NCsoft's culture

[Nalariel]

When something or anything goes wrong, NC always give rewards to those who effected they never try to fix any problem that leading to the issue. Most of times they made those issues obsoleted by introduced new gears/system and made old issues became minor problems.

You really want to know why live retail became a major failure ? because it's pay2win. Let me explain why if you can buy best gears in game and became a god and you can wipe anything in matter of seconds why you even bother playing ? Why you need to learn anything ? Why even try to get better ? When all you need to do is pay and nobody can even scratch you. The change is because you made gears become major influence how good you can play than actually skills and knowledges. Things like exp amulet is stupid, fun is not about fast leveling it's about exploring the world, lore and learning your abilities.

Winning is meaningless if you can just buy it. It's not really you who win but rather your wallet. People loved classic because it's hard, it needs a lot of knowledges and skills to survive nobody love it not because you can level fast and geared in matter of weeks.

I believed NC needs to fail and reconsidering what wrong with p2w ideology.
Or perhaps NC can keep doing this because.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There's_a_sucker_born_every_minute

Oh well I think they don't care anyway 

[Sundial]

I don't disagree with the sentiment, but if you think original AION was ever a game where skill > gear, you haven't been paying much attention. For better or worse there is a huge amount of vertical progression in AION since day 1.  Its also obviously evident in other parts of the game design: a level 40 trying to hit a level 41 not only has to deal with the potential huge gear disparity, but the game even penalizes them due to the level difference making the level 50 near invincible.

The people complaining about P2W nowdays mostly don't care that gear > skill, they just care that now people who have families and jobs can actually progress at a reasonable pace which means there is less power disparity and less people to farm carried by their gear.

TLDR: If you actually care about skill, you would have been complaining about vertical progression in Aion, not that classic is a tiny bit P2W compared to many other games. For me personally, I enjoy the amount of vertical progression in Aion even though it emphasizes gear more than skill. Don't get me wrong skill is important and can turn someone with good gear nearly into a god, but a level 50 with greens is never gonna stand a chance against a player with +15 fully socketed AP gear, Aion just isn't that type of game.

[Nalariel]

Well I think I did posted in the wrong forum anyway. I did specified said "live retail aion"

Anyway the concept is the same. If you can use your money to buy anything and win without even trying. Why even bother playing ?
And p2w is direct result of gears are more important than skills you can't downplay or manipulate it's not it's like saying food is bad but because dish not clean.

[Sundial]

There is varying degrees of P2W though. Because I bought Daeva pass, I got 3 extra major crowns. But that didn't even buy me one piece of 40e, it just saved me a few hours of grinding. I still have to play the game a ton to get my gear.

That is very different from just being able to flat out buy a +15 40e set fully socketed with MR.

[2s95144]

20 minutes ago, Sundial said:

I don't disagree with the sentiment, but if you think original AION was ever a game where skill > gear, you haven't been paying much attention. For better or worse there is a huge amount of vertical progression in AION since day 1.  Its also obviously evident in other parts of the game design: a level 40 trying to hit a level 41 not only has to deal with the potential huge gear disparity, but the game even penalizes them due to the level difference making the level 50 near invincible.

The people complaining about P2W nowdays mostly don't care that gear > skill, they just care that now people who have families and jobs can actually progress at a reasonable pace which means there is less power disparity and less people to farm carried by their gear.

TLDR: If you actually care about skill, you would have been complaining about vertical progression in Aion, not that classic is a tiny bit P2W compared to many other games. For me personally, I enjoy the amount of vertical progression in Aion even though it emphasizes gear more than skill. Don't get me wrong skill is important and can turn someone with good gear nearly into a god, but a level 50 with greens is never gonna stand a chance against a player with +15 fully socketed AP gear, Aion just isn't that type of game.

Couple interesting things to consider. This is an mmoRPG. In a Role Playing game, the goal is to build up a character, and progress the character through level, character abilities, and gear. In a competitive RPG, the gear and abilities selected/earned are essentially components to that competition. If you want fully scaled PvP encounters, where gear doesn't matter, then you have your options (Fortnite, Apex, Valorant, Others). If you want a competitive RPG, then gear and builds MUST matter. The question is, how is this gear acquired.

Aion was beloved as an Competitive RPG because if you actually earned the Gear, you were powerful, and everyone knew you EARNED it. This, over the course of time, was ruined as the OP stated by Pay 2 Win. That's why I quit Retail Aion. My effort didn't matter anymore, and wallet andies who just wanted to troll the playerbase won out.

In short - The problem with Aion, or NCSoft Culture (as this thread is ACTUALLY supposed to be about), isn't that there isn't scaling for PvP. No scaling make complete logical sense, and gear SHOULD matter in an RPG; but rather, the problem is greed. We've all known that for a very long time. It is as though they do not respect the product, nor their customers, and care more about revenue and profits than creating a fun, and engaging experience that is still to this day unique to Aion.

11 minutes ago, Sundial said:

There is varying degrees of P2W though. Because I bought Daeva pass, I got 3 extra major crowns. But that didn't even buy me one piece of 40e, it just saved me a few hours of grinding. I still have to play the game a ton to get my gear.

That is very different from just being able to flat out buy a +15 40e set fully socketed with MR.

The idea that Crowns are available on Daeva Pass Premium should bother EVERYONE. Why are you excusing this?

[Sundial]

29 minutes ago, 2s95144 said:

The idea that Crowns are available on Daeva Pass Premium should bother EVERYONE. Why are you excusing this?

Essentially the way I see things, P2W essentially changes the power dynamic in games from NEETs/retired people/college students slacking on their studies to people with large disposable income. In my opinion catering too much to one of these groups makes the game not enjoyable for the average person who has an average job / family commitments etc. Cater too much to NEETs and your player base has very little money, can’t afford to fund development. Cater too much to wallet warriors and no one can compete with them.

Daeva pass strikes a nice balance in between where for a small amount of extra money you get bonus rewards for the time you spend playing the game. I like that crowns are available in Daeva pass. I do not however like how Daeva pass costs 25 on top of a 15 dollar sub and is only for a single character. Candies are the only thing that actually bothers me that much in classic monetization since it gives too much power to wallet warriors too quickly. 

 

[2s95144]

8 minutes ago, Sundial said:

Essentially the way I see things, P2W essentially changes the power dynamic in games from NEETs/retired people/college students slacking on their studies to people with large disposable income. In my opinion catering too much to one of these groups makes the game not enjoyable for the average person who has an average job / family commitments etc. Cater too much to NEETs and your player base has very little money, can’t afford to fund development. Cater too much to wallet warriors and no one can compete with them.

Daeva pass strikes a nice balance in between where for a small amount of extra money you get bonus rewards for the time you spend playing the game. I like that crowns are available in Daeva pass. I do not however like how Daeva pass costs 25 on top of a 15 dollar sub and is only for a single character. 

 

You say this, but you and I (and everyone else) knows this isn't how it works out. It isn't the busy full time employed parent, or the college student buying these. It is the full-time player/sweat buying these. I'm a fully employed business owner, with many responsibilities, and I do not buy the Daeva Pass. So, now I'm at a double disadvantage to the sweats who play 12+ hours a day, and buy the Daeva Pass Premium membership. This doesn't strike a balance, it significantly overpowers the players who are already investing more time.

Let's stop being silly about these things. Pay2Win, in any form - Be it Boosts, Practical Items, and CROWNS (come on, really?) should have absolutely no place in any kind of competitive environment. 

Also - I don't think anyone considers $30 extra a month to be a "Small Amount of Money," - especially in these times.

[Sundial]

For the people who can afford to pay, it does more for them to catch up to the no lifers than it does for the no lifers due to how progression difficulty scaling works.

So yes, it is a lot of money, but if you can afford it a more casual player gets more out of it than the no lifers with nothing to do other than play AION. It should be free / more like $5 IMO. But that is a whole different discussion to whether it should exist or not.

[2s95144]

6 minutes ago, Sundial said:

For the people who can afford to pay, it does more for them to catch up to the no lifers than it does for the no lifers due to how progression difficulty scaling works.

So yes, it is a lot of money, but if you can afford it a more casual player gets more out of it than the no lifers with nothing to do other than play AION. It should be free / more like $5 IMO. But that is a whole different discussion to whether it should exist or not.

Dude ... a more casual player won't even be able to level up the pass to reap the rewards in the first place ... It's not meant for casual players.

[Zzzzzz]

 

6 hours ago, Nalariel-KT said:

ou really want to know why live retail became a major failure ? because it's pay2win. Let me explain why if you can buy best gears in game and became a god and you can wipe anything in matter of seconds why you even bother playing ? Why you need to learn anything ? Why even try to get better ? When all you need to do is pay and nobody can even scratch you. The change is because you made gears become major influence how good you can play than actually skills and knowledges. Things like exp amulet is stupid, fun is not about fast leveling it's about exploring the world, lore and learning your abilities.

 I disagree with your opinions.  Gear and skill are 2 completely different factors.  It means that players can have both of them. Geared player can also be good at the game and skilled player can also buy gears. There is nothing wrong.

I believe that most people here are not kids anymore but they still cannot think like adults. You should know that P2W exists everywhere especially in the games with vertical progression. NCsoft might not sell P2W items, but people can buy gold, buy top accounts, buy power leveling, buy dungeon runs. All of these can be considered as P2W in some people's opinions but nobody can do anything. On the other hand,  what can you win in this game ? There isn't a world championship and the top players are still nobody in reallife, nobody can recognize them. Image that you are going to tell everybody about that you are the most skillful  and the most geared player in Aion. Do you think people will care ?

5 hours ago, Nalariel-KT said:

People loved classic because it's hard, it needs a lot of knowledges and skills to survive nobody love it not because you can level fast and geared in matter of weeks.

When it comes with PVP and competitions.  the people who want to play PvP have to level and gear up fast. The people with higher level and better gears can kill others for more AP and buy AP gears to snowball their advantage.

[Nalariel]

There's a different between official and unofficial.

Take retail and private servers for an example ,a lot of people refused to playing on private servers because they're unofficial.
I think you can understand that. Just apply that to buying gold, power level things etc.

Anyway talking about greed, there isn't any rational ,reasons or even love can stop people from being greed.
Only death can stop them in this world and I'm not sure if death will stop them from greed after life.

And one question if nobody care about somebody going the most geared and skillful in Aion, Why live version of retail dead in the first place ? Why people watch streaming if they're not good or so bad in Aion ?

[Nalariel]

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/01/mkleo-went-from-poverty-to-top-gamer-with-six-figures-in-the-bank.html
Someone who was so poor but playing a video game and now he's so rich from just playing some video game that nobody care.

I believed adult is nothing more than just age. I think the most important of maturity how I can tell who's mature or not ? not money not powers not old age only responsibilities telling that you're matured. An adult with power/money without responsibilities is nothing more than a child with power/money.