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Not Online!!! wrote:
Hmm actually ccg would Fall under gambling.
Actually lootboxes are more like Fraud, considering that the virtual items are literally Un sellable after game x shuts down.

So not only is it gambling but also fraudelent one?
Yikes
Edit: altough cardpacks are not artificial pleasing sensory wise unlike slotmachines or loot boxes.

They are. I played MTG for years and got all kinds of great feels when opening packs of cards, the older the set, the better too. But it is an interesting question, if this were to swing wide, MTG is basically what keeps a lot of FLGS open, if it were to be regulated, this could be catastrophic.

Not EA this time around, but a more general one on lootboxes and ingame purchases and minors:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Edit: altough cardpacks are not artificial pleasing sensory wise unlike slotmachines or loot boxes.

Sure they are. They've been very well designed to open in such a way that you encounter increasingly rarer cards until you hit the shiny one at the back. Watch anyone open a box and you'll see the ritual develop rather quickly.

 LunarSol wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Edit: altough cardpacks are not artificial pleasing sensory wise unlike slotmachines or loot boxes.

Sure they are. They've been very well designed to open in such a way that you encounter increasingly rarer cards until you hit the shiny one at the back. Watch anyone open a box and you'll see the ritual develop rather quickly.

That is still not actually as bad as the massive visual and audio cues you get from a lootbox or slot machine now isn't it?

Not Online!!! wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Edit: altough cardpacks are not artificial pleasing sensory wise unlike slotmachines or loot boxes.

Sure they are. They've been very well designed to open in such a way that you encounter increasingly rarer cards until you hit the shiny one at the back. Watch anyone open a box and you'll see the ritual develop rather quickly.

That is still not actually as bad as the massive visual and audio cues you get from a lootbox or slot machine now isn't it?

Have you ever been into MTG?

If not, then stop dude.

I can recall getting so "high" off those cards that I once dropped 400$ on boxes in one night just to try and get a super rare card I wanted. It took two and a half boxes to do it. There isn't any difference, addiction is addiction.

 Togusa wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Edit: altough cardpacks are not artificial pleasing sensory wise unlike slotmachines or loot boxes.

Sure they are. They've been very well designed to open in such a way that you encounter increasingly rarer cards until you hit the shiny one at the back. Watch anyone open a box and you'll see the ritual develop rather quickly.

That is still not actually as bad as the massive visual and audio cues you get from a lootbox or slot machine now isn't it?

Have you ever been into MTG?

If not, then stop dude.

I can recall getting so "high" off those cards that I once dropped 400$ on boxes in one night just to try and get a super rare card I wanted. It took two and a half boxes to do it. There isn't any difference, addiction is addiction.

I think its important to draw a line between gambling "highs" and something like "addiction" which is a word we more often link to things like drink and drugs. Where there's a chemical component beyond natural endorphins within your body.

Actually most CCG's should be fine theres a reason that they all run along the lines of each 8 card pack having a minimum amount of commons,uncommons and rares.
While the cards you get are random the quality has a fixed minimum so its impossible to buy 6 packs and get 48 common cards.
As opposed to loot boxes were you can drop hundred's of dollars and pull all trash tier, that combined with being able to sell and buy from other people outside of the publishers should give them a strong defense against it being gambling.

So they just need to guarantee one Rare and then flood the Rare tier with garbage and everything will be okay?

 LunarSol wrote:
So they just need to guarantee one Rare and then flood the Rare tier with garbage and everything will be okay?

I enjoy card games, and honestly, this ^

First off, rarity has almost no relation to how good an card is in MTG. Some of the best MTG cards at any given time have been commons or uncommons. The "Rare" tier has been diluted in numerous card games with the addition of "Super rares" and "secret rares" and some rares are rarer than others. Many loot boxes already use a similar model, like those in ESO. Rarities are often manipulated by the smartest people to encourage more purchases, like how most Pokémon card sets now have one or two common/uncommon cards that are very very good, but only really work under the circumstances provided by a rare card.

SeanDrake wrote:
Actually most CCG's should be fine theres a reason that they all run along the lines of each 8 card pack having a minimum amount of commons,uncommons and rares.
While the cards you get are random the quality has a fixed minimum so its impossible to buy 6 packs and get 48 common cards.
As opposed to loot boxes were you can drop hundred's of dollars and pull all trash tier, that combined with being able to sell and buy from other people outside of the publishers should give them a strong defense against it being gambling.

Also we often don't know the chances of getting a specific drop rarity.

Not Online!!! wrote:

SeanDrake wrote:
Actually most CCG's should be fine theres a reason that they all run along the lines of each 8 card pack having a minimum amount of commons,uncommons and rares.
While the cards you get are random the quality has a fixed minimum so its impossible to buy 6 packs and get 48 common cards.
As opposed to loot boxes were you can drop hundred's of dollars and pull all trash tier, that combined with being able to sell and buy from other people outside of the publishers should give them a strong defense against it being gambling.

Also we often don't know the chances of getting a specific drop rarity.

box mapping would kind of disagree, (its basically reverse engineering how the print sheet is laid out and how the cards are randomised during packing, its not infalliable but it usually provides a near enough result)

and whilst I'm off the cardboard crack CCGs are a far lesser evil as wotc or ffg don't expect you to pay £40 before you can even crack a booster

 Turnip Jedi wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

SeanDrake wrote:
Actually most CCG's should be fine theres a reason that they all run along the lines of each 8 card pack having a minimum amount of commons,uncommons and rares.
While the cards you get are random the quality has a fixed minimum so its impossible to buy 6 packs and get 48 common cards.
As opposed to loot boxes were you can drop hundred's of dollars and pull all trash tier, that combined with being able to sell and buy from other people outside of the publishers should give them a strong defense against it being gambling.

Also we often don't know the chances of getting a specific drop rarity.

box mapping would kind of disagree, (its basically reverse engineering how the print sheet is laid out and how the cards are randomised during packing, its not infalliable but it usually provides a near enough result)

and whilst I'm off the cardboard crack CCGs are a far lesser evil as wotc or ffg don't expect you to pay £40 before you can even crack a booster

I disagree. They definitely encourage players to drop 150$ on a box over "just a few packs."

There's little practical difference between Loot Boxes and Card Packs. The latter mostly skirts by because it was built on an existing industry that was pretty socially acceptable (baseball cards) and for all its popularity has never been exactly mainstream. They are also largely distributed through established channels that provide at least some negligent oversight over the industry. By comparison, Loot Boxes are a mainstream free for all beamed directly into people's homes and deducting funds automatically from accounts. Personally, I think there's a lot of problems with blind purchase games as a whole that have largely been ignored, but I also get why they're more problematic when applied to videogames.

yeah maybe but there's quite the difference between that and purposefully compromising game design to sell you an answer to said problems

lucky for me that my general tightfistedness means I've got a £10ish limit on video game purchases rendering me largely immune to surprise wotsits (my ancient pc also helps here)

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
yeah maybe but there's quite the difference between that and purposefully compromising game design to sell you an answer to said problems

lucky for me that my general tightfistedness means I've got a £10ish limit on video game purchases rendering me largely immune to surprise wotsits (my ancient pc also helps here)

Ubisoft with assasins creed Odyssee is one of the more recent exemples of making the grind agrivating in order to sell you XP boosters.
But if players create missions for that from provided Tools it's suddenly against the "spirit of the game".

Eyup:

 BrookM wrote:
Eyup:

Huh didn't even know he put that out

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
yeah maybe but there's quite the difference between that and purposefully compromising game design to sell you an answer to said problems

lucky for me that my general tightfistedness means I've got a £10ish limit on video game purchases rendering me largely immune to surprise wotsits (my ancient pc also helps here)

Okay, THIS, I agree with!



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Not Online!!! wrote:

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
yeah maybe but there's quite the difference between that and purposefully compromising game design to sell you an answer to said problems

lucky for me that my general tightfistedness means I've got a £10ish limit on video game purchases rendering me largely immune to surprise wotsits (my ancient pc also helps here)

Ubisoft with assasins creed Odyssee is one of the more recent exemples of making the grind agrivating in order to sell you XP boosters.
But if players create missions for that from provided Tools it's suddenly against the "spirit of the game".

We live in strange times. Remember when games were about fun?

Wait Assassin's Creed - a singleplayer game - sells you experience boosters? You know I'd actually rank that worse than random loot boxes. I mean its not like either of them are ranking very high at all, but darn that's just really scummy. I know it's how the MMO market survives, but at least there the game companies have to keep the servers running - there's a continual cost for the developer so having some means of trickle income for them is justifiable to some extent - be it from subscriptions or optional boosters or cosmetics.

 Overread wrote:
Wait Assassin's Creed - a singleplayer game - sells you experience boosters? You know I'd actually rank that worse than random loot boxes. I mean its not like either of them are ranking very high at all, but darn that's just really scummy. I know it's how the MMO market survives, but at least there the game companies have to keep the servers running - there's a continual cost for the developer so having some means of trickle income for them is justifiable to some extent - be it from subscriptions or optional boosters or cosmetics.

Oh it's not just that. They purposefully make the exp in the game way more grindy and you almost NEED those boosters.

This is why I've not bought any of their games since FC4.

Agreed. It was such a horrendous grind that I still haven't beaten the game, I jsut stopped and haven't cared cause it was so dragged out, and I sure as hell am not buying gakky xp booster.

 Melissia wrote:
Agreed. It was such a horrendous grind that I still haven't beaten the game, I jsut stopped and haven't cared cause it was so dragged out, and I sure as hell am not buying gakky xp booster.

It was a bit easier for me because I've never really liked that style of gameplay, and this game was my introduction to the series. When I saw the XP Boosters and the skins I just said "no thank you" and I was really glad that I was playing it on a friends machine and not my own.

TBH it was my first Assassin's Creed game, and also now my last. I've never been a HUGE fan of ubisoft action games aside from just playing around with friends.

Thing is, the gameplay was decent enough that I'd have gone through with it anyway to the end, except the grind got excessive and they always put the next mission a few levels above, literally scaling as I gained levels so gained levels felt useless, but taking on enemies higher level was worse than trying to sequence-skip in a dark souls game.

 Melissia wrote:
TBH it was my first Assassin's Creed game, and also now my last. I've never been a HUGE fan of ubisoft action games aside from just playing around with friends.

Thing is, the gameplay was decent enough that I'd have gone through with it anyway to the end, except the grind got excessive and they always put the next mission a few levels above, literally scaling as I gained levels so gained levels felt useless, but taking on enemies higher level was worse than trying to sequence-skip in a dark souls game.

No good. I am not a fan of that type of game play. Stuff like Skyrim and Fallout are more my style.

Fallout? Or skyrim?
From no advantage for gameplay bethesda?




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TBH it was my first Assassin's Creed game, and also now my last.

AC Black Flag was really excellent imo. Dont give up yet.

 Ratius wrote:

TBH it was my first Assassin's Creed game, and also now my last.

AC Black Flag was really excellent imo. Dont give up yet.

Ubification...

If you play through the series you can see the decline. Personally I quit after the third one, though it was more due to "HEY, HERE'S ANOTHER HISTORICAL GIANT YOU JUST HAPPEN TO MEET" than anything else. For me personally the second game is still the best one in the series. Ezio, oh Ezio~

It's sad though the way Ubisoft is killing everything I love. I really, really like Wildlands and whilst it has become a lootbox palooza, it is still playable without them and best of all, all the single player content post-launch (barring the two DLC "campaigns") has been put out for free. So, having them thoroughly kill off my hype for the sequel with their horrible practices is just blargh.

Only relief is that Siege is played on high level and is something you can't put pay 2 win into. So, just cosmetic dickery there.

Black Flag still remains the only game I've ever seen screen tearing in! It's that or I have to suffer it slowing down everytime the camera moves. Which is a shame as the core gameplay is quite fun.

Never had those issues tbh.
What let BF down was the tedious outside the animus in the office bits.