Ditch Heritage - provide "Recyclers" or "Smelters"

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Vladamir Begemot, Sep 28, 2019.

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  1. Vladamir Begemot

    Vladamir Begemot Avatar

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    Heritage diminishes the game. It lowers interactivity, and interactivity is what makes games great, particularly sandbox games.

    The heart of the problem is that Port isn't creating enough new customers to drive the sales they desire of the huge quantitiy of available store items, because the current customer base is already flush with those items, and selling off our excess. So Ports plan is to prevent future competition from players.

    This might seem like a good idea at first pass, but it is actually a terrible one. There are other options.

    It is a bad plan due to the removal of interactivity and choice, no more Birthday presents, no more trading, no more selling.

    It is a bad plan due to the clutter that is Inventory and Bank managment.

    It is a bad plan due to the items losing all value outside of the moment of use, and actually becoming a burden (inventory management).

    -------------

    Rather than trying to sell no value items to prevent having to compete with us, I suggest a Recycler or Smelter station. Or just use the blacksmithing table.

    Any reward item can be scrapped, including log in and subscriber, for no trade COTOs. Not a lot, but not an insultingly low amount. Maybe 1/10th its store value, maybe 1/5th, enough that people will strongly consider throwing out their junk.

    Thus we are incentivized to recycle stuff we don't want, rather than dealing with the hassle that is merchanting. Plus, we've got some shiny COTOs to spend. Cash in hand drives impulse purchases, so it is likely that this will actually lead to people "topping up" their COTOs via cash purchases from Port.

    ----

    I talked with a former player last night, he had put $8,000 into the game, and still to this day hasn't pulled any out through sales. He doesn't want to, but the slap in the face of dropping CF vendors from $120 to $30 overnight was too much for him.

    I relate this because perceived value is important, even if one never intends to cash out.

    The days of collecting in Shroud are over. The days of speculating are over. Like a new car, once driven off the lot all items are now worth less once purchased. The psychological effect of No Trade items is to lower an already low value purchase into the negative value range.

    Imagine how hesitant you would be to buy a car if you knew you would own it forever. Add in the hassle of our Inventory UI. Heritage items literally come loaded with a reason not to buy.

    (Being able to delete them with no payoff is a worse psychological hit, this should never be seen as a good inventory management option).

    Personally, I was planning on buying several Vats, but that just isn't happening now. I don't like being stuck with stuff in real life, and I like it even less when I have to manage that stuff through tiny little lists. I don't like that I can't give it away for Christmas, and I don't like that I can't try to recoup some of the cost if I want to.

    If Port monitizes tradable items up, pricing them higher, that will be a mistake on top of a mistake. Giving us back something that was just taken away, and monitizing it, is not a way to add value, it is a way to make people angry.

    -------

    In summary, let us continue to trade our purchases, but give us a way to remove it from the world forever rather than selling it to others, if we so choose.

    It maintains interactivity, it lowers supply of items so Port has less competition, it establishes a minimum "used" value, and it puts no trade COTO's in the players pocket when they want it, thus driving more store purchases.

    It also gives us something to do with those extra 5 patterns no one needs.

    But whatever you do, don't take away choice or any more value.

    Oh, and since the REAL problem is that the new player base isn't growing fast enough to drive sales, and those of us that are here are already loaded with stuff , that deserves more attention than bandaid solutions. A focus group figuring out what is lowering new player retention, and throwing all available person hours at those problems, would make these sorts of continual old supporter nerfs unneccisary.

    //apologies if this is littered with spelling errors, doing it on a tablet and I don't think spellcheck is working.
     
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  2. Forum Name

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    Heritage items are an odd thing, because the real money market for anything but house deeds, super rare items, gold and Cotos has been dead for quite some time.

    Port already showed their intent when they rolled out Vault items that never were supposed to come back.

    Instead of pretending to preserve the value of existing items by making these no trade, just sell them as tradeable. The vault opened the barn door to destroy the rates market; no need to put on a dog and pony show now.
     
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  3. evillego6

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    They don't need focus groups. They need direct feedback from those who stop playing. Not via forum or review. They need quantifiable data of people's opinions of the game, not a round table of other players who think they know why people stop playing.
     
  4. kaeshiva

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    I think the "idea" of heritage has its place - the current implementation has far too many problems because of how the rest of Sota's systems are built and interact with one another.

    I'll give some examples -

    In other games (I can think of a dozen or so off the top of my head) when you buy "outfits" these are usually not delivered as an item you can equip but as a cosmetic override that is accessed via some sort of wardrobe interface. They are not physical items that you can sell/trade/place, they are more like settings/options. Sota's closest equivalent is probably the pet dances - you buy it, it unlocks the feature on your account, and the notion of selling it is a lot blurrier. Take something like the remote bank device in Sota - other games' have similar things, but instead of a physical item, its often done as a skill/action that you can summon/deploy into existence as needed. Think gustball, without needing a physical gustball in your inventory but rather having the option to deploy it be an account unlock. There's a couple examples I can think of where they are physical items but they occupy a special wardrobe 'slot' which functions as an appearance override - but in most modern games, you don't have to keep boxes and boxes (and banks, and basements) filled with all your premium things. Encouraging the management of premium purchases to be hassle free will encourage such purchases.

    So, in Sota, for cosmetics we have "patterns" which come in disposable and reusable types, which require actually physically modifying the item you are wearing and are subject to a lot of arbitrary limitations for equally arbitrary reasons. The idea being that players will buy these things over and over rather than just buying an account unlock. The downside is, these get bought/sold/traded as does everything else. If you're after something in particular, you can usually find it cheaper from another player than buying it from the store. And that's not great news for the store. I'm not saying lets scrap patterns, but it can be one of many paths to the same goal - look at Elder Scrolls Online for example, which sells both "motifs" (styles that you craft onto an item), allows you to also freely customize how your items look (via in game gold sink) based on which motifs you've unlocked on your account, and in addition, also sells full account-based costume overrides giving players three ways to spend money to change how they look. Now, a player can craft gear with a motif they know and trade it to someone else who wants that look for social purposes - but if that person wants to craft it themselves, or pattern it onto their combat gear, they need to buy it (or unlock it game via long-term methodologies).

    But everything-is-tradeable is a pretty established core premise in Sota at this point. Heritage items attempt to change this for select items, but simply adding a no trade tag on something is causing other problems I've described elsewhere: storage issues, community lots, collaborative deco projects, etc.

    I'm not suggesting that we reinvent the wheel with heritage, but lets use it as appropriate - account unlock functionality, things accessed from menus, etc. Then there's no real issue of not being able to sell it. There's no reason why you couldn't sell something like a summonable banker or summonable merchant in which the 'ability' to do this is tied to your account. Space-occupying items within the game need to be tradeable and storable - otherwise you'll lose potential sales simply because of the clutter/hassle/management of all the things.
     
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  5. Sulaene Moon

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    Is there issues about placing Heritage items on others lots, sure. We've had issues with the new permission system too. Does not mean they should be scrapped.

    When I see most people saying that they can't be resold, just shows their true issue with these items. If you like the Heritage item then buy it, if you want to resell it then don't buy it.
     
  6. Vladamir Begemot

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    No one in the world is buying things from the store to resell now. That would be super duper stupid. Those days are over, that ship sailed. Everything has a set high value (the store) and will only be selled by players at a loss from now until eternity.
     
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  7. Vladamir Begemot

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    Iagree with a bunch of that. Looks like my idea of a low recycling price point isn't getting any traction though, no thoughts on that?
     
  8. Geaux

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    Technically, I think that would be a focus group, made up of ex-players...

    I think they need a formal board of players to go to, if for no other reason to get more right on first pass, and not have constant rework by an already understaffed team. One touch, one time... Members should be comprised of players with the greatest longevity and investment of time and/or money(not just money), players that are new, and players that have left, that loved the game "except for"...and I would potentially add another category, players that have actually run companies in real life.
     
  9. A'chelata

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    Please don't try to insert logic or sound business practices into sota math. They aren't interested, never have been. :p
     
  10. Vladamir Begemot

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    I literally derailed my own thread on the first post.
     
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  11. kaeshiva

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    I don't think its a bad idea, but its got no appeal to me personally. If I decide I don't really like this chair, I'm more likely to find something to do with it or stick in a box for some deco project than turn it in for a fraction of what I paid.
     
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  12. Adam Crow

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    I think its a good idea and I would use it. I remember something like this happened way back in UO for other reasons. The servers started getting clogged with items being hoarded in players houses. They gave us recycling boxes that you could place your excess items in and you would get points that you could use to claim cool statues and other items. I thought it was great and got to unload a ton of my junk.

    I think this idea would work great here as well. I would be way more likely to purchase more cotos if i was able to unload some of my unwanted items easily.

    Take it a step further and make us purchase the recycler from the store for a certain amount of cotos. The recycler would only last for a certain amount of time so you would have to purchase it periodically. So it would be like renting a coto dumpster, you fill it up and then it gets trucked off and you get no trade cotos sent to you in the mail.
     
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  13. Elrond

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    I agree. Had plans to buy a fish statue for my town to change it to fetid water ...but then i saw the no trade icon on it and i simply couldnt do it ...its not about 1500 coto but the principle of it ... the idea of buying something that later i cant dispose of if i choose to is very concerning for me . I might eventually buy it ... but for now its a big no for any no trade items ... I got no problem with port giving away no trade items for free ( monthly login rewards ) but trying to sell em to us its tough to swallow .

    I like the recycling idea ... sort of like the salvage we have ingame only with better benefits .Maybe instead of crowns they could give us some store points we could use in the store .... so it wont compete with their crown sales but also allows players to get some value of their store stuff. Store points could be tradable between players and used maybe to apply a discount to your next purchase ... use 100 points for 10% discount or use 500 points for a 50% discount (max) on your next purchase ....This way players are encouraged to buy crowns , to buy store points and to buy store stuff ..win all the way no competition for port .

    Just some thoughts .
     
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  14. jschoice

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    I never understood resale value of virtual goods, since they are not investments as the item is gone when the servers close. Perhaps they could do a system like the nontrade housing deeds. By right clicking and paying more COTOS the item becomes tradeable
     
  15. Sketch_

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    I think its the /appeal/ that it is a heritage item - not the drawback.

    If you want an item, and its a heritage item - but because its a heritage item you won't get it - it makes it more unique and sentimental for people who do.

    Do you see?

    You enter a courtyard and it is garnished with heritage item statues for instance. Rather than any ol' statues anyone could trade around.

    This isn't so complicated.
     
  16. Geaux

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    Prosperity Tools...sure!

    How does the POT Fish Totem/Statue fit into this explanation?
     
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  17. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

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    Id support this idea of a recycle, myself heritage items don't bother me at all. I rarely sell any of my store stuff to being with so its really a non issue for me, however thinking about it having a recycle to get back cotos for things once bought would be nice mind you they would have to give back less value then originally purchased in order for it to work for Port or crown sales would diminish with all the new influx of Crowns from the recycle people :)
     
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  18. kaeshiva

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    I like @Adam Crow 's suggestion above. Instead of getting COTOs back, which would impact coto market and such, getting a different type of currency or points or something back for 'cashed in items' that unlocked exclusive things only available for those sorts of points, has potential. Be a difficult balance though, of course, people buying things just to smash them to get the other things would be more revenue for port, once the first wave of smashiness happens.
     
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  19. Sentinel2

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    You're correct. It's not an investment.

    If I find I simply don't want something and would like to unload it, then why not? I have a lot of bank slots sure. But many people don't. And eventually you'll run out of space. Then you will have to put it in a chest somewhere just to get rid of it.

    The issue is what if I change my mind later.

    I'm stuck with it. And that's my issue.

    Get rid of the bank slot limits and then it's a non issue.
     
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  20. jschoice

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    Or make heritage items not take up bank space
     
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