Would you like a monetization system based on cosmetic items and not on mercs ? (ie CS GO, TF2)

[vdll]

Give OP a cookie. Big @ss box of them cookies.

[yakcyll1]

Most non strange or unique/named weapons trade 1 for 1 because each one is worth half a ‘scrap’. You could very very easily get a weapon you want by trading 1 scrap for that weapon. For anybody not informed, you can create 1 scrap by destroying 2 items in your backpack(inventory). It takes roughly 30-50 minutes per item drop, so two hours of gameplay would guarantee you a weapon that you want. The only weapons that were worth buying were because they were brand new and rarely found right away. This meant most items sold best on release rather than later.

This is true. Also,

I know the weapons are meant to be balanced, but I didn’t like most default weapons. And most good players i saw didn’t use default weapons aswell.

ROFL. For your information, you LIKING a particular weapon has NOTHING to do with how balanced it is. And if you call pub players ‘good’ and take their opinions as representative, then you must sure be joking. Just for the record, although you probably can’t care less, comp players still mostly use the stock weapons on most classes, surely not because they are inferior to unlocks. DB is not supposed to be a casual game as far as I know, so if that doesn’t suit you, then you don’t have to make a fuss about it.

[Humbug1]

[quote=“Ardez;17603”][quote=“Humbug;17602”][quote=“srswizard;17600”]@Humbug what you’re saying about TF2 is completely misinformed.
The default weapons are the best choice 9 out of 10 times.
The only grind in TF2 is learning the game mechanics, and getting good.[/quote]

No?
I looked it up in the wiki of course, I know the weapons are meant to be balanced, but I didn’t like most default weapons. And most good players i saw didn’t use default weapons aswell. And yes grind was the wrong word, because you couldn’t grind those random drops since they where limited per week. There was no chance to get the weapons i would have liked other than paying money. And weapons are very important in shooters.
Pay to customize your weapon, good job valve[/quote]

You must not like trying very hard.

TF2 Item Drop System - https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Item_drop_system#Current_system

Most non strange or unique/named weapons trade 1 for 1 because each one is worth half a ‘scrap’. You could very very easily get a weapon you want by trading 1 scrap for that weapon. For anybody not informed, you can create 1 scrap by destroying 2 items in your backpack(inventory). It takes roughly 30-50 minutes per item drop, so two hours of gameplay would guarantee you a weapon that you want. The only weapons that were worth buying were because they were brand new and rarely found right away. This meant most items sold best on release rather than later.[/quote]

Trade 1 scrap for any weapon? on steam market? I’m not sure when i played tf2, but I’m pretty sure the price was either higher at that time or trading didn’t exist.
crafting was definitely more complicated.
If you think TF2 earns money only from cosmetic items, i can’t help you really

[Ardez1]

I love how you read the posts people previously submit and then make a well informed reply.

You say that like buying WEAPONS in TF2 is purely cosmetic. They actually greatly change gameplay. If you would like to point out their random weapon drops as a way around buying them then I would like to point out random case drops in DB as well However if you bring up their active trading market I would have no response, but I would love DB to adopt a trading system if feasible.

I said that not too long ago in this thread.

Also, that has generally been the value of weapons since scrap was implemented, as each weapon is worth exactly 1 scrap. Only newer weapons ever sold for more. You cannot trade scrap or weapons that drop on the steam market. TF2 has ingame trading(but you can also trade via steam UI) that is the primary source of exchange in the game.

Crafting is still quite complicated with many requirements in TF2, but trading was always very simple. Not sure when trading was implemented, but I bet it is on their wiki.

EDIT: Mistakenly deleted bracket on quote.

[Humbug1]

[quote=“Ardez;17607”]I love how you read the posts people previously submit and then make a well informed reply.

You say that like buying WEAPONS in TF2 is purely cosmetic. They actually greatly change gameplay. If you would like to point out their random weapon drops as a way around buying them then I would like to point out random case drops in DB as well However if you bring up their active trading market I would have no response, but I would love DB to adopt a trading system if feasible.

I said that not too long ago in this thread.

Also, that has generally been the value of weapons since scrap was implemented, as each weapon is worth exactly 1 scrap. Only newer weapons ever sold for more. You cannot trade scrap or weapons that drop on the steam market. TF2 has ingame trading(but you can also trade via steam UI) that is the primary source of exchange in the game.

Crafting is still quite complicated with many requirements in TF2, but trading was always very simple. Not sure when trading was implemented, but I bet it is on their wiki.

EDIT: Mistakenly deleted bracket on quote.[/quote]

How can 1 scrap be 1 weapon when you need a scrap + many more stuff to craft those weapons?
It’s because you can buy weapons with money, which obviously many people did.
Fact is TF2 doesn’t earn money with cosmetics only.
Dota 2 is THE ONLY game that earns money with cosmetics only. And that is possible, because they have 10million! unique players per month.
I personally still like DB’s systems more than the one in TF2, you don’t have to agree of course

[Ardez1]

[quote=“Humbug;17609”][quote=“Ardez;17607”]I love how you read the posts people previously submit and then make a well informed reply.

You say that like buying WEAPONS in TF2 is purely cosmetic. They actually greatly change gameplay. If you would like to point out their random weapon drops as a way around buying them then I would like to point out random case drops in DB as well However if you bring up their active trading market I would have no response, but I would love DB to adopt a trading system if feasible.

I said that not too long ago in this thread.

Also, that has generally been the value of weapons since scrap was implemented, as each weapon is worth exactly 1 scrap. Only newer weapons ever sold for more. You cannot trade scrap or weapons that drop on the steam market. TF2 has ingame trading(but you can also trade via steam UI) that is the primary source of exchange in the game.

Crafting is still quite complicated with many requirements in TF2, but trading was always very simple. Not sure when trading was implemented, but I bet it is on their wiki.

EDIT: Mistakenly deleted bracket on quote.[/quote]

How can 1 scrap be 1 weapon when you need a scrap + many more stuff to craft those weapons?
It’s because you can buy weapons with money, which obviously many people did.
Fact is TF2 doesn’t earn money with cosmetics only.
Dota 2 is THE ONLY game that earns money with cosmetics only.
I personally still like DB’s systems more than the one in TF2, you don’t have to agree of course
[/quote]

Woah! Woah! Woah! Woah!

1. Weapons drop for FREE, so they are WORTHLESS to any player. Also, weapons are worth 1/2 a scrap, but people will usually SELL for 1 scrap and trade 1 weapon for 1 weapon. Some players have been playing so long they have owned EVERY weapon for free(and have gotten rid of most of them). If you opened that link I posted earlier and learned something you would know that players generally get 5-10 weapons per week.

2. Nobody believes that ANY weapon is worth more than a very SMALL pile of change. I am NOT denying that they have made plenty of money from weapons, but I am saying that the WORTH of the weapon being purchased drops significantly after several days of being released.

3. FACT - Dota 2 sold an ‘early access’ bundle that included access to the game as well as ingame items(cosmetic). Not to mention Dota 2 is another very unique game with a company that makes a shitload of money with or without that Dota 2. The amount of money Dota 2 has supplied is a drop in the bucket compared to the profitability of Valve in general. People would buy GabeNs shit if he slapped the 80% off tag on it.

Personally I really enjoy and like DB, but they definitely need to fix some things before release. I have made plenty of posts about that is other threads on this forum. My point is and always has been that Dirty Bomb cannot be compared to a game developed and sold by Valve, as that is unfair to ANY game, in particular during beta.

[Humbug1]

[quote=“Ardez;17611”]
Personally I really enjoy and like DB, but they definitely need to fix some things before release. I have made plenty of posts about that is other threads on this forum. My point is and always has been that Dirty Bomb cannot be compared to a game developed and sold by Valve, as that is unfair to ANY game, in particular during beta.[/quote]

I agree on this.
Increasing credit rate/lower merc price would be a good step and they partially confirmed to do this already.
But the system in general is pretty fair in my opinion and making money from cosmetics only is not very likely.
I also think 5mercs in rotation, 1 of each archetype, at all times would be better than 2 free and 2 on rotation. If sawbonez and arty are in rotation you can only play medic or fire support, and many people, especially new players think that assaults are better.
Edit: different prices for mercs is also a REALLY bad idea, it creates the feeling that some mercs are better

[Ardez1]

That problem with that suggestion is that there is currently only 1 Recon merc released(vassili). They would need to release another one(Maybe Phantom) before they could implement that. It also bring into question the rotation system itself, as it would just jump back and forth between ALL of the available mercs each rotation(at this point in time).

Your suggestion would make sense if 15 mercs were currently in release, but there isn’t. That is more of a long term change then anything.

Assaults are better at killing. They are supposed to be, that is their role. The problem isn’t that players think they are better, it is that players are not incentivized well enough to want to PLAY the mercs that would help their team rather than the mercs that would hurt the enemy.

You can check the most recent 5 or so posts of this thread for more details on suggestions to incentivizing teamplay better.

I personally believe that a good solution to the current system is to do a 3 merc rotation instead of two. It is a happy medium between your suggestion and the current system I think. The trick is to always have at least 1 Specialist in rotation along with any 2 other roles. This would allow for constant availability of the classes required for a team to do well in a pub game and provide opportunities to showcase new/old mercs with the remaining two slots.

To get this post back on topic - I would love to see cosmetic items for Mercs as a form of monetization and do away with the merc purchasing entirely, as that is a sure fire way to gain popular support in the current gaming industry(Paywalls are a big no no atm. For proof please see the purchase mod system that Valve tore down 4 days after release),

Suggestions for Cosmetic Monetization:

Skins - Thematic OR Variants
Capes(personal favorite Take advantage of that PhysX logo on the games startup!!!)
Gun “Keychains”
Joke & Taunt Pack for a Merc
PRIVATE SERVERS(Not Cosmetic, but I would pay for one/the software to host one if available!)
User Created Content Market(Have the playerbase make the keychains/Skins/Capes and just have DB test and approve them for general purchase)

[Szakalot]

[quote=“Szakalot;17578”]Can people please stop bringing up CS:GO - it is NOT a F2P game <- monetization system need no apply

You really bitch about csgo costing 13,99 euros regularily and 12 times a year they sell it for like 3-7 euros. To most people 13 euros for a full game is as good as it being free, I mean two large packs of marlboro costs about that much in Finland.
I mean id rather pay flat 30-50 bucks up front to have every single mercenary and all the upcoming ones, that should the very least be an option.
[/quote]

Not sure what you are on about, but just because 13 euros is as good as being free to you, does not mean it is to other players.

If Devs got 13 euros from every player that would try the game out, as if it was F2P, they could probably drop any monetization system whatsoever, and just release it with full content.

F2P model allows players that would have never had bought the game to still try it out. SD knows they have something different from anything out there, and they’re taking a gamble it will cater to people who didn’t even know they’d like it. Looking at steam reviews, many non-ET players are saying ‘best FPS ive ever played’ ‘unlike any team-based shooter i played’ etc.

Not defending the 10$/merc price, yup; thats pretty damn over the top.

[B_Montiel]

As usual in those threads, I’m opposed to valve-like economy for simple reasons. I’ve already talked about it a couple of times here, but here’s my thoughts :

-TF2 economy literally ruined the game for most of the non f2p players who bought it in the first steps of the game. Not due to the frustration, but simply because it just made a total mess of the first design. Simplicity and recognizable classes were the first aim of valve before letting the game fall into a dry milk cow. Ok, now they have done almost 15 times profit with f2p tf2 than they did with money tf2. But they would not have taken the risk on first glance. The game was already profitable by a huge margin even before turning it into a f2p.

• Dota 2 followed it with built-in skins and stuff. Prices of stuff have been low since start. Guess what ? They sold Compendium around 2 years after its release for something, not only to raise money for competitive championships. Making Dota 2 free was, from the accountant point of view, a strong mistake. But on the marketing side, it allowed them to compete with LoL’s position, which is probably one of the few true sustainable f2p model (in the occidental meaning of f2p, I’m not talking about p2w solutions nexon and Korean fps use).
• CS:GO was the last to appear. Selling the game is to me an answer to the lack of money generated by dota 2. They did not have competitors in the f2p field for such a good quality fps. Selling the game make a regular source of income for them, even if it seems low. I’d not be surprised that, including the regular sales period for this game, valve achieves an average 5$ raw input per copy sold. And it’s owned by more than 12 millions accounts. 60 millions $ for a rather quick refresh of an already successful recipe, well, that’s something that needs consideration. Not to mention that most of the recent content addition to this game have been genuinely created by the community (maps…) and they just keep doing regular maintaining and balancing stuff.

For all those three games, valve has been hiding some good money generation. And the money they generate on every trade you do in those is very high too (around 10/20%). The only true f2p they did, they just did it for pure marketing reasons, not empathy to the community. The income they obtained with it was low enough to make them sell their next game. In my mind, valve achieved a good trick on the community by making it think that their games are profitable solely through market. Except Dota 2, they always had a true source of income in parallel to have a regular and assured source of money. Valve’s Trading is total illusion of what a sustainable f2p could be.

SD and nexon have not been quiet about monetization, they already told that they prefered to take more on LoL model than valve one. In my mind, they should reduce the real money price of mercs by at least an half, reduce grinding times by a good 20%. And of course, add some cosmetics shopping. AFAIK, those are planned (weekly missions and a couple tweaks are bound to arrive and should make grinding acceptable). This might do the trick without falling into a massive market clusterf*ck.

Edit : some info on prices of cs:go and volumes sold :
https://steamdb.info/app/730/
steamspy.com/app/730

[vdll]

I’m a veteran tf2 ( over 5 years), cs (since 1.1 or something) and dota (since early w3 mod versions) player and I enjoy those games as much as a did before.
I do not feel decieved by Valve for teaching old games new tricks and I can’t see how their f2p system is ruining games.

As for “valve has been hiding some good money generation” - I don’t think they are supposed to report their income to community.

[mOist]

My concern is would Cosmetics be enough to fund this game? , itsworks well for big games because there player bases are huge , im not sure this game will have that same following and be able to stay afloat with just a cosmetic funding.

[smartIsland]

Look, I strongly believe there is some population of players that will pay ten per merc, fine. There is very likely a much much larger population that will pay 5. If they are seriously going to go the lol route, continually adding more mercs they stand to make a ton on merc sales. I just don’t get why they would just change five and bank on attracting more players to make up the difference

[B_Montiel]

[quote=“convincingMollusk;17622”]I’m a veteran tf2 ( over 5 years), cs (since 1.1 or something) and dota (since early w3 mod versions) player and I enjoy those games as much as a did before.
I do not feel decieved by Valve for teaching old games new tricks and I can’t see how their f2p system is ruining games.

As for “valve has been hiding some good money generation” - I don’t think they are supposed to report their income to community.[/quote]
I played Team Fortress 2 since beta state in summer 2007. Played it competitively for 2 years until 2009/2010. Their gameplay additions ruined the overall balance, making the game totally unpredictable/unreadable to anyone. Average skill of players horribly lower since then, including veterans. Most of the root community left when the game added way too much variety on the oiginal concept. Ok, they might have not ruined the game, but they did something TOTALLY different than what was originally intended. I’m just talking about tf2. Cs:go and dota 2 are not ruined compared to older versions.
And for the financial part, I totally agree with you. But let’s not forget that it exists and therefore the only true f2p (for the overall community) valve created is Dota 2.

Look, I strongly believe there is some population of players that will pay ten per merc, fine. There is very likely a much much larger population that will pay 5. If they are seriously going to go the lol route, continually adding more mercs they stand to make a ton on merc sales. I just don’t get why they would just change five and bank on attracting more players to make up the difference

To me, even though I really like this game, I won’t pay 10 for a merc but I might pay 5. Even if there is a continuity is the merc release. Finding a price which will seem fair to customers is really hard, especially in video games. That’s just predictions. But in my opinion, if a good part of the already playing community call that prices are set too high, you might have an idea too hugely increase your new customer potential…

[yakcyll1]

My concern is would Cosmetics be enough to fund this game? , itsworks well for big games because there player bases are huge , im not sure this game will have that same following and be able to stay afloat with just a cosmetic funding.

Neither Dota nor CSGO (which I assumed you refer to when you mention big games) came with cosmetics or other means of monetization during their respective beta stages as far as I remember, so you can’t call it funding. As far as I am concerned, I’d rather the game had all the content and tools unlocked and shared with community at or shortly after release, rather than have content added exclusively by devs on a regular basis over a long period of time, which is usually why you need continuous support to sustain development.

Old models might not be popular anymore, but they worked in many cases and still do work in those where new ones hardly can be applied. The game has potential, but to tap it, one has to use appropriate tools.

[Zenity1]

Look, I strongly believe there is some population of players that will pay ten per merc, fine. There is very likely a much much larger population that will pay 5. If they are seriously going to go the lol route, continually adding more mercs they stand to make a ton on merc sales. I just don’t get why they would just change five and bank on attracting more players to make up the difference

They will gather their own sales data, and probably take a close look at the effectiveness of sales. The good thing is that when it comes to real money prices, it’s very easy to vote with your wallet (or not).

When in doubt it’s much better to start with the highest possible prices though, because you can always reduce prices. Increasing prices is much more difficult, and not usually welcomed by the community…

Higher prices also have the inherent benefit of making sales look a lot better. Take the starter pack for example. It seems like a great deal and I was quite happy to buy it. If all mercs were 5 EUR or less, suddenly it wouldn’t look like such a great deal anymore… For the same reason games on Steam aren’t just 80% off all the time, even though they usually generate most money during sales. If that’s your normal price, it just doesn’t have the same effect as a massive looking sale.

[amberHarp]

If they are going to add trading system, then yes. I would love to buy some cosmetics and trade them

[ZGToRRent]

In my opinion there is nothing wrong with current merc buying, maybe tier 2 is overpriced. When I get starter pack I think that I will play variety of mercs depends of map but it’s not true. I’m using only 4 mercs that I had before starter pack so the only positive are 35k credits.

[kittenishBlender]

[left][quote=“Zenity;17571”]Would you like world peace? It’s a silly question really… that doesn’t [left]mean it’s realistic.

You can name a couple of successful examples, what you are missing is the countless ones which failed. The failed projects are always invisible, unless you are a game developer who has to research this stuff and figure out how to pay the rent.

It’s great to see the cosmetics model (which is really “pay what you want” in essence) making some inroads, but so far it’s only really working with massive mass market (or super low budget) titles. Dirty Bomb would take a huge risk going down that road, because it’s much more of a hardcore niche game and as it stands it isn’t extremely suitable for cosmetics either.

I want the game to survive first and foremost, and I am absolutely okay with the current business model. Would I prefer cosmetics only? Well, duh. If the devs can make it work, then they’ll be my next heroes. But I will still support them if they can’t.[/quote]

Well, the thing is, the current cash shop of DB is exactly like T:A’s ones. Both in term of prices and contents in the cash shop. But also in term of virtual money & how you earn them, in T:A you also have mission rewards: further details here:
http://www.tribesascendwiki.com/Accolades

Funny fact is that T:A was also dedicated to hardcore gamers. So you can pretty much say that both DB and T:A are extremely similar in term of monetization system.

As I said in the poll, T:A died because of its bad monetization system. Even if its main goal of gathering hardcore gamers has been reach for a certain time, it still has failed to keep them.
And the high prices in the cash shop, and the fact that you had to farm a lot to gain new classes and weapons did not help, hence T:A servers are now nearly deserted (though its a great game).[/left]

[lividPiece]

The tf2 system with having the weapons doing different damage and the csgo skins having cool skins would be great that’s one way I would like this to turn into still having variety of weapons but the skins cosmetic items would be implement to what we have