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The cash shop dilemma: an objective analysis...
therealdestian
Member Posts: 92
The way I see it, there are three issues that arise with the current implementation of the cash shop:
Issue #1: There is not enough purchasable content to make a player feel unique
I realize this is only an open beta, but even people who are relatively new to MMOs would probably tell you that what players value above all else in an MMO is to express themselves and assert their individuality, especially in what is otherwise a sea of commonality.
There aren't enough unique mounts, companions and there is an extreme lack of costumes for sale. I realize this is open beta, but where the HELL are all the costume variations? I was astonished to see there were only three available in the zen shop. Seriously? Three? Even TF2's cash shop launched with more hats than that.
The solution:
Kick the art team in the pants and get us more content! This is the safest money you can be making money (ie money spent on cosmetic items) so you should be grabbing it for all it's worth.
Your armor designs are AMAZING! It'll be impossible to resist some clever and awesome costumes!
Issue #2: The ability to pay for advantage drives a wedge between the player base
Whether it's paying for extra character slots so you can get extra astral diamonds and profession packs from invoking on more characters, or buying enchant wards to get an easy ride to enchants that have a 30% chance to stun on crit, it IS possible to turn real money into a sizable advantage in this game (and being able to bypass months of farming is definitely an advantage).
The problem is that this places an extreme amount of value on the high-spending player while ignoring the lower-spending player (note I said LOWER, not NO spending) who still has a great deal of value to the MMO because remember: in an MMO, players = content.
Players are what fill your dungeons, PvP matches, guilds, AHs, etc., and let's face it "massively multiplayer" games don't feel very massive on servers with low populations.
Furthermore, going back to issue #1, looking and feeling unique is more relevant when there are more players around, especially players who haven't made the same purchases. Who wants to bother acquiring a nightmare mount when nearly everyone still playing already has one?
The solution:
1. Make it more realistic to farm up wards in a reasonable time. People who want them fast and now will still pay for them, but people who can't afford to buy them with real money won't be daunted to the point of quitting at the thought of trying to farm them, and like I said earlier, these people probably still spend money AND they're content for your high-paying players.
2. Shift more focus off of making players pay for quality of life items (like respecs and character slots) and more toward cosmetic items, starting with giving players 2-3 more character slots (if people already bought slots, hey, they have more classes coming so they've lost nothing) and making respecs buyable with a reasonable amount of AD for your level.
Anyone who says that players need to be able to buy power or they won't pay haven't seen the spending that happens in TF2's cash shop (or LoL's cosmetic items): Players dump thousands upon thousands of dollars into keys in TF2 so they can acquire hats with particle effects that do absolutely NOTHING to increase their power and that they can't even SEE while they play the game. Players will pay out the nose to look unique and they'll do so without driving a "power wedge" in the playerbase.
3. Add "cosmetic lockboxes" that can be opened with keys but can contain purely costume items with some ultra-rare costume items. Seriously, WHY is this not in the game yet? It rakes in cash but drives no wedge.
Issue #3: Paying for advantage leads to massive turnover and eventual low population
A player reaches level 60 and starts PvPing. S/he quickly realizes that players who are willing to dump in the cash can buy a sizable advantage in PvP. At this point, they have three options:
1. Pony up the cash.
2. Deal with losing for weeks/months while they farm for the wards themselves.
3. Quit (the most likely option).
The problem here is that this cycle is going to repeat itself until the only players left are going to be players with the advantage anyway, meaning all the players who were only sticking around because they had the paying advantage won't have it any longer. No longer having fun "owning it up" in PvP, they'll probably leave as well.
The solution: Make the grind more tolerable
This is the part where people are going to chime in and say "LOL! THEY JUST DON'T WANT TO WORK FOR THEIR ENCHANTS!!!".
First of all, neither do the people who buy them with zen.
Second, it's not that they do NOT want to work but that they DO want to spend their leisure time having FUN and grinding for months is the opposite of fun. Ergo, they're more likely to quit the game instead of stick around and grind.
Again, it's not at all necessary to make this an advantage that is only acquirable through either months of grinding or a cash payment up front. You will make more money on a large playerbase buying cosmetic items than a small playerbase buying expensive items, especially when the expensive buyers are more likely to stick around when they feel more unique for making their purchases.
In conclusion...
-The cash shop needs more stuff, especially costumes, of which there are currently only three.
-Costume lockboxes need to be added to the game that function much like TF2's crates: contain a random costume item with a chance at an ultra-rare costume item that can ONLY be obtained from crates.
-The grind for endgame enchants needs to be toned down to a realistic level to encourage more players to stick around to do it because players are the most important content an MMO can have and, even if these players aren't dumping huge amounts of money, they're still probably putting money into the game and encouraging their friends to play it. While having the best enchants is primarily a PvP issue, it would still make a MASSIVE difference in PvE as well.
-NW will rake in far, FAR more money if the playerbase doesn't have a power divide driven through it. Cosmetics are and always will be the REAL money maker AND they can do so without the power wedge.
Issue #1: There is not enough purchasable content to make a player feel unique
I realize this is only an open beta, but even people who are relatively new to MMOs would probably tell you that what players value above all else in an MMO is to express themselves and assert their individuality, especially in what is otherwise a sea of commonality.
There aren't enough unique mounts, companions and there is an extreme lack of costumes for sale. I realize this is open beta, but where the HELL are all the costume variations? I was astonished to see there were only three available in the zen shop. Seriously? Three? Even TF2's cash shop launched with more hats than that.
The solution:
Kick the art team in the pants and get us more content! This is the safest money you can be making money (ie money spent on cosmetic items) so you should be grabbing it for all it's worth.
Your armor designs are AMAZING! It'll be impossible to resist some clever and awesome costumes!
Issue #2: The ability to pay for advantage drives a wedge between the player base
Whether it's paying for extra character slots so you can get extra astral diamonds and profession packs from invoking on more characters, or buying enchant wards to get an easy ride to enchants that have a 30% chance to stun on crit, it IS possible to turn real money into a sizable advantage in this game (and being able to bypass months of farming is definitely an advantage).
The problem is that this places an extreme amount of value on the high-spending player while ignoring the lower-spending player (note I said LOWER, not NO spending) who still has a great deal of value to the MMO because remember: in an MMO, players = content.
Players are what fill your dungeons, PvP matches, guilds, AHs, etc., and let's face it "massively multiplayer" games don't feel very massive on servers with low populations.
Furthermore, going back to issue #1, looking and feeling unique is more relevant when there are more players around, especially players who haven't made the same purchases. Who wants to bother acquiring a nightmare mount when nearly everyone still playing already has one?
The solution:
1. Make it more realistic to farm up wards in a reasonable time. People who want them fast and now will still pay for them, but people who can't afford to buy them with real money won't be daunted to the point of quitting at the thought of trying to farm them, and like I said earlier, these people probably still spend money AND they're content for your high-paying players.
2. Shift more focus off of making players pay for quality of life items (like respecs and character slots) and more toward cosmetic items, starting with giving players 2-3 more character slots (if people already bought slots, hey, they have more classes coming so they've lost nothing) and making respecs buyable with a reasonable amount of AD for your level.
Anyone who says that players need to be able to buy power or they won't pay haven't seen the spending that happens in TF2's cash shop (or LoL's cosmetic items): Players dump thousands upon thousands of dollars into keys in TF2 so they can acquire hats with particle effects that do absolutely NOTHING to increase their power and that they can't even SEE while they play the game. Players will pay out the nose to look unique and they'll do so without driving a "power wedge" in the playerbase.
3. Add "cosmetic lockboxes" that can be opened with keys but can contain purely costume items with some ultra-rare costume items. Seriously, WHY is this not in the game yet? It rakes in cash but drives no wedge.
Issue #3: Paying for advantage leads to massive turnover and eventual low population
A player reaches level 60 and starts PvPing. S/he quickly realizes that players who are willing to dump in the cash can buy a sizable advantage in PvP. At this point, they have three options:
1. Pony up the cash.
2. Deal with losing for weeks/months while they farm for the wards themselves.
3. Quit (the most likely option).
The problem here is that this cycle is going to repeat itself until the only players left are going to be players with the advantage anyway, meaning all the players who were only sticking around because they had the paying advantage won't have it any longer. No longer having fun "owning it up" in PvP, they'll probably leave as well.
The solution: Make the grind more tolerable
This is the part where people are going to chime in and say "LOL! THEY JUST DON'T WANT TO WORK FOR THEIR ENCHANTS!!!".
First of all, neither do the people who buy them with zen.
Second, it's not that they do NOT want to work but that they DO want to spend their leisure time having FUN and grinding for months is the opposite of fun. Ergo, they're more likely to quit the game instead of stick around and grind.
Again, it's not at all necessary to make this an advantage that is only acquirable through either months of grinding or a cash payment up front. You will make more money on a large playerbase buying cosmetic items than a small playerbase buying expensive items, especially when the expensive buyers are more likely to stick around when they feel more unique for making their purchases.
In conclusion...
-The cash shop needs more stuff, especially costumes, of which there are currently only three.
-Costume lockboxes need to be added to the game that function much like TF2's crates: contain a random costume item with a chance at an ultra-rare costume item that can ONLY be obtained from crates.
-The grind for endgame enchants needs to be toned down to a realistic level to encourage more players to stick around to do it because players are the most important content an MMO can have and, even if these players aren't dumping huge amounts of money, they're still probably putting money into the game and encouraging their friends to play it. While having the best enchants is primarily a PvP issue, it would still make a MASSIVE difference in PvE as well.
-NW will rake in far, FAR more money if the playerbase doesn't have a power divide driven through it. Cosmetics are and always will be the REAL money maker AND they can do so without the power wedge.
Post edited by therealdestian on
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Comments
My heart drops when I go fashion shopping.My wife will consider playing Neverwinter as well with more cosmetic choices.
The state of enchants doesn't bother as I'm not an elite competitive player.
I agree. At least it's not a hard job for them to do though, updating the store with new stuff would be simple especially for cosmetic items.
When I checked out the zen store and saw only three costume items, I did a triple take.
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I kinda liked DCUO's way of allowing your gear to determine your appearance if you wanted it to, but that you could otherwise use any piece that you had previously unlocked instead, (for appearance purposes).
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
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Fact is if you start locking basic game functions out are quite a few players who simply turn around and find something else... i admit that the D&D fanboy keeps me playing but... i know deep down once i hit 60.... i'm going to stick to the foundry, enjoy player made stories and probably never touch any actual end game content simply because it requires money. Not that i dont want to spend moeny, but rather the things you want me to spend it on and amount required is often just to much, or no value for the bang. Oh boy! more dps! but nothing visual...i dont look cooler... i was much more inclined to buy a cool elemental then i was wards... because thats something tangible.
All of that said this is PWE and they believe they can run western games like asian games and dont grasp the cultural difference when comes to gaming. Asian demographic likes to grind... they enjoy ability to bypass certain aspects with actual cash, and are quite willing to pay to do it. The vast majority of americans arent so inclined to do so... we want to " earn " that item, we want to look unique, and feel special...
This cash shop wont change no matter how much we ***** and yell... PWE is set in the way they design f2p mmos...
Yeah, the complete and utter lack of any communication from the devs is disheartening to say the least, especially when looking at other games recently and how devs have really stepped up their game in that regard. PWE/Cryptic taking huge steps backwards in the communication department.
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That's probably the most disappointing thing about the game right now. Neverwinter has such potential, and lvls 1-59 PvP is actually quite balanced. This game's PvP is just like SW:ToR, where a bolstered lvl 10 player stands more of a chance against a lvl 49 than a fresh lvl 50 does against a geared lvl 50.
I don't think anything will change, though. How could they justify gouging players this badly in the cash shop, if it didn't take a month or two of grinding to obtain the same gear? If they allowed players to grind for their enchantments faster than the current rate, players who paid top dollar for their stuff wouldn't be too happy. I'm sure at least some of them would regret spending the money in the first place, if it suddenly only took half as long to grind for that same gear they purchased. How many players would have ponied up the cash at all, when they didn't feel like they "had" to?
I haven't spend any money in the game, yet. I doubt I ever will. I'll most likely play to max level, realize I'm not planning to farm 24/7 to stay competitive, and leave. That's the reality of the situation. However, I know I'd be pretty frustrated if one day I felt like the only way to compete was to spend real money, but then after buying a bunch of zen, the devs changed the rules so that everyone can more easily obtain all of the stuff I just paid real money for. In many cases, we're not talking about just a few bucks, but hundreds of dollars that players have forked over. That's a lot of money for the devs to marginalize by reducing the time it takes to farm for what you need in-game.
-Travail.
respecs - if you even charge for respec make it ONE time pay to respect EVERYTHING. But you have to pay feats and powers/abilities separatly...thats pretty close to the edge of offensive imo...make it at least that you can respect everything and pay either gold/ad or zen...
enchantments/wards etc. <- well this imo is kinda pay to win because it does give you a clear combat advantage over others. It gets "eased" a bit since you can get wards once every 7 days with the celestial coin thingies...still, this is also something i think is edgy. What also is very edgy is the prices you have to pay to un-enchant items - this sould also be solved differently.
The other thing that really annoys me is that even if there are different skins available - getting them is often super expensive...changing appearance for 1! item at lvl 60 costs you 60-70k ad... I was looking for a "classic" axe for example for my gwf - i found one skin at the wondrous basar which is reasonably priced for 14000 ad...the other one is at the trade bar merchant for 400 bars?! thats basically 40 dollars...for a weapon skin...that you cannot even preview in advance to see if you like it...thats about that.
Doubt PWE will take any notice of this point since it is easy enough to keep releasing powerful PvP items come out every now and again, which maintains the status quo between those who can pay high sums of money for an in-game advantage and those who can't.
Not saying that this is actually in PWE's interests long-term, just that I don't think they will change. Remember PWE is a business and it managers are judged by its profitability each quarter and not longer-term. So the people in charge have no incentive implementing an idea that has longer term benefits if they are going to lose their jobs because of a reduced short-term revenue.
Sadly, very few managers can afford to sacrifice short-term interests for longer-term gains. As an aside this is part of why Warren Buffet does so well - he can afford to look to the long-term and ensure that managers of the companies he has significant interest in do the same........
1. I feel that your plans about max level are ultimately going to be what most players wind up doing.
2. Most things drop in cost over time. I think players understand this.
What I wish PWE understood here is that it doesn't have to be an "either/or" situation, as in "Either players dump tons of cash or they quit and were of no use to us anyway." A player who spends $15 a month won't be buying enchantments at breakneck speed, but they're bringing money into the company AND they're another player playing the game which is still extremely valuable.
For all we know the best sellers ARE the things that give the biggest advantage in the game as much as you don't like it. Just because you aren't willing to pay for something in the shop that gives you an advantage in the game doesn't mean that no one else will. I see lots of people spending tons of cash in the shop all over the place. I also see a ton of people whining about how they don't want to spend money on things that others have paid to win that they think they should be getting for free.
The reality is people have been paying for their bags and mounts and equipment all along in the subscription based games. You just don't get to pick and choose what you spend money on because you have to spend money on playing the game at all. You don't get a bag, a mount, a weapon, a piece of armor, UNLESS you pay to play the game.
Now with NW you can get EVERYTHING in the shop without spending a penny because you can spend time and farm the items in game people disregard that entirely because there is a means to spend cash to get the same thing. You have more choices in this game and people are complaining about it. I just don't understand.
What someone else does in the game has ZERO affect on your gameplay unless you let it affect you. That person standing in all epics that they bought with cash and bragging about how they have the best of everything is IRRELEVANT to your game world unless you CHOOSE to compare yourself to them. You can get everything they have and feel good about earning it through gameplay if you want, but you have to make that CHOICE.
^ terrible attitude
Terrible attitude? Because I choose not to let other people's actions affect my fun and gameplay. Care to explain how I have a terrible attitude?
Do some research on what people are paying in REAL money for hats in TF2, which is a first-person shooter, meaning that you can't even see the stupid hat while playing, only other people can see it. They're not paying to have these hats. They're paying to let OTHER PEOPLE KNOW that they have these hats.
This is not rocket science. You don't need a degree in game design to understand basic human emotion and motivation, nor do you need a degree in business to see what people will pay for cosmetics in games and understand how lucrative the business model can be.
I'm sure they are, but as I pointed out in the OP (if you actually read it), this is a business model that leads to the eventual destruction of the game and it's completely unnecessary to make a long-term profit. PWE has already planned out NW's end, opting to go with the "smash n' grab" business model instead of gearing for longevity like LoL and TF2 did (both of which will still be going strong long after NW is a ghost town and will have made many times more money than NW).
No one ever, EVER said they wouldn't. Is this a copy/paste reply that you dump in every thread where you only read the title?
This is a fallacy for two reasons:
1. As I've already established, it's not only possible but more long-term profitable to retain more players who will buy cosmetics instead of selling power in game and it does so without driving a wedge between the playerbase.
2. There is a graphical equation that could be made that represents the amount of time vs. the return that demonstrates exactly how long what number of players is willing to grind for things in this game. As I said in the OP that you obviously didn't read, most players will quit instead of sticking around to grind this out.
PvP says hello.
I agree that what others do in game SHOULDN'T affect my gameplay and if all the store sold was cosmetics, that wouldn't be an issue.
But PvP is already heavily affected because runes are more powerful and meaningful than armor, and if they do implement raids in any form, a "raiding guild" would be expected to dump in copious amounts of real-world cash in order to do world firsts or even compete in any real form.
With PWE, I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't even down the first boss without the best enchants.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMlYfYHQdKk
Again, this is $1,300 on an item that in NO WAY, SHAPE OR FORM grants any kind of combat advantage in game. It is 100% purely cosmetic and as such no one will ever feel like the player wearing it has an advantage over them.
PWE's goal is to make money. The best way to do that is to give the big spenders something to spend money on (aka ultra rare cosmetics that set them apart from other players) while not driving out people who can't afford to pay as much because both the money they spend and their presence in game add value to the overall experience.
Simply put, PWE is doing...it...wrong.
but then again reading on the forums a few days i get the feeling that they are going for the bleed them dry then kick them out buisness approach, ppl will come here play get to end level grind untill boredom takes them to another game or get them to pay INSANE amounts of money, seriusly 200 dollars FFS your not even trying to be subtle about the greed and yet ppl are paying not my concern.
but these price ranges tell me they dont care as long as there are ppl paying them, so i guess im gonna drop playing this game untill i start to see the communication from the devs or even spokesperson about the F2P that is actually a P2W with the current setup, its so sad to see that the gaming industry is taking on the cutthroat approach towards their customers, but perhaps its all a conspiracy to make us all go outside or something? (sarcasm)