Bravery bonus and F2P/Premium

[theboatman]

Buying vs renting, look it up.

You can't buy intellectual property like a video game. No matter how you spin it, you never own the game; you own a license to play the game.

The big issue between the premium service and the vip service is that the two are not fungible. There are similarities between how the two operate, but the similarities are not parallel.

[Hokiewa]

That's the whole point of renting VS buying. You can chose to pay a large sum to get permant access or you can pay a msall sum to get temporary access.
One should not be excluded from certain aspects of the game just because the choice of buying or renting, because then it's not "buying or renting" any more.



No the cost is there, in TP. That's the whole point.


Again, I am just baffled.

You are not excluded from anything, you can make the effort you are just choosing not to.

Amazing.

[Aaxeyu]

Well, you can buy a service plan. In this case it is 95TP per quest you want to be able to open on Elite. I get it for my $9.99 a month. Two different plans, two different manners of accomplishing the same thing. It's like I am paying for a year of monthly oil changes and you are paying per quart of oil used and for the filter. I get a discount because I signed up for the whole year.

I think he was adressing the idea that VIPs should be getting things that premiums can't get.

Yeah you are correct about elite openings, but Turbine would be making more money if they sold elite opening at reasonable prices.

[Aaxeyu]

You can't buy intellectual property like a video game. No matter how you spin it, you never own the game; you own a license to play the game.

That is completely irrelevant. The "Buy VS rent" still stands as a perfectly good way to describe it.

[Truga]

I think he was adressing the idea that VIPs should be getting things that premiums can't get.

Yeah you are correct about elite openings, but Turbine would be making more money if they sold elite opening at reasonable prices.

$9.99/mo sounds pretty reasonable to me.

That said, I'm tired of work today, and going home to play so DDO. Have fun all!

Edit: I think 95 TP/10 elite unlocks is a fair price btw. I might buy one of those once in a while when farming favour. 95 for just one is just bad though.

[Aaxeyu]

You are not excluded from anything, you can make the effort you are just choosing not to.

Amazing.

If you go back and reread the post I quoted you will find that he wants premiums to be excluded ("It really is troublesome the idea that 'purchasing' rather than 'renting' entitles you to the same perks."), and I say that it's bad if premiums are excluded.
Now, if premiums are excluded or not is not relevant.

[theboatman]

dude, I'm having trouble keeping up with which side of the fence you're on from one page to the next... nvm.

As to the mechanic analogy, if the guy got his warranty as part of his initial purchase or monthly payment, then he deserves it. If I bring my car in to the dealer and buy a service plan outright, I should get the same maintenance.

Is my position that difficult to understand? I am a premium player. I acknowledge there are mechanics in game that allow access to the Bravery Bonus. I requested what I felt would be a reasonable compromise that would benefit indivual characters on a limited basis, that would also serve to be a valid source of tp sales. I am trying to defend the perks of the subscription model (that I feel works) from those complaining that someone elses grass is greener, but stating they dont want to work to make their grass any color but brown. My hope is that a suggestion such as mine or some of the others might be taken seriously by turbine, instead of them reading this thread and giving a blanket 'tough cinders, if you want elite open, subscribe.'

I just can't see how anyone can take the position that an elite unlock should be available on a server/account wide basis for a permanent amount of time seriously, while not being a subscriber.

[Aaxeyu]

Why is it that some premium dudes want all the perks of being premium (spending money whenever they want), without the cons of being premium (unable to open elites).

The con of being premium is that you have to pay a large sum instead of small sums.
Again, buying VS renting look it up. It's so simple.

[Aaxeyu]

I just can't see how anyone can take the position that an elite unlock should be available on a server/account wide basis for a permanent amount of time seriously, while not being a subscriber.

Why not?
It should all come down to pricing. If you can't see that you maybe should take off the "VIPs are the upper class" glasses.

[theboatman]

That is completely irrelevant. The "Buy VS rent" still stands as a perfectly good way to describe it.

Actually, if you were to read the second half of my post that you quoted, you would understand why the 'buy vs rent' methodology is a perfectly bad way to describe it.

[theboatman]

Why not?
It should all come down to pricing.

For the reasons I stated several pages ago in this thread.

In addition to tp/currency spent for tp, there is another currency in this game, time.
Selling permanent hard or elite unlocks at any cost is effectively selling tp generation multipliers.

As long as a player gets free tp's for generating favor, permanent unlocks are a poor idea.

[Aaxeyu]

For the reasons I stated several pages ago in this thread.

In addition to tp/currency spent for tp, there is another currency in this game, time.
Selling permanent hard or elite unlocks at any cost is effectively selling tp generation multipliers.

As long as a player gets free tp's for generating favor, permanent unlocks are a poor idea.

If TP farming is a problem then that should be a adressed seperatly.

[theboatman]

If TP farming is a problem then that should be a adressed seperatly.

I didn't read anywhere in my post that you quoted where I mentioned tp farming, so why are you bringing it up?

[Kwyjibo]

I think he was adressing the idea that VIPs should be getting things that premiums can't get.


"The "perk" of being a VIP is that you don't have to buy it."

No, point was that you stated that I don't have to buy anything, and I am suggesting that just because I choose to pay a subscription rather than buy as I need, it doesn't mean that I didn't buy/pay for something.

[Aaxeyu]

Actually, if you were to read the second half of my post that you quoted, you would understand why the 'buy vs rent' methodology is a perfectly bad way to describe it.

The big issue between the premium service and the vip service is that the two are not fungible. There are similarities between how the two operate, but the similarities are not parallel.

My point is that VIP vs premium shouldn't be like that. Right now the differences are small enough to call it renting VS buying. But if the differences gets bigger (IE VIP gets more exclusive things) then it's no longer renting VS buying.
I explained that here http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...03#post3985503

[Seikojin]

So as I understand it, it is impossible for F2P/Premium player to get the bravery bonus, unless a VIP unlocks hard/elite for them (or they buy a hard/elite unlock from the DDO store). I know there has to be benefits to VIP, but this seems more like a pretty massive penalty for f2p/premium. The amount of xp lost for doing Nx6/H/E vs Ex6/H/N with bravery bonus is nearly the equivalent of running the quest an additional 5 times with the way repeat penalties stack up (assuming those haven't changed)...snip...

You understand wrong. The 20% bonus applies if you are first time on the quest and on hard or elite. This can be done by a f2p with it already unlocked; something that is done all the time even now. So the 20% bonus is earnable by people who aren't vip. You just have to join a group doing hard or elite for the first time on said quest. Kinda like what people do now.

So again, nothign changes in the negative way, everyone except the opener gets a boost in exp. Just like it has always been!

[Aaxeyu]

I didn't read anywhere in my post that you quoted where I mentioned tp farming, so why are you bringing it up?

I assumed that was what you meant.
Are you saying that the TP you get from normal questing is favourable for premiums, and therefor it would be bad to allow them to unlock elite?

Well..

What they sell most of in quantity are Spirit Cakes, Major XP pots and x50 packs of Mod Heal pots. All items as viable to buy for VIPs as for Premiums. What they make most money on are 32 point builds, Major XP pots and +2 tomes. Same goes there.

Here is the list.

[BOgre]

If TP farming is a problem then that should be a adressed seperatly.

Roger that. Allowing F2P to unlock the game through favor/tp is one thing, but allowing the unlimited farming of tp through favor is probably a mistake. Dealing with the issue separately opens up the Bravery bonus to a host of other good solutions.

One solution is to give tp rewards to first time favor benchmarks only. That is, keep the 'Special Reward' Benchmark tp awards in place unchanged, but change the 'You gain 25 Turbine Points for each full 100 Favor gained by every character you ever make,' to 'You gain 25 Turbine Points for each full 100 Favor gained once per character slot per server.' This gives f2p the ability to accumulate enough tp to buy the game, preserves the VIP free TP perk, and prevents Premiums from paying once and favor farming forever after.

[Aaxeyu]

No, point was that you stated that I don't have to buy anything, and I am suggesting that just because I choose to pay a subscription rather than buy as I need, it doesn't mean that I didn't buy/pay for something.

What?

My point was that if you are VIP you don't have to buy the things that are included in the VIP package. Very simple.

[Mercules]

My point is that VIP vs premium shouldn't be like that.

I might have missed it, but your really haven't explained why you think that VIP and Premium should be the same except for the fact that one pays per month and one only buys what they desire but unlocks it "permanently". What support do you have for this argument that the different account types should be the same excluding how they choose to pay? Turbine doesn't seem to be of this belief and never has been.


My belief and support for why it might be different is that Turbine recognizes that VIP players are a steady source of income with micro-bursts of income while Premium are one shot micro-burst income and thus VIP need an incentive to stay VIP. This is a minor incentive that means Premium players might take slightly longer to level a character(that can be leveled to 20 in a month even on their 2nd TR).