TLDR: I would like a hideout/guild base that can have usable NPC merchants.
I would just like to make a request for the future. If/When we get the LE equivalent of a hideout/home and LE guilds please consider introducing a Guild house/Base.
The specific request is, please consider allowing the players to purchase/unlock/recruit/earn contribution towards purchasing NPC’S that can allow use to save some load screen time. NPC’S such as;
Gear merchant
Beast parts merchant
Gambler
Woven echo merchant
Etc…
So I have two of many ways this could be rolled out, one involving $$$ other for non $$$ association.
The first is make the NPC’S a mtx you buy to help fund continuation of the game. Ideally 5$ or less seems reasonable to me. Personally I don’t see this as a P2W but “pay for convince”. My mindset is it’s not P2W as it does not give people a direct advantage. As it’s in my mind just there for convenience and efficiency if that matters to the purchaser. IMO convince purchases but not with an unstable advantages (you can still buy beast parts u just would need to load an additional area)
The second roll out could be either incorporating guilds and player contributions towards guild tiers and bonus. I personally like this one as it allows guilds to have a point and ideally a priority bump, and can be still be used as a social hub which I believe the devs desire for one. Or it could be hideout related to IG achievements, super simple complete in game mission to get rewards.
I personally want player guilds more than customizable hideouts, so I’ll go with that. I used to play a mmo where you could join a guild and upgrade the guild house and hangout there and find like minded people to group with. It was either ESO or GW2 I think I can’t remember, but players could donate to the guide and get items for the guild. Ideally guilds would come with some type of base/castle what players could upgrade from participating with friends or general playing. Maybe when achievements come around we could get guild achievements. Or guilds could be in faction screen with level ups that give guild features. Like a collective kills of 1million mobs for rank 1 and the first NPC. And like 100 million kills for last level and unlock. I think this way has the least amount of negative impact on solo players. The solo players could make their own guild and still get the guild bonuses, it would just take longer for them as they have less contribution contributors. Kinda like how people argue those who play more have an advantage or those who are in faction whatever has an advantage.
I’ll stop here as I forgot what Ive said. And feel like I’m rambling.
That’s something I would love to have as well. I can imagine some theme events or other decorations you can do depending upon what timeline era you choose. Maybe it changes the NPC’s there in addition to some of the main ones.
There could be guild events or other events to support co-op play, something that is sorely lacking. Boost up the speed rate bonus of golden/obsidian once it reaches the max level or something.
The only problem of having echo of a world be a hideout-like zone is that one of the main incentives is seeing other people’s hideouts and buying cool MTX you see there.
In PoE1/2 it works fine because when you trade you go to their hideout and see what other people have. Even the async trade brings you to their hideout.
But in LE you never see other people’s “hideout”. Maybe if you party play, but that’s only a small portion of the playerbase.
So you’d need to facilitate more ways of interacting with other players hideouts for this to be a successful change.
I know that your comment wasn’t at me, but that’s one of the reasons I leaned towards a guild base. I’ve previously suggested a tavern where u can meet other adventurers for group play. And it would have intractable games u could play in the tavern. If u disregard technology and lore it could be old games like centipede, or it could be more lore appropriate like axe throwing or three card Monty. Just something to do while in a party finder Que. I know the devs have talked about needing a reason for guilds besides just another way to trade with a guild bank. And the social hub where u see other players is important. So I leaned into those ideas and intertwined ideas of my own.
I requested something like this years ago bound to a guild system where guild contribuition allows to build a guild space on some of the floating debry arround the end of time. So you leave the social hubs and into a guild space that could be setup to have anything needed and arranged.
I mostly wanted this to have a guild function that matters and as a goal people can work toward to together. I think social features that are meaningfull keep people engaged more with a game but for LE it fell flet completely and I guess we never see something meaningfull sadly. Heck I think we’ll not even get something like in D4 that only comes down to another kind of a friend list.
You’re basing that on the assumption that the hideout’s primary purpose is to increase sales rather than being something nice or convenience for the player.
A Hideout is something that’s been talked about since ‘always’ basically.
EHG ignored it despite it being a prime potential monetization avenue with a massive income potential.
Don’t see them acting since years on it.
Which is a shame as they’re basically crippling their own ability by reducing their income and not providing a proper downtime area.
Personal is a must have. Guild along the way, also very important as LE lacks the social aspect even more then other games of the genre.
Yes, obviously. The HO is a place for convenience, should make visiting towns or using the faction areas plainly spoken useless, as they should be already. They’re absolute awful design anyway, wasted effort.
Access to a base spread of different layouts. Further ones to be bought is acceptable.
Depends on the quality, the size, the functionality. Given the overall lower quality of LE compared to PE currently a fitting price-range is 15-20, PoE works with I think 30-45 range if I remember right. But they had over a decade of filling it with more and more options to expand decorating it as well as increasing the functionality of it more and more together with the quality and uniqueness of those that can be bought nowadays.
I may be out of touch but for me that would be too much to justify purchasing it, that’s without consideration of if I’m broke or not.
For me personally strictly visual changes on player is 1-2$ for an armour skin, and like 2-4 for a skill mtx. 5$ top for anything just visual with not real function/advantage/content. If it provides an advantage/or a convenience function 10$ top. As for content with a cost id have to base it off the amount of content provided and the value of gaining said content, but anything priced over the full game price better be massive like basically a new game if a dlc cost more then the full game. This is all with a mindset of individual item purchase not bundles and my own personal value of digital content.
Since then server costs have substantially risen because of parts being ridiculously priced as well as energy costs.
Given the quality of the product 15-20 is a moderate to low price actually.
At best EHG can get away with 10-15.
Anything below will have detrimental results and lead to a loss, it is unsustainable sadly.
The major issue with those prices in LE is that unlike other games of the genre (prime example PoE once again because they do it right in that regard) is that their supporter packs are not proper ‘supporter packs’ at all. Those packs commonly are paid for via the acquisition of points at a 1 to 1 ratio and the MTX is a bonus on top.
This is not the case in LE.
In the case of a decent content inside those supporter packs that is substantial and warrants buying them without any points at all this still leads to people having those then leftover.
This is a marketing trick which is actually a fair one and win-win.
The customer gets more results for their money.
The company gets a very easy method to crumble the inhibition for spending and eroding it further for repeat-buyers. It is a known fact in sales-psychology that with the initial spending for vanity the inhibition substantially decreases, and also the inhibition decreases further with every extra buy. You hence buy the pack providing the initial buy-in and the points achieved through that causing the follow-up reduction against spending more.
This is how companies nowadays manage to not get major flak for their price-points despite them being steep. And it is also the only known methodology outside of the subscription model which has shown a repeatable success-rate instead of being one-time miracles for absolute outliers.
