Somebody asked in the CohhCarnage stream yesterday about getting a Pledge Matrix so I made one. Enjoy!
That looks fantastic! A clear visualization of the pledge packages is long overdue. I had to make one myself a couple years ago when I wanted to upgrade, but mine was limited to pledges I was considering.
Feyshtey said:That's actually pretty slick Telepath. Nicely done.
Don't all the tiers have Discord access now? Not sure.
Yes but it is not listed under the pledges yet and I wanted to only include info from there so I left those blank for now.
Excellent work, thank you.
When I first decided to Pledge, I studied the first two Pledge Tiers carefully, and it boiled down to this for me:
Watcher: Initial box fee.
Legate: Beta access.
Protector: Another box fee for a friend.
Bloodsworn: Subscription fee.
Pathfinder: Alpha access.
Advisor: Founder's Conclave?
The first five Pledge levels are my Road to Alpha, one fifty dollar upgrade at a time. I don't spend more than I can afford in a given month, and by tying them to completed milestones, I only commit as Alpha gets closer.
This is what I am comfortable with.
This is the old tier if anyone needs. I think it' was 2015.. can't remember when I pledged
Balanz said:According to this diagram, some benefits seem to disappear at higher Pledges, especially the infamous additional character slot.
When I made my own matrix a couple years ago, I noticed the same issue. The official pledges were a bit confusing and some low tier rewards appear to be lost at higher levels. I remember old threads from people who wanted to upgrade but didn't because they were concerned about losing rewards. The community opinion was that VR wouldn't punish anyone for upgrading by removing a reward and there was official word that if you upgrade, you can always put in a service request to ensure you keep your previous pledge rewards.
It makes zero sense, business-wise, to remove rewards at higher levels, and I think this has caused some to hold back on upgrades. Personally, the only way I know to ensure you don't miss any is to pledge lower and then upgrade. I really hope the official pledge rewards page gets clarified since I think the confusion has caused some people to hold back.
As there currently is an invitation to upgrade, now might be a good time to check and possibly correct the Pledge awards.
For example, when ViNL is completed, I will be upgrading to Protector, and apparently losing an in-game name plate icon, and an additional character slot.
EDIT: Checking, the chart does not match the latest Pledge list. Protector does get an additional character slot, but it appears lost later.
Fulton said:Chaoticus said:This is the old tier if anyone needs. I think it' was 2015.. can't remember when I pledged
Right? Hard to beleive I pledged 7 years ago and still aren't in even alpha.
*sigh* Really? Hard to believe a game from the most-demanding-to-produce-genre is taking a small independent crowdfunded non-traditional development team many years to make when we know huge rich traditional development studios also take many years to make them?
The latest I heard of is NCSoft started Throne and Liberty in 2011.
Balanz said:According to this diagram, some benefits seem to disappear at higher Pledges, especially the infamous additional character slot.
I wouldn't say stuff "disappears" at higher levels, it is more like it is just exclusive to specific levels.
The extra character slot used to be in a lot of the old pledge tiers, and now it is exclusive to Bloodsworn, Protector and Legate. Bloodsworn and Legate are structured in a unique way where they sacrifice some of other in-game perks in order to get the character slot and (the t-shirt/hat perk unique to Bloodsworn only). Also I think I remember someone saying that once the number of base character slots per account is finalized they will look at an alternative way for the rest of us to obtain those bonus slots. Additionally they have said that if you upgrade to a tier that doesn't have something that was in the tier you upgraded from, you can put in a ticket to keep it.
Black Rose is also a direct alternate to Perceiver. They are the same price, and you get the choice between the in-game items or the digital soundtrack. I wouldn't describe Black Rose as having benefits "disappear" because it is so clear what it meant to be happening there. They are offering a choice for those who don't prefer the in-game items.
The last choice is at Reignborn and Ascendant. One gets to design a quest and the other gets to design a Dungeon/Raid. I never looked at that and thought that Ascendant had the "Design a Quest" dissapearing, or that it should still get it because it was in a lower tier. It is still getting to design something that is better in every way.
Telepath wrote:I wouldn't say stuff "disappears" at higher levels, it is more like it is just exclusive to specific levels.
Thank you. I just got a little squirrelly because I am upgrading one step at a time until I reach Alpha.
Telepath, Thank you for putting this together! This chart makes it obvious that some pledge tier offerings are confusing. IMO, having different pledge tiers at the same price point offering different things is a poor decision, and the fact that some things are explicitly offered/stated at lower tiers but not at higher [cost] tiers doesn't mesh well with the fact that they guarantee rewards will be kept when pledges are upgraded. It sounds like many pledgers (like me) will be due to receive rewards that are not associated with their 'current' pledge tier, which seems unnecessarily difficult to track for both the pledgers and for VR.
Balanz said:Telepath wrote:I wouldn't say stuff "disappears" at higher levels, it is more like it is just exclusive to specific levels.
Thank you. I just got a little squirrelly because I am upgrading one step at a time until I reach Alpha.
It's interesting... Do folks that start low and move up through pledge tiers end up with more than those that jump in at higher levels, then?
Because this is surely the upshot if they don't 'lose' items from a previous level they were at when they move up to pledge levels that don't give those items.
I would hope that these are oversights and higher pledges get everything the lower ones do, it just isn't specified. It would be weird to get more benefits from pledging in multiple chunks than doing it all in one.
I should say, personally, I don't care about much of the benefits apart from getting to be involved, but it is a technically odd issue.