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rasmenar2112
Member Posts: 7 Arc User
1) First thing's first: One of the biggest things that was stated is that this game will not be Pay to Win. However, how do you realistically expect max-level characters to get high end enchantments? Overall, it's around $160 (high end) for a max level enchantment. At 450 AD per 1 zen, That's 7,200,000 AD to accomplish a single max enchantment. At 24k MAX AD per day, that's 300 days. For one enchantment. ONE. 300 days worth of grinding will not be viewed as worth it to the playerbase who cannot afford $160 for the enchantment, so those FEW players who can will have a significant advantage over the rest of their competitors.
2) If things are reasonably priced, people will buy them. I myself own about 30 or so League of Legends skins, and I've bought them over the course of about 2.5 years. I have never spent money on a champion, I have 102 unlocked. I feel like ~$7 for a skin is reasonable since it only has to be bought once and it's on my account forever. That's an example of reasonable pricing.
What's not reasonable is expecting players to pay $5 every time they feel the urge to re-spec, or $5 for an extra bag on ONE character (or farm for 2 weeks to get enough AD to convert to zen for said items. If it were a bag PER character, $5 might be worth it). Since the AD-Zen conversion rate is fueled by player trade, I am HOPING that prices will drop over time as more people farm AD. Crafting boosters are vastly overpriced as well considering that they are a consumable.
Cosmetic and non-combat items are where you can afford to have prices the way they are. $30-$40 for a mount is well beyond my budget, but I'm not opposed to grinding for something as awesome as a mount, and dropping some cash to speed up the grind. I played a warlock in vanilla WoW and I devoted a great many weeks to getting my epic mount. It was worth it in the end. The same applies to town clothes, followers, character slots, all things that are non-essential. Bags are not completely essential, but overpriced for what you get out of them currently.
3) It must also be noted that the things you have available are WELL outside of the budgets of many players. You need to introduce things in the $5 range as well. $5 is easy to afford for most people at least a couple times a month, and if they are purchasing something that LASTS on their account (not a consumable like crafting stuff or a respec token), people might greatly consider a $5 investment for a long-term reward.
The game is in open beta, you guys probably know that you'd have to introduce more Zen store content and adjust prices eventually. Right now, your game is not affordable to a large portion of your playerbase.
The rest of this post is directed at Perfect World. Your company is starting SLOWLY to climb up again. This has been reflected recently by the rise of your stock prices. However, it is NOWHERE near where it used to be and you have a long way to go. If you want to have even a snowball's chance of recovering not only your profit but your reputation, you need to realize that you are marketing to a crowd that normally plays on a budget. Many of these players would enjoy an opportunity to turn that budget into a monthly subscription. They're not going to want it if all that they get out of it is a stipend of Zen, you have to provide other incentives. Maybe 3 extra character slots for subscribers, and a free starting bag. Subscription income is reliable and consistant.
This part is at the community: Keep making threads like this. White knights and diehard fanboys will come from out of the woodworks to attack your opinions, offering flawed justifications because they do not understand smart business. Do what I do: Ignore them. The more attention subjects like this receive, the more likely it is that Cryptic and PWI will take action. Take heart from the recent un-nerf of Foundry XP: They read these forums, they listen to their players.
2) If things are reasonably priced, people will buy them. I myself own about 30 or so League of Legends skins, and I've bought them over the course of about 2.5 years. I have never spent money on a champion, I have 102 unlocked. I feel like ~$7 for a skin is reasonable since it only has to be bought once and it's on my account forever. That's an example of reasonable pricing.
What's not reasonable is expecting players to pay $5 every time they feel the urge to re-spec, or $5 for an extra bag on ONE character (or farm for 2 weeks to get enough AD to convert to zen for said items. If it were a bag PER character, $5 might be worth it). Since the AD-Zen conversion rate is fueled by player trade, I am HOPING that prices will drop over time as more people farm AD. Crafting boosters are vastly overpriced as well considering that they are a consumable.
Cosmetic and non-combat items are where you can afford to have prices the way they are. $30-$40 for a mount is well beyond my budget, but I'm not opposed to grinding for something as awesome as a mount, and dropping some cash to speed up the grind. I played a warlock in vanilla WoW and I devoted a great many weeks to getting my epic mount. It was worth it in the end. The same applies to town clothes, followers, character slots, all things that are non-essential. Bags are not completely essential, but overpriced for what you get out of them currently.
3) It must also be noted that the things you have available are WELL outside of the budgets of many players. You need to introduce things in the $5 range as well. $5 is easy to afford for most people at least a couple times a month, and if they are purchasing something that LASTS on their account (not a consumable like crafting stuff or a respec token), people might greatly consider a $5 investment for a long-term reward.
The game is in open beta, you guys probably know that you'd have to introduce more Zen store content and adjust prices eventually. Right now, your game is not affordable to a large portion of your playerbase.
The rest of this post is directed at Perfect World. Your company is starting SLOWLY to climb up again. This has been reflected recently by the rise of your stock prices. However, it is NOWHERE near where it used to be and you have a long way to go. If you want to have even a snowball's chance of recovering not only your profit but your reputation, you need to realize that you are marketing to a crowd that normally plays on a budget. Many of these players would enjoy an opportunity to turn that budget into a monthly subscription. They're not going to want it if all that they get out of it is a stipend of Zen, you have to provide other incentives. Maybe 3 extra character slots for subscribers, and a free starting bag. Subscription income is reliable and consistant.
This part is at the community: Keep making threads like this. White knights and diehard fanboys will come from out of the woodworks to attack your opinions, offering flawed justifications because they do not understand smart business. Do what I do: Ignore them. The more attention subjects like this receive, the more likely it is that Cryptic and PWI will take action. Take heart from the recent un-nerf of Foundry XP: They read these forums, they listen to their players.
Alone in the darkness, that is where you truly discover yourself. Without self, without the core of your identity, you are nothing. - Rasmenar
Post edited by rasmenar2112 on
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In other words...Shiat costs $40 Bucks cause people are spending $40 bucks on it! Sheeesh people. It is simple economics.
If NO ONE WAS BUYING THE STUFF - IT WOULD COST LESS!!!!
Gawd...
The concern is, the conflictive interests between being financially solvent versus building a fair game. A difficult dialectic, indeed.
D&D is both a storytelling game and a wargame, even when this yang-and-yin are conflictive.
In terms of pricing revenues, the D&D player needs to determine both the physical appearance and the choice of mechanics. This is why respecking either of these is a concern. The storyteller and the wargamer need easy access to decide, experiment, and change.
It seems to me, items like mounts, exotic companions - features external to the hero oneself - seem truly useful, valuable, and still fair to charge real money.
Yet, I would like players who are artists to design figures and faces, and create clothing and items, and sell these to other players. Maybe there is a reasonable way to charge a “consignment fee” for any transactions in Zen. Possibly, it could be done thru the Foundry as the venue.
Just because something has a particular zen cost doesn't mean that is automatically the dollar cost. The conversion of AD to Zen is actually 380 last I checked so it is falling precipitously. Of course if you want to tout numbers that are grossly overexagerrated to make your point to get things cheaper you can do that, but its not the reality of it either.
The reality is you get a TON of Rank 3-4 enchantment drops at level 60 that you can combine together for free. If you want to buy everythign you need from the shop it will cost as much as you said, but that isn't realistic. Also you are talking about the BEST enchantments in the game and you are complaining why you can't have them after a couple weeks.
This is just a bunch of greedy people complaining about how they can't have everything handed to them on day one. Play the game and enjoy it instead of making it sound like they are punishing you by not letting you have it all on the first day unless you are willing to pay some money.
Thought it was 1% for the very top enchants?
Of course even 5% is basically forcing players to buy the cash shop item.
I think he means 5% chance for the blue ward to come out the celestial box.
Smoke@stonedbill - Mindflayer - 60 Rogue
If you sit there and grind 300 days for gear that will be out-dated/obsolete the day after you actually can afford to buy it you are a moron and you are killing yourself for no reason.
The proper way to play these F2P games is to have one main account, and a bunch of other accounts botting and farming stuff to feed the one main account.
Ethics are irrelevant, its a video game no one is injured by your botting except "emotionally" because they can't "keep up" with you.
Botting will make your game playable, and enjoyable and you will get in, have fun, not suffer and be board/annoyed and then when the game is too easy you leave.
Botters tend to treat the game as a single player online experience, people who buy stuff to "win"faster are doing the same exact thing.... there is no difference from the game-play side/user to user experience between grouping with a botter and grouping with a donator/cheater/pay to win dude.
If the prices bother you that much, create another account and start botting, its as simple as that.