Balance the arcade game payouts

Firstly, congratulations on releasing the best update since the Casino. This might be the first time in over a year I can see myself dedicating significant time to TU again.

But a huge problem is that a lot of the games, even in full servers are largely ignored because their payouts are underwhelming and make no sense. Why would I dedicate my time to a precision game that requires good timing, steady aim, racing against the clock and a significant degree of skill, usually to only net 5-30 tickets, when I could play something mindless and reliably get 50-100 in less than 30 seconds?

I want to take advantage of some of the other games so it feels like there’s actual variety to the arcade, but currently I only see a reason to play about a third of them because the payouts in games like Skeeball, Newtons Apples, and Little Birde Feeders, (to name just a few) make them feel like a complete waste of time to engage with. More pressure, way more skill required, with next to no returns for time invested.

My suggestion specifically would be to look at the most popular games, and bring every other game up to their level in terms of earnings, or at least make more skillful games reward larger payouts, but only when they are played skillfully.

That’s interesting because Birde Feeders is probably one of the faster machines to make tickets on once you get the hang of it. I think I prefer playing Planetary Piano but if I use Birde Feeders it takes much less time to rack up tickets.

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exactly, while there are already games like wheel of fire raised in price, leaving their expect value halved.

those games like the offering, ring god, etc explicitly needs a buff like longer timer or so.

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Maybe I’m just dumb but I’m getting terrible payouts and I’ve tried it a bit out of curiosity to see if I can earn a bit more with practice. But even if I could pull off some lucky shots I retain that while games like Tornado exist its still a waste of time, unless maybe I was some godly Little Birde Feeders player, which I am not.

I tend to suck at games like that one, Avalanche and the Hoops, which is going to influence my bias, but I still retain they require more investment and skill than the higher paying games, and right now that skill doesn’t really seem to be rewarded adequately, so the end result is the majority of players stacking up on maybe 1/3rd of the machines or less, while a bunch of the development work feels like its effectively gone to waste if a majority of the machines are being neglected.

I agree that the other machines need a payout buff, currently the only reliable machine is bird feeders. I get 500 tickets every bird feeders game by just getting 2,500 points which is a lot more than most, even a dizzy jackpot

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If you know where to aim in Super Hoopers, you can reliably get over 500 every game. I’ve hit 1045 tickets before, even having missed a few shots. Either it needs a nerf (maybe in power reliability, like in skeeball), or the other games need a buff.

The skill based games cost less to use than the easier games, but for things like Avalanche, there is a strategy to them. You’ll want to clear the top and middle rows immediately, then hit the bottom blue catsacks, then when the top two rows pop up again go right for those again. This is actually the same strategy in the real life version. All the games have been tuned to feel like the real life variant of them.

As for Ring God, there’s more to be done there, but you can get pretty decent pay outs if you aim for the back row.

Little Birde Feeders actually pays out a ton, you need to nail down getting the basket and you’ll see tickets fly at you as you combo that up.

For Super Hoopers it’s a matter of speed and pattern memory.

The point of the arcade games is to offer variety.

There’s also a bonus system that is unfinished, but it will help mitigate people staying on one machine. The bonus system is that little bonus sign above each game. When the bonus mode is active, one machine or two machines will have 1.5x payouts for a short period of time.

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Any hints on the offering game? seems like random luck if i manage to even get a ball in a single cup half the time. Let alone the center cups.

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I feel like from what people are saying I may have been wrong about Little Birde Feeders, and it may already be in the right place in terms of skill = reward.

For the others however, a low entry fee justifying a low reward isn’t really a compelling reason for me to pick a harder game with a low entry fee over something that feels consistently satisfying yet simple. I’ll happily pay a little more to play an experience that consistently rewards me with more tickets and feels somewhat fun regardless of a 5 token difference in entry costs. Personally, I’d much prefer to see some of the less used games get a buff in rewards whilst also having a more expensive entry fee, because I want to know that for spending my time on something that I find harder, there is still a potential for an adequately satisfying pay out.

The bonus system sounds good but I feel like it may be a band-aid for some of the “weaker” games by itself. If for example Newtons Apples gives me a 1.5x bonus, that’s still going to be a temporary bonus to play something that still pays less and feels less satisfying to play than one of the other regular games most people are choosing to play without a bonus. A small issue with that system too is that some of your games have about three machines, and a bonus is going to encourage people to “steal” jackpots and access from one another. I’ve already seen people sitting around the fish machines who will attempt to steal jackpots after you’ve put a ton of tickets in, and its a pain having to sit there spamming “E” just to get your access back. While not every game has a jackpot system like the Fish game, a bonus for about three machines is going to encourage people to fight over them against one another.

The problem still exists when your variety of games are being heavily neglected consistently across servers. I’d recommend waiting a fortnight to a month and looking at both the data for what people are earning from the most played games, and which games are being played the most across the official servers. We want the same thing, variety. But to really feel like there’s a choice, all the games need to feel satisfying, whereas right now I kind of have to force myself into some of the games before I quickly come to the conclusion that “this is a waste of my time” or “I’m not getting a lot of money and x mechanic is awkward” before returning to just three or four of the games.

Please consider giving people time to make their favorites clear, then bringing the other games up to speed so that your wide variety of games all feel satisfying, and worth choosing in some way. The update is great but there’s definitely room for improvement in that regard. Back in the day other games had to be adjusted and scaled to meet the popularity and the payouts of the Casino, and within the Arcade the circumstances are similar. Some of the games plain feel way more rewarding in return for less effort, and the less popular games need to be brought up to their level to encourage people to use your variety of games.

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Omg yes, I need help with this too. It feels much too inconsistent.

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