Lets say, you have a game where you fight cowboys as an Indian. it is free to play, and you get a no-name Indian. Good looking, but rather bland chap, with his single feather, and rather dull looking equipment. Does to job fine.

Or you could buy an alternative character to play as, Crazy horse. It is a historical figure many know about, and many might want to play as rather than average joe Indian warrior. Then you get this amazing 3D model, with the Feather crown, sparkling looking clothing and amazing weaponry. A true chief amongst Indians. Perfect to show off in front of these free loaders.

Make him play a little different (we know Crazy Horse went a little mental in battle, but seemed to be a very talented warrior, so he could be a better warrior, but somehow harder to "control"), but balanced against average joe indian, and some people might just pick him up for that, even though average joe does the job just fine.

This Indian analogy conforms with "focusing on selling experience rather than (solely utility of) item" imo and it's a very good example. It also creates diversity in monetization, my intention for such case in my game is using personal (Elvis entered the building style) and squad uniforms , may even consider special edition of common weapons (slightly better Special Colt or excessively more expensive golden plated one making no difference)

This Indian analogy conforms with "focusing on selling experience rather than (solely utility of) item" imo and it's a very good example. It also creates diversity in monetization, my intention for such case in my game is using personal (Elvis entered the building style) and squad uniforms , may even consider special edition of common weapons (slightly better Special Colt or excessively more expensive golden plated one making no difference)

How about exchanging "slightly better" or "different looking but same gameplay stats" for "different look and different stats, but not better"?

I know this might lead to hard to solve balancing problems, and yes, sometimes a Hat is just a Hat, but a) as soon as a premium item is even "slightly better", the masses start complaining, and b) if its just about the different look, you loose out on some sales as some people are not that much motivated by looks, but more by the gameplay stats.

How about that:

bog standart colt: 6 shots, medium accuracy, medium damage, medium Rate of Fire

Billy the kids legendary 5 shooter: 5 Shots, medium accuray, medium damage, high RoF (well oiled, easier to re-cook, whatever the excuse is)

Buffalo Bills Magnum Colt: 5 Shots, low accuray, high damage, medium RoF (Assuming here that damage is more important than RoF when you need to reload the drum after 5 shots anyway)

General Custers long barreled Colt: 6 Shots, high accuray, medium damage, low RoF

And so on. You get legendary weapons that might radically influence gameplay, but with careful balancing will not be straight "better" than the standart colt.... maybe err on the safe side and make them slightly worse with everything taken into account, just so nobody can call it pay2win (some still will).

As long as the Weapon feels different enough gameplay wise, does work somehow, and maybe allows some advanced tactics that might not work with the standard weapon, you will find some people interested even for the gameplay stats of the weapon, while no free loader that knows the games rules and the different weapons can really complain about it.

After all, he was able to spot the shiny long barreled colt in his opponents hands, could have come to the conclusion that it would be a bad idea to take long distance pot shots against an oponnent with a vastly more accurate weapon, and could have worked his way into a closer distance to abuse his much higher RoF against the premium weapon wielding oponnent.

This way, the premium Item actually even enriches the gameplay for skilled free loaders that now have another potential obstacle to overcome... which might make the fight more interesting to them.

Of course, sometimes vanity items are just that, and it makes little sense to tack on ingame bonuses just to draw in additional sales. If it feels like an afterthought tacked unto a premium item just to heighten the perceived value, it will most probably feel cheap and lead to p2w claims.

As for the uniform: you could even make that more than a vanity item.

What happens when an officer (pre-WW1, even military guys learned that part in WW1 :) ) enters the stage clad in his shiny uniform, with all his golden rank insignias and medals? Instantly his troops are awe inspired as all the gold and sparkles leave no doubt about both his authority and his expierience in battle.... and instantly he will be prime target to enemy snipers (how could he miss something so shiny? :) ).

IDK how this could translate to ingame stats, but how about the uniform making the premium user giving nearby troops bonuses, maybe even grant himself some bonuses, but he will need to play more careful now as he is easier to spot (and that is a fact, there is a reason why "the gold" disappeared from active military non-parade uniforms in last few decades), and will be prime target to snipers. Maybe enemy troops that eliminate him get a bonus for that?

This way the uniform does not only makes the player look more sparkly, it instantly slightly transforms his role among his own troops, and the importance of him to the enemy also changes.

Counterbalancing premium item's premium feature ie making it vanityish is a nice approach , partly conforms with my intention to make premium vehicles consuming ridiculous amount of fuel and/or premium fuel.

And for vanity items, I am more interested in items creating a sense of social belonging, lone wolf approach may be more lucrative but conflicts with "social whales" strategy and large "customer" base intention. Yet it is a path of some (killer type players et al) players, so might serve such items not bordering on exploitation.

But I am very simulation oriented for bonuses making no sense, I know I will have to bend reality in an MMO but bonuses out of nowhere annoys me atm

I also dislike irrational bonuses. On the other hand, with a good explanation and a small dose of "suspension of disbelieve", most things can be explained.

Only thing I would maybe rethink would be the "premium fuel" route. Making the player pay for something he has to pay even more later on to use might not go down well with part of the potential buyer base.

One possible route is what Wargaming did in WoT for the Gold ammo / consumables: originally they were only available for gold, thus real money, which lead some people to call it P2W, as all this items gave ingame advantages over their regular counterparts.

In the end, Wargaming switched to a different strategy: you can now buy all the premium items (ammo and consumables) either with gold (thus real money), or for a value in ingame currency that equals the gold to ingame currency exchange rate (thus 4-10x as expensive as the normal ammo / consumable).

Net effect was that nobody can REALLY claim this to be P2W (some still do), as free loaders can now also afford to use some premium consumables. But its just expensive enough so that an overuse will drain ingame currency quickly, leading to not so active / good players still being inclined to invest small sums of real money into buying a small stock of these premium consumables, while they now also act as ingame money sink for the better / more active players to keep ingame economy in check.

Quite a clever solution.

On thing to be careful though: if your premium vehicle is extremly expensive to run, even if it is just ingame currency, there must be payoff. Lots of player in games like World of Tanks seem to monitor net profits of vehicles quite closely, and if your premium vehicles are getting them lower net profits in the ingame economy, they might prove less attractive no matter how cool they look or what other advantages they have. So the advantages to balance the lower net profits must be quite large...

Making a vehicle very powerful but making less exp / ingame money than normal vehicles is a worse balancing act IMO than making it slightly less powerful but raking in a better profit.

Free loaders and other player most likely will not see the profit of the premium user, and even if, they hardly care. If they get stomped by an overpowered premium vehicle they couldn't care less that the premium user made a loss on the game, they will cry P2W and rightly so. Lots of premium users abuse any premium option that is OP just to "farm free loaders", push their stats, and make some people rage.

They will pay top dollar for that. You as a developer might like that... but they are also upsetting the rest of the player base. Even if they are free loaders, each one of them has value to the MMO as a whole.

My bad, when I call it "premium fuel" it sounds like a miraculous substance that a super duper vehicle can only operate consuming it.

Actually what I (tried to) meant was premium quality fuel , which has a relatively long manufacturing process involving purification (thus requiring more raw) and chemical enriching processes. So it costs more than common one but not necessarily bought from game's "Evil Admin Company" (as I like to call it :) ) but others that can afford to have such facility.

Otherwise, an ingame item having a TCO with item itself has very low percentage would really annoy me. :)

Also beside TCO, I think a vehicle "you can watch fuel gauge moving" :) can be a good counterbalance if set proper.

My bad, when I call it "premium fuel" it sounds like a miraculous substance that a super duper vehicle can only operate consuming it.

Actually what I (tried to) meant was premium quality fuel , which has a relatively long manufacturing process involving purification (thus requiring more raw) and chemical enriching processes. So it costs more than common one but not necessarily bought from game's "Evil Admin Company" (as I like to call it ) but others that can afford to have such facility.

Otherwise, an ingame item having a TCO with item itself has very low percentage would really annoy me.

Also beside TCO, I think a vehicle "you can watch fuel gauge moving" can be a good counterbalance if set proper.

Okay, so the premium fuel would make any car go quicker? Do I undestand that correct? That sound P2W-ish, depending if its only attainable through real cash or also with ingame currency.

On the other hand, having different vehicles consume fuel at a different rate can be a good gameplay mechanic, depending on how refueling works. I am not 100% sure that it might balance a better armoured or armed vehicle, but if it is a race we are talking about, it can balance a faster car for sure. If a car is slightly faster but has to stop for refueling more often, a slightly slower car with better fuel consumption might keep up with it and maybe overtake it during refuel.

Mixed with combat mechanics (if that is planned) it might make for very interesting and dynamic gameplay. Just remember, in this case the guy with the high fuel consumption and better engine gets an additional advantage, as normal combat vehicles tend to be extremly vulnerable from behind. And after every refuel cycle, the faster car can catch up again and attack the slower one from behind.

Without combat, the slower car might on the other hand have a slight advantage as it can block the faster car behind it.

So yeah, depending on your exact design, that might work out quite well, but you need to balance it carefully.

Working on something similar currently, but its all in an early prototype stage at the moment. I couldn't run real tests yet as not everything is coded yet. Fuel consumption without refueling is kinda pointless ;)

Well , my intention to have different quality levels for fuel comes from a basic classification like diesel for tractor, fuel for old cars, lead-free fuel for new cars, kerosene-type fuel (ie chemicals additive) for aircraft etc.

So the main idea is partly counterbalancing effectiveness of these vehicle with higher TCO.

And for the purpose of premium fuel, I am more like both making restrictions (a sports car can't consume low quality fuel) and making premium fuel more efficient. I like the way Starbound handles ship fuel, there you can put coal, oil, uranium they all count as fuel (coal counts less, uranium more) , so my primary intention is not burst but mileage. So higher Q fuel will be more efficient and more vehicle friendly (causing less damage to vehicle) , but it won't enable god mode.

And for refueling, there involves logistics mechanics :)

Finally on my own, I am at GDD to TDD stage, so nothing solid atm

I think the effectiveness of this balancing act is very much up to you general game design. Depends a lot on how important fuel milage is, and how easy / hard it is ro refuel. Also of course how big the gap in effectiveness between vehicles is.

Generally I like the idea though. Especially with different types of engines consuming different amount of fueltypes... like the gas turbine of some modern tanks, that seem to run on pretty everything... somehow. Perfect for a post-apocalyptic / salvage your own fuel type of game. So you can drive around in that big heavy tank with gas turbine at 50 MPH, and pretty much every ignitable liquid you find can keep it running. Or you run around in that sports car at 200 MPH onroad, but god help you if you don't find a (abandoned?) gas station in time (how about giving the player the option to push his light sports car that ran out of fuel around at 2 MPH? :) ).

Anyway, I think we left the topic of what should be discussed in this forum a long time ago even though it is an interesting topic. I suggest if you want to continue this discussion you either open a thread in the Game Design forum or we discuss it in private... :)