bought some tabs, and a Currency Tab - feedback

Sounds to me like you guys need some perspective. Just look at the current f2p game market. As I said in a different thread, on a p2w scale from 1 to 10, PoE is still a 2. Pretty much nobody cares.

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Xavderion wrote:

Sounds to me like you guys need some perspective. Just look at the current f2p game market. As I said in a different thread, on a p2w scale from 1 to 10, PoE is still a 2. Pretty much nobody cares.

it used to be a 1.
now it's more like a 3, and that's if you say 10 is Korean MMO with a slight touch of the average Android/iOS game.

my point is I don't want it to become a 4.
the ethical part tends to go away when the team grows and with more mouths to feed.

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johnKeys wrote:

It's not about sticks and cheap asses man. I could buy the most expensive Supporter Pack, and spend it all on MTX.
I know some people did.

Tabs, Premium Tabs, and Currency Tab isn't MTX.
it's fkn P2W.
and I can see that clearer than ever, now that I bought them.

it was Dante's Inferno without them. I did the chars/mules trick, and crafting benches storage, and Guild Tabs storage for over 3 fkn years.
not theory, practice. painful practice.
now the pain is gone.
a new player should not go through what I went through.

GGG know better.

I don't get your logic man, you will buy the most expensive supporter pack, and spend it all on useless MTX's, but you're whining because those cheap tabs which helps you a lot, saved you from Dante's hell, and now calling it P2W is a dick move by GGG? wha?! Tell me, how many stash tabs, premium or otherwise does it take to win this game? Now how many AAA games can you buy with the cost of those stash tabs? How long have you been playing and consuming POE's content?

MTX isn't "useless". it makes your char look great, have awesome special effect attacks, run around with shiny pets, have a great looking hideout...
some of the above, were all the incentive people needed back in Beta to send hundreds of dollars to GGG. thousands, if you count Charan and other Diamond Supporters.

now GGG is a bigger team and need more money to keep the project going. that's obvious.
what is less obvious is why they choose the "easiest" path of promoting the one kind of "MTX" which gives an advantage, then slowly creating a situation where you can't possibly be without it - as Pyro and Sid explained.

why they do it, instead of stepping up the quantity AND quality of real, non-P2W MTX so more people buy them ?
instead of giving more free tabs to new accounts, to store all this new crap that was added over time, or adding in-game ways to get them (e.g. quest rewards) ?
instad of removing the stack size limit of orbs, so that if I can stack a thousand inside my elegant Currency Tab, you can stack a thousand inside your messy normal tab ?

and make a good trading system. with normal tabs.
heck I played SSF most of the recent 2 years in PoE, but now 1st day of trade went great.
all I had to do is label my Premium Tab as Public and set buyouts - and I sold a dozen amulets in one day. that's more than all my previous attempts at shops, combined.
can YOU do that without a Premium Tab ? fuck no !

QoL ingame features locked behind a pay wall in a free to play game ?

Shocker lol

edit : Let's not forget about the RNG boxes .

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johnKeys wrote:

MTX isn't "useless". it makes your char look great, have awesome special effect attacks, run around with shiny pets, have a great looking hideout...
some of the above, were all the incentive people needed back in Beta to send hundreds of dollars to GGG. thousands, if you count Charan and other Diamond Supporters.

now GGG is a bigger team and need more money to keep the project going. that's obvious.

I agree 100%.

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johnKeys wrote:

what is less obvious is why they choose the "easiest" path of promoting the one kind of "MTX" which gives an advantage, then slowly creating a situation where you can't possibly be without it - as Pyro and Sid explained.

It is obvious, don't be naive, you've said it, it is the "easiest" path for them to generate income. It is the micro-transaction that will give advantage which for any player who enjoys the game and plays it for a long time will surely need. But does not necessarily make him outrightly win. He still has to work for it but with the added convenience.

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johnKeys wrote:

why they do it, instead of stepping up the quantity AND quality of real, non-P2W MTX so more people buy them ?
instead of giving more free tabs to new accounts, to store all this new crap that was added over time, or adding in-game ways to get them (e.g. quest rewards) ?
instad of removing the stack size limit of orbs, so that if I can stack a thousand inside my elegant Currency Tab, you can stack a thousand inside your messy normal tab ?

and make a good trading system. with normal tabs.
heck I played SSF most of the recent 2 years in PoE, but now 1st day of trade went great.
all I had to do is label my Premium Tab as Public and set buyouts - and I sold a dozen amulets in one day. that's more than all my previous attempts at shops, combined.
can YOU do that without a Premium Tab ? fuck no !

With your statements above, you do realize that the "free" part of this free-to-play model of GGG, is that you can download the game, play all of its content, enjoy all the upcoming additions to the game, have a free hideout, have 24 character slots, and 4 stash tabs, all of it for free. The free part ends there, the rest GGG can monetize the game however they want. And you think buying stash tabs is unfair? You want those for free also? Because having 4 for free and 24 mules is inconvenient and you need more? I don't know what to say man. Maybe you need to prioritize which crap you pickup and which ones to leave behind. I dunno.

Again tell me, how many stash tabs, premium or otherwise does it take to win this game? Now how many AAA games can you buy with the cost of those stash tabs? How long have you been playing and consuming POE's content?

If you've played for almost 3 years maybe more, maybe supporting GGG with $100 is fair? I mean you could blow that to 2-3 AAA games in less than a year. That would net you 30 premium tabs non-discounted, should be enough right?

you do not get it and as you are new here - it is understandable

what John (and me, and many others) is not-so-happy about is the fact that GGG still advertises themselves as '100% ethical mtx' while this is no longer even close to the truth

noone here complains about company needing money or whatnot - im happy to pay for the service - but my gym does not advertise themselves as free and then ask me to pay for showers.

currently, to play the game with any reasonable comfort (aka - full product) you need at least a currency tab + 8 tabs (with one being premium). this is the minimal number where you are playing a game instead of enduring it.


the 'but it is not a win' strawmans keep away from this thread - they bring nothing, weve moved past these tricks 3 years ago

I still think they should add one premium tab to every account. In addition to the fact that they're super important for trading, POE has had an enormous amount of item bloat over the years. Divination cards, new maps, league specific items like essences, and tons of other additions mean that players run out of space in no time.

I think the added value of the premium tab will end up convincing players to spend more money, since they'll be able to see right away how useful premium tabs are. Maybe I'm wrong. GGG definitely seems to think I am since they haven't done this yet. In the end, only their opinion matters, and players who haven't spent any money yet have to keep dealing with the crappy, limited starter tabs.

It's also important to remember that free players are content for the rest of us. Having one premium tab will motivate more free players to sell drops instead of vendoring them, which will in turn increase the availability of stuff for everyone. It could also keep them playing longer, increasing the odds of finding a good group or friendly guildmates. Not everyone is going to spend money on a FTP game, and that's okay. GGG still wants those people to keep playing.

IMO, if you play the game long enough to need an extra tab, you probably should fork over the what, 15$ for a premium bundle (on sale). F2P doesn't mean "don't pay" -- it means that you can play... for free. Granted, GGG goes beyond that and doesn't want pay-for-advantage, and yes, having extra tabs IS an advantage.

The difference, for me, and the reason that GGG is still "ethical F2P", is that there is diminishing returns on the advantage/convenience that more tabs gives you. Having 20 premium tabs vs just 4 regular ones is, undeniably, a gameplay advantage and more convenient. But having 1000 premium tabs vs 100 of them is... negligible in terms of gameplay advantage, and arguably more INconvenience than convenience. I'm between 100 and 200 atm, and it's already approaching the point that it's more trouble than it's worth. Not to mention that 1/3 of the tabs are nothing but sets of 20 of each gem for my personal use, and 1/3 are nothing but 1 copy of every unique that I have for my personal use, and 2 extra copies of each for sale/giving to noobs. Even with that, I don't sell too many of them, and 95% of what I sell is 1c or less, and thus arguably not even worth the time to file/sell them.

A true P2W game, however, has no -- or practically little -- diminishing returns. As an example, I played Puzzle & Dragons for 2 years, and while I dropped maybe 200-300$ into it (reasonable IMO for supporting a game that I played daily for 2 years), you could EASILY throw 20-30$ a day on stoning stamina, plus 500$ on every collab/seasonal (every 3-4 weeks) and when strong new rare gods come out... before even approaching diminishing returns. Not to mention that you are seriously gimped unless you buy some packs to roll for gods (especially in the midgame).

If you don't go for any MTX, the average player would need, at most, maybe 60 premium tabs for maximal gameplay advantage and to remove any inconvenience. I don't think that 150$ as a cap is unreasonable to ask if you're playing a game for 1-2 years.

But yes, you can't expect to comfortably play the game at, say, the mapping level without dropping some cash into GGG's pocket. Devs gotta eat...

That being said, it might not be unfair (or a bad idea) to make 1 of the 4 free tabs a premium. It would allow non-paying players to use the trading functions, and maybe even encourage people to spring for premiums over regular if they buy more.

PS, don't throw additional features as GGG intending to "make more people buy more tabs". Plenty of people (myself included) begged GGG for years to add something like divination cards in order to reduce the RNG involved in dropping high-end items. Yes, as a side effect, it takes up stash space -- but WE asked for it, it wasn't some evil moneymaking scheme. Heck, if you take that argument to its extreme, GGG is evil for adding new skill gems, since those take up stash space too.