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State of the Game - Pay to Win
szerontzur
Member Posts: 2,723 Arc User
Hey folks! I'm generally not the sort to start threads like this(or at all - I prefer to contribute to existing discussions). However, as someone who has recommended and talked several dozen people into checking out the game through various mediums over the years, I have recently come to the realization that my response to the infamous question of "pay2win?" is an undeniable "yes."
I'm not looking to start drama or flame wars, so I'll try to keep my general long-windedness succinct.
Okay Sze, how is this game "Pay to Win"?
Bluntly: The upgrade system, in its current form, allows players to straight-up buy progression.
The game has long-flirted with 'the line', but this is the first time where money spent directly influences the power of your ship/character. You could pay to speed up revamped-crafting advancement, but what you could craft was generally on par with what you could 'earn'.
Now, even the new 'endgame' Delta reputation only rewards items at MkXII, thus forcing players into this upgrade mechanic to 'achieve' the highest level of advancement. Those who "play" the game are throttled at a very slow, heavily-time-gated rate of advancement. Those who pay, are able to completely bypass that advancement rate.
..but this game is still "Free to Play"!
Correct. Pay to Win and Free to Play are separate arguments. This game does not have paywalls, but this upgrade system has set a new precedent where the difference between players who pay and don't pay is very glaring.
Is there a way to fix it?
Yes, I believe so. In my opinion, the most simple and effective solution is to remove the "pay dilithium to skip the wait" feature of the upgrading system.
The heart of the problem is allowing the arbitrary time-gated progression to be bypassed in the first place. There is no hard limit to how much refined dilithium a person can acquire with zen; there is a limit on how much refined dilithium a player can earn per day.
This was something the Reputation system actually did right.
Is this actually a problem? I just want my shinies, and I want them NOW!
Debatable; this is the reason I am creating this topic. I want to hear how the rest of the playerbase - and developers - feel about being able to buy advancement in this game.
The reality of the game right now is that you CAN pay to advance your character past other people who don't. Do you like that system? Do you not like that system? Are you indifferent/accepting? Do you think there is a better way that is both fair, profitable, and cost-effective?
Please, keep this thread civil and constructive.
I'm not looking to start drama or flame wars, so I'll try to keep my general long-windedness succinct.
Okay Sze, how is this game "Pay to Win"?
Bluntly: The upgrade system, in its current form, allows players to straight-up buy progression.
The game has long-flirted with 'the line', but this is the first time where money spent directly influences the power of your ship/character. You could pay to speed up revamped-crafting advancement, but what you could craft was generally on par with what you could 'earn'.
Now, even the new 'endgame' Delta reputation only rewards items at MkXII, thus forcing players into this upgrade mechanic to 'achieve' the highest level of advancement. Those who "play" the game are throttled at a very slow, heavily-time-gated rate of advancement. Those who pay, are able to completely bypass that advancement rate.
..but this game is still "Free to Play"!
Correct. Pay to Win and Free to Play are separate arguments. This game does not have paywalls, but this upgrade system has set a new precedent where the difference between players who pay and don't pay is very glaring.
Is there a way to fix it?
Yes, I believe so. In my opinion, the most simple and effective solution is to remove the "pay dilithium to skip the wait" feature of the upgrading system.
The heart of the problem is allowing the arbitrary time-gated progression to be bypassed in the first place. There is no hard limit to how much refined dilithium a person can acquire with zen; there is a limit on how much refined dilithium a player can earn per day.
This was something the Reputation system actually did right.
Is this actually a problem? I just want my shinies, and I want them NOW!
Debatable; this is the reason I am creating this topic. I want to hear how the rest of the playerbase - and developers - feel about being able to buy advancement in this game.
The reality of the game right now is that you CAN pay to advance your character past other people who don't. Do you like that system? Do you not like that system? Are you indifferent/accepting? Do you think there is a better way that is both fair, profitable, and cost-effective?
Please, keep this thread civil and constructive.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
There is nothing you can buy for money that will give you a "I win" button.
As much as I hate to admit it...
I've basically felt that way with most of the stuff in the game. I don't enjoy paying for it, as long as the game makes it possible for me to earn the right to get the same stuff. And this is coming from a person who paid for the lifetime membership. If there's value, I see no problem paying for it. But not everything they sell is, in fact, valuable.
Fleet Admiral Ventaxa Proxmire, U.S.S. Shaka Walls Fell
Blog: http://www.sarbonn.com/?page_id=1990
Foundry series: Bob From Accounting & For the Sake of the Empire
Pay to Win would be when ONLY the people who use real money have access to Mk XIV gear. This isn't the case. Sure, you have to grind longer and wait much longer to get your Mk XIV gear, but you will get it without spending a dime on the game.
I agree the upgrade system favors the players who spend money on the game, but so does every other aspect of the game. If anything, I would say the tech point costs need to be looked at. It's pretty cheap to apply a tech upgrade, but when it takes 20-30 of the damn things it gets really expensive for the F2Pers.
Pay to skip not to win, you can achive same result but with time. And win what exatly ? Being bored for 2-3 more years until new level cap increase ?
Wuts teh rush brah.
For non-PV'ers who just want shinnies now it is pay to advance.
I like to upgrade my stuff, but I am not going to pay to do so. This is just a game that I more or less play casually.
Obtaining gear from all 6 reputation systems with 500-1000 marks per item.
Obtaining approximately 500,000 fleet credits worth in gear/items for viability (duty officer active roster, consoles, kits, ,etc.)
Crafting through 7 (space)/1 (ground) crafting trees with a minimum completion time of ~4 months
Obtaining a viable Tier VI starship (or soon to be obsolete Tier V/Fleet Tier V/Tier V-U ship).
Obtaining extremely expensive duty officers ranging from 2M to 80M energy credits each.
Upgrading 25+ individual items to Mk XIV legendary via the new upgrade system.
Upgrading each individual starship to rank IV-V
Leveling a level 50 character to level 60 through the slower 50-60 progression system.
Maxing out all available specialisation points.
What you need to do now in order just to be able to turn up in STO PvP - to actually win takes even more stuff, lockbox items, C-Store items, certain Lobi ship consoles, Boffs... Realistically, someone new would never actually catch up without real money investment, a state of play that would be dire in any videogame system, let alone STO PvP where there are an upper maximum of only 3 to 4 hundred PvPers, and little to no prospects of gaining more.
PvE is different, that can still be done without too much difficulty, and even new-DR ESTFs can be done in current T5s flown and built right, but it is headed in a similar direction.
Never the less, it is all available to a F2Per, for nothing but motivation and patience. Doesn't make it ok though, just makes it better than every other MMO where that couldn't be done for free.
STO still has one of the best F2P systems, but DR does severely dent that notion.
Then you should've not used your opinion on a forum.
I.. suppose you're right. Perhaps the thread was/is a bit mislabeled.
However, the upgrade system does create a large power-gap that we haven't really had before. Buying ships might have been a subjective difference in power(there are a wide variety of playstyles and their effectiveness can't always be quantified), however the difference between a MK12 very rare and a MK14 gold is objectively superior in power.
Furthermore, an item could very well be rendered obsolete before 'normal' progression even allows the acquisition of it. It may skirt by with the technicality, but in practice doesn't that make the item only 'accessible' to someone who pays to bypass the system?
Everyone was fustrated.
Everyone gave up.
Everyone went broke.
Can't we go back to that model?
I'm afraid they won't, to be honest with you. Mark my words, this "Pay To Skip Timegates" WILL be the direction they'll take with future stuff. They will make sure of it. This is their new way to force money out of impatient players and it won't be going anywhere.
All the refined Dil in the game had to be refined by someone. What that someone chose to do with that Dil is their business.
For what it's worth: I have a Nicor, a Galor and 500,000+ refined Dil, and I haven't dropped a single cent on this game.
And while I have Mk XIII gear, I still think the upgrade system is TRIBBLE, mainly because of the random [Mods].
STO isn't as bad as neverwinter or elemental kingdoms.
Those two games are completely unplayable.
And the different currencies in neverwinter?
Man the people who made that game needs a process mapping course.
You should look up "unplayable' in a dictionary.
Just did thank you very much.
You should look "up" in the dictionary and we will be even with wasting each others time.
Its not just pwe. Look at the state of mobile games. Things like clash of clans or dungeon keeper with their week long waits to upgrade one item one step. or Disney getting sued for game design that tricks kids into paying to avoid time gets without parental permission. Even hearth stone limits quests and that's a card game.
But in the end, I remember playing wow and evercrack in a guild raid with 40 people, spending six hours so three of the 40 could get one item once a week. The other 37 of us were there waiting in line basically.
I call our current system not ideal, but still better than "classic" mmo style. Still, it feels like no one making games plays them.
Blame Zynga. :P
Yep. Without F2Pers STO will die, it needs F2Pers otherwise it will keel over and drop dead.
The content shouldn't just be for the whales who dump thousands of dollars into STO, but for the rest of the ocean too.
That is on the to be altered list, with a chooseable [mod] system. Soon. (TM)
The bottom line is the entire house of cards is starting to ignore the bottom to expand upwards in an environment where upward expansion is no longer feasible.
It is just hard to boot up a PC, load up the game, and put a bunch of tokens into some rep then and log off until the next day.
NW is terrible. Those expansions they have. I tried one of them and couldnt figure out what they wanted me to do. All the currencies. Terrible.
And yes, mobile games seem to be stuck on the "try something for a minute and come back in 5" model that I don't understand. I just end up deleting things if I have to wait. If turned on the game and would like to play, why are you not letting me?
Now, I've been playing ever since STO went "free-to-play", and I've built up a fairly powerful arsenal of ships and gear, and I've never bought a single bundle of ZEN. I did buy a lifetime subscription, because I enjoy this game more than anything else that I've ever played, and I wanted to support the producers as much as possible. I have four ships that I use regularly (Fleet Chimera, Fleet Akira, non-C-store Dyson Destroyer, Narcine Carrier) and they are geared with fleet, lockbox (from exchange), or reputation weapons, good sets, and fleet consoles. This is the result of dilithium grinding, reputation grinding, and fleet credit grinding.
I realize that someone with a huge amount of money in the real world could join the game, level to 50, and be at the point that I'm at, after years of playing, in about a month (probably less).
Honestly, I'm fine with that. If some idiot wants to spend a fortune on a video game, that's more money for Cryptic, which means more content for the rest of us in the future.
I don't play PvP very often and I play group PvE content with players that I trust to play effectively, so these people will never affect me directly.
Let them spend their money, let them build their horde of Mk XIV Epic gear. I'll still enjoy playing the game with my hard-earned upgraded Xindi phasers on my Narcine that I won from a fleet lottery, with hard-earned fleet consoles and a set of MACO components.
The problem seems to be you, your reading comprehension, your ability to interpret information or multiple of these. NW expansions are easy to do, the NPCs tell you what to do. The Campaigns tell you what to do. I don't know how you cannot figure out what to do.
Of course the issue is me. But I never could figure out what to do. And I tried for months.
And no, that isn't everything you need to do whatsoever.
I don't think we're at that point yet.. but I do agree it's going to be a hard lesson when we get there.
Also, I appreciate the folks who are contributing to the discussion. The purpose isn't to be 'right' or 'wrong', but to get a sense for how everyone feels about the current state of the game regarding the subject in question.
^ this
Trouble is in this day and age most people want instant gratification and will fork out momney to get it done quickly.
This game is the farthest from Pay2Win I've ever played...
They all even have a quest that is literally "come back tomorrow"
http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Tomorrow_and_Tomorrow
I have yet to figure this bit out. At least in sto I can always go run a foundry mission or hop in a queued mission, or replay a favorite story arc.. I can always play. Mobile seems to be blocking the game itself. And it worries me that so many game companies are copying zynga in non mobile games.
Your cost estimate is an order of magnitude out, but your point, in principle*, is valid.