models are intended to do "something". Where "something" is defined as changing what is occurring today...userbase erosion(and the revenue that GLB relies upon). Certainly there could be tweaks to each, and many other combinations, but these each serve a specific purpose & attempt to grow revenue.
Phantom Of The Opera
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OK, OK, I am one of those guys that is hooked, but part of that being hooked is that 70% is recyclable and I love that, and I love this site doesn't have advertisement. I do my part to keep that happening. I don't buy as much as I could because of the ridiculous moderation of the forums, but since the new mods have been added it doesn't seem to be as bad as it was a few months to a year ago. I am willing to spend more then I currently do, but I really want to see improved graphics and many of the suggestions worked on before I start buying MVP packages or better every season.
Edited by Phantom Of The Opera on Apr 20, 2013 16:07:47
ManOgwaR
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Originally posted by TrevJo
As to the issue of the mystery being needed to keep this game alive, my opinion is that the long player cycle (still about 1 year to get to plateau and another half year to go through plateau), and the high cost of players, combined make it prohibitive for most to conduct large-scale experiments, and that is what keeps the game alive.
this imo is also why the userbase never grew and just dwindles away whilst people like you try to justify it as a good thing
As to the issue of the mystery being needed to keep this game alive, my opinion is that the long player cycle (still about 1 year to get to plateau and another half year to go through plateau), and the high cost of players, combined make it prohibitive for most to conduct large-scale experiments, and that is what keeps the game alive.
this imo is also why the userbase never grew and just dwindles away whilst people like you try to justify it as a good thing
SteveMax58
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Originally posted by Phantom Of The Opera
OK, OK, I am one of those guys that is hooked, but part of that being hooked is that 70% is recyclable and I love that, and I love this site doesn't have advertisement. I do my part to keep that happening. I don't buy as much as I could because of the ridiculous moderation of the forums, but since the new mods have been added it doesn't seem to be as bad as it was a few months to a year ago. I am willing to spend more then I currently do, but I really want to see improved graphics and many of the suggestions worked on before I start buying MVP packages or better every season.
What if the HoF package was $300 but you don't get to reuse it? Thats what that means in real dollars (basin it off of today's costs).
Thats a very real change in thinking. For hardcore users, they will keep buying so long as they like the game because they will resuse the flex. For people who are starting out, they simply don't know enough to have that much fun & the upfront investment isn't encouraging them to stick it thru.
The thing that people forget is that there was non-boosting back when the vast majority of today's userbase started out. Not that everybody played that way, but it was a way of trying out the game & generated a lot of activity on the site. I'd think going back to that model & putting adds on the site to offset the costs (if not profit of course) would be a better model than the GTFO model unless a small but hardcore userbase is the preference. As a business that doesnt make sense to me, but from the standpoint of a solo developer type of operation, I certainly get it.
OK, OK, I am one of those guys that is hooked, but part of that being hooked is that 70% is recyclable and I love that, and I love this site doesn't have advertisement. I do my part to keep that happening. I don't buy as much as I could because of the ridiculous moderation of the forums, but since the new mods have been added it doesn't seem to be as bad as it was a few months to a year ago. I am willing to spend more then I currently do, but I really want to see improved graphics and many of the suggestions worked on before I start buying MVP packages or better every season.
What if the HoF package was $300 but you don't get to reuse it? Thats what that means in real dollars (basin it off of today's costs).
Thats a very real change in thinking. For hardcore users, they will keep buying so long as they like the game because they will resuse the flex. For people who are starting out, they simply don't know enough to have that much fun & the upfront investment isn't encouraging them to stick it thru.
The thing that people forget is that there was non-boosting back when the vast majority of today's userbase started out. Not that everybody played that way, but it was a way of trying out the game & generated a lot of activity on the site. I'd think going back to that model & putting adds on the site to offset the costs (if not profit of course) would be a better model than the GTFO model unless a small but hardcore userbase is the preference. As a business that doesnt make sense to me, but from the standpoint of a solo developer type of operation, I certainly get it.
bhall43
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Originally posted by SteveMax58
What if the HoF package was $300 but you don't get to reuse it? Thats what that means in real dollars (basin it off of today's costs).
Thats a very real change in thinking. For hardcore users, they will keep buying so long as they like the game because they will resuse the flex. For people who are starting out, they simply don't know enough to have that much fun & the upfront investment isn't encouraging them to stick it thru.
The thing that people forget is that there was non-boosting back when the vast majority of today's userbase started out. Not that everybody played that way, but it was a way of trying out the game & generated a lot of activity on the site. I'd think going back to that model & putting adds on the site to offset the costs (if not profit of course) would be a better model than the GTFO model unless a small but hardcore userbase is the preference. As a business that doesnt make sense to me, but from the standpoint of a solo developer type of operation, I certainly get it.
You get 2 free players (that you get to continually reuse) to try out the game. At most you have to pay for CEQ if you like the game. That is less than a non booster had to do. Going back to that model would be terrible for the same reason it was terrible to allow in the first place.
What if the HoF package was $300 but you don't get to reuse it? Thats what that means in real dollars (basin it off of today's costs).
Thats a very real change in thinking. For hardcore users, they will keep buying so long as they like the game because they will resuse the flex. For people who are starting out, they simply don't know enough to have that much fun & the upfront investment isn't encouraging them to stick it thru.
The thing that people forget is that there was non-boosting back when the vast majority of today's userbase started out. Not that everybody played that way, but it was a way of trying out the game & generated a lot of activity on the site. I'd think going back to that model & putting adds on the site to offset the costs (if not profit of course) would be a better model than the GTFO model unless a small but hardcore userbase is the preference. As a business that doesnt make sense to me, but from the standpoint of a solo developer type of operation, I certainly get it.
You get 2 free players (that you get to continually reuse) to try out the game. At most you have to pay for CEQ if you like the game. That is less than a non booster had to do. Going back to that model would be terrible for the same reason it was terrible to allow in the first place.
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