What I said applies to both. For some reason, PVE is considered non-competitive. But I’ve always approached it the same way as I do PVP. I know not everyone does that. But while performance in PVP is measured in influence, performance in PVE is measured in time.
And when certain advantages are given in paid items, time can be impacted by ALOT. Look at the old DLC items. Back when if you wanted a specific stat, you need a SPECIFIC Armorer thrall. Unless you paid $9.99 for a DLC and then you just needed a Fia who has a double chance of spawning in one of the easiest camps in the game. Or any armorer thrall from any camp, since they could all make every DLC item in the game at the time.
The amount of time that saved was tremendous. In fact, I was able to get choice stats within a day or so of starting a new character during that time. Where some people after weeks or months still hadn’t gotten a thrall to make Hyperborean Slaver for its STR bonus on heavy armor. In fact many people didn’t even see a thrall capable of doing that until they changed how thralls worked in what they could craft.
Paying for convenience/time is a fairly common practice in games today, even PVP ones in some cases. It’s not viewed by some as P2W because it doesn’t increase power just saves time for someone who has more money than time to spend on the game, and someone with more time than money and spend their time instead.
I’m not sure what I think about it in general (not knowing enough about the specific example you gave).
Personally, I am much more likely to buy unique ancestral knowledge real items than illusions, personally. I think it can be done in a fair way while still allowing some variety. Material costs and footprint per storage slots do need to be approximately uniform though, absolutely. As I’ve said, items that are too many slots for the cost/space are unfair and P2W, and items that aren’t enough are just a bad deal, and everything being limited to the same size and number of slots as a large chest isn’t a good solution either.
So what I’m saying: for 1 square footprint of T2 storage there will be 100 slots (approximately, just for example) costing 45 shaped wood and 15 iron reinforcement to build. Then DLC items can be carved out of that in any way that makes sense. This satisfies my desire for a unique and interesting item, while not offering any significant advantage or disadvantage for using said item.
If cosmetics ain’t skins and have no use, they are simply useless. I do see this policy through years, but i ain’t buying because of the benefits but because of the looks and the price. Arcane Curio cabinet was on bp, i didn’t buy it so it had no reason to change so dramatically. They could just give it for free on bp and problem solved.
I agree with you Taemien, but you know as much as i do that their op-nerf policy is not correct. It’s insulting for the costumers and they keep losing ground on the trust part. I don’t know if Tencent enters on Funcom fields and lead them on this part, but from older Funcom supporters, including you, i understand that this is the policy “before the end”. Is it coming?
If it takes a minute to kill the Red Mother for a non-paying individual, and 20 seconds for a paying one… there’s going to be some P2W complaints, I’m sure. And in the example I gave about the DLC, there was complaints. Its what led to them being normalized.
I originally had this opinion too. But since literally every patch has had to fix ‘SOMETHING’ that got to be in P2W territory by mistake, that opinion has changed. There is also a growing sentiment that Funcom is doing it on purpose to exploit those people who listen to youtubers.
The monetary guy is entirely Funcom. Their focus was to copy what others did that looked successful and then tweak it to their own preferences. Contrary to popular belief, but Tencent doesn’t seem to have as much influence as some think. Its like the bank holding the title to your car when you finance it. You need full coverage, but at the end of the day you can drive it where you want, paint it what you want, and whatever. But if you wreck it, you’re still responsible for the loan.
I don’t approve of nerfing items that have been sold for real money. It can be very difficult to avoid though, mistakes happen.
At the least everyone who paid for an item should be offered a refund back into crom coins if it does get changed from the original specs. As to a battle pass item, it’s hard to value that in crom coins, but let’s say 120 coins (one increment of its built in refund) would be appropriate. The person loses the item but gets the refund if they so choose. This would be some amount work for them to implement though.
Bait & switch - op & nerf is a common complaint across many games. Make the item desirable so it sells well, then realize it was too desirable and nerf it. I don’t like that any more than any other paying customer would like it. I think what some games do with removing an item from sale rather than nerfing it if it is OP is arguably a better solution but that might be hard to apply here. This also serves the marketing people’s goals in that it creates FOMO for items that do seem good.
