[TERA PC & Console] En Masse is closing, but TERA lives on! We will continue to support TERA PC (NA) and TERA Console until service is transferred. Stay tuned for more information.
[TERA Console] The Grotto of Lost Souls update (v85) is now live! Read the patch notes here: https://bit.ly/TERACon_v85
[TERA PC] The 64-bit update (v97) is now live. Check out all the changes delivered on August 11 here: https://bit.ly/tera64_patchnotes
[TERA PC & CONSOLE] Summerfest Part 2: The Beach Bash is on from August 11 until September 1! Participate in event activities to earn tokens redeemable for costumes, consumables, mounts, and more! Details: https://bit.ly/tera_sf20
Comments
But this is basically justifying to them why they have lootboxes in the first place, though. The average person was already paying this much or more (potentially much more) to get the rare if they went the lootbox route, except they were doing it ~$1.50 at a time, so it didn't look like "a triple A game price." But probably no one would say how "over priced" it was because the true price is hidden behind RNG (they'd just complain about the RNG instead). Now that the price is out in the open, people notice how expensive rares are, but they've basically always been this expensive. I'm not trying to say the price is good at all, but be careful what you wish for. If too many people complain about the "high price," I assume they'll just go back to only having RNG boxes so "no one realizes it." At the end of the day, people who find it too expensive will still not buy it (or get it on the broker via someone else), as with the lootboxes before.
Pretty much this. It's great to have a buyout option, but people in here are so happy to finally have their feedback heard on an issue that they've jumped at the first "option" they received instead of asking themselves if it's even a good deal. For example, TeraEU has buyout options on dyeable outfits for like 20 bucks, and has done it this way for some time. These publishers all answer to Bluehole, so it's not like Gameforge just has a more lenient boss than EME or something; our publisher simply chose, for whatever reason, to charge us over double what the other regions charge. Again -- good on EME for listening to feedback. Not trying to downplay that. I'll totally give them a thumbs up for that. But at the end of the day, what they did was introduce an exorbitant price payable through non-cancerous means instead of a loot box, and some of you guys are defending this like SeanDynamite just cured your grandmother's diabetes.
I think we can say "great job, thanks for listening to feedback" on the one hand and still be like "50 dollars for a weapon skin is [filtered] insane and I'm under no obligation to purchase it just to 'show my support'" on the other. If this is some subtle attempt to hold player feedback hostage ("better buy these expensive items or else we'll stop listening to you guys and introduce more lootboxes!"), it's pretty sad, especially considering other, more successful branches have had buyout options for ages, but of course the people here will defend it passionately for hours.
edit: dude above me beat me to the gameforge stuff, lmao
Just to be clear, it's not like all items that are rare here are direct buy or cheap on EU. It's just different. Some items that are rare here are cheap there. Some items that were direct buy here were very rare there. They also have different kinds of lootboxes ("surprise boxes") too, which sometimes included temporary items in addition to permanent, among other various permutations. So if you're going to do an apples-to-apples comparison, it's not that simple.
I don't think anyone should buy to "show support." But I think people at least need to realize that this isn't an increase in price for rares or anything. It's a reflection that rares have always been really expensive in this market, and maybe some people just didn't realize it before because it was "hidden."
If you don't buy it, it's not gonna ruin your game-play. (At least is shouldn't)
However, if almost no one buys these skins, they should/could lower the price of them. That's how economically it should work. xD
So if you just boycott this price and not purchase, you might get a better price.
Pretty much this. End of the day if someone finds that price acceptable, fine. I don't though, nor am I found of the item in general, so I won't be buying it. "Find something cheaper that you like" doesn't really work when EME removed most of their shop last week, but I get your main idea.
I'd like to believe you on this, but since neither of us have the lootbox rates there's really no way to say for sure how EME arrived at their price point. The Koreans are required to publish the rates for kTera, and surprise surprise they're really small, but for all I know those values could be changed for better (lol) or worse when they arrive in North America. :shrug:
I've been pushing for them to publish the rates (and implement failure caps) forever, and will keep asking for it. But for now, I can only base it on my own cumulative experience opening boxes in this game, the data of others I know who opened many boxes who shared their success rates in-game and in various threads over the years, and the price ratio of direct-buy vs. rare on the broker after they're given time to settle properly over the years (particularly in years past when there was a bigger market for rares). I can at least say that it's a rare box indeed if the rate is more than 3%. Assuming the rate for these boxes is 3%, you'd have to open 23 boxes to have a 50% chance, and 46 boxes to have a 75% chance. So the average spend to get a lootbox rare at that rate will be around $45 to $50 (with of course some people spending way more than that, and others spending less). I strongly suspect this is why the general reaction in this thread was that the price made sense in comparison to the lootbox alternative, even though it is unquestionably high in the grand scheme of things.
(I want to be clear here that, for me too, I don't want the weapon skin enough to justify paying that price either, so will probably not buy until it goes on sale at whatever point. But just talking here about the expected price/value of a rare in this TERA market, for better or worse.)
The thing with EU is that their shop has a lot of everything. They have p2w stuff, yes. They have lootboxes akin to ours but with 7day rewards, for example their 2.0 crit mount lootboxes (one of the only lootboxes being sold atm) have 7-day crit mount rewards in them instead of some [filtered] consumable. But all in all they're pretty similar.
However. EU also has lootboxes that go for a higher price that guarantee a dyeable, rare, sought after costume. So basically you buy a lootbox and you're always guaranteed to get something nice such as this
They also have direct to buy, choose 1 from 3 offered boxes such as the picnic dress option where you can choose to buy the dyeable picnic dress, or the black picnic dress or the normal picnic dress.
In addition to that, their direct to buy dyeables are priced in a smart way. You have the nondyeable for 160 TT and dyeable for 180 TT, obviously anyone will spend a bit more to buy the dyeable.
Their shop has a lot more variety and yes, they also rotate items in it. However they do it often with a lot of items for a longer amount of time, not only 2-3 daily deals a day.
Hell I say make em $60, don't matter to me I won't be buying em.
If the price was $50 for several of the items or even a bundle like with flightsuits, then we'd be all gravy, and I haven't met many people who don't enjoy gravy. But EME is asking for $50 per single item. If you have a lot of characters (or even just, say, 3) and really like the look/feel of this item, that's a lot of dosh you're shelling out (unless, of course, you're one of those mythical creatures who's a massive nerd with a hilariously disposable income).
That said, I feel that including something like a sizeable chunk of - I dunno - Meta or Entropy emblems in the mix might soften the blow a bit. Or bring back account-bound items at reasonable prices (e.g.: standard for 2995EMP, rare/premium for 5995EMP).
Proposition: Now there is an idea: reintroduce the premium bundles like with the Steam-Powered Pack and that one thing with the Nightfall ninjagi. Keep the price the same, but throw in those weird wings and the dyeable dress with the pretty gold shoes. Hell, increase the price to 5995EMP and make keep them as single purchases if you want.
If you don't agree with these prices, then don't buy. That's the bottom line and is how economics works.
There's a gaping hole in that line of reasoning.
The nature of this particular, uh... kerfuffle being what it is, the major takeaway might be the exact opposite of what we're trying to achieve with this discussion.
People buy lootboxes instead of taking buyout option: "Welp, looks like people prefer lootboxes after all. More lootboxes!"
People take buyout option at current price: "Huh... people really will pay this much for this? This could work to our advantage..."
Video games being as volatile as they are, simply "not buying" may do (and has done) far more harm than good.
> Comparing American prices to European prices is pointless given the vastly different economies.
Ironically most video games and consoles are usually more expensive in Europe. And major eu countries have similar pricings to USA, if not even higher at times. There shouldn't be such a huge difference in cash shop prices because from my experience companies rarely pander to poor eastern eu countries. Rarely.
The chance to get the 2.0 mounts and dyeables and most of the rare itens is 0.1 % . You can check the odds in the Korea Tera > http://iteminfo.nexon.com/probability/tera?sn=478. 3% lol.