Champion Rank Has Ruined Proffing (and Bomb Parties In General)

I think the best solution would be to simply change how the slots work. Still allow for champions to join worlds, but find some kind of work around to allow non-ranked players to still have a chance to join the world as well. This wouldn’t interfere with what was promised for the rank and it would fix the main problem with champion.

 

This is incorrect. The terms of service does not prohibit changes to the features of purchases or even the removal of features. You can check for yourself by going to the store checkout and reading the terms of service.

This is evident by the fact that store purchases have been changed in the past. The original VIP was entirely reworked when the Minecraft EULA was changed, along with pets no longer attacking mobs. More recently in 1.20, mob totems were changed to spawn mobs at the totem instead of around it. The totem one may seem minor, but it’s a change to a rank purchase.

The store’s terms of service are short and concise, and exist to stop lawsuits and chargebacks. They give no specific rights to the customer. I suggest any who want more detail to go to the store checkout page and read them.

Edit: The online commerce protections for consumers (at least in the US) state that if a product does not match the marketing at the time of purchase (ie a faulty product), it is eligible for refund or replacement. However, that is not the case with the changes to Wynncraft store purchases. Any changes after the purchase date do not create a faulty product, and do not give legal cause for a lawsuit.

 

yes that is correct

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what this post looks like from above

 

The main difference with the original VIP changes is that they were made to comply with the new EULA, it wasn't a decision made by anyone working on this game, it was effectively a decision made by Mojang. VIP was and still is an extremely inexpensive rank too so compensating for the removal of features is a lot easier. The totem thing also isn't really a change at all, totems work differently but they still do the exact same thing, in fact, they're better then before. It's not that ranks can't be changed, it's that the bigger the change, the more difficult it becomes. Not saying it can't be done, but this situation clearly calls for a more nuanced approach then either of the examples from the past.

More importantly, the EULA is really liberal and I'm sure the TOS is binding (YSK not all terms of service agreements actually are, you can't put anything in a contract) so I don't think there's any legal issue with changing it, but there is a massive ethical issue. Removing (arguably) the main selling feature from a $160 rank removes almost all the value of the rank to at least some of the people who bought it (just to be clear, that's not my position).

My point is this; it would be bad if they removed it and didn't offer any form of compensation. They may have the legal right to do it, but that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do from a moral or business perspective. Imagine if Steam started deleting gamed people paid for from their libraries because they contained something people consider bad. Sure, they have the legal right to do it, but there's a reason why even when they stop selling games in their market place they let people who previously purchased it keep the game. It's because the optics of taking away something people paid for are terrible and the affected group tend lose faith in the seller. The people who bought the rank are the ones who are willing to spend money on the game, pissing off the people keeping the game alive through financial support is probably not a great idea, especially when Wynn is desperate for money since they haven't quite figured out that making money requires continual effort.

Beyond all that, consider this; we wouldn't be in this situation if Wynn had somebody competent running the monetization of the game, removing this one feature this one time isn't going to magically solve the problem of Wynn needing money. If things don't get better because of this, I'm willing to bet we're going to see much more P2W features in the future.

 

I think Patreon or something like that could maje it better? (Ikd, I never used it, just from what I know)

I am afraid this is the case.

 

I completely agree with you that it wouldn’t be a smart decision from a business standpoint to remove the bomb bell—my point is that it’s perfectly legal. In my opinion the only thing that actually needs to change is the champion slots—make it so they don’t trickle down into normal slots. That would mostly fix the major problem that we have without creating outrage among people who purchased champion.

 

I don't really think Patreon would do anything to help since the issue isn't the storefront, it's with the content found in it. If you look at other free to play games, there are a lot of different monetization strategies, but they all work on the same three goals; player engagement with the store, urgency and surprise, all three of which Wynn completely fails at, not for a lack of trying either.

Here's an example; Battle passes are probably one of the greatest innovations in game monetization, possibly ever, because it nails all three of these. When done well, a battle pass gives players rewards without paying, but it also gets them invested in the game (which is good) and gets them engaged with paid content. If you constantly see that you can pay money to get something, more people are going to spend money, it's just a fact. They also nail urgency by having seasons. If you don't buy it now, you'll never get the chance to again and finally, battle passes often bring surprises with them, you might be able to predict some of what's going to come with them, but the big selling point on them should be something new and innovative.

Not all games work like that though, Gatcha games do the exact same thing with limited banners, people get excited about the surprise of new characters, players get some free rolls on the banners (and have a pity system so you can eventually get something good), but if you want to get something specific you're pressured into spending money to get a character before they're gone.

There are a lot of different ways to make a system like this work, but comparatively Wynn isn't even trying. The shop is almost in the same state it's been in for years, the pet bundles were added but they somehow made the bundles awful, more importantly though almost nothing new gets added or cycled out which means people have no reason to ever check the shop, the monthly crate was made to avoid that but it does such a shit job since the people willing to spend money probably have VIP+ or higher so a single T1 crate isn't worth the effort. There's also no urgency at all, in fact, they do sales on everything so often they're basically doing the opposite of urgency since nobody has any reason to buy stuff off sale. The worst offender of this is actually champion rank, for all the fuss they made about needing money and that being their solution, they put it on sale at the first opportunity possible, I'm sure there were people waiting to see if it went on sale before buying it who would have bought it at full price, putting it on sale so soon is literally burning money to them. I have some serious questions about the competency of a lot of the people working on this game, but the guy running the store is the single least competent person, possibly ever. I think an actual child could make better business decisions then they're making.

 

Wynn punishing the 60 people that do profs by making profession levelling literally dependant on dxp/speed, and putting a paywall of an affordable $180. un-fucking-believable thanks wynn :/

 

Yeah this is a big problem, from both my hero and champion rank i doubt i even came slightly close to paying full price because of all the sales they are making, also buying singular pets its pretty much a bad idea considering pet bundles are always 20 dollars, the same price as many pets, why this is the case is beyond me, terrible buisness idea, and even tho suposedly the game was desperate for money they didnt even wait a week before puting literally everything in nonsensical sales

 

Usually, at least in Sweden, the laws I study and am familliar with, the terms of service / standard agreements / contracts that you sign at a purchase add / or remove your rights that laws provide. But if the agreement doesn't mention it, its filled in by the law. Meaning the terms of service has to allow changes to be made, for it to be allowed. If its not mentioned, changes would end up being breaches of the contract. Especially since a rank is more of a service than a product that you buy, so changes after payments could still be breaches. However keep in mind I study swedish and european laws so the US trade system could be different.

 

No one seems to be mentioning that the 40/40 size instead of 50/50 also makes life hell. I basically rage quit at dxp weekend cause every combat xp server was full at just 40 fucking people.

 

Hmm I'm unfamiliar with international laws concerning ecommerce and how Wynn operates with those since the servers are located (I think) in the US. I just glanced at the Swedish laws regarding ecommerce but couldn't find anything specific that relates to this scenario, so I'll leave that to you lol. I don't actually know enough else to determine what would constitute a breach of contract, since as far as I can tell Wynncraft's ranks don't fit neatly into any category of purchase. Not sure any reasonable changes to the ranks would be illegal though.

 

Instead of stripping Champions of the Bomb Bell (Which would make things worse, IMO), why not make it possible for us lowlifes without the rank to get it? It wouldn't be easy to acquire, but not outright impossible either. The requirements could be to login for 'X' number of days in a row, continuously level up, and generally be an active member of the server.
Another potential solution would be to limit the number of Bomb Bells Champions receive each day. This number could be anywhere between 2-5, and would alert 'X' number of online Champions (Those who have received less alerts would get priority) at a time. The total number of Champions that could join would be limited to at most 10 on the server throughout the duration of the bomb, which would help prevent "insider trading," so to speak.

Au contraire, somebody clearly has had the fortune of not meeting the KingsIsle Marketing Team! Ever been cohered by EA execs into dropping $700 on a shoddy looking mount? Because I have!


I'm not trying to invalidate your experiences, trust me, I get it. Just making a joke, and I honestly find this marketing scandal kinda refreshing after dealing with KI

 

We are.

 

You never did proffing at a high level so you never experienced the system, don't call us "lazy" just because we don't want to level without the bombs, but rather you go try and get level 120 for every prof without a bomb and then come back (not even 132 here because 132 is outright impossible)

@Olinus10 @CrunchyCol
Wynncraft can simply not change the champion rank at all instead add QoL changes for normal players, for example as Azu said:

I think this is completely viable without needing to change the champion rank at all (although the requirements might need to be tweaked a bit), but that is just one example.
And yes, the champion slots definitely need to be reworked.

Let me put champion slots as an allegory:
So remember the days when you still get to go on planes and travel, and you have to check in at the counter before you get on the plane? There is the priority queue for the VIP BUT there are also the normal queue that checks in for normal passengers. This is how champion slots are supposed to work, but right now there is basically no normal queue and only a VIP queue. What I'm proposing here is adding a queue system to join worlds and have a separate queue for champions.
The queue system will simply allow 1 person from normal queue join when theres 1 open slot, then 1 person from the champion queue when the next slot opens, next one person from the normal queue when the next next slot opens so on and so on. The benefit for champion rank is that they get a significantly shorter queue (because theres little champion players) than normal players but then normal players will still get a chance to join.

 

In theory, but in real cases it is not really true. When e.g. prof bombs are thrown, champions are more likely to stay and grind, while less/no-rank players might switch at some point.
(This is not 100% true, of course)

 

Imo everything is balanced except for champion slots, of which I will say this.

During several dxp weekends throughout 2020, I was able to get into prof worlds with persistance: aka spam clicking the world for anywhere for 1-30 minutes.

This recent weekend, I was able to get into a few prof worlds. However, and I cannot stress this enough: there was not a SINGLE time I got into a prof world through pure clicking and waiting. It is virtually impossible to get into a world with 43-45/40 slots, especially on a dxp weekend, especially when the prof parties have been announced to go on for a long time. The champions replace each other too fast to even give a shot to everyone else.

Granted, other features made this more difficult for the average player, including the smaller world size, multiple world pages, and being unable to scan for 64+ numbers. But even as a hero abusing /switch, the fundamental roadblock was the same.

The reasons I was able to farm using 3x was because of one of the following

• Reacting to shouts fast enough
• Just happening to be sitting in another world where someone threw randomly
• Enough simultaneous prof parties than I was able to guess the right world to go do during a break and people were going elsewhere
• Stalking known bomb throwers
• Literally just being friends with champions who gave me server numbers

I do not claim to have any solutions to these issues, nor do I dispute that champion should get perks.

I simply want to address that based on my extensive experience entering full party worlds, the champion slot mechanic has made it fundamentally impossible for non-champions to enter with traditional means.

 

every single person who bought champion would have the right for a refund if they remove one of its features...
that alone is reason enough for it to be impossible to remove..

 

remember how much the prof community malded absolutely constantly every single time a mod was on a prof server making it 51/50 during 1.18/1.19?

yea what if we shoved half the entire mod team into one server

welcome to 1.20, purchase previously staff perk for $180 pepega

 

Here's the Wynncraft Store Terms of Service:
By purchasing any package on the Wynncraft Store, you agree to the following terms and conditions and recognise you cannot dispute any of the conditions outlined once you purchase a package. Your payment will go to the running of the Wynncraft Minecraft Server service, and is non-refundable under any circumstances."

Last Updated 15/06/2014

I agree that just removing bomb bell would be unethical, and should be compensated for in another way, such as free crates, extra blocks for housing, or various other cosmetic features. I'm simply pointing out that they do not have the right to a refund, which was agreed upon when they purchased Champion.