A system suggestion which should make everyone happy

[Demongod]

It's not me giving you the negative press I'm worried about, lucky. It's that players with less patience and appreciation for good game design will say "this game is just a microtranscations scheme! STAY AWAY STAY AWAY STAY AWAY!"

I fear that the more free players with no patience we attract in here, the more of a chance we have that one of them is going to start slamming my pitch. After all, no matter how many good reviews I see of something, I always check the bad reviews to see just how bad something can get so that I don't get taken for a ride.

For instance, I checked the bad reviews of FFXII on GameFAQs before playing it. And guess what? For all of the good reviews that got lauded on the game, I felt that the few who cried foul were absolutely correct.

Here's the thing: I believe in this game, it has a neat concept going, it's got a ton of talent behind it, and the community is still small enough for me to have a substantial impact in its improvement if I stick around (especially because I'm a numbers guy, and if I can learn how to use them to do marketing, namely ads, I'd love to hop on board in that regard), and generally, I feel that once you get some experience, the game can be absolutely a blast to play. Like when playing Gowen Rush and then getting smacked by a Water Dragon Soul Skill...my opp and I were laughing about that and the fact that I hated his Dalos out of the environment pretty hard. (I still lost by one LP )

But if you think that my advertising of it will go a longer way than some backlash by some burned newbies, I'll gladly do that.

[exemplar]

Not everyone spends tons and tons of cash on this game. Forcing a divide between paying and non playing players simply means that free players who are on the fence about spending a small amount of cash on the shop will instead opt not to because putting a little bit in won't really give them a very large advantage over non-paying players.

[Demongod]

Exemplar, read a few posts down. I edited it to say we keep Folrart in, but give free players another arena to choose from where only free players can access, and give pay players another arena to choose from where only pay players can access.

So there would be three options after crest.

[exemplar]

The point of my post is that free players who were going to spend maybe 5 dollars total on the game would lose their privileges to the "free player arena" and would be thrown into the "paying player arena" when at best they will be able to modify their starter files by maybe 3 cards. Its not hard to imagine that rather than spend anything at all they'll choose to just keep their money and play in the free player arena.

[Visfarix]

I believe there is already a solution to this problem and it is called the RP arena.

Forgive me for being frank, but this is where people with RP below a certain value, because they generally suck, can hide away here among equally sucky people and learn more about the game to improve themselves. Then when they get above the set RP they will be kicked out because they obviously don't suck as much anymore and can go play with the boys and girls in Folrart.

Also you made Folrart lvl 15+ for all Iczers. Folrart is great because EVERYONE OF ALL LEVELS can play there. So you will see everyone from newbies, to people pretending to be newbies, to the giants of the game, to your average player. Anyone truly new to the game will probably be told or redirected to return to crest and/or the chat room so that they can learn the game.

Anyway I really don't want to talk about this anymore. This topic has been done to death and the only reason the RP arena hasn't been implemented is because the user base isn't big enough for another arena. At least that's what the GMs say. Either way we'll just have to wait.

[Otonashi]

Consider this. A free player does his MM every day, and participates in the free gran and point card events. He manages to get some particularly lucky pulls from the lotto, and manages to craft a file that's on par with those in the paid arena. He then proceeds to stomp all over the other free players in this new free arena. The points he's getting from this boosts his Rankings gran, which strengthens his file, so he proceeds to stomp over the other players... Rinse and repeat. What would you do about him?

[Demongod]

Hope we don't get such situations. That's the only thing we can do, really.

[luckysvn777]

Oh, there isn't any hope that that wouldn't happen. Believe me, it would. And therein lies the flaw of the free-player arena.

Once again, I mention my theory of the experience gap vs the card gap. If that's true, even a freebie only arena would have a select group of players stomping others. Just replace "paid cards" with "high level" and you have it.

[Peralisc2]

Hope we don't get such situations. That's the only thing we can do, really.

Very convincing. This lack of arguments will stop this idea from being implemented.

Someone that understands the difference, between a 5$ spender and a free player that's grinding for free to the point of having just as many cards or maybe even more (thus being able to do more), please explain it to me, because i can't figure out what makes those 2 different from one another. Both reached same level of strength ...


Let me try to suggest the addition of a difference between the 2 types i described above, so i and those that are like me and can't understand the difference can argue along with the rest in here.
What if tomorrow or the day after that or ... they would add 1 more arena, a voluntary one, that's for paying players only. That arena gives a higher XP boost and also a higher FM boost. How much higher isn't important, i just want you to imagine that arena.
Personally i would be interested to drop 5$ or whatever the minimum is to get into there, so i can get faster level ups and faster FM, even if it's just a slightly higher gain. The guys over there might be hardcore spenders, all of them, but if i get 1-2 nice combos together (with the cards i get) i know i could make that small investment more than worth it! I assume all those guys would be also very high leveled, which makes those xp gains so damn amazing, really more than just worth it!

This in a way or another is similar to the cash items/privilege/game-points items that you get in various free to play MMOs.
(might fix the potions while you are at it! so at least some players see some use for them)


And if i was in charge and would have to add an arena for free players only, i would add one with lesser gains in XP and FM. Probably not just slightly lesser gain. Why? Because a free arena where only free players can play is counterproductive for this game. If you don't think so then the thinking you invest(ed) does not help you to understand why; try harder.

Now after i created these imaginary arenas, i see no issues with them, since personally i would aim for the one that gives highest gain and would play lower gain arenas when i just don't feel like playing serious, maybe.

[Ginnazoh]

I feel that this is something that should be taken into consideration since we are talking about segregating paying players and free players:

Paying does not always mean success and wins.

You can ask laterus how much his set 1 box helped him, I believe he made a specific post about it nothing that he did not get any cards he could use to make a deck out of.

I also believe gota/geta has shown how spending money and buying box sets can lead to utter useless cards and even the Gms have been quoted as saying Geta/gota has the worst luck ever, that was how useful his cards were.

I just spent 30 dollars yesterday trying to pick up a few key cards I need to make decks, none of these cards I had in mind were above 3*. I actually just wanted 2 white lilly and 1 violet, as well as 3 mage knight and 3 folrart captain. So i wanted 3 3*s and 6 2*s. What did my purchase lead to? 1 white lilly, 2 mage knight and 1 folrart. I now have more singles and pairs of cards sitting in my card collection waiting for that lost triplet. But I know that I am getting closer to my goal of finally being able to play a wiz kingdom deck or command doll deck or captain deck...Of course I have purchased cards in the past so even though I did not get the cards I had in mind, I was able to complete play sets of other cards that I only had 2 or 1 of and I can try new things. But that is only because I have already spent already. if this was my first purchase, I would've been put under the category of spender and be forced to play with payers while not being able to create anything other than a modded starter still.
PS this is not a complain about my purchase, as it was what I was expecting when I made my purchase. it is simply a fact about any CGG, you need to get lucky and often you dont get lucky so you just have to try again.

I think the way that an RP arena should work should be a maximum cap but no minimum cap. So players with low RP can play with anyone they want. I know at least one player who has RP that are way below their skill level because they are intentionally aiming for low RP.