So I want to return but...

Unless I'm mistaken currently you need a license for the auction house ALSO, no?

I was thinking more along the lines of a special new store that they can simply buy crafted common IOs from if they are freemium or free players. It would have nothing to do with the universities, crafting system or wents.

I don't think it's a good idea.

Not from a player accessibility aspect, but more from a back-end POV. Something like this could affect how things drop and are listed in the Recipe listings and the Market. I think the overall hassle is not worth any perceived gain by letting Premiums access non-set IOs.

Thank you for the time...

Yes, that's a separate unlock but it unlocks earlier than the rest of the invention system through the Paragon Rewards system (all tier 4 badges/tier 5 compared to all tier 7 badges/tier 8).

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

It is more cost effective to be a Premium player than a VIP for character slots, AT unlocks, Time/Dark and IO's based on the Paragon Points system. You can have all that under $15.00 dollars sub over three months compared to 3 months of sub free of $15.00.

And no I don't consider the Invention license a sub fee, but a micro transaction fee.

Yes, though the tier 4 freemium benefit is lifetime access to the auction house. 8 reward tokens seems like a pretty minimal hurdle for a player to get access to common IOs, especially given that spending the $5 needed to buy an auction house license for 2 months gives you the 2nd of 8 reward tokens you need to permanently unlock the auction house.

Also, if free players can join a supergroup (which I think they can do post-i23), then they could also conceivably get IOs from supergroup storage, if common IOs didn't need to be unlocked. I'd think it would be more frustrating than beneficial though if the only way to get 'free IOs' was to join a supergroup unless you spent $90 or so to get to tier 4.

--
Pauper

Question for you.

If you are leasing a car and stop making your payments, do you get to keep it?

If you are renting an apartment and stop paying your rent, do you get to keep living there?

You did not BUY those characters....you were renting them. You have not in any way paid in full for those characters by having maintained a subscription in the past.

If you stop making your car payment or paying your rent, the dealership or landlord damn well will take your car back or kick you out. What Paragon Studios has done here is the equivalent of a landlord letting you stay in your apartment for free....but shutting off the cable and air conditioning. And he offered you a deal that lets you have those things on a conditional basis for a fee that was less than your rent used to be.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

Not the same, because you put work into the characters (didn't lease them at the level cap), same reason why you pay more money for someone that packages bananas compared to buying them as loose bulk.

There is an investment of time, which is why it not simple with your analogy. I didn't build a car or house, but I did build my city of heroes characters.

It's better, but I think it's only sneaking up on the problem.

The problem is that premium players, coming back to try the game, find their characters are incredibly underpowered due to effectively having no IOs, and the process to do something about that is time consuming and boring (and potentially wasteful). If the character build is mostly common IOs with just a few sets, that solves it, run and go, but if most of the powers are slotted with set IOs, it's the same problem - those powers effectively have no enhancements.

There are a couple of "simple" fixes that remove much of the demotivator aspect, let you log in, unlock your character and immediately jump in and have fun (and hopefully decide, yeah, I'm back to stay).

Simple Solution #1: Slotted IOs continue to function. You can't slot new IOs if you haven't unlocked the invention system, but the ones in your solution continue to function.

Simple Solution #1.1: The first time someone logs into Freedom, they're given a 30/60/90 day "license" that allows slotted IOs to function. When it runs out, the player must decide to buy Invention Licenses, replace enhancements, or leave the game. It kicks the unfun boring part back a while, so it's no part of the returning experience. UI question of how to explain it to the affected characters and show a countdown so players know when they have to fix things. It seems overly complex both from a coding standpoint and customer understanding basis, but if they are hide bound on "slotted IOs without invention license are completely disabled" gets around the entry experience problem.

Simple Solution #2: Slotted IOs degrade without the invention system, but not to nothing. Maybe they just drop to common IO level of boosting but all set bonuses/procs shut off, maybe they drop to SO value (single attribute enhances 33%, dual attribute enhances 16.5% for each attribute, triple attribute enhances 11% for each attribute). There's still an advantage to having an Invention License, but the characters are still playable and effective immediately.

The need (and having talked to a number of returning premium players trying out, yes, I'd call this a need) is that old characters are playable and not so weak and underpowered to not be fun without the unfun fixing process.

Given complete control, I'd go further. Reduce the tier at which IOs are permanently unlocked to Tier 6, maybe as low as tier 4. Or keep the IO unlock where it is, add another unlock at Tier 3 where you can use and slot IOs but not make them (so VIPs can make influence selling IOs in the auction house to premium players). The Invention system is such a core part of the game, stretching through the reward system of tasks and more, that it's more a demotivator to say "screw this, I'm outta here" than a motivator to say "Yes, I'll pay to get that."

But that's something on which reasonable people can disagree, and it is their game and their call. The only thing I'll say is absolutely broken is "a slotted IO enhancement is effectively like an empty slot" in terms of gameplay and encouraging returning players to stay.

I'm sure some players that have earned enough reward tokens to unlock inventions and market have already done so. Only buying powersets/etc and subbing when they wanna incarnate.

Obviously I can't give a definitive answer, but if the attitude of the people who want full access to IOs for free is any indication, the answer is very likely "YES".

You've read the replies in this thread. If IOs were fully accessible for free, do you honestly think any of the people in favor of free IOs in this thread would ever give this game a single red cent? I'm thinking probably not.

It goes farther than that as well. If IOs were fully accessible for free, there would be very little incentive for ANYONE to spend money on the game, especially if you don't care about Incarnate content.

Free IO access is, in all seriousness, a bad thing for the long term survival of this game.

Game makes less money, we get less new stuff. We get less new stuff, more people leave. More people leave, game makes still less money. Eventually NCSoft will decide the game is costing more to run than the revenue it brings in justifies. Voila, they pull the plug on it, no more game.

It's simple business: Give away too much for free, and you run your business into the ground. And the devs are very aware that if someone is not willing to drop $2 on the game to get their IOs back, they probably aren't losing anything when that person chooses not to play.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

I asked the question because I am not positive I know what the behaviors or desired behaviors of other players are - I just wonder if having invention access would drive added interest in buying an AH license, and then some new marketeers/crafters would be born who may have need for storage and increase storage sales, etc. etc.

Would the net purchases/cash flow be higher, the same, or lower? I do not know, but it is an intriguing question.

If you create a baby its yours you have ownership over it, but don't actually have ownership. You did not buy your baby, you created it. You raised it, nurtured it, and provided for it. Do you consider a child when its all grown up... that you have raised, nurtured, and provided for paid in full? Some of us may "I paid my dues" "Now get your own place!" I remember hearing that when I was of age.... When its grown, it's still your child however.

If that was really true, then freemium as a model would fail, and clearly it is not a failure in the general industry. It would mean that the studio would have to follow a different revenue generation strategy than "let's break the game up into a set of 'systems' and then charge for access to those systems".

Freedom is almost a year old now, and I suspect that if we see any tuning done to it that we'll see it targeted to happen after that magical one-year milestone. In the meantime, the game is what it is.

I do think that the OP has some valid concerns but for now s/he has to just suck it up or play something else.

I do. Because I'm one of those people posting in favor of it, and I have a subscription.


Because nobody would ever make more than two characters.

A free/premium player gets a base of 2 slots compared to a VIP's base of 180 (ignoring Exalted since a premium couldn't buy those if they wanted to). So... 175 slots at $20 per 5 (best rate) is $700, or over 46 months of a subscription at $15/month. Or they could buy them one at a time, in which case they're still spending money, just less of it.

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

Mostly because why bother with the market if I can budget for a fixed price ahead of time. I'd never buy basic IOs from the market again unless they were cheaper.

Simple Solution #2: Slotted IOs degrade without the invention system, but not to nothing. Maybe they just drop to common IO level of boosting but all set bonuses/procs shut off, maybe they drop to SO value (single attribute enhances 33%, dual attribute enhances 16.5% for each attribute, triple attribute enhances 11% for each attribute). There's still an advantage to having an Invention License, but the characters are still playable and effective immediately.

I like this one the best as I've stated.

The other one mentioned shortly was to allow freemiums AND FREE PLAYERS to EARN their full IO power in game. That one was kind of intriguing.

Ehhh I don't think there is any other F2P game that matches our freemium system. Last I checked other games don't limit what your slotted abilities are, but by what content you have access to.

What THEY do is that they nickel and dime you for nearly everything and most content: think if this game charged you for access to tfs, sfs, non-incarnate trials, and even some door missions.

I could be wrong though.

The only two key things I value most in the game are IOs and Incarnate Content. And IOs waaaay more. I've heard more folks say they care more about IOs than they do Incarnate content.

So I'd argue that yeah IOs access and it's restrictions ARE very much a key point of the model.

For me personally, if they ever gave full access to IOs I would drop my sub. The Incarnate system just isn't that impressive. Especially since most of it is still locked behind a trial grind that I can't get into due to the hours I currently play.

I'd just select my warshade and fortunata as my mains. Seeing as how I haven't played any other character in over 100+ days (I found this out last night ) I'd be golden.

What do you think of the suggestion of allowing FREE and FREEMIUM players to EARN their IO access by playing in game? (perhaps you earn license time via merits and as a reward dropped from completing missions).

What does anyone else think of that idea? It basically means those that don't want to screw around with a monthly payment of any type can still eventually earn the IOs. It would still require a ONE TIME market buy for the license, just that earning TIME for it to be valid would be done in game

Extend that thought a bit more: In the UK, you have to pay for a TV license to receive broadcast transmissions (if you have a TV and it isn't hooked up to the TV aerial, you don't need a license strictly speaking).

You paid for the TV (character slot unlock). However you are unable to watch anything on television because you haven't paid for the TV License (as i said, it is a rough analogy, because whilst in the UK you *can* do it, you do risk getting fined/going to court for watching live TV without a license).

Consoles/DVD players (non Mastermind/Controllers archtypes) are fine to hook up. But as soon as you want to watch the news on terrestrial TV (Controller/Mastermind lockout) you cannot.

I am sure that most US people are currently thinking "WTF, you have to pay to watch non cable/Satellite free to air TV shows on top of the cost of buying a TV?"

Shame that you currently cannot do that unless you subscribe or pay for the Archtype unlock (well, it is only 2000 points total, so the choice is yours )

So paying for Cable TV doesn't give you access to B-cast in the UK?

Cause here it automatically does. Why would I care about a public b-cast license, when I can just get cable and thus b-cast transmissions included anyway?

Errrr is that correct? I thought you got to keep them if you were high enough in the tier? Which I am. I have full tiers unlocked. When COH freedom launched I was nearly there, so I just spent the money to full unlock the years/tiers I didn't have.

Nope technically there is no unlock of EATs in the Parqagon Reward program. However there is an unintended situation where people who had EATs unlocked prior to Freedom generally got to keep it as a legacy unlock.

Well, cable TV *Does* carry the channels that are free to air... however without the UK TV License you are actually breaking the law and can risk the fine/criminal record.

Just checked the Paragon Rewards Tree on Paragon Wiki... according to that HEATS/VEATS are NOT unlockable as a bonus (unlike Masterminds/Controllers).

They are strictly VIP/shop purchase access only.