Update on Armories

Good morning,

First - I'm impressed with the response from the community - that huge (largely) flame free thread was remarkable and it was nice to see that kind of cohesion from the player-base. I hope this becomes a positive trend.

Second - To see the price change by SOE is a big thing, despite our feelings of whether it was sufficient or not of a cut it was a quick adjustment. Add this to the other changes [The all-access thing, etc] and we see there is responsiveness to an organized player-base.

Third - I'm grateful for the work the Dev staff puts out there, and the communication Mepps & Spytle (and others I've seen recently popping up more on the forums) are providing, these touches do matter.

Now, to my feelings on the pricing scheme - this change only reduces costs to those not going the bulk route, it brings the cost of those wanting a few armories closer to the $4 range per unit. In essence they didn't reduce the cost of the item just the scale of the curve from low to high quantity. For someone wanting say, 2 armories the cost went from $16 to $12. I applaud flattening the delta based on quantity.

I still feel our marketplace needs a price review, to me I find the costs reasonable if I get a 50% off sale or have purchased SC during a double+ sale. If this is intended (as it is in retail environments) then OK, I get it, I'll just be making purchases during sales - those that must have it NAO can spend their money how they will. As several people pointed out during the "Mega Thread" (tm) it's not a matter of being able to afford it, but a matter of cost against value.

Thanks for listening! (Reading?)

I like what they did here, listening and adapting to their customer base... thanks SOE/DCUO Thank you

Flemix, is absolutely right. "This new offer is only one small step down from absolutely outrageous." Considering that even Q3 engine games had save config writable .exe files that you didn't even have to pay for. (which an armory is a fancy version of) That was in 2003. Last time I checked my calender it's 2014. Pretty lame guys.

That's a different game. It would be like me complaining that I can't ride Epona in my final fantasy game. "But I can ride Epona all day in Zelda! Running from place to place without the aid of my horse is unacceptable!"

I was also hoping for something in the $4-$5 range. However, with the discount, it looks like legendaries come really close to being able to buy one a month using their stipend after the first month.
I'm not sure that I understand a lot of the griping. Of course, they're only giving you one, because they want you to see how useful an armory is, to get you to buy another one. Legendaries can spend their stipend to get an armory (although that means they can't spend it all on replay tickets for a couple of months). Premiums have to spend "real" money, and feebies get another incentive to spend at least some money.

As for microtransaction costs, in Trek (the other game I play), most of the small items (styles, bridge officers) are in the $3-$5 range, but there are a couple of items over $7. Ships range from $20 to $50 (for 3-Packs). $6 is a bit high, but not unreasonably so.

You don't...just go to the the respec machine if you don't wan to pay

Nice job on the pricing change devs...thanks

Still a bit overpriced, as far as I'm concerned. Still, I'll have to examine my characters and decide if an eight-pack might possibly be worth considering spending money on... maybe. I don't like spending that much on microtransactions at one time.

I appreciate the DCUO community speaking out against the prices of the Armories, but I have more respect for the DCUO devs and Captain Liberty for listening to the community and adjusting the prices. They could have taken the easy way out and completely ignored all of the comments in response to the prices, but they didn't. For that I say THANK YOU!

Comminty, congrats, you won! They listened and lowered the price. For those that still want it cheaper, cant be grateful can ya? I mean I understand you cant please everyone but you cant really be happy can you? Well if you cant be happy and still dont like the price point, dont buy it. i made 2 videos on my standpoint on this and sure enough, there's a podcast this Friday which will be discussing so I'm saving all my notes for that since im a better speaker than a typer.

Community, well done getting your voice heard once again, grats on the price drop. For those wanting it lower, I suggest saving that extra dollar, no more Dollar Menus.

This game needs to make money, and with the down times it has been having I'm not surprised the price is a bit high. The extra $1 on top of the legendary sub should not be getting these type of reactions from people. They rightfully recognized the potential of armories to make a lot of money, and wisely modified the prices to bring them more into line with their value. I support this move 100%.

Congratulations, you've managed fool everyone into believing they're getting a deal.

Real armory update question here...

Lets say i have four armories on a given toon.
Then i imprint, a setup on each one.

Do i actually have to have all four out in my base, in order to use them in the field.
Because my base is crowded.

Amist all the agree to disagree with the prices please lets not forget its uses. The days of fight a boss and the solo healer dc's and the raid wipes are over. A group goes in to pvp and realize they need a troll or extra healer. The days of joining a currently running instance but the group needs a troll/healer and you have to run to the respecc machine and finish speccing in the instance or a healer is running their solos and dont have to either suffer fighting ads for ten minutes as healer or respecc to dps just to specc again when raiding just to name a few.
Serious fans of this game know what I mean and are looking forward to this. This will save countless gaming hours which will make this more enjoyable for all.

Man Flemix, its good to know that I'm not the only one who can see what's going on here. Those of you "happy" or "satisfied" with the new price have failed to realize that you have been duped. This was part of the plan all along. Sony is using psychology to raise the prices of armories higher than most players would be comfortable with. Check this out.

X= whatever Sony market research indicated is the price most players are comfortable paying for an armory (lets say $5 for the ex.)
Xb= An intentionally high price point ($8)
Xa= The actual price point that Sony is trying to fix to the armories

So when Xb is announced, all of the players who thought the price would be X complain. Then after a day or so the new price point of Xa is announced. Everyone who freaked out about the Xb price point is now too happy they won't have to pay such a huge price that Xa seems much more palatable. This is Sony's goal. If Xa would have been the initial price point, people wouldn't have stood for it and Sony would have been forced to lower the price back closer to X. By introducing Xb first, now it looks like they are doing us a favor by "reducing" the price to Xa.

Realistically, the $6 cost is better than the $8 one, but I feel they can do better. Give Legendary 2 free armories so we can switch between our 2 main roles, then charge us for extra. All the one free one does is tease us into feeling we "need" to buy one so we can actually use the new feature. At least give Legos a free one shot armory so our mains can switch back and forth freely.

Sony has a long track record of using psychology like this. This is the first time I can remember them using it for pricing though. Its usually with an over-nerf. In EQ whenever they decided to change a class's abilities, they would come out with a big adjustment, wait a few days while people raged, then add a patch rolling back the nerf a little with a note about how the change wasn't working "as intended". People would calm down and play the game just happy that things weren't as bad as they initially looked and the dev team would be able to get on with life post-nerf without having to listen to nearly as many complaints.

I just came home, I saw this and now all I have to say is take my money !

Some people are never satisfied.

I would still like to see the 15-pack option available for a price in the $45-50 range. I create a lot of toons and a better volume discount would sure be more reasonable to equip them all.

Great point. SOE and the DCUO devs weren't obligated to change anything about their original price point. The fact they listened to the community and reduced the prices is pretty cool.

Let me start by praising the development team for actually listening to the disapproval of the community. Hats off to you, you officially listen more then Blizzard.

However, this is a digital good. Outside of the time it took to develop, it doesn't cost you any extra to have and to sell. That's the thing about digital goods: no product to physically manufacture. So it kind of irks me that a very clear consensus had been reached by the players on what the Armories should cost: $5. So when you decide to take a little more than what we asked, despite not being able to "lose" money on it... Well, it kind of detracts from the whole "listening to the community".

But it's okay, you can just ignore my post and pretend no one ever pointed this out to you.

This is rubbish, we should at least get 2 free Armories so we can at least have a dps and role spec for each toon.

i was going to go legendary again because of this update but now that i hear you only get 1 Armory i guess im going to forget about this game!

And BTW I was the one that suggested this idea to DC on the FB page a year back and now that its out they just ruined the point of this feacher in the game.

Good bye DC