Possibilty for SWTOR to Go Full Pay-to-Win

[eartharioch]

That open letter was rewritten by marketing 10 times before it was published. I don't think Ben is to blame for that one. On the livestream, it was straight out of his mouth.

 

Obviously, yes I will buy the CXP boosts, at least in the first week. I have yet to calculate how expensive they'll be, but maybe we can finance CXP boosts for everyone in the raid from the items we have stored up.

Just because I don't like them doesn't mean I won't use them. But I still hope they'll be removed in the future.

 

You do realize that by [literally] buying into this scheme you are reducing the likelihood of them changing/removing it, don't you?

[Technohic]

Hi there!

 

Everytime i see a pay-2-win discussion i always chime in with one question, which no one really replies to.

 

Maybe your case will give me a reply?

 

Here's the question.

 

Who am i winning against, exactly?

 

Do you PVP? If so; it's the guy stuck with crappy gear.

 

If you raid; it's against pride in bragging rights I guess; on completing the hardest content. Maybe a first accomplishment some day.

[Kazanth]

Hi there!

 

Everytime i see a pay-2-win discussion i always chime in with one question, which no one really replies to.

 

Maybe your case will give me a reply?

 

Here's the question.

 

Who am i winning against, exactly?

 

Other players who are not buying the boosts, getting gear 20% slower than you and therefore being less effective than you in endgame content? You will have better gear than other players because you forked out money on the cartel market, is that not winning?

[Jerba]

You do realize that by [literally] buying into this scheme you are reducing the likelihood of them changing/removing it, don't you?

Maybe, but I can't claim to be farming CXP when I ignore the best boost there is. I've already leveled Diplomacy so I can get the bonus from DvL every time, and I am figuring out what activity gives the most points. So I will get the CM boost as well for the highest number of points.

Also, I won 2400 CC on yesterday's livestream so it's not like I'm actually paying for the boost myself. But I'll be watching the GTN prices once I've used up the CC to see what the price it will be sold for.

[Jerba]

Who am i winning against, exactly?

You are winning the game. Like most other games have a defined ending where the story is over and it says "You win!" on the screen. In SWTOR, you "win" once you have the best gear there is.

 

This has nothing to do with winning against other players, though there is some competition in raiding and rated PvP. But the term P2W stems from the fact that you can win the game, not that you win against other players.

[cashtwomuchos]

Hi there!

 

Everytime i see a pay-2-win discussion i always chime in with one question, which no one really replies to.

 

Maybe your case will give me a reply?

 

Here's the question.

 

Who am i winning against, exactly?

 

I can imagine for PvP'ers it is about being competitive, in the end that is what PvP is about. So when you pop the same queue as all other players, the chances should be equal. I'm not saying those chances were always equal, but RNG and boosts for CC coins will make it less equal.

 

For some hardcore raiders it is important to have "world's first kill". That is also a form of competition. Or DPS trying to be competitive with each other about how much DPS they can pull on a boss. Same explanation i gave with PvP can be inserted here too.

 

For me personally it is not about winning, it's way more practical. Those boosts will create an even further split between players. Combined with the GC system i am not only losing good friends in the game, if they decide to come back they will be so far behind that it will take them quite some time and i (and my fellow teammates) am not able to help them get geared for the things we like to do.

 

There are still a couple of raid groups left in the game, just a few. They dedicate themselves to spend time together in clearing the hardest content. I don't know if you have ever hardcore raided, but it takes a lot of time to get used to each other, each others classes, each others failures, the mechanics and so on. RNG will break up these teams, because the team has now become purely individuals who cannot be helped to get what they need to get back in the team. Ofcourse the team can help individuals get XP as fast as possible, but again, RNG still exists, so it can all be for nothing. Now imagine one of those players using a boost. That will make it even worse. If RNG keeps ending up in a "not so good" direction, people will simply get tired of the grind, start slacking, start to not be present which will have an effect on the rest of the people in the team and in the end the team is gone.

 

The positive side (if you are even able to call this positive) is that it's the old content all over again. So a lot of people do not even care anymore and say f*ck it, i am not going to do the same content again. But i know already quite some people that IF they leave now, they WILL come back when new real group content is added. BUT, they will be far behind, creating a new split in the team.

 

Ofcourse you can say now: do the new "group" content called Uprisings. Well, a dedicated group of 8 players = split in those. Or do the DvL bosses! Which will have quite the probability to be taken by the biggest guilds on prime time. But you can open world PvP them! Sure, let's go 8 man vs 24 man guildies to secure that DvL boss, not gonna happen.

 

In the past couple of posts i already explained that this whole new system is a great benefit for single players or very small teams. The current leftovers of old school raid teams are f*cked. But i guess that is just the case and i need to create my own personal peace with that.

 

Did this answer your question about "winning?"

Edited November 24, 2016 by cashtwomuchos

[Deaconik]

Other players who are not buying the boosts, getting gear 20% slower than you and therefore being less effective than you in endgame content? You will have better gear than other players because you forked out money on the cartel market, is that not winning?

 

Technically if I play 20 % more of the time I am getting an advantage too. That's why boosters are kinda shady. I am more concerned about someone who subs for a month, gets some gear, unsubs, queues for WZ against subscribers. Let's say 216/220 gear vs. full 224. Since there's no separate WZ for "premium" and "the rest"...

 

(I used the current gearing system as I am bad with numbers)

[Tsetso]

Technically if I play 20 % more of the time I am getting an advantage too. That's why boosters are kinda shady. I am more concerned about someone who subs for a month, gets some gear, unsubs, queues for WZ against subscribers. Let's say 216/220 gear vs. full 224. Since there's no separate WZ for "premium" and "the rest"...

 

(I used the current gearing system as I am bad with numbers)

 

And how about someone that plays 24/7 with boost? The only way to mitigate the p2w element is to have a relatively low weekly cap - something as 14 hours a week or similar with a boost. They can even make the boost 300-400% so that a person who plays 2 hours a day and someone that plays 8+ will get the same cxp in a week. That way people with a lot of free time won't have to buy boosts. Of course a weekly cap would piss off about everybody on the forums.

[Deaconik]

And how about someone that plays 24/7 with boost? The only way to mitigate the p2w element is to have a relatively low weekly cap - something as 14 hours a week or similar with a boost. They can even make the boost 300-400% so that a person who plays 2 hours a day and someone that plays 8+ will get the same cxp in a week. That way people with a lot of free time won't have to buy boosts. Of course a weekly cap would piss off about everybody on the forums.

 

That's why I wrote it's shady. I don't see that as P2W but I can understand why someone else can see it otherwise.

 

But I see bigger problems in "only premium players receive RNG crates". Which means that a player who played through the story and just plays occasionally WZ will grind some gear during his/her premium period and then the gearing is over. And unless the player is in full 224 this player NEEDS to pay to get the same gear as others have in the same WZ. Which is my definition of P2W(you have to pay to get items).

[Tsetso]

That's why I wrote it's shady. I don't see that as P2W but I can understand why someone else can see it otherwise.

 

But I see bigger problems in "only premium players receive RNG crates". Which means that a player who played through the story and just plays occasionally WZ will grind some gear during his/her premium period and then the gearing is over. And unless the player is in full 224 this player NEEDS to pay to get the same gear as others have in the same WZ. Which is my definition of P2W(you have to pay to get items).

 

Yes, showing preferred the finger is bigger problem for sure.

[Tachenko_Yuri]

I can imagine for PvP'ers it is about being competitive, in the end that is what PvP is about. So when you pop the same queue as all other players, the chances should be equal. I'm not saying those chances were always equal, but RNG and boosts for CC coins will make it less equal.

 

For some hardcore raiders it is important to have "world's first kill". That is also a form of competition. Or DPS trying to be competitive with each other about how much DPS they can pull on a boss. Same explanation i gave with PvP can be inserted here too.

 

For me personally it is not about winning, it's way more practical. Those boosts will create an even further split between players. Combined with the GC system i am not only losing good friends in the game, if they decide to come back they will be so far behind that it will take them quite some time and i (and my fellow teammates) am not able to help them get geared for the things we like to do.

 

There are still a couple of raid groups left in the game, just a few. They dedicate themselves to spend time together in clearing the hardest content. I don't know if you have ever hardcore raided, but it takes a lot of time to get used to each other, each others classes, each others failures, the mechanics and so on. RNG will break up these teams, because the team has now become purely individuals who cannot be helped to get what they need to get back in the team. Ofcourse the team can help individuals get XP as fast as possible, but again, RNG still exists, so it can all be for nothing. Now imagine one of those players using a boost. That will make it even worse. If RNG keeps ending up in a "not so good" direction, people will simply get tired of the grind, start slacking, start to not be present which will have an effect on the rest of the people in the team and in the end the team is gone.

 

The positive side (if you are even able to call this positive) is that it's the old content all over again. So a lot of people do not even care anymore and say f*ck it, i am not going to do the same content again. But i know already quite some people that IF they leave now, they WILL come back when new real group content is added. BUT, they will be far behind, creating a new split in the team.

 

Ofcourse you can say now: do the new "group" content called Uprisings. Well, a dedicated group of 8 players = split in those. Or do the DvL bosses! Which will have quite the probability to be taken by the biggest guilds on prime time. But you can open world PvP them! Sure, let's go 8 man vs 24 man guildies to secure that DvL boss, not gonna happen.

 

In the past couple of posts i already explained that this whole new system is a great benefit for single players or very small teams. The current leftovers of old school raid teams are f*cked. But i guess that is just the case and i need to create my own personal peace with that.

 

Did this answer your question about "winning?"

 

Don't really know just yet how pvp bolster will work with the removal of expertise but there will be a case there, with 5.0, yes. I'll say that much

 

Regarding ops, well... Never seen the importance of pulling out bigger, or biggest, numbers, the kill is what mattered to me back in my own ops days.

 

Also folks seem to forget actual figures like GTN where the boost will without a doubt end to. and the extreme easiness of credits nowadays.

 

And the bigger guilds eating up the smaller ones is already happening on so many theatres of the game already. GC isn't changing that trend To specify DVL cases, the bigger guild will gank in a pvp instance, while just taunt and reset on a pve instance. Already happening.

[Tsetso]

Also folks seem to forget actual figures like GTN where the boost will without a doubt end to. and the extreme easiness of credits nowadays.

 

 

I don't think there will be abundance of boosters on the gtn. Most people will just buy them for personal use.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

That open letter was rewritten by marketing 10 times before it was published. I don't think Ben is to blame for that one. On the livestream, it was straight out of his mouth.

 

Obviously, yes I will buy the CXP boosts, at least in the first week. I have yet to calculate how expensive they'll be, but maybe we can finance CXP boosts for everyone in the raid from the items we have stored up.

Just because I don't like them doesn't mean I won't use them. But I still hope they'll be removed in the future.

 

Honestly every time he opens his mouth I think he has lost touch with the community and based on recent decisions I fully believe that was his own personal spiel.

 

Obviously, yes I will buy the CXP boosts,

 

Just because I don't like them doesn't mean I won't use them.

 

Wow, just wow. Honestly I find people like you to be a major issue with games like this. Never take a stand other than a few terse words on the forums and will just throw money at the company regardless.

 

I used to respect your opinion but after that I am pretty much going to ignore anything you have to say from now on because regardless of what you say you are 100% supporting their decision to implement these tokens by buying them.

 

I actually find that ridiculous that you would throw money at something you don't agree with and just so you can get gear quicker to play content you've already done. Honestly, back your morals up or something

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Technically if I play 20 % more of the time I am getting an advantage too. That's why boosters are kinda shady. I am more concerned about someone who subs for a month, gets some gear, unsubs, queues for WZ against subscribers. Let's say 216/220 gear vs. full 224. Since there's no separate WZ for "premium" and "the rest"...

 

(I used the current gearing system as I am bad with numbers)

 

Playing 20% extra != paying. Your comparison is inherently flawed.

 

I agree though the sub/preferred system is technically more P2W than tokens though however the preferred only get 5 WZs a week but that's still 5 WZs others are paying to get better gear than the preferred can get thus P2W.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I don't think there will be abundance of boosters on the gtn. Most people will just buy them for personal use.

 

Depends how many credits people need. I imagine it will be one of the best ways to turn CC to credits especially with passes removed.

 

Guilds and rich players are sitting on billions and will happily throw that at these tokens if it means lessening the maddening gear grind BWA have created.

[Jerba]

Wow, just wow. Honestly I find people like you to be a major issue with games like this. Never take a stand other than a few terse words on the forums and will just throw money at the company regardless.

 

I used to respect your opinion but after that I am pretty much going to ignore anything you have to say from now on because regardless of what you say you are 100% supporting their decision to implement these tokens by buying them.

 

I actually find that ridiculous that you would throw money at something you don't agree with and just so you can get gear quicker to play content you've already done. Honestly, back your morals up or something

Sure, that's your decision to make, but I don't let random strangers on the forums dictate how I play; I do whatever I enjoy doing in my playtime. So I don't really mind if that's what you think.

 

I do have a strong opinion about some things, but at the end of the day, I am realistic. Like, I can't understand the players that still cry about the slot machine nerf, that's so long ago and there's no more point bringing it up. At some point, you should move on and come to terms with how it is.

Me and my raid group have always adjusted. When 4.0 had best gear drop from Priority Ops, we ran the Priority Ops. When the BiS mainhand dropped from Monolith, we ran Monolith. When Revan/M&B HM were too difficult for us on-level, we went for the DF/DP timeruns. When 16-man became bugged, I stopped organizing PuG groups for 16-man.

 

If we were not that flexible, we wouldn't have survived that long. At the end of the day, we play on BioWare's terms and outside of posting on the forums or unsubscribing, we must accept what happens to the game.

Edited November 25, 2016 by Jerba

[majopucik]

Will be funny when everyone here in the thread will be BiS by Christmas and here you were discussing such ridiculous things

[curulz]

Will be funny when everyone here in the thread will be BiS by Christmas and here you were discussing such ridiculous things

 

Yeah, I'm hoping for a massive exploit that doesn't get fixed too. Other than that, don't see how that will happen