Well, this just happened
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/688272462902167112/65A3C35777F53296AA2CCE5BB8BDF8CB6EAD7822/
There was actually a 6th Proxy, but that player left just before I took the screenshot.
Now I agree even more with the OP, though seeing 12 mines on the objective was hilarious.
Guys, you realize the devs don’t pull the mercs on each rotation out of a hat, right? They actually think about which ones they put on, and try to cover some bases in terms of the merc types. Free rotations would suck ass if they were random.
Errrrhmmmm, I don’t know if you were there at the open beta release the 2nd June but the rotation they choose was just plain stewpid. No free engineer choice during a big flood of new players was a total thoughtless move.
Amount of such unicums is so miniscule that it can be discarded from equasion.
Again, no player who is serious about spendign money on this game, will resort to such petty tactics. Players pay money in such games for either development support or for convenience. Farming multiple accounts is an exact opposite of that - person goes into extraordinary lenghts just to avoid paying and his lack of basic patience(its not really that hard to earn creds) merely shows immaturity and lack of commitment.
I did not presume that at all. 5% of players is playing ‘for free’ even though they might have not. That is 5% less profit of whatever the percentage of players spends real cash.
Say 10% of players spends real money. this is DB’s entire income
If 5% of total (so also 5% of 10% - which constitutes 100% of income)) players won’t spend money… the profits will be smaller by 5%, umkay?
Erm, you just expanded your alredy errorneous assumption by additional level. It dosnt really make it right from any angle still.
You again presume that those 5%(all of them) would spend real money on the game otherwise.
Its far more likely that those 5% would belong into that part of population that play for free, without spendign anything.
Again, otherwise they wouldnt bother with all that hassle of creating accounts and switching between them, looking for preferred mercs or merc combination.
They are either cheap by nature or they consider their time cheap enough that they can just waste half an hour every day going thru accounts. In either case thay are unlikely to make any real financial contribution to the game development/maintenance.
source? to me it seems that some of the people that MIGHT spend money… won’t. its that simple
If you mean any official statistics, then i doubt that any1 can provide you with any. Its the same as your 5%, assumption based on personal experience.
And there are more ways than one to make players pay, i have pointed out a few potential ones in my arguments.
Daily rotation gives player both a taste and some insight into mercs that are in rotation, while its not enough time to dull the excitements, compared to a weeks worth of playing with same merc. Therefore its far more likely that player will be willing to buy this particular merc, since he knows what merc is worth(gameplay wise) and hes not quite ready to sheft it. It also would allow players to make more informative choices, instead of waiting for months for a merc to come in rotation and/or them be completely dissapoitend, when merc didnt meet extremely inflated expectation(more we dream about something, more perfect out expectations become), leading to rage(wtf, you cheats, i wannt my money back) or just buying merc and then finding out that its completely not what was expected, having same results.
It wouldnt be a problem if we would have an universal obstacle course(a map, where various challenges are present and can be reset and any merc can be used to see how they would behave under different conditions), but since we dont…
alright, wasnt clear to me whether you meant 3 or 1 merc rotation.
Still a new merc to play everyday is little incentive to pay cash to get something new. Why bother paying if everytime you login you can play with something NEW for free?
Acquisition of NEW stuff is a very strong incentive in F2P games to layout $$$. If you tried ALL the mercs, you are less likely to pay cash for any of them. the magic and mystery of a purchase is gone.
1 or 3 is actually quite irrelevant, its details that depend on modification path chosen.
Something NEW get somewhat OLD real quick. Each player eventually develops his own play style, his own preferrential mercs, for each mode, each map and those preferences change even based on what side he is.
I, for example, dont play Rhino, i have no idea why i bought him. I just have him.
When im on offense i prefer Sawbones as medic, but on Underground i go with Sparks, since there is enough open spaces for her to operate at full efficiency. And on defense is play mainly as Aura. And same story with all other mercs. Dependign on map, mode, side, even missions that i have at time.
Constant rotation dosnt allow players to get a proper feel of the merc, forcing them to constantly switch. Not to mention sometimes player can see from his team layout that this or that merc would be a really good choice in this particular match… yet, he dosnt have it, its not in rotation.
Not to mention sense of ownership and stability. Every1 has it. Its the same story as with me an Rhino - i didntn eeded nor wanted him, but i bought him anyway, just to have him.
Also, aquisition of new stuff shouldnt be strong incentive in F2P games. Gameplay should be, friends, fun, gratitude to developer, etc. Not farming for new shinigh trinket.
Its the same moronic attitude that ive seen in all those farmers, who just sit in the corner, doing nothing, but farm their stations. Just so that they could paddle towards mission completion faster. The most absurd way to play the game, altho “play” is probably wrong word here, feels more like work, extremely boring one.
or maybe they will just jump into whatever is new, get bored with the game quickly and quit, after feeling like they ‘saw it all’.
2 week rotation actually allows players to explore the mercs on different maps/playstyles/enemy counters/team composition etc. I’ve been playing Fletcher for months now, and I still feel like I learn something new every second day.
Players who would get bored with a merc in a day time would get bored with a game even faster with weekly rotations. They lack focus and patience to collect enough creds to buy every next one.
It takes about 5-6 days to buy 30k merc, considerably faster with beginners rewards, but to get there, they would be forced to play with just a few mercs, that they would get bored with real fast. Then, if they actualyl will manage to get a new merc, they will suddently discover that its not really what they expected(and it will happen since they lack patience) and then, by looking at another 30k, or even 50k, farm, just say “naaah” and quit.
For players like that it wont matter how many mercs are there. Their attention span is extremely short and they will get bored with game anyway, and with weekly rotations, it will happen even sooner. They get bored with available mercs, but since theres several days till next rotation, they will just put game on hold, and due to their short attention span, will never come back.
its not as dynamic as you state either. Majority of playerbase is stable. Its not true that for every new player you have a veteran who goes away. Most of the players that leave are the players that played very little.
Players that like the game - stay. The longer the game is out, the higher the percentage of ‘stable’ players.
In half a year, the amount of ‘stable’ players - those who played for months, rather than weeks, will be much higher than now. Therefore, more players will have access to more mercs. Just like, the longer the game is out, the higher an average player level.
I never sayd that its 1 for 1 exchange, especially 1 new for 1 old. Pyramid scheme is quite well appliable in this case. Theres top, hardcore players, old and dedicated. Theres middle section, who play more casually, every now and then, not truly committted, but fairly regularly, and then thers most numerous part of population, that comes and goes, some come, some quit, some play once a week, some bury a whole weekend into game once a month.
And again. Absurd. That part about game lifespan being directly related to number of players.
There are a number of factors related to size of player base and time since release is one of the less relevant ones. Development directions, number of features, cheaters, requirements, even seasons have far greater effect of population than date of release.
Most games reach certain treshhold fairly fast, and after that all those secondary factors start substract or multiply number of players in playerbase. And even number(and share) of older/newer players is affected by those things. Like adding Cobalt level cards had practicalyl no impact for new players, while free Fragger benefited mainly fresh recruits.
Samestory is with average level and stable player base. Obviously game just got into ob phase and numbers will grow, but they wont grow that much and they will reach certain treshhold at some point, where it will not increase any further, since quitting of just one oldie will have to be compensated by hundreds of new recruits to just maintain current level.
they might as well try it out, but not swarm it the way that someone who only has skyhammer and aura will. Instead of seeing 5 naders per team for a week, you will maybe see a higher percentage of naders in the first day, and much more balanced teams in the following days.
So far, facts do not support your point of view.
why are they idiotic?
I’d pick nader and blast those rhinos away. teams of 4 or more snipers are always hilariously steamrolled down. While it can be annoying to have bad composition on your team, you have no influence on the said composition. 4 rhinos aren’t more annoying than ‘no medics’ or ‘no engineers’ or ‘no ammo givers’. In the end its up to the individual players to care (or not)
What if you dont have a nader ? What if you are on the same team with those Rhinos ? Or snipers ?
Yes, it is about individual preference. All im saying that devs shouldnt reinforce such instances in the first place, as they do with fixed rotations.
And i can live without medics, or ammo, or without specialists. I can regenerate, altho slowly, and teammate can give me(or other way around) a hand, and there are ammo crates on every map, fairly close, so its not 2 easy to resupply nor it is impossible.
But when team-based game is players as DM or KotH, its pretty much gamebreaking.
Problem with that idea is that there is finite amount of mercs.
So, on one side, devs have to make merc aquisition slow enough to keep player interested in playing and saving creds. While, on the other hand, it shouldnt be 2 tedious, so that player wouldnt just give up and quit. then you have to factor in need for cash, to keep devs employed and servers running.
Sure, every new player wannt every merc asap. But making them 2 easy to get would also significantly shorten the lifespan of the game, since players would get everything and get bored. Leading to player exodus.
In my early days of online gaming i used to play Ultima Online, a lot. 2 much even. And from all those unofficial server setups i learned one invaluable lesson - what is easy to get is easy to abandon. No server, where players could get everything and fast, lasted 2 long. While servers, with slow skill/stat gains and proper balancing, lasted for years and got shut down not due to lack of players but due to server owner either losing interest or being simply unable to continue hosting server.
So, yeah, sure, in short run, reducing prices to 3-4 bucks would benefit players. But it would also means that game would run out of sellable mercs at twice the rate. Meaning that devs would have to put an extra effort to make new ones, and then balance them out aganst all alredy exiting mercs, that will be getting progressively harder. At the same time, needing more mercs in same timeframe will take resources away from other venues of development, like maps or bugfixes.
So, unlless predicted profits from merc sales can be shiften onto other, renevable, sale options, it would be really really bad idea for the game in general. I prefer mercs costing 10 bucks and servers being up and running for 6 years(or more), rather than mercs for 3 bucks and servers shut down in 2.
In general id like idea of cheaper mercs, but only if there are plenty of other cash sinks. Eg player gets all basics fast and then can be more peculiar about what to do next, what to buy and what skills to develop.
get rid of free rotation.
add in a way to trial a merc for say 1000 credits for 1 hour once a week. Either in shop or barracks.
Make it this trial option only unlocks after say, level 10?
Level cap on trails so people wont just continually make free accounts to constantly trial mercs . This system allows people invested in the game enuf to get some levels going to trial mercs individually so that servers are not flooded with everyone testing the same mercs at the same time.
[quote=“RuleofBooKz;42698”]1. get rid of free rotation.
add in a way to trial a merc for say 1000 credits for 1 hour once a week. Either in shop or barracks.
Make it this trial option only unlocks after say, level 10?
Level cap on trails so people wont just continually make free accounts to constantly trial mercs . This system allows people invested in the game enuf to get some levels going to trial mercs individually so that servers are not flooded with everyone testing the same mercs at the same time.[/quote]
They could just add Training Ground. With obstacle course, firing range, EV repair/disable exercises(maybe medic training area as well) and selection of individual layouts for testing different tactics. With ability to use any merc there and station for switching between them.
yes that might give some a good impression of the merc but some might say that its only in the fire of live PvP combat do u truly get to know the value of your merc
I see one of the reasons of having same mercs for every bloke and blokette, is exactly to get those stacked rounds here and there. It does get out of hand specifically in first days of new rotation, but in what other situation / simulation ever would we see such overusage a character? Only few full pre-made MM groups maybe here and not there being bored and going “hey, lets all pick class X and see how that goes!”.
I think it gives more data of said merc’s highs in mere hours, and when people get bored of it and start finding counter instead, information about lows are gotten in days. It seems a very strong, yet maybe even harsh way of getting data (and delicious threads on forums everywhere). But I see it benefiting balance in the longer run since mercs get super peaks of playtime weekly, only time will tell.
I wouldn’t mind seeing attemps in ways to ease the stackrush either, but trusting SD’s judgement on the issue. Not that they read this forum anyways, lovely (#nosarcasm) Nexon team has to bring bits and bops of suggestions and discussions they manage to see in this flood here to SD ^_^’
My name is MTLMortis and I approve of this message. Random trials per account seems like a good idea.