|
Hey Blizzard, hey Valve, hey Capcom, in a couple years a local West Coast game publisher has risen to show the power, as well as financial income, of ACTUALLY making customer service #1. As such, since 2006 Riot's been on the up-and-up since they took $1 million of venture capital (almost nothing to VCs) to make their brainchild, League of Legends, and haven't looked back.
You can't make something out of nothing, I'm sure it wouldn't have had the appeal it does without them getting one of the developers for the original game of the genre (DotA, if you're not up to date on the video game market history) hired in from very early on. But before they had that they had an idea to make a game that they themselves would be interested in, just happens that millions would agree with them.
Let me back up and rhetorically ask you, the reader, how many times you've tried to get in contact with a customer service employee of a game to be disappointed with how your situation was handled? Nothing can be more of a kiss of death to retaining player base than a good game with a shoddy customer service reputation. With smaller games you can actually get through to someone who'll do something outside of a simple, menial task that takes less than 1 minute to perform (HALP I'M STUCK!), but as soon as that said player base peaks the million mark, good luck.
Riot has made life simple for the casual nobody who wants to play something new, something fun, and pay nothing to do so. As much as hardcore gamers hate to rely on them, the strength of a game is usually directly correlated to how many people are playing their game. "Oh that's cool, it's the next Zynga trying to fatten up a calf on casual gamer's daytime salary. There's always another one of those ready to come along." Nope, $2 million dollar prize pool championship event with a friggin LIVE ORCHESTRA all tuxedo'd up belting out League inspired melodies.
Big prize pool bragging rights aside, another with an ounce of common sense knows that you can't have an annual tournament foster an entire pro scene, as only those winning will be able to have the luxury of being able to actually live off their earnings. Riot announces it'll then subsidize top 8 teams for each of their heavily populated areas, to give teams the ability to have a bad year, and not disband/lose players to other, more successful teams. You have a problem, chances are they have a solution.
Don't disregard this as a Riot lovefest, perfection isn't an attainable goal, motto to live by, or standard to hold yourself to. I don't need to even say that everyone makes mistakes, but I'll not just cop out with that. It's a tragedy that they don't have an official replay system after 3 years, relying on 3rd party programs creates an awkwardness that Riot is known for being good without. Their system of matchmaking isn't optimal for a team game, by stressing the performance of just one individual. Solo/duo queue being the preferred choice of matchmaking detracts from team involvement, and leads to the rage mindset that has always plagued the DotA communities (ask anyone who played HoN) because one person can have a bad game and get flamed repeatedly until they wish they played some game that was more forgiving.
At the end of the day, instead of targeting casuals or hardcore gamers, it pays to hit both markets. They walk a very thin line of trying to balance a game at pro levels AND lower levels, and for that they deserve to be praised as doing something that many have tried and failed. In doing so they created an actually enjoyable game, one that is intellectually stimulating in a way similar to the more thought-provoking, highly-successful games, but also includes high paced action that can be captured well enough by an excited Deman or Joe Miller, and felt rising in the skin of all those who can proudly dub themselves nerd ballers.
It's amazing the things that can work out with a lot of hard work and a bit of intuition of being at the right place at the right time, but looking at the product Riot has created they should very much be able to sit back and enjoy their considerable income, but they don't. They don't just sit back, that's what makes them Riot.
|
I'm pretty sure Riot's real secret to success is their business model
You know, making newer, stronger champions to force players into buying said new champions if they want to be competetive, and doing this every two weeks?
Its like 20$ a month, just as good as WoW subscribers
And just as effective at making people not want to leave, after all, they've already poured so much money in.
|
It totally helps, don't get me wrong, that's a strong motivation to keep people playing. They still have the tools to get you into the game. It's free, If you play at different weeks it's very different (free champion rotations), and eventually they'll make a champion who'll intrigue you especially. They know they have to earn their player base before they'll pay even a dollar. Would you put down $20 for a new champion in a game that you have tried a few times but have no real scope of how the game works?
They get the consumer hooked long before they pay anything.
|
On February 07 2013 14:47 Shaella wrote: I'm pretty sure Riot's real secret to success is their business model
You know, making newer, stronger champions to force players into buying said new champions if they want to be competetive, and doing this every two weeks?
Its like 20$ a month, just as good as WoW subscribers
And just as effective at making people not want to leave, after all, they've already poured so much money in. while I am no expert in LoL, I think the biggest reason why casual player would go and get a new champion is to just to have a new unit to use. The most successful part is that Riot don't force you to buy them, you can just earn the points as you play. It takes a long time sure, but that is why you have players playing heavily to get the points and players paying to try out the new champions. Both encouraging the players to keep playing more.
|
United States9662 Posts
Riot's secret is making the most expensive, free game in the world.
why is most expensive? they have such a great marketing technique in LoL which allows them to make a ton of money. this is different from the other games like maple, wow, diablo, etc. these said games FORCE people to buy items with money to get good at the game. this obviously detracts popularity, though they are all still very popular games.
LoL comes out stronger, however, because you dont need to buy anything in order to become a good player. everything you need can be obtained just from playing the game, thus adding to the addiction level of the game (play more = progress more and get more). and as you progress, you naturally want to progress faster (getting champions faster, skins to make you look cool, etc). This is a natural flow from beginning, middle, and end, where end is the beginning of the "expensive" part of LoL.
however, people like me who are smart will understand the true concepts of LoL and take it as it was meant to be, a free to play game. I have never spent a penny on LoL yet, and never will. why? its a free game for a reason, the extras are just bonus. but people fall into riot's trap of buying RP from the addiction that was mentioned from before.
if you read this, and are buying skins or rp from riot, stop. waste of money that could be spent on more useful things. think about it. do skins make you play better?
|
Zero. Zero is the number of times I've been playing a game and wished I could talk to a customer service rep.
Riot does well because today's internet denizens apparently love the shit out free things with paid microtransactions.
|
On February 07 2013 14:47 Shaella wrote: I'm pretty sure Riot's real secret to success is their business model
You know, making newer, stronger champions to force players into buying said new champions if they want to be competetive, and doing this every two weeks?
Its like 20$ a month, just as good as WoW subscribers
And just as effective at making people not want to leave, after all, they've already poured so much money in.
This is totally false, aside from the fact that new champions are not released OP enough to make them must buys by any measure (if they are OP at all, there have been many weak release champs), you could, if you wanted , buy every new release playing around 20 hours a week. If you want to spend money thats purely up to you. Its certainly not a competitive advantage of any consequence.
I dont think customer service has anything to do with their success either. I doubt 95+% of the playerbase has ever interacted with it. Its just a fun take on a proven fun game design. They keep it well maintained and fresh and people like it.
|
On February 07 2013 15:47 sob3k wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2013 14:47 Shaella wrote: I'm pretty sure Riot's real secret to success is their business model
You know, making newer, stronger champions to force players into buying said new champions if they want to be competetive, and doing this every two weeks?
Its like 20$ a month, just as good as WoW subscribers
And just as effective at making people not want to leave, after all, they've already poured so much money in. This is totally false, aside from the fact that new champions are not released OP enough to make them must buys by any measure (if they are OP at all, there have been many weak release champs), you could, if you wanted , buy every new release playing around 20 hours a week. If you want to spend money thats purely up to you. Its certainly not a competitive advantage of any consequence. I dont think customer service has anything to do with their success either. I doubt 95+% of the playerbase has ever interacted with it. Its just a fun take on a proven fun game design. They keep it well maintained and fresh and people like it.
What they do is rehash an older character, with slightly more powerful stats at the expense of another stat. Gangplank was an old character, so what do they do? Create miss fortune who's ulti is similar to Gangplanks only it can hit anywhere on the map (don't cruicfy me if I'm wrong, I don't play LoL). This character then appeals more to people who play that character. The player can then either grind out Battle points to buy it, or go purchase RP to get it. that's just how they roll and it's a good system. I dislike it, I would rather pay money for a game, then pay no more than get sucked in to f2p with micro transactions.
|
Now if only they'd get off their asses and fix the numerous bugs that have been present patch after patch after patch and get a real client instead of this adobe air piece of shit.
|
I definitely think it's all about accessibility, but Valve doesn't seem interested in what Riot is interested in. At least that is what I think
|
On February 07 2013 16:41 asaed wrote: I definitely think it's all about accessibility, but Valve doesn't seem interested in what Riot is interested in. At least that is what I think
Ya, Valve only wants people to be able to play every hero(champion) to their full potential from the moment they launch the game for the first time, totally inaccessible.
*I am aware there are a ton of other differences, don't take the comment for more than it is.
|
On February 07 2013 15:36 FlaShFTW wrote: Riot's secret is making the most expensive, free game in the world.
why is most expensive? they have such a great marketing technique in LoL which allows them to make a ton of money. this is different from the other games like maple, wow, diablo, etc. these said games FORCE people to buy items with money to get good at the game. this obviously detracts popularity, though they are all still very popular games.
LoL comes out stronger, however, because you dont need to buy anything in order to become a good player. everything you need can be obtained just from playing the game, thus adding to the addiction level of the game (play more = progress more and get more). and as you progress, you naturally want to progress faster (getting champions faster, skins to make you look cool, etc). This is a natural flow from beginning, middle, and end, where end is the beginning of the "expensive" part of LoL.
however, people like me who are smart will understand the true concepts of LoL and take it as it was meant to be, a free to play game. I have never spent a penny on LoL yet, and never will. why? its a free game for a reason, the extras are just bonus. but people fall into riot's trap of buying RP from the addiction that was mentioned from before.
if you read this, and are buying skins or rp from riot, stop. waste of money that could be spent on more useful things. think about it. do skins make you play better?
I think you are using the 'hardcore' gamer mindset here. People (casuals) buy skins/champions for their enjoyment and entertainment. It is no different from eating at an expensive restaurant (does it make your body healthier?) or new clothes (does it make you perform your daily tasks better?).
|
On February 07 2013 15:44 Iranon wrote: Zero. Zero is the number of times I've been playing a game and wished I could talk to a customer service rep.
Riot does well because today's internet denizens apparently love the shit out free things with paid microtransactions.
Quoted for truth.
No one cares about customer service. Kinda, sorta, not really.
|
Riot's secret to making money is to hire someone that back stabbed the entire Dota community and steal ideas from user generated content without giving any credit what so ever. You know who I'm talking about.
|
On February 07 2013 14:47 Shaella wrote: I'm pretty sure Riot's real secret to success is their business model
You know, making newer, stronger champions to force players into buying said new champions if they want to be competetive, and doing this every two weeks?
Its like 20$ a month, just as good as WoW subscribers
And just as effective at making people not want to leave, after all, they've already poured so much money in.
Really? This is still a thing? I've been playing League for more than 6 months now and I never felt compelled to buy a newly released champion to "stay competitive." I can see people at the very top of the ELO food chain being affected by this, but honestly that is such a disproportionately small part of the player base that I doubt you could base LoL's economic success on it. I have bought champions and skins with RP - but only because I thought they were awesome and I enjoy playing them.
|
The support has nothing to do with their success. I don't even know anyone that's ever dealt with support outside of 1 moron I know who used to BM every game and got banned.
But people claiming how much money people have to spend for the game are completely ridiculous too. For example that one person saying "it's $20 a month"... if you play the game nightly you will have more than enough IP in game to buy the next character by the time he comes out. 90% of the people who I know that played the game didnt spend a cent on unlocking characters.
Even one of the most casual players I know - he only has maybe 2 hours a day to play - He never spent money and owns over 80% of the characters, and usually buys most new ones on release.
As a matter of fact, the only money they spend on the game at all was a couple skins for their main characters, which about half of the ppl I know didnt spend a cent on the game at all, and the ones who did jus got a couple skins. Probably spent $15 the entire lifetime of the game.
The real secret to their success?
A) Make a free game that doesn't force you to buy anything and is not B2P at all (unlike what some people here claim most ppl dont spend money), B) Give people progression systems so that they feel like they are earning something while they learn the game until they addicted, C) A portion of the player base will spend a little bit of money, if only 1/4 people spent money but you have 4 million players that's still a million dollars, D) Keep pumping new stuff out for people so they play the game long term, the longer people play the more chances you have to catch people with a couple bucks burning a hole in their pocket. E) The general F2P game payout for the top 2% - that 2% of players who have entirely too much money to spend will give you more cash than dozens and dozens of your average players.
|
On February 07 2013 16:20 OptimusYale wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2013 15:47 sob3k wrote:On February 07 2013 14:47 Shaella wrote: I'm pretty sure Riot's real secret to success is their business model
You know, making newer, stronger champions to force players into buying said new champions if they want to be competetive, and doing this every two weeks?
Its like 20$ a month, just as good as WoW subscribers
And just as effective at making people not want to leave, after all, they've already poured so much money in. This is totally false, aside from the fact that new champions are not released OP enough to make them must buys by any measure (if they are OP at all, there have been many weak release champs), you could, if you wanted , buy every new release playing around 20 hours a week. If you want to spend money thats purely up to you. Its certainly not a competitive advantage of any consequence. I dont think customer service has anything to do with their success either. I doubt 95+% of the playerbase has ever interacted with it. Its just a fun take on a proven fun game design. They keep it well maintained and fresh and people like it. What they do is rehash an older character, with slightly more powerful stats at the expense of another stat. Gangplank was an old character, so what do they do? Create miss fortune who's ulti is similar to Gangplanks only it can hit anywhere on the map (don't cruicfy me if I'm wrong, I don't play LoL). This character then appeals more to people who play that character. The player can then either grind out Battle points to buy it, or go purchase RP to get it. that's just how they roll and it's a good system. I dislike it, I would rather pay money for a game, then pay no more than get sucked in to f2p with micro transactions.
I wont crucify you but I will tell you you are hilariously wrong, not to mention the fact that Gangplank and MF are absurdly different in function and role.
Gangplank is an old sustained melee fighter who specializes in farming with a global ult which does little damage but more importantly is a good slow. Played top lane or jungle.
Miss Fortune is a slightly newer ranged attack damage carry with strong early laning and a heavy damage cone ultimate and poor escapes. Played bot lane with a support.
To say one is an update of the other because they have AOE ults is just as silly as saying Ancient Apparition is an uncreative update of Shadow Fiend or whatever.
|
On February 07 2013 20:05 sob3k wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2013 16:20 OptimusYale wrote:On February 07 2013 15:47 sob3k wrote:On February 07 2013 14:47 Shaella wrote: I'm pretty sure Riot's real secret to success is their business model
You know, making newer, stronger champions to force players into buying said new champions if they want to be competetive, and doing this every two weeks?
Its like 20$ a month, just as good as WoW subscribers
And just as effective at making people not want to leave, after all, they've already poured so much money in. This is totally false, aside from the fact that new champions are not released OP enough to make them must buys by any measure (if they are OP at all, there have been many weak release champs), you could, if you wanted , buy every new release playing around 20 hours a week. If you want to spend money thats purely up to you. Its certainly not a competitive advantage of any consequence. I dont think customer service has anything to do with their success either. I doubt 95+% of the playerbase has ever interacted with it. Its just a fun take on a proven fun game design. They keep it well maintained and fresh and people like it. What they do is rehash an older character, with slightly more powerful stats at the expense of another stat. Gangplank was an old character, so what do they do? Create miss fortune who's ulti is similar to Gangplanks only it can hit anywhere on the map (don't cruicfy me if I'm wrong, I don't play LoL). This character then appeals more to people who play that character. The player can then either grind out Battle points to buy it, or go purchase RP to get it. that's just how they roll and it's a good system. I dislike it, I would rather pay money for a game, then pay no more than get sucked in to f2p with micro transactions. I wont crucify you but I will tell you you are hilariously wrong, not to mention the fact that Gangplank and MF are absurdly different in function and role. Gangplank is an old sustained melee fighter who specializes in farming with a global ult which does little damage but more importantly is a good slow. Played top lane or jungle. Miss Fortune is a slightly newer ranged attack damage carry with strong early laning and a heavy damage cone ultimate and poor escapes. Played bot lane with a support. To say one is an update of the other because they have AOE ults is just as silly as saying Ancient Apparition is an uncreative update of Shadow Fiend or whatever.
This is all true.
The funny part is the reason he don't play is completely misinterpreted from how the game actually works. Also, that he was using a global ult as the reason MF is a better character, and GP was the one who had the global ult all along lol.
If anything, you would get sucked in to earning IP from playing games to buy new characters. Not "microtransactions". The only reason you would get sucked in to those would be if you want many skin options for every character.
Which, btw, even Dota 2 is going to have microtransactions for items for looks, same as TF2. It's the same thing.
The only time you will ever have to spend real money for anything combat-related is if you CHOOSE to spend your earned IP on a different champion rather than the new one coming out.
Meanwhile, what most players do is save up their IP they get from playing, wait a couple weeks until the new character is free, and try them out to make sure they like the character before spending their IP on it.
|
On February 07 2013 20:05 sob3k wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2013 16:20 OptimusYale wrote:On February 07 2013 15:47 sob3k wrote:On February 07 2013 14:47 Shaella wrote: I'm pretty sure Riot's real secret to success is their business model
You know, making newer, stronger champions to force players into buying said new champions if they want to be competetive, and doing this every two weeks?
Its like 20$ a month, just as good as WoW subscribers
And just as effective at making people not want to leave, after all, they've already poured so much money in. This is totally false, aside from the fact that new champions are not released OP enough to make them must buys by any measure (if they are OP at all, there have been many weak release champs), you could, if you wanted , buy every new release playing around 20 hours a week. If you want to spend money thats purely up to you. Its certainly not a competitive advantage of any consequence. I dont think customer service has anything to do with their success either. I doubt 95+% of the playerbase has ever interacted with it. Its just a fun take on a proven fun game design. They keep it well maintained and fresh and people like it. What they do is rehash an older character, with slightly more powerful stats at the expense of another stat. Gangplank was an old character, so what do they do? Create miss fortune who's ulti is similar to Gangplanks only it can hit anywhere on the map (don't cruicfy me if I'm wrong, I don't play LoL). This character then appeals more to people who play that character. The player can then either grind out Battle points to buy it, or go purchase RP to get it. that's just how they roll and it's a good system. I dislike it, I would rather pay money for a game, then pay no more than get sucked in to f2p with micro transactions. I wont crucify you but I will tell you you are hilariously wrong, not to mention the fact that Gangplank and MF are absurdly different in function and role. Gangplank is an old sustained melee fighter who specializes in farming with a global ult which does little damage but more importantly is a good slow. Played top lane or jungle. Miss Fortune is a slightly newer ranged attack damage carry with strong early laning and a heavy damage cone ultimate and poor escapes. Played bot lane with a support. To say one is an update of the other because they have AOE ults is just as silly as saying Ancient Apparition is an uncreative update of Shadow Fiend or whatever.
I'm guessing he meant GP's ult and MF's E, which do look similar as well as serve the same function, with the exception that GP's ult is global.
|
Netherlands45349 Posts
Its their business model, not their customer support.
Nope, $2 million dollar prize pool championship event with a friggin LIVE ORCHESTRA all tuxedo'd up belting out League inspired melodies. you mean the part where they were incompetent at actually organizing with their 2 million frigging prize pool, had delays all over including an 8 hour Bo3, had teams cheating by looking at a bloody screen behind them and having to stop playing for a a while because the sun was in the player their eyes?
S2 finals were nice I agree but don't try to make it like it went flawlessly, atleast tell the whole story. There are two sides to every coin and while you claim that this is not a Riot Lovefest you have only showed one side.
Riot has the smartest business model in the industry for f2p games and they did it well, that is why they are so sucesfull not of some dumb customer support. It is not really a secret.
|
Riot's real secret is how nincompoop some people are for liking their business model.
Even if I liked lol I still wouldn't play it, for the simple reason that I wouldn't have access to all the heroes(inb4 someone tells me that I can have access if I grind x hours, rofl).
|
On February 07 2013 14:47 Shaella wrote: I'm pretty sure Riot's real secret to success is their business model
You know, making newer, stronger champions to force players into buying said new champions if they want to be competetive, and doing this every two weeks?
Its like 20$ a month, just as good as WoW subscribers
And just as effective at making people not want to leave, after all, they've already poured so much money in. You just made all of that up...
|
A thread on someone complimenting Riot's business model as a good thing makes me want to quit video games for the rest of my life. Lol may be a great game, but their financial success with their business model is one of the worst things to ever happen to gaming. The second worst thing to ever happen is their relationship stranglehold with pro teams and tournaments.
Meanwhile Valve is providing an actually free game, making a bunch of money off of it, and is supporting tournaments without using an iron fist.
|
I'd like to point out that Guinsoo has had nothing to do with the original game in the genre. Since the original game would be Aeon of Strife and not DotA. Not to mention that nobody who knows what Guinsoo DotA is would see it as a positive thing that he's working on the game. 90 seconds doom, what the fuck.
This thread is exactly what you said it wasn't, only looking at one side of the coin praising riot to the skies.
|
I think them missing a replay system is actually a fairly significant flaw. As Riot boasts more and more that they are eSports centric and are focusing on the competitive side of the game, they have yet to make any announcement as to putting in development time or money towards coding a replay file. Replays are essentially the best way to compare and contrast games to see what went wrong, what went right, what trends do we and the enemies do. Beyond improvement, replays are a great way to share games with your friends where you can show off your amazing Nidalee escape. People that didn't get the chance to watch a big LoL tournament that want to see how mid lane pans out and only mid lane can download the replay and focus on that sole area of the map, rather than watch a VOD with commentators watching the entire map.
|
Haha. The fun part is I have never ever had bad customer support experience from Blizzard. In 16 years of playing their games. Of course I never actually asked for outrageous stuff, done totally stupid stuff, wrote tickets while angry, insulted directly or implied their CS. I also never expected the sky from them.
If you want good responses write proper tickets, be respectful, don't demand, wait till your anger goes away, think about what you write, how you describe your issue, what you want done and if that's actually something you should be asking.
|
On February 07 2013 20:05 sob3k wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2013 16:20 OptimusYale wrote:On February 07 2013 15:47 sob3k wrote:On February 07 2013 14:47 Shaella wrote: I'm pretty sure Riot's real secret to success is their business model
You know, making newer, stronger champions to force players into buying said new champions if they want to be competetive, and doing this every two weeks?
Its like 20$ a month, just as good as WoW subscribers
And just as effective at making people not want to leave, after all, they've already poured so much money in. This is totally false, aside from the fact that new champions are not released OP enough to make them must buys by any measure (if they are OP at all, there have been many weak release champs), you could, if you wanted , buy every new release playing around 20 hours a week. If you want to spend money thats purely up to you. Its certainly not a competitive advantage of any consequence. I dont think customer service has anything to do with their success either. I doubt 95+% of the playerbase has ever interacted with it. Its just a fun take on a proven fun game design. They keep it well maintained and fresh and people like it. What they do is rehash an older character, with slightly more powerful stats at the expense of another stat. Gangplank was an old character, so what do they do? Create miss fortune who's ulti is similar to Gangplanks only it can hit anywhere on the map (don't cruicfy me if I'm wrong, I don't play LoL). This character then appeals more to people who play that character. The player can then either grind out Battle points to buy it, or go purchase RP to get it. that's just how they roll and it's a good system. I dislike it, I would rather pay money for a game, then pay no more than get sucked in to f2p with micro transactions. I wont crucify you but I will tell you you are hilariously wrong, not to mention the fact that Gangplank and MF are absurdly different in function and role. Gangplank is an old sustained melee fighter who specializes in farming with a global ult which does little damage but more importantly is a good slow. Played top lane or jungle. Miss Fortune is a slightly newer ranged attack damage carry with strong early laning and a heavy damage cone ultimate and poor escapes. Played bot lane with a support. To say one is an update of the other because they have AOE ults is just as silly as saying Ancient Apparition is an uncreative update of Shadow Fiend or whatever. sob3k, I noticed you totally glossed over the fact they are both pirates. cmon. how could you miss the obvious connection???
|
On February 07 2013 14:41 Zdrastochye wrote: Let me back up and rhetorically ask you, the reader, how many times you've tried to get in contact with a customer service employee of a game to be disappointed with how your situation was handled? Nothing can be more of a kiss of death to retaining player base than a good game with a shoddy customer service reputation.
I found this part incredibly amusing. Almost every game I played has terrible support and sure it might stop a few people from continuing to play, but there are still a lot of people who will keep playing whether it be because they enjoy the game and company they met or probably because of the amount of time they invested in it. Anyway, this industry is no different than the film industry. We're treated like saps and we'll keep coming back for more. So you can pat Blizzard and Riot on the back for stepping it up in the Customer Support department all you want but at the end of the day a ridiculous amount of people will still play. I've seen all sorts of scenarios where you would question the player base yet they keep coming back for more, so I wouldn't call it the kiss of death at all. Especially if you played some of the titles I've played. One of the most recent being Nexon's handling of Dragon Nest in the North American market. One of the worst launches I've seen for a game in the history of all MMOs and they're still having all sorts of tech/support issues.
On February 07 2013 22:18 Steveling wrote: Riot's real secret is how nincompoop some people are for liking their business model.
You know that pretty much applies to everyone who plays games. Just saying. If you play a lot of games. I'm sure there have been many times where you say to yourself, "Why the heck did I pay for this piece of trash?"
|
On February 07 2013 15:36 FlaShFTW wrote: Riot's secret is making the most expensive, free game in the world.
why is most expensive? they have such a great marketing technique in LoL which allows them to make a ton of money. this is different from the other games like maple, wow, diablo, etc. these said games FORCE people to buy items with money to get good at the game. this obviously detracts popularity, though they are all still very popular games.
LoL comes out stronger, however, because you dont need to buy anything in order to become a good player. everything you need can be obtained just from playing the game, thus adding to the addiction level of the game (play more = progress more and get more). and as you progress, you naturally want to progress faster (getting champions faster, skins to make you look cool, etc). This is a natural flow from beginning, middle, and end, where end is the beginning of the "expensive" part of LoL.
however, people like me who are smart will understand the true concepts of LoL and take it as it was meant to be, a free to play game. I have never spent a penny on LoL yet, and never will. why? its a free game for a reason, the extras are just bonus. but people fall into riot's trap of buying RP from the addiction that was mentioned from before.
if you read this, and are buying skins or rp from riot, stop. waste of money that could be spent on more useful things. think about it. do skins make you play better?
Riot made a game that I enjoy playing, I support them in return for some neat pixels because of how much fun I've gotten out of the game.
And although the rune page bundle is far from required, it's made the game much more enjoyable.
And to the people pointing out the flaws of riot tournaments, you're right to criticize them, however i can't think of any organization that runs tournaments with a flawless record. Although the eagle thing was funny for awhile.
|
I will say Riot spends more money than any company on their eSports campaign. Not sure if that is necessarily good or bad, but we'll find out.
|
On February 08 2013 02:45 mordek wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2013 20:05 sob3k wrote:On February 07 2013 16:20 OptimusYale wrote:On February 07 2013 15:47 sob3k wrote:On February 07 2013 14:47 Shaella wrote: I'm pretty sure Riot's real secret to success is their business model
You know, making newer, stronger champions to force players into buying said new champions if they want to be competetive, and doing this every two weeks?
Its like 20$ a month, just as good as WoW subscribers
And just as effective at making people not want to leave, after all, they've already poured so much money in. This is totally false, aside from the fact that new champions are not released OP enough to make them must buys by any measure (if they are OP at all, there have been many weak release champs), you could, if you wanted , buy every new release playing around 20 hours a week. If you want to spend money thats purely up to you. Its certainly not a competitive advantage of any consequence. I dont think customer service has anything to do with their success either. I doubt 95+% of the playerbase has ever interacted with it. Its just a fun take on a proven fun game design. They keep it well maintained and fresh and people like it. What they do is rehash an older character, with slightly more powerful stats at the expense of another stat. Gangplank was an old character, so what do they do? Create miss fortune who's ulti is similar to Gangplanks only it can hit anywhere on the map (don't cruicfy me if I'm wrong, I don't play LoL). This character then appeals more to people who play that character. The player can then either grind out Battle points to buy it, or go purchase RP to get it. that's just how they roll and it's a good system. I dislike it, I would rather pay money for a game, then pay no more than get sucked in to f2p with micro transactions. I wont crucify you but I will tell you you are hilariously wrong, not to mention the fact that Gangplank and MF are absurdly different in function and role. Gangplank is an old sustained melee fighter who specializes in farming with a global ult which does little damage but more importantly is a good slow. Played top lane or jungle. Miss Fortune is a slightly newer ranged attack damage carry with strong early laning and a heavy damage cone ultimate and poor escapes. Played bot lane with a support. To say one is an update of the other because they have AOE ults is just as silly as saying Ancient Apparition is an uncreative update of Shadow Fiend or whatever. sob3k, I noticed you totally glossed over the fact they are both pirates. cmon. how could you miss the obvious connection???
Actually, missfortune hates pirates and gangplank is her lore rival. Which is also why they have the same theme around their abilities.
|
On February 08 2013 04:52 LaNague wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2013 02:45 mordek wrote:On February 07 2013 20:05 sob3k wrote:On February 07 2013 16:20 OptimusYale wrote:On February 07 2013 15:47 sob3k wrote:On February 07 2013 14:47 Shaella wrote: I'm pretty sure Riot's real secret to success is their business model
You know, making newer, stronger champions to force players into buying said new champions if they want to be competetive, and doing this every two weeks?
Its like 20$ a month, just as good as WoW subscribers
And just as effective at making people not want to leave, after all, they've already poured so much money in. This is totally false, aside from the fact that new champions are not released OP enough to make them must buys by any measure (if they are OP at all, there have been many weak release champs), you could, if you wanted , buy every new release playing around 20 hours a week. If you want to spend money thats purely up to you. Its certainly not a competitive advantage of any consequence. I dont think customer service has anything to do with their success either. I doubt 95+% of the playerbase has ever interacted with it. Its just a fun take on a proven fun game design. They keep it well maintained and fresh and people like it. What they do is rehash an older character, with slightly more powerful stats at the expense of another stat. Gangplank was an old character, so what do they do? Create miss fortune who's ulti is similar to Gangplanks only it can hit anywhere on the map (don't cruicfy me if I'm wrong, I don't play LoL). This character then appeals more to people who play that character. The player can then either grind out Battle points to buy it, or go purchase RP to get it. that's just how they roll and it's a good system. I dislike it, I would rather pay money for a game, then pay no more than get sucked in to f2p with micro transactions. I wont crucify you but I will tell you you are hilariously wrong, not to mention the fact that Gangplank and MF are absurdly different in function and role. Gangplank is an old sustained melee fighter who specializes in farming with a global ult which does little damage but more importantly is a good slow. Played top lane or jungle. Miss Fortune is a slightly newer ranged attack damage carry with strong early laning and a heavy damage cone ultimate and poor escapes. Played bot lane with a support. To say one is an update of the other because they have AOE ults is just as silly as saying Ancient Apparition is an uncreative update of Shadow Fiend or whatever. sob3k, I noticed you totally glossed over the fact they are both pirates. cmon. how could you miss the obvious connection??? Actually, missfortune hates pirates and gangplank is her lore rival. Which is also why they have the same theme around their abilities. Well I guess that's technically correct. I was merely making a jest about what probably led our uninformed friend sob3k was responding to astray
|
I don't know how, but the ignorance regarding LoL in TL never ceases to amaze me.
I mean, it's another thing to not know about a game you don't play, but to post things that are completely incorrect and false on pretty much every single LoL thread? Never seen anything like it.
I wonder how long it will take before the posts ''LoL is pay2win'' ''They release OP champs to make manneh!!111'' will stop.
At any rate, never had to deal with LoL customer support, so can't comment on it. Though I'd agree with other posters that their business model is what makes them money, which they then seem to use wisely. (Apparently on customer support, but more importantly, e-sports.)
|
LoL is pay2win/grind2win though. Two completely new accounts with a person that pays and one that doesn't, the person that pays WILL have a fucking advantage untill the person that doesn't pay have grinded enough for there to no longer be an advantage. It eventually stops being pay2win, when you have enough runes and champions.
You can pay to buy champions and boost your IP gain rate which directly increases the speed at which you can buy runes with IP whilst still being equal in champions with someone that doesn't pay. So you'll have champions and runes, they'll only have champions. And having runes is most definitely an advantage that can win you the game.
I mean pay to win is defined by having paying giving you an ingame advantage. Eventually money can no longer give you an advantage, which is always a big plus.
Then there are more minor things like certain skins, that you have to pay to get, reduce the damage taken from certain abilities, but it's only like 1 damage, so it is very very minor and not really worth mentioning. I still do dislike that concept a lot though.
|
United States37500 Posts
You can dislike the fact that Riot encourages the grind factor for you to progress in the game. But it's certainly not pay2win. Having more champions or even tier 1 runes gives you such a negligible advantage, especially at pre level 30 games. I could teach someone to become very proficient with Annie for 450 IP and they could stomp normal games until level 30.
It's fine if you want to hate Riot's grind model. I think Valve's buy-get-all-the-heroes model is great. Riot should have that option. But if you put down RP at level 1, you get some nice skins and weak runes that don't help past level 3 in game. Hate the grind? We can agree.
|
The Mac beta and Magma Chamber fiascos are the worst screwups I have ever seen in gaming, even if people don't remember them.
|
About the grinding for champs and it being a competitive game. It's worth bearing in mind that by the time you have thoroughly learnt a champion, e.g well enough to use them in a ranked game and significantly help your team, you will easily have enough IP to buy a new champ. So for anyone playing to improve, it's not a problem.
The only real issue is if you start a new account in another region (I'd love to be able to transfer my champions/skins from my European account to my Chinese one).
|
On February 08 2013 08:47 TheTenthDoc wrote: The Mac beta and Magma Chamber fiascos are the worst screwups I have ever seen in gaming, even if people don't remember them.
Didn't magma chamber get turned into dominion? And for worst screw ups in gaming, i think diablo 3 @ release and D3 pvp would easily contend with magma chamber.
|
I would just like to comment on the Zynga bit of it all, Zynga was a company valued at 7 billion at its IPO. Despite its recent turmolt, it is still a 2 billion USD company.
Very exaggerated hyperbole
|
On February 08 2013 09:20 Tal wrote: About the grinding for champs and it being a competitive game. It's worth bearing in mind that by the time you have thoroughly learnt a champion, e.g well enough to use them in a ranked game and significantly help your team, you will easily have enough IP to buy a new champ. So for anyone playing to improve, it's not a problem.
The only real issue is if you start a new account in another region (I'd love to be able to transfer my champions/skins from my European account to my Chinese one).
It takes you 60+ games(you won't win them all, which counters the win of the day you'll get here and there) to feel comfortable with a champ? That's how much you'll need if you want to get another 6300 after.
Don't forget you'll probably want 10s of thousands of IP worth of runes, and some rune pages to put them in(have fun playing ranked with just 2). A couple of your favorite champs just became strong/meta/fotm and put on permabanned status? Well that sucks, your champ pool could be really awful now. If you can't see how 'the grind' is extremely prohibitive for entering into the game than you are deluding yourself.
I know people play it 100% free, I'm one of them, that doesn't mean the model isn't pretty restrictive for doing so, it just means enough of us find other aspects of the game worthwhile to keep playing in spite of it. It is absolutely brutal for those people somewhere between 'casual' and 'hardcore' who can't really grind enough IP to earn what they want, but play enough to really want more(deeper champ pool, various runes to create matchup specific pages, rune pages for said setups).
|
Fair point, if you only want to buy 6300 champs than it would definitely be a pain - hopefully they'll drop the price of some soon.
I think 20 games is enough to feel very comfortable with a champ (way more if you've never played that role though). But even after that its a long time before I'm satisfied with how to play them- just getting used to different lane match ups takes a while.
I just have honestly never felt constrained by the rate stuff unlocks, except when playing on my China account (because you can't transfer stuff and its a long way to level 30).
I was new to mobas though, so maybe ex dots/hon players feel differently.
|
On February 08 2013 07:30 NeoIllusions wrote: You can dislike the fact that Riot encourages the grind factor for you to progress in the game. But it's certainly not pay2win. Having more champions or even tier 1 runes gives you such a negligible advantage, especially at pre level 30 games. I could teach someone to become very proficient with Annie for 450 IP and they could stomp normal games until level 30.
It's fine if you want to hate Riot's grind model. I think Valve's buy-get-all-the-heroes model is great. Riot should have that option. But if you put down RP at level 1, you get some nice skins and weak runes that don't help past level 3 in game. Hate the grind? We can agree. Someone that pays will reach the level at which they will have access to tier 3 runes faster than someone that doesn't. Paying gives a fucking advantage that can directly allow you to win versus someone that does not pay, that is the definition of pay to win.
If you have: Player A and Player B
Player A buys and pays for absolutely everything you can. Player B uses zero money.
And you have them both play the same amount of games, and we assume they win the same amount of games, just to make things easier. They play the amount of games needed for A to hit level 30, if A and B were to play versus eachother 1v1 A would have a definite advantage, you can not fucking deny this. That IS pay2win.
And yes, i really really hate the grind model, it is AWFUL for a competitive game. Because all champions aren't equally good and nerfs/buffs are given out far too often. One month the champions you have for top lane might be top tier and the next they might be shit(Exaggerated, but ya).
|
On February 08 2013 13:43 Unleashing wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2013 07:30 NeoIllusions wrote: You can dislike the fact that Riot encourages the grind factor for you to progress in the game. But it's certainly not pay2win. Having more champions or even tier 1 runes gives you such a negligible advantage, especially at pre level 30 games. I could teach someone to become very proficient with Annie for 450 IP and they could stomp normal games until level 30.
It's fine if you want to hate Riot's grind model. I think Valve's buy-get-all-the-heroes model is great. Riot should have that option. But if you put down RP at level 1, you get some nice skins and weak runes that don't help past level 3 in game. Hate the grind? We can agree. Someone that pays will reach the level at which they will have access to tier 3 runes faster than someone that doesn't. Paying gives a fucking advantage that can directly allow you to win versus someone that does not pay, that is the definition of pay to win. If you have: Player A and Player B Player A buys and pays for absolutely everything you can. Player B uses zero money. And you have them both play the same amount of games, and we assume they win the same amount of games, just to make things easier. They play the amount of games needed for A to hit level 30, if A and B were to play versus eachother 1v1 A would have a definite advantage, you can not fucking deny this. That IS pay2win. And yes, i really really hate the grind model, it is AWFUL for a competitive game. Because all champions aren't equally good and nerfs/buffs are given out far too often. One month the champions you have for top lane might be top tier and the next they might be shit(Exaggerated, but ya).
The skill difference between random player A and random player B can be so huge pre-30 that runes/masteries/newchamps make no difference. It'd be no different than if starcraft 3 came out tomorrow and I challenged a friend of mine who never plays RTS games to a custom game where he got 20% more income than me. I'd still guarantee victory even though I'd have never laid hands on the game.
To be able to exploit the advantage you'd have from runes over another opponent who doesn't you'd already have to have a good understanding of the lane matchup and game in general. Odds are you wont if your opponent doesn't have runes yet.
|
On February 08 2013 14:54 I_Love_Bacon wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2013 13:43 Unleashing wrote:On February 08 2013 07:30 NeoIllusions wrote: You can dislike the fact that Riot encourages the grind factor for you to progress in the game. But it's certainly not pay2win. Having more champions or even tier 1 runes gives you such a negligible advantage, especially at pre level 30 games. I could teach someone to become very proficient with Annie for 450 IP and they could stomp normal games until level 30.
It's fine if you want to hate Riot's grind model. I think Valve's buy-get-all-the-heroes model is great. Riot should have that option. But if you put down RP at level 1, you get some nice skins and weak runes that don't help past level 3 in game. Hate the grind? We can agree. Someone that pays will reach the level at which they will have access to tier 3 runes faster than someone that doesn't. Paying gives a fucking advantage that can directly allow you to win versus someone that does not pay, that is the definition of pay to win. If you have: Player A and Player B Player A buys and pays for absolutely everything you can. Player B uses zero money. And you have them both play the same amount of games, and we assume they win the same amount of games, just to make things easier. They play the amount of games needed for A to hit level 30, if A and B were to play versus eachother 1v1 A would have a definite advantage, you can not fucking deny this. That IS pay2win. And yes, i really really hate the grind model, it is AWFUL for a competitive game. Because all champions aren't equally good and nerfs/buffs are given out far too often. One month the champions you have for top lane might be top tier and the next they might be shit(Exaggerated, but ya). The skill difference between random player A and random player B can be so huge pre-30 that runes/masteries/newchamps make no difference. It'd be no different than if starcraft 3 came out tomorrow and I challenged a friend of mine who never plays RTS games to a custom game where he got 20% more income than me. I'd still guarantee victory even though I'd have never laid hands on the game. To be able to exploit the advantage you'd have from runes over another opponent who doesn't you'd already have to have a good understanding of the lane matchup and game in general. Odds are you wont if your opponent doesn't have runes yet.
Does not matter. It is an advantage you can pay for. I'm not saying it matters since it evens out eventually with grinding, but that does not change that it is a fucking advantage you can pay money to achieve. Your analogy is nothing like what i'm talking about, a fitting analogy would be. It'd be no different than is SC2 came out tomorrow and you had to buy units, or play a lot to unlock them and you played against your friend who is a noob but unlocked all the units and you only had the basic units. You would probably win, but he'd still have an advantage that he paid for.
Also, we are assuming that player A and B are 100% equal in skill, obviously. Only difference between A and B is paying vs no paying. Player A has an advantage that can win him games which was achieved from paying. Eventually player B will have the same things as A, but untill he does, A has an advantage.
I'm not sure how an advantage you can pay for isn't somehow pay2win regardless of it being eventually eliminated by grinding.
|
On February 08 2013 15:54 Unleashing wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2013 14:54 I_Love_Bacon wrote:On February 08 2013 13:43 Unleashing wrote:On February 08 2013 07:30 NeoIllusions wrote: You can dislike the fact that Riot encourages the grind factor for you to progress in the game. But it's certainly not pay2win. Having more champions or even tier 1 runes gives you such a negligible advantage, especially at pre level 30 games. I could teach someone to become very proficient with Annie for 450 IP and they could stomp normal games until level 30.
It's fine if you want to hate Riot's grind model. I think Valve's buy-get-all-the-heroes model is great. Riot should have that option. But if you put down RP at level 1, you get some nice skins and weak runes that don't help past level 3 in game. Hate the grind? We can agree. Someone that pays will reach the level at which they will have access to tier 3 runes faster than someone that doesn't. Paying gives a fucking advantage that can directly allow you to win versus someone that does not pay, that is the definition of pay to win. If you have: Player A and Player B Player A buys and pays for absolutely everything you can. Player B uses zero money. And you have them both play the same amount of games, and we assume they win the same amount of games, just to make things easier. They play the amount of games needed for A to hit level 30, if A and B were to play versus eachother 1v1 A would have a definite advantage, you can not fucking deny this. That IS pay2win. And yes, i really really hate the grind model, it is AWFUL for a competitive game. Because all champions aren't equally good and nerfs/buffs are given out far too often. One month the champions you have for top lane might be top tier and the next they might be shit(Exaggerated, but ya). The skill difference between random player A and random player B can be so huge pre-30 that runes/masteries/newchamps make no difference. It'd be no different than if starcraft 3 came out tomorrow and I challenged a friend of mine who never plays RTS games to a custom game where he got 20% more income than me. I'd still guarantee victory even though I'd have never laid hands on the game. To be able to exploit the advantage you'd have from runes over another opponent who doesn't you'd already have to have a good understanding of the lane matchup and game in general. Odds are you wont if your opponent doesn't have runes yet. Does not matter. It is an advantage you can pay for. I'm not saying it matters since it evens out eventually with grinding, but that does not change that it is a fucking advantage you can pay money to achieve. Your analogy is nothing like what i'm talking about, a fitting analogy would be. It'd be no different than is SC2 came out tomorrow and you had to buy units, or play a lot to unlock them and you played against your friend who is a noob but unlocked all the units and you only had the basic units. You would probably win, but he'd still have an advantage that he paid for. Also, we are assuming that player A and B are 100% equal in skill, obviously. Only difference between A and B is paying vs no paying. Player A has an advantage that can win him games which was achieved from paying. Eventually player B will have the same things as A, but untill he does, A has an advantage. I'm not sure how an advantage you can pay for isn't somehow pay2win regardless of it being eventually eliminated by grinding.
That's not fitting at all because 1 is a huge advantage (units) and one is a minor advantage that can only be used/exploited properly if you're actually good at the game. It's the mistake lots of ill-informed players think. Do runes provide an advantage? Sure. Is the advantage game changing? Hardly. Lower level players' advantage who have runes is even limited by the fact that they can't even use the upgraded versions.
By the time you're actually good enough to use your runes to an advantage (in most cases) that means your opponents should also have runes. Getting that extra AD/AP/Whatever on your way to 30 doesn't matter much because you're too bad to use it properly. And if by chance you are good enough to use those runes properly, you were probably good enough to beat your opponent anyway.
|
stop arguing it isnt an advantage. It is, it just doesnt matter very much because you get matched with people without runes and masteries, and by the time you get to ranked play you easily have them for no cost.
|
On February 08 2013 18:01 sob3k wrote: stop arguing it isnt an advantage. It is, it just doesnt matter very much because you get matched with people without runes and masteries, and by the time you get to ranked play you easily have them for no cost.
I think you're vastly overselling the ease with which one can acquire a pretty sizable set of runes, and the pages to put them on. You also continue to give up the option to acquire new champs as you acquire more runes, which probably plays at least a small part(large part?) of why people suggest newer LoL players stick to a very small champ pool and master it.
It's especially bad when Riot balances runes on top of balancing champions. Those mp5 and mp5/lvl runes that were 100% standard on pretty much everyone at one point? Ya nobody uses them anymore. Crit dmg runes? Ha. Oh you didn't have AD runes when they were buffed and became standard even on a lot of AP mids? Better go grab some. No aspd runes? Well you should probably never play those junglers that are vastly superior using them(actually not sure if this still applies, if it doesn't then sucks for you, guy who bought a full page of them for a lot of s1/s2 junglers). Blah blah blah, could go on for days.
The system is pretty fucking broken as far as 'f2p' goes if you want to be more than a casual player who doesn't really pay attention to/notice all of these variables that affect them. LoL get's more expensive the older it gets, that's pretty backwards.
|
On February 08 2013 17:52 I_Love_Bacon wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2013 15:54 Unleashing wrote:On February 08 2013 14:54 I_Love_Bacon wrote:On February 08 2013 13:43 Unleashing wrote:On February 08 2013 07:30 NeoIllusions wrote: You can dislike the fact that Riot encourages the grind factor for you to progress in the game. But it's certainly not pay2win. Having more champions or even tier 1 runes gives you such a negligible advantage, especially at pre level 30 games. I could teach someone to become very proficient with Annie for 450 IP and they could stomp normal games until level 30.
It's fine if you want to hate Riot's grind model. I think Valve's buy-get-all-the-heroes model is great. Riot should have that option. But if you put down RP at level 1, you get some nice skins and weak runes that don't help past level 3 in game. Hate the grind? We can agree. Someone that pays will reach the level at which they will have access to tier 3 runes faster than someone that doesn't. Paying gives a fucking advantage that can directly allow you to win versus someone that does not pay, that is the definition of pay to win. If you have: Player A and Player B Player A buys and pays for absolutely everything you can. Player B uses zero money. And you have them both play the same amount of games, and we assume they win the same amount of games, just to make things easier. They play the amount of games needed for A to hit level 30, if A and B were to play versus eachother 1v1 A would have a definite advantage, you can not fucking deny this. That IS pay2win. And yes, i really really hate the grind model, it is AWFUL for a competitive game. Because all champions aren't equally good and nerfs/buffs are given out far too often. One month the champions you have for top lane might be top tier and the next they might be shit(Exaggerated, but ya). The skill difference between random player A and random player B can be so huge pre-30 that runes/masteries/newchamps make no difference. It'd be no different than if starcraft 3 came out tomorrow and I challenged a friend of mine who never plays RTS games to a custom game where he got 20% more income than me. I'd still guarantee victory even though I'd have never laid hands on the game. To be able to exploit the advantage you'd have from runes over another opponent who doesn't you'd already have to have a good understanding of the lane matchup and game in general. Odds are you wont if your opponent doesn't have runes yet. Does not matter. It is an advantage you can pay for. I'm not saying it matters since it evens out eventually with grinding, but that does not change that it is a fucking advantage you can pay money to achieve. Your analogy is nothing like what i'm talking about, a fitting analogy would be. It'd be no different than is SC2 came out tomorrow and you had to buy units, or play a lot to unlock them and you played against your friend who is a noob but unlocked all the units and you only had the basic units. You would probably win, but he'd still have an advantage that he paid for. Also, we are assuming that player A and B are 100% equal in skill, obviously. Only difference between A and B is paying vs no paying. Player A has an advantage that can win him games which was achieved from paying. Eventually player B will have the same things as A, but untill he does, A has an advantage. I'm not sure how an advantage you can pay for isn't somehow pay2win regardless of it being eventually eliminated by grinding. That's not fitting at all because 1 is a huge advantage (units) and one is a minor advantage that can only be used/exploited properly if you're actually good at the game. It's the mistake lots of ill-informed players think. Do runes provide an advantage? Sure. Is the advantage game changing? Hardly. Lower level players' advantage who have runes is even limited by the fact that they can't even use the upgraded versions. By the time you're actually good enough to use your runes to an advantage (in most cases) that means your opponents should also have runes. Getting that extra AD/AP/Whatever on your way to 30 doesn't matter much because you're too bad to use it properly. And if by chance you are good enough to use those runes properly, you were probably good enough to beat your opponent anyway.
Suddenly getting an advantage isn't an advantage anymore because people are too bad to utilize it? Lol. An advantage is an advantage, and it is an advantage you can pay for. That IS pay to fucking win untill everybody has the same runes and champions. And then instead of units, let's say you have to pay money to get upgrades for your units like +1 damage. 1/1 marines is an advantage over 0/0 marines, even if a better player will win regardless. It doesn't matter. When i was playing LoL to try it out i would've most definitely easily been able to utilize having a lot of runes and a lot of champions over having a very limited pool of champions and not a lot of runes. Runes are an advantage that you can pay to get faster, that is an advantage and untill everybody else has grinded to catch up to you, it is indeed the mechanic behind pay to win. You pay to be infront and be better than others right off the get-go.
Let's compare two games in the same genre:
Dota2: Everybody is 100% equal at all times. LoL: There are points at which paying can giev you an advantage and make you without a doubt stronger from the get go of the game than someone that doesn't pay.
But LoL somehow isn't pay2win untill people all have the rune pages and champions they need and want? I already accepted and stated that, eventually the grinding would catch up to the paying, but untill that point paying gives a definite advantage, and trying to argue that said advantage is minimal or wouldn't matter at low levels of play is just silly.
I simply think this is one of the worst systems possible for a competitive game, especially the unlocking of champions part. If all champions were 100% equally strong in X role, the system would be fine, but we both know that there most definitely are periods where one champion would by far outclass another in a certain scenario and counter picking can win you lanes, and in turn games.
But fine, i'll leave this discussion, but i will never stop finding it outright silly to state that paying for an advantage somehow isn't pay to win.
|
On February 08 2013 18:39 red_ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2013 18:01 sob3k wrote: stop arguing it isnt an advantage. It is, it just doesnt matter very much because you get matched with people without runes and masteries, and by the time you get to ranked play you easily have them for no cost. I think you're vastly overselling the ease with which one can acquire a pretty sizable set of runes, and the pages to put them on. You also continue to give up the option to acquire new champs as you acquire more runes, which probably plays at least a small part(large part?) of why people suggest newer LoL players stick to a very small champ pool and master it. It's especially bad when Riot balances runes on top of balancing champions. Those mp5 and mp5/lvl runes that were 100% standard on pretty much everyone at one point? Ya nobody uses them anymore. Crit dmg runes? Ha. Oh you didn't have AD runes when they were buffed and became standard even on a lot of AP mids? Better go grab some. No aspd runes? Well you should probably never play those junglers that are vastly superior using them(actually not sure if this still applies, if it doesn't then sucks for you, guy who bought a full page of them for a lot of s1/s2 junglers). Blah blah blah, could go on for days. The system is pretty fucking broken as far as 'f2p' goes if you want to be more than a casual player who doesn't really pay attention to/notice all of these variables that affect them. LoL get's more expensive the older it gets, that's pretty backwards.
You act like you have to pay for stuff, and pay for more stuff the more you play. Thats totally not true, once you do the grind to buy runes (and you dont need a lot of runes, that truly is negligible. You can play 99% of the champs in the game with an incredibly minimal runset.) Once you have that you are basically done, you can just unlock new champs whenever you feel like it and you never need to spend a cent. There is certainly nothing broken about the system.
You also have to weight the really small benefit you can accelerate through some grind with cash, with the fact that the whole game is free other than that. I mean SC2 isn't pay to win in the slightest....except you do have to pay $50 in order to win at all. Would you rather Leagues just cost $50 and had everything right there? I mean I think that would be a great option to have if they ever feel like it, but honestly between the two options I certainly wouldn't have paid $50. I would have just played the way I do now. $50 is $45 more than I have paid Riot Games to play the game for like hundreds of hours, and I only chipped in that $5 because I felt like they deserved some kind of support after all the fun I've had.
I mean between the two distribution methods we have one where you must pay to unlock content, and one where you can choose to pay to unlock content or you can earn it ingame. As long as the disparity between paying and nonpaying customers is small enough, and the amount you have to pay to be on equal footing isn't too preposterous, then I would prefer a F2P model.
|
On February 08 2013 19:36 sob3k wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2013 18:39 red_ wrote:On February 08 2013 18:01 sob3k wrote: stop arguing it isnt an advantage. It is, it just doesnt matter very much because you get matched with people without runes and masteries, and by the time you get to ranked play you easily have them for no cost. I think you're vastly overselling the ease with which one can acquire a pretty sizable set of runes, and the pages to put them on. You also continue to give up the option to acquire new champs as you acquire more runes, which probably plays at least a small part(large part?) of why people suggest newer LoL players stick to a very small champ pool and master it. It's especially bad when Riot balances runes on top of balancing champions. Those mp5 and mp5/lvl runes that were 100% standard on pretty much everyone at one point? Ya nobody uses them anymore. Crit dmg runes? Ha. Oh you didn't have AD runes when they were buffed and became standard even on a lot of AP mids? Better go grab some. No aspd runes? Well you should probably never play those junglers that are vastly superior using them(actually not sure if this still applies, if it doesn't then sucks for you, guy who bought a full page of them for a lot of s1/s2 junglers). Blah blah blah, could go on for days. The system is pretty fucking broken as far as 'f2p' goes if you want to be more than a casual player who doesn't really pay attention to/notice all of these variables that affect them. LoL get's more expensive the older it gets, that's pretty backwards. You act like you have to pay for stuff, and pay for more stuff the more you play.
No? My post merely reflects that in your quoted post you brush the grind under the rug as if when any player hits 30 they will have any runes they want and a decent champion pool. It's horrible underselling how much effort it takes to build yourself up to play any other way than specializing in one role(maybe 2 if it's top/jungle which share a lot of similar champs) with the others being pushed to the side as 'if I have to' situations in ranked.
Thats totally not true, once you do the grind to buy runes (and you dont need a lot of runes, that truly is negligible. You can play 99% of the champs in the game with an incredibly minimal runset.) Once you have that you are basically done, you can just unlock new champs whenever you feel like it and you never need to spend a cent. There is certainly nothing broken about the system.
Except, as I pointed out above, there is already precedent that once you're done with the rune grind, you could have to do it again because of balance changes. Then you are back to sacrificing champion selection for runes or vice versa, assuming you are even getting IP at a rate to keep up with champion release(at least that has slowed down somewhat, the 12600/month schedule was ridiculous to keep up).
You also have to weight the really small benefit you can accelerate through some grind with cash, with the fact that the whole game is free other than that. I mean SC2 isn't pay to win in the slightest....except you do have to pay $50 in order to win at all. Would you rather Leagues just cost $50 and had everything right there? I mean I think that would be a great option to have if they ever feel like it, but honestly between the two options I certainly wouldn't have paid $50. I would have just played the way I do now. $50 is $45 more than I have paid Riot Games to play the game for like hundreds of hours, and I only chipped in that $5 because I felt like they deserved some kind of support after all the fun I've had.
Blizzard never attempted to market SC2 as a game where spending money will never gain you a competitive advantage. Could you honestly say a team starting to play LoL right now would not be attempting to climb an IMMENSE uphill battle to become competitive without spending money? Obviously they'd need to cover the burden of knowledge and learn the game, but hypothetically even if they did that they'd still be behind a glass barrier of IP grinding. Dedicated play would eventually catch them up to the current crop of people who have IP but nothing to spend it on, but most of those people have been playing for going on 3 years, and have spent SOME money(or won it when there were more smaller tourneys with RP payouts).
|
On February 08 2013 19:56 red_ wrote:Show nested quote +You also have to weight the really small benefit you can accelerate through some grind with cash, with the fact that the whole game is free other than that. I mean SC2 isn't pay to win in the slightest....except you do have to pay $50 in order to win at all. Would you rather Leagues just cost $50 and had everything right there? I mean I think that would be a great option to have if they ever feel like it, but honestly between the two options I certainly wouldn't have paid $50. I would have just played the way I do now. $50 is $45 more than I have paid Riot Games to play the game for like hundreds of hours, and I only chipped in that $5 because I felt like they deserved some kind of support after all the fun I've had.
Blizzard never attempted to market SC2 as a game where spending money will never gain you a competitive advantage. Could you honestly say a team starting to play LoL right now would not be attempting to climb an IMMENSE uphill battle to become competitive without spending money? Obviously they'd need to cover the burden of knowledge and learn the game, but hypothetically even if they did that they'd still be behind a glass barrier of IP grinding. Dedicated play would eventually catch them up to the current crop of people who have IP but nothing to spend it on, but most of those people have been playing for going on 3 years, and have spent SOME money(or won it when there were more smaller tourneys with RP payouts).
Uh yes I would say that. You could easily unlock every champion and rune you'd ever need before you even got near having the skill level to be an actual competitive team, plus have plenty left over for whatever you wanted. If you spent $50 on IP boosts like the cost of a traditional game you would be rolling in ingame currency.
|
On February 08 2013 19:23 Unleashing wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2013 17:52 I_Love_Bacon wrote:On February 08 2013 15:54 Unleashing wrote:On February 08 2013 14:54 I_Love_Bacon wrote:On February 08 2013 13:43 Unleashing wrote:On February 08 2013 07:30 NeoIllusions wrote: You can dislike the fact that Riot encourages the grind factor for you to progress in the game. But it's certainly not pay2win. Having more champions or even tier 1 runes gives you such a negligible advantage, especially at pre level 30 games. I could teach someone to become very proficient with Annie for 450 IP and they could stomp normal games until level 30.
It's fine if you want to hate Riot's grind model. I think Valve's buy-get-all-the-heroes model is great. Riot should have that option. But if you put down RP at level 1, you get some nice skins and weak runes that don't help past level 3 in game. Hate the grind? We can agree. Someone that pays will reach the level at which they will have access to tier 3 runes faster than someone that doesn't. Paying gives a fucking advantage that can directly allow you to win versus someone that does not pay, that is the definition of pay to win. If you have: Player A and Player B Player A buys and pays for absolutely everything you can. Player B uses zero money. And you have them both play the same amount of games, and we assume they win the same amount of games, just to make things easier. They play the amount of games needed for A to hit level 30, if A and B were to play versus eachother 1v1 A would have a definite advantage, you can not fucking deny this. That IS pay2win. And yes, i really really hate the grind model, it is AWFUL for a competitive game. Because all champions aren't equally good and nerfs/buffs are given out far too often. One month the champions you have for top lane might be top tier and the next they might be shit(Exaggerated, but ya). The skill difference between random player A and random player B can be so huge pre-30 that runes/masteries/newchamps make no difference. It'd be no different than if starcraft 3 came out tomorrow and I challenged a friend of mine who never plays RTS games to a custom game where he got 20% more income than me. I'd still guarantee victory even though I'd have never laid hands on the game. To be able to exploit the advantage you'd have from runes over another opponent who doesn't you'd already have to have a good understanding of the lane matchup and game in general. Odds are you wont if your opponent doesn't have runes yet. Does not matter. It is an advantage you can pay for. I'm not saying it matters since it evens out eventually with grinding, but that does not change that it is a fucking advantage you can pay money to achieve. Your analogy is nothing like what i'm talking about, a fitting analogy would be. It'd be no different than is SC2 came out tomorrow and you had to buy units, or play a lot to unlock them and you played against your friend who is a noob but unlocked all the units and you only had the basic units. You would probably win, but he'd still have an advantage that he paid for. Also, we are assuming that player A and B are 100% equal in skill, obviously. Only difference between A and B is paying vs no paying. Player A has an advantage that can win him games which was achieved from paying. Eventually player B will have the same things as A, but untill he does, A has an advantage. I'm not sure how an advantage you can pay for isn't somehow pay2win regardless of it being eventually eliminated by grinding. That's not fitting at all because 1 is a huge advantage (units) and one is a minor advantage that can only be used/exploited properly if you're actually good at the game. It's the mistake lots of ill-informed players think. Do runes provide an advantage? Sure. Is the advantage game changing? Hardly. Lower level players' advantage who have runes is even limited by the fact that they can't even use the upgraded versions. By the time you're actually good enough to use your runes to an advantage (in most cases) that means your opponents should also have runes. Getting that extra AD/AP/Whatever on your way to 30 doesn't matter much because you're too bad to use it properly. And if by chance you are good enough to use those runes properly, you were probably good enough to beat your opponent anyway. But fine, i'll leave this discussion, but i will never stop finding it outright silly to state that paying for an advantage somehow isn't pay to win.
Because it's 100% hyperbole. In essence you believe that somebody can gain a tiny advantage over their opponent in the learning stages of a game and that will translate to a noticeable win % increase for whatever team he is on. I would love to see a single shred of evidence that supports the claim.
I take issue with paying for advantages in competitive games... but if you're trying to pick on LoL for its system you're simply barking up the wrong tree as their offense would be the real world equivalent of jay walking on a empty street.
|
I thought the definition for pay-to-win was that the person who pays real money will get a distinct advantage that ONLY the person paying with real money will be able to get (say, for instance, exclusive runes in LoL or some exclusive item in an MMO).
LoL's system is not that at all. It's just money vs. time.
|
On February 08 2013 23:32 jpak wrote: I thought the definition for pay-to-win was that the person who pays real money will get a distinct advantage that ONLY the person paying with real money will be able to get (say, for instance, exclusive runes in LoL or some exclusive item in an MMO).
LoL's system is not that at all. It's just money vs. time.
well sort of, almost all games give you the option to unlock things ingame, but in many of them it takes like 300 hours to unlock one item etc. In other words it's completely unrealistic to use the time option.
Riot keeps it pretty reasonable, champions are mostly pretty cheap. Runes are pretty expensive in time compared to money, but luckily you only need a few basic sets to play pretty much everyone just fine.
|
On February 08 2013 23:32 jpak wrote: I thought the definition for pay-to-win was that the person who pays real money will get a distinct advantage that ONLY the person paying with real money will be able to get (say, for instance, exclusive runes in LoL or some exclusive item in an MMO).
LoL's system is not that at all. It's just money vs. time. This exactly. I think most people would call me crazy if I started complaining about time-to-win. What makes the tiny advantage you get so much worse if you pay for it vs playing some extra time for it. Taking a possibly bad/extreme example imagine if in Dota2/LoL/whatever for each hero/champion you wanted unlocked you had to play a single game, unlock 60 heroes, play 60 games or you could pay to unlock them. Obviously that example is skewed in one direction but I don't think the unlocks in LoL are really all that unfavorable to the person spending time rather than money. As long as the advantage can be gained through a means other than money and it's not an outrageous time investment I think it's fine.
Also this:
|
On February 08 2013 23:38 GogoKodo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2013 23:32 jpak wrote: I thought the definition for pay-to-win was that the person who pays real money will get a distinct advantage that ONLY the person paying with real money will be able to get (say, for instance, exclusive runes in LoL or some exclusive item in an MMO).
LoL's system is not that at all. It's just money vs. time. This exactly. I think most people would call me crazy if I started complaining about time-to-win. What makes the tiny advantage you get so much worse if you pay for it vs playing some extra time for it. Taking a possibly bad/extreme example imagine if in Dota2/LoL/whatever for each hero/champion you wanted unlocked you had to play a single game, unlock 60 heroes, play 60 games or you could pay to unlock them. Obviously that example is skewed in one direction but I don't think the unlocks in LoL are really all that unfavorable to the person spending time rather than money. As long as the advantage can be gained through a means other than money and it's not an outrageous time investment I think it's fine. Also this: https://twitter.com/CLGDoublelift/status/299639921809965058
The fact that HSGG is an idiot aside, it's so true that Riot has made it able for you to be absolutely broke and still play this game (gotta have Internet though!) and be equal to someone who has put a lot of money into it, at level 30. Those of you who are frugal and don't spend money indiscriminately are probably more likely to be the same way in game too, and accounting for that, if you saved IP on the grind to 30, and reached it, you'd easily have enough to fill a couple rune pages with runes. All 1350 IP and under champions can be attained in a couple hours of playing, and that's a total of 31 champions. With the exception of the hybrid mpen/arpen runes, and holiday runes, there's been no new runes coming out, therefore requiring you to replace all your old sets so once you have them, you're golden. From that point on you can play on the champions you own, or the free champions every week a you contemplate your next purchase.
|
I think it's probably fair to grant *in principle* that Riot has some pay-to-win elements. Said elements are so negligible compared to the big offenders in F2P (I'm looking at you, Zynga) that the debate amounts to quibbling over details.
|
That is true, the p2w aspects of LoL are pretty miniscule
But anyone who has played LoL for long enough, or was around, noticed newer champions outstripping old ones completely. This isn't some secret, this is a cold hard fact.
|
On February 09 2013 02:48 Shaella wrote: That is true, the p2w aspects of LoL are pretty miniscule
But anyone who has played LoL for long enough, or was around, noticed newer champions outstripping old ones completely. This isn't some secret, this is a cold hard fact.
That is true - that the new champions have to be strong/interesting/exciting to compete with a field of 100 other champions that already exist. Those willing to pay $$$ will be able to pick up more of these, and Riot will be watching the new champs more to make sure they are at the very least playable balance-wise.
That said, there are notable cheap champions that are very strong (Ryze 450 IP, TF 1350, Amumu 1350 IP) and they occasionally rework old broken/bad champions which are often then OP afterward, e.g. Evelynn (1350 IP). So even though it's not an ideal situation from the gamer's perspective, there are good options for people who can't buy every new champion.
|
On February 09 2013 03:01 Ryalnos wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2013 02:48 Shaella wrote: That is true, the p2w aspects of LoL are pretty miniscule
But anyone who has played LoL for long enough, or was around, noticed newer champions outstripping old ones completely. This isn't some secret, this is a cold hard fact. That is true - that the new champions have to be strong/interesting/exciting to compete with a field of 100 other champions that already exist. Those willing to pay $$$ will be able to pick up more of these, and Riot will be watching the new champs more to make sure they are at the very least playable balance-wise. That said, there are notable cheap champions that are very strong (Ryze 450 IP, TF 1350, Amumu 1350 IP) and they occasionally rework old broken/bad champions which are often then OP afterward, e.g. Evelynn (1350 IP). So even though it's not an ideal situation from the gamer's perspective, there are good options for people who can't buy every new champion. its the one falldown in their otherwise , pretty frickin brilliant, moneymaking plan
however, the falldown IS noticeable, and sometimes new champions are just basically a remake of an older champion as is, case in point would be Master Yi and Fiora (they both suck anyways because League cannot into melee carries)
Riot also sometimes non-too,subtly kinda insults their playerbase, like with karma.
Maybe Riot will actually make Karma not suck someday, you know, the last 3150 champion ever released, in what i assume had to be an insult since she has never ever been buffed to be even slightly decent.
|
1. Riot is certainly not doing profit with their esport stuff 2. From what I heard the customer support from riot went crap after tencent bought them
|
On February 08 2013 20:42 sob3k wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2013 19:56 red_ wrote:You also have to weight the really small benefit you can accelerate through some grind with cash, with the fact that the whole game is free other than that. I mean SC2 isn't pay to win in the slightest....except you do have to pay $50 in order to win at all. Would you rather Leagues just cost $50 and had everything right there? I mean I think that would be a great option to have if they ever feel like it, but honestly between the two options I certainly wouldn't have paid $50. I would have just played the way I do now. $50 is $45 more than I have paid Riot Games to play the game for like hundreds of hours, and I only chipped in that $5 because I felt like they deserved some kind of support after all the fun I've had.
Blizzard never attempted to market SC2 as a game where spending money will never gain you a competitive advantage. Could you honestly say a team starting to play LoL right now would not be attempting to climb an IMMENSE uphill battle to become competitive without spending money? Obviously they'd need to cover the burden of knowledge and learn the game, but hypothetically even if they did that they'd still be behind a glass barrier of IP grinding. Dedicated play would eventually catch them up to the current crop of people who have IP but nothing to spend it on, but most of those people have been playing for going on 3 years, and have spent SOME money(or won it when there were more smaller tourneys with RP payouts). Uh yes I would say that. You could easily unlock every champion and rune you'd ever need before you even got near having the skill level to be an actual competitive team, plus have plenty left over for whatever you wanted. If you spent $50 on IP boosts like the cost of a traditional game you would be rolling in ingame currency.
I guess we just thoroughly disagree then. I think people with experience in the genre who would have an accelerated learning curve could easily reach 'competitive'(not pro) status where their lack of champion depth or rune options would be a noticeable disadvantage.
|
On February 07 2013 15:36 FlaShFTW wrote: Riot's secret is making the most expensive, free game in the world.
LoL comes out stronger, however, because you dont need to buy anything in order to become a good player. everything you need can be obtained just from playing the game, thus adding to the addiction level of the game (play more = progress more and get more). and as you progress, you naturally want to progress faster (getting champions faster, skins to make you look cool, etc). This is a natural flow from beginning, middle, and end, where end is the beginning of the "expensive" part of LoL.
I try to explain this to my friends that do buy RP, it doesn't work. I still play with them though, but I keep telling them that they're just falling into a trap. But pretty much, what you said is the truth to what makes them successful - the business model, not their customer service.
|
On February 09 2013 03:17 Yoshi- wrote: 1. Riot is certainly not doing profit with their esport stuff 2. From what I heard the customer support from riot went crap after tencent bought them Well, the whole purpose of their esports promotion is to gain more players in the future and also keep their players and keep them buying runes/champions. Customer service is more or less the same, but it's all really about maintaining their image. They definitely don't have some hot head developer saying stupid shit and they always choose their words wisely unlike HoN. Valve is more professional, but more in the dark, and they let the community speak well on their part for them. Blizzard is just in the dark now.
|
On February 09 2013 15:38 RiceAgainst wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2013 15:36 FlaShFTW wrote: Riot's secret is making the most expensive, free game in the world.
LoL comes out stronger, however, because you dont need to buy anything in order to become a good player. everything you need can be obtained just from playing the game, thus adding to the addiction level of the game (play more = progress more and get more). and as you progress, you naturally want to progress faster (getting champions faster, skins to make you look cool, etc). This is a natural flow from beginning, middle, and end, where end is the beginning of the "expensive" part of LoL. I try to explain this to my friends that do buy RP, it doesn't work. I still play with them though, but I keep telling them that they're just falling into a trap. But pretty much, what you said is the truth to what makes them successful - the business model, not their customer service.
Is it really a trap for people who've played 100's of hours to pay some money in support? Compared to pretty much any form of entertainment it's a great deal, not exactly some terrible trap. Among my friends who play, most have spent about $15, and used it to get some cool skin and unlock a champ they were impatient for. And these things tend to have been bought in the 'middle', not the end. Compared to other games I've played (e.g any new PC game or console game) it's been a good deal so far.
It depends how you define customer service. If you mean the actual service when you write an email complaining about something, then no, it's not important. Though they do seem quite nice in terms of giving people free stuff or fixing problems.
But if you mean customer service in terms of providing esports, balancing, matchmaking and all that, then yes, that's more important than having a microtransaction based business model.
|
|
|
|