Elite does make money. Everything it gives out has zero production cost. It has no ongoing coding maintenance unless something breaks. Credits and xp boosts have no cost to create and elite is automatic and requires very little admin attention.
So yea these promos are a bad idea because they basically let the first come first serve people get a crazy benefit. They dont even need to buy credits they just recycle old credits to double their stock.
So like this generates a bunch of bad feelings for the people who got left out because they didn't happen to be logged in when it hit.
So now the choice is to leave the promo as it as and let who ever spams the button the quickers at reset get to recycle old credits for more free credits or nerf the promo.
honestly, this is a situation that will be tough to resolve to not end up with a lot of disappointed people. I feel making a sort of cap onto this is probably the 'best' thing they probably could do, but I doubt that'll happen ( they'd still generate a net loss on this ). If they just bump up the price ( which I think what will happen ), I'd personally feel cheated mostly because it feels like am punished for my timezone, but then a miscalculation is a miscalculation and you can't really expect to gain on something like that.
I just really really hope things are really learned from this and if in doubt, they hopefully ask some players next time if in doubt.
I have no problem with people getting artied out from catching a lucky break and what-not. I was simply asleep and missed the chance. What's a little frustrating is that the same mistake keeps getting made. This is literally a carbon copy of the iron coin miscalculation.
There are plenty of solutions, I don't care which the admin choose, but I do hope they stop making the same mistakes, because it's just hurting their own income.
People are seeing profits in the thousands and yes elite is mostly free shit. You are not paying the value of 150 credits and 20 dingbats, which means you are getting free shit. Turning free into thousands more free is wrong.
Also elite is what is called in the business world as a loss leader. Meaning it doesnt make you money, because it is giving shit away in order to encourage you to buy things that do make them money.
You seem to just want to argue at this point, ignoring my support for other methods of bringing the promo in line.
Again, promos that you can use bound credits on can be set up in a way to result in an overall drain of credits out of the system.
Some of the potential fixes suggested, particularly the secondary less good pool for credit bought spin, could use up some of those credits that are just sitting around and make people buy credits later because they dipped in now.
As far as I understand it, the other games have an actual credit price per spin so you're complaining about a tactic that the other three games have already implemented?
None of the other IREs have quite the same payout as Lusternia. In fact, Achaea's seems to be barely a return of investment, so it's probably going to see buffs.
Lusternia, however, has historically had crazy broken returns with the wheel. This is exactly the same scenario as before. The real issue is, why, why, why do the admins keep making the same misstep?
Limit the purchase, don't reward some and punish everyone who couldn't be there. Just once I'd like to come out ahead on something rather than hear about the winners and get to only stare in chagrin at the nerfed version.
And that's 1 broken promo more than Imperian, 2 more than Achaea. I still remember when curios could give out coins, and a clever* player transferred all her curios onto her main to spin her way to wealth and victory. Fun times.
Crates went for sale for 100 credits - bound or unbound, didn't matter. The crates had czigany coins. Spinning the wheel gave you a chance to receive artifacts worth 66credits or more, and happens fairly frequently. People bought the crates, spun the wheel, got artifacts, traded in the artifacts, got more coins, spun the wheel, got artifacts, etc, until no crates were left and presumably some people made a huge profit.
Eh. A closer and more accurate picture is that people who had a lot of credits bought a lot of crates from a limited stock, spun the wheel, and ended up far ahead of where they started. One crate probably isn't quite enough to make it Über profitable.
Eh. A closer and more accurate picture is that people who had a lot of credits bought a lot of crates from a limited stock, spun the wheel, and ended up far ahead of where they started. One crate probably isn't quite enough to make it Über profitable.
Well, I did say "etc" as in it was something people were doing repetitively. Still made the credit-rich get credit-richer.
None of the other IREs have quite the same payout as Lusternia. In fact, Achaea's seems to be barely a return of investment, so it's probably going to see buffs.
Lusternia, however, has historically had crazy broken returns with the wheel. This is exactly the same scenario as before. The real issue is, why, why, why do the admins keep making the same misstep?
Plus we get 5? times the spins the other games get. I think something similar to this actually happened in Imperian last month when their spins are 25 credits per and ours are 4.
Crates went for sale for 100 credits - bound or unbound, didn't matter. The crates had czigany coins. Spinning the wheel gave you a chance to receive artifacts worth 66credits or more, and happens fairly frequently. People bought the crates, spun the wheel, got artifacts, traded in the artifacts, got more coins, spun the wheel, got artifacts, etc, until no crates were left and presumably some people made a huge profit.
As far as I understand there's also only been two releases of the crates so far and people have made profits in the thousands.
I'd imagine it's particularly true for those fortunate enough to have been around for both releases. You'd need a decent starting base to make major profits sure and you'd be spinning for ages, but it doesn't really matter outside the five minutes crates are available.
It was less than three minutes when I got my (singular) crate between Jeremiah getting them and them all being gone. All said, my 25 coins netted me 2 discs, a bunch of curios, ~10% of 96, a few dingbats (can't remember where I started, but it was fewer than 30 gain), and about 2k goop, and one of the discs was the 25-spin reward. Net gain was about 30 credits on those two discs.
EDIT: I got a standard goop present as one spin, accounting for some of that goop
Alright then, how about this? The longer this promo continues in current form the more it'll damage the game's profits, and no I haven't bought a single coinpack.
I'm content there was at least a limit on the stocks. This could've gone waaaay worse if there wasn't one.
"Oh the year was 453CE, how I wish I was in Serenwilde now... aletter of marque come from the regent to the scummiest aethership I ever seen, gods damn them all...I was told we'd cruise the void for auronidion and dust, we'd fire no turrets, shed no tears.. now I'm a broken man on a Hallifax tier, the last of Saz's privateers."
That awkward moment when you are @Mysrai 's realm, influencing the moths, despite having an incredible phobia of them IRL and one starts to lick and pounce you and then gnaw on you.
Was still a fun little interaction. Just had me squirming in my seat.
Well the problem with this kind of promo is that it turns free credits into even more free credits. You could literally trade in an artifact for 300 credits buy crates and then make enough to not only buy back that artifact, but let's throw in a cubix (or two) as well.
And because there is no limiter on the positive feedback loop, you can just use the credits to buy more crates, and get more credits.
I think effort should be made to release the promo details early - days before it becomes live - to provide an opportunity for the community to give feedback. Worst case, it would give more players the chance to flock and try to get in on the promotion (which in its current state will simply be dominated all month long by the credit rich and timely).
I think the fairest answer going forward is to limit crate purchases without changing rewards. If nothing else, it will let the rest of the player base catch up and actually participate in the promo, which right now will not happen.
Elite does make money. Everything it gives out has zero production cost. It has no ongoing coding maintenance unless something breaks. Credits and xp boosts have no cost to create and elite is automatic and requires very little admin attention.
While you are quite correct that they cost nothing to make, their value has been set by the company for a long time and anything paid less than that value is a loss. That is how business works.
150 credits = 59.98 20 dingbats at current 1:1 conversion = 9.98 5 free lessons per day (per character) Assuming 1 character that is up to 25 credits a month = 9.99 25% xp bonus based off 1/4 of Lips is 7.5 credits a day (per character) Assuming 1 character that is up to 232.5 credits a month = 82.97
Cost of items 162.92 (which climbs considerably the moment you start adding in your alts that also get membership perks).
You pay 25.00.
Just because it is make belief does not mean they are not losing money on it. Yes they "make some money", but they make far less money than selling those items outside of the Elite Membership.
You can say "I pay for this" all you want, it doesn't change the fact you get free shit and a lot of it. If you didn't get it you wouldn't pay for it every month.
Your Elite Membership does not mean you get to abuse the let's turn our free shit into more free shit any more than it entitles anyone else to do it. The easiest way to stop that is to not let you turn free shit into more free shit at all.
For the record, I'm personally in the camp that now that the cat (teehee) is out of the bag, "fair" is allowing the crates to continue, but limit the number per person and speak individually to the individuals who already purchased more than whatever that equates to. For future promotions, have the admin team speak to envoys and say "hey, what's the current value of x" where x is something similar but not identical to the promotion being thunk up, then give it a premium for being limited time.
I do think asking Elite members to suck it up buttercup is unfair regardless of how you want to pretty up the sentiment. For a lot of them, they eventually run out of things they need to spend the credits on, or want to, the xp bonus eventually becomes completely irrelevant, you're ignoring the opportunity costs of the credits per month being bound, and ultimately what you're asking for is Elite members to pay more money for the same promotion than others do by dint of denying them access to $25 of what they already spent.
There is, by the way, a hidden penalty to using/abusing the wheel: it tanks your retirement value.
I'm gonna say, "turn your old and busted arties into thousands of credits of new hotness, on the house" is a pretty bad business model, regardless of whether Elite credits can be used to get the ball rolling.
Also: If they want this to be a better business model, there are ways. For instance: Everyone regardless of website credit purchases can buy 1 crate during the promo period for 100 bound credits. Then, for every X credits you buy on the website, in addition to a pack of broken animals, you also get to spend another 100 bound credits on more crates, if that's your thing. That way, everyone gets a shot, and the whales get more than they paid for by viture of dishing out money to keep the game afloat. Everyone wins.
The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure pure reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!
I think the point he's trying to make is that if everyone gets in on this incredibly lucrative crate exchange, everyone is going to have the most expensive artifacts/all the ones they wanted on their list...and then proceed to spend little to no money on the game afterwards.
Can we just set a RL monthly limit on the number of crates per player that can be bought with bound credits? Then everyone gets a chance to take advantage of the promotion as is, and those lucky ones who got in early aren't penalised, they just used up the limit already.
Then they'll just release more curios or wonder items to soak up the excess. Seems to be the trend, and I guess it works, because they keep doing it
The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure pure reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!
Then they'll just release more curios or wonder items to soak up the excess. Seems to be the trend, and I guess it works, because they keep doing it
So they'd have to release something (in this instance) incredibly game-breaking and also incredibly expensive...every month...to keep up. Do you really think that's sustainable?
I realize that they do release new things every month, but it'd be catastrophically worse if they knew the entire game already had what they wanted and probably were going to sit on their money/credits. Like, original incarnation of Chaos Disc * 100.
Comments
So yea these promos are a bad idea because they basically let the first come first serve people get a crazy benefit. They dont even need to buy credits they just recycle old credits to double their stock.
So like this generates a bunch of bad feelings for the people who got left out because they didn't happen to be logged in when it hit.
So now the choice is to leave the promo as it as and let who ever spams the button the quickers at reset get to recycle old credits for more free credits or nerf the promo.
I wonder what will happen.
I just really really hope things are really learned from this and if in doubt, they hopefully ask some players next time if in doubt.
There are plenty of solutions, I don't care which the admin choose, but I do hope they stop making the same mistakes, because it's just hurting their own income.
Again, promos that you can use bound credits on can be set up in a way to result in an overall drain of credits out of the system.
Some of the potential fixes suggested, particularly the secondary less good pool for credit bought spin, could use up some of those credits that are just sitting around and make people buy credits later because they dipped in now.
As far as I understand it, the other games have an actual credit price per spin so you're complaining about a tactic that the other three games have already implemented?
Lusternia, however, has historically had crazy broken returns with the wheel. This is exactly the same scenario as before. The real issue is, why, why, why do the admins keep making the same misstep?
Accountability is necessary.
ANNOUNCE NEWS #2631
150 credits each. Each goody bag contains 50 sticky dingbats (i.e., bound and non-transferrable), 25 Czigany coins and 25 presents
Which was changed to ANNOUNCE NEWS #2632 50 dingbats, 5 presents and 5 coins
Accountability is necessary.
Ixion tells you, "// I don't think anyone else had a clue, amazing form."
As far as I understand there's also only been two releases of the crates so far and people have made profits in the thousands.
I'd imagine it's particularly true for those fortunate enough to have been around for both releases.
You'd need a decent starting base to make major profits sure and you'd be spinning for ages, but it doesn't really matter outside the five minutes crates are available.
EDIT: I got a standard goop present as one spin, accounting for some of that goop
I'm content there was at least a limit on the stocks. This could've gone waaaay worse if there wasn't one.
-Kilian
Was still a fun little interaction. Just had me squirming in my seat.
I think effort should be made to release the promo details early - days before it becomes live - to provide an opportunity for the community to give feedback. Worst case, it would give more players the chance to flock and try to get in on the promotion (which in its current state will simply be dominated all month long by the credit rich and timely).
I think the fairest answer going forward is to limit crate purchases without changing rewards. If nothing else, it will let the rest of the player base catch up and actually participate in the promo, which right now will not happen.
While you are quite correct that they cost nothing to make, their value has been set by the company for a long time and anything paid less than that value is a loss. That is how business works.
150 credits = 59.98
20 dingbats at current 1:1 conversion = 9.98
5 free lessons per day (per character)
Assuming 1 character that is up to 25 credits a month = 9.99
25% xp bonus based off 1/4 of Lips is 7.5 credits a day (per character)
Assuming 1 character that is up to 232.5 credits a month = 82.97
Cost of items 162.92 (which climbs considerably the moment you start adding in your alts that also get membership perks).
You pay 25.00.
Just because it is make belief does not mean they are not losing money on it. Yes they "make some money", but they make far less money than selling those items outside of the Elite Membership.
You can say "I pay for this" all you want, it doesn't change the fact you get free shit and a lot of it. If you didn't get it you wouldn't pay for it every month.
Your Elite Membership does not mean you get to abuse the let's turn our free shit into more free shit any more than it entitles anyone else to do it. The easiest way to stop that is to not let you turn free shit into more free shit at all.
I do think asking Elite members to suck it up buttercup is unfair regardless of how you want to pretty up the sentiment. For a lot of them, they eventually run out of things they need to spend the credits on, or want to, the xp bonus eventually becomes completely irrelevant, you're ignoring the opportunity costs of the credits per month being bound, and ultimately what you're asking for is Elite members to pay more money for the same promotion than others do by dint of denying them access to $25 of what they already spent.
There is, by the way, a hidden penalty to using/abusing the wheel: it tanks your retirement value.
Also: If they want this to be a better business model, there are ways. For instance: Everyone regardless of website credit purchases can buy 1 crate during the promo period for 100 bound credits. Then, for every X credits you buy on the website, in addition to a pack of broken animals, you also get to spend another 100 bound credits on more crates, if that's your thing. That way, everyone gets a shot, and the whales get more than they paid for by viture of dishing out money to keep the game afloat. Everyone wins.
Solution One: Stop The Promo Altogether
Pros:
Cons:
Solution Two: Raise the Price on the Crates
Pros:
Cons:
Solution Three: Make the Crates Require Unbound Credits
Pros:
Cons:
Solution Four: Limit the Number of Crates that a Person Can Purchase
Pros:
Cons:
-----
A combination of the above is possible as well, but it's a very careful balance that has to occur.
I realize that they do release new things every month, but it'd be catastrophically worse if they knew the entire game already had what they wanted and probably were going to sit on their money/credits. Like, original incarnation of Chaos Disc * 100.