Respeccing

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FriarJon wrote:

It's features like this that attract "hardcore" players. And it's the "hardcore" which ultimately support the community financially.

Unfortunately that is not true when it comes to F2P and shops selling cosmetics only. Hardcore players are looking for boosters and convenience items (I know that PoE will have extra stashspace through microtransactions now, and that is a step in the right direction, when thinking about securing enough revenue for them to keep developing the game).

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ciknay wrote:

I agree with OP's post that some of the mechanics need to be reworded to prevent unnecessary misunderstandings.

Cool, but no online game in the history has ever managed to create rulesets that cannot be misunderstood. PoE's complexity ensures that it will also be impossible for them.

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ciknay wrote:

The respeccing on the other hand, does not need to be in the game.

Alright, maybe there is another solution to helping out players who screw up?
Because they will arive in the truckloads from day 1 on Ob.

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S_SienZ wrote:

OP is misunderstanding the appeal of cosmetics and I don't think he understands the F2P model well.

I know I am opening up for all kinds of lame flaming with this, but I work (succesfully) with F2P games professionally. I know the F2P model very well.

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S_SienZ wrote:

The benefits of it is precisely the opposite: In a P2P game, since every player is worth equally (the retail price), you need large numbers. A F2P game doesn't need that, all it needs is a loyal and willing to spend following, not a big one.

I always try to be polite in a forum, but this is rubbish. Sorry. A F2P game NEEDS - absolutely NEEDS - more players than a P2P game. Even the most succesfull of F2P games have never had a conversion rate of more than 30%, and since the average spending of each paying customer is less than the retail price for a P2P game, math proves you wrong.

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S_SienZ wrote:

Having played a few F2P games in the past, I've known quite a few people on the higher end of expenditure who have easily spent thousands on their games.

Losing riff raff and whiners won't matter too much. If anything for the community it might be a plus.

With all due respect, I put more trust in statistics than in sentences like this. You cant look at the behaviour of a couple of your friends, and then base your conclusion regarding a whole game genre on that.
If you can find anything supporting your claim that any F2P game has had customers that ON AVERAGE paid more than P2P retail prices, then I would be very interested to see that.

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CiceroSUN wrote:

Alright, maybe there is another solution to helping out players who screw up?
Because they will arive in the truckloads from day 1 on Ob.

There doesn't need to be a solution here, because it isn't a problem. This game demands that you LEARN from your mistakes, and do better the next time. Players that refuse to do that will fail at this game. Handing out respecs like candy doesn't force the player to learn what works and what doesn't, so they don't progress in their understanding of the game and fail every time a new mechanic or area of content is introduced, because they have no ability to adapt.

You already get a total of 16 points to respec with throughout the four difficulties, and you'll accumulate some Regret orbs along the way. That's plenty for tweaking your first build that should be growing organically anyway - players jumping right in to established end-game builds are going to fail anyway. Players need to learn how the game works, then they will make far less build mistakes on subsequent characters.

I don't have any statistics to show you nor am I invested in this discussion enough to bother to dig up any, but I do recall an interview with the VP of Nexon a few years ago where he mentions that about 80% of the revenue was generated by 10% of their top end spending players.

Attracting a million new players who won't spend a cent will not help a F2P game at all. Attracting the right type of people, and catering more towards your targeted demographic rather than the lowest common denominator, will.

Conversion rates are inherently skewed if companies resort to your policy anyways. More customers who don't spend > bigger player pool but no addtional income > lower conversion rate.

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CiceroSUN wrote:

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S_SienZ wrote:

OP is misunderstanding the appeal of cosmetics and I don't think he understands the F2P model well.

Even the most succesfull of F2P games have never had a conversion rate of more than 30%, and since the average spending of each paying customer is less than the retail price for a P2P game, math proves you wrong.

Don't you see how flawed your analysis of statistics are? The average spending of each customer is lowered BECAUSE of people who aren't spending.

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unsmith wrote:

Handing out respecs like candy

I have not stated that I think respecs should be handed out freely. What I have said is that I believe the mechanic is currently placed too far off on the extreme end of the hardcore scale, and that a majority of the players who will soon arrive (and who are likely to become paying users, thereby supporting the game and ensuring it's continued existence) will be turned away by this particular mechanic.

It is clear that none of the other people currently in beta agree with me, so I'll leave it at this. Like everyone else here though, I am hoping the game becomes succesful and makes enough to continue the development.

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S_SienZ wrote:

I don't have any statistics to show you nor am I invested in this discussion enough to bother to dig up any, but I do recall an interview with the VP of Nexon a few years ago where he mentions that about 80% of the revenue was generated by 10% of their top end spending players.

Yes, that specific group of customers are called "whales" (charming term for your customers, right...)

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S_SienZ wrote:

Attracting a million new players who won't spend a cent will not help a F2P game at all. Attracting the right type of people, and catering more towards your targeted demographic rather than the lowest common denominator, will.

Obviously you want to attract players who are interested in spending money on the product, but even when you have attracted players who love your game, getting them to actually buy into it, requires so much more. I am sure, even if you look at the current betaplayers (who are most certainly dedicated and enjoying the game), no more than 10-15% will actually end up spending money on PoE.

There is a strong correlation between being "hardcore" in a F2P game, and then not wanting to pay at all, since that becomes part of the challenge. Especially if the shop sells mostly vanity items. Thats the biggest challenge any hardocre, F2P game that doesnt sell poweritems in the shop will have to face.

I am not making this up.

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S_SienZ wrote:

Conversion rates are inherently skewed if companies resort to your policy anyways. More customers who don't spend > bigger player pool but no addtional income > lower conversion rate.

You are trying to argue against the fundamental financial mechanics of an industry that is completely destroying the regular business model for the game industry. It is a model more driven by statistics and indebth behavioral analysis than any other creative industry. And you are saying that all those people are wrong...

After having stated that you are not "invested in this discussion enough to bother to dig up any statistics".

Ok.

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S_SienZ wrote:

Don't you see how flawed your analysis of statistics are? The average spending of each customer is lowered BECAUSE of people who aren't spending.

In a F2P game you are not a customer if you do not pay. In that case you are "just" a player.
I am sorry, but you have to get your facts straight.

Conversion rate = % of your visitors that convert to paying users (you can talk about conversion rate in relation to getting people to create an account in the first place, but that is not relevant for this discussion)
ARPU = average revenue per user (this is what you are referring to and which is affected by you having a low conversion rate)
ARPPU = average revenue per paying user (this is what I have been referring to and which is NOT directly affected by your conversion rate).

The analysis isnt flawed, and I get a bit offended - but fortunately I am a forgiving guy :) - when you start out by saying that you cant be bothered to look into it, and then jump to claiming that something as basic as this, is wrong.

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CiceroSUN wrote:

Conversion rate = % of your visitors that convert to paying users (you can talk about conversion rate in relation to getting people to create an account in the first place, but that is not relevant for this discussion)
ARPU = average revenue per user (this is what you are referring to and which is affected by you having a low conversion rate)
ARPPU = average revenue per paying user (this is what I have been referring to and which is NOT directly affected by your conversion rate).

This clarifies a lot, thanks.

I was operating under some definitional errors.

Mister you are forgetting about few important things.

You say that "let's sacriface minority for majority" which from math standpoint is correct, "more potential moneys" after all.

It was proved by this closed beta and forum input that there is also an X amount of people who prefer it to stay old way (including me).

In some cases you can afford to make certain sacriface to appeal to minority because your other strong points are let's say unique and will preveil no matter how wrong everything else is (assume it is), ESPECIALLY in f2p game.

Diablo 3 reached record sales, because it is mostly a "Diablo", it has certain reputation, name value that makes it sale like hot bread just because it is what it is. For PoE, the fact that Passive tree exists, is currently the most marketable tool, amplified by the fact that both TL2 and D3 it's biggest competition does not have one.

When you launch a product on a market, which has no alternative and there is demand for it, it is a guaranteed success, look at all Kickstarters that happened recently, they adhered to bring back values that does not exist today in pc gaming and people were willing to dish out huge amounts of money to help it (Star citizen, new Wing Commander for example, Project Eternity "new baldur's gate").

If you are willing to step from your goals to chase that 1-5% customer's who could get offended by losing their char to shitty build well, it becomes a risk, because next time someone will postulate about doing different popular petition, and guess what the franchise starts to lose it's name and becomes mainstream, just because something is available to everyone does not mean it is intended to mainstream. Pop music makes best money but the fact it exists lets alternatives cash out aswell.

I think let's stick to make the game more clearer not forgiving, like you agreed to earlier, it should end at that.

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CiceroSUN wrote:

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unsmith wrote:

Handing out respecs like candy

What I have said is that I believe the mechanic is currently placed too far off on the extreme end of the hardcore scale, and that a majority of the players who will soon arrive (and who are likely to become paying users, thereby supporting the game and ensuring it's continued existence) will be turned away by this particular mechanic.

Hardly. Many/most players who are attracted to this game, are players who loved Diablo 2, waited for a sequel for a decade and then got horribly disappointed by several aspects of said game. It couldn't deliver the same kind of hardcore challenge that the previous installment gave them.

Thus, any mechanic which makes it easier to "fix" your previous mistakes will make this game appeal less to the majority of the players in my opinion. The sense of achievement you get from reaching the later stages of the game successfully and doing well once you have reached that point, is greater the less forgiving the game is to you doing mistakes in your journey to get there.

Diablo 3 gameplay was fine, but I knew anyone could get to the endgame eventually after numerous free trial and errors on different builds. Any player at any stage of the game have the exact same opportunity as anyone else to be using any build he wants. So what does this mean for players who have dedicated much of his time to research, exploring and theorycrafting on beforehand? The guy that has planned out what might be a great build that turns out to work really well? It turns out someone else have figured it out too and posted it on YouTube or some other place on the Internet readily available for anyone who haven't taken his time to bother to do things right from the start - he could just respec when the game gets more difficult anyway.

In my opinion, the lack of possibility to respec is one of the most important aspect of a game like this. Playing to level 47 and then figuring out that you made a couple of crucial mistakes along the way was one of the most intriguing and appealing aspects of Diablo 2 that made you want to start out fresh again and kept you playing for months on end. Refining your understanding of the game, and where every assignment of skill and attribute point made you think more than twice before clicking the mouse button, was what made Diablo 2 one of the most challenging and rewarding games there ever was. Skills didn't matter at all in Diablo 3 - you just clicked the skills when you got them and didn't think more about it.

Personally I'm skeptical about having as much as 16 respec orbs (or whatever they are called). It means I'm actually allowed to do minor mistakes along the way without it having any consequences for the endgame if I'm well prepared. I really don't see what's so awful about having to start over? I always thought that was a central part of games like this? Having to make weighted and well thought through decisions or face the consequences for being sloppy about it.

As far as I'm concerned, being able to respec is what have made a larger and larger percentage of game time in MMOs and similar games these days being considered grinding. All lower level activities are mere walkthroughs to get to the holy grail which is the "end game" - the place where the real challenge is. No wonder why anything else isn't seen as a challenge; anyone can make the "perfect build" whenever needed. The build must be an integral part of the journey, and thus an important factor when determining the difficulty level of the game. Any stage of the game, you have to make the right steps. In other words; from the get-go anything matters. Early game, middle game, end game - you always have to pay attention to what you do. Nothing is a dull grind of an obstacle you have to pass. It's actual game play - all of it. Diablo 3 is/was the opposite of that: all of the game was a grind fest up until inferno.

If respecing gets any easier than it is now, I'm out.