At first, it isn't prize, it was prize when we could get it with energy like a free bonus during event. At second, you shouldn't put UV tickets as main content, it should be additional, like confetti. At the moment you sell 1 UV ticket for $5 with 45% chance.
Old box, new system(complaint to GH)
Sat, 12/17/2016 - 02:26
Sat, 12/17/2016 - 12:08
#2
@Fangel
To be frank, all of the boxes are thinly veiled gambling mechanisms. The items are in tiers, and the obvious 'better' item set is at a lower percentage. The only difference is that normally boxes are thinly veiled at all- UV tickets are an obvious 'failed opening' because they represent a strict loss in profit on the part of the opener.
When you have a mixture of base costumes and rare costumes, they effect one another. The top portion devalues the lower portions, as people will open MANY boxes trying to get a top tier item or open boxes at all for the top tier, and then discard the excess. The lower portion devalues the top portion as well however. A LOT of people are like Fangel, and know fully well that they are opting to buy mostly the lower set of accessories. They buy boxes, and accidentally get something a little too good out.. and there's a good chance they sell it.
When you pull the bottom out, it increases the value of anything left. Wings of summer/winter are million crown items because fewer people buy the boxes from the bottom and this makes the people buying strictly for the top value them that much more.. and these are the people that are likely to buy serious amounts of boxes. Not Fangel.
If we're going to support the ridiculous gambling boxes (and we should, given that we have no regard for ethics and a very high regard for Spiral Knights) then we're going to need to support ALL of them, because these are the ones that are going to bring in the most money for the least effort.
Sat, 12/17/2016 - 14:30
#3
I never asked for this.
- Fehzor: "If we're going to support the ridiculous gambling boxes (and we should, given that we have no regard for ethics and a very high regard for Spiral Knights) then we're going to need to support ALL of them, because these are the ones that are going to bring in the most money for the least effort."
Effort and resolve are precisely what need to be invested into SK more at this point, not money. How much longer do you guys expect the game to be more leniently defaced until it hits the right track or a worse-case scenario?
Is the premise for players in SK to save Cradle or to attempt bloating an industry?
Sun, 12/18/2016 - 01:29
#4
Effort and money aren't mutually exclusive. If the devs get more money we get more effort out of them. If the devs give more effort they get more money out of us. I'm rather inclined to think that if you were to pay enough you could get whatever you want out of them, and that if they were to give enough effort they'd get whatever they want out of us. I think this is an excellent system.
Sun, 12/18/2016 - 02:22
#5
Too few prize boxes are wholely acceptable. Too few.
That would be a somewhat ideal way to go, but unfortunately this manner of system is not so simple in that it would inevitably become unreliable in nature. It is very intimately bound to be unreliable on the premise that the crucial "if"s are so vaguely conditional, since for any sort of party it is just very easy to get the wrong idea from a concept worded as you did.
By effort, I do not merely refer to working extra hard in order to achieve a goal. I am talking about working smart and thinking ahead to make the most out of both the hard work and the ressources, all supposedly spent towards the well-being of this game. Cheap marketing tricks such as prize box gambling have never been what gave Spiral Knights the success it earned years back and they will never be what it aspired to expand upon since, I am certain you know this to be true.
There has to be a better way, a better future for SK, than to compromise its merits just to keep carrying forward.
Sun, 12/18/2016 - 03:41
#6
Whatever it was that Spiral Knights started as was clearly unsustainable because now we're here. Prize boxes and brilliant marketing tricks are clearly more sustainable. I don't really see where compromising merits comes into this.
Sun, 12/18/2016 - 05:01
#7
Have an example.
The levels that were designed early on were good and simple. The more recent ones are bland in aesthetic and frustrating in practice when compared with the older ones. Too few levels have been released recently, much less great ones.
A new level allows players to continue exploring. A new level can give a field for underutilized gears to shine in or even introduce brand new challenges and perspectives of the game's world. A great new level will call more players into the game and keep them interested.
No content is more crucial for long-term replayability than new levels. Prize boxes do none of that, instead they generally keep players guessing about what is next to come without offering much integral content on their own. Yet the focus is consistently shifted towards the latter.
Here we are with this box again. I get to file my seasonal complain about them on the forums again.
Solstice has a better reason to have UV tickets in it. It only has a small number of items in its box. Because of this, it's fair to have UV tickets in the box.
... However the box shouldn't cost $5 to purchase if you have a high chance to get something worth less than 200 energy when $5 gets you 1,600 energy.
This is only an issue since UV tickets have a designated in-game price that is acknowledged by the game - 1 UV costs 20k crowns. 1,600 energy has never been worth 20k crowns. At a low 3,000 crowns per 100 energy, $5 would be worth slightly under 50k crowns. At the current rate, it's closer to 160k crowns.
This issue is instantly solved by making solstice boxes a bundled box with energy purchases. Now the ticket is a bonus to your purchase, and anything more is a huge bonus. Items are kept rare by the fact boxes are less in supply for the same money input. Energy is pulled into the game's economy, etc. A similar treatment could be done with the equinox boxes, however equinox boxes can actually be rid of the UV tickets entirely since they have so many good items in them as it stands.
This all said and done, it's better late than never when it comes to fixing these promos. While I would love some wings of summer, there is no way I would throw money at this promotion since it is so likely to burn me. Next time it comes around, as someone who throws money at boxes when I like them, I would be willing to throw $20 that I normally throw at promos at solstice if I knew I wasn't gonna have a good chance to get burned.