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If we're going to be stuck with lockboxes....
raighn
Posts: 2,339 Arc User
If we're going to be stuck with lockboxes then they should be done better...
First: Bring back all previous lockboxes, permanently... the Time-warp event would still exist for the time-warp lockbox and could have a double drop chance for lockboxes...
Next: reduced Key costs... some may think 100Z per key is fine... but in all honesty it comes across as a ripoff... 100Z should ideally get 10 keys, but we'll probably never see that happen instead I'll propose 100Z = 5 keys, the current 10key pack becomes a 50 key pack... this WILL result in more players being willing to buy keys and more people buying keys more often as well... Sales are nice and all, but lets face the facts. CO doesn't bring in enough to justify the sort of development it needs to draw in and keep new players... the bes way to fix that issue is to reduce costs of items that are meant to be bought in bulk. Make the items feel like you are getting your money's worth and then it will sell, and it will sell well.
After that: implement a monthly key system... every month players recieve 1 free key... this free key is non-stacking and does not roll over from month to month. If you still have you key at the end of the month you won't have 2 at the start of the following month, you will still only have 1.
Finally: Resurrect old Grab Bags as new lockboxes... Mountain Lockbox, Socretes Lockbox, Infernal Lockbox, Services Lockbox (Including the freeform token)
Part of what makes the lockboxes feel like a ripoff is the fact that they are discontinued after a while and the items in them are never added to the C-store... the Timewarp event helped with that but only a little... the event doesn't bring back all past lockboxes, only a selection of them... and the cost of keys turns a lot of people away... there's a sizable portion of the community who buys keys only through Globals, Questionite, & Monthly Stipend... the reason for this is that they do not believe the cost to be worth the monitary investment. Adding the rewards from the old Grab Bags as new permanent lockboxes would bring in a lot of people willing to actually buy keys as well. The items in the old Grab Bags (especially the services grab bag) were highly valuable to the community... Infact adding the rewards from the services grab bag as possible rewards from all lockboxes would be a great way to help improve the lockboxes system too...
First: Bring back all previous lockboxes, permanently... the Time-warp event would still exist for the time-warp lockbox and could have a double drop chance for lockboxes...
Next: reduced Key costs... some may think 100Z per key is fine... but in all honesty it comes across as a ripoff... 100Z should ideally get 10 keys, but we'll probably never see that happen instead I'll propose 100Z = 5 keys, the current 10key pack becomes a 50 key pack... this WILL result in more players being willing to buy keys and more people buying keys more often as well... Sales are nice and all, but lets face the facts. CO doesn't bring in enough to justify the sort of development it needs to draw in and keep new players... the bes way to fix that issue is to reduce costs of items that are meant to be bought in bulk. Make the items feel like you are getting your money's worth and then it will sell, and it will sell well.
After that: implement a monthly key system... every month players recieve 1 free key... this free key is non-stacking and does not roll over from month to month. If you still have you key at the end of the month you won't have 2 at the start of the following month, you will still only have 1.
Finally: Resurrect old Grab Bags as new lockboxes... Mountain Lockbox, Socretes Lockbox, Infernal Lockbox, Services Lockbox (Including the freeform token)
Part of what makes the lockboxes feel like a ripoff is the fact that they are discontinued after a while and the items in them are never added to the C-store... the Timewarp event helped with that but only a little... the event doesn't bring back all past lockboxes, only a selection of them... and the cost of keys turns a lot of people away... there's a sizable portion of the community who buys keys only through Globals, Questionite, & Monthly Stipend... the reason for this is that they do not believe the cost to be worth the monitary investment. Adding the rewards from the old Grab Bags as new permanent lockboxes would bring in a lot of people willing to actually buy keys as well. The items in the old Grab Bags (especially the services grab bag) were highly valuable to the community... Infact adding the rewards from the services grab bag as possible rewards from all lockboxes would be a great way to help improve the lockboxes system too...
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We had been ALREADY stuck with lockboxes for the past 3 Years
I would like this, all the costume unlocks from the Grab Bags are Lost Forever now, and in a game like CO, the Lost Forever Trope SHOULD NOT EXIST
Hello no to having all lockboxes all the time. I have to dedicate an entire bag to all the damn boxes during the time warp event. I have a hard time believing plenty of people don't have loads of boxes sitting around.
I don't care one way or the other about Cryptic giving out a free key.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
1: A lot more Questionite would enter the economy simply due to the additional lockboxes being opened and the Crates of Questionite dropping from this.
This would in turn more or less fix the Q:Z exchange rate at 500:1 permanently since there are not enough Q sinks in the game to handle the amount of Q that would enter the economy. A major Q sink (Vigilante secondary gear) was recently made less relevant due to the major buff to the Onslaught secondaries. Fixing the Astral Diamond (the Neverwinter equivalent of Questionite):Zen ratio at 500:1 due to a massive amount of Astral Diamonds hasn't done much good for Neverwinter, I doubt it would do much good here either.
2: A ton more Drifter Salvage would enter the economy. Both through the natural drops from opening a lockbox, but also from the Crates dropped. This would mean a massive influx of Legacy devices, AFs and Costume pieces as well as Drifter vehicles.
3: Unless drops get skewed, we'd also see a lot more of the high end stuff, once again messing with what economy there is. You can only buy Keys with Zen. The Zen used to buy keys disappears from the game. The only way to get new Zen into the game is by buying it with money or via the subscription stipend. That players are willing to trade Keys for globals is up to them, but the Keys were originally bought with Zen at some point. That players can get Zen by offering Questionite is only due to other players first acquiring Zen and then wanting to trade that for Questionite.
2) Same as above... we need more Drifter-store items as is anyway...
3) Actually this would help to normalize the economy in that respect... the economy is already out of wack due to discontinued and limited quantity items... by making all lockboxes available all the time that would balance that out...
A suggestion to help with points 1 & 2... the "discontinued" lockboxes don't necessarily have to be drops... Infact, they could be made available only via the Lockbox shop for Q (and possibly Drifter Salvage)... the currently active drop box need be the only one obtainable via drops and for Globals from the shop. The point in making them always available is simply that... available... discontinuing them was a bad idea to begin with... this way they are still obtainable after their drop period ends, thus not causing the costs of unlocks to skyrocket once they can't be opened any more.
Consider this... hypothetically if 1000 keys were bought from the c-store per month, and 900 of those were bought with stipends... that's only 100 keys that were actually bought for real cash... Now... if you want to argue that the 500Z stipend counts as a $5 purchase and your subscription is the remaining $10, then we'll continue on... 900 keys is the equivalent of 180 stipends... so... if 100 of those are LTS and 80 are monthly then that would balance out to 50% of the keys being bought for actual cash (since the LTS members more often than not have subscribed long enough to pay off their LTS and then-some)... However, keep in mind that many subscribers see their stipend as a "free bonus"... people are more likely to take something of questionable value if it is free to them than if they have to pay for it. Simple Psychology & Economics there...
One of the main goals of this suggestion is to help increase the influx of money to Cryptic through CO. Any damage this may cause to the economy within CO can be fixed. But I'm sure many of ya'll have noticed that for the longest time CO has had no worthwhile updates, and we've been made aware that the quantity and quality of updates are directly related to income... so that pretty well tells us that CO is not making enough money as is... changes to C-Store prices to be more "reasonable" to the players is one great way to increase revenue, not just through sales, but through permanent price reductions... I've said it before and I will say it again, it's been tested and proven that the real money from the F2P model is through small low-cost items. Increasing the value of the purchase will certainly increase sales substantially.
Until they appear, there's absolutely no reason to do this. In fact, it would likely be very counterproductive. Stop right there.
Unless you have actual data, do not try to speculate on how many keys have been bought with stipend Zen and how many have been bought with purchased Zen. Besides, I expect there to be players who recieve a stipend but still spend real money to get additional Zen for keys (and possibly other purchases), not everyone with a sub or LTS is sitting on a ton of Q or G to trade for Zen or Keys (even though any active player with a LTS is likely to have a decent amount of both stored across their characters). Those players would no longer need to purchase Zen if they get 5 or 10 times more keys per Zen. That's a loss of income for Cryptic/PWE.