Cosmetic Store Pets/Followers NEED a Function!

Feedback and Suggestions
1

not native english speaker, sorry in advance

IS QOL = P2W?

Cosmetic Pets are cute and all, but there is no real reason other than looks and/or showing-off to summon them.

It would be more engaging to have them summoned if they could;

  • pick up Gold from kills, map wide
  • pick up loose Affx shards from killed monsters
  • function as stop-watch and time runs

Hell, I`d even pay up to 30 $ for a pet that picks up items based on my active Loot Filter!

Pros:

  • big QOL improvement
  • increased fluidity regarding gameplay
  • could maybe save frames for low-end setups
  • time saved, less back tracking
  • no FOMO (fear of missing out) of rare affix shards
  • makes purchase of such pet way more convincing and attractive
  • expandable platform with many other QOL features

Cons:

  • could be viewed as “p2w” by some people
  • ?

Let me know what you think of that idea and feel free to add your own suggestions!

Thanks for reading and good grinding!

2

If you have to pay for it, then yes. Especially since gold will become much more relevant with 1.0 and trade faction. Basically, if you do the same thing another player does and you get twice the loot/gold/whatever just because you paid money for it, then it’s P2W.

Mike has said in one of his streams that they don’t plan on doing anything like pet picking up gold, but if they ever did, then there would be a default pet that everyone would get for free and that would do those things.
Also, it will never be map wide. That is a vampire survivors game. It makes no sense in an ARPG. If/when it happens, almost certainly the pet will move to pick up the gold that you can see around the screen.

Never gonna happen. EHG doesn’t want us auto picking or transfering shards. They’re gonna try to balance the system, but auto pickup won’t happen. At least for a long time, until we manage to convince them otherwise. But this is one of the things EHG really wants to stay like it is.

What do you mean by this? You mean like having a timer above their heads? That would look silly. Plus, there are hundreds of stopwatch apps for games already, most of them free.

It would also take a long time to implement, meaning other features would be delayed. Not saying that’s a good enough reason not to do it, but it’s something to take into account.
Also, unlike what you stated as a pro, it would most likely DECREASE performance in the game, since the game would have to keep track of the whole map at once, see if anything dropped and have it be picked up by your pet.
So, again, if anything like this happens, it will always be visible stuff, not map wide.

Pets picking up gold (around you, not map wide) is something that has been asked a few times and I can see that happening. If it does, Mike has already said that everyone will get a basic free pet that does the same, so it wouldn’t be P2W.
I don’t see the rest of the things happening, tbh.

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3

Yeah, @DJSamhein pointed out and the fact that EHG has a stance that they will not make anything you purchase with real money affect your actual gameplay. Cosmetics is strictly that, cosmetic.

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4

Yeah. That’s the point of them. To follow you around and look cute/cool. If you don’t want a pet that doesn’t have a “function”, don’t buy one.

If you want to purchase automated gameplay, try a trashy mobile game or something made by NCSoft.

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5

Pay2Win is such an overused boogeyman, it’s lost its bite as a warning. Seriously… pets with gold pickup is Pay2Win? What about cosmetics that make your character easier to see? Or skill cosmetics make skill ranges easier to estimate?

How far down the Pay2Win rabbit hole are we going? Because, just about everything you can buy in a Cash Shop can be shoe-horned into Pay2Win. Is Yolo Mouse a Pay2Win add-on, that should be banned? It wouldn’t be that hard to argue that it is…

Now, I wouldn’t take the pet-automation so far, as to make them map-wide. But definitely anything within 4x or 5x the default player pickup radius wouldn’t be out of the question. Hell, so many games have this kind of feature (either with cash shop, or basic offering), that it’s almost a staple of the modern ARPG.

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6

Considering trade is coming with 1.0 and it will be based off gold, then yes. If you pay money for the ability to have 2x or 3x more gold than another player that didn’t pay, and therefore can trade a lot more and for more expensive items, then yes. It’s P2W.

No one’s arguing that it can’t happen. This has been suggested lots of times, though I think only applied to gold pickup. And Mike didn’t say they’d never do it, just that they’re not planning to.
However, and this is important, it was also stated that if we do get that, EVERYONE gets that. Meaning everyone will have some basic pet for free.

There is a difference between implementing QoL for everyone and implementing QoL only for those that pay. And that difference usually falls under P2W.

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7

I must have missed the part where the pet increased the amount of gold that drops. Sorry, I should have explicitly said that that wouldn’t happen with Shop pets.

Awesome! That would be great! Now, and this is important, I would be happy if everyone got it… as long as it was implemented. Also, and this is also even moreer mostester importanterer, I wouldn’t cry about it, if it was in the cash shop.

…that moment when QoL is suddenly P2W. Like I said, the term has lost so much of its bite, due to this kind of paranoia-terminology-creep.

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8

If the pet picks up the gold around you, yes, you either get more gold than you normally would because you’d leave it lying on the ground, or you would get the same amount of gold in less time, which amounts to the same thing.

Yes, many people would. However, this thread is not about letting the pet picking the gold. This is about paying to allow the pet to pick up gold. Not the same thing.

So you would be fine if the loot filter was a purchasable feature? What about the “shard space”? If you had to store them in the chest and pick it up manually to craft, unless you paid to have that special storage?
I mean, we can turn every single QoL feature already in game and move it to the shop. I guess you’d be fine with that as well?

QoL comes in many forms. If QoL allows you to be more efficient in the game, then yes, it’s P2W. If it doesn’t, then no.
If you had to pay to get a loot filter which meant you could play a hell of a lot faster without being bombarded by loot you have to check, then you’d be able to do everything much faster than non-paying players. So it would be P2W.
If QoL is simply stuff like UI scaling, then no.

I’m pretty sure I’m right about having to pay for QoL and that it will never happen, considering Mike has liked my 2 posts on this thread and didn’t feel the need to correct or clarify anything.

Again, no one in this thread is objecting to pets picking up gold. That’s a separate issue and it’s been discussed before. The objection is doing that via the shop, which is what the OP was about.

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I don’t agree with everything, but I completely agree with this.

10

Having it pick up a shard or goldcoin i missed is just not on the same level as “playing” a mobile game but i get it people like to exaggerate.

Me going back to double-check adds NO value to gameplay and user experience.

I know you could say “oh well then just dont do it” and you would be right, actualy…
Maybe i shouldnt care if i miss something here and there and try to not min-maxing the fun out of the game.

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Continuing the discussion from Cosmetic Store Pets/Followers NEED a Function!:

You mighta missunderstood what i meant; I didnt wana suggest it do multiply gold it picked up, i only want it to pick up stuff that i might have not seen, because it died to a DoT.

Also its not unfair for people who dont own a pet for a fairly good point;

What if someone only has 2 hours to play each day and other people get 10 h + and realy sweat it, but nobody talks about a generalized playtime restriction for everyone.

Fair enough.

Did not think of that while writing. Good point, totaly agree with you on that. Id rather have UI customization, game optimization etc.

Thanks for sharing your infos/views, made me realise there are many more important things id like the devs to invest theyr ressources on.

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12

In some cases? Yes! The store sells cosmetics only and I’m happy to only get cosmetics.

Yes and no it depends. By the earliest definition P2W was everything you could buy that offers an advantage. Then it was twisted into “Only if you can buy items you can’t get elsewhere.” and whatnot. The gaming industry twisted the term to make people buy into their stuff. Pay to Progress fast, Pay for Convinience, Quality of Life and some games sold “Cosmetics” that offered power because it had stats on it.

Shouting P2W because you can make your toons armor pink is kind of silly but look for the Black Noir costume for that shooter game for example (forgot teh name) that is fully black that enables you to stand in a dark corner an noone is able to see you. That’s kind of an unfair advantage isn’t it? :smiley:

I think the P2W elements in games are simply overused and found that often so the term is used that much that it looks stupid but still is true in most cases.

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13

Yes, but that still means that you get more gold than other people do. Either because the pet picks stuff offscreen that other players won’t pick up, or because they will automatically pick it up while others will have to backtrack, meaning you get the same amount of loot in less time. Either way, you get an advantage.

What does that have to do with anything? As long as the player that only plays 2h/d can get to the same point after 5d that the 10h/d did after one day, things are fair.

What about those that have 0h/d available to play? Let’s just give them everything automatically on login?

Like Î said before, no one here is against pets picking up gold. Just about paying for it exclusively.

There’s also the other side of the coin, where people say that P2W is a ridiculous term these days to deflect issues and be able to benefit from P2W.

Now, before anyone gets angry, I’m not saying DirePenguin is one of those cases. I don’t know and it doesn’t really matter.
I’m just pointing out that part of that fazing with this particular diatribe is that P2W supporters have often demonized that word to the point where it feels ridiculous to use it, oftenly.

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14

It depends. I don’t notice there being that much gold dropped “off the beaten path”. If you kill stuff then don’t pick up the drops then isn’t that your choice?

Yes, but it’s not going to be an integer multiple, it’ll be a few % more (probably <50%, definitely <100%). Unless you’ve ever seen hundreds of thousands of gold lying around that you didn’t pick up while you sprint to the boss.

Yes, but the devs have stated that the latter will not happen. If they enable a pet to pick up gold & said pet is available in the cash shop then everybody gets a free version that does the same thing. Probably with the same efficacy 'cause they aren’t dicks.

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15

There are plenty of builds where mobs just die offscreen behind you. Stuff like totems/wraiths, DoT builds, etc. For the most part you end up not picking it up. If something picks gold even offscreen, then your gold rate will increase significantly.

Sure, as long as everyone has to make the same choice. If someone pays so that stuff gets picked automatically, then your choice becomes “pay to have it as well or be at a disadvantage with those that pay”.

Things are bound to change when 1.0 comes and gold becomes much more relevant.
But… I usually kills mobs and the only gold I pick up is the one that’s in my path. There are often lots of piles of gold I don’t pick up. This is even more noticeable with teleporter builds, where the fight ends and you teleport away immediately.
I expect I actually pick less than half the gold piles in the ground. Which means a pet picking them for me would likely more than double the gold I get. Especially if it picks it up offscreen.
And even if I did go out of my way to get all those piles of gold, having it be picked up automatically would mean I would save time vs not having it.

Indeed, that’s what I said a few times already. However, what was proposed by the OP, and what is being discussed here, is paying for it. Which then got a little sidetracked into whether it would be P2W or not.

I’m pretty sure very few players would actively object to pets picking up gold around you (close by, not map-wide :stuck_out_tongue:), though many would probably be indifferent. I’m also pretty sure it will never happen until the devs have had a chance to fine tune trading and to assess the impact picking up gold has on it (vs just selling stuff for gold).

16

Yes, that’s true. Today’s Anti-Fascists come to mind as a prime example – being fascist, to ‘fight’ people they abritrarily label as fascist. But I digress.

There are plenty of real P2W scenarios – buying materials, items, level boosts, powerups, etc. Undecember is a great example of this. And they recently removed almost all the P2W options from their cash shop. However, the one thing that was rarely, if ever, mentioned as a P2W feature was the auto looting pet badge(s).

I guess it’s just a matter of perception – when actual P2W exists, then QoL isn’t really P2W. But when no P2W exists, then anything can be viewed as such – even something as silly as a Legendary/Unique storage page, or a pet that loots gold.

It kind of mirrors society, that when things are going good, people actively look for things to have issue with. :\

17

The answer lies in the Matrix (film), people are unlikely to be happy in a paradise.

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This is sort of sidetracking from the issue here, but I was under the impression that, while they recently removed lots of P2W options, the latest season introduced a huge one, which was the ability to skip campaign and start with a leveled up character (level 70ish, iirc).
I personally don’t play games that are assumedly P2W, like Undecember or Diablo Immortal, but I do tend to follow their progress just the same.

19

No, not playing the game on your PC is just the same as not playing the game on your phone.

Too bad? If you have only 2 hours to play a game in a day you are never going to achieve/acquire the same things as someone who has 10+. That isn’t a problem, and it doesn’t need to be solved by the game.

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Yeah, I saw some recent posts talking about them bringing back more P2W options, but didn’t read the specifics. My point was more when actual P2W exists, QoL (usually)isn’t considered as such.

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