I don’t have much else to say about it. The incentives are insultingly low. I guess that’s not exactly the point, but really it is. If I had 10 people right now that I knew would get on and level to 50 it still wouldn’t really be worth my time. It wouldn’t be worth most people’s time. If FC really wants people to use this then it’s going to have to be better than that… Seriously, anybody who has a friend they thought would play and that they wanted to play with has already been invited to the game through word of mouth already. At this point, you’re hoping we reach out to people we don’t think would play or people we don’t know very well. Acquaintances, coworkers, etc. Yea, I don’t even think I can manage a yawn at the “rewards” list.
I bet if FC put in a couple of months of Patron scattered through that list or a small handful of Aurum they’d get a ton more return on this.
This is the trend continuing since they released the agent system with the idea that 150 XP distillates could be any good. Or a better example in this situation: 1200 XP distillates coming from the hardest agent missions of the game right now. I can just notice there’s a big problem when i consider that the resource cost of a purple mission that doesn’t grant me a purple agent gear bag but just distillates isn’t worth running because of how low the distillates are.
I think the aim is for you to refer your friends, not provide you with one weird trick for bypassing the game’s paid elements.
Besides which, elementary chaos theory tells us that in the parallel universe where the rewards for referring friends are aurum and patron, the forums are full of complaints about how this discriminates against people with no friends.
Yeah, as much as I love Funcom if I should go through the trouble of bugging friends and strangers giving out rewards that I have use for would be nice.
I mean…I don’t need shards and those destillates are a drop in the bucket mostly not giving me even one gearlevel, and those cache keys are value 30k mof and 60k mof respectively…nothing you couldn’T farm in a few days of daily challenges and amounts of mof I have, just don’t care spending since I have what I want from caches.
Only thing I care about minimally is the vampire glamour. A cosmetic I probably will never wear but as a hoarder still would love to go after but a lot of people aren’t that much into cosmetics.
-It’s better than nothing
-The ‘They Get’ line seems to be okay-ish
-The ‘You Get’ being shards seems typical FunCom “we’re clueless about what our players actually need”
-For “Free” accounts, the “Rewards per 1, 2…10” seems not too bad.
What is missing here is a bonus reward for referring accounts that become Patron. That is the actual end goal of new accounts anyway.
If “They Get” included a cool outfit and/or weapon skin, unique to referred accounts that become Patron, that would be a nice incentive and also a way to make a visual statement.
If each referral you sent that becomes Patron added say 500 Aurum to your account, with the 2nd adding a copy of the ‘They Get’ outfit/skin, the 5th adding a ‘Recruiter’ outfit/skin, and the 10th adding an ‘Overlord’ Outfit/Skin, then they might actually see something like a recruiting drive focused on paying members.
Usually i’m not so much of a pessimitic person, but :
I’m myself surprised to disagree with this. For once, i think actually doing nothing would have been better, as now, we know how they spent the 2 last months’ resources besides developing the anniversary event. And that’s not pleasant.
When I recommend an online game to a friend, I do it because I think the game would be better enjoyed playing together. Two of my friends play other (and frankly better) online games and I’m not going to make them go through the story to end up in an end-game situation where there’s barely anything for us to do as a group. No amount of rewards is going to change that.
There’s various studies across a multitude of industries having pointed to “a little is always better than nothing” being a spectacular falsehood.
In fact, I recall that there was a study in 2015 showing customers vastly prefer just a thank you to the perceived undervaluation of a five cent gift. The AMA pushed that particular study to media specifically mentioning that the study explains why Xbox users reacted poorly to 25 cent gifts from Microsoft. (Seriously, what can you even buy for 25 cents in the Xbox store?)
This thread and the lack of “these are awesome” reactions suggest actual marketing science predicts consumer response much better than whatever crystal ball Funcom is using
I didn’t know SWL had an RAF program (taking secret world to another level!). Considering it is a F2P and you could technically refer yourself to receive the rewards they aren’t horrid. But what a lot of work to get an outfit! If bots want to do that much work for shards, let them!
Would I refer any friends for this, no. Besides the fact this should have been available at launch – when we WOULD refer friends, but how many people that have been playing for a year need shards? AP/SP? As for the gear XP, well at this point that would be a drop in the mythic/legendary bucket for most people. The game is already so alt-unfriendly, why would I refer a friend to play now, and I’d have to level/gear up another character. This isn’t TSW.
I guess once again they’re after the elusive ‘new’ player without thinking how to get the people that ALREADY love the game involved. I mean, if you were new (are people still finding this game?), then leveling with someone might be nice, but that about as effusive praise as I can give.
Considering the RAF on most MMOs are worthwhile – SWTOR a F2P is pretty generous, so I always check with friends, so they can get ‘stuff’, before I do my annual re-sub to catch up on the story.
What’s really surprising is I would think getting people to become a Patron would be the goal. That’s not even mentioned! I mean if they had a get a friend to Patron up and we’ll give a spiffy new outfit or a pet as a reward and/or if they Patron for three months, you’d get a free month (or MoF/aurum if you a vet), something to make it worthwhile.
As it stands I’d rather have the ‘free anima jumps’ than the shard rewards if I was a F2P player, or tease them with using the bank like Patrons. A blue set of gear at the end of a zone. Something other than this.
Because completing Solomon Island is such a trivial task and can be done in a single afternoon on ten accounts. Is it easy? Yea. Is it quick? No. Will someone do it? Probably. Will any substantial number of people do it? The chances that most people would even consider it is remote. The implication that more than a couple of fringe nolifers will do it is almost a joke itself. You could probably get some max level friends to drag your accounts through a little faster, but that just scrapes the bottom of that particular barrel of patheticness.
Most games with a RAF program offer substantially better incentives. A lot of them give 1:1 subscription time. Each friend equaling one month of sub time. I have a lifetime Patron. I don’t care about sub time, so I’m not trying to line my own pockets with this suggestion. It’s to try to give the program (and therefore the game) an actual chance at accomplishing its goal.
My idea for the reward tiers would be something like scattering three 500 Aurum rewards in there with two separate months of Patron. The lower and in-between tiers would be some mix of shards, cache keys, maybe some MoF, and I guess AP/SP for people who need it. Then, in addition to what’s here you’d have an additional reward whereby if your referred friend pays for even one month Patron, you get a month of Patron as a one-time offer.
Oh yes I missed that part. I retract my statement. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Well unless there’s achievements linked to it. Then as @darxide mentioned I might chip away at 10 characters over time.
I get that there was probably a lot of time spent in determining the reward tiers, which means it is probably set and no chance of changing now (would basically have to change before launch or reward retroactively), but…
I have to say I agree the rewards for the referrer especially make little sense. I get shards for early levels, though it is a separate concern that the reason it is a “safe” reward is that they are not particularly desirable/needed after a relatively early point. But I don’t see why rewards don’t get better (instead of more of the same) at around level 40-50 for your friend (or “friend” or whatever). If the stuff you earn can be account bound (things like distillates, just much larger or more distillates), then it isn’t like it’s something you can turn around and farm to sell them.
I get that concern with cache keys, but maybe limit the number of times you can earn those, so you can’t farm 100 of them or whatever. Since so much stuff is character bound anyway it seems like they have more options to give things that wouldn’t be easily abused.
I also really agree that it would make sense to, first, give a month of patron to the referred friend (maybe at a certain threshold) to give them a taste of it to encourage them to buy it… maybe the technical aspect of doing this is very difficult, since otherwise it seems like a fairly “typical” marketing strategy. And then like was brought up before, have some amount of months of patron for the referrer as a possible reward, even if it isn’t one much for each friend. Since there is no aurum stipend for patron, the only thing you get that can really go back into the market to make marks on is cache rewards. And I say this as someone who would have no use for patron rewards.
Also, no titles? People like cosmetics, and that wouldn’t require new model and texture assets. Seems like there are opportunity for fun* ones, Recruiter, Friend of the Family, etc…
