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New BFP Earning System: Playtime and Reserves


MrXLink

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WHOAH, WHAT A TEXT WALL -- THERE IS A TL;DR AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST IF YOU FEEL LESS LIKE READING ;)
 

Greetings Skylords, Skyladies, and all other Skyfolk!

It's been a while since the last Design update, there's been a lot going on both in the development scene as well as our outside lives, and it's slowed down progress for a while. Not to fret, though, as progress is back on track now, and the well-anticipated reset is closer than ever. Really close. Once the reset happens, though, we want to make sure to make the remaining big changes that would impact global player-to-player progression and the economy, and that can only mean two things... BFP and Boosters. In this post, we'll discuss the new BFP system that is currently implemented on the Test Server (check Discord for details), with some booster changes getting a post of their own as well soon. I'll be going into some details about the system, if that's not your thing, feel free to check out the TL;DR below.

The Current Situation
As most of you know by now, the current BFP earning system entails daily quests and daily playtime. You get some generic quests that need to be completed, can be re-rolled, and grant you some BFP, and the daily quest of playing for 30 minutes to get a booster. This means that after completing said quests and playtime, there is no BFP left to be earned, and Skylords will encounter themselves a wall on generating income to buy boosters from and do auctioning business. This is exactly what we will be addressing in this update.

The ideas for BFP-over-time earning have been going on since 2014, to have a soft-cap system on playtime, meaning earning less and less BFP the more you play, but earning some BFP nonetheless. Since the 30m playtime quest has always been a placeholder for a system like that, this is what we will be changing, and the daily quests will stay for a total of 250BFP daily.

The Approach
BFP is a regulated currency. This means that BFP should be able to be earned regardless of player performance, and the rate at which it is roughly earned per player, especially maximums, can be changed in order to keep player-to-player interactions and the market stable. Therefore, a system needed to be put in place that's not about earning more BFP for higher skilled players, so that on a daily basis, newcomers and veterans alike would have roughly the same opportunities to earn daily assigned BFP. When comparing different player types and reward integrations, the only consistent factor across every single player is TIME. Yes, some have more time than others, but time itself is the only constant that we can equally distribute BFP over regardless of player skill, completion speed, game type preference (PvP/PvE) or general experience. This is why, as a regulated currency, BFP will be linked to part time, part daily quests that are generic and should be able to be completed by any level of player.

While the 30m quest was more of a baseline placeholder, the importance of the regulation of BFP over time has become more clear over the months/years, and it makes it all the more understandable why modern game currency systems use hard- or soft-cap systems as well as daily boosts to allow for a fair BFP-over-time distribution:

  • HARD-CAP system would mean that either the total BFP to be earned per day would be a flat value (e.g. 500 BFP/day), or the BFP-over-time value would be flat (e.g. 2 BFP/minute)
  • SOFT-CAP system would entail that the amount of BFP earned over time would steadily decrease according to a total BFP-per-day value, be it logarithmic or inversely proportional. As an example, if we would have a soft-cap of 400 BFP per day, then you as a player would earn 200 BFP in the first hour, then 100 BFP in the second, 50 in the third, etc. etc. until the amount of BFP earned per hour is negligible or rounded to 1.
  • DAILY BOOST system can be applied to any kind of BFP-over-time system, in which the first X minutes, players would earn e.g. 5x as much BFP as they would on normal terms. This is to give players with shorter allotted playtime a bit of a boost to catch up with those with more time faster, and get a reasonable income without having to spend a lot of in-game time. Of course, those who play longer would still get awarded more BFP, but at a slower rate than this first timeframe.

Since we've got no way nor right to make any kind of money on this project, there is no need for us to crank down on caps just to force people to buy currency or to play more. However, this system will help to keep players engaged, make progression interesting and fun, and extend the lifespan of the project, which should mean you'll have more people to play with for longer. 

For this system I really wanted to focus on improving a traditional soft-cap system so that it can give all player types a chance to keep up with the overall BFP flow. While we'll never be able to close the gap between players with a lot of playtime or auctions and those who don't, we could try to allow players with less time on their hands to still earn a significant portion of the BFP they could have had if they spent their time playing full-time, but without changing the global elapsed time, so that one strategy would not be real-time more efficient than another. Simply put: we give you the opportunity to take breaks, go sleep, go to school/work, or play something else, to get a boost to your BFP income when you come back later, matching you to those who have played more time, quicker. It'll be your choice if you want to optimise your BFP income; you're free to continue playing the game you love, but we won't weigh you down with the feeling of regret or missing out on BFP either if you can't or don't want to for a bit that day.

I then turned this thought process into a system we decided to implement for the future.

The System
The new system is designed to benefit long- and short-session players alike, and to narrow the gap between them without penalising either side. To do this, the system is split up in two timeframes:

  • The Daily Boost: The first 90m of in-game time will net you 250 BFP in total, divided directly proportionally to playtime. This means you'll earn 2.78 BFP per minute for the first 90 minutes. This is akin to the current 30m quest, except paid out by the minute over a longer time. Quests+daily should be enough to purchase a default booster.
  • The Reserve System: Any time played after the daily boost will drain BFP from a "pool" of BFP that every player has, called the reserve. This reserve has a maximum value, and refills continuously at a constant rate. The fuller your reserve is, the faster you will earn BFP. You can not earn more BFP than your current reserve value, and so when your reserve is empty, you will earn BFP at roughly the refill rate of your reserve.

Note: Any values in these systems are subject to change, and may change pre- or post-reset.

Whereas the daily boost should seem pretty straightforward, the Reserve System might be a little more complex to figure out, so I'll try my best to go into the details here, step-by-step. First of all, here's a WIP image from back in the conceptualisation stage of the system, with some older values:

Spoiler

976929821ec544ea0bc0ee94be024a86.png

A METAPHOR: See the reserve as a bottle of water that's full of holes, from top to bottom. For safety, you keep all holes covered while you've not finished a match. When you play, you remove the cover and collect water from the reserve bottle. When it's full, water drains out of all the holes in the bottle, allowing you to catch a lot of it at the same time. As the bottle drains, less and less holes will have water behind them, and so the bottle will drain at increasingly slower speeds the more empty it is. While your bottle is covered (before you finish a match and after), you slowly refill the bottle with a tap, so if your bottle is empty, you will still get the water that you've been dripping into it while you were playing or perhaps taking a break throughout the next games. You leave the tap on even if you leave the game for other matters, so that your bottle is fuller or filled the next time you come back.

What all of this means, is that after your daily boost/bonus, you will earn BFP at a rate that decreases the longer you play. However, if you decide to take a break and come back a few hours later, the rate will NOT be the same rate you would have had if you were to continue playing directly, but higher in order to compensate for the break. If you were to continue playing instead, you could earn the same amount of BFP across a similar total amount of time. Player A who plays for 6h straight could, with the appropriate values, be matched in BFP earnings by player B who plays 2h, takes a 2h break, and then plays 2h after, as a rough example. The limiting factor here is the max reserve value. Everyone has the same reserve size and the same drain system and the same refill rate, so the total amount of BFP to be able to be earned across a certain amount of time is set. The only moment when a player would be missing out on BFP is when the reserve is full, which happens when "too long" of a break has been taken. 

To summarise, this system takes the following into account:

  • No difference is made between newcomers and veterans, nor PvP and PvE
  • BFP will be continuously able to be earned even after the daily bonus has been reached
  • Those with less time on their hands can narrow the gap through the daily bonus
  • Those who return at a later timeframe that day, e.g. after work, school, dinner, or other appointments, can catch up with those who play continuously
  • Players will not have to worry as much about missing out on playtime, and those who have the time get duly rewarded
  • Only highly excessive breaks will miss out on some advantages this system offers, but no less than a normal linear system would

Further Details For Nerds
Reached this point, huh? I'm more than happy to disclose the formula to this system, though it won't be as complex as you may expect. They are pretty basic, but worth a look nonetheless. Be wary though that none of the values in the formula are final and we will use the test server as well as some live time to tweak the system over time, mostly based around the data we see and the feedback we get. These are very rough vars, don't put too much thought into them.

Spoiler

DAILY BONUS FORMULA:

562dfef453428284d6465a20836d51eb.png

  • B(match): BFP earned after a match
  • B(max): Maximum amount of daily boost BFP earnable => Default value: 250
  • B(rest): Remaining BFP from previous calculations. Always lower than 1. If B(match) has fractional values, it gets stored in B(rest)
  • t(max): Maximum amount of daily boost time in minutes => Default value: 90
  • t(match): Match length in minutes

This is a pretty standard linear formula based around the daily ratio. The total time spent in matches gets stored as well, and this formula is only used for as many minutes as t(max) states. Any remaining match time gets stored into a variable called t(rest), which gets added to the reserve system calculations. The daily bonus will therefore never apply longer than its max value.

RESERVE SYSTEM - REFILL RATE:

9816f764bb74f8dcc1371c8c8a04e10d.png

  • R(refill): The rate at which the reserve refills
  • C: A constant. As stated, should be bigger than 1, or it will result in the reserve system awarding more than the daily boost, which is the opposite of its intention. Default => 5
  • B(max): Maximum amount of daily boost BFP earnable => Default value: 250
  • t(max): Maximum amount of daily boost time in minutes => Default value: 90

Simply put, the refill rate of the reserve system is proportional to the daily earning ratio. This is to ensure the systems stay separated and the refill rate won't be higher than the earning rate of the daily system.

RESERVE SYSTEM - REFILL PROCESS:

5fc681694fdafc5c2cf48ffd9eaecc8a.png

  • R(current): Current reserve value
  • R(refill): Refill rate as calculated above.
  • R(max): Maximum reserve capacity. => Default value: 500
  • ΔT: Real-time time difference in minutes between certain events such as last match end, last login, current match end, current login time, etc. Used to determine the time between matches, should also be accounting for potential crashes or unfinished matches.

This is the system that constantly refills the reserve pool so that BFP can be taken from it after each match. The whole T factor in this could be the feature most prone to bugs, due to it needing to figure out what amount of time has passed. We can't update every minute or so, that would cost us way too much processing power.

RESERVE SYSTEM - EARNING FORMULA (THE BIG ONE):

3b554a8469b29a24bda668e1cf1d4062.png

  • B(match): Amount of BFP earned this match
  • B(rest): Remaining BFP from previous calculations. Always lower than 1. If B(match) has fractional values, it gets stored in B(rest)
  • t(rest): Excess time (m) spent in the Daily Bonus system, gets added to the first Reserve System calculation.
  • t(match): Match time in minutes
  • R(refill): Refill rate as calculated above
  • R(current): Current reserve value
  • R(max): Maximum reserve capacity. => Default value: 500
  • x: A constant. This determines the speed at which a full reserve drains faster compared to an empty reserve. The decay is linear, based on R(current). => Default value: 3

The system calculates match time and multiplies it with the refill rate. This is to make sure that you can always drain at the refill rate at minimum, or more, and so you can't earn less than you refill. What follows is the multiplication factor that determines how fast a full reserve drains compared to an empty one. On an empty reserve, x*r(current)/r(max) will get almost negligibly small, resulting in a drain rate equal to the refill rate.

Noteworthy is that B(match) can never exceed R(current), so you may never drain more reserves than you have. This seems logical, but also prevents excessively long matches from netting more BFP than they should. These matches would be very long (hours), and this technical BFP ceiling on a single match should not be applying often, since refill time gets calculated AFTER payout. 

After this, B(match) gets subtracted from R(current) to set the new current reserve value, and so the next match's payout will be based on this.

If you want to run the numbers, these formulae should provide you with enough data to do so, must you feel like it! Due to past discussions and margin of error, I will not provide direct numbers for you, but the formulae and descriptions should be enough to do so yourself if you wish.

Conclusion
I wholeheartedly hope that this system will be a good and worthy replacement of the current 30m quest, and a good alternative to a traditional soft-cap system. The system is meant to apply to everyone at a fair rate, and to give you a more relaxed feeling about earning BFP without hitting a hard no-BFP wall and without having to worry too much about taking breaks or doing other things between sessions. We've all got busy lives, and there's no need to add a fear of missing out on top of that. Besides, the payout should be pretty good compared to the booster prices which we will likely standardise to 500BFP. It won't be as high as it currently is, but the experience earning it will improve significantly, or so is the expectation.

The system is currently implemented on the Test Server, you can test it out for yourself there. Feel free to give some feedback, and we will make sure to collect some data too to ensure this works. Keep in mind that as it stands, unless something is extremely wrong or goes completely out of hand, the current formula will stay and carry over throughout the reset. The values of the variables in the formula may change over time, and that can even be post-reset. We'd love to hear your feedback, and hopefully this new system of earning BFP will make all of your Skylords Reborn experiences that much better! 

---------

TL;DR -- The Short Version

  • A new system to earn BFP will be coming soon, and has already been published on our Test Server for crash/bugtesting and to get an idea of everyone's experience. 
  • This system replaces the current "Daily Dose of Heroism" quest of playing for 30 minutes. Other quests are unaffected, will stay, and will net 250/day in total.
  • It is a BFP-Over-Time system with the first few matches netting much more BFP than any matches after.
  • Currently, for the first 90 minutes of in-game time, you can earn 250 BFP. This is awarded by the minute, so you do not have to play the full 90m to get anything!
  • Afterwards, a Reserve System kicks in: A maximum amount (currently 500) of BFP is stored that you can earn BFP from by playing matches.
  • The speed at which you gain BFP depends on how full your reserve is, and the reserve gets refilled constantly at a set rate (even outside the game).
  • This results in players getting their BFP faster after they have taken a break, but not any more than they could have earned if they didn't.
  • This system is implemented to make zero distinguishing factors between newcomers and veterans, or PvP and PvE alike, and gives a lower sense of urgency, time pressure, or fear of missing out on points, benefiting those who don't have as much time, want/need to take breaks, have to work, etc.
  • We will test this on the test server, the system will likely not change, the values can be tweaked even post-reset.
  • Feel free to give feedback, and I hope the system will make playing more meaningful and less stressful for everyone!

Hang in there, Skyfolk! We're getting closer!

Navarr and Destoyerfros like this
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I think it is a great idea. But I am really curious about the boosters. I mean what will happens with them. Anyway, the idea of the reserve is alot something than I could enjoy. So thanks to think about it. It is a pleasure to be with the project. Have a great one everyone. Oh I Nearly forgot. Yeah, there is something than I thought about the boosters. But I will say it later.

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I think 90 minutes is a really long time, isn't it? (At least compared to the old 30 minutes for one Booster = 420 BFP and now 90 minutes = 250 BFP). I havent read the hole post yet, if the answer is inside. (But will do it now)

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2 minutes ago, Halis said:

I think 90 minutes is a really long time, isn't it? (At least compared to the old 30 minutes for one Booster = 420 BFP and now 90 minutes = 250 BFP). I havent read the hole post yet, if the answer is inside. (But will do it now)

BFP earning speed was at a pretty high level before, and we would like to tone down BFP after dailies from 1.5 boosters more to 1 booster + any excess playtime BFP from the reserve system. So yes, it's meant to be a bit longer. 90 minutes is on the long end, I agree, and it's probably the most dodgy var in there right now. 

However, the values are not definite whatsoever. Big chance we decide to revise the 90 minutes and crank it down to 60 or something like that.

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2 hours ago, MrXLink said:

Player A who plays for 6h straight could, with the appropriate values, be matched in BFP earnings by player B who plays 2h, takes a 2h break, and then plays 2h after

@MrXLink can you please evaluate on that? From my calculation even in very optimistic example they will be 21% apart (121 :bf: difference) that mean 24,2% of booster, and that difference can be more than double.

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New system does not equalize people who may spend different time amounts per day. It shifts problem from total time played per day to how many times per day you can play with some breaks to make your time spending most effective.

Real MAX daily income determined only by one factor, refill speed. So for 0.5 BFP per minute we have 0.5*60*24 = 720 BFP per day.

Most effective way to gain maximal amount of BFP on long run, its to keep pool saturation below MAX value constantly. So you miss some BFP every minute while your pool is full...

 

But maybe if you tune system not for daily income, but for weekly, it will cause less "time pressure" on players. This may be done just by pool increasing.

Edited by Vovano
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I think removing the daily boosters is good for the economy. It completely removed the reason of buying boosters in the game to regulate the total bfp amount, which is kind of important with no existing regulation at the market. I think I didn't buy a single booster during the entire CBT phase even with some people selling them for sub 400bfp. 

I also do like the general idea of removing the hard cap as some people seemed a little dissatisfied, when they did their daily quests and there was nothing left to do. The reserve system is a good solution to add some extra bfp for being dedicated without creating a massive income gap, but as Vovano already stated, it highly rewards people, that are able to play multiple times on each day and therefore shouldn't reward people too heavily. 

From my first impression the bfp/min numbers are looking a little bit too low, especially for players that don't play the game as frequently. The biggest gap in bfp income will occur through abusing the instable market prices and not the actual reward system.  Removing the daily boosters is a good step into the right direction here, but doesn't remove the issue. People who don't use that income source for various reasons like lack of interest or experience will be much more affected by a lower daily bfp gain.  

Without knowing the actual data, I assume, that the percentage of players with a daily 90min+ playtime is really really low. I agree with Halis that this number looks really really high. And there are alot of people, that can't play the game every day leading to a high loss of potential bfp income without a method available to compensate. 

This leads me to the following proposal: 

-> Limiting daily boost time from 90mins to a lower number (45mins with 5bfp/min gains sound alot better for me, exact values might be discussed)

-> Slightly lower the reserve refill rate to put less pressure onto players to play multiple times per day

-> Let daily boosts stack up once or even twice, so people can compensate with high playing time at a single day for being unable to play on a daily base. 

Ultrakool and Emmaerzeh like this
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3 minutes ago, RadicalX said:

without creating a massive income gap

where you get that?

 

8 minutes ago, RadicalX said:

Without knowing the actual data, I assume, that the percentage of players with a daily 90min+

on main server is right now 219 players with 90+ minutes per day average playtime.
but there was 3746 players recently online. Which mean full daily bonus is for less than 6% of players.

But to make it worse there are players that play over 6 hours even now

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The current system fast/slow is relative just like everything.

I do not like to slow down things.

Kubik can says my playing stats maybe i can only tip them.

Its like a year i play with Skylords Reborn.

Around 1000 quest done(more i bet).

Its mean 333 Booster and 666*75 Bfp i got.

I never made any "tradetrick" like buy things and resell or try to manipulate the market with building monopol situation with a special card.

My collection is still incomplete!!!

3 promo is missing just lile about 30 cards from the most expensives.(max charges)

What time is acceptable for you for a new player being "complete"If its like 1,5 years atm and you want to slow things down?

Sorry for my english.

I cant really understand the whole problem btw. I like to play Skylords Reborn anyway and not only for the collecting.

Its like you want to punish everyone because of those who quit after they complete with their collection.Who win from this?

We fill the market with cards so even the ones with less play time can get their cards cheaper.

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@Kispilka89 because of incomplete statistic (some start at the end on September) your stats are:
creation date: 2018-09-29 18:38:44, time spend ingame 23400 minutes. completed quests: 1152, PvE matches: 1318, PvE matches won: 975, PvP matches: 132, PvP matches won: 59, cards: 1079, cards upgraded to lvl3: 507, total ultra rare cards: 93, total rare cards: 62
Amd I easily know that because I yesterday make some top 20 statistics for Mephisto and you are 18 on the completed quests (first one have: 1330)

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9 minutes ago, Kubik said:

@Kispilka89 because of incomplete statistic (some start at the end on September) your stats are:
creation date: 2018-09-29 18:38:44, time spend ingame 23400 minutes. completed quests: 1152, PvE matches: 1318, PvE matches won: 975, PvP matches: 132, PvP matches won: 59, cards: 1079, cards upgraded to lvl3: 507, total ultra rare cards: 93, total rare cards: 62
Amd I easily know that because I yesterday make some top 20 statistics for Mephisto and you are 18 on the completed quests (first one have: 1330)

Thanks Kubik.

I take pride in these numbers^^

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players with low  daily playtime , like me , which mostly tryed to make 30 minutes + as much as possible with 1 - 2 maps playing the new system makes me feel bad because from the max. 500 BFP u can earn in 6 hours , i only get about 2,5 BFP rate x 45 min playtime per day = 112,5 bfp + extra quests , this idea is not bad , but the time is way to high for me , so i only can focus on sidequests , which will make me more bfp / minute as the new main quest system . i personally often reroll quests on this kind i can do mostly all quests on 1 - 2 runs , like 1 multiplayer map + 2x rpve / campaign quest  , 7 gold chests ,and the 30 minutes , quests which are not none in this time are for another day , which is already missing bfp points , so the new system is making that more worse for low time consumption players .

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Friendly reminder that the post itself actually states that all values are subject to change, and even points out that the daily playtime is probably the most inconsistent value in the current system. These current values are implemented as baseline and flexible values to get an idea of the system's structure. I'd recommend to focus on that, rather than the currently implemented values. That also goes for you, Kubik, your negativity is quite unnecessary and uncalled for.

@RadicalX I'd like to thank you for your very helpful and constructive feedback, especially the constructiveness of it and your sound reasoning. As stated, none of the values are final whatsoever, and I definitely intend on lowering the daily playtime. Your proposed changes are very reasonable, and I am definitely taking them into consideration. The "save up your daily boost if you miss a day" system you propose is most intriguing and has also definitely sparked my interest.

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The thing I am worried about is that no one will want to spend their "hard earned" points on boosters because they could end up getting low tier cards. I think there is a very high chance that players will much rather want to spend those points on the auction to get exactly what they want, which will lead to less boosters being opened. 

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Wouldnt it be better for the reserve to be weekly so that those who can play, maybe only on weekends are not put so far behind those who play multiple times daily. Also on a slight tangent but will there be bfp rewards for completing maps on certain difficulties? With the current system there is no rewarding feeling completing a map on expert since if i want to upgrade a card i can just farm guns of lyr on expert in 5 mins. I understand that you dont want skill to be a determining factor but i feel like player interaction with certain maps would be much higher if there was a goal to strive to.

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gol 5 minutes , after reset im pretty sure this will not work for a long time ^^ increased ammi monument costs + other balances

and making it weekly , there ofc players will focus on rushing all on 1 day and dont play the other days in a weak , which lowers the players u can find @ any time

 

 

Edited by DieBieneMaya
more texting
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Im afraid this is gonna make the entrance to pvp even harder. Imagine having to grind for several months just to get viable units in starcraft, and then if u wanna switch from terran to protos you had to grind for another 3-4 months. Im afraid this is going to hurt the longevity of the game. It is an RTS after all. As a completely new player you won't even know if the deck ur going for is the one that feels good to play for u. And you cant try one out either. Slowing down the progression might be good for people who enjoy the PVE, but it might ruin the game completely for some or allot people who want to get into the pvp again. I never even got to that point before the reset, and i actually have time to play quite allot compared to most people i know. And yes for sure i could play pvp with a shit deck and still earn some BFP and stuff. but will that be fun, loosing to people who have had the time to fully optimize their decks, because they had more time and more free days to play.

Also, theres the cardgame component. The boosters is a really addictive but not optimal way of optaining cards. Whats a card game without boosters, the excitement of opening a pack and hoping for that Trox General of Destruction (dual masters refrence). Sure i do enjoy the auction house, but maybe some of the quests should give u boosters, its more tempting to open one once you have one in ur face on the screen. Its easier to avoid opening when u have to use the bfp u earn, when you know you can use it on the spesific card you need.

Again, im really afraid slower progression will kill this community. Does it cater more to the hardcore players? yes for sure. But what aboute us casuals, i think most of us won't enjoy this at all. Very concerned with this.

 

14 hours ago, MrXLink said:

BFP earning speed was at a pretty high level before, and we would like to tone down BFP after dailies from 1.5 boosters more to 1 booster + any excess playtime BFP from the reserve system. So yes, it's meant to be a bit longer. 90 minutes is on the long end, I agree, and it's probably the most dodgy var in there right now. 

However, the values are not definite whatsoever. Big chance we decide to revise the 90 minutes and crank it down to 60 or something like that.

Pretty high level... 
1,5 years as mentioned above is apparently to fast.. this is unsettling. Put yourself in the working mans shoes. Who just wants to come home and play some pvp... nope, you have to grind for a couple of months before you can do that. Do you think people would like that? 

Im asking because i want to start a conversation about this, cause this concerns me regarding the games longevity. Not to be offensive.
:-)

Maybe a dedicated PVP server where you can just play PVE and the progression is getting better. Worked for most RTS games.

Maybe make a huge strawpool, see if most people actually want slower progression. If they do, sure go ahead, its super for the game. But if they don't, it will make a serious dent in the amount of people actually playing. Tread super carefully with such a small playerbase, the game is nothing without it.

I haven't been active on any forums for years, but this game was my jam when i was a teenager, and i don't want to loose it again. Im trying to set feelings aside and just air my concerns with you. I have noe clue how much the community has been involved and how much you have communicated and listened to them. But i really hope you guys do. 

Edited by Zephmarkz
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In general I like that Reserve System. But the values could be better imo. First I don't like it that we don't get a free booster per day anymore. Sure we can use the Bfp we get to buy boosters but boosters are not worth the price they cost. The best part about boosters currently is not the value of the cards inside but the feeling you have when you open them especially when you get a rare card from them. I never sold any booster, I just opened them for that reason. Sure I got cards like frost-Avatar, Dreadnaught, Warlord and other expensive stuff, but overall it would be better to sell them all for 400 Bfp. I doubt there will be many people who will buy boosters with their earned bfp. Therefore new cards will be implemented in the overall market way slower and that leads to a slowdown of pretty much everything.

My idea would be to reduce the numbers of Bfp people get from the Reserve System but give everyone a free booster once they reached 30 minutes per day. Additionally it probably would be necessary to reduce the reward for the quests as well. Anyway I don't think it's good idea to lock boosters by a huge amount of playtime.

 

1 hour ago, MrXLink said:

Friendly reminder that the post itself actually states that all values are subject to change, and even points out that the daily playtime is probably the most inconsistent value in the current system. These current values are implemented as baseline and flexible values to get an idea of the system's structure. I'd recommend to focus on that, rather than the currently implemented values. That also goes for you, Kubik, your negativity is quite unnecessary and uncalled for.

What is negativity? Isn't it the same as crucial thinking? I thought that's a very important part of feedback you should be looking for. Especially since he's the one who has the numbers...

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2 hours ago, MrXLink said:

Friendly reminder that the post itself actually states that all values are subject to change, and even points out that the daily playtime is probably the most inconsistent value in the current system. These current values are implemented as baseline and flexible values to get an idea of the system's structure. I'd recommend to focus on that, rather than the currently implemented values. That also goes for you, Kubik, your negativity is quite unnecessary and uncalled for.

 

A criticism can be negative and still be extremely valuable. Yes its easy to focus on the negatives, but it can also be very important!

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3 hours ago, JoKeRNooTNooT said:

The thing I am worried about is that no one will want to spend their "hard earned" points on boosters because they could end up getting low tier cards. I think there is a very high chance that players will much rather want to spend those points on the auction to get exactly what they want, which will lead to less boosters being opened. 

This is indeed a foreseen problem. We're not artificially supplying the market with cards anymore (aside from potentially achievements), which calls for quite a different scenario. The thing is that we're also working on making boosters that are more worth their price and give people the opportunity to narrow down the card pool to draw from a bit, which should make buying boosters more attractive than they are now. Of course, the market could be resorted to from day one, but the law of supply and demand does apply here, and I hope that with the upcoming boosters it will be more attractive to keep the supply going.

3 hours ago, Fudge said:

Wouldnt it be better for the reserve to be weekly so that those who can play, maybe only on weekends are not put so far behind those who play multiple times daily. Also on a slight tangent but will there be bfp rewards for completing maps on certain difficulties? With the current system there is no rewarding feeling completing a map on expert since if i want to upgrade a card i can just farm guns of lyr on expert in 5 mins. I understand that you dont want skill to be a determining factor but i feel like player interaction with certain maps would be much higher if there was a goal to strive to.

Yes and no. Splitting the reserve over a week would call for a bit more of a complex system that could result in player activity becoming split apart, with some rushing the system and some never really getting to make the most out of it. Drain speed would be a difficult matter to balance around, too. 

As for your second remark, there are systems in discussion (e.g. achievements and map-of-the-day systems) to reward completion a bit more, whether that's in the form of BFP, cards, gold, XP, or whatever else... What I do like to point out though is that if this happens, there will not be any repeatable quests for BFP or cards. I don't think having speedrunning shenanigans dominate BFP gain on a daily basis is the way to go, and is especially unfair for less skilled players and those with less time on their hands. So if we were to award BFP/cards for milestones and map completion, it would end up being a one-off reward, nothing that can be easily repeatable. Multiaccounting is also a major concern for this.

2 hours ago, Zephmarkz said:

Im afraid this is gonna make the entrance to pvp even harder. Imagine having to grind for several months just to get viable units in starcraft, and then if u wanna switch from terran to protos you had to grind for another 3-4 months. Im afraid this is going to hurt the longevity of the game. It is an RTS after all. As a completely new player you won't even know if the deck ur going for is the one that feels good to play for u. And you cant try one out either. Slowing down the progression might be good for people who enjoy the PVE, but it might ruin the game completely for some or allot people who want to get into the pvp again. I never even got to that point before the reset, and i actually have time to play quite allot compared to most people i know. And yes for sure i could play pvp with a shit deck and still earn some BFP and stuff. but will that be fun, loosing to people who have had the time to fully optimize their decks, because they had more time and more free days to play.

Also, theres the cardgame component. The boosters is a really addictive but not optimal way of optaining cards. Whats a card game without boosters, the excitement of opening a pack and hoping for that Trox General of Destruction (dual masters refrence). Sure i do enjoy the auction house, but maybe some of the quests should give u boosters, its more tempting to open one once you have one in ur face on the screen. Its easier to avoid opening when u have to use the bfp u earn, when you know you can use it on the spesific card you need.

Again, im really afraid slower progression will kill this community. Does it cater more to the hardcore players? yes for sure. But what aboute us casuals, i think most of us won't enjoy this at all. Very concerned with this.

 

Pretty high level... 
1,5 years as mentioned above is apparently to fast.. this is unsettling. Put yourself in the working mans shoes. Who just wants to come home and play some pvp... nope, you have to grind for a couple of months before you can do that. Do you think people would like that? 

Im asking because i want to start a conversation about this, cause this concerns me regarding the games longevity. Not to be offensive.
:-)

Maybe a dedicated PVP server where you can just play PVE and the progression is getting better. Worked for most RTS games.

Maybe make a huge strawpool, see if most people actually want slower progression. If they do, sure go ahead, its super for the game. But if they don't, it will make a serious dent in the amount of people actually playing. Tread super carefully with such a small playerbase, the game is nothing without it.

I haven't been active on any forums for years, but this game was my jam when i was a teenager, and i don't want to loose it again. Im trying to set feelings aside and just air my concerns with you. I have noe clue how much the community has been involved and how much you have communicated and listened to them. But i really hope you guys do. 

First off, while progression has been slowed down (and we still may tweak values there for sure), there will also soon be ways to be more specified about what cards can be earned through the introduction of some different kinds of boosters. In a discussion I have had with @MephistoRoss earlier some PvP solutions involving this came to mind. The PvP case has always been sensitive and difficult, and I'm trying to account for this as much as possible when it comes to the global effects of progression. Yes, BFP might end up being earned slower, but there is also no hard wall to face anymore after 30 minutes, through which it is possible to keep earning BFP. That in combination with some more options to get the cards you need more easily should benefit PvP, or at least enough to keep it somewhat in balance if it doesn't improve it already.

Awarding boosters for repeatedly completing quests is already a thing, and we want to keep this system in as well and potentially tweak how far it goes so it does not become an impossible feat for those who have been around for a while. So, that's also something we're having a look at.

That is the general consensus right now. As for splitting PvP completely apart from the rest of the game, this is a much bigger issue that has been around for the longest time, and isn't as straightforward to do as you think, especially with a community of this size. I'm not saying I'm not considering to figure PvP servers out, but I'm still genuinely concerned about how it would affect general progression and server population if we were just going to make a hard division for everyone. Some will enjoy building a PvP deck from the cards they have and use it, see how far they can get in ranked... others want to have all cards unlocked so they can play PvP on high level, and yet at the same time PvP as it stands is already low on population, so I'm not sure whether this division would be the best idea. Cross-progression on PvP leaderboards etc. would also be a pain. All in all not impossible though, and please let it be known that I am not leaving the idea of PvP servers behind. Right now, though, I hope that the increased flexibility and possibility to earn more specific cards will make PvP farming in the current way a bit more bearable.

1 hour ago, Chibiterasu said:

In general I like that Reserve System. But the values could be better imo. First I don't like it that we don't get a free booster per day anymore. Sure we can use the Bfp we get to buy boosters but boosters are not worth the price they cost. The best part about boosters currently is not the value of the cards inside but the feeling you have when you open them especially when you get a rare card from them. I never sold any booster, I just opened them for that reason. Sure I got cards like frost-Avatar, Dreadnaught, Warlord and other expensive stuff, but overall it would be better to sell them all for 400 Bfp. I doubt there will be many people who will buy boosters with their earned bfp. Therefore new cards will be implemented in the overall market way slower and that leads to a slowdown of pretty much everything.

My idea would be to reduce the numbers of Bfp people get from the Reserve System but give everyone a free booster once they reached 30 minutes per day. Additionally it probably would be necessary to reduce the reward for the quests as well. Anyway I don't think it's good idea to lock boosters by a huge amount of playtime.

 

What is negativity? Isn't it the same as crucial thinking? I thought that's a very important part of feedback you should be looking for. Especially since he's the one who has the numbers...

As stated above, boosters will still be awarded, but through the achievement system. Also, boosters should become more attractive to purchase soon, perhaps they will be worth their price now that you can somewhat regulate what kind of cards you'll get. This should also help the market, and if supply is low, it could be easier to get more specific cards to meet the demands through these boosters.

1 hour ago, Zephmarkz said:

A criticism can be negative and still be extremely valuable. Yes its easy to focus on the negatives, but it can also be very important!

I completely agree with you that positive and negative feedback is very much needed and are highly important (arguably the negative feedback even more so than the positive). Crucial and critical thinking is highly important, but Kubik's case has its roots a little deeper than that, and this is a repetition of undersubstantiated commentary that is inherently negative for reasons beyond the system itself. Though I don't think this should be taken to a public level, be assured that his point has been clear for months, I do take that into account like any other critical opinion. With the numbers comes a lot of responsibility, and it requires an objective eye, which in this case it hasn't. Either way, long story, not worthy nor appropriate to discuss, and I apologise if my response seemed overly snappy.

I can assure you that criticism in any way, no matter how positive or negative, is of value will be kept in mind for future tweaking and development.

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