Pricing for Alteil discussion

[Icyman2]

Don't feed the troll. Just block him.

[Kittuns]

Except do you understand that the way to progress in Alteil is to win right? Treasure battles, grinding events, weekly gran...all progression comes from winning. So a player who wants to progress as fast as possible will necessarily be turned into a competitive gamer in time. Originally, I just signed up for this because others from the sirlin.net forums did. But in order to get as many cards as fast as possible, I had to become competitive.

So Alteil's remaining fans aren't just spikes from other places--they turn into them via the system within the game itself. So your argument is off point.

I don't think you understand my argument at all, because you keep saying things like this.

There is no progression in Alteil currently. Rewards are random, and they don't build towards anything or work together in any meaningful fashion. This system of random rewards needs to be switched to a progression based model in order for the game to be successful on a larger scale. That is my point.

What sort of non-random progression do you have in mind? That players get to choose their cards? Alright? What happens when they get destroyed by errata?

[Goryus]

What sort of non-random progression do you have in mind? That players get to choose their cards? Alright? What happens when they get destroyed by errata?

I already described one possible model earlier in thread, where battles provide materials that can be traded in for low level cards, with higher rarity cards becoming unlocked as your collection grows. In this specific case, if cards are errata'd, you keep all the progress you made in unlocking higher rarity cards, so its not a total loss. But, there are an infinite number of possible systems.

The typical free-to-play game model is: playing the game rewards you with steady progress towards owning the cards you want, but it might take a while to get there. If you want, you can pay money to short-cut this process. This ability to work steadily towards your goals is what is missing from Alteil right now; if I want to play Pixies, for example, and have $50 dollars and a month's worth of time to invest, there is no way for me to actually attain that goal. I could spend all $50 and play for a month, collecting hundreds of cards in total, and I might never see more than a couple of extremely common Pixie cards, while having no better odds of getting the rarer ones I actually do want over the next month. This is a problem, and it is driving the more casual players away.

[angelspawns]

Goryus has the right idea of a F2P model. I got high hopes if they ever implement something simulair in this game.

I think the best idea yet was the 4 colored pointcards. (1 for a loss, 3 for a win)
Easy and simplistic to understand for everybody. You can extend upon this as long as these basics are there.

I do fear this whole model deviates to much of the old Alteil though. As myserymen said, it may angry the current playerbase away who worked(and paid) hard to get their favorite decks, and over time Alteil already chased away many potential players.


For the record: I played ExLotto untill i had 3x of every card in there... all to get a playset of Cudgel. I spend enough to get premium membership till 2020. I will still vouch for a F2P model like yours Goryus.

[Kittuns]

Goryus has the right idea of a F2P model. I got high hopes if they ever implement something simulair in this game.

I think the best idea yet was the 4 colored pointcards. (1 for a loss, 3 for a win)
Easy and simplistic to understand for everybody. You can extend upon this as long as these basics are there.

I do fear this whole model deviates to much of the old Alteil though. As myserymen said, it may angry the current playerbase away who worked(and paid) hard to get their favorite decks, and over time Alteil already chased away many potential players.


For the record: I played ExLotto untill i had 3x of every card in there... all to get a playset of Cudgel. I spend enough to get premium membership till 2020. I will still vouch for a F2P model like yours Goryus.

The issue of "I paid for it so I don't want it cheaper" is a huge one that has to be just plain ignored. If players want to leave, they can feel free to. Fresh blood is what's needed for this game.

[Peralisc9001]

The issue of "I paid for it so I don't want it cheaper" is a huge one that has to be just plain ignored. If players want to leave, they can feel free to. Fresh blood is what's needed for this game.

Indeed, because otherwise we get into a vicious cycle:
1. we need to change stuff and make it better and more worthwhile playing >>> #2
2. we can't change things because the few people we got will be upset >>> #1

[fargone]

If they don't change it, one of the biggest spenders this game has had will not be happy.

Don't assume that just because we are still here that we are happy with the way things are.

[Romdeau]

All I collected from this thread was a bunch of wall of text DG wrote up and people responding it. Not very productive use of time.

The new pricing scheme is going to be a tough challenge for Sean and his staff to overcome. If you look at the numbers, Alteil actually made more money the more unfair it was. The more "improvements" they made to making the content more accessible, it actually resulted in revenue loss. People may say one thing, but how they actually behave is completely different.

And sadly let's face it guys, Alteil at it's core is a business-and like any other business, it doesn't make sense to sacrifice revenue in order to remove a perceptual problem. Especially if that perceptual problem isn't an actual problem from a financial standpoint.

[Nehless]

How much more money are we talking about? lol
Not every paycheck is a good paycheck

[Peralisc9001]

There were from the start players that spent a lot and then dropped out because they disliked the system. As the system loosened up bit by bit, players with lots of cash that checked the game were spending less and less when trying it out.

The real problem was to actually keep ALL of those who paid lots!


Then there were the promotions. People that spent before a promotion showed up, paid more to get something so when said promotion did appear they felt at disadvantage for not waiting. This probably encouraged people to wait out until they see something they agree with.
It wouldn't have been this way if all promotions would be known to everyone weeks, maybe months before they show up.


Also i think they had to come up with promotions to encourage more spending, because it was too low as it was. I mean why else would one go for a promotion when they run a money snatching system?
Fact, they always needed to increase more their playerbase and income ... they didn't manage to so eventually they ended up with this gamepot issue.