The WG "solution" to tier X economy.

[Corvi]

Imo its a very good solution. It either gives you the choice of playing Regular low tiers to farm credits for Tier X if you dont want to spend money, or you can buy a reasonable premium ship for 15-30 Euros to farm credits t run Tier 10 ships, or you can get a premium camo basically turning your Tier 10 Ship into a premium so it can easily uphold itself and even earn some extra credits.

 

Imo its a great way of givingpeople the choice in which way they want to uphold their Tier 10 service costs.

[Spellfire40]

 

 

Overpowered Premiumships

 

like crazy krym, marblehead, Mikasa?

[Vulgarny]

 

like crazy krym, marblehead, Mikasa?

 

Marblehead was op before perks change

[shamelesscreature]

I am really happy for 100% experience on tier 10, everybody need it.

 

It's actually quite useful as it affects captain XP as well as container XP...

[B010011A]

Im getting profits 90% of the time now after the fixed prices for ships in tier10 with my zao and yamato and all that without premium, even without the flag of +20% credit earnings. Tho im carrying the -15% disscount flag from ranked.

[daki]

 

1). The inability to participate in special events like winning the Takao for the lack of ships (takes age to grind to tier 9 without premium).

2). The inability to play all ships in game because a significant number of them is available for money only.

3). The difficulty of enjoying the game, in which some players have an edge over others (premium consumables, camouflage and better premium ships: Nikolai, Saipan, Kutuzov = enough said).

 

But none of this is new, and in that sense I am certainly exaggerating.

 

 

You are indeed exaggerating a bit

 

1) Only in case of "new" players. Those playing from the beginning had enough time to reach even T10. Furthermore, its not like we will never again have events where ships are rewards.

Missing one out of many events if far from the end of the world

2) "Significant" is a relative term. We have about 160 ships in-game of which are about 30ish available for money. In other words probably around 70-80% of content is reachable without any payment and close to 100% if a player is extremely lucky over time with supercontainers, missions... I would agree with you if the situation was opposite i.e. 70% payed content and 30% free content

3) That is about the weakest argument. Simply because no matter what you can always claim someone has an edge for one reason or another. To put a few personal examples: my potato PC drops the fps to 5-10 during intense clashes which handicaps me a lot since I like close encounters; at 44 my reflexes are quite worse than they used to be 25 years ago hence younger players have an edge compared to me; I almost exclusively play solo so people in divisions have an edge over me...

In other words there will always be people who one way or another have an edge over others, however I am fine with that as long as that "edge" is not gamebraking - so far imho we do not have "gamebraking" advantages which cannot be compensated by good and smart play.

 

Speaking of the T10 economy with the new premium camouflage, I believe we got what was asked from WG.

T10 economy was not meant to be "comfortable" for an average player (e.g. look at WoT). People whined massively here on forums that they want that comfort (because they do not want to play lower tier ships to compensate the credits).

WG then basically said, OK if you want such comfort, pay for it like in case of premium account and similar "benefits" which also provide big comfort compared to non-paying players.

Nothing wrong with such approach imho, as you can still choose not to play T10s exclusively and hence never have issue with credits in the first place.

[Babykim]

Sometimes I feel (esp after having free-xpeed the Baltimore) that this is how progression over the tiers works

 

[Spellfire40]

 

Marblehead was op before perks change

 

before aft nerf is wasnt for sale only very few codes were around.

 

Honestly thogh If they want to prevent T10 only playing they shouldnt offer a way out for anyone prem or not.

[Doolio]

While I understand the sentiment, it's not realistic to expect from a today's f2p game to be as generous as, say, dota. Quite the contrary. Thing is, even majority of b2p AAA games have embraced the "ongoing service" format, which essentially means you will spend the same potentially infinite moneyz on them AFTER you actually bought them, as you would on an ongoing f2p game. The term "season pass" didn't even exist not that long ago. "DLC" isn't that much older. The notion of calling what should be ordinary patches "priced downloadable content" is a very, very, very well established reality. In that setting, f2p games are sure to get harsher and harsher.

There are legitimate reasons for that, but I digress.

 

In that regard, games like WoT, WoWs, HotS are quite tame and actually allow for relatively high degree of versatility when it comes to end users. As in, the soft paywall (if we could call it that - I am referring to the fact that the classic paywall isn't there, but it's there indirectly, as in, in practice, people are bound to be broken by the grind, but not technically/necessarily) is, well, soft. Meaning that, a person can have a surprisingly high amount of content, gameplay and all that jazz and be a non-paying player for years. I personally know several people who play WoT consistently and they are drowning in credits, they play bunch of t10 games, have bunch of t10 tanks etc. The common denominator for them is - they don't grind. They play the game. In the same way when you go to a neighborhood basketball court, you don't think about some long term "quest", but rather go there to play basketball and that notion is enough for you. Ah yes, they are both in their mid thirties, one with a wife and kid. So, no students with insane amounts of time there

Which separates them from me. While I am not maniacally obsessed with carrots and "progress", I kinda get "wallet-happy" if I can't progress smoothly. Which is reflected in recent server issues, for example (the ones where you finish the battle, but you don't get any rewards and the battle doesn't count in stats, xp, missions etc). I felt a bit taken aback, instead of enjoying the battles for what they are.

 

Which means I am going to buy premium time, premium ships and whatnot. But that's perfectly fine, at least I see it that way. That's the standard f2p approach to the player base.

I don't see WoWs as something that deviates from the formula in any way I can think of. Paywalls, amount of grind, painfulness of grind, presence and strength of p2w(ish) elements etc, they are all well in the limits of what is considered to be a "normal" f2p game.

 

The notion of "fk wg" animosity stems mainly from (I am not saying anyone in this topic is like that, I am just "profiling" in general) the demographic of "wifebeater tankers" (I believe you know the trope of player ), who are taking the fact that they are enjoying an AAA or almost-AAA game through official multiplayer means for free, for granted, as something that's perfectly understandable as is. Now, I am not saying it's not understandable, but they don't have any sense of reciprocity whatsoever. Thus, they are very complacent when it comes to that fact, but are ready to grab pitchforks whenever that fact gets even slightly challenged - and calling it slightly challenged is an exaggeration. That and the fact that WG isn't a well known company of old, but a new one with a blockbuster megahit game and from a "dubious ethno-geographical region", which sounds silly, but it's been meme'd so hard that there are people who actually believe in the notion of them being somehow different from any other large developer/publisher.

And with that being repeated seven million times a second, it kinda becomes a starting point, even for a neutral person. You can see it everywhere. Strawman comments (I can bet my life that when the crates have been announced - if they were announced - you could find comments  a la "crates?! where's my HMS Battleshipxyz?!" and whatnot), talks of "russian bias" (of course, if that "russian bias" gets "addressed", that same person is going to have a heart attack because his russian tank is nerfed) and so on.

 

With all that in mind, it's no wonder that every move WG makes is under the abnormally watchful eye of the "community". I mean, don't get me wrong, that's the player base's job. But, during these six years, I have seen mindbogglingly creative conspiracy theories, completely over-invested and frankly insane propositions and notions, completely over the top rants etc. I am inclined to say that the ferocity and amount of those dwarf even the constructions of blizzard player base, which says a lot.

 

Now, I have digressed quite a bit here. But I believe in viewing a bigger picture and with WG in particular, relatively large percentage of players have this unfounded paranoia ("unfounded! random battles aren't random and lowe has been shadownerfed! No, I don't have proof but I have played enough battles to tell!") and it can get better of even the most rational people just because it's so, well, meme'd, in the lack of a better term.

 

As for the question at hand... I do think that t10 economy is a bit harsh. That said, it's not THAT harsh. T5 non-premiums earn quite a bit. The old argument of populating mid-tiers stand. There's nothing incorrect about it. It stands even in WoT, which has probably ten times the players than WoWs. If the game isn't megapopular and if it doesn't feature millions upon millions upon millions of players and is rooted in progress-based structure... it has to employ "sneaky" measures in order to force players to play across the board. In niche games (which WoWs kinda is), as the game gets older, the player base naturally progress towards the "end game", which is counter productive for any potential new player. WoT can be a bit more leisurely about that, since the daily maximum of concurrent players is probably over 100 000 in EU, but not even WoT could lift the "t10 embargo". And that's not even due to profit projections, but actually due to need to have populated tiers.

And I don't actually think WoT is looser. I remember one of those two guys I mentioned at the beginning played something like five battles in pz4 in order to treat himself with one E-100 match. I don't think the situation is worse in WoWs. I think that the problem is the mindset, actually. Maybe not "problem", but certainly a factor that makes it harder for a player who employs the mindset. Said guy was like "tomorrow I'll play E-100 all day" with a childishly honest happy grin on his face, after a whole day of driving around in his tier five tanks. And I am quite certain that his approach was much healthier than mine ("oh god are you kidding me, I have to ENDURE ~50 battles just to get a decent gun?! fk my life...").

 

Camouflages seem like an ok investment, depending on the player of course. As a one-time purchase it's a bit expensive, but if one is playing the game regularly and doesn't think of uninstalling it relatively soon, I see no problems with the price. As a matter of fact, I can only see it as a stepping stone for "semi-paying" players, which is a good thing. The only downside could happen if the camouflage actually proves to be highly popular and large percentage of players who own a t10 discontinue to play across the board. In general, t10 needs to be "fed" in order for this system to work. It even needs to be fed in WoT, which is way more populated.

[Doolio]

 

before aft nerf is wasnt for sale only very few codes were around.

 

Honestly thogh If they want to prevent T10 only playing they shouldnt offer a way out for anyone prem or not.

 

Well, a steep price is more likely to turn away enough people for the offers (t8 premiums, premium acc, camo) to not threaten the ecosystem. In theory. We'll see what happens, WoWs is a small game, a simple thing can mess it up.

[chazwozza]

Im ok with the camo but the price tag is a bit of a kick in the teeth 2.5k would be more bareable