Other possibilities: Max Endurance buff 1 hour/day. Max Willpower buff 1 hour/day. Willpower Regen buff 1 hour/day. Endurance Regen buff 1 hour/day. Movement Speed buff 1 hour/day. Pull in Great Library for +3 scholars 1/month. Pull at Great Stage for +3 bards 1/month. Pull at Avechna for +1% karma 1/month. Pull at Nexus for +3% reserves 1/month. Gives result of random commodity Grewpie.
Sheesh, I feel as though I'm under attack! As much as some may think that flavor-only or RP-only items would be great sellers because people want to be special snowflakes, history tells us that isn't the case. Just saying.
Anyway, rather than bemoaning how terrible I am (when honestly I'm just trying to come up with things I think people want that would be popular--and, again, rp-only items just aren't), I'm still open to changing the mage/bard/warrior doll powers. The easiest thing would be a simple regeneration. Other ideas about more PVE enhancements need to be SIMPLE. Powers that only fire every few minutes are not simple--come up with ideas where the power would be static for a set period of time.
You know we love you, we'd just rather have something different than "this month's collectible item". When was the last time we had a "log in for 21 days to get this trinket" or a "log in for ten minutes to get ten lessons", or even an auction or artifact sale, or an artifact discount?
The only reason I ask is that I really wants to splurge and get that "font+symbol+mark" artifact package, and I can almost guarentee that I wouldn't be spending that much money on credits otherwise
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
1
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
I don't think anyone will buy the regent because demos already max their regen off prime generally. (Also why I think some of them like the idea. I'm on to you). 1 point weighted stats would be fine.
Generally speaking, stats and regen are more feasible ideas when you're trying to maintain the status quo on the combat meta because these come with built-in caps. Stats can only be stacked until +5, end of story. Regen can only be stacked until level 3, end of story.
The problem is that this means such items have zero draw for players who already can achieve the cap without the dolls. So the only thing you can do is to let the dolls give bonuses that are uncapped, so they will always give a bonus to anyone who buys them, whether it be a newbie or an ascendant. If you do that, however, the combat metascape gets nudged ever so slightly. This is exceedingly dangerous at this point in time, when envoys are disabled to free up resources for other projects. Without the balancing force of envoy changes, these consistent nudges will never be fixed. The status quo cannot be maintained.
In short, there is no way to come up with an item that gives a boost to everyone who would buy them without changing the status quo of the combat metascape.
Not unless they do not affect combat. I think it's high time the admin made up their minds. If they don't mind changing the status quo of the combat scene (however slightly), then there's no reason to change the dolls from continuing to give stacking h/m/e boosts. All the power to those who have the disposable income to become "overpowered". If the admin do not want to do this, then it is time to stop putting in combat effects. There is no middle ground in this dilemma, and there is no sitting on the fence. It is statistically, numerically, mechanically impossible to have a promotion item that has the same value to every player without also giving it the potential to shift the status quo.
Look, can't we just get a doll that does old school room-wide choke?
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
Seriously though, go for the regen. If they can be traded, players can easily trade them around to shore up their race's weaker regens, but it won't have any effect on a savvy and prepared opponent, who comes equipped with the proper music box.. which in turn has its counters.
Not sure why we need to have long, endless discussions about fixng un-needed buff additions for yet another curio promo (that's what this is) when we could be having promos that will actually entice people to buy credits... like this one:
That one would not entice me to spend personally, but I really dislike the whole "gambling" thing (which is part of why curio collection bugs me). I'd much rather know what I am going to pay for what I want in advance, instead of hoping (especially without knowing the %'s) that things will go the way I wish they would.
That's also one of the reasons why I am not so fond of these Gnewpie dolls. It is all RNG on which one(s) you get. If you could pick and choose, maaaybe I'd be more interested in selecting something. It is just too much gambling for my tastes.
That one would not entice me to spend personally, but I really dislike the whole "gambling" thing (which is part of why curio collection bugs me). I'd much rather know what I am going to pay for what I want in advance, instead of hoping (especially without knowing the %'s) that things will go the way I wish they would.
That's also one of the reasons why I am not so fond of these Gnewpie dolls. It is all RNG on which one(s) you get. If you could pick and choose, maaaybe I'd be more interested in selecting something. It is just too much gambling for my tastes.
Agreed. Gambling really ticks me off, too... especially considering how poor my RNG-luck tends to be. I have opened four ultimate presents since that thing was introduced and have gotten... 3 rockeater maws and 1 elemental ring, while other people pull a torus from theirs.
That said, that has nothing to do with the fact that if there's some sort of promotion running, it tends to be best to get 'something' for your money out of the promotion, even if it's just herbs/some gold/some potion as opposed to getting a chance at an awesome artifact. I haven't really been buying a whole lot of credits myself of late... there are things that I could invest in, sure... but there's literally no draw to purchase into yet another limited edition booster with a chance to get the boosts. An arti auction would be quite welcome right about now instead of these dolls.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
PS: I would love promotions which are not "throw lots of money in hopes of getting something good," but instead something more targeted.
Things like: 1) Auctions! 2) Credit sales are always good. 3) Artifact packages. 4) Do you remember that one time that all artifacts were on sale for 30% off? That was amazing. I would love to have one of those again. 5) Release some auction-only / retired items via the website for payment (not really "packages" but direct purchases of things you cannot get other ways). Some things to include would be a Torus (on the high end), dingbat dolls (on the low end), the illusion wand, censers... this would probably go over pretty well! 6) A month to 'take it easy' would also be good on the playerbase every now and then, we can't be buying all the time! Some more of the 21-day challenges would be lovely. 7) Lesson sales.
This is over half a year of promotions right here, almost none of which have anything to do with curios or feature creep or expansion of game content (the only one that might is the Auctions, depending on whether new items are added).
Add onto that a couple of months for people who like gambling, such as: 8) Presents (people love their presents),. 9) Something like the above suggestion, allowing people to buy the base package and then choose to gamble how often / far to upgrade it. 10) A month related to coins and the Wheel.
Take that and now, you're reduced administrative load tremendously. You can do two months of "whatevers" (a curio thing / other collectible) if you like, and then start the cycle over. Change the order around as desired to keep things fresh. Add some things to the rotation as you have ideas of a new promotion that we will just love.
That one would not entice me to spend personally, but I really dislike the whole "gambling" thing (which is part of why curio collection bugs me). I'd much rather know what I am going to pay for what I want in advance, instead of hoping (especially without knowing the %'s) that things will go the way I wish they would.
That's also one of the reasons why I am not so fond of these Gnewpie dolls. It is all RNG on which one(s) you get. If you could pick and choose, maaaybe I'd be more interested in selecting something. It is just too much gambling for my tastes.
Agreed. Gambling really ticks me off, too... especially considering how poor my RNG-luck tends to be. I have opened four ultimate presents since that thing was introduced and have gotten... 3 rockeater maws and 1 elemental ring, while other people pull a torus from theirs.
That said, that has nothing to do with the fact that if there's some sort of promotion running, it tends to be best to get 'something' for your money out of the promotion, even if it's just herbs/some gold/some potion as opposed to getting a chance at an awesome artifact. I haven't really been buying a whole lot of credits myself of late... there are things that I could invest in, sure... but there's literally no draw to purchase into yet another limited edition booster with a chance to get the boosts. An arti auction would be quite welcome right about now instead of these dolls.
Whoa, the best I ever got was a dagger of reincarnation, and I opened loads of presents during the early gnomes.
Release the artifact bandits again, but instead of being on a day-by-day basis, have a few of them (maybe up to 5?) spawn every hour. If you find one and kill it, you get the artifact for 3 days. If you like it a lot, you can use a command to buy it outright for a small reduction in cost. Alternatively, combine it with either a credit sale or the artifact sale (reduction in arty prices).
People loved the bandits and bought artifacts they never would have thought about purchasing before, simply because they suddenly got to experience what they were like.
Edit: Maybe I should just make this its own thread at this point...
Release the artifact bandits again, but instead of being on a day-by-day basis, have a few of them (maybe up to 5?) spawn every hour. If you find one and kill it, you get the artifact for 3 days. If you like it a lot, you can use a command to buy it outright for a small reduction in cost. Alternatively, combine it with either a credit sale or the artifact sale (reduction in arty prices).
People loved the bandits and bought artifacts they never would have thought about purchasing before, simply because they suddenly got to experience what they were like.
Edit: Maybe I should just make this its own thread at this point...
Arti bandits were awesome. I hated the cleanse mechanic in general, but I got a soap off a bandit and being that my system had an easy toggle, and I got jumped by an ecto-heavy class - a nihilist and I saw how much help the soap was compared to a cleanse chant, I made sure to buy one as soon as possible.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
FYI, we couldn't do giftbags (presents) this month because we did them last month!
I think our spin on giftbags is pretty interesting, increasing the chance of getting a higher level of prize the more giftbags are opened (though there's some discussion that this mechanic is too generous).
Anyway, I still maintain that gnewpies are nothing like curios as you don't need to collect pieces to put together and they aren't sets. Since they have credit values and you can trade them in, it's better than a credit sale as you can choose just to keep the gnewpies as cute unique items or cash them in for credits. Ah, well, can't please everyone all the time, as they say.
Unfortunately, we generally don't have carte blanche in regards to promotions though I try to make things interesting when I can (though sometimes it falls flat-*sniffle*). Thus, I can't just turn on artifact packages, for example, whenever I want. Also, Xenthos, some of the things you mention haven't historically actually translated to good promotions which is why you don't see them often (yes, they appeal to some people but actual numbers don't really bear them out). That said, I may request to do an auction anyway, because I know many of you like them!
Any chance of a lottery at some point please?
It's been two years
Lotteries probably don't really do much for revenue though. I never actually got the point of them. I guess it could be seen as a player appreciation thing (encouraging player activity and appreciation for the game)?
0
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
I think the Gnewpies are fine, it's just fine tuning the effects for that careful balance between what people will pay for and what is going to skew the game balance too far. Which is, understandably, very difficult!
Any chance of a lottery at some point please?
It's been two years
Lotteries probably don't really do much for revenue though. I never actually got the point of them. I guess it could be seen as a player appreciation thing (encouraging player activity and appreciation for the game)?
People bought credits purely to sell for gold so they could buy more tickets. The market was flooded so much they dropped to 5-6k per.
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
That one would not entice me to spend personally, but I really dislike the whole "gambling" thing (which is part of why curio collection bugs me). I'd much rather know what I am going to pay for what I want in advance, instead of hoping (especially without knowing the %'s) that things will go the way I wish they would.
That's also one of the reasons why I am not so fond of these Gnewpie dolls. It is all RNG on which one(s) you get. If you could pick and choose, maaaybe I'd be more interested in selecting something. It is just too much gambling for my tastes.
Was my first thought. How many dolls that I don't care about would I have to go though to get one I might want? How much would some minor buff on average cost me (20 dolls,? 30 dolls?, more)?
Also there's just promo burn out. There's really little way to budget of plan for these things so more and more I find myself not spending money, waiting to see if I like the next thing. Course then there's no way to go back and buy something from a previous promo.
Yes, it reduced damage by about 8%, testing with a room full of cows. Actual value might be somewhere between 5 and 10% or it just might be more complicated than that. I should probably do it again naked.
Comments
Edit: And much less of the "You must get this to compete" demand.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Max Endurance buff 1 hour/day.
Max Willpower buff 1 hour/day.
Willpower Regen buff 1 hour/day.
Endurance Regen buff 1 hour/day.
Movement Speed buff 1 hour/day.
Pull in Great Library for +3 scholars 1/month.
Pull at Great Stage for +3 bards 1/month.
Pull at Avechna for +1% karma 1/month.
Pull at Nexus for +3% reserves 1/month.
Gives result of random commodity Grewpie.
The only reason I ask is that I really wants to splurge and get that "font+symbol+mark" artifact package, and I can almost guarentee that I wouldn't be spending that much money on credits otherwise
The problem is that this means such items have zero draw for players who already can achieve the cap without the dolls. So the only thing you can do is to let the dolls give bonuses that are uncapped, so they will always give a bonus to anyone who buys them, whether it be a newbie or an ascendant. If you do that, however, the combat metascape gets nudged ever so slightly. This is exceedingly dangerous at this point in time, when envoys are disabled to free up resources for other projects. Without the balancing force of envoy changes, these consistent nudges will never be fixed. The status quo cannot be maintained.
In short, there is no way to come up with an item that gives a boost to everyone who would buy them without changing the status quo of the combat metascape.
Not unless they do not affect combat. I think it's high time the admin made up their minds. If they don't mind changing the status quo of the combat scene (however slightly), then there's no reason to change the dolls from continuing to give stacking h/m/e boosts. All the power to those who have the disposable income to become "overpowered". If the admin do not want to do this, then it is time to stop putting in combat effects. There is no middle ground in this dilemma, and there is no sitting on the fence. It is statistically, numerically, mechanically impossible to have a promotion item that has the same value to every player without also giving it the potential to shift the status quo.
EDIT: Of course, that's nowhere near as ridiculous as a double speed hekoskeri the way that ent works right now. *shrug*
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
That's also one of the reasons why I am not so fond of these Gnewpie dolls. It is all RNG on which one(s) you get. If you could pick and choose, maaaybe I'd be more interested in selecting something. It is just too much gambling for my tastes.
That said, that has nothing to do with the fact that if there's some sort of promotion running, it tends to be best to get 'something' for your money out of the promotion, even if it's just herbs/some gold/some potion as opposed to getting a chance at an awesome artifact. I haven't really been buying a whole lot of credits myself of late... there are things that I could invest in, sure... but there's literally no draw to purchase into yet another limited edition booster with a chance to get the boosts. An arti auction would be quite welcome right about now instead of these dolls.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Things like:
1) Auctions!
2) Credit sales are always good.
3) Artifact packages.
4) Do you remember that one time that all artifacts were on sale for 30% off? That was amazing. I would love to have one of those again.
5) Release some auction-only / retired items via the website for payment (not really "packages" but direct purchases of things you cannot get other ways). Some things to include would be a Torus (on the high end), dingbat dolls (on the low end), the illusion wand, censers... this would probably go over pretty well!
6) A month to 'take it easy' would also be good on the playerbase every now and then, we can't be buying all the time! Some more of the 21-day challenges would be lovely.
7) Lesson sales.
This is over half a year of promotions right here, almost none of which have anything to do with curios or feature creep or expansion of game content (the only one that might is the Auctions, depending on whether new items are added).
Add onto that a couple of months for people who like gambling, such as:
8) Presents (people love their presents),.
9) Something like the above suggestion, allowing people to buy the base package and then choose to gamble how often / far to upgrade it.
10) A month related to coins and the Wheel.
Take that and now, you're reduced administrative load tremendously. You can do two months of "whatevers" (a curio thing / other collectible) if you like, and then start the cycle over. Change the order around as desired to keep things fresh. Add some things to the rotation as you have ideas of a new promotion that we will just love.
Release the artifact bandits again, but instead of being on a day-by-day basis, have a few of them (maybe up to 5?) spawn every hour. If you find one and kill it, you get the artifact for 3 days. If you like it a lot, you can use a command to buy it outright for a small reduction in cost. Alternatively, combine it with either a credit sale or the artifact sale (reduction in arty prices).
People loved the bandits and bought artifacts they never would have thought about purchasing before, simply because they suddenly got to experience what they were like.
Edit: Maybe I should just make this its own thread at this point...
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
I think our spin on giftbags is pretty interesting, increasing the chance of getting a higher level of prize the more giftbags are opened (though there's some discussion that this mechanic is too generous).
Anyway, I still maintain that gnewpies are nothing like curios as you don't need to collect pieces to put together and they aren't sets. Since they have credit values and you can trade them in, it's better than a credit sale as you can choose just to keep the gnewpies as cute unique items or cash them in for credits. Ah, well, can't please everyone all the time, as they say.
Unfortunately, we generally don't have carte blanche in regards to promotions though I try to make things interesting when I can (though sometimes it falls flat-*sniffle*). Thus, I can't just turn on artifact packages, for example, whenever I want. Also, Xenthos, some of the things you mention haven't historically actually translated to good promotions which is why you don't see them often (yes, they appeal to some people but actual numbers don't really bear them out). That said, I may request to do an auction anyway, because I know many of you like them!
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
I think the Gnewpies are fine, it's just fine tuning the effects for that careful balance between what people will pay for and what is going to skew the game balance too far. Which is, understandably, very difficult!
People bought credits purely to sell for gold so they could buy more tickets. The market was flooded so much they dropped to 5-6k per.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Also there's just promo burn out. There's really little way to budget of plan for these things so more and more I find myself not spending money, waiting to see if I like the next thing. Course then there's no way to go back and buy something from a previous promo.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!