[Agent Network] Think about it, 2.50 USD to expedite one imaginary mission in a mini-game

Secret World Legends General Discussion
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Think about it : 2.50 USD (a bit more actually) for the option to accelerate one single mission a few hours… in what is a mini-game within SWL

Point : you should not monetize everything, and certainly not with those costs. In this case, not only is that boost an excessive attempt at making money, but the price is ridiculous for a mini-mini-mini boost.

I suggest you should draw for yourselves (FunCom) better ethical lines. Not making every boosts something that can be bought with real money shows some level of respect for players in my opinion. It is a bit out of proportion.

I know, I know, it is voluntary and yada yada yada.

EDIT: you can see below some ideas and suggestions.
I never thought this polite criticism would be flagged. :disappointed_relieved: That really broke my desire to play today.

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Addendum to avoid debate on useless points that might be brought up :

  • of course, it is up to the player to be wise and responsible (self discipline, etc.)
  • of course, FunCom has the right to make profit and so on…

The more interesting question is what business philosophy and design philosophy will foster more fidelity and respect from the players, which in turn will payoff ! Finding the fine balance between paying players and free players is an art and understandably hard. Some games pulled it off and I was impressed they did (Planetside 2 for example, in my opinion, among many others). Others slip out of control, and I think the example I give above is such a case.

Apart from those odd money grabs, I love TSW/SWL, its quests, etc.

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I think that over-monetization is indeed a problem in gaming today, and while a lot of games stick to purely cosmetic items, the fact that just so many things require micro-transactions bothers me. I much rather prefer a subscription model where you pay a flat rate and can work for anything you want in game without additional cost (though I am a minority there).

That said, SWL breaks that rule (even having a pseudo-subscription on top of it all), and it doesn’t really bother me. The reason is the Aurum to MoF exchange. Many games completely separate their Cash-Currency from their in game currencies. Those who do allow some form of conversion often do it in some arcane behind the scenes way where they control the rates of exchange and engineer a huge loss in both currencies along the way.

Aurum and MoF exchange is (as far as I can tell, conspiracy theories aside) completely run by players demands. The rate of exchange is flat, without Tax, so you can easily buy and sell, potentially, without loss.

I always have a bank of Aurum sitting, since MoF become fairly useless at a point (though their “value” spiked with Dossiers admittedly) and because I too am a TSW Vet, so I have 2 alts to mine for Aurum per day effectively.

Regarding the “Expedite” feature specifically…it is most definitely Not worth the Aurum to use, and considering how the system works, they should never have put it in. I used it twice so far, both times because I wanted to try and get an item and see what was inside, and it was completely wasted in my opinion:

  • Agents fatigue much faster that way
  • Even if you spend MoF to revive them, they fatigue on the next mission again anyway
  • The slot which you expedited the mission on is on cooldown now for almost as long as the mission would have been running anyway.

So you could effectively spend Aurum to speed up all of your missions, but after doing so, all your missions slots would be on cooldown, and all of your Agents would be fatigued and unable to go anywhere even if you did have missions to send them.

That is more of an issue in my opinion. Not that Aurum “can” be used for it, but that the real “cost” makes it a terrible trap which can easily Lock you out of doing more missions.

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So the obvious solution is to make a “pay X Aurum to refresh this mission slot immediately” button, right ?

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I am actually massively baffled by the lack of a ‘refresh missions’ button. For reasons outlined in this thread, I would never use what I consider a massively overpriced expedite feature; refreshing missions, on the other hand, might be tempting if I only got useless options - which includes all those lovely missions that apparently require a specific hyperultragigamegarare agent, by the way - once again.

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Edited in quote:

Actually, I think that a form of that would have been infinitely more useful, and used, than the Expedite button. Expedite has all the mentioned downsides above, but if you could refresh your mission list (excluding slots on “cooldown” instead of what you mentioned) would entice a hell of a lot more people in my opinion.

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Out of proportion eh? I’m also not really seeing how this has an ethical connection…

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The only time I think it’d be worthwhile is if you’re about to log off for the day and want to make sure you can get an agent onto another 8 hr mission. That said, the aurum costs is still too high even for that.

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Hello,

@withoutscratch I am still too much of a new player to know how bought bonuses affect PvP for example or any of the end-game dynamics. As mentioned in the discussion, folks can get Aurums with excess MoF.

My post was only using one example : the Expedite mission button for agents, during a mission in the Agent Network mini-game. You misunderstood my post, which was about how accelerating a mission timer in the Agent Network is mini-mini-mini-boost costing over 2.5$. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Thanks everyone for your inputs.

As for the question of ethics (@Pokerface) --a choice of words that is maybe too severe on my part, I believe that the way a game is designed does bring up questions of social responsibility as it affects how players can give too much money, waste time. etc. I even have a bunch of lootboxes stored away now. I really think 2.5$ for the said option is out of proportion and a wild money grab. BUT I followed-up on the more positive approach which is: fostering player fidelity or respect does pay off. Myself, I do end-up paying free-to-play games to encourage and thank the makers of the game, but too much odd money grabs and imbalance can make me react otherwise.

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I would agree if it really was a game changer to use this feature. I can’t see the need (accept what a few people have mentioned above). It’s a convenience fee like so many things in F2P games.

I would like to see a refresh missions button, but I probably wouldn’t pay aurum to do that either.

I’ll spend $$ on pets, mounts, storage, cosmetic stuff, but rarely on convenience items - to speed something up. That’s me though.

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Ok, when it was just the first couple posts I skipped this, but seeing the replies…

What’s the ask? To remove the ability to expedite missions entirely?

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  1. Maybe it would best to remove it ;
  2. Otherwise, make it cost MoF (still good for those who pay premium) ;
  3. At worst, a very small Aurum cost.

Alternate concept : a second agent is sent as reinforcements and speeds it up. :asset:

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Perhaps I have misunderstood, it sounds like the objection is more about seemingly arbitrary monetary transactions during gameplay with cost way out of line with apparent value. I can agree with that, however I would avoid reading too much into it in your example. I’m pretty sure Agent Network simply isn’t done yet so maybe the value will change… I will give it a bit more time anyway.

Another way to think about is “cost out of line with apparent value” can intentionally discourage consistent use until an exceptional situation comes along. There seems to be design decisions lately discouraging grinding and this seems like another one. :man_shrugging:

This is the first time I can think of (in SWL) that money is tied so directly to gameplay though, hopefully that trend doesn’t continue.

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Now that you mention it, I am a bit surprised there is no :aurum: cost to speed up regular mission cooldowns. I guess with no gear grind on agents, they had to throw up a pay or wait wall somewhere.