Checking out ParagonWiki, the only thing they can be used for without the Invention License would appear to be for purchasing large inspirations and SOs... that doesn't seem very likely to be all that persuasive. Especially considering that it doesn't seem to be doing an excellent job of persuading the VIPs that can get reward merits.
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
Checking out ParagonWiki, the only thing they can be used for without the Invention License would appear to be for purchasing large inspirations and SOs... that doesn't seem very likely to be all that persuasive. Especially considering that it doesn't seem to be doing an excellent job of persuading the VIPs that can get reward merits.
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The purpose of the hybrid model is to entice players to buy more points to move up the tree....hence why the better goodies are further up. I have absolutely no issues with the current rewards/reward tree of the Freedom system. To increase the rewards to freemie/premium players would do nothing but devalue the incentives to be VIP.
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Originally Posted by Paladiamors
I love you, I Burnt the Toast!
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Aren't they changing up some of the lower tier benefits come Issue 23? Not rewardmerits, but I thought tier 1/2/3 were getting some new benefits in regards to the chat channels and.. super groups?
Pretty sure we can get reward merits by the ton from buying the super packs.
Yep, im rolling in merits. Think I have around 2300 merits laying about!
Rockshock (Druid Tanker), Medicat (Combat Medic), Dwarf From the North (Ice Mage), Rocket Gal (Energy Blaster), Graveborn (Undead Mastermind), Streeker (Punching Speedster), Op. Sidewinder (Recluse's pet Spider)
Not to brag (too much) but I think I've got something like 12,000 left unclaimed in my account based email alone. Basically I've gotten everything I've wanted in this game via methods that don't involve Reward Merits too much. I obviously see no real need to have new ways to get more of them. *shrugs*
Loth 50 Fire/Rad Controller [1392 Badges] [300 non-AE Souvenirs]
Ryver 50 Ele� Blaster [1392 Badges]
Silandra 50 Peacebringer [1138 Badges] [No Redside Badges]
--{=====> Virtue ♀
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Right, for long-time players Reward Merits have been piling up for years and you've gotten pretty much whatever you wanted that they can help you acquire. I only started playing in December 2011, and I actually do the WST for the Reward Merits - they are indeed useful when you're not saturated with them. I was arguing that allowing new Premium players access to them at an earlier point might serve to make a the game appeal to people who will spend $50 on a game but not necessarily commit to a subscription.|
Originally Posted by Lothic
Not to brag (too much) but I think I've got something like 12,000 left unclaimed in my account based email alone. Basically I've gotten everything I've wanted in this game via methods that don't involve Reward Merits too much. I obviously see no real need to have new ways to get more of them. *shrugs*
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That said, Kitsune points out that Reward Merits are of limited utility for folks without Invention access, and IBtT adds that the Market isn't designed to appeal to one-time-purchase customers anyway. Essentially, I'm arguing for a marketing approach (Get a much fuller game for a flat fee) that this game isn't interested in. *shrug* Fair enough, just wanted to float the idea.
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We have that already.|
Originally Posted by BrainBrillo
Essentially, I'm arguing for a marketing approach (Get a much fuller game for a flat fee) that this game isn't interested in. *shrug*
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It's called a becoming a VIP.
You get a much fuller game for a flat fee when you subscribe.
What you are arguing for is getting a fuller game by paying no fee or by only making a few small purchases for the Reward Tokens to get to a lower tier.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
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Yes it is true that I've been playing this game for a long time. But to clarify what I said I have been able to fully afford many complete builds using various ATO/PvP/HO/IOs worth billions of Influence without -any- serious use of Reward Merits. I've probably only spent maybe a grand total of 500 Reward Merits across ALL of my characters in all the years I've played this game. That's why in addition to the 12,000 or so account-based Merits I mentioned before many of my characters have thousands of their own personal Merits gathering dust. If I had a way to trade them to you I would. |
Originally Posted by BrainBrillo
Right, for long-time players Reward Merits have been piling up for years and you've gotten pretty much whatever you wanted that they can help you acquire.
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I'm not trying to argue that Reward Merits are strictly useless. I'm just pointing out that if you feel you are being limited by the number of Reward Merits you can get there are alternative ways to accomplish things in this game without them.
Loth 50 Fire/Rad Controller [1392 Badges] [300 non-AE Souvenirs]
Ryver 50 Ele� Blaster [1392 Badges]
Silandra 50 Peacebringer [1138 Badges] [No Redside Badges]
--{=====> Virtue ♀
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That's not even remotely true. I have almost 200 characters and with the exception of 1 character that has 326 Reward Merits the rest all have less than 50, and 25 of those merits come from Vet/Paragon Rewards. |
Originally Posted by BrainBrillo
Right, for long-time players Reward Merits have been piling up for years and you've gotten pretty much whatever you wanted that they can help you acquire.
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Since the Super Packs went on sale I have 4,500 Reward Merits sitting unclaimed in my email.
Hmm, I think what Brain is referring to as a flat amount would more correctly be identified as a one time fee rather than the continuous subscription fee.
In regards to whether or not Brain's suggestion would work, I think the key issue (as many have alluded to) is the necessity of the reward merits. While useful, they are by no means necessary. You can already have a pretty substantial game experience without using them as a free player. Would it be more satisfying if you could use them? Certainly. And that's the enticement to move up the rewards ladder.
However, they can't exactly give away too much to the Freemium players because that would undermine the value of being a VIP player (as IBtT mentioned). There's a certain fine line that they have to balance on with the hybrid model.
The point of a continuous fee though is to slowly reel in customers, not give them everything immediately. While they could bring in more players by giving away more, the point isn't to bring in more players, it's to bring in more customers. They are running a business after all.
And tangentially, in response to Agent White, I believe they are changing some of the benefits that you get at lower tiers of the rewards ladder because they are kind of necessary to the game. I hope I'm not the only one here who has done this, but I have gotten frustrated with the constant stream of blind invites from Free players and at times essentially told them to send tells. Of course, Free players can't send tells so they're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place there. Hence, IMO the current changes that are being considered are likely to establish a better community for Free players to become customers in.
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Originally Posted by Agent White
Aren't they changing up some of the lower tier benefits come Issue 23? Not rewardmerits, but I thought tier 1/2/3 were getting some new benefits in regards to the chat channels and.. super groups?
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- Free players may now be invited into SuperGroups. (Free players still cannot create SuperGroups.)
- The Looking for Group chat channel has been added to the game.
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
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Actually thinking about it, the wiki is out of date. ATOs can be purchased via reward merits and don't require an invention license I believe, since they're attuned and not true IOs.
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Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
Checking out ParagonWiki, the only thing they can be used for without the Invention License would appear to be for purchasing large inspirations and SOs... that doesn't seem very likely to be all that persuasive. Especially considering that it doesn't seem to be doing an excellent job of persuading the VIPs that can get reward merits.
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Thank you, LB. That was indeed what I meant, though it was a little unclear.|
Originally Posted by LightBlack
Hmm, I think what Brain is referring to as a flat amount would more correctly be identified as a one time fee rather than the continuous subscription fee.
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Originally Posted by LightBlack
In regards to whether or not Brain's suggestion would work, I think the key issue (as many have alluded to) is the necessity of the reward merits. While useful, they are by no means necessary. You can already have a pretty substantial game experience without using them as a free player. Would it be more satisfying if you could use them? Certainly. And that's the enticement to move up the rewards ladder.
However, they can't exactly give away too much to the Freemium players because that would undermine the value of being a VIP player (as IBtT mentioned). There's a certain fine line that they have to balance on with the hybrid model. The point of a continuous fee though is to slowly reel in customers, not give them everything immediately. While they could bring in more players by giving away more, the point isn't to bring in more players, it's to bring in more customers. They are running a business after all. |
And I'm suggesting this at tier 3 completion for a very specific reason: that represents a player spending $45-50 in the Market. That amount of money is what many gamers who would never consider an outright subscription regularly pay for a new game. Offer these players rewards outside of chain-running Death From Below, and see if the promise of more game that the Reward Merits hint at motivates them to either spend more or go VIP.
Agent White mentioned that ATO can be both purchased with Reward Merits and used by Premium/Free players. Perhaps a Premium player would work toward that as a goal, than get tempted by IO options? It'd give level 50 Premium toons a goal, in any event.
I guess I never got to the point of whether or not I think it should be done.
Should we lower the tier at which people get to earn reward merits? I would argue no in this case, at least not to the point you're arguing for. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's already plenty of content Free players can try in order to determine whether or not they want to spend money on the game and draw them further in. I would argue that it's their own fault for chain-running DFB and later DIB. By chain running those trials and not seeking out regular contacts (which I believe they have access to), they are limiting the reward pools they're diving into. Simply leveling up is arguably an award on its own, which is probably part of why chain-runs are so appealing. By extension, getting more powerful in game is an award on its own. If players wanted to do that, they can use in game currency to buy TO's, DO's, SO's, and if they subscribed, IO's. Is there a need to give non-subscribing players an alternative means of getting what they want? I don't think so.
The devs have spent a large amount of effort building up the world of CoX, they're offering much of that experience for free. However, they can't offer all of it for free.
If you want to access an alternative method to reaching your goals (in this case Reward Merits), I believe they are able to get it for a one time fee of fifteen dollars already (and thereby being a VIP for a month), which I think is what Texas Justice was referring to earlier. If they like having the reward merits and spending them, they can continue subscribing until they reach that reward tier (15 months, or a one time purchase of a hundred dollars).
I think the mission then is accomplished if the ultimate goal is to get them to subscribe monthly. If the goal is to get the most money as fast as possible, I would argue that there are plenty of things that Free players can buy first that would be more enticing than the reward merits (AT's first, then power sets, and reward merits are further down the line).
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Originally Posted by BrainBrillo
Thank you, LB. That was indeed what I meant, though it was a little unclear.
Agreed. I'm suggesting that Reward Merits are a widely-available resource (a new player would hardly need to seek them out) that would give players something that's both useful to them now and hints at what else is out there. And I'm suggesting this at tier 3 completion for a very specific reason: that represents a player spending $45-50 in the Market. That amount of money is what many gamers who would never consider an outright subscription regularly pay for a new game. Offer these players rewards outside of chain-running Death From Below, and see if the promise of more game that the Reward Merits hint at motivates them to either spend more or go VIP. Agent White mentioned that ATO can be both purchased with Reward Merits and used by Premium/Free players. Perhaps a Premium player would work toward that as a goal, than get tempted by IO options? It'd give level 50 Premium toons a goal, in any event. |
Premiums don't need to spend $45-50 to get started using Reward Merits. A single $5 dollar purchase can easily get them several hundred merits from Super Packs, and a $2 dollar market license will allow them to sell any unusable ATO's they get from the packs for tens to hundreds of millions of inf which in turn will allow them to buy ATO's they actually can use from the Merit Vendor.
Minimum spent $7 bucks which is a very inexpensive carrot to entice premiums to subscribe/buy Paragon Rewards to unlock Reward Merits or decide that they want to continue as they are.
If you can get reward merits from super packs as a Free or Premium player, I would argue that it provides all the more reason to not move reward merits to a lower tier.
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Fair enough. I didn't get any Super Packs, and was unaware that they had doled out huge amounts of reward merits.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
/unsigned
Premiums don't need to spend $45-50 to get started using Reward Merits. A single $5 dollar purchase can easily get them several hundred merits from Super Packs, and a $2 dollar market license will allow them to sell any unusable ATO's they get from the packs for tens to hundreds of millions of inf which in turn will allow them to buy ATO's they actually can use from the Merit Vendor. Minimum spent $7 bucks which is a very inexpensive carrot to entice premiums to subscribe/buy Paragon Rewards to unlock Reward Merits or decide that they want to continue as they are. |
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Just as a small test which because the draws are random doesn't garuntee anything I picked up 15 packs to check what three groups of 5 might get in Reward Merits. The first time I got 400 RM, the second group I got 300 RM, and the last group I got 525 RM.|
Originally Posted by BrainBrillo
Fair enough. I didn't get any Super Packs, and was unaware that they had doled out huge amounts of reward merits.
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The Reward Merit cards come in values of x25, x50, x75, and x100. You can get more than one card value in each pack.
Yes, it's another post asking them to give more away. But hear me out. To me, earning Reward Merits is a crucial part of the game - almost all leveling activities in the game hand them out, and they're useful even without an Invention license. And by making them available at Tier 3, a commitment-averse player could spend $50 - the price of a standalone game - and be able to profit from doing story arcs and taskforces instead of just re-running DfB until their eyes bleed.
Do people think this would help attract people who want to pay a flat amount for a game? Would it not work? Is this even an audience worth targeting? I think it is, but I'd like to know what other players think.