Dear Devs; Implement a VIP function and watch profits soar.

Linkster79

Arondite wrote:

It does separate completely F2P players from anyone who has spent anuthing,

Unless they are separated in the battlefield it will just continue to be the rich (pay players) vs the poor (free players) and the gap will widen until the free players get hacked off and leave. Also new players will see the VIP option and almost immediately be aware that they need to invest money or never have a chance of catching up.

Arondite wrote:

And no, frankly, I cant see why it's a horrible idea, as it clearly is not. The only people who "lose" in this system are those cant or won't spend anything at all.

Roughly around 2.2% of all players who play freemium games actually make any purchases, you really want a company to risk alienating 97.8% of their users by putting up a pay wall immediately? They key to freemium is to give the illusion that being a free player you need to invest time and not money in order to be competitive.

Right now MPQ does this fairly well but is near the tipping point to outright pay to win. A VIP system would push it over that edge. The free players would leave en masse and ratings on the stores would plumet, and there would be far fewer new players.

PeterGibbons316

I've played another F2P game that had something similar. You use in-game currency (HP in this case) to pay for a VIP account for some set amount of time (discounted if you buy longer time in bulk up front). If you have a VIP account you earn 50% more [in game reward] - likely ISO in this case, but I could see slightly increased draw rates being feasible for this game as well.

It doesn't necessarily give you a direct advantage over other players, but does help to speed up you progression. I would support this and would pay $100/year or $10/month for this type of subscription.

Mawtful

Linkster79 wrote:

Right now MPQ does this fairly well but is near the tipping point to outright pay to win. A VIP system would push it over that edge. The free players would leave en masse and ratings on the stores would plumet, and there would be far fewer new players.

So the players who are a drain on capacity and resources would leave and the players who are providing an income would remain? Those new players that join would either be converted into paying customers early or leave, so there's a faster turnaround on turning a new player into a new revenue stream.

I mean, it just seems like you've outlined exactly what D3/Demiurge want out of players.

Linkster79

Mawtful wrote:

Linkster79 wrote:

Right now MPQ does this fairly well but is near the tipping point to outright pay to win. A VIP system would push it over that edge. The free players would leave en masse and ratings on the stores would plumet, and there would be far fewer new players.

So the players who are a drain on capacity and resources would leave and the players who are providing an income would remain? Those new players that join would either be converted into paying customers early or leave, so there's a faster turnaround on turning a new player into a new revenue stream.

I mean, it just seems like you've outlined exactly what D3/Demiurge want out of players.

To an extent I agree, no one wants free loaders being a drain on resources but for a game and its developer/publisher to really succeed they need publicity and good publicity and not from main stream media, but from everyday users. Imagine you are browsing the app store and you like the look of a game based on its icon and a few pictures. You're probably thinking this looks alright, 50,000 downloads but only 2 out of 5 stars? Something must be wrong with it for so many people to down rate it.

PeterGibbons316

Linkster79 wrote:

Mawtful wrote:

Linkster79 wrote:

Right now MPQ does this fairly well but is near the tipping point to outright pay to win. A VIP system would push it over that edge. The free players would leave en masse and ratings on the stores would plumet, and there would be far fewer new players.

So the players who are a drain on capacity and resources would leave and the players who are providing an income would remain? Those new players that join would either be converted into paying customers early or leave, so there's a faster turnaround on turning a new player into a new revenue stream.

I mean, it just seems like you've outlined exactly what D3/Demiurge want out of players.

To an extent I agree, no one wants free loaders being a drain on resources but for a game and its developer/publisher to really succeed they need publicity and good publicity and not from main stream media, but from everyday users. Imagine you are browsing the app store and you like the look of a game based on its icon and a few pictures. You're probably thinking this looks alright, 50,000 downloads but only 2 out of 5 stars? Something must be wrong with it for so many people to down rate it.

You guys don't understand the F2P model. Those free players are crucial to the success of the game, and MPQ could not afford to lose them all.

In fact, if that is what they wanted then they would just make the game a subscription only and call it a day. It's free because the larger player base is healthy for the game and encourages more spending in total.

Arondite

I think the problem here is so many of you are under the impression that I just came up with the idea or that it's untested.

This is a tried and true program that has found its home in a plethora of F2P games. None of them "lost all their free players" like you guys seem to dread.

ClydeFrog76

GurlBYE wrote:

The player who spent 50K or whatever he has spent at this point is at the top of any bracket he enters, and has characters leveled so high now that you can only sit back and look unless you fully cover all 5 stars, fully iso them and then grab 30 more of their covers, along with at least 22 of every single 3 star in existence, and 30 or so of each 4 star, and this is what, days after championing has been made available.

I checked his roster yesterday for a laugh and couldn't believe my eyes. I tried to do the maths of how much he'd spent since championing debuted based on how many characters were above their usual cap but then I got a headache and ate some chocolate instead.

Suffice to say, it be cray.

Xenoberyll

dider152 wrote:

Will this feature be retroactive, that is taking into consideration the amount of money that had been put into the game previously?

You mean, like they would be generous all of a sudden?

Blahahah

As a secret whale, this is fine to me.

As a player in general, if it has a cap why not? As long as the bonuses don't get too out of hand, I don't see any issue.
If it caps at $100 and provides say a 50% gain in iso and like a 10% gain in HP or something, and the player spending $2 gets an equal share into that number (say... you get the 1% gain every $2), and exists entirely passive from the rest of the game?

Then yeah, there isn't much problem with it. At the end of the day, everyone caps out eventually. Some faster than others, but over the course of a year I can't see why anyone wouldn't have at least some benefit from this as it would probably be hp they would buy anyways, and some people who normally wouldn't might consider doing so to take those extra steps towards their goal.

Its essentially like leveling a character up 2 levels instead of waiting for 5 levels. You won't have as much net gain as the guy who pulled in 5 levels, and by all means eventually you'll gain 5 levels, but you invest in 2 levels for the benefit of being partially as powerful as the other guy, knowing that eventually you will have reached that 5 level mark.

Spider2013

i'm eager to see those 20 iso turn into 22 iso.

Dayv

Punisher5784 wrote:

I originally 'Thumbs Up' the OP's idea but after reading the other player's comments and looking into VIP in other games.. wish I could take back my thumbs up.

You can. Click on the number of upvotes for the post and you will see the list of feedback. There's a little recycle bin icon you can click to remove your upvote.

Dragon_Nexus

Arondite wrote:

How does it help the small more than the large? As is, a small spender gets a small portion of the benefits of a larger spender. Let's take a player who spends 20 dollars a month vs a player who spends 100 dollars once a week.

The player who spends 20 dollars currently receives 3.625% of the benefits the big spender receives (2,900 HP VS 80,000 HP over the course of a month).

With a VIP System, this wouldn't be the case - the larger spender would still reap much more in His HP purchases, but both would eventually reach max VIP rank, and whoever plays better/harder/more consistently would get far more mileage out of their VIP rank.

And no, frankly, I cant see why it's a horrible idea, as it clearly is not. The only people who "lose" in this system are those cant or won't spend anything at all.

Simple.
The big spender hits VIP status first by a huge distance.
The small spender gets there *eventually* and ends up with how ever many months of the larger spender accellerating ahead of him in ISO boosts.

Say the top VIP reward is 100% ISO. Let's just say there's only one reward for ease of demonstration.
Large spender gets there in a month. So from Feb to Dec he has 100% more ISO. So if he earned, again for example, 20k ISO a month, he got 20k in Jan and then 40k every month after for a grand total of 460,000
Small spender takes the whole year to hit the VIP status and puts in equal work. He's getting 20k a month all year for a grand total of 240k. Oh, but from now on he'll earn the same as the big spender. Who's already ahead of him.

So if your point is "We'll all even out eventually" I have to ask, why create a staggered race to the finish at all? Why not just keep it where it is already equal?

The only thing this system will do is make people feel forced into spending money to get the full rate. "Sure, you could play for free, but you're only getting a fraction of what you should get."

Unknown

Yes, this works in other games.

As long as the balancing is right it can work here.

Set it up in such a way that a small investment earns a nice recurring reward, but that bigger investments offer diminishing returns on that amplification. I think a lot of people would be happy to sign up for a $3-$4 or £2-£3 (or whatever your local currency is) sort of invetment to join in with a 10%-20% amplifying scheme, but to stop mega whales running away with the whole competitive meta increasingly bigger jumps in investment should offer increasingly smaller jumps in reward maybe capping at 50%-66%.

SirLanik

This suggestion does not help players or developers. You've described a short sighted plan to milk a small amount of players for money and create a whole eschelon of players with a huge gap between them and normal players, thereby ensuring that you cannot successfully compete without spending money. A system like this would drive away a very considerable amount of the player base.

Blergh

Nothing puts me off a game faster than a VIP system. Only games I've seen them in are those dodgy web-browser ones based on anime. But icky.

Arondite

SirLanik wrote:

This suggestion does not help players or developers. You've described a short sighted plan to milk a small amount of players for money and create a whole eschelon of players with a huge gap between them and normal players, thereby ensuring that you cannot successfully compete without spending money. A system like this would drive away a very considerable amount of the player base.

Doubtful.

Unknown

Blergh wrote:

Nothing puts me off a game faster than a VIP system. Only games I've seen them in are those dodgy web-browser ones based on anime. But icky.

You've not played Marvel Freedom Fight then?

Blergh

[/quote]

You've not played Marvel Freedom Fight then?[/quote]

I played it ages ago, back when the level grinding was limited to so many attempts a day. Think the hulk-bustery character had just been released....? Not sure I even saw the VIP thingy. Wasn't my kind of thing, remember it being random screen mashing. The app has been deleted.

Unknown

Blergh wrote:

You've not played Marvel Freedom Fight then?

I played it ages ago, back when the level grinding was limited to so many attempts a day. Think the hulk-bustery character had just been released....? Not sure I even saw the VIP thingy. Wasn't my kind of thing, remember it being random screen mashing. The app has been deleted.

It took me a while to warm up to it. The gameplay doesn't overly enthuse me, but the progression is steadier than MPQ. It has an auto-play function for levels you've already cleared that allows you to do other stuff while level grinding (something that would be brilliant for the Deadpool Daily Quest here). Didn't notice the VIP feature until I put some money down and suddenly was a rank 1 VIP. Best thing about VIP in Future Fight is that you get some of the daily rewards every 23 hours instead of 24 so they don't gradually get later and later in the day. MPQ has a fixed day start so the same feature can't really be translated.

Also apologies, I got the name of the game wrong but you knew what I was talking about so it proves only the initials matter.

Blergh

Think the auto-play was one of the things that put me off it actually. I pick up a game when I'm bored. I want something a little fun, challenging (well to some degree), and engaging. It's meant to be played, if it plays itself its none of those things. I'm almost surplus to requirements. What's the point?

Don't care much about progression. It's not as if you're collecting anything meaningful or real. None of it is actually yours anyway, all your really progressing to is carpel tunnel.