Pay to win grindfest MMO version of Guild Wars 2.

An alternate timeline design document for Guild Wars 2 if it was made in a stereotypical grindfest fashion of some MMOs. And you all know which ones i'm talking about probably. :wink: We've all at least read about them. :tongue:

1. Leveling to 80 on Core maps takes grind. When you do world completion, you're only level 40. Another 40 levels needed to be grinded doing dungeons and killing mobs over and over. Gemstore boosters are all but required to get to max level in a year. If you die, you lose 15% of your experience. Getting 15% of the experience takes about a week. Gemstore item lasting 24h is added to prevent XP loss on death. There's a week/month version of it too but costs more.
2. You start with one character slot. Each additional character slot costs gems. Each additional slot after the first is 5% more expensive. There's no birthday rewards.
3. Player killing on all maps except instances. WvW doesn't exist. Mob stealing exists, only the last hit counts. Players are forced to always be in a party if they want to survive. Mobs are always at least 1 level above you. Same level mobs award 50% of XP, lower level mobs award 5% of XP. Nodes are per map, not per player and there's 10 nodes max of a particular material per map. No commander or mentor tags.
4. Crafting has a chance to fail. Chance to fail increases with the rarity of item being crafted. Rares have 25% chance, Exotics have a 50% chance to fail, Ascended has 75% chance to fail, Legendary has 90% chance to fail. Gemstore items available to lower the fail chance by a certain amount per craft attempt. Fail chance can never be reduced to 0 for exotics and above.
5. Legendary items have better stats than ascended. Almost 50% better and are required to be competitive. PvP uses player obtained items like WvW (which in its current form doesn't exist). PvP rewards only gold and about 50 gold per tournament won.
6. Crafting a legendary weapon takes 5 Gifts of Exploration (you only get 1 per map completion), 10 Gift of Battle, 5 gifts of fortune (but each gift of fortune takes 500 of each material to make) and precursors only drop. Gemstore items available to boost precursor drop rates by 0.5% per hour/day/week/month. Precursor drop rates are not affected by magic find.
7. Runes and sigils are gemstore items. Infusions are a 0.000257% rare drop. Magic find itmes are exclusively in gemstore and are not permanent.
8. There's an energy system in the game. Each action you do (kill a mob, finish a heart, craft an item, mine a node), costs energy. When you deplete your energy bar your character can only walk and can't perform any more actions until the bar is refilled. Gemstore items available to refill the energy bar. Otherwise, it takes a day for the bar to refill.
9. LW episodes are not free when they come out, each episode costs gems always. There's no gem to gold or gold to gem conversion in game, chat is spammed by gold selling bots.
10. An average mob of a higher level than you drops about 1247 gold. Same level 50%, lower level 15% of that amount. TP prices for exotics are in 750.000 gold range, ascended are tradeable and cost millions, legendaries cost billions of gold.
11. You can't put your items on TP directly. You have to "set up shop" where your character sits and you get to put 10 items you want to sell in your shop inventory. Shops are only searchable on TP and only for as long as you're online. Gemstore items available to temporarily increase shop space and another item to be able to sell your things offline.
12. There's no inventory bags. You start with 20 slots, and there's a gemstore item that you can buy that adds 1 bag slot per item bought. There's no wallet, all map currencies and wallet currencies are physical items. There's only one bank slot with gemstore item to add +1 bak slot per charge and material storage starts at 50 with +50 per gemstore item. Each section of the material storage has a separate item. If you bought metal item expander, it won't expand the storage of your T6 mats, you have to buy that separately.
13. In game mounts that you get are weaker than mounts that you can get in the gemstore. Skyscale is gemstore only and can fly indefinitely, but is not permanent, you can only rent it. Gemstore outfits, armor pieces and weapons add stat bonuses to your current loadout. They're not just skins. Most of them are pallate swapped versions of existing skins. All Dyes are gemstore items and cost transmutation charges to apply.
14. Traits require a gemstore item to change. Masteries except the ones needed to progress are gemstore unlocks. Mastery points can be unlocked with gemstore items.
15. Fractals and Raids are paid content.

Consider this an Anet appreciation post. Sometimes we tend to forget how good we have it. :smile:Would you play this version? :tongue:What p2w grindfest "feature" did i forget to add? :sweat_smile:

Here are some "additions" :P

• Players drop their gear on death, other players can loot it. Items can be made undroppable by using a ticket from the cash shop. Each death consumes one ticket charge per item that was bound with a ticket
• Players can forge the stats of one item into another. This can fail and will destroy the item that is used as a material. This way items can have up to 9 additional different stats, on top of the base ones. The base stats are enhanced based on the stats of the material item
• Standard +15 weapon and gear enhancement with chances to degrade
• New innerwear items, Stats on innerwear items only attainable through shop
• You can use a new ticket on every fractal and raid boss to get double the loot, ticket obviously from the cash shop
• you can only enter fractals 3 times a day. You can buy fractal-entrance refresh tickets in the cash shop
• auto-loot now only works via minipets you have to buy from the store, minipets have different rarities, they are only available in gacha/lootboxes

(Also "9. LW episodes are not free, each episode costs gems." is already the case. The free episodes are a reward for dedicated players.)

@"Raknar.4735" said:Here are some "additions" :P

• Players drop their gear on death, other players can loot it. Items can be made undroppable by using a ticket from the cash shop. Each death consumes one ticket charge per item that was bound with a ticket
• Players can forge the stats of one item into another. This can fail and will destroy the item that is used as a material. This way items can have up to 9 additional different stats, on top of the base ones. The base stats are enhanced based on the stats of the material item
• Standard +15 weapon and gear enhancement with chances to degrade
• New innerwear items, Stats on innerwear items only attainable through shop
• You can use a new ticket on every fractal and raid boss to get double the loot, ticket obviously from the cash shop
• you can only enter fractals 3 times a day. You can buy fractal-entrance refresh tickets in the cash shop
• auto-loot now only works via minipets you have to buy from the store, minipets have different rarities, they are only available in gacha/lootboxes

(Also "9. LW episodes are not free, each episode costs gems." is already the case. The free episodes are a reward for dedicated players.)

Good additions! :smile:I actually remember most of them from some of the MMOs i've played lol! :sweat_smile:Particularly the +15 forge thing lol, i remember the grind hahaha.

And yeah good point about LW episodes. I edited the LW thing, i meant to imply "they're never free", it didn't come out as such. :tongue: As in, there's no reward for dedicated players.

Just copy & paste from Runes of Magic

instead of events in map, or history mode, u have just a "quest system", where u are guided to map and "kill that mob 15 times" then u complete a "history chapter". thats all lore/events/history mode u have in neverwinter(pwe) for example. the 'history dialogues' are fixed npcs in the map that always speak same thing, no matter if u is doing history mode or not.

As a counter to 1:

Grinding for 4 hours, with double xp, nets you 1% of your level. If you die, you lose 4%. In order to maintain double xp, you must purchase "Stamina Savers" from the CS, or from players that purchased them from the CS. In order to avoid the xp loss from death, you must buy Fairy Bottles, which nullify the xp loss, again, only from the CS, or from players that got them from the CS.

And: You'd have to to the living world story s2 100+ times repeatedly with a groupd of 5-10 players and hoping to finally get some luck with drops ... for better gear so you could go to the next chapter of the story that requries better gear to not get insta killed.

(Here I'm comparing ot the usual gear treadmill games where the end game focus is on raids where you need to farm the first raids over and over ot get gear for the next one.)

I'm sooo grateful that most content can be played with exotics and ascended gear offers just 5 percent more stats + the unfusion slots for fractals. (And legendaries just more convenience compared to ascended.)

@kenny.7236 said:Just copy & paste from Runes of Magic

Never played it but i'll take your word for it. :smile: Wouldn't be the first grindy p2w mmo out there lol.

@"ugrakarma.9416" said:instead of events in map, or history mode, u have just a "quest system", where u are guided to map and "kill that mob 15 times" then u complete a "history chapter". thats all lore/events/history mode u have in neverwinter(pwe) for example. the 'history dialogues' are fixed npcs in the map that always speak same thing, no matter if u is doing history mode or not.

Yeah, i forgot the "kill X mobs" quest system lol. :sweat_smile:It's amazing how for the longest time developers couldn't think of anything better to implement. :tongue:

@"robertthebard.8150" said:As a counter to 1:

Grinding for 4 hours, with double xp, nets you 1% of your level. If you die, you lose 4%. In order to maintain double xp, you must purchase "Stamina Savers" from the CS, or from players that purchased them from the CS. In order to avoid the xp loss from death, you must buy Fairy Bottles, which nullify the xp loss, again, only from the CS, or from players that got them from the CS.

I got an inspiration for the XP loss from Path of Exile lol. It's exactly the same there, you grind maps for a week or more for a level up, but if you mess up once, say goodbye to those weeks of grinding. And people actually like that because it's "hardcore". Can't believe people play that game lol. Not sure if they have shop items to prevent XP loss, i was never inclined to spend money on that game anyway...

@"Luthan.5236" said:And: You'd have to to the living world story s2 100+ times repeatedly with a groupd of 5-10 players and hoping to finally get some luck with drops ... for better gear so you could go to the next chapter of the story that requries better gear to not get insta killed.

(Here I'm comparing ot the usual gear treadmill games where the end game focus is on raids where you need to farm the first raids over and over ot get gear for the next one.)

I'm sooo grateful that most content can be played with exotics and ascended gear offers just 5 percent more stats + the unfusion slots for fractals. (And legendaries just more convenience compared to ascended.)

Yeah, people tend to forget a lot of times how Anet is actually really generous to the players. Like, i'd probably quit most MMOs by now, but i'm still playing GW2 because for the most part, there's no crap mechanics here. And yeah, i give them a lot of "criticism" as well, but the truth is, GW2 is probably the most generous player friendly MMO to date. If they just fix some minor issues and details the game could be near perfect.

@"Raknar.4735" said:Here are some "additions" :P

• Players can forge the stats of one item into another. This can fail and will destroy the item that is used as a material. This way items can have up to 9 additional different stats, on top of the base ones. The base stats are enhanced based on the stats of the material item
• auto-loot now only works via minipets you have to buy from the store, minipets have different rarities, they are only available in gacha/lootboxes

@Veprovina.4876 said:Good additions! :smile:I actually remember most of them from some of the MMOs i've played lol! :sweat_smile:Particularly the +15 forge thing lol, i remember the grind hahaha.

Haha are you two talking about Legend of Mir 3? I used to love both Mir2 and 3 on the EU servers and later private ones.

@Kienda.4187 said:

@"Raknar.4735" said:Here are some "additions" :P

• Players can forge the stats of one item into another. This can fail and will destroy the item that is used as a material. This way items can have up to 9 additional different stats, on top of the base ones. The base stats are enhanced based on the stats of the material item
• auto-loot now only works via minipets you have to buy from the store, minipets have different rarities, they are only available in gacha/lootboxes

@"Veprovina.4876" said:Good additions! :smile:I actually remember most of them from some of the MMOs i've played lol! :sweat_smile:Particularly the +15 forge thing lol, i remember the grind hahaha.

I'm actually remembering this from my first MMO i've played - Dekaron. Used to be called 2moons in the US and it's still playable today though it changed so many publishers and stuff it's a completely different game at this point. In the early days though - man was that game a Grind. There were i think like 250+ levels and you were a god if you reached 100+. There was player killing on maps and all you basically did was run trains with mobs, then everyone in the party spammed their attacks and that was it lol. There were some timed dungeons with bosses but it was all kind of "meh" and grindy. Later they added an actual fun feature where 4 teams each start in their lanes clearing mobs, all meet in the middle to fight 2-3 bosses, then one final boss. Everyone who survived is then teleported to a 4v4 PvP area where you duke it out and the winning team gets to pick up the loot (which was bad but whatever). It was an event that run at set times.

The upgrade system it had though was exactly like this. There were gems that (rarely) dropped of "copper, silver and gold" variety and you used copper to upgrade to i think +3, silver for +4 to +6, gold for +7 to +9. The P2W thing? Every time you upgraded your chance to fail and destroy the item went up a LOT. If you had a +9 you were rich in game (but you probably had to spend hundreds of dollars to increase the chance). I'm not sure if there's that system in anymore but that's how it worked then. And i'm sure it's not the only MMO with that system lol.

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@kenny.7236 said:Just copy & paste from Runes of Magic

@"ugrakarma.9416" said:instead of events in map, or history mode, u have just a "quest system", where u are guided to map and "kill that mob 15 times" then u complete a "history chapter". thats all lore/events/history mode u have in neverwinter(pwe) for example. the 'history dialogues' are fixed npcs in the map that always speak same thing, no matter if u is doing history mode or not.

@"robertthebard.8150" said:As a counter to 1:

Grinding for 4 hours, with double xp, nets you 1% of your level. If you die, you lose 4%. In order to maintain double xp, you must purchase "Stamina Savers" from the CS, or from players that purchased them from the CS. In order to avoid the xp loss from death, you must buy Fairy Bottles, which nullify the xp loss, again, only from the CS, or from players that got them from the CS.

@"Luthan.5236" said:And: You'd have to to the living world story s2 100+ times repeatedly with a groupd of 5-10 players and hoping to finally get some luck with drops ... for better gear so you could go to the next chapter of the story that requries better gear to not get insta killed.

(Here I'm comparing ot the usual gear treadmill games where the end game focus is on raids where you need to farm the first raids over and over ot get gear for the next one.)

I'm sooo grateful that most content can be played with exotics and ascended gear offers just 5 percent more stats + the unfusion slots for fractals. (And legendaries just more convenience compared to ascended.)

My example is pulled straight from Rappelz. That's exactly how it works there.

@robertthebard.8150 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@kenny.7236 said:Just copy & paste from Runes of Magic

@"ugrakarma.9416" said:instead of events in map, or history mode, u have just a "quest system", where u are guided to map and "kill that mob 15 times" then u complete a "history chapter". thats all lore/events/history mode u have in neverwinter(pwe) for example. the 'history dialogues' are fixed npcs in the map that always speak same thing, no matter if u is doing history mode or not.

@robertthebard.8150 said:As a counter to 1:

Grinding for 4 hours, with double xp, nets you 1% of your level. If you die, you lose 4%. In order to maintain double xp, you must purchase "Stamina Savers" from the CS, or from players that purchased them from the CS. In order to avoid the xp loss from death, you must buy Fairy Bottles, which nullify the xp loss, again, only from the CS, or from players that got them from the CS.

@"Luthan.5236" said:And: You'd have to to the living world story s2 100+ times repeatedly with a groupd of 5-10 players and hoping to finally get some luck with drops ... for better gear so you could go to the next chapter of the story that requries better gear to not get insta killed.

(Here I'm comparing ot the usual gear treadmill games where the end game focus is on raids where you need to farm the first raids over and over ot get gear for the next one.)

I'm sooo grateful that most content can be played with exotics and ascended gear offers just 5 percent more stats + the unfusion slots for fractals. (And legendaries just more convenience compared to ascended.)

Cool, didn't know that! I heard of that game but didn't play it. But there's a lot of simmilar systems in a lot of games. Personally to me it's too punishing and not fun. But the crowd at PoE forums seems to enjoy it.

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@robertthebard.8150 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@kenny.7236 said:Just copy & paste from Runes of Magic

@"ugrakarma.9416" said:instead of events in map, or history mode, u have just a "quest system", where u are guided to map and "kill that mob 15 times" then u complete a "history chapter". thats all lore/events/history mode u have in neverwinter(pwe) for example. the 'history dialogues' are fixed npcs in the map that always speak same thing, no matter if u is doing history mode or not.

@robertthebard.8150 said:As a counter to 1:

Grinding for 4 hours, with double xp, nets you 1% of your level. If you die, you lose 4%. In order to maintain double xp, you must purchase "Stamina Savers" from the CS, or from players that purchased them from the CS. In order to avoid the xp loss from death, you must buy Fairy Bottles, which nullify the xp loss, again, only from the CS, or from players that got them from the CS.

@"Luthan.5236" said:And: You'd have to to the living world story s2 100+ times repeatedly with a groupd of 5-10 players and hoping to finally get some luck with drops ... for better gear so you could go to the next chapter of the story that requries better gear to not get insta killed.

(Here I'm comparing ot the usual gear treadmill games where the end game focus is on raids where you need to farm the first raids over and over ot get gear for the next one.)

I'm sooo grateful that most content can be played with exotics and ascended gear offers just 5 percent more stats + the unfusion slots for fractals. (And legendaries just more convenience compared to ascended.)

I found that game back in 2005 or so, and played it for quite a while, because I love their pet system.

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@Kienda.4187 said:

@"Raknar.4735" said:Here are some "additions" :P

• Players can forge the stats of one item into another. This can fail and will destroy the item that is used as a material. This way items can have up to 9 additional different stats, on top of the base ones. The base stats are enhanced based on the stats of the material item
• auto-loot now only works via minipets you have to buy from the store, minipets have different rarities, they are only available in gacha/lootboxes

@Veprovina.4876 said:Good additions! :smile:I actually remember most of them from some of the MMOs i've played lol! :sweat_smile:Particularly the +15 forge thing lol, i remember the grind hahaha.

Thanks for the detailed explanation of the game. That sounds different from the game I was thinking of, but they have similarities especially the grind. When I first played Legend of Mir 2 it was very slow levelling. It would take literally weeks for a level up.

The highest level on the server at one point was 35. My brother was 32 and me and him would sleep at different times during the summer holiday one year just to level. He would be awake until 5am. I would wake up and level while he slept through the day. We earned about 2% per day. It was crazy. They changed it after that though and added new levelling areas and we managed to get two characters up really high and had loads of fun in guild battles and so forth.

The thing that was the same as what you said though was the crafting on weapons for added stats and the animals that came to pick up loot for you in Mir 3. That was also a grind but not as bad.

I played Dekaron/2Moons years before GW2 came out. Recently signed up for a private Dekaron server out of nostalgia. 2 hours of grinding (even at 1000x XP rate) and I uninstalled to go back to GW2. I really can't comprehend how put up with the grind back then. Or the virtually complete lack of story. Or vast maps with nothing to do but kill mobs for xp, with no events or incentives beyond the level grind. Or getting PKed by some rando 150 levels above me. Or getting to max level and gear, only for the new "feature" patch to add more levels and new gear that makes all of mine obsolete. Or seeing all the monsters in a map disappear as a hacker ran through and stole them. Or the bots... so many bots!

GW2 is the best MMO I've tried. None of the others seem to care as much about making sure their players have fun. Sure, there are some things that could use improvement. But I'll be happy to take a slightly flawed GW2 over the horrible grindfests any day!

Writing some of these ideas down made me realize just how gloriously non-P2W/grindy GW2 is. Thank you, ArenaNet!!

• A monthly subscription. Dropping the subscription will cause you to lose subscriber privileges - lowered XP gain, unable to do more than three fractals/raids/Strike missions/PVP matches per week (yes, per week, not per day), lowered level cap, unable to equip legendary/ascended armor and weapons, fewer character slots, can't have more than one mid-level crafting discipline, can't have more than a certain amount of gold (which is too low to actually buy anything worthwhile on the trading post), can't put more than a few things on the trading post at any one time, etc.Subscribers are able to play human, sylvari, norn, asura, and charr characters. Non-subscribers are limited to only humans, unless they pay to unlock the other races.There are passes you can buy on the gem store to ease some of these restrictions - but they're still limited compared to subscribers, temporary, incredibly expensive, and you'd be better off just subscribing.

• Hiding your helmet/gloves/shoulders is a gem store-only unlock (and separate, of course, so unlocking the ability to hide your gloves won't allow you to hide your helmet or shoulders). Alternatively, the option is included with a subscription. Dropping the sub, of course, means you can't do this any longer unless you re-subscribe or pay.

• Dyes are one-time use only, and the best dyes (read: the ones that don't make your character look like a diseased rainbow barfed on a poison dart frog) must be bought on the gem store for exorbitant prices. A few of these good dyes float around on the trading post, but they're so mind-bogglingly expensive (in the millions of gold) that they are, very clearly, only for subscribers who play the game twelve hours a day.

• You get a small amount of gems per month of your subscription, but prices on the gem store are so high that it will either take you several months to get the thing you want (by which time it will probably be permanently removed from the gem store, so you may as well forget it), or you'll have to buy gems outright. Non-subscribers, of course, don't have that monthly stipend.

• Every single outfit/armor skin/glider skin/mount skin/any cosmetic item ever is in a Black Lion chest, with the best items/newest skins being at the highest rarity and thus excruciatingly difficult to get. They're also packed full of low-quality junk that you probably already have, like ugly common dyes, guild decorations you've already unlocked, or low-level armor. These are of course faaaaaaaaar more common than anything of value, and since they are so common, you can't really sell them on the trading post to try and make a profit. Better hope you've got lots of gems to pony up!Oh, and the armor skins are separated into upper armor (chest, helmet), lower armor (legs, boots), and supplementary (shoulders, gloves) boxes, just to make it more difficult to get. You're more likely to end up with duplicate glove/shoulder boxes than a full set of armor. There are some standalone sets, but they are, again, at such expensive prices that you'll have to buy gems to get them.You can't earn Black Lion chests or keys in-game, of course. You have to buy them with gems. Separately.

• You can't unlock skins account-wide just by buying them/equipping them. You have to buy the entire set (of armor, weapons, mount skin packs, etc.) and then pay gems again to unlock the entire set account-wide.

...I wonder if anyone can identify the game I'm talking about here? ;) Granted, I'm exaggerating with some of these features...but not by much.

@Kienda.4187 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:

@Kienda.4187 said:

@"Raknar.4735" said:Here are some "additions" :P

• Players can forge the stats of one item into another. This can fail and will destroy the item that is used as a material. This way items can have up to 9 additional different stats, on top of the base ones. The base stats are enhanced based on the stats of the material item
• auto-loot now only works via minipets you have to buy from the store, minipets have different rarities, they are only available in gacha/lootboxes

@Veprovina.4876 said:Good additions! :smile:I actually remember most of them from some of the MMOs i've played lol! :sweat_smile:Particularly the +15 forge thing lol, i remember the grind hahaha.

Wow, that leveling sounds brutal! :astonished:But yeah, some MMOs take pride in the slow grind.

@"CaelestiaEmpyrea.2617" said:I played Dekaron/2Moons years before GW2 came out. Recently signed up for a private Dekaron server out of nostalgia. 2 hours of grinding (even at 1000x XP rate) and I uninstalled to go back to GW2. I really can't comprehend how put up with the grind back then. Or the virtually complete lack of story. Or vast maps with nothing to do but kill mobs for xp, with no events or incentives beyond the level grind. Or getting PKed by some rando 150 levels above me. Or getting to max level and gear, only for the new "feature" patch to add more levels and new gear that makes all of mine obsolete. Or seeing all the monsters in a map disappear as a hacker ran through and stole them. Or the bots... so many bots!

GW2 is the best MMO I've tried. None of the others seem to care as much about making sure their players have fun. Sure, there are some things that could use improvement. But I'll be happy to take a slightly flawed GW2 over the horrible grindfests any day!

Another Dekaron player! :smiley:Funnily enough, i also installed it out of nostalgia, but on the official server, the latest one whoever owns it now. They actualy introduced quest XP lol, you can level by doing quests now. It's set up so that when you finish all the quests in a map (which of course consist entirely out of kill X mobs), you get enough levels for the next map. I think i played it for a few days, got to 150+ and just uninstalled. There's more, but it's all the same and boring, plus, the game is all but deserted. Got my nostalgia fix though. :tongue:

Funny thing is, GW2 could have gone in a very simmilar direction. Like, they didn't have to add Precursor collections so that you can craft one, they could have added a gemstore item that increases your chance of getting a precursor drop. :wink: There's so many "shady" business practices that they could have implemented but they didn't and that's admirable.

@"Batel.9206" said:Writing some of these ideas down made me realize just how gloriously non-P2W/grindy GW2 is. Thank you, ArenaNet!!

• A monthly subscription. Dropping the subscription will cause you to lose subscriber privileges - lowered XP gain, unable to do more than three fractals/raids/Strike missions/PVP matches per week (yes, per week, not per day), lowered level cap, unable to equip legendary/ascended armor and weapons, fewer character slots, can't have more than one mid-level crafting discipline, can't have more than a certain amount of gold (which is too low to actually buy anything worthwhile on the trading post), can't put more than a few things on the trading post at any one time, etc.Subscribers are able to play human, sylvari, norn, asura, and charr characters. Non-subscribers are limited to only humans, unless they pay to unlock the other races.There are passes you can buy on the gem store to ease some of these restrictions - but they're still limited compared to subscribers, temporary, incredibly expensive, and you'd be better off just subscribing.

• Hiding your helmet/gloves/shoulders is a gem store-only unlock (and separate, of course, so unlocking the ability to hide your gloves won't allow you to hide your helmet or shoulders). Alternatively, the option is included with a subscription. Dropping the sub, of course, means you can't do this any longer unless you re-subscribe or pay.

• Dyes are one-time use only, and the best dyes (read: the ones that don't make your character look like a diseased rainbow barfed on a poison dart frog) must be bought on the gem store for exorbitant prices. A few of these good dyes float around on the trading post, but they're so mind-bogglingly expensive (in the millions of gold) that they are, very clearly, only for subscribers who play the game twelve hours a day.

• You get a small amount of gems per month of your subscription, but prices on the gem store are so high that it will either take you several months to get the thing you want (by which time it will probably be permanently removed from the gem store, so you may as well forget it), or you'll have to buy gems outright. Non-subscribers, of course, don't have that monthly stipend.

• Every single outfit/armor skin/glider skin/mount skin/any cosmetic item ever is in a Black Lion chest, with the best items/newest skins being at the highest rarity and thus excruciatingly difficult to get. They're also packed full of low-quality junk that you probably already have, like ugly common dyes, guild decorations you've already unlocked, or low-level armor. These are of course faaaaaaaaar more common than anything of value, and since they are so common, you can't really sell them on the trading post to try and make a profit. Better hope you've got lots of gems to pony up!Oh, and the armor skins are separated into upper armor (chest, helmet), lower armor (legs, boots), and supplementary (shoulders, gloves) boxes, just to make it more difficult to get. You're more likely to end up with duplicate glove/shoulder boxes than a full set of armor. There are some standalone sets, but they are, again, at such expensive prices that you'll have to buy gems to get them.You can't earn Black Lion chests or keys in-game, of course. You have to buy them with gems. Separately.

• You can't unlock skins account-wide just by buying them/equipping them. You have to buy the entire set (of armor, weapons, mount skin packs, etc.) and then pay gems again to unlock the entire set account-wide.

...I wonder if anyone can identify the game I'm talking about here? ;) Granted, I'm exaggerating with some of these features...but not by much.

Yeah, i just have to think of my earlier MMOs that i played and tried to realize just how good GW2 is. Yes there's issues, but we're lucky it's just those issues. Things could have been way worse.

Also, no idea what game you're talking about, but i think i've seen that exact "business model" in one i've played before, but i just can't think of it. Especially the "optional subscription" part, and unlocking races lol.

What game is that from? :smiley:

This is SWTOR isn't it?

@Veprovina.4876 said:What game is that from? :smiley:

@Aravind.9610 said:This is SWTOR isn't it?

Nailed it! :D SWTOR was fun, I suppose, but...painful. It got so annoying without a subscription that I just left. I'm not shelling out fifteen bucks a month just so I can watch pretty cutscenes.

Regarding outfits and dyes:

Outfits are character bound, so you can only use an outfit on one character, if you want a second character to use the outfit you must buy it again.Dyes must be bought individually. You want to dye all your armor Black? Buy 20 Black dyes and go on.

@Batel.9206 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:What game is that from? :smiley:

@Aravind.9610 said:This is SWTOR isn't it?

Oh wow, it's that bad? :anguished: Why bother going f2p at all then if all they're going to do is make it impossible to play and need a subscription anyway? I thought SWTOR had good f2p models.

@maddoctor.2738 said:Regarding outfits and dyes:

Outfits are character bound, so you can only use an outfit on one character, if you want a second character to use the outfit you must buy it again.Dyes must be bought individually. You want to dye all your armor Black? Buy 20 Black dyes and go on.

Lol can you imagine? :sweat_smile:Such a simple change, yet such a kitten move haha!

There is no lvl cap. If you want to stay relevant you need to grind xp always, forever. Grinding xp is only really effective in a party.

Legendary items are a super rare drop and are super overpowered in all game modes. The only realistic way to get them is if you are either super lucky (which you aren't), you are a guild leader of a rich guild and the whole guild backs you up with funds or through a black market with real $ which is the only real option for a normal player.

You can only reset traits with a gem shop item. There are no equipment and build templates.

If you die you lose a few hours of grind xp. If you die repeatedly you lose more xp each death. You can buy a gem shop consumable item with a timer during which you don't lose xp on death.

The only way to heal in combat is with potions. You can craft or buy potions for in-game currency. If you are a solo player the average income is just about enough to cover your potion consumption.

@Veprovina.4876 said:Oh wow, it's that bad? :anguished: Why bother going f2p at all then if all they're going to do is make it impossible to play and need a subscription anyway? I thought SWTOR had good f2p models.

Comparatively, it did. F2p got to play eight sprawling, fully voice-acted class stories, plus I think the first two expansions were free (about a decade into the game's life). If that was all someone wanted out of a Star Wars game, they got it, and in fairness, that was a lot. Each individual class story was about the length of, but certainly more in-depth than, GW2's vanilla storyline. Multiply that by eight, one unique story per class, and that's a heck of a lot of free content to dive into.F2p just had to deal with the limitations I described. It's up to the individual person to decide if those limitations are too annoying to abide.

@Cuks.8241 said:There is no lvl cap. If you want to stay relevant you need to grind xp always, forever. Grinding xp is only really effective in a party.

Legendary items are a super rare drop and are super overpowered in all game modes. The only realistic way to get them is if you are either super lucky (which you aren't), you are a guild leader of a rich guild and the whole guild backs you up with funds or through a black market with real $ which is the only real option for a normal player.

You can only reset traits with a gem shop item. There are no equipment and build templates.

If you die you lose a few hours of grind xp. If you die repeatedly you lose more xp each death. You can buy a gem shop consumable item with a timer during which you don't lose xp on death.

The only way to heal in combat is with potions. You can craft or buy potions for in-game currency. If you are a solo player the average income is just about enough to cover your potion consumption.

Ouch on the no level cap! :sweat_smile:Also - potions!!! HAHAA, totally forgot those existed! Dekaron also had potion healing, but also a dedicated healer class so if you played that one, you were never looking for a party, they were looking for you! :wink: And of course, half decent potions were cash shop exclusive! :smiley:

@Batel.9206 said:

@Veprovina.4876 said:Oh wow, it's that bad? :anguished: Why bother going f2p at all then if all they're going to do is make it impossible to play and need a subscription anyway? I thought SWTOR had good f2p models.

Ah, i see! Well if what you get is enough to finish the story, i mean, you have means to gear up for the story and such, then i guess it's ok. Still - after GW2 i'm so spoiled by no subscription fees that i don't think i could ever play an MMO where i have to pay a monthly subscription. Arenanet proved it could be done without predatory cash shop practices. After that, every other subscription based game seems like there's no real argument for it.

i remembered also most of these game the loot is "world wide"(i didt know exact words for this), i mean, when a mob drop loot, the players have to catch item from ground, and the loot will only for the 1st to catch it..... them some guilds that organize farm expensive items and sell and divide the profit,,, lolz.