Severlin says daily gold rolls "fiscally" Irresponsible

[Oxarhamar]

That statement demonstrates to me how out of touch they are with us, the consumer

If daily gold rolls hurts the bottom line so much you are missing a lot more pieces of the puzzle than you realize.

Respectfully,

Kyo

That was the terminology that was used but in context with the rest of what was said it sounded like it had much more to do with the amount of items that were accumulating from players rolling and the storage of those items

[Dandonk]

I have no real clue if what Severlin said is true. But I did get a few half-decent items from the rolls of the year. TR hearts (two, IIRC), a few tomes (didn't need, but hey), some XP pots (always good) and some slayer pots (also nice). So yeah, I'd probably at least have bought the pots.

So yeah, if the gold rolls need to go, they need to go. Fair enough. They said it was for the rest of the year, and so it was. Fine.

But having no more than a half-baked idea on what to do next is not nearly good enough. There's no fleshed out idea (what kind of rewards monthly are we talking about?), they're not even sure if it can work at all (so this sounds less like a firm plan than a 15 minute brainstorming session at the last moment), and there's certainly no timeline on when to expect it... if it comes at all.

Gold rolls gone? I can live with that. Having used nearly a year and still having no plan to go forward? That's not good enough.

[Sqrlmonger]

I've got news for Sev, a lot of us hoard our daily silver pots too, how is gold hoarding an issue and not silver? Threat of Dragon attack? /s

During the time I was VIP during daily gold rolls, I rolled gold jackpots significantly more often than I ever did with years of daily silver rolls. I have no way of proving it but my gut instincts say gold is skewed to have better rolls to encourage Astral Shard gambling. And that's not even taking into account that gold jackpots are mostly an order of magnitude better than silver jackpots... sunflask wins not withstanding, those just don't seem WAI on gold roll reward lists.

From my experience I get a silver jackpot once maybe twice a year, over the course of 3 months I got at least 3 gold jackpots per server. My theory is that this skew is why gold daily rolls were too good a reward for VIP. Now I don't know how many people gamble shards on gold rolls... but I suspect on HC its a compelling number. I choose not to gamble shards but I am aware I am in the minority. But how many people were saving the gold roll wins and choosing when to commit to a server transfer to consolidate those wins? I only had 3 months of daily gold rolls but because of the unusual number of gold jackpots I will eventually be spending to transfer a few characters to Thelanis to consolidate hearts/tomes/mounts/and cosmetics from those wins. Does the cost of transfer NOT factor into their profit seeking over daily gold rolls?

I ran this experiment earlier in the year so I don't agree that they are fudging it even though I never got the Nightmare Mount despite rolling quote a lot of rolls that were eligible for that prize.

Having said that I do agree that I'm skeptical of how this claim by Sev is being calculated. I am suspicious that they are assuming every store item that comes from daily gold rolls is something that would have been purchased, and under that premise I would not be even a little surprised at their result. I have doubts that they looked at purchase history to see that, for example, I had never purchased XP pots previously but actually did buy some sov pots late in the year. Or took into account that many players played a lot more of the game due to their sub and the daily need to log-in for gold rolls. Did they add in all the bigby's hands that I chucked onto a mule but have not and likely will not ever use? etc..etc..

When any company makes claims like this, it only makes me think they need to show their work. What was the universe of rolls that was considered? What was the criteria for inclusion or exclusion from the analysis? Did you look at past purchase patterns? Did you limit the analysis to at items that were actually consumed or did you count everything that was rolled? No one question by itself really gives the picture, we would need to understand the entire process used to produce the analysis. That is assuming the analysis is even more complicated than just adding up the $$$ value of all the store items won with Daily Gold Rolls and then pointing out that number is higher than the value of all the subs for the year.

Is it reasonable to expect them to show their work and be transparent about this? No, probably not. But then it's also not reasonable to take them at their word as stated. If there is one thing recent weeks in the RPG space should have taught everyone it is that company's will absolutely lie to your face in order to get what they want. Now this doesn't mean they all do it all the time, but it does mean taking them at their word is foolish. Oh and lets not forget Hanlon's Razor, which is to say they could be well intentioned in their analysis and still muck it up badly.

Either way, I don't take them at their word on this and will discount the claim entirely until actual evidence is offered to support its validity. Everyone else should do the same as well.

edit: PS - Just quickly adding that if they don't want to do another year of gold rolls that is fine, I'm not suggesting they have to - merely that this claim is not credible without evidence. BUT having the last several weeks of my VIP get no benefit from the benefits they will probably add in the middle of next month is pretty lame. So much for a "year of VIP benefits".

[Smelt32]

Ok if Sev reckons the daily gold Rolls were costing SSG money, I have no problem with them stopping. After all we all want the game to continue and the only people that have access to the data is SSG, so we can't really argue from any point of authority.

But, given the amount of people that have said they are going to or already have stopped their subs as a result of the loss it is also fiscally irresponsible not to replace the daily rolls with something else. The smart thing to do would be to replace it with something that cannot be bought from the store and therefore cannot have a negative fiscal impact. If only they could think of something like that. If only the players could come up with a suggestion or two! I mean, and forgive me for urinating in the wind here, but do you reckon players might value... say direct to quest teleports or no flagging for chains? Maybe something along those lines that no one has ever suggested before...

[Malveaux]

Ok if Sev reckons the daily gold Rolls were costing SSG money, I have no problem with them stopping. After all we all want the game to continue and the only people that have access to the data is SSG, so we can't really argue from any point of authority.

But, given the amount of people that have said they are going to or already have stopped their subs as a result of the loss it is also fiscally irresponsible not to replace the daily rolls with something else. The smart thing to do would be to replace it with something that cannot be bought from the store and therefore cannot have a negative fiscal impact. If only they could think of something like that. If only the players could come up with a suggestion or two! I mean, and forgive me for urinating in the wind here, but do you reckon players might value... say direct to quest teleports or no flagging for chains? Maybe something along those lines that no one has ever suggested before...

If I am going to give them any money it will be for xp purposes. Not stupid cosmetics, skipping flagging or teleports. I don't care about the store stuff from gold rolls.

[Memnir]

I'd posit that angering your steady subscribers to the point of many canceling said subscription is perhaps equal to/greater than levels of fiscal irresponsibility. Y'all offered daily golds as a way to stall for time. Y'all took it away with nothing to replace it with, after a year to come up with something to replace it with, and are still stalling for time. The carrot rotted to dust waiting for y'all to something. Anything. But... nothing remains the only thing y'all offer up time and again. I'm done waiting patiently. You had years' worth of chances - and just allowed each one to slip away. My patience is spent, so I'm not longer going to allow my money to be. Not here - not to SSG.


I'm not angry over the removal of the daily golds. I didn't cancel my long-held VIP subscription over it, either. It's the feeling of being overlooked and taken for granted that fueled both. And y'all show utterly zero signs of that changing in the next year. Or ever, given the track record of continued nothing.

[slarden]

The way I take that is any improvement to VIP would be less than the daily gold rolls since they found daily gold rolls fiscally irresponsible.

I appreciate SSG clearly answering the question of whether VIP will be worth paying for in the future. No, it will never be worth the cost - it's effectively a very expensive way to buy DDO points.

However, the bonus xp and character slots are only available to VIP and there will always be some percentage of the population that will pay for it even if they complain up a storm about the value being so bad. I used to be one of those people, but found I had a breaking point and no longer sub.

[ShotCaller]

Across the servers I have over a dozen heroic hearts and about the same number of iconic and epic combined. All sorts of tomes and 4 nightmare mounts, 2 on the same server though. There was far too much value for that to continue. Also, I haven't seen anyone post that they thought the current value of VIP was good only that daily rolls had to end.

I stopped at "Across the servers". I only play on one server, and unless you know something I don't about cross-server loot transfers, that's pretty much where the conversation ends.

What about the Hardcore server, you ask? That's an SSG invention. I never asked for it, and my total Hardcore play time amounts to zero. Hardcore could disappear forever and I wouldn't bat an eye.

[capsela]

The way I take that is any improvement to VIP would be less than the daily gold rolls since they found daily gold rolls fiscally irresponsible.

I appreciate SSG clearly answering the question of whether VIP will be worth paying for in the future. No, it will never be worth the cost - it's effectively a very expensive way to buy DDO points.

However, the bonus xp and character slots are only available to VIP and there will always be some percentage of the population that will pay for it even if they complain up a storm about the value being so bad. I used to be one of those people, but found I had a breaking point and no longer sub.

Excellent post.

[KoobTheProud]

The way I take that is any improvement to VIP would be less than the daily gold rolls since they found daily gold rolls fiscally irresponsible.

I appreciate SSG clearly answering the question of whether VIP will be worth paying for in the future. No, it will never be worth the cost - it's effectively a very expensive way to buy DDO points.

However, the bonus xp and character slots are only available to VIP and there will always be some percentage of the population that will pay for it even if they complain up a storm about the value being so bad. I used to be one of those people, but found I had a breaking point and no longer sub.

I really don't understand why people think VIP is not a good value at the moment. $8 a month gets you a permanent +10% XP pot running. It buys you 500DP. It gives you 6 more mule slots. It lets first life characters open instances on Elite. It makes public movement 10% faster. It allows for easy transfer between Eberron and Eveningstar. There's a lot of value in all of these things for the price of a Big Mac and fries.

I'm not VIP because I see the game moving away from me (again) and as in the other instances when this has occurred I have withdrawn VIP support. However that has little to do with the value of VIP and more to do with deciding that supporting the current directions that DDO is going is not in my best interests.

[capsela]

I really don't understand why people think VIP is not a good value at the moment. $8 a month gets you a permanent +10% XP pot running. It buys you 500DP. It gives you 6 more mule slots. It lets first life characters open instances on Elite. It makes public movement 10% faster. It allows for easy transfer between Eberron and Eveningstar. There's a lot of value in all of these things for the price of a Big Mac and fries.

I'm not VIP because I see the game moving away from me (again) and as in the other instances when this has occurred I have withdrawn VIP support. However that has little to do with the value of VIP and more to do with deciding that supporting the current directions that DDO is going is not in my best interests.

It's not $8, nice bluff enhancement.

[KoobTheProud]

It's not $8, nice bluff enhancement.

It's 12 months for $99. 99/12 = 8.25. So sue me for the quarter.

[Malveaux]

I really don't understand why people think VIP is not a good value at the moment. $8 a month gets you a permanent +10% XP pot running. It buys you 500DP. It gives you 6 more mule slots. It lets first life characters open instances on Elite. It makes public movement 10% faster. It allows for easy transfer between Eberron and Eveningstar. There's a lot of value in all of these things for the price of a Big Mac and fries.

I'm not VIP because I see the game moving away from me (again) and as in the other instances when this has occurred I have withdrawn VIP support. However that has little to do with the value of VIP and more to do with deciding that supporting the current directions that DDO is going is not in my best interests.

So for the account that owns everything. 10% xp and movement speed and 500dp. I don't use all the character slots as is. There is a lot of things I could spend my money on that is a better value than VIP or anything on a McD menu.

I think the reality is I have spent all I want to on this game. I won't spend anymore. I begrudgingly bought saltmarsh. And rarely run it. And I haven't bought IoD. Probably won't. So not buying the new mini either.

[Malveaux]

It's 12 months for $99. 99/12 = 8.25. So sue me for the quarter.

If paying a extra 20 bucks a year gets me out sooner. I would take that. My friends that pay yearly are not liking the position they are in by paying for a year of serfdom in advance.

[capsela]

It's 12 months for $99. 99/12 = 8.25. So sue me for the quarter.

If you wanted an honest comparison, you would take $100 convert it to DDO points which is 15750 points during double bonus point sale. 20,500 during triple bonus point sale. Yeah, I got triple points. Are you jelly? I miss Turbine so much, ddo-bros. RIP Turbine we miss you and love you so much and will never forget what you did for us. o7

[CSQ]

The biggest problem with this is assuming that gold rolls "displace" spending but that's an assumption that doesn't bear out my personal experience.

1. Having daily gold dice has me in the game playing more often, which means I'm more likely (though obviously not guaranteed) to be tempted by sales or other opportunities to spend money.
2. Having daily gold dice has encouraged VIP memberships, even though VIP offers relatively few things for people with all the content, like, say, someone like me who has purchased every expansion and used the code for all the adventure packs. I could buy all the adventure packs I don't own either with VIP points left over from my membership or for points equivalent to a one year sub. Since it looks like the roadmap this year is one adventure pack and one mini-expansion, probably going to be cheaper to skip VIP and buy the adventure pack if that's how the math breaks down. If I had an incentive to make that worthwhile, that would tip my decision... and I'd still probably buy the mini-expansion anyway.
3. Most importantly, and deeply misleading, ***DROPS FROM GOLD ROLLS ARE NOT DISCOURAGING SPENDING***. Okay, that's not necessarily 100% true, maybe I'd get a cake or cosmetic or something that I might have purchased otherwise, maybe I get a tome, but since my main already has every tome and I can just farm for them, I'm not going to buy tomes for alts I barely play, and if the logic is that gold rolls are "fiscally" irresponsible so too is having tomes in drop tables. I don't really buy cakes- not only do I have a cursed blade on my main, but I die so rarely I'm not buying those at any meaningful rate- but having them even if I don't use them feels nice, an assurance that I can mess around and not lose all my progress because of one spicy trap. But I don't buy them, if I have them I use them, if I don't I just rage quit and cool off (I'm man enough to admit it). I don't see what sales this prevents. Is it the experience boosts? I run experience elixirs all the time, even though I don't get nearly as many from daily dice as I burn, because I have so many from other sources like expansion bonuses that I literally will never run out. Is it experience clickies? I don't think less than 5k average experience per day is going to harm box sales (and in fact I have literally burned boxes back to back by stockpiling daily clickies so at least anecdotally it enables whales to whale harder). I don't see any reason to see why that's going to actually hurt sales.
4. The hundreds of those stupid guiding hands I get from daily dice were never going to be purchased from the store. The potions of level 20 haste, I'm sorry to break your heart, just go to the vendor. All those consumables? I keep the bells, the XP/Slayer counts, etc, those are useful. MRR/PRR and all the other marginal potions have sold so much shared bank space because "Well I don't need it *now* but..." The dice roll tables are full of so much garbage that even if you say "Well, if someone gets a +8 tome, we might lose a sale..." well that's what, 1/1000 odds? 1/500 odds? How many of those tomes even get used and not just crunched down or stashed forever? I have a feeling that a lot of the lost sales attributed to Daily Dice are actually junk no one would (or should) buy.
5. How many people actually leveraged daily dice out of the pool of VIPs? I know I got maybe two to three logins a week on average, which is only about twice or thrice of the existing benefit. If gold rolls are such a fiscal disaster, surely 1/2 of the disaster is still a problem, right?
6. Goodwill lost is hard to earn back. VIPs were told that daily gold rolls were a form of compensation for the access to adventure packs and other things being made "free" for a time (which TBH I think should just be a permanent change, it's so much easier to recommend DDO when people can actually play with you through the best quests in the game (outside of expansions) instead of having to cherry pick often obsolete and lower quality content.) However, there were conversations that something else would be made available in its place... but no one knows what it will be, when it will arrive, etc. WotC learned this lesson the hard way and ended up making some pretty devastating compromises trying to repair burnt bridges. I don't think SSG can make the same kinds and quality of compromises to VIPs to mend the feeling of lost benefits equivalent to a library full of adventures. If the explanation was "Well, we wanted to make sure everyone currently subbed felt fine with the change in benefits and so we extended this to cover any running subscriptions" that would be one way... but that's not going to retain those people who saw daily dice as the thing making the VIP worthwhile.

So here's my suggestion for VIP bonuses: If daily dice, one thing that worked well as an incentive, doesn't work anymore, you need to do something that excites the playerbase. I can think of a few things- more robust inclusion of premium classes, iconics, and races from expansions; buffing the experience bonus for VIP or adding a "party" bonus for VIP players (bonus points if it applies to the party so that you can share it with unsubscribed newbies); stop the TR experience scaling that makes heroics a slog (okay maybe that's just me grinding an axe but I would stay VIP 100% of the time for that benefit); really, there are any number of things, and while admittedly I don't know the feasibility of particular things on the codebase side or possible implications I haven't considered (obviously "VIP only" parties would be bad, so maybe a party VIP bonus shouldn't stack, as an example) but like please give something. The value loss is still here. I literally have access to almost all the content. Right now, if I unsubscribe, I only lose out on basically a 10% experience boost and some store points that I rarely spend anyway. It's hard to justify that at $100 per year when I could spend that $100 on a bonus points sale, buy any adventure packs that release in the year and a box or two to boot. The value is so low at the moment that the piecemeal rate is only less tenable because of the exclusivity of the experience bonus but even that's so marginal that I have a hard time justifying it.

[MaximumCharisma]

The way I take that is any improvement to VIP would be less than the daily gold rolls since they found daily gold rolls fiscally irresponsible.

I appreciate SSG clearly answering the question of whether VIP will be worth paying for in the future. No, it will never be worth the cost - it's effectively a very expensive way to buy DDO points.

However, the bonus xp and character slots are only available to VIP and there will always be some percentage of the population that will pay for it even if they complain up a storm about the value being so bad. I used to be one of those people, but found I had a breaking point and no longer sub.

I am one of those players who sees value in VIP. But I feel like it hits only veterans who just dont care that they waste $8/month on a sub because 10% exp means nothing to a 3x completionist with tons of reaper points and mounts move really fast.

Or the few returning players like myself who just rent the game for awhile so they dont have to see the red chalices and ddo store icons everywhere.

Gold rolls daily seems like too much value to me.

I will say though that after returning from a 4 year break, game is fun albiet way different and lag is way way better.

Gimmie 10 Astral shards per daily login and call it good for vip as far as im concerned.

[Martininice]

I am one of those players who sees value in VIP. But I feel like it hits only veterans who just dont care that they waste $8/month on a sub because 10% exp means nothing to a 3x completionist with tons of reaper points and mounts move really fast.

Or the few returning players like myself who just rent the game for awhile so they dont have to see the red chalices and ddo store icons everywhere.

Gold rolls daily seems like too much value to me.

I will say though that after returning from a 4 year break, game is fun albiet way different and lag is way way better.

Gimmie 10 Astral shards per daily login and call it good for vip as far as im concerned.

you think 10 AS are worth less than the gold roll item? That seems peculiar.

[Bagel99]

I have always wondered what DDO's bottom line was as a player. To me if you have about a dozen staff or so (guessing here) and they all make X amount of money a year then payroll is easy to figure out. You have thousands of players buying expansions, hundreds of them the collectors edition money sink. You have ddo store points and then all the Daily dice rolls and shards etc etc. Server upkeep etc. They can't have taken a huge hit from rolls, but they may take a huge hit from their blatant disregard to people's opinions of item value.

1. Rolls are gambling ... plain and simple. Honestly idk that it fits thematically and is another cash grab that for some can become addicting. I think rolls shouldnt exist being honest.
2. DDO points cant be bought to exact value and cost you money either way, whether you buy more or less than you need you will always have some you cant use. Intentionally meant to be that way too.
3. VIP value can change with time, same as a new car each year may have slightly new features.

As to my feelings on this game i love it, wish it was able to be tweaked and i think right now the lack of connection between player desire/direction and the Dev team is at an all-time high. Forums are a concentrated bunch but still. Criticism is still passion whether its positive or negative. and passion for DDO is something i like to see.

[Martininice]

I stopped at "Across the servers". I only play on one server, and unless you know something I don't about cross-server loot transfers, that's pretty much where the conversation ends.

What about the Hardcore server, you ask? That's an SSG invention. I never asked for it, and my total Hardcore play time amounts to zero. Hardcore could disappear forever and I wouldn't bat an eye.

not to forget hearts are almost useless to most people who played a bit longer - we are stuffed with tokens and seeds. Same goes for tomes, most dedicated players won't even bother to roll in raids cause they are at max on all stats. Potions from rolls are a nice addition for alts, people concerned about xp still buy the best ones from store. All in all, SSG does not seem to measure the few bucks they lose against a) losing steady cashflow from subs cause people are just tired of this nonsense b) losing goodwill of their players in general. Personally, I am not starting some grandiose I quit or unsub thread, but I in recent weeks I logged in, watched lfms for about 5 minutes, and then thought "nah, screw that", jumped into some other game where you form a group in 10 seconds for any content - I played about 2 hours every day and much longer on weekends. Guess that is what you call "quite quitting" these days. All gaming companies want your money, but I rarely feel like being reduced to some number in an .xls file like I do when dealing with SSG. And I am getting tired of it.