Elixirs/Plat Gameplay

[Elyseon]

I had the convenient experience of using a second account over the past week, and aside from some level 35 gear i received from a friend, i used only stuff that i got as drops or bought with money from sold drops. I made it too 70 in about 3 days thanks to the stacked 2x and pure shamrock thrashers. i had around 40k of gold till i reached 55, i had cleared the nuri normal maps and then hopped in the 'premium' nuri dungeon till i hit 58. this conveniently allowed me to earn within 2 drops 2.5 mil. by level 70 i had 3 mil thanks to some rerolls in humania.
Personally i find this feat somewhat ridiculous for several reasons

-end game with a 3 day old account
-3 mil with a 3 day old account

sadly both of these come down to plat and elixirs
8x xp
low supply of these new nuri items since only heavy plat buys can bring them out to everyone else
all it takes is a purple to get a pink

somewhat related to plat is the high inflation in PL items which makes almost anything of value worth almost 1 mil
thanks to plat elixirs totally killing the old gold drain of gold elixirs now almost every bit of gold added to the game stays in circulation thus blowing prices through the roof for items that dont even have that low of a supply such as end game sets.

as i said above about this accomplishment being completed in 3 days, im not trying to hate on noobs, but personally i think they miss out on alot of the content, and to be honest being a noob was almost more fun, you had more to work for, but anyways back on topic

also with the issue of all of the lag, i think this solution would be fitting
two servers for PL again, but they would be running varied versions of the game
the normal one, alterra would remain the same
a new one, probably named elyseonland or something, without plat

of course the first thing that comes up is 'at the end of the day, sts is a business and has to make money'. We all know this well, and its quite obvious to everyone playing the game these days, but obviously 16 months ago and 2 years ago the game was making money or you wouldnt have continued with it. Today you would be doing fine without these plat elixirs and premium dungeons, the player base has grown much larger and with three games you would make plenty of money.

also i have no problem with wanting to make more money as any of the devs could check Im not the one spending $5 on the game once, i have no problem spending money on the game, but i want to spend it on the great game that drew me in.

also a platless server might not reduce your players as much as you think many of the big spenders probably enjoy being able to easily level multiple characters, or to be able to farm their gear easier.

even in the case that it would destroy the games cashflow, who said it had to be a free platless server/version. I would gladly pay to switch over, it could be a subscription or a paid app.

i really want to continue to enjoy this game but if its balance is continually traded out for money, i will have to start taking several breaks
i post this cuz i care not cuz im hating on anyone or anything.
please comment how you would/do feel about this
(devs also please)

[Energizeric]

I think this was the reason for achievements. Many of the achievements cannot be purchased with plat. One of the things I'm proud of is that I completed all 190 quests. I don't care how much plat you have, completing the quests takes lots of time and effort.

But I agree, if you don't have plat it's much more difficult. I played until Humania came out having never purchased an elixer of any kind nor had I ever paid to play in a dungeon except for having paid a few plat to enter the Croc Fued and Skeller Crunch, back when you had to pay for those places, but it was a single one time fee for access. So after playing for 4 months, when Humania came out my total net worth was probably around 2m. Now it's easily north of 20m, and since the Humania expansion I have spent about 3000 plat and about 2000 of that was on elixers and paid dungeon access.

[Dynastu]

Personally, what I get out of this is that the friend who lent you those items is very nice. IMO, and ik I have nothing to do with this really, but, I'd sell something to Hunzzz for 999m gold and give the profit to that friend, he deserves it, clearly.

[Bunnyshoota]

I had the convenient experience of using a second account over the past week, and aside from some level 35 gear i received from a friend, i used only stuff that i got as drops or bought with money from sold drops. I made it too 70 in about 3 days thanks to the stacked 2x and pure shamrock thrashers. i had around 40k of gold till i reached 55, i had cleared the nuri normal maps and then hopped in the 'premium' nuri dungeon till i hit 58. this conveniently allowed me to earn within 2 drops 2.5 mil. by level 70 i had 3 mil thanks to some rerolls in humania.
Personally i find this feat somewhat ridiculous for several reasons

-end game with a 3 day old account
-3 mil with a 3 day old account

sadly both of these come down to plat and elixirs
8x xp
low supply of these new nuri items since only heavy plat buys can bring them out to everyone else
all it takes is a purple to get a pink

somewhat related to plat is the high inflation in PL items which makes almost anything of value worth almost 1 mil
thanks to plat elixirs totally killing the old gold drain of gold elixirs now almost every bit of gold added to the game stays in circulation thus blowing prices through the roof for items that dont even have that low of a supply such as end game sets.

as i said above about this accomplishment being completed in 3 days, im not trying to hate on noobs, but personally i think they miss out on alot of the content, and to be honest being a noob was almost more fun, you had more to work for, but anyways back on topic

also with the issue of all of the lag, i think this solution would be fitting
two servers for PL again, but they would be running varied versions of the game
the normal one, alterra would remain the same
a new one, probably named elyseonland or something, without plat

of course the first thing that comes up is 'at the end of the day, sts is a business and has to make money'. We all know this well, and its quite obvious to everyone playing the game these days, but obviously 16 months ago and 2 years ago the game was making money or you wouldnt have continued with it. Today you would be doing fine without these plat elixirs and premium dungeons, the player base has grown much larger and with three games you would make plenty of money.

also i have no problem with wanting to make more money as any of the devs could check Im not the one spending $5 on the game once, i have no problem spending money on the game, but i want to spend it on the great game that drew me in.

also a platless server might not reduce your players as much as you think many of the big spenders probably enjoy being able to easily level multiple characters, or to be able to farm their gear easier.

even in the case that it would destroy the games cashflow, who said it had to be a free platless server/version. I would gladly pay to switch over, it could be a subscription or a paid app.

i really want to continue to enjoy this game but if its balance is continually traded out for money, i will have to start taking several breaks
i post this cuz i care not cuz im hating on anyone or anything.
please comment how you would/do feel about this
(devs also please)

Completely agree. I liked those old school days of chilling while running :)

[Elyseon]

theres really just those 6 quests that take awhile, cyber and the frozen nightmare ones both from before the time of elixirs invading

the fur ball one can take abit, unless of course you do the monster bash, which reduces the number of runs by half and the time for a run by about 75%
thx plat!

[Elyseon]

Personally, what I get out of this is that the friend who lent you those items is very nice. IMO, and ik I have nothing to do with this really, but, I'd sell something to Hunzzz for 999m gold and give the profit to that friend, he deserves it, clearly.
maybe i should just plat it to 71 with him instead

[Whirlzap]

Ely, I remember Sam mentioned a leaderboards for No Platinum used in reaching Level Cap players.
He mentioned something about this a long time ago, but I guess it was never taken too seriously.

[Energizeric]

I actually did the quests on schedule, meaning I did each campaign's quests when I was the proper level for that campaign. The only exception is that it took me longer to do all the AO3 quests so I didn't finish until I was around lvl52 or 53 and also I did the frozen nightmare quests when I was late 50s-early 60s.

So lots of them were very tough and time consuming for me. I can remember the swamps and croc fued ones being tough. But I guess if you just level up fast and then go back to do all the quests, then most will be rather easy.

[Elyseon]

I actually did the quests on schedule, meaning I did each campaign's quests when I was the proper level for that campaign. The only exception is that it took me longer to do all the AO3 quests so I didn't finish until I was around lvl52 or 53 and also I did the frozen nightmare quests when I was late 50s-early 60s.

So lots of them were very tough and time consuming for me. I can remember the swamps and croc fued ones being tough. But I guess if you just level up fast and then go back to do all the quests, then most will be rather easy.

If you don't use plat most of them will just get completed as you level up normally

[Elyseon]

Ely, I remember Sam mentioned a leaderboards for No Platinum used in reaching Level Cap players.
He mentioned something about this a long time ago, but I guess it was never taken too seriously.
I'm pretty sure if you did it you would be guaranteed a LB spot lol

[Suentous PO]

I like the idea in general. One of my toons is nearly platless for the experience. One thing I think would attract players is if they got a title out of it like an achievement. "hard core" as a title designating ( Or sumthn'). Like true legacy ppl would do just for bragging rights. Also could introduce a vanity set that could only be gained from this new tougher dungeon. Hopefully not stat heavy, just to show off. If anything like this happened, I would still spend plat, and grind without all the same.

[Otukura]

Ely, I remember Sam mentioned a leaderboards for No Platinum used in reaching Level Cap players.
He mentioned something about this a long time ago, but I guess it was never taken too seriously.

als did, not sam.

[lilweezy]

some people just want everything for free. 15992

sts isnt a charity and their staff needs to eat too.
who is gonna pay server costs, designers and developer salaries, marketing? the list goes on.

[Rot]

3 days endgame? I can only reach 30s in 3 days... :dispirited:
Also I think I saw this character you mentioned in this post in-game. Is it a l70 bird named something like ____lyseon?

[NECROREAPER]

some people just want everything for free. 15992

sts isnt a charity and their staff needs to eat too.
who is gonna pay server costs, designers and developer salaries, marketing? the list goes on.


http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff282/08kecarv/89c8a0dbc8a10e99e9406b984dffb533.jpg

[xcainnblecterx]

Yea all i see in sts is mostly about plat. Think of wu-tang-clan's c.r.e.a.m. song, but in this case p.r.e.a.m. (platinum rules everything around me). Tbh till 66 when it was cap and i hit 66 was the first time I ever used a thrasher and since humania I see more money spending options then things just for fun. No we don't want everything for free, but there should be limits. You should see what is going threw sewers right now :( On my 51 bird I left a 56 thrashing bear for a couple secs to clear a room, within 20-30 secs he was spamming help. I have never needed help on a thrasher for one afor two this bear was scattering Willy nilly and three had some swamp gear. That's one reason I dont like power lvlers no clue how to play. I say your first toon you make you should learn that class. Then you have your l70s who think any one who isn't at their lvl or higher that they have to be jerks/rude to them. I say this cause farming on my bear in ssc a 70 on thrasher joined waited tell I had cleared just enough to make boss spawn, said thrasher guy/girl ran strait for boss and demolished him before I could get there. So there is multiple things were wrong in pl right now and it seems to get worse and I think it's cause the new players are pushing the old fashion nice ones out.

[LwMark]

3 days endgame? I can only reach 30s in 3 days... :dispirited:
Also I think I saw this character you mentioned in this post in-game. Is it a l70 bird named something like ____lyseon?

Studlyseon?

[Elyseon]

some people just want everything for free. 15992

sts isnt a charity and their staff needs to eat too.
who is gonna pay server costs, designers and developer salaries, marketing? the list goes on.
thanks for not reading the thread

[Suentous PO]

Can I ask how much plat it took or roundabout? I'm doing something similar this weekend

[Energizeric]

Personally I would prefer a game that I paid a flat monthly fee for and then no plat. But since I see it appears most of the people who play PL are kids/teens, I am the exception being older, and I'm guessing most of the younger people could not afford it. So perhaps that model would not provide a successful game. Instead they allow all the non-paying players to still play so that the game gets crowded, but us paying folks have an easier time and become the more successful players. You cannot have it both ways. STS is not a charity and they have to make their money somehow. If you have another idea about how they could make money from the game, I'm sure they would be interested to know (and so would I).

[Suentous PO]

Energizeric- he says "it could be subscription or a paid app". He's suggesting a way they could make $

[Griffinfan]

Well said Elyseon... +1

[Energizeric]

Energizeric- he says "it could be subscription or a paid app". He's suggesting a way they could make $

I see that, but I was pointing out that while I would prefer this too, I don't think it would be a successful model. I think the end result is fewer players playing the game, and then everyone becomes less interested.

It's like the old Yogi Berra quote "nobody goes there because it's too crowded", except this is the opposite. In order to get people to play your game, it must be a popular and somewhat crowded game. But if it were crowded already, then that problem is already solved. So the question is, how do you get people to pay for a game that nobody plays (i.e. it is a new game). The only answer I can think of is that you let them play for free. I suppose they could try to give first month or two free and then you pay, but not sure if that would be successful. As I mentioned above, it seems most of the players are teens or kids who would not be able to pay a monthly fee.

And as PL is already a very successful game, there is no chance they would risk that by changing the model into a pay per month one. That would be too risky and could result in a mass exodus of players which would kill the game.

[Suentous PO]

Well I won't try to speak for Elyseon, but I think I understand what was envisioned. Being that pl IS already popular, a variation could be possible without taking away from what we already have. Personally Im skeptical there would be enough of a fan base, so I also kinda agree with you, in that it might not be worth the cost. Or it might I wouldn't know.

[Cobraguy]

Simply put.....Free to play, pay to win.

A good developer deserves to be supported, and I have no problems doing that. I'm not a huge plat buyer, but I do throw some cash at it from time to time. Lately though, I haven't been as generous as I used to be. My whole trip to 71 was on a week long and gold pots.

[Elyseon]

Well I won't try to speak for Elyseon, but I think I understand what was envisioned. Being that pl IS already popular, a variation could be possible without taking away from what we already have. Personally Im skeptical there would be enough of a fan base, so I also kinda agree with you, in that it might not be worth the cost. Or it might I wouldn't know.
Basically this yeh
I just thought this would also solve the large problem of lag

[Faliziaga]

Maybe they could implement a choice between easy or hard version of the map. So when you join or host a game, you can choose between the hard or easy version. The hard version could be without elixirs, more mobs, higher difficulty. I think the most diffcult aspect of this 'hardcore version' would be to find a team:stupid:

[Frealaf]

Subscription models are nice and all that and I prefer them, but unless they are popular and the game is good enough then it dosn't make money. There is a reason most MMO's that started out subscription based are now going free to play with cash shops.

[Elyseon]

Subscription models are nice and all that and I prefer them, but unless they are popular and the game is good enough then it dosn't make money. There is a reason most MMO's that started out subscription based are now going free to play with cash shops.
Developers kill the competitiveness for extra profit