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Event Skins: Pricing & Trading (Discussion)


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  1. 1. Do event skins need some adjustments?

    • No, they're fine.
      40
    • Yes, make them cheaper.
      15
    • Yes, make them tradable/marketable.
      14
    • Yes, make spools tradable/marketable.
      8


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I appreciate that some people are going to dislike this post but can we just put aside the blind devotion to Klei for a second and discuss something objectively. To be clear, I have bought all the event skin packs (which look great) and sadly I will probably continue to do so even if they remain unchanged and, in my opinion, overpriced. I bought Don't Starve early during the beta back when there was very little to do other than collect manure and move spider dens around and despite getting DST for free I have purchased both it and Don't Starve for friends. I have 1600+ hours in both games combined. I'm happy to support Klei, they deserve it.

But...

These new event skins are making a mess of things in various ways. I know they're entirely optional and have no effect on game-play but wouldn't it be better if more people could enjoy them at no cost to Klei's profits? Currently we have a limited amount of time to acquire these event skins via drops, can unravel unwanted skins (for a pretty measly third of their crafting cost) and craft what we do want or can just straight up buy them from Klei. All of that is great! It all falls apart though when we look at the other ways these new skins were implemented and how they interact with the previous system.

PRICING

They are way too expensive for what they are. I don't doubt the effort that has gone into these skins but considering the effort that went into DS/DST and all its expansions and updates are they really worth a similar price to the base game? The Forge set was £11.99 iirc which is £1 more than the base game for 12 (functionally useless) cosmetic skin sets, compare that to Don't Starve's expansions which are only £3.99 each for potentially hundreds more hours of game-play. I personally think Don't Starve games have always been under-priced but that doesn't mean these skin prices are justified. It would be one thing if the skins were tradable/marketable since they would retain some value but as is you're buying them for you and you alone. Something is priced poorly here, be it the games being under-priced or the skins overpriced but the skins being priced so high makes me wonder if there's a more sinister reason for them being so expensive. I understand why the skins are not tradable/marketable and possibly why they are priced so high and we will get to that but slashing the prices would be one easy fix to the situation. Although not the best one.

DESIGN

Before the Forge event we had very simple, Elegant, inventory/marketplace interaction. There was one rarity (Loyal) that was not tradable/marketable and it mainly governed items rewarded to players for certain purchases or for completing certain tasks (which they can still do). Everything else was tradable/marketable. It was clean, it let players work towards skins they wanted at their own pace and there was never a reason to fear for not being able to get your "dream" skin. With the introduction of the Forge however, we now have skins and other items of all rarities that are not tradeable, not marketable and only attainable for a short while . It's now not a far-cry from the mess that is TF2's item trading "system" and I really hope we aren't heading down that road of each update adding a new mechanic, rarity or restriction to items to further complicate what was once a very open and honest system. I can't say for sure whether the system we have now is the final product but considering that the cost of these skins has increased from The Forge to Winter's Feast (£11.99 for 12 skins, £7.19 for 6 and I assume we get the privilege of spending another £7.19 next year to complete the set) I'm not filled with confidence that Klei has altogether good intentions.This might seem like nitpicking and I'm sure some people are thinking "why not just just make everything Loyal then" but that would only fix it on the surface, it doesn't help with the bigger issue.

VALUE

The event skins are completely worthless. The #1 reason for the skins not being marketable/tradable is more than likely to ensure more people buy them directly from Klei. If they could be sold on the SCM or traded with friends, everyone would just sell their duplicates for profit or buy the skins that they're missing and less money would go to Klei, right? Probably. But it doesn't have to be that way. The more encouraging explanation is that this way the skins remain "special" or "rare" like a badge of honour for participating in an event. But there's a workaround for that too. If the skins were only not tradable/marketable during events and became tradable/marketable once the event was over Klei would still make plenty of money. Lots of people bought the forge skins early on in the event so they could wear them and show them off during, these are the people that would pay any price for the skins, you're not going to lose those customers. Then there's the people that bought one or maybe two sets just for their main/favourite character but don't care about collecting everything. Then there's the absolute mad-men that bought enough of the £11.99 skin pack to be able to unravel it all and craft the entire collection from spools and the equally insane people that played enough Forge to collect/craft almost everything without spending anything. What does that leave us with? People that were never going to buy anything and people that would buy it if it was cheaper. Oh and lets not forget about the kids, the kids who don't have money to buy stuff but desperately want a certain skin and save up all throughout the event to buy that Wilson skin because they're all god damn Wilson but don't quite make it to that £1.99 goal. Think of the children Klei. As far as I understand Klei is supposed to get 10% of SCM sales for DST items so currently after the events end they make no more money from skins but if they were marketable there's money to be made there, money that might eventually make up for however much you lose from people waiting for the event to end to buy skins on the SCM.

Now if the bigger issue is rarity/prestige then there's a simple fix for that already in the current system. Timeless. Similar to there being an option to unravel an item, why not let players turn it into a marketable version which in turn removes a (Timeless) tag that all event items now come with. So you can either keep your super special event item or sell it on. Those that wait until after the event to get an item don't get the "rare" version. Both these options imbue the event skins with some resale value, which would make the current pricing more palatable.

THE OPTIONS

These are just my suggested fixes, feel free to make your own. I've seen a fair bit of discussion about this and I'm interested to hear others objective opinions.

1. Lower the prices

Not the best solution, I think there's better workarounds that suit what I assume are Klei's and the communities needs. I also doubt refunds are on the cards so this doesn't grandfather in very well.

2. Make everything marketable

Again, I'd suggest this only happening after the event ends, similar to how there's a trade restriction on TF2 items bought from the shop/SCM a similar timer could be added to items to show when they will be tradable/marketable. Or not, make it a surprise after the event ends. If rarity is an issue keep in mind that players can only craft up to one of a skin that they don't already own, so extras would only come from drops and people couldn't stockpile skins they think will be rare when the event ends. All duplicates could even turn into spools when an event ends if you want to be extra mean about it.

3. Timeless Skins

All event skins come with a (Timeless) tag and are untradable/unmarketable until you choose to craft it into a tradable/marketable version that loses the tag. You get your super special skin, and little Timmy gets the Wilson skin he so desperately wanted but couldn't afford during the event.

4. Marketable/Tradable Spools

This is a sort of compromise. If you could craft spools into a box/bundle of spools type item and sell it on the SCM or trade it to friends it would be the simplest workaround. You'd be able to get some value back out of event skins if you ever wanted to sell them, they wouldn't be completely worthless, Klei would make money from the SCM sales, people that didn't buy skins before because they were a poor "investment" might be tempted to if they had resale value. I'm pretty sure this would only net Klei extra profit, is there a downside?

THE GOOD ENDING

Klei is still working out the kinks in the system, skin prices are subject to change/lower in price and some of these suggestions have already been thought about and might even be planned in the future. The prices are high because Klei feels they are worth that price or they assume not many people will buy the sets (it's Common for smaller businesses to charge more due to a smaller customer base but if there's a large enough customer base it makes sense to sell more of something for less). If this is the case, assuming there's a way, it would be nice if Klei looked into the event skin sales percentages vs active players percentages and tested out if selling them at a lower price (maybe half) for the next event net them double the sales (effectively keeping the profit the same but letting more people enjoy the skins).

THE BAD ENDING

Klei has realised that they can sell skins at a high price with no resale value and people will still buy them either to support them or for fear of not being able to acquire the skins in the future. The problem here is eventually people won't care anymore, the reason I was so happy to spend £11.99 on the Forge skins was that I felt like Klei deserved that money for all the hours I have enjoyed in DS/DST but with the introduction of the Winter's Feast skins and the fact that more events are planned I'm not sure if I can justify spending £20 or more on (functionally) nothing every year. It's especially irritating when I could be spending half that if the prices were halved and someone else who didn't buy the skins previously due to them being expensive made up the other half. By far the most worrying thing though is these skins not being tradable/marketable, it seems like a very calculated move when you combine it with the emphasis on collecting the new collections page has. Almost as if it's a way to exploit money out of completionists, of which there are many on steam (me somewhat included). Buy it now or never.

I apologise if this seems like a very glass half empty outlook but I can't help but notice the scent of foul play here, whether intentional or not. Steam quickly transformed into a massive collectathon with trading cards/badges/achievements and it's all targeted towards a certain demographic that either enjoys it or hates to have to participate. I'm somewhere in the middle but I'm not a fan of what Klei might be doing here. I hope I'm wrong and just making nonsense out of logical business decisions but who knows. I'm sure some of you reading can't wait to call me an idiot that's overthinking it but I'm only saying all of this because I've had six or more years of being a Loyal customer and thinking of Klei as one of the best devs and I'd hate to see them become like (almost) everyone else.

 

TL;DR With their current implementation are event skins worth the money?

 

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1 hour ago, D7X said:

Everything else was tradable/marketable. It was clean, it let players work towards skins they wanted at their own pace and there was never a reason to fear for not being able to get your "dream" skin.

There is meager amount of cleanness or "work towards" related to Steam Market and DST skins on sale there: just pure RNG drops at one end and troll-sellers plus loco-buyers (willing to give the insane amount of money trolls demand) at the other end. And the funny thing: as a concept is ok, that's the basics of totally unregulated free market. There are a lot of people with literally hundreds/thousands of hours under DST-belt that just got bad RNG materialized in low-tier drops (almost no Distinguished or Elegants whatsoever) which, even entirely sold on Steam Market, won't get them desired and truly-rare skins (think Hallowed Light, Bumble Spear, Alchemy Pod, Creepy Cauldron, GoH, now The Roseate, etc). Thus I for one appreciate more a fixed price tag - sensible lowered prices though, mind you - from Klei as prime-seller than the SM insanity or Steam Trade feature (with all its scammers inherently attached).

Event skins on Steam Market after event? That would probably bring only more insanely-priced items.

 

BTW: what is the Lustrous Alchemy Pod anyway?! Anyone got it with that Rarity-tag and how?

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$9.99 makes more sense than $12.99 as it is more divisible by $5. Being forced to add money in increments means potential unusable points/funds and for consumers who will only spend $12.99 but are forced to add $15 to a wallet means they have wasted $2 and may feel like it is a scam to milk them of money. This is partially why most online stores allow you to match needed funds now as it is more friendly for players less invented in the platform they purchase content on.

I don't want to talk too much about the "match funds" as it opens up a lot of tax issues but its worth mentioning. In certain regions/situations matching funds requires you to pay taxes but adding wallet funds then purchasing content with them does not. As an example I would pay 10% tax if I matched funds for the $12.99 bundle (paying $14.30 total) but if I add wallet funds and then purchase the bundle I don't pay tax. (Spending $12.99 total.) Situations like this can still create unspent funds and should be avoided although most players would probably opt for adding $15 and only spending $12.99. Players who aren't invested in Steam may be better paying tax as it "wastes" less money. In the future I expect character bundles may be increased to $14.99 as it is slightly friendlier. If Klei adds Elegant "The Challenger" skins to the Forge bundle it may be increased to $19.99 or more.

Respectfully I don't think you are viewing the new skin system and the DLC expansions in a proper setting. Don't Starves expansions may be providing you hundreds of hours of gameplay with new content but isn't Klei trying to do the same with the new skin system? Instead of the sale of DLC directly providing revenue for new content (and many hours of play) now the sale of skins/cosmetic items provides revenue for new content (and many hours of play). The biggest difference is that there is the DLC itself does not support Klei; the sale of skins does.

In regards to the "value" of skins setting their price to purely $9.99 is not completely accurate. The cost of purchasing the skins is $9.99 but you receive the skins and support the games development. (Receiving future content.) This recently manifested itself with performance improvements in Winters Feast 2017. The cost of not purchasing the skins is Klei potentially lacking funds and not being able to spend development time on DST. (No more bugfixes, new events, etc.) If you know you are going to enjoy DST and feel like you will get value out of the $9.99 pack (through the skins and future game support) then buy it. If you feel like you don't (maybe a newer player to the game who is unsure if they will enjoy it and can't resell them on the market) then don't buy it. Its ultimately your decision to purchase the skins or not.

Also if you have feedback for Klei related to money they will probably read it and appreciate it but won't directly reply. Developers almost never talk to the community about money and mechanics related to it.

2 minutes ago, xxVERSUSxy said:

Event skins on Steam Market after event? That would probably bring only more insanely-priced items.

What some people have done in other games is mass buying items when they go on sale on the official store and reselling them on the market when the official store raises the price.

In regards to DST most players would probably purchase the $12.99 bundle and resell its sets individually for $2.00 or something else. This would make Klei's $2.99 bundle non competitive with sellers purchasing the $12.99 bundle and splitting it up for resale. I don't think the prices could go too high while Klei sells the skins as sellers can't resell items above $2.99 as Klei's bundles are in infinite supply. When they aren't on the official store then they could probably reach insane prices.

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3 minutes ago, xxVERSUSxy said:

There is meager amount of cleanness or "work towards" related to Steam Market and DST skins on sale there: just pure RNG drops at one end and troll-sellers plus loco-buyers (willing to give the insane amount of money trolls demand) at the other end. And the funny thing: is ok, that's the basics of totally unregulated free market. There are a lot of people with literally hundreds/thousands of hours under DST-belt that just got bad RNG materialized in low-tier drops (almost no Distinguished or Elegants whatsoever) which, even entirely sold on Steam Market, won't get them desired and truly-rare skins (think Hallowed Light, Bumble Spear, Alchemy Pod, Creepy Cauldron, GoH, now The Roseate, etc). Thus I for one appreciate more a fixed price tag - sensible lowered prices though, mind you - from Klei as only-seller than the SM insanity or Steam Trade feature (with all its scammers inherently attached).

Event skins on Steam Market after event? That would probably bring only more insanely-priced items.

 

BTW: what is the Lustrous Alchemy Pod anyway?! Anyone got it with that Rarity-tag and how?

My mention of it being clean was more to do with item quality/rarity and the associated tags on items. As for working towards something, sure it's going to take you a while to save up for a Bumble Spear if that's what you want, but the option is always there however distant it may be. With the new event skins it's buy it now or buy it never. It locks players into a choice or out of a choice rather. There's plenty of ways to make money on steam if you're inclined to do so, you aren't limited to DST drops alone.

I very much doubt that the event skins would come with a harsh price tag on the SCM if they were marketable. The drops were quite common and it was easy to get at least a few elegant's if you put the hours in plus if there's already a price set by Klei it's unlikely to sell for more than that on the SCM. You can look at TF2 as an example for this, virtually nothing they sell in their store is worth more on the market. A while after the event ends this might be a different story but if you consider that every player could potentially own all of the elegant's from an event plus possibly duplicates, supply is going to outweigh demand for a good while. There are plenty of people that bought the 12 skin pack instead of the individual ones because they wanted maybe four or five characters skins and it ended up being more worthwhile to just buy the lot too.

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45 minutes ago, Dreamscape18459 said:

Respectfully I don't think you are viewing the new skin system and the DLC expansions in a proper setting. Don't Starves expansions may be providing you hundreds of hours of gameplay with new content but isn't Klei trying to do the same with the new skin system? Instead of the sale of DLC directly providing revenue for new content (and many hours of play) now the sale of skins/cosmetic items provides revenue for new content (and many hours of play). The biggest difference is that there is the DLC itself does not support Klei; the sale of skins does.

In regards to the "value" of skins setting their price to purely $9.99 is not completely accurate. The cost of purchasing the skins is $9.99 but you receive the skins and support the games development. (Receiving future content.) This recently manifested itself with performance improvements in Winters Feast 2017. The cost of not purchasing the skins is Klei potentially lacking funds and not being able to spend development time on DST. (No more bugfixes, new events, etc.) If you know you are going to enjoy DST and feel like you will get value out of the $9.99 pack (through the skins and future game support) then buy it. If you feel like you don't (maybe a newer player to the game who is unsure if they will enjoy it and can't resell them on the market) then don't buy it. Its ultimately your decision to purchase the skins or not.

I understand the motivations behind selling skins to players, I just don't think they have been implemented with the best of intentions. If you pretend that DST has 100 players, pretend 50 of them will never spend money on in-game purchases, 25 will buy a 12 character skin pack at £11.99 and 25 would buy the pack if it were £5.99. You can either sell it to 50 people for half price and make 50 people happy and feel like they got good value, or you can exclude 25 people and make the other 25 happy and feel like they got good value whilst still making the same amount of profit. Which is better? 50 people singing your praises or 25 singing praises and 25 annoyed/apathetic customers. One of the big reasons DS/DST has done so well is because it and it's expansions were always very well priced. It makes no sense to throw that business model out of the window in favour of making a quick buck, especially when there's alternatives that could make you the same amount of money or potentially more and please more customers. I want to support Klei and their future developments probably more than I want the skins in these packs, but that doesn't eliminate the fact that there's someone else out there that couldn't afford £12.99 but could have probably justified £5.99 and got to enjoy using the skins, feeling like they were supporting Klei and feeling like they got good value. I don't just want a better deal for me, I've already said goodbye to that money, I want a better deal for everyone and some reassurance that we aren't heading down the darker path of business practices.

1 hour ago, Dreamscape18459 said:

What some people have done in other games is mass buying items when they go on sale on the official store and reselling them on the market when the official store raises the price.

In regards to DST most players would probably purchase the $12.99 bundle and resell its sets individually for $2.00 or something else. This would make Klei's $2.99 bundle non competitive with sellers purchasing the $12.99 bundle and splitting it up for resale. I don't think the prices could go too high while Klei sells the skins as sellers can't resell items above $2.99 as Klei's bundles are in infinite supply. When they aren't on the official store then they could probably reach insane prices.

Which is why if they were made marketable it would make sense to have that come into play only after the event has ended. Anyone scared the prices might increase once they're available on the SCM has the option to buy them from Klei first and anyone willing to take the risk might get a better deal after if the supply massively outweighs the demand. And either way Klei gets 10% of the SCM sales and continues to make money off the skin packs even after the event has ended.

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3 hours ago, D7X said:

5. Wildcard

Stop selling skins sets and start selling chests instead. Make everything tradable/marketable right from the start of an event but purchased chests have a higher chance for better items. Make the chests cheap enough that any left over money in peoples steam wallets might get used on them

 

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4 hours ago, D7X said:

Stop selling skins sets and start selling chests instead. Make everything tradable/marketable right from the start of an event but purchased chests have a higher chance for better items. Make the chests cheap enough that any left over money in peoples steam wallets might get used on them.

Loot boxes are an addiction

People are addicted to buying loot boxes and opening them

In the end of the day, they're a huge scam

Don't bring this system to DST

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2 hours ago, D7X said:

I understand the motivations behind selling skins to players, I just don't think they have been implemented with the best of intentions. If you pretend that DST has 100 players, pretend 50 of them will never spend money on in-game purchases, 25 will buy a 12 character skin pack at £11.99 and 25 would buy the pack if it were £5.99. You can either sell it to 50 people for half price and make 50 people happy and feel like they got good value, or you can exclude 25 people and make the other 25 happy and feel like they got good value whilst still making the same amount of profit. Which is better? 50 people singing your praises or 25 singing praises and 25 annoyed/apathetic customers. One of the big reasons DS/DST has done so well is because it and it's expansions were always very well priced. It makes no sense to throw that business model out of the window in favour of making a quick buck, especially when there's alternatives that could make you the same amount of money or potentially more and please more customers. I want to support Klei and their future developments probably more than I want the skins in these packs, but that doesn't eliminate the fact that there's someone else out there that couldn't afford £12.99 but could have probably justified £5.99 and got to enjoy using the skins, feeling like they were supporting Klei and feeling like they got good value. I don't just want a better deal for me, I've already said goodbye to that money, I want a better deal for everyone and some reassurance that we aren't heading down the darker path of business practices.

Which is why if they were made marketable it would make sense to have that come into play only after the event has ended. Anyone scared the prices might increase once they're available on the SCM has the option to buy them from Klei first and anyone willing to take the risk might get a better deal after if the supply massively outweighs the demand. And either way Klei gets 10% of the SCM sales and continues to make money off the skin packs even after the event has ended.

Price points are really hard to implement to be affordable to every player. Its extremely difficult to establish and currency fluctuations can require ongoing evaluation/changes. Its great that you care about affordability for other players who may not be fortunate enough to live in a region where the currency is strong although I think your effort is slightly misguided. I would personally evaluate the game's base cost before evaluating the skins cost. (Players can't purchase the skins if you cant afford the game. DST's system requirements could be nice for weaker currency regions but you are better to ask somebody else's opinion with more knowledge about currency conversion and hardware in non US regions.)

Also Klei can't easily make the skins marketable, affordable for low income regions and purchasable from their in game store. Abusing Steams currency conversion has created a black market/legal gray area for businesses to purchase games cheaply in currencies (usually the Ruble) and sell them for Euro's/USD. Valve doesn't like this so Klei probably won't do it.

4 hours ago, D7X said:

5. Wildcard

Stop selling skins sets and start selling chests instead. Make everything tradable/marketable right from the start of an event but purchased chests have a higher chance for better items. Make the chests cheap enough that any left over money in peoples steam wallets might get used on them.

 

Implementing a slot machine or other form of gambling is not a good solution to this problem. If you want to have legitimate discussion in this thread you must remove this from your post. Everyone will see this and complain.

The current system is fine and is the sole reason I purchase skins from Klei/the market. I would much rather pay $20 for a Wendy Elegant than pay $0.99 for a 0.0012563% chance of the item I want. Purchasing the skins from Klei/steam market, even if the price may be high, is still far cheaper than gambling.

If you haven't actually opened a lootbox/spent money on them then please don't. Use your money wisely and don't blow it on gambling. If you really want to experience it I still would not advise it. Don't even watch video's of someone opening them. Lootboxes are designed to be addictive and is a pipe siphoning money from your wallet into shareholders pockets.

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1 hour ago, PillsStealer said:

Loot boxes are an addiction

People are addicted to buying loot boxes and opening them

In the end of the day, they're a huge scam

Don't bring this system to DST

But this brings more copper to the devs, and knowing Klei that means more content for everyone. I like the current system but even if they did implement "some other" form of gambling as an optional thing I wouldn't complain. But only because of how much this specific company does listen its playerbase and constantly pushes to improve and polish their games based on it.

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7 hours ago, D7X said:

Think of the children Klei.

I laughed here.

7 hours ago, D7X said:

I'm not sure if I can justify spending £20 or more on (functionally) nothing every year.

For me the skins actually have a high function, they simply make me happy. I love the new Winter's Feast skins and even though I don't play most of the characters I wanted to have them and even thought about playing them just so I can use the skins and enjoy how pretty they look, cause in the end that's what they're there for. Also, I remember people asking Klei to sell skins directly, so that we can support Klei and not some stranger who just had a lot of luck getting a rare skin drop. Klei gave us a lot of options for skins and I for one really enjoy it.

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8 hours ago, disies said:

For me the skins actually have a high function, they simply make me happy. I love the new Winter's Feast skins and even though I don't play most of the characters I wanted to have them and even thought about playing them just so I can use the skins and enjoy how pretty they look, cause in the end that's what they're there for. Also, I remember people asking Klei to sell skins directly, so that we can support Klei and not some stranger who just had a lot of luck getting a rare skin drop. Klei gave us a lot of options for skins and I for one really enjoy it.

They have that function for me too, I like using the skins but I play four or five different characters fairly regularly so buying just the skins I like/want for individual characters ends up being pretty close in cost to just buying the whole pack, so I've ended up shelling out for the entire pack both times now. Couple that with the fact that the current system encourages buying it now or possibly never getting to own the skins and it all seems rather calculated. I don't doubt these packs are a great way for the community to support Klei but the methods could definitely be tweaked a little so that everyone still wins but we get a little more value out of our money. Also, let's not forget about all the people that missed these events for whatever reason, they don't get to enjoy any of the skins, there should be an option for them.

11 hours ago, Dreamscape18459 said:

Implementing a slot machine or other form of gambling is not a good solution to this problem. If you want to have legitimate discussion in this thread you must remove this from your post. Everyone will see this and complain.

The current system is fine and is the sole reason I purchase skins from Klei/the market. I would much rather pay $20 for a Wendy Elegant than pay $0.99 for a 0.0012563% chance of the item I want. Purchasing the skins from Klei/steam market, even if the price may be high, is still far cheaper than gambling.

If you haven't actually opened a lootbox/spent money on them then please don't. Use your money wisely and don't blow it on gambling. If you really want to experience it I still would not advise it. Don't even watch video's of someone opening them. Lootboxes are designed to be addictive and is a pipe siphoning money from your wallet into shareholders pockets.

It was a joke suggestion, I thought that was obvious from the title and the fact that it is completely out of line with the rest of the post but apparently not. Despite that though loot boxes are more ymmv than you seem to think. I have opened plenty in TF2 and made a lot of money off them, plenty of people have only ever opened one or two and made money also. I'm sure there's a much larger group that lost money, maybe even lots of money but they're basically slot machines and some people win big, others get nothing. If you open them when they're first released, at least in TF2, you can often make a big chunk of your money back even if you don't get anything good, and then continue cycling that same initial investment back into more crates/keys until you do "win." Having said that, I still wouldn't recommend opening them. Thanks for the condescending warning though.

EDIT:

Also, loot crates are effectively already in the game, I don't understand why anyone is acting like it's out of the question for Klei to implement. The Trade-Inn system is basically a long-winded crate system, you can pay real money for nine items of a certain quality and gamble on getting a better item. The Inn is the crate and the items are the key. Sure you can get the items from playing the game too but you can save up for a key by hoarding drops in other crate-oriented games too. All the pieces are there, I wouldn't be surprised if it's a planned feature. The winter's feast update even made it so you get a winter crate for trading in commons.

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Skins look good. Gives a great emote, the Snowfallen set anyways and you help out Klei by buying it.

Don't see why you would have a problem with something as harmless as this. You want the skins? Buy 'em. You don't want them? Then don't buy them. No need to put a price/trade tag on everything, in my personal opinion.

 

And please, for the love of god, no Crate system. Next thing you know, 'DSTGAMBLING4CO' or something in people's usernames as you join the public servers. Not only that, a Crate System, just as mentioned above, are luck games for younger people. It won't only scam them out of money, but it'll make lots of parents pretty unhappy.

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18 hours ago, D7X said:

TL;DR With their current implementation are event skins worth the money?

Yeah. Not a hard yeah, though. "Worth" is subjective – since you bought them too I assume you think it's worth it.

Full disclosure, I've bought the winter's feast skin set and I have almost every forge skin from sheer grinding of the event and luck. Owning the exclusive skins do give a special feeling. Joining my server and having people and myself admire how fancy I look gives me satisfaction.

Before The Forge, elegant heads were super expensive. They were like 7 bucks each at least, and even the ugly ones were expensive. Just the idea upgrading from the default head was pretty luxurious. I actually remember thinking when The Forge event skins came out, "Wow, these are cheap! Maybe the skin prices on the market will drop and match these prices better". I still did not buy anything though. It was more of a bonus to me; I just wanted to get every single achievement. (Which I did. Woohoo!)

I ended up buying the winter's feast set because I thought the art looked beautiful. Plus, I did not get any skins the last time so I figured to just give Klei my money happily. Then came the results of having a x4 drop rate...

The recent update's drop rate changed the whole "skin game", if I may. Check the recent skin prices – SO many elegants have dropped by SEVERAL dollars. Pretty crazy. A world where elegant heads are $1? Impossible...but it's happening. And I love it! Skins really should be this price, it's a real joy to have. Now it's accessible to many more people. I expect prices to rise slowly months after the event ends, but now I see this is possible. 

I've done a lot of trading in TF2 as well. In fact, all of my skins are funded by my time trading in that game. I managed to trade for some DST items with my TF2 items, and I gave stuff away as Christmas gifts. The power of Steam! However, if I wanted to trade my winter's feast skins for anything else...that won't be possible. I bought the skins, and the only thing I can do is is weave them into spools which are worth nowhere as much as another craftable skin. Not very cool. There aren't even nice things to use spools on now; The Forge had log suit reskins and a whole bunch of other stuff. I did not regret my buy, nor have I ever wanted to unravel them. I think I value skins by how much everything else is worth on the market. Now prices are much cheaper, and there are more variety in designs. Even though I think it will rise in prices in the future it won't get too expensive as it was before The Forge.

I only have one head to equip one skin at a time, and I can safely say all of my characters have a non-default head, and that's all I need to be content. Unless the design is AMAZING, I doubt I will be buying any more exclusive skins in the future. I can't trade the skins for anything else, and weaving is practically useless. 

But uh. Yeah if you guys wanna buy skins, go at it! Or just not. (:

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Imo the Skins look nice, are sold for a fair price 12,99 for 12 forge skins, 9,99 for 6 Winter's feast skins (unlike some heads for $30 and more a piece), and the ENTIRE money goes to Klei (not to some greedy person being lucky and asking a ton of money for a skin), a studio developing one of the most amazing Games I own that I bought for a reasonably low price, that still get's continuous development, new features and now some nice events for FREE for everyone. This way Klei can support their DST development free for everyone. If you buy them or not is up to each player, and that is a good thing. They don't change the gameplay at all, and you don't have to pay money for lootboxes or keys that give you a chance to get a skin, you just get the skin pack all at once.

I think that is a VERY fair move from Klei, and I don't think we are in a position to complain here, after receiving all this great content for free, and a option to buy a Skin set off the bat for a lower price than other Skins on the community market.

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18 minutes ago, Cellby said:

A world where elegant heads are $1? Impossible...but it's happening

But only for the cheapest elegant right? Or is it only for americans that cheap?

For example, my girlfriend love to play Wendy but the steammarket prices for her skins are rather high.

Halloweenskin? 15€

Roseate? Forget it. 39€

I gifted her 5€ and she buyed the Snowfallenskin. She is really happy about it.

I really like the system how it is now. I even wish they would add more to the store.

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2 minutes ago, Stimpz said:

But only for the cheapest elegant right? Or is it only for americans that cheap?

For example, my girlfriend love to play Wendy but the steammarket prices for her skins are rather high.

Halloweenskin? 15€

Roseate? Forget it. 39€

I gifted her 5€ and she buyed the Snowfallenskin. She is really happy about it.

I really like the system how it is now. I even wish they would add more to the store.

Only for the cheapest ones yes. I just think that the fact that some are $1+ is amazing already. You can click on the price column on the market to arrange it from lowest price to highest. Wendy skins are the most expensive of the bunch. I like that they added a sort of a "baseline" for how much a skin is supposed to be worth, though I doubt it would affect the skins worth $15+ much unfortunately...

When will the price of this beauty drop weh

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1 hour ago, Cellby said:

Yeah. Not a hard yeah, though. "Worth" is subjective – since you bought them too I assume you think it's worth it.

Full disclosure, I've bought the winter's feast skin set and I have almost every forge skin from sheer grinding of the event and luck. Owning the exclusive skins do give a special feeling. Joining my server and having people and myself admire how fancy I look gives me satisfaction.

Before The Forge, elegant heads were super expensive. They were like 7 bucks each at least, and even the ugly ones were expensive. Just the idea upgrading from the default head was pretty luxurious. I actually remember thinking when The Forge event skins came out, "Wow, these are cheap! Maybe the skin prices on the market will drop and match these prices better". I still did not buy anything though. It was more of a bonus to me; I just wanted to get every single achievement. (Which I did. Woohoo!)

I ended up buying the winter's feast set because I thought the art looked beautiful. Plus, I did not get any skins the last time so I figured to just give Klei my money happily. Then came the results of having a x4 drop rate...

The recent update's drop rate changed the whole "skin game", if I may. Check the recent skin prices – SO many elegants have dropped by SEVERAL dollars. Pretty crazy. A world where elegant heads are $1? Impossible...but it's happening. And I love it! Skins really should be this price, it's a real joy to have. Now it's accessible to many more people. I expect prices to rise slowly months after the event ends, but now I see this is possible. 

Plenty of items have dropped in price on the SCM because supply has gone up. A lot of the Halloween stuff went way down because we had a second year of drops, so as the supply goes up the demand goes down and the prices lower organically. It's a great system. Sellers don't determine the worth of something, buyers do. If you put a Wendy Elegant up for sale for £100 and someone buys it then it's worth £100 to that person. If the next seller does the same and no one buys it then they have to lower their price until someone does, at which point it's worth is determined again by the buyer. The reason elegant's were so expensive was because supply was very low and demand high. If the Forge/Winter's feast skins were marketable their prices would likely reflect Klei's prices or maybe even initially be lower due to the massive supply. I think it's fair to say that before the forge it was very rare for a player to get an elegant item through the drop system but during the forge event, opening 20-30 chests would likely net you at least one, and you could part with £1.99 also for a guarenteed one, or even just grind out spools and craft as many as you liked. I've made plenty of suggestions in my post that wouldn't effect you getting your fairly priced elegant's/skins. The benefit would be to those that either couldn't participate in the event, couldn't afford the skins they wanted at the time or refused to buy them because they had no actual value once bought. I actually think the event skins so far would be very fairly price, if they were marketable in some way.

1 hour ago, Daniel86268 said:

Imo the Skins look nice, are sold for a fair price 12,99 for 12 forge skins, 9,99 for 6 Winter's feast skins (unlike some heads for $30 and more a piece), and the ENTIRE money goes to Klei (not to some greedy person being lucky and asking a ton of money for a skin), a studio developing one of the most amazing Games I own that I bought for a reasonably low price, that still get's continuous development, new features and now some nice events for FREE for everyone. This way Klei can support their DST development free for everyone. If you buy them or not is up to each player, and that is a good thing. They don't change the gameplay at all, and you don't have to pay money for lootboxes or keys that give you a chance to get a skin, you just get the skin pack all at once.

I think that is a VERY fair move from Klei, and I don't think we are in a position to complain here, after receiving all this great content for free, and a option to buy a Skin set off the bat for a lower price than other Skins on the community market.

The "greedy" people asking for lots for a skin are only going to get it if someone else thinks it's worth it. It's a very fair system. If you own something that is scarce it makes sense to ask for more in order to part with it. The events aren't free either, if you buy the skins you're the one paying for these future events. Future events that might not even be good, that might not even happen. Klei could shut down tomorrow and close all the DST servers and stop supporting the game, then what? You've already given them the money. It's the same as paid alphas/betas for games and anyone with any sense can admit that those are usually terrible. In fact Klei is probably (for now) the only company I still trust when it comes to early access. Giving people the option to sell on the skins in the future benefits everyone, including Klei. People would be more likely to purchase them if they new that in the future, if they lost interest in DST or wanted to buy something else on steam through selling their DST items, they could be resold.

I'm not complaining either, I'm bringing all this up because it worries me. It's a very slippery slope when money is involved, it doesn't take much for a business to go from caring and considerate of it's customers to greedy and money-grubbing. I'm not saying Klei are there yet, but they've taken steps vaguely in that direction with the way these event skins have been implemented. If the community just accepts it without questioning it, there's no telling what the next step might be. It's great to enjoy something made by a company but it's negligent to sit by and be an apathetic consumer.

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4 hours ago, D7X said:

stion, I thought that was obvious from the title and the fact that it is completely out of line with the rest of the post but apparently not. Despite that though loot boxes are more ymmv than you seem to think. I have opened plenty in TF2 and made a lot of money off them, plenty of people have only ever opened one or two and made money also. I'm sure there's a much larger group that lost money, maybe even lots of money but they're basically slot machines and some people win big, others get nothing. If you open them when they're first released, at least in TF2, you can often make a big chunk of your money back even if you don't get anything good, and then continue cycling that same initial investment back into more crates/keys until you do "win." Having said that, I still wouldn't recommend opening them. Thanks for the condescending warning though.

EDIT:

Also, loot crates are effectively already in the game, I don't understand why anyone is acting like it's out of the question for Klei to implement. The Trade-Inn system is basically a long-winded crate system, you can pay real money for nine items of a certain quality and gamble on getting a better item. The Inn is the crate and the items are the key. Sure you can get the items from playing the game too but you can save up for a key by hoarding drops in other crate-oriented games too. All the pieces are there, I wouldn't be surprised if it's a planned feature. The winter's feast update even made it so you get a winter crate for trading in commons.

Ah it was a joke. That makes more sense.

I don't mind free random cosmetic drops that cost no money to obtain but paid random drops aren't good, especially if they are the only way to acquire a cosmetic item and/or are not cosmetic in nature. (Starwars Battlefront 2 is a great example of what not to do.) As terrible as Bethesda's Creation Club is it still is significantly less terrible than paid lootboxes of any sort although this is just my opinion.

In regards to concern of Klei turning into other developers just spend money on the cosmetics. If Klei ever implements paid lootboxes then never spend money on a Klei game again. If a company can't turn a profit off of lootboxes then they have a choice to implement different sources of revenue that don't require gambling or simply to not exist. (EA's share's of stock fell 8.5% evaporating 3.1 Billion dollars of worth for the company.)

Unfortunately we can't really boycott Valve easily as they don't even need gambling addicts playing their games due to the amount of money they make from Steam.

1 hour ago, Stimpz said:

But only for the cheapest elegant right? Or is it only for americans that cheap?

For example, my girlfriend love to play Wendy but the steammarket prices for her skins are rather high.

Halloweenskin? 15€

Roseate? Forget it. 39€

I gifted her 5€ and she buyed the Snowfallenskin. She is really happy about it.

I really like the system how it is now. I even wish they would add more to the store.

For Americans the skins are really cheap at the moment, probably the cheapest than they have been for the games lifetime. Even low income (for United States standards that is) citizens should be able to afford even the $50 skins comfortably. I still wouldn't spend that much as in a few months the Wendy/Wigfrid Roseate will probably be sub $20.

The most expensive skins will probably remain the Proof of Purchase skins due to shipping. (I think during the recent Krampus sale you could purchase the 7 plushes spending around $29 per skin but I don't remember exactly atm.) Of course you do also get the plushes but....I mostly got them for the skins though. =)

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Overall I’m happy with the current system, I like that I can essentially buy the event pack outright and support future events. One improvement though would be allowing players to gift duplicate skins to friends.

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6 hours ago, D7X said:

Plenty of items have dropped in price on the SCM because supply has gone up. A lot of the Halloween stuff went way down because we had a second year of drops, so as the supply goes up the demand goes down and the prices lower organically. It's a great system. Sellers don't determine the worth of something, buyers do. If you put a Wendy Elegant up for sale for £100 and someone buys it then it's worth £100 to that person. If the next seller does the same and no one buys it then they have to lower their price until someone does, at which point it's worth is determined again by the buyer. The reason elegant's were so expensive was because supply was very low and demand high. If the Forge/Winter's feast skins were marketable their prices would likely reflect Klei's prices or maybe even initially be lower due to the massive supply. I think it's fair to say that before the forge it was very rare for a player to get an elegant item through the drop system but during the forge event, opening 20-30 chests would likely net you at least one, and you could part with £1.99 also for a guarenteed one, or even just grind out spools and craft as many as you liked. I've made plenty of suggestions in my post that wouldn't effect you getting your fairly priced elegant's/skins. The benefit would be to those that either couldn't participate in the event, couldn't afford the skins they wanted at the time or refused to buy them because they had no actual value once bought. I actually think the event skins so far would be very fairly price, if they were marketable in some way.

Yeah. I think they should be made marketable some time after the event. DST could have a better trading scene, if somehow these were all balanced out. I think the most important thing Klei has to realize is, like I said, most people only have 1 head. Even if people want to be diehard collectors, many probably can't afford it. They have probably seen a lot of success for these skin set sales, but as time goes on, and the same system is still in place, less skins will be bought – at least by the "older" generation who already has bought a lot of skins directly from the store. I don't play Willow, I don't even play Wilson, but I still got the winter's feast skins. Next time at most I would buy a skin only for the character I will actually play.

The only way I could see skins being more worthwhile with the current skin system is for EVENTS. Multiplayer events. Even permanent fixtures in the game. People want to show off their nice skins. People will feel more self conscious if they see other people flocking their several heads every time a lobby resets. If The Forge was made a full time fixture for example, skins in the marketplace and in general will be in higher demand. Stuff to actually trade the spools into.

Just know that Klei, with the current system in which you are selling your store skins, I'm not going to pay you $12 bucks two times a year for however long more I'll play this game IF you don't show the possibility of some sort of return. I doubt people will pay $50 of their own money for an unusual TF2 hat if they know they can't get it back. At least they can trade it around to enjoy other hats, or even cash out / trade it for other items or games in the future. And I guess mentioning this game again can raise another point: the reason people are willing to invest some money into games like these is because other people can see them, and be "wow'd" by them. Getting skins from the store at the moment, cannot be an "investment". It's just take it or leave it.

The issue right now is just how they have a headlock on the money we give to them, which is fine. It's just not an incentive to keep people, the same people who are interested enough in skins, to buy again and again.

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