Promotions - Lack of Effort

I have been a member of the Achaea community for the last 6 months or so.

In this time, there has been barely any innovation or new things released in promotions. Yes we did have a new talisman set. 

every month a new promotion rolls around which is low effort and doing the same thing it has done for the past 4-5 years. Stockings did the same stuff, wheel gives the same stuff each time it rolls around. Crates and gift boxes give the same stuff each time they are in promos.

Like you want to give supreme collection pets, introduce new ones or at least palette swap the colors or something.

The cost of promotions hasn’t reduced so it feels like they are low effort and don’t justify the investment on an ongoing basis. 

I see this behavior from the dying games in the IRE universe. I expect better from Achaea. Take a cue from Starmourn. They have something new every month (granted they are relatively new) but the point remains.


Comments

  • Want to see a prime example of too much? Have a look at Lusternia. You go too far, and it quickly becomes overwhelming, especially to newer players who feel they will have to drop a fortune just to compete.
  • Colden said:
    Want to see a prime example of too much? Have a look at Lusternia. You go too far, and it quickly becomes overwhelming, especially to newer players who feel they will have to drop a fortune just to compete.
    This is not entirely true. A lot of things can be quality of life or accessories. The point is to have variety in them. So even if it is overwhelming, it’s not that you need it to compete.

    Like pets or mounts or perfumes or custom clothes. 
  • Realistically, promotions are driven by what people spend the most on. If their data showed that people spent more on pets or mounts or perfumes or custom clothes than the gambling shenanigans, that's what the promotions would include. This type of feedback certainly helps voice interest, but that voice isn't quite as loud as your wallet. Or other people's wallets.

    Unfortunately, there's a non-zero amount of people who have issues with gambling. I imagine they make up a large chunk of the sales that drive these gambling promotions. That feels somewhat predatory to me, but I believe this particular business direction comes from far above Achaea's administrators and producers.

     i'm a rebel

  • Swikaan said:
    Colden said:
    Want to see a prime example of too much? Have a look at Lusternia. You go too far, and it quickly becomes overwhelming, especially to newer players who feel they will have to drop a fortune just to compete.
    This is not entirely true. A lot of things can be quality of life or accessories. The point is to have variety in them. So even if it is overwhelming, it’s not that you need it to compete.

    Like pets or mounts or perfumes or custom clothes. 
    If you start gating quality of life things behind monthly promotions, it absolutely will end up making a massive gap between those who spend, and those who don't. This literally happened in Lusternia, like Colden mentions.

    Accessories, fine. But at the end of the day IRE is a business, and pets/mounts just don't make nearly as much money as their standard promotions do. Keeping variety the same as it has been for the most part, allows them to both make money without increasing the power disparity that's already kinda large.

    Disappearing from Achaea for now. See you, space cowboy.


    smileyface#8048 if you wanna chat.

  • I'd much rather see more new areas and deeper lore than new pets, perfumes, or minigames.  It's kind of a shame there's no way to support that directly though.
  • There is already far, far too much available as part of promotions, talisman, Crowns, teardrops, gift boxes, the last thing we need to more shit to fill up with.

    You just got new class, and the Champ games coming up, its not like they haven't been busy. You also need to remember that some people WANT these older things to come back so they can complete sets. It took me over a RL year to complete a Maya, and about the same to get any useful gems on my sceptre. Just because people spend their trust funds on this place doesn't mean the rest of us do, we need Time to complete stuff with the frankly ludicrous lootbox shit. 


    (Party): Mezghar says, "Stop."
  • edited February 2021
    You have some points but one thing I like about the current one is that it's all about existing arties, which inherently makes the promo 33% less valuable (give or take!) for people just using it to farm credits by selling in-game credits for USD (which until recently was shrubbable but is now apparently encouraged).

    For example for a new player, they buy 10 spins and get 2 bronze gift boxes and end up with two new artefacts they didn't have before, and get to choose from 10 options.  Meanwhile someone like me for example rolls 100 spins and already has everything even in Plat giftboxes so they only real options I have are to just trade everything in or sell to other people (at a loss to me but at a discount to them), again favoring people who DON'T have artefacts.

    It's a great catch-up mechanic for newest players who might want a Lesser Vault or a L1 crit pendant.

    By comparison with the talisman promos they basically just made all the artied people far more artied while newer people definitely wouldn't be spending 2500cr on a trinket sword, a 2000cr regen mantle, or 1000cr for a horn that challenges people to duels, etc, but would rather not participate in favor of just buying regular artefacts they've been saving up for.

    So in that sense, I personally hope to see more promos like this so that newer players have a way to catch up as t a discount, while high end artied people essentially get nothing (except 67% of trade-in value ofc).

    On a completely different note, this is blatantly online gambling and is illegal in a lot of places, and is illegal for minors almost everywhere.  They really oughta take more steps to protect people from both gambling issues as well what is ostensibly encouraging people to commit crimes.

    While it may mean less immediate revenue I think there oughta be a cooldown in gambling-style purchases (which includes talisman caches), along with a warning about following domestic online gambling laws.

    Here's my two cents:. Do a promo that involves questing, or some type of in-game activity instead of just loot boxes.  Maybe sell loot boxes that need keys to unlock, and the keys can only be obtained by completing forays or voyages, etc.  It creates a market and gives people something to do, which would even include people who aren't spending RL money.  Everyone wins.

    Lucrescent Nuts were a dope addition though.  Amazing for newbies and amazing for high end combatants.  All without breaking the game in any way.
  • edited February 2021
    Yen said:
    I'd much rather see more new areas and deeper lore than new pets, perfumes, or minigames.  It's kind of a shame there's no way to support that directly though.
    I think buying credits (or loot boxes) is more or less directly supporting it.  That's the revenue that's used to pay people, I imagine.

    You could also volunteer to design some yourself and submit them through email.  Worth a shot?

    This my at be a stretch but bulk farming gold also indirectly supports it as it continues to drive up credit prices on CFS which means more people buy credits with real money - which means more content (in theory).
  • Shecks said:
    Yen said:
    I'd much rather see more new areas and deeper lore than new pets, perfumes, or minigames.  It's kind of a shame there's no way to support that directly though.
    I think buying credits (or loot boxes) is more or less directly supporting it.  That's the revenue that's used to pay people, I imagine.
    Well no, if I buy loot boxes, that could just be interpreted as "hey I like loot boxes, sell me more loot boxes."  It doesn't say what about the game I enjoy that motivated me to buy the loot box.  That is the point I was trying to make.
  • ArchaeonArchaeon Ur mums house lol
    Less new shit more refining old shit and put some of that fucking money into advertising so we can get some fresh blood up in here
  • edited February 2021
    A game as wide as Achaea, is very hard to arrive at a consensus what's the best promo. But I think as promo cycles, your favourite will return. 

    Paying to support lore and areas ie expansion pack, directly sounds like a good idea, but then you would see complaints too. But I seriously think this is a great idea! 

    I still think if you love the game, you would at some point, pay and support the part you love. They have to do a damn good job at every level of experience to eventually give reasons for people to pay. I don't think there's any lack of effort, just priorities I suppose. I am enjoying Pariah and it's interactions with existing classes!

    I also think the mindset of certain thing is gated behind paywall isn't a good one. Try to think another way, if you support by paying, you get to enjoy more. 

    I do feel we can have some new promos, cos I have lost reasons to pay since I return. Pariah artefacts will get my support, for how much fun I already enjoy on it, i will support Pariah arties. Waiting...

    @Archaeon good point. Do some advertising outside of mud directories. Get some KOLs, host some Twitch.tv i donno. Get Ryan Toy Review to play or DanTDM or pokemane whoever. Lol. More new players possibly bring down the need for high revenue per player. Not sure what your business metrics are but more players more fun. 
  • Being gated behind a paywall and paying for something to be more fun are exactly the same thing. The largest problem i have with promos is I don't know what I'm getting for my money and everything is so damn expensive.

    The only thing I buy is Elite because I can be 100% i get what I pay for, I can then use those credits to buy arties from Delos. Having to pay 100's of $ on the off chance I might get part of something I want is fucking ridiculous. 

    Look at a recent post from Shecks, $400 on lessons for another class he doesn't even have full access to yet. Sunk cost fallacy and social interaction with a handful people in Hashan are the only things keeping me here. My son was so excited to try Achaea over Christmas and really enjoyed rhe first week or so, but was massively put off with the cost and the grind he gave up.


    I'm aware I'm bitter here, so take the above with that in mind. But Archaeon says, hold off on the new trinkets and help build and flesh out what we already have. The new class is nice, but we totally didn't need it.

    (Party): Mezghar says, "Stop."
  • edited February 2021
    I agree the game is on the expensive side. I'd hope the cost of common items (yes, like arties and lessons) could come down eventually, but still maintain a high spend cap per player.

    It's also grind heavy, I find myself okay with grinding, but this is aspect is not a plus to younger generations, which have me worried. I don't know, but I see younger generations are expecting silver platers served to them under their nose, what to do... can't expect them to fit in, they are the leaders of tomorrow, so we gotta fit in.
  • You can trade one spin for 55 bound credits.  That's over a 100% credit bonus on your purchase.  That's a guarantee without gambling.  Turn market on and listen for the buyers.

    You don't have to gamble to make bank in gambling promos.  You just need to find the people who want to gamble and have the means to do it already.
  • edited February 2021
    Maybe it's just me but I find the "selling my bound credits for your USD" thing to be really gross.  At the same time, I'm with Veldrin in that I'm not really trying to gamble - so doing this is really the only thing that makes any sense - but even then it's kinda messed up because you end up with these man-in-the-middle people who are the only ones who know the odds / payouts and make huge margins for basically doing nothing but swapping items around (to the tune of thousands upon thousands of credits for "free" just for being the fence between you and IRE.

    Also think it's weird that when I log in on my account and buy thing with my credit card, the bonus items go to other people.  Feels like that should always go to the person making the purchase, if they're in Iron Elite.

    Also weird that people say "Buying 50 tokens for X credits" then I say OK sure I'll give you 50 tokens (yes they are transferrable) and they say "No, I only accept USD transactions to my account through the website" even though they flatly offered to buy them on market.

    At the same time, a simple search on Google will show that virtually every major country on earth is headed towards outlawing this practice in general, or at the very least banning selling to minors (which requires age verification).  It would be nice to see IRE get ahead of this instead of waiting on the government(s) to force them to move promos into something a little more ... ethical.  If you have to pull out fine print to carefully explain why what you're doing isn't TECHNICALLY a crime then you're probably not being as nice as you could be to your customers - and for people outside of the US it's already illegal in most places, on both sides of the transaction (* I'm not a laywer but it seems pretty clearly defined in most of Europe and Asia).
  • Shecks said:
    Maybe it's just me but I find the "selling my bound credits for your USD" thing to be really gross.  At the same time, I'm with Veldrin in that I'm not really trying to gamble - so doing this is really the only thing that makes any sense - but even then it's kinda messed up because you end up with these man-in-the-middle people who are the only ones who know the odds / payouts and make huge margins for basically doing nothing but swapping items around (to the tune of thousands upon thousands of credits for "free" just for being the fence between you and IRE.

    Also think it's weird that when I log in on my account and buy thing with my credit card, the bonus items go to other people.  Feels like that should always go to the person making the purchase, if they're in Iron Elite.

    Also weird that people say "Buying 50 tokens for X credits" then I say OK sure I'll give you 50 tokens (yes they are transferrable) and they say "No, I only accept USD transactions to my account through the website" even though they flatly offered to buy them on market.

    At the same time, a simple search on Google will show that virtually every major country on earth is headed towards outlawing this practice in general, or at the very least banning selling to minors (which requires age verification).  It would be nice to see IRE get ahead of this instead of waiting on the government(s) to force them to move promos into something a little more ... ethical.  If you have to pull out fine print to carefully explain why what you're doing isn't TECHNICALLY a crime then you're probably not being as nice as you could be to your customers - and for people outside of the US it's already illegal in most places, on both sides of the transaction (* I'm not a laywer but it seems pretty clearly defined in most of Europe and Asia).
    I guess you just can't please everyone.  Last I checked an over 100% yield on what you would normally get is a good fucking deal.  Unsure why the rest of it matters, because you're still getting a "better" deal at the end of the day.  If you're not stockpiling talismans, you're not buying spins to complete them; you're buying spins for immediate gratification.

    If you want to cut out the gambling that IRE is providing to get your massive credit bonus, of course the middle man is going to get something out of it.  But so are you.  To the tune of thousands and thousands of credits.
  • Yeah I really don't get the attitude of "lol I should get the full amount of what the guy spending hours and hours of his time everyday is going to make off of compiling hundreds of spins to eek out a few hundred extra credits per deal." You are getting less because you are not spending the time collecting talismans, bartering, trading, and gambling. You're still getting a lot.
  • edited February 2021
    Eryl said:
    ....
    Oh, you disagree with me.  I am stunned.

    I apologize for not having opinions that are exactly the same as yours.  There can we be nice now?

    Amranu said:
    Yeah I really don't get the attitude of "lol I should get the full amount of what the guy spending hours and hours of his time everyday is going to make off of compiling hundreds of spins to eek out a few hundred extra credits per deal." You are getting less because you are not spending the time collecting talismans, bartering, trading, and gambling. You're still getting a lot.
    I don't think you're doing a good job of justifying why this 'middle-man' thing needs to exist at all.  If someone $330 buys X number of credits, they shouldn't need to either gamble with USD or give 15-20% of what i'm buying to a pawn shop owner to get what I paid for.   You are not "gambling" nor taking any risk, because you know the odds, and you're playing in bulk on a fixed rotation knowing that you are guaranteed a profit, whereas "normal" people have to roll the dice.  You're selling the ability to dodge risk without actually taking any yourself.

    I'm not saying the promotions are /bad/, but at the same time you can't say there's nothing wrong with it just because post-scalping cost is still lower than the normal credit prices.  That logic doesn't stand at all.  I'm also not saying IRE shouldn't sell things - I just don't get why we have to buy things from Amranu, Peak, Swikaan, or Mycen instead of buying from the company running the promo.  The only alternative is buying so many loot boxes you eliminate the RNG buy just looping through the entire cycle, which is just .... really not cool.

    Also, @Amranu - while I appreciate what you guys are doing (this isn't your fault by any stretch) - I don't think flipping talismans is difficult or really time consuming.  I have played this game too - it's nowhere near the level where you should be netting thousands of credits in profit without spending any of your own money - and the whole gig rides upon the fact that the people buying it from you don't know the odds / tables / payouts / talisman cycles / trade-in values and you do - which is one of a dozen reasons why I firmly believe IRE should publish the odds like all other forms of gambling are required to do.  I'm not asking for cheaper prices, nor complaining about the promos in general (in fact my comment was a compliment to them) - but the gambling aspect and the scalpers are a pure negative for me.  Just one opinion.
  • I think the biggest issue that I’ve seen from the rise of selling the gamble part for credits has been the ability to trade in bound credits. It’s removed the entire point of bound credits, and makes it so that someone who does the arbitrage can bypass the unbound/bound limitation. They can turn their bound credits into unbound, and that’s not something everyone else can do.

    My IRE doesn’t let me dabble into any of this, on the front or back end, which doesn’t really seem all that balanced.




    Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
  • edited February 2021
    I'll point out that the stocking payout was like  1,350 -1,400cr by multiple accounts, but the scalpers were selling them at like 850 for a long while until it eventually went up to around 1100, maybe 1150.   All because only they knew what they were worth.  So it's hard to ask for sympathy here considering it's basically a scam wrapped up in nice words like "but it's still cheaper than normal credit prices!".  

    Anyone paying any of these people in this way should know, up front, what the average payout is.  That's all I'm saying, on the subject of scalpers (I like the term and I'm sticking with it.  It's better than "grifter" right?).
  • Lol. Put your big boy britches on buddy.

    I agree with Atalkez that the ability to trade bound credits has definitely skewed things for sure.
  • Swikaan said:
    every month a new promotion rolls around which is low effort and doing the same thing it has done for the past 4-5 years. Stockings did the same stuff, wheel gives the same stuff each time it rolls around. Crates and gift boxes give the same stuff each time they are in promos.

    While a little bit of freshness would be nice, the biggest problem I have is that Talismans are at the core of these spins/globes/stockings/etc. and there's literally only one or two things in most sets that I actually want. Most of the stuff I would decline even if someone offered it to me for free.

    I would love to see the more unwanted talismans sent to the talisman store and be replaced by useful stuff - even if they are just duplicates of existing artefacts. (like that one set...conclave?) 
  • As a new player - I don't think more things should be added. I already don't have a clue what half this stuff is.

    And while I get that it's probably not FOR me, for just that reason, an increase in confusing junk will just make the gap that much wider (in understanding) when I DO get to the point I start looking at promo stuff.

    In addition, I dislike that the promotions exist to get PARTS of a neat thing. I realize you can just scrap those parts and turn them into credits, which is nice, but you're spending money to get a chance to get a part of a thing you might actually want. I feel like transparency on odds would be nice, and that it's the method they use to generate income at all, so it's probably not as predatory as it feels, but....

    Gave up the classless bash-o-thon at 89(10%)

  • Most of the promotions revolve around things for experienced/veteran adventurers which is probably why newer players like us feel they are so bad and why you’d also get positive feedback about them from some in this thread.

    I do find it mildly funny that some of you are saying you need these promotions to get certain talisman pieces when really there should be other in-game methods to obtain almost all of these things instead of repeated money grabs.
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