The problem here is that the players' goals and the goals of NG are not aligned with the current implementation of the challenge.
NG wants players playing this game more often, and more frequently. The company makes more money with gas boosters with players who play more. And they make a little more money by being able to push more advertising if players play more. A more regular, committed player is good for NG; hence the revamp of the quest system.
Players want to play only as much as they want to play, and they certainly don't want to play at levels that are not stimulating to them. Forcing them to play many missions at lower levels to even get to the more stimulating levels is the true definition of the word "grind". More play is good for NG, but not so good for the individual player - especially at the boring lower levels. This difference in NG objective and player desire is the root cause of the challenge problems.
Round passes help somewhat, but they have their own problems too. They do go directly against the NG goal of wanting players to play this game more.
I propose this radical redesign. Let players start at any level they want. But weight the stars earned by the difficulty of the level. If you think about it, for an end-game player, stars earned at mission level 15 should be worth significantly less than stars earned at mission level 30. The same is true at any level: missions that are completed successfully at levels greater than the player level should be weighted more, and the weights should increase dramatically as the player completes missions above his survivor level. The round completion bonus adder at the completion of the round with the current challenge is just not good enough with this weighting today.
Stars earned should have an exponential increase at the highest levels. Stars earned greater than 4 than the highest survivor level (e.g. level 28 for a player with survivors at 23) should be worth A LOT more than stars earned at lower levels.
As part of this plan, I suggest the removal of the restriction of not allowing players to earn stars by replaying missions at the highest levels. Perhaps allow a player to replay a successfully completed individual mission 5 times at missions greater than +3. Players can play more to earn more stars, but if they do it will be at the most stimulating, hardest levels.
The bottom line to my plan is if players want to play more, give them incentives to play at the highest levels, not at low levels. There are many advantages to this plan. It supports NG's objective to have players play more. And players are incented to invest in their teams to succeed at the highest levels since the highest levels are worth more. Players get to play as much as they want, but the most competitive players will play more at the highest, most stimulating levels. This aligns NG and player objectives.
Players should understand that NG has a vested interest in getting players to play this game more, not less. With this in mind, I do believe the solution to the challenge problem which will work for both NG and the player base has players playing more high-level missions of the challenge, and not forcing them to play low-level missions.
I don't spend a lot of money on the game but I do like to buy gas boosters once a week to help me reach my 1000 star target. I have decided not to spend any more. $2 is not a lot. But over the past 2 years, it is almost like a yearly Netflix subscription. I always give NG benefit of the doubt but I feel like a kid who was shown a bicycle for Christmas but got a lego version of it instead. Some of the suggestions given here are great and I hope they listen.
So that nobody is alienated, why not do what you did for the Distance have 2 modes of the weekly challenge, the Guild Leader picks the mode the mode the guild competes in for the week. What if it worked and everybody got what they wanted, would be pretty good times.
I propose this radical redesign. Let players start at any level they want. But weight the stars earned by the difficulty of the level. If you think about it, for an end-game player, stars earned at mission level 15 should be worth significantly less than stars earned at mission level 30. The same is true at any level: missions that are completed successfully at levels greater than the player level should be weighted more, and the weights should increase dramatically as the player completes missions above his survivor level. The round completion bonus adder at the completion of the round with the current challenge is just not good enough with this weighting today.
Stars earned should have an exponential increase at the highest levels. Stars earned greater than 4 than the highest survivor level (e.g. level 28 for a player with survivors at 23) should be worth A LOT more than stars earned at lower levels.
As part of this plan, I suggest the removal of the restriction of not allowing players to earn stars by replaying missions at the highest levels. Perhaps allow a player to replay a successfully completed individual mission 5 times at missions greater than +3. Players can play more to earn more stars, but if they do it will be at the most stimulating, hardest levels.
I appreciate the creative suggestions, but I think it's worth taking a step back and thinking about what's realistic. I don't think NG would opt for either of these methods. The "letting players pick" option creates too much variance in the challenges, requires the creation of separate leaderboards so scores can be comparable, and could potentially break up guilds. The other option proposed would take far too long to code up, implement, and explain, and it would result in wildly inconsistent and different gaming experiences.
Many people have proposed much more realistic solutions that are easier to understand and easier to implement, such as: - Increasing the minimum starting level for end gamers - Reducing the number of triple rounds at lower levels (perhaps only starting triple rounds at survivor max level) - Decreasing the gap between round passes
> @Shteevie said:
> The Ultimate Challenge didn’t change any player behavior, but some were “alienated” (whatever the hell that means). Some people liked it as evidenced on the Forum. But, they didn’t change their behavior either.
>
>
>
> Am I getting this right?
>
> -Almost right. The event did change behavior - people played less. For some, this was less than they wanted to, and so they felt like the game was preventing them from playing more, especially the parts they enjoyed the most.
>
> We had hoped that players would play more missions at or near their highest-ever difficulty. While some certainly did, most stopped at the same difficulty they usually stop at. We had hoped that the Saturday Distance event would have been played more, but it was actually played about the same. We had hoped that players who use Challenge for resource gathering would switch to Scavenges, but they didn't. were frustrated that they were forced to play less is not a success when the goal was to encourage people to play as much or more of the parts they like the most.
>
So, what you are saying is people played to where they usually stop at with he game. It just allowed them to quit sooner. Is this correct?
Thus, it seems you have a problem keeping players interested in playing regardless of how much gas or time they have.
You hit a wall with the Challenge and The Distance because of the increasing difficulty. The grind for Gear, Supplies, and XP gets boring quickly. Outpost raids are flawed.
So, to remedy that, let us earn better rewards, more discounted radio calls, better gear drops, some way to craft badges that aren’t below their component level, etc. If you just want people playing for the sake of playing, you need to rethink your business model.
If you want to make more in-game sales, then give us a better reason to play.
Many people have proposed much more realistic solutions that are easier to understand and easier to implement, such as: - Increasing the minimum starting level for end gamers - Reducing the number of triple rounds at lower levels (perhaps only starting triple rounds at survivor max level) - Decreasing the gap between round passes
The problem with all these solutions is obvious. None of them support the NG objective of getting the players to play more. Any propsed solution needs to support this primary objective, or it doesn't work for NG. This is the primary reason the Ultimate Challenge didn't work for NG: players played this game less with it.
NG wants players more involved with the game. They want to sell just as many, or even more, gas boosters. They want players more reasons to be happy to buy boosters and bundles.
The solution to satisfy NG's objectives, and at the same time encouraging players to play more, is to provide incentives for players to play higher levels, and to push as hard to complete even higher levels. From the players perspective, they don't want to play lower level missions. A good solution needs to both eliminate the lower level grind, but at the same time give players better incentives to play more and succeed more at high-level missions.
So, what you are saying is people played to where they usually stop at with he game. It just allowed them to quit sooner. Is this correct?
Thus, it seems you have a problem keeping players interested in playing regardless of how much gas or time they have.
You hit a wall with the Challenge and The Distance because of the increasing difficulty. The grind for Gear, Supplies, and XP gets boring quickly. Outpost raids are flawed.
So, to remedy that, let us earn better rewards, more discounted radio calls, better gear drops, some way to craft badges that aren’t below their component level, etc. If you just want people playing for the sake of playing, you need to rethink your business model.
If you want to make more in-game sales, then give us a better reason to play.
I have to say that I find this post 100% on point. If the result of the Ultimate Challenge is people not logging on or playing as much, then first understand that was the entire point of the request, to eliminate the time required to complete a weekly challenge, but also understand that this means that other modes of play aren't compelling enough. If a player has a better reason to play another game mode, then they will. Why aren't players interested in running scavenge missions? Why aren't more players playing Outpost? You need to make these other game modes more compelling if you want more participation.
Everyone’s got two wolves inside them. One is anger, envy, pride. The other…truth, kindness. Every day they tear each other apart. But it’s not the better wolf that wins. It’s the one you feed.
So, what you are saying is people played to where they usually stop at with he game. It just allowed them to quit sooner. Is this correct?
Thus, it seems you have a problem keeping players interested in playing regardless of how much gas or time they have.
You hit a wall with the Challenge and The Distance because of the increasing difficulty. The grind for Gear, Supplies, and XP gets boring quickly. Outpost raids are flawed.
So, to remedy that, let us earn better rewards, more discounted radio calls, better gear drops, some way to craft badges that aren’t below their component level, etc. If you just want people playing for the sake of playing, you need to rethink your business model.
If you want to make more in-game sales, then give us a better reason to play.
I have to say that I find this post 100% on point. If the result of the Ultimate Challenge is people not logging on as playing as much, then first understand that was the entire point of the request, to eliminate the time required to complete a weekly challenge, but also understand that this means that other modes of play aren't compelling enough. If a player has a better reason to play another game mode, then they will. Why aren't players interested in running scavenge missions? Why aren't more players playing Outpost? You need to make these other game modes more compelling if you want more participation.
All this maybe true @Bill_ZRT. Every game mode needs to be as compelling as possible by themselves to get players to play more of those mode's (scavenge, outpost, the distance) missions.
Let's just talk about the challenge mode in isolation here though. Anything mentioned above does not solve the problem of making the challenge by itself more compelling to get players to play more challenge missions. To get players to play more challenge missions, NG first needs to eliminate the lower level grind. To balance this reduction of play in low-level missions, NG should find more and better incentives for players to play the high-level, player stimulating missions. This also means adding more higher level rounds within those high levels, or allowing players to repeat these high-level missions.
I think NG's comments show clearly where the divide is: lower-level players want to play Challenge at manageable levels for them, and they don't want to reach a difficulty that is too high for them until late in the Challenge. That was the problem they had with UC - the difficulty increased too quickly. They don't want to repeat levels; they want to feel like their advancing in the challenge, but more slowly. Higher-level players want to play levels that are challenging for them much sooner. They think the difficulty increases way too slowly and want to advance more quickly. And NG wants people to play as much as possible.
So why not just increase the starting difficulty for higher level players?
Yes, this was considered a problem by many when level 20s where getting more stars than level 22s, but now that everyone level 20 and above starts at the same difficulty, that complaint should be solved. If level 20 survivors and level 23 survivors are all starting at the same point, 23s will inevitably get more stars on average than 20s. So just cut out some of the grind by starting everyone level 20 and up at a higher level than 14. Adjusting triple rounds and round passes could also help - but the bottom line is that higher-end players want to skip lower levels. Allowing players at 20 and above to start higher would still allow players at lower levels to play to their max, but would immediately cut out some of the low level grind for everyone else. I doubt it's the perfect solution, but cutting out some lower level missions for those who don't want them would go a long way toward making the Challenge better for the high-level players without negatively impacting the rest of the player base.
Players below survivor level 20 that want to stick close to their level as they advance in the challenge won't be alienated since it won't affect them. Meanwhile, players who regularly reach difficulties of 29, 30 and above are right to feel insulted that they have to start at difficulty 14.
edit: BTW @nadecir Great post above. Balancing the needs of the different player goals and NG's goal of more engagement and more profit is the only way something will happen.
Here’s a solution NG. I’ll pay £5 each challenge to start at RSL 29/30. I don’t have to waste 24 hours of my life messing about fighting level 23 walkers relentlessly and being bored stupid, you still make money, and we can finally put this horrendously sorry affair behind us!
> @TJS said:
> > @Muzz said:
> > Here’s a solution NG. I’ll pay £5 each challenge to start at RSL 29/30......
>
> Can you please pay another £5 for me too?
>
> *edit to add
> "Pretty Please"
Ha ha happily mate! As long as I don’t have to twat about repeating 3 levels of RSL 24 each and every week!
> @Muzz said:
> Here’s a solution NG. I’ll pay £5 each challenge to start at RSL 29/30. I don’t have to waste 24 hours of my life messing about fighting level 23 walkers relentlessly and being bored stupid, you still make money, and we can finally put this horrendously sorry affair behind us!
This may seem ironic but the situation is so agozining that I consider it awesome.
2.99 sounds an awesome deal. Would save me the gas booster too.
> @rfg1982 said:
> > @Muzz said:
> > Here’s a solution NG. I’ll pay £5 each challenge to start at RSL 29/30. I don’t have to waste 24 hours of my life messing about fighting level 23 walkers relentlessly and being bored stupid, you still make money, and we can finally put this horrendously sorry affair behind us!
>
> This may seem ironic but the situation is so agozining that I consider it awesome.
>
> 2.99 sounds an awesome deal. Would save me the gas booster too.
>
>
Exactly the plan @rfg1982! I’m spending the money anyway, I’d rather spend it productively! I think you mentioned in a previous post that the most valuable commodity you had was time - that was 100% on the money and I couldn’t agree more. This game is a hobby, an interest, a distraction. Something I want to enjoy in my leisure time! It’s not my full time job! Honestly I’ve got a about a week left in me, then Christmas and new year will hit, and then before you know it I won’t have played for 3 weeks and that’ll be that! Top level players are dropping like flies at the minute! No doubt NG staff will be taking a Christmas break - however unless they fix this grind issue before then they probably won’t have much of a player base to come back to!
Staying plugged in w/ the forum for a good dose of daily entertainment . "You wanna impress me? You take the wheel for a little while mofo." --Eddie Murphy, Delirious
> @Governator said:
> > @Shteevie said:
> > The Ultimate Challenge didn’t change any player behavior, but some were “alienated” (whatever the hell that means). Some people liked it as evidenced on the Forum. But, they didn’t change their behavior either.
> >
> >
> >
> > Am I getting this right?
> >
> > -Almost right. The event did change behavior - people played less. For some, this was less than they wanted to, and so they felt like the game was preventing them from playing more, especially the parts they enjoyed the most.
> >
> > We had hoped that players would play more missions at or near their highest-ever difficulty. While some certainly did, most stopped at the same difficulty they usually stop at. We had hoped that the Saturday Distance event would have been played more, but it was actually played about the same. We had hoped that players who use Challenge for resource gathering would switch to Scavenges, but they didn't. were frustrated that they were forced to play less is not a success when the goal was to encourage people to play as much or more of the parts they like the most.
> >
>
> So, what you are saying is people played to where they usually stop at with he game. It just allowed them to quit sooner. Is this correct?
>
> Thus, it seems you have a problem keeping players interested in playing regardless of how much gas or time they have.
>
> You hit a wall with the Challenge and The Distance because of the increasing difficulty. The grind for Gear, Supplies, and XP gets boring quickly. Outpost raids are flawed.
>
> So, to remedy that, let us earn better rewards, more discounted radio calls, better gear drops, some way to craft badges that aren’t below their component level, etc. If you just want people playing for the sake of playing, you need to rethink your business model.
>
> If you want to make more in-game sales, then give us a better reason to play.
Could it also be that no matter what changes NG plans for us, we will NEVER play more than we are already doing right now? So in short, with any change coming our way (or no change, which is also a decision) we will play less, hence lowering the 'data points' for someone blindly looking at it. The current frustration and the resulting alarming drop-out rate for higher level players will lower the 'time in game', but not in any intended way. If someone were to look at 100 veteran quitting the game vs 10,000 newbies joining someone might forget that the retention rate for newbies is probably less than 5% (my guess). Either way, it is much lower than that of veteran players who keep entire groups and guilds running.
Keep analyzing past data and you miss predictions for the future. By the time most veteran players are gone, it is too late. Then this former strategy game can be fully turned into a 'shoot-em-up' for people that play it for a week before they move on.
If you would like to join a drama-free and fun group of enthusiasts, contact us via email at [email protected]
When a veteran quit, we all at Conquer feel a knife piercing our hearts. We lose friends, we lose bonds, we lose things that matter. We have lost countless strong veterans in the past months and I've been searching for a data to explain how we keep going strong, but these things aren't explained with data. I hope you NG people see this. Think big, look ahead. We keep going strong because of stubborn scarred veterans that are grinding even more to cover for our losses. And we have awesome newcomers, but it's a different story (at least for now).
Some great thoughts and ideas, loving it! Keep analyzing past data and you miss predictions for the future. By the time most veteran players are gone, it is too late.
I think this is a profound comment @Putchuco . Comparing week to week, the week of the ultimate challenge did see a decline in usage and NG revenue. NG saw that as a bad thing. But that may be a shortsighted viewpoint.
Over time, will overall usage be even lower with the current challenge system? The grind and associated player atrophy with the current challenge system may drive usage even lower than the ultimate challenge saw. A player who quits the game permanently means no additonal usage and zero dollars in revenue. Is it better to make a change to the ultimate challenge to retain users long term even though it means a short-term reduction in usage and revenue? Quite possibly yes.
The Walking Dead cable show has seen a rating decline, and the number of users playing this game has declined over the years as evidenced by NG's quarterly reports. NG needs to do everything possible to retain the users of this game it already has.
Business 101... It is much cheaper and easier to maintain customers than to acquire new ones. Even Michael Scott knows that.
In a way, all of us has an El Guapo to face. For some, shyness might be their El Guapo. For others, a lack of education might be their El Guapo. For us, El Guapo is a big, dangerous man who wants to kill us.
Business 101... It is much cheaper and easier to maintain customers than to acquire new ones. Even Michael Scott knows that.
This is 100% true... the issue is that most of the customers of this game aren't end level forum users.
This website has a whole bunch of stats etc from different sources and advises that -
"65% of a company’s business comes from existing customers, and it costs five times as much to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one satisfied.” Source quoted as Gartner."
If 65% of NG's business comes from existing customers then it would be safe to assume that roughly 5% of those 65% are us "end game forum users who love the ultimate challenge". There's 60% of people who play this game and do things like "want more grinding because they miss out on lower level rewards" or "want more grinding because they want more stars" or "vote for jackpot".
| OG | NOC | USA | UK | CA | CQR | UC | RAD | ZEN |
Business 101... It is much cheaper and easier to maintain customers than to acquire new ones. Even Michael Scott knows that.
This is especially true as ratings for the TV show continue to decline (lowest ratings in 6 years) and by this point in the show, how many new viewers (and potential players) are there really left?
One of two things must be true. Either the current approach is amazingly short sighted or the larger portion of the player base, the casual players, must throw bucket-loads of money at this game.
Everyone’s got two wolves inside them. One is anger, envy, pride. The other…truth, kindness. Every day they tear each other apart. But it’s not the better wolf that wins. It’s the one you feed.
All I know is that if my job, which I work 40 hours a week, said to me "I'll give you the same pay but you only have to work 1/2 days next week" I wouldn't say "oh but what am I going to do with the time I would have been working? How will I get all the work done in a shorter time frame"??
If my pay is the same and I'm there 1/2 the time then kudos for me!!
| OG | NOC | USA | UK | CA | CQR | UC | RAD | ZEN |
I got enough stars in Kindergarten. The best part of the Ultimate Challenge was the enjoyment factor and that is what keeps customers longterm. I got to the part of the game I enjoy most (melee and threat reduction) much faster. I thought the rewards were great and not having to grind was a huge bonus, but it was more enjoyable to PLAY! #endthegrind
The questions I would be asking myself if I were NG are: After over 2 years, why are end gamers such a small percentage of the player base and why aren't we keeping players long enough for them to reach end game?
The questions I would be asking myself if I were NG are: After over 2 years, why are end gamers such a small percentage of the player base and why aren't we keeping players long enough for them to reach end game?
Speculation here, but I assume that they consider this fact a win. End game players get bored. Bored players quit or complain about being bored. A player who you can keep playing casually for a year or more and can keep from being bored or quitting is a win. It doesn't matter if that person is an 'End Game' player or a casual player.
Everyone’s got two wolves inside them. One is anger, envy, pride. The other…truth, kindness. Every day they tear each other apart. But it’s not the better wolf that wins. It’s the one you feed.
The questions I would be asking myself if I were NG are: After over 2 years, why are end gamers such a small percentage of the player base and why aren't we keeping players long enough for them to reach end game?
Because NG alienated those player with every major balance changes.
Realistically end gamers very likely account for a tiny fraction of both the total player base and more importantly the total in game purchases. So while NG will listen to the concerns end gamers raise on the forum, ultimately they aren't where the money's at.
I think attributing 5% of NG's revenue to the end gamers here in the forum is a bit of a stretch. Have you seen their latest financial report? Q3 2017 revenue was $6.4M EUR... yet, they lost money... Q3 net income was -$2.1M EUR and a profit margin of -32.51%.
Staying plugged in w/ the forum for a good dose of daily entertainment . "You wanna impress me? You take the wheel for a little while mofo." --Eddie Murphy, Delirious
Comments
NG wants players playing this game more often, and more frequently. The company makes more money with gas boosters with players who play more. And they make a little more money by being able to push more advertising if players play more. A more regular, committed player is good for NG; hence the revamp of the quest system.
Players want to play only as much as they want to play, and they certainly don't want to play at levels that are not stimulating to them. Forcing them to play many missions at lower levels to even get to the more stimulating levels is the true definition of the word "grind". More play is good for NG, but not so good for the individual player - especially at the boring lower levels. This difference in NG objective and player desire is the root cause of the challenge problems.
Round passes help somewhat, but they have their own problems too. They do go directly against the NG goal of wanting players to play this game more.
I propose this radical redesign. Let players start at any level they want. But weight the stars earned by the difficulty of the level. If you think about it, for an end-game player, stars earned at mission level 15 should be worth significantly less than stars earned at mission level 30. The same is true at any level: missions that are completed successfully at levels greater than the player level should be weighted more, and the weights should increase dramatically as the player completes missions above his survivor level. The round completion bonus adder at the completion of the round with the current challenge is just not good enough with this weighting today.
Stars earned should have an exponential increase at the highest levels. Stars earned greater than 4 than the highest survivor level (e.g. level 28 for a player with survivors at 23) should be worth A LOT more than stars earned at lower levels.
As part of this plan, I suggest the removal of the restriction of not allowing players to earn stars by replaying missions at the highest levels. Perhaps allow a player to replay a successfully completed individual mission 5 times at missions greater than +3. Players can play more to earn more stars, but if they do it will be at the most stimulating, hardest levels.
The bottom line to my plan is if players want to play more, give them incentives to play at the highest levels, not at low levels. There are many advantages to this plan. It supports NG's objective to have players play more. And players are incented to invest in their teams to succeed at the highest levels since the highest levels are worth more. Players get to play as much as they want, but the most competitive players will play more at the highest, most stimulating levels. This aligns NG and player objectives.
Players should understand that NG has a vested interest in getting players to play this game more, not less. With this in mind, I do believe the solution to the challenge problem which will work for both NG and the player base has players playing more high-level missions of the challenge, and not forcing them to play low-level missions.
Many people have proposed much more realistic solutions that are easier to understand and easier to implement, such as:
- Increasing the minimum starting level for end gamers
- Reducing the number of triple rounds at lower levels (perhaps only starting triple rounds at survivor max level)
- Decreasing the gap between round passes
Click here to visit our website and learn more about how you can join our guild family.
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> The Ultimate Challenge didn’t change any player behavior, but some were “alienated” (whatever the hell that means). Some people liked it as evidenced on the Forum. But, they didn’t change their behavior either.
>
>
>
> Am I getting this right?
>
> -Almost right. The event did change behavior - people played less. For some, this was less than they wanted to, and so they felt like the game was preventing them from playing more, especially the parts they enjoyed the most.
>
> We had hoped that players would play more missions at or near their highest-ever difficulty. While some certainly did, most stopped at the same difficulty they usually stop at. We had hoped that the Saturday Distance event would have been played more, but it was actually played about the same. We had hoped that players who use Challenge for resource gathering would switch to Scavenges, but they didn't. were frustrated that they were forced to play less is not a success when the goal was to encourage people to play as much or more of the parts they like the most.
>
So, what you are saying is people played to where they usually stop at with he game. It just allowed them to quit sooner. Is this correct?
Thus, it seems you have a problem keeping players interested in playing regardless of how much gas or time they have.
You hit a wall with the Challenge and The Distance because of the increasing difficulty. The grind for Gear, Supplies, and XP gets boring quickly. Outpost raids are flawed.
So, to remedy that, let us earn better rewards, more discounted radio calls, better gear drops, some way to craft badges that aren’t below their component level, etc. If you just want people playing for the sake of playing, you need to rethink your business model.
If you want to make more in-game sales, then give us a better reason to play.
NG wants players more involved with the game. They want to sell just as many, or even more, gas boosters. They want players more reasons to be happy to buy boosters and bundles.
The solution to satisfy NG's objectives, and at the same time encouraging players to play more, is to provide incentives for players to play higher levels, and to push as hard to complete even higher levels. From the players perspective, they don't want to play lower level missions. A good solution needs to both eliminate the lower level grind, but at the same time give players better incentives to play more and succeed more at high-level missions.
But it’s not the better wolf that wins. It’s the one you feed.
Contact [email protected] or send @Bill_ZRT a message to join DTP today!
Let's just talk about the challenge mode in isolation here though. Anything mentioned above does not solve the problem of making the challenge by itself more compelling to get players to play more challenge missions. To get players to play more challenge missions, NG first needs to eliminate the lower level grind. To balance this reduction of play in low-level missions, NG should find more and better incentives for players to play the high-level, player stimulating missions. This also means adding more higher level rounds within those high levels, or allowing players to repeat these high-level missions.
So why not just increase the starting difficulty for higher level players?
Yes, this was considered a problem by many when level 20s where getting more stars than level 22s, but now that everyone level 20 and above starts at the same difficulty, that complaint should be solved. If level 20 survivors and level 23 survivors are all starting at the same point, 23s will inevitably get more stars on average than 20s. So just cut out some of the grind by starting everyone level 20 and up at a higher level than 14. Adjusting triple rounds and round passes could also help - but the bottom line is that higher-end players want to skip lower levels. Allowing players at 20 and above to start higher would still allow players at lower levels to play to their max, but would immediately cut out some of the low level grind for everyone else. I doubt it's the perfect solution, but cutting out some lower level missions for those who don't want them would go a long way toward making the Challenge better for the high-level players without negatively impacting the rest of the player base.
Players below survivor level 20 that want to stick close to their level as they advance in the challenge won't be alienated since it won't affect them. Meanwhile, players who regularly reach difficulties of 29, 30 and above are right to feel insulted that they have to start at difficulty 14.
edit: BTW @nadecir
Great post above. Balancing the needs of the different player goals and NG's goal of more engagement and more profit is the only way something will happen.
> Here’s a solution NG. I’ll pay £5 each challenge to start at RSL 29/30......
Can you please pay another £5 for me too?
*edit to add
"Pretty Please"
> > @Muzz said:
> > Here’s a solution NG. I’ll pay £5 each challenge to start at RSL 29/30......
>
> Can you please pay another £5 for me too?
>
> *edit to add
> "Pretty Please"
Ha ha happily mate! As long as I don’t have to twat about repeating 3 levels of RSL 24 each and every week!
> Here’s a solution NG. I’ll pay £5 each challenge to start at RSL 29/30. I don’t have to waste 24 hours of my life messing about fighting level 23 walkers relentlessly and being bored stupid, you still make money, and we can finally put this horrendously sorry affair behind us!
This may seem ironic but the situation is so agozining that I consider it awesome.
2.99 sounds an awesome deal. Would save me the gas booster too.
Mavericks Guild Family
> > @Muzz said:
> > Here’s a solution NG. I’ll pay £5 each challenge to start at RSL 29/30. I don’t have to waste 24 hours of my life messing about fighting level 23 walkers relentlessly and being bored stupid, you still make money, and we can finally put this horrendously sorry affair behind us!
>
> This may seem ironic but the situation is so agozining that I consider it awesome.
>
> 2.99 sounds an awesome deal. Would save me the gas booster too.
>
>
Exactly the plan @rfg1982! I’m spending the money anyway, I’d rather spend it productively! I think you mentioned in a previous post that the most valuable commodity you had was time - that was 100% on the money and I couldn’t agree more. This game is a hobby, an interest, a distraction. Something I want to enjoy in my leisure time! It’s not my full time job! Honestly I’ve got a about a week left in me, then Christmas and new year will hit, and then before you know it I won’t have played for 3 weeks and that’ll be that! Top level players are dropping like flies at the minute! No doubt NG staff will be taking a Christmas break - however unless they fix this grind issue before then they probably won’t have much of a player base to come back to!
"You wanna impress me? You take the wheel for a little while mofo." --Eddie Murphy, Delirious
> > @Shteevie said:
> > The Ultimate Challenge didn’t change any player behavior, but some were “alienated” (whatever the hell that means). Some people liked it as evidenced on the Forum. But, they didn’t change their behavior either.
> >
> >
> >
> > Am I getting this right?
> >
> > -Almost right. The event did change behavior - people played less. For some, this was less than they wanted to, and so they felt like the game was preventing them from playing more, especially the parts they enjoyed the most.
> >
> > We had hoped that players would play more missions at or near their highest-ever difficulty. While some certainly did, most stopped at the same difficulty they usually stop at. We had hoped that the Saturday Distance event would have been played more, but it was actually played about the same. We had hoped that players who use Challenge for resource gathering would switch to Scavenges, but they didn't. were frustrated that they were forced to play less is not a success when the goal was to encourage people to play as much or more of the parts they like the most.
> >
>
> So, what you are saying is people played to where they usually stop at with he game. It just allowed them to quit sooner. Is this correct?
>
> Thus, it seems you have a problem keeping players interested in playing regardless of how much gas or time they have.
>
> You hit a wall with the Challenge and The Distance because of the increasing difficulty. The grind for Gear, Supplies, and XP gets boring quickly. Outpost raids are flawed.
>
> So, to remedy that, let us earn better rewards, more discounted radio calls, better gear drops, some way to craft badges that aren’t below their component level, etc. If you just want people playing for the sake of playing, you need to rethink your business model.
>
> If you want to make more in-game sales, then give us a better reason to play.
SPOT ON!
Mavericks Guild Family
Could it also be that no matter what changes NG plans for us, we will NEVER play more than we are already doing right now?
So in short, with any change coming our way (or no change, which is also a decision) we will play less, hence lowering the 'data points' for someone blindly looking at it. The current frustration and the resulting alarming drop-out rate for higher level players will lower the 'time in game', but not in any intended way.
If someone were to look at 100 veteran quitting the game vs 10,000 newbies joining someone might forget that the retention rate for newbies is probably less than 5% (my guess). Either way, it is much lower than that of veteran players who keep entire groups and guilds running.
Keep analyzing past data and you miss predictions for the future.
By the time most veteran players are gone, it is too late.
Then this former strategy game can be fully turned into a 'shoot-em-up' for people that play it for a week before they move on.
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When a veteran quit, we all at Conquer feel a knife piercing our hearts. We lose friends, we lose bonds, we lose things that matter. We have lost countless strong veterans in the past months and I've been searching for a data to explain how we keep going strong, but these things aren't explained with data. I hope you NG people see this. Think big, look ahead. We keep going strong because of stubborn scarred veterans that are grinding even more to cover for our losses. And we have awesome newcomers, but it's a different story (at least for now).
#endthegrind
Mavericks Guild Family
Over time, will overall usage be even lower with the current challenge system? The grind and associated player atrophy with the current challenge system may drive usage even lower than the ultimate challenge saw. A player who quits the game permanently means no additonal usage and zero dollars in revenue. Is it better to make a change to the ultimate challenge to retain users long term even though it means a short-term reduction in usage and revenue? Quite possibly yes.
The Walking Dead cable show has seen a rating decline, and the number of users playing this game has declined over the years as evidenced by NG's quarterly reports. NG needs to do everything possible to retain the users of this game it already has.
This website has a whole bunch of stats etc from different sources and advises that -
"65% of a company’s business comes from existing customers, and it costs five times as much to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one satisfied.” Source quoted as Gartner."
If 65% of NG's business comes from existing customers then it would be safe to assume that roughly 5% of those 65% are us "end game forum users who love the ultimate challenge". There's 60% of people who play this game and do things like "want more grinding because they miss out on lower level rewards" or "want more grinding because they want more stars" or "vote for jackpot".
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One of two things must be true. Either the current approach is amazingly short sighted or the larger portion of the player base, the casual players, must throw bucket-loads of money at this game.
But it’s not the better wolf that wins. It’s the one you feed.
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If my pay is the same and I'm there 1/2 the time then kudos for me!!
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I think attributing 5% of NG's revenue to the end gamers here in the forum is a bit of a stretch. Have you seen their latest financial report? Q3 2017 revenue was $6.4M EUR... yet, they lost money... Q3 net income was -$2.1M EUR and a profit margin of -32.51%.
"You wanna impress me? You take the wheel for a little while mofo." --Eddie Murphy, Delirious
If it was round 10 of the ultimate challenge it would have been rsl 22.2
Useless at lvl 19. Not so useless at a higher level. Players actually want more grind so gold crates can churn out useless garbage like this?
If it was 22 I could use it. At 19 it’s scrap
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Freemium... the "mium" is latin for 'not really'