Super Packs Update - 12/12/2011

Nice. Gives those of us at tier 9 something to do with Reward Tokens if we don't need consumables and aren't particularly interested in the VIP costume set du jour.

i'm still waiting on my next VIP costume set du jour and i rarely get consumables. i might get some of these packs, but i have a feeling i'll hoard the tokens, at least for a couple more months, and get packs with points instead if i do get them. (Being a former M:tG junkie the odds are pretty good i'll get at least a few even though i did kick that habit a while back.)

80 points = $1 a pack.

1 reward token = approximately $15.

$15 / 5 = $3 a pack.

So... What is being said is that either the developers are extremely bad at math (something I'm beginning to think) or that the perk for being a VIP means a player gets charged 3x as much as a regular customer.

Edit:
Given data later in this thread, the 1 reward token should be $10, not $15. Yes, you get additional stuff for subscribing or buying points. This doesn't change that the Reward Tokens seem to have a higher value than the developers are assigning to this super pack bundle. As far as the packs themselves, the developer's value of the packs doesn't seem to match the player's perceived value of the packs.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

Or like what GBE said; people may use them when they are a tier 9 VIP with "nothing" left to spend points on...

At the moment I have 3 tokens doing nothing...would I use one on the random packs? Probably not...but...maybe *shrugs*

It's just another option.


And thanks Zwill for the update/communication!

1 Reward Token does not = $15.00. You pay your VIP subscription, and the Reward Token is only a part of what you're getting in return. Same goes for PP purchases. You still get $15 in value out of your PP, Reward Tokens are just something extra.

This is still the deal breaker for me. I will not touch the packs so long as they have costume sets in them that I want and can not at that time get any other way.

I'm hoping for good news soon, but expecting bad news after much delay. Surprise me, please.

Gonna have to second Z on this, Snow Globe. Given how much we've participated in Freedom discussions together, I feel you really should know better than to value 1 Reward Token at $15. It's an extra perk on top of the money spent, not the (intended) reason for spending that money.

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I think what we can probably assume is that those costume options will be exclusive to the Super Packs for a certain time limit. After 6 months or so (rough estimate, give or take, etc), they'll probably be added to the Paragon Market for those who want the costumes but don't want to touch the card packs.

I know you don't want to hear it, but I do think it's incredibly unlikely that the costume options will be available outside of the Super Packs at the time of their release.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

In addition to what Zwillinger said, I'm not really sure what about the T9 reward tokens would lead you to think that each token placed will reward you with $15 of virtual goods. I mean right now it gives 8 windfalls, xp boosters and unslotters which basically equate to 750 points (so just shy of $10). And while the enhancement boosters don't come in groupings of 30 like they sell them in the store (for 900 points) but the 25 enhancement booster T9 reward is roughly about $10 worth of store items too.

So yea, they're generally equitable with $10 of virtual stuff on that tier. So given that I'd hope maybe 9-10 for each token.
Edit: Even if it's less and ends up being something like 5 packs it's effectively free so I'm not likely to be complaining about it. Maybe grumbling a little, but not complaining.

With that logic, we spent $45 on Celestial Armor + Weapons.

This is the thing that perplexes me, and it reminds me of some of the pre-Freedom conversations...

Some folks were saying that they absolutely would not maintain a subscription unless <insert perceived critical feature here> was available to non-subscribers. Making it so they wouldn't need a subscription to get the critical feature they wanted. So.. where's the incentive for them to subscribe, again?

I'm not really seeing how this makes sense. "I will choose not to be a customer unless you make it so that I can choose not to be a customer and still get the stuff."

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.

He did ask for another way to get the costumes. The devs could sell the costumes directly for roughly the cost of the number of packs it would take get the costume randomly. That would still satisfy their mercantile needs, without requiring an unbounded amount of money from the people stuck on the tail end of the bell curve. (Okay, technically, you can still spend an unlimited aount, but at least the option to buy it is there.)

Obviously, that would force people to notice how high the price for these costume pieces actually is, but I only see that as a short term problem. My fear is that the devs aren't thinking about the long term implications.

-D

Let's pretend, at the moment, that there are two possible outcomes:

1) Costume set is only available via superpacks

2) Costume set is available via superpacks AND for purchase directly like other costume parts.

Let's examine 4 types of people that want the costume parts:

a) Is against gambling with real money in any form, and won't ever buy Super Packs.

b) Is against using exclusive items to coerce people who otherwise wouldn't gamble into gambling with real money, and won't buy Super Packs if they contain exclusive items on principle. Otherwise is at least willing to gamble.

c) Doesn't like gambling, but would gamble if they had to to get costume parts they wanted

d) Likes gambling.

So, if #1 is the case, you'll get money via Super Packs from c and d. If #2 is the case, you'll get money via Super Packs from d and maybe some money from b, and money from a, c, and maybe b from the purchased costume sets.

All 4 types are customers, and are willing to pay money, and a and b won't pay money unless there is an alternate way to pay money for it that they don't find distasteful. Does that make sense?

You're probably right. I hope you're not. ("I always hope for the best. Experience, unfortunately, has taught me to expect the worst.")

This is a nice change. Even though I still have no interest in buying the Super Packs, more options, both for how to get them and what to spend excess Reward Tokens on (I have 5 right now; by time Fire & Ice comes out, it'll be at least 6), are always a good thing.

I still won't buy the Super Packs, either with points or with my Reward Tokens.

well...

I did. *whistles innocently*
I actually spent way more than that

I can make sense of it. After thinking about it for a while. Here's the thing:

People will, in some cases, act in ways that are apparently against their own best short-term interest, in the hopes of discouraging behavior they see as "unfair". Take the classic game theory test: You have two people. You offer to give them money, with the rules being:

Player A announces how the money will be split between A and B.
Player B can veto, in which case neither gets money.

Obviously, if A gives B any money at all, B comes out ahead by cooperating. But in practice, if A gives B less than about a third of the money, B is most likely to veto.

So. Imagine that I feel that the soul of City of Heroes, the only thing that makes it worth having, is the Mastermind archetype, and that it is a horrific crime against nature for anyone to be induced to play a pale imitation of CoH which lacks it.

I might view "mastermind is only for VIPs" the way player B might view "you get $5, I get $95". I might feel that such a choice was so bad that it justified refusing to participate under such terms; that particpating under such terms was enabling of behaviors I disliked.

And as a data point: I won't buy Super Packs. I do not object to the existence of such things, really, but I do find it annoying/offensive that there's costume parts which can only be gotten by gambling. I am fine with paying for costume parts. Now... I'm not one of the people who would buy Super Packs if they were one of several options for getting those parts. I just won't buy them. I find gambling mildly upsetting; I want to know what I am or am not buying. And for me, the only things of value might well be the costume parts; it's easy to come up with rewards which have a value to me of zero points, such that if I could buy them for one point each, I wouldn't. And yet I'll happily spend tons of points on costume parts. (Side note: I don't morally object to gambling, and have been known to put money into slot machines and video poker machines and the like. It's fine when it's not the only way on offer to get something specific I want to work towards.)

But I can see people saying "these are circumstances under which I'm unwilling to participate in this game", whether "game" is CoH as a whole or the Super Packs thing. Mileage will vary. I am not at all convinced that this is a completely nonsensical position, in any event.

If it were up to me, the costume parts would be purchaseable as-such. Since they aren't, I won't get them.

Yes, because the Tier 9 tokens are the only reason we're subscribing.

Oh dear lord, I think my IQ went down a few points from simply reading Snow Globe's post.

Speak for yourself, I'm too new, and I decided that I couldn't afford what it would cost me to get them.

There's more at work here than the binary outcomes you start with.

First, you have to assume some rate of acquisition cost for desired items in the packs, and some rate of acquisition for desired items through a hypothetical direct purchase scheme.

There's the question of how much of the relative population A, B, C, and D actually are. (we don't have figures for this, and there's a limited number of ways of collecting it.)

There's the question of which acquisition cost ratios will sway C (and maybe D) away from packs, and which will leave them purchasing packs.

There's the question of what acquisition cost ratios will be sufficient to meet some portion of group B's desires for a 'fair method', and how many of A will make use of the alternate acquisition method at various costs.

If a given alternate acquisition cost is insufficiently high, then Paragon might not get enough funds in order to sustain their accelerating development goals, further, insufficiently high alternate acquisition costs could undermine the time and effort that went into trying to create the category of option the Super Packs represent.

If the alternate acquisition cost is too high, then there's no reason to believe more income will actually be earned, and we don't know that the 'good will of the players' is necessarily going to be overall that much improved. Remember: Everyone's unhappy about something in every new thing.

The only way for Paragon to actually learn how this really works is to actually try it. If there's too much attempt to hedge bets before real metrics can be obtained, then the ultimate message is 'We can't afford to innovate'.

Lastly, I really get the impression that the people complaining about 'gambling' are (for the most part) either mistakenly attempting to impose specific morality views on others, or simply trying to find the best way to get stuff from Paragon with the least cost. And you know, there's nothing wrong with the latter, as long as you're honest about it.


Notably, we're still not talking about gambling. You can only call it gambling if there's a chance of not getting your 80 points worth. Unless you are prepared to argue that only your favored included item of choice has any value at all, (which is a bit of a hard sell since we know that 'people' as a set value many of the things in the Packs already extant), then the packs as presented are guaranteed to give at least what you put into it. It may have unpredictable distributions, but that's not the same thing as gambling.

They're (very well-stocked) grab bags, not lotteries, not slot machines.


With that aside in place, I'll assert the moral imposition is here: Essentially, people are saying Paragon Studios cannot perform this experiment, cannot determine what the constituency of their playerbase is, because it's 'wrong'. Except that's the only way for them to really know what proportions of their playerbase are what thing, is to put up offerings and see how the community at large actually reacts instead of how a handful of individuals insist they'll react.

Heck, they've already SAID they intend to be on the watch for potential pathological behavior, so they've got that in mind.

I have little respect for people attempting to impose morality, though, without any actual supporting evidence that harm has been done, is being done, or will be done.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.

At the risk of sounding like a complete ***** I have to mention...

Nobody knows how big any of those 4 groups are, if you really want to divide all the people who play this game into those 4 groups.

Furthermore, any kind of segregation like that is just patently offensive, if not to anyone else, at least to me.

I do not play this game for costume parts that aren't in the game, haven't been seen yet, might be exclusive to randomized packs, might not, might be completely hideous, might be ******* amazing, might be exclusive to the huge body type, might be completely bizarre like tuna maces or male only fishnets or indian chief headdresses, or for other stuff in those packs.

I play the game because it's fun and these super packs do not infringe on that in any way.

If they add to the game, however little, and give me yet another thing to work on while I might be working towards some very lofty goal that requires a lot of hard work, maybe I could use something like a shot at an exclusive costume piece to tide me over while I try and motivate myself to unlock the destiny slot or the magnificent slot or the lacy underwear slot or whatever.

It's not mandatory!

That post was only intended to illustrate a situation where specific people would actually not be customers if Superpacks had exclusive costumes, and be customers if they weren't exclusive. It wasn't to show that Paragon would make more money if they allowed people to buy the costumes separately.