Don’t come any closer! I have money, and I’m not afraid to use it!!! 
2 Likes
This is an example of “pay to win” that I am very much against and should not be encouraged as a business model whatsoever. Expansion packs, new commanders and aesthetic additions, sure, but not in-game progress.
If you want to encourage people to level up their prestiges, do it through achievements - for example:
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Your prejudice against pay 2 win business models could lead to causing other players suffer in that they would prefer to see this game live on for another few years with new maps and commanders being added regularly. Also adding this wouldnt be “pay2win”, this is just a grind skip. A true pay2win feature would be like allowing players to use all the Masteries for a price, but this is nothing like that.
also I think the devs should have added something like this in the first place regardless, I dont see how they can sustain Sc2 with a huge update like the prestige system, without adding any sort of way to gain from it due to its lack of monetization.
3 Likes
It’s kinda sounds more like you are the prejudice one here.
History has shown sc2 and coop mode has lived and continues to live just fine without pay2win. And this indeed is pay2win proposal. You can’t possibly say prestige doesn’t buff or alter gameplay? So that is by definition unlocking content by paying with mula.
This whole “suffering” is where the prejudice is showing… nobody’s suffering from NOT paying what is already FREE… so… yeah…
5 Likes
pay2win would be if literally the only way to unlock it was with money, but that’s not the case, this is only for skipping the grind, so therefore this is not pay 2 win.
Also the rate at which new commanders or maps are released has been on a steady decline over the pass few years. At the rate its going I can see it coming to an end.
3 Likes
I did say I didn’t mind this, but I disagree with you.
A lot of people are playing now because they need or want to grind all these prestiges. These days I’m pairing with people who are very capable even at low levels. That tells you the veterans have came back to play. I even started checking and posting on forums regularly because I was very excited about this.
If people starts buying these prestiges, you will see there will be less people playing.
Prestiges are to keep us busy for a looooooooong time.
Whether I want this or not, I don’t think Blizzard will implement this.
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Keeping people playing is good, but its more important that Sc2 is profitable, if its profitable Sc2 will actually get more attention and be able to receive updates more regularly rather than once every 9 months or so… I just see the whole thing as a win-win situation; get more updates and get ways to skip the grind for boring prestiges.
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I do agree with you with the fact that the mode needs to be profitable to continue at a good pace. But I gotta say that I disagree with the idea of buying Prestige as well.
Buying them isn’t a value adding transaction, while Prestige do take time to go through, they are perfectly reasonable in terms of how long it takes. It’s not like it’s going to take someone a 100 games to unlock one, which is a massive sight better than much of these situations in games these days.
A much better way to make more revenue from the mode is to add something that gives value buying. Commanders are a natural example, as are ideas brought up here and elsewhere like CO skins.
2 Likes
Something feels so wrong with considering profit to be more important than people playing, because that leads to an ultimate end-goal in pleasing stockholders more than players, eventually causing it to die off completely when it ceases to be profitable rather than have a lasting legacy such as, say, the original Doom… as well as stifling innovation because it’s better to play it safe and stick to a known formula than try something experimental and original. Besides, StarCraft II isn’t considered that profitable any more considering how low a priority it is compared to Blizzard’s other franchises: Diablo, Overwatch and World of Warcraft. Look how far down the list of games that it appears.
StarCraft II is at the stage of its lifespan now where loyal players keep it alive because they enjoy the game, not because it’s profitable for Activision Blizzard. But I still don’t agree with “pay to win” because that causes a massive sense of unfairness between those who have disposable income and those who actually put in hard time and work in investing their progress legitimately.
1 Like
I don’t think you understand what “pay to win” is at all. In all forms of this it is always:
- You pay to unlock content instantly. OR
- You play for a much longer time to unlock the same content.
This is very much just that… although I am not sure what relevance is there since even if you don’t agree this is it, the idea itself is still bad.
You (and OP and the alikes) are assuming you pay, the revenue goes to fund coop, and that in turn becomes more future content. On a basic level that can be true, but how it is distributed and what is planned are far different in reality. So I’m not saying this is definitely not the case but that you are definitely assuming several things at once to justify this.
You’re basically:
- Assuming there are planned future coop period.
- That this is not a pay2win model.
- That this will get implemented.
- That it’ll generate enough revenue.
- And that revenue will definitively go to coop.
- And that would mean hiring more people.
- Only with more people will more/faster content come.
All of that just to say, “yeah, this isn’t pay2win, and this is definitely the way to go”. I just want to open this whole thing up. It isn’t that simple.
Also, as an aside here. We are not talking about an extinction event here. Coop can perfectly continue by releasing new commanders, bundles, announcers, etc. as has been to generate revenue. So this isn’t a “pay2win for prestige or no coop content ever again!” doom and gloom situation.
Everyone wants coop to be profitable and self-sustaining, but there is definitely a right and a wrong way to go about it. And this feels very wrong imo.
3 Likes
You shouldn’t have to monetize every last drop of content to support a game. If that’s the stage that you’re at, then there’s a bigger problem at play. One that monetizing prestiges will not solve.
Blizzard is already selling unit skins, the yearly Warchest, etc. How much more has to be monetized until the game is saved? Achievements? What about paying $30 to reach 90 mastery?
1 Like
…
Prestige are so easier then most games with peestige. Only 15 levels. Most game as you to reset to lvl 1 when you are level 100 again and again.
No need to pay.
And don’t grind, just play and enjoy the games. Leveling is part of the fun, peestiging allow to level again. Saying “I dont have time” is like not having time to play so you pay the game, wtf.
and they already monetized xp with 2 warchest a year. So if you want to prestige faster because you dont have time to play the game you want to pay for, buy the summer or blizzcon warchest.
I hope they wouldnt do that. The coop modde would be like free to play: a pay to win game. People earning peestiges and mastery with money instead of playing for it
1 Like
Good question. Note that if this were an option, we’d be able to pay to downvote your post 
Still, win-win for Blizzard!
If it’s not pay-to-win, then it’s “grind-to-win”. “Pick your poison”
Well, implementing what’s in this thread wouldn’t be the straw the broke the camel’s back
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At the moment it’s only grind to win. There is no need to pick now.
1 Like
There’s also just playing the game. If a game (something you’re suppose to enjoy) becomes a grind, I’m afraid it’s time to look for a new game or a new hobby.
I don’t really see the perspective here, either “grind to win” or “pay to win”. How about just “play for fun and enjoy the game”? Since when did that become not good enough?
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Modern consumerism happened.
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There are a third option here: play to win.
It’s a strange concept for people used to all those mobile games pay to win.
But except free to play model, every single game has stuff to unlock. When you have nothing to unlock anymore, you can say: " Ive finish the game at 100%!"
That’s how videogame works. Unlocking stuff is part of the games, the fun to improve!
Personally, I find the low-level versions of the commanders to be grating to play as, and if there’s a particular Prestige I want to shoot for (for example Shadow of Death for Alarak), it seems like I’m repeatedly resetting him just as he becomes more enjoyable.
It’s such a weird thing because this feels like a model designed to frustrate people into spending money, only without the monetization.