I purchased the game directly on Steam and plan on buying supporter packs to support the devs. I just got the game and have yet to start, so excuse the dumb questions.
Does the purchase on Steam include any supporter packs? Will the supporter packs still be available after the 1.0 launch? Does buying bigger bundles include previous tiers? Thanks in advance
External link →The bigger tiers don't contain the lower ones. The previous packs did contain the lower packs. We are going to be replacing the current packs with new ones and will periodically update them. I don't know if future high packs will contain the lower packs or not. It's something that we get very very mixed feedback on. I'd like to do a hybrid way but I'm not sure what that looks like yet.
So does that mean there are packs that I can no longer buy? And there will be packs with limited availability?
There are some discontinued packs. The Kickstarter and alpha packs are gone. This doesn't prevent us from making things that are kinda similar ish but we won't do it quite the same again.
The current packs and future packs aren't exclusive and aren't guaranteed to come back. Basically if people ask for specific ones we might resurrect them.
Gotcha. Thanks so much for the update.
I'd love to play this on Steam deck. How does it run? Any advice on settings?
Well, technically Steam Deck is an unsupported platform so officially it "doesn't work". However, we can see that a decent chunk of people are using it. From what I hear, if you get the settings just right it's actually pretty good. We do have general, controller and Linux improvements coming that will incidentally improve Steam Deck but we do not officially support it.
There are a few posts here, on our discord and forums (links in the side bar) of people describing their experiences with it and tips to make it work well. I'm sorry, I don't have any first hand experience with it to share and help.
No don't apologize. I really appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions. I'm very excited to jump into this game and this community. I hope you have a great day! Thanks again
You're welcome, I hope you have fun :)
Let's say there's 3 packs. $30, $60, $100. If I bought the $100 pack, why would it not include the two lower tier packs? In other words, I'm wondering what feedback you're getting that's mixed about that. There are actually players who want to buy the $100 pack and not receive the two lower tier packs with it?
I'm going to complicate things slightly. Here are some hypothetical packs and values.
So the Void pack is significantly more flashy, vfx heavy and just over the top compared to the lower packs. Maybe it has special animations on the cape and some random event that has some sound effect or something. Then, if we sell the packs for cumulative price with a discount for bulk maybe it looks something like this instead.
Now, with this structure, if you're just after the Void pieces, that'll cost you $100. If they didn't bundle together though, you'd only need $60. So for people looking to make more specific purchases without the extra stuff, the smaller bundles are better. For someone who is just going to buy it all anyways, the big bundle packs are better.
We get feedback from both types of players that they hope we do it each way. Personally I think both is the way to go but you have to be so careful when adding any sort of incentive to spend more money at all. Even something as simple as "bundle pack = better value".
edit: just to be super clear, I made up all those packs and prices as examples specifically so the numbers played nicely in this example.
That sort of setup sounds kind of disappointing; why should the different themes be different quality levels? Am I just SOL if I prefer a fire theme over void, stuck with worse-quality MTX?
I don't want to have quality confused with scale. I think it's standard practice to have some mtx items be more expensive than others. Usually this is where the bigger, flashier, more involved ones are more expensive. They take longer to make and you get more from it. If this isn't a reasonable expectation, I need to go reevaluate the whole mtx process from scratch.
Is the feedback that you'd like to give that you want all supporter packs to be on the same scale and price?
Is the feedback that you'd like to give that you want all supporter packs to be on the same scale and price?
Yeah basically. Like in your example I would want the fire cape to be just as nice as the void one; similar animation quality/etc, even if the two packs then cost the same.
If there had to be different tiers for make cheaper options, I'd prefer they only include some of the MTX like a cheaper option that only gives pet+portal or such.
PoE's league-specific packs are kind of how I mean; there's a $30 option with some of the MTX, then a $60 that adds the rest, but both sets of packs feel equally good, just with different themes.
e: and a $90 version lately, forgot about that change heh
OK, I think I understand what you mean. Just to make sure, you don't have that same expectation for cosmetics that aren't in the supporter packs though right?
Now, if you could, would you prefer PoE to just be 2 packs that were $30 each and didn't require you to buy the 1st one to get the 2nd?
Just to make sure, you don't have that same expectation for cosmetics that aren't in the supporter packs though right?
Yeah not at all; individual MTX being priced differently based on how flashy they are makes sense, but if I'm choosing between competing packs with (presumably) exclusive MTX, I'd want to feel like they're similar quality between the different themes.
Now, if you could, would you prefer PoE to just be 2 packs that were $30 each and didn't require you to buy the 1st one to get the 2nd?
If they were split up into separate $30 packs it would be even better, as I would be able to pick and choose which parts of them I wanted. There have definitely been times where I wanted something in the higher tier but not the lower tiers and so I end up passing because the only bits I want aren't worth the increased cost to me.
Cool, thanks for the extra info. I'm on the same page now.
As always I appreciate you fellas speaking with the community down at this level about individual features.
With regards to the bundling and being careful about adding incentives to spend more money, my feedback is that an adaptive discount system is always welcome. Meaning, if you already bought A and B separately for $60 total, you'd have the capability to "finish" your set with a $40 unlock of pack C's content, since that is the remaining amount that adds up to the ABC bundle cost.
Maybe this sort of implementation isn't on the table just now, as it has practical complexities to it. But just saying I appreciate the places where I see it, even if that's rare.
Ha! We were struggling to make exactly this work today. I'm not sure if it's going to work or not yet.
I know it's just one voice in many but wanted to say that the POE structure of yearly support packs that are tiers is something I look forward to with enthusiasm because it gives me a way to slowly upgrade and work towards my target mtx over the course of a year. I typically buy 1-2 of the yearly support packs each league (if the league is good) and often i'll buy a league support pack as well. I don't think I've ever bought just the top tier pack straight away, but I have skipped ahead rather than buy them one at a time.
But, most importantly (and really the only thing i think is super important to me) is that if i buy points I always want those points to come with a pack that includes other MTX.
Once supporter packs exist the idea of buying just points, without attached MTX, feels really shit. If POE didn't have a large variety of supporter packs (4 over the year, and 6 each league) then I think I'd spend significantly less on their store.
Once I'm out of supporter packs to purchase, it's a really hard sell for me to buy an individual mtx. I will even space out my pack purchase because of this. I don't know if other people also feel the same way but thought I'd share those thoughts.
I like LE and look forward to supporting the cycles that come up in the future. As long as there are packs with really cool mtx and things I can use then I can see myself buying them :)
Yea, our packs also come with cosmetics points too. It's hard to not just straight copy what PoE is doing because they are doing it so well.
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