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Pay2Win Space Missions ???


Dirtyshadow

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I don't get some of these people defending the angle that this is okay for these reasons:

 

1) It's not Pay To Win because you're not actually winning.

If they sold top end PvP gear on the CC Market, it doesn't guarantee you'll win right? In fact, you could end up losing every time you set foot in a WZ, but I'm pretty sure most people would consider this P2W as you're basically buying gear that usually takes in-game effort to obtain (effort by PvP'ing, effort to obtain the crafting mats, effort to buy items off the GTN by obtaining the credits necessary).

 

2) It's not Pay to Win because you're not directly competing against anyone

If they didn't sell PvP gear, but sold PvE gear, that's not directly competing against someone else. You're grouped with other people in a combined effort to down a scripted AI boss. You can say you're competing against others for "Server 1st" or "World 1st", but all this gear does is help you to down content faster. But that's exactly what the ship upgrades do. They help you complete those new missions faster and more easily which enables you to obtain credits and commendations.

 

3) It's a mini-game so doesn't impact anything else in the game

Please see by last item in #2. Because you obtain credits, comms that can buy crafting mats via the boxes, and BH comms for doing weekly quests you are now being rewarded with things beyond the scope of the mini-game... and because those new ship upgrades help you do it faster and more easily... it boils down to the fact that you're buying upgrades that help you obtain gear faster and more easily.

 

4) What does it matter to you?

Because buying gear with real life money circumvents the spirit of the MMO community. Before the CC Market everyone was obtaining their gear by effort in the game. Whether they spent time by raiding, doing Daily and Weekly Missions, doing quests to earn in-game credits to then buy the mats and gear, doing the space missions to earn comms to obtain crafting mats... all of these systems are in place meaning that the person is putting their effort into this game and time in this game.

 

When someone opens up their wallet, whips out their credit card, and buys those items on the Market they circumvent any in-game effort. They are buying their way to end-game items w/out making any in-game effort. That is at the very heart of Pay To Win.

Edited by Lostpenguins
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Hi everyone,

 

I've spoken to the design team about the issue of Grade 7 ship upgrades and the cost in game (resources and time) versus the cost on the Cartel Market, since this concern was raised by a number of people on our forums.

 

Our Lead Designer for the game, Damion Schubert, has this to say:

 

Unfortunately, there is, in fact, a great disparity between these two costs. We want to apologize for this, as there was a miscommunication internally on how valuable these upgrades were, how challenging they should be to earn, and how fast a player should be able to earn them.

 

We are currently looking at solutions that cause the least amount of frustration for all players affected, while keeping the integrity of both the Cartel Market and the game intact.

 

It is not our intent to make the Cartel Market the “way to play" the game—we want you to feel that both the Cartel Market and earning gear in game are viable options as far as value goes, neither being far more efficient or effective than the other.

 

We truly hope you enjoy the challenge of the new Heroic Space Missions and apologize again for what we hope is a small distraction.

 

I want to reiterate that we are actively looking at solutions and they will be communicated to you as soon as we have a solid plan.

 

Thank you for your patience.

 

This is great news. It all starts with acknowledging there is a problem.

 

This one is going to be a challenging one to fix but good to know your are working on it.

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The term in my mind is "Pay2GearUp", not P2W, although both terms tend to leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

I find that a more accurate assessment.

 

They would, this is why P2W once introduced (as it had been) will inevitable expand to destroy the game.

 

But you're confusing a game making a company money with a game in any way being worth playing, any game that makes money (especially in the short term) doesn't mean it is a health or good game, it just means it is making money for the game company.

 

Look at WAR dead in a development sense for more than 2 years now, but still making a profit. Does that make it a good game? No.

 

Good game based on what? Based on your playstyle and preferences. Right now, we are only assuming what a Western Style P2W type of model might do to a game. It hasn't been done yet in full force, so we can only surmise the end results based on our opinion of what is "good" for a game.

 

Back in 2005, players and the industry said you cannot create a good/AAA MMO without having a subscription based model. ArenaNet proved that theory incorrect. 2-3 years ago the industry and players said that no F2P game would ever be as good or polished as a sub based MMO title. That theory as also proved to be incorrect as witnessed by the most recent release - Planetside 2. We have not yet been able to fully test the theory that a Western Style "P2W" model could not create a good and successful game.

 

Again, businesses are in the business to make money. The current trend is that Cash Shops make a lot of money for an MMO, hence we see more and more MMOs adding them to their games. If it turns out that by allowing any and all gear that can be had in a game to also be sold in the cash shop is profitable, then you had better believe it will be done at some point. That game will be the lab test to see if it is a long term sustainable model. If it turns out it is, then you can bet on what the next trend in MMO business models in the West is going to be. You may not like it. You may not think it makes for a good game, but in the end that doesn't matter. Just like with WAR if enough people like it and it is good enough for them to make the game profitable, then that is all that is needed.

 

BJ

Edited by BJWyler
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the integrity of both the Cartel Market and the game intact.

You cheapened the integrity of the market once you started putting top tier gear (of any kind) for sale on the Cartel Market.

 

That is the fundamental problem here. If you guys want to start selling more top-tier gear on the Market... and I don't care what the cost is... if you want to sell ANY top-tier gear on the Market on a go-forward basis, just come out and say it so that I can unsub because that isn't the MMO I signed up for.

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Hi everyone,

 

I've spoken to the design team about the issue of Grade 7 ship upgrades and the cost in game (resources and time) versus the cost on the Cartel Market, since this concern was raised by a number of people on our forums.

 

Our Lead Designer for the game, Damion Schubert, has this to say:

 

Unfortunately, there is, in fact, a great disparity between these two costs. We want to apologize for this, as there was a miscommunication internally on how valuable these upgrades were, how challenging they should be to earn, and how fast a player should be able to earn them.

 

We are currently looking at solutions that cause the least amount of frustration for all players affected, while keeping the integrity of both the Cartel Market and the game intact.

 

It is not our intent to make the Cartel Market the “way to play" the game—we want you to feel that both the Cartel Market and earning gear in game are viable options as far as value goes, neither being far more efficient or effective than the other.

 

We truly hope you enjoy the challenge of the new Heroic Space Missions and apologize again for what we hope is a small distraction.

 

I want to reiterate that we are actively looking at solutions and they will be communicated to you as soon as we have a solid plan.

 

Thank you for your patience.

 

And there you go, people!! Now let's get together as we tried to do several pages ago and help BW find a good median and common ground to satisfy the needs of players in both camps.

 

BJ

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I love this thread!

 

But...

 

It is clear from what has been said that anyone who subscribes to the game, even if they don't buy anything from the cartel shop, is paying to win. All of the subscriber benefits are unnecessary to get to level 50, therefore they are all convenience items to circumvent various challenges of the "real" game (the F2P game) such as limited hotbars, not being able to equip artifact level gear (a terrible crutch for those who can't play the game anyway), etc.

 

So, everyone who is bemoaning pay to win but is a subscriber is a hypocrit.

Edited by dpwms
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I love this thread!

 

But...

 

It is clear from what has been said that anyone who subscribes to the game, even if they don't buy anything from the cartel shop, is paying to win. All of the subscriber benefits are unnecessary to get to level 50, therefore they are all convenience items to circumvent various challenges of the "real" game (the F2P game) such as limited hotbars, not being able to equip artifact level gear (a terrible crutch for those who can't play the game anyway), etc.

 

So, everyone who is bemoaning free to play but is a subscriber is a hypocrit.

Wrong. The game started off as a subscriber. You cannot retcon what the "real" game is now that they offered a more limited game in the version of F2P.

 

That is so bad. That's like saying we were getting a discount on gas back in the 90's because it was $1/gallon, but now we're paying $4/gallon so you're retconning and saying the "real" price is $4/gallon.

 

Try again.

Edited by Lostpenguins
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IMO, the **** is already out of the bull now, so the Cartel Packs for the ship parts can't really be changed without causing a major riot by those who bought them already.

 

Perhaps, as I saw someone else suggest, remove the Molecular Stablizer requirement from the schematics? That would put the reasonable selling price in line with what we see the straw purchases going for on the GTN currently. There is too much endgame stuff that uses the Molecular Stablizers already; it's becoming it's own currency.

 

Another option would be to increase the fleet comm rewards from the last 3 (Ilum Sector) space missions so that it takes a shorter time to buy one of the new upgrades?

 

Just a couple of spit-balled ideas...

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Good game based on what? Based on your playstyle and preferences. Right now, we are only assuming what a Western Style P2W type of model might do to a game. It hasn't been done yet in full force, so we can only surmise the end results based on our opinion of what is "good" for a game.

 

Back in 2005, players and the industry said you cannot create a good/AAA MMO without having a subscription based model. ArenaNet proved that theory incorrect. 2-3 years ago the industry and players said that no F2P game would ever be as good or polished as a sub based MMO title. That theory as also proved to be incorrect as witnessed by the most recent release - Planetside 2. We have not yet been able to fully test the theory that a Western Style "P2W" model could not create a good and successful game.

 

Again, businesses are in the business to make money. The current trend is that Cash Shops make a lot of money for an MMO, hence we see more and more MMOs adding them to their games. If it turns out that by allowing any and all gear that can be had in a game to also be sold in the cash shop is profitable, then you had better believe it will be done at some point. That game will be the lab test to see if it is a long term sustainable model. It it turns out it is, then you can bet on what the next trend in MMO business models in the West is going to be. You may not like it. You may not think it makes for a good game, but in the end that doesn't matter. Just like with WAR if enough people like it and it is good enough for them to make the game profitable, then that is all that is needed.

 

BJ

 

There have been several "f2p" games in the west that went "p2w" and crashed really really hard. I think Allods was one of them (its hard to remember the names of games you played for 25 minutes and uninstalled after you saw it was p2w) The big one was Runes of magic, it was an awsome game and packed full of people in beta, then it went live and brought in all the p2w features.

 

Players are like 2 year olds, they all know what they want but if you give them what they want they will get bored and wander off, being able to buy all the top teir space gear and top teir raid gear whether its from the cartel or the gtn is just a rediculously stupid idea for an mmo, and people who advocate it and do it will get bored and be leaving the game right after all the people who worked for their gear leave it.

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So basically the devs put in p2w saw the outrage by players mass quitting their subs and are now saying sorry we are working on a way to fix this? how exactly are you going to fix it?!?! the market is flooded with grade 7 ship parts already from people buying bags! You ruined it! If you want to salvage anything you will remove the space bags from Cartel shop immediately. At least then you can limit it!
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Hi everyone,

 

I've spoken to the design team about the issue of Grade 7 ship upgrades and the cost in game (resources and time) versus the cost on the Cartel Market, since this concern was raised by a number of people on our forums.

 

Our Lead Designer for the game, Damion Schubert, has this to say:

 

Unfortunately, there is, in fact, a great disparity between these two costs. We want to apologize for this, as there was a miscommunication internally on how valuable these upgrades were, how challenging they should be to earn, and how fast a player should be able to earn them.

 

We are currently looking at solutions that cause the least amount of frustration for all players affected, while keeping the integrity of both the Cartel Market and the game intact.

 

It is not our intent to make the Cartel Market the “way to play" the game—we want you to feel that both the Cartel Market and earning gear in game are viable options as far as value goes, neither being far more efficient or effective than the other.

 

We truly hope you enjoy the challenge of the new Heroic Space Missions and apologize again for what we hope is a small distraction.

 

I want to reiterate that we are actively looking at solutions and they will be communicated to you as soon as we have a solid plan.

 

Thank you for your patience.

 

Nice to see a Dev reply here, it's most welcome, but still ... you are circumventing the true question, the problem is not to raise the CC cost or lower the in-game requirements, the problem is the pure existence of those items on the market, it's BiS gear for the ship that you can buy with real money. From now on, can we expect to see more high end items for money? (whatever the CC/effort balance) thats not what you said about the Cartel Market, if you have change your mind, please tell us.

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One possible solution out of this hole could be the following:

1. Lower material cost of the crafted upgrades.

2. Buff the non-Cartel Market pieces a bit to be better than those in the Cartel Market. It does not need to be a huge bump.

3. Learn from this situation in the future.

 

If all we get is #3, I'm content.

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I don't think many people really care about the space mission, they are afraid of Bioware will put more top tier items in cartel market only to force players to buy it to get the best gear. Glad from the reply it's not their intention.

 

This ^^

 

Putting endgame game in the cash shop has been the definition of pay2win since it became a common phrase for MMOs, and that's what people are afraid of. The idea that this is 'just the start'. Even the dev post kind of insinuates that they don't plan to stop going in this direction; because they want it to be "equally viable" to in game methods.

 

For what it's worth though, EAware just saw the backlash it causes and if they have any sense it'll show them that it's not a worthwhile venture to put more endgame gear in the shop.

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This ^^

 

Putting endgame game in the cash shop has been the definition of pay2win since it became a common phrase for MMOs, and that's what people are afraid of. The idea that this is 'just the start'. Even the dev post kind of insinuates that they don't plan to stop going in this direction; because they want it to be "equally viable" to in game methods.

 

For what it's worth though, EAware just saw the backlash it causes and if they have any sense it'll show them that it's not a worthwhile venture to put more endgame gear in the shop.

 

I just hope they will put more speeders in the Cartel Market.

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I don't think many people really care about the space mission, they are afraid of Bioware will put more top tier items in cartel market only to force players to buy it to get the best gear. Glad from the reply it's not their intention.

 

100% agree on the first 50% of your post XDDD.

 

Yes, i dont care about spaceship parts

Yes, im worried about future BiS items on shop

 

But ... second 50% .... you said "Glad from the reply it's not their intention"

 

While Dev said

It is not our intent to make the Cartel Market the “way to play" the game—we want you to feel that both the Cartel Market and earning gear in game are viable options as far as value goes, neither being far more efficient or effective than the other.

 

Here i read: "we want market and in-game effort to be equally effective"

And it worries me.

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One possible solution out of this hole could be the following:

1. Lower material cost of the crafted upgrades.

2. Buff the non-Cartel Market pieces a bit to be better than those in the Cartel Market. It does not need to be a huge bump.

3. Learn from this situation in the future.

 

If all we get is #3, I'm content.

 

My preference would be #1. This would soothe the crafters plight as well.

 

#2 seems like a good idea but I fear the implementation would be complicated and require too much time to "fix" this in a timely manner.

 

And, I would be happy with #3 as well if that's all we got.

Edited by DAMossimo
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You cheapened the integrity of the market once you started putting top tier gear (of any kind) for sale on the Cartel Market.

 

That is the fundamental problem here. If you guys want to start selling more top-tier gear on the Market... and I don't care what the cost is... if you want to sell ANY top-tier gear on the Market on a go-forward basis, just come out and say it so that I can unsub because that isn't the MMO I signed up for.

 

^This a thousand times.

 

Let us know if this P2W crap is the way you are going forward so I can unsub and go play something else. Your greedy asses will loose a subscriber and a cartel shop customer for cheapening the game. There is absolutely NO reason to put end game gear (either player, companion or ship) in the cartel market, none at all.

 

IT IS P2W, the exact same thing you said will not be done.

Edited by Aelrail
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I just ... well .... PANIC would be a fitting word.

 

Dev reply regarding Grade 7 (BiS) parts on Cartel Market:

It is not our intent to make the Cartel Market the “way to play" the game—we want you to feel that both the Cartel Market and earning gear in game are viable options as far as value goes, neither being far more efficient or effective than the other.

 

Before F2P launch we were told, market would never have P2W items, but from this reply i understand they want market to be "as efficient or effective" as end game raiding or as ranked wz's.

 

Please clarify it, is this the future of SWTOR? Market will be as efficient as end game raiding in order to get BiS gear?

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^This a thousand times.

 

Let us know if this P2W crap is the way you are going forward so I can unsub and go play something else. Your greedy asses will loose a subscriber and a cartel shop customer for cheapening the game. There is absolutely NO reason to put end game gear (either player, companion or ship) in the cartel market, none at all.

 

IT IS P2W, the exact same thing you said will not be done.

 

Couldn't have said it better.

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There's been a dev post; time to focus on solutions now.;)

Yeah, and I'll reiterate mine:

You cheapened the integrity of the market once you started putting top tier gear (of any kind) for sale on the Cartel Market.

 

That is the fundamental problem here. If you guys want to start selling more top-tier gear on the Market... and I don't care what the cost is... if you want to sell ANY top-tier gear on the Market on a go-forward basis, just come out and say it so that I can unsub because that isn't the MMO I signed up for.

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Unfortunately, there is, in fact, a great disparity between these two costs. We want to apologize for this, as there was a miscommunication internally on how valuable these upgrades were, how challenging they should be to earn, and how fast a player should be able to earn them.

 

The way to properly interpret this is: "Bummer, we tried to extract more $ from our customers, but we got our hand slapped in the process since they're smarter than we had thought...guess we have to change this now."

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One possible solution out of this hole could be the following:

1. Lower material cost of the crafted upgrades.

2. Buff the non-Cartel Market pieces a bit to be better than those in the Cartel Market. It does not need to be a huge bump.

3. Learn from this situation in the future.

 

If all we get is #3, I'm content.

 

My preference would be #1. This would soothe the crafters plight as well.

 

#2 seems like a good idea but I fear the implementation would be complicated and require too much time to "fix" this in a timely manner.

 

And, I would be happy with #3 as well if that's all we got.

 

I think #1 would be the best solution. The real inequity to begin with the the grind itself to get the parts in game. If it was a purely cosmetic grind (such as GW2's Legendaries), it would be one thing, but since this is a required grind (gear progression/treadmill) to enable a better chance of success, then they need to look at reducing the cost and time grind. I would also like to see them raise the price of the gear packs in the store as well. To me, the current price (@$10 US) is way to cheap for the type of gear it is. It should be a minimum of $15, imo.

 

Agreed that #2 is probably impractical at this point.

 

#3 - I think it may be a forgone conclusion that they have. We saw it with the F2P restrictions on the PTS, so I think it also holds here.

 

BJ

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