I guess you can’t dictate what others find enjoyable.
Another guy I worked with would use cheat codes in EVERY game he played. And I argued with him about them not being any fun that way – similar to your “find another type of game to play” soapboxing. His response? “I enjoy the story of the game, but don’t want to have to deal with the dying.” Can’t really argue with that. Where else is he going to find any Tom Clancy-story games?
But, outside of the TOS saying ‘Don’t buy stuff for RMT’, how is it cheating? Would it be any different if he had a friend who liked to grind, and just gave him all that stuff? Would his experience, or yours, have been any different? Other than RMT spamming channels… and potentially bots (which would exist anyhow), how does it really affect anyone?
Is a kid from a wealthy family, who goes to private training sessions, has state-of-the-art equipment at his house and attends all the training camps, somehow cheating at a sport, when compared to a poor kid, who can barely afford to buy cleats form a thrift store?
It’s no problem that he finds this enjoyable. I don’t care about his fun.
It’s against the rules of a live service game with damages to the in-game economy and, for those who are interested in it, competitive aspects.
And it is dealing with potential criminals.
If he wants to cheat/spawn every item in offline mode and make his character invincible, he can. All power to him, I don’t care.
That’s like saying “But outside of the laws, how is it theft?”.
I mean, nice strawman, but doesn’t really address the original point – that the developers, with their grind upon grind upon grind approach to game longevity actually contributing (if not creating) the problem in the first place.
It’s similar to the impoverished/crime blame. Sure, blame a guy for stealing bread, but you can also partially blame the government who made everything so expensive, and destroyed the economy/job market. It doesn’t absolve the criminal, but it does rightfully share the blame of the situation. – since you like bringing up criminal aspects, and all.
The TOS also says I can’t share my account information. But, I told my login to my buddy. I guess I’m a cheater, if not an outright criminal. Right?
There’s also a law for jay walking, but it rarely gets enforced. Different laws have different severities.
It’s also why RMT gets you banned and other infractions might get overlooked or simply get you a suspension.
And, that’s perfectly fine. But it doesn’t change the fact that the developers help to create/foster the exact behavior they look to eradicate. You can strawman on and on and on and on and on all you want about laws and crimes and murder and how RMT contributes to human trafficking, but it won’t change the fact that the design of the games themselves is what created this problem in the first place. And the insistence of using it as an artificial tool to prolong the life of a game, in lieu of actual content, is what drives it’s popularity.
By which you mean a really convenient way of enhancing your experience at the theme park by skipping the lamest parts of it?
The “justification” is skipping the parts of the game they don’t like so they can enjoy parts of the game they do like. But a person spending money on frivolous things doesn’t need to be “justified” when it doesn’t harm anyone.
No strawman.
The game is designed for an audience that wants a grindy game. Like PoE. I mean, PoEs company is called Grinding Gear Games. I often want this time of retention through grind. And when I don’t want it currently, I play games without grinds that are fun. There are enough on the market.
That’s why I said your friend should look for games that don’t requite the intense grind. He doesn’t seem to be the target audience.
If cheating (and thus damaging the honest player base) is the only way he can have fun in an online game, then yes, GTFO.
Not a criminal, because TOS is not a law.
But depending on the context of why you gave your account info to your friend and what he did with it, yes you would be a cheater.
And “I gain an (economic) advantage in the game through means outside of the intended environment” is cheating, as long as the game has multiplayer and/or trade in it.
You keep saying this, but it’s just not true. The devs implement this because much of their playerbase enjoys this. It’s part of the game. They aren’t creating this behaviour. Simply, there are players that don’t enjoy the game as is and want to cheat parts of it.
It’s no different from using an aimbot in an FPS.
So in your opinion RMT doesn’t harm anyone?
It’s an online game. Trade is an important part of the game. It harms trade, therefore it harms other players.
And without players buying RMT, there wouldn’t be RMTers/bots. So yes, they are central to the whole issue. Players, rather than playing a game as it’s intended to be played would just rather splash money on shortcuts.
Saying that it’s the devs fault because there are hard parts in their game is saying that you want all games to be really easy and immediate, because any grind/attrition will always be an excuse for RMT/cheating. And all we’ll have is D3 style games.
You cant win here. There will always be people who try to justify RMT and cheating. *popcornmunch
What annoys me most is that EHG actually did a great job of implementing target farming in this game. Does your build NEED - and I mean truly need; so 100% cannot function without it - some unique? Then you can get it with just a little effort. You can farm it, or you can buy it but you CAN get it and you CAN make that build.
With 0LP.
Problem is people seem to have become incredibly greedy and getting that 0LP item that is their build enabler is not enough any more. Now they feel they NEED the 3LP version. And because they do not have it (or an cheap and easy way to get it) they call the game flawed.
Getting that 3LP should be the hard and time consuing bit. The thing you aspire to. The reason you keep min-maxing. You should epxect to get a 1LP version first then the 2LP, then the 3LP etc, but it should be HARD to progress that.
We’ve lost our way somewhere.
On the plus side, if you are not Mr Greedy and are the kind of person that is delighted just to get the 0LP version just so your build can actually function, then you are going to love this game because it makes getting that key item pretty easy/cheap.
People need to mellow their expectations. Look at D4 where the build-enabling uniques cannot be target farmed and drop rates as so low you’ll likely never get it, and there is no unique trading. In this case, you might as well accept you can never make the build. (Note: Blizz may have changed this, I quit that trash game months ago).
One game’s outlook is: unique is super rare, you will never get it - give up now
Last Epoch’s is: you will get that unique but it’ll have 0LP (probably); hang in there
We should all be rejoicing we can actually get the 0LP version of any unique we actually want, and not moaning we can’t afford the 3LP.
Or put blame on the devs of an intently grindy game for making it grindy.
Man, I remember the days when 0 LP Unique were the top end of gear progress.
In the 20+ years I’ve been playing games, across the dozens of games I’ve played where other people are RMTing, I’ve never been harmed by it. I’ve never known anyone personally who was harmed by it. And any time I’ve asked someone how they were harmed by it, there’s never a concrete answer. I’ve yet to see any evidence that it harms anybody other than harassment and accusations coming from players who are indignant about it.
I don’t think that it harms trade as much as some people think and claim it does.
It hugely inflates prices. How is that not harm?
Right now it is more or less impossible to buy the best items available in MG unless you buy gold in RMT, and as a drip-down effect every single item in MG is artificially inflated to be much more expensive than it should be.
This is why I’ve come round to the idea that min/maxing is poison. It’s become so ubiquitous that many people have completely forgotten how to enjoy the simple act of playing a game for its own sake. Instead, the game has become a proxy:
At the very least, even if you say it doesn’t harm trade as much as people think it does (which implies that it does harm at least a little), it takes away from the devs time trying to fight it. So it will always harm players by standing in the way of a better use of the devs time to implement new stuff rather than wasting it fighting cheaters.
Sadly, that’s simply the reality of games these days. Devs can’t simply deliver a product, they have to work around people that will try to cheat it.
And saying that RMT never harmed you personally is like saying that a serial killer in another country never harmed you personally. So that must be ok?