Feedback ForgePlus

[Dessire]

As a person who have spent more than 16 years playing online games I will say:

- Some online games survive thanks to sell cosmetics: Path of Exile and Dead Frontier 2 and League of Legends are 3 examples of that. Innogames hasn't explore that area yet and there are more than 2 ways to get benefits from that in FoE. Believe me when I say that people can reaaaallllyyyyy spend a loooot of money to get cosmetics in games.

- Most monthly sub. games like WoW or Dofus only ask you pay about 15$ USD or less!

- Premium status or subs. normally gives you certain advantages but not enough to make free to play players get angry because that would transform the game in a pay to win game and most people hates p2w games.

- When a game gives you the change to get something for 30$ USD, normally you expect to instantly receive something that would take you months of gameplay or certain advantages to make the game more comfortable to you. in MMORPGs that could be, for example, extra space in your inventory or in your warehouse.

- As a person who lives in a country where 30$ USD is the equivalente of 7.3% of the minimum sallary, I would feel okey paying 30$ USD to receive in exchange, in FoE: no limit in the quantity of FPs I can have in the bar - no limitation in the 1 hour = 1 FP production in the bar, this means if you are away 15 hours, you should see in your bar 15 FPs at the moment of come back. - 3 premium expansions to put any building there, after 30 days, those expansions are locked and all buildings there are unavailable to use them but you can still move them to another normal expansion or put them in your inventory or delete them - A discount of the 20% or 30% at the momento of purchase the biggest package in any event to get event currency, this means, in the case of soccer event, instead of 1995 diamonds for 1200 energy drinks, you pay 1400 diamonds or 1600. or an increase of the amount of energy drinks, instead of 1200, 1440 or 1560 energy drinks for 1995 diamonds. - an item to insta level up 1 level any GBuilding and receive another one at the end of the 30 days.

 

[Thunderdome]

As a person who have spent more than 16 years playing online games I will say:

- Some online games survive thanks to sell cosmetics: Path of Exile and Dead Frontier 2 and League of Legends are 3 examples of that. Innogames hasn't explore that area yet and there are more than 2 ways to get benefits from that in FoE. Believe me when I say that people can reaaaallllyyyyy spend a loooot of money to get cosmetics in games.

- Most monthly sub. games like WoW or Dofus only ask you pay about 15$ USD or less!

- Premium status or subs. normally gives you certain advantages but not enough to make free to play players get angry because that would transform the game in a pay to win game and most people hates p2w games.

- When a game gives you the change to get something for 30$ USD, normally you expect to instantly receive something that would take you months of gameplay or certain advantages to make the game more comfortable to you. in MMORPGs that could be, for example, extra space in your inventory or in your warehouse.

- As a person who lives in a country where 30$ USD is the equivalente of 7.3% of the minimum sallary, I would feel okey paying 30$ USD to receive in exchange, in FoE: no limit in the quantity of FPs I can have in the bar - no limitation in the 1 hour = 1 FP production in the bar, this means if you are away 15 hours, you should see in your bar 15 FPs at the moment of come back. - 3 premium expansions to put any building there, after 30 days, those expansions are locked and all buildings there are unavailable to use them but you can still move them to another normal expansion or put them in your inventory or delete them - A discount of the 20% or 30% at the momento of purchase the biggest package in any event to get event currency, this means, in the case of soccer event, instead of 1995 diamonds for 1200 energy drinks, you pay 1400 diamonds or 1600. or an increase of the amount of energy drinks, instead of 1200, 1440 or 1560 energy drinks for 1995 diamonds. - an item to insta level up 1 level any GBuilding and receive another one at the end of the 30 days.

Played a few MMOs that have that warehouse/vault expansion that is available with a VIP subscription, which is a couple of bucks a month. It was on me if I wanted to get it or not (the value is there since it also offer a lot of other things that would make you stand out but not make it look like you used a cheat code to get that far up). After having lots of stuff in my inventory after so many events, I decided to get the VIP subscription for that game.

Had Inno went further beyond the box (beyond the 1k FP, the greater % of items obtained when buying with diamonds or the diamond discount at a good amount for buying stuff, along with others) at a better price than 30 dollars that would have people say "wow", I am sure they will see an influx of sales for this.

Should Inno change this to be better (not going to hold my breath on it), be ready for the influx of people that paid "too much" for something that they should have waited.

 

[Deleted User - 57457]

But in all seriousness (and after putting in my Bob Marley comment on Facebook), no smart person is going to pay $30+ a month without smoking something. Other games for their VIP services (and/or privileges) charge $4.99 to $9.99 a month.

While I don’t know myself the math behind it, my math teacher once told the class that there are formula to calculate the maximum yield for a certain product and which price would achieve the most amount of profit. Most bigger gaming platforms likely have a larger audience who would be more then willing to spend monthly $5-10 for great benefits at barely any expense of the companies behind them. While I’m sure that inno is decently large, I think they might have there reasons why they’re charging such a ridiculously large number for lacklustre benefits. Perhaps they’ve looked up to the numbers, A/B tested them and analysed with some sort of formula and the prices we see rolled out on the other side of the formula.
It’s an speculative point of view but this might be an possible reason for the pricing. Personally I have a naive and perhaps bias point of view as I’ve not studied economics and in particular did not specialise in gaming and subscription economics. So, I might be off and also what I am about to say might suffer from similar type of naivety.
Personally I would’ve created an management feature for subscribers. Which would strictly affect the main city, settlements, colonies and single-player features. Including but not exclusively: easy to use auto-collectors with various customisable options for both the AD, main city collections, colonies and settlements. Also automated resuming productions through the same feature behind the monthly paywall. Furthermore an 30% discount in the AD and an exclusive FoE+ master season card for events, providing all benefits of the regular event season card but topping it off with some extra event currency. I would personally try to get people on an annual subscription by giving 2 months for free in the annual subscription compared to the monthly subscription. Charging up most €15-20 for 30 days, not 28 (worse of the worse case month scenario). All of this would be greatly beneficial for any city as it’ll effectively be possible to manage itself for some money but not interfering with multiplayer features as that could lead to accusations of P2W.

 

[Pericles the Lion]

While I don’t know myself the math behind it, my math teacher once told the class that there are formula to calculate the maximum yield for a certain product and which price would achieve the most amount of profit.

I'm taking a walk down memory lane. I think that the principle that you refer to is one where profit is maximixed where production is set at the point where marginal revenue (amount received from the last unit sold) si equal to marginal cost (the cost of the last unit produced). Put simply, it says that a firm should produce, and sell, up to the point where the cost to produce a unit equals the selling price. In the case of ForgePlus it's not particularly relevant. For the most part, all of the costs are in the development which means that marginal cost (the cost to produce the next "unit" of ForgePlus is zero). So, in theory, INNO can charge any amount above zero and increase profits. My guess is that the developers of ForgePlus pitched the idea that selling X units of ForgePlus at Y price would achieve some company established revenue goal. Any marketing manager worthy of the title knows that unit sales are generally inversely proportional to unit price. They simply decided on this price. ForgePlus is like the Dodo, a flightless bird and, like the Dodo, soon to be extinct.

 

[mcbluefire]

If you're hypothesis is correct, @drakenridder then of course they settled on the lowest price point that they offered in the A/B/C/D/E testing. The problem is they didn't test with lower than 29.99 so their conclusion is flawed. If anyone saw anything less than 29.99 (US/Euro/etc) it would be interesting to know.

 

[Deleted User - 57457]

@Pericles the Lion yea I meant those formulas. Though slightly modified. More in a way at what price they can maximise revenue from the feature. For example:
A test group
$30 * 80x sold 30x (30 players bought 2nd month) = $72k
B test group
$15 * 130x sold * 45x 2nd month = <88k

In this example, with made up numbers, I think an additional month of testing would take place to solidify the yields. If nothing significant changes. It would be likely the price offered to group B would be the final price in this specific example. Naturally this example is entirely fictional with made up numbers to illustrate my thoughts.
This are just made up numbers over a fictional 2 months period. It stands to reason, I think, if something is behind a reasonable paywall, with enough appeal, a larger group can afford it (if the price is reasonable/cheap-ish) and will buy it (if the offer is appealing enough). Thus yielding a better result.

Bare in mind that this is speculation for what may has driven the pricing of FoE+ to such a high price. It’s possible that they had low confidence in a desirable yield from a lower pricing, as likely there are not that many paying players. I might be wrong with all of this and they maybe just really thought they’ve made an awesome deal with FoE+.
Still I feel like the holy grail of Innogame’s payed subscriptions are found in Grepolis. Where you could buy advisors, the best imo was enabling all kinds of useful shortcuts and mass orders to greatly enhance managing an overwhelming number of cities (if you guys thought dealing with 1 main city, 1 space colony, 1 settlement was challenging, you’ve likely not dealt with 30+ cities with individual armies, buildings, resources, etc). I personally think if FoE+ would’ve learned from those features the offer would’ve been much better.
@mcbluefire please bare in mind that I’m speculating in an attempt to understand the dev’s point of FoE+. It’s likely that as they’ve tested indeed with 30 as the lowest price, likely yielding the best results, despite the poor offer. I’m also curious if they would be making an special second A/B test. Offering 1 group the old price of $30 and the the other a “special” offering of $15-20. Letting the test run for 3 months or so and looking what would happen.
I think the concept of a subscription is decent but like many other features it suffers from lacklustre execution. If some suggested enhancements that was brought up, a reasonable price and appealing offer… oh well who am I kidding, they’re overwhelmed by suggestions and ideas all the time. Leaving no time to look into good intended feedback to improve even paywalls’ offers.

 

[Deleted User - 241425]

The "benefits" conferred by forgeplus not being rewarding for advanced players, so much the better that Inno did not know how to do its market research.
Anyway, it will take them a few months to see new subscribers (whether constant or growing) and mainly renewals for those who have succumbed.

Do you think the developers decided the price?
Already they don't know anything about their game, if in addition they take care of the merchandising, they should no longer leave them time to play ping-pong in the relaxation room.

The day when Innogames will be able to forget its ego to listen to its regular customers, it's a safe bet that it will boost the game enormously and therefore the cash flow. Even the forum no longer seems to fascinate forumers with the legendary "transparency" of Innogames.

 

[Atokirina]

On the NL servers, we currently have the following 2 offers (A/B-test ~ you get one of the 2):

€29.99​	• Increased Forge Points Storage • Collect All for Free • Town Hall Boosts • Reward Delivery • Exclusive Timer • Refresh The Shop • Emissary Double Production • New Avatar Frame
€49.99​	• Increased Forge Points Storage • Collect All for Free • Recruitment Boost • Town Hall Boosts • Reward Delivery • Exclusive Timer • Refresh The Shop • Emissary Double Production • New Avatar Frame

A few weeks ago there was a €79.99 offer, I'm wondering if it has the same content as the current €49.99 offer.

Should the Forge Plus announcement be seen as false advertising? The pictures of the rewards clearly show the recruitment Boost. And nowhere are 2 different types of offers mentioned where one does not have the recruitment boost. They also currently have the exact same name: "Counselor Package".
I never knew there were 2 different offers (with different rewards). I thought there was just 1 offer with different pricings as A/B-test.

Spoiler: Screenshot announcement

 

[kleopatra911]

there's a hidden (? could not find any doc about it) restriction to the increased fp storage: "buying" fp > 10 is excluded and still stops at 10 - where "buying" means adding fp from the buying window, either by paying coins/dias or using fp packages (see https://forum.beta.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/foe-plus-cant-load-fp-bar-10.17098/ ) So the advantage is not available in quests when having to buy > 10fp nor when trading with friends/neighbors

Adding packages from the inventory is working though (note to self: try > 100) - yet another inconsistency in the game.. and at least bordering on deceit of paying customers if really undocumented

 

[Fury the Avenger]

there's a hidden (? could not find any doc about it) restriction to the increased fp storage: "buying" fp > 10 is excluded and still stops at 10 - where "buying" means adding fp from the buying window, either by paying coins/dias or using fp packages (see https://forum.beta.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/foe-plus-cant-load-fp-bar-10.17098/ ) So the advantage is not available in quests when having to buy > 10fp nor when trading with friends/neighbors

Adding packages from the inventory is working though (note to self: try > 100) - yet another inconsistency in the game.. and at least bordering on deceit of paying customers if really undocumented

Adding fp using the inventory package is NOT classified by the game as buying fp. It doesn't fulfill buy x fp quests!

"Buy fp" refer only to the option using coin (or diamonds).

The 10 fp limit is on buy not add!
Add fp has a limit of 100 fp or 1000 fp with the plus.

 

[Fenix]

Because of the event I gained the possibility to test this. This thing should serve to make life easier for players, but no, it manages to make life difficult for them. I used recurring missions a lot. One of them requires you to collect 8 incidents. I normally use full collection by paying the 5 diamonds. Now, in total collection, I don't pay, but in compensation this thing collects everything, incidents and daily productions. In short: I am experiencing serious difficulties in completing the requirements of this mission. It's not bad programming, it's bad management and a very poor knowledge of actually playing the game they program.

 

[kleopatra911]

Adding fp using the inventory package is NOT classified by the game as buying fp. It doesn't fulfill buy x fp quests!

true and good point! Though adding packages while trading counts as buying - with the 10fp limit.

Anyway, my point here is that it's highly unexpected (to me at least) that foe-plus' additional "storage of fp in the bar" doesn't apply to buying at all: I would expect that storing = increasing the amount of fp by any means (add, buy, collect, whatever..).

Aside: astonished that none of the buyers ever mentioned it - too few? didn't notice? don't care?

 

[Fury the Avenger]

true and good point! Though adding packages while trading counts as buying - with the 10fp limit.

Anyway, my point here is that it's highly unexpected (to me at least) that foe-plus' additional "storage of fp in the bar" doesn't apply to buying at all: I would expect that storing = increasing the amount of fp by any means (add, buy, collect, whatever..).

Aside: astonished that none of the buyers ever mentioned it - too few? didn't notice? don't care?

Didn't expect it like you?
After all the limit that is stated is the 100 to 1000. That 100 was never associated with buying fp, so player maybe didn't expect plus to affect buying fp at all.

 

[kleopatra911]

Didn't expect it like you?

that would be the "whatever" in my enumeration and perfectly possible

After all the limit that is stated is the 100 to 1000.

where exactly is that stated?

 

[Fury the Avenger]

that would be the "whatever" in my enumeration and perfectly possible


where exactly is that stated?

From inventory: Increase Forge Point Storage.

I think the announcement had the actual fp value, but I have no idea where it is. It might also say it when you buy it, but I never did

 

[Emberguard]

where exactly is that stated?

When buying it

 

[CrashBoom]

but technically that is not correct
the bar stores more than 1000 FP

correct would be:
you can collect FP up to 999

with 999 I can collect one more time no matter how much

 

[kleopatra911]

thanks for the screenshots - but they don't state the starting point and don't mention that storing-by- buying is excluded

 

[Fenix]

If they intended to encourage the acquisition of this aberration when they offered this at the event, they failed me dismally. The laziness they demonstrated in not creating 2 buttons, one for merchandise and the other just for incidents says a lot. And obviously, I mainly see what hinders me in the game and I can't see advantages in the rest. Even 48 hours at the merchant... it stops being interesting when the rival or some event missions appear.

 

[planetofthehumans2]

Theres nothing in game that warrants a price tag of 30$/mo. Nothing. Even getting a free event building every month wouldn't be enough. For the pittance upgrades you do get are hardly even worth a netflix subscription.

This game has gone a long ways since it was first made, we should be able to collect normally to 1000 because my city produces 3000FP a day, even 1000 is still a stubborn reminder. If you put in multiple "buy 10+FP" tasks, you are knowingly annoying the player because 1) they cant buy that amount if they have ANY fp in the bar, 2) they have to dump increments of 10FP every time to buy more FP. So why is there no solution? It's just punishing the players and inno doesn't care or even want to do so to spite us.