Are you a VIP victim?
As a vip 6 and 5 on the Mrs’ account I feel we’ve been shafted. I will no longer pay into this game because I’m so angry. However, if vip players received one vip key daily for vip level 5, 2 for 6 etc, (or something similar), would you consider spending money on the game again?
I know I would.
Massive thanks to those who helped me build a poll, especially @annaerith, as I didn’t know how to do it!
Regards
Daniel
Nephilim gl in quimby, ps4.
(I’ll post a link to this thread if I can in the console section too)
I dont find the vote choice, but nowadays I only buy the Sundays diamond packs, I am already VIP level 10 and have supported the game a lot for also a better experience. But I am pretty sure that they would get more VIP players if they did something with the daily rewards.
1 VIP key should be given daily to VIP level 5-9 players.
2 VIP keys should be given daily to VIP level 10-14 players.
3 VIP keys should be given daily to VIP level 15-20 players.
Part of the problem is there’s nothing worth buying. (I speak only for myself, but raw gems given to cash value isn’t there, to put it nicely.) The only thing I thought was okay value was Deathknight armor, and the Growth Pack II which was a one time purchase, and that isn’t something I’d consider buying too many times if it was available for multi-purchase.
The other problem is the VIP bonuses don’t scale well. I get that they’re bonuses, but that doesn’t change how uninspired I am to reach any of the higher levels
It’s easy to complain without offering a solution, so I guess something I’d like to see added to VIP bonuses is free Ranked refreshes. I don’t consider that pay to win because the top players are already on top by a significant margin, and there’s no way refreshes would up my productivity by a couple hundred+ matches. However, I’d be a really happy person to avoid playing the same teams ad-nauseum.
Yes I would buy the $5 daily deal every Sunday for the diamonds and I would buy seals every so often. I actually regret spending so much to get to VIP 5 for the chests now. With the massive gem nerf I can now only do 50 VIP keys a month (most of the time it doesn’t even get the new mythic) and the Sunday gem bounty and I can’t spend gems on event keys and with the event key nerf it means I am missing out on new legendaries like this week and it’s really annoying me. If I was given VIP keys on login or VIP chest prices were dropped enough so that I could do 50 VIP chests and buy 50 to 100 event keys a month I would be happy enough to start spending again.
50 VIP keys and 100 event keys is 3600 gems and is less than I was getting before the nerf but I’m still happy with that.
Game companies that are stingy with their digital rewards make more money in the short-term. It’s understandable, as managers are under pressure to turn a profit. However, the game will eventually start losing money after a few months, as players get pissed and leave the game - which causes the managers to become even more stingy and the cycle repeats. A few cycles of this, and the game goes out of business. This has happened to countless other online games.
Game companies that are generous with their digital rewards, however, make less money in the short-term, but much more money in the long term. Take a look at Shadowverse, as an example. The reason why I mention Shadowverse (a digital card game), is that it’s the most generous game I know - they give out free card packs all the time. As a result, the game adds about 1 MILLION players a month (this is no exaggeration).
Just something to think about.
QFT. I’ll even use myself as an example here. Over the past year, I’ve played around 7 different F2P “mobile” games, but have only spent money on two of them. One is GoW (until I cut off my spending in June due to disagreeing with the game direction) where I’ve spent enough to hit VIP 6. The other is a game I picked up a month ago and have spent a whopping $15 in but where, to me at least, I got great value for the spend.
Over the past 5 years I’ve spent money on a total of 2 additional F2P games, and both are extremely generous with their premium currency.
So, 4 out of 7, and all 4 I’ve spent money on are (or were in the case of GoW) very generous with their premium currency.
The three others? Not a cent. I played as much as I could for free, then decided to spend my time on games that focused more on providing a great experience and less on trying to get me to cough up money at every turn. Ironically, the games that focused less on actively trying to get me to pay are the ones that ultimately got my money.
When it comes to F2P games I fully believe in voting with your wallet. If you find a truly good game that provides enjoyable content and doesn’t throw paywalls or artificial slowdowns in your face (cough stamina systems cough) I heartily encourage you to spend a few bucks, or euros, or whatever your currency is. Tell the studio that they’re doing things right! I get that there’s a whole culture based around never paying a dime for anything labeled “F2P” but if people don’t spend money on the good games, we’ll stop seeing them completely.
At the same time, if you find a game that frustrates you constantly or has business practices you disagree with, don’t spend your money! Businesses want to make money and they’ll do what the climate demands if they want to stay in business.
One of the mental hurdles I seem to hear about a lot is people being unhappy with a game but spending their money anyway because “eh, it’s only $5” or “they just NEED to get new shiny thing that is only available for a limited time”. Why the heck would you pay for something you’re not happy with? I don’t understand it one bit. It’s like giving a dog a treat after it bites you.
Gee, I wonder how this poll will turn out. Polls like these are a waste of time.
Y’all need some perspective. Stingy relative to what? A company that’s bankrupt? Has everyone just never played another F2P game? This is the most generous F2P game I’ve ever seen. I see a lot of boohooing like a child that’s had its 8th toy taken away.
Past versions of this game, for one. Pre 3.0 a player in a guild that completed all tasks got enough event keys to all but guarantee new legendaries, and enough gems to have a good chance at new mythic troops.
Pre guild statues (can’t remember the version), a player could get unlimited gems.
Children cry because they don’t understand why the toy is being taken away. In this situation, if we are crying like babies it’s because we haven’t been told why our toys have been taken away. The Devs could have said any of the following:
“We don’t want GoW to be a game where your collection is ever complete. We are therefore taking away your resources to make sure you constantly have to chase new cards, because this is good for player retention”
“The game wasn’t making enough money. We’ve decided to address this by removing resources so that more people buy gems.”
“We are actively trying to get rid of all the end gamers by making sure they can’t keep up with future releases. The game was never designed to have so many level 1000+ players and new players are put off by this.”
Edit: instead we got something along the lines of "we introduced 4x speed so we made some slight adjustments to the task rewards’.
I just want to chime in that I originally asked the question earlier in the dev qa thread. While I like the idea of improved vip rewards is great I absolutely don’t think vip keys should be given daily but perhaps weekly after the reset. That seems much more logical to me.
This is a reply from ‘Kellek’ ex lost winds and end gamer…
I’d be a yes but neither have nor want a forum account, vip 8, i only buy the $5 daily gems pack now. Ironically i hadnt spent $ in months prior to the gem nerf. I think 1 or 2 vip keys a week is a more realistic # but i’d love 1 a day.
I’d prob start buying more w a vip key a day.
Yes, it needs altering and this is hopefully the thread where disgruntled VIP players will state their intentions and what they might do if they started to feel valued again, because one thing as a paying player I certainly don’t feel is valued.
I think it’s been way overblown by a few vocal players and I think it’s both disingenuous and poisonous to the community. Fundamentally, the 4x speed increase and Crafting puts virtually everyone in a better place than they were before. The raw math for anyone not completing LTs vs 4x speed is undeniable and the trade off of LTs vs Crafting is debatable but probably a net gain. The only people who might be in a worse place are those that we’re getting tons of LTs, and I think those people can see how crazy it was and why it needed to be toned down. I think they are still in a very good place though it’s not “stupid amazing” like it was before. And it honestly affects something like, what, maybe 200-300 people tops? And what’s the real, substantive impact on those few people? You might miss 1-2 mythics over the course of a year and otherwise collect everything in the game?
Additionally, I think calling yourself a “#vipvictim” is absurdly entitled and I find it extremely distasteful. You paid with no legitimate expectation that reward structures in a different system would change. You paid to get rewards from the VIP tiers, and those have not changed. You are entitled to nothing more than that, period. It seems to me like it’s pure opportunism and folks are just trying to turn a non-issue into an excuse for a hand out that isn’t justified. I think it’s very clear that the changes are being interpreted in the worst possible light and without any attempt to be reasonable.
Fundamentally though, they made a business decision and are sticking to it. We can either choose to accept it and move on, continuing to support the game we love, or not. If not, you should move along. I do not think you will find a better value elsewhere, but if you find this change that distasteful then it’s up to you. But I’d strongly prefer those few people stop harping on it for months on end b/c I think it does no good. It’s not only not productive but I think it creates a generally negative atmosphere for the majority when few if any people are actually suffering and there are certainly no “victims”. People whining incessantly about a few gems is a huge turn off in what has been a very good and fair game.
Lastly, I think this non-issue distracts from the real issue at hand. The game is suffering not b/c of this change. I’d strongly prefer we focus on the issues that are making the game a miserable, frustrating grind, and this has nothing to do with that.
At the end of the day, I just want my old fun game back and who cares if I miss a couple of mythics along the way.
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