DUST Search - [Feedback/Request] Reduce Cost/Alter usage of Active Boosters

Skihids wrote:

Bosse Grahn wrote:

Skihids wrote:

It all depends upon your situation.

It may not make sense for a person who can sit down for a marathon session, but what about the fellow who can only find an hour a day to play? His play is spread out over the entire week and he doesn't hit the cap even then.

Consider all possibilities before jumping to a conclusion.

If you buy a 7 day booster and you only play 2 hours each day you are only getting 14 hours a week out of the 168 hours you paid for. Which is an ungodly large rip off. In that scenario you are only getting 12% of what you paid for, which is ridiculous. Would you be happy if you bought a burger and only got 12% of it? Or 12% of a house? How about 12% of a tv, would that be ok? Didn't think so.

Like I said, let us unequip them so we don't waste our money and they will be worth the price.

They are priced knowing that you won't be playing 24/7. They are priced with the available SP in mind. You can argue about what the AUR/SP figure should be, but don't make the mistake of thinking it should be dispensing SP every minute of the day.


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Bosse Grahn 90	Posted - 2012.10.10 05:59:00 - [1] - Quote Hear me out. With the SP cap being reset weekly you are wasting your money on a 7 day booster, because by the end of the 7 days you are so close to the cap that the amount of SP you get by using the booster doesn't really make any difference. When you are getting 800 SP per battle, getting 400 more isn't worth it. For most people the one and three day boosters are the only ones somewhat worth buying since you typically won't be anywhere near the cap after one day, and will still be getting a so-so amount of SP after 3 days. Even so I think they are too expensive. The only reason someone would want to buy a 7 day booster is if they weren't sure what days they were going to be able to play that week, in which case they could just buy the 1 or 3 day booster on the days they think they'll have a chance to play it, or if they don't have much time to play each day that week, in which case it would make more sense financially to just buy a 3 day in order to make sure you get the largest portion of the SP you can get for that week. I propose that you reduce the cost per booster to a 1000, 2500, 5000 respectively. Also, allow us to switch the boosters between characters in our profile. If I am going to spend the money for a 7 day booster, it's only fair that it's useful to me all 7 days. It's a complete ripoff to have a booster that "lasts" for 7 days but is only useful for 4 or 5 days. I know some of you are going to say that it's an issue of keeping the game realistic since augmentations shouldn't be shared between characters. In which case I would say to you that fair prices and usability are more important. If keeping it realistic is that important to you, then remove the boosters from the augmentations section and make them something you implement from the character select menu, like the passive SP gain. Alternatively, let us unequip the boosters so that we only use them when we need them. That way I can use a 7 day booster for 3 days this week, 3 days next week, and 1 day the following week without having to spend the extra cash for the two 3 day boosters and the one 1 day booster. If you let us unequip them when we are not using them, I wouldn't mind if you left the prices alone.
Bosse Grahn 90	Posted - 2012.10.10 21:03:00 - [2] - Quote Skihids wrote: It all depends upon your situation. It may not make sense for a person who can sit down for a marathon session, but what about the fellow who can only find an hour a day to play? His play is spread out over the entire week and he doesn't hit the cap even then. Consider all possibilities before jumping to a conclusion. If you buy a 7 day booster and you only play 2 hours each day you are only getting 14 hours a week out of the 168 hours you paid for. Which is an ungodly large rip off. In that scenario you are only getting 8.3% of what you paid for, which is ridiculous. Would you be happy if you bought a burger and only got 8.3% of it? Or 8.3% of a house? How about 8.3% of a tv, would that be ok? Didn't think so. Btw, your 1 hour scenario only gives you 4.1%. Like I said, let us unequip them so we don't waste our money and they will be worth the price.
Bosse Grahn 90	Posted - 2012.10.10 22:30:00 - [3] - Quote Skihids wrote: Bosse Grahn wrote: Skihids wrote: It all depends upon your situation. It may not make sense for a person who can sit down for a marathon session, but what about the fellow who can only find an hour a day to play? His play is spread out over the entire week and he doesn't hit the cap even then. Consider all possibilities before jumping to a conclusion. If you buy a 7 day booster and you only play 2 hours each day you are only getting 14 hours a week out of the 168 hours you paid for. Which is an ungodly large rip off. In that scenario you are only getting 12% of what you paid for, which is ridiculous. Would you be happy if you bought a burger and only got 12% of it? Or 12% of a house? How about 12% of a tv, would that be ok? Didn't think so. Like I said, let us unequip them so we don't waste our money and they will be worth the price. They are priced knowing that you won't be playing 24/7. They are priced with the available SP in mind. You can argue about what the AUR/SP figure should be, but don't make the mistake of thinking it should be dispensing SP every minute of the day. Doesn't change the fact that some are getting around 16 hours of a boost (the no-lives) for every 1 hour others are getting. It needs to be changed, and it needs to be re-priced. If you pay for 168 hours of a boost, you deserve 168 hours of a boost. If they intended for it to work the way it does, then they intended to rip off over half of their target audience. I'm willing to pay 7000 AUR for 168 hours of boost, hell I'd pay that much for 100 hours, but I don't know anyone (anyone who has really thought about it) who is willing to pay that much for 7 hours of a boost they get for playing 1 hour a day when others are paying the same amount of AUR for 112 hours they get for playing 16. You shouldn't charge two people the same amount for different boost lengths just because one of them has a life outside their tv screen. Make it unequipable and reduce the time length if you want, but you don't charge people the same amout for both 112 hours and 7 hours of boost.
Bosse Grahn 90	Posted - 2012.10.11 03:29:00 - [4] - Quote Judy Maat wrote: First of all a booster by design is not something that can not be removed http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Neural_boosters http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Combat_Boosters It is a perfectly normal thing to pay for a solid 1 day or 3 days boost in a free to play game like DUST and that YOU have to make the most out of it. This is gonna be the main point of my argument. There should either no SP cap at all or no SP booster. but the 2 can't logically co-exist. If you buy a 7 day booster on your week off it will be to use it 100 hours + Paying real money for a time based boost there should not be a game mechanic that does the exact opposite It may make sense to charge people for time they cannot fully use in the world of MMO's, but not in the world of FPS. For instance, the prestige token booster in MW3 lasts 2 hours but only runs down while in battle. If you plan to mix the two, you have to adapt the details to work better in the situation. Not only are you not able to take advantage of the booster when you cannot play, you cannot take advantage of it between battle. EVE has a passive SP system, so that wouldn't be an issue there, but here there will be a lot going on outside of battle and the booster will be and currently is wasted during down time between matches. And I believe that if you can switch which character gains passive SP, you should be able to swap the booster. Give all characters in the profile passive SP and I'll give up on the idea of switching it between characters. That sounds like a fair trade to me. I agree that caps and boosters do not coexist properly currently, but if you still insist that they cannot be unequipped then make the booster time only count down while in battle. It's their game, and it's science fiction that they made up, so they can say anything they want to explain it lore-wise (I know very little about EVE lore). For instance you could say it's new military tech that only activates in combat situations, or when a military commander sends out a radio signal that activates it, or when adrenaline spikes to a certain level. I appreciate you guys coming up with valid counter arguments, even though I disagree, it's nice to have a conversation/debate that isn't immediately trolled.
Bosse Grahn 90	Posted - 2012.10.11 20:44:00 - [5] - Quote Judy Maat wrote: ok you still want the booster to be "like in this other cool game" but let me tell you.. DUST is an FPS and an MMORPG so I don't quite understand your argument there: Quote: It may make sense to charge people for time they cannot fully use in the world of MMO's, but not in the world of FPS I stay strong and solid about the fact that a booster is to be bought to be overused. you are on your week off ? Time to catch up! Buy a booster to make that week count. I have seen micro transaction game with both types of boosters. Time based and other "per match" or "per win" based. Not like "this other cool game", like FPS games in general. There is no FPS game I've ever heard of that has ever had a boost that required you to pay for time you are not using. Might be normal in MMO, but is unheard of in FPS. They loose no money whatsoever by offering boosters. They are selling a product that costs them nothing in overhead fees tomake and keep ready for consumers to purchase, so any money they make off of it is pure profit. So why can they charge a fee for it? Because people are willing to buy it. You want more people to pay that cost? Taylor it to the core audience. You don't want to? Then you fill have far fewer buyers than you would have otherwise. It's as simple as that. As it is probably only a quarter of players would be willing to buy the boosters. If you make it so that you are charged only for the time you use, that number will shoot up. It all comes down to whether or not CCP actually wants to make money. You wanna over charge, you will get less sales, especially from a FPS audience. You treat them proper and only charge them for time used, then you will get more sales. And for your "week off" analogy, buy 100 hours. "Hey look, I was able to use my boost all through my week off and I STILL have enough boost for a few hours here and there throughout the next week!" Or the week after, or the weekend, two weeks down the road, etc. An emergency comes up and you can't stay home to play after you buy your booster? Guess what, it doesn't matter since it only reduces in time while in battle! Just because you are used to it doesn't make it right. Americans are used to pot being illegal, doesn't make it right. Brit's are used to guns being illegal, doesn't make it right. People are used to being ripped off by MMO's selling them merchandise that costs them nothing to sell, store, or make that players have never been able to fully use, doesn't make it right.