Originally posted by David Stern
I think everybody needs to look through the changes for what they really are
Glb is a business who is trying to make this game the best product it can possibly be.
When this game gets placed in the iPhone app store, you're looking at the potential of 500k plus new users. No mmo on the iPhone compares to this game, and I think glb is looking atthe big picture.
Best product possible- get it finalized - watch game explode in popularity.
95 % of the complaints in this thread are basically telling bort and company to not improve their product, can't imagine why that opinion isn't given more respect.
Do you really think people pecking away on an iPhone or iPad app while waiting at the airport are going to be putting the in-depth thinking into this game that the new training system will require? Really? The game currently has the hardest of the hard core, and a lot of us think the new system is insanely unintuitive and pointless. What do you think the mass market will think, the people raised on simple stuff like Farmville?
Here's my general take on where things are and what they could have been.
Firstly, it would have helped matters a lot if the changes weren't presented with such a "take it or leave it" type announcement. Clearly there were pretty major flaws in the original schemes, otherwise "take it or leave it" wouldn't have so quickly become "ok, we'll listen" - the damage was done with the original tone, however, and there are still large elements of the changes that need rethinking IMO. Just because people focussed more on finances and training than coaches doesn't mean that the coaching thing is accepted, nor does it mean that both training and coaching don't need more changes.
Here are my specific points right now:
Complexity
No matter how well you do the UI, there is little in the training that is intuitive. Thank god you got rid of "resource units", I frankly can't believe anyone thought it was a good idea to add another form of GLB currency. That aside, I suggest that you include a "training guru" function, a clickable option (maybe it could even cost a bonus token every time you use it) that tells the user what steps are available, what happens if "A" is done instead of "C", and reminds the user about what they can unlock soon, etc, etc.
Of course, its a sign that things are way to complicated that this is needed, but I think it is. I would ask the question about why this wasn't rolled out in a more simple way with but I've done enough head shaking about the horrible first announcement as it is and want to look forward.
Coaching
Why can coaches affect the opposition? One of the reasons for the riot when coaches was rolled out a few months ago was the ability of coaches to mess with their opponent's builds, and no matter how you slice it that's what's happening here. Please drop this part, and please make sure there is lots of testing done on coaching before its rolled out, and let's get some results actually published, things have been a little weak in that area for a long time.
This is notwithstanding the feeling that coaches are just a lot of clicking and a bit of real world $$ without a lot of payback for the user other than the need to keep up with the Joneses. Its like you're charging each team owner $10 real dollars to make sure their offence gets to play with a fully inflated ball. "Yeah, but you don't *have* to buy the game ball" is a crappy answer.
Training - Fun
The training changes in particular are just so much work - a lot of math, and no language or symbolism relating the clicking to what happens in football. There's also the question of why it was done like this. Some alternatives:
1. Have an offseason training mode where the player could be trained on higher intensity and with several attributes being trained at once. Could use game cash to hire a training guru, with off-season gains being high enough to actually change a player's build/effectiveness in a noticeable way.
2. Game cash to purchase things like home gyms, personal trainers, nutritional supplements, etc, etc, to give a % boost to training effectiveness, could have done this with bonus tokens
But no, instead we got terminology and process that only an engineer could love.
3. Fun - General
So users want more to do? Its not like there haven't been two longstanding suggestions on this
1. skill competition, rankings - see where your dot ranks in the 40, 225 bench, etc, etc, etc...offseason fun, and could be used as part of recruiting, and, unlike mini-helmet day boosting morale, this actually has an relation to real football.
2. improve the SIm...I know this is being done, but there is still a lot that needs to be improved
3. Improve the replays - watching the dots is one of the most fun parts of GLB - at least for those teams not stuck in an endless cycle of blowouts one way or another. So why not enhance the replay system. The new animations are a solid step, let's do more.
4. enhanced player tactics. An LB reading run first on 3rd and 17? Really, GLB...really?
Anyway, I'm not going to threaten to ragequit...I'll stick around to see how the new training system looks/feels and whether it seems like it will take two seasons to catch up with the people who already have their spreadsheets lined up to advise on the One True Path to building the perfect dot. But if GLB Inc. thinks they've found some magic formula here for a rollout or for drawing new users, well good for you - I think you're wrong, but then again I'm just a paying customer.
Competition
While the claim is that some of these changes are supposed to help competition, at worst I'm dubious about that outcome, and at my most optimistic I think it will take several seasons before that happens. But in the meantime, too many users are "enjoying" leagues where blowouts are the norm and close games are virtually non-existent. What happened to grouping teams by effective levels? Or was that another big idea like fame that has just quietly slipped into near-irrelevance?
Competition is the number one issue facing GLB, I certainly hope admins see that. Whether the changes announced are enough will remain to be seen, but I would certainly have preferred to see staff brainpower exclusively devoted to that problem and addressing it immediately, rather than working out 3 major changes so flawed that they immediately had to be changed despite the "here they are, these changes are happening, no tinkering allowed" tone of the original announcements.