Planetarion Forums

t3k · 25 Oct 2009, 06:41

OK it's essentially half 6 (although my computer insists it's only half 5) so forgive any poor spelling/grammar/absense of any and all logic...

I've just spent tonight trying to work out what race/govt. I should chose, and where to apply the bonuses that everyone gets.

I then looked at the bonus you get for upgrading, and I was a bit shocked to see that they've stayed the same.

I understand that the research/construction points you get at signup are to compensate for the 48 less ticks you spend in protection, but I forsee there being a noteable drop in credits purchased.

I've just spent 8000 research points for free, and now I'm being asked to pay £5~ for another 2000? AND I've spent 8000 construction points for free, and for an extra £5 I can have another 1000 (at the cost of losing the extra 2000 research points). I just got given 2 MILLION of each resource for free, which I have the option of converting in to 300 roids AND have enough for ships? And I have to pay another £5 to get either 15,000 resources (total) or 9 roids (total).

I'm sorry but surely there's something wrong with that? Sure you can wait and once ticks start it might be more worthwhile upgrading than it is atm, but is there any point?

I really don't care about ads on web pages enough to pay £5 to get rid of them, and you can easily parse your scans and keep them for longer than 3 hours.

I'm sorry but you're going to have to go a long way towards convincing people they should pay for an upgrade, because I really don't see the appeal atm.

Reese · 25 Oct 2009, 07:22

yeah you really dont need to upgrade this round...

DeeJay · 25 Oct 2009, 10:01

The paid accounts should give you a tiny small advantage. The fact that you were given A LOT of research and construction points and resources to compensate for the 48 tick less of protection it doesn't mean you should get another HUGE advantage by getting a paid account.

No one forces you to get a paid account, you can play the game with a free account aswell. But those cookie cutter players will play a paid account exactly for that TINY SMALL amount advantage.

Mzyxptlk · 25 Oct 2009, 10:24

This is only a perceived change. When you look at the cold hard numbers, upgrading has remained pretty much the same as it was before the new protection was introduced.

You're also forgetting that the magnitude of these upgrades will increase as time progresses. Getting a free TT-4 at tick 220 is still as awesome as it was before.

t3k · 25 Oct 2009, 15:13

I don't fully disagree with that, mz, and people who've upgraded for years will continue to do so.

It's like going in to a shop and being given 8 free candy bars, and 8 cans of juice, with no obligation to shop any further. Then on your way out, you're told that for an extra £5, you can have another candy bar OR can of juice... and if you're willing to stay in the shop for two weeks then the £5 will get you either TWO extra candy bars or TWO extra cans of juice.

And I'm not just talking about how it looks to people who've played the game for ages, I'm talking about people who're brand new to the game, who see the upgrade in the light I've portrayed above. While the benefits to upgrading are technically the same as they always have been, I don't think that's enough.

The ONLY part of the upgrade bonus that means anything is the research bonus (as the amount of roids OR resources you get seem utterly insignificant now), and even then you wont really notice it for over a week. Basically the upgrade bonus is "a £5 minor research bump".

Every one of the 4 upgrade options need to be made appealing, otherwise credits are going to be bought only by people who don't know any better who've been doing it for ages, and the people who care just a little too much about insignificant advantages.

And mz, perception is important too. If you go to a car show room, you're not going to pick the car with the best engine if the car itself is painted a combination on luminous pinks and greens, mangled bumpers, smashed windows with the S-Club Juniors blaring out the speaker system.

Light · 25 Oct 2009, 17:26

1) you come out of protection now with 1.7mil resources instead of 0.7mil resources. This means upgrading doesnt give you hardly any additional resources to protect yourself, so upgrading no longer gives you a much better start via resources.
2) The ETA bonus you can get from the extra research points are negliable at the start, considering most (if not all) alliances dont defend on the first few nights anyway.. you'll only be dealing with ingal defence at the max (Also considering, everyone tries to aim for inactive galaxys at the start, due to value and bash limit allowing them to get full cap on them anyway, especially now everyone including inactives are straght up to 300 roids). This means, that you can wait till tick 72-100 to see if you're doing well before upgrading.. If you're not, then you dont need the negliable bonus.

If only people who are in the top50 are the only ones that get a real the benefit from upgrading, then something is seriously wrong. The upgrade bonus should be percieved to be the best course of action for any planet. You should be able to recommend to any player to upgrade, as it will give you a good advantage over those that are not. Thats not the case anymore, the upgrade is negliable.

Mzyxptlk · 25 Oct 2009, 17:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Light

If only people who are in the top50 are the only ones that get a real the benefit from upgrading, then something is seriously wrong. The upgrade bonus should be percieved to be the best course of action for any planet. You should be able to recommend to any player to upgrade, as it will give you a good advantage over those that are not. Thats not the case anymore, the upgrade is negliable.

Unfortunately for you, Pete has repeatedly said that he envisioned upgrading to be for hardcore players only; something that you can do, but without which your planet will definitely not be crippled.

Light · 25 Oct 2009, 17:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

Unfortunately for you, Phil has repeatedly said that he envisioned upgrading to be for hardcore players only; something that you can do, but without which your planet will definitely not be crippled.

I must be mistaken, I thought zPeti's priority was to make money from this game which he makes through upgrading. Isolating upgrade bonuses to the very hardcore isnt a very good business plan.. especially when that upgrade is so negliable that even the hardcore players dont really need to upgrade.

Mzyxptlk · 25 Oct 2009, 18:13

He's been running the game for what, 4 rounds now? If it was running at a loss, I'm sure we would have noticed something by now. Instead, he's looking to expand into Facebook. Fact is though, neither of us has any idea what kind of business plan Pete has developed for PA, so playing guess games regarding the financial situation of Pete Enterprises (or whatever it's called) is fairly futile.

Taking another approach, the statement "only the top50 has anything to gain by upgrading" is flat out wrong. A great many people gain by upgrading, from late sign ups to hardcore players, from siege rushers to scanners.

On the other hand, it should never be necessary for people to upgrade if they're playing their first round(s), just mucking about a bit with cov ops, or playing casually by logging in once a day. People need to be able to see the game without paying money for it.

Imperion, a Travian-in-space game that started a couple of months ago, works exactly like this. I am currently in a top10 league (alliance) and haven't spent a dime on it yet. While there are many reasons it's already more popular than PA has been in at least 8 years, I'm confident that one of the reasons is its excellent p2p scheme, which follows the rules I outlined above almost to the letter.

Light · 26 Oct 2009, 00:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

He's been running the game for what, 4 rounds now? If it was running at a loss, I'm sure we would have noticed something by now. Instead, he's looking to expand into Facebook. Fact is though, neither of us has any idea what kind of business plan Pete has developed for PA, so playing guess games regarding the financial situation of Pete Enterprises (or whatever it's called) is fairly futile.

Its not a case of if its running at a loss or not. Its everyones business plan to make as much profit as possible and to do that you want to maximise efficiency.

If there's 1000 people playing PA, you want your upgrade options to cater for all 1000. Not just for 5-10% of the playerbase.

Quote:

On the other hand, it should never be necessary for people to upgrade if they're playing their first round(s), just mucking about a bit with cov ops, or playing casually by logging in once a day. People need to be able to see the game without paying money for it.

No matter how many resources or points the upgrade bonus gave, you still wouldnt need to upgrade on your first ever round.. as you would spend it wrong anyway.

but anyway, im upgrading this round not due to any resource or research bonus.. simply cuz i want SMS's when i get incomings

Which the new upgrade email service will provie (when used in conjunction with an email to sms service).

Mzyxptlk · 26 Oct 2009, 08:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Light

If there's 1000 people playing PA, you want your upgrade options to cater for all 1000. Not just for 5-10% of the playerbase.

Not if that means half your playerbase disappears, which, with numbers as low as these, would be the end of the game.

On a sidenote, I would be surprised to see if less than 30% of the players upgrades.

xtrasyn · 26 Oct 2009, 13:10

As a paying customer I feel a bit weird about this. I think the amount charged doesn't make me entitled to bitch about it (tbh, it's next to nothing, if zPeti would double the amount I'd still pay it with a smile), but I too felt a bit odd about the only very small advantage it gave me.

People were laughing at me in a channel even, along the lines of 'Haha you paid hahaha'.

Paying customers should have a firm edge, period. Any other plan is bad business.

Paisley · 26 Oct 2009, 14:00

i'll take the advantage of early research

Lοki · 27 Oct 2009, 11:06

Any bonus is a bonus, and some people will pay to get it. But I find it odd that you are better off not using it at the start.

A scanner who uses his bonus at tick 0 gets 1 or 2 extra amps. A scanner who uses his bonus at tick 500 gets 8-10 extra amps. A guy who uses the credit at the last tick (say 1500) gets 3003 roids of each type (!) which is 600.000 in value. I think these bonusses are too much. It's now a tradeoff from using it as late as possible but benefiting from it as long as possible. Imo, people who buy credits early should not be outperformed by people who buy credits later in the round.

There's an easy and fair solution to this. The current (or adjusted) formula can be applied for not the tick you spend a credit, but the tick you joined the game.
If your planet was created at tick 0, buying a credit gives you a static number of roids/resources/cons/research no matter when you spend it. This way you will get the same bonus as everyone else without gaining an unfair advantage.
If your planet was created at a later tick, an extra large bonus will only help you catch up. In this case it is fair to give a planet 10 constructions at tick 500, since he hasn't been building any yet.

I suspect this was the intended design for credits: to give late starters a reason to upgrade. However, people who start at the very beginning of a round should not get extra upgrades by waiting to spend their credit.

Gio2k · 27 Oct 2009, 12:25

The mail when incomings thingie is imo reason enough to upgrade. Combine it with my google mail account and my google phone, and i am set.
Can i set the mail address to be notified in the preferences page? I don't want to use the same mail address as the one i sign up with. And i would sign up with the google account, except i would lose the credits i purchased with the other mail account.

JDD · 27 Oct 2009, 14:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gio2k

I don't want to use the same mail address as the one i sign up with. And i would sign up with the google account, except i would lose the credits i purchased with the other mail account.

There is a box in preferences to add a seperate email for notifications than the one you signup with on the same page you check the boxes for what notifications you want emailed to you.

Gio2k · 30 Oct 2009, 13:28

Correct me if i am wrong, but the startup bonuses are basically there to compensate for the 48 ticks that we are now skipping, right?
With that in mind, paid bonuses should also be corrected to account for those 48 ticks skipped.
Also, it seems that the notification system will work also for free accounts.
I just don't see ANY incentive in upgrading this round. I even have extra credits from last rounds purchase, i just don't see the point in using them.

Mzyxptlk · 30 Oct 2009, 14:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gio2k

Correct me if i am wrong, but the startup bonuses are basically there to compensate for the 48 ticks that we are now skipping, right?

Correct.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gio2k

With that in mind, paid bonuses should also be corrected to account for those 48 ticks skipped.

As far as I know, they have.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gio2k

Also, it seems that the notification system will work also for free accounts.

And rightfully so. It's fairly useless for us nolifers, but it can be a lifesaver for newbies who've only just signed up. I check PA more often than I check my mail. :\

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gio2k

I just don't see ANY incentive in upgrading this round. I even have extra credits from last rounds purchase, i just don't see the point in using them.

The incentive is there just as much as it was last round. The fact that people are not seeing it is merely an indication of our irrationality.

Patrikc · 30 Oct 2009, 14:12

The 'upgrade bonuses' are the same as last round. So Resources for example, are 5000+4000*tick, and because there are 48 less ticks before the roiding begins there will be less profit from using it 'right after protection'.

One other thing that shouldn't be forgotten is that upgrading's worth a lot more if you're going random, for the reduced exiling costs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lοki

A guy who uses the credit at the last tick (say 1500) gets 3003 roids of each type (!) which is 600.000 in value.

I'm fairly sure 3 + 1500 * 2/20 is 153, not 3003. (I'm wondering why PA team used 2/20 though instead of 1/10 or 0.1!)

Gio2k · 30 Oct 2009, 14:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

As far as I know, they have.

Research Point Bonus:
2000 + 0 * 20 = 2000 Research Points
Construction Unit Bonus:
1000 + 0 * 15 = 1000 Construction Units

That's what the manual says atm. Afaik, that was the same last round. Taking into account the 48 skipped ticks it should be around

2000 + 960 + 200 * tick RP and
1000 + 720 + 150 * tick CP

Same with resources / roids.

And notifying when you get incomings should be a paid option imo.

Light · 30 Oct 2009, 15:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

And rightfully so. It's fairly useless for us nolifers, but it can be a lifesaver for newbies who've only just signed up. I check PA more often than I check my mail. :\

actually, nolifers can setup an email to sms service.. to gain sms's on incoming.

Alliances could also build there webtools to allow for email reporting of incoming, so even it no-one is online in that galaxy.. the alliance still gets the incoming reported. (Which means no more late reporting)

Mzyxptlk · 30 Oct 2009, 17:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gio2k

Afaik, that was the same last round.

Hmm, maybe you're right.