Star Conflict - simplify economy and resources

Suggestions Levelling and Economy
#1

I have been discussing the current state of the game with my friends, who are playing, or used to play Star Conflict.

 

Many of us do not like the current changes, especially now, that the game will require even more grind or GS, just to get enough resources for the Destroyers.

Neodium, another new currency or resource will make matters even worse! We got too many currencies and resources already! However, if they should stay, they need to be much more accessible to players.

They should be much more common in the loot and they should cost less, if you want to upgrade something, by at least 50%. This especially concerns the Secret Project ships and Monocrystals!

I mean, that they should be available to buy in the Store directly, for credits or GS. Credits should be the most important currency in the game there is.

 

We have reached a conclusion, that there is only one possibility. I will discuss the economy of this game only in this thread.

For a game, that is 4 years old, it should deserve a better outcome and at least 50k players instead of 1100 or 670 daily on average, from Steam.

Steady population decline in the game, indicates that the game is slowly dying. Some say, that it is in coma already. Who will pull the plug, it’s irrelevant. It’s when, we should be concerned about.

Even if you multiply this number by 2 or 3, the result is still… sad, if you take into account all the other players. And it’s a real shame, because this could be a really spectacular and unique game!

If you want a ship component part for a Secret Project, you should buy it with only these two available currencies. Free synergy system should also be available for credits alone, not just GS.

 

 

Here are a few tips, that should be in the game already!

 

- resources should be available to buy directly from the Store in hangar with credits or GS

- removal of the current loyalty voucher system (the old system from 0.7.5 update worked perfectly fine)

- ship parts for Secret Projects should be available with credits or GS as well

- Mark 3/4/5 upgrades for the modules should cost less (50-80% resource reduction requirement)

- Monocrystals should be common loot, which you can get in Open Space, or in any PvP/PvE matches as well, or offered as an alternative to Iridium loot drops (exchange resource)

- all ship customization options should become available for credits or GS and you keep them, if you buy any of them, even upon switching (Customization DLC pack)

 

 

Main source of income or money should come from Premium License and DLC and ship packs. Customization DLC pack could bring an additional source of income.

Very tempting sales should happen. Also the bundle for all listed ship packs and DLCs should remain as well in the Store. It is no longer available!

 

Loyalty vouchers for a mercenary should be removed entirely. As you progress through ranks, rising up to higher ones, you should be able to automatically unlock Mark 3 upgrades for each faction.

So, the last rank of the old tier system, should give you automatically access to all Mark 3 upgrades, which you can buy with an increased amount of credits.

If you reached rank 15, then you have everything unlocked for such faction. 3 factions with rank 15 access and you would get all available Mark 3 upgrades unlocked for credits alone.

Mark 4 for Iridium should stay, but the cost of the upgrade should be reduced by 50%. Customization options should either be unlocked by the DLC pack, which is the old suggestion.

 

As you can see, it’s not so hard to implement such changes. Main problem is that newcomers don’t like the current system and the retention factor is very low. Even old veterans no longer play.

Mostly, because of the reasons stated above. Endless grind, limited access to resources and with no alternatives to get them otherwise. It gets boring quickly.

They moved on to other games, because they had no choice.

 

 

Please, keep this thread open, because I want to hear some constructive feedback from the players!

Please, do not forget to vote!

 

 

Thank you!

 

 

 

Sincerely,

Koromac

#2

Some good points, but the Monocrystal resource is the last thing that new players will be worried about. Also, if special ships are made easily available to all players, then they would no longer be special. Right now they symbolise either players that support the game with money, or are hard-core dedicated to the game.

Also, seeing this upcoming patch, the game seems to be getting its funding from -somewhere- already, as it is able to grow still.

I agree about population, but the best source for players right now is less of retention, and more of addition. They need to advertise publicly. If they advertised in the US there would be a sure gain in audience. There are awful phone app games that get advertised and yet they still have 927639286 players. Advertisement is hard and takes time, but it would be more rewarding in the long run for the community as a whole. This that you suggest would be nice, but it would level the playing-field much further than it has already been.

Tl;dr: I like the ideas, but advertising would fix more than this in the long-run

#3

Some good points, but the Monocrystal resource is the last thing that new players will be worried about. Also, if special ships are made easily available to all players, then they would no longer be special. Right now they symbolise either players that support the game with money, or are hard-core dedicated to the game.

Also, seeing this upcoming patch, the game seems to be getting its funding from -somewhere- already, as it is able to grow still.

I agree about population, but the best source for players right now is less of retention, and more of addition. They need to advertise publicly. If they advertised in the US there would be a sure gain in audience. There are awful phone app games that get advertised and yet they still have 927639286 players. Advertisement is hard and takes time, but it would be more rewarding in the long run for the community as a whole. This that you suggest would be nice, but it would level the playing-field much further than it has already been.

Tl;dr: I like the ideas, but advertising would fix more than this in the long-run

If we can’t keep the players, then it is of no use in the long run.

So far, I haven’t seen any serious international advertising. If they won’t do it in 1.3.1, then they never will.

#4

I have to disagree. Vouchers are good from T1 to 3, but get very expensive at T4 and 5. However, this has been reduced by adding extra ways of getting vouchers: daily fleet asignements (its equal to finishing a complete subfaction list of contracts in a day) and tournaments. Im not that into the new voucher changes so im basing my comments into 1,2 patch version (where each T5 mod costed 180k and each T5 weapon 270k).

As a “free” player i find that the only required materials are: computing chips and monocristals. The rest you can get it by PVE or PVP. I dont have licence nor boosters, so im pretty sure a player that puts money into this gets it way easier than me.

SP are special ships, not something you get everyday and unlock all ships, so i totally disagree that they should be “pay to obtain”. License already boosts this process by 1/3, which is quite a lot. Premium ships are a great alternative players can purchase…SP are some sort of premium ships for players who dont pay, without looting/repairs/extra income/free synergy bonuses (effort reward).

" - resources should be available to buy directly from the Store in hangar with credits or GS", im indiferent to it, you can already salvage items for it (kinda expensive, but possible). Salvaged items change by each update, but as soon as you identify the reward you want from a specific mod, you can salvage as much as you can to obtain consistent materials (the ones you want).

"-- all ship customization options should become available for credits or GS and you keep them, if you buy any of them, even upon switching (Customization DLC pack)" most income from F2P games are visual customization options, making this available to credits kills a nice income for the game; a F2P win should be optimally only getting profit from merely visual customization features, not objects that modify gameplay.

"- removal of the current loyalty voucher system (the old system from 0.7.5 update worked perfectly fine)" no idea about this.

#5

“Economy matters will not be discussed”

If this is just a general complaints thread, then here is my main complaint: my brother just started the game and there is no way I can play with him. He can’t undock, squadding in PVP is impossible (we waited 10 minutes for nothing) and PVE does not interest us.

The game has become a solo game, until you get to t3 for tournament or t5 for the rest. Teamwork is not encouraged. And that is bad.

#6

I’m going to, again, use the model of Warframe as my basis for my argument.

Warframe’s economy is highly successful because there are multiple options to an end goal. The economy has even more limiting resources than Star Conflict (Neurodes, Argon Crystals, Detonite Ampules, Plasmids, you name it it’s probably a limiting resource. Find the complete list of resources here), but  the means to obtain these resources are unique and challenging, with an easy way to pay for these resources.

 

The wonderful aspect of the economy is that it is based upon blueprints and crafting, very similarly to our workshops and Secret Project ships. However, it does not feel like a boring, monotonous grindfest like ours because some of these resources require forays into extremely dangerous areas of the game against challenging enemies to obtain. Cooperation amongst players in squads is basically required to get these resources.

 

_ Four central points about Warframe’s economy stand out, and should be adopted into this game’s economy: _

  1. While every resource can be grinded out, it can be DIRECTLY obtained via the ingame microtransaction system. What does this mean? This means paying real money for EXACTLY the resource needed (i.e. paying $5 USD for four Orokin Cells). There are no elements of chance like our Contraband Containers. This is beneficial to both the players and the developers, as it generates income for the developers and allows players unwilling to grind for resources to pay real money to obtain them faster.
  2. There are no limits to how much of a resource can be obtained. Unlike our limits of 6-9 Monocrystals from Daily Missions and maybe another 2 from Special Operations, the drop tables of Warframe increase the rarity of valuable resource drops. This is used _in conjunction with _the presence of high-level enemies and challenging maps that require the cooperation of several players to complete.
  3. I cannot stress how important this point is. The cooperation of players to obtain these resources is central to lessening the monotony of the grind. Endgame players like me were able to play for hours and still maintain interest because the game allowed for us to play with friends towards a common goal of obtaining these rare resources. This will lead to a higher player retention and maintains the interest of veterans who have nothing else to do.
  4. This also goes without saying that the resources were guaranteed to drop at the end. I dislike the random loot spots in Star Conflict because it feels like while some got lucky, others got gypped out of a rare resource.
  5. Warframe uses an alert mission system , which is based on real time. During random points throughout the day, special missions will appear throughout the universe which would only be open for a limited amount of time (like an hour or so). These missions guaranteed a rare resource loot at the end of completion. These missions keep players on their toes and increase player retention altogether.
  6. There is ingame trading. While this may not be implemented in Star Conflict in the near future, the trading system allows for the exchange of components and resources to other, less fortunate or newer players in exchange for premium currency. I will not go into this in depth unless you guys want me to, but the trading system eliminates the inequality of resources between veteran players and newer players and allows for the newer players to “close the gap”.

Of course, not all of these points may be beneficial to Star Conflict’s economy, but I believe that developing methods to encourage cooperation and interactivity between players towards a common goal of obtaining rare resources is critical to player retention, player interest, and ultimately, developer income.

 

I will not end with a comparison between two video games, but rather a series of possible alternate suggestions for improving Star Conflict’s economy:

  • T5 leagues tweak: The winning team of a league match receives a purple dot containing a rare or limiting resource.
  • Daily tournaments are a good thing. Keep them for after the holidays, but keep the veterans out of lower tier tournaments or else newer players will leave.
  • Develop T4 or T5 tournaments with the same reward system.
  • Develop ingame trading. See points above for benefits of trading.
  • Develop a method to _directly _purchase limiting resources for GS.
  • Develop Open Space missions that require cooperation between 2-3 pilots. And I’m not talking about “Kill x biomorphs/Cartel members or escort this transport”, but some novel and fun idea for missions that deepen the immersion of the Star Conflict universe. These missions should be alert-type.

 

Discuss.

#7

+

 

  • Daily tournaments are a good thing. Keep them for after the holidays, but keep the veterans out of lower tier tournaments or else newer players will leave.
  • Develop T4 or T5 tournaments with the same reward system.
  • Develop ingame trading. See points above for benefits of trading.
  • Develop a method to _directly _purchase limiting resources for GS.
  • resources should be available to buy directly from the Store in hangar with credits or GS

-

  • Develop Open Space missions that require cooperation between 2-3 pilots. And I’m not talking about “Kill x biomorphs/Cartel members or escort this transport”, but some novel and fun idea for missions that deepen the immersion of the Star Conflict universe. These missions should be alert-type.
  • removal of the current loyalty voucher system (the old system from 0.7.5 update worked perfectly fine) ------ this system was very grindy and it allowed only the veterans to buy the mk3 ( blue) modules in the tier they already passed, so when they played it, they destroyed all the newbies. The voucher income rate should be increased and I would put this suggestion into the + list.
  • **all ship customization options should become available for credits or GS and you keep them, if you buy any of them, even upon switching (Customization DLC pack) ------ **basically what papitas said
#8

Trading would make so many parts of this game better yet they always refuse to implement it. I do not understand why.

#9

-

  • Develop Open Space missions that require cooperation between 2-3 pilots. And I’m not talking about “Kill x biomorphs/Cartel members or escort this transport”, but some novel and fun idea for missions that deepen the immersion of the Star Conflict universe. These missions should be alert-type.

Why would you disagree with this? I want to hear your opinion.

#10

the best source for players right now is less of retention, and more of addition.

 

In the long run, both is needed of course. But there are basically two ways for this:

  • intensive marketing to shove more new people into the game than it loses (basically what the mobile games market does, results in mountains of shovelware and games dying as quickly as they appear, not a big fan)
  • reduce the amount of player loss until the flow becomes stable and reliable

In my opinion, the game still has too many hurdles that make people leave. If you have a big barrel and want to gather water, the first thing you should do is making sure that the barrel has no holes, at least no big ones. Otherwise you’ll end up spending alot of energy to constantly keep a high input. From my experience, it’s actually cheaper to fix the holes, unless you don’t care about maintainability.

 

There are 2-3 things that deny the players to play together. Some of them are due to low population and cannot be fixed easily, but others are solely because of how the game is designed. Example: I cannot play open space with my friends because they work for a different contractor. Want another one? My friends can’t join me in my open space missions, because if they want to leave the newbie area, they need to grind their way to rank 7 or even 10.

The game hard-locks people away from each other (or from game content) in several places. And if people can’t play together here, they will play a game where they can.

There is slow progress, for example the new SpecOps that can be entered with rank 7 (as opposed to rank 10 before?), but there’s still alot that needs to be done.