How to improve Warframe's Monetization model, to make horrible RNG grind in the game less necessary!

[Insane-Mana]

46 minutes ago, (NSW)Jeronan said:

You cannot demand this when joining the random queue!

But you can demand 10 minute runs hmm oke 🙂

Anyway my point stands, this is a loot game where you must grind and find ways to maximize your chances of getting x item or what ever it is you want. Some people look at what they want , and focus on getting said item as fast as possible so they can enjoy it, some people dont like to farm or wait and just buy it, some people want this that and the other thing and come complaining here it takes to long.

[(XBOX)KayAitch]

8 hours ago, Fallen_Echo said:

On top of that we get a "Prime pass" for 25$ (20$ would be the best) what once the PA arrives gives you the parts of the items you can buy (2 weapons in this case). No grind, you have a pass you get these and can start building.

Also we could have an "Access pass" for 10$ what gives you one weapon/frame from the pack when its released with the difference that you have to do 4 different fissure missions to get the parts then build it.

That's not really any different from what we have now, it's just cheaper and you have to wait to build the parts.

Why not just have a Prime Parts pack - a tier below the current Prime Access, but just the various blueprints and weapon parts and no plat?

Not sure what DE's incentive would be for that, as it will definitely hurt Prime Access sales to some extent. They'd need to sell twice as many of these packs as they lost in Prime Access sales just to break even.

[Fallen_Echo]

4 minutes ago, (XB1)KayAitch said:

That's not really any different from what we have now, it's just cheaper and you have to wait to build the parts.

Why not just have a Prime Parts pack - a tier below the current Prime Access, but just the various blueprints and weapon parts and no plat?

Not sure what DE's incentive would be for that, as it will definitely hurt Prime Access sales to some extent. They'd need to sell twice as many of these packs as they lost in Prime Access sales just to break even.

To my understanding the thing what makes prime access desirable is the plat, the potatoes and slot plus the bonus of not taking into account someone mr rank.

IF we take this all out you are back at a relatively low price pack.

[MJ12]

8 hours ago, (NSW)Jeronan said:

Lets not degenerate the topic into Pay 2 Win vs Pay 2 Advance warzone.

Both expressions are exactly the same. P2W expression is often used in PVP focused games and P2A expression is often used in PVE focused games.

Warframe is very much a Pay 2 Advance game, but since it actually has PVP it's valid to use Pay 2 Win expression as well, hence why I used it...it doesn't matter. It's just what you want to call it, they both have the exact same meaning and end result.

So lets not burry this topic in and endless Pay 2 Win vs Pay 2 Advance war of words... /shrug

The reason people care about this "endless Pay 2 Win vs Pay 2 Advance war of words" is because both expressions are not exactly the same, and in fact are very very different.

The expression "Pay 2 Win" implies that paying players gain a near-insurmountable advantage over non-paying players, which cannot be surmounted by practical and reasonable amounts of playtime. The fundamental issue with this implication is that: 1. Nobody cares about Warframe PvP, 2. You can't pay real money to unlock PvP mods and most of the stuff that matters in PvP gets unlocked very easily with very little PvE play, 3. Basically zero of the leaderboard events which existed ever required the benefits that Prime equipment gives you over normal gear.

People object to characterizing Warframe as "Pay 2 Win" because it largely doesn't have that underlying unfairness.

Anyways, to address your OP's suggestion:

You will likely accomplish the opposite of what you seem to want by suggesting this. All free-to-play economics are basically a tradeoff between operating costs, conversion rate, and average money spent per paying player. If you reduce the latter, by making 'Season Passes' that cost 10% as much as full Prime Access and end up giving you the same thing, you will necessarily have to either reduce operating costs (which means fewer employees and less content) or increase conversion rate (which means more painful grinding).

You can see this by looking at how Fortnite, despite making probably hundreds of times more than Warframe (it literally makes billions of dollars in profit) gets a lot less content than Warframe in its season passes than Warframe gets in its "content drought" phases (where Warframes still get new skins and cosmetics are still introduced).

Far from making the "horrible RNG grind in the game less necessary" it'll probably make the horrible RNG grind worse as instead of only needing .1% of its players to become whales who regularly buy Prime Access, now Warframe needs a full order of magnitude more players regularly buying into the season passes.

[Kevyne_Kicklighter]

14 hours ago, Insane-Mana said:

My self i cant really play fortuna cause my laptop is worse than a potato, so the other day i sold some stuff via the market and made 1100 plat in just a few hours. Bought the stuff i wanted (for free lol)

But it's NOT "for free". Currency in WF is bought by "whales" ... someone is paying, while others are grinding for welfare.

That's the "free to play/pay to win" money model.

[(XBOX)Shodian]

30 minutes ago, Kevyne_Kicklighter said:

That's the "free to play/pay to win" money model.

Still don't understand how anyone sees this as pay to win. Lol

[Kevyne_Kicklighter]

17 minutes ago, (XB1)Shodian said:

Still don't understand how anyone sees this as pay to win. Lol

YOU may not, but PLENTY of people do see otherwise around the world...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loot_box#Regulation_and_legislation

That includes ALL of the nickle and diming money models, too.

IF the video gaming industry wants to go full casino in it's money making practices, they will have to be regulated and pay to treat addictions it creates. Just like casinos and state lotteries have to for gambling. It's NOT the State's job to clean up after the pain gambling causes families.

[(XBOX)Shodian]

45 minutes ago, Kevyne_Kicklighter said:

YOU may not, but PLENTY of people do see otherwise around the world...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loot_box#Regulation_and_legislation

That includes ALL of the nickle and diming money models, too.

IF the video gaming industry wants to go full casino in it's money making practices, they will have to be regulated and pay to treat addictions it creates. Just like casinos and state lotteries have to for gambling. It's NOT the State's job to clean up after the pain gambling causes families.

Though some games are like that, Warframe is far from that. Everything with the exception of cosmetics can be acquired for free. Or you pay to get it a little sooner. 

[MasterBurik]

47 minutes ago, Kevyne_Kicklighter said:

It's NOT the State's job to clean up after the pain gambling causes families.

Was this...was this sarcasm? I live in the United States, where we would laugh in the face of any government official who made such a statement.

Edited January 10, 2019 by MasterBurik

[Kevyne_Kicklighter]

Just now, MasterBurik said:

Was this...was this sarcasm? I live in the United States, where we would laugh in the face of any government official who made such a hypocritical statement.

I live in the USA and saw what addictions can do to families ... and the price society PAYS for it.

Had a neighbor, a WWII veteran who had a son. He not only stoled his father's money for his addictions of Wine/Women/Song/AND BEER. One day, when they were now out of even power as his son ripped him off of all his savings and retirement money, he asked for more money. His dad finally had enough and said, "NO!" to the entitled PoS. What did his addicted son do? BROKE HIS LEGS, and ripped the phone off the wall and left him for DEAD. If his Army buddy didn't do a welfare check he would've died.

I don't want to pay taxes for 20 years for such a fool getting 3 meals a day and a roof over his head ... because of passing the buck on OTHERS.

So do wipe that grin off your face, son. It's not funny for OTHERS to pay for industries making a buck and asking OTHERS to pay the consequences.

[(XBOX)Shodian]

Welp...this just got weird.

[YUNoJump]

9 hours ago, Kevyne_Kicklighter said:

But it's NOT "for free". Currency in WF is bought by "whales" ... someone is paying, while others are grinding for welfare.

That's the "free to play/pay to win" money model.

There are players buying the Plat that circulates through the player economy, but those players bought that currency because they wanted to, not because they felt that they were forced to buy it in order to have fun in the game. If you have spare money then it is easier to buy Plat from DE than trade for it, but you can still trade for it very reasonably.

Nobody is saying that buying Plat outright and spending it on everything isn't the fastest way to progress, but it's also just one of many options that you can progress with, and just about every other option is designed to be enjoyable on its own. 

8 hours ago, Kevyne_Kicklighter said:

YOU may not, but PLENTY of people do see otherwise around the world...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loot_box#Regulation_and_legislation

That includes ALL of the nickle and diming money models, too.

IF the video gaming industry wants to go full casino in it's money making practices, they will have to be regulated and pay to treat addictions it creates. Just like casinos and state lotteries have to for gambling. It's NOT the State's job to clean up after the pain gambling causes families.

I agree with the issue that lootboxes are an issue, but that is irrelevant here as Warframe doesn't really have lootboxes or real-money gambling of any sort. It has a tiny number of randomised outcomes from purchases (in the form of Mod packs bought from the store with plat), but a) they are a very minor feature that most players acknowledge as an inferior option to normal Mod farming, and b) it's a massive difference from games like Overwatch and SWBF2 where lootboxes are central to progression. 

In fact, DE has actually REMOVED lootbox-esque systems in the past because they didn't like how much players were using them: 

https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/03/warframe-removed-a-microtransaction-because-a-player-used-it-too-much/

[Letter13]

Cleaned some derailing posts. Stay on topic, folks.

[MJ12]

17 hours ago, Kevyne_Kicklighter said:

YOU may not, but PLENTY of people do see otherwise around the world...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loot_box#Regulation_and_legislation

That includes ALL of the nickle and diming money models, too.

IF the video gaming industry wants to go full casino in it's money making practices, they will have to be regulated and pay to treat addictions it creates. Just like casinos and state lotteries have to for gambling. It's NOT the State's job to clean up after the pain gambling causes families.

The only reason lootboxes have come up in the regulatory sense is that there is an open question whether lootboxes are considered gambling (and therefore would have to conform to gambling regulations/gambling bans) or not because they have several traits reminiscent of casino games but also a bunch of traits which are not reminiscent of casino games. This is not actually relevant to "nickle and diming gaming models" because buying the Ultimate Sword of Power Creep +10 for $199.99 isn't even slightly reminiscent of gambling.

And your definition of "pay to win" in general is extremely off:

On 2019-01-08 at 6:11 PM, Kevyne_Kicklighter said:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/concept

Free use healing and energy pads is a P2W concept in too many P2W games.

DE designed them as a P2W mechanic in WF.

Because in P2W games you BUY them.

Otherwise, it would have a cooldown timer on it's use so NOT to spam them.

 

"Free use healing and energy pads" existed long before free to play games with pay to win mechanics was even a theoretical concept in anyone's minds, and in fact existed before some of the people who invented and designed said P2W games were born. Rogue, the first roguelike, had 'free use healing potions' which you claim is a P2W element... in a free game, released back in 1980. Nethack did the same in 1987. Diablo 1 had no microtransactions, no real money interaction, and was released in 1996, and had free use healing and mana potions without cooldown timers.

Your definition of "P2W elements" needs work because it leads one to conclude that Diablo 1, Nethack, and Rogue and a whole bunch of other games are "P2W." This conclusion is obviously absurd, and if your definition leads to this conclusion your definition is flawed.

[(XBOX)KayAitch]

On 2019-01-09 at 7:39 PM, Fallen_Echo said:

To my understanding the thing what makes prime access desirable is the plat, the potatoes and slot plus the bonus of not taking into account someone mr rank.

IF we take this all out you are back at a relatively low price pack

Yes. I wouldnt be interested and it sounds like a waste of time/money, but isn't that what you were asking for? Or did you think you should get the plat as well for a quarterly subscription that costs less than half the current (also quarterly) Prime Access?

Why not start a thread asking for it to be cheaper?

19 hours ago, MasterBurik said:

Was this...was this sarcasm? I live in the United States, where we would laugh in the face of any government official who made such a statement

And yet the US does ban Kinder eggs, for exactly that reason, and most states fairly heavily regulate and also tax gambling.

In Canada (where Warframe is made) and the EU (where I live) gambling is pretty heavily regulated too. Overwatch/FIFA style lootboxes are already illegal in some countries. In these countries gambling is commonly regarded as a kind of addiction.

I think those games should at least get a clear 18/R rating so parents know not to buy them for kids unawares.

[Fallen_Echo]

18 minutes ago, (XB1)KayAitch said:

Yes. I wouldnt be interested and it sounds like a waste of time/money, but isn't that what you were asking for? Or did you think you should get the plat as well for a quarterly subscription that costs less than half the current (also quarterly) Prime Access?

True but it also takes out the whole RNG part from the equation. Pay 50$ and get some plat plus prebuilt stuff vs pay 20-25$ to get everything without the need to grind at all.

[(XBOX)KayAitch]

11 minutes ago, Fallen_Echo said:

True but it also takes out the whole RNG part from the equation

They don't want to take RNG out. There a reason why it's everywhere in games and that's Skinner Boxes - a psychologist called Skinner figured out that people got bored of certainty (even with rewards) but kept playing with randomness. Basically: give folks a button that gives them a sweet every time and they fill up on sweets and stop. Give them a button that sometimes gives them a sweet and they'll keep playing long after they're sick of them. 

It's also the whole reason why gambling works - if people didn't gamble illogically the house could never give them the unfair odds that make casinos profitable (there is no casino game with fair odds, craps is closest with about a 48% chance of breaking even).

The randomness is not going anywhere.

 

[Fallen_Echo]

10 hours ago, (XB1)KayAitch said:

They don't want to take RNG out. There a reason why it's everywhere in games and that's Skinner Boxes - a psychologist called Skinner figured out that people got bored of certainty (even with rewards) but kept playing with randomness. Basically: give folks a button that gives them a sweet every time and they fill up on sweets and stop. Give them a button that sometimes gives them a sweet and they'll keep playing long after they're sick of them. 

It's also the whole reason why gambling works - if people didn't gamble illogically the house could never give them the unfair odds that make casinos profitable (there is no casino game with fair odds, craps is closest with about a 48% chance of breaking even).

The randomness is not going anywhere.

 

You have a logical problem there because buying PA already removes the RNG, my option is nothing more than a cheaper and less useful PA pack.

[Fallen_Echo]

OP just an idea but what do you think about selling Prime accessories in the market for 2K plat?

Its costly as hell but so is the PAA pack, this would help DE take out a lot of plat from the circulation and could boost up the plat sales too.

[(XBOX)KayAitch]

47 minutes ago, Fallen_Echo said:

OP just an idea but what do you think about selling Prime accessories in the market for 2K plat

I like it but DE probably won't - Prime Access is their main revenue stream and there is a huge amount of sunk platinum out there.

However, buying Prime parts from other players isn't usually that expensive, especially once the initial interest has died down and before it gets vaulted. Meanwhile the accessories are cosmetics, definitely not P2W and not even lootable.

[Fallen_Echo]

35 minutes ago, (XB1)KayAitch said:

I like it but DE probably won't - Prime Access is their main revenue stream and there is a huge amount of sunk platinum out there.

However, buying Prime parts from other players isn't usually that expensive, especially once the initial interest has died down and before it gets vaulted. Meanwhile the accessories are cosmetics, definitely not P2W and not even lootable.

I thought about this because people buy the prime accessory pack because of the sweet 90 day boosters, selling only the accessories like a piece of fashion for this price is the equilovent of DE getting rid atleast 25$ worth of plat from the system (if we take into account 75% coupons).

I believe it would be a great income for DE and would also boost the plat sales too.