Suggestion: Separating skins (cosmetic-only) from camos (which give bonus)

[tamagotchi]

I had this idea while observing the discussion about spaceship camos. It seems many players (me included) who have already bought the 5000 gold perma camo didn't like the idea of spending another 8000 gold to buy the spaceship camo (that is, if the player is into the hilarious 'spaceship on water' thing at all) but wouldn't mind that much if they can pay the 3000 gold surcharge just to get an 'alternative appearance'. So, in order to increase sales, maybe WG could create a new set of eye-candy camos that don't carry any bonus, while allowing players to put 2 camos simultaneously on one ship, 1 appearance-alternating and 1 bonus-carrying. For the bonus-carrying camo, the price scheme can be the same as the current perma camos, which goes up with ship-tier and bonus weight. But for the appearance one, it could be the same across all tiers. 

 

To avoid confusion, we can just call the model-altering cosmetic camos 'skins'. So, for each ship, you can apply:

1. 1 camo, which gives bonus.
2. and 1 skin, which alters the model (appearance) but gives no bonus

If you take 1 camo and no skin, you see the camo applied to your ship and get the bonus. If you take 1 skin and no camo, you see the altered model but get no bonus. If you take 1 skin and 1 camo, you see the altered model and get the camo’s bonus. If you take nothing, you get nothing. For other players, they can turn off the skins if they don’t like to see the fantasy stuff. In such case, they can still see your camo if it’s applied, so they know you are not a ‘potato’ who sails a ‘naked’ DD into a contested cap.

 

For WG, they can just make as many skins as they want and sell them. Sure, making skins is time consuming, but I guess it mostly involves the art department. So, the artist can work on the skins when they are not modelling new ships (as new ships usually need extended period of time to be balanced) and WG can make (probably a lot of) money from such works.

And now for players, you still buy the camo (permanent or not) as normal if you want the bonus. In addition, you can buy one ore more skins for your favourite ships if from time to time you want a visual twist to your usual gaming experience. Since skins don’t carry any bonus, they can be priced cheaper than the current price of 8000 (which gives the impression that it includes the price of both camo and skin) and you no longer feel forced to pay for something redundant each time you buy one.

 

Advantages:

1. Players who have already bought the perma camo would be able to buy the new eye-candies without feeling being forced to pay for something they already have. This is especially important if WG plans to make more of these eye candies. As virtual goods have no intrinsic value, making people feel 'less scammed' would be a key to increase sales. 
2. If the eye-candies form a separate category, they can now be created for lower tier ships without having to be priced cheaper, meaning WG can now create these kind of things for a larger variety of ships with the same profit.

 

What do you guys think?

 

 

[Deckeru_Maiku]

All I can say is "Yes, please"

Especially if there were more realistic historical camos available...

[Robber_Baron]

Related to this I would be willing to spend the anount of credits to play a plain ship if it gave me detectability and dispersion bonuses.

[Allied_Winter]

Has been asked before. Answer from WG: No.

 

Sure I asked it with regular (non-permanent) camos in mind, but my reiterated question with only permanent camos in mind fell on deaf ears. So, yes from me. Keep making noise until WG realizes that there is more money to be made and more players to be satisfied.

[cracktrackflak]

It would be a good idea to separate the cammos from their bonuses. Someone went to a lot of work in designing the cammos, and these days maybe half the designs don't get used very much.

 

If you are an active player, then you quite possibly have  2-3,000 or more cammos stocked up from various events and boxes, and these tend to get topped up from subsequent events. Hence the low-bonus cammos don't get used at all.

[tamagotchi]

Well, in fact I mostly have the model-altering cosmetic camo in mind because this is where WG can potentially make a lot of money in the future. For the stockpiled texture-only camos we got in containers and during events, sure I'd be happy to see if we can 'mix and match' them, but I don't think WG will be inclined to implement such feature as it won't bring them new sales. But for cosmetic camos, WG can always make more and sell each of them for, say, 3000 gold. 

[KarmaQU_EU]