RttC re-balancing thoughts (Attn: Brad, NWGD)

[Sir Master Tim]

Re: RttC re-balancing thoughts (Attn: Brad, NWGD)

Another possible thing to do instead of just adding a 2nd copy of the final card, for consideration:

Make it so that someone can stop moving forward in the RttC at any point along the way. Say a Leg++ person gets the star card, for example. They can choose to stop. The event will then give them the ability to earn a 2nd copy of the final card they earned before stopping their progress. So if someone earns the Legendary card and knows they can't get the star, they can choose to "stop", and the RttC event will let them earn another Legendary to make a Pro version (for 1.25-1.4x the points or something).

For people who complete the entire RttC event, the event lets them try to earn a second copy of the HoF/PnP card (again for more points).

With this implementation, everyone, no matter where they are along the progression spectrum, would be able to obtain a Pro card reward from the event, meaning they can see real progress no matter where they fall in the spectrum of deck strength.

And you could scale the multiplier of how many extra points it takes for the second copy of a card such that the further a person goes in the event, the more game nights it will cost them to try and make a pro. This should result in a really satisfying event for all of the players, and a pretty sizeable revenue bump from players trying to Pro one of the last two cards, as the multiplier for how many points required would obviously be set pretty high on those cards to ensure that adjusting the event this way would be a revenue boost for CD.

This strikes me as a particularly elegant solution (and someone PMd me the basic idea; it did not originate with me but I thought about it and added to it), and I suspect players all throughout the levels would be highly appreciative of it, and I can't imagine that it would result in anything other than increased revenue for CatDaddy.

This is the very definition of a win-win

What a marvelous idea


Now if CD where to actually look into this, the only thing I would recommend is make the cards unsellable. You see it with RC, tons of players get the same cards and try to pawn them off for quick creds. This creats to high of a supply and not enough demand rendering the cards worthless. By making the cards unsellable it gets people to think before trying to game the system and it keeps the fairness between players that are going for Hof/PnP(unsellable) and stars/leg/epic(sellable).

[brad_nicholson]

Re: RttC re-balancing thoughts (Attn: Brad, NWGD)

we're touching on a lot of different points here, which is pretty cool.


myNBA has a pretty tight game loop that ensures that events, seasons, and quick games feed into each other in meaningful ways. (for example, taking RC cards into seasons and so forth.) as a result, we should probably look at your pain points with RTTC in a larger context.


adding another card to the top of RTTC is an interesting idea. why don't we do it? because instant event pros can lead to some pyrotechnic competition issues. players who missed the event for one reason or another are put at a disadvantage that only increases over time. there's also a progression issue. too many pros too fast means you'll hit the cap before we have extra content prepared.


there's a natural … almost thinning of a funnel that happens at the top of our games. when we look at that funnel, we think of ways to widen it and create more play opportunities. new tiers are a part of that, but so are new game modes and fresh experiences. i think we'll be able to alleviate some of the stress you're feeling now when the Playoff Update is released.

[NWGameDad]

Re: RttC re-balancing thoughts (Attn: Brad, NWGD)

But the AH is not now, nor will it ever be, a source for making a pro HoF or PnP ... so it really shouldn't factor at all into the discussion at hand.

If I play RttC and gain all of the cards including the HoF/PnP reward, I now have two options to Pro that top card. Get in the top 25 of the next RC event, or buy packs. If I miss out in the RC then my option is to buy packs. But the packs are so expensive, what do I do? You buy Credits, and/or you take all those cards that are "worthless" to you that you won during the RttC (or any other location for that matter) and you sell them on the AH. You take your Credits from the AH and you buy a pack for a chance at the Pro.


The AH is very much a part of the process for Proing the top reward from RttC. Whether you want to participate in the AH as the solution is up to you, but it is there for those that want to figure out how to make sales on the AH, and many have figured it out. If you want to Pro the very best cards in the game, it will require playing the AH, patience, and luck. Money will help decrease any of those 3 things. Much like anything else that is achievable in the game. You will not be able to instantly Pro those cards, as intended.

[jjyergler]

Re: RttC re-balancing thoughts (Attn: Brad, NWGD)

So, you're telling me that buying packs AT $67 PER PACK to get a 1 in 64 chance of duping that card is reasonable?

I guess since you guys are making so much money at this game, it's reasonable for you, but not for me or 99.9% of the people that play this game.

As for the AH, I've sold a total of three Legendaries and one Ultra Rare (not counting a couple Commons that were part of buyback deals)...that gets me right at halfway to a HoF pack. That's out of about 10 auctions that I've put up. I'll spend my credits on other AH deals where I can definitely dupe stars that I have. Packs aren't worth it. If you lowered the price on packs, I might buy some.

[Mas009]

Re: RttC re-balancing thoughts (Attn: Brad, NWGD)

Maybe im missing the point, but I just cant be bothered reading the essays people keep posting. I don't know why there is so much complaining about RTTC, I think its designed really good.

Why should someone with a weak deck get the top reward, build your deck, put the hard work in and get the top prize when you have a deck that can compete, or pay the credits and grind losses if you really want to.

[NWGameDad]

Re: RttC re-balancing thoughts (Attn: Brad, NWGD)

So, you're telling me that buying packs AT $67 PER PACK to get a 1 in 64 chance of duping that card is reasonable?

I guess since you guys are making so much money at this game, it's reasonable for you, but not for me or 99.9% of the people that play this game.

As for the AH, I've sold a total of three Legendaries and one Ultra Rare (not counting a couple Commons that were part of buyback deals)...that gets me right at halfway to a HoF pack. That's out of about 10 auctions that I've put up. I'll spend my credits on other AH deals where I can definitely dupe stars that I have. Packs aren't worth it. If you lowered the price on packs, I might buy some.

The Packs are not priced with the assumption that someone is spending all real money on them. Continuing to neglect the impact the Auction House and free Credits from Seasons and the Daily VC Bonus has on someone's purchasing power in the game is just not based on reality.


In that context, yes, I do believe the pricing on the HoF pack is quite reasonable. They are the best cards in the game currently (well, tied with PnP Stars and RC Stars) and the Pack *guarantees* you're going to get one.


Now what is "reasonable", we could argue that forever. I think it is "reasonable" because of the quality of the card. Bill Gates would think it is reasonable just because he sneezes more money than we made all year. A college student working for minimum wage and plays 10 minutes a day may not think it's reasonable. It's just dependent on your situation and how much entertainment you draw from our game. I can't put a price on that.


In your situation, you've had a 40% success rate on the Auction House. That seems pretty dang good. You have a lot more Credits than you had before the Auction House came out. You don't value the packs worth it so you don't spend on them, but that is your choice. It does mean you will not get the absolutely best cards in the game, but that's ok. If I wanted everyone to get those cards then I would have just put them on the Draft Board and cranked up the drop rate. The best cards should be hard to get, or their value isn't really there. Scarcity is a good thing sometimes.

[G8tors]

Re: RttC re-balancing thoughts (Attn: Brad, NWGD)

I just want to throw this in as a casual player.

I'm currently in the Epic + tier of quick games and Epic tier for seasons thanks to ultra rare trained pros. In order to keep progressing, I need to get either epic trained pros or trained legendaries. I breezed through all of the levels to get the ultra rare reward, which does me little help and then had to use the 2 position strategy to compete for +2 on the epic tier. I didn't make it in time because I didn't play much on Easter and ended the event only getting the ultra rare tier. I think that's a little out of whack.

You should be able to get the card for the tier you're on fairly easily. I should be able to beat the epic tier +7 in order to get that card, which at least gives me a chance to get a card I can then duplicate with pulls or seasons. I should then be able to grind away at +2 on the tier above that one if I was really dedicated.

To put it more succinctly, I believe you should be able to easily get the card for the stage you are currently on and then with some grinding or purchasing game nights be able to get the tier one up from you in order to make this game mode help your progression.

[Sir Master Tim]

Re: RttC re-balancing thoughts (Attn: Brad, NWGD)

Im just curious, how many HoF packs does catdaddy sell?

[SmartForce]

Re: RttC re-balancing thoughts (Attn: Brad, NWGD)

I appreciate you taking the time to read and respond NWGameDad.

I understand the need to ensure that people don't progress so far that they have nowhere left to go, but I think that a situation where someone takes 5+ months to fill out a seasons roster (it would only be 5 months to do it if the positions are equally distributed over any given stretch of time) isn't really too fast.

I totally get that having 1-in-65 odds to dupe the card at 10,000 credits a pop is going to drive more revenue for every player who does it, but I still think you would have way more players willing to spend $100 to $200 to dupe the reward for sure instead of gambling, and I think enough more that you would have a pretty significant revenue increase.

The idea that someone can realistically compete for a top-25 spot to dupe the reward is just not realistic. For better or for worse, most of the top-25 spots are taken up by people who either claim to have teams of people playing around the clock or use multiple phones to bang out 100+ wins an hour with hot streaks the entire time.

Setting aside the time requirement and the fact of the many Chinese teams that are taking up most of those spots is the hot streak cost. 40,000 points is about $200 in hot streaks.

So essentially those folks getting the pro reward from the following RC are spending around $200 on hot streaks (or getting the credits via the AH, but we're talking equivalent value obviously).

So that's why I suggested setting it up such that the 2nd copy of the final card would cost somewhere in that range to buy game nights to get it. And it would also require time investment as the RttC games take a fairly decent amount of time to play through.

I hope you guys think about it some more, because I believe it's the very definition of a win-win situation for everyone. With an app that only has a 1 year lifespan, you don't really need to create new tiers of content more than once or twice for this approach to result in progression just catching up as the new tier comes out and then just catching up to having a boss lineup just before the next app comes out.

And anyone taking advantage of it would be dropping like $300 to $400 a month to get every one of the cards done ... I know that's not the same as someone dropping thousands to end up with pro HoF cards at 10,000 credits a pop, but wouldn't you have way more customers in this scenario?

Thanks again for engaging, and looking forward to seeing the Playoff tier and associated game changes.

[JazzHands]

Re: RttC re-balancing thoughts (Attn: Brad, NWGD)

I just want to throw this in as a casual player.

I'm currently in the Epic + tier of quick games and Epic tier for seasons thanks to ultra rare trained pros. In order to keep progressing, I need to get either epic trained pros or trained legendaries. I breezed through all of the levels to get the ultra rare reward, which does me little help and then had to use the 2 position strategy to compete for +2 on the epic tier. I didn't make it in time because I didn't play much on Easter and ended the event only getting the ultra rare tier. I think that's a little out of whack.

You should be able to get the card for the tier you're on fairly easily. I should be able to beat the epic tier +7 in order to get that card, which at least gives me a chance to get a card I can then duplicate with pulls or seasons. I should then be able to grind away at +2 on the tier above that one if I was really dedicated.

To put it more succinctly, I believe you should be able to easily get the card for the stage you are currently on and then with some grinding or purchasing game nights be able to get the tier one up from you in order to make this game mode help your progression.

This is the main issue for me and many other players. And none of the posts from CD addressed that. What we keep hearing is that there will be changes to how RttC mode will work and the fear is that it'll be even harder than now to hit the same tier/tier above your current.

If it's broken, don't break it more.

[wodkalol]

Re: RttC re-balancing thoughts (Attn: Brad, NWGD)

The Packs are not priced with the assumption that someone is spending all real money on them. Continuing to neglect the impact the Auction House and free Credits from Seasons and the Daily VC Bonus has on someone's purchasing power in the game is just not based on reality.


In that context, yes, I do believe the pricing on the HoF pack is quite reasonable. They are the best cards in the game currently (well, tied with PnP Stars and RC Stars) and the Pack *guarantees* you're going to get one.


Now what is "reasonable", we could argue that forever. I think it is "reasonable" because of the quality of the card. Bill Gates would think it is reasonable just because he sneezes more money than we made all year. A college student working for minimum wage and plays 10 minutes a day may not think it's reasonable. It's just dependent on your situation and how much entertainment you draw from our game. I can't put a price on that.


In your situation, you've had a 40% success rate on the Auction House. That seems pretty dang good. You have a lot more Credits than you had before the Auction House came out. You don't value the packs worth it so you don't spend on them, but that is your choice. It does mean you will not get the absolutely best cards in the game, but that's ok. If I wanted everyone to get those cards then I would have just put them on the Draft Board and cranked up the drop rate. The best cards should be hard to get, or their value isn't really there. Scarcity is a good thing sometimes.

so you are really saying 67 dollar is a REASONABLE price for some virtual card in a game that is shut down in less than a year

i dont know what world u live in???

that is more expensive than real games are
so u are saying the content of nba2k15, gta5 etc is less than a single card in your game

and to top it of u only have a 1 - 65 chance u can even pro that card

[CedricFP]

Re: RttC re-balancing thoughts (Attn: Brad, NWGD)

The Packs are not priced with the assumption that someone is spending all real money on them. Continuing to neglect the impact the Auction House and free Credits from Seasons and the Daily VC Bonus has on someone's purchasing power in the game is just not based on reality.


In that context, yes, I do believe the pricing on the HoF pack is quite reasonable. They are the best cards in the game currently (well, tied with PnP Stars and RC Stars) and the Pack *guarantees* you're going to get one.

NWGD, it sounds a little like you're saying something along the lines of the following:

HOF packs are not priced unreasonably because:

1. You can earn free credits (negligible impact, if we're speaking honestly here)
2. You can earn lots of credits through AH sales (3500 for a minimum bid star -- this is a very good point).


Therefore, if the packs were priced any lower, then they would be too easy to obtain.

This all makes perfect sense to me, and I completely agree with that assessment. Currently the HOF pack can be bought if I sell 3 star cards. If it could be bought if I sold 2 star cards, well, it might be a little too easy to obtain.

But weren't the minimums, and therefore what you can earn off a sale, based around the pack prices to begin with?

It looks circular:

Pack prices --> dictates minimums (so you don't undercut yourself) --> dictates new pack prices --> dictates new minimums; etc.

I have no problems with the pack prices right now; I don't see how they could reasonably be lowered without making them too easy to obtain using the current pricing model.

But does this indicate there may be an issue with the pricing model? That it was off by enough of a margin to begin with so that HOF packs are met with such resistance at their price, especially because they are so hard to pro?

I think what is upsetting users is not that, within the credit ecosystem of MYNBA2k15 the pack prices are relatively expensive (this is not a problem); I believe it has more to do with the fact that the ecosystem itself starts of relatively expensive when converted to actual dollars.

[NWGameDad]

Re: RttC re-balancing thoughts (Attn: Brad, NWGD)

so you are really saying 67 dollar is a REASONABLE price for some virtual card in a game that is shut down in less than a year

i dont know what world u live in???

that is more expensive than real games are
so u are saying the content of nba2k15, gta5 etc is less than a single card in your game

and to top it of u only have a 1 - 65 chance u can even pro that card

You've completely ignored the main point. You keep trying to equate Credits to dollars and you can't because Credits are given away for free. Again, pack pricing is based around the fact that a player earns free Credits from Seasons, Daily VC Bonus, and the AH. As the next poster pointed out, the bulk of that coming from the AH. There are very few people that are buying HoF packs without using free Credits for at least a portion of that purchase. Given how many free Credits players get right now, if the pack price was lowered everyone would be running around with HoF pros. Considering they are the best cards in the game that is not desired. They should be the card to strive for and earn.

[NWGameDad]

Re: RttC re-balancing thoughts (Attn: Brad, NWGD)

NWGD, it sounds a little like you're saying something along the lines of the following:

HOF packs are not priced unreasonably because:

1. You can earn free credits (negligible impact, if we're speaking honestly here)
2. You can earn lots of credits through AH sales (3500 for a minimum bid star -- this is a very good point).


Therefore, if the packs were priced any lower, then they would be too easy to obtain.

This all makes perfect sense to me, and I completely agree with that assessment. Currently the HOF pack can be bought if I sell 3 star cards. If it could be bought if I sold 2 star cards, well, it might be a little too easy to obtain.

But weren't the minimums, and therefore what you can earn off a sale, based around the pack prices to begin with?

It looks circular:

Pack prices --> dictates minimums (so you don't undercut yourself) --> dictates new pack prices --> dictates new minimums; etc.

I have no problems with the pack prices right now; I don't see how they could reasonably be lowered without making them too easy to obtain using the current pricing model.

But does this indicate there may be an issue with the pricing model? That it was off by enough of a margin to begin with so that HOF packs are met with such resistance at their price, especially because they are so hard to pro?

I think what is upsetting users is not that, within the credit ecosystem of MYNBA2k15 the pack prices are relatively expensive (this is not a problem); I believe it has more to do with the fact that the ecosystem itself starts of relatively expensive when converted to actual dollars.

Yes, you get it completely. The reasoning isn't circular just because it never fed back into adjusting minimums and continued on. Pack prices were a factor in minimums and the amount of Season free Credits, but then that was it.

I understand why it is natural to try and equate Credits and dollars, but it really isn't possible. Credits are given out for free in huge quantities as well as cards. This invalidates a virtual currency to real currency conversion. All you can really do is assess the amount of real money you put in the game for things that helped you achieve (a new pack, a card from the AH, Hotstreaks, etc.) and whether you felt like it gave you the right value for your money. As I said earlier, that is going to depend on each individual though.

[ActionJack]

Re: RttC re-balancing thoughts (Attn: Brad, NWGD)

Gotta come to CD defense here.

I think they've gotten RttC just about as right as possible.

I'm far from a CD apologist, but the arguments against CD in this thread are so bad.

1. You guys are being TOTALLY disingenuous in some of these points. Saying packs cost $100 is just a lie. I personally have gone from 6 Star Pros at the start of the AH Beta, up to 15, including 2 MVP Pros, and I haven't spent more than $5 of real money since AH came out. And I haven't even really been a heavy buyer on the AH. I've bought one Star Pro, and two single Stars off AH since it came out. That's it. I, somehow, have 9 more Star Pros than I started with (10 really, because I sold one).

Again. I've spent no more than $5. Is that a representative sampling? Probably not. But I refuse to believe I'm getting over THAT much more than EVERYONE else. If you can't come by TENS OF THOUSANDS of free credits in this game, I'm not sure what you're doing.

What world are you guys living in where you are incapable of coming by credits in this game, and have to fund everything with real money? My guess is, you aren't actually doing that, and again, you're just being really disingenuous, and killing your credibility in the process.

2. The argument that you should just be able to easily pro your RttC winnings is just silly. The argument that you should be able to pro them, without going to AH is really ridiculous.

By your own admissions, RttC and RC rewards go for SUPER cheap on the AH. If you want to Pro your reward, go to the AH, and bid minimum on one of the flooooooood of cards available, and there you go.

Thinking it should be any easier than that just shows a complete lack of understanding of the metagame here. If you really think everyone should be able to Pro whatever they want, with minimal investment of time and effort, how can you not think that with spur too much progression?

Idk... Pros shouldn't be that easy to come by. AH even existing already makes it too easy. If that is somehow still not easy enough, all you're really saying is that you want everything you want ad easily as possible, for free, and the game sucks if you can't get it. A lot of you really do come off as whiny children, in that regard.