Levelling up the Season Pass with Ancient Coins

@arasanpynkflame said in Levelling up the Season Pass with Ancient Coins:

I suggest that Rare includes the option to level up through the season pass using ancient coins. This is quite a common practice in many games with the season mechanic.

While some may say that it is easy to level up through the season, I have to point out that many people may have school or very busy schedules. Sometimes they cannot reach level 100 in time, unless they dedicate a tremendous amount of time playing, especially since on average, the play session of sea of thieves take longer than most games.

I'm not asking that Rare makes it more difficult to level up after implementing this; the current exp needed seems reasonably balanced, and would only probably need some fine-tuning in the future as Rare see's fit. I'm suggesting giving us the option to spend ancient coins to skip levels, for those of us who seriously cannot dedicate time during a season for whatever reason, but would still like the cosmetics.

I understand your point. But perception is a big part of business. Especially micro-transactions. The perceptions surrounding BattleFront 2’s micortransations severely impacted sales. And what you’re suggesting, while at face value, seemingly reasonable… I can imagine a lot of loudmouth gamers getting very vocal and complainy about - thus damaging the brand. Maybe Rare will go for it. But I imagine they would be taking these sorts of possible ramifications into account.

@wolfmanbush That is a bit insensitive (respectfully). I do care about the game, and so do my friends, but college life demands constant work from the beginning to the end of the semester. And as I said, the average SoT session takes longer than any other game.

As for "catering", this does not, in any way, harm the people who can afford to play constantly; they still get to play a lot, and level up their pass organically, without paying anything. To "cater" to a group of people implies taking care of their needs ON THE EXPENSE of other groups. No one's expense will be sacrificed by my suggestion. And besides, as I said before, this is standard practice for passes.

Your asking for pay to win.

Someone who can't pay or play isn't being helped by this.

@wolfmanbush And besides, I can get the season pass to level 50. 60 if I'm pushing it. Its not like these people are fully inactive. But to demand from me to reach the full 100 every season, otherwise I'm not someone "worth catering to" is highly insensitive and solipsistic.

@pithyrumble Pay to....win? for cosmetics? that you can get either way, whether you invest time or money?

@wolfmanbush I wont be able to play either way. My play time will remain the same. Not adding this wont encourage me to play more. SoT will receive the same amount of play time from me, but can also receive financial support as well. Everyone wins here.
And besides, I never said I'm entitled to it. I didn't ask for the rewards for free, nor have I demanded it like I deserve it.

@wolfmanbush The devil is in the details here. Someone who pays in order to level up their season would not constantly pay for a game they are not planning to invest time and activity in. Someone who cares enough about the game to invest money for the seasons would also need dedication in order to get commendations, and the variety of cosmetics in-game that require perseverance and dedication.

And besides, the seasons dont seem to me to be about dedication, and achieving "a sense of pride and accomplishment" once you complete it; the whole goal of it, as rare themselves put it, is to award shorter sessions. Something which they achieved in a sense, but still left more to be desired.

Rare themselves said that the cosmetics in the seasons are not limited time, and they may come back in the store later: further asserting my point that paying for rewards with money is still a viable option for the vision of the seasons.

The seasons are NOT about dedication. Thats an inaccurate assessment of the vision of how seasons began. Also, to add to that, there are still events and limited time cosmetics. THESE strike me as the area where dedication is necessary.

And as a final note, I repeat, this is not pay to win. The trick is in the word "win"; This is still just cosmetics.

@wolfmanbush And, besides, I disagree with your very vision on how the game should move forward. Rare themselves seemed to have realized that they need to appeal to more casual players. From adding seasons (who's goal is to reward shorter sessions), to the ability to buy resources (something which I have suggested here before, and was bombarded by people who told me that "the game should reward perseverance"). I agree with the vision Rare seems to have.

I disagree that Rare should bet on longer sessions and perseverance entirely; this is the same vision of games that bet on "tryhardness" and grinding. I agree with Rare's current vision, which is that what the game truly needs, is to welcome as many people as possible, and appeal to casual, easy to digest, and welcoming gameplay, especially for newcomers.

Thats not to say that they shouldnt reward people who persevere and push the game to the next level; but a healthy balance is always necessary. A balance that my suggestion doesn't break, mind you.

In summary: Seasons are for casual players. That's why they were made. If you want Rare to cater to you, the area where they can do that is company levels, commendations, bilge rat events, etc.

@wolfmanbush said in Levelling up the Season Pass with Ancient Coins:

You are suggesting paying to do nothing

Again, as I said, its a healthy balance, and the devil is always in the nuance. The matter is not black and white, where you will have people playing all the time, and others who log in, buy cosmetics, and log out, only showing up during seasons. I don't have the player data, nor do you, so I'm leaving this suggestion to rare. My guess is that people who would benefit from this are people who can go through the season, but it's hard for them to hit that 100 mark consistently. I, for example, can hit the 50 mark easily, the 60-65 mark if I have a lot of free time, but its hard to go further.

Do you honestly think that "just waste time, pick gems, and find loops for you to level up" is what the game needs? That's bound to get boring and drive casual players away. I strived for many commendations and events that required perseverance. I made my own challenges to overcome, just for the rush. But nothing in sea of thieves, so far, has been more soul crushing than the process I have to do just to reach level 100.

Let's think about this sensibly and realistically: someone who's willing to pay money to get cosmetics in a game surely wants to play it. They wont sit around doing nothing, otherwise they wouldn't care to pay. Again, I cannot say this with certainty, nor can you. Only rare has the data of players, but I honestly think that the majority of people who would use this feature are people who DO play the game and WANT to play it more, but struggle to hit the 100 mark every season.

@wolfmanbush I do not want to spam, but I forgot to add this one IMPORTANT detail: for every game with seasons that employ this feature, the balance is already built into it. Usually, buying levels is expensive, and the more levels you buy, the more expensive it gets. If you were to buy the entire season, it would be ridiculously expensive. That way, the proper thing to do is to play as much as you can, and when you can't anymore, you pay for the remaining levels, with the smallest bill for you. That is how it's always done.

The feature, by default, discourages people from doing it out of convenience, and do it for necessity. The system has worked so far for many games.

You know what you can do in a short session?

You can do a world event, a voyage, sink a ship for it's loot, chase a ship down to the red sea, do a tall tale, do more tall tales, sail to different islands on the seas, check out immortalizations, clear commendations, and so, so, SO much more. You will NOT be disagreeing with the fact that Rare bets on longer sessions when you can do everything you want to do, little by little, in a short session.

Seasons were made not only for allowing casual players something to earn even when they earn nothing from failing to turn in loot, but from getting involved in the game and consuming its content. You get REWARDED for playing the game, Seasons REWARDS you for playing the game. If you're not trying to play the game, and still want to get the rewards that has YET to resurface following the season's end, you're grossly misunderstanding how a rewards system works for a game you can spend 30 minutes to 1 hour in, and collect the season's rewards within 3 months.

If you don't enjoy the game, or don't have the time to play the game, that's a pure miss on your end, even if you can't do anything about it. However, I will not be very accepting of cheesing the point of earning cosmetics simply by playing the game via real world money.

@wolfmanbush said in Levelling up the Season Pass with Ancient Coins:

sounds like a predatory way to do business

It's only predatory if the EXP needed to level up is intentionally made higher in order to get people to pay. Otherwise, its just options.

@nex-stargaze I don't think you read anything I said regarding how this benefits the people who try their best but can't make it, or how Sea of Thieves require longer play on average than other games. I won't be repeating myself because I don't want to spam, but everything you just said, I answered in my previous comments. I'd refer you there.

You want to lvl up season pass, with ancient coins. Ancient coin which requires real money to own and buy stuff with.

That sir is “pay to win” or whatever.
You are not entitled to earn any of the season pass rewards. They come to you as you normally play the game.

If you miss anything, Rare has said majority of the items will appear in the emporium shop OR as an unlocks or reward in the future.

If you feel the need to buy your way past the rewards instead of playing….maybe you shouldn’t be playing.

Season is nearly over and myself only just reached 80. Did I play everyday? No. I can tell you I only played maybe 1 month and few days between with at most 3 hours.

Excuse about work, school, busy schedule is nonsense as everyone has it. It called picking what you do with your life. Do you want to play video games or study? Earn money or buy ingame items?

Remember. It’s a video game at the end. It has no control over your real world.

@arasanpynkflame

Personally I don’t understand why you want to pay money to advance the season pass.

In regards to the plunder pass, you can buy it after you reach 100 renown and you will automatically be rewarded and locked ancient coins and cosmetics as soon as you log in. I know because I have done it.

In regards to the renown, season 1 offered the pirate legend curse which is possibly the best reward we could have been given. Other than that, the cosmetics aren’t anything special. I don’t see the need to progress the renown process to get those cosmetics.

I don’t know what your opinion is on alliance servers but they can help you raise your renown. Playing in a “safe space” so to speak would raise your renown easily although some people consider it cheating since gold and cosmetics are the only goal of the game

This doesn’t need a duplicate thread. Rare already stated that they won’t be doing this.

https://www.seaofthieves.com/community/forums/topic/142606/let-us-buy-levels-in-the-plunder-pass/33

@greatfailure82 said in Levelling up the Season Pass with Ancient Coins:

i've said this in other posts. buying levels in a season pass is a scummy move because the gaming industry has made it a scummy move.

id rather see the time limit on season passes (at least for the paid rewards) removed as there is 0 reason for them to be there

Much better solution actually. There we go. Thread sorted.

Not needed since seasons are fairly easy to level up as long you put in roughly 2-3 hour session doing quick and easy voyages or world events or completing the deeds.

The best way to level up is by doing world events or for more casual approach to level up season is by doing tons of bounty voyage and taking on pve threat like megs, kraken, roaming captains or skeletons ships

I swear a Rare employee already said they wouldn't be adding this. Was pretty recent too.

@arasanpynkflame
what's next , let rare become into activision ?
so they could milk every single penny out of our wallets ? yeah no thanks.

@personalc0ffee wait, why do we have to drag Destiny through the dirt? I have legit never seen anyone buy tiers in that game. Only becomes available to buy the last 3 weeks of the season anyways.

@mferr11 Yeah I posted the link to what the Dev said.

@personalc0ffee I agree with you. Just wondered why you singled out Destiny when any of the last few Cod games are bigger offenders in terms of predatory practices.

I personally always have the pass maxed out in the first 2-3 weeks of a given season so I’m not even sure how buying levels functions.