Ein Lacher has been a great way of showing people what Vindictus is really about.
But what do you need to do to keep players in the game and playing the game?
Let's talk about Warframe for a little bit.
Warframe is a MMO3PS that does away with all the traditional MMO stuff. Everyone has the means to deal damage and what makes you different from others are the skills that your "character" employs. It also doesn't lock you into a character choice. You can change characters out as you desire. And your main forms of damage dealing are kept and transferred around freely.
To put this another way, say you have a +13 Terminus weapon on Kai. You can freely change that into a +13 pillar, change to your Karok, and then play Karok for as much as you want and changing again whenever you want.
How does this help? One of the main things that really veteran players quit this game for is that their character becomes stale and it becomes pointless to try and improve your equipment. But they are stuck with one character and can't go on to create a new one because the cost of a new weapon is extortionately incredulous.
So they are stuck with one character, get bored after a long while, and quit. Only to poke their heads back in the game every so often but still not finding it really worthwhile because the same issues that was there before with no progression and no improvement and singular character gameplay still remains.
That's one way you could change the "one dimensionality" of the game and allow people to play what they want. Allow them to swap like for like weapons freely between characters on their own account. Just weapons, not armor or accessories, mind you.
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But really looking at it, the central issue of Vindictus is the weapon and the impossibility of obtaining a really good endgame weapon. Level 90 weapon crafting has helped a lot but it literally did nothing to account for one of the main things. That main thing being attack speed. For many characters attack speed is what makes or breaks them and hitting certain amounts of attack speed is the difference between playing comfortable or dying while trying to attack or just not attacking at all because you're too slow. It is also the difference between achieving optimal damage output against endgame bosses or dealing thousands of damage per hit below what you could be doing.
The issue is compounded when you look at the enhancement rates and the punishment for trying to enhance past +10. Your weapon is destroyed. It can be restored once. And then it's gone. Nevermind that you generally need to obtain at least +13 or higher to feel comfortable with the weapon. And then supplement that weapon with hundreds of dollars of runes and thousands of hours of farming for enchants on your accessories and armor.
The fix is a simple one that will still be profitable for Nexon if not even more profitable. It will also give players an incentive to play while knowing that so long as they play they will improve their gear. And it will give endgame players a reason to continue playing the game in the way of new characters.
-Remove item destruction upon enhancement past +10.
-It is not destroyed, it just loses a portion of max durability. Say, 20 durability for failing +11. 22 durability for failing +12. etc.
-The ONLY way to enhance past +10 is to obtain an incredibly rare item from raids. Let's call this really rare drop "Super Iced Strawberry Brandy."
-This item is what Ferghus demands to try and do an enhance past +10.
-If it fails, durability is lost. Your weapon remains.
-You can only restore max durability with durability potions from the Supply Shop (cash shop).
-Super Iced Strawberry Brandy (SISB) has a time limit of 24 hours and it cannot be traded to another account.
-If you get it, you must use it or it's gone. If you get it on your main character but you have maxed +15 you can put it in Shared Storage and give it to another character you have.
-SISB is used up when Ferghus tries the enhance. If the enhance fails, your durability goes down, the item remains at whatever enhance it is, does not break, the SISB is gone.
-There exists a Cash Shop item which prevents the using up of SISB. Call it something like "Second Bottle of SISB" or whatever. You buy it, you use it like a rune.
-If you use the Second Bottle, the main SISB is not used up if the enhance fails. If the enhance fails, you still lose durability, you lose the Second Bottle. Your weapon remains, the SISB remains. You can attempt again.
-To ensure 100% success rate of the SISB you must expend NX for the Second Bottle and you must expend NX for durability potions to keep your weapon going.
-But at no point will you ever risk the destruction and loss of your primary ability to play the game (your weapon).
How will this help Nexon?
You have to
expend NX to get Enhance Runes to get to +10.
You have to play the game to get SISB.
You have to
expend NX to get Second Bottle and Durability Potions. Increase Durability Potions a bit in price. Put the Second Bottle at 25k NX.
Money is sure to roll in to Nexon.
How this helps Nexon AND the players.
Your weapon won't get destroyed, you won't feel like you just wasted 5 months of playing to lose your weapon. THIS singular reason of weapon loss makes people rage quit this game more than you would think. People at around level 70 or so often get their first +10 weapon. A few months later they feel the itch to get a better weapon, enhance, and their weapon blows up. The feeling destroys you and you quit playing the game. You have no way to do damage, you do not want to go back to a level 40 weapon and have to get carried in raids again for another year until you can get another +10 weapon.
Players will stay and play the game for that chance to enhance with the SISB raid drop.
Players playing the game proves the game has a healthy population, making other players want to stay and play the game and interact.
More players playing and raiding and getting SISB.
More players spending NX on Second Bottle and Durability Potions to keep their enhancements going and their weapon to +15.
They will keep playing because they don't lose their weapon, and they know that so long as they keep playing and keep raiding and getting better they will eventually be able to increase their weapon.
Really lucky players or players with +15 already and feel like their character is getting stale? Feels like they can't do anything anymore? Or maybe they just have a few characters or one other characters that they would really like to learn to play but can't because of the "no good weapon to use" reason? Well, now they won't feel so bad about doing raids on their main character, then going onto their second character and leveling that one up to also do raids. Why? Because they know that if they put some NX in first to get a nice +10, they can eventually keep raiding and get a +15 so long as they work at it. Leading back to, players playing the game, players playing causes more players to keep playing to interact and to achieve a goal they want, more players stays and play, Second Bottle, Enhance Runes, and Durability Potions, all being bought.
There is no losing here. Nexon will gain in population, in NX income. Players will gain in weapons being maintained and the game allowing you to always improve and always get new characters without feeling like the RNG is going to cheat the hell out of your hard work.
Game goes on to gain a greater population than it ever had before, people stay and play, Vindictus becomes great again. Make Vindictus great again, please.
And before you go around naysaying that this kind of setup won't work. Just look at Warframe. You lose NOTHING in Warframe. You can only ever gain. You can't destroy your weapon. You can't blow up your mods with RNG. You can only increase effectiveness and increase damage output. You got tired of playing your Loki frame? Go level up all of your frames. Now you can play whichever one you want. Go play Excalibur for a while. Get bored of him, level up a nice Lex Prime, try out Mesa. Done with Mesa? Go play Equinox. Got bored of Equinox? Go play Excalibur again. Main just a few frames if you want, main them all. Who cares? YOU CAN NEVER GO DOWN while playing the game. Your progress extends in only one direction. That's Warframe. No RNG.
And how popular and how big is Warframe? A hell of a lot more populated and more played than Vindictus. Meaning much more income as well, I guarantee it.
Adopt this kind of method for Vindictus, and you will see it grow. Thank you for your attention.
and 1 other.
and 1 other. 
