Yeah, you do kind of seem to be missing the part where the publisher is trying to make money. They don't actually have an incentive to offer unlimited free play, that just encourages people to place load on their servers without interacting with the economy that makes them profits.

Furthermore, if you're playing on crystal energy, many levels give you less money for clearing them than they cost to enter, and are effectively speedbumps on the way to the later levels. Players would routinely skip the fee on the less rewarding levels (basically everything in odd strata except arenas and maybe graveyards) in order to get to the more rewarding levels further on. So this would seriously screw with the economy, even if most players weren't interested in your intended use.

There are also rare drops in various levels that can individually be worth more than the entire level they drop on (e.g. most 5-star crafting materials in stratum 5), so this could further be abused to wait until one drops and then pay 10 energy before picking it up.

If you made it so that anyone who skipped a fee was permanently in free mode until returning to Haven, you could at least eliminate the exploits, but see paragraph 1.

People already do that. You can easily make enough money to afford the energy costs at lower depths, becoming self-sufficient. OOO still lose out. This is mainly to help out newbies stuck in t1 or people that only run with their mist.

no they dont... they make enough crowns to buy from the CE market, but even then that CE originated from a player buying CE from OOO.

How would revives work? If you are playing for free and are with a group what is stopping you from reviving as you please and reviving your fallen (CE paying) comrades for free? What would stop me from playing for free, killing everything in sight with my five-star gear just so my less-experienced buddy picks up all the heat, crowns, and loot without having to risk anything?

No, the only way I could see this working is if there was a separate server that hosts a level or two just so noobs can get some practice in. You can't mix the neuvo freeloaders with the normal SK population.

Why not have that, but with the exception of only having T1 players get that option. Play the T1's for as long as you want, but if you want to keep any of the crowns, mats, minerals, or tokens you get from there, you have to fork up 10 energy.

Once they qualify for T2, it disappears for good, forcing players to either pay, or figure out how to be self-sufficient. That way, newbies can play for as long as they wish, but don't benefit from it, and once they move to T2 status, where a good chunk of the game takes place, they always have to fork up mist, even if they go back to T1.

Edit: revives would still cost energy, however.

I did two vanaduke runs today without a single point of CE being spent. You can get plenty of playtime for free.

Yes, I will admit, starting off is far too slow if you're playing free - but you could easily drop some money for a starter pack. It is hard to justify at first because you don't realize the game is actually good early on, but it is worthwhile.

I'm not really sure about this. It is actually worth the energy to enjoy the game-play in the three tiers along with the tokens, materials, heat and crowns which you can gain from wiping out monsters. If a newbie wants to hone their skills they can do so in the Advanced Training Hall or if they feel like it, they can pay the elevator fee and explore the clockworks fairly. Sorry, I don't agree with this idea. <:|

"Being on someone else's tab doesn't count. :P"

I wasn't on someone else's tab. I just join people doing basil runs at the terminal then go solo. FSC is exactly 5 floors. Do the math.