Is this game even worth playing anymore due to horrible mismanagement? (long post, don't open if you're not interested)

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It’s AGS’ own fault in every possible way.

Gold prices are so fucking ridiculous it’s the biggest scam I’ve seen in my 20+ years of gaming. Like just disgusting prices.

Literally takes thousands to get a single upgrade if you’re unlucky. What the fuck is that about?

And there’s nothing in store for low-medium level spenders.
I haven’t spent anything since the arkpass just because I refuse to pay their prices while cheaters are running rampant and pretty much shitting on us all, but even if we assume there were no cheaters, like what the hell is there to buy for an average customer?
As in someone willing to spend 50 to a 100 every month. Even that’s a shitton of money for nothing. There’s literally nothing in store I can buy right now that would help me and there are no skins I’m interested in.

Of course people will exploit the system, it happens in every single game, only difference being that other devs actually at least try to deal with it without fucking players over.

If I knew this is how it was going to play out, I would’ve bought gold for like $100 when it was $0.3 for 1k and made millions because it was so easy to exponentially increase your gold back then.

2FA or 3FA will not solve this and even KR has bots…so…

See, this is the problem you peolpe don’t understand. No game can completely eradicate all the bots, but just tell me about a single other game that had decent lifespan where like 75% of the playerbase.

The next part of the post is a guesstimation, but it most definitely can’t be far off the truth.

I’m on a EUC server that’s on the lower end of popularity, but not a low population server. For example there are still a ton of channels for field bosses and adventure islands no matter when you do them. Last weekend for capture event (most popular thing literally everyone does) there were not even 650 participants. And there are servers with half the population. EUC has 19 servers, with 4 of them being high pop. Let’s say that for low-medium pop there are 800 people per server left and even that’s generous.

800x15=12k and then each of those 4 high pop servers probably has 2.5k participants per week.
So we get to a figure that probably varies between 20 and 25k players on EUC servers. Regions that’s by far the most popular. Let’s assume it’s 30k just because it’s summer and holiday time. There’s absolutely no way there are more than 30k active, regular players right now.

EUW is dead and buried, I’d be surprised if even 5k play. SA is also really low pop and NAW can’t have more than 10k due to many people quitting because bots literally made them unable to play for months. NAE is the closest thing to EUC, but it probably doesn’t have more than 20k players. Has 15 servers and from what I’ve seen only 3 are well-populated.

That would mean something like 30+20+10+5+5k people per region. 60k total. And I think I’ve been generous with that assumption. There’s absolutely no way this game has even 80k active players at this point.

As I said in the opening post, I did card runs on 6 of my chars last week and I’ve seen literally 1 new player with mokoko icon. And noone in their right mind would recommend this game to anyone new.

Then we get to the fact that we’re most likely 7 weeks away from any new content and out of those 60k, there are plenty of players including myself that are like “what the fuck am I gonna do now for 2 months”?

Sure, we can take a break, I’ll probably just do the dailies on my main + fully rested alts for the next 7 weeks and then do all of my raids in like 8h total, but a lot of players will realize that this game has nothing to offer and it’s all just FOMO and regret of potentially leaving something you invested 1k+ hours in.

This game has pretty much turned into having to play literally 20h+ of ridiculously bad daily grind every week in order to have fun in raids for a couple of hours. I’m not going to pretend I’m above it, I got hooked at one point and I’m still playing, but it’s not gonna last. Not because of the burnout which is there, but of the stuff I mentioned in the first post.

Disgusting amount of negligence and the “get as much profit as possible before the game dies” policies that are already becoming the end of this game.

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If both are offered in the same shop with the same legal conditions, of course the cheaper one.

But this is not the case here. We have a legal shop and illegal shops. Thus I’d stay legal. Same like you, not risk anything. Because in the end, it is just a game.

And again:
If people chose the cheaper but clearly illegal option just for personal benefits and ruining the game for all the other (legal players and basically themselves too), then I’d call this stupid.

I’m totally onboard for more account security. But again the thing with SSN (or equivalent in your country) being processed is not possible due to legal regulations. Same goes for processing several other personal identifiable info. What might be legal in one country, isn’t in another one.

A simple phone number verification will not work, because it can be automated. Now we could use a token outside of steam and you can also add your phone number for account security in your Amazon account as well. And simply for account security this is advised (although not 100 safe of course).

But then again:
What about the people that don’t have a smartphone with no way to use a token based authentication or mobile phone service? Yes you could for example use an Android emulator with somekind of burner phone number (which doesn’t work in every country, but for arguments sake, let’s assume it is possible everywhere). Now you might say_ perfect, it is a hurdle, but people can use it. Yes, but as can the bots. They can automate this.

Now which method do you propose that is legal in every country, works for (almost) everyone and can’t be automated?

I’m not talking about a 100% bot free solution, because I’m very much aware of the fact that you can’t eradicate them all. And I’m not saying what has been done in LA is healthy and every decision of AGS/SG was a good one. Quite the contrary.
And I’m very well aware of the fact, that many (f2p) games have (had) a bot problem. Until they god rid of the things, that the bots utilized
Take Diablo 3 for example, not even f2p. Got rid of the AH, got rid of the bots
Now I hear the screams “nooo the AH is necessary for LA”. Well then I say:

But again, it is about the market. And the market is there and people are willing to support this market. All technical solutions will not change this and I’ve been saying this in this forum probably since march.

Players “AGS limit chat to some level so that bots can’t post spam” > ME “this will not work” > AGS/SG “okay we limit the chat to lvl 30+”
…fast forward
Players “we wan’t some 2fa stuff” > Me “this will not work” > AGS/SG “okay will implement some market restrictions that you need steam trust and steam guard (later on)”
…fast forward
Players “we have read about this captcha thing and it should be very effective, implement this” > Me “will not work, because of the cracked client they are using and captchas can be automatically solved” > AGS/SG “okay here are the captchas that we can control and so on…”

Additionally there are the ban waves. They are great for marketing and calming things down for a bit because it looks great when you say “we’ve banned 100k bots (or more)” and players are like “yeah, no more queues…but wait…why are the bots coming back after a week???”

Yes it will take the bots some time to level up again (unless they find loopholes to buy power passes again), but still: the market is there and the QOL restrictions we have right now, are not really influencing the market, but just put limitations and restrictions upon regular players.

Now your argument is, that everything is to expensive and/or time consuming.
To this I’d say: well AGS and SG need to pay their staff and pay for the servers, the game development and so on. Yes the bot farmers have also some costs, but you can’t compare that to a development studio and so on.
Do I find the store prices to high? Yes some are a bit high indeed. But AGS/SG will never be able to compete with the prices of the bots.

And in the end it comes down to the usual thing:
This is ho an f2p game works. You have to invest time in a whole lot of grind. People that have more time, will always be ahead of you (assuming you both use the same efficient ways to play).
If you don’t like the grind and/or don’t have the time&money to play the game in a legal way but feel peer pressured to engage in illegal RMT and again, ruin the game for everyone…well…great character.

Additionally I can say, that I’ve now played roughly 900h since February, I’m still only 1370 with one char, have some alts on lower GS, still of course haven’t seen everything. I’ve had this discussion countless of times in this forum: If you’ve done everything in the game that offers fun to you and due to various reasons you can’t find any more fun in the game…well then take a break.
Most people complaining in this forum have played 1000 or even 2000 hours. And especially the ones that have played so much complain about burnout and on the same hand complain about lack of content. Seriously: what do you/they expect? With this pace, the situation will always be the same. No class or raid release will change it really.

What I seriously don’t get is, that so many people are basically defending all the RMTers kinda destroying the game on purpose and saying it is simply all AGS/SGs fault.

Yes AGS/SG could’ve done much better and should do better and several of the methods they are using are totally worthless and so on. Totally on bord with you.
But why not al least also blame those people hard, that create the market for the gold sellers?
If only a few people or even none at all would buy “gold” (and other stuff), we’d have no problem. But like you pointed out: there is more Bots out there than players. Bots and the machines they are running on, also do cost money. They need to buy stolen credits cards and so on. There is a whole industry behind this. Not only in LA but also in other games. And only because significantly enough people are simply egoistic and just focused on “I wan’t to be world first and not play the game as it is inteded”.

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Do I find the store prices to high? Yes some are a bit high indeed. But AGS/SG will never be able to compete with the prices of the bots.

Sure, but they don’t have to make the prices be beyond ridiculous.
They went full in on “whale or nothing” with their pricing and guess what? There are no more legit whales. They milked that cow, now there’s nothing left.

Blue crystals are always an indication of RMTing. The higher the price, the less people buy gold via legit way. Obviously right now the new 3 day restriction inflated that a bit, but the price was on the rise again before they introduced it.

And about 3 day restriction, like what the hell? I can order something from across the continent and it would be there before I get to use the money I spend legit way on this game. Where’s the logic in that?

The comparison is literally buying something for 5x the price and waiting 3 days or getting your purchase instantly for 20% of the cost.

What I seriously don’t get is, that so many people are basically defending all the RMTers kinda destroying the game on purpose and saying it is simply all AGS/SGs fault.

Because it is their fault. Who’s else fault would it be? As if this is the first MMO in history of gaming and they couldn’t have known what was gonna happen. But you know what? They didn’t care. They got a fully developed game they just needed to translate and localize. Worst case scenario it would’ve been a quick money grab and onto the next one. Current situation exceeded their expectations.

If only a few people or even none at all would buy “gold” (and other stuff), we’d have no problem.

This is literally 1:1 equivalent of “if there was no evil people, we’d need no law enforcement”. But guess what? And it’s not like those people are evil, why give money to one of the world’s biggest companies for ridiculous prices?

Horrible mismanagement that will end the game sooner or later. Smilegate people should be really pissed off at all of this. But they were also naive believing AGS could do the job.

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I totally agree that AGS/SG are of course looking to much on the profit. that’s how capitalism works and maximizing profit at all costs is deeply rooted, especially in US companies recently there was an interesting bit on that by John Oliver…). And yes the should be blamed for that.

But again: I’m saying that so many people are only blaming them and not the RMTers.

Now you say: “if there was no evil people, we’d need no law I totally agree that AGS/SG are of course looking to much on the profit. that’s how capitalism works and maximizing profit at all costs is deeply rooted, especially in US companies recently there was an interesting bit on that by John Oliver…). And yes the should be blamed for that.

But again: I’m saying that so many people are only blaming them and not the RMTers.

Now you say:

And we do have “law enforcement” (the mitigating measures against the bots). And now people are like “all these law enforcement measures are messing with my/our QOL…”

You can find so many parallels to real life. But yet again: this is a game.

In the end we all want the same, to have fun playing the game.
And AGS/Sg are sometimes doing a really bad job keeping it this way. But I refuse to only blame them. Same as in RL you wouldn’t say “oh the poor bank robber, he had no chance…” (I’m not saying RMT is a serious crime, it is just for arguments sake). Defending RMT in any way is a no go for me. Because like I explained before: people that engage in RMT put pressure upon themselves. No one is forcing them to but they themlseves. Thus it is a totally selfish act. No matter the game mechanics and how AGS/SG want to make profit.

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Had I known AGS would only suspend players for RMT, or that the level of punishment would be decided on a case by case basis I would never have touched this game either.

The last minute changes to honing before the game released should have been a warning sign, at least I know for the future AGS is dead to me.

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And we do have “law enforcement” (the mitigating measures against the bots). And now people are like “all these law enforcement measures are messing with my/our QOL…”

Because this isn’t law enforcement, but more like prohibition.

Imagine advertising Punika powerpass for literally months and then half the playerbase doesn’t get a chance to use it just because botters were exploiting it.

Defending RMT in any way is a no go for me.

Maybe you misunderstood me. I’m not defending RMT, I want every single player that bought even 1k gold illegally to be permabanned, no exception. What I’m defending is their reasoning and the fact that AGS brought it upon themselves.

people that engage in RMT put pressure upon themselves

Most definitely not. They’re not putting pressure upon themselves, they’re putting pressure upon literally everyone else because they control the market and crystals prices.

The last minute changes to honing before the game released should have been a warning sign, at least I know for the future AGS is dead to me.

For me it was the Argos release, that was the most blatant moneygrab I’ve ever seen.
“We expected players to be ready” thing. Not even most of the veterans that played other regions were ready, let alone new players that never played LA before. That was pure pressure for people to swipe and it made them a lot of money. But then RMTing became rampant and the economy got fucked.

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First let me congratulate you on doing more horizontal game content then I have the patience to do. As for all the issues you are listing, those are typically all the same issues that all MMO type games face at one point or another, more so in this game because this is also F2P instead of being paywall gated from the start. Due to the popularity of F2P games to drive people to try out a game they normally wouldn’t play, unfortunately these types of games will be in the rise in the future.

What kills most MMO’s in my experience is the lack of new content/updates and just getting to a never ending end game grind that gets you burned out from playing. Unfortunately this is also another issues that is shared across most games.

If you enjoy the game play more, if you don’t enjoy it as much, play less. If you get no enjoyment from playing/touching/seeing the game, then its time to move to another game to go through yet another honeymoon phrase. At the end of the day, games are here for our enjoyment and not a dead end job that we are a slave too.

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If you enjoy the game play more, if you don’t enjoy it as much, play less. If you get no enjoyment from playing/touching/seeing the game, then its time to move to another game to go through yet another honeymoon phrase.

See, this is the problem.
Cheaters ruin the economy, forcing people to grind way more than it’s supposed to be by design.

For example, I’m fine with playing like 10h a week total for just all the raids and some PvP, but that’s not achievable due to how daily grind works. And in order to fully keep up with the latest content, I have to do at least 2h of braindead daily grind every single day. Which most of us are burned out of. Noone is burned out of raids, but braindead chaos dungeons and guardian raids.

Rest system helps, but eventually even with it you lose out on way too much. It only works for people who have huge, 10+ character rosters. So they still play 4+ characters every single day.

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I agree with you in everything. Plus, what’s in store for us? More legion raids? That’s the entire end game? Battles that get progressively more insane, that’s all? I do like raids, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t be excited for another weekly that’ll become a chore within a month its release =f

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That’s just simply FOMO. First let me tell you what I do. I don’t do CD/GR and none of the daily/weekly grind anymore. I just do the things I like, which you mentioned, the Raids. Also on my alts I only do just Oreha Hard both, and Bus Argos. None of the daily/weekly on my Alts either.

Do have 0 feelings of being left out for any future content. I have 1 main in Vykas Hard, and the rest of my 5+ alts at 1370+.

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Imagine to have alternate characters that require you to play them due to the lack of the content for ur main character :joy:

People will justify anything

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A f2p gatcha game with even more ways to lose your bank account and strink your wallet? Sign me up!

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lol i clicked just to see how long it was and yep didn’t read

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At least you live up to your username.

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Good read overall from some who obviously played the game. Truthfully, I agree with most of what you say. I’d say personally if anything has turned me away from the game, its more-so anything related to an AGS “Intelligent Business Decision”. Pass restrictions, gold restrictions, BOTS and RMT are just as punishing (If not more) to any current or new/returning player as they are to the issues they are supposed to solve. Typical AGS greed is also an issue that will probably lead to a huge dip in players (check region prices threads, they are quite hot right now). Solid read, I mostly agree. Game is good, business practices can be borderline illegal. Also forgot, proper feedback/communication is actually laughable (the reason I play the forums and not the game now). I wish I could say half the stuff we get from AGS to any of my clients, managers, supervisors, project leads, and not give them a stroke with the response.

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for one it has a x10 better pity system than LA and content is not gatekept like AGS/smilegate. P2W in that game means there’s no bot issue because you’re actually guaranteed to get strong. Because LA has just a crap p2w bots run rampant. best of all you can play any weapon and class with your own custom avatar. no class gatekeeping nonsense or gender lock, but hey enjoy the abuse from AGS, i’ve been waiting for another MMO that’s run by a competent company and im glad we have a new one coming out in 4 days.

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Did not read the essay about FOMO, game is awesome.

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Perfect world? I used to play their original Perfect World “international”. Have fun, hope you enjoy their brand of the daily grind.

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I mean its fine to disagree with me, I find the game awesome. I didn’t report your post btw, I never do, not worth my time. I dunno who did, I find it funny that you know nothing about me and have such bold claims like I ever bait. I do believe everything I say, including that the game is awesome and I’m having a lot of fun.

Yes there is a lot of exploitation of the economy, it makes things hard, especially for a solo character like mine, but I was done caring about this crap a long time ago because it was clear things weren’t going to change. I keep playing because legion raids are super fun, as are the guild activities. Have a nice day :slight_smile:

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Bold claims when you know nothing about someone and whether they believe what they say :slight_smile:

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