It's official--game unplayable without forum

[goober]

Most honest (emphasis added) transactions require some information about the risk and reward, and without it, a rational person will not throw their resources down a hole

Bottom line: the developers owe the content creators a debt of gratitude for continued playability and the vital information that is so cleverly concealed with checklists, tiered events, and downright deceptive splash screens and completion benchmarks.

Robespierre -
I think we often mis-understand Gree's goal. They want to maximize revenue and profit. Not fairness, not sense of rationality, etc. Look at their basic manipulation of human behavior:

• Checklist after checklist after checklist
• "Awards" for completing goals that just unlock more checklists ("Prestige" mode??)
• Distractions with shiny little baubles (tokens? medals? points?) reminds me of giving stickers to my 3yr old kids!
• Leaderboard after leaderboard (who does most damage, most folders, most crates, most tokens, WD ranking, Frontline ranking, individual ranking, most ...)
• Fallacy of sunk costs - "i've invested so much in this LTQ/Crate/Masters/T50 pursuit, I have to finish it"

You talk about rational behavior, but most humans are actually very bad at rational behavior - think of slot machines, lotteries, texting and driving, over eating, and so many other behaviors. We are good at reacting to immediate stimuli, bad at learning from things that take a long time.

Gree has proven that the players are *not* good at thinking rationally, because we do in fact still play, and still spend $$ on all of these events. We fall for their tricks.

• If Gree told us up front that it was a 0.01% of opening that final #25 crate, and you need to open 100 of them on average and the cost is actually 1500 gold or $100 for that 1 single unit, how many people who do it?
• If Gree showed "true" progress in a LTQ (hmm, 20/20 is actually 25% of total energy?, i'm only 75% of the way done?) or Raid boss (We've finished 27/29 of Masters! Yay, now we are only 50% of the way through the damage required to complete it!! Oh no, 50% left!!) how many players would keep slogging away vs. just saying enough is enough?

By hiding these true odds and costs and requirements they fool us in to over spending.

[Mastert55!]

^wow. If Gree showed the true progress point instead of filling us and saying there isn't much left like 28/29, they would be out alot of money because the majority of top 25 and lower teams would not complete them. I wouldn't that's for sure.

[Adm. J(K96)]

Excellent goober.

[El Wonka]

A special shout to danimal!!!!!

Danimal is so the man.

[Tadaaah]

Danimal is so the man.

Agreed. Danimal and all the others who take the time to make this community better are awesome!

[Adm. J(K96)]

Of course you think they're awesome. They're doing the job none of you can seem to get done.

[TheDanimal]

Of course you think they're awesome. They're doing the job none of you can seem to get done.

Be nice.

Goober put it well. From a business perspective, it would be advantageous for Gree to NOT tell us these things. An example would be how the LTQs are very easy on normal, then prestige seems easy as well, but the last few levels are the gold traps, at which point we look at the investment we've already made and chase it.
If we knew it ahead of time (Where myself & Larry come in), would we really spend the money to complete it?
It would be a big revenue loss for Gree. I don't expect them to release any info... that's where some of us players come in to document it and help the rest of the community

[TheDanimal]

Agreed. Danimal and all the others who take the time to make this community better are awesome!

I would like to thank the Academy...

[Danger Mouse]

Agreed. Danimal and all the others who take the time to make this community better are awesome!

Not even a little shame Tadaaah that these people take on your job for you?

[Adm. J(K96)]

That was me being nice.

[Danger Mouse]

Be nice.

Goober put it well. From a business perspective, it would be advantageous for Gree to NOT tell us these things. An example would be how the LTQs are very easy on normal, then prestige seems easy as well, but the last few levels are the gold traps, at which point we look at the investment we've already made and chase it.
If we knew it ahead of time (Where myself & Larry come in), would we really spend the money to complete it?
It would be a big revenue loss for Gree. I don't expect them to release any info... that's where some of us players come in to document it and help the rest of the community

Then.... how about this for a drastic concept.
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Instead of putting each and every event out of reach of the great majority of the players, so much so that any advertsising just how far out of reach it is would cause sales to plummet, except for the uber-rich extreme few who plough in and spend like fiends giving a falso indication of desirability of events that need people to spend like fiends, how about, and call me a wildly dreaming fool for even bringing it up, but just how about putting each and every event only a TINY amount out of reach of the majority of players so EVERYONE is tempted to spend just a little to complete it?
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Instead of constant high-margin low-violume as a sales model, give the opposite a try - high-volume low-margin.
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Then advertising the events becomes a great tool to engage enthusiasm and get the saliva dripping ready to attack the event and get that goal, spending the little amount of real cash that will get you the icing on the cake.
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I wonder which would be the most sustainable as a business model?
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Even casinos realise that while whales are good, they don't pay the bills - it's dangling the carrots of riches in front of the plebs getting them to spend their dimes in record volumes that makes the huge profits - why else do casino floors no longer have only tables but are wall to wall slot machines? High volume, low margin, huge profits.