Forums » Suggestions
A little Crystal Rework
I believe that ship equipment should all be stripped of crystal cost. Because:
1: I can just ask a friend who is subbed to buy me, for example 28cu of Positron Blasters from a station and drop them for me. I'll pay him the credits it cost without paying crystals. This alone defeats the purpose of making ship gear cost crystals.
2: Weapons trading between stations isn't possible.
3: In my opinion, it's just a quality of life thing.
If this is implemented I'll happily take a crystal raise on buying ships. I can farm crystals all day.
1: I can just ask a friend who is subbed to buy me, for example 28cu of Positron Blasters from a station and drop them for me. I'll pay him the credits it cost without paying crystals. This alone defeats the purpose of making ship gear cost crystals.
2: Weapons trading between stations isn't possible.
3: In my opinion, it's just a quality of life thing.
If this is implemented I'll happily take a crystal raise on buying ships. I can farm crystals all day.
How does this suggestion enhance the game, other than decreasing dependence on crystals?
"2: Weapons trading between stations isn't possible"
thats the whole point or most of it
you just want everything subscribers get for free
next youll be asking why freeloaders cant have tridents
thats the whole point or most of it
you just want everything subscribers get for free
next youll be asking why freeloaders cant have tridents
So...... Bolth of you sub?! Oh my gosh what a concept. Crystals have little to no value. I don't buy that economic argument.
Awesome points said above too.
Awesome points said above too.
At least one item in the game requires a one time crystal fee to be paid before the item is equipped. No matter how this item is acquired. I'm sure this could be expanded to other items
IMO why should a player have to use all of their crystals on ONE ship? Like what? 20 daily is pretty awful. I'd be more okay with like being able to farm 30 every 8hrs, or 6hrs
IMHO, why should anyone get to play for free? I _had_ to pay for 17 years and now all you guys are getting it for free? WHY!!!!
Honestly, 20 a day is pretty awful if you are awful. 20 a day can quite easily become 100 in 5 days if you just stop dying. Just take some time out of combat, or fly Ec's for a few weeks - we both know how to get weapons and cells crystal free..., and have a week or two of botting or mining (or badge farming, badges get you 10 or so on top of the limit). Really, if you cannot survive on current F2P limits there is a solution - sub.
Honestly, 20 a day is pretty awful if you are awful. 20 a day can quite easily become 100 in 5 days if you just stop dying. Just take some time out of combat, or fly Ec's for a few weeks - we both know how to get weapons and cells crystal free..., and have a week or two of botting or mining (or badge farming, badges get you 10 or so on top of the limit). Really, if you cannot survive on current F2P limits there is a solution - sub.
IMO why should a player have to use all of their crystals on ONE ship? Like what? 20 daily is pretty awful. I'd be more okay with like being able to farm 30 every 8hrs, or 6hrs
107 does not require crystal, nor does the 104. The 104 has 26cu of space, and the 107 has two sp's. Both good ships. There are a plethora of addons that don't requires crystal including hive drops. If you get a lite sub, you get 50% more crystal each day. Crystal is not an issue.
107 does not require crystal, nor does the 104. The 104 has 26cu of space, and the 107 has two sp's. Both good ships. There are a plethora of addons that don't requires crystal including hive drops. If you get a lite sub, you get 50% more crystal each day. Crystal is not an issue.
In today's market most subscription games do have a FTP component EVE,WoW fastest I can name off the top of my head. Alot more give away free months to see how the service is and VO finally got onto that boat. Lets not spiral into crystal debate please. Just enjoy your game and move on. No need to be so passionate about it. [unacceptable comment removed. Please see rules for this forums. -W]
-1.
> 1: I can just ask a friend who is subbed to buy me, for example 28cu of Positron Blasters from a station and drop them for me. I'll pay him the credits it cost without paying crystals. This alone defeats the purpose of making ship gear cost crystals.
I think this is a counter-productive argument. Respectful player-to-player interaction is the most rewarding part of a multiplayer game, anything that encourages more of that is a good thing.
> 2: Weapons trading between stations isn't possible.
Neither is flying a 'dent.
> 3: In my opinion, it's just a quality of life thing.
In my opinion, it isn't. So we're even.
> 1: I can just ask a friend who is subbed to buy me, for example 28cu of Positron Blasters from a station and drop them for me. I'll pay him the credits it cost without paying crystals. This alone defeats the purpose of making ship gear cost crystals.
I think this is a counter-productive argument. Respectful player-to-player interaction is the most rewarding part of a multiplayer game, anything that encourages more of that is a good thing.
> 2: Weapons trading between stations isn't possible.
Neither is flying a 'dent.
> 3: In my opinion, it's just a quality of life thing.
In my opinion, it isn't. So we're even.
@death789
Missed the sarcasm I guess; us English frequently forget to tag posts for our overseas familia! With that said though, I still think sarcasm aside, that Crystals are fine. I've been playing with a silly account on and off for the past year (since it went free2play on PC), and although I've been quite active in combat, and not exactly a "liked" character, I have not once run out of crystals. I came close once after a funky week of station attacks, but simply took a week off from my general play style and went botting daily.
Of course, I am not an average user, I have many years experience and know how to grind. I know the games limits and can play to them to maximise the initial output of crystals too, but with that said it isn't exactly hard to "level up" in this game, so after the first character or two, you should know some tricks yourself.
I don't actually care that people get to play for free now, I am using that feature myself. I think it weird that these people who get a quite full experience for free demand more (hence the sarcasm) but maybe that is just me. 🤪
Missed the sarcasm I guess; us English frequently forget to tag posts for our overseas familia! With that said though, I still think sarcasm aside, that Crystals are fine. I've been playing with a silly account on and off for the past year (since it went free2play on PC), and although I've been quite active in combat, and not exactly a "liked" character, I have not once run out of crystals. I came close once after a funky week of station attacks, but simply took a week off from my general play style and went botting daily.
Of course, I am not an average user, I have many years experience and know how to grind. I know the games limits and can play to them to maximise the initial output of crystals too, but with that said it isn't exactly hard to "level up" in this game, so after the first character or two, you should know some tricks yourself.
I don't actually care that people get to play for free now, I am using that feature myself. I think it weird that these people who get a quite full experience for free demand more (hence the sarcasm) but maybe that is just me. 🤪
Alot more give away free months to see how the service is and VO finally got onto that boat.
Vendetta Online launched with a free trial, back in 2004, before WoW or EVE had anything like that. Both required you to buy the retail game for $50, and then also input your credit card to subscribe, before being able to play. We, on the other hand, bundled a free month with the game, but made the game a downloadable free trial with 8-hours (in-game time) of trial play, with no retail purchase requirement.
We continually increased the Trial period, as the years moved on, but people didn't want Trials anymore, they wanted "Free To Play". We first experimented with direct-purchase Freemium, where-in players would actually purchase their addons and ships with $$, as a bolted-on additional cost to Credits.
But, people were unhappy about that, because they wanted the potential of a "time-vs-money" tradeoff, the ability to play entirely for free, if one was dedicated and careful. So, the direct-payment system was replaced with the Crystal system we have today.
20 daily is pretty awful. I'd be more okay with like being able to farm 30 every 8hrs, or 6hrs
I've commented on this in other threads, a number of times. I designed the system to allow a reasonably careful person to enjoy most of the "baseline" game, entirely for free (as Yoda and others note, above). It is not designed, or intended, to allow everyone to do everything all-the-time for free.
To be clear, the point of Crystal is to generate revenue for the game, so the game can continue existing. So we can pay salaries, and marketing costs, and rent, and server hosting, and other stuff. It isn't an arbitrary conceptual notion, or a random gameplay inconvenience.
Now, it has also been my intention to add more content, which would be attached to an increasing curve in Crystal requirements. Some of this would be purely visual content, and others might be more advanced ships or weapons, etc. None of this has really been added yet, so as it stands, there isn't much of a "sink" for Crystals. I'm aware.
There are also some loopholes around players trading content to one another, or various other cases. I'm also aware of these limitations. I have solutions, but I'm not going into that at present.
The Crystal system is far from ideal, I'm definitely aware of that. I've been continually working on a lot of things adjacent to that, which I need to fix, before I can improve that system. It'll evolve in time.
But also know that criticism of the Crystal system, without also knowing all the data (that we know) around conversion points, monetization percentages, and everything else.. is basically making up "theories" about a black box that you don't understand.
Like the idea of saying 20 crystals per day is "awful" (and I'm not trying to single out IronLord here, but that kind of feedback in general).. awful for whom? Do you believe that people are ceasing to play the game because they run out of free Crystal? Because my graphs and data DO NOT support that. So, mostly it's awful for "Guild Software", because we aren't pushing people to spend money (particularly by the standards of the Mobile freemium market).
Just because someone "feels" that "People Would Do X, Y, and Z, if only they had more free crystal", we don't make business decisions without objective evidence to support a theory. And most people's theories that start out with "everything should be more free" are, let's say, "wildly unsupported by available data".
I really don't like Freemium-model design, I would rather just Make Games That Are Fun (ie: Premium or Sub), and not have to worry about conversion inflection points and exclusivitiy-FOMO and other bullshit that's required to get people to spend money.
But, for my online-game space, Freemium is absolutely a market requirement now, whether I like it or not. So I'm going to.. do the best I can to make a game that's pretty "accessible" (to new users, not pushing them that hard to monetize), but will eventually scale-up in Crystal spending, with more elaborate requirements.
Vendetta Online launched with a free trial, back in 2004, before WoW or EVE had anything like that. Both required you to buy the retail game for $50, and then also input your credit card to subscribe, before being able to play. We, on the other hand, bundled a free month with the game, but made the game a downloadable free trial with 8-hours (in-game time) of trial play, with no retail purchase requirement.
We continually increased the Trial period, as the years moved on, but people didn't want Trials anymore, they wanted "Free To Play". We first experimented with direct-purchase Freemium, where-in players would actually purchase their addons and ships with $$, as a bolted-on additional cost to Credits.
But, people were unhappy about that, because they wanted the potential of a "time-vs-money" tradeoff, the ability to play entirely for free, if one was dedicated and careful. So, the direct-payment system was replaced with the Crystal system we have today.
20 daily is pretty awful. I'd be more okay with like being able to farm 30 every 8hrs, or 6hrs
I've commented on this in other threads, a number of times. I designed the system to allow a reasonably careful person to enjoy most of the "baseline" game, entirely for free (as Yoda and others note, above). It is not designed, or intended, to allow everyone to do everything all-the-time for free.
To be clear, the point of Crystal is to generate revenue for the game, so the game can continue existing. So we can pay salaries, and marketing costs, and rent, and server hosting, and other stuff. It isn't an arbitrary conceptual notion, or a random gameplay inconvenience.
Now, it has also been my intention to add more content, which would be attached to an increasing curve in Crystal requirements. Some of this would be purely visual content, and others might be more advanced ships or weapons, etc. None of this has really been added yet, so as it stands, there isn't much of a "sink" for Crystals. I'm aware.
There are also some loopholes around players trading content to one another, or various other cases. I'm also aware of these limitations. I have solutions, but I'm not going into that at present.
The Crystal system is far from ideal, I'm definitely aware of that. I've been continually working on a lot of things adjacent to that, which I need to fix, before I can improve that system. It'll evolve in time.
But also know that criticism of the Crystal system, without also knowing all the data (that we know) around conversion points, monetization percentages, and everything else.. is basically making up "theories" about a black box that you don't understand.
Like the idea of saying 20 crystals per day is "awful" (and I'm not trying to single out IronLord here, but that kind of feedback in general).. awful for whom? Do you believe that people are ceasing to play the game because they run out of free Crystal? Because my graphs and data DO NOT support that. So, mostly it's awful for "Guild Software", because we aren't pushing people to spend money (particularly by the standards of the Mobile freemium market).
Just because someone "feels" that "People Would Do X, Y, and Z, if only they had more free crystal", we don't make business decisions without objective evidence to support a theory. And most people's theories that start out with "everything should be more free" are, let's say, "wildly unsupported by available data".
I really don't like Freemium-model design, I would rather just Make Games That Are Fun (ie: Premium or Sub), and not have to worry about conversion inflection points and exclusivitiy-FOMO and other bullshit that's required to get people to spend money.
But, for my online-game space, Freemium is absolutely a market requirement now, whether I like it or not. So I'm going to.. do the best I can to make a game that's pretty "accessible" (to new users, not pushing them that hard to monetize), but will eventually scale-up in Crystal spending, with more elaborate requirements.
fair
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