Feedback on Black Friday Sale

[Strider5548]

I think most can agree the Black Friday sale was extremely underwhelming unless you are on of the few people who waited 2 years to buy an expansion pack. For those of us who buy expansions as they come out this is what we get.

Black Friday Sales in the LOTRO Store:

Double Points - Happens all the time, triple points would have made sense, there's nothing special about double points.

Bombur's Bounty - This is offered to us at full price, it's really not a good deal to begin with unless it's 35% off.

75% off Stat Tome Bundles - Great % off, but only applies to stat tomes 1-5, virtually useless on live servers, useful on Treebeard but everyone already got their stat tomes who was going to buy them.

50% off Stable Master Stands - Not a bad deal, but really something that you should see on a normal weekly discount.

35% off Virtue Acceleration Tomes - Nobody who understands this game will ever buy these, you can get 100x more value for the price by purchasing Valars instead, I don't know why SSG doesn't see this.


I think the problem that happened here is that whoever is in charge of pricing and monetization saw a ton of value in the 85% expansion sale, which no doubt there is, but if you choose to deliver the entirety of your Black Friday deal through old expansions, you are basically removing the value for any of the players who have been paying for your product. It's great for newcomers or people who don't play this game seriously, but the majority of spenders on LOTRO are getting zero value out of this sale.

Here are some helpful hints:

-Players like mithril sales
-Points sales should be triple instead of double
-When you put Bombur's Bounty up at least throw on a sale with it
-Carry Alls, everyone wants them, we will pay for them, why aren't they here?
-50% and 75% should be the only levels on regular store items for special sales like this.

Focus on deals that give people repeatable value (nobody is buying stables over and over again), high %'s, and adding value for all of your players (expansions are only useful for people who don't seriously play this game, valars are only useful for people on non-legendary servers, etc.)

Hope this feedback is helpful.

[Vicka]

No task carry alls......................




(I'm prepared to purchase at least 3 large ones on my main server.)

[Faudyen]

I was a little surprised at this black Friday sale as well, I think they usually do something around Christmas as well so I'm hoping the good stuff comes then.

[TheQuickFox]

I would like to buy a set of stat tomes for the black friday sale price. But when I click the promotion, the stat tomes do not appear in the sales list and when I search for stat tomes in the LotRO Store I only see the regular price.

[Strider5548]

I would like to buy a set of stat tomes for the black friday sale price. But when I click the promotion, the stat tomes do not appear in the sales list and when I search for stat tomes in the LotRO Store I only see the regular price.

The sale is only for the 1-5 bundle, so you can only buy it on characters that don't already have the 1-5 stat tomes. It's kind of annoying and they did a bad job filtering the store with this one because it's perfectly plausible to want to buy a few and store them in the vault.

[Sovereign50]

I think the problem that happened here is that whoever is in charge of pricing and monetization saw a ton of value in the 85% expansion sale, which no doubt there is, but if you choose to deliver the entirety of your Black Friday deal through old expansions, you are basically removing the value for any of the players who have been paying for your product. It's great for newcomers or people who don't play this game seriously, but the majority of spenders on LOTRO are getting zero value out of this sale.

They're not foolish. The expansion discounts ensure new $$$ is incoming, while limited useful LP discounts means that people are tempted to spend their hoard of LP on full, or mostly, priced items. Those who have the greatest amount of LP are veterans, people who aren't going to leave suddenly because they didn't get an LP discount they wanted. SSG is fully cognisant of this. They rarely align useful sales together to maximise $$$ and points spending. The way to play this game, as a spender, is to play the long game. Buy or hoard your LP and wait...wait...wait...for the sale to come.

As for Bombur's Bounty: the last time they sold that item on the store they had a +1 for an entire week (2x Bombur's Bounty for 4k)! I don't remember any fanfare when they changed it back for the second week of sales. That was the best value BB has ever seen. Those that took advantage seemed to have kept it low profile... and i'm still not sure if it was intentional or not (probably not, because it wasn't advertised as such).

[Banaticus]

As for Bombur's Bounty

It looked like a random collection of stuff. What's useful in it?

[maartena]

This black Friday sale is more for new players than it is for veteran players. The 85% off Minas Morgul and 60% off of Three Peaks is certainly worth the price now, and quite a few kinnies still at sub-100 levels were waiting for sales like this to get the expansions.

There is SO much content above level 100 now, that even with Minas Morgul and Three Peaks, and with the free (through the quest pack code) Azog area, you can literally get all the way to 140 with ease. Maybe 137-138 on all the content (quest experience for level 130 quests really starts to diminish after 136) and then the Missions from Wildwood, Three Peaks, and Rivendell to do the last 2 levels or so.....

So in that sense, for new players this is a PERFECT Black Friday sale.

But not so much for veteran players.... That said however, there are winter sales coming (at least 4 weeks, maybe even 5?) and in those weeks it is not Lotro Market stuff that is on sale, but in-game Lotro Store stuff. So we may yet see our carry alls appear! But yeah, no one knows and SSG is not talking, so yeah..... not much to do but wait.

[wispsong]

This black Friday sale is more for new players than it is for veteran players. The 85% off Minas Morgul and 60% off of Three Peaks is certainly worth the price now, and quite a few kinnies still at sub-100 levels were waiting for sales like this to get the expansions.

There is SO much content above level 100 now, that even with Minas Morgul and Three Peaks, and with the free (through the quest pack code) Azog area, you can literally get all the way to 140 with ease. Maybe 137-138 on all the content (quest experience for level 130 quests really starts to diminish after 136) and then the Missions from Wildwood, Three Peaks, and Rivendell to do the last 2 levels or so.....

So in that sense, for new players this is a PERFECT Black Friday sale.

But not so much for veteran players.... That said however, there are winter sales coming (at least 4 weeks, maybe even 5?) and in those weeks it is not Lotro Market stuff that is on sale, but in-game Lotro Store stuff. So we may yet see our carry alls appear! But yeah, no one knows and SSG is not talking, so yeah..... not much to do but wait.

Waited all summer sale weeks for these other carry-alls, not much hope left.

[Trixie_Me]

Yeah, I'm sitting on a lot of LP. I was encouraged to wait for the holiday sales. But there is literally nothing to buy but more LP . Oh, and the stable thing for my yard. That was the one thing worth it. Other than that, I'm pretty disappointed.

[Sherush]

This to me was the worst Black Friday Sale. Goes right in line with the stupid idea to give a dye bag with explanation. Thinking lotro has lost touch what customers want.

[Filloston]

This black Friday sale is more for new players than it is for veteran players. The 85% off Minas Morgul and 60% off of Three Peaks is certainly worth the price now, and quite a few kinnies still at sub-100 levels were waiting for sales like this to get the expansions...

So in that sense, for new players this is a PERFECT Black Friday sale.

This is 100% true for me. I had bought through Mordor last Christmas when it went on sale. Then, I bought through W3P this time around. This sale allowed new-ish people like me to catch up to the latest release. Until now, I wasn't even thinking about buying Gundabad. I will probably wait until April and buy it for LP.

I am a veteran player on another game. All of the freebies, discounts, etc. the devs offer will give dramatically diminishing or nonexistent returns the longer you play. Getting useful perks will be harder to come by. It is just a fact of life. I fully anticipate Black Friday next year will not be nearly as good for me as it was this year. On the bright side, the sales won't be useful because I would be already enjoying the benefits.