As a builder, I can’t tell you, how much the basar system sucks. I am not talking about pricing this time, I think I already complained enough about it in the past.
But how often do you really build a base from scratch in Conan Exiles?
Typically once for every server, you join. Or after you got wiped in PvP. Or if new members join the clan. But really not that often. Maybe if you play on a daily basis, you make one noteworthy base in 2-3 months, depending on play style. I know people that have used their base for years.
In the past, after deciding to build a new base, I would buy a DLC, come up with a fitting theme and style, and try to create something impressive from the new parts.
This time I decide I build a pueblo-style village into a niche in the mountains - want to buy the sandstone extension - DLC not available.
Okay, build it without that although pure sandstone is super boring after 3600h of playtime.
Reaching T3 I decide to build a stormglass underground cathedral - want to buy the stormglass extension - DLC not available.
Now I sit here on my max amount pile of useless Crom Coins, waiting for half a year for the parts to come back.
Everything considered I am now a customer, that spends a massive amount of money on your game, that is disappointed by the product. I was encouraged by your pricing system to buy a bigger amount of “coins” but have nothing to spend them on at the moment.
I get it, the rotation system brings players back to the game regularly because they want to … no, have to check the new items in the basar.
BUT does this really outweigh the inconvenience this brings to your customers?
After all the customers of say a plumbing company will most likely buy the most convenient toilet seat to defecate in and avoid buying a nailboard. Therefore I highly doubt, the current system is financially more beneficial for Funcom than a normal store in which you can buy anything you want. You could still rotate discounts to achieve a similar effect on player engagement.
It really doesn’t. Truth be told. I actually have no clue what is in the bazaar and haven’t unless its mentioned in the forum. And its been like this all the way through Age of Sorcery since Chapter 2.
When I played Planetside 2 it was a different story. I was checking its shop once a week. Why? Because its entire shop inventory was on display all the time and I was checking for sales.
In Conan Exiles, we don’t have sales. The marked off price you see is a bundle price. Instead of sales, they have availability. That is not the same thing. Now I don’t wish to turn this into a thread about pricing, especially since the OP specifically said not to. But I definitely don’t like this idea of not even knowing the full inventory.
How many times have people asked about a certain building set or placeable, only to get told, “Oh they have that, its just not for sale right now.”
Not for sale right now? Its a digital feature. Its on or off. With it being turned off when someone is looking for it, that’s a lost sale. Anyone who’s worked in retail will tell you, if you don’t put it on the floor, its not going to get sold.
I know there’s some weird psychological thing they’re trying to tap into, but it doesn’t work how they think. If this is an experiment, its long failed. If this is advice given by someone, it was bad advice.
Replace rotating stock with always available stock and rotate sales. The pyschological effect will be when players want something bad enough they’ll impulse buy it. And then those players who have never purchased coin will do so when they see something on sale. As Steam says, there’s a customer for every price point. Again I apologize for bringing up price points, but I’m trying to do so in the context of an alternative. Not actually making a complaint about the prices themselves. I really do hope people understand and respect the difference.
They should really just have everything in the bazaar that has been released. Far more more likely to make money by allowing people to chose from everything avaiable than this stupid game of putting things on rotation and messing with prices.
At the moment there is not a ton of things sold in the Bazaar overall so its rotation may be okay for now.
Most things for builders will be the old DLCs anyway. The bazaar items in some cases are just modifications of DLCs such as Turan DLC, Stormglass (Siptah DLC) sets. Granted, there is a (or 2 sets) Sand Stone set for the base game pieces.
I am excluding furnishings which can go with any set at this point.
Later, probably should show more but at this time, you are not truly getting a full set of anything to use for building without have the main original set, but that appears to be changing in the future. They have 2 small new sets coming out in the Age of War. I am not sure if its in the Bazaar though or part of the Battle Pass.
I can only talk about myself but I would definitely have bought about 4-5 times more from the basar if it just was available. So I wonder why a company should deny purchases.
Sir Henry Vale has a thought that is also interesting: later there will be more and more stuff in the Basar.
That means that it will take longer and longer for them to come back. Buying something specific will be virtually impossible once it went out of the shop. Yes, you could make the selection bigger with every season to compensate for that but if you can make it bigger, why not just make a full-blown store?
I agree that the player engagement part of the basar may not even work as intended, but it will definitely work less and less if the chance of getting the thing you want becomes increasingly smaller every season.
It is true that the old DLCs have the most important parts. But I played all of them a long time ago and there will be NO new DLCs so instead of a full-blown building set for all 3 months we only get a small extension to experiment with it for a higher price. And if we miss it, we have to wait for an unknown time to be able to buy it.
Especially compared to the old DLCs the new system is really annoying/expensive/inconvenient and just bad on so many dimensions.
I would give a leg for a good old 10$ DLC with a complete building set, armor, weapons, decorations, saddle, and pet skin.
The rotation is purposely designed to make you feel a sense of urgency. Buy it now before it rotates out.
That is the only purpose of it.
Now I personally wont even spend funcoms croms in the bazaar. I personally think it is all way, way over priced so have boycotted it.
Note when a 4 piece add on to a DLC cost as much as the DLC you need to rethink your pricing. But you can’t do that now can you Funcom. You locked you self in to these price points and can’t reduce them to increase sales with out alienating those that have already bought items at the inflated prices. And as such lose their patronage.
And it is the Turan Basar again, as it was 28 days ago …
Okay, I am sick and tired of it.
I have bought your Crom Coins with the promise, that new things will be added and old things will come back. You did not deliver on that promise.
Pretty sure the msg says crom coins cannot be refunded. My advice for you, buy the coins when you have something to spend them on. Funcom already got your money plus they haven’t broken any promises, the item you want will eventually come back but when …
Sorry friend, you bought crypto.
Not exactly, but close enough.
@Narelle has the truth of it, do not purchase unless you see exactly what you want.
Or want to “support the game” or such.
/End targeted response
If this one recalls and this one is old and with numerous head injuries, there were noises about the roaring inventory being a temporary feature until there were enough items to have a full store that didn’t look sad and empty.
This one hopes that day comes sooner rather than later.
I’m not naysaying or doubting you, I just don’t remember that. I do remember their excu-- I mean, their explanation for the rotation.
It was to better organize the store so it doesn’t end up cluttered, because people only pay attention to the stuff that’s “above the fold”, so they decided to rotate stuff in and out to keep it clean and uncluttered, and totally not to induce FOMO
Of course, they could always have the hottest stuff shown on the landing page when you open the Bazaar and the rest of it in their own tabs (like DLCs) or “below the fold”, and nothing would be lost, overlooked, or cluttered. But I’m sure they thought about that and they just know better and their decision totally has nothing to with inducing FOMO…
It would be nice, but I’m not holding my breath. Then again, I don’t care as much, either, because the pricing is still ridiculous for the most part.
I remember that one of the more optimistic theories about the pricing was that Funcom would eventually give some love to the long tail customers like me by putting some of the “old stuff” up for sale with reduced prices after enough time, e.g. one whole Age.
Well, the Age is close to ending, so I guess we’ll see soon enough if there’s any merit to that idea. Not holding my breath about that, either
Holding breath is for those in fear of drowning or foul miasmas
Oh, and evidently for kids taking stupid ticktok or YouTube “challenges”.
This one is very curious to see (possibly in the next Age after War) what grand endeavors the new monetization has funded. Because honestly, if we get very cool new things, this one becomes far less sodium chlorinated over the current pricing model.
Edit: Wait, did Golem Master bundle literally just move from being in one panel to being in a different one?
@LostBrythunian@Narelle To be honest, I know, that my money is gone. But what do I have left other than voicing my discontent?
Well …
I grew up being a huge Blizzard-Fan. Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft 1-3 … At one point I wanted some webspace for my birthday to make a WoW fan and clan page over a year before the original game was released in 2003. After the (edit:) real money auction house, various other scandals, and the Diablo Immoral pricing scheme, I gave up on them. I will never touch a Blizzard product again, never played Overwatch, the last 5 WoW Addons, or Diablo 4. The same is true for EA (former Bioware / Westwood) - Once I made a total conversion for Dragon Age: Origins, which was mentioned on the front pages of German gaming magazines and promoted by EA itself. I modded in a new faction into C&C Tiberian Sun and I was part of the Baldurs Gate 2 localization team. But I didn’t buy any of the newer Mass Effect, Dragon Age, or Command & Conquer games.
So all I can do, if I don’t like the development of the gaming industry, is stop buying the products. I did this with my favorite game devs and now I have to add Tencent to the list of unbuyables. Actually adding Tencent is a no-brainer, but many people still think of Funcom as its own entity. But all this Battlepass/Basar-Bullshit is Tencents influence and I really liked the original Funcom.
No Dune Awakening for me then, thank you very much.
I can sympathize. It’s kinda ass-backwards that the strategies gaming companies use to get more money out of their customers end up losing customers. These days, even if a game looks really good and interesting, but it has key content paywalled into a DLC or other weird monetization methods, I just skip it. There are more than enough games I can simply buy once and enjoy forever to bother with microtransactions and stuff.
With Conan Exiles, I’m a victim of a sunk-cost fallacy. Because I already got into the game, and have a lot of time and effort invested into it, I’ll just keep on playing and paying. (That said, I purchase only the things I know I’m going to use in game, and that are prices reasonably. Meaning, not a whole lot.)
Everything about the bazar needs to go. It’s a predatory tactic and it’s disgraceful. I don’t blame the devs for it though. They just make the game. Stuff like this comes from the money hungry big wigs at the top.
If they were to change it, reset the prices to reasonable, everyone that has bought anything to date would want a refund. Funcom has pretty well stuck their foot in concrete on this.
I skipped Diablo 4 exactly because of that. It’s a money grabber and as a game it’s not that interesting.
I can understand monetization strategies and their role, but the most abject greed completely took over the industry while giving very little in return.
We need to start voting with our wallets.
They could offer a big sale on old stuff once it’s been in the store for, say 9-12 months. Sure, there would be people complaining about how they want a refund and how they won’t spend another dime and how they’ll just wait for the price to go down, but the majority of those people won’t actually put their money where their mouth is.
Those who bought this stuff at these prices are already quite fine with spending this much money on it. They’ll want the stuff when it comes out, not a year after everyone else.
Meanwhile, people like me, who refuse to buy stuff unless it’s reasonably priced, would be quite fine with waiting. Funcom would actually end up making even more.
