Going by your logic, so long as everything that is beneficial to a whale is implemented via RNG instead of handed outright, it is acceptable?
Stop using League as an argument point if you havenât played it. All it is doing is making you look like a naive tool. I played League for 4 years and if anything can be used for a Pay2Win argument are the rune pages. Not the champions. However that is off-topic and not going to dive into that.
Regardless; just because the token can be bought by free players doesnât mean it isnât P2W. My ideology of P2W is exclusivity and stat increasing gear/cosmetics; so the token isnât P2W to me. However to others it is.
I canât argue against the fact that the token giving 3 Move speed needs to be removed or revamped however.
No, thats not how it works. This game more or less requires token if you want to play it seriously. While you have the option to buy it from other players for in game money, someone is buying it all the same. That means this game already has the full income of a regular subscription based mmo on the plate among all the people who will bother playing this game seriously.
On top of that the cosmetic shop is kind of pricey, not that big a deal since the cosmetics job is to basically let you be elitist, but thats added income on top of what is already effectively a full subscription.
They do not need anything but token and cosmetics to make more per player than traditional subscription based mmos do.
Ive already spent $90 on this, im not going to spend $9000, and while some would, driving away the players from their established token/subscription based model by pandering to small numbers of whales will cost them more in the long run.
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âStats on shop costumesâ is one of the aspects I hated with passion in Granado Espada (and pretty much every other f2p MMO desperate enough to try them).
This âfeatureâ has to go where it belongs, and that is down the drain.
Dyes, skins, convenience items - sure.
Stats that come from the shop - nope.
Whether or not the stats are significant or not is besides the point. The issue is what this tells the developers and the community what is okay.
Maybe the stats arenât significant at all, maybe itâs possible to grind for a billion years and hopefully get it as a singular drop once in a lifetime from a boss monster.
This makes it so grinding is effectively WORSE than spending money, you are punished for playing the game; while the stat advantage you have might not be that significant nowâŚthe game isnât even a year old(as far as official release goes) and this is already a thing. Whatâs to say they wonât steadily increase the amount of P2W features as the years go by?
If you are going to give players the ability to give themselves a head-start by spending money, you HAVE to balance it out by making grinding actually enticing; and ultimately the better option in the long run. This can be done by limiting ââadvantagesââ to being low-to-mid tier in terms of endgame, but allow the endgame gear and upgrades that take ACTUAL ingame work outshine the buy2win. This makes it so that even if I was a rich player and shamelessly threw money to get a good boost, I would still have an incentive to actually play the game to get better stuff.
I personally spend a lot of money on F2P games, Iâve spent over 2000$ on Maplestory alone and have spent well over 5000$ in F2P gaming in total; a huge problem with pay2win aspects is that they make actually -playing- the game unattractive. I could work for an hour a day at minimum wage, or spend 8 hours a day ingame for a insignificant chance of acheiving the same level of benefit, I am PUNISHED for playing the game and that is NOT a healthy way to have a game be, especially in a game like ToS.
This game is clearly a nostalgia wave that calls back to the old days where grinding was taken more seriously, and seeing as there are literal classes that are purely made to be economical powers they really canât afford to start making things pay2win like this; you canât tell me they wonât be pressured to dumb down the game further and allow even more pay2win features. Itâs a bad sign, and I donât blame people for feeling worried.
The advantages still stands against free to play players. You needed like 4 yrs before you can acquire all the champions then? Look now, paying customers can get those in an instant without sweat at all. Thats the advantage. LOL is also a good example how to make money ingame, thats why vicioushellsing used it as an argument. Champions are the same to TOS tokens, can be bought by any types of players. Tokens are P2W attributes it is obvious.
Champions didnât seem like a big deal to me in League for the time I played it; most champions I saw were very viable and the only reason some of the would be legitimately weaker than others is bad balancingâŚnot intentional, they even cycle the champions so free players get to try out new ones and are practically given the starting cash to permanently buy one champion they feel strongly over.
The Runes seemed like a much bigger issue, and a reason I donât think Iâd ever get into LoL; an outside stat boost in a Moba just feels like bad Moba design and that is definitely a much better method of earning cash imo.
Can you guys please stop comparing LoL with ToS? And call people âyou know nothing about itâ when youre the ones comparing them x.x
One billion times: LoL is an effing MMOBA - making MMOBAs NOT p2w is the easiest thing in the world - you cannot compare them to MMORPG - despite the fact that lotsa people love that genre and the market isnt filled with those like MMORPG (idk even how many MMORPG we got but must be in the 100s)
And to those who called early access p2w - then buying champs with real money is p2w in MMOBAs as well âcause you get the benefit earlier than others while they must play sucky champs to earn the in game currencyâ bla bla ⌠whatever silly stuff going on here xD
Itâs true, in North America especially, the game allowing players to pay to get ahead of others is one of the most unattractive features in and out of MMOs. Shortcuts to some items everyone can obtain are not as bad if they can reasonably be obtained (none of this kill 10k of this low level mob bs), like in Planetside 2 . People will play your game if itâs good and will keep playing if the updates are constant. What killed planetside 2 were the lack of support and questionable business moves.
Another example would be when MapleStory launched its Reboot server which was dubbed the ânon pay to win serverâ People who hadnât played MapleStory in a decade came back just to play on that server and it was packed for months. Yet where they messed up was that there wasnât enough content for people to stay, what was there was really repetitive, too easy and they had some unattractive cosmetics in the cash shop for the server (with a 90 day duration). Maplestory also has no PVP or GVG so it amplifies the previous issues.
Jynxie10, let me put this in as simple terms as possible for you. If I am playing league of legends, and I play as a character (lets say annie). And you are playing the same character. No amount of money will give me an advantage over you. We will be on completely equal footing.
Now lets take what IMC is doing with their cash shop. Lets say we are both playing the same class. If one of us utilizes the cash shop, that person will have an actual statistical advantage over the other person. One of us could in theory have 6 movespeed, 3 AOE, and more magic damage compared to the other person.
But lets break it down to even the most simple version. One of us could simply have more attack power and while we beat on each other the other player will always lose.
What IMC needs is for the only difference between my swordsman and yours is our hair styles and costumes. Not how much damage, how fast we move, or how good we are at farming. I have no problem at all supporting a company with cosmetics. I own every single katarina skin in League of legends. thats almost 100$ in pure cosmetics. If the game is fun, people with money will support it. If the game is imbalanced because people spend money, it isnât fun. And it hurts the game in the long run.
You comparing this to lol is quite funny. Having more champions doesnt make you win anything , skill is important for that game, more than your amount of champions lol. It doesnt make any sense that argument of yours.
IMC are being very sneaky. First they have the founder pack fiasco. Then they go back on their word, release a vote that is clearly rigged (Anyone would go with B) and then they sell said founder packs as DLC not Early Access thus making them non refundable. All while they are downplaying this P2W issue, basically ignoring it.
Sneaky sneaky.
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Youâre a tool. End of story. Have fun being a tool.
To everyone else; sorry 
Lose an argument name calling someone. I dont feel like going down to your level though.
Runes canât be bought with real cash and they only make a difference at level 30 which can take a while. By that point you know what to buy and you have champions you like that you are most likely going to be buying runes for exclusively. They really nearly perfected their play and earn as you go system.
FOR GODS SAKE THIS IS A MMORPG NOT A MMOBA YOU WILL ALWAYS ENCOUNTER PEOPLE STRONGER OR WEAKER THAN YOU CAUSE WE DO HAVE WHAT MAJOR MMOBAS DONT HAVE WICH IS CALLED PERMANENT EQUIPMENT
Its like comparing sun and moon âoh the sun shines brighter and the moon doesn thats so unfair thats p2shineâ x.x people these days
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Even ignoring the competitive aspects; adding stat-gachapons messes up with the development of the game to a very terrible degree and literally makes playing the game a chore.
When you insert these items into a game, it increases the ââstandard of powerââ players are going to have. Once players can start soloing bosses in 30 seconds, new content that is developed has to be developed with this power level in mind. They then have to buff their bosses(often unfairly) to compete with this power.
Players who do not drastically squander away money for these stat advantages are not able to get to this content in a timely manner at all. Even if they are better in skill and more efficient in their farming it just becomes more and more futile to even try when you can just work for a couple of hours at your job and throw in a quick 50$ and roll some stats.
If they do not balance bosses with this power level in mind, it ruins the economy for that boss. The pay2win statted characters will be soloing these bosses at extremely alarming rates, there will be no incentive to farm that boss yourself as the items they could potentialy drop have already been flooded throughout the market. This isnât really an option for a game like ToS which obviously tries to take its economy seriously.
Giving the players the power to buy a RNG stat boosting item is the prelude to a games castration, I really donât understand why they are making these decisions with this game. This game; when it was announcedâŚwas practically selling itself, it had ONE job and in the past few months Iâve been lurking these boards it seems they have demonstrated concerning practices time and time again.
I donât care about the Founders Pack thing, Iâm a player who isnât afraid to use cash in a game they playâŚbut when they start Gachaponning outfits and making RNG stat-boosting items it stops becoming a matter of enjoying the game and encourages really bad habbits for the developers.
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Well I this topic could go on forever just like any other p2w topic.
Iâd not judge anything until I actually play it and see how things work.
Maximum TP for free player is 5, magic scroll is 8 TP. (kToS)
If I can find a way to cover 3 TP without paying. Then nothing is matter here.
Just a friendly note though, money didnât came out of no where. Someone have to spend time to make it. So thereâs nothing wrong if they spend money to take their time back.
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The fact that virtual gambling is legal in USA does not budge the fact that THIS kind of monetization is NOT a solution:
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So people are allowed to throw away real money for an unjustified cause.
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Reduced emotional investment in the game and the community itself.
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IF there is no real benefit to having Pay2Win headgears, why do they exist?
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honestly the game doesnât need it. itâs fine without!
Clearly, nothing GOOD can come out of throwing money into a slot machine. At the end of the day TOS is just turning your computer into an online casino, except you get zero real life benefit.
Additionally how does it effect the community:
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creates a divide between f2p players and those that invest in these slot machines systems that promotes boosters and cash item enhancers.
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Alchemists which is a class specifically only has value in Awakening and making potions, but if i can get ele atk from headgear that i bought on the market for 100k because someone paid real money and sold their headgear on the market. There will be no reason for Alchemists to Awaken items due to this.
Clearly they are polluting their own game by changing the way things should and shouldnât be. This is because the gameplay itself should be solid without boosters and pay2win items.
- It encourages a lazy-player mindset, that want instant gratification. But this game is about investment and playing your character out, trying new builds and enjoying the game with your friends. Or is this not the game that I am playing on the 29th March when the server opens?
Maybe I made a mistake paying $50 to support the game?
Ok so I havenât proposed a solution. This is more about the modern gamer mentality, casual, core and hardcore. What do you as a company expect from your community.
Iâm saying the solution is simple:
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Encourage social activity, increase the number of fun things you can do in the game. Make it so that we can enjoy those things as a party, in a group so that we can have fun as a community.
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Upon executing additional contents to improve the community aspect of the experience for f2p players, we can THEN, consider cash shop benefits but without creating a divide in the community:
Cosmetics:
- Hair styles!
- Costumes! (Well Done!!!)
Premium benefits (subscription):
- Dungeon entrance +2 (Great!)
- Additional move speed +3. Not too much not too little!
- Additional Buff slot +1
- Premium animated emotes. Nice touch! love it.
^ Nice Job IMC, just these alone is good. Not adding stat boosters, or random stats. Just supporting the game that we love because itâs a good game! Doesnât divide the community or restrict content, or make items just for stat bonuses.
What else can we add to this list without dividing the community and isnât a money sink:
Starter Packs
- (swordsman, wizard, archer, cleric) with unique and fixed stats that are good until level 170, in which you have to start hunting your own gear, buying it from the market, hunting mats, etc. You also get a selection of potions, such as movement speed, low level exp cards for a small headstart, hp/mp potions, etc, etc.
Collectible booster packs
- Cards that work in a card game, these cards can also be farmed from specific monsters at a low drop rate. Also a chance to get rare cards. Note: All cards do not apply any benefits to your character.
##Pet Tame Items
- Items used to tame monsters like popolion and various other creatures in the game.
The point is. There are many interesting contents that are unrelated to convenience and gameplay that do not relate to what has been previously discussed. Random chance Pay2Win economy or otherwise.
We can establish our own Brand of game, and make that the selling point of Tree of Savior. What content, should we make available in the game that makes it fun and enjoyable and I say this loudlyâŚ
As A Community
That is time not properly balanced in the rewards for it. Bill Gates shouldnât be able to effectively ruin this game because heâs rich in real life and doesnât care about the overall balance of the game and doesnât have time out of his busy rich life to actually play the game.
Having pay-for-convenience options is fine as long as it doesnât vastly overpower actually playing the game, the only way to justify this would be making the cash version of the scroll have lower ceilings(much much lower ceilings) and allow players to grind for much stronger versions of the scrolls. People who donât cash and want to actually farm donât have their presence removed from the game, and the casher who just wants to have a convenient path to level 200+ or whatever still has motivation to play the game to get even stronger gearâŚ
Itâs true we canât judge everything because ââItâs still in beta dude!ââ but these features are nothing new to the gaming industry at all. They have been tried and true methods of effectively burning the fun and love of online games to dust all for the sake of a couple of extra bucks, and the signs are there. It needs to be made clear before these features are even added that they are NOT OKAY.