Everything Pay to Win in the New Update.

This thread won't make any attempts are voicing my opinions, it will simply track what changes in these regards have been made. Basically this is the foot notes of the monetization changes.
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- Base character slots are being reduced to 5. (from 6)

- Ranked players (which ranks aren't stated) gain ability points faster.

- Ranked players (which ranks aren't stated) can now warp to world events.

- VIP has lost it's additional trade slots.
- Champion now has 20 trade slots.

- Hero & Hero+ now have a priority queue time for worlds.
- Champion now has "super priority queue."

- Added Gathering Totems (nodes will have a 30% chance to double their material given.)
- Hero+ & Champions now have daily Gathering Totems.

- Item Bombs now give a tier 4 loot chest.
- Ingredient Bombs now give 16 ingredients.

- Added Loot Chest Bombs (all loot chests have their drop rate greatly boosted)

- Added XP Tokens, these give a minor xp boost and ways to obtain them are unclear. (Not bought directly)

- Added Raid or Lootrun Daily Bonus Refresh Tokens (Up to 3 times.)
- Raid and Lootrun daily reward bonuses now give a free reward pull. (When read with the above perk, it's obviously being done to further buff Refresh Tokens, but is presented as a general quality of life change.)

- Added Tracker Reroll Tokens (Rerolls shiny's to a different tracker)
- Added Tracker Reset Tokens (Resets a shiny's tracker)
- Added more Trackers (This is again painted as a nice additional feature, however with the above changes, it makes it seem like it's to delude the Tracker tree, so getting a specific one cost more.)

Bonus: I'm unsure of how this will end up working in game, so I'm not sure if it's pay to win.
All pets can now level past 20, however some perks will not work until you have a rank PLUS they added new combat perks to pets. It's unclear if the some perks includes combat benefits OR if it only includes pet task.
Assuming it's the first, it's a more pay to win system then we have now, assuming its the second, it seems less pay to win then what we have now. (If someone can confirm how this works, I would be thankful)

Please tell me if I missed anything.

 

Absolute dumpster fire update

 

Being able to attain ranks through in-game means (Silverbull) should probably also be mentioned, although it remains to be seen how much this affects things. I could see it making shares far more valuable, which could make buying them even more profitable (especially given the reduced cost), while I could also see it making ranks less "pay-to-win" and more "play-to-win" depending on how expensive it becomes. That said, I don't imagine they'll be cheap and strongly suspect that whatever benefits this gives to free players, it will be massively overshadowed by the gains of players who buy shares for money.

EDIT: Also, it rubs me the wrong way that the update itself seems to be named after something that's a subscription feature.

 

am i the only one that likes this update?

 

Updated for the new changes

 

I don't dislike the update itself, but creeping monetization practices have ruined games I've loved before and I always try to keep an eye on them. A lot of the features in this update fall.into the realm of pay-to-win, or pay-for-advantage if you want to be needlessly pedantic about it.

This might be a controversial opinion, but I actually don't mind small pay-to-win/pay-for-advantage features. They're a necessary evil of virtually any free-to-play online game. It simply isn't feasible to have a game running solely on volunteer work and donations. But the amount in this update and the specific way they were added felt unnecessary and overly intrusive to the player experience. Reducing player slots, adding loot bonuses (effectively) to loot runs, faster queue times, and profession boosts all fall into the realm of either blatant large advantages or making the game worse to sell a solution, even if that isn't the intent.

The actual substance of the update; the trickster rework, the lootrun changes, the cosmetic changes, even the ingame store, all seem nice. I have no issue with any of those and am excited for the ones that apply to me. It's just that the monetization changes were the biggest thing that caught people's eye and ire.

 

Technically pay to play not pay to win

 

Technically you don’t have to pay for anything, because TECHNICALLY
Ranks are free to play now ()