Pay to Win DLC

[GrubbyZebra]

6 hours ago, HachiRoku said:

You even admit that there is a practical limit of ships you can add. That means you see the issue. My point was always about its potenial.

Your assertion about "potential" is a continuum fallacy, as there is (so far) no evidence to support the assertion that DLC ships, in their current incarnation, break the economy or force balance of the game.

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I said it back when we only had the Herc and requin. The problem scales drastically the more ships and the bigger the ships become. A 1 day timer is meaningless because people generally do not sink more than 1 or 2 ships a day. You admit it becomes a bigger problem the more ships are added but that is only because there is a problem with how they are implemented. 

You are putting words in my mouth. I made no such admission and also do not support a blanket premise that more DLC ship ships are a bigger problem.

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Well the economy has no meaning without ships. Its not like there is anything else in the game that has value except upgrades and ships. Trading Resources are useless and only sold to the AI. You cannot do anything but sail so to say crafting ships is not part of the economy is simply nonsensical. If ships are part of the economy but not the focus then crafting also has to be. Both are the same. A ship is the product of crafting. The reason you want a certain port has nothing to do with its trade value. Its for building ships with certain bonuses. One of the most fought over ports in naval action was carthagena. It had nothing to do with its value in game. It was because the cathagena mod was so powerful in battle at the time. Economy does have an influence in battle. For upgrades alts were an issue but port bonuses make this issue a bit smaller. I think they are a good addition but it would be better to drop permanent mods. 

The "economy" has no meaning. PvE trade is completely unrelated to any other game mechanic, except a tangential means of getting in-game currency. PvP trade was all but eliminated with the introduction of port investments. Individual clans (and even players by using alts) are able to completely control every aspect of their supply chain at all times, without needing to interact with any outside entity. It is literally printing money and everything you can "buy" with that money. That is not a functioning economy in any sense. There is a small economy that is centered on crafted ships and cannon, but those cater to types not available as loot or DLC, anyway, and are not supplanted by the inclusion of the DLC in the game.

Your point about certain ports having value is a driver for the RvR game and PvP, not the economic game. 

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Where you are extremely wrong is the part were you say a captain has more influence in a battle than a ship. Game balance does not take skill into account!  A captain has influence over the outcome of the battle but that does not mean there is no issue. You seem to think I care about the battle instance performance of DLC ships. I do not. They are irrelevant. The fact that one ship was creating ingame with resources that are labor intensive and one ship cost nothing ingame is where I have an issue. Both ships can have an effect on the battle just by being inside them. That is the problem

If the outcome of a battle is determined by skill and individual actions instead of the equipment used, then the game is generally considered balanced. You cannot say the DLC is game breaking where all in-game evidence shows that it has not disrupted the game balance. You are talking out of both sides of your mouth here.

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The game having no end is not an argument. You basically have an infinite number of DLC ships to redeem. In an infinite number of time you can spawn an infinite number of ships. Doesn't matter if the timer is 10 years or 10 seconds. Someone will get sick of crafting far sooner than someone that is just redeeming. 

The game having no end is directly related to your assertion of "winning". A sandbox game does not have a "win" criteria, it has zero to do with the number or frequency of DLC redemptions. That is a completely unrelated topic.

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I guess microtransactions and XP boosters are also pay to play. You just pay to play faster. Not exactly incorrect. 

Depends on how they are implemented. The can be p2p, or p2w. Their mere existence does not define which.

[HachiRoku]

13 hours ago, GrubbyZebra said:

Your assertion about "potential" is a continuum fallacy, as there is (so far) no evidence to support the assertion that DLC ships, in their current incarnation, break the economy or force balance of the game.

Yes there is evidence. Them not costing in game resources. If that was not an issue there would not be an artificial timer on redeeming them. If you continue to deny that then you are delusional. 

 

13 hours ago, GrubbyZebra said:

You are putting words in my mouth. I made no such admission and also do not support a blanket premise that more DLC ship ships are a bigger problem.

"There is a practical limit to the number and types of DLC ships that should be made available, sure. But we have not reached that point yet. The economy in this game is also not centered on crafting ships, as much as I or anyone else may wish otherwise, so DLC ships do not "bypass the economy".

You should be a bit more consistent with your points and not deny things you said because it doesn't fit you argument. 

13 hours ago, GrubbyZebra said:

The "economy" has no meaning. PvE trade is completely unrelated to any other game mechanic, except a tangential means of getting in-game currency. PvP trade was all but eliminated with the introduction of port investments. Individual clans (and even players by using alts) are able to completely control every aspect of their supply chain at all times, without needing to interact with any outside entity. It is literally printing money and everything you can "buy" with that money. That is not a functioning economy in any sense. There is a small economy that is centered on crafted ships and cannon, but those cater to types not available as loot or DLC, anyway, and are not supplanted by the inclusion of the DLC in the game.

Your point about certain ports having value is a driver for the RvR game and PvP, not the economic game. 

An economy is not just about gold. Its about resource too. No debate on the gold part. Gold is useless. Always has been since the devs introduced buildings. A massive mistake imo. 

The question is if you consider resources to be part of the economy. The "economy" is broken is no excuse. If its broken then start fixing it. 

13 hours ago, GrubbyZebra said:

The "economy" has no meaning. PvE trade is completely unrelated to any other game mechanic, except a tangential means of getting in-game currency. PvP trade was all but eliminated with the introduction of port investments. Individual clans (and even players by using alts) are able to completely control every aspect of their supply chain at all times, without needing to interact with any outside entity. It is literally printing money and everything you can "buy" with that money. That is not a functioning economy in any sense. There is a small economy that is centered on crafted ships and cannon, but those cater to types not available as loot or DLC, anyway, and are not supplanted by the inclusion of the DLC in the game.

Your point about certain ports having value is a driver for the RvR game and PvP, not the economic game. 

Off topic: Except the outcome of the balance is not always determined by player skill. When you have pros vs pros the problems with the combat system show alot. I have done hundreds of 1v1s in past versions of the game and current. There is loads of mods that can make or break a battle. The ships themselves cannot be balanced because they are all of different sizes. 

Take masts mods for example. If a mod is required to make the game playable the game is unbalanced. Mast mods being a must have in competitive game play is a solid fact. 

That all being said I did say that stats did not matter with this issue. My problem is labor vs no labor. 

13 hours ago, GrubbyZebra said:

The game having no end is directly related to your assertion of "winning". A sandbox game does not have a "win" criteria, it has zero to do with the number or frequency of DLC redemptions. That is a completely unrelated topic.

Good point.  What matters is that DLC gives you the option to redeem items that are otherwise require labor. 

On 3/26/2020 at 1:14 AM, GrubbyZebra said:

Because the game does not end, the short-term time and resource advantages are temporary and are averaged out over the course of longer time spans, and no meaningful stat advantage is gained.

I need to revisit this argument because I did not break it down well imo.  

The 24 hour redeemable is a consistent time frame and cannot average out. The average amount of dlc ships that can be crafted are always the same. The resource advantage is not averaged out. Its 7 ships/week. If you do not sink you will not redeem. The same goes to crafting too. The fact of the matter is that crafted ships require in game time. Thats the fundamental issue.

[Sir Texas Sir]

On 2/19/2020 at 12:43 AM, z4ys said:

I would like to see the victory with balconies as a refit dlc. Working as the paint dlc changing the appearance of the existing Vic once every day. This way it's just cosmetic and the Vic still has to be crafted.

But I would truly love to see the combat Indiaman as ship dlc. A merchant ship is missing for ship dlcs

The other thing they could do is make it a PvE ship, not allowed in Port battles and can't do hostility missions.  That will mean that the higher tier ships have to be crafted and can't just be clicked once per day.  Even as a DLC it's still not going to beat out a fleet of Oceans and Santi's with the right players.  Though wouldn't mind seeing some one bring all Victory's to a port battle, but I think the BR is to close to give them a number advantage to make a difference in a PB.   

On 2/19/2020 at 1:09 AM, Conte D. Catellani said:

If the Rotterdam will be a DLC we will have a drop in the production of deep water traders. 

You really think folks that run trade ships with no guns to get the most space is going to run a combat merchant ship with half the cargo space  (going off how the LGVR is).  I mean I would but I run guns on my trade ship and my lead ship is not Fir Fir, but I also don't AFK sale and do stupid runs where I get caught. I think I only been caught once in my big ships and the guy ha to run from the fight......now in trader brig it was a diffrent story as I was way out number and pretty much slaughter the one time I got caught since released....the point is most the PvE traders don't run with guns and have fir/fir ships to be as fast as they can.   If they loose a ship it doesn't matter cause they make up the profits in other runs.

On 2/19/2020 at 12:12 PM, BuckleUpBones said:

The only way forwards to beat p2w is to 'reduce the costs of all in-game ships', make them ‘sustainable’ (balance them against DLCs), start an arms race between DLCs and in-game ships, increasing pvp too.

The best way to balance it is to always have craftable ships better than a Note ship, you get to pick the woods and trims (we should get this option at max crafter rank) and maybe even add in some of the NPC trims too that you can craft in certain regions like back when we had regional trims.  Also give a better chance at better ships by crafting compare to notes ships.  I also like it if we had a chance to craft some of the DLC ships  too.   Just something about having a ship with your name on it feels better than something you clicked and made.  Could make the BP a super rare drop item but still have it out there.  Permits for none rare ships should be in the admiralty shop with the chance for loot drop as a means to get them for free.

[GrubbyZebra]

On 3/27/2020 at 11:24 AM, HachiRoku said:

Yes there is evidence. Them not costing in game resources. If that was not an issue there would not be an artificial timer on redeeming them. If you continue to deny that then you are delusional. 

That is a circular argument. There is a timer because no timer would be a problem. This does NOT mean that there is a problem because there is a timer. In fact, the opposite is true. The presence of the timer solves the problem.

 

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"I made no such admission and also do not support a blanket premise that more DLC ship are a bigger problem."

"There is a practical limit to the number and types of DLC ships that should be made available, sure. But we have not reached that point yet. The economy in this game is also not centered on crafting ships, as much as I or anyone else may wish otherwise, so DLC ships do not "bypass the economy".

You should be a bit more consistent with your points and not deny things you said because it doesn't fit you argument. 

Just because I think there is a practical limit on DLC ships, does not mean that I think there is a problem with DLC ships, nor that having more would increase such a supposed problem. The biggest limiting factor on the number of DLC ships is cost (real dollars), as players would get DLC fatigue. Now, of course, a DLC 1st or 2nd rate would probably be hugely disruptive to the game (and I think almost entirely negatively), but this is a specific hypothetical case and by no means universally applicable to the DLC ship model, as a whole. Therefore, both my statements are entirely consistent with one another, and consistent with my argument.

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An economy is not just about gold. Its about resource too. No debate on the gold part. Gold is useless. Always has been since the devs introduced buildings. A massive mistake imo. 

The question is if you consider resources to be part of the economy. The "economy" is broken is no excuse. If its broken then start fixing it.

Resources WERE part of the economy, before port investments, the removal of intermediate crafting items, and the Admiralty DLC. Now that a single player can build everything they need for a shipyard without any outside assistance, resources don't really form any meaningful part of the in-game economy. This is a separate discussion, however.

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Off topic: Except the outcome of the balance is not always determined by player skill. When you have pros vs pros the problems with the combat system show alot. I have done hundreds of 1v1s in past versions of the game and current. There is loads of mods that can make or break a battle. The ships themselves cannot be balanced because they are all of different sizes. 

Take masts mods for example. If a mod is required to make the game playable the game is unbalanced. Mast mods being a must have in competitive game play is a solid fact. 

That all being said I did say that stats did not matter with this issue.

Stats DO matter, as they determine whether or not two ships are balanced. The Redoutable and Implacable are balanced precisely because of their stats (The former being easier to obtain, the latter being a more powerful ship). Many other DLC ships are available in-game because they have no counterparts, so making them purchasable with in-game currency is the balancing factor. Finally, the remaining are middle-of-the-road for their class (e.g. leopard, l'hermione, pandora) and therefore are balanced by virtue of their place in the overall order of battle. 

To say the ships can't be balanced because they are different sizes is ludicrous. Sure, a 1st rate vs a 5th rate will never be balanced, but a 120 BR 5th rate vs another 120BR 5th rate absolutely can be.

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My problem is labor vs no labor. 

Good point.  What matters is that DLC gives you the option to redeem items that are otherwise require labor. 

As to labor vs no labor, what is the difference between having to spend a day crafting and spending a day waiting on a cooldown timer? You still spend the day waiting, and for players that have finite time to spend in-game, the presence of the DLC means that they can spend more time fighting, which is a positive for the game.

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The 24 hour redeemable is a consistent time frame and cannot average out. The average amount of dlc ships that can be crafted are always the same. The resource advantage is not averaged out. Its 7 ships/week. If you do not sink you will not redeem. The same goes to crafting too. The fact of the matter is that crafted ships require in game time. Thats the fundamental issue.

It can average out because at the end of the day, the most DLC you can have of any 1 ship is 3 (that would be 3 days in-game), while a well-equipped crafter could generate that many or more in the same time span, depending on ship size. Again, a 1st or 2nd rate DLC (with the same 24 hr cooldown) would change this, but such a thing (right now) does not exist and therefore is not germane to the discussion at hand.

Edited March 31, 2020 by GrubbyZebra

[Slim McSauce]

On 3/11/2020 at 8:24 AM, Je maintiendrai said:

Making the DLC craftable adds no benefit compared to other ships or am I missing something now

Permits. If DLC buyers had the means to produce for these ships they could own an exclusive piece of the market.

What Gamelabs is doing is selling the limited rights of the ships, so you can sail it, but can't sell it, it cannot be captured either.

What they have has done is sold in-game welfare for real money cash. It eats into shares of shipbuilders, and prevents certain mechanics such as capturing from existing.

I'm not against sensible mtx. I like to support further development, but I am disgusted by the lack of shame. Profit should not be placed above integrity.

[GrubbyZebra]

19 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

Permits. If DLC buyers had the means to produce for these ships they could own an exclusive piece of the market.

What Gamelabs is doing is selling the limited rights of the ships, so you can sail it, but can't sell it, it cannot be captured either.

What they have has done is sold in-game welfare for real money cash. It eats into shares of shipbuilders, and prevents certain mechanics such as capturing from existing.

I'm not against sensible mtx. I like to support further development, but I am disgusted by the lack of shame. Profit should not be placed above integrity.

2 things that need to be addressed with the DLC, IMO:

1) Seasoned woods should be an RNG item for DLC's, not user selectable.

2) DLC ships should be capturable, but not tradeable/sellable. I don't know how this would be doable in a way that wouldn't be able to exploited, though.

[Farrago]

51 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

Permits. If DLC buyers had the means to produce for these ships they could own an exclusive piece of the market.

What Gamelabs is doing is selling the limited rights of the ships, so you can sail it, but can't sell it, it cannot be captured either.

What they have has done is sold in-game welfare for real money cash. It eats into shares of shipbuilders, and prevents certain mechanics such as capturing from existing.

I'm not against sensible mtx. I like to support further development, but I am disgusted by the lack of shame. Profit should not be placed above integrity.

First, let me say I would much prefer a subscription model with no DLCs a more intricate economy, crafting, political, and society aspects to the game. Combine Civilization and Naval Action one might say. But...

As long as competitive ships are available by methods other than DLC (which as a whole I think they are) I don’t think there’s been a lack of integrity. It’s currently a financial model I don’t prefer, but it’s not breaking the game. Yet. 

[Slim McSauce]

Here's the central point. Would it be sound strategy for a game like E.V.E to sell developer power to players to spawn ships in once a day?

What if an airliner sold lifetime tickets to passangers for a million dollars. How long would it take before all seats are taken by people who paid once for unlimited access?

Sure you get that initial profit, but you sell the very ability of your business to make money and continue to provide service in the long run.

It's not so much a moral thing as it is being shortsighted. Silly Gamelabs didn't sell the milk, they sold the whole darn cow!

But for the suckers it's a deal of the lifetime 

 

[GrubbyZebra]

48 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

What if an airliner sold lifetime tickets to passangers for a million dollars. How long would it take before all seats are taken by people who paid once for unlimited access?

Airlines have done this, and found that such sales made up the minority of ticket sales, thus they were still able to make a profit.

[HachiRoku]

On 3/31/2020 at 3:52 AM, GrubbyZebra said:

That is a circular argument. There is a timer because no timer would be a problem. This does NOT mean that there is a problem because there is a timer. In fact, the opposite is true. The presence of the timer solves the problem.

 

Just because I think there is a practical limit on DLC ships, does not mean that I think there is a problem with DLC ships, nor that having more would increase such a supposed problem. The biggest limiting factor on the number of DLC ships is cost (real dollars), as players would get DLC fatigue. Now, of course, a DLC 1st or 2nd rate would probably be hugely disruptive to the game (and I think almost entirely negatively), but this is a specific hypothetical case and by no means universally applicable to the DLC ship model, as a whole. Therefore, both my statements are entirely consistent with one another, and consistent with my argument.

Resources WERE part of the economy, before port investments, the removal of intermediate crafting items, and the Admiralty DLC. Now that a single player can build everything they need for a shipyard without any outside assistance, resources don't really form any meaningful part of the in-game economy. This is a separate discussion, however.

Stats DO matter, as they determine whether or not two ships are balanced. The Redoutable and Implacable are balanced precisely because of their stats (The former being easier to obtain, the latter being a more powerful ship). Many other DLC ships are available in-game because they have no counterparts, so making them purchasable with in-game currency is the balancing factor. Finally, the remaining are middle-of-the-road for their class (e.g. leopard, l'hermione, pandora) and therefore are balanced by virtue of their place in the overall order of battle. 

To say the ships can't be balanced because they are different sizes is ludicrous. Sure, a 1st rate vs a 5th rate will never be balanced, but a 120 BR 5th rate vs another 120BR 5th rate absolutely can be.

As to labor vs no labor, what is the difference between having to spend a day crafting and spending a day waiting on a cooldown timer? You still spend the day waiting, and for players that have finite time to spend in-game, the presence of the DLC means that they can spend more time fighting, which is a positive for the game.

It can average out because at the end of the day, the most DLC you can have of any 1 ship is 3 (that would be 3 days in-game), while a well-equipped crafter could generate that many or more in the same time span, depending on ship size. Again, a 1st or 2nd rate DLC (with the same 24 hr cooldown) would change this, but such a thing (right now) does not exist and therefore is not germane to the discussion at hand.

Ill be honest. Just logged in. To lazy to read it because I am seriously addicted to bannerlord atm. COV will not kill me afterall. 

[Slim McSauce]

23 hours ago, GrubbyZebra said:

Airlines have done this, and found that such sales made up the minority of ticket sales, thus they were still able to make a profit.

Wrong. Educate yourself on the matter.

https://youtu.be/9fcH6-WQUAw

Edited April 2, 2020 by Slim McSauce

[GrubbyZebra]

2 hours ago, HachiRoku said:

... I am seriously addicted to bannerlord atm.

seems to be a running theme in my clan, as well

[GrubbyZebra]

29 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

https://youtu.be/9fcH6-WQUAw

Apparently you misunderstood what I said.

I stated that the majority of customers did NOT purchase the passes, thus the airlines were still profitable. The implication of such a statement being that the passes themselves were NOT profitable.

[Slim McSauce]

1 minute ago, GrubbyZebra said:

Apparently you misunderstood what I said.

I stated that the majority of customers did NOT purchase the passes, thus the airlines were still profitable. The implication of such a statement being that the passes themselves were NOT profitable.

You missed the point that it was a stupid idea for them to sell passes in the first place. They were only so fortunate not to sell too many, and have a building full of lawyers to revoke the passes from those who bought them because it costed millions per person per year.

In NA you can spawn a whole fleet of ships in every day. That's ought to cost billions of reals in lost revenue for crafters and the like. Not only that but it breaks the game preventing capture and re-selling of ships. It's not a debate at this point it's proven.

 

[GrubbyZebra]

21 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

That's ought to cost billions of reals in lost revenue for crafters and the like. Not only that but it breaks the game preventing capture and re-selling of ships. It's not a debate at this point it's proven.

 

You can't know what you don't know (i.e. what the loss is or even if there is one). It could be lost virtual revenue for crafters (there is likely some), or it could just mean people would play less to begin with (which is also likely happening). There isn't any way of knowing, thus your assertion is far from "proven" (you can't prove a negative, after all). 

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You missed the point that it was a stupid idea for them to sell passes in the first place. They were only so fortunate not to sell too many, and have a building full of lawyers to revoke the passes from those who bought them because it costed millions per person per year.

You miss the point that it an apples and oranges comparison. Selling a DLC ship doesn't negatively impact Game Labs' ability to sell future DLC nor the game itself. In fact, it may increase the marketability of the game for some users. 

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In NA you can spawn a whole fleet of ships in every day.

In theory, sure. But more realistically, it takes time to use and lose those ships, so they aren't being spawned every day. Also worth mentioning, again, is that the current DLC offerings are generally quite different from each other in features and capabilities.

Edited April 2, 2020 by GrubbyZebra

[Slim McSauce]

Yes it does because it compromises the integrity of gameplay to sell developer-level ability to spawn ships to spite the economy when everyone else had to play buy the rules. 

[Slim McSauce]

It's very simple just look at any other MMO like NA they do not give away ships when the whole game revolves around crafting and selling.

[Slim McSauce]

Also it creates artificial boundries and keeps people who may play legitly to be at permanent  disadvantage because people who buy the dlc ships just hoard all the money they don't spend on buying ships so the reals never circulate. Sound logic try to refute it.

Edited April 2, 2020 by Slim McSauce