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

Many players have issues with the labyrinth and others are exhausted from doing the same acts over and over again. So why not start selling lvl60 twice ascended naked characters that start at merciless lioneyes watch? Could be always available in perm leagues and 3-4 weeks after the temp leagues start so that there is no problem with the people racing.

More money for GGG and more happy players!

Alternative restrictions (other than the 3-4 week time period):

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Albinosaurus wrote:

-Kill Malachai on Merc
-Reach level 80
-Complete 10-15 League challenges

"

Experienced players just way point & boss kill boost, essentially skipping the normal-merc content anyway, so why not just offer an optional paid pass? After the race to 100 and challenges are complete, of course. After which, PoE is just a single player no competition shoot-em-up.

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Alternative non-payment method currently discussed:

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Albinosaurus wrote:

-It is not a paid-for feature, but rather an unlocked one
-You have to reach level 80 with at least one character
-You may need to fulfill other requirements like beating Malachai on Merc and/or having to complete all the story quests
-The character starts with no gear, no currency, all Normal/Cruel waypoints, choice of which bandit rewards for N/C, and starts in Act 1 Merc
-Only available if you have already had 20 characters leveled into merciless in your account.

No.

Go back to WoW.

Not sure if serious.

First I woudn't pay a single dolla' for such a char, even tho I dont like doing the same quest content 3X with each char. And secondly, if GGG would ever implement such glaring P2W, I'd quit in a heartbeat, without even making a shitpost thread. Well, maybe just one. But certainly not two, or three, or fifteen...

GGG has said they don't want to sell ingame advantages (like XP boosts). Then again, the did end up selling trade tabs ingame advantage.

So possible?

Bad idea bad I tell's ya....

I think GGG has positioned themselves where they can't do this. After the trade tab outrage, it seems that new pay2convenience features are viewed as being closer to pay2win than they are to pay4cosmetics.

On top of that, leveling boosts have a bad rep. One of their unintended consequences is that players can now convert their playtime into a mathematically equivalent dollar value using the level boost's price as a guide. This usually feels bad because you now have a reference point where your time in game is worth (typically) between 10 cents and 1 dollar per hour. When you look at it this way, the most efficient way to play the game is to work at your job instead. Once you go down that road, why even play the game at all?

Having said all that, I don't actually think it's such a bad idea to sell progress. Player time just needs to be valued higher than most developers are courageous enough to do. Don't take the page from Blizzard's playbook where a maxed out character is worth $100; instead take the page from Clash of Clans playbook where maxing out is worth ~$10 000. Players shouldn't feel like the most efficient way to play the game is not to play the game. For that to be the case, progress needs to be expensive. Very expensive. If I spend the 30 seconds it takes to calculate how much money my time is worth in the game, I shouldn't feel worse than I did 30 seconds earlier. Perhaps I could feel pride instead? (due to the wealth generation in the game, even though the redemption value is only hypothetical since it's a 1-way conversion).

"

morbo wrote:

Not sure if serious.

First I woudn't pay a single dolla' for such a char, even tho I dont like doing the same quest content 3X with each char. And secondly, if GGG would ever implement such glaring P2W, I'd quit in a heartbeat, without even making a shitpost thread. Well, maybe just one. But certainly not two, or three, or fifteen...

Can you specify what exactly is p2w in the suggestion? I'd say it's more like p2experiment since the char is naked and it's 3-4 weeks into the league. You'd get to win the 8-16 hours it takes for you to get to merciless, but since the character is in merciless naked, it will probably be your 2nd or 3rd char in order to gear him up, so there is nothing to "win" really.

"

Pyrokar wrote:

Can you specify what exactly is p2w in the suggestion?

Pay to start with a levelled char, grab some twink gear from guild stash and go?

But since there is nothing to win, I guess you are semantically right. GGG selling gear or exalts would also not be P2W, by the same logic...