How to help the casual player & give Portalarium a huge revenue stream in one fell swoop

I think the COTO system we have in place is an excellent one, but it’s missing one key ingredient: a big repeatable sink. Obsidian potions are nice, but it’s only a couple crowns a week. Same with taxes. Repairs are not that frequent and cosmetics are mostly one-time purchases. We need a big, repeatable sink so that more crowns leave the economy, which diminishes supply, which drives prices up, which makes buying them from Port that much more attractive, all the while stopping it from becoming P2W. How do we do this? By taking the idea of the potions and running with it.

Introducing the Obsidian Statuette, a strange object crafted by the Obsidian Guild, a mysterious Order that works in the shadows, dabbling in powers untold. The various Obsidian Alchemists of Novia are starting to hand out these strange items. This newfound generosity seems peculiar, but you're not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. At any time, you can use the Obsidian Statuette for either:

As you grasp the statuette, a faint glow surrounds you. A voice echoes in your head: “Avatar, I grant thee my power, for now… use it wisely.” A mysterious force rushes through your body, and your equipment feels sturdier, your mastery of reagent sharper and your shoulders stronger.
The Boon of the Adventurer: “For the next 30 minutes, your spells cost 75% fewer reagents, your equipment takes 75% less damage from combat and your carrying capacity is increased by 75%” (boost based on the potions of Capacity, Conservation & Preservation)

As you grasp the statuette, whispers float through your mind: “Avatar, I grant thee my power, for now … use it wisely.” You’re not exactly sure how, but your harvesting tools feel lighter and more precise.
The Boon of the Craftsman: “The next 50 nodes you harvest are gathered 100% faster with double your usual critical and meticulous chance” (boost based on the potions of Precision and Expedience).

The first time a day you use each boon is free. However, if you activate the same boon a second time on the same day it costs 1 COTO, then 2, then 5, then 10, then 20, and so on. Each boon is on a separate “cost”, so you could use both the Boon of the Adventurer & the Boon of the Craftsman for free on any given day.

As you clasp the statuette again, a faint cackling is heard. “Back for more, Avatar? Know that the thirst for power comes at a price … do you wish to tap into my power once again?” You wave the obsidian crowns in front of the statue’s now glowing red eyes and the coins shimmer out of existence. “The deal is struck.” You feel a bit uneasy, but the feeling is soon forgotten as you feel the familiar rush of power flow through you.

This way, the casual player that has very little time to play every day gets to enjoy a nice boost to his adventuring or harvesting/crafting for free and the average player can get quite a lot of value for his COTO by tapping the boons once or twice per play session. The great revenue stream for Port comes from whales for whom dollars represent very little. For example, someone with thousands of COTOs might find it worth his COTOs to tap the Boon of the Craftsman many times a day. All this would create massive repeatable COTO sinks in a way that just doesn’t exist in the current system.

The advantage one gets from this are basically the same as the potions, and no gold is generated in this way because the crafting economy is entirely player-based. COTOs will get drained out of the economy much faster, which drives prices up, which means more COTO sales for Port.

Obviously this is a very rough draft and numbers could be tweaked, but you get the idea. Also, forgive the bad RP

 

I like the idea of more COTO consumption. i agree making COTOs worth more in game gold (increasing demand) is actually an advantage to Port as it makes the dollar price of them seem more attractive.

Though i personally think this will happen when the bundles get added to the COTO vendors. As although these are not continuous sinks, they are large sinks. Tax free deeds are a major draw.

I know it kind of breaks immersion, but I also think if the COTO vendors were not actually vendors, but instead a screen in game with much better ways to see advertise, promote/feature etc more like the website then this would also help. I imagine most newer players will not even realise they can buy things for COTOs or how.


Regards
Spung

 

This reminds me of the monetary policy measures of the FED, ECB and the Abenomics program in Japan. Everyone tells us that it has been necessary to keep interest rates low since 2008 and now slowly a gradual increase has started to take shape.
The mistaken belief: interest rates are normal
The fact: For more than 10,000 years, every interest-bearing monetary system has collapsed because the normal state is: money does not make money by lying around.
The current zero interest rate policy is stabilizing because it must be the normal state.

So if we make the COTOs necessary to make progress as a casual player, we'll never get back to a normal state.
The normal state must be: Play with a lot of fun without having to pay money permanently. Pay to Win has to be eliminated.

At the latest with EP2 Port must have enough money on the Bankaccount to be no longer 100% dependent on the sales from the Addon Store. Because at some point there are simply no new players who pay more than the fees for the game itself. And the experienced players have everything.

 

Not so much related to the idea in itself directly, but Cotos were always ment to be a goldsink in term of rent ... but in order to do that, it need to be worth more as rent, not less.

Currently 1 coto = 3500 gold for rent, whilst you can easily sell them to players for around 3700. So its silly to use them for rent.

I always did like the idea that you could use cotos in crafting to booster the chance of success. Like a coto in the table adds X% enchant success etc. Realistic? Naw.. but a sink? Yes.

 

Sounds intersting but I don’t know if it should be a statue we carry around….maybe something more like the oracle temple we have to visit. A small building that may even cannot stand in a town with an oracle temple and reverse…kinda rivalling temples.
Also I think the effect shouldn’t be alike to existing buffs e.g. like obsidian potion and that’s why I like your second example more. Depending on the buff you get a number of possible applications like the mentioned “the next 50 nodes can be harvested faster”-buff.
Instead of a mechanic head you may have to talk with a monk or priestess and can chose in the conversation what kind of free buff you would like for today and he/she is casting a short blessing at your avatar and just as you suggested you can add additional stacks of possible applications by using Coto’s to add another 50 faster harvestable nodes for 1 Coto and to start your adventure with a stack of in all 100 faster harvestable nodes.
Oh and of course the buff itself should display somehow the remaining applications that you can easily recognize if there are still some applications left.

Edit: If there are considerations regarding it could be a must have…well…maybe these buffs could be then just gimmick-effects you can buy by using a coto. E.g. you get the possibility to use 50 times a just this way possible emote, your next 50 jumps are higher, the next 50 times you start running a sonic bang appears, the next 50 times you use an emote a spotlight is highlighting your position for a short time,…

 

I see COTOs for rent as a mechanism to keep a MINIMUM demand, if the demand for COTOs drops to point where COTOs become less than 3500 gold each then a new demand springs into life in the form of rent to increase the demand and drive the price back up.

Rent would never work for driving demand as demand caps from this mechanism when demand for COTO bring the price to 3500 gold, unless you changed the rent system to work that rent is a fixed COTO price not gold price and the gold amount for rent changes with the average COTO price in gold. Not something i think should happen, but the only way i see that working.


Regards
Spung

 

Not completely true, in my opinion.

If i get less rent time worth when putting in a coto towards just paying in cash, WHY would i pay with cotos?

Whilst if i would get more worth when using cotos, which was originally intended, then using cotos would be the norm and demand would go up.

Remember that the price of a coto will not only be the demand ( Rent ), but also the supply. In order to generate more money for port, we need to keep removing cotos and injecting new ones, instead of them just changing hands ingame version of a bitcoin

 

Here I agree with the OP, the best way to increase supply of COTOs (ie sales of COTOs from Port) is to make them worth more to the player (ie dollar -> COTO -> what i can buy is worth more). The way to make them worth more to the player is having them worth more in game gold or have COTO only items, rent is not a COTO only item (why i said the bundles for COTOs will help with this).

You wouldn't you would buy COTOs, sell them to someone that wants them for something other than rent. Pay your rent in gold then have the added benefit of the additional in game gold from the difference between the COTO and rent price. At least that is what i would do.


Regards
Spung

 

No, that is how it is right now.

If it would give me more value in rent than what people buy them for, why wouldnt i use it for rent?
And before you say that the price of the cotos would keep increasing to meet the value of the rent, it wouldnt because it would be based on the supply.

 

I'm not sure if this calculation works.

Buying IGG with real money is much cheaper than the difference between selling COTOS (which are also bought with real money) to other players and paying the rent.
In the end probably a very bad deal ... except for Portalarium. They will get some money.

 

Solution: Ban all IGG sellers which want to see real money

 

This is why the higher price COTO become in IGG the better, make it to the point that the amount of time for the IGG seller to make that IGG vs the dollar cost of COTOs makes buying COTOs from Port the better option or that gold seller is making like 10 cents an hour. Which will reduce the amount of people doing selling as it is not worth their time from a profitability point of view.

Spung

 

If you look at it this way -->

Where do COTO come from?
- Monthly Subscriptions (money to Port)
- Straight up shop purchases (money to Port)
- Prizes, pledge rewards, giveaways, earned via contests, etc.
- Occasionally dropped as in-game loot (rare)

Where do COTOs go?
- Consumed to buy items from COTO merchant (deco, furniture, pattern)
- Consumed to buy week-long obsidian potion buffs
- Consumed for major repair item (relatively infrequent due to its limits).
- Consumed to pay rent on taxed properties

Personally, I think there are plenty of things to spend COTO on already.

Interestingly, the price of COTO was holding stable at about 2600-2800 for well over a year and then the DAY the crown merchants were added that had nearly the entire add-on store inventory on them, the COTO price spiked to over 4k each, and has slowly been settling back down since.

If a player does not have a taxed property, has no desire for cosmetic stuff in the shop the amount of "premium currency" he needs is close to nil. This is how it should be. If he wants the week long harvesting buff, for example, there are plenty of players who sell these for gold at a reasonable markup. No need to touch premium currency at all. Since there's a guy near my house who sells these potions, sometimes months go by that I don't even touch my "coto stash." If a new decoration appears that I want, I can go buy it with COTO or I can just go buy it with cash off the store - the latter being easier/faster - click click retrieve from bank. If someone doesn't want to / cant afford to spend RL cash on the game, they can get the same items by using the in-game player coto market and retrieving their desired item from the appropriate NPC. I think the system works well.

Without knowing the numbers of 'coto on hand' or influx vs. output its hard to say if more consumption is needed. The price tends to stabilize around the standard "in game rent value" of these after a time. I'd be interested to see how many people use coto for rent instead of straight gold, though.

Coto consumption via item repair happens very infrequently since the limit to major repairs was imposed. I'd certainly use them a lot more often for convenience' sake but because of the limited nature I wait until the item is in absolute tatters at like 4 durability. If repairability was not limited, I'd probably major them when they got to half just for the sake of convenience. Limiting repair in this way was meant to "help crafters" but the reality is, it hurts crafters, because nobody will pay the high cost for an extremely good item because it is, ultimately, consumable. If this restriction were lifted we'd see an increase in coto consumption - they'd essentially become major repair kits. Crafters could now actually get reimbursed material cost on high end items and potentially even make a bit of profit. There seems to be a perception that people need to shred gear so that they will buy more gear, and it is true some customers come to me after a while for replacements, but what is more common is gambling materials to try and get "better ones." or gearing up for a different build. Crafting gear with intent to sell it and make a profit has never been and can never be more profitable than selling the materials because nobody is going to pay 500k for a perfect sword that is junk in a few weeks of play.

Re the initial idea - I really don't want a coto sink superbuff. This will not help casual players, it will help casual players "with money" which really toes the P2W line for me. Actual casual players who don't have good gold income as it is, will get no benefit from this system unless they inject cash into it, which I know is the point (raise money for Portalarium) but its quite clearly a case of "pay money for a significantly better game experience." which I think should be avoided.

I'd rather see them potentially add cotos to some recipes for nice things. Potential for any number of decorative pieces that could use a coto as an ingredient due to having some sort of gold trim or lining or etc. Really no different than buying fancy deco for coto, ultimately, but part of the cost would be in ingame materials/time instead of straight up cash. Add a bit of magic to it - creating a chest or trunk and using a melted gold crown to make it have gold lining increases capacity from 300 to 500. I know for a fact I'd immediately upgrade all containers in my house. You could just even make a recipe called "gild container" that uses trunk + coto = supertrunk. Same thing with bags. Backpacks. Add coto infusion to tools for a speed bonus. Add coto infusion to potions for a (significant) duration bonus. Just random spitballing here.

 

I'm using mine for paying rent. That burns through COTOs rather swiftly.

 

Personally, I don't like the idea..

But increasing the value of cotos for rent to 5000 would be nice and increase the demand since cotos are mostly sold at 3900 at the moment.

 

Love this idea ! @Chris:
Please make it happen and implement some Recipes which work in this way.

 

Well this got derailed quickly lol

 

This game need people playing it first, #1 thing to work on to fix the revenue stream.

 

Well if the only thing they buy is the initial purchase price, it's a nice addition, but not a stream.

 

I'd rather have an elaborate ritual blood magik ceremony where skills are temporarily transferred from a sacrificed Avatar to the buffed Avatar. It wouldn't be an instant revenue stream for Port but it would make the game more interesting and unique.