So there will be a skin cash shop (part 2)
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These poll restrictions, man...Sorry for the spam
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I've bought skins in Guild Wars 2. I played that game for several years and it was a buy to play game. So I felt that the devs should be rewarded a little more. I don't buy cash shop items because I want my toon to look different, but because I want to pay for the entertainment I get out of the game, so the devs can continue adding content.
The last game I played with a cash shop, was Assassins Creed Origins. I didn't buy anything from the cash shop, because I felt I had spend enough on the game + DLC. Spending extra money on it wouldn't result in any extra content, but in shareholders earning more money. I didn't even buy the loot boxes with ingame currency.
If I'm already paying a $10 subscription here (which will be more expensive in euro), then I don't think I'll spend extra money on cash shop items. The $10 should be enough to support the game.
I don't think I would ever buy temporary skins though. Does that exists in some games?
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I might buy several if they suit my taste and if they do not have a greedy money grab price tag.
50$ for a costume? No ty, you can keep it.
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@gothix The first post I did had 10 polls, including pricing questions - the forum borked hard, had a fit, and I got semi-locked for 10 minutes. I kind of hate doing 10 different threads on a single topic, so I held off for a bit.
What do you think is a good price for a permanent skin on...a weapon? or a full costume with theme'd weapon? or on an effect - like a spell effect or aura? and what about a reskin of the race - like truning the croc beastman into a rabbit beastman, or a Blood into a more traditional vampire?
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This immediately causes gameplay concerns.
If this is truly going to be a PvP focused game, part of that means gear and abilities need to be recognizable.
If you can't tell what the heck is going on, you don't have a good PvP game.
League of Legends can have this - because it doesn't have items that impact how a character looks. The "costume" of the character, per se, is completely cosmetic. While in a game like World of Warcraft, Albion Online, etc.. you can discern what a player's power level is by looking at them. This is imperative, if you're going to make a decision to engage, or disengage. Who to target first, etc.
Having skins in an MMO like this lowers the skill bar.
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@dulu You forget that Fractured is also targeting PVE Player AND roleplayer. For them is a nice outfit/skin more worth than being the super PVP hero.
Also PVP player like to look good/cool.
Why the heck it should lower the skill?
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I checked "will probably buy 1" and "other".
I look at a cosmetic cash shop as a little bit like a tip jar. If I'm getting a lot of value out of a game, I'll buy a few cosmetics as a way of saying thanks.
So at some point I'll probably buy one. How much I buy will depend a lot on how many hours of enjoyment I get out of the game.
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@dulu said in So there will be a skin cash shop (part 2):
This immediately causes gameplay concerns.
If this is truly going to be a PvP focused game, part of that means gear and abilities need to be recognizable.
If you can't tell what the heck is going on, you don't have a good PvP game.
League of Legends can have this - because it doesn't have items that impact how a character looks. The "costume" of the character, per se, is completely cosmetic. While in a game like World of Warcraft, Albion Online, etc.. you can discern what a player's power level is by looking at them. This is imperative, if you're going to make a decision to engage, or disengage. Who to target first, etc.
Having skins in an MMO like this lowers the skill bar.
This has been a concern of mine as well, although I think it's a neccesary evil.
@Kralith, the problem with skins is that they run the risk of masking meaningful information.
For example, if you have a skin that makes it impossible for me to tell if your character is wearing no armor, light armor, medium armor, or heavy armor? That skin has removed information about your character's equipment that a skilled player could have had access to at a glance to infer something about your build.
If the skin makes your dual daggers look like a two handed longsword, then that's potentially really confusing. But also if the skin makes it look like your weapons have a fire effect but they actually have an ice effect, then that's confusing too.
If the skin is so elaborate that I can't even tell what race your character is, then that's even worse.
A lot of this depends on implementation, of course. I'm taking it on faith that DS won't implement any skins that are too game-breaking in terms of the information they cover up. I'm encouraged that a lot of the example skins we've seen so far have light, medium and heavy variants.
But even if they do get a little bit game breaking in terms of covering up information, I think I'm okay with that: Hyper-competitive players will just adjust to the meta of having mask-able equipment through skins. So as much as I'd prefer the game not to have this in it and to keep the visual aspect of weapons and armor as a hard and meaningful link to those items themselves, I think that this is the lesser of all evils when compared to other revenue models.
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@TheRippyOne I always disliked the sale of "whole costumes". I like to be able to buy separate parts and customize my outfit how i wish.
Mostly when costumes are sold, I love the shirt (example) but hate the pants, hat and boots, but I am forced to pay for the whole costume if I want to get the shirt. That sucks.
I hope outfits will be sold in parts, so people can separately buy any part they desire, and then perhaps, a whole costume could be 10% cheaper than "buying all it's parts separately" to entice buying the whole set, but not make it mandatory.
5-10 eur for a whole costume is ok price tag, if costume is nicely designed. Perhaps 2-3 eur per single piece, depending which piece it is (shirt, pants, hat, gloves, boots, coat,..).
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@kairosval i agree, a skin should never cover your real equip.
But for the example of armor, it could be not just a plain iron armor, but the „skin“ gives the iron armor a nice shiney look.
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@kralith said in So there will be a skin cash shop (part 2):
@kairosval i agree, a skin should never cover your real equip.
But for the example of armor, it could be not just a plain iron armor, but the „skin“ gives the iron armor a nice shiney look.Which is fine - except the massive, show-ey flashy information-obscuring skin is the kind of thing that will sell better.
The incentives are at odds with each other, and revenue incentives have a tendency to win out.
I'm explicitly thinking about the PoE Cosmetics Shop for this. That Cosmetics Shop has turned out the way it has for a reason.
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I'm pretty opposed to masking a weapon as a different weapon type, and I feel that weapons are going to be more telling, in the end, than armor is.
Way I figure it, given the isometric view, we aren't going to be able to see too much detail on the armor - Diablo 2 or 3 levels of detail, that sort of thing. which means that, by and large, we're going to be talking 20 to 30 armor models, tops, including clothing, robes, and all the edge lord stuff, for a good long while. But that's covering anywhere from 100, to several 1,000 variations - is that the heavy plate that is super defensive, or the heavy plate that provides bonuses to Warfare skills, or the heavy plate that is barely better than the heaviest middle plate, and supercharges Warfare skills? Or is it one of the esoteric heavy plates to actually enhance specific skills, like regen restoration and defensive and counter-counter abjuration magic?
At the end of the day, as long as the costume can only be applied to a specific armor type, or the result of applying the costume differs based on what it's applied to - Heavy Plate into Fright Lord Heavy Plate, for example - and you can tell the base armor because of it, you pretty much are going to know all you were going to know before.
Similarly, I imagine "Clothes" are going to be the armor set that gets the most skins applied - they aren't intended for combat, so you wear them in places you feel safe, which makes "turning" them into a tuxedo, or a little red dress, or lingerie, or swim trunks, or a Hawaiian shirt and shorts, or an Eskimo parka, or a yellow rain coat, "easy," game-wise. No one expects any of that to be suitable for combat, so, "clothes" is the "Show-off" option for any and all bling. And, let's face it, everyone, at some point, wants to show-off, even if it's just a little XD
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@therippyone
weapon wont matter too because of the limited amount of viewing area. if it was a 3rd person camera then you could see further in the distance to determine. I'm sure someone will make a staff melee weapon. so even then the weapon wont matter.
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@gothix I agree. I don't mind if the whole set is an option even at a discounted set price, but I'd like to have the option of just picking up the chest or the boots or whatever if I don't want the whole kit
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@jetah I have to admit I'm not very knowledgeable about issues with the skins and PVP.
One idea if this is a big concern might be to have skins that will only apply to a certain base class for example skin to 2 handed weapon can't be used on the daggers or a heavy metal skin can't be used on cloth armor.
You would probably still lose some of the information than just a base item look but at least it would be in the same family.
I'm also not sure how doable that would be from a programming perspective but I can't remember buying a skin for my bow and being able to use it on a sword so it must be somewhat possible.
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@ladyrowan
Games do that to keep the class silhouette distinguishable.Fractured does not have classes, I’m not really sure why a silhouette would be unique. Not to mention it’s an isometric view so it would be difficult to distinguish.
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Yep, for me buying skins would be supporting a game. Many people find them interesting, for me I'm usually fine with the baseline, but will purchase them if I want to support the game.
As to looks, with the isometric and abilities that we can fairly freely swap there is really not that much that we can say is off limits right now.
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I voted other, because it would depend on the skins. I would probably buy different skins for my mount (or even my pets if such a thing existed), but I'm not all that interested in armor and weapon skins.
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@needlehawk What about skins that change your race (like Blood to a more classic vampire look, or Crocodile to Rabbit (or vice versa, depending on the devs cal) or effects (weapons, magic, and auras)?
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As long as we don't get horse head masks, I'm good.
