Psyte

Powersets are an interesting thing since getting the most out of them is a matter of delayed gratification, personal style, and AT choices. They're a lot of work, obviously, and new ones really do need some defining features compared to the older powersets!

If there's a Powers team, and if they can de-couple powerset releases from issue releases, that would be ideal. It seems they're doing that with content releases to a degree with signature stories, so the more they can do that with other content, the better, leaving issue updates for big updates and major plotlines.

For me I would like to see more powersets come out more regularly than what we've been accustomed to provided there's not a loss in quality. Pricing should be based on how many AT's can benefit from a powerset - a Blaster only secondary set should not cost as much as something that could be used by Blasters, Defenders, Corruptors and Doms.

I'd be fine paying for powersets, even as a VIP, provided the following are generally met:

• My stipend should cover a fair portion of the cost of the powerset.
• The fewer ATs the powerset is usuable by, the lower the price should be.
• We should see some powersets be freely available for VIP players that add to the core subscriber experience.
• Powersets should go on sale or have coupons on occasion!

Now, I've already discussed my thoughts on pricing earlier on in-thread, so I'll consider them "submitted" ideas. But this is what I think for the time being, and I'll readily admit my thoughts/position will change.

Chad showed the math, actually. $15 for what we'd get for a booster pack. It can work out to be $10 for a VIP if they haven't spent their 400 point stipend, or can be "free" if bought piecemeal over three months using the stipend. I believe the objection is the full bundle (costumes bits, temp power and emotes) should be $10 without the stipend, or as low as $5 with the stipend.

Thus sort of reminds me of a longstanding argument against boosters; we should be getting all that in our subscription, not bought extra, so we're arguably getting less for the same amount of money or paying more ($10 a pop) more than before to get the same amount of stuff.

My view is different as are my expectations, so that's all I'm willing to venture o guessing. But, regardless of you agreeing or disagreeing, its important that the devs see these comments and feedback! I've always prided myself as a COH player because the development team and community reps at least listened to player concerns, so we should reflect that by not discouraging other views we dislike.

I'm being idealistic here, but that, I feel, is only fitting. Sorry for the times I don't measure up to that.

Hell, once I can buy Paragon Points via cards? I can FINALLY gift people stuff. I've waited years for that. Plus my SG will grow from old folks returning as Premium players

To be honest? No, its pretty obvious they're trying to make more money. They are giving themselves more ways to make money off of subscribers, they're attempting to recapture former players and make money off of the, and bring in new players to profit from. I've been an armchair game industry analyst fir years now and its obvious not only to me but pretty much everyone else.

Now, that being said, they don't have to screw us to make more money with this approach. Making money and screwing the customer are not the same.

Sounds about right for the DR dev's point, Chad. Spot on, even.

Buxley - one of the things a Dungeon Runners dev noted is that a microtransaction store lets developers make more.money from subscribers. Now, DRs sub was a grant $5/month, so its not the same exactly as COH, but the sub cost represented a revenue cap per player. The booster packs, for instance, are additional revenue.if you buy three a year, that's $30 or $2.50/mo more.

The worry being presented is the 400 points a month is an attempt to get VIPs to spend even more, both in amount and regularity, and that the devs or NCSoft will attempt to abuse that via pricing to effectively raise the subscription rate without formally increasing the subscription rate. It has merit as a concern, so feedback is important in pricing, expectations what VIPs will and won't get, etc.

I'm personally happy with things as presented, but it is a reasonable concern. Voting with your wallet helps, but you can't really influence others to do the same nearly as well (is, orchestrated boycott), and I'd be afraid of it turning belligerent ("You bought that? Idiot! You're part of the problem!"). At this time i trust the game's management to not be abusive by my definition of that, but i cant say the same according to anyone elses' definitions, fears or metrics.

¿SCR?

MrDead - I would suggest actually writing out a draft and maybe PMing it. Keep in mind the devs and management likely have poured over details of other F2P titles you have available, plus likely have studies, projections and more data plus goals (break even , successful, wildly successful) that you don't. They likely have other considerations, maybe even consultations, in various matters including this.

Keep in mind this is not final, and can, if not will, change by i21s launch and will evolve past then too. It might be a consideration, might have some dev support, but regardless its not yet announced as being an absolute yes or no... So don't rule it out, but do t count on it either. Just because other (but not all!) hybrids do it doesn't mean Paragon would or should.

Can we just agree to disagree at this point?

And more thoughts on specials; if there was a way to tie in offers made to buying history (ock thereof) that could work. Probably be a pain on the backend, mind you... But if someone hasn't bought in a while, they should totally get a special offer, you know?

I very firmly blame the spammers for how restricted the Free accounts are. The fact premiums have to pay at some point is a barrier for them - not insurmountable but when coupled with all the other tools we have? Hey, I'm ALL for making COH more unattractive for them.