Game Mechanics New character slot maximum absolutely disgusting

In the new patch, within the changelogs, is the line, "New players (only those who join after this update goes live) will now start with 3 character slots." This is so disgustingly P2W, I cannot let this slide. Unless new players decide to buy a rank, they will be INCAPABLE OF HAVING ENOUGH CHARACTER SLOTS TO HAVE ONE OF EACH CLASS. This decision is absolutely mind-numbingly baffling to me, turning away new players and preventing them from trying new playstyles in each class unless they want to delete hours of progress. I cannot find a single reason for this being implemented besides greed, which looks like the reason for half of the changes made in this update. Completely predatory and disgusting, and I cannot believe this is going through. I just hope these changes will be reverted.

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Just to clarify, I say this well aware that this game needs money to be maintained, and from the point of view of someone who loves Wynncraft, and wants it to stay equal in balance for both free-to-plays and those with ranks.

 

The idea is that players will be able to acquire a rank through normal gameplay, and thus be Able to unlock more slots

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I do think it could be increased slightly, but that's why we have the beta. We want to change and tweak things to be more balanced. It should really be noted though that ranks are now intended to be something a player could reasonably acquire without paying, and thus a lot of balancing is centered around the idea that the player doesn't need to actually pay irl money to benefit

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(in other words, I'm voting yes because I think it should be a few more slots, but I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding on your end of the philosophy behind these features)

 

Thanks for clarifying, I do recognize that the perks previously paywalled can be now collected just via playing, and that silverbull shares will likely be cheaper than they were previously, however, I think it's wrong to remove perks so fundamental as being able to play all five classes.

 

And I agree that there should be more class slots by default !

 

This wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for how Wynncraft is currently marketing the server. Their TikTok/YT Shorts account is by far the most active and posts stuff that's currrently "in" with younger demographics (i.e. 7-12 years old). These people are known to have bad impulse control, and if you present two options to them, both leading to the same reward, but one takes much longer to reach while the other is nearly instantaneous, they are almost always going to go down that second path. The only barrier they realistically have is how hard it is to get their mom's credit card. And per term 21 on the store's ToS, "you acknowledge that no refunds will be given after the Purchase is made under any circumstances." Making the point that this is meant to be obtained through normal gameplay feels more like plausible deniability instead of genuine care for free-to-play people. I understand Salted has to fund his yacht club one way or another, but to this extent just feels scummy.

 

I feel like you could argue that the lack of impulse control still applies even if you can't acquire this stuff in game. We wanted to make a lot of features that were previously locked behind ranks and thus exclusive to being paid available for players who wanted to work to get them without using real life currency. We have anything but the intention to prey on players, and many of us on development believe(d) most of the features of this update were efforts to counterbalance the p2w perks behind ranks

 

But I feel like if you want more money to pay people, don’t add more perks to ranks and make them obtainable in game to balance it! Just add a few small perks and make only obtainable through money right? The issue is it clearly hasn’t been working. I only object to the class spots, free ability points, and xp tokens (why so cagey about how to obtain?)

 

XP tokens just replace XP bombs in deals, and they don't give that much (they also scale based on level). The worry was that giving combat XP bombs would disrupt other player's progression a fair bit

 

why not keep bombs? the entire reason i liked wynns monetization was that all non cosmetics helped EVERYONE, not just for one person, it really fostered community. this is not it doc

 

Yeah, my first thought on this and VIP not giving slots was that it feels like an upsell to VIP+. I'd want to see how difficult it is to earn a rank through gameplay before I make any judgement, but on the surface it looks pretty bad.

 

It's not really pay 2 win at all, but I still do agree with you.

 

I feel that being able to buy lootruns and raid pulls is fairly pay to win

 

Well it's been a while since I've played just recently returned, however looking at the features you get for buying e.x. nothing
really look to be pw2, and your post was about buying rank to gain more char slots (:

 

The character slot changes as they are remind me of Animal Jam Classic. For those who don’t know, paid subscription members on there get around 20 character slots, while free-to-play players get 2 (unless they’ve upped it since we’ve played). These changes aren’t as egregious as that for multiple reasons, but the fact that they reminded me of it at all is worrying.

 

You know, for as long as I've been on the forums I've mentioned quite a few times how terrible of a game Destiny 2 is as a means to compare it to Wynncraft, in both favorable and unfavorable ways. To this end, I have mentioned how awful the storytelling and balancing of D2 is among other things, but I believe I neglected to mention the single worst part of Destiny 2: the deplorable, inexcusable monetization and how blatantly obvious it is that Bungie's sole motivation is to see how much contemptible shit they can get away with to scam its players without consequence. Of course, look where that got them; they overestimated the dickridery of their most faithful players and it cost them their entire empire. I've played Destiny since the first game came out in 2014 and I have always held Bungie accountable for their actions since then, and it really shaped me into the person I am today regarding my outlook towards the quality of video games and later on, the monetization. And of course how critical I am of those I perceive as clearly taking advantage of their players in ways that are sickeningly anti-consumer.

On a completely unrelated note, let's talk about this new update!
Ahem.
You're not just trying to get money by offering new perks to those with ranks, you are literally just straightup removing a feature that free players had just to pressure them into buying ranks in order to get them back.
And, I'm sorry, what is this defense again? "Well, they can grind for 10 hours to get a rank for free."
Let's pretend for even a second here that this is an even remotely valid excuse, which it isn't. But let's pretend it is; you are literally forcing players to do something breathtakingly time-consuming that they never had to do before just to experience the full game without deleting what they have.

No. There shouldn't just be "more" than the three slots of the update, it should be six. Exactly how it was before, and no less. And there will be no compromise. At least six, like it always was. Period.

Now, when I say "you" or "you're", I'm talking about whoever is making this change and/or okaying it. These insults are not directed at you specifically, assuming that you're capable of seeing how revoltingly predatory this change is, but you are also very clearly okay with defending it. Do not give me the whole "but we never thought this change would prey on players!" You specifically and explicitly chose to remove class slots. You could have just as easily added more to other ranks instead or just not touched them at all, but you chose specifically to remove them. There is zero reasoning for this that you could ever have on your mind other than to pressure players to get a rank to get those slots back, and given how insultingly grindy it would be to get one without paying, it's blatantly obvious that the intention is specifically to make people frustrated enough to buy it, a la EA Battlefront 2. That being said, I hope you are not going to hold your ground here and continue to defend this change because let me tell you, this is absolutely not the time for you or anyone else to start roleplaying as Pirate Software.

 

dude. I think the class slots shouldn't be changed. whatever we had was working. I've said they shouldn't be changed since before this update was even publicly announced. I am on the side that this specific change shouldn't go through. All I did was explain the thought process behind it, I'm not defending it, I'm defending the people who chose to make the decision because - although I think it was a bad one - it wasn't made maliciously.

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If me sympathizing with player frustration rewards anger in return, I'm not going to want to express my own disagreements with parts of this update. I'm just going to stay quiet so I don't catch strays.

 

There is no way in human creation the changes weren't designed specifically to prey on players because, again, they deliberately made the choice to remove the feature. Not to add more to other ranks, not to just leave it alone. Specifically to remove it. It is literally impossible for the human mind to think about straightup removing something that players had while offering it back in paid content without explicitly thinking about how frustrated players would be.

I know the Wynn team isn't always the most amazing developer in the world, but I also know for a fact that they aren't so batshit stupid or incompetent that they didn't even consider how frustrated players would be to only have 3 slots in their 5-class game with 15 archetypes that also happens to explicitly and intentionally throttle your ability to even change your archetype via ability shards, and with paid ranks that give more slots. So my question is, are you trying to argue that the people making this change are just... too stupid to have seen how genuinely detestable that is?
Salted is many things, but he isn't a fucking idiot. He plays Wynncraft, he plays video games, and he even plays other servers and MMOs so I know for a fact that this was a choice, and he knows how breathtakingly grindy it would be to get Silverbull shares for free so there is not a single valid argument on the face of the earth that could ever argue this as innocent because we all know for a fact that it isn't.

Bro

 

Have fun antagonizing the CT member most sympathetic of our cause

 

First of all, I have literally not even a single time antagonized Deusphage. Literally every single time I've said any sort of insult it's been directed at those making the changes, and the only aggression whatsoever I've shown to her is towards the defense she makes for those making the changes; which, yes, is incredibly silly.
"They're not trying to prey on players!" towards some of the most blatant and indefensible pay-to-win features of any major MMO in the industry as well as directly throttling the convenience of free players without giving anything in return for no reason other than to pressure them to get a rank is, indeed, pretty fucking silly.
Second, I've watched the fall of Destiny since literally the very beginning, and it all started with a single root that looked just like this: a new store with new ways to monetize players out the ass. And for many, many long years it only got worse, and I am under zero circumstances whatsoever going to watch and do nothing as another of my favorite games becomes corrupted by unchallenged greed and dies off the same way Destiny did.

Never in all my long years playing Wynncraft have I ever shown such explicit anger towards anything related to it. I've criticized many things in Wynncraft's lifetime but I've never been actually angry as I always perceived those problems as being either an honest mistake or a remnant from an inexperienced past back when Wynncraft was as basic as could be. If my first true expression of anger towards Wynncraft is now going to be portrayed as "unreasonable", then I suppose that means we truly are repeating the history that Destiny made, because that is exactly what happened when I first started calling out Bungie. And now look what happened to them.