Suggestions for Patreon

Patreon perk for all tiers: your structures wont be removed as long as your subscription is active. This would help in case someone forgets or cant report inactivity, or if someone can only come online every two weeks, or in case of military service etc. Such person would have the same tribename on all maps.

Maybe have some substantial events like turning on the nanny and/or mutator. And making sure no one can use them outside of the event is easy, just turn off their functions like you do with the transmitter's scan. That way everyone can keep the structures, but they're useless unless the event is active.

With the nanny it's a bit more tricky though. You can turn off its imprint function, but at the minimum it functions as a feeding trough for babies. But that's not too bad or OP in any way, it's just a small QOL bonus.

EDIT: Just to add to this, to make it less OP, don't allow a breeding event at the same time. At least not with the mutator, so people can't stack a ton of mutations on their dinos in a single weekend.

Quote from Nanogamer7

You do realize we are talking about patreon perks and not donation rewards here?

Besides, nanny, mutator etc. would be p2w again, which GD tries not to have at all...

I meant an event like the scan event with the transmitter, server wide and for everyone not just for who donated.

And if you put it like that, ANY event triggered by a sum of money is P2W. But at least if its server wide and for the whole community, everyone profits from it, not just people that have more money at their disposal.

Also, it's just a suggestion. I know it will be declined, but I have nothing to lose by suggesting it.

If not, let the people who donated vote to trigger one of the existing events for a weekend. Again, it's not much, but it's an incentive and one that the whole community will benefit from, not just a few people. This kind of thing is hard to balance, I'll admit.

EDIT: As for patreon perks, hell if I know. Patreon is more suited for projects that create new stuff/content, not that maintain existing stuff.

Nanogamer7 Okay, my bad for not scrolling up and reading what the thread is actually about. I confused the two, and thought I was commenting in the other one.

Colored dinos could give you an advantage in the marketplace, making your dinos more sought after than other breeds, but you can get color changes for GC too so it's not a P2W. And even if you could only get them from donations, they still wouldn't be P2W, since they don't actually make the dinos stronger, just more appealing.

And yes, Patreon welcomes any and every project, but that doesn't mean a project will succeed. I said it's more suited for projects that create, not designed for them. A quick look through other projects will quickly show you that: people that make most buck on the platform are artists (specifically visual artists), youtubers, podcasters, video game creators, etc. People that produce new content to be consumed. And even for some of those, the donations decrease if/when their projects are finished. In simple terms, people look for content to consume when deciding what to donate to on Patreon, and sadly not many consider how many hours they sink into ARK and how much fun they have on the cluster. Rant over, I hope you see what I'm trying to say now.

And as for your suggestion, there definitely need to be more perks for GD, and which scale more linearly. But it's hard to offer rewards for a server, especially if you want to keep it free of P2W. There's only so many dino recolors people want, especially since you can either breed or clone all dinos so you only really need to recolor them once (in a certain color/pattern; of course you need more if you want gigas of every color of the rainbow, and even more if you want to do it for every dino out there).

An emphasis should be placed on "cheaper" donations too. Right now, people that would otherwise donate a dollar or two don't feel inclined to do so because they get no reward out of it. And with the first real reward, the first dino recolor, being at 20$, I think that puts many people off. That's almost the price of one of ARK's DLCs, for a single recolor of a single dino.

As for ranks on discord, the forum, and in-game, I don't really want them so I can't comment on the desirability of those.

Also to end this off: I noticed a discrepancy in what's written on the forum and how the patreon ranks are set up. Specifically this:

From 25€ and up a donator gets the donator rank not just on the forums but also in game (PvE-Cluster).

First off: why only in the PVE cluster? What if someone in the PVP cluster would donate for that, but won't since they don't get it? People like bragging after all.

And secondly: this reward is listed at the 30$ rank on patreon, since there isn't even one for 25$.

Quote from exoripper

First off: why only in the PVE cluster? What if someone in the PVP cluster would donate for that, but won't since they don't get it? People like bragging after all.

Imagine playing on PvP and seeing in chat someone with [donator] tag. People flame and accuse of p2w even without it. It would cause a lot of unnecessary drama and agression towards that donator.

Quote from exoripper

From 25€ and up a donator gets the donator rank not just on the forums but also in game (PvE-Cluster).

And secondly: this reward is listed at the 30$ rank on patreon, since there isn't even one for 25$.

When ingame ranks were set, 25€ was worth 30 USD. Patreon uses USD currency, so it was set for 30. Currently 25€=27,65$

Kat Wait, patreon doesn't let you set the currency for your donations? I never made anything on there, and never donated to anyone/anything before, so I didn't know that. Thanks for the clarification.

And yeah, I can see the accusations flying around on PVP over the donator tag. Everything over there seems like a PITA if I can be honest, which is why I'm hesitant to join that part of the cluster and actually try out PVP. The official PVP was very toxic and bullying by big tribes was rampant the few times I've tried it, and I'm afraid that's basically what'll happen here too, even if in more diluted amounts. I might not lose everything in a raid, but the "they did this and that, pls ban" back and forth that could follow honestly scares me more than losing my progress.

Quote from Kat

Patreon perk for all tiers: your structures wont be removed as long as your subscription is active. This would help in case someone forgets or cant report inactivity, or if someone can only come online every two weeks, or in case of military service etc. Such person would have the same tribename on all maps.

Kat, I was going to suggest something like that - PvE only of course. I was thinking more of a longer removal time rather than indefinite - perhaps tiered, 2 weeks, one month, two months? I'd buy into that - I often have to go away at short notice without an interwebs connection and don't have time to start an inactivity ticket. However, I'm a one-person tribe and I can see how that might work for me, but it might have to be different for multi-person tribes - do all have to donate, or just one, or 50% of the tribe? Sorry to make it complicated

Quote

I was thinking more of a longer removal time rather than indefinite - perhaps tiered, 2 weeks, one month, two months?

That was my first thought as well, but then i realized that it would be a reward for loyalty - you keep your subscription and for this, for active supporting, you keep your base. This way more people would be willing to subscribe to patreon, just for safety because life happens to us all.

Quote from Kat

That was my first thought as well, but then i realized that it would be a reward for loyalty - you keep your subscription and for this, for active supporting, you keep your base. This way more people would be willing to subscribe to patreon, just for safety because life happens to us all.

Good point, well made. I'd still buy in

In case someone missed the recent announcement in Discord:

Quote from Kogadins

We have added a new perk to all Patreon plans with 10 $ or more. The new perk will exclude active Patrons from the inactivity cleanups, allowing them to stay inactive for more than 7 days. Please note that this perk will only be active as long as you have an active Patreon subscription (10 $ or more).

Important: The perk begins to take effect after we received your first payment! This means it's delayed by up to 1 month. Payments are being done at the beginning of each month.

Example: If you join Patreon today, your new perk will take effect at the beginning of December and stay active as long as you have an active subscription.

The Patreon page will be updated shortly

Thanks to all of you for your ongoing support!

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So if you can't play actively and are always worried if you will manage to refresh your timer in time - this will solve your issue.

^{and hey it took only a year between the first suggestion and implementing it, they good!}

i would do the patreon tiers like this,

$1: donator name colour at discord and site

$5: above plus, 1 bp of choice every 3 months

$10: above plus in activity for more than 7 days

$20: above plus 1 unbreedable super dino of choice every 3 months

$40: above plus 1 breadable super dino of choice (Female) after 3 months (once)

Quote from gameplay

i would do the patreon tiers like this,

$1: donator name colour at discord and site

$5: above plus, 1 bp of choice every 3 months

$10: above plus in activity for more than 7 days

$20: above plus 1 unbreedable super dino of choice every 3 months

$40: above plus 1 breadable super dino of choice (Female) after 3 months (once)

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That's P2W, we don't do that here. Bases being excused from inactivity deletion is one thing, if a player stops playing for a while but keeps donating it's understandable. But getting OP dinos and BPs for irl money is literally pay to win.

Quote from ExoRipper

That's P2W, we don't do that here. Bases being excused from inactivity deletion is one thing, if a player stops playing for a while but keeps donating it's understandable. But getting OP dinos and BPs for irl money is literally pay to win.

i see, makes sense. although bps and beadable dino is once every 3 months which won't make a big difference to win anything since its pve.

then maybe limit rewards to unbreadable dinos, inactivity more than 7 days, custom dino and personal armor skins, special base statue or flag,

Quote from gameplay

i see, makes sense. although bps and beadable dino is once every 3 months which won't make a big difference to win anything since its pve.

Maybe, but GD has avoided P2W this far and no matter which way you cut it, so long as you receive the best items/dinos possible for paying real money it's P2W. Simple as. We also have a marketplace, we have breeders who do their best to get good dino lines, we have people that hunt for the best BPs, etc etc, so P2W would just ruin that further.

Quote from gameplay

then maybe limit rewards to unbreadable dinos, inactivity more than 7 days, custom dino and personal armor skins, special base statue or flag,

Element has been very easy to get for a long while now, and with the SS cloning chamber working how it does, unbreedable doesn't mean anything anymore. For patrons that donate 10$ and up, they are exempt from inactivity wipes so long as they donate, so that's already a thing. And custom dino skins, custom armor skins, and custom statues would need more mods to be added. Adding more mods to the cluster is a heated debate as is, and adding them purely for patron rewards would be even worse imo. Plus that might not sit right with the mod authors, who make and distribute the mods for free and might not like the fact that someone else sells items from their mods. And lastly, as far as I know, you can already make custom flags in the game in the same way you can make custom paintings. I've seen people with custom flags that look amazing.

I see no problem with patrons getting stuff such as glow pets with cool colors for example (or shinies)

Also, monthly golden poop!