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

ofc this game is p2w - the stash tabs and trading tabs are as pay to win as possible. the effect these have on what one (and how quickly, conveniently and seamlessly) can do is pretty equal to 'gold' in world of tanks or warships. 'you only pay for convenience'. lol..

what is great is the way ggg managed to make it look 'good' while reaping the benefits without actually calling it what it is. note how they pretty much never use word 'pay' but prefer 'support' instead. even when people are outright buying some cosmetics for listed prices


as for the pre-made characters. this is an issue but not because of p2w or not (however i would pay for that - it is easier for me to get few euros than trade for bunch of regret orbs. if it isnt p2w..) but because a game is only a game if it has a challenge in itself

if you take a game and remove all 'difficult' parts - then you have a 'demo' where everything is already done and you need absolutely no effort to achieve anything. while the 'achieving' part is also pretty impossible due to there being nothing challenging

poe is already pretty easy game. it is closing to 'too easy' pretty fast. map grind is just a grind. dried lake leveling is mindnumbinggrid. the only part of the game that is remotely challenging is the leveling process (ofc one can cheeze it with flame totem or other FotM built-in cheat skill)

The entire point of the thread is that leveling presents NO challenge, and some of us would prefer to just skip it because it's mind-numbing, pointless, and tedious. You don't even need any real game knowledge:

STR characters: Molten Strike, Flame Totem, Searing Bond, Sunder, Earthquake
DEX characters: Reave, Tornado Shot, any traps, Bladefall, Spectral Throw
INT characters: Flameblast, Ice Nova, Vortex, Firestorm

And those are just the obvious ones. You don't even need any other skills. Just pick one of those and go with it until 60, then start your build.

So how much should a new blank pre-leveled character cost? I'll propose first, 200 points?

The whole point is having a preleveled character saves a massive amount of time, time that you should be spending leveling instead of paying for.


Again the fact this thread is still being discussed just proves how "stupid" this community really is now, such a sad state.

"

Turtledove wrote:

So how much should a new blank pre-leveled character cost? I'll propose first, 200 points?

I said many posts back that it can't be on a "per character" basis, but that I would be willing to spend up to $30 US to be able to roll my new characters at Lvl 60, A1 Merc. Obviously, price is very up for debate and GGG itself, but I feel that putting a concrete number out there is a good place to start.

"

The whole point is having a preleveled character saves a massive amount of time, time that you should be spending leveling instead of paying for.


Again the fact this thread is still being discussed just proves how "stupid" this community really is now, such a sad state.

Time we don't want to spend leveling. How have you missed that part? Why should people grind through the game twice before they can really start playing the game?

And you say the "community" is being stupid, lol.

"

Albinosaurus wrote:

"

Turtledove wrote:

So how much should a new blank pre-leveled character cost? I'll propose first, 200 points?

I said many posts back that it can't be on a "per character" basis, but that I would be willing to spend up to $30 US to be able to roll my new characters at Lvl 60, A1 Merc. Obviously, price is very up for debate and GGG itself, but I feel that putting a concrete number out there is a good place to start.

"

The whole point is having a preleveled character saves a massive amount of time, time that you should be spending leveling instead of paying for.


Again the fact this thread is still being discussed just proves how "stupid" this community really is now, such a sad state.

Time we don't want to spend leveling. How have you missed that part? Why should people grind through the game twice before they can really start playing the game?

And you say the "community" is being stupid, lol.

I don't want to spend time doing the lab, leveling even further, grinding for gear, ect ect. /s

The fact of the matter is you should play the game, like all other ARPG games since the beggining of time from level 1, the game is designed and balanced around that fact. This isn't an WoW where leveling or playing until a certain point is utterly pointless, you can find currency while leveling, decent items, various unqiues and even a mirror (yes its a currency, but worth stating separately) You can also find things like divination cards\ect.

A cash shortcut would NEVER be appropriate in an ARPG game, ever. Even fucking D3 which is get to the end as fast as possible doesn't have a paid option to bypass the "boring" or slower start.

Instead of worrying about paying to bypass you should instead focus on a thread of what makes leveling unenjoyable to you and try to get those changes into the game instead.


The topic being discussed will never happen in PoE, so it is truly and 100% pointless to discuss, which is why I called the community (and really anyone here that supports it basically) stupid. Expecting something that explicitly is against not only the dev's designs or goals, but against the genre is just asinine.

"

Turtledove wrote:

So how much should a new blank pre-leveled character cost? I'll propose first, 200 points?

I think that 100-200 points is a fair price. I wouldn't pay 300 though.

If we try to take another approach: How about we add these naked 60 char as rewards for ascending and remove the Asc points from the labyrinth and put them after malachai? Same restrictions would apply, still naked char, still only available after a month into new leagues and if you want more then you just do the labyrinth on a new character again.

"

I don't want to spend time doing the lab, leveling even further, grinding for gear, ect ect. /s

Back to the ol' Straw Man, eh?

"

The fact of the matter is you should play the game, like all other ARPG games since the beggining of time from level 1, the game is designed and balanced around that fact. This isn't an WoW where leveling or playing until a certain point is utterly pointless, you can find currency while leveling, decent items, various unqiues and even a mirror (yes its a currency, but worth stating separately) You can also find things like divination cards\ect.

That's your opinion, and it's not up to you to decide how others "should" play or use their time. I already acknowledged that starting lvl 60 would have those drawbacks, and they are an acceptable trade-off. Again, not up to you to decide for others.

"

A cash shortcut would NEVER be appropriate in an ARPG game, ever. Even fucking D3 which is get to the end as fast as possible doesn't have a paid option to bypass the "boring" or slower start.

D3 bypassed that with Gem of Ease and by letting players select their difficulty from level 1. There are also no quest rewards that impact your character at all; they are all exp/gold/random loot. They found a system that would work for that game, and I'd be okay with them doing something similar for this, but having the option to just pay is easier all around--especially for GGG.

"

Instead of worrying about paying to bypass you should instead focus on a thread of what makes leveling unenjoyable to you and try to get those changes into the game instead.

The topic being discussed will never happen in PoE, so it is truly and 100% pointless to discuss, which is why I called the community (and really anyone here that supports it basically) stupid. Expecting something that explicitly is against not only the dev's designs or goals, but against the genre is just asinine.

You say "this will never happen" in nearly every thread I see you in. I think you just like to argue and try to shoot down anything that threatens to change the game even a little--even if it doesn't affect you at all. That said, it just boils down to being your opinion, and the point of the thread is to discuss the possibilities, not just discount them outright. Do I think it will happen? I've said repeatedly in this thread that I don't. However, I do think such a change would be worth the player happiness in exchange for some extremely minor drawbacks.

If you're so against this, why don't you make a thread about how to improve the leveling experience so that it's actually enjoyable, purposeful, rewarding, etc? All I see you do is nay-say, but rarely actually offer solutions or ideas to make anything better. I'll continue supporting this thread because I agree with it.

"

That's your opinion, and it's not up to you to decide how others "should" play or use their time. I already acknowledged that starting lvl 60 would have those drawbacks, and they are an acceptable trade-off. Again, not up to you to decide for others.

No its up to the game devs to design a game, if they wanted you to just be level 60 without putting forth effort to do so, why bother having acts and all of that anyway and just giving everyone access to the "premade" characters for free, rather then behind a pay wall that goes directly against the F2P model the game was founded on.

"

D3 bypassed that with Gem of Ease and by letting players select their difficulty from level 1. There are also no quest rewards that impact your character at all; they are all exp/gold/random loot. They found a system that would work for that game, and I'd be okay with them doing something similar for this, but having the option to just pay is easier all around--especially for GGG.

Gem of ease only works on subsequent characters, not the first of every league. In addition it does take time to level too. An option to pay isn't "easier" for GGG, nor is it the right or ethical thing to do either.

"

You say "this will never happen" in nearly every thread I see you in. I think you just like to argue and try to shoot down anything that threatens to change the game even a little--even if it doesn't affect you at all. That said, it just boils down to being your opinion, and the point of the thread is to discuss the possibilities, not just discount them outright. Do I think it will happen? I've said repeatedly in this thread that I don't. However, I do think such a change would be worth the player happiness in exchange for some extremely minor drawbacks.

I've said that in a couple of threads, automation and stuff like this won't happen, simply put it cannot happen with the model established in the game and the design of the game. Disagree if you want, but I think someone that actually plays this game for a substantial amount of time and reads post made by Chris and other GGG staff is better then some random guy that barely has over a 1\2 dozen level 60 characters.

Ever little thing that GGG does can have an affect on me, like everything that takes dev time can negatively impact me.

"extremely minor drawbacks"

Fuck no it isn't extremely minor, if it was such a minor drawback we wouldn't be having this conversation, I would have just stopped with the "this will never happen line".

"

If you're so against this, why don't you make a thread about how to improve the leveling experience so that it's actually enjoyable, purposeful, rewarding, etc? All I see you do is nay-say, but rarely actually offer solutions or ideas to make anything better. I'll continue supporting this thread because I agree with it.

Because I don't really care that much about the leveling process, I'm not the one that has the issue with it, it is you\OP or anyone else that supports this crazy idea.

I told you what the solution was, you create a thread or offer solutions or better yet actually explain what the real problem is rather then just "i want to pay to shortcut"

I'm not saying you cant support it, you can if you'd like, only that it is frivolous to do so.

"

Gem of ease only works on subsequent characters, not the first of every league.

Got this far before I stopped reading. You haven't followed anything in this thread, because this has been addressed like 40 times, and I'm tired of repeating it. Show that you actually know what is being discussed, and then we can have a proper discussion. Until then, you aren't qualified to.