A few points... (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Wednesday, July 22, 2015, 16:13 (3511 days ago) @ CyberKN

They're what drove me away from that multiplayer after a couple of weeks. The mode was fun for a bit, but I got sick of getting the same respec drops over and over and over again, and never getting to play as new classes because RNG.

hmmm... sounds familiar ;)

First of all, Bioware did a good job of addressing this issue by adding new types of resupply packs. Their were "character packs", "weapon packs", etc. So you could buy packs (using credits or real money) that had a good chance of giving you what you want.

And consider this: In Destiny, certain pieces of gear can only drop from certain activities. So for me to get the new HoW exotics, I had to play A LOT of a game mode that I don't enjoy. In Mass Effect 3, you could do whatever you wanted (which is admittedly way more limited) and take the credits you earn to buy the specific loot packs that give you the best chance of earning what you want. Long term, I found ME3 far less frustrating in terms of earning new loot.

I was exaggerating when I said "A couple of weeks". I played up to the point when they added the Krogan Vanguard, and they must have added those packs later.

And yes, Destiny suffers from the same problem. I probably would have quit a long time ago if I hadn't started playing with DBO peeps. I know for sure that I wouldn't have picked up the season pass.

Unless your game is free, micro-transactions are wholly unacceptable because I already PAID you for your game's existing content! I'm your customer, not a cow to be milked dry!

But we weren't milked... we got a bunch of good new content, for free! I played for months at a time without paying a penny, and never felt disadvantaged compared to those who spent money.

I would infinitely prefer to pay up front and get access to the new classes and maps instead of the banal RNG grind we got. Time is money, especially if you have other commitments.

And personally, I try to avoid Free-to-play games with micro-transactions anyway, because as a player you can't trust the developer to not incentivise you to pay for them through game mechanics.

This is the import part, I feel. In ME3, I think Bioware got it all right. They made it easy enough to earn stuff in-game that nobody felt pressured to buy, but the microtransactions were cheap enough that plenty of people dropped a couple bucks from time to time. So we got great new updates that kept the game fresh on a frequent basis.

Personally, I much prefer this to what we've had with Destiny so far: paying $20 at a time for content updates that don't add enough to the game to justify the price or the wait (IMO).

It's preferable to Destiny, but only because the Destiny stuff has been so lackluster. You're comparing two different business models, but the quality of content of those examples is so disparate as to create a bias.

(To preface my next point: I support devs using the paid DLC model, but expect a certain level of quality when you ask for more of my money to expand on a product where the "heavy lifting" has already been done.)

There are a ton of really good games that don't charge the consumer AT ALL for minor content updates, and they're able to do that because they're competent at both money management and game development. When you start charging the consumer extra for things that other devs offer for free (eg. Cosmetics in a non-F2P game), it shows either incompetence or greed.

All good points. I do feel there are a couple other advantages to the "microtransaction" model. First, it keeps the player base unified. We've seen countless multiplayer games over the past decade fragment their own player base through paid DLC packs. It sucks, and it harms the long term health of a game.

Developers are clearly feeling the hurt of the typical DLC model as well. Titanfall just made all of their DLC free forever to get the player base back together. Halo 5's DLC will be free (the question is whether or not their micro-transaction model causes problems). I bet we'll see similar moves from Gears of War as well.

The other thing that I like about the way Mass Effect handled things is that I could see the new content in action even if I didn't have it yet. I could play with people who were using the new characters, and see if I liked the look of them or not. Destiny's (standard) DLC model means you have no way to know if you will like the new content or not until you buy it, and by then it is too late.