Pay to Win - What goes?

Moroi · Mar 26th 2018, 1:37pm

when it comes to online gaming, pay to win has always been a worrisome topic for many.
I'm confident all of you are familiar with the term, so I won't bother going into
detail explaining it. instead, I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on the matter:

what do you think can be classified as P2W, how do you personally define it?

to start off, I'll give some thoughts of my own. do note that these are just

my opinions and not something you should take as absolute. the following
also concerns mainly an endgame-centric MMORPG environment.

in any MMORPG where enhancing equipment is a feature, having your equipment
in top condition becomes more or less a requirement for endgame. anything you
can buy with actual money makes it easier/faster/cheaper to upgrade your gear
is P2W in my opinion. as a hypothetical example, imagine you can enhance your
equipment on a scale of +0 to +10, and each stage requires more material to
succeed. however, as you get closer to +10, the chances of success decrease
dramatically, while the cost of materials increases all the while. a simple item to
increase the chances of success, even a little, would still count as P2W, as
you're achieving the same thing non-paying players are, just far faster and easier.
anything you can get off a cash shop that directly makes you ingame gold, be it
via a boost, or just selling the item for gold, is P2W also. this is because spending
actual money would grant you with a virtually infinite supply of ingame currency.
you can very easily liken this to buying gold off a gold seller. this could be dangerous
due to the warp in the game's economy such practices may create, either by generating
more gold than intended, or just by making the paying players exceedingly wealthy
in comparison to their non-paying counterparts, which comes with a set of problems of
its own.
as for something a bit more controversial, many people see experience and level
boosts as P2W, but I can't fully agree. WoW is a notorious example for this, as they
give a max level boost with the pre-purchase of every new expansion (and offer it separately in their store).
I don't see this as P2W because the game centers very much around the endgame,
this boost just puts you in the very beginning with that, the gear this provides you
with is only good enough for the entry-level max level content. something to consider
is also that long time players have likely leveled dozens of characters over the years,
so the boost is just a way to skip the content they've already seen so many times.

please note that this thread is intended to be a very general exchange of thoughts regarding the subject.

Blueberry · Mar 26th 2018, 2:12pm

Hmm...

1st - I would also like to hear everyone thoughts over exchange of currency in the cash shop ( have in mind if you have no p2w items in said cash shop, the number of rarely powerful items on the market would be limited and hard to come buy anyway)

2nd - I think boosting (exp for example) items can be bad for full time players but good for casuals who want to enjoy the game - I don't see why no one as ever used the counter system as a limiter for buying said products - people who logged in a certain amount of time could have X or Y time available to buy while other players didn't. Also such items couldn't be sell-able, but there is always a grey area the interested find to badly use all this.

If we actually look in detail, creating cash shops with no p2w is really hard and countering the possible p2w uses of cash shop items is also hard and means a lot of time dedicated to coding and limiting the item mechanics ... in any situation there will be unannounced trouble.

The ideal situation would be giving the developers enough time to do all that work, but selfishly most people don't like waiting.

Pentrep · Mar 26th 2018, 3:59pm

Blueberry wrote:

Hmm...

1st - I would also like to hear everyone thoughts over exchange of currency in the cash shop ( have in mind if you have no p2w items in said cash shop, the number of rarely powerful items on the market would be limited and hard to come buy anyway)

2nd - I think boosting (exp for example) items can be bad for full time players but good for casuals who want to enjoy the game - I don't see why no one as ever used the counter system as a limiter for buying said products - people who logged in a certain amount of time could have X or Y time available to buy while other players didn't. Also such items couldn't be sell-able, but there is always a grey area the interested find to badly use all this.

If we actually look in detail, creating cash shops with no p2w is really hard and countering the possible p2w uses of cash shop items is also hard and means a lot of time dedicated to coding and limiting the item mechanics ... in any situation there will be unannounced trouble.

The ideal situation would be giving the developers enough time to do all that work, but selfishly most people don't like waiting.

If your referring to the exchange of gold for lumena, I don't see a problem with this. BNS does a system similar to this. However the problem now is that the premium currency is basically worth nothing in gold. When the premium currency is worth nothing, why would you pay for it? Maybe make 2 different premium currencies? BNS has NC Coins and HM coins, NC was cash currency and HM was transferred from gold. What you could buy with HM coins was limited while NC cash was only limited to what the monthly caps were.
I'm going to agree that XP boosts are silly. This game has so many ways to get XP. All the hunts in the game alone account for more than enough xp to get from level 1-50 in no time. I for one do not advocate for any xp boosts.
As for what's in the shops. I'd prefer the stick to costumes and premium mounts. I'm not sure what else they should include though except maybe a drop increase boost.

SLiver · Mar 26th 2018, 6:43pm

Another somewhat useful tool:
YouTube Link To P2W?

ShiftyBandit · Mar 26th 2018, 8:37pm

I think boosts are silly. I used on once and didnt like it. I didnt know any of my skills or rotations, where to go, or what to do or when to do it lol I felt more like a noob when I did that then when I just roll a new class from lvl 1. I think it was Tera I tried a booster in? Because of that I dont find them pay to win so much, more like pay to be confused and look like a cash shop noob lol

Pentrep · Mar 27th 2018, 1:25pm

ShiftyBandit wrote:

I think boosts are silly. I used on once and didnt like it. I didnt know any of my skills or rotations, where to go, or what to do or when to do it lol I felt more like a noob when I did that then when I just roll a new class from lvl 1. I think it was Tera I tried a booster in? Because of that I dont find them pay to win so much, more like pay to be confused and look like a cash shop noob lol

I could be wrong but I don't think this game is going to have a skill rotation. At least for Paladin, I didn't feel like there was one. Though I didn't play much DPS, so it could be possible. In addition they are changing the skill tree so it might be something they add. Personally, I dislike skill rotations and think a more responsive/reactive system similar to what BNS has would be better.

Sidurgu · Mar 27th 2018, 1:36pm

I think a P2W is a game who possess a cash shop that give incredible amount of Lootboxes and the most powerful item for upgrading your characters.

You can see easily the difference between and high level F2P player and a High level P2W player,

It's like the P2W player can stop an attack with just one finger... Clearly, it's absurd.

From the information that i've gathered from the cash shop from Bless online, it seems that it won't be pay to win, Boost for experience, Greater Inventory, etc... this don't give you any single advantage in an actual fight. So i guess it's all right

The exchange from IG currency from Cash shop currency isn't what makes a game P2W, this is just a system. Like i said earlier, it's only what is in the cash shop that make it P2W or not.

Moroi · Mar 27th 2018, 3:11pm

Sidurgu wrote:

The exchange from IG currency from Cash shop currency isn't what makes a game P2W, this is just a system. Like i said earlier, it's only what is in the cash shop that make it P2W or not.

I disagree. just being able to print gold with your real money gives you a very real advantage in that you're essentially able to buy any and all items ingame, provided you spend the cash of course. the gold you make via real money purchases could be used on better gear, upgrades for your gear, really anything that can be bought and sold. in addition, as I mentioned before, this can an will really upset the economy of the game, which will make it suffer on the long term.

also, I don't see anything inherently indicative of P2W in lootboxes; no matter how predatory the ideology behind the concept is, a lootbox could contain only cosmetics. cosmetics that give you no advancement in the game at all.

Ezenkrul87 · Mar 27th 2018, 7:09pm

Moroi wrote:

Sidurgu wrote:

The exchange from IG currency from Cash shop currency isn't what makes a game P2W, this is just a system. Like i said earlier, it's only what is in the cash shop that make it P2W or not.

I disagree. just being able to print gold with your real money gives you a very real advantage in that you're essentially able to buy any and all items ingame, provided you spend the cash of course. the gold you make via real money purchases could be used on better gear, upgrades for your gear, really anything that can be bought and sold. in addition, as I mentioned before, this can an will really upset the economy of the game, which will make it suffer on the long term.
also, I don't see anything inherently indicative of P2W in lootboxes; no matter how predatory the ideology behind the concept is, a lootbox could contain only cosmetics. cosmetics that give you no advancement in the game at all.

From my understanding you cannot buy the best gear in Bless. While I do agree that being able to sell cash shop items for in game currency is not the best thing, it can vary.

I personally feel that pay 2 win is when there are pay walls or if you can buy items that give you stat advantages that other players cannot acquire in game. This could be costumes that give stats, actual gear or consumables that can be used in PvP.

No more loot boxes. Archeage gives me nightmares about that........ 1000s in loot boxes can leave many scars.

Blueberry · Mar 27th 2018, 7:25pm

After I got a bit better informed I don't feel like I have to worry about the cash shop of Bless if they maintain the same as in Korea or Japan. It seems pretty stable and mostly cosmetics. the currency can be won ingame and also bought.
Well, right now I'm more worried about other systems in the game and how they will be implemented in EU/NA

Moroi · Mar 27th 2018, 7:35pm

Ezenkrul87 wrote:

From my understanding you cannot buy the best gear in Bless. While I do agree that being able to sell cash shop items for in game currency is not the best thing, it can vary.

oh yeah, I was speaking more generally, and not implying this as the case with Bless, at least as of now. though I suppose such things _could be a subject to change, since we can't be sure how things will be in the western soft-launch.

a little story on the subject, if you will;

Display Spoiler

Tycon · Mar 27th 2018, 8:22pm

Pentrep wrote:

ShiftyBandit wrote:

I think boosts are silly. I used on once and didnt like it. I didnt know any of my skills or rotations, where to go, or what to do or when to do it lol I felt more like a noob when I did that then when I just roll a new class from lvl 1. I think it was Tera I tried a booster in? Because of that I dont find them pay to win so much, more like pay to be confused and look like a cash shop noob lol

I could be wrong but I don't think this game is going to have a skill rotation. At least for Paladin, I didn't feel like there was one. Though I didn't play much DPS, so it could be possible. In addition they are changing the skill tree so it might be something they add. Personally, I dislike skill rotations and think a more responsive/reactive system similar to what BNS has would be better.

Display Spoiler

Anyways, back on topic.

From what I currently know about the cash shop, nothing seems to be problematic with it as of now. It seems to be a little early to be bringing out the riot gear but having an open discussion on the matter is great. While my sentiments on the matter have already been shared, there is no harm in reiterating them here.

Lootboxes should be kept to a minimum: Lootboxes are a predatory practice none of us aren't familiar with. Spending money on lootboxes feels awful when you get nothing out of it and to balance this out developers either promise the world (then give it a 0.0001% drop rate) or make the useful items so common you fall behind if you don't spend money. IF for whatever reason lootboxes are implemented an accurate loot table should also be released.
Cosmetics should be quality: If the developers want to make money by selling cosmetics they need to look appealing. The art team should be making unique cosmetics with no inherit advantages to be available for cash shop purchases. This doesn't mean they should put minimal effort into the appearance of gear. Remember that cosmetics DO NOT need to be player based. They can sell unique mounts that inherit the speed of your fastest mount (on that character) and standard buffs. They can sell unique pets that inherit the buffs of one of your selected pets (again on that character).
Player services should be thought out: Give players the standard 'race change' 'gender change' and 'faction change' options. These choices shouldn't be game breaking. If you change your race you must change to a valid race for your class. If you wish to change factions you become your race's counterpart for the other faction. (Aqua Elf -> Sylvan Elf for example). Other services such as level boosts and XP boosts could be added to the shop with very little drawbacks once the game begins aging. These allow new players to quickly reach the endgame content and experience the same game as the rest of us without necessarily breaking the game.
Quality of Life 'buffs' should be available: These is used in many games. Quality of Life items are changes that do not break combat and give a paying player no easily measured advantage. Small things such as "immune to PvP for X minutes" and "extra inventory" are both consider to be QoL.
Currency Tade should be regulated: Currency exchanges can easily break a games economy. The fact somebody can spend $20 to catch up to hours of gold farming feels terrible as a player but at the same time can be the best way for casuals to bypass the late game grind. (while I do not think that this is a good thing it should always be open for discussion)
Multipliers should be unavailable: There shouldn't be any way to pay for extra honor points, extra gold or anything similar. It would easily break the game, especially guild progression.
Anything that directly influences combat, crafting, or progression (that isn't XP) should be unavailable: Selling combat buffs in a PvP game would just be an awful move, as would be selling anything that would easily translate into combat buffs (crafting and progression).

These are just my thoughts on the matter, and remember we are still more than a month away from the EA, don't be panicking yet.

QcDiablo · Mar 28th 2018, 1:39pm

Tycon wrote:

From what I currently know about the cash shop, nothing seems to be problematic with it as of now. It seems to be a little early to be bringing out the riot gear but having an open discussion on the matter is great. While my sentiments on the matter have already been shared, there is no harm in reiterating them here.

Lootboxes should be kept to a minimum: Lootboxes are a predatory practice none of us aren't familiar with. Spending money on lootboxes feels awful when you get nothing out of it and to balance this out developers either promise the world (then give it a 0.0001% drop rate) or make the useful items so common you fall behind if you don't spend money. IF for whatever reason lootboxes are implemented an accurate loot table should also be released.

Cosmetics should be quality: If the developers want to make money by selling cosmetics they need to look appealing. The art team should be making unique cosmetics with no inherit advantages to be available for cash shop purchases. This doesn't mean they should put minimal effort into the appearance of gear. Remember that cosmetics DO NOT need to be player based. They can sell unique mounts that inherit the speed of your fastest mount (on that character) and standard buffs. They can sell unique pets that inherit the buffs of one of your selected pets (again on that character).

Player services should be thought out: Give players the standard 'race change' 'gender change' and 'faction change' options. These choices shouldn't be game breaking. If you change your race you must change to a valid race for your class. If you wish to change factions you become your race's counterpart for the other faction. (Aqua Elf -> Sylvan Elf for example). Other services such as level boosts and XP boosts could be added to the shop with very little drawbacks once the game begins aging. These allow new players to quickly reach the endgame content and experience the same game as the rest of us without necessarily breaking the game.

Quality of Life 'buffs' should be available: These is used in many games. Quality of Life items are changes that do not break combat and give a paying player no easily measured advantage. Small things such as "immune to PvP for X minutes" and "extra inventory" are both consider to be QoL.

Currency Tade should be regulated: Currency exchanges can easily break a games economy. The fact somebody can spend $20 to catch up to hours of gold farming feels terrible as a player but at the same time can be the best way for casuals to bypass the late game grind. (while I do not think that this is a good thing it should always be open for discussion)

Multipliers should be unavailable: There shouldn't be any way to pay for extra honor points, extra gold or anything similar. It would easily break the game, especially guild progression.

Anything that directly influences combat, crafting, or progression (that isn't XP) should be unavailable: Selling combat buffs in a PvP game would just be an awful move, as would be selling anything that would easily translate into combat buffs (crafting and progression).

These are just my thoughts on the matter, and remember we are still more than a month away from the EA, don't be panicking yet.

For now in the JP and KR Rebuild cash shop, the only kinda P2W items (to me) are the skill resets and how easier mount/pet upgrading/leveling can be easier with cash shop items.

I don't think selling pets with the same buffs as one of you current pets would be a good idea. A player could farm 1 legendary pet with OP buffs and just duplicate it with the cash shop pets

It just destroys the value of mounts/pets acquired with actual grinding (It's REALLY long to get a mount/pet to legendary) and could become almost P2W as the new pet would have full companion skill resets (generally you'd need to get a new companion and grind again).

I think mounts/pets sold should:
- If mount, be a fast mount (some mounts are faster than others; fast mounts are not more rare than normal mounts usually, so it's not a problem)
- Be level 0 common or level 10 rare only (giving a )
- Have random buffs as usual
- Have no additionnal skill resets than a normal companion; Can have the highest amount of skill resets normally obtainable
- Have exclusive designs

Race and faction change in Bless would be almost impossible:
- Some quests are based on Race (but this could be bypassed once you quit your starting zone)
- 99% of main quests are based on faction
- The game has faction lock

Pentrep · Mar 28th 2018, 1:41pm

Ezenkrul87 wrote:

Moroi wrote:

Sidurgu wrote:

The exchange from IG currency from Cash shop currency isn't what makes a game P2W, this is just a system. Like i said earlier, it's only what is in the cash shop that make it P2W or not.

I disagree. just being able to print gold with your real money gives you a very real advantage in that you're essentially able to buy any and all items ingame, provided you spend the cash of course. the gold you make via real money purchases could be used on better gear, upgrades for your gear, really anything that can be bought and sold. in addition, as I mentioned before, this can an will really upset the economy of the game, which will make it suffer on the long term.also, I don't see anything inherently indicative of P2W in lootboxes; no matter how predatory the ideology behind the concept is, a lootbox could contain only cosmetics. cosmetics that give you no advancement in the game at all.

From my understanding you cannot buy the best gear in Bless. While I do agree that being able to sell cash shop items for in game currency is not the best thing, it can vary.
I personally feel that pay 2 win is when there are pay walls or if you can buy items that give you stat advantages that other players cannot acquire in game. This could be costumes that give stats, actual gear or consumables that can be used in PvP.

No more loot boxes. Archeage gives me nightmares about that........ 1000s in loot boxes can leave many scars.

In the Korean verison, you could buy some pretty epic gear. I don't know that it was the best, because I never saw exactly what dropped from the raids. However that doesn't change that the buy in for end game was substantially lower because of this practice. Remember that getting into end game can often be as hard as continuing to participate in it at a high level.

QcDiablo · Mar 30th 2018, 12:27pm

The best gear is dropped from raids and later dungeons, but it can be bought from AH if someone sells it. However, it's really rare to find epic/legendary gear in the AH (I've never seen any in my road to level 37 Assassin, while checking almost every hour what's to sell in the AH).

Pentrep · Mar 30th 2018, 1:38pm

QcDiablo wrote:

The best gear is dropped from raids and later dungeons, but it can be bought from AH if someone sells it. However, it's really rare to find epic/legendary gear in the AH (I've never seen any in my road to level 37 Assassin, while checking almost every hour what's to sell in the AH).

I'm sure it was easier to find the gear on KR because the servers were mostly dead. The AH was well stocked surprisingly on some things. But the bottom line is the possibility of sale is there.

QcDiablo · Mar 30th 2018, 2:43pm

Pentrep wrote:

QcDiablo wrote:

The best gear is dropped from raids and later dungeons, but it can be bought from AH if someone sells it. However, it's really rare to find epic/legendary gear in the AH (I've never seen any in my road to level 37 Assassin, while checking almost every hour what's to sell in the AH).

I'm sure it was easier to find the gear on KR because the servers were mostly dead. The AH was well stocked surprisingly on some things. But the bottom line is the possibility of sale is there.

Yes, the possibility is there.

I'm not sure, but I think dungeons and raids in Bless don't give Epic/Legendary gear: You need to upgrade them.

Blueberry · Mar 30th 2018, 2:58pm

QcDiablo wrote:

Yes, the possibility is there.
I'm not sure, but I think dungeons and raids in Bless don't give Epic/Legendary gear: You need to upgrade them.

All gears needs upgrades including legendary but it is true the legendary weapons are drooped in massive raids and large player group dungeons. Some legendary items can also be crafted but doing it is incredibly difficult, from what I gathered. Plus weapons aren't craftable in this game. I don't know where or when you saw legendary sold but it does seem pretty rare to come up on the AH @Pentrep . :huh:

I would also like to adress something I saw on the forums a lot lately : CShop pet bufs, even if you don't buy them pets give buffs no matter what, more or less luck in getting the ones you want, they are there, plus the CS currency is gained in game and it doesn't seem very hard to obtain, so it possibly won't be a problem to get scrolls to change the pet buffs,etc even if you don't buy currency. I say its best to wait for EA, see if the CS needs value adjustments and then discuss if the price of those items is really unfair.

QcDiablo · Mar 30th 2018, 3:15pm

Blueberry wrote:

I would also like to adress something I saw on the forums a lot lately : CShop pet bufs, even if you don't buy them pets give buffs no matter what, more or less luck in getting the ones you want, they are there, plus the CS currency is gained in game and it doesn't seem very hard to obtain, so it possibly won't be a problem to get scrolls to change the pet buffs,etc even if you don't buy currency. I say its best to wait for EA, see if the CS needs value adjustments and then discuss if the price of those items is really unfair.

Seems fair.
I'd just like to propose a final thing: make companion skill resets scrolls to only affect 1 skill, not the 3 ones at the same time, because once you get a good skill and the other 2 are s***, you don't wanna lose the only good skill you've got. This also diminishes the impact of RNG these scrolls bring, which is a good thing if we don't want the CS to be seen as P2W with the companion skill resets.
We could even separate two kinds of companion skill resets, 1 for the basic skills (you'd need two of them to change the 2 skills of your companion), and 1 for the legendary skills that could cost a bit more (in Bless, a rare companion has 1 basic skill, an epic companion has 2 epic skills, and a legendary companion has 2 basic skills and a legendary skill).

Ezenkrul87 · Mar 30th 2018, 5:58pm

QcDiablo wrote:

The best gear is dropped from raids and later dungeons, but it can be bought from AH if someone sells it. However, it's really rare to find epic/legendary gear in the AH (I've never seen any in my road to level 37 Assassin, while checking almost every hour what's to sell in the AH).

Interesting and good to know.

Pay to Win - What goes?

Pay to Win - What goes?

Blueberry wrote:

ShiftyBandit wrote:

Sidurgu wrote:

Moroi wrote:

Sidurgu wrote:

Ezenkrul87 wrote:

Pentrep wrote:

ShiftyBandit wrote:

Tycon wrote:

Ezenkrul87 wrote:

Moroi wrote:

Sidurgu wrote:

QcDiablo wrote:

Pentrep wrote:

QcDiablo wrote:

QcDiablo wrote:

Blueberry wrote:

QcDiablo wrote:

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