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Upcoming guild shop potion change [poll]

PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 8:58 am
by admin
Dear all Dragon Era players,

After noticing that the recent potion sale having little effect, we checked our server data and found that most of our players have no need to purchase potions. Of the top 500 players in the game, average potion stockpile is about 650!!! - That's not counting the coins and guild points saved that can purchase even more.

This correct reflects that the Gem purchases have declined drastically over the past year, as large stockpiles means that new bi-weekly bosses, new raid bosses, and guild war bosses would no longer increase Gem purchases as before... This is actually very bad news for the game - as the financial downfall means lower prioritization and fewer new content. To prevent this happening to everyone's favorite game, we are proposing making one of the following changes next week (7 days later):

Option A. Double the guild point price of the potions.
Option B. Lowering the guild point reward for coin donation by 50% (to 1 point per 200 coins).
Option C. Make potions in shop buy-once items, but quadruple (4X) the appearance odds so they appear much more often.

Note: We are giving all players 7 days (from now) before we implement one of the changes above, so those who saved up coins and guild points have a fair chance to convert them to potions before any changes takes effect. While we are aware most players would prefer being able to stockpile hundreds of potions by farming coins on the weekends, and there will be plenty of flaming and rage quit replies, but please still vote for the change mostly preferable to you to save your favorite game...

Best Regards,
Admin / Playmage Support

UPDATE: Option B changed to reflect that not only Solomon Mines have too high energy to coin ratio.
UPDATE: To keep appeal of farming maps, we have doubled the EXP and Pal points earned in Normal and Advanced maps, and tripled them in Advanced maps, so players can level up faster.

Re: Upcoming guild shop potion change [poll]

PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 12:20 pm
by Patrick4801
I don't have a raging quit reply. I like the game and want to see it grow, and I understand that there are economic challenges to that. I think you're looking in the wrong place though, at least in the short term. With the top players having a giant potion stockpile it'll take a long time to burn those off before they'd consider buying potions with gems.

In the meantime I'm seeing many of my top friends quit the game altogether as evidenced by 4 players with an 8 star apep that I just finally defriend as they hadn't played for a couple of months. So I have no problem if you change the potion economics, but if you want to grow revenues you need to focus on adding new content for the top players to work through while at the same time offering a way for new players to catch up. In the past 6 months, we've seen a ton of guild wars, which are fun for players like me, but seem redundant for the top player. The new players, unless they spend a ton in gems, are going to have a really hard time catching up. That kind of makes the super advanced maps and guild wars meaningless for them. You used to have the bi-weekly levels that were good for new player catchup, but even those are gone now.

So do what you have to do with potions, but realize that additional potion revenue alone isn't going to fix your revenue problems. Just like any business, it's going to require investment, creativity, communication, and most importantly putting the customer first.

Re: Upcoming guild shop potion change [poll]

PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 1:08 pm
by admin
Patrick4801 wrote:So do what you have to do with potions, but realize that additional potion revenue alone isn't going to fix your revenue problems. Just like any business, it's going to require investment, creativity, communication, and most importantly putting the customer first.


Thanks for your reply. We could create super hard levels for top players (which may happen soon), but they will just chew through those effortlessly as long as the potion stockpiling issue exists. We definitely realize communication and putting the customer first is important, and that's we we are giving 7 day notice and creating a poll instead of just picking option C and making that effective immediately.

Re: Upcoming guild shop potion change [poll]

PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 1:11 pm
by t0m
I don't understand option C -- please explain?

Re: Upcoming guild shop potion change [poll]

PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 1:18 pm
by admin
t0m wrote:I don't understand option C -- please explain?


Currently potions and lower-star cards can be purchased infinitely amount of times while they appear in your guild shop. Option C - Making them buy-once item means you buy once and there are removed from the shop until they appear again just like materials and high-star cards. But we would significantly boost their appear odds (quadruple) so that they appear much more often than they do now. This option has much less impact to new players, but would make stockpiling much harder for older and top players.

Re: Upcoming guild shop potion change [poll]

PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 1:19 pm
by t0m
Thanks -- I understand now. If the goal is to prevent future stockpiling, option C seems the most direct way to do so.

A and B would disadvantage newer players (...yet again...) by doubling the value of existing stockpiles.

Whatever option is chosen there are going to be big knock-on effects for the economics of guilds. What consideration have you given to that?

Re: Upcoming guild shop potion change [poll]

PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 2:01 pm
by Andy
Patrick4801 wrote:I don't have a raging quit reply. I like the game and want to see it grow, and I understand that there are economic challenges to that. I think you're looking in the wrong place though, at least in the short term. With the top players having a giant potion stockpile it'll take a long time to burn those off before they'd consider buying potions with gems.


I have to agree. All you are asking is for those of us that are trying to grind our way up to the top players level, that have the stockpiles already, to double, or more, the difficulty we are going to have to get there... you know, unless we want to spend $1000 or more. Those players that have the stockpile are not going to be affected by this, those of us that save and save until potions finally show up in our shop so we can get enough to get through advanced/bonus maps and guild wars are now going to have an even harder time. Doubling the price or lowering the coins on weekend maps are effectively the same thing... both of which means double the work that those who have stock piles already had to get there. Don't forget, by lowering coins you are also making it harder for guilds to level up as well. I know you don't want a rage quit replies but that's exactly what's going to happen to a lot of users that you have right now with any one of these 3 implementations into the game.

Re: Upcoming guild shop potion change [poll]

PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 2:17 pm
by Lopi
this is a big let down im new and just got my deck to donsome damage on difficult. Hope you wil raise the drop rate this weekend for the potions. Hope you guys will think over this again because me as a new player wont have fun playing this game. As this is the only wau to get closer to the top unless i buy for 1000€. Thats not gona happen

Re: Upcoming guild shop potion change [poll]

PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 3:23 pm
by bindur
Andy wrote:Don't forget, by lowering coins you are also making it harder for guilds to level up as well.


Leveling guild buildings has such a far reach since the last time new levels were implemented. Even guilds that grind for millions each weekend are so far away from the max level.

Does there not exist a possibility to cap the amount of potions bought at a time besides 1 or unlimited? Is there a happy medium like 50 or so?

Re: Upcoming guild shop potion change [poll]

PostPosted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 3:35 pm
by Andy
bindur wrote:Does there not exist a possibility to cap the amount of potions bought at a time besides 1 or unlimited? Is there a happy medium like 50 or so?


Something of these medium, even 20-30 cap at a time, would be a better solution overall then what you are offering right now. I mean, the options you provided have no happy ending for any player. At least Bindur's suggestion gives somewhat of a middle ground for everyone.