What Happened To You Today?

Minifie

Yeah, those people working two jobs, have a family to spend time with, have social obligations, perhaps even those who play multiple games to play with those who live X kilometres away because you can't just dive into a night a week to have dinner together, those who may find an hour a day is about their limit for gaming and don't want to spend that grinding in a game that has the depth you purport.

I absolutely CAN grind that out, I have friends who I wouldn't suggest achaea to at all because (like my brother) works 14 hours a day, and come time to weekends he just wants to take whatever he feels for his time off (maybe go to a live event, catch up with friends etc etc).

Also, calling the IG items as merch is a bit wanky my dude, for a lot of items they specifically exist as a catch up gap that others use. As much as I think the epic games store is hot garbage, you could get games, or even fortnite goodies raw for free if you put in the same level of effort (even less, they give away free games weekly). 

If I balanced the game around the time I have to spare, even your time would fail to come up to doing what I would want my time to be filled with. I would like, however, those people who can spare an hour or two to not look at the top tier and go, "jesus I have to years of effort in to play catch up. . . Why wouldn't I play WoW or FF14 or BDO and catch up in a fraction of that time, and potentially play a few hours a week and stay caught up to a degree?" You won't have the top ilvl gear, but my brother is playing FF14 with me and he just got his titania mount and cleared E1-2S on a few hours a week since he started 6 months ago, that's learning the game from scratch, paying 14 bucks a month, while a significant chunk of the game can be backended (same with WoW to my knowledge with BFA?)

Your points would be a lot fairer if you didn't have to log in on the daily, if you could backend or front-end a lot of the grind that would be a lot closer to fair, since only people in literally the WORST situation and still playing games can at least push a day into just kicking back and veging, but a middle ground is horrendously missed in your analytics.

Atalkez

I don’t think you’re being very fair here. If Achaea is a hobby of such minimal undertaking (life does come at us hard, after all) that you can only put in an hour or two every other day, maybe 2-3 on the weekends - are you really needing to minmax yourself? What’s wrong with spending an hour grinding up 10 credits when you can? You’re not chasing Penwize if you’re only playing 1-2 hours a day. That’s not your market. So I’m confused why you’re conflating those two people, they clearly are not playing the same game with the same goals of their playtime.

I think it’s reasonable to expect someone who can, like Eryl showed, play a couple of hours (2-3) 4 days a week be able to grind themselves some items. Which is exactly what he showed, so what’s the issue? 

I’m trying to track with you, I’m just confused why we’re comparing a 1 hour hobbyist player to an everyday grinder. They aren’t playing the same long term game.

Minifie

Because good games make that difference between two players achievable, achaea does not.

Also that minimal time will barely catch you up to someone with level 1s, let alone penwize/seragorn, good luck on that front.

Atalkez

I mean that’s fair. At the same time I play 5-6 hours a day (often more while afk working), and I’m not catching them either.

Minifie

The best way to gauge this would be to get someone who may have played muds or DnD enough to give the game a go, but play it completely fresh and see how they go with the new systems. As recurring players, any of us will have bias' we can't account for, compared to players that have just opened the door. As antagonistic as my posts may seem, I try to embrace any of these from any PoV that I don't have to worry about: I don't work more than 2 days a week, I have an interest in the game and can enjoy muds, I know people so even if I make an alt I can probably get myself sorted and kitted. Seeing it through eyes of someone just walking in, from the ones who'll hound CT and stuff for help, to the quiet ones who just poke up when help is offered. There's such a diverse potential pool of players but it's near-impossible to slot one's own perceptions as the baseline, as there won't ever BE a baseline.

Saonji

Personally the thing that annoys me more about the "you just gotta have dedication and be consistent" argument, is most of the time the people making that argument in earnest, are the ones who had credits at 4-6k and no gold cap, so they could easily earn upwards of 100 credits a day between bashing/harvesting (or retired a character that existed in a similar time).

I'd love to see them still making the same arguments on a completely new char with minimal-to-no monetary investment. Someone who's genuinely brand new to MUDs is just going to say "no fucking thanks" then go back to playing other games. If I used Atalkez's math, I'd have enough for like... an artifact pipe after 12-15 hours of grinding (more than that as a new player). Compare that to 10 hours of grinding in any other game, lol.

Minifie said:

The best way to gauge this would be to get someone who may have played muds or DnD enough to give the game a go, but play it completely fresh and see how they go with the new systems.

Eta to answer this: I had friends try, who were big DnD players. Pretty much what I just described, was the result (albeit less aggressively phrased). They enjoyed the stories and such. The game itself not so much.

Vhaynna

Minifie said:

Because good games make that difference between two players achievable, achaea does not.

Also that minimal time will barely catch you up to someone with level 1s, let alone penwize/seragorn, good luck on that front.

If you're only playing WoW for like, one hour a day and someone else is playing it for 10, then you're still not gonna catch up to them. Raids generally take longer than an hour to complete, and then you've got your dailies to do, and whatever else you need to make gold to buy the auction items you can't get unless you pick up the profession. Which takes even more time.  You're never gonna be as good as those people that are top of the servers, when their putting in way more work.

While I understand that it might be shit for new players who come in and see someone like Penwize, or Seragorn with all this cool shit, and I totally wish I had some of it, expecting to have what they've worked literal RL years for, when I've been playing what.. 4 and a half months? If I could make a new char, and suddenly have everything they've got playing a couple of hours a week for 6 months, they'd likely be pissed off.  And rightly so. But if you're only playing a couple of hours a week, then yeah, other people are gonna have better stuff.

Meriet

Tax the 1% to close the gap: if your retirement value is over 30k credits, your daily hunting cap goes from 250k to 200k. 

(I'm only like 20% serious.)

Minifie

That wholly depends on how you spend your "one hour per day", again, this comes down to front or back-ending things too. My brother and I used to play in Wrath together a lot, and while Wrath is different to current wow, I would raid with his 10-man heroic only group on an alt, and my 25 man main. He'd only be able to raid 2 nights a week with his group, for 9 hours total and I'd enchant/gem his gear with the extras I'd grab. We cleared heroic 10s with only a smattering of 25 pieces, and come cataclysm AFTER the horrific shitshow of tier 11 10 mans was fixed, we were also farming handmaiden's daughters and firebirds. 

If you wanted to truly take the worst-case of what I say, you can't get any previous season arena mounts so you could see that as "if you played longer you'd have more", but there are VERY few things in wow you can't just get anymore that are just cosmetic. There is NOTHING that affects gameplay that you are outright unable to get anymore, same with many other games. It's an issue of two things: Gating cosmetics and other things is fine, if you have a really nice custom-set of wings that the dev team made but function the exact same as mine that are just default, that's fine, you paid for that nice custom thing, I paid for default, there will then be people who may only play a few hours a week who need me or another person to help them cap their renown just for those days so they can also farm a bit of gold and maybe participate in a ritual or a sermon or what not. Achaea has a wealth of content, but if you are constrained to your time being spent solely for catch up, you can either not catch up or play something else. (This was a common issue for Ysela, I tried to pull her along to get renown, but her time was totally taken by leadership stuff. I don't blame the game for that, but when you lay out specifically time-taken to gain things, you also have to concern yourself with what else you could be doing with said time, and while Achaes has an absolute well of things to do, you can't expect everyone to be able to dive into that well over and over again).

You also have to tell those players that there are combat and gameplay items that they just won't -ever- have. It's one thing to show players something and say, "Yes, with enough time (or a swipe of the CC) you can have it, something similar, or something unique too, when you get killed, or prevent a kill, or literally get beaten to the punch on something specifically because "they own an item you just never will so sucks to be you", that can instantly turn a players perception from positive to negative. It's why the current admin have been very specific with nerfing items and not re-selling items (which brings their own issues, since now you have them in existence but no longer obtainable). 

The major takeaway is to look at it from two angles: The idea behind gating renown daily is to get people logging in daily, but not everyone can, and it's more player-intuitive to have it set to a weekly or IG yearly reset so that people can choose to daily, or front-end or back-end their playing so to speak. The second issue is that you want a feeling of uniqueness in achaea, it's imperative to many things in gaming, and not gaming (how often do people like just having their picture up for employee of the month?) However, you also run the risk of turning away potential new blood when they face up to the front that there exists things of many varieties they just can't get, whether it be because it's gone, time-gated or deleted due to balancing (but not gone). 

Saonji

Minifie said:

The idea behind gating renown daily is to get people logging in daily, but not everyone can, and it's more player-intuitive to have it set to a weekly or IG yearly reset so that people can choose to daily, or front-end or back-end their playing so to speak.

I've argued this literally since dailycredits were implemented in Imperian (the first game to do it by a large margin). Even at a reduced amount, it would still be better because it's less pressure.

120 credits that you have a whole week to do, or 200 credits per in-game year, versus 20 credits every single day. Would also give you more time to be able to enjoy the rest of the game.

Eril

Honestly, I get the frustration and competition of wanting to catch the higher tiered players.  I also get the frustration of only being able to wake for a couple hours a day.  But really, if someone wants to commit themselves to massive hours of play time a day, and have the capabilities of doing just that, then it’s only natural they are higher up and ahead.

lets try and remember that time is as an investment, and if someone wants to invest 6-7 hours a day fully committed to training and improving their characters, they are likely going to get better, and better, and better.  The game also shouldn’t put a cap on people that want to commit themselves that much, because then people get bored and lose interest once it’s been reached.  The drive to grow, improve and become bigger/better needs to constantly be there to drive interest.

Saonji

Eril said:

if someone wants to invest 6-7 hours a day fully committed to training and improving their characters

You've too much faith. There's probably about a 90% chance if someone's bashing this long, they're autobashing while watching/playing something else. Sure they might be at their computer and answering stuff, but slim chance they're "committed" lol.

Dunn

Why would anyone want to catch or envy @Penwize? Dude sucks. 

Sobriquet

E'thernal, the black crystalline crocodile wounds Zekriol with a glancing cut.

Zekriol has been slain by E'thernal, the black crystalline crocodile.

Defeated, Zekriol is cast out of the Arena.

- 2020/07/29 14:39:00 - Zekriol has bled out, slain by the might of E'thernal, the black crystalline crocodile in The Stadia Coronae.

I've had this Croc for.. about 10 RL years, first time he's managed to steal a kill from me. 

Kzir

Most of the time when I'm playing the game, I'm pretty spent mentally from work, and I'm bashing mindlessly while watching tv. Bashing isn't especially engrossing, I do it because I want to play the game without investing much mental energy.

What I _really_ want to do is work on my house/city tasks and ranks, PvP, coding affliction tracking and mudlet UI... but most of the time it feels like a big energy investment.  

Hoping work gets easier soon, it is a giant ball of stress lately, and bashing helps me zone out on something else.

Keorin

Eryl said:

Hi, I'll use reasonable numbers.  If I bash for about two-three hours throughout the day, get in a party that splits the gold from daily forays, and then generally go on about my day I can easily - when focused and trying - make 75,000 gold daily without really cutting into anything but my afk chatting time that I can also do while hunting.

75,000 gold x 120 days = 9,000,000 gold.

9,000,000 / 11,000 = 818 credits.

Renown capping daily nets 20 credits/day x 120 days = 2,400.

So, reasonably speaking, I could make 3,218 credits in a four month period.

Fun twist: I did this because I was trying to prove a point.  The point turns out that I truly do shamefully waste a ton of time.  In one year of doing this four days a week (because I'm a working adult, let's face it) would be

52 weeks in a year x 4 days a work = 208 days of this.

So, let me get this straight. Your point is that you can spend upwards of 600 hours doing nothing but grinding in order to get a credit total that will allow you to buy a fairly basic set of artefacts (let's be real about how far 5.5k credits actually gets you).

For the math there, that's ~208 days of ~3 hours bashing (I rounded up to three, since you were assuming daily renown capping, which usually takes at least some time on the days where forays can't cap you off).

We're not talking 600 hours playing the game total in a year (which, while it would be a minuscule playtime compared to what some people rack up, is not exactly an inconsiderable investment), we're talking about that much time spent -just- on grinding out currency so that you can buy toys to better participate in the rest of the actual game.

Let's put these numbers in perspective for a moment. My current credit investment on Keorin looks to be in the realm of 14k credits. While this is by no means a small number, and it's -more- than enough to be able to competently engage in most systems of the game, it would pale in comparison to the people that we would actually call "heavily artefacted".

Using your numbers, it would take someone on the order of 1500 hours of nothing but grinding over the course of two and something years in order to catch up to me. That this could be described as "generous" with a straight face makes clear how deep this game has its hooks in some of us.

Cooper

This game is not meant to be free to PK or bash at the highest levels. The good news is that artefacts are not required except for a few niche cases, auction items are never required, and there are plenty of ways to earn credits in game.

The goal is not to "catch up" to people that have played for years. That is an extremely unreasonable metric. Do you participate in any other activity that is competitive? If yes, were you instantly able to compete with the very skilled people? Of course not, and Achaea is no different. It takes time and effort to learn the game and earn credits.

Renown is 20 credits per day. It does not take long to max. Utilize the whales in your city to help the newbies out. This is a generous system, and you disagreeing is irrelevant.

Adrik

Keorin said:

Eryl said:

Hi, I'll use reasonable numbers.  If I bash for about two-three hours throughout the day, get in a party that splits the gold from daily forays, and then generally go on about my day I can easily - when focused and trying - make 75,000 gold daily without really cutting into anything but my afk chatting time that I can also do while hunting.

75,000 gold x 120 days = 9,000,000 gold.

9,000,000 / 11,000 = 818 credits.

Renown capping daily nets 20 credits/day x 120 days = 2,400.

So, reasonably speaking, I could make 3,218 credits in a four month period.

Fun twist: I did this because I was trying to prove a point.  The point turns out that I truly do shamefully waste a ton of time.  In one year of doing this four days a week (because I'm a working adult, let's face it) would be

52 weeks in a year x 4 days a work = 208 days of this.

So, let me get this straight. Your point is that you can spend upwards of 600 hours doing nothing but grinding in order to get a credit total that will allow you to buy a fairly basic set of artefacts (let's be real about how far 5.5k credits actually gets you).

For the math there, that's ~208 days of ~3 hours bashing (I rounded up to three, since you were assuming daily renown capping, which usually takes at least some time on the days where forays can't cap you off).

We're not talking 600 hours playing the game total in a year (which, while it would be a minuscule playtime compared to what some people rack up, is not exactly an inconsiderable investment), we're talking about that much time spent -just- on grinding out currency so that you can buy toys to better participate in the rest of the actual game.

Let's put these numbers in perspective for a moment. My current credit investment on Keorin looks to be in the realm of 14k credits. While this is by no means a small number, and it's -more- than enough to be able to competently engage in most systems of the game, it would pale in comparison to the people that we would actually call "heavily artefacted".

Using your numbers, it would take someone on the order of 1500 hours of nothing but grinding over the course of two and something years in order to catch up to me. That this could be described as "generous" with a straight face makes clear how deep this game has its hooks in some of us.

Says the person that had 35ish million gold to shell out on auctions. (Which, at the rate during all of the auction, would've been 12500ish per..) is.. 2800cr.

Sobriquet

But with Cyrene ships that's just 6 hours, not 600... 

Kzir

While I am envious of folks that have stuff better than me, I am grateful for the those that funnel real cash into the game to keep it going.

It is nice to know a free game can support itself with... what, 500 users and 170 on at a time (guessing). Thank you, whales!

Keorin

Cooper said:

This game is not meant to be free to PK or bash at the highest levels. The good news is that artefacts are not required except for a few niche cases, auction items are never required, and there are plenty of ways to earn credits in game.

The goal is not to "catch up" to people that have played for years. That is an extremely unreasonable metric. Do you participate in any other activity that is competitive? If yes, were you instantly able to compete with the very skilled people? Of course not, and Achaea is no different. It takes time and effort to learn the game and earn credits.

Renown is 20 credits per day. It does not take long to max. Utilize the whales in your city to help the newbies out. This is a generous system, and you disagreeing is irrelevant.

I'll agree with a decent bit of this. I don't think that catching up is a valid metric. I much prefer the question of how long it takes someone to be able to seriously engage with game systems. But to suggest that taking 1500 hours of grinding to get to a mid-artefacted state (which does have some heavy implications for being able to participate, let alone excel, at several pretty major game systems) is -generous- is ludicrous.

My point also wasn't specifically about renown (which I'll agree is, in comparison to having nothing, a good system that I was incredibly happy to see). But there are still some deep flaws to that logic, as well. There's really only a few activities with the potential to hit the daily cap, and doing it at anything resembling quick depends on having enough heavily artefacted people with the time and foray runs to carry other people through them. The system is much better than the nothing that existed before, but when other IRE games have implemented the same thing in a substantially better way, it's silly to say that there's no room for improvement.

Is it doable to grind and help other people grind out credits? Certainly. But I'd much rather see more of that time and effort turned to creating a richer roleplay environment, instead of being necessary for people to get their class skills. But opinions that disagree with yours are irrelevant, I hear.

And @Adrik, you are a) bad at basic math, b) worse at basic logic, and c) making a fallacious point, I guess because you seem to have some OOC animosity towards me or my city. Genuinely not sure why you keep harping on this point even after several people have walked you through how clearly wrong you are, but you do you.

Adrik

Keorin said:

Cooper said:

This game is not meant to be free to PK or bash at the highest levels. The good news is that artefacts are not required except for a few niche cases, auction items are never required, and there are plenty of ways to earn credits in game.

The goal is not to "catch up" to people that have played for years. That is an extremely unreasonable metric. Do you participate in any other activity that is competitive? If yes, were you instantly able to compete with the very skilled people? Of course not, and Achaea is no different. It takes time and effort to learn the game and earn credits.

Renown is 20 credits per day. It does not take long to max. Utilize the whales in your city to help the newbies out. This is a generous system, and you disagreeing is irrelevant.

I'll agree with a decent bit of this. I don't think that catching up is a valid metric. I much prefer the question of how long it takes someone to be able to seriously engage with game systems. But to suggest that taking 1500 hours of grinding to get to a mid-artefacted state (which does have some heavy implications for being able to participate, let alone excel, at several pretty major game systems) is -generous- is ludicrous.

My point also wasn't specifically about renown (which I'll agree is, in comparison to having nothing, a good system that I was incredibly happy to see). But there are still some deep flaws to that logic, as well. There's really only a few activities with the potential to hit the daily cap, and doing it at anything resembling quick depends on having enough heavily artefacted people with the time and foray runs to carry other people through them. The system is much better than the nothing that existed before, but when other IRE games have implemented the same thing in a substantially better way, it's silly to say that there's no room for improvement.

Is it doable to grind and help other people grind out credits? Certainly. But I'd much rather see more of that time and effort turned to creating a richer roleplay environment, instead of being necessary for people to get their class skills. But opinions that disagree with yours are irrelevant, I hear.

And @Adrik, you are a) bad at basic math, b) worse at basic logic, and c) making a fallacious point, I guess because you seem to have some OOC animosity towards me or my city. Genuinely not sure why you keep harping on this point even after several people have walked you through how clearly wrong you are, but you do you.

23ish million for the horn. I heard 5~6 million for the invite to Pandora's order (bought from Pathers), and then what you spent on the actual AUCTION (I forgot how much, but it was 4 million).

So maybe it wasn't 35 million, but you still spent 30 million easily on shit.

Also, I don't have any animosity towards Cyrene, thanks for attempting to point out that I do based (solely?) on the fact that I broke into all of your house halls and raid you.  Good job? 

Minifie

Cooper said:

This game is not meant to be free to PK or bash at the highest levels. The good news is that artefacts are not required except for a few niche cases, auction items are never required, and there are plenty of ways to earn credits in game.

The goal is not to "catch up" to people that have played for years. That is an extremely unreasonable metric. Do you participate in any other activity that is competitive? If yes, were you instantly able to compete with the very skilled people? Of course not, and Achaea is no different. It takes time and effort to learn the game and earn credits.

Renown is 20 credits per day. It does not take long to max. Utilize the whales in your city to help the newbies out. This is a generous system, and you disagreeing is irrelevant.

It's only "generous" because the only other system was to do things that created near-limitless gold to buy credits from people who spent RL $ on the game, which has lead us to the current situation where the economy is super fucked and required something to this level so that players COULD somehow catch up. . . After a shit long time investment. . . 

Introducing someone new to achaea is beyond ridiculous, especially if you do almost anything with them and then they try and get mollywhomped or it's a slog of a grind. The system may be good for player retention, but the game as a whole is still not exactly welcoming to brand-spanking new players at all. Try introducing people to the game, it's amazing watching their reactions, so much wonder and interest at first to almost-comical hilarity when seeing the delos shop, and then when they ask about escrow and investment/time played. 

Thanking those who spend inordinate amounts for keeping the game alive is disingenuous, if the people who spent only IR elite or less didn't play, the game would be a ghost town and why would big spenders stick around for starmourne level of a player base? Maybe a few would, but it wouldn't be able to keep the coders and producers it does now. 

Keorin

Adrik said:

23ish million for the horn. I heard 5~6 million for the invite to Pandora's order (bought from Pathers), and then what you spent on the actual AUCTION (I forgot how much, but it was 4 million).

So maybe it wasn't 35 million, but you still spent 30 million easily on shit.

Also, I don't have any animosity towards Cyrene, thanks for attempting to point out that I do based (solely?) on the fact that I broke into all of your house halls and raid you.  Good job? 

Naw, IC stuff is IC, it's the OOC hounding on these issues that I find strange. Like how you keep bringing up the amount I spent on auctions both in game (in shouts suggesting embezzlement) and on forums (suggesting that I got gold from the ship thing while trying to bash Cyrene in that thread and -then- using it as an ad hominem attack here). This has been going on for weeks. One way or another, you seem to get quite a bit of pleasure from talking about me.

Again, people have actually straight up explained how this went down, but you seem to have unsurprisingly ignored that in favor of using it as a personal attack in more forum threads.

Trey

Wow this is awesome, I'm so glad to hear about what happened to all of you today!




                                                                                               |
                                                                                               |
( https://forums.achaea.com/categories/rants is that way V )

Eryl

Keorin said:

Eryl said:

Hi, I'll use reasonable numbers.  If I bash for about two-three hours throughout the day, get in a party that splits the gold from daily forays, and then generally go on about my day I can easily - when focused and trying - make 75,000 gold daily without really cutting into anything but my afk chatting time that I can also do while hunting.

75,000 gold x 120 days = 9,000,000 gold.

9,000,000 / 11,000 = 818 credits.

Renown capping daily nets 20 credits/day x 120 days = 2,400.

So, reasonably speaking, I could make 3,218 credits in a four month period.

Fun twist: I did this because I was trying to prove a point.  The point turns out that I truly do shamefully waste a ton of time.  In one year of doing this four days a week (because I'm a working adult, let's face it) would be

52 weeks in a year x 4 days a work = 208 days of this.

So, let me get this straight. Your point is that you can spend upwards of 600 hours doing nothing but grinding in order to get a credit total that will allow you to buy a fairly basic set of artefacts (let's be real about how far 5.5k credits actually gets you).

I appreciate that this is not the place for a conversation of this length, but I would be remiss if I did not reply to this.

1. You have purposefully presented the time that I suggested as 600 hours without putting that into context.  This is 600 hours out of a year.  To put this into perspective, I had over 600 hours in Monster Hunter World within four months of owning the game.  I work Monday through Friday, 7:30 - 4:30, and routinely volunteer my time for after school activities.  This is not some massive number like your statement makes it out to be.

2. You say that, in the example I provided, that I would be spending 600 hours of doing nothing to achieve this.  However, in my very argument, I explained that I could spend two to three hours a day of bashing AND foraying (that's a total of 2-3 hours combined, not per each activity).  The part that is omitted from your quote is the part of my argument that says of those 2-3 hours, I am actually improving my gameplay experience  by doing nothing more than bashing and talking in clans instead of sitting at the Gatehouse talking in clans.

You are complaining that the work I am willing to put in is not worth $1,500 worth of literally free stuff.

If this work is not worth it to you, that is fine.  Don't do it.  But don't try to throw shade at the people who are offering us $1,500 of free stuff.

Minifie

Eryl said:

Keorin said:

Eryl said:

Hi, I'll use reasonable numbers.  If I bash for about two-three hours throughout the day, get in a party that splits the gold from daily forays, and then generally go on about my day I can easily - when focused and trying - make 75,000 gold daily without really cutting into anything but my afk chatting time that I can also do while hunting.

75,000 gold x 120 days = 9,000,000 gold.

9,000,000 / 11,000 = 818 credits.

Renown capping daily nets 20 credits/day x 120 days = 2,400.

So, reasonably speaking, I could make 3,218 credits in a four month period.

Fun twist: I did this because I was trying to prove a point.  The point turns out that I truly do shamefully waste a ton of time.  In one year of doing this four days a week (because I'm a working adult, let's face it) would be

52 weeks in a year x 4 days a work = 208 days of this.

So, let me get this straight. Your point is that you can spend upwards of 600 hours doing nothing but grinding in order to get a credit total that will allow you to buy a fairly basic set of artefacts (let's be real about how far 5.5k credits actually gets you).

I appreciate that this is not the place for a conversation of this length, but I would be remiss if I did not reply to this.

1. You have purposefully presented the time that I suggested as 600 hours without putting that into context.  This is 600 hours out of a year.  To put this into perspective, I had over 600 hours in Monster Hunter World within four months of owning the game.  I work Monday through Friday, 7:30 - 4:30, and routinely volunteer my time for after school activities.  This is not some massive number like your statement makes it out to be.

2. You say that, in the example I provided, that I would be spending 600 hours of doing nothing to achieve this.  However, in my very argument, I explained that I could spend two to three hours a day of bashing AND foraying (that's a total of 2-3 hours combined, not per each activity).  The part that is omitted from your quote is the part of my argument that says of those 2-3 hours, I am actually improving my gameplay experience  by doing nothing more than bashing and talking in clans instead of sitting at the Gatehouse talking in clans.

You are complaining that the work I am willing to put in is not worth $1,500 worth of literally free stuff.

If this work is not worth it to you, that is fine.  Don't do it.  But don't try to throw shade at the people who are offering us $1,500 of free stuff.

They aren't offering us 1500 dollars of free stuff, the price of credits is your anchor, to get you thinking the credits are WORTH that much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNjI03CGkb4

Watch this, and how the tricks are applied in Achaea. 

Eryl

Minifie said:

Eryl said:

I appreciate that this is not the place for a conversation of this length, but I would be remiss if I did not reply to this.

1. You have purposefully presented the time that I suggested as 600 hours without putting that into context.  This is 600 hours out of a year.  To put this into perspective, I had over 600 hours in Monster Hunter World within four months of owning the game.  I work Monday through Friday, 7:30 - 4:30, and routinely volunteer my time for after school activities.  This is not some massive number like your statement makes it out to be.

2. You say that, in the example I provided, that I would be spending 600 hours of doing nothing to achieve this.  However, in my very argument, I explained that I could spend two to three hours a day of bashing AND foraying (that's a total of 2-3 hours combined, not per each activity).  The part that is omitted from your quote is the part of my argument that says of those 2-3 hours, I am actually improving my gameplay experience  by doing nothing more than bashing and talking in clans instead of sitting at the Gatehouse talking in clans.

You are complaining that the work I am willing to put in is not worth $1,500 worth of literally free stuff.

If this work is not worth it to you, that is fine.  Don't do it.  But don't try to throw shade at the people who are offering us $1,500 of free stuff.

They aren't offering us 1500 dollars of free stuff, the price of credits is your anchor, to get you thinking the credits are WORTH that much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNjI03CGkb4

Watch this, and how the tricks are applied in Achaea. 

If you wish to speak about the monetary value of credits, I will remind you that, upon creating my character and registering it, I agreed to the terms of service.  They were very clear to me as to what to expect from my purchase.  They did not hide the fact that what I am buying could be literally worthless one day.  From the ToS:

"The User acknowledges and hereby agrees that the perceived or real value of anything purchased from Achaea now or in the past may change over time."

You are not required to play this game.  You are not required to invest your time.  You do that because you choose to.  Since you chose to, you also agreed to the above statement.

No amount of trying to explain how worth or marketing tricks will change me mind.  I am an adult who reads the terms of service before I agree to something.  If I don't agree to any part of the terms of service, I deny them.  That's what adults do: they make their decisions based on the information that is provided.

If your opinion is that Achaea and IRE are money-grubbing asshats, that's perfectly fine.  You also need to recognize that it doesn't mean that's true.

My opinion is that Achaea and IRE are actively trying to improve our experience as players.  I have presented evidence of this and even translated it into a monetary value, but I admit that I am not privy to their thoughts, feelings, or motivations.  Because of this, I could very well be wrong, no matter how much the evidence suggests to me that I am not.

Do I think Achaea and IRE are money-grubbing asshats?  Sometimes, yes I do.  However, I also know that they have only ever treated me with respect when I have had a problem.  I cannot even say that of the big name companies I have supported for over a decade.  Achaea has offered me refunds that, according to their ToS, they are not required to.  If they have only ever been wholly kind, generous, and respectful to me as a person, why would I question if that's how they really are?

In comparison, I bought Overwatch years ago.  My PC had the minimum specifications listed.  However, I could only play it on a resolution so small that I couldn't even make out my HUD due to the blurriness.  When I requested a refund, I was met with a resounding "No."  It was my fault I made that mistake, and they had no intention of helping me fix it.  At least I own Overwatch now?

It really does not sit well with me that the vocal minority who has the "Admins vs. Players" mindset tries to cast such a negative light on the game they love.

Iaxus

Cooper said:

Do you participate in any other activity that is competitive? If yes, were you instantly able to compete with the very skilled people? 

I do savage raiding in FFXIV (second highest tier activity in the game for those that don't know). 
My raid team last tier consisted of not one, but two people who bought the game and started playing < 2 months prior. 
How long would it take for a fresh character in Achaea to be able to do the second highest tier content (PK or bashing, pick your category) off dcr? Or, to even it out, even if they spent as much as the equivalent FFXIV characters.. $60 for the game not on sale is around 200cr, plus another $15/month so.. 40ish credits per month? How long would they have to play, and how much would they have spent at that point to even reach the lower end of the highest tier?

tl;dr: your analogy is bad. Might have been okay if this was a sport, or something where it takes more than swiping a credit card to become skilled.

Minifie