From being a past game developer myself, I had to tackle how to get the players of a project to spend money on the project. The ideas pour in and the actions dwindle down to a key specific points of interest.
- Does this paid content add anything new to the point where it is devious to progression?
Devious can go into many topics, but the most common examples are “Pay to Win / P2W”, “Time-Gate Skip / TGS”, (Think of Battlefield skip passes), and the uncommon: “Payment for an item that seems to be fair priced, but causes outrage due to RNG systems or a semi-related TGS”. (Think of Destiny 2 that recently had some drama about a starter pack that had some unique item that was a little too overpowered).
Enlisted, in the current state, does not have anymore RNG systems. All soldiers and weapons you buy now are all base stock value to what rates the items are sold as. In return of this change, the silver currency needed to actually rank these items to max level is substantially longer to achieve.
So although they removed the duplicability of the grind (ex: mp40), they raised / limited the choices to progress. With a TGS such as the “research” tab, an option for monetization opens the floodgates to new ways Darkflow can sell content. It honestly might be their only option left beyond some other core examples, but I will tackle this momentary when the full context here is presented.
All of this brings us to the theme of Pay to Win and how Enlisted can easily fall into this trap going forward. In the old system, people could honestly argue that some squads were pay to win for the positions they were faced against. Ex: Pz4 HEAT from Moscow, basically needed to take out T50s reliably. Fedorov MG from Moscow, which shredded anything and had TWO engineers on the squad. There are more examples but the picture still stands, the old system had the potential to be worse - but it wasn’t as bad as people made it.
With the merge’s system, people have the choice to continue to bring said Fedorov MG, but at the cost of now forbidding a squad with full AS 44 M5 assaulters. The trades off at this stage become more apparent when you have ALL the tools of your arsenal at the highest BR. So effectively, your BR power is your trade off to the amount of squad slots you have. This doesn’t entirely remove the issue at hand, but it does mute the concerns of anything releasing becoming P2W, since there CAN/WILL be something that is a match for the opposing faction on any of the five BR’s.
Enlisted now has the dilemma of how it wants to monetizes itself for 2024 and beyond.
- P2W is muted - TGS is a high potential to be something - RNG is removed.
That leaves TGS, “Time-Gate Skip”, as the only realistic option, and when Darkflow mentioned a “new campaign” in a new system, this is a high chance it refers to this point.
Lets create an example 5th faction… why don’t we go with the French.
- In my opinion, a faction to break off and be a unique CUE is ONLY respected if said faction has 30 unique infantry and 30 unique vehicles to the faction. This is to treat the balance of game with respect to the players, monetization, and developers themselves.
The players, some, wish to have all 10 slots for their squad, so if you can justify a new faction to be worth 4960 enlisted gold (490, 990, 1490, 1990 + (2 from premium)), then the content has to be there BEFORE the separation occurs. That is specifically to the Italians and Commonwealth that we have to GER/USA.
The monetization model is simple at its core, but can go either way if it scales beyond the 60 total items a new campaign/faction would bring to Enlisted.
- French Faction (Pre-Order Bundle).
- Get x1 unique vehicle per both sides.
- Get a unique player profile picture.
- Reduce 30% all research costs of the new items.
- Reduce 50% silver cost for: faction weapons/vehicles.
Since the merge can bring different soldiers into different time periods, like Italians in Stalingrad, I can not add a silver reduction cost for soldiers since the game would have difficulties tracking this and making it something not prone to exploits. Another point to add is, I am unsure if this model can scale beyond the 60 items they would release it as, or make this a time gated thing.
- Be warned - if this becomes a time gate system to get this fictional bundle, then it becomes P2W for a certain period of time. After this time though, it becomes something similar to Pay to Progress (faster) or what the Battlefield skip packs do (but at a level where effort still needs to be made).
If it were up to me, I would retroactively go back to all four factions we have now and create a small DLC pack that is UNIQUE to only those four combined. Make it like $20 euros and the gimmick will be all of those items (non exclusive to perpetuity of future content, only what is shown NOW), will be…
- Reduce 15% all research cost of all past items.
- Reduce 30% silver cost for: those 4 faction weapons/vehicles.
- 900 Enlisted gold ( so people can invest into the battle pass or etc).
- A veteran exclusive supporter name decorator/player icon.
Never ever tie new content behind any of these passes, just make the progression of getting the new content faster for new people. I have 8.6 million silver from my accounts transition, so I am not in need of anything until maybe if a system similar to mine releases in the future of the game.
For how a new map tied to a new campaign would work, I would offer to treat it as a whole different game mode, like Lone Fighters. And by going off this post here from a past developer blog, the more I think about this idea of the games future monetization, the more I see this as the only viable option that both respects the players who play and developers who create the product.
Spoiler
"New campaigns with new unique locations, squads, weapons and vehicles, as well as new game mechanics will be launched in the format of a global event, in which any commander can participate. During these events, you will get upgraded and well-armed squads under your command, and for completing battle tasks — unique rewards that can be received only during the event.
And after such events, new weapons and vehicles will be added to the progression trees of the corresponding armies, and missions will be included in the common pool of available maps."
There is no recap, if you chose to read this - thanks! If you have any ideas on how they could monetize going forward, tell what type of content you honestly would pay for that is fair to everyone involved using the PRE-ESTABLISHED history of what was already released up to this point.
Edit: This basically boils down to HOW DO YOU THINK NEW FACTIONS will be monetized.
