Ayra Update: Where do you stand?

[Arcanite]

Just now, Ice Dragon said:

I know full well how many problems one person can cause. One person screws up, three people fail to catch the screw-up, and before anyone knows it, stuff is out the door and OH SHIT happens. It's not really even an issue of incompetence. Just having deadlines around the corner is enough to cause this because even if the screw-up is identified, there's nothing you can do about it because the release has to ship NOW.

Hmph

Fair enough

One can rightly assume that someone got fired then heh heh

[DehNutCase]

17 minutes ago, Arcanite said:

Nintendo and IS wouldn't be "some idiot". One person isn't going to dictate what is going to happen lol (which I'm sure you know). Gacha doesn't run on "yknow what, screw it, let's do this and see what happens" because that isnt going to make them bucks. There's... many things to think about. F2Ps, casuals, whales, fans of which games, fans of which characters, what skills to put, special weapons, and stats and maybe some other things I missed... there's more to it than screw it, so to speak xD
Gacha runs on catering to the F2Ps (keeping them interested in the game) that haven't spent money yet, figuring out how to get them to spend money, and finding a way to keep those who spent already hooked (and of course there's whales).

Actually, Gacha runs on:

Keeping F2P around where Whales can see them, and keeping Whales around where F2P can see them. And, of course, a Gacha system.

Keeping F2P around where Whales can see them let's the Whales know how absurd their units are. Keeping Whales around lets F2P know what kind of absurd builds they can do if they just dumped money into the game. (The developer challenges is a variant of this.)

 

The Gacha system is combining probability and the fact that most people suck at statistics in order to make money.

 

In that regard, Ayra's banner was, ironically, exactly the opposite of how they should've done it to maximize income. The thing is that: Statistically speaking, Ayra & Sigurd being on separate banners reduced the amount of orbs they'd suck out of the system for people who wanted Ayra and Sigurd.

 

Yes, it'll take less orbs on average to get Ayra and Sigurd if they were on the same banner, but that average suffers from a very high standard deviation. Once you got Sigurd you went from trying to pull Sigurd or Ayra to only Ayra, this is part of why Gacha systems are so amazing---they nuke precisely the kind of person that gets ruined the hardest by probability, people who need a certain character, and will whale like crazy for them.

Gacha doesn't make money from: it takes 100 orbs to get an Ayra, so everyone who wants an Ayra pays 100 orbs. Gacha makes money from: it takes 1000 orbs or whatever to get a 99% shot at Ayra, so that one guy who needed Ayra is going to dump thousands on her because he's getting ruined by that 1%.

 

The separate banners style had a higher average but a lower standard deviation (because there's less foci to split the odds between), meaning the people who'd whale the hardest are far less affected, because it'll be like 800 orbs for 99% rather than 1k orbs for 99% or something like that. (I pulled these numbers out of my ass, mind, but the general concept remains the same: double banner = higher average, lower standard deviation, single banner = lower average, higher standard deviation.) Gacha makes money from high variance rather than high average (you still wanted a moderately high average, of course, but high variance is where gacha makes the money---by making people spend and spend and spend without getting the unit they want).

 

I.E. They pissed off the average people who don't understand probability, and the people who do understand are the type that don't tend to lose money gambling in the first place.

My only issue with the Ayra thing is that IS will start to realize that it's optimal to do cashgrabs that look like they're player favored rather than banners like Ayra & Sigurd, which were, in fact, player favored, but looked very bad. God I hope they don't start doing 4 or 5 or 6 unit banners deliberately intended to suck while looking good.

Edited November 8, 2017 by DehNutCase

[Cute Chao]

5 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

I.E. They pissed off the average people who don't understand probability, and the people who do understand are the type that don't tend to lose money gambling in the first place.

My only issue with the Ayra thing is that IS will start to realize that it's optimal to do cashgrabs that look like they're player favored rather than banners like Ayra & Sigurd, which were, in fact, player favored, but looked very bad. God I hope they don't start doing 4 or 5 or 6 unit banners deliberately intended to suck while looking good.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind if they did larger banners again. I know the probability sucks, but I'm getting sick of only having a few people added at a time. We used to have a four person (occasionally six person) banner count, plus GHB and then TT got added to that. The reduction sucks. I don't even have to pull on those banners, since they'll be along again in future banners if I am patient - I'm the kind to just want the characters in the game and available. 

I'm actually still glad Ayra was released as she was, so it sort of became a four person pull, even if she was added later than the others. I wouldn't mind them doing it again. 

(Although a six person banner split into two like the Echoes one would be ideal. Too ideal - can't imagine them doing that again...) 

Edited November 8, 2017 by Cute Chao

[Ice Dragon]

2 minutes ago, Arcanite said:

Hmph

Fair enough

One can rightly assume that someone got fired then heh heh

Somehow, I don't think this issue is big enough to actually warrant a resignation.

I think the bigger issue is that they need to get a decent PR team to actually respond to player criticism. Being opaque and unresponsive on the PR side means you can't capitalize on good feedback and you can't try to mollify bad feedback.

[Arcanite]

8 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Keeping F2P around where Whales can see them let's the Whales know how absurd their units are. Keeping Whales around lets F2P know what kind of absurd builds they can do if they just dumped money into the game. (The developer challenges is a variant of this.)

You are saying this as if there are only 2 types of people that are in this. There are also people who spend a considerable amount of money but aren't 100% whale mode. There are the casuals who buy orbs here and there... maybe just to get rid of their percentage. 

Categorized so:

1. F2P

2. Throw in money

3. Regularly spend money

----------------------------------

4. WAILORD/WISHIWASHI MEMES

F2Ps don't go straight to whale. and if you are a whale, you probably intended to do so from the beginning *looks at Ice Dragon*

It is more, keeping F2Ps around so they can eventually get tempted into spending, and keeping the people who are already spending, spending. Whales pretty much only spend on units that are good or OP or "worth whaling for". Ayra was probably worth whaling for, more than anything else... tbh

9 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Somehow, I don't think this issue is big enough to actually warrant a resignation.

I think the bigger issue is that they need to get a decent PR team to actually respond to player criticism. Being opaque and unresponsive on the PR side means you can't capitalize on good feedback and you can't try to mollify bad feedback.

I wonder what they have to say about this

I guess we'll see. Maybe next heroes stream or something.

[DehNutCase]

6 minutes ago, Arcanite said:

You are saying this as if there are only 2 types of people that are in this. There are also people who spend a considerable amount of money but aren't 100% whale mode. There are the casuals who buy orbs here and there... maybe just to get rid of their percentage. 

Categorized so:

1. F2P

2. Throw in money

3. Regularly spend money

----------------------------------

4. WAILORD/WISHIWASHI MEMES

F2Ps don't go straight to whale. and if you are a whale, you probably intended to do so from the beginning *looks at Ice Dragon*

It is more, keeping F2Ps around so they can eventually get tempted into spending, and keeping the people who are already spending, spending. Whales pretty much only spend on units that are good or OP or "worth whaling for". Ayra was probably worth whaling for, more than anything else... tbh

I wonder what they have to say about this

I guess we'll see. Maybe next heroes stream or something.

The thing about the people who regularly spend money but aren't whales... is that they're a drop in the ocean compared to the amount of money whales spend, despite their (presumably) larger numbers.

 

The primary purpose of keeping F2P around isn't really to make money from them---F2P is a consistent money loss from server costs---it's so that the whales have a baseline of comparison to know how great their units are. Like, yeah, I might throw in $40 around Christmas or if they ever do a good orb bundle deal (a lot of gachas do things like: buy $40 of currency, get a 5* or very good 4* and things like that), because FEH is a game I'm willing to pay $40 for, but the thing about my $40 is that the guy who spends $1000 on a single banner outspent me 25 times over. On a single banner. That guy is worth way, way, way more than I am.

You'd need hundreds of regular spenders to beat one whale, and I'd guess the regular to whale ratio is worse than that. (That is, there are less than 100 regular spenders per whale.)

 

That is, it's not so much that people are F2P or Whale, it's that Whales are sufficiently big that if you don't whale yourself the money you spend don't actually need to be accounted for, because it's just so small in comparison.

 

At least, that's how I'd run a gacha system. If I wanted consistent, relatively small incomes from most of the playerbase I'd use a subscription system like either WoW, where everyone has to subscribe to play, or Runescape, where a lot of the content is locked behind a subscription. The whole point of using a gacha based system is to milk the whales, there's no need to force a system to get money from people it's not designed to get money from. (I mean, yeah, I'll take your $40 of F2P money, but I won't bother remembering your name, if you know what I mean.)

[Ice Dragon]

7 minutes ago, Arcanite said:

Ayra was probably worth whaling for, more than anything else... tbh

Amelia and Brave Ike are more worth it because they are better for inflating your Arena score. And the more you can inflate your Arena score, the less cavalry bullshit you have to deal with on a regular basis.

The only thing Ayra brings to the table in this context is that she was the bonus unit with the highest scoring potential, but I don't think whales care quite that much anymore about normal Arena since there's no longer a reward for ranking. At the very least, I don't. I just throw a bonus unit on my team and shoot for 5000+. And Arena Assault doesn't require a bonus unit.

 

11 minutes ago, Arcanite said:

I wonder what they have to say about this

I guess we'll see. Maybe next heroes stream or something.

My impression of Japanese companies is that they're rather behind the times in terms of communication and other business practices compared to the rest of the world. But maybe that's just me.

[Charmeleonbrah]

I think you guys are being silly.  She is obviously powercreep.  PM1 did a video on his "Top 10 Best Launch Characters".  Ayra vastly outclasses all of them; higher BST, legendary weapon with a great skill built in, and a 2 charge special that adds +15 to damage. 

 

[XRay]

1 hour ago, Charmeleonbrah said:

I think you guys are being silly.  She is obviously powercreep.  PM1 did a video on his "Top 10 Best Launch Characters".  Ayra vastly outclasses all of them; higher BST, legendary weapon with a great skill built in, and a 2 charge special that adds +15 to damage. 

 

I think people tried to stop arguing about it, but here is my earlier post few pages back deferring to Extra Credits who are professional game designers who explain what power creep is and is not. I highly recommend watching their videos, it is super cool to know what goes on in a game designer's mind. I will make a new thread and people unsatisfied with the debate can argue there in more detail without being distracted by other topics.

On 11/5/2017 at 12:47 AM, XRay said:

Ayra is not power creep. If a new unit or content does not overthrow Reinhardt or BH!Lyn, it is not power creep.

Here are two videos explaining what power creep is and is not:

Power Creep - The Trouble with Expansions and Time - Extra Credits

Power Creep in Hearthstone - What It Teaches Us About Games - Extra Credits

Additional stats and unique skills do not automatically mean something is power creep.

 

Edited November 9, 2017 by XRay

[DehNutCase]

The main problem is that Ayra is, in fact, powercreep, but in terms of powerlevel she's actually barely above average.

This is because of two reasons:

A, She's one of the strongest units of her type, and very definitely stronger than older units in her type. (Basically B!Ike level).

B, Her unit type is kind of bloody horrible.

In all honestly, melee infantry is probably only better than dragons and melee armor in terms of power level, dragons because of better weapon selection, armors because 10 or so BST is not worth a whole movement point. (The fact that people run Armor March at all is proof, because Hone/Fort Armor is twelve points of stats, and people run Armor March over that.)

 

I would count her as powercreep, for example, because now Infantry in general, and Infantry Sword in particular, has a new standard.

Ice Dragon, for example, wouldn't, because he defines powercreep as 'something that exceeds the current strongest.'

 

And Ayra doesn't hold a handle to the bullshit that's mage cavalry, or bow cavalry, or mages in general, or bows in general. A bow is +1 Range in exchange for 1 or 2 MT, that's fucking crazy when you consider that +1 Range handles very close to +1 move, and +1 move is worth more than 12 BST (Armor March versus Fort/Hone). And don't even get me started on tomes, which get +1 Range in exchange for 12 or 24 extra MT. Because that's how you fucking balance weapons.

Basically, it's an issue of: Do you define power creep in terms of the whole game or in terms of niches? Infantry Sword literally didn't have a trainee unit as min-maxed as Ayra until she came along. She has: Trainee BST, good spread (Lucina Tier distribution), and a good Prf and unique Skill.

The problem? Half the units in the game are better than that, because being Cavalry, being Flying, being Tome User, being Bow user, all blow being Infantry and being Swordlocked out of the water.

Edited November 11, 2017 by DehNutCase

[Charmeleonbrah]

On ‎11‎/‎8‎/‎2017 at 6:19 PM, Ice Dragon said:

Somehow, I don't think this issue is big enough to actually warrant a resignation.

I think the bigger issue is that they need to get a decent PR team to actually respond to player criticism. Being opaque and unresponsive on the PR side means you can't capitalize on good feedback and you can't try to mollify bad feedback.

I'm wondering if the upcoming FEH Channel will address this at all.  They've been strangely silent for the past month or so.  Also, their interview where they spoke about controlling powercreep didn't age well in regards to the FE4 events (regardless whether you think Ayra is/isn't powercreep).

I'd like to say though, that I've had an Ayra on my Voting Gauntlet team quite a number of times.  I don't think I'll pull for her in Hero Fest, not because of her shortcomings as a unit or the controversy surrounding the TT banner, but because her voice acting is blehh.  It sounds like she stayed up all night and just woke up.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

1 hour ago, Charmeleonbrah said:

I'm wondering if the upcoming FEH Channel will address this at all.  They've been strangely silent for the past month or so.  Also, their interview where they spoke about controlling powercreep didn't age well in regards to the FE4 events (regardless whether you think Ayra is/isn't powercreep).

I'd like to say though, that I've had an Ayra on my Voting Gauntlet team quite a number of times.  I don't think I'll pull for her in Hero Fest, not because of her shortcomings as a unit or the controversy surrounding the TT banner, but because her voice acting is blehh.  It sounds like she stayed up all night and just woke up.

 

The first rule of PR talk is to never take it seriously

 

The interview that gave us "we are controlling about powercreep" is the same kind that brings us the epic meme that is "Aegislash is a Physical Attacker" in pokemon