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How would you increase CO's profitability and playerbase?
kelplankton
Posts: 128 Arc User
I think everyone playing CO has a few opinions on this kind of stuff. The game's not doing horrible, but it's felt neglected for a long time, and certainly still has a lot of promise lurking under the surface.
In light of Cryptic North's new bugfix patches and, hopefully, upcoming new content for the game, I'd like to ask the community what you would do if you were given free reign to 'fix' the game up, bring in new players, and most importantly up the profitability of Champions Online (to pay for future content and more bugfixes).
This stuff falls into two categories, though. Profitability, and Playerbase. Let's say you want to increase both. How do we do it?
Now, obviously everyone wants "more content" and "more powers" and "more costumes" (and "better faces" and "a real waist slider for female characters"), and those are all good and fine. But let's try to avoid the obvious and the vague, and instead talk about specific changes that could be made.
What I would do:
- More Free Archetypes. These can be converted from current premium ones, and don't need to happen all at once. Idealy, there would be one new free archetype every one or two months, each one themed differently. CO has enough powersets to do lots of different, creative builds, and free players will be more likely to stick around if they have more options to work with. I know a lot of people who are interested in CO and would happily spend money on it if they could just play as the particular archetype they want- which is, 90% of the time, locked behind a paywall.
- New Premium Archetypes, with New Powers. Subscribers don't ever have to care about Archetypes, and this is a missed opportunity. New, fully fleshed out powersets are expensive and time-consuming to create. They need to be monetized somehow. When a new powerset is added, a new Archetype should be created for it- and NOT granted for free to subscribers. The powers within this archetype would then be unlockable for freeform players upon purchase of the premium archetype. This lets the developers make money from new powersets, even if a player is a subscriber (and even if they're a Lifetime subscriber!). Plus free players are given even more of an incentive to subscribe- now they have all these powers unlocked for Freeform archetypes due to the archetypes they own. Players want Plant powers, Water powers, etc etc etc. This way, they can be made to finance their own development instead of relying on other store items to pay for them.
- Purchasable Power Customization. I don't know why this wasn't monetized around the same time Freeform ATs were made purchasable. Let free players have access to power recoloring and emanation points by purchasing those features. If this is done, then you can easily do things like...
- Sell Additional Power Animations. Everyone wants to be able to cast spells from a staff or wand, or to use a gun to fire energy blasts or elemental attacks. These, like new powers, are time-consuming and expensive to produce. But if free players have access to power customization, then selling these new animaiton sets makes significantly more sense. This is basically already done with travel powers, which are mostly reskins of one another. Why not extend it to the rest of the game? CO already sells costume parts. It's the next logical step.
- Less Complicated Teaming. Champions Online has a really nice built-in system where the members of your team can all shift up/down to the level of one of the other teammates so they're all able to do the same content. This is great, but, it's kind of annoying to deal with. If you're too far away from your level anchor, the game starts yelling at you for it and constantly counts down until it just unlinks the two of you entirely. Then the players have to engage it again, manually. It also provides for a lot of unnecessary pop-ups when joining a team, asking you if you want your level to change or not. This should be streamlined- just make everyone automatically match the team leader's level, and make distance between them not matter. Switching team leads is pretty easy to do if people want to tackle a different level's content, and removing the annoying(and frustrating) distance countdown is only a good choice. This will help prevent players from feeling overwhelmed by teaming in a game that already has issues with getting players to play together. You know how basically everyone plays Alerts and basically nobody teams for 'normal' content? This is why. Alerts are easy to get into, Alerts don't yell at you constantly for using them, and Alerts don't force you to make decisions that should be made automatically. The more teaming that happens, the more players build social groups in the game, and the less likely they are to leave in the long term.
But these are only a few suggestions, and I'm sure not everyone would be in favor of all of them. So I'd really like to hear what other players think could be done to help CO increase profitability and player base size, as well a retain current players(and encourage them to spend money in non-skeevy ways). What would you do?
In light of Cryptic North's new bugfix patches and, hopefully, upcoming new content for the game, I'd like to ask the community what you would do if you were given free reign to 'fix' the game up, bring in new players, and most importantly up the profitability of Champions Online (to pay for future content and more bugfixes).
This stuff falls into two categories, though. Profitability, and Playerbase. Let's say you want to increase both. How do we do it?
Now, obviously everyone wants "more content" and "more powers" and "more costumes" (and "better faces" and "a real waist slider for female characters"), and those are all good and fine. But let's try to avoid the obvious and the vague, and instead talk about specific changes that could be made.
What I would do:
- More Free Archetypes. These can be converted from current premium ones, and don't need to happen all at once. Idealy, there would be one new free archetype every one or two months, each one themed differently. CO has enough powersets to do lots of different, creative builds, and free players will be more likely to stick around if they have more options to work with. I know a lot of people who are interested in CO and would happily spend money on it if they could just play as the particular archetype they want- which is, 90% of the time, locked behind a paywall.
- New Premium Archetypes, with New Powers. Subscribers don't ever have to care about Archetypes, and this is a missed opportunity. New, fully fleshed out powersets are expensive and time-consuming to create. They need to be monetized somehow. When a new powerset is added, a new Archetype should be created for it- and NOT granted for free to subscribers. The powers within this archetype would then be unlockable for freeform players upon purchase of the premium archetype. This lets the developers make money from new powersets, even if a player is a subscriber (and even if they're a Lifetime subscriber!). Plus free players are given even more of an incentive to subscribe- now they have all these powers unlocked for Freeform archetypes due to the archetypes they own. Players want Plant powers, Water powers, etc etc etc. This way, they can be made to finance their own development instead of relying on other store items to pay for them.
- Purchasable Power Customization. I don't know why this wasn't monetized around the same time Freeform ATs were made purchasable. Let free players have access to power recoloring and emanation points by purchasing those features. If this is done, then you can easily do things like...
- Sell Additional Power Animations. Everyone wants to be able to cast spells from a staff or wand, or to use a gun to fire energy blasts or elemental attacks. These, like new powers, are time-consuming and expensive to produce. But if free players have access to power customization, then selling these new animaiton sets makes significantly more sense. This is basically already done with travel powers, which are mostly reskins of one another. Why not extend it to the rest of the game? CO already sells costume parts. It's the next logical step.
- Less Complicated Teaming. Champions Online has a really nice built-in system where the members of your team can all shift up/down to the level of one of the other teammates so they're all able to do the same content. This is great, but, it's kind of annoying to deal with. If you're too far away from your level anchor, the game starts yelling at you for it and constantly counts down until it just unlinks the two of you entirely. Then the players have to engage it again, manually. It also provides for a lot of unnecessary pop-ups when joining a team, asking you if you want your level to change or not. This should be streamlined- just make everyone automatically match the team leader's level, and make distance between them not matter. Switching team leads is pretty easy to do if people want to tackle a different level's content, and removing the annoying(and frustrating) distance countdown is only a good choice. This will help prevent players from feeling overwhelmed by teaming in a game that already has issues with getting players to play together. You know how basically everyone plays Alerts and basically nobody teams for 'normal' content? This is why. Alerts are easy to get into, Alerts don't yell at you constantly for using them, and Alerts don't force you to make decisions that should be made automatically. The more teaming that happens, the more players build social groups in the game, and the less likely they are to leave in the long term.
But these are only a few suggestions, and I'm sure not everyone would be in favor of all of them. So I'd really like to hear what other players think could be done to help CO increase profitability and player base size, as well a retain current players(and encourage them to spend money in non-skeevy ways). What would you do?
________________________________
@kelpplankton
Oldschool CoH player, Lifetime CO and STO subscriber, animator and artist.
Art, Animation, and Stuff:
DA Tumblr Vimeo Youtube
@kelpplankton
Oldschool CoH player, Lifetime CO and STO subscriber, animator and artist.
Art, Animation, and Stuff:
DA Tumblr Vimeo Youtube
Post edited by kelplankton on
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Comments
Bump the "pay once play forever" price to $20 after the sale, and bump it back down to $10 every three months.
Kill the monthly stipend, give away a hideout, a vehicle, and a team teleport with every purchase.
Keep exposure high and the gamble on new content production low.
Fill the new content demand with useful changes to the game like TSW implemented with a system called "Scenarios": ie, you get to pick the mobs, the number of them, and the difficulty of the mission.
Players have suggested this kind of thing here for at least three years.
Unlock all the zones, require no crisis to enter and re-enter them. What else?
Allow for an advanced character editor for new accounts.
Well if that doesn't work, after a year, I'd add some really great emotes, jiggle physics
and other details that would make the game adult only.
If it aint broke, don't fix it.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
$10 for the AT and $7 for slots can be a bit of a hurdle to overcome for something you can't try out before hand though but bundling a slot with the rotating gold AT for a total of $10 would likely get some people to try ATs they might not have if they had to pay full price. If they don't like the AT they still get a slot.
I do think some of the not so stellar gold ATs could go silver and you'd get people buying slots to try them.
For now...I would actually advertise this game. I don't think anyone in Cryptic actually knows how to do that for Champions though. God forbid we even show up in a cryptic booth anywhere.
Update CO's engine and get better tech. I can't tell you how tired I am of hearing "we don't have the tech for that."
I don't care if it takes 6 months or longer, as long as they tell us they are upgrading things.
That way we could get a foundry, new zones, and powers.
This game needs more things to do, but to do so they need money. Apparently this game really has none.
Build up the Nemesis system. Make it a focal point.
Last, and to repeat myself. ADVERTISE!!!-though preferably after said changes were made. Advertise a good game, get people here and wow them. Give us more to buy other than lockboxes and we will be happy. The longer people are here the more likely they are to buy something. Vareity and new stuff in the c-store makes the game look alive, and thus something people would be willing to put money towards.
Lately all we get is lock boxes and nothing, no "Real" content. Why would anyone want to spend money here when it looks liek the game will be dead in 6 months?
Foundry. Let the players make the content. Yeah, I know- making the Foundry work with CO would be an undertaking. But the potential payoff is huge.
We're four years past release -- at this point most MMOs, even well run MMOs, count themselves lucky to maintain subs / revenue quarter to quarter. The only thing that seems to cause a spike in revenues is shifting to FTP, a step CO has already taken.
But, if we're just wool-gathering ...
Stop treating the current subs like ATMs with gamble boxes. Seriously, it's tacky. Real world money shouldn't flow to gaming companies via gambling for virtual goods.
Have a dedicated team working on CO. As in, a group of people whose full time jobs are CO who do things like communicate with each, set goals, and attempt to reach those goals. This game desperately needs consistency; it seems like the development goals shift every 6 months (paid DLC, free DLC, comic series, events events events, gamble boxes, vehicles, gamble boxes, events).
Communicate with the players. And, for god's sake, every half-arsed decent MMO I can think of does a state of the game memo from time to time that includes some pertinent information and the direction of development.
I don't think content is the answer. I used to, but now I'm not so sure. Let's face it, the devs have managed, charitably, about 10 hours' worth a year since release, an amount that, at a casual clip, a person can go through in a couple weeks. We go through content 26 times faster than it gets created -- and realistically, about 300X faster for our determined players. That's not going to cut it. We need something clever to do that becomes an interesting time sink (not just a mindless grind). And I don't know what it is.
Just IMO and all that.
2. Stop Alienating playerbase.
3. Provide new content, not just new lockboxes.
4. Serve a product that people tell their friends to join, not stay away from.
More enemies in maps.
That whole nemesis thing? Enhance it!
Then advertise, advertise, and advertise some more!
CO 2.0!
Wash away those memories of day 1 nerfs. After all these years, all these mmos, take all that and just improve!
Yes.
Work on building up already established systems: Recognition. Questionite Store. Z Store. Craftable costume pieces returned and added to mod fusion system.
Take vehicles out of beta: Vehicle customization. Vehicle travel powers. Travel Power skin drop down option added. Vehicle missions granting good rewards.
Bring in systems that were intended for Champions from other games: Multiple Custom Sidekicks per character. Hideouts Phase 2. SG Bases.
Start making DLC style content, this could be used to also fix up some of the code and remove the so called 'tech issues' that prevent us from getting things like the foundry. Add more powersets, add more events. DCUO's Halloween event has already begun, what about ours? Speaking of which along with a mission, they have a 4 man instance and a vendor that gives out holiday only items.
J
Essentially, more content to match the fast levelling rate. And thus a game experience that is, in essence, as customizable as the character creator.
Wait? Whaaaa..?
Compared to STO there's actually valid reasons to sub to CO. The big one being access to free forms.
2) Public super groups a player can automatically join to meet and team up with people. Advancement in said group linked to missions completed as a member and globals donated in gear or cash.
3) The ability to test out travel powers at the power house
4) Everything found in lockboxes for sale at the Q-store.
5) As others have suggested: tap into the community. Give us the ability to build missions and costume parts. Test them out at the PTS and then let the community vote on if it gets added or not.
6) Maybe some more women? I mean if you like rescuing men, fighting men, and meeting other male super heroes Champions Online hits the nail on the head, but some of us would like to see women slightly better represented. I'm not saying 50% but could we at least bump it up to say one in four?
7) Recurring characters that you could save other then Mayor Calvin Biselle or Witchcraft. Julie Morgan perhaps? Police Chief Surhoff? What's the point of forcing us to do the westside missions if none of those characters are ever seen again?
The only thing I would really do... is advertise it. Anywhere on the internet that would accept a Champions Online ad.
There are some garbage games out there, and the only real reason anyone plays them is because they know about them.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Fix it.
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
This right here...
First off, i would lower the costs of things considerably, but make them character only. For example, costume pieces would be 75 zen each, but 500 zen for the account wide unlock. power sets would be 100 zen each, but 600 for the account wide unlock. This wouldn't work for services though since they would be dirt cheap for something you probably wouldn't need in bulk. The idea here, is that items were so cheap, how could you not buy them? The game has already paid for itself, so anything really is all profit.
Secondly, i would quit letting them take the profits from this game and applying them to others, at least not until my team had enough to take care of business. I would put more funding into things like regular costume and powers, both individuals and sets. Secondly i would got through and finish all the half assery. The Nemesystem (because i combined the words to save money) would be revamped and tied directly into the character creator, giving you full access to create an enemy, the same way you would create a hero. I would also include catch phrases that your villain could spout off, as well as add more mentality types as well as making the 3 existing types more distinctive.
Hide outs would get a HUGE overhaul to be more of an all out base rather than a hole in the wall. They would need hanger/garage for your vehicles, a spot to "store" spare costumes (dummies), a combat area with target dummies and a small Q daily mission to "train" your hero. There would be a small living space in each, just for those over nighters (where sleeping/eating/showering/misc/misc would refill stars), and THE most important feature, which would justify raising the price to 800 Zen each, would be that you could set and theme the hideouts to be supergroup bases. 800 Zen, would unlock one single base, that would be account wide, but members of your SG would be able to use them when you weren't online (as long as they had permissions to do so). This would, of course, have a setting that allowed access based on SG ranks as well. I would love to see an option like the drag and drop from the foundry as well, to help players customize their bases. DCUO does a great job with this, but fails because each base is the same with different wall skins. Variety would be nice here as well as boost sales to allow for a main base as well as possible safe houses and personal areas.
Vehicles would get a smaller overhaul, mostly in the aesthetic range. Each vehicle would be segmented and arranged by type, allowing you to choose any pieces from any grav bike, or mix and match jets. All colors would be open to editing as well as having added patterns, and the ability to use icons and logos. I would have their powers turned down to match the ones in game, and each vehicle model would cost NO MORE THAT 100 ZEN EACH (or 600 account wide), encouraging people to buy more so they could customize more. This as well would encourage additional sets and vehicle types to be added in. What they're asking now for them is INSANE seeing how little we get out of them.
Sidekicks. Available at level 40 as an ultimate power. Customize their looks, a few quotes maybe, but power wise, they would be stuck to sets, and no stronger than they are as devices. This way, certain builds and minmaxers don't become outright unstoppable... at least more so than they already are...
Powers would need to be re-balanced, and reworked to allow crowd control to be viable, even against bosses, but i would also want to add more emanation points... like... a lot more, that way you could use none weapon powers as a weapons character. Fire breath + rifle= flamethrower. Powers+wizard staff=magic user power set. Another small quality of life change would be costume change animations, at least two for each powerset, and the possibility of just a few random ones just for fun. An example would be "Telephone booth": a telephone booth is spawned just off camera (zoom reduces time) and your character runs to it, hops in and changes, then hops out in different costume.
Zones would get a nice update as well. One of the things that i would love to see is Zone specific art styles. Vibora Bay would have that really cool shading effect they teased us with, Millenium city would have very clean cell shading lines and brighter color pallets on characters. Canada would have a toned down effect on character colors making them look dull, and monter's island would have thicker lines and darker color pallates to make it look a little grittier. That way each zone had even more personality, as well as more reason to be there. Each would be remodelled to allow them all to be a functioning hub, like Millenium city, meaning banks, tailors, garages (vehicle tailors), auction houses, zone wide happenings like the Mega-D and Bullet for Bissell, as well as a few different locations for you to enter your SG base. You could still use the instant travel button, but this would be just a fun thing for those that want it.
The last thing i would do... Well not last so much as final thing i'll add to this list is art. I would have the team redo the visuals for the powers and the character models, bringing them more inline with STO or NW. The cheesy cartoon graphics seemed old and outdated, even at the launch of the game, but doing this would give it a nicer feel to show that there was going to be a lot more effort put into it.
This is very debatable. Here you get Free form, color customization, the 500 zen, and don't have a resource cap. Outside of that there is very little, being able to make a lot of different characters is great, until you've exhausted all of the content.
STO at least has been getting permanent content updates, regular items in the Z-store to use the Zen on. You gain access to the foundry with out paying extra, you gain access to more storage space, and that is just the basics. STO's sub has more value then most people think.
Some of the stuff I've played.... recently... that has healthy player populations... says otherwise. And none of those games have our costume editor or freeform system. Seriously Finn... there are games out there that you would probably have a stroke trying to keep up with grumping about all their faults.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
2. Increased communication with the playerbase.
3. A non defeatist development plan, i.e no more "we don't have the tech" or "there isn't any more bandwith for permanent content" and the like.
4. A bundling package for all Cryptic titles:
For 25 dollars, a customer may purchase a cryptic bundle, which would include:
1 Champions Online Freeform slot and 500 zen
1 Star Trek Online Starship (type tbd) and 500 zen
1 Unlockable character race (tbd) and 1 mount (tbd) x amount of zen (tbd because I don't have enough experience with NW yet)
5. An across the board 20% reduction in costs for services (not counting tp/costumes)
6. " " " " 15% " " " all remaining items.
7. More promotions, like we had with Alienware.
8. Advertising.
9. Advertising.
10. ADVERTISING
2. Have a dedicated & full dev team that plays the game and engages the player base on a regular basis!
3. Full Expansoin, and regular content update!
4. Stop all the drop box nonsense and flood the c-store with awesome items.
Yeah I know all pipe dreams since PWE owns them.
Copy STO's system, and STOP with the BS that means that the vast majority of people willing to give CO a spin don't see even a fraction of what the game can do.
They log in, get a gimped character designer (which is another problem), limited options, and then get an abbreviated tutorial before being shunted to the next stop on the railroad.
So, solution 1: give everyone freeform, powers, etc. Get people excited about the game, and they'll start buying extras. MAYBE have certain powersets purchased rather than automatically available.
Solution 2: advertise. Duh.
Solution 3: fix the 1-15 play. Give more options like we used to have. The current system is really stupid.
Also, don't lock character design options until later level. That's also really stupid.
Solution 4: Communication.
Talk to us. Frequently. If the problem is that you just don't have the manpower/time? Fix that, too.
The current situation makes for a toxic game culture, where most of us feel abandoned even when stuff actually happens.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
Baloney! Here's something they can do, and it's been proven to work in other MMO-style games.
THEN { you get a one-time 50g bonus , the friend gets a one-time 100g bonus. }
THEN { You get a one-time 125 Zen bonus , they get a one-time 250 Zen bonus. }
The question then becomes how to KEEP the players. Player retention is an issue here, mostly resulting from boredom or things constantly being totally changed around, or made into:
"Gamblers Online" (lockboxes have all the best stuff that you can't get elsewhere, IF you're lucky that is)
-or-
"Vehicles Online" (vehicle travel powers --> vehicle become device, lacking even simple color customization even though the engine supports it --> vehicles are too fast, causing the server to lag --> new weapons for vehicles that are far superior to any superpower you can get as a freeform --> new vehicles to make the old ones obsolete --> player population either leaves or is indirectly coerced into buying vehicles too keep up with other players )
By "totally changed around" I mean the several disastrous (read: unpolished, imbalanced, & glitchy) kitchen sink patches we seem to get whenever a new lead programmer takes over and starts messing with stuff.
They do listen to some player feedback, but they just knee-jerk to the first comments they see instead of letting the discussion play out and learn from it. Also not all poster's experience with the subjects being discussed are equal, or even unbiased. So they should take all things said with a grain of salt, yet they should be listening. Official weekly polls should consist of 1 to 3 questions and take no more than 5 minutes at the most (and make sure you set up many polls for check-boxes or rate-from-most-to-least instead of radio-buttons).
A better way of getting feedback would be weekly, regular, and detailed polls about gameplay change preferences. Official polls. Forms for beta-tester feedback that are detailed and take about 10 to 15 minutes to fill out, and THAT should be the main mode of how PTS feedback should work.
Takes a few hours to create these inquiries and polls at most, but the rewards would be sooooo worth it for both the game company and the community, because the game would be better matched to the consumer.
In truth the forums are great for general feedback and debate, but they don't capture the whole picture of what's going on with the state of the game.
Oh hell NO! :eek:
And I'll tell you why, show me ONE time where Cryptic has done a major overhaul of mechanics where it didn't come as a kitchen sink patch full of bugs, serious ones even. That's right, quality programming and debugging is not strong point of this company's record, sadly. I realize I've stepped on the toes of some of the devs by saying that, but in all seriousness I've seen amateur programmers do so much more with Half-Life and Source modding. Major things. Awe-inspiring creativity. For professionals, a higher standard of quality should be expected! (which isn't a negative thing, it's a career challenge!)
More importantly, one of the big issues that has always held this game back is... developer ADHD (for a lack of a better term). Basically, they can't make up their mind and every time a new team leader comes in they push their own favorite agenda and let everything else decay. At one time it was Zones, then Adventure Packs, then Comic Series, then Alerts, then Vehicles, Grabbags, Lockboxes, Nemesis content, Events, nerf this, no nerf that, no wait let's buff this, uh this one thing broke but none of us know how to fix it, etc etc... JUST PICK A STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE AND STICK WITH IT!!! Bloody hell, we've lost soooo much from attitudes just like that one you just said, about reinventing the wheel, again.
No no on a no-no. Do not pass go. Do not want.
* smacks forehead *
There already are discussions about reworking dodge/avoid in the PTS, and it's way more complicated than some people make it out to be initially. The implications are huge, and while some may be for the better, some people might get seriously screwed over by the changes being proposed if they went through right now as-is (~70% is way too much of a nerf, especially because there's also nerfs to things like critical severity too on top of it).
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
But this was about CO. I don't play any other mmo outhere. Maybe NW once in a month.
What i'm talking about:
Nemesis System, big part of the game. Stuff added, once?
Recognition Vedors. Yawn.
Well C-store, kind of.
Q-Store. Fekk Vehicles.
Power customing. Yay! You can color them. Power Replacers, nice try, poorly made.
Different Mission paths. Oh, but we have Alerts!
And stuff.
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
The game needs more content. Multiple leveling paths with a variety of different themes.
Writing needs to be gutted and re-done, because as of right now this is campy mindless silliness that mocks comics more than it pays homage.
You can scream how we need this costume and that power and this little shiney all you want, it doesn't matter. Going to the same party repeatedly in a different outfit doesn't make it any less sad.
CO is a glorified RP engine at best. You can bring all the new players over all you want, but if you want the game to profit- the games got to offer more than 30 days of amusement for non-roleplayers.
I can't speak for anyone but myself but content has always been important and seemed to be the most asked for addition, just we were told no so many times now, that I think for myself (and maybe others) it's kind of implicitly understood we want more fin content.
There is no point in adding new archetypes.
They largely don't sell because only few of them is worth paying for. They all have mor or less flawed builds. The whole AT system should be first rethought and reworked.
And especially NOT paid archetypes made as demo for new powersets, because "demo" archetype is something like the Impulse. This will end scamming people and handing them working powerset with barely useless AT. Will not hurt golds, but will hurt unknowing silvers.
That's not coincidence that people are buying ATs with now, not with cash (yes, someone had to buy those Zen for exchange... Except maybe not - people are sitting still on unused stipends and that's extra "free" Zen for exchange).
Cryptic needs to decide. Either ATs are only a demo, but then none of them should be paid, or they are indeed made for playing. But then many of them needs to be rebuilt.
No AT sales or rotation will fix that they simply aren't desirable enough.
A few of them are ok. I agree with no more addition, but sales and reintroduction of rotation would only be beneficial.
Balls. Uninspired "goofy" content does not sell. I don't get this.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
Especially when you add in goofy content that is poorly written, terrible voice acting, and the amount of unskippable cut scenes.
I love Foxbat - he's my favorite character. I still think the story arc with him and Saph was one of the more enjoyable arcs.
But there is a difference between goofy (Foxbat) and lame (Defender penetrating...)
The game was supposed to be approachable so that players could jump into it for a half hour and get some meaningful gameplay. Instead, after a number of balance passes, CO's power system ended up at the point where similar powers scaled off different stats; thematically consistent builds were vastly under-powered compared to mix 'n' match builds (note: we ALL knew it would be like this at release -- but the gulf between the builds was larger than, I think, anyone reasonably anticipated). The powers system has always been too complicated for Cryptic's MMO-lite approach.
CO exists in a weird, and possibly unique, niche: goofy, straightforward gameplay / storytelling, complex character creation and poor social interaction (teaming's never been great, auto chat bans, pointless SGs).
Here's a couple question questions. Who does this game appeal to? And how do you reach those gamers?
The best way to find out is to advertise it to all gamers where gamers are buying games.
This worked wonderfully for Atari when they went Free To Play with this game on Steam.
12,000 logins a day out of 12 million Steam users.
However Cryptic has to have something to sell.
$50 or $25 free form slot is as much as a brand new 98/100 critic score game or Humble Bundle of six games, or a handful of last years "game of the year" games.
$7 for a two free form character "pay once play forever" account
and $20 for a four pack of two free form character "play once pay forever" accounts to share with friends advertised at each of the next big Steam sales would do the game wonders.
TT is actually pretty good about communicating our desires to the devs. I just don't think a lot of what we want is feasible at the moment. Like foundry, for instance, they've said would require a lot of man hours - for the size of the team, I can only assume, since the obstacle standing between us and a foundry is tagging the game assets.
Cryptic North has taken some small steps to open up. That a lone has infused a lot more positivity in the community, but, a morsel will seem like a feast to smeone whose starving so I'm not 100% sure what to objectively infer from the recent dev activity on the forum.
yes plz
this, a million times this.
Neat!
And I'm talking about how advertising helps even garbage games maintain bigger populations than what we have.
Wow, we don't both have to type the exact same thing? Amazing how these "forum" things work... what's next, a horse carriage that propels itself with explosions? :O
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
A new zone and a level cap raise is probably the easiest way to accomplish this.
Cross-promotion with other successful Cryptic titles *might* help; a promotion like "buy 500 zen on NWO or STO, get 500 zen on Champions Online for free!" might lure some people over to this title. A Cryptic bundle, suggested earlier in this thread, is also a good idea.
I don't think at this point, new powers and ATs on their own are much of a draw: though welcome, I didn't notice a significant pop increase after recent power set releases. Events do draw a little more, but the anniversary event only spiked the pop by about 25% or so, and Bloodmoon lost its draw a long time ago. We need something that does more to grab people's attention, and it has to be more heavily promoted.
I think our energies are better spent figuring out low-cost, high-value methods of getting CO to have increased income. Once that money is flowing in, then they can advertise the game more (like STO and NW), but they need to get it rolling first.
So what do we have right now that can be better used, fixed, or changed slightly in ways that will help the game generate significantly more income? We need low-cost, high-profit options here.
I think fixing the buggy Nemesis system and improving the incentive to run Nemesis content would be good. Bringing allies along on teams for standard content should also provide a larger incentive to players to do it (and be easier to do).
A lot of people have mentioned Freeform Archetype slots are overpriced, and I agree. Lower the cost on those by at least half and you'll see sales of them more than double. Drop it to $10-15 a pop and you'll see them do even better. Get some bundles up on Steam, too- put together the power armor AT, costume set, and travel powers and have it be part of steam sales.
There's a lot here right now that can be sold, but it needs to be sold more effectively, and more cheaply.
These are good ideas. I'm hoping that Cryptic North is working on a major relaunch of CO, much in the same way STO had a troubled initial launch but kind of re-launched later on (and did it a second time with the Romulan expansion). CO could really, really use this kind of relaunch, considering it's age.
I think it would have to be more than just a single zone and a higher level cap, though. You'd need a lot of additions to the game to bring people back or lure in a ton of new players.
That STO-Bridge-Officer-inspired Sidekick system would be nice to see implemented. But again, that's... probably very expensive and difficult to produce.
@kelpplankton
Oldschool CoH player, Lifetime CO and STO subscriber, animator and artist.
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Once a customer/player has left, depending on the reason of course, it can be very difficult to win them back, especially given Cryptic's current reputation to the rest of the industry. If a customer/player leaves for a second time then it could be nearly impossible to get them back. Most people I know won't give a game more then two chances before forgetting about it completely.
So before they start advertising it might be good to start with adding more permanent non-lockbox content, from zones to extra leveling paths.
I'm actually curious if updating a MMO in a noticeable way (and positive way) and then advertising it would make a difference. It's not something I recall ever seeing happen in an MMO.
Going F2P tends to give an influx of players, but then that dies down. Would making sweeping, but awesome changes and then advertising the game be enough to overcome bad memories?
I don't know if the same can be done with CO, but other games have certainly done this in the past. (see also: most F2P conversions coming alongside major content additions)
@kelpplankton
Oldschool CoH player, Lifetime CO and STO subscriber, animator and artist.
Art, Animation, and Stuff:
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To me the idea that more content and a little more ads would increase visibility and push the idea that the game is actually getting some attention again. maybe a little closer to the release of some big content so people they bring in will see a strong game. co has something unique to offer with the costume and freeform power customization, advertising that with some new content may draw some people back, reinforce the game is alive.
oh and get rid of the insane costume limitations for first timers, hiding your best asset? i get that some people get overwhelmed, but the customization is this games reason to be, hiding that is misleading.
This already exists in the Mobility area.
They probably mean test travel powers before purchasing from the stores.
This. This, so much.
I want to see a step away from campy childishness. I want to play a Superhero game, not a Boogerman: The Pick and Flick Adventure.
This. This, so much.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.