Noticed a strong buzz all around promoting pay to win china servers

Great discussion over here. I dont understand why force GGG to switch to chinease version in any kind. For me, and propably many players, GGG is unique and doing great job on their owne. If some1 think that China PoE is better, go play there. Case closed, cheers :)

If paying for extra inventory size is pay2win, then paying for more stash tabs, some actually enabling certain function like trade to work is also pay2win. Degree of pay2win is arbitrary.

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NexiieQT wrote:

If paying for extra inventory size is pay2win, then paying for more stash tabs, some actually enabling certain function like trade to work is also pay2win. Degree of pay2win is arbitrary.

So, as long as we already have some P2W elements (in your opinion), it's totally OK to add more?

Stash tabs are a one time purchase and their value will stay with you for ever. China's inventory space upgrade is a league based upgrade that disappears after the league, "forcing" you to keep spending money - on the same thing - to get the same experience as last league. The value is temporary (classic P2W). It's very... Unfortunate that you seem unable to distinguish the two, both morally and technically.

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Phrazz wrote:

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NexiieQT wrote:

If paying for extra inventory size is pay2win, then paying for more stash tabs, some actually enabling certain function like trade to work is also pay2win. Degree of pay2win is arbitrary.

So, as long as we already have some P2W elements (in your opinion), it's totally OK to add more?

Stash tabs are a one time purchase and their value will stay with you for ever. China's inventory space upgrade is a league based upgrade that disappears after the league, "forcing" you to keep spending money - on the same thing - to get the same experience as last league. The value is temporary (classic P2W). It's very... Unfortunate that you seem unable to distinguish the two, both morally and technically.

I'm completely indifferent. I know needing to keep pay over and over again for the inventory size upgrade sucks, but WHY would you want to buy it in the first place is the questionable part for me, because I see very little value in bigger inventory size in current PoE. If you choose to buy it, you should be held responsible for buying it in the first place, knowing that it only last for a league and not permanently, and if you do some research, you'd know people have been playing with the default size completely fine. The advantage of few more inventory spots are minimal specifically for PoE. Maybe down the line in the future if GGG decides to add D2 charms that you could put in inventory for bonuses, then we are talking.

You COULD argue it's a trap for oblivious new players to buy it thinking bigger inventory size is super awesome and it's greedy for Tencent to do that, that I can understand. I'm not a fan of that.

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NexiieQT wrote:

but WHY would you want to buy it in the first place is the questionable part for me

Why? Because more inventory feels better - always, no matter how much you have. But limiting your inventory space isn't done because of cruelty. It's a balance element. Inventory space is limited in almost all games, based on either balance or immersion. No matter how much inventory space people have, it WILL feel too small for a lot of people - so it's a very easy target for "I feel that I need this"-monetization models - which is totally OK, as long as the value stays with you.

Maybe we should notice that YET in western servers we have some "pay to win" as stash tabs, but for a minor price accessible by almost everyone (if you can buy the bandwidth/internet access then you can probably buy the minimal tabs features, like 20 or 30 $)
And it's the only P2W feature available yet. Tabs.


Then, Chinese servers:

Picking up 1 other "pay to win" element like:
- pet grabbing currency
- increased inventory size
- integrated planner
- ...
- ...

Saying "oh look, this is only a small feature, not really pay to win" is a complete mistake when we start to have like 10, 20, or more features stacking all together and for a far superior price than tabs. All impacting the gameplay.


That's it.

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Universalis wrote:

Maybe we should notice that YET in western servers we have some "pay to win" as stash tabs, but for a minor price accessible by almost everyone (if you can buy the bandwidth/internet access then you can probably buy the minimal tabs features, like 20 or 30 $)
And it's the only P2W feature available yet. Tabs.


Then, Chinese servers:

Picking up 1 other "pay to win" element like:
- pet grabbing currency
- increased inventory size
- integrated planner
- ...
- ...

Saying "oh look, this is only a small feature, not really pay to win" is a complete mistake when we start to have like 10, 20, or more features stacking all together and for a far superior price than tabs. All impacting the gameplay.


That's it.

Nothing on your post is p2win, none of it. Not a single one of them is an example of something that enables a paying player to do something that a non-paying player cannot. Free players can pick up currency. Free players have adequate inventory to play the game. Free players can plan their builds.

FFS, under most of the definitions of p2win I've seen in this thread, subscription fees are p2win. That is insane.

What i think is that a lot of people in this thread are missing the point that no feature needs necessarily to be introduced in a p2w fashion.

GGG could add most of those features for free without any problems.

I know that today when you pay for a husk of a game and have to pay for every "core" element of it as a DLC's it's hard to remember the old times when games were actually finished products and DLC`s were actual content expansions. I know it's hard, but try to remember those times.

For myself i would say that the following elements, added for free, would just enhance the gameplay experience:

1- Trade interface inside the game

2- Death recap

3- Loot button, as in you press the hotkey and it pickup all non-filtered items in a radius of 25(?) around your character. (from the item that occupies the least space to the most space)

4- Separated currency inventory, auto sort and quick deposit all.

We could even discuss that if GGG was not completely greed they would have already gave the ability to unlock a single half premmium trial stash for free after finding zana(or in other moment). Just to stop the p2w discussion.

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Mortyx wrote:

What i think is that a lot of people in this thread are missing the point that no feature needs necessarily to be introduced in a p2w fashion.

This.

For fuck's sake, people.

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Mortyx wrote:

I know that today when you pay for a husk of a game and have to pay for every "core" element of it as a DLC's it's hard to remember the old times when games were actually finished products and DLC`s were actual content expansions. I know it's hard, but try to remember those times.

I remember those times. I still support games like that with my money. Yes, they do exist, but not one of them is f2p.

F2P games generate revenue by selling stuff. Cosmetics, convenience items like exp boosters or bag space, pseudo-subscriptions like the battle pass in Fortnite and Dauntless, or actual p2win stuff like gear, skill points or other forms of player power. Just because a f2p game charges money for something doesn't make it p2win. The definition has been twisted beyond all reason by this generation of gamers to encompass anything that eases a pain point in a game and costs money.

POE, even in China, isn't p2win. Do they sell a whole hell of a lot of convenience there? Yes, they do, but still nothing that enables a paying player to do something a free player cannot do. The raid gear you can buy in Rift? P2Win. Everything related to temples in Skyforge? Total p2win. A vacuum pet with limited use? Not even close.

F2P games need to generate revenue to survive. Be glad that you can't buy gems and gear because that would actually be p2win. A temporary auction tab? GTFOH.