Random thoughts

[Jaysenpai 2]

After investing a couple hundred hours combined on both the old and new ataraxia, I want to voice my thoughts and have some sort of discussion about the server direction. Each time i log on i feel relatively discouraged due to the massive perks of the higher donation tiers. It's a personal problem but i can't help but feel the server would be more enjoyable and retain more players if it wasn't as steep as it is now. I don't want it to be construed that i'm just jelly and can't afford it because i've spent $50-60 both servers and I really don't mind small amounts of p2w. Although i do feel this servers donation model is closer to a custom server than a typical server. There's very few 718s and none i enjoy as much as ataraxia, but I found myself sticking to novice even though i'd love to put more time into the game with other game modes due to the how different the game is without your favorite perks. I know the server has to make money and i'm sure this model has made juicy profit because those high tiers are very enticing and give excellent benefits, but it's to me concerning when the new server launched and every returning player that came back asked about where their perks were before anything else. Ataraxia is one of my favorite servers of all time and I really want to sink more time into it but i have this conflict every time i log in. I have more in my head to share but this wall of text is already daunting. Thanks for reading and I would love to read anyone's thoughts.

[Jaysenpai 2]

I'd also like to say that I appreciate all the work that jaedmo and the staff have put into the server. You guys have continued to make the server better and better.

[Jaedmo 781]

Well what would you propose to be an alternative? We need to make money, as much as I'd love to keep Ataraxia up permanently with a rising playerbase and not having people depend on perks.. It's not realistic. 

We're aware perks are expensive and some of them are pretty much required for some content to be much easier but.. It's that or we sell late game items for menial amounts of $ and ruin the grind that people enjoy..

What would you suggest instead? 

[Jaysenpai 2]

I appreciate the response jaed. I'm not sure what a viable alternative would be. The newer perks and tiers all seem very inflated to me but i have seen some servers with similar prices on donation tiers  that give less. I really feel the investments on the server are worthwhile. I don't want to suggest taking away from tiers and adding to others or lowering prices because that wouldn't be fair at all. I'm sure this has been suggested and probably isn't possible but it would be helpful to maintain perks and donor status among alts when theyre such a large part of the server. I like the perk model and i've liked the newly released perks outside of their pricing. I feel like more convenience should be spread to lower tiers. Maybe a lesser version of private instancing but that would also invalidate the gwd specialist perk a bit. It seems like more and more were added to higher tiers to retain the loyal whale players. I don't want to come off as a silver tier give me more shit sort of stance, but i feel like that might be a factor harming new player retention. I also think there should be more clear gearing guides and advice because being dropped in the spread out new ::home on a 718 seems like a lot for new players to this type of server or even this version of the game.