Explanations on monetization thinking on SotA

Care to run that by me again??

 

I don't think your going to have to worry about it.
If it turns out crafters don't have a job to do, the devs will fix it one way or another.

Let's wait until a crafter is actually out of work before we cry about how big the unemployment line is going to be.

Edit..
@PK U On second reading this came off a whole lot meaner than I intended.
Let me just say, I can see your math, and I respect it as having potential for causing problems.
But I also believe the devs want to make crafting a big and important part of this game, and if these kinds or problems are actual and not a product of theory crafting, I'm am sure they will fix it.

 

Ok, this... I don't know how you can keep saying this.
I have no reason to go to a crafter, ever. Why?
I get my starter gear. Or I buy or craft one set of player crafted gear. I pay $5 per repair of the entire set, when it's at 0/0. Forever.
I repeat: I never have to see a crafter, ever. It is the opposite of what you're claiming, and I can't believe you don't see it.

There is no stick here to return to crafters. And if you do go ahead with making it require more COTO's per repair, why not just remove durability repair altogether, if that's the REAL goal?

COTO's enable exactly what your claiming they are meant to prevent. I never have to return to a crafter for my gear, and I never have to replace it, with COTO's.

 

Yes but raising max durability is still repairing in a technical sense.. and using a coin for it still makes no sense. Granted as a purely mechanical solution it can work.. but immersive solutions are always better in my book and using coins like this is anything but immersive. Though there was an ideal elsewhere of using a potion instead of a coin (thus the coin use is really indirect and still required).. it's not perfect but better imo. Or a special kit you can only get with the coin..

 

Pull out the wallet vs go to a crafter. That is a stick. Maybe not for everyone but it is a stick.

 

For the price of a cup of Starbucks coffee? Not much of a stick.

 

If we can find the crowns to repair then anyway, there is no stick. Or just spend gold on crowns instead of with crafters.

 

That would be based on the assumption that you would rather pay Port for the coins rather than make friends with player crafters for in-game discounted rate.

Consider some players are even willing to give gears to other players for free to get a jump start, so that could be an alternative option as well..

 

The only stick you really need is it being sufficiently cheaper to get a new weapon of the same quality than to fully repair an old one. :/

 

Great post @Chris - I've missed the wall-o-texts! This one was especially important as it's made me feel better about the whole COTOs thing.

Some points on gear damage for new players perspective:
*** I've been playing with some newbie's recently so getting to experience the pain we veterans don't feel. One thing that stood out is that the whole 'gear damage' thing that is such a big part of SOTA's game design isn't really portrayed well from a visual/ui perspective. In other words, these newbies don't realise that their gear is getting broke up when getting bashed by enemies or dying etc until suddenly the broken weapon icons show up.

I wonder if there isn't a way to make this more visual through the UI, like how your health goes down? May not be feasible that way, but at least it needs to be well described in the new user tutorial experience so they understand the impact fighting/adventuring is going to have on their gear.

 

Hehhe. Ok, we'll see how it goes in July, and we can watch (again, for the 10th time) the power of convenience & laziness, sorry, efficiency, trump all of these noble ideals. Premium currencies replace subscriptions for a reason. That reason? People PAY.

 

Sell the new gear for less than a cup of Starbucks coffee?

 

Quick! It's a race to the bottom! haha.

 

As I said in my post, its fine for STARTER gear to be on vendors. It the same as pledge armor. Buy augmented and epic gear, even without crafting bonuses, is still quite usable. Several have already said they will use it instead if crafted gear. Its very cheap. This is a problem.

Additionally, I said that gear should be on NPCs, just that it should be populated from the same list as loot gear. Cheaper prices, with crafting bonuses, because it's actually gear sold to NPCs. This eliminates the "greedy crafter" as NPCs sell based on item value.

It seems more and more that crafters are not actually expected to contribute at the entry is mid levels. There will be the few that pump out the top-end gear, which will be maintained eternally with Crowns. That's not the crafting game I wanted to play. A huge portion of my play style is currently just not worthwhile. I hope this changes.

 

In that context, possibly. What if the crowns are used for more than just fixing gear? The crowns in vs the crowns out would still be a stick. That's unknown to us at this point.

 

Yeah, it's lucky the final launch isn't for a while after the final wipe as there's going to be a lot of balancing coming out of how this all fits together.

It's almost as complicated as the real world global economy! Their reporting tools are going to be super important going forward to keep the game in balance.

 

One issue I do see is lets say I buy 1 sword and manage to milk a year or 2 out of it to the point it costs me 5 crowns to repair it. There would need to be a system that prevents me from selling as a new sword the next guy might be stuck with something he cannot aford to repair thinking he might milk a year or 2 out of it.

Or should we let the devs worry about this when it becomes a problem? @Rofo

 

Isn't there an escalation involved? 1 cup of coffee doesn't do the trick after a while. Eventually it's the cost of many cups.

 

Here is mine too