Face of the Franchise is a disaster

[Torgonius]

I forgot my safe word, and my 9 year old wasn't awake to tell me 'No Daddy! Don't buy more packs!" and 25k pp became 25 packs. A few packs in, a perfect live Bellinger shows up, but nothing else that moved me towards completing any FOTF missions. I do think I would have completed the live missions a second time, though.

Mr. Bellinger turns into 20 more packs, because I the pain reminds me I'm not dead yet. I pull a gold historical Met. My first and only card for that mission. It's the only card that helps. I can now field a full team of Skye Bolts. I earn almost enough from quick selling live irons to buy another pack. Fortunately, I'm 7 points short.

Help has arrived in the form of American Truck Simulator. Driving a simulated semi 30 mph for hundreds of miles through the back roads of Idaho is a welcome release from the face of Cole Tucker over and over and over and over and over.

I like the concept of the FOTF missions, but there is no way I'm ever going to complete one unless the magical card fairy gets wasted and drops some historical golds and diamonds in my account by mistake. I think a way to improve them (though likely too late to implement now) is a lower tier reward for completing live, iron, bronze and silver (maybe The Eyelash of the Franchise), then the full reward for somehow finishing the gold and diamond level. Having the possibility of one of the final rewards appearing in a pack is nice, but the drop rate is so incredibly tiny, it makes my little sister's IQ seem Newtonian by comparison.

The pack rewards are a nice touch, but they'd be much better if the drop rate for live cards was reduced for people who have completed the live missions. Maybe a 50/50 split at the confetti tiers, and 40/60 at bronze and 30/70 (historical/live) at iron. Live cards now make me a sad manatee.

[professor ape]

The one thing I don’t understand is how people are putting bronze players who are part of missions where the reward is a regular pack up on the AH for thousands of points. Are there people stupid enough to pay?

On the main topic, I am a FTP player who completed the live missions just like most of you. My team looked like everyone else’s but I have been slowing transforming it with a few AH purchases but also some lucky pulls from packs won in tournaments. It is starting to feel like my team with players like Hughie Jennings (100 PEAK SS), Sam Thompson (92 Legend RF), Eddie Collins (95 Snapshot 2B), Paul Molitor (95 Legend 3B), Rube Waddell (99 Legend SP), Brandon Webb (97 Legend SP), Al Holland (97 Legend RP), and Bill Campbell (95 Legend, RP). The Live Mission cards still act as a backbone for my team but I take pride that I have built a team that has been in Diamond for three weeks. I haven’t broken .500 at Diamond yet but that is my next goal. I’m going to keep working on the team one piece at a time but I am not going to worry about beating everyone who have been willing to drop a big chunk of change to buy a team. I’m Billy Beane in a room of Steinbrenners!

[BatAround]

Originally Posted by Marleigh

For F2P players the game stalls at silver/gold as passive PP generation dries up. It wouldn't shock me if a lot of new players stopped playing the game 6-7 weeks after starting (once they reached silver+) as the game becomes an obvious time/money sink at that point

This is me. I win my division easily at Silver, go to Gold and get stomped, return to Silver and repeat. I look at the AH and I still can't afford to improve my team with the 40k or so of PP I have accumulated. I'll probably put the game on the shelf while real baseball starts up, and see what it looks like in a month or so. But this is the point, in the last few years, that I never really got back to the game. It will probably happen this year too...

But it gave me something to look at March - mid-July.

[getalife1798]

Originally Posted by BatAround

This is me. I win my division easily at Silver, go to Gold and get stomped, return to Silver and repeat. I look at the AH and I still can't afford to improve my team with the 40k or so of PP I have accumulated. I'll probably put the game on the shelf while real baseball starts up, and see what it looks like in a month or so. But this is the point, in the last few years, that I never really got back to the game. It will probably happen this year too...

But it gave me something to look at March - mid-July.

Would you feel differently if the missions were easier to obtain and the rewards were say, "silver" players or lower?

Reason I ask....Silver or lower players could be very valuable to tournaments and "theme" teams.

[BigRed75]

Originally Posted by Torgonius

31 packs, 1 card closer to completing a mission. 185 mid-sized bites taken from what's left of my cold, dead soul.

About 15 new copies of Cole Tucker to join the 22 I already had.

And that's why "hey, just open packs" isn't a terribly useful piece of advice. In fact, it's downright stupid.

At this point in the season, I have targeted needs at specific positions,and was saving up PP to meet those needs. FOTF has completely nuked the auction house, as cards from the first five teams are ridiculously overpriced, and cards from the other 25 teams aren't available anymore because people aren't selling them, since they know they are guaranteed to be a part of future missions and will eventually be worth 5x - 10x more than they are now.

"Just open packs" doesn't fill those specific, targeted needs. Well, it might, but the odds very low. In fact, with those odds, I'd be better off playing the lottery and winning real, actual cash.

At least then I could maybe end up with a new house out of the deal.

[bailey]

Originally Posted by professor ape

The one thing I don’t understand is how people are putting bronze players who are part of missions where the reward is a regular pack up on the AH for thousands of points. Are there people stupid enough to pay?

Maybe, if you put them up as soon as the mission drops. If you are slower you have to settle for less.

Moral: Never sell an historical dupe until it's in a mission.

[Ty Cobb]

Originally Posted by professor ape

I’m Billy Beane in a room of Steinbrenners!

You've beaten me to the goal!

On a serious note, I respect the h*** out of your attitude. That's always been my approach to PT...with a little Jack McKeon tossed in.

Congratulations to you on staying with the whales that long...may you humble them soon!

[Ty Cobb]

Originally Posted by BigRed75

And that's why "hey, just open packs" isn't a terribly useful piece of advice. In fact, it's downright stupid.

in the space of 12 packs last week, I scored 4 perfects...only 2 of them live. Sadly, they were also spread across three teams.

Edit: bagged an Arrenado today & sold that for the 20k. In the past 2 weeks, I've drawn more perfects than I did all last year. I wasn't committed to packs last year though.

[bailey]

Originally Posted by BigRed75

And that's why "hey, just open packs" isn't a terribly useful piece of advice. In fact, it's downright stupid.

Yes, but if you rule out the AH, what are you going to do with the free points you receive every day? My thinking right now is to uninstall the game so I can't look at it and come back around November when all the "content" is released and AH values stabilize. You then have a 3-4 month window before the new game comes out to buy what you need and then just enjoy your team in Year 2 of the game. During Year 2, AH prices go way up again, but it becomes much easier to win tournaments, because tournament sizes are cut in half with no reduction in prizes and competition is weaker. My Tigers' team in PT20 has won 4 or 5 historical perfect cards, for example, and a team that invested only $100 on day 1 and was getting crushed throughout Year 1 now has 15 perfects and wins 110+ games each week. The bottom line is that this is a 2 year game and those who ignore the 2nd year shouldn't complain too strongly about getting whipped in year 1, especially the first half of year 1.

This is kind of the opposite of my initial post in this thread, but I really do think they need to get rid of the hoarding and speculation, by making every card they release part of a major collection leading to a great reward on day 1. Most of these collections would still require 350-500+K to complete, but the effect on average cards would be minimized and it would be pointless to hoard or speculate since the value would be quickly known.

They have absolutely no respect for people who do invest serious money. Issuing perfect Ruth, then perfect Ruth #2 which devalues perfect Ruth #1 and then the absolute craziness of perfect Ruth #3 devaluing both #1 and #2. That's why I won't spend a dime on points any more. After 3 iterations of the game they should think strongly about maintaining values of cards and not trashing them with releases of the SAME player at the SAME level multiple times!! I know they can't "fix" the market, but they don't have to deliberately sabotage it. They should know by now what effect their "content" releases have on the market and strive to mitigate drastic swings in value. They have my money and they are probably just counting on more suckers to take my place because at this point I'm not even planning to buy the game itself next year.

[Marleigh]

Originally Posted by bailey

They have absolutely no respect for people who do invest serious money. Issuing perfect Ruth, then perfect Ruth #2 which devalues perfect Ruth #1 and then the absolute craziness of perfect Ruth #3 devaluing both #1 and #2.

this is the thing that grinds my gears most of all, at the start of the year they said they had a full content plan laid out. So far that plan was just to keep issuing the same players.

While i wasn't a fan of the way the Negro League collection worked to increase the cards way above their value as players it did at least mean every other card in the game was stable.

[Tinkerman]

The beauty of the Negro League collection is you knew where you stood with it from day 1. The cards were at their highest price when they were released and gradually got cheaper. The big spenders got first dibs, as they obviously should, then everyone else could/can hop onboard if/when they're ready, and feel the reward is worth it. Seems like a solid model to me.

Best of all, it's generally the people pulling the cards that are profiting from them, not the stock traders.

[dkgo]

Originally Posted by BigRed75

"Just open packs" doesn't fill those specific, targeted needs. Well, it might, but the odds very low. In fact, with those odds, I'd be better off playing the lottery and winning real, actual cash.

Obviously you arent expecting to pull the exact cards you want. The point is that if every random card is as overpriced on the market as people say it is now, then you will be able to earn more than 1000 PP on average for each one you open. Its already like 750 ev in normal times. This should be a gold mine.

[Coriolanus]

.... provided you store it away for ? months and don't spend it on overpriced players, yeah it could be a real boon, like Bailey says, in October/November.

Just not sure how many people want to keep a game in the friend zone for 4 months until it's more readily banged...

[JKap]

Although I like the FOTF collection concept, with the release of the new collections Thursday night a supply-demand gap was created for non-live cards.

The best solution is market-based to increase the supply with two ideas:

1. Allow people to trade any 10 live cards for a regular pack.

2. Allow an exchange of 2 Special Edition cards for a Historical Pack.

Also improving pack outcomes would go a long way to helping the supply-demand imbalance. Too often a standard pack yields 5 live irons and a live bronze with a total value of less than 50pp. Spending pp on packs is a complete waste and taking the tournament approach to generating packs is hardly worth the effort.

[eldur00]

Originally Posted by JKap

Although I like the FOTF collection concept, with the release of the new collections Thursday night a supply-demand gap was created for non-live cards.

The best solution is market-based to increase the supply with two ideas:

1. Allow people to trade any 10 live cards for a regular pack.

2. Allow an exchange of 2 Special Edition cards for a Historical Pack.

Also improving pack outcomes would go a long way to helping the supply-demand imbalance. Too often a standard pack yields 5 live irons and a live bronze with a total value of less than 50pp. Spending pp on packs is a complete waste and taking the tournament approach to generating packs is hardly worth the effort.

The problem is not into how many historical cards are pulled, but how many are in actual circulation, which is very different. The Historical cards ARE pulled, but people are holding on to them until they are part of a collection, either for themselves, or to sell at a later time. Even if the odds are increased, the mentality will remain - people will just hoard more of them to bank on a profit later.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by eldur00

Even if the odds are increased, the mentality will remain - people will just hoard more of them to bank on a profit later.

Exactly!

[emilempenza]

A lot of problems would be fixed by not letting people buy cards they already own. Can't hoard if you can only buy one of each card, meaning more supply for everyone else, meaning lower prices, missions available for more people, more people engaged in the game.

[eldur00]

Originally Posted by emilempenza

A lot of problems would be fixed by not letting people buy cards they already own. Can't hoard if you can only buy one of each card, meaning more supply for everyone else, meaning lower prices, missions available for more people, more people engaged in the game.

Except by doing that you take away a very important source of revenue for FTP players that spend the only currency they are willing/able to spend - time - away from them and have them rely only on generated points and pack luck. In other words, you're making the mode even more money centric.

[steamrollers]

Originally Posted by Orcin

I don't think this is fair. A couple of weeks ago, the complaint was that every player (ftp included) had easy access to the same over-powered cards. It seems to me that the live mission design was a gift to "common players", allowing them to compete at the levels below diamond with just a bit of time and effort. I was bored by the cookie cutter teams too, but I don't think it is fair to say that OOTP did not make an effort to keep the game interesting for ftp customers.

There was nothing incorrect about my post, they are in fact catering to whales as much as possible. But I do agree with you about trying to help out the lower level common players with live missions to start this year as a kind of "gift", it just wasn't very well thought out and we have all seen the consequences of the large amount of cookie cutter teams which for sure has and will continue to get some players to abandon the game. It was a nice gesture and first step but it's like they have just kicked that chunk of players to the curb since then.


And as mentioned several times before, I am all for their decision to cater to whales. I don't agree with it because I think it can cause long term damage to the massive majority but they are the ones that have the facts/numbers in front of them and can make the educated decisions while the rest of us just speculate. It seems quite obvious the route they are going is raking in the money and not giving them any doubt they can continue in this direction without and negative affect on the bottom line.

[CardiffBlue]

Originally Posted by eldur00

The problem is not into how many historical cards are pulled, but how many are in actual circulation, which is very different. The Historical cards ARE pulled, but people are holding on to them until they are part of a collection, either for themselves, or to sell at a later time. Even if the odds are increased, the mentality will remain - people will just hoard more of them to bank on a profit later.

But it would increase the incentive to open packs. If you thought the chance of pulling a historical gold was more than 1 in every 50th pack, which seems to be about my rate (no spreadhseet to back this up!), you might spend that 1000PP a little more readily - even if you only pull live irons, you could, soon, swap them and have another go.

A greater proportion and diversity of non-live cards would find their way into the collections of more people, even if they held them rather than selling.