Pay To Win

DeletedUser396

Guest
Innogames,

I realize that this topic has been covered in its own way, but I am going to highlight one key aspect. Most of us do not like how the game is pay to win, but we also know that Innogames needs to make money.

This is my take on the situation....
A game like League of Legends makes tons of many, and it also is not a pay to win game. Throughout the game you can level up and win in the same way as someone spending money on the game. This is because they make their money on GRAPHICS. I feel that Innogames could very easily do the same thing!! Instead of making all of your money by allowing people for an easier time of winning the game, just make some graphics that people are willing to pay for in game.

Example:
Make the on map villages look awesome with different midevil looks and stages for the 5 different level up graphics. This would get a lot of peoples attention on the map and really make everyone who doesn't have a "skin" want one. Just call them "skins" or whatever you prefer. You could expand to your hearts desire with these skins with each one being unique and very awesome looking. The coolest ones (maybe with parts that even move!) can be $$$$$, while the more basic ones could be $$. This is just how I feel as you probably won't do this, but atleast I told you my opinion:).

Lets hear what more people think about it below!
 

DeletedUser1612

Guest
Charging for personalization features is always good, and I guess visual improvements would be similar, but it is hard to get a good revenue stream that way.

I actually don't object to the "pay2win" concept, in basic principle, because free to play game companies are not going to be able to succeed if those who pay money don't get a competitive advantage over those who do not. The devil is in the details, however, and I hate how many games do it.

Most games try to find levers to milk players out of the maximum amount of money possible. There are people in this world who somehow feel they can justify dropping $500 a month on a video game -- even though 5 years ago they might have complained about spending $70 to buy a console game off the shelf at Game Stop. If you look at Clash of Clans, which has a massive in-app purchase revenue stream, it is impossible to get a complete base without spending thousands of dollars -- and in the game they make it easy to find the players who have done that, and admire their bases. I strongly feel that this alienates players who want to play seriously at reasonable costs, and there is a potentially much larger revenue stream associated with them.

I am willing to pay money for a game that I enjoy playing, but I have 2 things I want:
1. the money I spend has to be reasonable -- $5/month is what I would expect for a subscription-based service, but I might go up to $10-20/month if I am really into it
2. I need to be able to be competitive at that level, if I am skilled and commit the necessary amount of gameplay hours

The free to play game on which I have spent the most money is , because they had it exactly right. To be seriously competitive, you *had* to buy ministers on a weekly or monthly basis, which amounted to about $5/month equivalent of the in-game currency. Past that, there was ample opportunity to buy 'artifacts' to get gameplay advantage, but use of them was throttled, and experienced players only needed them in certain situations. So most players were spending more than $5/month, but if you had any skill then spending $100/month was unnecessary to be at the top of the game (you could still do that if you wanted to, of course, and potentially make up for having less play time).
 

DeletedUser1614

Guest
The advantage "instant build" has on the players that afford to use it it's huge. makes the game unballanced and a clear "pay to win". instant trade, i'm ok with, reduced cost of the buildings also. i can farm more reources than i can spend right now tbh. a less active player can balance this by buying upgrades at a lower price(IG resources). i even consider unlocking some research to be fair. all this considerations are made in the ideea that it doen't unballance the game and i can get there aswell, maybe later a bit but nevertheless I CAN STILL BE COMPETITIVE. instant build creates a gap which F2P users will NEVER recover due to the "snowball effect". i'm not going to state my experience in tw here but it's measured in years of gameplay and based on that i can affirm with a high probability that TW2 will sink into the ocean of F2P games outhere and will be just a memory of TW1 when this game was about time/timing, strategy, frindship and honour. i understand that Innogames wants money, every company does, that's why it's called a business but you will be left with less than 100 players that donate heavy at the start of the server, gain a huge gap from the rest 99%-at this point the majority will realize it's a lost battle and will abandon the race. servers will get empty very fast and with few exceptions(fast building of the wall for example) there will be no reason to pay anymore because it will become VERY expensive and unnecessary to do so. maybe i'm missing something in the beta now about this mechanic and many others but i rest my case.
things can be done so much more elegant and with the same outcome and keeping your playerbase. Innogames once made a great game for MEN! act like it and don't turn into greedy b!tches!
 

DeletedUser1018

Guest
I could write an essay here, but I'll just share this video. While it doesn't dwelve into the balancing aspects, I encourage all of you, especially InnoGames employees, to watch said video, it describes the reason and problems with this kind of payment model.

TL;DW: TW2 and german based browsergames in general rely on a small fraction of players who pay insane amounts of money called "whales", meaning average joes are merely "content" for those whales which is why the game is a lot less fun and small payments are unrewarding for people looking to spend just a little money.
 

DeletedUser1379

Guest
Ah you also have to take into account one thing money doesn't get you experience yes it helps you get to places faster. But if your not good at being able to counter an experienced player on how to build the right things at the right time or have the right troops in your villages. Money to build now doesn't equate to an experienced player who does things right and doesn't pay money to do it
 

DeletedUser992

Guest
The game doesn't actually limit spending money to bad players, arguing a good player who doesn't spend money can beat a bad player who does whilst it may be factually correct has little relevance, 50% of players are actually better than average, even if you limit it to players that login in a few times per day that means there are hundreds of players that wouldn't be considered bad.

Most of the payable items give about a 10% advantage in one area which is manageable, for someone willing to spend enough I'd say the building speed up roughly double his advantage, basically meaning you would struggle to beat a player even if you are twice as good as him if he is willing to spend enough. I would expect that if you took any of the top 100 players and gave them $1000 worth of crowns at the start they would beat the top non paying player and there were players in Evony spending that much. Take out the build speedup but leave everything else in and I doubt the 100th placed player could beat a top 20 non paying player and certainly not a top 10.
 

DeletedUser940

Guest
I would like to say I have never paid to play tribalwars. and i have never had a problem beating out the other players who pay to win. The things you can buy in this game dont give another player a huge advantage. buying to speed up making a building helps a person but you have to dump alot of money into it to make it give you a huge advantage and even then there is no instant troop maker. There is a 10% attack boost which a person could buy but 10% isnt to horribly much. overall i thought the pay to win in tribal wars was more of a pay to have a slight advantage. I have never seen anyone dump tons and tons of money into this game to exploit the features you can buy into. and unlike tribalwars 1, there doesn't seem to be a premium account so tribalwars2 seems to put everyone on a more level playing field.
 

DeletedUser1617

Guest
More advantage for players is that they can (will) sit each others account and play more players at one account. Besides that there may be some who pay and work and do not have that much time to be able to make bigger advantage out of it. This game mostly pays off for players who spend a lot of time looting barbarians and the inactives.
 

DeletedUser1612

Guest
The video that iMaple linked is awesome, and not only because it agrees with and confirms pretty much all of my longstanding opinions on the subject... hey, confirmation bias is like that. :)

It's the reason I could never actually spend money on Clash of Clans. $20 basically felt like it gave me nothing compared to the $5000 bases all over the Champion league. So what was ever the point?

I also agree with the point that people need to be prepared for a significant difference between paying *nothing* and paying a modest amount. If a game can get a large number of $5/month players, it is actually *okay* if the $0/month players find they can't compete with them. A company needs to make money, and can easily invest millions in development and infrastructure costs for a good game.
 

DeletedUser1653

Guest
I thought the Premium Account model in the old TW made a lot of sense. It allowed you to play more efficiently . You could have a higher building queue, so you didn't have to log on as often. You could farm other villages with one or two clicks instead of 5-7. You could see a bigger area of the map. There were more links to quickly get you where you needed to go, such as your headquarters, barracks, etc. You could publish more reports, get a bigger notebook, and so on. These things allowed you to play more efficiently but they didn't give you a direct advantage in the game, such as completing buildings faster or increasing the strength of your army.

That model makes a lot of sense. It levels the playing field between players who have a ton of time but little or no money and players who have jobs and can afford to spend a moderate amount of money but aren't able to dedicate the batter part of their day to game play.

I'm a contractor in a tight labor market. When I work, I spring for the premium account. In between contracts, I cut back on my expenses and only play the free version.

I like many things about TW2. However, if innoGames doesn't move back to that kind of business model, I will not continue to play the game.
 

DeletedUser1117

Guest
This building instant construction should be limited to a certain amount of reduced minutes per day, amount that could be based on some things like the player's points, the game age and so on.
Yet, it's just an incredible and unlimited cheat for money. I got in my team a few player, quite experienced who also spend money and the difference is HUGE.

Reducing the time is FINE, like increasing the resources generated by a building for a week is FINE, but only because there is a limit, you cannot increase more than 20% at the time in the same village the production. There is no limit about building time reduction and that's what is wrong with it.
 

DeletedUser1787

Guest
On teh off chance someone form Innogames is reading, I'm a potential whale. At my income level, spending £100 or so a month on something I enjoy is no big deal. And I have no issue at all with boosted resources, etc. Today I pressed 'Instant Build' on HQ 15 and 16. I feel dirty. I feel like I cheated, and I probably will continue to feel like this for the rest of this world. Yes, I have experience, yes I have to build troops, but the 12 hours or so I saved today on HQ building is going to reflect massively down the line. My guess is, the way my gut is feeling right now, I won't be playing long-term. The Instant Build feature is an utter turn-off - even if I don't use it, my enemies might.
 

DeletedUser894

Guest
Thanks for giving another view point. Basically you are saying that while revenue may be gained from you short term, long term it may well cause you to leave thus removing the funds you have generated. Interesting that you say it makes you feel *dirty*.

What are your views on how to balance things so that Inno can make a living and we can all enjoy this game fairly?
 

DeletedUser1795

Guest
I also think there should be a limit in the Istant Build feature. At this point of the game (1000points) i have too much income from farming and the buildings are taking too long to build.... it's like they are forcing me to buy Crowns... and I won't.
 

DeletedUser894

Guest
Maybe a limit on how many times a week you can use an instant build per villa?
 
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