Asheras wrote on Jul 21
st, 2017 at 10:49am:
I have seen some decisions that I don't agree with. The racial TR system is another example of flawed logic.
The Heroic TR and Epic TR systems are front and middle loaded. You get the most bang for your buck out of getting 3x in a handful of classes that provide value to your build and then getting 1x of the rest. That is probably around 16-18 lives. At that point, the remaining 24-26 lives are either no value or minor value for your end build. The only thing triple heroic completionist does is give you the flexibility to make the character anything you want with full power levels. You just need to gear it. But, assuming you decided this character is always a melee (of some sort) or always ranged or always a caster, you can get 50% of the power with 6-9 PL's and 90% of the power with 16-18. Those last 24-26 lives is for that meager 10% and the flexibility down the road.
Iconics is all front loaded, since you have no completionist feat. Get the ones that work for your build and skip the others. Since they are mostly defensive (fort, mrr, prr, dodge, positive SP) it's hard to argue that any of them aren't valuable, but you can make a case to skip dodge on heavy armor builds, since you dodge cap easily without it. The Iconics are easy though because you get them with a heroic PL (double dip) without having to run 1-30. Adding in that 15-30 for 2 PL's is very attractive. That alone probably sold a lot of Iconic purchases.
Epic PL's, are, again, front loaded. Getting all is generally unnecessary for a lot of builds. You get the extra twist (completionist feat) after 12 lives (3 in each sphere). Since the passives are all defensive, it's hard to argue that you can't get value from 36. But, since you can only use 1 active at a time and each build will not need all of them, you can, again, get 75% of the value for these by doing 15-18 E-PL's. Not has high as the 90% from Heroics, but still pretty strong. And the value of the AC, HP, Absorption kinda fades at cap with the bloated damage and attacks of LE and Reaper mobs in level 30+ quests. Relatively balanced.
Racial, however, is almost entirely back loaded. The 1st life in every race is useless. The 2nd life will be valuable about half the time, depending on build. The 3rd life in each race is the prize. And the completionist feat doesn't come at 1 each, like with Heroic and Epic. It is at the full 30. So completionist and triple completionist are the same thing here. That means that if you have a 3 stat build, there are 6 races you want the +1 from. That is 12 lives to get +2 to each of those stats. (assuming that you don't need wisdom or strength. Those you get to skip 2 lives since there is only one race for those). At which point you have 25% of the power potential. If you get the 3rd life and get 6 racial AP, now you have about 50% of the power. At 18 PL's. Over half way done and only 50% of the power. You don't cross 75% of the power until you are 25+ lives in. Depending on how highly you value +2 to all stats. This is a very backloaded system.
The problem is that power gamers and whales will go full triple Heroic, triple epic, and triple racial. Regardless of the fact that the systems are front loaded. They have proved this 3 times now (heroic, epic, and iconic). They will buy boxes and xp pots and spend time in game for 1% or 2% power boost. Because, as Skoodge said, they are emotionally invested and obssessed.
The more casual group, they only want what matters to their build. They are looking to maximize return on investment. They will spend (money and/or time) if the value proposition works. You can lose their investment if the value proposition isn't there.
So, the correct strategy is to cater to the more casual group. Make the long grind, sure. But set it up as diminishing returns. That won't stop the 40+ hour per week crew from going the distance or the whales from buying the distance. But you want to make 85% of the value in the first 40% of the effort. So that the 15-25 hour per week crew, and the 40 hour per week alt crew, and more moderate spenders stay engaged. To use an economic term "price elasticity" which means "how much does price affect the purchase decision", you should not design your strategy around the inelastic group. You should design it around the elastic one.
It is called the "micro transaction" model for a reason. You want a lot of people buying $5 and $20 DDO points purchases. Not just a few $200 ones.
I also never understood why ViP's can't buy adventure packs when on sale. I've been a subscriber since 2008, when that's all there was. if they allowed me to buy packs, I'd probably do so when they are on sale even though I don't ever plan on not being a ViP. Seems like easy money.
I agree with all of this.
However, I still stick to my Asberger's Assertion.
My brother-in-law is an engineer, and he once (while having a moment) described his thought process.
Basically, when faced with a "fork in the road", most people (Neuro-typicals as he calls them) will: Stop, look down both roads, assess, and choose.
If one road is CLEARLY IMPASSABLE, or full of pot-holes, they simply choose the other road.
Not so with Captain Aspy...
He will travel ALL THE WAY DOWN THE IMPASSABLE ROAD, check the road-block, measure EVERY POT HOLE, assess the state of his car, then drive ALL THE WAY BACK.
Then he will REVIEW THE PATH DATA. Then and ONLY then, will he go down the clearly open road (while measuring the time, distance and number of road signs).
Lateral thinking or pragmatism doesn't factor into the decision. Both paths are equally unquantified unknowns, to his mind.
This seems to be the process at work with SSG.
Except they keep going back and measuring the pot-holes because "their data says" the car should be able to clear the distance.
Aspergers are VERY prone to getting caught in Autistic feedback loops when faced with data that conflicts with their expected outcomes.
Again, the notion that their data might be incorrect or that ALL the variables haven't been accounted for never factors into their thinking.