I feel like Rare has not thought the SoT concept through in terms of monetization

I would disagree that SoT is 'decidedly anti-social' and 'you're best off avoiding other players'. Really just depends on how you play the game. Yesterday, for instance, I was duo slooping around trying to do explody skeleton stuff and approached a sloop to explain we were friendly and down to team up if a fort popped up. We did the same thing with a galleon shortly afterwards. We took note of each others ship cosmetics so we could recognize each other if we did end up meeting.

I think people will jump all over the chance to distinguish their ships and characters through MT's. Not me though. I'm 100% against MT's, but I'm sure they'll make bank off folks that don't mind them.

Right now I think they've made a couple bad decisions for the game financially.

1. Stating that Dubs are not premium currency. The thing with microtransations is that you need to make it feel like the player has an option to buy to speed things up.. not that its exclusive. You can get the items still by jumping through hoops.

Introducing dubs first through the bilgrat then making them eventually purchasable would have made a lot of sense. You give them away for free, but only to those that play the game a lot (which is how they are earned now) but then the "whales" can use them to speed the process along.

They had it perfect, right until they said they will never be a premium currency. Now, you have two forms of currency.. and soon to be a third when they do release the premium currency. If you go back on what you said, you will p**s off the playerbase that will no longer trust you.

2. Weekly events disappearing or not rewarding the full amount. This also goes back to the dubs. If it was a premium currency.. leaving the commendations and the ability to complete them in the game, but locking out the monetary reward would be perfect.

But now you are taking stuff out of the game, a reward for completing it.. just to leave this.. commendation for a title. There is no reason for it if the dubs are not a premium currency. You should leave the full reward in it.. because participating in the event during its limited time makes it easier.. thats the draw to the game.

This also deals with the Hungering Deep. They created this great story.. and unique cosmetic.. only for it to only be live for two weeks. If this continues.. and Cursed Sails is the same way.. you have wasted lots of money and resources on something that will only be around for two weeks.. then disappear. This is a waste.

These events could and should be permenant content.. and not just another version of it. But it should actually stay in the game as is.. along with its long term randomness. For example.. now, the drum is useless.. just another instrument. But if it could actually be used with a specific song to call Megan at all times.. that would be something.. especially if your being chased and you need help.. your crew calls megan and the shark might attack whoever fires cannons.

3. Which leads to lack of content. Because they are removing stuff from the game and only a limited time.. they really aren't expanding the amount of things you can do in the game with any form of "progress". This doesn't help sell the game that was critized at launch for lack of things to do.

Despite all our events and the many months of work the teams have been putting into the game.. we still only have.. the main voyages.. and a bi-weekly event that rotates. If the above happened, new people that just buy the game would have all of that.. AND everything we've been doing the past couple months without feeling left out.

This spurs sales and population playing the game.

4. Lastly.. they are leaving money on the table every day as we speak. By NOT having a store open now.. they are missing out on the people that want to spend money and will spend money.. in a short time frame when they are excited about playing the game. Ie when it is new to them.

You are going to have a heck of a time getting money from a base that has been getting everything they want for free.. then mysteriously start having cosmetics and stuff locked away from them by a paywall.

That is not good finacial planning. All of these lead to the bad planning more then the OP's claim that its bad plans because the anti-social aspects of the game.

If these multi-crew tasks rewarded players on an ongoing basis and no just via events.. the social aspects of the game would be enough to flash your bling.

But you can't be constantly missing out on opportunities that the devs have built for themselves and think long-term that you can slap on a MT thing down the road.

@dragonsire2016 Well there is certainly a degree of distrust when spotting another ship initially, but i've had great success calling out with the speaking trumpet. I can give you loads of examples of when I teamed up with another crew, it's not an isolated incident.

They won't keep using the same cosmetics perhaps over time, but someone isn't going to keep changing their ship load out multiple times on the same server unless they're trying to trick someone.

@puck269 Dabloons as an event currency makes sense as they want to reward players for the event rather than oh cool u did that even too and the other guy was like oh no I just paid money. Plus since you can buy rep increases with them then people could buy to legend day 1 which would be dumb. I honestly want the mtx store to be for only pets and pet cosmetics or toys. I dont want the coolest cosmetics from buying things as then theres no real reward for playing. I have plenty of money to blow myself but I like playing the game and I like when the best cosmetics are from playing. If they allow players to buy gold packs and it doesnt artificially inflate in game item prices then that could also work.

@starquest It is fine if you are going to rewards dubs for doing the event items.

It is fine if they aren't going to be premium currency.

However, what isn't fine is that they remove the incentive from doing the tasks(dubs), leave he tasks in the game, and then claim that they "added content"

There just isn't reason for it. Especially when you make actually completing the event near impossible for a good portion of the playerbase that plays the game as intended (ie not server hopping if a fort is not up) and thats not even including how bugged the commendation is at the moment.

How many people are going to do the skellie thrones now there are no dubs for them.

Especially how many are going to be able to get another crew to waste an hour trying to get people up on Murauder's arch again? There isn't even an incentive for the player missing out on the throne.. even less for another person to care FOR them.. because neither are getting anything for completing it.

Exploding skellies isn't a big deal.. cause those will just be randomly earned by playing things in the game.. its not really even an event imo.

@puck269 I agree and I think if the cosmetics go away once the event is done then why not just keep the dubs in so they can save for the next batch of cosmetics or buy rep ups/gold. Or just make each one worth less dubs once it's done. I think that would be a fine compromise.

@kawaii-dumpling said in I feel like Rare has not thought the SoT concept through in terms of monetization:

@puck269 Woah, I think making the doubloons a premium currency will drop a boulder on this game, the community, and practically ruin it.

You've already got some PLs complaining about being able to use this currency as a means to level up, imagine whales? It would ruin everything, and there's no absolute need to spend $5 for something you can earn with an hour or more of your time. I get it, not everyone has time, but that's how it is.

Also, it's an exclusive event to satisfy and reward those dedicated and lingering players until big content drops. It's to add a little life to the world slowly, but surely. It's for people to make minute or massive adventures with. Of course, there's some negatives, but not nearly enough to say "Keep these events!"
If you miss it, then that's too bad. It's a timed exclusive. Not saying it's anyone's fault that life is life, but if they use that "life is life" excuse, then they should apply that to these events.

Maybe dropping dubs now would put a boulder into the community because they've already said that it wasn't a premium currency.

However, using money to increase a level in this game.. well think about it.. the level doesn't even mean anything except your able to buy more cosmetics.

The amount of money you'd have to put in to "buy" pirate legend.. well.. let them buy it. Seriously.

Even if you put it at $1 per level.. You are talking someone having to spend $150 in order to buy PL.

Buying PL to just have exclusive cosmetics and longer fetch quests, but someone server hopping between crews and not even realizing how to sail (ie the first pirate legend) is perfectly acceptable? PL became pointless IMO when someone cheated the system and the main way to do it is by server hopping spamming skellie forts and bypassing 3/4 of the game. That and all PL gives you is some ghost skins.

Considering this thread is about financial stability of the game.. being able to buy rank if someone is foolish enough to do it just to fake being a PL without knowing how to play the game is fine.. we already have a ton of PLs out there that havn't really played the game to have it as a badge of honor to the grindiness of the game.

If that makes the game more financially viable so that the game can continue to add in content down the road.. then I'm for it.

As for leaving the events in.. as I said.. taking them out has NO financial benefit.. and leaving them in does...

There is no benefit spending money on a fan base that you already have their money.. without actually giving them a way to have them give you more money.

Take Overwatch for example. All progress in that game is cosmetic. Thats how they continue to fund the game is by selling lootboxes. They sell more lootboxes through events.. and allow people to basically fast forward through grinding levels to earn new skins.

Now, I'm not saying lootboxes are a good thing. However the principle behind successful MT is the ability for players to choose to speed up the process to unlock content in the game.

MT's that irritate the fanbase are those that lock content behind paywalls.

If you allow cosmetics to be purchased through events.. and are able to earn currency by doing the events in the time window.. and said it up front thats what these dubs are from... people would love it.