In-Game items inside the "pay chest"

PiesRats · October 2017

Here's 1 topic i've not seen touched on yet, and i'm sure we'll have loads of responses on this one. One the things that OGP did that HURT the entire game was flood the bottles with all in-game items that was coveted. Like the +1SB book, was one of the most expensive items ingame, cause it takes LONG TIME of rare plunder to get one "in-game" one of the first items to hit the bottle when ogp became host was that super rare, hard to obtain ingame item. which tanked the price. They done this over and over with any item that was wanted in-game suddenly appeared in the next bottle with high drop rate, at the expense of the game they'd rather make those couple more bottle purchase's than have decent game, i hope papaya isn't that greedy and keeps in-game items OUT OF Pay chest.

crazyhunter2003 · October 2017

never knew SB book was attainable in-game

WendyWindblows · October 2017

Its from a fleet off newfoundland , very hard to get it to drop

Oberrill · October 2017

Right on target with this one. CS items should never be the same as an in-game item. Certainly not a rare item.

Katanauwo · October 2017

Cash shop items should always be better than in-game items.

If the sb+1 book can be acquired in game, cash shop sb book must do a +3 and non-tradable, so that premium players stay premium, while others who do not go premium still find a reason to acquire sb+1 book.

I would like to suggest, make all premium items except consumerables non-tradeable, but make them not occupy inventory.

crazyhunter2003 · October 2017

all premium equipment non-tradeable?Ships non-tradeable?

plus you want not to use inv spaces?

so player buys sails,spec equips ,figurehead,head gear,bodywear,boots,gloves,weapon & accesory from cash shop with no inv usage?

not gonna happen

ZimXero · October 2017

If I could redesign the Astro system, I would do the following:

First, all players would have one account only with 3 free characters, up to 20 with premium account.

All players would get "Free Shared Storage".

All players would get one aide for every 30 combined levels and be able to create a fleet of 5, using aide ships.

(now the paying part)

Premium Account ($20/month) gives +30% speed, XP, skillpoints, fame, and aide XP gain. In addition, gain access to premium skill notes, 17 extra characters, a "Premium" shared storage, and a "Premium" captains chest.

The astro shop would have all gear removed, and all Premium items removed except Captains Chest and Shared Storage. Packages would all be removed.

Ship Bottles would be removed and replaced by two options:

Ship Bottle (50 astros): gives a 10% chance to receive a random ship not available for ducats in-game, a 20% chance to receive ship building items such as sails, and a 30% chance to recieve 100m ducats.

Premium Ticket (25 astros): gives a 10% chance to receive a random gear not available for ducats in-game, otherwise they recieve consumable items from a random generator list of most game items.

This prevents stack-ups of too many of an item available, or crashing the market on an item. All of the odd items availble as quest rewards can still come from bottles/tickets, but randonimity will make them ultra-rare via that method.

crazyhunter2003 · October 2017

giving paid account too much will cause free players to leave

theedgedemon · October 2017

i actually dont see a problem with those items being there for the people unwilling to waste time getting at once, i for one considered that back in the days where 1b was enough for 5 nc ships paying 2b for a +1 booster was stupid, not to mention that the insane rarity of the item had originally.

i however think some items should be for direct sale and not on bottles, and while at it bottles should never had items attainable ingame. tradeable consumables should be the things used for padding there,

ConcernedTraveler · October 2017

I agree 100% that in game attainable items should be left out of the astro shop. OGP, while they were good with keeping the expansions coming at a good pace and I think the things that happened to soften the grindiness of the game like the permanent 2x for lowbies, battle reports, the boost to sailing speeds, making techs a little easier to get, the way you could produce a full stack of stuff crafting rather than sitting there clicking the mouse 150 times, and all that type of stuff... I think that made the game a little less daunting to new players, and a little more fun to play for me personally. I love so much about UWO but I never really enjoyed all the relentless repetitive clickey grinding. Anyway, I don't even know how much of that stuff was even OGP's doing or just changes that came downstream in the expansions as it was meant to be. But my guess is the latter.

My point here, and sorry for taking the long way around, is I really think OGP's primary motivation was to just milk the players for every cent they could with no real care for the health or sustainability of the game. I think any good changes that happened were probably just built in to the expansions. And any changes that were made directly by OGP were to just bleed the game dry with no shits given for it's long term effect on the game.

All the in game attainable stuff in the bottles, and just one ridiculously OP thing after another... Crafting became a pointless joke with the exception of a small handful of things and astro-alchemy. And quest items and memorial album items became completely irrelevant and stupid other than checking them off your achievement list of you are a completionist, or you still had that desire to get one yourself leftover from the days when they actually meant something. Pulling the large storms from Ganador was one of the final slaps in the face. It got so all that mattered was Nanbanning and buying astro items. Then they gave us 5 days notice the server was shutting down for good.

Good riddance to OGP, they are a bunch of toads.

And @Katanauwo, Pretty sure I agreed with everything I saw you post in this new forum so far but putting another ridiculously OP thing in the cash shop... like it's not bad enough the stupid SSB book is there to begin with making attaining it in game pointless because it's not even worth the time it takes to get it anymore (so another fun and profitable in game activity down the toilet) ...we need to make it three times as good as the one in game! Just to make absolutely sure the one in game is made completely irrelevant and stupid.

And making OP NC gear non-tradeable just makes things way more pay to win. Or more accurately takes us from feeling maybe a little p2w like it is now, but you can overcome it if you really spend a million hours... to just sealing the deal that it's p2w only. Now someone who can afford a lot of astros has gear head to toe way better than those who can't, and OP ships at way lower levels.

And what makes this scenario really comical is the poor idiots who can't afford much NC can't even get NC ship parts. The poor bastards. And even the people throwing enough cash at the game to support a low income family are going to get boned because good luck getting the ship you actually want out of the bottle instead of a string of other random ships. And good luck getting the exact NC ship parts you need for your build plan. I'll talk to you after you default on your 2nd mortgage. That is if we can find you under the enormous pile of non-tradeable NC crap you got, that you don't even want and can't even use, trying to get that one thing you wanted to drop.

I'm taking this to the extreme of course to make a point. But even if you did away with the lottery aspect, making this all a lot less ridiculous, you just went full on pay to win. The only way to have a cash shop full of OP stuff and not go pay to win is keeping it tradeable. If it goes untradeable you need to either get rid of the OP stuff all together and just put the top tier in game attainable stuff in there (perhaps with some different vanity options and easier level requirements) or give us way more OP stuff attainable in game to balance it out.

Wait... I just had a brain storm. Why don't we just save everyone a lot of time and take all in game attainable and craftable stuff out of the game completely. It's all quickly becoming pointless junk anyway. We can do quests and craft just for the intrinsic value of having done them. Just for that great sense of having accomplished something. Maybe get a discovery card with a picture of the actual items that used to mean something to give us a sense of nostalgia. Then we can all get down to the new core gameplay and just Nanban around the clock to buy NC goodies.

Thank God for the adventure content. It's getting to the point that's the only thing left that hasn't had a horses ass made out of it.

FlorianGeyer · October 2017

Sorry ZimXero, I cannot support your entire proposal. It takes away too much balance between payed and non payed accounts.

Also the monthly pay for a prem. account is not in reach of everyone, the way u present it it would punish the poor, children,...
But it is a good basic idea somehow, should be thought out more concretely, premium accounts should focus on prestige not on outbalancing playergroups and generations with all concequenses we know of today!!!.

Benefiting ships as well as "free" ducats should not be for sale with money:
- Benefiting ships because it's unfair and takes away balance and fun. Premium ships with no additional boosts or a very minimum boost is a different thing. So they should only have some sort of prestige aspect.

- Buying Ducats for real money, there you blow economy again. Imagine this:
your suggested 30% chance on a free 100k ducats. With only hundred of players buying only 10 bottles each/month they will create 30000000 Ducats out of nothing each month. At the same time 100 new and casual players play for hours a day making an average of 10mil each per month -WHAT IS A LOT (=1000000 ducats). At that time, the premium players not only have made better profits by using several boost items, they also injected the game-economy with unfair free ducats which is only in their reach. That makes a difference of a few hundreds of millions of income/month between both player groups in only this scenario! That means premium players reach at least 3 to 10 times faster their goals and by the time that casual player reaches a decent lvl, the premium players will have set unreachable prices for certain items because a few "Clintons" means nothing to them anymore. What do you think would happen to the casual and beginning players? Indeed, a familiar scenario as what we are actually facing nowadays.

OUTBALANCING THE IN-GAME MONEY SYSTEM IS A BAD CASE, AVOID CREATING SO ON WHAT EVER POSSIBLE WAY!!!!!
By doing so you make the game a whole lot more interesting to new players, another issue we were all wishing for, right?!

Flo

Katanauwo · October 2017

I have been a collector in UWO in the past few years. Over the time i have collected unique ships, equipment and items which filled 50 characters, yes, 50 storage alts!

Some of them are from questing while others from either astro purchase or ducat purchase (i spent at least 10b ducats collecting stuff).

Two things i found very disturbing.

1. As an astro purchaser, I found storing the bottle awards troublesome. I still have more than 50 items in received items including ships in Received Items, because i have nowhere to put them. The 50 toons already full.

2. I find it ridiculous that astro items are more superior than quest awards, the very fact that they are tradeable means there is no point to get quest awards.

Here is the dilemma,

if astro items are tradable and potent, questing and production are devalued. So they must not be tradeable.

If astro items give useless traits, then they are junks, and becomes an insult on money spenders.

If astro items are non tradeable, then storage becomes an issue.

If astro items are non tradeable, doesnt take storage space, then we have pay 2 win issue.

If astro items are removed, the publisher wont like it, because everyone will go free to play including me. The only reason i spent money is to get those rare items otherwise i could not get.
After that there will be no UWO. Freeloaders alone cannot support the game operation.

Personally i would pick the lesser evil of premium content stay non tradable and do not take space. And unwanted lottery draws can be recycled for a portion of the premium credit.
As for prevent pay to win, let us make sure these items offer convenience, such as unlock +2 boots. They have to be better than in-game items, or prestige doesnt exist. Cool looking does not mean prestige all the time. I know this because i collect a lot of them, but they are all inferior to one piece of Black Rong Fu with 130 defence powe (pay to win).

In my opinion, there is no winning in adventure or production, the only winning element is pvp. So we need to make sure premium contents do not offer pvp advantage items. Boosting in production, adventure, cargo, speed are just convenience. There is little or no competition there.

Once premium content becomes unavailable to free players, the quest or production items become their best options and hence they pay good price for them.

Of cource free players will never be equal to premium players (not having the same prestige of being able to use more convenient equipment, have to grind more).

But then again nothing stops anybody from being premium players. That is how a healthy game encourages people to pay premium by offering convenience and prestige otherwise NOT obtainable by playing free.

Back to OGP problem, they made everything including SSIP and NPC tradable, and therefore majority of players do not have to spend money, and the burden falls onto a few whalers. Then the only way to make whalers pay more and more is to make ships and cannons rare but OP, therefor ships are 100b as a result. (I know it takes 500 dollars to obtain a COG, so not gonna sell it below 30b)
If we want to remove the dependence on whalers, everyone must have a compelling reason to PAY.

I found it amusing how a lot of people want to play free, demand access to full content, having prestige on the best gear by "working hard" in game while price of premium consumerable are low and abundant. All that such dream would lead to is server closure.

Again, be careful for what you wish for.

WesDoobner · October 2017

So, it's a problem with the economy when items are super expensive, but when OGP dropped items in the bottle and the price went down, that was also a problem? Is there anything that's not a problem?

ConcernedTraveler · October 2017

@WesDoobner. Not sure if you really get it but are just fishing for a few LOL's. In which case LOL. You present this in a sarcastic and over-simplified way that makes us all just look like a bunch of complainers. I would feel compelled to join you in poking fun at the nerds dissecting the cash shop's effect on the game if I didn't happen to be one of them currently. Or maybe you really don't get it and think this is all nonsense. If that's the case, and for the sake of any readers that might not get it, particularly the solo-grinders and anyone with a play style that hasn't made these problems apparent...

When items are super expensive that's "price inflation". And that is very unhealthy for an MMO. Aside from the obvious frustrating effect on all but the very ducat rich end-gamers, It leads to new players joining and being completely overwhelmed by an outrageous economy and not sticking around which is called the "financial gap" effecting "new player retention". A massive financial gap draws more attention to another element that effects new player retention called the level gap.

When in game quest and in game craftable items flood the cash shop it can make the in game activities people once did to get those items pointless. Having less and less activities to do in the game that are worth doing is definitely not a good thing. It literally kills traditional some elements of gameplay.

The way I see it on of 3 things can happen here.

1. We get lucky and Papayaplay makes some smart, balancing reforms on the cash shop and how it plays with in game items and gear. (fingers crossed on this one)

2. Somebody during the course of on of these discussions comes up with ideas supported by enough of the community to get Papayaplay to possibly make some changes.

3. We read about things like "Massive financial gap", "OP Cash shop", "Killing crafting with craftable things in the cash shop", and "No reason to do quests anymore" in the "UWO: a postmortem" articles and hear about it in the "Why I quit UWO", "Why I won't be going back to UWO", and "What killed UWO" videos on youtube after the game dies.

@Katanauwo... Please, for the love of all that is holy, do a youtube video showcasing your entire collection when he game gets back up. I have 3 mains (2 with NC extended vaults and captain's bags), a bazaar alt (a 5th knight bazaar alt with half decent vault and quarters not a little 0-11-0 guy), and I think 7 storage alts (3 with all port disco's done to get the extra vault space and r3 quarters)... and one of those is just FS ship parts (very few expensive ones, mostly just extras piled up to save me some running around later) and one is just for surplus company contribution items. And I thought I was bad! I promised myself to make due with what I have going on and no more alts :P I can tell you as soon as I get back in game I plan to do the 2nd NC extension of my captain's bags on my battle guy and adventure guy to accommodate all the crap I had to unexpectedly pull out of the captain's chest and emptying most of my receive item stuff just in case.

But I cannot imagine what you are hoarding like that man. 50 storage alts is 2,500 item slots! Not including any you have spent a little time (or astros) for vault and quarters, and not even including whatever storage you have on your mains. Guessing you have a spreadsheet or something to keep track of that kind of inventory.

I'm imagining your quarters piled floor to ceiling with poem fragments like so many old newspapers. Half empty bottles of VoC and Borgia's poison cluttering every shelf and windowsill. 20 plates of half-eaten Tuna olive steak piled on the coffee table and more stuffed under the bed. Small isles through all the mountains of ornaments with more random junk stacked precariously on top. Cats darting around out of dark recesses... "Don't throw that away, I need that!" LOLOL

ZimXero · October 2017

Doesn't seem to matter much at this point... but the concept that "game attainable" items be left out of the shop... its over-simplified. Some items should be more available than the game would allow. As much as a respect the game and KOEI, everyone knows games are pushed out on a schedule. Balance and play testing for enjoyment are left to the players (also known as beta testers). No MMO comes out true alpha.

WesDoobner · October 2017

Maybe I don't get it, but I've been playing for about 2 years, and I've found that the ducat price for items are related to how rare they are. That's why grand vulcans cost 50mil and a regular vulcan costs 2mil, even though a GV is not 25 times more powerful. I trade to build up cash and use that to buy what I can afford. Prices will go up and down, and if useful items flood the game, I won't complain about that. I enjoy playing the game, and I've spent money on it, but I don't count that money spent as a grade A investment - it's money thrown down a hole, period. If I get more or less enjoyment for my money, that doesn't really change the real situation, which is that we are paying for entertainment and it won't go on forever. The question is when will it all end, and that may be soon if papaya gets their fill of complaints.

seapiratedeluxe · October 2017

The entire game revolves around how much money your nation can produce and it takes alot of effort, No cash shop items should give any form of ducats. even at low %s it doesnt matter when a Whale decide to drop 1000s$. The exact same thing that killed the game the last time will just happen again.

fields1234 · October 2017

The thing that actually made me play this game was the fact it was not a P2Win server, 99% of the boosters/astro items/NC items/Pay items was that we could trade them freely between players, It was the fact I could possibly win something I would instantly sell maybe to a newer player like the custom siam yet could put that 500m or whatever I got for it towards for arguments sake a 10-15b Large Fu Ship without any interference from the host.

To me sure the game does have a pay to win element but FOR ME at least, and people that probably know me is I liked my adventureing with the odd maybe once or twice nanban run, I was happy when I won my Mod Dragon Ship C1 from the wild west event pre launch party event OGP ran and I managed to get that fully moded out, this is my only valuable to me lol, Players will laugh at me for saying this knowing there are now faster ships since the Boston patch, but I'm happy with it and the 5b I have in the reserve tanks.

I'm happy because over the last 2 years my faithful dragon ship and I have sailed around the world multiple times doing adventure discos, sure it might not be great for cargo and speed ofcourse now after the updates, but for me it was MY SHIP, nanbans took around 50 minutes each way before boston and the festival bug, BUT I WAS HAPPY.

What I guess I'm trying to say here is for me and my game experience, I do not see this as a P2W game. Sure it obviously helps with you buying 40 bottles each month to get the latest ships and or items but the game is playable without paying players. I think thats the most important route Papaya should take when deciding what they will bring to the Papaya shop. We have to remember, newer players will probably invest in their game after a month or 2 of playing, meaning they will be free players for the start but COULD be valuable players in terms of paying later down the road.

fields1234 · October 2017

The thing that actually made me play this game was the fact it was not a P2Win server, 99% of the boosters/astro items/NC items/Pay items was that we could trade them freely between players, It was the fact I could possibly win something I would instantly sell maybe to a newer player like the custom siam yet could put that 500m or whatever I got for it towards for arguments sake a 10-15b Large Fu Ship without any interference from the host.

To me sure the game does have a pay to win element but FOR ME at least, and people that probably know me is I liked my adventureing with the odd maybe once or twice nanban run, I was happy when I won my Mod Dragon Ship C1 from the wild west event pre launch party event OGP ran and I managed to get that fully moded out, this is my only valuable to me lol, Players will laugh at me for saying this knowing there are now faster ships since the Boston patch, but I'm happy with it and the 5b I have in the reserve tanks.

I'm happy because over the last 2 years my faithful dragon ship and I have sailed around the world multiple times doing adventure discos, sure it might not be great for cargo and speed ofcourse now after the updates, but for me it was MY SHIP, nanbans took around 50 minutes each way before boston and the festival bug, BUT I WAS HAPPY.

What I guess I'm trying to say here is for me and my game experience, I do not see this as a P2W game. Sure it obviously helps with you buying 40 bottles each month to get the latest ships and or items but the game is playable without paying players. I think thats the most important route Papaya should take when deciding what they will bring to the Papaya shop. We have to remember, newer players will probably invest in their game after a month or 2 of playing, meaning they will be free players for the start but COULD be valuable players in terms of paying later down the road.

Sublime2013 · October 2017

I dont believe u guys thinking in going with this attack to us , to our lvls , our ships , our skills , our stuff , we payed for them !!! Dont be a sheep , protest!! i spend too much rl money on this game, for what ? restart and get a founders reward? this guys are joking !

pieratthe · October 2017

Yea some understand and some don't about my OP. We have to have cash shop lol, no way to fund the game without it. boosters, ssips, npcs, all those items are essential to the host getting paid to run this game and pay the GM's. astro ships, astro gear, astro parts, yes we need those as well, i don't wanna be FS game only. can't stand a 5/5 ship personally. then we have items like blue flags, veils, ssbt (those teleport items). i do enjoy using some of those and i will gladly be doing in game trading so i can give my hard earned ducats to someone who spent their cash and aquired those items via the cash shop, or pay chest. What i do not like thou is: "FLOODING" the server with items that are hard to get in-game. examples are General's Cloak, and SSB Book. Then we have items like the Panels. Ok making panels totally supports many aspects of the game, including plunder to make them. These items are ok in the cash shop/pay chest, but the rarity needs monitor'd and if it's cash shop, the value should equal the value in game or close to it.

Another topic should be mentioned are crafting tools of all kinds.

Those are huge game changers, and if are allowed in game from pay chest/cash shop should be a limit on usuage, the cannon tools aren't that big of a deal, but the +atk/+def items are hugely overpowered especially in a game that will have more pvp and plunder.

Also some of the *unobtainable" items should be returned to the server.

b15h09 · October 2017

@seapiratedeluxe

absolutely spot on. the game needs more gold sinks, not more ways of creating gold.

ZimXero · October 2017

Actually, i think that SSIPS should NOT be a cash shop only item. They should be exchanged for 100 Patriot Awards. Something so vital to game play needs to be available in game.

Akirasan2FH · October 2017

If there was a fair alternative to the
blue flags, and the benefits to the player pirates of Fine Goods tributes were
increased significantly. This could be a beneficial compromise.

Players can make Fine Goods Tributes
(by ship class) and sell them. If Papaya wanted to replace the Blue flags
with Fine Good Tributes for astros that could work also, as long as a set of 5
was around 79 Astros.

Currently, if you hand one Fine
Goods Tribute over, you lose only 1/2 your ducats and you cannot be attacked by
the same player pirate again for a time. But the Fine Good Tributes are
not cheap to make. So change it and make it worth everyone's while.

If the Fine Good Tributes =
Protection of 20% ducats and cargo (not items) that you are carrying, If
you had $5M ducats and 1000 Katanas on you and you get attacked. Instead
of handing over Fine Goods tribute, and losing 2.5M today, you could hand over
5 Fine Good Tributes and lose nothing and get a Green Flag preventing any
attack for 20 minutes.

Now what would be in it for the
pirate... I don't know what a pirate gets for turning in Fine Good Tributes
today. Maybe someone can tell us. I know they can trade them in at
Pirate cities. So lets say, x number of Fine Good Tributes could be
traded for items, on the same premise as the Gold Nuggets Exchange.
Different groups of items on the Exchange each month. Or the pirate can
convert the Fine Goods Tributes (Large) back to their production materials...
80 Pepper, 80 Sapphire, 80 Lumber or 100 Gold, 100 Diamond, 80 Lumber or 120
Jewelry, 120 Antique Art and 80 Lumber, and sell off the trade goods.

5 Fine Goods Tributes (Large) would = 500 Gold, 500 Diamonds
and 400 Lumber... That is a pretty fair trade to protect a player's and his/her
aide's ship hold's worth of Nanban or Spices and better than what the pirates
are getting now. Or the Pirate could resell the Fine Goods Tributes, in a
bazaar for even more ducats.

Like I think Zim said in another post, "Items could go back to being
plundered, as long as they could be also be protected", in the same way they are
protected from accidently being sold.
If you forget to turn on the save function and get plundered, it’s your
own fault.

In-Game items inside the "pay chest"

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