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In the World 15 announcement thread, the following intended change was announced:
jorb wrote:
- To extend the usefulness of Sketches in World 15, we intend to make it so that a total of up to two sketches can be applied to any mundane container (e.g. Chests, Wicker Baskets, Cupboards, &c), to extend that inventory in size by one row, and/or one column.
This seems innocuous enough at first glance, but it's an unprecedented change in Haven's business model: it allows players to gain in-game advantages by paying cash in an uncapped manner; the more cash you pay, the more advantage you get.
The value of portable containers, and thus the advantage gained through cash payments
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The announcement mentions wicker baskets and cupboards, but let's be real: nobody is going to pay $5 (two sketches bought separately) or $1.20 (bulk discount when committing to the $30 purchase of 50 sketches) to gain 17 slots in a cupboard when they can instead just spend 8 boards to gain 64 by building another cupboard. Likewise, nobody's going to expand a Wicker Basket to 4x3 for real-life cash. The real use case for container expansion is obviously portable containers, which scale very steeply in material costs due to how useful they are:
- A crate (5x3, 15 slots) costs 4 boards.
- Upgrading to a wooden chest (6x6, 36 slots) costs 4 nuggets.
- Upgrading to a large chest (6x8, 48 slots) costs 2 bars of hard metal, 4 leather, 3 bone glue and 2 rope (you could argue the increased metal cost is 'only' 16 nuggets rather than 2 bars, though hard metal is a big difference too).
- Upgrading to an exquisite chest (8x8, 64 slots) costs 2 bars of precious metal and 2 silk cloth, a hefty price for the ultimate portable container.
Now let's compare this to upgrading those same containers with two sketches (i.e., real-life cash; let's assume we all spend $30 to make upgrades cost $1.20 each rather than paying $5 per container):
- A crate becomes 6x4 (24 slots), clearly inferior to the wooden chest. Not much of a problem.
- A wooden chest becomes 7x7 (49 slots), superior to the large chest! This means for $1.20 RL money you effectively get 2 bars of hard metal, 4 leather, 3 bone glue and 2 rope in-game. Notably, this also gets you LC capacity way before you reach hard metal (i.e. early on you can only get this advantage by paying real money).
- A large chest becomes 7x9 (63 slots), almost the same as the exquisite chest. By paying $1.20 in real cash you effectively get 2 precious metal and 2 silk cloth.
- An exquisite chest becomes 9x9 (81 slots). There is no comparison for this; this new ultimate portable container can only be crafted with real cash. If the previous jumps went '4 nuggets' -> '2 bars of hard metal + some effort stuff' -> '2 bars of precious metal and 2 silk cloth', how priceless would this new premium chest be in in-game materials?
Why is this worse than verification and subscription? Don't they also give an advantage for real cash?
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First, let me start off by saying I don't consider Haven a free-to-play game. Yes, technically you can get started for free, but any serious player will soon pay for verification and a sub because you're at a serious disadvantage without them. This is presumably by design; in world 8 when subscriptions were introduced, they were mandatory for playing and non-paying players got essentially a trial version, being restricted to a limited number of hours per week to play; the current system is an evolution of that 'casual play for free, payment required for serious play' system. As such, it's much more like the traditional MMO business model: buy the game, then pay a monthly fee to keep playing. Haven just has a very generous trial system, allowing players who wouldn't pay anyways to play as well (but at a disadvantage).
So how are the (significant) verification+sub advantages different from sketch-based container expansion, then? One simple but crucial detail: Spending-related advantage is capped, and at a very low cost. After spending the initial $15, you can only spend $7 per month ($4.17 per month on a yearly sub) to gain the exact same advantages every other serious player has. No matter how much more money you throw at the devs, you're not getting any more in-game advantage. Importantly, this also means others are not getting any advantages you aren't getting by paying more than you.
Uncapped paid-for advantages change this dynamic entirely. Even if I spend $1.20, I would not get the same advantage as someone who paid twice as much, and even if I paid twice as much, the person who paid four times as much still gained more advantage than me; there is no limit to this, and no matter how much you spend, you will be at a disadvantage compared to someone who spent more. Now, there is some practical cap on this, as at some point you have no use for more cash shop-exclusive ultimate containers. But it still raises the required spending to not be at a disadvantage compared to others (possibly to a significant degree already with this alone), and it opens the way for more future pay-to-win additions, each slightly raising the real-money price you must pay to not be at a disadvantage. (It's also worth noting that any such purchases must be re-bought with real money if stolen or otherwise lost; getting robbed in-game will cost you real-life money. This was extremely controversial when it happened with hats (which don't even bestow any in-game advantage!) when they were first introduced, which is why the system was changed to make hats unlootable. Making cash shop containers unstealable would obviously not be feasible, so this will definitely be a problem.)
Haven's business model
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Pay-to-win microtransactions are associated with free-to-play games, in the context of which they are considered greedy. But in the context of Haven, it's even worse. The current ways you can spend money on Haven are:
- Verification - As explained above, this is equivalent to buying a game. Gives you significant advantages, but only needs to be purchased once.
- Bronze subscriptions and subscription tokens - Equivalent to a subscription fee in pay-to-play MMOs. Mandatory to not be at a disadvantage, but it's a relatively low monthly cost and you can choose not to pay and still play at a disadvantage. Continued dev work requires continued revenue, and there aren't enough new players coming in to get that with only the one-time fee.
- Hats and sketches - Equivalent to cosmetic skins and costumes in other games, where they are sometimes controversial and seen as greedy. Fortunately, the Haven community just accepts them as a harmless additional revenue stream; if it adds revenue without impacting game balance, it's only beneficial.
- Silver and Gold subs - Equivalent to donations. (I'd compare it to Patreon, but Patreon subs often give a more tangible benefit.) Players get only a token reward that does not impact gameplay (the hats). As stated on the store page, the existence of subscriptions tiers is "mostly there to allow you to throw more money at [the devs] if you feel like it".
It's not that I can't afford this new added cost. The devs know I've thrown way more money at this game than is reasonable, or useful for game advantage. Being a hermit with not much stuff I could easily afford to boost my cupboards and wicker baskets if I really wanted to, and in fact I'd be cheaper off excessively buying in-game advantage instead of donating. But I didn't spend all that money to gain unfair advantages over other players; I spent it out of goodwill, because I love this game and want it to continue being hosted, maintained and developed. The silver and gold subs part of your business model rely on customer goodwill; pay-to-win microtransactions are on the opposite end of the spectrum, offered by companies that typically only have purely commercial relations with their customers (and where management often just sees customers as resources to be extracted; and likewise customers are unlikely to care for the company itself, they just want their fix which necessitates payment). The two models are in conflict; you cannot simultaneously offer pay-to-win microtransactions and expect to receive donations. By charging people to not be at a disadvantage relative to others you ruin this goodwill, and I at least would switch to paying just what's necessary to play the game. And I expect I am not the only one who would be disillusioned by this switch in business model.
Alternatives if you really just want more sketches to be used
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Sketches, at least as far as has been communicated to us and how they've worked so far, serve a cosmetic function, letting players achieve aesthetic possibilities that would not (reasonably) be possible without the microtransaction. There still tons of options in this design space. For some examples:
- People have been asking for more options for player character customization for a long time now. More hair colors? Apply a sketch to your character to get new hair colors currently not selectable. Sick of the handful of available hair styles? Get a premium-exclusive hairstyle for the price of one sketch. Want to change that ugly face? Spend one sketch to change it into a different ugly face!
- Equipment likewise could be recolored at the price of one sketch per item. Maybe even different textures to have effectively premium-exclusive cosmetic variants of gear (similar to how you can have your own weapon skins in e.g. CS:GO).
- Recoloring and retexturing doesn't need to be limited to the player. Spend a sketch to get a premium-exclusive texture on your cupboard, on your house, on your bench, on your stone walls, even on your palisades and just to troll on your battering rams too!
- Hell, just ask players for what cosmetic options they're missing in Haven. People are willing to pay premium to make themselves, the things they use or things associated with them look fancy!
There are plenty of alternatives. Please don't go down the pay-to-win route. Economic realities unfortunately make complete equality infeasible (you do need to make money somehow), but keep Haven as level a playing field as is reasonably possible. This change is, in my opinion, the worst decision in all of Haven's history (only the world 8 business model might arguably be worse). Please, please, please reconsider this horrible idea.
