Soliciting Ideas and Feedback - Membership Bonuses

Eoghan

Along with the new options for different lengths of memberships, the new system also allows us some more creativity in how your membership bonuses are used. We can now

• create alternative uses for Membership Credits (other than just binding them to a character). This comes in the form of a special shop where you can spend membership credits.
• create alternative passive bonuses which you can choose instead of the current stacking 5% xp bonus (up to 25%)
• create alternative daily bonuses which you can choose instead of the current 5 lessons per day

I'm looking for your ideas - what would you like to see in these three categories? What items should be for sale in the membership wares shop? What passive bonuses would you like to see? What alternative daily bonuses sound good?

Note that neither of the bonus categories should impact PVP - I don't want to widen the PK gap between subscribers and non-subscribers.

Some ideas I have right now to get your mental juices flowing:
Passive bonus: Stacking 0.5% xp per level (up to 2.5%)
Passive bonus: Stacking 1% extra gold drops (up to 5%)
Daily bonus: The ability to earn an additional daily credit per day - rather than 5 lessons, you can get 6 (or keep it as a credit), but you have to put in the work to get that extra daily tick to earn it.

On the Promotions Wares list, I have fewer ideas. As mentioned, I'd prefer not to widen the gap between free and subscribed players too much. One obvious choice is cosmetics (past promotion cosmetics, collectible items from previous events or antiquity that aren't available anymore, etc). I've also considered some limited-use promotions items (like chains), but think that may be tipping the scales too far. This is the category I'm having the most trouble with, so input is welcome!

Katorina

I find the current bonuses fine.  I'm not sure what I'd suggest that doesn't seem to me like it'd be worse, or something you're not likely to support.  I don't like the idea of gold drops because even bashing fairly rarely I have no shortage of gold.  I don't like the idea of experience because there isn't enough use for it that I don't think it'd be helpful.  I don't think the daily credits is favourable because the existing lessons come at no effort, and the amount of effort in getting that credit is not worth the slight bit more to me.

Lachlan

An extra daily credit is definitely worth significantly more than 5 lessons just for logging in, regardless of the 'effort' required to get it.

Katorina

Lachlan said:

An extra daily credit is definitely worth significantly more than 5 lessons just for logging in, regardless of the 'effort' required to get it.

To some people, definitely.  To me?  Probably not.  I don't max out daily credits most days, but rather tag along with people for bosses and usually we get around 15ish.  One potential extra credit I'm not getting anyways is not much of an enticement to be honest.  I prefer a smaller bonus that I get without expending the extra effort.  I prefer to look pragmatically at what I reasonably will receive on a daily basis, than look with stars in my eyes at a potential things.

@Eoghan - one thing worth considering for promotional stuff and whatnot is the handful of auction artifacts that have been available in the past but are not presently thus, whether for this, or just general availability.

Eoghan

To be clear, these are additional options, not replacing anything. You'd be able to choose whether you want the 5 lessons, or the extra daily credit.

Glijije

I'm unsure where this idea belongs the most, so I'll just put it here:

Here is an idea:

After getting the 20 daily credits, each character can attain three of the new currency. (call it Lalwan Loot). The following things can be done with Loot:

- each loot can be turned into the character's city/council (more on that later)
- 4 loot can be redeemed for 1 bluestar leaf
- 7 loot can be redeemed for random aesthetic fragment (aethetic ones listed in HELP ASSEMBLY)
- 16 loot can be redeemed for 1 moonwort leaf
- 16 loot can be redeemed for 1 green shard
- 16 loot can be redeemed for 1 yellow shard
- 22 loot can be redeemed for random average fragment (as listed in HELP FRAGMENTS)
- 22 loot can be redeemed for specific aesthetic fragment (aesthetic ones listed in HELP ASSEMBLY)
- 31 loot can be redeemed for random ethereal item
- 91 loot can be redeemed for specific ethereal item
- 101 loot can be redeemed for specific average fragment (as listed in HELP FRAGMENTS)
- 101 loot can be redeemed for 1 ritual point (cap at 14 ritual points total)
- 301 loot can be redeemed for random major assembly fragment (major ones listed in HELP ASSEMBLY: brush, statue, lasso, etc)
- 301 loot can be redeemed for 1 extra tattoo slot (cap at 14 slots total)
- 901 loot can be redeemed for specific major assembly fragment (major ones listed in HELP ASSEMBLY: brush,statue, lasso, etc)


City/council loot uses later (potentially)

Glijije

In this idea, loot could be used by city/council in the following ways:

- 2500 loot could be redeemed to allow an additional 40k energy to be generated by the generator each month (max 360k energy per month)
- 2600 loot could be redeemed to allow the maximum storage capacity of the generator to increase by 90k (max 1.95 million energy)
- 2700 loot could be redeemed to allow siege weapons to fire 10% faster (maximum increase of 50%)
- 3100 loot could be redeemed to allow 5 additional guards per each towne (max 30 guards per towne)
- 4300 loot could be redeemed to allow 10 additional guards in the city/council (max 190 guards per city/council)
- 5100 loot could be redeemed to speed up objective movement during raids by 3% (statue, standard tutor only -- max speed increase of 9%).

Lartus

I don't think Green or yellow shards should be that cheap.

Rei

Gli made me read this so Gli also gets a reply.

I kind of like the general idea of adding something to work towards beyond 'earn 20 credits, stare into the wall until a shardfall happens' (ignoring all the fancy RP that goes around, yeah yeah). 

I do think that if a new currency is invented, it should focus on attaining old promo items (fancy cosmetics/mostly RP stuff) or things you can't really get as often by being a true f2p player (beans, tickets, random things I can't think of). Possibly, some rather pricey stuff you can use on a personal level (xp bonus, timed stat buff, another ritual point).

Fiddling with things that affect orgs in this manner, especially one so bound to PVP, is a bad idea. People will make a ton of alts, bash the easy 20 credits and pump their orgs with cool raid stuff. Or, they'll just hoard the new currency to buy the same stuff and ignore all other available options.

Dis, doesn't even have to be a new currency, can just use doubloons for it (with fixed prices/daily earning limit of course).

Aeterna Silphium

One thing I do want to say is the added value of tokens for the membership should not be depreciated more than they already are. They are part and parcel of the value of the memberships. I'm happy with where they are as credit conversions for the moment.

One thing I am considering heavily is that these bonuses need to remain personal and not encourage the creation of alts. Anything costing membership credits would inherently not do this, but anything per character might.

Passive Bonuses:

Right now one gets a stacking 5% bashing xp bonus. If that bleeds over into belief and spirit (which I think it does) then that also is a simultaneous 5% stacking belief and spirit bonus when bashing.

• Stacking 2% xp bonus per level up to 10%. This assumes it is not multiplicative with other xp bonuses, but additive.
• The gold drop one looks great.
• Stacking 3% bonus per level up to 15% belief gain. This would allow people to get to their belief thresholds for combat and other things faster but not provide a strategic advantage mid-combat.
• Stacking 0.5% bonus per level up to 2.5% not to use a blueshard. This might also be powerful, but ultimately the intent is to extend the life of one's shard supplies whether one is a basher or combatant by a meaningful but not overwhelming amount. This is interesting in that it doesn't open up anything 'new' other than a consumable resource efficiency.
• Stacking 0.5% bonus per level up to 2.5% critical rate. This changes up the ballgame in that it speeds up bashing rather than provides an xp bonus, letting one get doubloons and daily credits faster.
• Stacking 1% bonus per level up to 5% to mob damage. Similar to crit rate, but adjusted up a bit as mob damage tends to be less meaningful given crit damage overflow.

Daily Bonuses:

• The additional daily credit per day is nice for those that have small amounts of active characters. I love it.
• 1 free daily Doubloon that counts against the daily limit. Doubloons aren't transferrable, they have a cap, and they are consumable. Having the ability to rent an extra 175 credits worth of artifact a week over one's normal activity is a nice benefit but likely wouldn't break the world. This does amount to an extra 28-31 doubloons for purchasing in a month when doubloons allow for permanent benefits, which is worth consideration, but the counting against the daily limit should lessen its impact. This unfortunately does promote alt creation for those months. Another way to handle it might be giving the fifth spawnwave area done per day to hand out an extra doubloon, which requires a significant enough time investment to offset it.

Membership Credits

First, given that Imperian is free to play, I'd like to throw out the idea of converting some of the credits to unbound credits in some kind of way as bound credits are less valued given the variety of ways to earn them. That instantly changes the value of the current membership similar to credit purchases in a way that's already balanced and accounted for in regular credit purchases. Adding this flexibility in would allow for the entire gamut of uses for unbound credits such as selling for gold, incentivizing player behavior as an org official, trading for promo items, etc. It does allow for the initial lesson bonus on conversion as well, which is its only real personal shortcoming.

This could take a few forms:

• The tokens are replaced with 66 unbound credits a month.
• The base 100 credits are unbound
• The stacking 5 additional bonus credits are unbound (capping out at 50)
• Any combination of the above.

Items bought with membership credits

For promo items, the thought would be that they would somehow be untradeable. More importantly, adding promo items as purchaseable for membership credits assigns them a specific value, which the market currently fluctuates around. That said, the following items seem rife for membership credit purchases:

Cosmetic

9 - Emote Token

10 - Behavior Token

42 - an ornate dictation pen

53 - a chaotic crystal - Gender swapping has almost no mechanical advantages in the game.

76 - a bottle of hot air

80 - an irrational note

95 - a golden armour plated sphere of Hastati

96 - a redwood encrusted sphere of Olanre

97 - an ouroboros wrapped sphere of Zaimael

98 - a white-hot sphere of Samaos

99 - a forest-green sphere of Isra

100 - a sphere of Lazal shrouded in mystery

101 - a sphere of Nyrohi masked in skulls

102 - a moss-covered sphere of Svorai

104 - the brush of the Creator

112 through 130 - fluctuating crowns

131 through 149 - deceptive cloaks

anklets as in HELP ASSEMBLY

horns as in HELP ASSEMBLY

chokers as in HELP ASSEMBLY

satchets as in HELP ASSEMBLY

For fragments something closer to the 'lootbox' mechanic might be appropriate, though focusing on one type of item, anklet, horn, choker, crown, etc...

Mechanics

18 - Gold Tonic - Gold bonus from bashing

19 - Sapphire Tonic - Alternate movement methods, all purchaseable with artifacts already.

20 - Fizzy Tonics - Drunkenness preventers

46 - Pet License - Two pets at once. Pets use balance to do most things as is.

47 - A certificate for Taming - Another luxury as I cannot recall an animal where one additional skill below the 10 cap would make a difference.

50 - a tombstone of Life - Returning from the underworld from anywhere is a convenience.

68 - a simple toolkit - With the proliferation of commodities, this is again a convenience and gold-saving item.

69 - a sack of meat - Edge case. Not losing mobile followers when tumbling is pretty pleasant but likely won't make or break any fight.

Phantasmic Diadem - This may not be the right name, but the artifact that let one customize one's entrance and exit message that was done in auctions.

Chest of Continuum - With the way shop shelves work, this doesn't really provide much of a mechanical benefit other than not having to be on a shop shelf.

New Item Spitballing

• New item for 10 membership credits that lets one fill the generator by 25% as though it were gold, which is a bad ROI at the moment but might be nice for those willing to spring for it.
• Combine 20 blueshard into 1 redshard for 1 membership credit
• Combine 20 redshard into 1 greenshard or yellowshard for 5 membership credits. This pans out to needing 400 blueshard and 25 membership credits to get a single greenshard, which should offset its power.