Hallothiel wrote: »

Starlock wrote: »

Cost should be nothing higher than zero. The level of depravity the marketing team has sunk to can get little worse from here. It is sickening, and they should all be ashamed of themselves for allowing this game to sink further into the unethical microtransactions hole. It’s a scam and robbery that will grow worse and worse because for too many they do not even understand why this is a problem.

Blimey. ‘Sickening’? ‘unethical’? ‘Scam and robbery’? ‘Depravity’?!

C’mon now, that’s a bit of an over-reaction. For something YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BUY.

I don’t think it is. I wish it was. Frankly, I got way too complacent about the scummy marketing this game uses over the years myself. I remember when games were devoid of any and all microtransactions. When they didn’t prey on human psychology to fill the pockets of developers with dirty money. ESO is not the only offender with these things. It has poisoned the entire video game industry now. And many players have gotten so used to it they don’t question it or see the problem. They don’t see how a fun hobby has been transformed into profit exploitation thta preys on our love of the games.

I mean, think about it, guys. In what reality does it ever make sense to pay $15 USD to unlock one cosmetic item. Or even $100 USD for a virtual house? What the hell is this? And now we are being charged to bypass crappy game design that, well, maybe should just be changed? Can someone explain to me what justification there is for not allowing skill points and skyshards to be unlocked with in-game gold or optionally transfered to another character at no cost? They don’t do it this way for one reason only - to milk suckers for profit.

So yes, I will use really harsh language to describe this garbage. It fully and entirely deserves it.

Anyone who buys these are directly supporting predatory monetization

@Starlock

Whilst I don’t ever intend to buy skill lines I can earn in game, I don’t have that much of a problem with the way Zos has implemented this. At least you have to have completed the skill line previously. I would be furious if that condition was removed.

But I have no illusions about the game industry - if it was still a nice little hobby there would be no investment and none of the games we have today.

I do not particularly like micro-transactions but the ones in ESO are generally cosmetic - or in the case of skills lines, conditional, and can be acquired for free in game.

Whilst you may not agree, if people wish to spend their money on a virtual house, why can’t they? It is their money, and they (hopefully) get pleasure out of it - what is so wrong in that?

Jhalin wrote: »

Hallothiel wrote: »

Whilst you may not agree, if people wish to spend their money on a virtual house, why can’t they? It is their money, and they (hopefully) get pleasure out of it - what is so wrong in that?

Because it’s screwing over everyone else

Companies don’t care about anything but milking whales. Performance, good gameplay, thoughtful balancing, fun itself, is all tossed into the trash the moment some idiot in a suit realizes they can lock people out of it, and those same people will THANK THEM for the “kind opportunity” to spend money to get those things back.

Or in the case of ESO, whales excuse everything, and still reward a company for a game that doesn’t work, isn’t balanced, and is being designed to be so dull that they can sell you progression (Psijic was of course designed to test run this)

So you think that these games would be developed out of the goodness of a companies heart just to please us lovely players? HA!

If you dislike this game so much, why the hell are you playing it still? And if you have left, why are you lurking on the forums?

ATomiX69 wrote: »

Billdor wrote: »

Worth for the *** Psijic Grind.

Whoever made that grind needs to be fired.

Paying 3k crowns for something you can do sub 2 hours is straight up stupid.

IMO, selling skilllines is straight-up terrible for the game, if you want something you should have to do something for it.
I understand doing it 10+ times is annoying, but well its part of building your character and character-progression.
Personally Ive done psijic, mage-guild, undaunted etc. at least 16 times by now and I have to say its not that bad once you know what youre doing.
But I guess ZOS wants to exploit the instant gratification-crowd and earn some $$$ along the way.
If they had implemented it for gold or other ingame currency Id be fine with it, but the way its implemented is just a lazy cashgrab by ZOS.

I did do something for it. I went to work. You should try it sometime,

YaYaPineapple wrote: »

Jhalin wrote: »

Sorry if I assumed you had empathy underneath the selfishness.

Some people are able to see the larger picture, and are able to see how negatively it effects this entire game community when you throw money at companies that are treating everyone like cows to be milked.

LMAO @ "empathy". No, I don't have a single shred of "empathy" for people who play an expensive game, on expensive computers/consoles, over expensive internet connections.

Game companies ONLY exist to make a profit, not to act as a charity providing gaming entertainment to the less fortunate.

So wanting game companies to be clear and upfront with their products, not use predatory marketing, have respect for their consumers by not designing systems they’ll create paid “solutions” for? That’s what you consider a charity?

Hilarious

YaYaPineapple wrote: »

Jhalin wrote: »

\
So wanting game companies to be clear and upfront with their products, not use predatory marketing, have respect for their consumers by not designing systems they’ll create paid “solutions” for? That’s what you consider a charity?

Hilarious

How does any of this relate to the prices of the purchasable skill lines?

- The pricing is clear and upfront.
- There is no "predatory marketing" involved. All they did was add them to the list of optional things for sale in the crown store.
- If you think any of the skill progression quests & methods were originally designed to tempt players to pay to skip them, you have an overactive imagination.

They see that players do not enjoy re-leveling skill lines, they find it boring.

A good company would see that and think “a damn, we’ve gone wrong in design somewhere. Let’s try to adjust it and make it more engaging for players who’ve done it before. If that doesn’t work we’ll revisit the system.”

A decent company would say “damn, they don’t really enjoy doing this again. It’s too much trouble to redesign it, so let’s just let them share progress among characters and give them a cash option to go with an ingame option of purchase.”

What a bad company does is say “huh, they really don’t like doing this over and over. What if we made a skill line even more tedious, and extra dull for newer characters by requiring all of the map be unlocked. Would people be more willing to buy progress for that one if we offered it? We won’t have an in-game method of purchase to ensure if they want to avoid the tedium we made they have to use cash.”


On top of that, loot boxes are the definition of predatory. There’s more than a few studies, along with actual tactics for exploiting human psychology in order to make profit at minimal costs.

Lol, just grind them rather then pay money.

It is not a great amount of time to do anyway. Plus, It is pretty quick and entertaining with my friends. While we joke around, sharing our days chatting it up through the grind.

Levelling skill lines or doing quest lines for the umpteenth time can be a little tedious. But that is not necessarily problematic game design - just the nature of mmos (or any game really) if you want to roll another character. I just swap around & do different things on different characters so I rarely get bored. But then I don’t chase the meta and play for fun.

Personally, I don’t think skill lines should be account wide. They should be per character.

I have said that I am not particularly happy that they are being sold many times; this thread was about implementation & pricing which I think they have done well - expensive enough to make you think twice but available for those that want it - and there are many players who have frequently asked for this.

If this was my game, I would have done the same thing - I’d rather people played the game but if they wanted to jump the game then I’d make them pay for it. But I would ensure that they could still get it in the game for free.