Make it happen. Make me pay a fixed price and give me unlimited access to the shadow lairs. I don't care how you do it, but five dollars per single go just makes it far too expensive to play, and the game just isn't challenging enough without them. Maybe like a shadow lair master key or something. I will pay any amount of money. You can even have my dog. I don't have a dog, but I will go out and buy one just so you can have it if you make this happen.
Thank you.
"Someone else tried an elevator pass for Shadow Lairs and it tanked when people realized the hardcore grinders and premium players would gain even more while the casual and free to play people are left behind."
This I agree with. I wonder if it could be compensated for, though. For instance, what if the key only entitled you to one SL run per day? Then price it so that at max efficiency, it still won't be more profitable than FSC.
"The price would have to be substantially ridiculous to counterbalance the potential amount of Shadow Lair equipment suddenly flooding the market."
This doesn't seem like a major problem (although there are other major problems with the suggestion). It would just mean SL equips would become dirt cheap--but still not as cheap as every other (non-token) 5* out there. No big.
If you'll really pay any amount of money, you'll pay infinite money to buy infinite shadow keys. Oh, and it's not happening.
5$ for a shadow lair is overpriced, especialy considering you still have to pay for the gates going through the lair. Plus the sanctuary is its own gate, so there goes another 10 energy. If you buy in bulk, 100 energy is like a quarter, so 10 levels is like the price of a pac man game and around equal if not more play time. It's in ratio, makes sense. then suddenly a level rolls allong thats... 5$? How about 1$? We have enough CE sinks, and nearly every crown sink also sinks some CE. I consider AH to be the only pure crown sink, but it's more of a utility than a device for lowering the price of CE.
If OOO dosen't lower shadow lair keys or at least make a fixed price, they should at least make the gates in it completly free.
"It would just mean SL equips would become dirt cheap--but still cheaper than every other (non-token) 5* out there. No big."
The SL gear dropped to the same price as every other 5 star gear in the game about two months after SLs came out. There is no reason why one would try and sell SL gear over other in demand 5* gear.
"Someone else tried an elevator pass for Shadow Lairs and it tanked when people realized the hardcore grinders and premium players would gain even more while the casual and free to play people are left behind"
That is the way it should be, if you are going to spend the time and money to get good at something, you should be rewarded for it. Who cares of the free to play people aren't getting the same gear that the hardcore players are? What's the point of being a hardcore player if you have nothing to look forward to, aside from going broke.
My issue isn't the payout or what you get out of this, it's the fact that SK is far too easy for some people who have mastered multiple 5* sets. Why should they be punished and bleed through the nose if they want more of a challenge? If the SL payout was at least equal to that of a key, fine. But you only just break even when you split the key among four people. And you are quite in the hole if you pay for the whole thing yourself. SK is designed to prevent players from making money, and having such a high price for about an hour's worth of gameplay time is ridiculous. For the price of two shadow lairs, I can go to OnLive, and play 100s of unlimited games for a month. I agree with Orangeo, that another solution would be to lower the price to that equal to a dollar. That I would be fine with. I have no issue paying in some way or another, but the 5 dollar price tag is much, much too high.
Does it really cost another 10? I don't recall it doing so. I don't think the Unknown Passage did, either. Could be wrong.
And the Key isn't $5 unless you're soloing.
"And the Key isn't $5 unless you're soloing"
It still costs five dollars, regardless of if you are soloing or not. Regardless of the way you look at it, OOO just got paid $5 for access to that lair. If you split it, it's not so bad for each individual player, but there is no guarantee you can split it, again due to the fact that SK prevents you from truly making money like other MMOs.
I quote: "If you buy in bulk, 100 energy is like a quarter, so 10 levels is like the price of a pac man game and around equal if not more play time. It's in ratio, makes sense. then suddenly a level rolls allong thats... 5$?" 10 levels is only the price of a Pac Man game if you're measuring cost to a single player. It therefore makes no sense to compare that to the $5 figure, which is the cost to the party as a whole. (It also makes no sense to say that the "level" costs $5; an SL consist of multiples "levels" if by that one means "strata".)
It's perfectly possible to split it provided you would eventually have spent $ on CE anyway (or Steam games, if you're on Steam). Or if you have a regular SL group: take turns buying the key.
Yes, but again, it doesn't matter if you split it or not. Five dollars is still being spent. See above. And because there is no easy way of finding a party that all wants to do SLs and is all willing to split the cost, it still doesn't make sense to use that argument. If the game was specificlly designed to be run with four people then fine, but because they give you that option of having 1-4 players, your agrument is invalid. Haha, sorry. : p
Most of the time people just make a thread in GD and specify that party members need to pay for their share. There are more than enough experienced players on the forum that can pay their cost. Just give it a day or two.
Sk is designed, at least partly, to be a team game. SL is supposed to be the hardest depths in the game, with the high amounts of enemy and whatever. Your argument for lowering/allowing you to access SL for lower than the cost right now is invalid because it only applies to soloists. And Sk is a team game, thus, soloists have no argument either.
'Your argument for lowering/allowing you to access SL for lower than the cost right now is invalid because it only applies to soloists'
That is a huge claim to make based on nothing. If nothing else, that's an opionon. I am quickly starting to realize why the SK economy is so bad. No one here is understanding what I am saying. I'm honestly not trying to be a jerk or anything, but just re-read my posts. I can't say it any more clearly. SK, regardless of your opionon, is a 1-4 player game, therefore everything you just said doesn't make any sense. It does not force you to play with people, it does not at any point tell you you should, or must. Again, that is just your opionon.
Again though, not trying to be a jerk. Haha.
Update: That solution you proposed isn't really a solution. Wait one or two days? Haha, no thanks.
/shrug
I just have a beef with people saying "your argument is invalid". That's why I posted. Not to mention, you saying that Derpule's argument invalid is based on the fact that you can split the cost. Your saying 1 person is forced to hold the cost. But that's not true, because he can always find people to pay their share. In the end, he isn't paying 5 dollars for a key, hes paying 5 dollars for a key to be used in a SL run, and some ce, depending on how many people split the cost. You saying his argument being invalid is baseless. Just because he might not have people to split it with, doesn't mean he will always never have people to split it with. Your reasoning is invalid.
On topic though, SL isn't meant to be grinded, or replayed constantly. It's considered endgame, because there is work required to get to it. The gear, skills, and entrance cost are all part of the process to it. Perhaps there's a way to balance it out, like a key for a day, or a certain amount of time. But in the end, it all comes down to sl and sl gear supposed to be rare. If you gave a elevator pass-esque way of accessing shadow lairs, you increase the amount of mats and gear from sl. And then it becomes like fsc.
Edit: I apologize, I didn't know this was one of those "i want it, give it to me now, idc what everyone else has to say" threads.
Oh, I completely agree with you in terms of the mats and what not. I just want more challenging stuff.
Also, you have a beef with people who say your agrument is invalid? You said that exact thing to me, haha. Reread what I said. Then rereread it because I don't think you are getting it. Five dollars is being spend. Period. You go buy a chocolate bar at the store for 2 bucks. Doesn't matter who is paying and how many friends you have to split the cost, the chocolate bar still costs 2 bucks. Same thing with SLs. You can say whatever you want to twist it in whatever direction you want, you aren't changing the price of five dollars.
And it's not one of those threads. By any stretch of the imagination. It is a suggestion that I thought OOO would like to see, clearly people disagree with me and that's fine but OOO needs to know that at least one person as realized what they are doing. And I don't blame them, it's business. Hell, it's smart business. I just want a challenge I don't have to go broke over.
I only said it because you did. Something I do. It's much easier to copy someone else's argument and change a few words here or there. With that money spent logic of yours though, nobody should ever buy ce. So what if they can get crowns and gear with it. They still spent that money for themselves, and thus should actually not spend money at all. If you make your friends pay for the pieces of chocolate you shared with them, what are you left? Some chocolate to yourself, if you took some. Most, if not all, of the money you spent for the chocolate.
It sounds like you want to make it cheaper? Don't know. The proposed solutions to this are something along the lines of a cost that is higher than 1 or 2 sl run, but lower than multiple runs. This would sort of force players who chose to pay for sl run multiple times in order to get their moneys worth. And that would make sl another place to grind. We all know what grinding leads to. We get used to it. It no longer becomes challenging because one is accustomed to doing it for a long time. SL then no longer has that "Hard" part tagged to it. Then you don't get the challenge you want from them. That's your goal, right? To be able to do challenging parts of the game?
"Wait one or two days? Haha, no thanks."
Really sounds like someone who simply can't wait. Not that I am in any position to advocate, but why not do something irl, or just something else in general, while you wait? You don't have to watch the pot of water boil.
I don't get where you are going with my chocolate anaology but that didn't make any sense to me. Haha. But no, you make a good point about the grinding. Which is why I still want them to be paid, but not in such a ridiculous fashion. And I don't log onto a game thinking 'I want to play this in two days, so I'll come back then.' No one does. It has nothing to do with impatience, rather it simply has to do with the fact that I want to play the game. Would you play a game if the loading screen takes two days?
I'm saying that you may have paid 2 dollars for it, but you still got it back when your friends paid for their share. It's not like you are out 2 dollars of your own wallet, you got it back, minus the portion you ate. Say you ate half of it. You paid 2 dollars to the store, you split it in half with your friend, your friend gives you a dollar. How much are you out in the end? A dollar.
That was all trying to understand why you insist that everyone is paying 5 dollars for it. Which is a ridiculous amount, until you remember that you can split the cost with your party members.
The forum example I gave was more of a scenario like this:
I want to do ufsc on saturday. It isn't saturday yet, but I need party members. I'll go make a post, specify date, time, members needed, weapons wanted, experience wanted, and whether they can split or not. Then I go and do something else. I don't stare at that post until people reply. I go back to it an hour or two before your designated time to dive into sl. Then do the adding/pm'ing to contact people who posted.
That's not dedicating any extra resources or keeping you away from anything, posting a thread asking for people on the forum. Would I play a game that takes 2 days to load? If I don't need to spare my computer for those two days, or bandwidth, or anything I might need, I would. You seem to want to play sl on a whim, which is perfectly fine. But that's like anything done on a whim. You want a flight cross country, and you want it tonight? Probably need to pay more, as opposed to booking it early. You want to take the exit coming right up on the highway. You have less time to switch lanes as compared to the exit after that.
You can't just say "I want it, so I should get it now". Consider the progression from T1 to T2, then T3. You don't just say I want to play T3, and play it safely, when you are just starting out with your free cobalt set.
I get what you are saying now with the store, but see what I said above. You don't earn nearly as much back as what the cost is to get in so that doesn't make much sense.
And yeah, I get what you mean with the forums, you didn't need to spell it out, I know how it works. Haha. But you are assuming SLs are some super special element of the game, and your mindset works if you view them as such, but in my opinion, you shouldn't. They were added to give players a harder challenge. I don't think that should constitute holding SLs at such a high presitige.
You don't earn back as much as you put in, because you got something out of it. Whether it was a piece of the chocolate, or a sl run.
I don't assume sl to be special. They have nothing I feel like I need. Some cool costumes, some nice armour. I don't costume much, beyond using some noob gear to troll pugs in fsc. I have skolver, don't need snarby. I use mad bomber, I don't have the uv's to make merc as powerful as mad. I don't get why you assume I think sl is super special.
Because you are treating it as such. With your waiting lists, and big plans, and requirements. You are treating it like the most important and difficult thing, where it isn't. It's an expansion of the game, nothing more. And to say you don't get as much back because you got a SL run out of it, doesn't mean anything, that is time you could have spent making money doing normal runs. Again, I want the challenge, not the empty wallet.
I didn't know asking people to come on a sl run was big. Sorry, I guess everyone has different views on it. I don't think plans are anything big, just a way to be able to do what I wanted. Getting nothing out of a sl run? Then why would you even bother doing it. Even if sl was free to access, getting nothing out of nothing is, well, nothing important.
And again, you are asking for sl to be lowered in price. I have my own thoughts about this, leaning towards a no. Mostly because it isn't broken, so don't fix it.
....Come now. What do you get out of SLs? The challenge, that is what I've been saying this whole time! Haha, sorry, but have I been talking to myself for the past five hours? Haha, no offense, but again, the payout is not worth the cost of entry, but I want the challenge of what they offer. I don't think they should lower the price, but have some form of paywall, like an expansion, or a master key, or something that expires after x days, like heat amps or whatever.
The point of paying for access to something is to pay for access for it.
Someone else tried an elevator pass for Shadow Lairs and it tanked when people realized the hardcore grinders and premium players would gain even more while the casual and free to play people are left behind. Less pay to win. The price would have to be substantially ridiculous to counterbalance the potential amount of Shadow Lair equipment suddenly flooding the market. Using the existing key system would be simpler.
One of these days I am going to rhyme all of my posts for an entire day. It will cause your mind to slowly decay.
Until then, my friend, I bid you good night; for tomorrow I hope to spread disgust and fright.