Anything that saves time will change the balance. Simplest example is buying inventory space. If you could collect twice as many items before having to go back to a vendor, bank, or crafting area to deal with them a lot more of your time goes into play and less into inventory management. If your bank is bigger you can store a lot more crafting materials without having to juggle them between characters and, again, that means more actual play time.

Call it convenience but it will make a real difference in how much of your time is spent playing and how much is spent managing your stuff. That will change how fast your characters advance.

No BoP items(and I sure hope they don't make them BoE), that'd ruin any joy in getting them in game and discourage people from running certain content to get it(note that I don't think current loot system is anywhere near satisfactory, especially Undaunted sets, rng is horrible, but selling them for cash won't solve anything).
No crafted sets, that'd destroy the whole crafting idea and game economy since crafting sets is a huge source of income/goldsink.
No crafting mats, including tempers of any kind, or they might as well just give up on any in-game economy, as well as any sense of progression gear-wise.
No dropped BoE sets either - less so than BoP stuff, that's still progression destroyed.
No anything that exceeds player crafted/dropped stuff, no better mounts. No pvp ap-costing stuff.

I'd basically be fine with fluff and only fluff but doesn't look like ZOS can resist the temptation. I really hope they'll at least resist adding the aforementioned stuff, but I don't really believe it either. Here's hoping they can pleasantly surprise me....for once.

I'm still holding out hope that normal XP boosts won't effect the Champion System's progression.

WraithAzraiel wrote: »

Vandril wrote: »

However, if the Champion System's Enlightenment System progresses quicker due to an XP boost, it becomes Pay To Win. This is due to the fact that it becomes a boost to lateral character progression, just like gear. Lateral character progression is where a character is no longer progressing in levels and is instead trying to maximize their power in their current level.

Not necessarily. Because there's a hard cap on the amount of Champion Points you can have on your account. So essentially it's just getting to that end point faster. Once again, a convenience.


Champion system is like another level system on top of the level system to replace and render obsolete the Veteran Rank system.

It's a system within a system, that without the first system wouldn't be a system.

Capisce?

I get what you're saying, but it's still pay to win as you described. As I explained in the rest of my earlier post, the only reason bonus XP isn't P2W is because mechanics exist to ease the gaps created between higher and lower levels. In most MMOs, dungeons/zones/PvP require certain levels or are otherwise attuned to them. You won't be entering said content without being at least the appropriate level, and getting to that level and thus unlocking that content more quickly will not grant an advantage over anyone else doing that content at the appropriate level.

In this game, PvP campaigns both have level restrictions (the non-vet Campaign, for example) AND a stat-equalizing feature for non-vet characters, totaling two mechanics that ease the gap between players at varying points in level progression.

These mechanics or similar ones don't exist and likely never will exist for the Champion System's "levels". You will not be locked out of doing the same on-level content as any other level 50, regardless of the difference between their progress in the Champion System and your own progress, and, for PvP, the stat-balancing mechanic will be turned off by anyone who has stats better than what the mechanic would grant them, making it also essentially useless at closing said gap.

The lack of mechanics to equalize the differences in the Champion System's progression makes the Champion System lateral character progression. Anything bought with real money that gives the paying player an advantage in lateral character progression is Pay To Win, as it will result in the paying player gaining in advantage in all content relevant to the max level. This is regardless of the severity of the advantage - it could be large, small, or largely unnoticeable, but if the advantage exists, then it is there.

I think tri-stat potions would be P2W, even it they had slightly lower stats than player crafted potions. The difference in PVP survivability in this game between players who chug these pots constantly and players who don't is HUGE.

At least until now there's a significant in-game cost to blowing through 200 tri-stat pots per hour... if they put them in the cash shop PVP will become a rich man's game, period.

@Emma_Eunjung‌ - I agree. This, too, would be Pay To Win. It would, however, be an extremely mild form of Pay To Win.

It likely wouldn't make as big a difference as you're implying. Anyone can farm a few thousand gold and buy these potions with absolute ease at even lower levels or, even better, easily level alchemy from level 1 to level 50 in the time frame of a few hours and make their own potions.

I'll bet that the weaker potions you considered in the cash shop wouldn't even sell all too much due to them being weaker. Most players would feel a sense of self-imposed disadvantage, considering they could have easily gotten better potions from alchemists.

All in all, I think a good 99% of people already using potions would continue buying them, and no one not already using potions would bother buying the ones from the cash shop anyway.

These potions, while Pay To Win, are a level of Pay To Win I am comfortable with. It may be an advantage, but it's so unbelievably small that it's really not an advantage at all, especially since you can gain a better advantage in-game in but half an hour. It's a fine line to tread, but if ESO is to have anything that's Pay To Win in their cash shop, I would be generally okay with stuff of this level.

Edit: Spelling, Grammar, making it all flow nicer

JamilaRaj wrote: »

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

At least until now there's a significant in-game cost to blowing through 200 tri-stat pots per hour

Wow. What's the cooldown again?

I honestly can't remember, but...

Small. I believe around 30 seconds. And that's without any enchants that lower potion cooldowns.

Anything that will interfere with the player economy needs to be left out of the cash shop. If they are items that can be made by other players or are Set Item drops they should NOT be in the cash shop.