Announce post #2967: June Promotion!

Autoposter

<pre>6/2/2019 at 20:24
Tiur, the Gnosis
Everyone
June Promotion!

This month has a theme!

The theme for the month is: Elements

The reason or the theme is: Mages like elements, right?

For sale on the website we have a new item: elemental coffers!

https://www.aetolia.com/credits/

Inside you will find a variety of relic pieces, bound credits, artifacts, etc... all following the element of the coffer itself. Each coffer you purchase has no element chosen at first, but each time you SHAKE it, it changes. You have 3 shakes per coffer, then you're stuck with the element you got. If you open it without an element, it will default to fire, because you are clearly the kind of person who likes to watch the world burn.

Because these are set to the Wheel odds, you will find that most contain something like 30 credits in prizes. With relics, that means 5ish pieces, though some are worth more.

Current elements: Fire, Earth, Air, Water.

Where are Shadow and Spirit? Well, I have to do a refresh, don't I?

Fire
----
fire_shield
flair_fire
embers chrysalis
fiery wolf pup minipet
convective vox
fire phylactery - NEW!
everburning torch - NEW!

Water
-----
water_shield
flair_water
steam chrysalis
miniature snow wight minipet
cooling vox
water phylactery - NEW!
everfull waterskin - NEW!

Air
---
air_shield
flair_air
afterimage chrysalis
miniaturized twister minipet
aerodynamic vox
air phylactery - NEW!

Earth
-----
earth_shield
flair_earth
stone statue chrysalis
tiny pet rock minipet
blaring vox
earth phylactery - NEW!



All
---
bound credits 5 to 600
elemental globes!
morphic metal
antiquated salvage (odds are something like 1.2%)




Everburning Torch
-----------------
1x a yellowed femur bone
1x a roll of strange leather
2x a flask of reddish oil

This acts as a Torch of the Underhalls, but it never goes out! It fades like a traditional torch every 3 hours, but you can simply LIGHT it again. Also, it's a fire source... which shouldn't need to be said.


Everfull Waterskin
------------------
1x a threaded stopper
1x a leather strap
2x half a leather bladder

An endless source of fresh water, you may also use the FLOOD command with it and waste tons of endless water. It does stopper itself if you drop it, though, so you can't flood the world. And unlike those flagons, this really is endless, not just really really full. When Tiur makes things, he breaks the universe, thanks.

-T

PS. Yes there were two more themed relics, but they weren't good enough, so I just dropped them rather than making a lame prize. That technically means Earth and Air have higher chances for other prizes, including salvage, but not only by 1% or so.

Please send comments if you like/dislike these! They're higher value than chests default to, so it's SUPER hard to balance them.

Penned by my hand on Quensday, the 17th of Variach, in the year 481 MA.</pre>

Iesid

Some public feedback, after mulling it over for a night or so:

I'm not a huge fan of lootbox promotions back to back like this, but I also haven't measured the relative value of any given element, etc yet.

Can I just buy chests and trade them flat out for salvage? I've been aching for a salvage promo for months upon months now. I appreciate the time you guys put into promotions, but I am super tired of spending x amount of dollars and getting cosmetic relics everyone has, chocolates nobody needs that I can't store, minipets I don't want, etc..

When I spend my money on Aetolia, I'd like to get something back that feels more lasting than some consumables (especially commodities, here's looking at you cryptic chests and bags...) and things that don't actually have any weight on character power.

Phoenecia

As someone who plays a lot of other games that love lootbox/blind box/gachapon promos, and having bought blind box stuff IRL (mainly Re-ment figures and the like), I can say what draws me in and makes me want to buy and what makes me decide to take a pass.

Multiple themed boxes? Those are good. Allows a spread of prize variation, and people can choose the prize pool they want. The problem is the actual prize pool. Relics and cosmetic stuff is nice and neat, and people will often pay for stuff like that, but to a point. Eventually you get stuck rolling the dice over and over trying to get that ONE piece you want, but can never seem to get. Creating gambling addictions is...not a good thing.

So what makes me instabuy lootboxes? Everyone loves a sure thing. The Re-ment things I mentioned? They're often released as themed sets of 6-10. You can buy 1 box and get a random piece, or you can buy the carton of 6-10 and get the full set guaranteed. If I like the set? I buy the carton every time. Seriously. When the perfumery god oils were available? I'd have killed to have been able to have a randomized god oil set I could buy.

Also, making some promo things available for purchase through credits? It'd help with a lot of currency bloat.

Tiur

I will bring up your opinions about back to back lootboxes to IRE in our meeting later in the week! Part of it is my fault, see, I needed something on the scale of the wheel... and while these are boxes of loot, they are also the Wheel. Sorta.

The problem is that, while everyone says they like the direct buy sales, they are our worst performing ones. No lie! I do try to take everyone's comments in mind, and adjust the sales, but I don't get a lot of traction on those.

Corlin

What are the various elemental shields? Are they analogous to the artifact resist shields, or are they purely a cosmetic?

Kalinaar

The direct buy 'would' be preferable in my opinion but the reason I don't spend money on those either is because the cost is still just too high. There have been a couple of times I would have loved to buy the crown or hood but... that's just too many work hours I'd have to put in to purchase a small line of text. When you think about it in the context of hours the average person has to work to buy an item in a game it does seem kinda ridiculous. 

I've always thought IRE would do far better by lowering prices a good amount and spending more time creating new artifacts/relics to keep us interested. Just my opinion. 

Iesid

Corlin said:

What are the various elemental shields? Are they analogous to the artifact resist shields, or are they purely a cosmetic?

They're purely cosmetic and change your message for TOUCH SHIELD.

Tiur said:

I will bring up your opinions about back to back lootboxes to IRE in our meeting later in the week! Part of it is my fault, see, I needed something on the scale of the wheel... and while these are boxes of loot, they are also the Wheel. Sorta.

The problem is that, while everyone says they like the direct buy sales, they are our worst performing ones. No lie! I do try to take everyone's comments in mind, and adjust the sales, but I don't get a lot of traction on those.

I understand, but often times, I feel like I've just bought credits 'anyways'. When you look at it from that perspective, I'd be fine buying into direct buy promotions because I'd get those credits that I ultimately got off of chests... in addition to, say, the salvage you attach to every 100cr or whatever. I did not do well with chests, so I'm very averse to trying them again for a second month in a row - some might call that salt, but there's just nothing in these chests I reasonably want. A 1.5%-ish chance to get salvage is not really worth buying into the price for x amount of chests. If I could 'set' a prize I want, and I get increasing chances of opening it for every chest I open that didn't contain it, perhaps I'd feel less skittish about buying into more lootboxes.

If you sold some 'greatest hits' chests instead, or made these 'greatest hits', I'd be buying in... but that would necessitate you guys giving a little more value than I think IRE is reasonably comfortable with. I'm looking for a chest promo that tanks the price of assembly for the most famous relics - i.e starcharts, hunter's tools, bracers - so that more people have access to them and we can stop facing scarcity as a balancing point for the way they integrate into their respective places.

Just my 2c.

Justus

Give me lesson sales/artifact direct sales/Lootboxes with a chance of like a 3000 credit payout.