How do we feel about having (limited) ways to earn embers in-game?

I'm going with embers because that appears to be the cosmetic store "premium currency" that Intrepid use, please correct me if I'm wrong on that.

I definitely don't think there should be any way to grind indefinite embers, but I think it would be cool to have some kind of monthly event or community challenge that would reward players with a small amount of cosmetic store credit - enough to buy a cosmetic you like every now and then without having to pay beyond the subscription.

I'm envisioning something like if Ashes players collectively do 20 million lizard murders then anyone who murdered a lizard that month gets some embers. Or, a monthly special event dungeon rotation that you can play a few times to reach the cap for that month.

Do you think players should be able to eventually earn shop cosmetics through playing the game, or should they remain a paid premium offering? What other methods might work for acquiring shop cosmetics aside from outright purchasing them?

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Comments

Noaani

Not a fan.

Having ways to earn cosmetics in game is great.

If that is in place, there is no need to have a way to earn bought cosmetics in game.

If Intrepid want to give away some embers, there are better ways to do it. If you put it in game, many people will rely on ONLY getting them in game, meaning they won't buy embers.

The point of the cash shop is a revenue stream for Intrepid, not a means of distributing cosmetics to players.

JustVine

Maybe later in the games life span of the game. But not now. You do that sort of thing for player retention after you've already recouped a lot of your losses financing the game. Not on release (unless you are a big company I guess. But even then I would think it an unnecessary move.)

Schwann36

I can see an appeal but also don't think it's needed or would work well.
As said above, it's revenue, and negating that isn't good from a marketing perspective.

I also foresee the shop being a few set cosmetic things but otherwise still having a FOMO rotation aspect similar to what we've become accustomed to (perhaps with models being prepped for future content).
This means that the earning process becomes very frustrating as you try to earn in game before a cosmetic disappears from the shop.

Ultimately it seems like a punishment to casual players, hard to balance, and sub-optimal for Intrepid.

There are only two ways I would like to see non-cash embers earnt:
- Referral Program (Which is already active)
- Bug Reporting Rewards

AntVictus

No.

F4RCE

Noaani wrote: »

Not a fan.
The point of the cash shop is a revenue stream for Intrepid, not a means of distributing cosmetics to players.

Schwann36 wrote: »

As said above, it's revenue, and negating that isn't good from a marketing perspective.

I'm not convince this would reduce revenue - and may serve to increase it. After all, if you want to participate in a monthly event you have to pay the subscription fee that month. Player retention is going to provide a far more important revenue stream for Intrepid than the cash store.

Noaani wrote: »

If Intrepid want to give away some embers, there are better ways to do it. If you put it in game, many people will rely on ONLY getting them in game, meaning they won't buy embers.

Schwann36 wrote: »

Ultimately it seems like a punishment to casual players, hard to balance, and sub-optimal for Intrepid.

I want to reiterate that I had in mind a system that provides the ability to get a small, set amount of embers each month just for participation. It's absolutely not something that players should be able to grind. If you want a particular cosmetic that's around for that month only you might still have to spend some money on it, which is okay. I was seeing it as a fairly poor way to acquire cosmetics, and more so as another lever Intrepid could pull to improve community engagement in some particular piece of the game or the game as a whole. Does all that make it seem more reasonable?

Noaani

F4RCE wrote: »

I'm not convince this would reduce revenue - and may serve to increase it. After all, if you want to participate in a monthly event you have to pay the subscription fee that month. Player retention is going to provide a far more important revenue stream for Intrepid than the cash store.

If a system like this will retain players, it is even more of a reason to not have it.

Players should want to stay in the game to play the game, not to participate in some monthly event. If a monthly event is all that is keeping them in game, they are better off not playing the game, and the game is probably better off not having them play the game.

The community here has already very loudly rejected any notion of daily, weekly or monthly tasks or reward scheme. They make players feel as if they are trapped, tied to the game, and will fall behind if they don't log in to the game every day (or week, or month).

Players should only log in to an MMO because they want to play that MMO. If they don't particularly want to play that MMO, there should be no incentive for them to log in.

As such, Intrepid shouldn't be giving artificial reasons for players to log in like this, but rather should be focusing on making a game that players want to log in to play.

That is how a good game and good developer goes about player retention.

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