Do you have a quote from the Game Design - Rule Book that rules out what @Crayfish is taking about? 
This is the point, people will spend more even for an unquantifiable advantage.
Letâs look at Arma 3, there are competitive players of that game and there are in-app purchases to unlock weapon and vehicle packs. You can bet those competitive players have bought all the paid expansions that give them access to equipment that a player of the base game does not have.
I see no logical distinction between allowing players to pay for an advantage by purchasing an in game item than them buying an advantage by having better hardware.
To clarify further, these advantages donât have to be big at all and certainly donât have to be âpay to winâ. Only a Sith deals in absolutes. You can allow people do spend money on your game for a slight advantage without ruining the game for everyone else. Skill will be a part of the equation as ever.
Remember that motor racing is also a sport and we donât see it as âunsportsmanlikeâ to race one driver against another driver in a car that is faster due to better engineering. Any sport that relies heavily on equipment, vehicles or trained animals has the same issue.
In the end Iâd like Battlescape to hit their Kickstarter goal and will argue in favour of any decision that will make that more likely. I can sacrifice a small advantage to wealthy backers for the sake of that. And it really can be a small advantage to get a lot more money, as evidenced by the price of golf balls.
Persistence only kicks in if we reach our highest funding goal, we canât have people pledging to something that might not even make it into the game because the goal wasnât reached. Every reward we promise has to be economically viable for us to provide via the min KS funding/budget/scope.
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How would you offer unique skins and/or weapon effects as a reward without some sort of persistence?
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Probably through player accounts/login when joining a sanctioned server, that is where your pledgee status will come from. Keith can probably explain it in more detail than I.
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The weapons added in the Marksmen DLC are not better than the ones in the base game. They are just different. They may suit one personâs play style better than any of the base weapons but that does not mean they provide a significant inherent advantage in battle vs someone using base weapons.
The Helicopters DLC adds 2 transport helis that can only be piloted by DLC owners. Everyone can be a passenger of these.
The other features released alongside the Marksmen and Helicopters DLC were free updates to the base game. Eg bipods and improved flight model.
I guess itâs too late to add some sort of persistence and then structure your reward tiers to offer advantages based on that?
But if you did structure the base game so it includes some persistence, it might pay for itself, by offering small persistent starting advantages that can also be attained through normal gameplay. Usually I giggle at people that pay a lot of money for a starting advantage, if those advantages can be obtained through normal gameplay and I scream foul if the advantages are premium only.
However, getting a bit older, having a child and all the responsibility that comes with it, if $5 saves me 10 hours of grind gameplay, well itâs worth it.
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I think we have to, and will, do a better job describing âsemi-persistenceâ when we launch the Battlescape site. But the bottom line is, whatever rewards we offer, have to be economical for us to deliver, while making a game on the min budget.
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That doesnât really mean that you are closed to the idea and that itâs a definite no, sounds more like you guys would be willing to do it if a economical way of putting those features in is found. I suppose you should chat to your gameplay programmer.
The issue at hand is really one of art budget, if this persistence requires more/varied assets, then itâs likely a no-go.
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Maybe you should open it up to community discussion, there must be many ways to have persistence that doesnât require a new mesh or 100 hours worth of art work for per feature.
While I was getting my root canal just now I was bored and thinking about that exact problem crytic, what would be easy to have persist but also be meaningful?
Obviously player âlevelsâ is am easy answer but what really do they unlock? All they do is delay the true game in the first place. It can be called as a learning experience but Iâm not a huge fan of any grind. I was thinking maybe certain "modules " and you can only have so many equipped that you have to choose between so you can add some customization to your ship. Aka 5% shields strength, or recharge but not both. Or to acceleration or something like that. It still brings up the unavoidable grind. Regardless, something like that doesnât require much work other than a separate ui screen, some 2d modules of an engine, and a description.
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Look, I think a lot of what you guys are talking is off-topic. Itâs not that we donât want to do it, itâs that we came to the conclusion that it doesnât make sense for us, to do it.
Cost versus Risk.
Letâs say our minimum Kickstarter goal starts at $400,000 ( donât quote me on that, itâs just an example ). Then if we add tiers that reward backers with exclusive ships ( not just reskins ), then we are legally forced to deliver no matter if 1 person or 1000 persons pledged at that tier. Follow me ?
So the question becomes: how much does it cost to produce the assets for a new ship ? Versus the likelihood of having people pledge at that level ?
If the asset costs $30,000 for us to produce, then we need 200 people pledging at the $150 level just to break even. If we donât reach that number, itâs putting the entire project at risk, budget-wise.
Itâs that simple: if weâre confident weâll have 200+ people pledging, then yes, we could add KS-exclusive ships. If weâre not confident, then no, we should stay away from that.
For reference, Starfighter Inc. offered backer-exclusive ships, so Iâm not even completely understanding Scarish when he says they made the mistake of not offering ships - they actually did, like the âShrikeâ at the $100 tier ( or the âPegasusâ at $250 ):
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/impellerstudios/starfighter-inc/description
That tier brought 175 backers, in other words if it had been Battlescapeâs KS and that asset cost $30K, we ( as a company ) would have lost $12,500.
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I think the real argument here is offering something a bit more appealing than some skins for $150. Some small advantage or perk that will make the elitist feel satisfied while not alienating the base players and still be economical for you, hence the talk of persistence.
So brainstorming, what comes to mind with minimal art resource impact that would satisfy this?
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Make a thread and give it a few days?
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I suggested planets for this very reason - the assumption being that you can create planets and moons without too much cost.
Give everyone in some low tier an extra moon or two. The same moon models for everyone in that tier.
Give a planet or two to a higher tier. Again, standard planets that are predefined, but not in the standard game.
At some high level, hand out special planets, one per backer. Say there are 100 backers at that level. Create 110 planets and let them pick one each, first-come-first-served.
Reselling planets is against the terms of the agreement - no Ebaying the coolest planet in the Kickstarter.
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The argument I was making was not for backer exclusive ships, but for ships that are âpre-unlockedâ in some way that meant that the player could have the ship faster in the game.
This is exactly the case with both Elite Dangerous where I have a few free ships because of my backer level and also Star Citizen where I have a ship I would otherwise have had to find and purchase. In neither case are the ships backer exclusives and would have been in the game whether they were presented as a reward or not.
This of course depends upon a certain level of persistence, but then youâll need that to grant custom skins or weapon effects anyway. It also depends on there being some sort of ship unlocking feature in the game. That could be credits or whatever resource points Battlescape will use.
Iâm not sure how that would work. Player X gets to use the bomber right away instead of starting with the interceptor because he was a $XXX Tier backer and doesnât need to use credits to start a match with that ship. A group of $XXX backers form a guild/corporation and all start with a better ship and skew any match they play against non-backers, etc.
IMO, in-game rewards must remain cosmetic only.
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How about, after 100 (persistent) kills any player can start a game with a $XXX Tier backer ship?