Did R* Intentionally High-Ball RDR2 Online Prices/Grinding

[Nutduster]

41 minutes ago, Lonely-Martin said:

 

It's a very clear that, when mission pay is decided by how deliberately long we take instead of rewarding teamwork and efficiency

 

To be fair though, that was mostly a positive change for the game (GTA Online, I mean) at the time.  People were joylessly grinding Rooftop Rumble a hundred times in a row.  At least after the time-based payout implementation, you could do any mission you felt like and get paid a decent amount for it.  Of course, with everything in the game tied to the economy, and the economy being the mess that it is, that ends up making the time-based payouts feel punitive at the same time that they were also fixing a problem.

[Lonely-Martin]

5 minutes ago, Nutduster said:

 

To be fair though, that was mostly a positive change for the game (GTA Online, I mean) at the time.  People were joylessly grinding Rooftop Rumble a hundred times in a row.  At least after the time-based payout implementation, you could do any mission you felt like and get paid a decent amount for it.  Of course, with everything in the game tied to the economy, and the economy being the mess that it is, that ends up making the time-based payouts feel punitive at the same time that they were also fixing a problem.

True, it definitely helped there. Though anytime a 2x comes, it's always Los Santos connection or trash talk etc often now too.

 

Genuine mixed bag but it did help that way though. Just a shame things weren't better thought out as it seems to have followed over. (Fun posted a thread recently with info).

 

It's definitely tough for R* to get that right with cash/gold involved and not get a negative response somewhere, lol. Glad I ain't got that job.

[ghostsoap01]

15 hours ago, Qbert said:

No it's just rather hard arguing with stubborn people who believe their point of view is the correct point of view.

I'm more than willing to be proven wrong, I just haven't yet seen anything brought to the table that will change my mind. As for the Youtube thing, its a strawman point. Can you prove that people are getting their opinions from YTers? Can you prove I am? I hardly think so.

[We Are Ninja]

On 12/6/2018 at 7:24 PM, BOOGIEMAN219 said:

Have you ever seen someone over price a nice vehicle not expecting the full amount but it makes negotiating tilt more into the owners favor? That is what they did here imo. They are also probably testing just how much they can puck everybody lol.

This. 1000% this. Take two steps over the line, then one step back. You're still over the line.

Edited December 10, 2018 by We Are Ninja

[kenmy13999]

1 hour ago, Nutduster said:

 

To be fair though, that was mostly a positive change for the game (GTA Online, I mean) at the time.  People were joylessly grinding Rooftop Rumble a hundred times in a row.  At least after the time-based payout implementation, you could do any mission you felt like and get paid a decent amount for it.  Of course, with everything in the game tied to the economy, and the economy being the mess that it is, that ends up making the time-based payouts feel punitive at the same time that they were also fixing a problem.

I wasn't playing gtao that early so I ask out of curiosity. Even if the change was/turned out positive, did they do it to make a better experience for the players or did they do it so people would make money at a slower rate? 

As I said I wasn't around that early and not trying to discuss it, just asking

[Qbert]

10 minutes ago, ghostsoap01 said:

I'm more than willing to be proven wrong, I just haven't yet seen anything brought to the table that will change my mind. As for the Youtube thing, its a strawman point. Can you prove that people are getting their opinions from YTers? Can you prove I am? I hardly think so.

It would be impossible, but sadly today many follow mindlessly like lemmings on the words or actions of other's. Not saying you or anyone I have conversations with are such people just making a statement in general. 

[Nutduster]

40 minutes ago, kenmy13999 said:

I wasn't playing gtao that early so I ask out of curiosity. Even if the change was/turned out positive, did they do it to make a better experience for the players or did they do it so people would make money at a slower rate? 

As I said I wasn't around that early and not trying to discuss it, just asking

 

There are competing theories.  I thought then, and still think now, that their main goal was just to get people to stop playing the same one or two missions over and over.  The rate on missions after they made the change was somewhat less than you'd make from a really streamlined Rooftop Rumble grind, but not MUCH less, and as a result it made 80% of missions actually pay more - in many cases, a lot more - than they had before.

 

There are a lot of things they did that seemed directly tailored toward slowing down earn rates and draining bank accounts (including an earlier payout nerf on missions, before they did the time-based thing).  But that particular change I think was inspired by wanting to actually make the game a little more enjoyable.  Just my two cents on it.  Only a small number of really efficient players lost significant earnings because of it.

Edited December 10, 2018 by Nutduster

[Ghoffman9]

10 hours ago, Nutduster said:

 

To be fair though, that was mostly a positive change for the game (GTA Online, I mean) at the time.  People were joylessly grinding Rooftop Rumble a hundred times in a row.  At least after the time-based payout implementation, you could do any mission you felt like and get paid a decent amount for it.  Of course, with everything in the game tied to the economy, and the economy being the mess that it is, that ends up making the time-based payouts feel punitive at the same time that they were also fixing a problem.

I hated that change, it should have paid more the quicker you do it, rewarding players for doing well instead of punishing them. It basically rewards you for doing worse. I had players kick me cause I did not want to stand around for ten minutes to get a higher payout.  Games should always yield bigger rewards to players who do it well. I am of the camp that believes they made that change to make earning money slower. This is not something they did just to keep players from doing the same missions since all missions get this same treatment where you get paid less for finishing them faster. Faster than they like obviously.

Edited December 11, 2018 by Ghoffman9

[Lonely-Martin]

4 minutes ago, Ghoffman9 said:

I hated that change, it should have paid more the quicker you do it, rewarding players for doing well instead of punishing them. It basically rewards you for doing worse. I had players kick me cause I did not want to stand around for ten minutes to get a higher payout.  Games should always yield bigger rewards to players who do it well. I am of the camp that believes they made that change to make earning money slower. This is not something they did just to keep players from doing the same missions since all missions get this same treatment where you get paid less for finishing them faster. Faster than they like obviously.

Do agree about teamwork and efficiency, but I believe back then it was to help more.

 

That said, blind luck it suited their plans since crates at least, lol.

 

Gits!

[Nutduster]

48 minutes ago, Ghoffman9 said:

I hated that change, it should have paid more the quicker you do it, rewarding players for doing well instead of punishing them. It basically rewards you for doing worse. I had players kick me cause I did not want to stand around for ten minutes to get a higher payout.  Games should always yield bigger rewards to players who do it well. I am of the camp that believes they made that change to make earning money slower. This is not something they did just to keep players from doing the same missions since all missions get this same treatment where you get paid less for finishing them faster. Faster than they like obviously.

 

Well I don't think they were blind to the fact that a small minority of players would end up making less money - and I don't think they were unhappy about it either.  But I also very much doubt that was the main reason they implemented the new system.  The game was suffering - jokes about "Rooftop Rumble Online" were making the rounds and many players I know literally did nothing else most of the time.  It was the most brutally boring kind of grind - literally doing a single 5 minute mission, over and over and over.  Only two other missions were being played by anyone really (Mixed Up With Coke and prior to a certain patch, Coveted - both high payers that could be done fast); another 70-however-many were ignored completely.  Bearing in mind this was all prior to Heists, too, so this really was the ONLY legit way to make scratch.

 

After the patch, any mission was viable, even the previously ridiculous Simeon and Gerald ones.  And while the minority suffered - a little bit, not much - the vast majority of players were suddenly making more.  Any noob doing those early Simeon missions was making literally 5 or more times the money for the same jobs, which paid paltry amounts like $1500 before.  Anyone pounding out whatever missions with randoms was doing pretty well now instead of getting ripped off for not doing Rooftop Rumble with a coordinated assault team.  Many more players benefited than were hurt by it, and the ones that were hurt were not hurt too much. 

 

Conversely, the notion of getting paid more to be faster and more efficient sounds good on paper, but makes no practical sense in a game where the economy is everything.  It is basically impossible for them to make the majority of the missions viable and profitable when everyone is trying to optimize their earn.  That's why no one played anything but those 2-3 missions early on - they had the best payout-to-time ratio.  And players proved repeatedly that if they nerfed the pay on a given mission, or patched the loopholes players were using to do them too fast, then people would just move on to the next earner.  That version of the game was about as joyless as possible and I don't see a way that such a system could have made for a fun game in the long term.  Even later with heists, people quickly started doing just Pac Standard, and then flogging the finale replay glitch - 4 full heists were ignored by most, and all the missions but the finale of the other heist were ignored by some.  Same when they started adding free roam businesses - people figured out which activities can be done fast for more money and ignored the others.

 

That, unfortunately, is what you get in a game where the entire spine of it is cash.  Basing payouts simply on time played is obnoxiously punitive to efficient players, but there is almost no other way to encourage people to play anything except the activities that can be done most efficiently.

Edited December 11, 2018 by Nutduster

[Ghoffman9]

1 hour ago, Nutduster said:

 

Well I don't think they were blind to the fact that a small minority of players would end up making less money - and I don't think they were unhappy about it either.  But I also very much doubt that was the main reason they implemented the new system.  The game was suffering - jokes about "Rooftop Rumble Online" were making the rounds and many players I know literally did nothing else most of the time.  It was the most brutally boring kind of grind - literally doing a single 5 minute mission, over and over and over.  Only two other missions were being played by anyone really (Mixed Up With Coke and prior to a certain patch, Coveted - both high payers that could be done fast); another 70-however-many were ignored completely.  Bearing in mind this was all prior to Heists, too, so this really was the ONLY legit way to make scratch.

 

After the patch, any mission was viable, even the previously ridiculous Simeon and Gerald ones.  And while the minority suffered - a little bit, not much - the vast majority of players were suddenly making more.  Any noob doing those early Simeon missions was making literally 5 or more times the money for the same jobs, which paid paltry amounts like $1500 before.  Anyone pounding out whatever missions with randoms was doing pretty well now instead of getting ripped off for not doing Rooftop Rumble with a coordinated assault team.  Many more players benefited than were hurt by it, and the ones that were hurt were not hurt too much. 

 

Conversely, the notion of getting paid more to be faster and more efficient sounds good on paper, but makes no practical sense in a game where the economy is everything.  It is basically impossible for them to make the majority of the missions viable and profitable when everyone is trying to optimize their earn.  That's why no one played anything but those 2-3 missions early on - they had the best payout-to-time ratio.  And players proved repeatedly that if they nerfed the pay on a given mission, or patched the loopholes players were using to do them too fast, then people would just move on to the next earner.  That version of the game was about as joyless as possible and I don't see a way that such a system could have made for a fun game in the long term.  Even later with heists, people quickly started doing just Pac Standard, and then flogging the finale replay glitch - 4 full heists were ignored by most, and all the missions but the finale of the other heist were ignored by some.  Same when they started adding free roam businesses - people figured out which activities can be done fast for more money and ignored the others.

 

That, unfortunately, is what you get in a game where the entire spine of it is cash.  Basing payouts simply on time played is obnoxiously punitive to efficient players, but there is almost no other way to encourage people to play anything except the activities that can be done most efficiently.

Well its simple, you increase the baseline where the game starts and awards more based on how fast you complete it, think of it as extra compensation as a reward for a job well done, thats what they would have done. Just give a flat out payout increase, but they didn't.

Secondly, it did not make all missions viable. All those involving Simeon and most from Gerald paid only 4k - 5k, all of which can be completed quickly by even novice players and get paid even less. Those are just the ones I remember. There was still missions that were undeniably better. Their goal was to nerf the heavy hitters who are good at the game to stop them from making money in a manner thats faster than they like, that was the goal.

 

Do you honestly think a system that has encouraged players to stand around doing nothing for ten minutes to be a good system? I cannot count the times I was kicked over the years for simply completing a mission immediately, instead of standing there with my thumb up my ass for ten minutes.

 

How they really ended up fixing it was making it so you could not replay the same mission from the voting screen as well as payout nerfs to some of these missions and even straight up changing them in some aspect. The Rooftop Rumble we had back then is very different from the Rooftop Rumble we got now.

Edited December 11, 2018 by Ghoffman9

[CaliMeatWagon]

3 hours ago, Ghoffman9 said:

I hated that change, it should have paid more the quicker you do it, rewarding players for doing well instead of punishing them. It basically rewards you for doing worse. I had players kick me cause I did not want to stand around for ten minutes to get a higher payout.  Games should always yield bigger rewards to players who do it well. I am of the camp that believes they made that change to make earning money slower. This is not something they did just to keep players from doing the same missions since all missions get this same treatment where you get paid less for finishing them faster. Faster than they like obviously.

Rushing the mission is the not the correct way to do it, neither is waiting for 15 minutes. 90% of the missions take ~4-6 minutes to complete if you play them "normally" (not rushing, not slacking). This also happens to coincide with the highest payout for missions when you calculate dollar per minute.

 

Spoiler

 

[Nutduster]

10 hours ago, Ghoffman9 said:

Well its simple, you increase the baseline where the game starts and awards more based on how fast you complete it, think of it as extra compensation as a reward for a job well done, thats what they would have done. Just give a flat out payout increase, but they didn't.

Secondly, it did not make all missions viable. All those involving Simeon and most from Gerald paid only 4k - 5k, all of which can be completed quickly by even novice players and get paid even less. Those are just the ones I remember. There was still missions that were undeniably better. Their goal was to nerf the heavy hitters who are good at the game to stop them from making money in a manner thats faster than they like, that was the goal.

 

Do you honestly think a system that has encouraged players to stand around doing nothing for ten minutes to be a good system?

 

This whole post suggests that you don't really understand the change they made.  The guy who already replied to you explained it somewhat already, but basically, all missions now pay the same per minute, and the sweet spot for making the most per minute is to finish in the 4-5 minute range (which is about as quick as you can do most missions).  The players standing around doing nothing for ten minutes were actually making LESS money per minute than people just completing missions in the normal amount of time it takes to complete them.  There are so many YouTube videos showing people getting the "max" payout by standing or driving around, and I just wonder how it never occurred to them that they'd make more money by just finishing the mission in a normal amount of time and then doing another couple of missions.  Not exactly rocket scientists, I guess.  A "max" payout in the system takes 15 minutes, if I remember right, and you get about 22K; or you could just do three regular missions in the same time and get paid 30K.  The obvious right choice is not the waiting-around version.

 

Regarding this comment: "Their goal was to nerf the heavy hitters who are good at the game to stop them from making money in a manner thats faster than they like, that was the goal" - I super, duper doubt that.  For many reasons.  First of all, these so-called "heavy hitters" are only a tiny minority of players anyway, and are the type of people (dedicated, systematic grinders) who are never going to buy shark cards regardless.  Most of Rockstar's madness has a single method at its core, which is to get the chunky middle section of the player bell curve to buy more shark cards; that is done by making decisions that affect casual players first and foremost.  Cutting down dedicated grinders' earnings by 10 or 20% does not help their bottom line.

 

Second, I did the math on this at the time.  Can't find the post now but the change from an optimal pre-patch RR grind to an optimal post-patch "whatever missions you want" grind was not too massive.  You can make something like $120K-140K per hour doing any missions you want now.  Most Rooftop Rumble grinders were getting probably around $180K per hour.  It was decent money, but you can do better than that now with heists, VIP work and/or free roam businesses, anyway.

 

Finally, you're not really considering the benefits of changing this up.  People grinding 3 missions all day was not good for the game's longevity.  Making the experience more diverse makes it more fun, meaning more people play for more time, meaning they sell more shark cards to their larger player base.  Even though they are financially driven on many of their decisions, sometimes the seemingly altruistic choice - the one that promotes game quality - is also still the one that makes good financial sense for them. 

 

They do a LOT of stuff which is directly and obviously intended to help sell shark cards, but I never thought this change was one of them, and I still don't.