Retcon of Retcon and Economy

Chronomancer · 09-17-2009, 08:32 PM

Greetings, Heroes!

There has been an outcry for a change in retcon pricing, so I wanted to take a few minutes to express why we specifically haven’t reduced the costs. In a nutshell, it all comes down to the economy.

We’ve been analyzing the overall economy of the game. The huge challenge here is that we’ve only been up for 17 days and we needed a reasonable amount of time to pull post-launch, Live Shard data on global resource flow. This then means we have to work with ratios of these numbers and address the relationship of those economic ratios between synergistic and disparate systems. As with any economic model, it’s far more complex than you would first imagine. So, during the past couple of weeks we’ve been working on tuning the entire economy of the game, but we haven’t pushed any changes into the live environment.

Why didn’t we just drop the price of retcon while we figured this out? The concern was that we’d then have to change the pricing back upward after the economy changes were made, and this would only make players mad. So we’ve worked hard and fast and now have solid data and solutions to present.

The concerns that we simply weren’t giving out enough resources to meet the requirements of certain areas of the game were confirmed. We’re attacking this on multiple fronts and are pushing a new economy model to internal QA test tonight and (if all goes well) onto our Public Test Shard this weekend.

So, what’s changing?

We’re increasing the number of white upgrade drops in the world by a substantial amount – close to double of what you’re seeing now. We’re also flattening out the curve on resources gained for selling upgrades to stores, meaning that you’ll get a lot more for white primaries, a little less at the highest end (blues and purples). This equates to distributing about the same overall potential resources while skewing gains to the lower end. We had originally considered just simply increasing the amount of resources you earned from selling all items to “fix” the economy. However, this would have broken crafting – hence the shifting of primary and secondary upgrade values that maintain a net balance of total resources you have coming in from selling upgrades.

We’re also increasing the amount of resources you get for defeating all enemies. This means not only will you naturally get more for doing missions, but you’ll also get more by helping others on their missions or by sweeping the streets. We’re also increasing the resources you get for mission rewards specifically.

The retcon pricing curve is going to be much gentler so that players can undo more decisions at any time. It’s important to note that although we’re tuning the overall costing model of retcon during this phase, a substantial retcon will still have a high price. The heroic, thematic nature of the game doesn't support letting players constantly change their fundamental character concept. But at the same time we want to make it possible for them to completely retcon their character if it’s their goal.

These economy changes will greatly improve the ability for players to retcon their characters, as well as address some longer-term issues we saw on the horizon.

Finally, we’ll be issuing a free retcon for all heroes when the economy changes go Live since it will take a little time for the effects of the new economy to allow players to build up a retcon bankroll.

Remember, we’re pushing the economy change to the Public Test Realm this weekend, so sign up and help us test!

kenze · 09-17-2009, 08:36 PM

awesome news. I love you all!! can i has hug?

ariosto · 09-17-2009, 08:40 PM

I'm looking forward to see how this turns out.

Itanius · 09-17-2009, 08:42 PM

Good stuff!

Dragonblade · 09-17-2009, 08:43 PM

Exceptional news.

I'm also looking forward to seeing how all these changes work out, but really, it looks like many angles of getting resources in the game have been touched upon.

Thanks for letting us know, and we're looking forward to it.

-Dragon

CaptainAmazing · 09-17-2009, 08:54 PM

Patience pays off

The datamining is the future, as I see it to all forms of humanity! Three cheers for our dev team!

Can't wait to test!

-C.A.

Ethion · 09-17-2009, 08:57 PM

I've been wondering about the economy some. Basically it seems like it is pretty open ended? Ie resources come into the economy but rarely go out? Right now I see only a few things to spend resources on. 1. buying recipes and crafting skillups, 2. Buying consumable items although I'd probably just craft them, and retcons. Is there something I'm missing??

So given this I'm seeing money coming in exp at lvl 40 with nowhere to go. What will a lvl 40 spend money on? and why?

I'm lvl 31 now and have around 40-50g and I'm not sure I have any reason to spend money on anything but crafting recipes which I've got well started on.

RonnoctheRed · 09-17-2009, 09:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ethion

I've been wondering about the economy some. Basically it seems like it is pretty open ended? Ie resources come into the economy but rarely go out? Right now I see only a few things to spend resources on. 1. buying recipes and crafting skillups, 2. Buying consumable items although I'd probably just craft them, and retcons. Is there something I'm missing??

So given this I'm seeing money coming in exp at lvl 40 with nowhere to go. What will a lvl 40 spend money on? and why?

I'm lvl 31 now and have around 40-50g and I'm not sure I have any reason to spend money on anything but crafting recipes which I've got well started on.

I personally buy recipes and crafting items off of the Auction House at 40 to make stuff for myself and my SGmates. The lv 40 purple recipes require a truckload of rare resources to make. That's pretty much it at the moment, though.

I'm glad to see that they're getting a solution to the retcon problem into the works, and it's definitely nice to see another free respec come down to help ease everyone into it. Here's hoping the prices will finally start to line up with what we actually earn.

Perfect_Pain · 09-17-2009, 09:18 PM

OMG WUT?
Listening to the playerbase means doom.

Also. Please for the love of Mike fix the exp rates for higher level characters. We dont get any exp for killing foes. Its terribad. The link in my sig kinda outlines the problem at hand.

:edit:

Btw, Most of the players ingame dont seem to know there is an auction house in the game... or a bank... Maybe you could have some sort of MAIL go to everyone and say something like "Party at the auction house" and when we get there all we get is a stupid perk...

Viciouspen · 09-17-2009, 09:18 PM

*claps*

good transparency.

Sounds good overall. I can deffinitely get the reason why retcons cant' be dirt cheap.

One question, will that retcon work the same as the one we got for headstart? and will it be...err stackable I suppose? If I havent' used my headstart retcon yet will I still have it and this one or will it get wiped out?

Adding powersets is going to be the one major reason why characters are truly going to need the ability to do drastic retcons.
If you guys release a new powerset that has powers that just fit a concept for a character greatly, then the player is going to want to chane their character to be like that, have that power. It's going to be that whole "OMG that's perfect, I need that as 'hero so and so' primary tier one attack."

I've wondered if you guys would give out retcons when new powersets are release for that very reason.

Granted, a player can just dump a character and "reroll" but gah, that's painful and a loss of a lot of play time. So far as retconning down that much I'll just have to wait and see what the new curve will be like.

Anyways, good article, communicates well *salute*

(although you do have that one underline that didn't take for some reason

hehe)

09-17-2009, 08:32 PM	#1
Chronomancer Cryptic Studios Team Join Date: Nov 2008	Retcon of Retcon and Economy Greetings, Heroes! There has been an outcry for a change in retcon pricing, so I wanted to take a few minutes to express why we specifically haven’t reduced the costs. In a nutshell, it all comes down to the economy. We’ve been analyzing the overall economy of the game. The huge challenge here is that we’ve only been up for 17 days and we needed a reasonable amount of time to pull post-launch, Live Shard data on global resource flow. This then means we have to work with ratios of these numbers and address the relationship of those economic ratios between synergistic and disparate systems. As with any economic model, it’s far more complex than you would first imagine. So, during the past couple of weeks we’ve been working on tuning the entire economy of the game, but we haven’t pushed any changes into the live environment. Why didn’t we just drop the price of retcon while we figured this out? The concern was that we’d then have to change the pricing back upward after the economy changes were made, and this would only make players mad. So we’ve worked hard and fast and now have solid data and solutions to present. The concerns that we simply weren’t giving out enough resources to meet the requirements of certain areas of the game were confirmed. We’re attacking this on multiple fronts and are pushing a new economy model to internal QA test tonight and (if all goes well) onto our Public Test Shard this weekend. So, what’s changing? We’re increasing the number of white upgrade drops in the world by a substantial amount – close to double of what you’re seeing now. We’re also flattening out the curve on resources gained for selling upgrades to stores, meaning that you’ll get a lot more for white primaries, a little less at the highest end (blues and purples). This equates to distributing about the same overall potential resources while skewing gains to the lower end. We had originally considered just simply increasing the amount of resources you earned from selling all items to “fix” the economy. However, this would have broken crafting – hence the shifting of primary and secondary upgrade values that maintain a net balance of total resources you have coming in from selling upgrades. We’re also increasing the amount of resources you get for defeating all enemies. This means not only will you naturally get more for doing missions, but you’ll also get more by helping others on their missions or by sweeping the streets. We’re also increasing the resources you get for mission rewards specifically. The retcon pricing curve is going to be much gentler so that players can undo more decisions at any time. It’s important to note that although we’re tuning the overall costing model of retcon during this phase, a substantial retcon will still have a high price. The heroic, thematic nature of the game doesn't support letting players constantly change their fundamental character concept. But at the same time we want to make it possible for them to completely retcon their character if it’s their goal. These economy changes will greatly improve the ability for players to retcon their characters, as well as address some longer-term issues we saw on the horizon. Finally, we’ll be issuing a free retcon for all heroes when the economy changes go Live since it will take a little time for the effects of the new economy to allow players to build up a retcon bankroll. Remember, we’re pushing the economy change to the Public Test Realm this weekend, so sign up and help us test! __________________ Chronomancer Changing Time since 2142

09-17-2009, 08:40 PM	#3
ariosto Champion Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Auckland, New Zealand	I'm looking forward to see how this turns out. __________________ This is kind of a big deal

09-17-2009, 08:42 PM	#4
Itanius Champion Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Phoenix	Good stuff! __________________ Nerf: A forumite SuperGroup.

09-17-2009, 08:43 PM	#5
Dragonblade Champion Join Date: Oct 2008	Exceptional news. I'm also looking forward to seeing how all these changes work out, but really, it looks like many angles of getting resources in the game have been touched upon. Thanks for letting us know, and we're looking forward to it. -Dragon __________________

09-17-2009, 08:54 PM	#6
CaptainAmazing Champion Join Date: May 2008	Patience pays off The datamining is the future, as I see it to all forms of humanity! Three cheers for our dev team! Can't wait to test! -C.A. __________________ Yes yes I have a Lifetime Subscription too.. \| Founder of The Justice Guard \| Global: CaptainAmazing

09-17-2009, 08:36 PM	#2
kenze Champion Join Date: Feb 2008	awesome news. I love you all!! can i has hug?

09-17-2009, 08:57 PM	#7
Ethion Champion Join Date: Feb 2008	I've been wondering about the economy some. Basically it seems like it is pretty open ended? Ie resources come into the economy but rarely go out? Right now I see only a few things to spend resources on. 1. buying recipes and crafting skillups, 2. Buying consumable items although I'd probably just craft them, and retcons. Is there something I'm missing?? So given this I'm seeing money coming in exp at lvl 40 with nowhere to go. What will a lvl 40 spend money on? and why? I'm lvl 31 now and have around 40-50g and I'm not sure I have any reason to spend money on anything but crafting recipes which I've got well started on. __________________ You walk a mystical path, and are a creature of the spiritual and the supernatural. You are introspective and self-reliant, but nobody will ever question your bravery or commitment to justice. Take the quiz!

09-17-2009, 09:18 PM	#9
Perfect_Pain Vanguard Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Small corner of Heaven	OMG WUT? Listening to the playerbase means doom. Also. Please for the love of Mike fix the exp rates for higher level characters. We dont get any exp for killing foes. Its terribad. The link in my sig kinda outlines the problem at hand. :edit: Btw, Most of the players ingame dont seem to know there is an auction house in the game... or a bank... Maybe you could have some sort of MAIL go to everyone and say something like "Party at the auction house" and when we get there all we get is a stupid perk... __________________ ....... Punch My Brute in the Eye? ....... Make My City grow? .......

09-17-2009, 09:18 PM	#10
Viciouspen Champion Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Where its at	claps good transparency. Sounds good overall. I can deffinitely get the reason why retcons cant' be dirt cheap. One question, will that retcon work the same as the one we got for headstart? and will it be...err stackable I suppose? If I havent' used my headstart retcon yet will I still have it and this one or will it get wiped out? Adding powersets is going to be the one major reason why characters are truly going to need the ability to do drastic retcons. If you guys release a new powerset that has powers that just fit a concept for a character greatly, then the player is going to want to chane their character to be like that, have that power. It's going to be that whole "OMG that's perfect, I need that as 'hero so and so' primary tier one attack." I've wondered if you guys would give out retcons when new powersets are release for that very reason. Granted, a player can just dump a character and "reroll" but gah, that's painful and a loss of a lot of play time. So far as retconning down that much I'll just have to wait and see what the new curve will be like. Anyways, good article, communicates well salute (although you do have that one underline that didn't take for some reason hehe) __________________ The First rule is to Entertain...