Undiscussed Major Flaw with Krono's Tokens -- F2P plat Cap

So I realized thinking about Korno's that the one flaw I can see with the new item is availability to Free to Play players. The problem is the Plat cap on accounts bith Broze and Silver willnever allow the F2P player to have the ingame currency to buy these items from the Bazaar or Offline Traders.

The issue is, Krono's is a fantastic idea to bring more revenue into the game and also offer a secure transaction for player to player sales that were done using SC cards, which have in the past resulted in CSR work dealing with the inevitable scam deals that sometimes happen.

The common concensus is that the tokens will fall between 150k to 300k plat to buy, roughly the same cost of the average SC card used to buy the same 30day gametime.

The Problem is a large portion of that target market can not buy these items unless they are person to person sales. Why? Well the plat cap limits the amount F2P can carry, so they will be required to make person to person trades, and also in most if not all cases require that F2P player to store plat on alts, then log in those alts to complete the transaction, once again opening the player up to the very scamming the Token itself was intended to eliviate.

The obious solution is to move the plat caps higher, say 200k Bronze 350k silver. But will with this work for SOE, I dont know.

In the end, even though this is a GREAT idea, its an idea that will only be used by current subscibers at most, and will limit the potential buyer pool, limit sales of the tokens and not actually achieve one of the very goals it is intended to accomplish .. generate new revenue in a way that drives F2P players to subscibe who would otherwise not subscribe.

I just ask that SOE take this into consideration, the F2P players should be a desired target market for these tokens, but the mechanics of the game prevent that.

Silver players can have an unlimited amount of plat to return to Gold Status.

To accumulate a large amount of plat while Bronze or Silver someone will likely buy something like Black Gold Ingot as they approach the plat cap, Krono sellers will learn the sale price of a stack of BGI (around 120k) and accept that in trade to expand their customer base to include non-Gold accounts.

Save all your Diamonds & Blue Diamonds; they're plentiful, and 20,000+ per stack.

I wouldn't mind getting a Plat Cap unlocker from marketplace much like the other unlockers. I would say something like 500 plat per level for each one purchased.

It'll certainly be a challenge for Free and Silver players, unless Krono are sold for much less plat than I expect them to be (I'm curious as to where they peg on various servers). Of course Free/Silver players can bootstrap themselves by paying for one month of gold (to convert items to plat beyond the cap), or go the direct sales route (I'm totally staking out 2nd torch as my spot to do them). I'll definitely pass the feedback along though!

Atleast 500k on FV provided you add Krono to /buyer list, since it doesn't drop I assume you will have to manually add it.

This is pretty much the solution. Just buy Blue diamonds off of a vendor, you only lose about 40 plat per stone ish? Can always save your own, there are special other diamonds in expansions pre hoT that go for 240+ plat aswell. Start banking em, or find people to buy them off of for the vendor price. Can make box free acounts and fill them with diamonds... lol.

On a side note, this would help if all expensive diamonds stacked to atleast 100 *hint hint* faydwer diamonds and cut diamonds from sof only stacking to.. 20? sucks.

a possibility considering the move by soe towards the ftp / micro-transaction model.

as a related issue will the new offline trading have the same limits on plat for free / silver accounts and will it be availble for those accounts ?

umm- what might be an obvious solution ( is anything ever obvious to sony?) is to allow people to buy a total cap removal in the market place. other games have done that, as well as selling things that will remove other handicaps from silver players like bags slots. one thing i enjoy about lotro is the fact that all of the advantages that a gold account (vip there) has, i can buy with station cash - including expansions and quest packs. yeah it costs more initially than if i simply went gold, but in the long run it saves me money, considering that i box in lotro just like i do in eq and eq2. after awhile, so many accounts can stretch your budget pretty thin, it's nice to have other options.

You buy Krono from the marketplace , not with plat there is no major flaw thats how they are designed for.

They're talking about plat cap for people buying Krono from another player that bought it from SOE.

ahh well if they want to sell one for 200 great but with bronze you wont have full benefits, just because you choose the f2p doesnt make this a major flaw sorry.

Yeah ever since the F2P unlockers were announced, I think people have been asking for a Plat Limit unlocker. Maybe Krono will be the impetus to finally bring it about.

That said, as Piestro noted, it's mainly just for the first hit. Once you go gold the first time, you can build up your plat for a Krono and buy them to extend your Gold status time. Does the plat disappear after you drop back to Silver or does it just block you from getting more Plat? If it just blocks you, you could move your Krono-plat to an alt and let it sit there until you're ready to go Gold again. (or just buy the Krono as soon as you have the plat and wait to use one until you need/want to)

How many diamonds equal 200k ?

surely not every one is this dense.

I understand that one could barter for a Kronos (use items such as diamonds or other high vendor value things) but this question I posed is to address the specific issue of plat caps that prohibit the purchase of a Kronos from the Bazaar or the Offline Trader mode coming, where most of these transactions will occur. Those trades can not be made Bartering for items as they are unattended trades.

The suggestion to allow one to buy a plat cap unlocker its a good one, and it is probably the solution here. They can allow the caps to be raised to a certain limit, for SC. And then essentially create a tiered plat cap. The idea of going Gold through an SC card or a Credit Card is also an option, but this also limits the buyer pool still, as some people do not have those options available to them, but would happily sub month to month continuously if they could obtain Kronos.

The idea is to maximize the ability to get these items into EVERY players hands, no matter the account level. This in turn will help drive sales, help increase overall sub rates and in the very end, improve the revenue stream for SOE all while giving the otherwise unsubbed player an additional route to sub and maintain a paid account.

You retain all the money you have over the cap. It does block you from earning additional plat until you either move that plat to another character or spend the plat down below the characters cap. If I recall on my alt account it tells me I sold xyz and the plat was destroyed due to account limitations when I vendored some items the first week.

It is a major flaw if SoE's goal here is to make money. If they have no interest in making money then by all means don't raise the plat cap.

Except you can do unattended trades with non-Gold members. If I find out non-Gold members are selling the Krono I'll add another /buyer line of offering 80 Black Gold Ingots for a Krono (my cost 504k, I think they get 480k) to Trajet on FV.

Seeing as they aren't a Gold member they can't set up a /buyer or /trader so the plat limit has no impact of their ability to sell a Krono unattended.

If you only want to buy one Krono and want non-Gold members to be able to sell it to you simply overlap your 2 /buyer lines. You're willing to pay 250k (or whatever amount, value needed for the sake of the example), so buy 40 Black Gold Ingots (252k) and setup 2 buy lines: 244k + BGI and 40 BGI for a Krono. Once you buy one the other buy line will dissapear as you no longer have all the parts of your offer in inventory.

Yes, it means you might end up selling back the BGI and losing 5% and you need to have double the amount of plat you're offering for the Krono, if you're cheap or poor you can't afk buy from non-Gold members, tough luck.

you lose the plat you have on you the minute you log into the game - it doesn't just block you