Suggestions Regarding Currency and Monetization

[Xyro 17]

I think I might've suggested some of these years ago,

But here are a few of my ideas regarding currency and general in-game monetization:

 

TL;DR - Make APB$ account-wide, rework premium, remove loot-boxes, rethink how you add more clothing to the game.

 

• Make the APB$ account-wide, meaning it is shared between all characters on your account.
  Right now you can practically mail stuff between your character and transfer money between them with middlemen, so making APB$ account-wide is
  basically just a QoL feature at this point.
• Right now the game is at this state: You can rather easily rank-up early without premium up to around rank ~170,

           however, after that ranking up becomes extremely grindy unless you have premium. It's safe to assume that this is intentionally designed by GamersFirst and Reloaded so 
           people are soft-forced to get a premium or stay behind and grind.
           About the difference in customization freedom, I can't complain because it has little gameplay effects.
           But generally the way that the monetization works in this game currently is premium and loot-boxes which both potentially grant gameplay advantage to paying players,
           And this right here is a giant flashing warning sign of any new or returning player who might be interested in the game.
           At these times there is (rightfully) a large amount of backlash and criticism against predatory and gameplay-affecting monetization, and I think this is heavily holding APB back.
           A new engine and more Joker Tickets were very needed by the community and for the future of the game as a F2P title, but those will not attract the desired amount of players to the game
           (or help keep existing ones) if the success of an individual in the game can still be determined by the amount of money they spend on it.

• What Little Orbit is doing right now with the new clothing shows their lack of understanding of this game's community and customization system and I'll explain:

          Putting out there custom pieces of clothing with a certain design means nothing for a game that allows it's playerbase to customize their clothing to the pixel, UNLESS you put out NEW
          clothing models, which means, instead of adding a buttoned shirt that we already have ingame but with a design, add a new type of shirt model that is not yet in the game, and CAN be customized further.
          Instead of adding already-customized items, add more customization options is what I'm saying here.

So basically, some QoL with the APB$, some changes that will please the crowd, critics and community, and some food for thought about new cosmetic additions 

Edited October 14, 2019 by Xyro
Got published before I finished...

[Havana 216]

The APB No lifers would never hear of it. It might make some new players stick around. 

 

Personally, I would like this crap 20% sales tax go into a pool and then gambling games in Social could be played for that pot weekly.

Right after the shooting range and a million other things .

So much could be done with this game, Zero imagination is what we have.

Just like the other thread about organizing mods and guns.

That can't be that hard and everyone would welcome it. 

But sadly it ain't gonna happen. 

I honestly don't know why we even have forums. The vets don't want change. They crap all over anyone with any idea or suggestions. And that's who LO is going to listen to. The 10% that want to keep 9 years of map knowledge,  guns, etc for every ounce of an advantage. 

Kinda sounds like a tryhard... poops that's 3 posts I ran together. 

Keep suggesting in one hand and place the other under your bottom. See which fills up faster. 

I'm not being mean, you have some good ideas. 

It's just sad the community isn't listened to.

[foscor77 169]

Your first point about account wide month make sense. If there's any downside to it. I would like to know.

 

Your point about ranking, dont you think it would be better to just make the mods unlockable at lower ranks? A lot of important mods are unlocked at 195. Just make a few of them unlockable at like 100 then 150 and so on.

[Xyro 17]

On 10/20/2019 at 9:07 AM, darok70 said:

Your first point about account wide month make sense. If there's any downside to it. I would like to know.

 

Your point about ranking, dont you think it would be better to just make the mods unlockable at lower ranks? A lot of important mods are unlocked at 195. Just make a few of them unlockable at like 100 then 150 and so on.

I think that locking mods to certain ranks is fine, it gives you an incentive to rank-up.
I mean, as a new player, when you see a dude with OSMAW surfing a vehicle for the first time you'll go "Holy shit I gotta get this!".
The problem is not mods being locked to certain ranks, in my opinion the problem is how difficult and grindy it is to get to those ranks without premium.
The same play who went crazy for that car-surfer is going to give up on the game after not being able to reach it for weeks.
You can argue that the same player will be "forced" to get a premium, that might be true for the whale players and spenders, but not for your average player.
It might even be profitable short-term to say "the hell with average players" and focus on milking the whales, but eventually the population of the game will decrease and the whales will have no one to play with,

which make them leave aswell (this all has already happened in APB numerous times before LO took over and it will happen again if they keep pushing monetization over progression).

[foscor77 169]

6 hours ago, Xyro said:

I think that locking mods to certain ranks is fine, it gives you an incentive to rank-up.
I mean, as a new player, when you see a dude with OSMAW surfing a vehicle for the first time you'll go "Holy shit I gotta get this!".
The problem is not mods being locked to certain ranks, in my opinion the problem is how difficult and grindy it is to get to those ranks without premium.
The same play who went crazy for that car-surfer is going to give up on the game after not being able to reach it for weeks.
You can argue that the same player will be "forced" to get a premium, that might be true for the whale players and spenders, but not for your average player.
It might even be profitable short-term to say "the hell with average players" and focus on milking the whales, but eventually the population of the game will decrease and the whales will have no one to play with,

which make them leave aswell (this all has already happened in APB numerous times before LO took over and it will happen again if they keep pushing monetization over progression).

Thing is I don't really remember how grindy Apb ranking was as I have like 2.7k hours in this game and I don't exactly remember at which point did i reach max rank but can remember one thing for sure that I had a lot of fun in this game so nothing seemed like "grinding" to me. It was always fun and I never ever had any problem ranking up and mind you I never bought premium. Im a hardcore f2p player.

 

So in a nutshell you can say I don't find ranking in this game grindy. There are tons of players with multiple max rank players and there's not much to do in this game for which you would need multiple max ranks players which suggests that this game is anything but grindy. 

 

The only problem I see is that some very useful mods are only unlockable at r195 for which I already told you what should be done. 

 

So im resting my case here and one last thing is I seriously doubt LO is paying attention to suggestion forums so were just wasting time here discussing things that forget implemented a but would even be paid any attention to by LO.

 

They seems to have their hands full with others big things. You can check my forums on general discussion that I made about this.

[HighSociety 148]

23 minutes ago, darok70 said:

Thing is I don't really remember how grindy Apb ranking was as I have like 2.7k hours in this game and I don't exactly remember at which point did i reach max rank

Playtime to reach max. Rank ~400h with Premium, ~600h without... i think

 

And yea it's still fun after 4k hours of APB ! 

Would love to see more People commin back and also new Players.

 

[Xyro 17]

On 10/21/2019 at 7:22 PM, HighSociety said:

Playtime to reach max. Rank ~400h with Premium, ~600h without... i think

 

And yea it's still fun after 4k hours of APB ! 

Would love to see more People commin back and also new Players.

 

Premium gives you more than double the XP, so if premium takes 400h, It'd wager it takes much more than 600h without.
But to be honest, even 400h without premium might be discouraging for new players, unless there was another way to earn XP but missions, or if missions had more variety in terms of rulesets, objectives, locations, and opposition.

Another point is that non-opposed missions give practically 0 XP. It will take a person years to reach max-rank if he plays without opposition.
Playing 1v1 is not as fun, and playing without a pre-made team is a great disadvantage.

Generally, the mission districts (which are the only way to rankk-up) might need a slight rework to appeal to new audience and pull the vets from fightclub.

Adding the JT reward for missions was a really good idea and great at pulling vets from FC  

[HighSociety 148]

2 hours ago, Xyro said:

Premium gives you more than double the XP

+25% Is not double the XP  

 

Edit: most win/lose screens u will see ~ 2k standing +500 premium standing 

Edited October 22, 2019 by HighSociety

[heelruby 66]

2 minutes ago, HighSociety said:

+25% Is not double the XP

It's +90% so technically almost 2x :v

[HighSociety 148]

Okay that might be up to 90% but u (or at least me) will get less than that most of the time...

Dunno think i never was not premium from 2012 to now but it took my mate just 200h more without premium to max his char... 

And yea sure it depends on what u do on missions.

 

And for the non-opposed missions u mentioned > /abandonmission 

It's supposed to be a multiplayer

Edited October 22, 2019 by HighSociety

[Xyro 17]

On 10/22/2019 at 10:17 PM, HighSociety said:

Okay that might be up to 90% but u (or at least me) will get less than that most of the time...

Dunno think i never was not premium from 2012 to now but it took my mate just 200h more without premium to max his char... 

And yea sure it depends on what u do on missions.

 

And for the non-opposed missions u mentioned > /abandonmission 

It's supposed to be a multiplayer

I even got 125% extra rewards at times, and not 25% extra, I actually mean 125% extra.
And about the /abandonquest, obviously you'll use it when not opposed, but it does not guarantee your next mission will be opposed.
For newer players or players who play at less popular hours you might get an opposed mission once every hour at best...
The game's rewards are built on a multiplayer-themed gameplay, but not the matchmaking and mission-structure itself (not always, but a large portion of the time it seems that way).

[HighSociety 148]

12 hours ago, Xyro said:

I even got 125% extra rewards at times, and not 25% extra, I actually mean 125% extra.

Can u post a winscreen/losescreen where u got more premium- (apb$ or standing) than regular rewards pls.

Never seen that.

[Xyro 17]

It was APB$ and on Fight Club Baylan. I'm not sure but the regular amount I got was around 1k and the premium was more than 2k.
I no longer have premium but I'm pretty sure that when you don't have premium it even tells you that you get 125% extra with premium (up to 125%*).

 

Also I think this information is showcased in some of the loading screen tips.

------------------------------

*Not an edit but checked this before posting:

I just checked and you can go to ARMAS and see in the description of the Premium that it gives 125% bonus cash and 90% bonus standing.
I took a screenshot but I don't see a button to upload it from my PC. You can go and see for yourself.

 

"Bonus 125%" like they put it is not bonus 25%, it's actually more than double the cash, and almost double the standing (90% bonus).

You also get 50% reduced cooldowns for abilities which is an obvious gameplay advantage.

 

Pair that with ARMAS-exclusive weapons and you got yourself the true Pay2Win experience that APB has provided us with for years now.

 

I just hope LO changes this in the future so the microtransactions focus more on customization options and cosmetics rather than blunt gameplay advantages.

(Even though cosmetics also arguably influence gameplay experience but that's a discussion for another thread).

[heelruby 66]

14 hours ago, Xyro said:

You also get 50% reduced cooldowns for abilities which is an obvious gameplay advantage.

That feature is no more now that they applied the 50% cooldown to F2P

[Xyro 17]

On 10/28/2019 at 12:54 PM, heelruby said:

That feature is no more now that they applied the 50% cooldown to F2P

Are you sure?
The ARMAS description still states it does.
Perhaps now the premium CD is 25% of the original? Or is this a mistake on their part on the description?

[Kevkof 806]

1 hour ago, Xyro said:

Are you sure?
The ARMAS description still states it does.
Perhaps now the premium CD is 25% of the original? Or is this a mistake on their part on the description?

That's armas that needs updating, the cooldowns for premium and non-premium are identical