Negative customer experiences and brutally honest feedback

@Skyaliciouse quote:

@SwitchbladeUK quote:

What you talking about ?? I believed it's a fair price for new character.  That is my argument sounds obvious to me. PM me if u need  me to dumb it down ;)

It's ok you can sting :) I can take it 

Let Me Dumb It Down For You Again ;)

You Can Buy A Completed Game For The Price
With Character Unlock & Content 👌🏻 Sounds Obvious To Me 🙀  

Let me dumb it down for you again ;) 

You don't have to pay for any advantage or character. Earn the medals-get the character. 

Sounds obvious to me 

@Skyaliciouse quote:

@SwitchbladeUK quote:

What you talking about ?? I believed it's a fair price for new character.  That is my argument sounds obvious to me. PM me if u need  me to dumb it down ;)

It's ok you can sting :) I can take it 

Let Me Dumb It Down For You Again ;)

You Can Buy A Completed Game For The Price
With Character Unlock & Content 👌🏻 Sounds Obvious To Me 🙀  

That's not dumbed down enough, if you want it to be you should just say "ur dumb."

And [[152551,users]], before you say "lol i was troll and you fell for it," I did not, I know you're a troll and that's why I know you're stupid like all trolls.

@KnowsNoLimits quote:

gigazelle Nailed it!

Be careful though, now you have made yourself a prime target for white knights. I have pretty much said what you have said so many times that each time I say it, well it has becomes less nice.

My biggest issue with the game is it being in Alpha still, but they want kind of ridiculous prices. Currently as the game is I can't justify spending that type of money in a game that is obviously gouging it's consumers especially with $40 skins. Yes it's optional, however I don't think the game is worthy of those type of prices atm. Maybe give people the option of spending defender medals to acquire them as well? I think 50k would be ideal.

It's the same with characters being $15 a piece, thankfully you can grind them out, but it's quite the deterrent to try and bring back existing players. Remember players have the option to play other games and that's exactly what is happening when they see those type of prices.

Like you it's the principle of the matter, not if I can afford it or not.

At least now their is promise with the strategic revamp coming into play and the Dark Assassin finally making his debut. It gives me hope that we will return to the glory days of DD1. Where the game sold itself based on just how fun and addictive it was to play and in order to succeed srrategy was involved.

All Trendy has to do is not forget about the people who helped make DD1 successful and who have stuck by them through the stupidest of decisions *coughHeroDeckcough* and want them to succeed with DD2, but have no time to sugar coat it or kiss their ass when obvious changes need to be made. 

People who no problem ripping this game apart and give out constructive criticism in how to fix these issues are the people I most respect on here.

I look forward to the day when you can make me go "ya know it is alittle pricey, but the core gameplay is there and I'm constantly challenged by this game and it certainly has the replaybility with a variety of things to do other than looting, so why not?"

I think a lot of the feedback in this thread is great. Having said that, the pricing aspect, from my point of view, isn't as far out to lunch as some think. We are play testing a game that hopes to be released this calendar year, and we are being asked to pay for this. 

If I remember correctly, Destiny, a game I also play, had a development period of many years. At one point, they made a deal with a publisher, activision, and in doing so, secured a financial backing. At that same time, I believe that Bungie lost a lot of their creative power. Timelines were created for Bungie by activision and product was pushed out to meet those timelines. 

Trendy seems to have gone another route. They have asked us to help them out financially. The tooltip for the 40 dollar skin ( and 31 legendary accessories) all but literally asks for our financial help. So maybe they looked at the numbers, for both players and money needed, came up with some sort of mathematical formula and went with it. 

I wonder once they officially release the game if they will keep these numbers. I wonder if indeed they will even have these 40$ skins available then. (I think they include 31 Legendaries) People will ask, 'where'd you get that?' 

You'll be all like 'Pre-Alpha Dude, cost me 40 bucks though'

They'll be either ' you are ***ing crazy' or 'cool' 

Doesn't really matter. My thoughts are that all these numbers will change on release. With advertising, Steam game of the week, PlayStation game of the week, Free-to-play and 5-10 buck heroes. I believe there will be a flood of new people. Maybe you can pick any 4 heroes for your deck to start, purchase the rest with currency or tokens. 

Us paying 15$ for them now shouldn't matter either, if you choose that is. I can buy an iPhone 4 dirt cheap right now, but when they first came out people were paying 1000$ for them. 

Edit:  I think that Trendy has their sights on having the best game possible for official release. Aside from wages, I have little doubt that they are reinvesting every last penny into the development of the game.

@braydon180 quote:

@Skyaliciouse quote:

@SwitchbladeUK quote:

What you talking about ?? I believed it's a fair price for new character.  That is my argument sounds obvious to me. PM me if u need  me to dumb it down ;)

It's ok you can sting :) I can take it 

Let Me Dumb It Down For You Again ;)

You Can Buy A Completed Game For The Price
With Character Unlock & Content 👌🏻 Sounds Obvious To Me 🙀  

That's not dumbed down enough, if you want it to be you should just say "ur dumb."

And switchbladeuk, before you say "lol i was troll and you fell for it," I did not, I know you're a troll and that's why I know you're stupid like all trolls.

Awe cute 

I'm not a troll. Isn't it past your bed time young man.  

Okay, read through all the posts, including all that poo flinging that added zero value to the thread. 

@ssjtrunks15 quote:

what is the scavenger? How does it work? Auto collect bags? Really? Why not stick with the old model of the temporary Item Box? What was flawed about the TIB that it had to be changed? 

Items left on the ground are no longer placed in the TIB; instead, you must dedicate a number of your bags to 'autocollect'. After all your autocollect bags fill up, any additional items go directly to the scavenger, an NPC in the tavern/town square. If you don't pick them up within 3 hours, he keeps them. It splits up your inventory, it forces players dedicate multiple bags to autocollect, and overall its just a crappy/inconvenient experience. When asked why they made this change, the response was, "because players were not interacting with the loot as we intended". I'm afraid to say that players are still interacting with loot in the same way, just now it's a bad customer experience instead of a good one.

@SwitchbladeUK quote:

Amazingly $15 dollars for a new character is reasonable to me and combined with the fact you can get it free with some grinding. I used to play league of angels (PC) where that was $500 dollars per character looking back that was crazy.

Since this is quite literally the only post of yours here that actually added to the conversation, I am more than happy to respond to it.

The negative experience that I want to resolve isn't the fact that Trendy is charging $15 for heroes; I worded this one very carefully with intention:

"Resolve the negative experience of players being greeted with a price/medal tag of the very hero that enticed them to install/return to the game."

From my perspective, this is a borderline bait-and-switch tactic. Seriously, think about it - Trendy uses new heroes to advertise new content, only to find in the fine print (or even worse, in-game) that it's either going to be $15 or several weeks before they get to play them. I'm not worried about how easy it is to earn him; I'm worried about what experiences these players are getting, and what I described above is not a positive one.

There's another reason why I worded the negative experience above - not all heroes have to be free, just the one they're advertising. A couple of alternative options here would resolve that negative experience:

• If Trendy said "Hey, here's 4 free heroes, pick whichever you'd like!" and every hero was behind the same price/medal tag, that's a fair customer experience. New players could get the EV02 and Abyss Lord for free, and if they wanted to flesh out their hero deck, they could pay $15 or defender medals for the base heroes.
• If Trendy said, "Hey, free EV02 for everyone who creates one for the next two weeks! Come try her out!", this would actively encourage players to come back to the game every time a new hero is released. This would support Trendy financially as well, because they'd be purchasing additional hero slots to make room for all those heroes.

If either of the above were implemented, I'd gladly log into the game again. It would give me hope that 1) they're actually listening to this feedback, and 2) we might actually see an increase of players who stick around.

@MintLemonade quote:

It would be nice if on the next development stream the developers actually addressed gigazelles concerns plus things like progress on matchmaking, trading, etc. I'm not interested in another moba hero port infomercial but learning about the future of the DD2.

I would love to see something like this - in fact, even just an official reply here would be fantastic.

Once again, Gigazelle elegantly laid out most, if not all, of the reasons I have not played DD2 for ~6 months and have no plans to play any time soon.

Trendy, make this your "to-do list" ASAP.

People still complain 15 bucks too much? Get a job, go collect bottles, go cut a few lawns its rly not hard to get 15 bucks an thats freaking cheap for a new char.

How do you feel about the idea of a "free hero rotation": Once they have implemented more heroes, one or two are available "for testing" for one week before the rotation changes to other heros.

The equipped gear goes back into the inventory when the hero, you have equipped, leaves the rotation without the player having bought it.

As additional bait the heroes within the rotation could be on sale for 66% which would still be a not-so-low price.

Everything is more interesting with a sale-tag. Even when the discount has already been calculated to the original price.

I would not be opposed to a hero rotation, however that could potentially create the negative experience of becoming attached to a hero only to find that you can't play them anymore. Perhaps still being able to play them, just not being able to level them up further?

Ehh, on second thought it really doesn't sit right with me. I feel like any implementation of a hero rotation would be a dirty monetization tactic, since heroes are leveled up and you wouldn't want to destroy or lock away progress like that.

Might be right... sadly.

Although some of us try to forget the Carnival event, there have been an opportunity to try out max levelled heroes. I haven't tried it out, but this may be an opportunity to 'test' the heroes before purchasing them.

@Zebrahash quote:

People still complain 15 bucks too much? Get a job, go collect bottles, go cut a few lawns its rly not hard to get 15 bucks an thats freaking cheap for a new char.

Exactly glad to see I'm not the only one. The fact it can be obtained free as well :)

@Dreizehn quote:

How do you feel about the idea of a "free hero rotation": Once they have implemented more heroes, one or two are available "for testing" for one week before the rotation changes to other heros.

The equipped gear goes back into the inventory when the hero, you have equipped, leaves the rotation without the player having bought it.

As additional bait the heroes within the rotation could be on sale for 66% which would still be a not-so-low price.

Everything is more interesting with a sale-tag. Even when the discount has already been calculated to the original price.

Maybe a limit of max level 25 to try out said character.  You have to be careful that people don't benefit loot etc from a demo :) 

In reply to giga I do not think its a negative experience people returning to a relatively small charge to skip the grind of getting it for free... Although a trial with limited level capacity as above I could see working.  

I'm like cool new character sod the medal collecting I want it now.. I won't order that domino's pizza and have the character instead ;) 

@SwitchbladeUK quote:

@Dreizehn quote:

How do you feel about the idea of a "free hero rotation": Once they have implemented more heroes, one or two are available "for testing" for one week before the rotation changes to other heros.

The equipped gear goes back into the inventory when the hero, you have equipped, leaves the rotation without the player having bought it.

As additional bait the heroes within the rotation could be on sale for 66% which would still be a not-so-low price.

Everything is more interesting with a sale-tag. Even when the discount has already been calculated to the original price.

Maybe a limit of max level 25 to try out said character.  You have to be careful that people don't benefit loot etc from a demo :) 

In reply to giga I do not think its a negative experience people returning to a relatively small charge to skip the grind of getting it for free... Although a trial with limited level capacity as above I could see working.  

Hm... that's a good point. Just in case this will be thing, it should be clearly marked as 'try out map/level' or something like that.

Whatever is going to happen, the new heroes have to be presented ingame in a better way. The current ad i get when starting the game is a nice graphical work but not more.

Hi all,

Although we might have differences of opinions from time to time, personal attacks are never tolerated.

We should always keep discussions and posts constructive and be respectful when we disagree.

Please keep in mind the forums rules when posting.

Let's keep this thread on topic :)

I absolutely agree with the OP. A lot of things need to change if its going to live up to the old DD1 experience. Everything in DD2 right now is just mechanically bad outside of a very few things. Ive said this so many times in the past that if this game wants to succeed it needs to go back to the roots that DD1 made, use that a baseline, then expand on the systems and fix the problems that would occur in a F2P model. 

This game is very lack luster. DD1 nailed it with the over the top aspect and thats what made it so enjoyable. Having super fast turrets, super huge aura's and crazy defenses overall but the enemies were made in a way that could render all of it useless if not watched closely. With all the current systems in place very few things are viable and no amount of spheres or modding can fix or change the META. 

In DD1 there was no solid META. Look through the old forums. Youll find tons of different and effective builds for almost any map. Thats because stats weren't so limited to what we have now. If there was a problem with a build it could be fixed with some work on stats. Sometimes you need more damage than you did range or speed or visa verse.

The single biggest problem with DD2 is the devs are in this perpetual focus of NERF. "We deem'd that Tower speed was too op for what kits weve made so were gonna remove it from gear altogether and give you next to no sources of it instead of changing the fundamental flaws in the kits that make it OP to begin with." This is why we dont get Tower speed and range on any gear and essentially removed the noticeable growth aspect that was so big and so much fun in DD1. 

Look at pets. Almost every pet in the game except 1 or 2 is considered virtually useless outside the stat boosts they give and people come back with this mentality that "oh thats strategically viable as a pet we need to have that nerf'd" instead of saying "hey this pet is closer to what most pets should be, can we buff the other pets so they are viable in more situations as well?" But to me every pet is horrible. They have no use outside of stat boosts like they did in DD1. DD1's pets were absolutely amazing and definitely something they need to fix in this game.

What about Gear levels? Nerfed. Bring back the 1-300+ levels we could randomly get on gear. Give us more options on gear to level. Bring back Tower speed range and hero attack speed as well. Dont limit us so badly. Thats why theres such a bad problem in this game when its comes to META. Theres too many limitations on everything that people cant experiment.

You finally gave us the ability to have as many heroes in a match as we want now give us the freedom to experiment with builds. Fix the fundamental flaws with the kits and bring back tower speed and range.

@chesticles quote:

Hi all,

Although we might have differences of opinions from time to time, personal attacks are never tolerated.

We should always keep discussions and posts constructive and be respectful when we disagree.

Please keep in mind the forums rules when posting.

Let's keep this thread on topic :)

So, let me get this straight, anyone that has complaint with the hero pricing, and gets met with the "get a job, ask for money from your parents, pick up bottles", which heavily implies financial status AKA effectively implying they're poor, is just supposed to endure that as "respectful opinionated discussion"?

That is some biased moderating in my honest opinion.

I have issue with the fact that a hero costs just about as much as a majority of games on Steam cost, let alone being used as the spearhead for trying to get people back into the game but will sort of flop on that regard when people find out you have to pay or grind for them, which isn't exactly the most effective way of getting players to come back to your game.

The problem most likely isn't that people can't afford it, it's that people don't want to buy it simply put. Plus for the price its at, you could easily make comparisons to other games/content that are already finished, and if every hero that gets newly released is going to be at that price, how is that going to look down the line when someone new starts up the game and sees 10 heroes all for $15 or 10,000 medals a piece? A lot of people can afford $15 for a hero, but do they want to spend it? Probably not, because what do you honestly get out of that? Not really many people are going to see the value of spending $15 or countless hours grinding to get a hero to spend more time grinding to get the next hero, we should be grinding to get better gear and keep on a loot treadmill.

@Akutare quote:

@chesticles quote:

Hi all,

Although we might have differences of opinions from time to time, personal attacks are never tolerated.

We should always keep discussions and posts constructive and be respectful when we disagree.

Please keep in mind the forums rules when posting.

Let's keep this thread on topic :)

So, let me get this straight, anyone that has complaint with the hero pricing, and gets met with the "get a job, ask for money from your parents, pick up bottles", which heavily implies financial status AKA effectively implying they're poor, is just supposed to endure that as "respectful opinionated discussion"?

That is some biased moderating in my honest opinion.

I do see your point and Yes I may have not thought my  comment all the way through an how other might take it. I do apologize for that , it wasn't intended. I was only trying to say that if you don't wanna earn the medals there are plenty of ways to earn a few bucks to buy the new toons an 15 bucks isn't rly much was all i was tryin to say. the bottles or job was not intended to insult anyone, was just options.

Woah Woah Woah I think you should re-read after the initial posting the replies contained inflammatory remarks and were goading.  (People like us blah blah) 

Those quotes are in reply to sone jesting both ways dear boy 😹. Even laughed :-) 

There was no trolling  simply a different opinion by a few of us it seems.. No one called anyone poor that's you assuming.  

Your speaking as if your the voice for everyone, people do want to pay its their prerogative you may spend your money on knickers, hello kitty and McDonald's ;) 

End day there is a way to get it free... Cutting lawn, washing cars is directed at the younger ones at school possibly ;) I used to earn pocket money :)

Accept some people believe fair price and move on.  In fact when you jump down people throats for their opinion your just as liable   :)

in fact yours was malicious should be ashamed, least we all got a telling off. 

Keep on topic now .  

@Jothi92 quote:

-the fact that every fresh lvl 50 can join a nm4 map

On DD1, you could join a nmhcmm survival wave 30 map with a level 1 character. What made it good was the host having the power to choose who leaves and who stays.

To clear the air so this thread can continue on:

It was directed at the thread as a whole, no one person in particular.

If anyone has any further questions/comments please message me.

Any further off-topic posts will be removed.

Thanks :)

@Nefhith quote:

@Jothi92 quote:

-the fact that every fresh lvl 50 can join a nm4 map

On DD1, you could join a nmhcmm survival wave 30 map with a level 1 character. What made it good was the host having the power to choose who leaves and who stays.

honestly I believe the current vote kick is a much better format. I always remember being hesitant to join a map in case of insta-kick. 

The current method gives people a chance aslong as they pew pew and repair their fine by me 👍. 

That's why there is a private function after all.  

@gigazelle quote:

• Resolve the negative experience of players being greeted with a price/medal tag of the very hero that enticed them to install/return to the game. In an ideal world, I'd love to see all heroes be part of the free content that's regularly added. I'm not asking for handouts for the sake of being a cheapskate - as mentioned above, gems are not an issue for me. Monetization mechanics are already all over the place in this game, most of which are ethical and agreeable. Removing one to increase active players would be much more advantageous than trying to milk the existing dwindling playerbase. I just can't see this game taking off with the current monetization model, and the catacombs update not even making a blip on active players only reinforces that vision.

After reading this I was trying to think of a solution that could satisfy both players and Trendy while reading the rest of the replies and quite frankly you've nailed it with this

@gigazelle quote:

• If Trendy said, "Hey, free EV02 for everyone who creates one for the next two weeks! Come try her out!", this would actively encourage players to come back to the game every time a new hero is released. This would support Trendy financially as well, because they'd be purchasing additional hero slots to make room for all those heroes.

I am 100% behind this idea. It gives people the opportunity to come and get the new hero as they've been seeing on the devstream and Trendy still get some payment since people will most likely require hero cards if they don't have enough Defender Medals. 

@gigazelle quote:

• Resolve the negative experience of players spending medals/gems on lockbox keys, only to find a duplicate that is utterly worthless. That right there is a 100% loss for the consumer, and a great way to stop them from ever spending gems again. I'd personally like to see all costumes, accessories, and lockboxes integrated with steam inventory and available on the steam community market. Regularly releasing lockboxes containing different cosmetic items, especially lockbox-exclusive items, would most certainly keep players engaged by allowing them a small amount of profit on the community market. Active players could use medals to unbox accessories, sell those accessories on the market, or trade those accessories for items in other games like TF2. Creating value from playing the game is huge, and not to be underestimated.

Full steam integration is something I hope will be arriving after the core game is released. I'd like to think there would be a market on Steam for lockboxes and lockbox keys assuming Trendy could create more of them exactly like TF2. 

@gigazelle quote:

• Resolve the negative experience of players spending gems on premium pets, only to find that their gems were spent on a green-quality pet. Seriously, just remove gear quality from pets altogether. And while you're at it, remove it from accessories and costumes too. They currently only exist to detract from an otherwise positive customer experience.

I've been unlucky with premium pets but it's never personally bothered me so it's not something I'd call a negative experience. But we do know that the pet system is in need of a dire revamp and that it will most likely be getting one so why not take the time to remove the quality system and replace it with something better. Examples include, different ways to earn unique pets or temporary/permanent pet boosters (if you want to keep the whole "My pet grows with me aspect")

@gigazelle quote:

• State how you intend to increase the level cap with the current ipwr system. I've asked this question at least a dozen times, and not once has it ever gotten an answer. Levels 1-49 have an ipwr range of around 10 (meaning two players of the same level are going to have a variance of about 10 ipwr). Level 50 on the other hand has a range of about 500 ipwr. Say next month that the level cap is raised from 50 to 60. How is the ipwr range going to look for players leveling from 49 to 51? Are players all of a sudden going to skip 500 ipwr? Are players going to have to slog through that 500 ipwr like we all did from NM1-4? Or is the level cap forever going to be 50, ipwr continually increase, making XP worthless? All of these routes are dead-ends, and I want to know how this is going to be rectified.

Agreed, this is an interesting point and I'd like to think of a solution for it but right now I don't have one that satisfies me. 

@gigazelle quote:

• Get your crap together regarding passives and skill spheres. Give each of them a distinct and separate purpose, and stick to those rules you make for them. Passive mechanics and skill sphere mechanics are bleeding into each other all over the place, convoluting the intuition the game could offer. Not only that, but they make defenses literally impossible to balance properly.

There was a thread recently posted by EdTheDuck that was discussing this topic and during the discussion I came up with a potential solution. Make Passives and Skill Spheres work together. Taking purge evil as an example...

Skill Sphere - Purge Evil, Enemies that die in your serenity aura explode dealing 100% of defence power as magic damage to nearby enemies. 

Once people have earned this sphere they can equip it, test out the passive and see if it's something they like. If they do then they can go out and find the build passives on gear to increase the spheres effectiveness.

Weapon - Purge Evil - Increase enemy explosion magnitude by 150% (for a total of 250%) 

Obviously this would mean that both the loot  would require another revision and the sphere system would need a massive overhaul but I feel that if done correctly this system could give people that creative freedom to mix and match and think up different builds. Balance would be dictated by Trendy via setting the minimum and maximum values of the passives.

@gigazelle quote:

• Quit making the game solely health/damage of towers vs. health/damage of enemies. It is not fun, and the fact that nightmare is literally nothing but increased health/damage is just salt on the wound that is lack of strategy. I hope the strat revamp addresses this, but from what I've seen so far, it's still solely strength vs. strength mechanics. Once the community figures out the best combination of towers for each genotype, we're going to be right back to where we are now.

Yes please, difficulty should be more than increased stats because eventually the game is just going to get stale. New maps? Sweet something... Oh, it's just more health. It isn't fun to play. It's good that we are getting different enemy types coming and the strategic revamp should in theory bring new things to the table but overall the general conciseness is stop with health vs damage as the only difficulty curve.

@gigazelle quote:

• Resolve the negative experience where players pigeonhole themselves into a single task in order to be effective. I commonly refer to this as "one-trick ponies", where heroes are utterly useless outside of pressing that one hotkey. The negative experience here is that the more effective your hero is, the less exciting they are to play. Having large purge evil auras are great, but having a monk that's only ever good for pressing 7 is super boring. While leveling up your first hero, all 9 hotkeys are viable, and I'd like to see a stat system structured in such a way that rewards the use of all hero abilities late-game as well.

This is something that I feel the active gameplay system is addressing. As an abyss lord you are not just stuck to placing your towers and then that's it. You can directly command them for more effects or drop your abyss stones but that requires you to get in harms way to obtain the necessary mana. I am waiting to see how the active gameplay system will be incorporated with EV2 and if it will be of a similar standard. If it is I'd like to see what ideas Trendy have come up with for the original four heroes, even if it is just a concept.

@gigazelle quote:

• Resolve the negative experience that prevents players from looking truly unique. Costumes are nice, but they make it so I look exactly like everyone else who also owns that costume. I want the look of my heroes to be my own, and with the current costume/accessory restrictions that's just not possible right now. The two things to instantly solve this problem is to turn all costume parts into separate accessories, and allow all accessories to be dyed. And yes, I'm quite aware of the technical limitations surrounding the division of costumes into accessories - it would take a lot of work, but it would most definitely be worth it.

Agreed, this is also something that could be tied back into the steam integration mentioned earlier. People want to be and feel unique with their heroes. This could also be tied into achievements where you can earn accessories or dyes or other cosmetics by accomplishing something in game. Even better is if you hid these achievements so it's a surprise when the 1st person discovers it.

@gigazelle quote:

• Resolve the negative experience that is the entirety of the scavenger and autocollect bags. Seriously, the temporary item box was SO CLOSE to being perfect for gear acquisition - all it was missing was scooping up loot after each wave and sorting by ipwr/item quality. Instead, it was ripped out entirely for the NPC that kifes your gear and autocollect bags that unnecessarily hog bag space. And while autocollect bags did eventually get sorting and loot is scooped after each wave, item management as a whole took two steps forward and twenty steps backward. Bring back the TIB, and let bags be used for storing, not collecting.

My only stipulation for loot storage solutions is that whatever is decided upon must benefit both parties. Players must be satisfied with how a proposed solution works but Trendy must also be able to offer something more (note not basic functionality) for premium currency to keep that avenue of income open. 

Perhaps the community  could think of a similar solution like you did with the free heroes suggestion above. 

Good thread Gigazelle :)

server become very lag at last few wave.like  6/7 or 7/7.

Sorry guys.. I'm a bit exhausted and didn't realize I was writing a wall of text. Maybe save it for after the morning coffee? I hope I didn't repeat myself too much...

------------

@Etownoilerfan quote:

Us paying 15$ for them now shouldn't matter either, if you choose that is. I can buy an iPhone 4 dirt cheap right now, but when they first came out people were paying 1000$ for them. 

The difference being expectation vs. reality. 

Let's say you really want that iPhone 4, which is scheduled for release soon. Based on past experience, you expect to pay around $700 through your carrier, and have decided that it's worth the price to be able to get it. But now it comes out, and they slap a $2500 price tag on it and say that will be its price forever. You (or at least most people) would holler, "OUCH!" and back away slowly. Your expectation would be that you'd be paying for your pretty new piece of hardware, but the reality would be that you would have to pay through the nose. It's unexpected, and a shock, and kills your excitement. When expectation and reality are at odds, people do not buy.

People are going to see ads for a new character and get excited! We want that. But based on their expectations (which is based on the former reality of the characters you can play with being free), once they log into the game ready to play their new character and see he has a price tag attached to him, their excitement is going to go right down the tubes. A $5 price tag would even do it to some degree, but a $15 (or weeks of grind) one just makes it that much worse. Now when they see an ad for EV2.0 those former players are going to know she has a price tag, remember how disappointed they were with the first one's price - and they won't even get excited, let alone log in to get a look at her. 

About the following:

@Dreizehn quote:

I have mentioned a break-even-point.

@KnowsNoLimits quote:

My biggest issue with the game is it being in Alpha still, but they want kind of ridiculous prices. 

@Etownoilerfan quote:

Trendy seems to have gone another route. They have asked us to help them out financially. The tooltip for the 40 dollar skin ( and 31 legendary accessories) all but literally asks for our financial help. So maybe they looked at the numbers, for both players and money needed, came up with some sort of mathematical formula and went with it. 

I wonder once they officially release the game if they will keep these numbers. I wonder if indeed they will even have these 40$ skins available then. (I think they include 31 Legendaries) People will ask, 'where'd you get that?' 

You'll be all like 'Pre-Alpha Dude, cost me 40 bucks though'

They'll be either ' you are ***ing crazy' or 'cool' 

Trendy may be doubling down on the pricing right now and has plans for "real" pricing later.. but we will never know that unless/until they tell us their intentions about it. It would be nice for them to start becoming a little more transparent about a LOT of things, not just pricing. 

I've never understood why they've priced things so high, because the more people you get buying a thing, the more money you make.. but honestly, I could be missing something. I'm certainly not an economics major.

Say you have a small, non-necessary but cool virtual item priced at $100 - sure, you might get a few people to buy it because they really really want it (and a fool and his money are soon parted), but that's going to be all the money you see from that piece. It's done. Let's say 10 people buy it, so they've raised $1000. 

Now if they drop the price to $5, *everyone* is going to want to buy it. Especially if it's said to support and help the developers. Out of the current 2000 (?) players, let's say 25% of them are completely broke and can't afford even that. Now let's say another 25% hate virtual items, don't have a character that can use the item, or otherwise have no interest in it. That leaves 1000 players scrambling to purchase your virtual $5 item. You now have a much healthier figure of $5000 *and* you have the goodwill of the players who are going to really look forward to the next item you put out for sale. Increase the number of players (potential buyers) to include ones who are returning because of the sale who are going to take part in the next one, and you'll start to see that they could rake in more funds if they would only lower their prices. 

Personally, if the costume prices were less, I'd buy more. So would my kids - especially my oldest daughter, because she loves costumes. She'd buy all Trendy would care to make, for her huntress and probably EV2.0 as well. She's careful with her money, though, and couldn't see buying more than two of them for the huntress at the current rate, and probably won't buy EV2.0 at all (which she is super-disappointed about.. and I think the only reason she got the costumes was because the gems were a gift from her brother - she didn't have to actually buy them herself). And if the Abyss Lord had been $5 instead of $15, I'd have bought one not only for myself but the entire family - that's 4 purchases right there - and would have gone for the ultra pack with the costume. We did that in DD1 - I spent a small mint buying DLC and lord knows what else for 4 steam accounts because it was worth the price tag and not overwhelmingly expensive per ticket item. 

So.. it seems (to me) like they are actually shooting themselves in the foot by charging so much, and I can't help but wish that they wouldn't do that. I'd love to see everyone scramble to buy a bunch of characters and costumes. When people pay money into a game, even if it's a just a little, they become more invested in it - they play more, they learn more, make friends, make memories, etc. And the longer they're there, the more they continue to purchase. 

Sorry, rant off. If there is something about the economics of this that I'm missing, I'd love an explanation if anyone cared to give it.

Since I don't know these problems well, I don't have any bright ideas. As I think I've said elsewhere, I solo or exclusively play with the kids and haven't even made it to top tier anything, so the issues are not as in my face as they are to the hard(er) core players. It's hard to know the issue completely, or the nuances of it, if you don't often experience it.

Some of the ideas posted have been awesome, though.. the sphere/gear working together sounds like it would be great, for one, and would allow quite a bit of character customization. Unless the meta ended up pointing to only one or two truly viable character builds.. but then if they actually put this type of system in, I'd hope they could get the balance correct so that it would be fun. (And if they didn't, we have a few people willing to point out where they're going wrong :))

Giving away a new character for free for a limited time would be a great way to introduce the new ones and bring people back in. Something to take the sting of the price away for someone who has only just returned to get a look at, and play, the new character. Like Giga said, there is nothing like that price tag to make someone close the game right back up. If they could get him and play him right away, the hype would continue.. they would get more invested by purchasing hero slots if needed, and have a blast playing him. Then they'd (hopefully) be eagerly awaiting the release of the next one. 

By the way, thank you for your awesome posts, gigazelle. You're always constructive, respectful, and willing to listen and discuss, even when hammering down the hard honest truth. You're also very clear-spoken so that even people like myself, who don't have a tenth of your game play time or experience, can understand the real issues. I learn a lot from your posts, and I appreciate all the time and energy you've put into not only the posts themselves, but the community here, as well. So.. thank you :) I hope Trendy grants the community some answers to the excellent and well-thought-out questions you've raised here.

Also.. just an observation. I usually see quite a few members who don't actually play the game anymore, still here and taking part in the forums. Even though they don't currently play the game, they still care enough to try to push for what they think the game needs to be great. In general, you don't see that often, and I think that says a lot about the game everyone knows DD2 could be.

Question : How much would you pay a takeaway pizza ? 

Form an orderly queue with your answers please. 

@SwitchbladeUK quote:

Question : How much would you pay a takeaway pizza ? 

Form an orderly queue with your answers please.

The value I place on pizza has nothing to do with the value I place on a DD2 character. It also has nothing to do with my opinion on how the pricing of a DD2 character will impact the game's future.

Apples and oranges...