What’re we losing with no sub?

[Vayne.8563]

On 8/4/2022 at 8:35 AM, DexterousGecko.6328 said:

 

most? no, the whales probably spend 80%. As for "infecting everything", how many mount skins are unlockable by playing? How often do you see mounts? How many quality of life items are locked behind the cash shop/black lion chests?

Tons of skins are unlocked by playing.  Armor and weapon skins mostly.  Let's compare it to WOW.

 

I buy Guild Wars 2 and WoW on the same day. I get a free month with WOW.  1 month into my game, I keep playing Guild Wars 2.  I can't keep playing WoW because I have to pony up $15.   Right there, even with what you're saying I can keep playing this game. A mount skin doesn't affect by ability to play the game. I can play the game, straight up, with the mount skins they give me and yes, I can even farm gold if I have no money to get a mount skin, though admittedly it's a lot of farming. Still I know people who makes that their game. Playing and farming so they don't have to spend a penny in the cash shop.

 

People without a steady income or who live in areas where the exchange rate sucks can't play a sub game at all, not even a little. However, if you buy $15 with of gems every month, you can do quite well with getting cash shop items, so that over the course of time you'll have what you need and can start buying what you want.

 

With a sub game, you can't really do that, because you never stop paying that sub, whether you have the money or you don't have the money.  

 

A lot of people in WOW feel they have to do dailies, farm rep, try out festivals. But they have to pay that $15 every time. $180 a year each year every year...or not play at all. Your argument is that not having the mount skin you want, which you can farm gold for, is somehow worse. I'm not sure I understand that logic.

Edited August 5, 2022 by Vayne.8563
wrong word

[Shena Fu.5792]

Everything "locked" behind gem store can be acquired by farming for gold.

The only things that must be paid with real cash are expansions. Nevertheless, everyone gets new (living world) content for free, when they are initially released. Otherwise again farm gold to buy locked episodes.

Black lion keys can be acquired many ways just by playing the game. Weekly level 10 story. If desperate, repeat level 40 and level 60 stories (no restrictions, time consuming.) Map completion also has a chance to drop a key.

Imagine paying monthly just to keep an extra bank tab. yeah those devs are really "generous". LOL sounds more like a racket. holding your bank access and items hostage unless you fork over month after month.

[JTGuevara.9018]

2 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

Incidentally, this was the main argument behind the F2P model when it was first being pushed in the industry. The argument went something like: due to economic downturn, people having less to spend, we are struggling to fund this stuff with a sub, so we fund the game with the money of those who can spend and the ones who can't spend fill out the population numbers.

This was very cleverly presented, though as it panned out in reality, it turned out some "whales" (big spenders) were just people vulnerable to predatory monetization, not actually rich people, and many a game that could have done truly optional extras for money with the bulk of the game free instead made an aggrandized free trial for free that pressured you to spend (SWTOR's "F2P" option is a good example of this awfulness). Also because of elitism in our culture, you started seeing this thing of people who talked down to anyone who was F2P and unsatisfied as being entitled, and just a lot more rhetoric in general about people being "entitled." Now the rhetoric in video games has devolved to such a point you could be a person who just dropped thousands on a game and you'd still get people telling you you're being entitled to complain about the product you got.

Idk what my point here is, other than to talk about some history of it. I think I had one, but I forgot lol.

Yes. When I was younger, I used to complain about "whales". I was dead wrong. It turns out that I should've instead focused on the company ship and its associated harpoons (to use an analogy). The game industry is predatory by design and not the least of which being generally pretty unregulated in terms of business practices and the ignorance of politicians with respect to technology.

And I have to say, although "free-to-play" is better than a straight up subscription (which is just price-gouging without the pretense), people should NOT be cheering it. It's essentially cheapening out and taking shortcuts on quality as well as price-gouging, even in its mild form like in gw2. And yes, I'd be pissed as a customer if I coughed up loads of money and I did not get a good service. That's called getting swindled.

 

[Sunchaser.9854]

Theoretically i think the idea is if there was a paid sub fee, it'd be a magical sub fee that'd release all cosmetics, remove the gem shop and give everything out for free. maybe have more unlockable achievements.

 

In practice, gw2 has a tendency to do it's own thing, but in other fields. The only two mmorpgs that can support a sub fee successfully are already established juggernauts, WoW and FF14, for brand recognition and gameplay aside, can justify 15$ since so many people are there, people will pay to join it. even if they rp in a house. 

 

From what i think, sub games incentivize you to pay and a strong attitude towards completing stuff as fast as possible and "no lifing" 24/7 so to speak, to unlock stuff while it's still relevant before it washes away.

 

Like a sandcastle that only will last for 3 weeks before being washed away. You can work 2 weeks and enjoy it that whole time, or you can unlock it for free the later weeks but it'll wash away the next day. 

 

It encourages a philosophy meant to encourage monthly updates and server costs, hence the sub fees, But still typically includes cosmetics as well. It still is a annoyance you don't get transmogs / trasmutation charges for armors by default. But if you run your weekly lvl 10 alt (yay stuff you'd only find out by being told), you can unlock the ability to change your appearances like, 1-4x items a week If you want to use statues on that.

 

They also drop from achievement point chests. So they're good to use on endgame armor but not leveling armor, which dyes are good for. 

[The Greyhawk.9107]

Oh, one of these threads again.  Yippee.

I say here what I've said in every other one of these, if they were to add a sub to this game I'd quit.  If this game had started with a sub, I never would have bothered playing it in the first place.  Whatever has allegedly been "Lost" due to there having never been a sub I just couldn't give two shits about.

[Zok.4956]

12 hours ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

And I have to say, although "free-to-play" is better than a straight up subscription (which is just price-gouging without the pretense), people should NOT be cheering it. It's essentially cheapening out and taking shortcuts on quality as well as price-gouging, even in its mild form like in gw2.

GW2 has no subscription but is not F2P. GW2 is B2P (you had/have to buy Core-Game/Expansions). Only a limited version of the core game (and maybe season 1, 2?) became F2P as some form of a free game trial.

[Borked.6824]

12 hours ago, Shena Fu.5792 said:

Everything "locked" behind gem store can be acquired by farming for gold.

It can be, but you can't say with a straight face that it isn't designed to encourage (putting it lightly) people to skip the farming and swipe.  Yes you CAN farm 500k gold for a few mounts you want from the gem store, but you WON'T.  You won't. Because you know what 500k looks like.  Months of time.  

As some have alluded to already, a sub fee gives players confidence that almost everything they want in the game can be practically acquired by in-game means, without predatory manipulation.  And point me in the direction of whatever kitten needs kicking to get that implemented here, because the fact that I have to exist around delusional people that think the store model is superior is cringe enough rather than actually experiencing it.

[Danikat.8537]

23 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

GW2 has no subscription but is not F2P. GW2 is B2P (you had/have to buy Core-Game/Expansions). Only a limited version of the core game (and maybe season 1, 2?) became F2P as some form of a free game trial.

Free accounts get season 1, but they only get season 2 if they logged in when it was available as part of the 'return to' promotion when living world episodes were all given away for free. (They couldn't get it when it was first available because free accounts didn't exist back then.) They could get the later seasons unlocked when they were released or with the return to promo as well, but of course can't play them without the relevant expansion.

[kharmin.7683]

2 hours ago, Borked.6824 said:

It can be, but you can't say with a straight face that it isn't designed to encourage (putting it lightly) people to skip the farming and swipe.  Yes you CAN farm 500k gold for a few mounts you want from the gem store, but you WON'T.  You won't. Because you know what 500k looks like.  Months of time.  

As some have alluded to already, a sub fee gives players confidence that almost everything they want in the game can be practically acquired by in-game means, without predatory manipulation.  And point me in the direction of whatever kitten needs kicking to get that implemented here, because the fact that I have to exist around delusional people that think the store model is superior is cringe enough rather than actually experiencing it.

(sigh)   Again.  You can make your own subscription if you don't like the farm for gold to convert to gems process.  Just pay Anet every month and get gems.  Then you can buy whatever you want from the store.

 

EDIT: Not sure what's confusing about this point.

Edited August 5, 2022 by kharmin.7683

[Sunchaser.9854]

Wow has sub fees and still sells 25$ mount skins. Sure there's only one 'mount type' which is the like 300% walk speed flying mount that is already so old with wow players its more memorable to record the mount failing to render and a"swimming through air glitch" (being mounted but not having it render.) 

 

But that's as noted why I find the sky scale a boring mount because it's a discount experience of a wow mount with energy bars, needs to land every 15 seconds vs minutes. and is more ground based for a 'flyer' but I'm highly aware that's personal taste and people like a mount they can get on, press shift two times and fly towards a short hill that can't be crashed with or require more than two buttons pressed within a couple seconds to use. So a mount that can moves with just W and shift is great for them. I had 10 years to get bored of flying to the skybox without physics on the wow drake.

 

Believe it or not, I enjoy Griffin BECAUSE it has physics. Not because it swims through the air uneventfully like a paper airplane hmm. But as far as sub fees go. Usually there's a lot of free skins to fill up the sub time, though some with like 4 year long rng like the infamous 1% droprate of world's invincible the bonemare. And shop pets as well. I remember there was one wow pet I wanted but it was 10-20$ and while it was at first for charity I think some of the later ones were like 10-25$ or in 75$ cat bundles. I'd rather spend it on a real creature over a virtual one though. 

 

[Zok.4956]

20 minutes ago, Borked.6824 said:

As some have alluded to already, a sub fee gives players confidence that almost everything they want in the game can be practically acquired by in-game means, without predatory manipulation.

Every game tries to manipulate people/players to buy items/service/time because this is how the game company makes money. No payment model is better or worse in this regard. The manipulations are just different.

Just an example: A pure subscription game has time gates. You could get everything in game with low effort and daylies, but it would probably take weeks or months to do it. Or: You can not put your subscription on halt/pause without losing progress (house, land, other items you have achieved) so you have to continue paying your subscription even if you take a break from the game.

How predatory the manipulations are depends on the game company, but not on the payment model.

 

[Gibson.4036]

We're losing the pressure to log in to justify to ourselves that we're paying the sub.

1 hour ago, Sunchaser.9854 said:

Believe it or not, I enjoy Griffin BECAUSE it has physics. Not because it swims through the air uneventfully like a paper airplane hmm. 

Truly astounding. Is there a thread that you can't turn into a gryphon advert?

[Ashen.2907]

1 hour ago, Borked.6824 said:

Yes you CAN farm 500k gold for a few mounts you want from the gem store, but you WON'T.  You won't. Because you know what 500k looks like.  Months of time.  

Do you inflate your numbers by orders of magnitude for every point you are trying to make or is this the only example of such?

[Sunchaser.9854]

It's actually kinda ironic. Most sub games still have microtransactions for their mount skins, but yeah gw2 only provides a dye system for some base mounts. Still. the sheer irony of people saying it'd be more oppressive to pay 180$ a year + 60$ a expac than buy a purely optional 20$ mount skin that has no gameplay effects is a bit of a Grass is greener deal.

Maybe FF14 is better, but i mean there's hundreds of gamers who advocate for a f2p cosmetic funded shop game. I can't really deny Gw2 doesn't really give the best value at 20$ for a skin that you can't even buy any time you want or in masse...

If i've learned anything from our Gacha game's 3k-8k USD spenders, some of them who were literally 0$ spenders before. it's that most people with those types of spending habits in our games either want prestige or recognition / (highly visible ingame leaderboards that appear in the spawn area each login), But those same people don't want to invest money over time, or have skill or knowledge requirements that gate them from spending. It's probably a horrible model for the players though, since the monetization can quickly overtake a game from a game [made to be fun], VS  a game [made solely to make money.] 

But it still seems odd. If you want to sell cosmetics. Why do they make so you can't purchase most of the ones you want most times? Sure there's probably (maybe?) market research, but i don't see why whales would want to wait for a unannounced date to buy a mount skin. 

Even if you want to spend money, there's not really anything in the shop i care about, but if there some skins you could purchase anytime, like maybe some of the fox or white tigris ones (cooler models). i think i'd be more likely to make a impulse purchase. IF i could buy it anytime i wanted to. Hmm.

Caveman: Why ook can't spend money whenever i want OOK. 

[disco.9302]

On 8/3/2022 at 9:47 PM, lezbefriends.7516 said:

Obviously you get what you pay for so sacrifices have to be made to keep this game “free” for a majority of players.

 

I’ve played the 2 juggernaut sub games and an optional-sub mmo. I’ve played GW2 since Beta.

 

What I’ve learned is that sub affords true endgame raiding and dungeon content with hard trinity—the true AAA MMORPG experience.

 

Less obvious advantages to the sub are free armor appearance changes and new races/mounts with each expansion.

 

Just what are we gaining/losing to keep this game sub-free? Is it worth it?

You're talking about a game which for nearly 10 years has been one of the major non-sub MMOs. One of its selling points is that it's for casuals. I for one factored the lack of sub as one of the things which led me to pick gw2 (amongst many factors).

Maybe I'm a minority but I would not be playing if there had been a sub.

Sub games give you a feeling that you should be logging in very regularly and if you're not you'd be missing out and wasting your investment. I've played a few titles like that and it's not been to my taste.

having the choice to pay for gems rather than a mandatory sub feels better and is more suitable for the casual crowd gw2 is aimed at.

[Strider Pj.2193]

9 minutes ago, disco.9302 said:

You're talking about a game which for nearly 10 years has been one of the major non-sub MMOs. One of its selling points is that it's for casuals. I for one factored the lack of sub as one of the things which led me to pick gw2 (amongst many factors).

Maybe I'm a minority but I would not be playing if there had been a sub.

Sub games give you a feeling that you should be logging in very regularly and if you're not you'd be missing out and wasting your investment. I've played a few titles like that and it's not been to my taste.

having the choice to pay for gems rather than a mandatory sub feels better and is more suitable for the casual crowd gw2 is aimed at.

I would venture a guess (and yes it is a guess) that you are not in the minority on this game, but are in the gaming community.  And, like you, I am very OK with this.  Let the sub games fight for the subs while we enjoy our game.  

[Firebeard.1746]

On 8/3/2022 at 1:47 PM, lezbefriends.7516 said:

Obviously you get what you pay for so sacrifices have to be made to keep this game “free” for a majority of players.

 

I’ve played the 2 juggernaut sub games and an optional-sub mmo. I’ve played GW2 since Beta.

 

What I’ve learned is that sub affords true endgame raiding and dungeon content with hard trinity—the true AAA MMORPG experience.

 

Less obvious advantages to the sub are free armor appearance changes and new races/mounts with each expansion.

 

Just what are we gaining/losing to keep this game sub-free? Is it worth it?

 

The focus in gw2 has rarely, if ever been on instanced content alone. When i dabbled in HoT and started playing in earnest in'19, the major focus has been on map releases. And the maps are far more engaging than say WoW. So it's not really an apples to apples comparison to solely compare one game mode type.

 

Also, the content lifecycle is largely different. to me gw2 is permanent quantity, but at a  slower pace, whereas WoW basically invalidates all specific mechanics you've earned in maps like nazjatar and all the learning you did in previous dungeons every expansion. 

 

Right now, i prefer gw2. I like being able to play a variety of activities and still get decent rewards. Usually the new stuff is better, but even though i've been much busier lately, i've enjoyed bouncing between different content in gw2. 

 

So to me, a sub doesn't really win anything. I do spend money on the shop because i appreciate Anet's work for the most part (DE meta had me feeling raw, but rumor is it's less punishing now). 

 

I also like being able to just step back into the game at will. A sub is an artificial barrier between players and their hard work. 

[Shadowmoon.7986]

I would I like to think if this game had a sub fee, anet would actually try to make good quality content that has staying power. Everything right now feel very pump and dump, get people to log in and buy gems and then abandon the content. And the worse example is it appears they are back making a new project using unreal 5 like back in 2019, showing once again they are not committed to this game, just extract all the gems they can prior to the game.

[mythical.6315]

On 8/4/2022 at 3:55 PM, Vayne.8563 said:

Tons of skins are unlocked by playing.  Armor and weapon skins mostly.  Let's compare it to WOW.

Look at all of the skins released after GW2 launched. What percentage were obtainable in game?  What percentage from the gem store?

 

Thats just weapons and armor. The poster was indeed correct that almost everything else is only obtainable through the gem store. 

[Sunchaser.9854]

If anyone wants to relive the sub experience, while hillariously missing the point. You can force yourself to mandatedly spend 15$ on the game each month, if you fail, you have to unsubscribe and be unable to play the game until the next time you pay 15$ a month. No dungeons, no chatting with friends, just log out, unsub. 

 

Sure i wish there were a couple more free skins.. and i don't get why haircuts have to be currency ground.. and i kinda miss transmutation charges. well, being near free to change anytime but. It's more the hate of nickle and diming.

 

As with like unlimited phonecall plans, people will often spend more on a 50$ a month unlimited data plan they'll never use that might add up to like 600$ a year for a phone they use for like 5 calls a year. Meanwhile, if you charge a person 83$ for the same 5 calls in a single bill, it feels like a huge ripoff. 

[Shena Fu.5792]

13 hours ago, Borked.6824 said:

It can be, but you can't say with a straight face that it isn't designed to encourage (putting it lightly) people to skip the farming and swipe.  Yes you CAN farm 500k gold for a few mounts you want from the gem store, but you WON'T.

hyperbole doesn't prove your argument.

 

the main reason skins are gem stores purchases because quests and achievements to unlock skins takes long time to create and test. but many many skins can be created by artists, and be available immediately for the buyer to choose. this is preferable to releasing skins at a snail's pace.

 

so other games don't require months long farming the same raids just to get a skin? you'll still be farming in those games anyway.

 

GW2 in-game skin collections also requires ridiculous amounts of time and effort to unlock. it's just a skin that has little effect on game play. whether you swipe or farm, it's all in your mind how you feel. gem store is just another "vendor".

 

if you value your time and find farming tedious, you should be grateful for an alternative method for acquiring skins instead.

[Vayne.8563]

2 hours ago, mythical.6315 said:

Look at all of the skins released after GW2 launched. What percentage were obtainable in game?  What percentage from the gem store?

 

Thats just weapons and armor. The poster was indeed correct that almost everything else is only obtainable through the gem store. 

Factually wrong, particularly with armor.  Look at the number of skins sold in the gem store. They sell predominantly outfits in the gem store. Very few actual armor skins. You know outfits, no mix and match. Nothing to do with fashion wars. The vast majority of armor sets and I'll repeat that, VAST majority, are all in the game.

Weapons are different, but there are tons of weapon sets in the game as well, That said, most of the weapon sets that were introduced, you can get for 30-40 gold per way, it's hardly like buying a precursor. They may start off in the black lion chest but they filter down to the trading post. I've bought a ton of them.

 

I virtually get none of my weapons or armor from the gem store, so no idea what you're talking about.

[Bast.7253]

I'm not sure about a sub but to me, it feels as though this game has gotten less and less content each year. Less development, less creativity, less passion, less support. 

I really have to question any veteran player's judgment if they think the state of the current game or the state over the past couple of years is an improvement or even on par with what the studio has produced in the past. I'm sure you'll have people praising them for increased communication as well but what's really being said? A graphic of what used to be a living story sized content patch spaced out over the course of 4 months? A festival tossed in as if they've gotten any improvements beyond tossing in one or two new armor skins? 

If a sub meant this game getting resources funneled back into it and it felt less like maintenance mode, with qol updates and profession updates more than twice a year I might consider it. As it is now it feels like they have maybe 10 people working in the whole studio. 
 

[Labjax.2465]

24 minutes ago, Bast.7253 said:

I'm not sure about a sub but to me, it feels as though this game has gotten less and less content each year. Less development, less creativity, less passion, less support. 

I really have to question any veteran player's judgment if they think the state of the current game or the state over the past couple of years is an improvement or even on par with what the studio has produced in the past. I'm sure you'll have people praising them for increased communication as well but what's really being said? A graphic of what used to be a living story sized content patch spaced out over the course of 4 months? A festival tossed in as if they've gotten any improvements beyond tossing in one or two new armor skins? 

If a sub meant this game getting resources funneled back into it and it felt less like maintenance mode, with qol updates and profession updates more than twice a year I might consider it. As it is now it feels like they have maybe 10 people working in the whole studio. 
 

The 2019 layoffs prob hit them hard and left them with a lot less resources to put into this game, much less any other. Company execs being boneheaded as usual, dropping important people like they are statistics.

[mythical.6315]

2 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Factually wrong, particularly with armor.  Look at the number of skins sold in the gem store. They sell predominantly outfits in the gem store. Very few actual armor skins. You know outfits, no mix and match. Nothing to do with fashion wars. The vast majority of armor sets and I'll repeat that, VAST majority, are all in the game.

Whether forced as a set through an outfit or as a set through armor skins, it matters not.