Discussion: Announcing the City of Heroes Freedom VIP Head Start! September 13, 2011

This is an interesting comparison, and one I hadn't thought of. What you're suggesting is basically comparing:

1. Someone who subscribes for a year, then stops subscribing.
2. Someone who buys as many points as you'd get for the cost of a one-year subscription, but never subscribes.

The latter player could in theory end up, after that year, with access to things the former player hasn't got. Now, they're still better off than they were under this regime, but... You do have a point. If you plan to pay a certain amount of money, then stop paying, or think it likely that you'll do so, going premium and spending money on points directly could be a good choice.

I'm not ignoring it, I'm just pointing out that the calculation is far from the triviality certain people seem to think it is.

For example: you want to play for a year, but have only $30. Which is better:

2 months of subscription, or $30 worth of points?

It's not an obvious decision.

You are incorrect. Subjective values of services provided may differ from person to person, but the subjective value is secondary in consideration to the visible dollar/Points value that can be attributed by simply looking at the market.

I like having more characters, you may not. Our subjective values of this one purchasable item differ, but that does not alter the actual dollar value of the item in question.

You may see character slots as overpriced, I may see them as a bargain in a bulk-points purchase. This does not change their actual cost one bit. As for ad hominem, I call things as I see them. A spider is a spider, a pony is a pony, and an idiot is an idiot.


As to the only point you actually attempted to make...you are once again incorrect. I sense a pattern emerging here.

Let us give each person a budget of exactly $15 a month for a year ($180), no variances, no spare change, no 'I found a twenty in the street so I can get those extra slots I wanted!'

Person A subscribes to the game, and uses their point stipend to buy the items that are not included in the subscription.
Person B buys A la Carte and pays for licenses to access the basic systems included in the subscription as well as a few things here and there, but must consider purchases more carefully due to having a strict budget.

At this point both people have the exact same number of paragon rewards.

At the end of the year, Person A decides to drop to premium and buy a few things with points directly for the next month, but now finds that they have to spend points to get things they got included as part of subscribing, while retaining the things they had already purchased with their stipend. They decide to go back to subscribing, only buying access to things they know are not included for the month they are not subbed so that nothing in seen as being wasted once they resubscribe. They THEN find out that they can save money by subscribing for more than a month at a time and eagerly take advantage of this, then they spend the extra money they saved by buying time in bulk at the end of the year in a splurge of points!

Person B decides to use next month's budget to subscribe...and finds that a lot of things they spent points unlocking are included as part of their subscription, and thus were wasted except to act as a safety net against billing errors. They then decide to unsubscribe and go back to just buying stuff as they wish for the rest of the year.

At this point, Person A has more Paragon Rewards points than Person B due to spending their money more wisely. They also decide to never unsubscribe simply to never have to worry about losing access again, and they use the money they saved to buy even more points than they would otherwise have.

Person B continues to plod along, only ceasing the purchase of licenses once they get to the right level in the rewards table and no longer need to worry about them, freeing up some more points to spend elsewhere, but not much.

In theory, anything is possible. The former player may not have access to certain things that the latter player purchased, but the former also hasn't wasted any money if they decide to resubscribe later while the latter will find many purchases redundant if they do subscribe at some point.

The US servers consolidated in 2010 -- the EU servers joined ours in 2011.

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

It may be a global character slot, but....oh look....a power set is global too. You can make as many new characters with a new power set as you want, all for $10.

Do I want as many characters with the new power set as I can make or do I want as many costume slots as characters I can make?


It is equal to the price of a power set in every way, but the value of the purchase is not the same because one is a whole new set of powers and possible character combinations while the other is just a single new costume slot per character.

YMMV.



Also to those who claim "your math is wrong" and "VIPs are not getting shafted, my math is definitely not wrong since I was just using things which are not subjectively valued, the monthly point allowance and subscription price and exclusive content, and it is only your opinion that VIPs are getting the better deal because that is all you have known and the model you want to continue supporting against "evil F2P".

You're blissfully ignorant of, and even fighting against, possibly/probably better financial models for the game just because "I'm used to a subscription and I'm going to stick with it and I want everyone else to be forced to stay with a mandatory subscription too".



Maybe you are right in that VIPs get a good deal so far apparently, but I guarantee it will look worse down the road if they find the cash shop profitable and "profits are king" when it comes to business.

The goal of a company is to make money. They will do so at the expense of the customer, while either providing the customer good value in exchange or providing them less than good value if they can get away with it.


For example, how many of you would argue that the incarnate slot grind and new incarnate merit purchase grind are "fun"?
They're obviously the most obvious "carrot on a stick" I have seen in almost any game.

Grind is not fun, it's there to slow you down. "Challenge" can be fun; "easy" can be fun; but, "grind" is never fun hence why we call it "grind".

We're all paying for grind. Grind, with a mandatory or optional subscription, draws out the time we use the game and thus the time we pay for so that we end up paying more, which is the purpose of grind.



MMO companies think we won't play a game past a few months without a really long leveling grind and then endgame grind.
Originally, CoH had only a relatively short endgame grind and yet we stayed. FPS games have pretty much no grind and even the things that would qualify as gridn there are not thought of as grind because they're so fun and don't ram numbers down your throat, just waves of dynamic enemies.

We pay for fun, but MMO companies give us more grind than fun.


So given the truth of the game's past development and constant goals of making money and retaining players, they will be adding much more to the store than your allowance can ever purchase to try to keep you playing the game forever and the exclusives in the subscription are there to try to keep you subscribing in addition to making cash shop purchases above and beyond your monthly allowance.

Yes, it is opinion how much the subscription benefits are worth, but I still believe you people have not given that enough thought. You just automatically "renew sub" without ever considering that you may end up with an expensive deal.


My opinion?
The exclusives of the subscription are either things everyone should have access to(at least through one time purchases in the cash shop and things like customer support at least through email), items both subscribers and non-subscribers have to pay for OR just more grind that really doesn't make the game more fun enough to justify the recurring cost forever.

1) Is it really fun to have 16-24 people having trouble with ONE AV when we used to, and still do, only need 8 to take own incarnate Statesman?!?

2) Is it really fun to grind out for weeks, per character, just to make that character slightly more powerful with the new incarnate slots beyond the alpha?
Where is the taste of the power we got on the alpha unlock arc when we experienced our future power with "Limitless Radial FREEM"?

3) Is the IO system necessary? The devs say "no, it is not". It's definitely another long grind for the more powerful stuff that actually make s the invention system worth it, not to mention it is a huge INF sink.



Honestly, I'm happy to unsubscribe and pay piecemeal without all the grind that subscribers "are privileged to have".
I want fun, but the grind and lackluster rewards compared to time and effort needed really make the incarnate and IO systems a pain and not fun, especially when we'll eventually likely need 40 incarnate players to take down Emperor Cole and need to do some gimmick or we won't be able to(like a hamidon raid where you need a lot of people and need to take out the mitochondria spawns around him to defeat him).

I am not looking forward to playing "just one small cog in a huge war machine" in the final battle against Cole.

Weren't we supposed to end up more powerful than the signature characters yet we still need help for non-incarnate AVs and GMs on most characters and incarnate content AVs(even non-incarnate AVs in incarnate trials) require an even larger team of full incarnates?!?


The incarnate system is, apparently, making us less powerful in relation to the endgame content.
That is not fun, but it is also a symptom of traditional MMO design where you start out weak and have to grind just to reach "barely satisfactory" and end up int he endgame "even weaker than level one" against the big bad guys.



Where did "being a superhero" go?
Where did "Superman and his equally matched archenemy Doomsday" type of action and epic combat go?








Anyway after my tangential rant, I do think subscribing is not worth it and will be worth even less later on, specifically because the VIP exclusives(as the only true difference between VIP and Premium since both pay) are just not fun compared to the base game features which make me feel more heroic(like the Positron TF part 1 with the shadow duplicate fight that is absolutely epic with "8 hero players versus 8 archvillain NPCs" - actually only boss rank or EB, but an even match for the players - which is the best designed fight in the entire game).

I bet a lot of subscribers will see later on how little the subscription really gets you above what premium get, that premium can't already get for the same price, all while premium doesn't have to pay an ever increasing total amount paid just to keep things they already paid for.

But, my point was that VIPs are getting only slightly more than Premium at a clearly much greater cost because of the need to continue paying $15 every month to KEEP those exclusives.

True, but premium have access to the exact same stuff for the exact same price, without a repeating subscription fee as well.

What is included with the subscription?
The base game is free.
The temporary items are all purchasable and usable by free and premium members, depending on reward level access to required systems for certain temporary items.

All subscribers get for an extra approximately $10 per month(since $5 of that goes directly to purchases just like premium members) is the exclusives while they have to keep paying the subscription fee to retain things like incarnate system access and use of incarnate slots.

The fact is....your $10 monthly only gets you an extra reward token per year(which inevitably has less value when you fill out the reward tree), exclusives you can't keep and temporary access to things that premium members can pay once for permanent access to.

You're paying $10 per month extra, compared to the finite non-repeatable payments premium members make, just for obviously small benefits in the grand view of the game and a grindy incarnate system that makes players seem less powerful against the AVs they used to fight on those peregrine island arcs with much less people and still not more powerful than the Statesman NPC one on one.




It's just factually more value to stop paying the forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever....subscription fee for few benefits and, instead, pay once for the content you want and usually have to purchase extra beyond the subscription anyway(like Beam Rifle and Street Justice and Titan Weapons while subs only get Time Manipulation free, which they lose even that if their sub lapses and can't access the created Time toon until they purchase a permanent unlock of it).

You have to go by the exclusive and permanent benefits as everything else is temporary or purchasable by everyone else without the recurring fee.



I wouldn't even count customer support as an "exclusive feature" of a subscription when people should get customer support with every purchase(since they are paying customers) and the overall objective of game design is to make a working game that does not need support.

They're still a cheaper 30 day price, or completely ignorable as you reach a permanent unlock point if you buy enough things you actually want and reach the right paragon rewards tier.


The only thing subscriptions get for the extra $10 monthly is the absolute exclusives that they have to keep subscribing(mimics a mandatory subscription, at least for that specific content) just to keep.
And, those exclusives are arguably unnecessary, unused or not worth it otherwise Premium membership would be clearly just an "unlimited trial" scam to get more subscriptions that pay more for content, "double dipping" into your wallet.

It's funny; the "double dipping cash shops" are why people hate F2P/optional subscription hybrids and here you people are arguing for "my right to pay a recurring fee for something I should be able to pay only once for".



By the way, content is not a service. The game lets people buy other content now without a "service fee" yet you still want to pay that fee for specific content?

The only services in the game are temporary purchases like character transfers, customer service and the server use itself.
We no longer have to pay for server use, except the VIP one.
We all still pay one time fees every time we use a character transfer and such.

We all deserve (and should get at least on something like a "per minute toll phone line" or "support for 30 days form the date of a purchase") customer support and shoudl have access to it.


That leaves us with only content being necessary to pay for, but, now that content can be sold in a one time permanently usable purchase, subscribing for content is looking a lot less necessary, a lot less valuable and a lot more like a bad idea.








I'm still not arguing for everything being given for free, just that everything should be in the cash shop without a necessary subscription for anything.

Then, the subscription should be "monthly access to everything you haven't already purchased", which relies on the cash shop purchasing being clearly more expensive in the short term but cheaper in the long term to give incentive for both financial models and even encourage "premium members" to "become VIP" for a month here and there to try things before they pay the higher permanent price.

That's a smarter and more profitable model, while giving customers more value and getting rid of the incentive for developers to "make it a longer grind so they have to subscribe longer" or "make it require a subscription to obtain and deactivate without the subscription so they get hooked and have to stay subscribed" like they're some "evil loan-shark".

Actually, I've only subscribed, due to financial reasons and burnout from "got to get my money's worth"(due to mandatory payments for time that counts down whether I use it or not), for just shy of 36 months.

Invention access though, would be cheap compared to the full subscription if I actually wanted to pay more for that grind.
I'll be content waiting for the permanent unlock.


You are right though. The permanent unlock for premium members invalidates any incentive those systems could give for subscribing.
Subscriptions are no longer required for much.

1) Yes, they get a little bit more, but that little bit more is only temporary items or content that they lose when the sub lapses.

2) Premium members NEVER need to pay to "maintain" an account.
Only subscribers need to pay again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again....
....just to keep what they have.
Premium members get a better deal in that regard, clearly.

3) Yes, subscribers get exclusives, but they lose those exclusives when the sub lapses so they are essentially locked into 2 choices:
(A) Stop subscribing and lose access.
(B) Subscribe by paying again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again....forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever....
....until they choose option (A) instead.

Premium members get to keep everything, even things subscribers get or free that premium/free members need to purchase.
Premium gets a better deal again because they have no "cost of maintaining" recurring fee, especially when they hit the reward level unlocks for certain systems that would require a small monthly cost.




Obviously, your "absolutes" aren't "absolute" or support the premium membership being a better deal than subscribing, by far.

No, the advantage to not subscribing is never having to pay twice(or again and again and again and again...) for any piece of content.

Seriously, any content that a subscription has available is either exclusive(and unnecessary and lost when sub lapses) and/or requires paying again and again and again forever and ever and ever just to keep.

The subscription guarantees that the content you get for a "cheap" $15 per month(really $10 with the point allowance) has actually cost you $30 the next month, $45 the next month, $60 the next month, $75 the next month, $90 the next month, $105 the next month, $120 the next month, and on, and on, and on, and on....

....until the total you have paid just o keep access to the subscription exclusive content is (15n) dollars. That is a lot of money.
Just 5 years of subscription is $900 just to maintain what you have.

All the while, you still need to buy many things that are "only in the cash shop" and not included with your subscription.
Sure, you can save your monthly allowance, but you'll have to pay more if it doesn't, and likely will never, cover it all, all while premium members can spend the extra $10 per month you spend on the same permanent content access that you have to buy as well.



Premium membership is clearly cheaper, thus a better deal, over the long term, despite the lack of the unnecessary(by design) exclusives.

LMAO

Monthly time has no value anymore.
The $15 monthly payment for time no longer exists, thus it is not a valid point in favor of subscriptions. You can play the game completely free, even buy content and play that for free.

You really chose the wrong argument to make there.




Also, subscribers who stop subscribing lose everything that they don't spend their point allowance on, which they paid $15 for $5 worth of points, so they truly do come out behind premium members who were able to devote all $15 to points.



Given the same amount of money spent, premium members get 3 times as much as subscribers.
Despite the lack of the exclusive content, they still get a better deal by far.

While I'm not particularly on either side of this argument, you do have recurring payments for the "licenses" for IOs, the Market, and AE. All three of those together is $9/month, so given that a sub is $10 with the point allotment, there's really only a $1 difference and that would cover the other things.

Granted, that does change depending on the number of vet rewards and what have you, so it may be a moot point, but still worth noting.

Again with the irrational fear of the big mean companies out to get us and trying to say we are blind to it.

Please take your fear and loathing of companies with you when you unsubscribe.

Just because you, and others, have realized that the best value for YOU is to go Premium does not in anyway 'prove' that the best value for everyone is to do so, especially when you are arbitrarily labeling certain things as worthless or stating that if you ran the world they would not be exclusive to VIPs.

Good for you, premium is a better deal. Aren't you glad Paragon is offering it?

Now, please go enjoy it and stop trying to call those of us with different value perspectives gullible and stupid and allow us to enjoy the game the way we wish to, as we are allowing you to do.

Exactly.


You have two optimal financial choices(which is important since money is important):

1) If you plan to stop subscribing, losing the subscription benefits, then it is best to never subscribe and spend your money on things you will always keep.

2) If you plan to subscribe then keep subscribing.
If your subscription lapses then you lose what makes your money feel worth more than option 1 above. BUT, this means you have to continue paying forever $15 monthly in order to prevent that feeling of loss and measurable factual disadvantage.



Honestly, paying piecemeal is always cheaper, and a better deal when subs are unnecessary, than subscribing in the long run.

Subscriptions are for those who are willing to pay extra for benefits that are highly subjective and factually small in the grand scheme of things.
They're for people willing to pay for private golf instead of public and free golf, just for the intangible and limited benefit of being "better than others".

Paying for content and not subscribing is for frugal people and those who don't care for the elitism of a special club they can't guarantee always being a member of(for whatever reason).






It's all a matter of opinion.

Pay less because you want to pay less and still get almost the same benefits.
Or, pay more for the bragging rights and slight benefit that is actually outweighed by the frugal person's savings.



It's like a person who has money shopping at a specialty foods store, paying for brand names and marketing, while another gets more food of the same quality from a bargain grocer.

You choose whether you can afford and want the brand name stuff or want to get more/save money.

If I accept it, is it fear?

I'm not afraid of it nor do I begrudge them money.


But, I am well within my rights to try to get the most value from them with the least amount paid.

That is how economics works.
They try to charge as much as they can get me to pay.
Both sides have to agree on a price.





I'm just being smarter than:

company - "Give us this much money for this."
customer - "Ok, here you go."

....and saying:

company - "Give us this much money for this."
customer - "Hmm, that price looks a little high, will you take this much?"
company - "We need this much."
customer - "Be honest now. You're going to make a huge profit on that original price. Profit is after everyone, even the top guy, gets paid, so you don't need that much extra profit."
company - "We're still charging what we charge."
customer - "Well, I'm not willing to pay that much, but I am willing to pay lower while you still get a profit. Do you accept?"
company - "Well, costs will still be covered and some profit is better than costs not being covered....Ok, I'll take it."

This "bargaining" is especially influential and present with unnecessary products, such as games.



Honestly, it's stupid to just pay what they ask, which is why subscription games have a lot less customers than other subscription games that apparently give more value for the same price, and all have less customers than fully F2P games(which is why all the F2P conversions are happening, for ore sales and more money).




So, don't accuse me of being afraid when I'm just being smarter than a broken ATM that spits out dollars to those who don't haven't earned those dollars.



Edit:
(Sarcasm)"Long live impulse subscriptions! ....with impulse cash shop purchases on top! Long live throwing money at the company just for the fun of throwing money!(Sarcasm Off)

True.

But, almost every example you cited still supports being mainly premium and temporarily subscribing for VIP stuff.
The only example that supports being premium only temporary is the "new low level alt/return VIP for incarnates" idea.


In most situations and most of the time, it is better to be mainly premium, non-subscription, because they get a better value for their money that doesn't get worse over time due to recurring payments "just to maintain" what they have.

Street Justice and Titan Weapons will be later added to the cash shop, for extra price even for subscribers.

Time Manipulation is free for subscribers, but they lose access to the toons they make that use it if their sub lapses.

Beam Rifle is in the cash shop, available for extra beyond the subscription.

Yes, they add up, but they add up to cheaper than the extra subscription cost and end up being permanently unlocked through purchasing cash shop points that award reward tokens anyway.


In the long run, not subscribing is the better deal by far.
You get almost all the same benefits(obviously the exclusives are the exception) but at a much lower cost with more content to show for your payments.



The only option where subscriptions come out ahead is when someone values the exclusives so much more than everything else in the game that they plan to permanently subscribe, even while having to make purchases in the cash shop on top.
(Edit: This is why a lifetime subscription option is not being offered and why subscriptions don't cover all content access, requiring some cash shop purchases at least then. If they offered a lifetime subscription then they would obviously get less money out of the "I have to subscribe forever and I don't care what the overall cost is" type of person. -"Caveat emptor", buyer beware.)

Even then, they're only ahead int eh perception of that individual as financially the subscription is much more expensive than premium membership, because of the sub price adding up over time as a recurring payment just to maintain your "standard of living(play)".

Thanks for the answer friend! Im a bit stunned that its going to be extra price even for a subscriber . But, well... Hopefully we won't have to wait long either way, I have a Tanker to remake in the street justice powers.

It all depends on whether you find the exclusives worth it or not.


I personally have a hard time justifying the exclusives, as well as I like not having a recurring payment so I can control my finances better.
Also, I don't like paying $5 more for content I may or may not like. I like to pay for good content.

I didn't call you an idiot either.

if you wish to not pay and not enjoy all the features of the game that's cool. You dont need our permission. Of course you wont be able to use the forum anymore I think but that's okay......

Actually, they would be absolutely stupid to not at least have a F2P forum section where free players can post to make themselves heard and ask questions, and probably allow them in suggestions.


It's not a smart business decision to only allow communication from the customers who pay the most and most reliable while not listening to those saying "I would pay more for this" because you never see that if they can't post.

If they want more customers paying more then they need to listen to the reasons they have for paying money and what they want to see that they would pay money for.


Also, the "fanboys" tend to be subscribers and won't provide good objective feedback. You need some "cheapskate" type free players in the mix to balance out the "devs can do no wrong" people.

ok while he goes on a lot and i skim over any of his posts in this thread by now this is the most sensible point made. Instead of saying people are wrong or stupid to keep with the subscription model. For me or players like me, long term subscribers with a ton of alts and most of the vet rewards then the cost benefit is a lot less. If i wanted to keep the results of my years playing, ie all my characters built, then it becomes prohibatively expensive to buy all those slots i was leasing before. Your method of staying premium and only buying what you need is only valid if you focus on and play a few characters. Don't need the extra power sets if you're not using them, don't need the extra content if you don't play it. Account wide unlocks and costumes are wasted on a couple of characters. I could switch to premium and retain most everything, I'll be tier 9, except the loss of slots would be the killer. It's these and other intangibles, like being able to keep running 50's with full powers if i choose. And being able to make full rewards all the time without concern if i have invention access current or not. Isn't subscription actually better for manageing finances? Pay it once for a few months when you can and save or a regular amount once a month you can play for. Or possibly larger sums at random times. example, time manipulation. you really want it for your premium account but you have used all your avialable slots already. Do you spend 800 points on a set you'll use once, then a character slot to use it. Then possibly market and invention access or sacrifice some influence and power. A premium user would initially have to purchase all the extra at's, extra power sets, side switching, ae access, invention ticket, market use, possibly extra character slots. All up front and worth several months of subscriptions, not including the extra points the subscriber will have to buy extras they'd retain later. Like extra enhancement storage, beam rifles and so on. You're only basing your desicion on the things to buy in the store not all the extra 'stuff' vips get as a reward of playing the whole game.

- Il Numero Uno (The Number One)

I believe we get to start spending right away, barring downtime and bugs and the servers overloading and burning. :P