January Promotion

Khizan

This promotion is everything I hate about Imperian promotions lately and it is a perfect example of everything that is wrong with them.

• Promotions that require me to just flat out buy credits are awful; I don't really need more credits. There is nothing for credits that I particularly want. When the only way to participate in a promotion is to buy credits, I'm much less tempted to participate because all I want is the promotion item; I don't actually want the credits.
  
• Powerful combat relevant effects with limited availability are awful because months down the line I'm going to be losing fights to bitter apples without any way to actually get one for myself. Summons and teleports and stuff only make it worse, because of the potential for fun shenanigans linked to unavailable items or the need to defend against promotional items that you can no longer get. The inability to even the field is awful.
• This feels AMAZINGLY pay-to-win. I need to buy $600 worth of credits to get access to the powerhouse apples? And my reward for that is "no health sips for 10 seconds" that stacks with current health-denial effects, which is to say that my reward is a once-a-day win button? Ugh. 

This is probably the single worst promotion you've ever run, including the artifact fragments. The races weren't bad. You get a benefit from them that's largely unattainable now, but it's a relatively minor thing. Racial mana regen is nice, but it's a side-benefit, a fairly minor thing. It's great to have, but it's not going to swing a fight for you. Racial flight, whatever. It was a cheaper and slower ring of flight, or a cheaper and more restricted wings artifact, no big deal. 

The apples are a massive thing, however; the bitter apple is basically a kill button and several of the others are also stupidly powerful. Having that kind of thing as a promotional items feels crappy. It's just so blatantly pay to win that it makes the entire game feel worse. What are you going to offer next month? A wand of zapping?

Bleh.

Juran

I get that this is a very small market and a very old game. I understand that most of your playerbase is content with their investment, and the number of new players exceedingly small. I even fully comprehend that gradual power growth is the only way to get people to continue spending money in a free to play business model. Milking the handful of players that you still have for everything that you can get is naturally going to be the only way you stay in business.

That said, I'm not used to such dramatic bonuses from 'bonus' items. Even the worst of these apples is head and shoulders above the tattoo inkpot, the charon coins, and the limited use items like the ethereal chains because they'll both last forever and provide substantial changes. Anyone that buys into your promotion this month has a permanent advantage over everyone that does not.

It's a great way to make a quick buck, but probably a bad sign for the future of the game. Even a game as old and 'tired' as this one.

Selthis

Promotion fatigue is a thing.  I mean, I get that these sort of promotions are decided based on Achaea, where you can basically force a huge number of people to empty their wallets directly into Mihaly's bank account month after month.

I feel like the best representation of this effect for the meme generation of this would be a gif of dude beating a dead horse while money flies out of it as a disgusted crowd looks on and gets smaller and smaller as people wander off.

Jules

But... when you kill people you can say "how do you like dem apples"?  Anyway, I am so glad we have Khizan to bitch for us (seriously).  I just thought this promotion was boring and kind of cheap.  Shows what I know.  

Mercer

Looking at the promotion, I have zero interest in it


just seems like a lot effort(money) for very little benefit, at least to me

Iniar

Juran said:

...they'll ... last forever...

This is the worst part.

Linslet

Agreed, this is an awful promo and I'll be glad when it's over.

As an aside, those rotten apples better not work on caravan traders.

Iniar

Does Dumpy work on Raksha?

Linslet

One would hope.

Eoghan

As currently written, it should prevent any self-initiated movement (this means it doesn't include things like summons) that results in movement to a room that isn't adjacent.

(The implementation of bumpy has been slightly reworked since initial release, so it isn't necessary to check each teleportation skill. That note at the bottom of the announce post *should* be meaningless now, but it's left in just-in-case).

We have the capability of easing that for specific travel methods, but none should be excluded as of this post.

Mathiaus

How about you let me simply buy the only ones I'd actually want to use?

This was one of the main reasons I hated college; I disliked spending thousands of dollars on learning crap I'd never enjoy or use ever.

Dicene

The powers aren't all equal and you're meant to have to pay larger amounts to get up to the pk related powers. Someone getting the free damage-kill every 24 hours apple(bitter) free with a purchase of 200C would be just terrible. I don't like the apple existing with effect at all, but at least having it gated by a 1900C spending requirement(or 475-950C cost if purchased from promo market assuming they settle at 30-50C each apple at some point) helps keep it from being too common. You hate the balance of team conflict now, imagine if Arakis/Septus/Iroth could buy 2000C of artifacts for himself and at the same time received a bag and bitter apple to distribute to 10 other AM.

Bathan

I'd honestly just the Wheel more. People like it, it already exists, et cetera. It might not directly net you sales, but it also isn't over the top silly.

Sarrius

This promo is bad for the same reasons some others were: lasting combat effects like this seem like blatant cash grabs that sacrifice the long term well-being of the combat environment for a short term influx of cash. Pass.

Dicene

Optionally, mix and match. Add in a thing like the wheel or a "log in each day of the week for blah" thing any time you're doing a promo that is 100% based on credit purchases. Even if you end up repeating a lot of the things, having some small incentive like that can make a big difference, and it doesn't feel so focused on the people with money, which is what most promos feel like. Throw us poor people a bone every now and then. =P

Dicene

Actually, to kind of refine the idea some. I keep hearing that a lot of people have stockpiled credits for a while. Instead of just adding promo items like these that are tossed in as a bonus on credit purchases, potentially furthering existing stockpiles for anyone that decides to buy in on this promo:

- Leave the wheel year round, with free spins for log-in time remaining all the time, or most of the time(maybe like, free spins enabled every other day or only on weekends or something).
- Add a very small chance for promo items and assembly pieces to drop from free spins, to help replenish the barren wasteland that the promo market has become as far as assembly pieces(vanity and otherwise) are concerned.

- Keep the wheel open for paid spins year round.
- Instead of new promo items being exclusively available with credit purchases, add them to the wheel with an increase chance during their first month of introduction(or guaranteed if the value of them is low enough(wouldn't apply to apples)).

This would encourage more IG time(even if you're just idling a lot, you're still open to RP and PK). This would give people with extra credits a way to blow them. This would give us another way to refill promo market since most assembly items aren't available(not even simple vanity pieces) and the remaining pieces are sitting at obscene prices. This would even give people like me that bash for most of their credits a way to gamble a little every now and then. Plus, it'd help keep promos like this apple one from being "that promo that nobody really jumped on and you can't find on the market".

Krysaliss

This is a pay for perks game. 

I do not hate this promo. It could be better. It is not the death of Imperian. It is not the worst thing going on in Imperian.

I also note that a lot of complaining people have pay-to-win style artifacts already happily in hand.

Linslet

You're missing the point.

These are pay2win apples at high buy in cost that, after 30 days, will be largely unattainable. Sure, they work only 1/day each, but there's a distinct advantage that people will have if they buy a large number of credits in the next 20 something days as opposed to the next 40 something, and no real balancing recourse.

All "blatant cash grab" notwithstanding. I understand that part. Shakespeare got to get paid, son. But it really goes to show that they don't really feel out their audience on this sort of thing.

Sarrius

Krysaliss said:

This is a pay for perks game. 

I do not hate this promo. It could be better. It is not the death of Imperian. It is not the worst thing going on in Imperian.

I also note that a lot of complaining people have pay-to-win style artifacts already happily in hand.

These aren't perks. Perks imply that these are something small. Some of those effects, on paper, are not small.

More to the point? That isn't how combat works, especially these days. We don't have the population required to see any good outcome from this. The community is so entrenched and invested, not to mention small, that maybe only one or two people will have a full apple bag.. much like, say, the Raksha band, and we see where that got us.

"Pay for perk" is not an acceptable defense to releasing something that isn't particularly good for the combat environment. 'Exclusive, limited time' and 'potentially powerful combat item' should rarely intersect. Promotions should never be giving out items that feel necessary for combat. I think promos should stick to the simple shit or the silly stuff, not anything combat oriented. Combat doesn't need more variables to account for, especially on the level of balancing skills or class kits.

Krysaliss

Iunno, I might care more if there weren't -always- exactly those sorts of things available. These are at least more limited than some of the more obnoxious artifacts already in existence. The only major difference I see here is that they are being opened up to more people for less money than the truly obnoxious artifacts usually go for. 

These can be used once a day. Kabaal made a good point (to me) about the potential stupidness of the ability to transport anyone from anywhere to you. That one stinks, if someone wants to use it to be a trolly troll troll. Which will eventually happen, because Imperian has lots of people who can't think beyond their own enjoyment. Plus the administration is open to adjustment on these if they become too imbalanced. 

I guess we could go back to no promotions at all for purchases, and maybe instead get more prizes doled out from world events.

I'd be cool with that. 

Sarrius

"Damn, we have all these bullets in our wounds, what's one more instead of finding a medic?"

Stupid artifacts existing doesn't excuse Jeremy and co trying to peddle us more.

Linslet

"The administration is open to adjustment on things that become too imbalanced." In the time it took me to word my reply, rash a bands were twisted roughly 20 times. More people backflipped. I lost count. There's a difference here. More people can buy flip boots. A lot of people have flood access. Releasing a completely limited time apple bag and requiring exactly 2000cr to get all the apples, some of which have broken uncounterable effects, is just an offensive cash grab. It's so awful that I'm agreeing with Dicene and Khizan. Expect the frogs and the locusts by the end of the week.