The issue isn't whether or not you like the labor point system vs another.
The issue is allowing players to benefit over others by throwing real cash at the game.
It is no longer a game when this happens. It is a slot machine ... but instead of having to head to the pub to play one you can simply sit at home and throw your money away to get ahead of other players.
You can throw $1,000,000 at ArcheAge cash shop and can still get absolutely wrecked by a F2P player.
That's reality.
Paying to "faster" is not winning - winning is guilds that work together - a top guild can have a bunch of f2p players that work together well and buy everything in AH including all cash shop items via in game gold.
You seem to have a problem with games that allow rich players to spend a crap ton of money and fund the game for 1000s of other players who don't want to spend a cent.
We live in a world where a very small percent of popolation owns vast majority of wealth - let the 1%er whales fund games for all, I see no issue with this.
Also think about this from a Dev point of view - subscription only model is *unsustainable* past 6 months for vast majority of games due to naturally shrinking playerbase over time.
Without cash shops MMORPG industry today would not exist - as almost all games save a handful would be shutdown and a huge percent of MMO Devs would be working for EA or be completely out of gaming industry.
Just like you can walk into a casino with ten thousand and walk out empty handed while the guy who plays drops a nickel slot can win big.
I agree with the second to last paragraph but to me, it still seems too monetized. Why couldn't a cash shop like PoE or MH work for this one? Or even B2P ala Guild Wars with cosmetic only items?
And you are saying that POE or MH or GW2 has as much feature as AA?
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
The problem I see is first as DMKano pointed out, what alternatives are there? And second, quite a few of the arguments against the Labor system seem to be from people of the mindset of simply wanting an Oompalooma NOW! They don't care about the ramifications the Labor system may have on the game or its economy
That's because you completely ignore the 3rd type, the ones that played the game when it was a sub only game that disproves the first type, and make the second type look even worse. And you do this because you are the fourth type.
The type that just falls in line with whatever a company does no matter what.
It has been proven in 2 different markets by people that played the game probably before you even knew about it, that the LP system, which gave MORE LP and had fewer LP sinks had no bad ramifications other than taking away from a great crafting game and was made far worse with the F2P changes.
But rage on, defend the man because....whatever. Then come back here in 3-6 months and complain about the game being low population for reasons you cannot fathom and chalk it up to whichever lame excuse you can think of.
You mean the game that was sub only and did so poorly it had to be revamped as free to play? I'm not sure I follow your logic.
And "rage on and defend the man"? Really? Go back and reread both of our posts. You may want to give a good hard think as to just which of us is guilty of foaming at the mouth.
The game went f2p in korea because they like it that way there and they are making more money selling LP pots than they were making as pure sub, it is as simple as that. and AA did not fail at all in korea or japan, a owpvp centric game is always niche and AA was also niche enough to not get enough sub, f2p actually made the game more popular and thanks to LP pots : more money.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
That's because you completely ignore the 3rd type, the ones that played the game when it was a sub only game that disproves the first type, and make the second type look even worse. And you do this because you are the fourth type.
The type that just falls in line with whatever a company does no matter what.
It has been proven in 2 different markets by people that played the game probably before you even knew about it, that the LP system, which gave MORE LP and had fewer LP sinks had no bad ramifications other than taking away from a great crafting game and was made far worse with the F2P changes.
But rage on, defend the man because....whatever. Then come back here in 3-6 months and complain about the game being low population for reasons you cannot fathom and chalk it up to whichever lame excuse you can think of.
You mean the game that was sub only and did so poorly it had to be revamped as free to play? I'm not sure I follow your logic.
And "rage on and defend the man"? Really? Go back and reread both of our posts. You may want to give a good hard think as to just which of us is guilty of foaming at the mouth.
You mean the game that since going F2P drove off the players that kept it going for 2 years? You mean like Japan, where it WAS popular? You mean in Russia where the majority of players left because of the F2P conversion LP system?
You don't follow the logic, because you don't know what logic even is. And yeah, stating that people that disagree only want an Oompalooma NOW while defending ramifications that don't exist...is a raging loon.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
I like the system a lot - its an ingenious alternative to item decay based economies.
People that love to compare AA to UO etc... always forget that AA has no item decay.
I challenge anyone to come up with a system that works over many years without item decay - XL came up with the Labor System - what do you got?
I think anyone that understands what is going on likes LPs.
The others will just cry, "why can't I do it all now!!!".
I side with the folks that understand what's going on.
I like the LP system. I particularly like the fact that they give newbs and those not interested in crafting a tradeable commodity. I know several people that sell their labour to process raws for others. My tenant (the freeb that uses my 8x8) pays me rent in labour points by harvesting for me.
How can people actually excuse a facebook style energy system that forces you to spend money to continue crafting ? It has nothing to do with the economy there are tons of mmo games that had great economies without this system. The system is there for one reason and that is to force players to spend money on the game to continue crafting.
This energy crap and the lackluster combat system killed the game for me. The combat got no aiming, no dodging, no blocking, no rolling and it feels like it was made ten years ago.
Don't get me started on the quests either. They make even wow quests seem like genius inventions in comparison.
P.S. 4,8mln LPs assuming 1LP regen per minute = 3,385 days. So either 1 player will "work" 10 years for it solo, or 10 players after 1 year pooling resources together will have chance of getting Single Ayanad Weapon. Neat.
That looks scarry. It is not that the highest tier taking 1 year would be too much to get it but that this calc is for ONE piece of gear. Which would mean 13-14(total amount of slots?) years for a complete set.
100 arch chests result in ~95 sun dust and 5 sun crystals(125 dust) or a total of 220 sun dust or 2.2 per chest. I didn't check the current price but if it is still at $3,30 a chest and given you need 395,183 total dust for ONE piece then you end up with 179.629 chests. Or the cheap price of $592.774.
And you can save your "but LP!" All this can be done in one month.
1 patron gets 1440 offline a day, 30 days = 43200, 4874750/43200 ~113 subs. A bargain compared to the chests even if you add some pots here and there. But if you can throw that amount of money around why waste a month right? Would be stupid! So let's go for the faster version of 1 day, 1 item or 4874750 LP / 1440 offlineLP ~3386 subs or ~$51k. But you know it is a weekend, you just want to "pwn some newbz" and you just can't wait that long. So let's do this "sharkwhalewithlaser"-style and do it in one day, 3386(1item a day) * 14 items *$15 sub = $711.060
conclusion:
1) For the small price of $9009896 + change +whatever you pay for the coder or zerg of students to manage the accounts you can have a complete set of I-win gear in 1 day.
2) DM is correct, throwing $1mio at it will only get you 1.6ish bis weapons which isnt that much of a difference
3) Even whales are too small for this game. Maybe this game needs a new term for "whales". I propose "sharkwhalewithlasers"
4) Not sure what to do. Either I get a Ferrari,a Lamborghini,a Mercedes, a $4mio villa and a §2mio winter home with money to spare or should I go for the full set of Ayanad gear?
I like the idea of the system, but do not like the execution. Your potential labor gain for a 24 hour is too tied to chugging potions when it should at least be closer to even. Right now for patron you gain between 1440-2880 labor points in a day depending how long you are you logged in (or using macros to stay on), but you can gain up to 12,000 labor points from chugging potions across up to 6 character (6 characters x 2 potions a day each). That is my only beef with it, but I agree it's a great idea to help the in-game economy, as it gives value to what you create and keeps farmers from flooding the market and creating market flux that wouldn't otherwise be there.
This isn't keeping me from playing the game, but I just wish it had been implemented in a better way. I'll just keep buying potions with gold while somebody buys them with real money to give to Trion/XL I suppose .
My initial thought was the Labor points system's place was to negate gold farming and exploitation in generally. If that is the case, it's a good thing.
In that regard, it has the opposite effect actually.
Labor system is easiest to beat with alts, multiple accounts and bots, so "normal" players get hurt the most.
It is really nothing more than layer of game monetization.
Your thesis is TRION is willing to sacrifice long term gain through an ephemeral loophole? Interestingly, they didn't try this narrative in Rift, not to my knowledge.
Originally posted by GeezerGamer I still want to know how the economy, thus far, has benefited from LP.
In my opinion, the economy has benefited in that prices for goods are more commencurate with effort needed to produce goods (at least a contributing factor) In manyMMOs, the markets are flooded with goods that don't reflect this. Thus making it harder for crafters to benefit from the system. Obviously the system doesn't benefit everyone. If this system benefits the producers, which this one does, it will mean that purchasers will be harder hit because of prices. It is really a matter on what you think is a healthy economy. I don't think anyone has addressed this in this thread yet.
Originally posted by GeezerGamer I still want to know how the economy, thus far, has benefited from LP.
In my opinion, the economy has benefited in that prices for goods are more commencurate with effort needed to produce goods (at least a contributing factor) In manyMMOs, the markets are flooded with goods that don't reflect this. Thus making it harder for crafters to benefit from the system. Obviously the system doesn't benefit everyone. If this system benefits the producers, which this one does, it will mean that purchasers will be harder hit because of prices. It is really a matter on what you think is a healthy economy. I don't think anyone has addressed this in this thread yet.
(I didn't see a reply after a couple times asking, so I asked over here)
P.S. 4,8mln LPs assuming 1LP regen per minute = 3,385 days. So either 1 player will "work" 10 years for it solo, or 10 players after 1 year pooling resources together will have chance of getting Single Ayanad Weapon. Neat.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. If labor wasn't a limiting factor, then all that would matter would be how much gold someone has, meaning the whales would have a significant advantage.
Labor restricts everyone equally, so yeah it's going to be really hard for you to get the best gear in the game, but so is it for everyone else.
This is why the community backlash against 4 hour cooldown labor pots was significant and successful before the game was released. If near-infinite labor was obtainable just by paying money, then the game would basically be p2w.
Originally posted by NagilumSadowYour thesis is TRION is willing to sacrifice long term gain through an ephemeral loophole? Interestingly, they didn't try this narrative in Rift, not to my knowledge.
It is not up to Trion, they are not the developers of ArcheAge.
Your thesis is TRION is willing to sacrifice long term gain through an ephemeral loophole? Interestingly, they didn't try this narrative in Rift, not to my knowledge.
It is not up to Trion, they are not the developers of ArcheAge.
Yes, this is the part that no one seems to get. Trion has little control over this game. Liken it to a car salesman... you can haggle over the price a little, but you can't get them to redesign the car for you. They are merely a middleman. You want change, you have to deal with XLGames. And since the game is hosted in more than one region, any changes are likely to affect the other regions as well... which means they are less inclined to make them... EVEN IF AA WAS MAKING A KILLING IN THE WEST.
The game is what it is... Not going to change... NO MATTER HOW LOUD YOU SCREAM.
P.S. 4,8mln LPs assuming 1LP regen per minute = 3,385 days. So either 1 player will "work" 10 years for it solo, or 10 players after 1 year pooling resources together will have chance of getting Single Ayanad Weapon. Neat.
Labor restricts everyone equally, so yeah it's going to be really hard for you to get the best gear in the game, but so is it for everyone else.
Labor doesn't restrict everyone equally. Those willing to pay more (via multiple patrons or labor potions or whatever else) are restricted less than others.
I like the system a lot - its an ingenious alternative to item decay based economies.
People that love to compare AA to UO etc... always forget that AA has no item decay.
I challenge anyone to come up with a system that works over many years without item decay - XL came up with the Labor System - what do you got?
I think anyone that understands what is going on likes LPs.
The others will just cry, "why can't I do it all now!!!".
I side with the folks that understand what's going on.
I like the LP system. I particularly like the fact that they give newbs and those not interested in crafting a tradeable commodity. I know several people that sell their labour to process raws for others. My tenant (the freeb that uses my 8x8) pays me rent in labour points by harvesting for me.
Anyone else getting really tired of reading posts like these? they reek of such arrogance.
Reminds me of posts saying 'you are playing it wrong', anytime a legitimate complaint is brought up about a MMO.
I think anyone that understands what is going on likes LPs.
So what you are saying is...
the people that know the purpose of LPs (monetization) like them? Huh?
LPs are NOT a good system, at least in the way they are in ArcheAge.
They are equivalent of telling a PvPer they can only kill x number of players a day, once they hit that number its time to go do something else. Many PvPers hate PvE or crafting, so what then?
Oh, but what are the alternatives?
There are plenty. High quality items could have a LP type system, but exhausting these doesn't lock you out from gathering or crafting minor items.
Maybe resource refining could have a timed aspect. Maybe in order to smelt a certain metal it had to be heated for 24 hours, and you are limited in your capacity to heat it.
SWG had some fantastic ideas. Their use of land management was great, requiring land for power generation, resource gathering, and factories. As a bonus, this also gives the noobies and non crafters having a commodity to sell.
But ideas like this (and others) require a little effort and creativity on XL's part. LPs require no effort or thought from the developer and are easily monetized. That is why they are in the game.
Reminds me of posts saying 'you are playing it wrong', anytime a legitimate complaint is brought up about a MMO.
Yes. It's the latest in a trend of excuses for the diehard fans against every criticism. Typically due to a heavy emotional attachment to the game in question.
There is no perfect game. Every game has faults. The inability to see or even acknowledge them or that others see them as such is just a way of choosing to be blind.
Reminds me of posts saying 'you are playing it wrong', anytime a legitimate complaint is brought up about a MMO.
Yes. It's the latest in a trend of excuses for the diehard fans against every criticism. Typically due to a heavy emotional attachment to the game in question.
There is no perfect game. Every game has faults. The inability to see or even acknowledge them or that others see them as such is just a way of choosing to be blind.
Wouldn't the complaints be a lot more legitimate if they were brought up players of the game and not by self proclaimed forum warriors ...who actually don't even play the games ? With all the posts some people make you would have to ask the question "Have you actually played the game ?"
Your thesis is TRION is willing to sacrifice long term gain through an ephemeral loophole? Interestingly, they didn't try this narrative in Rift, not to my knowledge.
It is not up to Trion, they are not the developers of ArcheAge.
You guys also must have thought farmville was brilliant then?
Ridiculous system.
This system sounds remarkably similar to the systems that Farmville, Farmtown, etc. used to get people to spend money. Ditto for Candy Crush. This is one of the recurring talking points against mobile games. To me, it would really depend on how slowly or quickly the resources built back up, and whether or not you could do things in the game to build them back up a little quicker (like questing or what not). Though, I'm going to bet that the way to get more points is to buy something from the cash shop. This is just a bet though.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Reminds me of posts saying 'you are playing it wrong', anytime a legitimate complaint is brought up about a MMO.
Yes. It's the latest in a trend of excuses for the diehard fans against every criticism. Typically due to a heavy emotional attachment to the game in question.
There is no perfect game. Every game has faults. The inability to see or even acknowledge them or that others see them as such is just a way of choosing to be blind.
Well, unless to the people playing those faults aren't actually faults. We are talking about video games here. Very few things have any sort of inherent value. It's nearly an entire industry based on preferences.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Its the same thing Asian devs like Nexxon and mobile games have been doing for years - arbitrarily limiting / pay gating player progression.
Its similar to selling drugs - give away some for free to build up a dependence then extract cash to feed the habit.
The genius of AA is that the harvesting of cash from its players is very subtle and people seem to justify it because 'economy'. Charging a subscription for labor regen then selling labor / vocation pots separately is predatory and MASSIVELY GREEDY. In a few months people will get tired of this obvious exploitation and move on - Just like in Korea and Russia.
While making BiS equipment extremely hard to obtain improves the longevity of the game for some players - it completely destroys the balance for everyone else.
Gear in AA MASSIVELY affects balance in that a BiS weapon is literally 3-4x better than what an average player will have. There are already players who are so geared that they drop people in 2-4 GCDs.
The only thing that mitigates this huge imbalance is the insane amount of CC in the game, but that of course has its own problems in that chain CC is an incredibly unfun combat system.
You guys also must have thought farmville was brilliant then?
Ridiculous system.
This system sounds remarkably similar to the systems that Farmville, Farmtown, etc. used to get people to spend money. Ditto for Candy Crush. This is one of the recurring talking points against mobile games. To me, it would really depend on how slowly or quickly the resources built back up, and whether or not you could do things in the game to build them back up a little quicker (like questing or what not). Though, I'm going to bet that the way to get more points is to buy something from the cash shop. This is just a bet though.
I would be glad to share the details of how the labor system works. I'm not here to argue, just clear up any possible misconceptions while sharing my thoughts.
For a free to play player:
You gain 5 labor points per 10 minutes.
You do not regen points while you are offline.
Point cap of 2000 (I believe)
For a patron (Monthly sub of $15)
You gain 10 labor points per 10 minutes.
You regen 5 labor points per 10 minutes while offline.
Point cap of 5000
Personally, I enjoy the labor point system. While I had feared it would be overly limiting, in practice it pushes you to cooperate with friends, (The main theme in this game) and ration out your labor points efficiently in the particular areas of the game you would like to advance. Since resources such a land and labor points are limited, everything you do with either of them is worth quite a bit more. You benefit in some small way each time you spend labor points. By gaining XP and skill proficiency in what you've just done, and obtaining whatever material/thing you may have gathered/crafted. And we must keep in mind that one of the primary ways to advance through the game is by crafting and gathering. If one could do so indefinitely, the benefit of doing so would have to be curved or negated entirely. Though don't be fooled, it is not a system that encourages you to horde your labor points. In fact, the worst thing a player can do is refrain from spending them. Anyway, I digress.
If you spend all of your labor points, you can either wait for them to regen, or pop a labor potion. This is where many people have an issue. Labor potions grant 1000 labor on a cool down of 12 hours. The news of these items being on the cash shop made me rather nervous. But it turned out to be not all that big a deal.
One labor potion costs about $2.50 on the market place. Or around 5 gold on the auction house. To those that do not play the game, 5 gold is quite easy to come by. Every consumable (as far as I am aware) item on the market place can be purchased for in game currency.
Whether you like or dislike the above details is an entirely subjective matter. The notion that spending a few bucks in the cash shop gives a player a sizable advantage over other players is, however, not a subjective matter. The statement is objectively incorrect. Spending money on labor points is not going to give you much of an advantage over other players. No more so than can be obtained by spending in game currency.
Lastly, I want to point out that if you want an advantage over other players, you'll want friends. Organized, trustworthy friends. A decent guild = Merchant ships, Guild Plaza, Trade Runs, Alliances, PvP, laborers, Stocked resources, etc. That extra 1000 labor every 12 hours = 200 fabric, which equates to about 10 gold. (I just gave you the key to archeage! I told you how to turn 5 gold on the auction house into 10 gold profit! AW YEAH)
Comments
And you are saying that POE or MH or GW2 has as much feature as AA?
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
The game went f2p in korea because they like it that way there and they are making more money selling LP pots than they were making as pure sub, it is as simple as that. and AA did not fail at all in korea or japan, a owpvp centric game is always niche and AA was also niche enough to not get enough sub, f2p actually made the game more popular and thanks to LP pots : more money.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
You mean the game that since going F2P drove off the players that kept it going for 2 years? You mean like Japan, where it WAS popular? You mean in Russia where the majority of players left because of the F2P conversion LP system?
You don't follow the logic, because you don't know what logic even is. And yeah, stating that people that disagree only want an Oompalooma NOW while defending ramifications that don't exist...is a raging loon.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
I think anyone that understands what is going on likes LPs.
The others will just cry, "why can't I do it all now!!!".
I side with the folks that understand what's going on.
I like the LP system. I particularly like the fact that they give newbs and those not interested in crafting a tradeable commodity. I know several people that sell their labour to process raws for others. My tenant (the freeb that uses my 8x8) pays me rent in labour points by harvesting for me.
How can people actually excuse a facebook style energy system that forces you to spend money to continue crafting ? It has nothing to do with the economy there are tons of mmo games that had great economies without this system. The system is there for one reason and that is to force players to spend money on the game to continue crafting.
This energy crap and the lackluster combat system killed the game for me. The combat got no aiming, no dodging, no blocking, no rolling and it feels like it was made ten years ago.
Don't get me started on the quests either. They make even wow quests seem like genius inventions in comparison.
That looks scarry. It is not that the highest tier taking 1 year would be too much to get it but that this calc is for ONE piece of gear. Which would mean 13-14(total amount of slots?) years for a complete set.
Looking at those numbers and the $1.000.000 DMKano threw in the mix I got curious. Taking the table from the link above and the results from this test here http://forums.archeagegame.com/showthread.php?36088-Archeum-Chest-STATS:
100 arch chests result in ~95 sun dust and 5 sun crystals(125 dust) or a total of 220 sun dust or 2.2 per chest. I didn't check the current price but if it is still at $3,30 a chest and given you need 395,183 total dust for ONE piece then you end up with 179.629 chests. Or the cheap price of $592.774.
And you can save your "but LP!" All this can be done in one month.
1 patron gets 1440 offline a day, 30 days = 43200, 4874750/43200 ~113 subs. A bargain compared to the chests even if you add some pots here and there. But if you can throw that amount of money around why waste a month right? Would be stupid! So let's go for the faster version of 1 day, 1 item or 4874750 LP / 1440 offlineLP ~3386 subs or ~$51k. But you know it is a weekend, you just want to "pwn some newbz" and you just can't wait that long. So let's do this "sharkwhalewithlaser"-style and do it in one day, 3386(1item a day) * 14 items *$15 sub = $711.060
conclusion:
1) For the small price of $9009896 + change +whatever you pay for the coder or zerg of students to manage the accounts you can have a complete set of I-win gear in 1 day.
2) DM is correct, throwing $1mio at it will only get you 1.6ish bis weapons which isnt that much of a difference
3) Even whales are too small for this game. Maybe this game needs a new term for "whales". I propose "sharkwhalewithlasers"
4) Not sure what to do. Either I get a Ferrari,a Lamborghini,a Mercedes, a $4mio villa and a §2mio winter home with money to spare or should I go for the full set of Ayanad gear?
I like the idea of the system, but do not like the execution. Your potential labor gain for a 24 hour is too tied to chugging potions when it should at least be closer to even. Right now for patron you gain between 1440-2880 labor points in a day depending how long you are you logged in (or using macros to stay on), but you can gain up to 12,000 labor points from chugging potions across up to 6 character (6 characters x 2 potions a day each). That is my only beef with it, but I agree it's a great idea to help the in-game economy, as it gives value to what you create and keeps farmers from flooding the market and creating market flux that wouldn't otherwise be there.
This isn't keeping me from playing the game, but I just wish it had been implemented in a better way. I'll just keep buying potions with gold while somebody buys them with real money to give to Trion/XL I suppose
.
Your thesis is TRION is willing to sacrifice long term gain through an ephemeral loophole? Interestingly, they didn't try this narrative in Rift, not to my knowledge.
http://wyrdblogging.blogspot.com/
In my opinion, the economy has benefited in that prices for goods are more commencurate with effort needed to produce goods (at least a contributing factor) In manyMMOs, the markets are flooded with goods that don't reflect this. Thus making it harder for crafters to benefit from the system. Obviously the system doesn't benefit everyone. If this system benefits the producers, which this one does, it will mean that purchasers will be harder hit because of prices. It is really a matter on what you think is a healthy economy. I don't think anyone has addressed this in this thread yet.
I self identify as a monkey.
(I didn't see a reply after a couple times asking, so I asked over here)
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/6479601
So thanks for replying.
I agree OP. I'd hate to see what the economy would look like even after these short few weeks if there was no labor to reign people in.
The economy is pretty delicate with people being able to produce most of the materials needed in the game themselves.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. If labor wasn't a limiting factor, then all that would matter would be how much gold someone has, meaning the whales would have a significant advantage.
Labor restricts everyone equally, so yeah it's going to be really hard for you to get the best gear in the game, but so is it for everyone else.
This is why the community backlash against 4 hour cooldown labor pots was significant and successful before the game was released. If near-infinite labor was obtainable just by paying money, then the game would basically be p2w.
It is not up to Trion, they are not the developers of ArcheAge.
Yes, this is the part that no one seems to get. Trion has little control over this game. Liken it to a car salesman... you can haggle over the price a little, but you can't get them to redesign the car for you. They are merely a middleman. You want change, you have to deal with XLGames. And since the game is hosted in more than one region, any changes are likely to affect the other regions as well... which means they are less inclined to make them... EVEN IF AA WAS MAKING A KILLING IN THE WEST.
The game is what it is... Not going to change... NO MATTER HOW LOUD YOU SCREAM.
Labor doesn't restrict everyone equally. Those willing to pay more (via multiple patrons or labor potions or whatever else) are restricted less than others.
Anyone else getting really tired of reading posts like these? they reek of such arrogance.
Reminds me of posts saying 'you are playing it wrong', anytime a legitimate complaint is brought up about a MMO.
So what you are saying is...
the people that know the purpose of LPs (monetization) like them? Huh?
LPs are NOT a good system, at least in the way they are in ArcheAge.
They are equivalent of telling a PvPer they can only kill x number of players a day, once they hit that number its time to go do something else. Many PvPers hate PvE or crafting, so what then?
Oh, but what are the alternatives?
There are plenty. High quality items could have a LP type system, but exhausting these doesn't lock you out from gathering or crafting minor items.
Maybe resource refining could have a timed aspect. Maybe in order to smelt a certain metal it had to be heated for 24 hours, and you are limited in your capacity to heat it.
SWG had some fantastic ideas. Their use of land management was great, requiring land for power generation, resource gathering, and factories. As a bonus, this also gives the noobies and non crafters having a commodity to sell.
But ideas like this (and others) require a little effort and creativity on XL's part. LPs require no effort or thought from the developer and are easily monetized. That is why they are in the game.
Yes. It's the latest in a trend of excuses for the diehard fans against every criticism. Typically due to a heavy emotional attachment to the game in question.
There is no perfect game. Every game has faults. The inability to see or even acknowledge them or that others see them as such is just a way of choosing to be blind.
Wouldn't the complaints be a lot more legitimate if they were brought up players of the game and not by self proclaimed forum warriors ...who actually don't even play the games ? With all the posts some people make you would have to ask the question "Have you actually played the game ?"
No doubt they have vast power and input.
http://wyrdblogging.blogspot.com/
This system sounds remarkably similar to the systems that Farmville, Farmtown, etc. used to get people to spend money. Ditto for Candy Crush. This is one of the recurring talking points against mobile games. To me, it would really depend on how slowly or quickly the resources built back up, and whether or not you could do things in the game to build them back up a little quicker (like questing or what not). Though, I'm going to bet that the way to get more points is to buy something from the cash shop. This is just a bet though.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Well, unless to the people playing those faults aren't actually faults. We are talking about video games here. Very few things have any sort of inherent value. It's nearly an entire industry based on preferences.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Its the same thing Asian devs like Nexxon and mobile games have been doing for years - arbitrarily limiting / pay gating player progression.
Its similar to selling drugs - give away some for free to build up a dependence then extract cash to feed the habit.
The genius of AA is that the harvesting of cash from its players is very subtle and people seem to justify it because 'economy'. Charging a subscription for labor regen then selling labor / vocation pots separately is predatory and MASSIVELY GREEDY. In a few months people will get tired of this obvious exploitation and move on - Just like in Korea and Russia.
While making BiS equipment extremely hard to obtain improves the longevity of the game for some players - it completely destroys the balance for everyone else.
Gear in AA MASSIVELY affects balance in that a BiS weapon is literally 3-4x better than what an average player will have. There are already players who are so geared that they drop people in 2-4 GCDs.
The only thing that mitigates this huge imbalance is the insane amount of CC in the game, but that of course has its own problems in that chain CC is an incredibly unfun combat system.
I would be glad to share the details of how the labor system works. I'm not here to argue, just clear up any possible misconceptions while sharing my thoughts.
For a free to play player:
You gain 5 labor points per 10 minutes.
You do not regen points while you are offline.
Point cap of 2000 (I believe)
For a patron (Monthly sub of $15)
You gain 10 labor points per 10 minutes.
You regen 5 labor points per 10 minutes while offline.
Point cap of 5000
Personally, I enjoy the labor point system. While I had feared it would be overly limiting, in practice it pushes you to cooperate with friends, (The main theme in this game) and ration out your labor points efficiently in the particular areas of the game you would like to advance. Since resources such a land and labor points are limited, everything you do with either of them is worth quite a bit more. You benefit in some small way each time you spend labor points. By gaining XP and skill proficiency in what you've just done, and obtaining whatever material/thing you may have gathered/crafted. And we must keep in mind that one of the primary ways to advance through the game is by crafting and gathering. If one could do so indefinitely, the benefit of doing so would have to be curved or negated entirely. Though don't be fooled, it is not a system that encourages you to horde your labor points. In fact, the worst thing a player can do is refrain from spending them. Anyway, I digress.
If you spend all of your labor points, you can either wait for them to regen, or pop a labor potion. This is where many people have an issue. Labor potions grant 1000 labor on a cool down of 12 hours. The news of these items being on the cash shop made me rather nervous. But it turned out to be not all that big a deal.
One labor potion costs about $2.50 on the market place. Or around 5 gold on the auction house. To those that do not play the game, 5 gold is quite easy to come by. Every consumable (as far as I am aware) item on the market place can be purchased for in game currency.
Whether you like or dislike the above details is an entirely subjective matter. The notion that spending a few bucks in the cash shop gives a player a sizable advantage over other players is, however, not a subjective matter. The statement is objectively incorrect. Spending money on labor points is not going to give you much of an advantage over other players. No more so than can be obtained by spending in game currency.
Lastly, I want to point out that if you want an advantage over other players, you'll want friends. Organized, trustworthy friends. A decent guild = Merchant ships, Guild Plaza, Trade Runs, Alliances, PvP, laborers, Stocked resources, etc. That extra 1000 labor every 12 hours = 200 fabric, which equates to about 10 gold. (I just gave you the key to archeage! I told you how to turn 5 gold on the auction house into 10 gold profit! AW YEAH)
Anyway, just my 2c.
LP's grow for everyone...5 every so many minutes for FTP'ers and 10 every so many minutes for Patrons
And if you act now and spend MORE money than you already have, we'll give you a labor pot every 12 hours.
Soon they'll have a button on the UI where you click it and it shares on facebook....you'll get 25 LP a day for that :P