Pay to Win? Please tread carefully, this game can be amazing

Could we please stop calling the pillow "Pay2Win"? Getting the additional item on the pillow hasn't anything to do with winning. The pillow is a "nag screen", and those have been around in Freeware since the 80's.

 

Getting the additional item has *everything* to do with winning.
It gives you almost +100% relevant loot.

AND it is a nag screen.

 

+100% relevant loot? Really, 90% of the time its a unplayable common or at best a treasure. Like i said before i don't like the pillow shoving the item i missed in my face but the function definitely isn't pay to win in the least its 20%-50% extra loot that is random.

 

Totally disagree. There is still a lot of skill involved in build creation and tactical play. Take Mom for instance, everyone said she was so OP because of her FAR better cards, and now Mom is ranked lower than the other AIs at times...

It's not the cards that make a winner...

 

This is my point and why i want the epic chest to be as expensive as humanly possible. The amount of players who pay for progress should be as low as possible and they should really be paying because they lack the time not because they got a extra 3$ to burn. In my personal opinion that is.

I'm sure people disagree but that's just how i feel.

 

I think that there are some things that BM can do to reduce the pay to win "perception" that people are feeling.

1. After the first club reward when Melvin explains it, have a checkbox option to cover up the club reward pillow with a sheet or a piece of cloth or something like that. If the option is set, still play the item music for it (so the player will still know if it's an epic or legendary or whatever on the pillow) but keep it covered unless the player mouses over the cloth. If the player mouses over the cloth, then show them the exact item they are missing so they can consider the purchase. That way people will still be tempted to look at the item and buy club when they know that an epic is behind there, but it will seem much less "in your face" than automatically showing the item itself.

2. Move the Gary giving free pizza for a chest section to later in the campaign (ideally when the second chest shop Anjin's Treasures is unlocked). This will serve the dual purpose of not introducing immersion-breaking powerful gold chest items so early in the campaign as well as not emphasizing that microtransaction option until people are really hooked (because if someone gets all the way to the second chest shop in the campaign they are almost certainly hooked on it). The first chest shop should still be unlocked at the usual time of course, but Gary shouldn't give the 30 free pizza to open the gold chest at that time. Also make it clear that the player has the option to keep the 30 pizza for themselves instead of opening the gold chest; that was not clear to me when I was playing unfortunately.

3. Put in some kind of message or hint that the guaranteed epic items for treasure hunts and the items that you get in the pizza pvp starters are obtainable through random chests. This was not apparent to me at first and I thought the treasure hunt items could only be obtained through buying them (and I could see how someone could think that the pvp starter items are unique).

 

I'm not too sure about item number 2, but numbers one and three above are excellent ideas.

 

The actual amount does matter. It's not about if you can afford the 10$ or not, it's about the fact that even if you have an amazing game, it's still a freaking browser card game, not the next World of Warcraft.

For example Final Fantasy XIV just launched (full fledged MMORPG) with a 12$ / month subscription. So I can pay 10$ / month for an extra item, or pay 12$ for something with over 9000 more content (not to mention time and man power invested).

If it was just the 10$ for the club, I'd probably somehow understand but they actually dare to ask for even more (adventures / skins / etc).

 

Firstly, if you pay for 30 days of Club Access, you get an extra item every time you open a victory loot chest, so the potential is far greater than one item.

Secondly, you're not equating like with like. Your statement of "9000 more content" versus one chest opening isn't correct, unless FF XIV gives you 9000 items a month for your $12. Is that what you're saying? I doubt it, highly.

Finally, Blue Manchu "actually dare to ask you for even more". I know, shocking! Having to the audacity to ask you to pay for nice things. Ask, not demand, you'll notice. How very dare they! A disgrace of the highest order, why don't they just give it all away for free! Entitlement! Entitlement! I want it all and I want it now! Well thank you very much, Veruca Salt.

 

Well firstly you are incorrect as FFXIV will be $14.99/month secondly that's not optional like the club is so you honestly can't compare them. That said i also want the club price reduced a bit as i think it should be available to most people unlike the chest which i want priced out of dollar spenders range.

 

This thread has gone far off the rails

• The club reward is a nag screen ( a very benign one at that). If you have issue with it start a new thread
  
• The price of the club != pay to win. If you have issue with the price, start a new thread

Discussing these matters here are muddying the waters. Separating them out into their own thread will give you the best chance your opinion will be heard by the devs

 

Actually it's 12.99$ / month ( http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/product/ ) but you're both missing the point.

It's a browser game with 100-200 cards (no idea on the total) versus an entire world. I'm pretty sure they have more variations of a single item slot than there are cards in this game. Not even going to get into development time, man power, hosting costs and other stuff.

If they did a one time buy of 10-15$ for full access to everything that's right now in the shop I'd understand.

I have over 700 matches played so I can't say I didn't enjoy this game but this nickel and diming (hello new skins before balance patches in a freaking BETA) made me give up.


edit :

about the daring part, we have a saying around here "dumb is the guy who pays, not the one who asks" (some of it is lost in the translation) but the simple fact that they ask tells you a lot about them as a company.


edit 2 :

to get on topic, yes this game is absolutely pay to win. If you blow enough money you can get all the legendary items in the game through chests.

 

A early payment incentive that adds absolutely no power made you give up? Have you seen the stuff you get for preordering these days?

 

I'm pretty sympathetic to the people who perceive this game as pay 2 win even though i don't think it is pay 2 win, but that statement right there is just dumb. If you don't know it already, you need to learn it now: the people who make the art and the people who program and design the game are almost never the same people.

If Blu Manchu told us they were putting their artists to work balancing the cards we'd think they were crazy, but that's effectively what you just suggested. Designers make new levels and cards and balance the cards that are out there. Artists make new art, including skins. Programmers make it all work and fix bugs. http://www.cardhunter.com/team/

Making a new skin does not delay balance patches. Saying so makes you seem incredibly childish and uninformed.

 

Not to mention the audacity of complaining about changes being made in a Beta.

 

I agree with you that artists don't program / balance stuff but they're adding content to a beta that you can't "beta test" without paying. See how that looks pretty crappy ?

To end this argument here's how I see things :

Free to play => more money doesn't offer any kind of increase in power just cosmetic
Pay to win => more money does offer better or more chances at loot.

Cardhunter has in it's shop the pillow that's increasing the speed at which you're acquiring items (25% to 50% increase) and chests with random loot (the more expensive, the bigger chances of a higher quality item).

Which category would you pick for this game ?

 

All items are available through free play. Thus this game is not pay to win.
I have not paid for the game (yet), but I plan to once the gear gets wiped.
Faster items might help in the short-term, but soon even that advantage will decrease as everyone gets their gear back.
I disagree that the game is pay to win. It's pay for more changes at gear only, not wins.
Wins are a combination of gear, RNG of card pulls, RNG of dice rolls, and most importantly, strategic play.

 

It all starts with gear and you can get 2 epic or better items for the awesome price of 5$. Throw a few hundred bucks and say hello to 18 nimble strikes warriors & crap.

 

There appears to be two definitions of pay to win in this thread:

1) Paying money makes it easier to win
2) Paying money is the only way you ever can win against others who paid money


The first is nearly unavoidable, and is not neccessarily a bad thing. Yes, League of Legends and TF2 manage to only sell cosmetic things and still do quite well. Except that LoL does sell more than cosmetic things, they also sell the champions and the boosts. Those are things you COULD get with just playing, and simply owning them doesn't mean automatically winning. (I can't say much about TF2, haven't often played it so don't know if they have anything other than hats for sale).

Same thing exists here as in League. You can buy cosmetic things, eventually you will have LOTS of cosmetic things to buy too (early league there was 2 skins per champion, and they were simple recolors. Games need time to grow). Everything you can do with money, you can also do without. Except for the Treasure Hunt missions, but the rewards from those (read - the only thing which impacts MP gameplay) are not cash exclusive.

Definition 2 is the "evil" pay to win model. And Card Hunter absolutely is NOT that. Nor does it show signs that it ever will be. The pillow is a nag screen for those who are incapable of simply ignoring the thing. The pillow being there during the tutorial and early missions where you are only getting 1 or 2 items without the pillow, as well as the prolific use of pizza (even if handed to you for free to try it out) do give the game a strong feeling of pay 2 win initially. But that feeling quickly dissipates if you think about things for even a little while. And personally I am fine with losing potential community members who aren't patient enough to analyze a situation before the react.

 

So prices doesn't matter, but you are complaining about price. Bacterium are much more nutritious than most foods you eat and are likely cheaper depending on where you live. Even if you were to argue that WoW is a better game (which is highly debatable), that doesn't mean it's a better choice for everyone just as you don't see everyone eating concentrated Bacterium. I'd much rather play here and not have to pay if I don't want to, than play WoW and have to pay to play.

The fact that it's a browser game is a BENEFIT to me since I can engage in my past time wherever I'm at, unlike your WoW example. 9000 more content of what I consider crap for $12 or something I like... hard choice.

Because god forbid people want the ability to pend their discretionary cash on items that make them enjoy their game more. Even if the skins were free, people would want to pay for more unique customization for characters.

Your perception and reality have a large gap in between them. You could throw 3 million dollars at the game and never see a nimble strike. You are buying chances to get items... The same chances people are getting from winning games. Unless you are continually spending money on the game and spending a fair amount of time playing, you aren't getting ahead of people who are just spending a lot of time on the game by buying chests.