It's time for preleveled/preascended characters to enter the shop or be made available somehow.

"

gibbousmoon wrote:

Why do so many people have trouble understanding what pay2win is? It's very simple, and always has been.

"Real-life money gives an in-game advantage." Bam! Done. It's not that hard, see?

This may blow your mind, but not every person in the world shares your definition of pay to win. I know, crazy, right? But that's how it is.

I don't find your personal definition to be useful, since it isn't about the competitive aspect of games. If you check around, you'll see that the vast majority of people who complain about pay to win aspects of games are purely interested in how it affects competition. Many conclusions drawn from your definition will not be useful due to this. That would include your complaints about this feature.

If you care to defend your belief that pay to win by your definition is a bad thing, please explain why allowing Jimmy to pay money so that Jimmy can improve his personal experience without gaining a relevant advantage over anyone else is a bad thing. I expect you will have trouble with this. Maybe you'll surprise me. We'll see.

"

Jennik wrote:

If you care to defend your belief that pay to win by your definition is a bad thing, please explain why allowing Jimmy to pay money so that Jimmy can improve his personal experience without gaining a relevant advantage over anyone else is a bad thing. I expect you will have trouble with this. Maybe you'll surprise me. We'll see.

Take a look at my arguments on the last page, last post. If people could buy pre-leveled characters, it would give them an advantage over those who do not pay and there are other arguments that speak against pre-leveled characters.

"

AceNightfire wrote:

And just because you don't mind pre-leveled characters, it doesn't mean everyone else is fine with pre-leveled characters. If you are fine with it, this isn't even about you, and it doesn't effect you.

This is the kind of thing that "sounds" like it makes sense, but doesn't at all. The entire thread is about pre-leveled characters, so it's precisely about the people who want them. This kind of trolling gets nobody anywhere.

As for your arguments...

Most of the points have already been addressed, Ace. I'll do a quick recap since people are apparently too lazy to actually read the thread they want to participate in, though.

"

Pre-leveled characters have access to highlevel maps much sooner. This means, most people will directly start with mapping. This leads to more high-level item drops and this effects the economy (more items available = prices will go down and make some items worthless). This can already be seen thanks to prophecy, where unique drops like crazy. Most uniques can be obtained for 1alc - 1c while many of these cost way more in standard HC.

The idea was that you had to have at least one level 80 character (and we were also mulling around the idea of a level 80 of each class) to unlock the feature in the first place. This means that those characters really have no economic advantage since the opportunity cost of playing an alt rather than just playing the 80+ character means you are sacrificing at least part of those gains. Even a character that levels 1-60 is unlikely to find anything worth trading, but will likely have found a fair amount of raw currency that the fresh level 60 character would not get.

"

Some builds are quite weak in early game and this lets people skip the hard leveling part quite easily. If someone decides to play a build that starts off weak, he should also face the consequences and have a hard time leveling in low level areas. There's a reason why builds exist(ed) that require you to respec some points when reaching a certain level, so that your build is viable for early game (at least if you plan to take on the bosses yourself and not paying for a rush/kill).

Why should someone have to deal with this nonsense in the first place? This entire point relies on that premise and I simply disagree. Especially when people can just get a rush past that already. This doesn't add any positive value to the game.

"

If GGG accepts this, players will demand even more. We had threads already where people asked for free-respec options. So if GGG introduces pre-leveled characters, players will start whining about new convinience options (free or p2w doesn't matter much). The game will completely turn casual at some point

If GGG doesn't accept this, players will still demand more. It's inconsequential, and borderline Slipery-Slope. As for respecs, Regrets have enough other uses that they could lose all of their relevance in terms of the skill tree and still be a valuable currency--only slightly less so. However, this suggestion doesn't even take it that far.

As for the game "turning casual," this isn't even a valid argument. It's far too subjective, and not inherently a bad thing even if it did--depending on what you mean by "casual." I think the game already is pretty casual for 95% of it, and this suggestions doesn't change anything about the other 5%.

"

GGG also must ensure that players stick with the game for a certain amount of time. Lets take an example: I have 5 different builds in mind and I can play like 2-3 hours per day. So to make these 5 characters to at least lvl 80, it will probably take me a month, maybe even more. But if I can start at lvl 60, it will probably only take me a week to get them all to 80 (at least if I have the currency to buy decent equipment). But even with equipment 10c worth you can make it to lvl 80 quite easily. THat means I save like 3 weeks of playing. And then? Now I have played my builds and maybe take a rest from PoE, because I tried out what I wanted to do. The early game is a good way for GGG to ensure the players have to spend some time at least. Not everyone easily goes to lvl 80 in just a day like the pro gamers.

This is something I have talked extensively about. There's a difference between fun repetition and unfun grind. What you are describing is the latter. Why does it matter how long they play? Shouldn't the game experience be the more important part? This exact point has kept me away a lot this season, and the past three or four. At the start of a new season, I play two or three characters, want to play like twenty, starting leveling a couple, and get sick of the leveling itself. The thing you are praising for keeping players around longer does exactly the opposite.

"

If GGG introduces this, it kinda forces players who hate pre-leveled characters to do the same if they want to compete with other players (in terms of leveling characters and building up a good amount of items/currency).

It does nothing of the sort. If they are the type that have to "keep up with the Joneses," that's their own issue. Nobody is forcing anyone to do it. They can already compete (and exceed) those other people by simply playing their highest level character. Besides that, who the fuck cares what other people are doing?! Why do you have to "compete" at all? Unless you're racing for challenges or first level 100, nothing anyone else does has any effect on you. This game is basically single player with an online trade function attached. Any notion of competition is completely arbitrary.

"

Albinosaurus wrote:

This game is basically single player with an online trade function attached. Any notion of competition is completely arbitrary.

I mean this should really be completely obvious to anyone but I've went ahead and bolded the important bit for you.

If you're leveling 10x slower than everyone else because you're using glacial fucking hammer (lol), where's your currency for trading going to come from?

Also, remember when everyone asked for a self-found league so the game could be balanced around not trading? Yeah, everybody bitched about that and it didn't happen.

So here we are today, in a trading-based, trading-balanced game where you're telling people not to trade as an argument to the discussion.

"

AceNightfire wrote:

"

Jennik wrote:

If you care to defend your belief that pay to win by your definition is a bad thing, please explain why allowing Jimmy to pay money so that Jimmy can improve his personal experience without gaining a relevant advantage over anyone else is a bad thing. I expect you will have trouble with this. Maybe you'll surprise me. We'll see.

Take a look at my arguments on the last page, last post. If people could buy pre-leveled characters, it would give them an advantage over those who do not pay and there are other arguments that speak against pre-leveled characters.

If one had to level a character to level 75 in a league before being allowed to get a pre-leveled character then it would seem to me that a level 75 character has an advantage over a level 60 character but the player choices to play the level 60 character for fun, not because any advantage that can be gained. Since a I can't think of a common scenario where a level 60 character has an advantage over a level 75 character.

"

Albinosaurus wrote:

"

AceNightfire wrote:

And just because you don't mind pre-leveled characters, it doesn't mean everyone else is fine with pre-leveled characters. If you are fine with it, this isn't even about you, and it doesn't effect you.

This is the kind of thing that "sounds" like it makes sense, but doesn't at all. The entire thread is about pre-leveled characters, so it's precisely about the people who want them. This kind of trolling gets nobody anywhere.

So all people who don't want pre-leveled character have to stay silent on this matter? This makes even less sense... This is a forum. OP asks for pre-leveled characters and there are alot of people who do not want to have this feature ingame. Their opinion is as important as those who want the pre-leveled characters. It's not up to you to decide which group is more important. I used the same argument you used against you and funnily enough you say it makes no sense. All you're trying to do here is undermine the opinions of others.

"

Albinosaurus wrote:

"

Pre-leveled characters have access to highlevel maps much sooner. This means, most people will directly start with mapping. This leads to more high-level item drops and this effects the economy (more items available = prices will go down and make some items worthless). This can already be seen thanks to prophecy, where unique drops like crazy. Most uniques can be obtained for 1alc - 1c while many of these cost way more in standard HC.

The idea was that you had to have at least one level 80 character (and we were also mulling around the idea of a level 80 of each class) to unlock the feature in the first place. This means that those characters really have no economic advantage since the opportunity cost of playing an alt rather than just playing the 80+ character means you are sacrificing at least part of those gains. Even a character that levels 1-60 is unlikely to find anything worth trading, but will likely have found a fair amount of raw currency that the fresh level 60 character would not get.

1. But since everyone creates new characters over and over again and most people don't want to play just one lvl 80+ character, the ones with pre-leveled characters will spent more time on high level maps then those who level from 1-60.
2. Leveling all characters to 80+ once is useless, since it forces the player to play classes he may not like or he may not want to play because he has no build in mind. This system would also favour those with lots of free-time, because those who can make a lvl 80 character in 1-2 days can unlock this feature within a week when a new league started, while the rest of the players will not gain that advantage.
3. Also you can ignore the fair amount of raw currency that a low-level character would get. In lvl 60+ areas you can do the chaos-recipe and you also find rares that are some chaos worth from time to time. Something you will certainly not get in low-level areas.

"

Albinosaurus wrote:

"

Some builds are quite weak in early game and this lets people skip the hard leveling part quite easily. If someone decides to play a build that starts off weak, he should also face the consequences and have a hard time leveling in low level areas. There's a reason why builds exist(ed) that require you to respec some points when reaching a certain level, so that your build is viable for early game (at least if you plan to take on the bosses yourself and not paying for a rush/kill).

Why should someone have to deal with this nonsense in the first place? This entire point relies on that premise and I simply disagree. Especially when people can just get a rush past that already. This doesn't add any positive value to the game.

So this was the argument you have used against this? THis is not even an argument, this is just your personal taste. You do actually know that aRPGs always worked like this? You want to play a new class? Well, start from level 1 and do the storyline again.

Also: If you plan a build with a weak start and if you think this feels annoying, then you should probably not play that build or you should carefully plan your early-game equipment to have a smooth experience. That's how it works. With your kind of argumentation, you could also directly ask for lvl 100 characters. Why should I struggle leveling my character from 61-100? I only wanna try out my build and not wasting my time leveling. Yes, I know, you will probably argue that the game gets challanging past 60+, but the whole reason why you guys ask for pre-leveled characters is that you find the leveling from 1-60 boring. So I could say I find it boring to level up from 80+ and beyond, because it takes forever. So should we demand finished lvl 100 characters? I guess not.

"

Albinosaurus wrote:

"

If GGG accepts this, players will demand even more. We had threads already where people asked for free-respec options. So if GGG introduces pre-leveled characters, players will start whining about new convinience options (free or p2w doesn't matter much). The game will completely turn casual at some point

If GGG doesn't accept this, players will still demand more. It's inconsequential, and borderline Slipery-Slope. As for respecs, Regrets have enough other uses that they could lose all of their relevance in terms of the skill tree and still be a valuable currency--only slightly less so. However, this suggestion doesn't even take it that far.

As for the game "turning casual," this isn't even a valid argument. It's far too subjective, and not inherently a bad thing even if it did--depending on what you mean by "casual." I think the game already is pretty casual for 95% of it, and this suggestions doesn't change anything about the other 5%.

Ofc players will always demand more. T he difference is: As long as GGG stays true to their policy to keep this game somehow "hardcore", they can always say "sorry, this wont happen". But if they accept this feature, they can't say anymore that they do not accept those kind of features, because they once did. They lose credibility when they implement this and many players will be mad. So in the end they might lose more players to this feature then they gain. There are people leaving because of the lab already and my personal guess is that this feature would drive more people away from PoE.

"

Albinosaurus wrote:

"

GGG also must ensure that players stick with the game for a certain amount of time. Lets take an example: I have 5 different builds in mind and I can play like 2-3 hours per day. So to make these 5 characters to at least lvl 80, it will probably take me a month, maybe even more. But if I can start at lvl 60, it will probably only take me a week to get them all to 80 (at least if I have the currency to buy decent equipment). But even with equipment 10c worth you can make it to lvl 80 quite easily. THat means I save like 3 weeks of playing. And then? Now I have played my builds and maybe take a rest from PoE, because I tried out what I wanted to do. The early game is a good way for GGG to ensure the players have to spend some time at least. Not everyone easily goes to lvl 80 in just a day like the pro gamers.

This is something I have talked extensively about. There's a difference between fun repetition and unfun grind. What you are describing is the latter. Why does it matter how long they play? Shouldn't the game experience be the more important part? This exact point has kept me away a lot this season, and the past three or four. At the start of a new season, I play two or three characters, want to play like twenty, starting leveling a couple, and get sick of the leveling itself. The thing you are praising for keeping players around longer does exactly the opposite.

Developing an online game always needs a balancing between "fun" and "work". Take a look at most MMORPGs nowadays. You can do certain jobs there (like fishing, smithing etc.). Those jobs are usually boring designed and consume time. You have to gather the materials (run from one ressource point to another) and then choose the craftable item from a menu. So they are boring, but people still do it. Why? Because those jobs a rewarding in the end. You do it for the items and the money you get out from it. And that's the problem with PoE lvl 1-60: It doesn't feel rewarding. Doing all acts 3 times in a row without gaining anything useful is a big problem. That's why I suggested map pieces you get for finishing an act. THose map pieces can give you access to high quantity/rarity maps with good map effects (bigger pack sizes, more magic/rare monsters etc.). This for example could motivate players to play the acts and difficulties, because a good reward awaits you.

"

Albinosaurus wrote:

"

If GGG introduces this, it kinda forces players who hate pre-leveled characters to do the same if they want to compete with other players (in terms of leveling characters and building up a good amount of items/currency).

It does nothing of the sort. If they are the type that have to "keep up with the Joneses," that's their own issue. Nobody is forcing anyone to do it. They can already compete (and exceed) those other people by simply playing their highest level character. Besides that, who the fuck cares what other people are doing?! Why do you have to "compete" at all? Unless you're racing for challenges or first level 100, nothing anyone else does has any effect on you. This game is basically single player with an online trade function attached. Any notion of competition is completely arbitrary.

The economy WILL change because of this and people who use pre-leveled characters will have an easier time to get useful stuff/currency.

Also: The argument, that the others could just play their highest character is nonsense, because that means: While people who use pre-leveled characters can try out many builds and still play in high-level areas, the 80+ guy without pre-leveled characters has to stick with one character in order to be able to compete. This is kinda unfair. So yes, as soon as a change effects my gameplayexperience, I do care about it. I dont care if you want to play 5 or 10 different builds, that's up to you, but then you should face the consequence and know that you will play most of your time in low level areas.

The question is: Does GGG want that you try out 20 different builds in a league? I think it's better for GGG if you want to try out 20 different builds AND have to level them all up from scratch, because that will take you much longer and therefore you will stick longer with the game. And if you leave, GGG doesnt care, because you will probably come back. I also had a rest of 6 month and rejoined now. That's normal and I think GGG does know that.

"

AceNightfire wrote:

"

Jennik wrote:

If you care to defend your belief that pay to win by your definition is a bad thing, please explain why allowing Jimmy to pay money so that Jimmy can improve his personal experience without gaining a relevant advantage over anyone else is a bad thing. I expect you will have trouble with this. Maybe you'll surprise me. We'll see.

Take a look at my arguments on the last page, last post. If people could buy pre-leveled characters, it would give them an advantage over those who do not pay and there are other arguments that speak against pre-leveled characters.

The only context in which I see instant level 60s as reasonable, as I've stated many times in this thread, is if they're time gated. One month has been the standard length used throughout the thread. Some people defending this idea are instead arguing that instant level 60s should be unlocked after level 75 or 80, which is terrible. I've given many reasons why that is a flawed idea myself.

Feel free to make arguments against instant 60s with a one month delay. Nothing you said on the previous page has merit against this idea (especially the slippery slope fallacy, for shame), so I don't know what your exact problems would be or if you have any.

"

Legatus1982 wrote:

"

Albinosaurus wrote:

This game is basically single player with an online trade function attached. Any notion of competition is completely arbitrary.

I mean this should really be completely obvious to anyone but I've went ahead and bolded the important bit for you.

If you're leveling 10x slower than everyone else because you're using glacial fucking hammer (lol), where's your currency for trading going to come from?

Also, remember when everyone asked for a self-found league so the game could be balanced around not trading? Yeah, everybody bitched about that and it didn't happen.

So here we are today, in a trading-based, trading-balanced game where you're telling people not to trade as an argument to the discussion.

When did I ever fucking say not to trade? I didn't.

"

Jennik wrote:

"

AceNightfire wrote:

"

Jennik wrote:

If you care to defend your belief that pay to win by your definition is a bad thing, please explain why allowing Jimmy to pay money so that Jimmy can improve his personal experience without gaining a relevant advantage over anyone else is a bad thing. I expect you will have trouble with this. Maybe you'll surprise me. We'll see.

Take a look at my arguments on the last page, last post. If people could buy pre-leveled characters, it would give them an advantage over those who do not pay and there are other arguments that speak against pre-leveled characters.

The only context in which I see instant level 60s as reasonable, as I've stated many times in this thread, is if they're time gated. One month has been the standard length used throughout the thread. Some people defending this idea are instead arguing that instant level 60s should be unlocked after level 75 or 80, which is terrible. I've given many reasons why that is a flawed idea myself.

Feel free to make arguments against instant 60s with a one month delay. Nothing you said on the previous page has merit against this idea (especially the slippery slope fallacy, for shame), so I don't know what your exact problems would be or if you have any.

I think a time delay or a level requirement or even some of the more draconian requirements to unlock the pre-leveled character are all fine. There just needs to be something. I use the level 75 requirement in some of my arguments just because it seemed easier to try to point out that the arguments saying a level 60 is an advantage over a level 1 is really a level 75 advantage over a level 60.

Edit: I consider the same idea is applicable to a time delay but just more difficult to express.

Ace, it would take much longer to respond to each point than they actually deserve, so I'm just going to hit the few that actually are arguments and not just "no u" dressed up in a paragraph.

1. This game already favors those with more time. Nothing will ever change that. However, if the requirement is to only have one character at level 80, this actually helps people with less time. It's not a hard unlock, so the idea that it's "unfair to people without it" is completely ridiculous. Remember: Normal is the tutorial, so let's do what most modern games do and let you skip the godddamn tutorial.

2. Again, this is not a fucking competition. All your arguments that rely on you comparing your progress to other people don't matter at all.

3. You tried to use my argument against me, but it doesn't make sense, because it's logically inconsistent. I don't have to void your opinion. You do that on your own already. Bottom line is simple: If the feature makes a lot of people happy, and has no meaningful impact on other players--which this doesn't--then the people against it are going to have a very hard time justifying why the people for it shouldn't have it.

4. Just because other games do it a certain way, or that something is done a certain way due to tradition, doesn't mean we have to keep doing it. Period.

Seriously, nobody has put forth one compelling argument yet. Most of them rely on point 2, fallacy, derailing the conversation, misrepresenting what I said, or points that simply aren't true.