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Suggestions to Improve KDF faction specific items
oldkhemaraa
Member Posts: 1,039 Arc User
I've heard it about at least 5 times in the past 2-3 months where a Dev as come onto a STO inspired Pod cast ans stated time and again "Kdf stuff doesn't sell"
Well, as primarily KDF player who's popped over a grand on STO since launch I really really resent that.
If KDF stuff isn't selling it's not the customers fault.. I've owned a retail store.. ..
Ah man.. Hey Cryptic.. you got a monopoly here. No one else can make items for STO but cryptic..theres no modding. If its in STO it comes from YOU team of talent and no where else.
How about some editions to KDF costumes in the zen store at small change prices..
Unlock TOS Thigh High boots for Female KDF characters: 100 zen
Unlock Boots for wear with bare leg option for Orion females...You could charge 200 zen for this.. trust me.
Create an additional orion adornments pack.. 2 or three additional shouldpads, arm bands, wrist bacds, glove/gauntlets.. Long skirt options, gathered skirt options.. make it 500 zen and it'll sell like hot cakes to pretty much everyone who has an orion female character (and as you know from your own data.. thats one whole lotta characters!)
Bortasqu ships single and packs.. cut zen price by 50% for account wide unlock versions.. and by 60% for single character unlocks of the ship (single ships only, no packs)..
All KDF ships should have a deeply discounted single character unlock of ALL premium ships.
If KDF items in the zen store are not selling then it's because the demand isn't there.. Yet the demand is there.. so why isn't it selling... On this side of the sales counter I can tell you the percieved value is pretty low... Theres very little if anything in the KDF line up that is really needed BY KDF players... wanted, yes, needed, not so much.
Anyone can eventually scrape up the zen needed by selling dilithium to pick up a pack of fleet modules and go get themselves a perfectly good fleet version of a Battle Cruiser, Bird of Prey or raptor.. and you can slide fleet modules around to the toons that that need need them. I would be unsurprised if the single spent item from KDF players were fleet modules. I have a LTM.. every month I get nuff zen to get a single fleet module. Any of my KDF toons can purchase ANY of the fleet ships based off of stock ships for 1 fleet module.. ie: 500 zen. Long long long ago I purchased the Tor'kaht skin.. well, funny that.. That means I can purchase a fleet Tor'kaht on any of my KDF toons for one fleet module...
Choice.
500 zen for one fleet module to get a Fleet Tor'kaht.
OR
1200 to 2500 zen to get a Tier-6 what ever... single ship account wide unlock..
I can only fly one ship at a time... and the vast magority of players are going to go.. No brainer.. Get the Fleet Tor'kaht and upgrade it. T-6 ships are better, but frankly Fleet ship stats are even more so.. and a T5U fleet ship yet more so.
Cryptic studios continues to NOT generate sales on KDF items. And it's mind boggling to me that nothing, absolutly nothing has ever really been tried to generate sales!
Once something is made for use in game..its paid for. The costs associated with creating the item are sunk costs.. the money is spent. If you have something you spent a lot of money to make and its not selling.. Drop the unit price for the item so its starts selling!..
Bundles are wonderfull things.. But I keep also hearing from devs "Oh we don't make any money off of bundles".
No money made from bundles because not nuff customers buy them. How come.. price.. DING.. Drop price 20% . still not selling.. drop the price again 20 %.... oh look, .. lots of sales all of a sudden.. humm, raise price back up by 50% of the last price cut... sales drop off short term, but start coming back a month later.. Good price point leave it be. Might even be able to take it up a hair more.. but I'd leave it alone. Don't want to endanger the perception of Good Will to the customers... if you do, you will KILL all sales to those customers.
Take high end ships, create a single character unlock of those ships for NO MORE THEN 1000 zen.
Cryptic has tens of thousands of customers playing STO.. Dropping prices isn't going to cheapen the game, or the experience... American consumers are in fact used to seeing older version of a product typically having a lower price then when the product first hit the marketplace. (like say... computers...My first full on desktop computer ran me $2200.. today I have a thousand times the computer and then some and I paid less then half the price a piad for the first one I purchased over $20 years ago NOT counting the effects of inflation (in reality more like 20% or there abouts) This is what your customers are used to seeing.. but cryptic Never drop the price on anything permanatly..
The Bortasqu's are what retailers call "Shelf Dogs".. cuz they sit on the shelf and no body buys them. The Borts don't sell because everyone figured out that nice or not they were poor combat ships with out a whole lot more time and effort soent to kit them out,d, over priced and not worth what you got. Sorry cryptic... But you still want to charge us the same amount of Zen for them... Price the ship realisticly to its percieved value to your customers and maybe you'll sell some more.
You should try it. After all if your selling them in driblets now right? And you drop the price and still sell none of them... you won't have lost anything you did not all ready NOT have. And if you do sell some, maybe you'll sell some more!
This could be done across the board.. do a 2 week 50% off sale on KDF ships and KDF specific ship bundles...see what sort of numbers in generates..
I'd really really like to stop hearing dev's in pod casts in any way what so ever imply that the lack of sale of KDF specific ships is in any way the KDF players fault.
Egad.. zero overhead once the a item is created.. no additional costs to stock the item because its virtual not real, and there for can be replicated infinitly for the lifetime of STO. and they ain't.
selling.
KDF players on the forums were telling you when the Bort was being created they wanted KDF sci ships, and better BOP's and Raptors made more usefull..
Well, we now have ONE useful raptor (tier 6 premium ship) , a T-6 BOP sometime soon, and we still don't have a tier 5 Klingon racial sci ship unless you count the DSDD which is very much a premium ship. Oh yes and we have command and intel battle cruisers coming out our collective ears. And I belive we should be getting a "Pilot" ship here fairly soon..I've seen some artwork that says "light" battle cruiser, but the reality is the arts shows to be a hybrid of battlecruiser.raptor.BOP design elements.
I see quite a few of the newer KDF ships flitting about. Of course they're could be more. There are new ships coming for the KDF, but never, not ever do I recall Cryptic actually making specifically for the KDF a ship type the players actually asked for before now.
Do I know if a new Klingon SCI ship would sell? Depends on the ship... depends on how its priced. KDF players are not in the habit of buying ships from the zen store because we have historically had so few, and the most visible of KDF ships, the Bartasqu, Flag ship of the KDF lineup is an utter lemon in play and doesn't sell for beans. Cryptic needs to untrain that out of its KDF playerbase.. they are going to need a lot more incentive then Cryptic has been providing.
So cut the price for the Borastqu in half.. What have you got to loose? The money and resources spent to make the ship in each of its configuration, to make it BOP parasite ship, to make a one off player flyable version of the same BOP, and to make fleet versions of the same, to make a class specific bridge for the ship, and to make the Bortasqu uniforms is all spent money.. that cost is unrecoverable, period.. its a line item write off. a capital expense. But. no other money needs to be spent. (you could do a t-6 super Bortasqu version just an idea) so generate some sales and stop being sqeemish about it. There is no costs other then the normal costs of maintaining a zen store, and an MMO. SO bite the go thats holding everyone back and discount the cost of the ship to the fair thee well. Generate sales, because the sales ARE NOT generating themselves.
Repeating my self now, time to stop.. I have DOFF missions to go turn in.
Well, as primarily KDF player who's popped over a grand on STO since launch I really really resent that.
If KDF stuff isn't selling it's not the customers fault.. I've owned a retail store.. ..
Ah man.. Hey Cryptic.. you got a monopoly here. No one else can make items for STO but cryptic..theres no modding. If its in STO it comes from YOU team of talent and no where else.
How about some editions to KDF costumes in the zen store at small change prices..
Unlock TOS Thigh High boots for Female KDF characters: 100 zen
Unlock Boots for wear with bare leg option for Orion females...You could charge 200 zen for this.. trust me.
Create an additional orion adornments pack.. 2 or three additional shouldpads, arm bands, wrist bacds, glove/gauntlets.. Long skirt options, gathered skirt options.. make it 500 zen and it'll sell like hot cakes to pretty much everyone who has an orion female character (and as you know from your own data.. thats one whole lotta characters!)
Bortasqu ships single and packs.. cut zen price by 50% for account wide unlock versions.. and by 60% for single character unlocks of the ship (single ships only, no packs)..
All KDF ships should have a deeply discounted single character unlock of ALL premium ships.
If KDF items in the zen store are not selling then it's because the demand isn't there.. Yet the demand is there.. so why isn't it selling... On this side of the sales counter I can tell you the percieved value is pretty low... Theres very little if anything in the KDF line up that is really needed BY KDF players... wanted, yes, needed, not so much.
Anyone can eventually scrape up the zen needed by selling dilithium to pick up a pack of fleet modules and go get themselves a perfectly good fleet version of a Battle Cruiser, Bird of Prey or raptor.. and you can slide fleet modules around to the toons that that need need them. I would be unsurprised if the single spent item from KDF players were fleet modules. I have a LTM.. every month I get nuff zen to get a single fleet module. Any of my KDF toons can purchase ANY of the fleet ships based off of stock ships for 1 fleet module.. ie: 500 zen. Long long long ago I purchased the Tor'kaht skin.. well, funny that.. That means I can purchase a fleet Tor'kaht on any of my KDF toons for one fleet module...
Choice.
500 zen for one fleet module to get a Fleet Tor'kaht.
OR
1200 to 2500 zen to get a Tier-6 what ever... single ship account wide unlock..
I can only fly one ship at a time... and the vast magority of players are going to go.. No brainer.. Get the Fleet Tor'kaht and upgrade it. T-6 ships are better, but frankly Fleet ship stats are even more so.. and a T5U fleet ship yet more so.
Cryptic studios continues to NOT generate sales on KDF items. And it's mind boggling to me that nothing, absolutly nothing has ever really been tried to generate sales!
Once something is made for use in game..its paid for. The costs associated with creating the item are sunk costs.. the money is spent. If you have something you spent a lot of money to make and its not selling.. Drop the unit price for the item so its starts selling!..
Bundles are wonderfull things.. But I keep also hearing from devs "Oh we don't make any money off of bundles".
No money made from bundles because not nuff customers buy them. How come.. price.. DING.. Drop price 20% . still not selling.. drop the price again 20 %.... oh look, .. lots of sales all of a sudden.. humm, raise price back up by 50% of the last price cut... sales drop off short term, but start coming back a month later.. Good price point leave it be. Might even be able to take it up a hair more.. but I'd leave it alone. Don't want to endanger the perception of Good Will to the customers... if you do, you will KILL all sales to those customers.
Take high end ships, create a single character unlock of those ships for NO MORE THEN 1000 zen.
Cryptic has tens of thousands of customers playing STO.. Dropping prices isn't going to cheapen the game, or the experience... American consumers are in fact used to seeing older version of a product typically having a lower price then when the product first hit the marketplace. (like say... computers...My first full on desktop computer ran me $2200.. today I have a thousand times the computer and then some and I paid less then half the price a piad for the first one I purchased over $20 years ago NOT counting the effects of inflation (in reality more like 20% or there abouts) This is what your customers are used to seeing.. but cryptic Never drop the price on anything permanatly..
The Bortasqu's are what retailers call "Shelf Dogs".. cuz they sit on the shelf and no body buys them. The Borts don't sell because everyone figured out that nice or not they were poor combat ships with out a whole lot more time and effort soent to kit them out,d, over priced and not worth what you got. Sorry cryptic... But you still want to charge us the same amount of Zen for them... Price the ship realisticly to its percieved value to your customers and maybe you'll sell some more.
You should try it. After all if your selling them in driblets now right? And you drop the price and still sell none of them... you won't have lost anything you did not all ready NOT have. And if you do sell some, maybe you'll sell some more!
This could be done across the board.. do a 2 week 50% off sale on KDF ships and KDF specific ship bundles...see what sort of numbers in generates..
I'd really really like to stop hearing dev's in pod casts in any way what so ever imply that the lack of sale of KDF specific ships is in any way the KDF players fault.
Egad.. zero overhead once the a item is created.. no additional costs to stock the item because its virtual not real, and there for can be replicated infinitly for the lifetime of STO. and they ain't.
selling.
KDF players on the forums were telling you when the Bort was being created they wanted KDF sci ships, and better BOP's and Raptors made more usefull..
Well, we now have ONE useful raptor (tier 6 premium ship) , a T-6 BOP sometime soon, and we still don't have a tier 5 Klingon racial sci ship unless you count the DSDD which is very much a premium ship. Oh yes and we have command and intel battle cruisers coming out our collective ears. And I belive we should be getting a "Pilot" ship here fairly soon..I've seen some artwork that says "light" battle cruiser, but the reality is the arts shows to be a hybrid of battlecruiser.raptor.BOP design elements.
I see quite a few of the newer KDF ships flitting about. Of course they're could be more. There are new ships coming for the KDF, but never, not ever do I recall Cryptic actually making specifically for the KDF a ship type the players actually asked for before now.
Do I know if a new Klingon SCI ship would sell? Depends on the ship... depends on how its priced. KDF players are not in the habit of buying ships from the zen store because we have historically had so few, and the most visible of KDF ships, the Bartasqu, Flag ship of the KDF lineup is an utter lemon in play and doesn't sell for beans. Cryptic needs to untrain that out of its KDF playerbase.. they are going to need a lot more incentive then Cryptic has been providing.
So cut the price for the Borastqu in half.. What have you got to loose? The money and resources spent to make the ship in each of its configuration, to make it BOP parasite ship, to make a one off player flyable version of the same BOP, and to make fleet versions of the same, to make a class specific bridge for the ship, and to make the Bortasqu uniforms is all spent money.. that cost is unrecoverable, period.. its a line item write off. a capital expense. But. no other money needs to be spent. (you could do a t-6 super Bortasqu version just an idea) so generate some sales and stop being sqeemish about it. There is no costs other then the normal costs of maintaining a zen store, and an MMO. SO bite the go thats holding everyone back and discount the cost of the ship to the fair thee well. Generate sales, because the sales ARE NOT generating themselves.
Repeating my self now, time to stop.. I have DOFF missions to go turn in.
"I aim to misbehave" - Malcolm Reynolds
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