(03-17-2023, 05:07 PM)qWest Wrote:(03-17-2023, 03:27 PM)Swanty Wrote: Firstly, thank you so much to @ElMerchanto for kicking this discussion off! As Infi said, I don't remember any time in my almost 3 years here where someone has questioned why our TPE rewards are the way that they are but it's certainly one we should be having.
Echoing a lot of the thoughts outlined above, I'd personally be against modifying the weekly PT rewards. Not just for the equivalence we have with other leagues that allows users to save time, but for the PT Pass. Writing PTs isn't for everyone and I think the opportunity to skip them by having a league job is a really enticing asset for a lot of people (myself included in that). If we were to drop the TPE available for those or remove the task entirely, having a job becomes less appealing. And not having enough people willing to do crucial jobs is probably the biggest danger to the league's survival, so I'd be reticent to mess with anything that could risk the balance we have now.
Looking at AC/WT though, 88% of users who complete an AC also complete weekly training in that same week, and 95% of the time they buy the $1M option. So it's probably fair to say that tweaking the distribution of TPE between the two won't affect too many existing users. But as you mentioned, if having AC be the major task for TPE tempts someone on the fence about continuing to just put their name in the thread and maybe stick around, then it might be worth a change.
I wonder if something like the below might give the best of both worlds, that is making it easy and tempting to 'check in' for users who don't have much money, while also not significantly affecting the existing userbase:
AC - 4 TPE
$500k training - 2 TPE
$1M training - 3 TPE
Alternatively it could be 5 for ACs and 1/2 for training, with the 500k option becoming 250k or something. I like that because it introduces a couple of dilemmas. The 1 TPE option is so much cheaper, it might be more tempting than the current 500k option which only 5% of users opt for. And the other is that it actually makes equipment better value than training, so there'd be a dilemma as to whether to save up for equipment for better value, or take the training to avoid missing out on TPE.
Regarding the concern that low earners specifically perhaps need a bit of a boost in order to have decent performance, I'm not sure TPE inflation is the answer, as I think we have a good effort/reward balance right now and this would have effects throughout the entire scale. Instead, it would be great if it were easier to get to a TPE level that allows your player to be 'viable' in the big leagues but not necessarily past it. I think we could potentially achieve that through the Training Camp task, which already offers different levels of TPE based on the player's season. Offering a much larger boost in a player's 2nd, 3rd and 4th season could help newer players get to that level while also getting them excited about the upcoming season having made a huge step forward. And to make up for bringing that TPE forward, we could make the TC task only for players in their first four seasons (or significantly reduce the rewards for later seasons).
In a similar vein to avoiding eliminating the PT in the interest of preserving the incentives for jobs, I'd be reticent to reduce the benefits from purchased TPE in the interest of preserving the incentive for creating media/gfx/pod content.
Overall I'd disagree with the primary notion put forth by the author that "casual & moderate users are the lifeblood of every game" being applicable to our league. It's important for their to be a place for those users to be involved and have a good time in the league, but from a perspective of keeping the balance and stability of the league ecology just growing and focusing on bringing in on those users could create a big problem if it doesn't come with abundant rewards and incentives for users to continue to give maximum contributions back to the league or new users to get involved at that level. I don't want to come off too aggressive to our less active users, but the lifeblood of our league are the people that volunteer a lot of time to provide quality contributions in their league jobs or in creating league content.
Basically, the league may struggle to grow too much without our low to moderate activity users, but it definitely will fail without our more dedicated members.
I don't know if i qualify as a super dedicated user. But i do a bit. I can safely say that without plenty of people, I'd quit. It wouldn't be fun. So I'd say the casual users sticking around is key for me personally to do anything. I may be the minority in that I need the casual users to justify my time spent. But I do think if higher base rewards (which every level of user would get) helps retention, we should do it in a hurry.