UNofficial: Repeat Purchase Store Items

The option to buy back my @global that is forever lost to an NA trial account.

How about a consumable that would prevent us from getting temp power recipe drops for an 24 hours. I truly hate those drops. Instead we'd get tier 2 or higher recipes.

I would like to see an enhancement attuner. When used, it would convert the relevant enhancement into an Attuned enhancement, just like the store bought versions. I don't know if it would then become account-bound, but it'd be nice to be able to just buy enhancements at whatever level and then use the attuners to make them level with me.

Finally nailed the reason the reason why current repeatable rewards are not appealing to me at the current prices.

I don't want to be sold items of high value again and again and again. If I value something, I'm going to invest in it. If I am investing, I want something that will endure and will likely second-guess the purchase until I talk myself out of it.

Instead of trying to be talked into regularly buying a "whopper", sell me "chips" and "fries" - impulse extras at use-spare-change impulse prices. Things that will add bonus flavor without lasting intrinsic value.

Like chips and fries, the items have to have high repeatability for short duration (or long duration for short repeatability), so that by the time it runs out I'll want to grab another bag.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mandu 10 charges of Big Red Ball.

Here is a quick eye-catching example. Make it 25 Paragon Points with the normal one-at-a-time-per-hour-recharge restrictions and I will buy it like candy.

The problem with all the consumables on the market as they stand is that they cost too much, have too short a duration, and do too little. Dual and Team Inspirations, need to have "large inspiration" values at all times, and last for several minutes, if not a good hour or so. XP boosters would work better if they worked like Experienced. Windfall and Prestige boosters and such have the same problem. If I'm not essentially blocking out an hour of straight farming, I feel like I'm "not getting my money's worth". These are things that I'm not entirely opposed to in concept, but don't manage to be worth the price, as they currently exist.

Basically, if I by a "consumable", I want to be able to see a "permanent" effect gained from consuming it. Things like XP boosters work because I'll never lose the XP I gained from them. Inspirations and temp powers, not so much. The attuned Recipes in the market are a great example of this as well: they will serve a purpose in my characters' builds forever, but once they're placed, I can't use them for anyone else, so as long as I keep building characters, I keep having a reason to consume new ones.

The other part of the problem is the fact that, in the case of these consumables, I'm not buying an actual product. I buying a piece of data, that has been copied from one server to another. There is essentially zero overhead, and no cost to Paragon Studios to replace what I buy. They don't have to send a migrant worker out to the Touch of Death fields to harvest another vine once I've made my purchase. Hence, the prices tend to feel excessive, especially since with things like IOs, it's stacking them that makes them worthwhile. I might not buy one set of a given recipe at 500 points, but at 200, I'd buy three.

That said, in regards to temp powers, the "summon one of my other characters" option that people mentioned is pretty danged cool, and, yeah, I'd pay a few hundred points to get a few charges of that, possibly against my better judgement, just because I'd love to have a few of my characters get to team up.

Get Over Here (Foe TP)
- Single Use, Choose an enemy (primarily the badge related enemies) to be affected
- Teleports all enemies of the specified type to your location.

I Put a Spell on You
- Turns all Sappers and Sorcerers into Rikti Monkeys

How Ya Like Me Now?
- Grants the PC the following powers: Chill of the Night, Hurricane, Caltrops, Sapper Overload, Quicksand, Dispersion Bubble

With regard to [Revival].

[Revival] in its current incarnation is terrible: it's unoriginal, underwhelming, and overpriced. Three suggestions to make a market rez desirable for players.

1. Lower the market rez price to a point where players don’t flinch (or outright laugh) when they look at the power. Like inspirations, players shouldn’t think twice about popping a market rez. 10 points per rez, and lower if the rez is purchased in a quantity. If you can get to a price point where players start to prefer using a market rez over an Awaken inspiration, you’ve won a huge battle.

2. The market rez power should remove all debt from the character. Players at the cap and power levelers won’t care, but it will be a nice little bonus for those in the process of leveling.

3. Make self rezzes fun to use by making different kinds of rezzes. This is huge. CoH’s calling card has always been customization, and market powers should be designed around that fact. Maybe one self rez adds inspiration buffs to the player (Return to Battle), one rez does a PBAoE attack + limited invincibility (Rise of the Phoenix), one rez adds buffs to the player’s teammates (Nemesis Vengeance), one rez can also rez teammates (Howling Twilight), one gives the player a Speed Boost-type buff, one gives a small amount of patrol XP, and so on. Put your thinking caps on - none of these theoretical powers is wildly unbalanced or approaches the 'pay to win' category, and they all add a much-needed "Oh, cool!" effect to the game.

Suggestions for other consumables in the market? Make knockoff versions of key powers from regular power sets.

Instant Healing
Fortitude
Lingering Radiation
Sleet
Strength of Will
Tar Patch
Lightning Storm

Perishable items are fluff in a game that already has amazing quality of life for subscribers and free accounts alike. If you want people to spend money on perishables, price those items accordingly - in other words, a player should never think "Holy smokes, every Warwolf costs me $.16!"

Mission Architect Rewards: Buy Paragon Points at their normal price, but instead of personal use, they are given out to others who play your MA storyarcs.

Maybe you have a storyarc you're proud of, or a tough mission you want to challenge others with. Give players an incentive to try your missions with real rewards- one Paragon Point per mission in the storyarc upon completion. Your points will be reserved when you begin the storyarc, so there is no need to rush through the missions (though I realize many will anyway.)

I would repeatedly buy the equivalent of a short term mastermind power. It could be sold in tiers, buy a couple of minions cheap, a couple of minions and a LT for a bit more or a couple with a boss for even more. They could be themed as Longbow or Arachnos depending on who is buying. This should be short term, maybe lasting three or four routine fights. I would use these on PCs when I needed just that extra push to get past a tough spot in a mission, I much prefer teaming in general, but sometimes there is no team to be found and just the right combo of bad guys are in a mission to beat up on me. Folks upstream have mentioned a summon a doppelganger* or the signature hero power, this could be less powerful and cheaper than that with much more fragile pets.


* If the doppelganger power were to be used I would base it off of members of a character's supergroup myself, much better to have a super buddy show up to help in my mind.

I don't IO every alt I have with set IOs. Sell me common IOs that level with me and give them at 10-20 points each and I will buy them by the dozens.

Dozens I say.

There is one thing needed to make the consumables desirable:

Intensity.

I wont pay for something that will give me a small ammount of time of a small effect with a long timer attached.

If the timer is long and the duration low, make it strong!
20% or 25% more XP means nothing. I would pay for 100%, not 25%. The perceived benefit makes the enhancement less attractive.
Windfall, XP booster and Prestige boosters must, well, be boosted to be attractive.
Actually, the Prestige boosters must also be really, really strong and cheap. Because they actually are very, very limited on utility and their effects on the game are very focused.

If the item is a instant thing, make it without a long timer!
If I want to buy a lot of mission teleporters, I want to hop all over the game without waiting.

On another game, that I wont tell the name, there is some "Ressurection Cakes". I used 5 on the same mission just because I didnt wanted to run back to the mission area. By the same token, on the same game, the XP/loot enhancers had a very long duration, and If I wanted I could pop one right when the other ran out. Also they "froze" on downtime, when I logged off to sleep or so.

Things like inspirations must be REALLY, REALLY strong to attract the players. Specially because they are very, very transitory.

Another suggestion:

One of the obstacles to using the purchased inspirations -- they take up slots in my inspiration tray. I know, that's more than a little obvious, but bear with me. As purchased items, I'm likely to want to save them a bit more than the ones that drop at random. If I have several of these in my tray, that's room I can't cycle for random inspiration drops. My suggestion is that I'd be more likely to buy and use dual and team inspirations if they had a separate inspiration tray of their own.

a limited-use temporary power of the quantum rifle, which does mad crazy damage to more powerful foes but does normal damage to minions.

Also it does extra damage to pb's and warshades, just to stick to continuity.

That could be a wonderful thing to just grab when you really need to finish a mission and you can't handle the big guy at the end, and you're about to have to quit playing...