Anniversary Pack Discussion

Lightaine - Heavens Tear wrote: »

JJ is not a coin sink. It is a gold sink, therefore rising gold prices higher, producing oracles that make coin appear out of nowhere.

Perhaps you are right, maybe a gold sink in the guise of a coin sink? After there is the 100k coin donation option... i guess thats far less popular then the guardian angel option?

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary wrote: »

I feel like I ought to post something, but everybody has already said it all a thousand times. If fact, we've all said it both before AND after the second-go-round of the packs, but our opinions don't seem to affect the decisions being made to any significant degree.

So to sum up: personally, I'm making quite a bit of in-game coin thanks to the packs, so my character is profiting. Also, because so many higher-levels are ragequitting, my character is also advancing up the ranks due to attrition.

But despite that, I'm completely disenchanted with the game right now because it all seems very pointless. The very things I used to tell my friends about why the game is so good (ie. "it has a complex, stable economy", "the cash-shop sells mostly vanity or convenience items, meaning you can't just pay-to-win", "the core game-play doesn't revolve around the cash-shop", etc...) have been compromised repeatedly. Sure, I'm profiting, but I feel like I'm on a rudderless ship heading towards the rocks.

PWI seems to have become the very type of game I was trying to avoid. Instead of a game that offers solid free-to-play gameplay while making its money through optional purchases, the game now revolves completely around the cash-shop.

Even if you're a free-to-play player that does very well without paying, like me, you're still constantly affected by the economic chaos that the non-stop cash-shop promotions keep causing. And yes, I PROFIT from that chaos, but that doesn't mean I think it makes for a fun, good game.

Warren, I agree with you completely. I am also a free-to-play player that does very well each time one of these economy-jarring events rolls around. I make more and more coins each time the economy is thrown into chaos and values of items and gold are turned upside down by one of these sales, yet with each event I dislike this game more and more.

It has become increasingly pointless to play this game the way it was initially designed to be played. The best way to for a free-to-play player to do well in this game now no longer involves actually "playing the game" (e.g. killing mobs, doing quests, grinding, instance runs like tt, fb, ff, lunar, etc.), but rather just spending all your time merchanting and taking advantage of all the arbitrage situations that arise in the ever-volatile game economy. Then you just take all the money you make and buy your way to the "top", whether for you that means level, reputation, gear, whatever.

There is no longer any end-game goal in this game that can be achieved through traditional gameplay that cannot be achieved quicker and easier through merchanting. Want to be top level? Buy a bunch of packs/tokens and get oracles and level like crazy. Want to have high rank/reputation? Buy a bunch of packs/tokens and get wraith badges or wedding candy and suck em down. Want to have top end-game gear? Buy a bunch of packs/tokens and directly get frost/lunar gear, or get chips and turn into TT or warsoul mats. I think you get the idea...

Basically, through these events, I have accumulated almost all the top end-game gear that I could ever want, yet I am about 10% as happy and satisfied as I was a few months ago when I had none of this gear and felt like it was a real challenge to try to go out and get even a single one of these items. Back then, it would've actually been meaningful to obtain one of these elite pieces of gear.

I understand that PW is a business, and I can't blame them for wanting to make as much money as they can while this game still has momentum. If PW truly understands what they are doing, and is consciously sacrificing it's playerbase for a quick moneygrab, then so be it. However, if PW really thinks that these events aren't completely eroding their game and honestly believes they are bringing these events back "by popular demand", then that would be gross mismanagement of a previously beautiful game and this would be a sad sad day...

b:surrenderb:surrenderb:surrender

KatieMorgan - Sanctuary wrote: »

....

Wow, 100% on the ball with that whole post. agree definitively.

EDIT: cut the whole post out of the Quote to avaiod a huge wall of text for my tiny reply

KatieMorgan - Sanctuary wrote: »

Warren, I agree with you completely. I am also a free-to-play player that does very well each time one of these economy-jarring events rolls around. I make more and more coins each time the economy is thrown into chaos and values of items and gold are turned upside down by one of these sales, yet with each event I dislike this game more and more.

I understand that PW is a business, and I can't blame them for wanting to make as much money as they can while this game still has momentum. If PW truly understands what they are doing, and is consciously sacrificing it's playerbase for a quick moneygrab, then so be it. However, if PW really thinks that these events aren't completely eroding their game and honestly believes they are bringing these events back "by popular demand", then that would be gross mismanagement of a previously beautiful game and this would be a sad sad day...

b:surrenderb:surrenderb:surrender

Totally agrees, two thumbs up for u.

Rising tide expansion pack is the only thing holding quite a number of the population back now. Please, do not release a bugged expansion pack. The day PWI devs do that is the day of massive outflow of players it will be

PWI used to be good, now its just trying to milk the cash cow, either because they see that the downfall of PWI is coming or they have a really bad marketing team

Santacruz - Heavens Tear wrote: »

up untill about a few months ago this game was fun, past that point it didnt become fun (rising gold prices affecting everything) the only thing keeping me going was friends and the drive for 89/90, now that i have hit that what is there left?

when "you" spend so much time and effort into perfecting your armour to your choices it makes you happy when you can finally wear it and admire your hard work, but then you walk down arch and what do you see? a player with all +8/12 equiptments with lunar ornaments and a shed load of end game gear that just makes you feel so useless that all of your work was for nothing and now u just want to quit because you cant compare.

while i slaved away, made hard decisions and worked my **** off to save and gather and pestered my freinds to death for help, someone has got triple the power of me by typing in a few digits and clicking the right click a few times.

what are you trying to make the lessar mortals with the in ability to flush their bank account feel like when there playing this game? quite frankly i feel like all my work was for nothing and ive been cheated

that's it, hard work means nothing anymore, even our false sense of accomplishment was taken away now

Yuufa - Heavens Tear wrote: »

And did you not have fun PLAYING pw ro get that gear? Did you not enjoy the TT runs, the FB runs, the questing? Did you not, do you still not feel satisfaction from your own achievements?

If not, then you should not have played. if you are not having fun playing, and its just a big ol CHORE as u describe so profoundly i feel bad that you have even bothered to have played.

Whats it matter if the guy next too me as +12 gear and i have +4 ? does it make me any less viable as a team member in a TT run? as another man on the TW battle field? Can i not still heal players? can i not still have run in my role? can i not still play to make more money and add more ++++ to my gears?

As a lvl 90 veno, are u suddenly unable to "pull" mobs in awsome TT90 (or whatever gear) did you suddenly become useless in a party becuase someone else has +12 gear? Im a little confused.

i beleive what shes trying to say is she put effort and time into getting her gear and anyone can now get gear of the same grade or higher by simply pressing a button.
we can use the horses as an example.... some players had worked hard for those and because of that they wer worth 20m... next thing they know they dropped to less then 1/4 of the original price and everyone has it =o

TheCorrupt - Sanctuary wrote: »

Sure you can win some good stuff, but I know of someone who bought 100 of the packs and only got 2 Tokens Of Best Luck. All the rest were normal tokens. Do the math people. Packs are 1 gold each. 1 gold is $1. That means this person spend $100 to get...nothing!

Reading this makes me think two things. One, does this mean you wish the rares or "Good" items from the anniversary packs were more common?
Or do you think this person who was willing to spend his/her money for minimal reward "in your eyes" shouldn't have done it?

Honestly going through this forum and reading how so many people dislike the packs are back, what mostly isn't posted are all those who like that there back. Like they (gm's/dev's) said back by popular demand? Well I for one either believe this and those that were pushing for it are simply laying in the weeds or the (gm's/dev's) made this up to make or build more revenue from people buying zen.

I must admit that the amount of strong feelings in this topic are really impressive. IMO it is nice to see people voice there opinion about things and hope for a change. Though it kinda seems like some of the posts are more rant then valid feed back. Like many have said there here so deal with it really. Can simply not buy them and play the game like you want to play it. And just cause some one else has that plus 12 gear doesn't make u useless now just because you don't.

It is a game after all so lets play and have fun? b:laugh

Yuufa - Heavens Tear wrote: »

And im saying that fact alone doe NOT negate the fun and experience you have developing your skills, and actually playing the game. But peoiple like to make it seem like its a huge chore to actually participate in the game they rolled a character on.

I play to have fun, and i dont feel like ive had LESS fun just becuase some people can do in one click, what took me a mth farming TT for. Acyaully thinking back i had more fun in that month than the people who got better stuff from one click.

If the games such "work" why are you playing?

Now as to why i dont like the anni packs, is the effect they have on the economy, i dislike doing TT runs without a charm, but they cost so much, i miss zhen cuase no one does it, its much harder to score a TT run, FC is a non event, warsoul well that wont happen with the stinking anni packs making it easy.

The thing is that some ppl are playin on pvp servers....imagine u working hard to get the gear and mostly lvl in order to become good or prevent pkin from other players..now even the low lvl players would be lvled in 1 month and also get the high end gear...only because the gms saw the high revenue from anniv.packs and had the great idea to repeat somethin that allready passed...
me too bought and i am still buyin the pack because i have to, in order to follow up the others....this game is a competition.......
but i am not sure how random the gifts are....spended 30 gold in a try and got only tokens....tho some old players in server and higher lvls get the good things one after another......

wow i really like that!!! u rock epidemik!!!!! ROFL!!!!

Yuufa - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Whats it matter if the guy next too me as +12 gear and i have +4 ? does it make me any less viable as a team member in a TT run? as another man on the TW battle field? Can i not still heal players? can i not still have run in my role? can i not still play to make more money and add more ++++ to my gears?

As a lvl 90 veno, are u suddenly unable to "pull" mobs in awsome TT90 (or whatever gear) did you suddenly become useless in a party becuase someone else has +12 gear? Im a little confused.

yes, yes, sure you can heal, maybe depends if you get a role over the +12 guy, sure you can play anyone can play

no a veno can still pull, less useful next to the +12 guy


you think your gonna get that party when mr uber mcnoober +12 bank role guy comes along with his infinite hp and says basically..
i cant die i have 14khp as a veno, I can tank these TT bosses, FB bosses without a pet or a healer and i'm charmed.
Has any of you ever seen +12 gear?
lets look at LA real quick..
my +3 LA chest piece lvl 80 gives me like 80 hp
a +12 lvl90+ LA armor give more than 1,000 hp
add on 4 socketed +10 vit stones.
add on the bonuses you get on this end game gear from the packs.

sure you can still heal and debuff or whatever.. but you have just taken a step back in the food chain.
Not to mention PVPing with your +4 gears vs +12 bank role guy.. I rule in favor of bank role guy.

KatieMorgan - Sanctuary wrote: »

There is no longer any end-game goal in this game that can be achieved through traditional gameplay that cannot be achieved quicker and easier through merchanting. Want to be top level? Buy a bunch of packs/tokens and get oracles and level like crazy. Want to have high rank/reputation? Buy a bunch of packs/tokens and get wraith badges or wedding candy and suck em down. Want to have top end-game gear? Buy a bunch of packs/tokens and directly get frost/lunar gear, or get chips and turn into TT or warsoul mats. I think you get the idea...

Yup. Before JJ there was a balance between the merchanting I did and the in-game questing. However, merchanting scales along with the whatever the current Gold prices are, while in-game questing does not.

The result is that for every moment you play the game you're losing out by not cat-shopping and just buying the XP/Rep/Equipment instead. For example, from 5:30p to 9:30p my cat-shop earned 750k profit which buys 135 Reputation. There's no way anybody doing 1-man-army, FBs, Quests, whatever for those 4 hours could ever hope to compete with that, since I was literally doing nothing the whole time (well, actually I was playing a FPS on my other computer, something I haven't done in years).

That's a pretty boring way to play, so of course I do go out and try to complete quests anyway, but there's no actual reason to do so.

So in the end you're playing an RPG that doesn't reward you for role-playing, in fact it punishes you. The pleasure of striving to get ahead is gone, and instead I just watch as my wealth increases exponentially and wonder when, if ever, that wealth is going to mean something again.

_HBIC_ - Sanctuary wrote: »

yes, yes, sure you can heal, maybe depends if you get a role over the +12 guy, sure you can play anyone can play

no a veno can still pull, less useful next to the +12 guy


you think your gonna get that party when mr uber mcnoober +12 bank role guy comes along with his infinite hp and says basically..
i cant die i have 14khp as a veno, I can tank these TT bosses, FB bosses without a pet or a healer and i'm charmed.
Has any of you ever seen +12 gear?
lets look at LA real quick..
my +3 LA chest piece lvl 80 gives me like 80 hp
a +12 lvl90+ LA armor give more than 1,000 hp
add on 4 socketed +10 vit stones.
add on the bonuses you get on this end game gear from the packs.

sure you can still heal and debuff or whatever.. but you have just taken a step back in the food chain.
Not to mention PVPing with your +4 gears vs +12 bank role guy.. I rule in favor of bank role guy.

Honestly, I know what you're saying and I will say right now... I HATE THE PACKS. But at the same time, you can still play and have fun in-game. You can still participate in the TT runs, and FBs, and TWs, you just might not do as much damage as the guy with +12. But you can still go and still have fun. Remember, THIS IS A GAME. Games are meant to have fun in. So what if some guy wants to spend $10000000000, to buy his +12 end game gear. He just wasted that money, imo at least.

As for your argument that you'll get a less likely chance to participate in runs because they will chose others over you, I think this is also false. There probably aren't a lot of the ppl with +12 gear DYING to get in on the HH run or anything because they already have their gear. Why go farm mats? Plus, even if they do, which is unlikely, there is little chance that 6 people with +12 are going to fill the team not allowing you to join.

As for pvp. Yes, it sucks. But get used to it. If it's not the anni packs, they'll just spend their money on double exp scrolls, thousands of dolls, or things to buy low, sell high on. Because this game has a cash shop, like all other CS games, they WILL get higher than you, and WILL get better gear.

Again, I really don't like the anni packs at all. I do realize they'll get that gear anyway and that it's their money to waste, but it is messing with the game economy which is my beef with them. Hard to tank a few things without a charm and with charms at 1m, I'm not gonna be charming up for just anything. b:shocked