Update 4.10 Consolidated feedback thread

[Shax84]

Whats more worth to a company, selling an item for $1,000 to one customer or selling 1,000 items at $10 ?

Prices are way off and the increase is unheard of.

Speaking personally, old world content is dated and uninteresting. But I've been premium in this game for 8 years so, yeah, the raids that I did in 2008-09 kind of don't make me enthusiastic and eager any more, especially after all the nerfs. However putting the raid or pvp armor in shop is a fuc*ing disgrace and an insult, a spit in the face to the premium subscribers that has been paying Funcom money to be able to do this for hundreds, thousands of hours. Summarized through 8 years, I have played well over 10000 hours and spent somewhere around €1500 in subscription fees, expansion packs and funcom points. From this day forward I will spend NOTHING on Funcom titles, and make sure to spread to other communities how you treated the loyal customers of this game.

And even... You managed to break the only encounter you actually touched in this "update". Deserves Darwin Award 2016.

[ConanLogan]

Ok, lets face the first fact:

Most of us are addicted to this game. The one kind is addicted to get better and better loot/gear and the other ones are addicted to pve or pvp playing and the next are "addicted" to their loved communites (guilds/friends) in AoC. Some are two of the three, some are all three, in a variation of degree.

I used the bad word "addicted" not to make a (moral) judgement, just to clarify what I want to say.

The game is slowly dying since years, but it must have some special attraction. Not sure what it is, as I never played any other MMO.

I guess every MMO marketing team has somehow to make profit out of these addictions, but this update went two steps too far. Its just too obvious. People can live with their addictions, nearly everyone does, but dont make it sooo clear to them that they are, and that you just wanna make profit out of it. People feel bad then.

Contrary to the most feedback given here, I have no big problem with you selling T3 gear. Its ok, I am not envy on the buyers of these, I rather have pity for them in case they spent more that they can afford. I have had my fun getting this gear, I have still my fun in dungeons and raids, it doesnt bother me if anyone can get gear paying extra money for it. A huge rip-off are prolly these boxes which drop very rarely some T5 gear, I guess some poor guys will spend much money for that and get almost nothing, well idk the drop rate. Even though im not full T5 I have no problem with that again. I wouldnt recommend anyone to buy, but hey its their money. And their money doesnt destroy my fun I have in raids and dungeons. Knowing how small the playerbase is, I highly doubt that any big invasion of new players with no clue - but T3 gear - is on the horizon and would destroy PUG T4 raids or so. Some rich and exp players will buy their 10th alt, so what.

I had a guildie who was about the buy himself that T3 Set for his barbarian but Im glad I could convice him, that he really shouldnt spend 50€ on that, as, yes, its a bit grindy to get Khitai Epic/ T3, but meh, as Barb you can go T4 with mix of T1, T2, some Khitai Epic and some 1, 2 worse parts


But what really pissed me off, and some other long-time veteran addicts as well, is the increase in prices for ports and pots. The ports are need for groups and raids, if you didnt know. They save time for up to 23 ppl, waiting for the refill raider to come to the instance or for the nice raider to log his alt/main, bc the random nab cant do his chars' duty in raid. Earlier as a RL I always asked ppl to buy port in such circumstances, but I cant do that anymore with this price increase. Earlier I could always say "Hey you get 11 free ports per subbed month, so spare them for raids and groups please, I think it can be expected from you", but now its only 3 ports a month, and thats too less, so ppl would have to spend extra money for that.

Every then and now I bought a pot or two from shop, and even spent 5€ every two months or so for that. I wont do that anymore, its just too expensive in my eyes. Self res potions: 18 FC points - that was really nice, I even liked spending the few extra money for that, as it helped to have success and fun in tough 6 mans.

Im not much into vanity gear, but everyone who is, really misses the vanity gear offers for small money in the shop.

Funcom, please release detailed (!) news about the new sub model asap. Monday might be too late, but if its not possible earlier than Monday, then do it on Monday! Or we lose more players than we may have already lost today.

[elsunga]

I got the email about the store revamp, and it got my hopes up. I haven't played in almost a year now, and I hoped that maybe this would inspire me to come back.

Ugh. I was mistaken.

I'm going to try to offer constructive feedback here.

1. The UI is very bad, both functionally and aesthetically. Scrolling down to see all items works awkwardly, and the entire color scheme and presentation looks like I stepped backwards in time to the 1990's era of dial-up and geocities webpages. This does NOT look like a professional storefront.
2. What I look for with an in-game store are the very things you took away; vanity gear, mounts, pets, skins, all the options that I want to tailor my character. What remains is unattractive to me by and large, though the armor sets and level 80 character bundle could be somewhat appealing for someone new or coming back after a hiatus like myself.
3. The price points are indicative of what drove me away from AOC unfortunately. Everything is overpriced to an extreme degree, nothing seems account bound anymore, and the meager offerings include many small QoL features that used to be taken for granted on AoC and are still free features on other MMO's.
4. For a much better example of a successful in-game store with better offerings and prices aimed at attracting Account-Bound purchasing, I refer you to the Elder Scrolls Online Crown Store. Take a hint from their layout, appropriate theming, functional UI, and most importantly their choice of vanity items that are cosmetic and provide no mechanical or game-functionality advantage. They are also account bound, needing to only be purchased once, and there's a wide enough variety that keeps people interested and coming back for new purchases.

I miss AoC but this revamp did not do what it seemed to be intending, which is get me back as a player and subscriber. To do that, Funcom needs to take a serious look at its pricing schema, the costs of membership and support, and deliver better value to the consumer -not less.

This is exactly what I am feeling too. I would add if they want to take this pricing revamp seriously, there should have to be SERIOUS and COMPLETE revamp of loot tables and in game currency revamp. Which will imho never happen. In current situation they totally killed any effort to know anything about the game mechanics and make raiding effortless and full of people who would not care about mechanics. Pure cash grab over everything in game.

What I find amusing is FC attitude in the perspective of the new Conan Exiles game. In the highly competitive world of multiplayer survival games the company like Funcom all they have is quality of the product AND their reputation based on their previous games and their attitude to the players. Congrats guys. You totally killed all of it.

[Radicaltop]

Two things to point out concerning the selling of T3 gear in the Store:

1) We do not know what the new rewards may be for the raids included in the new Raider Finder system. The Raider Finder version of the T1 to T3 raids may create a new incentive to run this content other than acquiring the T1 to T3 gear.

2) We also do not know what will be included with the new Membership re-structuring. If the new AOC Membership is anything like the current TSW Membership, Veteran Points will be phased out and long time members may receive T1 through T3 gear at certain tenure points.

Let's see all of the changes before we decide that the Store T3 gear is going to break the game.

[Kurt2013]

Two things to point out concerning the selling of T3 gear in the Store:

1) We do not know what the new rewards may be for the raids included in the new Raider Finder system. The Raider Finder version of the T1 to T3 raids may create a new incentive to run this content other than acquiring the T1 to T3 gear.

2) We also do not know what will be included with the new Membership re-structuring. If the new AOC Membership is anything like the current TSW Membership, Veteran Points will be phased out and long time members may receive T1 through T3 gear at certain tenure points.

Let's see all of the changes before we decide that the Store T3 gear is going to break the game.

1) Even if, it will be most likely an incentive as detached from ingame experience and feedback as others in the past. Even if there is one, unless it comes with ingame changes (economy, ease of access, less grind and more options) it will still fail. If it was a proper balanced incentive, they could have mentioned it already. In comparison achievements, virtual incentives and gear progression always fall short of proper fun and immersive game experience. And i doubt at this stage they will add new content to these tiers, add more complex quests or horizontal progression. Look at Vanaheim, arena and current shop and you should get a hint what such an "incentive" could look like.

2) We do not know, but we can (and have) assume best and worst case. The results are still not in favor, because the whole direction of the shop philosophy (pricing, sub/f2p, product palette) is already too wrong. It would be only professional and fair to give out the plans in advance, instead of hoping for a final grab of yearly subs (just look at Waldgeists post in the german forum). Again, if they were confident and could argue in favour of the changes, they would have done so before introducing such an obvious shop nerf.

Again, if we wait and see, it will be too late and harder for the proper people at funcom to argue our (and their!) case for the game with marketing bureaucrazy. People are so shortsighted nowadays, most likely if there is no immediate negative impact, they will detach themselves from reality and consider even this "revamp" as success (again, as done in the past with other fishy ventures that in long term did more harm than good).

[DTphonehome]

Two things to point out concerning the selling of T3 gear in the Store:

1) We do not know what the new rewards may be for the raids included in the new Raider Finder system. The Raider Finder version of the T1 to T3 raids may create a new incentive to run this content other than acquiring the T1 to T3 gear.

2) We also do not know what will be included with the new Membership re-structuring. If the new AOC Membership is anything like the current TSW Membership, Veteran Points will be phased out and long time members may receive T1 through T3 gear at certain tenure points.

Let's see all of the changes before we decide that the Store T3 gear is going to break the game.

The vast majority of people complaining don't care much about the T3 buyable gear. If someone is willing to pay $60 for T3 gear and support the game we have enjoyed for years, I'm all for it. Most people are upset that you can buy T5 and T4 gear while this gear is a real chore to get by raiding.

[Zamali]

Ok so I just logged in to see what this store revamp was all about and what it looks like has happened more or less amounts to this.

"Hey everyone, we just deleted almost everything from the store! And we have an amazing new UI for it that is over simplified and looks like it belongs in a kids game! To celebrate, we're giving you FREE bonus points when you purchase a points pack! And you're going to want that since you can pay to win! Oh, and we also jacked up the price of everything we left in the store to help cover the cost of the UI designer's invoice! Happy 8th Anniversary!!"

So, all the vanity items are gone, the UI looks so simple it would belong on a Hello Kitty game, everything is more expensive, and with the addition of the Level 80 character purchase and the T3 PvE raid gear purchases they've removed any incentive for people with more dollars than sense to even bother trying Tier 1 - 3 raids while simultaneously robbing the rest of us of that sense of achievement when we finally completed a T3 set.

Seriously, whoever cooked up this store update must have been soft in the head.

[Kurt2013]

The vast majority of people complaining don't care much about the T3 buyable gear. If someone is willing to pay $60 for T3 gear and support the game we have enjoyed for years, I'm all for it. Most people are upset that you can buy T5 and T4 gear while this gear is a real chore to get by raiding.

Do you think there would be as much of an outcry if the shop shortcut would be tokens combineable with existing ingame currency from these efforts and the gear obtainable without actual raid grinding would be similar looking, but worse statwise? (e.g. the shop could be used to fill in blanks fast, should the raid group move on to the next tier and the price would be far less, depending on how much you already progressed into the actual tier. Also the statreduction would ensure that doing the content ingame would still be more rewarding than simply buying stuff)

[Mellaus]

This is simple, verbal feedbacks have no value whatsoever.

What has a value is what people spend their money on. If people buy, then it's enough of a positive feedback for FC, if people do not buy, then it's a negative feedback.
So the only way to give a feedback is to stop buying anything at all and get rid of the sub. I for one deleted my card on my account, that way no recurring sub anymore.

FC is like a monster now, twisted, vicious and malicious. It should be put down, for evebody's sake, but they have that rich magna who keeps them alive, for whatever reason. They don't deserve it, that's for sure.

What i hope is that nobody uses that shop anymore, and people stop subbing, because it's the only way those corporate suits will have to rethink their strategy. If even that is possible.

Hopping for that to happen, here are my suggestions for the shop :

- Replace the T3 PvE by a vanity version of the T2 PvP sets.
- Replace the T4 relics and dragon tears by a vanity version of the T3 PvP set, or even a vanity version of the T4 PvP set.
- Replace the T5 relics and shard of pure ice by a vanity version of the T5 PvE set.
- Change the new dps potions like crit ones to add constitution instead of more dps.
- Add those potions into the game, so they're not only accessible through the shop.
- Reduce all the prices by a factor 4.

If you want to give away raid gear, then do it within the boundaries of the game itself, just nerf T3 even more, T4 and T5 too, so people play the game.

When you sell power gear you make content obsolete. T3 pugs were already rare, now i suspect they'll just disappear. You do not keep players playing by giving away power gear, you keep them playing by giving them things to do in game.

Someone who get full T5 through the shop has nothing to do anymore, he'll stop playing after a couple of weeks. He'll never be able to raid T5 or T6, those tiers are way too hard for non veteran raiders. There's no relevant content for that guy anymore.

This is just bad business decision. I feel like explanation that yes, fire burns, to a mentally challenged kid.


Free advice to Mussagana and Odoneptranara.
Leave FC.
You guys do not want to endure what previous people went through at your positions. Those people all left for the best reasons. FC is terrible, it's malicious toward its customers and vicious toward players overall.
If there's a bit of a gamer in you, you can't be proud of doing what you're doing.
As for the guy doing the moderation on the forums, i wonder what that guy says to people asking him what he does with his free time. "Oh it's cool, i censor players who have legitimate concerns about a terrible company scamming them. It's very fun ! And i feel like i make a difference, you know, i help a great cause."

Oh, and of course the arena is not fixed. Still that retarded endless queue.

Can we say that update is a total failure ?

Ruins the whole raiding process, breaks the one T6 encounter it was was supposed to fix, offers nothing of value, and do not fix any of the actual issues players gave feedbacks about.
Am i forgetting something ?

[Radicaltop]

So, all the vanity items are gone, the UI looks so simple it would belong on a Hello Kitty game, everything is more expensive, and with the addition of the Level 80 character purchase and the T3 PvE raid gear purchases they've removed any incentive for people with more dollars than sense to even bother trying Tier 1 - 3 raids while simultaneously robbing the rest of us of that sense of achievement when we finally completed a T3 set.

The Store vanity armors are now available from a new Gilding vendor. I am not sure where the Store only pets are now or if they even exist at the moment.