Features and Suggestions on the Free to Play model

(CryptiK) #1

I believe Extraction has the chance to be big. However it needs a community behind it and to do that the game has to be addictive, making the player want to play more and not just for in game currency. If Extraction is in fact pushing for the E-Sports scene features currently in CSGO and Dota should make it across to the final game.

Features.

[ul]
[li]Ranked Matchmaking[/li][li]E-Sports Focused Ticket System(like Dota 2)[/li][li]ExtractionTV(Like GOTV and Dota 2 Spectator)[/li][li]Drop System for items.[/li][li]Trading System[/li][/ul]

Ranked Matchmaking is for the longevity of the game if people are constantly climbing a Social Leader board and not just ranking up via in game exp this creates an “addiction” to always improve. CSGO and Dota both do this the best out of any game I have ever played. Forget in game exp ranks, ladder climbing/ranking exactly like CSGO would make people want to come back over and over again. This also births an amazing competitive community.

E-Sports focused ticket system like Dota 2 is a great way to community fund both the tournaments and the game. Dota 2 recently have had the Starladder and Dream League getting extra funding through ticket purchase. This not only creates large prize pools but it draws viewers, players and funding. Obviously you wont start on the crowd funding immediately get a few partners have a large tournament with decent prize money to pull people from other competitive games and move up from there.

ExtractionTV. This is a must being able to spectate community games and leagues will only create yourself free advertising through twitch and even through youtube videos(demo recording is HUGE here). If you mix this with the ticket system you have nice revenue builder right there.

Drop System for items. Simple allow skins, stickers, badges or what ever cosmetic would be in game be able to have a drop chance. Why? Because F2P models have evolved now THE GAME MUST ACTUALLY BE FREE TO PLAY! None of “spend this amount of in game currency to unlock this hero” Those times are long gone allow a drop system and allow for real money purchases(obviously) its the only way forward and this will help you avoid the new EU law coming in(with Dota 2 the only exception at the moment in the Free to Play world that will be able to be labled so in EU countries.) Drop system also creates an addiction amongst the community. Dropping chests that you unlock with keys(like D2 and CSGO) will get you the money you need.

Main points

-You are apparently going through a relaunch phase this is your opportunity to show grand new features that will appeal to the community.

-Free to Play is evolving DON’T be left behind like Heroes of the Storm will their model is already causing backlash amongst the MOBA community. Evolve with it and take Valves model and work with it. Its amazing the community will love you for it and you will appeal to a larger audience.

-You may think “Why add these features that this game isn’t CSGO though or this game isn’t Dota 2” and I know it isn’t but ask your friends at Nexon JPN and Korea and see how much money the Dota 2 Free to Play model is making them.

-Lastly and MOST IMPORTANTLY Advertise you have to spend money to make money this game needs to be noticed. Get its name out there eg Open Beta cups internationally, Graphics Card partnerships and sponsorships get BIG people behind it, find people on twitch give them a key get it streaming and get it out there with the relaunch it will be an amazing time to do it.

If I think of anything else I will add it.

Some people may not agree with the above and thats fine. But look at the evidence look at Dota 2 look at CSGO. What free to play shooter out their currently do you see people raving about?(none) Make it like this and it will happen.

I will add this just incase: League of Legends is probably still the biggest Free to Play model out there at the moment but don’t think its because of the free to play model they used, they just launched at a very opportune time against HON a pay to play MOBA. I can almost guarantee that if Dota 2 launched with the model its using now at the same time as LoL, LoL wouldn’t be as big as it is today.

(Mustang) #2

Gawd I hate those unlock chests.

(CryptiK) #3

[QUOTE=Mustang;492437]Gawd I hate those unlock chests.[/QUOTE] A lot of people do but they are there to make money and people also love them. Appeal to a larger audience grab a bigger community.

(tangoliber) #4

I think that doing a character system like Dota, instead of loadouts, was a brilliant decision that will help Extraction out a lot.

I think that a good clan system designed for casual players can end up creating a lot of hardcore fans willing to spend money.

The key is:

  • Make it easy for casuals to form and join clans, even if they don’t have friends. I think there should be a “recruitment” section, where clans can post openings, and players can apply. And maybe a server browser category for clan tryouts. (Clans pay a server rental fee to Splash Damage, like in Tribes: Ascend, which can be used for tryouts, scrimmages, or just custom pubs).

-Make it easy for clans to find matches with other clans of their level…without having to spend a lot of time organizing. You want it to be relatively quick, so that casual clans don’t have to schedule too far in advance, and get frustrated with players or opposing teams not showing up. But it’s hard for clan matchmaking to stay active enough. So, you can have something like a Clan Challenge board, similar to Killzone 2’s tournament board, where teams can search for matches in a 1-2 hour timeframe or post their own. There can be an option of restricting a match request by Clan ELO, or searching for matches by Clan ELO, if they don’t want to play clans that are much lower or higher rated.

Furthermore, maybe an XP boost for clan matches to give extra incentive for using the system?

Organized team play, with people you become familiar with, is like a drug. A lot of casual players never tasted it. Once they get a taste, they will want more. They want to get better, practice more, win more, and hopefully, spend more on the game. I think a great clan system can create hardcore fans for even an average game…because playing with a team in an average game is more fun than playing alone in a great game.

(Tankey) #5

I’m really not waiting for a game which requires you to buy stuff with real money to unlock a certain character. I’m fine with skins, but characters is just awful.

(tangoliber) #6

I think it works great if the base characters are considered the most competitive. All of the alternate characters should be there for fun and variety. In competitive play, they should add whacky strategies, but the most reliably competitive playstyles should involve free characters.

(Tankey) #7

[QUOTE=tangoliber;492442]I think that a good clan system designed for casual players can end up creating a lot of hardcore fans willing to spend money.

The key is:

  • Make it easy for casuals to form and join clans, even if they don’t have friends. I think there should be a “recruitment” section, where clans can post openings, and players can apply.[/QUOTE]

The final result will be one big mess. Players will also join clans without this uneccesary addition. In practically every shooting game you’ve got clans, and all are fine without that feature.

(CryptiK) #8

[QUOTE=Tankey;492443]I’m really not waiting for a game which requires you to buy stuff with real money to unlock a certain character. I’m fine with skins, but characters is just awful.[/QUOTE]I don’t know if this has changed but thats the way XT was heading which is not a very good system these days.

(stealth6) #9

tl;dr Make it more like Dota.

Can’t say I disagree since it obviously works.

(rookie1) #10

Xt is on the right track imo but still need few core things to improve before going full ADvertised ,like maps and original cool objectives and a base story :stuck_out_tongue:
imo we are at 85 % of the road
and im with you that Xt–>

Extraction has the chance to be big

(k0k0nat) #11

[QUOTE=stealth6;492447]tl;dr Make it more like Dota.

Can’t say I disagree since it obviously works.[/QUOTE]

na more like tl;dr

make it more like CS:GO. And thats cool, because CS:GO drop system and chest system is fair. (Also in LoL and Dota2)

(tangoliber) #12

Yes, it will be a mess, but that mess won’t be a problem.

There are clans in every good game, but the vast majority of players aren’t involved with them. Those clans are for the highly-skilled, competitive players. If you create a system like what I am talking about in Extraction, those very skilled clans will probably ignore the system altogether and do things on their own…the way they have always done them. Their own leagues, their own tournaments, their own recruiting, etc.

This is something for casual players. In the first year of Killzone 2…because of the built-in clan system, there were over 20,000 active clans. (And over 50,000 registered.) All but about about 500 of them were terrible… But because there were so many, a group of casuals could form a clan, and find another clan of casuals to play against very easily. If they practiced for just a little bit on teamwork, they probably win more than they lost.
The ranking system was a mess, full of cheating, and nobody cared about it at all. But that didn’t matter, because the purpose of the system…to get everyone out of pubs and into organized play, was highly effective.

So, yes, it is a mess, and yes, there will be clans regardless. But I am talking about the difference between 50 active clans of skilled players, and 20,000 active clans of casuals. I am talking about making organized play extremely accessible. I’m talking about a company basketball league, not the NBA.

However, such a feature has to be available the day a game releases, or it is wasted. (For a F2P game, that means the day you enter open Beta. The day when you have the biggest influx of new players) It needs a lot of players to have enough push for a lasting momentum.

(k0k0nat) #13

Why should it be a bad thing, when casual players can gather in casual clans?

There are a lot of “clans” in LoL, Dota and CS:GO which are just playing public matches. They majority of clans is full of “bad” players and noobs, or however you will call them.

And I love them, because they keep the games alive. Clan-feeling for everyone is not a bad thing.

To support those ppl. with a clan-system, “find clan” functions etc. is a great feature imo.

(Glottis-3D) #14

i kinda think that this is exactly how 95% of RUssian ETQW clans appeared. - Casual players like myself met ingame/on community forums etc. And stuck for years in that game.
so i am all for this kind of stuff!

(Protekt1) #15

DOTA 2’s model is not bad. But won’t necessarily be the best choice for this game. Unlocking things with in game cash is fine. And don’t be convinced otherwise. All it comes down to really is how long it takes to unlock things. And there should be value in unlocking things all on one account instead of making multiple accounts to try out different things. If they do it well, it’ll be fine. Ideally, everything would be free. But this probably isn’t realistic.

Someone made a thread about p2w v. not p2w and what is acceptable and not acceptable before. They should keep that thread in mind when monetizing.

Also, I think they said there would be some kind of ladder. It has been a while so I forget the details.

They should have 2 ladders though.

Team based ELO - where you organize a team and that is your team and you can only play with them, but perhaps you can team hop once every 2 days or something. And a solo player ELO - where it calculates your chance to win based on your team’s combined ELO vs your opponent team’s ELO.

The second is necessary because not everyone has a team and many like to solo play (myself included, although I like team play as well). The second one could be called ranked matchmaking. The first one could be called team ranked matchmaking.

In regards to the whole anti-“free” stuff going on in the EU. I actually read up a bit about that when it was breaking news. Not only have they no legislation yet, they haven’t even finished investigation or proposed anything. It seems to be aimed at mobile app stores where the apps come under “free” category and not “free to play”. It is more about how these games are marketed than what they are. They claim these games are not free because there are options to purchase things inside them and that you don’t even know when you are doing this (generally false). What is false about that is (at least in my experience), every game (on android) that attempts to charge you money brings up an android screen that is clearly going to charge you real cash on your actual credit card. And even then the apps should be saying this charges real cash (and thus they should be targeting these misadvertising apps and not free/f2p in general).

I think the most that will come from these EU commissions is they functionally ban f2p as a term being applied to games with optional in cash purchases and game publishers just change the marketing lingo from f2p to something else.

(CryptiK) #16

[QUOTE=Protekt1;492478]DOTA 2’s model is not bad. But won’t necessarily be the best choice for this game. Unlocking things with in game cash is fine. And don’t be convinced otherwise. All it comes down to really is how long it takes to unlock things. And there should be value in unlocking things all on one account instead of making multiple accounts to try out different things. If they do it well, it’ll be fine. Ideally, everything would be free. But this probably isn’t realistic.
.[/QUOTE]Except that is an old F2P method that doesn’t work any more it may work on the mobile platform but it sure as hell doesn’t work on the PC platform. Using in-game currency to purchase heroes is boring and a grind no one these days likes to grind. Again the only game that is successful with this type of F2P is LoL and thats because it was released back in 2009. Having a model similar to D2 and CSGO rewards the player for just playing getting a nice item drop at the end of a game makes you want to play more, however grinding in-game currency is like a chore. Reward people randomly give thats the in thing at the moment, this is a PC game not a Mobile game you can’t get away with that ****ty F2P model any more.

(Protekt1) #17

You can claim it is a model that doesn’t work anymore, but do you have proof to back up your claims?

You can show me a single game that doesn’t use a grind for f2p players, but almost every other operating F2P on the market uses some scheme. And most successful f2ps (current) use a grinding scheme. I’m sure if you go back to those top 10 grossing f2ps 2013 most of those f2p games are not like dota2. And even the latest big success f2p is hearthstone which again uses grind for unlocks (presumed based on twitch channel activity among other factors). Even an entire mode of the game requires unlock for each run. The model is still viable.

BTW, I don’t know any fps f2per that actually enjoys random rewards. Last f2p fps community I was in before this one absolutely hated chance packs which was blacklight retribution. Random is pretty ****ty when you want a specific reward in the pack. Having control over what you get is better for the player. Random is better for the publisher since it, on average, has you put more time into getting the thing you want. And dota2 is supported well by having item transactions actually earn valve per a transaction some amount of cash that adds up fast. This is also supported by the fact that there are WAY WAY WAY more players playing dota2 than probably will ever stay constant on this game. That is just a fact you cannot ignore when you’re figuring out how to profit off the game. It just isn’t feasible to be dota2 because dota2 will no matter what have more players.

(CryptiK) #18

[QUOTE=Protekt1;492515]You can claim it is a model that doesn’t work anymore, but do you have proof to back up your claims?

You can show me a single game that doesn’t use a grind for f2p players, but almost every other operating F2P on the market uses some scheme. And most successful f2ps (current) use a grinding scheme. I’m sure if you go back to those top 10 grossing f2ps 2013 most of those f2p games are not like dota2. And even the latest big success f2p is hearthstone which again uses grind for unlocks (presumed based on twitch channel activity among other factors). Even an entire mode of the game requires unlock for each run. The model is still viable.
[/QUOTE]
Hearthstone is indeed using a similar model. But it also already had a large following via the WoW crowd and its not an FPS. Currently the only successful F2P FPS that has retained a community is TF2.

Battlefield Play4Free featured a grind model and it has failed.
Tribes Ascend has the same thing and it has failed.
Planetside 2 had some mild success early and now is failing.
Ghost Recon Online is looking pretty grim
Gotham City Impostors dead.

These all use the free to play model that requires grinding. It doesnt work for FPS games maybe MMO’s because people are used to grinding in that situation but when it comes to FPS’s it wont work.

Its simple have all heroes free(Level the playing field early and people wont get ****ty and leave)
Random Drop system for Gun Camo, Badges, Player Skins and Chests(which contain items only attainable through them) and with every rank up a guaranteed random drop
A Shop that sells Gun Camo, Badges and Player skins and keys to chests.

Also IMO rework the skin system for players break the Character up into 3 or 4 parts (Pants Shirt Head Arms) get some more player choice working.

(stealth6) #19

I’ll just throw steam trading into the mix here. Without that the Dota 2 & CS:GO model probably wouldn’t work as well. If you don’t like an item you can trade it for another.

(CryptiK) #20

[QUOTE=stealth6;492528]I’ll just throw steam trading into the mix here. Without that the Dota 2 & CS:GO model probably wouldn’t work as well. If you don’t like an item you can trade it for another.[/QUOTE]True I will add it to the OP.