Headed in the wrong direction?

"

TehHammer wrote:

You can get alchs with 3 items, that doesn't take up much stash space at all. 3 items, all the same base type (i.e. Thicket Bows), 20% quality, 1 rare, 1 magic and one white. It can be a tad expensive to scrap/whetstone items constantly, but they drop often enough and many people ignore them when they do drop.

Regals... Yeah, pretty tough to make currently, I do agree that the recipe as a whole is pay2win and sadly it became more pay2win after people complained that it was pay2win. GGG made it tougher because, in that same thread, people complained that it was too easy and that the alchemy orb was going to lose value (it did).

Regales were as well. Was selling them for 6 per GCP I believe. Lol

The game is in no way "pay-2-win". The current system of having to "buy" an account is only because of the beta. And in case you're too dumb to realize it, I'll shout it at you: WHAT YOU CALL "PAY-2-WIN", EVERYONE ELSE CALLS "THEY LET US PAY TO PLAY BETA INSTEAD OF FORCING US ALL TO WAIT FOR OPEN BETA".

Your grip is basically, "I hate GGG for being nice enough to let us buy our way into a closed beta instead of letting us be subject to the whims of the random system."

I won't bother discussing loot here as I've already discussed it just about everywhere else and this thread shouldn't have addressed that (this thread is 60% spam).

OB doesn't remotely change the fact that paying money gives you an advantage. That is simply how the game is being designed. You spend money, you get more bank space, it gives you an advantage. That is the definition of pay2win. Period.

GGG's claim that they were making an "ethical" micro system was a lie. Bank space is part of the inventory feature, and restricting a feature to get people to buy more is not ethical, or how F2P was designed. Creating the vendor recipe system only proves that the intention was to get people to buy as many bank tabs as possible, thus providing as much advantage as possible.

Again, OB and the ability to make multiple accounts doesn't change how the systems are designed or intended to function. The game, by design, is currently pay2win by definition.

"

RegulusX wrote:

And in case you're too dumb to realize it, I'll shout it at you: WHAT YOU CALL "PAY-2-WIN", EVERYONE ELSE CALLS "THEY LET US PAY TO PLAY BETA INSTEAD OF FORCING US ALL TO WAIT FOR OPEN BETA"

Try pulling your head out of GGGs ass for a minute. The air will do you good.

They are not doing us a favor by letting us pay them to test their game. That is ridiculous. Normally testers are payed employees. They are getting payed to have their game mass tested.

GGG stated that their intention of an ethical microtx system was that no purchased upgrade would DIRECTLY impact player combat power or effectiveness.

None of their account upgrades do this.

A player who is so wealthy they do not have to work and own 10 computers and a $500/month internet line can play much more than a player who works. This cannot be considered unethical or pay to win on the part of GGG.

There are certain aspects that are uncontrollable, and certain aspects that will give convenience advantages to paid accounts (as a necessity to pay for the game staying free for others)... but those upgrades do not directly impact your character in the field, and free accounts will have the same opportunities for bank storage as paid accounts... the only difference being that they will have to do some website trading with their accounts to optimize selling. (no doubt it'll be just as easy with a browser plugin someone makes for multiple accounts)

As discussed above, time a person having free time to spend cannot be a factor considered for ethics... therefore account perks that do affect your character directly are the measurement of pay to win... of which this game has none.

If there comes a time when players with 5x the bank space of a free player are wiping the floor with everyone else all the time in PvP and ladders, perhaps then GGG will look into if that model really does impart a major advantage on the field... but the percentage of people that might affect will be extremely small since the requirements for massively increased disproportionate efficiency are large.

Zeto, you deserve a beer for that post :)

The only thing I agree with OP about is the boosting problem, which apparently is being worked on. Remember that when OB comes, there will be a wipe, so anything gained through having multiple accounts will be wiped. Hopefully the boosting problem will be solved by then (I wish for a /players X :D)

"

OB doesn't remotely change the fact that paying money gives you an advantage. That is simply how the game is being designed. You spend money, you get more bank space, it gives you an advantage. That is the definition of pay2win. Period.

GGG's claim that they were making an "ethical" micro system was a lie. Bank space is part of the inventory feature, and restricting a feature to get people to buy more is not ethical, or how F2P was designed. Creating the vendor recipe system only proves that the intention was to get people to buy as many bank tabs as possible, thus providing as much advantage as possible.

Again, OB and the ability to make multiple accounts doesn't change how the systems are designed or intended to function. The game, by design, is currently pay2win by definition.

"

RegulusX wrote:

And in case you're too dumb to realize it, I'll shout it at you: WHAT YOU CALL "PAY-2-WIN", EVERYONE ELSE CALLS "THEY LET US PAY TO PLAY BETA INSTEAD OF FORCING US ALL TO WAIT FOR OPEN BETA"

Try pulling your head out of GGGs ass for a minute. The air will do you good.

They are not doing us a favor by letting us pay them to test their game. That is ridiculous. Normally testers are payed employees. They are getting payed to have their game mass tested.

1. There is nothing un-ethical about it. They are giving you a convenient way to stash while at the same time giving you an option to do it with no cost. You can have as many mules as you want.

2. By who's definition is it pay2win? Yours?

3. I have seen nothing that forces anyone to play this game. It is solely by your choice. If you had any business sense you would understand that getting a business off the ground takes capitol (money). They are using this as a way to accomplish 2 things. One, make money to keep the servers up and running (not free) as well as pay the developers. Second, it gives people a chance to contribute and at the same time have some fun. You are right you are paying to help test and more importantly contribute. You are not being forced to do so. If you are not having fun, or you feel so slighted by your perceived pay2win scenario, then move on!

People act like GGG is shoving the game down your throat. I have not played in about a month, mainly to take a step back and get work done. However this game as already been better than most finished products out there. That is my opinion of coarse. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and if this game is not for you, move on.

How's this for a counter-perspective:

I'm a professionally employed adult who happens to enjoy spending some of my limited free time playing PoE. Recently, there was a week long ladder race, and we are halfway through the month ladder race.

"

I believe it is unfair that kids, students, and the unemployed have more time than I do to play in the league. I think they should limit all players to 10 hours a week so it is an equal playing field for me.

Does that sound fair to you? Sure does to me. Equal playing time for all!

Here's another example. I have limited time to play and I don't want to deal with the hassle of multi-boxing/instancing/what-have-you workarounds that people are currently employing 'to get ahead' in the crafting/recipe game, so I purchase a bunch of stash tabs for the convenience of sorting/organizing the various loot I find. Doesn't this equal the playing field, instead of unbalancing it? I believe the OP is looking at this matter from the wrong perspective.

I know some will disagree, but I don't believe the ability to purchase XP bonuses (outside of ladder events) should be considered buying power either . It is simple a 'convenience' feature for those of us with limited playing time.

What if I could purchase the option to start a level 28 character for PvP instead of levelling it myself. Is this buying power?

Here's an example of what I believe would translate to directly selling power: specific skill gems; unique/rare items with specific stats; currency orbs.

If I wanted to really split hairs, I believe it would not be selling power if you could buy a random skill gem or random item for cash, because you are not buying power, you are buying time: You are buying a roll of the RNG item generator instead of spending time kill mobs for that chance to roll.

time = $$$, ergo the stash tab example cited by the OP is selling convenience, not power.

Postscript:

"

"

RegulusX wrote:

And in case you're too dumb to realize it, I'll shout it at you: WHAT YOU CALL "PAY-2-WIN", EVERYONE ELSE CALLS "THEY LET US PAY TO PLAY BETA INSTEAD OF FORCING US ALL TO WAIT FOR OPEN BETA"

Try pulling your head out of GGGs ass for a minute. The air will do you good.

They are not doing us a favor by letting us pay them to test their game. That is ridiculous. Normally testers are payed employees. They are getting payed to have their game mass tested.

Paid employees? Are you off your rocker? Maybe alpha, but everyone is doing closed betas that all players in nowadays. Look at any game! There are even websites devoted to giving people alerts when closed beta signups start!

My head may be up GGGs ass, but at least I have a head.

I made a (pretty huge, eventually) thread about the arguably pay2win mechanics of the Alch/Regal orb recipes a few months ago. Chris's response was "We'll keep this in mind when revising recipes to enter Open Beta with."

They're aware of the argument and actively considering whether it's acceptable to keep around, or not. Of course there is also the question of, if you remove these recipes, what do you replace them with?



As for above guy, just because some companies hold actual beta testing these days, doesn't mean that the vast majority of games (for instance, every single Singleplayer game in history) is only playtested indoors, in controlled environments, often with developers looking over the shoulders, by people who are at least in some way compensated for their efforts. Hell, half of the "open betas" you see are just marketing stunts that don't give a crap about your input cause the game is almost done (recent example of that would be Shootmania).

"

RaistlinM wrote:

2. Pay-2-win again...- This has to do with the advent of 'boosting.' Anyone with multiple accounts right now had to pay for them. Having a single person with 3 accounts, grouping them together using the group to get more xp/orbs is wholly unfair for the rest of us. "But when the game goes f2p everyone can do it" You still need 3 separate computers, to run 3 separate instances of the game(unless there's some way to open the game 3 times on the same computer) Again this means someone had to of bought 3 computers.

It was only yesterday that everyone in Merci global was saying "hey look at these lvl 1 boosters in merci" I didn't see them, but I've seen other boosters and it's really discouraging.

Why is this P2W? It's CB right now so that can't be helped, when OB comes, that will no longer be the case. So why is it heading to the wrong direction?
Another thing is you need to separate the "boosting" discussion away from P2W, since they are 2 different things all together.
And you can multi-box without using different computers anyway(unless that was recently fixed).

Anyway your 2nd argument is in the wrong thread, it belongs in that other big thread about boosting.