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warning on your CCUs!


Amy Babe

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Discount doesn't happen unless the CCU you are upgrading to has increased the price. EG say CCU of $0 Relient to a 85X. Yes I am aware fully that relient when up by $15 well before the 85X came out, just used it for arguments sake. However, this is an "ship price increase" which if bought already they won't be any increase in said ships. 

People are complaining because they are having an increase $5 again, however, must be $0 in the ship CCU. Gaming to system is not the correct work. It is more like playing the system. nothing illegal is being down by using these CCUs. The Thing that most people argue is the $20-110 ships which pisses people off. The product is purchased at a later date and they want to switch the two ships EG Hornet Tracker with the Freelancer, Mustang with 3001 or Aurora with a mustang.

The fact of the matter is there is nothing illegal done by  the players or CIG.   Again It isn't the first time that the $5 was put on for the downgrade and $0 before.

However it is also the fault of most people NOT LISTENING to what is being said and take that everything is going up $5 not just $0 CCUs

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The actual problem behind this move is that CIG - despite the crapton of pledges people already gave them - seems to seek more and more money from backers every day. That's no good news at all from my point of view.

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@Chimaera, My rant.

You are conflating two issues/groups of people. There are people with 100s of CCUs gaming the system, and there are people who think that a zero cost CCU if what is fair considering CIG's execution flops on ships. 

CIG should have done many different things to mitigate this problem. They could have given say 30 days then all CCUs to or from ships that you don't know are going to be deleted. You would then be restricted to only buy CCUs from ships that you own. CIG proposed solution does nothing to address the million CCUs that are currently on people's accounts that aid the grey market. It actually causes more problems because people are going to stock up on every CCU that they can for the next week. Zyloh (Will's) explanation that they were doing this for balance reasons seems disingenuous. On ships stats balancing, I have never heard anyone say the number of ships is a factor. On the pricing/economy balancing issue, CIG does not even have more than a gas giant in game. There are no production nodes etc.. CIG may want a certain distribution of ships in game, but CIG needs to be able to balance ship stat's as well as price to get that balance. Most people will pay a lot more for an OP fighter.      

CIG does have a history of messing up their concept ships. Messing up is defined as a ship having its role massively change from its original description or not giving a ship the properties to do the role it given during its concept sale. The Cutlass is not a nimble fighter. Light-speed tachyon guns are not hit scanning but have a travel time of less 1/100 of second.  The Khartu-Al had half its guns and a seat taken away.  The Gladius is  the UEE's frontline fighter, but the BUCC has twice the firepower Etc...  I would also say on combat ships in particular that CIG has very very poorly balanced ship roles and traits.  The Vanguard is practically useless. In particular, the ship has locked fixed weapons so it is useless to mouse players. The fixed weapons mean the ship has to be very precise in its movements to line up shots, but the ship almost never has had the angular jerk and acceleration to do that. The Vanguard is also painfully slow when it is 50% engine and sold as a ww2 style heavy fighter (good speed but not agile).  THe CCUs are insurance if CIG messes up their concept ship either changing its role or screwing up the execution of its design. CIG also does not have a ship role's doc or any idea of the dogfighting parameters of its ships.  Therefore, I see these ships execution errors as CIG's failing to do reasonable planning because they have planning docs for other things such as ship manufacturers. 

I see having CCU cost $5 as CIG applying a penalty to backers to change their ships to something useful when CIG has messed up. Functionally, it moves risk from CIG to the backers. I see that as unreasonable because CIG can now make a mistake on their design/execute of a ship or even mess up with data forge entry to for a live patch. See Sabre Shield redirection rate in 2.5.  CIG will then make money on the CCU to a more functional ship or the current OP ship.   I personally think CIG did this mainly as a cash grab see my conjecture below. 

Context, A few weeks ago we had a combat ship (Banu Defender) and Banu Merchantmen go on sale. My guess is most of the sales were for the Banu Merchantman with a lot of defender CCUs in part because the weapons design seemed odd and the cockpit view issue. People wanted the option to grab the ship, but PVPers felt the concept was released too rough.  CIG saw that shortfall, so they want to make sure they sell more next time. They decide to add a fee to CCUs because they are going to sell a bomber (Aegis Eclipse) at $275 soon. The bomber happens to be the same price as the retailator, which is another bomber that is a bit of balance execution mess.  CIG wants to make sure they make money on people having that option to shift. I think that CIG's decision would reasonable if the ship balanced was firmed up, and you could buy ships with alpha UEC. At this game stage, I think it is wrong for CIG to attache a fee. Final odd point is that CIG had a very odd space kitty and referral issue as well, so people are concerned with CIG's direction before this latest change. 

Finally, CIG making a lot of backers mad (see reddit upvote to downvote ratios are negative posts) with this change is more likely to decrease net funding than the CCU effect reducing CIG income and hurting the game. 

 

@Metternich70, CIG has 400 people that they are paying to work on the game as we speak. Therefore, they need to continually bring in more cash. I get that. I just don't like some of CIG's methods just like I don't like other companies policies/practices. 

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33 minutes ago, Cincinnatus said:

You are conflating two issues/groups of people.

Actually, I did not. If you read my post, you'd see that I was targeting the specific people who fit that specific profile. If you were to read the names/reasons given by a lot of the people making negative posts/downvoting, you'd see that there are a lot of people who are bent because of the fact they will EVENTUALLY have to pay $5 if it would've been a $0 CCU. If you want to point fingers and play blame games, I wouldn't point to CIG greed, I'd point to Grey Market exploiters. Much like the LTI changes and unmelt changes were made to address abuses of the system by GMers, this is helping CIG at least recoup some of the losses.

And, to respond to @Metternich70 yes, CIG is continuously asking for more money because they're trying to keep a major gaming studio running. To put things in perspective, CIG is running a studio setup that is larger than Bethesda Game Studios, about half the size of Bioware, and they're doing it by having people pledge for a single game that hasn't come out yet. Unlike the other studios, which are partnered with larger companies, and run multiple development teams to make multiple games, we have a single major gaming studio that is trying to do something that no other gaming studio has been able to succeed at (although many have tried and failed or had "meh" results). I don't begrudge CIG for wanting money because they probably need it for the long-term longevity of the entire company.

That said, I do NOT agree with HOW CIG has handled this, nor do I agree with the timing of it. I agree with @Cincinnatus that the excuse given is piss-poor, but given that CIG STILL doesn't have a proper PR staff, I can't say I'm surprised at the excuse they gave.

Bottom line, to me, is if people want to gripe about CIG's pricing practices and stuff, they're more than welcome to do so here, but don't try to sit back and claim that the ONLY REASON CIG does something is because they're greedy, disrespectful, and contemptuous toward their backers. That itself makes zero sense, as doing so does nothing more than guarantee they lose the funding for the game.

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@Chimaera, if you are not conflating the two groups, you were ignoring the second group of us that have serious issues with CIG's change that are not in the grey market. You seem to personally be ok with policy change, so that tells me you disagree with people like me. That is fine. 

I was stating with the timing and current CIG practices that money is the most likely reason for choosing to increase CCU prices from $0 to $5 to solve the grey market problem. CIG could have chosen other actions.  Also, CIG has dealt with the grey market previously. They brought back in LTI on cheap concepts to bring back LTI when the grey market LTI premium was getting pretty big.  That was a clever pro-backer solution.

I think CIG is getting more disrespectful and contemptuous of its backers. I think CIG is having serious execution errors that make me think that we may be watching Freelancer 2.0. The most recent execution error is light speed tachyon guns being brought up in the banu livestream. Its issues being brought up, but CIG sticking to its guns in QA post.  I am starting to think that only a drop in funding will cause CIG to change its marketing and other areas to reduce its execution errors. 

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10 minutes ago, Cincinnatus said:

you were ignoring the second group of us that have serious issues with CIG's change

No, I quoted someone who was exhibiting a specific attitude and focused on the practices by specific backer groups that are the most likely cause of the change. I chose not to address the other groups simply because I didn't have anything to say on the matter related to them, and if you would have read my second post in its entirety, you would have seen follow-up comments related to people such as yourself. The difference is that I believe the majority of the complaints are coming from people that I identified, whereas you (appear) to believe a majority of the complaints are coming from truly honest, disaffected backers who weren't gaming the system whatsoever. 

As for the disrespect and contempt issue, I think you'll find yourself in a minority related to that opinion, albeit a loud minority that likes to make a ton of noise whenever something happens that could remotely be interpreted that way. As for the Freelancer 2.0 remark, I'm sure you're aware that CR wasn't even involved in Freelancer's final stages because Microsoft effectively kicked him out of the project because he wanted to make it "right" and not "fast". So, while we can agree that CIG has a terrible PR deficiency, that's pretty much the only thing we'll agree on when it comes to this.

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@Chimaera, Agree to disagree on who is complaining. I will admit that I talked with a lot of backers who are in the PVP area, so I might have a biased sample. 

I know Chris was kicked of Freelancer because he had blown the budget. The same thing might be happening here, but blowing the budget means losing the funding stream. There is only so long that the community will keep funding the game at its current level. I have no idea what the time period is. I know that preference cascades do happen that CIG's marketing missteps and for weirdos like me balance issues could be the trigger for the cascade. For some other people, the reduction in netcode work in 3.0 and the extra planets in Stanton might be what tips them.  I think we might be getting one with CIG. In that event, funding will dry up, and the project will be harmed. I would prefer that not happen. Therefore, I speak out when CIG might be doing something that loses community trust because until the game is in beta or SQ42 is out that is CIG's primary resource. 

On the fast versus right, my conjecture is CR is just not good at managing large projects. There is a point that you need to delegate areas off to keep things moving. I don't think that he does that. There are too many CR said this or CR approval steps in everything. That situation causes other things CR should be reviewing like gameplay and PR that get neglected. 

Background,

I was very trusting of CIG until 2.4 when they required a new TOS that says no refunds even you want to download the game. That was a pretty shady move to me. Since that point, I have not trusted CIG with marketing/money issues. Since 2.4,  I have not seen moves by CIG that have encouraged me. I see CIG when they mess something up that it is generally in a way that favors them and not backers. They are company. They can do that. But I am not going let them off the hook. I let them off the hook on the 2.4 TOS change. 

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2 hours ago, Chimaera said:

Actually, I did not. If you read my post, you'd see that I was targeting the specific people who fit that specific profile. If you were to read the names/reasons given by a lot of the people making negative posts/downvoting, you'd see that there are a lot of people who are bent because of the fact they will EVENTUALLY have to pay $5 if it would've been a $0 CCU. If you want to point fingers and play blame games, I wouldn't point to CIG greed, I'd point to Grey Market exploiters. Much like the LTI changes and unmelt changes were made to address abuses of the system by GMers, this is helping CIG at least recoup some of the losses.

And, to respond to @Metternich70 yes, CIG is continuously asking for more money because they're trying to keep a major gaming studio running. To put things in perspective, CIG is running a studio setup that is larger than Bethesda Game Studios, about half the size of Bioware, and they're doing it by having people pledge for a single game that hasn't come out yet. Unlike the other studios, which are partnered with larger companies, and run multiple development teams to make multiple games, we have a single major gaming studio that is trying to do something that no other gaming studio has been able to succeed at (although many have tried and failed or had "meh" results). I don't begrudge CIG for wanting money because they probably need it for the long-term longevity of the entire company.

That said, I do NOT agree with HOW CIG has handled this, nor do I agree with the timing of it. I agree with @Cincinnatus that the excuse given is piss-poor, but given that CIG STILL doesn't have a proper PR staff, I can't say I'm surprised at the excuse they gave.

Bottom line, to me, is if people want to gripe about CIG's pricing practices and stuff, they're more than welcome to do so here, but don't try to sit back and claim that the ONLY REASON CIG does something is because they're greedy, disrespectful, and contemptuous toward their backers. That itself makes zero sense, as doing so does nothing more than guarantee they lose the funding for the game.

My point is actually a little different. You know which is my work in real life, so you also know I am inclined to try and look beyond the surface.

Well, my impression is that - looking at the trend of the pledges in last months compared with the development effort spent until now - CIG is very close to the point in which they will have to join a "normal" investor in order to fund the project (at least if they want to deliver it on the scale they intended to do it). The day the investor will step in, CIG will be of course compelled to change a lot of things and will not be able to fulfil some promises that have been among the reasons why people pledged (and still does pledge) so massively. My guess is therefore that these moves (new pricey concept ships and paid CCUs) are the last "squeezes" for the community of backer before a deep pocket "friend" will come in to change a lot of things (in a way that may not be liked by backers). Should this be the case, well ... I would prefer CIG to behave differently towards us backers. 

I.e.: the new "secret" concept seems a ship that will be in the same tier (and role) of a Vanguard. Is it than a case that in last patches vanguard was insanely nerfed to an almost useless ship in AC? Dunno actually. But this one is not the only case. Gladius was nerfed to death when new ships were about to appear on the concept sale stage.  Then there was the refund change and the VAT thing, which in my opinion are linked (I can assure you that a pledge, if it is really a pledge, is not subject to VAT in the EU, so the EU VAT on pledge means just one thing: confirming these are sales. And that is the main reason why CIG changed the refund policy) 

Summarizing: lately I am seeing too many "little red lights" appearing on in my Star Citizen board (and yet the game is so far away), and now I am a little concerned.

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@Metternich70, On the vanguard and Gladius being nerfed. I would say that it is incompetence and not intent.  I have been very involved in ship balancing starting in 2.6.  CIG switched who was doing ship balancing around 2.4, so we had people in 2.6 that were not experienced at CIG and did not know how to dogfight doing the balancing. Also, balancing a light fighter like the gladius to the Sabre and SH is super hard. CIG has not been able to do it well. It is easier for dps and durability to win become unbalanced so that is why the SH and Sabre tend to win. CIG did mess up in 2.6 where they made the vanguard as agile as the SH which was silly and make it useable again. CIG just does not internally have a good ship roles doc to know what values to tune to different ship roles. I was trying to get them to adopt Baior of Red's doc. I think that we are close, but :(. 

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While this is not a problem for me because I've been expecting that this day would come, to this end I've done some CCU-fu to make all my ships LTI and stocked up on a few free CCUs from the anniversary sales so I have some flexibility once the in-game roles are fleshed out.

If CIG thinks that removing free CCUs is a good idea, then let it be so because it is their project, but after browsing through countless forum posts and reddit threads I have to say there are some great ideas brought forth if you filter out the salt.  CIGs marketing/PR teams could use some of the more constructive posts/suggestions as inspiration to figure out an alternative that provides flexibility for the largest number of people while making it harder for people to game the system. 

My $0.02 is if they just did away with all CCUs and attach a "switch token" to every ship, so that every ship could be converted to another ship of the same price a limited number of times e.g you buy a Super Hornet that can convert to a Gladiator or a MIS... or Freelancer (base) that could be converted to the Hornet and Buccaneer, therefore both ships should have 3 switch tokens... in other words, you can switch it to the Hornet and/or Bucc and then either decide to leave it as one of these ships or revert it as a Freelancer, the latter uses the 3rd and final switch token.  Idk if this is a good suggestion so please let me know if there's a problem.  After this, the only way you could use a switch token is to melt it and buy it again with credits, which removes any LTI or extra insurance (if its an anniversary edition ship).

PS: If you want to stock up on CCUs go here -> https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/extras?product_id=51&sort=price_asc&search=&itemType=skus&storefront=pledge&type=extras&

Be advised that the end product of all CCUs at the moment are permanently available ships.

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