Game health concerns

[wraith hill]

Since men's departure we have seen an increase of 200% of release on paying bots and an 100-150% increase in the release of legendary pilot. That is not associated with a fastening of the bug resolution or new feature release.
In my eyes it shows either that the department in charge of new bots/concepts is overstaffed compared to the core gameplay devs or that concepts saved up to make to developpement more easy on the long term are fired out as fast as possible both of which are concerning.
Whatsmore the team seems to be running behind on the road map released like for example for the impact points systeme rework.
That increase is also associated with an increase of the release of untested gears/weapons/torso/abilities which is a major risk of have OP build as a consequence.
I am worried of that increase as in my eyes I see only two options possible on the devs end it either means that the team is asked to crush and people can be overused only for so long or that all the disregarded or saved up concepts are beeing released which could be a signe of a last move to make as much money as possible before shuting down the project.
I sincerely hope I am wrong because the core of the game is really good the shareholders and CEO just need to give time to the devs to finish the game before hoping for unrealistic performances.
That increase is just going to make any F2P players run and highly invested player are already unhappy with the team matchmaking changes as such I don't see the long time plan here.

[cursive trail]

Jen was leading the WRF team for more than 2 years and has now moved on to her next project. That being said, I completely agree with your concerns and I hope that with the passage of time, upcoming events in the near future will reassure everyone about the game.

[undone inlet]

mechs of which we can get for free if we cant wait, and a pilot that could soon to be on gold one day, not like you need heroic pilots, the common ones will do just fine in most cases but yeah it does suck to need to wait or pay to get it faster.

[wraith hill]

actually there has been not communication about if or when the ceres were going to be available through a blueprint systeme but this is beside the point what is concerning is the shift is strategy.

[undone inlet]

true but still, you can still get it for free atleast]

[wraith hill]

well the is rng based which is not ideal as a game balance stand point and if they keep their pace the drop is going to get abysmal pretty fast as there is no intent to increase the number of slots in the shop with the increased number of parts

[undone inlet]

well they better pump those numbers up then.

[viscid cairn]

Any movement on the staffing model getting replenished? Or is her role a minus one?

[cursive trail]

Her responsibilities have been taken up by and distributed between the other existing senior team members.

[viscid cairn]

Understood. Thanks. Not a good sign. Hopefully folks are able to elevate the game as they are. Big kudos to them for what has been created so far!

[wraith hill]

not a good sign indeed on top of all the other points 😥

[velvet escarp]

While the new bot surprise is somewhat nice on the head of it, my first thoughts were similar to your concerns. Creating a new bot takes a good amount of development resources. Blasting them out without any playtesting, pre-announcement, or hype buildup seems like a bit of a waste, especially when there are still bugs to be fixed, balance issues to be addressed, and game mechanics that need tweaking. People had no idea this bot was coming, so if the patch had just been about balance, bug fixing, and game mechanics improvement, folks would have been just fine with that. We've already just recently received several new bots, so another content drop right now just isn't necessary.

The fact that these things keep getting released in such scummy, predatory ways is definitely exceedingly unattractive, too. The whole thing makes me wonder if the game isn't making the money the top folks want it to, so they're trying to blast out content with predatory marketing ASAP to try to bump up revenue in the short term. Feels desperate, since I doubt they could sustainable develop new content at this rate, which means they're blowing through their reserve of content that was already in development for some time. I would hate to see this game get progressively more P2W than it's already started creeping in the direction of, all for the sake of sort-term cash grabbing.

[wraith hill]

for me the short term cash grabbing plus the team downsizing is giving a signe toward grab all the cash you can and close the game but I hope I am wrong

[velvet escarp]

Yeah, it's a very concerning direction.

[primal pivot]

Perhaps with the release of new robots they could have so & so matches played each day-similar to the westerner paintjob tasks-for 10-15 days.

If you miss out on one day you wont be able to get the torso which is the final reward

Potential solution aside i agree with most up top.

[velvet escarp]

An announcement that they'll be craftable in [X] amount of time, at least, would be a big step in the right direction. The current strategy of, "buy it now, or forever be beholden to the incredibly small odds of it showing up in the store" is an extremely cheesy sales tactic. You literally have better odds flipping a coin and getting heads nine times in a row than having the Ceres torso show up in the store.

[mental briar]

Then in 2-3 months when it finally gets added to the player levels, you have to spend even more time leveling up to finally access these parts.

That is, if you don’t hit the jackpot and get them through the store

[primal pivot]

At least this one is uncommon rather than rare.

[mental briar]

Look at the silver lining. Might have a bit of rust, but it’s still there.

[velvet escarp]

Yeah... this doesn't look good. My cash grab senses are more than tingling.

The fact that the Scrubber comes, by default, as a single item (not a pair) means that you need to get super lucky in the store TWICE if you want to set your Matriarch up properly with the new weapons. Absolutely ridiculous.

[regal mica]

I did hope that i was wrong but it’s not

They not only keep doing the silent treatment about Ceres

But also releasing a new one in the same way to get it as Ceres

What a game

🥀

[velvet escarp]

Anansi bot pieces have a 0.6309% drop chance. Flipping a coin and getting 7 heads in a row has a better chance of happening (0.78125%).

[mild falcon]

As imuch as I agree this is still a free game and they need to make money

[regal mica]

Welp, the more bots we get

[mild falcon]

It's a business in the end of the day

[regal mica]

The worse chance to get what we want

Idk what to say anymore honestly

And don’t forget about mr Ceres the king of 0.1% 🥀

Honesly, even a gacha is not this bad

At least with a gacha game, you have a guaranteed that when you spend enough amount of tickets

You have 100% chance to get it

Here, no sign of it

🐋

[velvet escarp]

Predatory tactics are not required to make money. I don't know how things are now (since I haven't played LoL in a long time), but for a long time, League of Legends just sold cosmetics and things to boost progression, with all of the actually gameplay content stuff being unlockable with predictable, in-game progression- not ridiculous RNG drop chances. You could buy boosters to speed up progression and resources (basically like WRF premium time), you could buy skins, and you you pay to unlock champions immediately. If you didn't want to do that, you could save your in-game currency, and buy them at your leisure. No time pressure, no RNG, no "maybe you can get this for free eventually, but maybe not"... it worked fine. They made obscene amounts of money, and the game was very popular.

It's entirely possible to make a F2P model that is fun and fair to everyone, that still generates good money. Just because many games go far far beyond that doesn't mean it's necessary to do that to make money. Corporations have made games more and more predatory because they can, not because they have to. "Making money is great and all, but you know what's better? Making even more!"

[wraith hill]

actually most games that last on the long run try less predatory tactics.
I have not played the games but ones like valorant or fortnight are successful and rely almost exclusively on cosmetics

[velvet escarp]

Exactly. Predatory tactics are often for the quick squeeze, at the cost of long-term sustainability. If you want to maintain a good player base (and not just rely on a small number of whales), you need to monetize in a way that feels reasonably fair to everyone involved. Their current tactics are getting closer in the direction of mobile game nonsense.

[viscid cairn]

Which is sad because it can be such a great game!!! I too feel the product life cycle is being mandated by short profit alone vs long term vision.

Look at Steel Hunters by Wargaming as an example. Concept and visuals solid. Publisher didn’t see instant success like their “World of” titles. They dumped the content then announced the close.

[fast magnet]

Ya this is exactly what it looks like to me. Trying to squeeze out anything they can before EoS

I’ve literally spent thousands on gacha, I’m not a stranger to spending but I wont spend on this given the current outlook and track record