No pay to play

NO pay to play: shouldn’t have to buy ingame content to beat levels, climb the ladder or advance in any way

NO pay to win: shouldn’t be able to pay to have an advantage in otherwise balanced matchmaking, an overwhelming unfair advantage that is. There shouldn’t be people at the same level who destroy you every time cause they paid real cash for ingame content. Same goes for score competitions, strategy, or any game that would suffer from average players feeling like they have to shell out cash just to survive/compete.

Pay to Look Cool (aesthetics/skins) Emotes, whatever

Pay for small boosts, loot bonuses, But only reward omnipotence to the player who achieves on an already even playing field, you can have a balanced game and offer advantage to someone who’s  just a good player of the game (IE Killstreak bonuses, etc)

Pay for resources: bulk amounts of necessary materials, some rares, some common, etc. But guarantee at least one rare for someone whos actually paying for ingame content, Don’t make it a losing gamble where people play against the odds and NEVER give the player the impression it’s a scam or a gamble if you want genuine interest in your in app purchases.

With that being said, EVERY pay to play content item or pack should be achievable with scaling difficulty in a reasonable amount of time by just playing the game, sure you have rare items BUT don’t make their acquisition a NECESSITY when advancing in tier or climbing the ladder

CUSTOMIZATION: Every Outfit, every weapon, weapon system, In a strategy game, employ full use of the battlefield, allow for true niche tactical manipulation of environment and everything in it. Name and customize or designate units, characters whatever,.

Resource Gathering, if applicable Maintain that their importance is fundamental but make acquisition of materials an efficient process, one where someone can actually make a dent and have a stockpile.

NO ENDLESS GRINDING, without substantial benefit/achievement.

>materials you NEED should be abundant, and gatherable intermediately or efficiently as its own intended goal.

>materials you WANT should be common, and scale from common to rare appropriately, Anything you need for maintenance shouldn’t be a drag to get, anything you need to advance incrementally shouldn’t be an overwhelming effort, although it should all scale appropriately

> rare loot or materials or extremely rare loot should only exist to enhance gameplay, or do something dramatic to your overall ability to perform. There should not be a REQUIREMENT for rare items that are actually rare (and I mean like you never find it in months of playing) to advanachice linearly.

In general the concept is, if you have to grind endlessly for hours just to maintain your gameplay experience (actually achieve things, move forwards and advance) the game can become a drag, and while addictive to some, grinding for skills for months ETC only works in certain games and those are ones where the endless grinding isn’t NECESSARY to play. You don’t want it to be a RARE possibility you can achieve more in the game, you don’t want it to be a ENDLESS effort either, but obviously this can scale incrementally.

GAMEPLAY LADDER

Low Level <should advance through very quickly, less than a week with 4 hour a day or less gameplay

Medium level <A good month of content to get to next tier

High level <Another good month and a half of content to get to next tier

Advanced level <Final level, now all you can do is unlock everything, to literally get ALL content in a game, reach the highest level, etc you should have to really play continuously to get EVERYTHING. By now everything's unlockable, so now it's just a matter of enjoying the gameplay rather than advancing.

Top Tier, everything unlocked, completionist, etc < for some this means the game is beaten but,

CONTINUAL CONTENT,

>Dedicated updates of skins, maps, new ideas (new content) Give reason for people who've played the game endlessly to come back, and keep the game community alive by being a developer that keeps the game alive with new updates,

>Events, >reason to log in (double xp weekends, holidays, giveaways,etc. Daily unlockables too. Especially good are limited time unlockables or somehow limited events where you can garner more interest in the game for a period of time after.

INGAME CONTENT ECONOMY?

Player to player trading of ingame content or currency?

Player to CP trading on an individual basis?

Player & Developer (buying ingame cash or currency or items, etc)

Player Pays with points, but can earn them and pays for ingame content with points? Really this has to be foundational, whether you're earning points that you can pay for content with or you dig up resources and trade with other players for points/cash/whatever. Only with a foundational ability to gather on your own will ingame purchases then be appealing to more than just those with hundreds of dollars to spend on a game they already paid for. You want people to spend 5 dollars for a boost they might not have needed, rather than overall thing your game is a pay to play scam.

SOCIAL> Clans, Friends, Clan leader maintenance and customization, Friends lists.

>ingamechat, & ability to make ingame friends online, not have to necessarily know people in RL.

    >multiplayer publichat

    >Clan private chat

    >friend private chat

Relaxed rules on language and content just offer the player the ability to *ignore* people who bother them, make supervision a non priority but have steps to prevent ingame abuse unless its in the vein of a limited competition and doesn’t have one person killed by the same person over and over.

Basically in matchmaking, you're always teamed up with random players to keep variety, but you can join games your friends are in or clan is in. Encourage clan v Clan rivalries, just avoid putting players in a position where they cant play the game because another play has the option to continually harass them, or diminish their progress.