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My two cents...
Edit: My recent thread I created was deleted strangely enough. So I'll repost here:
It looks like the dev's have decided to take a step back and reassess the changes. Good job to everyone who has spoken up, and my thanks to the dev's for making the right move.
A new account that purchases the Premium Package will have a total of (16?) regular character slots and 0 freeform toons and has these options to reach maximum account potential in terms of Character Slots and Freeform:
If they wanted to stick to 16 slots with no freeform, they are looking at a one-time purchase of $15
If they wanted to stick with the original 16 slots but wants to turn them all freeform, this would cost $50/slot for a total of $800. OR, they could spend the $200-$300 on LTS which is more practical. So needless to say, the only option in this circumstance would be to pay for a LTS at $300 ($200 on sale)
If they wanted to just play with non-FF but wanted to cap out there character limit it would cost ~$301 ($14 per 2 slots), the same cost as a LTS with no access to freeform slots.
If they wanted to both reach the cap on slots AND purchase freeform for every character they'd be looking at ~$301 for the character slots and $2950 for the freeform unlocks for a total of $3251. Again, LTS makes more sense in this case so they would need to purchase the LTS for the cost to drop to $200-$300 for LTS + the ~$301 for character slots for a total of ~$700 (4 years monthly subscription costs to break even [without factoring in the stipend]).
Both freeform AND the ability to unlock character slots in-game use to be obtainable for $15/month. Now both are locked behind several hundred dollars worth of up-front cost behind a paywall. Now, you are required to spend almost double the cost of a LTS to obtain these same features. This is the impact of the changes that are being implemented. They are good for absolutely no one, not even newcomers.
I understand that there are multiple threads already giving their own viewpoints on the subject. But with such a drastic and absurd policy change I think it isn't surprising that we all want to get a word in before these changes come into effect... so as a recent LTS I am going to break this update down and give my thoughts:
"Can current subscribers - Gold or Lifetime - buy this pack on top of their subscription for extra rewards?
If you have ever purchased a subscription or are currently subscribed you can claim the Premium Pack from the bonus tab in the ZEN store. The Premium Pack and Monthly Subscription Rewards do not stack on each other.
There will be a separate purchase available to former Gold or Lifetime members that will add any items you don’t currently own to your account."
I am absolutely baffled at what the last phrase of this answer even is relating to. What items could I possibly not own that would warrant a "separate purchase" as a LTS? Why wouldn't whatever this non-specific purchase is just be offered to veteran players to begin with?
"What happens to monthly subscriptions now?
They will no longer be available on our website. If you have a monthly subscription currently, it will continue and you will receive all of the benefits of that subscription, other than the change to free character slots mentioned below. You can still cancel that subscription at any time."
The change being alluded to here is the removal of the character slot unlock reward that use to be offered when reaching level 40 on a toon. My fear about this change is it comes off as a way to gouge more money out of everyone, including LTS. Usually, we just had to level a toon to 40 through a slow process of level grinding to unlock new slots; that has now been replaced with exclusively in-store purchases with Zen requiring additional expenditure of more money. Arguably, that reward was the driving incentive to hit max level to begin with for those of us who were more interested in the character creation aspect of the game as opposed to the end-game grind. But I digress...
"What about the Monthly Subscriber Rewards?
These are being discontinued when the monthly subscription ends, but anyone purchasing a Lifetime Subscription will gain access to all of the previous releases."
This is a bit unsettling of a change. Not only are they removing subs, but they are removing the only guarantied monthly recurring content addition to the game that's existed. I assume that this means we will get less content, not more, in the long run. This isn't to say that these monthly costumes have been great by any means, but this seems to be more attempts at even further reducing the already minimal workload for Cryptic in regards to CO.
"What happens to my gold characters if my sub lapses?
If your sub lapses, and you had gold characters, they will change to silver like they would normally. If you want to keep them gold, you will have to purchase a lifetime sub. Otherwise, they will have to be converted to archetypes in order to be played.
If you purchased a freeform slot, that will forever remain a freeform slot.
We are looking into the possibility of creating a purchasable item to convert silver slots into freeform slots."
This right here is the kicker. The backpedaling of content in one of the most backhanded and brutal ways that I've ever seen implemented this late into the game. This change forces gold players into an unwinnable ultimatum (wherein they invest the same amount, if not more money for less value overall):
-Purchase a lifetime sub to secure all your freeform accounts
-Continue to pay a monthly fee for a F2P model that likely will result in less content being pushed out (consider the ending of monthly costume bonuses as an example); this also comes with the looming fear of your sub ending for one reason or another and forcing you to have to purchase freeform tokens to reclaim your freeform characters.
-End your sub and either purchase several $50 free form slot tokens for each individual toon OR decide to respec your freeforms into typical archetypes. (hardly an option really... but that's the most plausible)
This change alone has resulted in ALL of my friends who are not LTS to quit with complete animosity towards the game and company. They already unsubbed, so I guess that's a nail in the coffin. Can't say I blame them...
"Character Slots
The game has a character slot cap of 59 (this has been the limit since the game launched).
If you have over this amount from earning slots through leveling Gold characters to 40, they will remain on your account. You will keep those slots even if you delete the character, but you won't be able to gain any more character slots."
I haven't been around long enough for this to effect me. But for veteran players, alt's have been a HUGE part of their reason to stick around. It allows them to utilize all of these additional costume unlocks and continue to find enjoyment in new toons in a game that severely lacks content. I also realized that this dramatically impacts the RP community who run throw-away toons that act as "NPC's" and such. That's a brutal change for some of the long-standing members of this game.
My conclusion for all of these changes is that it is borderline scandalous. It is a clever way to squeeze more money out of previously gold sub's by way to reclaiming freeform toons, and LTS by way of removing the ability to unlock new character slots (and thereby encouraging more Zen store purchases for those slots). This is a typical case of 'having your cake and eating it too'. They squeezed money out of players for LTS, and then remove the incentives (no longer needing to pay monthly subscription fees) and adding a superficial incentive to generate more sales by backpedaling content (the ability to unlock toons at level 40). Anyone with half a brain can see right through this ruse. It is such a dirty and underhanded way to generate that last bit of $$$ that they can manage to get out of this game is my guess. That's all assumption, but it can't be too far off from the truth. This business model only serves to alienate and lose rapport with their current player base. This damage to consumer relations can't be undone at this stage, being that it proves that these types of underhanded and deceptive changes can be made at any time despite your initial investments. People don't easily forget that sort of thing and for the ones that stick around I imagine that they will be holding their wallets much closer to their chest this time around...
It looks like the dev's have decided to take a step back and reassess the changes. Good job to everyone who has spoken up, and my thanks to the dev's for making the right move.
A new account that purchases the Premium Package will have a total of (16?) regular character slots and 0 freeform toons and has these options to reach maximum account potential in terms of Character Slots and Freeform:
If they wanted to stick to 16 slots with no freeform, they are looking at a one-time purchase of $15
If they wanted to stick with the original 16 slots but wants to turn them all freeform, this would cost $50/slot for a total of $800. OR, they could spend the $200-$300 on LTS which is more practical. So needless to say, the only option in this circumstance would be to pay for a LTS at $300 ($200 on sale)
If they wanted to just play with non-FF but wanted to cap out there character limit it would cost ~$301 ($14 per 2 slots), the same cost as a LTS with no access to freeform slots.
If they wanted to both reach the cap on slots AND purchase freeform for every character they'd be looking at ~$301 for the character slots and $2950 for the freeform unlocks for a total of $3251. Again, LTS makes more sense in this case so they would need to purchase the LTS for the cost to drop to $200-$300 for LTS + the ~$301 for character slots for a total of ~$700 (4 years monthly subscription costs to break even [without factoring in the stipend]).
Both freeform AND the ability to unlock character slots in-game use to be obtainable for $15/month. Now both are locked behind several hundred dollars worth of up-front cost behind a paywall. Now, you are required to spend almost double the cost of a LTS to obtain these same features. This is the impact of the changes that are being implemented. They are good for absolutely no one, not even newcomers.
I understand that there are multiple threads already giving their own viewpoints on the subject. But with such a drastic and absurd policy change I think it isn't surprising that we all want to get a word in before these changes come into effect... so as a recent LTS I am going to break this update down and give my thoughts:
"Can current subscribers - Gold or Lifetime - buy this pack on top of their subscription for extra rewards?
If you have ever purchased a subscription or are currently subscribed you can claim the Premium Pack from the bonus tab in the ZEN store. The Premium Pack and Monthly Subscription Rewards do not stack on each other.
There will be a separate purchase available to former Gold or Lifetime members that will add any items you don’t currently own to your account."
I am absolutely baffled at what the last phrase of this answer even is relating to. What items could I possibly not own that would warrant a "separate purchase" as a LTS? Why wouldn't whatever this non-specific purchase is just be offered to veteran players to begin with?
"What happens to monthly subscriptions now?
They will no longer be available on our website. If you have a monthly subscription currently, it will continue and you will receive all of the benefits of that subscription, other than the change to free character slots mentioned below. You can still cancel that subscription at any time."
The change being alluded to here is the removal of the character slot unlock reward that use to be offered when reaching level 40 on a toon. My fear about this change is it comes off as a way to gouge more money out of everyone, including LTS. Usually, we just had to level a toon to 40 through a slow process of level grinding to unlock new slots; that has now been replaced with exclusively in-store purchases with Zen requiring additional expenditure of more money. Arguably, that reward was the driving incentive to hit max level to begin with for those of us who were more interested in the character creation aspect of the game as opposed to the end-game grind. But I digress...
"What about the Monthly Subscriber Rewards?
These are being discontinued when the monthly subscription ends, but anyone purchasing a Lifetime Subscription will gain access to all of the previous releases."
This is a bit unsettling of a change. Not only are they removing subs, but they are removing the only guarantied monthly recurring content addition to the game that's existed. I assume that this means we will get less content, not more, in the long run. This isn't to say that these monthly costumes have been great by any means, but this seems to be more attempts at even further reducing the already minimal workload for Cryptic in regards to CO.
"What happens to my gold characters if my sub lapses?
If your sub lapses, and you had gold characters, they will change to silver like they would normally. If you want to keep them gold, you will have to purchase a lifetime sub. Otherwise, they will have to be converted to archetypes in order to be played.
If you purchased a freeform slot, that will forever remain a freeform slot.
We are looking into the possibility of creating a purchasable item to convert silver slots into freeform slots."
This right here is the kicker. The backpedaling of content in one of the most backhanded and brutal ways that I've ever seen implemented this late into the game. This change forces gold players into an unwinnable ultimatum (wherein they invest the same amount, if not more money for less value overall):
-Purchase a lifetime sub to secure all your freeform accounts
-Continue to pay a monthly fee for a F2P model that likely will result in less content being pushed out (consider the ending of monthly costume bonuses as an example); this also comes with the looming fear of your sub ending for one reason or another and forcing you to have to purchase freeform tokens to reclaim your freeform characters.
-End your sub and either purchase several $50 free form slot tokens for each individual toon OR decide to respec your freeforms into typical archetypes. (hardly an option really... but that's the most plausible)
This change alone has resulted in ALL of my friends who are not LTS to quit with complete animosity towards the game and company. They already unsubbed, so I guess that's a nail in the coffin. Can't say I blame them...
"Character Slots
The game has a character slot cap of 59 (this has been the limit since the game launched).
If you have over this amount from earning slots through leveling Gold characters to 40, they will remain on your account. You will keep those slots even if you delete the character, but you won't be able to gain any more character slots."
I haven't been around long enough for this to effect me. But for veteran players, alt's have been a HUGE part of their reason to stick around. It allows them to utilize all of these additional costume unlocks and continue to find enjoyment in new toons in a game that severely lacks content. I also realized that this dramatically impacts the RP community who run throw-away toons that act as "NPC's" and such. That's a brutal change for some of the long-standing members of this game.
My conclusion for all of these changes is that it is borderline scandalous. It is a clever way to squeeze more money out of previously gold sub's by way to reclaiming freeform toons, and LTS by way of removing the ability to unlock new character slots (and thereby encouraging more Zen store purchases for those slots). This is a typical case of 'having your cake and eating it too'. They squeezed money out of players for LTS, and then remove the incentives (no longer needing to pay monthly subscription fees) and adding a superficial incentive to generate more sales by backpedaling content (the ability to unlock toons at level 40). Anyone with half a brain can see right through this ruse. It is such a dirty and underhanded way to generate that last bit of $$$ that they can manage to get out of this game is my guess. That's all assumption, but it can't be too far off from the truth. This business model only serves to alienate and lose rapport with their current player base. This damage to consumer relations can't be undone at this stage, being that it proves that these types of underhanded and deceptive changes can be made at any time despite your initial investments. People don't easily forget that sort of thing and for the ones that stick around I imagine that they will be holding their wallets much closer to their chest this time around...
Post edited by folv#5303 on
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My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I genuinely hope to see more personally. This isn't a small change. It has resulted in 80% of my particular group to quit the game immediately. It's a detrimental change that is effecting nearly everyone in a negative way one way or the other. Does it surprise you that those of us who have invested hundreds of dollars want to at least give our personal take on the changes being made? But, I've already addressed this in my initial comment so I'll leave it there...
Edit: Full disclosure, the hopeful part of me wants to think that the outrage will lead to a change in direction before the deadline for these changes hit. That doesn't happen from people saying nothing; though to be fair it likely won't happen regardless.
This is not the first time this has happened. Cryptic did this to old subs when the game first went F2P. We complained, they did nothing. They had 7 years to give us back our freeforms and they did not. They don't care about how many people actually play the game, they only want to squeeze as much as they can from the few that are left.
Baffling indeed
Click here to check out my costumes/milleniumguardian (MG) in-game/We need more tights, stances and moods
That is essentially the fear I was having and you are not the first person to bring this up to me. The bottom line is that I should have done more research prior. But I won't lie in saying that their "longest standing super hero MMO" double xp week really got a lot of us hyped up in thinking that the game was in it for the long haul. That was a clever marketing ploy to follow up with this cash grab policy change; arguably the exact opposite direction that I would have expected. And for my friends who are all not LTS, this came as a kick in the gut to have invested some extra money and time into the game right before these changes. I have to imagine a lot of us are looking with regret at our lighter wallets from that hyped event with all the sales.
What's sad is when I saw the announcement, my first thought was to be happy that I could come back to the game and play my old characters. Then I read what it actually meant. CO could have been such a big hit if the F2P model wasnt crap or they at least grandfathered in pre-F2P accounts, but nope. Such a great game and great IP ruined by disgusting practices.
That's why I'm here, now. I wanted it to be a good thing. And I'm ready to complain alongside you as I do really hope it works this time. I'm not optimistic, but I'll fight regardless.
Not much else can be done for those of us wanting to see something change. There will be naysayers, and maybe for good reason. But I'm not going to just fizzle out when I am already so heavily invested into this game that, if properly managed, could have been (remained) good in some ways.
Remind them that this is not their private little plaything but a product we pay for and they are employed to provide.
This is a big journey, so far if you're reading this, wish you a good day
As I stated above:
"I assume that this means we will get less content, not more, in the long run. This isn't to say that these monthly costumes have been great by any means, but this seems to be even further attempts at even further reducing the already minimal workload for Cryptic."
Point being, I do not think they are adequate content; but it's removal (being that it's such a small addition) should show you exactly how little they care to invest in this game from this point forward.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Right. The removal of monthly subs justifies the game stagnating for the most part. Monthly subs for MMO's have always been justified in terms of paying for the continual development of the game. Even if the content was meager, the monthly additions at least gave the illusion of progress to some degree. I don't thing that is a change massive enough to give too much more insight on, but understand I am only alluding to it as a means to justify my concerns that the game is making changes that lead me and others believe it's winding down.
As far as the "change in delivery method" concept, it's just not true. Or at least, it's not as simple as you are insisting. The change in delivery for Character Slots, lets say, is that it use to be obtainable in-game for $0 spent. Now, no matter what, if you wish to unlock more slots you will have to pay for them. That is a massive change because it is locking pre-existing content offered for years behind a paywall. Secondly, as everyone hopefully acknowledges at this stage, the FF lock is something that, if implemented as stated, will result in players needing to spend massive sums of money to secure their characters without forcibly respecing them into non FF, OR being locked into a contract that comes with the looming threat of, "If this is ever cancelled you will again have all of your FF locked behind a large purchase". So lets not downplay the magnitude of these changes.
Edit: Look, full disclosure, I was astounded when I found out that I would unlock a character slot at level 40 (so much so that I doubted it). When it actually happened, I was blown away. And I used it as a massive selling point to my friends to convince them to sign up for CO. I praised it as being one of the most generous offerings in a game with this sort of payment model. This problem is that this is an established concept that the game has offered which is NOW being removed and placed behind a paywall. That is and always will be the issue. I would have had zero issue with this change if it wasn't something that players already had access to. But it is never the right move to roll back on in-game content that was free and slap a price tag on it. That is indefensible.
I don't really care, but I'm curious how you know that.
Not only that. If the presumption being made here is that these items which were made exclusive to LTS will now be made openly available to everyone, what exactly is the value of a LTS going forward other than to protect your account from losing FF? I don't disagree that locking all this content away to never be available to other players is not the right move; and it's why I am against exclusives. But you can't just strip the value away from LTS and still offer it as a sales offering.
Simple reasoning. Whatever costumes they had plans to make as monthly rewards wouldn't just be scrapped, they would be added to something else. These costumes weren't specifically tied to the monthly system in any way, they're either just plans or model files and it wouldn't make sense to recycle bin them. We're not losing them, we're just getting them some other way.
It wouldn't surprise me if LTS remains the only way to acquire previous monthly costume rewards.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I see what you are getting at. I think I misunderstood your earlier points being made.
We didn't get random one-off costume parts released once per month at any time before they started the monthly reward. I don't know why they would continue making those sorts of things if there's no longer any obligation to do so.
There's also no reason they would scrap ideas they had or costume parts they have files for. They just wouldn't be called monthly rewards, they'd be called [Insert The Way We Get Them] Rewards. Say they had plans to make a "Goblin Hat" that would have potentially been a monthly reward - well they're not just going to say "We will never make Goblin Hat now that monthly rewards are no more". They would make Goblin Hat and then have it be an event reward or something. Any potential reward we could have gotten will still come our way, it just won't be a monthly.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
So they might finish making stuff that they already had in the queue. I can see that happening. But it seems unlikely that they're going to continue to play around and produce the random stuff (chef's hat, sneakers, etc.) that typically came out through the monthly reward, since event rewards tend to be pretty on-theme. Hideouts have unfinished rooms, nemesis system went untouched for almost ten years, costumes are released into the store with numerous bugs... I don't anticipate much extra effort to put out one fun extra oddball costume per month. Would be happy to be wrong.
I wouldn't count out the random kooky things, since we still have Foxbatcon where nonsense rewards are all on-theme.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Haha, fair point!
With those examples of unfinished content, I'm genuinely surprised they didn't announce this change in tandem with future content plans. I mean, I have my assumptions as to why that is. Should we as players expect steps forwards or backwards moving ahead? The response to this obviously effects the bottom-line earnings of the game as players won't invest more time/money into a stagnant MMO, so I'm sure it's safe to assume we just have to go with our guts on this one way or the other as I don't see them openly giving us information that could lead to less sales (assuming the worst case scenario, that is).
Well let me go ahead and confirm for you why that is: They learned their lesson about that. Announcing content ahead of time has more negative effects than positive - especially if something changes about it, it ends up being less than what was announced, or ends up not coming through for whatever reason. It's far better to announce content by uploading it to PTS so that people see what is actually there, are involved in any changes, and because by that point it's pretty much guaranteed that it's hitting live. This way people's imaginations don't run (as) rampant, and there's no(t as big of an) explosion of "This is a slap in the face how dare you you evil corporation" when things change.
Also they work pretty hard to keep a steady flow of things coming to reassure us that development is forging ahead at a steady clip. They've been so successful at this that when there is a sudden slow down, a lot of people don't cry doom, they instead get excited because they know it means something big is being worked on ( primarily because this keeps being proven to be the case ).
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I assume this is not a defense of their actions because what you are describing can simply be explained as incompetence. If things are announced and then never come to fruition (or are significantly underwhelming) that is the fault of the devs, not the players. I've played various MMO's in my lifetime and the successful ones don't run into these sorts of issues and yet they still manage to have planned content announced weeks/months ahead of time without the sorts of repercussions that you are alluding to for this game. It just seems to me that this game/company suffers from having a terrible reputation due to very questionable decisions being made, lack of content, lack of commitment to planned content, etc.
I have very little personal stake in this matter considering I am by no means a veteran of this game, but you say that "they work pretty hard to keep a steady flow of things coming". What exactly are you referring to, honestly? I've looked at this games update and content history and it leaves A LOT to be desired (to put it mildly). Not only is content very far and few between, there is unfinished content still sitting on the table ten years into the games lifespan. As I've stated before, the fact that the only true steady flow of content that has existed in any form is the soon-to-be-removed monthly costumes, I assume that means we can expect the worst if that was suppose to exist as some sort of reassurance of progress based on what I am reading here.
I feel like part of the issue here is that you don't know the history of this game, and you don't know how small the current team is.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I understand enough. And I also am aware of the size of the team. On top of this, I am getting most of my information from veteran players that I've been chatting with for the last two days now who assured me that this isn't the first time something like this has happened. The very fact that your inclination is to offer them a defense based on the size of their team is exactly why I can't believe they are locking most of the controversial features behind a $200+ paywall. If the game can't sustain development, and exists as a small hobby-horse for a few dev's then sell it for $60 as a full priced game and stop charging premium price for something that produces little to no content. (I realize that's not a realistic payment model... I am just making a point here)
That all being said, I shouldn't have to know the history of the game to not get ripped off. I couldn't care less if this was the project of a dying man who just wanted to share the joy of super-hero'ing with the world. It's taking hundreds of dollars from me for my LTS, and demanding hundreds more with this change. That's all I need to know to come to terms with these changes as they stand.
Ah, I see the real problem now. You don't know how much value LTS gives.
Also, LTS isn't your only option. You can buy the features of LTS one by one. However, you'll quickly realize how much better off you would have been going with LTS. It's up to you.
I continue to have no regrets about buying LTS, even though I spent a few hundred on the game before. And no, I'm not rich, so don't bother heading down that route.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Trust me I'm no friend of these changes. I don't have LTS and right now isn't a good time for me to drop $200 bucks on a game (Just had to spend money on househould necessities and bills). But if you already have an LTS, the only thing you're losing out on is extra FF slots. And IHMO 59 FF slots is still crazy generous, I think WoW only gives 50. And don't get me started on super greedy DCUO. IMHO, people who are already LTS are getting a pretty good deal, compared to everyone else.
I am getting a bit tired of these long drawn out conversations of people saying, "you don't know [blank]", and then giving no examples of what [blank] is. You do an excellent job of talking around the subject. But without giving any specifics, I have nothing to even respond to. "Oh, you don't know the value of LTS? Well, LTS has value. So much value that the value becomes clear after buying the features of LTS separately". Ah... I see. Well I have given numerous examples how it's supposed value is not worth the asking price even PRIOR to these changes, and WITH the changes it has its limited value even further decreased by way of removal of monthly fees (the primary reason you would get an LTS in the first place regardless of the perks). It now exists as an arm-twist way to get you to spend $200-$300 in order to not have to respec most of your toons in the event that they are FF. That is not value added considering this was unnecessary up until June 7th. I am going to need examples of how this change benefits myself and others because I have went into great detail on how it greatly increases the bottom line cost for everyone EXCEPT those who have reached cap, and that is not the majority of players (though the declining population will effect everyone). It's a good chunk of vets, sure. No question, but not most players. But even if I managed to be in the 5-10% of vets who did have all my ducks in a row (LTS/59+ slots) I would still oppose this change on the basis that it makes the game more expensive and hurts preexisting subscribers. I am going to need examples of how this benefits myself and others if I am going to take your arguments seriously at this stage because I've started to realize that absolutely nothing has been said to offer any sort of merit to these changes.
My argument has never been that LTS is equally as affected as other account situations. Everyone I play with is subbed and they all quit the moment this news dropped being that none of them think the game is worth $200 to secure their FF. So that impacts everyone; the impending declining population, that is. Regardless of this, the update still manages to reach it's hand into every single account situation by removal of slot unlocks for those like myself who have not reached anywhere near the 59 cap. It means I will inevitably have to dump more large sums of money for something that would have been available to me for free prior (for the last 10 years). It punishes non-LTS vets by forcing them into a permanent contract OR buying LTS to secure their FF, it punishes new players by again removing the ability for us to reach this newly-enforced cap without spending hundreds of dollars more.
As for the value of LTS, I'm not digging up the thread where people added it up. You can just go look at what it gives, then add that up from the various things you get. Or you can not do that and not have that information and continue making uninformed statements. I'm fine with whatever you choose since both outcomes work just fine for me.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I mean I can ask them to hop on right now and post about it if they feel like it. Ironically I am sitting in discord chatting right now about this very change. abelynch1 is one of them and he already posted in this chat. These are people who are new to the game for the most part, and have only invested a few months into it so far. But using abe as an example, he has already made 14+ FF characters with his gold account. What are his options? Paying hundreds of dollars to continue... you must live in some fantasy world if you think it is far fetched that they've quit. The ONLY reason I haven't is because I am LTS. That's it. I've done the math, posted the math, and argued the declining value. There is nothing for people who want to spend less than $200 COMPARED to what we were offered before.
I'm petty enough to even send you our discord conversation when I messaged them about this. The fact you would hop back on this post in the middle of the night just to claim I am lying irks me. I'm starting to realize the "elitist monster" sig is not just for show...
You have no argument, and you purposefully dance around the issue instead of actually engaging in a discussion about it. As I said before, I don't get your angle. But you as a person are as transparent as saran wrap.
1. Keeping his subscription active, paying the exact amount he has been paying each month up until this point.
2. Purchasing a LTS.
3. Letting his sub end and buying FF slots.
4. Letting his sub end and using the basic free slots to play Archetypes.
5. Letting his sub end and uninstalling the game.
He has many options. Whether they're acceptable to him is irrelevant since all I'm doing is answering your question. You seemed to be under the impression that #2 was his only option.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
1. As soon as their subscription ends (if they can't afford it, decide to take a break, or in any other event) they will be forced into the same issue they are in now. Pay up, or lose FF.
2. Which would cost $200 on sale
3. Which would cost $700 (14x$50)
4. The exact reason he has quit
5. That's what happened. We all signed back up on the 5th of February. So the choice they had was to either let it charge again and keep paying (with the same problems of issue "1" looming over their heads) or cancel it and save the $15. They chose the latter. And I recommended they choose the latter because, as I have demonstrated over, and over, and over again no matter how much you deny it, it is not worth the asking price (which IS hundreds of dollars no matter how you slice it if the desire is to keep playing the same way you did before the update)
These options are all bad. That is the point.
Edit: And to further elaborate before you pop back with your inevitable next off-topic argument, by "bad" I mean SPECIFICALLY less useful/valuable than the plans they currently had going before the update BECAUSE any of the other options result in either a looming dread of your FF being frozen in the future or hundreds of dollars being spent to unlock FF by way of token purchases or LTS. These are not practical options, they are ultimatums.
NO subs page.
you need to change to paypal or similar NOW.
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What portion of players is this?
Yes, there are some that are very vocal here on the forums, but that doesn't correlate with actual player count.
Free players using FF slots won't be affected, or will benefit from the new pack. Lifers and continuing subscribers will lose free slots on level up, and will hit the slot cap, but otherwise not be strongly affected. It's just the population of irregular subscribers who get screwed.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
The number of free players who use (purchased) Freeform slots is very small given the research i've done. I have asked in almost every alert i've grinded for the last 3 days; and ~90% of those who responded all assessed that they would be affected by this change. On top of this, I have also asked both on the discord channel AND in-game zone/end-game chat every single day to get input as well, and again you are looking at a significant margin of players who WILL be affected. Of the two people who told me they do in fact have at least one of the $50 purchased free form slots, one of them told me the only way he even justified that purchase to himself was because he didn't need to pay for more slots and assumed it would be the only big purchase he would end up needing to do; he also mentioned he had only 18 toons, 1 of which was FF AND most of which he mentioned were 30+. Obviously he doesn't have enough time to grind them all to 40 before the change, so to now hit the cap he is looking at an additional $280 spent just because he didn't spend time leveling each individual one to 40. Personally, sitting at ~30 toons, I still have to buy 29 more slots at $203 (something that would have heavily effected my [relatively] recent LTS purchase had I known, and I am not the first person to mention that on these forums)
Also, i've both done and demonstrated how the math affects each individual person in this case. Free players included, being that they now have no other option for both character slot unlocks OR freeforms, are forced to invest AT MINIMUM $700 to reach the cap with freeforms. Something that use to cost $15/month, period (or of course the $200-$300 for LTS).
I don't want to assume that you entirely wrong here, because this seems like a valid point. But do you think that the removal of accessible freeforms will help this, though? Archetypes do not hold a candle to freeforms in this regard (in terms of competitive PvE play) and they are now MUCH harder to come by. Now to be fair, you can argue that Archetypes are at least built to be balanced as opposed to throw-away alts with weird power combinations, but I don't think anyone will try and defend them as being anywhere near capable of handling the sorts of things that FF can manage.
To some people. You don't speak for everyone and you don't know who will take which option. Irrelevant either way. You claimed they had only one option, I showed they had more.
Yep, and it makes me think that we don't actually have very many subbed players. For all of people's insistence that they are numerous, I've actually seen very few people come forward as actual subbers. even folv there claimed he had a whole bunch, but was then only able to come up with 1 name.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
It is funny to me how I basically predicted you'd come back on my use of the word "bad" (since you've demonstrated you are the king of semantics to stay off topic) and then edited the post to give a perfectly reasonable reason as to why it's "not-as-affordable" as what we have currently REGARDLESS of individual opinion (it's just math); yet you did it anyway. Trolls are going to troll I presume...
And I specifically gave you the name of the one that felt like posting anything at all since he is as least tangible, the others are already off playing rainbow six siege and don't care enough to get wrapped up in my forum-war. But the three others are Pyro&Steel94, my brother who actually got me into the game, and my friend Anthony (I think his account name is TheSupremeGentleman). Obviously producing names doesn't do me much good, which is why I didn't bother. But those are the ones who all left, and you consistently insinuating that I am lying about this is a pointless straw-man that (again) shows you are 'the man' when it comes to off-topic banter to dissuade and distract from the actual discussion.
And by "people coming forward" do you actually mean in game? Have you asked in game? I had people very openly and quickly give me their input every single time i've asked which has been a few times a day now. Also, if you ask in the discord channel people will chime in and give you their input as well from what i've seen. If you are basing your thoughts on forum activity alone, you'd still be wrong because the overwhelming majority of players stand at odds with this update to begin with AND have even posted of their sub status (both in discord and the forums). Ironically, I have seen very, very few self-proclaimed silver players even say anything. Care to give me examples? Probably not...
Again, your goal is to distract from the actual circumstances with semantics, personal attacks. and off-topic bantering. Not going to get anywhere with you, obviously, but if you claim something I have said is inaccurate I will gladly continue to demonstrate that you are wrong.
Lots of people solo... end game isn't the only reason to play the game. And some folks are obsessed with the costume creator to be fair. And this attitude right here is why I cringed when the new OM content was introduced.
Back to the topic.
You can stop trying to find your imaginary shill, it's over o3o the whole thing went by and you never found one.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
The first thing you did was jumped to the support of Kaiserin and other devs immediately as soon as things changed (not faulting you for that as you are right to do so, but your loyalties and friendships are obvious) and in no post congratulated or gave any credit to the players who voiced their opinions. Don't get me wrong, I think you are absolutely right in saying that the arguments many of us have been making would have likely gotten nowhere without the support of dev's like Kai, but I am not as dense as I assume you are hoping.
No point in continuing this argument at this stage considering the dev's have decided to agree with us at least up to the point of delaying the changes for now. Lets agree to simply dislike each-other and move forward.
I agree to remain completely neutral towards you as you fade back into obscurity o3o
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
This post was 5 days old. It took 5 days to come back with that? You are usually so passive aggressive, and dare I say at least attempt to be mildly witty. And since then, you've managed to drop at least one passive aggressive comment towards other people in like... every other post.
But since we are here. I am still waiting on quite literally ANY reference to those claims you made about the dev's saying certain things in reference to character slots to assert your position. I would have much rather have had you respond to that call-to-action in the other thread then dig this one back up from the dead just to (yet again) change the subject when people start asking you for some verification of your claims. It seems like it has happened in almost every (recent) relevant thread at this stage.