Dragons

Karouselle · September 2016

Spacecats wrote: »

Montblanck wrote: »

Montblanck wrote: »

Just dropping in and would like to know if we're getting the non-lootbox version of this (either account bound item claim or one-claim).

@Spacecats @Treeshark would you be able to confirm?

The ghost and diamond versions are going to be loot box only.

All of these people are willing to drop a good bit of money for a dragon.
I'd be willing to pay for it at the Argo bundle price, maybe more, if it meant it was account bound. I'd also be willing to convince others to purchase as well, I'd already planned on it. My playing group wanted to make a rider's guild. My comrades and I were ecstatic about this update.
However,
I am not willing to play more games than the one I signed up for.
Loot boxes are by no means in any way a fair chance.
I'm sure that you're aware of this though.
Prior to now, I would have enthusiastically purchased from the store, I am already an elite member because I believe in supporting things I enjoy. Especially those that didn't *make* me purchase the product, but rather I decide to.
I would have gladly recommended and encouraged others to purchase to support as well, as I have in the past.
However, if I have to buy loot boxes for a dragon in a color I don't want in the first place for the expressed purpose of dragons being "special",
then I don't know how much I really want to support such attitudes.
Some have time.
Others have money.
I have a little of both and I am willing to spend it on this your game, should you accept it under fair conditions.
Not enough to spend hours grinding, that's tiring, but enough to offer some support as a regular player.

Victorpresti · September 2016

Haruuuu wrote: »

the problem is the people who cannot pay ARE at a gameplay disadvantage. this IS a pay to win game.

unless you telling me a person with a normal working hour playing a couple of hours per day can get a full set +15 imperator with t3 etchings and dyad niveots + accessories before the patch ends.

The difference is you don't need any of that. People clearing DSU in Dreadnaught just prove you don't need any particular gear to clear any content. I myself ran with +12 slaughter people with like 2 dyads and we cleared just fine. And that talking about DPS, healers can pretty much be naked.

Now when comes to PvP, I've seen several people with outdated defensive gear, but as long they have a weapon they still have immense impact. That is the main difference between a game like Tera and a game like BDO.

Proio · September 2016

Thanks for the free elite code, much appreciated. It seems these days P2W is thrown around a lot. Do most people crying in forums even know what these mounts give you. It's a 5-6 seconds buff that has A LOW CHANCE TO PROC! It's not something you can say "oh okay I'm going to activate it when there's a shield phase or burn." It doesn't work like that. It procs when it wants and it's far from being a game changer.

We have no idea exactly what issues EME is having. So have some damn patience. If you don't want to spend money in cash shop (which by the way also supports the game else TERA wouldn't be here for you to play) that's fine, don't. Sit tight and wait for in-game versions.

My definition of P2W is a game where spending lots of money enables you to basically become god like. Something you cannot do in TERA. Being able to clear dungeons/PVP requires knowledge and skill. I've run with a some full Imperator +15 ninjas who basically spent most of the fight on the floor. You can pay for convenience and get ahead a little but that's about it.

I wish people would stop crying so much about TERA being P2W because it is most definitely not. You want P2W? Go play 12Sky2 and tell me how that goes for you. For those of you comparing NA to EU, know that NA is still miles better which is why people are still leaving EU to come to NA. Gameforge is changing, but it's not enough.

Anyway, thank you very much once again @Treeshark for the elite code, it is much appreciated. Take your time and release stuff when it is ready. Have a great day.

Ketoth · September 2016

@RosettaEvangel remove your mods....

JadedJay · September 2016

I thought there would be buff-less, normal mounts I could just buy... just for the looks... like every other mount. I see people upset about the buff but how many people will even be able to toss crazy amounts of cash at a game for a chance at this "buffing" mount...? I doubt I'll be seeing this mount around much honestly. XD I'm more upset after all my hype to get to ride a freaking dragon that I basically get told I can't buy it, and after a merge that made me loose all my guild members, right before the guild update too...among other things to boot. I thought dragons would make that up for me a bit, but nope. Don't really have time to grind for the other one when they come out either. I bet it will take a ludicrous amount of those tokens...
Kind of starting to regret the hundreds I have already burned on Tera honestly...

NaeGevurah · September 2016

If you can buy something without making a single effort, regardless that YOU CAN FARM IT IN GAME TOO, then by DEFINITION it is pay to win buy 20k emp, sell for 1:35 ratio, get 700k gold, buy an imperator off of broker in 5 minutes without ever playing sshm once....that is COMPLETE P2W FOR THE PERSON WHO DID IT THAT WAY!!!!!!!!!!! it doesn't matter that I will play sshm and craft imperator the regular way the other person who bought it shows us it is p2w, there will always be people who do it the normal, more skillful way and that takes more time, and there will always be people who will just use their money, but my dear firend to say "it is not pay to win..." makes us wonder do you even know tera at all o.0

Pay-to-win is giving an unfair advantage to people spending money over people who are not, and doesn't allow the free players to achieve what the paid players can. This is just not the case. The plan is for the mounts to be grindable in-world in two different ways even, and the buffs and versions have no difference with the paid ones. Not only that, but the paid models are in loot boxes without even a guarantee of success in purchase. Talk about a balance of pay/grind, that's pretty clever honestly. There are those that use money to jump ahead in gear progression etc., nothing unique to Tera, but think about it. Do you want a total newbie that used a lv60 scroll and emp to jump to imperator without even understanding their class mechanics, crystals, glyphs, or dungeon mechanics? If you can say yes, and you want that person in your SSHM party, then it's p2w. It's not p2w.

DogeSword · September 2016

counterpoint wrote: »

DogeSword wrote: »

counterpoint wrote: »

It has nothing to do with EME, TERA, BHS or anything. Look at MMO history. Any game that relies on grinding has this inherent problem; some people have time, some people have money. This is why gold-selling has been a problem in MMOs since the very beginning, even if the game developers are adamantly against it. Even completely aside from the cash shop, skilled players will "sell" carries -- how do you think people who buy carries get their gold? Nonfunctional definitions of pay-to-win are useless for actual discussion.

See that's where you're wrong. At the end of the day, the definition of P2W is subjective for a start and nonfunctional definitions are indeed useful as it is determined not only by developers and publishers but also the very in-game community itself. The community puts value on any cash based currency as well as the items available through cash based currency. The reason it is useful is to determine whether cash is heavily affecting the general economy of the game itself and how said economy affects the balance of power in the game. I've seen MMOs where publishers and developers have no choice but to give away valuable items due to the sheer fact that their cash based currency has damaged their in-game economy and free players couldn't even do essentials to get end game gear without cashing. Cash based currency like EMP can damage an in-game economy and put power in favor of cashing if they aren't monitored regularly. Being ignorant of that fact is what can easily turn any game Pay-to-win by definition of people buying their way through the game instead of actually playing it. If you say it's useless for discussion is to say that cashing without actually playing the game is fine.

A term whose definition is that inherently subjective and basically means whatever people decide at the moment is useless for discussion because nobody knows what you're talking about. But the actual issue is relevant and on-point, even if you discard the term. That's my suggestion if we want to have this conversation.

But, if you are going have this conversation in the context of TERA, it's rather nuanced because of the details of the in-game economy. The cash shop does not allow you to generate gold; it facilitates the transfer of gold from one player to another. The cash shop does inject consumables and new desirable items (like these dragons). The Gold:EMP ratio is historically determined primarily by the rate and ease at which gold can be earned at any given patch. And if you look at the difficulty of gearing, the influx of consumables from these lootboxes (combined with other recent events) results in their deflation, while the relative rate of earning new gold has gone up. So if you consider the confluence of all these factors, at this time, I would not say that there's any good reason to resort to "cashing" in your gearing process for anyone who plays regularly. The rush of consumables will lower their price, making them more accessible to people who play regularly with the power of earned gold. The temporary drive to get these mounts may temporarily skew things, but that's not unlike any other desirable cosmetic in that sense and will balance out soon.

There is the issue that right now that the only way to get these desirable mounts is on the cash shop. Even if you believe in the conspiracy theory that this was all a scheme to push cash shop sales before putting it in game, this doesn't disadvantage F2P players as much as it advantages already gold-rich F2P players. If you're a new player and you don't have a lot of gold saved up, you'll have to wait longer to get a mount due to having to wait until the grind option is made available, but you would have had to grind for it in the first place (as the same price spike would have happened anyway even if it all launched at the same time).

So anyway, I personally believe that it is extremely important to make absolutely everything accessible to F2P players in a reasonable and equitable way so that people who cannot pay are not at any gameplay disadvantage. But, there are a lot of counterbalances in TERA that have to be considered carefully and put together to understand the impact of any given change. That's a further reason why clear definitions of the problem are important, rather than buzzwords.

As you say, the issue here is the fact that dragons are only attainable only by cash. That's the whole point that most people were trying to make in regards to the game being p2w. It's true that there's no real need to cash in TERA outside of maybe buying character slots. However the issue people are seeing is that the dragons being currently cash only means advantage for cashers in terms of income (if they do so wish to sell EMP) which could mean easier access to the items they need to get better gear. That's what most people are thinking in regards to the p2w scenario.

The reply I made above is basically me saying best not to ignore the situation and easily disregarding the potential p2w as EME should have just held back on the dragons instead of releasing cash only and making free players wait as it does give cashing an advantage on income. With the amount of gold generated over the years since TERA's release, it could potentially become p2w if EME continues to blunder in the balance between cashers and free players. Elite Status for a week doesn't really give it much of a fix if people have already begun buying EMP in bulks from EMP sellers. At best, this was cash grab by EME as they chose not to hold back dragons until the free option was fixed.

Emmalyn · September 2016

Yesterday I patiently waited for the update. I was only concerned about purchasing an account bound dragon, I got so excited. I even purchased extra EMP preparing for it's release. After only seeing lootboxes and refreshing the "Mounts and Pets" page a few hundred times, I decided to jump on twitter and check their page.....nothing. So I asked if there were going to be more dragons as a direct buy option. The response I got angered me. "No, there aren't any plans for that, store dragons are lootbox only". Really? Next time instead of saying "Diamond and Ghost dragons will be available in Tera Shop"....go ahead and be sure to specify that they're a stupid chance item. Thanks for disappointing and misleading many loyal customers.

P5RLRJYGGE · September 2016

5 Euro/$ which is already Gf Style P2W QQ_QQ

Valiona · September 2016

@Emmalyn @Treeshark Unless I was misinformed, there are supposed to be normal versions of Ghost and Dragon in the shop as well as the royal and yet there are none to be found.I see the royal dragons in lootboxes, but where are the normal variations of Ghost and Dragon? Where are the account bound mounts? This advertisement is extremely misleading so I understood why you guys are angry.

Emmalyn · September 2016

@Valiona , I'm pretty sure most of us were mislead. They directly told me they had no plans of releasing anything other than lootboxes. I wasted time, money, and patience being excited for this update.
https://twitter.com/teraonline/status/778375137804554240

Valiona · September 2016

@Emmalyn did you see the screenshot I posted of advertisement for the Guilded age of "dragons" ? There were supposed to be normal variations as well....WHERE THE HECK ARE THOSE? It didn't say just Crimson and Iron are in Normal and Royal, it said ALL are. Enmasse is about to lose alot of loyal customers.

Ccoffee · September 2016

@Spacecats Hey my neko-based CM, can we please get eta on some of these things? like non-emp (which i personally like in color) dragons, where the normal 1% dragons went for the EMP ones, and anything else we haven't gotten that was planned for this patch? It would be appreciated, I made sure to look through recent posts to be certain that you didn't post it somewheres.

I bought EMP yusterday, then sold it because it was more profitable to sell 15 boxes than to hope for that .2% rate of getting things from them. And now I can just buy the mount in game. Not that I would, can someone please explain why these mounts are so ugly?

BDH · September 2016

FF37CPREK9 wrote: »

Spacecats wrote: »

Montblanck wrote: »

Montblanck wrote: »

Just dropping in and would like to know if we're getting the non-lootbox version of this (either account bound item claim or one-claim).

@Spacecats @Treeshark would you be able to confirm?

The ghost and diamond versions are going to be loot box only.

All of these people are willing to drop a good bit of money for a dragon.
I'd be willing to pay for it at the Argo bundle price, maybe more, if it meant it was account bound. I'd also be willing to convince others to purchase as well, I'd already planned on it. My playing group wanted to make a rider's guild. My comrades and I were ecstatic about this update.
However,
I am not willing to play more games than the one I signed up for.
Loot boxes are by no means in any way a fair chance.
I'm sure that you're aware of this though.
Prior to now, I would have enthusiastically purchased from the store, I am already an elite member because I believe in supporting things I enjoy. Especially those that didn't *make* me purchase the product, but rather I decide to.
I would have gladly recommended and encouraged others to purchase to support as well, as I have in the past.
However, if I have to buy loot boxes for a dragon in a color I don't want in the first place for the expressed purpose of dragons being "special",
then I don't know how much I really want to support such attitudes.
Some have time.
Others have money.
I have a little of both and I am willing to spend it on this your game, should you accept it under fair conditions.
Not enough to spend hours grinding, that's tiring, but enough to offer some support as a regular player.

You perfectly explained my situation.

generalderpy014 · September 2016

@Valiona @Emmalyn I can confirm that the normal version of ghost and diamond dragon exist, they can be purchased through the token that drops from the loot box. Sadly, there is no direct means of acquiring the normal version.

Dragons

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