Please let us vote when we buy stuff

Please let us vote when we buy stuff

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Posted by: Tongku.5326

Tongku.5326

Hi

Dear A-net. A lot of us have spent a lot of money on this game, sometimes in entire large groups collectively, and feel that it has gone to complete waste. Main reason for it is that you do not actually know what the players consider they are paying for or where they would like it to go. You make assumptions based on data, mainly how many players play what, but that in itself is kinda false because once the players start leaving a certain area of the game or maps etc. because you mess it up or do not make improvements or let it stagnate, then its a snowball effect.

The game is currently too large for you to work on everything all at once. So many of us would like to have a chance to literally let you know what we would like to pay for.

I would love to see some sort of an in-game feedback poll, when buying gems or items for $$ of off the gemstore. This I feel would provide you a relatively good metric in addition to what you have now. For example, just because I run some fractals or even a raid or 2, does not necessarily make me a PVE focused player and I would like to have money I spent actually go to the game areas I enjoy the most, or vice versa, just because I go into WVW for dailies or run around with a group once a week or 2 or do a few PVP matches here and there, does not make me a PVP player.

Even smaller things like certain maps, certain story elements, certain dungeons, raids, you name it. You would have a much much better idea of what we, your playerbase actually care about the most.

This would only be intended as feedback, you still of course assign the dev team etc. but I think that as the game ages, player population naturally drops all across the board, it is becoming more important to focus on cutomer retention and would love to see you take some steps that give you a much better idea of the specific areas, systems in the game that need some love and prioritize a bit better.

Thanks

Heavy Deedz – COSA – SF

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Posted by: Daddicus.6128

Daddicus.6128

I like the idea, but it would need to be simpler: they could weight the favored actions of those who pay higher.

This could be called pay to win, but not really. It’s more pay for what you play, so you get more of it.

The other thing is what do people pay FOR? This would be a lot harder to quantify. Plus, they’re probably already doing it (witness the extra account-wide slot growth).

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Posted by: Seera.5916

Seera.5916

No. This puts the favor of what gets added to those who can afford to buy things off of the gem store.

I would rather them occasionally have polls that are advertised on the news feed for what we would prefer between X options. Then it gets seen by players who are playing the game regardless of their ability to buy gems or not.

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Posted by: Ben K.6238

Ben K.6238

That’s all very well, but isn’t it the players who buy things that ANet needs to keep most of all?

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Posted by: Seera.5916

Seera.5916

That’s all very well, but isn’t it the players who buy things that ANet needs to keep most of all?

ANet needs to keep players playing the game. That includes those who can’t afford to buy gems.

Now if it was a poll to see what to add to the gem store, then that may be a good way to get a good sample.

But for what to add to the game for gameplay, it’s not. There are too many reasons why people don’t buy gems with money and only polling players who choose to buy gems isn’t a good sampling of players who play the game. It would skew the data.

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Posted by: fluffdragon.1523

fluffdragon.1523

That’s all very well, but isn’t it the players who buy things that ANet needs to keep most of all?

ANet needs to keep players playing the game. That includes those who can’t afford to buy gems.

Now if it was a poll to see what to add to the gem store, then that may be a good way to get a good sample.

But for what to add to the game for gameplay, it’s not. There are too many reasons why people don’t buy gems with money and only polling players who choose to buy gems isn’t a good sampling of players who play the game. It would skew the data.

Kind of like how “outfits are taking off really well and people seem to really like weapon skins!” has resulted in the same tired parade of … outfits and weapon skins for a quick buck, because most other things are either one-time purchases or pointless to buy more than once unless you’ve got a lot of money to get rid of.

I’ve not really been buying things lately (or much at all for that matter) because I just don’t feel that they’re providing items of good value or worth, or which fulfill a need for me.

Your sentiments are correct; a lot of us are essentially being ignored because ANet is only looking at a few money-maker groups: PvP / eSports, and microtransactions specifically. And since going free-to-play, they’ve lost a fair bit of revenue as well. Would have been smarter to make HoT come with a discount on the core game for new accounts or the like.

But either way the result is the same, and ANet isn’t really paying attention to the wishes of many players who inevitably end up playing whatever content they roll out because there’s not much else left to do.

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Posted by: Illconceived Was Na.9781

Illconceived Was Na.9781

Does it actually make sense for cash-spending gem buyers to decide what’s in the playable part of the game?

  • Do cash-spenders have drastically different opinions from those who trade gold for gems?
  • If so, does spending more give someone better insight to what makes the game appealing to others?
  • Even if true, how likely is it for gold-to-gem players being as enthusiastic/loyal to the game (or to ANet) if ANet offers special consideration to cash spenders?
  • Even if true, would the company make more money by doing this? Or less (consider that according to recent annual reports, cash from gem spenders is very healthy; it’s sales of the game itself that are down).

ANet already offers a mechanism for players to offer their opinion about what they’d like to see in the gem shop. That seems a reasonable place to appeal to those spending cash.

John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”

(edited by Illconceived Was Na.9781)

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Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

What are those wishes? All I’ve seen oft repeated is make it more like MMO X with mounts, open world dueling and gear treadmill; or returning to the overly complicated build system of Guild Wars where everyone copies the current meta someone clever figured out, giving the devs something to nerf for the next balance round; or add more sources for gold/mats so they can get everything they want with as little effort as possible?

The game was marketed day one with three game modes. We’ve seen what happens when ANet focuses on one and ignore the others. They aren’t going that route again so everything is being worked on which means stuff gets delivered slower.

ANet chose to finance the game with a gem store and for that to pay the bills, it has to sell stuff that costs little development time to make. So we get bundles, items rotated out and return, and outfits over armor skins. You have an idea of what to add to the shop that they haven’t offered yet, lets hear it. As long as it’s not buying power.

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

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Posted by: mauried.5608

mauried.5608

Theres nothing in the Gem Store thats needed to play the game.
Its all discressionary stuff and none of it affects what you do in the game , or where you play or what events you do.
Its also mostly stuff thats very easy to create, so about the only additional things that are likley to be added are things that fit this criteria.
Anet would most likley give consideration to making extra items if lots of players wanted them and there was very little effort required to add them.

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Posted by: Shivan.9438

Shivan.9438

I’d actually like to see voting or a poll of some kind once a month to see what players would want in the gem store. Create a list of gem store stuff and put it up for voting. If what a player wants isn’t in the list, they can choose Other and then tell Anet what they want. Anet keeps a tally on what’s hot and they cycle content that way.

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Posted by: Tongku.5326

Tongku.5326

I’d actually like to see voting or a poll of some kind once a month to see what players would want in the gem store. Create a list of gem store stuff and put it up for voting. If what a player wants isn’t in the list, they can choose Other and then tell Anet what they want. Anet keeps a tally on what’s hot and they cycle content that way.

When I originally made this post, I was thinking more in the direction of general development, and help to stop the negative downward spiral of certain things. But I suppose gemstore items would be OK too.

But the point was basically to have feedback attached not necessarily about what people want in the gemstore, as there are already plenty of threads / options for that, but where they would like their money to actually go to.

For example, you buy another shared inventory slot, but which area of the game would you like to see more developed or worked on ? Or perhaps a specific map, or perhaps a specific encounter type ? A dungeon ? PvP map ? WVW feature ?

And as I originally stated, this would not be the “end all be all” but rather just an additional feedback and perhaps additional variable in the overall metrics equation.

As for why do it in the game instead of the forums ? Simple, vast majority of players do not visit these forums, or do not do so on regular enough basis and would miss it entirely, whereas if they are notified from within the game it becomes more uniform and more people will participate.

Heavy Deedz – COSA – SF

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Posted by: Tumult.2578

Tumult.2578

Smacks of pay to win. This is our feedback method. Another in game method for everyone would be nice but either would be pretty expensive to create and more expensive to constantly maintain.

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Posted by: Deihnyx.6318

Deihnyx.6318

I also feel Anet should not be affraid of asking the community what they want, like they’re doing right now with PVP.

I really enjoyed when we got asked about which fractal we wanted (even though it was apparently rigged? and Ebon should have won cause he was clearly the best yo), it makes people talk and debate about the game a lot, potentially luring some new players in the process, it doesn’t cost you much and you can back these decisions by saying “that’s what the community wants”.

Now should they listen more to people who spend more money? Well I’m not too sure. It depends. For cosmectic stuff sure, whales are more likely to be the first to buy them, it makes sense. New kind of convenience items? Why not. But content, new features? I’m not too sure.
Also, doing that would not help keeping the base players (those who don’t spend insane amount of money in the game) within the game. These players are just as essential to keep the game alive as those who finance it.

Oh by the way Anet, If you wanna reward us whales, there’s a much better way imho, give us a discount on the first X gems every months! I know I would thank you for it <3

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Posted by: Just a flesh wound.3589

Just a flesh wound.3589

One problem I can think of is that voting for what you want means that the areas that don’t have a lot of population playing it get fewer votes to upgrade or make changes. For example, let’s say the game is (random numbers here) 80% PvE players and 20% WvW/PvP. This means the majority of votes will go towards PvE changes and very few toward sPvP/WvW. That’s fine for the PvE players but it means WvW/sPvP will get less Dev attention and that part of the game will be neglected instead of improved. Which means that WvW and sPvP will lose players over time to the overall detriment of the game.

Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.

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Posted by: Rogue.8235

Rogue.8235

So buying gems gives you a seat on the Board? What is this? I wish it were so easy to become a board member for many companies simply by buying their products…

The Blind player

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Posted by: Daddicus.6128

Daddicus.6128

I also feel Anet should not be affraid of asking the community what they want, like they’re doing right now with PVP.

The problem is that they only hear back from the most vocal of their customers, which is a tiny percentage. And the loudest are always at the extreme ends of the player spectrum.

The vast majority won’t do a survey unless it’s asked of them personally, which is difficult for a company with millions of customers.