In my article Basics - [The New Age] PBE: Changes I introduced the changes to game mechanics as introduced in PBE [The New Age]. To get a full picture on what I'm talking about in below article, I strongly recommend to read that article first. This holds true especially for readers who do not have access to the PBE test server where these changes are introduced by the game team and tested by a limited amount of players.
Recap
To reiterate in short, the changes introduced in PBE [The New Age] are:
- complete gear rework,
- major commander skill tree changes,
- new battle mechanics
- Energy pool instead of Stamina/AP
- multiple conscription queues for same troop type,
- exp leveling past 40 only via PvP,
- unique item as separate slot
as the smaller ones.
Many Discussions
Now, the past three or four days the discussions went wild. From first spontaneous statements like "I'm quitting" about 2 hours after PBE got launched (even by players who don't have access to the test environment) to some more in depth discussions - you can find pretty much everything. The main argument that I see is that these changes are messing too much with the individual investment into the game and that people are afraid of losing value on their game safe.
While I can see how some "value" in terms of time and effort spent on optimizing the account for the current Meta might be rendered as "useless" or "wasted", I cannot agree with the notion that the actual monetary value spent gets reduced by these changes (barring the lost skill points from Impart Wisdom, which I mentioned in the article).
Requested Changes
Many players are unhappy with the idea of the current special effects being scratched completely. However, for many months numerous players, including those now unhappy ones, have been remarking on some of these effects being "broken" or "OP" and the necessity to nerf them. Personally, I don't see the huge issue with losing the special effects we have known for that long - aside from the fact that we are simply used to them and know what they do without having to scratch our head anymore to find a good solution for a fight we can win.
Realistically, this change affects literally every single player, which makes it for once a decently fair adjustment in my opinion. In contrast to that, every prior change to gear items or commander skills has been "unfair" as it always only hit a few people who had focused on this commander or gear piece and then suddenly couldn't use it feasibly anymore (e.g. Haldir's unique as many might remember).
If Frenzy would be taken out for example, we'd have a lot of unhappy Khaldoon players (and others of course). We would have people at a major disadvantage who worked for this for months maybe and hunted down every single Gigantic Hammer they could lay their hands on. Meanwhile the rest of the community could laugh and rub their hands because they haven't been affected. I can think of no way of "nerfing" that item which would have resulted in the owners of the item being happy in the end. Whether it be a direct or indirect nerf. And this holds true for so many items in the game.
By changing the whole setup of items, the problem gets ripped out at the root: special effects that are only available for some items and not for others, especially the gold gear ones. One might get the idea that the uproar against these changes could also stem in the fear of not being at a big enough advantage over others anymore. With every effect available to every gear item and thus to every player at every spending level, the special effects of gold gear are not something that only one spending type has available anymore.
However, while this change to the special effects evens out the chances for good special effects throughout every layer of player type, gold gear still brings enough advantage in order to have decidedly higher value than purple items or lower. Personally, I would think that should make everyone happy - aside from the required effort needed for a short time of adjusting to the new "rules".
The Level of Upset
So, why are people so extremely upset about it? Mind you, the anger is about a bunch of changes of which we do not know at this point how many of these will actually make their way into the game or in what way, nor do we have any idea on a timeline in which they will be implemented into the game. Are people just upset because of change in general?
I can see the argument about having to get used to the new mechanics. It will require a little bit of effort to get to know the new mechanics (unless you want to play mediocre and wait for the smart guys to come up with ready made solutions for you) and some players might have a certain fatigue related to the game and not want to put that amount of effort in it - fair enough.
You have to try and test etc., but wait - isn't that exactly what a vast amount of people like so much about the game? Countless players theorycraft for hours on end, test commanders, swap troops, gear, recharge, test again, rinse & repeat.
"Loss of Investment"
All that being said (and I have hinted at the following already), the argument that I am struggling with the most is the notion that you lose your investment. For one, we don't lose anything. If these mechanics get implemented into the game, we will still have the same shiny toys in our game safes. Just with different names and features, but the same value (in terms of quality/rarity) and number (you get all used pieces back as basic).
Yes, in some cases having known about such changes ahead of time might have caused you to hold on to some pieces instead of scrapping them for that one special effect you wanted to strengthen, but it is still not a loss because the value is on your account - nothing changed in that regard. (*Secret Tip: before it gets implemented, use an elven hammer to get that one piece out that you really want to get back)
More importantly though - why are we so fixated on the term "investment"? Investment is the process of using money with the aim to profit (=financially). Never have I played a game, paid for it (big or small amounts) and in the end gotten any money back. At that moment when you pull your credit card your money is gone. Of course you want good quality service for the money you spent - and I believe a game team who attempts to make the game enjoyable across the player base (not just for some of them) is good quality service. But thinking of it as an "investment" is too far fetched in my personal opinion.
Perceived Value
So, what is it that we believe we gain when we pay money for (or "invest" into) a game like this? We make the transaction to buy a digital service in order to enhance the experience which we otherwise can enjoy for free as well. We buy ourselves an advantage over other players who either don't want to or who cannot spend (that amount of money).
For some it might maybe carry the impression of "prestige" within the community or even power, but realistically we buy to get that instant gratification from progressing just a little bit faster and on top of that the satisfaction of being "stronger" than others.
Real Value
We established, what you get for spending on the game is extra service in terms of digital goods. The basic service provided by the game developers is that we can use their assets and enjoy your free time while doing so. This is for free. And here we come to, what I believe is (and in my opinion always should be) the real value we should consider as exchange for money spent: the opportunity to spend our time doing something we enjoy - you could call it a hobby. On top of this we are enabled to meet numerous people across the globe who have the same interests as we do, the option to find friends among them and at the very least the shared time while playing together and having fun.
Can we gain these values otherwise than by spending on a mobile game? Of course. No doubt about that. However, we chose to play a mobile game. We chose to play this game specifically. We chose to stay in the community that came along with the game. In fact, we choose to do so every single day and every single time we log into the game - over and over again. And once we do not enjoy the process anymore - once we cannot get this value out of our "hobby" anymore -, it is probably time to find something else we enjoy better. Nothing wrong about that. That's how things go.
If that happens to be the case, we cannot blame anyone. There is no one to blame. And unless the game team changes the graphics into obnoxiously poor quality or anything the like, they are still providing us with the same service that we chose in the beginning.
For me this PBE server and the changes implemented into it show that the game team still cares about the game. There is still the needed passion to make things better along the road. To value this effort and passion I do not have to agree with all of their ideas. I have always the option to give positive feedback (which may very well be criticism) and bring sound arguments why I think it is a bad idea to bring idea x, y, z into the live servers.
Conclusion
Personally I believe it is not worth to get upset about these changes. Do I like them all? Certainly not. Do I hate them all? Certainly not that either. For the time being, let's just give it a try and if the game is really terrible after these changes were made and pushed into the live servers and we played it for a while, then we can maybe get upset. Or, instead we could also just see if we can find something else to occupy our minds with and maybe we can do it even with some of the friends we met in RtW. But for now, let's just keep playing and see where things go - or like younger folks than me might put it: "chillaaaaaxxxx".
* Disclaimer:
This article is my personal opinion based on the impending changes to the game as implemented in the test environment PBE server [The New Age]. Unless stated otherwise, these features are not available in live servers at the time of publication.
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