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VIP Levels
in The Bridge
Anyone else feel that it's time for a few VIP levels beyond 14? Once you hit 14 those VIP points just start adding up doing nothing to enhance the gaming experience. Levels beyond 14 would give us something new to shoot for.
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But - what benefits would be extended to new VIP levels? I’ll be impressed if anyone other than maybe someone trying to win an event that didn’t plan very well would need any additional credit buys, chroniton recharges, cadet tickets, or arena tickets beyond the 16 purchases (13 for credits) currently enabled at VIP14. Likewise for the bigger bonus when buying credits with dil.
Of the existing bonuses, that leaves the following:
-More crew slots. That would be nice for just about anyone.
-More replications per day. Not everyone needs it but sometimes it does help.
-More bonus dil when buying dil. This would also be nice, though it could get kinda OP if the bonus were extended by a lot.
-A Warp 100 button? It’d be nice for Skirmish farming but probably only makes a difference for the handful of people trying to win one of those at any given time.
-Special portrait pictures? Meh, we have a ton to choose from already. And for some reason, allowing the use of any crew’s portrait picture rather than just any crew you own seems unsavory to me.
What else could there be? What would be a nice thank-you to those who support the game the most while being meaningful and also not too lavish?
The other question is where the levels would be set? Levels 10-15 are at 9k, 12k, 15k, 25k, and 50k points, respectively. Let’s say a new VIP level cap is set at 20 - is the gap between levels going to be left at 25k points or will it continue to increase exponentially? The bluest of whales won’t mind either way but the middle and upper-middle class of the spending public might notice if the rewards are enticing.
More bonus Dil would be awesome, but would upset the balance of game economy slightly and give more edge to those who already have it.
I could see maybe a gold cite or 2 at certain levels, in addition to the crew slots, maybe a couple Voyage tokens. But yeah, now that we sit here and mull over it a bit, I can see why they haven't updated it thus far.
I think some part of the game to be unlocked at a certain VIP level, like a bonus Episode or something would be kind cool.
Loved playing Age of Empires with cheat codes.......
Hit 14, full stop. After that, your spending is not for game buffs or slots. Trust me, I am well beyond it. No regrets, though. 🖖
Very surprised none of the free water people haven’t come out in a rage yet. And man, you really dust off some oldies quite often. You’re the guy who digs up dirt on politicians from 1976 aren’t you?
I watched the Watergate hearings & Sesame Street in tandem, so you could call me a bit cynical & it would fit.
P.S. I am going on sabbatical Thursday. See you next year. 🖖
* Exclusive crew (e.g. a mediocre 1/5 with rather collecting value or somehow useful 1/4, e.g. one for a tough collection), that would even consume citations to make real use of it. This would grant an exclusive avatar at the same time.
* Unlock an exclusive (and tough) collection (rewards are debatable but must not grant stat boosts)
* Auto-do stuff, e.g. auto-fill voyages in a mathematical perfect way similar to what datacore calculates for you. After spending so much and playing for quite some time this is a nasty chore anyway.
* Several free unfreezings per week or alternatively a percentage reduction of all unfreezing cost.
* One free revival of a crew per 2 days of Gauntlet.
* Unlock additional Campaign levels beyond 100 with small rewards.
* Some free merit pulls per week (aka honor or one or the other nice random pull in ages) and/or one free 10x portal pull per week.
* 2000 honor per week, so basically 2 leg. citations per year if you do not forget to claim every week.
* Unlock additional voyage seats for "lower deck crew", so only fillable with blue or worse crew.
* Double your scans, so if you scan one time you get two scan results and two scan counts.
* Chron limit of 1 million
* A Dabo discount, like 10%, to encourage even more spending.
I think I could go on forever. There are plenty of things they could give high spenders if you think outside the box and if WRG was willing to implement it. Imho great contribution should bring significant benefit as long as it is not game breaking.
And if I may, I'd like to take @Bylo Band 's idea and pour a little water on it for dilution purposes. A while back, I had an idea for VIP14+. Maybe the + could simply be slots. I'll set a starting point for the price, but I would certainly be open to adjusting it. Right now, the most favorable purchase in terms of VIP points is the $5 skirmish bundles. $5 gets you 500 VIP points, instead of the normal 250 when you biy straight dilithium. I think that's important to consider when setting a price. I would make the reward for each VIP+ tier be 5 slots. So how much is 5 slots worth? (Keeping in mind that the purchases already get you some game benefit.) I think $200 is reasonable, but this is open for negotiation. I would set each VIP+ tier at 20,000 points. At that level, a player could spend anywhere between $200 and $400 for those 5 slots. That's a bit steep, imo, but it's something as opposed to nothing. And as I said, the spender is already getting some game benefit from their purchases. This would just be a small thank you for continuing to fund the game.
Example of how I see this working:
Captain Bateson achieves VIP14 with 50,000 VIP points and continues to spend. At 70,000 VIP points, Captain Bateson achieves VIP14+1 and gains 5 slots. At 90,000, Captain Bateson achieves VIP14+2 and gains 5 more slots, to a total of 10 additional VIP+ slots. Maybe every 5 VIP+ levels, other perks could be thrown in.
I don't spend to those levels, but I am certainly willing to reward those who continue to fund the game.
Personally I don’t see an avatar as a reward and wouldn’t use them if introduced as a plus VIP 14 recognition. Crew slots on the other hand would be very welcome.
I actually think this idea has potential. Instead of adding new tier bonuses, what if they just let you turn in your VIP (after 14) for any kind of currency you want. Okay, so, for purpose of this argument, let's say every VIP tier, past 14, cost 25,000 points. Every time you hit a new tier you exchange those points for, say, 2,500 dil or 25,000 honor or 250,000 chrons (not sure where credits and merits would land, but they'd definitely be in there); something like that. Something significant without being game changing.
Full disclosure, I just got VIP 12 and I seriously doubt I'll ever hit 14. The gap between 12 and 14 is bigger than the gap between 1 and 12. I've been playing for 3-4 years, so, who knows, maybe I'll hit 14 in another 3-4.
However, it does make sense that those who go beyond VIP 14 get something for it.
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This concept makes a lot of sense to me. It doesn't create new tiers of questionable value (even more arena tickets?), but it does provide a nice little reward for heavily-invested players. The key is to allow the player to pick whichever reward they want - like a faction store/honor hall interface. Maybe even add 5 free crew slots with every VIP-exchange as well, since this is arguably the most useful VIP reward after the stuff from the initial tiers (i.e., warp 10 and a few replicator uses).
You say that but look how quick some finished the Bride of Chaotica Collection to sport the avatar immediately after it was released. Same with the Play Ball to get the DS9 baseball avatar. Look how quick they buy Tuesday packs to get the new crew member and put that avatar on.
Though I won't say no to extra replicator uses, either.
Same here. Add a zero to the end of the Chron Cap, and I will be happy!
Ov (Overall) | Vo (Voyage) | Fa (Faction) | Ga (Gauntlet)
Sb (Ship Battle) | Bt (Boss Battle Traits) | Co (Collection) | (Cd (Cadet)
Highly doubt chron cap is an issue for many VIP14 players. These days most players(no matter if VIP0 or 14) plan ahead and always have a chron stack of
min 3,000.
100% true. I tried the pre-farming approach where I never exceeded my chron cap for very long, so as to make sure I was able to use all of the chrons that automatically replenish over time, and was unable to be competitive in Galaxy or Skirmish events. Now that I keep a reserve of 20,000 on hand at all times, I can make an event run any time I need to and have plenty left over for meeting daily objectives for mission completions and crew equipping/leveling.
Esp. the step between 13 and 14 is really large, if you collect VIP points with constant speed, it takes as long to get from 0 to 13 as it takes from 13 to 14...
[Note: I'm about 1/3 the way from 13 to 14 right now.]
-- Dr. Zefram Cochrane, around 2073
Please define "issue" then. Basically nothing is an issue for a potential VIP15 imho, not even crew slots. With constant 70k chrons I would still appreciate them to auto-raise. I would like that more than a 10th replication or even more ticket purchases where I use zero anyway.