The people how play without pay is population as much people in the equation more possible benefit in the future, if you play you are helping the game, they need population as much as possible.
The people how play without pay is population as much people in the equation more possible benefit in the future, if you play you are helping the game, they need population as much as possible.
Break the equation and you run out the benefits
I'd be hard pressed to come up with bigger BS. A company does NOT earn money off the number of players but only off the number of paying customers. The only reason they let you play for "free" is to make you into paying customers. They have NO vested interest in you beyond that.
Every single one of you cheap freeloaders wastes bandwidth and server resources which could be put to much better use. And no illogical excuse you make for your parasitic mindset makes you in any way or manner useful for the developers or the paying population.
It won't happen anymore but I sure had hoped for a box + sub model to not have to read the iditotic whines of people pretending to not being able to spare 15 bucks / month for entertainment while at the same time being able to have a state of the art gaming rig and broadband internet and endless hours of free time for games instead of jobs.
This isn't wildstar, with the 60$ buyin and a cash shop. It's likewise not Planetside 2 levels of cost, as being a patron is just more in line with your traditional subscription, instead of bumping up the price of everything to crazy levels.
If you don't like it, that's your prerogative I suppose, I just don't see how this is some major failing of the game, as I have read repeatedly now, from multiple sources.
If F2P peeps complain about labor points it just makes me facepalm. If people can't afford 15 $ or EUR per month, I am amazed they can afford computers that can even run AA. Or the interwebz bill. Or food. Place to sleep. Stuff like that.
On the other hand I'm still waiting for videos of people going to restaurants demanding they get meals for free, or any other stuff for that matter. Gief free, I r customer, me right!
Anyway, you'll be able to buy patron status on AH. Which is one more thing that amazes me: usually it takes a lot of some sort of grinding (granted, some people enjoy it) to earn ingame gold to buy that stuff. And that equates to idk 1-3 hours of actual RL work. I'm guessing people that can't afford 15$ don't have any skillsets that enable them higher income in which case I would advise some sort of self-reflection why that is so.
Third amazing thing is: where is all the outrage at single-player games? Stuff costs up to 50-70 EUR for normal editions. Some games are as short as 4-5 hours with crappy replay value. Where is the hate, the outrage, the bile, the trolls and the haters? I can play hundreds of hours of MMOs for that money. Do I just hang on wrong forums (I don't visit the devs forums I guess)? And yet, 15$ is enough for people to go spastic.
As for LP even with patron. Dunno, alpha servers are bad indication, double regen is so much LP you can throw it away. On beta it's slower, but still, to get anywhere decently fast with anykind of crafting, gotta do it as a guild (or trade a lot). In Wildstar I could go from 0 to soft cap max crating in few hours, then it was gated behind boring as fuck daily grind. Is this what people want? Either few hours or some time gated grind? No thx. I'm happy to see a game where guild cooperation matters (beyond doing instances over and over and over again).
I have almost 200 hrs through all 4 of the CB events. I didn't play on 4 simply because I don't want to deal with the labor system. Don't get me wrong, it does have its good points, but i think the penalties for the F2P player and even for those who don't invest heavilly into Labor Pots are such that it will essentially drive players away. The world is large, the things you can do revolve around crafting and exploring on a large basis. Crafting requires RIDICULOUS amounts of Labor per piece and honestly, i don't think that is going to change. Housing requires as big an investment. You spend labor for essentially everything.
Now the fanboi's will have an argument to keep the system that involves "Get a guild, world pvp! rawr" but in the end, i think it will be you and your guild running around by yourselves killing the random dude that happens to log in for nostalgia.
With 95% of the game requiring labor to progress I can't honestly invest in something that I really believe will be a ghost town.
I believe there were two intentions with the Labor Point system. It's already been stated that it's for the purpose of making the company money; but I also believe that this could be a good "moderator" for many players. For those who won't be spending money on Labor potions, it's an incentive to step away for few hours and wait for your points to recover. This keeps the person playing longer, because they cannot farm everything in one sitting. This would keep many players from getting their dose of AA too quickly, and would be an incentive for you to play LONGER, rather than FASTER.
Having said that, however, I feel like this will turn many players away.
Also, I'm NOT a patron, so I know what it's like on the F2P-side of the Labor System (having played CBT3 & 4).
A game that forces me to stop playing for any arbritary reason is a game that I will not come back to play again, I stop when I want, the game does not know when I want to stop or when its best for me to stop, I absolutely cannot see ANY situation in which forcing me to stop playing is a good thing.
The thing is....it doesn't force you to stop playing, only to do something else whilst you regen some LP.
Your rationale is the same as saying "I went to buy a new sword but didnt have enough gold, so the game FORCED me to stop playing...."
As long as when you are a subscriber, and as a crafter you can continue crafting as long as you have the materials without worrying about running out of labour points that is fine. If however, the amount of crafting you can carry out is limited by the amount of labour points you have, without recourse to purchasing labour potions from the cash shop then that would be a huge issue for some, at least for the dedicated crafters, which if anyone has any knowledge of SWG, was a significant part of that games community. As long as when you subscribe, you are not in danger of running out of labour points when you play, fine, but if you do and all you can do is either buy labour potions or go offline, or as some suggest, grind mobs because that activity doesn't take labour points.. how fun that must be! NOT.
1,000 Labor Points requires a F2P account being logged in for 1,000 minutes to earn that amount. Crafting a single piece of level 18 armor cost me 100 LP. The mats were provided via a quest, otherwise I would also have to factor in the labor point cost of gathering and possible refining those mats. Also remember that all loot drops from mobs drop in bags. Those bags initially require 1LP each to open, but around level 15 you start getting a higher tier bag that requires 2 each. I assume that there are higher tier bags that require even more.
You can also purchase 1,000 LP for about $2.00.
The problem is that unlike Patron accounts, F2P accounts do not generate LP when logged out. By day two of the recent beta I was continually below 100 LP, sometimes dipping to zero. This only turned around by leaving my PC on and my character logged in for 16 hours while I was sleeping or about my day. That's not an ideal situation for a player or for Trion.
Giving F2P accounts some degree of offline LP generation, so causal "weekend warriors" could always log in and expect a reasonable pool of LP to work with for their limited play schedule, would make a huge difference and would also cut way down of AFK LP generation, with player electricity and Trion player capacity being wasted by inactive log ins.
Being able to buy 1,000 LP for $2.00 may seem a reasonable work around for some, but it just doesn't provide enough LP/$ to make Buy As You Go a viable alternative to subscribing for casual or weekend only players.
Non-patrons also can not own property, or pay taxes on properties they bought when they did have Patron status. Trion is saying they are looking at ways to allow Non-patrons to buy these perks A La Carte post launch. For the casual or weekender, the total cost of LP plus land owning rights would have to be less than $3.25/week, or it just wouldn't be worth it.
I think there is a massive amount of potential revenue their they will miss out on if the current model isn't tweaked.
The funny thing about cash shops is that if customers feel the price of things they "need" are reasonable, they are very likely to spend more than that on other stuff they want, like cosmetic items, mounts, or even a little extra LP for a big project. If Trion can find a way to offer F2P players a fairly full game experience for around $2.00 to $2.50 a week, reasonable Labor Points and some level of Property ownership, many people unwilling to commit to a Sub will likely be willing to buy in A La Carte. Many of those people will probably spend more than $15/month anyway, once optionals are tagged on. However, that all hinges on players feeling they are getting fair value for their purchases.
The current system does not really offer fair value for an A La Carte approach to the game. It also leaves many Patrons worried that the system will put pressure on subscribers to pay additional money each month, not on cosmetics, but on things they will need to remain competitive with Wallet Warriors.
F2P is currently more like a limited feature set Free Trial and Patron Status doesn't offer the same value that $15/month offers in a purely subscription based game. The math can be changed to correct both issues, but if it isn't, the current business model will be very detrimental to the game and it's revenue potential.
I personally do not believe the theory that if you make it necessary for people to spend they are less likely to. I think these f2p/optional sub games support themselves solely on whales and subscribers. Those who will not pay will not do so period. It is all nonsense when they say if you do not force me to pay something I am more likely to. Sorry if you are not forced to by inconvenience or otherwise you will not because you do not want to support the company you just want to freeload is all.
Further if spending money on electricity is better than paying the game company then that should be an even bigger sign that these people on principle think they should have the whole game for free. No these type of people should not be supported they will not spend their money on the game just drain the resources and only thing they are good for is provide fodder for PvP and make the game look busy.
I have almost 200 hrs through all 4 of the CB events. I didn't play on 4 simply because I don't want to deal with the labor system. Don't get me wrong, it does have its good points, but i think the penalties for the F2P player and even for those who don't invest heavilly into Labor Pots are such that it will essentially drive players away. The world is large, the things you can do revolve around crafting and exploring on a large basis. Crafting requires RIDICULOUS amounts of Labor per piece and honestly, i don't think that is going to change. Housing requires as big an investment. You spend labor for essentially everything.
Now the fanboi's will have an argument to keep the system that involves "Get a guild, world pvp! rawr" but in the end, i think it will be you and your guild running around by yourselves killing the random dude that happens to log in for nostalgia.
With 95% of the game requiring labor to progress I can't honestly invest in something that I really believe will be a ghost town.
I believe there were two intentions with the Labor Point system. It's already been stated that it's for the purpose of making the company money; but I also believe that this could be a good "moderator" for many players. For those who won't be spending money on Labor potions, it's an incentive to step away for few hours and wait for your points to recover. This keeps the person playing longer, because they cannot farm everything in one sitting. This would keep many players from getting their dose of AA too quickly, and would be an incentive for you to play LONGER, rather than FASTER.
Having said that, however, I feel like this will turn many players away.
Also, I'm NOT a patron, so I know what it's like on the F2P-side of the Labor System (having played CBT3 & 4).
A game that forces me to stop playing for any arbritary reason is a game that I will not come back to play again, I stop when I want, the game does not know when I want to stop or when its best for me to stop, I absolutely cannot see ANY situation in which forcing me to stop playing is a good thing.
The thing is....it doesn't force you to stop playing, only to do something else whilst you regen some LP.
Your rationale is the same as saying "I went to buy a new sword but didnt have enough gold, so the game FORCED me to stop playing...."
As long as when you are a subscriber, and as a crafter you can continue crafting as long as you have the materials without worrying about running out of labour points that is fine. If however, the amount of crafting you can carry out is limited by the amount of labour points you have, without recourse to purchasing labour potions from the cash shop then that would be a huge issue for some, at least for the dedicated crafters, which if anyone has any knowledge of SWG, was a significant part of that games community. As long as when you subscribe, you are not in danger of running out of labour points when you play, fine, but if you do and all you can do is either buy labour potions or go offline, or as some suggest, grind mobs because that activity doesn't take labour points.. how fun that must be! NOT.
I've been playing as F2P in CB4.
I got 5 LP every 5 mins online. No regen offline.
I've played solidly 4 - 5 hours every night of CB4 and even as F2P the LP issues was just about manageable. Sure, a couple of times I had a pile of coin purses built up and thought, well I had better wait and open them all later when I have some LP built up, otherwise I could open them all now and gimp myself for anything else that required LP.
Big deal. I waited and opened them all later.
Now I do concede that if I could have placed my own farm and house, I would have probably burned through more LP than I did, but even as F2P I was able to get to level 15, do a trade run and do some smelting, masonry, carpentry, plant and harvest some farming stuff...and yes even open all of my coin purses and quest rewards. I just had to manage when and how I spent my LP accordingly. Plus I did find myself leaving the game logged in when going for a smoke, making a coffee things like that.
By the end of CB I had about 600 LP unused.
Given that subscribers get 10 LP every 5 mins online PLUS 5 LP every 5 mins offline, PLUS the ability to regen 25% of your total LP pool once per day by sleeping (I think this is still true anyway) I really can't see the LP issue being a factor for a subscriber who is able to prioritise and use the LP effectively.
Do you need to micro manage a little? Sure you do but theres nothing wrong with that imo.
I personally do not believe the theory that if you make it necessary for people to spend they are less likely to. I think these f2p/optional sub games support themselves solely on whales and subscribers. Those who will not pay will not do so period. It is all nonsense when they say if you do not force me to pay something I am more likely to. Sorry if you are not forced to by inconvenience or otherwise you will not because you do not want to support the company you just want to freeload is all.
You would be right, but you can't call it an inconvenience at all lol, running out of bag slots or char slots is an inconvenience. Being completely blocked off from game play is next level shit.
And agian you're right the "whales" are what keep the game going, but the way the game is setup and how sub players are acting the game isn't going to see so called "whales" anytime soon.
I am a patron and I ran out of LP kind of fast once I learned the crafting. Thankfully I am a pvper at heart so I just go do that when im building LP back up.
The only problem I see is it sucks for people like my wife. She likes to log on and craft and thats all she ever does in MMOs and she enjoys it. If IM running out of LP from crafting which I suck at, Im sure she will be out within 30 minutes lol......
again I don't mind, but this is one game she legit can't play without buying LP potions and a sub
BTW I logged off with 0 LP and logged on the next day with 1,000 as a patron.....I think I should at least have 5,000 again to start the day
What is a mmorpg without population for customers?
The freeplayer are props for the game?
The ratio can be 0/100.
Customers ARE population. Less servers, less markting fluff of how many people are registered, but also less whiners.
No. They are a burden we have to endure coz some marketing guru has statistics that some of you convert into customers. Which is probably true in games which require less brain, cooperation and replanning. I doubt it very much for ArcheAge. The whining F2P folks will leave within a month or 2 anyways and the oney who see the F2P as chance and challenge don't whine.
A patron status player only have issues with LP if want to play solo and do everthing alone.
AA is design to play with others directly (friends, guilds) or indirectly (AH).
When someone want to craft gear, dont waste LP minning or smelting, get from others because theres ppl that only spend LP minning.
When someone want to make alot of trade runs, dont farm everthing, theres alot of player farming only and sell it in AH.
When someone want to fish, keep the LP for fishing and get what it needs from others.
Etc, etc.
I learn this playing in RU and i like the system, whatever i had trying to sell in AH allways sell it because theres a live economy where players need each others.
The solo players will not be happy in AA unless the casual Patrons ones that have allways LP to max.
About F2P have nothing to comment because i really dont care to be honest.
A patron status player only have issues with LP if want to play solo and do everthing alone.
AA is design to play with others directly (friends, guilds) or indirectly (AH).
When someone want to craft gear, dont waste LP minning or smelting, get from others because theres ppl that only spend LP minning.
When someone want to make alot of trade runs, dont farm everthing, theres alot of player farming only and sell it in AH.
When someone want to fish, keep the LP for fishing and get what it needs from others.
Etc, etc.
I learn this playing in RU and i like the system, whatever i had trying to sell in AH allways sell it because theres a live economy where players need each others.
The solo players will not be happy in AA unless the casual Patrons ones that have allways LP to max.
About F2P have nothing to comment because i really dont care to be honest.
Yea I hear what your saying, only thing is wouldn't all that buying from AH cost gold? Im broke and I think alot of people are lol
See, the difference between you and I and those who carry your same sentiment is ... i think this P2W excuse is pure hogwash. I am of the sentiment that if another player puts more into a game, be it via effort or money, then that player deserves that advantage. If I want to even the odds, then my only recourse should be to either put as much effort or money into the game as the other player, or shut up.
The fact that another player is willing, or able, to put more money or effort into a game should only be an excuse if you are, for whatever reason, unable to expend the same effort or money to achieve the same result as the other player. And the common excuses of having limited time due to RL issues or being poor are not legitimate excuses. You either make the time required, or make the necessary money, or hush it.
Life isn't fair people. The game isn't won on a computer game, the game is won in real life through personal effort, determination, education, desire, a hard work ethic, and a sprinkle of luck. If you fall short on any of those, don't blame the opposing player, blame yourself.
And those people who put more into a game have always been there. They buy gold, play 20 hrs a day multibox accounts, have multiple players on the same accounts etc etc. And they've been "winning" since games were invented...but when they're out of sight, they're out of mind. AAs system puts it all right there infront of everyone and that's why it's a problem.
Why some of the most outspoken casual players are suddenly saying it's not fair that people can buy LP and win is beyond me. Removing LP isn't going to even the odds. It would make it worse for most of the people against it.
But LP isn't going to even out anything. The idea that LP keeps crafting in check so the economy isn't dominated and run out of control is false. It will reduce the number of marketed items generated through game play. All this will do is increase the dominance of players trading in Cash Shop goods.
AA F2P system is much like SoE games that are F2P. They are trails that let you try everything up to end game and if you wana join the end game community you need to sub. This is the best F2P system as anyone can try the game and get a full idea if they like the game. People who want to join the end game community will sub and support the game. Between now and people getting to know how AA works, there will be a lot of crying over it not being really F2P. Both sides need to get used to that.
Many things do not take labor points. You get 1 point every minute. That is more than enough to open loot and quest rewards. It would be difficult to pay taxes on your property, but f2p players can't own property. Labor gives you no advantage in combat. You could be a F2P pirate without any disadvantage at all. If you want to be a farmer, good luck. Either way, that is not P2W. It is subscribe for the full experience.
Yes, you can buy labor potions, but I can't imagine how people could actually need them. Subscribers have more than enough, unless they are mining 6 hours a day.
Pay2Win does not have a very specific definition, it only works to define the extremes, AA does not fall on an extreme, if we go by the definition "pay to have an advantage over non-payers" we get a big list of F2P games that can be considered pay2win but no one really considers them pay2win.
This slang should not be loosely used around as it rarely will allow for a proper discussion about it, as far as I have seen everyone goes "but my personal definition of pay2win is like this...".
Labor gives a clear advantage to the crafter who spends more RL money on it, that, seeing as how the game has a big focus on crafting, is not a good feature to have at all.
The difference is, this is essentially a subscription based game. You simply cannot do everything on a free account. You cannot own land, which makes crafting much harder. Beyond the subscription, real money doesn't get you anything. It is not P2W. It is P2P, with F2P offering a lesser experience for free. Though even then, there are certain things you can do without any disadvantages. PVP. Piracy. Etc.
I don't care about free accounts, I care about paying a sub and still having LP being used on me and having to buy LP potions from the cash store, for me thats a disheartening cash grab. So in the end, the hardcore crafter who buy potions have a clear advantage on the hardcore crafter that does not, this is why I'm saying the term pay2win can be applied to this game and many others because it's not a clearly defined term and its commonly used as "pay2have-an-advantage". You just said "but my personal definiton of pay2win is like this..." while I said the term is not to be used except on extremes.
Originally posted by BetaBlocka
Originally posted by Manasong
Originally posted by Spradomatic
Originally posted by Dancwith
I have almost 200 hrs through all 4 of the CB events. I didn't play on 4 simply because I don't want to deal with the labor system. Don't get me wrong, it does have its good points, but i think the penalties for the F2P player and even for those who don't invest heavilly into Labor Pots are such that it will essentially drive players away. The world is large, the things you can do revolve around crafting and exploring on a large basis. Crafting requires RIDICULOUS amounts of Labor per piece and honestly, i don't think that is going to change. Housing requires as big an investment. You spend labor for essentially everything.
Now the fanboi's will have an argument to keep the system that involves "Get a guild, world pvp! rawr" but in the end, i think it will be you and your guild running around by yourselves killing the random dude that happens to log in for nostalgia.
With 95% of the game requiring labor to progress I can't honestly invest in something that I really believe will be a ghost town.
I believe there were two intentions with the Labor Point system. It's already been stated that it's for the purpose of making the company money; but I also believe that this could be a good "moderator" for many players. For those who won't be spending money on Labor potions, it's an incentive to step away for few hours and wait for your points to recover. This keeps the person playing longer, because they cannot farm everything in one sitting. This would keep many players from getting their dose of AA too quickly, and would be an incentive for you to play LONGER, rather than FASTER.
Having said that, however, I feel like this will turn many players away.
Also, I'm NOT a patron, so I know what it's like on the F2P-side of the Labor System (having played CBT3 & 4).
A game that forces me to stop playing for any arbritary reason is a game that I will not come back to play again, I stop when I want, the game does not know when I want to stop or when its best for me to stop, I absolutely cannot see ANY situation in which forcing me to stop playing is a good thing.
The thing is....it doesn't force you to stop playing, only to do something else whilst you regen some LP.
Your rationale is the same as saying "I went to buy a new sword but didnt have enough gold, so the game FORCED me to stop playing...."
Jesus, gold =/= LP; buying and item =/= being locked by a play style. Gold can be acquired by basically all kinds of gameplay styles: the crafters, the merchants, the AH players, the pirates, the thieves, the questers, the mob grinders, etc. Some of these play styles require a minimum starting gold, but you are only locked out of a few of these play styles if you end up losing gold, which means you are doing bad at your play style. LP on the other hand, you have a maximum LP available, once you start doing certain play styles you LP naturally decreases and once you reach 0 you are LITERALLY FORCED to stop your play style and can't do ANYTHING to increase your LP besides waiting or buying a LP recharge pot with RL money.
This is the difference, with gold you are only forced to stop playing the way you want if you are doing bad at making gold, with LP you are force to stop playing how you want after an arbritary amount of actions.
Originally posted by Jabas
A patron status player only have issues with LP if want to play solo and do everthing alone.
AA is design to play with others directly (friends, guilds) or indirectly (AH).
When someone want to craft gear, dont waste LP minning or smelting, get from others because theres ppl that only spend LP minning.
When someone want to make alot of trade runs, dont farm everthing, theres alot of player farming only and sell it in AH.
When someone want to fish, keep the LP for fishing and get what it needs from others.
Etc, etc.
I learn this playing in RU and i like the system, whatever i had trying to sell in AH allways sell it because theres a live economy where players need each others.
The solo players will not be happy in AA unless the casual Patrons ones that have allways LP to max.
About F2P have nothing to comment because i really dont care to be honest.
Bad Design. Period. A good design would be a system complex enough that would make almost impossible to make everything by yourself and encourages you to seek the help of a friend and not force you to seek help.
I love these threads where people wind up going all ad hominem on f2p players. Always makes me laugh.
You can't force someone to pay for something that is free. If they want to pay, they will.
But calling them cheap freeloaders and other names doesn't solve anything.
Just a thought.
But then, I doubt that most of the people that these folks complain about even read these threads.
There is that point where some F2P players become a real pain. A company gives so much away free and then it comes a point they need to change something to make money and keep the doors open. When F2P players cry about a game not being free enough like this thread is. People who support the game rightfully get ticked. Name calling is never needed I agree but people who just want to play for free, should also never cry about the fact they get less then the paying customer. If they dont get that, well Im not sure how to say anything else without being rude.
A patron status player only have issues with LP if want to play solo and do everthing alone.
AA is design to play with others directly (friends, guilds) or indirectly (AH).
When someone want to craft gear, dont waste LP minning or smelting, get from others because theres ppl that only spend LP minning.
When someone want to make alot of trade runs, dont farm everthing, theres alot of player farming only and sell it in AH.
When someone want to fish, keep the LP for fishing and get what it needs from others.
Etc, etc.
I learn this playing in RU and i like the system, whatever i had trying to sell in AH allways sell it because theres a live economy where players need each others.
The solo players will not be happy in AA unless the casual Patrons ones that have allways LP to max.
About F2P have nothing to comment because i really dont care to be honest.
Bad Design. Period. A good design would be a system complex enough that would make almost impossible to make everything by yourself and encourages you to seek the help of a friend and not force you to seek help.
You see it as a bad design, doesnt mean it is, only means it is for you. There is no "period" in such subjective sentence.
Even english is not my main language i can play with words to, let me try:
"LP system in AA is a good design because is a complex system that player need to learn how to use it, a system that make almost impossible to make everthing by yourself and encourages you to seek the help of a friend but dont force you to seek help because you can still do it alone, it just takes much more time."
Bad Design. Period. A good design would be a system complex enough that would make almost impossible to make everything by yourself and encourages you to seek the help of a friend and not force you to seek help.
They did make it almost impossible to make everything yourself and you're encouraged to seek help. No matter how you implement something like that someone will complain that they can't build everything solo. And if they can they complain that nothing sells because everyone can just build anything they need.
There's no way to make everyone happy with that scenario.
A patron status player only have issues with LP if want to play solo and do everthing alone.
AA is design to play with others directly (friends, guilds) or indirectly (AH).
When someone want to craft gear, dont waste LP minning or smelting, get from others because theres ppl that only spend LP minning.
When someone want to make alot of trade runs, dont farm everthing, theres alot of player farming only and sell it in AH.
When someone want to fish, keep the LP for fishing and get what it needs from others.
Etc, etc.
I learn this playing in RU and i like the system, whatever i had trying to sell in AH allways sell it because theres a live economy where players need each others.
The solo players will not be happy in AA unless the casual Patrons ones that have allways LP to max.
About F2P have nothing to comment because i really dont care to be honest.
Bad Design. Period. A good design would be a system complex enough that would make almost impossible to make everything by yourself and encourages you to seek the help of a friend and not force you to seek help.
You see it as a bad design, doesnt mean it is, only means it is for you. There is no "period" in such subjective sentence.
Even english is not my main language i can play with words to, let me try:
"LP system in AA is a good design because is a complex system that player need to learn how to use it, a system that make almost impossible to make everthing by yourself and encourages you to seek the help of a friend but dont force you to seek help because you can still do it alone, it just takes much more time."
I thing is close to what you said.
Subjective? Maybe, tell me, which is better: a system where every player has a chance to make everything they want themselves, balanced carefully enough that the average player speciallizes in one area and is encouraged to ask for help of other players and only a very small pool of players actually managed to put enough effort to become master crafters; or a system where the average player can with relative ease become the master of your area but you are forever blocked from doing everything you want no matter how much effort you put into it.
The first system allows freedom of play for the majority of the player base, this is my definition of a good system, the other system blocks from progress those who are determined to put more effort than the average, a system that blocks players is my definition of a bad system.
Originally posted by DamonVile
Originally posted by Manasong
Bad Design. Period. A good design would be a system complex enough that would make almost impossible to make everything by yourself and encourages you to seek the help of a friend and not force you to seek help.
They did make it almost impossible to make everything yourself and you're encouraged to seek help. No matter how you implement something like that someone will complain that they can't build everything solo. And if they can they complain that nothing sells because everyone can just build anything they need.
There's no way to make everyone happy with that scenario.
No, theres no way to make everyone happy, but this system blocks the players who put more effort than the average player from getting the results they want, if you could do everything you want you have to balance everything so the average player does not want to put the effort to do everything themselves, but still allow those who want to, to put as much effort as they can.
This is my point, if you could make a graph of effort-results you would see the more to the top how it stops being an exponential curve and turns into a straight line, because no matter how much effort you put into it, you can't do more than the LP system allows you to.
I love these threads where people wind up going all ad hominem on f2p players. Always makes me laugh.
You can't force someone to pay for something that is free. If they want to pay, they will.
But calling them cheap freeloaders and other names doesn't solve anything.
Just a thought.
But then, I doubt that most of the people that these folks complain about even read these threads.
There is that point where some F2P players become a real pain. A company gives so much away free and then it comes a point they need to change something to make money and keep the doors open. When F2P players cry about a game not being free enough like this thread is. People who support the game rightfully get ticked. Name calling is never needed I agree but people who just want to play for free, should also never cry about the fact they get less then the paying customer. If they dont get that, well Im not sure how to say anything else without being rude.
Yeah when you play for free you get what the company gives you for free. I agree they shouldn't be making demands when they're not paying anything anyway.
I guess it sucks when they have to change the game to make money but hey, they can't run servers for free. If the free players don't like it there's a ton of other games out there that are also free.
As of CB 4 I have not been able to stay logged in while AFK. So I dont see that you will be able to stay logged into the game to replenish LP effectively. Seems much more than 10 minutes of AFK and the system booted me. Anyone else seeing this also?
A patron status player only have issues with LP if want to play solo and do everthing alone.
AA is design to play with others directly (friends, guilds) or indirectly (AH).
When someone want to craft gear, dont waste LP minning or smelting, get from others because theres ppl that only spend LP minning.
When someone want to make alot of trade runs, dont farm everthing, theres alot of player farming only and sell it in AH.
When someone want to fish, keep the LP for fishing and get what it needs from others.
Etc, etc.
I learn this playing in RU and i like the system, whatever i had trying to sell in AH allways sell it because theres a live economy where players need each others.
The solo players will not be happy in AA unless the casual Patrons ones that have allways LP to max.
About F2P have nothing to comment because i really dont care to be honest.
Bad Design. Period. A good design would be a system complex enough that would make almost impossible to make everything by yourself and encourages you to seek the help of a friend and not force you to seek help.
This is that system. They don't "force" you to do anything. You can wait till you have the LP and make whatever you want. If you want to make stuff faster, you rely on others for materials etc, and you spend your points on the finished product.
Originally posted by Azzudyen As of CB 4 I have not been able to stay logged in while AFK. So I dont see that you will be able to stay logged into the game to replenish LP effectively. Seems much more than 10 minutes of AFK and the system booted me. Anyone else seeing this also?
Our whole guild was online for the entire beta. No one was booted. Many of us weren't even patrons.
Pretty sure this game will be like most asian time locked MMOs where the server is capable of allowing everyone to stay logged in 24/7. Unless they find their servers can't handle it in open beta...
Comments
mmorpg:
benefits = population / investment
f2p = population
The people how play without pay is population as much people in the equation more possible benefit in the future, if you play you are helping the game, they need population as much as possible.
Break the equation and you run out the benefits
I'd be hard pressed to come up with bigger BS. A company does NOT earn money off the number of players but only off the number of paying customers. The only reason they let you play for "free" is to make you into paying customers. They have NO vested interest in you beyond that.
Every single one of you cheap freeloaders wastes bandwidth and server resources which could be put to much better use. And no illogical excuse you make for your parasitic mindset makes you in any way or manner useful for the developers or the paying population.
It won't happen anymore but I sure had hoped for a box + sub model to not have to read the iditotic whines of people pretending to not being able to spare 15 bucks / month for entertainment while at the same time being able to have a state of the art gaming rig and broadband internet and endless hours of free time for games instead of jobs.
Labor points aren't that bad.
This isn't wildstar, with the 60$ buyin and a cash shop. It's likewise not Planetside 2 levels of cost, as being a patron is just more in line with your traditional subscription, instead of bumping up the price of everything to crazy levels.
If you don't like it, that's your prerogative I suppose, I just don't see how this is some major failing of the game, as I have read repeatedly now, from multiple sources.
If F2P peeps complain about labor points it just makes me facepalm. If people can't afford 15 $ or EUR per month, I am amazed they can afford computers that can even run AA. Or the interwebz bill. Or food. Place to sleep. Stuff like that.
On the other hand I'm still waiting for videos of people going to restaurants demanding they get meals for free, or any other stuff for that matter. Gief free, I r customer, me right!
Anyway, you'll be able to buy patron status on AH. Which is one more thing that amazes me: usually it takes a lot of some sort of grinding (granted, some people enjoy it) to earn ingame gold to buy that stuff. And that equates to idk 1-3 hours of actual RL work. I'm guessing people that can't afford 15$ don't have any skillsets that enable them higher income in which case I would advise some sort of self-reflection why that is so.
Third amazing thing is: where is all the outrage at single-player games? Stuff costs up to 50-70 EUR for normal editions. Some games are as short as 4-5 hours with crappy replay value. Where is the hate, the outrage, the bile, the trolls and the haters? I can play hundreds of hours of MMOs for that money. Do I just hang on wrong forums (I don't visit the devs forums I guess)? And yet, 15$ is enough for people to go spastic.
As for LP even with patron. Dunno, alpha servers are bad indication, double regen is so much LP you can throw it away. On beta it's slower, but still, to get anywhere decently fast with anykind of crafting, gotta do it as a guild (or trade a lot). In Wildstar I could go from 0 to soft cap max crating in few hours, then it was gated behind boring as fuck daily grind. Is this what people want? Either few hours or some time gated grind? No thx. I'm happy to see a game where guild cooperation matters (beyond doing instances over and over and over again).
What can be the ratio free player / customer ?
What is a mmorpg without population for customers?
The freeplayer are props for the game?
1,000 Labor Points requires a F2P account being logged in for 1,000 minutes to earn that amount. Crafting a single piece of level 18 armor cost me 100 LP. The mats were provided via a quest, otherwise I would also have to factor in the labor point cost of gathering and possible refining those mats. Also remember that all loot drops from mobs drop in bags. Those bags initially require 1LP each to open, but around level 15 you start getting a higher tier bag that requires 2 each. I assume that there are higher tier bags that require even more.
You can also purchase 1,000 LP for about $2.00.
The problem is that unlike Patron accounts, F2P accounts do not generate LP when logged out. By day two of the recent beta I was continually below 100 LP, sometimes dipping to zero. This only turned around by leaving my PC on and my character logged in for 16 hours while I was sleeping or about my day. That's not an ideal situation for a player or for Trion.
Giving F2P accounts some degree of offline LP generation, so causal "weekend warriors" could always log in and expect a reasonable pool of LP to work with for their limited play schedule, would make a huge difference and would also cut way down of AFK LP generation, with player electricity and Trion player capacity being wasted by inactive log ins.
Being able to buy 1,000 LP for $2.00 may seem a reasonable work around for some, but it just doesn't provide enough LP/$ to make Buy As You Go a viable alternative to subscribing for casual or weekend only players.
Non-patrons also can not own property, or pay taxes on properties they bought when they did have Patron status. Trion is saying they are looking at ways to allow Non-patrons to buy these perks A La Carte post launch. For the casual or weekender, the total cost of LP plus land owning rights would have to be less than $3.25/week, or it just wouldn't be worth it.
I think there is a massive amount of potential revenue their they will miss out on if the current model isn't tweaked.
The funny thing about cash shops is that if customers feel the price of things they "need" are reasonable, they are very likely to spend more than that on other stuff they want, like cosmetic items, mounts, or even a little extra LP for a big project. If Trion can find a way to offer F2P players a fairly full game experience for around $2.00 to $2.50 a week, reasonable Labor Points and some level of Property ownership, many people unwilling to commit to a Sub will likely be willing to buy in A La Carte. Many of those people will probably spend more than $15/month anyway, once optionals are tagged on. However, that all hinges on players feeling they are getting fair value for their purchases.
The current system does not really offer fair value for an A La Carte approach to the game. It also leaves many Patrons worried that the system will put pressure on subscribers to pay additional money each month, not on cosmetics, but on things they will need to remain competitive with Wallet Warriors.
F2P is currently more like a limited feature set Free Trial and Patron Status doesn't offer the same value that $15/month offers in a purely subscription based game. The math can be changed to correct both issues, but if it isn't, the current business model will be very detrimental to the game and it's revenue potential.
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I personally do not believe the theory that if you make it necessary for people to spend they are less likely to. I think these f2p/optional sub games support themselves solely on whales and subscribers. Those who will not pay will not do so period. It is all nonsense when they say if you do not force me to pay something I am more likely to. Sorry if you are not forced to by inconvenience or otherwise you will not because you do not want to support the company you just want to freeload is all.
Further if spending money on electricity is better than paying the game company then that should be an even bigger sign that these people on principle think they should have the whole game for free. No these type of people should not be supported they will not spend their money on the game just drain the resources and only thing they are good for is provide fodder for PvP and make the game look busy.
I've been playing as F2P in CB4.
I got 5 LP every 5 mins online. No regen offline.
I've played solidly 4 - 5 hours every night of CB4 and even as F2P the LP issues was just about manageable. Sure, a couple of times I had a pile of coin purses built up and thought, well I had better wait and open them all later when I have some LP built up, otherwise I could open them all now and gimp myself for anything else that required LP.
Big deal. I waited and opened them all later.
Now I do concede that if I could have placed my own farm and house, I would have probably burned through more LP than I did, but even as F2P I was able to get to level 15, do a trade run and do some smelting, masonry, carpentry, plant and harvest some farming stuff...and yes even open all of my coin purses and quest rewards. I just had to manage when and how I spent my LP accordingly. Plus I did find myself leaving the game logged in when going for a smoke, making a coffee things like that.
By the end of CB I had about 600 LP unused.
Given that subscribers get 10 LP every 5 mins online PLUS 5 LP every 5 mins offline, PLUS the ability to regen 25% of your total LP pool once per day by sleeping (I think this is still true anyway) I really can't see the LP issue being a factor for a subscriber who is able to prioritise and use the LP effectively.
Do you need to micro manage a little? Sure you do but theres nothing wrong with that imo.
You would be right, but you can't call it an inconvenience at all lol, running out of bag slots or char slots is an inconvenience. Being completely blocked off from game play is next level shit.
And agian you're right the "whales" are what keep the game going, but the way the game is setup and how sub players are acting the game isn't going to see so called "whales" anytime soon.
I am a patron and I ran out of LP kind of fast once I learned the crafting. Thankfully I am a pvper at heart so I just go do that when im building LP back up.
The only problem I see is it sucks for people like my wife. She likes to log on and craft and thats all she ever does in MMOs and she enjoys it. If IM running out of LP from crafting which I suck at, Im sure she will be out within 30 minutes lol......
again I don't mind, but this is one game she legit can't play without buying LP potions and a sub
BTW I logged off with 0 LP and logged on the next day with 1,000 as a patron.....I think I should at least have 5,000 again to start the day
The ratio can be 0/100.
Customers ARE population. Less servers, less markting fluff of how many people are registered, but also less whiners.
No. They are a burden we have to endure coz some marketing guru has statistics that some of you convert into customers. Which is probably true in games which require less brain, cooperation and replanning. I doubt it very much for ArcheAge. The whining F2P folks will leave within a month or 2 anyways and the oney who see the F2P as chance and challenge don't whine.
A patron status player only have issues with LP if want to play solo and do everthing alone.
AA is design to play with others directly (friends, guilds) or indirectly (AH).
When someone want to craft gear, dont waste LP minning or smelting, get from others because theres ppl that only spend LP minning.
When someone want to make alot of trade runs, dont farm everthing, theres alot of player farming only and sell it in AH.
When someone want to fish, keep the LP for fishing and get what it needs from others.
Etc, etc.
I learn this playing in RU and i like the system, whatever i had trying to sell in AH allways sell it because theres a live economy where players need each others.
The solo players will not be happy in AA unless the casual Patrons ones that have allways LP to max.
About F2P have nothing to comment because i really dont care to be honest.
Yea I hear what your saying, only thing is wouldn't all that buying from AH cost gold? Im broke and I think alot of people are lol
But LP isn't going to even out anything. The idea that LP keeps crafting in check so the economy isn't dominated and run out of control is false. It will reduce the number of marketed items generated through game play. All this will do is increase the dominance of players trading in Cash Shop goods.
I love these threads where people wind up going all ad hominem on f2p players. Always makes me laugh.
You can't force someone to pay for something that is free. If they want to pay, they will.
But calling them cheap freeloaders and other names doesn't solve anything.
Just a thought.
But then, I doubt that most of the people that these folks complain about even read these threads.
I don't care about free accounts, I care about paying a sub and still having LP being used on me and having to buy LP potions from the cash store, for me thats a disheartening cash grab. So in the end, the hardcore crafter who buy potions have a clear advantage on the hardcore crafter that does not, this is why I'm saying the term pay2win can be applied to this game and many others because it's not a clearly defined term and its commonly used as "pay2have-an-advantage". You just said "but my personal definiton of pay2win is like this..." while I said the term is not to be used except on extremes.
Jesus, gold =/= LP; buying and item =/= being locked by a play style. Gold can be acquired by basically all kinds of gameplay styles: the crafters, the merchants, the AH players, the pirates, the thieves, the questers, the mob grinders, etc. Some of these play styles require a minimum starting gold, but you are only locked out of a few of these play styles if you end up losing gold, which means you are doing bad at your play style. LP on the other hand, you have a maximum LP available, once you start doing certain play styles you LP naturally decreases and once you reach 0 you are LITERALLY FORCED to stop your play style and can't do ANYTHING to increase your LP besides waiting or buying a LP recharge pot with RL money.
This is the difference, with gold you are only forced to stop playing the way you want if you are doing bad at making gold, with LP you are force to stop playing how you want after an arbritary amount of actions.
Bad Design. Period. A good design would be a system complex enough that would make almost impossible to make everything by yourself and encourages you to seek the help of a friend and not force you to seek help.
There is that point where some F2P players become a real pain. A company gives so much away free and then it comes a point they need to change something to make money and keep the doors open. When F2P players cry about a game not being free enough like this thread is. People who support the game rightfully get ticked. Name calling is never needed I agree but people who just want to play for free, should also never cry about the fact they get less then the paying customer. If they dont get that, well Im not sure how to say anything else without being rude.
You see it as a bad design, doesnt mean it is, only means it is for you. There is no "period" in such subjective sentence.
Even english is not my main language i can play with words to, let me try:
"LP system in AA is a good design because is a complex system that player need to learn how to use it, a system that make almost impossible to make everthing by yourself and encourages you to seek the help of a friend but dont force you to seek help because you can still do it alone, it just takes much more time."
I thing is close to what you said.
They did make it almost impossible to make everything yourself and you're encouraged to seek help. No matter how you implement something like that someone will complain that they can't build everything solo. And if they can they complain that nothing sells because everyone can just build anything they need.
There's no way to make everyone happy with that scenario.
Subjective? Maybe, tell me, which is better: a system where every player has a chance to make everything they want themselves, balanced carefully enough that the average player speciallizes in one area and is encouraged to ask for help of other players and only a very small pool of players actually managed to put enough effort to become master crafters; or a system where the average player can with relative ease become the master of your area but you are forever blocked from doing everything you want no matter how much effort you put into it.
The first system allows freedom of play for the majority of the player base, this is my definition of a good system, the other system blocks from progress those who are determined to put more effort than the average, a system that blocks players is my definition of a bad system.
No, theres no way to make everyone happy, but this system blocks the players who put more effort than the average player from getting the results they want, if you could do everything you want you have to balance everything so the average player does not want to put the effort to do everything themselves, but still allow those who want to, to put as much effort as they can.
This is my point, if you could make a graph of effort-results you would see the more to the top how it stops being an exponential curve and turns into a straight line, because no matter how much effort you put into it, you can't do more than the LP system allows you to.
Yeah when you play for free you get what the company gives you for free. I agree they shouldn't be making demands when they're not paying anything anyway.
I guess it sucks when they have to change the game to make money but hey, they can't run servers for free. If the free players don't like it there's a ton of other games out there that are also free.
This is that system. They don't "force" you to do anything. You can wait till you have the LP and make whatever you want. If you want to make stuff faster, you rely on others for materials etc, and you spend your points on the finished product.
Our whole guild was online for the entire beta. No one was booted. Many of us weren't even patrons.
Pretty sure this game will be like most asian time locked MMOs where the server is capable of allowing everyone to stay logged in 24/7. Unless they find their servers can't handle it in open beta...