AC not selling as well as before?

[Cyber Meteor]

Well, they basically designed EP4 for new players : Summoner was advertised as a beginner class, last live broadcast was about some new mechanics for new players, it appeared to be those "New Age" weapons and that Data Collection System, and skill ring leveling making sense only if you do it with a low level char since it requires to get same XP amount as going from lvl 1 to 70. So sure, veterans players will feel that new content as being pretty dull and for now the most intersting additions on EP4, imo, are story boards . I felt it would go that way when they said SU was a beginner class for some reasons, so i would wait until Summer before we start getting back to more real content addition since they can't keep it like this for too long , i mean, if things go bad (since Gathering came in, there is almost always freemium space in b22 after JP peak hours, that's like never seen before, for consecutive days i mean) they won't have many choice left to get back ppl playing (and that's implying players will be willing to get back which isn't granted)

[Maninbluejumpsuit]

That'd be nice, but unfortunately it'd mess with Sega's profits too much- two smaller pools instead of one big pool means people get what they want easier, which means less AC spent.

Less people are spending AC on scratches already than ever before. Sticking to their guns (and even exacerbating some problems) with how they're handling AC scratch clearly isn't doing their profits any favors.

And honestly, I suggest this idea from a business perspective, not as a player who wants an easier time getting their dressup on; their current system is less attractive to spend money on than it ever has been. If business is conducted with no consideration for satisfying your consumers with their purchases, and only thinking about how to part them from their yen, profits will be lost much like what's happening now.

I guess what everyone wants to know at this point is how star gems will net SEGA money, and how are they going to juice us all in the process.

[Hysteria1987]

Update your saved profiles with the rings equipped.

I've done that twice now, but that was around the time the system was implemented - unless they've fixed it more recently, they just aren't sticking. I'll try again if I log on again this arvo to see if they've made a change. They may well have, I don't know - to be perfectly honest, I don't really read what they do in the patch notes :P

[Xaeris]

There's still too much I don't know about star gems (they really phoned it in with that name), but I think their purpose is to create another indirect stimulus to drive scratch demand, just like the recycle shop. Before the recycle shop, in any given scratch, there would be items (i.e, male clothing) that sold for absolute junk. What the recycle shop did was give every item on the scratch a minimum value by guaranteeing they'd at least be able to contribute towards an Affix+20%. That minimum value was still a joke compared to what items (i.e, female clothing) that could carry their own weight sold for, but it was still better than the straight nothing a scratch could potentially draw you.

With the advent of free...ish affix+30/40s though, the recycle shop doesn't serve that purpose as well as it used to. Yeah, AC fodder is more expensive than its ever been, but the price hasn't nearly kept up with inflation. The "it" item from a scratch used to be like 5-6m while AC fodder went for...I want to say 70k. Now, it's 30m for the "it" item and AC fodder has only gone up to 200k outside of boost week.

Right, so star gems. I would say the purpose of star gems is to give a secondary reason to purchase clothing items. As it is now, we buy the clothes we like, full stop. If I'm unimpressed with school uniform #241 or Fate collab item #341974-41743b, I don't buy it. Now, attach star gems to every outfit and all of a sudden, I have a reason to buy those outfits. Not a compelling reason, because seriously, fuck those outfits, but a reason. That reason creates demand, which, in tandem with a limited supply (thanks layerwear tickets!), drives up the price. Scratch items selling for a higher price means that it's more attractive to buy scratch tickets, which is more money in Sega's pocket.

Of course, this is mostly conjecture.

[Dark Priest]

Still wish they'd just straight-up sell stuff in the shop with no randomness needed. Give people the choice, and I'm pretty fucking sure a lot of folks would rather just buy the items they want straight-up.

They can't make money that way, they want to make sure they squeeze as much cash out of you as possible by making it RNG, choosing your self will simply make it not worth it for sega, the name of the game with AC stratch: dump as much money as possible.

Why do you think gathering is so hated? you pretty much won't get anywhere without using AC or getting very luck with a fever. Cause it feels so good to get fever when you are 30/100 stamina.

Of course, I have no idea if this would provide less revenue than the small number of "whales" that spend hundreds per month on AC scratches, or if those two groups overlap in any way or fashion. But, from a consumer standpoint, having everything in that random scratch is just such an awful value proposition I'm surprised they've stuck with it for so long.

This is how the game has BEEN working, People spends hundereds per month to try and get what they want. They stuck with it this long because it worked. people dump cash to try to get items fighting the RNG, and Sega is celebrating.

[Maninbluejumpsuit]

This is how the game has BEEN working, People spends hundereds per month to try and get what they want. They stuck with it this long because it worked. people dump cash to try to get items fighting the RNG, and Sega is celebrating.

Which hints at the other possible problems: SEGA has been releasing so much crap in AC scratches that the whales won't bite/whales went to play other games.

[Quatre52]

Sometimes I wonder if PSO2 would have been more successful if the franchise was a thing in the Americas and Europe. That is, the game wasn't just simply a "niche" Japanese game where it's money comes from shitty sex-appeal outfits and people buying premium when they don't really need to. Come on now, during what points throughout this game lifetime do you feel getting prem was worth it besides shop (made irrelevant by cubes), and that time where you converted weps/units into passes (not as important thanks to 13* and red wep focus).

A bit late replying to this post, but, it WAS a thing here(I can't say so much for europe) The game sold well and kept a really good sized player base on the games that actually released here (PSO, PSO V2, PSO E1 & 2, PSO BB(tho to a bit lesser extent due to being pc exclusive) and PSU.
(Yea, I left ep3 out, as it wasn't that successful)

[Dark Priest]

Which hints at the other possible problems: SEGA has been releasing so much crap in AC scratches that the whales won't bite/whales went to play other games.

Pretty much, Altho this type of thing is subjective, most of the fashion gear is complete dog shit to look at it, it's a game and obviously it's not supposed to make sense but some crap just go overboard, Yea i would love to look like a walking motorcycle.. etc.

So yea, they are clearly just pumping random crap for cash grabbing.

but on the other hand, this game has no REAL endgame, you will notice most of "pro" players simply log on for the worthwhile EQs, sort out items, then log off till the next one, and log on for dailies. that's about it. so most aren't on enough to dump cash in the AC scratch.

[MightyHarken]

PSO2 needs more persistent content, if only they released an open world styled planet, with some player killing allowed or pvp, anything to make us feel something when playing. It's always the same shit, kill mobs mobs mobs no purpose at all. Another thing they could do is adding ultimate mode for existing planets

[Z-0]

I think the draw of PSO is the co-operative PvE instanced content, so something like the above is completely not suited for PSO. The issue is more than none of the content feels "worthwhile" to play, apart from Emergency Quests and a couple of other things, so people get bored fast since there's no purpose to playing in a lot of content.

That's the issue, not a lack of content. Game has more than enough as far as I'm concerned. They should be going back and balancing the game out instead of adding more and more things.