Treated like a free to play player with both expansions

[Freya.9075]

1 hour ago, Hartassen.9632 said:

I was never under any false illusions about what buying the expansions gave me. I recently started playing again a few days ago after leaving the game earlier. I just think it's sad to treat customers this way, there's more than enough monetization options in this game.

This was just a drop overflowing the cup issue. I recently learned about the amount of botting and general cheating going on in PvP and Automated tournaments from reading reddit posts. Then on top of that I need to buy the storys to actually play the expansions I bought after finishing tyria. So I'm stuck after playing the tyria campaign before I can accrue enough gold to convert to gems to play living world season 2. Then my bank overflows with the rewards I get from pvping and storing all the boosters and tomes and black lion items and other stuff I get.

I bought both expansions I don't expect to have the entire game given to me, but it feels as if they want me to pay every step of the way. I already am spending all my gold I earn on unlocking the living worlds so I can progress to heart of thorns and later to path of fire without missing a ton of the story. Now I am forced to spend time removing builds and adding new ones cause I can't afford any template slots, I am forced to use bag space to hold my materials and boosters. I don't feel like someone who bought two expansions I feel like I'm still a free to play player.
 

The word bot gets thrown a bit too much around. I know several ppl that gets called bots who are not. 
 

secondly. If you decide to go for a vacation. You can buy the hotel and flight back and forth. Then you can add convenience like all inclusive or other goodies on top of that right? Would you expect to get it for free? Or would you expect to pay for it since it’s a service they provide that costs them money to provide? It’s the same with games. It’s a product and when they add new content, or have quality of life products, you should expect to pay for it. Since it costs them money to pay their employees and keep the server up. Luckily in gw2 you can get most of these items with ingame gold. 

[Klowdy.3126]

19 hours ago, Hartassen.9632 said:

I bought path of fire and heart of thorns but I still only have 1 bank tab, 2 equipment templates and 3 build templates. If I want any more I have to buy gems for real life money or grind endlessly in game.

Am I playing lost ark or something? I paid for the game and you're gating me out of quality of life features expecting me to pay even more for them?

If this is the way you treat your customers I'll never buy anything from you again. Because it's bad enough I have to spend all my gold unlocking living seasons that you gave out for free earlier.

Gems can be converted from gold, making everything you do ingame meaningful if your goal is cash shop stuff. There are lots of guides on making gold with many different things. Just watch the gold to gem conversion. I usually try to wait for a 115 gold to 400 gem conversion, but it gets lower than that from time to time (you can also do a custom conversion, if the rate is good, but you don't have enough for 400 gems).

Edited April 28, 2022 by Klowdy.3126
Spelling

[Lottie.5370]

GW2 not having a sub fee is probably the only reason I have spent as much money as I have on the game. When you buy something, it's yours - you don't have to keep paying to access it.

 

I also love that you can convert gold to gems and buy stuff that way, most of the gold I earn now goes towards gems for additional character slots/account upgrades/cosmetics - I admit that I haven't wanted or needed to spend real money in a long time due to this, though I've probably spent hundreds in total since release, which is more than I've spent on any subscription game.

 

I have enjoyed other MMOs, but I hated feeling like I *have* to play it or I'm not getting enough value out of it, and I always end up going back to GW2.

 

I feel like I have decent enough QoL on my 2nd account with just the mistlock pass, one bank tab expansion, infinite copper-fed salvage kit and recharging teleport to friend. I don't think I've made any other purchases and I don't feel like I'm missing out. It's not like you are having to drop TONS of cash to enjoy the game.

[Blude.6812]

4 hours ago, Hartassen.9632 said:

I bought path of fire and heart of thorns but I still only have 1 bank tab, 2 equipment templates and 3 build templates. If I want any more I have to buy gems for real life money or grind endlessly in game.

Am I playing lost ark or something? I paid for the game and you're gating me out of quality of life features expecting me to pay even more for them?

If this is the way you treat your customers I'll never buy anything from you again. Because it's bad enough I have to spend all my gold unlocking living seasons that you gave out for free earlier.

Don't get upset because you didn't do the research about what is included in the games purchase. There are many threads here as well as many other places. it was clear GW2 purchase page as well. https://buy.guildwars2.com/en-us#ingame_items

Edited April 27, 2022 by Blude.6812

[Cronospere.8143]

4 hours ago, Hartassen.9632 said:

If the game was entirely free to play I would understand. But the expansions cost money and the gem store is filled with items for people to buy including boosts, xp boosts, karma boosts, speed boosts etcetera. And I'm also expected to pay for convenience like a bank tab or build templates? I don't expect "every single product from a company for free" but they literally tore out pieces of the game to sell them one by one. How daft do you have to be to support this?

You people need to play some real mmos. I would rather have a subscription fee and not be milked for money in this fashion. But go ahead and defend these practices if that's what you want. I'll go wait for some real mmo that doesn't treat me like I play on a mobile.

Lol dude. You probably bought this for a quarter of the original price that most of us paid for.

Pay that small amount extra if you want those QoL things, just like the rest of us. 

[Labjax.2465]

Games have gotten endlessly more greedy over the years and this is just one example. GW2 gating QOL features behind store purchases made somewhat more sense when they were purely B2P: you purchase once and you own the game forever, no subscription fees. Now that there are expansion costs and living world costs, and it's technically "free to play," but also B2P, but not really?

It's this thing now where games "double dip" in whatever way they can. They hybridize models, so they can get the good PR of one model and the money of another.

The only way I tolerate it now is going in knowing full well what I'm dealing with, but even then, games still surprise me sometimes. Like this game and it's character bound equipment templates and bag slots, which is just nickel and diming. It could still be profitable with those slots being an account unlock, but that's not how the interests running this industry and others relating to things I can't talk about here works.

Edited April 27, 2022 by Labjax.2465
phrasing

[Zaraki.5784]

6 hours ago, Hartassen.9632 said:

Because it's bad enough I have to spend all my gold unlocking living seasons that you gave out for free earlier.

Why weren't you here when they were giving them for free?

[Voltage.8027]

2 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Those elements you desire cost money to produce. At least some were provided essentially for free (build/equipment templates were added for no additional cost to the player). Comaining that something that a company paid to produce isnt given out for free is ridiclous.

Our relationship with anet is producer and consumer. They make things hoping that I will buy them. I have money and hope they make things I want to buy. Any belief otherwise is delusional.

Associating personal pride in anyway on what you bought, and how, from a video game company

The dealership offers a version of the car I bought with additional features I do not care about...so I didnt buy them. It would be childish for me, or anyone, to complain that I did not get what I did not pay for. Next time, if I want the heated massage seats, I will buy them.

Bad analogy and not what OP is complaining about. Anet isn't selling a "heated massage seat", it's selling him a car that has the driver seat and 1 passenger seat unlocked but he has to pay to unlock each of the other 6 passenger seats. It's selling him a trunk at 50% capacity and is asking him to pay to unlock more capacity. That's what he's complaining about, the bank slots, equipment tab. He bought the game, two whole expansions, this sort of stuff looks really bad at a first glance, I think his complaint is valid. Also his last complaint is really important, living world needs to be bundled with the expansion purchase. There are always players,  new and old, saying they feel cheated after buying expansion and not having big parts of the story unlocked. It is guaranteed Anet will earn the hate of and lose tens of thousands of potential players this way.

[Norseman.4280]

Did you see the credits at the end of the last story? They had to pay all of those people, keep the power on, and everything all from players being required to spend money with them less times than the fingers on one hand over the course of 10 years.

And now, base game is free.

What we're getting is a steal. These games all used to have a monthly sub or you got jack. And some still do. And all of them, the extras are just that, extra. It costs gem store, or a sub. Heck other games have DLC's you have to buy 4x a year on top of expansions.

Nope. GW2 is the best deal, dollar for dollar, going around. Super cheap without being P2W.

[Labjax.2465]

Just now, Norseman.4280 said:

Did you see the credits at the end of the last story? They had to pay all of those people, keep the power on, and everything all from players being required to spend money with them less times than the fingers on one hand over the course of 10 years.

And now, base game is free.

What we're getting is a steal. These games all used to have a monthly sub or you got jack. And some still do. And all of them, the extras are just that, extra. It costs gem store, or a sub. Heck other games have DLC's you have to buy 4x a year on top of expansions.

Nope. GW2 is the best deal, dollar for dollar, going around. Super cheap without being P2W.

Most of the money goes to the people at the executive level and investors in this industry. Meanwhile, the actual devs tend to be paid less and worked harder than doing similar work in other industries, so you can quit with the "they have to get paiiiiid for it" rhetoric.

[Ashen.2907]

17 minutes ago, Voltage.8027 said:

Bad analogy and not what OP is complaining about. Anet isn't selling a "heated massage seat", it's selling him a car that has the driver seat and 1 passenger seat unlocked but he has to pay to unlock each of the other 6 passenger seats. It's selling him a trunk at 50% capacity and is asking him to pay to unlock more capacity. That's what he's complaining about, the bank slots, equipment tab. He bought the game, two whole expansions, this sort of stuff looks really bad at a first glance, I think his complaint is valid. Also his last complaint is really important, living world needs to be bundled with the expansion purchase. There are always players,  new and old, saying they feel cheated after buying expansion and not having big parts of the story unlocked. It is guaranteed Anet will earn the hate of and lose tens of thousands of potential players this way.

The game is fully functional without any of the items he mentions. Some of those items were added years after the expanion he mentions. He is asking that add-ons to a fully functional product be provided without paying for them. He paid for the loss leader and wants the products that the company makes money on for free.

The trunk you mention is at 100% capacity, he is asking for a trailer to be thrown into the deal for free.

 

The thing of it that I completely support any customer's expression that they do not consider a given purchase to meet their expectations of value for cost. That isnt what the OP did. He decided to lie about invented treatment and engaged in entitled whining.

Personally I am all for including LW with expansion purchases. I have commented to that effect previously. The Steam launch seems like a great time to take that step. Increasing the perceived value of those expansions by listing them as including X number of DLCs seems like a great way to repopulate those maps while increasing revenue....but, "I did not pay for X and the company didnt give it to me for free, so that shows they are mistreating me," is just childish, entitled, whining.

[Witch of Doom.5739]

How dare a business act like a business, and operate to stay in business!!  Shocked, I tell you.  I'm shocked!

[lowfatbacon.7985]

11 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Hey, guess what?  You can do your own subscription in GW2!  Just buy $20 worth of gems every month and then use those gems to buy the convenience items (or LS chapters!) that you want.

Exactly this. You can't complain about having to spend money on things and then in the same breath say that they should change their price model to force you to pay more money just to play.

 

The current system let's people choose how much or how little to pay. Yeah, I feel some of your frustrations with build slots and ESPECIALLY bank tabs. But I bought more on sale and as a player since launch I've definitely come out way ahead on money vs a $10-15 a month subscription. 

 

I've gone months without playing and not had to worry about cancelling a subscription to the pick it up again later.

[Naxos.2503]

6 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

Games have gotten endlessly more greedy over the years and this is just one example. GW2 gating QOL features behind store purchases made somewhat more sense when they were purely B2P: you purchase once and you own the game forever, no subscription fees. Now that there are expansion costs and living world costs, and it's technically "free to play," but also B2P, but not really?

It's this thing now where games "double dip" in whatever way they can. They hybridize models, so they can get the good PR of one model and the money of another.

The only way I tolerate it now is going in knowing full well what I'm dealing with, but even then, games still surprise me sometimes. Like this game and it's character bound equipment templates and bag slots, which is just nickel and diming. It could still be profitable with those slots being an account unlock, but that's not how the interests running this industry and others relating to things I can't talk about here works.

I wanted to jump back on this specifically to dispel the misconception you seem to be under : The game was not always free to play. Back when it was just the core game and heart of thorns, every player had to buy the game itself, and when Heart of thorns was released, that as well.

I dont know for you, but to me it seems like they make content freely accessible over time after they develop the next part of their game. Similarly, Heart of Thorns was made free if you were buying Path of Fire. That is yet another part they made free when Path of Fire was released. I'll equally draw attention to the fact that for literal years, they have been re-releasing living world seasons for free, periodically, to the point anyone investigating the game just a little bit can know that content will be made available to them down the line. That is ontop of Gems being exchangeable for gold, and thus the ability to unlock episodes for gold.

As far as the industry goes, that kind of move is -very- rare, and the opposite of greedy.

The only thing you can fault ANET on, is capitalizing on the success of mounts by releasing mountains of skins in a gacha style format, and even then, they provide means for you to pick and choose. At the end of the day, considering all the stuff they've made free to their playerbase over the year, money has to come in from Somewhere.

[Rogerjak.2864]

14 hours ago, Hartassen.9632 said:

I bought path of fire and heart of thorns but I still only have 1 bank tab, 2 equipment templates and 3 build templates. If I want any more I have to buy gems for real life money or grind endlessly in game.

Am I playing lost ark or something? I paid for the game and you're gating me out of quality of life features expecting me to pay even more for them?

If this is the way you treat your customers I'll never buy anything from you again. Because it's bad enough I have to spend all my gold unlocking living seasons that you gave out for free earlier.

I play since beta, pre-ordered the game, pre-order HoT, have all 3 expansions and I have 2 equipment templates and 3 build templates.

 

You are basically crying for not having the free stuff you want especifically

[Labjax.2465]

2 hours ago, Naxos.2503 said:

I wanted to jump back on this specifically to dispel the misconception you seem to be under : The game was not always free to play. Back when it was just the core game and heart of thorns, every player had to buy the game itself, and when Heart of thorns was released, that as well.

I dont know for you, but to me it seems like they make content freely accessible over time after they develop the next part of their game. Similarly, Heart of Thorns was made free if you were buying Path of Fire. That is yet another part they made free when Path of Fire was released. I'll equally draw attention to the fact that for literal years, they have been re-releasing living world seasons for free, periodically, to the point anyone investigating the game just a little bit can know that content will be made available to them down the line. That is ontop of Gems being exchangeable for gold, and thus the ability to unlock episodes for gold.

As far as the industry goes, that kind of move is -very- rare, and the opposite of greedy.

The only thing you can fault ANET on, is capitalizing on the success of mounts by releasing mountains of skins in a gacha style format, and even then, they provide means for you to pick and choose. At the end of the day, considering all the stuff they've made free to their playerbase over the year, money has to come in from Somewhere.

I'm not under any misconception. As I said, it made more sense when it was B2P and didn't have expansions and stacking LW costs, that QOL stuff was locked behind gem purchases.

Bundling expansions is not making stuff "free". That's just a sales tactic to get newer people to buy.

LW has never been "free." It was "free" to people who had bought the game and showed up when it was released. That is not free and I wish people would stop abusing the word free. A more accurate way to put it, would be that for players who had purchased the game and were playing when LW came out, it was not an additional DLC cost. A smart promotion to incentivize them to play the game consistently. Free is overstating it.

GW2 is not the only game to do a system where you can unlock some stuff without paying money by paying in opportunity cost (e.g. playing the game a huge amount and converting in-game coin to store currency). It's nothing novel and it's also not "the opposite of greedy." It's a way of making the model more appealing to people who play a lot, but can't spend much (ex: the unemployed). And in general, since it makes the stuff more in reach, it makes it more likely that people will engage with the store in general and thus more likely to spend if they do come into money, since they are already accustomed to seeking items in the store.

Yes, money has to come in from somewhere. Nowhere did I say they should give everything out without charging money anywhere. The point I made I thought was clear, but apparently not. I don't know how to make it more clear. Companies in this industry have a clear pattern of doing stuff that gives them good PR (looks "nice") but is part of a path that leads to more and more monetization over time. The mount thing you bring up is not a strange anomaly, but an unsurprising evolution of the overall practices. Sometimes these companies go too far too fast and people give a resounding NO and they have to backpeddle a little bit, and then when the controversy dies down, they go back to more and more monetization wherever possible.

And this is not meant to be ragging on GW2, it's the industry as a whole and relates to profit models where profits are expected to always be increasing.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Labjax.2465

[Vayne.8563]

16 hours ago, Hartassen.9632 said:

Calling bank tabs and building templates "company products" they are inside of the game, and were sold separately to make the game more money. Defending this practice is literally devoid of any sense of pride in yourself as anything other than a consumer.

As an option for not charging $15 a month, sure. Buy $15 a month worth of gems and get what you want over time. You get a subscription MMO and the rest of us are happy.

[Freya.9075]

2 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

I'm not under any misconception. As I said, it made more sense when it was B2P and didn't have expansions and stacking LW costs, that QOL stuff was locked behind gem purchases.

Bundling expansions is not making stuff "free". That's just a sales tactic to get newer people to buy.

LW has never been "free." It was "free" to people who had bought the game and showed up when it was released. That is not free and I wish people would stop abusing the word free. A more accurate way to put it, would be that for players who had purchased the game and were playing when LW came out, it was not an additional DLC cost. A smart promotion to incentivize them to play the game consistently. Free is overstating it.

GW2 is not the only game to do a system where you can unlock some stuff without paying money by paying in opportunity cost (e.g. playing the game a huge amount and converting in-game coin to store currency). It's nothing novel and it's also not "the opposite of greedy." It's a way of making the model more appealing to people who play a lot, but can't spend much (ex: the unemployed). And in general, since it makes the stuff more in reach, it makes it more likely that people will engage with the store in general and thus more likely to spend if they do come into money, since they are already accustomed to seeking items in the store.

Yes, money has to come in from somewhere. Nowhere did I say they should give everything out without charging money anywhere. The point I made I thought was clear, but apparently not. I don't know how to make it more clear. Companies in this industry have a clear pattern of doing stuff that gives them good PR (looks "nice") but is part of a path that leads to more and more monetization over time. The mount thing you bring up is not a strange anomaly, but an unsurprising evolution of the overall practices. Sometimes these companies go too far too fast and people give a resounding NO and they have to backpeddle a little bit, and then when the controversy dies down, they go back to more and more monetization wherever possible.

And this is not meant to be ragging on GW2, it's the industry as a whole and relates to profit models where profits are expected to always be increasing.

This seems like a weird post to me. So you’re saying when they added hot expansion to pof expansion they didn’t get hot for free when you had to pay double the amount before they did that? It’s basically a two for one price they didn’t make the price higher. That’s making hot expansion free. And living world did not only come out free when they released it. Not long ago they had an event before eod was released that also made all the episodes free on a weekly basis. Not paying for them = free. That’s not “abusing” the word free

[Labjax.2465]

5 minutes ago, Freya.9075 said:

This seems like a weird post to me. So you’re saying when they added hot expansion to pof expansion they didn’t get hot for free when you had to pay double the amount before they did that? It’s basically a two for one price they didn’t make the price higher. That’s making hot expansion free. And living world did not only come out free when they released it. Not long ago they had an event before eod was released that also made all the episodes free on a weekly basis. Not paying for them = free. That’s not “abusing” the word free

How is it free? You still have to pay for an expansion somewhere in there. It's like "buy one, get one free" deals. If you were already going to buy it in the quantity of the sale, then yes, you are saving some money (but notably, you are still spending some money). If you weren't, you are just losing money you would have kept otherwise. But psychologically, it's supposed to get you to skip over that reasoning entirely, fear missing out on something that's "free" and buy something you don't really need.

And yes, it is abusing the word free. But it's mostly the fault of marketing teams. Marketing abuses the everloving crap out of that word and way too many people go along with it.

[Freya.9075]

1 minute ago, Labjax.2465 said:

How is it free? You still have to pay for an expansion somewhere in there. It's like "buy one, get one free" deals. If you were already going to buy it in the quantity of the sale, then yes, you are saving some money (but notably, you are still spending some money). If you weren't, you are just losing money you would have kept otherwise. But psychologically, it's supposed to get you to skip over that reasoning entirely, fear missing out on something that's "free" and buy something you don't really need.

And yes, it is abusing the word free. But it's mostly the fault of marketing teams. Marketing abuses the everloving crap out of that word and way too many people go along with it.

If ppl want to buy gw2 they will no matter what. If it was two for one or separately. They wouldn’t buy it if they were not planning to. It’s not like gw2 market their game well. If it was buy 2 get the third for free it would be different cause that could make ppl want to buy more then they initially wanted to. The way anet does this makes it free since it’s not misleading or making ppl want to buy their product cause they think omg two for one I have to have this!!  

[Labjax.2465]

1 minute ago, Freya.9075 said:

If ppl want to buy gw2 they will no matter what. If it was two for one or separately. They wouldn’t buy it if they were not planning to. It’s not like gw2 market their game well. If it was buy 2 get the third for free it would be different cause that could make ppl want to buy more then they initially wanted to. The way anet does this makes it free since it’s not misleading or making ppl want to buy their product cause they think omg two for one I have to have this!!  

Omg, I was just using the "buy one, get one free" example as something kind of like a bundle deal expansion. Whether they were going to buy it or not, it's still not free. It's not free when you have to spend money. That's the point.

[Friday.7864]

17 hours ago, Hartassen.9632 said:

I bought path of fire and heart of thorns but I still only have 1 bank tab, 2 equipment templates and 3 build templates. If I want any more I have to buy gems for real life money or grind endlessly in game.

Am I playing lost ark or something? I paid for the game and you're gating me out of quality of life features expecting me to pay even more for them?

If this is the way you treat your customers I'll never buy anything from you again. Because it's bad enough I have to spend all my gold unlocking living seasons that you gave out for free earlier.

If you were playing Lost Ark you'd spend $5k+ to enhance ONE weapon.

 

[Fuchslein.8639]

But for sub-mmo's you also have to buy the game+expansions AND most sub-mmos also have a cashshop.

So isn't is way less money you spend, when you just buy the convience YOU want(because thats another thing, you can't decide what these mmos give you) and then can play whitout spending money, just for playing?

This thread and mindset is so weird for me. You rather spend money for a monthly subscription for a bit convienence? When i think about it, how long some players, me includet play this game already(speaking of years) this is SO MUCH money. I'm a cheap girl, i buy or grind the things i want and then decide myself how much i want to play the game. And don't let me direct from a sub-fee because i spent money this month just so i can enter the game, better play, because you spent money, don't want to waste it. PLAY!!

[Zeph.5927]

It is pretty bad when a Buy to Play game doesn’t give you a reasonable amount of storage or bag slots, that’s for sure. Anet has a bad habit of monetizing the game in ways that are generally reserved for the likes of F2P games. It’s something that’s always irritated me, especially when I go to make a new character and have almost no bag slots available on that character that I then have to waste a ton of gold on or spend real world money on.

Don’t get me wrong, I love playing the game, but some of Anet’s monetization decisions are pretty bad from a consumer perspective.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Zeph.5927

[Zeph.5927]

2 hours ago, Friday.7864 said:

If you were playing Lost Ark you'd spend $5k+ to enhance ONE weapon.

 

You’re using a game that is literally pay to win as an example…