Are exp boosters coming in the future to the crown store ?!

Khaldar

An XP booster still means you have to play the game. If the XP booster is 10%, then a person would save 24 mins per Champion point without enlightenment or 60 mins with a 25% xp boost. That is nothing to get all raged up about. Save your energy for something else... sheesh. Now if you could buy CP on crown store that's when you should rage.

NukeAllTheThings

So let me get this straight.....grinding for XP is bad because people level much faster and supposedly gain an advantage over people who "play the game as intended".....but XP boosters are fine because faster leveling doesn't give anyone an advantage. The lengths that people go to rationalize the decisions made by ZOS are truly astounding.

I don't care about XP boosters because with a cash shop selling items for "convenience" Pandora's box is open. ANYTHING put in that shop can be justified as convenience. It is inconvenient to run Undaunted Dailies 100x to hopefully get your set....why not throw it in the cash shop? (I don't think it can happen but you can see where it can be categorized under "convenience").

We saw the writing on the wall when XP was gutted on World Bosses, Dolmen, Quests and everything in Craglorn. Fortunately/unfortunately you will soon be able to make up for some of that time with a small donation to the cash shop

DDuke

Khaldar wrote: »

An XP booster still means you have to play the game. If the XP booster is 10%, then a person would save 24 mins per Champion point without enlightenment or 60 mins with a 25% xp boost. That is nothing to get all raged up about. Save your energy for something else... sheesh. Now if you could buy CP on crown store that's when you should rage.

So you're fine with someone who was equal with you before having atleast 240 points while you have 200. Ok.

You are buying Champion Points from Cash Shop with the XP boosters, how is this so hard to understand?

20% more XP (ESO Plus & Rings of Mara)= 20% more Champion Points.

After grinding 240 points, you have "bought" 40 of them, granting you an advantage over people, and advantages for $$$$ = P2W.

JamilaRaj

Calm down, people. Matt Firor confirmed (25:35) that cash shop won't ever be P2W.

Khaldar

DDuke wrote: »

Khaldar wrote: »

An XP booster still means you have to play the game. If the XP booster is 10%, then a person would save 24 mins per Champion point without enlightenment or 60 mins with a 25% xp boost. That is nothing to get all raged up about. Save your energy for something else... sheesh. Now if you could buy CP on crown store that's when you should rage.

So you're fine with someone who was equal with you before having atleast 240 points while you have 200. Ok.

You are buying Champion Points from Cash Shop with the XP boosters, how is this so hard to understand?

20% more XP (ESO Plus & Rings of Mara)= 20% more Champion Points.

After grinding 240 points, you have "bought" 40 of them, granting you an advantage over people, and advantages for $$$$ = P2W.

Sorry but if you are not ESO plus then I have no hard feelings for you losing out on 10% XP.

DDuke

Khaldar wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Khaldar wrote: »

An XP booster still means you have to play the game. If the XP booster is 10%, then a person would save 24 mins per Champion point without enlightenment or 60 mins with a 25% xp boost. That is nothing to get all raged up about. Save your energy for something else... sheesh. Now if you could buy CP on crown store that's when you should rage.

So you're fine with someone who was equal with you before having atleast 240 points while you have 200. Ok.

You are buying Champion Points from Cash Shop with the XP boosters, how is this so hard to understand?

20% more XP (ESO Plus & Rings of Mara)= 20% more Champion Points.

After grinding 240 points, you have "bought" 40 of them, granting you an advantage over people, and advantages for $$$$ = P2W.

Sorry but if you are not ESO plus then I have no hard feelings for you losing out on 10% XP.

How about the +10% from Rings of Mara & XP Booster potions (that will come eventually)?

It has already been confirmed that they will stack.

So while you may get your 10% from subscription, there's someone with Rings of Mara getting 20%, and someone with booster potions getting 30% or more.

Iago

Complete list of crown store items can be found here http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/149910/crown-store-items-pictures-and-more

WraithAzraiel

Iluvrien wrote: »

WraithAzraiel wrote: »

Craft time boosters?

Who cares?!

They're time-savers.

In the case of craft time boosters? I care. XP Boosters may or may not change the shape of the playerbase due to people buying their way to max level but the in-game economy is more than likely to be effected if people can buy their way to master crafter.

It is my opinion that crafting is too easy in this game. While I have made an acceptable amount of money thanks to my crafting efforts I am not delusional enough to suspect that the market wouldn't evaporate if everyone could permanently save themselves the trouble of finding a crafter or crafted item in Guild stores by spending a few crowns.

I think you're grossly overestimating how much time 10% saves. But that's just me.

WraithAzraiel

JamilaRaj wrote: »

Calm down, people. Matt Firor confirmed (25:35) that cash shop won't ever be P2W.

They can't calm down, they're all grasping at straws. First the potions were pay 2 win. Now XP boosters are pay to win.


Next they'll be saying the House Cat is pay to win.


We have no way of knowing if the XP boosters will ONLY boost XP and not CP gain. If it does boost CP gain? Then that's stupid but still not pay to win, seeing as anyone and everyone with a Veteran Rank character can gain them and there's a hard cap for everyone.

That cap doesn't change between pay and non pay players.

In the case of this topic, I'm adopting the "Wait and See" tactic and I HIGHLY recommend that the rest of you do the same before you put yourselves in the hospital with all the high blood pressure running rampant through these forums.

Joejudas

One of the biggest complaints that's coming out of the pts is " 400k exp is too much for a cp at 4 or 5 hours a pop ". Well it seems like it was done that way with the intention of making us pay them money to speed it up. That doesn't anger anyone else.

WraithAzraiel

Joejudas wrote: »

One of the biggest complaints that's coming out of the pts is " 400k exp is too much for a cp at 4 or 5 hours a pop ". Well it seems like it was done that way with the intention of making us pay them money to speed it up. That doesn't anger anyone else.

I'll save my anger for what goes live, brother. If they do something stupid, I'll be right there on the soapbox with you.

dharbert

ESO has been sub-based since launch, and now all of the sudden when it becomes B2P, those of you who are crying are suddenly going to become poor and can't pay for ESO anymore?

If it had remained sub-based you would still be having to pay monthly to play ESO anyway. You can stop your crying now.

There will always be someone who has more time to play than you do, is more powerful than you, has better gear than you, has better skills and tactics than you, or has millions more gold than you. The sooner you come to terms with that, the better.

Tyr

WraithAzraiel wrote: »

Getting to max level doesn't guarantee you'll receive the best gear or the best anything.

Sooooo where's the win?

There is effectively no max level with the champion system.
If you gain XP faster you will always be more powerful than someone who plays the same amount of time and doesn't pay.

Joejudas

I have the time to play and income to pay a sub. I'm worried about the long term effect of making people pay to be successful in a game when it's b2p and they don't know about these kind of things before coming here.

dharbert

Sorry, but if you can't afford $15 per month for a sub fee, you're probably not in a situation to be sitting around playing video games in the first place.

Joejudas

dharbert wrote: »

Sorry, but if you can't afford $15 per month for a sub fee, you're probably not in a situation to be sitting around playing video games in the first place.

I agree with you. RL problems lol

nimander99

IMHO exp boosts (even instant max lvl boosts) are not p2w there are already thousands and thousands and thousands of people that are vr14 so who cares if someone gets there faster than another, eventually the person will catch up...
Did you have fun lvling to vr14? That's the most important question, if someone wants to cheat themselves of the exp of getting to max lvl then whatever, who cares.

Like I said though, just one mans opinion.

ArconSeptim

Joejudas wrote: »

This is Q&A from Paul Sage two days ago. To me...and maybe its just me...but this absolutely screams exp boosters coming to the cash shop. If that happens....well....i mean yeah......
Q: There are a number of potentially controversial possibilities for cash-shop purchases including forward camps, Nirncrux, crafting motifs, or upgrade materials. What are some of the main concerns and internal rules that you will consider when choosing what types of items will or will not be allowed in the shop?
Paul Sage : "Obviously, we want to offer items people want and that there is a demand for. What we don’t want to do is only offer the best items – items which grant players clear numerical advantages over other players – on our store. When we talk about convenience items, what we generally mean is items which allow people to reduce the time it might take to acquire something they want. I think cosmetic items speak for themselves. We know there is a fine line, but there is also a line where we feel like if you buy something from the store it should have value."

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hello everyone!

As part of Update 6, we are introducing the Crown Store: an in-game store where you can purchase customization and convenience items. The store offers consumables you can use to save time on in-game activities (like experience and crafting boosters, for example) along with new customization options including costumes, exotic pets, and mounts. When the Crown Store launches, we’ll have a number of items available immediately, but what about the future? Tell us what sorts of goods and services you would like to see offered in the Crown Store – you can be as general or specific as you’d like.

This is my take on this:
After March people who subscribe will get a 10 percent boost to exp.
People who dont sub will be able to purchase the same boost from the crown store using crowns aka cash.
Not having a sub or money to buy exp boosters will mean you are behind.
This is p2w.

Probably

DanielMaxwell

I said this in another thread but it bears repeating

Anything that the management of the company thinks will generate cash will go into the cash shop regardless of what we say about it in the forums.

Rezzy64

My experience with the multiple "Free to Play" games I used to play in the past, the common distinguishable trait that first indicates "Pay to Win" status is often the addition of "Experience Boosters" and "Drop Rate Boosters". It's not commonly the sole cause and main offender for creating a "Pay to Win" environment, but it has often been the harbinger for worse things to come.

I'm used to seeing F2P games go a route that is similar to this: The developers come out to the gaming community and (sometimes will even go as far as to write up some of this information in the terms of services) state that, "The Cash Shop will have no direct influence on how you progress within the game nor will it affect your character's progression directly." They state this with the opening of a cash shop which will start by revealing that they only have items that are stupid useless conveniences (as we have seen with our current shop, the stupid conveniences are things like the potions and soulgems) and items that are nothing but cosmetic (as we have seen so far things such as costumes and various other customization options). These options are not the "Pay to Win" options. The "Pay to Win" options are the purchasable items that affect the growth, power, and progression of your character.

The first stage of the "Pay to Win" direction has always been the progress boosters. As I said before, they are not the items that derail the entire game into a big money spending mess, but they are definitely what begins it. The moment you use one of these boosters, you are spending your money to improve your character in a way that is otherwise inaccessible to anyone who is attempting to play the game without spending any money.
Obviously all of us have already been spending fifteen dollars a month just to play the game, so taking away the subscription and then adding progress boosters at a small price will seem not all that threatening to us because were already used to spending the money and we know the game always came to us with a price. Most of the time the boosters are a sign of "Pay to Win" for the games that began as completely free from the release of the game, that is what often makes the boosters appear more threatening to F2P games, where as with ESO we as players are already used to the idea of paying something, therefore the price tags on boosters don't seem intimidating. It's what they become and transform other players into that becomes the main issue at hand.
Once boosters are established you run into a new issue. Boosters in F2P games are like doing hard drugs in the virtual world. The classic drug dealer sayings apply here, "The first one is always free because we know you'll be back." and "Once you try it, you will never want anything else."
Boosters cause dependency. Most people who would otherwise not spend the money, will try a booster at least once, most likely because they get to try it for free whether through compensation or through a credit gain based on an event. Once you realize the significant difference in growth in your character through the booster, it's obvious that once the booster expires you are going to notice the lack of progression on your character, it probably wont bother you right away, in fact you will probably spend a lot of time saying to yourself that you will do just fine, all you have to do is work a little harder than normal. That will last until you start getting involved with your friends online who are significantly more powerful because they can cruise through their levels by spending a dollar a day on a booster. Your friends want to start a new character with you but you're lagging behind because you really don't want to spend that extra dollar. The speed at which they are leveling is proving to be conflicting towards your goals because your slow rate of gain is showing a lack of utility and damage. That extra amount of time is starting to become an issue.

Here's when it gets into a mess. Soon people start spending a dollar every day to get a booster that lasts between 2-3 hours. You run into multiple problems here. Problem 1: You are now spending at least a dollar a day in order to pay for your booster, that's $30 which is obviously a 100% increase in how much your spending each month.
Problem 2: Your booster has a dedicated time limit, 2-3 hours. Suddenly time is now a huge factor that means that you need to dedicate 2-3 hours of your day completely to grinding and/or questing and anything that is outside of doing those two things have now become a waste of time and a hindrance towards your characters progression within that time limit. Have to use the bathroom or get a snack, or have to deconstruct or inventory manage? Well I hope you can do it in a few minutes as to not waste any time. (In a few of my F2P MMO's it was actually quite common to just not loot anything because the value and usefulness of the items was detrimental to the amount of value within character progression while on a booster.)
Problem 3: You have a player base that will be more than happy to complain about the time based factors of the boosters, like not being able to be totally dedicated to the game for 2-3 hours straight without stopping. So then the all day boosters are added at the much steeper price where you might be paying something like five dollars for an all day boost. Assuming your a normal person with a job and a real life, you will probably hop on to the game during this booster probably 5-6 hours on a really good day. So if that's the case, what about those players who have found a way to play all day? They buy a 24 hour booster and can train fro 24 hours straight. It's unlikely but it happens more often than you would expect.

At this point, the game does begin to revolve around your dollar, and in turn the value of your dollar within the game become determined by your dedication and obsession with the game. The reason why F2P games are notorious is because they take your time and money. The more money you spend, the better you do, the more time you spend the better you do, the more you do of both, the less likely others can be within the same power level as you, but in order to maintain that position you must constantly be willing to spend both your time and money. This is "Pay to Win", and this isn't even what becomes the main threat.

The real threat is (and this is a VERY common route for most F2P games that chase the "Pay to Win" route) when a currency based Auction/Trading room is added within the game. Generally these are a special menu you would log into under your character and it is often a market that is completely player run where all items that are able to be traded can be traded for real money within the game. Most of the time it is run through the online currency and is not able to be transitioned back into cash, that way the money always only moves one direction which is the game's pockets. Though with the online currency, players can hoard the online currency by trading items within the system and then in turn can use the online currency to buy powerful gear or to buy other items of high value in order to continuously gain more online currency. From my experience, the spending rate within this kind of system gets very ridiculous very quickly, for instance I will never forget seeing Legendary weapons on some of these currency based trading systems that would often sell for $200-$300 dollars for a piece of game data. You can tell me how unlikely this may sound but I know what I've seen and I personally even participated in some trades such as these back when I used to play such horrible MMO's. I even remember one time spending $70 on in game currency in order to purchase an item within the game that I ended up selling to another player for $130 in the games currency. I spent $70 dollars in one day to gain $130 dollars in credit in which I would never be able to convert to cash outside of the game. Between the two of us, that transaction was a $200 gain for the company in a single day, which is outrageous compared to any subscription fee that two people together would ever pay with any gaming company. Now imagine those kinds of transactions happening every single day to thousands of players.
This is the true threat that is "Pay to Win", that's how it happens.

There's more to it then boosters and currency based trade systems, but those are the surest and most definite signs. You guys can argue and sit in denial all you want but the moment that Boosters hit the cash shop, you can be sure that we are on the "Pay to Win" route. It's not the boosters themselves that create such an environment, it's the affect that they have on how we think about and play the game that causes the "Pay to Win" environment. There will be Elite Players and Casual Players alike, and sure enough there will be things that people will want to spend loads of their money on, and any game developer that uses a "Free to Play" business model should know these things by heart and knows that unless you are changing the direct progress of a players game play, then surely your F2P game is not going to be making much money from a cash shop design.

Just remember folks... "The first one is always free." for a reason.

Joejudas

Rezzy64 wrote: »

My experience with the multiple "Free to Play" games I used to play in the past, the common distinguishable trait that first indicates "Pay to Win" status is often the addition of "Experience Boosters" and "Drop Rate Boosters". It's not commonly the sole cause and main offender for creating a "Pay to Win" environment, but it has often been the harbinger for worse things to come.

I'm used to seeing F2P games go a route that is similar to this: The developers come out to the gaming community and (sometimes will even go as far as to write up some of this information in the terms of services) state that, "The Cash Shop will have no direct influence on how you progress within the game nor will it affect your character's progression directly." They state this with the opening of a cash shop which will start by revealing that they only have items that are stupid useless conveniences (as we have seen with our current shop, the stupid conveniences are things like the potions and soulgems) and items that are nothing but cosmetic (as we have seen so far things such as costumes and various other customization options). These options are not the "Pay to Win" options. The "Pay to Win" options are the purchasable items that affect the growth, power, and progression of your character.

The first stage of the "Pay to Win" direction has always been the progress boosters. As I said before, they are not the items that derail the entire game into a big money spending mess, but they are definitely what begins it. The moment you use one of these boosters, you are spending your money to improve your character in a way that is otherwise inaccessible to anyone who is attempting to play the game without spending any money.
Obviously all of us have already been spending fifteen dollars a month just to play the game, so taking away the subscription and then adding progress boosters at a small price will seem not all that threatening to us because were already used to spending the money and we know the game always came to us with a price. Most of the time the boosters are a sign of "Pay to Win" for the games that began as completely free from the release of the game, that is what often makes the boosters appear more threatening to F2P games, where as with ESO we as players are already used to the idea of paying something, therefore the price tags on boosters don't seem intimidating. It's what they become and transform other players into that becomes the main issue at hand.
Once boosters are established you run into a new issue. Boosters in F2P games are like doing hard drugs in the virtual world. The classic drug dealer sayings apply here, "The first one is always free because we know you'll be back." and "Once you try it, you will never want anything else."
Boosters cause dependency. Most people who would otherwise not spend the money, will try a booster at least once, most likely because they get to try it for free whether through compensation or through a credit gain based on an event. Once you realize the significant difference in growth in your character through the booster, it's obvious that once the booster expires you are going to notice the lack of progression on your character, it probably wont bother you right away, in fact you will probably spend a lot of time saying to yourself that you will do just fine, all you have to do is work a little harder than normal. That will last until you start getting involved with your friends online who are significantly more powerful because they can cruise through their levels by spending a dollar a day on a booster. Your friends want to start a new character with you but you're lagging behind because you really don't want to spend that extra dollar. The speed at which they are leveling is proving to be conflicting towards your goals because your slow rate of gain is showing a lack of utility and damage. That extra amount of time is starting to become an issue.

Here's when it gets into a mess. Soon people start spending a dollar every day to get a booster that lasts between 2-3 hours. You run into multiple problems here. Problem 1: You are now spending at least a dollar a day in order to pay for your booster, that's $30 which is obviously a 100% increase in how much your spending each month.
Problem 2: Your booster has a dedicated time limit, 2-3 hours. Suddenly time is now a huge factor that means that you need to dedicate 2-3 hours of your day completely to grinding and/or questing and anything that is outside of doing those two things have now become a waste of time and a hindrance towards your characters progression within that time limit. Have to use the bathroom or get a snack, or have to deconstruct or inventory manage? Well I hope you can do it in a few minutes as to not waste any time. (In a few of my F2P MMO's it was actually quite common to just not loot anything because the value and usefulness of the items was detrimental to the amount of value within character progression while on a booster.)
Problem 3: You have a player base that will be more than happy to complain about the time based factors of the boosters, like not being able to be totally dedicated to the game for 2-3 hours straight without stopping. So then the all day boosters are added at the much steeper price where you might be paying something like five dollars for an all day boost. Assuming your a normal person with a job and a real life, you will probably hop on to the game during this booster probably 5-6 hours on a really good day. So if that's the case, what about those players who have found a way to play all day? They buy a 24 hour booster and can train fro 24 hours straight. It's unlikely but it happens more often than you would expect.

At this point, the game does begin to revolve around your dollar, and in turn the value of your dollar within the game become determined by your dedication and obsession with the game. The reason why F2P games are notorious is because they take your time and money. The more money you spend, the better you do, the more time you spend the better you do, the more you do of both, the less likely others can be within the same power level as you, but in order to maintain that position you must constantly be willing to spend both your time and money. This is "Pay to Win", and this isn't even what becomes the main threat.

The real threat is (and this is a VERY common route for most F2P games that chase the "Pay to Win" route) when a currency based Auction/Trading room is added within the game. Generally these are a special menu you would log into under your character and it is often a market that is completely player run where all items that are able to be traded can be traded for real money within the game. Most of the time it is run through the online currency and is not able to be transitioned back into cash, that way the money always only moves one direction which is the game's pockets. Though with the online currency, players can hoard the online currency by trading items within the system and then in turn can use the online currency to buy powerful gear or to buy other items of high value in order to continuously gain more online currency. From my experience, the spending rate within this kind of system gets very ridiculous very quickly, for instance I will never forget seeing Legendary weapons on some of these currency based trading systems that would often sell for $200-$300 dollars for a piece of game data. You can tell me how unlikely this may sound but I know what I've seen and I personally even participated in some trades such as these back when I used to play such horrible MMO's. I even remember one time spending $70 on in game currency in order to purchase an item within the game that I ended up selling to another player for $130 in the games currency. I spent $70 dollars in one day to gain $130 dollars in credit in which I would never be able to convert to cash outside of the game. Between the two of us, that transaction was a $200 gain for the company in a single day, which is outrageous compared to any subscription fee that two people together would ever pay with any gaming company. Now imagine those kinds of transactions happening every single day to thousands of players.
This is the true threat that is "Pay to Win", that's how it happens.

There's more to it then boosters and currency based trade systems, but those are the surest and most definite signs. You guys can argue and sit in denial all you want but the moment that Boosters hit the cash shop, you can be sure that we are on the "Pay to Win" route. It's not the boosters themselves that create such an environment, it's the affect that they have on how we think about and play the game that causes the "Pay to Win" environment. There will be Elite Players and Casual Players alike, and sure enough there will be things that people will want to spend loads of their money on, and any game developer that uses a "Free to Play" business model should know these things by heart and knows that unless you are changing the direct progress of a players game play, then surely your F2P game is not going to be making much money from a cash shop design.

Just remember folks... "The first one is always free." for a reason.

That's what Im getting at...I just don't articulate as good as this.

Snit

I hope so.

I know this will be controversial, but I hope so because I'll buy them. The CP grind looks effing endless, and I don't have nearly as much play time as I'd like. I'll buy them to keep up.

'Boosters' don't cross my personal P2W line. I get offended when I see must-have items or best-in-slot gear prominent in the cash shop. But stuff like exp boosters doesn't seem out of bounds.

Morshire

Snit wrote: »

I hope so.

I know this will be controversial, but I hope so because I'll buy them. The CP grind looks effing endless, and I don't have nearly as much play time as I'd like. I'll buy them to keep up.

'Boosters' don't cross my personal P2W line. I get offended when I see must-have items or best-in-slot gear prominent in the cash shop. But stuff like exp boosters doesn't seem out of bounds.

This is not the only problem though. What about X amount of bag spaces unless you buy 500 crowns. Or can't unlock top tier crafting unless you buy 2500 crowns. I mean they just offered VR10 recipes. Want to know how to get the VR11-14 ones. Get your wallet. These are just some examples. They can milk this game indefinitely without putting some of those things in. They will just "inconvenience" you in game, and then they will offer you a "convenient" solution for 1000 crowns. That is not P2W, but just as effing annoying.

And @Joejudas I have seen you advocating, but don't let the P2W items be it. This problem goes way beyond that, IMO. Cash shops have had a negative impact on every MMO I have played lately. When the devs are focused on making 100 different versions of a backpack so it is appealing to all, rather than dungeons and quests.....well you get it.