From Tier 7 on up, you will actually LOSE money for playing matches.

[Fomin]

I was really excited to finally unlock the Nagato... until I realized that after Tier 7, you literally LOSE money for playing the game even if you win and keep your ship intact.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2175794625

This game seems to be designed to get you hooked by initially being rewarding so that the sunk-cost fallacy will lead you into buying credits just to keep playing later on.

On a related note, even if you don't play very well and get sunk right away, you can earn more money WITHOUT premium using a Tier 5 ship than you would earn WITH premium using a Tier 7 ship and playing much better...

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2175818383

P.S.

The answer which I selected as the answer is

Originally posted by casualsailor:

"@Fomin You are right. Just like the pusher who gives you your first dose for free so does Wargaming make it free and easy to start playing the game. But then when you are hooked do you find out the real price.

"I don't actually recommend advancing past T-7 unless you plan on purchasing Premium time which will cost you about $108-$120 per year. And like others have said, you'll need a premium camo for your T-Xs which will cost $20 per ship. So, as you can see it is very easy to spend a couple hundred dollars per year on this game even without purchasing Premium ships.

"For me the game is just not worth that sort of investment.

"Besides the MM at T-8 is horrendous. You'll be used as cannon fodder in T-X matches all the time. Looking at the last 20 games in my T-8 Akizuki I was bottom tier in a T-X match 8 times. Only 3 times was I top tier in a 6-8 match. 4 times I was in an all T-8 match where each time I as matched up against a Premium destroyer.

"That's not to say you cannot be competitive in a T-X game but the first time a Midway wipes 9k of your 20k hp off in a single attack you'll understand what Wargaming intends for your purpose in that match to be."

If you see any other answer marked as the answer, it means a Wargaming employee has been at work.

[CleverBird]

Is anybody really surprised by this? This is how it worked in WoT as well... Gotta push you to buy that premium!

[Fomin]

Messaggio originale di CleverBird:

Is anybody really surprised by this? This is how it worked in WoT as well... Gotta push you to buy that premium!

As you can see from the screenshots in the OP, you can actually earn more by playing badly at Tier 5 WITHOUT premium than you can playing better at Tier 7 WITH premium.

Even from a business point of view this is bad. While I can recognize the appeal of luring people in and then catching them in an economy that forces them to buy currency or quit playing, if you start punishing people for playing once they really get into the game, the result is going to be a lot of churn.

Punishing your free players (I'm not a free player btw having bought numerous premium ships for myself and my brothers) is also a mistake since the free players are the ones who both give the premium players someone to play with AND allow said premium players to feel like Lords.

You don't earn more money by getting more players to become whales; you get more money by keeping players in the game and more minnows means more dolphins and more whales over the long term. If you design the economy to suck for everyone but whales above Tier 7, you will eventually end up with a disaster to the ecology of your game.

[Fomin]

Messaggio originale di Lunacy:

Those were some pretty poor stats, I usually only started losing money a little bit in t9 and half the time in t10. 6-8 are fine for credits, especially if you nab yourself a free premium
But yes, I do hate the fact you can lose progress by playing the game in higher tiers, even if you win and do well -- just because you didn't want to pay for premium time. Bad game design

Like damn, I would love to play Hakuryu or Midway, but i'd be playing at a loss even if I top my team and use signals, and I'm not going to pay $40 EACH to rectify it.
And If I played nothing but t10's from now, I'd never be able to afford another ship again.

If you compare it to a f2p game done well, imo, Warframe you can get pretty much everything in the game for $25 (if you don't want to become a trader) or less, and live through updates for years. I initially put 25 into it (with 75% discount of course) and I'm still living off of the premium currency years later.
The premium is just for slots and inventory space (it's rather limited on a fresh account), you don't have to pay a cent to get every item in the game, just your own time playing.

As you can see from the screenshots in the OP, you can earn more money playing badly at Tier 5 than by playing much better at Tier 7 and yes, it is bad game design. If you have a good base game to start with, you can use it to make a lot of money but gouging your paying customers so that MOST of them quit (which is definitely the case with WaW since after 200 hours I have tons of awards that most players don't which tells me that most players quit playing after less than that) is NOT a good long term strategy.

GTA V Online is the most profitable game ever and that game is NOT designed to make you lose progress if you don't pay for a premium membership. On a related note, Red Dead Online, which gouges players far worse, is less profitable...and those games were both made by the same people.

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

Judging by the pathetic credit numbers in the screenshots you've shown, you're playing co-op battles. That's your problem. Co-op is specifically designed to not be a viable way to grind out credits or XP. It is not the main focus of the game, it is effectively a "tutorial" or "training mode", and the rewards reflect this due to how laughably easy it is to bully and slaughter the bots you get matched up against. Playing exclusively co-op also teaches players very bad habits, as many tactics that can score you huge damage in co-op will 99 times out of 100 just get you instakilled when performed against another player. Imagine how much worse off this game's community would be if somebody could grind out a tier 9 or 10 ship in co-op, then start taking it into Random battles without any clue how to play correctly... things are bad enough as they are without that.

If, however, you're trying to gain credits or XP in Random battles, like you're supposed to, it's virtually impossible to lose credits outside of tier 10 unless you play EXTREMELY poorly. This is very much a YOU problem - you're having such issues because you're playing a game mode specifically designed to not be viable for making credits or XP. You want to actually accomplish something? Man up and play with the big boys.

Oh nevermind... I just read your comment on the screenshot about "pay-to-win PvP". Sigh. Probably a lost cause, but at least I tried.

[Fomin]

In response to various people who may or may not be company employees posting that you could totally earn money at Tier 7 and above if you got lucky and achieved an incredible score, it is mathematically impossible for most players to do that most of the time since teams are autobalanced. Most people on the team are NOT going to be able to do much more damage than their own ships hit points because the other team will have roughly the same total number of hit points.

In short, the game is designed so that most players in a given match will lose money in battles Tier 7 and above... yet most players will gain money if they play at lower Tiers. It's a trap. The best way to play this game is to stop at Tier 6 because beyond that, the devs think they have you hooked so they can FORCE you to spend money, not for ships, premium commanders, skins etc. but just to keep playing.

[Jackson]

Messaggio originale di Fomin:

In response to various people who may or may not be company employees posting that you could totally earn money at Tier 7 and above if you got lucky and achieved an incredible score, it is mathematically impossible for most players to do that most of the time since teams are autobalanced. Most people on the team are NOT going to be able to do much more damage than their own ships hit points because the other team will have roughly the same total number of hit points.

In short, the game is designed so that most players in a given match will lose money in battles Tier 7 and above... yet most players will gain money if they play at lower Tiers. It's a trap. The best way to play this game is to stop at Tier 6 because beyond that, the devs think they have you hooked so they can FORCE you to spend money, not for ships, premium commanders, skins etc. but just to keep playing.

You forgot heals. To do merely average, you must do about 1.3 times your health. As tiers go up heals get bigger a bit... At tier 10 a battleship may have around 90,000 health, but with heals it really has more like 120-130,000 health. Also some ships usually make it out a live... so it varies all over. I feel like if you do your ships damage you're doing ok... as long as your kill ratio is 1:1 or greater at the same time.

Also with a tiny bit of trying and skill you can easily be better than average. Let's be honest here... average isn't very good :p

(I'm not paid or an employee btw, just volunteered to keep the forum running smoothly since I was already kinda doing it).

[Sidian]

Messaggio originale di Fomin:

As you can see from the screenshots in the OP, you can earn more money playing badly at Tier 5 than by playing much better at Tier 7 and yes, it is bad game design.

This way, the developers ensure that even lower tiers (4-6) are still populated all the time and that 90% of players won't just play t10 ships. And linking the rewards to player performance encourages players to become better if they want to play more high tier ships.
Imo it's actually good game design.

In addition, PvP is not pay to win. Some of the best ships are tech tree ships or have to be unlocked via playing (coal, steel).

Messaggio originale di Fomin:

...NOT a good long term strategy.

Well, the game launched in 2015 and it is still growing afaik, so they are doing something right.

Messaggio originale di Fomin:

GTA V Online...

...is already a bad example, since you basically don't get any money from normal activities compared to what you can buy (or what they give out for free as an "appetizer" to all the interesting stuff that costs tons of money). Just buying money is waaaay more efficient. In addition, GTA Online is not free to play. It's part of GTA V and you have to pay upfront for the game, 15-60 bucks depending on when you buy/bought it.

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

Messaggio originale di Jack:

Messaggio originale di Lunacy:

Those were some pretty poor stats, I usually only started losing money a little bit in t9 and half the time in t10. 6-8 are fine for credits, especially if you nab yourself a free premium
But yes, I do hate the fact you can lose progress by playing the game in higher tiers, even if you win and do well -- just because you didn't want to pay for premium time. Bad game design

Like damn, I would love to play Hakuryu or Midway, but i'd be playing at a loss even if I top my team and use signals, and I'm not going to pay $40 EACH to rectify it.
And If I played nothing but t10's from now, I'd never be able to afford another ship again.

If you compare it to a f2p game done well, imo, Warframe you can get pretty much everything in the game for $25 (if you don't want to become a trader) or less, and live through updates for years. I initially put 25 into it (with 75% discount of course) and I'm still living off of the premium currency years later.
The premium is just for slots and inventory space (it's rather limited on a fresh account), you don't have to pay a cent to get every item in the game, just your own time playing.

The difference there is WG does make far more money. And with that money they can hire bigger teams to make more and better quality ships and have content to roll out every 3 weeks. I've never played Warframe, but can you say the same? Usually you get what you pay for...

Sorry for the double post, but I felt the need to respond to this. Two or three years ago, I would have instantly said "yes, you can say the same about Warframe", no questions asked. Since then, though, the game's developers got more ambitious, and started coming up with bigger and more radical updates that had the downside of taking quite a bit longer to develop. The game's in a bit of a nebulous place right now, lots of people complaining about content they don't like (hey, just like here!), but I can say with certainty that Warframe still has one of the player-friendliest free-to-play models of any game I've yet played (excluding those rare games that have no monetization whatsoever).

[Jackson]

Messaggio originale di Totally Innocent Chatbot:

Messaggio originale di Jack:

The difference there is WG does make far more money. And with that money they can hire bigger teams to make more and better quality ships and have content to roll out every 3 weeks. I've never played Warframe, but can you say the same? Usually you get what you pay for...

Sorry for the double post, but I felt the need to respond to this. Two or three years ago, I would have instantly said "yes, you can say the same about Warframe", no questions asked. Since then, though, the game's developers got more ambitious, and started coming up with bigger and more radical updates that had the downside of taking quite a bit longer to develop. The game's in a bit of a nebulous place right now, lots of people complaining about content they don't like (hey, just like here!), but I can say with certainty that Warframe still has one of the player-friendliest free-to-play models of any game I've yet played (excluding those rare games that have no monetization whatsoever).

Yep, problem with that is no income so they can't pay more people to big it larger and better. Can't have it both ways. It's a struggle Armored Warfare has too. It's got a very awesome PvE mode.. so awesome in fact... it's killing the game

Edit: last I knew. I quit playing it a few months ago after I bought a series of boxes and got nothing from them. That never happens to me with Wargaming :) At least here I get good camos and flags even if I don't get what I REALLY wanted.

[Fomin]

In response to various people saying the game is free so any form of player-gouging is justified, I spent more on this game than I did buying lots of AAA games and the economy still sucks if you play above Tier 7 so no. A game that is deliberately unrewarding AFTER spending more money than the cost of a AAA game and playing for hundreds of hours is NOT well designed; it's too greedy for its own good.

The most profitable games like GTA Online, Fortnite, etc. don't punish you for playing them. The fact that you can still make some money with a bad business model if you have good game designers and programmers to offset the harm done by the same doesn't justify the grasping, exploitative, churn-producing monetization scheme.

As for the game growing, that's true of the industry in general and there are good TECHNICAL aspects to this game. The economy however, is bad and that is probably the reason that most people who try the game quit before they have played as long as I have (as evidenced byt the fact that i have lots of awards that most players don't after a mere 200 hours of playing the game.)

[Sidian]

Messaggio originale di Fomin:

In response to various people saying the game is free so any form of player-gouging is justified

That is not the argument. The argument is since it's free, it's not an issue to have some kind of encouragement to pay a bit of money. E.g. a few bucks for a month of Premium time (since you already get some premium ships for free every now and then) to increase the XP and credits you earn so you can still play t8 and even t9 at a profit as long as you play well enough.

In addition, encouraging players to farm credits at lower tiers is far from "player-gouging". It's just like farming materials in World of Warcraft for buffs to be prepared for raids (or just buy gold with real money and buy the consumables/materials). But in WoWs' case, it also helps to keep lower tiers populated to keep waitings times low and the match making more accurate which is a plus for the whole game and all players interested in playing at those tiers.
Well, that is if you are interested in PvP of course, but for the same reason PvP has to be way more attractive to play, otherwise a lot of players would just farm credits and XP in coop, causing the same issues (longer waiting times for PvP, less accurate match making).

Messaggio originale di Fomin:

The economy however, is bad and that is probably the reason that most people who try the game quit before they have played as long as I have (as evidenced byt the fact that i have lots of awards that most players don't after a mere 200 hours of playing the game.)

The economy is fine. As long as you play PvP. The coop economy is designed to be bad because you are not supposed to play only coop.
In fact, a lot of players are saying that it is too easy to get to t10 (or rather you can get to t10 too fast because of the higher income and higher XP rewards compared to like 2-3 years ago), causing a lot more bad or inexperienced players getting to t10.

[Jackson]

Messaggio originale di Fomin:

In response to various people saying the game is free so any form of player-gouging is justified, I spent more on this game than I did buying lots of AAA games and the economy still sucks if you play above Tier 7 so no. A game that is deliberately unrewarding AFTER spending more money than the cost of a AAA game and playing for hundreds of hours is NOT well designed; it's too greedy for its own good.

Average T10 loss for me. https://prnt.sc/to65f9

My 880 million credits say the economy is broken the OTHER way. As I said before, I've never purchased any. Your problem is you're playing a mode that wasn't even intended to be a normal play mode. WG isn't going to "fix" it since doing so would cost them money.

[casualsailor]

@Fomin You are right. Just like the pusher who gives you your first dose for free so does Wargaming make it free and easy to start playing the game. But then when you are hooked do you find out the real price.

I don't actually recommend advancing past T-7 unless you plan on purchasing Premium time which will cost you about $108-$120 per year. And like others have said, you'll need a premium camo for your T-Xs which will cost $20 per ship. So, as you can see it is very easy to spend a couple hundred dollars per year on this game even without purchasing Premium ships.

For me the game is just not worth that sort of investment.

Besides the MM at T-8 is horrendous. You'll be used as cannon fodder in T-X matches all the time. Looking at the last 20 games in my T-8 Akizuki I was bottom tier in a T-X match 8 times. Only 3 times was I top tier in a 6-8 match. 4 times I was in an all T-8 match where each time I as matched up against a Premium destroyer.

That's not to say you cannot be competitive in a T-X game but the first time a Midway wipes 9k of your 20k hp off in a single attack you'll understand what Wargaming intends for your purpose in that match to be.

[Fomin]

Messaggio originale di casualsailor:

@Fomin You are right. Just like the pusher who gives you your first dose for free so does Wargaming make it free and easy to start playing the game. But then when you are hooked do you find out the real price.

I don't actually recommend advancing past T-7 unless you plan on purchasing Premium time which will cost you about $108-$120 per year. And like others have said, you'll need a premium camo for your T-Xs which will cost $20 per ship. So, as you can see it is very easy to spend a couple hundred dollars per year on this game even without purchasing Premium ships.

For me the game is just not worth that sort of investment.

Besides the MM at T-8 is horrendous. You'll be used as cannon fodder in T-X matches all the time. Looking at the last 20 games in my T-8 Akizuki I was bottom tier in a T-X match 8 times. Only 3 times was I top tier in a 6-8 match. 4 times I was in an all T-8 match where each time I as matched up against a Premium destroyer.

That's not to say you cannot be competitive in a T-X game but the first time a Midway wipes 9k of your 20k hp off in a single attack you'll understand what Wargaming intends for your purpose in that match to be.

Well put! After getting my brothers into the game, I am now telling them to just stop advancing and switch to a different tech tree after Tier 6. Beyond that the game is deliberately unrewarding.

[Jackson]

Messaggio originale di casualsailor:

For me the game is just not worth that sort of investment.

This is the best argument really.

If you love the game enough to play it, I figure $1/hr for a lot of fun is insignificant. If I spend a few hundred dollars a year on it... to me that's not really too much. To others it will be.