Woke up this morning and checked the post; it blew up over night. Keep the feed back rolling, but I would reccommend keeping it on topic. Statement of problems and provision of solutions. The only way to gain recognition from the mods is to keep this conversation flowing and productive, and the point of this post is to open a dialogue with them and address core issues that if not identified, will result in the game being in a holding pattern of monotonous tasking requiring increasingly more frequent paywalls with lower returns on passing them. Keep up the good work, everyone!
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I agree with your points but as we have seen now, PB doesn’t really pay attention to the users/criticism much.
They’ll find a way to produce the income of the game. Which we have seen in everything lately. Can’t finish campaign without top tier toons. The deals are atrocious now. Paywalling NEEDED toons to play the game. Epic skills, I did three stages with 4 toons that needed chips, one didn’t. First two stages gave me ONLY red skills for the maxed toon, not the 4 others that needed them… The third stage gave me red skill chips for 1 of the 4 and the rest for the maxed toons…
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Thanks for telling them Rockstar. 
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Really good post Rockstar and thank you for writing it :-).
I think the game is likely suffering from a too high inflation rate in terms of the costs vs recourse gain rate, as in the costs raising faster than the resource gain rate manage to keep up with, like the resource gain rate aren’t tuned to the same raise as the costs have.
The main reason to why likely one feel like they have too little gold more so today than before would be due to Red skills and they costing 10 million gold each to unlock, even though I imagine many at this point I assume many has gotten to the point they are done with their most crucial ones unlock wise and as such their gold economy stabilizes a bit more again.
However I think it is actually possible to calculate how many characters you can keep up with per update by taking your average gold gain per day and convert the amount it represent into skill points. If putting it into a formula one can actually directly show Perblue the data about how many characters they can keep up with on average in terms of characters’s White to Purple skill.
[
An example: (28{days}/20{skills}) x 5{skill points} = 7{characters}.
So 7 characters would likely be what you can afford to keep up with per update if you only gain enough gold for 5 skill points a day, since each cap raise is around every 28 days.
An example for how gold you need to you need to earn per day to have enough skill points to afford to keep up with 15 characters would this:
(15x20) / 28 = 10.71.
So between 10-11 skill points per day is needed to keep up with 15 characters per update.
On the other hand, if you can only afford 5 skill point upgrades per day it would take this long for you to earn enough to keep up with 15 characters.
(15x20) / 5 = 60.
So it takes one about 60 days as in nearly 2 months of daily earned gold to keep up with 15 characters if one can only earn enough gold for 5 skill ponits per day.
]
While we do have bonuses like double gold gain in City Watch and similar which helps, I think one should be able to earn enough skill points to be able to keep up with 10 characters per cap raise update White to Purple skill wise at the minimum given that we need 15 characters for City Watch and Coliseum. I didn’t include Red skills as they have more than just gold as a cost.
In the end though, these formulas are tools that allow up to directly check if there are changes in how many characters we can afford to focus on per cap raise update White to Purple skill wise. Decent ways to check if the costs overall are increasing or decreasing.
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It’s worth mentioning that there was a strike on server 21 for a more balanced game. There was more than 90 replies on the thread and still nothing from PB.
This thread and the other feedback threads needs to be taken seriously. We want to have a discussion PB, please take the time to reply to your players.
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Y’all are right, but why would the developer do anything about it if they’re still making money? Also, don’t discount Disney’s involvement here, it’s not just PerBlue. Disney companies have always been designed to separate you from every penny you have.
If I’ve got someone spending $100/week vs someone who’s buying sporadically, $5, $10 at a time, guess whose interested I’m going to cater to. “Oh no! I lost a casual small spender!” doesn’t hurt when you can get that right back from a big spender.
80% of the game is directed at 20% of the players… and over the past few months that ratio has shifted closer to 95/5.
The “pay to win” model that PerBlue and Disney have teamed up to make here will continue to exist as long as people are willing to pay to win.
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This is the best post I’ve seen in a while tbh. PerBlue needs to open their eyes. I used to spend a little bit every week nearly. Now I’ve stopped spending completely except for diamond deals to keep me going and able to get new toons right when they drop.
The caps are too fast. I had several toons up to level and they raised the cap and my money just isn’t packing the punch it used to.
I’m VIP 11 and have gotten toons up to R9. That’s the highest so far. I can’t keep up. It’s not because I don’t have the few dollars a week to spend, but because my money isn’t packing the same punch.
@Polaris this needs to be addressed. I used to complete every daily quest every day. Now I barely do surge or heist. It’s honestly laughable. The State of the Game was supposed to be here already but it’s late too. If this isn’t addressed in it…well, I just hope you all don’t lose anymore consistent players. This isn’t your fault, but you can pass this on.
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I was wondering when the thought of catering to higher spending players would come up, pushing the more casual player to the side.
It’s a stance of maintaining a population. Driving off a plethora of casuals versus maintaining a few individuals creates an environment where the player base drops, and the fun of a massively multiplayer game becomes the tedium of a dying multiplayer scenario. You cant be uber if everyone is uber, and when you have no one to compete against, what’s the point of trying? If that becomes the stance of the development and management teams of the game, it’s a violent death throw, and as much as I hate to say it, a blatant disregard for the time and money of everyone playing it. At this point, I choose to believe its ignorance of the reality of the situation versus malignant practices. Perhaps a bit naive of me to say, but as great a cash cow as this is for the company, it would seem paramount to maintain the health of the game and its player base instead of letting it devolve. Being made keenly aware of this fact, I would assume they would act in everyone’s best interest as it also does include theirs. Hence the point of this post and why I ask for thoughtful statements instead of easily ignored and mindless complaining. 
(Not saying anyone in particular is mindlessly complaining, just a gentle reminder to maintain our customer integrity and do our due diligence.)
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Yep… 12k stamina for one badge. What can people reasonably earn in a day without spending money? 3000 stamina if they invest every diamond into it?
4 days for 1 badge. Most heroes have 1-2 badges that bad, 1-2 half that bad, and 2-3 that are maybe 20% of that price. So, on average, we’re looking at 40,000 stamina per hero to rank up. 13-14 days for ONE hero if you want to play for free. And new ranks every 28 days. Is it really expected that free players get to keep TWO HEROES caught up for the whole game?
A reasonable stamina cost would be 2 days worth, 5-7 thousand stamina, to rank up a hero with 6 new badges. That would allow a free player to maintain a base 15 heroes for use in all game modes. Off duty and special rules would still hurt them a ton and encourage spending to access additional resources, but they wouldn’t be locked out of the game.
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I think the key might Player Satisfaction is in terms of UX(User Experience) of the game, in the sense that the higher Player Satisfaction is as in happy players the more likely the players are to stay and spend.
While the gameplay, UI and story UX is pretty good, the resource rewards vs costs UX is out of balance in the sense of that the higher and higher costs without the same increase rate in rewards is decreasing the Player Satisfaction overall I think which is not really good UX wise.
It is understandable that PerBlue needs money in order to keep the game up and alive, the puzzling part is that it doesn’t seem with the intention of decent player satisfaction in the long run by not really making sure that players can keep up in a good while. All this leading to players rather not wanting to spend after having to spend a fair amount with not much return value and instead move on potentially.
What mainly keeping them is the story content and friendship story content if not the friends they have in the game.
So yeah that’s what puzzles me the most I think, why Perblue doesn’t make it to somewhat manageable to keep up and reward players for actually playing for that long more, instead of increasing the costs more and more without increasing the rewards more with the costs as well.
It may instead make people not want to spend than to spend to keep up afterall, rather than having a overall keeping up somewhat and they having a good enough time to that they want to stay and potentially spend as they like the game.
I hope this wasn’t a too technical post for you Rockstar as I used some game development terminologies, but yeah I agree we should try to keep this as civil as we can and have meaningful discussions as players and customers :-).
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Kim Possible has been there for a while now. Also, don’t bully chat silence.
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Just flag and ignore. Do not reply to the spammer.
Just so you know. I wish I could get a 5 dollar deal that can cover some distance. S21 and S22 $4.99 does nothing. Will barely cover one badge.
PB we need a response and action.
Slow down the level increase/characters or start giving out more.
This link issues out the Scamming of deals in S21&S22
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From top guild in server 21… I know we’re way behind on level and teir experiences from server 1 but we are having an extremely similar experience with equal bang for your buck ratio… it’s currently an average of 105 stamina per 20$ and were just beginning red teirs. Currently that 105 stamina plus the daily buys can get one character max badges at R0.
Were having a hard time keeping up and have lost good people on the way bc of the price It takes to keep up. Also to expand more on what you said about new characters comin out. This is the first time we have experienced so many undeveloped (white) toons bc the resources offered doesn’t meet the demand in a fair manor. we cant raise personal toons, experiment with teams and keep our necessary ones active and competitive…
monday the top guilds have agreed to stop spending in protest of a server strike in hopes we get more stamina per dollar so we can enjoy spending again. The top guilds here and I would like to imagine a world where we actually are happy about spending and are satisfied with the progress we get afterwards. We know were differnt being in server 21 than ones ahead but to see some deals that other servers recieve that we couldn’t even get for 10x the cost is not very encouraging.
I also like the idea of potentially raising the cap every other month instead of every month as an option bc atleast we can attempt to build the necessary heroes and potentially a few more personal ones as well… and also strongly agree that the increase in resources should be measured more daily with the cap. For example in invasion the net reward is disproportional to the mod power needed.(invasion teirs+prize rewards doesn’t level 1 toons mods all the way)
Finally to wrap this up many feel the game has turned into a game where if u dont spend (x) amount u legitimately can not compete, and this takes away alot of the fun it used to be when we started. I hope between your post, this reply, and our server strike that per blue sees the decaying qualities that need to be address for their customers to stay happy. And thank you to the feedback above and those that support this change.
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Honestly I wonder if the game is fun.
What enthusiastic players do seems to be
- Buy deals/VIP membership again and again
- Do super repetitive raids
Mainly just 2actions.
Fun?
I believe most players don’t continue playing without Disney characters.
EDIT: By the way the recent decreasing of enthusiastic players is caused by critical program fault (bugs in battle, Amazon support, ads unavailable, Android 4.4 trouble and so on and on)
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Let’s hope they reply on both thread. I’m crossing my fingers
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You can calculate as much as you want. It’s insane only being able to skill 7 heroes in the period of 28 days as you need different characters for friendship campaign which need skills, too.
You haven’t included crafting badges. For Red 3 and 4 it’s about 1 Million per badge.
The gold costs are completely overblown for everything in this game. 7 heroes are not enough for several game instances. The whole calculation is way off and only managable if you buy gold deals with real money, as I stated before. At least if you want to use at 15 - 20 heroes in war, colliseum, heist and invasion. The absolut minimum to have some fun in this game.
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@Serenity_II I know the calculations/formula aren’t 100% reflective of how things actually are since there are other cost as well like you said with badge costs, enchantment costs and Red skill unlock costs especially.
Though, we do get extra gold some days a month like double gold events or getting credits that you can exchange in which should at least cover a bit of the badge and enchantment costs per month.
Red skill unlocks on the other hand is a completely thing as that cost 10 million each, but at least I imagine many by now might have gotten most of their most important characters done or are waiting for their Red skills to come. I am still recovering from the Red skill unlock costs, but I am starting to get a more stable gold economy again.
But yeah, the calculation is meant for 5 levels of skill costs close to your own level like going from 180 to 185 after a level cap increase. The cheaper the skill cost is the more you can afford skills of course :-).
The calculations are meant for your top characters that you have close to your max and only their White to Purple skill cost wise.
I can at least say that I am level 185(VIP 0) and the skill costs per skill is a bit over 500 000, and with my daily income I can’t afford much more than 5-6/7 per day. So yeah, I can only keep up with about 7-8 characters per month White to Purple skill I think. So the calculations aren’t super far off actually in my case and experience.
But I agree, the minimum should allow a VIP 0/F2Per to keep up with should be over at least be over or around 10 if not 15 characters as 15 is the amount you need for like Coliseum and Guild War. Definitely hope the gold costs can be adjusted and lowered, or that the gold rewards are increased so that there are a better balance between rewards and costs :-).
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I agree with the group, well said Rockstar. I do think that issues need to be addressed such as stamina scaling, invasion rewards, and the speed and frequency of cap raises.
I am most concerned with the cap raises as well as the seemingly endless introduction of new toons. I love seeing new toons, but toons that I sunk a great deal of time, energy, and money into are now completely worthless. It would be great to have old toons actually work again. I miss using Bogo, Calhoun, Baymax, etc… even with red skills and refreshes they are still not really useful.
So slow down cap increases and toon introductions, scale the price of the stamina needed for badges already, and maybe please make it so some of our favorite characters are actually able to be used in game.
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Thank you everyone for the thoughtful feedback. I do read all the feedback on the forums and pass it along to the team, even if I don’t make a direct reply.
Many of the points I’ve seen in other threads and in support feedback, and while I can tell you they have generated discussion on the team, I don’t have any additional information that I can give you. I know you want me to say the cap raises will slow down, and we’ll shower you with gold, but I can’t. You are being heard.
I do know that the team is reviewing the game economy to improve the amount of resources being put into the game. We know that the costs have grown faster than the gain, and we’re working to address that. We did slightly increase the amount of gold going into the game, and we have more increases in the 2.2 update planned for next week. This is a very slow, careful process.
We constantly get feedback on deals. Each server is a unique experience on a unique hero path, and has different deals. I know the feedback is that deals are not a good value, and it is something the team is reviewing.
The state of the game post is late. I know the team has worked on it, but it’s not ready yet. There have been a number of other issues that have come up and unfortunately, they take priority over the state of the game. I will follow up on this again, and see if there’s anything I can do to help get it to you.
You are being heard, and I do appreciate the feedback. You wouldn’t be here, posting your ideas if you didn’t care about the game. We also care about the game, and are doing our best to make it a good experience.
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