Necrotron_RO

I highly suspect that the logic is to 'retain' long term subscribers as they are the experienced core 'most likely team leaders' and life of the game for newbies.

Also, it entices previous subscribers to come back and play 'like they always did' before, again, keeping the servers filled with bodies and lively, which makes the game more enticing to other players.

Of course, they do have the 'VIP only' further development of characters in Incarnate abilities, and I will very likely have a serious interest again if the solo incarnate content is fun. I just think there needs to be more reason to pay that $15 a month, in general.

I would, of course, miss the quick hop onto a forming BAF/LAM for a quick large team experience, but the speed run aspect that is nearly always done on those makes me feel like I'm just grinding rewards, which essentially I am. The other iTrials I enjoy less, so they feel like grinding even more so.

Of course, I do want that Statesman's Helmet, so kudos on that dangling carrot, it will make the decision very tough.

Lately, I've been seriously considering going premium, as for what I want out of the game, it seems to be the best deal.


As a VIP, I gain access to (that I don't have already):

*Incarnate abilities


A couple of additional considerations I have for staying VIP is, the Loyalty Program. A Statesman's Helmet would be nice, and also, I need 3 more reward tokens to unlock the celestial armor.


-Or-


I go freemium


I use my banked points to unlock Time Manipulation and First Ward, and bam! I have everything I had previously, except incarnate abilities. As for slots, I've bought several of the years, and therefore have roughly 24 slots on Freedom, 17 slots on Virtue, and 10 or so on Justice for unlocks. That is waaay more than enough characters (not all, but plenty) to play for months, if not years.


So, I question myself, "Am I willing to pay $15 a month just for incarnate access and eventually celestial armor/Statesman's Helmet?" I don't especially enjoy iTrials, and seeing where the development on them is going, I expect to like the newer ones less and less. However, I would miss perma Clarion for squishies.



The points breakdown is another issue:


As a VIP: 550 points + Incarnates for $15 each month


or


As Freemium: each lot of 400 points is $5 (each month or as needed)


Simply, freemium is the waaay better deal when I consider how much I spend unlocking costume sets/powersets as they come out.


It's a tough question.


One other possibility: I could just pay $45 right now and get 3x more points than I would remaining VIP and unlock celestial armor 'right now'. Then, I would have plenty of banked points to last...forever, most likely.

Of course, this is my debate as a tier 9 veteran. If I didn't have permanent IO access and/or everything else unlocked for free, it would be a different set of considerations entirely.

I've had this happen on numerous characters so far.

Basically, I'm afraid to log into an alt that I haven't already logged into this week for fear they will have their trays wiped as well. I don't want any clever cool macros I have written to just 'disappear'.

Sadly, any sense of realism you have often has to be tossed out when playing a video game.

The only thing that I never really liked was 'levels' and the arbitrary extreme difficulty difference between -1 and +5 mobs.

My first MMoG didn't have 'combat levels' and mobs were only as difficult as they were designed to be. If you couldn't defeat them, they were probably too hard for you. It felt very immersive, like a real world. Of course, they changed to 'combat levels' when they revamped it.

But combat levels seem to make games easier to design, so alas, every MMoG I can think of now uses them.

My main issue with the way they changed EM is that adding yet another super long windup animation before the damage finally comes fundamentally changed Energy Transfer as a power. Now, it is a another only useful on really big target's power because it takes too long to get it off. That super long animation and delay can be outright frustrating at times. I remember teaming with one player who tried to play their tricked out EM/Stone Brute after the change and they just shelved that character and never looked back.

Picture: Titan Weapons before Momemtum is in effect. Now, make it take even longer. Now, you have Energy Melee's big hitters.

My only issue with chosing to be VIP or not is the fact that the only thing being VIP provides for free for me being a tier 8 vet is Incarnates, and more character slots that I could ever use.

Being a customer who has purchased numerous slots over the years, I find I have more than plenty of slots to use as a premium player. The part of the game I enjoy most is leveling from 1-50, so incarnate powers and iTrials isn't really a major selling point for me, especially not for $10 a month. As such, I find I it to be a better deal to be 'not VIP' and merely purchase points as I want to buy things.

$15 a month for 400 points as VIP

-or-

$5 a month for 400 points as Premium

You have provided a few 'VIP' perks. IDF costume set, First Ward, Time Manipulation, but even with these 'freebies', I find it would 'still' be cheaper to simply purchase them outright (if I find I want them), than to continue paying an additional $10 a month for them.

As a player like me not especially interested in iTrials and mostly interested in the leveling from 1-50 content, I wonder, where is the incentive to 'be' VIP? Being a VIP should be an obvious 'YES!', but at it stands, I'm not sure it is.

I'm fairly certain they just arbitrarily picked a few powersets to be 'pay for' and others to be free to VIPs based upon their profit projections and what they thought would entice players to 'remain VIP', and Melee powersets just got that end of the stick.

For me, concept comes first, and then I mix/max that concept to it's utpmost performance.

I don't know how I could enjoy myself if I prioritized performance over playing a character with the concept I want.

Now, all we need to do is squash that 'clear and reset all power trays' bug.

I'm afraid to log on any other alts for fear they will get struck as well.

Hard content can be really fun. These newer iTrials would be great if they could be completed with a small team of close friends.

However, not so much so when you're basically required to try and complete it with a large pack of strangers, for the most part. I know I usually don't have enough online friends at any given time to run an iTrial with just them.

Would give Stone Tankers something to do with their nigh unlimited survivability.

Considering I cannot have another pet out in conjunction with my Wisp pet, I really cannot find myself using vanity pets.

I used to on occassion enjoy spawning a clockwork pet to follow a gadget themed character, along with my Shield Drone pet. But now that we can only spawn one pet, I can't find myself giving up the usefulness of my Wisp pet.

So alas, vanity pets remain on the shelf with no use for me. I like them, but not at the expense of not having a Blue Wisp pet out.

Freedom has the most continually active population.

Virtue is great if you enjoy running the 'harder' and less often ran iTrials.

Union and Defiant really get going late, late night (e.g. 3-4 AM Pacific Standard Time) if you're an insomniac.

Many other servers get iTrials going during their peak times.

My personal favorite is Virtue. That said, Freedom is probably the fastest from league forming announcement time to trial completion time.

Really looking forward to the DA content as small team/solo is always my preference over gigantic league play. My hope is that it features more straightforward gameplay than the 'gmmicks' in each of the iTrials currently.

As for the iTrials, I am not really a fan of the unavoidable damage patches being constantly used and the information overload that happens with constant red text spamming the screen that is too big to even read and/or covered by my power trays.

But alas, at least we didn't get a new currency, so I can run the few iTrials I find more fun than the others until the small team option is available.

Really, people are saying a 2.2 second animation is slow. It just feels slow.

In reality, Energy Melee, Battle Axe, Super Strength, Dual Blades, Stone Melee, Broadsword, etc. etc. all feature attacks longer than most of these momentum-building 'slower' Titan Weapon attacks.

And once you have done that one 'slow' animation, Titan Weapons is extremely fast 'and' mostly AoE. It's about as awesome as it comes, in my opinion.