Thread: Convenience, not advantage

Appart from the discussion of the Star lit Crystal there is an other big advantage for all people who spend more money than others. The quotation from Sapience in the other post leads me to write this thread.

I hope turbine will give us back any chance to get destiny points. When playing a character to level 75 you will earn 13200 destiny points.

Additional health - 3000 destiny points
Additional power - 3000 destiny points
Additional damgage - 5000 destiny points

These are the costs for 1h 30 minutes. If you buy additional health and power in the lotro store the bonuses are HIGHER than the regular bonuses of destiny points. You have to play 2 characters to level 75 to play whole Orthanc with destiny buffs.

I think turbine should distance from the followin quotation:

"Patience said convenience, not advantage.

Very true. It’s one of our guiding principles. Some people have time, others have money and when players are willing to trade money for time we usually consider that a convenience. Our goal is to allow players to customize their play experience to deliver as much fun per hour of play as they want without impacting the play of others.
"
or give us the chance to get the same bonuses with an appropriate investment of time.

Some folks have money, some folks have time....

Should anyone be able to get the best items without working for it? no
Should you be able to buy your way to the top? no

Imagine if other areas of our lives were this way. Want a superbowl ring? Just pay enough money. Want that masters degree? Same answer again. Want the fastest car in the world? Well.... yeah you can buy that.

No matter how many times someone from Turbine says it, this line of thought just sounds like hollow justification for sucking the life out of the game for a few bucks. I really did chuckle when read somewhere about "maximizing player fun" by letting people with little time buy what they want.

This whole line of thought is like we are playing in isolation. Since my earliest experiences with MMO's one of the fun aspects of the game was the bragging rights to show off some new trinket you got through hard work and/or incredible luck. Take that away and you still have a fun game, but not nearly as interesting. There is no way around it - the store is cheapening the game.

I know some peeps dont care about the bragging rights aspect, and that's cool. Still I have always loved seeing kinfolk get super stuff and showing it off to the rest of us.

Convenience? Come one. Its just about monetizing the game. I accept that's what you need to do to pay the bills, but let's not be so dishonest. And just in case convenience really is a factor - is there much honor/fun/challenge in flying to the top of mount everest instead of climbing? No - the challenge is supposed to be part of the experience. Prolly gonna get hated on for this, but pressing submit anyway.

Originally Posted by Escander

Some folks have money, some folks have time....

Should anyone be able to get the best items without working for it? no
Should you be able to buy your way to the top? no

I always thought it would be a good idea to have store bought items to be either named differently or have a little notation to them that shows they are store bought.

This would allow people who want to try new content but simply don't have the time for the gear grind-up to have a chance at the newer, high level content, while allowing those who actually have attained the gear to show, proudly, that they completed the content to get that gear.

This would allow everyone an oppurtunity to play as they wish, and have the gear that they wish, while allowing those who have achieved in game accomplishments to proudly strutt their stuff.

Originally Posted by danno8

I always thought it would be a good idea to have store bought items to be either named differently or have a little notation to them that shows they are store bought.

This would allow people who want to try new content but simply don't have the time for the gear grind-up to have a chance at the newer, high level content, while allowing those who actually have attained the gear to show, proudly, that they completed the content to get that gear.

This would allow everyone an oppurtunity to play as they wish, and have the gear that they wish, while allowing those who have achieved in game accomplishments to proudly strutt their stuff.

You might also have to change the cosmetics to something that doesn't look as nice because if someone goes anonymous then you can't check that they bought their gear instead of earned it and that would unnecessarily upset the hardcore people that require only a small percentage of the population is allowed to have the best stuff.

Those both sound like great ideas to me. A cosmetic difference would be a good compromise, since the store isnt going away.

Originally Posted by Cerebrum_EU

"Patience said convenience, not advantage.

Very true. It’s one of our guiding principles. Some people have time, others have money and when players are willing to trade money for time we usually consider that a convenience. Our goal is to allow players to customize their play experience to deliver as much fun per hour of play as they want without impacting the play of others.
"

I have no problem with this statement, and most of the time, it's accurate. I don't mind them selling items like Scrolls of Empowerment in the store, which I can earn myself by grinding out two or three skirmishes. I don't mind them selling morale pots or travel rations when I can just hit a vendor and buy them for myself.

The problem arises when Turbine begins to sell enhancements in the store that are incredibly rare to find in game. We see this with items like the stat tomes. They are enhancements that give characters a fairly large advantage, and they justify this by adding them into the game as extremely rare rewards at the end of instances. I run a lot of instances. Perhaps a dozen or so every week. Yet in all the time since stat tomes were added into the store (a year or two ago), I saw one drop the first or second week, and haven't seen a single tome since.

This is not right in my eyes, and it is the fear that many have if Turbine goes forward with their current implementation of Starlit Crystals. If they are going to continue with this whole "convenience, not advantage" theory, then I expect to have a reasonable chance to obtain the equivalent of store-bought items in game. One drop in well over 200 runs is not reasonable.

In closing, I really don't have a problem with the store as a whole. It is a valuable asset for Turbine to leech money from all the players with free accounts. It does become a problem, however, when they practically force their paying customers to dump even more money into their account in order to keep up with the curve. This is just the sort of behavior that will, and certainly has been, drive away many of Lotro's loyal, paying customers.

they reduced Dp for one reason
its the only thing that you CANT and will never be able to buy it from the store
My guess is that with the next thing that came up(commendations) they will completely REMOVE dp on RoR
Mark my words thats for sure.And some ppl have like a million DP...so poof!

http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...1&postcount=13
DnD online

The diamonds themselves won't be available from chests or drops, but Turbine Points can be earned by attaining favor, which can be used to buy Astral Diamonds, so by the transitive property, yes, they can be earned in-game.

change diamonds for anything you like.

Originally Posted by danno8

I always thought it would be a good idea to have store bought items to be either named differently or have a little notation to them that shows they are store bought.

This would allow people who want to try new content but simply don't have the time for the gear grind-up to have a chance at the newer, high level content, while allowing those who actually have attained the gear to show, proudly, that they completed the content to get that gear.

This would allow everyone an oppurtunity to play as they wish, and have the gear that they wish, while allowing those who have achieved in game accomplishments to proudly strutt their stuff.

I like this. +rep

Originally Posted by danno8

I always thought it would be a good idea to have store bought items to be either named differently or have a little notation to them that shows they are store bought.

This would allow people who want to try new content but simply don't have the time for the gear grind-up to have a chance at the newer, high level content, while allowing those who actually have attained the gear to show, proudly, that they completed the content to get that gear.

This would allow everyone an oppurtunity to play as they wish, and have the gear that they wish, while allowing those who have achieved in game accomplishments to proudly strutt their stuff.

No. You can do draigoch with pretty bad gear and get better gear that way to ready yourself for ToO. Selling end game gear on the store is horrible. I believe people should be awarded when they accomplish something. If you can beat ToO to get the gear in it then you deserve it. You deserve to have the best gear in the game. It would not be fair in any way, shape, or form for people who work to get the achievements have gear that is basically equivalent to something someone else has bought from the store.

Originally Posted by danno8

I always thought it would be a good idea to have store bought items to be either named differently or have a little notation to them that shows they are store bought.

This would allow people who want to try new content but simply don't have the time for the gear grind-up to have a chance at the newer, high level content, while allowing those who actually have attained the gear to show, proudly, that they completed the content to get that gear.

This would allow everyone an oppurtunity to play as they wish, and have the gear that they wish, while allowing those who have achieved in game accomplishments to proudly strutt their stuff.

My pet peeve has always been the ability to buy a rep horse, so the rest of what I'm writing probably counts as hypocrisy, but here goes.

What it all boils down to is individual preference about what makes the game fun for you. If I enjoy the game more with extra morale, power, and higher stats then I see that as my business. If you prefer earning it all "honestly" then that's your business - and that's where I can see a problem arising. If items are flagged in some way or another as being purchased or earned, I'm afraid that we'd end up dividing the players into a sort of class system. Or viewing purchased items as somehow cheating. (If this were PVP, it would be different.)

For me, another solution would be for Turbine to limit the types of things you can buy to the same type of things you can get with DP - especially if they're getting rid of DP. Maybe add cosmetics, and emotes. I know that wouldn't happen, because Turbine would lose too much money, but I figured I may as well put it out there.

The whole purpose of the store IS 'cheating', with the exception of unique cosmetics and actual content or features (which they also sell in the 'Web Store'). If you were to buy, for example Scrolls of Empowerment for real money from anyone other than Turbine you'd be banned. The only difference is Turbine's the one that makes the rules on what constitutes cheating and what not.

Conclusion: Allow sale of items for real money, Turbine can then compete on the market.

The sad thing I find about the "some people have money, some people have time" comment attempting to justify store perks is that these two things, namely money and time, are NOT dependant upon each other.

They are independant variables. Having less time does NOT imply that one has more money to spend on the game.

It's a false justification. Either something is earned in game, or not. One can literally PURCHASE a % of your moors rank by buying +% to renown buffs. That's not convienance. It's literally getting more reward for the same action in game. It's advantage.

Then there's the literal advantage items for sale as well...which further increase your competative ability versus players without those consumables. Insignias/Brands that are BETTER than the ones earned through hard earned ranks to name one of the more grievous examples. Quicker cooldowns, and usable in combat, unlike every Brand and Insignia earned under R15. It's insane that someone with cash to spend somehow should instantly get an advanatge over the actual item earned via YEARS of play in the moors.

Look, I don't want to take away Turbine's ability to make money. I want them to be successful, because I want to continue to play their game. But this stuff has gotten out of hand.

I have been playing this game for nearly five years, and I would really like to see it last through Mordor.

Personally I have never spent a dime of real money in the store, but if it takes a few ezmoders buying gear in the store to keep the game alive thru Mordor, I can live with that.

It doesn't diminish my enjoyment of the game at all.

Originally Posted by DRad123

Personally I have never spent a dime of real money in the store, but if it takes a few ezmoders buying gear in the store to keep the game alive thru Mordor, I can live with that.

This is how I would feel, except for the massive advantage a few store buffs can give in PvMP. Once you get jumped by a few people who you could otherwise beat, yet die to due to the fall immunity, store brand, ect, it gets annoying pretty quick.

Originally Posted by t-town-colt

No. You can do draigoch with pretty bad gear and get better gear that way to ready yourself for ToO. Selling end game gear on the store is horrible. I believe people should be awarded when they accomplish something. If you can beat ToO to get the gear in it then you deserve it. You deserve to have the best gear in the game. It would not be fair in any way, shape, or form for people who work to get the achievements have gear that is basically equivalent to something someone else has bought from the store.

In what way would it not be "fair"? You ran the content you got the reward. How does someone else having similar gear (stat wise) through other means diminish your own accomplishments?

Does a person who drives a Ferrari, which they purchased by being independantly wealthy somehow have their Ferrari diminished due to that guy who bought one through funds gained through a lottery win?

From what I gather you want 2 things:
1. You want to be recognized as having run the content to get the good gear.
2. You want to be rewarded for your accomplishments.

By having seperate distinguishable gear, one begotten from content, the other from the store you get to have both things still. Also more people will be able to try out the higher level content while giving Turbine more money by getting store gear with similar stats. Seems like everyone wins.

These things already exist. The runes in the store (something king under the mountain?) are/were top tier relics and eveyone knew that they came from the store. Did anyone care?

Now there is one problem that comes to mind with this kind of setup. If people can just buy similar gear that you would get from Draigoch would they just buy it instead of running the content? That is a definite potential problem. You always want a large pool of people willing to run instances.

It is probably for this reason that this idea will not get any attention, and that's fine. I get that.

Originally Posted by danno8

In what way would it not be "fair"? You ran the content you got the reward. How does someone else having similar gear (stat wise) through other means diminish your own accomplishments?

Does a person who drives a Ferrari, which they purchased by being independantly wealthy somehow have their Ferrari diminished due to that guy who bought one through funds gained through a lottery win?

From what I gather you want 2 things:
1. You want to be recognized as having run the content to get the good gear.
2. You want to be rewarded for your accomplishments.

By having seperate distinguishable gear, one begotten from content, the other from the store you get to have both things still. Also more people will be able to try out the higher level content while giving Turbine more money by getting store gear with similar stats. Seems like everyone wins.

These things already exist. The runes in the store (something king under the mountain?) are/were top tier relics and eveyone knew that they came from the store. Did anyone care?

Now there is one problem that comes to mind with this kind of setup. If people can just buy similar gear that you would get from Draigoch would they just buy it instead of running the content? That is a definite potential problem. You always want a large pool of people willing to run instances.

It is probably for this reason that this idea will not get any attention, and that's fine. I get that.

First of all what content are people being limited from? You can get perfectly good gear by doing draigoch, which idk about anywhere else but has plenty of pugs on my server. The run is very easy. People who want to raid gear in the store want it there so they don't have to work to get it.

As I said the best gear should go to people who have done the work in the game. If you don't want to do the raid then fine get the best gear you can through crafting, and the quests. Pretty much all solo content in the game and even most of the six mans can be done with much less than optimal gear so its not like your being limited.

It wouldn't be fair to people who have worked to beat the toughest content so they could get raid gear to have the same gear with a different cosmetic available to people who haven't even stepped inside a raid (Although by making the raid gear t1 they made it alot easier).

And for the record I don't like the runes being available in the store, but putting raid gear equivalent into the store would be hardly the same thing.

The whole time versus money thing is a bunch of hooey, I don't have the time or the money. I could have the time if I limited myself to one or two characters and constantly played them, but I don't have the time to play the big instances regardless of number of alts, and I don't have the money to blow extra on a game I already paid for and continue to pay for monthly. I shouldn't have to pay extra after buying the game, paying for the expansions, and paying a monthly fee. But that's where we are.

As for destiny points the loss of the ability to continue to gain them is one of the biggest irritants of the game for me. As someone else said, they'll probably take them out eventually, replace them with something else for low level players and the rest of us are pooched. The game is increasingly pushing players into buying through the Turbine store and it's lame.

I used to use destiny points constantly, a run boost, a hope buff, little stuff, now I only use them for despair or whatever after you die, can't think of it. I been playing this game since the live beta, paid for everything since, used to have two accounts, paid for things twice, pay monthly, I've got some time and money into this game after five years.