An idea for self determined character development

jredd

I was thinking about the fantastic work getting rid of the 20 iso and i like that you listen and then make changes to improve the game.

another issue that seems to be on a lot of people's minds is the lack of control over character development.

my suggestion. another form of in game currency. i know we just got cp and they're great, but they sill only get you a token at the mercy of rngesus (unless you save an obscene amount).

my suggestion is to add builder's points. basically you have a store that has every cover in it. we can then pick a cover we want, and every time we get builder's points they go towards that cover. you get enough, you get the cover. then you pick another. or pick the same one again. but at least then we will be in control of our own roster improvement just a tiny bit. and you get another form of in-game currency you can charge money for.

Unknown

Mobile games make a lot of money off of the RNG, since there are players who will spend money until they get whatever they want. If they have to get it by rolling a slot machine, they can put in quite a lot of money before they finally get it. If there's a fixed price on it, the developers are effectively capping how much money they can make.

The goal of these games is precisely to get you frustrated enough with the RNG that you spend money. It's frustrating, but that's just how the business model works.

jredd

i get that.

but hypothetically speaking, you want a 5 star cover. it costs 150 'builder's points'. builders points are as accessible as cp, except maybe not when your alliance purchases things.

how long is it going to take the average player to get 150? months? not going to take a huge dent out of profits. in fact, people are going to get impatient and buy them to speed up the process. another revenue stream.

Heartburn

Corence wrote:

Mobile games make a lot of money off of the RNG, since there are players who will spend money until they get whatever they want. If they have to get it by rolling a slot machine, they can put in quite a lot of money before they finally get it. If there's a fixed price on it, the developers are effectively capping how much money they can make.

The goal of these games is precisely to get you frustrated enough with the RNG that you spend money. It's frustrating, but that's just how the business model works.

or you quit and they lost a sale, it would be in their best interest to keep a customer. but then again they were never shy about letting customers go with bad changes.

Unknown

If you're the type of player that quits, they don't really care. These games make 50% of their money off of 0.1% of players (that number is from 2014, but I'd guess it's still roughly accurate). Because that small portion of the player base is spending so much money, those are the players that there's a big incentive to keep happy and engaged.

The people that play for free though ARE needed, but only because if they stop playing then the whales will go find a different game. What's the point in spending thousands of dollars on a game if there's no one else playing to beat? In this sense, the F2P players are part of the game experience for the whales. The only reason they want us to keep playing is so that their real customers don't leave.

There are a lot of critics of this model because it can quickly lead to bad incentives for game developers, but I think it can be done decently enough. It's just important to keep it in mind as a F2P player so you keep the right expectations.