So as a long time MoBA player I just wanted to give my thoughts on this issue. First off, Alani costs 47k. Some of you are talking about how high this price is but they gave two weeks worth of notice to grind the credits, something that can be done in maybe a weekend, give or take, of gameplay. Gearbox gave you two weeks to grind the credits that is plenty of time.
Secondly, in comparison to LoL to grind in game currency for a new character without having some stashed away you are looking at a week of play give or take depending how many games you want to put in. That same character can be bought for between 5-10 real life dollars, not checking the exchange right but you get the idea.
Thirdly, GB announced a week long double XP event to get people stoked to play, thus making the player base larger at most given times, thus making it quicker to get into a match,and therefore easier to grind for credits.
Finally, more than likely the price is going to drop or there will be a challenge unlock added in future patches it’s fairly common to decrease the price of new characters after time has passed. So if you don’t want to fork out the $20.00 for a season pass, which nets you five heroes as compared to the two you would get in other games, and don’t want to grind the credits, then wait for he price to drop or for the challenge unlock to be implemented.
I still believe its a little high. I mean, thats over a week. I already have every character and am rank 46-48 and I don’t play this game too much ( i mean, it’s the only game I’m playing, but I do have a life and don’t even play it every day) I got 20 levels over the double xp weekend, and yeah, I understand I’d be like, level 30-35 or something without it, but still the character unlocking isn’t supposed to be the challenged, it’s mastering the characters and winning. And getting perfect gear sets (like -reload speed common shard generators and -healing common reload speed increasers and all of the legendaries)
In the end, I think shards are a great way to make people work for the character whether they’re level 5 or 95. But 47500 is just a bit too much over the line for a lot of people. It makes gearbox look a little desperate for money, though I personally think they probably thought that the price is perfect and aren’t all that desperate…
This could very easily be a testing price to see how many people in the community obtain the hero threw the set 47500 credits being the first character to be released they have to find a good price that’s fair to the people that got the season pass and fair to the casual players either way they aren’t charging you any more for this hero. For all we know a couple of weeks the heroes price could half and then the hero after that to come in at the new lower value if there are not enough players obtaining the first hero. Have to have some patience while they find fair values for these things.
I agree, and that’s why I suggest some nice numbers that i think are more doable.
I did try to read through all the posts, but in the end gave up with the endless repetition of points and counter points (not that there not relevant, just didn’t have the time to finish them all)
But I did want to add my 2 cents, or 2 pennies (Uk).
Personally I have no issue with this, I actually think that giving people a change to unlock these characters without the DLC is faily generous of them.
They could of easily locked them behind new content, secondly if they reduce the cost for unlocking then they devalue the Season Pass and they of course want to reward those players that invested the most money with them
I get that some people are peeved, but maybe they should consider this a nice problem to have 
Gonna be real with you, every single person both irl and online I talk to about LoL, every single one admits to spending over 200 dollars on that game.
I am one of those people.
League is one of those tricky f2p games because there is literally no reason to not spend money if you want a better experience. EXP boosts, IP boosts, limited skins, new champs, like… LoL is a ■■■■■■ game if you spend 0 dollars because you are stuck with ■■■■■■ cheap heroes until you spend an unhealthy amount of time on that game.
Calling it F2P is like arguing semantics, yes its technically f2p but how many people can honestly say they havent spent a dime on this game…
How is it a rip off?
This sense of entitlement is bewildering. The money you paid was for the product you bought, not all future content too. Thats just ridiculous
Okay, this reply will be long and please dont take it personally. I nearly read all the replies in this topic and mostly focusing on yours.
There are rules, in lots of stuff that isnt supposed to be written on anywhere. To begin with, it’s sometimes ETHICS. You can find ethical rules in gaming industry, maybe doesnt spoken mostly, but it is really, realy, clear. It is an entertainment for most of us, for the players that is interested with more of the “fun” stuff a game posses in its structure. For the people who develops, creates, draws, writes about these fantasy worlds, its their job. You mostly make money with the job you do, because you invest your time and resources on it. There is a fine line, lets say: to make a “hidden payment agreement” with the playbase which creates the community of the game, which declining how this will go on:
Firstly, this can “be” a F2P game that will follow a money making policy that can provoke you to invest money to make it more playable, or in better scenarios “buyback” the time you will invest your time on the prefences, like specific resource you’re interested to get in.
Secondly, it can be a Buy2Play game, that you spend your money to buy the game or with paying a fee every x time you want to keep playing, like World of Warcraft. In return, it will allow you to get most of the unconditional resources without spending too much effort or extra real money, since you ALREADY paid for their service.
A warning to you, if you are discussing a P2W games’ specific conditions in a subject, dont ask people to not to response with “a P2W” argument.
I’ve seen that you tried to compare really different structured games in the same genre, without the lack of clear responses you attempted a few times, in order to explain your thoughts.
Gearbox clearly explained what we will get when we buy the game itself. At least I knew, I was going to get the first 25 characters in game and the other standard functions after I buy the game. Gearbox has the full right to do anything they want to.
Ethics and unspoken rules about the games steps in this moment. If you made a policy about a games overall structure which mostly “f2p or b2p?” part does, this game clearly pointed that this is a b2p game. You mostly find yourself forced to invest money in free to play games, because they have to make money at some point, you guarantee your savings with making someone to buy buy to play games. There is a disadvantage b2p games mostly has; they dont posses a continual money flow option like f2p games has. So they choose either adjusting the games buying price to a high value/or monthly fee OR they add a Marketplace where you can pay for optional resources THAT DOESNT AFFECTS YOUR GAMEPLAY. Here comes WHY people who got frustrated about Alani’s early release or high credit price without any other options than paying real money to get access for her are RIGHT. Gearbox has to find a proper and stable way, to keep the cash flow or their players will get more furious about this inequal treatment. There are a fine line, between a pay2win player and free2play player in a FREE TO PLAY GAME but you cannot treat your players unequal with the amount they paid into your game if you are publishing a PAY TO PLAY game. I suppose they aren’t very clear about their earning policies because I’m observing very different stratagies getting applied into one game.
Yes, you are wrong about this.
Regards.
I skimmed your poorly designed wall of text and no, I’m not wrong.
Here’s why I’m not wrong:
You’re going to play this game because you enjoy it(hopefully). Along the way of playing the game, you happen to earn credits. Eventually you’ll be able to afford her, possibly even at a reduced price as many platforms offer a lowered price after a hero is so old.
You were going to play this game regardless of a new hero EVER BEING RELEASED. So, I ask you, how does something that you weren’t ever guaranteed to get suddenly become a necessity?
I have her, I don’t plan on using her anytime soon if ever. If I didn’t have season pass I wouldn’t unlock her, I don’t care about her.
They gave 2 weeks notice to start saving up and going forward everyone knows the drill. That’s ample time to start saving.
Also I really don’t know how anyone can play dumb about expecting her to cost a lot. What did you think they sold a season pass for? Did you really think anyone would buy a season pass if she cost something trivial like 10k credits?
I get on average 5-700 credits per game, both PvP and PvE. There’s also times when you get big chunks for doing achievements and whatnot. 47k is a grind, but I mean what were you going to do anyway?
Oh…that’s right…you were going to play the game regardless. You, and many others, suffer from the delusion that your want is a need. You want Alani, you do not NEED Alani, let alone need her RIGHT NOW.
This is also a tool to keep people from flooding the queues all trying to play her at the same time because not everyone will have her unlocked, season passes factor into this as well with the week early release.
You can feel free to be “robbed” or “ethically wronged” all you like, fact is it’s a game that, with a little elbow grease, will give you free heroes for the forseeable future. A game that, again, you were planning on playing anyway even before she was announced.
Thanks for comin out.
Well this game isnt f2p. Having to buy the game upfront nullifies that.
B2p? Thats a standard age old method. Its how games were originally made.
47500 is low in comparison to other moba style games. Screw unlocking a character in lol with IP. ■■■■ takes forever.
Players are WRONG to expect free ■■■■. Period. Sick of the age of entitlement. Be glad they offered a way to play the new characters that doesnt involve real money.
You still didnt understand what my point is, after reading that wall of text, do you? Sorry, we are in two different dimensions.
No, really not.
Buy to play games typically have buy to play expansions.
New characters and missions are this games expansions. But GBX is nice enough to let you earn them by just doing what you were going to be doing anyway, playing the game. How evil of them.
And again, who would EVER buy season pass if they planned on making all new characters 100% free to unlock or super cheap to unlock? Hint: No one, and no sales is bad for business.
So how does having the vast majority of the character roster locked behind unlock challenges factor into your argument here? I don’t get why anyone would even be upset about this. The game was always promoting long term play by locking away characters, so why would you or anyone expect different with Alani or any of the future dlc characters?
You DO realize that the season pass also nets you early access to the heroes, along with DLC, skins, and taunts, right?
The fact that a patch has already come out as well as hot fixes is actually a lot faster than most other games out there.they are only allowed so many patches on consoles a month as well as it having to go through licensing from Microsoft and Sony each new patch the put out, the fixes are coming at very quick rates considering and the is doing fine.
You aren’t entitled to anything in this game or in this life for that matter. When you “buy” a game you are paying the developer to be able to play it, this does not mean you are entitled to anything else other than that PERIOD.
It’s true. Making it really easy or even moderately easy to earn the new characters completely devalues the season pass. Time is money. Do you want to spend time or money in order to have fun trying out a new character?
I’m pretty sure season pass money and other income past the initial game price will only help gearbox pay their employees for the time and effort it takes to develop new characters.
season pass means each new char is about $4.
So you can either spend a week of having fun mastering other characters in order to save up in-game currency or you can spend a fraction of an hour’s worth of irl work to start them right away. Time is money and money is time.
What is it worth to you?
DLC is DLC. The fact that they included ANY free way to get new characters should be a plus. I got the digital deluxe for the season pass and honestly I’m more annoyed you can get her for free than if it was the other way around. I’m not that annoyed because I still got her easily and there are still going to be DLC only maps coming soon.
PvP maps will be free to everyone
Only campaign missions will be paid for
I think you said it best. Ultimately, I’m grateful for the fact that they’re even opening it up to be unlocked by non-pass buyers, but the price tag does seem steep for a character you might not like.
Couple that with the fact that I only really have time to play 2 or 3 matches a week, averaging a bit over 1000 cr a match, and it’ll take me until October to unlock her. Not to mention buying no gear at all until then, which kinda sucks.
I’m not sure exactly where I stand though, because GBX just could’ve given me a big FU and not allowed her to be unlocked and been justified…but when you see the cost of unlock credits side by side, it’s pretty daunting.