City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

What the "Win" in Pay to Win means to me.

Acemace

By Acemace,
Posted on: 2012-06-28 11:10 in CoH and CoV General Discussions

 

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Originally Posted by EvilGeko View Post
You have correctly stated how I feel.
ok, gek, honest question, did you get some of the rewards you are currently proud of by farming minimally risky enemies? If not, does the fact that others have diminish your accomplishment.

 

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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post

After having considered my options, I don't mind paying to circumvent built-in annoyances the game has to offer, but I'd rather not have the option to skip what's supposed to be the good part and the point of the game. Even if I don't take it, knowing that I could sours the experience.
what about playing at a minimal difficulty slider? does the existence of the -1 option diminish your joy at playing at any other level?

 

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I acknowledge that it's possible to be upset at the devs, for making an option available, while not blaming players for taking advantage of that option. However, I do doubt (from my own experience and observation) that most humans are capable of making such a clear division, regardless of what they may say and even themselves believe.

On the other hand, both Sam and Claws have some good observations. The mere existence of an "easy path" is a problem to some, just because it can give them the sense that they're wasting their time unless they take it. But you know what? It's your time to waste. Pretty much all leisure activities are, by definition, "unproductive" - you're trading your time not for goods and services, or for tokens you can exchange for them later, but for experiences that you enjoy. And that is what counts - the experiences as you're having them, and the memories you'll have of them later.

It's no surprise that some people are willing to trade for not having to do things they don't enjoy. It's equally absurd to think that anyone would pay to not have fun, including paying someone else to have it for them. If someone seems to be doing the latter, it is likely that they have a different set of values, what pleases them and what does not.

My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City

 

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Originally Posted by StratoNexus View Post
To be clear, your premise is that if something can be both earned and bought, it lessens the value of earning it. Correct?

It doesn't matter if you never buy it yourself, the simple fact that the option exists, lessens the value of earning it. If NO ONE ever buys it and everyone only ever earns it, earning it is still cheapened by the mere possibility of buying it.

It seems a rational, if weird, position. I don't feel that way in general, but it doesn't seem crazy or anything.
Hmm...IDK something is a foot here. This appears like he is saying something like what people were saying about how "other" people being able to PL to 50 cheapened "their" experience to 50 just because the ability to do so is there even if they don't PL themselves.

Yeah that's just an old regurgitation of the wanting to control what "others" do/can do mentality seen in these types of cases dressed up in a new Sunday suit.

The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.

 

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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
I don't know... For I forget how many years, people have been trying very hard to convince me that the game isn't designed for me, I'm an outlier, what I want isn't good for the game and that the game will never be fair towards me. Hell, the Evil Geko himself once commented that he specifically wanted the game to NOT be designed to appeal to me because of my bad attitude or some such. There's a reason we don't speak to each other.

Somewhere along the line I gave up on arguing with this notion, because it's a rotating cast of ever newer people always giving me the same argument. And besides, the game is always going to be unfair to me if I don't shoot for "the best" but instead only aim for "good enough." It only really bothers me when it gets worse, and niches I thought I had are rendered invalid. You liked Galaxy City and the old missions? Tough, the Atlas Park makeover wasn't aimed at you. It doesn't have to be fair, it has to make money.

That's kind of why I've supported selling power if it's being SOLD as opposed to RENTED out. If we're going to make the game unfair, then at least let's make it consistent in its unfairness and avoid the constant "rental" feel of it.
You're talking about the logic of unfairness, but that's not the same thing as the visceral notion that something is fundamentally unfair to you personally. In fact, your last paragraph specifically highlights this fact by asserting that viscerally, you believe there's such a thing as a fair way to be unfair.

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Originally Posted by StratoNexus View Post
To be clear, your premise is that if something can be both earned and bought, it lessens the value of earning it. Correct?

It doesn't matter if you never buy it yourself, the simple fact that the option exists, lessens the value of earning it. If NO ONE ever buys it and everyone only ever earns it, earning it is still cheapened by the mere possibility of buying it.

It seems a rational, if weird, position. I don't feel that way in general, but it doesn't seem crazy or anything.
This works if we assume that all of the people purchasing didn't earn their money in some fashion. Money of course being a stand-in for goods, and work, it could be said that they didn't so much get the "thing" the "easy way" so much as they took another, equally tasking route.

But then some of the people who spend their money on in-game stuff might not have worked for that money(for a given definition of "work")

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I'll miss you all.

 

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Originally Posted by Darth_Khasei View Post
Hmm...IDK something is a foot here. This appears like he is saying something like what people were saying about how "other" people being able to PL to 50 cheapened "their" experience to 50 just because the ability to do so is there even if they don't PL themselves.

Yeah that's just an old regurgitation of the wanting to control what "others" do/can do mentality seen in these types of cases dressed up in a new Sunday suit.
Indeed!

The people who are crying about how this "pay to win" felgercarb is diminishing their own experience are allowing other people to define their own sense of accomplishments for them. This is silly, especially in a videogame. Any sense of accomplishment in a videogame is really based on your own perspective. You shouldn't let others dictate that to you. Likewise, you shouldn't be dictating to others what their experience should be like.

Think of it this way. If this was a single player game, and you unlocked all of its goodies by playing the game straight through, would your feelings of accomplishment be at all diminished if you found out that your next door neighbor, who was also playing the game, decided to use a cheat code to get everything?

I don't care what anyone else does in this game or how they do it. Even if I get frustrated sometimes by market fluctuations, lol! No one's giving out real gold medals if you only use the /ah command in "emergency situations". And beyond the PvP zones, we're not even playing against each other. I'm not racing anyone else to get the most purple IOs in the shortest amount of time. I play the game the way I play it for the joy it brings me to play it that way.

I get the feeling sometimes that many of the forumites here have long lost the forest for the trees.

 

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Originally Posted by StratoNexus View Post
To be clear, your premise is that if something can be both earned and bought, it lessens the value of earning it. Correct?

It doesn't matter if you never buy it yourself, the simple fact that the option exists, lessens the value of earning it. If NO ONE ever buys it and everyone only ever earns it, earning it is still cheapened by the mere possibility of buying it.

It seems a rational, if weird, position. I don't feel that way in general, but it doesn't seem crazy or anything.
Having thought about this statement fairly and carefully, I'm forced to conclude that whether I think its logical or not, my feelings align with it generally.

Perhaps "lessens" is not the right word in all cases. "Alters" is the correct word. Its a question of the specific way the game presents a situation to me. If there's only one way to get a reward, and its to kill a million monkeys, then if I choose to get that reward, my only choice is to kill a million monkeys. If I do, there's a certain sense of accomplishment associated with hurdling a challenge placed before me.

However, if I'm given the choice: kill a million monkeys or buy it from the store, the challenge placed before me is subtly different. Now, its not the challenge of killing a million monkeys. Its the challenge of abstaining from buying it from the store while I kill a million monkeys. Its like the difference between surviving in the wilderness with very little food and going on a diet. One involves dealing with a restriction, and the other involves having the willpower to impose that restriction upon yourself.

The equation of the challenge in my mind changes, and with it my perception of the reward that follows.

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Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven View Post
Indeed!

The people who are crying about how this "pay to win" felgercarb is diminishing their own experience are allowing other people to define their own sense of accomplishments for them. This is silly, especially in a videogame. Any sense of accomplishment in a videogame is really based on your own perspective. You shouldn't let others dictate that to you. Likewise, you shouldn't be dictating to others what their experience should be like.

Think of it this way. If this was a single player game, and you unlocked all of its goodies by playing the game straight through, would your feelings of accomplishment be at all diminished if you found out that your next door neighbor, who was also playing the game, decided to use a cheat code to get everything?

I don't care what anyone else does in this game or how they do it. Even if I get frustrated sometimes by market fluctuations, lol! No one's giving out real gold medals if you only use the /ah command in "emergency situations". And beyond the PvP zones, we're not even playing against each other. I'm not racing anyone else to get the most purple IOs in the shortest amount of time. I play the game the way I play it for the joy it brings me to play it that way.

I get the feeling sometimes that many of the forumites here have long lost the forest for the trees.
Excellent, excellent post. It just shows how much the unstoppable urge to control what others are doing/are able to do is in real life.

People have a seriously hard time just doing their own thing without trying to measure that against what others are doing and then taking it the final step to then try to control what "other" people can do/are doing....

It is one of those seriously pathetic things about human beings that if not consciously combated can creep in there unsuspectingly and causes unneeded trouble every single time.

The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.

 

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Originally Posted by Darth_Khasei View Post
People have a seriously hard time just doing their own thing without trying to measure that against what others are doing
I find it amusing at how terrible it is for people to use their peers to judge challenges and success in a multiplayer game. It's almost like we're social creatures or something.

To reduce it to the absurdity of wanting to control what "other people can/are doing" shows you don't understand what it is you're berating... not that you're above those human beings giving in to their pathetic side.

 

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Originally Posted by Dersk View Post
I find it amusing at how terrible it is for people to use their peers to judge challenges and success in a multiplayer game. It's almost like we're social creatures or something.

To reduce it to the absurdity of wanting to control what "other people can/are doing" shows you don't understand what it is you're berating... not that you're above those human beings giving in to their pathetic side.
Congratulations on totally missing his point -_-

 

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Originally Posted by rian_frostdrake View Post
what about playing at a minimal difficulty slider? does the existence of the -1 option diminish your joy at playing at any other level?
No, because the benefit of the ease is balanced by the drawbacks of a less interesting experience and a slower progress rate. Low difficulty settings are not a "pay to win" solution, but rather the exact opposite - they're "cheap to win" solutions where I give up some of what I'm here for in return for the ability to play the game more easily.

I mentioned what's supposed to be the good part of the game, and to me the good part two-fold: One half of it is throwing down with many enemies and walking out the victor, usually with some degree of ease to stroke my ego. Lowering my difficulty settings puts fewer enemies on the screen and thus diminishes that. The other half is how easily I am able to write my own stories into game, but difficulty settings aren't really relevant to that so it's a null change.

Moreover, what I require in order to enjoy the game long-term is stability and predictability. Being able to find a single, static difficulty setting, or at the very least a static progression of difficulty settings (+0x0 1-11, +0x2 12-37, +0x2+B 38-50, -1x2+B 50+) that I can stick to with all of my characters gives me this stability. Every time I have to mess with difficulty settings as a response to a mission, that breaks this stability and it thus lessens my enjoyment out of the even.

Again, running at the lowest possible difficulty is not the same as paying for progress.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

 

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Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven View Post
Think of it this way. If this was a single player game, and you unlocked all of its goodies by playing the game straight through, would your feelings of accomplishment be at all diminished if you found out that your next door neighbor, who was also playing the game, decided to use a cheat code to get everything?
You're missing the point by continually insisting it's about other people when it's not. This isn't about a single-player game that someone else has cheated at. It's a single-player game that offers YOU cheats. You don't have to use them, but they're there. Saints Row the Third was TERRIBLE about that. If you bought any of the DLCs, you would start with incredibly powerful vehicles and weapons in your stockpile. This honestly just about ruined the game for me. Why?

Every time I met a hard situation, I thought "I could go get my tank and plough through this." I could, practically speaking, have done this for much of the game and rendered it boring beyond description. I didn't, for the most part, at least until I managed to steal an actual STAG tank and drive it back to my garage. But the thing is that every time I ran into difficulty, I felt stupid for not using the tank and every time I used the tank I felt like I was cheating.

Here's another example - old-style point-and-click adventures and Internet walkthroughs. When I was younger, games like Flight of the Amazon Queen or Simon the Sorcerer or the Broken Sword would force me to wrack my head, try everything, speak with everyone, invite people over so we could brainstorm solutions, so reaching the end was neither easy nor indeed certain. That was before the Internet. Playing A Moment of Silence a couple of years ago was a very different experience because of this. Initially I tried to solve everything by myself, muscling my way through tough puzzles by logic and brainpower. Then I met something I just couldn't solve and was convinced the game was bugged, so I looked it up. Then I met something else hard and I tried to solve it, but I gave up pretty quickly and looked it up. Before I knew it, I was essentially following the walkthrough and just watching the game play out in front of me with very minimal understanding of how it all worked. In fact, I still don't know what the logic was behind the final puzzle.

It's simple to not take the easy and unfun way out when you plain out-and-out CAN'T. It's not so easy when you can, however, and it turns both options - using it and not using it - into losing propositions. I'd personally rather not be in this kind of position to begin with.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

 

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Originally Posted by rian_frostdrake View Post
ok, gek, honest question, did you get some of the rewards you are currently proud of by farming minimally risky enemies? If not, does the fact that others have diminish your accomplishment.
No....well not exactly no. I have farmed in the past just to see if what the fuss was about. For example, I had a Spines/Ninja Stalker that I got to 35 in AE. The character meant less than nothing to me and was deleted the next time I needed a spot. And by 'less than nothing' I mean exactly that. The character actively bothered me because it was AE farmed. It had no story. It's an 'it' not a him or her. Like my Kinetic/Ninja Stalker who only gets played occasionally, but he is played justly and I like him and his story and although he's only 24 after more than a year, I value his 24 levels more than the Spines/Ninja above whole existence.

I guess one could say I farmed Katie Hannon back in the day, but I love that TF quite a bit and can honestly say I would do it more if I could get teams for it so I don't feel that was farming per se.

The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.

 

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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect View Post
Eventually, the game will shut down forever. We don't get to keep ANY of the stuff we acquired in the game. Except the memories of having done those things. We get to keep those. The things you earned, you will remember the fun you had earning them. The guy who bought those same things? He'll remember typing in his credit card number.
I want to comment on this, and I want to comment with an example. Let's talk about Vanguard Weapons before and after the Vanguard Pack. Before the Vanguard Pack, a character needed to be level 35 to collect Vanguard Salvage and then needed to collect 200 of those in order to craft a Vanguard weapon. This is quite an investment if that weapon is central to your character, since you'll have already earned 35 levels and beaten up quite a lot of Rikti. I have earned the weapons on multiple characters, but pretty much only used them on one - Nathaniel, my Mercs/Traps Matermind because it was a long rifle. I admit, I was VERY satisfied because his long hours of using that insultingly small Mastermind rifle were now over and he was using a really cool gun.

Then I "earned" the Vanguard Pack by virtue of being subscribed to the game for three months (so for the low-low cost of $45), and then proceeded to remodel a LOT of my older characters to now use Vanguard weapons, a well as making new ones to us them. Emillia got dual Vanguard Katanas, Kim got dual Vanguard Broadswords, the Steel Rook got a Redding Rail Rifle, Annabella got a new Vanguard Katana, Hagan got a Vanguard Axe and a Vanguard Shield and so forth. Do you know what I remember from that Vanguard Pack? Because it wasn't typing my credit card in. What I remember is the unmitigated sheer fun I had with the characters in ways that I could NEVER have had if I were working under the old rules.

My point here is that praising the satisfaction someone feels from the achievement which unlocks a certain piece of content typically isn't even applicable to the kind of person who pays for it, because that person - like me - cares nothing for the achievement and just wants the content to play through. You're essentially comparing apples to oranges and it's why the "Is it not the effort that makes it all the sweeter?" doesn't work on people like me. Some people have something to prove and are driven by the sense of achievement and accomplishment. Others just want to have something and treat the "accomplishment" as a cost, thus they're willing to pay a cost of another kind if it seems like a better deal.

This, then, becomes less a question of accomplishment and honour and integrity and a question comparing the cost of time vs. the cost of money vs. the cost of effort. Some people play sports for the love of the game. Some people play sports because they pay well. It's sort of the same thing here.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

 

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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
I want to comment on this, and I want to comment with an example. Let's talk about Vanguard Weapons before and after the Vanguard Pack. Before the Vanguard Pack, a character needed to be level 35 to collect Vanguard Salvage and then needed to collect 200 of those in order to craft a Vanguard weapon. This is quite an investment if that weapon is central to your character, since you'll have already earned 35 levels and beaten up quite a lot of Rikti. I have earned the weapons on multiple characters, but pretty much only used them on one - Nathaniel, my Mercs/Traps Matermind because it was a long rifle. I admit, I was VERY satisfied because his long hours of using that insultingly small Mastermind rifle were now over and he was using a really cool gun.

Then I "earned" the Vanguard Pack by virtue of being subscribed to the game for three months (so for the low-low cost of $45), and then proceeded to remodel a LOT of my older characters to now use Vanguard weapons, a well as making new ones to us them. Emillia got dual Vanguard Katanas, Kim got dual Vanguard Broadswords, the Steel Rook got a Redding Rail Rifle, Annabella got a new Vanguard Katana, Hagan got a Vanguard Axe and a Vanguard Shield and so forth. Do you know what I remember from that Vanguard Pack? Because it wasn't typing my credit card in. What I remember is the unmitigated sheer fun I had with the characters in ways that I could NEVER have had if I were working under the old rules.

My point here is that praising the satisfaction someone feels from the achievement which unlocks a certain piece of content typically isn't even applicable to the kind of person who pays for it, because that person - like me - cares nothing for the achievement and just wants the content to play through. You're essentially comparing apples to oranges and it's why the "Is it not the effort that makes it all the sweeter?" doesn't work on people like me. Some people have something to prove and are driven by the sense of achievement and accomplishment. Others just want to have something and treat the "accomplishment" as a cost, thus they're willing to pay a cost of another kind if it seems like a better deal.

This, then, becomes less a question of accomplishment and honour and integrity and a question comparing the cost of time vs. the cost of money vs. the cost of effort. Some people play sports for the love of the game. Some people play sports because they pay well. It's sort of the same thing here.
I completely agree

If you wanna know what this all boils down to I would suggest you THOROUGHLY read the works of Erik Erikson (re: Psycho Social Development specifically regarding ego quality/ego strength) and Immanuel Kant (re: Jealousy and Envy).

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Originally Posted by Paladiamors View Post
I love you, I Burnt the Toast!

 

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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
You're missing the point by continually insisting it's about other people when it's not. This isn't about a single-player game that someone else has cheated at. It's a single-player game that offers YOU cheats. You don't have to use them, but they're there. Saints Row the Third was TERRIBLE about that. If you bought any of the DLCs, you would start with incredibly powerful vehicles and weapons in your stockpile. This honestly just about ruined the game for me. Why?

Every time I met a hard situation, I thought "I could go get my tank and plough through this." I could, practically speaking, have done this for much of the game and rendered it boring beyond description. I didn't, for the most part, at least until I managed to steal an actual STAG tank and drive it back to my garage. But the thing is that every time I ran into difficulty, I felt stupid for not using the tank and every time I used the tank I felt like I was cheating.
That's not really anyone else's fault that you feel that way, is it? Are you seriously going to sit there and declare your annoyance to the devs for offering an easy mode that makes you feel "silly" for not using it? Is your willpower really that weak that you can't ever resist?

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Here's another example - old-style point-and-click adventures and Internet walkthroughs. When I was younger, games like Flight of the Amazon Queen or Simon the Sorcerer or the Broken Sword would force me to wrack my head, try everything, speak with everyone, invite people over so we could brainstorm solutions, so reaching the end was neither easy nor indeed certain. That was before the Internet. Playing A Moment of Silence a couple of years ago was a very different experience because of this. Initially I tried to solve everything by myself, muscling my way through tough puzzles by logic and brainpower. Then I met something I just couldn't solve and was convinced the game was bugged, so I looked it up. Then I met something else hard and I tried to solve it, but I gave up pretty quickly and looked it up. Before I knew it, I was essentially following the walkthrough and just watching the game play out in front of me with very minimal understanding of how it all worked. In fact, I still don't know what the logic was behind the final puzzle.

It's simple to not take the easy and unfun way out when you plain out-and-out CAN'T. It's not so easy when you can, however, and it turns both options - using it and not using it - into losing propositions. I'd personally rather not be in this kind of position to begin with.
This speaks a lot more about you than this game, its devs, or other players. I remember those kinds of games, and not everyone got stumped at the same points, or if at all. And not everyone felt the way you did about using players guides. What I get mostly out of your response is that certain things bug you and you really wish that they would bug everyone else the same way. Well the world doesn't work like that! Everyone is different, and you can't please all of the people all of the time. I'd hope you'd have realized that by now, but the way you go on about it kind of indicates otherwise.

Now for myself, I think CoH as it is right now is just fine. There's parts of it that I like more than others, and there are bits that I really don't like. It doesn't nag at me that those unfun bits are there, being all unfun and everything. I'm sure some other player likes those bits a lot! I just don't play them. Simple.

 

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Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven View Post
That's not really anyone else's fault that you feel that way, is it?
And I implied it was where, exactly? You do realise you don't have to prove me wrong here, I'm just clarifying why the concept bugs me. If it doesn't bug you, then all the better, but the whole point of the thread is to get the specifics of which things bugs what kind of people out on the forefront so that it's not such hearsay.

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Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven View Post
What I get mostly out of your response is that certain things bug you and you really wish that they would bug everyone else the same way.
Then you need to check your reading glasses, because I said nothing of the sort. Again, I'm trying to articulate a point so that it can be used in the discussion. You seem overly zealous about hand-waving it away as "oh, there's just something wrong with you," and I can tell you for a fact that this helps no-one. You need to understand that this is not a thread that you can "win," because we're all here to share positions, experiences and desires in an attempt to come up with a better understanding of where potential problems lie. Sweeping them under the rug just because you yourself don't feel they're problems is counter-productive.

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Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven View Post
Now for myself, I think CoH as it is right now is just fine. There's parts of it that I like more than others, and there are bits that I really don't like. It doesn't nag at me that those unfun bits are there, being all unfun and everything. I'm sure some other player likes those bits a lot! I just don't play them. Simple.
Do you realise what you just said here? There are some things you like and some you don't, some people like the things you don't and some people don't like the things you do. I can't really argue that this is untrue, but in terms of content, it's one step removed from dead air. It proves that you aren't bothered by people not liking what you like and liking what you don't, yes, and this much I can respect. But it contributes very little to the subject of "pay to win" and how it affects people playing the game. Consider for a moment that this is not a fight and that others in this discussion are not your opponents and simply try to elaborate. That's all it really comes down to.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

 

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Funny that you should bring up Vanguard Weapons, Sam. I have a character I wanted to have the Vanguard Broadsword, but this was before the pack, far enough that I had no idea that it'd ever be offered. So even though it didn't actually make sense for this character to be associated with the Vanguard in anything but an antagonistic way (he's an alien), I sucked it up, went through the intro arc and ground out the merits (OOC) to get that sword.

In hindsight, I really wish I'd known that wasn't going to be a requirement forever, so I could have kept that character ... pure? Faithful? But we go with what we know at the time, and live with it as best we can, even as the game changes around us.

Oh, and Coyote Seven did have something relevant to say there. What he said (IMO) is that what bothers you doesn't bother him. *shrug*
(I suspect he also considers his attitude healthier overall, and that you shouldn't let those things bother you either. "So the game has cheat codes. So what? Use them, or don't, but stop freaking out that they're there.")

My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City

 

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[QUOTE=Megajoule;4292240]In hindsight, I really wish I'd known that wasn't going to be a requirement forever, so I could have kept that character ... pure? Faithful? But we go with what we know at the time, and live with it as best we can, even as the game changes around us.[quote]

That's how I feel about Patron Pools on heroes, actually. I'm not going to make my heroes into villains just for the sake of a power pool, because the missions and morality associated with them would corrupt everything most of my heroes stand for. If they're ever proliferated in an easier way, sure, I'll use them. Again, I don't see the process of swapping sides to get them as an achievement, I see it as a cost gating what I actually want.

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Originally Posted by Megajoule View Post
Oh, and Coyote Seven did have something relevant to say there. What he said (IMO) is that what bothers you doesn't bother him. *shrug*
Again, I respect that, but it's the reasons WHY that I'm interested in. Threads where people just post drive-by opinion are curious, but aside from providing raw statistics, they aren't very useful, because they fail to get into the reasoning behind those opinions. And while I don't want to claim that an opinion is "wrong," I do want to know the factors behind why an opinion is held and how this reflects on my own mental reasoning.

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Originally Posted by Megajoule View Post
I suspect he also considers his attitude healthier overall, and that you shouldn't let those things bother you either. "So the game has cheat codes. So what? Use them, or don't, but stop freaking out that they're there."
Sadly, that's not how psychology works. It's easy to argue that it's logically superior to not care, and I even agree with it, but just telling someone repeatedly to not care about something really doesn't work most of the time. I like my games to be structured a certain way, and when they violate their own structure, I like them less. It's just how my psychology works. The best I can do is explain why I think I feel that way and see if enough others out there feel the same way for us to come up with a way of either sidelining the problem or otherwise coming up with proposed game changes to lessen the impact of it.

Some things I can't change, and chastising me for them makes no difference.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

 

Posted

True, but it might be argued that as a result, such objections are entirely personal and emotional, not backed by any sort of reasoned argument, and thus as irrelevant to everyone else/the discussion as you claimed C7's response was.

You have a problem with an aspect of the game, which you can describe and/or articulate fairly well but is still based entirely on personal emotions. How can anyone else respond to that? Why should anyone care?

"This bothers me, because reasons." Um, okay. Sorry to hear that.

My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
You seem overly zealous about hand-waving it away as "oh, there's just something wrong with you," and I can tell you for a fact that this helps no-one.
So, are your constant complaints about what you don't like in the game actually helping anyone? No, seriously, show of hands? Because I can't recall offhand if anyone else has really found this perpetual kvetching at all productive. I mean, so far you've excelled at letting everyone else know what you don't like. So I guess you get the squeaky wheel award. Uhm... yay?

So yeah, I say it's you who's been totally missing the point. But I suppose that's fine. While you're ever so busy earnestly quibbling over meaningless minutiae, I've been busy actually enjoying the parts of the game that I like. And before you say it, no I'm not cackling about how much I'm enjoying something Samuel Tow does not while I'm having fun playing content I like. I don't think about you when I'm not responding to something you posted here.

Well, except for right now. I'm not playing right now because it's too hot out and I have no AC. My GPU would melt if I tried playing right now!

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
Sadly, that's not how psychology works. It's easy to argue that it's logically superior to not care, and I even agree with it, but just telling someone repeatedly to not care about something really doesn't work most of the time. I like my games to be structured a certain way, and when they violate their own structure, I like them less. It's just how my psychology works. The best I can do is explain why I think I feel that way and see if enough others out there feel the same way for us to come up with a way of either sidelining the problem or otherwise coming up with proposed game changes to lessen the impact of it.

Some things I can't change, and chastising me for them makes no difference.
So you're saying that you're not happy unless you have something to complain about. That's fair.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Megajoule View Post
Oh, and Coyote Seven did have something relevant to say there. What he said (IMO) is that what bothers you doesn't bother him. *shrug*
(I suspect he also considers his attitude healthier overall, and that you shouldn't let those things bother you either. "So the game has cheat codes. So what? Use them, or don't, but stop freaking out that they're there.")
You hit the nail right on the head.

I think this whole "Pay to Win" debacle is a non-issue. The real issue is with the people who've built it up into such a big thing in their heads that they don't want anyone else to play with it or, gods forbid, actually have fun with it.

You don't like it? Don't use it. You can't get more simple than that. Don't go stepping on other peoples' fun just because you can't stand knowing that some feature you hate even exists.

That's that general "you" up there, lol.

 

Posted

been thinking about this a bit lately.

firstly, my problem with the new power amplifiers has been somewhat addressed by adding them to the next round of super packs. So, that's an in-game way to earn them, although a somewhat roundabout, cost ineffective one.

As for my philosophical objections with Pay to Win as a business model, I think I've gnawed my way down to the heart of the matter.

In a game world we're all on an even footing, whatever our circumstances IRL. We have the same tools, the same opportunities, the same potential.

What we can accomplish, whatever rewards we earn, are conceivably available to anyone willing to commit enough of their attention and effort to playing the game. In another MMO I played there's stuff I would never have and content I would never see because I wasn't willing to pay the price in 'game effort' to get there. Which was fine- the potential existed. Those who lived at that level earned their honors and I could join them at any time were I willing to equal their game efforts.

And I'm a big fan of commerce within the boundaries of the game world- I love the Wentworths/Black Market mini-game, as I loved the auction house at the other MMO.

What I dislike, what makes me uneasy, is when reality breaches the wall of the game world. This is the core of my apprehension regarding the Paragon Marketplace, and is similar to the core of my long-ago crusade against the (happily aborted) 'in game advertising' billboards, which envisioned selling sneakers & junk food to a captive audience of superheroic dreamers.

If I'm not notorious for my impatience with RP arguments for/against various game systems it isn't for lack of trying. Even so, I believe multiplayer games owe their players an environment where the playing field is as level as the devs can make it and which encourages suspension of disbelief. In other words, a game that seeks fairness in its mechanics and which provides a neutral canvas for us to act out the stories of our various characters on.

Ads for IRL companies violate that covenant, as, to a variable extent, does allowing the substitution of cash money for in-game effort. With that substitution the playing field is suddenly unbalanced by outside forces. Forces you can control somewhat by careful vetting of the sorts of things available for purchase, but unbalanced nonetheless.

I am not a zealot on this issue.

I've greatly enjoyed the accelerated content schedule that Freedom brought with it. I wouldn't want to roll the game back to its pre-Freedom state any more than I'd want to repeal ED if that meant giving up the Invention system.

But I'll remain skeptical of the system for the same reason I was skeptical of the promise that we'd always be able to 'opt out' of the in-game advertising- money is pressure. Your intent may be to open that door just a tiny crack, but with enough force on the other side the potential for it to blow wide open and explode off its hinges is ever present.

And on my way out the door, I'll address one popular argument in this thread: on a practical level I don't care how other people play the game, or that they might be slipping the doorman a few (real) bucks to cut in front of me in the competitive line. On a philosophical level I find it offensive for the reasons stated above.

Ideally game achievements should be rewards for game effort and only game effort.

Inasmuch as the 'Free to Play' model is the future of MMOs I'll measure success by how little performance impact players are able to purchase with out of game currency.

The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.

My City Was Gone