What else there is to get players spend their money anyway?
They got the get it somewhere since;
opening/spending real money to Lock Boxes isn't requiered.
Hideouts with one of the key features(shared storage) are now free.
Auras aren't that great of a success as they though.
So they are dipping into Vehicles, latest shiney which lacks any real meaning in game.
And, if you're spending $50 to Keys, you're doing it wrong.
...
CHAMPIONS ONLINE:Join Date: Apr 2008
And playing by myself since Aug 2009 Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
Most of the other nerfs can probably be laid to the same thing; Cryptic's kind of a shoestring operation (in case you hadn't noticed), and can't afford to employ a large staff of testers, so they've thrown the position open to Gold volunteers. And the volunteers don't seem to be volunteering in droves...
So now we're blaming players for not doing Cryptic's job. Awesome! This would be more believable if they didn't have a history of releasing half finished patches filled with bugs (*Kitchen sink and Kitchen sink 2 anyone*). They might have a better turn out on the ptr if they didn't have a history of ignoring reports about problems on the test build.
Hence why I firmly believe that under no circumstances should any game developer sell anything in a cash shop other than simple cosmetic and 'fun novelty' items. Anything that affects actual gameplay tends to wind up being this sort of problem.
This situation is not bait and switch for the simple reason that before a customer ever buys an item they are informed that it might be changed at some later point.
That said, I do not think that Cryptic is blameless in the situations(s) described in the OP. All too often Cryptic knows that the item is OP or somehow unbalanced before they release it to live.
FTP and microtransactions are a relatively new and controversial innovation in the MMO industry. PWE/Cryptic is pushing the boundaries with them in a lot of ways. It's our right and our responsibility as consumers/players to push back from time to time, or at least to help set expectations for new players as to what the trend is.
This isn't about the normal and reasonable efforts to balance game content in a timely manner. Of course that's to be expected. But Cryptic chose to make powerful pay-to-win items that are only accessible via lockbox, and then only to nerf those items a year later, coinciding with the introduction of newer microcommerce items. This is not a pattern to be condoned or supported. It's bad for the players, the game, and the industry.
LTS since 2009. Author of ACT parser module for CO. Founder of Rampagers. Resident curmudgeon.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
To those who tested it and told the devs of problems, thank you. You tried
The problems would be ;
1. the devs would have a limited time to work on each project before they have to start on the next, they may not have had time to respond to all reported problems.
2. any testing by devs would have been done under what can be loosely described as normal, intended use.
Players will tend to try to get as much out of it or use in any way to get the best result. When someone finds it then others rush to get the OP stuff.
NO thought of balance, only, "I can do more with that."
plasma beam has the burn buff, I doubt if the devs checked for 10 people all using it on one target. Why would they? When would you have 10 vehicles with identical weapons all firing at one target.
How many people reported that you could stack it that many times and melt your target fast?
I believe the comment about sky command was "we can kill mega d in 10 seconds"
How many refused to use it in the Rampages because it was OP?
How could anyone honestly say that about 10k damage per person per second was intended.(rough guess at his HPS being 1mill, I didn't look at them at the time)
and we have those drooling over the new weapons and vehicles on the PTS and planning ways to make them OP. You are just repeating your previous behavior.
No complaints from anyone using this obviously overpowered item but once it gets fixed, then they complain.
To those that say you aren't complaining about the nerfs. That's exactly what this thread is about.
from wikipedia
Bait-and-switch is a form of fraud used in retail sales but also employed in other contexts.
First, customers are "baited" by merchants' advertising products or services at a low price, but when customers visit the store, they discover that the advertised goods are not available, or the customers are pressured by sales people to consider similar, but higher priced items ("switching").
so are the items unavailable- no.
are you pressured to buy similar more expensive items- no
this is closer,but still not the correct term, .Unfortunately, too tired form work and can't remeber the correct MARKETING term planned obsolescence
noun:
1. a policy of producing consumer goods that rapidly become obsolete and so require replacing, achieved by frequent changes in design, termination of the supply of spare parts, and the use of non-durable materials.
from Brooks Stevens who coined the term Planned Obsolescence
"Instilling in the buyer the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than is necessary."
and having looked up the definition of Fraud, it's definitely not that
FTP and microtransactions are a relatively new and controversial innovation in the MMO industry. PWE/Cryptic is pushing the boundaries with them in a lot of ways. It's our right and our responsibility as consumers/players to push back from time to time, or at least to help set expectations for new players as to what the trend is.
Pushing the boundaries in "a lot of ways"? Seriously? I could point to you examples out there that are far worse with how they push those boundaries. Have you come across being expected to make micro-transactions for forms of travel, or something game-halting like advancing to a new zone to be able to progress in levels?
Compared to another MMO I've played with a FTP system that is far less generous than the one we have here, considering that no content is locked behind a pay wall here, Cryptic hasn't really pushed any boundaries at all. The only real glaring issue currently is with the vehicles and their potential to be overpowered and it hardly qualifies as pushing the boundaries in "a lot of ways", so please stop exaggerating.
This isn't about the normal and reasonable efforts to balance game content in a timely manner. Of course that's to be expected. But Cryptic chose to make powerful pay-to-win items that are only accessible via lockbox, and then only to nerf those items a year later, coinciding with the introduction of newer microcommerce items. This is not a pattern to be condoned or supported. It's bad for the players, the game, and the industry.
Oh here we go, that "pay to win" schtick again. No device or gear that is unlocked with real cash at the moment is unavoidably required to complete any form of content in the game. Actual player progress is not locked behind a pay wall. The only thing that those items really do is to potentially trivialize content, but that hardly qualifies as pay to win.
The implementation could be improved, that much I agree, but let's not blow things out of proportion.
Pushing the boundaries in "a lot of ways"? Seriously? I could point to you examples out there that are far worse with how they push those boundaries. Have you come across being expected to make micro-transactions for forms of travel, or something game-halting like advancing to a new zone to be able to progress in levels?
If your point is that CO is not the worst example of microtransactions in MMO's, you may be right, and I never said that it was.
Oh here we go, that "pay to win" schtick again. No device or gear that is unlocked with real cash at the moment is unavoidably required to complete any form of content in the game. Actual player progress is not locked behind a pay wall. The only thing that those items really do is to potentially trivialize content, but that hardly qualifies as pay to win.
Your definition of pay-to-win apparently differs to mine. If you can do game content substantially faster and/or with less risk and/or generally perform better in PvE or PvP content because of devices, gear, vehicles, weapons that you acquired via a lockbox or other type of microtransaction, that is pay-to-win.
LTS since 2009. Author of ACT parser module for CO. Founder of Rampagers. Resident curmudgeon.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
If your point is that CO is not the worst example of microtransactions in MMO's, you may be right, and I never said that it was.
No, you didn't say that CO is the worst example, but when you say something like "pushing the boundaries in a lot of ways", it implies relevant severity.
No, you didn't say that CO is the worst example, but when you say something like "pushing the boundaries in a lot of ways", it implies relevant severity.
There is a lot of debate in the industry about the ethics of FTP/microtransactions. Here's an article you might read if you can tear yourself away from trying to make the discussion all about me. How many of these guidelines do you think the CO model is following?
Do you need me to list what I feel are the ways the boundaries are being pushed, despite alluding to many of them elsewhere in the thread? 1.) The random lottery/lockbox model, 2.) the lack of published odds for "winning", 3.) the obfuscation of pricing behind so many game currencies, 4.) the sale of overpowered pay-to-win items, 5.) the nerfing of items to create new demand for the next round of microtransactions. These are all just matters of opinion, of course.
I do find it funny how many people are now defending these practices compared to a year ago. I think so many have already left (I know that most of my guild has) and some of the remaining seem to have some kind of Stockholm Syndrome.
LTS since 2009. Author of ACT parser module for CO. Founder of Rampagers. Resident curmudgeon.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
Yep, okay. A game focused on micro-transactions is such a bad thing. We could of course go back to the days where it was impossible for anyone to make a free account. Playing the game meant a forced commitment of 15 bucks a month or you stay out.
These days we're having it much worse. The alternative of making ad-hoc purchases at the Z-store as and when I want to being expected to pony up money for that monthly fee to actually play the game is really a terrible thing, while considering that none of the actual game content is behind a pay wall.
It's also pretty unfair that since the company that discontinues its one form of repetitive sales in the form of monthly subscriptions, it starts introducing the micro-transaction model to try to make up for that discontinuation, while the system forces no one to make any transactions to actually excel at the game. I mean gee, how absurd it is to be defending such practices.
What's that about making this discussion about you? Who's the one making the accusation of bait-and-switch?
Yup, nipping that one in the bud before it got out of hand. Cleaned up some posts. Play nice, guys.
Edit: Thoughts on the original post:
Balance changes are necessary to MMOs. Developer testing and pts testing will never catch all the potential problems that may arise when content is released to the mass public. There are also those who choose to exploit problems rather then blowing the whistle on them.
Manpower seems scarce for this game. While it does appear on paper that something is released and nerfed later on when something new and shiny is coming out, I don't believe that is the case. I think it's more like 'We're working on this stuff now, so we're going to handle all the balance changes and new additions at once.'
Balance passes don't bother me as much as they did in the past. I understand now that the intent is generally to make the game more enjoyable for everyone and allow for more diversity in power picks.
I think what's happening is simply them tinkering with existing items (training) while offering upgrades in an attempt to make money. And imo, it's a stalling tactic. They can say they are working on the game without addressing the elephant in the room, the lack of new content.
It's always this.
Just like Vehicles 2.0 is being delivered to players as if they've put some massive amount of work into it, when it's actually just a re-skin of existing vehicles and stat changes. It's not like they're actually improving anything or putting any effort into it.
We made the choice to jump into LTS recently, hoping against all common sense and intelligence that it would pay off and Champions Online would get some actual love and attention. Shortly after our purchase We were cursing ourselves out and regretting the impulsive move.
We'd LOVE to be proven wrong and have actual meaty content added into the game, but as it stands, We can only expect things like this and laziness to continue their usual trend.
As for this thread?
It's not illegal, no. But it's certainly underhanded. And it certainly does seem like there have been so many coincidences where this has happened numerous times that it doesn't seem like it could logically be anything other than intentional.
Would you genuinely be surprised if they were selling broken over-powered items to make a profit and then 'fixing them' later down the road to do it all over again? We wouldn't. Not in the slightest.
The thing with mini-transactions when it comes to MMOs is that you don't actually own whatever digital commodity it is that you've purchased. You paid to unlock the vehicle. It's still property of of the host company, just that you paid for permanent access and the right to use it in the game. Because it's still property of the host company, then it's subject to whatever balancing adjustments that the company deems necessary if down the line it turns out to be overpowered in combat.
The thing with mini-transactions when it comes to MMOs is that you don't actually own whatever digital commodity it is that you've purchased. You paid to unlock the vehicle. It's still property of of the host company, just that you paid for permanent access and the right to use it in the game. Because it's still property of the host company, then it's subject to whatever balancing adjustments that the company deems necessary if down the line it turns out to be overpowered in combat.
That's how I personally see it anyway.
This is true, but it doesn't make it any less underhanded. Many players wouldn't buy -period- if they had even an inkling of suspicion that Cryptic was going to pull this crap, and that as far as We can tell is the purpose of this thread.
The problem is, people tend to put their trust into companies like Cryptic because the common expectation is that presumably, they'd have some sort of business-ethic and not want to screw over their players.
However Cryptic's common business practice seems to be assuming that the MMO market is big enough for them to give their Customers the middle-finger repeatedly and continue to make a profit, because for each that they drive away, new ones arrive. Sooner or later it will come to bite them in the rear, sooner or later no one will trust them about anything anymore.
Signs of that happening have already been visible for years now, especially among those that are older players. (We ourselves personally have been playing CO since beta.)
Whenever powers have been added to the game, regardless of whether a financial transaction is involved, we've seen a pattern of OP followed by nerfs/rollbacks. I think attributing to this to a deliberate design on Cryptic's part is highly unlikely, rather it's the result of insufficient testing and balancing (unless you consider actual play as the real testing) and the tendency of designers to push their latest and greatest idea and make it cool. You see this happen a lot with expansions in non-computer game designs as well. Often it's not even deliberate: a designer asks him or herself how a new power can be "competitive" or "attractive" conpared to old ones, and overcompensates.
Regardless, when the new shiny comes out and it seems like an autowin or OP, expect it to be nerfed someday and spend your time and money accordingly.
What bothers me is that some of the examples given are a stretch.
Legion Gear was not nerfed. Two game mechanics (Dodges and Crits) were nerfed. Legion Gear wasn't the sole thing affected, everything was. And any precious points into Dodge/Avoid and Crit Strike/Severity that the new Justice Gear will provide will also be affected by the new diminishing returns.
Vehicle weapons. Don't blame the "Mark 3" weapons. Blame the Black Harbinger. No, I'm not being snarky. When that Rampage first popped up, some players quickly showed some of the extremely unbalanced ways vehicle weapons could be abused. Like taking a full team with Plasma Beam on the Black Harbinger. There was a lot of player feedback given to the devs about it. Some of the adjustments aren't bad (the Plasma Shear change actually keeps the weapon viable, it just removes the abusiveness that was happening). And the Mark 3 weapons? They're just the same thing as the Mark 2 weapons with a little more damage like ranking up your powers would do. So they'll be affected by the same changes that will hit the Mark 2 weapons.
Compared to another MMO I've played with a FTP system that is far less generous than the one we have here, considering that no content is locked behind a pay wall here, Cryptic hasn't really pushed any boundaries at all. The only real glaring issue currently is with the vehicles and their potential to be overpowered and it hardly qualifies as pushing the boundaries in "a lot of ways", so please stop exaggerating.
The original free ATs were purposely made weaker so that people would spend money to sub for FFs. I believe that it failed or underperformed, which is the only reason that FF slots were added. The most important piece of CO's content is locked behind a pay wall. That content is Free Forms.
Actually, selling vehicles is how pay to win works. Not needing vehicles to complete anything is not the point, vehicles being powerful is the point.
Readingabout F2P game practices is interesting and depressing. The thought process behind how companies monetize their games and why they implement things can be evil.
Because it's their freaking jobs. They get paid to bug-test and to make sure they're not releasing bug-ridden and faulty updates and yet every single freaking time there's ALWAYS something broken.
Even if it's not intentional, it's irritating as all crap and it's a reflection of poor work ethic that they literally cannot be a@#ed to put the effort in to make sure these things work and that they constantly and repeatedly overlook these things.
Even if it is just a coincidence, it doesn't change the fact that this sort of s@#t wouldn't fly anywhere else. They'd be fired if they worked any other job and produced such faulty products that they failed to safety test.
It's fallacy to expect testing to discover every possible exploit players will come up with.
You mean the secret exploits like Gravity Pulse being generally awesome, or Railgun having a 120' range, or Incendiary Rounds hitting lots of targets, or vehicles being fast, or devices being stackable? Because these don't sound that difficult to discover to me. In fact, it's hard to imagine that all of these properties weren't part of the original design.
LTS since 2009. Author of ACT parser module for CO. Founder of Rampagers. Resident curmudgeon.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
Because it's their freaking jobs. They get paid to bug-test and to make sure they're not releasing bug-ridden and faulty updates and yet every single freaking time there's ALWAYS something broken.
Even if it's not intentional, it's irritating as all crap and it's a reflection of poor work ethic that they literally cannot be a@#ed to put the effort in to make sure these things work and that they constantly and repeatedly overlook these things.
Even if it is just a coincidence, it doesn't change the fact that this sort of s@#t wouldn't fly anywhere else. They'd be fired if they worked any other job and produced such faulty products that they failed to safety test.
Being psychic is not their job. The biggest MMO on the market had a massive problem throughout all of the recent expansion that one given spec had to stat and gear out a certain way. In their design philosophy, they believed that said manners of gearing were between two different choices, but the end users (the gamers) all came up with other ways the devs had never considered. They made countless attempts to force their model onto the playerbase, only to be dutifully ignored.
The simple fact of the matter is that the finite number of devs available will always, ALWAYS be infinitely inferior to the massive amount of end users who seek to use their creations in their own way. It is both unreasonable and physically impossible to believe that said devs can design a whole and unabusable system when they have exponentially more numbers working against them in that regard.
It also speaks volumes of an almost entitled attitude that has no basis in designing. The person who ran five Eruptions formerly did so because he saw what ultimately came out to be an oversight: No shared cooldown between the two. Are they in the right because they were utilizing a mechanic that contradicts the base principles of the game that likely came as a result of SEVERAL layers (Q&A, PTS, general small number of testers) missing something that was both unrealistic and an outlier power?
I have a serious question then: Why is Sky Command not on the list of things that were nerfed but stuff out of stuff you had to pay for? You were intended to run it on vehicles, and a large amount of people likely bought vehicles explicitly for Sky Command/Lemurian Invasion (which spawned the horde of complaints). Drop rates for questionite and tokens were destroyed to a fraction of what they were, and people payed for their vehicles for the privilege of being awesome in Sky Command, so it has as much reason to be there as anything else.
The list itself is preposterous, because absolutely anything can be argued/forced to fit into the list of baiting and switching. The new psychic dot powers and laser sword powers are post F2P, so any nerfs to them are bait and switch tactics because people bought freeform/subbed for them. The dodge nerf was really a nerf to freeforms and subbed players (not legion) because you can't simply dodge cap through minimal power/gear use. The upcoming Tune Up Kit is a nerf to the 8 slot vehicles because their functional worth is going to plummet over people who want to buy vehicles for their appearance. Even the Tune Up Kit is going to be a "Bait and Switch" because people may have spent money on questionite to remove mods from their vehicles in favor of something else they prefer the look of.
I am done with my feedback about these things, Ive said everything I wanted to say, but I dislike people trying to invalidate and ridicule that feedback.
So once again (the last time for me). Most of the overpowered items were clearly and plainly overpowered, there was nothing secret or obscured about it.
If you are a videogame dev, and are adding a limited godmode item to your game, you better be sure it is really really limited.
If you add powers with unlimited targets to a game where every other power has a target limit, you better think hard why that power does not have to follow the same rules all other powers do, and why a target limit was added in the first place.
You do not need to be psychic, or a genius, to predict how/why things like that are going to be exploited, you just need to think about what you are doing. So either they didnt think about it (enough), and didnt listen or didnt care enough about all the feedback they got over the months, or it was all intentional.
Either way, they didnt do a very good job, and in my view they deserve the negative feedback they get about it. People feeling they have been treated unfairly and expressing their thoughts and feelings is a normal response.
We dont need an argument over the legality, we dont need links to Wikipedia to show why bait and switch in all its literal meaning cannot be proven or is even a correct description, and we dont need attempts to ridicule this feedback.
Prototype Hawkwing Jets Released 8/31/2012 for Purchase from Zen Store Nerfed 11/8/12 - Speed/Boost/Attack Range (w/release of newer vehicles & mods) Speed causing server instability- Porblem- fixed
Range- people using range to attack while staying out of the mobs range- exploit fixed
attacks- no idea
Legacy Devices Released 10/18/2012 for purchase from Drifter Store Nerfed 9/10/2013 - Cooldowns/Use of Multiples use of multiple eruption to provide full time damage immunity -EXPLOIT - fixed.
As for the dino plagues in alerts,
Legion Gear Released 10/18/2012 as upper-tier Lockbox prize Indirectly nerfed 9/27/2013 via DR curve changes (along with introduction of new gear type) People making 100% dodge characters- EXPLOIT - fixed.
also all non standard core mods were removed from game and off/def changed too.
I notice you mention the TWO peices with less use, due to changes to core mods but no mention of the ones made BETTER by the changes to OFF/DEF at the same time
AND there weas still someone on the PTS thread about the changes bragging they can still get 100% dodge most of the time
Vehicles - General Released 11/9/2012 for Lockbox, Drifter store, Zen Store Nerfed 3/3/2014 - Combat Speed (along with new purchasable upgrade kit) what? a game with a new level of gear, who would have thought it.
Railgun Released 11/8/2012 as top-tier Drifter Store item Nerfed 3/11/2014 - Range Really, since when have weapons been sold in the drifter store, only vehicles.
range- see previous range exploit fix
Incendiary Round Released 11/9/2012 as top-tier Lockbox prize
Nerfed 3/3/2014 - # of Targets/Energy Cost/Taunt targets bought into line with other powers.
Plasma Beam Released 11/9/2012 as upper-tier Hover Tank Lockbox prize
Nerfed 3/3/2014 - Plasma Shear Players using the stacking mechanic to get much larger stacks than intended- fixed
Players putting on stacks while target is immune to primary damage - EXPLOIT - reported. If they don 't take the primary damage, they should not get the secondary damage
*snip*
lets go through some of these
and while I'm typing that , Aiqa comes up with a short and to the point comment, which sums it up brilliantly
thank you Aiqa for summing it up
and apologies for my rudeness in my previous post
yes everyone is allowed to feel differently about changes, some like them, some don't, some don't care.
I am done with my feedback about these things, Ive said everything I wanted to say, but I dislike people trying to invalidate and ridicule that feedback.
So once again (the last time for me). Most of the overpowered items were clearly and plainly overpowered, there was nothing secret or obscured about it.
If you are a videogame dev, and are adding a limited godmode item to your game, you better be sure it is really really limited.
If you add powers with unlimited targets to a game where every other power has a target limit, you better think hard why that power does not have to follow the same rules all other powers do, and why a target limit was added in the first place.
You do not need to be psychic, or a genius, to predict how/why things like that are going to be exploited, you just need to think about what you are doing. So either they didnt think about it (enough), and didnt listen or didnt care enough about all the feedback they got over the months, or it was all intentional.
Either way, they didnt do a very good job, and in my view they deserve the negative feedback they get about it. People feeling they have been treated unfairly and expressing their thoughts and feelings is a normal response.
We dont need an argument over the legality, we dont need links to Wikipedia to show why bait and switch in all its literal meaning cannot be proven or is even a correct description, and we dont need attempts to ridicule this feedback.
You mean the secret exploits like Gravity Pulse being generally awesome, or Railgun having a 120' range, or Incendiary Rounds hitting lots of targets, or vehicles being fast, or devices being stackable? Because these don't sound that difficult to discover to me. In fact, it's hard to imagine that all of these properties weren't part of the original design.
no kidding.. i was lead to believe this is how those things were intended.. is the reason i got them in the first place
I am done with my feedback about these things, Ive said everything I wanted to say, but I dislike people trying to invalidate and ridicule that feedback.
So once again (the last time for me). Most of the overpowered items were clearly and plainly overpowered, there was nothing secret or obscured about it.
If you are a videogame dev, and are adding a limited godmode item to your game, you better be sure it is really really limited.
If you add powers with unlimited targets to a game where every other power has a target limit, you better think hard why that power does not have to follow the same rules all other powers do, and why a target limit was added in the first place.
You do not need to be psychic, or a genius, to predict how/why things like that are going to be exploited, you just need to think about what you are doing. So either they didnt think about it (enough), and didnt listen or didnt care enough about all the feedback they got over the months, or it was all intentional.
Either way, they didnt do a very good job, and in my view they deserve the negative feedback they get about it. People feeling they have been treated unfairly and expressing their thoughts and feelings is a normal response.
We dont need an argument over the legality, we dont need links to Wikipedia to show why bait and switch in all its literal meaning cannot be proven or is even a correct description, and we dont need attempts to ridicule this feedback.
The original free ATs were purposely made weaker so that people would spend money to sub for FFs. I believe that it failed or underperformed, which is the only reason that FF slots were added. The most important piece of CO's content is locked behind a pay wall. That content is Free Forms.
Considering that the free ATs are free, why should anything different be expected?
The only obvious reason that FF slots were added was to provide more versatile purchase options to the Z-store and as a viable alternative to a gold subscription. To say that locking FF behind a pay wall failed or underperformed requires actual proof from seeing their sales record.
The most important piece of content is content that you actually play for exploration and progression. That isn't behind a pay wall here. There are games out there that do put those behind pay walls.
Actually, selling vehicles is how pay to win works. Not needing vehicles to complete anything is not the point, vehicles being powerful is the point.
It's a term carelessly thrown around without regards to the game involved.
Vehicles can only be used conditionally in combat anyway, and the whole beef about paying to get an advantage over other players would only really matter if it was competitive, like in PVP. Even then in PVP their used is restricted to duels.
I am done with my feedback about these things, Ive said everything I wanted to say, but I dislike people trying to invalidate and ridicule that feedback.
So once again (the last time for me). Most of the overpowered items were clearly and plainly overpowered, there was nothing secret or obscured about it.
If you are a videogame dev, and are adding a limited godmode item to your game, you better be sure it is really really limited.
If you add powers with unlimited targets to a game where every other power has a target limit, you better think hard why that power does not have to follow the same rules all other powers do, and why a target limit was added in the first place.
You do not need to be psychic, or a genius, to predict how/why things like that are going to be exploited, you just need to think about what you are doing. So either they didnt think about it (enough), and didnt listen or didnt care enough about all the feedback they got over the months, or it was all intentional.
Either way, they didnt do a very good job, and in my view they deserve the negative feedback they get about it. People feeling they have been treated unfairly and expressing their thoughts and feelings is a normal response.
We dont need an argument over the legality, we dont need links to Wikipedia to show why bait and switch in all its literal meaning cannot be proven or is even a correct description, and we dont need attempts to ridicule this feedback.
Considering that the free ATs are free, why should anything different be expected?
The only obvious reason that FF slots were added was to provide more versatile purchase options to the Z-store and as a viable alternative to a gold subscription. To say that locking FF behind a pay wall failed or underperformed requires actual proof from seeing their sales record.
I was pointing out content that is behind a pay wall. So, your question has NOTHING to do with the point I was making. I must have missed the part in that section of my post you quoted that said I was stating a fact instead of my theory. I'm pretty sure I don't need to do research to have opinions. Especially since we both know me getting financial records is never going to happen.
The most important piece of content is content that you actually play for exploration and progression. That isn't behind a pay wall here. There are games out there that do put those behind pay walls.
You seriously expect me to believe that when someone rocking a blade AT sees all of those FF players that can do all the things he'll never be able to that he doesn't feel the desire to buy a FF slot? That's a huge wall to content. Guess what FF slots also fall under? Progression! Making a character the best that they can be is extremely important. People are very vested in their toons and that make them ripe for monetization.
Vehicles can only be used conditionally in combat anyway, and the whole beef about paying to get an advantage over other players would only really matter if it was competitive, like in PVP. Even then in PVP their used is restricted to duels.
Competition has nothing to do with PvP or combat. In fact, this entire quote misses the point completely.
This video details Zynga's business model. There are a lot of things there that apply to CO. Maybe it can help you understand what I'm talking about.
I'm willing to modulate my response on this, given the timing of events that I may not have taken into consideration before:
This is the consequence of a development team that gives two $#!^s about this game correcting mistakes made by a development team that did not give two $#!^s because they'd rather have been working on Star Trek or Neverwinter.
Choose your enemies carefully, because they will define you / Make them interesting, because in some ways they will mind you
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
I was pointing out content that is behind a pay wall. So, your question has NOTHING to do with the point I was making. I must have missed the part in that section of my post you quoted that said I was stating a fact instead of my theory. I'm pretty sure I don't need to do research to have opinions. Especially since we both know me getting financial records is never going to happen.
And I was pointing out the fact that if a player is expected to play the game entirely for free, then certain compromises have to be accepted. Obviously a player playing the game for free and making use of server bandwidth resources for free is going to hit a pay wall if they want access to more and better stuff.
You seriously expect me to believe that when someone rocking a blade AT sees all of those FF players that can do all the things he'll never be able to that he doesn't feel the desire to buy a FF slot? That's a huge wall to content. Guess what FF slots also fall under? Progression! Making a character the best that they can be is extremely important. People are very vested in their toons and that make them ripe for monetization.
You left out the fact that someone playing a Blade AT, upon leaving tutorial, has the freedom to get from level 6 to the maximum level of 40 and experience everything the game has to offer gameplay wise. That AT player is able to access every zone, mission, lair, adventure pack, comic series, alert and social instance like any freeform player can.
What you're describing isn't really a content wall. It's a difference between having a serviceable archetype with a fixed set of powers versus the more flexible freeform to play the game with. Progression for an AT isn't hindered, it just takes a much narrower path to do it. Monetization happens when someone wants to avoid that narrow path and wants more flexibility in their build that freeform provides. It's a mere difference between paying for nothing for a basic feature and paying for access to a premium feature.
Competition has nothing to do with PvP or combat. In fact, this entire quote misses the point completely.
Competition has everything to do with PVP. What are you even talking about?
Player advantage over others would only truly matter if the players were head-on against each other and if a player bought a Z-store item to give him or her an advantage over an opponent who didn't on a competitive level. That significance just simply does not exist in PVE which makes up the overwhelming majority of this game's content.
This video details Zynga's business model. There are a lot of things there that apply to CO. Maybe it can help you understand what I'm talking about.
You have to be kidding me if you're trying to compare Zynga's business model to what we're having in CO.
Zynga games deliberately force players to go through a tedious and long waiting process that's meant to push them to pay money to actually progress. It's called a time wall. We do not see that sort of thing here in CO. Everyone's free to progress at their own personal pace. Sorry, but not a fair comparison at all.
The original free ATs were purposely made weaker so that people would spend money to sub for FFs. I believe that it failed or underperformed, which is the only reason that FF slots were added. The most important piece of CO's content is locked behind a pay wall. That content is Free Forms.
Actually, selling vehicles is how pay to win works. Not needing vehicles to complete anything is not the point, vehicles being powerful is the point.
Readingabout F2P game practices is interesting and depressing. The thought process behind how companies monetize their games and why they implement things can be evil.
you see, i dont see it that way. the old way was, you paid a subscription and you got to play the whole game, and games used to get real updates and "issues". free to play is, for people who were ok with getting what they paid for, a miserable plague where developers produce far less, nickle and dime what they make and base their content decisions on what can be monetized (new zone? nah, lets just make a few more unbalanced vehicles) . i can see why it has gotten so popular because it ratchets down expectations and you get far less than you used to for subscription based games, but i don't see "evil" in monetizing games, developers have to eat. Stupid was expecting a system where few people actually pay to produce anything worth playing, or produce a dedicated community, rather than a bunch of chipmunks who bounce between 5 partial games that they don't care about because they really never had any personal investment in them.
I'm willing to modulate my response on this, given the timing of events that I may not have taken into consideration before:
This is the consequence of a development team that gives two $#!^s about this game correcting mistakes made by a development team that did not give two $#!^s because they'd rather have been working on Star Trek or Neverwinter.
Do the devs have any say in how the game is monetized? Or which game they work on? And we don't know if the dev team is fixing the mistakes of previous teams or if this is Cryptic's monetization method. It could go either way and I doubt Cryptic is going to tell us. Customers should complain if they see something they feel isn't right. Video game companies in general don't treat players like customers, but like cash machines. In any other industry, customer would be thanked for their purchases and rewarded for being a loyal customer.
Jennymachx:
The text summary of the Zynga video. Before you dismiss it outright, look at the things people pay for section. All of those things are monetized in CO. No company is going to ignore this kind of information even if they choose not to follow it.
The links I gave are very interesting if you want to know how f2p games work. I have no interest in arguing with you for the sake of arguing. If you want to look over the information I gave and then disagree with me, that's fine. It's not very engaging or interesting to argue with you if I have to explain all of your counterpoints because you don't want to learn more about the model before typing. It's fine if you don't, but I won't be replying to your points if that is what you choose.
RianFrost:
The video in the link is called "Evil Game Design Challenge", which is why I used that word. It makes sense if you click the link. So, yeah... Also: The f2p model isn't bad in itself, but some of the method are questionable. F2p can be done very well and a company can still be profitable while insisting on a certain standard of ethics. Grinding Gear Games is an example of a F2P company with a strong opinion on the right way to monetize their game. You also have companies like Valve doing research on how to make money on free games that don't hurt their customers.
The text summary of the Zynga video. Before you dismiss it outright, look at the things people pay for section. All of those things are monetized in CO. No company is going to ignore this kind of information even if they choose not to follow it.
The links I gave are very interesting if you want to know how f2p games work. I have no interest in arguing with you for the sake of arguing. If you want to look over the information I gave and then disagree with me, that's fine. It's not very engaging or interesting to argue with you if I have to explain all of your counterpoints because you don't want to learn more about the model before typing. It's fine if you don't, but I won't be replying to your points if that is what you choose.
My counterpoints are in context with how Cryptic implements their F2P and microtransaction system. You conveniently chose to ignore what I've said about Zynga games having a time wall, called "fun pain" in the article, that is completely non-existent in this game. I emphasis hugely on that because that's the biggest offender of any FTP game out there.
The only two things I'd consider really questionable in the article other than "fun pain" are having people pay for "chance" items, that being this game's lockboxes, and paying to get a competitive edge against opponents when it comes head-to-head gameplay.
Do the devs have any say in how the game is monetized? Or which game they work on? And we don't know if the dev team is fixing the mistakes of previous teams or if this is Cryptic's monetization method. It could go either way and I doubt Cryptic is going to tell us.
Hanlon's Razor never dulls, my friend.
Choose your enemies carefully, because they will define you / Make them interesting, because in some ways they will mind you
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
Yeah, but... here's the thing. If stupidity and disorganization leads to a situation that profits a company, there's a disincentive to actually smarten up and get more organized about it.
So while I don't think Cryptic intentionally set things up this way, I think it's their fault for creating the situation (and not changing it), and our fault for encouraging it.
Campaign: The Fenwick Cycle NWS-DKR9GB7KH
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
My counterpoints are in context with how Cryptic implements their F2P and microtransaction system. You conveniently chose to ignore what I've said about Zynga games having a time wall, called "fun pain" in the article, that is completely non-existent in this game. I emphasis hugely on that because that's the biggest offender of any FTP game out there.
The only two things I'd consider really questionable in the article other than "fun pain" are having people pay for "chance" items, that being this game's lockboxes, and paying to get a competitive edge against opponents when it comes head-to-head gameplay.
Well, you conveniently choose to ignore the information I gave you. Everything you said was addressed in that information. Fun pain is not a time wall. It's explained in the information I gave you. I'm ignoring what your saying because it's obvious that you didn't bother reading or watching the videos. I really don't care if you think Zynga is evil. That has nothing to do with the relevancy of their research.
If you want to argue with me, I require a minimum amount of knowledge on your part. I argue for challenge. If my opponent makes no effort to know more, then there can be no challenge. What interesting information will you bring to the table?
I don't think the Cryptic employees are stupid or malice. I think they are humans who are susceptible to making mistakes and being wrong. Sometimes you try something and it doesn't go the way you want it to. The F2P model is still being experimented with. The only way for Cryptic to know the impact of their decision is if people talk about it.
Yeah, but... here's the thing. If stupidity and disorganization leads to a situation that profits a company, there's a disincentive to actually smarten up and get more organized about it.
So while I don't think Cryptic intentionally set things up this way, I think it's their fault for creating the situation (and not changing it), and our fault for encouraging it.
Ya know, I'm pretty much with you on this one until this two strange things happened. From the Co Communication deadspace we got TT, who I EASILY consider the best person to have held his job for CO in the history of EVER. Then that NW catastrophe happened and the dev team was pretty much reduced to Team Lordgar(who was a trooper for what he did accomplish IMO). Then the second thing happened....out of nowhere they bought us a new company? I know I personally had a, "Huuuuuuh?" momment. So yeah, with Fatal Error(which I consider the best of the MEGA-mini-Events) CN burst onto the scene. They learned the system. They read the PnP books(again, "Huuuuuh?"). They've been doing alot of cleanup on stuff they inherited. Honestly, if something like "Champions Online Season 1: Space Reserved for Snazzy Title" hit and was a segway into "Champions Online Campaign Zone 1(with a boon/AA System)" I would pretty much dance in the streets singing their praises.
So while there may have been no real incentive to get their house in order...instead they brought in new housekeepers(TT and CN) and I may be overly optimistic...but I'm still firmly in the "They've earned their shot to impress" phase of this relationship. Overall, I think this relationship has been way more hit than miss. :biggrin:
I'm willing to modulate my response on this, given the timing of events that I may not have taken into consideration before:
This is the consequence of a development team that gives two $#!^s about this game correcting mistakes made by a development team that did not give two $#!^s because they'd rather have been working on Star Trek or Neverwinter.
To try to end, for now, on a semi-positive note--I do think that the above is a possibility and I would like to give CN the benefit of the doubt. However, I also wonder how much of it could be attributed to PWE management and whether or not that influence is likely to change.
Time will tell I guess, for those of us who stick around. And I will likely revisit the original timeline post if needed.
LTS since 2009. Author of ACT parser module for CO. Founder of Rampagers. Resident curmudgeon.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
I'm still shocked people are calling the vehicle changes nerfs.
- Tier 1 vehicles still pack quite a punch.
- Gravity Pulse can still wipe an outdoor map clean by itself.
- Vehicles are still faster than player travel powers.
I won't be raising the tier of my three vehicles (which I bought with in-game currency). I don't need to. They still perform well and I've tried on PTS as well. People are acting as if cryptic nerfed their new toys into oblivion! Which really couldn't be further from true. I've played other games, and I've seen real nerfs. This is anything but. I can imagine what a real vehicle nerf would look like.. and I think everyone else can too.
As long as the price is right I'll be getting my two store bought vehicles, a 4 and a 5 slotter, upgraded to get them to 7 slots. It'll be nice to get some use out of them besides being flight computer based travel powers that detoggle you.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Well, you conveniently choose to ignore the information I gave you. Everything you said was addressed in that information. Fun pain is not a time wall. It's explained in the information I gave you. I'm ignoring what your saying because it's obvious that you didn't bother reading or watching the videos. I really don't care if you think Zynga is evil. That has nothing to do with the relevancy of their research.
Let's review what's being described about "fun pain" in that article shall we?
One of Rogers most interesting points was that fun pain was the key to social games success. Think about how a player needed to click each square to plant or harvest their crops in Farmville. This is a perfect example of fun pain, something that is simultaneously entertaining and a little bit annoying. This type of game mechanic gave Zynga the opportunity to upsell the player on pain-reducing items, such as a tractor that clicked four fields at once. These items were extremely popular among players, even though they only existed because it was painful to play the game in the first place!
The bolded parts describe a mechanic implemented in Zynga's games to deliberately stunt a player's progress in a way that is aggravating while allowing the player a minimum level of progression. The mechanic is designed to do its best to urge the player to pay actual money to overcome that obstacle to a certain extent, before being expected to pay again to progress quicker once more. That is undeniably a time wall and what "fun pain" is perfectly describing.
That is the core of Farmville's gameplay; Progression. To see your farm grow. You either pony up the cash to speed up that progression or do it for free at a painfully slow pace. Having a mechanic like that in CO would mean giving the player the ability to earn a limited amount of levels or even experience per day before being expected to pay actual money to advance a few more experience points or levels. That simply does not exist in CO.
If there's any controversial or "evil" aspect of the FTP model that has any real significance, that would be it, because FTP games like Farmville or CO are primarily focused on player progression. This is why I disagree with using Zynga's games as a fair comparison.
First off, Zynga's model revolves around engagement. It's the second thing mentioned. Using time and paying to go faster is a way to monetize certain things. Every F2P game ever uses time as a way to keep you around longer and sometimes adds a "go faster" button that must be paid for. Why do you think Justice gear has such a low drop rate? So you spend a bunch of time trying to get it. But I wouldn't consider it fun pain even though it is a time sink.
Fun pain is balancing having fun and being annoying while providing a way to pay to get rid of the annoying part. The act of clicking on stuff is kind of fun and kind of annoying. So you buy a tractor or a worker or whatever (haven't played the game) so you don't have to do all of that annoying clicking. It's not time it's all of the clicking you have to do. It can be about time, but it doesn't have to be.
ATs would be fun pain.
Sure, the Blade or Behemoth can enjoy the game just fine, but there are a lot of things they can't do. Yes, you can have fun and do all of the stuff in the game, but it's annoying to have to sit around and wait for you HP to go back up between battles. (Actually, you can buy a consumable with zero cooldown from the z-store to remove that annoyance.) It's annoying not to be tankier or do more dps. Which can be remove by buying FF. Oh, hey, two way to remove the annoying part with money!
There was a bunch of other stuff I linked as well. The Evil Game Dev Challenge is worth a watch. None of those people work for Zynga, yet every single one of them knows the value of time in games. One of the first thing all three people say about how they would monetize Minecraft is to make crafting take longer.
I would consider taking advantage of the young 20 somethings due to their brain not being fully developed (from the credit card companies) or layering real dollars behind premium currencies to be pretty dubious (what every single mmo ever does). From the Minecraft monetization challenge, I think using griefer to make your company money would be a bit evil if implemented. (I'm pretty sure UO had some sort of corpse insurance so people can't take your stuff.)
I am still dubious that you actually bothered doing much reading or watching of videos. I just explained to you stuff that was explained in the Zynga video and text. Plus there are things you would have realized about time if you did something other than skim the first few paragraphs of one article. I honestly get the feeling that you just want to be right and have no interest in debating. That's a shame because I find the F2P topic interesting and would love if people shared their information.
I've read the article and I'm not going to bother watching someone rant for over 30 mins just to get the gist of it. I've already explained why I'm in disagreement with certain things mentioned applying to this games business model. I don't even agree that every single thing being described about the FTP model being controversial or even evil even for those that do apply to this game. They come off as necessary FTP conventions to get people to invest a little money in a game service not using a pay-to-play model. There are three select aspects to the model that I do agree come off as shady, as already explained in my previous posts, but those are the only three controversial aspects that do apply to CO amidst everything else I see as acceptable.
At the end of the day, there's a limit to just how much of a free experience that can be given to anyone who has absolutely no interest in spending any money when the services involved are business-oriented. It's free for all not all for free. You have your opinions on how those limits are handled and reasonably accepted, and I have mine. I'm just going to leave it at that.
I've played both FFs and ATs. And in my experience, it takes no longer for an AT to regenerate HP than it does for an FF. The only exception would be if your FF uses the Regeneration passive, but that seems to be frowned upon by the Great Build Gurus, so...
So no, ATs as such aren't that bad. Minds and Blades can be extra hassle, because they're extra squishy, but that's only two out of... how many are free again? A bunch, anyway.
I mostly intend to go LTS when I can because that gets me a crapload of character slots. And I'll probably wind up using all of them, and wishing I had more.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
Comments
They got the get it somewhere since;
opening/spending real money to Lock Boxes isn't requiered.
Hideouts with one of the key features(shared storage) are now free.
Auras aren't that great of a success as they though.
So they are dipping into Vehicles, latest shiney which lacks any real meaning in game.
And, if you're spending $50 to Keys, you're doing it wrong.
...
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
So now we're blaming players for not doing Cryptic's job. Awesome! This would be more believable if they didn't have a history of releasing half finished patches filled with bugs (*Kitchen sink and Kitchen sink 2 anyone*). They might have a better turn out on the ptr if they didn't have a history of ignoring reports about problems on the test build.
That said, I do not think that Cryptic is blameless in the situations(s) described in the OP. All too often Cryptic knows that the item is OP or somehow unbalanced before they release it to live.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
This isn't about the normal and reasonable efforts to balance game content in a timely manner. Of course that's to be expected. But Cryptic chose to make powerful pay-to-win items that are only accessible via lockbox, and then only to nerf those items a year later, coinciding with the introduction of newer microcommerce items. This is not a pattern to be condoned or supported. It's bad for the players, the game, and the industry.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
The problems would be ;
1. the devs would have a limited time to work on each project before they have to start on the next, they may not have had time to respond to all reported problems.
2. any testing by devs would have been done under what can be loosely described as normal, intended use.
Players will tend to try to get as much out of it or use in any way to get the best result. When someone finds it then others rush to get the OP stuff.
NO thought of balance, only, "I can do more with that."
plasma beam has the burn buff, I doubt if the devs checked for 10 people all using it on one target. Why would they? When would you have 10 vehicles with identical weapons all firing at one target.
How many people reported that you could stack it that many times and melt your target fast?
I believe the comment about sky command was "we can kill mega d in 10 seconds"
How many refused to use it in the Rampages because it was OP?
How could anyone honestly say that about 10k damage per person per second was intended.(rough guess at his HPS being 1mill, I didn't look at them at the time)
and we have those drooling over the new weapons and vehicles on the PTS and planning ways to make them OP. You are just repeating your previous behavior.
No complaints from anyone using this obviously overpowered item but once it gets fixed, then they complain.
To those that say you aren't complaining about the nerfs. That's exactly what this thread is about.
from wikipedia
Bait-and-switch is a form of fraud used in retail sales but also employed in other contexts.
First, customers are "baited" by merchants' advertising products or services at a low price, but when customers visit the store, they discover that the advertised goods are not available, or the customers are pressured by sales people to consider similar, but higher priced items ("switching").
so are the items unavailable- no.
are you pressured to buy similar more expensive items- no
this is closer,but still not the correct term, .Unfortunately, too tired form work and can't remeber the correct MARKETING term
planned obsolescence
noun:
1. a policy of producing consumer goods that rapidly become obsolete and so require replacing, achieved by frequent changes in design, termination of the supply of spare parts, and the use of non-durable materials.
from Brooks Stevens who coined the term Planned Obsolescence
"Instilling in the buyer the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than is necessary."
and having looked up the definition of Fraud, it's definitely not that
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Pushing the boundaries in "a lot of ways"? Seriously? I could point to you examples out there that are far worse with how they push those boundaries. Have you come across being expected to make micro-transactions for forms of travel, or something game-halting like advancing to a new zone to be able to progress in levels?
Compared to another MMO I've played with a FTP system that is far less generous than the one we have here, considering that no content is locked behind a pay wall here, Cryptic hasn't really pushed any boundaries at all. The only real glaring issue currently is with the vehicles and their potential to be overpowered and it hardly qualifies as pushing the boundaries in "a lot of ways", so please stop exaggerating.
Oh here we go, that "pay to win" schtick again. No device or gear that is unlocked with real cash at the moment is unavoidably required to complete any form of content in the game. Actual player progress is not locked behind a pay wall. The only thing that those items really do is to potentially trivialize content, but that hardly qualifies as pay to win.
The implementation could be improved, that much I agree, but let's not blow things out of proportion.
If your point is that CO is not the worst example of microtransactions in MMO's, you may be right, and I never said that it was.
Your definition of pay-to-win apparently differs to mine. If you can do game content substantially faster and/or with less risk and/or generally perform better in PvE or PvP content because of devices, gear, vehicles, weapons that you acquired via a lockbox or other type of microtransaction, that is pay-to-win.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
No, you didn't say that CO is the worst example, but when you say something like "pushing the boundaries in a lot of ways", it implies relevant severity.
There is a lot of debate in the industry about the ethics of FTP/microtransactions. Here's an article you might read if you can tear yourself away from trying to make the discussion all about me. How many of these guidelines do you think the CO model is following?
Do you need me to list what I feel are the ways the boundaries are being pushed, despite alluding to many of them elsewhere in the thread? 1.) The random lottery/lockbox model, 2.) the lack of published odds for "winning", 3.) the obfuscation of pricing behind so many game currencies, 4.) the sale of overpowered pay-to-win items, 5.) the nerfing of items to create new demand for the next round of microtransactions. These are all just matters of opinion, of course.
I do find it funny how many people are now defending these practices compared to a year ago. I think so many have already left (I know that most of my guild has) and some of the remaining seem to have some kind of Stockholm Syndrome.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
These days we're having it much worse. The alternative of making ad-hoc purchases at the Z-store as and when I want to being expected to pony up money for that monthly fee to actually play the game is really a terrible thing, while considering that none of the actual game content is behind a pay wall.
It's also pretty unfair that since the company that discontinues its one form of repetitive sales in the form of monthly subscriptions, it starts introducing the micro-transaction model to try to make up for that discontinuation, while the system forces no one to make any transactions to actually excel at the game. I mean gee, how absurd it is to be defending such practices.
What's that about making this discussion about you? Who's the one making the accusation of bait-and-switch?
Edit: Thoughts on the original post:
Balance changes are necessary to MMOs. Developer testing and pts testing will never catch all the potential problems that may arise when content is released to the mass public. There are also those who choose to exploit problems rather then blowing the whistle on them.
Manpower seems scarce for this game. While it does appear on paper that something is released and nerfed later on when something new and shiny is coming out, I don't believe that is the case. I think it's more like 'We're working on this stuff now, so we're going to handle all the balance changes and new additions at once.'
Balance passes don't bother me as much as they did in the past. I understand now that the intent is generally to make the game more enjoyable for everyone and allow for more diversity in power picks.
It's always this.
Just like Vehicles 2.0 is being delivered to players as if they've put some massive amount of work into it, when it's actually just a re-skin of existing vehicles and stat changes. It's not like they're actually improving anything or putting any effort into it.
We made the choice to jump into LTS recently, hoping against all common sense and intelligence that it would pay off and Champions Online would get some actual love and attention. Shortly after our purchase We were cursing ourselves out and regretting the impulsive move.
We'd LOVE to be proven wrong and have actual meaty content added into the game, but as it stands, We can only expect things like this and laziness to continue their usual trend.
As for this thread?
It's not illegal, no. But it's certainly underhanded. And it certainly does seem like there have been so many coincidences where this has happened numerous times that it doesn't seem like it could logically be anything other than intentional.
Would you genuinely be surprised if they were selling broken over-powered items to make a profit and then 'fixing them' later down the road to do it all over again? We wouldn't. Not in the slightest.
That's how I personally see it anyway.
This is true, but it doesn't make it any less underhanded. Many players wouldn't buy -period- if they had even an inkling of suspicion that Cryptic was going to pull this crap, and that as far as We can tell is the purpose of this thread.
The problem is, people tend to put their trust into companies like Cryptic because the common expectation is that presumably, they'd have some sort of business-ethic and not want to screw over their players.
However Cryptic's common business practice seems to be assuming that the MMO market is big enough for them to give their Customers the middle-finger repeatedly and continue to make a profit, because for each that they drive away, new ones arrive. Sooner or later it will come to bite them in the rear, sooner or later no one will trust them about anything anymore.
Signs of that happening have already been visible for years now, especially among those that are older players. (We ourselves personally have been playing CO since beta.)
Regardless, when the new shiny comes out and it seems like an autowin or OP, expect it to be nerfed someday and spend your time and money accordingly.
Legion Gear was not nerfed. Two game mechanics (Dodges and Crits) were nerfed. Legion Gear wasn't the sole thing affected, everything was. And any precious points into Dodge/Avoid and Crit Strike/Severity that the new Justice Gear will provide will also be affected by the new diminishing returns.
Vehicle weapons. Don't blame the "Mark 3" weapons. Blame the Black Harbinger. No, I'm not being snarky. When that Rampage first popped up, some players quickly showed some of the extremely unbalanced ways vehicle weapons could be abused. Like taking a full team with Plasma Beam on the Black Harbinger. There was a lot of player feedback given to the devs about it. Some of the adjustments aren't bad (the Plasma Shear change actually keeps the weapon viable, it just removes the abusiveness that was happening). And the Mark 3 weapons? They're just the same thing as the Mark 2 weapons with a little more damage like ranking up your powers would do. So they'll be affected by the same changes that will hit the Mark 2 weapons.
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Because it's their job.
The original free ATs were purposely made weaker so that people would spend money to sub for FFs. I believe that it failed or underperformed, which is the only reason that FF slots were added. The most important piece of CO's content is locked behind a pay wall. That content is Free Forms.
Actually, selling vehicles is how pay to win works. Not needing vehicles to complete anything is not the point, vehicles being powerful is the point.
Reading about F2P game practices is interesting and depressing. The thought process behind how companies monetize their games and why they implement things can be evil.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
Pretty much this. All our this.
Because it's their freaking jobs. They get paid to bug-test and to make sure they're not releasing bug-ridden and faulty updates and yet every single freaking time there's ALWAYS something broken.
Even if it's not intentional, it's irritating as all crap and it's a reflection of poor work ethic that they literally cannot be a@#ed to put the effort in to make sure these things work and that they constantly and repeatedly overlook these things.
Even if it is just a coincidence, it doesn't change the fact that this sort of s@#t wouldn't fly anywhere else. They'd be fired if they worked any other job and produced such faulty products that they failed to safety test.
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You mean the secret exploits like Gravity Pulse being generally awesome, or Railgun having a 120' range, or Incendiary Rounds hitting lots of targets, or vehicles being fast, or devices being stackable? Because these don't sound that difficult to discover to me. In fact, it's hard to imagine that all of these properties weren't part of the original design.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
Being psychic is not their job. The biggest MMO on the market had a massive problem throughout all of the recent expansion that one given spec had to stat and gear out a certain way. In their design philosophy, they believed that said manners of gearing were between two different choices, but the end users (the gamers) all came up with other ways the devs had never considered. They made countless attempts to force their model onto the playerbase, only to be dutifully ignored.
The simple fact of the matter is that the finite number of devs available will always, ALWAYS be infinitely inferior to the massive amount of end users who seek to use their creations in their own way. It is both unreasonable and physically impossible to believe that said devs can design a whole and unabusable system when they have exponentially more numbers working against them in that regard.
It also speaks volumes of an almost entitled attitude that has no basis in designing. The person who ran five Eruptions formerly did so because he saw what ultimately came out to be an oversight: No shared cooldown between the two. Are they in the right because they were utilizing a mechanic that contradicts the base principles of the game that likely came as a result of SEVERAL layers (Q&A, PTS, general small number of testers) missing something that was both unrealistic and an outlier power?
I have a serious question then: Why is Sky Command not on the list of things that were nerfed but stuff out of stuff you had to pay for? You were intended to run it on vehicles, and a large amount of people likely bought vehicles explicitly for Sky Command/Lemurian Invasion (which spawned the horde of complaints). Drop rates for questionite and tokens were destroyed to a fraction of what they were, and people payed for their vehicles for the privilege of being awesome in Sky Command, so it has as much reason to be there as anything else.
The list itself is preposterous, because absolutely anything can be argued/forced to fit into the list of baiting and switching. The new psychic dot powers and laser sword powers are post F2P, so any nerfs to them are bait and switch tactics because people bought freeform/subbed for them. The dodge nerf was really a nerf to freeforms and subbed players (not legion) because you can't simply dodge cap through minimal power/gear use. The upcoming Tune Up Kit is a nerf to the 8 slot vehicles because their functional worth is going to plummet over people who want to buy vehicles for their appearance. Even the Tune Up Kit is going to be a "Bait and Switch" because people may have spent money on questionite to remove mods from their vehicles in favor of something else they prefer the look of.
Is the ridiculousness obvious enough yet?
So once again (the last time for me). Most of the overpowered items were clearly and plainly overpowered, there was nothing secret or obscured about it.
If you are a videogame dev, and are adding a limited godmode item to your game, you better be sure it is really really limited.
If you add powers with unlimited targets to a game where every other power has a target limit, you better think hard why that power does not have to follow the same rules all other powers do, and why a target limit was added in the first place.
You do not need to be psychic, or a genius, to predict how/why things like that are going to be exploited, you just need to think about what you are doing. So either they didnt think about it (enough), and didnt listen or didnt care enough about all the feedback they got over the months, or it was all intentional.
Either way, they didnt do a very good job, and in my view they deserve the negative feedback they get about it. People feeling they have been treated unfairly and expressing their thoughts and feelings is a normal response.
We dont need an argument over the legality, we dont need links to Wikipedia to show why bait and switch in all its literal meaning cannot be proven or is even a correct description, and we dont need attempts to ridicule this feedback.
and while I'm typing that , Aiqa comes up with a short and to the point comment, which sums it up brilliantly
thank you Aiqa for summing it up
and apologies for my rudeness in my previous post
yes everyone is allowed to feel differently about changes, some like them, some don't, some don't care.
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Agreed more or less.
no kidding.. i was lead to believe this is how those things were intended.. is the reason i got them in the first place
Pretty much this.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
Considering that the free ATs are free, why should anything different be expected?
The only obvious reason that FF slots were added was to provide more versatile purchase options to the Z-store and as a viable alternative to a gold subscription. To say that locking FF behind a pay wall failed or underperformed requires actual proof from seeing their sales record.
The most important piece of content is content that you actually play for exploration and progression. That isn't behind a pay wall here. There are games out there that do put those behind pay walls.
It's a term carelessly thrown around without regards to the game involved.
Vehicles can only be used conditionally in combat anyway, and the whole beef about paying to get an advantage over other players would only really matter if it was competitive, like in PVP. Even then in PVP their used is restricted to duels.
Nothing wrong with taking advantage while it works that way by design, but don't become too attached and always have a Plan B for post-nerf.
I was pointing out content that is behind a pay wall. So, your question has NOTHING to do with the point I was making. I must have missed the part in that section of my post you quoted that said I was stating a fact instead of my theory. I'm pretty sure I don't need to do research to have opinions. Especially since we both know me getting financial records is never going to happen.
You seriously expect me to believe that when someone rocking a blade AT sees all of those FF players that can do all the things he'll never be able to that he doesn't feel the desire to buy a FF slot? That's a huge wall to content. Guess what FF slots also fall under? Progression! Making a character the best that they can be is extremely important. People are very vested in their toons and that make them ripe for monetization.
Competition has nothing to do with PvP or combat. In fact, this entire quote misses the point completely.
This video details Zynga's business model. There are a lot of things there that apply to CO. Maybe it can help you understand what I'm talking about.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
This is the consequence of a development team that gives two $#!^s about this game correcting mistakes made by a development team that did not give two $#!^s because they'd rather have been working on Star Trek or Neverwinter.
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
And I was pointing out the fact that if a player is expected to play the game entirely for free, then certain compromises have to be accepted. Obviously a player playing the game for free and making use of server bandwidth resources for free is going to hit a pay wall if they want access to more and better stuff.
You left out the fact that someone playing a Blade AT, upon leaving tutorial, has the freedom to get from level 6 to the maximum level of 40 and experience everything the game has to offer gameplay wise. That AT player is able to access every zone, mission, lair, adventure pack, comic series, alert and social instance like any freeform player can.
What you're describing isn't really a content wall. It's a difference between having a serviceable archetype with a fixed set of powers versus the more flexible freeform to play the game with. Progression for an AT isn't hindered, it just takes a much narrower path to do it. Monetization happens when someone wants to avoid that narrow path and wants more flexibility in their build that freeform provides. It's a mere difference between paying for nothing for a basic feature and paying for access to a premium feature.
Competition has everything to do with PVP. What are you even talking about?
Player advantage over others would only truly matter if the players were head-on against each other and if a player bought a Z-store item to give him or her an advantage over an opponent who didn't on a competitive level. That significance just simply does not exist in PVE which makes up the overwhelming majority of this game's content.
You have to be kidding me if you're trying to compare Zynga's business model to what we're having in CO.
Zynga games deliberately force players to go through a tedious and long waiting process that's meant to push them to pay money to actually progress. It's called a time wall. We do not see that sort of thing here in CO. Everyone's free to progress at their own personal pace. Sorry, but not a fair comparison at all.
Do the devs have any say in how the game is monetized? Or which game they work on? And we don't know if the dev team is fixing the mistakes of previous teams or if this is Cryptic's monetization method. It could go either way and I doubt Cryptic is going to tell us. Customers should complain if they see something they feel isn't right. Video game companies in general don't treat players like customers, but like cash machines. In any other industry, customer would be thanked for their purchases and rewarded for being a loyal customer.
Jennymachx:
The text summary of the Zynga video. Before you dismiss it outright, look at the things people pay for section. All of those things are monetized in CO. No company is going to ignore this kind of information even if they choose not to follow it.
The links I gave are very interesting if you want to know how f2p games work. I have no interest in arguing with you for the sake of arguing. If you want to look over the information I gave and then disagree with me, that's fine. It's not very engaging or interesting to argue with you if I have to explain all of your counterpoints because you don't want to learn more about the model before typing. It's fine if you don't, but I won't be replying to your points if that is what you choose.
RianFrost:
The video in the link is called "Evil Game Design Challenge", which is why I used that word. It makes sense if you click the link. So, yeah... Also: The f2p model isn't bad in itself, but some of the method are questionable. F2p can be done very well and a company can still be profitable while insisting on a certain standard of ethics. Grinding Gear Games is an example of a F2P company with a strong opinion on the right way to monetize their game. You also have companies like Valve doing research on how to make money on free games that don't hurt their customers.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
My counterpoints are in context with how Cryptic implements their F2P and microtransaction system. You conveniently chose to ignore what I've said about Zynga games having a time wall, called "fun pain" in the article, that is completely non-existent in this game. I emphasis hugely on that because that's the biggest offender of any FTP game out there.
The only two things I'd consider really questionable in the article other than "fun pain" are having people pay for "chance" items, that being this game's lockboxes, and paying to get a competitive edge against opponents when it comes head-to-head gameplay.
Hanlon's Razor never dulls, my friend.
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
So while I don't think Cryptic intentionally set things up this way, I think it's their fault for creating the situation (and not changing it), and our fault for encouraging it.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
Well, you conveniently choose to ignore the information I gave you. Everything you said was addressed in that information. Fun pain is not a time wall. It's explained in the information I gave you. I'm ignoring what your saying because it's obvious that you didn't bother reading or watching the videos. I really don't care if you think Zynga is evil. That has nothing to do with the relevancy of their research.
If you want to argue with me, I require a minimum amount of knowledge on your part. I argue for challenge. If my opponent makes no effort to know more, then there can be no challenge. What interesting information will you bring to the table?
I don't think the Cryptic employees are stupid or malice. I think they are humans who are susceptible to making mistakes and being wrong. Sometimes you try something and it doesn't go the way you want it to. The F2P model is still being experimented with. The only way for Cryptic to know the impact of their decision is if people talk about it.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
So while there may have been no real incentive to get their house in order...instead they brought in new housekeepers(TT and CN) and I may be overly optimistic...but I'm still firmly in the "They've earned their shot to impress" phase of this relationship. Overall, I think this relationship has been way more hit than miss. :biggrin:
Join Date: Aug 2009 | Title: Devslayer
To try to end, for now, on a semi-positive note--I do think that the above is a possibility and I would like to give CN the benefit of the doubt. However, I also wonder how much of it could be attributed to PWE management and whether or not that influence is likely to change.
Time will tell I guess, for those of us who stick around. And I will likely revisit the original timeline post if needed.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
I'm still shocked people are calling the vehicle changes nerfs.
- Tier 1 vehicles still pack quite a punch.
- Gravity Pulse can still wipe an outdoor map clean by itself.
- Vehicles are still faster than player travel powers.
I won't be raising the tier of my three vehicles (which I bought with in-game currency). I don't need to. They still perform well and I've tried on PTS as well. People are acting as if cryptic nerfed their new toys into oblivion! Which really couldn't be further from true. I've played other games, and I've seen real nerfs. This is anything but. I can imagine what a real vehicle nerf would look like.. and I think everyone else can too.
Let's review what's being described about "fun pain" in that article shall we?
The bolded parts describe a mechanic implemented in Zynga's games to deliberately stunt a player's progress in a way that is aggravating while allowing the player a minimum level of progression. The mechanic is designed to do its best to urge the player to pay actual money to overcome that obstacle to a certain extent, before being expected to pay again to progress quicker once more. That is undeniably a time wall and what "fun pain" is perfectly describing.
That is the core of Farmville's gameplay; Progression. To see your farm grow. You either pony up the cash to speed up that progression or do it for free at a painfully slow pace. Having a mechanic like that in CO would mean giving the player the ability to earn a limited amount of levels or even experience per day before being expected to pay actual money to advance a few more experience points or levels. That simply does not exist in CO.
If there's any controversial or "evil" aspect of the FTP model that has any real significance, that would be it, because FTP games like Farmville or CO are primarily focused on player progression. This is why I disagree with using Zynga's games as a fair comparison.
I'm not the one ignoring the information here.
Fun pain is balancing having fun and being annoying while providing a way to pay to get rid of the annoying part. The act of clicking on stuff is kind of fun and kind of annoying. So you buy a tractor or a worker or whatever (haven't played the game) so you don't have to do all of that annoying clicking. It's not time it's all of the clicking you have to do. It can be about time, but it doesn't have to be.
ATs would be fun pain.
Sure, the Blade or Behemoth can enjoy the game just fine, but there are a lot of things they can't do. Yes, you can have fun and do all of the stuff in the game, but it's annoying to have to sit around and wait for you HP to go back up between battles. (Actually, you can buy a consumable with zero cooldown from the z-store to remove that annoyance.) It's annoying not to be tankier or do more dps. Which can be remove by buying FF. Oh, hey, two way to remove the annoying part with money!
There was a bunch of other stuff I linked as well. The Evil Game Dev Challenge is worth a watch. None of those people work for Zynga, yet every single one of them knows the value of time in games. One of the first thing all three people say about how they would monetize Minecraft is to make crafting take longer.
I would consider taking advantage of the young 20 somethings due to their brain not being fully developed (from the credit card companies) or layering real dollars behind premium currencies to be pretty dubious (what every single mmo ever does). From the Minecraft monetization challenge, I think using griefer to make your company money would be a bit evil if implemented. (I'm pretty sure UO had some sort of corpse insurance so people can't take your stuff.)
I am still dubious that you actually bothered doing much reading or watching of videos. I just explained to you stuff that was explained in the Zynga video and text. Plus there are things you would have realized about time if you did something other than skim the first few paragraphs of one article. I honestly get the feeling that you just want to be right and have no interest in debating. That's a shame because I find the F2P topic interesting and would love if people shared their information.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
At the end of the day, there's a limit to just how much of a free experience that can be given to anyone who has absolutely no interest in spending any money when the services involved are business-oriented. It's free for all not all for free. You have your opinions on how those limits are handled and reasonably accepted, and I have mine. I'm just going to leave it at that.
So no, ATs as such aren't that bad. Minds and Blades can be extra hassle, because they're extra squishy, but that's only two out of... how many are free again? A bunch, anyway.
I mostly intend to go LTS when I can because that gets me a crapload of character slots. And I'll probably wind up using all of them, and wishing I had more.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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