To me, this is one part of a bigger picture where I feel that if the developers are designing the game knowing that they can profit from boosting, then what’s stopping them from implementing more time-intensive and convoluted systems to inconvenience players and therefore encourage them (even with just a thought) that “maybe I should just buy a carry.”
To me, the issue is not about carrying. It’s about the possibility of Blizz designing and creating inconveniences to support carrying.
So far…the buy and sell order trade they have is reasonable. even as a day 1/2 noob not alot of money I was buying stuff for very reasonable prices.
It hasn’t gone wow yet. Now if the sellers start gouging…then we will need more money. and then it goes to crap. Like, you know, wow.
Also NW is one time buy. It should keep sellers honest. they won’t be going I need to charge 50 gold a plant to make my token money for the month.
Also…NW is not a face roll tabby game. Skill enters pve and pvp. If you got fps skills…it helps. you don’t need the bow of doom so much. you need to not suck at aiming for your target. that alone helps your dps there alone. for free off drop bows.
I mean there isn’t much of a solution to be had, other than players have to do their due diligence when it comes to adding players to groups.
Back when I was pushing for AotC when it was still early in the raid release for sanctum, I saw NUMEROUS boost accounts. Trying to get in for another shot at sylvanas. Lot of hunters mainly due to the bow, yet like I said their easy to spot with low parses and straight shot kills in single nights.
Same with M+, seen accounts with 2.3k+ scores but low clears at the 15 level with no main account attached and it’s obvious they boosted for the dungeon portals.
The only way blizzard could technically cut into boosting would to make the content a joke after a certain period of time. To where the mechanics are severely dumbed down to where casuals can just hit a single button and things die. Which defeats the purpose of the game.
The only defense I have for boosting is it enables the ones that aren’t able to raid, PvP, and M+consistently to be able to get the mounts. Yet at the same end of it all I do agree it’s becoming a huge problem, and blizzard simply is milking it at this point. Due to it increasing token sales dramatically.
None of the inconveniences of the design from Legion to SL can really be mitigated by boosting though.
You can’t boost someone to T6 Codex, or maxed Artifacts or HoA. The way those systems were designed requires a grind that is impractical to boost through.
Boosts are most commonly purchased for the same content they’ve always been purchased in, long before tokens became a thing, that content was still being sold (and is being sold in Classic). Stuff like Mounts for speed runs or defeating hard bosses, which have existed since BC, raids for gear which existed since Vanilla or PvP for gear/mounts which was introduced (legally at least) in BC.
If I’m remembering right, there was someone complaining about being “forced” to pay their way into a relic farming group about a week ago, which is probably the most insane thing I’ve ever heard of.
MY son wanted roblox money for his b-day. Wish granted.
One item on the to buy list was apparently a sword there is no way possible to get in game. Store only. And its very good I am told.
so now he enjoys the raids there more lol…which is fine. I give him more than enough real life exercises in work harder to get better. He will do 4 swim team practices a week to get better. Want the better times…swim more to get there.
I’m with you…I don’t understand what pay to win is anymore. I’m not even sure how you “win” in this game. Getting carried in dungeons does not affect anyone. That person is not taking up your raid slot. That person is not ruining your game time or somehow preventing you from logging on. Worse case they are ganking your low level over and over but that is easy for anyone to do.
For PvP worse case is you play against someone once or twice. But that person will suck and in any real competetive match will lose. Maybe you do lose to them in arena but you’ll probably only see them once. Not to mention there is a good chance you will have no idea someone on the other team got carried. Rated BGs their gear will not make them good or team players. So they should be easy and you’ll never even know that 1 guy doesn’t really deserve to be there.
For achievements, mounts, pets, etc…who cares? Those are personal goals for you. Why does it matter if someone you don’t know, don’t know if they got carried or not has a cool mount you don’t. Collectors collect for the journey.
At this point for me…getting invincible. I’ve gottena few less than 1%'ers…but this damned horse says nope. Try again, and again…and again. this mount is a solid win if I get it.
When I started back at the start of Bc. You could pay a guild gold to get anything
you wanted fron any instance. Pay them to carry you on a arena team.
It has been going on since the first guilds had instances on farm.
the answer is “don’t play”
sorry OP but this is not new, it has been happening for years why do you think so many folks had quit even before this whole mess at the company came to light?
While it’s true someone can pay through the nose to get max ilvl gear, often the bump they need to get started is way less than that, but still insurmountable for a character that started late and has limited (ie normal) time to play.
The issue is that despite all the catch up we see for alts, new players, actual new players, will probably not be able to get into end game without carries. Which is very much like vanilla and classic, where lack of catch up made it necessary to have friends (or a desperate guild) to carry you. So old is new again? Devs just seem to be infatuated with those old timey mechanics.
Money is a proxy for time in this game. Want to play end game this year? Pay real money and maybe you can. Don’t want to spend real money? Too bad, sucks to be you.
Why would any new player who is just reaching end game stay when they realized the roadblocks ahead of them. They have no investment in the game. They’ll just cut their losses and leave.
Conclusion: there never was any intention of retaining new players, as nothing has been done to help any that have joined later.
