Explanations on monetization thinking on SotA

Maybe COTO's will be optional components to Enchanting to increase success rate by 10% per COTO, per combine.

 

But the principle still exists that you're paying for power. Why are we discussing how much is acceptable? Shouldn't that answer be zero? You should be able to buy zero power for money.

And if you nerf the NPC gear, or make the crafted gear more powerful, you're addressing one concern, but then you're making the game more gear centric when from day one we've been told that isn't the case.

We've introduced problems into the system, and we're discussing swapping one set of problems for another. What is the gain? Revenue? I'm not even sure there will be a revenue gain if you destroy goodwill and drive away a potential audience before they ever try the game. Perception matters. Perception is expensive to build up, and easy to destroy.

Are there really no other monetization models worth exploring that P2W is the only option on the table?

 

I won't speak for the others, but this is the opposite of what I'm assuming.
I was assuming the design goal is that gear is relatively easy to produce, and everything will break, eventually.
Evidently I am mistaken. Gear is neither relatively easy to produce due to punitive harvesting quantities vs. requirements in recipes, nor will everything break due to COTO's bypassing that mechanic. Harvesting and recipes can be tuned, yet, we're 54 days from persistence with no wipe in between for metrics, and it hasn't happened yet. And as mentioned before, COTO's enable the problem they were implemented to prevent. They enable bypassing gear breakage by allowing you to repair max durability.

If the actual "for realzies" design goal is that we're supposed to be making gear and breaking gear constantly, then make the harvesting and recipe changes so that's the reality, ASAP, please. Because 20-35 seconds per failed harvest and 10 ingots per jewelry ring and requiring multiple timber per tiny wooden product? With illogical realities like that? Balance is so far from where we are, it's not even on the horizon, today.

 

In any game one can pay for power - from other players, pay for a leveling service, pay for whatever. This 10% buff doesn't matter. Yes, it's there, but it's achievable for free in-game anyways, and I wouldn't consider it worth the money.

I feel that we need aspirational gear/decorations/pets etc. to aspire to, because that is what keeps a lot of people going - long term goals. Something really hard to obtain, that gives a very slight advantage, sure, but not a game-changing one. You do not need the best gear to complete the game or stories or content or even to pvp. There will be better gear perhaps than what you have, but you don't need it. I never got the sense that there wouldn't be really good stuff to aspire to or work towards, just that the best stuff would not dwarf the good stuff in terms of effectiveness.

 

Looks like I'll need to abandon my plans of being a pure gatherer and join the multitudes of crafters.

 

A pure gatherer can sell their goods and purchase from the pure crafters

In many(most) online games I have played that have crafting, the value of resources > the value of completed goods with rare exceptions where the crafter won the lottery with very good rolls.

 

But that is what Chris is saying now. Buying basic gear from vendors means you die and you're forced to buy better gear from crafters. That is his fix, and he will nerf gear to make that happen.

Right now we don't even have many tiers of gear.

Truly basic gear
Augmented Gear
Epic Gear
Crafted Gear with Enhancements

You can get epic gear relatively cheap from NPC vendors. The difference is so minimal between the tiers that augmented and basic gear might as well not exist.

 

@Chris has an optional monthly plan where you get a hat/cape/special dye/etc. been discussed?

It seems to me this would be HIGHLY monetarily successful.

 

~What Are We Winning to Pay For?~

I just don't get it...
As far as crafters, every time my sward is about to bust, they should be thankful I paid anything to have it refreshed so I can buy more repair kits to keep it nice and sharp. If anyone thinks that somebody will be just waiting around in the game for my sward to need restoring, I think you're wrong, "if it's a special sward to me". I'll be the one waiting on them to repair it, or I'll use a COTA, visit my favorite blacksmith's vendor for some more repair kits and I'm off having more fun.

If you are in need of a buff sward or shield to fight whatever you're fighting, I'd say that you're then fighting over your actual skill level. COTO are a way of staying in that higher level battle area, yet only if your pockets are deep, and even then, "you are only staving off the inevitable end of the line for the life in that equipment".

Prolonging the inevitable end of your equipment,
COTO are a luxury item and nothing more...

(and btw, the add-on store is open 24 hours a day, no need for any reoccurring payments or coto replenishments)
~Time Lord~

 

I've never played a game that didn't start off with truly basic gear so I have no problem with this. It is generally enough to get a start in the game. Many games involve starting with a few pieces of cloth to wear and a wooden sword and you have to start off killing some caterpillars. One can hope that they start you off in an area that allows you to at least kill the chickens with your truly basic gear.

Presumably we will have:
Truly Basic Gear
Crafted Gear
Better Crafted Gear
Better Crafted Gear with Enhancements
Even Better Enhancements on your crafted gear.

 

Star Citizen has success with this model. It has been suggested here repeatedly for years.

 

No more hats and capes! I don't think this would be highly monetarily succesful unless it was signing you up for monthly crowns at the best buy rate + little perks. But I don't anticipate needing crowns.

 

Wow, really? ok....

Anyway... this is not difficult to work around at all, I can think of 4-5 ways off the top of my head they can make repairs safe for both parties and you wouldn't have to risk your items.

It makes sense that crafters would manage repairs.

 

No.
I can understand that crafters want to be involved into everything that looks like crafting.
I can come up with several reasons why.
But you keep forgetting that here are a LOT of players that are no crafters and that don't want to be.
All the repair ideas that involve crafters are really lowering the playability of the game for them.

 

Yah, but with the masterwork plans, it means crafters are going to offset the cost of the rerolls of their own suits and weapons by selling overly inflated basic gear to replace the stuff you won't be able to get from NPC's anymore.
It might be cheaper long term to divert some original resources, into modest craft skill, and make my own basic gear than it will be to subsidize crafters making perfect gear for themselves.

Now if it goes the way of DAOC, and Crafters only care about Criticals and everything else is trash, so they end up flooding the market with "successful" failures (e.g. non-crits) trying to recoup a portion of their material costs greater than the salvage return, then back to pure gatherer I go.

 

Depends if there was variety.

Consider this specific proposal:

$15 a month for an optional vanity subscription

You'd get two surprise items each month, that are limited only to subscribers. These would be the equivalent of two different $10 store items, except they'd be exclusive rares that can be:

Tunic
Hat
Cloak
Necklace
Gloves
Boots
Instrument reskin
Pet
Emote

For $25 a month you'd get the same plus a small housing decoration. We can't include housing items in the base subscription because not everyone has housing. But the game has big dollar whales that love to collect all the rares, have high dollar pledges with housing, etc.

Now no longer sell COTO for gold. Make them rare drops, so the potions and permanent repairs are expensive and a trade-off.

Instead, if you must sell currency, sell gold directly. The potions are only obtainable with COTOs, so you're not really selling power since gold can only really pay for base repairs and gear, where gear doesn't have a massive difference in game. But people are are terrified of paying in game taxes and losing their lots can now guarantee buying gold for cash to pay their taxes.

 

As far as implementation details, if it's possible to have it done at all via NPC craftsman (even if it's a bad job and/or horrifically expensive), and then done better & cheaper by PC's, I'm all for it.
But standing around waiting or desperately searching for hours for an actual human to do the job isn't fun.

 

Ok, in that case, as a crafter, I demand to have all the abilities of an adventurer, even though I refuse to work any adventuring skills.

Sounds legit right?

 

Exactly, I stopped reading when you started writing pop song lyrics in your post.

 

That's not what i said and you are very well aware of that.
Hench i bail out of this pseudo discussion.