REPOST: GLU VIP Council – A chance to have your voices heard & improve the game

Houmy

I apologize for the duplicate posting but I am reposting this as some members brought it to my attention that maybe more of you would see the post if it was in this category.

I mentioned a few months ago that GLU had hinted at the possibility of me and some other VIP members going on a tour of GLU’s studios and have a chance of meeting the developers and share feedback and ideas. I was contacted again last week and was told this may indeed happen towards the end of October and am just waiting on final confirmation from them.

I would like to use this post as an opportunity for all to share ideas of how we can improve this game that we love so much and address some of the issues that we have experienced. Please post your replies with some ideas that you may have in that regard and if the opportunity presents itself I promise to discuss it with the developers and powers to be.

As I am sure they will be a lot of responses to this post please take note of the following:

·        GLU is a company in the business of making money for their shareholders so please keep that in mind when commenting. Any changes/additions they make needs to be financially feasible for them but at the same time fair to us

·        As there will be a lot of ideas please keep them short and to the point to make it easier to go through and comprehend

·        Please refrain from criticizing each other’s comments as this a chance for all to share their opinions and requests

·        I will not comment or give feedback on the comments posted but will keep a record of the ones that make the most sense as far as GLU being able and willing to implement

I look forward to any constructive comments and ideas.

nym5fan

Suggestions for Glu to Implement:

1- Fan reward players need to have bonus points for that event. If you really think about it not many people obtain the main player in the fan rewards. More incentive for users to spend their gold and buy more gold. Making Glu more money and increasing the competition for those that achieve the feat of obtaining the fan rewards player/s.

 

2- Event reward tiers should change based on your team level. Incentive for teams to level up for better rewards, again making GLU more money. But also giving the user better chances at better rewards to include players or more useful XP etc. Late round and 2nd round picks for a team stacked with 5* players is useless and annoying. #1 DPs or Prime DPs would make more sense. Odds of pulling a 5* are still low but at least if/when you do it could help your team.

 

3- While having a player on third in WoH, give us the option to send him home. I mean, that really does happen in baseball. Also, stop sending runners home while on third when a ball is hit to the pitcher. A runner on third with no one behind him would never run home on this play in baseball. It shouldn't happen in the game. Just makes for a less frustrating user experience in the event.

 

4- WoH, pitching in the final two rounds of the event are near impossible even with hitters that are superior to the pitcher rating. The odds of getting enough "touchable" pitches are so slim you can reach the final round 20 times without a chance at beating it. Even with 20% boost. If the pitches are impossible to touch or hit you lose your users. Make it more attainable. Maybe guarantee 1 in every 10 tries there is a sequence of pitches that are hittable. If you miss that is your own fault and hopefully you have time to go through enough times to get another chance at a good sequence of pitches. Make it "possible" to beat and not impossible. More people will continue to try if this is the case and Glu will make more money. People that quit or stop after 1 or 2, or 20 tries will continue to try and spend gold for the reward player if they know they will have at least 1 possible try ever 10 attempts.

5- allow us to trade players somehow within clubs. Make it cost 1500 gold to initiate a trade within your club and require the trade to be the same * rating and if it is a player with skill the other player should have a skill and so on. Guarantees a fair trade. User has to use a fair amount of gold to make a trade keeping people from doing it all the time. Or at least having to buy gold to do it. And have the player revert to bronze 1 after being traded so the new owner has to use their own resources to level it up. If they don't have them they will need to buy them or wait to earn them. Keep the user engaged and striving to achieve something and get that sense of accomplishment. Glu could make a lot of money with this improvement on the game. And users would have a better experience, keeping them willing to open their wallet.  

6- Allow us to use franchise players in WoH. We can use our created legend player already. We can buy Slugfest Booster Players on Wednesdays. We can use the franchise players in other events. Make it cost 200 gold or something to select the Franchise player on WoH event days first use. Glu makes some money on it and the user gets a player that could help them out.

7- After a few weeks of introducing prime slugger rewards, offer prime slugger picks to buy. Likewise for when Legend sluggers are introduced. Charge the same 500 and 700 respectively like you do for Store player Prime and Legend draft picks.

8- More achievements would be nice. Keeping the user striving to achieve and play to get the rewards and spending money making Glu more money. have 5 star tiers instead of 3 for each. Add achievements like No Hitters for pitchers or Hitting for the Cycle for batters etc.

9- Event Royale is a fun addition, but I agree with some suggestions others have made regarding this event. Wednesday is not the ideal time to roll this out. Make it a single day during the weekend event. Or make it a cumulative of your clubs points during the individual events during the week. Apply the multipliers at the end and let people know the reward structure ahead of time. Make a tab or something where you can see how you are doing as the week progresses. Keeping clubs striving to do the best they can do each day which will in turn make Glu more money as well.

 

10- Another area that they could improve: Series Unlock in Season mode

Seems crazy that the 150 gold to unlock a season series at 8 hours is still 150 gold with seconds left.

There are 480 minutes between each series, making the value of 1 gold every 3.2 minutes . If the gold decreased every 16 minutes by 5 gold, it would be a lot more attractive with an hour to go spending a little gold to play the next series. Especially when you are in the playoff rounds and you want to get through them to get the rewards.

I would likely spend 15 or 20 gold with an hour left to start the next series than I would 150 gold. Or 5 gold with 16 or less minutes left. Etc.

I am no coder or developer, but I have seen this done in other games. Seems it would make sense for this section of TSB18. And more people would be intrigued by the lesser amount of gold and likely spend it than they would if the amount wasn't decreasing. Could be a way to increase their revenue for people using more gold. Wouldn't be huge but any increase is a positive for them.

DFBB

Please enforce a pity timer. It's very common among rng-based games and would make the players feel like they're getting value.

qkpony

I'd like to see boxes for events. For instance this week Rockies were bonus players and I had zero. It would be nice to have a box that you can get just Rockies players then trade at end of event. Rockies is just an example. Also I'd like the points shown at end of round. Like how did I get 50k did trout get me 25k and bam get me the rest. I know they say who bonus players are I'd just like to see a break down. I'd also like to be able to browse other clubs and members to see what I'm up against and I hate that you have to pick a batter with maybe a left hand or right hand skill then you see who the pitcher is. It would be nice to know the pitcher first. Also I didn't play last year. How does the game end and go to next year? Do we keep anything or all reset? If so I'll move up to platinum soon just to see how it goes lol.

TOUGHNUTZ

Great ideas above and aa tour would be wesome ,,,,,,,but i in australia lol

does the vips have a league ? just 1 league each day or week VIP teams go head to head in a random single game which is handicapped to make matchups more even and competitive,

remove timer once game starts , but also have no exit options set in place , also after timer runs out it stops moving untill gammme i finished

tweek / fix : WOH of late my first opponent has a skill lvl of 120 or 112 ,which means by the ennd of level 4 my opponent is 280 plus and i caant get close maybe vips could get unlimited retrys by watching a vid ?

slugfest : ability to trade mutiple players at a time

draft limits : once a player has been drafted ad kept or sold , he cannot be drafted from same draft box as theres nothing worse than trading a player and then drafting him again straight away

my 2 cents wortth

midnightmarauder

oh I thought of one other thing, either make it impossible to pull a player you already have, or make the rewards for pulling that player better - currently they don't level up like they used to, which is BS in my opinion. also, let's say I pull legendary Reggie Jackson out of a CvC box today. I already have him maxed, so they'll probably give me a pittance LXP if I pull him which would be a huge bummer. but if they bumped up his skill a level or two I'd appreciate that much more.

Anomanderrakes

1. Make it to where club mates can donate to a "club resource bank. " For example, I can cycle Slugfest and gain a lot of Prime Xp that way. A lot of my club mates can't. So make it to where I can donate Prime Xp to a club resource bank and other club members can access it to get a % once a week. Give the leader the power to accept or decline request. That would keep people from joining clubs just to raid the resource bank and then leaving.

2. If I'm in silver no matter whether it be level 1 or level 6 I shouldn't have to play gold teams in prime events and bonus games. If you're bronze you should play bronze, silver...silver. You see where the rest is going.

LudwigMonster

I was never contacted. Something MUST be wrong...

newfy

@houmy  I got another good idea and will cost glu nothing!!    Will make them more money!!   
    EXTEND the big points we receive for every 5th win in bonus game event.  After the 20k for our 200th win, it is only 200 points for every win!!!     Without a bonus player there’s no point of us to keep going pass 200 wins.   
   Still extend it and we keep tapping, which means we keep spending,  weather it’s icepacks, drinks, gold, etc.  Still gonna benefit glu!!!!      Thanks

usblues

One that probably doesn’t get addressed enough is achievements. I’ve played 6 or 7 thousand games and unlocked pretty much every possible achievement reward...but the jump to impossible is pretty much literally exactly as the name states. There should be a bridge for that gap. Would incentivize spending, and add one more Easter egg within the game. 

nym5fan

There needs to be a way to mass open Draft picks. When you play WoH and Bonus games a lot and mass accumulate Late round and 2nd draft picks. Opening 1 at a time is cumbersome and the little XP you get for trading them in doesn't make it worth even going through the trouble of opening them. If there was a mass trade in option it would negate this issue entirely. 

Wicked0Wildcats

#1 - Fix the weekend event.  I hate to be too blunt, but it is turning people off of the game. Most people I know simply don't even play it anymore, or play very little.  The rewards are so poor that there is no motivation to spend any gold on energy.  

#2 - Speaking of that event, 4 out of 7 days a week are reserved for Club Sprint.  That's not needed.  Sprint is not especially fun, especially on weekends.  Royale is a great concept, but I would have it either Friday or Sunday and cut the main sprint event down to 2 days.  There's no reason to have it in place of a major event on Wednesday.  For Tuesday, I'd also remove Sprint and either come up with a new event or perhaps find a way to modify Club vs. Club into a regular weekday event on Tuesday.

3 - Walkoff Hero.  We've got to find a way to fix this.  It's such a great event and concept, but it could be so much better. Curveballs have got to become more hittable.  I get that WOH should be difficult, but it's got to be more than just a matter of how lucky you were to get fastballs.  Furthermore, there's no reason not to incorporate baserunning control similar to actual gameplay.  

Perhaps the gameplay could be modified to play more like an individual game, while at the same time expanding levels from 10 rounds to 12 to offset some of that eased difficulty?  I think most people would go for that tradeoff if it meant the event felt more genuine.

miggyrising

@Houmy Over the next few days, I'll post a series of comments on how Miggyrising would transform the user experience while guiding GLU to unparalleled revenue.

I'll post them separately so I can fully outline the greatness just around the corner for this ragtag bunch of developers.

Today, I'll start with a change certain to have users blowing up the servers and GLU having to open a second savings account.

MIGGYRISING 1: On Event Royale

As I posted elsewhere, I'm turning Event Royale into a weeklong competition every week instead of trying to compress it into one day. After each daily event concludes, users will still collect individual and club rewards as they do now. But, the club points will be added to the Event Royale weekly scoreboard.

At the conclusion of the Weekend Prime Event (to be discussed in a later post), the overall weekly standings for the Event Royale will be tallied and rewards issued. The event would still use multipliers to make all the events relevant.

This change accomplishes several things.

First, GLU is only going to allow a team to collect Event Royale awards if they started the week on the same club that they finished the week on. If they've left their club or joined a new club after the start of the first weekly event, they can't collect Event Royale awards for that week.

So, we won't see the same level of teams jumping in and out of clubs to gain unfair advantages during certain events like CvC.

Secondly, it makes every event throughout the week relevant again. Since GLU is going to revamp their awards for event performance (another coming post), they're going make certain that Event Royale winners get really good rewards.

All of the sudden, clubs aren't going to take Mondays off because no one can cycle Walk Off. They're not going to bail on Tuesdays because they've just played 3 days of Prime Sprint and are bored with it.

Clubs are going to keep plugging away at Slugfest on Wednesdays because they know they can't afford to let another club full of cyclers run up the score on them. They're going to actually play the bonus games again.

Most importantly to GLU, clubs will play on the weekend again. They'll have something to actually play for. Two things actually. They'll have the better rewards that GLU is going to offer on the weekend. And, they'll want to finish strong in the weekly event.

miggyrising

Miggyrising 2: Walk Off Hero 

I'm gutting Walk Off Hero and completely redoing the event into what it should be. 

The basic concept is great. Bottom of the ninth. You have to score the winning run before making the final out. That's arguably the most exciting situation in baseball, especially when you see the ball flying into the stands to seal the win. We'll keep that part. 

But, we're making the event significantly different in ways that will be great for both users and GLU. 

The current business model sucks. Sure, a handful of players sink a ton of gold into the event. Why don't we make it so everyone has a reason (good for the user) to spend some gold (good for GLU)?

In my remake of Walk Off, beating the tower isn't going to be difficult for a player of reasonable skill and patience. We're getting rid of the outlandish late game scenarios that rarely happen in real life. No more 5 runs down with the bases empty.

More importantly, we're eliminating the ridiculous concept of a closer throwing a 3-0 curveball in the bottom of the ninth. That would NEVER actually happen.

We're adding base runner controls. Runners on 1st and 3rd with no one out, go ahead and steal 2nd. Runners on 1st and 2nd, lay down a bunt. Ball is hit medium depth in the outfield and you want to tag up, go ahead. You might get thrown out by a cannon.

We're even going to let you select a pinch hitter. If you pick a bad matchup, we're going to let you pick a new hitter without resetting your progress. It's going to cost you some gold, but you'll have the option. You'll even have the option after you lose a round and earn a restart. Don't like how Jose Ramirez did the first time through, bring in another guy. It'll be limited to the 2 players most closely situated to the current batter in your roster. But, it gives you a little more control. 

All of that's child's play in comparison to the biggest changes though.

Since beating the tower isn't going to require impossible skills anymore, we're going to assume that at least half the players who start the game will make it through. That's ridiculous, you say. Where's the reward for being good at the event or building a stud roster? Wait for it. 

Once you beat the Tower the first time, the reward for beating it a second time is a different player. The first time through, the reward player might be a special version 5 star player. Once you win that player, you'll get bonus points for each hit as you go back through the tower. (Yes, we're eliminating the idea of a bonus player that already exists.) But, the second time through the tower, while the rewards on Levels 1-5 remain the same, the reward player on Level 6 will be different. 

You probably already noticed I snuck in an extra level. Just as with Slugfest, we're going to add a 6th Level and award players generously on Level 5 with XP or Prime XP. 

If a user makes it through the Tower a second time, their new Reward player will be given bonus points in subsequent gameplay. Their first Reward player will keep their bonus points. But, the bonus points for the new player will make the first Reward player's bonus somewhat irrelevant. First reward scores 5k per hit. Second reward scores 5k per RBI. 

When they start over again they will have a different Reward player atop the tower. In fact, we're doing this until a user beats the tower 5 times. The first Reward Player might be a 5 Star with special skills. The 2nd a boosted Max 360 player with skills. The 3rd a low level Prime. The 4th a high level Prime. The fifth a Legend. Each one will get a better bonus than the previous one for the remainder of the event. 

You mean to tell me you're going to make it easier to beat Walk Off? Then you're going to offer a Legend Player for beating the tower 5 times in one event? How is GLU supposed to make money on this? 

Oh, did I forget to mention the most important change to the event? Silly me!

You see, right now, GLU relies on people spending Gold for restarts and boosts. Sure, some of the users in the game probably spend stupid amounts of Gold to win the player. But, they all have their limits. Once they have the player, it's not very likely they're going to keep spending very much Gold just to score points for their clubs. That's one of the reasons GLU likely decided to make the game impossible to beat. They know people will spend Gold to win the first time. But, then they stop. 

We're making the game easier to win for everyone. The guys who cycle right now probably won't have to spend any Gold in my new version to beat a specific round. I want it that way. I want users of reasonable skill and patience to be able to beat the tower without using any Gold for boosts or restarts. 

So, how is GLU going to get people to spend Gold in this remake? 

Starting at 12:00PM EST, Level 1 will be open to all players. Level 2 won't open until 2PM EST. Level 3 won't open until 4PM EST. Level 4 won't open until 6PM EST. Level 5 opens at 8PM EST. Level 6 opens at 10PM EST. 

That's right, if you sprint through all 10 rounds of Level 1 in 3 minutes using Blue Cash to autoplay Rounds 1-7 and manually playing the last 3 rounds, you get to wait 117 minutes until you can play Level 2. Unless, you want to pay Gold to unlock it earlier. 

For the first time through the tower, the Gold required to unlock the next Level might be somewhat reasonable. 25 to unlock Level 2. 50 to unlock Level 3. 100 to unlock Level 4. 200 to unlock Level 5. 400 to unlock Level 6. That's only 775 Gold bars to unlock the entire tower early. The first time through. 

But, remember, we now have different bonus players available for subsequent times through the tower. If you wait until all of the Levels on your first trip up the tower open for free, you'll only have two hours to win the bonus players. And then, you'll only get to play Level 1 of the second trip up the tower. 

After the first trip through the tower, users will be required to wait two hours from the time they complete any Level until the next Level opens for free. Of course, they can pay Gold to open that Level before the two hour waiting period expires. And, that Gold is only going to get more and more expensive the higher you go and the more times you cycle. 

By the end, if you make it to get the Legend player, I'm going to make it so you have to spend roughly 30K Gold bars or the amount it currently takes to get a Legend through Fan Rewards. Our Legends will be better though because our's will only be available through Walk Off and will come with Skill Bonuses.  

If you are fortunate enough to make it through all 5 versions of the tower in one week, you'll get to start over at the bottom with al Levels unlocked so you can rack up your mega bonus points. 

Bigpredfan

Well whoever is giving feedback, here is some. 

Babe ruth evo tokens are only good for people with babe ruth. Yet you have a 30% chance of getting those in the Jason Giambi legend box. Why is that the highest percentage when they are useless to almost everyone?  

What customers want is to not feel ripped off. If I bought this box and got those I would be severely ticked off because, like most people, I don’t have babe ruth. Therefore they are useless to me and probably will stay that way

Houmy

Hello forum friends,

I just wanted to bring it to your attention that I just emailed GLU and withdrew my name from consideration. Honestly I don't see a point to it as GLU already sees all the valid concerns on the forum and does not act on it so this VIP council just doesn't make sense to me and seems more like a publicity event. But please feel free to post any other suggestions you may have so that maybe they will listen eventually. 

Sandpipers

Completely understand @Houmy , there doesn't seem to be a point to it anymore. The majority of the frustration and outcry is from the most experienced, loyal and successful players. The complaints and also the suggestions for improvement are falling on deaf ears. I spent a little gold on a few 20 gold level boosts and 1 non-video restart today. Otherwise, despite several attempts at 5.9 and 5.10 the day ended in failure but at least I still have my gold, gold that I can't see spending on anything, anytime soon. Doubt there will be much playing going on over the next several days.

snowy24

Babe Ruth evo tokens? You have got to be kidding me. Thats just a punch in the gut for players who do not have Babe Ruth, unless they are thinking of giving him away as some special gift at the end of this year, which I highly doubt. 

Bigpredfan

I will not be downloading the new game for 2019. There would have to be serious changes to get me into this mess again. I’d rather spend my money and time elsewhere

Houmy

Hey @Bigpredfan should I reserve a spot for you on our 2019 club roster?   

In all seriousness though I feel the same way you do and will probably spend my $$$ elsewhere.

Metsicans

I'm with Bigpredfan.  Competing is so expensive now.  To beat walkoff you need at least what, 5000 gold?  That's conservative at this point - it's no longer certain it can ever be done if the game decides it's not your day.  To compete on Tuesdays, you at least need to spend 1100 on a POTW, hope to get him on the first pull, and then play all day instead of paying for energy.  Conservatively, that's 1100 gold per Tuesday, plus whatever gold you need to get him up to your level.  Then Wednesday, for Event Royale, name your price.  You could spend any amount on this day.  Figure 5000 for Walkoff, 2000 for slugfest, 1000 for prime event.  Thursday is a "free" day, unless you spring for bonus players, which you probably need to do...so at least another 2000.  Then the weekend and poor box odds, figure you need at least 5000 for that (10 boxes should get you one player).

Total it up and that is, conservatively, 21K. At Glu prices, that's $200 or so.  Per week.  I don't mind paying something for a game I enjoy, but that's nuts.  And the "enjoy" part is sorely lacking on Mondays, Thursdays (w/o CvC) and weekends especially.   

Bigpredfan

@Houmy you can save me a spot if you like to play with 19 guys in your club for a whole year

bravesfanla

My routine the past few weeks:

I have my phone docked on my desk radio during the day when I'm at work. I watch videos throughout the day and slowly but surely rack up gold. Then, like others have reported doing, I spend the gold on Season Mode to get through the season in a week. It's the best return on my time, as I am still boycotting spending anymore money (already over a grand) until I achieve a certain status that shall not be named.