Pay 2 Win Premium Tabs Features - why GGG lies

@GA: Acquisition fully automates the shop thread system. Fully. I'm not saying Premium tabs are p2w anymore.

Additional tabs are, because we all know muling is a time-consuming joke option and not actually viable, and the time spent diddling with it could be spent leveling and looting.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

@GA: Acquisition fully automates the shop thread system. Fully. I'm not saying Premium tabs are p2w anymore.

Additional tabs are, because we all know muling is a time-consuming joke option and not actually viable, and the time spent diddling with it could be spent leveling and looting.

Right, I wasn't comparing features, which is why the argument gets really wonky - even in terms of additional stash tabs. I'm not sure time can be included in the discussion and objectivity remain intact. It needs to be a 1:1 feature vs feature comparison to exclude any guessing about indirect variables.

Which is why I must conclude a position like Goetz/Mark's effectively wins the argument, otherwise a person is subjectively factoring in estimations on time and player skill in their assessment of p2w.

Edit: (which to do so would be a logical mistake as this creates circumstances where it would be p2w for some and not others, violating the binary nature of the question, 'is this p2w?')

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GeorgAnatoly wrote:

I'm not sure time can be included in the discussion and objectivity remain intact. It needs to be a 1:1 feature vs feature comparison to exclude any guessing about indirect variables.

Which is why I must conclude a position like Goetz/Mark's effectively wins the argument, otherwise a person is subjectively factoring in estimations on time and player skill in their assessment of p2w.

You are making the very mistake you warned against; you are assuming a particular level of skill and time. If under any combination of factors a p2w situation exists, then the statement "The game... will never be pay-to-win" is false.

The correct method is to consider all levels of skill and time.

Are there skill/time situations where purchasing additional stash tabs isn't p2w? Yes, but irrelevant. Not always being p2w is not the same thing as always not being p2w.

Are there skill/time situations where it is p2w? Yes. Therefore, the statement "The game... will never be pay-to-win" is false.

The difference between Premium and additional tabs is that while the situations to make Premium tabs p2w currently do not occur at all (but could), the situations to make additional tabs p2w do occur currently in a subset of players.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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GeorgAnatoly wrote:

I'm not sure time can be included in the discussion and objectivity remain intact. It needs to be a 1:1 feature vs feature comparison to exclude any guessing about indirect variables.

Which is why I must conclude a position like Goetz/Mark's effectively wins the argument, otherwise a person is subjectively factoring in estimations on time and player skill in their assessment of p2w.

You are making the very mistake you warned against; you are guessing about skill and time. If under any combination of factors, if a p2w situation exists, then the statement "The game... will never be pay-to-win" is false.

The correct method is to consider all levels of skill and time.
Are there situations where purchasing additional stash tabs isn't p2w? Yes, but irrelevant.
Are there situations where it is p2w? Yes. Therefore, the statement "The game... will never be pay-to-win" is false.

I understand that line of reasoning but the issue then becomes if something being determined to be p2w isn't always a 'yes' or always a 'no' and has additional conditional elements - as in purchasing this isn't p2w for some players and is for others or with enough player skill using free option x means pay walled feature y isn't p2w - the discussion, as you can see, becomes very very messy and opinionated making it difficult if not impossible to approach the discussion from a common objective ground.

Which is where my previous statement comes from.

I haven't followed this thread for the past twenty some odd pages but here's my thoughts.

GGG does not charge to play PoE. Yet, they need to earn money to provide development for and servers to support PoE. They get this money from people playing the game. True they have a self imposed rule that they will not charge for "pay to win" features. Note that statement I just made. It said "self imposed rule". They get to define what that means, especially at the very detailed level. So, by definition premium tabs are NOT "pay to win". That is fine and wonderful as far as I'm concerned. Let GGG earn some money so that PoE can continue to be provided. Premium tabs are not "pay to win" by definition.

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Qiu_Qiu wrote:

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Turtledove wrote:

They get to define what that means, especially at the very detailed level. So, by definition premium tabs are NOT "pay to win".

So, if they decided to sell skill points, as long as they define that it's not "pay to win", it isn't?

GGG gets to define the rules that they play by. However, if they did something as blatant as you suggest, then the outcry would be much larger I'm sure. If it actually came to that though, I think the better approach would be for GGG to declare that in order for the business to survive they have decided to drop the pay to win restriction.

Trying to take a more reasonable approach to the question of premium tabs or even buying more tabs, I would say that it can be reasonably argued that it makes trading easier and more lucrative. I think it is also reasonable to argue that it has not really crossed into the pay to win boundary. Since I believe the question is well within subjective opinions, I personally think that additional non-premium tabs and premium tabs are very similar and close in the possible pay to win continuum. In other words, you need a place to store one's merchandise before it can be put up for sale. So it seems to me that people complaining about premium tabs should be complaining as vigorously about having to purchase additional tabs?

My opinion is that I have no problems with premium tabs or extra tabs costing extra. That is because I understand that GGG is a business and needs to have an income to continue providing a game that I used to love to play. (I don't play so much anymore because I hate labyrinth game play. :-( )

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Qiu_Qiu wrote:

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Turtledove wrote:

They get to define what that means, especially at the very detailed level. So, by definition premium tabs are NOT "pay to win".

So, if they decided to sell skill points, as long as they define that it's not "pay to win", it isn't?

You can still gain Skill Points by playing and leveling.
I see no issue, and I'm not winning anything.
Happen to already own a pack of 9001 points, but you should be fine with none.

Also, API enabled me to allocate points more efficiently in PoE Builder, which will exist forever and if it doesn't - GGG would do something, because exposing APIs totally means they take full responsibility of everything 3rd party using said API.

/sarcasm-mode=off

Here is a video which summarize how I feel about the premium stash tabs changes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dCUFHpat08

I strongly advise to watch it.

Also I can not agree more with the guy, with regards to pricing of mtx's, which if they would be cheaper I would definitely buy more.

Nice video, thanks for linking