Watermeats

[Guria]

Kelianya

There are some people that just aren't all that into it, and that's ok! To each their own. There's a lot of things to do on this site that are fun. My favorites happen to be chit chatting with friends in the forums and playing BG on their tanks when they pop up.

I personally won't be spending anymore money on gaia cash items until they decide to fix all of this. I'm not going to pay good money and then have the product not deliver like it is supposed to. It's just bad buisness, Gaia. sad Way to mess over a good portion of the people that pay to keep this place running.

Here is what Gaia will be missing out on from me alone.


Complete 05/11/2009 $50.00
Complete 05/11/2009 $50.00
Complete 05/10/2009 $50.00
Complete 04/21/2009 $50.00
Complete 04/15/2009 $50.00
Complete 04/09/2009 $50.00
Complete 04/07/2009 $50.00
Complete 04/06/2009 $25.00
Complete 03/30/2009 $25.00
Complete 03/27/2009 $50.00

I agree. Once they put real money in the deal it became serious business. They can't just change the rules after...What Gaia is making is like you going to a 3-rounds Boxe fight, bidding in a fighter and midfight someone popping and saying it became a 12-rounds fight. It changes everything.

I got disappointed in seeing watermeats leaving midgame. And i agree about not buying anything with cash until this all get fixed aswell. neutral

[Kelianya]

If they wanted to get a lot of gold out of the system then there are ways to do it other than nerfing the heck out of BG. Player run item contests like the ones that gave us the ribbon luv sleeves would take a burden off of the staff when it comes to making new items.

They could also have different fish foods other than loamflakes that the tank owners have to buy in order to make their fishies happier, and then maybe even have a slightly higher glow rate. They could stop giving out the giftbox and hermit cats in BG games. I know that I have made 40k this week just from that, and I am probably not alone. They can put some awesome higher quality items in the gold shops instead of saving them just for EIs. When they put out the bundle packs they could make it so that you have a chance at getting original items and not just a tiny chance at getting something nice and a larger chance at getting gold or something that is readily available on the MP or in a shop already.

I've read through these forums for quite a while and have noted a lot of good ideas that people have had as far as gold sinks. Pointing the finger at BG alone is a cop out and unfair to those that pay a nice chunk of their bills by buying fish.

[Simons Puppy]

I'm a pure player. Since I can't buy cash and have to save up my gold for my quest I've never invested in fish. And today I'm happy about it. My average in playing booty grab went down to about 50%. So if I double my time spending on it instead of doing other things, I will make about the same ammount I used to get. This means I won't have lost anything due to the nerf except of the time I used to spend on zomg or other places here.
The ones who will be really punished by lowering the trigger rate, percentage of the glowing fishes and the gold that is given out, are your paying customers since the fishes don't work anymore like they are supposed to. I can perfectly understand if many of them will stop buying fishes because they can't trust you anymore... and maybe even stop buying cash at all.
It's not just because of the newest changes. Gaia has made some changes silently before, i.e. making the octopii a mid trigger. It was a high trigger before. But they're still selling the octopii in the booty grab bundle that is supposed to have high triggers in it.

It would be fair if...
1. Gaia would increase the percentage a tank owner gets from others playing booty grab on his tank. Let's say from 25% to 40%. So they still get less than before but it shouldn't be that hard like it is now. It's ridiculous that your paying customers will have the biggest loss.
2. Chuck should make a detailed sticky telling us what excactly has been changed. So if mermaids have become mid trigger the tank owners have the right to know this. Nobody wants to buy a product without knowing how it works and what it gives you. Be fair and keep us informed.
3. The information page about booty grab should be updated recently and new fishes should be added to it. And the kind of trigger should be added to the descriptions of the fishes as well. I have no clue what kind of trigger orcas, dolphins, watermeats, etc. are. Again, be fair and keep us informed.

[Kelianya]

Simons Puppy

I'm a pure player. Since I can't buy cash and have to save up my gold for my quest I've never invested in fish. And today I'm happy about it. My average in playing booty grab went down to about 50%. So if I double my time spending on it instead of doing other things, I will make about the same ammount I used to get. This means I won't have lost anything due to the nerf except of the time I used to spend on zomg or other places here.
The ones who will be really punished by lowering the trigger rate, percentage of the glowing fishes and the gold that is given out, are your paying customers since the fishes don't work anymore like they are supposed to. I can perfectly understand if many of them will stop buying fishes because they can't trust you anymore... and maybe even stop buying cash at all.
It's not just because of the newest changes. Gaia has made some changes silently before, i.e. making the octopii a mid trigger. It was a high trigger before. But they're still selling the octopii in the booty grab bundle that is supposed to have high triggers in it.

It would be fair if...
1. Gaia would increase the percentage a tank owner gets from others playing booty grab on his tank. Let's say from 25% to 40%. So they still get less than before but it shouldn't be that hard like it is now. It's ridiculous that your paying customers will have the biggest loss.
2. Chuck should make a detailed sticky telling us what excactly has been changed. So if mermaids have become mid trigger the tank owners have the right to know this. Nobody wants to buy a product without knowing how it works and what it gives you. Be fair and keep us informed.
3. The information page about booty grab should be updated recently and new fishes should be added to it. And the kind of trigger should be added to the descriptions of the fishes as well. I have no clue what kind of trigger orcas, dolphins, watermeats, etc. are. Again, be fair and keep us informed.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. It's important for people to know what they're investing their money in. I'm pretty sure that I spend more than the average person on Gaia Cash, and most of that goes right into my tanks. Wether it be for a new fish or decorations. I can't stand when people have all of these great fish and then barren tanks. razz

I know that people are yearning for gold sinks. I think that they should add those instead of taking away from those that pay the bills. razz Heck, as soon as the newest gold shop update went in, I went and snatched up one of every kind of female clothing that they had. They could hold weekly raffles where the top 100 generated numbers get a special item. We'd buy the tickets at 100g a pop. They could make one item for every month, much like the monthly collectible, and people would go nuts trying to win that. At least I know I would.

I know that Gaia is hurting for money and I am usually more than happy to throw a bunch of it their way. I enjoy this site and the social aspect of it. It's a lot of fun. smile

[Sagger-AT3]

Kelianya

Simons Puppy

I'm a pure player. Since I can't buy cash and have to save up my gold for my quest I've never invested in fish. And today I'm happy about it. My average in playing booty grab went down to about 50%. So if I double my time spending on it instead of doing other things, I will make about the same ammount I used to get. This means I won't have lost anything due to the nerf except of the time I used to spend on zomg or other places here.
The ones who will be really punished by lowering the trigger rate, percentage of the glowing fishes and the gold that is given out, are your paying customers since the fishes don't work anymore like they are supposed to. I can perfectly understand if many of them will stop buying fishes because they can't trust you anymore... and maybe even stop buying cash at all.
It's not just because of the newest changes. Gaia has made some changes silently before, i.e. making the octopii a mid trigger. It was a high trigger before. But they're still selling the octopii in the booty grab bundle that is supposed to have high triggers in it.

It would be fair if...
1. Gaia would increase the percentage a tank owner gets from others playing booty grab on his tank. Let's say from 25% to 40%. So they still get less than before but it shouldn't be that hard like it is now. It's ridiculous that your paying customers will have the biggest loss.
2. Chuck should make a detailed sticky telling us what excactly has been changed. So if mermaids have become mid trigger the tank owners have the right to know this. Nobody wants to buy a product without knowing how it works and what it gives you. Be fair and keep us informed.
3. The information page about booty grab should be updated recently and new fishes should be added to it. And the kind of trigger should be added to the descriptions of the fishes as well. I have no clue what kind of trigger orcas, dolphins, watermeats, etc. are. Again, be fair and keep us informed.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. It's important for people to know what they're investing their money in. I'm pretty sure that I spend more than the average person on Gaia Cash, and most of that goes right into my tanks. Wether it be for a new fish or decorations. I can't stand when people have all of these great fish and then barren tanks. razz

I know that people are yearning for gold sinks. I think that they should add those instead of taking away from those that pay the bills. razz Heck, as soon as the newest gold shop update went in, I went and snatched up one of every kind of female clothing that they had. They could hold weekly raffles where the top 100 generated numbers get a special item. We'd buy the tickets at 100g a pop. They could make one item for every month, much like the monthly collectible, and people would go nuts trying to win that. At least I know I would.

I know that Gaia is hurting for money and I am usually more than happy to throw a bunch of it their way. I enjoy this site and the social aspect of it. It's a lot of fun. smile

The recent changes to booty grab were coupled with performance boost to the tanks, and even though each booty grab player makes less gold per game (on average), more people are playing booty grab now, and tank owners' income was not hurt.

More details:
- Last week we the aquarium team improved the aquarium performance considerably. The slower your computer, the easier it is to notice these changes. This lead to a huge increase in the amount of gold given by booty grab, because for most people who were playing aquariums with "serious" booty grab fish the game used to time out with more than half the coins still in the air. After the performance boost, everyone can get all the coins.
- The result: even though people may be individually gaining less gold per game (on average) from playing booty grab, there are more people playing booty grab now, and aquariums owners are still earning just as much (if not more) as they did before.

[Andromeda Phoenix]

keito melfina

Andromeda Phoenix

Deliver what? This is what I've been trying to tell the BG obsessed folks. Yes, I see your argument, but it's not going to work. They never said a guaranteed amount of how much gold you'd make from a certain fish. You can't complain about them changing that amount. So long as the mermaids drop blue/green coins and watermeat drops blue coins only, and fish that cost more drop more gold and trigger more than the cheaper fish, and the fish lives for as least as long as it's description says you aren't being lied to.

This is the equivalent of complaining that an EI didn't evolve when tektek.org said it would. *headdesk* But whatever, no one listens to me.

So before, there were plenty of high BG threads full of Mermaids, and everyone kept playing them for limitless amounts of Gold they can earn due to high trigger rates and Gold amounts thrown per second.

And now Gaia has placed a limit on how much each Mermaid/W. Meat can dish out? So I spent 200k on 2 Mermaids that just give out 250G from BG...

Yep you did, and because they didn't guarantee the amount of gold you'd get, there isn't much you can do besides not buying the fish anymore. Come on guys, they do this with RIGs too, esp. with ones like the emerald seed. We should be used to it by now. Them pulling something where the only thing that doesn't make it right is one's morals.

Edit: And your argument works a bit less because you didn't buy them with cash, unfortunately. There are reasons why I only use fish that come out of daily chance to fuel my aquarium.

@Kelianya: It dropping nothing but blue coins is gaia saying they don't agree. I believe mermaids live twice as long as Watermeats do btw. Watermeat in itself is a ripoff, whether they touch the amount it drops or not.

[Aldo Simoncini]

Sagger-AT3

The recent changes to booty grab were coupled with performance boost to the tanks, and even though each booty grab player makes less gold per game (on average), more people are playing booty grab now, and tank owners' income was not hurt.

More details:
- Last week we the aquarium team improved the aquarium performance considerably. The slower your computer, the easier it is to notice these changes. This lead to a huge increase in the amount of gold given by booty grab, because for most people who were playing aquariums with "serious" booty grab fish the game used to time out with more than half the coins still in the air. After the performance boost, everyone can get all the coins.
- The result: even though people may be individually gaining less gold per game (on average) from playing booty grab, there are more people playing booty grab now, and aquariums owners are still earning just as much (if not more) as they did before.

I'm watching the daily profit of my tank and write it down every morning when I check my tank for feeding and overseer reward. So I can tell that in the last 2 days the profit my tank made is about 1/3 less than before. It used to make 15-20k/day. Now it's 10-11k. Maybe thec reason is that you played arount with the total the watermeat gives out. Since chuck fixed it today I hope the profit of my tank will raise again... I will wait and see. wink

What excactly has changed? Do all fishes trigger less now or just individual fishes. If individual fishes, which ones? Has the duration of a tank glowing changed? Has the maximum of players allowed playing on a tank decreased? Did you increase the power downs and decrease the power ups? Did you decrease the odds to get an item drop (i.e. Hermit Cat)?

I support the suggestion of having the kind of trigger in the description of all fishes or at least on the Learn about Booty Grab page.

[Lulouka]

I'm really disappointed about that as well. Whenever I play a tank with watermeats, they go out after 30 seconds. If they want to put a cap on it do it to where they go off near the end of the 60 seconds not the middle of it.

[Mangacide]

You know, after reading this, I'm kind of glad they're reducing the amount of gold you get from tanks in general. It seems to me like people should focuse more on making a nice tank filled with fish that they like, not just the ones that will get them the most gold ._.|| I used to have a little koi pond back where I used to live, before I had to move. It was beautiful and relaxing to look at, but the fish never gave me money. So it's not that important to me that these ones do either.

[Nyadriel]

I just played a tank with an octopi and it cut out on me after I got 100g and I still had 10 or so seconds left. Its NOT that easy to play the game when you got negs to try to avoid and pos to try and catch. Most of the fish I get, I buy with gCash and only the onles I like - well... I like them all...

But yeah, its very discerning and quite disorienting when you are playing and you KNOW you have time on the clock and then it just cuts out on you before time is up. I usually try to BEAT the clock whenever I play ANY game.

[pwintetz]

Kelianya

Ok..This is slightly annoying. Let's paint a little picture here for anyone that knows something about BG.

Memphis Mermaid - Costs 749 GC - Lives 40 weeks - Goes black after 250g (? May be 300)
Lila Mermaid - Costs 120k on MP (sometimes more) - Lives 40 weeks - Goes black after 250g (? May be 300)
Watermeat - Costs 749 GC - Lives 25 weeks - Goes black after 200g

Seriously? 200g? Just the other day it was 300. Then it was 250. Now it's down to 200. So that means when you grab 200g from that one fish then it stops producing any gold at all.

A friend just grabbed in a pure watermeat tank that is exactly like mine. She got 5 watermeats to glow and once she hit 1000 gold the game just stopped and the last meat went black, so it couldn't be grabbed from anymore. You can get into a 5 Mermaid tank of any sort and get more than that. And they last 15 weeks longer than the watermeat does. That is an unecessary and unfair nerf considering the lifespan of the watermeat.

I know people are worried about the economy on Gaia, but there are also people like me that spend quite a bit of money on our tanks. Mine so far has cost over $130 for just the fish. If they are going to make them produce less than a mermaid then they should at least bump the lifespan of the fish so I don't have to shell out another $130 over the next 25 weeks on top of all of the EIs that I buy. Mind you, I don't buy the EIs and then sell them on the MP. I buy them for my own personal use and that's it.

Quite honestly, there won't be any economy if Gaia goes out of business when the market for the better fish goes out the window. And I can assure you that a nice chuck of their money comes from just that alone. With the lower glow rates and the changes they have made to the max of the meats, anyone that paid $7.49 per fish just got the shaft. sad

she's lucky she got up to 1k i got 900 and the game stopped.. what the.. it was ok that there were no more lags.. but sumhow the bootygrabbing seems to be... hmmm... idk.. wats d word.. mods cxan u explain bout the recent fix...

[pwintetz]

chuckp2

we are still playing with the gold values in boot grab and although you might see changes in availability of individual fish we will no longer play with the gold amount caps on individual fish. Therefore Watermeats have been restored to their original maximum amount. Thanks for bringing my attention to this!

i know there's been improvement with the game.. where the game would stop when all the coins are all gone... but pls can you do something bout the game stopping halfway sweatdrop

[SwissMiss85]

Sagger-AT3

The recent changes to booty grab were coupled with performance boost to the tanks, and even though each booty grab player makes less gold per game (on average), more people are playing booty grab now, and tank owners' income was not hurt.

More details:
- Last week we the aquarium team improved the aquarium performance considerably. The slower your computer, the easier it is to notice these changes. This lead to a huge increase in the amount of gold given by booty grab, because for most people who were playing aquariums with "serious" booty grab fish the game used to time out with more than half the coins still in the air. After the performance boost, everyone can get all the coins.
- The result: even though people may be individually gaining less gold per game (on average) from playing booty grab, there are more people playing booty grab now, and aquariums owners are still earning just as much (if not more) as they did before.

This logic is specious. I don't believe that more people are playing booty grab now. First, the change in "lagginess" was not generally announced, only in the forums for those who were paying attention, i.e. the people who were already booty grabbing. No one said to themselves "Hey, the game is less laggy...I think I'll go play now!" Second, people were already playing booty grab despite the lag.

I'm not sure what the specific numbers are that you used when you "improved" things, but here's my take on the math: When the game ended with coins still in the water, the player lost out on maybe 100 gold max. I used to be able to make 600-800 gold on a decent tank in an average game. Now the fish trigger half as often as they used to, so instead of losing 100 gold per game, I'm losing entire games of 600-800 gold.

I don't see how the tank owners can possibly be making as much gold as they did before, let alone more.

[Lady Kayura]

Kelianya

With the lower glow rates and the changes they have made to the max of the meats, anyone that paid $7.49 per fish just got the shaft. sad

2247 gold is now wasted for me. I could've bought a Memphis or.. I could've not spent my money on Gaia and bought myself a steak. Thanks Gaia. I really hate it when Gaia makes me regret the money I spent on the site.

[Nyqa]

With regard to the improved performance in the game, although all the gold drops now before the game ends, it drops a lot faster, but your catcher isn't faster, so ultimately you don't catch more gold because you can't get to it. It ends up the same really.
As for the gold caps and greying out, that's ok in itself, but if less tanks are triggering as well, then the amount of time you need to spend finding them and playing the game is greatly increased. This negates the encouragement to be more "social" on Gaia, doesn't it? It encourages people to spend more time playing, and less posting.
I know that a balance needs to be found, but I would say that since BG began, they payout has been at least halved, yet the high trigger fish are still as expensive to buy. That hasn't been changed. Even value bundles are expensive, and let's face it, people are not going to buy fish just to make their tanks pretty.
I know you guys will probably continue to tweak the game, that's fair enough, but the reward for investment needs to be balanced too. If you pay a lot for a high trigger fish, it ought to bring a relevant reward.
You may have had more people playing the game, but that will stop if they can't find enough playable tanks or it takes too long to find them, they won't bother. They certainly won't bother buying Watermeat and such if their tank fails to activate frequently enough, and you could see a drop both in people playing, and people creating full expensive tanks.

Generally speaking, nerfing game rewards leads to people not playing the games. There's no way I'll spend much time playing Jigsaws, for instance. That doesn't matter in the case of most mini-games, but BG is different, it requires spending real money, or a lot of gold.

Perhaps other features could be incorporated into BG, like fish dropping ingredients you could collect to make unique items.