The Platinum Carrot.

[Hiosahaf]

Hio is a carrot.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You banana

~

I won't be quoting anyone to reply here. Just a general reply to the comments I have observed.

Yes it is true that crates have become an inherent part of the game. Come to think of it, now we can't even imagine a world without crates! Back in SI and SII things were different (Until ripmaw came along). The pre-transition periods of the game was the turning point of the game. As time passed, people became more focussed into the crates and the whole crux of the game began to lie in the crates.

The fact that you are depending upon a ingle item to drive the whole game to keep the funds going for the company is a pretty alarming one. This does show that something is wrong with the economy. There was a time when the game could thrive on its own without the crates. Of course the crates tripled (or quadrupled, I'm just a passerby to the events and this is my speculation) the revenues for STS and they saw this as a potential plat sink.

What if they had strived towards advertisement after Kraken/Nordr? I'm (still) stuck on the idea that proper advertisement of the Legends' franchise can get them the boost they need. Revenues could have even doubled due to the new players. Now STS will have two choices:
1) Feed off the new players as they turn into crate whales (2X revenue)
2) Change the basic structure of the game and implement the changes (Lower revenues initially but steady rise)

Just my opinion. Thanks for keeping this friendly guys! Highly appreciated!

[Energizeric]

Here are my thoughts....

Pocket Legends was a big experiment in the F2P model. STS tried all sorts of things in PL, and in the end the game just could not make decent money without becoming P2W. They tried the non-tradable vanity thing....few players bought them. They tried luck elixirs (even 100% re-roll elixirs)....since the best items such as Glyph and Dragon Items could not be re-rolled, players only used elixirs once in a while. You could play for months in PL without ever spending any plat and still compete with the best players. So in that sense, it was a wonderful game.

But STS could not stay in business with the little revenue that the game produced. So then they became more aggressive and tried to give more advantages to plat users to encourage more plat sales... For example, they change the re-roll mechanics so that dragon items and glyph items could now be re-rolled. So now these items dropped in price because of the vast number of them now being looted, but 99% of them were being looted by plat spenders running with 100% re-roll elixirs.

They added these turnstyle plat dungeons where you could skip the mobs and fight all 5 bosses in one dungeon in 5-10 minutes time. So some players would run these plat dungeons over and over with the 100% re-roll elixirs. Spend an hour doing that, and you are guaranteed to loot a few pricey pinks. It just became too easy to make money if you had plat. And if you didn't, farming was just too hard, and since the pinks became pretty common due to the number of them being looted by the plat spenders, it just wasn't worth it to farm. And that is why the game died.

The dilemma is, how do you get people to spend lots of plat without making the game P2W. The answer is that you give them advantages by spending plat, but without any guarantees. Because of that, the locked crates are the best idea they could have come up with. They are a gamble -- we all know that. But so is the entire game. When you loot an elite golden chest, that is a gamble too. Do you open it, or sell it? You can loot an Arcane Shard in those too. So locked crates are not a monopoly on the best items.

So yes, you are going to have those players who spend plat and end up looting nothing. Would you rather that the plat spenders can simply buy an arcane ring? I don't think so....that is by definition P2W (pay to win). Another great idea was allowing plat spenders to speed up the crafting process by spending plat. Again, it makes things more convenient, without giving any real guaranteed advantage.

And now with making everything from vanities to elixirs tradable, they are allowing plat spenders to purchase these items for other players who do not have plat. So you can now buy these items for gold in the auction. So I'm not really sure how they can make this game any more fair to non-plat spenders while still keeping it profitable.

The OP estimates the player base in the millions. I'm going to tell you that it is not even close to that. My understanding is that PL has a player base of a few thousand, and AL of probably a few hundred thousand. STS has a few dozen employees. So getting each player to spend $1 will perhaps pay the salary of a few of employees. Most non-F2P games that have a monthly fee charge $10-20 per month per player. Games that are F2P need to raise the same amount of revenue in order to be profitable. And if half the player base spends nothing, then you can double that amount for the other half. So please do realize that what is required is big spending on the part of the few in order to maintain the game (the "whales" as you call them).

But if you do put in a lot of time, you can be very successful in this game without spending much at all. Personally I have spent less than $10/month since I started playing this game, and I always managed to make the leaderboards every season. And I still have a life, run a real business, etc. So yes, it is possible. But like everything else in life, not everyone can win. So when people fail, they like to pass the blame, and blaming their failure on the fact that they don't have plat is all too easy. It's just not the truth.

[iceQueen69]

hey

hey

what's a karate expert's favorite beverage

carrot-tea

[Livetokill]

Here are my thoughts....

Pocket Legends was a big experiment in the F2P model. STS tried all sorts of things in PL, and in the end the game just could not make decent money without becoming P2W. They tried the non-tradable vanity thing....few players bought them. They tried luck elixirs (even 100% re-roll elixirs)....since the best items such as Glyph and Dragon Items could not be re-rolled, players only used elixirs once in a while. You could play for months in PL without ever spending any plat and still compete with the best players. So in that sense, it was a wonderful game.

But STS could not stay in business with the little revenue that the game produced. So then they became more aggressive and tried to give more advantages to plat users to encourage more plat sales... For example, they change the re-roll mechanics so that dragon items and glyph items could now be re-rolled. So now these items dropped in price because of the vast number of them now being looted, but 99% of them were being looted by plat spenders running with 100% re-roll elixirs.

They added these turnstyle plat dungeons where you could skip the mobs and fight all 5 bosses in one dungeon in 5-10 minutes time. So some players would run these plat dungeons over and over with the 100% re-roll elixirs. Spend an hour doing that, and you are guaranteed to loot a few pricey pinks. It just became too easy to make money if you had plat. And if you didn't, farming was just too hard, and since the pinks became pretty common due to the number of them being looted by the plat spenders, it just wasn't worth it to farm. And that is why the game died.

The dilemma is, how do you get people to spend lots of plat without making the game P2W. The answer is that you give them advantages by spending plat, but without any guarantees. Because of that, the locked crates are the best idea they could have come up with. They are a gamble -- we all know that. But so is the entire game. When you loot an elite golden chest, that is a gamble too. Do you open it, or sell it? You can loot an Arcane Shard in those too. So locked crates are not a monopoly on the best items.

So yes, you are going to have those players who spend plat and end up looting nothing. Would you rather that the plat spenders can simply buy an arcane ring? I don't think so....that is by definition P2W (pay to win). Another great idea was allowing plat spenders to speed up the crafting process by spending plat. Again, it makes things more convenient, without giving any real guaranteed advantage.

And now with making everything from vanities to elixirs tradable, they are allowing plat spenders to purchase these items for other players who do not have plat. So you can now buy these items for gold in the auction. So I'm not really sure how they can make this game any more fair to non-plat spenders while still keeping it profitable.

The OP estimates the player base in the millions. I'm going to tell you that it is not even close to that. My understanding is that PL has a player base of a few thousand, and AL of probably a few hundred thousand. STS has a few dozen employees. So getting each player to spend $1 will perhaps pay the salary of a few of employees. Most non-F2P games that have a monthly fee charge $10-20 per month per player. Games that are F2P need to raise the same amount of revenue in order to be profitable. And if half the player base spends nothing, then you can double that amount for the other half. So please do realize that what is required is big spending on the part of the few in order to maintain the game (the "whales" as you call them).

But if you do put in a lot of time, you can be very successful in this game without spending much at all. Personally I have spent less than $10/month since I started playing this game, and I always managed to make the leaderboards every season. And I still have a life, run a real business, etc. So yes, it is possible. But like everything else in life, not everyone can win. So when people fail, they like to pass the blame, and blaming their failure on the fact that they don't have plat is all too easy. It's just not the truth.

Just cause Usain Bolt can run 100m in under 10 seconds, I am guessing every human in the world can do so, if he/she can't then he/she is just a crybaby. Got It.
You say everything is super-fair and then you go on about inflation this and inflation that-all the problems that you mentioned in your earlier posts was a consequence of adding advantages to plat players. As I said earlier the when a game gives you option to pay money to avoid playing the game then it's inherently flawed.

[Zeus]

Just cause Usain Bolt can run 100m in under 10 seconds, I am guessing every human in the world can do so, if he/she can't then he/she is just a crybaby. Got It.
You say everything is super-fair and then you go on about inflation this and inflation that-all the problems that you mentioned in your earlier posts was a consequence of adding advantages to plat players. As I said earlier the when a game gives you option to pay money to avoid playing the game then it's inherently flawed.

No, the disadvantage was permanently adding the gold rewards to locked crates. STG should have kept high gold rewards only for random weekends to boost up the economy during times of drought.

However, STG is already fixing this by completely removing this source. It'll take a few weeks for the excess gold to drain out, but there is not doubt that it will.

[Hiosahaf]

Alright, time to intervene.

(I respect your points Ener, but the last point did warrant Live's reaction)

So you go to Play store and you see that the no. Of downloads is 10-50m range for PL. (I haven't seen for AL, I'll need my laptop for that, sorry )

Now say a player downloaded game 5 times, you still have a huge number of player base. Active player base is of course quite a different.

The thing one cannot argue to (even STS cannot) is that that making few cash off a massive player base IS the essential F2P thing. This is of course a long term approach. There have been successful MMOs on this mantras too!

I hope you get my point.

Now let's diffuse things, people?

Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk

[Livetokill]

Guys, read the articles and then comment, there are games and Devs that are making tons of money(more than STG) without even adding a shred of direct advantage to paying players. You know why people pay in those games, they enjoy playing them that's why. Here it's the other way round, here people have to pay so they don't have to experience the game in it's entirety(I wonder why?).
In the end STG will have to look at two options- Respected like Valve or Hated like EA and decide which one would they prefer to emulate.

[Hiosahaf]

Guys, read the articles and then comment, there are games and Devs that are making tons of money(more than STG) without even adding a shred of direct advantage to paying players. You know why people pay in those games, they enjoy playing them that's why. Here it's the other way round, here people have to pay so they don't have to experience the game in it's entirety(I wonder why?).
In the end STG will have to look at two giants Valve and EA and decide which one would they prefer to emulate.

The articles are really nice, yeah..

About Valve, Samhayne did say that they talked to Valve regarding Steam but they were essentially a mobile MMO and wanted to stay that way.

Yes Steam would have been a great revenue stream for STS but didn't work out unfortunately. Now all that is left is expanding the player base and emulating the biggies.

Like I said STS first needs to focus on advertising their games heavily and expand their player base.

~

Thanks for your inputs! Highly appreciate the fact that it's been going on in a civil manner!

Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk

[falmear]

Besides crates there aren't that many places where you can spend money. And a lot of the things which required you to spend plat are now free or obtainable by using gold. The only other exception is crafting & upgrades. The problem with crates is they now return platinum and gold. So the person can keep gambling for much longer then they'd otherwise might. If you know the history and you can go back and verify this in various threads, these were added in response to complaints that you only got trash from crates and that there wasn't enough gold in the game. So instead of dropping these crappy pinks, the crates now drop gold. Before that you use to only get 1 pink and 2 epics. Every season they have adjusted and added more perks to crates so people keep spending on these.

Also I believe the new event system will have some plat element to it like tarlok. Where to fight the boss you pay plat to enter.

[Hiosahaf]

Besides crates there aren't that many places where you can spend money. And a lot of the things which required you to spend plat are now free or obtainable by using gold. The only other exception is crafting & upgrades. The problem with crates is they now return platinum and gold. So the person can keep gambling for much longer then they'd otherwise might. If you know the history and you can go back and verify this in various threads, these were added in response to complaints that you only got trash from crates and that there wasn't enough gold in the game. So instead of dropping these crappy pinks, the crates now drop gold. Before that you use to only get 1 pink and 2 epics. Every season they have adjusted and added more perks to crates so people keep spending on these.

Also I believe the new event system will have some plat element to it like tarlok. Where to fight the boss you pay plat to enter.

Hey Falmear!

Thanks for commenting first of all in a positive manner.

The crate area is like the Vegas area in AL. Full of gambling. If you've read the article (which I recommend you do), you'd know what that results into. Plus, popping crates is just a shortcut (like Zylx pointed out again) to the top. Envisioning a system where the best gear is earned only via farming is not bad actually. If Team Fortress 2 can crasg PayPal with just cash hats, I believe AL can do it, too. Provided we have the needed player base. The marketing strategy is something that needs a bit of focus on actually to achieve this.

Remember we're talking long term here! It's not something overnight

Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk

[Energizeric]

So you go to Play store and you see that the no. Of downloads is 10-50m range for PL. (I haven't seen for AL, I'll need my laptop for that, sorry )

Now say a player downloaded game 5 times, you still have a huge number of player base. Active player base is of course quite a different.

Active player base is what counts. There was some discussion a few months ago on a thread in the PL forum where Sam gave approximate numbers of "regular" players. A player who signs in once per month is never going to spend any money, so I don't think that person counts as part of the player base. But he basically said that PL was almost dead when they launched AL, and that if they had not launched AL they would have had to close down and go out of business.

PL may have been a game that lots of players loved, but it was not a profitable game and thus a failure for STS. Most new companies have investors, so they can survive for a certain period of time without being profitable, but eventually they must turn a profit or they are done. Arcane Legends is obviously the first STS game that has succeeded in that.

[Hiosahaf]

Active player base is what counts. There was some discussion a few months ago on a thread in the PL forum where Sam gave approximate numbers of "regular" players. A player who signs in once per month is never going to spend any money, so I don't think that person counts as part of the player base. But he basically said that PL was almost dead when they launched AL, and that if they had not launched AL they would have had to close down and go out of business.

If player base is a mine, then active player base is the amount of minerals present in the mine. I completely agree to your view point, Ener.

What I'm suggesting isn't something to implement right now- but something in long term. I really hope you read the links else you wouldn't understand why am I linking to all this..

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[Anarchist]

Here are my thoughts....

Pocket Legends was a big experiment in the F2P model. STS tried all sorts of things in PL, and in the end the game just could not make decent money without becoming P2W. They tried the non-tradable vanity thing....few players bought them. They tried luck elixirs (even 100% re-roll elixirs)....since the best items such as Glyph and Dragon Items could not be re-rolled, players only used elixirs once in a while. You could play for months in PL without ever spending any plat and still compete with the best players. So in that sense, it was a wonderful game.

But STS could not stay in business with the little revenue that the game produced. So then they became more aggressive and tried to give more advantages to plat users to encourage more plat sales... For example, they change the re-roll mechanics so that dragon items and glyph items could now be re-rolled. So now these items dropped in price because of the vast number of them now being looted, but 99% of them were being looted by plat spenders running with 100% re-roll elixirs.

They added these turnstyle plat dungeons where you could skip the mobs and fight all 5 bosses in one dungeon in 5-10 minutes time. So some players would run these plat dungeons over and over with the 100% re-roll elixirs. Spend an hour doing that, and you are guaranteed to loot a few pricey pinks. It just became too easy to make money if you had plat. And if you didn't, farming was just too hard, and since the pinks became pretty common due to the number of them being looted by the plat spenders, it just wasn't worth it to farm. And that is why the game died.

The dilemma is, how do you get people to spend lots of plat without making the game P2W. The answer is that you give them advantages by spending plat, but without any guarantees. Because of that, the locked crates are the best idea they could have come up with. They are a gamble -- we all know that. But so is the entire game. When you loot an elite golden chest, that is a gamble too. Do you open it, or sell it? You can loot an Arcane Shard in those too. So locked crates are not a monopoly on the best items.

So yes, you are going to have those players who spend plat and end up looting nothing. Would you rather that the plat spenders can simply buy an arcane ring? I don't think so....that is by definition P2W (pay to win). Another great idea was allowing plat spenders to speed up the crafting process by spending plat. Again, it makes things more convenient, without giving any real guaranteed advantage.

And now with making everything from vanities to elixirs tradable, they are allowing plat spenders to purchase these items for other players who do not have plat. So you can now buy these items for gold in the auction. So I'm not really sure how they can make this game any more fair to non-plat spenders while still keeping it profitable.

The OP estimates the player base in the millions. I'm going to tell you that it is not even close to that. My understanding is that PL has a player base of a few thousand, and AL of probably a few hundred thousand. STS has a few dozen employees. So getting each player to spend $1 will perhaps pay the salary of a few of employees. Most non-F2P games that have a monthly fee charge $10-20 per month per player. Games that are F2P need to raise the same amount of revenue in order to be profitable. And if half the player base spends nothing, then you can double that amount for the other half. So please do realize that what is required is big spending on the part of the few in order to maintain the game (the "whales" as you call them).

But if you do put in a lot of time, you can be very successful in this game without spending much at all. Personally I have spent less than $10/month since I started playing this game, and I always managed to make the leaderboards every season. And I still have a life, run a real business, etc. So yes, it is possible. But like everything else in life, not everyone can win. So when people fail, they like to pass the blame, and blaming their failure on the fact that they don't have plat is all too easy. It's just not the truth.

I don't understand why you pick a faling f2p attempt to give example while there are many other successful ones from which AL can learn a couple of tricks, anyway there are many ways to make a f2p. The most efficient way out of these in my opinion is making the best items in the game available to all both freemium and premium players while giving to the premium a advantage.

Lets look at the major perks of the locked system:
#1 The locked system is a decent way of making money fast and neat. It gets you addicted players that keep the game rolling. The problem is that these players, the whales, are few related to the rest of the freemium players.

#2 Another great disadvantage the lockeds bring is that each season the new best items rise in price. This will continue to happen and its natural it does.
Combine #1 and #2 and you find out while the locked system isn't the best way to run a F2P. The natural tendency of the value of the premium items, because they are in the hands of a small part of the game, tend to increase at a insane rate losing contact with the free part of the game.

So the more exclusive the premium items are, the more th game tries to spill the whales the higher the whales will make the freemium players pay. It will get to a point, if we aren't already there, that the freemium players will simply abbadon AL and move to other games.


Gold sinks won't solve this process it is a measure just too weak and late to break the natural circle of inflation. WEAK because before it takes effect and we start noticing its impact the gap between the fremium players and premium players will already be too high and most players will have already left the game. LATE because the natural process of inflation started long time ago when the game made the best items available for real cash and nothing is going to stop the future arcanes and mythics to cost higher than this season's own. What will can do is slow the rate at which they increase.

I don't see AL going anywhere whale independent this is the structure of the game but one thing the game should be doing and is not doing is giving the freemium players DECENT INSTRUMENTS to fill the gap between them and the whales, the best way is pointing on the legendary market these gears must be revalued and there are different ways.

Some i see are these:

- Granting them a Aps.
- Making them events related.
- Giving the best outstanding stats nearly the same as mythics.
- Making the best a fundamental part in crafting mythics and arcane items.

While the game does this it should also limit the monopolization of the whales. Sts can do so by making every X weeks/months a random item between the mythics available for X amount of gold and a crafting process that involves the best legendaries.

This way sts can directly interrupt any sort of monopolization and fix a ceiling price for the premium items while keeping them in range with the free part of the game and increasing the legendaries value.

[Livetokill]

Players will leave the game if they don't enjoy it. There are two ways to overcome it- make a truly engaging game(with great re-playability) or create a "whale" trap. Creating "whale" trap does bring in more money but at the cost of credibility. Here is a small part from the Gamasutra article-


Todd Harris, COO at Hi-Rez, tells me that his company's free-to-play philosophy is simple: Players will remember which games and companies are exploitative, and gradually over time, we'll see a shift away from these money-grabbers, to the games that treat the players with respect.

"The players in the stories [you've related] are likely to not play a game from that publisher or developer again," he reasons. "Our perspective is a long-term thing, thinking about the studio brand."

"I think there's cases where it financially works in the short-term for that title," he continues. "In our case, our studio brand and positioning is different, and we are particularly looking for gamers that expect a fair battlefield, and we want them to know that in a future Hi-Rez game, from past experiences, that they should get a fair battlefield and not get an exploitive feeling."

While you might guess that Hi-Rez doesn't make as much money as some of these more exploitative studios, it's notable that around 10 percent of Tribes: Ascend players choose to pay money -- a figure that is much larger than the 1, 3, and 5 percents that I've heard from the majority of other free-to-play developers. Harris reasons that this is down to trust, and players feeling like they are getting their money's worth.

"I don't have a crystal ball, but our studio thinks that there are enough players that want more of a sports-like fair game," he says. "That's the type of titles that we are developing. Whether the audience of the other type -- 'pay for status' -- whether that is growing or shrinking... you know, studios have to place their bets."

"I personally think that it's going to go down over time," he adds, "because if you look at the games that are having the most success -- League of Legends, Dota 2, as well as our own titles -- they are not perceived that way, not perceived to be pay-to-win as much. So those games seem to be having more traction."

Here is another link
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/193520

[Bigboyblue]

The way the game is currently set up has its advantages and disadvantages. If I am looking at this from an STS perspective I am thinking about how much money these locked crate poppers bring in. It is a cash cow and has an established player base that will spend an obscene amount of money to loot the latest and greatest items. People, however, complain that unless you spend tons of money you can never be in the big leagues.

I do not think it would be the best idea for STS to overhaul this system. It works for them and is allowing their company to thrive. Currently the legendary gear that is dropped from elite bosses is equal to the best mythic gear. The arcane gear is OP for sure and has no counterpart(at least the current level gear). As long as STS has an obtainable legendary counterpart to all available mythics then I really don't see a problem. If you are a non plat buyer you can still farm and sell crates to be geared in the best legendary items. Keeping at least one OP arcane item per level cap keeps this cash cow flowing. That is really all it takes to keep crates popping.

The only time that a true advantage is noticed is when the mythic gear and arcane gear available through locks is far better than the best legendary gear. While I believe there needs to be an OP arcane item available in crates it would be nice to see the best legendary gear closely rival the mythic set of the same level. This keeps the playing field fairly level while still affording an advantage to those that spend real money on this game. The game is fairly level at this point. Time will tell what this item staggering will do to this balance.

STS already sells vanities that are platinum exclusive. I just don't see this as a big enough revenue generator to keep STS going at the pace it is. Currently they are bringing new content forward at a high rate. I think that most players are very happy with this. It is this crate cash cow that allows this to happen.

Advertisement never hurts a brand. It may not be a bad idea to incorporate a higher level of social media advertising that allows players to obtain good items. These items however can not be as good as the crate gear that generates their revenue. The new events that have been announced can also incorporate some descent gear rewards for free. This hopefully keeps the free players happy without upsetting the platinum spenders.

Arcane legends can be played for free. I am currently running all pinks. I can run elites and play the game to it's fullest. You do not have to spend money to play all aspects of this game and enjoy everything it has to offer. I will never be an arcane player but I am still very satisfied with my gaming experience. I don't understand why so many people complain. My life experience has told me that there is always someone who isn't happy. There is nothing you can do to please everyone. STS has done a good job pleasing most people and still maintain its profitability.

[Rare]

Besides crates there aren't that many places where you can spend money.

Changing the model means this is going to have to change of course. I wouldn't expect to see any major change though.

[Energizeric]

Why do people keep implying that mythic and arcane items are only available to plat users? Those items are indeed available to those who farm as they come in elite golden chests which can be dropped from any elite boss. So they are not plat exclusive, they are just rare, which they are supposed to be.

One of the big problems in Pocket Legends near the end is that the game became boring for anyone who played it more than 6 months. Why? Because none of the items were very rare or hard to obtain.

During seasons 1 & 2 of Arcane Legends, it appeared we were headed down that same road... I started playing AL 2 weeks before the Dead City expansion, so I never got a chance to acquire the best gear in season 1. But within 1 month of season 2, without ever spending a single penny on plat, I had all of the best gear for my sorcerer. That's way too easy, and I was not the only player who felt that way. So some of us started complaining that we wanted to see some actual super rare gear. So that's why they introduced the mythic & arcane items. It was not only so that they could get people to spend real money, it was so that the game provided some actual challenge.

To this day I still feel challenged by the game every day. Right now my latest challenge is working towards an arcane ring. No, I won't buy it using plat and opening crates. I am going to save up and purchase one. How long will it take? Probably many months, and I probably won't have one until next season (maybe). But it is still a challenge. The day I have everything there is to have is the day I quit and find a more challenging game.

So for those of you who think this game is too hard, I guess we just have a difference of opinion. I like hard. Easy is boring.

[Zeus]

Why do people keep implying that mythic and arcane items are only available to plat users? Those items are indeed available to those who farm as they come in elite golden chests which can be dropped from any elite boss. So they are not plat exclusive, they are just rare, which they are supposed to be.

One of the big problems in Pocket Legends near the end is that the game became boring for anyone who played it more than 6 months. Why? Because none of the items were very rare or hard to obtain.

During seasons 1 & 2 of Arcane Legends, it appeared we were headed down that same road... I started playing AL 2 weeks before the Dead City expansion, so I never got a chance to acquire the best gear in season 1. But within 1 month of season 2, without ever spending a single penny on plat, I had all of the best gear for my sorcerer. That's way too easy, and I was not the only player who felt that way. So some of us started complaining that we wanted to see some actual super rare gear. So that's why they introduced the mythic & arcane items. It was not only so that they could get people to spend real money, it was so that the game provided some actual challenge.

To this day I still feel challenged by the game every day. Right now my latest challenge is working towards a mythic ring. No, I won't buy it using plat and opening crates. I am going to save up and purchase one. How long will it take? Probably many months, and I probably won't have one until next season (maybe). But it is still a challenge. The day I have everything there is to have is the day I quit and find a more challenging game.

So for those of you who think this game is too hard, I guess we just have a difference of opinion. I like hard. Easy is boring.

Arcane ring*

Just incase people think you're someone that takes many months to earn 2m.

[Rare]

Why do people keep implying that mythic and arcane items are only available to plat users? Those items are indeed available to those who farm as they come in elite golden chests which can be dropped from any elite boss. So they are not plat exclusive, they are just rare, which they are supposed to be.

That isn't what this thread is about

[Bless]

So that's why they introduced the mythic & arcane items. It was not only so that they could get people to spend real money, it was so that the game provided some actual challenge.

To this day I still feel challenged by the game every day. Right now my latest challenge is working towards a mythic ring. No, I won't buy it using plat and opening crates. I am going to save up and purchase one. How long will it take? Probably many months, and I probably won't have one until next season (maybe). But it is still a challenge. The day I have everything there is to have is the day I quit and find a more challenging game.

So for those of you who think this game is too hard, I guess we just have a difference of opinion. I like hard. Easy is boring.

I see what you are saying, that the game needs challenge. But the challenge here is to only buy it with gold, the ring is not farmable like the PL dragon sets. Not everybody is a merch, there is no possible way to farm a day or two continuously for it in a dungeon and loot it. Elite dragkin chests are a joke compared to locked crates. You say it will take 3 months to buy the arcane ring, so don't you think there will be a whole new set of mythic gear by 3 months? They alone will be about 50m, so what will you spend it on the ring or the mythics? Like I said in my earlier post:

If the game is supported by (mostly) 'whales' then that is a problem because premium features and new items - realistically - are intended for them and the few pure players. An average player will not keep up with the platters. For example, if an arcane ring is released at season start, it will take players atleast a month or even 2-3 months to get 100m to buy it, after you brought it, one season later it is worth a fraction of its original price and new Overpriced arcanes are out, it is not a balanced cycle.

The annoyance in this game is that there aren't VALID ways of making BIG money, except for elites (which still cap at 2-3m at their apex) and popping locks. We cannot farm arcanes, we cannot farm mythics. It really is a joke of a money-making system, really, because the highest priced item is 100m+ and the most expensive farmable item is 3m*. I understand that locks keep this game alive. So why not make one arcane item farmable, not easily, whilst making all other mythics lootable in the crates as usual?

*Excluding opening elite golden chests, in which you can apparently loot arcanes.