Warrior General Games

Our issues we are going to address here:
1. Why 70% flex return is bad.
2. Why 0% flex return is good for users AND Bort
3. Why making the build cycle shorter means dots get more expensive (kinda)
4. Benefits of a general additional cost reduction
5. How to make a subscription model work


I will be leaning on my google sheets analysis here and referencing articular cells at times: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11BfLfPX5TuzxWLs7bzn5t_b9ZUCja64sAjeqLIHdDrg/edit#gid=0


1. Why 70% flex return is bad.

In sheet column (C) you'll see a breakdown of the current GLB model for a 200flex dot. 7300 flex to build, 5030 gets refunded, gives a 2270 net cost. The issue however is that no one who doesn't already have flex will ever want to pay the up-front cost of ~$60-70 for only one dot on a 15 year old browser game.

GLB is awesome and this pricing made sense at one point, but now it is cost prohibitive. So many users have left the game despite the 70% flex retund, so it's stopping people from buying flex as well as not doing anyone any good.


2. Why 0% flex return is good for users AND Bort.

At the end of the day, the only thing that matters with flex points is how much flex a dot costs over time. That "flex spend per month" to build a player and their their career, is what actually "uses" flex and causes more purchases and more $ for Bort.

What this means, is if we play with the flex payment/refund structure while maintaining the flex "burn" per 30 days of a dots life, the same flex is used up requiring more purchases. Cell C19 is the current flex cost of 1 dot per 30 days. D19 is that same cost per 30 days if we instead removed the discount (so initial dot cost is 30% of current with 0% refund. Since these numbers are the same, the dots will "burn" the same amount of net flex each month, but to the user on the front end (when creating a dot) it will feel much cheaper.

This will allow users to create more dots, but what's more is it gives returning players to the game an avenue to justify flex purchases, because 1 200flex dot won't cost them 7200 flex up front and instead can be made from scratch for only 2270 flex.

This is a way to make the game FEEL like a radical price reduction and would lead to more dots and more purchases, benefiting everyone.


3. Why making the build cycle shorter means dots get more expensive (kinda)

As we discussed above, the flex burn per month is really all that matters for actually "using up" flex and necessitating new purchases. The issue is, the shorter we make the build phase (where we traditionally pay) or the longer we make the plateau phase (where we traditionally don't pay), the more expensive the dot needs to be per season of the build phase, to make the cost per 30 days equal...

If we go to a 0% flex return model, both a 3 season build and 5 season plat, as well as a 3 season build and 7 season plat, still seem to be reasonably attainable. Also if we bring down total preseason+season to 48 days rather than 57 days, the shorter dot life helps decrease dot cost.while maintaining flex burn per month (seen in C15:F15 changing, compared to C16:F16 remaining constant)


4. Benefits of a general additional cost reduction

What was discussed in #1 through #3 above are changes in pricing structure that will FEEL to the users like price reductions, but will not be actual price reductions by WGG in an income per month calculation.

I am proposing an additional cost reduction by WGG. This is a 15 year old browser game, and an additional price reduction would promote a ton of good will by your userbase, and can lead to a large amount of activity and building more dots which burn through flex faster and necessitate more purchases and a game that lives on longer. This also makes building more dots more accessible for many.

The proposed cost reduction impact and a proposed new boost model (obv the # of boosts is open to change or interpretation in the new dot build cycle, but the idea is to keep the total flex spend per dot). This can be found in cells B24:F30 depending on whether we want a 5 season plateau or 7 season plateau. Personally I suggest the longer 7 season plateau.


5. How to make a subscription model work.

This can be found in the GREEN sections of the spreadsheet, columns H to L. Cliff notes is, again keeping dot cost per 30 days consistent, the subscription model is actually amazing in that it allows us to spread out dot cost into plateau seasons and once again make dots feel cheaper without changing the flex burn per 30 days which leads to purchases.

Since subscriptions feel SOOO cheap, it'll actually cause the creation of many more dots, and make purchasing a full team of 55 dots very attainable at around 5200 flex per season, which becomes 52,000 flex over a 10 season career. This is a LOT more flex burn than many currently do.

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tl;dr
If Bort decides to do #1-5 above, then makes a s100 mass email announcement, GLB would enter a new golden age of activity and fun. There are 4 different things listed which will FEEL to the userbase as price reductions, while 3/4 of them maintain current flex burn per month. Thus if Bort is able to increase dots made, he will be seeing an increase in profit compared to s98 and everyone wins!

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Thoughts or questions are welcome.

From other thread: https://glb.warriorgeneral.com/game/forum_thread.pl?thread_id=5328745&page=3#50092269
Originally posted by Left2Die

current dots 100, 200 and 300 with 70% return
future dots 50, 100, 150 with 30% return

id like to see that happen.


id also like to see the build process shortened.

more like freshman league, junior varsity league, varsity league and college as the build up to plateau.
then once fully developed plateau dots fill semi pro and pro leagues.

In your scenario above, those things are equal IF (a) 35% return instead of 30% return, and (b) the dots total length of career is the same number of days, and (c) we include the same number of boosts.


(a) 35% return instead of 30% return
The issue with (a) is...well nothing... it's just math. However if we agree lower prices + less flex return is BETTER and leads to more dots, why stop at 30% or 35%? Again, 95% of the peak userbase has left GLB despite the flex refund aspect, and the high upfront cost has made dots undesirable for non-hardcore users. If we can maintain net dot cost while making the game feel cheaper and make purchases less front-heavy, what on earth is the benefit of 30% or 35% over 0% flex return with lower prices, giving the same net dot cost?


(b) the dots total length of career is the same number of days

This it not going to be the same since the build period is getting shorter, and I doubt Bort it's going to make it 3 seasons build 9 seasons plateau (though I do think 7 seasons or 8 seasons of plateau makes sense).

From Bort's perspective, dots exist for x number of days and cost y number of flex. If those dots exist for less days (total career), we can decrease the flex price by that same percentage while resulting in the same income for Bort.

If however dots go from existing say 12 seasons to only existing 6 total seasons, if we keep the price to build/boost the dot the same we have actually DOUBLED Bort's income and DOUBLED the amount you will need to spend on GLB per year to have the same number of dots each month. We should not do this because it doesn't make sense, especially on a 15 year old browser game. Shorter dot life should logically result in lower cost per dot.


(c) we include the same number of boosts

I just want to point out that if we have 30 boosts, it's the same as having say 15 boosts (assuming rest of leveling comes from XP, and the price of 30 boosts = the price of 15 boosts). If it's simplest to convert keeping # of boosts the same that's fine for everyone I think, just a bit odd to boost MANY times per season.

From other thread: https://glb.warriorgeneral.com/game/forum_thread.pl?thread_id=5328745&page=3#50092336

Originally posted by yomanpopo
If it isn't (completely) broke, don't fix it. I think shortening the amount of time from the beginning to PROS as Bort talked about above really makes a ton of sense. Easy to roll out with minimal issues emerging which would be a win.

COST CHANGES THAT WOULD BE NICE TO SEE

1. Only two price points for DOTS (50 for tier 1 and 100 for tier 2). Elimination of the third tier altogether. Perhaps a 20% refund when dots are retired to reward some loyalty.
2. Lowering the cost of creating dots will ultimately result in more DOTS and more teams IMO
3. Slightly lower the cost of ownership to keep more teams floating around.

KICKERS, PUNTERS, OL, DL 50 points
ALL OTHER DOTS 100 points


As far as ownership, maybe trim 25% off the initial and yearly cost.

To make the game really thrive, we need to fill up the leagues in every tier of play.

Whatever happens, I am on board. Nice to see some life breathed into this game that came out back in the days of Commodore 64




1. I don't think the game really needs to be 2-tier instead of 3-tier. Though I do think probably moving WR from the top tier to the mid tier makes a lot of sense, given how bad plateau passing to WR's is (unless Bort is going to do a sim pass to improve passing like decrease INT's, make reaction time much slower especially in man coverage when thrown to a dot your not covering), which I don't think he is at this point. Current WL plateau WR's average 1-2 catches a game but cost the top flex tier which doesn't make a ton of sense. QB/RB realistically do get a ton of hype and plays so I think them being a 3rd tier is pretty reasonable.

2. I do agree if dots cost less (especially up front) it will result in more dots being build. For example I can't go up to anyone and tell them to spend $90 to make a WR who doesn't already have GLB flex, but if dots have less upfront cost (and perhaps a slightly revamped referral system) I think there's a change dotball spreads through forums once again and gets new users at the new "cheaper" price point. Plus many more users will be able to afford full teams of dots without it being like a lolcats $2k to $4k up front.

3. Is 500 flex per team really any sort of deterrent? The problem with ownership is the pain of keeping a full team of dots around. But in a game where a full team of dots is going to cost between 408,400 flex (currently) or 52,320 flex (my suggested cost in OP's analysis), it doesn't really make much sense to complain that ownership is 500 flex vs 400 flex per season. Less empty teams is a good thing.

From the other thread: https://glb.warriorgeneral.com/game/forum_thread.pl?thread_id=5328745&page=4#50092346

Originally posted by ProfessionalKop
The only dots that I think have a a bad price currently are wide receivers. They’re not worth 300fp in this sim

Agreed 100%. WOW, now I'm agreeing with PK on things?

I definitely agree that the 70% rebate/recycle model needs to go away.

Just a quick swag at pricing, what if everything dot-building related was reduced to 25% of what it is currently, and then all refunds eliminated? If this accompanied a reduction in the time spent building, to a 3 season build/6 season plateau (seems a nice round number, now folks wanting to build farm teams would only need 1 to restock a plateau team instead of 2), then that would probably pretty much make the "burn rate" or overall spend the same, or very close, but without the onerous need to buy basically 3X the flex that you end up spending per dot.

Thanks for digging into this, I feel like the more we all do to help figure out the best ways forward on some of these things, the more likely they are to actually happen.

Originally posted by slughead42

Just a quick swag at pricing, what if everything dot-building related was reduced to 25% of what it is currently, and then all refunds eliminated?

If sticking with my analysis (because I don't want to re-math) and compare the current dot cost 7300 up-front for 12 seasons, vs the 3 build + 7 plateau seasons we "could" have in the future...

Current dot cost (7 build, 5 plat, 70% refund, 57 day ssn): 7300 flex / 684 days / 12 seasons
Dot cost (3 build, 7 plat, 0% refund, 48 day ssn): 1593 flex / 480 days / 10 seasons

This would give the same burn/run-rate per 30 days of 99.56 flex.

1593 / 7300 = 21.8% of current dot flex cost.

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Though I do propose we actually make dots a little cheaper (per 30 days). That's wishful thinking I suppose, but it makes full teams of dots more attainable and other games tend to get a level of true discount as they get older. Imo decreased cost makes making more dots more justifiable for a lot of people especially on an older nostalgia game for users to come back to.

So my proposed (which is about a 40% reduction of the above) is 960 / 7300 = 13.15% of current dot cost.

At that cost you can convert to a subscription model at around $50/season per team, or $500/career per team. More teams + more players = more funs.

Wise... not wanting this to look like an argument so please take as a simple thought process and see what you think.

I never knew, nor heard, anyone say they left the game because of the dot pricing system. Length of time to build them? Yes. But not the money. And, as a dot builder, if I ever made a decision on 'what to build' vs 'cost to build' it was never about the initial cost (100, 200, 300)... but about planing out my Flex so I knew I'd have enough to BOOST those dots. And 3 times the start up cost for a 300 dot vs 1 times the cost for a 100 dot is HUGE over time. Knowing this definitely caused me to build 100 flex dots more than 300 flex dots over my lifetime here.

So... what do you think about this;
#1 Actually INCREASE the initial cost for dot. 500 for QB's... 450 for HB's and WR's... 400 for TE's and DB's... 350 for LB's... 300 for O-line, D-line, and FB's... and 250 for Kickers and Punters.
Combine that with ONE basic boost cost for ALL dots. Example; 100 flex per boost for any dot.
Add to that a different 'Flex Return system'... say 75% return ONLY for Boost costs spent... NO Flex return for the initial cost of dot... and 100% return for CEQ and eliminate need for 'Rental'. Not sure if the math works out perfectly... the numbers I posted are simply my best guess at ending, more or less, equal to Bort's income currently... which is THE thing in the end of all things. He isn't (and shouldn't) gonna take in LESS money... but we shouldn't have to give a lot more either. Balance... something close to what he already has since he's already done his financial math and determined the best that's good for him and the game... while still giving us the best value he can as well.

My reasoning? Simplicity. Having the cost to boost dot be a static cost/return makes planing out future flex needs easier. Pushing up the initial dot cost still keeps the idea of dot value intact while making sure Bort still gets $ to keep the game around (and going... and fixing stuff and all that). By raising the start up cost, while lowering and leveling the Boost costs... should end up balanced in the end to close to what is already in place. I'm not interested in gouging Bort's pockets for our benefit... but I don't wanna pay more either. I think game costs are fine... generally... I just hate how it works currently.