UNofficial: Repeat Purchase Store Items


Agent White

 

Posted

I would absolutely pay for the ability to put a second power on auto-fire!


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brillig View Post
Instead, why not an item that changes the IO to its attuned version? This would be attractive to both premium and VIP players. I know a lot of VIPs would be interested in these to get the auto-scaling and set bonus range benefits.

I think the price is probably too low, though, I'd be thinking more along the lines of 35PP for one, 100PP for 3, 300PP for a 10-pack.
Specifically, the problem is when you make them attune enhancements, you have to make them more expensive: even your prices might be too low for attuning. I intended to suggest both unlocking and attuning as separate things so each could be cheaper than the combination one, but then honestly couldn't think of a reasonable fair price for attuning off the top of my head.

In general, though, I was trying to think of things that were cheap enough you would encourage people to splurge on them even if they were just nice to haves rather than must haves. So I limited myself to things that I thought would cost 150 PP or less.


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Posted

I wish I had something to add to this very-well-meaning thread.

But I don't buy consumables.

I have only spent my Tier 9 Rewards on the permanent costume bits. I'll be saving them up starting next month, until some new permanent reward becomes available.

I haven't used any of the freebie per-character-only items that came tumbling in with all the new vet rewards 2 months ago. Heck, I'd be hard pressed to tell you what most of them do.

On my two badge characters, I have run out of space to put powers in all 9 trays because I've gotten so many temp powers stacked up, sitting there unused.

I have to remind myself to use inspirations when I sit down to play. And honestly, I *only* use them because of the speed with which they drop.

In short, there is no consumable the game could market that I would buy.

Some men just want to watch the world burn? That's not me.

I subscribe to the Ramkin Family Motto: "What We Have, We Keep".


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails View Post
You know what I would buy on a repeat basis?

- Comic Books! Hickman! Nakayama! I choose you! Extra credit if they use an emote like /newspaper so you can read them ingame.
That IS a cool idea!

Y'know, I can't begin to tell you how happy I was when they made the COVERS of the comics available as a base item. I never make bases, and I created one just so I could put those up!


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Casual_Player View Post
I wish I had something to add to this very-well-meaning thread.

But I don't buy consumables.
At the risk of sounding like Sam I Am, would you buy a temp power that summoned one of your alts from the same server to assist you?

Would you buy CoH Comics written by Troy Hickman and drawn by David Nakayama?

I am pretty much with you until these goodies show up. Then, I fear, I will veer into "Shut Up and Take My Money!" land.


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Posted

Permanent versions of current 'temp' powers (e.g. baseball bat) for per character use.

Want to make a Baseball player themed character? Buy the permanent (unlimited) use baseball bat!

Creating a bee-inspired archer? Purchase and use the Vial of Bees permanent temporary power!

I think many people have little interest in a 30-use baseball bat purchasable at the store, but if I can have it on my character and not have to worry about counting the uses of it! Oooh yeah! Homerun!

Note: Preferrably with a permanent beginner's luck-inspired Accuraccy bonus too, as who doesn't slot two Acc SOs or more worth of Accuraccy in their attacks (and who fights +0s?)


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Necrotron_RO View Post
Permanent versions of current 'temp' powers (e.g. baseball bat) for per character use.

Want to make a Baseball player themed character? Buy the permanent (unlimited) use baseball bat!

Creating a bee-inspired archer? Purchase and use the Vial of Bees permanent temporary power!

I think many people have little interest in a 30-use baseball bat purchasable at the store, but if I can have it on my character and not have to worry about counting the uses of it! Oooh yeah! Homerun!
I'd be all on that for the gadget attacks. Of course, some of the current temp powers out there really ought to be 'you should have a limited amount on hand'. See: Recovery Serum, and Power Analyzer series.

Which is why my SO suggested at one point selling 'memorized recipes'.

So that you only needed salvage to craft your temp power whenever you want.. and maybe for some of them increase the max holdable stack.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
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Posted

As a subscriber, I should not feel compelled to buy consumables. Anything along these lines should be aimed at the F2P crowd to reduce some deficit or hardship they have in comparison to the VIP's. And really, if you want to increase the death penalty on the froobs in order to sell them some related consumable, go for it.


 

Posted

What would I buy if it was on the market?

Hmm...first on my wishlist would be inexpensive respecs. I love fiddling with my builds. I know I should go to the test server, but sometimes that just does not happen. I would probably buy a lot of these. Someone suggested a respec where you can just move slots around...I would be using these too

Second is a transporter or gizmo that would take me from the hospital to the exact place where I died..or if I was a teamer, back to my team..it could target the team leader as the drop off point.

Third would be a power that would take me back to the contact..which would help out on those really crazy fed ex missions where you do not have their cell phone number.

Fourth I would also like to buy some extra slots in my build so I could slot out the last power on a level 50 build. On a level 50 respec I used to find myself taking Fly or SJ last, as it does not take extra slots. However, with the advent of Spring Attack, I take SJ early and the end of a level 50 respec is now a lesson in frustration. I am always tempted now to take two travel powers on my Spring Attack toons....and I can see the day looming when I do just that.

And such is my wishlist

Lisa.


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Posted

What, Fifteen bucks a month isn't enough of a "steady purchase" for them? They want to milk people for more?

Actually, I'd pay regularly for a power that let me solo any content in the game. Put in a purchasable item that let me have access to soloable Trials and TFs that provided rewards equal to the team versions, and I might actually keep my sub.


 

Posted

It would seem to me that cheap purchasable non-set IO's would be a real draw. Particularly from the free to play set. If you want to make them particularly useful and desirable make them scale from say 10-30 and then 30-50.

I think pricing would be rather cheap something like 20 points an enhancement would do nicely. This would mean that for 5 dollars or so you could get your character comfortably to the SO territory and it would give you about 20 IO's. Which would be a big help at the low levels for the free to play set.


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Titan_III View Post

4) Summon Alt Temp Power: It's just THAT cool.

As a side-bar I'd spend 2000 points without the slightest regret (yes, $25 of real money) for a permanent power that conjured up a non-combat pet version of one of my alts (and if you allow it to be given petsay commands like a MM pet I'd probably even do 2400+ points without batting an eye). Yes, I DO RP on Virtue. Why do you ask?
<.<

>.>

I am not sure I should admit this somewhere that the Paragon Marketeers might be reading but I would pay money for this.


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Void_Huntress View Post
I'd be all on that for the gadget attacks. Of course, some of the current temp powers out there really ought to be 'you should have a limited amount on hand'. See: Recovery Serum, and Power Analyzer series.
If they are appropriate items, they wouldn't upset the game balance at all, but would provide a nice 'theme' to a character, which I would likely pay for.

They already gave me a Nemesis Staff, a Blackwand, Sands of Mu, and an Undead Slaying Axe, what would a baseball bat hurt? :P


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Frostbiter View Post
They can just add 1-hour Health, Stamina, DamageBuffs, etc. After all, potions are really what they are trying to come up with. Just make them 1-2 hour inspiriations.

Another thing they can do is add 1 hour ED breakers. Have the buff function like an enhancement that breaks ED for 1 hour.
I'd gladly pay for 1 hour of no aggro limit for my brute.


total kick to the gut

This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.

 

Posted

For what it's worth (assuming a redname will see this).. I used the Signature Character Summon temp power, having spent a veteran token to buy it. And I found myself relying on it very heavily, and deciding I could probably justify repeatedly purchasing it. But after poking around the Paragon Market, the only thing I can find is the War Whistle. Can we purchase the signature summon on the market? I would rather save my vet tokens and spend points.. points are much easier to come by.


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Xanatos View Post

New themes for bases. (Wallpaper, wooden floors, etc.)
This's one of my favorite ideas I've seen here - but I don't see it working as a repeated purchase at all. I could see them releasing new sets and charging individually for them. But not in the sense of "Here's shag carpet. Pay a quarter every time you place it in a room!"

I guess it could work but I'd expect more negative feedback than purchases. Nevertheless, I hope they do this in some form.

J


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Intrinsic View Post
As a subscriber, I should not feel compelled to buy consumables. Anything along these lines should be aimed at the F2P crowd to reduce some deficit or hardship they have in comparison to the VIP's. And really, if you want to increase the death penalty on the froobs in order to sell them some related consumable, go for it.
That's actually a good point. If this is really about getting money from Free/Premium players, we shouldn't even be talking about what we would buy. You're right that if the difference between Free and VIP were larger, consumables would be more useful for them. But then, if they suddenly implement significant system wide reductions in power for Free/Premium players, they will probably lose a good deal of the Premiums that they gained.

Inspirations are the obvious answer. If tier 1 inspirations weren't so freely available and powerful, Premium players might buy them if they are extremely cheap. I mean like 5 PPs.

The problem is that they made tier 2 insps unlock pretty low on the Rewards tree. They'd have to move it up and swap it out with some other bonus at that level.

I hate suggesting things like this, but if the goal is to get money from Free/Premium players, I think that sort of thing is your best bet.


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Posted

Well, they are certainly going to come up with items for the store that are intended to be repeat purchases, regardless.

It only behooves us to give them some guidance


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Posted

10 charges of Big Red Ball.


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails View Post
Well, they are certainly going to come up with items for the store that are intended to be repeat purchases, regardless.

It only behooves us to give them some guidance
Right, but I'm just saying they have a much greater potential income from the larger number of free/premium players, and it might be best to aim that guidance towards Free/Premium players instead of our own personal wish lists.

Take that awesome Summon Alt power, for example. Free/Premiums have 2 character slots. Do you think they are likely to buy it? I don't. I still want want want it, but I doubt they'd make much money on it off of free/premium players, so it may not be worth the resources required to make the tech for it.

The truth is that this game is pretty easy, and XP comes in very fast. There isn't much of a compelling reason for a Premium player to buy repeat consumables (XP booster? When they can't access Incarnate content, and we already level crazy fast? Why bother?). Premium players have less attachment to the game than VIPs, so a lot of suggestions we would love wouldn't be interesting to them. So, my suggestion was that I think their best bet for making money is to adjust the game so that Free/Premium players need to buy insps for very, very low prices.

Another one would be to give them larger XP requirements for leveling, to make XP Boosters more valuable.

I'm not thrilled about changing the game on Free/Premium players in these ways, but on the other hand, they get access to the servers for free, so these are probably things that would have been good to do at Freedom's release: you can play the game, but you'll have an easier time if you buy insps, and you'll level up faster if you buy XP boosters, or you can just go VIP and also get access to all this other content as well. Is it too late to make changes like this? Maybe. But I thought Intrinsic's point was good, and I wanted to elaborate and make another suggestion.


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Posted

Then we might want to put on our 'Freem hats' and come up with stuff we would repeat buy if we were Freems.

Temporary license for Chat channels? Not sure if that is practical, since Chat restrictions help keep the RMT spam down.

Perhaps a temporary license to count as VIP for such things as access to missions?

Maybe even a temporary canned Incarnate character, complete with SOs?


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
I have what might seem like an oddball question, but... If we're talking about something people would want to purchase many times over that gives them some kind of benefit which still doesn't break the game... How about a subscription fee? Or rather, THE subscription fee, the one VIPs like all the bunch of us posting on the VIP forums pay. Does that not count? Is that not enough? Or are we specifically talking about ways to get a persistent, repeatable profit out of Premium players?

The reason I ask is... Why did we go Hybrid/F2P again? I mean, if consistent, monthly payment was the pre-requisite, we were already doing that. Why add a free option and an option to play without a persistent fee, then go out of your way to invent a "subscription" by another name? In other words, why reinvent the wheel and not, instead, just add more perks to VIP players so more players would want to go VIP? You know, instead of fleecing VIPs and causing them to drop down to Premium.
Paragon Studios explicitly stated that the "Freedom" of City of Heroes Freedom was two-fold: to offer a way for players who did not want to subscribe to play a smaller subset of the game, and to offer more game by making options available to everyone.

The ala carte element of City of Heroes wasn't just to provide a way for Premium players to buy their way back to subscription, it was a way for the devs to add more features to the game by creating options that *some* players who wanted them would be willing to pay for.

Set aside the Premiums for a moment. If the devs want to make a larger game with more content, they have two options: make all that content optional and sell it to the subscribers ala carte, or just increase everyone's subscriptions period, and you either pay more, or quit altogether. The "point" to making things that *some* subscribers want and are willing to pay for, and others don't, is to increase the *options* available to subscribers without *involuntarily* increasing their costs.

If the Paragon Store was any other store, and someone's job was to ask "I wonder what people would be willing to pay for; I wonder what will attract some of them to the store and spend money on" that would be totally uncontroversial. That's what stores do: they sell things they think other people want to buy. Our subscriptions fund a part of the game, and the store funds another part of the game. Ideally, the store should be as profitable as possible without detracting from the core subscription game. And that means adding items that are attractive without being necessary. And one way to do that is with consumables: when you sell permanent items, there's always going to be someone that says "I need that, that's not optional." It happens more frequently with permanent items, because they can permanently change a character or the play experience. Consumables tend on average to avoid that problem. You can still have consumables that are so beneficial they are seen as necessary, but they are less likely to be seen as permanent fixtures.

That's the logic behind making consumables. You hope you make something that some players are willing to spend money on, but the rest of the playerbase is free to ignore. Everybody wins: the players that are willing to spend money on that feature get that option, everyone else's gameplay is unaffected and they do not have to spend money on that option.


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Melancton View Post
At the risk of sounding like Sam I Am, would you buy a temp power that summoned one of your alts from the same server to assist you?
With the same frequency that I buy Signature Summons - so never.

Almost never do I need a very temporary boost in power that I can anticipate beforehand. I only use lore pets on BAF, and I don't even have to pay for them.

Quote:
Would you buy CoH Comics written by Troy Hickman and drawn by David Nakayama?
I don't even understand this one. What is the value of that? Is there something I'm missing? Is this some kind of inside reference I am not party to?


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by rsclark View Post
With the same frequency that I buy Signature Summons - so never.

Almost never do I need a very temporary boost in power that I can anticipate beforehand. I only use lore pets on BAF, and I don't even have to pay for them.
This is why I think it should be a per character purchase (on a part of the character using the summon). So you design a character from the ground up with that plan that it will be summoning one of your alts.


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Posted

A few ideas:

Reward tokens: Sell Reward Tokens for 1200. That way, people who want to increase the reward level of their account can spend 1200 on points, get a reward token for that, then spend the 1200 points on another reward token.

Lottery tickets: Sell lottery tickets for 100 points each, at the end of the month, pick one ticket and they win half of the points spent on lottery tickets.

Army of One: A consumable that makes your character count as a team of 8 for purposes of starting TFs/Trials.

Favoured Customer: A consumable that when active gets Wentworths/BM to waive their listing fees.

Self-Inspiration: You get an insp of your choice that has x amounts of uses before it disapears.

Inspiring Presence: Consumable that when active makes all insp drops increase to the next largets size.

AE Hax: A consumable that allows you to get regular rewards from a non-Devs Choice Arc.

Power Incarnate: A consumable that whilst active allows your Incarnate powers to work when exemplared.

Stinkin Badges: A consumable that when active doubles the rate of progress for badge collection.

Proc-spirations: Consumables that when active add additional procs to your attacks.


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