Phaserhawk wrote: stephen43084 wrote: Why are people still wasting their time arguing about the money motives of the developers? Logically, there are a ton of other ways to change the shield system to make a lot more money than this one. In fact, if we had people with stronger business acumens on the forum, they would tell you that this change will decrease shield revenue. Why would a company want to cut revenue from a feature? To make a lot more revenue from other features. This is another move to to make the game attractive to the mass of players who do not score of 750, much less shield hop. The mass of players, who despite the thinking (or lack thereof) of some, actually funds this game. Sorry, to break it to those that spend $100 per month on this game. You could leave tomorrow. They do not care. You are not the type of customer generating their real income. Regardless of the motivation for the change, it only matters whether the change is good or not. Saying the change is bad because it will increase/decrease sales is not going to persuade anyone that the change itself is not the best means to accomplish whatever their end is. Stop worrying about money. If you really care and really want to persuade them this change is bad you have to put real effort into and do like countless others in giving analysis and real reasons how this change is going to benefit or adversely affect game play. If you do not care, then keep wasting space talking about money and sales. Well I do have a very expensive Master's degree on my wall that states I understand business quite well. It' the mobile gaming model. You offer a product and intice players, some will even drop a buck or two, but there are the Whales or the small percent that fund a vast majority of the game, those are the one you need to keep on the hook for as long as possible as they are your major revenue source, but if they begin to impede the other source of income (the begining to mid level players) well then adjustments need to be made because for every Whale they may lose due to this change they gain 2-3 more, that's how it works. Older players with developed rosters are not a major source of revenue except for new characters which they have an advantage of getting because of their vast roster and understanding of the game. So when the established players are able to reliable obtain rewards that D3 really doesn't want you getting that easy or cheaply they are going to tax it or increase the cost to deter some demand. It is a business choice, because if it really was about players just Shield hopping to increase their score for the sake of the alliance or something else, than a much less controversial solution could have been made. They say it will be evaluated and changed if need be, in other words, we are going to monitor revenues and if it causes a decrease instead of the increase they are hoping, they will say it isn't working and revert back to the original form, which is why I emphasize to the top players and alliances, quit spending and pushing so hard and it will go back to what it was.
stephen43084 wrote: Why are people still wasting their time arguing about the money motives of the developers? Logically, there are a ton of other ways to change the shield system to make a lot more money than this one. In fact, if we had people with stronger business acumens on the forum, they would tell you that this change will decrease shield revenue. Why would a company want to cut revenue from a feature? To make a lot more revenue from other features. This is another move to to make the game attractive to the mass of players who do not score of 750, much less shield hop. The mass of players, who despite the thinking (or lack thereof) of some, actually funds this game. Sorry, to break it to those that spend $100 per month on this game. You could leave tomorrow. They do not care. You are not the type of customer generating their real income. Regardless of the motivation for the change, it only matters whether the change is good or not. Saying the change is bad because it will increase/decrease sales is not going to persuade anyone that the change itself is not the best means to accomplish whatever their end is. Stop worrying about money. If you really care and really want to persuade them this change is bad you have to put real effort into and do like countless others in giving analysis and real reasons how this change is going to benefit or adversely affect game play. If you do not care, then keep wasting space talking about money and sales.
stephen43084 wrote: Phaserhawk wrote: stephen43084 wrote: Why are people still wasting their time arguing about the money motives of the developers? Logically, there are a ton of other ways to change the shield system to make a lot more money than this one. In fact, if we had people with stronger business acumens on the forum, they would tell you that this change will decrease shield revenue. Why would a company want to cut revenue from a feature? To make a lot more revenue from other features. This is another move to to make the game attractive to the mass of players who do not score of 750, much less shield hop. The mass of players, who despite the thinking (or lack thereof) of some, actually funds this game. Sorry, to break it to those that spend $100 per month on this game. You could leave tomorrow. They do not care. You are not the type of customer generating their real income. Regardless of the motivation for the change, it only matters whether the change is good or not. Saying the change is bad because it will increase/decrease sales is not going to persuade anyone that the change itself is not the best means to accomplish whatever their end is. Stop worrying about money. If you really care and really want to persuade them this change is bad you have to put real effort into and do like countless others in giving analysis and real reasons how this change is going to benefit or adversely affect game play. If you do not care, then keep wasting space talking about money and sales. Well I do have a very expensive Master's degree on my wall that states I understand business quite well. It' the mobile gaming model. You offer a product and intice players, some will even drop a buck or two, but there are the Whales or the small percent that fund a vast majority of the game, those are the one you need to keep on the hook for as long as possible as they are your major revenue source, but if they begin to impede the other source of income (the begining to mid level players) well then adjustments need to be made because for every Whale they may lose due to this change they gain 2-3 more, that's how it works. Older players with developed rosters are not a major source of revenue except for new characters which they have an advantage of getting because of their vast roster and understanding of the game. So when the established players are able to reliable obtain rewards that D3 really doesn't want you getting that easy or cheaply they are going to tax it or increase the cost to deter some demand. It is a business choice, because if it really was about players just Shield hopping to increase their score for the sake of the alliance or something else, than a much less controversial solution could have been made. They say it will be evaluated and changed if need be, in other words, we are going to monitor revenues and if it causes a decrease instead of the increase they are hoping, they will say it isn't working and revert back to the original form, which is why I emphasize to the top players and alliances, quit spending and pushing so hard and it will go back to what it was. You are mostly correct. It depends on how you define whale. Some people think they are whales because they spend more than most others, but in reality spend significantly less on a monthly basis than the top spenders. If you were generous, I think you could say 50% of total revenue comes from genuine whales. Obviously, we have not seen MPQ finances, but based on what has been reported for other "free" games in the past, 50% is usually in the ball park. However, sometimes businesses have to make short-term decisions for the long-term health of the product. McDonalds could have kept selling Super Size, but it was getting bad press. It cost money in the short-term for long-term health of the brand. I would argue that shield-hopping and grinding 2.5 hour refreshes is not good for the long term health of the game. I think MPQ is doing what the players need instead of what they want. We can say what we will about newer players and transitioning rosters, but the truth is without them, all you have is one big death bracket. Moreover like you said when a whale leaves, there is no one to take their place. More to the point, this all assumes that the finance people are the ones pushing for the change. From everything I have read since shields came out, it seems that the game designers are the ones pushing for the change due to the system is not working as they intended. It's funny, everyone kept saying that the true healing change was to promote health packs sales. As far as I know, that has not happened (at least not per the people I've spoken with). I genuinely believe that this is not a money driven move (at least no as far as shield sales go, I think it is to keep people from quitting in disgust). I think after the change people will still hit the progressives. If not, I can tell you for one, I'm holding MPQ to it until they lower them where we can still hit them. My problem with it is I do not think their design of cool downs meets the objectives that they have set and will cause problems they have not anticipated. My concern is that from their point of view they do not care about our opinions of their finances or financial strategy, so it makes little sense to continue to argue about whether shield revenue will increase or decrease from the change. If we honestly want them to not make the mistake (that most of us seem to believe they are making), our best strategy is to explain to them how in practice (as opposed to their theory of gaming) why they are wrong. Those are the arguments that have the best chance of getting their attention and contemplation (or laughs I suppose). Those are the things we should be discussing and pushing. I'm saying our view of the money/finances/shield sales arguments are irrelevant from their perspective. If for no other reasons than typically such arguments are emotive, as opposed to the countless analytical arguments made on behalf of the why this idea will not work and is bad for the way the game is really played.
Spoit wrote: You weren't around before shield then, eh?
Demiurge_Will wrote: But we're hearing that you'd rather not have this change land in the middle of a season, so we've decided not to introduce shield cooldowns until the end of this season. The off-season events between Season IX and X will be their first appearance, to give you a chance to play with them and work out new strategies before the start of the next season. (This will mean we wait a couple of additional events before recalibrating the progression rewards, since the off-season events often have unusual scoring patterns.)
GrumpySmurf1002 wrote: Just want to say thanks for a very informative post Will, and I hope we can get more data-driven feedback like this for other changes that have been or will be made.
Lidolas wrote: Thanks Will for the response. It's nice to know you guys are listening (reading) I have a question for the general population. Why is making changes mid-season such a terrible thing? I don't understand the push back on this issue. Demiurge_Will wrote: But we're hearing that you'd rather not have this change land in the middle of a season, so we've decided not to introduce shield cooldowns until the end of this season. The off-season events between Season IX and X will be their first appearance, to give you a chance to play with them and work out new strategies before the start of the next season. (This will mean we wait a couple of additional events before recalibrating the progression rewards, since the off-season events often have unusual scoring patterns.)
Demiurge_Will wrote: This is Will over at Demiurge. Thanks for all the feedback. * Some folks have asked why the cooldown on the 3 hour shield is 8 hours instead of 3 (or less). A cooldown that short would mean that the best way to get the most shields for the fewest Hero Points is to come back and play every 3 (or less) hours, through the night. That's not an ideal situation.
Lidolas wrote: Thanks Will for the response. It's nice to know you guys are listening (reading) I have a question for the general population. Why is making changes mid-season such a terrible thing? I don't understand the push back on this issue.