You hurt the casual gamer market, and lengthen the progression path for players by upping prices
Err, no. The more expensive the prices of Recipes are from Hall of Heroes, the cheaper CE becomes (it's an indirect cause-and-effect)
That means players spend more crowns on recipes (whether they get them from the Auction Houses or from Hall of Heroes), and less on energy, resulting in no loss.
I found this argument funny.
Paweu makes the, perfectly valid, point that you're swapping out convenience for a longer progression path. Purely to get people back into the arcade, and decrease the costs of CE. A cheaper CE price sounds nice, I must say. The arcade thing.. bleh. The longer progression thing.. that's one way to kill the casual gamer market.
Autofire, you're making yourself look bad with your counter-arguments....
This game didn't have missions for a long time. People got through...they got through very well. HoH wasn't a thing for a long time, just like how Arsenal Stations weren't a thing, either. The game worked fine. Why is it suddenly game breaking to encourage people to go into the Clockworks to talk to an NPC?
No one's saying it's game breaking. It's just inconvenient.
Please, never use "was like this and that before" as an argument. We didn't have electricity at one point. You wanna give that up? No.
Don't use the past as an excuse.
About players leaving, why would they leave? Like said before, Cobalt would be crafted more often. There is a reason they give it to you in the missions. Before, Kozma was selling Cobalt recipes. You HAD to buy them if you wanted Cobalt. Now you can get them all via mission rewards. It's still easier for newer players than before the missions.
You're enforcing a longer progression path. That means more play time. That means more grinding. That means more "oh, I've done this before.. it's getting really boring". Cobalt is one of the worst sets, purely for its lack of any real strength. The fact you get it free doesn't make it any better.
What tax? You've been talking about this gambling tax, yet there is none. If you're talking about the energy to go into the Arcade, I hate to say that I'm amused. You can play the game with mist energy, which is free.
EDIT: Not only that, but you also can still get crowns, materials, and heat from playing in the Arcade. From my view, it sounds like you're saying that you get nothing for getting to Basil.
I do believe (s)he was referring to energy, but I believe the significant problem is time. KoA offers more crowns for less time than an arcade run; and Basil loves trolling people. Spend all your mist hunting one recipe, then you get that recipe... but unless you spend money on CE, you can't do anything else until tomorrow. A real turn off.
Personally, I'd like to know what you would like to have done with it. And more so, though I won't require that you think about this, what do you think would be the best way to revive the Arcade? And if it shouldn't be revived, why not?
Obviously can't speak for him/her, but the missions need a re-work. The payouts need to be re-organised. As in, KoA offers a fixed 8k for the FIRST run, and then a reduced 3-4k for every run afterward. You've been there. You've made the money. Now it gets you the same payout as an arcade run, but without the added benefit of Basil.
Regardless, as I said earlier, I DO agree with your idea to modify the prices (perhaps keep HoH prices, but reduce Basil prices? That way HoH doesn't change. Basil just becomes more attractive). Please, just understand it's not a simple "up HoH prices = arcade revival". You hurt the casual gamer market, and lengthen the progression path for players by upping prices.