Neverwinter: Pay to Win.

Why is the Zen system Pay 2 Win some people might ask, well it really comes down to common sense, basic maths, and some everyday economics.

I know this has been done by others so this is nothing new but It is important to have all this info available for the discussion.

First lets look at the Conversion Rate / Ratio.

$1 USD = 100 Zen.

Now with that out of the way, How does this correlate with Astral Diamonds?

Well the exchange rate between Zen and Astral Diamonds is something that can be effected by players and will fluctuate over time, but only to a certain point. PWE / Cryptic have set a range of 1 Zen to a range of 50 – 500 Astral Diamonds.

As of Right now, what I’m getting from people of the community / forums is that the current exchange rate is:

1 Zen to 400 Astral Diamonds or pretty close.

Now as everyone must know you can only make 24,000 Astral Diamonds a day per character, 24,000 is the limit of rough Astral Diamonds you can convert a day. (I know you can make more via playing the auction house game but that is for another discussion.)

So what we are looking at is $1 USD = 100 Zen = 40,000 AD

Ok now that all that fun is over, if it is not abundantly clear why this system is extremely BAD, Pay to Win, and frankly retarded, lets look at some real life stuff.

I live in the U.S. so we will go by that because it makes it easier for me, the federal minimum wage in the U.S. is about $7.25 / hour USD right now. (Might be changing to $9+ soon but that is a different story / argument all together)

Now of course these are entry level jobs that mostly high school kids are working for their first time, but it is a good starting point to use as a cross reference for this “eye opening” break down of this greedy, money grubbing, “Free to Pay” solution this game / developer / publisher has going for it.

With that said, 40,000 AD = 1.6 days at the above 24,000 AD / day conversion rate.

Now lets look at this in the perspective of common Zen store purchased items.

50% Mount = 500 – 800 Zen = $5 – $8 (0.69 – 1.10 Hrs @ 7.25/Hr)
(200,000 – 320,000 AD) (8.3 – 13.3 days AD farming)

80% Mount = 2,000 – 3,000 Zen = $20 – $30 (2.76 – 4.14 Hrs @ 7.25/Hr)
(800,000 – 1,200,000 AD) (33.3 – 50 days AD farming)

110% Mount = 3,000 – 4,000 Zen = $30 – $40 (4.14 – 5.52 Hrs @ 7.25/Hr)
(1,200,000 – 1,600,000 AD) (50 – 66.6 days AD farming)

C Ward = 1,000 Zen = $10 (1.4 Hrs @ 7.25/Hr)
(400,000 AD) (16.6 days AD farming)

P Ward x10 = 100 Zen = $1 (0.14 Hrs @ 7.25/Hr)
(4,000 AD) (0.16 days AD farming)

Bag 24 slot = 1,000 Zen = $10 (1.4 Hrs @ 7.25/Hr)
(400,000 AD) (16.6 days AD farming)

Bag 12 slot = 600 Zen = $6 (0.83 Hrs @ 7.25/Hr)
(240,000 AD) (10 days AD farming)

Character Slot x2 = 500 Zen = $5 (0.69 Hrs @ 7.25/Hr)
(200,000 AD) (8.3 days AD farming)

Retraining Token = 600 Zen = $6 (0.83 Hrs @ 7.25/Hr)
(240,000 AD) (10 days AD farming)

x16 Bank Slots = 600 Zen = $6 (0.83 Hrs @ 7.25/Hr)
(240,000 AD) (10 days AD farming)

Companions = 1,500 – 3,500 Zen = $15 – $35 (2.07 – 4.83 Hrs @ 7.25/Hr)
(600,000 – 1,400,000 AD) (25 – 58.3 days AD farming)

Enchanted Key = 125 Zen (x10 = 1,125 Zen) = $1.25 ($11.25) (0.17 (1.55) Hrs @ 7.25/Hr)
(50,000 AD (450,000 AD)) (2.083 days (18.75 days) AD farming)

Professions Asset Pack = 1,600 Zen = $16 (2.21 Hrs @ 7.25/Hr)
(640,000 AD) (26.6 days AD farming)

Professions Booster Pack = 300 Zen = $3 (0.41 Hrs @ 7.25/Hr)
(120,000 AD) (5 days AD farming)

Also Important to note:

Mount Training 2 = 768,000 AD (32 days AD farming) = 1,920 Zen = $19.20 (2.65 Hrs @ 7.25/Hr)

Mount Training 3 = 2,040,000 AD (85 days AD farming) = 5,100 Zen = $51 (7.03 Hrs @ 7.25/Hr)

Mount Training Equaling 2,808,000 AD (117 days AD farming) = 7,020 Zen = $70.20 (9.68 Hrs @ 7.25/Hr)

The above Mount Training costs more, both time and money wise than just purchasing a mount directly through the Zen Store which is account wide.

So all you need to know from all this is your time means nothing in this game, they pretty much want you to buy all these things because it will take you absurdly longer to do it in game to the point for retardation.

Looking at something as simple as the Retraining Token, why in any world should it take a person who truly wants to “Play for free” 10 days of grinding the 24,000 AD a day to get 1 Retraining Token when someone with a minimum wage job that wants to pay can make in less than a hour? How does this make sense to anyone?

It is clearly Pay to Win, you’re buying power, and with the amount of time it takes to grind these things for free in game is ridiculous. In the time it would take you to grind all these things free the next expansion / new content will be out and you will never be able to even remotely keep up. The things in the Zen store that people are buying are not purely convenience or cosmetic items, not at all.

You can call it “convenience” all you want, but the money to time ratio is very screwed up, it is not convenience more than it is a ultimatum to advancement and the free players that want to stay competitive with the people spending money.

“To create the strongest Enchantment possible, it will cost 160 dollars and 64 shards. Unlike companions, these can be used in PvP.”

This must drive min / maxers that don’t have tons of money to throw around completely insane.

“Time is money says the proverb, but turn it around and you get a precious truth. Money is time.”

So if these store items are a “convenience” as all the supporters / defenders / fanbois claim then why is your money worth almost 10 times the amount of in game time of a “free” player even at a basic minimum wage starting point?

Please can someone explain to me how these so called “Free to Play” games with money grubbing “al la carte” cash shops with obvious Pay to Win elements in it are better than paying for a subscription based MMO / Game?

Sub games also naturally filter out a lot of bad / abusive / troll players as well as bots / gold sellers / etc, a lot better than F2P games do for many fairly obvious reasons. You end up with a stronger more dedicated core group of players which makes the community much stronger most of the time. Quality > Quantity of players.

Not that being able to pay for a monthly sub makes you an adult or mature or anything like that, but it has served as a pretty good “hard filter” in the past through all these sub based games all the way back to the first MMOs like Ultima Online. Filtering out all the different unwanted types of people that do nothing but hurt the game and drag it down because the typical majority won’t pay to do that, never mind pay monthly.

When all you have to do to play a game is go to the website, make a free acct, download / install the game and GO, sure you get more players and your world seems more full, but I always have to step back and think “At what cost?”. Because 90% of the time IMHO it is not worth it, the positives don’t outweigh the negatives, and I would rather pay $20 – $60 for the game and $5 – $15 for a monthly sub to avoid all that stupidity.

I’m not sure about you all, but I dislike pay to win games, systems, etc. I also don’t want to pay “a la carte” for my gaming experience in a single game, I’d rather buy the game out forthright and pay monthly and have access to everything, the full game. I don’t want to be “nickled and dimed” for every little thing in the game, or to access certain things.

I’d much rather pay a sub to pay for the developers to actually develop the game / content and fix / patch the game, rather than the developers wasting as much development time as needed on the cash shop so they can cover their paychecks / overhead. How can you continue to develop the game, or content in general, and patch / fix the game as a F2P game if you’re not making enough money from micro transactions to afford it?

You can’t, that is why the cash shop will always take development time priority over the game, at least until they are making a profit.  Bottom line is I want to play a game, not a cash shop. A bit of a exaggeration, but still valid.

That being said I am still enjoying the game for Free at the moment, I find the combat to be a lot of fun.  Not sure how long this feeling will last considering how P2W the end game is, but we will ride it out as long as possible while I wait for other games I’m excited for to come out like DayZ Standalone, Camelot Unchained, ToA, etc.

Now Discuss… /putsonflameretardantsuit