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Comments
This thread should've been over after this post.
Has nothing to do with mind reading and how BP work. You are trying to argue on what BP are not. This is why you don't have a point you are making up your own argument / story.
So, yep... I will cop to being chaotic rather than focused.
Battlepasses don't really tell me how to have fun, but they do give me rewards I like for doing a bunch of stuff in the game and adding a bit of extra story.
It's not cheap and lazy. It's quicker and easier to implement than dropping new Quests and dialogue and NPC behaviours for those Quests.
How is it insulting to drop in new story, new content and new items more quickly than a full Expansion?
What? Why did you mention Tutorial Quests??
I still decide what which Tasks I'm going to do on any given day. I do the Tasks I like and ignore the Tasks that I don't like (like PvP) or seem like they would take too long compared to the other stuff I want to do during my play session.
If you want rewards go play the game. You don't need an external system to kill twenty of X, level Y five times, and explore Z zone. If it's all about having some reward based system for doing something that isn't story driven to the MMO it doesn't belong at all.
Is it lazy? Yes, because you only need to create a number of arbitrary tasks and rotate them. There is no story related to why you're killing bears beyond "I want pretty thing in battlepass!!" as drool falls from your agape mouth.
Is it cheap? Yes, because you can reuse the same arbitrary quests and only need to display a text box tracker. There is no story, no dialogue, and no positioning of a NPC within the world. A cheap gimmick to get people to buy a product that should already be in the game in the form of quests and zone based scenarios from events.
BPs are just the corporate means to make cheap content for a quick buck that has zero meaning to the overarching story and have fools parted with their money.
How does a Battlepass negatively impact your gameplay?
You earn points for the stuff you're already doing. You can also earn some points from doing stuff you're weren't originally planning to do (especially if doing a handful takes less than a total of 10-15 minutes).
The new Fortnite Battlepass dropped this morning.
The theme of the Battlepass is Mad Max + Fallout.
There is a new story Chapter in Fortnite - along with new locations and new gear and items and characters.
But that's in the Battle Royale - and of course I'm not really interested in PvP.
LEGO Fortnite did not get much of an update but we did get a new character dressed like she's in Mad Max.
We also got a new, front fortress gate in the style of Mad Max.
I spent about 15 minutes traveling around to find a spot where I wanted to build a Mad Max style base.
I spent around 10 minutes building the Mad Max gate.
I spent another 20 minutes fiddling around with how I want to place the floors behind the gate. And then I stopped so I could go to work.
At the end of 45 minutes, I was Level 5 on the free Battlepass path. And I haven't even looked to see what any of the Tasks are yet. It just happens to be that the stuff I wanted to do gave me enough points to move me to Level 5/200 on the free path.
All of that is win/win.
I don't see how any of that has a negative impact on my gameplay - nor how it fucks me over.
That enhanced my gameplay.
This has nothing to do with BP and just your dislike of the market place as a whole. Just don't support the market place if you feel its not worth investing into the game.
I mean... there is also new story and new items. Again, quicker and easier than it takes to implement a full expansion is not lazy. It's just quicker and easier.
There can be a bit of a story reason for why you might be killing whatever stuff you're killing because Battlepasses typically come with Seasonal content and a bit of new, dev-curated story. The Battlepass will give you BP XP (or Cosmetic Coins) in addition to the Adventurer XP and power items you accrue as rewards for completing related Quests. Story can also be different if you're using an alt for the Battlepass stuff and/or if you are equpping the thematic Cosmetics.
It's just that the Battlepass rewards are not increasing your combat power.
Cheaper than a full expansion is not really the same thing as cheap.
There is some story overall - it's not really 0 story. There is no NPC dialogue associated with the Battlepass Tasks, sure. And no positioning of NPCs.
It's quicker and easier and cheaper than a full expansion. Sure. Nothing wrong with that. It's a good thing.
It's a quicker and easier way to drop new content and new story and new tasks into the game - on a quarterly basis, rather than having the players wait 12-18+ months for an expansion.
We agree.
I don't understand, why not leave it simple?
And doesn't take time away from anything else - especially when there is already going to be a Cosmetics Market.
Intrepid is already going to be charging more money for the content than a subscription.
I thought it took dev time to build and implement that stuff. If devs are focused on BP stuff they are not working on the stuff they could be working on.
"Intrepid is already going to be charging more money for the content than a subscription. "
Could you clarify this?
More fun probably because it's another form of progression.
Seems exhausting to me but we all have different tastes. I would rather have them build the game and open the doors with all content available to those that want to do it vs gating some behind an extra premium monthly fee.
So you want everything free.
I don't think Battlepasses gate content. Battlepasses gate Cosmetics rewards.
Typically you can do the free path of a Battlepass without paying for the premium path.
Even with the premium Battlepass path, it's tyoically signifcantly cheaper to acquire items via the Battlepass rather than purchasing them individually from the Cosmetics Store.
That is by design you know that right? The pseudo cheaper part. But yes more money will make the game more awesome. This is how it works /s
It’s cheaper.
It is that way by design.
There’s way too much stuff that I want to buy from the LEGO Fortnite Cosmetics Store. I could very easily spend $10+ every day. And even that would be trying to keep what I want to a minimum.
I probably average $100 a month.
And then there’s usually also some new characters I want from the free Battlepass.
Which would be another $120.
I only buy from the NW Cosmetics Store around 2 times per year. And I only do the free Battlepass path.
I might buy one thing per year from the WoW Cosmetics Store. Maybe 1 every two years.
And I’ve only played long enough to do the Season Pass once. And that was a free Season Pass.
But, yeah, both the Cosmetics Store and the Battlepass are going to be designed to entice players to spend some money.
this is where you confuse me. are all your characters / lats chaotic good? so when you do something good for someone else in game, is it you or yourcharacter? and when you do something bad?
back to battle passes. you said you don't play for the rewards and you don't care about them (you play for the journey) but your reasoning for liking battle passes is the rewards? what? o-o
nah they hire battle pass specialists whose only job is to make battlepasses. so other employees can still work in the rest of the game
Battlepass with cosmetics does one of three things.
1, it takes developer time.
2, it takes additional developers, which just results in the above.
3, it uses cosmetics that would have ended up in the store without a battlepass, which again results in the first point.
Thus, the only way battlepass in Ashes makes sense is if people would pay more to get the same item via battlepass than via cosmetic shop.
I personally don't think enough people are that stupid.
I really hope they aren't.
Unless the BP is so damn automatic that I don't even need to look at it at all, but it'll still give me rewards - the BP will interrupt my immersion into the game by requiring me to progress it and claim the rewards (especially if it's a launcher/login screen BP).
I watched a video about NW's BP. You need to do a ton of extra steps to progress it and you definitely need to do a ton of shit to progress it optimally. I know that you dislike optimal gamers, cause they're not rpg gamers, but I am what I am, so I want to play the game in the way that's optimal to me.
I always have something to do, but unless the BP covers absolutely every single activity in the game (and is fully automatic, as I said) - I will not magically progress the BP.
I'm a grind player, so I can go for weeks doing only one activity on repeat, because that kind of gameplay is optimal for what I'm trying to do. And then this grind most likely results in a different grind that requires me to repeat another activity for a very long time.
I'd bet money, if I had any, that my style of gameplay will not result in me magically progressing the BP to its max lvl. This then means that I'd need to stop my preferred gameplay just to get a piece of lore I want from the BP. And it would also mean that I'd need to study the BP and do all of its task in the optimal way, to get the max lvl asap before the season changes and the cosmetics go away.
All of this goes directly against my style of play, while also gatekeeping me from the content I want to experience.
I'm fine with direct purchase store because its cosmetic acquisition method is inherently separated from the game. I don't need to do anything in the game to get the reward, so in my mind the reward is disconnected from the game.
It enhances YOUR gameplay, not mine. And seemingly not the gameplay of some other posters here.
And to touch upon the cosmetic costs from a post later in the thread. The BP is not cheaper for the player. It's simply what the devs want you to think. They could've easily just sold the cosmetics from the BP at the price that's equally shared across the premium BP items. So if there's 10 cosmetics in the premium BP and the BP costs $10 per season - the cosmetics cost $1 per item.
But then, to trick the players, the BP designers calculate what's the hardest way to make people progress the BP, so that they HAVE TO play the game longer, to boost its metrics. But this is EVEN WORSE in a sub game, because this elongation of the BP means that they're explicitly baiting you into paying for another month of the sub, even if you might've not had any other reason to play the game during that month.
So instead of $1 cosmetics, it's now "$1 + the monthly sub", and that's if you can even get your desired cosmetic that fast. Usually the best stuff is waaay later on into the BP, and quite often the later BP lvls require more XP per lvl. But even if Intrepid tried to seem "fairer" and had same XP for all lvls - that's still a ton of time to level up the BP before you get what you, theoretically, paid for.
And I know that you'll say "oh the BP just progresses with your gameplay and is also quick to lvl up these days", but this speed usually requires you to look at what needs to be cleared to get the lvls faster. And as I said at the beginning of this post - that negatively impacts my gameplay.
And if all of my problems get resolved by Intrepid putting an NPC into the game, removing any immersion-breaking UI, auto-progressing BP from literally any damn activity in the game, auto-rewarding you once the BP auto-progresses, and also only telling you about the premium BP outside of the game - why does all of that need to be a "BP" instead of just being a constant reward from anything you do and then an access to better rewards if you add some embers to that constant reward.
Call it Essence token, reward one token for literally every activity in the game and then balance the cosmetic costs based on that. Except this hugely sounds like an "everyone's a winner" design and afaik Steven dislikes those. Which is also why I don't believe that Ashes will have a BP, because a BP is the same thing at its core - a system for everyone to win, while doing literally nothing to deserve that win.
They both want to destroy the game.
Destroy the game lol? Its called being realistic as there is a market place and they clearly need to make lot of mooney to both support the devs and be able to grow the IP.
You tried to make an argument any thing added to the game "dlc" should be free when we are talking about the store market. That is literarily wanting the game to die or a ton of people to be laid off, if they money they get isn't enough to support the studio. Legit that is peek money grows on trees.
Something added to the game for monetization that has 0 effect on you doesn't destroy a game. Games have been growing with the model just fine, IS should do what they feel is best for their situation. If they choose to do a BP there is nothing wrong with it so long as it isn't p2w.
If you think this will make more money for Intrepid, where is that money coming from?
It has to be one of three places. Either more players are buying the same cosmetic via battlepass than would buy it via a store, the same number of people are paying more for that same cosmetic, or battlepass is causing people to stay subscribed longer than they otherwise would.
Which of these three do you believe would happen?
There is no fourth option, by the way. Other options simply don't fit in with your desire to be realistic, as your above post states.
You just assert that the BP would interrupt your immersion but you don't say how.
I dunno what "requiring you to progress means". Some of the stuff you do in-game will automatically progress you. You can choose whether or not you want to focus on BP Tasks or ignore them.
There is no launcher or loading screen. You get to the BP Tasks page with a hot key. In WoW, you can go visit the BP Trader in the game when you want to spend Cosmetic Coins for items.
I dunno what a "ton of extra steps" means. You choose to play the BP Cards or not.
I haven't said anything like optimal gamers are not RPG gamers.
But, if you want to obsess over completing the BP optimally - that's a you problem.
By definition a grind player cannot be an optimal player. Those words are polar opposites.
Grind means you are playing in the least efficient manner possible. That's why it's a grind.
I think what you mean is you're a Farmer.
The BP has Tasks for pretty much every activity in the game. You will "magically" progress the BP.
If you ignore the Tasks, you won't progress efficiently. Which will be irrelevant to you if you don't want any of the BP rewards.
It probably won't magically take you to Max Level if you completely ignore the Tasks, but... you coud also look at the Tasks and see which ones match the stuff you want to do for your play session and optimize them.
That's not a ton of extra steps.
You say that because you have fabricated how BP's work in your head and then you act as if that's reality.
How is the BP gatekeeping you from the content you want to experience?
It is kinda gatekeeping you from some of the Cosmetic rewards.
I don't really see how it goes against your playstyle other than you seem to be hellbent on refusing to check the UI to see if there are any Tasks that line up with what you plan to do for your play session.
It takes like a minute to check. If there's stuff that matches what you want to do - great. If there's not, you wasted a minute of your play session.
I guess you lost me on the value of having a reward that is disconnected from the game.
You're going to be playing the game anyway - why not get some Cosmetics rewards for doing the stuff in the game that you like to do?
You don't know whether it enhances your gameplay since you don't know how they actually work.
If you don't want the Cosmetics rewards, then no - your gameplay will not be enhanced.
And then, you can ignore the BP.
It is cheaper for the player. I also spent tons of money on characters when I played vanilla Fortnite, before there was a Battlepass. So... the price point there was already set.
Like I said before... I don't spend any money on the Battlepasses for WoW and New World.
I buy maybe a couple things per year from the NW Cosmetics Store. But probably less.
I buy something from the WoW store maybe once every 2 years. I spent nothing on the WoW Season Pass.
So... Battlepass is literally cheaper.
Also, the items in the Fortnite Store are much, much cheaper than the items in the Ashes Store were.
Most of items in the Ashes Store were at least 2x the price of what's in the Fortnite Store. Each month, the Ashes Store had one item for $5. And then there would be something for $10, $20, $25.
The difference is that every day the Fortnite Store has a bunch of stuff I want for $5.
Same is basically true, too, for NW.
The Cosmetic Store prices were set 2 years before the Season Pass was implemented.
And, again, I play that Battlepass for free. Cheapest items in the Store are probably $10.
And same would also be true for WoW. Store price were set years before the Season Pass was a thing.
BP or no BP - it's highly unlikely that there will be any Cosmetics sold for $1.
Who hurt you, my friend??
How the heck is "Eat 3 Food" or “Emote 5 Times” the hardest way to progress the BP?
Like I said, I moved from BP Level 1 to BP Level 5 in 45 minutes before I even looked at the new Battlepass.
There is no "HAVE TO play the game longer".
Once Nightingale hit Early Access, I took a month off of playing LEGO Fortnite. I still bought $100 worth of stuff from the Shop. I did not play the Battlepass at all.
I jumped back into LEGO Fortnite when they added the Star Wars story and Battlepass. Finished the LEGO Battlepass in 2 weeks - and I think that has another 2+ weeks before that is removed from the game.
I finished the main Fortnite Battlepass a few days after that.
The new Season dropped this morning. I finished building my new little base, so I'll be heading over to Nightingale this weekend to check out the Nightingale update that dropped Tuesday.
I stopped playing NW in December 2023 when LEGO Fortnite released.
I wanna check out the new NW Season, but I'm having too much fun with LEGO Fortnite and Nightingale.
I also wanna check out what's new with WoW, but I've been playing other stuff in the last year and haven't had time to check out the WoW Season Passes.
I stopped playing WoW to play New World when the first Battlepass dropped - especially because that also opened a new area on the map and also added Mounts.
I finished that Battlepass in time to start playing Diablo 4 with Fantm.
I think I stopped playing Diablo 4 to play Wagadu Chronicles.
Went back to NW for another Battlepass Season.
And then started playing LEGO Fortnite.
I don't HAVE TO play any of the games longer than I want to.
I do play them longer than I would with no Battlepass, sure, as long as there is a reward that I want.
Just as lots of gamers do when they chase BiS gear. Difference is that I am way more motivated by Cosmetics than I am by BiS gear.
Yeah... No.
That is not really a thing.
For one thing... I typically forget to cancel my WoW sube for a few months so I end up paying the sub even when I'm not playing the game - which means also not playing the WoW Season Pass.
I don't know what you mean by "if you can even get your desired cosmetic that fast".
You have 3 months to finish the Battlepass. I finished the LEGO Battlepass in 2 weeks.
And then finished the main Battlepass a few days later.
For sure, the LEGO Star Wars path was a flat 1000 Coins to complete each BP Level.
And for the main Fortnite Battlepass, it's supposed to be 80K XP per level.
I don't know what you can possibly mean by "a ton of time" when you're already playing the game anyway.
Sure, I might take 15-20 minutes to knock out a handful of BP Tasks before I focus on the rest of my 8-hour play session.
No one is forcing you to play that way if you don't want to play that way. Just like no one forces me to do Raids. I mean non-consensual PvP literally interrupts gameplay. You can ignore the Battlepass if you don't like it. Just as I ignore Raids.
Again, I don't know what you mean by immersion-breaking UI. There's no immersion-breaking UI.
The BP UI is no more immersion-breaking than the Settings UI.
Of course, in any case, the Ashes UI is supposed to be customizable enough that you can toggle off the components you don’t like.
But, yeah, in WoW you can go to a Chest to see which items you can purchase.
I think you can't have it both ways. The premium path is going to be in the same location as the free path, so it's either going to all be near the Cosmetics NPC or it's going to be a menu you can open similar to opening Settings.
If you are constantly rewarded for anything you do - how would you check your progress?
Why are you thinking that Embers would not be part of the BP rewards?
Sure. Why call it Essence token? Why not just call it Embers?
How are you "winning" with Cosmetics? Steven didn't seem to have a problem with everyone "winning" with the APOC Battlepass.
Expect there to also be a premium path so that Intrepid makes some money - since the BP would probably be the form of the Cosmetics Market. So... everyone would not be "winning" the premium path.
Again... what is the win. And why is playing the Battle Pass "nothing"?
I'm trying to understand where and how you are getting such an insane vision of how BPs actually work.
BP Tasks aren't chores.
I said I expect Ashes to have a BP. I said nothing about changing anything.
Because I would be ignoring the Ashes BP just like I will be ignoring everything else in the game except exploring.
Outdate BPs had fomo that pushed players to login every day for a month - if you missed a day or missed a week, you would be sent back to the beginning of the path - or it would be impossible to complete the 30 rewards on the path before that group of rewards is removed.
With Modern BPs, you have 3 months to finish the end of the path. You can skip days, weeks, even an entire month or more, and still complete the BP before a new Season begins.