Time Capsules and granted Feats

First of all, this won't be a thread to debate whether Time Capsules are good or bad. If they should stay or not.
This is simply a proposal for an otherwise unfixable system that is a major turn-off for any player who starts getting invested in the game.

All TCs combined have an approximately combined SP value of 131.
That's a ton. It's roughly 15% of the total amount of earnable SP.

When I pay for my monthly membership, log in frequently, and do my Stabilizer solos, I get just enough Stabilizer to get pretty much all items from the most recent Time Capsule. Sometimes I get lucky, and sometimes I have to trade for a rare collection piece, but overall it's doable to get all items without paying for it (actively - as in direct Stabilizer purchases).

The problem is that new players don't have to finish the most recent, but all Time Capsules to get the feats. There is no way they will ever make up for it even with the strongest mindset to grind US N for two years straight.

So what if all feats get granted after reaching a certain CR of all old Time capsules in order of release? It would stop at the oldest Time Capsule used in the Resurgence Time Capsule so that those sales won't get compromised.
On top of that, the rarest collection feat will also not be granted, resulting in players that use those items for resale value to still get their money's worth.

With the current Time Capsule lineup, this would result in a total SP gain of 33SP, if a player has no TC feat and the max. eligible CR.

Alternatively, instead of granting the feats, it could be turned into a new bonus week, although i'm not sure if that will eventually split the community as much as Episode Spotlights already do in terms of reception.

The revenue loss should be almost non-existent since barely anyone opens Time Capsules that old, and even if, they are doing it for the rare collection drop, which will still be a thing with this change.

Thoughts?

They are never going to 'grant' TC feats....period. TCs make money, old TCs STILL make money. If people know that if they wait a few years, they will get the feats for free, SOME would be happy to wait vs shooting their shot as they have to today. They won't be giving that away, so the best you could hope for is maybe a gradual reduction on the older TC feats so that at some point they'd become 'easier' to get done....but not free.

Maybe after a TC has gone like 20+ TCs out of date, the Booster prices could be lowered to half or something. You'd still have to open newer TCs to get quarks, but maybe a lower amount, including around 2700-3000 or whatever for the 'top' level item like Phoenix material or Void material....and still leaving the full price items for a great many required quarks, but making things like emblems or armor sets attainable for 'normal' users.

The 'bonus' week already exists in regards to TC items...it's the Quark vendor discount we see on occasion. However right now that discount doesn't make things much more accessible.

The only things I can think of that they could do other than just grant everyone the feat:
1. Exponentially reduce the cost of older time capsule rewards in the Booster Gold vendor. (ie: the older the capsule, the lower the cost)
2. Recycle time capsule styles through the daily reward system. Day 21 reward can be something new + a rare time capsule reward.
3. Recycle time capsule styles through future episodes as limited time bonuses.
4. Make old time capsule rewards outright buyable in the marketplace. Not all past time capsules all at once, just the oldest.

I am convinced that more players stop the game because of how that part of the game is monetized than those that stick around and spend big money on old TC feats if they start fresh.
There is a reason why the reselling market of accounts is so big, and it's mainly due to those feats that are impossible to get in a reasonable amount of time any other way.

Besides that, it's only going to be the feats, so the items - which are pretty awesome at times - will still be sought after and players will still open some TCs for those even without the attached feat.

Even if ALL Quark costs are reduced by 50%, it would still be way too much to be able to get all of those items in a reasonable time.
I saved up on Source Marks since the beginning of EP45 and sit at ~12000 now. Converted into Quarks, this will turn into 3000.
3000 Quarks. Combined with Quarks gained from all opened TCs in that same timeframe just through log-in rewards and Stabilizer Solo (with Membership!), this turns into a total of roughly 6000 Quarks. That is enough to buy maybe 2 of the rarest discounted TC items but took me a whole year of saving up for AND a whole year of fully paid membership.
Now you tell me how a person will ever think "Yeah, that's reasonable with 3 new TCs coming out every year" when getting a grasp of how the game works (which most players do even before a year passed).
Unless you have the Mindset of either, "F*** it, I got enough cash and pay me all the way through" or "F*** it, I won't ever spend a single penny on those things", this game won't retain the type of players they want to appeal to. Those who occasionally play and spend money. Maybe not in big bulks, but trickling payments now and then.

This would have a similar impact if we compare this to when Episodes became entirely F2P and the number of players revisited the game or even new players stopping by because they heard it turned more user-friendly. It won't be as impactful as the Omnibus update, but still great enough to see an increase in players - possibly short term but definitely long term.

As we know, Dim Ink hates to automate systems, so #1 seems to be quite the effort depending on how frequently they update the prices and it would also cause a high risk of mistakes regarding the pricing.
Unless the day 21 reward could contain a finished collection piece (Tattered cloak of corruption for example), this won't be enough to help new players. If this is possible, it could be too extreme, unless it's also capped at the Resurgence TC threshold I mentioned before.

#3 is nice and would be the easiest approach, although we saw the pricing of those during STU events, and unless we'd get a new currency just for those, I don't think it's a good decision if players must choose between progression or saving real money.
A bonus week dedicated to that idea may be a better approach if it happens more often than STU events.

#4 is something that should be done parallel to my or your other approaches. It won't help with the dilemma of feeling forced to buy something but will let some players take the shortcut, even if they initially didn't want to interact with those systems.

I don't know anything about the selling of accounts, or how many people quit specifically due to TCs. I'd guess both happen, and maybe even happen more often recently, but I'd guess that's also due to the loss of a DLC last year, and the lack of any real substantive improvements in the game.

I'm not sure what amount of money DBG would consider enough to keep running. It's a business, so there IS some number...or maybe a profit number + user base where once dropped below, they'd make some major change like giving away TC feats, selling SP or whatever. However, let's say that number is $100,000 a month. If there are enough whales who spend $1000 a month (and there are likely a few in there somewhere), the game would keep running with 101 users, no matter how many people sell their accounts or quit. There are obviously a LOT more players who are spending $10 or $50 or maybe $100, but as long as the game keeps running...or no sweeping changes to how they monitize things, I'd guess they are hitting whatever number the 'magic' number is.

I have a hard time arguing that it's impossible to get the TC items without spending money, as I HAVE all the TC items without spending money. Save this latest one, which I'll likely pick off before the end of it's run....I've got the rest of it. It's not impossible...unreasonable? It takes work for sure...it's not 'fun' for sure...but it's still doable.

And as far as a discount on older items, I'd say a gradual scale, where the oldest items maybe could be at 80% discount, newer items at 60% or 50%, and newest items at full price.

You're right on the business aspect, but with the idea I proposed, whales would still be able to pay for 8-10 TCs before they get most feats granted.
The problem is that the only way to trick the system is to make multiple accounts which not only hurts your fun but also their data - assuming you're not playing those other accounts very much.

I mentioned my concerns about the gradual discount in the reply to Lorax, but overall it's a good approach in terms of what it would be able to achieve.

Something I also want to mention is that you have played the game for ages, just like me, which means you had much more time to grind for the free stabilizers. For a new player, this would mean an even greater number of daily runs and accounts to create to get to the same point where you are right now.

Well, accounts ARE free and give the same amount of stabilizers whether you play them or not (F2P/Premium all get the same stabs with about 90 seconds of use a day). BTW. I generally get way more of my TC stuff from the broker than from opening stabilizers directly. I have terrible luck, so I don't want to depend on it for those feats. I have more control over grinding out other things to sell, then buy what I want.

An escalating discount seems like a fair alternative to the endless Spend+RNG we have today. It would have to be after years of waiting though, otherwise most everyone would just get them this way and TC sales WOULD drop some...I'd wager that DBG will not look favorably on that.

Given how people handle the double Nth Metal bonus weeks and will seriously hoard insane amounts over the course of a year…I think you’re discounting “these players” ability to sacrifice short term gains for long term bigger gains. As a larger amount of revenue is now coming 3 or 4 times throughout the years through time capsules, I sincerely doubt they’d be willing to implement the system you’re promoting.

Aka - they have a lot more “control” over the incoming revenue with the system “as is.”

They really should have a way to purchase older locked capsules. On Xbox, some capsules are never even on the broker. Let alone the collections, most of the time you can't find any and just forget about the "rare" entirely xD

I admit I struggled when I was getting all of those feats, but that was years ago and the population is now literaly 75% less than it was back then.

But what you describe applies only to Resurgence TCs, and nothing I proposed would play into the latest 8-10 TCs, which are essentially the Resurgence TCs.

Even if you save up on all free stabilizers a normal player has access to, you would have just enough to finish two TCs at best in a single year. So new players would still need to purchase stabilizers if they want to finish all the other TCs too. On top of that, unless they manage to get all TC items in a single Resurgence TC Cycle, they won't get ahead of the curve regardless.
All this does is help new players by making the game more accessible through slightly higher SP gain when boosting CR and lowering the bad aspects of this game to a much less unreasonable level. That way new players aren't immediately abandoning the game when checking what is needed to get where they may want to be in the future - or at least lower the chance of that happening since that is not the only reason.

“If I wait long enough, I will get free feats.”

That’s a pretty big negative pressure on an important revenue stream.

Something i havent thought of but would definitely impact sales are unlocking the feats on alts, so the granted feats as proposed in the orignial post should only apply to the first character that reaches that CR.

Absolutely, but that wait takes more than two years to get all of those items you wouldnt get for free when you started. As already replied to Reinheld, i believe retained players through this change will outweigh the small amount of whales willing to pay for all of those feats in terms of total revenue gain.

The other thought process currently is "If i dont pay, i won't ever be able to reach the endgame". I know that this isn't necessarily true and varies wildy across the roles you can play, but that's nothing a new player will be able to know.

Sadly i have no experience in any other MMORPG besides Neverwinter. I played it for a while and if my memory serves me well, it had TCs even before DCUO had them. I never interacted with them as most items had very minor improvements over anything else or were straight up only cosmetic.
If those had an important progression system applied to it, i would've either quit (if i discovered it after spending money) or i would've continued playing it very casually the most F2P way possible without ever investing any money.
In the end i did pay since those TCs were only cosmetic and i could simply ignore them unless i wanted to flex with some weird mounts, but i only paid for progression (which is bad enough) and still quit after some time due to quite dull core gameplay which wasn't appealing enough in the long run.

In a year and a half I've been playing on EUPC/PS I've completed almost all TC feats on my main, except for around 15 rarest collections from the oldest capsules. I bought literally no stabilizers and only a few items from Quark vendor. The vast majority of the stuff I got from broker, using only cash obtained in-game through farming and trading (no gold-selling websites). If the game gave me most of those missing feats for free, on one hand - I'd be delighted, on the other - I'd have very little left to do in the game and would be far less motivated to keep playing, let alone spend money (which I don't really do anyway, except for subscription).

Of course - at this point those Skill Points make next to no difference anyway, so I only keep trying to get all those collections out of sheer force of habit and compulsion to complete things. Plus I also find trading on broker fun. People stress out over those TC SP way too much, in my opinion. You can complete all content with 500 SP or less - especially with high-rank artifacts, some experience and skill - and there are tons of easy feats available. I don't see how giving players 30SP would make any actual difference.

Yeah. Honestly, except for the single 'top' collection piece from the one collection that's most rare in the set, the rest are very attainable with a reasonable amount of grind/sell/buy tactics. I have all of them on a PS account and nearly all AGAIN on a PC account (missing about 7 of those 'top' pieces) and haven't spent a dime on TCs since the qwardian capsules or so (it was around then I realized they were a scam). And that PC account has NOT been around since 2013 like the PS one...she came in well after TCs started and I didn't even work on those SP until 3 or 4 years ago.

And that's not some kind of brag...just saying, it's mostly doable, and where it is NOT doable (like Poke Bowl, Phoenix feather or Billy's backpack) it's .5 SP each, so probably well under that 30SP you mention as we don't have 60 TCs....yet.

The 30SP I mentioned was a reference to Strichcode's calculation in the first post, which estimates the max amount of SP he'd expect to be gained by a player, if his proposed scheme went into effect. The actual number he quotes is 33. He wants to exclude the latest 9 or so TCs, which are included in the Resurgence Capsule, as well as the rarest collection of each capsule. Which in itself doesn't make much sense to me, since - while those collections are the main motivation for people still opening those old capsules - there are other items, like some emblems and style pieces, some of which are quite sought after and can fetch a reasonable price on broker. Rendering all those items worthless would turn most opened TCs into nothing more than a rather expensive way to obtain Quarks.

They might add up to 131 SP... but there's only wver one item per capsule that is hard to obtain. You'll get the first 115 SP out of time capsules at a rapid rate if you know how to make cash. The last 16 or so? Well... it's just something to keep you busy for the next decade. I'm not saying that I agree with time capsules... just that the amount of feats in them that require a whole lot is pretty inconsequential to your overall performance after a short while.

I like your idea though.

My comment was more that MOST of the SP items in all TCs are rather attainable via the broker and yes...some openings. Emblems, gear and 2 of the 3 collections are relatively cheap in either money or quark. The 'big' item is always the hardest to get, and most expensive in quarks...and about .5 SP each TC. That item is really the only one that would need some kind of discount from the current what....6000 quarks? And even if not, could be ignored for not a great deal of SP loss.

As I said in my original response....A discount...maybe. For free or direct sale in the MP? No...not likely.

I feel like i need to mention the long term issues with the buy and sell strategy. Currently, you can relatively easy obtain all items from the past 8-10 TCs. Anything older is a chore of constantly checking the broker. However, its still doable and simply takes longer than the newer items. I assume it's even easier on US with a much higher population than anywhere else.

However, once we hit TC 35 for example, who will open TC 8 often enough for new players to have a chance to get all of those things with that strategy. This will get worse with each TC that gets released.