How expensive is this game to play comfortably?

Ohnooze

What I mean is will it be expensive to play it with the perks you would normally have in an MMO?

I have not yet dug into the game but I'm considering it but at the same time I don't want to spend a ton of cash either.  I have heard it's a very expensive game to play if you expect to have things like mounts and bag space...is this true?

I honestly don't mind spending a few $ but not if it's going to be constant...know what I mean?

Thanks..

jdnewell

Opinions may differ.

But IMO this game is too expensive for what it is. Some of the items in the store are way way too high. $10 for a 24 slot bag for instance.

If you do an initial investment of $50-$60 then you CAN get a mount, a bag or two, and a few other perks to get started. Just be aware this game is designed to get you to spend money at every turn.

Lots of lock box drops, constant spam across your screen of " so and so looted a ( Insert item here) from lockbox".

It is fun to play very casually, but to get a top geared toon be prepared to spend either a ton of money or months and months of grind time.

For me its casual play all the way, not worried about getting a max level character with all the best gear as a sub or B2P game such as GW2, TSW, or ESO have much better offerings and wont break you just to have a decent geared character.

Ohnooze

Originally posted by jdnewell

Opinions may differ.

But IMO this game is too expensive for what it is. Some of the items in the store are way way too high. $10 for a 24 slot bag for instance.

If you do an initial investment of $50-$60 then you CAN get a mount, a bag or two, and a few other perks to get started. Just be aware this game is designed to get you to spend money at every turn.

Lots of lock box drops, constant spam across your screen of " so and so looted a ( Insert item here) from lockbox".

It is fun to play very casually, but to get a top geared toon be prepared to spend either a ton of money or months and months of grind time.

For me its casual play all the way, not worried about getting a max level character with all the best gear as a sub or B2P game such as GW2, TSW, or ESO have much better offerings and wont break you just to have a decent geared character.

Wow....$10 for a freaking bag?

jdnewell

Originally posted by Ohnooze

Originally posted by jdnewell

Opinions may differ.

But IMO this game is too expensive for what it is. Some of the items in the store are way way too high. $10 for a 24 slot bag for instance.

If you do an initial investment of $50-$60 then you CAN get a mount, a bag or two, and a few other perks to get started. Just be aware this game is designed to get you to spend money at every turn.

Lots of lock box drops, constant spam across your screen of " so and so looted a ( Insert item here) from lockbox".

It is fun to play very casually, but to get a top geared toon be prepared to spend either a ton of money or months and months of grind time.

For me its casual play all the way, not worried about getting a max level character with all the best gear as a sub or B2P game such as GW2, TSW, or ESO have much better offerings and wont break you just to have a decent geared character.

Wow....$10 for a freaking bag?

Yup.. costs Zen, $10 worth for a single bag.

Game is fun if you play casual, the early pvp battlegrounds are fun, quest system isnt bad, overall not a bad game at all. But like most " Free to Play" games it is just to expensive for me to invest much into.

You are better off buying the box of TSW, GW2, or ESO imo. Where they do have a store but for cosmetics mainly. I know in those games you can enjoy the entire game and never ever buy a single item from the store. And I mean without being gimped or spendingt he next 6 months grinding to get to where the whale does in 5 minutes with an open wallet.

 

rojoArcueid

i personally dont need the cash shop in this game. Not only is overpriced, its nonsense. In PvE you dont need to have the best character out there so you are fine with whatever you loot (in fact, that makes it more challenging game and less faceroll cakewalk). And in PvP..... you dont take PvP seriously in a F2P mmo with unbalanced cash shop so PvP means nothing here. Focus on D&D story and you have the entire game in your palm for free.

 

Now, I could show my support and buy an extra bank storage if the game was on PS4. *wink* *wink*

Kyleran

You might want to read this post about how to make Astral Diamonds in game, might help your decision

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/431034/How-to-make-astral-diamonds-other-than-by-credit-card.html

Tokken

I buy bags or bank space sometimes but only when they go on sale. I really don't use or need mounts in game. The only things I like to have from the cash shops are bags and bank space. I've also bought extra character slots... that were on sale. lol

You get one bag for free, then you do a quest for another bag, and you get companions at lvl 16. I am a casual player and take what I can get.

Don't bother with lockboxes unless you wanna spend a lot of money on keys.

Tokken

Oh, also focus your professions on leadership. You can gain coin and AD pretty easily that way over time.

SpottyGekko

It's very difficult to predict what an F2P game will cost you, because different people will "need" different things.

 

Some can get by without spending anything, specially if you just use the game as a casual time-waster. But if you're "serious" about your MMO's, be prepared to hand over some serious cash.

Quizzical

It depends on your idea of playing "comfortably".  I'd argue that a rank 3 mount is essential to playing comfortably.  That's a one time purchase of about $30 (at the moment, the options range from $25-$40 and the only differences are graphical).  It's also reclaimable by every character on an account, so if you buy an item mall mount once, then create other characters in the future, the future characters get the mount, too, at least once they reach level 20.

Character slots are $5 for two slots.  You get two slots for free to start, and a third slot once you pay real money for the first time (e.g., spend $5 to get some zen and you get a third slot before you actually spend the zen on anything).

Everything else is readily obtainable in-game if you're not in a rush.  I've spent about $100 on the game over the course of six months.  I've got a rank 3 mount, 9 character slots, 23 epic companions, three bags per character (enough space that I can clear them out at my leisure rather than having to manage scarce space), and aren't really lacking anything for money.  I've been looking at spending more money lately, and there's just no compelling value available.  The astral diamonds I get from leadership per month are about equivalent to what you could get by spending $70 or so.

The business model is that they try to get you to spend some money fairly early on.  Once you've played for a while and got the basic stuff you need, there's no real push to spend more money.  If you want to do top end PVP, the whales can spend thousands of dollars buying zen to trade for astral diamonds that they use to buy refinement points to rank up artifacts to max level.  That's thoroughly unnecessary for PVE, though.  I don't PVP, so I'm not sure how often you'll get attacked by people with a bunch of legendary gear if you do PVP a lot.

You can buy bags for $6 (12 slots) or $10 (24 slots), but those aren't a dire necessity.  In addition to your starting 30-slot backpack, you get 12- and 18-slot bags from quests without spending any money--provided that you do the quests.  I added a third bag for each of my characters from astral diamonds from leadership a while after I had hit the level cap.  I've still got an empty bag slot on each character and no plans to fill it because it doesn't matter.

jdnewell

I will add that I am a player that prefers a sub based game. So my comments about anything F2P will always be a bit biased just because of my preference.

I would encourage you to try it out and see for yourself. Just give the game a good solid week of play before dropping any money. If you like it and want to buy some QoL items like bags & mount then go for it.

Like most F2P games you can spend nothing, a little, or a lot, depending on your wants / needs of what makes a complete experience.

I will say the initial $50 or so I spent in game for bags & mount made a big difference. It is enough to allow me to enjoy the game at a casual pace without being a total freeloader for something I do play a few hours a week.

I will add that I wont be spending any more $$ in the game tho.

Gruug

 

How is it that this game is so "expensive"? Isn't is FREE... (irony off)

 

kikoodutroa8

Near launch I reached lvl cap without spending any money nor feeling restricted at all.

Then I left cos the dungeons are all the same and pvp was crap.  There was also a some good player-made quests, though they became repetitive after a while. But it was fun while it lasted.

If you enjoy the core gameplay and feel like lvling a few characters, you can easily get a few months of fun for free out of this game.

 

cronius77

OP stay away seriously the less people that play this and the rest of this perfect world garbage out there the more of an example it sets for these crap publishers that pull these casinos out of video games. You will HAVE to spend money at end game nowadays unless you want to have a gimp toon. You spend money on leveling your artifacts your legendary's and thats not even including mounts companions like ion stones etc. This game is probably THE WORST cash grab Ive ever seen in my life throwing hundreds of lockboxes down your throat every hour and making it so your life sucks in game without spending a lot of money. Just go look at their so called packs and how crazy their prices are. I feel bad for cryptic though, they are not a great dev team but at least a quality one but perfect world has completely destroyed their studio with their pay schemes and walls.

simmihi

I'm "new" in the game (quit shortly after launch). The things I've found to be "annoying" so far (i'm close to level 60 with a character now) are:

 

- bag space; this was a problem until i've figured out that you get a total of 30 (starter) +24 (quest) +12 (quest) spaces and not everything is worth picking; for example, unidentified green items which are not for my class are a pure loss, the identification scroll costs more than the value of the item; also, it's fair to note that all crafting consumables have their own bag (seems infinite storage); at some level you also get a quest for an artifact which lets you summon a vendor every three minutes

 

- character slots - two is way way too few; i wanted to test the classes a bit so i've deleted a lot of characters around level 12-15. This i've actually bought - it's 5 bucks for 500 zen, i've got an ingame coupon (common) which decreased the cost to 400. It was my first purchase and they gave me a gift containing some items.

 

I feel my 5 bucks were well spend and I'm not planning to buy anything else soon. So, for 5 bucks, I've got:

Some awesome stuff:

3 more character slots (2 with purchase, one with my first time spending zen, all the things listed below are from the gift), adding to a total of 5 slots (there are 8 classes total now, will probably be more)

a pet upgradable to lvl 30

a 12 slots bag

a retraining token

And some stuff which i'm not that interested in, but might prove useful sometime later:

an appearance change token

some upgrade failure protection items

a stone which heals you to full, with 200 charges

 

The good things:

- the whole game so far was free to access and play; i've not encountered any restricted content yet

- in my groups, i was competitive by just wearing the stuff i've found during the journey (they have built-in damage meters)

- i did not feel the "need" to buy anything except the two things listed above;  I'm sitting around 100k astral diamonds after two weeks of playing; got those by just doing stuff in game, without the leadership profession or playing the market.

- the game allows to trade ingame currency for the real money currency

 

The bad things:

By looking at the shop's prices, Neverwinter would not be a game for me if I were someone who would want stuff like the best mounts and best pets and stuff like that, Also, the game has both the "enchanting with an increasing chance of failure" and the "random loot box with keys for real money" systems in place (pure money grabbing systems)

 

I've got other issues related to the game (was not able to find a decent guild yet, and also it seems like no one talks... i've been in at least 30 pugs and no one ever replied to anything i've said) but the cash shop was not one of them yet. I find it expensive but not intrusive.

Eaglechief

Do not forget the $75 dollar race with vanity items! Perfect world used to be good, until they started over charging for EVERYTHING. I got a friend that still plays sto( surprisingly.....) They soiled that game pretty good by some of the things he told me. They should rebrand and just call themselves "Perfect Ripoff"

Robsolf

There appear to be some good suggestions in here.  One I MIGHT suggest, if you should decide to keep playing the game and are an altaholic, is to get one of the the $60 Xpacks, which gives you a startup weapon that beats anything else you find under level 20 for every character.  Most importantly, it gives you a tier 3 mount for every character.  If you plan on having several characters, it'll be much cheaper than buying mounts one by one from the store.  You also get a purple companion, again, for each of your characters.

I'm referring to the Guardian of Neverwinter pack.  The Knight of the Feywild pack is similar, but doesn't have the starter weapon.

Chadiwicker

If you're an impulse buyer or have a gambling problem, I would suggest staying away. If you are disciplined with your money (or have a lot of it) and don't mind taking months to get end game enchantments/runes/artifacts to compete with the "whales" and the veterans then you'll be fine.

Robsolf

Also a bit of a tip that newbs might not notice at first:  companions can use any level of gear.  Yes, if you're fifth level and your companion is 1st level, they can still use a level 60 item right off the bat, which will make them pretty powerful at lower levels.  And green level 60 gear is pretty cheap at auction.

Edit:  forgot... that's probably level 70, now.

Quizzical

Originally posted by Robsolf

There appear to be some good suggestions in here.  One I MIGHT suggest, if you should decide to keep playing the game and are an altaholic, is to get one of the the $60 Xpacks, which gives you a startup weapon that beats anything else you find under level 20 for every character.  Most importantly, it gives you a tier 3 mount for every character.  If you plan on having several characters, it'll be much cheaper than buying mounts one by one from the store.  You also get a purple companion, again, for each of your characters.

I'm referring to the Guardian of Neverwinter pack.  The Knight of the Feywild pack is similar, but doesn't have the starter weapon.

You're mistaken on mounts.  All mounts that are created by zen purchases are account-wide, so they can be reclaimed by every character.  Such tier 3 mounts range from $25-$40; all function identical, but the graphics are different.

Mounts created by purchasing them with gold or that come from lockboxes are per character.

Quizzical

Originally posted by Chadiwicker
If you're an impulse buyer or have a gambling problem, I would suggest staying away. If you are disciplined with your money (or have a lot of it) and don't mind taking months to get end game enchantments/runes/artifacts to compete with the "whales" and the veterans then you'll be fine.

That's pretty sound advice.  The item mall has a bunch of stupid stuff that you don't need but whales can spend a ton of money on.  The idea is that they get their money from the whales without ruining the game for everyone else.  But if you're undisciplined with your money and will spend a ton when you don't need to, then yeah, that's a problem.

Snake9009

Tokken said:

I buy bags or bank space sometimes but only when they go on sale. I really don't use or need mounts in game. The only things I like to have from the cash shops are bags and bank space. I've also bought extra character slots... that were on sale. lol

You get one bag for free, then you do a quest for another bag, and you get companions at lvl 16. I am a casual player and take what I can get.

Don't bother with lockboxes unless you wanna spend a lot of money on keys.

I am the same way, I only buy when its a major sale. I only had 2 character slots on my Xbone account since launch because to me the extra slots were too expensive but yesterday they ran them 90% off so I bought 5.00 worth of zen and now have 16 character slots. It is a very cheap game if you watch for sales and don't try to get the latest and greatest from the cash shop. If you are a player who wants all the best and wants to open every lockbox in hopes of getting something good then you may need to up the credit limit on your CC lol. I have a friend who for some reason is addicted to opening those boxes and he spends about 150.00 or more a month on just keys. I sell all my boxes on the AH for diamonds then sell those for Zen, it is a slow way to get Zen but there is really not much in the cash shop I am interested in and none of my characters are having trouble leveling with just the items / armor I find from mobs.

d_20

Nice discussion here. I was thinking about giving this game a try. I don't mind spending $50 or $60 at the beginning if I like the game, to get set up with stuff (bag space, slots, mount, etc.) and $10 to $15 a month if I'm playing regularly, if there is anything I want/need for the game. But I don't want to feel forced to spend it to progress.

If I give this game a try, I will stay away from pvp, most likely.

Ridrith

You can easily enjoy the game for little to no money to be perfectly honest.  Will you get to play as every race?  No.  But the game is still damn fun.  None of the stuff in the shop is needed to progress through the core game.  The storyline isn't bad and the dungeons are a lot of fun.  I'm just sad that it's still using the 4e version of the rules.  It'd have been glorious if it was using 5e instead.

rift_wars

I have played the game for 3 weeks.
Made 2 accounts. (you get to make 2 chracters per account)
I played with 1 character, and the kept other 3 for scrapping stuff/converting unique to diamonds.

Fast Mounts IMO are really not needed until you reach the Tiamat Area.
Tiamet is the place where you need fast mounts to get from one dragon to the other.
Play F2p for 2-3 weeks, get a hang of the game, and then if you like you could buy stuff for $$$.

Rzep

I have leveled a few charactersm the only thing I bought was  char slot and I think maybe a mount, but none of those things is required to enjoy the game to be honest so as far as I am concerned its a good f2p game.