Should there be different currencies for free to play vs purchasers of game?

[Pediatron]

I'm guessing this is going to be controversial but IMO that is what forum's are for:

 

Right now it seems that a player playing for free who has a lot of time and energy for the game can acquire everything that a person who buys the entire game gets.  They must spend a ton of time to do so and will get everything much more slowly. They even can get all of the extra material found in all the chests. 

 

My gut feeling is that this puts the developers in a difficult position on how to continue to cover their costs and even make a bit of profit (like every businessman should). Likely it will force them to continue to devalue gold as the main incentive for people to pay into the game. I bring this up because I feel it has already started on a very small level with the changes discussed for purchasing chests (making the same amount of gold buy less). The big negative I see is that this hurts the paying players more than those who really need to use their gold for characters and scenarios first (although with such a long wait between scenarios - i'm guessing everyone could have accumulated enough gold to buy everything by now!)

 

Back to the original question -- should there perhaps be a different currency for those who have purchased the full game. Realistically all they can spend that currency on is chests while those playing free to play are spending the same currency on everything else in the game. At some point the developers are going to need to raise the (gold) price of everything in order to incentivize people to put some money into the game. I would rather this not affect those that already bought the (still incomplete) game.

[Hannibal_PJV]

It is all balancing the things. But in anyway the devs will be tinkering the monetary system all the time. They need easy start to free to play peoples. But income in the longer run.

For buying Bundle peoples They need other type of gold/money sinks. I am sure that They have some alternate plans, but I don't Expect to hear about them untill those Are put in use. Who knows, maybe the last 3 scenarios can only be bought with real money? Who knows but all in all this is an aspect that we as a customers have very Little to say, except opinions.

There Are Many interesting old conversations about this subject in these forums. And there Are very neat some quite bizarre ideas about this matter in there.

Try to dig them out, They Are entertaining read!

[RedPred]

I think that this game without bugs and with full content will climb the store to have millions of users around the world in 6 months with thousands of bundles every month for years. Instead in almost 6 months it got bad reviews, worried community, leaving players and the same number of bugs and content released.

I don't know why some players think that debugging this game and adding ruled locations/cards requires an year to a team of professional programmers. But there you can find the real problem. If I have the project of a Ferrari, and my model doesn't sell like a Ferrari... it's because that car isn't a Ferrari.

Then if someone want that people get a car that isn't a Ferrari, paying it like a Ferrari, because soon (perhaps other 6 months) it will become a Ferrari... that someone doesn't know very well the actual competitive 'super-car' market and competitors quality.

[PRuano]

My gut feeling is that this puts the developers in a difficult position on how to continue to cover their costs and even make a bit of profit (like every businessman should). Likely it will force them to continue to devalue gold as the main incentive for people to pay into the game. I bring this up because I feel it has already started on a very small level with the changes discussed for purchasing chests (making the same amount of gold buy less). The big negative I see is that this hurts the paying players more than those who really need to use their gold for characters and scenarios first (although with such a long wait between scenarios - i'm guessing everyone could have accumulated enough gold to buy everything by now!)

 

Back to the original question -- should there perhaps be a different currency for those who have purchased the full game. Realistically all they can spend that currency on is chests while those playing free to play are spending the same currency on everything else in the game. At some point the developers are going to need to raise the (gold) price of everything in order to incentivize people to put some money into the game. I would rather this not affect those that already bought the (still incomplete) game.

Really cant figure out your point on how the increase of inflation of the ingame currency (gold) will hurt paying costumers more (which ALREADY have a different currency - real cash), its the opposite that happens. Care to elaborate?

 

But its a good point that the delay is helping f2p and hurting premium, since the hidden tax of f2p (time, which in this game is lower than others, since there are no timers on farming, other than the daily gold, and that is more a side earning way) is less severe, and f2p can achieve the same level of rewards of premium a bit easier (not to mention the extremely favorable conditions of farming gold up until recently).

Edited September 9, 2016 by PRuano

[kurtalb1]

I'm curious to know the ratio of people who bought the bundle, those that haven't paid a dime and those who have paid in bits and pieces (daily gold, new characters, etc.)  It kind of seems to be an "all or nothing" vibe on here. 

[Ethics Gradient]

But its a good point that the delay is helping f2p and hurting premium, since the hidden tax of f2p (time, which in this game is lower than others, since there are no timers on farming, other than the daily gold, and that is more a side earning way) is less severe, and f2p can achieve the same level of rewards of premium a bit easier (not to mention the extremely favorable conditions of farming gold up until recently).

I feel that way a bit too.  I paid my $25 for the season pass; I saw it as a way to shortcut the farming and play a little more casually.  However, with the unexpectedly large spans of time between releases, even casual play has got me to a point where I probably could have bought everything with gold.

 

Even if you can buy everything in RoTR with in-game gold now, I would not be surprised at all if that went away should there be future releases.  I can't see how an ad-free F2P game can be sustainable when it isn't remotely necessary to chip in any real money to get the full experience.  If there were a 2-tier system, I'd be okay with gold buying characters and chests, but requiring real money for adventure decks.  I can't think of any other games with episodic content that just gives everything away for free like Pathfinder does.

[RedPred]

If in May they said "AD6 in August" and in September we still miss AD4... why the problem is the f2p concept? ... their programmers worked all the time... or they did a long holiday for 5 months? You know that companies get financial resources before to start the activity and can get more later, right?

 

If game had been complete in these months, probably now they would have doubled bundle sales, a really better visibility in stores with increasing bundle sales per month. They decided to increase compatibility first. In these last months, priority wasn't completing content or stability. They did their choice. Other players did theirs. Someone uninstalled with a bad review. Someone played the game for a while then leaved. And you paid for a beta. You could. You wanted. You did. I don't buy half Windows OS or half OSX or half Office or half Battlefield or half Resident Evil or half whatever you want. I'm not a bank, a owner, a shareholder or a producer that invest their money in the activity. I'm the final client that buy the product. A complete, working, secure, stable product.

 

The only thing that could make me buy the bundle is the first I have seen launching the game and the last that will be implemented: multiplayer. I want to play with other players. First time in my life I see a deactivated function in the front page of a product.

 

You think they would have worked better selling double or triple bundles... they just had to complete and fix the code in these past 5 months. Nothing more to make the game a best seller in the stores right today.

 

The only thing I hope for all the players that still play the game after all these months, is a wonderful surprise of devs.. a patch with all the missing content. Nothing more, nothing less.

[wakasm]

Everyone is overcomplicating everything.  (IMO).   No, we don't need a new currency.   They misjudged how they wanted to implement F2P, implemented weird aspects of it, without understanding what drives F2P to begin with and what kind of economy works for it.  

 

The only way to combat the F2P issue is to release content faster and smoother, and it isn't happening.     They are having issues even communicating what could be coming.   

 

That doesn't mean the future of this project is over, nor does it mean we are screwed, it just means that whatever momentum they had, they are losing, and probably means a loss of morale for them.. 

 

Their biggest influx of money was when all of us prepaid for content when we were all starry eyed and happy at launch, and if that wasn't enough to carry them further with a smoother rollout for later content, nothing at this point will either, short of a new team or some other method of funds.

 

Our only hope at this point is that Obsidian keeps chugging along, as a labor of love, fix whatever issues they have, and use all of our Blessings when everything is released and polished, people may forget the past, and hopefully they'll improve where they can release content faster to actually combat the whole F2P situation to begin with. 

 

The target demographic for this game is already a niche of a niche...so... you really need even more content to take advantage of the amount of people that might even potentially play this game to begin with.

Edited September 10, 2016 by wakasm

[RedPred]

I did calculus about gold collecting time in an other section of the forum. To unlock everything in the game for a f2p players requires a month with 3 legendary scenarios with 6-party and challenge bonus every single day with at least 1h30m of playtime and 0 chests bought in meantime.

 

I don't think exist any normal guy that can do that. Also you need to collect so many strong cards before to play that way. It will take 3-4 months minimum to get to the instant full content of a p2p.

 

Every f2p guy who play the game wants to buy the bundle. Every single one. Few ones love long runs.

That is matter of:

- price (a kid not always can afford it)

- quality (who tries the game for some weeks and leaves for the actual 100 different known issues or because game just f**** your 30+lvl quest party)

- content (who leaves because it is taking one year to complete the content you have already paid)

 

The f2p concept works over the biggest possible customer pool. It's the most diffusing commercial strategy at the moment and it's very functional by itself with software/app of biggest developer studios.

 

So we concern about the game but solution isn't hard to understand:

1) complete

2) debug

3) extend

4) debug

5) jump to 3)

Edited September 10, 2016 by RedPred