The fact is many players quitting ALREADY happen in the last season, can you see it? Last season I'll be lucky if I see more than 10 of my friends or guildmates online.Originally Posted by Rogueulator
STS is hurt if they cannot create balance between supply from plat buyer and demand from non-plat buyer which is the key of sustainable revenues. It is not about which side more important.
Last edited by Newcomx; 07-23-2015 at 09:58 PM.
[Newcomx, Newcomy, & Newcomz]
As I think Energizeric said, STS has changed the plat model to gear more towards low-to-moderate plat spenders, rather than relying on a handful of plat whales to support them. This is, in fact, a much better way to do things.
1) The game has way more moderate plat players than whales. Previously, these people would spend their $50/month or whatever, and get 0 return because the odds of getting something decent were so low. This would be extremely discouraging, and they were hesitant to spend money on the game again.
2) Now they are seeing reds coming in. The reds may not be worth 100m gold, but at least they are making a couple of mill and/or getting geared. This is encouragement to them and means they will likely be more willing to spend money again.
3) For STS, this is a much more secure model because it means the game is not relying on keeping 4 or 5 people happy, in order to pay the bills. They are no longer susceptible to ultimatums of "if you don't do what we want you'll lose your income".
If those 4 or 5 quit before, they may have been screwed. By making spending more attractive to those without "unlimited funds", they have a much larger clientele, which means much more security.
6) Also, the numbers add up. You have 5 people spending $500/month each or 100 people spending $50/month, with the latter, you're looking at a much greater income potential and less risk.
You never know what you can do until you tryThere are two ways of doing something: right, and again.
Someone actually understands what makes the game go!
Watch the prices of all crates fall now... Its already run out of steam off expansion bump. Honestly I could care less... I'll get what I need / want. I really just care about guild and friends now. I have changed my spending on the game drastically and I know I'm not the only one. You reap what u sew. Development of AL seems to have already seriously fallen off with only a couple people doing everything now...it used to be a team of people. Hats off to carapace for staying on it. At least the bug fixes are appreciated.
This has been great for me... I don't have to spend anything anymore!
Last edited by notfaded1; 07-24-2015 at 07:26 AM.
rogue ~ retired GM Enigmatic
If you don't want to spend anymore, that's fine and good. But please stop demeaning all the players who don't have endless funds to toss into a game; their money is worth just as much as yours. This repeated statement by a few posters, that if a small minority of players (whales) stop spending, that will mean "nobody" is buying plat, is both insulting to the rest of the player base, and ridiculous.
You never know what you can do until you tryThere are two ways of doing something: right, and again.
Just because you dont/wont spend any more money opening lockeds doesnt mean the prices will fall drastically, even if youve opened like 50k+ to this date or whatever. One plat whale cannot speak for the rest of the population in the game. No one said you had to spend money in the first place. As serancha said, even if moderate plat buyers spend a little bit of money now and then, it is just as good as your money even if youve spent a lot.
Reading posts where a couple of huge plat spenders speak in the name of everyone who ever spent money in this game is getting very tiring. It feels like certain players are under the impression that they and they alone have kept this entire game afloat for its 3 years of existence and nobody else has been devoted enough or enjoyed the game enough to support it with real money. This is simply not the case.
Also quite offensive, are the sweeping statements that imply that everyone who is happy with the current state of play must be a child, immature, or unwilling to part with a "respectable" amount of money so their opinion and gameplay experience doesnt matter as much anyway.
As for players who choose to play for free, and why they might matter...
If free to play players were not valued, or encouraged, then spacetime would just have made a subscription game, where only players willing to shell out a certain amount of cash would even have been allowed in.
Remember that every player is a potential paying customer, either now or in a future Spacetime venture.
In addition, every customer paying or not has the potential to either rave about the game in real life, or grumble that its pay to win and sucks unless you can spend $10,000. I know which image I'd rather have the majority promoting. Negative publicity doesn't attract a ton of paying customers.
Last edited by Dalmony; 07-24-2015 at 01:19 PM.
I guess your so-called friends/guildmates are quitters. Most of my friendlist is still around and thriving and guild still over 600 members.
Good for you, but not for other majority of players before who complaining that a lot of their friends quit/offline before this season start. You can see it in this forum thread or maybe you choose to ignore the thread.
[Newcomx, Newcomy, & Newcomz]
I will tell u the solution, dont open locks!
Let locks farmers farm farm farm till the price drop of the ren lock
No 1 open locks from the plats users and u will the see arcane pets price increase so high and rengol locks prices drop
Dont waste your money and your plats, just save them for now till prices are ok
This morning I had a nice chat with my two friends blade and meteor and we were discussing our first red pets and how long it took us to get them. Mine was Sam and it took me a little over six months to aquire it by dedicated farming in elite zones. This was previous to when sts did events and such. I payed 21m for my Sam and do you have any idea what a sense of accomplishment I felt after working that hard to buy the pet? I felt so proud and that I truly earned this and was ready to be 'arcane' in the game.
Let's look at today's population. They can auto level to 41, the economy is so depressed that with a simple week in downloading the game and farming locked they can have max gear. The sense of working hard to earn items is gone, and the same people want it even faster. They complain about jewels not dropping fast enough, they complain that the tooth drops have been nerfed, hell the outrage that you could not auto craft an arcane ring and a nekro and there was a five day wait omg the horror.
The balance of both quality items in both locked and as boss drops are the key to keeping the economy alive. Right now we are in a rut, an arlorian depression. We have a fresh group of players who now expect instant gratification and an older population of remembering the days of farming Mali and hiding during the third wave praying they didn't die like a nub.
I actually think the disparity isn't plat vs. free player. It's veterans vs. new players.
Now we are dependent on events because the rest of the game has gone stagnant. Why isn't there any refreshed loot in elites and why are they not scales yet? The game dynamics of Arlor have changed immensely and many of you don't know what you missed.
The point here is that we all have the same vision, to have fun and have lots of opportunities to farm and make gold. Opening locked is just one piece of the puzzle. Do you think we earn all our gold off locked? Heck no. I made millions off tind elites when they dropped that was my bread and butter to buy my first Sam.
I wanted to discourage any further threads regarding plat vs free players on the forums. We are hung up on the wrong thing. We are stronger together pushing for better game quality and better loot tables in all zones and locked.
Thanks for reading and let's blow up the suggestions section of items we want to see dropping!!!!!
So very very true
I agree as well.
rogue ~ retired GM Enigmatic
"Veterans Vs. new players"
Thats hit me right in the hearth :3
+1 I totally agree!
When the question, "What was your favourite season in AL?", is asked, the answer by veteran players is almost always season 2 or 3. The reason season 2 and 3 were so popular was because it was before inflation and there was no gear gap. The very best gear was 1-3 damage better than the next best gear in season 2. Mythic helms came out in season 3 and were still only 7 damage better than the legendary.
Until the Mythic helm came along, there was no gear that cost more than 900k, and the benefit to using plat was that you could get elixirs and vanities - which were non-tradeable. Hammerjaw was the only arcane pet, and did not give the owner a large advantage over those using legendary pets. Yes, it was stronger, but people could still compete well if they didn't have it.
I believe STS is moving closer to that model again, where prices are not out of reach for anyone who is not a crate popper or plat farmer. I believe this is a good move on their part, since there is nothing more discouraging than an item that gives a 100+ damage increase over the next best item, that you will never be able to obtain, either by farming it or trying to farm enough money for it.
If the price is so high that there is no way to get the money (before the item is outdated) without popping crates, it is no longer a F2P game. It is then pay-to-win.
It's not realistic to expect people in a mobile mmo to play for several hundred hours in an effort to earn enough gold for something that will be obsolete before they ever get the money together. It's also not right to give that huge an advantage to spenders in a game that is marketed as F2P. Because then it is no longer F2P at all (and yes, I speak as a non-whale plat user).
I believe that the instant-level-to-41 thing was a very bad idea, but for the rest? I can't see much wrong with it. The lower prices just mean your gold is worth that much more. After all, getting 25K from a crate in today's economy would be the equivalent of getting 250k from it a year ago.
Last edited by Serancha; 07-25-2015 at 10:45 AM.
You never know what you can do until you tryThere are two ways of doing something: right, and again.
I mean the fact that we will now be limited to three maps and they haven't taken the time to scale elites or revitalize new drops kills the game. Am I the only one completely bored by this idea? To grind our mythic set with three maps is not something that I desire. Scale the old elites, improve the loot, even make components for the new drop all over arlor.
The problem is that it's so easy to acquire the max gear that what do you do next?
I mean, I certainly don't have all the answers but I'm disheartened by only having three maps to use for new mythic set grind.
What kept me playing was the fact that it took a long time to earn items. Not have them handed to me in a week.
Somewhere between current and the plat farm insanity would be ideal.
Don't be so sure yet about maxing gear in a week xD. The new level 46 mythic set will definitely be a grind which I hope so to be. For those with max gear now really don't mean anything yet cause it's still preseason.
Twobnv & Twoxc & Twocrazy - Deviant Misfits Officer
If take along time to earn items, then the price also will go high because of the rare supply. This is happen last season and drive a lot of free-players quit because they can't compete by investing "reasonable" time to play this game without disturbing their real life time. I think STS don't want that, that why they make this new system, to keep players and invite more people playing.
[Newcomx, Newcomy, & Newcomz]
I am pretty sure elites are scaled. Firstly the dot left of the health bar is blue, which implies that they are the same level as the character (lvl 46). Secondly they certainly hit much harder than before. In the last 2-3 months before the expansion I did a lot of solo elites. Mostly in planar tombs and tindirin, but also in all other maps. Although I did not have arcane ring and nekro planar tomb 1 boss could not one hit me with his fireball, nor could planar tomb 2 boss with his charge attack, neither could the shamans in tindirin. Now with 400 more armour and about 430 more health (rogue class 2030 armour, 5200 health) I get one hit by all of those. Further the mobs in planar tombs are much harder for sure. Before the cap I could just tank a group of 3 skeletons and 2 vines with maridos. Now this is nearly impossible and I have to use nekro.
P.S. I have been doing planar tombs daily solo for more than a month before the expansion on a daily basis and I have done it solo since it arrived on a daily basis just for the challenge. Further I have farmed 1 dragonite bar after the expansion. That is what my comment is based on.
I fully agree about the drops. Farming those old maps just to get lvl 40-41 epics and legendaries is not exactly motivating one to farm more
Last edited by Jazzi; 07-25-2015 at 12:08 PM.
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