Let's talk about P2W - What is it? What is it not?
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This discussion hasn't changed in 5 years... thanks for the throw back.
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" This doesnt answer my question. What are you winning? I know what those tabs give you. My "goalpost" didnt change one bit. I from very start clearly said it all depends on how relevant said thing is, how relevant the advantage is etc. If in the end your purchase didnt matter then it cant be p2w. Also having fun is wasting time, enjoyable but in the end wasted time. Context, like with everything matters the most. Last edited by kuciol#0426 on Jul 17, 2020, 6:13:00 PM
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" Crafting leagues are a great example of how tabs are as close to P2W as you can get. In Synthesis, you combined various items in the synthesizer to create powerful gear. If you had more storage space, you could store (and farm for) more different items with different fractured mods to use in the synthesizer. People complained that the league was P2W because if you didn't have much storage space, you couldn't keep as many different items to throw in the synthesizer. Your storage space effectively capped the number of synthesized items you could create (and then presumably sell the ones you didn't choose to use for yourself). Harvest is slightly different, but the basic gist is, every few maps you are presented with dozens of 1-time crafting options. If you don't already have an item in your stash you can use the crafting on, and you haven't managed to craft the horti station, you may be out of luck. Sure, you could buy a suitable base, come back, craft it. But if it was less than perfect, would you have space to hang onto it to try again? Or would you have to vendor it and re-buy a new base to try again? The end result of crafting in both cases was to get powerful items that allowed you to accomplish more, to get more challenges done. So, in other words, to win (challenge-related mtx and display trophies). Or, to hoard currency or high-value items to sell so you have currency to buy your way into a rota to complete challenges/level to 100/unlock new content. These aren't free. Depending on the challenge completion you could pay a couple ex for a rota. Or even more, if your goal is to level to 100 based on high-exp breachstones or unlocking the 5th slot in your map device. So if your definition of "pay" is "buy stash tabs" or "buy mtx", and your definition of "win" is "unlock digital goods" or "get to 100" or "40/40 the league" or "wake your atlas to max", then, it IS a valid argument to say that PoE is P2W. This is more apparent during crafting leagues than during, say, races or currency-rich leagues where the league mechanic is highly dependent on its own currency and this determines the gating rather than your gear. (Delirium orbs, splints, and clusters were almost entirely self-fulfilling unlocks) I won't touch on the oft-mentioned "VD without stygian MTX is unplayable and laggy" complaint, because I doubt this was by design (although I do not see them stampeding to debug the skill even though it is literally the leading skill for necro atm). Ye, this is ipso facto P2W but it's only an outlier, whereas premium sell tabs, currency tabs, and other storage/sorting systems are more pervasively P2W. Is it bad? It looks bad. It feels bad. But hold up. It is one step removed from being strictly "Buy Powerful Improvements to your Character". It requires some industry and insight into the endgame mecanics and multiplayer market. A newbie with 100 premium quad tabs will get less "win" for his "pay" than a seasoned veteran with 1 premium tab and a currency tab; simply because he doesn't know what items are good, may not know how to price his sales items, may not know when and how to flip currency or how to sell a crafting bench. Some game studios are purists and will always tuck all their premium mtx in to the game as freebies dropped as an ultra-rare drop from gated content. So that they can claim every powerful item for sale in the mtx shop is also available for no cost, given enough effort and skill. Some of these are abusive (the drop tables are a cosmic joke; the boss almost requires the item before you can fight it) and some aren't. I have no idea how GGG might go about having a boss like say, Janus Perandus drop currency tabs on rare occasions, or Atziri drop frag tabs, or Aul drop a fossil tab. As for retention that might be better than even the best stash sale, and would boost the flagging value of sac frags and whatnot. [19:36]#Mirror_stacking_clown: try smoke ganja every day for 10 years and do memory game
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" I would still argue that its not P2W simply because it is not competitive and doable without stash tabs. All of this is not relevant simply because you set your own goals. You win absolutely nothing. All of you all the time tell me what stash tabs give, i know that pretty well. I dont need that. I asked simple question that still isnt answered. Does it suck to not have tabs? Sure. Do they help? Hell yeah. Are they p2w? No. There is nothing to win, game is completely doable without them, there is no advantage to having faster trades (SSF exists you know) when end result is the same. Last edited by kuciol#0426 on Jul 17, 2020, 6:31:45 PM
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" By your "new" (really borrowed) argument, it's impossible for this game to be pay2win, unless it turned fully pvp or tournament-based. Your goalpost has changed, and per your new goalpost the game can introduce pretty much any paid feature (including some that you yourself classed as pay2win earlier) and still not be pay2win, since there's nothing to win i.e. it's not a competitive game. Either that, or you seem to have completely misunderstood the nature of the argument you've borrowed and made your own now. Imo, the latter looks to be the case here - not only have your goalposts changed, but you also don't even understand what the new rule you've adopted implies. To clarify, by that argument it is literally impossible for entire genres of games to ever be pay2win no matter what they sell. Stash tabs, xp potions, whatever. Everything is allowed. The only games that can possibly be pay2win, per that definition, are competitive games, typically pvp ones. Such as Starcraft or Overwatch. Maybe even only ones that feature prizes. You're basically shunting the pay2win debate into only being relevant for certain genres, and completely inapplicable for others. As for how stash tabs and the like grant you those advantages, see crunks' comment above. Last edited by Exile009#1139 on Jul 17, 2020, 6:39:37 PM
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" I from the very beginning said that context matters when it comes to p2w. Nothing changed. Thats was my first original answer to post. If there is nothing to win, if the advantage doesnt matter, if the end result is the same then how can something be p2w? Something thats is p2w in 1 game may not be in another. Some things may be p2w for limited time and then they just stop being that. Even pve games can be p2w. It all boils down to how required it is for you to pay to reach games goal, not your own that you set up for yourself. Advantage in itself does not make game p2w. |
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" Isn't /ladder a competition? "Path of Exile's engine is currently modern, lean and fast." - Chris Wilson, September 19th, 2019
"It looks like we broke something with 3.10.0. We don't know what it is yet." - Bex, March 16th, 2020 |
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Pay to win has known definitions.
The most common definition is first. Scroll down in the link to see multiple definitions. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pay-to-win Trying to claim that PoE can't be pay to win because winning is not a thing in PoE is taking the word "win" literally and not understanding common usage of the term. The term has a different meaning in the context of what the phrase "pay to win" means when taking the definitions of pay and win separately and just meshing them together. Over 430 threads discussing labyrinth problems with over 1040 posters in support (thread # 1702621) Thank you all! GGG will implement a different method for ascension in PoE2. Retired!
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" It's not deceptive, it is true. Because what are the conditions for winning? There is no U in H2O, that is true, but you can say that there may be uranium in between the water molecules. First define where the water is, inside my drink, in the lake, or in the core of the nuclear reactor. Inside my drink the probability is low, inside the reactor core it is very likely. Now winning in PoE. Having the most exalts? Being number 1 in the ladder? Being the first to kill such and such boss? Deepest Delve? The best craft? These are for the 1% nolifers, for the rest of us this doesn't matter. The only problem GGG has is NOT if these 'pay-to-win' stuff is making players win more over the others, that is a non-issue. But if these transactions affect the player's experience of the game. If somehow these micros would break the world they have created for the player, and will it damage the supposed difficulty/challenge the player will experience. Will it break the illusion and diminish the fun of playing their game. This affects the bottom line. IMHO. Filthy Casual Scrub. "Belief is the strongest metal of them all." - Izaro Last edited by element274#1105 on Jul 18, 2020, 1:48:23 AM
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Unfortunately P2W has changed to incorporate many things which blur the lines and was / is facilitated by players and companies alike.
Put 2 identical people working towards the same goal(s) but give one paid for tools that give an advantage in reaching them and there you have a very simple baseline P2W scenario. Pay for Convenience (PFC) got pushed as something perceived more acceptable then pure P2W for a wider customer / player base. As mentioned by others P2W aspects are now common in many games in many forms and people are split on what constitutes P2W due to varying lvls of acceptance, tolerance, ethics, understanding and manipulation etc. Is POE P2W? With my own baseline it can apply to parts of the game but using the PFC not yet. I would generally agree it has slight / minor P2W elements but thats my own bias on where the line is at this time. To me its like asking if someone does something bad does that automatically make them a bad person? O_O |
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