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B9000 -> RE: Nonvarium Players -- the solution? (3/7/2011 14:16:16)
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Many good points there Giras Wolfe, but you cant really separate the discussion of balance between f2p/p2pers from cost of varium discussion. Masterspider78 has hit the nail on the head here. Currently with the amount varium costs, and the number of items that can be purchased (and enhanced), people with varium 'deserve' to be overpowered for their large investment. Otherwise many wouldn't buy it. On the flip side, if you keep such a large gap between varium and and non varium, many of the f2p player-base may leave (and/or not recommend others to join), as the game becomes less free 2 play and more 'free 2 give wins to paying players'.
IMO the only real long term solution would be to lower the COST and the advantages of varium. Offering a ton of perks for a lot of real money basically makes it impossible to keep both varium and f2p reasonably satisfied. I'm not suggesting to nerf the power of weapons already sold (or boosting current non varium gear), changing the value of already sold good would make a lot of unhappy customers. However, going forward they could work out a new system. Obviously if they make newer varium weapons that are weaker than current ones, or the current batch of non-v weapons 'overpowered' not many will want to buy the varium items. There is a problematic trend which seems to be making the problem worse. For example the powerful varium warbot armor just released is level 27, this is detrimental to balance as the 'good' armor for non varium is still level 28 (all level 28 armors should now be lowered to 27 to prevent the bad side affects of this). Some of the most powerful weapons are level 30 (Frostbane and Az Bane). This creates a problem, as to encourage new sales the devs will need to make max level weapons that overpower these. But if the level cap remains fixed for so long, this will wreak havoc in stat inflation and the f2p/p2p balance.
Therefore I'd propose something like the following:
Over the next little while open up the level cap by quite a bit, to level 38-40 (and in the future don't let so many players hit the max level before raising it). Introduce weapons at each level that are significantly more powerful than the ones currently available, but make the difference between var and non varium smaller (and varium stuff cheaper). That way people will still buy even though the gap is smaller, since it will still outclass what they currently have. To go along with weapons being much more powerful than on previous levels, the gap the battlefinder matches up players will probably need to be cut from 5 levels to 3 or so, or change it to something like I wrote about here.
I'm not so naive as to think that the devs should just 'make less money' so that non-paying players are happy, I know that this game is their livelihood. But games such as these generally are successful through micro-payments, keeping the amounts small, and volume large. I think that if they structured this change properly they could increase their profits by making up the difference in volume. I know with a 'fast' moving level cap and introducing a lot of new weapons constantly can be a LOT of work for the artists, so if this is a limitation, the artists can reuse the same design and go the bronze, iron, steel, titanium sword route (get a lot of use out of each weapon design, just change the colors and stats a bit as it levels up).
By allowing people to constantly level up and buy new stuff, players will be much more interested by the ever-present goal of leveling (would probably vastly increase the amount of xp boost sold too). Keeping the level cap fluid, would also keep the lower levels from hitting the 'varium wall' at the fairly low level of 27, and spreading out the varium players over many levels would keep non varium players to be encouraged to play (and bring their friends) since the ratio of f2p opponents will be much better. Also, making the real-money cost of gear smaller, makes them much more of an impulse buy, as opposed to the trend now: many I've spoken to are much more reluctant to keep upgrading as the price with enhancements has made it costly to stay on top, without the level cap even moving, makes many feel they are spending but not going anywhere.
Additionally, with these changes, players who aren't super active will still be encouraged to buy as they wont fear that anything they buy will be outdated/outclassed by items on the same level (since future releases will be geared towards new weapons for the new level cap, preventing over-saturation of weapons for the current levels). As it stands now, some people hesitate to buy items at a time they don't know if they will be active. However if weapons on a given level don't ever really become outdated for that level, they can benefit from their purchase at their own pace. I fear the current varium price structure in this game is forcing ED to be marginalized in the gaming market. Charging AAA title prices, and trying to keep the balance with a f2p is just not feasible in the long run. By making the above changes would probably be vastly more healthy for growth and appeal of the game to a wider range of players.
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