There is definitely a sweet spot for pricing. That is the price of the in-game items and the affordability. Too low of a price and they won’t make profit. Too high of a price and nobody will buy it.
The only problem I see is lowering the price, people will complain about how unfair it is they paid more. The same way people feel when they buy something and the next day the item is 50% off.
If they did that they could give other items or bonuses to those that paid more, not too much of a biggy, but the pricing is unlikely to change, but I would count on there being larger merc bundles later on
I don’t have any problems with the pricing at the moment. What I find to be more of a severe issue is the rate at which credits are earned. Playing a full match I earn anywhere from 86c to 200+c, excluding the completion of contracts.
Not everyone has hours upon hours a night to grind credits for a new merc. It applies a lot of pressure to shell out real money to buy the mercs, which is exactly what the business model is designed to do.
On paper, this sounds great. But in reality, the customers will see this as a scummy practice.
I’m hoping the credit rates were changed just for the sake of gaining feedback, so the devs know what not to do in the future.
The reason why the pricing right now is completely off, is because they obviously try to copy the standard MOBA pricing.
10€ per new merc, or alot of ingame currency. This approach does not work. And the reason is simple.
A loadout consists of 3 mercs, not just one. If you want to get the mercs you want you need to upfront pay 30€ instead of 10€ as in most MOBAs.
A merc isn’t complete so they should not be priced like a complete character. You need up to 3 mercs, so 1 merc should cost ~1/3 of the price you intent for a single full playable loadout.
[quote=“Varonth;13671”]The reason why the pricing right now is completely off, is because they obviously try to copy the standard MOBA pricing.
10€ per new merc, or alot of ingame currency. This approach does not work. And the reason is simple.
A loadout consists of 3 mercs, not just one. If you want to get the mercs you want you need to upfront pay 30€ instead of 10€ as in most MOBAs.
A merc isn’t complete so they should not be priced like a complete character. You need up to 3 mercs, so 1 merc should cost ~1/3 of the price you intent for a single full playable loadout.[/quote]
ehh. no?
You get 2 mercs for free. You also get 2 in free rotation. So I don’t get this 1/3 calculation.
Most people play with one character throughout the whole map anyways.
Just, why didn’t they put him in free rotation for at least a week ?
Bushwhacker is a brand new merc available. Like all brand new chracaters or weapons in video games, it NEEDS to have feedback about so the dev team can tweak the new content as good as possible. It needs to be tried, by everyone, so everyone would have his opinion about that new guy. Like this, it just feels like they are trying to prevent us from using him. This is just totally counterproductive.
For the sake of feedback and balance, allow those mercs to be in free rotation when they are released ! You guys need that feedback, and us as player need to try new content, because this is also like showing a box of lollipops to a kid, and then remove it while saying “you won’t have any, nananah !”.
[quote=“Szakalot;13673”][quote=“Varonth;13671”]The reason why the pricing right now is completely off, is because they obviously try to copy the standard MOBA pricing.
10€ per new merc, or alot of ingame currency. This approach does not work. And the reason is simple.
A loadout consists of 3 mercs, not just one. If you want to get the mercs you want you need to upfront pay 30€ instead of 10€ as in most MOBAs.
A merc isn’t complete so they should not be priced like a complete character. You need up to 3 mercs, so 1 merc should cost ~1/3 of the price you intent for a single full playable loadout.[/quote]
ehh. no?
You get 2 mercs for free. You also get 2 in free rotation. So I don’t get this 1/3 calculation.
Most people play with one character throughout the whole map anyways.
[/quote]
Maybe in casual matches, were you just hope you cover everything.
But with more mercs being released, you might want to join MM with a premade.
At that point you want to communicate with your team, who takes which merc for which situation and with that you very likely end up with needing to takes something else and not Aura + Skyhammer + 3rd.
When there are 20 mercs, and a team consists of 5 persons using Skyhammer and Aura you have a grand total of 7 diffferent mercs (Skyhammer + Aura + 1 different for each). That will very likely not be competitive.
The best possible thing (if balanced) would be having 15 different mercs. So 1 out of 5 players might be able to just buy a single merc and be competive. The other 4 out of 5 need to buy 3 mercs.
[quote=“Varonth;13671”]The reason why the pricing right now is completely off, is because they obviously try to copy the standard MOBA pricing.
10€ per new merc, or alot of ingame currency. This approach does not work. And the reason is simple.
A loadout consists of 3 mercs, not just one. If you want to get the mercs you want you need to upfront pay 30€ instead of 10€ as in most MOBAs.
A merc isn’t complete so they should not be priced like a complete character. You need up to 3 mercs, so 1 merc should cost ~1/3 of the price you intent for a single full playable loadout.[/quote]
The approach most definitely does work and it works better than games like LoL or SMITE. You will also have a very hard time comparing this to a MOBA as it isn’t one.
As mentioned above every player has access to 4 mercs out of the gate. 2 on rotation and 2 freebies. Congratz. You are missing 50% of the released mercs. If you save up the credits handed out over your first 4-5 levels you will most likely have enough to purchase a 30k merc. You can use that to guarantee access to a merc that is on rotation or buy a merc off rotation. Either way you will have 4-5 mercs unlocked, 3 of which you permanently own.
It will take time and effort to earn beyond those 3 mercs, but you will always have the rotation(granting 1-2 additional mercs) so it isn’t like you only have those 3 to play.
For a f2p game, 10$ isn’t much to get permanent access to a merc.
Many options exist for dealing with competitive scene, such as allowing all the mercs for official tournaments; pooling in the resources of both teams together, renting mercs for a limited amount of time.
Regardless of making it easier, if you want you can always grind a bit to get the mercs you need. Dedicated grind will get you 30k in 7-10days. Presumably comp players are dedicated. And if they can’t wait a week, and they can’t pay shit either; well thats too bad, its free 2 play; but maybe not f2p comp? : )
[quote=“Eox;13675”]Just, why didn’t they put him in free rotation for at least a week ?
Bushwhacker is a brand new merc available. Like all brand new chracaters or weapons in video games, it NEEDS to have feedback about so the dev team can tweak the new content as good as possible. It needs to be tried, by everyone, so everyone would have his opinion about that new guy. Like this, it just feels like they are trying to prevent us from using him. This is just totally counterproductive.
For the sake of feedback and balance, allow those mercs to be in free rotation when they are released ! You guys need that feedback, and us as player need to try new content, because this is also like showing a box of lollipops to a kid, and then remove it while saying “you won’t have any, nananah !”.[/quote]
Bushy isn’t brand new. He has been extensively tested for, what, over a year?
If he is available in the next week free rotation, then surely that is enough time for everyone to try? Your kid analogy is very good: its showing us the box; and if you have some cash / credits you can get it now (totally agree 10$ is too much though), and otherwise you’ll be able to try it out SOON.
[quote=“Eox;13675”]
For the sake of feedback and balance, allow those mercs to be in free rotation when they are released ! You guys need that feedback, and us as player need to try new content, because this is also like showing a box of lollipops to a kid, and then remove it while saying “you won’t have any, nananah !”.[/quote]
And at the same time the company wants to test, if the lollipops taste good and are eatable… ^^
Bush will eventually be in free rotation.
And the lollipop analogy doesn’t make sense. I guess Riot Games announcing a new champion is the same then as you have to pay either currency to get it.
Unless the guy giving the lollipops asks how they taste and asks for your opinion.
Sooo right now he shows you a lollipop and asks you how they taste without even allowing you to taste it and asks you to buy it instead 
[quote=“EvoSteven;13705”]
Sooo right now he shows you a lollipop and asks you how they taste without even allowing you to taste it and asks you to buy it instead :D[/quote]
Well he’s not really asking you to buy it, he’s very helpfully “suggesting” it after removing Proxy from free rotations. Then you realize a lot of people didn’t actually buy Proxy and therefore are now just as screwed as you (whole teams without engineers is disastrous) for the next several days until they grind out 30k credits for Proxy or 50k credits for G.W. Bush (unlikely), or whip out their wallets (more likely).
[quote=“NuclearSharkhead;13715”][quote=“EvoSteven;13705”]
Sooo right now he shows you a lollipop and asks you how they taste without even allowing you to taste it and asks you to buy it instead :D[/quote]
Well he’s not really asking you to buy it, he’s very helpfully “suggesting” it after removing Proxy from free rotations. Then you realize a lot of people didn’t actually buy Proxy and therefore are now just as screwed as you (whole teams without engineers is disastrous) for the next several days until they grind out 30k credits for Proxy or 50k credits for G.W. Bush (unlikely), or whip out their wallets (more likely). [/quote]
So he let you have it for a couple of licks, it was really good and you somehow need it in your life (addictions are bad mmmkay) and he takes it away.
This is sounding more and more like a drug dealer giving you a sample and you getting addicted instead of some harmless lollipops.
Early adopter’s tax: the premium you pay to have access to something new and exclusive before everybody else… It applies to pretty much all new customer goods.
“Not everybody has time to play several hours each day.”
Of course not, but let’s be real. If you don’t have the time, most likely you will have at least some disposable income. If you are not willing to spend some of this on the people who work hard all day to make your hobby a possibility, then who is the greedy one?
Ok that was a bit inflammatory, but ultimately this is the point of F2P: Either you have a lot of time to spend or money, it gives you more options. If you have neither, then your options are to play with the (already very generous) free content for the time being, or play something else. There is nothing unfair about any of this.
“Unlike MOBAs, you need three mercs for competitive play.”
Really bad comparison, since one hero is definitely not enough to play a MOBA competitively. You are not guaranteed to be able to play the hero you want in a MOBA, so most likely you will have to buy a lot more. Not to mention that choosing the right hero can be half the game, while the differences are likely to be much smaller in Dirty Bomb.
Even so, getting the three specific mercs you want is likely always going to cost you about 20 bucks or less. That’s the price of an average indie game. If you play a game competitively, it means that it provides you many hours of enjoyment every day, so the idea of spending the equivalent of a visit to the cinema every once in a while really shouldn’t be that outrageous…
Early adopter’s tax: the premium you pay to have access to something new and exclusive before everybody else… It applies to pretty much all new customer goods.
[/quote]
True. I paid 30$ for Founder and while I don’t think it was bad or anything, it wasn’t exactly a good investment because I don’t have any mercs or anything really. Alpha access and beta access (which doesn’t mean a whole lot) and 1 card. And I don’t have a job (school) so yea money is a problem hehe
But I don’t have a problem with supporting them as long as they don’t destroy the game in some way that I hate it.
On the MOBA train: You need atleast x amount of champions in League of Legends before you can play Ranked because they can ban champions and you need to be able to play atleast 1 champion.
The problem I have with F2P games is that micro-transactions easily add up to a lot more than you expect. It starts out with “well this is a good game and a normal game is about 60$ so I’ll limit myself to that” and you end up going like “5$ more shouldn’t hurt right?”
I can not so proudly say that I’ve spent over 200€ in LoL and I don’t even play the damn game anymore. Worth it? Maybe. Looking back on it, it was a lot of fun. But +200€ is a lot of money (relative, ofcourse).
The high price mercs have when it comes to actual dollars seems pretty high, especially how some are 10 dollars and others 5, but I’ve known people who’d buy 20 dollar weapons in a game just because they’re shiny.
As mercs continue to appear I really think there should be more on free rotation, since we have a medic and fire support available, while I like the new rotation, they’re the exact same roles the current default carry out, hopefully when the rooster grows there might be 3 or 4 characters on rotation and maybe even have the 4 characters on rotation based on what class they’re based off of.
As for the grinding credits it still feels a bit low, maybe making daily missions be 1000 credits instead of 600, and give out every other level 12k or a couple of thousand, something other than card cases considering how much easier they are to come by now.
CS:GO has shiny skins and I do have some expensive skins on there too. They are an addition to the game though, a lot of people pay a lot of money for shiny things (heck, look at League of Legends, skins are their main income and that’s only cosmetics).
Mercs are a requirement. Everyone has them and needs them. The reason why cosmetics are so popular (besides making you look awesome) is you feel more premium and exclusive. You stand out. A merc… doesn’t make you stand out, look particularly awesome or feel premium in any way, shape or form. It’s the most normal thing in the world. People aren’t paying for that.
[quote=“EvoSteven;13779”]CS:GO has shiny skins and I do have some expensive skins on there too. They are an addition to the game though, a lot of people pay a lot of money for shiny things (heck, look at League of Legends, skins are their main income and that’s only cosmetics).
Mercs are a requirement. Everyone has them and needs them. The reason why cosmetics are so popular (besides making you look awesome) is you feel more premium and exclusive. You stand out. A merc… doesn’t make you stand out, look particularly awesome or feel premium in any way, shape or form. It’s the most normal thing in the world. People aren’t paying for that.[/quote]
You say that like nobody spends money for champions in LoL. They do, and then they also might buy a skin for it. You have to own the champ before you can buy the skin for it.
Then in CS:GO, that is based on a very balanced playing environment. In CS:GO you can bring any gun in any round(as long as it is unlocked for that team). You get to pick 3 mercs in Dirty Bomb. If you were only allowed to pick 3 guns to choose between in CS:GO they would have a gun purchasing format instead of only a skin format.
Either way, it isn’t a fair comparison as they are quite different games.