A more flexible server boost

I did a cursory search and see no request of this sort, so forgive me if this has been made.

Much feedback concerning "rebalancing" server boosting talks about providing the end user more boosts, reducing the price or reducing the number of boosts required for a server to level up. However, I feel like the server boosting feature is fundamentally flawed.

The root of the issue, I've found, is the mindset common among end users. That is, "Why would I boost this server if my boost has no effect?" While some are content with helping contribute towards the arbitrary amount of boosts for more features, a greater many would rather hold onto their boost until it would matter. Even as a server owner, I don't feel good about my server members wasting their boosts when I know my server won't be hitting the next server level tier. As I'm happy enough with a level 1 server, I've even specifically requested for people to NOT boost my server further. This is fairly contrary to how I feel this system should work. I should not be compelled to discourage people to spend money supporting my server.

As alluded to before, I believe that providing more boosts or changing pricing or tier requirements is not the solution. In the end, those ideas will retain the issue that an end user, more often than not, will feel that their boost is having no impact. My proposal, while not perfect, is as follows:

Server Boosting consists of providing the server a certain amount of "boost points" to distribute among server features, instead of the current Server Boost to unlock batches of features at certain amount of boosts.

For example, if the server owner doesn't care about emotes, the boost points could go into voice bitrate. Or if I just have 1 point to give, that point can go towards a single emote slot.
Some particulars of this new system:
- Boosting is still on a monthly basis.
- Feature unlocks determined by server owner, and perhaps those with permissions. I'll refer to this henceforth as "server leaders".
- Both Nitro Classic and Nitro are given boost points to give out to servers, where Nitro is provided more points.
- There is no restriction to how many points a user may provide to a server.
- Any user may purchase points separately to boost servers. This will allow a server leader to completely sustain their own server's features if desired.
- A user's boosting role upgrades as according to how many points they've provided the server.
- A user's profile badge upgrades as according to how many points they've provided all servers.
- The minimum feature unlock costs one point. Every point should matter; nothing should feel wasted.

These are some concerns I would have under this system:
- The amount of points needed to unlock all features will be comparable to the amount of boosts currently needed to achieve the same thing. This will make it a bit more transparent to the end user how much investment it takes to unlock everything. End users will complain that this system is like "nickle and dime" to unlock features. Well, there will always be people who are unsatisfied with anything, but I feel like providing as much control to the end user as possible is always preferable.
- A server member has little power over how their points are used in a server, or if the server leaders are absent, if the points are used at all. A possible solution is to allow the server member to contribute directly to the feature they desire, but this takes power away from the server leaders.
- This system requires a lot of manual end user work, whereas the current Server Boost system is largely automatic. A possible solution to this is to allow the server leaders an option to predetermine how boost points will allocated to features, then those features will automatically unlock as points come in afterward.
- To extend upon the third point and address the second point, the server leaders can allow some "flex" features that can be voted on by the server members. As such, it would be possible for all features to be left to the server members if desired. If no one wants to do any work at all, each server has a default feature unlock path. If the server leaders are absent for a length of time (say, one month), the feature unlocking is automatically reverted to the default path until the leaders return.

The general benefits of this system is that the end user has greater control over where their points, and thus where their money, is going. The end user has the perception that their contribution is more impactful. The end user can spend as little or as much as they want. The excitement of the server acquiring new features is significantly increased in frequency.
For Discord developers, this system can stand to be more profitable than the current system. The power of "whales" is obvious, but the number of people willing to put in $1 to $2 or so a month cannot be understated. The flexibility can allow developers to roll out and "rebalance" boosted features independently.

I imagine such a relatively complex system would require big changes to the underlying infrastructure, but I feel like this would provide a better user experience and happier end users if executed well, which in turn would reflect in more profits for developers, benefiting everyone.

Kyria

September 14, 2019 04:28

This is really, really well thought out, and I think it would improve many of the aspects of the boost system that don't currently work well.

Perhaps a simplified version would be to have a toggle between "admin mode" where server admins choose how points are allocated, and "member mode" where members could choose which features to put their points toward. Admins could choose to set it to member mode or not, but ff server admins are absent for X amount of time, it automatically switches to member mode.

I could see this working really well and bringing in more revenue form people who would be willing to chip in a few bucks for that one feature they really want.

On the flipside, there could also be a decrease in revenue, because now people only have to pay $1/month instead of $10/month to keep their favorite emoji unlocked.

Kilvoctu

September 14, 2019 05:39
Edited

Thanks, I've ruminated on the idea of how to improve boosting ever since the feature was released.

As a power user myself, I like having as much control and as many options as possible, but I understand that a lot of end users want simple. Part of the difficulty of finding a solution is having a system that can serve both types of end user's needs and be presented in the UI in a clean and intuitive way. "Admin mode" and "Member mode" could be an effective way to execute this idea.

As for how profitable this will be for the Discord team, it's hard for us on the user side to predict. With the recent announcement of the Nitro games' removal, their management will probably wait a while to see how that affects their $10 subscription numbers.
Anecdotally, I do notice that there is a market of users who feel that $10 or even $5 a month is too large of an investment over something ultimately very trivial, however they would not mind putting a couple dollars into such a thing. The question would be, are there enough of users like this to offset the amount who will otherwise keep their $10 subscriptions? I personally think so.

Plemso

September 16, 2019 08:42

I completeley agree with the overall idea, and I can see that you have a fair point. It would be intresting.

BUT many many many people have aleready boosted servers and unlocked vanity urls, and other boosting features, what would happen to them? What would happen after they cancel the boost and they have 0 points?

September 17, 2019 02:31

Boosting is already on a monthly basis, so any changes to its core functionality would ideally be on the reset date of a month.
People would then reboost as they normally would and the server would retain its benefits, or they would choose not to reboost and the server would lose its benefits after the grace period ends, much like how the system currently works.

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