Pack will be a lot harder to earn unless you pay

[LeeD]

Originally Posted by Hwilensky

It may also have to do with the dwindling numbers of the people playing...as it stands now there are only 5400 teams. I guess they are trying to squeeze the last bit of juice out of those that play.

Also note that we were under 300 viewers for the Twitch warm-up for the first This Week in Perfect Team, which then had to be cancelled because of flooding at the database location.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by Lathum

I am also learning that some of the daily 64 team tournaments only pay the top 8 slots. Thats ridiculous.

Not to keep harping on this but I am seeing even more now to the point I am wondering if this is a recent change.

Having to win 3 rounds to get one silver pack in a tournament you can play once a day makes the game borderline unplayable.

[bailey]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Not to keep harping on this but I am seeing even more now to the point I am wondering if this is a recent change.

Having to win 3 rounds to get one silver pack in a tournament you can play once a day makes the game borderline unplayable.

Unplayable? Are you using a 30 year-old computer?
The playing conditions are the same for everyone, so you are at no disadvantage whatsoever compared to last year. Combinator cards will give skilled players a big advantage which IMHO will make it very difficult for those who relied on copying the best teams to be successful whether they spend money or not. ***This opinion depends on my assumption that you cannot buy improved combinator cards, but I don't really know for sure about that.

[bailey]

Originally Posted by Hwilensky

It may also have to do with the dwindling numbers of the people playing...as it stands now there are only 5400 teams. I guess they are trying to squeeze the last bit of juice out of those that play.

According to my records there were only 4500 players signed up this time last year. So that's a 20% uptick that defies my understanding of the word "dwindling".

[ahunter5]

Originally Posted by bailey

According to my records there were only 4500 players signed up this time last year. So that's a 20% uptick that defies my understanding of the word "dwindling".

This answers the question that I had - how many were playing at this point last season. Thanks for this!

[zevus]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Not to keep harping on this but I am seeing even more now to the point I am wondering if this is a recent change.

Having to win 3 rounds to get one silver pack in a tournament you can play once a day makes the game borderline unplayable.

I made it to "Perfect League" in OOTP 22 having spent a bit of extra cash on it (as I recall it was within a month or two of OOTP 23 release & I *think* there weren't any new card releases for many many months at that point).

I'm sure it was possible without spending any money outside base game purchase.

Within the first week of OOTP 23, I decided I didn't want to take the time to try this again & I suspect it wasn't possible in any case.

OOTP 24, hoho.

OOTP 25, Ready...to...form...COMBINATOR! It passes some time, but I don't expect to compete. Doesn't mean I don't enter some drafts and cap tourneys. Why not? Unplayable? Bogleg!

Without the subscription model, you have a fair chance to make the draft tournament leaderboard! Look at the positives!

Originally Posted by bailey

Unplayable? Are you using a 30 year-old computer?
The playing conditions are the same for everyone, so you are at no disadvantage whatsoever compared to last year. Combinator cards will give skilled players a big advantage which IMHO will make it very difficult for those who relied on copying the best teams to be successful whether they spend money or not. ***This opinion depends on my assumption that you cannot buy improved combinator cards, but I don't really know for sure about that.

combinator cards and skilled players

indeed!

[Hwilensky]

Originally Posted by bailey

According to my records there were only 4500 players signed up this time last year. So that's a 20% uptick that defies my understanding of the word "dwindling".

And according to my numbers there were 6763 teams. So, to me...that is dwindling...

[LeeD]

Originally Posted by bailey

According to my records there were only 4500 players signed up this time last year. So that's a 20% uptick that defies my understanding of the word "dwindling".

Except that 5400 teams probably means closer to 1800 players than 4500, given that each license allows three teams and given that there were extra rewards for signing up on opening week.

[bailey]

Originally Posted by LeeD

Except that 5400 teams probably means closer to 1800 players than 4500, given that each license allows three teams and given that there were extra rewards for signing up on opening week.

So, what. There are more teams than last year so there are more players, however few they may be.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by Lathum

I am seeing several changes in the years game that will make it much harder for casual players to earn packs.

- no PT+, IMO was well worth the $6.99 just for the log in rewards
-only 2 quick tournament slots- even without PT+ you had 3, and with PT+ you had 4, so it is cut in half
- daily rewards only for top 16. Last year it was 32 so if you made it past the first round you got a couple packs
- quick perfect drafts for packs- unless I am missing it the only quick perfect drafts are for points

I get that they added additional daily/weekly tournament slots. I am assuming this is so people don't have to enter days/hours in advance and have that slot taken up, but the daily tournament will be dominated by the players willing to spend money and casual players won't stand a chance.

This all just smells like an effort to force people to buy perfect points.

Can someone explain how I am wrong.

Roughly two months in and IMO my post is 100% spot on. I am getting far less packs than I have in prior years. I don't think I magically got worse at constructing a roster, the lack of quick tournament slots, change in reward structure, and not offering quick perfect drafts have all had the effect I thought they would.

You basically have 4 daily/weekly slots tied up for a 24 hours because those fill so fast and the draft tournaments for points are useless.

The result is completing missions much slower, thus getting less packs and cards. I am not nearly as invested in the game as I have been in prior years. I haven't even downloaded GO which has been a staple in past years.

[CameronB]

New PT player here. My initial thoughts are that they make it easy for a F2P player to compete, so its fascinating to hear that it was even better in previous seasons. Its clear by the changes made that the OOTP PT team is looking to strike a better balance in terms of catering to Whales vs F2P players. You want your paying customers to feel that their investment is worth it, while at the same time you can't ostracize your F2P base as their #'s and activity allows the whales to have fun.

I believe under the current system a F2P player can still climb the ladder, but the approach will need to be more considered, and the time horizon to do so elongated than if you played in years past.

[Ty Cobb]

"You keep thinkin', Butch. That's what you're good at."
—Sundance

[willat0660]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Roughly two months in and IMO my post is 100% spot on. I am getting far less packs than I have in prior years. I don't think I magically got worse at constructing a roster, the lack of quick tournament slots, change in reward structure, and not offering quick perfect drafts have all had the effect I thought they would.

You basically have 4 daily/weekly slots tied up for a 24 hours because those fill so fast and the draft tournaments for points are useless.

The result is completing missions much slower, thus getting less packs and cards. I am not nearly as invested in the game as I have been in prior years. I haven't even downloaded GO which has been a staple in past years.

Yes, about two months in and there is a huge difference from last year. At this point last year my teams were fully populated with diamond cards and slowly adding 100's, completely F2P. I play mostly tournaments, and use the league team to generate points and cards.

At this point, I still have lower golds on every team, and only two perfect cards across three teams.
I don't have enough good cards to enter gold tournaments, and forget about diamond. I don't recall winning any silver tournaments yet, just a scarce bronze and occasional iron.
You get less rewards, and the non F2P teams keep pulling away.
I work from home, and have the $$$ app, so I enter a lot of tournaments.
Seems like the gap will continue to widen as the year goes on.

I'm in this about 8 years now, this one is easily the least fun or interesting.

[xserp3nt]

Originally Posted by willat0660

Yes, about two months in and there is a huge difference from last year. At this point last year my teams were fully populated with diamond cards and slowly adding 100's, completely F2P. I play mostly tournaments, and use the league team to generate points and cards.

At this point, I still have lower golds on every team, and only two perfect cards across three teams.
I don't have enough good cards to enter gold tournaments, and forget about diamond. I don't recall winning any silver tournaments yet, just a scarce bronze and occasional iron.
You get less rewards, and the non F2P teams keep pulling away.
I work from home, and have the $$$ app, so I enter a lot of tournaments.
Seems like the gap will continue to widen as the year goes on.

I'm in this about 8 years now, this one is easily the least fun or interesting.

Yeah.. I’m pretty baffled how they thought the most exciting part of the game (opening packs) being cut down so much was a good idea. I mean, they’re clearly hoping the whales offset the player base that will burn out and drop it. But that’s a bad model imo for the long term health of the game.

I work from home and enter about 25-30 tournaments a day. Last Friday I won 1 pack all day. A 2nd place finish. That’s it. That’s a horrible time investment.

This mode wasn’t designed for anyone remotely casual unwilling to pay to win. Started PT 2 weeks ago and aside from twitch drops (I’m lucky, others aren’t to be able to watch), I’ve won maybe 50 packs from 300 tournaments.

It’s fun to open packs. But there needs to be more bait on the hook to keep newer players around imo.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Kushiel]

Originally Posted by xserp3nt

Yeah.. I’m pretty baffled how they thought the most exciting part of the game (opening packs) being cut down so much was a good idea. I mean, they’re clearly hoping the whales offset the player base that will burn out and drop it. But that’s a bad model imo for the long term health of the game.

That is the point I have been trying to make in past posts.

[RunninYakAngler]

After hardly winning a pack or two in the last couple of weeks, I somehow won 3 Iron tourneys yesterday and beat loaded Combinator teams in the finals.

Of course, with those 9 packs I got 45 duplicates of Nicky Lopez and some random live bronzes.

[logicliker]

Back in PT 2021 or PT 2022 i think i put in like 1K+ hours in Perfect Team just doing "perfect drafts" non stop. Didn't even care about the other modes as they are all pay to win and perfect draft was the only true competitive/fair online h2h mode (without pay to win/microtransaction BS tied to it). of course they limited/nixed this mode shortly there after.

i hate modern game development .. even your smallish indie type studios (like the ootp team) can't escape the crappy business models these days despite being wealthier than ever before.

funny enough, i was the one who suggested a perfect draft mode in the "wish list" forum here a year or two before they added it to the game -- and when they added the mode, it was overwhelmingly popular so they found a way to put it behind some kind of restriction/paywall because they know the mode was attracting non-extra-paying-players because it didn't have a pay to win element to it. it was just a fun competitive mode that stat junkies were competing in around the clock.

they then of course shut down the servers and forced everybody to upgrade to the latest years version to play online modes (and restricted the"perfect draft" mode to whatever it is now) and i shortly ditched the series after that.

you can see the "perfect draft" mode feature request here (post made in june 2020): https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=317940

i_got_wood_34 is my old account name that was banned because i became too critical of the greed of this company

[xserp3nt]

Originally Posted by logicliker

Back in PT 2022 i think i put in like 1K+ hours in Perfect Team just doing "perfect drafts" non stop. Didn't even care about the other modes as they are all pay to win and perfect draft was the only true h2h on a fair playing field (without pay to win element). of course they nixed/limited this mode.

i hate modern game development .. even your smallish indie type studios (like the ootp team) can't escape the crappy business models these days.

funny enough, i was the one who suggested a perfect draft mode in the "wish list" forum here a year or two before they added it to the game -- and when they added the mode, it was overwhelmingly popular so they found a way to put it behind some kind of restriction/paywall because they know the mode was attracting non-extra-paying-players because it didn't have a pay to win element to it. it was just a fun competitive mode that stat junkies were competing in around the clock.

they then of course shut down the servers and forced everybody to upgrade to the latest years version to play online modes and i shortly ditched the series after that.

you can see the feature request here: https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=317940

i_got_wood_34 is my old account name

I’m really enjoying perfect drafts. The ones with PP rewards kinda suck (really 600pp? Or 2k if you win?) so I just do the daily and weeklies. Sucks you only have 3 slots otherwise I’d be slamming a lot of them.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[dishnet34]

Originally Posted by logicliker

Back in PT 2021 or PT 2022 i think i put in like 1K+ hours in Perfect Team just doing "perfect drafts" non stop. Didn't even care about the other modes as they are all pay to win and perfect draft was the only true competitive/fair online h2h mode (without pay to win/microtransaction BS tied to it). of course they limited/nixed this mode shortly there after.

i hate modern game development .. even your smallish indie type studios (like the ootp team) can't escape the crappy business models these days despite being wealthier than ever before.

funny enough, i was the one who suggested a perfect draft mode in the "wish list" forum here a year or two before they added it to the game -- and when they added the mode, it was overwhelmingly popular so they found a way to put it behind some kind of restriction/paywall because they know the mode was attracting non-extra-paying-players because it didn't have a pay to win element to it. it was just a fun competitive mode that stat junkies were competing in around the clock.

they then of course shut down the servers and forced everybody to upgrade to the latest years version to play online modes (and restricted the"perfect draft" mode to whatever it is now) and i shortly ditched the series after that.

you can see the "perfect draft" mode feature request here (post made in june 2020): https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=317940

i_got_wood_34 is my old account name that was banned because i became too critical of the greed of this company

With all due respect, there are a LOT of wild statements in whatever this post is that have little to no basis in reality. In what ways have we, in your words, "limited/nixed" Perfect Drafts? What do you mean by "restrictions"? Because in reality, there are no restrictions and there are barely any limitations when it comes to Perfect Drafts, other than the amount of slots you can use to enter them (and if that's what you mean by "restrictions," that's a very weird hill to die on).

You are correct in that Perfect Draft is popular, but the only times there have ever been any "paywall" were the very few entry fee variations, which are now relegated to pop-up tournaments for a very small entry fee.

As to your comment about shutting down the servers, that was a whole thing necessitated by the shutdown of our old host provider that we had no control over. That has been the only time there has been a premature shutdown of servers, and we have had full service lengths of one year on-cycle and one year while the new-edition cycle goes ever since. An unfortunate blip on the radar, but a blip nonetheless.

Perfect Draft is still one of the best H2H parts of Perfect Team, in my opinion, and is still a fun competitive mode with barely any limitations or restrictions.

[Ty Cobb]

Originally Posted by logicliker

i_got_wood_34 is my old account name that was banned because i became too critical of the greed of this company

I'd wager that name was banned because it's inappropriate for a game where young children are playing. I won't speak about com2us, but Markus and the gang were never greedy. Maybe you should go to the EA forums and complain about greed.