Face of the Franchise is a disaster

[dkgo]

I think they should take a strong look at the Ultimate Team model where you can't buy gold directly, you can only purchase packs with real money. Anything to boost the supply of cards (ideally combined with some quality of life improvements to reduce the tediousness of auctioning). I'm sure they've done their market research and know where their revenue is coming from, and maybe they know there are 20 people who spend enough that it doesn't matter how many thousands aren't willing to spend anything in the current environment and we have to live with that. But from the outside it seems that users who are serious enough about the game to participate on the forums aren't really feeling excited about playing year after year. A game needs that pool of non-paying users to serve as the content for the whales.

[Morug]

Lack some easy missions who give standard packs/ gold packs. And maybe, too many perfect cards in harder missions...its affect the AH because the lack some playable cards in the market for lower league. My 3 teams are .500 team since the start, one good season for 2-3 seasons of stagnation at .450-.500 per season. A silver guaranteed special card pack can help a little too.

[mayday10]

im not against paying at all. Id be happy to fork over some more bucks if it game me some pp to work with and some fun...

But many of these decent collection missions are $100+ in real dollars to complete. No thanks.

Its not just spending money to advance your chances and have something to work with/play with. You need to spend a ton of it. That is bogus.

If this game is going to have most of the content walled-off to people not willing to spend several hundred dollars, then it is not for me.

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by dkgo

I think they should take a strong look at the Ultimate Team model where you can't buy gold directly, you can only purchase packs with real money. Anything to boost the supply of cards (ideally combined with some quality of life improvements to reduce the tediousness of auctioning).

Now that is an interesting thought. There are still a number of potential issues but that would certainly put more weight on the supply side.

[Tinkerman]

Maybe the odd sale on packs rather than points?

[waittilnextyear]

Originally Posted by Lemandria

But who will you predate once the prey has fled?

Darn, I didn't think that far ahead! You are the pirate, so I was counting on you to point out the plunder.

Originally Posted by Marleigh

There isn't a single person playing the game that has invested nothing. The game has a box cost, and many people ONLY buy the game to play PT

True. But, those people already [should] know what PT is and that spending money makes things easier. Presumably. And even if you'd evaluate your in game experience as poor--it is a fully functioning game (other than on a handful on Sunday nights).

After that, it's more balancing expectations about what you can actually do/accomplish/experience in the game given your choice not to spend beyond $34.99/$39.99. That's a question that everyone answers their own way. If the experience isn't fun for people, as is being articulated by some in this thread, then I would hope people will choose to move on, to spend, to cope, or do anything other than getting stuck in a perpetual lather about it. I'm not saying that negative feedback is bad, but if that's all people are doing...why?

Originally Posted by doublezero

There's greedy then there's this game, which is the very definition of a money sinkhole meant for whales and privileged individuals. I was actually okay with it until they went over the edge this year with missions that lead to other missions, which meant one single mission wasn't enough to be competitive and get a decent return. Now it takes 4 missions to get a decent reward. And because they've increased the curve, now it's hard to be competitive without spending at least 50 dollars once, which is what I did a few months ago. So the balance is way off in my opinion and I don't feel I was getting a new game or a brand new experience for 50 dollars. Even with that investment, I don't think it would be possible to complete the FOTF missions anyways, so the cost has just gotten too extreme for the return. The next thing you know they'll have 10 mission ultimate combos for some ridiculous reward. I get that this is the perfect vehicle to get plenty of money via the rich %10 but I don't think it's very ethical as a viable "game". I'm sure I'll get told not to play if I don't like it, which is passive aggressive BS. The amount of missions has now skewed the auction house and the curve about as far to the extreme as I've ever seen it. I'm perfectly fine contributing money but missions leading to missions leading to missions is too much. I'm not contributing another 50 dollars. It's not going to happen.

Partly true. Partly not true. Yes, spending eases a lot of things. But, people have demonstrated time and time again that you can do big things in this game without spending. There is an entire league (BFF) dedicated to doing this. People have made multi-million pp teams treating the AH like a stock market game. No money players are some of the strongest tourney players and win rewards (packs and cards) all the time. This type of grinding can be a good deal of work, though, and it's not everybody's idea of "fun." You can also accomplish a lot over time, but people generally don't want to wait for a payoff much later.

For people who don't want to spend and don't want to grind, then I'd just suggest trying to find something you can enjoy (tourneys? theme teams? creating a friends list in a certain level?). Or moving on to something else more enjoyable.

I think your points are quite reasonable, fwiw.

Originally Posted by getalife1798

So basically, your telling me that I have no shot at winning a perfect league or have any hope of cracking the top 1% until year 2021? Why hype up, in a stream, a trophy that one person can obtain by winning a perfect league if 99% of the player base has no shot at getting? Why hype up this FOTF missions/sets...release a video on the new format of it....if 99% of the player base can't achieve it until later in the year or in 2021 or not at all? I hope someone will get the idea of the mission format when it's time to hit the submit button.

I have watched just about every stream OOTP has put out there, but I am thinking I am done. Hyping up something that I cannot achieve until year 2021 is a waste of my time according your post. I will just get the cliff notes from the discord.

Lastly - "I think it's good to have an aspirational set of missions that can be done over time." - I have played PT20 since it started, all the way up until earlier this month....I usually win one or two tournaments a day (if not more) that give me regular packs. I still haven't completed a bunch of missions there and have just given up. What ended up happening....the player base started to dwindle when we got into the winter and when OOTP 21 came out, the auction house got real quiet, real expensive. Players I needed to complete missions were never available and if they were, the cost of them slowed down the process of completing that mission. "Supply and demand". Now in OOTP 21, releasing missions that you need every player to obtain and then add in the fact that they are non-live so they won't show up in packs as often as live cards...will make it harder and more expensive to complete as time rolls on. It is just simple facts unless you scout the market every day, hoping for a player you need gets put on the auction house at a discount or you get lucky that a certain player comes in a pack.

This post might sound harsh, but I still love the game mode and the team at OOTP. Just really frustrated by a few of the decisions this year.

I'm not telling you anything definitive. I'm speaking more generally. There are teams plowing thousands into the game and some of these guys are super competitive. These are the ones that have the means and skill to do tough missions quickly. There are all manner of other spending and skill levels, some more competitive and some less. Some teams, F2P or otherwise, might have been collecting pieces since March. My point was just to summarize, generally, how I saw it going.

As for your team personally, that's up to you to decide. You might open a pack and get a game-changing card. You might win a tourney, open a pack and get nothing but garbage. You might open your wallet. You might do none of the above and might get fed up with the game and quit. I don't know you from Adam so no idea. It's dangerous to generalize, so I am to blame for that.

As to your point about PT20 and playing that after the newer edition comes out, you make a good point. The activity level decrease can make things more challenging to find/buy and can affect pricing. But, my point was to hopefully remind people that there is TIME to work at some of this stuff if you want to do so. Not everyone has to, or will, finish each mission the day after it comes out. A lot can happen in 18 months.

[MaroonAlberich]

Originally Posted by waittilnextyear

(1) Most players will not complete the FOTF series of missions right as they come out, but there are a few that will. Personally, I just completed the Padres for 100 Gwynn and that cost me a bit over 200k on top of the assets I already had. I probably won't do the other FOTFs, at least not right away. But, let's not mistake completing something the week it comes out with not completing it all fall/winter etc. I think it's good to have an aspirational set of missions that can be done over time. People can chip away as they grumble about whales and about how the game is a disaster. With the new pyramid structure, most of these teams that are complaining or can't afford the new FOTF (at least initially) probably aren't in position to compete with those that do anyway.

(2) I don't think juicing the pack odds is a bad idea, but I'm not even sure if they can change that mid-cycle. I also think releasing the hounds with supply undercuts people that have valuable supplies and I know people with a scarce 300-400k Roger Connor aren't going to want to see that price get halved because the pull rates have gone out of control. I think FOTF is the best and most straightforward way to prop up the entire marketplace through increasing demand. It also builds in more opportunities for speculation income, and that has been a staple of F2P teams since the inception of this mode. Maybe if the balance is off, gone too far toward demand, then they hit us with another pack/PP sale sometime soon. They did this type of thing in PT20, my speculation is they did this to ease the bottleneck problem for certain missions.

(1, again) I'm not sure. But most games have gone the way of the microtransaction. People know what this game/mode is and know that you can either spend or work at it, or do both. Those that spend and work will always have an edge. These are the teams that will do FOTF quickly. Those that work can make up for much of their disadvantage at choosing not to spend. Those that spend and don't work can also be dumb money and can get beaten to the punch by better F2P teams. Everyone might be able to do some/all of FOTF over time. Problem is people can't have it all. And especially not for free. If people are just now realizing that, then they can always hop over to another title. If they've invested $0, there's not much sunk cost.

I get the microtransaction aspect of the game, I really do. I think what's galling a lot of people (myself included) is that if it's something we can prep for, that's one thing. If there's a wholesale change to the game's economy that leaves a decent chunk of players feeling screwed, that I think that we should at least see how it could have been handled differently. Personally, I don't aspire to finish these missions anytime before the next iteration is released--there are simply too many missing cards to pick up along the way. (As I mentioned before, I've opened at least 1000 packs since the release of the Negro League set with a grand total of 3 of that set found. Doesn't make my pants roll up and down with joy.) What I grumble about is the now-increased entry into fielding decent tourny teams, and the feeling that I needn't even have bothered getting above bronze at this point.

(On the other hand, I do see that packs are more viable to make a little income now, but they are still so overwhelmingly loaded with live irons that, unless a player is a whale starting with multiple 100s of PP to begin with, anything you earn will still come in drips and drabs, definitely not enough to upgrade a roster significantly. Rather, the PP earned from flipping a historic gold or diamond can be plowed back in hoping to find a historic perfect. I really don't see any other upside at this point.)

[neugey]

Originally Posted by dkgo

I think they should take a strong look at the Ultimate Team model where you can't buy gold directly, you can only purchase packs with real money. Anything to boost the supply of cards (ideally combined with some quality of life improvements to reduce the tediousness of auctioning). I'm sure they've done their market research and know where their revenue is coming from, and maybe they know there are 20 people who spend enough that it doesn't matter how many thousands aren't willing to spend anything in the current environment and we have to live with that. But from the outside it seems that users who are serious enough about the game to participate on the forums aren't really feeling excited about playing year after year. A game needs that pool of non-paying users to serve as the content for the whales.

I would steer clear of the company that has jumped the shark and is full-on marketing gambling addiction to minors.

[DotDash]

I skimmed the whole thread, and apologize if it was mentioned, but should it be possible to pack FOTF cards? Because I just did.
Upon closer inspection, they aren't labeled as 'Special Edition' so it might be intentional?

[playultm8]

Originally Posted by waittilnextyear

For people who don't want to spend and don't want to grind, then I'd just suggest trying to find something you can enjoy (tourneys? theme teams? creating a friends list in a certain level?).

I think the primary complaint about FotF is that by including nearly every historical card in these whale focused missions, the designers made all of the above suggestions quite a bit more expensive. Want to build a tournament team? Run teams with a narrow theme? That's going to be significantly more expensive going forward, and you don't really get anything in return. I'm glad I put together an Iron tournament team already, but my timeline for building something competitive in bronze or silver (or any cap) just got a lot longer.

[BigRed75]

Yes you can pack FOTF cards, but cannot use those cards to complete the final boss mission that will be released with the last set of regular FOTF missions in late September.

[BigRed75]

Originally Posted by playultm8

I think the primary complaint about FotF is that by including nearly every historical card in these whale focused missions, the designers made all of the above suggestions quite a bit more expensive. Want to build a tournament team? Run teams with a narrow theme? That's going to be significantly more expensive going forward, and you don't really get anything in return.

Oooh, that's a bingo!

[waittilnextyear]

Originally Posted by MaroonAlberich

I get the microtransaction aspect of the game, I really do. I think what's galling a lot of people (myself included) is that if it's something we can prep for, that's one thing. If there's a wholesale change to the game's economy that leaves a decent chunk of players feeling screwed, that I think that we should at least see how it could have been handled differently. Personally, I don't aspire to finish these missions anytime before the next iteration is released--there are simply too many missing cards to pick up along the way. (As I mentioned before, I've opened at least 1000 packs since the release of the Negro League set with a grand total of 3 of that set found. Doesn't make my pants roll up and down with joy.) What I grumble about is the now-increased entry into fielding decent tourny teams, and the feeling that I needn't even have bothered getting above bronze at this point.

(On the other hand, I do see that packs are more viable to make a little income now, but they are still so overwhelmingly loaded with live irons that, unless a player is a whale starting with multiple 100s of PP to begin with, anything you earn will still come in drips and drabs, definitely not enough to upgrade a roster significantly. Rather, the PP earned from flipping a historic gold or diamond can be plowed back in hoping to find a historic perfect. I really don't see any other upside at this point.)

I agree with your larger point that people naturally dislike unpredictability. FOTF did shake up the market, there's no denying that. Now we all adapt or perish.

Speaking of the Negro Leagues, that is another mission set that has never been cheaper. The LIVE cards and NL cards are basically untouched, and probably feeling downward market pressure from FOTF, if anything.

The flipside to everyone suffering sticker shock right now is that a lot of people's inventory is now also worth more. If you have a random historical diamond, it might be worth 30k instead of 8k for the time being. There were also some teams in PT20 that flipped cards for a "living" and while that doesn't strike me as tons of fun, who am I to judge what somebody does for a living?

Opening packs could be quite helpful as they continue to roll in (albeit slowly) from tourneys/passive pp generation etc. Yes, the drop rates haven't changed and you get all that iron/bronze scum, but some of the hits are much, much more helpful. Until AH prices come down, pack values will remain pretty high. I'd expect an increase in supply soon (pack sale etc), if prices stay up there.

Originally Posted by playultm8

I think the primary complaint about FotF is that by including nearly every historical card in these whale focused missions, the designers made all of the above suggestions quite a bit more expensive. Want to build a tournament team? Run teams with a narrow theme? That's going to be significantly more expensive going forward, and you don't really get anything in return. I'm glad I put together an Iron tournament team already, but my timeline for building something competitive in bronze or silver (or any cap) just got a lot longer.

Right, but the whole "we've been priced out of everything we wanted to do" angle assumes the market will stay sky-high for the duration and that supply/demand will never ebb and flow. We saw tons of fluctuations in PT20 and I expect more of the same in PT21. Heck, we were just grumbling about how prices were crashing and nobody could sell anything easily like 7 days ago. Moreover, as we pass through each batch of FOTF missions over the next 3 months, I expect the "old" ones to depreciate. In other words...George Brett, who? when Yankees/Red Sox/Cubs/etc are being rolled out. We can all get our Chuck Finleys then.

And as for pricing people out of tourney teams...I'd imagine most heavy tourney players basically have a decent binder of cards for their preferred tourneys at this point? You can argue that newcomers would be in trouble, but, then again, the LIVE missions have never been cheaper so they won't experience the same growing pains getting their SE lineup up and running as most did.

[waittilnextyear]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

you have illustrated the problem perfectly.


it's all about your "assets" now. not your team on the field. that's the problem

It's kinda always been about both, imo. I feel that you being a BFF stalwart understands that better than most.

[abangs]

Originally Posted by waittilnextyear

It's kinda always been about both, imo. I feel that you being a BFF stalwart understands that better than most.

The thing is that most FTP players are both PP and asset poor. Most FTP players don't have tens of thousands of PP sitting around or hundreds of unused cards they haven't bothered to auction off. When it takes you days or weeks to save up for one card only to find out that its price just doubled or tripled, it's enough to make you want to quit.

[Marleigh]

Originally Posted by neugey

I would steer clear of the company that has jumped the shark and is full-on marketing gambling addiction to minors.

And yet OOTP has followed their business plan, they have the gambling mechanics, the power creep is a classic that Ultimate team has been doing for years, but you know something else? Ultimate team is FAR more generous to free players than Perfect Team.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by dkgo

I think they should take a strong look at the Ultimate Team model where you can't buy gold directly, you can only purchase packs with real money.

Forcing point purchases through the perpetual loss machine that are packs in that game is somehow even worse. I read into this a while ago and it looks like at any point the chances to pull a top-notch card (say, Cristiano Ronaldo ) is even worse than pulling a perfect (and maybe even a historical perfect) in PT. Why maybe? Because they don't even tell you the damn odds!

Odds for a card of rating X+ as "< 0.1%"? That's the real shady ****. Because that can mean EVERYTHING. 1 in 1,001. 1 in 5,000. 1 in 1,234,567.

Basically, a guaranteed move to make your game, any game, worse is to make it more similar to any cash-fleecing graveyard of hopes and dreams that EA put out...

There is no saving PT 21 anyway, because it's borked now, and will remain borked going forward, now that *every* card currently in the game (except SE's) counts towards any one of a set of cards that is each worth like 500k. People put up random bronzes part of a single-pack mission for 800 PP even before. Well, it's 2,000 now, because you need ALL the historical bronzes for the FOTF card. That is the terrible design. I can play the game for another 18 months and never pull a Morrie Rath from a pack. And there will be a hundred different cards like it.

Theme teams, like my Mets team, are also dead in the water, especially if their FOTF missions are already out. Do I want that Seaver? Hell yes. Will I get him? Hell no. I'm four diamonds short. They probably cost 70k as a group a week ago. Now it's 70k for each of them. I'm not gonna make that amount of PP with that team for the rest of PT 21.

Just sell off, make another cookie cutter vanilla team, and be done with it.

[waittilnextyear]

Originally Posted by Westheim

People put up random bronzes part of a single-pack mission for 800 PP even before. Well, it's 2,000 now, because you need ALL the historical bronzes for the FOTF card. That is the terrible design. I can play the game for another 18 months and never pull a Morrie Rath from a pack. And there will be a hundred different cards like it.

I'm not sure what bronzes you're seeing are going for 2000 PP? Maybe the baby Vlad Guerrero? Off the top of my head all the bronzes I've seen and have been listing myself are in the low 100s, maybe 100-300 or so. Even the historical silvers didn't really see the massive bump they've seen in the past where people are holding Lonnie Smiths and Chien-Ming Wangs for 10k+. The silvers I've seen and have been posting have L7 in the neighborhood of 800-1500.

It's not as dire as people are saying is my point.

[Tinkerman]

Originally Posted by waittilnextyear

It's not as dire as people are saying is my point.

Maybe not in general, but the market for diamonds is FUBAR.

[waittilnextyear]

Originally Posted by Tinkerman

Maybe not in general, but the market for diamonds is FUBAR.

Yeah, I'm not disputing that at all. If you are buying blue cards, it's tough sledding out there.

I keep saying this to whoever will listen, but I'd be pretty surprised if we don't get a diamond pack sale soon. They did the same tactic when bottlenecks got people hot and bothered in PT20.

I mean, I'm not gonna buy any diamond packs myself, but people that either can't resist or don't see any other path to diamond cards will be tempted. The increased supply of diamond cards and wiping millions of PP out of the economy from these pack purchases will create downward market pressure on those high flying historical diamonds.