Economy, F2P farming, and bases - what's the plan?

greenfire312 · February 2018

It's been a long time since I've bothered to jump on the complain-train with a new thread. But by my metric, PWE and wanmei haven't screwed the pooch this badly since packs and Rank 9 first came out, so here we are.

Let's start with the rage item of the day: Probably 80-90% of current factions cannot meet the new requirements to open their bases with any consistency. People are going to start leaving current factions and consolidating into a few big ones which can do DH and UP runs (and, if they're smart, teach people how to do those runs if they don't have R9). That's the only way I see this ending. And if you don't end up in one of those factions, you'd better hope you don't need the content inside the base.

But personally, I don't care much about faction bases. About the only thing I really cared about in there was ammo, and I farmed a dozen stacks of it last year so I'll be good for years. So as I watch the rage spring up about everyone being locked out of their bases, well... for what it's worth, I agree with everyone raging about it, but I hope some of you realize that you're missing the forest for the trees. This is just the latest in a long pattern of removals and restrictions placed on the Free-To-Play community.

Last time it was FSP coins - remember those? Y'know, the most stable F2P farming method at the time? Gone in a flash? But if it was just the FSP coins, you could have written it off as a fluke. "Oh, the devs are just being tone-deaf."

But now glyphs aren't exchangeable from farming, either (oh, don't worry - you can buy them with lucky coins! ...sure). This, to me, is far more instructive of the direction PWI is taking right now. They directly removed a free to play farming method and replaced it with something that requires cash-derivative items.

And OHT gear for perfect stones. Really? Aside from myself, I knew almost no one who even bothered to farm card bosses, especially after pstones were added to the merchants.

And all that is just in the last year or so. This isn't a fluke anymore. Combine this with our history of removing or de-valuing low level content, removing the coin values from virtually everything, and then removing the DQ points system which was supposed to be our (only) consolation prize for the loss of DQ value... I think at this point, even the most reasonable people, who would hate to support the knee-jerk "OMG PWI IS GREEDY" narrative, would have to agree that we've ruled out all possibilities other than deliberate changes meant to stifle F2P farming.

But for years, requests for changes/fixes have of course fallen on deaf ears. We know there's several layers of separation between us and the devs, and most of us long-time players have learned to temper our expectations accordingly. And we're frequently told how most changes are designed with the Chinese version first in mind. But come on, we know the CN community is more predisposed to grinding then we are (at least, in theory... PWI survived just find as a grind-fest before packs and R9 came out), and we know that far fewer people on CN have R9.

So are we supposed to believe that CN version benefits from arbitrary instance-grinding requirements and reduced access to glyphs? The only way that flies is if CN factions are so predisposed to grinding FSP, UP, and DH that they have enough regular players to make that possible (y'know, using the R9 gear most of them don't have). Which, hey let's be honest, would make the CN community pretty damn hardcore, if that scenario were true (which I'm not 100% convinced of). But even if it were, that's not how the PWI community has functioned ever since packs and R9 turned it into a pay to win model. So the best case scenario here is that we've been screwed over yet again by game mechanics that don't fit us.

The tl;dr here is our community is not set up to function within these requirements. We don't have the playerbase to support them in most of our factions, and consolidation of factions would just make the community look smaller and less diverse. And let's not forget, if any significant portion of players leave over this, it'll make it that much harder for any factions to meet the requirements.

So @kalystconquerer#0876 , I hate to do this to you because I know you're just a (very busy) messenger, but we need a response. You have been in touch with the devs. You have played F2P, and I know you understand the problems with that community. I wouldn't expect your influence to be felt in this expansion, because I'm sure it was in development before you posted the upcoming changes thread. But the next expansion won't have that excuse. If it does nothing of value and continues to remove F2P functionality, then that's going to be the last straw for a lot of people. So what's the plan? And what are we supposed to take from the changes this time around, if not "pay up or shut up?"

Seriously, does PWE even understand how bad these optics are? To an observant player, this game appears to be sacrificing its own mechanics one by one at the altar of the pay-to-win business model... a model which PWI was never originally designed for, and which has achieved its now-impressive longevity specifically by resisting it. If PWE has any interest at all in maintaining that longevity, there is quite literally no possible strategy that could be worse.

And people are noticing. It's no accident that these "I'm leaving" threads are springing up now - I count at least four since the expansion launched. You can bet that for every person who posts about it, several others are quitting without comment. And yes, people rage with every new expansion and change, but this time they're more justified than most. If I invested hundreds of millions of coins and years of grinding into something and then had all that investment wiped out in the blink of an eye, I'd be pissed too! You're removing content and not replacing it with anything, unless you count arbitrary barriers based on instance-running requirements that 90% of current factions cannot meet.

This is unsustainable, and a few "consolation" codes are not going to fix it this time. In an ideal world, bases would return to their original state, and FSP coins and glyph farming would be restored. But the devs have never walked back a new mechanic before, so the former is probably out. So speaking realistically, I feel there are two immediate steps which need to be taken:

1. Drastically lower, if not remove entirely, the "loyalty points" requirement to open the base. I'm talking 80-90% lower here.

2. Either restore the old, or introduce new, Free-To-Play coin and item farming methods, and then do not touch them come hell or high water. Resources required include glyphs, star chart materials, BH reward items which were reduced when MBH came out, and most importantly, coin.

These are immediate and direly needed changes to preserve the life of this community and prevent anyone else from leaving. The former change should just be the devs changing a number or two, so ideally we'd get that next patch. The latter would involve more work, admittedly, but IMO we need to see it by the next content update, or at least by the next expansion.

Most of us here complain because we love, and some of us have seen PWI go through so many painful changes that you can only ever love it "warts and all." But we all have limits, and we've been waiting long enough. We need to see that PWE takes this seriously, and it's time for them to stop hiding behind the "Because China" excuse. Otherwise, their credibility will be back in "Soon(TM)" territory before long, and you simply don't have the playerbase you did back then.

mimiskysa#4762 · February 2018

greenfire312 wrote: »

It's been a long time since I've bothered to jump on the complain-train with a new thread. But by my metric, PWE and wanmei haven't screwed the pooch this badly since packs and Rank 9 first came out, so here we are.

Let's start with the rage item of the day: Probably 80-90% of current factions cannot meet the new requirements to open their bases with any consistency. People are going to start leaving current factions and consolidating into a few big ones which can do DH and UP runs (and, if they're smart, teach people how to do those runs if they don't have R9). That's the only way I see this ending. And if you don't end up in one of those factions, you'd better hope you don't need the content inside the base.

But personally, I don't care much about faction bases. About the only thing I really cared about in there was ammo, and I farmed a dozen stacks of it last year so I'll be good for years. So as I watch the rage spring up about everyone being locked out of their bases, well... for what it's worth, I agree with everyone raging about it, but I hope some of you realize that you're missing the forest for the trees. This is just the latest in a long pattern of removals and restrictions placed on the Free-To-Play community.

Last time it was FSP coins - remember those? Y'know, the most stable F2P farming method at the time? Gone in a flash? But if it was just the FSP coins, you could have written it off as a fluke. "Oh, the devs are just being tone-deaf."

But now glyphs aren't exchangeable from farming, either (oh, don't worry - you can buy them with lucky coins! ...sure). This, to me, is far more instructive of the direction PWI is taking right now. They directly removed a free to play farming method and replaced it with something that requires cash-derivative items.

And OHT gear for perfect stones. Really? Aside from myself, I knew almost no one who even bothered to farm card bosses, especially after pstones were added to the merchants.

And all that is just in the last year or so. This isn't a fluke anymore. Combine this with our history of removing or de-valuing low level content, removing the coin values from virtually everything, and then removing the DQ points system which was supposed to be our (only) consolation prize for the loss of DQ value... I think at this point, even the most reasonable people, who would hate to support the knee-jerk "OMG PWI IS GREEDY" narrative, would have to agree that we've ruled out all possibilities other than deliberate changes meant to stifle F2P farming.

But for years, requests for changes/fixes have of course fallen on deaf ears. We know there's several layers of separation between us and the devs, and most of us long-time players have learned to temper our expectations accordingly. And we're frequently told how most changes are designed with the Chinese version first in mind. But come on, we know the CN community is more predisposed to grinding then we are (at least, in theory... PWI survived just find as a grind-fest before packs and R9 came out), and we know that far fewer people on CN have R9.

So are we supposed to believe that CN version benefits from arbitrary instance-grinding requirements and reduced access to glyphs? The only way that flies is if CN factions are so predisposed to grinding FSP, UP, and DH that they have enough regular players to make that possible (y'know, using the R9 gear most of them don't have). Which, hey let's be honest, would make the CN community pretty damn hardcore, if that scenario were true (which I'm not 100% convinced of). But even if it were, that's not how the PWI community has functioned ever since packs and R9 turned it into a pay to win model. So the best case scenario here is that we've been screwed over yet again by game mechanics that don't fit us.

The tl;dr here is our community is not set up to function within these requirements. We don't have the playerbase to support them in most of our factions, and consolidation of factions would just make the community look smaller and less diverse. And let's not forget, if any significant portion of players leave over this, it'll make it that much harder for any factions to meet the requirements.

So @kalystconquerer#0876 , I hate to do this to you because I know you're just a (very busy) messenger, but we need a response. You have been in touch with the devs. You have played F2P, and I know you understand the problems with that community. I wouldn't expect your influence to be felt in this expansion, because I'm sure it was in development before you posted the upcoming changes thread. But the next expansion won't have that excuse. If it does nothing of value and continues to remove F2P functionality, then that's going to be the last straw for a lot of people. So what's the plan? And what are we supposed to take from the changes this time around, if not "pay up or shut up?"

Seriously, does PWE even understand how bad these optics are? To an observant player, this game appears to be sacrificing its own mechanics one by one at the altar of the pay-to-win business model... a model which PWI was never originally designed for, and which has achieved its now-impressive longevity specifically by resisting it. If PWE has any interest at all in maintaining that longevity, there is quite literally no possible strategy that could be worse.

And people are noticing. It's no accident that these "I'm leaving" threads are springing up now - I count at least four since the expansion launched. You can bet that for every person who posts about it, several others are quitting without comment. And yes, people rage with every new expansion and change, but this time they're more justified than most. If I invested hundreds of millions of coins and years of grinding into something and then had all that investment wiped out in the blink of an eye, I'd be pissed too! You're removing content and not replacing it with anything, unless you count arbitrary barriers based on instance-running requirements that 90% of current factions cannot meet.

This is unsustainable, and a few "consolation" codes are not going to fix it this time. In an ideal world, bases would return to their original state, and FSP coins and glyph farming would be restored. But the devs have never walked back a new mechanic before, so the former is probably out. So speaking realistically, I feel there are two immediate steps which need to be taken:

1. Drastically lower, if not remove entirely, the "loyalty points" requirement to open the base. I'm talking 80-90% lower here.

2. Either restore the old, or introduce new, Free-To-Play coin and item farming methods, and then do not touch them come hell or high water. Resources required include glyphs, star chart materials, BH reward items which were reduced when MBH came out, and most importantly, coin.

These are immediate and direly needed changes to preserve the life of this community and prevent anyone else from leaving. The former change should just be the devs changing a number or two, so ideally we'd get that next patch. The latter would involve more work, admittedly, but IMO we need to see it by the next content update, or at least by the next expansion.

Most of us here complain because we love, and some of us have seen PWI go through so many painful changes that you can only ever love it "warts and all." But we all have limits, and we've been waiting long enough. We need to see that PWE takes this seriously, and it's time for them to stop hiding behind the "Because China" excuse. Otherwise, their credibility will be back in "Soon(TM)" territory before long, and you simply don't have the playerbase you did back then.

I agree with this 100%

ony180 · February 2018

rieihdius · February 2018

Completly agree with the OP, I could not have said it in a better way.

geochris · February 2018

Farming is a vital component to any MMO and PWI has been removing these options for a long time. They also suddenly remove them. It wouldn't have been as bad if we had a month or so to prepare for these changes. I would have spent the badges that I had stored instead of having a pile of 400 badges sitting in my bank and I would have stocked up on base pots, ect.

I agree with the above post 100%!

unluckygecko · February 2018

They know our version of the game is dying and they know they will never be able to revive a game this old that is so fundamentally broken, it's just too far gone. The plan is to milk the last bit of money from people and then pull the plug when the last heavy spenders quit. It's the only logical conclusion for what they have done to the game over the last few years.

greenfire312 · February 2018

geochris wrote: »

Farming is a vital component to any MMO and PWI has been removing these options for a long time. They also suddenly remove them. It wouldn't have been as bad if we had a month or so to prepare for these changes. I would have spent the badges that I had stored instead of having a pile of 400 badges sitting in my bank and I would have stocked up on base pots, ect.

I agree with the above post 100%!

I'll admit, I liquidated most of my squire badges once I got the heads-up, but that required me going on the forums to confirm it the night before. Aside from spamming WC with warning, there's not much anyone could've done.

unluckygecko wrote: »

They know our version of the game is dying and they know they will never be able to revive a game this old that is so fundamentally broken, it's just too far gone. The plan is to milk the last bit of money from people and then pull the plug when the last heavy spenders quit. It's the only logical conclusion for what they have done to the game over the last few years.

I'd have agreed with you a few years ago, but this game seems to have staggered on for more years than I'd have thought it would. By all rights, R9 alone should've done it in, and yet it didn't. But that doesn't mean it's invincible, and when you get down to it, you need something that new players come in for and old players stick around for. And "hey look an amusement park" isn't it (even if they'd have released that on time... seriously, the 14th? if you're gonna **** us over, at least dangle the shiny thing in our face at the same time and hope we get distracted... seriously, gg). So that's why I'd personally like some answers on what PWE/devs' plan is supposed to be here.

wildz2 · February 2018

-The 1000 loyalty points probably comes from greatly overestimating their player base, wich is sad.
Most factions will have closed before they even realise 1000 was maybe a bit too high and a sucker punch.

-FSP coins pretty much make the same income as it used to give back then if i remember correctly?
Prices on C packs went up so much its pretty much equivalent? (might be wrong though?)

-Glyphs; I've never felt like squire badges were an efficient way of farming glyphs in any way, and wonder why people make it such a big deal.
3 days to get a lvl 1 glyph?...(unless theres a way of farming squire badges i dont know about?)
seems a lot like useless to me.
Removing the glyphs for squire badges seems to me like a precaution they could take before introducing codes with free rb2 pills.

Preventing people from creating 200 alts just for the questchain just for badges/free glyphs.

(If you're referring to the fact that they can now be exchanged for lucky coins though, I have to say on my server, lvl 4 glyphs were already lower than the lucky coin price atm)

-Farming...Wouldnt know, havent been around enough. But G16 is pretty easy to achieve, and with everything that is coming out as war avatars/passives/glyphs and stuff, G16 is really enough to run just about anything.

Do you really need money?
Except for that CoM or those JoSD to be competitive...if you're a PVE player, probably not that much.
PVP, well, yeah, its out of proportion.

But I still get decent income from farming homesteads, from those "r9" people that are willing to put money into the game.

Introducing G17 was a pretty good move when you think about it, cashers are now paying people who do dailies (homestead) to afford their gear.
Instead of putting money into GST, that goes straight into a boutique.

They probably have reduced the ways of making money in the game, but stuff is less and less achievable through money, and more through dailies. (Not reducing in any way the advantage of cashers through this process)

dagoddominator · February 2018

geez, never thought i'd be posting here after all these years. greenfire hit the nail on the head so hard China should be registering an earthquake.

Sadly.... the one thing that could actually spur PWE to action.... will never happen. People need to STOP BUYING ZEN!!!!

i mean think about it, you have a store and you sell items. People buy your items. people who browse complain of the prices but you are still doing brisk business. as you release newer more expensive items, the browsers complain more but the paying customers continue to buy your items.

your profits keep soaring, despite the complaints. do you change your prices? or do you ignore the complaints because your stock is flipping every week?

this is the problem, they wont change anything until the consequences come into play for them... namely another exodus from this game... and not only this game but all of their products, because there habits of preying upon their customers is being widely advertised.

PWE is NEVER going to deal with it's dwindling playerbase fairly, despite the long-term detriment it poses to reputation and continued business.

i have spent my fair share of real world money on this game that i REALLY REALLY REALLY LOVED since i was in college, and when i finally quit it was hard, i didnt even delete my links folder with my former faction and this forum. i had to admit how much i wanted to come back, even if to just join a casual faction and enjoy not being competitive.

it's a REAL honest to [insert religious figure here] shame that this is happening. it's a greater shame it wont be addressed adequately and an EVEN GREATER shame people still throw money at this game.

rieihdius · February 2018

unluckygecko wrote: »

They know our version of the game is dying and they know they will never be able to revive a game this old that is so fundamentally broken, it's just too far gone. The plan is to milk the last bit of money from people and then pull the plug when the last heavy spenders quit. It's the only logical conclusion for what they have done to the game over the last few years.

well they are shoting down another title soon:
https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/Gigantic/news/detail/10748144-gigantic's-final-update

They already shot down WOI and BOI not long ago and if someone played swordman some times, they probably know how messed up the things used to be there (maybe still are but I don't know since i dont play it anymore)

I would not be surprised if they did the same with this one tbh.

eirghan · February 2018

I quit playing about 6 months ago and I come check in every so often just to see if anything has changed or PWI has fixed anything they promised but every update looks a lot like this so damn if i dont thank my stars I got out when I did. Everything I loved about the game is gone and I think a lot of players feel the same... Even the players who are still enjoying pwi know they are riding out its last days. Who in their right mind would join the game now unless they recently won the super 7 xD its just really sad.

Only improvement made was @heero200 got mod. Congrats man you earned it.

cucujanu · February 2018

nothing gonna change as long people complain on forums that their *charge limit* is to low,lol....

adrian#7201 · February 2018

bare with me here...

So, one day "Joe" goes out and buys a car for 150 thousand dollars. His whole life savings, plus a few bad **** lotto tickets. But he's worked hard, and stuck it out, so he deserves it.

The dealer hands him the keys and says "go on, hop on in and take her outta the lot, it's all yours, you've earned it bucko"

Parks it in his garage every night under lock and key, and dam near spit shines the thing every day. Turtle waxes the thing, and every once in awhile, spends afew hundred on a brand new accessory. A new sterio, a bad **** brake upgrade, ect. Hell, even puts full collision on it, ya know, just incase.

So a year goes by, and one day, Joe wakes up, stretches his legs, hops outta bed, showers, shaves, gets dressed, and goes to head into his garage to take his beautiful, expensive car to work. He opens teh door to his garage, reaches for his keys on the hook next to the door, and no keys.

Panic fills Joe's mind, as he tries to figure out where he might've put the keys to his very expensive car. Then he notices a man, sitting in his car. That man meets Joe's stare and opens the car door, and gets out holding Joe's keys.

That man, was the dealer that sold Joe his car...

He twirls the keys menacingly in his hands and remarks "so, you got my 10 grand?"

Joe: "What do you mean? I already paid you! Why are you in my house?"

Dealer: "No, no, no, this is a new sales method we just thought of, anyone who still wants to drive our cars needs to fork oevr 10k a week."

Joe: "10k a week?!?!? Hell! I only make 2.5 grand a month! I can't afford that!!!! Who on earth could???"

Dealer: "Your nieghbors could."

Joe glances out of his window, and stares at his nieghbors, sitting on the balcony of the third floor of their mansion. "But those people are few and far between. Nobody else is goin to be able to pay for that!"

Dealer: "That's what the last 5 houses said."

Joe: "This is insane, don't move a muscle, i'm calling the police!"

*phone rings* Officer: "911 operator, what seems to be your emergency?"

Joe: "There is a man in my house, and he's trying to extort me. He broke in, and stole the keys to my car!"

Officer: "is he your local car dealer?"

Joe thinks to himself "no way, this can't be happening" then he replies "yes, but i don't see how..."

The officer cuts him off and says "Please relinquish your car to the man until such time as you have the money to afford your vehicle.

Joe: "I already paid for it!"

Officer: "Sir, if we do not recieve a call in the next twenty minutes form your dealer saying teh car is his posession, we will come impound it" *phone clicks as officer hangs up*

Dealer "Have a nice chat?"

Joe: "No, all my hard work sticking it out in this town. Please sir no. You can't do this to me..."

The car dealer grins and simply says "Sorry, it's not our fault, it's coming from the big boss. You know how it is" Then he walks to your car twirling your keys the whole way, opens your garage door from inside your car (garage remote, $200 upgrade), and pulls off.

Joe watches him drive down the road in the car he fairly bought and maintained. Poured his soul into polishing. Countless hours wasted. Then he notices his nieghbors next door in their mansion are having a big party, there's people flooding in, and there's a massive bowl full of lottery tickets.

Joe hears his nieghbors shout "Sorry everyone else! 200 is as many as the town lets us have in at one time. Fire code. Feel free to wait outside until you see someone come out!"

As he stares at his empty garage, and watches the people at his nieghbor's door, waiting, hoping to get a spot at that awesome party, only one thought crosses his mind.

Joe: "Maybe it's time to move to a better town..."

irmoose · February 2018

I sadly came back to this game. Honest though, I met some nice people during that time and one very great guy who has since become my best friend. I wouldn't change the fact I came back but we both are considering it's time to end our time here. Two factions I sit in beyond where my main is, they both had things ripped right out from under them. I just cannot handle this stab that has been dealt.

Atleast we have our friendship still. So, thanks PWI? I dunno how I feel about saying that..

dennicoolpwms · February 2018

At the moment I still just don't get it - are they only locking us out of our "old" Bases or won't we ever be able to get into the new Base also without heading for the 1K Loyalty Points? Just asking because I found something about the old and new Base in the explanations to the new Faction Menu. In particular it says that we have one Week starting Mondays to earn 1K Loyalty points with the faction and then we could "re-open" the old Base again but with the start of "Adventure Kingdom" Exspansion ("Wonderland") we would be able to get into the NEW Base and if that's just so - I pretty much don't care about the Old Base then and would wait for 14th of Feb then, even if a lot of ppl will be QQing that they want their Pots, Buffs and other Stuff. Let's just hope for getting the new and upgraded Base - I would even buy the Faction Stash Thingy to give my fellow faction-mates something that might come in handy - so better be optimistic as pessimists are standing in the rain while optimists are taking a shower under the clouds :-)

ironpwner · February 2018

dennicoolpwms wrote: »

At the moment I still just don't get it - are they only locking us out of our "old" Bases or won't we ever be able to get into the new Base also without heading for the 1K Loyalty Points? Just asking because I found something about the old and new Base in the explanations to the new Faction Menu. In particular it says that we have one Week starting Mondays to earn 1K Loyalty points with the faction and then we could "re-open" the old Base again but with the start of "Adventure Kingdom" Exspansion ("Wonderland") we would be able to get into the NEW Base and if that's just so - I pretty much don't care about the Old Base then and would wait for 14th of Feb then, even if a lot of ppl will be QQing that they want their Pots, Buffs and other Stuff. Let's just hope for getting the new and upgraded Base - I would even buy the Faction Stash Thingy to give my fellow faction-mates something that might come in handy - so better be optimistic as pessimists are standing in the rain while optimists are taking a shower under the clouds :-)

I just hope your optimism doesn't get you struck by lightning

@greenfire312 Well said

.

We really need some light on this darkened times, so let's hope this thread doesn't get ignored or derailed.

celtthunder · February 2018

I agree 100% with greenfire, and great analogy, adrian. It just steadily has gotten worse and worse.

Bottom line? what's a good game similiar to this, but not run by pwe? Probably time to move on...

laiwaisan · February 2018

I got an ideal why don't we register at Cn boards and nicely let them know how we feel i personally would like the programer or the person who thought 1000 loyalty points rent and 10 pts per person was a good ideal id like that person or persons straight up fired any have there official cn pwe forum addy on hand ? and a good translation website so i can post on there

limit1#4879 · February 2018

one thing i could say. ... i suggested NO PACKS for a month i was laughed on saying i was hacker and stuff. i suggested that coz i wanna make cashers not charge for a month. and see if they actually listen to us when their livelihoods are on the line. destiny 2 already failed due to microtransactions . thousand of players already quit that game.. when we boycott charging for a month. lets see if they do something about it. ...atmost i could say is that pwi have about 1.5-2k players. i based this on xnw and server engagement coz i have toon on all servers. if we all dont charge for a month pwi will still stand since some people already spend 2k usd just this week alone and somehow make them listen... please. dont charge this month. i rather see this game close than see people get ripped offed.

quinnie · February 2018

greenfire312 wrote: »

It's been a long time since I've bothered to jump on the complain-train with a new thread. But by my metric, PWE and wanmei haven't screwed the pooch this badly since packs and Rank 9 first came out, so here we are.

Let's start with the rage item of the day: Probably 80-90% of current factions cannot meet the new requirements to open their bases with any consistency. People are going to start leaving current factions and consolidating into a few big ones which can do DH and UP runs (and, if they're smart, teach people how to do those runs if they don't have R9). That's the only way I see this ending. And if you don't end up in one of those factions, you'd better hope you don't need the content inside the base.

But personally, I don't care much about faction bases. About the only thing I really cared about in there was ammo, and I farmed a dozen stacks of it last year so I'll be good for years. So as I watch the rage spring up about everyone being locked out of their bases, well... for what it's worth, I agree with everyone raging about it, but I hope some of you realize that you're missing the forest for the trees. This is just the latest in a long pattern of removals and restrictions placed on the Free-To-Play community.

Last time it was FSP coins - remember those? Y'know, the most stable F2P farming method at the time? Gone in a flash? But if it was just the FSP coins, you could have written it off as a fluke. "Oh, the devs are just being tone-deaf."

But now glyphs aren't exchangeable from farming, either (oh, don't worry - you can buy them with lucky coins! ...sure). This, to me, is far more instructive of the direction PWI is taking right now. They directly removed a free to play farming method and replaced it with something that requires cash-derivative items.

And OHT gear for perfect stones. Really? Aside from myself, I knew almost no one who even bothered to farm card bosses, especially after pstones were added to the merchants.

And all that is just in the last year or so. This isn't a fluke anymore. Combine this with our history of removing or de-valuing low level content, removing the coin values from virtually everything, and then removing the DQ points system which was supposed to be our (only) consolation prize for the loss of DQ value... I think at this point, even the most reasonable people, who would hate to support the knee-jerk "OMG PWI IS GREEDY" narrative, would have to agree that we've ruled out all possibilities other than deliberate changes meant to stifle F2P farming.

But for years, requests for changes/fixes have of course fallen on deaf ears. We know there's several layers of separation between us and the devs, and most of us long-time players have learned to temper our expectations accordingly. And we're frequently told how most changes are designed with the Chinese version first in mind. But come on, we know the CN community is more predisposed to grinding then we are (at least, in theory... PWI survived just find as a grind-fest before packs and R9 came out), and we know that far fewer people on CN have R9.

So are we supposed to believe that CN version benefits from arbitrary instance-grinding requirements and reduced access to glyphs? The only way that flies is if CN factions are so predisposed to grinding FSP, UP, and DH that they have enough regular players to make that possible (y'know, using the R9 gear most of them don't have). Which, hey let's be honest, would make the CN community pretty damn hardcore, if that scenario were true (which I'm not 100% convinced of). But even if it were, that's not how the PWI community has functioned ever since packs and R9 turned it into a pay to win model. So the best case scenario here is that we've been screwed over yet again by game mechanics that don't fit us.

The tl;dr here is our community is not set up to function within these requirements. We don't have the playerbase to support them in most of our factions, and consolidation of factions would just make the community look smaller and less diverse. And let's not forget, if any significant portion of players leave over this, it'll make it that much harder for any factions to meet the requirements.

So @kalystconquerer#0876 , I hate to do this to you because I know you're just a (very busy) messenger, but we need a response. You have been in touch with the devs. You have played F2P, and I know you understand the problems with that community. I wouldn't expect your influence to be felt in this expansion, because I'm sure it was in development before you posted the upcoming changes thread. But the next expansion won't have that excuse. If it does nothing of value and continues to remove F2P functionality, then that's going to be the last straw for a lot of people. So what's the plan? And what are we supposed to take from the changes this time around, if not "pay up or shut up?"

Seriously, does PWE even understand how bad these optics are? To an observant player, this game appears to be sacrificing its own mechanics one by one at the altar of the pay-to-win business model... a model which PWI was never originally designed for, and which has achieved its now-impressive longevity specifically by resisting it. If PWE has any interest at all in maintaining that longevity, there is quite literally no possible strategy that could be worse.

And people are noticing. It's no accident that these "I'm leaving" threads are springing up now - I count at least four since the expansion launched. You can bet that for every person who posts about it, several others are quitting without comment. And yes, people rage with every new expansion and change, but this time they're more justified than most. If I invested hundreds of millions of coins and years of grinding into something and then had all that investment wiped out in the blink of an eye, I'd be pissed too! You're removing content and not replacing it with anything, unless you count arbitrary barriers based on instance-running requirements that 90% of current factions cannot meet.

This is unsustainable, and a few "consolation" codes are not going to fix it this time. In an ideal world, bases would return to their original state, and FSP coins and glyph farming would be restored. But the devs have never walked back a new mechanic before, so the former is probably out. So speaking realistically, I feel there are two immediate steps which need to be taken:

1. Drastically lower, if not remove entirely, the "loyalty points" requirement to open the base. I'm talking 80-90% lower here.

2. Either restore the old, or introduce new, Free-To-Play coin and item farming methods, and then do not touch them come hell or high water. Resources required include glyphs, star chart materials, BH reward items which were reduced when MBH came out, and most importantly, coin.

These are immediate and direly needed changes to preserve the life of this community and prevent anyone else from leaving. The former change should just be the devs changing a number or two, so ideally we'd get that next patch. The latter would involve more work, admittedly, but IMO we need to see it by the next content update, or at least by the next expansion.

Most of us here complain because we love, and some of us have seen PWI go through so many painful changes that you can only ever love it "warts and all." But we all have limits, and we've been waiting long enough. We need to see that PWE takes this seriously, and it's time for them to stop hiding behind the "Because China" excuse. Otherwise, their credibility will be back in "Soon(TM)" territory before long, and you simply don't have the playerbase you did back then.

+1

sad part is i doubt indeed that pwe/wanmei is gonna listen... they didnt do it in the past and if i remember correctly they did admit they used pwi as a money cow and made our boutique prices higher then pw china. pw china farms more then they spend $ and pwi spends more $ then they farm.

greenfire312 · February 2018

teabagg wrote: »

They should make it to where r9 gear gets locked and they need 150 loyalty points to unlock each piece.

I'm going to assume you're trolling, but the irony is that'd be better than what we have now. At least that would only hit OP geared people instead of almost everyone (and frankly, a lot of R9 people could use a reminder of how to play in non-R9 gear once in awhile).

wildz2 wrote: »

-FSP coins pretty much make the same income as it used to give back then if i remember correctly?
Prices on C packs went up so much its pretty much equivalent? (might be wrong though?)

-Glyphs; I've never felt like squire badges were an efficient way of farming glyphs in any way, and wonder why people make it such a big deal.
3 days to get a lvl 1 glyph?...(unless theres a way of farming squire badges i dont know about?)
seems a lot like useless to me.
Removing the glyphs for squire badges seems to me like a precaution they could take before introducing codes with free rb2 pills.

Preventing people from creating 200 alts just for the questchain just for badges/free glyphs.

(If you're referring to the fact that they can now be exchanged for lucky coins though, I have to say on my server, lvl 4 glyphs were already lower than the lucky coin price atm)

-Farming...Wouldnt know, havent been around enough. But G16 is pretty easy to achieve, and with everything that is coming out as war avatars/passives/glyphs and stuff, G16 is really enough to run just about anything.

Do you really need money?
Except for that CoM or those JoSD to be competitive...if you're a PVE player, probably not that much.
PVP, well, yeah, its out of proportion.

But I still get decent income from farming homesteads, from those "r9" people that are willing to put money into the game.

Introducing G17 was a pretty good move when you think about it, cashers are now paying people who do dailies (homestead) to afford their gear.
Instead of putting money into GST, that goes straight into a boutique.

At time of writing, FSP coins are being purchased for just over 100k on Etherblade. Given that DFSP used to give 20 coins and now only gives 5, that price would need to double before DFSP is worth doing again (going by the standard of 50k which was the price when the change hit).

I hope you understand that for people who can't farm DH, glyph farming was no doubt incredibly important to them, and - more importantly - provided them with one of the few stable ways to farm a little bit of coin. It's all relative to the individual's ability at the time. Not everybody who doesn't farm DH has a 200-alt army (much less one where all of them are 100 RB1 - seriously?).

"Do you really need money?" Yes. Unambiguously, yes. Everyone needs coin in PWI, if only for basic necessities such as teleporting, teleacoustics, potions, repairs, sharding gear, crafting fees for those g16s you mentioned (to say nothing of rerolling them), dozens of skills to learn, and let's not forget maintaining the HS which you seem to rely on for your coin.

Roll up a pillbaby next time that code comes around, cut it off from any and all assistance from your other characters, and then tell me how easy it is to function in F2P from scratch.

I'll agree with you that HS/g17 is good from F2P perspective IF you manage to contract enough. Personally, my HS kept glitching all my contracting profits away, so I haven't used it in months... but that's a different thread entirely.

dennicoolpwms wrote: »

At the moment I still just don't get it - are they only locking us out of our "old" Bases or won't we ever be able to get into the new Base also without heading for the 1K Loyalty Points? Just asking because I found something about the old and new Base in the explanations to the new Faction Menu. In particular it says that we have one Week starting Mondays to earn 1K Loyalty points with the faction and then we could "re-open" the old Base again but with the start of "Adventure Kingdom" Exspansion ("Wonderland") we would be able to get into the NEW Base and if that's just so - I pretty much don't care about the Old Base then and would wait for 14th of Feb then, even if a lot of ppl will be QQing that they want their Pots, Buffs and other Stuff. Let's just hope for getting the new and upgraded Base - I would even buy the Faction Stash Thingy to give my fellow faction-mates something that might come in handy - so better be optimistic as pessimists are standing in the rain while optimists are taking a shower under the clouds :-)

Yes, I heard some chatter about this last night. As with any expansion, the full effect doesn't become clear until a couple weeks in, so there's reason to be optimistic.

With that said, PWE's disregard for the optics is still staggering. If Kalyst came in here and said "guys chill, your old bases are fine, we just locked them for a week because Reasons," that would be one thing. But if there actually is something buried in one of the newsposts that says they'll return after a week, I'm having a hard time finding it. You'd think something like that should be made front and center when you'd otherwise be removing content, but sadly this is another thing PWE's done before.

laiwaisan wrote: »

I got an ideal why don't we register at Cn boards and nicely let them know how we feel i personally would like the programer or the person who thought 1000 loyalty points rent and 10 pts per person was a good ideal id like that person or persons straight up fired any have there official cn pwe forum addy on hand ? and a good translation website so i can post on there

This would be a surprisingly good idea, except that I'm fairly certain the bolded portion is not a thing that exists. :P

limit1#4879 wrote: »

one thing i could say. ... i suggested NO PACKS for a month i was laughed on saying i was hacker and stuff. i suggested that coz i wanna make cashers not charge for a month. and see if they actually listen to us when their livelihoods are on the line. destiny 2 already failed due to microtransactions . thousand of players already quit that game.. when we boycott charging for a month. lets see if they do something about it. ...atmost i could say is that pwi have about 1.5-2k players. i based this on xnw and server engagement coz i have toon on all servers. if we all dont charge for a month pwi will still stand since some people already spend 2k usd just this week alone and somehow make them listen... please. dont charge this month. i rather see this game close than see people get ripped offed.

The problem with these "don't charge" suggestions is that they're always tantamount to "let's boycott PWI guys!" And the results of that always, always come to nothing. Fact is, the PWI community - or any gaming community over a certain size - is simply too disorganized for that to work as people describe it.

I understand the urge to "hit them where it hurts" or whatever, but it's been suggested roughly a million times and hasn't landed yet. People do eventually "vote with their wallets," as they say, but it's by leaving the game, and that's what we want to prevent.

quinnie wrote: »

sad part is i doubt indeed that pwe/wanmei is gonna listen... they didnt do it in the past and if i remember correctly they did admit they used pwi as a money cow and made our boutique prices higher then pw china. pw china farms more then they spend $ and pwi spends more $ then they farm.

While in general you're correct, it would be a mistake to say that they never listen. I do maintain some optimism for Kalyst's efforts with the devs. However, I believe it's time we had an update on those efforts - just to have an understanding that F2P farming is on the devs' radar for the next expansion would be enough for me.

greenfire312 · February 2018

sontzu wrote: »

@greenfire312

I'm a casher, albeit a small scale one (~$40-50/month average over 6 years), and I can tell you, I am as close as I have ever been to perma-quitting pwi over this.

I'm in the top TW guild on Da, so I have no issue on my main with access to guild base, however my alts are another matter.

I made a guild for them some 5 1/2 years ago, and paid for a base a couple of years ago, now I can't use it, and you better believe I'm seriously unhappy about that.

I know some pretty big guilds are having trouble getting their bases unlocked in reasonable time, and I really can't see how disadvantaging people like this helps the game in ANY way.

Just making the point that it's not just the f2p players that are upset dude (or dudette)

I'm not sure where you think I implied that only F2P players are upset, or that anyone benefited from the lock? Because clearly everyone is and no one does, respectively. Hell, I even mentioned people who spent piles of time and resources on base (presumably for base helm) and said I'd be pissed too if I'd done that.

But as you alluded to, the top TW factions (which - let's be honest - have strong concentrations of medium to heavy cashers) in large part won't have this problem. Therefore, as with many changes in recent years, the problem affects F2P players disproportionately.

The glyphs are another good example. One Lucky Coin to one Lv1 glyph. So instead of grinding for a couple days and paying 24k, a F2P player now pays at least ten times that much. How much do you have in your bank? Enough to buy, say, a Lv5 glyph on Lucky Coins alone? How about a full set of six? How about that same set for multiple characters? No matter what your threshold is, at some point you'd start to sweat the expenditure, unless you farm DH instead, which - guess what - a lot of F2P players can't yet. So I can guarantee you that someone with access to fewer resources than you just got a big fat "you must be this rich to enter" sign planted in front of the content they were working towards.

As a fellow alt-aholic (when I can spare the time to be one, anyway), I totally share your worry of getting my alts their base resources (particularly apocs). No doubt things will calm down eventually, but the question will be "who will still be able to access base resources and glyphs when the dust is settled?"

juconstantino · February 2018

greenfire312 wrote: »

It's been a long time since I've bothered to jump on the complain-train with a new thread. But by my metric, PWE and wanmei haven't screwed the pooch this badly since packs and Rank 9 first came out, so here we are.

Let's start with the rage item of the day: Probably 80-90% of current factions cannot meet the new requirements to open their bases with any consistency. People are going to start leaving current factions and consolidating into a few big ones which can do DH and UP runs (and, if they're smart, teach people how to do those runs if they don't have R9). That's the only way I see this ending. And if you don't end up in one of those factions, you'd better hope you don't need the content inside the base.

But personally, I don't care much about faction bases. About the only thing I really cared about in there was ammo, and I farmed a dozen stacks of it last year so I'll be good for years. So as I watch the rage spring up about everyone being locked out of their bases, well... for what it's worth, I agree with everyone raging about it, but I hope some of you realize that you're missing the forest for the trees. This is just the latest in a long pattern of removals and restrictions placed on the Free-To-Play community.

Last time it was FSP coins - remember those? Y'know, the most stable F2P farming method at the time? Gone in a flash? But if it was just the FSP coins, you could have written it off as a fluke. "Oh, the devs are just being tone-deaf."

But now glyphs aren't exchangeable from farming, either (oh, don't worry - you can buy them with lucky coins! ...sure). This, to me, is far more instructive of the direction PWI is taking right now. They directly removed a free to play farming method and replaced it with something that requires cash-derivative items.

And OHT gear for perfect stones. Really? Aside from myself, I knew almost no one who even bothered to farm card bosses, especially after pstones were added to the merchants.

And all that is just in the last year or so. This isn't a fluke anymore. Combine this with our history of removing or de-valuing low level content, removing the coin values from virtually everything, and then removing the DQ points system which was supposed to be our (only) consolation prize for the loss of DQ value... I think at this point, even the most reasonable people, who would hate to support the knee-jerk "OMG PWI IS GREEDY" narrative, would have to agree that we've ruled out all possibilities other than deliberate changes meant to stifle F2P farming.

But for years, requests for changes/fixes have of course fallen on deaf ears. We know there's several layers of separation between us and the devs, and most of us long-time players have learned to temper our expectations accordingly. And we're frequently told how most changes are designed with the Chinese version first in mind. But come on, we know the CN community is more predisposed to grinding then we are (at least, in theory... PWI survived just find as a grind-fest before packs and R9 came out), and we know that far fewer people on CN have R9.

So are we supposed to believe that CN version benefits from arbitrary instance-grinding requirements and reduced access to glyphs? The only way that flies is if CN factions are so predisposed to grinding FSP, UP, and DH that they have enough regular players to make that possible (y'know, using the R9 gear most of them don't have). Which, hey let's be honest, would make the CN community pretty damn hardcore, if that scenario were true (which I'm not 100% convinced of). But even if it were, that's not how the PWI community has functioned ever since packs and R9 turned it into a pay to win model. So the best case scenario here is that we've been screwed over yet again by game mechanics that don't fit us.

The tl;dr here is our community is not set up to function within these requirements. We don't have the playerbase to support them in most of our factions, and consolidation of factions would just make the community look smaller and less diverse. And let's not forget, if any significant portion of players leave over this, it'll make it that much harder for any factions to meet the requirements.

So @kalystconquerer#0876 , I hate to do this to you because I know you're just a (very busy) messenger, but we need a response. You have been in touch with the devs. You have played F2P, and I know you understand the problems with that community. I wouldn't expect your influence to be felt in this expansion, because I'm sure it was in development before you posted the upcoming changes thread. But the next expansion won't have that excuse. If it does nothing of value and continues to remove F2P functionality, then that's going to be the last straw for a lot of people. So what's the plan? And what are we supposed to take from the changes this time around, if not "pay up or shut up?"

Seriously, does PWE even understand how bad these optics are? To an observant player, this game appears to be sacrificing its own mechanics one by one at the altar of the pay-to-win business model... a model which PWI was never originally designed for, and which has achieved its now-impressive longevity specifically by resisting it. If PWE has any interest at all in maintaining that longevity, there is quite literally no possible strategy that could be worse.

And people are noticing. It's no accident that these "I'm leaving" threads are springing up now - I count at least four since the expansion launched. You can bet that for every person who posts about it, several others are quitting without comment. And yes, people rage with every new expansion and change, but this time they're more justified than most. If I invested hundreds of millions of coins and years of grinding into something and then had all that investment wiped out in the blink of an eye, I'd be pissed too! You're removing content and not replacing it with anything, unless you count arbitrary barriers based on instance-running requirements that 90% of current factions cannot meet.

This is unsustainable, and a few "consolation" codes are not going to fix it this time. In an ideal world, bases would return to their original state, and FSP coins and glyph farming would be restored. But the devs have never walked back a new mechanic before, so the former is probably out. So speaking realistically, I feel there are two immediate steps which need to be taken:

1. Drastically lower, if not remove entirely, the "loyalty points" requirement to open the base. I'm talking 80-90% lower here.

2. Either restore the old, or introduce new, Free-To-Play coin and item farming methods, and then do not touch them come hell or high water. Resources required include glyphs, star chart materials, BH reward items which were reduced when MBH came out, and most importantly, coin.

These are immediate and direly needed changes to preserve the life of this community and prevent anyone else from leaving. The former change should just be the devs changing a number or two, so ideally we'd get that next patch. The latter would involve more work, admittedly, but IMO we need to see it by the next content update, or at least by the next expansion.

Most of us here complain because we love, and some of us have seen PWI go through so many painful changes that you can only ever love it "warts and all." But we all have limits, and we've been waiting long enough. We need to see that PWE takes this seriously, and it's time for them to stop hiding behind the "Because China" excuse. Otherwise, their credibility will be back in "Soon(TM)" territory before long, and you simply don't have the playerbase you did back then.

I have never agreed more with something. I've been thinking like theses for about 5 years. I stopped playing for almost 3 years because of this and its sad to see that isnt getting any better. I love this game but Its getting really hard to get an excuse to keep playing. F2P isnt P2P! Not every player has money to put in the game, we need a solution for it. We need a solution for all those years without been able to speak up for ouselves and just getting use to what the game have become. u.u

jamesmcd · February 2018

celtthunder wrote: »

I agree 100% with greenfire, and great analogy, adrian. It just steadily has gotten worse and worse.

Bottom line? what's a good game similiar to this, but not run by pwe? Probably time to move on...

I moved here because the previous game I was playing got shut down, IMO Kitsu Saga was more FTP friendly, had better game play and many other things going for it (like GMs that actually turned up in game). And this comparison was at the time I got convinced to move here by my nephew (who no longer plays cause his account got locked for some misdemeanor).

Latest update sucks so badly that I have not even bothered to start the new quest line. In comparison by this amount of time after the neverfall update, I had already unlocked the chaotic soul cultivation for my main.

Economy, F2P farming, and bases - what's the plan?

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