If there is a Stufferton on there, it could possibly entice me to go above 0 Kills.
Ironically, I would even pay more than $75 to FFA PvP in the Open Seas for more than 100 hours if the reward was a Stufferton.
Drop any notion of that $75, and you have how a game like Ashes should put cosmetics to good use.
Hey, here's a cool looking thing, go off and do this part of the game that we want more people to get in to, and you can have it!
No need to set up a UI for it, no need to charge for it, no need to give the system a name, no need to create mind-numbing tasks, just tell players what content they need to participate in and what they can get for it.
Even better is if that reward remains for that task in perpituity.
1
Options
DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Drop any notion of that $75, and you have how a game like Ashes should put cosmetics to good use.
Hey, here's a cool looking thing, go off and do this part of the game that we want more people to get in to, and you can have it!
No need to set up a UI for it, no need to charge for it, no need to give the system a name, no need to create mind-numbing tasks, just tell players what content they need to participate in and what they can get for it.
Even better is if that reward remains for that task in perpituity.
Repeating Dungeons and Raids for BiS Gear is mind-numbing - especially the pre-prep.
Like I said, it's closer to if Achievements had discounted Cosmetics and Embers as rewards instead of just Titles.
It couldn't be as simple as the reward(s) remaining for a Task in perpetuity because that is static which is the entire problem with Quests and Bulletin Board Tasks.
For one thing, it would take too much development time to have one Cosmetic for each BP Task.
For another, eventually, all of those rewards would be acquired and masses of players would stop playing while they wait 12-18 months for the devs to create a plethora of new Cosmetics.
Same issue as an expansion - the devs would not be able to keep up with the demand.
And the Seasonal related Achievements (and rewards) would be completed in 10-20 hours, rather than 100 hours.
If there were no need for any of it, BPs wouldn't exist.
DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
LMAO
Asmon did not use the word predatory.
I stated on page 3 of this thread:
I expect Ashes to have a Battlepass. "Especially because the current trend is for MMOs to have a Battlepass."
Marketing trend is not inherently synonymous with predatory or ploy.
If there were no need for any of it, BPs wouldn't exist.
Battlepass exists so the developer or producer of the game can get more money out of their players.
That is it, that is the reason.
They aren't doing it to get more money to put in to the game, they are doing it to get more money to give to shareholders.
Repeating Dungeons and Raids for BiS Gear is mind-numbing - especially the pre-prep.
No idea at all why you would think this comment has any place in this discussion.
You don't like doing dungeons. Cool. So what?
Like I said, it's closer to if Achievements had discounted Cosmetics and Embers as rewards instead of just Titles.
I mean, a lot of games have cosmetic rewards for achievements.
Not discounts on cosmetics - just cosmetics.
2
Options
DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited June 3
For Fortnite, the Battlepasses get people logging in daily and weekly - which means they will very likely check the fomo in the Item Shop daily and weekly and buy full price Skins several times per week.
Which is excellent for Fortnite.
Again, in Fortnite, the BP is not predatory, rather the Item Shop is predatory.
Doesn't work the same for WoW and NW because their Shops are static and don't have daily and weekly fomo.
A BP is no more addictive than Dungeons and Raids are for gamers seeking BiS gear.
And, how enticing a BP is, any given month or Season, will depend on whether the rewards/Cosmetics being offered are appealing to the individual player.
Again, in Fortnite, the BP is not predatory, rather the Item Shop is predatory.
This is like saying "the bait on the hook is not predatory, it's the hook that is", when the bait is there to literally attract the prey, which is part of the predatory action.
Again, in Fortnite, the BP is not predatory, rather the Item Shop is predatory.
You realize people were saying this about loot boxes as well, right?
1
Options
DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited June 3
Riffing off of NiKr's toy analogy...
It's like a Comic Shop owner offering to give me 10 free new comics if I spend 100 hours in the shop every 3 months doing a bunch of tasks. And he'll give me another 10 new comics at an 80%-90% discount if I buy 2 comics book per month at full price (2x $5).
And the tasks offered for me to do on a daily and weekly basis are mostly stuff I would like to do at a Comic Shop anyway.
They would include tasks like:
Eat 3 slices of pizza from the fridge
Read 2 DC comics
Read 2 Marvel comics
Read 2 True Romance comics
Read 2 Western comics
Choose 5 new comics and place them on the Weekly Favorites display shelf
Sweep the floors
Clean the windows
Sell 4 comic books
Read 2 articles from the CBR website
And, I get to pick which tasks I complete and which tasks I ignore.
Good for the Shop as I interact directly and indirectly with other customers.
Also good for the Shop if being there daily/weekly entices me to spend $100 per month buying comics there instead of $40 per month on comics. Even when I finish my 100 hours in just one month.
Even in high school, I was spending $40 per month on comic books.
I was not spending more than 4 hours a month at the Comics Shop.
I pretty much stopped buying comics once they hit $3.99 and I realized my typical 10 comics per week would be more than $100 per month.
So, $15 sub + a $10 Battlepass isn't going to come close to feeling predatory to me. And actively playing an MMORPG is not really going to be more addictive than reading comics or reading fantasy novels.
Riffing off of NiKr's toy analogy...
It's like a Comic Shop owner offering to give me 10 free new comics if I spend 100 hours in the shop every 3 months doing a bunch of tasks. And I'll get another 10 new comics at an 80%-90% discount if I buy 2 comics book per month at full price (2x $5).
And the tasks offered for me to do on a daily and weekly basis are mostly stuff I would like to do at a Comic Shop anyway.
They would include tasks like:
Eat 3 slices of pizza from the fridge
Read 2 DC comics
Read 2 Marvel comics
Read 2 True Romance comics
Read 2 Western comics
Choose 5 new comics and place them on the Weekly Favorites display shelf
Sweep the floors
Clean the windows
Sell 4 comic books
Read 2 articles from the CBR website
And, I get to pick which tasks I complete and which tasks I ignore.
And going back to my point of it ALWAYS being to the benefit of the company as opposed to you - this comic book store is now giving you 10 comics instead of having to pay an employee. Or more to the point, you are freeing up some time so the owner can go and do other tasks - and freeing up that time would otherwise require an employee.
Also good for the Shop if being there daily/weekly entices me to spend $100 per month buying comics there instead of $40 per month on comics. Even when I finish my 100 hours in just one month.
Yes, you are the fish that has been baited.
You paid to be in the shop ($15/m sub), you paid for the "discounted comics" (even though this is still above their production cost, and the "normal" price is simply a huge upsell), and you pull in more fish by being present at the shop (the playtime metrics), which means that even more fish get baited just like you.
The entire system is predatory, but you're satisfied with chewing the bait and even expect it in other places.
I really don't see how you are suing a argument if its on sale that means everything should be cheaper, so its a scam / rip off since they are upselling everything. Seems to me like a way to not actually have an argument imo.
And arguing the true production cost for a digital product is more difficult than some other things so you can just way whatever without really fact checking.
On this point if more people are looking at the store so they make more money potentially, sure that makes sense. Also there isn't really a issue there, that is life with people trying to sell you things in any setting. Its not predatory, a scam, etc.
Using those words you are actually watering down games that do have things like that in it and making the words meaningless in order to keep trying to push this is bad. When its really not anything different than any other game or going to a store irl.
Predatory is when you are talking about gambling in a game, adding items to buy and help you increase your power while not knowing the conditions for your power to increase, items that give you special benefits and indirect advantage against others making you feel you need the item, p2w, pay for convenience, gaining items constantly in game which require additional paid items to use it, players advertising store items from their actions (announcements on servers pinging all players constantly).
I'm sure I could think of more, going into a store is not predatory nor is a BP. If they lose a bit of money to make a bit of money from interactions on the store / game that is all good and part of their job.
I really don't see how you are suing a argument if its on sale that means everything should be cheaper, so its a scam / rip off since they are upselling everything. Seems to me like a way to not actually have an argument imo.
Reread my 2 toys example. The replace those toys with cosmetics.
And arguing the true production cost for a digital product is more difficult than some other things so you can just way whatever without really fact checking.
Which is why I've been arguing about how the BP presents that cost to us. If a $10 BP has 10 cosmetics that means that each cosmetic is valued at $1 of dev work at the company. So when all the other cosmetics are sold at way higher prices - you're being upsold to all hell, but you're fine with that as long as the company is dangling keys in front of your face saying "you see, this BP is soooo cheap when compared to those overpriced cosmetics. You wanna get this instead, right?"
And I want that company to be truthful and simply say "here's the cheap cosmetics, here's the expensive ones - you choose". No 100h of gameplay, no dailies/weeklies/fucklies/etclies.
Where you get what you pay for without additional work you need to put in. But the developer somehow has to make a living and if BPs are their way of doing it, why not.
I mean... the devs/publisher get more money from Store/Shop purchases.
But, the players who like Cosmetics will happily play the game for more hours with a BP than they would if they immediately get the Cosmetics by direct pay at full price.
The 80%-90% discount on items + Embers/vBucks/Traveler's Tender is worth doing stuff in the game that you like to but want some new rewards besides another Achievements Title.
When you have a box prices and/or a subsciption model I dont want to see a BP, a VIP model and honestly no costume or QoL cash shop either.
Sure, but... we know the plan is for Ashes to have a Cosmetics Shop.
So, we can expect the to also have a BP with discounted Cosmetics.
All good and fine, I was just stating my opinion on the matter of having a BP in a MMO and that didnt change. Overly monetizing Ashes with box cost + sub + bp + cash shop will be a very big minus for me and probably many other people too. I will probably still play it if its a good game, but I dont like it and think its a greedy move thats bad for the reputation of the game.
Sure times changed, especially with mobile game monetization and p2w being more accepted nowadays, yet I still remember games like DAoC and Vanilla WoW. There it felt better doing something in the game, achieving something in the game.
We will see how its going to be, I hope that we wont have a BP or the like and that the cash shop isnt going to be too big. I rather earn my armor/looks inside of the game instead of swiping for it and even if I dont swipe myself, for other people to have the option diminishes my accomplishments in the game.
I really don't see how you are suing a argument if its on sale that means everything should be cheaper, so its a scam / rip off since they are upselling everything. Seems to me like a way to not actually have an argument imo.
Reread my 2 toys example. The replace those toys with cosmetics.
And arguing the true production cost for a digital product is more difficult than some other things so you can just way whatever without really fact checking.
Which is why I've been arguing about how the BP presents that cost to us. If a $10 BP has 10 cosmetics that means that each cosmetic is valued at $1 of dev work at the company. So when all the other cosmetics are sold at way higher prices - you're being upsold to all hell, but you're fine with that as long as the company is dangling keys in front of your face saying "you see, this BP is soooo cheap when compared to those overpriced cosmetics. You wanna get this instead, right?"
And I want that company to be truthful and simply say "here's the cheap cosmetics, here's the expensive ones - you choose". No 100h of gameplay, no dailies/weeklies/fucklies/etclies.
Again this argument doesn't make sense because than you can use the same point for any sale in the world and say every store is scamming you. Shows 50% store is trying to scam you, buy one butter get one free, that store is trying to scam you. It makes 0 sense.
Having a reason to go into a store is their selling point, being in a store does not mean you are being scammed. If the general price in industry standard and not higher things are fine. If it is higher than less people buy it so they lose money. If its too cheap they lose money as well since it takes less to buy it, or people feel they have enough cosmetics already and don't care as much for more.
Where you get what you pay for without additional work you need to put in. But the developer somehow has to make a living and if BPs are their way of doing it, why not.
I mean... the devs/publisher get more money from Store/Shop purchases.
But, the players who like Cosmetics will happily play the game for more hours with a BP than they would if they immediately get the Cosmetics by direct pay at full price.
The 80%-90% discount on items + Embers/vBucks/Traveler's Tender is worth doing stuff in the game that you like to but want some new rewards besides another Achievements Title.
When you have a box prices and/or a subsciption model I dont want to see a BP, a VIP model and honestly no costume or QoL cash shop either.
Sure, but... we know the plan is for Ashes to have a Cosmetics Shop.
So, we can expect the to also have a BP with discounted Cosmetics.
All good and fine, I was just stating my opinion on the matter of having a BP in a MMO and that didnt change. Overly monetizing Ashes with box cost + sub + bp + cash shop will be a very big minus for me and probably many other people too. I will probably still play it if its a good game, but I dont like it and think its a greedy move thats bad for the reputation of the game.
Sure times changed, especially with mobile game monetization and p2w being more accepted nowadays, yet I still remember games like DAoC and Vanilla WoW. There it felt better doing something in the game, achieving something in the game.
We will see how its going to be, I hope that we wont have a BP or the like and that the cash shop isnt going to be too big. I rather earn my armor/looks inside of the game instead of swiping for it and even if I dont swipe myself, for other people to have the option diminishes my accomplishments in the game.
Because there is a store where you can buy items nothing changes. The difference with a BP is it is a option to save money.
Any issue with people being able to just buy things and diminish accomplishments has nothing to do with a BP and is a store related issue.
Again its not greedy as the BP saves you money, and IS are not doing a box or expansion cost. ATm they are very far from being greedy. But BP issue and store issue can be solved by making everyone buy expansions and a box cost + sub.
Less content in-between and more content during major expansions. No market and everyone has to buy the box and expansion (which has its own issue of separating the player base). Which eventually people need to realize this is the best route imo keeping player base together with no p2w.
Where you get what you pay for without additional work you need to put in. But the developer somehow has to make a living and if BPs are their way of doing it, why not.
I mean... the devs/publisher get more money from Store/Shop purchases.
But, the players who like Cosmetics will happily play the game for more hours with a BP than they would if they immediately get the Cosmetics by direct pay at full price.
The 80%-90% discount on items + Embers/vBucks/Traveler's Tender is worth doing stuff in the game that you like to but want some new rewards besides another Achievements Title.
When you have a box prices and/or a subsciption model I dont want to see a BP, a VIP model and honestly no costume or QoL cash shop either.
Sure, but... we know the plan is for Ashes to have a Cosmetics Shop.
So, we can expect the to also have a BP with discounted Cosmetics.
All good and fine, I was just stating my opinion on the matter of having a BP in a MMO and that didnt change. Overly monetizing Ashes with box cost + sub + bp + cash shop will be a very big minus for me and probably many other people too. I will probably still play it if its a good game, but I dont like it and think its a greedy move thats bad for the reputation of the game.
Sure times changed, especially with mobile game monetization and p2w being more accepted nowadays, yet I still remember games like DAoC and Vanilla WoW. There it felt better doing something in the game, achieving something in the game.
We will see how its going to be, I hope that we wont have a BP or the like and that the cash shop isnt going to be too big. I rather earn my armor/looks inside of the game instead of swiping for it and even if I dont swipe myself, for other people to have the option diminishes my accomplishments in the game.
Because there is a store where you can buy items nothing changes. The difference with a BP is it is a option to save money.
Any issue with people being able to just buy things and diminish accomplishments has nothing to do with a BP and is a store related issue.
Again its not greedy as the BP saves you money, and IS are not doing a box or expansion cost. ATm they are very far from being greedy. But BP issue and store issue can be solved by making everyone buy expansions and a box cost + sub.
Less content in-between and more content during major expansions. No market and everyone has to buy the box and expansion (which has its own issue of separating the player base). Which eventually people need to realize this is the best route imo keeping player base together with no p2w.
Is it stated somewhere that BP skins can be bought outside of the BP and its really only to save money? Or is that an assumption on your side? Alot of games make BP skins BP exclusive.
I was under the assumption that ashes will have a box cost. Dont know if I mixed this up or they changed it at some point. This is good news and makes a BP more acceptable, but I still dont like the concept, which has nothing to do with ashes.
I understand that box + sub would have a higher entry barrier and that would probably lead to fewer players.. but it would mean a barrier for bots too.. but thats another topic. I dont know the best solution for it, I would just like to see ashes being better than the current market of mmorpgs. Thats one of the reasons why I have hope for this game.
Battle passes are the worst and is just a lazy way to make content that should have been included as in game rewards but now somehow I need to pay money for them?
They aren't content, it's just a reward structure to do the same content again. Hittin that dopamine. At no point in adding battle passes did anyone say " this will make our game fun".
Again this argument doesn't make sense because than you can use the same point for any sale in the world and say every store is scamming you. Shows 50% store is trying to scam you, buy one butter get one free, that store is trying to scam you. It makes 0 sense.
Having a reason to go into a store is their selling point, being in a store does not mean you are being scammed. If the general price in industry standard and not higher things are fine. If it is higher than less people buy it so they lose money. If its too cheap they lose money as well since it takes less to buy it, or people feel they have enough cosmetics already and don't care as much for more.
Sales are a scam. They're meant to make you buy at least something rather than not buying anything at all. And they're also meant to get you into the store, so it's way more likely for you to see something else you might wanna buy.
As main examples of that I present you Dygz, who buys shit in the cosmetic store even though he already does the BP, and I can give the example of my mom who keeps saying "well, it was on sale so I just HAD TO BUY IT".
It's always a scam. And as I said before, quite often shops will increase the price of something by, say, 20% and make the sale 10-15%. But because people never pay true attention to the prices of things, they just see huge red letters S A L E and their brain fires off dopamine of "omg I'm about to make a deal of my life".
1
Options
DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
You paid to be in the shop ($15/m sub), you paid for the "discounted comics" (even though this is still above their production cost, and the "normal" price is simply a huge upsell), and you pull in more fish by being present at the shop (the playtime metrics), which means that even more fish get baited just like you.
Again, the price of Cosmetics is industry standard - set years before Battlepass was thing.
The normal price can't really be an upsell when the prices were set years before Battlepasses ever existed.
Cosmetic Store became a trend - that's where the predatory aspect hit.
The discounted comics would not really be above production costs.
The discount is just offset because it will entice me to spend more if I'm around more.
Fortnite works because I'm likely to spend $100 per month in the Item Shop anyway.
Because they have Cosmetics I deem worth paying $12 - $15 each multiple times each week.
The Cosmetics in the Ashes Shop, the WoW Shop and the NW Shop are all too expensive for the value, in my view. And they are static for a month, rather than changing daily or weekly. So, the BPs don't entice me to check the store daily or weekly for something to buy.
Again, I play the free version of the WoW Battlepass.
The predatory aspect for WoW is the recurring payment, rather than month-to-month payment.
Anything that can get me to subscribe again means that
So, free Seasonal DLC works the same as a free Battlepass in terms of money.
Either way, I would probably pay three subs before I noticed that I hadn't actually played in the past 2 months.
But, I probably would play the Seasonal DLC for 20-30 hours without a Battlepass and I would play 100 hours with a BP.
So, that's really about retaining peak player population.
I think the main issue with the NW paid path is that it's P2W.
You paid to be in the shop ($15/m sub), you paid for the "discounted comics" (even though this is still above their production cost, and the "normal" price is simply a huge upsell), and you pull in more fish by being present at the shop (the playtime metrics), which means that even more fish get baited just like you.
Again, the price of Cosmetics is industry standard - set years before Battlepass was thing.
The normal price can't really be an upsell when the prices were set years before Battlepasses ever existed.
Cosmetic Store became a trend - that's where the predatory aspect hit.
The discounted comics would not really be above production costs.
The discount is just offset because it will entice me to spend more if I'm around more.
Fortnite works because I'm likely to spend $100 per month in the Item Shop anyway.
Because they have Cosmetics I deem worth paying $12 - $15 each multiple times each week.
The Cosmetics in the Ashes Shop, the WoW Shop and the NW Shop are all too expensive for the value, in my view. And they are static for a month, rather than changing daily or weekly. So, the BPs don't entice me to check the store daily or weekly for something to buy.
Again, I play the free version of the WoW Battlepass.
The predatory aspect for WoW is the recurring payment, rather than month-to-month payment.
Anything that can get me to subscribe again means that
So, free Seasonal DLC works the same as a free Battlepass in terms of money.
Either way, I would probably pay three subs before I noticed that I hadn't actually played in the past 2 months.
But, I probably would play the Seasonal DLC for 20-30 hours without a Battlepass and I would play 100 hours with a BP.
So, that's really about retaining peak player population.
I think the main issue with the NW paid path is that it's P2W.
The reoccurring agreement isn't predatory because you have the service and can play whenver. The content doesn't go off into the ether (Unless you're WoW releasing Cataclysm and discarding all of the old world). Battlepasses typically don't have reoccurring skins/awards that reappear. If they did people wouldn't bother buying the second or third BP if it meant no rewards from it.
What makes this predatory is the fact it's limited time only for this particular period with no way to go back and try to play/acquire it. This makes this FOMO content. A DLC on the otherhand you can always plop in at anytime and just play it. Just like you could with any expansion or DLC pack in the past. There is no fear of missing out if the content is always there. You can choose when you make that step rather than the company setting their own time when that content disappears entirely.
If your idea of play retention is being given some items and quests from an external source outside of the gameworld you could always send me money via paypal and I'll give you quests to do.
Again, the price of Cosmetics is industry standard - set years before Battlepass was thing.
My entire argument has been about "Intrepid, please change this to be better than the rest of this godforsaken industry". Nodes 3 were supposed to come out at some point in the past and open seas were just open instead of being a damn pvp zone. Things change, so why wouldn't this change.
And again, as I keep saying over and over again, but everyone seems to completely ignore this point. I want the quality of the pricier cosmetics to be better (be it through pure visuals or through ornateness or whatever other avenue), while the stuff that would've been made for BP to simply be sold directly at its value (that being the ~$1, if the paid BP had 10 cosmetics).
The preestablished cost would still be there, and whales would still be able to show off their whaleness. While everyone else would simply have true and completely transparent microtransactions. Not the fucking $75 horse skin that's at 800% value.
Where you get what you pay for without additional work you need to put in. But the developer somehow has to make a living and if BPs are their way of doing it, why not.
I mean... the devs/publisher get more money from Store/Shop purchases.
But, the players who like Cosmetics will happily play the game for more hours with a BP than they would if they immediately get the Cosmetics by direct pay at full price.
The 80%-90% discount on items + Embers/vBucks/Traveler's Tender is worth doing stuff in the game that you like to but want some new rewards besides another Achievements Title.
When you have a box prices and/or a subsciption model I dont want to see a BP, a VIP model and honestly no costume or QoL cash shop either.
Sure, but... we know the plan is for Ashes to have a Cosmetics Shop.
So, we can expect the to also have a BP with discounted Cosmetics.
All good and fine, I was just stating my opinion on the matter of having a BP in a MMO and that didnt change. Overly monetizing Ashes with box cost + sub + bp + cash shop will be a very big minus for me and probably many other people too. I will probably still play it if its a good game, but I dont like it and think its a greedy move thats bad for the reputation of the game.
Sure times changed, especially with mobile game monetization and p2w being more accepted nowadays, yet I still remember games like DAoC and Vanilla WoW. There it felt better doing something in the game, achieving something in the game.
We will see how its going to be, I hope that we wont have a BP or the like and that the cash shop isnt going to be too big. I rather earn my armor/looks inside of the game instead of swiping for it and even if I dont swipe myself, for other people to have the option diminishes my accomplishments in the game.
Because there is a store where you can buy items nothing changes. The difference with a BP is it is a option to save money.
Any issue with people being able to just buy things and diminish accomplishments has nothing to do with a BP and is a store related issue.
Again its not greedy as the BP saves you money, and IS are not doing a box or expansion cost. ATm they are very far from being greedy. But BP issue and store issue can be solved by making everyone buy expansions and a box cost + sub.
Less content in-between and more content during major expansions. No market and everyone has to buy the box and expansion (which has its own issue of separating the player base). Which eventually people need to realize this is the best route imo keeping player base together with no p2w.
Is it stated somewhere that BP skins can be bought outside of the BP and its really only to save money? Or is that an assumption on your side? Alot of games make BP skins BP exclusive.
I was under the assumption that ashes will have a box cost. Dont know if I mixed this up or they changed it at some point. This is good news and makes a BP more acceptable, but I still dont like the concept, which has nothing to do with ashes.
I understand that box + sub would have a higher entry barrier and that would probably lead to fewer players.. but it would mean a barrier for bots too.. but thats another topic. I dont know the best solution for it, I would just like to see ashes being better than the current market of mmorpgs. Thats one of the reasons why I have hope for this game.
Ya AoC only had a sub fee and a cosmetic market with no p2w. So it wouldn't be surprised if there was a battlepass down the road and in line with cosmetics. As far as i see it we already have it pretty good since its just the monthly fee, and they will be looking to get the money elsewhere. Most likely with different strategies.
Again this argument doesn't make sense because than you can use the same point for any sale in the world and say every store is scamming you. Shows 50% store is trying to scam you, buy one butter get one free, that store is trying to scam you. It makes 0 sense.
Having a reason to go into a store is their selling point, being in a store does not mean you are being scammed. If the general price in industry standard and not higher things are fine. If it is higher than less people buy it so they lose money. If its too cheap they lose money as well since it takes less to buy it, or people feel they have enough cosmetics already and don't care as much for more.
Sales are a scam. They're meant to make you buy at least something rather than not buying anything at all. And they're also meant to get you into the store, so it's way more likely for you to see something else you might wanna buy.
As main examples of that I present you Dygz, who buy shit in the cosmetic store even though he already does the BP, and I can give the example of my mom who keeps saying "well, it was on sale so I just HAD TO BUY IT".
It's always a scam. And as I said before, quite often shops will increase the price of something by, say, 20% and make the sale 10-15%. But because people never pay true attention to the prices of things, they just see huge red letters S A L E and their brain fires off dopamine of "omg I'm about to make a deal of my life".
If all sales are a scam, then they really don't need to do any different in their sales, and I'm fine with scams if they mean items are reduced prices lmao.
If all sales are a scam, then they really don't need to do any different in their sales, and I'm fine with scams if they mean items are reduced prices lmao.
This is what I've been saying for pages now. Both you and Dygz seem to be completely fine with being used by the corpos. And that's totally fine, you're adults and all that. But I don't want to be used, so I keep saying that I don't want a BP in Ashes.
If all sales are a scam, then they really don't need to do any different in their sales, and I'm fine with scams if they mean items are reduced prices lmao.
This is what I've been saying for pages now. Both you and Dygz seem to be completely fine with being used by the corpos. And that's totally fine, you're adults and all that. But I don't want to be used, so I keep saying that I don't want a BP in Ashes.
Ill be clear i think this kind of point is extremely silly to say all sales in the world are scams as your point for no BP or sales in games.
This is what I've been saying for pages now. Both you and Dygz seem to be completely fine with being used by the corpos. And that's totally fine, you're adults and all that. But I don't want to be used, so I keep saying that I don't want a BP in Ashes.
Dunno what you mean by used.
WoW and NW give me free new rewards to do stuff I like to do in their games.
And LEGO Fortnite has items in their Item Shop that I'm willing to spend $110 on each month. And that extra $10 also gives me a bunch of fun Tasks to do for 100 hours and also gives me 2x the items + $10 worth of vBucks and stops me from spending more than $200 a month in the Item Shop.
Dunno what you mean by used.
WoW and NW give me free new rewards to do stuff I like to do in their games.
And LEGO Fortnite has items in their Item Shop that I'm willing to spend $110 on each month. And that extra $10 also gives me a bunch of fun Tasks to do for 100 hours and also gives me 2x the items + $10 worth of vBucks and stops me from spending more than $200 a month in the Item Shop.
I'm very glad you're enjoying all of those games w/o the feeling that you're being used. Sadly, I can't do that. And considering that I'm a loud voice on the forums, I try to shout for all of those who also don't want to feel used due to these systems.
1
Options
DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited June 3
How does a system that can be ignored make people feel used?
It's like saying I should feel used by games that have people chasing BiS gear.
Loot Boxes are predatory. Cosmetic Stores can be predatory.
Modern Battlepasses are not.
Comments
Drop any notion of that $75, and you have how a game like Ashes should put cosmetics to good use.
Hey, here's a cool looking thing, go off and do this part of the game that we want more people to get in to, and you can have it!
No need to set up a UI for it, no need to charge for it, no need to give the system a name, no need to create mind-numbing tasks, just tell players what content they need to participate in and what they can get for it.
Even better is if that reward remains for that task in perpituity.
Like I said, it's closer to if Achievements had discounted Cosmetics and Embers as rewards instead of just Titles.
It couldn't be as simple as the reward(s) remaining for a Task in perpetuity because that is static which is the entire problem with Quests and Bulletin Board Tasks.
For one thing, it would take too much development time to have one Cosmetic for each BP Task.
For another, eventually, all of those rewards would be acquired and masses of players would stop playing while they wait 12-18 months for the devs to create a plethora of new Cosmetics.
Same issue as an expansion - the devs would not be able to keep up with the demand.
And the Seasonal related Achievements (and rewards) would be completed in 10-20 hours, rather than 100 hours.
If there were no need for any of it, BPs wouldn't exist.
https://clips.twitch.tv/ThankfulUninterestedBurritoOneHand-NkA3FPYL7BkeMqeb
Asmon did not use the word predatory.
I stated on page 3 of this thread:
I expect Ashes to have a Battlepass. "Especially because the current trend is for MMOs to have a Battlepass."
Marketing trend is not inherently synonymous with predatory or ploy.
Battlepass is what games like Fortnite did when they realized they couldn't do loot boxes any more.
Yes, they are preditory, they are designed to be addictive - and we have only just seen the start of them.
That is it, that is the reason.
They aren't doing it to get more money to put in to the game, they are doing it to get more money to give to shareholders.
No idea at all why you would think this comment has any place in this discussion.
You don't like doing dungeons. Cool. So what?
I mean, a lot of games have cosmetic rewards for achievements.
Not discounts on cosmetics - just cosmetics.
Which is excellent for Fortnite.
Again, in Fortnite, the BP is not predatory, rather the Item Shop is predatory.
Doesn't work the same for WoW and NW because their Shops are static and don't have daily and weekly fomo.
A BP is no more addictive than Dungeons and Raids are for gamers seeking BiS gear.
And, how enticing a BP is, any given month or Season, will depend on whether the rewards/Cosmetics being offered are appealing to the individual player.
It's like a Comic Shop owner offering to give me 10 free new comics if I spend 100 hours in the shop every 3 months doing a bunch of tasks. And he'll give me another 10 new comics at an 80%-90% discount if I buy 2 comics book per month at full price (2x $5).
And the tasks offered for me to do on a daily and weekly basis are mostly stuff I would like to do at a Comic Shop anyway.
They would include tasks like:
Eat 3 slices of pizza from the fridge
Read 2 DC comics
Read 2 Marvel comics
Read 2 True Romance comics
Read 2 Western comics
Choose 5 new comics and place them on the Weekly Favorites display shelf
Sweep the floors
Clean the windows
Sell 4 comic books
Read 2 articles from the CBR website
And, I get to pick which tasks I complete and which tasks I ignore.
Good for the Shop as I interact directly and indirectly with other customers.
Also good for the Shop if being there daily/weekly entices me to spend $100 per month buying comics there instead of $40 per month on comics. Even when I finish my 100 hours in just one month.
Even in high school, I was spending $40 per month on comic books.
I was not spending more than 4 hours a month at the Comics Shop.
I pretty much stopped buying comics once they hit $3.99 and I realized my typical 10 comics per week would be more than $100 per month.
So, $15 sub + a $10 Battlepass isn't going to come close to feeling predatory to me. And actively playing an MMORPG is not really going to be more addictive than reading comics or reading fantasy novels.
You paid to be in the shop ($15/m sub), you paid for the "discounted comics" (even though this is still above their production cost, and the "normal" price is simply a huge upsell), and you pull in more fish by being present at the shop (the playtime metrics), which means that even more fish get baited just like you.
The entire system is predatory, but you're satisfied with chewing the bait and even expect it in other places.
And arguing the true production cost for a digital product is more difficult than some other things so you can just way whatever without really fact checking.
On this point if more people are looking at the store so they make more money potentially, sure that makes sense. Also there isn't really a issue there, that is life with people trying to sell you things in any setting. Its not predatory, a scam, etc.
Using those words you are actually watering down games that do have things like that in it and making the words meaningless in order to keep trying to push this is bad. When its really not anything different than any other game or going to a store irl.
Predatory is when you are talking about gambling in a game, adding items to buy and help you increase your power while not knowing the conditions for your power to increase, items that give you special benefits and indirect advantage against others making you feel you need the item, p2w, pay for convenience, gaining items constantly in game which require additional paid items to use it, players advertising store items from their actions (announcements on servers pinging all players constantly).
I'm sure I could think of more, going into a store is not predatory nor is a BP. If they lose a bit of money to make a bit of money from interactions on the store / game that is all good and part of their job.
Which is why I've been arguing about how the BP presents that cost to us. If a $10 BP has 10 cosmetics that means that each cosmetic is valued at $1 of dev work at the company. So when all the other cosmetics are sold at way higher prices - you're being upsold to all hell, but you're fine with that as long as the company is dangling keys in front of your face saying "you see, this BP is soooo cheap when compared to those overpriced cosmetics. You wanna get this instead, right?"
And I want that company to be truthful and simply say "here's the cheap cosmetics, here's the expensive ones - you choose". No 100h of gameplay, no dailies/weeklies/fucklies/etclies.
All good and fine, I was just stating my opinion on the matter of having a BP in a MMO and that didnt change. Overly monetizing Ashes with box cost + sub + bp + cash shop will be a very big minus for me and probably many other people too. I will probably still play it if its a good game, but I dont like it and think its a greedy move thats bad for the reputation of the game.
Sure times changed, especially with mobile game monetization and p2w being more accepted nowadays, yet I still remember games like DAoC and Vanilla WoW. There it felt better doing something in the game, achieving something in the game.
We will see how its going to be, I hope that we wont have a BP or the like and that the cash shop isnt going to be too big. I rather earn my armor/looks inside of the game instead of swiping for it and even if I dont swipe myself, for other people to have the option diminishes my accomplishments in the game.
Again this argument doesn't make sense because than you can use the same point for any sale in the world and say every store is scamming you. Shows 50% store is trying to scam you, buy one butter get one free, that store is trying to scam you. It makes 0 sense.
Having a reason to go into a store is their selling point, being in a store does not mean you are being scammed. If the general price in industry standard and not higher things are fine. If it is higher than less people buy it so they lose money. If its too cheap they lose money as well since it takes less to buy it, or people feel they have enough cosmetics already and don't care as much for more.
Because there is a store where you can buy items nothing changes. The difference with a BP is it is a option to save money.
Any issue with people being able to just buy things and diminish accomplishments has nothing to do with a BP and is a store related issue.
Again its not greedy as the BP saves you money, and IS are not doing a box or expansion cost. ATm they are very far from being greedy. But BP issue and store issue can be solved by making everyone buy expansions and a box cost + sub.
Less content in-between and more content during major expansions. No market and everyone has to buy the box and expansion (which has its own issue of separating the player base). Which eventually people need to realize this is the best route imo keeping player base together with no p2w.
Is it stated somewhere that BP skins can be bought outside of the BP and its really only to save money? Or is that an assumption on your side? Alot of games make BP skins BP exclusive.
I was under the assumption that ashes will have a box cost. Dont know if I mixed this up or they changed it at some point. This is good news and makes a BP more acceptable, but I still dont like the concept, which has nothing to do with ashes.
I understand that box + sub would have a higher entry barrier and that would probably lead to fewer players.. but it would mean a barrier for bots too.. but thats another topic. I dont know the best solution for it, I would just like to see ashes being better than the current market of mmorpgs. Thats one of the reasons why I have hope for this game.
They aren't content, it's just a reward structure to do the same content again. Hittin that dopamine. At no point in adding battle passes did anyone say " this will make our game fun".
As main examples of that I present you Dygz, who buys shit in the cosmetic store even though he already does the BP, and I can give the example of my mom who keeps saying "well, it was on sale so I just HAD TO BUY IT".
It's always a scam. And as I said before, quite often shops will increase the price of something by, say, 20% and make the sale 10-15%. But because people never pay true attention to the prices of things, they just see huge red letters S A L E and their brain fires off dopamine of "omg I'm about to make a deal of my life".
The normal price can't really be an upsell when the prices were set years before Battlepasses ever existed.
Cosmetic Store became a trend - that's where the predatory aspect hit.
The discounted comics would not really be above production costs.
The discount is just offset because it will entice me to spend more if I'm around more.
Fortnite works because I'm likely to spend $100 per month in the Item Shop anyway.
Because they have Cosmetics I deem worth paying $12 - $15 each multiple times each week.
The Cosmetics in the Ashes Shop, the WoW Shop and the NW Shop are all too expensive for the value, in my view. And they are static for a month, rather than changing daily or weekly. So, the BPs don't entice me to check the store daily or weekly for something to buy.
Again, I play the free version of the WoW Battlepass.
The predatory aspect for WoW is the recurring payment, rather than month-to-month payment.
Anything that can get me to subscribe again means that
So, free Seasonal DLC works the same as a free Battlepass in terms of money.
Either way, I would probably pay three subs before I noticed that I hadn't actually played in the past 2 months.
But, I probably would play the Seasonal DLC for 20-30 hours without a Battlepass and I would play 100 hours with a BP.
So, that's really about retaining peak player population.
I think the main issue with the NW paid path is that it's P2W.
The reoccurring agreement isn't predatory because you have the service and can play whenver. The content doesn't go off into the ether (Unless you're WoW releasing Cataclysm and discarding all of the old world). Battlepasses typically don't have reoccurring skins/awards that reappear. If they did people wouldn't bother buying the second or third BP if it meant no rewards from it.
What makes this predatory is the fact it's limited time only for this particular period with no way to go back and try to play/acquire it. This makes this FOMO content. A DLC on the otherhand you can always plop in at anytime and just play it. Just like you could with any expansion or DLC pack in the past. There is no fear of missing out if the content is always there. You can choose when you make that step rather than the company setting their own time when that content disappears entirely.
If your idea of play retention is being given some items and quests from an external source outside of the gameworld you could always send me money via paypal and I'll give you quests to do.
And again, as I keep saying over and over again, but everyone seems to completely ignore this point. I want the quality of the pricier cosmetics to be better (be it through pure visuals or through ornateness or whatever other avenue), while the stuff that would've been made for BP to simply be sold directly at its value (that being the ~$1, if the paid BP had 10 cosmetics).
The preestablished cost would still be there, and whales would still be able to show off their whaleness. While everyone else would simply have true and completely transparent microtransactions. Not the fucking $75 horse skin that's at 800% value.
Ya AoC only had a sub fee and a cosmetic market with no p2w. So it wouldn't be surprised if there was a battlepass down the road and in line with cosmetics. As far as i see it we already have it pretty good since its just the monthly fee, and they will be looking to get the money elsewhere. Most likely with different strategies.
If all sales are a scam, then they really don't need to do any different in their sales, and I'm fine with scams if they mean items are reduced prices lmao.
Ill be clear i think this kind of point is extremely silly to say all sales in the world are scams as your point for no BP or sales in games.
WoW and NW give me free new rewards to do stuff I like to do in their games.
And LEGO Fortnite has items in their Item Shop that I'm willing to spend $110 on each month. And that extra $10 also gives me a bunch of fun Tasks to do for 100 hours and also gives me 2x the items + $10 worth of vBucks and stops me from spending more than $200 a month in the Item Shop.
It's like saying I should feel used by games that have people chasing BiS gear.
Loot Boxes are predatory. Cosmetic Stores can be predatory.
Modern Battlepasses are not.