Is Buying Skyshard SP Pay to Win?

Moonsorrow

No it's not P2W.

After done the Skyshard "grind" so many times, can understand some buying this and not see it as a pay2win myself.

Would i buy it though with Crowns? Most likely not, unless price is low enough.. since not take that much time to go for all the quick ones that gets enough points to all needed lines and passives on a character that not gonna do any crafting and so on.

dbgager

No it's not P2W.

No it is not pay to win. Its just a timesaver. Pay to win is something that is not available for normal play.

Kidgangster101

No it's not P2W.

@Turelus where did you find this information out?

And as far as everyone on the forums here saying it is pay to win you need to learn what that means lol.

Pay to win is if you can pay to have a distint advantage over another person because they have no means to get what you have paid for.

Now I am not a huge fan of it being a crown store item there is many other ways it could have been implimented or they could have just fixed the map to show items you already collected locations of for alts. But this also allows players that only get to play 2 hours a day a way to catch up any toons they want to have more skill points. It is not giving them stuff they haven't put the time in for as they need to collect them in the first place.

Raammzzaa

Yes it's P2W.

ZOS, take my money! 🤣

Starlock

Yes it's P2W.

Kidgangster101 wrote: »

And as far as everyone on the forums here saying it is pay to win you need to learn what that means lol.

Additionally, the people need to learn that this is precisely what the pay-to-win monetization schemes want to condition consumers to believe. When pay-to-win becomes normalized in a country, the definition for what makes something pay-to-win grows narrower and narrower. That's what they want. They want it to become acceptable and normalized so you, the consumer, waste money on them.

Anything that gives a player an advantage by paying over those who are not is pay-to-win. It's a sliding scale, not all or nothing. Allowing skill points to be obtained on second characters - who can be an entirely different class - for money is a pretty strong form of pay-to-win on that scale. Not as strong as cash shop exclusive super power items, granted, but it's still up on the scale. When it takes hours upon hours to collect skyshards, I have a hard time believing someone could say with a straight face that someone paying to bypass that isn't gaining an advantage over those who do not (or cannot afford to financially).

DenMoria

Yes it's P2W.

Starlock wrote: »

Kidgangster101 wrote: »

And as far as everyone on the forums here saying it is pay to win you need to learn what that means lol.

Additionally, the people need to learn that this is precisely what the pay-to-win monetization schemes want to condition consumers to believe. When pay-to-win becomes normalized in a country, the definition for what makes something pay-to-win grows narrower and narrower. That's what they want. They want it to become acceptable and normalized so you, the consumer, waste money on them.

Anything that gives a player an advantage by paying over those who are not is pay-to-win. It's a sliding scale, not all or nothing. Allowing skill points to be obtained on second characters - who can be an entirely different class - for money is a pretty strong form of pay-to-win on that scale. Not as strong as cash shop exclusive super power items, granted, but it's still up on the scale. When it takes hours upon hours to collect skyshards, I have a hard time believing someone could say with a straight face that someone paying to bypass that isn't gaining an advantage over those who do not (or cannot afford to financially).

But this is the US, in particularly Portland OR. Nothing is normal!

Reverb

No it's not P2W.

No. Because people who pay for these points don’t have an advantage over people who don’t pay, and get the points the long way.

In order to be P2W, there have to be gains for purchase that are not available without an outlay of cash. People have a hard time understanding that “pay to shortcut” isn’t the same thing.

Gilvoth

No it's not P2W.

if you did it once allready on one character it should be unlocked for ALL characters u make once that character is lvl 50, thats not pay to win.
thats called:
"not forcing me to repeat the same thing 1000 times for another character"
and it should not be pay for it, it should be free.

DenMoria

Yes it's P2W.

Gilvoth wrote: »

if you did it once allready on one character it should be unlocked for ALL characters u make once that character is lvl 50, thats not pay to win.
thats called:
"not forcing me to repeat the same thing 1000 times for another character"
and it should not be pay for it, it should be free.

Now this I agree with.

The shard grind is one of the most annoying things about ESO.

mairwen85

Other.

It's the most off shade of grey. You unlocked them previously, can quickly get them using an addon (unless on console) - - but you save that time via purchase, repeatable purchase per alt... Hmm. A better solution would be to simply give a map marker for each one discovered with any alt not yet collected per active character - - and also provide a quick collect convenience for gold/crowns.

Amanuensis

No it's not P2W.

I’m still going to be the same incompetent player so what exactly is it that I will be winning?

Facefister

Yes it's P2W.

dbgager wrote: »

No it is not pay to win. Its just a timesaver. Pay to win is something that is not available for normal play.

Reverb wrote: »

No. Because people who pay for these points don’t have an advantage over people who don’t pay, and get the points the long way.

In order to be P2W, there have to be gains for purchase that are not available without an outlay of cash. People have a hard time understanding that “pay to shortcut” isn’t the same thing.

See

Facefister wrote: »

grannas211 wrote: »

No its pay for Convenience

That's a poor excuse. If "convenience" isn't p2w, then I want a chest full of equipment(including monster helmets) at the very beginning of the dungeon. I am going to clear it anyways, why even bother?

dazee

Yes it's P2W.

If it was an automatic unlock it wouldnt be P2W but making us buy it??

driosketch

Other.

Ertosi wrote: »

haelene wrote: »

For the love of all things good in this world, please stop using this term to mean "things are buyable with real money".

P2W = buying things with real money that aren't available otherwise.

Correction:

P2W = buying things with real money that give you an advantage.


Similar, many justify such things by focusing on "Win", and while things like outright buying Skill Points doesn't let you outright win, it most certainly gives you an advantage over those who aren't spending the cash.

Is saving time an advantage when there is a hard cap on progression that can be earned freely in game? You will get ahead of some players, temporarily. Other players are already capped, however, so you are at best catching up, but you can't get beyond them.

efster

Yes it's P2W.

It's P2W in the sense that players who have the disposable income to spend on this stuff will have an advantage in terms of getting ready for endgame over players who are cash-poor.

It's not P2W in the sense of only being able to excel at the game if you open your wallet. (But in that sense the game is essentially P2W already, since you can't get the best gear without spending cash on DLCs. However, since DLCs and game packs including various DLCs can be found for cheap pretty often if you're looking, that's less of a problem, just takes people longer to get the "latest" DLC content since you have to wait for things to not be new before they're really cheap.)

I would have preferred if they had just allowed account-wide skyshards, unlocked after a character leveled to 50. There's already enough grinding new characters have to do even after they get to max level. Just let them share the knowledge of skyshards the same way they share ownership of homes.

Facefister

Yes it's P2W.

driosketch wrote: »

Ertosi wrote: »

haelene wrote: »

For the love of all things good in this world, please stop using this term to mean "things are buyable with real money".

P2W = buying things with real money that aren't available otherwise.

Correction:

P2W = buying things with real money that give you an advantage.


Similar, many justify such things by focusing on "Win", and while things like outright buying Skill Points doesn't let you outright win, it most certainly gives you an advantage over those who aren't spending the cash.

Is saving time an advantage when there is a hard cap on progression that can be earned freely in game?

So what speaks against a chest full of loot at the beginning of the dungeon? A clear achievement should attest my ability to clear that dungeon, why should I run it through over and over again. I am paying for saving time.

Girl_Number8

No it's not P2W.

At this point Zo$ is Zo$. They listened to the posts and decided to make those crowns more appealing in the ESO+ model. I don't see it as P2W with the other items that are in the crown store now. They are pretty easy to grind but boring once you have done it 5 plus times. In the long run, I think it will keep some newer and older players interested in the game and more willing to have more then just one main or two. So in the end, we should be seeing more classes running around and maybe less nerf threads because now that they don't have to grind everything, they can enjoy other classes without the time constraints.


Plus you have to have them already done to unlock them....

VaranisArano

I expect it to be an expensive benefit for the type of player who already knows their class and just wants to jump straight to end-game content.

I expect it to be an expensive disaster,for players who don't know their class and want to jump straight to end game content anyway.

Of course, this does mean that PVP hating players only have to do Cyrodiil skyshards once, so I suppose that's a positive thing.

I think the better solution was to make skyshards locations optional on the Zone Guide, but oh well.

mairwen85

Other.

Thing to think about. People ask for things as a convenience, they create many threads and polls about it to demonstrate demand. Then they moan when a business monetizes the means to supply it. Honestly, what did you think would happen?

This is P4QoL, circumventing the intention for explorative play... That said, it's a *** move, but one the forum generated incentive for.

xxthir13enxx

No it's not P2W.

Should of been implemented with One Tamriel...

It may very well be to late for me to care now...but I think this was well overdue.

And gd news is...those who think characters should achieve it on their own...can Still do so! Congratz!lol

Alucardo

No it's not P2W.

It's not p2w, but they need to be really careful to not go any further than this

DenMoria

Yes it's P2W.

mairwen85 wrote: »

Thing to think about. People ask for things as a convenience, they create many threads and polls about it to demonstrate demand. Then they moan when a business monetizes the means to supply it. Honestly, what did you think would happen?

This is P4QoL, circumventing the intention for explorative play... That said, it's a *** move, but one the forum generated incentive for.

I thought it was "Games as a Service", not "Games as a Convenience".

sevomd69

So since my crafter has all the sky shards unlocked...al my other 14 toons will be able to get his sky shards and SP for crowns? Sign me up!!!

mairwen85

Other.

DenMoria wrote: »

mairwen85 wrote: »

Thing to think about. People ask for things as a convenience, they create many threads and polls about it to demonstrate demand. Then they moan when a business monetizes the means to supply it. Honestly, what did you think would happen?

This is P4QoL, circumventing the intention for explorative play... That said, it's a *** move, but one the forum generated incentive for.

I thought it was "Games as a Service", not "Games as a Convenience".

I'm not disagreeing. They should be purchasable from in game merchants if the achievement is unlocked. But they're not,that doesn't change the service provided by anything other than currency.

Im not saying I agree with it, but anyone advocating account wide skyshards should have seen this coming.

DoonerSeraph

Other.

Androconium wrote: »

Its ***.

They'll balance this by making other things more time consuming to get. You people still don't get this company's business model and drivers.

Be lazy and pay for low level chars to be comparatively overskilled then, if you must.

You lazy and incompetent players, you.

Borderline P2W. It can be achieved by playing the game, but grindy af. Like mage's guild, psijic, alliance war and transmutation stones for some people. And we don't know what future systems we will have in the game.

Let's say we get something like Spellcrafting or whatever (not going into the merit if it should be implemented or not, just an aexample). You can bet your breeches is going to be grindy as all hell, and 6 months to 1 year after release, conveniently we will have another "pay for convience" pack on the CS.

I don't really like where this is going at all, it opens a precedent to make the game suck to nudge the players to pay.

Kidgangster101

No it's not P2W.

Starlock wrote: »

Kidgangster101 wrote: »

And as far as everyone on the forums here saying it is pay to win you need to learn what that means lol.

Additionally, the people need to learn that this is precisely what the pay-to-win monetization schemes want to condition consumers to believe. When pay-to-win becomes normalized in a country, the definition for what makes something pay-to-win grows narrower and narrower. That's what they want. They want it to become acceptable and normalized so you, the consumer, waste money on them.

Anything that gives a player an advantage by paying over those who are not is pay-to-win. It's a sliding scale, not all or nothing. Allowing skill points to be obtained on second characters - who can be an entirely different class - for money is a pretty strong form of pay-to-win on that scale. Not as strong as cash shop exclusive super power items, granted, but it's still up on the scale. When it takes hours upon hours to collect skyshards, I have a hard time believing someone could say with a straight face that someone paying to bypass that isn't gaining an advantage over those who do not (or cannot afford to financially).

But it really isn't pay to win. Either you want to spend cash to not do the grind, or you just do the grind to obtain skyshards. They are essentially the same think because someone paying is getting the money from somewhere and that means they are spending ding time doing that. Skyshards offer no actual game play what so ever so time spent grinding them or to someone that works 60 hours a week and just buys them is literally identical concepts.

Getting a skyshard won't teach you to play a class better as it's not actual content to learn from. If it was mission skill points that would be different but going to location A to hit button X then go to location B to hit button X is not teaching you much after you explored the map already.

Again I wish it wasn't in the crown store And instead implimented into the map to show locations of them but it is what it is either you buy it or you don't a d it changes no one's group play at all.

leeux

Yes it's P2W.

P2W gained advantage in my definition doesn't have to be permanent, just a temporary advantage is enough.

So, of course it's P2W... its pay to get a temporary in-game advantage for one of your characters.

Person A starts a new character and pays, Person B starts a new character and doesn't pay... Person A gets to have a much better well rounded character for an unspecified span of time than Person B does and that's objectively a true statement.

If Person A character find itself within game with Person B, and fight against each other, if all other circumstances remain the same (play-time, ~same game experience, etc.) chances are higher that Person A will win, and will always win....

And until Person B goes around the world and collects all the same Sky Shards Person A has, the advantage will remain, during that time.

CAVEAT: Now, I don't know if this is *only* for new characters for people that already has a main, and if you have to already have found the Sky Shards before you can buy them... if not, and in my scenario A y B are new players just come to the game, then is even more unacceptable.

In my case, I don't care about this... I'm the type of person that used to enjoy going around the world collecting sky shards on a new character... and if I ever make a new one, I still will be doing that obviously... it's just the kind of situation that leads to the "boiling frog" analogy, so I'd be worry of what's to come.

Elsonso

Other.

Kidgangster101 wrote: »

@Turelus where did you find this information out?

I cannot speak for Turelus, but the people who went to ZOS to preview Elsweyr were told about this, and it was part of the press event that they did a couple weeks ago. The details were embargoed until today.

dazee wrote: »

If it was an automatic unlock it wouldnt be P2W but making us buy it??

They are like event tickets. Get them in the game for free, or pay a sum of money to get them handed to you. Since it is very easy to get them in the game, for free, it is not much of a P2W, really.

Now, if it took hundreds of hours, calendar months, and patience of a Saint to get them in the game, then yeah, let's talk P2W. Not the case, here.

DenMoria

Yes it's P2W.

As someone who's played ESO from the beginning, nowadays, things aren't nearly as difficult to achieve anyhow with the leveling thing going on.

That being said, someone who's already done everything anyway and doesn't want to do the grind again may want to pay to avoid that.

dbgager

No it's not P2W.

Im all for paid timesavers.Money keeps the game healthy and the developers happy. An this has no effect on anybody except to save time. It is not and advantage as you can get all this stuff just by playing the game normally