Optional Sub Fee

[Bollocks.4078]

This sounds to me like a scheme to circumvent gemstore prices.  How many skins could you get in 1 month?  What would the sub fee cost?  Could someone do 1 month and get 100s of gemstore skins for like 20 bucks?  Why would anyone pay the sub fee for years and years?  Wouldn't most people just subscribe for a month or a few months, grind through whatever content for the skins they want and then cancel the sub?  How does that even remotely work for ANET?

 

GW2 is a non-sub game.  No matter how you try to spin it any kind of subscription doesn't make sense for this game.

[notebene.3190]

First 3-4 years of the game I used to buy $10/mo in gems and was able to start buy bag expansions, character slots, bank slots, passes and cosmetics pretty quickly.

I stopped doing that and switched to dropping $100 once a year or so, but I can mostly convert gold to gem at this point.

So that's kinda like an optional sub?

[ASP.8093]

1 hour ago, Southerncarl.2740 said:

With the Sub fee it would mean all the purely cosmetic gem store items (weapon skins, mount skins etc) would be unlockable in the game world from doing things like quests, dungeons, completing world bosses, completing story chapters, zone completion, world events, completing jump puzzles etc.

The thing you're proposing would create a constant drip of "I don't like this month's subscription freebie!!" and "I don't like the way this month's subscription freebie is unlocked!!" for the devs to deal with.

[kharmin.7683]

Did we really need yet another thread on this topic that so many simply do not want?  Please use the forums search function.

OP, if you want a sub fee, then you can already do this all on your own!  Just pay ANet $15-35 every month (your choice even!) and you'll get gems that you can use to purchase whatever you want from the gem store.  There is no need to force a subscription model on everyone else.

[Southerncarl.2740]

7 minutes ago, Bollocks.4078 said:

This sounds to me like a scheme to circumvent gemstore prices.  How many skins could you get in 1 month?  What would the sub fee cost?  Could someone do 1 month and get 100s of gemstore skins for like 20 bucks?  Why would anyone pay the sub fee for years and years?  Wouldn't most people just subscribe for a month or a few months, grind through whatever content for the skins they want and then cancel the sub?  How does that even remotely work for ANET?

 

GW2 is a non-sub game.  No matter how you try to spin it any kind of subscription doesn't make sense for this game.

You could unlock a lot of skins in 1 month but an easy fix is make it so if you unsub the skins you got aren't useable so its a balance between having access to a lot of skins that are unlockable quickly but paying to stay subbed or doing it the way it is now which is a slower grind of converting gold to gems or real world money(fast way) but you get to use the skins without being subbed.

[Tukaram.8256]

We have an optional sub fee already - buy gems, get your stuff, pretend it is a sub.  

No. GW 1 & 2 have never had sub fees and it would be suicide to add a monthly fee to a 10 year old game.  They system in place works fine. 

[Southerncarl.2740]

2 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Did we really need yet another thread on this topic that so many simply do not want?  Please use the forums search function.

OP, if you want a sub fee, then you can already do this all on your own!  Just pay ANet $15-35 every month (your choice even!) and you'll get gems that you can use to purchase whatever you want from the gem store.  There is no need to force a subscription model on everyone else.

It's not forcing it on anyone. Game is exactly the same apart from there's an option to sub for people who want it. Those who don't. Dont sub.

[Danikat.8537]

3 minutes ago, Southerncarl.2740 said:

So I was thinking it would be specific content for specific skins so you would have to go do that content to get the skin. 

What happens when someone pays the sub fee, then finds out a skin they want comes from something they don't want to do, or physically cannot do? Are they just out of luck, or as a paying customer should they expect Anet to tailor the service they're paying for to their needs?

The second one sounds impractical for Anet (and would be open to abuse, it would be too easy for someone to claim they can only complete the simplest parts of the game, get all the rewards stacked in there and then quickly grind it) but the first one sounds like an almost guaranteed bad deal for players, because unless you're ok with doing literally everything in the game including placing in PvP tournaments, completing WvW skirmish rewards, completing all the story instances and extra achievements and so on there's going to be something you cannot or do not want to do, and then you're effectively paying for rewards you cannot access.
 

1 minute ago, Bollocks.4078 said:

This sounds to me like a scheme to circumvent gemstore prices.  How many skins could you get in 1 month?  What would the sub fee cost?  Could someone do 1 month and get 100s of gemstore skins for like 20 bucks?  Why would anyone pay the sub fee for years and years?  Wouldn't most people just subscribe for a month or a few months, grind through whatever content for the skins they want and then cancel the sub?  How does that even remotely work for ANET?

 

GW2 is a non-sub game.  No matter how you try to spin it any kind of subscription doesn't make sense for this game.

I was thinking that as well. If it's literally just you pay for subscription time and while it's active everything in the gem store is moved to in-game rewards it would be very, very easy to exploit (except for the limitations I mentioned above).

A lot of players could probably work their way through every jumping puzzle, dungeon, Fractal, world boss etc. within 1 month, then they've got everything currently available and can cancel their subscription until it's all updated with new items.

If they time-gated it so you can only get a few items per month that becomes a lot less appealing to players, especially if you can just buy the same items directly using the same money you'd use to pay for a subscription.
 

Just now, Southerncarl.2740 said:

You could unlock a lot of skins in 1 month but an easy fix is make it so if you unsub the skins you got aren't useable so its a balance between having access to a lot of skins that are unlockable quickly but paying to stay subbed or doing it the way it is now which is a slower grind of converting gold to gems or real world money(fast way) but you get to use the skins without being subbed.

So you're paying the same money other people pay to buy these items, but you have to go through a whole process to unlock them and then only get to rent them for as long as you keep on paying? That sounds like a lot of downsides for players with no benefits to balance it out.

At first glance it doesn't sound as terrible as the "optional" subscription threads we normally get (which are usually either just an overly complicated way to buy gems or asking for absurd advantages over non-subscribers), but I'm not convinced there's a way to do it which is fair to both players and Anet.

[kharmin.7683]

Just now, Southerncarl.2740 said:

It's not forcing it on anyone. Game is exactly the same apart from there's an option to sub for people who want it. Those who don't. Dont sub.

Then, as has been stated here and in countless other threads on this topic, go ahead and purchase gems monthly on your own.  Make your own sub fee.

Your proposal may not seem that it's forcing a subscription, but to gain the benefits as proposed many players would feel obligated to do so.  There are already enough cries/whines about GW2 being P2W (which it isn't). 

[Omega.6801]

No.

[DarcShriek.5829]

There already is an optional sub fee.  It's called the gem store.  

[Linken.6345]

21 minutes ago, Southerncarl.2740 said:

It's not forcing it on anyone. Game is exactly the same apart from there's an option to sub for people who want it. Those who don't. Dont sub.

Except you expect Anet to invent a renting system for skins that they dont have atm.

Once a skin is unlocked you cant relock it as it stands now.

You then expect them to tie skins as rewards for content all over the game, see how that worked for legendary crafting how many bugged events do we have items locked behind?

After all that work they have to continue to the effort with every new skin released aswell so its not a 1 and done deal.

And you expect them to do all of this for less then you buy the skins for so man hours ( both making the item, placing it in the world and inventing a new system) cost nothing in your world?

[SJWhat.9237]

No. The no subscription model is one of the defining features of Guild Wars 2, and Guild Wars 1 for that matter. I thank Anet for it. You are never pressured to pay for anything or to play for extended periods, and if there is something you want out of the Gemstore then you can convert gold to gems. A lot of online games out there don't offer the option to convert currency. The only thing I would recommend Anet do is maybe switch up login rewards, although some people like the static reward list.

[Ashantara.8731]

2 hours ago, Southerncarl.2740 said:

Would people be happy to have an optional monthly sub fee for players that would like to unlock store items within the world of the game and not purchase from the cash shop(using either real money or transferring gold to gems)

No.

I enjoy in-game rewards, so yes to more of them. Regardless, the system we have allows me to choose which items I want to spend money on. Your method would also remove the option to play for free if people are currently short on money.

I don't see any benefit to that.

[yoni.7015]

4 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

Your method would also remove the option to play for free if people are currently short on money.

To be fair, this is not true. OP is suggesting an optional subscription, there would still be the option  to play for free. 

[Ashantara.8731]

2 minutes ago, yoni.7015 said:

To be fair, this is not true. OP is suggesting an optional subscription, there would still be the option  to play for free. 

...with people who aren't making use of that option, for whatever reason, being barred out of specific content/rewards? Hmm, that doesn't sound good, either.

[yoni.7015]

2 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

...with people who aren't making use of that option, for whatever reason, being barred out of specific content/rewards? Hmm, that doesn't sound good, either.

But it would not remove the option to play for free. You said it would and that is not true.
You can disagree with the suggestion, I disagree with it, but it is not helpful to make stuff up. OP suggested an optional (!) subscription fee. It’s even in the title. 

Edited September 7, 2022 by yoni.7015

[DexterousGecko.6328]

The real answer is that they make more money NOT having a sub. End of story. "free" to play games almost always cost more than pay to play games.

[Southerncarl.2740]

5 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

...with people who aren't making use of that option, for whatever reason, being barred out of specific content/rewards? Hmm, that doesn't sound good, either.

Nah no content is barred from anyone. Just for the sub fee people the skins drop in the game but for free people they are still on the store as they are now. They can get them the same way they do now(gems or cash). 

It just means as a sub player you can unlock more of the skins faster but you are tied into a sub to use them.

[Randulf.7614]

A sub - even optional - would likely kill the game stone dead almost immediately. It would send a message that the game is no longer built on the foundations it once was. Even optional people would look unfavourably on it.

Luckily this discussion has been done so many times, even Anet have come out on more than one occasion to say they aren’t going to do this.

Subs are nothing more than barriers and never equate equally with better content or less reliance on in game stores

[Danikat.8537]

9 minutes ago, DexterousGecko.6328 said:

The real answer is that they make more money NOT having a sub. End of story. "free" to play games almost always cost more than pay to play games.

But it's the players choice to spend that money.

I know whenever I've worked it out GW2 is cheaper for me. I add up all the gems I've bought with real money across a year, divide it by 12 and it comes to less than a subscription would cost, and I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything by not buying cosmetics I don't like. One year I spent nothing at all and I was still able to keep playing, including playing new releases as they came out (luckily that wasn't an expansion year).

I'm sure some players do spend more than they would on a subscription, but they don't have to if they don't want to.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Danikat.8537

[Blude.6812]

3 hours ago, Southerncarl.2740 said:

Would people be happy to have an optional monthly sub fee for players that would like to unlock store items within the world of the game and not purchase from the cash shop(using either real money or transferring gold to gems)

With the Sub fee it would mean all the purely cosmetic gem store items (weapon skins, mount skins etc) would be unlockable in the game world from doing things like quests, dungeons, completing world bosses, completing story chapters, zone completion, world events, completing jump puzzles etc. An example would be if you completed a certain jump puzzle you would get a mount skin as a reward or a glider skin that would usually be on the store for non subbed players. It wouldn't be rng like the wow loot system it would just mean specific quests or things to be done in the game would drop specific rewards that are usually on the store.

For players that didn't want to sub the game would stay exactly as it is now and they can attain the items by transferring gold to gems or using real money to buy it. Purely an optional sub fee would people be ok with this and would you use it?

Not this again!! Sad to revisit a topic that has been discussed multiple times and mostly rejected.  It's all foam, no beer. BTW there is a search option in the forums.

 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Blude.6812

[Valisha.8650]

I do think a battle pass would be a preferable option over a pointless p2w subscription.

[Dawdler.8521]

14 minutes ago, Danikat.8537 said:

But it's the players choice to spend that money.

I know whenever I've worked it out GW2 is cheaper for me. I add up all the gems I've bought with real money across a year, divide it by 12 and it comes to less than a subscription would cost, and I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything by not buying cosmetics I don't like. One year I spent nothing at all and I was still able to keep playing, including playing new releases as they came out (luckily that wasn't an expansion year).

I'm sure some players do spend more than they would on a subscription, but they don't have to if they don't want to.

Subscription isnt really about the price.

Its about the fear of missing out on the value by not logging on all the time and the fear of being cut off from that value if you want to stop. 

Subscription is preying on your basic human emotions.

I reject that.

 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Dawdler.8521

[TheQuickFox.3826]

Bad idea. The risk is too great that those without optional subscription will be set on a disadvantage in the future.

The core of the marketing of the original game was focused on offering a fully-featured MMORPG without timely fees. Ever.