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How to make people buy more characters
lancemeszaros
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
tl;dr: Focusing on account-wide gameplay and not character-specific gameplay will give Cryptic more money and benefit players at the same time.
Right now, extra characters are only valuable as an extra 8,000 on the dilithium cap. The main problem is that any real progress, mainly through the new reputation system, is limited to a single character. While the reputation system is generally an improvement from the past system, it's substantial enough now that, aside from a boost in dilithium refining, there's no real point in getting a new character. Extra character slots are less valuable, and will only continue to decline in value as new content is added, to the point where the number of people buying new slots will sharply fall. Making them more valuable would lead to more people buying more slots.
1) Make the reputation system account-shared. The reputation store can still be locked out until level 50 is reached on an alt, but there's no reason why the rewards of completing tiers in the reputation store shouldn't be shared across an account's characters, as that person has already completed all the content necessary for it. Forcing them to repeat the entire process every time they make a new alt is annoying and not worth the hassle.
2) Make all character-bound items account-bound instead. The only exception to this would be unique-per-character items. This will allow people to more easily outfit an alt, by buying items on their main character and transferring them over. Again, if they've already done the content and are able to reap the rewards, then forcing them to do it all over again just becomes annoying and boring.
3) Make the fleet leaderboards show total contributions by account, not by character. The same person has contributed, so why differentiate?
4) Allow dilithium and possibly fleet credits to be transferred using the account bank, like energy credits are. Pooling dilithium from the alts into a single character allows people to buy more. Right now the only way to transfer dil is to make a 25 dil/Zen buy offer, remove the offer, and then withdraw the dil using the main character. Again, this is annoying and tedious. Being able to pool dil more easily gives people more purchasing power, and makes dil a bit more valuable. The only problem I can see with fleet credits is the differences between factions, but separating fleet credits into Fed and KDF fleet currencies is a solution.
Doing this will not only make extra character slots more valuable, increasing demand for them, but will also increase demand on other Zen store items as well, since it will now be easier to make different alts for different situations. As an example, right now I have no desire to buy any fleet modules for a fleet cruiser or science vessel, because I would need to make a new alt in order to take advantage of that style of gameplay, which means repeating the 40+-day reputation process and fleet contributions. Again, it's not worth the hassle. But by making alts more valuable, now people are more inclined to buy things like new ships because they can fully take advantage of them. Someone can switch between an escort alt, a cruiser alt, or a science vessel alt based on what they need or feel like playing at the time.
Right now, extra characters are only valuable as an extra 8,000 on the dilithium cap. The main problem is that any real progress, mainly through the new reputation system, is limited to a single character. While the reputation system is generally an improvement from the past system, it's substantial enough now that, aside from a boost in dilithium refining, there's no real point in getting a new character. Extra character slots are less valuable, and will only continue to decline in value as new content is added, to the point where the number of people buying new slots will sharply fall. Making them more valuable would lead to more people buying more slots.
1) Make the reputation system account-shared. The reputation store can still be locked out until level 50 is reached on an alt, but there's no reason why the rewards of completing tiers in the reputation store shouldn't be shared across an account's characters, as that person has already completed all the content necessary for it. Forcing them to repeat the entire process every time they make a new alt is annoying and not worth the hassle.
2) Make all character-bound items account-bound instead. The only exception to this would be unique-per-character items. This will allow people to more easily outfit an alt, by buying items on their main character and transferring them over. Again, if they've already done the content and are able to reap the rewards, then forcing them to do it all over again just becomes annoying and boring.
3) Make the fleet leaderboards show total contributions by account, not by character. The same person has contributed, so why differentiate?
4) Allow dilithium and possibly fleet credits to be transferred using the account bank, like energy credits are. Pooling dilithium from the alts into a single character allows people to buy more. Right now the only way to transfer dil is to make a 25 dil/Zen buy offer, remove the offer, and then withdraw the dil using the main character. Again, this is annoying and tedious. Being able to pool dil more easily gives people more purchasing power, and makes dil a bit more valuable. The only problem I can see with fleet credits is the differences between factions, but separating fleet credits into Fed and KDF fleet currencies is a solution.
Doing this will not only make extra character slots more valuable, increasing demand for them, but will also increase demand on other Zen store items as well, since it will now be easier to make different alts for different situations. As an example, right now I have no desire to buy any fleet modules for a fleet cruiser or science vessel, because I would need to make a new alt in order to take advantage of that style of gameplay, which means repeating the 40+-day reputation process and fleet contributions. Again, it's not worth the hassle. But by making alts more valuable, now people are more inclined to buy things like new ships because they can fully take advantage of them. Someone can switch between an escort alt, a cruiser alt, or a science vessel alt based on what they need or feel like playing at the time.
Post edited by lancemeszaros on
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Pre-F2P the end game currency were Emblems and the gear from that was Bind on Equip, not Pick-up. Meaning you could sell it on the Exchange or give it to Alts freely. Now all the non-common gear is locked behind one or more currencies (Dilithium, Marks, Fleet Credits, etc.) per-character.
I agree, that this reduces variety and enforces blinding repetative grind.
All currencies should be per account. I am one person, I can only invest so much time per day to the game, and it shouldn't matter which of my characters I want to play. I would be ok with the following notes/exceptions:
These freedoms could be restricted to characters-per-faction. So all Feds on the same account shared currency. All KDF had a different currency pool. Future Romulans, etc. This would require the player to play the missions for each faction, but otherwise still allow some sharing.
Perhaps restrict this to just Gold Members, thereby increasing the value of paying a monthly subscription (which currently there is very little reason to do so).
I can also understand them putting an account-limit on daily dilithium earnings.
Again, the idea being I am one person. My different characters aren't really different people.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
equal parts cynical and helpful
Thats like taking a 75% pay cut and no matter what job you have, no one would accept that and neither would Cryptic. Nice ideas though.
Original Join Date: Jan 2010
I imagine that purchasing the items would still cost per character, just all characters on an account would have access to the store. I'm pretty sure buying the items costs more than unlocking the right to buy them.
That is how they get everyone on the dilithium, if they allowed u to only need to run it once and unlock account wide, even if in a store and only cost a smaller dilithium amount, it would be a massive cut to the dilithium needs and cut the zen sale drastically therefore costing them cash, e.i. 75% pay cut analogy.
Original Join Date: Jan 2010