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Skatyna

Improve free to play players

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The suggestion is simple:

 

Slightly expand the limit a free player can progress to. The current skill 20 cap is really unacceptable for free players that came into the game..

 

Allow them to gain characteristics up to 25 and other skills up to 50. That way they can enjoy the game a lot more, could ride horses, load/unload crates, make descent bulk items, build small nice homesteads contributing a lot more to the community and be a reasonable players to a point, that they would still be an asset to have in a village. At the same time none of them would be strong accounts, none of them would produce end game items/crafts leaving all that to the premium players. Also, with average skills they could earn their share of in game silvers to spend from other players on their own premium time and such, either way, game economy runs in a way, that even they are free players, some one else ends up paying for their labour and in the end those players would still spend their assets they earn in game to the game. Also, i bet the retention rate of free players would be a lot higher than the current one, as they hit the cap in 2-3 days and their game is basically over. 

 

Edit: BTW im not a free player myself by a long shot lol, i just truly think making their cap 25/50 instead of 20 would actually benefit everyone a lot more as reality is simple - no one wants to have f2p as a villager as whats the point? cant ride, cant build, cant repair, cant do basically anything apart messing the land with 1x1 shacks and small carts.. that could all very much change for a lot better

 

Edited by Skatyna

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2 minutes ago, Skatyna said:

The suggestion is simple:

 

Slightly expand the limit a free player can progress to. The current skill 20 cap is really unacceptable for free players that came into the game..

 

Allow them to gain characteristics up to 25 and other skills up to 50. That way they can enjoy the game a lot more, could ride horses, load/unload crates, make descent bulk items, build small nice homesteads contributing a lot more to the community and be a reasonable players to a point, that they would still be an asset to have in a village. At the same time none of them would be strong accounts, none of them would produce end game items/crafts leaving all that to the premium players. Also, with average skills they could earn their share of in game silvers to spend from other players on their own premium time and such, either way, game economy runs in a way, that even they are free players, some one else ends up paying for their labour and in the end those players would still spend their assets they earn in game to the game. Also, i bet the retention rate of free players would be a lot higher than the current one, as they hit the cap in 2-3 days and their game is basically over. 

 

Sounds like an interesting idea, however I would bet that the reason mounts, hauling, etc are behind prem is to entice users to subscribe. Being able to retain the mounts and hauling after premming once is actually a pretty good deal in my opinion. That said, I'm fairly new to the game and I don't have an issue paying for a sub.

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15 minutes ago, SirMuttley said:

the reason mounts, hauling, etc are behind prem is to entice users to subscribe.

 

thats probably true, but the reality is different. the ones who can subscribe - they subscribe, as why not? you just know you get everything this way. however, there are lots of players from poor countries that simply cant afford that 10 quid a month. they try the game, get frustrated and leave. But why the game would want to boot them out? that way the prayer is lost, but its easy to keep him still playing with my suggestion of expanding the cap. such players would know they will never be nowhere near close to "as good as prem" players, but their own game content wouldnt also be capped so they would have no reason to leave. End of the day - more players in general, more revenue for the devs.

Edited by Skatyna

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You need to have premium once to skill up characteristics. Yes, there are people from poor countries that's why I have suggested letting premium players to pick one skill that would not be capped or be capped at higher level (like 50). One skill means they cannot be priests etc. but can have some profession that can bring them some joy and an income. All skills at 50 is IMHO too much. Characteristics cap is an incentive to get premium at least once. But it would be a good idea to maybe improve small cart, so it can be dragged by one animal and hold like 2 small crates, as many free players struggle with collecting resources and it makes them annoyed or even quit the game. 

Edited by Platyna
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The point of the low characteristic cap was to not have free accounts sabotaging public routes, digging up roadways, and bashing. As a free player you can still earn silver by your actions, and afford premium through your labor. 

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1 hour ago, SirMuttley said:

Sounds like an interesting idea, however I would bet that the reason mounts, hauling, etc are behind prem is to entice users to subscribe. Being able to retain the mounts and hauling after premming once is actually a pretty good deal in my opinion. That said, I'm fairly new to the game and I don't have an issue paying for a sub.

 

37 minutes ago, nygen said:

The point of the low characteristic cap was to not have free accounts sabotaging public routes, digging up roadways, and bashing. As a free player you can still earn silver by your actions, and afford premium through your labor. 

 

This and this sum it up mostly, I think. I'd be sympathetic to the idea of making Skills like Characteristics, where you can retain up to 30 after losing premium, but I think the reasons for the current restrictions are pretty obvious, particularly for completely new characters that have never invested in the game; those literally vanish forever after three months of inactivity.

 

I'm very sympathetic to the position of wanting to make non-premium accounts a more valuable asset for settlements, however; I think it might help expand the game's appeal if inviting others to join free-to-play wasn't just inviting them to be useless.

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49 minutes ago, Platyna said:

But it would be a good idea to maybe improve small cart, so it can be dragged by one animal and hold like 2 small crates, as many free players struggle with collecting resources and it makes them annoyed or even quit the game. 

 

Agreed, although without 23STR they can't put crates into a small cart -- I would suggest one crate anyway. I suppose they can ask another player to give them one-time help with that.

With the ability to hitch one cow, one bull, one dog or one ram, and ride on top with a speed between 6-9kmh (dogs 6kmh, rams 7kmh, cows 8kmh, bulls 9kmh or sum-such)

 

I think skills to 30 and characteristics to 25 would be good. It's playable just not uber.  

Have to consider however impact in PVP too.

 

Edited by Brash_Endeavors

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Most complaints seem to be around ridding a horse ..

Let stats go to 22 for free to play  ...

 

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45 minutes ago, Damascus said:

Most complaints seem to be around ridding a horse ..

Let stats go to 22 for free to play  ...

 

 

Why not just lower the requirement for riding a horse?

 

Wouldn't that solve the problem as well and avoid any other potential problems?

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1 hour ago, Brash_Endeavors said:

 

Agreed, although without 23STR they can't put crates into a small cart -- I would suggest one crate anyway. I suppose they can ask another player to give them one-time help with that.

With the ability to hitch one cow, one bull, one dog or one ram, and ride on top with a speed between 6-9kmh (dogs 6kmh, rams 7kmh, cows 8kmh, bulls 9kmh or sum-such)

 

Yes. Small carts should be a essentially small crate with wheels. 

 

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i'd love to see a small cart hitchable with one animal and rideable.  i think it would be cute

 

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Do all this on the new servers and leave the old ones alone. We have already been through the circus and don't need to be cleaning up after everyone leaves

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31 minutes ago, validate said:

i'd love to see a small cart hitchable with one animal and rideable.  i think it would be cute

 

 

Proof that in fact it would:

 

13e7a59caaf7370050d5ef6a8682fdc6.jpg s-l400.jpg  goat-cart-small-child-wicker-cart-pre_1_

4b051405be1676992f7c5dbd9e6cd463.jpg 160760.jpg  

 

 

 

 

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While many players will disappear no matter what level of qol is provided, there are others that I'm sure are lost because the free to play option doesn't give them sufficient opportunity to experience the real wurm experience.

 

No point having a free to play option if that free to play option doesn't provide a representative experience.

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You're suggesting allowing us to do more things for free in a game where the whole point of new islands was to make people double their premium by having to make a brand new toon.

 

Probably not going to happen, just saying.

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They need a bigger population to keep the people with disposal income subscribing and putting money in, buying big deeds and prems for lots of alts.

 

If they try to stay on the idea of "only people with money to pay devs deserve to play," they will be right back to shrinking populations and dwindling income. People love being mayors of big deeds with lots of little villagers, but when the villagers start packing up then then mayors and their deeds are not far behind.  Especially in a world economy where millions have lost jobs, homes, and we are facing the biggest economic downturn since the great depression.

 

If they want the big fish to stay, they need to keep the minnows there to keep the bigger fish happy.

 

Otherwise you end up with a fishbowl that gets stinky fast.

 

 

Edited by Brash_Endeavors
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Been saying it for years; also mentioned repeatedly that it would be a major point of contention among steam users.  Made several suggestions over the years similar to this.

 

30 is reasonable, 50 is ideal.  Or let a user pick a few skills to push up to 50 (with some omitted of course).

 

Either way, wurm's free game is far too heavily restricted to be more than a hard-mode, or demo.

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I think, if a player enjoys the game and wants to keep playing, they surely can find the 5 silvers necessary in game to buy 15 days of premium, at least once.

In those two weeks, they should be more than able to get horse riding and crate loading stats up.

 

As for other skills, 20 is plenty (hey, rhymes!)

Bulk item creation these days is 100% success, and even if you get 1ql brick, plank or nail, they're still usable.

Can create 30-ish ql armor and weapons, which means effective 50ql. Not enough for sale, but good enough for everyday use.

Digging, mining, treecutting are available, just at slower rate, but you can still do lots of terraforming.
 

Personal opinion, but free to play seems to have plenty of content already. :)

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10 hours ago, Brash_Endeavors said:

 

Agreed, although without 23STR they can't put crates into a small cart -- I would suggest one crate anyway. I suppose they can ask another player to give them one-time help with that.

With the ability to hitch one cow, one bull, one dog or one ram, and ride on top with a speed between 6-9kmh (dogs 6kmh, rams 7kmh, cows 8kmh, bulls 9kmh or sum-such)

 

I think skills to 30 and characteristics to 25 would be good. It's playable just not uber.  

Have to consider however impact in PVP too.

 

 

They can't put crates indeed, but they can befriend a person with 23 BSTR or trade something small like 10 sprouts for the loading service. That would be unfair if free accounts could load without 23 BSTR and premium not, also other players can be nice for other people and shout to newbies if they need to have something loaded in HL like I do. 🙂 

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I would definitely agree that free players should get a bit higher caps. ( I am Premium ).
I would say to give them a good experience while making premium not "worthless" or something that is only important for end-game the Skill-cap should be raised to 30 or 35 while it gets way more complicated for the characteristics.

 

If they give free players higher caps on those, they might have to adjust the requirements to drive specific boats and such as otherwise free players would get full access to those and it would take an incentive to buy premium away. And if they increase the requirements, it may annoy current players who just got to the characteristic level that they can use their specific mount / boat. I think what they should rather do is lower the requirement for both horses and large carts to 20 instead to give free players a bit more accessibility to mounts, while still giving a reason to subscribe if you want better mounts / vehicles.

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Ah I forgot to mention that F2P players can ride cows, and can also hitch them to large carts. So a small cart pulled by a cow would be nice for them. 

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I do like the idea of expanding free to play. I think 40 seems reasonable in most skills. At that point you can push most stuff to 50 (I think) which is reasonable, but not great. 

 

As far as access to vehicles... Rowboat, small sail and corbita for ships. Small cart, Large Cart. If players can use large cart, I think riding horses should still be disallowed. Carts are fast enough to get away from mobs, and will get around the same as a solo horse would do just slower. 
 

Loading should be accessible. Restrict war machines completely? Nerf bashing hard unless on owned house. 

Characteristics should be limited to maybe 25 for never prems, and 30 for past prems. Let the skillgains be tracked to 30 (so a never prem can work their way up to 30, then prem and get the 30 immediately. Maybe even allow mind logic 30 so a free player can hit the 4 total action threshold (and just restrict embark as commander option on disallowed ships). 
 

Maybe allow 40 faith priests? Just disallow linking when not premium. That level of priest is handy, but not be too powerful. 

 

This would balance having a reasonable access to a lot of content for people to enjoy the game (providing a more active/populated world), but still incentivize those who have money to support the game with premium. 

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Im gonna say the exact same thing I was told when I complained too. No. That would in turn make quite a few people quit contrary to belief as all the time and skill gained would be a waste and the money spent on prem would as well. -1

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Honestly, while there could be some minor tweaks to free play QoL (a small crate in a small cart is a good one), this is a business, not a charity.  If someone can't afford the premium, and isn't prepared to work to earn it in-game, then they're probably never going to contribute anyway.  Making free accounts basically able to do anything apart from really high imps just means that more people won't bother with premiums - why would they?  Running the game costs money, and it's a business not a charity.  There are already freebies for people who were premium but aren't right now (higher stat cap, etc). There are plenty of routes to earn your premium in-game, if you really want to, both from other players and directly.

 

If you can't afford it, don't buy it.  That's it.  The free intro is intended to be an introduction, a try before you buy, not a chance to play the whole game before you get bored and wander off.

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