It is true, OVs shouldn't be allowed to use devices, and it seems that there is a bug that is allowing them to use certain devices. Apart from pets such as the dinos I have seem backups being used as well...
but please tone down the hyperbole, it sort of defeats the point you are trying to make.
Wasn't a miracle, people like you made it happen. Good work.
Yea, because I do so much about that Gradii. Please, we all know you are a prima donna, and a drama king and anytime people aren't agreeing or sucking up to you you instantly act like they are the worst person ever. Not to mention even if no one really bothers with you, you make it your personal mission to be an absolute jerk, even though you have them on ignore and start talking crap to them in local or doing anything you can to be offensive. So really, stop lying DaZee/Gradii.
but please tone down the hyperbole, it sort of defeats the point you are trying to make.
I'm Sorry about that!
POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergies! Playing since 1 February 2011 128 + Characters (21 ATs, 107 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
I can only speak for myself, but I spend less than 1% of my time in-game in any of my hideouts. I'm only there to access my account bank. I have three or four different hideouts, and they're all the same to me, it doesn't matter to me that I can put a giant laser on my moon base or change the lights in my loft, because I'm just there to look at my account bank. Consider that perhaps, more players use their hideouts like I do, and don't care about the extra rooms in the least. Maybe this is the kind of information that Cryptic has that makes them not make extra rooms in your hideout a top priority.
It's just a guess, but it's worth considering.
I have three uses for Hideouts: the Account Bank, the instant access to a Tailor (because sometimes I'm inconveniently far from one when something about my current costume starts to bug me), and the quick portal from anywhere to Mill City before I hit lvl 25 and get the "Warp To RenCen" item (available by getting the Penthouse and flying off the balcony - only works well for flyers, though). Other than that, it's strictly cosmetic, less useful to me than a new costume pack because at least a new costume can be easily shown to everyone. (Hey, I'm pretty proud of some of my costumes, even if I've never won a contest with one!)
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
I can understand some people being upset about pricing because they would have bought the item but it is 100 pennies more expensive so now they are out. But for the majority of people, this isn't the case. They never were going to buy those items. The players who actually buy these things are 1) Long time subs who have zen to spend and will sell these more likely than use them 2) A handful of players who reaaaally want this item 3) Whales (Not literal whales).
Whales are already spending money. The point is to get other people to spend money. The difference between $1 and $2 is if I want to blow through those last, horrid 5 levels, I have to spend $10 instead of $5. You cannot buy $1 or $2 in zen with actual money. Now the level up device becomes far less appealing.
The majority of people who are actually going to whip out a credit card to buy these items are going to buy it at 200z no problem. If the item was half of what it is now, you might get an Arona or two who'd buy it, but you're only getting half from what the big spenders who actually buy the majority of these items. Secondly, if the item was half of its current price and the average person was buying this item and leveling up this way, everyone else who never could afford this item and never were going to get it, they're gonna feel even more shafted. "Everyone is buying power/levels/gear and I'm here having to actually put in a bunch of time to get stronger." Not cool.
Most of the long time players have multiple 40s. Are you saying that new people to the game will feel they need to buy their way to 40 because of this item but not because there are already a boat load of 40s?
There is a reason their customer base is playing a F2P game - they don't want to spend money at all.
This video talks about the evolution of MMOs, including the current F2P model and why your "they don't want to spend money" is inaccurate.
You don't get it, do you? Ever since the nonsense of the costume price hike.. sub value has decreased along with the buying power of the stipend.
LTS is the only thing that has ever devalued gold subs. LTS itself will never be devalued by anything outside of giving everything away for free. And when that happens, the game will have announced it's shutting down. LTS is the best deal you'll ever get in this game because you get an assload of stuff that would have cost significantly more than $300.
Cry, if these hideout rooms are so important to you why not create a thoughtfully written poll in one of the threads and see what response there is? I mean one where the questions are well-worded and offer real options. Not something that transparently only suits your interests.
Personally, I'm with Biff here. I would be upset to learn that they were planning on putting scarce resources into hideouts at the expense of things I care about more (new playable content and costumes).
Its much easier for a merchant to lower prices later if a product isn't selling well than it is to get away with raising prices if a product is selling exceptionally well. I am not saying that this is what is going on here, but it is a possibility.
/signed for there being more important things to spend limited dev resources on than hideouts. Of course I would like them to be a more robust player housing system, but not sure that its worth the investment.
@sterga - I don't think that video disagreed with what I said at all. Players obviously would love to play a game that is free and would prefer a free game over a paid one - the example of swtor players indicating they'd return if it was F2P doesn't mean those players would return to spend money. They'd just return. This is a good thing of course, for everybody. But in games such as Game of War or any other F2P, it is still the tiny percentage of those big beautiful whales that are funding the game. The vast vast overwhelming large majorly very-very-big-time majority of players never spend a dime. I'm pretty confident that many (but not all) who say they would buy this device if not for being too expensive who have never actually bought it at all.
And again, I can understand players being upset by pricing because it isn't convenient for them. But consider this: For decades hot dog come in pack sizes that do not match the number of buns you get in a hot dog bun bag. You have to get left overs of one or the other, or buy 3 of one and 2 of the other, or something along those lines. This is intentional, and it works for these industries. I'm sure PWE knows how to do their pricing, and someone is going to buy 500z for 2 levels or they will go the full 1000z (and get bonus zen, yay!(?) ) for 5 levels. Lots of people will be mad about stuff they can't/would never buy, or that is now 100 pennies too expensive, but it makes the most sense business wise.
As far as tons of level 40s already existing: It isn't the actual practicalities of the matter, it is the perception. If people aren't complaining it is too expensive, they are complaining that a device like this exist at all.
Cry, if these hideout rooms are so important to you why not create a thoughtfully written poll in one of the threads and see what response there is? I mean one where the questions are well-worded and offer real options. Not something that transparently only suits your interests.
Personally, I'm with Biff here. I would be upset to learn that they were planning on putting scarce resources into hideouts at the expense of things I care about more (new playable content and costumes).
There are a decent amount of RPers that would love to have the extra hideout rooms, and I certainly would count myself among them. (I'd also love it if they restored more of the old crafting areas for additional RP areas.) But I agree that I would rather see more things to actually do in the game. More events, more missions. Like, what about some more space content?
And please, no polls. Really, they don't prove anything considering that forum users are a very small slice of the whole pie.
Catering to Whales is just stupid business in general. There is a difference between not wanting to pay for a subscription and not wanting to spend money.
Catering to Whales is just stupid business in general. There is a difference between not wanting to pay for a subscription and not wanting to spend money.
I'm sure you know this already but it's the essence of business, is profit, why else would they prioritize 'whales' cause they fuel the business, that's the world we live in.
I take this quote from a review that I agree with.
"customisation is so linear; everyone is after the optimal dps:survivability ratio with 0 reliance on other players = autonomous gameplay... Players don't need each other anymore... which in my opinion is a bad thing."
Catering to Whales is just stupid business in general. There is a difference between not wanting to pay for a subscription and not wanting to spend money.
I'm sure you know this already but it's the essence of business, is profit, why else would they prioritize 'whales' cause they fuel the business, that's the world we live in.
Quoted for massive amounts of truth.
"Whales" are what keeps the entire F2P model profitable. Without "whales" willing to dump ludicrous amounts of money to get the latest shinies there'd simply not be enough money to keep the game afloat for the rest of us. So naturally several items in the Zen store will be priced to cater to "whales".
Yea, because I do so much about that Gradii. Please, we all know you are a prima donna, and a drama king and anytime people aren't agreeing or sucking up to you you instantly act like they are the worst person ever. Not to mention even if no one really bothers with you, you make it your personal mission to be an absolute jerk, even though you have them on ignore and start talking crap to them in local or doing anything you can to be offensive. So really, stop lying DaZee/Gradii.
I don't lie. I only... Exaggerate. Sometimes. and you're the only one who seems to have this problem with me. If you don't like me I suggest you ignore me entirely and not cry vitriol like an angry... dog.
I don't exclay kown whats going on here, as I have no idea how this started, and I kown someone is going to point-out Irony here, but @gradii does have a point if you have a problem with one another, I suggest going In-game or PM each other and sort your differences out.
A prima donna is a very temperamental person with an inflated view of their own talent or importance. It comes from the term used for the chief female singer in an opera or opera company.
A prima donna is a very temperamental person with an inflated view of their own talent or importance. It comes from the term used for the chief female singer in an opera or opera company.
Here is a section of systems where a person no longer exists however when the person exists and you know I want to see the light between a star and you also course to her to die, now the most important facts about life is to Live Your Life about dreams of cupcakes and belly buttons now the systems of life and Light no longer are between a section of loving and kissing, when you don't have a computer I no longer work you have to cry.
You shall never pay even know that the Monkees NE4 will want you to, now you shall never pass as the purple text guy loves his purple text!. Eurocell never never pas'ss and then that allows a cash Anna to sing, your always hit you grow Dalyan and champion wolf and then you will go up to be a big strong boy this topic has the world so hard it makes caterpillars cry now laugh and I should stop doing is drinking I'm talking to an iPad now believe me when I say this award a systems 476 will always forever exist that is my sweet everyone I hope you have a good night adios massive Cuoco
(Update: Just did this a 3rd time and it did register for the vigilance missions. Tried not using teleiosaurs. Maybe that is an issue with this bug.)
Doupt it, all the character who failed to get credit never got in a pug with Dinos
Some of my characters got Credit on the first try, other had to do it 2-3 times (5 times in the row for the worse)
Maybe it's because it's a lvl 40 alert instead a lvl 30 like custom alert are usually
This is frustating, it's a long time alert, it takes 15 to 30 minutes to complete (depending on the pug, It can also take 1 hour)
Completing a mission is now a part of RNG System, this is beyond Frustation
POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergies! Playing since 1 February 2011 128 + Characters (21 ATs, 107 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
This is why catering to whales is dumb. Also: I don't think a $2 level up item is necessarily catering to people with lots of money since $2 is still cheap. But since people want to claim that whales are the only reason F2P works, I'm going to refute it with words from industry professionals.
CO certainly doesn't cater to whales in the way that video talks about; there's quite sharp diminishing returns on money spent. Once you have access to freeform characters, everything else you can actually buy is nothing more than incremental gains.
CO certainly doesn't cater to whales in the way that video talks about; there's quite sharp diminishing returns on money spent. Once you have access to freeform characters, everything else you can actually buy is nothing more than incremental gains.
Agreed.
The video makes good points but nothing that is remotely relevant to Champions Online. CO certainly needs it's whales way more than the fishes spending nothing, especially with the current content it produces.
Perhaps the questions should be how can CO get those fishes to spend money.
So the playerbase(some, obviously not all) need to stop accusing CO of being like this and the devs need to stop looking at NW as a source of how to increase the profits in CO. CO does not have the 4k a pop NW whales and it's likely to never have them.
IMO, if you want to borrow from the neighbors then polish up the game we have, fix the bugs, and get us "Champions Online Season 2: This SPACE Reserved for Snazzy Title." It worked for STO. It worked for NW when they poorly copied it from STO. It could, IMO, work for CO.
If you want CO players to put down the cash and invest in your game then focus on the core and focus on making changes worthy of the investment. I mean, I don't own Variable Robot still for a reason(Is it "A Future Time" yet?).
For the new player the focus should be the best and most polished experience possible to get them to believe that, for them, dropping a few bucks or subbing is worth it to them after likely leveling a free AT to 40. If they run into unpolished issues, bugs, and overall broken elements that a vet will, without having a second thought, tell them,"Oh yeah, that's been that way for X Years(or even since beta) then that is a problem." This issue also, at least for me, kinda grinds on a person seeing it day after day with nothing resembling a solution in sight.
In it's present state CO is a Chocolate Chip Cookie....only some of the chocolate chips are actually raisins. Now you might not be against raising but when you're prepared for a chocolate chip and you eat a raisin the shock is a little bit unsettling. I believe CO should strive in the remainder of 2015 and 2016 to remove the raisins and give us more chocolate chips in our chocolate chip cookie.
As for this leveling thing, I could honestly care less how much it costs because I, personally, have no need/use for it. It's not like they're putting powers...in...lock...crap that already happened. Well, hopefully that generated the cashflow to get more chocolate chips? Maybe?
P.S. Could someone please stop unterribling the forums...more than they are now?
Now I want to make chocolate chip raisin cookies. Thanks a lot, Cross!
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
It's the weekend. I hope the devs are at home, ignoring the forums. It's not even their job to read this stuff. That would be for a community manager that we don't appear to have.
I seriously doubt $300 lts or $50 FF slots are catering to the average player. Catalysts certainly aren't. All of these the very blatant buying of power. The good stuff from lockboxes has some pretty low chances of dropping. The way Onslaught was monetized is clearly catering to people with the most money. Who do you think is going to get the new stuff faster? The average player or the one who throws their wallet at lockboxes and zen-to-questionite to power their new toy. Funny how the cooldown doesn't work so that chain villain rampages are possible.
Different gaming companies have different dollar values attributed to what they consider a whale. Which is a term from the casino industry. It's not really a secret that even CO uses casino psychology.
It's not a player's responsibility to spend money to keep a business afloat. If Cryptic wants money from more players, they need to be the ones doing the work for it.
CO certainly doesn't cater to whales in the way that video talks about; there's quite sharp diminishing returns on money spent. Once you have access to freeform characters, everything else you can actually buy is nothing more than incremental gains.
Agreed.
The video makes good points but nothing that is remotely relevant to Champions Online. CO certainly needs it's whales way more than the fishes spending nothing, especially with the current content it produces.
Perhaps the questions should be how can CO get those fishes to spend money.
Wow, you two are way off base on this one... Have you ever even looked in the cash shop? I doubt you ever really have, you probably only ever open it to spend your 500Z monthly stipend on 5 keys and then don't open it again till next month.
The current cash shop is filled to the brim with overpriced items targeted exclusively at big spenders... there's next to nothing in there that is targeted at the average player... and for those who will undoubtedly argue that keys are targeted at average players, let me open your eyes to the truth on that one. Lockboxes are a fairly common drop in CO, it's not uncommon for someone to collect 50~100 lockboxes per month. At $1ech (100Z) you're looking at buying 50~100 keys per month to keep up with the drop frequency... of course most people won't buy that many keys at one time... only the big spenders will buy that many keys at once... Ontop of that you have the fact that there is no guarantee of an item of value from the lockbox so you're required to open them in bulk to get anything of worth out of them.
I've seen people argue that "Valve proved it works" well, lets do a quick comparison shall we?
TF2 Crates - equal drop chance as other items, is on the same drop table, are guaranteed an item of value even if it's not what you were wanting, average <15 crates per month.
CO Lockboxes - fairly high drop chance, is on a separate drop table, are not guaranteed an item of value, average >30 lockboxes per month.
In one case the company sells keys for $2 each and players don't feel cheated, in the other they are sold for $1 each and players feel extorted... which one has done their market research? I'll tell you, it's not this one...
We've got $50 FF slots, $12.50 for 2 character slots, we are charged a fee to reclaim our characters if we lapse our subscription multiple times (retrain tokens), Catalysts cost an upwards of $30 EACH... and you dare to say CO isn't catering to the big spenders? Catalysts need to be sold in packs of 100 to warrant their high price tags, FF Slots are admittedly our own fault considering that we the players told them to price it that high (granted most of the forum posts said $30...), Retrain tokens were something we never even asked for nor did we ever need, and their introduction came with a change that has done nothing more than tick players off and cause people to leave (yes, Retrain tokens have in fact caused people to quit), Character slots are about the only thing on that list that's viewed as "reasonable"... Costumes had their prices jacked up for no good reason (again price raises do not cater to the average player) new items stopped going into the cash shop and instead enter the game through lockboxes now days... I could keep going, but by now I'd hope you'd have gotten the picture...
The average player does not want to spend $10 on the game and then buy 1 or 2 items with it, they want to feel like they are getting their moneys worth... if you make the average player feel like they are getting what they payed for then they will in fact spend more. Will they spend as much as the whales? of course not... will the whales spend less? unlikely... they regularly spend about the same amount each month, lowering prices won't make them spend less they will keep spending the same amount and just buy more with it, it might even encourage some of them to bump up their spending budget a little bit too...
However above all else, CO needs it's bugs fixed and unfinished content finished... You have to realize that leaving things broken and unfinished for years on end is hurting the game. The funding you have doesn't matter when it comes to things that NEED to be done. Yes I understand you need to be able to pay people and what not... but do you understand that failing to fix these issues will just lead to the games population and income continuing to decrease? I'm sure somewhere deep down you realize this. New players don't always just enter the game without any fore-knowledge... a lot of MMO gamers look into a game before they ever launch it for the first time (most of them do this while it's installing and patching)... It really doesn't take a lot of searching to find out that CO has been plagued with bugs that have remained unfixed since launch and that there's several bits of unfinished/forgotten content...
One last thing...
ig·nore
iɡˈnôr/
verb
refuse to take notice of or acknowledge;
By definition the devs have in fact been ignoring us... however I'm inclined to say that's PWEs doing... PWE has a long track record of ignoring their fans... it's one of the reasons that many of us were rather upset to hear the news that Atarii was selling Cryptic to PWE when it happened... Many of us were aware that the changes we've been seeing over the past several years were going to happen and that the game was going to take a turn for the worse as a result...
Whether or not the devs decided against following our advice in our feedback is not in question, what's in question is why they continue to ignore us. If they don't intend to ignore us they should at least acknowledge our feedback, and if they can't/won't do something how the players think it should be they should at least tell us that much. It won't kill us to be told "no" by the devs... Players aren't going to leave the game just because you said "no" to something, players will leave the game because you ignored them though. Something as simple as "we read your feedback, but our marketing division has concluded that 200Z is the proper price" would have sufficed to say "we aren't ignoring you" instead what do we get? silence... utter and complete silence... so yes we are being ignored.
sick of villains trolling villains, why aren't villains considered friendly targets to other onslaught villains. it creates a horrible push back on charge up powers and gravity well makes it damn near impossible for grond to effectively use his best powers since be's "Bouncing all around". some people arent even trying to get villain tokens, they just attack other villains. you need to fix this.
BUG: FATAL ERROR: Cybermind, DOES NOT 100% register the Daily and the Alerts: Vigilance missions after successful completition
Bug: Psedo-Pets devices (like Nightmare Generator, Teleiosaurus Pheromones e.t.c), Sidekicks and Back-Ups can still be used as Onslaught Villain (or be trigger before turning into one), please get rid of those damn Dinos, those things have already ruined the game
Bug: Genetic Exhaustion penalty Debuff STILL DOESN'T EXIST, people can exploit dragging out the Device from the tray, denying Guardian Tokens, and then go buy and equip another one
Fix this kind of stuff and I'll consider giving you some money. At least you've got a better chance with bug fixes that shouldn't even be necessary more than buying a level and some crappy gear in a game that's already stupid-easy to level. And don't forget to disable Travel Powers, unless a Medusa that repeatedly hops 200 ft into the air is designed. Cause, it's really NO FUN.
In fact as it exists now, I don't even care to waste my time on Onslaught in its poorly-implemented state.
Personally I hope nobody buys that insta-level junk at ANY price. Maybe if the cost exceeds the revenue, the bean counters will nix any further misapplication of resources in the future.
Yea, because I do so much about that Gradii. Please, we all know you are a prima donna, and a drama king and anytime people aren't agreeing or sucking up to you you instantly act like they are the worst person ever. Not to mention even if no one really bothers with you, you make it your personal mission to be an absolute jerk, even though you have them on ignore and start talking crap to them in local or doing anything you can to be offensive. So really, stop lying DaZee/Gradii.
I don't lie. I only... Exaggerate. Sometimes. and you're the only one who seems to have this problem with me. If you don't like me I suggest you ignore me entirely and not cry vitriol like an angry... dog.
Said the self-proclaimed "most hated player in CO". And no, given OUR last encounter in-game... NO, Spar is far from alone.
Not going to have to type a lot to explain these overpriced items. First off, your whale aren't buying all these overpriced items. They aren't spending money on freeforms because more than not, they have a LTS. I've seen tons of people in this small forum community with the old Vanguard title. Are they all whales? Maybe...but doubtful. So spending $300 isn't a whale, check that off
Freeform...whales arent buying these either. Now that they are LTS they have endless freeforms, so check that overpriced item off as well.
Which brings me to catalyst....with all the mods from lockboxes, I hope that no whale is that stupid to buy one. I highly doubt anyone is out there buying these. I would love to see CO's numbers (which we won't) on how many of those rank 9s they have ever sold. Most players will tell you Rank 7 is just as good and the way mods shoot out of those lockboxes you could easily build one in no time.
Costumes, they jacked the prices up but the biggest seller is also the most expensive. Your average player is buying the most expensive costume set. So are these prices really too high? It doesn't seem so.
Last item...cosmic keys. Regardless of how many keys a whale buys, these items are cheap enough for the average player and you can open just one and get the best stuff out of them; You can also open many and get nothing. Some of the biggest whales in this game buy keys with globals, they are spending tons of Globals on them. Maybe a player doesn't want to gamble, then you can sell those keys 100-200 and actually just buy the item from the AH. Maybe whales are buying tons of keys with zen, but then the market within a week gets so overloaded with these lockbox items inside that they get cheaper and cheaper. So if these whales are buying tons of keys then they are really helping lower the AH market then.
So once again, there isn't anything of value in the cstore that is aimed at just whales, maybe they wish it was. But most of the items in there your average player is buying. The others that are so extreme in price need to be lowered, so the people they are aimed at can afford it.
( I suck at qouteing comments, so I'll just post it )
Raighn Said:
One last thing...
ig·nore iɡˈnôr/ verb refuse to take notice of or acknowledge;
{By definition the devs have in fact been ignoring us... however I'm inclined to say that's PWEs doing... PWE has a long track record of ignoring their fans... it's one of the reasons that many of us were rather upset to hear the news that Atarii was selling Cryptic to PWE when it happened... Many of us were aware that the changes we've been seeing over the past several years were going to happen and that the game was going to take a turn for the worse as a result...
Whether or not the devs decided against following our advice in our feedback is not in question, what's in question is why they continue to ignore us. If they don't intend to ignore us they should at least acknowledge our feedback, and if they can't/won't do something how the players think it should be they should at least tell us that much. It won't kill us to be told "no" by the devs... Players aren't going to leave the game just because you said "no" to something, players will leave the game because you ignored them though. Something as simple as "we read your feedback, but our marketing division has concluded that 200Z is the proper price" would have sufficed to say "we aren't ignoring you" instead what do we get? silence... utter and complete silence... so yes we are being ignored.}
@raighn Thank god, someone gets it!, I can't thank you enough, just really thank you, Im so glad that you was able to understand it,THIS IS THE TRUTH PEOPLE!
time spent working on programming vs time spent reading forums and answering. Our community manager is usually an office person instead of a Dev, so they waste less valuable time.
So once again, there isn't anything of value in the cstore that is aimed at just whales, maybe they wish it was. But most of the items in there your average player is buying. The others that are so extreme in price need to be lowered, so the people they are aimed at can afford it.
And I typed more than I wanted...
Do you even listen to yourself? Whether or not the items in the c-store are percieved as "of value" to us, the average player, doesn't impact the view of the big spenders... those "whales" will & do buy R9 catalysts at any price, some of them are indeed still silver players, others are monthtly sub and do not intend to buy an LTS. I've talked with a few of them before, do I belive what they told me is reflective of a majority? Of course not. However, what I've been told by a few of the monthly sub "whales" is that they won't buy an LTS because they want to insure a steady income to CO from their spending in hopes that the game will get the improvements it needs. Sadly several of the ones I've talked to have sense quit CO... their reason for quitting, i'm unsure...
Anyways... you need to take a good hard look at the C-Store... is there anything in there that you as an average player would buy at it's current price point? I'm willing to bet that Costumes & Travel Powers are the only thing the average players sees as being of value... and again, some will buy keys at 100z, but most would rather buy in-game and let someone else buy them from the c-store... What does this tell you? Keys are not worth the value placed on them. If your lockboxes are abundant &/or only a chance drop then you have to sell keys in low-cost bundles to make them have value to the players... If we only had to spend $10 to open 50 boxes then I assure you keys will be bought off the C-store far more often than they do now and by more players... <10% of the population buying 50 keys for $50 vs >50% of the population buying 50 keys for $10 which is going to bring in more revanue? 50 keys for $10 will... Sell Catalyss in bundles and they too will see a higher selling point from the average player. It's fine to put some things in the c-store for big spenders, but when everything is over-priced you've got a problem...
XP-Boosts? Too expensive for such little benefit. Become Devices? Niche market, mostly bought by big spenders Party Bombs? Does anyone ever buy these anyway? Energy/Defense/Damage/Resource/Star Boost/Replenish? So abundant and easily obtained in game that no one buys them anyway, plus the price points on several of them were too high to begin with. Keys? Too expensive to buy in bulk, not of value due to low chance of getting an item of worth from the lockbox. Catalysts? Way too expensive to buy in bulk, all below R8 are devalued by high drop rates from lockboxes and alerts. Costumes? Unnessisary price increase, prefered purchase over keys for lockboxes to many Travel Powers? One of the only reasonably priced items ATs? Largely ignored, should honestly just have all ATs available to silver for free FF slot? Overpriced, bought only by big spenders, the average player would rather save for an LTS or pay monthly Character Slot? Resonably priced, but would do better to sell individual slots at half price... Account Service Tokens? Too expensive for most, however this is countered by the perception that you need only buy 1 or 2 at any given time... until your find yourself forced to buy 10-15 retrain tokens due to subsription lapses... (yes, it happens) Hideouts? Would be worth the cost if they would ever finish them. Vehicles? Too expensive for the average player, at $10~$20 each the average player would expect 1 per character (as is the case in other MMOs with mounts) Sidekicks? Niche market, mostly bought by big spenders Hideout bank slots? I'm sorry but I have to say those prices are a joke... and who thought that anyone would ever buy 1 slot at a time? Costume Slots? Per character slots are unnessisary, the account wide is perfect... more like this. Aura Slots? It's a good thing that most characters only need 1-2 aura's... otherwise that per-character price tag would be over-kill... Bag slots? I don't think too many people even know these exist...
However, what I've been told by a few of the monthly sub "whales" is that they won't buy an LTS because they want to insure a steady income to CO from their spending in hopes that the game will get the improvements it needs. Sadly several of the ones I've talked to have sense quit CO... their reason for quitting, i'm unsure...
And good god, I hope this was a joke. It's called Zen and they can buy it hourly to do that. But I don't believe someone who is dropping loads of money isn't going to buy a LT, we will just have to agree to disagree on that one.
Cry, at this point you are the ONLY person who gives a flying Foxbat about the hideout rooms. We have no need of them, we have no use for them, and quite frankly our art people (person?) have better things to do with their time.
Give it up. You're boring.
He's not the only one, I agree with him. If I ever come back to CO (miracles happen, they might fix something)
Wait a minute. If you're "gone", and aren't coming back to CO unless "they... fix something", why did I see you in MC Zone a few minutes ago selling Toxic Steel Armor for 1000g?
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
Cry, at this point you are the ONLY person who gives a flying Foxbat about the hideout rooms. We have no need of them, we have no use for them, and quite frankly our art people (person?) have better things to do with their time.
Give it up. You're boring.
He's not the only one, I agree with him. If I ever come back to CO (miracles happen, they might fix something)
Wait a minute. If you're "gone", and aren't coming back to CO unless "they... fix something", why did I see you in MC Zone a few minutes ago selling Toxic Steel Armor for 1000g?
My...God!, I KNEW IT!, GET HER!, I WANT HER POWERS FOR MYSELF!
Comments
but please tone down the hyperbole, it sort of defeats the point you are trying to make.
Yea, because I do so much about that Gradii. Please, we all know you are a prima donna, and a drama king and anytime people aren't agreeing or sucking up to you you instantly act like they are the worst person ever. Not to mention even if no one really bothers with you, you make it your personal mission to be an absolute jerk, even though you have them on ignore and start talking crap to them in local or doing anything you can to be offensive. So really, stop lying DaZee/Gradii.
Silverspar on PRIMUS
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I'm Sorry about that!
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
Personally, I'm with Biff here. I would be upset to learn that they were planning on putting scarce resources into hideouts at the expense of things I care about more (new playable content and costumes).
/signed for there being more important things to spend limited dev resources on than hideouts. Of course I would like them to be a more robust player housing system, but not sure that its worth the investment.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
And again, I can understand players being upset by pricing because it isn't convenient for them. But consider this: For decades hot dog come in pack sizes that do not match the number of buns you get in a hot dog bun bag. You have to get left overs of one or the other, or buy 3 of one and 2 of the other, or something along those lines. This is intentional, and it works for these industries. I'm sure PWE knows how to do their pricing, and someone is going to buy 500z for 2 levels or they will go the full 1000z (and get bonus zen, yay!(?) ) for 5 levels. Lots of people will be mad about stuff they can't/would never buy, or that is now 100 pennies too expensive, but it makes the most sense business wise.
As far as tons of level 40s already existing: It isn't the actual practicalities of the matter, it is the perception. If people aren't complaining it is too expensive, they are complaining that a device like this exist at all.
And please, no polls. Really, they don't prove anything considering that forum users are a very small slice of the whole pie.
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[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
I take this quote from a review that I agree with.
"customisation is so linear; everyone is after the optimal dps:survivability ratio with 0 reliance on other players = autonomous gameplay... Players don't need each other anymore... which in my opinion is a bad thing."
"Whales" are what keeps the entire F2P model profitable. Without "whales" willing to dump ludicrous amounts of money to get the latest shinies there'd simply not be enough money to keep the game afloat for the rest of us. So naturally several items in the Zen store will be priced to cater to "whales".
Also, what the hell is a "pima donna"
Click here to check out my costumes/milleniumguardian (MG) in-game/We need more tights, stances and moods
Every chance you get you are insulting to our Dev team by making these little comments, like they should jump when you make a command.
I have to admit, that is one weird insult..
@ealford1985
Wait wait wait.
I readed your comment, and it came up as this:
Mən sizə qayğı niyə və bu. Siz puppy üçün xəcalət və yalnız poçt poping lazımdır.
shell üçün bu kiçik Hello Kitty edərək Dev komanda ,.
Are the Forms broken?, or is it just me
You shall never pay even know that the Monkees NE4 will want you to, now you shall never pass as the purple text guy loves his purple text!. Eurocell never never pas'ss and then that allows a cash Anna to sing, your always hit you grow Dalyan and champion wolf and then you will go up to be a big strong boy this topic has the world so hard it makes caterpillars cry now laugh and I should stop doing is drinking I'm talking to an iPad now believe me when I say this award a systems 476 will always forever exist that is my sweet everyone I hope you have a good night adios massive Cuoco
Doupt it, all the character who failed to get credit never got in a pug with Dinos
Some of my characters got Credit on the first try, other had to do it 2-3 times (5 times in the row for the worse)
Maybe it's because it's a lvl 40 alert instead a lvl 30 like custom alert are usually
This is frustating, it's a long time alert, it takes 15 to 30 minutes to complete
Completing a mission is now a part of RNG System, this is beyond Frustation
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
The video makes good points but nothing that is remotely relevant to Champions Online. CO certainly needs it's whales way more than the fishes spending nothing, especially with the current content it produces.
Perhaps the questions should be how can CO get those fishes to spend money.
______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________
So the playerbase(some, obviously not all) need to stop accusing CO of being like this and the devs need to stop looking at NW as a source of how to increase the profits in CO. CO does not have the 4k a pop NW whales and it's likely to never have them.
IMO, if you want to borrow from the neighbors then polish up the game we have, fix the bugs, and get us "Champions Online Season 2: This SPACE Reserved for Snazzy Title." It worked for STO. It worked for NW when they poorly copied it from STO. It could, IMO, work for CO.
If you want CO players to put down the cash and invest in your game then focus on the core and focus on making changes worthy of the investment. I mean, I don't own Variable Robot still for a reason(Is it "A Future Time" yet?).
For the new player the focus should be the best and most polished experience possible to get them to believe that, for them, dropping a few bucks or subbing is worth it to them after likely leveling a free AT to 40. If they run into unpolished issues, bugs, and overall broken elements that a vet will, without having a second thought, tell them,"Oh yeah, that's been that way for X Years(or even since beta) then that is a problem." This issue also, at least for me, kinda grinds on a person seeing it day after day with nothing resembling a solution in sight.
In it's present state CO is a Chocolate Chip Cookie....only some of the chocolate chips are actually raisins. Now you might not be against raising but when you're prepared for a chocolate chip and you eat a raisin the shock is a little bit unsettling. I believe CO should strive in the remainder of 2015 and 2016 to remove the raisins and give us more chocolate chips in our chocolate chip cookie.
As for this leveling thing, I could honestly care less how much it costs because I, personally, have no need/use for it. It's not like they're putting powers...in...lock...crap that already happened. Well, hopefully that generated the cashflow to get more chocolate chips? Maybe?
P.S. Could someone please stop unterribling the forums...more than they are now?
Join Date: Aug 2009 | Title: Devslayer
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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I seriously doubt $300 lts or $50 FF slots are catering to the average player. Catalysts certainly aren't. All of these the very blatant buying of power. The good stuff from lockboxes has some pretty low chances of dropping. The way Onslaught was monetized is clearly catering to people with the most money. Who do you think is going to get the new stuff faster? The average player or the one who throws their wallet at lockboxes and zen-to-questionite to power their new toy. Funny how the cooldown doesn't work so that chain villain rampages are possible.
Different gaming companies have different dollar values attributed to what they consider a whale. Which is a term from the casino industry. It's not really a secret that even CO uses casino psychology.
It's not a player's responsibility to spend money to keep a business afloat. If Cryptic wants money from more players, they need to be the ones doing the work for it.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
Wow, you two are way off base on this one... Have you ever even looked in the cash shop? I doubt you ever really have, you probably only ever open it to spend your 500Z monthly stipend on 5 keys and then don't open it again till next month.
The current cash shop is filled to the brim with overpriced items targeted exclusively at big spenders... there's next to nothing in there that is targeted at the average player... and for those who will undoubtedly argue that keys are targeted at average players, let me open your eyes to the truth on that one. Lockboxes are a fairly common drop in CO, it's not uncommon for someone to collect 50~100 lockboxes per month. At $1ech (100Z) you're looking at buying 50~100 keys per month to keep up with the drop frequency... of course most people won't buy that many keys at one time... only the big spenders will buy that many keys at once... Ontop of that you have the fact that there is no guarantee of an item of value from the lockbox so you're required to open them in bulk to get anything of worth out of them.
I've seen people argue that "Valve proved it works" well, lets do a quick comparison shall we?
TF2 Crates - equal drop chance as other items, is on the same drop table, are guaranteed an item of value even if it's not what you were wanting, average <15 crates per month.
CO Lockboxes - fairly high drop chance, is on a separate drop table, are not guaranteed an item of value, average >30 lockboxes per month.
In one case the company sells keys for $2 each and players don't feel cheated, in the other they are sold for $1 each and players feel extorted... which one has done their market research? I'll tell you, it's not this one...
We've got $50 FF slots, $12.50 for 2 character slots, we are charged a fee to reclaim our characters if we lapse our subscription multiple times (retrain tokens), Catalysts cost an upwards of $30 EACH... and you dare to say CO isn't catering to the big spenders? Catalysts need to be sold in packs of 100 to warrant their high price tags, FF Slots are admittedly our own fault considering that we the players told them to price it that high (granted most of the forum posts said $30...), Retrain tokens were something we never even asked for nor did we ever need, and their introduction came with a change that has done nothing more than tick players off and cause people to leave (yes, Retrain tokens have in fact caused people to quit), Character slots are about the only thing on that list that's viewed as "reasonable"... Costumes had their prices jacked up for no good reason (again price raises do not cater to the average player) new items stopped going into the cash shop and instead enter the game through lockboxes now days... I could keep going, but by now I'd hope you'd have gotten the picture...
The average player does not want to spend $10 on the game and then buy 1 or 2 items with it, they want to feel like they are getting their moneys worth... if you make the average player feel like they are getting what they payed for then they will in fact spend more. Will they spend as much as the whales? of course not... will the whales spend less? unlikely... they regularly spend about the same amount each month, lowering prices won't make them spend less they will keep spending the same amount and just buy more with it, it might even encourage some of them to bump up their spending budget a little bit too...
However above all else, CO needs it's bugs fixed and unfinished content finished... You have to realize that leaving things broken and unfinished for years on end is hurting the game. The funding you have doesn't matter when it comes to things that NEED to be done. Yes I understand you need to be able to pay people and what not... but do you understand that failing to fix these issues will just lead to the games population and income continuing to decrease? I'm sure somewhere deep down you realize this. New players don't always just enter the game without any fore-knowledge... a lot of MMO gamers look into a game before they ever launch it for the first time (most of them do this while it's installing and patching)... It really doesn't take a lot of searching to find out that CO has been plagued with bugs that have remained unfixed since launch and that there's several bits of unfinished/forgotten content...
One last thing... By definition the devs have in fact been ignoring us... however I'm inclined to say that's PWEs doing... PWE has a long track record of ignoring their fans... it's one of the reasons that many of us were rather upset to hear the news that Atarii was selling Cryptic to PWE when it happened... Many of us were aware that the changes we've been seeing over the past several years were going to happen and that the game was going to take a turn for the worse as a result...
Whether or not the devs decided against following our advice in our feedback is not in question, what's in question is why they continue to ignore us. If they don't intend to ignore us they should at least acknowledge our feedback, and if they can't/won't do something how the players think it should be they should at least tell us that much. It won't kill us to be told "no" by the devs... Players aren't going to leave the game just because you said "no" to something, players will leave the game because you ignored them though. Something as simple as "we read your feedback, but our marketing division has concluded that 200Z is the proper price" would have sufficed to say "we aren't ignoring you" instead what do we get? silence... utter and complete silence... so yes we are being ignored.
it creates a horrible push back on charge up powers and gravity well makes it damn near impossible for grond to effectively use his best powers since be's "Bouncing all around". some people arent even trying to get villain tokens, they just attack other villains. you need to fix this.
In fact as it exists now, I don't even care to waste my time on Onslaught in its poorly-implemented state.
Personally I hope nobody buys that insta-level junk at ANY price. Maybe if the cost exceeds the revenue, the bean counters will nix any further misapplication of resources in the future.
People are broken. - Lum the Mad
People are broken. - Lum the Mad
Not going to have to type a lot to explain these overpriced items. First off, your whale aren't buying all these overpriced items. They aren't spending money on freeforms because more than not, they have a LTS. I've seen tons of people in this small forum community with the old Vanguard title. Are they all whales? Maybe...but doubtful. So spending $300 isn't a whale, check that off
Freeform...whales arent buying these either. Now that they are LTS they have endless freeforms, so check that overpriced item off as well.
Which brings me to catalyst....with all the mods from lockboxes, I hope that no whale is that stupid to buy one. I highly doubt anyone is out there buying these. I would love to see CO's numbers (which we won't) on how many of those rank 9s they have ever sold. Most players will tell you Rank 7 is just as good and the way mods shoot out of those lockboxes you could easily build one in no time.
Costumes, they jacked the prices up but the biggest seller is also the most expensive. Your average player is buying the most expensive costume set. So are these prices really too high? It doesn't seem so.
Last item...cosmic keys. Regardless of how many keys a whale buys, these items are cheap enough for the average player and you can open just one and get the best stuff out of them; You can also open many and get nothing. Some of the biggest whales in this game buy keys with globals, they are spending tons of Globals on them. Maybe a player doesn't want to gamble, then you can sell those keys 100-200 and actually just buy the item from the AH. Maybe whales are buying tons of keys with zen, but then the market within a week gets so overloaded with these lockbox items inside that they get cheaper and cheaper. So if these whales are buying tons of keys then they are really helping lower the AH market then.
So once again, there isn't anything of value in the cstore that is aimed at just whales, maybe they wish it was. But most of the items in there your average player is buying. The others that are so extreme in price need to be lowered, so the people they are aimed at can afford it.
And I typed more than I wanted...
Raighn Said:
One last thing... {By definition the devs have in fact been ignoring us... however I'm inclined to say that's PWEs doing... PWE has a long track record of ignoring their fans... it's one of the reasons that many of us were rather upset to hear the news that Atarii was selling Cryptic to PWE when it happened... Many of us were aware that the changes we've been seeing over the past several years were going to happen and that the game was going to take a turn for the worse as a result...
Whether or not the devs decided against following our advice in our feedback is not in question, what's in question is why they continue to ignore us. If they don't intend to ignore us they should at least acknowledge our feedback, and if they can't/won't do something how the players think it should be they should at least tell us that much. It won't kill us to be told "no" by the devs... Players aren't going to leave the game just because you said "no" to something, players will leave the game because you ignored them though. Something as simple as "we read your feedback, but our marketing division has concluded that 200Z is the proper price" would have sufficed to say "we aren't ignoring you" instead what do we get? silence... utter and complete silence... so yes we are being ignored.}
@raighn Thank god, someone gets it!, I can't thank you enough, just really thank you, Im so glad that you was able to understand it,THIS IS THE TRUTH PEOPLE!
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Anyways... you need to take a good hard look at the C-Store... is there anything in there that you as an average player would buy at it's current price point? I'm willing to bet that Costumes & Travel Powers are the only thing the average players sees as being of value... and again, some will buy keys at 100z, but most would rather buy in-game and let someone else buy them from the c-store... What does this tell you? Keys are not worth the value placed on them. If your lockboxes are abundant &/or only a chance drop then you have to sell keys in low-cost bundles to make them have value to the players... If we only had to spend $10 to open 50 boxes then I assure you keys will be bought off the C-store far more often than they do now and by more players... <10% of the population buying 50 keys for $50 vs >50% of the population buying 50 keys for $10 which is going to bring in more revanue? 50 keys for $10 will... Sell Catalyss in bundles and they too will see a higher selling point from the average player. It's fine to put some things in the c-store for big spenders, but when everything is over-priced you've got a problem...
XP-Boosts? Too expensive for such little benefit.
Become Devices? Niche market, mostly bought by big spenders
Party Bombs? Does anyone ever buy these anyway?
Energy/Defense/Damage/Resource/Star Boost/Replenish? So abundant and easily obtained in game that no one buys them anyway, plus the price points on several of them were too high to begin with.
Keys? Too expensive to buy in bulk, not of value due to low chance of getting an item of worth from the lockbox.
Catalysts? Way too expensive to buy in bulk, all below R8 are devalued by high drop rates from lockboxes and alerts.
Costumes? Unnessisary price increase, prefered purchase over keys for lockboxes to many
Travel Powers? One of the only reasonably priced items
ATs? Largely ignored, should honestly just have all ATs available to silver for free
FF slot? Overpriced, bought only by big spenders, the average player would rather save for an LTS or pay monthly
Character Slot? Resonably priced, but would do better to sell individual slots at half price...
Account Service Tokens? Too expensive for most, however this is countered by the perception that you need only buy 1 or 2 at any given time... until your find yourself forced to buy 10-15 retrain tokens due to subsription lapses... (yes, it happens)
Hideouts? Would be worth the cost if they would ever finish them.
Vehicles? Too expensive for the average player, at $10~$20 each the average player would expect 1 per character (as is the case in other MMOs with mounts)
Sidekicks? Niche market, mostly bought by big spenders
Hideout bank slots? I'm sorry but I have to say those prices are a joke... and who thought that anyone would ever buy 1 slot at a time?
Costume Slots? Per character slots are unnessisary, the account wide is perfect... more like this.
Aura Slots? It's a good thing that most characters only need 1-2 aura's... otherwise that per-character price tag would be over-kill...
Bag slots? I don't think too many people even know these exist...
And good god, I hope this was a joke. It's called Zen and they can buy it hourly to do that. But I don't believe someone who is dropping loads of money isn't going to buy a LT, we will just have to agree to disagree on that one.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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I would like to be able to train or remove powers there.
I'd like to be able to test damage on a combat dummy.
I'd like to be able to have private duels.
I'd like to be able to sell my stuff.
I would like to access my regular bank account and super group bank accounts.
I've been hopping to do these things for a long time but hideouts have been put on the back burner and I doubt they'll ever be completed.