Mr Scott....set engines to Rant Factor 4.....
Always kinda amazed how what people talk about the most passionately in the Forums seems to be mentioned with the greatest of deference and timidity in AtA type discussions...
I'd like to talk about the Pack yields and the escalating inverse relationship between investment and reward.
Pack prices went up dramatically last month while at the same time providing lower yields.
We screamed.
You guys said you heard.
And yesterday we get another Update that increases the time/cost of attaining quality Cards all the while guaranteeing nothing.
stare
The system you've set up, imo, almost assures that casual players will never get a sufficient reward for their playing time to keep them interested in the game.
It seems to me that you've decided that the results of the hard-core players, those who play for extended periods on a daily basis and literally finish the game in weeks, need to be the benchmark by which you establish the rewards for the game, when in actual point of fact, (again, imo) what you really need to do is keep the legion of casual players playing.
The hard-core players are nomads....once they've burned out HoC, they'll move on and burn out the next game, whereas the motivated casual player could most likely play for months, provided he/she feels rewarded for his/her time.
If I had a question, I guess it would be, how do you decide who to target the game at?
Do you use previous results from in-house properties?
Do you study results for other properties outside of Gaia?
Do you hire consultants?
If you are modeling the reward for play system for HoC on other Gaia properties, was that model successful for those properties?
I hear a lot of moaning about RIG's and Alchemy, and to be honest, I seldom partake in one, and have never even touched the other becasue the rewards are simply not commensurate with the amount of time they would take to earn. I spend about two hours on the site every day, more on weekends, but I don't want that time to be nothing more than grinding.
I like to partake of a bit of everything that Gaia has to offer, and having limited time, I like to spend that time on pursuits I find rewarding.
Making HoC something that I would have to dedicate every last moment of Gaia time I have for quite possibly months, in order to succeed, is not, imo sufficiently rewarding.
Mr Scott...take us out of Rant....