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Gear exchange and P2W?
ArchivedUser
Guest
Alright so Im new here even though Im following this game since its kickstarter, the reason why Im posting here today is because Im wondering if the devs had an idea on how to handle the following problem many onlibe rpgs have, which is selling gear for real cash money.
At pax they said that most of the best gear of the game wouldn't be bind on soul, which worried me. Today on reddit of BDO, ive seen a post where a player paid someone else around 15000$ real cash money just to put a piece of gear on the market (direct item trading doesnt exist in BDO).
So, what will happen with that in AoC? Did they think already about that and are planning to implement some measures? Because the game might not be directly P2W, but it might happen undirectly. And it truly would be a shame. Maybe you're planning on making the best gear easily accessible to avoid anyone to have to pay tremondeous amounts of money to get an amazing gear?
Did i miss something that was talking about it?
What do you guys think ?
At pax they said that most of the best gear of the game wouldn't be bind on soul, which worried me. Today on reddit of BDO, ive seen a post where a player paid someone else around 15000$ real cash money just to put a piece of gear on the market (direct item trading doesnt exist in BDO).
So, what will happen with that in AoC? Did they think already about that and are planning to implement some measures? Because the game might not be directly P2W, but it might happen undirectly. And it truly would be a shame. Maybe you're planning on making the best gear easily accessible to avoid anyone to have to pay tremondeous amounts of money to get an amazing gear?
Did i miss something that was talking about it?
What do you guys think ?
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I'd like to see Intrepid do something to stop it, but I don't see it happening. Sadly.
P2W means there is some tangible benefit you get from an item that gives you an advantage over others.... cosmetics arent pay to win..
if i get some gear and sell it on the market cuz some1 paid me to put it on the market how is it pay2win? he still need to use his in-game balance to buy it...
so not so pay2win... if there is a direct trade for those items between two players then yes. but through the market place where everyone can buy it (if the have enough in-game balance for it) does not make it pay2win even if i got paid to post it in the marketplace.
One can never look at a pay to win scenario from the sellers perspective to determine if it is pay to win.
Look at the same scenario from the perspective of the buyer. They paid real money in order to secure the sale of an in game item. Whether they needed to also use in game currency is not the point as much as the fact that they had to also use real currency to secure the in game item.
This is pay to win.
It is not developer-to-player pay to win, but rather player-to-player pay to win.
I believe Intrepid have said they will monitor the economy for suspicious transactions, though I don't have a quote for that. If they do, it will likely pick up some transactions long these lines.
If direct trading is allowed in AoC he wont even need in game money to get the items he wants. But it likely will be since players will be able to open their own shops and sell jtems on a local market (and global depending of servers and nodes)
However, one for of pay-to-win is player-to-player, and is something Intrepid do not have direct control over. That is what this thread is asking about.
I totally agree with you, unfortunatly , that means that like it or not, there is going to be P2W in AoC because de that. It just wont be the dev or publisher's fault.
Unless the devs come up with a genius system that makes this kind of trades impossible while still allowing the players to trade freely.
They might put some conditions that will give them lists of suspicious transactions but i doubt it will be enough
if you talk about korea version then don't cuz its pay2win anyway like the turkish version :P
and btw lets add this
It was on Taiwan servers. Of course, we're NA/EU and not asians which are oriented P2W in their games. But the point of this post remains that i'm simply wondering if IS have considered the fact, (since Steven repeat all the time that AoC will not be a game P2W), that player would sell/buy gear for real money on shady or not so shady websites. And if they did, if they're planning some game mechanics to counter that kind of practice or they'll simply give up on fighting it?
for example in bdo eu/na there is almost no p2w (except for cosmetic in auction house)
but no one is selling gear for real money. that is the difference between asia/korea/taiwan and eu/na.
also maybe the endgame gear that is no soulbound will be bound on equip and then you'll need to think about selling it or use it.
but for now all we can do is wonder what it will be like in the end xD
This is just a balancing issue, since you want people to be able to trade weapons and armors in-game for gold or other equipment. Soulbound/Accountbound items on Equip is pretty bad on a games economic scale, since it locks good gear away from the market.
For the P2W issue, this cannot be helped unfortunately.. As long as a game has P2P Trading, there will be P2W. People even did it in BDO with Potions to get cash even tough that game had the most strict Trading of any MMO. The only thing we can control is how much P2W features the Devs will add, which in Ashes will be 0%.
So we'll have to live with a bit of RMT, something that any MMO has had to do.
the only way would be preventing any kind of trading or in game economy between players which is not going to happen.
The only way to stop people from RMT'ing, is to disable in-game trading completely, both Player to Player and Auction house. Which will never happen.
BDO tried their best, disabling P2P trading and having Dev Controlled Pricing in the Marketplace. But how much does a game suffer when stuff like that are implemented.
Personally i hope they soul-bind *ALL* raid and quest loot with the same type of mechanic we've seen before...i.e. a person being awarded an item can trade that item to someone else in the raid or another person in their group also on that same quest for up to xx hours until it locks onto the person who looted it.
There's NOTHING quite as gut-wrenching as working with a group of 20-40 people for weeks on a Boss only to finally kill it and take its stuff...and in 10 days you see half a dozen twerps running around with the same gear knowing full well they have neither the strength nor the patience to earn the piece themselves...instead out came the credit card.
I'm basing this on the pedigree of our Developers. They've all worked on MMO's where earning your rewards is paramount...and the reward is worthy of the risks.
In the end though if the money behind the development says "We make 15.75% more revenue by allowing the sale of high-end items," i find it difficult to believe in today's saturated market that they would turn a blind eye to that kind of revenue. I know its sad. I don't agree with $$$ being the driving force behind game-mechanic decisions but ultimately without the money there is no funny so i'm hoping they nail it providing a nice revenue stream to the financiers without having to compromise principles.
-LK
Thing is more you you want to control trading interactions more you need to put restrictions which is just not good in MMO.
Trading between players is just gona will happen one way or another. as long as dev's dont develop their game just for bashing cash shop items to players its not deal breaker.
However, just because an action won't outright put a stop to an undesired behavior, it doesn't mean that action isn't worth taking still.
Intrepid need to identify people that are selling items, and need to ban their accounts. More than that, Intrepid need to be seen to be doing all of that.
It won't stop RMT by any means, but that isn't an excuse to sit idly by while it happens.
What you have described is paying for prioritised treatment.
You arent gaining any advantage other than jumping the queue for items that were in the queue anyway.
Even then, just because you put something on the market at the time someone told you too, doesnt mean someone else wont snap it up before the intended target got it anyway.
So for me, this doesnt effect gameplay in anyway.
I would be amused if someone payed $10000 for someone to put something on sale at a specific time so they could buy it and someone else got it just before they did
Those tears would be sooooooooo salty
If that same deal were to happen in AoC the buyer would give the seller the money, then the seller would simply transfer the item to the buyer via trade.
1) A guild mate could ask someone to do it for free, being a guild mate they do it, this whole thing just happened for free.
2) In game currency still has to be used, so the player buying the item still has to farm gold. I think that IS has confirmed you can't sell/trade cash shop items (hence no P2W) @Uknownusererror would be a better/quicker source of that info.
3) If the player tries to sell the item for way below the market value MANY players will want it. When they can't buy it because seller is refusing they will be reported because peeps will be mad and someone will be suspicious.
I understand this can never be prevented, but it seems like this is a stretch for thinking Ashes will go the route of P2W.
They might have some nefarious out of game black market community that adds a P2W function, but as others have said, not all things can be prevented. Gold farming will still need to be a thing.