CRNWLLC
Screwy Rabbit ULC
209
   |
Posted - 2014.04.21 17:16:00 -
[1] - Quote
DUST Fiend wrote:Why does CCP keep selling Omega Boosters during triple SP events? 
Even without boosters, a player can score 769,500 SP (570K active + (24K passive * 7) + 31.5K login, assuming player is starting from base 3000 SP and logs in every day) during this event. Pretty sweet, actually--you can get a weapon to proto, get a new specialized suit (ie, sentinel or scout or logi, etc.) to level 2, get into ADS, etc. Definitely a nice amount of SP, and they don't have to pay for it.
Assuming a player bought boosters (a 7-day active and 7-day passive omega for 20K AUR, ie, <=$10), they earned double SP, or 1,518,000 SP (1.14M active + (48K passive * 7) + 42K login, assuming 6K/day).
So, if you supported CCP financially, you had the opportunity to earn double the SP otherwise available. If you could not or chose not to support CCP financially, you still had the opportunity to earn more than twice the SP normally available without boosters.
Looked at like this, F2P players were not excluded from benefiting significantly from this event. Also, I think many vets would agree that 1M SP, while nice, isn't going to change your world once you hit about 12M - 15M SP--it's not the sort of thing that's going to suddenly turn a sh!tty KDR around.
Let's assume a fairly casual, new player who is only interested in F2P. They only earn half their active cap a week. They log in every other day, therefore never reaping the benefit of the growing daily login bonus--that is, this is meant to be a "worst case" scenario.
SP/month: Login (3,000 * 15) = 45,000; Active cap (190,000/2 * 4) = 380,000; Passive gain (24,000 * 30) = 720,000; TOTAL = 1,145,000 SP
So, within a couple months, a new, casual, F2P-only player could earn enough SP to get a primary and sidearm weapon to advanced, a basic suit to advanced (maybe a specialized suit to level 1 or 2), and a least a couple relevant modules to advanced, as well (with a few others skilled to basic). Put another way, a new player can begin to keep up, gear wise, with veterans of a year+. Not saying they will do as good (there's a lot to Dust--maps, squad play, different game formats, AV, piloting, etc.--lots of moving parts that are definitely easier to keep track of the more you play), but squadding up randomly, they should expect to be an asset to their team, and might even see their stats level out or improve.
I think a lot of the F2P, NPE issues stem from the fact that anyone new to Dust is going to get their a$$ handed to them, even if they are an otherwise good, experienced FPS player (this is where the community gets a lot of crying about weapon/gear/vehicle X/Y/Z, because they're not the same as in CoD, BF, etc.,), and many folks that are completely new to the FPS experience will probably just decide that all FPS games blow.
If CCP hammered out the NPE and threw in some PVE (which is itself a remedy to the frightening NPE), pay-to-win would be much, much less relevant. Especially if we could purchase boosters with ISK. 
My other dropsuit is a Python.
|
CRNWLLC
Screwy Rabbit ULC
212
|
Posted - 2014.04.21 20:57:00 -
[2] - Quote
Garrett Blacknova wrote:Patience is underrated.
Boosters are overrated.
Why does CCP sell an item that makes a lot of profit without giving players a real benefit over the competition? Because it makes a lot of profit. Why don't they sell it all the time? Because limiting availability skews the supply and demand lines in favour of the supplier, meaning CCP can get away with keeping the price high and still make a lot of sales.
Does it make the game pay-to-win? Nope. Have I ever bought a booster? Well, I got one with a merc pack back in closed beta. It's still sitting in the space between characters. I'll probably sell it on the player market or something.
I think Garrett makes a very strong point. Building on top of the fact that, once a player hits 12M - 15M SP, they're mostly working on new specializations (ie, they can do at least one thing rather well, at this point), I think I might stop purchasing passive boosters. At this point, it really does just boil down to patience for me.
My other dropsuit is a Python.
|