I need pink fuzzy dice. I need it.
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Monoclesâââââ
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Hah, I bet @INovaeGene thought heâd got away with this one. He raises an important issue about imbalance which is probably worth some consideration.
[quote=âINovaeGene, post:200, topic:849â] 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.
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Letâs think about this in terms of what happens in real online games right now. First of all if a guild stacks one team on a public server they are already going to win, even with the same equipment, unless they are the worst clan ever.
We can also rule out the balancing issue with purely competitive games. In these both teams will have invested money to make themselves as competitive as they can afford to be. This could be using hardware such as head tracking, software such as teamspeak or in game purchases / kickstarter rewards such as the âXRâ variant added range interceptor.
There could be minor balancing issues with open public play, but then there often are such issues anyway, just because one team will have better players than the other. Even these minor issues can be balanced back out to a degree if destroying a higher value ship gives a player more reward in some way. In fact such asymmetric battles can sometimes be the most rewarding.
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Do these monocles have any sort of special ability or added atribute?
NO?! I will take 10
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I think what most people expect from a kickstarter exclusive reward is:
a) persistence / permanence (so no rank boosting that can deteriorate if you happen to play bad)
b) uniqueness (Never ever make it publicly available to others through any way)
What quite a few people in this thread seem to care about:
c) no impact on gameplay (since it is a pvp centered game, anything that changes a levelled playing field seems meh imho)
I think we all can at least agree, that a reskinned ship is something that satisfies all points. As does special soundeffects, as they do not make the weapons stronger (Although funnily enough they can make people perceive a weapon as stronger than it is⌠I remember an article about a dev who changed the sound effects of a gun just to then get the feedback that the weapon was now op and that he should nerf it again. Canât remember exactly where that happened though)
Skins and sounds are a good way to show everyone: "I am an almighty kickstarter backer, bow before my golden cannon that shoot operettes of freedom colored bullets to the sound of wagners âRitt der WalkĂźreâ ", however something that tweaks / augments your personal (and only your personal) experience to give yourself an enhanced gameplay experience? Not really fond of that.
Speaking about @JB47394âs âextra lights on the shipâ: I do kind of like the idea of a led panel on backer ships where you can make either a rolling text (imagine a âyou canât touch thisâ blinking on the rear end of a ship that flies away from itâs pursuer) or a custom picture (like a huge crosshair)⌠Probably a terrible idea but oh well, fun to think about itâŚ
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Or even a decal. It doesnât have to be a big magnificent reward, especially since there will probably be something shinier further down the line, or it wonât match with your purple exhaust etc.
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Good question and a valid excuse for me to clarify the type of paid âadvantagesâ I think would work will within the bounds of a game like Battlescape.
First letâs make some assumptions about the game. Letâs say that the core game comes with eight flyable ships, four for faction A and four for faction B. We have a Fighter, an Interceptor, a Corvette and a Shuttle on each side.
Hereâs some possible pledge rewards with minimal art resource requirements:
Add $10 to your pledge to unlock the Fighter GR. The GR is optimised for ground attack and has one torpedo tube instead of the standard air to air missile hardpoints. The GR variant is the same as the standard model but has a visible under belly torpedo tube and a custom skin.
Add $25 to your pledge to unlock the Interceptor XS. The fastest ship in the game, this variant has a 10% speed boost but loses one of its hard points. The XS variant looks just like the base model but lacks one of the hard points and has a custom skin.
Add $50 to your pledge to unlock the Corvette Type B. The toughest ship you can buy, the type B has thicker armour but is 10% slower than the standard model. The type B is denoted by a custom skin.
Add $100 to your pledge to unlock the AWACS shuttle. Command the skies, this modified shuttle has half the cargo capacity of the standard shuttle but twice the radar range. The AWACS shuttle model is a variant with a visible scanner dome projecting from the hull, it also has a custom skin.
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Youâre ok with half of the ships in the game being backer-exclusive?
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Talon performance package (for interceptors)
- Black carbon fiber skin.
- Mil spec HUD sights (base model has a boresight).
- Advanced tracking indicators (base model just puts a box on possible targets).
- Conformal retracted landing gear (base model protrudes a bit).
- Cold blue engine exhaust (base model has more visible, brighter exhaust).
- Quiet weapon launch (base model has lots of clacking and clunking as weapons are released).
Sell the idea that the backer is getting an upgraded gameplay experience.
Edit: The genius of Star Citizen is that they have attracted players who want to be a starship pilot, and the experience of Star Citizen is structured to give those people that experience. If Iâm a starship pilot, then surely it makes sense to go to the local starship dealer and buy a fancy ship. Iâm worth it. Thatâs the pattern that INS needs to pursue. End
Role-specific packages can also be presented, along the lines that @Crayfish is suggesting - but without the need for clear gameplay-impacting changes. Lots of âflight softwareâ changes could be made, allowing a player to get a tighter experience for the specific role that he wants to pursue. Ground attack assists such as an artificial horizon. Tracking more targets. Tunable warning levels. Cup holders. Little upgrades that are nice-to-haves that form a package that appeals to players who are after a certain experience.
Note that if youâre really stuck for resources then the upgraded experience can be the original experience intended for players, while the base can be a downgraded version of the original.
Unfortunately, video demonstrating these things would have to come pretty quickly on the heels of the Kickstarter launch because you want to demonstrate why theyâre a cool experience. Of course, you could try to sell it just on the strength of a brochure.
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Yes.
Firstly, there could be in game ways to unlock those ships. Even if they were backer/IAP only it wouldnât bother me too much if it made I-Novae a lot more money.
Secondly, they arenât really entirely new ships, just variants to the standard models that give slight advantages in one area based upon a sacrifice in another.
That is horrible Crayfish, who here is not gonna have to buy 2 or 3 of those ships. 
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This is low art impact which is good, my concern is before we have any kind of gameplay / testing we are already promising something that hasnât been balanced or could be completely broken or unviable. What if through playtest we have to constantly balance these ships neutering some of them and enhancing others, then 1 backer who pledged $10 gets a far more advanced ship than the $100 backer. At least with skins you know 100% what you are getting whether is a gold plated livery or an advanced camo texture.
Iâd say you should probably have a good enough feel for your overall game design at the launch of your Kickstarter that you can specify good variants of ships and where they will sit in the game as a whole. Chris Roberts and David Braben both managed to offer ship variants as part of their Kickstarter rewards before their alpha testing phases.
If you donât have that kind of feel for how the game will work out then youâre right, you probably shouldnât offer such rewards.
They also had larger teams and spent a lot more money pre-KS.
I wouldnât be able to back this or recommend battlescape to anyone if there are backer exclusive ships ingame, even if they are âvariantsâ. if they have any gameplay differences whatsoever it kills the integrity of the gameplay and its simply not worth paying for anymore, i want to be able to tell a friend to pay whatever single price is decided on and have them be able to join and have all the gameplay, then if they want they can pay for more decals or whatever. Even HUD differences that intentionally give a worse HUD to some players would probably drive me off. MWO did this and some of the exclusive backer variants were straight up better than the non backer ones even if the intention was âsidegradeâ. itâs already been explained earlier in this thread why this model is incompatible with this kind of game even if it worked in a crappy mobile game or psuedo mmo.
I have to restate again that this is an extremely short sighted and quite frankly stupid idea for an indie studio to go with. Again, people are tired of the star citizens and MWOs people can recogonize p2win when they see it, take a strong stance in the opposite way and market that and youâll get a following in the current climate. Stick to decals, skins, badges, and other cosmetics. If they can be unlocked ingame inside a reasonable timeframe that would be more acceptable but the key there is reasonable timeframe.
Remember that any DLC will by necessity be sold less than the base game, which will need to be priced higher than the base game to make up for the less sales. The lower DLC sales means the dlc price skyrockets, then the value prospect for the end customer goes plummeting. Anything you just include in the base game can raise the price a much smaller fraction and still get the developers the same income, because everyone is buying it. Generally the DLC model works best in the AAA market where there is a predictable margin to exploit and a guarantee of game sales thanks to marketing funding.
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That would only help with production of art assets, which can be minimal with ship variants. Having larger teams doesnât help you with understanding your overall game design. That will usually be in the heads of less than half a dozen people and if youâre lucky recorded in a few documents.
Also in terms of pre-KS spend, I think you guys would compete quite well if you added up the market value of all the work thatâs gone into Infinity up till now.
How could I be so blind!!!
In seriousness though,
All of these are game changing rewards in one way or another and this would break the game for me and many others. Some of this is frankly ridiculous. The twice the radar rangeâŚif you have a legacy corp fighting a newer corp that wasnât here for the kickstarter and they DONT have twice as better as them radar(regardless of theyâre drawbacks), theyâre fâed. Simple as that. Thatâs so broken and silly.
The only thing I can see being given out is what youâve already decided on, skins, and decals like Ark suggested. Maybe even add the ability for people to put custom decals on their ship that they upload. Yes you might see a few penises but thatâs basically 0 artwork and just some programming work. Up to you guys Inovae! I havenât really thought of anything else unfortunately.
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Wait. So the fact that Iâm suggesting mil spec marks on a purchased HUD is enough to discard the entire concept of themed reskinning - which is the focus of the suggestion? I think you guys are missing the forest for one tree.
In a simple example, lets say Iâm playing some FPS arma or call of duty or whatever you want to be playing. There are stock iron sights, they have upgradable red dots and whatever, but for 10$ I can buy a spot that shows me where to aim with a lead indicator on any moving target. I can only get this for 10$, but this sight(or hud, whatever you want to call it) gives me an unreal advantage in this game. The same can be said for any new hud unless they are strictly different colours. If backer hud is easier to read or follow, itâs a gameplay advantage. Itâs as simple as that.
I realize that my example is somewhat different because we will already have a lead indicator, but the concept is the same. Different huds can provide advantages even by virtue of being easier to read. Plus, I remember Gene saying in another thread that huds will not be switchable and will be 1 per ship. I also donât know how art intensive designing a new hud is, but I can guess itâs not trivial.
The problem with the HUDs idea IMO is that what drives people into pledging is the idea that they can show-off their reward to their friends / foes. But a HUD is a private thing; other players in game canât see the HUD of their opponents, so I donât think the idea would be that popular.
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