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Which archetypes should be silver to garner more new players?
finalslaps
Posts: 198 Arc User
So currently they are:
Blade
Glacier
Behemoth
Soldier
Radiant
Mind
Grimoire
Inferno
Unleashed
But I think they should be:
Invincible: Because Defender is the iconic Champions hero new players would be asking, hey why can't we play as that guy on the front cover?
Blade: Sure bring on the anime/ninja crowds
Devastator: Bring on the "I want to have a big weapon" people from other MMOs.
Grimoire: Got to have your spellcasters for a typical MMO.
Mind: Telepathy! Of course.
Soldier: GI Joe. Nuff said.
Behemoth: Bring on the Superman and Hulk clones.
Radiant: People that want to play a healer "class"
Marksman: For the ranger/hunter players and for Green Arrow wannabes
Blade
Glacier
Behemoth
Soldier
Radiant
Mind
Grimoire
Inferno
Unleashed
But I think they should be:
Invincible: Because Defender is the iconic Champions hero new players would be asking, hey why can't we play as that guy on the front cover?
Blade: Sure bring on the anime/ninja crowds
Devastator: Bring on the "I want to have a big weapon" people from other MMOs.
Grimoire: Got to have your spellcasters for a typical MMO.
Mind: Telepathy! Of course.
Soldier: GI Joe. Nuff said.
Behemoth: Bring on the Superman and Hulk clones.
Radiant: People that want to play a healer "class"
Marksman: For the ranger/hunter players and for Green Arrow wannabes
Post edited by finalslaps on
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Comments
From a player-perspective, I believe all of the archetypes should be free for silver players. It wouldn't hurt anything that I can see (as I can't see their volume numbers) and it might act as bait to get more silvers into the game and spending money on the cash shop.
From a business-perspective, they want more paying customers and not more free players who can't/won't even purchase an archetype unlock. (The best indication that someone is willing to spend money on your product is, well, them spending money on your product.)
There is no such thing as a free lunch. If you aren't paying for it, you aren't the customer; you are the product being sold.
Dollar, dollar, bill, yo. Cash rules everything around you and me.
If you could make a choice between two powers each time you got a new power, I could see it then but, paying to play something where you have virtually no choices at all just isn't much of an enticement to me.
Edit: Giving people a choice between one of two spec trees wouldn't hurt either.
I understand where you are coming from but I think that the spec trees, advantage points, travel powers, and the two power choices that an AT does get are much more than, "virtually no choices at all."
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
Differing opinions then. I played ATs when I first started playing CO and found it very limiting. Limiting enough that I had no interest in paying for more of the same.
Understood.
I played several ATs in the process of testing in order to write guides (or assist others who were doing the writing in some cases) for them and found some pretty customizable and enjoyable even before the addition of spec trees and the like.
There are some pretty interesting variations available to some of the ATs through specs, advantages and such.
Still, for what its worth, I would have rather seen each AT provided the option to choose either an offensive or defensive passive (with appropriate role choice) for even more variety.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
I don't think all premium ATs should be free (maybe Devastator and Cursed since most people I know got theirs for free) but I do think they should tweak the Premium ATs some more. A reliable self-heal goes a long way for the casual player.
Not sure if op is trolling, or doesn't realize he just described whats already free....
That's kind of what I meant.
Some of them don't have multiple options for appropriate passives but others, like invincible, do and I think it'd be nice if they could choose between invuln and targetting computer as well as get choices in offensive or defensive specs as well as letting them make a few other choices between one power or another.
The only problem is that CO don't has content like maybe LotRO, so they can't sell that to
the players.
On the other hand, i think nobody here knows how much money they make with ATs and
Grab-Bags / Lockboxes .. and without that its hard to give tips.
This is intentional. And its' not hiding the best part of the game from them. They get to see it every time they team with a freeform (usually in alerts or nemcon), every time they duel a freeform and every time they see one running missions.
They are the inferior option by design and intent. Gameplay makes this perfectly obvious to anyone who bothers paying attention.
They want your money. And one of the best ways to get you to spend that money is to show you how awesome you'd be if you gave them your money. (Which is why I'm perfectly fine with having all the archetypes be freely available. They are the inferior option, and so you shouldn't have to pay for them. You should only pay for the good stuff. :biggrin: )
There is no such thing as a free lunch. If you aren't paying for it, you aren't the customer; you are the product being sold.
Dollar, dollar, bill, yo. Cash rules everything around you and me.
Pretty much. At the time of this post, the OP basically only amounts to "The Invincible and The Devastator aren't free but they should be."
I'm kinda with nazaca on this one, but I say that with no idea how many ATs they manage to sell.
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Wait? Whaaaa..?
Yes, The Devastator and Viking Warrior costume set really are essentially free.
For those who are just now joining up. Enjoy.
The OP typed out the existing and proposed lists. He dropped Glacier, Inferno and Unleashed in favor of Invincible, Devastator and Marksman.
I'm more not sure on the reasoning than on the OPs presentation. He's dropping martial arts and fire in favor of big weapons and archery? Those choices would probably alienate as many as it entices. Now adding his three new choices to the free list might be a good idea.
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So, with the easy availability of free Devastator, that leaves only Invincible as a proposed free AT. Would that really draw in that many more new players? And if it would, given the astonishing lack of publicity this game gets, how would they know about it?
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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If you look at it from a marketing standpoint, what gets a lot of people to really desire a freeform character is their own imagination. One of the things that got me really hyped about freeform was thinking about ways that I could combine archetypes, like combining the blade and the specialist, or small changes I could make that would turn say the Behemoth from a lumbering tank into an unstoppable dps powerhouse, or an inferno into the greatest tank ever! The more archetypes you give folks access to, the more opportunities you give for that spark of the imagination that further fuels their desire for that FF slot... perhaps fueling it enough to get them to shell out a few dollars for it. If you get them excited enough, they might decide that one slot isn't enough, and buy multiples or just subscribe outright.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
Being able to play the closest thing to Iron Man/War Machine this game can muster in a free format? You bet your socks it'll draw people in. How will the word spread? The same way people knew about The Unleashed last year: Steam news update.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
btw everything but a subscription is potentially free in the game
Attempt #1 at CO after CoH was a dead game walking was with a Marksman, limited haven't-hit-10-yet costume and everything.
I'd love to see a (free) silver AT with some method of self healing since that's apparently what gets you through the defend or survive for X minutes encounters. I've heard good things about the Savage and just recently bought it, if it turns out to be good and then magically goes free in a week I won't complain too much since having a scrapper-ish AT would help pull in some CoHers. The Devastator at least feels like you've got one of your armor toggles turned on and sorta slotted up. The Blade just felt really squishy. My Night Avenger (melee) is like a glass razor blade, great at splortching one big baddy but throw a couple villains at for a few waves and down goes the NA.
Soldier technically has healing as well via spec trees. Kill dudes, get healed.
Marksman's healing is in the passive, but limits overall performance due to sacrificing R3 of Quarry for the health-on-kill advantage which scales with Con.
I like that most of the Silver ATs cover the basics of all the MMO staple classes and the Premium ATs fill in niches that aren't covered by the Silver ATs... that being said, I'd support The Specialist and The Tempest becoming Silver ATs to give players a taste of an offensive-hybrids and raw DPS.
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All AT's are free if said silver player puts enough effort in. GRIND FOR THAT Q \o/
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!
Yes, because we know that forcing someone to grind away every day at things like alerts and Gravitar to earn enough Q to buy another character slot and unlock an AT is a surefire way to keep them playing.
Before I got my LTS just after the launch of On Alert I grinded like a boss ..SO MUCH GRIND..actually not so much about a week of dailys and nemcoms and I had enough zen for the Inventor and Master AT's.
I am saying this way all AT's are free from my own experience, not as a gold saying no to more things free.
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!
OK so let me get this straight:
1. You don't want to grind to get Q to exchange for Z-points (essentially not paying)
2. You don't want to spend real money to buy an Arch-type (highly doubt you'd buy a sub then)
SO, with that in mind, basically you want more stuff while spending neither time nor money....:rolleyes:
You realize that for most games there is stuff you cannot gain/have without actually paying. In CO you can in fact get anything you want from the Zen Store if you spend sufficient time.
No offense but if your idea of "Cryptic keeping you playing" is for them to give everything away for free then keep dreaming. What do you think keeps the servers up? Rainbows and fairy dust?
Actually, I do sub. I do this for a couple reasons.
ATs aren't worth paying for.
I wanted to play freeform.
A freeform slot is not worth $50
I like getting a free character slot when I hit level cap and like getting the additional costume pieces.
I do actually do the Q grind as well to supplement my stipend but, only when I feel like it. We both know that at the current exchange rate, it would take a LOT of grinding to get enough Zen to unlock something that costs around 1,000 Zen. I don't think it's out of line to say that there's probably a fair amount of people that want to try various ATs and/or freeform that get sick of the Q grind before they reach their goal.
You'd need to earn just under 200,000 Q to have enough zen to unlock one AT. You'd need to earn roughly another 275,000 Q to unlock a character slot to play it on. The alternative is spending $25, or some mix between the two. If someone were to do this entirely through grinding Q and only had two characters it would take them roughly a month.
There's also the fact that, as a monthly subscriber, I can withdraw my funding from Cryptic if I grow disatisfied with their product.
To answer your question, what I think will keep the servers going is quality products at reasonable enough prices to entice people to give their money to Cryptic.
Good enough answer for you?
Very much so as this is pretty much how business works. Produce a product that people want at a price they can/are willing to pay.
Pretty much the only reasons that AT's exist (IMO) are:
CO didn't have enough content gate/sell at the time the decision was made to go F2P.
And
Dividing the playerbase by gating content, when they couldnt be sure how many people would be drawn into CO F2P, would exacerbate one of the game's biggest problems at that time...a sense of emptiness.
So Cryptic had to figure out something else to sell, without ticking off their existing subscribers (because even if subscriptions alone were not sufficient to keep the game going Cryptic couldn't afford to lose them).
So character variety was chosen. This seemed to preserve some value for subscription, give incentive for silvers to convert to gold if they liked the game, and gave dedicated silvers something to spend money on.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
Some of the things available for sale on the store aren't that bad. Problem is they have no idea how to price items. There are times when I look through the Z store and some of those items make me wish I knew how to get their dealer's number because they are getting the good stuff. The kind of stuff that makes you giggle at a blank wall.
Agreed, but keep in mind that many of those, "not bad," things in the store were added later over a period of more than a year. The C-Store at F2P launch had a real scarcity of items beyond AT's.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
A freeform slot is actually worth $50, people just don't get that it's not targeted towards people who want to play more than 1 freeform character.
The mistake people make is thinking that they need x freeform slots and then they do x*50 which is admittedly absurd. The point is that the 50$ purchase is meant to be a 1 time thing. It's solely for those who want to play 1 freeform character.
The point is that you will get a freeform slot for ever without having to sub.
Think about it this way. Let's say I'm a player and I have a concept that I solely play. The issue is that I need freeform to make that concept. So now I have the option to sub ~15$/month or LTS = 300$. The LTS is clearly not the option for me since I only intend to play 1 character and the monthly sub would cost quite a bit over a year 15*12= 180$. So there is the free form slot which costs 50$ and will be free for as long as the game lasts. The $50 one is clearly the winner here.
Do you see now why the freeform slot is worth it? It might not be for you but it's meant for a very specific purpose. There are people in CO who play only one character (or at least were).
Regarding Q farming.....well I can make 200k in about 2-3 days (probably faster if I really really wanted to; depends on the days though). I'm not sure why this is that difficult for you.
It's a fantastic feature, how many games out there have something like this. Obviously it requires time but hey, not everything is for free, there has to be a tradeoff.
However since all of my characters are follow the same line of story. I don't have much problem with the Store Archetype, but I do have the problem with FFS, since my dream of trying one is so far of my own reach
But back to the topic................ I believe some of the store Archetype do make a good teacher to silver and I do found...........
The invincible to be the coolest one for robotic characters and powers
Savage Best for monster and beast characters, sustain hybrid can teach silver the hybrid melee gameplay while there is only a range Hybrid as free
The Fist, since I rarely see people play them but people can play for some melee martial arts if they can't wait for Master
So there goes my list of ideas............. but I do have more than 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!
1. It should be SUPER DUPER FREEFORM
2. Rainbow flight is replaced by the troll face flight. (I still can't believe they added something like rainbow flight.....it's grotesque IMO :rolleyes:)
I would fling my wallet at the screen for 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!
First off, I don't have a problem getting questionite. Please point to where I said otherwise.
Second off, that statement is deliberately misleading and we both know it. So you can get 200k questionite in 2-3 days. Good for you. You can't do much with it in those 2-3 days though, can you? This would be because the exchange does not accept ore and that is what's earned in game. You have to refine it first. There is a limit on how much you can refine in a single day. That limit is 8k per character. That amounts to 16k per day for someone with a silver account farming on two characters. That means that it takes roughly 30 days to earn enough zen to get all the unlocks needed to play another AT unless someone deletes one of their current characters. So... care to try again?
I thought rainbow flight was the troll flight. That's about all I see it used for in game.
Patience is a virtue.
OH and for the record I have always been for the Inventor being a freebie AT so there are more support toons in teams.
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!
1. You can in fact change your emanation points. The only thing you are lacking is color (no idea why they did not include it in the FF slot)
2. LOL, I don't need to try to do anything. I'm content with my LTS status and have all I need so I don't really have to prove or disprove anything to you. You somehow think this is some sort of competition regarding who proves what.
I don't get you. If you are Gold then why exactly are you complaining regarding the FFS and AT prices? You have access to all the AT's. If you are Silver then yeah your complaining makes sense since you don't get everything for free and without any hassle as you'd want it to be.
Try DCUO out, I'm sure you'll love the amount of stuff that's free there. No amount of farming will get you their Expansions nor the Costume sets or anything in their cash shop. It's all real money how about that ? People easily forget to put CO in perspective with other MMOs.
I'm not complaining. I'm stating opinions. My opinions are that ATs are not worth paying for, a freeform character slot is not worth $50, and that a lot of the items in the Z store are priced poorly. I'm sorry you can't grasp that and have to assume that I'm only talking about myself.
No thanks. I know a crap game when I see one and I think that perhaps you forgot the point where I said I am a paying subscriber. If I had an issue with paying money to play this game, I wouldn't be paying to play this game, would I?
What is there to sell in CO though. If people don't bother with a sub what is left? There has to be something to sell to those who don't sub and that's what AT's are. The sheer fact that you can get Zen without paying makes the entire Z Store practically cost nothing but time.
What you are not grasping is that:
1. Nobody forces you to purchase anything
2. You can get everything in the Z Store by simply playing the game (Q exchange). Can you tell me of 1 other game that allows for something like this? (I know of none)
Now if that's not a great deal I don't know what is.
And yeah DCUO is crap. The maps look nice though :P.
I'm actually quite aware of this. Please refer back to my comment about being able to withdraw my support of this game as a monthly subscriber.
The question is a matter of player retention.
On this we can agree.
I like the cut of your jib.
Wait? Whaaaa..?
Inferno, Glacier don't have much concepts. Unleashed seemed to mix up powers from different sets giving it a more "Gold" built feature than anything (it also a very oddball of the ATs obviously mimicking a Jedi on the release of SWTOR).
And shares it's name with a Star Wars game.
1. Pretty much, you're right. What kind of a fun game that told you to must buy things from the marketplace. Your play and it's your right to decided to buy or not
2. Like this one. Gold only have the options for a month and continue as they sub, while Silver can be like them but longer and 1 time buy.
Many games I played don't have this exchange options, some PWE games has this options only they are just a little expansive to trade. While in CO it's a Freedom for all. Marketplace items maybe expansive but, hey it's an easy Zen. And this what keep me playing
In terms of allurement, I found that The Inventor AT was alot of fun to play. I did purchase almost all of the AT's apart from Scourge, Void and Fist AT.
I played all of the rest of the AT's to at least level 30 (as well as purchasing character slots).
The AT's which I reckon should be free for Silver would be two of the following:
- Inventor AT
- Tempest AT
- Specialist AT
Why?
I think I had the most fun with these three AT's. Perhaps given a trial basis like the AT rotation programme could be run again. And then a count to see how many people voted for an AT based on the result a P2P AT would be released to the Silver Population.
Why is that a bad idea?
Perhaps because it doesnt benefit everyone only the Silver Population. And those of the Silver Pop who may have previously purchased this AT arent rewarded at all.
Also I cannot remember who said this but AT's are an extremely narrow view to see CO. Which is why even now I am learning more and more about CO to which I wasnt aware about when I was a Silver player.
Perhaps if AT's were fitted with more flexibility in a number of ways:
- Being given a list of stats but being able to choose which one of the three they want, for example:
MIND AT - PRESENCE, Endurance and Ego. <-- An AT player could now switch the Primary Super Stat with any of the other stats out of END and EGO.
OR better yet for a small price (e.g. 80 Zen?) They could switch out their primary stat for any other stat they wanted, like:
- BEHEMOTH AT - CONSTITUTION, Strength and Recovery + paying 80 Zen = Being able to switch to STRENGTH, Consitiution and Intelligence or Con, Dex and Int etc
- Allowing AT's to choose specs.
I remember reading about someone saying the lack of DR on AT's could be replaced with being able to pick one or two extra open slot powers and then having AT's suffer from DR like everyone else.
@finalslaps: What do you mean "Glacier and Inferno don't have much concepts"? Clearly you haven't seen superheroes like Human Torch, Iceman etc. Whilst Inferno might be the weakest AT compared to others in it's class it has a concept just like all other AT's.
As haleakala said adding Invicible, Devestator to the list of free AT's would be better than removing them. Because people are going to pay for Inferno as much as they would pay for Impulse AT...which is needless to say more of a knock gimmick AT than a practical AT, although it is getting a little better.
Rather than handing out a P2P AT to silver population, improvement to existing AT's would be more welcome and -then- consider the prospect of handing out an AT to the Silver pop.
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For another, the Unleashed is obviously a Jedi with the serial numbers filed off - and Jedi have that Force Leap thing going on, too. Leaping across a space into a crowd is perfectly in keeping with the style, and a lot less frustrating..
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