The F2P experience is horrible.

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Strawberry, Apr 30, 2023.

  1. Rijacki Just a rare RPer on FV and Oakwynd

    My F2P wizard is good at teleporting and tailoring expandable bags.
    Yinla and Wyre Wintermute like this.
  2. Iven Antonius Bayle

    Insidious is how FTP and AllAccess are linked to each other and how players are made dependant on AllAccess like with Prestige gear where they can end up with no useable equipment after the subscription does end. Another example is that AllAccess does grant two additional PC slots without informing the customers that those are temporary and will be locked at the end of the subscription. The lack of such informations and marketing traps are intended by Daybreak, because all tbat got criticized by angry customers many times over many years in the forums. The naming "FTP" or "Free Player" account is also manipulative missleading and we had many forum discussions about that already in the past. It would be correct to return to the designation "Bronze Account" or marking it as a limited demo account model. In many cases the customers do experience bad surprises after the accounts do return to FTP.

    I would change FTP starting with it's designation and adding one or two more account models and alot more detailed informations about how they do work. It would be a complete revamp of the existing eleven year old (2012-03-15, VoA) account concept. I made many suggestions in the forums about that. A few of those can be found in the Suggestions thread at #34, #37, #38.
  3. MmmmBop Wise Troll

    Maybe instead of making prestige gear useless to FTP, have the stats cut down by 20% and focuses / clickies disabled on prestige items. That way people who have been on vacation for a few years don't come back to completely useless gear, but instead are in a position to camp non-prestige gear from where they left off. Might be nice to attract returning players to come back instead of just logging back out again until they are ready to commit to a sub.
    Rijacki likes this.
  4. Wyre Wintermute I'm just a butterly dreaming I'm a man

    Prestige gear should have always been limited to drops not included in the FTP experience. Anything else was simply overkill.

    Similarly, the AA cap on FTP should have been variable and increased as more levels/AA were added. setting a flat value across the board was ridiculous (not all classes have the same quantity/quality of AA available), and paying to increase that cap is more expensive than subbing for a month and straight focusing on filling up AA.

    I mean, come on. Who came up with 250 AA cap? I'm 105, in TBM with 16757 assigned AA and about to get another 12344 AA points available with EoK.... 250 DBC for an increase of 100 AA is absurd and downright predatory.

    There's so much they could have done better.. but don't totally blame DBG/DPG, Everquest FTP is from the SOE era of total...yeah...
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  5. Juzam_Djinn Elder


    Bruh you do realize absolutely ancient gear is still marked Prestige, right? If someone wearing old raid gear or even stuff above T1 group of some old expansion comes back and their gear is worthless, wtf are they supposed to do if there's no active bazaar to buy replacement gear? People should at least be able to play around in the gear they used to wear and see if they want to sub again instead of being forced to do so right away. It's asinine that virtually all augs, even ones that are basically prehistoric, are all Prestige.

    I'm just glad when I started leveling myself up that there was stuff in the bazaar, even if a lot of it at the time (like Conflagrant gear) was overpriced. I bought some for some alts too, but then I started doing Overseer stuff for crafting junk so I could just make my own for the rest of them.

    Oh and the AA cap is entirely too low. Even with my account being Silver and quitting in 2009, I was well over the cap. It's bad enough that Autogrant is only available for paid members, if someone wants to grind out AAs they should be able to do it.

    Just the augs stop working, otherwise I would have never gotten to where I did from level 80 something to 115, and even now my gear wouldn't work since it was all augged up before I my sub ran out again. Some augs do still work, specifically Skill Mod augs, as their stats still show up in the game's menus. It kinda kills me that I didn't get all the ones I needed before my sub ran out.

    Focus effects not working would still make them useless.
  6. MmmmBop Wise Troll

    Lack of focus effects doesn't make gear useless. It makes gear very suboptimal. It makes makes ToV raid gear worse than ToV bazaar gear... a 20% stat reduction in raid gear would leave raid gear with a few more stats than bazaar gear, but no focus means slower killing, the need for more healing, and incentivizes people to work on getting new gear if they want to progress. Having items greyed out like they currently are makes doing anything literally impossible with prestige gear on.

    Leaving in focuses would almost completely remove any incentive to upgrade to an all access account. There has to be something significant that FTP players are giving up by not financially supporting the game they enjoy playing.

    The purpose of my suggestion is to make returning FTP toons weak, but not useless. It's to let them play around in the new content at a weakened level to see if it's worth giving EQ another chance - not to let them use their box group of FTP toons to get max level and complete current level expansions.
  7. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Nothing to see here, freeloaders wanna freeload.
  8. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    They could have always gone the route that WoW took and just limit you to a low level making it impossible to play a higher level character to begin with.
    Wyre Wintermute likes this.
  9. Iven Antonius Bayle

    Most of us do agree that Prestige gear is a bad mechanism but that AllAccess accounts should retain a power boost.

    So I have an idea: What about if prestige gear does not get added in future expansions and that everyone could use prestige gear and that instead FTP accounts won't be affected by some focus effects or being capped ? It would make things simplier and saving dev time for prestige gear and might even reduce lag. Does look like a fair swap to me, what do you think ?

    Foci that could be excluded or capped on FTP accounts:
    • Increase Spell Damage (DoT + DD)
    • Increase Healing
    • Ferocity (Double Attack)
    • Cleave (Critical Hit chance)
    • Improved Dodge
    • Sharpshooting
  10. yepmetoo Abazzagorath

    Fantasy can be fun I guess.
  11. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    LOL, I fully understand but that gear came from end game content for that expansion. It is hard on returning players but I don't think F2P was ment for returning player but for those who wanted to try the game.

    I hate the F2P model, I much prefered the old model where everyone paid and those who didn't got an email with a months free subscription during the anniversary event. We had more players return to playing during those times than any other gimmic EQ have tried to get players back since.
  12. Flatchy Court Jester

    Pay Andy boomers???? must be me cuz I dunno wtf your talking about lol.
    Stymie, Svann2 and Yinla like this.
  13. Cicelee Augur

    Good. It should be horrible for the level 50 and over crowd. I am sure the 1-50 crowd is happy trying out the game, and I would guess 50 levels is enough to decide if you want to make a financial investment into the game.
  14. Spacemonkey555 Augur

    This is a valid point, but we need to consider old players returning. What might work is that they still track entitled time IIRC, could let old returning players log in with most current FTP restrictions but give them a 1 month prestige only access that lets them try the game with their old gear intact for a short time if they have enough previous paid time. Just something to let them not be gear crippled and nonfunctional when they first log in.

    I know cheapos are trying to leverage the returning player myth to get rid of FTP limitations, but EQ is a game that imo pulls far more old players back in than it pulls new customers. I recently came back after more than a decade away with my level 90 geared characters, and while I'm not oddly afraid of losing a mere $15, some people are wired odd about spending money on a game after years of crappy DLC costs and cellphone game crap. I was on the fence for the first month, I can imagine logging off and deleting the game if I went to fight and just died because all my gear didn't work like it used to.
  15. Shanarias Augur

    From my own experience, I was gone for well over 11 years when I found out that F2P was a thing. I found out when I tried to play the abomination known as P99, which felt like prison, to me. Someone told me I could play a less powerful character on actual EVERQUEST for free! I did this for a while, because I was newly retired, and broke.

    For the last 2 years, my financial situation is vastly improved, and I just "let it roll" with Darkpaw, and buy a few Kronos every 3 months for my 2 other accounts that are still F2P because I am not a boxer, and the difference between Gold and Silver in game is dramatic. Without the experience of F2P, I never would have come back. It has its purpose, but compared to All Access, it is sort of like kissing your sister, in my experience.
  16. KushallaFV Playing EverQuest

    There should be an FTP trial near max level on live that lets players try out a class, and experience playing with the community. Create a basic mission like Kill 40 Orcs and Orc Chief, so that FTP can try to group together to trial the game, and offer some rewards to existing players for running the missions.

    FTP blows because there's no opportunity to experience playing with others.
    I_Love_My_Bandwidth likes this.
  17. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    This ^^^^

    There's no perfect solution, but Darkpaw needs to consider how returning vet players' first impressions will be. This could be disabling Prestige tags, it could be 14 days of Gold Status, Prestige-disabling tokens, it could be whatever. But this paywall where gear is made useless because someone who was a paying customer allowed their subscription to lapse is a terrible customer experience.
  18. Annastasya Augur

    Good! Crack that wallet. Support the game.
  19. Monkeychunks Augur

    Old players returning come back as Silver with access to General Chat, full loyalty every week and other stuff. They have been given enough.

    Any player can go to Franklin Teek and get up to date armor up to level 95 and not prestige and easily replace any old prestige stuff. They are not gear crippled nor are they non functional.

    It seems most of these posts want the F2P players have the ability to be level 120 without working for it. This game is all about working for "it" Be it an aug, a piece of armor whatever.

    I came back at level 65 many years ago and I had to do a lot of research on how to make it work while Silver. I have since switched to All Access.
  20. eqgamer642 New Member

    Have you thought about doing a test copy wherein you copy your toon to Test server for a while and play there? Test server gives you an all access account-like but you don't have to pay a monthly sub fee. Try it. All you have to do is type the command /testcopy and log into the test server (via the launch pad, switch from Live to Test).

    It could be a lot of fun.