Here's how Trion "fix's" defiance.

[RoG Goat]

Ill quit posting when you quit trolling, but then again trolls never stop trolling so I guess I'll never be able to stop posting about the dumb *** comments you make.

Didn't you just call yourself a troll?

[FluffyCinnamuffin]

So since I'm a troll and this post "won" the forum I'll address it for ya. The micro transactions I have never said you have to buy, I said that they way they are nerfing **** is trying to make players buy them. I never once said you couldn't get them other ways in the game. I said they were nerfing key's to encourage people to buy their items. This is a joke people have opened the box's and seen the horrendous drop rates in them. Since you are a marketing professional an all I pose this question to you. Why would you nerf keys after everyone has begun to open the box's and seen the ****ty items in them? That's not good marketing or strategy at all. If your going to Nerf the way's players can get these box's why not make what's in them better? A tier 4 box costs 400 bits, now that's around 5 dollars. Say I buy the tier 4 box the horrible loot rates give's mostly green's. So Trion want's me to spend 5 dollars a T4 box so that I can get 4 green's(most items I found are green) worth 1k scrip or 2k ark salvage.... Is this really worth 5 dollars to anyone to do even once? If they want to push us to pay them for lockbox's isn't the smartest way to market them increasing the loot from them, and make oranges better, and not just nerfing the game to cause a keycard shortage and encourage spending money on garbage.

It's actually quite evident they're not nerfing the keycode drop rates to force or encourage you who haven't purchased bits to buy bits. I'll say this now before I go into theorycrafting: They are trying to encourage you to PLAY the game and find weapons without lockboxes. That's the development team, not the marketing team. The marketing team is more focused right now on getting more players into the game. Possibly writing press releases, looking at numbers from show launch to see how many people saw the game's commercials (if those have come in yet), making sure 60$, 100$, and 150$ were good price points for Defiance to see if they'll reuse them on the next next game. The job the marketing team does has NOTHING to do with lock box drop rates, or keycode drop rates, or how you go about getting them. Marketing by definition is the process of communicating the value of a product or service to the consumer. They don't care about your drop rates because they're too busy making sure that you understand why when you purchase Defiance have made a good decision and got a good value.

What they could simply be trying to do is increase the work it takes to get them so that people who have the money to choose between a grind and a micro-transaction will feel similar in the end. Currently, lockboxes are so easy to get through keycodes (from my standpoint anyways) that if you choose convenience over you're left with horrible buyer's remorse. Right? Yes, Correct I know I made this mistake with my bits from the ultimate edition. If anything being done is related to marketing it's being done to encourage repeat consumers and not gain new ones. But there are other factors at work here too. Drop rates are extremely hard to get right in a game, due to the gambler's fallacy players expect that each time you buy an item the chance you'll get more of a chance (An item with a 1% drop rate of your orange weapon opened 3 times is still 1% each time.)

If they were trying to get you to buy lockboxes with bits and get you as a new customer to keep servers up they would do something a little different, 1.) They'd lower the prices for a short period of time. 2.) They'd actually advertise that you can buy bits. 3.) or They would add new products for bits that you may actually want.

Prices in the Defiance store are high, we know this, they know it. But they do it for a reason too, but I don't feel like explaining why they put them so high to start out... I expect they'll lower them permanently sometime later if the marketing director knows what they're doing.


Point is: You may be correct that they're lowering drop rates, and it may affect if you buy bits or not, but that was the development teams decision most likely. Because I seriously doubt the marketing director went to the development team and said "They're not buying enough bits, we're not making a profit. Lower keycode drop rates please." Why? because that's not how it happens. This was NOT a marketing decision, and it's actually not meant to be seen as such, marketing is an extraneous factor in the decision, as I'm 95% confident with a +/- 5% margin of error that they're not intent on "bringing in the target market" when it comes to the decision to nerf keycode drop rates because they most likely want to see you work for weapons instead of buying lockboxes all the time.

[Anim]

I get on with real life for a while and come back to see this thread still going on about nothing in particular, who cares about the key codes, it's the lockboxes themselves that are whats really fuelling the issues here.

[Kronic]

It's actually quite evident they're not nerfing the keycode drop rates to force or encourage you who haven't purchased bits to buy bits. I'll say this now before I go into theorycrafting: They are trying to encourage you to PLAY the game and find weapons without lockboxes. That's the development team, not the marketing team. The marketing team is more focused right now on getting more players into the game. Possibly writing press releases, looking at numbers from show launch to see how many people saw the game's commercials (if those have come in yet), making sure 60$, 100$, and 150$ were good price points for Defiance to see if they'll reuse them on the next next game. The job the marketing team does has NOTHING to do with lock box drop rates, or keycode drop rates, or how you go about getting them. Marketing by definition is the process of communicating the value of a product or service to the consumer. They don't care about your drop rates because they're too busy making sure that you understand why when you purchase Defiance have made a good decision and got a good value.

What they could simply be trying to do is increase the work it takes to get them so that people who have the money to choose between a grind and a micro-transaction will feel similar in the end. Currently, lockboxes are so easy to get through keycodes (from my standpoint anyways) that if you choose convenience over you're left with horrible buyer's remorse. Right? Yes, Correct I know I made this mistake with my bits from the ultimate edition. If anything being done is related to marketing it's being done to encourage repeat consumers and not gain new ones. But there are other factors at work here too. Drop rates are extremely hard to get right in a game, due to the gambler's fallacy players expect that each time you buy an item the chance you'll get more of a chance (An item with a 1% drop rate of your orange weapon opened 3 times is still 1% each time.)

If they were trying to get you to buy lockboxes with bits and get you as a new customer to keep servers up they would do something a little different, 1.) They'd lower the prices for a short period of time. 2.) They'd actually advertise that you can buy bits. 3.) or They would add new products for bits that you may actually want.

Prices in the Defiance store are high, we know this, they know it. But they do it for a reason too, but I don't feel like explaining why they put them so high to start out... I expect they'll lower them permanently sometime later if the marketing director knows what they're doing.


Point is: You may be correct that they're lowering drop rates, and it may affect if you buy bits or not, but that was the development teams decision most likely. Because I seriously doubt the marketing director went to the development team and said "They're not buying enough bits, we're not making a profit. Lower keycode drop rates please." Why? because that's not how it happens. This was NOT a marketing decision, and it's actually not meant to be seen as such, marketing is an extraneous factor in the decision, as I'm 95% confident with a +/- 5% margin of error that they're not intent on "bringing in the target market" when it comes to the decision to nerf keycode drop rates because they most likely want to see you work for weapons instead of buying lockboxes all the time.

I agree with some of what you're saying, but why try and market a game that has bad in game things. Wouldn't you want to fix these things, which then in turn would make the game more marketable to people? When people hear about how Trion's micro-transactions are a rip off what will that do to the game when they market it? It's only a matter of time before people realize buying the boxes is saying here Trion have 5 dollars free. The 60, 100, 150 dollars only get's you so far and then they have to rely on the Micro-transactions, and DLC purchases. If people have bought the game and got the DLC pack there is no incentive to ever give Trion money for micro-transactions. I know the dev's are the ones who most likely are in charge of that aspect, but a company should work together to fix things, In game things affect marketing to a degree. Also some of the best marketing is word of mouth if everyone is talking about the awesome rewards they got wouldn't that encourage people to buy? I believe this is something the developers can fix that would help out the marketing department. Right now it hinders it greatly in my opinion, you can only dupe so many people into buying the bad box's with money before people stop giving you the cash. If nobody trust the box's there will be no constant flow of income coming in. Which is what MMO's need to stay alive constant cash flow, without the Micro-tansactions Defiance is a slowly sinking ship IMO. I still think they are trying to force us to buy the box's though all corporations are evil money grubbing bastards lol

[Kronic]

I said bastard's and it didn't bleep me.... weird lol

[FluffyCinnamuffin]

I agree with some of what you're saying, but why try and market a game that has bad in game things. Wouldn't you want to fix these things, which then in turn would make the game more marketable to people? When people hear about how Trion's micro-transactions are a rip off what will that do to the game when they market it? It's only a matter of time before people realize buying the boxes is saying here Trion have 5 dollars free. The 60, 100, 150 dollars only get's you so far and then they have to rely on the Micro-transactions, and DLC purchases. If people have bought the game and got the DLC pack there is no incentive to ever give Trion money for micro-transactions. I know the dev's are the ones who most likely are in charge of that aspect, but a company should work together to fix things, In game things affect marketing to a degree. Also some of the best marketing is word of mouth if everyone is talking about the awesome rewards they got wouldn't that encourage people to buy? I believe this is something the developers can fix that would help out the marketing department. Right now it hinders it greatly in my opinion, you can only dupe so many people into buying the bad box's with money before people stop giving you the cash. If nobody trust the box's there will be no constant flow of income coming in. Which is what MMO's need to stay alive constant cash flow, without the Micro-tansactions Defiance is a slowly sinking ship IMO. I still think they are trying to force us to buy the box's though all corporations are evil money grubbing bastards lol

Now you're actually thinking like a human being! Alright so, what's to say that the lockboxes are really as bad as everyone says they are? The orange, purple and blue weapons are supposed to be hard to find. Let's not forget that a lockbox purchased either available way is still a convenience item, and the fact that some games have limits on how many legendaries, epics, and rares can be owned in total on a server. Trion is actually giving you a 1UP with lockboxes even with crappy drop rates because there is no limits on how many legendaries can be on the server, the incredible rarity that a legendary is supposed to have, and the fact that many people buy then just for the greens they may get, I got my first VBI Ranger from a lockbox, and I loved it's double shots to death when it maxed XP.

Right now the micro-transactions are highly priced, but this is most likely due to the early adopters and the fact that Trion still has initial development costs to recupe. That overhead is something you have to clear out as quick as you can so that you start on your next project. (Trion currently isn't seeing any of the money from bits as profit yet most likely, development costs are high, and the game is too new with the show just airing.) If W-O-M gets out saying Trion is trying to rip you off before that overhead is gone then you'll probably see promotional sales for bits that stick around for a while, and then a complete drop in price once they get that initial overhead gone. The other issue is, W-O-M talking about awesome rewards may encourage a person to buy once, not get anything and never buy again. Trion wouldn't want this because losing a consumer is more costly than finding new leads... The issue with the lockbox is, fixing it to have higher drop rates is a double edged sword. Not just for the reason above, but consumers might see your W-O-M as gloating, if they change them higher and stuff becomes too IMBA then they'll have to change them back and that would cause an uproar. Trion will look at the numbers when they have enough to look at and then change the drop rates accordingly if anything. It's not just MMOs that require constant cash flow though, so don't single them out. Every product you buy, or service you use requires that same cash flow, otherwise once the development costs are remade for one product, the company goes out of business. I'll explain more if need be later, but for now I have a website that needs updating and I have to provide some decisions on it.

[Kronic]

I should have said online game cause your right it is not just MMO's, I agree and disagree with a few thing's but you did do a decent job all in all of explaining things, It's all good

[SuPeR X AnGeR]

All micro-transactions in games involve taking a risk. You can't just expect orange weapons to come from a pack bought with bits BECAUSE it was bought with bits. Think about buying 'packs' on FIFA or ME3, you know you probably won't get something good, but you do it anyway, because you think, "maybe I'll get lucky", and if you do, you automatically think you will get lucky again if you buy another one, so you do. It's how casinos make their profit, and it's how MMOs make their profit as well.

[Crunchyblack]

Ok...so let me get this straight.

Nerfing key rewards to a point where I get only a couple t3 boxes within a 3 hours play session...rather than double that amount pre-nerf = we all have to pay real money to buy keys.

This is the type of logic that makes me wish the mayans weren't wrong.

At what point does humanity get so stupid they actually circle back to getting smarter?

[PseudoCool]

Ok...so let me get this straight.

Nerfing key rewards to a point where I get only a couple t3 boxes within a 3 hours play session...rather than double that amount pre-nerf = we all have to pay real money to buy keys.

This is the type of logic that makes me wish the mayans weren't wrong.

At what point does humanity get so stupid they actually circle back to getting smarter?

Ans: Look in the mirror