Remove the referral system

As previously stated, I personally think the players who reach 10-25 recruits will be either twitch streamers or popular youtube personalities, or bloggers with large audiences, or players who make dummy accounts and pay for the referral program with their own money. If its the case that the majority of referrals are in fact dummy accounts, then the rewards system will not be accomplishing its stated goals, while simultaneously denying players the chance to spend money on the items they really want. Time will tell.

As for me, i will wait to make any future sc purchases or membership payments until their are equally awesome items (in my case the new MBT heat cannons) in the depot for me to purchase, or until i decide to give in and make dummy accounts and spend the 200 dollars. I don't think i'll be doing the later however, but i'll see how i feel about it in a few months.

if only i wrong "It" instead of "i"

my typing has been getting so bad...

Thats assuming a big recruitment push that actually works and not a large group of players who already did it and can't do any more recruiting basically doing nothing at all and banking entirely on new players to invite their friends instead. That or the sudden, massive influx of people brought through youtube and forum spamming, spend 10 bucks (which i admit, will add up) but won't be retained because the majority of those people won't buy subs, or spend any more money because they joined mostly because someone else told them to do it.

The only way this works, the only way the long-term benefits of this outweight a big influx of people buying the items NOW (and, buying them later as they join and find them in the depot, lets not forget) is if this recruitment thing is not only wildly popular but also sustainable. Which i have serious doubts about.

Honestly... this is a joke, right?

As an outfit leader (since early days of PS1) I've constantly tried to get the old comrades into PS2 and that is worth nothing for SOE...?
Making that stuff exclusive is just a kick into the butt of every pre-existing outfit... You should rather introduce some sort of outfit-wide benefits promoting our efforts for PS2 than something like this system

What about this:

For every recruit - 1 day 30% xp/resource boost

2 Recruits:
Special title/decal for infantry and tank
3 Day 30% xp/resource boost
Priority queue access for 3 days (I realize this probably causes code issues with the membership program, but hey...maybe an unsubscribed person would either recruit more or take the carrot and subscribe...)

5 Recruits
Special title/decal for infantry/tank
7 Day 30% xp/resource boost
Priority queue access for 7 days
Free unlock for any decal (account wide)

10 Recruits
Special title/decal for infantry/tank
7 Day 50% xp/resource boost
Priority queue access for 14 days
Free unlock for any decal (account wide)
Free unlock for one camo (account wide)

20 Recruits
Special title/decal for infantry/tank
30 Day 50% xp/resource boost
Priority queue access for 30 days
Free unlock for any decal (account wide)
Free unlock for one camo for each category (account wide)
Free unlock for one helmet (account wide)

25 Recruits
Special title/decal for infantry/tank
6 Month 50% xp/resource boost
Priority queue access for 3 months
Free unlock for any decal (account wide)
Free unlock for one camo for each category (account wide)
Free unlock for one helmet (account wide)
Free unlock for one vehicle weapon (account wide)
Free unlock for one infantry weapon (account wide)

Here's the benefit - you reward someone by giving them unique things (title/decals - make them COOL). You reward them by giving them added benefits to playing the game. You reward them by giving them free stuff of their choosing. You still allow everyone else to purchase your content. Rewards get progressively more enticing for the recruiter. Win/win.

When I first saw the special referral decals I thought they were introducing a meaningful command rank system and those were the decals for it.

How wrong I was...

You sort of hit on my thoughts too. The line "Require extra effort" is a little misleading, it makes you think there is something you can do about it. When you really can't. How much work is it, really, to talk to your friends and see if they want to play planetside? They are making it out to be like there is some sort of work you need to do, some sort of difficult challange, when its not. Either you can do it, or you can't. Either you have 25 friends who will be willing to spend 10 bucks on PS2, or you don't. Its not work, its luck.

I think this is a good program but one glaring error is making these "exclusive" rewards. If you recruit X amount of people you get the rewards for free. If you don't recruit anyone, you should be able to obtain the items but at a price. People with alot of time on their hands and not much money vs people with not much time on their hands but money to spend.

Personally I've gotten everyone I could think of that would even be able to run this game to atleast give this game a try already so my recruiting pool has run dry a long time ago. I won't be getting any of these items unless I create bogus accounts and fork out 200$ at most. So there's still a way around it but you're making people waste their time and skew your data as a result. But perhaps that's what SOE is hoping for.

I realy hope they reconsider the referral system. I payed on monthly basis and im an Auraxium member and spent unknown amount of $ on cosmetic items for this game. I feel like there is no reason for me to subscribe on a game that makes the items unavaviable for me as a player who PAY TO PLAY A FREE TO PLAY GAME & have always supported Planetside 1 & 2 to the max. How much more money do I have to spend on this game to prove my worth as a loyal customer?! Is it a one way thing? Where is the loyality to the customer? This is a long therm way of doing it, when all I know have already joined the game and purchased items already. This referral system is not welcome and should be removed or given access to people who subscribed and supported the game this far.
"

The referral items were datamined and, although we knew the tank cannons would be referral-based, the rest did not carry that clue from what I remember. I think that's the difference. We were expecting some of these items to appear in the depot, and now they're locked away behind a nearly impossible gate. [sic]

notice how much trash cosmetics "you" did before. bad designed uninspired helmets mask camo mbt main cannons etc.. etc....

we wait for first really "sci-fi" Designs that looks "adult" and what we get ? ().()

people want this stuff, because design looks like Ps2 should be from the start. (and what we got was hockey masks.....)

Controversy is that. and to leave the char without helmet, please... Look at Soldier EYES Model (it is scary) , a little bit attention to face and eyes would be nice.

that said, i give a damn about all the referral cosmetic stuff, i dont want it.. but i can understand how some of people here feel.

on positive note : esamir changes are nice

Many people have legitimate mental disabilities that make it difficult to make even just ONE friend. TWO would be extremely difficult, bordering on impossible. 10 or more? FORGET ABOUT IT.

Don't be ignorant.

Although I haven't seen anything official, SOE posts have hinted that they are discussing ways to change the system.

The way I interpret this is that they have seen the people's feedback and are planning to make those referral exclusive items available in the depot or something that that effect.

Just be a bit patient.

Thanks for this thread. I needed it today.

I'll be your friend.

OMG...! He IS serious.

I'm not a pleasant person, and you're already playing.

So you only want friends to get the rewards? That's not very nice.

We want the game to be successful & have millions of player Luperza. The issue here is, many of us have already recruited everyone we know & if they were interested they are playing. Additionally, we have been waiting for many of these items for months. As a consumer, I feel the game DESPERATELY is lacking cosmetics & voice emotes. I've bought 2 helmets since launch as I feel the quality of anything else has been rushed & or is lacking.

If I were to gauge my current fulfillment on cosmetics & voice emote packs I would say its roughly 2/10.

Oh God all these alerts D:

For once I said something smart?