Help me understand.... p2w & paywall

hundergrn

Coming back to the game after a year hiatus (looking at you month long jubilee at the start of covid) and playing for roughly a month now... I keep on seeing people use the term 'paywall' and 'p2w' to voice disdain against Zenimax for the release of new gear with the expansion.

'oh great, new content, why am I being paywalled for (insert gear/mythic here)'
'freaking eso is p2w now cause kilt/pale order/whatever'
'I'm done with this game, its all p2w now'

What gives? Is this not an MMO that has a consistent cycle of one paid expansion and 2-3 dlc (that is usually included with eso+ and able to be bought w/ crowns)? Haven't this been the case since Elsweyr? Since Summerset? Since Morrowind? Roughly once a year we get a paid expansion, that paid expansion includes previous expansions in the purchase, then get optional dlc that we can either buy/crown/eso+ for.

How is this p2w? If going by meta of the past and present, gear and skill load outs change by the expansion and dlc sure but this does not make prior loadouts unviable. Having this new gear will not make you top the charts. Make your numbers rise a little before getting nerfed in patches? Maybe.

How are we as a community getting paywalled and forced to p2w to remain relevant in our content and ability to play the game? I don't understand this trend.

VaranisArano

It's very simple: not everyone uses the same definition of pay-to-win.

For some people, putting BOP mythic items behind buying the newest Chapter for cash and usually other DLC zones for crowns is a step too far. For some people, ZOS crossed the line when they made people pay for classes like Warden and Necromancer.

For other people, it's fine. This is a normal part of pay-to-progress in an MMO.


That being said, yes, I do think that players should wise up to the current cycle where ZOS nerfing players' skills and builds, then sells back some of that lost power in the form of new mythic items, only to nerf those items a few months from now when they need to sell different mythic items. ZOS is absolutely monetizing the nerf/buff cycle, and it's time players realized that the constant changes are not all about finding a good balance for the game.

Wolfster

It's been this way since MMOs had expansions.

Everquest, Asheron's Call, Meridian 59, Ultima Online. You always paid for expansions and there was always new shiny gear available for completing the content in those expansions.

So that's since the mid to late 90s and almost certainly in games before that (though they were far more niche before UO and EQ).

It's not pay to win, it's pay for more game. Hell it's how single player expansions work in single player games.

zelaminator

Most people have a very skewered idea of what P2W is.. So the term gets used way too often

Wolfster

zelaminator wrote: »

Most people have a very skewered idea of what P2W is.. So the term gets used way too often

It's a very weird zero sum mentality especially in a game that is 99% co-op.

zelaminator

Wolfster wrote: »

zelaminator wrote: »

Most people have a very skewered idea of what P2W is.. So the term gets used way too often

It's a very weird zero sum mentality especially in a game that is 99% co-op.

calling it 99% co-op might be stretching it a bit far

hundergrn

Pay to progress feels like the apt term for it all. From playing other MMO's over the years, once the newest expansion came out all you gear and items became almost worthless overnight.

That top tier gear? Trash, replaced by the low-quality item from some random quest because char/item level cap was raised.

Pot and food underperform cause new recipes provide better return or can no longer be used past level x.

Want to progress the new story? Get stomped till you get your new expansion gear to kill trash. We don't care if you killed a god in last expansions raid/trail/thing.

As far as I'm aware, ESO is one of the few progressing MMO style games where your gear is not auto-trash on expansion drop. One could go to a gear loadout they used in Morrowind and still be viable albeit at a slight dps/durability loss (more to do with crit and gearset changes through patch balancing)

Its just disheartening to see this mentality be so prevalent and it baffles me to where it is stemming from.

alanmatillab16_ESO

VaranisArano wrote: »

It's very simple: not everyone uses the same definition of pay-to-win.

For some people, putting BOP mythic items behind buying the newest Chapter for cash and usually other DLC zones for crowns is a step too far. For some people, ZOS crossed the line when they made people pay for classes like Warden and Necromancer.

For other people, it's fine. This is a normal part of pay-to-progress in an MMO.


That being said, yes, I do think that players should wise up to the current cycle where ZOS nerfing players' skills and builds, then sells back some of that lost power in the form of new mythic items, only to nerf those items a few months from now when they need to sell different mythic items. ZOS is absolutely monetizing the nerf/buff cycle, and it's time players realized that the constant changes are not all about finding a good balance for the game.

For what it is worth you get warden for free now, the base game includes Morrowind.

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

hundergrn wrote: »

Coming back to the game after a year hiatus (looking at you month long jubilee at the start of covid) and playing for roughly a month now... I keep on seeing people use the term 'paywall' and 'p2w' to voice disdain against Zenimax for the release of new gear with the expansion.

'oh great, new content, why am I being paywalled for (insert gear/mythic here)'
'freaking eso is p2w now cause kilt/pale order/whatever'
'I'm done with this game, its all p2w now'

What gives? Is this not an MMO that has a consistent cycle of one paid expansion and 2-3 dlc (that is usually included with eso+ and able to be bought w/ crowns)? Haven't this been the case since Elsweyr? Since Summerset? Since Morrowind? Roughly once a year we get a paid expansion, that paid expansion includes previous expansions in the purchase, then get optional dlc that we can either buy/crown/eso+ for.

How is this p2w? If going by meta of the past and present, gear and skill load outs change by the expansion and dlc sure but this does not make prior loadouts unviable. Having this new gear will not make you top the charts. Make your numbers rise a little before getting nerfed in patches? Maybe.

How are we as a community getting paywalled and forced to p2w to remain relevant in our content and ability to play the game? I don't understand this trend.

Hey OP,

I understand your view point and yes ESO + does cover quite a bit of content. That said, there are some clear indicators that some aspects of the game are indeed advantageous for those who choose to purchase specific content.
Let's just take a look and try and be objective vis à vis our game experiences.

PVP:
Optimized groups here are Necromancers and Wardens (For their gameplay and visible bonuses)
Band of Malacath -> 16% extra flat non crit damage (Greymoor)
Ring of the Wild Hunt -> Impossible to target certain players who made speed builds (Greymoor)
Markarth has the Vateshran Hollows solo arena -> equipment used in top tier PvP builds (ESO+ related)
Other mythical items I won't list were also used during a patch -> with good results, perhaps too good as they were all nerfed later down the line, but still remain advantageous be in in group play or solo.

PvE:
Necromancers are still basically the only thing you see on recruitment demand posts
At one point to enter PvE raids groups wanted over 6 Magicka Necromancers in their group
If you don't have a Warden you don't get a HP buff which stacks with Ebony
Certain skill lines we bought within a DLC where then put into the crown store -> It was a bit...saddening to witness after a long haul of grinding.

Now we have the addition of the Harpooner's Kilt (more crit damage on top of crit damage) It will probably meet the same fate as the other mythical sets later on, but for the time being it's quite a buff indeed

So that's my view point on these purchasable bonuses be it for pleasure, ego or for gameplay. You can say that it's not pay-to-win because of nerfs later down the line, but in retrospect even with set nerfs, the game has been balanced out so that they are still quite attractive.

I don't mind having these mythical items at all, but I think it should either be accessible to all via achievements in game and not sold in DLC or that they should be less advantageous than they already are. What can I say, I'm over 30 y/o and I'm not a fan of these business practices.

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

hundergrn wrote: »

Pay to progress feels like the apt term for it all. From playing other MMO's over the years, once the newest expansion came out all you gear and items became almost worthless overnight.

That top tier gear? Trash, replaced by the low-quality item from some random quest because char/item level cap was raised.

Pot and food underperform cause new recipes provide better return or can no longer be used past level x.

Want to progress the new story? Get stomped till you get your new expansion gear to kill trash. We don't care if you killed a god in last expansions raid/trail/thing.

As far as I'm aware, ESO is one of the few progressing MMO style games where your gear is not auto-trash on expansion drop. One could go to a gear loadout they used in Morrowind and still be viable albeit at a slight dps/durability loss (more to do with crit and gearset changes through patch balancing)

Its just disheartening to see this mentality be so prevalent and it baffles me to where it is stemming from.

I agree with you about the gear (for PvE) Indeed we have been using the same gear now for about 3 years (I'm a magicka DPS)
Choices boil down to:
- Siroria, BSW, Medusa, Acuity and MS (to name the basics)

Stam has had a new meta this patch and the previous patch with the addition of some new equipment for grouplay/raids -> Behind a DLC and their previous setups aren't as good as their previous ones (I think we could get some top stams to vouch)

From memory, the stam dot meta (around VSS launch) was the only real moment we had to change our setups radically in PvE. Our characters and gear (remember the crazy VMA dagger meta where everyone was getting 90K+ on Dragons? -> VMA = Wrothghar)

In PvP on the other hand we do change our gear each meta, to the point of spending millions of in game gold for some I imagine. Theory crafting is fun for some, less for others.

Classes are sometimes nerfed in the game just before the launch of a newer class. I remember Sorcerer for example, that patch when it became 'a crafter class' and some people brought out some amusing parody videos for their sorcerer builds that patch.

I do understand the notion of escalation and attractiveness in gaming and of course you need it, but just not perhaps how they are getting about it at the moment.

Rasoma

Hmmm - so people really expect Zenimax to run ESO just out of the goodness of their hearts and not to make money?

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

Rasoma wrote: »

Hmmm - so people really expect Zenimax to run ESO just out of the goodness of their hearts and not to make money?

Of course not. Its a business above all, but we are for the most part from solo RPG backgrounds (I haven't met that many MMO players here from my 7 year experiences or those rare few I knew people left a while back -> old Swtor players etc) They left because of too many meta changes and the performance in a sub based game. I think the model needs a bit of tweaking if they state the game is not a true MMO and if they want to keep us interested in that sense.

I think the 13 euro/15 US Dollar sub should cover it all, don't you? It's kinda steep when you think about it.

Sarannah

Players always complain when they need to pay for something... but this game is not pay2win.

However, the paywall thing is kind of true. As when you do not buy an expansion or DLC, you do not have access to that expansion's content/DLC. Which some players that want something from that DLC/expansion, will call a paywall. While technically true, this goes for anything in life. You can't eat food you didn't buy first.

Gelmir

Youyouz06 wrote: »

...
I think the 13 euro/15 US Dollar sub should cover it all, don't you? It's kinda steep when you think about it.

I absolutely agree with this. All these so called "expansions" are a measely zone content, which you can clear in 10 hours. And on top of that 10 hour SP content, having 1 new trial, 2-3 dungeons shouldn't warrant extra paywall. Subscription should cover it auto. And ZOS actually knows that, that's why they are venturing on the edge of that thin line, by converting the latest expansion into a DLC (covered by monthly sub) and then releasing new expansion. This is their edge line they hold onto to squeeze that last bit of milking from their playerbase. More than that and ESO wouldn't have the population it has now. But if they got rid of this expansion-paywall every year, I bet their playerbase would've increased noticeably.

But on the other hand, I am happy we don't have worse: I can purchase (and have purchased most of) Store items with ingame gold, thanks to Crown sellers. ESO could have something like REXes in Rift to enable the purchase of Crowns instead of Crown items from the sellers (that way one could accumulate crowns continuously); or some mechanics like in GW2 (gold-to-gem conversion). But I am thankful that at the very least we have Crown sellers.

Starlight_Knight

Slightly off topic but just my opinion, thease things that some people are calling p2w are trash.

I do more DPS using classic sets and not new ones from the likes of vateshran hollows.

Companions are dumb and actually make things like soloing world bosses harder becuase they make a mess and die really easy!

pvp - Band of Malacath is trash unless you're playing a tank. also not like that is the only thing bad in pvp,

All classes are the same anyway, necro / wardens thanks to years of homogenization, they all run the same gear and skills. so no point. any class is one patch away from being bis.

jssriot

P2W is a term that has been around long enough for the community to have a broad consensus about what it means and saying there's no consensus just means the person saying that personally doesn't agree with that consensus (or doesn't understand it themselves).

The term just means paying extra that what is normally expected to be able to play the game for anything that gives you an advantage in the game--or even just the illusion of one*.

How P2W gets implemented varies, but it's pretty clear that ZOS is using P2W to some extent to sell their new expansions. When you have an expansion that is not included in the base game or the regular sub, but it includes an item that most of the game's end-game DD players spent hours if not days farming immediately after that expansion's release because of the advantage it'd purported to give them over players who don't have access that expansion, ESPECIALLY one that gives you a boost to a stat that was nerfed for everyone across the board just a couple months before that expansion's release, that's P2W and you're a fool to think it's not.

Some people will argue things like "Well, ZOS will nerf it eventually so it's not that much of an advantage" or "I don't see how that item is really P2W because it's garbage" but the thing is, *the reason P2W exists is to sell a product, and not actually to help players. And in the case with the new Mythic items with Blackwood, it did just that. Once ZOS has their money, they can do whatever they like with those P2W features, including nerf them into the ground so they can sell these same players a different P2W feature. So the cycle goes.

The end result is a community that's constantly chasing after the latest thing being sold to them, and sometimes it is a real advantage and sometimes is just smoke and mirrors, but the impact on the community is you SHOULD get that item if you want to stay competitive and if you can't or don't want to pay, well, sucks to be you. It's using social pressure from within the player base to motivate players to buy the product. Nice, huh? Just be aware that corporations selling you things will very eagerly use this kind of social pressure to get people to buy buy buy because it works really, really well almost all of the time, because we're social animals hardwired to care about being part of the community, on both a conscious and unconscious level, whether we are mature and secure enough to admit it. The thing about these sorts of insidious marking practices is it hinges on people assuming they can't be so easily influenced by it, so they aren't conscious of the ways those methods influence them through things like social pressure.

Alurria

I think they should go back to monthly sub that way everyone could complain it's p2w. How in the world do you expect them to pay for additions to the game with out a money making model? I mean do game developers work for free or company's are in business to give things away?

Stormvessel

All games are pay to win - if you don't pay (to buy the game), you don't win.

Similar logic. We are talking about an expansion - not DLC/Crown Store exclusives - but a major expansion.

Of course you have to purchase the latest major expansion if you want to compete at the highest level. This is common sense. And this is even more so the case with other MMOs, where often times level caps are raised and your gear becomes worthless.

If anything, people have been spoiled by ESO and it's revolutionary system - things haven't always been this way historically.

How quickly people forget - how quickly entitlement sets in.

Mythreindeer

Gelmir wrote: »

Youyouz06 wrote: »

...
I think the 13 euro/15 US Dollar sub should cover it all, don't you? It's kinda steep when you think about it.

I absolutely agree with this. All these so called "expansions" are a measely zone content, which you can clear in 10 hours. And on top of that 10 hour SP content, having 1 new trial, 2-3 dungeons shouldn't warrant extra paywall. Subscription should cover it auto. And ZOS actually knows that, that's why they are venturing on the edge of that thin line, by converting the latest expansion into a DLC (covered by monthly sub) and then releasing new expansion. This is their edge line they hold onto to squeeze that last bit of milking from their playerbase. More than that and ESO wouldn't have the population it has now. But if they got rid of this expansion-paywall every year, I bet their playerbase would've increased noticeably.

But on the other hand, I am happy we don't have worse: I can purchase (and have purchased most of) Store items with ingame gold, thanks to Crown sellers. ESO could have something like REXes in Rift to enable the purchase of Crowns instead of Crown items from the sellers (that way one could accumulate crowns continuously); or some mechanics like in GW2 (gold-to-gem conversion). But I am thankful that at the very least we have Crown sellers.

What I get from your argument is if it isn’t cheap to purchase (by your measure) then it’s unfair business practices.

If their pricing strategies were egregious then they would lose customers. That is clearly not the case which is obvious to anyone playing the game for the past year. As always, if you disagree with the way they price their offerings you don’t have to play. Personally, I find it reasonably priced entertainment.

Goregrinder

hundergrn wrote: »

Coming back to the game after a year hiatus (looking at you month long jubilee at the start of covid) and playing for roughly a month now... I keep on seeing people use the term 'paywall' and 'p2w' to voice disdain against Zenimax for the release of new gear with the expansion.

'oh great, new content, why am I being paywalled for (insert gear/mythic here)'
'freaking eso is p2w now cause kilt/pale order/whatever'
'I'm done with this game, its all p2w now'

What gives? Is this not an MMO that has a consistent cycle of one paid expansion and 2-3 dlc (that is usually included with eso+ and able to be bought w/ crowns)? Haven't this been the case since Elsweyr? Since Summerset? Since Morrowind? Roughly once a year we get a paid expansion, that paid expansion includes previous expansions in the purchase, then get optional dlc that we can either buy/crown/eso+ for.

How is this p2w? If going by meta of the past and present, gear and skill load outs change by the expansion and dlc sure but this does not make prior loadouts unviable. Having this new gear will not make you top the charts. Make your numbers rise a little before getting nerfed in patches? Maybe.

How are we as a community getting paywalled and forced to p2w to remain relevant in our content and ability to play the game? I don't understand this trend.

People just want everything for free, or for 5 bucks and think ZOS's bills will just "take care of themselves". That's really all it is. It's like when streaming services raises their monthly subscription a dollar every few years, as if hosting data and purchasing streaming licenses from movie/tv studios was free.

Sylosi

Stormvessel wrote: »

If anything, people have been spoiled by ESO and it's revolutionary system - things haven't always been this way historically.

What revolutionary system?

Ippokrates

Looking at the ZOS policy regarding housing I am more than sure that this company is not about making money

Wolfster

Sylosi wrote: »

Stormvessel wrote: »

If anything, people have been spoiled by ESO and it's revolutionary system - things haven't always been this way historically.

What revolutionary system?

I cant speak to the quote but when an expansion drops in say, World of Warcraft, if you buy the expansion your existing gear (even if it's top end raid gear) is instantly trash and the new green drops will be significantly more powerful.

But if you don't buy the expansion you can't effectively play with those that have. They get more levels, more power creep, and better gear. So you're utterly outclassed.

In ESO there may be some new BIS item, but you're still on a mostly even footing with anyone who buys the expansion. You have the same level cap, and approximately the same power level, and outside of pushing the very highest DPS numbers you're still competitive for all content you have access to and can reasonable participate alongside players that have the new stuff.

Goregrinder

Sylosi wrote: »

Stormvessel wrote: »

If anything, people have been spoiled by ESO and it's revolutionary system - things haven't always been this way historically.

What revolutionary system?

Well definitely not the mandatory $15 a month sub model, that's a bit antiquated these days for MMORPG's. Plus how far $15 went back in 1999, is not the same as it is in 2021. If ZOS were to go with the original model it launched with, where you pay to buy the game, then you pay a monthly sub in order to log in, the sub price would have to be far higher than $15 a month per account in order to offset the money of money they currently generate from all of the whales paying for all the minimalists.

Firstmep

Youyouz06 wrote: »

hundergrn wrote: »

Coming back to the game after a year hiatus (looking at you month long jubilee at the start of covid) and playing for roughly a month now... I keep on seeing people use the term 'paywall' and 'p2w' to voice disdain against Zenimax for the release of new gear with the expansion.

'oh great, new content, why am I being paywalled for (insert gear/mythic here)'
'freaking eso is p2w now cause kilt/pale order/whatever'
'I'm done with this game, its all p2w now'

What gives? Is this not an MMO that has a consistent cycle of one paid expansion and 2-3 dlc (that is usually included with eso+ and able to be bought w/ crowns)? Haven't this been the case since Elsweyr? Since Summerset? Since Morrowind? Roughly once a year we get a paid expansion, that paid expansion includes previous expansions in the purchase, then get optional dlc that we can either buy/crown/eso+ for.

How is this p2w? If going by meta of the past and present, gear and skill load outs change by the expansion and dlc sure but this does not make prior loadouts unviable. Having this new gear will not make you top the charts. Make your numbers rise a little before getting nerfed in patches? Maybe.

How are we as a community getting paywalled and forced to p2w to remain relevant in our content and ability to play the game? I don't understand this trend.

Hey OP,

I understand your view point and yes ESO + does cover quite a bit of content. That said, there are some clear indicators that some aspects of the game are indeed advantageous for those who choose to purchase specific content.
Let's just take a look and try and be objective vis à vis our game experiences.

PVP:
Optimized groups here are Necromancers and Wardens (For their gameplay and visible bonuses)
Band of Malacath -> 16% extra flat non crit damage (Greymoor)
Ring of the Wild Hunt -> Impossible to target certain players who made speed builds (Greymoor)
Markarth has the Vateshran Hollows solo arena -> equipment used in top tier PvP builds (ESO+ related)
Other mythical items I won't list were also used during a patch -> with good results, perhaps too good as they were all nerfed later down the line, but still remain advantageous be in in group play or solo.

PvE:
Necromancers are still basically the only thing you see on recruitment demand posts
At one point to enter PvE raids groups wanted over 6 Magicka Necromancers in their group
If you don't have a Warden you don't get a HP buff which stacks with Ebony
Certain skill lines we bought within a DLC where then put into the crown store -> It was a bit...saddening to witness after a long haul of grinding.

Now we have the addition of the Harpooner's Kilt (more crit damage on top of crit damage) It will probably meet the same fate as the other mythical sets later on, but for the time being it's quite a buff indeed

So that's my view point on these purchasable bonuses be it for pleasure, ego or for gameplay. You can say that it's not pay-to-win because of nerfs later down the line, but in retrospect even with set nerfs, the game has been balanced out so that they are still quite attractive.

I don't mind having these mythical items at all, but I think it should either be accessible to all via achievements in game and not sold in DLC or that they should be less advantageous than they already are. What can I say, I'm over 30 y/o and I'm not a fan of these business practices.

Then you really don't want to play Wow where you can't even get to max lvl without buying the latest expansion, let alone get relevant gear.
Eso is way more forgiving than most other Mmo's in that respect, you are absolutely not required to buy dlcs or expansions to have relevant gear.
At the end of the day its a business and it has to generate profits, or we wouldn't be playing this game anymore.
At this day and age expecting not to spend money on video games is kind of wierd imho.
Imho eso gets monetization right, it gives you options, a lot of games out there don't give you choices.

Frankly the days of buying a game once and playing it for years and years without paying again are pretty much gone.
I am only a couple years older than you, so I also grew up in that era, but you have to realise that it's over now.

virtus753

alanmatillab16_ESO wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

It's very simple: not everyone uses the same definition of pay-to-win.

For some people, putting BOP mythic items behind buying the newest Chapter for cash and usually other DLC zones for crowns is a step too far. For some people, ZOS crossed the line when they made people pay for classes like Warden and Necromancer.

For other people, it's fine. This is a normal part of pay-to-progress in an MMO.


That being said, yes, I do think that players should wise up to the current cycle where ZOS nerfing players' skills and builds, then sells back some of that lost power in the form of new mythic items, only to nerf those items a few months from now when they need to sell different mythic items. ZOS is absolutely monetizing the nerf/buff cycle, and it's time players realized that the constant changes are not all about finding a good balance for the game.

For what it is worth you get warden for free now, the base game includes Morrowind.

Only people who bought the game itself after June 2018 get Warden and Morrowind free. People who bought the game before that, even if they never played it, still have to pay extra for those somehow, either in the crown store or by purchasing a new base game version.

Thoragaal

VaranisArano wrote: »

That being said, yes, I do think that players should wise up to the current cycle where ZOS nerfing players' skills and builds, then sells back some of that lost power in the form of new mythic items, only to nerf those items a few months from now when they need to sell different mythic items. ZOS is absolutely monetizing the nerf/buff cycle, and it's time players realized that the constant changes are not all about finding a good balance for the game.

And this is why I stopped caring about changing my gear. I've used almost the same gear setup since Orsinium.

AinSoph

I can't imagine a company making you pay for new things instead of giving them away for free. Completely inconceivable.

Wolfster

You can still finish any content in this game with base game crafted gear.

What exactly are you paying to win at?

Vonkarolinas

hundergrn wrote: »

Coming back to the game after a year hiatus (looking at you month long jubilee at the start of covid) and playing for roughly a month now... I keep on seeing people use the term 'paywall' and 'p2w' to voice disdain against Zenimax for the release of new gear with the expansion.

'oh great, new content, why am I being paywalled for (insert gear/mythic here)'
'freaking eso is p2w now cause kilt/pale order/whatever'
'I'm done with this game, its all p2w now'

What gives? Is this not an MMO that has a consistent cycle of one paid expansion and 2-3 dlc (that is usually included with eso+ and able to be bought w/ crowns)? Haven't this been the case since Elsweyr? Since Summerset? Since Morrowind? Roughly once a year we get a paid expansion, that paid expansion includes previous expansions in the purchase, then get optional dlc that we can either buy/crown/eso+ for.

How is this p2w? If going by meta of the past and present, gear and skill load outs change by the expansion and dlc sure but this does not make prior loadouts unviable. Having this new gear will not make you top the charts. Make your numbers rise a little before getting nerfed in patches? Maybe.

How are we as a community getting paywalled and forced to p2w to remain relevant in our content and ability to play the game? I don't understand this trend.

They are just cryhards and following another trend where it is "the thing" to complain about something rather than admit they enjoy it.

You notice, despite all the boo-hooing and gnashing of teeth, they are still playing.

LordGodzilla

Wolfster wrote: »

You can still finish any content in this game with base game crafted gear.

What exactly are you paying to win at?

i'd like to see a vCR+3 Roster who accept you on stamDK dps with only Hunding + spriggan

Goregrinder wrote: »

People just want everything for free, or for 5 bucks and think ZOS's bills will just "take care of themselves". That's really all it is. It's like when streaming services raises their monthly subscription a dollar every few years, as if hosting data and purchasing streaming licenses from movie/tv studios was free.

Not reallly. But i play FFXIV too. [snip]

When i play FFXIV, i pay 10€ sub every month, and 1 60€ extension by 2 years~.
Teso ? 13€ a month and 50€ every years.

So, yes it's the same you will tell me. But...
Look now what we got on TES content and FF content.
TES is 4 DJ and 1 raid + 2 area by years.
FFXIV got 12 trials for 8 ppl, 3 for 24, some for relic weapons and maybe 20 area+.

And wth on crownstore ?
What i got from game mount in eso ? 4 horse, 1 wolve dwemer and indriks... and 2 mount with trifectas trials.
all is in crown store like 90%

What i got from game in FFXIV ? So much without paying.
in FF, i can got more than 100 mount, got more than 100 pet, can got music box with all music ig for "free'
We have the same for other gamesthat share some features in FF. Like Monster hunter mount or FFXV mount for free again. Just pay the sub.

In eso ? For get a ebon sword from TES4 i need to fu**ing pay ? WTH. It's the same licences.

It's only that i hate in ESO. Why we don't have mount for area like guard in vvardenfell ? senche on elsweyr ? etc etc.

So yes, it's useless for some guy who just playing orc with purple skin and patnie nordic who just push leaderboard as a goal.
NP with that. But some like diversity IG with cosmetic.

You can tell me, just don't use the crown with your sub.
Yes, but i need it for 21dummy, the new regen ult stone, house 700+...

I just hate all poeple thinking it's normal, to buy something like Greymoor, and need to repay 100€+ for get the house 700 slot in this area. etc etc.

ESO is :
Look we just release something new and in your game + extension ! (house, assistant, companion,antiquities etc etc).
After that, next DLC give you only 1 on this thing, and after, they just put it on crownstore. And that's the thing i hate.

And don't tell me it's normal. Most of ppl here pay sub + year chapter...

And i don't tell about ppl who pay carry with 15k crowncrate, or buy some crown for sell and make gold for buy some golds mats or sets (or carry again)...

Lot of ppl saying eso is not so expensive for a MMO it's ppl who don't play a MMO RPG.
But ppl who play only on trials or who play only solo for quest 1 h per evening.

But after that, it's just my opinion, it's sure a lot don't have the same. But it's really hard when i compare other MMO...
SWTOR got more cosmetic IG than ESO and it's f2p

Joke but hope, new system for mid-june will be cool for that...

(sorry if my english is bad, tried to do my best)

[Edited to remove Bashing and Inappropriate Content]