Reduce the price for ship bundle cosmetics....

I agree, though my math is a bit different. Let's take the Royal Revenge ship set as an example:

I am assuming most buyers of this want the collector figurehead and sails.

The comes out to somewhere between 3692 AC and 4097AC, depending on whether typical buyers buy the bundle AND the collector stuff, or skip the normal figurehead and sails and buy each component individually.

I will take an average which is 3895 AC.

The 4250 AC bundle in the microsoft store costs $34.99 regular price, and $31.49 with gamepass.

I will assume that the majority of buyers are subscribers to gamepass, which brings the $/AC to $0.007409 / AC.

This means the cost of the shipset is approximately: $28.86 if you purchased ancient coins in bulk, and as low as $27.35 if you skip the base sails and figurehead, or $22.18 if you also skip the flag and cannon flares.

If you wait for sales, you can sometimes get sets cheaper too, but I can't remember how much cheaper.

Personally, I think the sweet spot would be for the base average price paid to be around $20 for what most people would call a "full set", dropping to ~$15 during sales.

Only Rare has the sales data, but I know that I have not yet purchased a ship set at full price, and probably never will, even though I really want this set. I would probably pay $20 for it because I really like it, but not $28 because I just know there might be a better set one day I'd rather have. Problem is, there also might not be, and Rare just missed out on a potential customer who would've needed to refill his ancient coins.

I also have argued for a long time that this gap of about $5-8 difference between my ideal pricing and what Rare is currently charging could be met another way.

LET PLAYERS OFFSET EMPORIUM PURCHASES WITH DOUBLOONS (at least to a point)

Steps to Implement:

• Reset doubloons for all players, giving players with huge stockpiles either a lot of gold for them or some AC at some ratio up to a point. I have 45,000 and I would gladly exchange them for some gold and 1000AC just for my troubles if Rare promised to build a new mechanic out of them. I would be more excited for the improved economy in the game, I simply wouldn't care if I get pennies on the dollar for their eventual value.
• Change the availability of doubloons by not making them shareable in alliances, and removing them as loot from farmable world events like FOTD, or as rewards for certain commendations.
• Add new events to earn doubloons akin to old bilge rats - maybe skipping double doubloon days that led to inflation
• Let players use doubloons at a 10 to 1 ratio to offset AC. Something like 1000 doubloons = 100 AC.
• Cap the amount of doubloons which can be used per month for this purpose. Something like 10000 doubloons can be used per month to offset about 1000 in ancient coins.
• Potentially, only allow discounts to be used for certain things (i.e bundles), not individual components

This would offer an approximate discount of $7.49 per month, and would drastically help loyal players feel rewarded for playing the game. It is a tactic widely used in mobile gaming, and is very successful at driving purchases. Sometimes it is predatory, but Rare has done a good job reinvesting into their game, and I think it could work here.

Just need to figure out how to reduce server farming for doubloons, but otherwise, I think this would be a really smart business opportunity, and add more competitiveness around reapers chests again.

Another dangerous point is that people could become REALLY toxic fighting over something that can offset real money, but I mean, when an ancient skeletons spawns among multiple crews, everyone understands someone is gonna be mad.

Just depends how Rare wants to handle it, but me personally would be okay with this. Each reaper chest right now (25 doubloons base) would be worth about 4.2 cents if turned in as a grade V reaper (62 doubloons), and 6.5 cents if turned in during gold rush (94 doubloons).

Royal Revenge prices below for reference:

2094 AC for base set without figurehead or sails
799 AC for collector figurehead
799 AC for collector sails

-349 AC if you don't care about the flag
-349 AC if you don't care about cannon flares

2499 AC for entire base set purchased as bundle

I do think if you own parts of a set, the bundles should get cheaper. Kinda odd to me that they don’t. You shouldn’t even have the possibility of paying $20 just for a missing flag or Cannon flare.

I find it odd that for a full ship skin and unique figureheads/sails its $40 which is the price of a full game

Full game? I swear I paid 60 for most full games....

@burnbacon SOT currently $40 on steam. But you already knew that.

@burnbacon it's closer to 80 up here in Canada 😩

@calicorsaircat said in Reduce the price for ship bundle cosmetics....:

@burnbacon SOT currently $40 on steam. But you already knew that.

Hmph. Steam always selling games cheaper after release.