better payment model brainstorm

[evilboy666]

It seems this should be reposted in here:

0-80 100% growth rate for all.
80-150 70% growth rate for free, 100% for verified and subs
150-FOREVERRRR 30% growth rate for free accounts, 60% for verified and 100% for subs.

That's not bad. I actually like the idea of simply buffing study speeds for verified and subscribed accounts. 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, quite simply, perhaps, with 2.0 obviously being today's speeds. That might be a bit P2W, #devssuck, but you could both play as much as you wanted, and you could theoretically get to the same stats as anyone else.

I realize that 200 is very low. It's just that if we set it to, say, 500, it might, on the other hand, be a while before we see any output.

The speed bonus is, on the other hand, relevant from day one, and then we could also set the level cap higher.

So that could perhaps be a thought.

people shouldnt see this as pay2win. If thats the case the game is pay2win now already. If you dont pay you get 7 hours a month and you dont win People react like they were playing for free up to now. No matter whats done it will be basically the same thing if devs dont find any way other than subs to make money.

[LadyGoo]

I like the idea with the LA % bonus payment, rather than the skill cap one.

[DarkHPG]

Anything is better than limiting the potential of my precious carrots

[Granger]

I think the current offer was extremely generous toward freeloaders, and any of them who complain about that not being enough deserve to not get anything free at all.

I propose subscription with the current rates, starting with the 3 month package (removing the 1-month one), rename the gametime token to subscription token (so it does what it sais) and price it 10€.

Introduce real gametime tokens (in various sizes) that boil down to something around 0.1€ per online hour.

Do away with weekly refills, keep the free 48h to a new account (should be enough to try the game) but hardcap everything it touches to its skills.

[Kalacia]

I posted this in the main update thread. But i suppose its better suited here:

"Maybe allow players to buy permanent bolt-ons(addons) to their game, and get rewards for the amount of time they played (while subbed).

Ideas for account bolt ons(addons) or one off payments (I know some may already exist)

a. Have playtime measured monthly, to bring it in line with a monthly sub model. This would allow players to compare subs with playtime easier.
b. Allow players to “refil” their play time once a month for a less than a month’s sub (one off payment, gets no sub benefits)
c. Players can buy items that attach to account that give none game effecting bonus, such as an emote or a hat.
d. Account upgrade (same as buying the game) increases game time. Get a nice hat with a boast animation or something.
e. Limit same account alts, but allow people to pay a SMALL amount to increase the amount of alts. The max limit would apply to sub accounts.(if a person unsubs, their first login they will be prompted to pick a single char to play)
f. Give people the option to pay for game time in blocks. Say in blocks of 6/12/24 hours (easily multiplied and divided). You could then easily have a sale on these to boost up none subbers revenue.

Ideas/rewards for people who sub

a. Players who sub can make a character with better customisation. diff colour hair, beards, hair styles, diff walk style etc
b. New characters who sub get a little boost. Maybe start off with a curio or two, a hand axe. Just something to take the edge off the first hour or so of game play.
c. As long as you are subbed, and your first claim is under a certain size… it will not decay.
d. Some new, NONE GAME MECHANIC EFFECTING items. EG black steel. Just makes things made with steel look black.
e. Players who sub after char creation or want to change their look again can make items to change their appearance.
f. Give players who sub, world changing events to participate in. Yes non subs can participate and get the “world” rewards , but they won’t get account level rewards.(Lets say one update a god wants to add a 10% debuff to LP gain for a week. The world builds altars, or conducts rituals to stop it. Subbers get a forum badge, as well as a boast emote or whatever. AND gets a +10% LP buff for a week… where the free player would just get a 10% buff.)
g. If subbers play over the end of the world they get an LP buff or a little “reincarnated” package to start with.
h. Allow subbers when making a new character to start loosely in a terrain type, or with a certain population density within a supergrid.

This could bring in more subbers, as you are giving them/us more than just play time. Hell, give the subbers now a special gift before this gets implemented for being an early adopter.
This system would not discriminate towards free players. As really, the game mechanics are the same for everyone. Yes subbers get shiny shit. But that’s the model a lot of MMOs go down.
As I said above I dislike player/character subjugation based on if they can/will pay or not. Either make it free, or make it 100% clear that you have 1 month of X hours of FREE time as a demo, and that’s it. Wham! Gone after the month… want to refill… Pay to refill, pay to sub or buy."

[Granger]

About caps:
For a perpetual world to work we need limits to how high numbers (stuff quality, stats, attributes) can grow, so I'm fine with experiments on caps.

One way to limit endless growth could be that you can't eat your attributes higher than the quality (times a multiplier, which should be a low single-digit) of the food you eat. And in case you eat lower quality (or don't gain certain attributes for a while) they could even shrink back over time.

For this food (basically the crops) quality should be tied into the resource qualities, so q1k carrots can't happen anymore. q300+ bears should not exist, and high quality ones should be way harder to kill than default ones (with a way to find out before initiating combat, preferably without the need for sacrificial alts).

Abilities could have an upkeep cost associated with them, so they can't get out of hand (like commodos botted char from w7 did), thus would also auto-cap, but please in a way that pure UA/MC builds are not cheaper than balanced ones.

[Amanda44]

I'm going to be honest here ... this decision will finally bring about the demise of Haven, I know a lot of you want to fight for it still and won't see it, I want to fight for it too but it's the truth none-the-less.

The cap forces a premature end to the game, I think it was bitza who went into more details on this earlier on in this thread, so I won't bother to repeat it all, but he is right;

here I found the relevant bits.

but the level caps will create an artificial "end" to the game, once a player hits either the free or paid level cap, depending on what they can afford, they will simply run out of things to do. trust me on this, if there is no more point to pushing LP or food stats or quality, a lot of players will find themselves struggling to find something to do. yeah, I know, "explore and trade and combat and blah blah" but so much of the game content will be pushed aside once the caps are reached

It's not so much that I'm totally against caps, Potjeh made me think about them in the past and I do think unlimited growth gets a bit silly in a very long world but this idea, tied in with the payment model just won't work, the cap is too low for those prepared to sub and then when reached there is not enough in the game to make it worthwhile continuing when you can't see a return from your investment. It may work at some point in the future when the game has more content and meaning on other levels but it just doesn't have that atm.

Cosmetic sales are a nice idea and I would be up for them but the player base is so small that it wouldn't really generate an income for the devs unless the goods were priced at too high a rate.

If the alter is to continue into future worlds I really can't see anyone subbing, except those that would built it, why when you could potentially lose everything continuously and never have time to achieve anything. I thought the idea was to work towards a never ending world, not one that players can bring down at any time due to their own personal reasons.

I will stay and see what happens for the same reason most of you will, because we love this game, or at least what it once was, and have too much time and heart and soul invested in it to just walk away ... even though most of us probably know that we should.

And, @ Granger, why you are so keen to drive away the old players without whom this game would be already obsolete is a mystery to me and pretty short minded, there are no new takers, well not enough to make up the loss of all of us and I doubt very much that new players will give this game more than we do, they may come to it open minded but the lack of anything substantial will drive them away faster than us who have that emotional investment.

I'd like to add a positive suggestion just so that I don't sound quite so negative, lol, but I can't think of one and was happy anyway with the method we already have.

[Granger]

And, @ Granger, why you are so keen to drive away the old players without whom this game would be already obsolete is a mystery to me and pretty short minded, there are no new takers, well not enough to make up the loss of all of us and I doubt very much that new players will give this game more than we do, they may come to it open minded but the lack of anything substantial will drive them away faster than us who have that emotional investment.

My view is that an average new player can very well have fun in this game, mostly until some 'old player' comes by and slaughter them for fun because they can and they don't have anything else to do exept raising numbers.

I (for a long time) see the current uncapped infinigrind as broken and a deterrent to getting fresh meat, and would be very happy to see Haven move toward something where you don't just grind up and then slaughter everything that moves - or be slaughtered while being busy with the first part. And in case 'old players' don't like that (or can't adapt to that) I'm not sad to see them go, because in my view a change toward limits on the numbers is needed.

What also contributes is that I experienced a good part of the 'old player' as them feeling entitled to something and then demanding to get (whatever, but now and for free) and being pissed and rude about anything they don't like - instead of being grateful for the experience in the past and happy to be able to play this nice game and giving thoughful feedback to further it.

Also I still vividly remember cleaning up the forum at Hafen launch night of comments from this community, among them gems like 'sad that the nazis didn't gas the devs parents in time' (and that's a quote) - just because now isn't back then. Read through P2P Plan and HEL to get an idea what I'm talking about, where stuff that didn't got an immediate hard delete ended up. That brought me further toward a stance of 'if you don't like the change (or demand the devs to bend over) then go away - come back in case you cool off and reconsidered'.

What I see as toxic are views like this:

this decision will finally bring about the demise of Haven

and the continuous player count and whining about price posts.

[Amanda44]

What I see as toxic are views like this:

this decision will finally bring about the demise of Haven

and the continuous player count and whining about price posts.

So my honest view on the situation is toxic because you don't agree with it. It's not a toxic view, it is one that comes from caring about this game and not wanting to see that happen.

I personally have never once whined about price costs, even at the start when I was upset about the way it was introduced and losing my legacy village, I waited until I got over it, returned, verified and subbed my own two accounts and some, and bought plenty of store items trying to support it ..... I do think they deserve something for giving me years of free enjoyment.

You seem far more toxic to me in wanting to drive us all away, those who do pay to play and have remained as loyal as we can.

P.s. I do remember the comments when it all started in that thread and if you read through it you will see that even when angry and disappointed, and had left the game, I still felt sympathy for the devs and also gave support.

[slipper]

pay for universally accepted silver coinage