What do you hate about Microtransactions?

[mechahamham]

I don't think we're in danger of microtransactions ever coming back because it's widely assumed that Homecoming CAN'T make a profit off of CoH (or even break even) by reason of their license and NCSoft WON'T because that would be admitting wrong or even wrongdoing.

 

However, I think the discussion itself has merit, if for no other reason than to find out, 'Wow, other people would seriously pay for that.'

 

Lootboxes: We did that with Superpacks during the Live era. Now that they're part of the in-game economy rather than the real-world economy, I do every so often spend a sum on them simply to burn off excess influence. I don't even resell the contents. The primary source of funding of my characters comes from crafting. Some characters I want to pay their own way, so they have to craft up from 0 influence and buy their own ATOs. I wouldn't be horrified if another kind of loot box somehow arrived, but I would take it as a symptom of something very wrong happening with the game's balance.

 

Costumes: This would be something that would be very difficult for me, personally, to say no to. I bought all the costume packs that came out during the live era. I don't want to go back to that, where you either had to grind for or pay for new costume pieces. I think that having all the costume pieces unlocked at character creation is a vastly good thing... but that's another discussion entirely.

 

Max Level/Prestige Characters: This is my 'not just no, but HAYULL NO' button. Do not want. Very no. /jranger

 

Some time ago, I heard something that stuck with me. It was a player recruiting on Excel for players to join their Brainstorm SG, which seemed bizarre to me at the time. After some time, the recruiter admitted what was really happening. They were frustrated with grinding and didn't want to do that any more. Brainstorm has the Freebies menu, but no real population and very few teaming opportunities. They were trying to build a group of players to team with on Brainstorm's relaxed testing rules. (Did they try farming? I dunno. It never entered the conversation that I heard, surprisingly enough.)

 

I think if max level, or decently kitted characters were offered as a microtransaction, there would be a market for them from people like this.

 

However, in the real world, we've seen that this is the 'last gasp' of other F2P games. It snowballs to the point to where if you make a new character, they will have absolutely no one to group with until they're max level.

 

I personally feel that if you're not enjoying that basic game loop of 'Defeat enemies in interesting ways, gain even more interesting ways to defeat enemies', you're playing the wrong game. However, I can't in good conscience tell others what parts of the game they should enjoy or not. I don't EVER want the low- and mid-level game to die out, and microtransaction characters is the surest, quickest way to make exactly that happen. That would kill CoH for me far deader than any corporate-mandated shutdown ever did.

 

-- Edit --

 

It seems like I worded my post poorly. I'm NOT looking for a return to microtransactions nor am I suggesting that it would be a good idea. I'm looking for a discussion about what people hate about microtransactions.

Edited 13 hours ago by mechahamham
Clarifcation

[Lunar Ronin]

No thank you.  The other MMORPG I play is DC Universe Online, and holy crap.  The former Star Trek Online developers took over the game last year, and the DCUO monetization is now wild.  Two or more FOMO timed events every single month that you have to either seriously grind or shell out $$ every month (each)... and they contain permanent very strong powers or NPC companions.  If you happen to miss one of those timed events?  Tough luck.  You may never be able to get those permanent powers or NPC companions again.  Then they started adding meta-changing and defining permanent powers to lockboxes.  If you want to be in the meta, you have to pay $200 to $400 per character, per power.  It's insane.  Oh, and like the FOMO timed events, once those lockboxes are cycled out for new lockboxes?  Good luck.

 

I miss the days of when MMORPGs just had a subscription and that was it.  "Free-to-play" is a joke.

[Glacier Peak]

[mechahamham]

1 hour ago, Lunar Ronin said:

If you want to be in the meta, you have to pay $200 to $400 per character, per power.  It's insane.  Oh, and like the FOMO timed events, once those lockboxes are cycled out for new lockboxes?  Good luck.

 

This is AMAZINGLY horrifying!

[Lunar Ronin]

1 minute ago, mechahamham said:

 

This is AMAZINGLY horrifying!

 

Thankfully, I don't care about playing meta characters (in any game).  I just really like how a couple of power sets there play, the travel powers are awesome, and being virtually "in" the DC Universe setting and flying around Metropolis and such after reading DC Comics comic books for 45 years is great.  So I don't get to do elite raids.  Big whoop.

 

But it sets a terrible precedent, and it makes it much harder to onboard new players.  I'd really hate to see anything like that come to City of Heroes, (which it won't, thankfully).

[Scarlet Shocker]

TL;DR

 

/jranger

 

 

[Skyhawke]

[UltraAlt]

8 hours ago, mechahamham said:

it's widely assumed that Homecoming CAN'T make a profit off of CoH (or even break even)

 

Of course, Homecoming "break even" every month due to donations ... it seems like not by your help.

 

If you like microtransactions so much then try to get in early and help pay to keep servers running when the donation window opens every month. You can pretend it is a microtransaction.

 

I don't really understand this outbreak of late of people wanting to return to a subscription model ... or even worse .. microtransactions!?

 

I sense a Nemesis plot.
 

 

Edited 20 hours ago by UltraAlt

[UltraAlt]

7 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:

The former Star Trek Online developers took over the game last year

 

Yeah, Star Trek Online was another Cryptic game.

 

Oh, Jack has been involved with Daybreak as a whole since On June 8, 2016. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Emmert 

 

"...He designed the MMORPGs City of Heroes and City of Villains.[2] Emmert was the chief creative officer and directed the design of all games from Cryptic Studios, and was involved in the development of Marvel Universe Online.[2] He and Cryptic later decided that Champions would be a suitable replacement for the Marvel Comics IP that they had lost, thus Cryptic purchased the rights for the Champions game and its universe from Hero Games in 2008.[1]: 153  Emmert was the online producer for Star Trek Online.[3]... " - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Emmert 

 

Yeah. that "Jack".

 

"... On June 8, 2016, Emmert was made CEO of Daybreak Game Company, a studio in Austin, Texas. He was in charge of the Daybreak Games studio that was responsible for DC Universe Online, and he oversaw all development while reporting to Daybreak headquarters located in San Diego..." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Emmert 

 

"The leader of Dimensional Ink Games is Jack Emmert, who serves as the CEO and is a well-known MMORPG designer." - Google AI search response

 

But, yeah, Andre Emerson and Al Rivera were part of the team that worked on Star Trek online as well. Jack is in leadership above them.

 

 

 

 

[Lunar Ronin]

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

 

Yeah, Star Trek Online was another Cryptic game.

 

Oh, Jack has been involved with Daybreak as a whole since On June 8, 2016. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Emmert 

 

"...He designed the MMORPGs City of Heroes and City of Villains.[2] Emmert was the chief creative officer and directed the design of all games from Cryptic Studios, and was involved in the development of Marvel Universe Online.[2] He and Cryptic later decided that Champions would be a suitable replacement for the Marvel Comics IP that they had lost, thus Cryptic purchased the rights for the Champions game and its universe from Hero Games in 2008.[1]: 153  Emmert was the online producer for Star Trek Online.[3]... " - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Emmert 

 

Yeah. that "Jack".

 

"... On June 8, 2016, Emmert was made CEO of Daybreak Game Company, a studio in Austin, Texas. He was in charge of the Daybreak Games studio that was responsible for DC Universe Online, and he oversaw all development while reporting to Daybreak headquarters located in San Diego..." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Emmert 

 

"The leader of Dimensional Ink Games is Jack Emmert, who serves as the CEO and is a well-known MMORPG designer." - Google AI search response

 

But, yeah, Andre Emerson and Al Rivera were part of the team that worked on Star Trek online as well. Jack is in leadership above them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack Emmert left DC Universe Online and Daybreak Games a couple of years ago.  It got worse after he left.  Andre Emerson and Al Rivera came on after Jack Emmert left.  Also, don't trust AI search responses.  They're frequently wrong.

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, Lunar Ronin said:

Jack Emmert left DC Universe Online and Daybreak Games a couple of years ago.  It got worse after he left.  Andre Emerson and Al Rivera came on after Jack Emmert left. 

 

The three of them do have a history of working together.

I agree that the microtransactions and the push to use microtransactions (through various means) has increased at Daybreak in general in recent years.

 

In DCUO's case, I blame the player base for much of that. There are those that seem to be more than willing to throw what seems to be hundreds of dollars at DCUO whenever some new money-sink is offered to them.

 

I've had been able to buy a lifetime membership with Daybreak a good while before Homecoming appeared. It paid for itself within 2 years.

It was a good investment at the time as I was playing quite a bit of Planetside 2 at the time as well as DCUO (more Planetside than DCUO). With the 500 Daybreak cash they give members every month, they have been paying me to play for a good while at this point, but I have restraint enough not to fall into their money-traps.

 

1 hour ago, Lunar Ronin said:

Also, don't trust AI search responses.  They're frequently wrong.

 

It is a tangled web. 

That is why I cited the sources.

[Snarky]

I think there should be a P2W 1 million inf donation to the Snarky Institute.  A conglomeration of services to make Paragon better.  
 

Of course these funds need to go to me.  So things do get better.

[Ukase]

Um...I'm frugal in the real world. I listen to Clark Howard and routinely look for ways to save more money. Not because I'm broke, but because my father told me something a long time ago. I was probably 12 or 13. At the time, he was teaching at a nearby University as an Economics professor. He would say "Every dollar you save multiplies to the bottom line". Now at 12, I didn't even know what a bottom line was. I was a kid. So, he could tell by my puzzled eyes elaboration was needed. He explained to me that if I were to mow a lawn for $5 bucks, and then spent $5 on comics, I would need to mow another lawn to re-earn that $5, and I'd likely have to wait a week to re-earn it. Or, I'd have to go door to door to find someone else as a customer to mow their grass for $5. So, most of us are adults, and you can see where he was going with this, and the lesson I got from it. For folks as obtuse as me, "It's not how much you make, but how much you save that's important"

No way in hell am I going to spend one real dollar on some in-game loot. I donate when the window is open from time to time. If the game were to allow for such things, I'd love to sell my stacks of inf for real world cash on one inf for one dollar exchange, but that's seriously ridiculous to even write down. But hey, if I'm gonna make a wish for money, that's as good as any other wish. I couldn't get our country out of debt, but I could certainly buy a lot of stock and never have to sweat work again! 

So, the one microtransaction I never want to see is Pay X dollars for 10X influence. Or any X influence. 
 

[madicen]

11 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:

No thank you.  The other MMORPG I play is DC Universe Online, and holy crap.  The former Star Trek Online developers took over the game last year, and the DCUO monetization is now wild.  Two or more FOMO timed events every single month that you have to either seriously grind or shell out $$ every month (each)... and they contain permanent very strong powers or NPC companions.  If you happen to miss one of those timed events?  Tough luck.  You may never be able to get those permanent powers or NPC companions again.  Then they started adding meta-changing and defining permanent powers to lockboxes.  If you want to be in the meta, you have to pay $200 to $400 per character, per power.  It's insane.  Oh, and like the FOMO timed events, once those lockboxes are cycled out for new lockboxes?  Good luck.

 

I miss the days of when MMORPGs just had a subscription and that was it.  "Free-to-play" is a joke.

DCUO was really, really good the first few years. Even after going F2P the monetization was pretty decent and free players could do everything someone with the All Access pass could do, essentially. The last few years though it's bad, and not even worth it. The monthly events are just recycled maps reskinned with the same handful of boring daily and weekly missions. I go back every couple of years to visit, but I always get to the same place where I feel like Im too far behind to ever catch up even if I open my wallet so it gets uninstalled again pretty quick. 

 

I miss when DCUO was good :(

[srmalloy]

14 hours ago, mechahamham said:

...and NCSoft WON'T because that would be admitting wrong or even wrongdoing.

I my opinion, it's more the perceived damage to their 'face' from their having made the decision to shutter the game, and then having the game's player community prove that their decision was a bad one, instead of just accepting that NCsoft management had made their decision and that was the end of it, as proper subordinates would in Korean culture. As long as we're just going off to our corner and playing with their cast-off game, we're no threat to their face, and they can ignore us. 

[mechahamham]

6 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

Of course, Homecoming "break even" every month due to donations ... it seems like not by your help.

 

If you like microtransactions so much then try to get in early and help pay to keep servers running when the donation window opens every month. You can pretend it is a microtransaction.

 

It seems like I worded my post poorly. I'm NOT looking for a return to microtransactions. I'm looking for a discussion about what people hate about microtransactions.

 

Please don't assume malice.

 

Also, way to immediately peg me as someone who doesn't donate. That's pretty damn insulting and more than a little hurtful. I try to donate every time I see the window open and have since I came to HC.

 

You saw 'microtransaction' and immediately assumed that I was the worst possible person based on the word alone, apparently without even reading my post. That's a really braindead way of doing business.

[mechahamham]

54 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

my opinion, it's more the perceived damage to their 'face' from their having made the decision to shutter the game, and then having the game's player community prove that their decision was a bad one...

 

Despite spending quite a bit of time learning about Asian cultures, Japanese and Korean cultures in particular, I've never really understood the idea of 'Losing Face'. It's a concept that just doesn't make sense to me, no matter how much I read about it, possibly due to my fairly abusive upbringing. If you're wrong, you admit you're wrong and then attempt to control any damage a poor decision has caused. I get that it's related to dignity in some way, but that's another concept that I have trouble with, simply by the way of never being allowed to have any while growing up.

 

I thought about using the phrase in my OP, but instead I went with 'admitting wrong' because that's closest I can come to making an emotional or intellectual statement about the idea. I know (and am related to) plenty of people who refuse to admit that they're were or are wrong in any circumstance.

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, mechahamham said:

You saw 'microtransaction' and immediately

 

... was immediately against microtransactions.

yes.

 

We escaped that bane.

 

Why even bring it up?

 

There is no need to unless your goal is to bring them back.

 

One of the reasons I quit my subscription to City of Heroes was because of the microtransactions.

So, yeah, you are going to trigger me if you bring up microtransactions.

[srmalloy]

1 minute ago, mechahamham said:

I've never really understood the idea of 'Losing Face'. It's a concept that just doesn't make sense to me, no matter how much I read about it

Western society are "guilt" cultures; Korean society, as well as Japanese and Chinese society, are "shame" cultures. In a guilt culture, morality is internal, so that if you do something wrong, as you describe, you are expected to admit it, and where possible make amends for it. In a shame culture, morality is external, and to a great extent, it's not that you are moral, but that you are perceived as moral. That is the principle behind 'face' -- you are expected to feel shame if people believe that you have broken the societal rules, or sometimes even made choices that make it easy for you to break the societal rules. For example, it's shameful for a woman to live alone in Iran, because then she could be a prostitute. It doesn't matter whether she is or not; that she didn't actively work to not look like a prostitute is sufficient reason to shame her. So in shame cultures you can have a lot of public virtue signaling and concealed duplicity. And the shame doesn't just fall on the individual -- it also falls on the individual's superiors, who should have noticed their subordinate's failings and corrected them. In business, it manifests itself as impairing the reputation of a manager who promoted a subordinate, who then became lax and failed to perform their new job properly; the manager should have corrected the subordinate or picked a more appropriate subordinate to promote. As a result, shame cultures tend to be more collectivist, where collective action (like social rejection or imprisonment) is taken when shaming is not effective. And it's not regarded as virtuous to defend your innocence is you can't easily prove it; you're expected to accept your punishment and try to avoid the appearance of guilt in the future.

 

And it is an oversimplification to label Western society as a monolithic 'guilt' culture -- for example, Catholicism is more shame-oriented, while Protestantism is more guilt-oriented. And it can go deeper than that -- conservative protestants are much more shame oriented than progressive protestants.

[mechahamham]

13 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

Why even bring it up?

 

There is no need to unless your goal is to bring them back.

 

Because it had the potential to spark useful discussion. We HAVE to remember the past, bad things included, to successfully move forward. "Those who forget..." etc...

 

Being upset at a word or concept is no reason to start handing out accusations, and its no excuse for attacking someone. In my OP I listed 3 kinds of microtransactions that bothered me. You had no reason to attack me, but did so anyway.

 

I doubt you're a child, so stop acting like it.

[Skyhawke]

New title: What do you hate about microtransactions?

 

New answer: Yes. 

[Ghost]

Simple.  They cost money.

[Neiska]

Absolutely not. I would sooner listen to a serenade from Snarky. Keep your loot box and gotcha-game stuff out of CoH. And I strongly suspect most feel the same.

 

PS - as far as "why"? IMO RL money stuff, no matter how you slice it, destroys games. As soon as real money gets involved, people with less morals will figure out a way to profit from it, and we will be exposed to such actions. Here are a few examples off the top of my head -

 

ESO - not "pay to win" necessarily, though there are perks. Riding speed and such. But it is 100% "pay to look pretty." But things like riding speed do impact things like PVP.

EQ - each time there is a new server launched, the game is over-run with multi-boxers who farm the important/rare stuff, and trade them for Krono, which is then sold for real life money. These groups will train you, steal your kill spot, it even bleeds over into the raid community where its not uncommon for entire raids to be made of a handful of people more or less taking items from bosses and profiting from them. On one server a krono farmer completely locked down a critical step for the cleric epic, which is 100% vital for raiding, and was charging people 20 krono to loot it. A krono is like 15 bucks, so do the math. And each time there's a new server, we see a new wave of it.

WoW - game tokens are now used as a kind of off-currency and trading, and only encourages the farmers.

Diablo - DSP is still a thing that's used as an alternate trading currency. There was also the auction house that more or less destroyed trading in D3. Lets not mention the re-occuring price for season pass, they even had a 65 dollar horse in the store. For reference, that is cost more than the base game expansion.

 

Think I made my point - as soon as money is involved, it ruins games. It makes companies try to squeeze every penny out of you and me joe-gamers. Other players will exploit it. And IMO it is AAA game company greed is why little indie games are kicking their butts these days, and in my book, rightfully so. Little games like Megabonk or Silksong etc are way out profiting them. Which I am more than happy to see.

Edited 12 hours ago by Neiska

[Jiro Ito]

Yeah if the good stuff got locked behind paywalls, I'd probably just leave.

 

The only time I can see the value of it is in cosmetic stuff like costumes, where the cost of the costume packs allow for the additional resources to create the costumes packs.  I think this was how the messaging was delivered during Live when some of those were released.  If Homecoming offered cosmetic stuff for a fee in order to outsource production of said cosmetic stuff, I wouldn't hate it.  Anything pay-to-win, hate.  Big hate.

[tidge]

Where micro-transactions lose appeal to me is when they drive behavior (on the part of the seller) to either/or/all of:

• "nickel-and-dime" the customers at every possible opportunity
• directing effort to smaller and smaller efforts 
• lazy, lottery-like reward schemes