Ok, Blizzard. Many players are just whining, how new BP is unrewarding and stuff (and I couldn’t agree more). The game itself is fun (yes, I said it. I like the game!), but current BP/Shop is a pile off poo-poo, tbh.
I understand that marketing and business decisions are not fast to implement, because of the corporate bureaucracy (and greed).
Even though I said all that, my motto is to “suggest, not just critique”.
So, here are the ways how to fix BP/Shop for next season, which should be fair to both developers and playerbase, because currently, BP feels unrewarding (especially for f2p players) and the shop is aimed for whales of the whales. It’s not Louis Vuitton, ffs.
So, the proposal is:
For BP:
- Everything that is now on premium track is on free track (excluding Mythic and Legendary Skins, which are for premium route) (this way it would be at least somehow rewarding for f2p player and I understand that Mythic Skins and Heroes are the main sale point of BP. For the filler content, let’s be honest, sprays, charms, profile covers, icons, etc are relatively easy to make, you can throw them in both premium and free BP)
- Levels give you some legacy coins (or whatever you want to rename them, doesn’t matter) per level (For example: 25 per level for premium. With this amount you can accumulate up to 2000 coins per 80 lvls. For F2P I would say ~10 (800 for 80 lvls). You can also consider an option to increase coin rewards for higher levels, which would give more reasons to grind them)
- Players can spend legacy coins to buy anything (excluding new BP or some Mythic cosmetics)
- Heroes are either unlocked right away or at lvl ~25. (I played every day with premium BP, sometimes in a group of friends and reach lvl 55 just when Kiriko hit the comp. Most of my friends, who play more casually are around lvl 20 now (with premium!))
- BP cost is $20-25. Not purchasable with legacy coins (Now, hear me out. If the BP is more rewarding it should cost more. $20-25 is a reasonable price I see in other games with BP, that I play. And tbh, none of them has any way to “earn the next BP”, but I’m fine with it)
For the shop:
- Blue = $1-2 (100-200 legacy coins)
- Purple = $5 (500 legacy coins)
- Legendary = $10 (1000 legacy coins)
- Everything can be bought with legacy coins that you could earn with leveling the BP.
As you saw above, if you grind all 80 lvls of BP, you can have enough savings for 2 Legendary skins per season from premium track or 1 purple from free track. There are ton of Legendary skins from OW1 and there are typically more than 2 Legendaries per season anyway. So there are plenty of stuff to buy for both new and returning players. And the price is in my opinion is low enough for people to afford it.
There are other possibilities to engage with f2p players to play more. For example, reward players for playing matches with f2p currency. 5 legacy coins for the win for example would give a f2p player more reasons to play more and less reasons to throw. But it’s a slippery slope, so I won’t suggest to go that way before proper research.