Paragon Market prices
By
Alexander_Drako,
Posted on: 2011-09-14 10:27 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I'm happy with the market and prices. It seems to me that the higher priced items are more likely to be niche products and single-time, account-level purchases. I'm certainly not enough of a costume hound to really want more than 5 slots, nevermind all 10. While I bought the Science pack I've used the Super Tailor all of once. Additional enhancement storage - why would I need that (personally speaking, its utility has been well described)? Powersets? Got one, but aside from Beam Rifle? I'll pass on the melee sets, thanks.
I think Paragon really hit on specific niches with their higher priced items, and are charging accordingly. Figure in the VIP stipend (which is practically a discount for those items) and it seems okay to me. My only hope is they have cross-game items; costumes and weapons from Aion, Guild Wars, Wildstar, etc., for promotional uses and other fun ^_^
I think that all the arguments that these prices are too high fall flat when considering that quite a few people have already spent $100+ on the market, amongst other things to buy the exact things you say are overprices.
Sure at one point, maybe soon, all the people willing to pay these prices will already have these items and it would be necessary to reduce the price to get more people to buy, but seeing that many people do buy these items makes it clear that it wasn't a mistake to leave them that high.
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Shadowy Presence was 200 on Beta, and is now 60. That's still 60 too many, but it's come down. That's the only one I noticed, but I otherwise only really looked at the ones I was going to buy. |
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Originally Posted by Mr. DJ
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Look, some items/services are fairly priced and others are definitely guilty of price-gouging.
I really think its in NCsoft's best interests to have VIPs see one price point and F2P see another. If VIPs pay $15/mo, they really should be seeing lower costs or be getting something more than 400 pp/$5.00 as a monthly gift (definitely not both though).
F2P *should* pay these prices because they're not paying the $15 subscription. But current VIP players? No, I think a better arrangement could definitely be had.
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We get a free 5 dollars of free stuff every month.
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Originally Posted by Rubberlad
Look, some items/services are fairly priced and others are definitely guilty of price-gouging.
I really think its in NCsoft's best interests to have VIPs see one price point and F2P see another. If VIPs pay $15/mo, they really should be seeing lower costs or be getting something more than 400 pp/$5.00 as a monthly gift (definitely not both though). F2P *should* pay these prices because they're not paying the $15 subscription. But current VIP players? No, I think a better arrangement could definitely be had. |
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Language!|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
No it's not. Regardless of how much you deny it your subscription gets you a minimum of 12 characters on 16 servers.
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Which is to say: The non-English ones are completely useless to me. In practice, I only play on two. No number of characters I can play on Justice helps me bring a different character to play with friends on Virtue.
In practice, I have the slots I've gotten on Virtue, and that's 99% of what I'm using. This is why I have a second account.
I'm curious as to whether or not the folks in this thread would find this suggestion more palatable.
Basically, if the first inventory expansion in a series (1 of 5) cost 400 points, would that soften the blow of subsequent expansions (2 of 5, etc.) costing 800 or more points? That if you could "test the waters" with your monthly VIP points, would it make you more willing to spend more on additional expansion beyond that?
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As I've mentioned in the past, logistically Paragon Studios could have given VIPs a discount on price, but they chose to give free points instead. The advantage of free points is that they are frontloaded. You get stuff for free spending no money at all, and then you pay for whatever you want above that. Theoretically speaking, a patient person might spend nothing at all.|
Originally Posted by Rubberlad
Look, some items/services are fairly priced and others are definitely guilty of price-gouging.
I really think its in NCsoft's best interests to have VIPs see one price point and F2P see another. If VIPs pay $15/mo, they really should be seeing lower costs or be getting something more than 400 pp/$5.00 as a monthly gift (definitely not both though). F2P *should* pay these prices because they're not paying the $15 subscription. But current VIP players? No, I think a better arrangement could definitely be had. |
As to whether we're getting enough free points, suppose we're looking at the value choice between giving us a 50% discount across the board or points. We get the equivalent of $5 of points per month (more if we are tier9) and that is $60 per year. The break even point between 50% off and the frontloaded points is $120 of stuff per year. In other words, if the choice was between 50% off and 400 PP per month, every VIP player who bought less than $120 of face value stuff per year would come out ahead, and everyone who bought more would come out behind.
I think that's actually a far better proposition than a discount. For one thing, it rewards patience and taxes impatience. It offers a theoretical path to lowering your costs if you have less money, and are willing to wait. That's an option discounts don't have. For another thing, it tends to shift the costs to the players more likely to be able to afford it: the players that intrinsically buy more stuff at a quicker rate.
That's completely separate from the fact that it greatly simplifies things if players change tiers. Suppose times are good and you are a subscriber and buy a bunch of points. Then times change, and you are forced to temporarily unsubscribe. As a premium player, your points just depreciated in value; in the example above by a whopping 50%. This way, points are points are points and always have the same buying power. What's different is that VIPs gets more of them.
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And one quick note: recipe storage is better, for me, than enhancement storage because in order to use the enhancement storage I've got to make the recipe into its IO form. That might well require more resources than I have convenient. Also, that doesn't help me during a mission. Filling up on recipes means every defeated enemy from there until I clear'em out (deleting, storing, whatever) is a lost opportunity for recipe drop. As such, yeah, having more capacity is more useful. I don't care if I miss a TO/DO/SO drop.
YMMV and all that.
I bought 5 Character slots because I needed them, that cost me 1600/£13.60, a price which has actually gone -up- from before (5 character slots used to be 11.99 Pounds Sterling)
I bought 1 Costume Slot for 800/£6.80 because I had some characters who rather needed it, the rest I'm going to wait for until they come down in price or go on sale, because while I'd happily drop £17 on 5 Global Costume Slots (If they were 400/£3.40), £34 is a bit much to swallow.
I have no problem with the costume bundle being 400 points/£3.40.
The Aura and Cape Unlocks were an excellent price for me. 160/£1.36 for each seemed just right.
If all new power sets come out on sale like Beam Rifle, I have no issue with purchasing them at that discounted price point.
Since Freedom was announced, I have put a little money back from my "fun" money. Ended up with enough to get 8000 points. Now, I have also bought all the packs except the emote one, and that was a tough choice not to get it. Of course, I also kept my subscription up for 6 months that I didn't play.
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I don't disagree with you however I think you are overlooking just how much VIP players have invested in this 7yr old mmo game. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
As I've mentioned in the past, logistically Paragon Studios could have given VIPs a discount on price, but they chose to give free points instead. The advantage of free points is that they are frontloaded. You get stuff for free spending no money at all, and then you pay for whatever you want above that. Theoretically speaking, a patient person might spend nothing at all.
As to whether we're getting enough free points, suppose we're looking at the value choice between giving us a 50% discount across the board or points. We get the equivalent of $5 of points per month (more if we are tier9) and that is $60 per year. The break even point between 50% off and the frontloaded points is $120 of stuff per year. In other words, if the choice was between 50% off and 400 PP per month, every VIP player who bought less than $120 of face value stuff per year would come out ahead, and everyone who bought more would come out behind. I think that's actually a far better proposition than a discount. For one thing, it rewards patience and taxes impatience. It offers a theoretical path to lowering your costs if you have less money, and are willing to wait. That's an option discounts don't have. For another thing, it tends to shift the costs to the players more likely to be able to afford it: the players that intrinsically buy more stuff at a quicker rate. That's completely separate from the fact that it greatly simplifies things if players change tiers. Suppose times are good and you are a subscriber and buy a bunch of points. Then times change, and you are forced to temporarily unsubscribe. As a premium player, your points just depreciated in value; in the example above by a whopping 50%. This way, points are points are points and always have the same buying power. What's different is that VIPs gets more of them. |
Varying retail costs for CoH, CoV, and GR as basic staples of gameplay; optional booster packs, those who opted to buy special editions - all of those accumulated purchases and investments aren't matched or accounted for in the costs a F2P member *could* pay to have more than the bare minimum CoH experience if they wanted to... so in the end, the new hybrid market assumes the average VIP member (already paying $15/mo + accumulated retail extras over x years) will *always* pay more than the average F2P member will on available market items.
For a game thats 7+ years old, I think the VIP subscribers already invested in the game deserve more than just a third of their monthly membership in Paragon points. I think a base 800 points/month is fair, and tier 9 VIPs can earn 1000 free points a month. Frontload that way and I think VIP players will be a little more inclined to be equally generous and spend more money out of pocket than less.
VIP players who already pay to get full access, and have invested in it's development for anything more than a year, should be encouraged to spend more by getting more. 400 pp/month is nice but its also the bare minimum and doesnt go quite far enough in recognizing long time subscribers for their base game +add-on investments.
Premium or F2P members who havent or don't invest nearly as much probably won't (unless they upgrade to VIP status).
I think I could shell out $10 bucks for the extra costume slot if it also came with another global costume change token for each character. Probably won't happen, though.
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Originally Posted by seebs
Language!
Which is to say: The non-English ones are completely useless to me. In practice, I only play on two. No number of characters I can play on Justice helps me bring a different character to play with friends on Virtue. In practice, I have the slots I've gotten on Virtue, and that's 99% of what I'm using. This is why I have a second account. |
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And how many characters you get on a server isn't material. The store will not only be open to subscribers. If you are going to look at prices, you will have to take both extremes into account. So $10 for the player (subscriber or premium) that only plays one character vs $0.003 for the person with 768 characters (who is unlikely to get use out of all those slots). The average is still $5 per costume slot.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
No it's not. Regardless of how much you deny it your subscription gets you a minimum of 12 characters on 16 servers.
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I've not looked at the character limit on that other game, but the same math applies. Only they are 1/4 the price of this game. And there isn't a limit as to how many characters you can have at the other game. There isn't a limit of 10 costume slots per character in that other game. Yes, you might start out with less characters, but given that they get a free character slot for each max level character, the value of their costume slots goes down far quicker than here.
Combined, the 1/4 the price and the no upper limit shows that the price for costume slots here is about as justified as the $90 monocle in Eve.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
If someone has 980 characters on their account they aren't playing City of Heroes so they have no reason to be costume slots for this game.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Typical response from someone whose mad that they are wrong.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Cuz when you can't refute the argument pretend it was never made.
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Just to be clear about this while I might agree with your general idea about targeting prices towards "impulse buys" I think it's pretty obvious that the threshold for what different people consider cheap enough to be an impulse buy is going to vary widely. To some people an impulse buy is a pack of gum and to others it's a late model Lamborghini. |
Originally Posted by Rodion
These things need to be priced at a level that I'll buy them on an impulse. If it costs $5 more than a month of playing the game, it stops me cold. It will just make me wait and save my points from my monthly allotment instead of spending it right now. Which means I might be waiting several months if I buy some other cheaper stuff in the meantime. In the long haul, I'll wind up spending less.
Most consumers have a threshold where they tell themselves, "Heck, that's so cheap I can't afford not to buy it." You want all your items in this model to fall into that price range. |
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Originally Posted by Rodion
For example, that's how I bought the Steampunk bundle on day 1 of Freedom. And when I come up with a character for the Barbarian costume set, I'll buy the whole thing even though I might only use a few of the items out of it. Because, hey, it's so cheap I can't afford not to buy it. The same thing was true when they had the sale on the Science pack -- too cheap to pass up, and I had to buy it.
For me, 400-800 points is in that magic impulse range. |
As far as the costume slots go I've already mentioned that to me they were anything but an "impulse" buy. I had wanted them for years and when I first learned they were finally going to happen a few months ago I was able to easily budget having enough money to effectively buy as many as possible at any price. I understand that for you and many others they might not be "worth" that to you. But to me they were. It's as simple as that. *shrugs*
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And you probably paid too much for costume slot technology thats years old. But hey, as long as you feel the slots were worth it, then theres no point arguing the price of happiness. Just don't be surprised if NCsoft saw you and others coming and opted to take advantage knowing this was an absolute "must have" for you. I want them too but not at $10/slot. |
Originally Posted by Lothic
Just to be clear about this while I might agree with your general idea about targeting prices towards "impulse buys" I think it's pretty obvious that the threshold for what different people consider cheap enough to be an impulse buy is going to vary widely. To some people an impulse buy is a pack of gum and to others it's a late model Lamborghini.
Having most things cost 400-800 points is fine. But I see no reason why -everything- in a store like this has to be in that price range. The idea of having some relatively expensive (or even relatively cheap) items should not be seen as a "failure" of the system. Instead they should just be considered what they are - exceptionally unique items. As far as the costume slots go I've already mentioned that to me they were anything but an "impulse" buy. I had wanted them for years and when I first learned they were finally going to happen a few months ago I was able to easily budget having enough money to effectively buy as many as possible at any price. I understand that for you and many others they might not be "worth" that to you. But to me they were. It's as simple as that. *shrugs* |
And IMHO I got more account-wide perks buying booster packs for $10 then I do buying one account-wide service slot. If you want to throw away $10 on one item that you waited *years* to have, thats fine for you but try to understand why others might feel a little more wary if the cost for years-old QoL improvements is over-inflated. Because it is - regardless of whether or not one can afford to pay those prices.
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I don't really follow your logic on this, especially when I can prove VIP players will always, under all conceivable conditions, pay less.|
Originally Posted by Rubberlad
I don't disagree with you however I think you are overlooking just how much VIP players have invested in this 7yr old mmo game.
Varying retail costs for CoH, CoV, and GR as basic staples of gameplay; optional booster packs, those who opted to buy special editions - all of those accumulated purchases and investments aren't matched or accounted for in the costs a F2P member *could* pay to have more than the bare minimum CoH experience if they wanted to... so in the end, the new hybrid market assumes the average VIP member (already paying $15/mo + accumulated retail extras over x years) will *always* pay more than the average F2P member will on available market items. |
Unless you are counting everything I've paid for this game up to this point as factoring into the total cost of Freedom, which I don't believe to be a fair assessment. I paid over the last seven years to play the game over the last several years. I've already gotten the appropriate value for that money. This is no different than saying someone who's been subscribed for six years has paid less than I have for the exact same game, so I've been cheated in some way. That's false: I got seven years of play and they only got six.
More than that, giving away 800 points a month doesn't seem economically viable: the prices in the store would have to increase markedly to compensate. There's no logical reason to do it. The point to the stipend is to offer a reasonable hedge against market prices to provide a frontloaded discount to VIPs. Shifting that stipend to a full 66% of the subscription or more (in my case it would be 84% before the tier 9 bonus was factored in, and proportionately speaking 115% of my subscription with it) makes it an unwieldy adjunct to the subscription. In effect the subscription's value itself would have to be almost entirely based on the points we get, and by extension it could offer very little value on its own. That makes subscriptions devalued, and VIP players devalued as a consequence.
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I just want to point out that what you say won't be representative of all VIP's or free players. A VIP could just subscribe for a first month, while a Premium player could have bought all the boxes and subscribed for 6 years. There would be many Premium players who spent more on the game than many VIP's. So the basis for your argument is rather shaky.
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Originally Posted by Rubberlad
Varying retail costs for CoH, CoV, and GR as basic staples of gameplay; optional booster packs, those who opted to buy special editions - all of those accumulated purchases and investments aren't matched or accounted for in the costs a F2P member *could* pay to have more than the bare minimum CoH experience if they wanted to...
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That's *exactly* what I'm saying although I firmly disagree with the cheating tangent you're trying to spin into this. It's not about what people did or didn't spend in comparison/competition to one another during a 7 year period, its about NCsoft recognizing any player that spent more than the basic price of admission (ie buying CoH) plus maintaining a monthly subscription at any point since the game went live in 2004. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I don't really follow your logic on this, especially when I can prove VIP players will always, under all conceivable conditions, pay less.
Unless you are counting everything I've paid for this game up to this point as factoring into the total cost of Freedom, which I don't believe to be a fair assessment. I paid over the last seven years to play the game over the last several years. I've already gotten the appropriate value for that money. This is no different than saying someone who's been subscribed for six years has paid less than I have for the exact same game, so I've been cheated in some way. That's false: I got seven years of play and they only got six. More than that, giving away 800 points a month doesn't seem economically viable: the prices in the store would have to increase markedly to compensate. There's no logical reason to do it. The point to the stipend is to offer a reasonable hedge against market prices to provide a frontloaded discount to VIPs. Shifting that stipend to a full 66% of the subscription or more (in my case it would be 84% before the tier 9 bonus was factored in, and proportionately speaking 115% of my subscription with it) makes it an unwieldy adjunct to the subscription. In effect the subscription's value itself would have to be almost entirely based on the points we get, and by extension it could offer very little value on its own. That makes subscriptions devalued, and VIP players devalued as a consequence. |
Now if you're going to argue that the game will operate at a loss if it gives away even 800 pp/month to VIP subscribers, after it's already been in operation for 7+ years with just a $14.99/mo subscription rate and no f2p/paragon market, don't be surprised if I walk away from this conversation laughing at your foolishness. If the game wasnt drawing a profit, it would have closed down like Tabula Rasa. The fact is Freedom can easily afford to operate with 800 pp/month VIP gifts and still profit. NCsoft just chooses not to.... Guess it's a P.T. Barnum thing.
Still, in the immortal words of Judge Judy: please don't piss on my leg and tell me its raining. Ill pay what is fair and competitive market value but don't try to price gouge me on a seven year old game engine sporting a fresh new coat of paint and the same old fixtures polished up to look new. I'll pay you what it's worth at 7 years old - on top of what I've already paid into it - but I wont pay you what it's pretending to be worth "new."
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I do understand that players who have been subbed for 7+ years have been contributing a lot to this game's success. However, I still think you underestimate just how much you are getting with this new model that I, as only a year and a half subscriber, am not getting.|
Originally Posted by Rubberlad
I don't disagree with you however I think you are overlooking just how much VIP players have invested in this 7yr old mmo game.
Varying retail costs for CoH, CoV, and GR as basic staples of gameplay; optional booster packs, those who opted to buy special editions - all of those accumulated purchases and investments aren't matched or accounted for in the costs a F2P member *could* pay to have more than the bare minimum CoH experience if they wanted to... so in the end, the new hybrid market assumes the average VIP member (already paying $15/mo + accumulated retail extras over x years) will *always* pay more than the average F2P member will on available market items. For a game thats 7+ years old, I think the VIP subscribers already invested in the game deserve more than just a third of their monthly membership in Paragon points. I think a base 800 points/month is fair, and tier 9 VIPs can earn 1000 free points a month. Frontload that way and I think VIP players will be a little more inclined to be equally generous and spend more money out of pocket than less. VIP players who already pay to get full access, and have invested in it's development for anything more than a year, should be encouraged to spend more by getting more. 400 pp/month is nice but its also the bare minimum and doesnt go quite far enough in recognizing long time subscribers for their base game +add-on investments. Premium or F2P members who havent or don't invest nearly as much probably won't (unless they upgrade to VIP status). |
-You have access to all the pre-order content that I now have to pay for.
-You have access to all of the retail content and pre-order content for said retail that I have to pay extra for due to the fact that I didn't get it.
-You have access to the temporary tier 9 rewards that I will now never dream of being able to see. Ever.
-You have access to all of the storage enhancements, experience bonuses, permanant discounts on the tailor, Wentworths, etc.
Into the future?
-Continued free access to all new content, as well as the new signature storylines, which Free players have to pay for.
-5 dollars of free paragon points every month, which will pay for... a full costume SET or over a dozen individual pieces. If you save two months worth, you can get a new power. There are also new powers being released for FREE to VIP (Hello Time Manipulation).
-Access to more free costume sets faster as part of the new paragon rewards system, which, even with my piddly year and a half subscription has given me 8 extra salvage inventory slots and a plethora of other enhancements that I didn't have before. Free players? Have to shell out money like you would not believe to even come close to that.
So do you get your moneys worth? Absolutely. There are things that I only wish I could have access to that 7 year veterans do. I'm not complaining about it, however.
I think it's very important to note, though, that a transition to a hybrid model is not only to try to get free players to come into the game. It's another method to try to earn extra cash from its subscriber base as well. There are plenty of subscriber games that use a hybrid model. City of Heroes has been there since the inception of booster packs. 15 dollars a month just isn't a lot of money anymore in this economy, and businesses are looking for new sources of revenue.
The nice thing about the Paragon Market? If you're a subscriber, it's completely optional. You don't have to touch the thing. If you are patient, and you are a VIP, you can get a lot of the things that are listed there for free, and everything that you purchased before in the booster packs and retail purchases is there for you to keep.
I, personally, and I think i'm not alone in saying this, think it's a little ludicrous of people to say that "because i'm contributing less money than it takes to purchase a DVD, see a movie and get popcorn, fill up five gallons of gas, pay for a third of my cell phone bill... etc... I deserve to be treated like i'm some kind of deified individual compared to everyone else." But the fact of the matter is, again, 15 dollars is not a lot of money, and for all those who have been subscribed for as long as they have? They ARE getting a lot for free. They ARE getting to keep everything they had before. They ARE going to continue getting a lot for free, and they are NOW getting quite a bit of stuff, more than any other hybrid game i've played thus far, for FREE.
Complaining otherwise, demanding that you get 10$ of free stuff instead of 5$, saying that we should have unlimited access to EVERYTHING is either tricking oneself, or putting their proverbial fingers in their ears and making loud noises to prevent themselves from seeing the whole picture.
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It's not a problem to make a profit. I'm sure Vanguard is making a profit, because nobody is working on it, so there's just server and support cost vs. what subscribers pay (and the fewer subscribers the lower the server and support costs). So, is that good enough for you? A game that gets no new content, no bug fixes, no chance of a sequel?|
Originally Posted by Rubberlad
If the game wasnt drawing a profit, it would have closed down like Tabula Rasa.
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Frankly I can't see why what you suggest would make more money for Paragon Studios. Will they be able to survive even with the change? Possibly. But like most of the "give me more" arguments if the current model works there's no incentive for the devs to implement them. Over time they'll look at statistics and decide what to do, but if subs go up (and I'd bet they have lately) and people are spending tons of money on the market (and many do), there's little chance that someone will look at the stats and say: "we really need to give VIP's more and lower the market prices immediately".
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Before you start laughing, tell me at what point they would lose money, or do you think that because it doesn't cost them anything to increment a point counter, no amount of points given away would cost them money.|
Originally Posted by Rubberlad
Now if you're going to argue that the game will operate at a loss if it gives away even 800 pp/month to VIP subscribers, after it's already been in operation for 7+ years with just a $14.99/mo subscription rate and no f2p/paragon market, don't be surprised if I walk away from this conversation laughing at your foolishness.
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I am not even sure where to start with responding to this logic, but let's try this. One of the claims from PS is that with this model they intend to provide more content per elapsed real-world time. The strong inference I take from this is that they expect this new model to make them more money, which they plan to reinvest in greater resourcing, infrastructure, etc.|
Originally Posted by Rubberlad
Now if you're going to argue that the game will operate at a loss if it gives away even 800 pp/month to VIP subscribers, after it's already been in operation for 7+ years with just a $14.99/mo subscription rate and no f2p/paragon market, don't be surprised if I walk away from this conversation laughing at your foolishness. If the game wasnt drawing a profit, it would have closed down like Tabula Rasa.
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Whatever their net revenue was before, if they give away so many points that they don't increase that revenue, then they won't be able to scale up to increase the rate/quality/etc of what they produce over what we had before, and from that perspective alone there would be less tangible value to us customers for PS having gone to this model.
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My unhappiness with the Market mostly has to do with the way they price the costumes.
As mentioned by many poster before me the Super Tailor access itself is a whooping 800PP. Thats $10 dollars and doesn't even include the costumes, emotes, costume change emotes!
In the old NCsoft Store, the superscience booster was $9.99 and came with costume parts, emotes and super tailor access.
I don't mind paying a little more with the new system but this is more than double and screams so much of a money grab to me.
And I don't think its just the superscience booster, I see the several bundles costing way more in the new Paragon Market.
I do hope they take a serious good look at some of the old booster packs that they carried over to the Paragon Market and revise the price.
As for the new costume bundles that they come up with.. I wonder if we'll get as much complaints since we have nothing to compare it with (well within this game itself)
I will miss you City of Heroes..