Message to the Developers: When Trying to Make Money Goes Too Far

Greetings, I used to be Jordan153, if anybody remembers, although due to some SOE account problems I had no choice to make this new account.

I'll try my best to keep this as constructive as possible, as a thread like this could go downhill quickly, very quickly.

This has been on my mind for some time now. I simply believe that this game is going too far with micro-transactions, subscription benefits, and pretty much everything that costs a player real life money. This is mainly about replay badges, however I will save it for later. This game being free-to-play with subscriptions seems almost...pointless. Most people know that Online MMO's are games that will take your life away, you know that once you start playing one, if it has a good first impression, then you will be playing it for a quite some time. However, being anything but a legendary member will make it harder for a player to become invested like any player would in an MMO. Why is this? Because of how many restrictions you get from deciding to not be a subscriber. Many feats in the game require DLC, meaning that a player wanting to "become the next legend" will have a limited amount of skill points should he not want to become a subscriber. Some of best armor in the game requires DLC, meaning players that are resilient to use real life money will have a very casual time playing the game, as higher level content will be either restricted or very difficult. The money cap will make anything a challenge even if you do have DLC, because of repair bills and armor costs becoming almost un-manageable.

All of these things can keep a player from having his life taken away to an MMO, countless restrictions can turn people away, and the only way a player can overcome these restrictions is to pay money. If this is the case, then why even have the game to be free-to-play? I understand the game was at a bad state, which is why it went free-to-play, but it is doing better than ever currently, and there is no need for it to be free-to-play. It's like playing a demo at your local game store, you are restricted to certain content, and the content you CAN get is shoved in your face. I honestly don't see the game failing right now if it became a retail game again, or subscription based only. Some may say I'm stating the obvious with all of this, however I do see this as an issue.

My biggest gripe is replay badges, this is point where even paying subscribers need to invest money to play the game. How? Lets look at Paradox, with the recently patched glitch I assume thousands of replay badges were bought, and hundreds of dollars were wasted too. How was it wasted? Because of the new loot system, it was entirely possible that you could spend $10 on replay badges, only to figure out that you got no beneficial loot at the end of the raid. It's like gambling essentially, pay money and have chances to get nothing in return. Paradox aside(only mentioned because of the insane loot you could get), this goes for all raids, and I believe the weekly loot lock should be decreased to a single day, for raids of course. You still have reasons to purchase replay badges, and you can still HAVE A REASON TO PLAY THE CONTENT THAT YOU PAID FOR without waiting for a week. This is the reason why one of my league members left for a a few days, he wanted to play with his leaguemates like normal, but he simply couldn't because the game took too much out of his wallet.

This may all seem like I'm a guy who doesn't understand how to make money for a company, but honestly, the amount of cash you need to dump in this is simply un-needed. And you can still make enough money if you advertise your game enough and make people WANT to pay, rather than people saying "aww, I have to pay to get this? Man...". Whoever makes the trailers for DLC needs a serious raise, the music, the editing, it's all mindblowing. But why have them only make a trailer every 3 months for a DLC? This game would get many new members if you advertised your game regularly on TV or gaming websites with these amazing trailers, and these new players could give you the money you need to make a great game, except they actually want to put their entire wallet into the game, instead of feeling down about having to pay.

I just hope that in the future, the game has less items/features that cost money JUST because it can. Because I know for a fact that this game can do well without all of the pointless money grabs, legendary voice actors, a unique combat system, gigantic cities to explore, and like I mentioned before, a great team that makes trailers too!(off topic, but do you have a list of the music tracks used for all of the DLC trailers? That'd be great) If the developers can find ways to make good amounts of money without all of these mobile game esque restrictions then I truly believe it will be a step in a better direction.

Thank you for taking the time to read this(assuming you did of course), if I said anything completely wrong or just silly in general then feel free to correct me. I only hope that the developers will see this eventually.

Its all optional. The player decides. Your gripe is aimed at the wrong target.

I just whish they had more styles or skins that were worth buying in the marketplace.

Yes, it is optional. But I feel like the game is almost an extremely long demo, and it almost feels like their is no point in playing without playing. As the non-paying experience would be extremely casual for an MMO.

The cosmic skin is brilliant for Quantum users, although I wish they would update it with the updated space effects from the Astral Alloy set, that would make it REALLY worth buying. Other than that the weapon styles are also great in my opinion.

This game CANNOT survive off of everyone being F2P. It needs subscriptions and it needs small microtransactions. Devs need to bring back the booster gold bundle. Replay badges fuel the game more than subscriptions themselves. I am a legendary member and I have bought a handful of replay badges here and there. The point is F2P, you basically are playing the demo. I personally would like to see more items in the marketplace to purchase, but hey thats just my opinion.

That's EXACTLY what F2P is. Like that's the entire point of the business model. You play the game as a demo and if you like it you get hooked and want to put money down.

Of course a non-subscription F2P game (such as LoL) is a different case. But with DCUO the entire point of being F2P is to give people a taste of the game so they put down money.

Cosmic is incredible! Then, there is plaid and fractured. I'd love to be able to buy any of the other skins available in character creation. Tattoo styles of various designs also would be cool.

From lvl 1-30 it practically is a demo n subbing is not required unroll u hit t2.5... Which is when a sub would help a lot... U play the "demo" n if u like it sub... That easy...

Same for me, the marketplace items are great too and don't feel forced upon you. Don't want Circe as a legends character? No big deal, she's always there if you decide you want her! Can't get good iconic armor? Too bad! Get a membership/DLC or tough luck!

But here is the problem, I downloaded the game, not the demo. Yet it feels like I downloaded a demo.

These Extra Credit peeps, i can hardly find a topic they have not covered and covered it well.

U got the game .. the core game everything else is a dlc which u have to buy or sub...
If u buy a new game n there are dlcs for it they don't give it to u for free... U get what u pay for....

That is correct, but there is still a problem. The core game is a demo. It wasn't a demo before, but it is now. You get what you pay for, and I would be fine with that if the game was still retail. Now you pay nothing, and you get nothing(besides the core content, but you get the point). I just can't fathom why the game is even FTP anymore because of this.

Love it!!!!!

Yes, it's strange how they seem to cover all topics perfectly. They summed up my opinion well at parts. And I don't actually dislike micro-transactions, when they're good I mean.

I can sympathize with your points on the DLC restrictions, but I have a very hard time sympathizing on the replay badges. I can see that many players want to play the top raid content as much as possible, but the replays to me seem to be completely unnecessary. There are other things to do in the game while you're waiting. What does the gear from the top raids get you? For now, it just lets you run the raids slightly better. It will probably be needed for future content, but there will be a lot of time before that happens. So players purchase replays if they're in a hurry to get the gear, and/or they really enjoy doing the raids (possibly because they have friends doing it too). They're a convenience purchase, which is appropriate for the marketplace.

Personally, I don't like grinding the same content over and over again to get gear, so I may very well be biased on this. I currently don't use replay badges at all. I'm hoping to use them for purchasing feats some day. I suppose that if the ability to purchase feats arrives, purchasing replays will become even more popular.

The core game wasn't a demo when it launched... It was dying n they went to ps3 n then went f2p... So unless u bought the disc for 60 bux I don't get what ur aiming at... How much did u pay for dcuo? How much did u pay for that other games demo?..
Say u like the other games demo.. enough to buy it? Do u like dcuo enough to buy some dlcs er sub... They don't force u to buy anythin that's ur choice n will always be ur choice....
I support the games I like... Even the twitch channels I like.. because I like them enough to do so...

It's ftp cuz it's a lot easier to get someone to buy a 10 dlc er sub for 15 bux a month then to buy a game u don't know for 60 bux.... Unless u played the demo which at this time 1-30 is the "demo" to get u hooked n support the game so u can play it more...

in fairness this is the direction DCUO is monetizing in with features like extra deeds and additional armouries. etc

however, the problem with DCUO's current model is that the convenience content we pay for has stopped giving us the guaranteed convenience and has been turned into gambling and ultimately a cash grab (as our players are stupid enough to keep paying). ie. when we pay to fast track on Raven, suddenly there is no guaranteed outcome of convenience and you have to keep replaying -- this makes it a cash grab. this is also true of Nexus and Paradox loot system/table. if we replay we should get something of value out of it and it should not be a gamble.

It seems that some players who have played the game for a long time get bored within around a few weeks or a month before the next DLC comes out. Once you do most content, you crave new things. So when a new DLC comes out you want to do all of the new content, but at the same time you also want all of the rewards for it. The problem with waiting is that some people are always focused on the new content and simply can't wait because of a style they haven't gotten yet. It's hard to wait when nobody is doing anything besides the new content, and when you've completed everything in the old content.