Tribes F2P Business Model - PS2 Impact

[Notser]

This week the guys at Hi Rez Studios released a themed pack for the infiltrator class called "Cloak and Dagger". New Weapon, Grenade, and Equipment for the infiltrator class. They also added new skins/models for the class, but that isn't a big deal. Long story short, this created a huge influx of infiltrators and also changed the balance between all the classes.

In regards to Planetside and their F2P model, do you believe that themed content releases for particular classes is the best way or do you feel that adding so much new content to one single class would cause too much balance issues and also cause players to all play one class for a couple weeks until the next content patch?

I personally would rather have a couple items be released that give multiple classes something new so not every player feels like trying one class. Also, balancing a single class with a entire new loadout is a little crazy rather than introducing a single weapon/grenade/equipment/etc. How do you all want your PS2 content patches? From a business perspective, the full makeover of a class would probably create more revenue and interest but isn't ideal in a class based FPS.

Very interested in everyone's opinion, Tribes Ascend's F2P is probably going to be the most like PS2's F2P when they release it.

Additional Discussion - Pricing

Totalbiscuit brought up a interesting point about Tribes Ascend's pricing and how it would influence buying habits of players. Primary weapons cost around 10 US dollars, Secondary 5, Equipment 3, and skins starting at 10 and some costing up to 15 dollars. Do you feel that 10 bucks is too much, just right, or too little to charge for a weapon/skin? Remember, Tribes is going for sidegrades versus straight up better items which is exactly what PS2 will be going for with their weapons.

I personally feel 10 bucks is a little too much for a primary weapon, also think skins shouldn't cost 10 bucks unless they are really cool and have new animations. But there is the school of thought that since PS2 will allow weapons to be used across multiple classes when it makes sense that you would be getting more for your money then Tribes, where weapons are locked to each class.

What would be a fair price for SOE to charge for weapons/skins/animation effects/etc?

[Graywolves]

I really hope they do nothing like that.

[Furber]

I agree with you, having a wider variety of content that spans over different classes/vehicles would be better than trying to focus on the classes individually. People might get frustrated that their class's content comes later than others. Also it would prevent, like you said, everyone playing one of the classes a ton suddenly.

I'm not sure if they would add weapons in, at least not until some kind of huge game update or something. That could compromise the balance of the game (in tribes that new infiltrator Jackal gun is OP as shit). I think having something like a "theme of skins" pack, and each class has a skin that matches the theme, that would be cool. They could also just do random skins, would be fine with that too.

[Destroyeron]

Being slightly unsure about how PS2 is doing the "class" thing I don't think it'd be as intense of a change as in Tribes since people will probably be playing different roles depending on the situation. If they did release a bunch of infiltrator stuff at once we'd definitely see more infiltrators, but I'd hope those infiltrators would man up and change once they were deemed useless for the cause.

[Skitrel]

Originally Posted by Graywolves

I really hope they do nothing like that.

Then you're shit out of luck I'm afraid. They're obviously going to do that, we can expect to see new "sidegrades" and themed content for all classes to go out regularly.

Yes, it will create influxes of particular classes, it's never really an issue though, it only lasts a couple days while people try out new stuff and then get back into routine.

What do we expect? They never release changes to classes? It would be stupid to introduce changes across all classes at once, that's asking for a balance disaster. When you introduce anything you introduce it one thing at a time, decide if it broke anything, then move on from it. There is simply no other way to ensure that something you change doesn't break anything.

[Brusi]

Tribes F2P doesn't sound anything like PS2 F2P at this point...

T:A is based on "loadouts" the way League of Legends sells Heros. I don't have a problem with it really, it's like when an MMO has a haloween event and suddenly everyone is wearing the same hat. It's kinda annoying, but at least it is new content. People seem to like it. Everything will go back to normal eventually, the game will be richer for the new content and it will keep players around for a bit longer.

PS2 F2P will probably be based around buying sidegrades with SC instead of with Resources, buying cosmetic items and buying xp boosters.

[Hamma]

Originally Posted by Graywolves

I really hope they do nothing like that.

I hope so as well but I believe it's probably inevitable.

Here's to hoping they use some restraint when releasing free to play items.

[CutterJohn]

Yeah, this sort of thing happened constantly in TF2 whenever they did the class updates, especially when unlocks were gotten from achievements rather than the random loot drop gizmo. I've seen 50% of the server as one class. 75% when it was time for the sniper update.

It dies down after a week or two though, so its no big deal. Its actually fun, since the massive population boost just means you jump into the counter class and go to town.

Regardless, I think it safe to say that whenever they release new content you'll see a large spike of people trying it out before settling back into their old routines. All they can do really is introduce more of it at one time, i.e. not releasing just for one class. And maybe spread it out somewhat by making it available in the store or something first.

[dsi]

TF2 style releases do not fit with a fully persistent game.

CCP doesn't release Module Packs for ships do they?

[Shogun]

i don´t see a problem here.

new content will be released and it doesn´t even matter how they release it.
it´s just impossible to include stuff for every class in every patch, to keep the balance.

yes, adding stuff for a special class may cause a temporary goldrush behaviour resulting in more players using the class with the new stuff, but that´s really no problem.
the good soldiers will actually like the situation because they will not take part in the rush for long, but will go straight for the hardcounter class instead to enjoy the masses of easy targets.

another good thing about this is, that every content patch will break boredom. a change in class population results in a change of tactics, and that´s always a good thing. it sucks, when only one tactic proofs to be effective and makes all fights the same. such situations will be broken with every class specific update.

remember this is no round based game where a shift to only one class will kill balance for the round. we can change classes at any time so it will balance out very fast.
if the air-fighters get some cool update and suddenly everybody wants to fly, i will have a blast of a time forming an aa squad.

the only thing that the devs need to avoid is releasing 1 faction stuff on its own. faction specific stuff needs to be released in equal packs for all 3 factions because a playershift to one faction is harder to counter.

[Wakken]

I thought it was stated that you will only be able to buy cosmetics like games do nowadays? League of Legends, Path of Exile, Heroes of newerth, Guild Wars 1 and 2 comes to mind?

[Gandhi]

It wouldn't be so bad except the Jackal is pretty OP right now, especially in Arena mode. There's a certain amount of business sense in releasing an OP weapon; everyone scrambles to buy it for its obvious usefulness, giving you a week or two of high sales before nerfing it down to what it should have been from the start. Please don't do this.

[noxious]

You guys are looking at this all wrong. In Team Fortress 2, back when they did the class updates, half of every server would be full of the updated class. That's bad, right? Wrong! Team Fortress 2 balance (much like PS2 balance) is a rock-paper-scissors system; when everybody plays rock, you choose paper and mow them all down like fish in a barrel. Fun times!

[Aurmanite]

Releasing single class booster packs is a great idea. It will allow us to buy only the upgrades we want. I'd much rather have the choice spend $5 on the classes I play, rather than being forced to pay $30 for all of them.

For example, why should I have to pay for a booster that includes stuff for MAX's and light assault if I only play heavy assault and medic? I'd rather have the freedom to spend less to get specifically what I want.

TF2 style releases do not fit with a fully persistent game.

Why not?

[EVILPIG]

We would all hope there is already a lot of content like this in place at launch, but this really makes me wonder if there will be a launch or a Beta that becomes live? A lot of F2P do this. Tribes is now selling items in it's Beta that you will keep when the game launches.

As for the content pack, I don't see much wrong with it. So what if it's the flavor of the week, as long as new flavors keep rolling out regularly. If anything, it keeps things changing, so ya, gives us everything at once, but if it comes out in phases, no biggie.

What we really want is more content that doesn't skew balance for $$$. Let's see how it goes.