0 Try Harder
Pink Fluffy Bounty Hunterz
Noir. Mercenary Group
256
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Posted - 2013.04.19 17:13:00 -
[1] - Quote
Random Officer Loot: Since officer gear is randomly awarded as salvage from pub matches, I believe CCP can make an item (like a box) which contains one random stack of officer loot. Players will still have the option to grind out their officer gear in pub matches, so this is not a Pay to Win item.
If CCP is worried about player reaction, or players who have large amounts of ISK, a limit to how many can be purchased per match or in one week is another option.
Random Proto/Officer Loot: This item is the same as above, but slightly less expensive.
If CCP decides to limit the number of times the random officer-loot only item can be purchased, the random officer and proto loot box
ISK and AUR Officer Weapons: I'm sure this has already been discussed, but officer tier weapons could also be sold on the marketplace for large amounts of AUR and ISK. If over a hundred million ISK is on the line, and an Assault AR user has no balocs, I bet there is a high chance that he would spend 10+mil ISK on a stack of balocs, or 10k+ AUR. I am just giving random values, I expect that CCP can determine what prices can be set better than I can.
AUR gear does not mean that the game has to be Pay to Win. I like the idea of allowing people to purchase and use higher meta-level gear at a lower skill level if the players spend Aurum. The contract grenades, shield recharger and heavy weapon damage mods, and codewish duvolle do need to be fixed, but aside from those, there is little difference that I know of. Keeping items which can be used at lower levels if purchased with AUR will also increase how quickly new players can compete at the proto level, and of course that means more lost AUR gear.
*HIGH PRIORITY* Marketplace Options: I realize that CCP is carefully monitoring the market place before a player to player market is in place. CCP loses more money the longer a player driven market is not available.
CCP probably wanted players to use most of the AUR that was refunded, so the BPO MLT items were sold at a discount. When the player driven market is made available, these items will be traded and sold to new players. I am not sure how many players are currently purchasing these items from the marketplace, but none of the BPO items will be purchased at the start of the player market. Not only will CCP lose out on the AUR used on to buy the MLT BPOs, but the amount of ISK spent on MLT/STD items will decrease too. Why purchase those items with isk if one already has the BPOs?
I understand that this scenario is inevitable, but the longer CCP waits, the more players will have no need for MLT items. My guess is that the best time to open the player based market is when CCP believes a large group of new players will try the game for the first time. It is a free to play game, so there will be a number of players who will try the game, find that they do not like the game, and quit. Even though CCP wants to keep as many players as possible, CCP can still take advantage of this situation. If a player has items and decides to quit the game, those items are "lost" the same way as if he had lost them during a pub game. The influx of new players combined with cheap and well advertised BPO MLT gear will result in a large amount BPO gear to be lost, and no longer available to players in the game.
There are thousands of games which are advertised as free to play, but are actually pay to win. When some starting players see AUR items which cannot be purchased with ISK, their knee-jerk reaction is to assume this game is exactly the same as all of the other pay to win games. I believe CCP will retain more players if the player driven market is available when they start, and every AUR item can be purchased with ISK.
I, and many other players already have trade agreements in place. Items I cannot use will be traded for items other players cannot use. This means that when the player driven market is opens, I will spend a fraction of the ISK that I am currently spending now.
Sure, I will eventually spend the ISK saved while using traded items, but how long will CCP go before it sees me spending money? If I have ISK, what will be made available to entice me to spend ISK? How can CCP entice me to put those expensive items at risk? |