Changes towards voting and costs

[D4wdl]

Problems:

If you have a lot of pets and stores and everything expires you're left needing 2,250 maplepoints to get your pet alive (1,500) and pet equip (750) back online. (god forbid if you use up to 3 pets for looting and they die around the same time)

If your store also dies in the same timeframe, add 75-900 to that depending on what you usually use, were now looking for up to 3,000+ of voting needed. That's over a week, 7 days.

 

Solutions:

Make voting be 500 per day so we can have more leftovers to use

Make voting scale with how many times you voted up to a new ceiling, i.e: I voted for 3 months (in quantity of days) I now get 450 per vote, 6 months 500, 1 year 550. etc.

Leave voting unchanged but lower the revive pet options / pet equips by let's say 30%.

 

 

[G M E R C]

I am inclined to agree with this. Not having spoken to staff and being a relative newcomer, I can't be sure that this is the intention, but I believe the thought process is probably something along the lines of NX being scarce enough that every single person doesn't vote for a week and have a modern, cash shopped outfit they wear until the end of time, leading to voting for NX being less valued, Phoenix dropping down the topsite list, and the eyes on the server dwindling.

The reality, however, is that I think some of the scarcity creates "quit moments" for new, less patient players... especially some who might do the Amoria Hair Salon quest, get a hideous haircut, then realize they will need to vote for NX for two whole weeks before they can un-ruin their character's appearance, much less begin saving for a basic pet to ease up on their Z key (which, as you stated in your original post, is itself setting yourself up for an NX tax down the line on top of any other expiring cosmetics they have any interest in). Yes, I understand valuing delayed gratification, but an already low population server with an admittedly niche appeal of genuine low rates doesn't need to lose players that could get invested in being here to things that are this avoidable and admittedly trivial.

It's fine, good even to not want every person in the universe to look like an NX whale, but I think it would do a lot to keep people from seeking "greener pastures" to have some elements of character personalization, especially hair and face options, be more readily available. Consider, if you will, if a player could afford to get a new hairstyle off of a single vote's maple points. Then, the next day, they can change their hair color. The day after that, their face. Then their eye color. That's four votes across four days of playing, four days of, presumably, developing minor investment in being here. Each of those votes for the server will have resulted in a tangible improvement to their character day after day, and the fact that it isn't this huge investment means they're freer to make further changes to their character to better express themselves as their vision of their character changes. 

It might be for the better if a lot of cash shop items and upgrades (like the inventory expansions) were cheaper, the way it was likely seen as a totally obvious decision to reduce the prices of setting up and running FM shops. Adding on to your feelings on this, I think another solution to this perceived problem of unaffordability and weeks of fruitless voting could be to simply not have cosmetics and pets expire in the first place. Like, if the point is for these to be significant weighty investments rather than cosmetics you splurge on it would probably be best if they didn't disappear a month or three after you can finally afford anything.

Minor addendum, though I may make a thread of my own for this sort of thing. I think a new player with certain expectations might run screaming the moment they don't see pet function-equips in the cash shop because it just plain is not an obvious conclusion that these items are for sale organically within the game world. I think with a, let's say quiet playerbase, more needs to be done to inform the player of such changes so they aren't just completely lost on their own.

[D4wdl]

Some good info in the reply, albeit lengthy. I do agree with some things you said there.

Edited July 7, 2022 by D4wdl

[Arnah]

On 7/6/2022 at 11:31 AM, G M E R C said:

it just plain is not an obvious conclusion that these items are for sale organically within the game world

Couple improvements will happen that will better direct people to the "About" / "Custom Changes" thread which explains information like this.

Will put this as approved as it is 500 MaplePoints for now.

I'd like to remind you that pet equips & > 1 pet is definitely a bonus rather than something that should be thought about in MP calculations. With 500 I'd say it takes 4 days to get back to normal, anything after that is bonus or for buying more efficient options like the 900 MP shop, which will all happen in the next few days after the first 4 without any significant harm to the user.