Monetary value of new powersets...

The way I see it, the current prices we've seen of some shop items are kind of like what we saw of the Empyrean/Astral store items in issue 20.5 beta. The prices were set pretty high at first, and then lowered based on the reactions to them.

So right now the prices are probably about as high as the devs think they can go. Though there IS a chance they could end up going higher, I really doubt it. Chances are they're looking at reactions (mostly in beta, but here too to an extent) to the various store items, and seeing what people want reduced, and what people seem to be find with paying.

And of course, as was mentioned numerous times with the empyrean/astral stores, if the devs lower their absurd prices to slightly more reasonable ones they end up looking like the good guys. It's much easier than if they raised the prices, which would cause players to lash out at them... which is why I think the current prices are as high as they think they can go.



With all that said, I think the current prices we've seen so far are fine, IF you're counting the monthly stipend VIP players get. But... if I were a Premium player (or Free, but if they buy anything they become Premium too), I wouldn't come anywhere near those store items.

I really think the focus should be on if Premium players would be willing to buy these things, rather than if we would (with our monthly free points taken into account). The Paragon shop is really for them, after all. So I tend to ignore the free points when thinking about what prices are acceptable.

From my point of view, it's impossible to say $10 is overcharging for powersets as we have no reference to use. If we'd been buying sets in the past we could look to that as a 'baseline' but we haven't.

The closest thing we can get to buying sets would be the expansions and as pointed out that just won't work. Expansions come with far too much content to try and determine what 0.0001% of the purchase = powers sets. All the fancy math at Arcana's disposal can't create a price point for Kinetic melee when taken apart from GR. Not yet anyways.

I agree that they need to reach a 'happy medium' when it comes to cost. Otherwise we'll end up losing more players than we retain. I'm just trying to take the emotional context out of the equation and look at it with an open mind.

The way I see it is simple.

Which would you (anyone) prefer?
1. The dev's say nevermind about F2P, we're gonna stay like we are.
Which results in us getting 2 new powersets this year.
OR.
2. The dev's charge $10 for new sets and by years end we have 8 new ones to choose from.

Naturally, this is all speculation at this point. Personally I feel $10 isn't bad. However if it ends up being something absurd like $30...


I must also admit that I'm coming at this from a semi-retired state of mind. I've spent 7 years with this game, plan on seeing it to the end. However my playtime the past year has been non-existant at best. If I was still really active and itching to get my hands on every single new set right away... Yeah I'd be a bit miffed. As it stands though, I can now use my PP to buy the one set I want 1st and then by the time I get done/bored with it I should have enough for another.

We getting more stuff than before, so I dont care if I have to spend points from my monthly suscription or even extra money.
Also we can set priorities, so I can wait a bit for Beam riffle, but will purchase Street justice and Titan weapons on day one.
In the past we had to wait sometimes more than 1 year with no new powersets added, now we gonna get plenty, same for consumibles, and costume pieces.
To me this is the future, and how MMO will work from now.
Its a win win feature for everybody.

Part of the problem comes from the fact that we now have to assign powersets individual worth, were as before when they came bundled with expansions we didn't. They were part of the package deal.

Trying to dissect the 2 expansions will get us nowhere. One can easily take away all the other content and reach a price of 7.50 for 4 sets.
Barring the fact that GR's price was all over the place, I personally bought it a week after launch at Best buy for $24. This really has nothing to do with how much sets should cost individually. Looking at it from that angle it does appear we are now paying nearly $3 more for powersets than we had to before but it's not that cut and dry sadly.

Lets try an analogy...

You buy a car for $5,000 that comes with 4 new tires. Using some sophisticated math you determine each tire cost you around $150.00.
Few years later you go to buy some new tires. Are you outraged that your being overcharged when you find out each tire cost $200.00?

When something is sold as part of a package the individual worth vanishes and it becomes part of the whole. When selling something individually the entire value is placed solely on it's individual merits. Or in other words, bulk discounts. Powersets cost $10 but if you buy this combo (expansion) you get a bulk discount kinda deal.

This discussion does have me curious now as to what the community feels is a good price point though.

My thought is that the price per powerset should exceed the monthly stipend of Tier 9 players. So, over 550 points.

Seeing as the point of these powersets is to sell them, the costs should be enough over the monthly stipend that folks won't be too offput by the idea, but also enough that they make some amount of profit for the amount of work that went into making them. This should be balanced for cost versus player desire for them.

I'm not saying that something that everybody wants should be more expensive and that something that a very small amount of people want should be less expensive. Rather that there needs to be a middleground between the two points where the largest amount of people will agree that that the value of any new powerset is worth the price we end up paying.

The value of powersets should also exceed that of a bundle or set of costume parts because there's enough situations where someone can design something vaguely similar to new sets that we can circumvent buying new costumes to make a different character. But, ultimately, while the clothes can define a character, new powersets mean that an even greater number of characters can be created. The price list that somebody produced earlier, set the magic super booster at the assumed value of 400 points.

The reason why I mention the monthly stipend comes into play is:

If the cost per powerset is below the stipend then we won't be as motivated to spend money to bolster this new market system and there will be less reasons to make new characters and the game will die sooner. Whereas, if they cost too much, the same will occur. So, the trick is to find that magic number over the monthly stipend where the cost will exceed the monthly stipend, but not be so much as to deter people from buying them.

The other thing to consider is that we should have enough points leftover so that we will consider buying more points when the next set comes out. Which I believe we can safely assume will be in multiple 400point(or $5.00) increments.

So, at the very least, the cost needs to be between 600($7.50) to 800($10.00) points(assuming that the price will not exceed the number in the preview) to make sense from the point of view of somebody selling these items and point bundles.

Guys, you need to remember that the VIP monthly "stipend" doesn't exist solely for the purchase of powersets. It exists for the purchase of costume items, special perks and the many different consumables that they're offering. To suggest that a VIP should save up, what? Six months' worth of stipend and patiently wait for Paragon Points to build up is like asking me to suspend my subscription for a few months so that I can build up money for the next expansion. I believe City of Villains sold for $40, so that applies.

The point is that there is a crapton of stuff we could be using our Paragon Points on, and new powersets are just one of these. If it were JUST powersets, then sure, I can wait, but it's not JUST that. VIPs will be paying regardless of whether they get powersets or not, because those enhancement unslotters, respec recipes and Invention's boosters don't come for free and they aren't reusable.

If we can make the argument that the monetary value is magical and impossible to determine from a package deal, then let's try and not forget that they're not alone in the Paragon Store, either. Please.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

IMO, the entire concept of attributing a monetary value to powersets is pointless because value is simply far too subjective.

What the OP seems to want to 'discuss' is the sale price of the premium powersets in the new Freedom model.

You either like the price point or you don't. Each individual must decide if the value of the price point is good or bad.

Considering the hundreds of hours of enjoyment one potentially gets from a powerset, the sale price, even at 800 points ($10), seems IMO to have tremendous value.

Okay, let me start this by first saying that I will buy whatever I "can't live without" from the store no matter what the charge is or how long I have to save up for it. I'm a glutton for this game and will continue forking out points, cash, whatever to maximize my personal enjoyment there of.

That being said...

I don't think the proper way to determine if something from the upcoming Paragon Store is priced correctly by comparing it to "real life" money at all. I honestly believe that was a bad idea by the marketing team from the start. It's always a bad idea to promote price over value and that's what I feel has caused a lot of the grumbling. As soon as they said "400 points equals roughly $5.00 of real world money" they greased up the slopes of a discussion that should likely never have taken place.

The way I would have approached it would have been one of relative value versus relative effort to create. Sooooo... if it takes a developer/artist/coder/etc roughly two hours to make a Wizard's Beard costume piece but takes an entire team a full work week (40 hours) to create a Signature Story Arc and a full team three weeks (120 hours) to make a new Power Set then I would have no problem what-so-ever with a 1 to 20 to 60 ratio on the cost of these times in Paragon Points.

Actually, the ratio SHOULD be higher than that because the more complicated the item we're buying the larger the number of people who had to work on it becomes. I would imagine that Power Sets are some of the most complex and labor-intensive things in the game to create; so OF COURSE I expect to pay more for them.

Another bad thing about using Going Rogue as your price point comparison is that Going Rogue was DELIBERATELY underpriced. Going Rogue was a tool the team was using to draw in new subscribers. The subscription fees were at that point the Primary Way they were drawing in cash. Gaming Consoles and other electronic media work the same way. They undercharge the hardware like crazy, sometimes even taking a loss per unit sold, so they can make back their profit margin on the games/media.

Let's face it, production-wise, that little disc of plastic does NOT cost them $59.95 to make.

The Freedom market model, of course, works much differently. It still wants subscribers, but now can make micro-transaction money from the "free" players as well. But in order to do that, it needs to convince the players (VIP and otherwise) of the value of the product.

As far as whether or not the value of Beam Gun and Street Justice are enough to warrant the price point they set.... Well... don't buy it if you think it's not. And then... when you've seen it in action in-game and start getting the shakes at not having access to them... and the Paragon Store is humming a siren song directly into your points bank...

...then we can REALLY discuss how much value they have.

Haven't read the whole thread, but as the Devs have said repeatedly the prices are subject to change, so don't take what you're seeing as final. Wait until it's final to debate if the price is worth the value

Potential high prices aside, the most disappointing thing about the CoH version of the F2P/hybrid deal is that there's no way to get points unless you fork over cash, either by subscribing or buying them from the store.

In another hybrid model game, subscribers get a number of points per month AND can acquire more points in the course of playing the game - plus! - free players can also acquire points in the course of playing the game.

As of last night, I had accumulated 6010 points over there. Most of that came from being subscribed for several months, of course, but a considerable portion of it came from just playing the game and earning points along the way. The more I play, the more I earn. I think I've only spent points twice: once for extra storage (I still need more), and last night (95 points) to unlock a certain skill four levels early. Giddy up.

So, anyway, anyone have a theory as to why there's no way to earn free points here? Would doing so immanentize the eschaton?

no different than buying a DLC for PS3/X360 as far as I'm concerned.