Character Spool Cost Discussion

[Casm]

I'm curious what everyone's thoughts on what would be a fair spool cost for characters, which is something Klei is taking seriously into consideration. I personally think that if they simply followed the upward trend they're currently on with spool costs that it would actually be pretty fair. Each rarity increases in cost by 3x over the previous quality with only one exception. If Klei kept with the Status Quo, the pricing would like something like this.

Cost to weave

1. Common 15
2. Classy 45
3. Spiffy 150 (the only time it's slightly more than 3x the cost of the previous quality)
4. Distinguished 450
5. Elegant 1350
6. New Character 4050

With this pricing scheme, that would make a new character the equivalent of 3 Elegant skins. Generally speaking though, $6.99 is worth more than 4050 spools (the cost a new character is expected to run). Equivalently costed bundles generally nets you about 5 high-end skins, or 6750 spool worth of skins. Of course though, the $6.99 purchase does include unique skins for that character and since you wouldn't be getting those skins by unlocking the character with spools, 4050 I think could be a fair spool cost for these characters. What do you guys think?

[Maxposting]

1 hour ago, Casm said:

I'm curious what everyone's thoughts on what would be a fair spool cost for characters, which is something Klei is taking seriously into consideration. I personally think that if they simply followed the upward trend they're currently on with spool costs that it would actually be pretty fair. Each rarity increases in cost by 3x over the previous quality with only one exception. If Klei kept with the Status Quo, the pricing would like something like this.

Cost to weave

1. Common 15
2. Classy 45
3. Spiffy 150 (the only time it's slightly more than 3x the cost of the previous quality)
4. Distinguished 450
5. Elegant 1350
6. New Character 4050

With this pricing scheme, that would make a new character the equivalent of 3 Elegant skins. Generally speaking though, $6.99 is worth more than 4050 spools (the cost a new character is expected to run). Equivalently costed bundles generally nets you about 5 high-end skins, or 6750 spool worth of skins. Of course though, the $6.99 purchase does include unique skins for that character and since you wouldn't be getting those skins by unlocking the character with spools, 4050 I think could be a fair spool cost for these characters. What do you guys think?

I think 3500-4000 would be the best pricing.

[fimmatek]

I agree that 4k spools sound like a fair price for a character. Considering it needs to be high enough to incite enough people to rather buy it and at the same time low enough to make it worth using spools for it too.

Side note, the 7$ price does include skins for that character. From the roadmap: "We are still deciding the final price of these characters, but we currently think they will be $6.99 USD each, which includes a full character skin set."

[Alexias]

4050=27 spiffy 

The cheapest spiffy skins cost 0.08$

0.08 x 27 = 2.16$ Without the skins

So it is cheaper to weave it.

 

 

Quote

No.

Unravel cost =/= Weave cost

 

Weave 27 spiffy will cost 4050

Unravel to 4050 will cost 81 spiffy

0.08 x 81= 6.48$ Without the skins

 

[Viktor234]

28 minutes ago, Namelessgamer said:

4050=27 spiffy 

The cheapest spiffy skins cost 0.08$

0.08 x 27 = 2.16$ Without the skins

So it is cheaper to weave it.

I bet there are more than 1.000 Players per released character who want to weave the character via bought spiffy skins, and there are probably less than 27.000 spiffy skins which are sold for $0.08. It might be cheaper to weave the first published character but not everyone will have the chance to buy 27 spiffy skins for a total of only $2.16, especially not for the 2nd character.

[Maxposting]

1 hour ago, Viktor234 said:

I bet there are more than 1.000 Players per released character who want to weave the character via bought spiffy skins, and there are probably less than 27.000 spiffy skins which are sold for $0.08. It might be cheaper to weave the first published character but not everyone will have the chance to buy 27 spiffy skins for a total of only $2.16, especially not for the 2nd character.

Obviously if Spiffies are gonna run out then intellligent people will just mass buy 4*27 spiffies.

[Thalkas]

Still we dont know how much spools will cost Heirloom skins. Should be 4 050 as more rarity skin than Elegant (with same common multiplier as before), so then characters will probably cost same amount spools or more (x2 -.8 100 or x3 - ~12 000).

Or Klei will get average of spools held by all players and then they will give price. But someone can have 20 000 spools and other can have 2 spools so this make no sense for me.

The most important are or can be:

• Heirloom skin cost

• Amount spools (hold by one player and all players)

We can speculate but without above factors (and devs brains) we cant tell clearly how much new character will cost.  

[Neu7ral]

2 hours ago, Namelessgamer said:

4050=27 spiffy 

The cheapest spiffy skins cost 0.08$

0.08 x 27 = 2.16$ Without the skins

So it is cheaper to weave it.

No.

Unravel cost =/= Weave cost

 

Weave 27 spiffy will cost 4050

Unravel to 4050 will cost 81 spiffy

0.08 x 81= 6.48$ Without the skins

[Fjedjik]

Just to be clear here, spiffy skins clearly does not have the best spools per dollar ratio on the market.

Classy (grants 15): costs 0.03$
price for 1000 spools: 2$

Spiffy (grants 50): costs 0.08$
price for 1000 spools: 1.6$

Distinguished (grants 150): costs 0.17$
price for 1000 spools: 1.1$

Elegant (grants 450): costs 0.65$
price for 1000 spools: 1.4$

 

If the spools price ends up being 4050 spools, one could unravel 27 distinguished skins for ≈ 4.5$

[Casm]

There's a lot of great and valid points being made. If we have a cost of 4050 for a character and what Fjedjik says is accurate, a player could unlock a new character minus the skin set you'd get through the official store for about $4.50.

Of course, if that were the case then I'd suspect Supply and Demand would start to balance things out to the point that the price would eventually equal that of simply purchasing it from the store. That's generally what ends up happening.

However, I must be out of the loop because I'm not familiar with heirloom skins and I'm not certain what they even are. A rarity past Elegant? It's time to investigate! lol

Edit: Nevermind. I just reread the roadmap and I do remember reading about heirloom skins. I don't think that will have any bearing on the character costs. They seem to be introducing this rarity only because those particular skins are now going to be available for official purchase (albeit for a limited time), which is sort of an unintentional slap in the face to anyone that may have purchased those skins from other players through the steam store. At least this way their version of the item will have it's own unique rarity and will technically be more valuable since it will provide more spools, even though they're aesthetically the exact same thing as the store bought versions. That's just speculation on my end though.

[Captain_Rage]

5 hours ago, Casm said:

They seem to be introducing this rarity only because those particular skins are now going to be available for official purchase (albeit for a limited time), which is sort of an unintentional slap in the face to anyone that may have purchased those skins from other players through the steam store. At least this way their version of the item will have it's own unique rarity and will technically be more valuable since it will provide more spools, even though they're aesthetically the exact same thing as the store bought versions. That's just speculation on my end though.

My thoughts exactly. The silly thing being that once the first batch of said items gets the unique and exclusive (?) Heirloom status with added benefit of providing additional spools when unravelled it will be quite counterproductive since people most certainly will fancy the status more than the extra amount of spools they might provide, so they will probably not end up being used for spools anyway.

It will also be a bit awkward to have the apparent identical item with two different rarities in your inventory, although that kind of worked for the Tragic Torch (Loyal + Timeless version) but on the other hand you can only have one of each version, making it still not-so-awkward. It would be worse to have the same iteration of tradable items with two different versions.

[Nullum]

8 hours ago, Casm said:

Nevermind. I just reread the roadmap and I do remember reading about heirloom skins. I don't think that will have any bearing on the character costs. They seem to be introducing this rarity only because those particular skins are now going to be available for official purchase (albeit for a limited time), which is sort of an unintentional slap in the face to anyone that may have purchased those skins from other players through the steam store. At least this way their version of the item will have it's own unique rarity and will technically be more valuable since it will provide more spools, even though they're aesthetically the exact same thing as the store bought versions. That's just speculation on my end though.

With the case of Klei Entertainment making the first three skin sets it is an unintentional slap in the face indeed to make them do that but for a noble cause. I understand their cause but at least make the upcoming Heirloom rarity skins become tradable and marketable as of a result. And if possible the listed items on the Steam Market will undergo the changes that they need.

[NoscopeFelix]

The first three skin sets should stay, unbuyable. What’s the fun in collecting  when everything rare is buyable and the only thing that would be actually rare at that point would be the common and uncommon clothing items.

[Maxposting]

17 minutes ago, NoscopeFelix said:

when everything rare is buyable

LOYALS.

[Majestix]

On 24/02/2019 at 1:23 PM, Pop Guy said:

 

I think the correct price would be 1350, like an elegant leather.

Also because the sense of spools is to be able to get the rarest skins without spending, do not use it to spend less than the list price. And I do not find it correct that in order to get a new character without spending, I have to give up three elegant ones obtained with the sweat of the forehead in years of play and participating with dedication to each special event.

Yeah, Klei just don't respect your hard labour. Really, they should not charge anything and just give you new content for completely free. Making you pay money/spools for new content on top of the "sweat of the forehead" (and surely some blood of the knuckles) that you have already sacrificed is really just greedy and outrageous! These days honest work is not rewarded properly any more.

On reflection, I realise that the sarcasm of the above paragraph might have been lost on you. Oh well...

[NoscopeFelix]

1 hour ago, __IvoCZE__ said:

LOYALS.

I meant more the rarity factor in getting them from presents. Loyals are items that are gifted to everyone at a certain timeout by doing sth besides playing the game like watching twich. I just would feel like the rewarding of playing the game would be gone. Since what you get in like maybe (it was 1 year until I got my first elegant) in I second by paying 1 or 2 €. I know my rant won’t stop anything, but I would have loved to see at least the basic  skins unbought. I mean I think I just hate the idea because I play on PS4 and we have no steam market where we can buy any skin. That’s why I am more against the idea I think , but whatever the devs will do. I will still support them.

[Captain_Rage]

36 minutes ago, Pop Guy said:

I do not like that there are more paid content, also because I find it more correct to charge the consumer once rather than dilute the costs of a game with microtransactions that take away the real perception of what you are spending. They are mechanisms that regardless of who they are made are likely to penalize the consumer, and this is not correct.
And I find that if spools Klei wants it to be a real alternative to buying, then it must be a reasonable amount of spools and not excessive.
Otherwise, I repeat, I think it's better to put the new characters on payment only, something that Klei is free to do.

I really believe that Klei has been both transparent and very honest when it comes to their stance regarding Don't Starve Together and its development (unlike the vast majority of different developers, but that's a completely different story, heh).

I'm not a huge fan of microtransactions in general either, but considering that DST is actually rather cheap to begin with, is often discounted on Steam was even granted for free to the owners of Don't Starve when in early access and received many free updates in the long run (together with Don't Starve) I cannot possibly think of anything bad about Klei releasing paid content at this point (eye-candy, skins or whatnot).

They even wrote after the last season of The Forge that the skin sales barely covered the costs of running the dedicated servers for the event.:o

 

EDIT:

Oh, if you mean making any new characters purchasable only and not mix them with the 'hat economy' (with skins and spools), I don't think it matters that much, lol. Well, it would be nice if the income from the new content would go directly to Klei in the biggest extent possible, I assume.

Other than that..... yes, you can probably survey the Steam Market and try to optimize your spool acquisition and so on, but we are talking a few dollars or cents here and there. I don't think there is any major concern or need for alarm about confusing the customers, haha.

[Casm]

I personally don't mind micro-transactions when the content is limited to the cosmetic and aesthetic. If someone wants to pay money and support their favorite games and developers to make their stuff in game look fancy, I say great! So, I'm not the biggest fan of having new characters behind a paywall because that's far from a simple cosmetic choice. It directly affects gameplay. I mean, imagine if Overwatch charged for new characters every time one came out, either by having people pay to unlock them or having to spend the in-game currency. I think that'd upset a lot of people.

However, that's all beside the point and not really what this thread is about. What I'd like to discuss is, given the information available, what would be considered a fair spool cost for these new characters. What is considered reasonable? If you take the average spool gained per week, assuming a player unraveled everything they obtained, what would be an acceptable amount of time to save up for a new character for the average player? 2 months? 3? This is what I'd like to discuss here. I feel like we've gotten somewhat off-track.

Now, I haven't done the math. I don't know how long it would take someone on average to save 4050 spool. I just know how much an elegant skin costs and I personally think 3x the cost of one of those seems to be pretty fair and would follow the upward trend of spool costs that the game has followed up to this point.

I do feel that characters have to cost more than an elegant skin though. If you ask anyone that plays the game if they'd rather have a neat looking skin or an entirely new and unique character, the answer seems pretty obvious. So, while I respect Pop Guy's opinion, I do disagree with it. And while you don't have to buy into my premise that a new character is more valuable than a neat skin, I think most do. So now the question becomes, how much more valuable are they? What is the magic number that Klei can charge in spool that takes a new character from overpriced or underpriced to "just right"? What can they charge in spool that makes the majority of players feel like they are readily accessible and yet, not so cheap that they forgo the option of spending actual cash to unlock them? Or, do you think the unique skins that come along with a real money purchase is incentive enough to allow for a cheaper spool cost that doesn't include them? IE: Do I spend the reasonably low cost spool amount (say, 2,000 or so) or do I really really REALLY want those cool skins for the 7 bucks?

Thoughts?

[CarlZalph]

Rarity        | Weave | Unravel |
--------------+-------+---------+
Common        | 15    | 5       |
Classy        | 45    | 15      |
Spiffy        | 150   | 50      |
Distinguished | 450   | 150     |
Elegant       | 1350  | 450     |

Assuming drop rates are:
70% chance for Common
20% chance for Classy
6% chance for Spiffy
3% chance for Distinguished
1% chance for Elegant

Drop rate assumption coming from a few posts found on the SPUD thread at: https://steamcommunity.com/app/322330/discussions/0/385429254934695933/

I rounded them to nice whole numbers, as I find Klei tends to do so for almost everything else.

For the proposed 4050 spools to make 1 character using 1000000 simulations:

Spoiler

4050:

223.357421 drops needed on average
55.839355 weeks == 13.959839 months == 1.163320 years
4131.088170 average spools gained

2700:

150.335307 drops needed on average
37.583827 weeks == 9.395957 months == 0.782996 years
2781.078940 average spools gained

1350:

77.343813 drops needed on average
19.335953 weeks == 4.833988 months == 0.402832 years
1431.043965 average spools gained

 

 

 

 

This is of course neglecting events that grant chests which shift the drop rates higher by replacing common drops with a boon of 4 new drops.

So this is the simulation again, but this time when a common is hit it is replaced by 4 new drop rolls from a chest with the same drop chances.

Spoiler

 

4050:

62.248334 drops needed on average
15.562083 weeks == 3.890521 months == 0.324210 years
4156.877010 average spools gained

2700:

42.022807 drops needed on average
10.505702 weeks == 2.626425 months == 0.218869 years
2806.764495 average spools gained

1350:

21.801519 drops needed on average
5.450380 weeks == 1.362595 months == 0.113550 years
1456.483970 average spools gained

 

 

For the jiggles, this is the output if all drops are chests:

Spoiler

4050:

56.156775 drops needed on average
14.039194 weeks == 3.509798 months == 0.292483 years
4153.871230 average spools gained

2700:

37.903222 drops needed on average
9.475805 weeks == 2.368951 months == 0.197413 years
2803.823025 average spools gained

1350:

19.649896 drops needed on average
4.912474 weeks == 1.228118 months == 0.102343 years
1453.911845 average spools gained

 

 

I'd say the most ideal spot for fairness to me is the character being 2700, and having the event common->chest replacement happen all year round.  Even having all drops being chests didn't affect the spool-to-time ratio too much so that might also work.  I know Klei has talked internally about doing away with single drops and having all drops chests before.

The 4050 is quite expensive for the currency gains currently available to players who spend nothing on the game (including not using the marketplace).

[fimmatek]

From the players' perspective, the cost should be as low as possible. From Klei's perspective, the spool price must be high enough to incite enough players to rather buy the characters. So since the devs actually need the money, I think that 1 or 2, or maybe even 3 months of playing would be a fair price for one character. Also, considering that the Forge Weapons Chest DLS gives 3150 spools for 4€ (currently the best spool/money ratio of the DLCs if I'm not mistaken), 4050 spools for a character (7$) doesn't sound too much.

@Pop Guy what do you think, how should Klei get money for the DST dev team's whole year work? How much should they charge and for what content, to cover the costs and still be fair to players? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you sound to me as if Klei should offer the characters "you can buy it if you feel to support us, but everyone can get them with spools" instead of "players should buy the characters, but if you really want them without paying, you can get it from spools too".

I'm not a fan of non-free stuff in the game, but Klei already provided us a ton of new content since from ANR and they will also give us most of the new stuff for completely free. Having to pay or grind for the new characters or not being able to play them seems to me like a fairly low price for all the work the devs are doing.

[Rellimarual]

I find it weird that people describe their time spent playing the game as “work.” I mean, it’s a game. It’s supposed to be fun, and you pay for the game for that reason. We pay for fun. When I buy a ticket to a movie, the time I spend watching it isn’t  work I’m doing for the studio that made it. The more time I spend playing DS, the better the deal I get on the original cost, and it’s a *great* deal if you weigh the hours of fun I’ve gotten against Klei’s (pretty cheap) prices. I’m sure Klei is happy when someone plays a lot of DST, because everyone wants to feel that their work is appreciated, but I don’t think they owe players anything just because they play a lot. All they really owe us (in exchange for th cost of the game) is a game that we WANT to play a lot.

If the experience of playing DST is so joyless to you that it feels like a job, I’m not sure why you’d want more content, even if you got it for free. Why would you want skins or characters for a game you don’t even enjoy? If you do enjoy it, then you’re getting your money’s worth and nobody owes you anything.

[lakhnish]

I'm going to be buying them to support the devs. Hopefully this DLC model will work for them, as it has for other games (Dead by Daylight comes to mind).

20 hours ago, CarlZalph said:

I'd say the most ideal spot for fairness to me is the character being 2700, and having the event common->chest replacement happen all year round.  Even having all drops being chests didn't affect the spool-to-time ratio too much so that might also work.  I know Klei has talked internally about doing away with single drops and having all drops chests before.

You mentioned talk of adjusting the drop rates. In addition to that, what about where Joe said that they would also look into possibly adjusting the spool gain in the Roadmap thread here? A "fair" price would then change depending on this too, no?

[Casm]

If Klei adjusts drop rates and spool gain from unraveling, then it really would no longer be a question of how much is a fair spool charge (because we wouldn't have enough information at that point to have a valid discussion) but rather, how long of a grind is fair for the average player, assuming a player unraveled everything they obtained every week.

This is all hypothetical of course. One thing's for sure, we'll definitely have more information come next month! lol

[CarlZalph]

43 minutes ago, lakhnish said:

You mentioned talk of adjusting the drop rates. In addition to that, what about where Joe said that they would also look into possibly adjusting the spool gain in the Roadmap thread here? A "fair" price would then change depending on this too, no?

It would, yes.  My post assumes the fixed unravel and drop rates on the post's beginning.

Adjusting any of those factors would affect the outcome of the probability game.

In the end the main factor to look at is the duration of expected wait time to accumulate enough spools to get the desired item weaved.

 

Also thanks for linking to that post, it's good to see a more up-to-date listing of them still having internal chats on drops.

[Maxposting]

I would still pay like 8000 to 12000 for all the characters so that some of the people would buy the characters for money and some for spools because 2500 spools is still kinda a nice price for a CHARACTER