Cross -save and F2P

kargen27

Donny_Vito wrote: »

Onefrkncrzypope wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

nafensoriel wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Things that need to be adressed first:
A. Performance issues - in Cyrodiil and with guild history, the servers have struggled to handle the players we already have. Not to mention the issues PC/EU had earlier in the year - ZOS seriously has to plan ahead for an influx of population.
B. PC/Console cross-save and/or crossplay has to address the issue of add-ons. Right now, console providers don't allow add-ons, so how will that impact cross-saved accounts? Especially once the PC and Console economies start interacting?

Addressing B...
You cant have them interact. You'd have to limit any items allowed to transfer as player bound exclusively and purge everything else(including currency). Since platform migration isnt exactly something you do every day it would be an acceptable trade-off.

Allowing any form of tradeable goods transfer would destroy consoles.


@ op
F2P would be a very bad idea for the content drop model of ESO. B2P is already so stupidly cheap changing the system at this point would invite financial risk for no reward.

Addressing B, none of that is true, whatsoever.

Addons in ESO are exclusively User Interface modifications. You cannot create items using addons. You cannot create currency using addons. You cannot modify the values of items using addons.

You can automate some functions, which means, yes, PC players can knock out all seven writs on a character in under 120 seconds. But, that's still gated by the same once per day limit as you have on consoles. It's not like we can just magic up a million gold on a whim.

When I brought up PC and Console economies interacting, I was mostly thinking about trade and prices. Due to a variety of reasons including add-ons that assist with pricing and guild management, PC prices on items tend to be much cheaper than on Console. This is fine, as long as the economies are separate. Allowing players to in effect transfer goods from one platform to another via their inventory and crafting bag could get rather interesting, since the value of those items on the open market is not the same.

Its not an insurmountable problem and eventually the market(s) would reach equilibrium again. Still, I do think its something that has to be addressed before we get any sort of cross-save or cross-play.

Well, if economies are a pain point, we can look at the out comes. So cornflower is more expensive on console -> cornflower floods from PC and other console -> high cornflower price drops on first console prices raise on PC and other console.

Supply and Demand curve will keep the economies going perfectly fine.

I mean that is basically what he said....the markets will even out over time. It's obviously not a complete roadblock, but I do agree some constraints will have to be put in place at first to prevent people from abusing the different economies until they are on even playing fields.

I doubt the markets would even out over time simply because not all players will be playing across all three platforms. Players that do decide to play across all three platforms or even PC and one console will have an obvious advantage when it comes to trading. Add-ons make gathering materials on PC easier and quicker than on the consoles. Buying and selling is also easier. This will always have an affect on prices on the PC server. Until consoles have the same access to add-ons it is a very bad idea to cross platform saves if unbound items can be transferred.

starkerealm

nafensoriel wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Addressing B, none of that is true, whatsoever.

Addons in ESO are exclusively User Interface modifications. You cannot create items using addons. You cannot create currency using addons. You cannot modify the values of items using addons.

You can automate some functions, which means, yes, PC players can knock out all seven writs on a character in under 120 seconds. But, that's still gated by the same once per day limit as you have on consoles. It's not like we can just magic up a million gold on a whim.

You forgot that PC has considerably more bots.

Even if prices see parity between console and PC the PC database will always have more goods per player. A sudden drop of that size on any economy would be ruinous.

If you are entirely focused on price then you do not understand video game economics. Volume often has far more to do with inflation per year than the actual demand price. Faucet/sink ratios are important and real.

Heck the only reason you don't see mindbogglingly screwed up economics in ESO is due to the guild story system and the truth that most of the games mined resources are sitting in players' banks/craft bags and never see a trade guild. It would be absolutely hilariously easy to bomb the console market with a handful of PC imports.

No, when I read it, I was under the impression it was coming from someone who thought that addons == mods in the single player games. The complete quarantine of all items and currency sounded a lot more in line with that.

As for economic considerations, yes, there are significant concerns there, and as @VaranisArano pointed out, it would result in some on the spot economic shock if the servers were allowed to interact directly.

Now, long term, I'm not 100% convinced that would be a bad thing, but it is a legitimate concern.

nafensoriel

starkerealm wrote: »

No, when I read it, I was under the impression it was coming from someone who thought that addons == mods in the single player games. The complete quarantine of all items and currency sounded a lot more in line with that.

As for economic considerations, yes, there are significant concerns there, and as @VaranisArano pointed out, it would result in some on the spot economic shock if the servers were allowed to interact directly.

Now, long term, I'm not 100% convinced that would be a bad thing, but it is a legitimate concern.

Let me spell it out plainly then. Whatever people assume addons are never going to be a primary issue. I originally said you cannot import non-bound items without causing serious issues and that issue is directly related to volume and the inherent issues with PC online MMOs in general.

It is very easy to bot on a PC. It is very easy to turnover characters on the PC. The nature of addons makes it easier to do both of these things. All that inherent efficiency and raw volume due to more bots existing mean that at any given time a single bot company can farm, transfer, and unload at a premium to either console platform.

In a matter of weeks, a very few number of bot users could undercut, permanently, the entire console economy. PC prices wouldn't take to much of a hit because due to addons and bots prices stabilize quickly.

Starlock

idk wrote: »

So thx for supporting the logical response that F2P is bad.

Oh my, your ability to deliberately misconstrue a person's post (and/or demonstrate poor reading comprehension) to make it say what you believe is remarkable! Good job!

*rolls eyes*

starkerealm

nafensoriel wrote: »

Let me spell it out plainly then.

Oh I understood. Probably better than you, judging by your post, and innability to see how the gold reserves on the consoles would affect the PC economy.

I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about addons. Which I said.

nafensoriel

starkerealm wrote: »

nafensoriel wrote: »

Let me spell it out plainly then.

Oh I understood. Probably better than you, judging by your post, and innability to see how the gold reserves on the consoles would affect the PC economy.

I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about addons. Which I said.

If you actually in any form or fashion believe a consoles MMO economy will ever touch PC versions in volume(and thus "gold") then you are frankly living in a reality excluded from the one earth happens to inhabit.

I know you believe somehow equilibrium would be reached when every price craters and to a point you would be correct. The issue is that in itself is a problem. If you have ever had any actual experience with Chinese MMOs and their economies (and how legal/accepted botting impacts them) you'd have a far better understanding than you do in how sudden volume spikes cause a much higher impact on in-game inflation than you realize. Faucet generation on PC has and always will be higher. If you cant accept that reality than I really can't help you understand anymore. Automation is efficiency.

Unless you are seriously implying that a greater faucet generator will in any way be seriously impacted by a lesser one...
Well at that point I have to seriously suspect you own a botting company and are advocating to make new record profits.

starkerealm

nafensoriel wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

nafensoriel wrote: »

Let me spell it out plainly then.

Oh I understood. Probably better than you, judging by your post, and innability to see how the gold reserves on the consoles would affect the PC economy.

I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about addons. Which I said.

If you actually in any form or fashion believe a consoles MMO economy will ever touch PC versions in volume(and thus "gold") then you are frankly living in a reality excluded from the one earth happens to inhabit.

Well, if that's the tact you want to take, if you actually believe, in any form or fashion that there will ever be cross-save functionality in ESO, your relationship with reality is tangential at best.

Characters are identified in the communication system via their name. Names can be repeated across multiple servers. I should know, I have Jenna Kain on both PCNA and PCEU.

If you were to allow cross play, you would have conflicting names. A host of them. Even if you decided, "well, we'll look at both names and pick the one was registered first," you're going to invalidate a lot of console names. Why? Because the console servers went live a year after the PC ones launched. Oh, and some of that console data was copied over from PC, so it will share the exact creation time/date, opening another mess for people to work through.

You can't switch this stuff over, either. Because if a character is imported from another server, even temporarily, you need to be able to address them in the client, and if their character name (or worse, their @name) isn't unique, you cannot pick which one you'll contact without heavily reworking how the game handles this stuff on the back end.

And, no, this isn't a UI issue. It's fundamental to how the database works. You see, I said, "characters are identified in the communication system via their name." But that is not telling the whole story, because that character name is an important identifier in the database itself. How important? I'm not sure, but important enough that you cannot duplicate a name.

nafensoriel wrote: »

I know you believe somehow equilibrium would be reached when every price craters and to a point you would be correct. The issue is that in itself is a problem. If you have ever had any actual experience with Chinese MMOs and their economies (and how legal/accepted botting impacts them) you'd have a far better understanding than you do in how sudden volume spikes cause a much higher impact on in-game inflation than you realize. Faucet generation on PC has and always will be higher. If you cant accept that reality than I really can't help you understand anymore. Automation is efficiency.

I'm on PC. I know what the economy here looks like. Ironically, the PPP for gold on PC is significantly higher than on consoles. And you cannot imagine how ****ing weird it is to type that sentence.

nafensoriel wrote: »

Unless you are seriously implying that a greater faucet generator will in any way be seriously impacted by a lesser one...
Well at that point I have to seriously suspect you own a botting company and are advocating to make new record profits.

Really, how does that make sense? I argue against a GAH which would be trivial to price fix using automation, so clearly I must secretly be running a bot farm in China. Really? This tracks for you?

jcm2606

Just to toss my opinion in the ringer (it's basically the same as what everybody else has said, just with one small difference), IMO, ESO could work with a restricted F2P option that disables any features that could be prone to exploitation (easy and effectively infinite bank storage through entire F2P mule accounts, for instance), with a buy-in option that unlocks the full game, similar to GW2.

IMO, the benefit of F2P isn't so much the ability to play without putting money in, but to try the game out without putting money in. If I enjoy the game, I'm going to put money into it regardless, in some way. Doing it this way would allow someone to try the game out without having to wait for a F2P event (which can sometimes take months to roll around), see if they enjoy it, then upgrade to the full game if they do enjoy it.

IMO, this is especially important in an MMO, where you're expected to put hundreds, even thousands of hours into it, and you want to try the game out before committing to it.

nafensoriel

starkerealm wrote: »

/snip

1] Bahahahaha
Names? Really? The single easiest thing to change in programming? It would take me less than 5 minutes to whip together a name change script for char transfers. Names have no value except as an identifier and if you, or anyone really, think cross-platform transfers don't come with a "name check" before you even get to the transfer stage they are entirely out to lunch.

Transferring a char between platforms for just about all games requires first bottling up everything that character was into an independent dataset which is actually somewhat easy to do. The biggest challenge is missing something like a currency or an item stored in some strange bin somewhere due to spaghetti code. After doing that you can make a huge host of changes easily. It's now simply a table. There is no magic to it.

Often the issues with transferring come with the destruction of the old character on the original source. Importing a new character is rarely ever the issue. Creating new links=easy. Destroying ALL POSSIBLE LINKS=annoyingly difficult. Remember its entirely possible, if your spaghetti code is that bad, to just "blank slate" things like quests and achievements and most characters will just deal with it if it means playing with friends. It is considerably more difficult to wipe thousands of quests from a live server and not accidentally have that script whack half the player base.

Names though? Yeah... Names are stupidly easy. @names are even easier BECAUSE it's a primary identifier.

2] Yay we have larger sums of cash to allow speculation! To bad speculation in an infinite faucet sucks in the long run but that's an entirely separate issue.

3] You read the joke as the actual data transfer. The point was, and still is, that a greater economy is not going to be impacted by a lesser unless that lesser is more efficient at something than the greater. Console economies are not efficient by nature.
I'd give you a gif but I'm starting to realize you take this forum a bit too seriously. Discussion=good. Emotion=bad. Well unless its humor.

Either way, have fun. We've derailed this thread long enough.

Dark_Lord_Kuro

kargen27 wrote: »

Dawnblade wrote: »

The cost is close enough to F2P that anyone interested can afford, but not truly free as to bring out the glaring trolls, botters, exploiters and other throw away account types.

I'm guessing if it were free to play every player would have their own personal guild bank. I would.

On console, at least on ps4, if you have a game disc you can get in with any number of psn account and they are free to create
So with egnough time you can get your own guild bank

Darsaga

I would love this. Destiny just recently added it and I can switch back and fourth any time I want now. The only issue is possibly economy but I really don’t think it would change much. At first it would be volatile but the big money people would get it under control no different than they already do.

The addon debate is so tiring. They are mostly QoL improvements. I went to PC from console downloaded a bunch of addons then removed them within a couple months. The only one I still use is inventory insight. Playing on console for over a year made me learn all the audio ques and visuals for buff tracking, and they are actually really good.

Addons are stored client side so when you switch between the two platforms it will simply not load on the console and will have no negative effect other than not being there.

starkerealm

nafensoriel wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

/snip

1] Bahahahaha
Names? Really? The single easiest thing to change in programming? It would take me less than 5 minutes to whip together a name change script for char transfers. Names have no value except as an identifier and if you, or anyone really, think cross-platform transfers don't come with a "name check" before you even get to the transfer stage they are entirely out to lunch.

Yeah, you think it's funny until you're told you can't keep the character name you've been using for four years.

Oh, I know you don't care. But for a lot of people, that'd be a deal breaker.

nafensoriel

starkerealm wrote: »

nafensoriel wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

/snip

1] Bahahahaha
Names? Really? The single easiest thing to change in programming? It would take me less than 5 minutes to whip together a name change script for char transfers. Names have no value except as an identifier and if you, or anyone really, think cross-platform transfers don't come with a "name check" before you even get to the transfer stage they are entirely out to lunch.

Yeah, you think it's funny until you're told you can't keep the character name you've been using for four years.

Oh, I know you don't care. But for a lot of people, that'd be a deal breaker.

No, statistics don't care. Your echo-chamber cares. There is a difference, unfortunately.
The majority of people who play games are attached to either the gameplay or the people they play them with.

Very rarely are they attached directly to the persona they created. Even rarer are they unable to create a close enough persona to satisfy that need.
We have a host of observable data for this in the sheer number of charname### or C1arna1ame user names that exist for a brief infinitesimal example.

Sorry reality doesn't agree with your assumption.

idk

Thorvik_Tyrson wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Browart wrote: »

f2p is the worst system, many toxic people will come so its not even worth

Very good point.

deviousthevile wrote: »

F2P would destroy the need for ESO+ for a lot of people. When you see the polls of why people have it, number one reason is the craft bag. If ESO became f2p, people could make endless accounts and never worry about buying bag or bank space because you could just make another account. Would also devalue a lot of items as you know there would be people using bots to do writs to stock up on upgrade materials over many accounts.

I am not supporting the idea of F2P which should be obvious from the third post in this thread.

However, what a game would need to do with a F2P/sub model is greatly restrict the F2P players. Limit their ability to chat and limit PvP time and crafting significantly. Block all access to trade directly or enter any trial. Reduce the XP gained to a fraction of what is currently is.

Just look to SWTOR as an example. Granted, even SWTOR supports my comment made in that third post that the quality of players gained from F2P is pretty low. It really comes down to those willing to spend some money on the game are more likely to invest more effort into learning how to play the game decently.

But as others have pointed out, Zos has no reason to even consider F2P and it would clearly be a bad idea if they did.

My wife and her longtime friend gave SWTOR F2P a try. Basically the game was so limited without a sub that they declared the game unplayable and gave up in less than a week of trying to play SWTOR together. I think they couldnt do Group chat without both of them having a Sub was the straw that broke it for them.

I'm sorry, but I do not agree that F2P with greatly restricted access is a good thing for any MMO.

From the games that I have had experience with that started with a buy to play or a Sub to play, going F2P does not seem to be a good thing for them. If anything, it is an indicator that the game has taken a turn for the worse.

F2P is not good for a decent MMORPG to begin with. The game is not free to create so why should it be free to play. With both ESO and SWTOR they were the most costly MMORPGs to create at their time iirc.

The very fact your wife and her friend were not willing to subscribe for even a month (15 USD) to see what the game was like without the F2P restrictions and obtain preferred status when not subscribing merely exemplifies why a dual model F2P/Subscription game should be very restrictive on the F2P side. They get to enjoy the story line for free. One thing SWTOR had good from the start is good story lines for each of the classes just like ESO has some good story lines.

Edit: also, SWTOR has 3 tiers of players. F2P, Prefered, and Subscribers. F2P is treated so poorly because they have chosen to not support the game with a sub for even one month. As such they should be extremely limited. Prefered gets more because they have been a subscriber before. Obviously Subs have all unlocked.

So Your wife and friend game got their money's worth and have no reason for a real complaint.

ShellaSunshine

I think you're in the wrong forums buddy.

Fallout 76 has a way lower player base and that game would benefit more as F2P.

ESO is way more crowded now than I've ever seen it.

EDIT: The reason why Destiny 2 went F2P is because Bungie is working on Destiny 3 so they are trying to get as many people interested in Destiny before the third installment launches.

starkerealm

ShellaSunshine wrote: »

I think you're in the wrong forums buddy.

Fallout 76 has a way lower player base and that game would benefit more as F2P.

ESO is way more crowded now than I've ever seen it.

EDIT: The reason why Destiny 2 went F2P is because Bungie is working on Destiny 3 so they are trying to get as many people interested in Destiny before the third installment launches.

Also, the Destiny 2 F2P transition may have been aided by the fact that Bungie was moving away from Activision, and wanted a way to get the player count up (even if it's a short term gain), without access to a publisher's marketing budget.

Honestly, D2 is a very different situation across the board.

Wolfpaw

F2p on console.

Thorvik_Tyrson

idk wrote: »

Thorvik_Tyrson wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Browart wrote: »

f2p is the worst system, many toxic people will come so its not even worth

Very good point.

deviousthevile wrote: »

F2P would destroy the need for ESO+ for a lot of people. When you see the polls of why people have it, number one reason is the craft bag. If ESO became f2p, people could make endless accounts and never worry about buying bag or bank space because you could just make another account. Would also devalue a lot of items as you know there would be people using bots to do writs to stock up on upgrade materials over many accounts.

I am not supporting the idea of F2P which should be obvious from the third post in this thread.

However, what a game would need to do with a F2P/sub model is greatly restrict the F2P players. Limit their ability to chat and limit PvP time and crafting significantly. Block all access to trade directly or enter any trial. Reduce the XP gained to a fraction of what is currently is.

Just look to SWTOR as an example. Granted, even SWTOR supports my comment made in that third post that the quality of players gained from F2P is pretty low. It really comes down to those willing to spend some money on the game are more likely to invest more effort into learning how to play the game decently.

But as others have pointed out, Zos has no reason to even consider F2P and it would clearly be a bad idea if they did.

My wife and her longtime friend gave SWTOR F2P a try. Basically the game was so limited without a sub that they declared the game unplayable and gave up in less than a week of trying to play SWTOR together. I think they couldnt do Group chat without both of them having a Sub was the straw that broke it for them.

I'm sorry, but I do not agree that F2P with greatly restricted access is a good thing for any MMO.

From the games that I have had experience with that started with a buy to play or a Sub to play, going F2P does not seem to be a good thing for them. If anything, it is an indicator that the game has taken a turn for the worse.

F2P is not good for a decent MMORPG to begin with. The game is not free to create so why should it be free to play. With both ESO and SWTOR they were the most costly MMORPGs to create at their time iirc.

The very fact your wife and her friend were not willing to subscribe for even a month (15 USD) to see what the game was like without the F2P restrictions and obtain preferred status when not subscribing merely exemplifies why a dual model F2P/Subscription game should be very restrictive on the F2P side. They get to enjoy the story line for free. One thing SWTOR had good from the start is good story lines for each of the classes just like ESO has some good story lines.

Edit: also, SWTOR has 3 tiers of players. F2P, Prefered, and Subscribers. F2P is treated so poorly because they have chosen to not support the game with a sub for even one month. As such they should be extremely limited. Prefered gets more because they have been a subscriber before. Obviously Subs have all unlocked.

So Your wife and friend game got their money's worth and have no reason for a real complaint.

I think your missing my point. The ladies were trying the game to see if it was worth spending money on, and your saying that they should have spent the money first before deciding if they liked the game. Sorry, but I have to disagree with you here.

Casterial

Free to play base game means more aggressive crown store due to the loss of revenue and a horrible community to follow.

idk

Thorvik_Tyrson wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Thorvik_Tyrson wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Browart wrote: »

f2p is the worst system, many toxic people will come so its not even worth

Very good point.

deviousthevile wrote: »

F2P would destroy the need for ESO+ for a lot of people. When you see the polls of why people have it, number one reason is the craft bag. If ESO became f2p, people could make endless accounts and never worry about buying bag or bank space because you could just make another account. Would also devalue a lot of items as you know there would be people using bots to do writs to stock up on upgrade materials over many accounts.

I am not supporting the idea of F2P which should be obvious from the third post in this thread.

However, what a game would need to do with a F2P/sub model is greatly restrict the F2P players. Limit their ability to chat and limit PvP time and crafting significantly. Block all access to trade directly or enter any trial. Reduce the XP gained to a fraction of what is currently is.

Just look to SWTOR as an example. Granted, even SWTOR supports my comment made in that third post that the quality of players gained from F2P is pretty low. It really comes down to those willing to spend some money on the game are more likely to invest more effort into learning how to play the game decently.

But as others have pointed out, Zos has no reason to even consider F2P and it would clearly be a bad idea if they did.

My wife and her longtime friend gave SWTOR F2P a try. Basically the game was so limited without a sub that they declared the game unplayable and gave up in less than a week of trying to play SWTOR together. I think they couldnt do Group chat without both of them having a Sub was the straw that broke it for them.

I'm sorry, but I do not agree that F2P with greatly restricted access is a good thing for any MMO.

From the games that I have had experience with that started with a buy to play or a Sub to play, going F2P does not seem to be a good thing for them. If anything, it is an indicator that the game has taken a turn for the worse.

F2P is not good for a decent MMORPG to begin with. The game is not free to create so why should it be free to play. With both ESO and SWTOR they were the most costly MMORPGs to create at their time iirc.

The very fact your wife and her friend were not willing to subscribe for even a month (15 USD) to see what the game was like without the F2P restrictions and obtain preferred status when not subscribing merely exemplifies why a dual model F2P/Subscription game should be very restrictive on the F2P side. They get to enjoy the story line for free. One thing SWTOR had good from the start is good story lines for each of the classes just like ESO has some good story lines.

Edit: also, SWTOR has 3 tiers of players. F2P, Prefered, and Subscribers. F2P is treated so poorly because they have chosen to not support the game with a sub for even one month. As such they should be extremely limited. Prefered gets more because they have been a subscriber before. Obviously Subs have all unlocked.

So Your wife and friend game got their money's worth and have no reason for a real complaint.

I think your missing my point. The ladies were trying the game to see if it was worth spending money on, and your saying that they should have spent the money first before deciding if they liked the game. Sorry, but I have to disagree with you here.

No. I did not miss the point. F2P can experience much of the game. They can join guilds, do dungeons (FP) and even do some PvP. There is some limits to chat and how they can trade items.

So it does give them a taste of much of the game. What you are actually saying is they just plain did not enjoy the game enough to pay to see more.

ESO, if you just buy the base game, you are locked out of 1/3 of the dungeons, over half of the trials, and 2/3s of the arenas, not to mention a limited to the base game story. For free you cannot even see the game but for during the rare trial period.

So, as I stated, I do not like the F2P because it bring in less committed players who tend to not become very good and I base that on the experience I had in SWTOR when it switched. However, I think the way SWTOR has done it is a good design. Ofc, I prefer full subscription required but as a second best model is what ESO has.

Dark_Lord_Kuro

nafensoriel wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

nafensoriel wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

/snip

1] Bahahahaha
Names? Really? The single easiest thing to change in programming? It would take me less than 5 minutes to whip together a name change script for char transfers. Names have no value except as an identifier and if you, or anyone really, think cross-platform transfers don't come with a "name check" before you even get to the transfer stage they are entirely out to lunch.

Yeah, you think it's funny until you're told you can't keep the character name you've been using for four years.

Oh, I know you don't care. But for a lot of people, that'd be a deal breaker.

No, statistics don't care. Your echo-chamber cares. There is a difference, unfortunately.
The majority of people who play games are attached to either the gameplay or the people they play them with.

Very rarely are they attached directly to the persona they created. Even rarer are they unable to create a close enough persona to satisfy that need.
We have a host of observable data for this in the sheer number of charname### or C1arna1ame user names that exist for a brief infinitesimal example.

Sorry reality doesn't agree with your assumption.

I prefer to keep my names that having character transfer