Spiral Knights - Energy Generator

Energy Generator

15 replies [Last post]

Wed, 02/04/2015 - 14:14

Deleted-Knight

This may have been brought up before but I think it's a good idea.
Back in the days of mist energy, a steady source of income came from elevator passes. People who play Spiral Knights a lot felt it was a good deal to spend a 5-10 bucks to not deal with energy fees. The more time spent playing the more valuable the passes were.
With mist gone, I think there should be a similar purchase-able that could be a great deal for an avid player while still being a solid source of income for OOO.

Updated Version
(To address concerns about abuse and make things more clear. Old version in Post #12)

- An Energy Generator would be a special consumable. It can be traded like trinket/weapon slots.
- Once used, it will add 1 energy to the player's energy bank for every N minutes spent playing the game.
- Each generator is limited to producing X energy per day. Resetting its counter at midnight, server time.
- M Generators can be be active at the same time per account.
- Each Generator will expire 30 days after activation.
- Generators can be purchased for $P.

N, M, X, and P are values will be set by OOO as they see fit. If I were OOOs. This is how I would go about choosing the values:
I would first look at the most popular energy pack that is sold. Let the price of that pack be Q, and the number of energy in that pack be Z.
P = ~0.5Q
X = ~Z/30
N = ~300/X
M = 3 (presumably one for each knight in an account)

Why I think this option would be beneficial
1. It is cheaper energy for regular players.
Someone who plays more than 2.5 hours daily and doesn't need the energy in a hurry would find the Energy Generator a better deal.

2. It has resell value to the F2P player base.
A P2P player who doesn't play 2.5 hours each day would still buy it to sell to F2P players who play 5+ hours a day. These F2P players would pay more money for the Generator than the equivalent energy that can be bought with money spent on the generator.
For the P2P player that doesn't play regularly, the generator is worth 0.5Z energy. For the F2P player, it is worth Z energy. If the transaction occurs with the crown equivalent of 0.75Z, both players gain the equivalent of 0.25Z energy.

3. Net effect is increased revenue for the supplier (OOO).
Everybody wants cheap energy. Only some people have the ability to buy from the supplier. The generator option will make it so more of the people that can buy, will buy. Even if they can't get the best deal themselves, they can sell it at a good deal to those who can't buy it, so there's more incentive to spend the money.

4. Normal Energy Packs will not be obsolete.
Every day, a player can earn at most MX energy from Active generators. Since M is a small number, someone who needs a large amount of energy in a short period of time will still prefer directly buying energy. It makes sense that they will pay more in return for convenience.

5. Players who make a regular commitment to the game gets rewarded more.
To get Z energy at P/Q the original cost, a player must play XN minutes per day, every day, for a month. The less time they commit, the worse deal they get for their money.

Wed, 02/04/2015 - 14:44

Fangel

It's flawed.

I like the concept but it's highly exploitable, especially with just a $10 cost and 30 days to live. 1 energy a minute is quite a lot, and many players may just idle. I sort of unintentionally idle in this game anyways, so why should Three Rings essentially be paying me to take up space on their servers while not interacting with anyone or playing their game? When it comes down to items like these, look at the worst-possible scenario and the best scenario. Worst scenario is that you are cheated out of hundreds even thousands of dollars because someone who bought an energy generator is idling with an autoclicker to keep them on the server 24/7.

Energy is a currency that has real-life value within the game. Letting us "create" that money out of thin air is money that is lost. If I were making 4 energy per minute and I had my game running for 24 hours, I would make 5760 energy. If I did this for all 30 days I would have 172,800 energy. That is over 3 times the amount of energy I would have had if I had just simply bought it, or essentially, over $120 of potential lost income. That is the worst case scenario.
Best case scenario is the player gets just about the same amount of energy as they would from buying the regular pack, maybe a bit more. A potential $5 loss or gain, maybe getting players who didn't pay before to pay now.

In all honesty, a forge pass would be a much better alternative to an elevator pass in this new era. It's not abuse-able and lets paying players do what they need to do, much like before free elevators.

Wed, 02/04/2015 - 15:29

Chaos-Mist

Warning: Superiority Complex.

Bah, Fangel killed it.

A Forge Pass is a nice idea. All forging is at the moment is something to make people play longer (which I don't think OOO benefit from...). Players aren't going to invest in forging because it annoys them, they'll just go find another game. Introducing an easier way to forge would be happy news to every Vanguard/Champion out there.

Wed, 02/04/2015 - 18:16

Deleted-Knight

@Fangel

I can tell you're a pessimist.

Point 1:
You're assuming that if the generators don't exist someone would actually buy 172800 energy, because the average person totally spends $432 a month on Spiral Knights. From OOO's perspective, it doesn't matter how much energy is in the system, it only matters how much money is coming in. Energy can be sinked, and the only real source comes from OOO. Making people buy energy in the first place is the challenge.
Energy isn't a good that takes money to produce. OOO can conjure it out of thin air. It doesn't matter they are getting a "worse deal" if they are earning more total money. It's like praising someone 10 times and getting $3 vs praising them 2 times and getting $1.

TL;DR: You are thinking about economics naively. Please consider the entire picture instead of focusing on your "worst case scenario".

Point 2:
Most people actually want to play the game for fun (I know, shocker). The people who would leave their computer on 24/7 just to "get rich" is probably 0.001% of the population. People want money/energy so they can do things. It takes a really obsessive person to relish being rich just for the sake of being rich. Why would someone go to the trouble of making so much money if they don't need it?

TL;DR: People are not as greedy as you think.

Point 3:
"This is a bad idea because cheaters/botters"
^ is possibly the most generic and extremist argument you can make against any suggestion.

Q: "Should my game have a currency system?"
A: "No, because there would be cheaters and botters that will hoard money and ruin the game economy."
Q: "Should this bush drop coins?"
A: "No because there would be multi-account botters who would farm bushes for money 24/7."
Q: "Should I make PvP possible in my game?"
A: "No because cheaters/botters will ruin the fun for everyone."
Q: "Should I even make this game at all?"
A: "No because people might cheat and that would make the game not fun. People would leave, and you would lose tons of money."

TL;DR: If you're resorting to "because people might___(something against game policies)___" to justify your reasoning, you might as well quit playing the game.

Edited for additional note:
The specific values I gave are not necessarily ones OOO want to use. I'm merely proposing the concept and using $25, $10, 1 energy/minute as examples to illustrate it.

Wed, 02/04/2015 - 20:08

Keepscaite

People are as greedy as the

People are as greedy as the easiest method it is for them to get money. And this idea would do just that, make a very exploitable system for greedy people to hoard money.

You're also forgetting what this kind of thing could do to the in-game's economy. If you have such a simple method to gain energy, items from the supply depot (things at fixed energy prices) become devalued whereas the price of material things (such as costume, rare items) would skyrocket. We would finally see the day, when a single item could cost 7 Billion ce on the market.

It's true, that the people being greedy are the minority. But that minority is what rules the economy.

Also, if the prices of things in the supply depot are devalued (in real game prices) OOO would be losing way more than just 5$ a week. Microtransactions are a thing, and those people who are paying money only for sparks and orbs/Rads would pretty much lose reason to actually pay at all. resulting in OOO losing even more money.

I think, that you're tackling this problem all wrong. What you want for something that would give OOO some money is something that is valuable enough for paying players to want, but not TOO valuable that it would make an imbalance in the power of the free players. The forge pass idea above is a good one, even better if it's exclusively bought with real money instead of energy.

Something like a forge pass would grant convenience for all the paying players (valuable) while not trivializing the efforts of free players.

so far, OOO has been going the route of cosmetics. Giving the paying players something valuable in the form of looking nice, while not really affecting the free player's gameplay. Sure it's not making them much money, but it's making them SOME money. Which is better than nothing, I guess.

Thu, 02/05/2015 - 16:11

Fangel

You seem to not know me

Your assumption about me being pessimistic is completely off, sorry to say. That's a thing you judge from knowing a person for long enough to understand them, not something you assume because they give numbers to your suggestion.

I said in scenarios where you're working with generating money to consider both sides and understand what it means. That 0.001% of the population abusing the system hurts everyone. They don't care how much time they have to spend, they will make it happen. These people are the same people who manipulate the energy market. Giving them more energy to do so... That's not a good idea. Especially when how they're generating the money is completely legal within the game's limits.

Worst case scenario is that the market collapses. Best case scenario is that people paying for this energy generator feels like they're getting a better bang for their buck and pay monthly. That worst case scenario is pretty extreme...

A forge pass' worst case scenario is that players will not buy it. Best case scenario is that players will buy it monthly. It affects your gear and your gear alone. You cannot trade heat. You cannot trade level 10 weapons. There's no way to hurt people or the market through heating gear.

Bottom line is energy is based on money whereas crowns are based on time. You're trying to bridge a gap that is worlds apart. You can already convert your money to time, and time to money, but in this game, time should not be equivalent to money. It's like being paid by a drugstore to loiter outside said drugstore instead of, you know, working behind the register.

Thu, 02/05/2015 - 16:27

Chaos-Mist

@Deleted-Knight "I can tell

@Deleted-Knight
"I can tell you're a pessimist." - Don't get annoyed because someone poked holes in the idea. Accept criticism and use it to adjust and improve.

"Should I make PvP possible in my game?" - It's obvious that this is easier to exploit this system than cheating on LD, and, if exploited this earns ALOT more.

"You're assuming that if the generators don't exist someone would actually buy 172800 energy" - How is that being assumed? The assumption is that people would rather spend $10 on an energy generator and abuse it for 172800 energy rather than buying that (since the price is hell loads more than $10 for that much energy). IMO that's a fair assumption.

Apart from that, what would this really gain? It'd just make energy cost $10 a month for 172800. And then anyone who didn't plan on abusing it for more than it's worth wouldn't want it and would complain about it.

Thu, 02/05/2015 - 16:31

Blazeshot

IHRIITGAD

What Chaos-Mist said.

But I'd also like to point out that posting on the suggestions forum is basically agreeing to accept criticism.

On that note, I'm not a fan of this idea.

Thu, 02/05/2015 - 18:09

Fangel

Actually, a numbers thing

Just before it gets too out of hand, under the current layout, I'm going with the maximum possible exploitation, and that was 4 generators at a time or $40 a month. Each generator if exploited for every minute would bring in 43,200 energy each. That's how much $50 or $100 is worth in energy, I forget which. ($50 is 20,000 right? Next up is the 45,000 energy one)

A generator, if exploited to the maximum, should only generate 1.5 times the other cost of energy. A good way to make generators work would be if they capped out each day of use. Let's say you generated 1 energy a minute of playtime still but it maxed out at 100 energy per day. That means that if you play Spiral Knights every day for a little over an hour and a half for 30 days, you'll have gotten 3,000 energy. Now, let's look at how much $10 in energy is- 3,500. Thus, we need to increase that value.
Let's say we can create 150 energy daily instead. This means we would make 4500 energy if we played every day for 2.5 hours a day. This is more than $10 if we actively spend time in the game.

1000 energy is enough energy to warrant wanting an energy generator opposed to just buying the energy, and 2.5 hours of time daily is do-able for most players, especially since you can technically be idling during that time. This means every day you can do a couple clockwork runs and make some extra energy along the way.

Now with this new idea, let's say a player "exploits" the game by idling 2.5 hours every day.
The player spends $40 a month, and makes back 18,000 energy. At first glance this is concerning, because the player has a better deal than the $20 up front energy purchase AND the $50 energy purchase. However, this has the exact same dollar:energy ratio as the $100 purchase.

If you are playing the game every day for 2.5 hours or more, this energy generator is the best deal you can get if you don't have $100 to spend on the game at a time. Spending $100 over the course of 10 months will net you the exact same energy had you paid $100 up front, granted you play enough daily.

This is how such a system could be implemented. I can see it being quite valuable and very good at what it does, too.
Oh hey look, someone's being an optimist. :)

Thu, 02/05/2015 - 22:50

Deleted-Knight

Fangel, I apologize if I

Fangel, I apologize if I offended you with the pessimist statement. Pessimism is not necessarily a bad thing. I'm just stating it because you focused on the worst case scenario (and said so yourself). Typically people focus on the most likely scenario instead of picking out the worst that can possibly happen.

I doubt if OOO actually decides to make this change they will follow this suggestion to the T. They should be smart enough to figure out what's the best thing to do. That being said, your latest post offers a nice modification. It sounds more reasonable to me than "someone will bot and make OOO lose thousands of dollars".

@Everyone else,
This is not a suggestion for game content. It's a suggestion for the structure of the game economy. "I don't like this" is irrelevant if it works. You don't have to like the stock exchange for it to keep the world economy running.
I appreciate any criticism on the lines of "This won't work because____." Fangel did a good job of that.
People chiming in and saying "Nope, don't like it." is not helpful at all.

Edit:
Did not notice Keepscaite's post (sorry, I got confused from the big walls of text). Keepscaite made a good post too.

Thu, 02/05/2015 - 19:40

#10

Blazeshot

IHRIITGAD

Well, Deleted-Knight, that's not really fair to "Everyone else".

Chaos-Mist and Keepscaite both gave valid, reasonable, explanations for why they went against your idea. That's a legitimately productive thing to do.

you shouldn't blame "Everybody else" I was the only one who commented saying "nope didn't like". If your going to tell someone what is or is not productive commenting, at least tell the right person.

On that note, I have a question about these energy generators. Would it still be possible to buy energy straight up from supple depot, or would you only be able to buy the energy generator.

Ok, now I have my bit of a problem with this that I can explain:

So, I buy my energy generator, and I activate it. And within those 30 days after I activate it, a bunch of different things happen that keep me from getting on SK. My power goes out, I need a new internet router, My computer stops working, or a bajillion other reasons. what if my generator expires before I even really get to use it?

Thu, 02/05/2015 - 22:57

#11

Deleted-Knight

Okay just to be clear:
Fangel and Keepscaite's main point is that there is a possibility that a very small number of people can gain a ridiculously large quantity of energy by abusing the generator mechanics. This will collapse the economy because they will sell all that energy to other people and essentially replace OOO (at the cost of $40 a month) as a new provider of energy.

I'm not sure what Chaos-Mist's point was. I sounds like he was dissecting my previous post and didn't actually have anything new to add.

Blazeshot, I'm not proposing other options be removed. I proposing this new option be added to boost sales. This new option is intended to target people that otherwise would have no incentive to spend money.

Fri, 02/06/2015 - 00:14

#12

Deleted-Knight

Old version

Suppose the average price of energy is 0.25 cents per unit. Someone would be able to buy 10k energy for $25.
What if instead you sell an "Energy Generator" that produces energy based on playing time? The item will only cost $10 and will generate 1 energy every minute of play time. After 30 days, the generator will expire and a new one will have to be purchased.
If you do the math, playing 4 hours per day will net 4 x 60 x 30 = 7200 energy for $10, or 0.14 cents per unit.
Playing ~2 hours per day would put it on par with buying energy directly. Averaging two hours a day is reasonable for a typical player.

The energy generator must be trade-able, like weapon/trinket slots. This helps unify F2P demand with P2P demand. For example a F2P player who averages 4 hours a day could be willing to pay (crown equivalent of) 5k energy for the generator, yielding a 2200 energy profit. A P2P player who sells the generator effectively bought energy at 0.2 cents per unit, which is a better deal than buying it directly for 0.25 cents per unit.
To boost demand, you can make generators stackable, allowing up to 4 generators to be active at any point in time. This allows F2P players to make energy faster, but at the end of the day they are still paying the same amount per unit since OOO is the only real source for the generators.

I think this is a better way to sell in-game currency. Energy is directly bought with time spent on the game, it doesn't matter if the player is farming a profitable level or chatting in Haven. F2P players can "redeem" the energy earned by buying generators from P2P players. P2P players benefit from being the middle-man in addition to having the ability to buy energy in bulk with cash. OOO benefit from the increased demand.

The only people that could suffer are those that manipulate the energy-crown trading prices for profit. If generators become popular, crown-energy ratio will go down since there's more profitable ways for avid F2P players to earn energy. Only F2P players who need a large amount of energy in a short amount of time (or those who don't play regularly) would prefer buying lump amounts over generators.

Fri, 02/06/2015 - 01:46

#13

Jmmoormann

Game economics

For OOO there are 3 general ways to make money

1: Pay exclusive content, like the Overcharged Mixmaster. Little work, no bugfixes or balancing, the whole thing about pay exclusive is that it hacks the game and is completely OP, and therefore it gives a lot of money. The community wouldn't like it however, so they have tried this only 1 time.

2: Cosmetics, like the 9999999 Prize Boxes we had. Little work, only creating some reskins, but it doesn't give as much money as creating useful items. The community doesn't really care about such stuff.

3: Game content, like... well the actual game. This way the company will make money by players who buy premium currency A lot of work, with creating, artwork, bugfixing, balancing, tweaking, etc, and it doesn't give a lot of money, not directly at least, since because of SK's relatively user-friendly economy most players will play free. But because the community likes this the most this is often the primary way of making money.

So what happens if you decrease energy cost?

When the cost decreases, the need for energy doesn't increase the same way: the amount of players who buy energy won't increase a lot, and the amount of energy these players buy won't increase a lot either. So option 3 won't work anymore, and the company has to use option 2. But no content means less players, and therefore less money too. Then the only option left is 1, which OOO tried recently with the Mixmaster. If energy is cheaper, whether it be by direct purchases or by some kind of cheat/autoclick thing, expect more Mixmaster-like stuff.

Fri, 02/06/2015 - 07:23

#14

Chaos-Mist

@Deleted-Knight "With mist

@Deleted-Knight
"With mist gone, I think there should be a similar purchase-able that could be a great deal for an avid player while still being a solid source of income for OOO." - What about Fangel's suggestion about forge passes? Forging as an annoying aspect on the game and people would gladly buy passes that allow them to skip it. Not only that but Forging earns the game less than energy, I'm sure, so forging passes possibly being exploited wouldn't be as bad.

Fri, 02/06/2015 - 11:48

#15

Fangel

Didn't try to take offense myself

I was more or less taken aback as I'm an awfully optimistic person. Others on the forum would likely put me in the "Three Rings Cheerleader" title because I look into the good of potentially bad situations, including how Three Rings goes about their business practices.

But when it comes to how money is made and all that, I wanted to point out what could happen. It doesn't mean it will, but it would definitely be something players would do, whether or not it's reasonable. If you mess up a gameplay aspect, you can fix it with no hard feelings. If you make any change to money, especially through means that you introduced and were not exploiting through means of cheating, then the players who did exploit the new system will be mad when it gets changed because they didn't do anything "wrong", but the players who didn't exploit it will be mad because others did.
Not really pessimism, just sort of analyzing human nature. People are greedy. :\ If you were around for it, remember how the whole prismatic bolted vee fiasco went down.

And sorry about making you rewrite your suggestion in equation form. It's not as easy to follow but it's also easier to modify and also doesn't have as many holes.
Essentially, the way I see it, this suggestion is paying for a mist-esk system (that only works when you're online playing the game) to be re-implemented, but the energy is permanent. With the rates suggested (2.5 hours for 150 energy seems like an actually really good midway point. 2.5 hours looks good for Three Rings, and if you didn't have the generator you could make more than that energy amount via trading for energy on the market) and with an end limit, it makes sure players do get a great deal! It's a win-win situation.

A forge pass still seems like the better alternative for "monthly purchases" for the game, but in the current state of this suggestion, this wouldn't be a bad one either.

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