[Suggestion] Earn pizza in-game

I think it would be a good idea if we could earn pizza in-game, just from playing. Why? Because:

A) It may entice players to, who otherwise wouldn't, spend money on the game. Say someone, who has no plans to ever spend money on Card Hunter, saved up some pizza just from playing the game and bought something. That person may end up liking that feeling of buying something, change their mind, and actually start spending money on the game. No guarantee here, but I think it's not unlikely that this could regularly happen.

B) It's a nice thing to do for free players that also wouldn't be unfair to paying players(I believe). It would simply create a better atmosphere for free players which is good for obvious reasons. More good reviews/feedback and things about the game could possibly come because of this. Again, speculating here, but you get my thinking.

And I'm not talking about earning a huge amount or anything like that... I'm talking maybe a small chance(5% or so) of earning a small amount of pizza(a couple slices or so) after winning a match in MP or something like that. The numbers could be worked out, you get the idea.

Also, this could lead to some interesting things such as tournaments with pizza being a prize, in-game contests for pizza, etc..

 

I disagree. You get some free pizza during the campaign. And you don't need pizza to play the game.

 

True. Forgot about that. Still, players will probably spend that rather quickly without a second thought and may take it for granted. Earning some slowly later in the game may make them re-think pizza spending and they may consider spending money on the game.

Also true, but that's not the point.

 

I haven't played many games which allow you to earn premium currency in-game so I'm no expert on this, but the ones of which I did play, I didn't personally feel they were more P2W or content gating. I actually felt it had no real negative effect at all. That was my perception, anyway.

Again, I guess this comes down to perception, but I never felt baited playing those games I mentioned above. I felt happy, if anything else, about being able to earn premium currency. But I do see your point, because at its core, this would be a baiting technique. But at the same time, I think this would simply be a generous thing to do for CH's playerbase and I think it would go over well with players more than be hated on for baiting.

 

how can it be baiting and generous at the same time?

 

Well, it's baiting because it tries to bait you into buying more pizza. No debate there. And it's generous because it's allowing a free player to earn pizza instead of buying it. No debate there. Right?

 

I think it might devalue pizza somewhat, making it harder for BM to support themselves. I have seen this in another F2P CCG, but that one had a whole card set (maybe 25% of the cards available) that could only be purchased with the premium currency. It also had a lot of cards that were gifts for logging in on certain days, or were only sold for one month, which is part of why I stopped playing.

Right now, the only actual content forbidden to free players are treasure hunts, costumes, and custom maps.

 

How so? I'm only talking a small chance to earn a small amount of pizza after winning a MP match....or something along those lines. It's not like a free player could easily farm pizza and be on par with a paying player.

True, but I can't imagine it will stay this way. I'm sure more paying-member-only content will come along eventually.(I'm sure more content for everyone will come, too.)

 

Hmm... Never heard of this. If this is the case then that surely shoots down the idea, doesn't it? The only way I can think to combat this(right now, off the top of my head, anyway) is to allow guaranteed pizza gains after so many wins. Say, every 20 MP wins you get a couple slices or something?

I'd love if someone at BM could confirm if this sorta thing would actually be illegal. I'm really curious about that now.

 

I believe the issue would be paying for a lottery-reward. Giving them away free should be fine, but I am no expert. Lots of games have random drawings for logging in daily. The boxes could contain 5 gold or a random common often
25 gold or 1 pizza sometimes
an uncommon or 5 pizza rarely.

Something like that would actually take a long time to get any appreciable amount of pay currency, but it is possible if someone is adamant about not paying but wants another treasure hunt or whatever.

Another option is similar to LotRO, which was a shining example of F2P done right last time I played. One could earn very small amounts of pizza, like one at a time for doing a small selection of achievements. For example beating a certain mission so fast, or with no deaths. These would be one-time rewards and spread out through all the missions so that you can get more over time. A variety of ways to get them would enable people to go after ones they are capable of, even if they cannot get them all. This can give players a seemingly simple and overall lucrative way to actively earn pizza, but ultimately limited so that people will get used to having some currency and want more when it runs out.

The elephant in the room here is the unfortunately limited value of pizza at the moment. There is another thread to discuss that however. I really like the idea of being able to buy treasure chest/packs of gear of a specific type so players can use pizza to shore up weak spots in their armory while maintaining the random feel of a card game.

 

But pizza isn't real currency. I think the legal problems only start if there is a way to convert pizza back to US dollars or Euro. I don't think this is possible at the moment?

 

Cool idea. I would still like it if there were small chances to earn small amounts of pizza in the long term, but I like the idea of one-time pizza earnings for missions/achievements, too. It would make you work for it, which is fine because I don't think pizza should be easily earned.

Well, I don't know about pizza earnings for modules...I was thinking more for MP wins or something...but regardless, some balancing would definitely be in order. But I think as long as it were properly balanced, pizza grinding could be avoided.

 

Pizza should be purchasable with in-game gold at a very onerous exchange rate. This would also allow the developers to claim that "everything is purchasable by playing, no real world currency is needed to buy anything!" Technically that would be true but as we all know already it would be pure marketing spin.

 

Not needed. You _can_ earn pizza through the campaign, a fair amount enough to sample what's available without giving away enough to get the "big one" (a month of club membership). I am a fan of the daily lotto, though.

 

Interesting. Only thing is, some shop changes would probably have to come first. The amount of gold you get for selling items vs. the cost of items is a bit ridiculous ATM which makes saving gold to buy them very tedious. Saving for pizza on top of that would be a nightmare.

 

Simple: trade a Rare item for an amount of pizza equal to 10% of it's level. Trade a Legendary item for an amount of Pizza equal to 50% of it's level. Fractions remain.