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About the economy/gift shop


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(Apologies in advance as I know this has been raised before, but it's still an issue that needs addressing)

 

I did a quick check on prices for items on the gift shop and compared them to the same items on the GTL, and the conversion seems like the following:

 

100RP = $1

100RP = 200,000 yen

 

In terms of time vs. money it seems way more efficient to buy RP with real cash, pick up a vanity and throw it on the GTL for some quick and easy yen than it does to spend countless hours rebattling gyms or making alts for berry farming. This isn't pay-to-win since it doesn't give players a PvP advantage, but donators are given a monetary advantage because they can get rich and build comp teams much faster than the average player (which in turn invalidates the effort players put into farming).

 

The gift shop is mostly cosmetics and that's fine, but giving players the ability to convert real money into in-game yen just doesn't feel right. A solution could be to make future gift shop purchases untradeable (not items that have already been purchased since that would damage player trust), but I'm aware that these 'donations' help the devs to run the game and keep the lights on.

 

I'm not an expert on the economy so any thoughts or solutions are welcome.

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Well, Donators gets advantage in every online game(mostly) and they must get, imagine if 100RP = 100,000 yen here then why they buy it. Grinding of 20 minutes will give you 100RP. Then very few ppl will buy RPs, here the economy will be affected. Everything will turn cheap. No fun of playing.

If you got money(IRL) you can do Pay-To-win. If you do not want to spend then just grind. 

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7 hours ago, baconcrispy said:

In terms of time vs. money it seems way more efficient to buy RP with real cash, pick up a vanity and throw it on the GTL for some quick and easy yen than it does to spend countless hours rebattling gyms or making alts for berry farming. This isn't pay-to-win since it doesn't give players a PvP advantage, but donators are given a monetary advantage because they can get rich and build comp teams much faster than the average player (which in turn invalidates the effort players put into farming).

 

real life money doesn't grow on trees either, the F2P players just grind for money because its easy to do the only problem about it is its time consuming

 

the game is free too so no reason to complain about the way donating to the game works

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The vanities bought with RP used to be untradable in the past.

It was a concious decision to make them tradable, it increases the revenue for the devs by having those items tradable.

Top players of tournaments / leaderboards did not invest hundreds of dollars/euros/yuan to become the best, they just are the best based on experience and skill.

Which means that eventhough Pokeyen can be bought with real money via RP, it does not make the game Pay 2 Win.

 

The money making methods in game should be sufficient to play the game to the highest level without having to resort to Gift Shop.

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3 hours ago, Quakkz said:

meh, 10 bucks give you like 2m which isnt really much in the end.

I agree it isn't much, but getting paid $10/hr from an IRL job and converting it into 2m yen is better than mindlessly farming for hours in-game to get the same amount. Farming is such a waste of time if you can just pay to bypass it entirely, which makes it unfair on players who can't afford or choose not to donate.

 

6 minutes ago, Tyrone said:

Top players of tournaments / leaderboards did not invest hundreds of dollars/euros/yuan to become the best, they just are the best based on experience and skill.

Which means that eventhough Pokeyen can be bought with real money via RP, it does not make the game Pay 2 Win.

 

8 hours ago, baconcrispy said:

This isn't pay-to-win since it doesn't give players a PvP advantage

 

I know the game isn't pay-to-win, but it's still very much pay-to-advance-faster. Of course farming isn't fun, but why bother farming when you can buy your way out of it?

 

1 hour ago, noomuch said:

the game is free too so no reason to complain about the way donating to the game works

 

1 hour ago, DaftCoolio said:

almost as if its on purpose 

 

3 hours ago, Quakkz said:

if you want to spent hundreds of dollars ingame for a game go ahead, keeps the game free for me

I get that it's like this by design, but what's the point in farming if you can pay to avoid it altogether? If people value time over money and are given the option to skip the entire farming process by paying IRL money, which option sounds more appealing? Farming is easy, but so is making a quick donation and selling items on GTL.

 

I haven't got anything against having paid donations since PokeMMO is F2P (and encourage them since the devs put years of work into the game), but being able to buy/sell gift shop items makes farming obsolete if you've got lots of IRL money to throw at the game.

 

I doubt this thread will go anywhere since donations provide a lot of income for the game, but it's hard to justify spending hours farming when there's such an easy way to avoid it.

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52 minutes ago, baconcrispy said:

I agree it isn't much, but getting paid $10/hr from an IRL job and converting it into 2m yen is better than mindlessly farming for hours in-game to get the same amount. Farming is such a waste of time if you can just pay to bypass it entirely, which makes it unfair on players who can't afford or choose not to donate.

It's really not. That in game money that donors get in exchange for RP items gets sunk out of the economy through breeding and purchasing needed items like potions. Once that is all gone they have to go through the steps again. Very few people who donate are paying into the game on the scale they would need to be paying in order to make any sort of significant difference, and even those few that are don't get a significant advantage. In the end, you aren't really bypassing anything at all. So to me it seems your issue is that some players can afford to donate large sums while you cannot. That is something that the devs cannot fix.

 

59 minutes ago, baconcrispy said:

I get that it's like this by design, but what's the point in farming if you can pay to avoid it altogether? If people value time over money and are given the option to skip the entire farming process by paying IRL money, which option sounds more appealing? Farming is easy, but so is making a quick donation and selling items on GTL.

Money in the real world is a limited commodity for each person. For the vast majority of players donating in large sums to even come remotely close to bypassing farming is not a sustainable practice. Bills, food, and other expenses are priorities. Most players do not have a lot of disposable income. At a certain point, the vast majority of players, even donors, are forced to grind in some capacity. You cannot fully bypass the system. Breeding is a grind. Berry farming is a grind. Comp and matchmaking are grinds. Taking part in official PvE events is a grind.

 

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1 hour ago, XelaKebert said:

In the end, you aren't really bypassing anything at all. So to me it seems your issue is that some players can afford to donate large sums while you cannot. That is something that the devs cannot fix.

It doesn't change the fact that players are able to bypass farming by selling gift shop items for yen and buying comps, but yes my issue is that some players can afford to do this when others cannot. The devs could fix this by making future purchases of gift shop items untradeable (like they used to be) but I know this would hurt the game's income from donations, which is why I encouraged any thoughts or solutions on the issue (maybe some alternative perks that wouldn't be directly convertible to yen).

 

1 hour ago, XelaKebert said:

At a certain point, the vast majority of players, even donors, are forced to grind in some capacity. You cannot fully bypass the system. Breeding is a grind. Berry farming is a grind. Comp and matchmaking are grinds. Taking part in official PvE events is a grind.

I agree that all players will still end up having to grind as throwing money at the game isn't a sustainable practice, but Player A with a huge disposable income will build a comp team in an hour whereas Player B could spend days getting to the same point. This doesn't hurt the economy, but it does make the effort put into farming seem a little pointless/unfair and makes the gift shop seem like an attractive pay-to-skip solution to farming.

Edited by baconcrispy
added some words
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13 minutes ago, baconcrispy said:

It doesn't change the fact that players are able to bypass farming by selling gift shop items for yen and buying comps, but yes my issue is that some players can afford to do this when others cannot. The devs could fix this by making future purchases of gift shop items untradeable (like they used to be) but I know this would hurt the game's income from donations, which is why I encouraged any thoughts or solutions on the issue (maybe some alternative perks that wouldn't be directly convertible to yen).

No they cannot fix this. If you are upset about this you'll be upset about any additional perks they introduce that are exclusive only to people who donate real money to the game. It's a vicious cycle and something that you have to resolve within yourself. The devs are not responsible for your feelings.

 

22 minutes ago, baconcrispy said:

I agree that all players will still end up having to grind as throwing money at the game isn't a sustainable practice, but Player A with a huge disposable income will build a comp team in an hour whereas Player B could spend days getting to the same point. This doesn't hurt the economy, but it does make the effort put into farming seem a little pointless/unfair and makes the gift shop seem like an attractive pay-to-skip solution to farming.

One hour to build a team is a gross underestimate of what goes into breeding a single comp. A player who wants to breed a comp will either need to spend a premium amount on the GTL to get what they need or farm up a large number of compatible species that meet the criteria they need to breed. Once they have the breeders they then need to pair them up to optimize the path to their desired result. Along with that comes purchasing the items required to get the desired ivs, nature, and ability. On top of that you aren't even factoring in gender selection, which also costs money. I've probably missed a few things that I'm sure someone more versed in comp breeding and team building will fill in.

 

This leads me to the larger question. How many comp players breed and build their own teams?

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1 hour ago, XelaKebert said:

No they cannot fix this. If you are upset about this you'll be upset about any additional perks they introduce that are exclusive only to people who donate real money to the game. It's a vicious cycle and something that you have to resolve within yourself. The devs are not responsible for your feelings.

Currently you can buy things like cosmetics, ocarinas, donator status and amnesia braces from the gift shop. I wouldn't be upset if these were exclusive to donors since they would have very little impact on the economy and are there for customisation or convenience. Gift shop vanities give players bragging rights for having donated to the game, and ocarinas/braces/donator status give small perks to make things easier for players.

 

The problem is that some people don't use these items and immediately sell them for yen, and yen can be spent on almost anything including 5x31 comps that players have spent days breeding. Of course you could breed your own comps, but as you pointed out that involves a huge time and yen investment.

 

1 hour ago, XelaKebert said:

One hour to build a team is a gross underestimate of what goes into breeding a single comp. A player who wants to breed a comp will either need to spend a premium amount on the GTL to get what they need or farm up a large number of compatible species that meet the criteria they need to breed.

And that's the problem. Some players can bypass this by simply buying comps from the GTL with yen from gift shop items.

 

Breeders spend a lot of time on their comps so that they can use/sell them, so you would expect other players to either train their own comps or farm yen to purchase comps from the breeders and contribute to the game's economy. Donators on the other hand can spend a premium amount on gift shop items and flip them on the GTL to buy quick comps. This is great for players who are prepared to pay for shortcuts, but those who do not donate real money end up putting in far more hours to get the same results.

 

Making future purchases of gift shop items untradeable would stop donators from having a real-life monetary advantage over players who invest time into getting their comps.

 

1 hour ago, XelaKebert said:

This leads me to the larger question. How many comp players breed and build their own teams?

Honestly, no idea.

Edited by baconcrispy
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From a developer's point of view.

Why would you revert a succesful income method?

 

Also the majority of players prefer having this option, it's still a player's own choice to donate to the game.

The reason why they donate should not matter to you, it doesn't affect your gameplay in any shape or form.

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Here in my country the dollar is very expensive, so this association ends up being the opposite. But even so last year when the dollar was not so expensive I made a donation to support this incredible work that they did, it was more for that than for the RPs themselves. If the person has a good financial condition and wants to donate a lot to grow quickly in the game, I see no problem with that, after all, they are helping the game to remain as if you want the game to exist, since you can already play it completely free of charge?
With a gym farm in the 4 regions, you will work 450k a day and in a month you would have 13m. I wouldn’t be able to spend it all on PRs in my local currency

And that in addition to the RPs you can win in events and tournaments, certainly this game is not "pay to play"

Edited by mateusvictor
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31 minutes ago, baconcrispy said:

Currently you can buy things like cosmetics, ocarinas, donator status and amnesia braces from the gift shop. I wouldn't be upset if these were exclusive to donors since they would have very little impact on the economy and are there for customisation or convenience. Gift shop vanities give players bragging rights for having donated to the game, and ocarinas/braces/donator status give small perks to make things easier for players.

 

The problem is that some people don't use these items and immediately sell them for yen, and yen can be spent on almost anything including 5x31 comps that players have spent days breeding. Of course you could breed your own comps, but as you pointed out that involves a huge time and yen investment.

How is that a problem? "They get to bypass grinding," no they don't. Even if they sell vanities for yen to buy comps what about berries? They still have to grind for something, your whole point hinges on people buying comps off the GTL but what you fail to even take into account is that IVs alone don't make the comp. Those 5*31 species on the GTL might have a bad moveset. That requires the purchaser to further invest time and money into getting that corrected. Some comp builds require specific berries, which are consumed and not refunded in battle. That also requires a time investment. You act like the only thing players buy on the GTL is comps when that is very clearly not the case.

 

32 minutes ago, baconcrispy said:

And that's the problem. Some players can bypass this by simply buying comps from the GTL with yen from gift shop items.

 

Breeders spend a lot of time on their comps so that they can use/sell them, so you would expect other players to either train their own comps or farm yen to purchase comps from the breeders and contribute to the game's economy. Donators on the other hand can spend a premium amount on gift shop items and flip them on the GTL to buy quick comps. This is great for players who are prepared to pay for shortcuts, but those who do not donate real money end up putting in far more hours to get the same results.

No it's not a problem. "They can build a team in under an hour." Great, even if they could that doesn't mean they know how to use it. Buying a team doesn't guarantee you automatically have synergy and it most certainly does not guarantee you will win anything. I could purchase a vanity that is worth a lot, go find some decent IVd Pokemon on the GTL, buy them, and go into matchmaking. Does that mean I'm guaranteed to win? Absolutely not. There's more to comp and team building than just buying a team.

 

37 minutes ago, baconcrispy said:

Making future purchases of gift shop items untradeable would stop donators from having a real-life monetary advantage over players who invest time into getting their comps.

There is no advantage and that's what you've been missing. If you feel like this is such an injustice to you then perhaps this game isn't for you.

 

39 minutes ago, baconcrispy said:

Honestly, no idea.

Perhaps you shouldn't insist that all comp players purchase their teams if you don't actually know the answer or can derive the answer from experience.

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23 minutes ago, Tyrone said:

Also the majority of players prefer having this option, it's still a player's own choice to donate to the game.

 

20 minutes ago, mateusvictor said:

If the person has a good financial condition and wants to donate a lot to grow quickly in the game, I see no problem with that, after all, they are helping the game to remain as if you want the game to exist, since you can already play it completely free of charge?

I have no issues with donating to the game, it's reselling donated purchases for profit that's the problem. There's an imbalance in people spending hours to farm for comps and people who can just burn through IRL money to sell gift shop items and get comps instantly. Of course this doesn't affect PvP gameplay and you can still earn RP through PvP, but to even get to that point there's a huge time/yen investment whereas some players just flip gift shop items to cut out the middle man and get straight into PvP.

 

6 minutes ago, XelaKebert said:

How is that a problem? "They get to bypass grinding," no they don't. Even if they sell vanities for yen to buy comps what about berries? They still have to grind for something, your whole point hinges on people buying comps off the GTL but what you fail to even take into account is that IVs alone don't make the comp. Those 5*31 species on the GTL might have a bad moveset. That requires the purchaser to further invest time and money into getting that corrected. Some comp builds require specific berries, which are consumed and not refunded in battle. That also requires a time investment. You act like the only thing players buy on the GTL is comps when that is very clearly not the case.

My point is that players can skip a large portion of farming for most things by using real money to speed up the process (or just skip it entirely). Does it mean players are guaranteed a perfect comp from the GTL? No. Does it mean they're given an advantage in PvP? No. But it does mean that they can save so much time compared to other players who spend days before they're even ready to enter PvP with a viable team or players who spend ages grinding for that one hat on the GTL.

 

16 minutes ago, XelaKebert said:

No it's not a problem. "They can build a team in under an hour." Great, even if they could that doesn't mean they know how to use it. Buying a team doesn't guarantee you automatically have synergy and it most certainly does not guarantee you will win anything. I could purchase a vanity that is worth a lot, go find some decent IVd Pokemon on the GTL, buy them, and go into matchmaking. Does that mean I'm guaranteed to win? Absolutely not. There's more to comp and team building than just buying a team.

I keep saying over and over that this has no impact on PvP, and you're right - it doesn't.

 

What it affects is the PvE that players undergo to get yen for comps, vanities or whatever. They can either invest a huge amount of time through farming, breeding .etc, or they can use real money to get in-game yen and buy most (or all) of what they need on the GTL. I don't mind farming for yen to spend, but it's demotivating to know that players can essentially pay to skip a large bulk of farming while everyone else has (or chooses) to do it themselves. Again, nothing wrong with donating to the game, but the game's economy shouldn't be influenced by real money transactions.

 

33 minutes ago, XelaKebert said:

Perhaps you shouldn't insist that all comp players purchase their teams if you don't actually know the answer or can derive the answer from experience.

I'm not insisting that every comp player purchases their teams, but some players will do this since they can just resell items from the gift shop for yen. This doesn't change how useful/useless their team is, but donating money to the game gives players an external source of yen, reducing their time investment and drastically cutting down the time they spend team-building.

 

The game is still fun and I'll play despite all of this, I just think the gift shop needs a rework to prevent real money from being a factor in how the in-game economy works.

 

 

 

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In my experience, the P2W that is bad is the kind that literally locks advantageous content behind $$$ (or just makes it extremely difficult to get via F2P methods). PokeMMO isn’t like that at all. Honestly, this system has been around for quite a while now and there really isn’t a problem with it.

 

And, your argument that it’s more efficient to work irl at a job and then pay for yen, vs f2p grind for it in-game, is a bit flawed. Some people like the grind, some people like constantly rolling the dice for an amazing ditto. So while you may be f2p grinding for something, you are still playing the game; it isn’t a job.

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6 minutes ago, Gilan said:

In my experience, the P2W that is bad is the kind that literally locks advantageous content behind $$$ (or just makes it extremely difficult to get via F2P methods). PokeMMO isn’t like that at all. Honestly, this system has been around for quite a while now and there really isn’t a problem with it.

 

And, your argument that it’s more efficient to work irl at a job and then pay for yen, vs f2p grind for it in-game, is a bit flawed. Some people like the grind, some people like constantly rolling the dice for an amazing ditto. So while you may be f2p grinding for something, you are still playing the game; it isn’t a job.

Yeah that's true, people do genuinely like the grind (part of the reason people play pokémon tbh) and it *is* part of playing the game. This game is by no means P2W, and that's a good thing.

 

I think the whole issue is more about how rewarding the whole MMO experience feels. It feels great to invest time into something like building comps and see them finished, but it's kind of disheartening to see other players skip most of the process because they've spent real money on the game. I've seen similar concerns voiced before, but if it's only a small minority that have those concerns then I guess it isn't big enough of a problem to rework the current gift shop system.

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17 minutes ago, baconcrispy said:

What it affects is the PvE that players undergo to get yen for comps, vanities or whatever. They can either invest a huge amount of time through farming, breeding .etc, or they can use real money to get in-game yen and buy most (or all) of what they need on the GTL. I don't mind farming for yen to spend, but it's demotivating to know that players can essentially pay to skip a large bulk of farming while everyone else has (or chooses) to do it themselves. Again, nothing wrong with donating to the game, but the game's economy shouldn't be influenced by real money transactions.

No it does not undermine the PvE aspect at all. The yen they get doesn't just poof into existence, it's being shifted from one player to another. There is nothing being undermined because the yen still gets sunk out later. There is no "advantage" here either. "They get to skip a large part of farming." Do you have any idea how many breeders people go through to get their desired comp? It's more than a couple and quite frankly, nobody is looking for battle ready comps on GTL. If anything they come to the forums for those because the seller is able to lay out the stats here, but even then it's a moot point. The fact of the matter is nobody is at an advantage. By your logic the gift Pokemon comp players get from tournaments puts them at an advantage over players who lose or don't play comp. If this one aspect is that demotivating for you then stop focusing on it. If you seriously can't stop focusing on it then take a break from the game. The economy is not, and never has been, influenced by reward point items. There are only a handful of RP items in the gift shop and the vast majority of them are cosmetic and offer literally zero benefit other than looking different. The economy is influenced by what other players are willing to pay for an item.

 

24 minutes ago, baconcrispy said:

My point is that players can skip a large portion of farming for most things by using real money to speed up the process (or just skip it entirely). Does it mean players are guaranteed a perfect comp from the GTL? No. Does it mean they're given an advantage in PvP? No. But it does mean that they can save so much time compared to other players who spend days before they're even ready to enter PvP with a viable team or players who spend ages grinding for that one hat on the GTL.

You are literally admitting that players do not have an advantage while simultaneously arguing that they do. If players buying RP items and selling them gives them an advantage in PvE, but not in PvP you have just contradicted yourself. They either have an advantage period or they don't have one. The two may need balanced differently, but both sides are part and parcel. A comp player having an advantage in PvE due to reduced farming would, by your very logic, also give them an advantage in PvP. How? Because they also save time on prep, but then you admit that just because they save time that they don't actually have an advantage.

 

19 minutes ago, baconcrispy said:

It feels great to invest time into something like building comps and see them finished, but it's kind of disheartening to see other players skip most of the process because they've spent real money on the game.

Comp players also get rewarded with comp ready Pokemon from tournaments or as part of the Matchmaking ladder. I suppose you'd want those removed as well? Even if they can't trade them those rewards are still, by your logic, giving them an advantage over players who don't earn them.

 

38 minutes ago, baconcrispy said:

I just think the gift shop needs a rework to prevent real money from being a factor in how the in-game economy works.

There are other items not from the gift shop that are inherently more valuable than others. Presents from past Christmas events, Goodie Bags from past Halloween events, and Lucky Envelopes from Chinese New Year all hold inherent value in them for past years simply because they could contain a vanity exclusive to that year of the event. The only exception is the big end prize from beating the boss of the Halloween event which has always been player bound. I supposed you'd rather players be unable to trade those as well? What about just making the most expensive items on the GTL untradeable? The whole root of your issue isn't even the gift shop itself at all. It's players selling items for large sums on the GTL. The problem with your mindset is that if it's not the latest limited vanity that is hot on the GTL, it's going to be something else like a stack of presents from the first Christmas event as an example. Players will find some way to make the system work for them and before you say anything like, "Well they had to grind for those," make sure you keep in mind that players selling vanities on the GTL might have also purchase it with yen and not by donating. There is a market for flipping GTL purchases for a profit. Typically that applies to Pokemon, but players can also post certain vanities later when the value for them rises. At the end of the day, you don't really know who is cranking a ton of money into the game and who is not. There isn't a single group you can paint with that brush. Instead of complaining about it, because that's exactly what you are doing, find a way to make the system work for you. The resources exist to help with that, but it's on you to make use of them. Something that players do to make money faster is to undercut higher priced listings for the same item in price. They don't go overboard on it, but they take a small hit on profit up front to see a larger return over time.

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Donation can help devs to maintain and runs the game for a long time. therefore, it is necessary to keeps the certain value of RPs in-game, if the RP items are change to untradeable, the value of RPs itself will be greatly reduced and the decrease of donators can be foreseen (Even so, donators which spends a lot of IRL money to gain advantage in the game is still in the minority,  they pay IRL money, so they can spend less time to get the items they want in-game relatively, which is reasonable and there is nothing in-game that can't got through hard farming)

 

An item in-game that you want, it always costs your time or money. RPs that high value and tradeable will not break the economic balance of the game imo, so just keep it as it is.

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One thing you're overlooking is that even if giftshop items were not tradable, players could (and did) do it anyway. Player A has $5 he wants to turn into ingame resources. Player B wants a $5 vanity. They somehow come to an agreement and Player A logs into Player B's account, adds the $5 to their account, and afterward the ingame resource is traded to Player A.

 

So now that we know this is still possible to do, let me explain to you why this is even worse than the current system. Player A can use a stolen credit card, and Player B gets banned with no obvious link that Player A was actually who committed fraud. Player A can just steal things from Player B while he's logged in. And a few other stupid scenarios.

 

This makes rule enforcement harder, takes more staff resources, leads to players being banned for things they didn't do, and just... doesn't accomplish what you want.

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