I thought box gacha is differentiated because of this guaranteed chance different rarities not the compilation mechanic? (cause you can estimate if you buy x boxes you should get the thing you're looking for)
Here is how I do curio completion:
I buy a pack of curios that is as close to the total number I need as possible (on the upper end). So if a set takes 40 pieces to complete, I'll buy a 50-pack.
I am then guaranteed to complete them all by trading my duplicate pieces to other people, helping them complete theirs in order to complete my own. I do my best to not over-buy because then I don't have a ton of extra pieces hanging out afterwards. I've managed to succeed in every curio promo so far with this strategy. It works pretty well. And almost all of them were before the curio market, which just makes it even easier.
How people use a system is less relevant than the mechanisms of the system itself for what Kalnid seems to be talking about, if the system is aligned with kompu gacha then that's a mechanism which is apparently illegal in Japan at least. People also traded Gacha stuff from what I can see for example.
I just looked up Kompu Gacha. It doesn't seem to fit a situation where you're guaranteed a certain number of the "rare" pieces and where you can just spend 1,000 goop to finish a curio if you decide you don't want any more boxes (or looking for trades). Wikipedia (yes, I know, not the best source of material) indicates something along the lines of: "This is particularly true if there are a large number of common items in the game, since eventually one single, specific item is required." We never get to that point because there are the aforementioned escape valves. We also never get to a point where 8 people are all looking for the same one missing super-rare bit (which trading would never be able to alleviate, if the thing is such a rare drop that nobody has it to trade...).
Edit: Having poked around a number of other sites, it seems like the main thing was that the pieces were of differing rarities / values, and there was no value to duplicate pieces. As such, if you had 9/10 pieces to complete your set, you were still only about 65% of the way to being done even if everything had an equal chance of dropping (because odds of getting repeats are so high)-- and if the last piece you need had an artificially lowered drop rate, so much the worse for you. Since our duplicates can be swapped with other peoples' duplicates we don't run into the problem of buying box after box after box to try and finish up our last piece. It was incredibly misleading and I can see why that would be prohibited. I mean, obviously I'm not a lawyer, IRE has their own for that kind of thing, but going through the discussion documents referring to it (including a few guides for "western developers") we would seem to be fine. Buying tons of excess boxes is completely unnecessary, you just need to buy enough pieces to trade with others who are doing the same thing.
Kompu describes a system where you need to finish a set to get value from the drawn items. The rest is augmentation to make it more or less of a pain.
Doesn't really read that way, as far as the prohibition goes; it reads as being an intentionally designed system to misleadingly drive people to invest more and more because they think they are "so close to finishing" when they're nowhere near as close as they think (due to the nature of RNG and potentially hidden RNG chances). Yes, you have to complete a thing, but you have to do so under circumstances where you have no idea what it's going to take to finish and you're stuck with what you draw because all those duplicates you keep getting are completely worthless. There's even discussion of exceptions to the kompu definition (exceptions defined as being able to use your duplicates to get what you need to complete the thing, adding value to the duplicates and removing the need to continue investing until you finally get the RNG tick).
Edit: I'll actually clarify a bit of something. I've been looking at this from your statement that "Kompu gacha is banned," and then applying what rules have been used to justify the ban to this; if it doesn't match those rules, then it wouldn't be kompu gacha.
If your definition is just "Hey collecting things is kompu," that would be where we're having a disconnect-- I've never heard the term kompu until this discussion, so my starting reference point was your statement. There are exceptions to the kompu gacha ban though. It basically reads as a much-needed crackdown on super shady practices that were being heavily abused to exploit people's investment decisions.
Gacha is probably most synonymous with loot box style mechanisms from my understanding.
You have variations of the like Overwatch or Hearthstone where you draw stuff but duplicates are either automatically converted to currency or can be converted.
There's variations of box gacha appears to be like MTG duels where you just can't draw the same card more than x times.
Both of these are distinct from kompa because all items you draw have their full value when you draw them, where as the items leading to the complete item in kompa have lesser or no value (except to make the complete item).
Curios fall under the definition of kompa cause, as pointed out, you need to draw the full set of items for them to have value. Some sets even double down on this by locking functionality behind completing multiple items (i.e the set of four with magic items, buffs, etc which ultimately gives you a port to a zone), arguably some of that locks functionality behind you completing items that could be otherwise useless to you (like magic items when you've already got a full set of runed regulator'd jewellery)
That's before you look into like stuff like... why make it a loot box/gacha system rather than just artifacts you can go and buy for a similar cost.
We've done so many curio packs that I apologize if I assume everyone knows how they work regarding distribution of rares. The 10 box guarantees 1 rare, the 25 box guarantees 2 rares, the 50 box guarantees 5 rares, and the 100 box guarantees 10 rares. I've updated the descriptions on the website as well.
I'd also like to clarify that we are different than Imperian as F2P, as we are trying to generate enough revenue to continue to have enough resources for substantive development, so we'll still participate in promotions, though obviously not to the extent that we were parallelling the other IRE games.
I'd also like to clarify that we are different than Imperian as F2P, as we are trying to generate enough revenue to continue to have enough resources for substantive development, so we'll still participate in promotions, though obviously not to the extent that we were parallelling the other IRE games.
Does this mean that the relative difficulty of getting F2P credits when compared to Imperian while doing standard gameplay activity is intentional?
Yeah, @Estarra it's been mentioned elsewhere that what you're talking about now is pretty contradictory to what Jeremy and Matt (afaik) were saying about the F2P model in Imperian, which is what players here were repeatedly told was going to be how Lusternia would also work after the shift.
It sounds like some traiding card games from a paticular edition. You buy a pack of 10 cards and 1 card is always a shiny.
As far as I understand it, that's just a variation of the "gacha" side of it.
The best example of the kompa/kompu/complete part of the term is curios. McDonalds' monopoly promo is another given one property in a set is always the rare one.
I don't believe it's contradictory to anything that I've said. Imperian was the model for the F2P mechanics (i.e., daily and org credits), but I stated at the outset that we want to generate enough revenue to maintain coding support. Anyway, I'll just say right off that we are not attempting to copy Imperian, even if their F2P model was the blueprint for Lusternia. Nothing Jeremy or Matt said about Imperian applies to Lusternia. We'll continue to participate in promotions which may include new curios or wonder items (or whatever) when appropriate.
I'm actually pretty positive about the overall change. I think it'll be something that I would have loved as a player (more chance to build things in the game) and gives Estarra and the rest of the admin team up here a chance to really focus on bringing some long-awaited changes that have been clamored for a while now and not have to worry so much about promotions and other stuff that generally isn't well received (poor makeup/disguise kits ) I think it's actually a better direction overall and with us able to be 100% focused on development, we'll be able to really bring stuff out.
Now it's up to us to deliver.
hm...
Like I've managed to dig up this
As has been mentioned before, Lusternia's activity has experienced a rapid decline in activity. As such, Lusternia will transition to a "Free to Play" game, much like Imperian has done. Credits will still be sold on the website and elite memberships will still remain available in order to cover costs, which includes coding support. Also, we plan on participating in promotions where we can, though our focus will be on development, not promotions.
But again, this reinforces Imperian is the model which includes them turning old promotions though, as far as I've seen has excluded making new promotional items. There's also the reality that during that period there was the constant reiteration whenever someone asked questions about the implementation of the F2P model they were told "Same as imperian".
Thanks to refreshing, it looks like we also have two new threads one asking for new ideas for promotional items and one indicating time will be spent developing new items in a range that even this thread seems to indicate are viewed as mostly only useful for burning into goop.
I don't really have to wonder that hard at why people are starting to view F2P as mostly just locking down of retire values.
Getting up to 140cr/week and a big chunk of credits for orgs is a fairly major change. There's no way I could have grinded (ground?) gold to buy that many.
Edit to make on topic: The aether traders turning comms for a ~1k chunk of goop too, I couldn't see that happening before F2P. They are doable for people without bubblixes if they're lucky and get a hard to find one. I've done two trades in Xion that I had to open the last area to reach. Or buy buttons but that's an investment.
Since going F2P, I've done maybe 1% of any promotions that have gone forth. That 1% consists of reviewing code and bugfixes. Compared to close to 90-100% prior to going F2P that myself, or previous Anomalies, would have been doing.
So yeah, going F2P has enabled us to focus on development and not promotions.
Comments
Like... the "exceptions to the kompu definition" are the "augmentation to make it more or less of a pain"
You have variations of the like Overwatch or Hearthstone where you draw stuff but duplicates are either automatically converted to currency or can be converted.
There's variations of box gacha appears to be like MTG duels where you just can't draw the same card more than x times.
Both of these are distinct from kompa because all items you draw have their full value when you draw them, where as the items leading to the complete item in kompa have lesser or no value (except to make the complete item).
Curios fall under the definition of kompa cause, as pointed out, you need to draw the full set of items for them to have value.
Some sets even double down on this by locking functionality behind completing multiple items (i.e the set of four with magic items, buffs, etc which ultimately gives you a port to a zone), arguably some of that locks functionality behind you completing items that could be otherwise useless to you (like magic items when you've already got a full set of runed regulator'd jewellery)
That's before you look into like stuff like... why make it a loot box/gacha system rather than just artifacts you can go and buy for a similar cost.
The best example of the kompa/kompu/complete part of the term is curios. McDonalds' monopoly promo is another given one property in a set is always the rare one.
Like I've managed to dig up this
But again, this reinforces Imperian is the model which includes them turning old promotions though, as far as I've seen has excluded making new promotional items. There's also the reality that during that period there was the constant reiteration whenever someone asked questions about the implementation of the F2P model they were told "Same as imperian".
Thanks to refreshing, it looks like we also have two new threads one asking for new ideas for promotional items and one indicating time will be spent developing new items in a range that even this thread seems to indicate are viewed as mostly only useful for burning into goop.
I don't really have to wonder that hard at why people are starting to view F2P as mostly just locking down of retire values.
Edit to make on topic:
The aether traders turning comms for a ~1k chunk of goop too, I couldn't see that happening before F2P. They are doable for people without bubblixes if they're lucky and get a hard to find one. I've done two trades in Xion that I had to open the last area to reach. Or buy buttons but that's an investment.
So yeah, going F2P has enabled us to focus on development and not promotions.