Garena is adding skill tree resets as a micro transaction in 1.1.3. Thoughts?

I really don't like Things like EXP/MF-Weekends or the ReSpec-MTX personally & I especially like GGG for being quiet strict with these Things.
But I think Chris found the right Words to describe the Situation & I (partly) understand that.

desperate measures? that don't look so good..

Official post:

http://web.poe.garena.com/garena-page/news_inner/194

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Kamro wrote:

Okay for the sake of the argument lets say this MTX creates no value. Could you agree that it at least safes time or currency in a game that time and currency are essential ? And therefore its indirectly creates a time or currency adtvantage.

So do leveling uniques, which can be used to powergrind a character to the 60s or even 70s in a day or two. Pay a couple of chaos and faceroll your way through cruel and merciless up to A3. Is that also "Pay2Win," because it grants a significant time advantage?

Wurm's Mold, Ice Tomb, Lioneye's Paws, Slitherpinch, Goldrim, Crest of Perandus, Kaltenhalt, Limbsplit, Death's Harp, Mightflay, Geofri's Baptism, Rigvald's Charge, Shiversting - they can easily carry a character through a significant part of the game at a speed that is completely unattainable with self-found blue/yellow items.

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pneuma wrote:

Yes indeed, but stash tabs are a few minutes saved per month compared to using mule accounts.
Full respecs are considerably more time for money.

They're both pay2win, but stash tabs are well under most people's acceptable thresholds and paid respecs (especially when orbs of regret exist!) are quite a bit higher than that.

Good luck trying to run a mule-account based shop. The effort of continously relogging various mules and trading items between your own accounts before you can actually *sell* them is definitively much more than "a few minutes" per month. Even if it only takes half a minute per item to
* find the proper mule
* log into that account with a 2nd instance of the game
* find the item in the stash
* join party with the mule and trade the item to your main
you're guaranteed to waste several hours if you have a high-traffic shop.

Also, funny how nobody cries bloody murder over people having payed real money to design a unique item. One player has exclusive knowledge over upcoming content, and is able to play the market to maximize his profits once his unique item hits the game. Imagine all the currency to be made if you design a strong end-game unique item around skill that is commonly viewed as weak and not viable. You can buy the right skill and support gems for cheap before the patch, and can sell for huges profit after your unique item is discovered, because everyone and their dog wants to get his hands on the new endgame build instantly. Clearly Pay2Win!

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Psyborg wrote:

Official post:

http://web.poe.garena.com/garena-page/news_inner/194

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requested GGG to develop this microtransaction item

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peachii wrote:

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Psyborg wrote:

Official post:

http://web.poe.garena.com/garena-page/news_inner/194

For those who do not want to click - Actually very well written and explains why they did it.

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Passive Skill Point Reset
Dear Exiles,

As mentioned in the 1.1.3 patch notes, there is a new Microtransaction item called: Passive Skill Refund (Passive Skill Reset) in the upcoming patch.

The main reason why we have requested GGG to develop this microtransaction item is to allow
Players to try out new builds in Garena Path of Exile but they do not have the time to do so. From the user survey results, it was mentioned that users quit after building their passive skills wrongly.

Here are more details about Passive Skill Refund:
1. Passive Skill Refund is a consumable item which will refund one passive skill when you use it (right click on it).
2. Passive Skill Refund is untradeable. You will receive it in your microtransaction stash tab after you purchase it.

We apologise to the players who feel that we are taking a pay to win approach. We debated greatly over this decision and it was not an easy decision to make. As with the ongoing Real Money Trading problems in the server, we felt that Orb of Regrets are not being traded and the introduction of such a microtransaction would not be game breaking harmful. GGG has reiterated that it will never be added to their server and they will definitely not allow any MicroTransaction that breaks the spirit of Path of Exile.

In other words, yet again, the pyramid economy system shows how it fails at retention.

So, do we make the game less reliant on the flawed pyramid economy?

Like allow regret orbs and crafting orbs and content access to be gained at a reasonable rate from killing monsters rather than shopping?

No, we keep the flawed bad-for-retention model and add another path-of-least-resistance option by way of MTX, lol.

What's next? Crafting is super hard for a casual player, MTX eternal and exalt.
Content access is super hard for a casual player, MTX rolled 78s.

If this isn't yet another blatant shout that the pyramid economy, craft gating, content gating and as cited in this topic.. build gating; is bad for retention, in a model that requires retention to exist as a pyramid economy... then I dunno what is.

It's laughable.

Dump the stupid pyramid economy shopping design, in doing so.. fix retention, gain proper aRPG status and maybe even live up to the claim of a hardcore aRPG.

From Garena POE,

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Passive Skill Point Reset
Dear Exiles,
we felt that Orb of Regrets are not being traded and the introduction of such a microtransaction would not be game breaking harmful.

felt that Orb of Regrets are not being traded
felt that Orb of Regrets are not being traded
felt that Orb of Regrets are not being traded
felt that Orb of Regrets are not being traded



Are they serious? Or the sarcasm has taken into a whole new level?
They really trying to say that players not really into the earning of Regret Orbs to use?

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bunnyxian90 wrote:

From Garena POE,

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Passive Skill Point Reset
Dear Exiles,
we felt that Orb of Regrets are not being traded and the introduction of such a microtransaction would not be game breaking harmful.

felt that Orb of Regrets are not being traded
felt that Orb of Regrets are not being traded
felt that Orb of Regrets are not being traded
felt that Orb of Regrets are not being traded



Are they serious? Or the sarcasm has taken into a whole new level?
They really trying to say that players not really into the earning of Regret Orbs to use?

Yea, and the point does come to mind...if they feel that respecs should rain from the sky, why not just make Orbs of Regret cost a wisdom scroll at the a1 vendor? Hyperbolic example, yes...but it could be done without mtx. Its not just retention theyre after though I assume.

Edit: Also, one has to wonder what the "X for $Y" will be.