I'm so annoyed that I don't even want to pick up my phone and log in to look. So, right when I was beginning to get my faith back that Mobage was going to scale rewards properly they took it my faith and bashed it against a rock.
The least they could do is send us all some lipstick so we can make ourselves pretty before they fuck us. Come on.
Just looking at the prizes was so discouraging that I'm wondering why I'm participating. In the end, I participate for my Order, but for those who don't have a good Order...what's the point? To gain some HR that are worth about 1HP each? For the LCP that will probably yield rares worth a combined total of less than 1HP?
Every week they release a new 'mystery box' to push card art and more powerful of the same cards as before. Every other week they alter between Raid Events that are getting progressively worse and Holy Wars where the payout for what you spend it just awful.
Now that my rant is over:
I've heard a lot of Orders intend to just wait until the last day to participate at all. This way they will be matched up against weaker players and they won't have to spend all weekend playing. Fortunately Shingeki and Chain Bonus allows players to accumulate points so quickly that its possible to attain a solid rank doing this. If you're a weaker Order and were counting on a last day push, I would recommend doing it the day before last.
I have also heard of several Orders going for the victory badges/gold coins and pushing with those in mind. This probably isn't a bad strategy but it's a high risk one because while some players may profit doing it this way, others might lose their ass depending on how much luck they have. But it's not a bad strategy.
Finally, A LOT of orders are opting not to participate. This is normally all talk since they will all generally spend at least 20HP or so just because. If you don't feel you can have fun in this HW, I recommend that you limit each member of your Order to something like 20-30HP each. You won't rank high but you may still get something decent in card packs and enjoy yourself.
My order opt out. We finished top 10 last raid event and top 150 HW 8 & top 400 HW 9.
ReplyDeleteAll 200hp+ spenders have either quit or sold everything and waiting or just save any HP and wait (im the latter). We have all stopped buying BB:s.
If mobage get their act together we might start spending money again. At current state its impossible to get ROI.
Well our order wants to get to top 100 and our strat was also to fight 1st and last day plus the other days just for badges. We aim to spent 100hp each +- and our leader a little 0 behind the number. Anyway prize for top 120 is satan and devil queen plus cp tickets that already 150 hp plus i just pulled satan from silver coins and some hr from gold coins. Id say this is not so bad as from reward point of view this holy war.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but for your good luck, there's some poor bastard who dropped 300HP and pulled nothing.
DeleteThat would be me.
Deleteand me. coins were the only hope I had in compensating. dropped a little less than 300 and the only thing I got were tons and tons of angel queens. the few archdemons that jumped in won't sell for 1hp without a bunch of luck...
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DeleteAnother strange thing are the silver coins, I participated half a holy war... spent way to much HP for my liking, but when i woke up this morning (EU player; and F* those weird times) i got a bunch of silver coins but cant send ANY of 'm to my order mates.
ReplyDeleteCan you only send them right after a HW or something? It's way to strange, i got like 120 now and 10 golden coins :S
"F* those weird times" : I also go crazy from those times beside the rubbish I get from silver. Cannot recall anything decent on silver for the last 5 HW events getting me skeptic even on the whole concept of HW at this moment. The time frames killed my last bit of interest.
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ReplyDeleteMy question is this, at this point what can be done to fix it? When top 40 orders are spending 20k hp in the holy wars. They killed the market for DQ to make the last raid event profitable, nd with many excellent ssr cards going for 200 hp or less I don't see how they can structure prizes so that a 400 hp/person order can turn a profit with breaking the game worse.
ReplyDeleteUltimately this has always been a game with a clear endpoint, once you have your legends deck there is nothing left to do except participate in events, and i think this is where a much larger number of players have gotten. Mobage could release annother tier of card but then we would be in the same boat as hw 8 with top orders pushing the prizes so far out of reach that everyone looses out
The issue isn't with the prizes. It's with the economy being tanked, pretty much directly by mobage. If HR were still worth 10-50HP, SR were still worth 100-200HP, and SSR were worth 200+ the prizes would be fine.
DeleteUltimately, the Bazaar ruined this game. Yes, it made it easier for new players to get card, but then those players get cards so quickly that the game becomes boring more quickly and quit. It also ruined the social aspect of the game.
The bazaar wouldn't have done nearly as much damage if it weren't for the ticket system in place. If players could have freely bought and sold the economy would have stabilized because players would have bought cards that dropped to a certain value and resold them. This is what happened on forums. As soon as somebody listed a card like Berserker for 10-12HP somebody would buy it instantly and resell it for 15HP. This kept the price at a proper value.
What would have happened if they didn't institute tickets is that all cards would have remained within a certain point of their previous values and these new cards being released would be steadily higher in price to reflect it.
And before somebody says something asinine like 'mobage has 3 million players' they don't. They have roughly 100,000-150,000 active players at the moment.
DeleteIf you wish to test that. Create an alt account and don't participate in an event until the last day. Do one attack and see what rank you boost up to. This will give you an idea of how many 'active' players there are. When I did this I boosted up to 120,000ish. This isn't even counting that some people play their alt account.
@ Lucarda
DeleteI know for a time now you've been saying that bazaar tickets should have never been implemented, but what's stopping people from having a monopoly over certain cards if they have a large pool of HP?
Nothing. They should have a monopoly on certain cards since that would keep the prices at a fair amount. If somebody bought all the berserkers and started selling them at 10HP each and you pulled a Berserker and decided to sell it for 9HP, you would gain your nine HP. (By the way, somebody purchasing 100% of a certain card is still a HUGE risk, so if it works that person deserves a huge reward).
DeleteThis is how economies regulate themselves. The tickets prevent the economy from regulating itself which is why we have a viscous cycle of depreciation.
For example. Before Bazaar, I used to buy large HR card packages from people at a discounted price. I then sold the cards piece by piece to make a couple HP profit on each one over the course of a week.
DeleteI see. I guess that's true although I would think that lifting this limitation will only affect in demand cards (e.g. Demonic Knight vs Dark Faure). One can only speculate the exact effects on the limitation due to bazaar tickets.
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DeleteI'm looking up to see what you are addressing, and your comment makes no sense. Nowhere on this page does anybody mention top 40 orders being 20k plus HP.
DeleteAnd although you disagree with some mysterious statement that doesn't appear on this page, below you say each of your 36 members goes into HW with 600HP. This would actually equal over 20k in HP to hit top 40. Way to contradict. By the way, my Order spent about 19k on the last holy war and missed top 40 by three spots, so yes, 20k is a realistic estimate.
You forget to mention that your friends don't drop $300 on HP from Mobage. Instead they pay the 33%-50% price from a certain site. Almost nobody buys HP directly from Mobage.
As for the whole Hack Tool rant at the bottom. Are you drunk? Nowhere on on this page do I find anybody talking about a Hack Tool. Or are you trying to insinuate that I use one?
The saying at the bottom by the way is don't get high on your own supply. Only a twat would say don't get high off your own product. Also, most successful drug dealers do get high on their own supply as it would be stupid to pay full price to purchase drugs from another dealer, they just have discipline.
I would like to point out that my original commet did say that top 40 orders need 20k. As for the rest Robert comes off as completely dumb.
DeleteAnd also i was thinking about it and would a completely free market be a bad thing? If you could for example trade cards for rage medals in game? Granted this would probably suck for a month or two but it would eventually stabilize to a point where card packs and other prizes would have value again.
If you did this in tandum with some of the other ideas such as an archive where you donated cards for prizes, removal of the daily sign in bonus and baz tix, and the removal of old and unused cards from card packs i think you could improve the game quickly.
Also @ lucarda, i see you constantly bashing the bazaar and while I agree that the baz tix are dumb and the 2 week block on trading is dumb I think that overall it should have been an improvement overall by making the game more noob friendly. It allows players that may not have the time or dedication on a cell phone game to make informed and practical decisions on what their cards are worth and what they can trade for.
If you look waaaaay back when they announced bazaar, I've always been against it, but I accepted that it would make it more noob friendly.
DeleteThen they announced they were limiting trading and the entire thing just left a foul taste in my mouth.
The cold hard truth of the matter is that although bazaar could have been something good, the implementation caused an economic crash to the game. People have always defended it saying it makes the game noob friendly, but I feel that it has created far more issues than it has solved.
Do you think they'll ever have another CW event? My 700+ Stam account is going to waste at the moment.
ReplyDeleteDon't know. They aren't as profitable as making people buy cards over and over again. I do know how they could monetize a CW event in the same fashion as HP events, but lets be honest, they don't hire consultants or listen to their players.
DeleteHey approximately how many hp should an order spend as a whole to get top 100 rank? Cuz i would want to go for that rank next hw
ReplyDeleteI believe 400 per person will get you top 100.
Deleteokay... i guess we'd aim for top 300 then with a bit more than 100hp per person
DeleteIt's not just about your HP. You all each have 100 hp, it'll be gone first war. You have to factor in your losses. When you lose a war you get a minimum of points. You have to break your opposing order within the first 5-10 minutes of a war. 100 hp each will get you between ranks 1,000-3,000. Maximize your wins to maximize your prizes. Take a break from Events, build up your resources, have fun with the game. When everyones ready go hard one HW get that top 100 ranking, take the next 3 off to rebuild again. People have to relax a little bit HW's and Events are only going be increased in numbers. Use them to build your feeders for skilling, etc. Have fun, it's just a game with zero profit.
DeleteWhy are there Bazaar tickets? Because without them, one could easily earn HP. If one could easily earn HP, why ever buy a Booster Box? This must be Cygames thinking, anyway.
ReplyDeleteWhat they do not understand are the benefits of a free market. With the free market, prices will be proper, and the value of booster boxes will be higher, thereby increasing sales for them. Unfortunately, this is a concept beyond Cygames' comprehension.
These free market concepts apply the same way in the real world...
With lower prices on the Bazaar people would be apt to buy HP from Cygames at $1 per instead of using the black market at $0.25 per.
DeleteNobody has ever bought HP. Ever.
DeleteIf buying HP is actually part of Mobages monetization strategy, they are even dumber than they come off.
Nice sweeping generalization, even if it is wrong. The fact is they are still making money from ROB and part of that is from players buying HP.
Deletepeople dont buy HPs.... they buy PCPs that give HP...
DeleteLet me rephrase then.
DeleteAnybody, who has ever bought HP, is a brainless twat.
There has been about a 3 week period total since Rage has been released where HP wasn't given out with card packs.
And once again, if buying HP is actually part of mobages monetization strategy, they are even dumber than they come off.
And yes, they are idiots when it comes to monetization. They currently have roughly 100-150k active players at any given time, which can be tested by attacking once at the end of any event and seeing where you end up in ranking. This is down from roughly 200-300k about 3-4 months ago which was the last time I did this before sylvan.
They created a great game with great art, god a huge amount of players, then started making drastic changes to make them spend more money. They managed to take away 90% of the fun from the game for many players when they removed trading. They took away huge fun from the game when they caused the economy to plummet. And then they continue to take away a lot of fun from their game as they change events to get players to spend more.
They have the monetization strategy of a liquidation company. "Lets get all the money as fast as we can and move on" instead of the monetization strategy of a legitimate business, "Lets keep a very large customer base and offer NEW services that meet their needs so they spend more with us".
They could have created a game that was the TCG equivalent of WoW, but they got so obsessed with 'lets get money fast!' that they missed the long term picture.
Jeez Lucarda your reply to my post earlier was harsh. I've been a huge supporter of you and your blog since I started ROB. My earlier reply to a post didn't have any harsh tone meant to it. I did read the post incorrectly about the comment 20k hp I misread as 20k hp per member. Being a very big supporter of you I would never insinuate that you use hack tools. I apologize for any misunderstanding. I don't know if you're having a bad day or what but I good luck with your blog in the future, I am one of those brainless twats that has bought HP legitimately through Mobage. It's better then running the chance of being banned and losing everything I've bought into and keeping my fingers crossed hoping I get a "great" card pull.
ReplyDeleteI know you've been a long time reader, but when I read your comment the last half came off especially harsh as well. The way it read to me was that you were saying people needed to monitor my blog and start banning people who mention hack bots. I actually wasn't going to respond so harshly because I knew you were a long time reader, but the way your message came off was pretty messed up.
DeleteAs for buying HP. I just don't get it. If people want to purchase it, that's their choice but it just doesn't make sense to me. Most of the high level players I know in both Rage and Marvel don't buy HP/PP. They all buy card packs (Generally only during events for event cards to sell). The very few that I know that do buy HP/PP, purchase it discounted and generally only near the end of an event where they will be cutting it close.
Sorry if you feel assaulted. Keep in mind I do like the word twat, a lot so sometimes I will use it haphazardly. If you search the site overall I think you will find it used several times throughout.
Anyway, I do hope you keep reading and appreciate your input, but the current economy of Rage in general does put me in a foul mood.
I appreciate your reply, I'll never disrespect you or your blog. I think you are good, honest player and that's why I follow you because I have a lot of respect for you and this blog. The last part of my original post was geared to Mobage/Cygames. They've turned into a Prince John screaming Taxes! Taxes! So I think you and I share the same aggravation in ROB. I do believe that Mobage scouts blog sites and forums pertaining to this game, partly to catch the newest hacks and cheats and partly to see what is going well and what needs improvement. I also believe they have players and an Order set up. My comment about not using your own product was directed towards any Mobage/Cygames employee reading my post, definitely not you. Any ways, I still appreciate your opinion and all you post. This is still the best blog out there!
DeleteWe came in 28th ranking this HW, competed in every battle, earned 16 victory points. We had members dropping 350hp up to 1400 hp (thanks to the prize box). Personally I was able to drop about 730hp and came in 6th in my Order and in the 600's overall. I am pretty happy with the prizes we will be receiving, The down side is I have nothing left but my main decks, on the up side I have a massive chest of presents for enhancing :)
It's all good. I just find it frustrating because you can tell that their marketing department is completely disconnected from their game development department.
DeleteIts actually worse if they search around and don't take any of the input. Grats on HW though. I actually didn't get a chance to participate. I planned on just blowing several hundred HP the last day, but have been busy as all hell. This is the first HW that I haven't participated in.
OK, totally off topic, but help an OCD collecter out. I have all four forms of all normal and high normal cards AND at least the first form of all rare cards EXCEPT for:
ReplyDeleteThe very first card in the archive (this is new, I haven't seen it before) in the top left corner of the "man" chart, before fighter
The demon rare card between Werewolf and avian birdman
My eternal gratitude to anyone who can tell me the names of either of these two cards so I can buy them on the bazaar and satisfy my collection...
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ReplyDeleteOn latest news, Cygames has announced that they have 10 million registered RoB players as on Christmas 2012 http://www.techinasia.com/cygames-20-million-users/
Delete...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
DeleteYeah. It has 10 million 'players' like some free mmos claim 50 million 'players'.
If you want to know the real number, attack once on the last day of an event. Your individual ranking will be roughly what the real number of active players is.
Loving the bazaar (bizarre) ticket system /sarcasm.
ReplyDeleteI ended up having to buy a card pack to get enough tickets to buy cheap cards on the last day of the HW (don't know how well I've done, it's like swimming in a shark tank trying to get deals). Luckily I remembered to keep some tickets so I should be able to sell them without only being able to sell 2 cards a day.
Terrible system that makes trading a pain, I don't have enough HP to properly contribute to a decent order (I don't want to be a leech) and I'm trying to earn enough HP to buy decent cards so I can at least compete in the middle ranks which means I don't have spare HP, so it looks like I won't be participating in the Holy Wars for a while at least.
I'd consider buying HP to try and skip a couple weeks of boring/difficult trading and actually play the game, but even if I did have plenty of HP without enough bazaar tickets to use it to make more HP it would just end up slowly trickling away till I have to buy more.
I think if we had rare only or hr only tourneys it might bring some prices back up it would sure bring back some of the fun back into the game again
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of people would really enjoy that, maybe add in a level cap for a HN tourney so newer players could join in without the established orders/players taking all the top spots.
Deleteno because everyone will get using the same exact decks for their realm. so ull be fighting the same def deck you have, and ppl with same atk deck will be hitting you.
DeleteRight after your event ends, price crash further since everyone try to sell all at once. evo'd SR will go for 1hp each.
So the tourney rewards are scaled to the card levels, HN tourney would give you the chance to get Rare, Rare tourney would give you the chance to get HR and so on. People would get a feeling of advancing and are more likely to stay with the game and they also have the chance to be in the top 500 for their tier. Majority of players joining now have no hope of breaking into the top 1000 without massive investment of time and money.
DeleteAs for the exact same decks, there's more chance of people using specialised decks if they aren't ridiculously expensive. It becomes more tactical with you actually needing Anti-God / Anti-Demon / Anti-Man decks. With the lower ATK power needs you are able to have multiple battles before needing to recharge/use HP, you wouldn't need the "utimate" deck as you would be able to customise to your opponent.
You have no idea how happy I would be if an announment came and said "greetings, we will from now on be removing the need for bazaar tickets....". Thing is that the game is not generating profit as before.... for cygames anyways. im sure they know about angry players and stuff.... But then why do they continue to make such weird choices (horribly weird choices) that infuriate players more. The company is not run by a group of mentally challenged retards, they are earning decent profits, yet why do they do this... of course the obvious answer is profit. But from what i'm seeing, all the choices they have made so far would only lead to less surpluses for the company. Im currently browsing through the bazaar there are very few of the new HR valentines cards. (obviously people aren't spending). And this HW was maybe one of their most unprofitable ever. They know that cards are dropping in value (fast), they know that people aren't spending as much and they know that this HW participation was extremely low. They release new cards which they know are worth less than they would have been before they made the changes. (e.g. Enforcer Sylvia would have been worth ALOT more if they had released it a couple months ago. And they know it...). They say that its hackers in the game that have caused them to make such choices. But personally, I believe that letting the hackers just rampage would earn them more $$$ than doing what they have been doing (there are still even lots of them now. Probably more....). Theyve dropped from #20 to #28 within a week on the iOS app store.... Bottom line is, they know.... and their pockets arent as filled as they were before.... yet why do they keep making implementations. I still remember the one decent decision they have made.... That was to not implement the 30 Day Trade/Same rarity trade on the bazaar.
ReplyDeleteIf the game upsets you that much, just stop playing. Its really that simple. If you don't enjoy playing, just stop. You won't be alone.
DeleteI'm pretty sure they know how badly they're screwing up. How else could anyone justify making the rewards for the lower rankings so pitiful? Who in their right mind would implement this rigid bazaar system that makes trading unbearably slow and inefficient. What sane individual would allow the market prices of their best cards to plummet so abruptly? A person who's allergic to money ... that's who.
They had a good run, but slowly Rage of Bahamut is going the way of farmville and our whining and moaning on the internet isn't going to stop it. We can sit here brain storming new ways to make the game better, but I'm convinced they've already given up. Sure we want a game that's fun, but if fun doesn't directly translate into money, they aren't likely to implement any changes we'd appreciate.
Color me cynical but I think they're just trying to squeeze the last bits of money out of the few remaining people who still enjoy the game casually before moving on to a new game.
A lot of people have actually left Rage of Bahamut and moved on to Marvel War of Heroes. Unfortunately, as a result of the dropping player base on Rage, and the climbing player base on Marvel, mobage changed Marvels last raid event to match Rages.
DeleteThe day of, I heard of a huge amount of top level players putting their accounts up for sale on Neoseeker.
It's unfortunate because what Mobage is actually managing to do is create a reputation for their company of destroying their own games for greed. People will start leaving their games for anything that's just not run by them. And they constantly ignore player input.
I stick around though because the game still is fun when I play casually, but I'm definitely a LOT less hardcore than I used to be.
DeleteAgreed. I enjoy just hopping on occasionally, smacking a dragon or two, and then going about my day. That plus the mass exodus of hard core players makes it easier to compete and buy primo cards cheap! I'll be moving up to a full legend deck if things keep going like this.
DeleteHas anybody else noticed the new Hrs are going for 10-12 hp and very few are for sale? I guess nobody is buying the cps. Hopefully Mobage will get the message.
ReplyDeleteIf your gonna quit... don't go into another Mobage game.
ReplyDeleteI used to play a lot of RoB. It makes a lot of fun and it was always a great discussion which way i can get most HP.
ReplyDeleteThen about 4 weeks ago i started loosing interest on this Game. Prices crashed and the amount of HP i have to use for an event does not come back to me by rewards.
In my oppinion killing the bazaar and creating an auction centre would be best thing Mobage could do for players. Prices would rise and a limited card will bring more hp.
This is the way it was used to be. U can see it by the way the cards are named... normal, high normal, RARE, High RARE etc etc etc.
No limitations in amount of trades or cards in one trade. I cannot stop bringing positive points for an auction system.
Do you think Mobage wants players to leave to bring up the next game? Or do u think they want to rescue the Game?
I should have come on here sooner. Well, my main account Order did not participate at all. My second account's Order did. On the one that we did participate, the prizes were decent. I only spent around 20HP. It was somewhat fun cause there wasn't any stress involved with trying to organize everyone. The schedule thing I liked. I just wished that there were more options so that EVERYONE had a fair shot. They should 'Offer' 8-10 slots even if they only allow 5 matches during the day.
ReplyDeletejohncfl71